wutong avenue梧桐大道, nanjing, jiangsu province

friendly reminder that you don't need any diagnosis or disorder to adapt your routine to accommodate you! sit down in the shower. brush your teeth and wash your face in the shower. bring a chair to the kitchen while you cook. use unscented products. your routine should be built for you.

Can i add? You also don't need any diagnosis or disorder to use things that will improve your life. Use a cane, install a shower chair, use a kid app for brushing your teeth if it helps to maintain your attention. You don't need permission to make your own life better.

changes and trends in horror-genre films are linked to the anxieties of the culture in its time and place. Vampires are the manifestation of grappling with sexuality; aliens, of foreign influence. Horror from the Cold War is about apathy and annihilation; classic Japanese horror is characterised by “nature’s revenge”; psychological horror plays with anxieties that absorbed its audience, like pregnancy/abortion, mental illness, femininity. Some horror presses on the bruise of being trapped in a situation with upsetting tasks to complete, especially ones that compromise you as a person - reflecting the horrors and anxieties of capitalism etc etc etc. Cosmic horror is slightly out of fashion because our culture is more comfortable with, even wistful for, “the unknown.” Monster horror now has to be aware of itself, as a contingent of people now live in the freedom and comfort of saying “I would willingly, gladly, even preferentially fuck that monster.” But I don’t know much about films or genres: that ground has been covered by cleverer people.

I don’t actually like horror or movies. What interests me at the moment is how horror of the 2020s has an element of perception and paying attention.

Multiple movies in one year discussed monsters that killed you if you perceived them. There are monsters you can’t look at; monsters that kill you instantly if you get their attention. Monsters where you have to be silent, look down, hold still: pray that they pass over you. M Zombies have changed from a hand-waved virus that covers extras in splashy gore, to insidious spores. A disaster film is called Don’t Look Up, a horror film is called Nope. Even trashy nun horror sets up strange premises of keeping your eyes fixed on something as the devil GETS you.

No idea if this is anything. (I haven’t seen any of these things because, unfortunately, I hate them.) Someone who understands better than me could say something clever here, and I hope they do.

But the thing I’m thinking about is what this will look like to the future, as the Victorian sex vampires and Cold War anxieties look to us. I think they’ll have a little sympathy, but they probably won’t. You poor little prey animals, the kids will say, you were awfully afraid of facing up to things, weren’t you?

I'm like one hour from going to bed so my take is not going to be extensive but my guess is that the social anxiety this is reflecting is the surveillance state. And the fact that private companies (i.e. not just the state) are also doing a ton of surveillance. And even the fact that the way we often use social media -- less so Tumblr, which has some anonymity still -- is basically internalising that surveillance and performing for it at all times.

It seems like there are two modes going on here: "avoid being perceived by the horror" (Bird Box, A Quiet Place etc) and "perform correctly so that the horror can't get you" (your trashy nun example). Both of them arise from surveillance logics; one is "avoid being surveilled or it will Get you", the other is "you are being surveilled, perform correctly or it will Get you".

And with regard to the social elements it's all reflecting, I mean -- have you seen the state of things? It's extremely difficult to avoid being surveilled! A monster where you have to not look at it is fucking easy mode by comparison!

(Pretend I cited Michel Foucault and Erving Goffman; they're relevant but also it's bedtime.)

Ooh yes, and breaking it down like this made me think:

- fear of observation (surveillance state)

- fear of not performing correctly (purity culture and evangelical backlashes)

- fear of confronting existential threat (climate change)

my contribution to this extremely salient and clever discussion is to say: I think we should call this subgenre panopticonsequence horror

I think so much about the food people ate pre-Columbian exchange. Huge parts of cuisine extremely important on both sides of the pond just didn't exist.

You've probably heard a little about what was brought over from the New World, corn, potatoes, cocoa, cassava, peanuts, chili peppers, avocadoes, cranberries, pumpkins, and the like. Imagine cooking without chili! Without potatoes! Modern Indian cuisine contains enormous amounts of potatoes and we just didn't have those for the vast majority of history. The best of the nightshades all on one contiguous hunk of land. Hell, tomatoes! Almost forgot about those.

