earlier this week Twitter user ppuccin0 tweeted about a fashion article that advised against tops with large floral patterns, saying the wearer was in danger of looking like a "ロマンティックおばさん," or a "romantic auntie." the tweet went viral with many agreeing that a "romantic auntie" sounded like a very nice thing to aspire to be, and some even posted illustrations or photos tagged with the trend
illustration by Toyota Yuu (author of Cherry Magic)
illustration by 141shkw/Sora Midori (author of Beautiful Curse)
photos by Takinami Yukari (author of Motokare Mania and Watashi-tachi wa Mutsuu Ren'ai ga Shitai or "We Want A Painless Romance")
illustration by m:m (mangaka of Matataki no End Roll)
illustration by ooinuai (mangaka of Onikui Kitan)
illustration by ma2 (mangaka of The Reason We Fall In Love)
Also I am asking all of you, once again, to learn about ecosystem conservation and restoration instead of wallowing in "we are already past the point of no return" or that it will take "millennia" to restore ecosystems.
You have to understand that nature does not work in the same timeframe as ours. Protecting and restoring ecosystems is RIDICULOUSLY inexpensive and requires very little industrial technology; shovels and saplings are not exactly high-tech. But it takes time and long-term projects with people determined to do it. Maybe we are too focused in our "we want it now" thinking, but what you see today is not what you may see in 10, 20, 50, even 80 years if you live that long.
But it works. It's working right now, and when capitalism is replaced by socialism and we stop thinking on short-term gain, when our societies are focused into the common welfare instead of accumulation, it will even work better. Again I could point out to individual examples but instead, I encourage you to learn about ecology. We are well past from the catastrophic "Earth will die and there's nothing we can do" predictions from the 80s. We know what to do, we know it can work.
A new study published online today, April 25, in the scientific journal Science provides the strongest evidence to date that not only is nat
This article talks about this very much in the "see? ecology can help the economy too!" tone that unfortunately is sort of necessary to convince people in the current capitalist system. But I don't want you to focus on this right now.
I want you to KNOW how doable this is. How inexpensive this is, how POSSIBLE THIS IS. That people working and loving the land and nature they live in is possible. That these projects WORK, THEY DO restore and preserve ecosystems. That humanity is neither a plague that destroys everything or a passive bystander on its own destruction but that these are actual things that can be, are, and will be implemented, backed by actual science and results. This is not empty #hopecore #hopepunk feel good stuff, these are things you can learn about, even work towards, and you can most certainly demand they are part of our society.
"I'm just losing hope." Then get some fucking conviction. Millions of people around the globe are working their asses off and seeing results. What they are doing IS WORKING.
This orange peel story was huge years ago: https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/a-fruitful-experiment-in-land-conservation/
Beavers reintroduced to historic wetlands improve them at such a level that we can see the improvements from space: https://news.mongabay.com/2023/09/nasa-satellites-reveal-restoration-power-of-beavers/
Africa is successfully slowing desertification and restoring historic farming soil with their Green Wall project: https://welcomeafrica.org/en/africa-combats-desertification-with-a-belt-of-life/
There has even been success at regrowing coral reefs--something which I am old enough to be told was impossible. But people have been hard at work for decades since then, and this is one of the results: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/03/240308123248.htm
REPAIRING THE DAMAGE IS ENTIRELY WITHIN THE REALM OF POSSIBILITY.
THERE IS ALWAYS HOPE IF YOU HAVE THE CONVICTION TO BACK IT UP.
I can totally believe people on Twitter are unemployed but on Tumblr it's always someone studying the microscopic footprints of the honeybee and a nuclear physicist developing cold fusion posting about their blorbos on their lunch break
I love when people ask "how did you learn this skill?" I just started, there's no secret. that's it. a vast majority of the time the only thing holding you back is your trepidation to start.
That reaction post I said I would do about the Treefrey aftermath
Here is the long-overdue follow-up to my « The boy who came from Slistas » post. Spoilers below up to chapter 93 of Witch Hat Atelier.
For context, I wrote that previous post in 2020, a few months after chapter 40 of Witch Hat Atelier came out. The post was among the early ones to comment on the parallels between Qifrey and silverwood trees, and to draw a semi-detailed story theory from it. One early commenter coined the term « Treefrey » (I don’t remember their username and can’t find them in my comments or tags, sorry for not crediting them!), and the post spread through the fandom as the Treefrey theory.
After the silverwood tree parasitism entered the plot in chapter 85, five years later, the post lit up again. On the one hand, I received a lot of uplifting and hilarious notes: thank you so much for those! I’ve never had a theory blow up and become a fandom artefact before, so that post was very fun to monitor. On the other hand, most of you have been over-generous about my deduction skills: I was wrong on a lot of counts.
So here is a status report on the Treefrey theory as of chapter 93:
Short status report: I speculated that Qifrey is a tree that was turned into a human, but it looks like he is a human who is cursed to turn into a tree. Rookie mistake.
Long status report: My initial theory went something like this:
(1) Silverwood trees are a non-human sentient species that went nearly extinct after necromancy experiments wrecked their forest in Slistas, so communication between them and witches, and knowledge of their sentience, have been lost;
(2) Qifrey was born, or more accurately sprouted, as a silverwood sapling, but was turned human by the Brimhats using a new form of forbidden magic;
(3) The Brimhats took his eye to gain the ability to make magic out of their own blood (to bypass the scarcity of magic ink, since most of the remaining silverwood trees seem to be under the surveillance of the Pointed Hats). Having access to Qifrey’s eye would explain why Iguin can use his own blood as a super-ink that enhances the power of simple spells in chapter 12;
(4) Qifrey fears that those experiments blur the line between magic and humans, and threaten the world order created by the Pointed Hats. This world order is based on the sanctity of the human body (no spell should be performed on a human under any circumstance, except for memory erasure). To enforce it, the Great Hall keeps tight control of who knows the secret of magic, who uses magic, and how. Qifrey believes that losing this world order would lead to chaos and war, so he wants to destroy his stolen eye and the research that led to his transformation from tree to human.
(5) Qifrey keeps his mission secret from the Great Hall and Olruggio in particular because his very existence is forbidden according to the laws of the Pointed Hats: he expects his own community to treat him as a monster and a criminal if they find out, and that anyone who sides with him will be punished as well.
As of chapter 93 (2026), we can sort out where I went right and wrong on those different points:
(1) Silverwood trees are a fully sentient species: inconclusive. Their parasitism reacts to animal and human emotions, but this seems instinctive, like reacting to chemical signatures in their host (waiting until the host is at peace as a signature of a safe environment to grow). We got more bits of legends in chapter 47 about humanoid silverwood trees gifting magic to humans, but there’s no confirmation that this goes beyond mere legend yet.
(2) Qifrey was born as a tree then turned human: wrong. I got this one backwards! I am not sure how planting a seed inside of Qifrey counted as « a new form of forbidden magic », since infecting a host seems to be the normal behaviour of silverwood trees. Thoughts welcome on this.
(3) Qifrey’s eye was stolen to produce a new kind of magical ink: mostly wrong. Iguin had no need of Qifrey’s eye to use his own blood as ink, since human blood is shown to naturally react with magical ink and lead to « wild and unexpected magic » in chapter 63. I have to assume this requires a lot of blood, otherwise magic would go berserk whenever a witch gets a nosebleed or a paper cut… As for why the Brimhats needed his eye: in chapter 93 we learn that Qifrey’s right eye sprouted and turned full silverwood. Qifrey speculates that this might have helped the Brimhats overcome the silverwood trees’ lack of compatibility with anxiety-prone human hosts. Maybe seeds produced by Qifrey’s right eye are more tolerant to humans, and have been used on Custas and others?
(4) Qifrey wants to stop the Brimhats’ plans because he wants to preserve the divide between magic and humans: correct-ish? He mostly wants to stop these guys from doing insanely cruel experiments on kids. But he does also seem worried about the new compatibilities between silverwood trees and humans that these experiments may have provoked.
(5) Qifrey is keeping his secrets because his existence is a crime according to the laws of Witch society: mostly wrong. He isn’t about to boast to the Knights Moralis about his skull terrarium situation, but his main worry is the parasitic silverwood that will kill him the moment he lets himself be at peace. Him erasing Olruggio’s memory is a convoluted strategy dating back to their teenage years to keep Qifrey stressed and miserable, because sharing his burden with his friend would provide lethal levels of comfort.
As for my thoughts on the latest chapters and the silverwood parasitism (and I do have to admit that the Silver festival arc went on for so long that I grew exhausted and tuned out chunks of it, so I might have missed details). An evil curse that will kill you if you find happiness works well as a metaphor for post traumatic stress disorder: it shows the hypervigilance that can sabotage a person after they have escaped a violent situation, found safety, and are trying to rebuild their life.
My main issue with Qifrey’s silverwood parasitism, as presented in the flashback, is that it weakens the conflict between Qifrey and the Great Hall / Knights Moralis / Representatives of Witch society’s system of power (including Beldaruit and Olruggio!). I was so interested in this conflict: Qifrey is trying to be loyal to a society that saved his life and nurtured him, but this same society also denied him justice, tormented him by forcing him to live underwater, keeps threatening to take his job, kids and memories away from him, and ultimately cannot see him as human. Sometimes his rage against the Brimhats feels almost like denial, like redirecting his resentment away from the Great Hall and towards an easier outlet. Many of the non-witch characters, especially Custas, have similar conflicts of feeling indebted but also resentful towards the Pointed Hats. I would have loved for them to confront Qifrey on those feelings. Maybe this will play a role later. But the flashback seemed to take away a lot of Qifrey’s anger and agency?
Also, I did love the idea of Qifrey not being human: silly little alien tree man, his existence breaks every cardinal law in his adopted home, getting obsessed with human things like cooking. « At first I thought that having to find, prepare, masticate and digest food was a very inefficient substitute to photosynthesis, but then I found out about picnics!!! *_* »
Anyhow, I hope this was of interest for those of you who followed the original post. Have fun speculating!
