Came up with a wild and unorthodox solution for a difficult question despite already knowing the âproperâ solutions
Top student despite never studying ever
Physically incapable of staying still for more than 20 seconds
âWhat the fuck is a functional memoryâ
Would rather die than be bored
Complains about everything
Has way too much energy to be contained in a mortal form
Every single decision he makes is an impulsive one and half the time the only thing stopping him is Jiang Cheng or Lan Zhan
Self-esteem issues / blatant refusal to practice self-care
ALWAYS sees himself as lesser than others he cares
His idea of organisation is a chaotic mess to everyone else
Learns things extremely quickly when âproperly motivatedâÂ
Obsessed with spicy food because everything else is is too bland
Considered annoying by 99% of the people he meetsÂ
Extremely sociable but is almost entirely incapable of believing someone would genuinely love him
On a related note, heâs so fucking dense to othersâ feelings Iâm surprised he hasnât sunken a boat just by standing on it
Stubborn as fuck
Idealistic as fuck
Has too many ideas and works on all of them at the same time
Locked himself in a cave to work on inventions while forgetting to eat and sleep (thank the gods for Wen Qing)
Refuses to be emotional in front of others
Would rather let the whole world call him a heretic and a monster than let his brother feel guilty for THE THING
Makes mistakes, regrets it, does it again (unless there were EXTREME consequences like someone literally DYING as a result)
Blames himself for things even if theyâre proven to Not Actually Being His Fault
Terrible attention span, zones out when people are talking, especially if he doesnât like said person talking
Reacts explosively when actually angered, defaulting to violence, though never for his own sake (someone save this man)
Comes up with practical solutions to problems on the spot, but tends to forget to consider othersâ feelings when he does
Acts arrogant, openly claims heâs arrogant, but sees it as a negative trait that makes him less worthy of peopleâs love
Easily distracted
Notices small details faster than most people would in a high-stress situation
Default response to an intense phobia of his (dogs) is a very loud flight response despite facing literally everything else head on even if it means risking death (of course, the trauma factor should not be ignored)
 Somehow remembered a short, nameless tune Lan Zhan played for him once while he was delirious despite facing a literal war, descent into madness and trauma, dying for 13 years (16 in CQL), and waking up from actual death to an entirely new body, ON TOP OF HAVING MEMORY PROBLEMS, all because that tune was a special moment between him and Lan Zhan
âŠ
So in case itâs not clear yet, I really like the idea of Wei WuXian having ADHD.Â
A lot of people in mainland China are perfectly capable of getting around the so called 'Great Firewall of China' and interacting with the internet beyond it but the thing is a lot of them just flat out don't want to or don't really care all that much. Yeah sure the internet is heavily censored, but outside of that non-English spaces have gotten smaller and smaller while English takes over as the lingua franca of the internet, and they may or may not be able to read and understand English very well.
Also a lot of people on the internet beyond the 'firewall' are very hostile to them, they get treated like naive idiots or brainwashed infiltrators for the ccp. I remember a few years back when a lot of Chinese fanfic writers started uploading their stories on ao3 en masse because there had been a big uptick in websites that host fanfiction getting taken down and some people were so utterly vile about it, making jokes about how they could get the fics taken down by mentioning the Tiananmen Square massacre in the comments and things like that.
All because they were apparently offended by their favorite tags having more non-English works that can very easily filter out so they don't have to look at them at all. Because God forbid a fanfiction website that already greatly skews towards English fics have more works in other languages, right? That's like the only thing I miss about fanfiction.net, it had way more non-English fics, well that and more stories for certain fandoms than ao3 does.
And it's not like a lot of tech companies and other governments don't censor the internet to some extent or another, China isn't unique in that regard, it's just particularly infamous for being so heavy-handed and easy to use as a red herring.
I do not like to type out long paragraphs here so Iâll try to sum it up.
Yes, I 100% agree with this guy, honestly itâs sad how most non-English communities (such as 3K) are getting reduced, and especially how some people treat Chinese people using typically banned websites like yt or twitter etc, i know that most people here are American or just not from china but cmon just give us a chance.
