Sorry that this feature is kind of late...
Like I've been saying before, I've been pretty wrapped up in class right now. I like not failing.
120 Seconds Contest BurdenedHearts
In the GLOBAL category, the winners were Synesthi, Delta-13 and DamonWakes. Honourable mentions :91816119, Beyond-An-Anomaly, and camelopardalisinblue
The Danger of Untold StoriesI believe in words. I believe in voices, the unique cries of human beings as they pour their soul out into the sky. But most of all, I believe in stories.
Stories, be they written or spoken or painted onto the walls of caves, reaffirm our humanity. They give us back our own heartbeat, that dull pulse of blood, but more than that they give us our minds. They let us reach back and see where we’ve been, what we felt, what we believed. They form a mirror, let us see who we are, who we were.
And I believe that everyone has a story that deserves to be heard. But more and more I’m seeing that only some stories get told. You have books for children fully admitting that people have different bodies…but where is the admission of different minds? Why do no main characters have mental illness, or attention deficit, autism or dyslexia? Where are the movies about synesthetes, those with OCD, those battling depression?
This is not just a problem of children’s literature, it e
This is not an Answer, it is a QuestionOver 100,000 Syrians dead. 400,000 Darfuris dead. 1 million Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks dead. 6 million Jews and 5 million Eastern Europeans, gays, and other dissident Germans dead. 2 million Cambodians dead. 96,000 Serbians, Croatians, and Bosnians dead. 1 million Tutsis dead.
Enough.
Stalin once said, “the death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic.” Why do we insist on proving Stalin right? The numbers above bring nothing but numbness and maybe a hint of shock. There is no worldwide outrage. There is no serious effort to stop these massacres. Sure people gasp and shake their heads when they read the headlines about the Syrian Civil War and the UN puffs its feathers and shakes its finger at Assad, but his actions will simply be another ignored black stain on the pages of history. As Hitler once said, in an attempt to justify his own actions, “Who, after all, speaks today of the Armenians?”
A sign in the Holocaust museum reads,
A Golden OpportunityListen to this speech here: https://soundcloud.com/damon-wakes/a-golden-opportunity
This is not a topic that affects me personally. Neither is it a topic for the world. The people who this topic affects the most will never hear it. They are struggling just to survive, just to feed themselves, just to save their children’s sight.
Approximately one million children die of Vitamin A deficiency each year. Approximately half a million more are left blinded. Imagine if there were some amazing new technology that would solve this extremely common, extremely serious problem almost overnight. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Now imagine that this technology is not new. Imagine that it’s been available since 1999, and it’s never been used.
This technology is not a gadget. It’s not a machine. It’s not a tool. It is a living organism. A genetically modified organism. Now, what do those words bring to mind? A mouse with a human ear sprouting from its back? Some
7,209,035,426.Earth. It is not made up of seven billion, two hundred and nine million, thirty five thousand, four hundred and twenty six different, individual humanoid fragments.
We, as a race, have very little, in fact, to do with the Earth. Our troubles and our triumphs, our loves and our losses – these do not represent the world, do not cause trees to grow, nor tides to flow, nor the aurora to wander like frozen breath across the Arctic Circle. We look at our world, and we see something pure, singular. A blue-green-white sphere, running its elliptical race around a fire-breathing star. But us? We are experience, feeling and life. We are living and dying. We are temporary.
It is our existence, our life, that is a mixed bag. We create good and bad, but we also destroy them both. Wind, however, is neither created nor destroyed: only changed or reused. The same can be said of the waves, of dandelions. Our mission on this planet, then – for we must have a purpose – is not to dwell on
Education: Live It, Learn ItAnyone remember when you had to spend ninety minutes in a classroom watching your teacher write with chalk against the not-Smartboard, type reports with a typewriter and actually, like, you know, go to the library and pick up some encyclopedias if you had to do research for a project?
Really? Because I don't.
And chances are, a fair amount of you don't either.
The means of learning have indeed changed. You now have the World Wide Web at your disposal, Microsoft Word is eternally at your service, and really, when was the last time you went to A library to get one of those...what do they call it? Oh yeah. Books.
But the purpose of it has not changed. In a pretty fair majority of the world, you have to have at least some form of educational experience for the sake of your profession, whatever it may be.
School was made to teach children, teens, and young adults how to grow and develop in a forever changing society where technology and elaborate thinking has crowned itself king. It teaches
Pregnancy and Infant Loss AwarenessImagine this: as a happily married woman in your 20s, you feel ready to start building your family. Together, you and your partner do all the prerequisites -- pregnancy vitamins and converting to a healthier lifestyle, etc. Finally, the day arrives when you discover that you're pregnant. You and your partner are delighted... but 7 weeks from now, something goes wrong.
