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natural-20.bsky.social

@natural-20.bsky.social

3 followers 15 following 99 posts

you can tag me as Artist/Writer; Spiritual Mystic; "O.G. Geek"; Leftist Activist; Furry; and Intellectual Explorer & Ph.D. with doctorate in multiple disciplines of scholarship & science -- for self-actualization, mentoring/teaching, and research!

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I am depressed by the realization that he had to include a proviso declaring in effect that Tom Bombadill is not a character in modern Star Wars. That's likely not why he posted that proviso, but I realize as I look it that there are indeed people who would make that confusion without it.

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We live in an era of shamelessly exploitative cultural grave robbers and idolators of presentism who are self-righteously certain the past is inherently damned for its sin of pre-existing them until redeemed by their Frankensteinian kludge of greedy self-congratulations and smug retro-contempt.

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There was a wonderfully innocent version on a U.S. children's TV series -- Captain Kangaroo perhaps? -- but I can not recall whether it was animated or a series of drawings appearing sequentially while a narrator spoke to us. Either way, I recall it was immensely respectful of the original work.

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The part of me that was once a cynical college kid wants to snark that Trump might be able to pull it off . . . Bah.

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With all good respect for you and for the many years I have thoroughly enjoyed your writings, I must disagree here. It is quite possible that he did it by error, yes, but at the same time, that particular phrasing has a certain poetry to it, and I think very few people could have found it unclear.

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At the risk of being shallow, wow, you are as attractive as ever! (my apologies if such a comment offends)

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I think one of the biggest mistakes we of the Left made in the 20th century was (to use modern terms we did not use back then) we tried for "ALL BLUE" / "ANTI-RED" states and foolishly failed to recognize the worth of "purple" states : The old "joust not with extremists lest ye become one" trap!

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Having briefly endured work as a catalog writer, I suspect said writer was also just amusing themselves, for that looks too much like wordplay to be mere scrabbling for a standard term, and I know that after a while one becomes desperate to escape the painful ennui of "coloring in the lines" ad copy

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You would appreciate our gaming, I think. One of my Ph.D. disciplines is mythology, so I often incorporate mythological tropes & motifs and all the rest, tho' of course it all has to be adapted into the tabletop RPG forms for which such tales were not quite intended (mystery religions aside).

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I confess that your post startled me a little, for I have never been in a tabletop roleplaying game with anyone who is not a friend already or in the process of becoming one, and I have been doing this since AD&D was around and before any World of Darkness or SAGA RPGing existed.

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Terri Windling's avatar Terri Windling @terriwindling.bsky.social
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“Perhaps it is how we are made; perhaps words of truth reach us best through the heart, and stories and songs are the language of the heart." - Stephen R. Lawhead

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In university, many of us teach our students that formal (or semi-formal) essays and writings are the optimal means for communicating FACTS and fact-based assertions but that poetry and storytelling are the best way to put forth TRUTH and the immediate local experience of being human.

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Damn, I am torn between my natural mourning for his death and my delight in his life as a talented writer whose work lives on after him.

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minor half-tongue-in-cheek half-serious rant / the original Japanese version of what we in the U.S. call Godzilla continuously puts to shame some of the most expensive CGI driven would-be wanna-be blockbusters ever put out by 21st century America / minor half-tongue-in-cheek half-serious rant

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If I have the talents for it, I introduce them in a story of intelligence and whimsy, for which I find myself excoriated by fandom for daring to approach The Batman with any sense of humor or wit, then years of cheap attacks, followed decades later by a nostalgia-driven apotheosis of my story . . .

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Seanan McGuire's avatar Seanan McGuire @seananmcguire.bsky.social
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The bells, they rattle on the wind, The beer is getting cold. What's come before will come again, Or so it has been told... For soon will come the longest night, The lovely solstice tide, When for your treats you'll have to fight: For soon, the Mari rides.

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Diction is an important quality in genuine scientific and scholarly writing, and your professor would be failing you if that person did not penalize your grade for reckless misuse of diction. It's a class on biology, not a class on amateur comedy, after all.

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In grad school, the ones dancing skyclad would have been the placebo group enjoying a "natural high" while the ones just sitting around would have been the group flatscanned by psychopharmaceuticals. Grad school : when one chooses clothing-optional vacations mostly for the cheaper clothing budget!

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That sounds like a good thing . . . holodeck orgies never seemed to be a good thing for anyone in any Trek or Nu-Trek episode I can think of! As for your exploring an already-explored Earth : why the hell not? The fact I am not the first to read Beowulf does not diminish my love of the tale!

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In all honesty, Millie like so many "web comic" folks had always struck me as "genderish" more than gender-normed, idly genderfluid in a sort of Taoist/quietist way more than anything else, so whether cis- or trans- or NB or etc seemed to be "fluff" trivia more than an essential or cardinal quality.

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Seth Cotlar's avatar Seth Cotlar @sethcotlar.bsky.social
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Elon is having a normal morning.

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So now we're trying to use technology to remove the need for anyone to develop toilet training or biological self-control?

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So now we're trying to use technology to remove any human need for toilet training and physical self-control?

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I'm usually savvy enough to pick up on the joke, but the only thought I have when I read this is that everyone who doesn't confuse them also dies (at least if we're referring to humans and not including other real world or fictional lifeforms). So I'm uncertain what I'm missing here?

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In my neck of the words, "still being analog" would be considered high praise any more.

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I remember more than once telling younger LGBTQ+ activists that we need to remain calmly vigilant about our freedoms and their skoffing at me that "no one would ever dare" try to return to the bad old days so why inconvenience themselves over it? I hope they are no longer skoffing.

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I'd wager he knows little about the Bible except how to weaponize mention of it. It annoys me that so many people let themselves be trolled by his mention of the Bible instead of taking him at his word and asking him which translation, which hermeneutic approach, and other relevant questions.

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Back when academe condemned any respect for pop culture, I wrote a paper on the parallels between Godzilla and the *Beowulf* Dragon : I recall a couple of professors seriously telling me that I should drop out because my enjoying pop culture and not only the higher arts proved me unworthy of a Ph.D.

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OH! OH! OH! I used to celebrate Godzilla's birthday every year until I lost the exact date in a move! I have an entire collection of Toho giant monsters as plushes, including the unloved Gabara, and and and and further fanboy gushing for another twelve to twenty paragraphs . . .

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Kim Herbst's avatar Kim Herbst @kiwifruitbird.bsky.social
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It's National Godzilla Day so here's an old throwback to a doodle for one of my nephews:

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Ian Boudreau's avatar Ian Boudreau @iboudreau.bsky.social
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Ah, the official Bluesky Halloween costume finally arrived

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I mislike the surrender & self-shaming of the word "former" -- I'd prefer "manipulated" or "rooked" or, if I am feeling particularly cynical, "harvested" -- but, yeah, both as part of that world and as a professor who works with honors students, this is funny but also makes me want to cry . . .

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