#this is NOT comprehensive and not every point is about Black people specifically but a good portion of it is

[berylian]

American Musical History

Seeing the absolute fuckshit going on about people hating rap, jazz, ska, etc makes me want to educate on just. The sheer amount of American music history that is founded on the work of slaves and Black Americans. That said here is all the material from my AMH course. The "playlists" have both songs and informational videos in them.

W1 - What is American Music

Slides

Playlist

Article "defining" American Music

W2 - Sacred Music in the Colonies

Slides

Playlist

W3 - Roots of African American Sacred Music

Slides

Playlist

Article on African American Spirituals

Sections on Spirituals and Gospel, Blackface Minstrelsy, the Blues, Country, R&B and Soul, Folk Music, and Rap below the cut

W4 - Spirituals and Gospel

Slides

Playlist

Biography of Mahalia Jackson

Article on African American Gospel

W5 - Blackface Minstrelsy

Slides

Playlist

Video on the Jim Crow Museum

Video. Blackface: A cultural history of a racist art form

W6 - The Blues

Slides

Playlist

Textbook on Music: Its Language, History, and Culture

Article: How ‘Race Records’ Turned Black Music Into Big Business

Article: "Shoot Myself a Cop": Mamie Smith's "Crazy Blues" as Social Text

Video: Leon Redbone - Crazy Blues

Video: Mamie Smith - Crazy Blues

W8 - Blues and Country

Slides

Playlist 1: Blues

Playlist 2: Country

Video: The Little Old Log Cabin In The Lane Fiddlin John Carson

Article on Lesley Riddle, the man behind the Carter Family's Success

Textbook Chapter: Early Country Music

W9 - R&B and Soul

Slides

Playlist

Academic article: Rock! It's Still Rhythm and Blues

Textbook Chapter: Urban Contemporary: Soul, Funk, and Global

Article on James Brown redefining Black Pride

W10 - Folk Music

Textbook Chapter: American Indian Music, Folk Songs, Spirituals, and Their Collectors

Playlist

W12 - Rap

Slides

Playlist

[bridgetoesoteria]

🖤Breaking baddie🖤: Describing your 'dark feminine' energy. How to channel it?

Hola malacitas 😘 (i hope that actually made sense lol).

First things first, what is "dark feminine" energy?

Yes, this is the **first website that comes up when you google "dark feminine," but it is pretty thorough and comprehensive! I liked it the most out of all the others. The others either repeated the same points or had too many outdated/black-or-white views. Feel free to do your own research however. There are plenty of videos on YouTube as well. **One caveat...when you get to the part about tapping into DF energy, I disagree with #8 (specifically).

(We're going to keep this post light and I'll dedicate a separate post to my personal viewpoints.)

So I will be telling you all about your personal DF "archetype." I will also provide guidance on how you channel your DF energy.

I am so so excited for this! Eek 🙊 Okay, options below, left to right. I hope it resonates!

I am using a few different decks. I won't be adding pictures but I will provide what cards I drew.

Pile 1

Off the bat: I am hearing "no fuss" and also "ruthless," which is interesting considering the image you chose. I was also hearing the lyrics "all I do is win, win, win no matter what." So I'm getting some really bad ass energy right away! Come thru mob girlies!

4-Card Spread: 4 of Diamonds, 8 of Diamonds, 7 of Hearts, Joker. Bottom of deck is 6 of Clubs.

It's funny you have the 6 of Clubs (wands) on the bottom of the deck. I was hearing those lyrics about winning. This is a card that signifies victory and public recognition or celebration. I feel like the DF side of you is really bad ass! I'm also getting a pinch of "lover girl" energy. Its kind of like you have perfect formula sugar+sheist+everything nice! lol

This energy isn't afraid to be in the spotlight but is also quite comfortable in the shadows. You may be (or this is what other people think) the type to use underhanded to get ahead. Its not personal but you gotta do what you gotta do. I'm also getting an energy of it is easy for people (I'm hearing "dudes" so maybe some of you talk like that) to get attached and feel led on. But I think you are married to the hustle.

Some of you may not regularly reside in this energy and could be put off by the description. But that is exactly why its dark feminine energy. It pokes and antagonizes the status quo, which is where most of us reside from day to day. Traditionally, feminines are not painted as cunning, street-wise, heartbreakers. Your DF energy pushes back against those constraints placed on feminines that require prioritizing the group over self. Not that anyone asked but I think that's actually kind of amazing.

Of course you don't have to reside in this energy and adopt some toxic alter ego, but there probably are some gems hidden here. People who move like this are usually made, not born. In some way, they learned that survival=competition, so you learn to "stay ready so you don't have to get ready." Your motto as a DF would be "every (wo)man for themselves," making betrayals feel less personal because...well it just isn't, as crazy as that sounds.

Advice: The Devil, Queen of Swords, King of Wands, The Star. Bottom of deck is 7 of Swords + Mute (Oracle)

I'm getting a strong message about speaking up. I am using Tarot de Carlotydes and in this deck the 7 of Swords is depicted as a sword swallower. Which I always interpret as "swallowing" the truth. Then as I was focusing on this group's image, I realized the cabinet behind her is full of skulls, reminding me of "skeletons in the closet." Then finally we have a literal Mute card:

The Mute is told what to hear, say and think and is often suppressed. Sometimes breaking the chains against heeded words may be rewarded.

So you currently may be the complete opposite of your DF energy. One of the keywords for the Mute is "insecurities." I feel like a lot of you are sleeping on yourselves. 🔊AND ITS TIME TO WAKE THE F UP!

Maybe you are trapped in your light feminine energy. I say trapped because it feels like you are forced into that box. Super passive, loss of control. Where your DF energy would insist on speaking up and standing out, you may just keep your head down and avoid any trouble.

I'm hearing specifically that some of you love writing poetry but may have someone who discourages you from pursuing this interest. You may want to present your poetry to an audience and they tell you that no one wants to hear what you have to say. For others, they are saying no one wants to hear from you about something else.

If you are used to toxic and restrictive connections or friendships, you are being called to step out of that. Get used to asserting your boundaries, "do not speak down about my hobbies," "if you cannot allow me to think for myself, then we can not continue our relationship." I think you definitely have it in you.

Another keyword listed is "hope." I think some of you may enjoy singleness and being single-mindedly focused on you and your goals, more fulfilling than you think. It can be healing to finally feel like the star of your show.

TL;DR: Your DF energy definitely has a bit of edge to her. She does what she has to do to move ahead and she prefers to fly solo. Even if that is not where you are right now, this energy already exists within you. Once you drop the dead weight--be it toxic family, toxic friends, or a toxic partner--you will see how quickly you flourish. You have every right to speak your truth and protect your peace. Its time to peel yourself off the wallpaper and start standing out and speaking up!

Pile 2

Off the bat: I wasn't getting anything with this group. I found that strange and wondered if I wasn't "tuned in." I think this represents your mental space when you are in your DF energy. You are clear minded and have a "sober" outlook. Maybe some of you are literally sober or are considering it.

4-Card Spread: 2 of Clubs, Queen of Spades, 8 of Spades (R), Ace of Hearts/7 of diamonds. Bottom of deck is 9 of diamonds.

I am very strongly getting that there is something noteworthy about your DF's decision making abilities. Maybe that sounds "boring," but its actually pretty admirable! The world often sends the message that feminine energy does not possess strong cognitive abilities. When feminines contradict this stereotype, they can be labeled as "cold," "mean," "masculine," or met with hostility.

I'm honestly getting that the DF in you does not care. You may naturally lean more to this side in every day life. Or this is where you could be if you tapped into your DF energy more often.

You make clear decisions and keep it moving. You do not allow your thoughts to keep you tangled up in a web of confusion and indecision. Some of you could be really good at chess. I am getting that kind of energy. Calculated, self-assured, and making decisions with no intentions of taking it back.

You are quite comfortable standing on your own, and pouring into your own little world. I get the image of a woman who lives on a quiet estate, walking through her garden, with birds chirping and flying above. Have any of you watched the movie Men (2022)? I loved the imagery in that film and that's kind of the vibe I am getting now. A lot of horse girlies may have picked this pile.

I feel you being very unbothered, above drama. Your DF energy would love to find a masculine that can match your energy. You are good on your own so you won't allow anyone disruptive into your peaceful little domain. You do not make impulsive decisions in love and you are willing to wait for a new opportunity that is worth the investment. With the king of diamonds two cards under the 9 of diamonds, I do feel like this DF energy could pull the kind of masculine you desire.

Your DF energy really shines in STEM related jobs, corporate spaces, or any position that requires a sharp mind.

Advice: Ace of Swords, 10 of Swords, 4 of Wands, Knight of Cups. Bottom of deck is 10 of Wands + Spider (Oracle)

As soon as I pulled the ace of swords, I heard "get used to speaking your truth." I also heard stop entertaining "little boys." I don't think this is in terms of age, I think this referring to the maturity level of masculine energies you may usually deal with. I am in no way encouraging that you pursue anyone older. (Honestly, that does not guarantee emotional maturity or respect. But that's another convo).

I think this message is about the expectations you set for your partners. There is nothing wrong with expecting them to match you. They can either rise to the occasion or be left behind. If you hold this potential inside of you to be a queen of swords, queen of pentacles, and 9 of pentacles. Then I'm sure that energy exists out there in a suitable counterpart. The ten of wands is encouraging you to keep forging forward. I don't like preaching to be "strong" and "endure," but this is different. You are being strong for yourself. If you have to walk alone right now, it gets tough at times, but you are doing it with purpose. It will pay off.

For some this may literally require you to live alone. Its interesting that I keep getting messages about homes. I got a lot of diamonds/pentacles in the last spread, which also can deal with the home and related practical matters. "Home" is one of the keywords for Spider. The Moon is on the bottom of the deck, I think it is also relevant. This is what the guidebook has to say about each:

The Spider traps those who wander into her web. Keywords: Control, Home, Familiarity, Comfort, Trapped, Security. The Moon is not always as she seems. Her delicate glow seeks for hidden truths while blinding others to her own. Keywords: Confusion, Apprehension, Suspicion, Feelings.

You may need to be more discerning when it comes to who you let into your home and/or your heart. You might need to create a little confusion when it comes to what your next move is. Everyone does not deserve your energy or to be held on to.

Spiders can also be associated with anxiety. In regular tarot, I do consider the moon to be a card that can speak about mental health. So some of you may need to make these changes for your own sanity, literally.

