#qwfwq

[popolodipekino]

tanto vale

definire il tipo di rapporti non è poi così importante come sembra, perché il dire che abbiamo dei rapporti per esempio mentali oppure dei rapporti per esempio fisici non cambia molto, in quanto un rapporto mentale è quello che interessa alcuni miliardi di cellule speciali dette neuroni le quali però funzionano raccogliendo gli stimoli d'un numero così grande d'altre cellule che allora tanto vale considerare tutti i trilioni di cellule dell'organismo in blocco come quando parliamo di rapporto fisico. da I. Calvino, Priscilla. II. Meiosi, in Ti con zero

[frozeno2j]

In the universe now there was no longer a container and a thing contained, but only a general thickness of signs superimposed and coagulated, occupying the whole volume of space; it was constantly being dotted, minutely, a network of lines and scratches and reliefs and engravings; the universe was scrawled over on all sides, along all its dimensions. There was no longer any way to establish a point of reference: the Galaxy went on turning but I could no longer count the revolutions, any point could be the point of departure, any sign heaped up with the others could be mine, but discovering it would have served no purpose, because it was clear that, independent of signs, space didn't exist and perhaps had never existed.

-Italo Calvino, A Sign In Space (Cosmicomics).

[unusual-legume]

"Naturally, we were all there,—old Qwfwq said,—where else could we have been? Nobody knew then that there could be space. Or time either: what use did we have for time, packed in there like sardines?

"I say 'packed like sardines,' using a literary image: in reality there wasn't even space to pack us into. Every point of each of us coincided with every point of each of the others in a single point, which was where we all were."

"...at the same time that Mrs. Ph(i)Nk0 was uttering those words: '... ah, what noodles, boys!" the point that contained her and all of us was expanding in a halo of distance in light-years and light-centuries and billions of light-millennia, and we were being hurled to the four corners of the universe (Mr. Pbert Pberd all the way to Pavia), and she, dissolved into I don't know what kind of energy-light-heat, she, Mrs. Ph(i)Nk0, she who in the midst of our closed, petty world had been capable of a generous impulse, 'Boys, the noodles I would make for you!," a true outburst of general love, initiating at the same moment the concept of space and, properly speaking, space itself, and time, and universal gravitation, and the gravitating universe, making possible billions and billions of suns, and of planets, and fields of wheat, and Mrs. Ph(i)Nk0s, scattered through the continents of the planets..."

I illustrated some cosmicomic, but made it birds.

All At One Point Italo Calvino, Cosmicomics

[postsofbabel]

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[number1villainstan]

Just Leave A Comment Fest: December 2023 Recap

@justleaveacommentfest

Total number of comments left: 6 (not including a bonus comment on an AMV)

Themes represented for this week: All of them!

Fandoms: 5 (Percy Jackson [First Fandom!], Jujustu Kaisen, Avatar: the Last Airbender, Star Wars [specifically Clone Wars/Prequels], and Revolutionary Girl Utena)

Authors(/Creators): 6

Specific fics and further details before the cut!

Most of the fics I commented on were short ones, because I didn't have much energy to read longer ones, but I still left decent comment on each one I read.

For December 26, First Fandom, I went into the Percy Jackson fandom and found two drabbles by rhye on Ao3, Underwater (a baby Percy's feelings about the pool, 137 words) and The Seed That Took (Poseidon being in love with Sally, 167 words). Both of these had no comments before I came along.

For December 27, Bookmark Day, I left a comment on Significants (3212 words) by apartment on Ao3. It's a JJK fic, looking at Geto and Gojo finding Toji's personal things in his worm after he dies.

For December 28, Old Favorites Day, I went into my bookmarks (again) and found one of the first bookmarks I ever made, Desperation (2992 words) by Sky_kiss on Ao3. It's a demon AU for AtLA, an Urzai fic where Ursa grew up among the nuns who make perfume from the first season and Ozai is an incubus she ends up summoning (mostly) by accident. (It is rated M, though, for sexual content.)

