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The quote "Well behaved women seldom make history" is usually misinterpreted

It is said that 'Well behaved women seldom make history'. This is commonly taken to mean that in order for a woman to make an impact she has to make noise, she has to rebel against the norm, she has to misbehave. Yet when Laurel Thatcher Ulrich first coined the phrase in 1976 this was not the meaning she had in mind. Well behaved women are important, but they are seldom remembered. Women have been ignored by historian for centuries, dismissed by many men as incapable of great achievement; forgotten.

from this article: https://womeninhistory.education/well-behaved-women-seldom-make-history/

So much of modern media celebrates the kind of woman that makes noise and rebels against the norm, but let's not forget the quiet women, the ones behind the scenes, the ones that might not be rocking the boat. They can also have an impact. They also matter.

Let's not belittle one kind of woman to uplift another.

I think this is one reason why 2022 Persuasion has angered so many people. The way they changed Anne's character communicates that only one kind of woman is admirable, only one kind of woman deserves to be the heroine of story. It does a disservice to the nuanced, complex, varied personalities and characters and stories of women.

“I don’t feel that it is necessary to know exactly what I am. The main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in the beginning.”

— Michel Foucault

― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

[text ID: I desire the things that will destroy me in the end.]

Do you happen to have any Patrochilles modern au fic or comic recommendations?

I haven’t read too many but here’s a short list with links (most of these are just the popular ones on ao3):

Not Homer’s Iliad (I remember this was pretty good and a little funny)

at least as deep as the pacific ocean  (I am a sucker for Coffeeshop AUs)

tell me again (Blind Patroclus AU, depressing but also sweet)

as the poets say (short but I loved the way it was written, just beautiful)

your name like a song  (this one’s just pretty)

We were like gods (this one’s a longer)

Lux Aeterna (a tiny bit angsty, totally worth the read)

Also, this one’s not a Modern AU but definitely worth mentioning is The Good Soul which was absolutely amazing.

Bear in mind, these are mainly TSOA fanfics, not Iliad fanfics.

I haven’t found any comics yet but I will keep a lookout. Does anyone else have any suggestions?

This is a compiled list of some of my favorite pieces of short horror fiction, ranging from classics to modern-day horror, and includes links to where the full story can be read for free. Please be aware that any of these stories may contain subject matter you find disturbing, offensive, or otherwise distressing. Exercise caution when reading. Image art is from Scarecrow: Year One.

PSYCHOLOGICAL: tense, dread-inducing horror that preys upon the human psyche and aims to frighten on a mental or emotional level. 

“The Frolic” by Thomas Ligotti, 1989

“Button, Button” by Richard Matheson, 1970

“89.1 FM” by Jimmy Juliano, 2015

“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 1892

“Death at 421 Stockholm Street“ by C.K. Walker, 2016

“The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula K. Le Guin, 1973

“An Empty Prison” by Matt Dymerski, 2018

“A Suspicious Gift” by Algernon Blackwood, 1906

CURSED: stories concerning characters afflicted with a curse, either by procuring a plagued object or as punishment for their own nefarious actions.

“How Spoilers Bleed” by Clive Barker, 1991

“A Warning to the Curious” by M.R. James, 1925

“each thing i show you is a piece of my death” by Stephen J. Barringer and Gemma Files, 2010

“The Road Virus Heads North” by Stephen King, 1999

“Ring Once for Death” by Robert Arthur, 1954

“The Mary Hillenbrand Cassette“ by Jimmy Juliano, 2016

“The Monkey’s Paw” by W.W. Jacobs, 1902

MONSTERS: tales of ghouls, creeps, and everything in between.

“The Curse of Yig” by H.P. Lovecraft and Zealia Bishop, 1929 

“The Oddkids” by S.M. Piper, 2015

“Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” by Richard Matheson

“The Graveyard Rats” by Henry Kuttner, 1936

“Tall Man” by C.K. Walker, 2016 

“The Quest for Blank Claveringi“ by Patricia Highsmith, 1967

“The Showers” by Dylan Sindelar, 2012

CLASSICS: terrifying fiction written by innovators of literary horror. 

“The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, 1843

“The Interlopers” by Saki, 1919 

“The Statement of Randolph Carter“ by H.P. Lovecraft, 1920

“The Damned Thing” by Ambrose Pierce, 1893

“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving, 1820 

“August Heat” by W.F. Harvey, 1910

“The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe, 1843

SUPERNATURAL: stories varying from spooky to sober, featuring lurking specters, wandering souls, and those haunted by ghosts and grief. 

