◼️ Part of : Mithila Cultural Archive

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History of Maithili Literature - Resources

Having previously shared resources on the history of Maithili literature (here), I am now going to compile a list of actual Maithili literary classics, both classical and modern. If you have any recommendations, please suggest them. ​

📌 Early Maithili Literature (circa 700–1350 AD):
This era witnessed the emergence of ballads, songs, and dohas. Among the earliest authors was Jyotirishwar Thakur. His notable contribution to Maithili literature is the Varṇa Ratnākara (1324), an encyclopedic work presented in prose.
1. Varṇa Ratnākara (1324) by Jyotirishwar Thakur - The earliest prose work in the Maithili language, this literary piece offers valuable insights into the life and culture of medieval India. The text is structured into seven Kallolas (waves): Nagara Varṇana, Nāyikā Varṇana, Asthāna Varṇana, Ṛtu Varṇana, Prayāṇa Varṇana, Bhaṭṭādi Varṇana, and Śmaśāna Varṇana.
📩: PDF
🛒: Exotic India Art
​
📌 Middle Maithili Literature (circa 1350–1830 AD):
This period was characterized by a flourishing of theatrical writings. Notable Maithili writers of this era included:
- Vidyapati (1350–1450)
- Srimanta Sankardeva (1449–1568)
- Govindadas (late 17th century)
- Manbodh (17th century)
​
1. Purush Pariksha by Vidyapati - Purushpariksha" is a narrative created by Vidyapati. He composed it under the guidance of Maharaja Shiv Singh. The text presents instructive tales in the tradition of Panchatantra. This work stands as a unique creation not only for sociologists, historians, human scientists, and political scientists but also for philosophers and literary enthusiasts.
📩: PDF
🛒: Exotic India Art
2. Vidyapati Padavali by Vidyapati - A compilation of Vidyapati's poetry exists in various versions. One version is an English translation by Coomaraswamy, digitized by Project Gutenberg. Another version is provided by the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts & Clarion Books. Additionally, there is a version by Narendranath Gupta. I will be providing links to all three versions.
📩: PDF (Vidyāpati: Bangīya padābali - Project Gutenberg)
📩: PDF (Vidyapati Ki Padawali - Narendranath Gupta)
🛒: Exotic India Art (Vidyapati: Padavali - Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts & Clarion Books)
3. Goraksh Vijaya by Vidyapati - This text is in Sanskrit, but the poetry is in Maithili. To my knowledge, there is no online copy available. I personally had a physical copy, which I have uploaded to the Internet Archive. Feel free to check it out there.
📩: PDF
🛒: don't know if available or not
4. Vivada Chintamani by Vachaspati Mishra - A book that serves as a concise commentary on the Hindu law that is prevalent in Mithila. The book covers a wide range of topics related to the Hindu law, including marriage, inheritance, property rights, and religious practices.
📩: PDF
🛒: Forgotten Books
​
I'm still on the lookout for more texts. If you come across any additional Maithili literature works from that period,do suggest in the comments. This list is a work in progress, and I'll be updating it bit by bit.
​
📌 Modern Maithili Literature (1830 AD to date):
George Abraham Grierson, an Irish linguist, and civil servant made a huge impact on the growth of Modern Maithili. His detailed research on Maithili folklore and grammar set the stage for its development today. Magazines and journals also played a big role in shaping Maithili during this time. Baldev Mishra, Surendra Jha 'Suman,' Radha Krishna Choudhary, Jaykant Mishra, Binod Bihari Verma, Dr. Dhirendra, Parichay Das, and Gajendra Thakur were key players in this linguistic journey.
1. Payasvini by Surendra Jha - A collection of 25 poems about beauty of nature, colourful imagery and simplicity of rural life.
📩: PDF
🛒: couldn't find
2. The Kinsmen of Ugna (Ugnak Dayabad) by Surendra Jha - This novel is highly readable, especially for those seeking a different model than those centered on class struggle. It also appeals to those interested in the people and culture of Mithila.
📩: PDF
🛒: Amazon
3. Bidagari by Chandranath Mishra - The novel deals with social problem in marriage like dowry, unmatched marriage and likes that dogged the society of Mithila.
📩: PDF
🛒: couldn't find
4. Angarejee Phoolaka Chitthee Dr Ramdeo Jha - This novel is a series of exchange of letters between two newly married girls who takes sacred oath to maintain lifelong friendship.
📩: PDF
🛒: couldn't find
5. Dattavati by Surendra Jha - This Mahakavya is based on a simple story from the Kathāsaritsāgara also Kathasaritsagara of 11the century.
📩: PDF
🛒: couldn't find
6. Madhushravani by Dr Shailendra Mohan Jha - A beautifully crafted love story, this novel is set against the backdrop of Mithila's refined cultural heritage. The main characters, Nalini and Kamal, share a deep love for each other. However, their pure and pristine love fails to blossom into a marital relationship.
📩: PDF
🛒: Amazon
7. Pratigya Pandav by Babuaji Jha - Pratigya Pandav in 11 cantos is based on the Sabha Parva of Mahabharata in which the poet has very vividly described the forebodings of war and advocated the need for peace, national integrity and morality.
📩: PDF
🛒: couldn't find
8. Saon Bhadav by Surendra Jha - A nature poem depicts the rainy season of Mithila--the land of frequent flood.
📩: PDF
🛒: couldn't find
9. Sharda Vijay by Upendranath Jha - A short epic written by renewed poet and author Upendranath Jha ‘Vyas’ which is considered one among the classics of Maithili literature.
📩: PDF
🛒: couldn't find
10. Simantini Akhyayika by Ramdeo Jha - (Tale of Simantini) is a story based on one of the anecdotes of Brahma Puran.
📩: PDF
🛒: couldn't find
11. Vidyapati Gosthi by Shailendra Mohan Jha - Translation of an important research work on Maithili poet Mahakavi Vipyapati.
📩: PDF
🛒: couldn't find
12. The Melting Stone & Other Plays by Ramdeo Jha - The Melting stone is an anthology of seven one-act plays that helped shape the trajectory of Maithili drama. Covering a wide range of social issues, it provides a cultural and social barometer of the times.
📩: couldn't find
🛒: Exotic India Art
​
This is a growing list that I'll update as I receive recommendations. Thank you!

I'm tired of my inability to write good poetry.
The way it usually goes is like this:
I see something that stirs some emotion. Like maybe on my walk I see a rose bush. Then a line comes to my mind describing the scene. I become obsessed with getting that line right and the feelings in my heart are so intense but when they come out on the page they sound so boring and cliche, like "The rose emits its heavenly scent / as I touch its delicate sun-soaked petals."
I feel mad at myself for using these boring adjectives. Show, show, show, don't tell! Yet how to show what the scent is like? Or the feeling of touching a petal? And who cares? Like why would anybody care how I feel about some flower on a particular day?
If I'm able to change the line to my satisfaction, then there is a different issue, which is where am I going with this? Often my poems turn into something sentimental or me trying to teach people some lesson, like life is fleeting, beauty is subjective, blah blah.
I look at famous contemporary poetry but that's no help either because I don't understand most of them. And the ones I do understand, I cannot see what makes them stand out from thousands of poems published online by people whose poems never get published in these journals.
So I want to hear how you approach this, in particular those of you who write poetry and are satisfied with your poems and maybe have even gotten one published in some prestigious publication.

I have some opinions about the way people are perceiving Brooke lately
The listeners have been running with the narrative that Brooke is conceited and a mean girl now for a while and I have some thoughts on this.
In the way I perceive her and judging through the podcast episodes I just think Brooke is in a toxic environement and struggling with insecurity and identity issues is hard when in an environment where someone is the ring leader of your friend group. I feel that Brooke hasn’t always been treated greatly by Tana’s closest friends in different ways and that’s probably hard for her to navigate which is probably why she is seeking out other friendships in the industry. Tana is the main focus of all of their friends and a best friend to everybody. Being the best friend of someone who is a best friend to everybody is hard because I doubt Tana speaks up for Brooke enough against her friends like Ashly while claiming her as a best friend and cohost. I’ve watched Tana since her story times and she’s shown she can be a bit messy at times with friendships and Brooke has made it clear how important friendships are to her. I’m not saying Brooke is perfect and Tana is terrible I’m just saying that if I were Tana I wouldn’t tolerate my childhood bestie being mean to my new bestie if I respected my new bestie and our friendship. Their dynamic is hard because they’re friends and they work together and Tana is an already established influencer but I don’t think that means Brooke adds nothing to the table. Every person enjoyed Brooke when she would open up more and tell her stories and since she stopped people have started to hate her but judging from the Reddit cancelled sub I’m not surprised Brooke doesn’t feel comfortable on the pod anymore with opening up. People nitpick every aspect of her. I know I wouldn’t.
I think the podcast would go back to normal if the fans just were more loving and supportive of them both equally. Brooke is new to the internet she’s not going to be perfect and. She’s in her 20s she’s not going to be a model person and that’s not the reason they started this podcast. The reason for this podcast was for them to yap and tell about their personal lives and the more y’all nitpick every aspect of the that podcast the more yall ruin it. I wish people would just enjoy things for what they are instead of trying to make everything perfect all of the time. It’s obvious they have the most fun when they are enjoying themselves and with the fan base I’m seeing right now it would be really hard to enjoy myself with people who degrade every aspect of me.
Also with the talk on Brooke trying to be more brand friendly and always going to alo and talking about it or having a clean girl aesthetic
Why is that so bad? - Tana mentions wanting to be more brand friendly and how she wants to be able to work with more brands which is good so why should Brooke not want that as well - going to Alo is good and exercise how is that conceited and I’m talking specific what story has she said that insinuates she’s better than everybody else because she goes to Alo or is she just proud of herself? - having a clean girl aesthetic doesn’t make you a good person and she never claimed to be a saint and people have pushed the narrative of the fact she’s so put together but how is that her fault she says she’s not all of the time and it’s probably because yall use that to shit on her but y’all created that . - Brooke story about how nobody goes to her birthday in the friend group and on the ep how invalidating her friends were just made it very clear the dynamic in that friend group and I don’t think Brooke is is in the wrong for wanting to make new friends and to sustain her career.
Tana gave her the platform and Brooke is trying to do the best she can to make something of herself. It would be wrong for Brooke to not be grateful in which she has stated countless times how grateful she is and it would be wrong for Tana to expect Brooke to kiss her ass for the rest of her life for her career because that’s manipulative and toxic and not giving a platform for the right reasons.
Yall go back and forth with victimizing one of the girls and pitting them against each other. I just hope Tana has Brooke’s back because it’s evident that Brooke really cherishes their friendship and this opportunity and the only way to get Brooke back to the fun careless girl she was is to make her comfortable and loved and she’s made it clear how much friendships mean to her and with the dynamic of that friend group and the hateful fans my mental health would be shit too.

This review is based on an eARC (Advance Reading Copy) provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review and can also be found on my blog. Navola will be released on July 9, 2024.
Paolo Bacigalupi is an author that hit big while I was in a reading hiatus. I missed the boat, but I’ve been meaning to circle back around and try his stuff. And while I don’t read quite as many big, fat fantasies as I used to, I still have a soft spot for them. So when I saw he was releasing an intricate historical fantasy with plenty of backstabbing and politics, I thought Navola was a great opportunity to give his work a try.
Navola takes place in a heavily Italian-inspired fantasy world and follows the son of a powerful banking family as he struggles to live up to the cunning intelligence of his father and grandfather. It’s a slow build, following the lead from childhood into adolescence and early adulthood, and though the dragon eye on the cover is more than just window dressing, the story leans much more to the historical fantasy than to the magical. This is without a doubt a book for fans of politics and scheming.
As perhaps should be unsurprising, Navola starts laying the groundwork for the political plots very quickly, but it takes a long time for the lead or the reader to really grasp the shape of things. The lead is long on empathy and short on ambition, and though he tries to be a dutiful son, none of the political maneuvering really comes naturally. And so we see his adolescence—the lessons, the friendships, the horniness, the doubts about his chosen path, all of it. And while it may not be clear exactly where the story is going during that time, it’s clear enough that it is indeed going somewhere, and the quality of the prose is high enough that reading never feels like a chore, even when the plot is opaque.
And when the big seeds of plotting come due, they do so in a rush of blood and thunder that makes the book almost impossible to put down. There are times where the reader may see twists coming before the naive narrator does, but not so early that it spoils the tension or prevents those big moments from being utterly engrossing.
For readers in search of sympathetic characters, there aren’t many. The lead’s empathy makes him one of the likeliest, but his adolescence shows off as much or more self-centeredness as you’d expect from a teenager, and the world is desperate to shape him into a manipulator who trusts no one and loves no one outside his own family. Make no mistake, this is a book written for those seeking a tale that’s short on goodness and trust and long on manipulation and violence. It gets dark—there’s backstabbing, torture, sexual violence—but it’s certainly entertaining always waiting to see which twist is happening next.
Navola also isn’t an end to the story. In many ways, this is a book focused on shaping the main character to be what he needs to be for the rest of the series. A lot happens from a plot perspective, but it’s not a book that ends on a hero having accomplished his primary goal. There are significant character and plot arcs that more than justify Navola being its own book and not a mere piece of another book, but it’s absolutely designed as a series-starter.
So should you read this book? Well, it depends on what you’re after. Thematically, it has plenty to say on how the hunger for power and wealth creates a world of violence and mistrust, but those aren’t exactly observations you can’t find explored just as well elsewhere. Really, this depends on what kind of fantasy you enjoy. If you’re a fan of dark, gritty political fantasy and don’t mind buckling up for a slow-building series of doorstoppers, step right up. That’s what Bacigalupi is going for, and his writing quality is on full display. But if that isn’t your style, this probably isn’t a book that’s going to change your mind. It does an excellent job of being what it wants to be, but it’s not out to transform a subgenre. Perhaps there’s a shift with the sequels–it certainly wouldn’t be the first series that started playing firmly within the existing expectations and branched out as the series progressed–but Navola as a novel is one for the fans of darkness and intrigue.
Recommended if you like: historical fantasy, schemes and politics, books with no clear heroes.
Can I use it for Bingo? It’s hard mode for Disability, and it’s also very obviously meant to be First in a Series, plus it’s Published in 2024, contains Dreams, Reference Materials, and a segment Under the Surface.
Overall rating: 17 of Tar Vol’s 20. Five stars on Goodreads.