For December 29, Fandom Curiosity, I decided to check out the Revolutionary Girl Utena fandom, and commented on a short work called Thunder and Rain (1786 words) by Wallwalker on Ao3. The summary is "Miki lies in his coffin, dreaming of a prince." and the author's notes describe it as an attempt at surrealism.

For December 30, I recced Corrie Red (24294 words) by musicmillenia on Ao3 here. (This one also fit Old Favorites, but I decided I wanted it under Rec A Fic so that I hit every theme.) It's an Eldritch!Corries fic for Star Wars, and it's part of a longer series. It's also a pretty popular fic, but still.

And the bonus comment: I left it before the fest started, on an Revolutionary Girl Utena AMV: BRUTUS | UTENA AMV by qwfwq on YouTube. I put this one under the Fandom Curiosity theme because I am, indeed, curious about RGU.

[tri-ciclo]

To explode or to implode - said Qwfwq - that is the question: whether 'tis nobler in the mind to expand one's energies in space without restraint, or to crush them into a dense inner concentration and, by ingesting, cherish them. To steal away, to vanish; no more; to hold within oneself every gleam, every ray, deny oneself every vent, suffocating in the depths of the soul the conflicts that so idly trouble it, give them their quietus; to hide oneself, to obliterate oneself; perchance to awaken elsewhere, unchanged.

Italo Calvino

[dillydedalus]

november reading

how is it november. anyway i mainly descended into asoiaf hell again but there’s some other stuff!

hugo long list anthology vol. 3, lots of people anthology of the hugo long list for sff short stories - like most anthologies, it’s a mixed bag; i skipped a few stories, found a lot fine, liked quite a few (especially those by ursula vernon, sarah pinsker, p. djeli clark & theodora goss). this tends more towards scifi than fantasy, but i generally preferred the more fantasy-ish ones. 2.5/5

heimat: a german family album, nora krug collage-style graphic memoir about krug’s relationship to german identity after moving to the us and marrying a jewish man, focusing on her research into her family history and her grandparents’ actions during the holocaust, collecting images, documents, letters, statements from other family members, etc etc. the collage style is impressively well-done & her use of documents is especially excellent. 4/5

die untalentierte lügnerin, eva schmidt a german book prize nominee about a young woman in austria going thru a personal & familial crisis after dropping out of acting school. it’s intentionally really detached & isolating (e.g. there is absolutely no direct speech/thought in the entire book) but (unintentionally?) also quite boring. the creepy supportive-but-boundary-breaking stepfather is well done. 2/5

a game of thrones, george r. r. martin (#1 asoiaf) y’all.... i missed this series. i know i’m always lowkey obsessed, but reading the books really is a whole ‘nother thing and there are beats that get me in the heart every time (& every time there are beats that feel completely new) & every time i read agot i suddenly and painfully remember how much i love ned & how good he is & how sad. gods. also i want to take everyone who thinks asoiaf is all about being grimdark & edgy & cynical & ‘honourable = dumb’ and shake them like that’s not what they’re saying! littlefinger thinks like that, cersei, tywin and varys. we’re not meant to side with them! we’re meant to side with ned, who is honourable & chooses ‘the madness of mercy’, even if it kills him, which it does. 4.5/5

cosmicomics, italo calvino (tr. from italian by william weaver) honestly this is so hard to describe but it’s basically short stories about the genesis of the universe, the development of earth & life on earth, told from the perspective of a kind of eternal being (called qwfwq i think) who has been around with some other eternal beings with similarly weird names since before there was space, or time, or anything, but these eternal beings also behave & think pretty much like normal humans if they existed on eternal time-scale. it’s really weird & really fun, altho after the 12 stories i was kinda done. also like the gender politics in this are super eyeroll-y so be aware of that i guess. 3/5