TL;DR: Your DF energy is a very strong and self-sufficient queen of swords type. She thinks clearly, can make decisions without questioning herself, and always stands on business. She has high standards for those who come around her because she has built a beautiful life for herself and will vet anyone who wants to join. This self-respect and authenticity helps to attract a suitable mate. One who can match this go-getter, no bs energy. The key to channeling this energy is to start living in it now. Trust your decision making abilities, don't announce or seek validation before you make a necessary personal decision. Staying true to yourself and becoming more independent will pay off.

Pile 3

Off the bat: When I looked at the image for your pile, I immediately heard "I'm not one of those/your little girls." So whew! We are coming in hot! Also hearing "I wish a b---- would."

4-Card Spread: 7 of Hearts, Jack of Clubs, 2 of Clubs, Joker. Bottom of deck is 5 of Hearts.

I am getting more light-hearted energy in this pile than the previous two. Maybe a lot of young, or young-at-heart, people have chosen this pile. This DF energy could easily pull many suitors but she views lovers as more of a "fun time," not so much a "long time." You could also be a little toxic toward lovers. Makeup to breakup, or honestly sometimes its just breakup lol.

This energy is quite fiery and uninhibited. Some of you could be fire signs, specifically Sagittarius. Or I am getting that because of what Sag represents: free spiritedness, adventure, luck. No wonder this DF energy resists being tied down. The world is literally your oyster and you knows it!

This DF energy is also a little scrappy. Have any of you watched the Bad Girls Club? You know how there would be that one person who has a temper, then gets a little too messed up when they go clubbing and ends up wanting to fight everyone... When you see red, people need to clear your path! I do get a bit of a party girl energy which is not surprising considering I was picking up on Sag.

This DF does not have a problem fulfilling her emotional needs. You will always make sure your cup is full. You will always make sure you are having a good time. You realizes that you have this amazing, fortunate energy and unapologetically harnesses it to get the most out of life. I think your DF self is also likely to be single and happy that way. Picking yourself up after disappointments in love is no problem because there are plenty more where they came from. You have an abundant mindset when it comes to love and life.

Advice: Queen of Wands, The Hanged Man, Ace of Swords, 5 of Cups. Bottom of deck is 5 of Swords + Ghost (Oracle)

In order to channel this DF energy, some of you may literally have to ghost someone. I am not surprised the energy of having to cut people off has been coming up. Sometimes the company we keep can really hinder our growth and self-expression. The hanged man is about surrender and next to the ace of swords, I sometimes see this combo as maintaining no contact. Ghost could also be taken literally.

But I think Ghost is also talking about a tendency toward self sabotaging and shrinking yourself. This is the total opposite of the DF energy that I just channeled. Its like the past and your insecurities have a tendency to haunt you and keep you stuck. You may also try to make yourself invisible. In the guidebook, the word forgotten repeats itself twice for this card:

The Ghost lingers, forlorn and forgotten. Keywords: Hidden, Mystery, Forgotten, Spiritual Matters, Fears, Faith

You will need to work on your self-confidence. When you are more confident in yourself, you will be more confident in your decision making abilities. You will be more authentic with the way you present yourself to the world because it won't matter whether people approve or disapprove. You know who you are. With the 5 of cups, there could be something that you are still grieving or regretting but you can bounce back from this! Channel your inner phoenix and allow yourself to blossom. Its time to reinvent yourself!

Be open to all the great things life has to offer you. Guided meditations for gratitude and self-confidence/self-love could be very beneficial. Trust that the flow of life is always leading you to something wonderful. Trust that you are allowed to call the shots in your reality. Do your part then trust and let go.

TL;DR: Your DF energy is very spicy! She is popular and free-spirited. She knows that life has so many different adventures to offer and she does not let anything stop her from exploring them. This DF is likely to be single or somewhat noncommittal. She does not mind flying solo and knows she can always find another mate. She is also quite lucky and manifests fortunate events with ease. To channel this energy you will need to drop any dead weight and increase your confidence in yourself and your decision making abilities. You could benefit from some form of self-help resources like books and guided meditations. And if it is accessible to you, therapy, support groups, or other resources that will help your create a stronger you.

Pile 4

Off the bat: I am getting a pretty serious energy. Some domme energy or you could just be a pretty dominant woman. This could be describing you or your DF energy. I keep hearing strawberries and champagne. Is that even a real thing? I've never met anyone who enjoyed that combo.

4-Card Spread: 4 of Clubs, Jack of Diamonds, Ace of Hearts, and Ace of Spades. Bottom of deck is Queen of Spades

I am still getting some of that super assertive and stern feminine energy. I could see your DF self working being a principal. I am also hearing headmaster/headmistress. I think she would love working with children but not in the traditional, mushy-gushy light feminine way. Its more of a "I have/enforce rules because I love you" type of energy . You believe in structure and order. If this isn't working with children, this could also apply to raising children. I could also see this DF running an orphanage. I did hear "rule the roost" while I was shuffling, so no matter how this resonates, you definitely are not afraid to lead.

You are generous and wise. Beneath the stern exterior is a lot of love and compassion. Your soft spots are not visible until you take a closer look at what you invest your time and energy into. This kind of energy could also attract less mature suitors, because it intimidates them yet they are so infatuated. You carry yourself with grace and probably won't entertain them. You are much more suited to be their mentor than anything.

Going back to the original domme energy I was getting. You may actually prefer partnerships that allow you to wear the pants. You don't really want a masculine energy coming in and dictating to you. You can run your own life just fine and would rather partner up with someone who can understand that. I don't think you want someone that is "weak" either, its more like you desire the cliche of the masculine that calls the shots in the board room but is more submissive/passive at home. They are secure enough to be with a feminine energy as strong as them.

Some of you as DF would be comfortable living a "nontraditional" life. Nontraditional as far as feminine energy is concerned anyway. You may prefer live-in partners, or life partners, over traditional marriage. You could identify with being poly or something similar. You would love to travel and always seek to broaden your horizons. This is the type of person you would expect to have "summer homes." You could also decide to not have children or you would want to wait on having/adopting children. You love living authentically because of how freeing it is to just be you. You don't care what outsiders think of your life because you know you are doing what works best for you.

Advice: 3 of Swords, 5 of Pentacles, 9 of Swords, Queen of Wands (R). Bottom of deck is The Devil + Soil (Oracle)

To channel this DF energy more, you will need to master the art of not giving a shit. Some of you could be currently suppressing this energy. I really don't think its that far out of reach for all of you. Its just your fear that is keeping you trapped.

For some of you this trapped feeling is because you are in the closet. I am not telling you to come out because I don't know how that would impact your life. I want you to stay safe! However, maybe you can seek out queer friendly spaces. Or spaces that are supportive of whatever group you identify with.

There could also be a heartbreak that has left you questioning yourself. In the Tarot de Carlotydes, the 9 of swords is depicted as a woman chained in a dark room, with a flower in her hand and broken heart drawn on a piece of paper. I always see this card as being tortured over a disappointment. In this particular deck, I see as a mental prison that you feel trapped in because you are clinging to and rehashing an event. Holding onto this event keeps the pain fresh or recurring. It is time to release it.

Do not internalize other people's actions and shortcomings. It is not a reflection of you. You are who you decide to be. Do not dim your shine for anyone. Do not stunt your growth either. I'm not sure what it is that is holding you back but you have the potential to be the brightest star! You can be strong, and confident, and assertive. There is this little ball of power inside of you, that can grow if you allow it. Soil echoes the same message I am seeing in tarot. You must let yourself bloom:

The soil is a conduit of both growth and decay. Eyes forward, rooted to the past and reaching to the skies, she'll grow. Keywords: Balance, Forward, Growth, Duty, Building.

Some of you may use less than healthy tactics to cope. Maybe you should think of yourself like a plant. What are you fertilizing your soil with? What are you using for watering? Put the best in, get the best out.

TL;DR: Your DF energy is a L-E-A-D-E-R, okay?! She calls the shots in every area of her life. Some suitors are attracted to her because their immaturity is infatuated with her self-assured, mature energy. However, she prefers an equally strong partner at her side but this does not mean she wants to be led. No, she wants someone that respects her as an equal but allows her to take the lead. She lives life on her terms, loves on her terms, and does not care what anyone else thinks of that. She does have a soft spot but that is not for everyone. This nurturing energy could be channeled into working with children in some capacity. In order to step into this energy, you will have to untether yourself from insecurity and heartbreak. You already have this power inside of you, its only a matter of letting it grow. You don't have to deny what you have been through or the way it impacts you, but it also does not have to hold you back. Replace your unhealthy coping mechanisms with healthy ones.

As previously stated, I have a planned post that will expand on my views about feminine energy and other spiritual topics. I am really looking forward to sharing my thoughts and hope you all will chime in! I would love to start a discussion.

Until then ❤

~ K

[ms-demeanor]

it's hard to find legitimate data on risks associated with alcohol--a lot of results from religious organizations w/ vested financial interest in evangelical cult-type shit comes up when i try. i drink heavily occasionally, mostly because i just really like the experience of getting blasted with close friends once every few months--any advice on tracking down actual *reputable* data on the risks of that?

(tamping down on the urge to anonymously defend my actions in my favorite anarchism blogger's inbox but i *will* allow myself to defensively note that i never drink to the point of blacking out or puking. this isn't really relevant to the question i just have brain problems where i feel compelled to defend myself against imaginary assumptions.)

Okay i want to start this out by pointing out that I'm not particularly judgemental about drug use. Any drug use.

Basically, you do you. As long as you're not drinking and driving or otherwise doing harm (for instance, attempting to provide childcare while too intoxicated to do so safely) the only thing you have to worry about is what alcohol is doing to *you* and I was a smoker for like twenty years knowing full well how awful for me it was. If you want to drink and you know the risks, do what you want.

So, all that said, I mean this very gently (because it's clear that this is a sensitive issue for you) but it is not particularly difficult to find good data about risks associated with alcohol from sources less biased than American evangelicals.

For some research on the overall risks of alcohol consumption, here are some good, comprehensive, recent papers about the effects of alcohol on both individuals and populations.