Naturally, I came to know Orwell with 1984, which I read roughly three years ago in a Russian translation. I was at my humble beggining in discovering literature, and the book impressed my chiefly trough its deep theoretical base, the atmosphere of utter lack of hope and ingenious terms such as 'doublethink' - anyway, you probably know what I am talking about
Yet it was only much later that I have read his other literary works - namely, those indicated in the title. There I discovered Orwell as a great analytic of human psychology, an inventive storyteller. Both novel have a bleak atmosphere with a bit of dark humor, and somewhat foreshadow themes that would appear in 1984.
In *Keep the Aspidistra Flying', Orwell depicts a peculiar intellectual named Gordon Constock, almost thirty and "already moth-eaten". The gist is that he refused his status and prospects of a "good job" in order to avoid being subservient to "the Money God" - that is, he lowers himself on the social scale, living in self-imposed penury, working in a bookshop. Generally, this Gordon would seen like an off-putting person, constantly frustrated, whining and complaining, raving about the 'end of civilization', a little bit sexist and a great deal pessimist. The reader is plunged into his interior monologue and obsessive thoughts, which are captivating to follow. The plot revolves around his fight with the Consumerist system - however, as you might have guessed, he is not a valliant knight in shining armor, but rather a vain nihilist with questionable worldview. This affects the relationship with other characters - his friend Ravelstorm (a self-proclaimed Marxist, who is distracted from thougths about the rough conditiond of the Proletariat by the soft appearance of his mistress), his self-abnegating sister Julia, etc. Also, Gordon tries to write poetry - and one of the poems is gradually 'conceived' throughout the novel, containing his impressions and emotions in a self-piteous, frustrated style - with quite a decent result I'd say. Besides, Orwell realistically describes some unpleasant aspects of London's life through the protagonist's actions: slums, squalor, drunkenness and prostitution. Per general, a great read!
On the other hand, 'Coming up for air' describes a character who is an organic part of the system - a middle-aged clerk from a London's suburb, on the surface - a typical lower-middle-class and a family man, called George Bowling. The novel is written entirely through his perspective and keeps a rather melancholic tone. The narrator, with a rueful humor, talks a bit about himself, expressing a dissatisfaction with his menial life, yet remaining fatalistic about it. Then he starts a 80-or-so pages description of his pre-WW1 life and memories from a small town - and, frankly, it stirred my interest, being related in a vivid language. His rustic life is placed in contrast with the modern, after-war existence. This leads to nostalgia, and basically the plot of the novel is consisted of an attempt to chase this feeling, to make it come true, to revive what has been long forgotten. The novel (published sone month before the WW2) contains a distinct feeling of uncertainty, fear, anguish about the future, expressed in various instances. The narrator ask himself what would become if the war starts - if the bombers arrive - which, as he thinks, will happen in 1941. But he fears not the destruction itself, but what would come after the pains of war - a new world of rubber truncheons, slogans, suppression, hate. Something that Orwell will describe 11 years later in '1984'.
Overall, I think both books are worth reading. However, you have to expect that the protagonists - Gordon Comstock and George Bowling - might not be quite prepossesing.

first
Luna VI query: Set the source to the leaked files of the first reconnaissance operation of Irisa.
Certainly!
Luna VI query: What did Ryo do during the first hour of the war?
***
Ryo had already reached a state of full awareness after waking up, and yet he hadn't moved an inch, immersed in his inner world as he thought about what he and Elysira had done at night.
And what a wild night it was.
The way that she had skipped the journey to go straight for the finishing line had caught him unprepared. Still, with the mystery of their physical compatibility out of the way from the get-go, Ryo had been left with a lot of time to explore the other hiccups and perks of this interspecies endeavor.
From the occasional accident with her claws to the new possibilities her tail brought to the table, Ryo had enjoyed everything.
There was not an ounce of regret in him, but the memory of their last act lingered incessantly in his thoughts—a vivid Recollection of Elysira’s tail wrapping around his leg and letting silence prevail as his arm shyly enveloped her, allowing them to fall asleep side by side.
The one memory that held him in place, fearing their next interaction when the slightest of his movements would inevitably wake her up, mirroring what had happened all in the previous mornings.
What would she say?
Would she think that they are in a relationship now?
What would he do if the concept of casual hook ups didn't exist for the Irisians?
Ryo touched his face and shook his head, instantly deciding it was time to start his morning routine to distract him from those absurd thoughts.
The brain IO interface captured his intention, turning on the lights on the ceiling with maximum brightness, something that he was sure would wake her up at once given how sensitive to change all Irisians were.
And yet he was wrong.
Elysira’s head tilted away from the light as eyelids fluttered, but the only other thing she did before stopping moving was strengthening her grip on his leg quite a bit, making him realize that her tail had not let go of him the whole night.
Upon noticing how numb his leg felt, Ryo propelled his body upwards, intending to uncoil her tail from his leg and start his day. Hopefully, Elysira wouldn't mention what they did, and he too would be able to pretend it never happened.
However, the moment his upper body lifted from the ground and he got a full view of her body, he was unable to remove her tail from his leg, captivated by a simple but powerful sight.
With her hands inside the pockets, Elysira had used his jeans to restrain her claws, putting herself in a very uncomfortable position, likely afraid of hurting him during her sleep.
His eyes widened, dispersing his previous train of thought from existence. The hand that was supposed to be dealing with her tail moved toward Elysira's exposed neck instead, aiming to wake her up with a gentle touch.
And as if he had just perturbed the stillness of a calm lake with a stone, a barely perceptible ripple of yellow spread on her skin from the contact with his fingertips. It traveled through her neck, reaching the soft lines of her face, and even traveled down her long hair strands.
At the same time that it felt wrong to be able to take a peek at her emotions so easily, Ryo couldn't help but wonder—which other colors had the darkness stolen from him? While immersed in this question, Ryo kept caressing her neck until her eyes opened slowly, resetting all the back spots of her body at once as consciousness took control over instinct.
Elysira’s grip on his leg loosened when she realized she was overdoing it. Her gaze started scanning every inch of him, starting from the accidental scratches of her own making and unashamedly stopping at places she had not seen before.
Unbothered by her curiosity, he even removed some of the loose strands in front of her eyes and threw them behind her long ears to make her job easier, feeling some apprehension only when she lost interest and sought eye contact.
Traces of purple appeared around her black spots as she spoke. "What do you humans do after... what we did?"
Ryo winced, but his tone was gentle. "Silly girl!" He felt deep regret for how he had skipped the part of Irisian relationships in favor of politics when she was teaching him about her species. "It could be everything or nothing."
He expected some intense reaction from Elysira, but there wasn't a lot of emotion showing. As he searched her skin, he also realized he was unable to look at her the same way as before.
From seeing her small breasts, which he now knew for a fact fit on his hands, to the very memory of all evenness that he now was able to associate with the sheen her skin exhibited from certain angles, Ryo realized he had lost the ability to gauge her emotions without feeling a hint desire.
She noticed how long he was staring at her and a hint of yellow appeared. "I don't need everything, but nothing is not enough!"
How did Ryo fail to see that this conversation would inevitably happen when they were having fun at night?
"Oh!" He was unable to keep his mouth shut, which resulted in red and purple manifesting on her skin as he felt the pressure for a quick reply.
He had heard the Irisians speaking terms such as chosen, mate, and family, but Ryo didn't know much about this, and now was not looking like a good time for asking for clarification.
The translator would do its job in conveying his intention. But what would he say? Friends with benefits maybe? He gave up that one on the spot; he didn't consider their previous relationship a friendship, and somehow, he felt a dangerous desire to want more than that from her.
Under the pressure of his previous mistake, he told her the highest relationship he was willing to have without a care in the world for consulting his superiors. "Is girlfriend good for you?"
Elysira’s eyes widened as her skin maintained the same tones. But it lasted only a second before a golden hue took over, leaving little room for her black spots. "Wait, are you serious? I never thought you would consider anything more than being my exclusive pair."
"I am serious, but what's the difference?" Ryo instantly felt he could have gotten away with being just friends with benefits.
"Two differences." She took her clawed hands from the pockets of his jeans and pressed them against his neck in a fast but controlled movement. "One is implied trust." Her head approached him slower as if she would kiss him, but instead, her lips diverted toward his ears where she whispered, "And the other is a promise for the future."
"That seems alright."
As he said that, Elysira had already started taking little bites on his earlobe, her other hand joining around his neck while her tail was sneakily pushing the rest of her body on top of him.
"This will have to be quick, we-"
Ryo was about to give up the time they had for breakfast, when a powerful explosion shook the ground, causing the whole tent to vibrate.
Elysira’s pointy ears began to twitch and her body receded, trying to get of clue of what happened as she displayed purple. "I hear nothing."
"This was not far from here; I don't think it was a landslide." Ryo summoned a window with all the cameras outside and found nothing unusual, even with the infrared inspection.
Elysira could see what he was doing since they had never left the shared augmented space.
"Can we see what Amara is doing? She might know more than us."
He still was incapable of referring to her as his girlfriend even in his thoughts, but he still felt a hint of pride for her quick thinking. "Let's see."
He quickly summoned a live feed and promptly instructed the AI to go through the recordings of the whole night. "Nathan and that princess are still inside the tent. Time to go there."
Ryo wasted no time explaining, quickly standing up to begin the search for his underwear. The floor was still littered with paper sheets, and there were even some opened water bottles around, but he still found what he was looking for before pulling his jeans from under Elysira’s butt and getting dressed with haste.
He wore his shoes but didn't bother with his shirt and jacket, just taking his already loaded gun from the holster and getting some spare ammunition before heading outside cautiously.
"I'm going with you." She got out of the tent almost at the same time as him, proving that not needing clothes had its advantages.
"Stay close." He activated the infrared view mode and scanned the surroundings just to be sure, then hasted his steps towards Nathan's tent which was about forty meters ahead.
There was little he expected would go wrong on such a short journey, but Elysira’s ears began to twitch halfway through, prompting him to stop advancing. "Hear someone?"
"Something." She then used her tail to point uphill, in the direction where the rest of the group had set camp on the previous day. "I think it's a drone."
"Fuck, I hope you are wrong." He raised his 3D-printed revolver and felt like cursing more at the fact he didn't even have a proper pistol, pulling back the harmer and getting himself in front of Elysira.
Thanks to her acute hearing, when he heard the buzzing of the drone, his gun was already pointing in the right direction. Upon getting the first glimpse of the flying object and noticing how fast it was moving, he didn't hesitate to do a partial activation of combat mode.
The world slowed down for a moment, allowing him to see the device flying among the very few beams of blue light that made their way through the canopies. He didn't wait a single second and corrected his aim slightly to the left before pulling the trigger.
Bang!
The drone was torn to pieces and many parts fell about twenty-five meters away from them, at a distance that any explosives wouldn't hurt himself or Elysira.
When his eyes found her behind him, there was yellow and purple on her skin as she asked, "What if it was friendly?"
"The owner can send the bill up the chain for all I care." Ryo lowered the gun and did a full scan all around once more, only to find nothing again.
Her tail wrapped around his arm as all purple on her body disappeared, leaving only a hint of yellow. "Amara won't be happy if it was hers."
Just as Elysira spoke, a circular door opened on Nathan's tent, and Amara took a step outside with red filling her body.
Ryo pictured a scene of a princess complaining about her lost drone, but things only got more complicated instead.
Nathan emerged after her, and the pair began to argue loudly about what to do now that a war had broken out; Amara wanted to march uphill to join her guards, but Nathan held her by the tail when she was about to leave and prevented her for moving, saying it would be too dangerous.
Their argument turned into a messy mixture of the present situation with Amara sulking about a wasted night, which led Ryo to exchange a look of surprise with Elysira.
But their surprise only lasted a moment and Ryo decided he couldn't let those fools keep wasting valuable time.
Clap.
Clap.
Clap.
He had their attention now. "Please don't tell me you're mad because the plant lover couldn't get it up."
Under normal circumstances, Ryo had no doubt his assholish behavior would only instill shame and improve their cooperation.
However, he forgot to account that he was not wearing a shirt, leaving all his scratches exposed while Elysira was disheveled by his side, which caused Nathan's jaws to drop followed by Amara throwing an indignant gaze at Elysira and then at Nathan, who gave Ryo the feeling he might snap at any time.
"Why are you here?" Nathan's calm voice didn't match his clenched fist and rigid posture.
"Information. I want her to tell me what she knows about this war." Ryo had learned about the war by overhearing their previous argument.
Surprisingly, Amara was cooperative. "My brother's army found our position. They were not aware I was here with Nathan and ambushed the rest of my people and Zara; you destroyed their drone but if they saw us they might have a good reason to come here."
"Fuck!" He turned to Elysira and ordered. "Go back and gather my things. Take the essentials first, we are leaving."
Elysira used her tail to squeeze his arm in acknowledgment and rushed back. But when she had barely taken a few steps, she stopped as her ears moved. "More drones are coming!"
After alerting him, she ran to accomplish her task, leaving Ryo in the company of just Nathan and Amara.
"Isn't that great?" He grumbled to himself, but his voice carried loudly, obtaining the pair's attention as he raised his revolver again.
Knowing that the enemy was probably aware of their position, Ryo used infrared view mode to ensure they weren't using the drones as a distraction to pull off an ambush.
And that didn't seem to be the case when the first machine appeared, flying downwards in zigzag from the concentration of trees uphill.
Again Ryo used a partial activation of combat mode and aimed at the drone, yet this time more of them appeared, leaving the cover of the woods in groups of three until there were nine of them in total. But they didn't even try to get close this time, choosing to hover next to the canopies more than two hundred meters away from him, and assuming something akin to a structured formation.
This was extremely weird and enough of a reason for him to retreat a little, getting closer to his tent and taking cover behind a tree.
Nathan and Amara moved too, the botanist getting inside and returning with his gun while Amara's colors blended with his tent becoming hard to spot.
Assessing the new situation in an instant, Ryo concluded it would be better not to engage and retreat considering that those drones would be hard to take down at such distance. But things changed again quickly when the AI triggered a pop-up window, showing that several of the cameras he had set up in strategic places were capturing movement.
And what he was seeing now were several armed groups of Irisians heading towards their position, confirming Amara's supposition that the rebels were coming for them.
With the situation getting grimmer with every passing moment, Ryo thought of a possibility for what the drones might be doing, but his mind was still refusing to believe that the rebels could be as organized as his worst-case scenarios were giving them credit for.
To test this, he immediately tried to contact the space station through radio transmission, and since being found by the enemy was no longer an issue, he set the transmitter to maximum potency to validate his test.
Unable to establish a two-way connection.
He frowned even though that was not totally unexpected.
With only a few minutes at best before this place was filled with enemies, they would have to leave fast or they would be at the mercy of the enemy.
But first, there was something he wanted to say to Nathan, who now was using his tent for cover together with Amara. "Listen up, those fuckers are jamming our comms and they will be here at any time. Take the MLBCS and find a clearing to use it, I doubt they can interfere with the laser. Just don't forget that your immediate safety comes first or else you might not be among the living when the pod arrives."
Ryo and Nathan were technically enemies, but the last casualty in the war between Earth and Mars had happened several years in the past, ensuring that he had no reason to wish any harm for the botanist even though he didn't like him.
As for Amara, it was a little different. He hurried back to his tent without saying anything to her. And he did that not because he wished her harm, but simply because he didn't understand what she had at her disposal to offer any useful advice.
"Wait, what are you gonna do?" Nathan shouted from a distance.
With the adrenalin of seeing how many Irisians were coming helping his sincerity, he shouted back. "I'm not leaving the planet unless mission control finds a way to save Ely too."
After that, Nathan and Amara disappeared from his mind as he took cover behind his tent, slamming his hand against the foldable fabric many times to get Elysira's attention. "Hurry up, we can't stay here any longer."
She left immediately after, struggling to maintain balance as she used a hand plus her tail to carry his backpack, while her gun threatened to tumble from her gasp in her other hand.
And besides, one thing that Ryo’s eyes were immediately drawn towards was the clothes she was wearing—his clothes. While her legs were still exposed, his jacket still covered a bit more than her hips, loosely engulfing her slender frame like a billowing sail.
"I put the food and water in your backpack." She let go of the heavy item right over his feet as she put the gun on the ground and lifted her arms for him to recover his jacket and t-shirt. "You can get dressed while the tent folds."
He might have allowed her to keep the jacket if not for it being an inconvenience to her, so he just took it, making the first time he saw her wearing clothes a very short experience.
"No time for that, it won't fold with all the paper you left on the ground." He said as he swiftly slipped his arms into the sleeves of the jacket and zipped it up in one smooth movement.
Ryo was already considering which path they would take to flee when he noticed something terrible—Elysira’s skin had just been filled with gray as tiny black spots began to appear and disappear as if rain on the sand of a desert.
"What's it now?" He asked, trying to hide how unprepared he was to deal with this.
"Nothing has changed." Elysira averted her eyes. "I'm a burden to you just as I was to Amara. If I had-"
"Oh, shut up and quit the self-pity!" Ryo realized he was being too harsh, but still went on to finish it. "The paper is our mistake and I'm staying because I like you. This simple. Now get your gun and use your goddam camouflage, just like that princess is doing."
Ryo felt awful after saying this, and Elysira seemed quite taken about as she stared at him with wide eyes.
A moment later, however, she bent over and took the gun from the ground, her exterior blending quite well with the surroundings.
Ryo felt bad for her, but now there was no time to talk. "We run now, let's go."
The sound of his own steps was all he heard as they were putting some distance from the tent, making it so that he had to check on Elysira every couple of steps he took to ensure she was following him.
It was only when he heard some gunshots from far behind that he felt her claws tugging at his jacket from behind. "I hope Nathan is like you."
***
This was an account based on what Ryo did during the first hour of the war. The previous narrative is based on the events of the morning of the twentieth day of the exploratory mission of Irisa. According to your current settings, no queries will be suggested.
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-by Swami BV Tripurari
"Mysticism is found in all of the major religious traditions. It constitutes a spiritual experiential orientation, as opposed to a socioreligious orientation to life. The mystic subset of Hinduism is yoga/Vedānta. The focus of such mysticism is to realize all of the implications of what it means to be consciousness: self-realization and God-realization. The means to do so is a systematic approach to isolating consciousness—one’s self/ātmā—from matter, both its psychic and physical dimensions. The idea is to experience and arguably demonstrate that consciousness exists independently of mind/matter. This subjective experience is arrived at by invoking a great deal of objectivity within what could be called a first-person introspective discipline. The objectivity takes the form of detachment from sense objects through a gradual process of external withdrawal and internal focus.
The yogin/Vedāntin is schooled in this detachment. That is, he or she is schooled as to the ephemeral nature of things—things of sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch—and thoughts themselves. The yogin learns that attachment to things and thoughts creates an illusory and selfish sense of self or ego/identity that, like things and thoughts, is here today but gone tomorrow. Desire for things, the Buddha teaches, is the cause of suffering. The Gītā teaches that attachment to the temporal is the womb from which suffering is born. Thus the pursuit of enduring life and happiness is not found in relation to things that are experienced. It is found in relation to the self that experiences. Armed with such reasoning, the mystic cultivates a sense of detachment. The mystic learns to control the mind and senses rather than being controlled by them and drawn through the flow of thought into an imaginary, worldly sense of self. He or she is objective to the extreme, as detachment from things allows one to look at them objectively, having dismantled one’s biases. The “boy-become-man” in Kipling’s famous poem “If—” sets the bar for a believable supernatural: a human who has risen above his or her passions and who practically speaking is human no more—a sādhu. This bar is the ground of mysticism, that which the mystic’s experience is rooted in.
The ideal of science is one thing. Scientists are another. Like other world citizens in human dress, scientists are also helplessly human. But the mystic is not a world citizen in any practical sense. Passions transcended, the world holds no charm. Living within, the mystic experiences a humbled yet heightened sense of self. He or she experiences the “more” that we intuitively sense we are—more than the fleeting sense of identity derived from attachment to sense objects. With objective sensibility as to the ephemeral nature of the world of things and thought, the mystic goes within and does not come up empty-handed. Without doing and without thinking in relation to things of the world, he or she has and knows more by way of direct experience of the consciousness we are constituted of. Indeed, go within or go without is the mystic’s mantra. A person profits more by gaining deep, abiding experience of the nonmaterial self than he or she does through material acquisition. “Being” derived from or identified with “having” is an impoverished form of existence in the very least. The mystic’s sense of being has nothing to do with having and it is rich with universally desirable characteristics.
While we refer to such a person as a mystic, he or she is really what we all agree constitutes the perfect human, one who loves one’s neighbor like oneself by way of experiencing that which all beings have in common beneath the superficial dress of differences in race, religion, psychological disposition, and so on. In the language of the Gītā, the perfect mystic is one who sees the suffering of others as if it were one’s own. Here we are not speaking of unverifiable subjective experiences, we are speaking about observable behavior that is rare yet undeniably ideal, sought after to one extent or another by different methodologies the world over.
However, unlike all of such methodologies, genuine ego-effacing spiritual discipline from mysticism is aimed exclusively at attaining this ideal. However, other than the arguably supernatural yet observable external results attained by such spiritual discipline, adepts also make objectively unverifiable claims as to the nature of their internal experience and its implications. They claim, for example, that they have realized that as a unit of consciousness, they are eternal, and thus survive biological death. Such claims are not unreasonable in that we can see that such spiritual adepts are largely aloof from bodily and emotional necessities. They live with less—much less—and offer more to the world in the form of their universal compassion. While their subjective experience is not something we can determine the veracity of in the laboratory, the objective and systematic methodology the mystics subject themselves to and the consistent results—the subjective experiences—the mystics report, when combined with the observable fact that such mystics have risen above human passion, must be given consideration in any honest effort to demystify or understand consciousness. While anyone can say anything about their subjective spiritual experience, we find remarkably consistent cross-cultural reporting of experiences among mystics from all religious traditions. With the effacing of the conventional ego self—the fleeting, selfish psychic identity—the mystics experience the more that arguably we are, the consciousness that is the ground of being on which the dance of actual love proceeds."

