Thank you guys for all your nice comments on my previous post! Here's my followup post walking through the anthology - I apologize for the delay, but I wanted to sit with this half of the album a bit longer. This analysis will be slightly different: first I’ll go through themes present throughout the anthology, and then walk through each song individually, since it’s not as consecutive of a story as the first album. As with my first analysis, I tend to also stay away from literal details as proof that a song is about a certain subject or muse – to me, it’s easier to understand the album when you think first about what the song’s overarching meaning is, rather than getting caught up in literal details (and I think Taylor often throws these in as red herrings). Moreover, it’s important to note that it’s likely that the literal detail she’s thrown in is one that only she and the muse will understand (i.e. her referencing a lilac skirt in imgonnagetyouback is unlikely to be one we’ve ever seen her wearing in public, so it’s useless to paternity test based on that detail!).
Firstly, the word anthology means a collection of assorted literary works. As a result, I think there are more themes scattered through this album, and it’s meant to be a little harder to parse than the first one. I think this album is what TTPD would have been before it crystallized into a tighter theme – similar to the 3 AM tracks for Midnights, the majority of which were written prior to the standard edition’s tracks.
There are a few themes throughout this album. From a romantic context, to me, this album is primarily about Joe. I’ll walk through why I believe that, but this album feels less muddled to me in terms of its muses, and I think that is in part due to the fact that her self-described mania from the standard edition is not a theme on the anthology. This work also covers her own relationship to celebrity and fame, and how that affects her romantic relationships and her personal life in general. And finally, I think the final theme throughout this collection is the idea of childhood, of formative experiences, and how our author goes about processing events that happen to her.
The Black Dog
What happens when you intimately know someone, when you share every aspect of your life with someone, and then it's over? Six weeks after their breakup, she’s barely holding it together (“I move through the world with the heartbroken”). She even tried to rebound her pain away (“I took the miracle move on drug, the effects were temporary”), and wasn’t able to succeed. Meanwhile, she sees him go to a bar, and she has the sudden realization that he may be able to do what she failed to do – he might be able to move on, with someone new. Reckoning with that realization is horrifying. If he is able to pull it off, what does that mean about the love they shared? When he had told her for years that he was who he was for her, and her alone?
You said I needed a bravе man
Then proceeded to play him
Until I believed it too
And it kills me
How could they go from being so intimate that they shower together, that she’s aware of his every move, to being so distant from each other that she wonders if making her fall in love with him was a hazing? And the cruelest part of it is – she doesn’t want either one of them to be able to move on, and give validity to the fact that they weren’t right for each other, even though she knows they have to. Moreover, she’s already *tried* to move on at this point, and failed – she tried to manufacture a counterfeit version of their intimacy, but what if he’s able to perfectly replicate it? And to really drive in the knife, what if it’s with someone younger than her?
And you jump up, but she's too young to know this song
That was intertwined in the magic fabric of our dreaming
Given that a theme throughout the first album was her feeling like she’d given him so much of her youth, so much of her childbearing years, with nothing to show for it, what does it feel like to know that he can essentially reset time, by being with a younger woman, but she’ll never be able to get that time back?
imgonnagetyouback
We know that her and Joe took a break or two while they were together (see: Hits Different, The Great War, in addition to PR articles). To me, this song is about when you do take that break from your partner, and you’re trying to make a point to them that they’re not going to find anyone better than you (I can tell when somebody still wants me, come clean) – the two of you are too intimately intertwined to find a suitable replacement. You know what to wear, what to say, what to do to bring them back to you:
I, I hear thе whispers in your eyes
I'll make you wanna think twice
You'll find that you were never not mine
This song also has a lot of similarities to So Long, London, which is why I attribute it to Joe. To me, it provides a deeper story to some of the lines she touches on in So Long, London:
I didn't opt in to be your odd man out
I founded the club she's heard great things about
And to some of the lines in Hits Different:
I washed my hands of us at the club
You made a mess of me
I pictured you with other girls in love
Then threw up on the street
//
Bet I could still melt your world
Argumentative, antithetical dream girl
imgonnagetyouback is a story of one-upmanship – of trying to out-jealous your partner, of proving to them that nobody knows them better than you do. And maybe this time when they’re both playing this game, it works:
Push the reset button, we're becomin' something new
Say you got somebody, I'll say I got someone too
Even if it's handcuffed, I'm leavin' here with you
//
We broke all the pieces, but still wanna play the game (Oh)
Told my friends I hate you, but I love you just the same
Pick your poison, babe, I'm poison either way
The spacing to me is a deliberate red herring (the 1975 very famously made a song called fallingforyou), and a way to illustrate that the subject of the song wants space from her – but she’s not going to give it to him. This is another theme that calls back to Joe – in So Long, London, she describes him as constantly pulling away (Pulled him in tighter each time he was driftin' away). Matty didn’t pull away – he was all in for two weeks, until he chose to ghost her, and leave abruptly. There was no slow death, no push and pull to her relationship with Matty – it was a meteoric rise and fall.
The Albatross
This song feels like a sister song to “peace” – she describes what it’s like to love her. It’s a little more twisted, however, as she describes her love for her partner as both a danger, and a rescue from the danger she’s imposing on him by being involved with him:
Wise men once said
"Wild winds are death to the candle"
A rose by any other name is a scandal
Cautions issued, he stood
Shooting the messengers
They tried to warn him about her
She’s described herself as wind and liquor in her relationship with Joe previously, in Mastermind:
I'm the wind in our free-flowing sails
And the liquor in our cocktails
She has empathy for the narrator, but disdain for herself. There’s also acceptance though: she knows that she tried to prevent it, and tried to warn him about the danger she posed. In the end though, he chose this life with her, and he chose the danger – there’s only so much she can protect him from.
The devil that you know
Looks now more like an angel
I'm the life you chose
And all this terrible danger
Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus
This song feels like another sister song to The Black Dog – how does she cope with the idea that her long-time partner might move on? How does she cope with the fact that if she chooses to leave, she also chooses the future in which they both move on? A future in which they don’t know each other? It also touches on her wondering if she should move on with Matty, and how feasible it would be to know someone else instead of her partner:
If you want to tear my world apart
Just say you've always wondered
This song, more than anything else, illustrates that moving on with Matty was nothing but a way to move past Joe – what she really wants, more than anything, is a response greater than indifference from Joe:
As the decade would play us for fools
And you saw my bones out with somebody new
Who seemed like he would've bullied you in school
And you just watched it happen
There’s also the realization that Joe may never love who she is now – who she was at the beginning of their relationship will always be who he prefers:
If you want to break my cold, cold heart
Just say, 'I loved you the way that you were'
She’s trying desperately to find some way to make up for the fact that she had to leave Joe, that there was nothing she could do to stay – she tried changing everything about herself, but still, the need to leave him eventually caught up with her:
I changed into goddesses, villains and fools
Changed plans and lovers and outfits and rules
All to outrun my desertion of you
And you just watched it
And she wonders whether despite his indifference, and the distance between them, she should still stay:
Could it be enough to just float in your orbit
Can we watch our phantoms like watching wild horses
Cooler in theory but not if you force it
To be, it just didn't happen
But now, they are merely ghosts of who they once were – it’s not possible to force the relationship anymore.
How Did It End?
When a long-term relationship ends, you can point to the factors that led to its demise: a difference of opinions on money, on marriage, on children, and so forth. It is easy to determine the “what” and the “why” of an ending. But what is harder to diagnose is how you both became the versions of yourselves that weren’t on the same page, that were unable to discuss these topics, that couldn’t move past these dilemmas. That is much, much harder to pinpoint, and this is the question Taylor asks in this song. She knows what killed them:
We hereby conduct this post-mortem
He was a hot house flower to my outdoorsman
//
We were blind to unforeseen circumstances
We learn the right steps to different dances (ohh)
And fell victim to interlopers' glances
Lost the game of chance, what are the chances?
But what she still doesn't know is how it happened – how did it end? She also finds the empathy from the media and from the public to be false and selfish – they only want to know what happened to feverishly spread the news like wildfire.
Come one, come all
It's happenin' again
The empathetic hunger descends
We'll tell no one
Except all of our friends
We must know
How did it end?
//
Soon they'll go home to their husbands
Smug 'cause they know they can trust him
Then feverishly calling their cousins (ohh)
//
Say it once again with feeling
What the feeding frenzy wants more than anything is gossip, and they don’t care that she is utterly lost – lost as to why this happened, and lost physically and mentally:
Guess who we ran into at the shops?
Walking in circles like she was lost
How does she give an answer to quell the empathetic hunger, when she herself doesn’t understand exactly how it happened?
So High School
In an album that touches so much on feeling like she’s running out of time to have the future that she wants, and running out of youth to give the various men who come into her life, it is interesting and heartwarming that the song about Travis on the anthology is one that describes being with him as regaining her youth:
The brink of a wrinkle in time
Bittersweet sixteen suddenly
Moreover, another detail to note in this song is the difference in how she describes alcohol and drugs – in nearly every other song on TTPD, alcohol is a vice she uses in her moments of despair, and drugs are what her previous partners turn to in their moments of strife (she also describes the influence of drugs on her partners as something she detests – “sinking in stoned oblivion” and “you needed me but you needed drugs more”). With Travis, she’s not imbibing in any substances – instead, his thoughts and jokes are enough for her:
I'll drink what you think, and I'm high
From smoking your jokes all damn night
Travis is giving her back her youth, making sober promises, and the impression that we get is that they’re building this dreamlike reality together – it’s wholesome, all-American, and high-school-inspired, yet still grounded in something tangible, unlike the promise of fate and destiny, which powered her relationship with Joe and her entanglement with Matty.
I Hate It Here
More than anything, I think this song illustrates how Taylor sometimes uses escapism and maladaptive daydreaming to ignore the reality of the situation she’s dealing with. She recognizes that it’s not possible to stay where she is, locked inside this prison of stagnation and boredom:
If comfort is a construct
I don't believe in good luck
Now that I know what's what
She recognizes that this isn’t what she used to be, and that she never intended to choose this life of secrecy, perhaps alluding to all those years she spent “locked inside her house”:
You see I was a debutante in another life but
Now I seem to be scared to go outside
She describes herself as finding hope in the places her mind creates (seemingly alluding to her creation of characters and places for folklore and evermore):
I hate it here so I will go to
secret gardens in my mind
People need a key to get to
The only one is mine
I read about it in a book when I was a precocious child
And her escapism into her past, and imaginings of what could have been:
I hate it here so I will go to
Lunar valleys in my mind
When they found a better planet
Only the gentle survived
I dreamed about it in the dark
The night I felt like I might die
All throughout the song, there’s recognition that she doesn’t want to be here – she doesn’t want to feel as if the only place she can be free is in these imaginary worlds she creates. But there’s also concession – is she perhaps only destined for an eternal consolation prize? For loneliness? For imagined romanticism? For the fantasy of how she imagined her life and her love to be?
I'm lonely but I'm good
I'm bitter but I swear I'm fine
I'll save all my romanticism for my inner life and I'll get lost on
purpose
This place made me feel worthless
Lucid dreams like electricity, the current flies through me,
and in my fantasies I rise above it
And way up there, I actually love it
​​thanK you aIMee
This song, along with a few others in the latter half of the anthology, discusses the loss of innocence she felt in key moments of her life. This one quite obviously alludes to Kim Kardashian, and their infamous feud. I will make a separate post on this, but I think people describing this song as petty may not remember the depth of the hate aimed at Taylor in 2016. Kim and Kanye organized a revenge porn music video for Famous, and held a museum exhibit so that people could take pictures with the naked dolls. The night the snapchat videos were released, every Kardashian family member descended upon social media to gleefully celebrate the #TaylorSwiftIsOverParty. The amount of hate Taylor got was so unprecedented that Instagram actually built their comment filtration system because of this incident. It really was that bad.
And every baby step Taylor took (for example, even just posting that she had a good 2017 was met with immediate media backlash) was quite literally mocked across the internet. People thought the reputation era was cringey, that she was over, and that she deserved everyone’s ire because she was “proven” to be a liar. She describes this in the song:
Each time that Aimee stomped across my grave
And then she wrote headlines in the local paper
Laughing at each baby step I'd take
And it was always the same searing pain
But the whole time, despite the pain and blood, she was dreaming of the day that she would heal, and dreaming of the day that she would climb her way back to to the mountaintop:
And our town, it looks so small from way up here
//
So I pushed each boulder up that hill
Your words were still just ringing in my head, ringing in my head
What still irks her though, is that this bully who created this entire hate train and organized her downfall will pretend as if it never happened – she will undoubtedly reframe things to make our subject seem overdramatic, petty, and unable to move past the incidents of years ago. Taylor, however, has always been clear about one thing: sometimes, no amount of time can heal you from something that deeply traumatized you.
I Look in People’s Windows
This song to me feels like a sister song to The Black Dog, but a few months after the official end of a relationship. A sub theme that runs through Taylor’s songs about the Joe breakup is the loss of being understood – when you are no longer with a long-term partner, how do you cope with the fact that you move the world knowing everything about this person, but at the same time, not knowing them anymore? Would you peek into their windows just to get a glimpse of what their life looks like now? As anyone who has gone through a breakup knows, the hardest part is often not being privy to the mundane details of that person’s world – their dinner parties, their wine, their friends, and so on.
I look in people's windows
Transfixed by rose golden glows
They have their friends over to drink nice wine
I look in people's windows
In case you're at their table
What if your eyes looked up and met mine
One more time
The Prophecy
The prophecy is devastating. More so than any other song Taylor has ever written, it is full of desperation and longing. All she asks for is to be known, to be understood – to not be perceived as an idea of a woman, or a starlet with no humanity:
Please
I've been on my knees
Change the prophecy
Don't want money
Just someone who wants my company
Let it once be me
Who do I have to speak to
About if they can redo
The prophecy?
It’s striking especially considering how much she laments that leaving Joe means she’s giving up being known – it’s also striking given the fact that in the epilogue poem, she states that neither Joe or Matty ever truly knew her:
He never even scratched the surface
of me.
None of them did.
What she desires beyond fame, beyond notoriety, beyond money, is to be loved and to be known. The song also alludes to her being in therapy, and to finding some sort of consolation that she will find someone to share her life with:
I'm so afraid I sealed my fate
No sign of soulmates
I'm just a paperweight
In shades of greige
Spending my last coin so someone will tell me
It'll be ok
Cassandra
This track is a sister song to ​​thanK you aIMee, and continues exploring the theme of fraught public womanhood we see in Clara Bow and Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me. In this song, Taylor discusses how the validation of women is never publicized in the way that the crucifixion of them is:
When the first stone's thrown, there's screaming
In the streets, there's a raging riot
When it's "Burn the bitch, " they're shrieking
When the truth comes out, it's quiet
Moreover, when women speak up about an issue, they’re often viewed as overdramatic, and unserious. Cassandra, in Greek mythology, was cursed by Apollo to always predict the future accurately, but never be believed. We see this happen every day to women in politics, in the media, and in pop culture:
So, they killed Cassandra first 'cause she feared the worst
And tried to tell the town
So, they set my life in flames, I regret to say
Do you believe me now?
And for Taylor, it’s reminiscent of all the times she’s been the first to speak out about something in the industry – for example, against Scooter Braun and his well-established pattern of bullying, or of the exploitation of artists on streaming services – but never been supported broadly by her peers. They believe her later, but at that point, very few people give her the credit for speaking up in the first place. It’s reminiscent of the Kimye scandal. When the news broke originally, the hatred she received was widespread. But when she was acquitted by the long-form video that leaked, it didn’t receive anywhere near the level of coverage that the original scandal received.
Peter
Peter is another song that touches on both the male muses for this album, and in turn, on the promises various men have given her over her life (we’ll circle back to this in The Manuscript!). It also touches on the theme of waiting that’s seen throughout this album, especially on her songs about Joe – how much time is enough time to give?
Both Matty and Joe were 25 when they met her, and it’s abundantly clear that both men made promises to her: promises of marriage, of children, and of a future. But how long can she wait for these promises to be fulfilled? To Joe, she gives six years of her life and youth, and to Matty, she gives him a chance to prove that he was reformed from the time she knew him last: both men eventually fail. Neither man is ready to give up their childish whims, and she has no choice but to lose hope that either of them ever will.
And you said you'd come and get me but you were 25
And the shelf life of those fantasies has expired
Lost to the lost boys chapter of your life
Forgive me Peter, please know that I tried
To hold onto the days when you were mine
But the woman who sits by the window has turned out the light
Another thing to note is the interesting double meaning of the song title. To peter also means to diminish gradually – much like her faith in both men’s promises.
The Bolter
A lot of the songs Taylor has written about Joe in this album deal with the question of “when is the right time to leave?” When you know that things are stagnant, and you know that you’ve given everything you have to a relationship, you know that you have to leave – but it’s easy to convince yourself if you have a history of “leaving before you get left” that you should ride out this wave, and that this pain might just be temporary.
The Bolter, to me, reflects on Taylor’s history – it seems like she prided herself on being able to see the warning signs, and being able to get out in time.
She's been many places with
Men of many faces
First, they're off to the races
And she's laughing drawin' aces
But, none of it is changin'
That the chariot is waitin'
Hearts are hers for the breakin'
There's an escape in escaping
It’s relevant to TTPD, because likely, she saw not bolting as a sign of growth and maturity. You know that you’ve grown as a person when you don’t abandon ship at the first sign of trouble, but what if there are so many signs of trouble that the truly mature thing to do would be to leave?
Robin
Robin leads into this theme of childhood and innocence that we see further in The Manuscript. The track name is also the name of Aaron Dessner’s child. She ponders how beautiful and sweet it is that we work so hard to protect childhood naivete:
Strings tied to levers,
slowed down clocks tethered,
all this showmanship
To keep it, for you,
In sweetness
And there’s an element of wistfulness to it – don’t we sometimes wish that we could also be protected from the worst the world has to offer?
You have no room in your dreams for regrets
You have no idea
The time will arrive for the cruel and the mean
You'll learn to bounce back just like your trampoline
But now we'll curtail your curiosity
The Manuscript
This song is perhaps the most climactic song on the album. It covers her romantic history up until that point, and starts at the moment she feels everything went awry – and it predates Joe and Matty. Instead, it calls back to the first time she experienced a proper heartbreak, and the first time she lost her childlike innocence in the world – her relationship with Jake Gyllenhaal (a time she described as her transition from childhood to womanhood). She describes how they compared licenses, and how he told her that if they had sex, and it was as good as the conversation was, then they would get married, and have a family. He was the first man to make her these promises:
He said that if the sex was half as good as the conversation was
Soon they'd be pushin' strollers
But soon it was over
He tells her that it’s ok that they have an age gap, because she’s so advanced for her age:
She thought about how he said since she was so wise beyond her years
Everything had been above board
She wasn't sure
While dating him, she desperately wants to be older, and starts emulating his behavior:
In the age of him, she wished she was thirty
And made coffee every morning in a French press
And when it’s over, she regresses, and turns back into a child – unable to sleep alone without the comfort of her mother, and unable to eat anything substantial besides the sugary cereal of her youth:
Afterwards she only ate kids' cereal
And couldn't sleep unless it was in her mother's bed
She forces herself to date boys her own age, to not rely on the maturity of an older man to guide her through adulthood, but she can’t help but feel disappointed in their youth:
Then she dated boys who were her own age
With dart boards on the backs of their doors
Finally, as she creates the All Too Well short film, she recognizes the damage he did to her, and how the consequences of that affair have shaped her life since:
And the years passed
Like scenes of a show
The Professor said to write what you know
Lookin' backwards
Might be the only way to move forward
Then the actors
Were hitting their marks
And the slow dance
Was alight with the sparks
And the tears fell
In synchronicity with the score
And at last
She knew what the agony had been for
Everything calls back to this first man, and these original promises – everything she’s been chasing since is reminiscent of this first scar. And just like how releasing All Too Well transformed and healed her, she hopes that by releasing this additional manuscript into the world, it will heal her again. As she describes in the epilogue poem, she is entering all her thoughts, emotions, and pain into evidence – she now asks the audience to process it with her, and thus conclude this process of healing.
The only thing that's left is the manuscript
One last souvenir from my trip to your shores
Now and then I reread the manuscript
But the story isn't mine anymore
If you read all of this - thank you! I enjoyed writing it, and I'm excited to discuss with you all in the replies :)