But we don't often look at what the Old World had. Wheat! Barley! Rice! A profusion of incredible grains, really, the finest poaceae has to offer. Carrots! Tons of rosaceous plants like apples and cherries and pears and peaches and apricots! Grapes! Soy and Bamboo! Okra and watermelon! All these things were simply never found in the Americas. The grains one is the wildest for me, the variety of grains available across Eurasia and Africa was truly astounding.

You know what binds together the food of all cultures across the world? Onions. Onions are fucking everywhere. There's probably onions growing near you right now. Allium Gang Unite.

Everything is onions, cabbages and roses.

I will not explain, goodnight.

yes, though it is bread onions and cabbages we fight for, we fight for roses too

I'd be a lot more willing to believe the whole "what if reality is a simulation?" hypothesis if I didn't know speedrunners.

The world can't be a speedrun, because no autistic trans girl has figured out how to jump backwards so fast that she breaks the speed of physics and becomes the queen of america

Ten inessential worldbuilding features for local communities in your fantasy RPG:

1. A grievance or conflict of interest with a neighbouring community which the community's members feel much more strongly about than the issue's magnitude really warrants
   
2. A substance or commodity important to everyday life with no local source, and the complicated and inconvenient arrangement the community has made to obtain it from outside sources
   
3. A local practice or custom whose original motivation has been rendered obsolete by changing circumstances, and which is now carried forward out of tradition
   
4. Something that's technically illegal, but everyone does it on the sly anyway, with enforcement of its illegality being reserved for people the community's leaders want to mess with for unrelated reasons
   
5. An obscure piece of trivia or local history which the community's members regard as obvious and widely known, to the extent of treating outsiders with contempt for revealing their ignorance of it
   
6. Some undertaking or realm of achievement in which the community isn't particularly exceptional, but which the community's members believe they're the best around at as a point of civic pride
   
7. A mostly harmless thing that nobody talks about because its existence or some facet of its historical context is regarded as an embarrassment to the community
   
8. A particular prank that's become traditional to play on visitors to the community, and which occasionally gets taken further than is strictly appropriate
   
9. A specific area of the setting's history where what the community's members insist really happened is wildly at odds with the accepted version of events
   
10. A genuinely dangerous circumstance that everyone treats with casual disregard because it's always been there, and only a damn fool would actually get hurt by it anyway

Combining them - a local extremely dangerous monster/cryptid that no one ever does anything about (10) because it follows certain Rules and anyone who doesn't deal with it properly frankly got what they deserved (5).

I'm from West Virginia. The mothman has official stats in Pathfinder. This is absolutely how we would handle things if it were real.

Yeah, 5+10 is always a fun combo. Other frequently entertaining ones include 1+6, 2+4 and 3+9.

Ten inessential worldbuilding features for local communities in your fantasy RPG:

1. A grievance or conflict of interest with a neighbouring community which the community's members feel much more strongly about than the issue's magnitude really warrants
   
2. A substance or commodity important to everyday life with no local source, and the complicated and inconvenient arrangement the community has made to obtain it from outside sources
   
3. A local practice or custom whose original motivation has been rendered obsolete by changing circumstances, and which is now carried forward out of tradition
   
4. Something that's technically illegal, but everyone does it on the sly anyway, with enforcement of its illegality being reserved for people the community's leaders want to mess with for unrelated reasons
   
5. An obscure piece of trivia or local history which the community's members regard as obvious and widely known, to the extent of treating outsiders with contempt for revealing their ignorance of it
   
6. Some undertaking or realm of achievement in which the community isn't particularly exceptional, but which the community's members believe they're the best around at as a point of civic pride
   
7. A mostly harmless thing that nobody talks about because its existence or some facet of its historical context is regarded as an embarrassment to the community
   
8. A particular prank that's become traditional to play on visitors to the community, and which occasionally gets taken further than is strictly appropriate
   
9. A specific area of the setting's history where what the community's members insist really happened is wildly at odds with the accepted version of events
   
10. A genuinely dangerous circumstance that everyone treats with casual disregard because it's always been there, and only a damn fool would actually get hurt by it anyway

Combining them - a local extremely dangerous monster/cryptid that no one ever does anything about (10) because it follows certain Rules and anyone who doesn't deal with it properly frankly got what they deserved (5).

