A Recent Cartoon For New Scientist

my translations of Armenian Poetry 🌻

Vahan Teryan

"I love your guilty dusky eyes...", Vahan Teryan

"Two Phantoms", Vahan Teryan

"I shall come to you ...", Vahan Teryan

"To forget, to forget ...", Vahan Teryan

"Sweeter Than Living", Vahan Teryan

"In the empty words", Vahan Teryan

Paruyr Sevak

"Unexpected Storm", Paruyr Sevak

"One of Us", Paruyr Sevak

"Close your eyes", Paruyr Sevak

"I love to love...", Paruyr Sevak

"To Go Mad", Paruyr Sevak

"Your Name", Paruyr Sevak

"You don't love anew ...", Paruyr Sevak

"People are not alike...", Paruyr Sevak

"To Live...", Paruyr Sevak

Hovhannes Tumanyan

"In slumber's grasp...", Hovhannes Tumanyan

Eghishe Charenc

"Sister, it might be ...", Eghishe Charenc

"All of these flames ...", Eghishe Charenc

Hovhannes Grigoryan

"Songs of Farewell", Hovhannes Grigoryan

"Armenia", Hovhannes Grigoryan

"I'm no longer looking for you", Hovhannes Grigoryan

"An evening with aged maidens", Hovhannes Grigoryan

"Perhaps, it's spring ...", Hovhannes Grigoryan

"Don't you ever die", Hovhannes Grigoryan

"A letter that will never reach you", Hovhannes Grigoryan

Henrik Edoyan

"I did not do what was written ...", Henrik Edoyan

"I remember many of them...", Henrik Edoyan

"A biography that might as well have been mine", Henrik Edoyan

Vardan Hakobyan

"Love One Another", Vardan Hakobyan

Categories of Plot Twists

Anagnorisis: a character learns a new piece of information about themselves or another character. “Anagnorisis, or discovery, is the protagonist's sudden recognition of their own or another character's true identity or nature. Through this technique, previously unforeseen character information is revealed.”

Flashback: “Flashback, or analepsis, a sudden, vivid reversion to a past event, surprises the reader with previously unknown information that solves a mystery, places a character in a different light, or reveals the reason for a previously inexplicable action.”

Cliffhanger: “A cliffhanger or cliffhanger ending, is a plot device in fiction which features a main character in a precarious or difficult dilemma or confronted with a shocking revelation at the end of an episode of serialized fiction.”

Unreliable Narrator: “An unreliable narrator twists the ending by revealing, almost always at the end of the narrative, that the narrator has manipulated or fabricated the preceding story, thus forcing the reader to question their prior assumptions about the text.”

Peripeteia: Peripeteia is a sudden reversal of the protagonist's fortune, whether for good or ill, that emerges naturally from the character's circumstances. Unlike the deus ex machina device, peripeteia must be logical within the frame of the story.

Deus Ex Machina: Deus ex machina is a Latin term meaning "god from the machine." It refers to an unexpected, artificial or improbable character, device or event introduced suddenly in a work of fiction to resolve a situation or untangle a plot.

Red Herring: A red herring is a false clue intended to lead investigators toward an incorrect solution. This device usually appears in detective novels and mystery fiction. The red herring is a type of misdirection, a device intended to distract the protagonist, and by extension the reader, away from the correct answer or from the site of pertinent clues or action.

False Protagonist: A false protagonist is a character presented at the start of the story as the main character, but then disposed of, usually killed.

Non-linear Narrative: A non-linear narrative works by revealing plot and character in non-chronological order. This technique requires the reader to attempt to piece together the timeline in order to fully understand the story. A twist ending can occur as the result of information that is held until the climax and which places characters or events in a different perspective.

Reverse Chronology: Reverse chronology works by revealing the plot in reverse order, i.e., from final event to initial event. Unlike chronological storylines, which progress through causes before reaching a final effect, reverse chronological storylines reveal the final effect before tracing the causes leading up to it; therefore, the initial cause represents a "twist ending".

Writing References: Narratives

Writing Resources Masterlist

Balancing multiple main characters

Dramatic irony

Editing Tip: How to Speed Up or Slow Down Your Pacing

First vs Third Person narratives

Guide to showing vs telling

How To Write Saucy Betrayals

Internal Conflict and the Lie the Character Believes

Mundane scenes are important

Narrative distance

Pacing and show, don’t tell in writing

Passive vs active voice

Tips for Writing a Difficult Scene

Tips on Introducing Backstory

Using Flashbacks in Fiction

What Is Showing vs. Telling Anyway?

Writing fight scenes

Writer's Guide to Time jumps

Writing intimacy in a scene

Writing sexual tension: will they or won’t they?

Writing The Opening Scene

I have heard many men say that they want an "intelligent woman" in their life. I would encourage them to think well.

Girls and intelligent women make their own decisions, have their own desires and set boundaries. You will never be the center of her life because she revolves around them. An intelligent woman will not allow you to manipulate or blackmail her. She is responsible for her actions.