The baby you've carried, the one you've made hopes and dreams around, has died. Every day, people around the world experience this grief -- and yes, men, too, grieve after a miscarriage -- and mostly, couples grieve alone.
In 2011, research suggested that in England and Wales that year, ten babies were stillborn every day. Scotland's 2010 research says 1 stillbirth every second day... but 16 women suffered a miscarriage every day. In the US, roughly 15-20% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage. A USAToday study suggests that, worldwide, more than 5000 babies are stillborn every day.
These numbers are staggering, especiall
Personal: Sammur-amat, camelopardalisinblue
BitterSweetFlames. Honourable mentions: MagicalJoey, The-Lantiis, andOHiNeedTea.
Anxiety and SerenityDear Friend,
You- yes you, the person reading and listening to this speech right now. If you're here because you know of this competition, then you must surely be either part of the group, Burdened Hearts or be familiar with what the aforementioned group stands for. Being a sufferer of a plethora of problems myself- brought about by Generalized Anxiety Disorder- I am no stranger to the feeling that, "our hearts are heavy burdens we shouldn't have to bear alone."
I cannot even begin to stress into letters all the unsaid and lost words, the vertigo and the cold sweating, the unreasonable panic attacks and self-destructive rampages every cell in my body begs me to get into at times- over the silliest and most fictitious of hurt words- words that I should never let crush my already chipped, porcelain-pale spirit.
My oh my though, what an amazing, amazing, amazing feeling it is to know, to really know, that you are not alone. What rapture to know that your simple words and well-wishes for o
I Am More Than BPDDon't tell me you know me better
than the people who've known me
for years. I know me too, and I know
to trust them with my sanity.
Don't tell me I don't need the hospital--
I wouldn't be here
if I didn't need the hospital. This is not
a playground and I am not
stupid. My emotional appendix
has burst and reality
tastes of copper; don't tell me
this is just
attention seeking.
All requests for help
involve seeking attention.
The patient whose leg is broken
screams for pain killers
but I am only kneeling
and asking you to help me
stay alive.
Don't tell me I am being irrational
when you are basing this
on a label only.
I am capable of great rationality:
I can begin by debating this
without calling you an asshole.
Flip the table -- call the burn victim
irrational, and I think you'll find
more volativity.
Listen when my supporters tell you
that I am sunshine
poured over candy
-- they are telling you
this is not me. Hear us:
I am bubbled laughter,
naivety and gentleness--
I do art and beauty
The Starving ArtistThere are many words to describe art but often they go hand in hand with an image of the artist ensconced in their dark tower and bleeding for their craft. I know this because I grew up with that image burnt into my brain by the very people I relied on for guidance. I was led to believe that following a life of art, wasn’t what smart people did, so I went to university and got myself a business degree. I worked hard and sweated towards goals that were the ones I believed were worth working for. What they didn’t know and, back then, what I didn’t understand was that with every course load I successfully passed and every thesis I bravely defended, I killed a small part of myself. With much pain to my inner self, I curtailed every artistic instinct and stopped every need to express rather than rationalize. Now I can only look back at all my words that went unwritten and all my pictures that went unmade and mourn.
This year, I celebrate having lived for quarter of a centu
What is a critique?Ladies and gentlemen of DeviantArt, I pose two questions to you: who is allowed to critique and what exactly is a critique?
To answer the second question first, a critique is a constructive comment. In it you place your thoughts and opinions on the other persons' work, remembering that what you are saying is just that; your personal opinion. You don't know everything, nobody does. Your grammar and the like is not flawless, nobodies' is. In fact, as humans we are all fallible. A critique is where you try to help people with their writing, or any other form of art, to the best of your ability.
Answering the second question, everyone is allowed to critique. You don't have to have a degree, you don't need to be a professor or have a doctorate in English. You just have to have an opinion and the willingness to help people.
GrammarNaziCritiques is a group that encourages such things. We have a group of critics who are all normal deviants such as yourselves. The only difference is that they
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Anxiety and SerenityDear Friend,
You- yes you, the person reading and listening to this speech right now. If you're here because you know of this competition, then you must surely be either part of the group, Burdened Hearts or be familiar with what the aforementioned group stands for. Being a sufferer of a plethora of problems myself- brought about by Generalized Anxiety Disorder- I am no stranger to the feeling that, "our hearts are heavy burdens we shouldn't have to bear alone."
I cannot even begin to stress into letters all the unsaid and lost words, the vertigo and the cold sweating, the unreasonable panic attacks and self-destructive rampages every cell in my body begs me to get into at times- over the silliest and most fictitious of hurt words- words that I should never let crush my already chipped, porcelain-pale spirit.
My oh my though, what an amazing, amazing, amazing feeling it is to know, to really know, that you are not alone. What rapture to know that your simple words and well-wishes for o
I Am More Than BPDDon't tell me you know me better
than the people who've known me
for years. I know me too, and I know
to trust them with my sanity.