Edit: If you are going to comment on the length of this post, please don't. This is not a simple snark but rather an actual critical think piece about feminism and Taylor Swift.

Introduction

Pertaining to Taylor Swift, "Female Rage" has deviated from its intended meaning after Swift debuted a new performance of The Tortured Poets Department during the Eras Tour. Now, according to Swift's use of the phrase, female rage is interpreted as public backlash against Swift's dating choices rather than as a response to the broader injustices against women and women's rights. This post examines Taylor Swift's flawed feminism, philanthropy, branding, and the controversial trademark petition for the phrase "Female Rage: The Musical". Swift's background as an entertainer, indeterminate politics, and alignment with capitalism over feminism pervades her legacy, again threatening her public tolerance as not just an individual but as a brand.

Once Upon a Female Rage...

If you were cognizant in the early 2010's, you've heard countless jabs at Taylor Swift in the media. Magazines, radio, or online. Music critics did not take her seriously as a songwriter; parents put a woman on an unrealistic pedestal as the ideal role model for their children; she dated too much and used men as lyrical fodder. No matter the story, it inevitably spread, conjoined with everyone's respective opinions, and you'd be left to wonder, "Why does everyone hate this girl so much?"
Taylor's target demographic has always been young or adolescent girls, more so when Swift herself was one. She made music that spoke to the awkward misfit, cultivating a para-social relationship with fans on MySpace, then later twitter, Instagram, and YouTube, where Taylor posted relatable vlogs showcasing the life of a homegrown American girl. Taylor had a delayed public "growing up" and, compared to her female pop contemporaries, Swift never "gratuitously sexualized her image and seems pathologically averse to controversy" (and, apparently, never even had a sip of alcohol until she turned 21). She was more than happy to spin this narrative to allude to an inherent moral superiority above other women in the industry (Better Than Revenge, heard of it?), engaging in the very slut-shaming that she herself endured (the Madonna and Whore archetypes). The victim complex arose with the need to prove Taylor as a different type of pop girl. Based upon her holy and clean image, Swift had been dubbed "a feminist's nightmare", and that "[To Swift] other girls are obstacles; undeserving enemies who steal Taylor’s soulmates with their bewitching good looks and sexual availability." Feminism and Tennessee-Christian country values don't exactly mix, it seems.
Years later, Swift befriended Lena Dunham and thus experienced white feminism osmosis, where Dunham taught Swift that real feminists defend rapists, makes insensitive jokes about rape and abortion, and prioritize all-white casts. Swift then declared herself a feminist in 2014, saying,

"Becoming friends with Lena – without her preaching to me, but just seeing why she believes what she believes, why she says what she says, why she stands for what she stands for – has made me realize that I’ve been taking a feminist stance without actually saying so."

I suppose the male-centric songwriting subject that permeates Swift's discography contained covert feminism and that we just didn't see that. Perhaps, the "Bad Blood" song and music video were written only in jest and not about poor Katy Perry, for Swift, as a feminist, would "never make it a girl fight" or tear other women down (though all Katy did was date your terrible ex-boyfriend and allegedly steal three backup dancers from your tour). In 2013, Swift said, in response to Tina Fey and Amy Poehler's joke towards her serial dating, "There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women."
There was that time in 2015 Taylor said that Nicki Minaj was "invited to any stage [she is] on" (as if Taylor expects to have access to every stage, award, and platform that Nicki might not otherwise have as a black female artist...yikes!) in response to Nicki's criticism of the white + thin VMA nominations. Later, Nicki responded with confusion, as Swift continued, "It’s unlike you to pit women against each other. Maybe one of the men took your slot..". Of course, this 'beef' was 'squashed' when Nicki performed with Taylor at the VMAs, with Nicki quite literally only having 38 seconds of stage time without Taylor. Maybe all that parading around with a legion of famous white women - similar to the way Taylor might've done with her numerous 1989-era handbags - was in fact a stance against gender inequality, and that this display of "girl power" should be enough to constitute Swift as a feminist icon.
Even while Swift says that Dunham informed her feminist outlook, she dances around the exact contents of those beliefs: "what she believes, what she says, what she stands for" is not exactly insightful towards what beliefs Swift might have inherited. Taylor never broaches women's rights topics such femicide, FGM, forced pregnancy & marriage, sex trafficking, women in slavery, women's financial and political oppression, women's educational rights, women's health, or women's autonomy, so we can assume she only gives a fuck about "girls supporting girls" (whatever that fucking means).
Despite some questionable (and sometimes vindictive) behavior, Taylor as a young woman did not deserve every media lashing that she received. We cannot deny that most headlines and criticisms perpetuated a misogynistic rhetoric which has plagued Swift for a majority of her career. Acknowledging events such as the development of her ED, her sexual assault trial, "Famous" lyric and MV depiction of Taylor, and the explicit Twitter deepfakes, for example, as both disgusting and unfortunate things that happened to a young woman in Hollywood does not negate the fact that Taylor is mostly a performative feminist.

Get Your Fucking Ass Up and Be a Philanthropist, It Seems Like Nobody Wants to Be a Philanthropist These Days

In 2013, Taylor Swift cut the ribbon at the grand opening of the Taylor Swift Education Center at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, Tennessee. The donation amount - $4 million - was the largest individual artist gift ever donated to the Country Music Hall of Fame, which is, of course, mentioned on Swift's website. The two-story facility features three classrooms, an instrument room, and an interactive children's exhibit gallery. Swift also performed at "All for the Hall" charity shows and has donated numerous artifacts from her career (such as notable guitars, tour costumes, etc) to the museum.
This was over 11 years ago, and it is still the only notable philanthropic contribution Taylor Swift has made.
For a woman of her net worth and stature, and a woman who recognizes the difficulties for women in film and music, you would think that Taylor Swift might establish a scholarship program for women to study the arts or something. Perhaps Swift might even consider becoming a member of organizations that support female artists, or one that supports LGBTQ+ causes (since she is now proudly an ally), yet she remains superficial with her graces. Broader philanthropy, such as donating relief aid to Palestinian women or women impacted by violence and discrimination will probably never receive any financial support from Miss Swift because then she'd be using her money towards philanthropies involving anyone but white entertainers.
She even says herself in Miss Americana, "My entire moral code as a kid and now is a need to be thought of as 'good'." Well, she's certainly thought of as good, though her actions say otherwise. She's more than happy to do a vaguely altruistic song and dance for a clip-worthy interview quote and mass appeasement, then fuck off to one of her mansions on a 20 minute private jet flight, rather than actually contribute to anything pertaining to the causes she has endorsed. Yet, far too many people continue to give a woman such as her their money, time, and energy, and she hoards these resources to herself.

I Like Some of the Taylor's Songs, But What the Fuck Does She Know About Feminism?

Swift continued with her self-proclaimed feminist campaign, positioning herself as a political activist and LGBTQ+ ally in the Miss Americana documentary. The primary focus of the documentary consists of the sexual assault trial, Andrea Swift's cancer diagnosis, Taylor's ED and body dysmorphia, media scrutiny, and, largely, finally speaking up about her politics publicly, mostly her opposition to the 2018 Tennessee Republican senate candidate, Marsha Blackburn, and Blackburn's beliefs. Swift says, following a scene discussing her experience during the trial,

"I just couldn't really stop thinking about it. And I just thought to myself, next time there is any opportunity to change anything, you had better know what you stand for and what you want to say."

We must ask ourselves, though: when has Swift ever spoken up to change anything? Okay, pulling her entire catalogue from Spotify because they didn't pay their artists enough and similarly pulling her catalogue from Apple Music are changes that she leveraged due to her revenue potential and power, but they are not pertinent to the average woman's rights. Moreover, these are issues that directly impacted Taylor's income, which was enough reason for her to protest in the first place. Swift has sold the most units for a female artist in first week sales, is the first female artist with 100k monthly Spotify listeners, is the first female artist to win the Album of the Year Grammy 4 times, and is the first female artist to do X, Y, and Z, all while being inoffensive and family-friendly to boot. The actual Taylor Swift seems unwilling to compromise the brand of Taylor Swift by contributing in meaningful ways to feminist causes, especially if it is for women outside of America and Hollywood.
The reason political anthems such as "The Man" and "Only the Young" of the Lover era feel disingenuous and corporate is because, well, it is. Taylor has taken every opportunity to advance her career or public image at the expense of other women. What is truly genuine to Taylor's outlook on other women is vying for male attention, taking down female competition, and vocalizing feminist injustices only if they directly impact her and her money. Some will argue that it's satisfactory for a woman with such a huge platform to even TALK about feminism, but that just isn't enough. It's even less impressive when you candidly look at the scope of her feminist lens: "If I was the man, then I'd be THE MAN", or "I really resent the ‘Be careful, buddy, she’s going to write a song about you’ angle, because it trivialises what I do", and, of course, "We all got crowns". Feminism, but only when it happens to me. It gets worse when you look at Taylor's track record of copying other famous women and removing other female artists as potential threats to her pop prowess.
It's good for PR to align yourself with certain blanket feminist and political beliefs, therefore good for branding, therefore good for ticketing and merchandise sales, therefore good for business. And Taylor Swift is a business.
She's not a feminist. Taylor Swift is a capitalist.