I'm from West Virginia. The mothman has official stats in Pathfinder. This is absolutely how we would handle things if it were real.

Yeah, 5+10 is always a fun combo. Other frequently entertaining ones include 1+6, 2+4 and 3+9.

"The best asexual and aromantic fantasy books are packed full of magic, monsters, and mayhem. In a genre where we can imagine anything from unicorns to unique political systems to new approaches to gender and sexuality, these books take on the assignment and expand further than we thought possible."

What if you loved me so much it literally undoomed me haha jk unless

What if I had so much faith in you it literally reshaped the narrative into a happy ending HAHA JK UNLESS

If I see the ridiculous argument that WWX was bad for not giving JC a choice in the golden core transfer I'm just going to round everyone up and force them to read the novel properly - curing you of your stupidity, clockwork orange style.

Originally posted by xhades-aidoneusx

JC consented to receiving a new golden core...

There are two ways in which he may have consented, depending on which way you want to believe JC acted, but he very much gave consent either way.

So WWX tells JC he knows where Baoshan Sanren is... You think JC is that DUMB he believes this?! You think the fact WWX knew he had a lifeline the whole time he was starving and fighting for his life on the street, he never once thought - I know, I'll go see Baoshan Sanren, she'll look after me. Or the whole time he was being treated like a lowly servant and whipped for the most insignificant of reasons?! Give me a break!!!

JC either knew this was a total lie and did not ask questions, because he wanted a golden core and he did not want to consider how, who or why. This was consent. WWX fed him a story that was obviously a lie and JC did not point this out - he just took it, because he was desperate to have power once more. He did not give a 💩 where it came from or any real details. THAT'S CONSENT.

And if you think that JC is stupid enough to believe the glaringly obvious lie, then he still consented in taking something from WWX either way. How? Hmmm well JC took the only thing WWXs mother ever left him, her own son, to use if he should need it. He took it with a second thought, without any hesitation for taking something so precious and poignant to WWX. Something that was not his to take. He took it without any humility or grace, without a single word of thanks to WWX. He posed as the very boy his vile mother abused, he posed as the son of the very woman his jealous mother hated - all without any shame. He was greedy and had no thought for WWX. He consented in taking something so precious, it might as well have been his golden core either way.

So either way, WWX received consent from JC.

To be fair, while I do think JC consented to core transfer, I don't think he was someone who would find inconsistencies in a lie and put them together, he wanted a core, it didn't matter how and or who gave it, just having been told he'd be able to cultivate again he started eating and drinking again. I think at that time WWX could've said 'I found this ritual that can let you cultivate again' and the result would be the same, because how it happened didn't matter either to JC.

The consent jc gave however is not in that, it was also not in taking WWX's 'favour' (in his pov) , the consent was when he agreed to wear a blindfold (won't know who would be doing the procedure) when he agreed to not ask questions (how it happened) and when he agreed to take up WWX's name and identity. He agreed to an unknown procedure that would give him the chance to cultivate again, WWX didn't lie about that, if we want to count a lie WWX did tell was that it would be the implication baoshan sanren would be the person doing it but even by that, blindfold means it could be anyone under bssr who did the surgery, not about the core itself.

I feel the main argument against this is 'but he didn't consent to WWX's core" to which, its odd because that was not even a question? It's an unasked question 'do you want wwx's core?' it was never asked, we can make assumptions whether he'd refuse it or accept it, but since that question wasn't asked we can't say 'jc didn't consent to WWX's core or jc consented to WWX's core' Yea JC didn't consent to WWX's core, but he also didn't reject it either? Because that was not asked? He wanted a core, there wasn't a list of rejections who he wouldn't accept it from?

This isn't even an argument in the context of the novel itself. I hate applying modern comparisons considering a golden core is not an organ or something without which a person would die, but since every argument that says jc didn't consent applies modern ethics its like, even from that perspective, if two characters were on the run, character 2 needed a kidney and character 1 said 'yea there is this place i remember vaguely as a child they'll be able to give you one, but you have to pretend to be me and wear a blindfold' character 2 agreed, and received a kidney, finds out years later the kidney was character 1's. Maybe if character 2 knew things would go differently, but in the circumstances it did happen, it wasn't without his consent, he wasn't tied down and given a new kidney, and by modern law the donors right to remain anonymous is very protected, the donor doesn't have to disclose anything they don't want to? So the question of but 'he didnt consent to character 1's kidney' or Jc didn't consent to WWX's core is so odd.