Intelligent girls doubt, analyze, debate, displease, progress. These women had a life before you appeared in their lives, and will continue to have it even when you leave their lives. Such women report, do not ask permission. They are not looking for a leader to follow, a father who solved their life, or a child to save themselves by guiding them. They do not want to follow you, nor are they willing to show the right way to others.

Intelligent girls know that living without violence is a right, not a luxury or a privilege. They express nervousness, sadness, pleasure and fear in the same way, because they know that fear does not make them look weak, nor does nervousness make them look "masculine". These two emotions, but also the others, all together, make it look humane and that's enough.

An intelligent woman is free because she has fought for her freedom. But she is not a victim, she is a survivor. Do not try to limit her, because she will know how to escape. An intelligent woman knows that her value does not lie in the physical aspect. Think twice before judging her age, height, weight or sexual behavior because this is emotional violence and she understands it.

So before you say you want an "intelligent woman" in your life, ask yourself if you are really ready to be a part of her life.

— Gabriel Garcia Marquez

It's so important to remember that tumblr is bad. Has been bad. And will likely remain bad for the foreseeable future. And that is vital to our survival. If Tumblr was a good website that worked, it would get turned into a corporate hellscape like every other site. It's so important that Tumblr is broken and poorly run and impossible to effectively navigate. It's all that's keeping us safe.

every time you leave the house w some aspect of your physical appearance challenging norms but honoring yourself, you get a little firmer in your conviction that you have the right to exist and be a body however tf you want

The LGBTQ community has seen controversy regarding acceptance of different groups (bisexual and transgender individuals have sometimes been marginalized by the larger community), but the term LGBT has been a positive symbol of inclusion and reflects the embrace of different identities and that we’re stronger together and need each other. While there are differences, we all face many of the same challenges from broader society.

In the 1960′s, in wider society the meaning of the word gay transitioned from ‘happy’ or ‘carefree’ to predominantly mean ‘homosexual’ as they adopted the word as was used by homosexual men, except that society also used it as an umbrella term that meant anyone who wasn’t cisgender or heterosexual. The wider queer community embraced the word ‘gay’ as a mark of pride.

The modern fight for queer rights is considered to have begun with The Stonewall Riots in 1969 and was called the Gay Liberation Movement and the Gay Rights Movement.

The acronym GLB surfaced around this time to also include Lesbian and Bisexual people who felt “gay” wasn’t inclusive of their identities. 

Early in the gay rights movement, gay men were largely the ones running the show and there was a focus on men’s issues. Lesbians were unhappy that gay men dominated the leadership and ignored their needs and the feminist fight. As a result, lesbians tended to focus their attention on the Women’s Rights Movement which was happening at the same time. This dominance by gay men was seen as yet one more example of patriarchy and sexism. 

In the 1970′s, sexism and homophobia existed in more virulent forms and those biases against lesbians also made it hard for them to find their voices within women’s liberation movements. Betty Friedan, the founder of the National Organization for Women (NOW), commented that lesbians were a “lavender menace” that threatened the political efficacy of the organization and of feminism and many women felt including lesbians was a detriment.

In the 80s and 90s, a huge portion of gay men were suffering from AIDS while the lesbian community was largely unaffected. Lesbians helped gay men with medical care and were a massive part of the activism surrounding the gay community and AIDS. This willingness to support gay men in their time of need sparked a closer, more supportive relationship between both groups, and the gay community became more receptive to feminist ideals and goals. 

Approaching the 1990′s it was clear that GLB referred to sexual identity and wasn’t inclusive of gender identity and T should be added, especially since trans activist have long been at the forefront of the community’s fight for rights and acceptance, from Stonewall onward. Some argued that T should not be added, but many gay, lesbian and bisexual people pointed out that they also transgress established gender norms and therefore the GLB acronym should include gender identities and they pushed to include T in the acronym. 

GLBT became LGBT as a way to honor the tremendous work the lesbian community did during the AIDS crisis. 

Towards the end of the 1990s and into the 2000s, movements took place to add additional letters to the acronym to recognize Intersex, Asexual, Aromantic, Agender, and others. As the acronym grew to LGBTIQ, LGBTQIA, LGBTQIAA, many complained this was becoming unwieldy and started using a ‘+’ to show LGBT aren’t the only identities in the community and this became more common, whether as LGBT+ or LGBTQ+. 

In the 2010′s, the process of reclaiming the word “queer” that began in the 1980′s was largely accomplished. In the 2020′s the LGBTQ+ acronym is used less often as Queer is becoming the more common term to represent the community. 

Just learned about garden path sentences.

They’re basically a literary prank– the sentence starts out in such a way that you think you know where it’s going, but the way it ends completely changes the meaning while still being a complete and logical sentence. Usually it deals with double meanings, or with words that can be multiple parts of speech, like nouns and verbs or nouns and adjectives.

So we get gems like

The old man the boat. (The old people are manning the boat)

The complex houses married and single soldiers and their families. (The apartment complex is home to both married and single soldiers, plus their families)

The prime number few. (People who are excellent are few in number.)

The cotton clothing is usually made of grows in Mississipi. (The cotton that clothing is made of)

The man who hunts ducks out on weekends. (As in he ducks out of his responsibilities)

We painted the wall with cracks. (The cracked wall is the one that was pained.)