a clash of kings, george r. r. martin (#2 asoiaf) i recently saw a poll on r/asoiaf or something about everyone’s fav book in the series & acok came in last, which i kind of understand - between agot & the absolutely epic and intense asos, it kind of looks like just a transitional book, & while both affc & adwd are kind of polarising, they both have really passionate fans BUT i think acok might actually be my personal favourite in the series. almost all the character’s arcs in this are amazing (arya in harrenhal! sansa figuring out how to cope in KL! theon’s whole mess! tyrion as hand! bran’s last chapter making me cry every single time!) and it has the amazing battle of blackwater bay. so anyway: 5/5

the narrow road to the deep north, richard flanagan (uni) UGH. this is a booker winning (for some reason) novel about australian POWs on the death rail, which is not entirely uninteresting & not something i’ve read anything about before but a) the writing is bad, b) flanagan tries really hard to be incredibly profound & it’s not working, c) half the story isn’t even about the POW camp but about our noble self-sacrificial hero dorrigo ‘manly resolve’ evans, who is a serial cheater & in his feelings about his ~true love for his uncle’s wife which like... who cares!!! in retrospect our discussion in class brought out some interesting aspects about the book & especially what we are meant to think about dorrigo evans but i still dislike it. 1.5/5

bad blood: secrets and lies in a silicon valley startup, john carreyrou the absolutely wild story of startup/total scam theranos by the investigative journalist who originally exposed their total scamminess. it’s sad that there’s so little insight into elizabeth holmes (steve jobs reborn/scammer in chief) and her motivation but oh well. my fav scene was elizabeth holmes giving every employee a copy of a coelho book & telling them she was starting a religion. 3/5

emma, jane austen another austen that is both incredibly delightful and incredibly frustrating in a lot of ways, which i think is partially intentional (although the intense classism never really gets challenged, just emma’s flawed way of enacting classism) - emma herself is often frustrating, misguided, arrogant, but her situation is so dismal and stifling, so many people around her so dull and wearying and demanding, that i couldn’t help but feel for her. sure, the romance is a bit #problematique, and the classism is a lot, but i think the heart of this is emma trying to find a way to exist in highbury, recognise that a) jane fairfax is great but b) she doesn’t have to be like jane fairfax, and that a) yes, she is responsible for her father but b) her father doesn’t have to be her whole life, and that she probably should just let poor harriet smith do what she gonna do. 4/5

the need, helen phillips i think what this book (and fever dream) really confirmed for me is that if i ever have kids, my ocd will go into infernal nightmare mode. anyway. this is a pretty good, pretty scary thriller about molly, working at an excavation site that seems to hold a lot of fossils and artefacts that are just a lil wrong, while also being stressed as hell about her two young children. the book opens with a truly terrifying sequence, switching from molly at her job to molly putting the kids to bed and hearing something that sounds a lot like an intruder (but she’s probably just paranoid right???). the rest of the book doesn’t quite live up to that, but it’s still pretty cool. 3/5

a storm of swords (asoiaf #3), grrm this book is just one thing after the other, in a really good way, in that every time something big & huge happens you read the next chapter or two and something else big & huge happens. read for handless & noseless the lannister boys, not one or two but three contenders for top post on r/weddingshaming, the infamous arya burrito, jon snow inventing cunnilingus in a cave, vengeance zombies, the most emosh snowcastle ever, and just. feelings everywhere. 5/5 thank you for my life grrm

exquisite cadavers, meena kandasamy kandasamy’s last novel (when i hit you) is a kinda autofiction-y novel, closely based on her own abusive marriage but also a novel & the fact that much of the reception has focused on her own traumatic experiences rather than as her novel as a work of literature frustrated kandasamy, as she says in the author’s note here, so she decided to write a story and include her commentary on how it relates (& doesn’t) to her own life in the margin. but rather than straightforward explanation, the margin notes, told by meena (herself? the author-persona? something else?) become their own story, often going on tangents only tenuously connected with the ‘main’ story. i love this conceit & i think in parts of this book it works really really well & it’s interesting how each part informs your reading of the other & how to read the margins as someone whose academic training & inclination tend toward death of the author (one of the characters dislikes barthes lol). sadly i don’t think there’s not enough meat to the story-part to make it more than an interesting experiment. 3.5/5

currently read a feast for crows (of course) and a brief history of seven killings which is... a bit of a slog to be honest sorry :(