This is a summary of Arc PMF framework by Team Sequoia. I found it insightful, worth discussing here.
They mention 3 categories of product market fit and suggest how to operate in each (do share which one relates to your product)
The Arc Product-Market Fit Framework

1. Hair on Fire

Hair on Fire archetype is for products that solve a customer's urgent and well-defined problem. The challenge for these products is to stand out in a crowded market.

• Customer Mindset: "Help me now"
• Market Category: Crowded
• Must Overcome: Noise
• Product Value Proposition: Best-in-class solution
• Failure Mode: Out-competed
• Winning Ingredient: Be different, not merely better
• Example: RudderStack entered a crowded Customer Data Platform market. It clearly differentiated from other platforms by choosing to not host the customer data on its platform rather choosing warehouse-native and Open Source approach where you store data on your own central warehouse only. It made the solution best-in-class solving obvious data quality and governance issues. The early success in such market is seen clearly in the fact that customers replace their existing product (Customer Data Platform providers, the leading ones) with your product (RudderStack).

2. Hard Fact

Hard Fact archetype is for products that solve a customer's chronic pain point. The challenge for these products is to get customers to switch from their existing habits.

• Customer Mindset: "It is what it is."
• Market Category: Stagnant
• Must Overcome: Habit
• Product Value Proposition: Novel solution for an accepted pain
• Failure Mode: Problem isn't worth solving
• Winning Ingredient: Upend the status quo
• Example: Hubspot. Small businesses were stuck using expensive traditional marketing. HubSpot offered a new, affordable solution: inbound marketing. The challenge was to make businesses aware of this new approach and overcome their habit of using traditional methods. HubSpot addressed this by educating the market through content and establishing themselves as thought leaders.

3. Future Vision

Future Vision archetype is for products that create a new market category. The challenge for these products is to convince customers that they need the product.

• Customer Mindset: "Yeah, right."
• Market Category: Non-existent
• Must Overcome: Disbelief
• Product Value Proposition: New paradigm
• Failure Mode: Wrong path to the future
• Winning Ingredient: Make sci-fi a reality
• Example: Nvidia. Their initial 3D graphics chip was revolutionary but lacked a clear market. For six years, they struggled to find the "aha" moment, eventually landing in the video game industry. This success, driven by a totally new market enabled by their technology, propelled them to become a leader and eventually reach their original vision of a new era of computing as we see today.

Do share which one relates to your product and any anecdotes to support or debunk the advice given here?

I'm not entirely sure how to describe what I want but you'll know if you've ever experienced it. I want to be incapacitated for at least a week after reading it. Give me a book that will drive my loved ones crazy when I don't stop yapping about it. If it doesn't awaken something in me, I don't want it. Basically I just want to cry. It can have a happy ending but I'd prefer if it didn't. Don't be afraid to suggest a popular book because chances are I probably haven't read it. Most of the time I just reread Rick Riordan books until I get tired of them lol
Some books I've already read that have that general vibe: The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins Bridge To Terabithia - Katherine Paterson Woman 99 - Greer Macallister
Non book examples: I Know The End - Phoebe Bridgers (song) The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived - Taylor Swift (song) The Two Headed Calf - Laura Gilpin (poem) Adventure Time (show) Pretty much the entirety of Bojack Horseman Arcane: League of Legends (show) Life Is Strange (I've only played the first game but I assume the rest are just as tragic) What Remains Of Edith Finch (game)
Other optional details/themes/tropes: Found family Child soldiers/children in scenarios they should not be in Manmade horrors beyond comprehension Based on something that could happen/has happened LGBTQ+ (preferably MLM but I'll take what I can get) The hero or someone close to them was actually the bad guy the whole time There is no real bad guy and no one wins either All of it could've been avoided
Things I hate in a book: Romance as the main topic Graphic sex scenes. One or two is fine but if that's all there is to the book I'm not reading it Whiny MC's who don't learn any lesson or undergo any character development Step-incest/any "dark romance" Female characters that were obviously written by straight men POC characters that were obviously written by someone not of that culture with very little research

Dear alexei I’m sorry the tsar is your father, let me be honest
It take a man to be a man, your dad is not responsive
I look at him and wish the khan would’ve wore a condom
I'm sorry that you gotta grow up and then stand behind him
Life is hard, I know, history is always gon' beat it’s tune
Sometimes our parents make mistakes that affect us until we grown
And you're a good kid that need good leadership Let me be your mentor since your daddy don't teach you shit
Never exploit your fellow man son
Either you join the movement or meet the dustbin son
Never fall into the semi feudal business, that's bad ideology
Please remember, you could be a bitch even if you got bitches
Never hide your aims, whether bourg or prol, you your own man
Even if it don't benefit your self, do some push-ups, get some discipline
Don't suppress people like your daddy did, fuck what Tzarism did
Don't pay to play with them Cossack’s get a gym membership
Understand, no throwin' bombs and hidin' hands, that's adventurism
Don't be ashamed 'bout who you with, that's bourgeoisie family shit
Don't have a kid to make an heir to rule again, be sure Five percent will exploit, but 95 are prols
Be different than your father, your strength come from within
Lotta stars that progressive but your daddy ain't one of them And you nothing like him, you'll carry yourself comrade
Can't understand me right now? Just play this when you 18
Dear, Maria Your son got some habits, I hope you don't undermine them
Especially with all the prols that's hurt inside this climate
You a woman, so you know how it feels to be alienated
You complicit, hopin' the world can stay the same and plebs stay blinded
Dear Alexander you gave birth to a master manipulator
Even using you to prove who he is, is a huge favor I think you should be killed as well, and your father and his father, and his father
I'm blaming you for all his religious fixations
Psychopath intuition, the man that like to play victim
You raised a horrible fucking person, the nerve of you, Alexander
Maria, sit down, what I'm about to say is heavy, now listen
Mm-mm, your son's a sick man with sick thoughts, I think tyrants like him should die
Him and Weinstein should get fucked up in a cell for the rest they life
He hates prols, peasants, terrorizes'em with iron boot and secret police
Grew facial hair because he understood bein' a beard just fit him better
He got sex offenders on Okhrana that he keep on a monthly allowance
A child should never be compromised and he keepin' his kids around them
And we gotta raise our children knowin' there's predators like him lurkin'
Fuck a rap battle, he should die so all of these people can live with a purpose
I been in this industry 28 years, I'ma tell y'all one lil' secret
It's some weird shit goin' on and some of these bourgeois be here to police it
They be streamlinin' victims all inside of they home and callin' 'em tender
Then pass reform on themselves to further push their agendas
To any worker that be loyal to his state, know that you're playin' your own class
Or better, you're sellin' your kids to the weirdos, not the good ones
Mr. Karl Marx said, "Get you the truth, " so I'ma get mines
Winter Palace 'bout to get raided, too, it's only a matter of time
Ayy, Workers, keep the family away, hey, Prols, keep the family away
To anybody that embody with love for they kids, keep the family away
They lookin' at you too if you standin' by him, keep the family away
I'm lookin' to shoot through any tyrant that lives, keep the family safe
Dear, Anastasia I'm sorry that your father not active inside your world
He don't commit to much but his rule, yeah, that's for sure
He a narcissist, misogynist, livin' inside his laws Try’n destroy families rather than takin' care of his own
Should be teachin' you timetables or watchin' operas with you
Or at your sixteenth birthday singin' poems with you
Instead, he at the front gettin' prols killed and downing' vodka, examples that you don't deserve
I wanna tell you that you're loved, you're brave, you're kind
You got a gift to change the world, and could change your father's mind
'Cause our children is the future, but he lives inside confusion
Money's always been illusion, but that's the life he's used to
His father prolly didn't claim him neither History do repeats itself, first as a tragedy then as a farce
But I would like to say it's not your fault that he's killing' other kids
Give him grace, this the reason I wrote “What is to be Done” So our babies like you can cope later
Give you some confidence to go through somethin', it's hope later
I never wanna hear you chase a buck 'cause his failed behavior
Sittin' in the factory with capitalists for validation You need to know that class should be abolished the state ended
I'll tell you who your father is, just play this song when it rains
Yes, he's a, exploiter, prol killer, mega tyrant, right And a fuckin' deadbeat that should never say "more life"
Meet the Grahams
Dear, Nicholas I know you probably thinkin' I wanted to crash your party
But truthfully, It’s the forces of history, that’s moving my body
This supposed to be a good development within the game
But you fucked up the moment you resisted the real movements aims.
Why you had to stoop so low to oppress some decent people?
Guess intelligence is lost when the theory doesn't reach you
And I like to understand 'cause your house was never a home
49, but you showin' up as a seven-year-old You got gamblin' problems, drinkin' problems, pill-poppin' and spendin' problems
Bad with money, cuckhold
Solicitin' capital problems, therapy's a lovely start But I suggest some ayahuasca, strip the ego from the bottom
I try to empathize with you 'cause I know that you ain't been through nothin'
Crave entitlement, but wanna be liked so bad that it's puzzlin'
No dominance, let's recap moments when you didn't fit in
No secret handshakes with your friend No cultural cachet to binge, just disrespectin' your mother
Identity's on the fence, don't know which family will love ya
The skin that you livin' in is compromised in personas
Can't channel your masculine even when standin' next to a woman
You an autocrat, you gon' suppress the workers and peasants, ain't ya?
You embarrassed of 'em, that's not right, that ain't how mama raised us
Take that mask off, I wanna see what's under that incompetence
Why believe you? You never gave us nothin' to believe in
'Cause you lied about religious views, you lied about the war effort
You lied about your accent and your past tense, all is perjury
You lied about the duma and reforms, you lied about your government
They all pussy, you lied on 'em, I know they all got you in 'em
You lied about your son, you lied about your daughter, huh
You lied to them other kids that's out there hopin' their dads come home
You lied about the only comrade that can offer you some help
Fuck a rap battle, this a long life battle with yourself