(sorry if my wording is kinda bad, im so sleepy rn lol)
some of y'all need to learn how to accept hospitality. stop assuming people are only offering to look after you out of twisted obligation that they don't actually want to do. when you assume that, you are often denying someone the opportunity to genuinely show a friend or stranger love. even if you don't really care about what they're offering, it's respectful of their desire to be kind to accept it anyways.
i had a bunch of girls i've never met over for a women's group. every single one of them denied my offer to make them tea (despite already making myself a mug anyways), get them water, a scone, etc.
i can tell when people refuse to let me be a good host because they "don't want to be a bother". like no!! please be a bother!!! i want to serve you and make you comfortable in my home!
not to be like "we live in a society" but really do live in a modern culture than emphasizes individualism to the point where people will reflexively deny any help or kindness from others for fear of treading on their independence. newsflash: dependence on each other is what makes a community. next time someone offers you kindness, accept it instead of making excuses for why you don't need it. otherwise you've robbed both yourself of being loved and someone else from showing love.
"The idea of reforming Omelas is a pleasant idea, to be sure, but it is one that Le Guin herself specifically tells us is not an option. No reform of Omelas is possible â at least, not without destroying Omelas itself:
If the child were brought up into the sunlight out of that vile place, if it were cleaned and fed and comforted, that would be a good thing, indeed; but if it were done, in that day and hour all the prosperity and beauty and delight of Omelas would wither and be destroyed. Those are the terms.
'Those are the terms', indeed. Le Guinâs original story is careful to cast the underlying evil of Omelas as un-addressable â not, as some have suggested, to 'cheat' or create a false dilemma, but as an intentionally insurmountable challenge to the reader. The premise of Omelas feels unfair because it is meant to be unfair. Instead of racing to find a clever solution ('Free the child! Replace it with a robot! Have everyone suffer a little bit instead of one person all at once!'), the reader is forced to consider how they might cope with moral injustice that is so foundational to their very way of life that it cannot be undone. Confronted with the choice to give up your entire way of life or allow someone else to suffer, what do you do? Do you stay and enjoy the fruits of their pain? Or do you reject this devilâs compromise at your own expense, even knowing that it may not even help? And through implication, we are then forced to consider whether we are â at this very moment! â already in exactly this situation. At what cost does our happiness come? And, even more significantly, at whose expense? And what, in fact, can be done? Can anything?
This is the essential and agonizing question that Le Guin poses, and we avoid it at our peril. Itâs easy, but thoroughly besides the point, to say â as the narrator of 'The Ones Who Donât Walk Away' does â that you would simply keep the nice things about Omelas, and work to address the bad. You might as well say that you would solve the trolley problem by putting rockets on the trolley and having it jump over the people tied to the tracks. Le Guinâs challenge is one that can only be resolved by introspection, because the challenge is one levied against the discomforting awareness of our own complicity; to 'reject the premise' is to reject this (all too real) discomfort in favor of empty wish fulfillment. A happy fairytale about the nobility of our imagined efforts against a hypothetical evil profits no one but ourselves (and I would argue that in the long run it robs us as well).
But in addition to being morally evasive, treating Omelas as a puzzle to be solved (or as a piece of straightforward didactic moralism) also flattens the depth of the original story. We are not really meant to understand Le Guinâs 'walking away' as a literal abandonment of a problem, nor as a self-satisfied 'Sounds bad, but Iâm outta here', the way Vivierâs response piece or others of its ilk do; rather, it is framed as a rejection of complacency. This is why those who leave are shown not as triumphant heroes, but as harried and desperate fools; hopeless, troubled souls setting forth on a journey that may well be doomed from the start â because isnât that the fate of most people who set out to fight the injustices they see, and that they cannot help but see once they have been made aware of it? The story is a metaphor, not a math problem, and 'walking away' might just as easily encompass any form of sincere and fully committed struggle against injustice: a lonely, often thankless journey, yet one which is no less essential for its difficulty."
- Kurt Schiller, from "Omelas, Je T'aime." Blood Knife, 8 July 2022.