[ankhlesbian]

Qwfwqs bizarre adventure

[shinypersonatyrant]

qwfwq

https://lnkd.in/eNs7Dpk

[jubelibuzz-blog]

view quote   “To explode or to implode - said Qwfwq - that is the question: whether 'tis nobler in the mind to expand one's energies in space without restraint, or to crush them into a dense inner concentration and, by ingesting, cherish them. To steal away, to vanish; no more; to hold within oneself every gleam, every ray, deny oneself every vent, suffocating in the depths of the soul the conflicts that so idly trouble it, give them their quietus; to hide oneself, to obliterate oneself; perchance to awaken elsewhere, unchanged.”  (at Yellowstone National Park)

[popolodipekino]

una conchiglia

fare, volevo fare, e considerando che non avevo mai fatto nulla né pensato che si potesse fare nulla, questo era già un grande avvenimento. Così incominciai a fare la prima cosa che mi venne, ed era una conchiglia. [...] come a uno gli viene in mente di fare un'esclamazione che potrebbe benissimo anche non fare eppure la fa, come uno che dice "bah!" oppure "mah!", così io facevo la conchiglia, cioè solo per esprimermi. da I. Calvino, La spirale, in Le cosmicomiche

[popolodipekino]

big pan

Esplodere o implodere - disse Qwfwq - questo è il problema: se sia più nobile intento espandere nello spazio la propria energia senza freno, o stritolarla in una densa concentrazione interiore e conservarla ingoiandola. Sottrarsi, scomparire; nient'altro; trattenere dentro di sé ogni bagliore, ogni raggio, ogni sfogo, e soffocando nel profondo dell'anima i conflitti che l'agitano scompostamente, dar loro pace; occultarsi, cancellarsi: forse risvegliarsi altrove, diverso. [...] Ed ecco ora i fornelli che sfolgorano nelle più lontane plaghe del cielo convalidano il vostro culto della deflagrazione generale; gas e particelle veloci quasi quanto la luce si scagliano da un vortice al centro delle galassie a spirale, straripano nei lobi delle galassie ellittiche, proclamano che il Big Bang dura ancora, il grande Pan non è morto. da I. Calvino, L'implosione, in Cosmicomiche nuove

[popolodipekino]

precarietà

Perché nonostante la certezza che il tutto fosse il nostro ambiente naturale, era pure vero che eravamo venuti su dal niente, che c'eravamo appena sollevati dalla nullatenenza assoluta, che solo un tenue filo spazio-temporale ci divideva dalla precedente condizione sprovvista d'ogni sostanza ed estensione e durata. Erano sensazioni di precarietà, rapide ma acute, che mi prendevano, come se questo tutto che cercava di formarsi non riuscisse a nascondere la sua fragilità intrinseca, il fondo di vuoto a cui potevamo ritornare con la stessa rapidità con cui ce n'eravamo distaccati. da I. Calvino, Il niente e il poco, in Cosmicomiche nuove

(insomma, un po' come quando si è felici: ma subito lo si è già un po' meno perché si teme che presto si potrebbe non esserlo già più - mannaggia al divenire)

[popolodipekino]