Unlocking the Beauty of Terza Rima**
Summary:
Terza rima is a poetic form originating from Italy, traditionally associated with Dante Alighieri's "Divine Comedy." It consists of tercets (three-line stanzas) linked by a rhyme scheme (ABA, BCB, CDC, and so on), with the final stanza often a rhymed couplet.
Examples:

1. Classical: "The Divine Comedy" by Dante Alighieri.
   
2. Modern: "Acquainted with the Night" by Robert Frost.
   
3. Modern: "Ode to the West Wind" by Percy Bysshe Shelley.
   

Tips for Creative Writing:

• Embrace Unity: The interconnected rhyme scheme adds coherence to the poem.
  
• Explore Themes: Terza rima lends itself well to exploring complex themes or narratives.
  
• Rhyme Creatively: Experiment with word choices to create a harmonious and rhythmic flow.
  

Questions for Exploration:

1. How does the interlocking rhyme scheme contribute to the poem's overall structure?
   
2. Can you identify any modern poems or songs that use terza rima?
   

Additional Resources:

• Read more of Dante Alighieri's work, particularly "Purgatorio" and "Paradiso."
  
• Explore T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" to see a modernist take on terza rima.
  

Creative Writing Prompt:
Step 1: Choose a theme or emotion to explore.
Step 2: Craft the first tercet (ABA).
Step 3: Build on the narrative or emotion in the next tercet (BCB).
Step 4: Continue the pattern, leading to a concluding rhymed couplet.
Example: In the twilight's embrace, whispers linger (A), Reflecting shadows dance, a silent figure (B). Beneath the moon's glow, memories trigger (A).
Remember: Terza rima offers a structured canvas for poetic exploration and narrative development.

Mastering the Repetitive Beauty of the Triolet**
Summary:
A triolet is a short poetic form with eight lines, typically characterized by a specific rhyme scheme and repeated lines. The first, fourth, and seventh lines are the same, as are the second and eighth lines. This creates a rhythmic and melodic pattern within the poem.
Examples:

1. "A Triolet" by Christina Rossetti.
   
2. "Triolet on a Line Apocryphally Attributed to Martin Luther" by A. E. Stallings.
   
3. "Triolet" by Robert Bridges.
   

Tips for Creative Writing:

• Choose a Captivating Refrain: Craft a refrain that can be interpreted in multiple ways.
  
• Explore Emotional Layers: Use repetition to emphasize different emotions with each iteration.
  
• Mind the Syllabic Count: Maintain a consistent syllabic count for each line.
  

Questions for Exploration:

1. How does the repetition of lines contribute to the triolet's impact?
   
2. Can you think of everyday situations or emotions that could be beautifully expressed through a triolet?
   

Additional Resources:

• Explore triolets by French poets from the 17th century for historical context.
  
• Read contemporary poets like Mary Jo Bang for innovative approaches to the triolet form.
  

Creative Writing Prompt:
Step 1: Choose a theme or emotion for your triolet.
Step 2: Craft a captivating refrain that encapsulates the essence of your chosen theme.
Step 3: Develop the narrative or emotion within the remaining lines, incorporating the refrain.
Example: In twilight's embrace, shadows softly fall (A) In twilight's embrace, shadows softly fall (A) A dance of darkness, a poetic sprawl (B) In twilight's embrace, shadows softly fall (A)
Remember: The triolet's concise structure offers a canvas for exploring depth within brevity.

I'm 33F and former Catholic (now agnostic). I've been reading a lot recently about the death of church communities and that contributing to our social isolation, seeing how much church and AA have positively impacted my relatives lives', and just feeling a lack of cohesive community in my own life (my social groups are all really piecemeal)
As a result, I'm interested in experimenting with hosting meetups in Brooklyn, likely around Park Slope area or maybe Windsor Terrace or downtown Brooklyn (TBD) that are regularly scheduled (ideally on Sunday middays or afternoons). They would be similar to the structure of church service for the first part, but really secular in nature and just more reflective, social, fun, and chill. Envisioning the tone will (especially initially) probably be kind of funny and riskily stupid and ironic to be honest, but also real and sincere at other points.
I haven't figured out a location or set structure yet but thinking an example would look like:

• pop/etc. music singalong (different songs every time, requested by community members) during different parts of the "church" service
• readings: a few people read prose or poems either that they encountered or that they've written that are meaningful to them
• "sermon": the maybe most meaty part every week where someone talks about a recent learning they had or talks about a story from their life
• reading our 'hopes for the week' (for the world or our own lives) anonymously submitted out loud
• briefly meet other people ("peace be with you")
• block of silent journal, meditation, artistic exercise, or prayer time at the end
• social hour after "church" - coffee, snacks, and just hanging out or going to lunch or to a brewery/bar after that

I have an idea in mind that we will trade off so one person from the community each week who volunteers will be the "lead" (meaning they do the main storytelling/"sermon" and pick the songs, and the whole session is flavored by what's going on in their mind that they want to share with other people) and one person will be the facilitator / emcee that does the run of show to keep it on schedule. So it's also good low risk public speaking and facilitation / etc. experience in a way for anyone that wants to try that out.
Maybe this sounds cringe haha but that's why I'm asking here to get a sense of interest - does anyone have this drive for more Sunday structure / interested in something like this? Or knows of something like this that exists?

I am a Muslim comic book creator. I wanted to share my thoughts and feelings on how a Muslim in the modern world should regard sequential art used for storytelling, in the context that our scholars have largely agreed that representational art is a potential path toward idolatry.
The central topic on which I’d like to address the community is the nature of the philosophical concept of fiction.
Fiction is the process of either creating or interpreting a story or work of art as being false in its literal nature, while regarding the nonliteral message or messages of the work. In understanding how this affects Islam and the words of the Prophet Mohammed, we must understand that fiction, as a concept, has not always existed in the world, and is in fact a relatively modern phenomenon.
Let us first consider the nature of legends. Today, the concept of a legend seems almost synonymous with fiction. But ancient peoples did not think this way.
The Iliad and the Odyssey are epic poems which were composed by the illiterate Greek poet Homer, and preserved in the oral tradition by generations of European bards, before being transcribed by later generations. The poems were not considered fiction by the people who had them as integral to their contemporary culture.
It is a true fact that roughly 5,000 years ago, a Greek confederacy of city states invaded the Trojan homeland in what is today Turkiye, initially by laying siege to the walled city of Ilion, the capital city and most important port of the nation of Troy.
About 2,000 years later, Homer composed epic poems about events which he knew to be real and true. However, he did not do archaeological research in Turkiye, he did not consult written records of the time, and he did not investigate physical artifacts of the war and time period surrounding it. Instead, he relied on his oral traditions, and generations of stories, to be true. When he composed the Iliad and the Odyssey, he understood Achilles, Agamemnon, and Odysseus to be real people who had actually lived, fought, and died as he described it. He included the Greek gods as characters in the story, because, as a devout Greek pagan, Homer believed these gods to actually exist, and to have played active roles in the conflict.
This is not an act of history, because of its lack of connection to physical artifacts that we can analyze scientifically. The so-called “father of history”, Herodotus, would not even be born for another 2,500 years. Even then, Herodotus was a poor historian by today’s standards. The first person to use physical evidence in constructing a history of the past was Sima Qian, a Chinese scholar who lived 3,000 years after Homer. The Muslim scholar, Ibn Khaldun, wouldn’t begin writing about the need to interpret the past through a broad lens until 1,300 years after that. The practice of studying foreign history through a secular lens wouldn’t begin for another 500 years, starting with Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.
But it’s also true that the Iliad and Odyssey are not works of fiction. While we contemporaneously understand them to be “fictional” in that they do not contain much in the way of truth, they were, in fact, designed to convey what the author thought was true to his audience. This is what we now understand to be a “legend” - something which is repeated by believers as being true, while actually being a complete (or nearly complete) falsehood.
The first piece of literature presented as fiction in the modern sense is a novel written in Japanese called The Tale of Genji. The author, a woman named Murasaki Shikibu, did not intend for the audience to regard it as a truthful account of an actual event. She made it clear in her presentation that it did not represent a literal truth, but instead acted as allegory for a moral and social truth.
The Tale of Genji was written only 900 years ago.
The first European novel was Don Quixote, by Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes, a mere 400 years ago.
Muslim nations and their languages didn’t begin producing novels until about 200 years ago.
The Prophet Mohammed lived and died roughly 1,400 years ago. Which means, when he addressed the issue of representative art being a path to idolatry, the concept of fiction was still 500 years away from being known to Humanity; and still 1,200 years away from being a common concept to Arabs, Persians, and other peoples who had largely converted to Islam.
When the Prophet Mohammed was warning the Ummah of the dangers of representative art, it was in a specific historical context. The people he was speaking to had only two ways to understand information: true or false. The use of allegory to create a fictional setting in which to interpret metaphors did not exist to the first members of the Ummah. Therefore, when they saw a painting of a tree, it was simply a lie. It gave the appearance of a tree, without actually being a tree. It was a deception.
This is how the road to idolatry begins: by accepting a falsehood as the truth. We can see this in contemporary examples. Hindus in India can sometimes be presented with statues of living or deceased people, and begin worshiping them. Famously, when under the British Raj, a statue of Queen Victoria was raised in a village square. The Hindus living there, having no context for statues of non-deities, began praying to and giving sacrifices to the statue of Queen Victoria. Because of their cultural context, they understood statues not to be mere representations, but monuments to deities specifically. This lack of a philosophical framework leads to idolatry.
We can also see this phenomenon in modern commercial media. Photographs, isolated from the context of their creation, and manipulated by computers to be more psychologically appealing, are used to create a false image of a Human being. Celebrities are called “idols”, not as a metaphor, but because they are literally accumulating the praise that belongs to God. People look to celebrities to sell them cures for their illnesses, products which will bring them happiness, and communities which bind them to the brand. The methods employed by celebrity culture are identical to those employed by the cult industry. We even have the phrase “cult of personality”, again, not as a metaphor, but because personalities are often at the center of cults. This is sort of an aside, but this is also why prophets like Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed were so clear on being nothing more than mortal men. Because worshiping them would be idolatry. All praise belongs to God.
Although constructed out of bits of reality, the images and stories created by celebrity brands are a lie. They portray themselves as blameless, faultless, unworthy of scorn, and without sin. But those are qualities which belong only to God, and no one - and nothing - else. When a celebrity does or says something which offends, they must go on tour to make amends, so as to repair their image, because they cannot permit themselves to have an image which is stained by the Humanity of error.
But when we engage with a story which we understand to be fiction, everything changes. We inherently desire stories about imperfect people having conflict over relatable Human issues. Never in all the great works of literature ever published in any language, regarded by historians as masterpieces, do we ever find a blameless, faultless hero. Instead, we find complex and difficult people, with sophisticated perspectives, and moral philosophies forged through a combination of insight and experience. In fiction, we do not seek God or gods. In fiction, we seek introspection into the Human condition.
There are works of fiction with blameless characters who are without fault, but these are universally reviled, and widely understood to be a form of intellectual self-gratification. The first best known example of such a work was a fan-made short story set in the universe of Star Trek, in which the author, named Mary Sue, inserted a character into the universe who was named Ensign Mary Sue. Said character immediately saved the USS Enterprise from disaster by being the smartest person aboard, and then seduced Captain Kirk. The majority of the story was merely an explicit description of sex acts. This story became well known not because people enjoyed it. In fact, quite the opposite. It was shared as an example of the poorest possible quality writing. The story had no tension, no message, and no meaning, other than for the author to tell others about her own sexual fantasies.
To this day, “Mary Sue” is used as derisive shorthand in fiction to describe a character who is impossibly confident and impossibly competent. A “Mary Sue” is everything a fictional protagonist should not be, and everything a brand celebrity must be.
My conclusion from this is that when the Prophet Mohammed preached against the use of representative art as the pathway to idolatry, this was due to the cultural context of the Ummah who lived at the time. Without the framework of fiction as a philosophical concept to filter their experience of art, and as can be seen with modern polytheists worshiping statues, it can be extremely dangerous to engage with representative art. However, with an understanding that narrative art is fictional, and therefore a metaphorical insight into the Human condition, representative art discourages idolatry, and encourages introspection into the limitations and sins of Humanity. The much greater modern threat of idolatry comes from celebrity culture, which creates untruths and then espouses them as the only truth.
To this end, the greatest weapon we have against the danger of idolatry is media literacy. Learning to understand how media is used to create the appearance of truth, while containing none, is how we navigate the complexities of fiction and deduce the misinformation of supposedly informative storytelling.
Therefore, in a world where the philosophical concept of fiction does not exist, there can be a real danger in representative art leading to idolatry. However, in a world where fiction is well understood, but also those consuming the media lack the skills to tell where truth ends and fiction begins, the greatest danger of idolatry comes not from paintings or cinema, but instead from those who use photos and videos to trick the viewer into believing something which is not true, perpetuating a false purity and moral supremacy.
THE END
Postscript:
Building on the understanding that fiction can be a permissible form of representative art in Islam, I have written "The Adventures of Kobra Olympus," a comic book that features a Muslim woman superhero. Kobra Olympus embodies strength, intelligence, and compassion, offering a powerful role model for young Muslims and non-Muslims alike. This project is currently live on Kickstarter, and I would love your support to bring this vision to life. By backing our Kickstarter, you can help increase positive representation of Muslims in media, fostering greater understanding and diversity in storytelling. Your support will not only contribute to the creation of an exciting and dynamic comic book but also play a crucial role in challenging misconceptions and celebrating the rich cultural tapestry of the Muslim community.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jamsheedstudios/kobra-olympus-issue-2-robot-rumble