“Nora’s Visitor” by Russell R. James, 2011

“The Pale Man” by Julius Long, 1934

“A Collapse of Horses” by Brian Evenson, 2013

“The Jigsaw Puzzle” by J.B. Stamper, 1977 

“The Mayor Will Make A Brief Statement and then Take Questions” by David Nickle, 2013

“The Night Wire” by H.F. Arnold, 1926 

“Postcards from Natalie” by Carrie Laben, 2016

UNSETTLING: fiction that explores particularly disturbing topics, such as mutilation, violence, and body horror. Not recommended for readers who may be offended or upset by graphic content.  

“Survivor Type” by Stephen King, 1982

“I’m On My Deathbed So I’m Coming Clean…” by M.J. Pack, 2018

“In the Hills, the Cities” by Clive Barker, 1984

“The New Fish” by T.W. Grim, 2013

“The Screwfly Solution” by Racoona Sheldon, 1977

“In the Darkness of the Fields” by Ho_Jun, 2015 

“The October Game” by Ray Bradbury, 1948

“I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” by Harlan Ellison, 1967 

HAPPY READING, HORROR FANS!

Ten core principles necessary for the remodeling of your brain to take place:

1. Change is mostly limited to those situations in which the brain is in the mood for it.

If you are alert, on the ball, engaged, motivated, ready for action, the brain releases the neurochemicals necessary to enable brain change. When disengaged, inattentive, distracted, or doing something without thinking that requires no real effort, your neuroplastic switches are “off.”

2. The harder you try, the more you’re motivated, the more alert you are, and the better (or worse) the potential outcome, the bigger the brain change.

If you’re intensely focused on the task and really trying to master something for an important reason, the change experienced will be greater.

3. What actually changes in the brain are the strengths of the connections of neurons that are engaged together, moment by moment, in time.

The more something is practiced, the more connections are changed and made to include all elements of the experience (sensory info, movement, cognitive patterns). You can think of it like a “master controller” being formed for that particular behavior which allows it to be performed with remarkable facility and reliability over time.

4. Learning-driven changes in connections increase cell-to-cell cooperation which is crucial for increasing reliability.

Merzenich explains this by asking you to imagine the sound of a football stadium full of fans all clapping at random versus the same people clapping in unison. He explains, “The more powerfully coordinated your [nerve cell] teams are, the more powerful and more reliable their behavioral productions.”

5. The brain also strengthens its connections between teams of neurons representing separate moments of successive things that reliably occur in serial time.

This allows your brain to predict what happens next and have a continuous “associative flow.” Without this ability, your stream of consciousness would be reduced to “a series of separate, stagnating puddles,” explains Merzenich.

6. Initial changes are temporary.

Your brain first records the change, then determines whether it should make the change permanent or not. It only becomes permanent if your brain judges the experience to be fascinating or novel enough or if the behavioral outcome is important, good or bad.

7. The brain is changed by internal mental rehearsal in the same ways and involving precisely the same processes that control changes achieved through interactions with the external world.

According to Merzenich, “You don’t have to move an inch to drive positive plastic change in your brain. Your internal representations of things recalled from memory work just fine for progressive brain plasticity-based learning.”

8. Memory guides and controls most learning.

As you learn a new skill, your brain takes note of and remembers the good attempts, while discarding the not-so-good trys. Then, it recalls the last good pass, makes incremental adjustments, and progressively improves.

9. Every movement of learning provides a moment of opportunity for the brain to stabilize – and reduce the disruptive power of – potentially interfering backgrounds or “noise.”

Each time your brain strengthens a connection to advance your mastery of a skill, it also weakens other connections of neurons that weren’t used at that precise moment. This negative plastic brain change erases some of the irrelevant or interfering activity in the brain.

10. Brain plasticity is a two-way street; it is just as easy to generate negative changes as it is positive ones.

You have a “use it or lose it” brain. It’s almost as easy to drive changes that impair memory and physical and mental abilities as it is to improve these things. Merzenich says that older people are absolute masters at encouraging plastic brain change in the wrong direction.

Rape Escape

Easy and very effective

Requires nothing but your body

Includes attack

Superhero!Seven x Villain!MC AU

  Well hello! This is my first writing piece on this account, and it’s just to show you guys what my writing style is like.

  I had been working on this one for a while, so I hope that you guys enjoy it!

  Feedback is always appreciated, as well as constructive criticism, so feel free to message me.

  Remember that requests are open!

~~~ 

Genre: Fluff & Blink-and-you-miss-it Angst

Word-Count: 6,738

~~~~~     

   “YOU WILL LOSE NEXT TIME!” You yelled as you ran towards a building across the street, sliding behind it and into a dark alleyway, hiding until the crowd would dissipate.

   It was rare that you used your voice since you had to keep your identity a secret, after all. Even when you did use your voice, you would change the tone, to make it less likely for someone to recognize you. After everything that had happened, you were completely out of breath, with cuts on your face and blood dripping from said cuts.

