Shanlon Writes

Let me write that down... I wish to live like a cryptid.

[kaity--did]

LISTEN TO ME having kids is hard and keeping a shred of your individuality outside of "Mama" is hard but if you do this and you commit to this bit at some point your 4 year old will SPRINT out of her room mid bedtime routine with her father chasing after her because she hears her favorite My Chem song playing on the speakers while you clean the kitchen and she "HAS TO ROCK AND ROLL DADDY!"

And then you get to rock and roll with a little person with your face and it's the best thing in the world.

[shanlonwrites]

Kaity, I've got a little human of my own now, and truly there is immeasurable joy in jammin out with the tiny clone. Mine loves loves dancing and can't even walk yet. Just bounces and waves arms. So cute. So fun. Dance party err night.

[nothorses]

I love some of the ideas y'all have & I am struggling to come up with something for my 8th grade art students

We're learning about the Renaissance, and I want to specifically talk to them about the way art historians idolize it & the impact Renaissance values have had, and still have on the art world. I plan on talking about eurocentricism, introducing them to the term and how it relates, and encouraging them to challenge dominant narratives. They all LOVE to argue, and this is very in line with their social studies curriculum; if anyone I think this will be super interesting and engaging for them.

The struggle is that I'm trying to come up with an art project they can do that'll relate to this, and coming up a little empty.

My original plan was a "distorted grid" project that was more focused on techniques originated in the renaissance & had them using and playing with the grid transfer technique / anamorphoses, but with the shift in focus to eurocentricism I'd really like to be able to do something that gets them thinking and talking about that as well.

What kinds of art projects did y'all do and enjoy in school? Did you do any related to the Renaissance specifically? Did you do anything that seems kind of similar to this? Do you have any ideas?

[toybeluga]

This is very loosey goosey and I don't have an education background, so please ignore me if this isn't helpful, but there's a museum near me with a lot of renaissance art that tries to host at least one modern artist responding to a classical piece respresenting their non-white modern-day identity. They had a beautiful Kehinde Wiley the same pose as another painting, a Kent Monkman piece Yosemite that was identical to another painting but that showed buffalo being hunted, etc. Having students put themselves in Renaissance paintings might go well with conversations around who is and isn't in those paintings?

[shanlonwrites]

This might not fit, as it's still pretty eurocentric and focused on the renaissance in europe (to be fair that's my academic background...) but maybe something about altering an existing piece?

One of the "things" about Renaissance art is that we tend to think of it as complete, "perfect", the masters, so on so on. It's done, and static, and crystallized, and held up as some ideal. But... that's not true. Major alterations happened alllll the time. Fig leaves added to cover genitalia. Cloths added to cover genitalia. A lot of genitalia covering.... the debate over whether or not to "fix" the glaze on the Mona Lisa, and the impact it has on its colours...

The renaissance's white marble statues, inspired by the ancient finds that really kicked off the renaissance obsession with classicism, which in turn inspired later collectors in the Enlightenment and Victorian eras to actively scrub colour off of other ancient statues...

So, take a piece, alter a detail it to change its message, explore how art shifts and changes, and how it impacts our perception of other artworks from other times and cultures, as well as the fluidity of art, acceptability, and aesthetic.

[elexuscal]

"what did students do before chatgpt?" well one time i forgot i had a history essay due at my 10am class the morning of so over the course of my 30 minute bus ride to school i awkwardly used by backpack as a desk, sped wrote the essay, and got an A on it.

six months later i re-read the essay prior to the final exam, went 'ohhhh yeah i remember this', got a question on that topic, and aced it.

point being that actually doing the work is how you learn the material and internalize it. ChatGPT can give you a short cut but it won't build you the the muscles.

[lierdumoa]

I think of an art teacher I had once who said he used to be terrible at drawing hands until he bought a book with 100 pictures of hands shown from various angles and drew each hand in the book 10 times. Magically, after drawing 1,000 pictures of hands, he wasn't bad at drawing hands anymore.

The reason OP could bullshit a decent essay in a 30 minute bus ride is because OP knew how to write and craft a well-reasoned analysis thanks to a childhood full of writing and critical thinking practice.