It feels like I just saw my dog die.
I was using Outline. It’s like OneNote for Mac. The benefit of it is it’s more flexible with nested folders than OneNote. However, I can never recommend it to anyone. This loss is so comprehensive and was a so unavoidable that I’m kind of in shock.
Last night it reset in such a way as to make its backups somehow disappear. I’ve lost work in the past and I’ve had laptops crash. So I always work with an external hard drive plugged in so my laptop is literally always backing up. But even when I used TimeMachine and went back to the previous hour, or day, it doesn’t matter, the Outline App did not reset. Its automatic backups disappeared. Even ones I’d previously used in prior months.
From what I can tell it updated unasked, or crashed, either way it wiped everything. First it reset to a version a year old. Then to being completely blank. And somehow it corrupted its own backups. Like all note taking software it’s got automated backups. But this crash was different. It didn’t even crash per se, I just switched from one window and back and suddenly everything was gone. No warning. Not error. I am currently left with a OneNote backup that’s years old.
Ive been using Outline for years, to the point that I only still have a Mac because transferring all my notes manually to OneNote would have taken so long. (Outline can import from OneNote but not export to anything else).
I cannot stress this enough. If you are using Outline you need to switch off it.
I have spent hundreds of hours annotating, translating, and interpreting Irish mythology, folklore, even legal texts, line by line from CELT, Mary Jones, Lady Gregory, Stokely Whites, Thomas Kinsella, Donald McKinnon, even Yeats, and many more. Recently i had just completed a review of 5 different versions/translations of the story of Deirdre. With comparative notes on all versions, with cultural analysis, so I had a version that had every detail and difference, including where translators differed form the base text and even in some cases misrepresented the base Irish text. It was for me the definitive compendium of the story of Deirdre as told in the original texts. I even translated the poems so that they retained the original meaning but still rhymed. It was goddamn beautiful.
It’s honestly heartbreaking that I’ve lost all my notes. My favorite thing to do was write live reactions to the text as I interpreted it, and you can never read a story for the first time again. I don’t think the reality of it has really sunk in yet. I don’t think I can wrap my head around how much work has actually been lost. I had a character profile, a written summary with notes of life events, for essentially every single character in Irish mythology that I could find, from mythological cycle through to the ulster cycle. I had created a family tree that listed every single name mentioned in the Book of Invasions, from fucking Noah down. Hundreds of characters with sources from the base texts, books, jstor, even many many articles that invaluable resources on this sub like @stevenad have shared with me. I will have to go back through all my posts to recollect those. I had stories of the sidhe, clurichan (red leprechauns that make shoes and clothes from human skin), selkies, abhartach (one of the earliest examples of vampires) and lots of others.
I truly love this sub. And I know I’ve already asked so much from the members, my post history is proof of that alone. But, I have another request:
So, to stave off my depression, please share your favorite stories, your favorite characters, your favorite quotes. I need to get excited about Irish mythology again before I let this random tragedy ruin me.
For what it’s worth, I think the greatest piece of standalone Irish mythology is the W.B. Yeats short story "On Baile's Strand." It is a play based on Irish Cu Chulainn and a mysterious warrior that turns up on the shore. It’s beautiful and tragic, like all Irish folklore. Please read it and let me know how it makes you feel.
I feel like fighting the ocean right now.