Risk thresholds for alcohol consumption: combined analysis of individual-participant data for 599,912 current drinkers in 83 prospective studies

Population-level risks of alcohol consumption by amount, geography, age, sex, and year: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2020

Alcohol consumption and risks of more than 200 diseases in Chinese men

Getting occasionally blasted with friends is what's called "binge drinking" - which is defined as five or more drinks within two hours for men or four or more drinks in two hours for women, or reaching a BAC of .08 (the legal limit for driving in the US). This is a lot lower than most people think of when they think of "binge drinking" - that's five beers, an average bottle of wine, or two strong cocktails like a long island iced tea. Five or more drinks wouldn't put most people into blacking out or puking territory, and if you're a seasoned drinker a BAC of .08 may not feel like anything over the top or ridiculous, but it is a drinking binge nonetheless and there are specific risks associated with binge drinking. Here are some write-ups on binge drinking specifically:

Binge drinking: Burden of liver disease and beyond

Binge Drinking’s Effects on the Body

Effects of Repeated Binge Drinking on Blood Pressure Levels and Other Cardiovascular Health Metrics in Young Adults

I get the urge to feel defensive, it sounds like this is something that's concerning you and from the tone of your ask it seems like this is something that you were not aware of and has made you uneasy. (And it sounds like you're around a lot of people who ARE judgemental about alcohol consumption for reasons that have to do with them imposing their morality on you, which is a shitty position to be in)

But hey i wouldn't be a very good marginal anarchist if I wasn't about making sure that people have informed interactions with the world.

I still go out and get shitfaced every once in a while because it's fun and there are things that I can do to mitigate the risks (like making sure I'm around safe people, don't have access to a motor vehicle, and don't do it often) but I do so with the awareness that what I am doing could have some pretty bad consequences and I need to make sure to watch out for my health to keep an eye on the systems that drinking like that might impact. If you're gonna drink, you should be keeping an eye on yourself generally. If you're gonna drink heavily (even if it's only every couple of months), you have got to keep an eye on your liver, pancreas, and heart specifically.

[walnutcookie]

What have you been thinking about lately? (:

HI THANK U SO MUCH FOR THIS ASK . SMILES SO BIG!!!!!

i have been thinking about walnut so much lately.. more specifically her character development as well as her relationship to both roguefort and her mother. ill focus on her and roguefort more in this post though :] im gonna try to be comprehensible in this one but thisll be a doozy

reblogs ok!

what i find interesting is that in every case we've seen walnut and roguefort BESIDES their release event, walnut has always defended them. In the butter painting affair she knew that they would have left a calling card, in the lost holiday she knew that they wouldnt have done any harm to eggnog cookie, and in face the trial she knew they wouldnt have stolen something with such little value. Theres a big contrast between her first interaction with them in their release event and how she treats them from that point on, and its clear that they dont have quite the rivalry that was shown in that first event. Walnut isnt nipping at their heels every chance she gets lol

i think that from the start, roguefort has always been fond of her,, in a mentor or parental way almost; they see her potential. they see her skill. they want to watch her grow, to see her learn from her mistakes and become a better detective and a better person. in the lost holiday the calling card was a gift itself - they know how much she loves doing detective work and they want to encourage her, though if they break character then the game isnt fun anymore and it feels less genuine ,, so they observe her from a distance. I do think that they wish they could care for her more but they have to be discreet about it since theyre. yknow. A thief and supposed to be her most hated rival (be weird abt these two btw and i will eat your fingers)(dont ship them)

i dont know if this was intended to be canon or not, but thinking about how roguefort left in their release event feels,,, strange? If the boat was far enough from the docks that nobody was trying to stop them, then surely they couldve escaped with the jewel still in their hands. sure, they threw to distract everyone and allow them to escape, but there was a Whole crowd of people there ? if walnut had caught the gem, someone else could have jumped onto the boat and caught them. i like to interpret it as them trying to reward walnut. While they werent going to turn themself over just like that, they wanted to give her a prize for being smart enough to solve their puzzle. They wanted to encourage her by giving her back the gem, even if Cheesecake had a spare and nothing would have really changed if they had kept it :]c

heres my interpretation of them, and its mainly based off of the lines "One logical answer always exists!" "One logical answer? Sounds rather... dull."

in the start, walnut did consider them rivals. She was pretty young at the time and still figuring the world out so she saw them basically as a supervillain, basically just a person filled with pure evil intent and thats... Obviously not who they are. but little wawer just saw someone stealing and went Ah evil!! Evil!!!!! you are WRONG and you must be STOPPED!!! And thus their rivalry began. Also why she was so bitter towards them in the first event :]

in the events of search for lost time/pursuit of lost time, though - and keep in mind, this is completely based on my own headcanons since we hardly know anything abt these costumes - walnut realizes a shift in their behavior. At some point, they even put their own life on the line just to save her... would an evil, cruel person really do something like that? Why would they risk themself to save her when all shes ever done is try to have them arrested?

this is when she starts to realize that not everything in the world is black and white. Not everything has one logical answer. What is rogueforts motive? that is one messy question with multiple answers and none of them are logical. This also goes into my headcanons with her relationship with almond but thats for another ask heehee... Walnut starts to realize other things, too. Roguefort always leaves a calling card, and theyre always incredibly polite to everyone, even the authorities,, of course thats just phantom thief stuff but she realizes that they really arent just some villain. Theres much more to them than some urge to cause mischief and steal from others. in my timeline, all of the other events take place after search for lost time/pursuit of lost time, and this is where walnut starts to defend them rather than just try to chase them.

At this point, i dont think walnut wants to see them behind bars anymore. that was pretty clear when she was distraught at the sentence cappuccino gave them. i think shes conflicted about them. She wants to know the truth about who they are, and why theyre doing everything. She wants to see them change - for them to start doing good. but at the same time, she doesnt. at the same time,,, roguefort is one of the only ones who takes her seriously

Almond is the most guilty of this, and ill elaborate on that in another post, but oh Boy does he make walnut feel worthless and dumb. walnut is always trying to act more mature, more professional and less child-like despite Very much being a child, first example off the top of my head being her not wanting to decorate her office for the holidays and also the way that she always calls almond by his name instead of mom/mother(or dad/father if we're not talking about my hcs lol). She doesnt want to be treated like a child. and to some extent, yeah, people baby her!! almond told cappuccino he was scared that shed eat a Rotten jelly are you fucking kidding me ? (dont even get me started on the one twitter art where hes worried that roguefort kidnapped walnut i do Not consider that canon because from what weve seen abt how he acts towards roguefort?? No the fuck he wouldnt????) he didnt want her to be involved in the butter painting affair because it was "dangerous" despite it basically being identical to other theft cases shes dealt with and there wasnt any violence to begin with. in her story even, people usually let her investigate just because shes cute which.. works in her favor but also FRUSTRATING because its only because shes a kid. almond is always talking about how worried he is that she'll get into trouble and YES she is a child she does need some sort of supervision but shes also so much smarter than people give her credit for. she has so much potential thats being wasted purely because people think shes too young, though at the same time, i think walnut overestimates herself. i think that because of the lack of support she gets from almond and other adults in her life she tries to go above and beyond to Prove that shes better than she actually is and that shes worthy of being a detective and taking on more cases and ends up getting hurt because of it (cough sflt). she tries to act more mature because she wants people to take her seriously but she is a Child and thus people will just look at her and go "Aww! what a cute little detective :)"

i think that the reason why shes so involved with rogueforts cases is because theyre the only one who takes her seriously. They do tease her about it - this is seen throughout all of the events but most specifically in the first one when she gets upset at them calling her "little detective." though they still take her seriously. They see the skill she has now, and they dont just see what she could be in the future. theyre more focused on supporting her now and giving her encouragment and more puzzles to solve rather than babying her and telling her she'll be a great detective someday like everyone else. thats especially important to walnut considering almond does Not show her the same support and is more often restricting her and trying to get her to stop

if roguefort were to stop, to be arrested or to decide that their life of crime was over, walnut wouldnt have that support anymore. Thats terrifying to her. while she does want what is best, there is also a part of her thats a little selfish and just wants things to stay the same forever.

idk where to put this but im elaborating more on her wanting to learn more about them. because really she shows a much deeper understanding and respect than most other characters despite them being her supposed rival ? Lost holiday in specific was so funny because she was so chill with them like "yeah i know you probably didnt do it lol i just needed to have u here just in case" ANYWAYS just the fact that she keeps standing up for them is enough to show how much respect she has for them. The general public is SO cruel and dehumanizing towards them through either idolization or vilification or both at the same time and shes one of the few who actually treat them like a person. she doesnt like it when people are unnecessarily cruel to them, like almond insisting that she stays out of the butter painting affair despite them not committing the crime or her reaction to the harsh jail sentence cappuccino gave them. Both almond and cappuccino are characters who are very close and friendly with her, might i add, and yet she still wants to protect roguefort. She knows that they deserve so much more than how the public and how authorities treat them, thief or not.

anywasy yeah um. In summary. i think that the two lines "One logical answer always exists!" "One logical answer? Sounds rather... dull." symbolize them quite nicely ... roguefort is a motivation for her, a mentor disguised as a rival. they teach her more about the world and detective work. they made her realize that not everything is black and white and taught her to people and situations in more complicated shades of gray. and i think that it goes the other way, too - in a world where roguefort is so Deeply misunderstood and misjudged, walnut tries to stand up for them and does understand them, to a degree. better than anyone else at least. she gives them hope.

[bengiyo]

Why Do I Tag So Many Creators in My Posts? It’s About Respect

Earlier today I was talking with @sophsloveskpop in the notes of a post, and was asked about all of the interaction between blogs in the posts and essays about the shows. I��ve noticed an uptick in new names interacting with posts (and making great posts of their own!) and wanted to talk about why I do it and why I like fandom on Tumblr.

Fundamentally, I think it’s generally good courtesy to acknowledge when someone else has expressed a similar idea to your, or an idea that intrigues you. I think it’s best to tag that person and link to their post so that others can also experience it. It also opens you up to a dialogue with them and others.

People Like Getting Their Flowers

If someone posts an analysis or even a quirky idea that I felt the need to think about, I will mention them in my posts. None of the great content we get on here is necessarily quick to make. I absolutely love all of the gifmakers who fight against Photoshop, Tumblr, and God Himself to post snippets of shows on here for us. I wouldn’t be able to flesh out some of my posts, illustrates points, or otherwise breakup walls of text without @liyazaki, @wanderlust-in-my-soul, @pharawee, or @gabrielokun. Whenever I can’t find the gif I’m looking for through Tumblr’s terrible gif search, I reach out to one of them for permission to use their gifs directly.

Also, many of us just like being acknowledged that someone we wrote meant something to someone else. Every time I get tagged by someone in an essay I’m like:

It’s a Conversation

I don’t think fandom is about being the smartest person or the most correct person. My basic framework I’m writing from is Black Gay Nerd Who Watches a Lot of Stuff. It’s what I’m most familiar with personally, and I find that people have really responded to that.

I’ve been around for a very long time, and have been seeing folks like @so-much-yet-to-learn around the entire time, who often has more specific information about fandom life during the airing of shows. @absolutebl and @heretherebedork have watched more BL than I have, and I’ve seen at least 250 productions. ABL has some of the most comprehensive posts collecting some of the history.