Feel like I'm transforming into one of those reddit assholes, but this genuinely is just a "skill issue" and you really do just have to "git gud."

[breeyn]

Tumblr is full of so many brilliant nerds, can one of you please tell me a story from history about another time people have had such contempt for education and intelligence? I know fascism is cyclical and this is a rill bad pendulum swing but I need to know this willing brain rot is precedented too and valuing brains will come back again

[shanlonwrites]

We are in a Romantic period. It’s happened before!

In and around the 18th century, the western world experienced the Enlightenment, a period of vast and rapid expansion of human knowledge thanks to the development of refined instruments and the scientific method. This Scared People. What do you mean there are tiny BUGS I CAN’T SEE in my WATER, ROBERT HOOKE?! WHAT DO YOU MEAN?!?

Part of the reaction to this vast explosion of knowledge was…ignorance. Or more precisely, a reprioritization of feeling over knowing, or sensibility over sense. My emotions are true, the science is bullshit. Because science is showing us that the world is SO BIG and how could I matter in that vastness? The sublime overshadows everything.

I am probably missing a lot of nuance. My specific area of study was good history, where this debate focused on “is it better to have a female cook whose natural instincts allow her to cook wholesome foods base on sensibility, or a chef whose study of scientific cooking makes better food based on sense?” (Obligatory this is not my opinion, that’s the historical debate disclaimer)

[elodieunderglass]

I feel like Americans use ‘salad’ just as broadly as the English use ‘pudding’. There is a decently large overlap too…

Oh that's a brave take.

[wazkalia]

Someone from the U.S. and U.K. should come together and make a Pudding Salad that comes out looking like neither but it sure is a Pudding Salad

[elodieunderglass]

I'm officially starting my U.K. citizenship journey soon, this would be the crowning dish at the ceremony for sure

[pagecommando]

Isn't this just Jell-o, which has the properties and options of both pudding and salad?

[elodieunderglass]

if you feel like it is in your heart, I suppose it could be. I myself would like to go the Christmas Pudding / ambrosia fusion route and be an innovator

[shanlonwrites]

Trifle.

[gallusrostromegalus]

I May Or May Not Be Hallucinating A Movie Aesthetic?

So I have an extremely vague recollection of perhaps several movies and shows that have amalgamated into a half-remembered aesthetic in my brain, but:

The movie or show is live action, with a cast of both adults and children, shot in color but WAY before digital

The costumes are extremely elaborate and ornate, but the color palette is somewhat subdued and almost an afterthought, like if you took rococo and turned the saturation way, way down.

In contrast, the sets look almost unfinished? Indoor scenes look like the backstage of a theater with lot of exposed canvas and raw wood. Outdoors is mostly moors, or Victorian city streets, and the colors are so subdued they're almost achromatic, but mostly beige and gray.

Unless there's a machine or device, then it's extremely large with many moving parts, it's making a ton of noise and also probably shooting steam. It's not clear how the machine works, save as a set piece for the actors to chew on and extras to hide behind.

No hue gets above a 70% saturation and there is a lot of chiaroscuro work done to compose the shots.

Might or might not be a musical? Maybe only the villain gets a song?

Might also be Hensonesque or actual Jim Henson puppets present?

Absolutely banger orchestral soundtrack tho. Probably Williams or Elfman.

Villains are played by adults that convey hostility by smiling incorrectly. They might be clowns, pirates or bourgeoisie, but they move like mimes, are simmering with wrath and have very fancy coats. At least one has an outrageous mustache.

The child actors are all in soft clothes, if not actually pajamas and nightgowns.

There are a lot of live animals around. lots of dogs, cats and A TON of horses, but also just as set dressing- live fish in tanks and ponds, reptiles in spooky scenes, cattle and pigs in bucolic ones.

Sometimes the animals have been painted fun colors or given prosthetics to indicate this is a fantasy dimension.

The children are the protagonists and this is intended for child audiences, but some absolutely fucked shit happens on screen, like autocannibalism, human bodies being contorted into unnatural states, or a scene in which one of the kids very nearly drowns, shot from their perspective.