And like look at JC's reaction to finding out, he doesn't think even remotely how he wouldn't accept it or why wasn't he told it's WWX's core because he'd reject it or something, but mad he wouldn't be able to compete with WWX any longer because its his core giving him the power to cultivate.

“Jc didn’t consent to being given wwx’s core” well he sure didn’t offer to give it back after he found out where he got it from!

And this is EXACTLY why he can't use the argument that is made about the core among his stans because he WON'T give it back due to despising the idea of being a "normal" person given his ego. Wei Wuxian himself thought this scenario out as well, and why he knows Jiang Cheng learning where it came from would smash his ego for life.

He won't give it back, because he doesn't understand that level of sacrifice and by the end is barely even realizing just what Wei Wuxian gave up for him.

Okay, let me tell you a story:

Once upon a time, there was a prose translation of the Pearl Poet’s Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. It was wonderfully charming and lyrical and perfect for use in a high school, and so a clever English teacher (as one did in the 70s) made a scan of the book for her students, saved it as a pdf, and printed copies off for her students every year. In true teacher tradition, she shared the file with her colleagues, and so for many years the students of the high school all studied Sir Gawain and the Green Knight from the same (very badly scanned) version of this wonderful prose translation.

In time, a new teacher became head of the English Department, and while he agreed that the prose translation was very wonderful he felt that the quality of the scan was much less so. Also in true teacher tradition, he then spent hours typing up the scan into a word processor, with a few typos here and there and a few places where he was genuinely just guessing wildly at what the scan actually said. This completed word document was much cleaner and easier for the students to read, and so of course he shared it with his colleagues, including his very new wide-eyed faculty member who was teaching British Literature for the first time (this was me).

As teachers sometimes do, he moved on for greener (ie, better paying) pastures, leaving behind the word document, but not the original pdf scan. This of course meant that as I was attempting to verify whether a weird word was a typo or a genuine artifact of the original translation, I had no other version to compare it to. Being a good card-holding gen zillenial I of course turned to google, making good use of the super secret plagiarism-checking teacher technique “Quotation Marks”, with an astonishing result:

By which I mean literally one result.

For my purposes, this was precisely what I needed: a very clean and crisp scan that allowed me to make corrections to my typed edition: a happily ever after, amen.

But beware, for deep within my soul a terrible Monster was stirring. Bane of procrastinators everywhere, my Curiosity had found a likely looking rabbit hole. See, this wonderfully clear and crisp scan was lacking in two rather important pieces of identifying information: the title of the book from which the scan was taken, and the name of the translator. The only identifying features were the section title “Precursors” (and no, that is not the title of the book, believe me I looked) and this little leaf-like motif by the page numbers:

(Remember the leaf. This will be important later.)

We shall not dwell at length on the hours of internet research that ensued—how the sun slowly dipped behind the horizon, grading abandoned in shadows half-lit by the the blue glow of the computer screen—how google search after search racked up, until an email warning of “unusual activity on your account” flashed into momentary existence before being consigned immediately and with some prejudice to the digital void—how one third of the way through a “comprehensive but not exhaustive” list of Sir Gawain translators despair crept in until I was left in utter darkness, screen black and eyes staring dully at the wall.

Above all, let us not admit to the fact that such an afternoon occurred not once, not twice, but three times.

Suffice to say, many hours had been spent in fruitless pursuit before a new thought crept in: if this book was so mysterious, so obscure as to defeat the modern search engine, perhaps the answer lay not in the technologies of today, but the wisdom of the past. Fingers trembling, I pulled up the last blast email that had been sent to current and former faculty and staff, and began to compose an email to the timeless and indomitable woman who had taught English to me when I was a student, and who had, after nearly fifty years, retired from teaching just before I returned to my alma mater.