I made so many friends after diving into @shortpplfedup DMs to talk about sustainable urbanism and bonding over our shared geography. Now we run @the-conversation-pod together. Through them I befriended so many others, like @elnotwoods and @kyr-kun-chan.

I’m not a color theory expert, and so I love reading posts from @respectthepetty and others (I think @sliceduplife writes about color too).

We wouldn't even have my favorite show without @isaksbestpillow.

I know what shows are coming because of @clairificusrex.

I don’t know much about music theory, but @iguessitsjustme write some great stuff about the music in these shows.

I don’t always read the body language of hands as closely as someone like @wen-kexing-apologist might.

I am not Asian, and so I like reading from @waitmyturtles, @telomeke-bbs, and @neuroticbookworm. I know that @recentadultburnout and @airenyah offer useful perspective on Thai language.

Sometimes folks are going to narrow down on specific shows and consistently write about them for years on side blogs like @miscellar.

Some people have studied so much and bring specific academic lenses to the genre that I find compelling, like @emotionallychargedtowel.

In many cases, I just vibe with them really hard, like @ginnymoonbeam.

I actually didn’t always post as much as I do, but I try to keep up my Stray Thoughts project so that people can keep track of what I’m watching. I used to write less meta, but then I befriended @waitmyturtles and @lurkingshan. Any time I say anything remotely thoughtful Shan is like:

Also, though, this is Tumblr! It’s easy to tag each other and link to each other’s posts! This is what makes us different from every

Isn’t It Just More Fun?

I don’t enjoy shows passively. I grew up in a family that watched things together. My mom, dad, sister, and I all have differing tastes from each other, but we watched a lot of different things together. My friends and I discussed the things we watched at school.

I’m a big fan of the water cooler approach to TV show distribution, which basically says you want your show to be the show people are talking about on their breaks at work. I always like Film Crit Hulk’s theory that movies (and our dramas) are the proverbial campfires around which we gather to share ourselves with each other.

This is all supposed to be fun, and I have more fun when we interact. I get tagged daily by @blmpff about updates from sets, or when we all need to rush to IG to make sure Fluke Pongsakorn doesn’t cut his hair. When @bl-bam-beyond makes a new set or post they let me know, and they recently rewatched Noah’s Arc! I made friends with @gillianthecat in the last year or so, and it’s been fun seeing her make her way through fandom. I always get excited with @troubled-mind pings me in a post because I know it’s going to give me something to chew on. I didn’t have a genuine appreciation for kink culture until I watched along with @lutawolf. If something funny is happening in fandom I know @benkaaoi is going to tag me. I still get excited when @heukheuk pops up in my mentions.

I know I’ve probably forgotten so many people alone the way here, and I’m sorry if I didn’t mention you.

Tag Because It’s the Right Thing to Do

So seriously, tag people and link to their posts. Try to use the giffmakers specific tags when you’re using the search feature. Fandom is better when we all interact respectfully and enthusiastically with each other. Tumblr is special because it lets us create goofy little essays like this and tag dozens of people just to get their attention.

If you have a cool thought about a show I’m watching, tag me. If you see something funny, tag me in the comments. If you wanna hash out an idea before posting it, DM me. This is Tumblr. Don’t be shy with your thoughts. It’s okay to be wrong on the internet. It’s actually fun to be wrong on the internet about show predictions!

Thank you as always for coming to my post.

[fairuzfan]

Hi! Just wrote out a message and it didn’t send so this isn’t as concise the second time writing lol

So I read the post where you said companies participating in boycotts were working towards making a difference/impact on the current situation by putting pressure on Israel. You mentioned ben and jerrys specifically and I ended up looking it up and saw they cut ties with providing services or their products to “occupied Palestinian territory” (they got the term from the UN).

My question is, is this actually making an impact? I have a bit of trouble with reading comprehension sometimes so I wanted to make sure I was reading the post correctly!

(I’m a Vermonter and pay pretty close attention to what they do as a company. They’re really vocal around here about civil rights and human rights etc and I’m always curious to see if they’re living up to their talking points. They have a black power mural on the windows of their main location in my city. haven’t been down there in a while so it could be gone but I always thought it was cool that they are so vocal about rights issues)

Hey thanks for sending this in, no worries! I saw a few people confused as well in the notes of that post.

I remember the Ben and Jerry's campaign — a couple years ago there was a BDS campaign against them because they had a factory/distributed sales in occupied territories. This means that this is internationally agreed as Palestinian land, but Israel still builds settlements on it. Part of the focuses of BDS is to target companies on settlements, especially with the hopes that, at the very least, they will remove them, cutting the income from settlements. When companies build on settlements, more Israelis are enticed to move there to work, thereby speeding up the displacement. It won't affect the Palestinians as much because these companies on settlements are not "Palestinian," they are "Israeli," and they directly only benefit Israeli citizens.

So it has a twofold affect: 1) it stops encouraging Israelis from moving onto stolen land and 2) it prevents Israel from profiting off of their settlement.

Ben and Jerry's is no longer on the BDS list — they have agreed not to operate within settlements and only operate within Israel's "legal" borders.

So it does make an impact! It might be a bit slow at first but every company makes a difference in this case. BDS is targeted based on what the highest level of success will be (like what happened with Ben and Jerry's) and if the company commits particularly heinous crimes against Palestinians (like how HP aids the surveillance tech of Israel to spy on Palestinians) and therefore need to immediately divest. In the case of HP, the goal is to disarm the surveillance system.

It would be neigh impossible to focus on every single company that has relationships with Israel — so we want to focus on the few that will make the most direct impact rather than the many that might be difficult to find replacements for.

This is a very quick and dirty overview but this is generally how the boycott works. I would suggest checking out bdsmovement.net for more info honestly! The founder also wrote a book about it.

[philsdrivinglicence]

Killing the white supremacist inside you. Easy mode. From one whitey to another.

Disclaimer: I am not an academic or an expert. Just a white person who's life was changed for the radically better during the BLM protests of 2020 who wants to share what worked for them.

Below is a non-comprehensive list of first steps you can take to begin the hard work of unpicking the layers upon layers of white supremacist bullshit baked into you from birth by the culture we live in (even if you grew up progressive or in a big city you are not exempt from this).

I made this list because POC in the phandom have been doing a lot of heavy lifting the past few days. I figured the least I could do is share what worked for me to understand what racism is and how its more subtle forms can manifest.

I hope we can all use the below as a starting point to help make the phandom a less racist and more welcoming place.

(btw I do think we are generally more self ware than many fandoms but as we are a mostly white space we have to keep ourselves accountable as white supremacy is an insidious bastard that will catch you unawares if you let it.)

So. Without further ado.

- read this article

- Read "Why I'm No Longer Talking To White People About Race" by Reni Eddo Lodge (how you choose to source this book I will not judge but consider supporting a local book store)

- Stop being so afraid of being called racist. - Hopefully, if you are engaging in good faith then you already accept that racism is baked into our society. Racist is not a dogwhistle for "evil person". It is a descriptor of very specific behavior that we can all fall into if we don't keep ourselves sharp. So part 2 of this step is -

- Look back on your life and identify a time when you have participated in racism. My go to example is my 14 year old "never met a black person in real life" self, yelling along to N****s in Paris (uncensored, duh) at a house party with a bunch of other white 14 year olds. If you're getting really introspective you'll probably have multiple of these such moments. Sit with them, feel the cringe, think about what you might say to that version of yourself now, how you might have acted differently had you been aware the behavior was problematic. And then forgive yourself. Self flagellation does nothing good, the thing to do now is learn and progress. But you can't know what to change/avoid if you don't have examples to work off of. (This one is lowkey hard mode but worth doing early on so you can see your own progress over time. Also, if the examples you are thinking of were directly harmful you may also want to consider making amends in some way).

- Look at your playlists/album collection. If you don't see many/any POC musicians make a conscious effort to change that. Seek out interviews with your favourite artists and see which black artists have influenced them. Add them to your rotation.

- Do this with youtubers, authors, actors, screenwriters etc, etc. In all forms or art and entertainment, look at what you consume and if you find it overerall skewing white, make an effort to fill it with colour.

(Kill the voice inside you that says "I just prefer - blank-", or "the stuff they make just isn't for me, I prefer stuff I can relate to". This is the white supremacy talking, POC are not a monolith, look harder, you will find artists you connect with)

- Every time a POC points something out to you that seems off to them (I often refer to this as "this doesn't pass the sniff test") before jumping in to defend your fave/point of view/TV show etc. really sit with what they have said and try to consider why what they are pointing out, while not a big deal to you, could be a big deal to them.

Like I said up top, this is a non comprehensive list and is only intended as a starting point.

I usually wouldn't post something like this as I prefer to stay out of discourse but the conversation going on this past few days has really disappointed me. So many people are being dismissive toward POC fans and completely missing the points they are trying to make. So here's my two cents. Hope it's helpful.

[lunanoc]

who exactly are the hei feizi in sand sea part IV?

i refuse to be the only one responsible for this being posted publicly so i’m co-blaming @tiesanjiaoshenanigans (✨)

disclaimer as always i’ve only read things in their entirety up through and including Sand Sea as far as the main installments of the story are concerned, so if anything in later canon pops up to debunk this you never saw anything 🏃‍♀️

that being said let's get into it

this isn’t really meta because it’s more me questioning my reading comprehension after getting through part IV of Sand Sea than anything else. i’ve seen the hei feizi or 黑飞子 (lit. “flying black thing”) mentioned from time to time, and every single time it’s been to refer to the specific phenomenon of people whose body is taken possession of by the black-haired sunbeam snakes (or cat snakes) that play a key role in the story of Sand Sea. the dmbj wiki, sparse as it is, also has an article dedicated to the hei feizi that explicitly states that those snake parasitized people are what hei feizi are

i realize this is going to be a very bold take considering all of that and you’re starting to see why i’m questioning my basic reading comprehension skills at this point, but fresh off of finishing Sand Sea, i’m left deeply confused because that isn’t at all the takeaway i got from part IV of what the hei feizi are. so, for the sake of Figuring Shit Out, and because we love sources, let’s take a look at all the times hei feizi are mentioned in Sand Sea Part IV, and let me try and suggest that hei feizi doesn’t refer to black-haired snake parasitized people at all

we start off with these very first mentions in chapter 201 (merebear’s edition) of Sand Sea and onward wherein che zong, one of the men wu xie hires to come with him to investigate what turns out to be a snake mine in the wilderness of ningxia, and who also happens to be one of the last people wu laogou taught dog training to, calls a hei feizi by name