Don't tell me I don't need the hospital--
I wouldn't be here
if I didn't need the hospital. This is not
a playground and I am not
stupid. My emotional appendix
has burst and reality
tastes of copper; don't tell me
this is just
attention seeking.
All requests for help
involve seeking attention.
The patient whose leg is broken
screams for pain killers
but I am only kneeling
and asking you to help me
stay alive.
Don't tell me I am being irrational
when you are basing this
on a label only.
I am capable of great rationality:
I can begin by debating this
without calling you an asshole.
Flip the table -- call the burn victim
irrational, and I think you'll find
more volativity.
Listen when my supporters tell you
that I am sunshine
poured over candy
-- they are telling you
this is not me. Hear us:
I am bubbled laughter,
naivety and gentleness--
I do art and beauty
The Starving ArtistThere are many words to describe art but often they go hand in hand with an image of the artist ensconced in their dark tower and bleeding for their craft. I know this because I grew up with that image burnt into my brain by the very people I relied on for guidance. I was led to believe that following a life of art, wasn’t what smart people did, so I went to university and got myself a business degree. I worked hard and sweated towards goals that were the ones I believed were worth working for. What they didn’t know and, back then, what I didn’t understand was that with every course load I successfully passed and every thesis I bravely defended, I killed a small part of myself. With much pain to my inner self, I curtailed every artistic instinct and stopped every need to express rather than rationalize. Now I can only look back at all my words that went unwritten and all my pictures that went unmade and mourn.
This year, I celebrate having lived for quarter of a centu
What is a critique?Ladies and gentlemen of DeviantArt, I pose two questions to you: who is allowed to critique and what exactly is a critique?
To answer the second question first, a critique is a constructive comment. In it you place your thoughts and opinions on the other persons' work, remembering that what you are saying is just that; your personal opinion. You don't know everything, nobody does. Your grammar and the like is not flawless, nobodies' is. In fact, as humans we are all fallible. A critique is where you try to help people with their writing, or any other form of art, to the best of your ability.
Answering the second question, everyone is allowed to critique. You don't have to have a degree, you don't need to be a professor or have a doctorate in English. You just have to have an opinion and the willingness to help people.
GrammarNaziCritiques is a group that encourages such things. We have a group of critics who are all normal deviants such as yourselves. The only difference is that they
GR Contest 17: Cassidy [WINNERS]
FIRST PLACE
Be sure to check out more of her gallery here:
SECOND PLACE 
by 
Be sure to check out more of their gallery here:
<da:thumb id="417364034"/> <da:thumb id="405140073"/> <da:thumb id="428983501"/>
![[Req] Princess Soraya by BestaCrow](https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/fc1c6d78-6286-429a-8aa8-41dbda6ef8c8/d71d2o2-e9adffe2-2aca-438c-ae6f-9e5d8c608362.png/v1/fit/w_150,h_150,q_70,strp/_req__princess_soraya_by_bestacrow_d71d2o2-150.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9MTIwNyIsInBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcL2ZjMWM2ZDc4LTYyODYtNDI5YS04YWE4LTQxZGJkYTZlZjhjOFwvZDcxZDJvMi1lOWFkZmZlMi0yYWNhLTQzOGMtYWU2Zi05ZTVkOGM2MDgzNjIucG5nIiwid2lkdGgiOiI8PTEwMjQifV1dLCJhdWQiOlsidXJuOnNlcnZpY2U6aW1hZ2Uub3BlcmF0aW9ucyJdfQ.rLcurL2eAx_51ueOtREVBV70b-J5WzXHqT9aqBKNEGY)
HONORABLE MENTIONS ![[Contest] Wanna play with me? by niinia](https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/510be89b-23d4-4c37-a38b-da6c220124bb/d67h4dp-806883fc-b9e9-4812-8178-9c9c16c7a7f9.png/v1/fit/w_150,h_150,q_70,strp/_contest__wanna_play_with_me__by_niinia_d67h4dp-150.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9MTAyMiIsInBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcLzUxMGJlODliLTIzZDQtNGMzNy1hMzhiLWRhNmMyMjAxMjRiYlwvZDY3aDRkcC04MDY4ODNmYy1iOWU5LTQ4MTItODE3OC05YzljMTZjN2E3ZjkucG5nIiwid2lkdGgiOiI8PTgwMCJ9XV0sImF1ZCI6WyJ1cm46c2VydmljZTppbWFnZS5vcGVyYXRpb25zIl19.Le_Jw1JyuNEbrBX6g7fgnq6umWlb2waa4SVvci-bxrM)
FIRST PLACE 
by happy-gurl
Honorable Mentions <da:thumb id="437030633"/>
by LinkBug
Close Contenders 
To see all the entries, just click here.
Skin by Astrikos
