winter isn't cold for a person with no feelings

But Mexican-american food is "regional cuisine that often began developing in what used to be part of Mexico/Mexican territory and continued to develop after the borders changed."

Some of it isn't "striving to recreate the flavors of home." Sure, maybe like, Mexican food in Chicago is about that. But I'm from Arizona. My family is from Tucson by way of (Tucson being annexed) and then Sonora & Chihuahua. We're not trying to recreate anything — because Tucson is still in the Sonoran desert.

This is a map of the Sonoran desert region:

I've helpfully marked Tucson.

Just to be clear, it takes an hour and 20 minutes nowadays to drive to the Mexican side of Nogales. You could walk the journey in a little over 27 hours. So obviously less than a week on horseback.

What I'm saying here is that the "diaspora" is maybe implying that Mexican-american cuisine largely developed with huge geographical distances or lack of access to Mexican cultivars or something but like.

Here's a map of New Spain in 1819:

Here's a map of the War:

I'm just saying that a lot of Mexican-American food is literally just food and culinary traditions that Mexicans were eating in northern parts of Mexico/New Spain.

It might shock people to learn, but there were Mexicans living in Mexico. And parts of Mexico are now the United States. And those Mexicans, if they stayed, are now Mexican Americans, and our culinary traditions have undergone normal growth and innovations over time. Mexico-mexicans also had normal innovations and growth in their regional cuisines as well! That's just how time and increased access with faster transport works. I have met a lot of people from Mexico who seem to think the second they're in San Diego instead of Tijuana, that the food is no longer authentic Mexican food and...it is baffling to me. It's an invisible line in the sand.

The border is not actually an impenetrable wall. The food doesn't become inauthentic at border patrol checkpoints. Those didn't even exist not that long ago.

to be clear, I believe younger artists and minors can write good fics (not to say “fanfic must always be good” either because it is a hobby and I still believe that as long as it’s done with love and the artist’s joy, it is good) and I believe it’s good when younger artists and minors start making art at young ages.

that said, a lot of fanfics out there that you read and love are done by adults with kids, jobs and responsibilities. adults who have years, decades of practice under their belts. adults who don’t let life and responsibilities take away their joy in creating.

Tsumugi was right:

I've been finding a lot of job postings that ask me for a photo lately, which is uncool of them.

So I made an image which lets me bypass their demand. I don't care if I get that particular job, I just want to shame the HR goons who thought the photo requirement was a good idea.

“Hey man, your main character isn’t sympathetic enough, could you fix that?”

Essentially, politically coherent works are works where the political message of the story is supported by all (or at least most) of the major story elements, and a politically incoherent work is a story where the political messages of different elements are seemingly all shooting off on different vectors.

The nice thing about this is it can bypass authorial intent (and the discussion of whether intent matters). This is about the text.

Like, politically incoherent works that had no authorial thought behind them are a dime a dozen of course, and politically coherent works that clearly had a lot of authorial thought are if not equally common than at least easy to spot. But there are also plenty of works that are politically coherent without the author intending them that way—like, whatever faults there are with Project Hail Mary, the overall opinion the book has about the nature of humanity & of science is consistent throughout. Likewise there are stories where the authors clearly meant a coherent political point and totally wiffed it. (The works @specialagentartemis has collectively termed “cozy colonialism” come to mind)

a.m. tide

But since I’ve gotten too disabled to fight anymore, I… find myself coming back to that maiden in a tower. It’s that funny thing, where subverting femininity is powerful for the people who have always been forced into it… but for the people who have always been excluded, the powerful thing can be embracing it.

As I’m disabled, as I say to groups of friends, “I can’t walk that far,” as I’m in too much pain to keep partying, I find myself worrying: I’m boring, too quiet, too stationary, irrelevant. The message sent to the disabled is: You’re out of the narrative, you’re secondary, you’re a burden.

The remarkable thing about the maiden in her tower is not her immobility; it’s common for disabled people to be abandoned, set adrift, waiting at bus stops or watching out the windows, forgotten in institutions or stranded in our houses. The remarkable thing is that she’s like a beacon, turning her tower into a lighthouse; people want to come to her, she’s important, she inspires through her appearance and words and craftwork.  In medieval romances she gives gifts, write letters, sends messengers, and summons lovers; she plays chess, commissions ballads, composes music, commands knights. She is her household’s moral centre in a castle under siege. She is a castle unto herself, and the integrity of her body matters.