I Can't Pay Those Sweatshop Workers a Livable Wage or Benefits! How Else Would I Make My Billions?

Recently, Taylor's team filed to trademark the phrase "Female Rage: The Musical" after Taylor said during Paris N1 of the Eras Tour,

"So you were the first ones to see The Tortured Poets at the Eras Tour...or as I like to call it, 'Female Rage: The Musical'."

This trademark petition was filed last week on Saturday, and news comes about just as numerous unofficial fan-made merch designs have cropped up with this phrase plastered on Fruit of the Loom basics. I'm of the opinion Swift's team motioned for a trademark so that they can send out cease & desists to all those that make knockoff merch, which disrupts potential sales for Bravado, UMG's choice merchandising company; however, since it was filed earlier, perhaps Swift has bigger plans with the bizarre use of the gendered phrase. One Swiftie referred to the phrase "female rage" as "a funny Eras Tour joke". Could it be a possible fourth version of the Eras Tour Movie? Whatever the reason, the motion to capitalize off of such a concept is disgusting, but not unsurprising, for a woman that profits on her vain feminism.
Swift, through her company, TAS Rights Managements, has also trademarked over 200 phrases, including "1989", where she owns the property rights to this calendar year on keychains, phone cases, sunglasses, stationary, bags, beverage ware, clothing, entertainment services, your subconscious, and, of course, Christmas ornaments.
The vapid consumerism in Swiftie culture is, frankly, disgusting. Bravado's sustainability statement is non-existent, the quality control is abysmal, and the materials they use are horrible. The materials, such as acrylic and polyester, are made from petrochemicals. This means they are non-renewable, shed microplastics, and are quite toxic in production. The manufacturing process to make all of those lazy-rushed Eras Tour logo graphic tees is a huge blow to environmental well-being. Apparently, though, Swifties don't give a fuck. They sell out products in seconds and either have to face the manufactured scarcity or buy from a scalper that resells for 200% of the already ridiculous retail price. This doesn't include the environmental impact of vinyl records, CD, and cassette production, of which Taylor produces many variants that sell unsustainable amounts.
If we're talking about women's rights violations, why is no one acknowledging the women that work in the inhumane sweatshop conditions that have to pump out fugly t-shirts and hats? The millions of plastic microfiber dander they are inhaling, or the toxic dyes that touch their bare skin? Are they being compensated fairly for their skilled labour and are they in safe working environments? Do these women have minimal bargaining power, and do they have authority over their worker's rights? Is Taylor Swift female raging at their injustices? Does Taylor Swift ever feels bad that her wealth was built on the backs of women of color, disadvantaged by the demands of the global economy and garment industry? Do you think she ever says a little white feminist prayer for them before she goes to sleep at night?
What's even crazier is not that Taylor herself doesn't care, it's that Swifties don't care. There CANNOT BE ethical billionaires. You only make a billion dollars if you are exploiting other human beings for capital gain. Based on public perception of the possible "Female Rage: The Musical" trademark, it seems like Swifties are already asking for merch with this phrase. "If Taylor made it, I'd buy it." Oh, cool. So not only do you champion Miss Swift's avarice and billionaire status, but you also are unashamed to admit to your blind consumption of her music and merchandise, no matter where they might originate in production or sincerity. Just as Swift takes and takes and takes, Swifties' consumerism of Taylor Swift cannot be quelled.
The tortured artist's most vulnerable and sincere poetry...available now in 21 different versions!

I Am Tortured Poet, Hear Me Whinge

Look - even if Taylor's intention is to characterize TTPD as more "tortured" and "angry", the main thread of the album is "I was ghosted by my decade-long situationship with a controversial indie boy and my fucking stupid fans wrote a 'Speak Up Now' open letter prompting me to drop him" anger, which is adequately expressed in the lyrics and performances. The extent of Taylor's "female rage" on TTPD is on tracks such as "Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?", which contends with relentless media scrutiny; "But Daddy I Love Him", where Swift firmly states she'll date whoever she likes no matter how "Sarahs and Hannahs" may react; and "The Albatross", a track mythologizing her reputation and the consequences of dating her. Of course, these coincide with deep psychological wounds that formed during Swift's early years in the media, and so, from her feminist perspective, these subjects tackle the misogyny and double standards that she faced.
Yet Taylor Swift still has no grounds to be claiming that TTPD best exemplifies female rage and therefore she, in the context of this album, is female rage incarnate. As the daughter of a stock broker and mutual fund marketing executive, Taylor was born into wealth and allowed privileges like trips and subsequent relocation to Nashville all so that she might get a record deal. Her father even invested at least $120,000 into the then-fledgling label, Big Machine Records, which ensured Taylor's place with Borchetta after leaving her dead-end development deal with Sony. The fact that her parents were able to buy her a fucking brand new guitar for Christmas and pay for music lessons says so much about the financial security and safety of her childhood.
Money is privilege and protection, and despite Swift's experiences with misogyny and loser boyfriends, she does not know what female rage is.
Her rage is derived from her frustrations with her obsessive fans pulling the moral superiority card on Taylor in response to her rebound with Matty Healy. That's literally it. She's just pissed that the monster she created is no longer obediant, it's become a feral, sovereign entity that depletes the world of its natural resources and thinks it is more intelligent than it actually is because it's mommy has started to talk to it with big words. Apparently, 'illicit', 'elegy', 'nonchalant', and 'precocious' are considerably big words for the oafish monster, and I find it strange that this level of literacy is present in a group of fans that allegedly have GPAs of 3.5 or higher, but I digress.
Taylor Swift has never been one paycheck away from destitution. Taylor Swift has never experienced racial discrimination. She may have instances of gender discrimination, but she possesses the ideal white, blonde American beauty standard and therefore reaps the benefits of being a conventionally attractive woman. Taylor Swift has sufficient social capital. Taylor Swift is a billionaire woman prolonging her victimhood though she, as a woman, has mostly had control over her image and music (unlike her contemporaries). Taylor Swift is NOT entitled to be championed for her "female rage", nor should she be. Taylor Swift has never even been the struggling artist, for fuck's sake. I don't give a fuck if she's trying to fill the empty lunch tables of her past. Taylor Swift purporting herself, her unpolished album, and her lukewarm feminism as a musical bleeding with female rage is asinine.

Sigh Try and Come For My Job, Poors

Out there in the world right now is a 23-year-old woman, a recent college grad, who works as a barista. She has to wake up and get ready to go into a minimum wage job because she cannot get a job in her field. She doesn't have healthcare benefits or sick time, so she has to go into work no matter how she's feeling. All day long she is berated by vicious customers and creepy men, and, exhausted from being on her feet, she knows she has to go home to her shitty roommate that never does the dishes and her roommate's shitty dog. To comfort herself, she considers getting a treat, but thinks against it when she remembers that matcha lattes cost $15 and they taste like milky dirt. She knows that she needs to buy groceries this week, and so the woman resolves to go home, but notices that her gas tank is low. She goes to put gas in the car, but the pump stops at $27.86 because that's all that she has in her checking account. The woman, bereft and reeling, sinks into the driver's seat. "Well," she thinks, her head in her hands, "at least I don't have Taylor Swift's job. I just couldn't imagine."
Fame is somewhat of a choice. If at any moment Taylor feels that she is misunderstood, misconstrued, or overwhelmed by public opinion, she can LEAVE the public eye - Lord knows she has the retirement fund and residuals to do so. In "I Can Do It With a Broken Heart", the TTPD song about meeting the demands of your career-zenith mega-tour while in the relationship trenches, Taylor ends the song by rambling,

"You know you're good when you can even do it with a broken heart...you know you're good...and I'm good, cause I'm miserable, and no one even knows!...try and come for my job."

Yeah, obviously we wouldn't know, you recently passed the billionaire threshold and are the most famous and in-demand performer in the world right now. Taylor Swift makes an estimated $10 to $13 million dollars A NIGHT on the Eras Tour. Furthermore, the Eras Tour movie grossed $261.6 million globally, (which, as the producer, Taylor takes home 57% of the ticket sales) not counting the streaming revenue from Amazon Prime Video and the estimated $75 million deal that Disney paid to have it on Disney+. We're not even considering the income from cheap plastic popcorn buckets and drink cups plastered with colored squares in her Era-specific likeness.
It's funny. Taylor Swift often said that being famous wasn't hard, that she "isn't complaining". I'm sure it is difficult to always have to present in a good mood, else you'll end up misrepresented in the media, and I'm sure it's invasive to virtually have no privacy or semblance of anonymity. Still, Taylor Swift shows up each night of tour and performs. For a majority of her career, she has penned her sad songs while on the road. Most of "Red", her breakup album, was written in the thick of the Speak Now World tour. Now, some Swifties say they almost "feel bad" for attending the Eras Tour with Swift's revelations in this song, that they have had a 'dimmed experience' upon hearing Taylor's misery whilst performing. Despite the fact that Taylor said that "this was the happiest she's ever been" at Gilette Stadium in May, the lyrics "boohoo, woe is me, smile for the cameras and make the fans happy!!!" are jarring for Eras attendees.
While Taylor Swift was making double-digit millions a night in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and feeling miserable, Ana Clara Benevides Machado passed away due to heat exposure. The concert promoters, Time For Fun, are now the subject of a criminal investigation due to their lack of adequate hydration and safety. Taylor Swift cancelled the Sunday show that was to follow and offered VIP tent tickets to Benevides Marchado's family, which was a kind gesture, but perhaps incongruous to the incident of which they were offered as consolation. Everyone grieves differently, of course, but I'm not sure attending the very show at the very same venue that my daughter or sister passed away in two days prior, where the singer CONTINUED the show despite her death, would be healthy for closure.
There was no female rage at the show as Swift never saw Benevides Machado pass out. There was no female rage towards the disregard for fans as humans while Swift elected to proceed with her Brazil tour dates despite the country being in historic heatwaves (at risk of overheatting herself). If Taylor Swift was so shaken by touring with a broken heart or a fan's passing, she wouldn't have added an additional North American leg of Eras just two months after the Matty breakup. She's brokenhearted but willing to mend the cracks with your money and move onward with her worldwide female rage induced pillaging.
No matter what happens, even if you die at a Taylor Swift concert, Taylor collects a big fat check and flies away. She doesn't know you as anything other than a conversion rate or earning potential despite what her nearly 20-year long parasocial relationship with fans might otherwise indicate. She knows that, while some Swifties are without disposable income, they feel obligated to spend on a "48 Hours Only!" exclusive vinyl variant instead of necessities because they are so entrenched in Taylor Swift's intoxicating celebrity, they'll prioritize materialistic fandom before their needs. This is good enough for her because this means she can expand her real estate portfolio and finance her cat's lavish lifestyles. They're worth an estimated $100 million dollars. Her three cats could pool their net worth and solve world hunger.
While you and I might be denied bereavement leave and barely surviving the current political and economic climate, Taylor Swift has to, instead of gets to, perform for stadiums at full attendance for three nights in a row across the globe. You and I might be replaced by AI at our longtime jobs, but Taylor Swift is threatened with losing more and more money each time you listen to a "Stolen Version" of her songs. If we don't buy every variant of all of her albums, then who is going to pay for the fucking cats?
It is tone deaf to spend as she spends and lives as she lives in this economy, but this is her reality. She was able to donate $100,000 to all of her tour truck drivers, and that's wonderful, but it leads me to wonder about the ethos of the 2020s where one woman can hoard such life-changing amounts of money. Remember in 2014 when she gave a fan $90 ($120 in today's money) to get Chipotle because she had no fucking clue how much it cost? This is a 34-year-old woman who is increasingly out of touch with the reality for working class people and women in general. Normal everyday adults must wake up and go to their thankless jobs, and yet Taylor Swift, despite all her riches, incessantly references the lows of her life and career as a public figure and entertainer to farm sympathy and drive sales. And still, the corporate women have latched onto "I cry a lot, but I am so productive! It's an art!" as their cubicle battle cry.
Do you think that, from up in her private jet, Taylor Swift gazes at the world through her poetic, tortured eyes, and thinks, "All the little people, in their cars, walking, going about their lives...all those girls that don't support girls...do they know that I've made an album about female rage?"

Conclusion/TLDR

Thank you for reading. I would love to hear your critical insights towards this entire ordeal: TTPD, the trademark, the implications of it all.
TLDR: Taylor Swift is a bad feminist and is delusional to think that the TTPD eras set exemplifies female rage at women's injustice.

To be honest I don't know how I feel about my writing. I was hoping you guys could give some advise to help me improve. I'm new to writing longer fic, most of the stuff I wrote before is one shots and poems. Also English isn't my first language, so I'm in unfamiliar territory.

1. I'm kinda regretting writing my story in past tense. I think that present tense would have been better, reserving the past tense for my flashbacks. Is it too late to change it? I mean it would mean having to rewrite the whole fic. The problem is I altered posted 6 chapters and I'm worried it would mess it up. What do you think, should I do it. Would I loose readers? I don't want to have to repost the whole fic, because I would loose all my comments and kudos. what is the best choice here?
2. From what I learned in school and from the advice I read online, show don't tell is one of the most important rules of writing. However that is my exact problem. When I read my stuff I get the feeling like my writing is too dry and not descriptive enough and my beta agrees with me, but every time I try to be descriptive it comes off as flowery and it just feels like it was written by other people. How can I add more descriptive elements without sounding too flowery?
3. On that same note, my beta said that I tend to over explain scenes like for example in one chapter of my fic, there are several scenes where one character refusing help due to being stubborn and not wanting to be a burden and and the other character being frustrated/feeling they are taken advantage and wanting to end the friendship. I was trying to show how their friendship slowly imploded and as such certain elements pop up again and again. My beta said that it was too repetitive and that readers are not idiots who can pick up on themes without being hit over the head with a hammer. She's right of cause, but to be honest I'm not sure I'm good at writing subtext. Do you guys have any resources or tips to help me improve in that area?

Edit: Please do not delete this post. Yes I posted it before, but deleted the post because I wanted to change the title and that wasn't possible after posting. I'm not trying to spam just get this post out. sorry for any inconvenience.

