Moje słuszne poglądy na wszystko

I am an archeologist. I specialize in a somewhat obscure but by no means boring or meaningless Neolithic culture in Germany.

It has a Wikipedia page. A well curated, surprisingly extensive Wiki page that encapsulates all the important information about the culture, including literature references for further research.

One day, we asked Chat GPT about this culture. W were curious which details it would get wrong.

ALL OF THEM, except for the fact that it's a culture in present day Germany.

It didn't even get the chronological time frame wrong and called it a celtic culture.

When we told it it's wrong, it came at us with made up literature sources. Literally made up. It took two well known German archeologist who weren't even active at the same time, added a year - both were already dead - and sold that as source.

And it LITERALLY would only have had to quote Wikipedia to get everything right.

THAT is how unbelievably shitty and wrong all those AIs are.

They are making shit up. They are not sourcing information, they're just slapping words together by their most like relative occurance.

We don’t have a clear idea of why we like the things we like. So we don’t clearly communicate why we like the things we like. So it’s no wonder Hollywood keeps getting your favorite movies and their characters wrong. The fans don’t even know why they like what they like.

When Genie is set free in the original Aladdin, that moment was impactful, and you remembered it all through childhood. When Luke tosses the lightsaber away and says “I am a Jedi, like my father before me,” it was impactful, and you remembered it.

But did you stop and analyze why? What made those moments, and those stories, impactful?

Did you say, “Genie wished to be free for the whole movie, and he was always trying to tell Aladdin about how freedom only comes from trusting, and he was learning to trust Al himself, and Aladdin finally DID trust Jasmine to still want him even if he wasn’t rich, so he set Genie free in the most satisfying way!”

Did you say, “Luke spent all previous movies rushing into fights, and trying to control everything to save the ones he loves, but when he finally has his enemy at his mercy and is at the height of his power, he realizes that being a Jedi isn’t rushing and fighting and controlling; it’s having faith in the good and throwing your opportunity for control away.”

Did you think through and appreciate that stuff? The values? The point of the whole story, and how the characters act as pillars holding that point up? The good and the bad things that they embody?

No. Not out loud. Because we don’t think critically anymore. We just go “what’s this? Entertain me. Oooh, I felt something! Good! Next!”

The why behind what you like is the only value in liking anything.

But we don’t look objectively at the “why.” We don’t dwell on the “why.” If we dwell on anything, it’s to superimpose ourselves or whatever we like onto the characters.

You think Barbie was hyping feminism because you like feminism, and because you felt things during Barbie. You write fanfiction about Eddie Munson that has nothing to do with what Eddie Munson actually is as a character—because you like love stories, and you felt some compelling emotions when you saw Eddie Munson onscreen, so you’ve decided that those things should go together. You take something that made you feel emotions while you watched the canon material, then you don’t bother to process those emotions or what made the canon material compelling. You just slap whatever you already think you like onto something that made you feel, whether it had anything to do with what you like or not.

You eat the apple and benefit from it without knowing, at all, what nutrients are inside. Then when someone offers you crap and tells you it’s apple-flavored, you wonder why you’re not feeling the same way afterward.

Then you misdiagnose. You say “no, I don’t wonder why I’m not feeling the same—it’s because the CGI in live-action remakes suck!” Okay, great, so they’ll get better CGI. And it’ll still suck. Because that was never the problem, just like the reasons you liked the movie were never the reasons it actually impacted you in the first place.

Figure out. WHY. You like what you like. Figure out if it’s because the stories said what their creators objectively intended for them to say—or if you like the story in spite of that, not because of that.

Doctor: We’re going to have to give him some shots.

Okay, let’s be real—dialogue can make or break a scene. You want your characters to sound natural, like actual humans talking, not robots reading a script. So, how do you write dialogue that feels real without it turning into a mess of awkward pauses and “ums”? Here’s a little cheat sheet of what real people actually do when they talk (and you can totally steal these for your next story):

1. People Interrupt Each Other All the Time In real conversations, nobody waits for the perfect moment to speak. We interrupt, cut each other off, and finish each other's sentences. Throw in some overlaps or interruptions in your dialogue to make it feel more dynamic and less like a rehearsed play.

2. They Don’t Always Say What They Mean Real people are masters of dodging. They’ll say one thing but mean something totally different (hello, passive-aggressive banter). Or they’ll just avoid the question entirely. Let your characters be vague, sarcastic, or just plain evasive sometimes—it makes their conversations feel more layered.

3. People Trail Off... We don’t always finish our sentences. Sometimes we just... stop talking because we assume the other person gets what we’re trying to say. Use that in your dialogue! Let a sentence trail off into nothing. It adds realism and shows the comfort (or awkwardness) between characters.

4. Repeating Words Is Normal In real life, people repeat words when they’re excited, nervous, or trying to make a point. It’s not a sign of bad writing—it’s how we talk. Let your characters get a little repetitive now and then. It adds a rhythm to their speech that feels more genuine.

