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#super interesting stuff

reflectionsofthesea · 9 days

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Found an italian-russian course from 1956 at my local second hand shop! I have no intention of learning Russian, but it was such a fascinating piece of history and design that I was enchanted by it and had to get it :)

#super interesting stuff #i love finding vintage goodies like these #russian #learning russian #mine #langblr #language learning

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melusine0811 · 3 months

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Tell me anything. Just TALK to me. Tell me about your job. Tell me about where you live, and obscure science facts. Tell me about your plants. Tell me about this cool thing you discovered about how trees talk to each other through forest fungi. Tell me how Tardigrades can survive in space. Discuss with me the intricate and inseparable link between language and culture (to really make my brain explode with happy chemicals.) Because goddess knows I dump all sorts of random nerdy bits all over my students. And I LOVE IT.

I love to learn. I love life. Tell me about your new pet fish. Tell me about what's been bothering you, even.

So talk to me. I am always up for making new friends now. I am back to the old me who really enjoys making new connections---or even reconnecting with dear old friends my brain has convinced me were probably tired of how much I talk and cling and talk negatively and bitch, and they gave up on me.

The good (or bad) news, depending on your perspective, is that I feel really good most of the time and I talk even more now, I have shitloads of energy I don't know what to do with, but the good news is that it's not depressing or irritable, irrational shit that I am plagued with anymore! (Amazing what happens when your neurons are firing correctly.)

Feeling self conscious after saying absolutely anything is hard. And feeling like you don't have a friend in the world is hell. I know. No one ever has to feel self conscious about it with me. I am also a very good person to talk to about your experiences with mental health, I know the system quite intimately.

Life is about connection, don't be afraid to talk about the things you love, because that is what connects you to others. If you need a friend to talk to, my DMs are always open or I'm MelusineN7 on Discord.

#connection #useless trivia #not useless #super interesting stuff #friendship #the most important thing in the world #nerdy things

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clove-pinks · 9 months

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I found that my heart had become wretchedly hardened by the scenes, sufferings, and conflicts of war. What particularly afflicted me was, I thought that all the social feeling and sympathies of my soul were gone forever; that I should no more feel with those who feel, or weep with those who weep.

— Alfred M. Lorrain (1791-1863), writing about his experiences at the Siege of Fort Meigs in the War of 1812, in his memoir The Helm, The Sword, and The Cross: A Life Narrative

#war of 1812 #quotes #alfred lorrain #fort meigs #lorrain's memoirs are amazing #he also describes obvious ptsd/shell shock #and some of the awful field conditions #super interesting stuff

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firestorm09890 · 1 month

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Penny stardewvalley makes me so sad because she's SO sensitive to, like, basically everything you tell her (telling her that you can't stand children while two children are nearby is a pretty lousy move but -1500 friendship?? being a jerk to other characters' faces typically loses you about 50 points, and if you choose the option labeled "creepy" and ask Leah for a kiss in her 2 heart event she physically hits you and kicks you out of her house but that's only -100 friendship…) and so if you want to befriend her it's a whole lot of lying and tiptoeing around her feelings (2 hearts: George was right but saying that makes her feel bad. 6 hearts: her food sucks but even if you try to be polite about it she feels like a failure; only a bald-faced lie pleases her. 8 hearts: saying you don't want to be tied down with a family loses you a little bit of friendship and she's only happy if you say you want kids) and I can't help but think she's a product of her environment. She lives in a trailer with only her mother, who gets drunk every night and has something of a temper. Penny's like a skittish rescue animal who won’t even come out from hiding under something unless you leave her lots of treats

#stardew valley #penny sdv #I didn't mention the SECOND opportunity to lose 1500 friendship with her #because I think if you go out of your way to date her and then tell her that you don't like her that way then you deserve it #but yeah she's super volatile #i was upset for a little bit after reading that one post saying the ‘right’ answer in the 2 heart event is ableist #like nooooo not my favorite farming game :(#except that in the context of several other things in the game it becomes clear that winning someone over #does not always mean doing the right thing #looking directly at how the easiest way to befriend shane and pam is by enabling their alcoholism #which is framed as a harmful thing even if the characters themselves like it #you have to lie to befriend other characters too like with sam dropping his egg #and you can lose a little friendship based on preferences like sebastian asking about what books you like #though to be fair if i saw someone who could potentially be cool and i found out that what they like was stuff im not into id also #lose interest a little #anyway those are all examples spread around on different characters #penny's got it all at once #me post

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nieves-de-sugui · 11 months

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A Quick History of BL

As someone who wrote a thesis on this very subject a few years ago, here is the short version of how BL has evolved throughout the years. For the new comers ❤

a minute of silence for the original form of this post that tumblr decied to not save right after I saved it

I am going to go with a chronological approach. Unfortunately, I cannot put everything in one post so if there’s any questions about this or that aspect of the history of BL that you want to know and it’s not talked about here, you are welcome to ask me directly :)

Context and influences - Japan in the 60′s

Before the US forced Japan to open its borders to the outside world in the 1800s, homosexual practices were common place between budist monks, samurais and kabuki actors. During the Edo period (1600s to 1800s) there was a very rich amount of poetry, art, books (such as Nanshoku Okagami (The Great Mirror of Male Love) by Ihara Saikaku) and codes of conduct about how to have a good master/aprentice relationship, kinda like the greeks if you know what I mean. However, with the arrival of western influences, in order to become a more “civilized” country, it was all put in the closet.

Yet, in the 60′s Japan started to pick it up again through literature about young androginous beautiful boys (aka bishounen). On one hand, in 1961, the novel Koibitotachi no Mori (A Lover’s Forest) by Mari Mori was published. It tells the story of a young and beautiful 19 year old worker and a half french half japanese aristocrat, and their tragic romance. On the other hand, Taruho Inagaki wrote Shounen ai no Bigaku (The esthetics of boy-love), an essay on aesthetic eroticism (of which he wrote a lot of). All this was know as Tanbi (lit. aesthetic) literature. It generally refered to literature with implied homosexuality and homoeroticism such as works by Oscar Wilde, Jean Cocteau, etc. And of course, Mori and Inagaki.

In chinese tanbi is read as danmei (term used to refer to BL novels in china today, ie: The Untamed it’s all connected friends).

From the birth of Shonen Ai to Yaoi - 70′s to the late 80′s

Around the beginning of the 70′s, shoujo was being revolutionized by the Year 24 Group, a generation of women manga authors (mangaka) who started to explore new themes. Among them, their interest in tanbi gave birth to a new subgenre: Shounen ai.

Their most known manga were:

Kaze to Ki no Uta (The Ballad of the Wind and Trees) by Keiko Takemiya, and Toma no Shinzo (The Heart of Thomas) by Moto Hagio

Their stories are characterized by having suffering eurpoean bishounen in boarding schools, living an idealized perfect love (meaning passionate) that, despite the tragic end of one of them, lives forever in the other.

As this genre starts getting popular, more and more fans of these stories start making their own self published manga, aka doujinshi, of the genre. It is around this time that the term Yaoi is coined. Meaning “YAma nashi, Ochi nashi, Imi nashi” (no climax, no fall, no meaning). Basically PWP fanfiction, for the most part. Doujinshis could be considered an equivalent of fanfiction in manga form. It is also here that the term Fujoshi (aka Rotten Girl, for liking rotten things) starts being used to refer to women readers of yaoi.

With this rise in popularity come the start of the commercialization of the genre. Which meant the publication of magazines dedicated solely to yaoi/shonen ai/BL. The most popular yaoi manga magazine at the time was June. The common trait of their stories being the therapeutic power of the love between the mains. The traumatized character would heal throught this newfound love.

Most of the stories at this time happened in the West (Europe or the States) as the exploration of these dark themes intertwined with homosexual romance and homoeroticism still feel safer to explore as a foreign concept. One example would be Banana Fish (1985).

Commercialization and Yaoi Ronso - 90′s

As more publishing houses pick the genre up, the term Boys Love is used to include every type of manga about homosexuality made for women.

The increasing amount of BL series sees a changes in its themes:

the start of the “gay for you” trope where one mantains their heterosexuality despite being in a homsexual relationship,

the uke/seme dynamic (mirroring hetero realtionships) also relating to physical appearence (one being more feminine, the other being more masculine),

the use of rape as an act love (sexual violence has always been present but here it becomes a staple),

anal sex as the only type of sex,

older and more masculine men start to appear

they now happen in Japan

Good examples of the presence of these themes in manga are Gravitation (1996) or Yatteranneeze (1995).

However in 1992, Masaki Sato (a gay activist/drag queen) wrote a letter in a small scale feminist magazine attacking yaoi and pointing out how it “represented a kind of misappropriation or distortion of gay life that impacted negatively upon Japanese gay men”. The female readers of yaoi responded, defending the genre as a means to escape gender roles and explore sexual themes that was never meant to represent the realities of gay men. This is know as the Yaoi Ronso (Yaoi Debates).

The debate ended with both sides understanding more of each other, with mangakas starting to include queer views in their works. It also started the academic reasearch of BL.

Yet, it is a debate that has been restarted more than once, as it is still relevant despite the evolution of the genre.

more on this on another post

Globalization and coining of BL - 2000′s

By the beginning of the 2000s BL is being sold all over the world (like all manga), and has become a stable industry. We could say it has finally become it’s own genre.

Some of the most well known manga series, to us (in the west), of the time are:

Junjou Romantica 2002 Koi Suru Boukun 2004 Love Pistols 2004 Haru wo Daiteita 1999

all of these have anime adaptations for the curious ones

We also start seeing short anime adaptations or special episodes of the most popular series, with questionable themes, such as: adoptive father x adoptive son (Papa to Kiss in the Dark 2005), father x son’s friend (Kirepapa 2008), etc...

However the themes remain more or less the same. Junjou Romantica’s love story starts with a non-con sex scene by the older one (masc, seme) to the younger one (more feminine, uke) addressed years later in the manga btw. Koi Suru Boukun’s love story is triggered by aphrodisiacs and rape. They’re still very present in the stories but slowly going away. A mangaka that represents this era could be Natsume Isaku (Candy Color Paradox 2010).

Change is slow in Japan. Even though the voices of LGBT+ people started to be taken into account in the genre it is not until later that we see it reflect in the mangas themselves. However, we can already see the start of this in Doukyusei (Classmates) (2006) by Asumiko Nakamura. Also Kinou Nani Tabeta? (2007) which is actually part of a more mature genre: Seinen.

It is my personal (subjective) theory that the BL of this era was the one that got popular outside of Japan, which is why we see lots of references to the themes, tropes and dynamics of this time in today’s BL series.

The LGBTzation of BL and the rise of webtoons - 2010′s to 2020′s

Slowly but surely LGBT characters and themes enter the scene of BL. Existing simultaneously with the previous tropes and themes, we start seeing a shift in these stories. We now see:

characters that identify as gay or some type of queer

discussions about homophobia

more mature themes about life and romance

At the same time as we get the usual love stories with the usual themes, a new trend starts to take over. And we get simultaneously, cute, sometimes questionable but light love stories:

Love Stage 2010 Ashita wa Docchi da! 2011 Kieta Hatsukoi 2019

More profound stories and darker or more complex themes:

Blue Sky Complex 2013 Saezuru Tori wa Habatakanai 2011 (mafias) Given 2013 (suicide) Hidamari ga Kikoeru 2013 (deafness)

And others that adress the queer experience in a more mature way (which might actually fall into the Seinen genre)

Itoshi no Nekokke 2010 (slice of life, queer characters) Smells like Green Spirit 2011 (two ways to deal with a homphobic society) Strange 2014 (relationships between men) Shimanami Tasogare 2015 (an LGBT group helps a closeted gay) Old Fashioned Cupcake 2019 (you know this one 😉) Bokura no Micro na Shuumatsu 2020 (the end of the world)

As queer stories are explored, BL mangakas and mangakas from other genres start to consider more stories about queer people such as the Josei Genderless Danshi ni Aisaretemasu (My Androgynous Boyfriend) (2018) by Tamekou, or the Shoujo Goukon ni Itarra Onna ga Inakatta Hanashi (The story of when I went to a mixer and there were no women) (2021) by Nana Aokawa.

Still, we can see two realities live side by side. Doukyuusei gets adapted into an impactful animated movie in 2016, meanwhile Banana Fish gets an anime adaptation that keeps the homoeroticism but not the homosexuality.

For those who might be interested. Here are some of the authors that represent the first half of this era, where they start to include newer points of view:

Scarlet Beriko, HAYAKAWA Nojiko, KURAHASHI Tomo, OGERETSU Tanaka, Harada, KII Kanna (Stranger by the Sea), etc...

And authors that while keeping classical themes break the stereotypes in a subtle manner:

CTK, ZAKK, Jyanome, Cocomi, Hidebu Takahashi, SUZUMARU Minta, etc...

Mangakas also no longer stick to one genre only. They explore whichever of them they want, from BL to Seinen to others.

ie: Tamekou,

or Asumiko Nakamura

The curious case of Webtoons

With the digitalization of mangas, throught Renta and Lehzin, it has become easier (and more expensive) to access these stories. Korea makes and appearence with their webtoons. Through the lack of piracy protections and the majority of them being digital, manhwa (korean webtoons) sees a rise in popularity. Through the digital medium the influencee can be the influencer.

However, like many other East Asian countries they have consumed BL, without hearing about the conversations about BL. So they end up mantaining the older themes and stereotypes that newer BL is trying to leave behind. Therefore, we end up with a mix of old and new, ie:

Killing Stalking 2016 Cherry Blossoms After Winter 2017 Painter of The Night 2019

Additionally, it is also thanks to the easy access to internet that Omegaverse, with its higher dramatic stakes (that parallel hetero dynamics), enters the mangasphere in 2016. It has grown in popularity ever since.

With the Thai BL Boom of 2020, Japan rediscovers its own BL market and starts investing in it more. Which is why we get live action adaptations of BL manga that was popular years ago (Candy Color Paradox was a manga from 2010), the more recent ones (The End of the World With You) or new anime adaptations (Saezuru Tori wa Habatakanai in 2020).

more on this in my japanese live action BL post

What has it become now? is it BL? ML? or Seinen? Or is it all just gay manga?

It is clear that Shoujo manga (with BL, Josei and Seinen) is exploring queer themes such as gender and sexuality more and more. Japan is interested in this conversation, not only in manga (Genderless fashion). Which brings up the current question in BL studies: Does it make sense to keep these categories?

As a response to BL, ML (Male Love), which is made by gay men for gay men, started happening (around the 70s too). And Bara (gay manga porn) in response to Yaoi. However both gay men and women read BL and ML. We also see other themes being explored through BL, such as friendship (in BL Metamorphose), food (in Kinou Nani Tabeta), male relationships of all kinds (in Strange), and different queer views on life and its challenges (in Shimanami Tasogare). More and more what is LGBT and what is BL is merging, the line is blurred.

Conclusion

BL has been in my life for longer than it hasn't. It is through shoujo and BL that I have come to understand people and romance.

It is flawed, like everything else this life, but it's flourishing in many ways.

The genre feels old and new at the same time.

We can still find shounen ai/tanbi elements in more modern manga (All About J). Or the gay for you in a new light (Itoshi no Nekkoke). Or more educational manga on queer issues (My Brother’s Husband by Gengoroh Tagame). BL has around 50 years of existence but it is also being born anew in Thailand and Korea.