(side note, i’m aware all the quotes say his name is che zhong, but the characters are 车总, the last one pronounced zong, so unless the chinese text has a repeated typo or there’s an alternate pronunciation of the character i’m not aware of, the translation is the one with the typo. since his name is consistent in the original i’ll be calling him che zong)

che zong reacts like this to a figure he and wu xie see in the dark as they make their way towards a neighboring village to seek medical help for their wounds sustained during their ill-fated trip in the mine and against the longzhi. xiaomange, the dog che zong trained according to wu laogou’s wishes in order to give him to wu xie, also reacts aggressively to the figure and barks at it even as it disappears into the trees. so far, nothing conclusive besides the fact that che zong is deeply terrified by whatever this hei feizi is, so much so that wu xie is a little concerned given he didn’t react nearly this strongly to a creature that was supposed to be almost unkillable

when pressed, che zong states that hei feizi “isn’t a thing, it’s a person”, which while it does cast potential doubt on it being a monster, doesn’t technically contradict the idea that he’s referring to snake-parasitized people specifically, especially given both how terrified he is and that arguably that’s exactly what they’re being chased by

wu xie then recalls the story wu laogou told him of the hei feizi under a different name, and how they were some sort of oppressive and elusive legend among tomb robbers who felt watched. you do get the impression wu xie seems to be talking about some kind of tomb creature, and all it really tells us is that hei feizi are elusive and kind of creepy, which bao sa (the man who’s dead and zombified by the black-haired snake) arguably is at this point

here he is being a creepy Very Dead zombie man

so far so good

however this is where in my opinion the “hei feizi are snake-parasitized people” interpretation starts getting derailed. we’ve skipped ahead here to when wu xie and che zong, who to be fair seem really sus to the local villagers (who unfortunately get to witness a horror movie in real time), get dragged to their village hall by force in the middle of the night, and are faced with a dead bao sa controlled by black-haired snakes who really want into wu xie’s body because apparently he’s snake catnip. when wu xie refers to bao sa as a hei feizi (note he uses 它 ta which really is "it", the third person pronoun for non-human things, in the original text), che zong corrects him and tells him that bao sa isn’t a hei feizi, or more specifically that he was but no longer is one technically. the exact sentence in chinese is as follows:

这不是黑飞子，不，这是黑飞子，不，现在已经不是黑飞子了

note that che zong never uses 它 ta or “it”, and what he says more exactly translate to:

this isn't a hei feizi, no, this is a hei feizi, no, now it’s already no longer a hei feizi

to put it simply, this sentence implies that bao sa was formerly a hei feizi, but in his present state is no longer one. in other words, that as a snake-parasitized dead thing, bao sa isn’t really a hei feizi proper, just a dead one

this is reinforced here when he says this a bit further, also implying that a live hei feizi is more dangerous than dead one taken over by snakes

we then get a second more in-depth explanation of what a hei feizi is meant to be, and che zong explains that because no one could actually catch sight of them properly in ancient or more distant times, the hei feizi were relegated to the category of elusive myth as humanoid monsters or ghosts. he also says that wu laogou, because he used dogs who had a superior sense of smell to rob tombs, was the first person in recent memory to seriously consider the idea that hei feizi were not in fact monsters, but rather were "human beings" or "very mysterious people"

che zong also seems to be saying that normally no one could detect a hei feizi was tracking them, or at the very least lay eyes on them, but on the rare occasion a hei feizi would mess up and reveal itself, whoever they were tracking would have to be eliminated because by having seen them, whoever they were tracking had already seen too much. and once again, wu laogou was the only person of his generation, and maybe even altogether, who because his dogs saved his life (likely helping him escape or outright killing the hei feizi) saw a hei feizi and survived

from there the evidence keeps pointing at the hei feizi being something not so much Other, but more something in some ways more sinister and dangerous. che zong says here that wu laogou, the only person in recent memory who’s seen a hei feizi, told him that “hei feizi are actually the same as us”, which doesn’t scream to me as meaning they’re supposed to be people taken over by snakes, but rather that he’s saying “hei feizi aren’t monsters, they’re people”. the fact they apparently have a “special smell” has implications that need a whole other post to get into but it definitely has Implications

we continue on and learn that wu laogou tentatively trained xiaomange to find hei feizi, an important trump card to have given that modern times and technology forced the hei feizi to change surveillance tactics, moving on from simply “monitoring people” in tombs to “entering tomb robbing circle”, that is to say essentially switching from lurking in the shadows to organized espionage and infiltration in broad daylight. which then culminates in a statement wu xie gives that’s so explicit it just makes me even more confused about how the “hei feizi are snake-parasitized people” conclusion happened:

"they must be part of the family opposing menyouping's family"

which besides being an explicit reference to the wang family, also ties this conclusion to bao sa, the man whose body the snakes took over, who even before he died and became the black-haired snakes’ puppet was strongly implied to be a wang who infiltrated wu xie’s team and tried to kill him

what i’m saying is that all this is slowly guiding the reader towards the realization that hei feizi are members of the wang family, not bodies taken over by snakes

adding to that this information here, it’s a conclusion that makes infinitely more sense given the context of Sand Sea Part IV in general, but more specifically how it re-situates what we learn of wu laogou’s apparent involvement in the wang family plot, since prior to this point, there’s no indication that wu laogou was ever involved with the wang family before the greatest joint tomb robbery in siguniang mountain. it neatly ties into the idea that becomes more and more apparent that wu laogou was actually involved with the wang family and had been on their shit list long before that event ever took place, before getting roped into jiuye's plan, and before wu sanxing and xie lianhuan's own inextricable involvement. this means that the wu family has had personal stakes in this conflict for far longer than wu xie had imagined, and both explains why wu laogou wanted his family out of the business so desperately, and why wu xie insists upon the fact that three generations of his family have been plagued by the wang family in Sand Sea Part II

hei feizi just being an alternate name for “It”/the wang family the older generations used also makes more sense considering these hei feizi never come up in Sand Sea elsewhere or in the story in general that i can tell, and if wu laogou knew that wu xie would have to inevitably confront the wang family given how entrenched the wu family is in this conflict, having a dog like xiaomange who could warn him of their presence and protect him is a trump card he would want his grandson to have 

therefore if you understand that hei feizi actually refers to the wang family, then this last part here also makes more sense, as it infers that che zong is telling wu xie that he’s managed thus far to avoid pinging under the wang family’s radar, but that now they’ve clued into the fact he exists and is assisting wu xie, and in general seem to be trying to close in on wu xie

which taking all of this towards the end of Sand Sea Part IV into account, and considering how that part of Sand Sea ends, all culminates into turning this into the story of the very first time the wang family come out of the shadows and confront wu xie and his party directly instead of covertly watching his every move and guiding him in certain key directions from a distance

so the tldr; of this is that all of this in my opinion strongly points towards the hei feizi simply being another name for members of the wang family, or at least a certain subcategory of them, that the older generations used because they had no other name for what they perceived as a mysterious phenomena, but was actually just a group of people (who by the way are consistently presented throughout Sand Sea as having been trained in much the same ways and have much the same skills as the zhang family) who were extremely skilled at hiding in the shadows, and so i genuinely don’t understand why the apparent consensus that i can tell is that hei feizi is the name for people whose body gets taken over by black-haired snakes. that seems to be more an unfortunate by-product of bao sa dying and being easy prey for snakes who like to incubate their eggs in human flesh than anything

(if you wanted another argument, the wangs are also consistently described by li cu as being “black-clad”, and wu xie compares how xiaoge moves fast to a bat several times, and the wangs are also just as consistently paralleled with skills and abnormal competence that xiaoge and other zhangs have. if they’re skilled enough to end up looking like a “black flying” shadow to their targets then it’s not a weird name choice)

[inkmage13]

A comprehensive list of every single Frankenstein adaptation i have ever read/watched and my reviews of them

Universal Frankenstein 1931

I hate this movie with my whole being. It's like they read the book upside down and backwards. Hate the creature's design. 1/10

Young Frankenstein

A hilarious spoof of the Universal film. Gene Wilder kills it as Frederick von Frankenstein. Creature design is much better than Universal, I love the non functional zipper on his neck. So silly and goofy. 9/10 (minus one point for Creech fucking being an important joke/plot point bc it makes me uncomfortable)

Junji Ito's Frankenstein

A mostly faithful comic adaptation of the original novel. Creature design is fantastic but he has short hair for some reason. Very cool art. 8/10

Frankenstein Alive, Alive!

Literally my favorite graphic novel. Bernie Wrightson cared about the Creature so much and it really shows. Incredible adaptation exploring the rest of Creech's life. 11/10 cannot recommend enough

Frankenweenie

Great Tim Burton movie. I love Sparky. Another successful spoof of the Universal film. 7/10 (minus points for being lowkey racist/xenophobic)

The Rocky Horror Show / Picture Show

I'm lumping in the musical and movie together. I love RHPS with my whole being. And it's a weirdly good adaptation. Dr. Frank N Furter's desire to create the perfect artificial man is explicitly queer. Rocky is born and immediately starts singing about how he's confused and miserable. 8/10

I, Frankenstein

Not a great movie but I did kind of enjoy it. Adam Frankenstein is caught in the celestial war of good and evil because he is neither human nor demon. His design sucks because he's just a guy, not nearly fucked up enough. Also he's not an incel which is very out of character unfortunately. 5/10

The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein

What the fuck is this book. Reading it was a roller coaster ride of "ok i dig this" and "what the actual fuck am I reading". All you need to know is the author sucks the human soul out of Victor and makes Creech a furry. 2/10

Frankenstein: A New Musical

I love this musical!! It's mostly book accurate with great portrayals of every single character. The original production's Creature design sucks though, it's literally just the actor with no prosthetics or makeup or anything. The music ranges from average musical stuff to absolute bangers. 9/10

Edward Scissorhands

I love this movie so I'm counting it because the Inventor makes an artificial human which is basically Frankensteining. Edward is adorable I love him so much. I think the movie is a great metaphor for the treatment of disabled/neurodivergent people in society. 8/10

The Nightmare Before Christmas

Specifically Sally and Dr. Finkelstein. Dr. Finkelstein is a super shitty dad to his creation, and Sally just wants to go out in the world and be a normal monster girl. As a Frankenstein adaptation 9/10 also 10/10 movie

X Files: The Post-Modern Prometheus

Incredible retelling with fantastic references to the original text. Mulder and Scully get justice for a monster in a crazy small town. And the episode is in black and white for no reason other than drama. But for some reason the Creature, who is called El Mutato, r**es people so for that unfortunately 7/10

[nevermordor]

Hi ! Just saw your tags in the women in horror movies post, would you mind, when you have time, giving me your recommendation in horror movies ? It's a genre i'm learning to appreciate and i'll be curious to know what your favorite are ! Hope you're having a good day !