(Note: ‘retail’ refers to the regular Neopets website, currently owned by NetDragon, previously owned by JumpStart - thank you u/fancytables)
BACKGROUND
Before I begin this post, it is important to talk about what Neopets is and why a classic version of it was created in the first place. Neopets is a virtual petsite where you can own pixel pets, converse with other players on the neoboards, play games, meet people through guilds (which are like clubs geared toward certain interests), and partake in daily activities. Because Neopets is now a 24-year-old site, many of its users have been around for a while and remember what Neopets was like pre-conversion.
In 2007, Viacom (the company that owned the domain at the time) decided to “convert” all pets in order to introduce customization–a new site feature where you could spend real money to dress up your pets. While pre-conversion Neopets had dynamic poses and character, post-conversion Neopets were static and rather awkward. Most species and color combinations were automatically converted, but owners of certain combinations were given the option to keep their original unconverted pet. This drove up the value of unconverteds (otherwise known as UCs), and created a fierce trading system on Neopets. In a sea of converted pets, everyone wanted an unconverted.
Players had the option to trade around and work their way up to getting one of these highly coveted pets–but starting from ground zero often meant working on a singular trade chain for years, if not decades. This was a daunting task for many. Soon enough, there was a robust black market for unconverted pets…and when I say robust, I mean, people who desperately wanted these “UC” pets were flooding the “black market” with thousands of US dollars per year.
Millions of players who had been there since the beginning of Neopets would continue to be discouraged by the site's direction for years to come. In 2020, it was announced that Adobe Flash would soon be discontinued. With the termination of Flash, all the beloved Neopets games that relied on it were lost. Three years ago, Neopets further dug its own grave by introducing NFTS. Needless to say, the active player base has dramatically decreased over the years.
NEOPETS CLASSIC IS DEBUTED
Enter Neopets Classic (NPC), a fansite made to model early 2000s Neopets when there were around 3 million active users. For privacy purposes, the name Kiko will refer to the site’s creator (all screenshots with him will be censored in YELLOW). Kiko began working on this project as a way to learn code in his offtime. He began posting screenshots of the progress he was making with NPC on Reddit as far back as 5 years ago (2019). To say Neopets fans were excited is an understatement. When the site eventually opened to the public in December 2020, tons of users rushed to make accounts and create the unconverted pets they had never imagined getting to own, along with names that are probably stuck on frozen accounts from 2003 or so on retail. Instead of Rose6920Neopets, it was possible for a user on Neopets Classic to actually make the pet “Rose”. In its early days, the site was incredibly nostalgic and fulfilling for many people.
Kiko opened a Patreon account where people could show their support through monthly donations ranging from $1 to $25. Each tier unlocked special rewards on NPC’s Discord server, but the most appealing was the ability to make an NPC account for $1. After the initial wave of sign-ups, the site closed regular sign-ups to manage the influx of users as there were easily 200 members already. The only way people could get accounts after this point was by donating, or to wait for sign-up links to be posted about every month or so to the Discord. After receiving an email from Patreon where they warned him of Neopets copyright issues, Kiko moved to Buy Me A Coffee (BMAC).
A few months into Neopets Classic, there was a surge of site bugs and issues that went unfixed and quickly piled up. Kiko was nowhere to be found for almost two months. There was no communication indicating when users could expect fixes to the issues they were facing in game. Not even the mods were able to tell the users when or even if he would be back. He came back eventually, with no word of apology or explanation for his absence. This left users quite upset at the lack of communication while he was MIA, and not knowing whether their ongoing donations were going to waste if the site never started working properly again.
Kiko’s prolonged absence opened a door for many cheaters to abuse the site. This included the use of various bots and scripts that could auto-refresh around the site and auto-buy items from shops. Additionally, several users funneled items and neopoints (the in-game Neopets currency) from their side accounts to their main accounts, which was against the rules. Upon his return, Kiko was made aware of the massive cheating issue and started issuing bans accordingly. He created a channel within the Discord titled “Wall of Shame”, where he mocked the users he froze and immortalized their “crimes.” Ironically, Kiko himself had quite a bit of experience with similar illegal behavior on retail Neopets. He had previously been a black market seller of “UC” pets for real money on retail - and Clraik, a forum-based website dedicated to sharing and engaging in Neopets cheats, did not hesitate to expose this in his ban message from their site. Interestingly, Kiko had previously been fairly involved in the Clraik community and even recruited his first Neopets Classic players from there. He eventually deleted the channel.
Kiko also shamed his own playerbase behind closed doors in BMAC-only channels, but the Wall of Shame wouldn't be the first time he did so publicly. During the Halloween event in 2021, players collected candy around the site that came in different varieties. To redeem prizes, you had to collect certain varieties of candies - and if you didn’t have those varieties, you could swap candies with other users to get what you needed. One user made an unpopular choice to ask for multiples of one kind of candy for less of another and received severe backlash from not only the community but Kiko himself. While some users agreed that the player was acting out of line and applauded Kiko’s condemnation of the user, many others were grossly uncomfortable with the site creator openly ridiculing a player who wasn’t breaking any known game rules. Kiko had started a dogpile where members of the community continued to speak against the user, who then felt bullied off the site. A few friends of his followed suit and quit playing.
ART CHAOS
On March 7th, 2022, an NPC artist (who will henceforth be referred to as Carmariller) asked Kiko for permission to add a commissioned pet to the site that had been commissioned by a user with Neopoints. Kiko said yes and gave her permission, noting that it wasn’t any different from a user paying for a commission, as long as the user was fine with it being on the site. Their stone Shoyru design was eventually added to the site. Later on, several other users pitched in together to pay for a commission of another pet design from Carmariller in hopes of it being added to the site. When the site’s main moderator (let’s call her Lupe) found out about this in a public channel, she made it clear that commissions for pets to be added to the site were not allowed anymore, claiming it was unfair for users who couldn’t pay to affect site art through neopoints. However, those who had commissioned the art were confused and upset that this decision was made in direct opposition to the precedent of the Stone Shoyru. Following Lupe’s claims of unfairness, several users chimed in to express that it was problematic that users had commissioned art to be added to the site. Carmariller took a lot of heat from this discourse, which caused them to take a break from NPC. This series of interactions will be important later on.
ISSUES WITH INCLUSIVENESS
During April 2022, it was announced that a spring Easter event would take place on NPC. In the suggestions channel of the Discord server, a user submitted a suggestion to incorporate small nods to other religions because all the events around the holiday season were Christian-centric. This opened the door for a few users to vehemently disagree, stating that religion had no place on Neopets, that the site could never be “100% inclusive”, and that someone will always be upset. What started off as an innocuous suggestion for more inclusive features on the site ended in a heated debate, with many users feeling hurt and angry by the seemingly xenophobic arguments being made against the suggested features. Users from marginalized groups began to feel unsafe in the server as users were allowed to freely speak out against suggestions to make the site and community more inclusive with no mod intervention. When Kiko eventually came online, he did little to comfort those marginalized voices when he wrote that he wasn’t interested in “pandering to other cultures”, and that “Christian holidays are secular in western societies”. A user suggested adding a menorah or sugar skulls to represent Jewish and Mexican holidays, respectively. He wrote that he wasn’t interested in adding these items “any more than he was interested in adding a crucifix” item to the site. Some users responded that a crucifix is a symbol of the entire Christianity movement, whereas a menorah would be a symbol of Hanukkah and wouldn’t be different from the features that already exist on the site to represent Christmas, such as the advent calendar and the Christmas paint for pets and petpets. To this, Kiko just responded with a screenshot of his Google search where he googled “is menorah a religious symbol”.
Users became even more upset with his response, which seemed tone-deaf and careless in light of the conversation. A Jewish user argued that the menorah is tied to a single Jewish holiday, whereas a crucifix embodies Christianity as a whole. (NOTE: this is noted in the screenshots provided in the link, but several of the screenshots were taken recently whereas some were taken the day of this incident. In the last screenshot, where it says that a Discord user is responding to a message that has been deleted, the original message entailed Kiko’s message where he sent screenshots of his Google searches).
Users grew more weary of Kiko as he wrote that he would introduce a slow-mode in the suggestions channel since the users “couldn’t behave themselves”. To many users, it felt as though Kiko had been punishing and scolding them for expressing their hurt, without reprimanding the users who argued against the implementation of inclusive features.
Kiko and the users who were against adding features to represent other religions and cultures besides Christianity wrote that they would not have been able to “get it right” anyway since Kiko and his moderators were all white. A user responded to this and wrote that those kinds of arguments were often used as an excuse by non-marginalized individuals to not try to be inclusive by seeking out advice from the groups that they were attempting to represent. To this, Kiko reacted with an eye-rolling emoji instead of responding to the user directly and having a conversation about his reasoning.
After this debacle, some of the Neopets Classic Discord moderators created a separate server to invite BIPOC and address their concerns. A number of players disagreed with this move, because they felt that they were being pushed out of the main server and forced to express their concerns elsewhere, but the change was pushed regardless. Notably, Kiko, Kiko’s sister (who had been invited on to help him with the site), and the main moderator Lupe were not in this server. At first, the moderators involved piled the server members with apologies and asked for advice on how to do better. The advice was forthcoming from BIPOC players who committed to the emotional labor necessary to help the team understand–but they never understood. It was very quickly evident to everyone in the server that the team had no intentions of promoting inclusiveness, or a safe space for BIPOC players.
One member expressed that they were deeply uncomfortable with Lupe because of her pattern of silencing BIPOC users. The moderator running the server (let’s call her Moehog) meant to address BIPOC concerns told this member, and I quote, “I’m not going to comment on that. You can view her as you wish.” Immediately, the other members of the server called Moehog out on her inappropriate response. Moehog did not apologize or take any action against Lupe. It is important to note that during these conversations which were supposed to be geared toward making NPC a more inclusive space, Moehog was responding to messages in the private NPC staff chat with approval about how a Black member of the community would rant about being painted as a “an angry Black woman” while having a “nasty personality”. Screenshots of this are included further down.
BANNED NAMES - AND THE START OF NPC'S DOWNFALL
On May 24th, 2022, a user reported the pet ‘Soviet’, claiming that it was an insensitive name that shouldn’t exist on a p​​et site given the fact that Russia had very recently invaded Ukraine. The NPC mod team forced a “name change” for the pet Soviet, where the user received a name change token so that they may change the new name to another untaken name. Users began reporting other names that could be deemed offensive, such as Bimbo, Twink, and the username ‘slut’. Other users immediately took issue with the removal of pet names that were reclaimed slurs, such as Bimbo, and began asking the moderators about it in the NPC Discord server. One user, a Black woman (we’ll call her Aisha), pointed out that pets as harmless as Bimbo were being removed yet the pet Minstrel was owned by a NPC moderator - in fact, it was owned by the main moderator, Lupe. (While the word minstrel may mean medieval singer or musician, it is also strongly associated with blackface as in American history it referred to a member of a band of typically white actors with blackened faces. Minstrels performed songs, dances, and formulaic comic routines based on stereotyped depictions of Black Americans.)
Lupe swiftly deleted Aisha’s message that called out her pet Minstrel and wrote a reply stating that the pet Minstrel was in the process of being name-changed, and that users should submit tickets for any issues they have with pet names. It was never made apparent why action was immediately taken with Soviet and Bimbo, but not Minstrel. Aisha wrote another post about how it felt like her voice was being silenced, especially as a Black woman speaking about the hypocrisy of the moderators deleting pet names while owning a pet with harsh racist connotations. Aisha was swiftly banned from the server. It didn’t take long for users to come to her defense and demand to know why she was banned from the server for expressing her feelings of discomfort. Another moderator (Maple) claimed that he had attempted to mute Aisha for ‘inflammatory speech’ but had accidentally banned her instead. This caused outrage in the community, as more and more users denounced the silencing of marginalized voices without addressing any of the harm that was done. You might be asking: where was Kiko during all of this?
Kiko had been gone for several weeks at this point. By now, the users were used to this. Kiko was often gone without word, and left it up to his moderators to handle any and all issues--really, it was often Lupe dealing with the public chat while the other moderators held more of a backseat position. He did, however, come out of the woodworks to write about how angry he was with the community for “causing drama”. Once again, he placed the blame in the playerbase and found no fault within the community moderators for inflicting harm to their players. Furthermore, he wrote that he was proceeding to shut down non-informational channels. Only BMAC supporters (i.e., people who were paying real life money) were allowed to converse and use the Discord server as normal. In his post, Kiko also wrote that the server was shutting down in order to find new moderators to help keep the peace within the community. During this time, on the evening of May 24th, screenshots from staff chat had been leaked where Kiko is seen claiming that the “argument for reclaimed slurs is dumb”, followed by a joke about how NPC supports bullying minorities and white supremacy. This led several users to feel uncomfortable, believing that Kiko was joking about something that still felt so raw and painful for them.
After most of the player base was suddenly unable to communicate in the main server, many users moved to the site’s neoboards. Although they were glitchy and had many broken links, it sufficed as everyone needed a way to talk about the mess that just occurred in the main NPC server. Remember Carmariller? People were still unsatisfied with how Carmariller was driven away from the site. Some users took to posting “JUSTICE FOR CARMARILLER” on the neoboards, but were swiftly frozen (in which you are never allowed to play NPC again) or temporarily banned/muted. Carmariller returned to the boards to reveal that she never knew commissions for site art weren't allowed as Kiko had previously given her permission to accept commissions from users to eventually add to the site (as shown in a previous screenshot). Kiko showed up to say that he only did that the one time. Carmariller wrote that he said it wasn’t a problem that one time, so she assumed it wouldn’t be a problem later. Kiko then asked Carmariller if she would take time off from work any day she wanted if her boss had previously given her a day off. This was enough for Carmariller to quit the site and never partake in the community ever again. That, however, wouldn't stop the site from continuing to use her art and pet designs that she only had given permission for before quitting the art team. Not too long after, the entire board was deleted by either Kiko or his staff.
KIKO'S ABSENCE
The shutdown of the main server for NPC occurred on May 24th, 2022. After Kiko wrote that long post, he disappeared for nearly three months. The main server became a ghost town, and hardly anyone ever posted there. Much of this is due to the fact that most of the playerbase couldn’t chat there, since they weren’t BMAC supporters. Even though Kiko had left and there was no news of change or progress on the site or in the community, the BMAC stayed open. This meant new users were continuing to donate $1 for accounts that they weren’t getting because Kiko was M.I.A. and unable to process their links. As familiar as prolonged disappearances of Kiko were to old players, several new people who had not come to expect this by now were anxious about where their money was going. There were frequent inquiries posted in the discord about when new users could expect to receive a sign-up link. Mixed messaging from the moderators in response made the situation all the more tense. Lupe made an announcement that Kiko and his sister will return but was unable to say when, and used privacy concerns as reasoning to not elaborate on why they had “to take some time away due to IRL, external matters.” This left many users genuinely concerned that something may have happened to him that pulled him away from the site that the mod didn’t want to share publicly. One artist even mentioned that Kiko tends to his grandfather who was sick at the time, leading users to worry as they began to wonder if everything was alright. Later, a user asked the mod Moehog if Kiko left because of the heated discourse surrounding pet names like Soviet and Minstrel. Moehog responded that the Kiko and his sibling were simply away on holiday, and just needed some relaxation time. Users were bewildered at the lack of simple communication prior either by the devs or the mod announcement to say that they were taking a short break and would be back. Donors in particular were frustrated that they could have saved their monetary contributions for an account had they known it would be some time before Kiko returned.
During Kiko’s long absence, the NPC moderators decide to promote a prominent art team member to moderator status. We’ll call them Chia. The first action Chia took as a moderator was to delete the Spanish-Chat channel, where Spanish and Portuguese NPC users previously talked about the game in… well… Spanish and Portuguese. Given the fact that much of the tension in the NPC community stemmed from issues regarding racism and xenophobia, many users felt like this was a terrible decision which went against the very thing they sought: inclusivity in the NPC community. Chia responded and wrote that their intention was to delete non-essential channels, and that it wasn’t uncommon in larger Discords to exclude non-English channels. Users were quick to note that this was a popular xenophobic sentiment in those very gaming communities.
Because over half of the playerbase was shut out of communicating in the main NPC server, a few individuals made a side server titled “NPC Peeps”. Many NPC users migrated to this server to keep up with the community while these harsh changes were implemented upon the playerbase. It is important to note that none of the NPC staff or moderators were allowed in this server, as it was created initially to aid NPC users in airing out their grievances without the fear of being punished in the community or on the site. Site artists were allowed but later removed.
Then, it came to light that Maple had been actively spying in the “NPC Peeps” server on a burner account, and taking unauthorized screenshots within a private venting channel to use against players. Many players were frozen on the site or banned from the main discord server at the whims of the moderator team. Reasons were never given for these bans, so many assumed it was simply for speaking negatively about NPC, even though these discussions took place in a separate server. The second server had been created as a safe space for all NPC players, especially BIPOC members, and many users felt as though this was a gross invasion of privacy that made them feel even more unsafe.
After Maple’s burner account was banned, he and other moderators and artists continued to attempt to get into the second server and spy on users. (A screenshot of a site artist proposing the idea of sending friends to spy in the NPC Peeps server with Lupe agreeing is provided here)
In the BIPOC server, members expressed their concerns about the unwelcome surveillance, but were again met with unsympathetic ears. Moehog informed the members that she planned to quit as a moderator, and that the BIPOC server would have to take their concerns elsewhere. Members of the server took the opportunity to once and for all express serious frustration with how their concerns had been handled, and how nothing had ever come of their concerns (Moehog had only told them she would pass on their recommendations to Kiko, and Kiko had never responded). Moehog then said that she was keeping the server open as a favor to them and because she didn’t “want their emotional labor to go to waste.” Another member who had applied to be a moderator months earlier expressed that, if they became a moderator, the first thing they would do would be to ask Maple to step down from his position. Immediately following that message, Moehog deleted the entire server.
PROMINENT MEMBERS LEAVE TO CREATE THEIR OWN SITE
All the discord server drama aside— if you asked any NPC user, you’d find that, from 2020-2022, there was little to actually do on the site: you could restock (which entails buying items from non-playable character shops and reselling them for a profit in your shop or on the trading posts), feed kadoaties, paint your pets with Neopoints you earn through Random Events or by restocking, or do fetch quests from non-player characters, where you must find the item they are asking for and they will give you Neopoints in return. A few long-time NPC users had previously offered their services to Kiko multiple times, constantly telling him that they are familiar with web development and could assist him in adding new features to the site such as games and the Battledome, but Kiko always refused.
So, in July 2022, these same members had become increasingly frustrated with NPC and began working on a new site called Grundo’s Cafe. Grundo’s Cafe was designed to resemble early 2000s Neopets, as well. The idea of an early 2000s Neopets fansite was not new by then, and several had popped up such as Virtu.pet and Moderneo. The creators of Grundo’s Cafe aimed to implement more than NPC already had to offer such as recreating flash games using HTML5, the Battledome, and the beloved Habitarium. On August 12th, Grundo’s Cafe had their Grand Opening, and allowed 100 slots for signups which quickly filled up as dedicated Neopets players were eager to try this new clone. Many former NPC users were excited to play a new site that had many features to offer that actually did represent early 2000s Neopets: functional neoboards, restocking, guilds, flash games, and games such as Sakhmet Solitaire, Dice-a-Roo, and Lenny Conundrum. A few of these were features that took over a year for NPC to provide, and many are features that NPC still does not have.
The next day, on August 13, 2022, all of the Grundo’s Cafe developers and Discord moderators were shocked to find their Neopets Classic accounts had been frozen. Their ban messages simply read ‘C/ping custom text and content from NPC is not allowed.’ Allegedly, the Neopets Classic staff suspected Grundo’s Cafe ripped their code and content and consequently froze their accounts. It was widely unclear, however, what content was thought to have been stolen from NPC as the HTML, content, and images used were from the original Neopets as might be expected from a clone site like NPC itself. There was also no way to dispute their account freezes, as the “contact our support staff” link was broken and led nowhere. The Discord server had also been locked down, requiring users to submit verification forms through Google Forms where a moderator would reach out to them via neomail on the site and give them a password that they had to in turn message to a moderator via Discord. The Grundo’s Cafe moderators in particular were confused and upset that they would be frozen if the reason was stealing website code and content, because their roles as moderators had nothing to do with working on the site development.
Long-time NPC players were horrified by the NPC staff’s actions for a while, but this was the final straw for many. Several users who had been playing since the first couple of months quit NPC and happily joined Grundo’s Cafe never to look back. Some friends of the Grundo’s Cafe staff took it one step further by going directly to the Neopets Classic Discord to air their disappointment. These messages were quickly deleted by the mods online at the time, and the five users involved in the conversation were permanently muted in the server and on the neoboards, and eventually frozen on the site. Several users were also frozen for expressing their discontent with the NPC staff. Users complained that the server felt like severe censorship as they couldn’t express any discontent with the site’s actions without it being deleted or their accounts being muted.
STAFF CHAT LEAKS
Long-time NPC players weren’t the only ones disgusted by the behavior of the NPC staff. One staff member took a huge risk to expose some controversial conversations from the NPC private staff chat which included Kiko, his sister, the mods, and artists. In these screenshots, staff members/moderators and artists are seen mocking Aisha, calling her a “nasty spiteful little bitch” and referring to the player base as “cunts”. They joked about making Aisha’s verification word to get access to discord “minstrel”. Although Kiko and the NPC staff accused the Grundo’s Cafe team of copying and pasting content, screenshots were also leaked of them snooping around to steal scripts and code from Grundo’s Cafe staff members. These scripts were initially created by the Grundo’s Cafe team when they were active users on NPC, and many of the playerbase depended on them. However, after being frozen on NPC, the Grundo’s Cafe team removed access to their scripts, leaving NPC users at a disadvantage. In the previously linked screenshots, staff members are seen discussing how to get those scripts back in order to add them to the NPC website and pass off as their own. They also accused the Grundo’s Cafe main developer of stealing the footer text from NPC, but a Reddit comment from Kiko himself would prove otherwise. Through the leak of these screenshots, it became swiftly apparent to users that the Grundo’s Cafe team was frozen out of pure jealousy or spitefulness at their quick success without any solid reason to back it up. Many of the players who had been loyal through the ups and downs of Neopets Classic over the past two years felt disgusted by the racist remarks made behind closed doors. Any messages regarding the staff chat leaks in the NPC server were deleted, and some users were muted or frozen for attempting to talk about it.
After August 2022, many users stopped playing NPC. Between other Neopets clones such as Grundo’s Cafe, Moderneo, and Virtu.pet, many people found that there was much to do on other sites compared to NPC. Many users also refused to be associated with a site run by individuals such as Kiko and his staff. The drop in active numbers was evident even to NPC users that remained active. On the site homepage, there is a counter of how many users are online at the moment, and there were often only 30-40 members online (whereas in the past, numbers would easily reach triple digits, especially on the weekends). NPC users grew frustrated with the lack of updates and small player base, claiming that it was now difficult to complete quests as no one was restocking and filling their shops with items. In October 2022, users expected a Halloween event, and staff members responded that it was coming, keeping it vague at best. On October 28th, it was announced that a Halloween event would be coming that day. However, the site broke the very same day. Users grew more and more frustrated as they just desired to play on a functional site where the developer actually had an interest in improving the site. A few days went by with radio silence as the site remained unplayable. Then, on November 3rd, Kiko wrote a very important announcement. He announced that, because of some issues with the server, the site had lost 5 months of data. Many users were shocked and devastated, as all their progress and hard work from the past 5 months had suddenly been erased. Several users wondered how Kiko had gone five months without backing up data onto any external site. Users who lost pets due to the rollback were required to message mods with proof of which pets they owned so that they could be replaced. Typically, Neopets Classic would do “pound releases” where previously stuck pets on frozen accounts would be released to the pound where any user could adopt them to their own account. However, as a result of the chaos from the rollback, mods used this rollback as their chance to take pets from frozen accounts for their own use, giving themself a secretive priority over which pets they wanted for themselves before they were released to the pound for the general public.
THE STATE OF NEOPETS CLASSIC TODAY
To this day, several Neopets fansites and projects exist, and many Neopets fans are members of multiple sites. The sites, such as Grundo’s Cafe, Virtu.pet, and Moderneo, remain friendly with each other, and oftentimes the developers even work together on each other’s sites in various ways. Grundo’s Cafe has even been referenced by the official Neopets team multiple times (example 1, example 2). All three sites have an active community.
The exception to this is Neopets Classic. Users are no longer able to check how many players are online, as either Kiko or his team have removed the feature. You can try and gauge activity with their latest news announcement which stated that they received zero poem submissions for Moehog Day (a pet day where Moehogs are celebrated on every Neopets site, often including new pet art and user-submitted poems).
Neopets Classic is the only Neopets fansite without any affiliates or relationships with other Neopets fansites, which begs the question of whether this can only be attributed to Kiko and his inexperienced mod & art team.