   Who would’ve thought that you’d end up like this? You were a villain, humanity’s number one enemy, at least when they are derived from its own. The trouble you caused would always appear in every local headline, sometimes even showing up around the world.

Keep reading

The time when Harry and Malfoy are surprisingly domestic; And Ron nearly cannot process that :

Ron would never believe what he was seeing before his eyes.

Malfoy lived in a studio flat now, Harry had said. They had buried their old rivalry now, Harry had said. Harry was quite taken up with the blond ferret git now, he had said.

What Ron expected though, was certainly not this.

Upon stepping out of the floo into the living room, Hermione in tow, Ron’s brows began to furrow in confusion. The sight which welcomed him was a large, spacey room with furniture sparsely covering its white marble floor. The fireplace behind him cackled loudly, illuminating the huge wooden table in the middle of the room etched with meticulously designed carvings. The room was dimly lit otherwise, an open kitchen to the corner of the flat and paintings decorating the ivory coloured walls, family heirlooms floating along a corridor leading to a door which could only be the bathroom. At a side, a sofa with golden trimmings sat.

When Harry said studio flat, Ron did not expect this large, posh room with space enough to host a party. But of course, he wouldn’t expect less with Malfoy. If Malfoy was to live in a studio flat, it would be a mansion studio.

But what Ron really didn’t expect, was the sight before him. On the bed. An odd feeling welled up within Ron, as he felt his chest had ceased working to take breaths in. He felt like he was intruding into a fantasy bubble.

Because before him, Malfoy was perched in the middle of a king size bed which was placed several feet off the ground on a small platform, half lying against the wall behind him. With one hand, he was flipping a book casually held in it, and the other hand…was currently wrapped protectively around the figure basically on top on him.

Ron could recognize that nest of messy dark hair anywhere, having known his best friend for a decade and said best friend’s profile always plastered on posters. What he could not begin to process, was that Harry was currently lying face down, sprawled across Malfoy, snoring softly. His face was buried deep against Malfoy’s collar bone, arms loosely clutching the body under him, in his, apparently, deep slumber. Malfoy’s chin was resting gently atop Harry’s head, eyes peering down at his book in concentration. A comfortable-looking duvet was thrown across both of their bodies, covering Harry waist down. Malfoy’s arms were left out.

What slightly unnerved Ron was, the both of them looked so cozy that it seemed like they had resumed the same position for the millionth time. Ron has no idea that this was the definition of “taken up”.

Hearing commotion, Malfoy eventually lifted his head up from his literature. He blinked at the couple before him for a moment, sighed, but not unkindly, then shifted.

To Ron’s slight horror, the ferret shut his book after marking his place in it, throwing it to a side, then used his now free hand to…begin slipping it into the head of dark hair resting on his chest. His fingers moved smoothly, tangling in the messiness. Ron looked on as Malfoy slowly caressed and massaged the scalp.

Then Malfoy began speaking, in the gentlest tone Ron had heard the git used that lacked every ounce of bitterness that he was familiar with. “Love, get up. They’re here.”

Gradually, the still figure on him began to stir. Clinging to Malfoy yet, he reached up to rub a fist into his eyes. Harry was not wearing his glasses, Ron noticed. Malfoy smiled down at him affectionately, a smile so secretive that Ron was not sure that he should be allowed to watch. Uneasiness in him remained, he watched on. Malfoy thumbed away a strand of hair which was blocking Harry’s face, cupping the cheeks in a light grasp and pressed a kiss to the scarred forehead, rousing his lover to wakefulness. Ron inhaled sharply.

Harry made a noise of confusion, but got up from his spot previously basically stuck to Malfoy. He staggered up, stepping down from the platform of the bed, which made him stand taller than Malfoy’s sitting form. A side of his face was red with imprints from being pressed to Malfoy’s shirt. Malfoy looked up at him with an almost fond, open expression on his face, soft smile still lingering. They started a what seemed like silent conversation with glances, or so Ron assumed, before Harry pointed a thumb towards the corridor. Malfoy nodded. “Go, shoo,” He said, waving a hand.

Then he turned to Ron and Hermione, acknowledging them for the first time since they got into the flat. “Sorry about that,” He said, with no intention of moving from the bed, “Poor one was working himself exhausted from doing overtime the whole week. He thought he could stay awake. I bet he can’t.” He gave a polite but slightly smug grin to Ron, and Ron suddenly found everything surreal.

“Aww,” Hermione whispered beside him while they all wait for Harry to come out of the bathroom, “Aren’t they so cute?”

“Yeah,” Ron found himself agreeing, his voice faint to his own ears, “Which is exactly the issue here. What the hell was that?”

______________________________________

(just a short one)

(more?)