Oh nooooooo, you’ve activated one of my trap cards.

So the fun thing about horror is that it’s truly a diverse genre with many different places to start. I hardly feel qualified to make a rec list, because I feel like there’s still so much I haven’t seen??? So the below is by no means comprehensive, but hopefully it helps get you started! Also please feel free to talk to me about horror anytime, haha, I would love to know what you think if you get around to watching any of these.

The Classics: -The Blair Witch Project. The inception of found footage horror. -Halloween. The first slasher I ever watched. John Carpenter made this on a shoestring budget and the behind-the-scenes story is so fun. Plus, Jamie Lee Curtis’s breakout role. -Candyman (1992). Tony Todd is so sexy in this, but also it’s a great horror story about the power of myth, and an exploration of racial dynamics in Chicago. -Poltergeist. Has its issues but ultimately a very fun movie about a family working together to try and rescue their daughter from evil spirits. There’s a very famous scene with a clown doll. You’ll know it when you see it.

Women and horror: -The Perfection. Queer and deeply messy. An exploration of how art can still be used as a system for abuse. Tw: implied sexual assault, self-harm. -Ginger Snaps. Explores the struggles of two teenage sisters via werewolf metaphor. Love this one. -The Witch. Ominous and atmospheric. The horrors of being a girl raised in a religious fundamentalist family. -Jennifer’s Body. A cult classic that’s been validated/revisited in more recent years. Also queer and messy. Transplants the dynamics of teenage girl best friends into a horror movie setting. -The Babadook. Queer internet icon, but also an exploration of mental illness and the horrors of motherhood/the fear of being a bad mom. -The Descent. Do not watch this if you’re claustrophobic. A group of women go cave diving and discover creatures lurking beneath the earth. I think of certain shots/scenes from this movie often. -Black Christmas (1974). A sorority house is stalked by an unknown killer over the holiday season. Probably the one slasher that still scares the hell out of me, mainly because of how it chooses to depict its killer. Also more political than you’d think, featuring an abortion subplot in the 70s no less. -Us. Lupita Nyong'o should have won an Oscar for this one. -Hereditary. Ari Aster has his flaws as a filmmaker (who doesn’t) but this movie is like……really good. Toni Collette knocks it out of the park. Tw for GRAPHIC depiction of child death and suicide. Movies that personally scared the hell out of me: -Oculus. The fun thing about horror as a genre is that everyone has specific tropes that personally freak them the hell out. This movie dug its nails into one of mine and would not let go. -Parasite. People will probably argue that this is not a horror movie so much as a “thriller” but this movie felt like a borderline panic attack and filled me with despair, and if that ain’t horror, I don’t know what is. Sci-fish horror: -Nope. I really think this might be Jordan Peele’s best movie. Two fantastic lead actors, and dense with ideas, worth watching more than once. -Alien + Aliens. Sigourney Weaver should be enough of a selling point. The first two movies are famous, and they fully live up to the hype.

Personal faves: -Trick ‘r Treat. I watch this every October. A ton of fun. -The Lost Boys. 80s vampire camp, and kinda gay tbh. -Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula. This film is darkly, gorgeously sumptuous. Just a spectacle of practical effects and costuming, and I highly recommend checking out the behind-the-scenes features. -The Silence of the Lambs and Manhunter. Lambs being my problematic fave for years. Manhunter is the best adaptation of Red Dragon hands down (no disrespect to NBC’s Hannibal.) -Rear Window. Because while Psycho is good, it’s also a problematic fave. Plus Rear Window was the first Alfred Hitchcock movie I ever saw, and it holds a special place in my heart for that alone. -The Invitation. The most uncomfortable dinner party in a film I’ve ever sat through. A slow burn for sure, with a terrifyingly good payoff. A movie about grief, unreliable narrators and primarily, the horror of no longer knowing people as well as you thought you did. Tw for suicide/self-harm. -Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight. I adore the first few seasons of the Tales from the Crypt TV series, but you don’t need to watch any of the show in order to enjoy this standalone movie. It’s silly. It’s gross. Billy Zane is having the time of his life as the villain, plus Jeryline is one my fave final girls in horror. -Hellraiser (1987). I adore Clive Barker as a writer (if you like to read horror too, please, PLEASE check him out) and I love that he got to direct his own feature film. This movie is gross, horny as hell, and unlike anything you’ve seen before. Misc recs: -Jacob’s Ladder. Surreal, nightmarish and tragic. Hard to talk about this one without giving too much away. Would recommend going in blind and letting it unfold. -Possession. This movie is Nuts. Even harder to talk about this one. Isabelle Adjani especially carries this film with her performance. -Barbarian. Probably my favorite new horror movie I watched last year. An examination of rape culture that didn’t feel exploitative (rare in horror.) Also some of the most bizarre plot twists I’ve seen. Go in blind. -American Psycho. Still my favorite role of Christian Bale’s to date. Funny: -Tremors. Horror is a fantastic space for practical effects, and it’s really, really hard not to love all the work that went into operating the giant worm puppets. Also hard not to love the queer platonic partnership between Kevin Bacon and Earl Bassett’s main characters. -What We Do in the Shadows. Also rec’ing the TV show, but the original film still holds up and is funny as shit. Animation: -Perfect Blue. Satoshi Kon is one my favorite creators of all time, and this was the first feature film he made. Tw for an implied/simulated rape scene. -Paranoia Agent. Not a movie but an 11 episode anime series, also from Satoshi Kon. A mixing of genres, but tied together with a horror-themed premise and tone. I fucking love this show.

I don’t know if they’re available internationally as a streaming service, so it might depend on what country you’re in? But if you’re looking to get into more horror, I would def recommend checking out Shudder. They’re strictly horror-focused, with a wide variety of film and TV, plus they’re only 5 dollars a month!

I would also suggest checking out a great book called, “It Came From The Closet”, a collection of essays on horror movies from queer and trans writers.

Happy viewing!!! Genuinely hope you enjoy and can't wait to hear what you think!

[captain-astors]

what do you like about takizawa? eyes emoji

Anon you cannot fathom how delighted I was to see this, rambling about my favorite characters brings me so much joy. In short, he’s entertaining! Be a terrible person, start conflict, act painfully annoyingly, but god forbid you bore me, it’s the worst offense a character can make and Takizawa has very rarely been guilty.

(Warning, there's a LOT of text under this cut and some god awful takes on his characterization because my reading comprehension skills are nigh nonexistent.)

More specifically I’m quite fond of two combining factors in a character, desperation and extravagance (Intentional or not). Give them something to prove, a person to live for, a point to make, a thing to achieve, and make their method of going about it absolutely impossible to ignore.

 A subsection of that which I find consistently intriguing is when the thing to prove is themselves, their strength, their skills, their need to be the best. Takizawa does this very well! Running Haise against a building while screaming about always being second best, he changes a lot but he’s always in search of approval and attention. I like broken characters. I like a character that doesn’t even know what they really are or need beyond a singular goal, a thing living not because they want to but because if they gave up now everything terrible that’s happened to them, that they’ve done, wouldn’t be a step in the process, it would only be terrible. The goal can waver, blur, shift, and change, but the attitude remains. Crush that fucker with the cold reality of the world and have them keep going anyways because they have to. 

Also, I like the silly ones! Particularly in tonally inappropriate moments, it takes a lot to make me exhibit any sort of external reaction indicating emotion involuntarily, but I cracked a smile gladly when Takizawa compared that investigator’s head to a pineapple and spun it around. Yes it’s a coping mechanism on his behalf, yes I find it amusing nevertheless. 

If Kaneki is the half-ghoul with a foot in both worlds, I believe Takizawa to truly be the half-ghoul with a foot in neither. His humanity is all but gone, killing people without any kind of remorse for the most part, but he still looks down on ghouls, perceiving, or at least commenting on them as if they really are the heartless beasts the CCG taught him to see them as, despite very obvious evidence to the contrary. He improves with time but that kind of arrogance in spite of it all keeps him from making true connections to almost anyone post-experimentation. 

Oh how I could go on for hours about the symbolism in every last Tokyo Ghoul character but I’ll keep this brief, the themes and images of self-destruction and jealousy are immaculate. 

Appearance is actually a factor that grows on me after the character most of the time, but a cool one is definitely a bonus. While human Takizawa is kind of just a guy and I love him anyways, ghoul Takizawa is fantastic. The form-obscuring cloak? The striped turtleneck thing? The overshadowed eyes? The black lips? The too-large eyes with too-small pupils? He looks like a fucked up raccoon! That’s why I’m not quite fond of anime Takizawa, he looks too clean and shiny (Also the thickness of his neck stripes is always changing?). Wrinkled isn’t the right word but I like how his face looks kind of crumpled and wrong. The most bisexual transgender to ever. In conclusion, I want to put him in a jar and shake it gently because I don't want to scare him but I do need to study him. Once again thank you for the opportunity to rant about a thing I like, if anyone ever wants to give me the chance again with ships, characters, whatever… the askbox is always open and sometimes I'll do little character doodles like the one above along with it.

[deckleedgehater]

I just finished babel today and I cannot stop thinking about it. I don’t wanna review it, as I want to support the Harper Collins union strike and they have specifically asked book sellers and reviewed to hold their reviews and nominations.

However, I was talking to my coworker who is an older white woman and she said something about how it made her ashamed of her ancestors. I was dumbfounded. I can’t believe someone who reads as much as she does didn’t see it’s relevance to our world today more pressing than like. White guilt. Like yes, as white people, we should not be proud of our ancestors’ actions. But a) guilt about heritage does nothing for nobody, b) it should make us want to dissect the way we as white peoples continue to benefit off of the actions of our ancestors and how we can make repetitions in our daily lives, and c) most importantly, colonization has not ended. especially as white Americans, we are perpetually benefiting from the exploitation of black and brown people’s labor, bodies, and minds both here and abroad. And like especially reading letty’s arc we should know that centering our emotions of shame based on our whiteness in conversations about race and racism we are actively doing harm. Like not to quote Bo burnham but like “Why do you rich fucking white people insist on seeing every socio-political conflict through the myopic lens of your own self-actualization? This isn't about you”. Like maybe I’m just having a little rage session but Jesus fucking Christ. Like. She read over 100 books last year but doesn’t have the reading comprehension or self awareness see how much that wasn’t the point? Ok rant over. But I would love to talk to someone about babel so if you read it and wanna chat hmu

[gag-magazine]

Protecting Your Peace, or Being a Pussy?

By Yellen Art by Raneem Iftekhar

Putting male comedians on a pedestal for so many years of my life was horrid for my mental health. I love their Jester’s privilege. Their pursuit of truth. Their ability to point out the negative realities people don't wish to acknowledge. True catalysts for justice. 

Comedy insidiously slips in revolutionary critique in an extremely palatable manner, due to the very nature of its entertainment. The jokes, these necessary reality checks, hold immense power in reframing thought, twisting taboo into norm. If it’s funny, it’s funny. Audience laughter is visceral. uncontrollable. reflects an acceptance of the underlying principle of the bit. The beginning of a somewhat unconscious questioning—a shift in ingrained ideology, although potentially initially uncomfortable.

I wanted to be like them, but I just grew into a menace, playing my favorite sadistic game whenever possible. This favorite pastime involved going out of my way to make my moral adversaries as uncomfortable as possible, verbalizing the unappetizing elephant in the room. I know what you did last summer. No care for pleasantries: let’s let the dirt rise to the surface. I won’t let this blow over. Cunt. You aren’t hidden. As long as I’m here. I will corner you. Trap you into confession. 

I was always searching for something or someone to trigger me so I can simulate judge and jury, desperately grasping to feel any sort of power or agency in guaranteeing justice. To instigate some revelation about their lacking morality. To catalyze their own self-reflection and potentially inspire real change. You don’t want to let them off hook, allow them to enjoy the party, same as you, living peacefully with what they’ve done. It feels so deeply wrong to settle with your own discomfort as perpetrators go free. Would you let Harvey Weinstein enjoy his meal at the table next to yours? 

But it’s a flawed strategy. On par with cancel culture’s delusion that it actually serves justice. The only one being punished is yourself as you deep dive into a black tar pit. Stuck. bogged down by their darkness. All you are doing is fucking up your nervous system, extending the timeline of your own anger, letting it cramp in your gut. P.S. Comedians are infamously known to be such happy people! Maybe comedy has always been a medium to complain about the things outside our control…to poke fun at our powerlessness. Maybe it’s not this revolutionary instrument of social change you think it is, but merely reaffirms people’s values. You just romanticize being a dick because that’s all you know. 

Protecting your peace isn’t overrated.  Karma will get them. Remind yourself that real change comes from a place of love. You didn’t even make it funny. You just put them in defense mode, clutching their comfort zone and validating their own worth as their humanity is attacked. The opposite of your “intentions.” Self-disillusionment, the process of confronting the violence of your own automatic assumptions and reframing them comes from within…But your anger is righteous and what’s the alternative? Ambivalence? Complacency? It’s a difficult balance.

I’m on a painstaking journey to deconstruct my perfectionism and shift my judgmental lens in the name of self love. I’m typically the biggest victim and the most common target of my seething hatred. In attempting to free my soul from this negativity, I try to remind myself that firstly, it’s ok to fuck up. And secondly, not every moment is a defining moment…But is it, though? Life has this magic essence to it, this circular mirroring of sorts, in which specific microcosms reflect greater patterns. Life is full of fractal reflections between small and large instances: no matter how deep you dig, you arrive on a fraction of the same thing. I usually collect people’s words like trinkets to add to a comprehensive psychological file I reserve in my brain. I’m addicted to retrieving more data to fill in my mental picture. Yes, that data says something. But not everything is a part of a greater pattern. Remember that they are so much more than what you see or hear. You aren’t engaging in critical thought, you are just critical. Keep telling yourself it was always about them and not some grand overcompensation for your own self-hatred. Everything is a mirror, after all. Stop projecting. 

Today it dawned on me how much I’ve really changed. I’ve been making an excruciating effort to be kinder to myself. But in turn, I’ve become a straight up pussy. Now we have arrived at the extremely stupid reason I wrote this piece: because of two petty instances of girls disrespecting me last week. One of them involved some frigid bitch rolling her eyes at me and then ignoring me when I introduced myself. I humbly asked for her name and ignored her cuntiness. The other involved some alt chick cutting me in line. I said under my breath with my head down, “Don’t you hate when people cut?” and the bitch really hit me back with a loud “Ya I fucking hate when people cut” as she cuts. Now, I just said nothing. I’ve never felt like such a narc loser in my entire adult life, even though the concept of a fucking line has to be one of the most basic forms of common curtosy to ever exist. But She won. Hands down. Honestly I can’t even blame her. I have to respect her and I kind of want an enemies to lovers arch for us. 

But anywho, my past self would have paid big money to be awarded any opportunity to deliver some seething comeback her way. But I stood in silence and it’s been haunting me. I can’t believe I’m…chill..now. I stopped subtweeting for the most part on my instagram story because my compulsive desire to put people on blast has gotten me in trouble many a time. I’m growing up, choosing my battles, developing my prefrontal cortex. But I am still riddled with a deep sense of regret over my silence in both these dumb situations. Maybe I should have made a scene. Bowed down to her excellency and profusely apologized for entering her space in medieval english prose. 

God, no one tells you that protecting your peace feels absurdly fucking lame. [redacted]

_________

The original ending to this piece involved me personally naming the bitches that briefly hurt my ego and telling them to go fuck themselves, ironically undermining the healing narrative I championed in this entire article thus far over such petty, insignificant situations cuz its semi-funnyish (at best) commentary on my tendency to revert back to my nasty id instincts no matter how much I try to self-help out of being a chronic hater. But ultimately, the clickbait title of this piece presents a false binary: silence or explicit aggression. But I’ve come to learn that protecting your peace doesn’t make you a pussy; it’s just the opposite.

Let’s take a look at your doomed track record thus far. You allow disrespect to tally up until you reach a breaking point that has almost nothing to do with the straw that breaks the camel's back. Then you continue to publicly pop off on an anonymous adversary on social media, with a shield of comedy and just enough vagueness to avoid communicating directly, promptly and vulnerably. Fighting behind a black screen without even really admitting you’re fighting. Championing plausible deniability to slither out of actually confronting the problem with the person head-on. Calling someone out for some dumb bullshit they probably don’t even remember in a published article where they cannot defend themselves…That’s what being a pussy looks like. Yes, I know: there are people in this world that deserve to be bullied, and yes, it’s a real shame they don’t experience debilitating shame on a daily basis like you do. But ever heard of the saying, “Misery loves company?” You are ohhh, sooo predictable—following the classic “bullied becomes the bully” character arc. So quick to condemn but someone calls you weird once and you crumble. Do you feel less weak now or more than ever? No, no, I’ve got it all wrong? You’re powerful? Extremely secure? Such conviction. Praise be.

[chinesegreenteagoldentriangle]

About Chinese tea, you must know these 10 knowledge points

Origin of tea

Tea originated in China. The earliest records and legends about tea in historical documents appear in China’s first medicinal monograph "Shen Nong’s Materia Medica": "Shen Nong tasted a hundred herbs, encountered seventy-two poisons every day, and got tea (tea) to cure them." The earliest history of Chinese people drinking tea can be traced back to the Qin Dynasty. Gu Yanwu wrote in "Rizhilu": "Since the people of Qin took Shu, there has been tea drinking."

Chinese ancestors drank tea through four processes: eating raw for medicinal purposes, eating cooked as a dish, cooking for drinking, and brewing for drinking. Tea contains more than 700 ingredients, which are beneficial to human health, and thus become a daily necessity for many Chinese people.

The effect of tea

In addition to drinking, tea also has certain medicinal functions. It can remove greasy, help digestion, refresh mind, diuretic and detoxify, and eliminate fatigue.

The ancients had a deep understanding of the medicinal functions of tea. According to records such as "Shen Nong's Materia Medica", "Treatise on Febrile Diseases", "Supplements to Materia Medica", and "The Classic of Tea", tea can not only make people sleepy, improve eyesight, have strength, and be happy. It can also lose weight and increase the sharpness of thinking.

Throughout the world, the saying that "Chinese tea" can be used as medicine has also been generally recognized. Zen Master Rongxi, the originator of Japanese tea planting, said in "Eating Tea and Preserving Health": "Tea is the elixir of health preservation and the magic of prolonging life. It is born in valleys, and its gods are also. Human relations adopt it, and its people grow Fate."

In addition, Japanese scientist Isao Tomita first reported in 1987 that tea polyphenols can inhibit the activity of human cancer cells, which attracted worldwide attention. In 2002, the U.S. "Time" magazine recommended ten healthy foods, and China's green tea was on the list.

The "Bible" of Tea

In the Tang Dynasty, "The Classic of Tea" written by Lu Yu came out. "Divide its source, make its utensils, teach it to make, set up its utensils, and order it to cook", this comprehensive treatise on the history, origin, current situation, production technology, tea drinking skills, and principles of tea ceremony is a comprehensive treatise on tea production in China and even in China. The world's earliest, most complete, and most comprehensive monograph on tea has made tea culture develop to an unprecedented height and also marked the formation of Chinese tea culture. It is known as the "Encyclopedia of Tea".

Therefore, Lu Yu is known as the "Tea Saint". He specifically expounded the process of making tea in "The Classic of Tea", and proposed that "for the fire, use charcoal, and then use strong firewood. The charcoal used to be burnt and moxibustion was affected by mutton and greasy, and it was used for ointment wood and defeated utensils. "Water should be "on the mountains and rivers, in the rivers, and under the wells."

Tea craft

Since ancient times, Chinese people have been planting, picking, making and drinking tea. Traditional tea-making skills are mainly concentrated in the four major tea regions of Jiangnan, Jiangbei, Southwest and South China, south of the Huaihe River in the Qinling Mountains and east of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Related customs are widely spread throughout the country and shared by many ethnic groups.

Based on the local conditions, tea makers use core techniques such as killing greens, stuffing yellow, fermenting, withering, greening, fermenting, scenting, etc., to develop six major teas of green tea, yellow tea, dark tea, white tea, oolong tea, black tea and scented tea There are more than 2,000 kinds of teas that are reprocessed for people to drink and share, and different customs have been formed, which have been passed down from generation to generation and run through Chinese people's daily life, ceremonies and festivals.

The essence of tea

Chinese people pay attention to "taste" when drinking tea, requiring complete color, fragrance, cultural connotation, utensils and artistic conception.

Through tea making, tea brewing and tea tasting, Chinese people cultivate a peaceful and tolerant attitude, form a reserved character, and enhance their spiritual realm and moral cultivation. Drinking and sharing tea is an important way for people to communicate and communicate. Tea-related etiquette and customs, such as treating guests with tea and putting the elderly first, demonstrate the Chinese people's humanistic spirit of modesty, harmony, courtesy and respect.