To be honest I don't know how I feel about my writing. I'm currently writing fic, but working on ideas for an original story. I'm new to writing longer stories, most of the stuff I wrote before is one shots and poems. Also English isn't my first language, so I'm in unfamiliar territory. I was hoping you guys could give some advise to help me improve.
1) I'm kinda regretting writing my story in past tense. I think that present tense would have been better, reserving the past tense for my flashbacks. Is it too late to change it? I mean it would mean having to rewrite the whole fic and I'm worried it would mess it up. What do you think, should I do it?
2) From what I learned in school and from the advice I read online, show don't tell is one of the most important rules of writing. However that is my exact problem. When I read my stuff I get the feeling like my writing is too dry and not descriptive enough. I do use dialog to make the story more engaging, but I have the feeling that aside form the dialog it's still a bit stilted and my beta agrees with me. However, every time I try to be descriptive it comes off as flowery and it just feels like it was written by other people. How can I add more descriptive elements without sounding too flowery?
3) On that same note, my beta said that I tend to over explain scenes like for example in one chapter of my fic, there are several scenes where one character refusing help due to being stubborn and not wanting to be a burden and and the other character being frustrated/feeling they are taken advantage and wanting to end the friendship. I was trying to show how their friendship slowly imploded and as such certain elements pop up again and again. My beta said that it was too repetitive and that readers are not idiots who can pick up on themes without being hit over the head with a hammer. She's right of cause, but to be honest I'm not sure I'm good at writing subtext. Do you guys have any resources or tips to help me improve in that area?
While this is technically about a fic, I am looking for general writing advise in general, which is why I posted in this sub, as well as on the Fanfiction Sub. I appreciate any help I get.

Eivor is a bit of a strange protagonist.
She’s basically flawless and without blame. She’s brash and bold, proud and unashamed — brave and wise far beyond her years, yet able to be soft and compassionate when not brandishing spears. She’s got a knack for leadership, a strong moral compass and an even stronger muscular system with which to enact justice.
And she’s got bars?
As someone not deeply versed in medieval European histories, imagine my shock and confusion upon discovering that Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla included rap battling.
My first experience with Flyting had me asking so many questions about what I just witnessed that I couldn’t wait to begin Googling. I figured flyting probably was historically accurate, but if that’s the case, then what else can it tells us about the medieval warrior and about Eivor’s characterization?
I set off to find out.
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Wikipedia and howstuffworks combined gave me a robust definition of flyting.
A ritual, poetic exchange of insults practiced mainly between the 5th and 16th centuries. Examples of flyting are found throughout Scots, Ancient, Medieval and Modern Celtic, Old English, Middle English and Norse literature involving both historical and mythological figures. The exchanges would become extremely provocative, often involving accusations of cowardice or sexual perversion.
The idea behind flyting was to influence public opinion of the participants and raise both of their profiles. And each participant wanted to make himself look better than the other, even if they were friendly.
Not only that, but flyting’s also the first recorded use of shit as an insult. That right there is worth this whole essay and then some.
--
I came away from those definitions with some small Euphoria, as they reinforce what I already expected from Ubisoft — historically accurate and (arguably) immersive side activities grounded in realism.
Unfortunately, none of the flyting foes that Eivor faces in this fantasy are founded in any real-world flyters. I was particularly frustrated when I realized Fergal the Faceless and Borghild the Alewife’s Bane were fictional features, not real historical fiends of rhythm and rhyme.
Two of Eivor’s syntax competitors are “real” in some sense, however.
In Norse mythos, Odin, Thor, Loki, Freyja and more would handle their Family Matters over a flyte from time to time, dueling wits and words as competition and entertainment.
In fact, one flyte we do see in game — Odin as he flytes over the river with Thor in the Asgard Arc — is likely a reference to a real medieval Norse poem; The Hárbarðsljóð.
In it, Thor jaunts back to Asgard after a journey in Jötunheim. He comes to a junction in which he must jump a large river, and thus hunts down a ferryman to shepherd him across. The ferryman, Hárbarðr, is Odin in disguise. He then begins to diss guys.
Ahem. ‘Guys’ being Thor, obviously.
First, Odin drops a yo-mama joke:

Of thy morning feats art thou proud, but the future thou knowest not wholly; Doleful thine home-coming is: thy mother, me thinks, is dead.

He keeps going, taking more shots than a First Person Shooter, this time saying Thor dresses like a girl:

Three good dwellings methinks, thou hast not; Barefoot thou standest and wearest a beggar’s dress; Not even hose dost thou have.

Thor says watch your mouth before I clap back:

Ill for thee comes thy keenness of tongue, if the water I choose to wade; Louder, I ween, than a wolf thou cryest, if a blow of my hammer thou hast.

Odin replies by saying Thor’s wife is fucking another dude:

Sif has a lover at home, and him shouldst thou meet; More fitting it were on him to put forth thy strength.

The version we play out in game isn’t identical to the real-world poem, but carries some similarities; Thor’s threatening to cross the river to fight Odin as well as his boasting of slaying giants are present in each.
Ratatosk is the only other ‘real’ flyting enemy in Valhalla. While Odin doesn’t flyte with Ratatosk in Norse myth to my knowledge, the flyting against the squirrel is thematically accurate, at least.
Ratatosk’s purpose is to scramble up and down Yggdrasil, scurrying spoken messages from the eagle that sits at its peaks to the snake that slithers at its base. The nature of Ratatosk’s messages is in line with the act of flyting — the mischievous rodent carries falsehoods and aggressive statements to stir up drama and distrust between bird and serpent.
Flyting took place not only in poems and folklore, but in town squares and royal court. It was a facet of medieval life and social interaction. This weaving of prose then, in this time period, seemingly was just about as much of an admired skill as the swinging of a sword. It’s no wonder our unbreakable warrior Eivor is so proficient with word.
--
Like, really proficient with word.
I mean, I know it’s me choosing the dialogue options, but sheesh, is there anything she can’t do?
Actually, Eivor’s expertise in flyting is strange to me. It feels random and unearned — out of character, even. It comes more unexpectedly than Kendrick Lamar’s Not Like Us.
It probably only feels out of character, however, due to our modern understanding of proficiency with words versus proficiency with might. Our current interpretation of verbal ability compared to physical ability would perceive verbal ability as the ‘softer’ of the two skillsets. Physical strength is typically interpreted as tough and more dominant. You don’t expect to see an MMA fighter composing poetry, do you? The qualities that modern thought attributes to writing and physicality don’t mesh.
But in reality — and historically accurately in Valhalla — medieval warriors weren’t just blind berserkers. They were actually artists, poets and writers.
We’ve already demonstrated how Odin and Thor — Norse myth’s most famous warriors — carried out flyting. Thus, medieval Vikings would’ve surely done the same. Beyond Vikings though, the Illiad contains instances of public, ritualized abuse. Taunting songs are present in Inuit culture while Arabic poetry contains a form of flyting called naqa’id. Further, Japanese Samurai were known to be frequent composers of haiku, while Japanese culture also gave birth to Haikai, poetry in which vulgar satire and puns were wielded.
This historical accuracy ends up eliminating the randomness of Eivor’s flyting ability. Despite her verbal finesse feeling unearned, we can surmise historically that Eivor has practiced the wielding of words plenty in her life before we take over as the player. She’s dedicated time to this.
Now that we know why she has it, we can take a closer look at what it does for her.
--
So, Eivor can rap. She can match you with her axe or she can match you with her words. She’s just about unbeatable.
Her mastery of words demonstrates on some level that she’s not all Push Ups and might is right. She’s not all bruiser and bluster, burn and berserk. She’s an appreciator of the finer things — the more abstract, mental skills that require brain power, deftness and finesse.
This duality of strength and genius rounds out Eivor into a deeper, richer, more admirable character. More than just raw muscle in pursuit of glory, Eivor’s mastery of verse demonstrates her prioritizing not just her body, but her mind.
And it goes a long way for her.
Eivor can use her prowess with prose to progress past pointless plot points throughout Valhalla’s plethora of arcs and missions. It’s just a stat check in the end, but with enough practice flyting and enough charisma gained, Eivor unlocks new dialogue options that bend the world around her to her will.
Witch hunters in Eurvicscire on the brink of terrorizing Moira can be dispersed verbally rather than brawled or killed. There’s an entire riddle-solving fetch quest in Wincestre that can be skipped completely by telling King Aelfred’s abbot fuck off (figuratively). Eivor’s sharpening of her mind protects her body, saves her time, and allows her to frictionlessly fell her endeavors.
Her articulate advances don’t just alter her into admirability, they allow her to influence people and progression. With semantics from her mouth and twists from her tongue, Eivor can have her way whenever she wishes. In a game this large, I’m only left longing that the opportunity to make use of this charisma wasn’t relegated to niches.
Regardless, if medieval England is butter, Eivor’s tongue is the hot knife that behooves her move through her subduing more smoothly.
It all just goes to show that ̶m̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ flyte is right.

I wrote mini reviews of each arc here, but because there are so damn many arcs, this ended up being a wall of text, despite me trying to keep them short. Feel free to skim or read only what interests you!
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The episodic nature of Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla means that its narrative is split into chunks. These chunks take place across the many shires of medieval England and vary in terms of length, depth and, well, pointlessness. I thought ranking them would be a fun exercise — a competition of story arcs, all vying for best Viking mini-narrative.
It goes without saying, but I’m about to spoil the whole damn game, so read at your own risk.
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21. Wincestre
Wincestre is just another Lunden or Jorvik, accept with more Jesus, more King Aelfred and way less… anything worthwhile. This one was just a total nothing-burger of an experience. The fact that it comes so late in the narrative really hurts it, too, because by now you’ve experienced arcs that are a similar traditional Assassin’s Creed city-style that at least aren’t this bad. Aelfred’s turning on Eivor at the end also didn’t feel coherent, convincing or warranted to me. Big miss.
20. Lunden
The smaller, denser cities with multiple targets to track down and ‘social stealth’ options are certainly here to attempt to replicate the traditional AC experience, but Lunden fails to do so meaningfully, and even gets a huge points deduction for being misleading.
The arc is set up to feature twists with Stowe and Ercke (is one a traitor? Will your romancing of Stowe make things complicated?), but after their initial scenes they’re mitigated to what I would hardly even call side characters as Eivor unveils three randos as Order members, kills them and then leaves town. At least there was a cool boss sequence on the river?
19. Snotinghamscire
This arc sees you reunite with Hemmingr Jarl, his son Villi and his compatriot, Trygve. Eivor has an existing relationship with these characters, but the player doesn’t. As a result, nothing that happens with them lands meaningfully.
After Hemmingr passes, this arc boils down to running dull errands to prepare for the burial ceremony. Eivor chooses whether Villi or Trygve will succeed Hemmingr in the end, but the decision is very clear-cut and suggested to the player, lacking the nuance of the game’s other difficult decisions. This arc isn’t memorable, doesn’t concern the main quest, and feels like fluffy filler in the worst way.
18. Jorvik
Another version of the Lunden & Wincestre arcs, Jorvik is stronger than its competitors for presenting the Order members to your face before you deduce who they are. There was nothing shocking about their reveals, but each provided an interesting set piece to navigate during assassinations.
Problematically, the arc sets itself up for Eivor to accuse a traitor, only for her decision to not matter at all. You never get to act on your accusation at Yuletide — the Order member interrupts and attacks the feast no matter who you accuse.
17. Cent
The Cent arc sees Eivor team with Basim to track Fulke. It feels important and part of the main story, but it’s all for naught in the end — you come face-to-face with Fulke in what seems like a meaningful story moment, only for her to run away. Your reward is finding out Sigurd had his arm cut off.
This arc earns some points for getting Fulke screen time and tiptoeing the tightrope of Eivor and Basim’s rocky relationship believably, but certainly can’t be called good. This is because once you pull back the veil, you realize you never advanced the plot and were running in circles for nothing the entire time. At least the other “filler” arcs were forthright about their (lack of) connection to the main story.
16. Jotunheim
This arc has a compelling story to it — Odin running from his fate and bending over backwards to flee from it is interesting, his broken relationship with Loki should be a strong point for the arc, and his moral gray areas (sleeping with a Jotunn, betraying Tyr) certainly make for a complex character’s development.
It has the ingredients of a strong arc, but I just couldn’t shake the why am I doing this feeling I had the entire time. Everything in between Odin’s big moments is a fetch quest and I just felt like I was wasting my life.
This one is weird because on paper it feels like there’s a lot of substance here, but ultimately, I felt nothing while playing it besides contempt for having drank the potion in Ravensthorpe again.
15. Lincolnscire
Heir to the throne Hunwald is exiled from Lincoln and reaches out to Ravensthorpe for help. Eivor tracks down his sickly and dying father and then must cast the deciding vote for whom the new Ealdorman will be after his death.
The game wastes your time with one of Hunwald’s competitors, Aelfgar, (who is a dork) and paints the bishop as evil pretty clearly (he turns out to be an Order member). I suppose this arc could hit hard for someone who accidently put an Order member in charge. For that and for Hunwald at least having a strong drive and personality, this arc earns some marks.
14. Essex
Eivor is brought in to repair a marriage by separating husband and wife naturally without a public divorce. She reunites Ealdorman Birstan with his former lover and sets up a fake public kidnapping to whisk away his wife, Estrid.
I think many would rate this arc far lower than I have here because it is pure side mission nonsense — but for me, this arc stands strong on the backs of convincing and fun characters in Birstan and Estrid, as well as the tangled web of relationships between the two of them, Birstan’s son, and Rollo, Estrid’s former lover.
13. Ledecestrescire
Ledecestre sees the intros of Ivarr, Ubba and Ceowulf. You team up with the sons of Ragnar to help put Ceowulf’s father on the throne in Mercia.
Ledecestrescire earns points for strong, realized characters in the Ragnarsons and Ceowulf, a believable conflict with the Mercian king, as well as the arc’s biggest moment with killing or sparing Leofrith in Tamworth.
12. Asgard
Asgard looks pretty and hits hard when you first arrive. I appreciate Ubi for creating places like Atlantis and Asgard to run around and explore in.
Unfortunately, both felt supremely empty. However, watching Odin fight tooth and nail to run from his fate was satisfying and Loki is aptly deceptive and frustrating. The Builder gave the arc a nice wrinkle, too and climaxed with a nice boss fight.
I spent too much time tracking down tears, but I think if you look at just the main missions here, this is a solid experience in an incredible environment.
11. East Anglia
In this arc, Eivor works alongside Oswald to fend off violent Dane aggressors and claim his leadership role.
Oswald is honorable and likeable — watching him teach the Danes in his court that bravery can reveal itself in more nuanced ways rather than physically was powerful, and giving Eivor the decision to allow Oswald to fight his own battles or fight for him solidified the feeling of fathering Oswald through this arc into manhood and leadership.
I bought into this arc because I felt the story was touching and meaningful and the cast was strong.
10. Vinland
Nothing really happens here aside from hunting down Gorm Kjotveson, but the arc earns major points for how refreshing it is.
I played it late in the story when I was feeling quite a bit of fatigue towards the game and everything about Vinland just landed for me, giving me new energy to actually enjoy what I was doing.
The new landscape is insanely gorgeous and fun to navigate. The stripping down of Eivor’s equipment essentially forces you to start from scratch — but it really makes the four stealth encounters stronger; you have to approach them differently due to being unarmed and unarmored.
The whole thing was a little bit of a reset button for the entire experience of Valhalla and it sorely needed it.
9. Suthsexe
Suthsexe is the meeting with Guthrum and the rising action leading up to defeating Fulke.
The arc is fun, feels impactful as well as meaningful and sees you reunite with all the old friends you’ve made up to this point. Fighting alongside Soma and others was a big positive for me. Storming Fulke’s fort at least included some different mechanics than many forts up to this point, so it felt fresh. Her boss fight in the darkness of the crypts was exceptional, as was her confession sequence.
This arc was mostly good, satisfying fun the whole way through, but didn’t include too much intrigue as the ones ranked above it did.
8. Rygjafylke
Look, I’ll be honest. I’m writing this particular paragraph after completing the game and this opening section was so long ago that I don’t have a great memory of it.
What I do know is that Valhalla opened strongly. I found it all pretty compelling. I remember it being atmospheric, believable and driven by strong characters like Sigurd, Varin, Haytham, Basim and Kyotve. I was bought-in very early and Rygjafylke really got the game off to a strong start.
7. Hamtunscire & Epilogue
Aelfred screen time is a good thing, and this arc earns marks for his badassery in the face of Guthrum, as well as his manipulation of the Dane army. Ally deaths in the battle at Chepeham give the arc meaningful stakes and ratchet up the tension. This arc is brief and straightforward — there’s not much story to it since it’s really just war throughout the whole thing.
Afterwards, Eivor tracks down the final member of the Order and confronts him in a touching sequence over some burnt bread in a small swampy town in the middle of nowhere. It’s a humble conclusion for Aelfred and the swirling epic that was AC: Valhalla.
6. Hordafylke
The return to Norway contains two things: Eivor & Sigurd finding closure with Sigurd’s father, and the two locating “Yggdrasil.”
I quite enjoyed the pit stop with Sigurd’s father, and the entire Yggdrasil sequence was incredibly interesting. It was a refreshing change of pace from what you’ve been doing for the past 100 hours and featured a nice boss fight at the end. No matter which ending you get, the conversation with Sigurd after the dust settles is impactful and weighty.
5. Oxenefordscire
Finally reunited with Sigurd, this is the arc we learn of his obsession with his ancestry and true nature. Eivor’s reaction of discomfort and distrust towards Sigurd’s change is honest and relatable and she must juggle relations between Sigurd and the Thane they are working to put in charge, Gaedric.
Negotiations with King Aelfred are complex and a late intervention from Fulke reveals her true allegiance to the Order and puts Sigurd in enemy hands.
This arc moves the plot along moreso than the last 400 hours you’ve been playing the game, while also establishing and reinterpreting Eivor’s relations with the cast in meaningful ways. It ratchets up the tension of the main quest and narrative, which up to this point had been lagging behind due to a breadth of shire arcs.
4. Glowecestrecire
I’m so surprised to see myself rank this so high — after the first third of the arc, I was considering putting it in dead last. I felt Gunnar’s fiancé’s unintelligible dialogue, the trick-or-treating, the druid encounter, and Eivor’s 400th drunken night of debauchery to be a disrespectful waste of my time this deep (over 80 hours) into the game.
But then the arc turned, with two solid stealth encounters and a stellar boss fight. Navigating the Aelfwood was a gorgeous thrill and the confrontation with Modran is atmospheric and a fantastically fresh take on the typical Valhalla boss or mini boss fight.
When I decided to focus-up on the story and let the Celtic and Welsh mythos shine, the arc became a terrestrial fever dream of satisfying magic, intrigue and character interactions.
3. Grantebridgescire
Eivor looks to ally with Soma, the leader of Grantebridge, but her town’s just been sacked from the inside by a traitor. After saving her three companions in the thick river bogs, you take back Grantebridge and then embark on an investigation to discover the rat.
Its the investigation that makes the whole arc. It has a slew of clues, nuance and red herrings to consider. One of its strengths is how open ended the investigation is — you can follow the quest markers, but talking to the town’s people and hunting down the yellow-painted ship is up to you (at least I think, I played on the most ‘difficult’ exploration setting).
This arc earns big points because the investigation matters — you have to tell Soma to kill one of her closest friends and then watch her do it, living with your right or wrong decision.
2. Eurvicscire
Finally meeting the third of the famed Ragnarson’s, Eivor finds Halfdan a paranoid soul, waxing poetic about friendship and treason. The arc balances the two on a blade’s edge to tremendous effect.
Halfdan believes he has a traitor in his midst and the main culprit is his right-hand man, Faravid.
Faravid's dialogue is expertly written to feign allegiance to Halfdan, but never reveal too much of his true nature. Eivor’s wavering relationship and trust with him are complex and the Wolf-Kissed can lie to both him and Halfdan depending on dialogue choice. Every decision feels like it carries weight. It’s this ambiguity that makes the arc compelling and gives the decisions importance.
This arc could feel disconnected (it’s not part of the main plot and Halfdan doesn’t appear in the late game, no matter your decision) and thus appear as pointless fluff, but I won’t fault it for that. As a self-contained story, this was flat-out interesting and kept me in anticipation of the next reveal or twist. Imagery and foreshadowing, red-herrings, and great atmosphere all make for an engaging and compelling experience. I only wish every shire arc could’ve reached these heights.
1. Sciropscire
Sciropescire’s strengths come somewhat from the arcs that came before it, as it sees Eivor quickly reunited and working with Ivarr and Ceowulf. Your preexisting relationship with both gives this arc an advantage over others where it doesn’t have to establish too much all at once, as well as it starting off with you already having a personal connection of some sort with the main cast. Still, each set piece here is strong enough on its own –