Presented as a whimsical adventure while WILDLY underselling the horror element present.

There's a magic boat that flies maybe?

Anyways, what I want to know is if anyone recognizes the aesthetic I'm talking about, and tell me what it's called? I like it a whole lot and want to do some scenery practice.

[shanlonwrites]

...The Adventures of Baron Munchausen?

Mmm. I'll go ahead and call it 80s whimsical fantasy.

[thebibliosphere]

2nd day of trying caffeine again and seeing how my heart does. Dear god I missed tea made with Scottish water.

[angrylittlesliceofpizza]

yay!

… wait what is special about scottish water

should we worry o_o

[thebibliosphere]

It's soft water vs hard water. The minerals in Scottish water (soft water) make it very good for making tea and coffee taste better.

The hard water I have in the US leaves a bitter aftertaste.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Sometimes I go to the city and sample the fancy teas in the tea shop made with nice filtered water and buy some and bring them home and make them with tap water and wonder "why do they taste gross now? They didn't taste gross before!"

And then I remember that I live on a limestone aquifer.

[rain-clouds-and-autumn-leaves]

Hard water is absolutely disgusting compared to soft water

[bewarethecircles]

although it’s probably indeed better for cooking and drinking and such, I find soft water very scary to shower with. Soft water makes a… film? slime? thing? reaction with the soap, and no matter how much I wash it feels like it won’t leave. Evil feeling. My beautiful home water that is 90% rocks would never do that to me

[jackironsides]

........ Very soft water absolutely does not do that, what the hell

[thebibliosphere]

I think, as some other people in the notes have pointed out, it's the difference between naturally soft water and softened water when you add a system into your house and it does adds salts or whatever to pull the minerals out.

And yeah , actually, while I have never experienced the above with naturally soft water, now that I think about it, showering at my inlaws where they have a system can make my hair feel a bit like there's a film on it.

Which I just assumed at the time meant their system needed changed, but now I’m comparing the sensation, it wasn’t the same weird brittle residue left over by hard water.

So I think that might be what people are complaining about.

[anotherdayforchaosfay]

I can confirm! I'm used to various ranges of hard water, the worst being in Bumfuck Nowhere, Oregon. You let a cup of water sit more than a minute and there will be stuff sinking and settling again the body. We lived outside that town for a few years, and up in the mountains we got our water from a private shared well. That water was silk and the town water was like a fishbowl. The well water gave made my showers soooo nice, and my eczema loved it. Everything i cooked and baked tasted better, and most especially tea.

I have also experienced installed soft water. It was weird how unclean I felt after showering. Everyone in the house (my parents and sisters) had the same opinion. Water tasted great, felt horrific. My oily hair never felt right. They had the thing adjusted so it would only impact the kitchen faucet. Immediate improvement. It's been over 20 years, and I can still remember how gross I felt. I was genuinely worried I would be dealing with this when we learned about the well. It was explained by our then-landlady that installed systems use chemicals or something to sorta pull the minerals from the water. It leaves something behind, though, which is what we feel. Naturally soft? Bliss.

The closest I'll get to soft water is my house is with one of those filtered water pitchers. We had one, and used it religiously when in Bumfuck Nowhere because the water was so terrible. Any water appliances, like a dishwasher, needed specialized cleaning due to mineral (namely calcium) buildup. That pitcher made it possible to cook without a funky aftertaste and tea tasted right.

[silurisanguine]

UK had a variation of soft/hard water. Welsh water is beautifully soft and makes excellent tea. (and as such Birmingham England, that gets the majority of it's water from the reservoirs in the Elan valley) Southern English water is hard as fuck, smells like chlorine at first and you HAVE to use filters to prevent it fucking up all your washing machines, dishwashers, kettles, showers, etc from limescale buildup. We have a mineral filter attached to our shower which i always know is running low when a film of lime appears when the shower dries and my hair does not get clean properly. That's not the filter, it's what's getting past the filter again.

[thebibliosphere]

Worst cup of tea in my life was in London because of the water. I had a friend who didn’t bother to use filters and the cup of tea she handed me had a chalky film floating on the top.