Hey does anyone ever sit there and think about how most ppl can easily clean up someone else's mess - do dishes as a guest at a party, laundry for a friend, cleaning someone else's living room while they're getting ready for a party and then confronted with your own mess it becomes Too Much?
it honestly feels like an emotional attachment thing - at least for me. you're doing something nice for a friend which feels great but then you're stuck with the guilt over the mess you've made and now you're in The Darkness Spiral
We can view it for the kindness it is when we give it to someone else, but can't when it's solely for us. It feels very much like it has to do with us being social creatures, like parellel play works to combat this feeling a bit but then why does it?
maybe we weren't built to be alone in our own messes, but instead making a big mess together that ppl all take care of together.
maybe the problem isn't I make too many dishes, but instead that I'm alone doing them.
Like Crazy (2023) as a discussion of (queer) lonelinessÂ
hiiii anyways i keep saying Like Crazy is incredibly bisexual/queer and its been hard to explain why without writing an essay so. without further ado:
*DISCLAIMER* I am not claiming I know anything about how Jimin identifies or the intended message of the album, nor am I claiming my interpretation as above any other. This is just my reading of FACE and Like Crazy as a gay person of colour and a grad student writing a thesis on transness where I discuss topics of loneliness as a systemic form of violence and intimacy. I am also looking at this from a very Western perspective; though I know there are likely many Korean and likely queer Korean authors, theorists, and poets evoking similar ideas, Iâll be making reference to authors that I am familiar with who are better known in a Western context.
Loneliness as a cycle of abjection
âI want to introduce Jiminâs true feelings that I didnât bring up anywhere else. I looked back on myself and honestly expressed my [âŠ] emptiness and loneliness.â
I donât think it would take a particularly high level of analysis to conclude that FACE, and Like Crazy more specifically, are meant to explore loneliness as a process of self-alienation. Non-binary author Olivia Laing describes the cycle of loneliness as one where:Â
â[âŠ] the lonelier a person gets, the less adept they become at navigating social currents. Loneliness grows around them, like mould or fur, a prophylactic that inhibits contact, no matter how badly contact is desired. Loneliness is accretive, extending and perpetuating itself.âÂ
Itâs very clear from the beginning of the music video for Like Crazy that Jimin struggles with reconciling a comfort in loneliness with a need to experience intimacy. Regardless of his efforts, the rot of loneliness is never far, seeps in through the walls and stains his hands. As (ironically) relatable of an experience as loneliness is, it does not occur in a vacuum. Rather, the unique experience of queer loneliness and rejection is one riddled by othering from acceptable sexuality and gender experiences and an inability to be framed within normative categories. Robert Phillips, scholar in language analysis as it pertains to gay male sexuality, wrote on abjection through a trans studies framework. To him, the process of horror or unease that defines abjection, through which the âotherâ is separated from and by an âus,â goes beyond âcasting outâ and becomes more interactive process; the hegemonic is protected by rejecting whatever does not conform, that is ambiguous, that does not fit in box. âThe anxiety at the root of this unease with transgender subjectivity can be traced back, in part, to a fear of the ambiguous.â Loneliness, like queerness, acts as a sort of mark of Cain, a characteristic that becomes so impeded in our being that it if first noticeable and then rejectable.Â
Despite being marked by loneliness, Jimin is the center of attention for the first act of the music video, featuring him crowd surfing and posing delicately for pictures. Yet, despite his yearning, he makes no move for intimacy. The music video implies the possibility that it is the result of this very hypervisibility as a figure of softness and boyishness, inviting parallels to be made here with the foucauldian references and the power play between surveillance and identity in other areas of the album, namely Set Me Free Pt. 2 (a discussion for another post for another timeâŠ..).
Hedonism as an escape
â[Like Crazy] expresses the emotions of the moment when you run away from reality to forget your wounds.â
The overlap between loneliness and overt sexuality is why eroticism is so culturally important to queer communities. Like Crazy explores desire and intimacy through what can be called a queer lens, as an escape and as an unsuccessful means to being perceived and acknowledged outside of suffering. The whole poem is absolutely beautiful, but a specific excerpt of gay Asian-American poet Ocean Vuongâs On Earth Weâre Briefly Gorgeous comes to mind: âDonât we touch each other just to prove we are still here? I was still here once.â As Like Crazy, Vuongâs poem discusses intimacy as the antithesis to loneliness. To be intimate is to come out of ones self. The erotic becomes an avenue to salvation (I will permit myself a little shoutout to Christian mythos by drawing parallel to the Song of Songs - we all dream of kissing God, of laying with the presence of something larger than us, and finding deliverance from it!).Â
Like Crazy communicates a power struggle between desperation for intimacy and an addiction to loneliness. What Jimin says about it and the juxtaposition with the actual visuals of the music video paints the picture of an attempt to build closeness on the foundations of perpetual solitude. In Like Crazy, closeness is futile. Loneliness becomes a lifelong lover, and intimacy an occasional affair. Though still better than perpetual solitude, it is marked by disillusion: âIâd rather be lost in the light.â Rather than evoke the image of a passionate one-night-stand, it acknowledges of the persistence of loneliness. Tumblr-infamous gay poet Richard Siken evokes this feeling:Â
âLoneliness, I find, continues too. Our relationship with solitude is one of the most important ones we have in this life. No matter how full and vibrant and loud we make things, the quiet always finds us.â
Despite Jiminâs desires for closeness, we donât actually see him making any move for closeness. Rather, despite his best efforts, he walks against the course of those around him in a repeated shot before knocking the cameraâs lens away; again, a parallel to the surveillance of set me free, as well as a possible denial of him pace against the grain.
Queer desires and longing
âLet me have a taste / Give me a good ride.â
For non-queer people, what is difficult to understand in the particularities of queer loneliness is its entwining with desire. Itâs an unspeakable yearning - as much in the ways it is indescribable as it is often life-threatening to do so. It is a profound sense of non-belonging felt in the knowledge that you are not as others are or see you because of a fundamental issue with how - and for whom - you experience desire. As a result, the erotic and sexuality along the margins of what is normative, i.e. reproductive cisgender heterosexual missionary sex after marriage, are profoundly radical and embodied manifestations of queer desire: kink, bondage, leather, sadomasochism, casual sex, chemsex, etc. all contribute to this expression of queer intimacy and self actualization.
I know Iâm being a little dramatic in the set-up here but it is really difficult to try to explain this inherent outcasthood to straight people. It is such a specific experience that is so untranslatable, and yet it is a feeling that I pick up so strongly in the Like Crazy music video. The remedying of sexuality with the profound alienation that queer people feel up until, very often, a dramatic and self-destructive discovery in young-adulthood, is something that straight/cis people just canât understand. Leading African queer scholar and (erotic) writer Keguro Macharia writes:Â
âwhat is the taste of loneliness? / salt-bitter-sweet-nothing / after midnight, in cars, in booths in sex shops, in dark bedrooms, in anonymous hotel rooms, encounter after encounter, trading orgasms for âhold meâ and âletâs cuddleâ âif I suck you off, will you cuddle with meâ âif I let you fuck me, will you cuddle with meâ.â
Iâm not knowledgeable on kink culture so I wonât get too into it but I think itâs really interesting how submissive the lyrics come off. What is striking about the way Like Crazy approaches desire that sets it apart from any generic âwe found love in this clubâ-type pop song is its desperate tone rather than one that boasts virility with promises of a âgood time.â Instead, Jimin is the one pleading.
Queer loneliness as liberation
âSheâs saying, âBaby, donât think about it / Thereâs not a bad thing here tonight.â
Like Vuongâs poem, Like Crazy could also become a larger question on a heterosexual culture that is increasingly anxious about bodies and touch. The music video can be clocked as having the intention to discuss the erotic - the Robert Mapplethorpe reference is enough to assert this - yet it does so very tamely. Everyone is clothed, no one touches too much, the atmosphere is fun, chill, controlled. Jimin, despite his expressed desperation for closeness and hedonism as told through the lyrics and through his interaction with those at the party, through the careless throwing back of shots, does not find what he needs. The environment is too controlled, too âstraightâ (as in âproper,â or âinnocuousâ). He himself does not find any intimacy. He stays at the center of it all, untouched, and not daring to get closer.Â
Something that is reflected by a lot of trans theory writers (some whom Iâve read including Paisley Currah and Dean Spade) is that the normalization process in inclusion produces and reproduces ideas on who is and âinsiderâ and who is an âoutsider.â I read a bit of Melissa Carollâs thesis on the political implications of queer loneliness as part of my own (much shorter) thesis. In it she discusses how âstraightâ culture, through the aforementioned social accounting processes, delimit the realm of the socially accessible, in a process Denise Riley calls loneliness. Caroll says:Â
âCurrently, any public declaration that âI am lonelyâ presumes that we are registering this feeling based on what we have been led to believe that loneliness, as a term, means: sad, alone, lacking, in need or want of friends, odd, bizarre, queer, and unhappy.â
Heteronormative abjection of queer and trans modes of being are increasingly reclaimed as constructive and disruptive political strategies. As postmodernist feminist scholar Julia Kristeva writes, abjection is âthe place where meaning collapses.â Rejection of inclusion to instead embody abjection and loneliness is another cornerstone of queer self-affirmation that is explored, again, through the erotic and the sexually obscene. The tame nature of the music video, Jiminâs desperation, implies a dissociation from himself and a refusal to face himself. There is an acknowledgement of the futility of his desires for closeness beyond what he is âmarkedâ for, that it will âbreakâ him yet he refuses to be âsaved.â
So, regardless of whether Like Crazy truly is an attempt to explore the unique nuances of queer loneliness, it is clear that what it does discuss is struggle against self. The music video depicts not romantic rejection or conflict, but rather an imposed alienation. A self-rejection from an objected self and from a normative way of life. The stained, leather clad hand presumably belonging to Jimin himself dragging him to the party, the knocking away of the camera as a refusal to accept a self or to showcase that âwound,â the interplay between the warm shots of androgyny and desire contrasted with the cool setting of the club. The premise of the music video and its use of a movie itself is a refraction of this longing and abjection in a way; what does it say to attempt to translate a profound feeling of disorientation and loneliness within a normative context through the reference of a romance film featuring a White, conventionally attractive, heterosexual, cisgender, normative couple as a man of colour often read as gender non-conforming?Â
TLDR: Whether Like Crazy or FACE globally means to discuss queer loneliness and desire, the way they are ultimately explored and the play on gender and belonging imply a framework that is, intentionally or not, queer.Â
times, places, and practices that I want to learn from to imagine a hopeful future for humanity đ
the three sisters (squash, beans, maize) stock photo - alamy // anecdote by Ira Byock about Margaret Mead // art by Amanda Key // always coming home by Ursula K. Le Guin // Yup'ik basket weaver Lucille Westlock photographed by John Rowley // the left hand of darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin // photo by Jacob Klassen // the carrier bag theory of fiction by Ursula K. Le Guin // article in national geographic // the dawn of everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow // braiding sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer // the birchbark house by Louise Erdrich // photo by John Noltner
I'm looking for more content and book recs in this vein, so please send them my way!
This is actually very normal human behavior. It's just that most people (in the USA) think "Jesus strengthens me" instead of "I am a pikmin, dandori time"
This is literally why stories and fantasy are so useful to humans. We cannot tackle every mundane challenge with enthusiasm, and facing against profoundly daunting tasks can be deeply demoralizing, and you donât get to feel cool or heroic for filing 400 pieces of paperwork.
We arm ourselves with stories and fantasy, so that the laundry can become a charming hurdle to overcome, and the daunting stack of bills is the leviathan we the brave knights must slay.
Humans have always been like this. So many cultures have stories or mythology or even rituals about literally embodying another being better suited to the challenge one currently faces.
The Cabinet has approved the Marriage Equality Bill, and the draft law is expected to be submitted during the next Parliament session, which will start on December 12, said Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin.
If the draft bill is approved into law, Thailand will become the third Asian country, after Taiwan and Nepal, to recognize same-sex marriage.
The draft bill, initiated by the Move Forward Party, passed its first reading last year. However, the bill was shelved after the previous parliament was dissolved ahead of the May general election.
In addition to the Marriage Equality Bill, Srettha promised that the government would also consider a bill allowing transgender Thais to change their official gender registrations and a bill to decriminalize prostitution.
Srettha's administration is also submitting a bid for Thailand to host the World Pride parade in 2028.
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