BL manga will continue to evolve in acordance to Japanese tastes, as it is still a local market. Hopefully the korean webtoons that get popular will be the more daring ones in their themes. Who knows where it will go from here? The only thing we know for sure is that it will continue to change. Isn't it exciting?

A post on the evolution of live action BL in Japan is coming, to complement this post. As well as a more detailed explanation of the Yaoi Debates and gay manga.

#history of bl #bl post series #I feel like I left too much stuff out #I hope it makes sense #honestly I would really recommend reading some of those manga #they're super interesting #soon it'll be 20 years since I started reading BL #my gosh #if theres anything anyone wants to know more about #I'd love to write more :)#yaoi manga #bl manga

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threadsun · 7 months

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Content: breeding kink mention, pregnancy, pregnancy kink mention

Anonymous Asks: "I had to wait to send this via desktop because mobile version sucks ass, boo!

But considering the banger breeding asks on here in the past and the drabbles for them (because chef's kiss), as well as the pregnancy stuff... can you imagine how the SDJ boys would react that whoops, you think one baby was enough, but imagine they knocked up their s/o with babies. Multiples!? Who would be absolutely stunned? Smug as fuck? Or have that fact go directly to their head (and their dick) that they got more than one on the first go? I just enjoy thinkin' about this stuff. -w-"

Stunned:

Ian honestly never even considered it as a possibility. So when you two find out there's more than one baby? He doesn't even know what to say. He's thrilled, of course! But he's also speechless.

Joseph never expected to have children. He'd gone his whole life assuming he'd never be a father. So having more than one baby with you at once? He needs a while to actually process it.

Smug:

Jean isn't actually interested in having kids. But he likes seeing you pregnant and making sure everyone knows you belong to him. He's unbearably smug about giving you multiples right off the bat.

Shaun is both excited to have a big family with you and pretty smug about it. After all, now everyone knows how potent he is, and how happy the two of you are going to be with all your kids!

Barry is smug because everyone can see just how heavily pregnant you are. All the customers can see how hard he's working you when you're pregnant with multiple, and he's proud of it!

Horny:

Jack is a raging horndog about pregnancy and breeding. The fact that he managed to fuck that many babies into you just motivates him more. He needs to practice for after you've given birth~

Nick has a pregnancy kink, so in general being pregnant is gonna get him going. But knowing you'll get so big because you've got multiples in you? Oh he's hard and ready to fuck you.

Rory is so excited to help you through the pregnancy, and knowing it'll be more tiring for you and leave you aching more is exciting for him. He gets off to the thought of caring for you!

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fishofthewoods · 7 days

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Oh my god I woke up this morning and my Stardew Valley meta post had almost 150 notes????? Hello?????????? Anyways I started writing this last night because @moon-is-pretty-tonight left nice tags on the original so thank you so much!!

We know from the starting scenes of the game that the farmer's grandfather loved Stardew Valley. So why did he leave? Pelican Town is a good place to grow old; George and Evelyn are just fine. It's a fine place to raise a kid, but maybe he just wanted to raise his child closer to real schools and other children.

Or maybe, just maybe, he understood.

Was there a day when he was in his thirties where he looked at his friends and realized they weren't like him? That he could run faster than them, work longer, explore deeper into the hidden places of the valley?

Was there a day when he went to the wizard to ask him for help, for knowledge if nothing else? Did he learn then that his family was different? Special? Chosen? And how did he react? He couldn't possibly raise a child in the valley if they would be as strange and fey as him. He had to leave. There was no other way.

But years later, on his deathbed, did he regret that choice?

Is that why he gave the farmer the letter?

Is that why they went back home?

When the farmer steps off the bus that first day, the valley is still on the cusp of winter, just barely tipping over into spring. The flowers are starting to bloom, but a chill still hangs in the air. As soon as the farmer's boots touch the soil there's a change. The air gets warmer. The trees get greener. Not by too much, not all at once, but it changes.