I remember opening the kettle and thinking I’d need a pickaxe to descale it.

[shanlonwrites]

Thank you!

Now tell me I'm not the only one who feels icky when drinking hard water? My in-laws have a well with super hard water, like their kettle needs the pick-axe treatment as well, and so does their filtered water pitcher. It's bad enough that I have to bring my own drinking water when we visit and I feel like such a putz, but I genuinely get sick, don't drink enough, and start getting dehydrated otherwise. It feels like reflux, but Tums won't help.

And then! It has to be the right bottled water or I still feel sick. Only Dasani and Aquafina are definitely safe. Anything else is a gamble.

My partner makes fun of me for it (lovingly - it is such a weird thing to have to work around)

[starrypawz]

So I've been thinking about a discussion over on the Discworld reddit recently

Basically someone was like 'Discworld has become my go to cosy read'

And someone was like 'Disword isn't cosy it's actually very satirical and can be quite scathing and not escapist fluff'

But to me I would also class Discworld a cosy/comforting read.

And I think the fact the series does go to some pretty dark places is part of why I find it comforting, because Discworld doesn't shy away from the fact that bad things happen and you have to just get on with it and the fact it's full of characters who are often kind of fed up with everything but still go and do the Right Thing anyway even if it's hard and I actually find that more comforting than if it was like 'Oh nothing bad ever happens' setting.

[onbearfeet]

It's also got a lot of non-fluffy cozy traits! While its primary genre is not mystery, a lot of the books overlap strongly with the cozy mystery genre. For example ...

Confined space, limited cast: A cozy mystery usually takes place in a small community with a limited pool of suspects, all of whom are known to the reader by the halfway point. The witch books often take place in a small village (obvious exceptions for Equal Rites and Witches Abroad). The Watch books take place in a pretty small area of Ankh-Mprpork with a recurring cast (except Thud! and Snuff, the latter of which takes place mostly in a village). Unseen University is a pretty closed setting, as are the various institutions Moist von Lipwig runs. Even the standalones can have that closed-circle feel, as with the unit in Monstrous Regiment and the newspaper office in The Truth.

Amateur protagonist: While this is usually an amateur sleuth in cozy mysteries, Pratchett really liked writing protagonists who were not really meant to be doing what they were doing. Yes, Sam Vimes is a professional copper, but he's not exactly a professional duke, and a lot of what the books ask him to do isn't really coppering (e.g. Night Watch). Susan is NOT a professional psychopomp. Moist is a professional con artist, but the fact that his con-artist skills apply to public service is part of the joke. Polly Perks is a bar manager turned soldier. William de Worde is inventing his profession as he goes, just like a number of others (Imp y Celyn, anyone?). The wizards are allegedly professional wizards, but they're quite obviously making things up as they go (cough cough Ponder Stibbons). The witches are really the only consistent professional protagonists we get.

Non-explicit violence and sexuality: Look, no series of books where a corpse is found in a condom factory can be said to be free of sex and violence, but it's not usually the point of the scene it's in. Sometimes it's a joke, as with Mr. Fusspot's favorite toy. Sometimes it's tender but mostly off-page, as with Angua and Carrot. Sometimes, yes, there's blood around, as at the torture room in Cable Street and the crime scene in Thud. But it's very rarely described in graphic detail—often, as with the orc flashback in Unseen Academicals, it's no more than absolutely necessary to establish a key fact. Nobody reads Discworld for the explicit bits.

Cozy doesn't mean nice. It mostly just means not hardboiled. And Terry Pratchett knew his way around hardboiled, but he used it strategically—mostly to make us all tear up over an egg.

[elodieunderglass]

Four things that I try to take forward from Terry Pratchett, when crafting cosy-feeling material with a bite:

1. You can - more or less - trust me. Sometimes I’m arch or flippant or frivolous. Sometimes I’m in a bad mood. Sometimes I’m catty, often sarcastic, and quite often motivated by spite or rage. But I am not seeking to betray you. My writing may hurt - often, what I want to write about is hurtful. But I don’t want to harm you. I am not here to be a bully. I derive no pleasure and no power from being an asshole. Since you know that? You can relax. You can trust me.

