“There Are Other Forces At Work In This World Besides The Will Of Evil.”

he's fighting a beautiful buff lady. her shirt gets ripped and she's left in her slutty little tank top. "come on," you think. "why is the woman always wearing sexier things than her male counterparts." but fear not. now HE takes off his shirt and he's left in HIS slutty little tank top. equality. and then they kiss

I have a theory I call The Eight Themes. And basically all literature, movies, TV, video games, comics, etc, can essentially be broken in one or more of the eight themes that make up our stories.

You have

1. The Beginning

2. Man VS Nature

3. Man VS Man

4: Man VS Himself

5:Man VS Supernatural

6: Man VS His Creation

7:Man VS Time

8: The End

There's a tweet that's gone viral where a person laments realizing that Star Wars "ripped off" Dune, and how learning all the elements Star Wars took from its inspiration tainted it. And I think it shows how poisonous the emphasis on originality in art can be. Because yes, it's wonderful when art makes something new, but it's also wonderful seeing how art plays on what came before, and the conversations it has with its predecessors.

There's going to be a lot of people talking about how much of an impact Goku from Dragon Ball Z has made on fiction in the wake of Akira Toriyama's recent passing, and all the characters who were inspired by him and his story. But Goku himself is derivative - he's inspired by the Monkey King from Journey to the West, one of the first novels ever written. He's far from the first character inspired by the Monkey King, either, and also far from the last.

None of this makes Goku's impact any less than it is. None of this decreases how Goku's story has inspired countless imitators. Just as Toriyama created a new icon from imitating what he loved about Journey to the West, so did Toriyama inspire countless artists to make their own iconic works with his take on the Monkey King's archetype. Goku is, in many ways, the heir to a legacy that spans back to the 16th century, and likely beyond - because I doubt the original Monkey King was formed in a vacuum.

We're taught to think that originality and imitation are opposites that cannot coexist, but they're not mutually exclusive. One can follow in another's footsteps and still take a new journey with its own unique twists and turns. The great works of art are not spawned in the absence of inspiration - they are in conversation with what came before and what will come after.

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Terrorist State of Israel STARVES, TARGETS and SLAUGHTERS CHILDREN in Gaza

As we conclude our week-long sea-lebration of her birthday, let's reflect on Rosa’s time at the Aquarium!

We’re so grateful for the opportunity to care for Rosa 💙 Help us wish her the fluffiest, happiest 24th birthday!

A lot of writing advice says ‘throw the reader into the action’ and I respect where that’s coming from, but personally I kind of love an elaborate and unnecessary-to-the-plot framing device.

The credits before the grainy movie or long, dramatic anime opening; an endlessly looping videogame title screen; some hype man at the beginning of a renaissance play purely there to let the crowd know shit’s about to get real.

The following pages are transcribed from papers found in a cave thought unreachable by humans, and written in an ink whose chemical composition could not be determined. Something howls in the forest and the stranger at your campfire looks up from under the brim of their hat and strums their guitar to begin the Ballad of Howlin’ Joe. Reader, the tale you are about to read is entirely made up and every character fictitious, but each and every word of it is true.

Once upon a time! It was a dark and stormy night! Atmosphere IS story and you don’t have to cut out every moment of it to serve constant forward action. Give me a trope with absolute sincerity that sets a MOOD and gets me in the zone. I have a huge reverent soft spot for an opening that feels like beginning the ancient and intrinsically familiar ritual of storytelling, a ritual that spans the world and predates written text, endlessly iterating and evolving. Are you sitting comfortably? Let’s begin.

As one of the two resident weird girls at the Home I work in, can I just say your professor is a moron. I work three days a week as a nurse in a high priced Christian nursing home, and I am loved there. Those girls request me as a nurse on their floors, once in a while arguing about who gets me for a night. Why? Is it because I info dump at them sometimes, or bring in the latest serotonin maker I've found? Is it cuz I dress in a gothic style and wax poetic about random things? Is it because I'm touch adverse or that I constantly talk to myself to stay on task? No. They deal with those things because I am a competent Nurse, I am kind to them and the residents, and I help out. Honey, being different is hard, and spicy brained people like us have it rough, but I promise your coworkers will not have a problem with weird.

Anyway last week my professor told the class "coworkers will put up with poor technical skills but they won't put up with weird" and after class I just went and sat in my car and cried bc how am I supposed to survive if I still don't seem "normal" even though I've been doing behavioral therapy since first grade but masking hurts so goddamn bad that I'm only doing two classes a week rn but I'm still falling apart and barely functioning every day and barely getting my work turned in bc i come home from class and collapse for days at a time and its just not fair, its not fair, why do other people get to be the normal, why do jobs get to be easy for other people, why are 66% of autistics unemployed/underemployed its not FAIR

Why would they do all this? Just get remarried!

They have. Three times. But they wanted to REALLY get married again. And Mama isn't legally allowed to throw weddings anymore since the cemetery incident. They have to do it legitimately.

Gomez and Morticia Addams got divorced. I woke up mortified and with a sense of inexplicable dread.

them: SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST MEANS HUMANS MUST BE INDIVIDUALLY SELF-SUFFICIENT AND COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT

biologist: