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Poem: Here I Love You by Pablo Neruda
May. 14th, 2022 11:05 pm( Here I love you )
Top Three Novels with Writer Protagonists
May. 10th, 2022 07:46 amMisery by Stephen King: Paul Sheldon is a romantic novelist kept imprisoned by his deranged fan, and literally needed to write what she wanted to survive. His escalating fear and suffering felt very real to me. The book is haunting and suffocating.
The Mask of Dimitrios by Eric Ambler: Popular mystery writer Charles Latimer, stumbles into a world of sinister political and criminal maneuvers when he wants to reconsctruct the career of notorious Dimitrios. A classic tale of an ordinary man finding that he is out of his depth.
Drood by Dan Simmons: a psychological thriller, historical mystery and Gothic horror. Wilkie Collins, the pioneer of detective novels, is depicted to descrnd into destructive obsession when investigating the mysterious Drood
The Mask of Dimitrios by Eric Ambler: Popular mystery writer Charles Latimer, stumbles into a world of sinister political and criminal maneuvers when he wants to reconsctruct the career of notorious Dimitrios. A classic tale of an ordinary man finding that he is out of his depth.
Drood by Dan Simmons: a psychological thriller, historical mystery and Gothic horror. Wilkie Collins, the pioneer of detective novels, is depicted to descrnd into destructive obsession when investigating the mysterious Drood
An 18th century Chinese joke
May. 7th, 2022 10:25 amThe Carpenter
A homeowner hired a carpenter to install a locking bolt for his door. But the carpenter installed it on the outside of the door, rather than the inside, meaning anyone could open the lock and enter.
The homeowner: "You must be blind!"
The carpenter: “It’s you who are blind.”
The homeowner, now angry: “Me? Why am I blind?”
The carpenter: “Why would you have hired me otherwise?”
~From Xiao Lin Guang Ji
A homeowner hired a carpenter to install a locking bolt for his door. But the carpenter installed it on the outside of the door, rather than the inside, meaning anyone could open the lock and enter.
The homeowner: "You must be blind!"
The carpenter: “It’s you who are blind.”
The homeowner, now angry: “Me? Why am I blind?”
The carpenter: “Why would you have hired me otherwise?”
~From Xiao Lin Guang Ji
"John Atkinson Grimshaw (6 September 1836 – 13 October 1893) was a self taught English Victorian-era artist best known for his nocturnal scenes of urban landscapes. He left behind no letters, journals, or papers." (Wikipedia)
( Cut for the painting )
( Cut for the painting )
Creepy Dead: Jaroslav Panuška 's paintings
May. 4th, 2022 11:48 amCzechoslovakian artist Jaroslav Panuška 's dark mythological paintings are very inspiring as horror prompts:
CREEPING DEATH: THE DECADENT MYTHOLOGICAL ARTWORK OF JAROSLAV PANUŠKA
( Cut for painting )
Spirit of the Dead Mother, 1900
CREEPING DEATH: THE DECADENT MYTHOLOGICAL ARTWORK OF JAROSLAV PANUŠKA
( Cut for painting )
Spirit of the Dead Mother, 1900
Top 5 Chinese BL Web Novel Authors I Love
May. 3rd, 2022 11:44 pm I am an avid reader of Chinese BL web novels. There are a lot of talented writers, but I have a number of favourite.
( Read more... ).
( Read more... ).
Interesting links
May. 2nd, 2022 10:58 pmApocalypse survival (aka Food, food, food)
Seven tips for surviving the apocalypse: https://theconversation.com/seven-tips-for-surviving-the-apocalypse-73534
What is the best-case-scenario for farming in the post-apocalypse?: https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/198438/what-is-the-best-case-scenario-for-farming-in-the-post-apocalypse
Best crops to grow in the post-apocalyptic wasteland?:
https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/181757/best-crops-to-grow-in-the-post-apocalyptic-wasteland
How to Farm During a Zombie Apocalypse: https://www.livescience.com/64066-farming-during-zombie-apocalypse.html
Modern Farmer’s Brief Guide to the Apocalypse: A Self-Sufficiency Checklist for Beginners:
https://modernfarmer.com/2017/02/modern-farmers-brief-guide-apocalypse-self-sufficiency-checklist-beginners/
History
Wartime recipes – Lessons from World War One: https://everydaylivesinwar.herts.ac.uk/2016/11/wartime-recipes-lessons-from-world-war-one/
Wasted in the 1880s: The Decadent Movement: https://www.utne.com/arts/wasted-in-the-1880s-the-decadent-movement/
The Untold Story of the Eradication of the Original Ku Klux Klan: https://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history/2016/03/how_a_detachment_of_u_s_army_soldiers_smoked_out_the_original_ku_klux_klan.html?via=gdpr-consent
Seven tips for surviving the apocalypse: https://theconversation.com/seven-tips-for-surviving-the-apocalypse-73534
What is the best-case-scenario for farming in the post-apocalypse?: https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/198438/what-is-the-best-case-scenario-for-farming-in-the-post-apocalypse
Best crops to grow in the post-apocalyptic wasteland?:
https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/181757/best-crops-to-grow-in-the-post-apocalyptic-wasteland
How to Farm During a Zombie Apocalypse: https://www.livescience.com/64066-farming-during-zombie-apocalypse.html
Modern Farmer’s Brief Guide to the Apocalypse: A Self-Sufficiency Checklist for Beginners:
https://modernfarmer.com/2017/02/modern-farmers-brief-guide-apocalypse-self-sufficiency-checklist-beginners/
History
Wartime recipes – Lessons from World War One: https://everydaylivesinwar.herts.ac.uk/2016/11/wartime-recipes-lessons-from-world-war-one/
Wasted in the 1880s: The Decadent Movement: https://www.utne.com/arts/wasted-in-the-1880s-the-decadent-movement/
The Untold Story of the Eradication of the Original Ku Klux Klan: https://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history/2016/03/how_a_detachment_of_u_s_army_soldiers_smoked_out_the_original_ku_klux_klan.html?via=gdpr-consent
Let the red dawn surmise
What we shall do,
When this blue starlight dies
And all is through.
If we have loved but well
Under the sun,
Let the last morrow tell
What we have done
What we shall do,
When this blue starlight dies
And all is through.
If we have loved but well
Under the sun,
Let the last morrow tell
What we have done
Femslash and hurt/comfort
May. 4th, 2012 06:56 pmHurt/comfort is a genre that involves the physical pain or emotional distress of one character, who is cared for by another character. It's a very popular in fanfic. I enter hurt/comfort as keyword in del.icio.us and gets 14441 results. However, the trope is not highly represented in femslash. Using AO3 as an example, there're only 269 story tagged as hurt/comfort which contain femslash pairing. Why the disparity?
I don't have concrete answers. But I have hypothesis.
1. Hurt/comfort usually requires adding and extrapolating the hurt endured by a characters. Unfourtunately, in most of the canons, the female characters suffer, lose their power, are deprived of their agency too many time that we don't feel comfortable writing or reading additional hurt piled on the female characters.
2. Because our canon don't necessary pass the Bechtel's test with flying colour, there's often no other female characters that are reasonably available at these points of the hurt character's life to provide comfort. It can be bypassed, but there're effort.
3. As a lot of femslash writers are identified as female, there's not much distance between the hurt on the characters and the writers themselves. It's easier to identify with the character being hurt and thus harder to fetishizes the hurt.
4. In popular narrative, women are supposed to suffer. As their stories're considered not so important by the society, we're less likely to be trained to acknowledge and expand on the woman characters' suffering.
Take me as example, if hurt /comfort exists along on a spectrum, I 'm more inclined to hurt the characters and withhold the comfort because I enjoy characters who stoically and bravely endure the bad things in life. However, for some female characters I love, their life basically are bad. Marvel superhero Carol Danvers experienced enough rape as drama, depowering, addiction problems and such that I admire her for being a surviver, but it hurt me to read the canon myself, not to mention creating fanwork based on it. It's harder to provide comfort because Carol's female friends are often not literally available. I'm also less likely to indulge in hurting female characters because it makes me guilty, as if I were joining the canon writers in depowering the female characters.
It's my hypothesis. What's your opinion?
I don't have concrete answers. But I have hypothesis.
1. Hurt/comfort usually requires adding and extrapolating the hurt endured by a characters. Unfourtunately, in most of the canons, the female characters suffer, lose their power, are deprived of their agency too many time that we don't feel comfortable writing or reading additional hurt piled on the female characters.
2. Because our canon don't necessary pass the Bechtel's test with flying colour, there's often no other female characters that are reasonably available at these points of the hurt character's life to provide comfort. It can be bypassed, but there're effort.
3. As a lot of femslash writers are identified as female, there's not much distance between the hurt on the characters and the writers themselves. It's easier to identify with the character being hurt and thus harder to fetishizes the hurt.
4. In popular narrative, women are supposed to suffer. As their stories're considered not so important by the society, we're less likely to be trained to acknowledge and expand on the woman characters' suffering.
Take me as example, if hurt /comfort exists along on a spectrum, I 'm more inclined to hurt the characters and withhold the comfort because I enjoy characters who stoically and bravely endure the bad things in life. However, for some female characters I love, their life basically are bad. Marvel superhero Carol Danvers experienced enough rape as drama, depowering, addiction problems and such that I admire her for being a surviver, but it hurt me to read the canon myself, not to mention creating fanwork based on it. It's harder to provide comfort because Carol's female friends are often not literally available. I'm also less likely to indulge in hurting female characters because it makes me guilty, as if I were joining the canon writers in depowering the female characters.
It's my hypothesis. What's your opinion?
Simmered potato and chicken wing
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Japanese curry
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Hong Kong style Hot borscht
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( cut for image and recipe )
Japanese curry
( cut for image and recipe )
Hong Kong style Hot borscht
( cut for image and recipe )