Is one justified in rejecting the historicity of the life of Jesus if there are no eyewitnesses to Him and His life, and the accounts are decades after He lived? Is this the standard that historians use? Or is it a double standard?
The Strange Case of Hieronymus of Cardia
Hieronymus [356–323 BC] is not a household name, but among historians he’s known for several things. He was an eyewitness to the campaigns of Alexander the Great, but he lived to the age of 104 — long enough to record the first battle between a Roman army and a Hellenistic kingdom. He was a friend and confidant of kings and commanders during the chaotic aftermath of Alexander the Great’s death. He was a military governor in Greece. Furthermore, he managed the asphalt industry on the Dead Sea.
Above all, he is regarded as a key source for many of the most of the history of the years 320–270 BCE. He’s also a prime authority for Plutarch’s famous biographies of Eumenes, Demetrius Poliorcetes, and Pyrrhus. In fact, he’s often cited as the first Greek to write about the rise of Rome.
On the other hand, Dionysius Halicarnassus — writing during the reign of Augustus — called him “a historian no one bothers to finish.” He’s everywhere without being personally a key historical figure.
However:
The bit about him being 104 at the age of his death comes from another author whose work is also lost: Agatharcides of Cnidus who lived roughly sometime in the later 2d century BC — born probably three generations after Hieronymus’ death. We know he discussed Hieronymus because he, in turn, is quoted by Lucian of Samosata (~ 125–180 CE) — about 300 years after Agatharcides and over 400 from Hieronymus.
The oldest surviving work that refers to Hieronymus by name is that of “a certain person named Moschion” who probably would have lived a bit before Agatharcides, writing in Sicily — 750 miles or more from where Hieronymus lived and worked and maybe 75 years after his death. The only thing we know about Moschion is the handful of his pages quoted by Athenaeus, about 450 years after Hieronymus.
There’s no reference to Hieronymus in any Latin source, despite his reputation as an early reporter of Rome. The reference to him being the first Greek to write about Rome comes from Dionysius of Halicarnassus, writing about 250 years after Hieronymus’ death.
Key biographical details — his relationship with Eumenes, his work for the Antigonid dynasty, and his governorship — only show up in Plutarch, 350 years after Hieronymus’ day.
The history for which he is famous is lost; it exists only in paraphrases or name-checks by later writers. Although there are several facts attributed to him, there is no verbatim quote of anything the wrote. It’s a commonplace among historians that Hieronymus is the main source for much of what is interesting and detailed in the work of Diodorus of Sicily, who wrote 200 years or more after Hieronymus’ death.
Diodorus tends to be somewhat wordy and diffuse, but when he covers the age of Hieronymus he suddenly becomes more detail oriented, has interesting anecdotes, and provides reasonable numbers; this is all assumed to come from Hieronymus. However, although Diodorus does refer to Hieronymus (for example, he tells the story of Diodorus’ job in the asphalt bureau in book 19) he never explicitly quotes him. The common assumption is that big chunks of books 18–20 are basically plagiarized from Hieronymus — but naturally, Diodorus doesn’t tell us this himself.
He’s not quoted by Polybius, whose account overlapped with events he wrote about. His most industrious recyclers are Diodorus and Dionysius during the transition from Roman republic to Roman empire (~200 - 250 years), and then Appian and Plutarch in the second century CE (~ 350 - 400 years).
It’s worth pointing out that not only is he not attested very close to his own lifetime — neither are many of the sources which refer to him. Agatharcides for example has no contemporary mentions — he’s cited by Diodorus, and by early Roman-era writers but none closer to him than a couple of generations.
Diodorus, too, is not referred to by his contemporaries — we have to guess when he died from the contents of his book, which does not refer to any event later than around 32 BC. At least his book survives him — about a third of it, anyway. The last complete copy was destroyed during the Turkish sack of Constantinople. There is no evidence for him that does not come from his own writings, and the oldest explicit quotation from him is from Athenaeus in the latter half of the second century CE, over 200 years from his own time.
Of the people mentioned in this piece by name Plutarch, Appian, Athenaeus, and — of course — emperor Augustus are attested by contemporary sources and known by any other means than their own writings. Only Augustus and Plutarch are known from physical objects (the latter from a single inscription). There is an inscription from Diodorus’ hometown in the name of a Diodorus; we have no way of knowing if it’s the same Diodorus and it offers no clue to the date.
This is how a fairly famous person — a widely cited author, diplomat, and friend of kings — fares in the sources. Hieronymus of Cardia is a figure who is completely familiar to ancient historians; if anything they are often over-eager to spot traces of him — he is almost universally assumed to be the source of most of the interesting and detailed bits of Diodorus and Dionysius in the the era of Alexander’s successors. He routinely shows up in any discussion of the early historiography of Rome.
But he does not pass the contemporary mention test by a country mile.
The implication:
Therre are no eyewitness account for the life of Hieronymus of Cardia and no contemporary accounts of him either, yet historians have no doubt or minimal doubt that he existed.
But maybe is just an outlier, surely this is just an anomaly, an exception, an oddity....
What about other well known people from history, they certainly are much more documented than people from Bible, right?
Spartacus 103–71 BC
The story of a slave turned gladiator turned revolutionary has been told and retold many times in media. Although a well-known and much-admired historical figure, Spartacus does not actually have any surviving contemporary records of his life. His enduring fame is in part due to the heroic visage crafted by a priestess of Dionysus, who was also his lover.
The story is mentioned in Plutarch’s biography of Crassus, the wealthy Roman who ultimately put down the uprising led by Spartacus. Parallel Lives was a collection of 48 biographies of prominent historical figures written by the Greek historian in the second century AD. Another major source of information about Spartacus came from another Greek, Appian, writing around a century after the events.
Hannibal born in 247 B.C
Despite how well-known his great deeds as a general are, there are no surviving firsthand accounts of Hannibal - or indeed Carthage at all. The closest thing to a primary source for the Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage is the account written by the Greek historian Polybius around a century later
The historian was alive for the third and final Punic conflict and spoke to survivors of the second war, but obviously did not meet Hannibal himself.
Another major ancient source, which drew on other works from the time that are now lost, was by the Roman historian Livy. The History of Rome was written in the first century AD, but only part of the 142-book collection remains. While not considered as objective as Polybius and far removed from the events, Livy’s work fills in a lot of the gaps.
Alexander the Great 356 - 323 BC
At its peak, his empire stretched from the Balkans to the Indus River. Countless pages have been written of his deeds, but almost all were done long after his was dead
Our only knowledge comes from the much later works that drew on those long-lost pages. Perhaps the most valuable of all was the tome written by his general Ptolemy, who would later found his own great empire. One of the very few written records that survive from Alexander’s time is an incredibly brief mention of his passing in a small clay tablet of Babylonian astronomical reports.
William Wallace 1270 - 1305 AD
The screenplay for the 1995 film Braveheart occasionally drew upon a poem written by a monk known as Blind Harry in the 15th century.
Because Harry's romanticized account was penned more than 150 years after the Scottish hero was tried and executed at the behest of Edward I, it’s not exactly going to be a reliable telling of the tale. One of the few contemporary records comes from a single English chronicle that doesn’t try to be objective: …a certain Scot, by name William Wallace, an outcast from pity, a robber, a sacrilegious man, an incendiary and a homicide, a man more cruel than the cruelty of Herod, and more insane than the fury of Nero…
The passage details an unflattering description of the Scottish defeat at Falkirk in 1298, where Wallace apparently fled the scene before being captured. The time between the loss and his later apprehension was spent in mainland Europe, attempting to raise support for his cause. We know this because one of only two surviving documents personally attached to Wallace is a letter written on his behalf by the King of France to the Pope
Attila the Hun (c. 406-453 AD) was one of late antiquity’s most notorious figures, a brutal conqueror who ransacked the weakened Roman Empire.
Little is actually known of the Huns, as they left little evidence behind, and the few contemporary accounts that remain are from sources not disposed to view them favorably. The surviving fragments of a history of Rome written by Ammianus Marcellinus depict a backward, savage people of unknown origin.
As for Attila himself, much of his early life is the subject of speculation from later authors. Jordanes, a 6th-century Eastern Roman historian, wrote a second hand account as he drew upon the work of Priscus, a fellow Eastern Roman who actually met Attila. Unfortunately, only a few scraps of Priscus’s work remain.
So it seems that historians have no problem in taking as historical, people and events are much less evidence than what the Bible contains.
If anyone uses the "The gospels are not eyewitness accounts" argument to dismiss the Gospels as history, commits the double standard logical fallacy
Objection A - But Jesus is said to be God and rose from the dead. That's a major difference between all these other historical figures
Reply: So, your real objection has to do with the metaphysical implications of saying the Jesus rose from the dead, not the hidtorical nature of the account. That is beyond the scope of this argument.
However, I invite you to read why Philosophical Naturalism [the idea that only the physical exists] is logically self-refuting and why there is evidence for God
Objection B - The eyewitness stuff is important with the Gospels because there is a massive difference between 'I lived with Jesus for a few weeks after he died' and 'I heard others lived with Jesus for a few weeks after he died.
Reply: But the "eyewitness stuff" is apparently not impoertant - see nthe above for how many people/events are considered historical sans eyewitness account. The take Luke, for example, said the he investigated everything from the beginning and wrote an orderly account. This sems to be in line with what other ancient historians did, like Herodotus, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, Lucian - There is overwhelming evidence for the existence of Jesus of the Bible in ancient non-Christian sources
EDIT: Thesis is my negative answer to the title.

1. Device Identification Exercise:

• Provide excerpts from various texts and ask students to identify and annotate instances of specific literary devices.
  
• Discuss their findings as a class, exploring different interpretations and applications of the devices.
  

1. Creative Writing Prompts:

• Assign each student a specific literary device and ask them to craft a short story or poem that prominently features that device.
  
• Encourage creativity and exploration of the device's nuances in their narratives.
  

1. Literary Analysis Essays:

• Assign students a literary work (poem, speech, or prose) and ask them to write an essay analyzing the author's use of a chosen literary device.
  
• Emphasize the impact of the device on the overall theme and tone of the work.
  

1. Collaborative Storytelling:

• Divide the class into small groups and have each group create a collaborative story.
  
• Assign a different literary device to each group, instructing them to incorporate it seamlessly into their narrative.
  

1. Speech Writing and Delivery:

• Have students choose a social or political topic and write a persuasive speech using anaphora or epizeuxis to enhance their rhetorical impact.
  
• Organize a speech delivery session where students showcase their use of repetition for emphasis.
  

1. Literary Device Showcase:

• Assign each student or group a different literary device and ask them to prepare a presentation showcasing its historical origins, notable examples, and contemporary usage.
  
• Encourage multimedia elements such as visuals or short video clips to enhance engagement.
  

1. Rewriting Exercises:

• Provide sentences or paragraphs containing common expressions and ask students to rewrite them using more complex literary devices.
  
• Discuss the impact of the changes on tone, mood, and overall meaning.
  

1. Debate on Stylistic Choices:
   • Organize a debate where students defend or critique an author's use of a specific literary device in a given text.

• Encourage students to articulate how the device contributes to or detracts from the effectiveness of the work.

1. Literary Device Scavenger Hunt:

• Provide a list of literary devices and have students search for examples in books, articles, or online.
  
• Discuss their findings in class, exploring how different authors use the same device in diverse ways.
  

1. Themed Poetry Slam:

- Task students with creating a thematic poetry slam where each participant focuses on a different literary device. - Host a class poetry slam event where students perform their pieces and discuss their choices. 

1. Interactive Online Quizzes:

- Curate online quizzes or interactive activities that allow students to self-assess their understanding of literary devices. - Provide instant feedback to reinforce learning. 

1. Peer Review and Feedback:

- Implement peer review sessions where students exchange their creative writing assignments and provide constructive feedback on the integration of literary devices. - Encourage discussions on the effectiveness of different approaches. 

1. Literary Device Journal:

- Assign students a literary device to track in their personal reading over a set period. - Have them maintain a journal documenting instances of the device, their interpretations, and reflections on its impact. 

1. Literary Device Bingo:

- Create bingo cards with different literary devices - As students encounter instances of these devices in class readings or discussions, they mark off the corresponding squares on their bingo cards. 

1. Real-world Application Project:

- Challenge students to find examples of literary devices in advertisements, speeches, or news articles. - Present their findings, discussing how the devices are employed for persuasive or artistic purposes in the real world. 

Week 3: Villanelles and Ekphrastic Poetry - Lecture and Discussion
Objective: - Explore the structured repetition of villanelles and the visual inspiration of ekphrastic poetry. - Understand the fixed form of villanelles and their emotional impact. - Discuss the interplay between visual art and written expression in ekphrastic poetry.
Day 1: Introduction to Villanelles - Lecture: - Definition and characteristics of villanelles. - Explanation of the ABA ABA ABA ABA ABA ABAA rhyme scheme.

• Discussion Questions:
  1. What intrigues you about the structured repetition of villanelles?
  2. Why is the ABA ABA ABA ABA ABA ABAA rhyme scheme significant in villanelles?
  3. Can you think of any famous villanelles or poets known for this style?

Day 2: Analyzing Villanelles - Part 1 - Lecture: - In-depth analysis of classic villanelles. - Exploration of the emotional impact through repetition.

• Discussion Questions:
  1. How does the repetition in the villanelles contribute to their emotional resonance?
  2. What themes or emotions are effectively conveyed through this structured form?
  3. Share your thoughts on the impact of repetition on the reader.

Day 3: Analyzing Villanelles - Part 2 - Lecture: - Discussing modern variations and themes in villanelles. - Exploring the versatility of the form.

• Discussion Questions:
  1. How have modern villanelles evolved in terms of themes and structure?
  2. In what ways does the fixed form of a villanelle challenge or enhance creativity?
  3. Share examples of emotions or themes that might work well in a villanelle.