1. Eivor & co. join to negotiate peace with King Rhodri. She can offer 600 silver to whomever she chooses to try and quell the peace talks. Each option is mired in obscurity, has obvious pros and cons, and plenty of uncertainty. It felt impactful, difficult and nuanced.
2. After peace talks go sour with Ivarr’s outburst, Eivor, Ivarr and Ceowulf sack a village under Rhodri’s control. It’s brutal and takes a long time to burn (on purpose!). You then fight a huge party of Rhodri’s men. The whole scene feels vile, over the top and harsh (on purpose!).
3. The twist is that Ivarr kills Ceowulf in cold blood to earn himself the opportunity to get his own revenge on Rhodri — only revealed after you sack Rhodri’s fort (after reaching peace with him). A brutal blood eagle from Ivarr and the game’s best boss fight ensue.

It’s close between the top 3, but this is the best arc in the game, for me.
For once, the game forces you to face the trail of bloodshed and destruction your ‘pacifying’ of England has left in your wake. Additionally, the ambiguous decision-making process in negotiating peace, the brutal village burning sequence, the tangled web of Ivarr’s relationships and motivations, the twists of the peaceful alliance and Rhodri’s fate, and finally, the Ivarr boss fight are just too good all in tandem to not take first place.
--
I’m conflicted looking back on these.
There’s many that feel even more empty than I remember them being now that I draft them as text. However, a surprising number of highly-rated arcs aren’t actually part of the main quest.
Ultimately, I’m left bewildered at the scale and scope of the epic that this game took me on. I was so fatigued by the end of it, but in hindsight so happy I completed it.

I’ve always been really into ghost stories, or urban legends in general. The White Lady, haunted dolls, vampires, black eyed children, that kind of stuff. I know that, today, people my age aren’t big fans of that kind of horror anymore, preferring it things like the Backrooms, analog horror, all the new kinds of scary media. Honestly, I get it, things do need to evolve, and when we see everything that’s happening in the world, it’s understandable that a good old ghost story don’t do the job anymore.

Still, the “old fashioned” horror (it’s not that old, but things move fast on the internet) is always my jam. I grew up watching youtubers investigating haunted places, ghost hunting, with all their accessories, EMF meters, their little radio thing that they use to listen to radio frequencies so that they can hear any interference, their antenna that beeps when something approaches it, voice recorders, special flashlights, and let me tell you that all this, it was doing it for me.

So, since my, probably 7 years, I dreamt of doing these things myself. Of course, I tried everything a young boy is able to do, like Ouija or stupidly walking around my house with my phone filming, hoping that some random deceased person with unfinished business will show up to, I don’t know, have a chat. I wish I could say that other people’s judgement doesn’t affect me, but that would be a lie, so, going in to high school, I had to socially tone down my interest for those things in order to have friends. None of my friends and classmates knew about my persisting passion for ghosts and creepy stories.

I realize that keeping this such a secret is a bit ridiculous, especially approaching my 18^th birthday, but, you know, it would be even weirder to reveal it after hiding it for almost 6 years like it was something super taboo. So here I was, I started hiding my passion at 12 to avoid other’s judging it, and I’m now still hiding it at 17 to avoid others judging the fact that I hid it… A bit pathetic I got to admit.

Anyway, everything started a few days ago. I have an art history class at school and the teacher really likes to give us big works of research. This time, he had a new idea, the whole class will be divided into groups of two, and each group will receive a building from our city that the teacher had choose for his architectural and artistic interests, and we’ll have to give it a visit and write an analysis on the different things we’ll notice and link it to what we saw in class. Since all the buildings were not public places, he had asked the authorization of every property’s owner.

Honestly, this could have been worse. This actually sounded kinda cool to do. Now, what I was concerned about was who will be my partner. Obviously, I was hoping for one of my friends. After explaining the rules and exact instructions for the work, he started to announce the groups. I was waiting to hear my name, anxious, as all my friends were slowly starting to be put into their groups.

“Joshua!” The teacher said (yeah that’s my name). “You will be with…” I was holding on to my chair. “… Elizabeth!”

I turned to Elizabeth, and we looked at each other. Neither one of us seemed excited. It wasn’t a terrible pair, I thought to myself, I just didn’t know what to think of it exactly. Elizabeth was a pretty popular girl, not that I was an outcast or anything, but she was still way more popular than me. I didn’t know much more about her, despite the fact that we were in the same class since my first year of high school, but it looked like she was going to be an okay partner.

The teacher then gave us our building. I won’t reveal the real name of what he gave us so I’ll call it “Guaraldi’s Street 22”. Apparently, it was a pretty old house that had somewhat of an historic value to it. The teacher gave us some information so we wouldn’t stumble there without any prior knowledge. The owner was an old woman who had always lived there. She was apparently very glad to open her doors to young students and was ready to answer any questions we could have. He warned us that she had a weak audition and that we would have to speak loudly. The teacher then recommended us to do a little bit of research before going there, so we could already have some idea of where we were entering.

I then found myself in front of Elizabeth. I think the last time we even talked to each other was months ago when she was distributing a test to the class and that I said “Thanks”, so, yeah, not a lot of background. I noticed, and I don’t know why it took me so long, I guess I never paid much attention to her, that she was dressed in kind of an old style, she wore some clearly used dungarees. The date the teacher had scheduled for our visit was on Sunday, and we were Thursday.

“So, hum, I guess, we can both do research on our side, and we’ll meet, maybe at lunch break tomorrow to get on the same page. Is that good for you?” She asked me.

“Yeah, that’s good, we can do that.”

“Okay, then, see you tomorrow.” She said.

“See you.”

On that she turned her feet and left for her break. The rest of the day went by and I got back home. As usual, my mom wasn’t there, she often has to work late as she’s a single mom to me and my little sister Rosa. I ate my diner and went to my room. I opened my computer to start my research. It wasn’t hard to find information, even though things were repeating themselves a lot: “so much historical meaning for the city”, “a perfect example of “art-deco” architecture”, “a house filled with stories”. There was a lot of talk by local medias about it, but not much actual facts.

It was so weak, that I had to go to page 2 of the search results on google, or, as I like to call them, “the abyss of the internet” (I’m exaggerating a bit, but it’s not often that you have to go there).
Then, something caught my eyes. It was a forum about paranormal experiences, and the address was mentioned on a post. I immediately clicked on it and read the whole thing. It wasn’t exactly the most thrilling story I’ve read, but here’s what it basically said.

Apparently, the owner opened the house as a cottage during the summer, and the person posting was narrating what he experienced during his passage there. He described a very special and kinda suffocating vibe that was apparently all around the house, and the feeling of being observed all the time. He also talked about hearing voices at random moments. They were brief but often mentioned his name. The end of his testimony talked about his last night, when he said he saw a little child with no facial expression in front of his bed, who slowly started to climb into it and grabbed his legs, trying to pull him outside of his bed. The poster said he eventually succeeded to push the kid away, despite his unreal strength, and that the boy ended up running out of the room, laughing. When he spoke to the owner about it the next morning, she said that it must have been his imagination playing tricks on him, as she didn’t believe in paranormal and that nothing similar ever happened to her.

This wasn’t much, it could have been a complete lie, but I would be lying if I said it didn’t peak my curiosity. The story was as basic as it could be, but it was so specific for it to happen in that place, which was absolutely not famous, and even less for any paranormal events. I kept that in the back of my mind and continued my research, but I didn’t find much more, so I went to sleep.

As I was lying in my bed, I was thinking. What if the person who posted his story said the truth. This was the first time I was going to enter somewhere that old and charged with history, this could be the perfect place for my first ghost-hunt. But of course, I was going for school and won’t be alone, plus, it’s not really respectful to the owner, who kindly opened the doors of her family house to us. And even if I wanted to, I’d be constantly with Elizabeth, so, it was not really an option. I looked at the EMF meter I received for a birthday on my shelf and thought to myself that this would be for another time.

The next day, as planned, I met with Elizabeth at lunch break. We started to share the results of our research, where I did not include the post from the forum for obvious reasons. We talked a bit before coming to a clear conclusion.

“Yeah, the thing is, we have the same exact stuff, there isn’t much interesting infos to be found online, except very surface level stuff.” She said.

“Yes, I think we should prepare the questions we want to ask the owner instead.” I answered.

“You’re right, do you think you can have yours for Sunday?”

“Yeah, no problem.”

We exchanged a bit more and eventually went back to class.

On Saturday, I prepared a few questions to ask the owner.

Then came today, Sunday. The meeting was planned at 11AM. I woke up normally, took a breakfast, got dressed, everything. Before leaving my room, I took one last look at the room and I saw my EMF meter. It was like he was begging me to take him. I grabbed it and left. I didn’t know if I would actually use it, but I had it. It had an option where instead of lighting the small lamps he was vibrating, so I activated that and put it in my pocket.

I arrived at the house and Elizabeth was already waiting for me. We knocked and we could hear the owner walking towards the door saying “Yes, yes, just a second.” She opened and she looked like the sweetest thing ever. She was short and had a naturally kind face. We could see that she was clearly dressed and make up for the occasion. She welcomed us and let us in happily. The hallway was very pretty, I understood why our teacher got us this house, it was indeed very interesting. The walls were covered with paintings and old pictures, mostly portraits. On everyone of these, the people had a very serious look, but that’s not unusual for old pictures.

We walked to the living room where she served us tea and we sat together.

“So, I think you have some questions for me?” She asked. You could see that she was very glad to talk. “Don’t be shy, I’m open.”

Elizabeth started to ask her first question then I did, and we could ask her everything.

The house was her family’s for many generations, but it hadn’t always been theirs. All the persons in the hallway, paintings or pictures, were previous habitants of the house, and they went as far as the 15th century, so, yeah, it was all pretty old. She said they could only know the identity of some of the first generations but that a lot of the people were non identified. She answered a lot of other questions regarding the architectural and artistic heritage of the building, and she was surprisingly very interesting to listen to. Her enthusiasm and kindness were contagious, and we both couldn’t help but ask more questions.