The junimos watch the farmer as they do their work. They're new to farming, but take to it with frightening speed; their first batch of crops is perfect. None of the townsfolk tell them that parsnips don't normally grow in less than a week, that cauliflowers don't grow to be ten feet tall, that fairies don't visit when the sun goes down and grow potatoes and beans and tulips overnight. The junimos talk amongst themselves in their strange, wild language, and agree: this is the one. They're back. The valley recognizes its own, even when they've left for a generation. The farmers have come home.

Things change fast in the valley. The community center, empty and decrepit for so many years, is rejuvenated. (Lewis says it was abandoned only a few weeks after the farmer's grandfather left. Strange coincidence, he says, that it both came and went with the farmer's family.) The mines and the quarry, similarly abandoned, are explored for the first time in ages. The town becomes cleaner, brighter, more vibrant, happier.

And it is happier. Not just the environment, but the people. It's the talk of the town for weeks when Haley does her first closet purge. Leah's art show in the town square is a huge success. Shane's smiling for the first time since he moved to the valley. All of them, when asked, say it's all thanks to the farmer.

People love to ask why Lewis didn't fix the community center on his own. Why Willy never repaired the boat to ginger island. Why Abigail or Marlon never went down to fix the elevator in the mines, or why Clint didn't fix the minecarts.

But isn't it so much more interesting to ask how those things were there in the first place? How they got so broken down? If the stories the townspeople tell are true, the valley was once a beautiful place, flourishing and full of life; why did that change? When did it change?

Was it when the farmer's grandfather, the locus of the valley, its chosen representative, left town?

And if so, what happens when the farmer comes back?

#lich says shit #stardew valley #stardew farmer #sdv #my writing #Hope y'all enjoyed!#I'm thinking about developing this into. Like. An actual Fan Fiction. Still sort of short-form but like with more detail?#LMK if you'd be interested to see that! Also if you want to be tagged in future installations of this please just let me know :)#I'm super into this version of the farmer as like. Blessed and cryptic child of the valley with all the strange behavior that entails #If i DO write a more in-depth version of this it'll be from the perspective of someone in town #maybe Leah? She seems like she'd be the one to notice the farmer being Odd. Either that or I'll do it from the perspective of multiple--#--different people to get their unique insights and stuff #I'd also want to dig into like #The family history of the farmer. And what that's like.#Because like why did grandpa leave?#He clearly loved the valley #So why didn't he stay?#Why did he give the deed to his grandchild and not his literal child?#And is it a coincidence that everything in the valley went downhill when he left?#I don't think so.

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youjustwaitsunshine · 1 month

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anyways i genuinely and deeply believe that seb is one of the best, well-rounded, most talented racing drivers currently active and i think no matter where he was racing, he'd adapt within less than one season. he's incredibly versatile, everyone who has worked with him praises his quick understanding, intelligence and detailed feedback. he's a genius on track and seizes every opportunity he can and any team across all of motorsport recognizes his talent. so many other drivers know him to be courteous and friendly and so many racing series want to win him (and the fanbase and recognition that comes with him) to drive for them. It's clear that once a team is genuinely happy to have him and listens to him, he's a major force that very few other drivers could come up against.

#he's so completely charming #he's always kind to his fans. every time ive met him he's spent all the time he could and then some with fans and never seemed annoyed #he's so smart. on track like that pitlane overtake. off track on bbc question time #his racecraft is amazing remember when some car was crashed in/near monaco pit entry and he just whipped the car round into the pits?#or monaco 2021 #he cares so much and wants to know so much and just in general is so curious and interested..#and another thing is how he grows from his mistakes and how he keeps learning #and he has his faults! hes a little bitch sometimes. he used to be super annoying towards female interviewers!#but he did grow from that and hes a much better much more conscious person now #and even in 2021/22 some stuff he said was badly worded and embarrassing to hear but he also learned from that and said it differently after #i jsut love seb so so much #embarrassing that hes been my beloved since 2010. or well if you only count the current hyperfixation flareup when i got properly back into #f1; then since 2019 #like i swearrr i have not hyperfixated on anyone/anything as hard as this man

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