After staring at the email for approximately five or so minutes, I winced, pressed send, and let my plea sail out into the void. I cannot adequately describe for you the instinctive reverence I possess towards this teacher; suffice to say that Ms English was and is a woman of remarkable character, as much a legend as an institution as a woman of flesh and blood whose enduring influence inspired countless students. There is not a student taught by Ms. English who does not have a story to tell about her, and her decline in her last years of teaching and eventual retirement in the face of COVID was the end of an era. She still remembers me, and every couple months one of her contemporaries and dear friends who still works as a guidance counsellor stops me in the hall to tell me that Ms. English says hello and that she is thrilled that I am teaching here—thrilled that I am teaching honors students—thrilled that I am now teaching the AP students. “Tell her I said hello back,” I always say, and smile.

Ms. English is a legend, and one does not expect legends to respond to you immediately. Who knows when a woman of her generation would next think to check her email? Who knows if she would remember?

The day after I sent the email I got this response:

My friends, I was shaken. I was stunned. Imagine asking God a question and he turns to you and says, “Hold on one moment, let me check with my predecessor.”

The idea that even Ms. English had inherited this mysterious translation had never even occurred to me as a possibility, not when Ms. English had been a faculty member since the early days of the school. How wonderful, I thought to myself. What a great thing, that this translation is so obscure and mysterious that it defeats even Ms. English.

A few days later, Ms. English emailed me again:

(I had, in fact searched through both the English office and the Annex—a dark, weirdly shaped concrete storage area containing a great deal of dust and many aging copies of various books—a few days prior. I had no luck, sadly.)

At last, though, I had a title and a description! I returned to my internet search, only to find to my dismay that there was no book that exactly matched the title. I found THE BRITISH TRADITION: POETRY, PROSE, AND DRAMA (which was not black and the table of contents I found did not include Sir Gawain) and THE ENGLISH TRADITION, a super early edition of the Prentice Hall textbooks we use today, which did have a black cover but there were absolutely zero images I could find of the table of contents or the interior and so I had no way of determining if it was the correct book short of laying out an unfortunate amount of cold hard cash for a potential dead end.

So I sighed, and relinquished my dreams of solving the mystery. Perhaps someday 30 years from now, I thought, I’ll be wandering through one of those mysterious bookshops filled with out of print books and I’ll pick up a book and there will be the translation, found out last!

So I sighed, and told the whole story to my colleagues for a laugh. I sent screenshots of Ms. English’s emails to my siblings who were also taught by her. I told the story to my Dad over dinner as my Great Adventure of the Week.

…my friends. I come by my rabbit-hole curiosity honestly, but my Dad is of a different generation of computer literacy and knows a few Deep Secrets that I have never learned. He asked me the title that Ms. English gave me, pulled up some mysterious catalogue site, and within ten minutes found a title card. There are apparently two copies available in libraries worldwide, one in Philadelphia and the other in British Columbia. I said, “sure, Dad,” and went upstairs. He texted me a link. Rolling my eyes, I opened it and looked at the description.

Huh, I thought. Four volumes, just like Ms. English said. I wonder…

Armed with a slightly different title and a publisher, I looked up “The English Tradition: Fiction macmillan” and the first entry is an eBay sale that had picture of the interior and LO AND BEHOLD:

THE LEAF. LOOK AT THE LEAF.

My dad found it! He found the book!!

Except for one teensy tiny problem which is that the cover of the book is uh a very bright green and not at all black like Ms. English said. Alas, it was a case of mistaken identity, because The English Tradition: Poetry does have a black cover, although it is the fiction volume which contains Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

And so having found the book at last, I have decided to purchase it for the sum of $8, that ever after the origins of this translation may once more be known.

In this year of 2022 this adventure took place, as this post bears witness, the end, amen.

does anybody have that cat poem, you know the one. not mary oliver's poem. the one about a cat growing up with you like brothers but him still being small whereas you've grown tall. i need a good cry

this poem is literally my last straw

Transcription of the poem for easier reading:

my cat is sad.

no one else in his family is a cat

we are all human except for him

he is excluded from most things

and no one tells him why

he just wants to play

and be loved

he looks at us with wonder

and disappointment

he says hello i am a cat what is my existence

what is that / why it and not me / please can you look at me and love me too

can i have some of your food please im sorry i dont like my food so much

do you want to play with my toys? this one is my favourite

do you like me

are we brothers

why didnt i grow up

why am i so small

can you help me be happy

where are you going