2. I like you. I am not the enemy of my readers. I am glad you are here. I like you and want you to be well. I believe in you. I also trust you a lot. I trust that if I write about things that are uncomfortable, you’ll come with me. But most of all, I trust you in return: if I fuck up, you’ll forgive me. This makes me braver than writers who have to cringe in fear.

3. Someone has to be the grownup (and I hate it when it’s me.) Terry Pratchett often wrote from the perspective of being the adultiest-adult in the room. He was a partner, a parent, a member of his community. He had earned wisdom to draw on. Reflecting strong experiences and lived character is a true, vital, brave characteristic of a powerful writer, and it shines. It isn’t just about “writing children accurately” or “writing old people on purpose” but that’s a hallmark of someone strong and brave; someone who has experienced enough of life to understand the interiority of other people. I might not be the best at this, but I try. The effect, at first glance, is cozy and lived-in. Zoomed out, you realise that such rich, rewarding textures tend to come from people with rich minds.

4. It’s fucking funny. That’s ultimately it. That’s where people fall down when they try too hard - they’re not funny. That’s why viral posts do well - they’re funny. That’s why a lie can run around the world before the truth has got its boots on - the lie is funny. Wherever possible, Pratchett was funny. Where he couldn’t be funny, he at least had the craftsmanship to be witty. Because people like to laugh, his work will create a good feeling in the reader, no matter how heavy the material.

Rich and funny stuff tends to have high re-read value, which makes it VERY cosy indeed. If it’s also trustworthy and wise, it will become a treasure over time.

I’m not claiming to live up to any of this, but if I ever get into a hole or corner, I try to remember how to be brave and funny and true, and I often get out of it that way.

[shanlonwrites]

I think another part of what makes Discworld feel cozy is Death.

Pratchett rarely kills characters we get a chance to know intimately, but when he does, they don’t quite disappear into unknown. They are greeted by Death, himself a funny, if stoic, character, who often greets them with his own sort of levity. It’s comforting to know that, when these characters do die, they are not alone. We get one last glimpse of them, and they are generally content.

[icantspellthings]

Im sorry but it is so funny how people outside of tumblr view us. Like why are the tiktokers treating tumblr like some professional ass website you need to do extensive prep before you begin posting on. And the follower farming advice is so fucking funny to me when this is the website where people actively hate getting new followers

[queen-of-hobgobblers]

Tumblr is the website where you ramble to yourself like a madman until someone decides they like you and put you into their pocket like a shiny rock. That's how you get followers

[shanlonwrites]

Other social media are advertising platforms, meaning you can make money and potentially even a career posting content there. Tumblr is not.

Tumblr is what the internet used to feel like when we were all here just for fun, and not to hustle.

It's fun here! There's no pressure.

[rtz669]

guys what's your methods? personally i think about doctors examining me, works like a charm

[shanlonwrites]

When I was a kid and something made me so anxious I couldn’t focus on daydreaming myself to sleep, I’d imagine building a brick wall between myself and the scary thing, one brick at a time, spreading out the mortar. I still use that trick sometimes!

Normally I just imagine characters in scenarios. Whatever I’m feeling.

Never myself doing things though… can’t do that… nor can I imagine other real people, only characters, weirdly.

[thebibliosphere]

I feel like I’ve lamented this before but why is my local thrift store pricing things at $25 minimum for stuff that’s $15 at Target and tjmaxx, like what the fuck. Some of them still have the original labels attached.

I’m going to start biting.

[thebibliosphere]

Trying to find an additional utensil holder that’ll fit the stuff I need for baking but also fit the vibe of my kitchen and fuck it. I’m just going to use a giant ass mason jar.

At least then it’s recyclable and I can yeet it in the dishwasher/use it to make other things if I ever need a giant ass jar of jam.

[shanlonwrites]

Might I also suggest: decorative plant pot?

My partner gifted me an orchid in a delightful pink pot, and when the orchid inevitably died I started using the pot as my utensil holder. It matches my pink coffee maker beautifully and holds all my utensils I need! Dishwasher safe and all.