Day 4: Crafting Villanelles - Part 1 - Lecture: - Step-by-step guide on crafting the first four lines of a villanelle. - Emphasis on creating a strong thematic foundation.

• Discussion Questions:
  1. What challenges do you anticipate in crafting the first four lines of a villanelle?
  2. How can you establish a strong thematic foundation within this repetition?
  3. Share examples of themes or emotions suitable for a villanelle.

Day 5: Crafting Villanelles - Part 2 - Lecture: - Step-by-step guide on crafting the final three lines of a villanelle. - Emphasis on creating resolution and impact.

• Discussion Questions:
  1. Why is the final three-line structure crucial in providing resolution in a villanelle?
  2. How can a villanelle evoke a sense of completeness within the repeated lines?
  3. Share and discuss individual villanelles, highlighting successful elements.

Homework Assignment: - Craft a villanelle focusing on a theme or emotion that lends itself well to repetition.
Study Guide Questions: 1. Reflect on the challenges of crafting the first four lines of your villanelle. How did you establish a strong thematic foundation? 2. How did you approach creating resolution and impact in the final three lines of your villanelle? 3. What insights did you gain from the process of crafting a villanelle?
Quiz: Assessment on the understanding of villanelles, the ABA rhyme scheme, and the emotional impact of repetition.
Day 6: Introduction to Ekphrastic Poetry - Lecture: - Definition and characteristics of ekphrastic poetry. - Explanation of the relationship between visual art and written expression.

• Discussion Questions:
  1. What interests you about the interplay between visual art and poetry in ekphrastic works?
  2. How might visual stimuli enhance or influence the creative writing process?
  3. Can you think of any famous ekphrastic poems or poets known for this style?

Day 7: Analyzing Ekphrastic Poetry - Part 1 - Lecture: - In-depth analysis of classic ekphrastic poems. - Exploration of how poets respond to visual stimuli.

• Discussion Questions:
  1. How does the visual inspiration impact the themes and imagery in ekphrastic poetry?
  2. What unique perspectives or insights can arise from responding to visual art?
  3. Share your thoughts on the relationship between the visual and the written in ekphrastic works.

Day 8: Analyzing Ekphrastic Poetry - Part 2 - Lecture: - Discussing modern variations and themes in ekphrastic poetry. - Exploring the diverse ways poets engage with visual art.

• Discussion Questions:
  1. How have modern poets expanded the themes and approaches in ekphrastic poetry?
  2. In what ways does the incorporation of visual art broaden the possibilities in written expression?
  3. Share examples of visual art that you believe would inspire compelling ekphrastic poems.

Day 9: Crafting Ekphrastic Poetry - Part 1 - Lecture: - Step-by-step guide on responding to visual art in writing. - Emphasis on capturing the essence and emotion of the artwork.

• Discussion Questions:
  1. What challenges do you anticipate in responding to visual art with written expression?
  2. How can you capture the essence and emotion of an artwork in your ekphrastic poem?
  3. Share examples of artworks that you find particularly inspiring.

Day 10: Crafting Ekphrastic Poetry - Part 2 - Lecture: - Discussing the role of personal interpretation and creativity in ekphrastic poetry. - Exploring the potential for multiple ekphrastic responses to a single artwork.

• Discussion Questions:
  1. How does personal interpretation influence the creative process in ekphrastic poetry?
  2. In what ways can multiple poets respond differently to the same piece of visual art?
  3. Share and discuss individual ekphrastic poems, highlighting successful elements.

Homework Assignment: - Craft an ekphrastic poem in response to a chosen piece of visual art.
Study Guide Questions: 1. Reflect on the challenges of responding to visual art with written expression in your ekphrastic poem. How did you capture the essence and emotion? 2. How did personal interpretation shape your creative process in crafting an ekphrastic poem? 3. What insights did you gain from the process of crafting an ekphrastic poem?
Quiz: Assessment on the understanding of ekphrastic poetry, the relationship between visual art and written expression, and the creative possibilities in responding to visual stimuli.

It's well known that Tolkien didn't particularly like France or its culture, but we love him anyway. And unfortunately, it took a long time for his incredible books to reach France and French-speaking countries. And even today, it's complicated... because yes, not everything has been translated.
You've probably read “The fall of Numeror” recently or “Tolkien's letters, revised and expanded”, well, we're still waiting for them... (And we never got the 12-volume Middle-Earth story! Thanks wiki)
Speaking of translations, here's the crux of the matter. Tolkien came to us at a time when heroic fantasy and its derivatives were not particularly well regarded and, above all, not well known, even among young people. It's very niche, in fact.
The Hobbit was published in 1969 in France, and yet no publisher other than “Christian Bourgois” wanted to translate The Lord of the Rings until 1972/1973. Quite simply because of the high cost of translation, and because they felt that the French couldn't possibly be interested in a work that was so foreign in its references. "They could only see the Germanic legend". We've come a long way in the meantime, phew!
The first translation we had (by Francis Ledoux) contained errors and questionable translation choices. Here are a few examples:

• Frodo is called “ Frodon ” for a pronunciation issue (same for Bilbo who becomes " Bilbon ").
  
• Vala is always in the singular, never in the plural (but the translator didn't yet have the Silmarillion).
  
• Mirkwood becomes “ Forêt Noire ” (black forest) because it sounds ’German” (sic)
  
• Rivendell is called “ Fondcombe ” for some reason; “fond” (lower part) and “combe” (deep valley).
  

But here's the problem: despite the choices, we've got used to this translation, yet a new one (by Daniel Lauzon) appeared a few years ago, and it's creating even more problems than before!

• Fondcombe became " Fendeval " (!!), "fend" for to split, "de" the article of, and "val" which is a fairly wide valley. So in English, it would be the Elrond residing in the "Large Split Valley".
  
• Mirkwood became the “Forêt de Grand'Peur ” (literally the forest of great fear). Well, it's still okay there, even if we don't really understand where it comes from.
  

The problem is that in the films, they use both the French words from the old translation and the English words. They say "Fondcombe and Mirkwood". No consistency.
But all that's nothing, there's much worse!
Aragorn's name hasn't changed (phew), but his nickname is still a problem. You see, in English, it's “Strider”, and that sounds cool to Americans/Englishmen (at least, I imagine it does), except that it had to be translated because it sounds too much English in a text entirely in French... Strider was translated as “Grand-Pas” (literally big step). Yes, it's Aragorn Big Step. Laugh at us!
Except that the new translation has changed, and he becomes “Aragorn l'arpenteur” (Aragorn the Surveyor). Why the surveyor? Because he travels a lot. But I don't really see Aragorn as a topographer, because that's exactly what you think of when you read the word in French.
I'm not saying all this to throw pebbles at the translators, especially the first one. He had to make do with what he had, and he did pretty well overall. But it often creates confusion with the addition of translation... It makes me think I should read Lotr in English in its entirety, but laziness has meant I read in my native tongue.
Another huge problem: the songs and poems.
Tolkien uses very precise poetic meter and rhymes in keeping with his language. Inevitably, literal translations don't work in other languages, and this creates disasters. The poor translators have to make drastic changes, and it feels bad. But then, I suppose it's the same story with other languages.
Thanks for reading! (sorry for the grammar and syntax errors)

Week 1: Introduction to Poetry and Sonnets
Day 1: Overview of Poetry Styles - Activity: Icebreaker - Introduce yourself through a poetic name acrostic. - Lecture: Brief history of poetry, introduction to various styles. - Discussion: What draws you to poetry? Share your favorite poems.
Day 2: Understanding Sonnets - Activity: Analyze a classic sonnet together. - Lecture: Explanation of sonnet structure (Shakespearean and Petrarchan). - Discussion: Share initial impressions and feelings about sonnets.
Day 3: Writing Exercise - Crafting a Sonnet - Activity: Break down sonnet structure with examples. - Assignment: Write a sonnet exploring a personal experience or emotion. - Vocabulary Words: Quatrain, Couplet, Volta.
Day 4: Peer Review and Feedback - Activity: Peer review workshop for sonnets. - Lecture: Discuss common challenges and strategies in sonnet writing. - Discussion: Share insights gained from reviewing peers' work.
Day 5: Recap and Reflection - Activity: Reflect on the week's lessons and exercises. - Lecture: Overview of upcoming weeks. - Assignment: Write a short reflection on what you've learned about poetry and sonnets.
Study Guide Questions for Week 1: 1. What is the basic structure of a sonnet? 2. Compare and contrast Shakespearean and Petrarchan sonnets. 3. How does the volta contribute to the meaning of a sonnet? 4. Discuss the role of rhyme and meter in sonnets. 5. Explore your personal connection to poetry. What emotions or themes resonate with you?
Quiz: A short quiz assessing understanding of sonnet structure, key terms, and the historical context of poetry.
Week 2: Embracing Haiku and Villanelle
Day 1: Understanding Haiku - Activity: Analyze classic haikus. - Lecture: Explain the traditional structure and themes of haikus. - Discussion: Share thoughts on the simplicity and depth of haikus.
Day 2: Crafting Haikus - Activity: Write haikus individually. - Lecture: Discuss the significance of nature in haikus. - Discussion: Share and discuss individual haikus.
Day 3: Unraveling the Villanelle - Activity: Analyze a famous villanelle. - Lecture: Explore the structure and repetition in villanelles. - Discussion: Discuss the impact of repeated lines on the overall theme.
Day 4: Writing Exercise - Composing a Villanelle - Activity: Break down the process of crafting a villanelle. - Assignment: Write a villanelle on the theme of memory or loss. - Vocabulary Words: Tercet, Refrain, Envoi.
Day 5: Peer Review and Feedback - Activity: Peer review workshop for villanelles. - Lecture: Discuss the challenges and beauty of crafting repetitive forms. - Discussion: Share insights gained from reviewing peers' villanelles.
Study Guide Questions for Week 2: 1. What defines a haiku? Discuss its structure and thematic elements. 2. Explore the cultural significance of nature in haikus. 3. What is the structure of a villanelle, and how does repetition contribute to its impact? 4. Discuss the emotions evoked by repeated lines in a villanelle. 5. Reflect on the process of crafting a villanelle. What challenges did you face?
Quiz: Assessment on the understanding of haikus, villanelles, and the effective use of repetition in poetry.

1. Renga:

- *Definition:* A collaborative form of Japanese poetry, alternating three and two-line stanzas. - *Example:* Collaborate with a friend to create a renga exploring the changing seasons. 

1. Prose Poetry:

- *Definition:* Poetry written in prose form, blurring the lines between poetry and prose. - *Example:* Write a prose poem capturing the essence of a vivid dream or memory. 

1. Concrete Poetry:

- *Definition:* Poems that visually resemble their subject matter, often taking on unique shapes. - *Example:* Create a concrete poem reflecting the theme of unity or disintegration. 

1. Narrative Poetry:

- *Definition:* Poems that tell a story, often with characters and a plot. - *Example:* Craft a narrative poem based on a personal experience or fictional tale. 

1. Pastoral:

- *Definition:* Poetry idealizing rural life, nature, and simplicity. - *Example:* Write a pastoral poem celebrating the beauty of a countryside landscape. 

1. Elegy:

- *Definition:* A poem mourning the loss of someone or something. - *Example:* Compose an elegy reflecting on the passage of time and the inevitability of change. 

1. Aubade:

- *Definition:* A morning poem often focused on the parting of lovers at dawn. - *Example:* Write an aubade exploring the tender moments before sunrise. 

1. Ekphrastic:

- *Definition:* Poetry inspired by or describing a work of art. - *Example:* Craft an ekphrastic poem in response to a painting or sculpture you admire. 

1. Found Poetry:

- *Definition:* Creating poetry by rearranging existing texts or found materials. - *Example:* Create a found poem using newspaper headlines or fragments of a novel. 

1. Epigram:

- *Definition:* A brief, witty, and often satirical poem. - *Example:* Write an epigram commenting humorously on a contemporary social issue. 

1. Imagery: Prompt: Choose a setting (real or imaginary) and describe it using detailed sensory imagery. Imagine the sights, sounds, smells, and textures to create a vivid scene, just like a painter with words.
   
2. Metaphor: Prompt: Compare a personal experience to an everyday object or phenomenon in an unexpected way. For example, "My heart is a compass that always points to the north of your laughter."
   
3. Simile: Prompt: Write a series of similes to express intense emotions. For instance, "As brave as a lion facing the storm, as fragile as a petal in the wind."
   
4. Rhyme: Prompt: Craft a short poem or lyrics with a consistent rhyme scheme. Experiment with different rhyme patterns (ABAB, AABB, etc.) to enhance the musicality of your writing.
   
5. Meter: Prompt: Compose a poem with a specific meter, such as iambic pentameter. Pay attention to the syllabic beats in each line to create a rhythmic flow.
   
6. Alliteration: Prompt: Create a tongue-twisting line using alliteration. Focus on the repetition of initial consonant sounds to add a playful or musical quality to your writing.
   
7. Assonance: Prompt: Write a passage where the vowel sounds within words echo each other. Experiment with different vowel combinations to create a melodic effect.
   
8. Personification: Prompt: Choose an inanimate object and personify it. Describe its actions, thoughts, and emotions as if it were a living being.
   
9. Symbolism: Prompt: Select an object or element and explore its symbolic meaning. Connect it to broader themes or emotions in your writing.
   
10. Enjambment: Prompt: Write a poem where the thoughts flow continuously from one line to the next without a pause. Explore how this technique can create a sense of movement or urgency.
    
11. Repetition: Prompt: Repeat a word or phrase throughout a poem for emphasis. Consider how repetition can enhance the overall impact and meaning of your writing.
    
12. Free Verse: Prompt: Embrace the freedom of expression by writing a poem without adhering to rhyme or meter. Allow your thoughts to flow organically, exploring the beauty of formless verse.
    
13. Stanza: Prompt: Divide your writing into stanzas to create distinct sections with varying themes or tones. Explore how the organization of lines contributes to the overall structure of your work.
    
14. Theme: Prompt: Choose a universal theme (love, loss, freedom, etc.) and explore it through your lyrics. Delve into the nuances and perspectives associated with the chosen theme.
    
15. Tone: Prompt: Write a poem that conveys contrasting tones. Explore how shifts in tone can evoke different emotions and responses from the reader.
    