5. Fillers Are Your Friends People say "um," "uh," "like," "you know," all the time. Not every character needs to sound polished or poetic. Sprinkle in some filler words where it makes sense, especially if the character is nervous or thinking on their feet.

6. Not Everyone Speaks in Complete Sentences Sometimes, people just throw out fragments instead of complete sentences, especially when emotions are high. Short, choppy dialogue can convey tension or excitement. Instead of saying “I really think we need to talk about this,” try “We need to talk. Now.”

7. Body Language Is Part of the Conversation Real people don’t just communicate with words; they use facial expressions, gestures, and body language. When your characters are talking, think about what they’re doing—are they fidgeting? Smiling? Crossing their arms? Those little actions can add a lot of subtext to the dialogue without needing extra words.

8. Awkward Silences Are Golden People don’t talk non-stop. Sometimes, they stop mid-conversation to think, or because things just got weird. Don’t be afraid to add a beat of awkward silence, a long pause, or a meaningful look between characters. It can say more than words.

9. People Talk Over Themselves When They're Nervous When we’re anxious, we tend to talk too fast, go back to rephrase what we just said, or add unnecessary details. If your character’s nervous, let them ramble a bit or correct themselves. It’s a great way to show their internal state through dialogue.

10. Inside Jokes and Shared History Real people have history. Sometimes they reference something that happened off-page, or they share an inside joke only they get. This makes your dialogue feel lived-in and shows that your characters have a life beyond the scene. Throw in a callback to something earlier, or a joke only two characters understand.

11. No One Explains Everything People leave stuff out. We assume the person we’re talking to knows what we’re talking about, so we skip over background details. Instead of having your character explain everything for the reader’s benefit, let some things go unsaid. It’ll feel more natural—and trust your reader to keep up!

12. Characters Have Different Voices Real people don’t all talk the same way. Your characters shouldn’t either! Pay attention to their unique quirks—does one character use slang? Does another speak more formally? Maybe someone’s always cutting people off while another is super polite. Give them different voices and patterns of speech so their dialogue feels authentic to them.

13. People Change the Subject In real life, conversations don’t always stay on track. People get sidetracked, jump to random topics, or avoid certain subjects altogether. If your characters are uncomfortable or trying to dodge a question, let them awkwardly change the subject or ramble to fill the space.

14. Reactions Aren’t Always Immediate People don’t always respond right away. They pause, they think, they hesitate. Sometimes they don’t know what to say, and that delay can speak volumes. Give your characters a moment to process before they respond—it’ll make the conversation feel more natural.

@fantasyblr week: day 2 – subgenre (fairy tales)

The latest argument of the fandom about Gwyn's birthday has reached me and I'm a bit baffled at how people are talking about some things as though they were foolproof facts.

We all know she was conceived in Calanmai. There isn't any discussion about that. In our world, Calanmai is a welsh festival to celebrate May Day and it marks the halfway point between the Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice. It's counterpart in the colder months is known as Samhain, November 1st.

The first thing I want to point out is that there's a retcon from ACOTAR to ACOMAF about Calanmai, or at very least, some imprecision. That is because in the first book Lucien says verbatim "Fire Night signals the official start of spring—in Prythian, as well as in the mortal world". This does create some ambiguity, as in our world, the official start of Spring is the Spring Equnox, at the end of March.

ACOMAF later introduces us to Nynsar/Starfall, which is even earlier in the Spring, and that's great! Cleared up the fact that the official start of spring =/= actual start of spring. I'm not going to dispute that but rather, alright, Calanmai is indeed May 1st.

As Fae Pregnancies last 10 months to the date would be March 1st. So Gwyn and Catrin are March Babies. Lovely little piece of math there. There's just one problem: this line of thinking assumes their mother carried the pregnancy to full term. Since we don't actually have Gwyn's exact birthday, we can't pinpoint the lenght of her mother's pregnancy and when she was born.

Life isn't rocket science. Every single day children are born way before their due date, for whatever reason, and this is particularly true to twins. Most twin pregnancies aren't, in fact, carried to the neat 40 weeks mark. In ACOWAR, Nyx himself was born way earlier than normal because of complications and after Nesta resurrected him and Feyre, he's mostly fine.

Bottom line is that no, you cannot take it as a fact that Gwyn's birthday is in March just because that matches the usual length of fae pregnancies, since we don't know long their mother was pregnant. Yes, the opposite is also true: we can't know for sure if that she was born in january. Certainty doesn't exist here for either side.

