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ID / TL;DW: young Black man explains the history of voodoo dolls: they originated in England, where Black people where prohibited from learning to read or write, to help witches keep track of what ailed their patients. Eg., person goes to witch and laments headache, they treat their headache and make a small doll (called "poppet"), trying to represent them as good as possible, stick a needle in its head and put it up a shelf. When they return next week, the witch takes their poppet and asks about their headache. If it's gone, they remove the needle, otherwise they know they have to treat a rather persistent headache.
Putting the term "Catholic guilt" on a high shelf where fandom can't reach it until everyone learns how to identify characters who are very very clearly coded as Protestant.
i think being proud of where you come from is one of those things that becomes fun the more specific you get. like "proud to be english" bad rancid vibes. makes you sound like the kind of person who rants about immigrants. "proud to be from yorkshire" better vibes. i cannot deny the yorkshire cultural heritage. "proud to be from pocklington" absolutely fucking hilarious please never let anybody kill your pocklington pride.
because otherwise it gets kind of visually confusing to parse, which is annoying to some folks, including me
GRANTED not everybody uses the same theme or even the same update. you might have noticed my version of tumblr is earlier than yours (I don't like the new button setup)
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I can't quite explain it, but Clue (1985), The Princess Bride (1987), Galaxy Quest (1999), and Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023) are all the same genre
Another Canon Divergence AU idea for "The Princess Bride" is that Westley ISN'T following Buttercup when she gets kidnapped. If he's not doing that, presumably intending on kidnapping and confronting her himself, then he really has no way of finding out about the kidnapping besides, again, spying on Humperdinck and Rugen (which is very difficult to do). And if he's not there to follow the kidnappers almost immediately, then he has no way to intervene in time.
And Westley is really much to late to cross the water and climb the Cliffs of Insanity and all that, because Buttercup and her kidnappers are already at the border with Guilder. It's fine though, because when Fezzik and Inigo are confronted with the murder part of the job, they object, and Fezzik ultimately decides that he's really not cool with it. Fezzik thumps Vizzini over the head while Vizzini is berating Inigo. Fezzik apologizes to Buttercup. Inigo looks at the unconscious (possibly dead, heavily concussed at least) Vizzini, shrugs, and then helps Fezzik untie Buttercup and apologizes as well.
It's more than a little awkward, because none of them really know what to do besides wander vaguely back towards Florin. Buttercup admits that she doesn't really want to marry the prince, and he'll find her if she goes back to the farm, which leads into her telling the story of her dead true love, which Inigo and Fezzik find very romantic. Which leads into Fezzik and Inigo both sharing their own tragic backstories in turn. Buttercup is personally very intrigued by Inigo's mention of being in the revenge business.
And then Buttercup goes, "Wait a moment, I know a nobleman like that. Count Rugen is Prince Humperdinck's closest friend and confidant, and he has six fingers on his right hand. I once had to sit next to them at a dinner table while they spent over an hour discussing all the troubles of finding a good glovemaker and skincare for their hands." (Rugen and his wife also once visited Buttercup and Westley's farm when they were younger, but Buttercup would more recently know Rugen from just... around the castle. Rugen is presumably going to be Humperdinck's best man.)
So, Westley is like, "Where the HELL is the love of my life???" presumably harrassing Vizzini about it if Vizzini is still alive. And Humperdinck has his theatric rescue party together to find Buttercup's body on the border, unknowingly following behind a rushing and frantic Westley, trying to keep his lies straight while he's internally like, "What the HELL happened to my kidnapping and murder plot to incite a war??? Rugen, I thought you hired the best??? It's so hard to find good help these days!"
Meanwhile, Buttercup, Fezzik, and Inigo are on a new friendship quest back to Count Rugen's house. Buttercup is the future princess, and so is presumably already acquainted with Rugen's young and beautiful wife, who has to let her in and be a good hostess. The Countess is warily like, "Buttercup... Who are these unkempt and intimidating men...?"
ALT for above: screenshots from a paper entitled Surfaces with Klein bottle topology occur in fusion reactor fields. Text: This paper does not solve any key problems on the path to realizing fusion, nor does it claim that its conclusions are important. It exists purely because of the aesthetically pleasing nature of the novel observations it contains, highlighting profound connections between pure mathematics, applied mathematics, and physics. It has often been lamented by plasma physicists that if only we lived in a universe with four spatial dimensions, fusion would be easy to solve. Footnote: This lamentation comes mostly from myself, though I have seen S. R. Hudson nod bemusedly when discussing this with him.
You donāt usually see this directly mentioned in Chinese texts (such as svsss) because itās so deeply ingrained and taken for granted as a basic element of society, but the function and status of scholars are inherently different in Eastern and Western cultures in both subtle and significant ways.
In China at least, for thousands of years the scholar caste (士) had been synonymous with power itself. The literati, by its very nature, is seen as part of the ruling class of the highest order. Due to the nature of imperial Chinese government and bureaucracy, itās commonly understood that the pursuit of scholarly achievements is (more often than not) the pursuit of power, and not the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, since the end goal of this insanely arduous process is almost always to pass the imperial exams and serve the emperor as an government official. (You even see this reflected in Chinese mythology; e.i. in tgcf you cultivate your ass off and pass some sort of divine tribulation just so you can go work in the heavenly court, which is basically a mythical version of the actual imperial court.) The scholar caste, or literati, were not just seen as the cultural or intellectual elite, but the political and social elite.
This brings us to the sort of paradoxical understanding of power and social hierarchy in both Chinese history and popular belief. Unlike in the Westā¢ļø where historically, political power is believed to have come directly from god in the form of noble lineage (massive oversimplification I know), China (depending on the time period) was simultaneously obsessed with pedigree and deeply enamored with the idea of meritocracy. Somebody like tgcfās He Xuan (had he actually ascended and not been thoroughly fucked over) would have been seen as a heroic and inspirational figure. Of course we also see how easily someone like He Xuan gets fucked over, which is why such inspirational figures are relatively rare. Still, the fantasy of the meritocratic ideal persists in a powerful and pervasive way.
To bring things back to svsss and Qingjng, aka the scholar peak, I think a lot of western readers donāt fully realize just how much clout and prestige is associated with a scholar peak and its peak lord. The fact it ranks second is not an arbitrary decision on the authorās part; the text doesnāt really go into this other than a few offhand jokes about it being posh because it doesnāt need to; the original target audience (Chinese readers) would more or less implicitly understand this.
Anyway, all this is to say that the position of og sqq as a Qingjing peak lord would be highly revered; I find it extremely unlikely that the rest of the peak lords would openly challenge him in any meaningful way. (Lqg lives in his own world because lqg.) To give airplaneās writing the benefit of doubt, there is presumably a reason that nobody further investigates lqgās death or tries to publicly implicate og sqq before bingge comes along and does his thing. They may have suspicions, but it seems that none of the peak lords even attempts to go up against the combined might of sqqās status and yqyās guilt-simping, and are shocked and dismayed when finally presented with āproofā of foul play. I think itās even mentioned in one of the opening chapters that a big part of why og sqqās fall is so brutal is that he falls from such an unthinkable height. I remember reading something along the lines of āthe more lofty/respected he was on the outside, the scummier he was in secretā (I havenāt read the English translation, please excuse my attempt).
Another thing about og sqq is that itās absolutely nuts how he manages to become the leader of the scholar peak. The fact heās mastered the four arts despite having an insanely late start is honestly far more impressive than his cultivation/combat prowess, because itās something youāre really expected to start in your toddler years. Had it not been for his trauma/insecurities and the fact heās committed mass murder, his humble background could have been leveraged in his favor. In fact, itās unclear (afaik) if yqy has even attempted to hide his own origins. He was much younger when he joined and it would be very obvious that he had no family backing and was barely literate. He could have become the kind of heroic figure that embodied the meritocratic ideal: a slave boy who becomes the leader of the foremost sect, and I donāt think we know for sure if this isnāt exactly what actually happened. The popular-ish idea that yqy has also been desperately hiding his humble origins has never quite made sense to me, because one how could he have possibly pulled it off, and two why would he even bother. Even if it comes to light that heās a runaway, a powerful sect can conceivably look the other way in order to protect a beloved disciple.
The same canāt be said for being a mass murderer, in sqqās case. This is unrelated to the topic of Qingjing peak, but I think itās equally improbably that upon revealing the truth of og sqqās childhood abuse, his crime of murdering his master and razing his house to the ground can be lessened or forgiven in the eyes of whatever passes for a legal system in pidw. As far as historical context is concerned, a slave/servant committing mass murder has no legal or moral leg to stand on, no matter how badly heās treated. His owner could literally attempt to murder him and itād still not fully justify what he did within the vaguely Confucian value system that seems to be the status quo in his world. His only recourse would have been to say fuck it and declare war on the whole tribunal, which would also drag his sect into the conflict, and we all know how that would go with op bingge around.
Speaking of bingge, I think itās noteworthy that despite having grown up on Qingjing peak, pidw doesnāt portray him as having notable scholarly achievements. Thereās no mention of his prowess in painting, poetry and the like, even though heās presumed to be good at everything he attempts. In many ways, pidw and the novels itās inspired by sell by creating a ārail against the systemā kind of power fantasy, in which existing systems of power are dismantled with great violence and gratification.
To circle back to the beginning of this embarrassingly long post, itās telling that bingge is explicitly not a scholarly type. His interests are everyman interests: cooking, dating attractive women, beating up baddies, being badass in physical combat. Heās shown to have a street-smart kind of genius, and instead of studying the Art the War and being a brilliant general, heās out there personally kicking ass with a big sword. OP antihero bingge raven way does not need archaic modes of erudition and power. In fact, heās stronger because he rejects them. (The fact he turns out to be royalty is sort of a way to have the cake and eat it too, something you often find in this kind of story). The act of torturing his own shizun to death, no matter his crimes, is also nearly sacrilegious if weāre going by the vaguely Confucian values that govern the pre-bingge world, but I think thatās precisely why this kind of narrative is so popular. While og sqq tries to embody existing power structures and ends up subsumed by it, bingge tears it all down and creates a new world order.
I think I better stop here for now. If youāve read the whole thing I admire you and I salute you š«”
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for no reason whatsoever hereās a reminder that if you consider yourself a leftist/punk/abolitionist/anarchist/radical in any sort of way and get called into jury duty, you are to become the most square person on earth during the jury questionnaire!!!
donāt be that guy who says fuck the police in the jury questionnaire! that just gets you sent home! if you want to generate change, interact with the case and use your jury vote for good! ESPECIALLY if itās a high profile case!
An innocent man is home with his family instead of spending his kids' whole childhoods in jail for "resisting arrest" when none of the cops could agree on why he was being arrested in the first place. (But it definitely had nothing to do with him being a Black man in a nice car, honest! š)
And it still took like two hours of delibration after we'd heard all the evidence because one lady was so gung ho about believing everything the cops said, even when not a single goddamn one could agree with their own testimony, let alone their colleagues'.
Pointing out all the inconsistencies and admitted misconduct and letting people slowly come to their own conclusions as the trial played out was fucking hard, I won't lie. I can be patient, but it doesn't come naturally to me.
But. Yelling about how this was obviously a bs case would have shut everyone down and made them stop listening. Asking questions and letting people discuss how the cops tried to make xyz sound suspicious but it was totally normal, or about how if things played out the way the cops said then logically events should have proceeded in a totally different direction, and positing different theories that actually lined up with the evidence presented?
That got people thinking, and everyone realized that for a variety of reasons we all had reasonable doubts that the defendent had committed any of the crimes of which he was accused.
Being able to raise reasonable doubt among a jury of one's peers saves lives. If you get the chance, take it.
Captive living weapon whumpee: You think you can bribe me with fancy food and rest and this blanket? Iām not that soft. Iāll never tell you anything!
Caretaker: ā¦This is standard humane treatment for POWs. As required by international law?
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His nephew had warned him of the resemblance nearly as soon as he had woken in his mushroom body, even then they believed the boy to be ādeadā (as if a mere tumble into the Endless Abyss could kill a Heavenly Demon, even a newly unsealed and highly unstable hybrid. No if anything killed that boy it would be his own nature. There had simply been no other like him to survive but this one had already lived longer than any other and taught himself to cultivate as humans do. The Abyss would be no challenge for him.) but still Tianlang-Jun had not been prepared for it.
It was one thing to hear in Zhuzhi-Langās ever fumbling way that his son, this Shen Yuan, was near identical to his mother. It was something all together different to see that same blank, doll-like expression Su Xiyan had always worn when she was trying to hide her true emotions looking back at him twenty-three years after she had betrayed him. The only break in the illusion currently visible was the demon mark burning green on his sonās brow and the slight shine to those green eyes that showed his power.
His son was even the same height as she had been, though Xiyan had been tall for a woman. She was broader though. Nothing like this hollow-cheeked wraith staring at him. Thoughā¦ that might have been more to do with the gaunt look of starvation that clung to his son. The boy looked nearly as bad as he did and his body was quite literally rotting away as they spoke.
Well, stared.
Xiyan would not have been caught dead in such a state as their son, either, even without the method of transport to get him here. His green and black robes hung loose on his frame, ill-fitting and ill tied. His hair was tangled and greasy where it hung around his shoulders (humans had a thing about that, no? His son was old enough that it should have been put up? Ah! But his nephew said that he had died! That was right!). His feet were bare. All of him was covered in Zhuzhi-Langās digestive juices though he didnāt seem to notice or particularly care.
He only stared. Blank. Empty.
Then, like the a spring thaw after a harsh winter, he blinked. Those green eyes focused on Tianlang-Jun perhaps for the first time and something sparked deep in them.
A sign of life.
Not a doll after all, his son. Not a shattered broken thing or dead but still walking. Simply buried under a mountain of his own.
āMotherfucker!ā Shen Yuan swore delightfully foully for wearing such a pretty face just like his mother had when Tianlang-Jun got her far enough away from the prying eyes of her sect.
There was a distinct sense that the two of them were at two very different stages of a conversation. That there was twenty some years of understanding missing in Shen Yuanās reaction to his face that Tianlang-Jun did not have. There was even the lingering sense that Tianlang-Jun should hate his son for being a living breathing reminder of his motherās betrayal that had landed him trapped under that mountain in the first place.
But he had loved Xiyan once, and Shen Yuan was so much like her it ached to look directly at him.
And more than that, his son was interesting. Perhaps the most interesting thing he had seen in two decades.
āI believe the proper term of address is Father, even in the human realm. Though I will accept A-die if you are so inclined.ā
His sonās shriek of outrage was entirely his own as Xiyan nor he would ever make such a strangled sound though the way he threw himself forward only to be caught like a misbehaving kitten by Zhuzhi-Lang was all his mother.
a lil tomato soup made from roast tomato, onion, garlic and bell pepper with a lil grill ches. regular marble cheddar, some farmers market truffle cheddar, and a lil pickle for the filling. bread is a sourdough pullman's loaf recipe of my own design
man it is SO funny that everyone's still cycling this post considering that the meal poisoned the shit out of me
turns out the bread i baked there had started to mold, the cheddar cheese had started to mold, and the chicken stock I used for the soup's best before date was over a year ago. I found all of this out a day or so later and I'm now still dealing with the gastroenteritis symptoms
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