Eventually, we arrived to the end of our list, and it was time for us to visit, take notes, analyze, all that. She asked us not to touch anything, as a lot of things had a lot of value, but let us wander free in the house. She said she’ll be making cookies for when we’ll be done. Elizabeth and I found ourselves alone in the living room and finished our tea.

“God,… She’s adorable.” Said Elizabeth with a smile.

“Yes, she’s so sweet, I wasn’t expecting that.” I said.

“Let’s, maybe start with there.” She said, pointing to the room besides us.

We got up and entered it. The walls were covered by huge bookshelves. Elizabeth started to take notes, looking at the room, and I started inspecting the books. There was probably a more than a thousand books, and some of them looked super old. I read the titles of some of them, and the least I could say was that it needed to be rearranged. “Cooking Asian Food”, “Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince”, some old book with the title erased, and even a CD in the middle, it was a bit random.

We eventually moved on to the hallway. It was a bit oppressing with all those eyes who seemed to observe us. Elizabeth did mention how it felt a bit weird and we started to take notes again. At some point, my look stopped on one painting at the back of the hall. It was a young lady, dressed classically, maybe a bit poorly even, for someone who would have lived there. She was kinda pretty, if I’m being honest. But the reason why it caught my eyes was that it was the only one who was smiling. All the other people represented looked dead serious, but her, she smiled. A sweet, even caring and warm smile. I noticed that it seemed like she was staring at me. Of course, a lot of paintings give that same impression, but it was more intense on her.

My heart skipped a beat. I was sure that I just saw her winked to me. I let out a gasp. I was convinced she winked at me. The vibe went from slightly oppressive to extremely heavy. Then we both heard it.

“Elizabeth.”

An unrecognizable voice had just whispered. Elizabeth turned to me.

“Did you say that?” She asked.

“Elizabeth.”

A younger voice this time. We were facing each other, so we knew it couldn’t be one of us this time, and the owner was in the kitchen. Elizabeth’s eyes opened wide and she slowly walked towards me.

“Elizabeth.”

She jumped.

“WHAT THE… fuck?” I let out. We were looking around us.

“Joshua, I don’t like this…”

“Yeah, me neither.”

We were frozen in place, with all the paintings looking right to us.

“Elizabeth.”

That time it was a deep voice, and it came from behind us. We turned. Slowly, all the faces of the paintings and pictures started to clearly move. They were opening their eyes wide and opening their mouths, maintaining their serious, and now even melancholic look.

“Holy shit, holy shit, what the fuck is that, what is it!” Elizabeth was mumbling, panicking as I was starting to breathe faster.

All the people started to say her name together on repeat: “Elizabeth, Elizabeth, Elizabeth…” I turned my head to the painting of the young lady from earlier, and she was the only one that wasn’t moving, still the same smile, she looked at peace.

I don’t remember exactly what I was whispering at that moment, but we were both freaking out.

We heard some scratching noise. Long, dirty hands with sharp nails, almost inhumans, were piercing the pictures and paintings. The eyes of the people were becoming all black, and their jaws were opening more than humanly possible as they kept on repeating her name. The hands were all getting closer from us. We were now touching one another, completely surrounded by those hands. Then, they moved way faster and a lot of them got their nails right into Elizabeth’s skin and pierced it while descending all over her body.

She screamed loudly out of pain. It was a terrifying scream. All the hands got to their pictures and back inside of it while closing what they pierced. Soon, the pictures and paintings were back to normal, but Elizabeth was bleeding from all over her body and was on the floor, crying. I got to her level and tried as much as possible to reassure her, but I wasn’t very effective as I was myself in shock and terrified.
We heard the owner walk towards us.

“What’s happening to you two? I heard screams, are you okay?”

She entered the hallway and saw the scene. She looked completely shocked.

“But what happened?” She asked.

Both of us were unable to answer to her, we had no idea what to say that wouldn’t make us sound crazy, so we just looked at her with whatever faces we were making at that moment. She didn’t wait long and went to take a first aid kid. She sat down and put some bandages all over Elizabeth, as I was reflecting on what happened. When she was done, we both wanted to leave, so we said that we had what we needed for now. She looked sorry and packed some cookies for each of us. As we opened the door to leave, she articulated one last phrase.

“I hope you’ll come back.” She had a look and a tone of sadness. We got out and were now on the street.

We both looked at each other. She was covered in bands, like she got into a huge fight. I started to speak but she lifted her hand.

“Not today. Another one.” She said. “I’ll see you at school.” And she left.

I got on my way too and gave one last look to the house. The old owner was watching me from her window, and I couldn’t tell what her expression was.

I was too tired so I ignored it and went back to my house.

I’m posting this now that I’m back at home. I have no news of Elizabeth, but she did add me on Instagram, so…

I have no idea what I should do now, I have so many questions, so, if anyone has any theories, I’ll take it. I’m also open to questions of course…

I (16F) broke up with my [now ex] gf(17F), who we can just call “Lila”, a little over a week ago. Lila and I dated a little over a month. She and I genuinely weren’t compatible which became hard to ignore. I am autistic, practically touch repulsed and like to express my affection by going out to a museum or skate rink. Lila is a clingy, obsessive girl with health concerns that cut out all my favorite activities and she likes to cuddle.
I know obsessive sounds like an exaggeration and makes me out to be an unreliable narrator so I can provide examples

• she forgot all her interests beyond me and told me directly
• she has a document with a wordcount in the THOUSANDS that is just poems about me (she is still actively updating it
• she wanted to hang out EVERY weekend (I am employed and we are full time students)

there are more but this is already getting a little to obvious on the off chance people who know could find this
back to the goal of the post…
when i broke up with her i had two friends come over to watch a movie. i knew i didn’t want to be friends with Lila because she manages to make me feel like i’m being buried alive. i didn’t know how to end it because of how she might take it so I SAID i wanted to stay friends. she is clearly not over me and has been making posts describing me as some sort of goddess.
i was just trying to be blunt without causing issues or tension but now i’m worried this way is worse? i don’t think i was wrong to break up with her and she shouldn’t make me feel like i owed it to her to hold out a little longer.
with that being said: am i the buttface?

Thought I might post this to reddit after writing it in a comment section. I've seen a lotta people ask about why we always have 4th wall breaks in Doctor who. "Does he know he's in a TV show??" I'm here to give the OTHER side of a theory that's for those who may not agree with that idea (simply outta respect).
First things first, this season revolves around 4th wall entities.
But I'm really hoping the NEVER do this. I always thought of the 4th wall breaks to be 4th dimensional beings who exist outside the universe and NOT us. Keeping the idea of fiction in and moving on from the trend of "characters knowing they're in a piece of media" has been soooooo overdone but more importantly, it wouldn't fit the idea of Doctor Who. "But the 1st Doctor wished us a Merry Christmas, constant 4th wall breaks, and there's a TV show of Doctor Who inside the Whoniverse??"
For me, Mrs Flood has something to her which we don't know yet so i'll hold her off for now, but her explanation could lie with the "TARDIS theory" from The Confused Adipose on his yt channel.
Well yes you could say that's a valid argument but I always thought of the idea of that one TV show of "Doc-" making a reference in Remembrance of The Daleks to just be another unrelated TV show with "Doctor" in the title and it just gave us the quick joke of a "what if" scenario.
The 4th wall breaks to me IMO was The Doctor talking to himself or the creatures mentioned in Series 8's "Listen" to keep him company or hype him up or keep him content in his madness. Chasing the mystery of The Impossible Girl in Series 7's Christmas Special "The Snowmen" ended with The Doctor saying "watch me run" was his way of talking to himself as he narrates his own story for us unintentionally just to keep that barrier between reality and fiction for those who hate the idea of 4th wall breaks and existential character breaks.
Keep in mind, we have JUST HAD THE TOYMAKER AND HIS LEGION.
They're probably our only form of a "4th wall break" we have considering they watch all over reality as he's a 4th or 5th dimensional entity that exists outside the laws of time. They see all the Doctor's quirks, history and storylines and plays with the fabric of reality like a string of cotton.
So they're able to make references and toy with history so that we don't know whats fact or fiction or "canon vs non-canon"This recent episode "The Devil's Cord" we saw a LOT of 4th wall breaks. Maestro for one plays the Doctor Who theme within the first couple minutes and to give it a potential in-universe explanation would potentially be the fact some musician made The Doctor a theme as they visited them. Some famous musician or pianist was probably told about 2 hearts and "the rhythm of four" by The Doctor and that's how they found the melody heard in the title sequences.
That's how the intro music exists in-universe. The most accurate representation of how it sounded from these musician's would probably be the 1st Doctor's opening theme as the instruments such as a piano was available pretty much everywhere throughout history enough to create that iconic 4 beat melody. That's how we see entities such as Maestro play it and hear it on the jukebox. The Doctor has a copy of the vinyl recording and Maestro knows how to play it (being the goddess of music/sound).
The only time we would break this mould could be the Peter Cushing films. It's down to mystery where this could be cleared up as in-universe adventures put to the big screen or a parallel/alternate universe. You could bring up the OG cameo Day of The Doctor intent where the poster for The Dalek Invasion of Earth was supposed to be in the back as a reference.
But it wouldn't make any sense (not like it's needed at this point) for the 2005 revival where the Earth was only just starting to wake up AND THE FACT THE DOCTOR WAS A MYTH ALWAYS BEING ERASED FROM MEDIA, ONLINE FORUMS AND PRETTY MUCH THE UNIVERSE, POST-TIME WAR. He didn't exist, so a "movie about his travels" would be out of place. Unless Ian and Barbara wright had the stories green-lit by the movie studios, I don't think The Doctor would like his anonymity exposed, as well as about Daleks.
Other option is it being a parallel universe, showing what another Doctor in another universe would look like with the same events playing out but just differently. In that way Peter Cushing's performance wasn't brushed off and he gets the legitimate part of a whole other Doctor in a seperate universe.
THAT'S THE BORDERLINE. That's how it should be IMO.

Hi everyone,
I've decided to share some tips for college essays that helped me get to the university I wanted. Even though it is not one of the most famous colleges, I've always wanted to study there. Maybe these tips will help you make your dream come true as well.

Find your "Wow" factor

Colleges have seen their fair share of volunteer trips and sports trophies. You need to dig deep. Was there a quirky hobby you mastered? An unexpected challenge you faced? If you have a question: “How to write a college essay?” - the answer is to use this chance to show them the unique qualities that make you the person you are.

Be specific

Essays are about storytelling, not just listing accomplishments. Instead of saying you're a hard worker, use vivid details to showcase your work ethic in action. Let the reader experience your story and draw their own conclusions about your qualities. Therefore, give them all the necessary information to draw the conclusion you want them to draw.

Authenticity is your goal

Don't try to be someone you're not. Admissions officers can sniff out inauthenticity a mile away (according to the experience of my friends, and I've read this in many articles about writing college essays). Your unique perspective is what makes your essay stand out.

What did you learn?

Every experience has a lesson. What did you gain from your unique story? Did it teach you resilience, creativity, or the importance of teamwork? Help the admissions officers see how this experience will shape you in college.

Revise and then revise again

First drafts are rarely masterpieces. Read your essay aloud and ruthlessly cut unnecessary details. Proofread meticulously, and then proofread again. A typo-free essay shows you pay attention to detail. Use services like Essayshark to edit and proofread your essay faster. You can hire a qualified writer there who will help you structure your narrative and make sure it's free of mistakes and plagiarism. They usually deliver orders very fast, so you will not have to wait for a long time.
I hope some of you will find my college essay advice helpful. Maybe I will also share my thoughts on how to start a college essay in the next post.

Week 11-12: Epic Journeys and Blank Verse
Day 1: Exploring Epic Storytelling - Activity: Analyze an excerpt from a classic epic poem. - Lecture: Discuss the characteristics and narrative structure of epic poetry. - Discussion: Share thoughts on the enduring appeal of epic journeys.
Day 2: Crafting Epic Narratives - Activity: Break down the process of crafting an epic poem. - Lecture: Explore the use of elevated language and heroic themes. - Discussion: Share and discuss individual ideas for epic narratives.
Day 3: Mastering the Art of Blank Verse - Activity: Analyze a famous work written in blank verse. - Lecture: Explain the structure and rhythmic qualities of blank verse. - Discussion: Discuss the freedom and constraints of writing in blank verse.
Day 4: Writing Exercise - Epic Journey Poem - Activity: Craft a poem exploring an epic journey or heroic theme. - Assignment: Write a blank verse poem on a chosen topic. - Vocabulary Words: Epic, Heroic, Blank Verse.
Day 5: Peer Review and Feedback - Activity: Peer review workshop for epic poems and blank verse. - Lecture: Discuss the enduring appeal of epic storytelling and the rhythmic qualities of blank verse. - Discussion: Share insights gained from reviewing peers' work.
Study Guide Questions for Week 11-12: 1. Discuss the characteristics and narrative structure of epic poetry. What makes a journey "epic"? 2. Explore the use of elevated language and heroic themes in crafting epic narratives. 3. What defines blank verse, and how does its rhythmic quality contribute to the overall impact? 4. Discuss the freedom and constraints of writing in blank verse. 5. Reflect on the process of crafting an epic poem and a blank verse poem. How did you approach the themes and rhythmic qualities?
Quiz: Assessment on the understanding of epic poetry, the characteristics of epic journeys, and the rhythmic qualities of blank verse.