Of course this only works if you happen to have a spare decorative plant pot lying around.

[gothhabiba]

ah yes, my favourite foreign language feel, “I know what all of those words mean individually but not together like that”

[wunderhorntanz]

not to forget its twin “i know (roughly) what you’re saying, but what are those words?”

[blagdogs-tveiter-tot]

Plus the secret triplet “I managed to get your drift but I don’t know how to answer you”.

[linguini17]

And the unwanted stepchild “I practiced this interaction but you’re not sticking to the script”

[shanlonwrites]

The one night stand “I don’t speak this language, I have never studied this language, it is not spoken near me, but somehow I have picked up enough of it to understand exactly what you just said.”

[infamouslydorky]

The fact that Sherlock Holmes in the books canonically doesn’t believe that the Earth revolves around the Sun is friggin wild

[infamouslydorky]

[apathetic-revenant]

this is perhaps the single greatest example of the level of shit Watson has to put up with on a regular basis

[july-19th-club]

og sherlock holmes is ten times funnier than any adaptation I’ve ever seen any time someone tries to educate him he goes ‘no no no now I have that in my BRAIN forget that shit immediately’ bc he’s afraid that if he learns about stuff he doesn’t care about, he’ll use up all his focus and attention on it whether he wants to or not and forget stuff about crime, which is both insanely funny and also deeply relatable to me

[shanlonwrites]

What's even funnier is, if memory serves, knowing that the earth revolves around the sun was actually key to cracking that case. Something something shadows at different times of year?

[kooldewd123]

actually the craziest impact animorphs has had on me is that i never really got an urge to eat cinnamon buns from reading them BUT the phrase "the refreshing beverage known as vinegar" has forced its way into my head every other week for years to try and convince me it would be a good idea to chug a whole glass of it

[kooldewd123]

tyhe voices in my head are gettinh louder

[sarifel-corrisafid-ilxhel]

Vinegar is what we used to use as the acid in our sodas before we switched to Carbonated Water in the 19th century, and vinegar-based sodas trace their roots all the way back to the Bronze Age Meditteranean! The Romans called it Posca! The Ottomans adopted it from the Romans and called it Sharab, which means "Drink", and then American colonists acquired the recipe from the Ottomans in the 17th century and changed the name to Shrub!

There's a famous example of Posca that most people misremember because we don't drink Vinegar much anymore. If you're familiar with the Crucifixion of Jesus in the Bible, you probably remember the bit about the Roman soldier offering Jesus a sponge full of vinegar to drink. Most people think the Roman dude was mocking Jesus, but that's wrong. That was a sponge full of Posca. The Roman dude was like "Well this sucks. Want a Sprite?"

...Fun fact, I know this because the phrase "Refreshing Beverage known as Vinegar" got stuck in my head one night at work, and I started googling "Does anybody drink vinegar". I had to know. It turns out the answer is yes! And you can still find vinegar-based soft drinks today! Switchel is a vinegar-and-ginger drink you can find at some bars in the US, and it goes back to pre-carbonated soft drinks.

Also, I know several people who drink pickle juice regularly, and white vinegar is a key component of pickle juice! So that's also where vinegar as a drink can pop up in your day to day life.

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

There's also a trendy New Age beverage called fire cider that's literally just vinegar, cinnamon, spice, and pretensions. RIP Ax, you would've loved the fire cider craze.

[kooldewd123]

op here. imagine how i feel. i've been dealing with this propaganda in my notifications all week.

[rfpreiwaphase]

@copperbadge i'm going to cross-wire this to your corner and see what happens.

[copperbadge]

oh yes -- before I had surgery to fix the problem I used to get terrible headaches when my sinus passages would get inflamed and swell shut. Often the inflammation was from dehydration, and when it was I could drink posca and get some relief, since it rehydrates faster than plain water and takes the swelling down.

My recipe was a shot glass's worth of vinegar, a spoonful of sugar, and a pinch of salt, then top off with 16-20 oz of water. Tastes kind of lemony, very nice.

[shanlonwrites]

Oo! I made this once!