Allusions to Tea

Chinese people have the sayings of "firewood, rice, oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar and tea", "qinqi, calligraphy, painting, poetry, wine and tea", and many allusions related to tea have also been born.

"Three Kingdoms · Wu Zhi · Wei Yao Biography" records: "Sun Hao, the king of the state of Wu, is fond of drinking. Every banquet, regardless of the amount of alcohol, the guests drink at least seven liters. The courtier Wei Hao is knowledgeable but does not drink much. Sun Hao is right. He puts a lot of emphasis on it and often makes exceptions, "secretly giving tea to replace wine" and allowing him to drink tea instead of alcohol. This is the earliest record of "replacing wine with tea".

tea lover

After the Tang and Song Dynasties, tea drinking became very popular, and everyone from princes and ministers to ordinary people "couldn't put it down". Wang Anshi once said: "For civilian use, Husband's tea is equivalent to rice salt, and it cannot be without for a day." Not only that, tea is also loved by literati and scholars. Poets such as Su Shi, Lu You, Huang Tingjian all loved tea, and left many popular poems.

Bai Juyi, a poet of the Tang Dynasty, once wrote more than 50 poems related to tea. He wrote in "Night Wen Jia Changzhou Cuihuzhou Tea Mountain Pavilion and Watching Banquet": There are two state boundaries in the middle of the plate, and each is a spring in front of the lamp. Qing'e dances to compete for excellence, and purple bamboo shoots all try to compete for new ones."

And Yang Wanli, a poet of the Southern Song Dynasty who once wrote "The little lotus shows its sharp horns, and the dragonfly stood on its head long ago", has been with tea all his life, and he is an out-and-out "tea fanatic". He attaches great importance to the water for making tea, "It is not good to be as clear as Huai Shui, and it is better to make tea when springs burst into Huai Yam"; He teased that the tea pot was boiled until the tea pot was burned through, "The old man loves to cook tea all his life, and he burned through the broken foot tripod for ten years."

tea production

In 2020, the world's tea output is 6.269 million tons, and China's tea output is 2.986 million tons, ranking first in the world; the world's total tea area is 76.47 million mu, and China's total tea area is 47.475 million mu, also ranking first in the world. China's tea has a huge impact on the world's tea production and consumption. Its output accounts for 47.63% of the world's tea production, its consumption accounts for 41.68% of the world's total tea consumption, and its export volume accounts for 19.14% of the world's tea exports.

At present, more than 30 million tea farmers in 1,085 counties in China live affluently on "one leaf", and the tea industry has become a major industry that stimulates people's livelihood.

Changes of tea

When the "tea culture" landed in modern times, more new ways of playing were derived. According to data from iiMedia Consulting, the market size of China's new tea drinks will reach 279.59 billion yuan in 2021, and it is expected to exceed 300 billion yuan in 2022. It seems that milk tea, a "new tea drink", was born overnight and has won the favor of many young people, but in fact, milk tea has a very long history.

According to historical records, milk tea originated from Tibet, China. The emergence of milk tea is related to the living habits of northern nomads who eat beef and mutton all year round. For grassland areas where vegetables are scarce, milk tea can promote gastrointestinal digestion, so it has become a popular drink. Interestingly, the northern nomads at that time liked to add salt to milk tea and eat it with fried rice, so the original taste of milk tea was salty.

Exchange of tea

In ancient times, Chinese tea was spread to Europe along the Silk Road, and then gradually became popular all over the world. Together with silk and porcelain, it was considered a bond of peace, friendship and cooperation.

Through the Silk Road, the Ancient Tea-Horse Road, and the Thousand-mile Tea Ceremony, tea culture has traveled through history and crossed borders, and has been loved by people all over the world. It has become an important medium for mutual understanding between China and the people of the world, and exchanges and mutual learning between Chinese civilization and other civilizations in the world. , and become the common wealth of human civilization.

The "Wanli Tea Ceremony" started in the 17th century, starting from Wuyi Mountain in Fujian, China, passing through Jiangxi, Hunan, Hubei, Henan, Hebei, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia and other provinces, crossing the Mongolian Plateau, and finally arriving in St. Petersburg, Russia, with a total length of more than 14,000 kilometers. Another important international business route that emerged in Eurasia after the ancient Silk Road.

In 2013, in order to revive this ancient road, China, Mongolia, and Russia jointly initiated the initiative to declare the world cultural heritage; in 2019, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage included the "Wanli Tea Ceremony" in the "China World Cultural Heritage Preliminary List".

Buy Now

[hairspray-heart]

This is really accurate and it’s horrifying as an American Millennial to see how people are not able to process this, despite the huge love of that one Garfield meme.

Understanding exactly how people are radicalised is how you keep yourself and others out of that pipeline. My mom (older Gen X) was a part of the libertarian Lunatic Fringe for years after a complete breakdown following the loss of basically everything she ever cared about.

She literally mailed back her social security card with a pass-agg note about essentially opting out of society.

She’s now fighting to keep her husband (later Boomer, both of them are basically on the cusp) out of the anti-vax, anti-science pipeline, because he lacks the critical thinking skills that she used to yank them back from the radical left-wing. He will believe anything that gives him that spark of emotional reaction, literally ANYTHING.

She’s leaning HARD on me, her queer Millennial daughter, and my wife, to teach her how to see things in ways that are foreign to her, because she knows that we Get things, both generationally and as different people.

The reality is that she’s trying to learn how to examine her beliefs, but if this guy does not get it together and learn how to not manifest the Paris Paloma labour vibes, I’m going to be yanking her back from the TERF Fringe too, because as she is unpacking her trauma and abuse, she’s increasingly using very anti-male rhetoric, which we know leads to anti-trans rhetoric, since at that point, both trans men and trans women are seen as “too male”.

And it’s hard to explain to her how you can be furious about the patriarchy and about specific things that men have done or systemically do, intentionally or ignorantly. You can be furious about the abuse you withstood, and you can refuse to accept further abuse, and you can call it how you see it, but you have to be so, so careful with splitting things black-and-white like that.

People think you have to intentionally, maliciously adopt bigoted views. But sometimes it’s that your husband will not scoop the litter pans or clean up the rug where he tracks his dirty work boots, and is ungrateful when you clean up after him, and then he’s oblivious and not bright enough to detect nuance, and you fly off the handle at him for yes, dear-ing through another of your lengthy monologues that he literally doesn’t have the listening comprehension to try to follow and feels too insecure and anxious to ask you to explain because you react with vitriol toward “idiots” literally daily and you already don’t show enough affection for him to feel secure in your relationship because you weren’t raised to be effusive and have a ton of trauma from men and physicality, and you’ve recently realised you probably would have been a lesbian if it had been “allowed” culturally, and you somehow don’t understand how someone who is basically Bob Ross with a side of middle-child inferiority and mommy trauma is going to feel badly when you say that, so you just about blow up your marriage over the peri-menopause panic attack that arguing with your husband inspired because of a trauma that a similar partner did back in 1994…

and that’s how easy it is for someone like my mom to call me over to vent, and have me talk her back from tipping herself and her entire menopause Facebook group into the traumatised JKR pool of radfems.

So yeah. It can be you. It can be your loved ones. NOBODY is immune to propaganda or to bias or to influence or to trauma or to how experiences sway us. We all have emotional reactions. You can’t believe everything you think or feel or every reaction you have.

Lost followers after reblogging that whole thing about JKR being radicalized over the years, and that disturbs me.

Like if you think saying that people can be radicalized and manipulated into hate is somehow justifying it, yikes. And if you think that people are somehow just good or evil and that you are not at risk of buying into propaganda, have I got some very red flag news about that!

Idk if its because I am an older Millennial maybe (most who unfollowed were younger) but I watched a ton of that generation slide from one of the most progressive to the far right before my every eyes. Hell, my dad fought alongside his black friends in the Detroit race riots and now he watches Fox News 24/7 and talks about the border wall. Yet still claims he could never be racist because of how he used to be. He doesn’t even realize what he has become.

JKR isn’t a deluded old woman or innately evil, but in fact THE prime example of how well-meaning ignorance and privilege can be weaponized and encouraged down a pipeline, until it turns into a force of hate, and should be a cautionary tale about why educating and being open about these issues are necessary. Because there are those out there who will use those divisions and ignorance to their own ends. And just digging in our heels and saying “that could never be me!” is the very thing that puts you more at risk. I’ve lost so many loved ones down that pipeline and it is more slippery than most realize.

Stay alert, stay compassionate, stay humble, and make sure you move through life guided by reason rather than reaction. I love y’all and don’t want to see your passion twisted to get used against the world.

[vtori73-artblog]

I think it's just so FUNNY when readers on webtoons can't stand when you point out a lot of the hate specific characters get tends to very much be biased due to racism, queerphobia, etc (there is probably more I could list but it's usually only these two I ever see).

Like... it's not ever subtle but they will say anything to avoid confronting the truth and make it seem like their hate for these characters that haven't really done anything all that wrong is 100% justified. This isn't even a one off series issue either and any marginalized person who pays somewhat attention to comments will tell you webtoons has a problem with homophobia and racism, hell even creators have talked about this being an issue with the platform.

Now no, none of this is actually funny but what makes it a tad bit humorous is how comments that dare to bring this up as being an issue or a possibility will be some of the few comments with some of the most even amount of likes and dislikes & majority of the time with more dislikes.

It's not a coincidence that every time a brown character is in any series honestly but for now we will limit the scope to webtoons is nitpicked for every single little thing they do that might slightly inconvenience the other normally white characters while the white characters can do the worst things and get excused and babied for it. Like one webtoon I'm reading in which a closeted black girl who escaped from her home so she wouldn't have to be forced into a marriage with someone she would never and could never love and due to finally having some actual freedom and room to breathe she does the worst thing possible and forgot about her friend for a bit. No one takes the time to analyze how someone in her position would definitely be trying to enjoy her current situation because she for once doesn't have to hide a huge part of herself and just live openly & freely.

And, not to mention that something I doubt many people reading the webtoon want to acknowledge is that it possibly/probably likely that the character wasn't 100% sure she could be honest about herself to her best friend a character who has been established as being the conservative bigoted judgey type. "BUT THEY'RE FRIEND-," And??? Doesn't automatically make her safe to come out to, being friends with someone does NOT automatically make someone less bigoted. But that would mean I should expect reading comprehension when we all know how much more rare that skill has become.

So, anyway... the true lesson to all this is I should stop looking at the comments on webtoons, lol.