Also, I don't think we're supposed to get so bogged down on specific dates because I don't think Sarah cared whether Calanmai was the very start of Spring, sometime in April or May 1. She already took one thing from the real WORLD - Calanmai or Calan Mai which falls on May 1 and marks the start of summer, and altered it to suit her writing so she's not following the rules here. Her version is not the start of summer or the actual start of Spring because again Starfall comes first and a day before Starfall Feyre noted "Winter had indeed yielded to spring. By the time I was halfway there, my overcoat was slung over my arm, and my body was slick with sweat beneath my heavy cream sweater"

Let’s talk about the French and the Russians. Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre disagreed about their views on Marxism. Camus couldn’t see a difference between Communist totalitarianism and Nazism because he was an individualist. But Sartre and others always viewed USSR as a model nation.

- Sartre was the head of that intellectual group. It’s a very old topic with deep roots – why do the French like Russia. Russian elite spoke French in the 17th century, perhaps a bit less in the 18th, when the Tsar, as a counter-revolutionary measure, ordered the elites to speak German. But up until the Russian revolution elite spoke French. I think there is a common ground between French and Russian societies, and it has to do with power. Up until the revolution, the power structure in France was very strong and absolute, the kings were autocrats – just like in Russia. The government relied on violence, and the people were very poor. France and Russia were very close. Alexis de Tocqueville described it perfectly.

Did you know that when Lenin and Trotsky “made” revolution in Russia, they counted days and said: “Now we have passed the French revolution by 43 days.” The French second revolution (Jacobin 1792-1793) and the 1917 Russian revolution had a lot of things in common. There’s a certain understanding between France and Russia. The French are very passionate about Russian literature – they are certain that all Russians are like Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy. Even though that’s false – there is a small group of ‘European’ Russians, and next to them – a lot of uneducated people. It’s a French illusion.

The war that is happening now is weird. It’s not just a war with bullets but a war of economic interests and culture.

-         Yes, I do think that it’s a cultural war. For the Russian people and their government, it’s incomprehensible that Ukraine, just like Lithuania, are modern countries that turned its gaze into the future, that they are modern, Western people. Russians don’t want to be modern, and that means that they don’t want a democracy nor to be individualist. Besides, for the Russian government and the people, life exists in another spiritual and time plane [non contemporaine]. But they don’t want it any other way, that’s the biggest issue.

Is Russian spirituality – a myth?

-         No, I think it’s a fundamental part of Russia, and spirituality there goes back for centuries. Even more – it’s a spirituality mixed with politics. It’s a very old political-theological story.

I don’t know if Europe even has a vision for Russia, but we can assume that Europe wants to see Russia being democratic. Do you think it’s possible?

-         I think it’s very complicated because it’s a question of mentality. That mentality in Russia has very deep and old roots. Its existence non contemporaine stems from imperial vision. And that imperial vision isn’t just political, but politically theological, coming from religion and the church structure. In Russia, power is interlinked with religion. It goes back to very old times, and it’s impossible to simply jump over it or change. No wonder that patriarch Kirill works together with Putin – it’s theological.

Do you see an exit from this dead-end?

I’m afraid because I think that Europeans are not very brave. I’m glad to see Germans and or French pull themselves together [reprendre ses esprits]. But the French and Germans, in particular, were certain that peace would be eternal. There is a strong globalist sentiment in the West that is certain that we can create global institutions that could help prevent wars. I’ll cite German author Ulrich Beck who talks about “changing the enemy into a neighbor” in every aspect.

He genuinely believes that we can once again eliminate the fires of evil and guarantee that if we ourselves don’t want to fight or conquer, then no one else would… It seemed that we had no more enemies, that we could turn an enemy into a neighbor. But it’s a crazy idea. I think the politicians finally understand that it’s not you who picks an enemy, but the enemy picks you. It makes me happy, but I repeat – they are not very brave. They’re more leaning towards having gas – and they fear for it.

When the French President Emmanuel Macron talked to Putin, did he express weakness, or kept an important communication channel open?

-         I think Macron is very childish. He’s very smart [grand esprit], but not fully mature. He thinks about his image. But it’s just an image. I don’t trust him too much.

Do you think that the Russian invasion had a reason, not in terms of war methods, but about its causes? For example, Russia named Western imperialism and attempts to spread Western values to other countries.

- No. I think just as France identifies as a Republic, Russia identifies itself as an Empire. […]

France and England used to be Empires, but no more, Russia still is. If the largest country in the world stopped being Empire, Russia would seize to exist. It’s an archaic and violence-based identity, but it is an identity. If Russia is not at war or not conquering, Russia becomes sad. What can we do about it, I don’t know.

Where do you see the roots of this conflict?

-         After USSR collapsed, democracy became impossible in Russia. I think for us in the West it’s hard to understand what the 20th century meant for your country (Lithuania) and the Soviet Union. According to some research, 60-70% of men in the Soviet Union were affected by the GULAG system. So, many of them have the mentality of uneducated thugs – just like Putin. We are dealing with a nation that is completely destroyed. And changes like that require time.

It seems that in France and the UK humanist and human life values easily beat imperialism, but Russia struggles with it.

-         I don’t know how to solve that issue in Russia. We might even need a 3rd World War to solve it.

Where do you see Europe going towards – greater polarization or unity?