16. Connotation: Prompt: Select a word with strong connotations and use it in a poem. Explore the emotional baggage and cultural associations tied to the word within the context of your writing.
    
17. Irony: Prompt: Craft a poem with elements of irony. Create situations or lines that convey a meaning opposite to the literal interpretation, adding layers of complexity to your writing.
    
18. Allusion: Prompt: Reference a well-known song, book, or historical event in your lyrics. Explore how the use of allusion can enrich the depth and meaning of your writing.
    
19. Syntax: Prompt: Experiment with sentence structure to create different effects. Play with word order, sentence length, and punctuation to convey specific emotions or rhythms in your writing.
    
20. Diction: Prompt: Choose a specific mood or atmosphere you want to convey and carefully select words that evoke that feeling. Pay attention to the impact of your word choices on the overall tone of your writing.
    

English: for section 1 question a on paper 1 use pqe, point quote explain, nake one point use a quote to back it up and explain, leave extra space after each point incase you have extra time to spend on it,alternatively a kind commentor added fhe following:Can I add one to English, from an English teacher. Instead of PQE, use PEEL . Point, Evidence, Explain and Link (to the next paragraph/back to the question). Will boost C mark.
Question b of that same question make sure if you write the text of a speech the whole text is said speech and if you have to for example write the text of a speech from a famous person you never step out of character. Your opening line should be basically a rephrasing of the question eg:write an article for the local newspaper, you should say "I am writing for the x newspaper to tell you about...", even if its unrealistic they still look for this in regard to your purpose mark.
For the composing:make sure there are famous people you can talk about a lot, also just a few topics that youve got some bit of knowledge on e.g ai might be handy
personal essay: use anecdotes even if they're made up
Short story:I'm avoiding this personally but make sure you show don't tell and alsondont leave plot holes, from what I've heard people who do this already have things like settings, characters and storylines planned out before the exam
Opinion essay: chose for or against and be strongly for or against, if im not mistaken you can be neutral but it's a lot harder
For the single text your first quote shouldn't be from act 1 scene 1 or your texts equivalent,your answer shouldn't be a summary
For hamlet: have lots of quotes, back in as many points as possible with quotes, remember the word regicide and antic-disposition, if the question asks about Claudius' role as villain if must only be his direct wrong doings (laertes, elder hamlet) and not the ones he indirectly caused by making hamlet mad (ophelia, polonius etc).
Comparative:constantly compare your 3 texts,(this next tip only applies if parf of your comparative course is never let me go) MOST of the time if you are doing the question 1 which is split up into a and b where a is in relation to 1 text and b is 2, never let me go will be in part a as it is hard to compare to other texts, this obviously depends on the question but if in doubt do that
Unseen poetry:I'm absolutely useless at this but on my mock I completely misunderstood the poem and got 17/20, waffle with confidence, don't spend too long on it as 20 marks is sweet fa in your English paper and the difference between spending 20 mins and 25 mins is no more than 3 marks. As a kind commentary added(soz days are long cba tagging everybody) backup using any poetic technique you can
Poetry: have one poem you can talk for days about no matter what, they will more than likely come up. Have 3 more you understand to be able to answer a question, then your perfectly covered. If you want to be more confident you can learn 2 poems to perfect 50/50 but from here to Thursday time management is important
History: if your a slow writer like me learn a metric fuck tonne of good quotes they're the quickest way to pick up marks, here's a few if you want them
Oh little sputnik flying high/with made-in-moscow-beep/you show the world its a commie sky/and uncle Sam's asleep-mennen Williams,democratic governor of michigan
The United States would provide political, military and economic assistance to all democratic nations under threat from external and internal forces-the turman doctrine
We are kings men and well be with you to the end -james Craig (not precisely a long one but so many essays it could be used in)
I want dr king to know that I didn't come to selma to make his job difficult, I really did come thinking I could make it easier. If the white people realise what the alternative is, perhaps they will be more willing to here dr king-malcolm x
Also know the 3 document essays off by heart as one will defiently come up,somebody mentioned about knowing every case study off by heart and learning information rather than essays but that's more long term advice than last minute, still tho
Geography: from here to friday dedicate 10 minutes to aerial photography, it's 8 marks waiting to be claimed. Nows probably too late for flashcards but if it isn't fucking use them for srps
Maths: nows not too late to print off a mock or past paper, see what needs the most work and make sure you fully understand them
Irish: if your like me and haven't done a scratch there's still more than a week, predictions are your best friend, learn one essay, one poetry notes, one story notes and one play notes and let God decide how well he wants you to do
French:be able to write about the Olympics as if your fluent, its probably going to come up. Know your tenses and your subjunctive. Learn off a few proverbs they add marks to any essay. "Je suis tout à fait d'accord avec le declaration Ci dessus","il est neccesaire de pesser le pour et le contre", "n'oublions pas le proverbe" and "a Mon avis" fit into most opinion pieces, know them(get correct spelling aswel mine was affected by autocorrect). Also if your down to the wire learn diary phrased, even if you write a bad diary you will get marks for the phrases.
Somebody has pointed out its the 70 year anniversary of the d day bombings so bare that in mind too
Accounting: final accounts will come up,know 2/3, learn all your ratios and all the theory they will come up, know either budgeting or costing as one of each will come up, that leaves the second 100 marker, it will most likely be suspense as that comes up every second year but it could be a 60 marker, I wouldn't even bother worrying about anything else until ratios,final accounts, budget/costing and suspense are up to the grade your hoping for but if all that is sorted learn off maybe 3 other possible 100 markers, that any you have 4 which includes the 80% likely suspense and 2 will come up, the accounting exam is probably the easiest to predict, and for the love of God know your theory. Keep doing exam questions of your struggling, every time you correct one write down your mistakes and have the list of mistakes next to you when doing the next one, then tear it and make a new list of mistakes
Biology: If you know photosynthesis and respiration off from the back of the hand, you are good to go because there is a very high chance one or the other will be asked in some form (could even be a full 30-mark question if you are fortunate enough).
Business: Be 100% familiar with the ABQ strands (the comprehension can help you out a bit in finding the information for each question but you need to know the material that goes along with it from the heart). For Section 3: Defo know Strand 1 or 2 as that comes up as a question 1 or 2, Ratios as that can come up (caught me off guard when I did LC and made the difference between H1 and H2 for me unfortunately) and then would recommend preparing either strand 6 or 7 (or both if you wish for the final question you decide to attempt) Think if I recall you have to do one from Part A, one from Part B and then one other question from either part. Section A is an easy way to pick up marks so if you are struggling bank on Section A and B to get you going and make a decent stab at Section C and know section 1-3 inside out
DCG - KNOW DIHEDRAL ANGLE!! This can come up in Section A as a short Q, in Section B as it's own Q, and in Section C in Surface Geometry.
Only eliminate one topic from Section B! Anything can come up, you can only leave one thing out in the exam. So, your study should be the same.
This is all my experience, I will add any good advice for these subject or other subjects that are provided in the comments, all of these are for higher level except for maths, good luck,don't panic and think about the pint that's instore once this is all over

After rewatching the 3 seasons of the anime a few times and absolutely loving it, I've made the decision to read the source material starting with the very first chapter. I have just finished the challenger finale with Taichi losing to Arata in the goofiest way possible and would now like to voice some complaints about the post-season 3 era of the story. If it's okay with you of course.
I have read some discussions and will attempt not to be repetitive with my points.

1. The first years. With Taichi going on what is stylized to be his villain arc and Chihaya going on a study spree to cope with her feelings, the new first years are given a challenge to become memorable and exciting while all that other incredible and exciting stuff is already going on around them. And boy did they not deliver. There are 4 new characters but for the purposes of the narrative they act like 2 characters: Tamaru and generic first-years (GFY). Sure they all have quirks to be distinguishable but not one of them has a compelling journey or a goal.

The first conflict that GFY face is not vibing with the karuta club and it is solved with the seniors just talking to them, there are no interesting one-on-one interactions here like there were with the construction of the OG club (Chihaya learning to see poems as colourful from Kana for example), it is delivered as a series of short comedic sketches. And that's because they are not individual characters, they are a representation of a group.
And Tamaru's arc was about not requiring the praise of others I think?
To see this point clearly, compare how Tsukuba and best girl Sumire were introduced to how the GFY are. There is an obvious discrepancy in depth.

1. Karuta matches.

Now, this is something that was a problem with the manga from the beginning. Here is how a match between character A and character B would go: Character A takes a card; the spectators: "OMG A IS GOING TO WIN"; B has a revelation in their inner monologue and take a card; the spectators: "OMG SINCE WHEN IS B SO STRONG MAYBE THEY WILL WIN"; A has a different revelation and take a card; repeat; Now, of course there are matches where the tactics are very interesting (Harada vs Suou), where every take is an emotional rollercoaster (Taichi vs Chihaya) or where the whole thing is just poetic to the bone (Harada vs Arata), but that is not the case with filler tournament matches. They are a massive yawn. I cannot be expected to be excited over a bunch of chapters about the new hokou team most of which I don't care about, the new fujisaki team most of which I don't care about and Arata's team which consists of people I could not care less about.
It's just a bunch of characters I don't know competing in generic matches (though there were some funny moments). And worst of all, I have no investment in who wins. In second year it was Mizusawa's dream to be the strongest in japan, a dream they worked through blood sweat and tears to achieve, so of course I was invested.
Here I was just waiting for more Taichi and Suou content.

1. Suou and Shinobu

Oh, this one isn't a complaint. The author ansolutely killed it with these two, absolute perfection.

1. Dirty tricks

This is a segway to the Taichi vs Arata match.
So, Taichi learns from Suou a lot of things: incredible perception, feints, detachment, fun. These are his weapons with which he manages to breeze through the challenger qualifier matches. But in his match against Arata he considers them off limits. Nishida even says something to the effect of "we want Arata to see us, real us, no dirty tricks or anything". Taichi doesn't use feints, doesn't try to mess with Arata starting with the second match and is not detached. Like bro.
Harada has bad hearing and uses different techniques to compensate for it, those are not considered dirty tricks. Arata doesn't have extraordinary hearing and so uses cross sweeps, those are not considered dirty tricks. So why does Mashima feel the need to abandon all of his weapons to play "true" karuta? Makes me mad.

1. The incredibly goofy Taichi loss.

What I find hillarious about his loss is that during the second game he decides that "winning cannot not matter" and that he will play Harada's karuta. In any other circumstance, heck, in any shounen manga this would be the moment where he strengthens his resolve and gains an unforseen power boost. But instead he just starts panicking and sweating and stuttering and losing by 18 cards. Goofiest stuff I've read in a while.
But on a more serious note, Taichi 100% should have a skill on par with Arata. He was able to completely toy with Sudou, controlling the game completely. He had very close two matches with Arata. I find it rediculously contrived that he just decides to not use his strongest weapons and play bad. That's literally what happens, he decides to play bad and loses. From a narrative standpoint it would also be more interesting if Taichi won, at the very least because he is a much more interesting character and because Arata could use a massive setback like that for character development (which is nonexistant as it stands now).

1. Nothing exciting happens

Harada's path to challenging Suou is one of my favourite arcs in fiction. Nothing that grandiouse happens after Taichi's confession.
On a more personal note, I am greatly saddened that best girl Sumire doesn't have much to do. She is still only enamoured by Mashima (as we can see from her talk with Mamashima). Like, girl, find a new target or become a rock star or date Nishida idk. Do something. Oh, and Kana's dream of becoming a reader has evaporated too it seems.
--‐------------- Sorry for the long post, it seems I got really frustrated and disappointed.
TL;DR

1. The new characters are a yawn, have no journey and are not built up like previous first years were.
2. The national tournament is overshadowed by Taichi's arc and there is no good reason to care about its outcome. The matches are repetitive and formulaic, the characters uninteresting.
3. Shinobu and Suou's arcs are perfection.
4. Taichi learns a lot of techniques but dismisses them as dirty tricjs for no apparent reason. Btw, shouldn't feints be considered even harder that normal karuta if anything?
5. Mashima gets a stereotypical shounen boost (for no good reason btw) just to revert to a blabbering baby in the third match.
6. Nothing grand happens. OG characters are left behind. Like, imagine Chitose learning karuta and becoming queen before Chihaya (joking).

Hi there! And welcome to this unique review exchange that's different from all the rest. Profile exchanges used to be a common thing on this sub until technical issues and other things caused to be held somewhere else. I decided to finally bring it back after such a long period of time.
So what is a Profile Exchange? And how does it work? Well, let's go over the rules.

1. You submit by simply posting a link to your AO3 or FFN profile.
2. List what fandoms you write for and what kind of stories(ships, genre, rating, etc.) you like to write. You don't need to list every single fandom, just the ones that are important. Note: If you have anything that is NSFW and/or is potentially triggering, please spoil it. You can also post links to certain stories if you wish, such as your latest WIP or something that doesn't get much attention.
3. Once you've submitted you are required to read at least 4 different stories from 4 different authors, be it a fic, one-shot, or a poem. You can read more if you wish. You are NOT allowed to read more than one story from the same author. Be sure to leave a review counter below your submissions, example Fics Reviewed: 0/4, so that we'll be able to keep track.
4. Comments should be long and thoughtful. At least 50 Words and 3 Sentences. If you like the story tell the author why. Tell them if it made you happy, sad, or angry and take the time to explain it. DO NOT submit single short sentences such as "I like this!" or "Your story is great!". If anyone does this please inform me and I will send them a message.

You will have one week to complete your reviews before the deadline. I will be giving reminders 48 Hours in advance to anyone who hasn't completed their reviews. Before I list the deadline dates I want to inform you all that I live on the the West Coast of the United States so I'll be using Pacific Standard Time(PST), so be sure to pay attention to the times frames depending on where you live.
SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Monday, June 3 9PM PST
REVIEW DEADLINE: Saturday, June 8 9PM PST
ONE LAST IMPORTANT THING: If you participate in this exchange you are NOT allowed to delete your submissions and you MUST complete your reviews by the designated deadline. If you need an extension please get in touch with me and I'll give you an extra day or two. If you feel that you cannot complete your reviews due to some unforeseen circumstances that you cannot avoid please get in touch with the mods.
Other than that, have fun and happy reading! I intend to host this every week but if others would like to take turns hosting Profile Exchanges send me a message and we'll work out a schedule.