grandi, grandi pulizie

Secondo le teorie più recenti, la Terra in origine sarebbe stata un piccolissimo corpo freddo che si sarebbe poi ingrandito inglobando meteoriti e polvere meteorica. Dapprincipio ci illudevamo di poterla tener pulita - raccontò il vecchio Qwfwq, - dato appunto che era piccola e si poteva spazzare e spolverare tutti i giorni. Di roba certo ne veniva giù una quantità: si sarebbe detto che in questo suo girare la Terra non avesse altro scopo che raccogliere tutta la polvere e la spazzatura librate nello spazio. Ora è diverso, c'è l'atmosfera, voi guardate il cielo e dite: oh com'è terso, oh com'è puro; ma dovevate vedere quel che volava sulle nostre teste quando il pianeta seguendo la sua orbita incappava in una di quelle nuvole meteoriche e non riusciva ad uscirne. Era una polvere bianca come naftalina, che si depositava in granelli minuti, e alle volte in schegge più grandi, cristalline, come se dal cielo fosse andato giù in frantumi un lampadario di vetro, e in mezzo si trovavano anche ciottoli più grossi, pezzi sparsi d'altri sistemi planetari, torsoli di pera, rubinetti, capitelli ionici, vecchi numeri dell'"Herald Tribune" e del "Paese Sera": si sa che gli universi si fanno e si disfanno ma è sempre lo stesso materiale che gira. [...] vedevamo un oggetto avvicinarsi dalle profondità dello spazio, svolazzando come un uccello - poi magari era una calza - o navigando con un lieve beccheggio - come una volta un pianoforte a coda -, arrivare fino a mezzo metro da noi e, niente, continuava la sua traiettoria senza averci sfiorato [...] da I. Calvino, I Meteoriti, in Altre storie cosmicomiche

[popolodipekino]

linguaggio

Questo moto di desiderio restava in fondo un desiderio di moto, come succede quando non ci si può muovere verso qualche posto perché il mondo non c'è o non si sa che ci sia, e in questi casi il desiderio muove a fare, a fare qualcosa, ossia a fare qualsiasi cosa. Ma quando non si può fare nessuna cosa per mancanza del mondo esterno, l'unico fare che ci si può permettere disponendo di pochissimi mezzi è quello speciale tipo di fare che è il dire. Insomma io ero mosso a dire; il mio stato di desiderio, il mio stato-moto-desiderio di moto-desiderio-amore mi muoveva a dire, e siccome l'unica cosa che avevo da dire era me stesso, ero spinto a dire me stesso, cioè a esprimermi. Sarò più preciso: prima, quando dicevo che per dire bastano pochissimi mezzi non ero propriamente nel vero, e quindi mi correggo: per dire ci vuole un linguaggio e scusate se è poco. Io come linguaggio avevo tutti quei bruscolini o stecchini detti cromosomi, quindi bastava ripetere quei bruscolini o stecchini per ripetere me stesso, si capisce per ripetere me stesso in quanto linguaggio, che come si vedrà è il primo passo per ripetere me stesso in quanto tale, che poi come si vedrà non è affatto ripetere. da I. Calvino, Priscilla. I. Mitosi, in Ti con zero

[popolodipekino]

il prima ed il dopo

si verifica uno stato di desiderio quando da uno stato di soddisfazione si passa a uno stato di crescente soddisfazione e quindi, subito dopo, a uno stato di insoddisfacente soddisfazione cioè di desiderio. Non è vero che lo stato di desiderio si verifichi quando manca qualcosa; se qualcosa manca, pazienza, se ne fa a meno, e se è una cosa indispensabile facendone a meno si fa a meno d'esercitare una qualche funzione vitale, e quindi si procede rapidamente verso una sicura estinzione. Voglio dire che su uno stato di mancanza puro e semplice non può nascere nulla, nulla di buono e neanche nulla di cattivo, soltanto altre mancanze fino alla mancanza della vita, condizione notoriamente né buona né cattiva. Ma uno stato di mancanza puro e semplice non esiste, che io sappia, in natura: lo stato di mancanza si sperimenta sempre in contrasto con un precedente stato di soddisfazione, ed è sullo stato di soddisfazione che cresce tutto quello che può crescere. E non è vero che uno stato di desiderio presupponga necessariamente un qualcosa desiderato; il qualcosa desiderato comincia a esserci solo una volta che c'è lo stato di desiderio; non perché prima quel qualcosa non era desiderato ma perché prima chi sapeva che c'era? da I Calvino, Priscilla. I. Mitosi, in Ti con zero