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division, divorce, DNA, do, doctor, document, dog, domestic, dominant, dominate, door, double, doubt, down, downtown, dozen, draft, drag, drama, dramatic, dramatically, draw, drawer, drawing, dream, dress, drink, drive, driver, drop, drug, dry, due, during, dust, duty, dwell, dying, dynamic, each, eager, ear, earlier, early, earn, earnings, earth, earthquake, ease, easily, east, eastern, easy, eat, economic, economy, edge, edit, edition, editor, educate, education, educational, educator, effect, effective, effectively, efficiency, efficient, effort, egg, eight, either, elderly, elect, election, electric, electrical, electricity, electronic, element, elementary, eliminate, elite, else, elsewhere, e-mail, embrace, emerge, emergency, emission, emotion, emotional, emphasis, emphasize, employ, employee, employer, employment, empty, enable, encounter, encourage, end, enemy, energy, enforcement, engage, engine, engineer, engineering, English, enhance, enjoy, enormous, enough, ensure, enter, 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false, familiar, family, famous, fan, fantasy, far, farm, farmer, fashion, fast, fat, fate, father, fault, favor, favorite, fear, feature, federal, fee, feed, feel, feeling, fellow, female, fence, festival, few, fewer, fiber, fiction, field, fifteen, fifth, fifty, fight, fighter, fighting, figure, file, fill, film, final, finally, finance, financial, find, finding, fine, finger, finish, fire, firm, first, fish, fishing, fit, fitness, five, fix, flag, flame, flat, flavor, flee, flesh, flight, float, floor, flow, flower, fly, focus, folk, follow, following, food, foot, football, for, force, foreign, forest, forever, forget, form, formal, formation, former, formula, forth, fortune, forward, found, foundation, founder, four, fourth, frame, framework, free, freedom, freeze, French, frequency, frequent, frequently, fresh, friend, friendly, friendship, from, front, fruit, frustration, fuel, fulfill, full, fully, fun, function, fund, fundamental, funding, funeral, funny, furniture, furthermore, future, gain, galaxy, gallery, game, gang, gap, garage, garden, garlic, gas, gate, gather, gay, gaze, gear, gender, gene, general, generally, generate, generation, genetic, gentleman, gently, German, gesture, get, ghost, giant, gift, gifted, girl, girlfriend, give, given, glad, glance, glass, global, glove, go, goal, God, gold, golden, golf, good, govern, government, governor, grab, grace, grade, gradually, graduate, grain, grand, grandmother, grant, grass, grave, gray, great, green, grocery, ground, group, grow, growing, growth, guarantee, guard, guess, guest, guide, guideline, guilty, gun, guy, habit, habitat, hair, half, hall, hand, handful, handle, hang, happen, happy, harbor, hard, hardly, hat, hate, have, he, head, headline, headquarters, health, healthy, hear, hearing, heart, heat, heaven, heavily, heavy, heel, height, helicopter, hell, hello, help, helpful, hence, her, herb, here, heritage, hero, herself, hey, hi, hide, high, highlight, highly, highway, hill, him, himself, hip, hire, his, historic, historical, history, hit, hold, hole, holiday, holy, home, homeless, honest, honey, honor, hope, horizon, horror, horse, hospital, host, hot, hotel, hour, house, household, housing, how, however, huge, human, humor, hundred, hungry, hunter, hunting, hurt, husband, hypothesis, ice, idea, ideal, identification, identify, identity, ignore, ill, illegal, illness, illustrate, image, imagination, imagine, immediate, immediately, immigrant, immigration, impact, implement, implication, imply, importance, important, impose, impossible, impress, impression, impressive, improve, improvement, incentive, incident, include, including, income, incorporate, increase, increased, increasingly, incredible, indeed, independence, independent, index, indicate, indication, individual, industrial, industry, infant, infection, inflation, influence, inform, information, ingredient, initial, initially, initiative, injury, inner, innocent, inquiry, inside, insight, insist, inspire, install, instance, instead, institute, institution, institutional, instruction, instructor, instrument, insurance, intellectual, intelligence, intend, intense, intensity, intention, interaction, interest, interested, interesting, internal, international, Internet, interpret, interpretation, intervention, interview, introduce, introduction, invasion, invest, investigation, investigator, investment, investor, invite, involve, involved, involvement, Iraqi, Irish, iron, Islamic, island, Israeli, issue, it, Italian, item, its, itself, jacket, jail, Japanese, jet, Jew, Jewish, job, join, joint, joke, journal, journalist, journey, joy, judge, judgment, juice, jump, junior, jury, just, justice, justify, keep, key, kick, kid, kill, killer, killing, kind, king, kiss, kitchen, knee, knife, knock, know, knowledge, lab, label, labor, laboratory, lack, lady, lake, land, landscape, language, lap, large, largely, last, late, later, Latin, latter, laugh, launch, law, lawsuit, lawyer, lay, layer, lead, leader, leadership, leading, leaf, league, lean, learn, learning, least, leather, leave, left, leg, legacy, legal, legend, legislation, legislative, legislator, legitimate, lemon, length, less, lesson, let, letter, level, liberal, library, license, lie, life, lifestyle, lifetime, lift, light, like, likely, limit, limitation, limited, line, link, lip, list, listen, literary, literature, little, live, living, load, loan, local, locate, location, lock, long, long-term, look, loose, lose, loss, lost, lot, lots, loud, love, lovely, lover, low, lower, luck, lucky, lunch, luxury, machine, mad, magazine, mail, main, mainly, maintain, maintenance, major, majority, make, maker, makeup, male, mall, man, manage, management, manager, manner, manufacturer, manufacturing, many, map, margin, mark, market, marketing, marriage, married, marry, mask, mass, massive, master, match, material, math, matter, may, maybe, mayor, me, meal, mean, meaning, meanwhile, measure, measurement, meat, mechanism, media, medical, medication, medicine, medium, meet, meeting, member, membership, memory, mental, mention, menu, mere, merely, mess, message, metal, meter, method, Mexican, middle, might, military, milk, million, mind, mine, minister, minor, minority, minute, miracle, mirror, miss, missile, mission, mistake, mix, mixture, mm-hmm, mode, model, moderate, modern, modest, mom, moment, money, monitor, month, mood, moon, moral, more, moreover, morning, mortgage, most, mostly, mother, motion, motivation, motor, mountain, mouse, mouth, move, movement, movie, Mr, Mrs, Ms, much, multiple, murder, muscle, museum, music, musical, musician, Muslim, must, mutual, my, myself, mystery, myth, naked, name, narrative, narrow, nation, national, native, natural, naturally, nature, near, nearby, nearly, necessarily, necessary, neck, need, negative, negotiate, negotiation, neighbor, neighborhood, neither, nerve, nervous, net, network, never, nevertheless, new, newly, news, newspaper, next, nice, night, nine, no, nobody, nod, noise, nomination, nominee, none, nonetheless, nor, normal, normally, north, northern, nose, not, note, nothing, notice, notion, novel, now, nowhere, nuclear, number, numerous, nurse, nut, object, objective, obligation, observation, observe, observer, obtain, obvious, obviously, occasion, occasionally, occupation, occupy, occur, ocean, odd, odds, of, off, offense, offensive, offer, office, officer, official, often, oh, oil, okay, old, Olympic, on, once, one, ongoing, onion, online, only, onto, open, opening, operate, operating, operation, operator, opinion, opponent, opportunity, oppose, opposed, opposite, opposition, option, or, orange, order, ordinary, organic, organization, organize, orientation, origin, original, originally, other, others, otherwise, ought, our, ours, ourselves, out, outcome, outside, oven, over, overall, overcome, overlook, owe, own, owner, pace, pack, package, page, pain, painful, paint, painter, painting, pair, pale, Palestinian, palm, pan, panel, panic, pant, paper, paragraph, parent, park, parking, part, participant, participate, participation, particle, particular, particularly, partly, partner, partnership, party, pass, passage, passenger, passion, past, patch, path, patient, pattern, pause, pay, payment, PC, peace, peak, peer, pen, penalty, people, pepper, per, perceive, percentage, perception, perfect, perfectly, perform, performance, perhaps, period, permanent, permission, permit, person, personal, personality, personally, personnel, perspective, persuade, pet, phase, phenomenon, philosophy, phone, photo, photographer, phrase, physical, physically, physician, piano, pick, picture, pie, piece, pile, pilot, pine, pink, pipe, pitch, place, plan, plane, planet, planning, plant, plastic, plate, platform, play, player, please, pleasure, plenty, plot, plus, PM, pocket, poem, poet, poetry, point, police, policy, political, politically, politician, politics, poll, pollution, pool, poor, pop, popular, population, porch, port, portion, portrait, portray, pose, position, positive, possess, possession, possibility, possible, possibly, post, pot, potato, potential, potentially, pound, pour, poverty, powder, power, powerful, practical, practice, prayer, preach, precisely, predict, prediction, prefer, preference, pregnancy, pregnant, preparation, prepare, prescription, presence, present, presentation, preserve, president, presidential, press, pressure, pretend, pretty, prevent, previous, previously, price, pride, priest, primarily, primary, prime, principal, principle, print, prior, priority, prison, prisoner, privacy, private, probably, problem, procedure, proceed, process, processing, processor, proclaim, produce, producer, product, production, profession, professional, professor, profile, profit, program, progress, progressive, project, prominent, promise, promote, prompt, proof, proper, properly, property, proportion, proposal, propose, prosecutor, prospect, protect, protection, protein, protest, proud, prove, provide, provider, province, provision, psychological, psychology, public, publication, publicity, publish, publisher, pull, punishment, purchase, pure, purpose, pursue, push, put, qualify, quality, quarter, quarterback, quarterly, queen, quest, question, quick, quickly, quiet, quietly, quit, quite, quote, race, racial, radiation, radical, radio, rail, rain, raise, range, rank, rapid, rapidly, rare, rarely, rate, rather, rating, ratio, raw, reach, react, reaction, reader, reading, ready, real, reality, realize, really, reason, reasonable, recall, receive, recent, recently, reception, recipe, recipient, recognition, recognize, recommend, recommendation, record, recording, recover, recovery, recruit, red, reduce, reduction, refer, reference, reflect, reflection, reform, refugee, refuse, regard, regarding, regardless, regime, region, regional, register, regular, regularly, regulate, regulation, regulator, reinforce, reject, relate, relation, relationship, relative, relatively, relax, release, relevant, relief, religion, religious, rely, remain, remaining, remarkable, remember, remind, remote, remove, repeat, repeatedly, replace, replacement, reply, report, reporter, represent, representation, representative, Republican, reputation, request, require, requirement, research, researcher, resemble, reservation, resident, residential, resign, resist, resistance, resolution, resolve, resort, resource, respect, respond, response, responsibility, responsible, rest, restaurant, restore, restriction, result, retain, retire, retirement, return, reveal, revenue, review, revolution, rhythm, rice, rich, rid, ride, rifle, right, ring, rise, risk, river, road, rock, role, roll, romantic, roof, room, root, rope, rose, rough, roughly, round, route, routine, row, rub, rubber, rude, ruin, rule, run, running, rural, rush, Russian, sacred, sad, safe, safety, sake, salad, salary, sale, sales, salt, same, sample, sanction, sand, satellite, satisfaction, satisfied, satisfy, sauce, save, saving, say, scale, scandal, scare, scatter, scenario, scene, schedule, scheme, scholar, scholarship, school, science, scientific, scientist, scope, score, scream, screen, script, sea, search, season, seat, second, secondary, secret, secretary, section, sector, secure, security, see, seed, seek, seem, segment, seize, select, selection, self, sell, Senate, senator, send, senior, sense, sensitive, sentence, separate, sequence, series, serious, seriously, servant, serve, service, session, set, setting, settle, settlement, seven, several, severe, sex, sexual, shade, shadow, shake, shall, shallow, shape, share, sharp, she, sheet, shelf, shell, shelter, shift, shine, ship, shirt, shock, shoe, shoot, shooting, shop, shopping, short, shortly, shot, should, shoulder, shout, show, shower, shrug, shut, shy, sibling, sick, side, sigh, sight, sign, signal, significant, significantly, silence, silent, silver, similar, similarly, simple, simply, sin, since, sing, singer, single, sink, sir, sister, sit, site, situation, six, size, ski, skill, skin, skirt, sky, slave, sleep, slice, slide, slight, slightly, slip, slow, slowly, small, smart, smell, smile, smoke, smooth, snap, snow, so, so-called, soccer, social, society, soft, software, soil, solar, soldier, sole, solid, solution, solve, some, somebody, somehow, someone, something, sometimes, somewhat, somewhere, son, song, soon, sophisticated, sorry, sort, soul, sound, soup, source, south, southern, Soviet, space, Spanish, speak, speaker, special, specialist, species, specific, specifically, specify, speech, speed, spend, spending, spin, spirit, spiritual, split, spoil, sponsor, sport, spot, spray, spread, spring, square, squeeze, stability, stable, staff, stage, stain, stair, stake, stand, standard, standing, star, stare, start, state, statement, station, statistical, status, stay, steady, steal, steel, steep, stem, step, stick, still, stimulate, stimulus, stir, stock, stomach, stone, stop, storage, store, storm, story, straight, strange, stranger, strategic, strategy, stream, street, strength, strengthen, stress, stretch, strike, string, strip, stroke, strong, strongly, structural, structure, struggle, student, studio, study, stuff, stupid, style, subject, submit, subsequent, substance, substantial, substitute, succeed, success, successful, successfully, such, sudden, suddenly, sue, suffer, sufficient, sugar, suggest, suggestion, suicide, suit, summer, summit, sun, super, supply, support, supporter, suppose, supposed, Supreme, sure, surely, surface, surgery, surprise, surprised, surprising, surprisingly, surround, survey, survival, survive, survivor, suspect, sustain, swear, sweep, sweet, swim, swing, switch, symbol, symptom, system, table, tactic, tail, take, tale, talent, talk, tall, tank, tap, tape, target, task, taste, tax, taxi, tea, teach, teacher, teaching, team, tear, technical, technique, technology, teen, teenager, telephone, telescope, television, tell, temperature, temporary, ten, tend, tendency, tennis, tension, tent, term, terms, terrible, territory, terror, terrorist, test, testimony, testing, text, than, thank, thanks, that, the, theater, their, them, theme, themselves, then, theory, therapy, there, therefore, these, they, thick, thin, thing, think, thinking, third, thirty, this, those, though, thought, thousand, threat, threaten, three, throat, through, throughout, throw, thus, ticket, tie, tight, time, tiny, tip, tire, tissue, title, to, tobacco, today, toe, together, toilet, token, tolerate, tomato, tomorrow, tone, tongue, tonight, too, tool, tooth, top, topic, toss, total, totally, touch, tough, tour, tourist, tournament, toward, towards, tower, town, toy, trace, track, trade, tradition, traditional, traffic, tragedy, trail, train, training, transfer, transform, transformation, transition, translate, translation, transmission, transmit, transport, transportation, travel, treat, treatment, treaty, tree, tremendous, trend, trial, tribe, trick, trip, troop, trouble, truck, true, truly, trust, truth, try, tube, tunnel, turn, TV, twelve, twenty, twice, twin, two, type, typical, typically, ugly, ultimate, ultimately, unable, uncle, undergo, understand, understanding, unfortunately, uniform, union, unique, unit, United, universal, universe, university, unknown, unless, unlike, until, unusual, up, upon, upper, urban, urge, us, use, used, useful, user, usual, usually, utility, utilize, vacation, valley, valuable, value, variable, variation, variety, various, vary, vast, vegetable, vehicle, venture, version, versus, very, vessel, veteran, via, victim, victory, video, view, viewer, village, violate, violation, violence, violent, virtually, virtue, virus, visibility, visible, vision, visit, visitor, visual, vital, voice, volume, voluntary, volunteer, vote, voter, voting, wage, wait, wake, walk, wall, wander, want, war, warm, warn, warning, wash, waste, watch, water, wave, way, we, weak, weakness, wealth, wealthy, weapon, wear, weather, web, website, wedding, week, weekend, weekly, weigh, weight, welcome, welfare, well, west, western, wet, what, whatever, wheel, when, whenever, where, whereas, whether, which, while, whisper, white, who, whole, whom, whose, why, wide, widely, widespread, wife, wild, wildlife, will, willing, win, wind, window, wine, wing, winner, winter, wipe, wire, wisdom, wise, wish, with, withdraw, within, without, witness, woman, wonder, wonderful, wood, wooden, word, work, worker, working, workout, workplace, works, workshop, world, worried, worry, worth, would, wound, wrap, write, writer, writing, wrong, yard, yeah, year, yell, yellow, yes, yesterday, yet, yield, you, young, your, yours, yourself, youth, zone.