We once threw a double birthday party for two friends who happen not to drink alcohol, and so I was like, what is a nice, refreshing summer drink I can make that isn't just sugary mocktail, pop, or juice? Something a little more grown up and complex, but not boozy.

I made watermelon shrub! It was quite delightful. It involved blending up some watermelon, adding lime juice, I think it was rice vinegar? or cider vinegar?, and sugar, and then you would dilute it over ice. Made a really nice change from the usual sugary stuff or same-old bubbly waters.

[thefloralmenace]

So this was inspired by a discussion I had with a friend yesterday.

It started with me mentioning offhand that once upon a time, I had considered arguing with my university that they should publicly post their class schedules because technically, anyone is allowed to sit in on a class, but that's practically blocked off from the community by virtue of them not having access to when and where the courses are happening.

He immediately pulled up a public-facing version of the course scheduling system that I never knew existed and said something like "If people really wanted that information, they could find it."

Information accessibility is a big deal to me, so then I started to explain that "not knowing what you don't know" and the vast amount of info people have to sift through are real barriers to people obtaining information and also that "This doesn't exist," and "I can't find it," look exactly the same, so if people can't find something, they will eventually give up because of diminishing returns on the effort of looking for something that may not exist.

But he just kept saying different versions of "Well if people REALLY wanted it, they'd go find it," which really surprised me because he's liberal, very intelligent and very into philosophy, but he couldn't seem to see the logical end result of a philosophy about information access that basically comes down to "pull yourself up by the bootstraps (and if you can't, you didn't deserve to succeed)."

So he went on this rant about how the general public should simply know almost all information is out there and put in the effort to find it (without any outreach or effort to engage the public on this), and I said,

"You will be perpetually angry at how unmotivated and badly informed the public is with your current attitude. And it will never improve without people who do not have your attitude. This is the reality you are doomed to because of this perspective. It's neither good nor bad. I'm not faulting you for it, but no matter what you have to say to justify your perspective, this will always be the result."

Because any "BUT THE WORLD WOULD BE BETTER IF PEOPLE WOULD JUST ____" philosophy is USELESS if you expect "people" (i.e. the public at large) to spontaneously start or stop doing something without some kind of outside effort - an outreach campaign, an educational movement, an incentive, etc.

If you're falling into those kind of thought patterns, it's not going to be productive for you or society because you're always going to be mad, and you're never going to do anything to change the things that make you mad because you're too caught up in your own feelings of indignance and frustration.

[loki-zen]

The moment I knew the new management company for my flats was gonna be worthless was when they put out an email saying something like

"Do not pile rubbish bags on top of the big outside trash containers when they're full already! They can fall off and split open and what if we get rats, yuck."

... with no mention whatsoever of what they expect people to do instead, nevermind the self-awareness to consider that if this is a regular problem, you probably don't have enough trash containers.

I only worked for a bit over a year in the kinds of library job where I have any real role in managing the space that the users are in, but even that was enough for me to learn: if there's trash on the shelves/floor and you want there to not be, you don't just scold people or put up a sign telling them not to do that. You put a bin in that area.

The kinda problem you're talking about at the university is actually a big deal in library and information science, it's called "discoverability". If resources aren't discoverable by users it doesn't matter how good they are! And so we study this whole field of 'information-seeking behaviour' to try to figure out how to make sure people do find what they need

[shanlonwrites]

I do this for a living in the digital space! Organize sitemaps to help users find the information they are looking for, and simultaneously help businesses promote the information they want users to find and engage with.

And I find myself increasingly interested in how physical spaces accomplish the same thing as informational spaces, and how they affect one another.

We moved not too long ago, and in our new home, I do fewer of the hobbies I love. There are other things going on with my health that are impacting this, but largely I find it's the layout of the building. It's just not as easy for me to engage with those hobbies because I no longer have a centralized location where all the materials are accessible. They're scattered, difficult to gather, and split between floors. If I really want to engage more with my hobbies, I will need to reorganize my home, so that those materials have a shared place with space to pull them out and use them.

Information, behaviour, it's all impacted strongly by our surroundings. "Oh, if you really wanted to sew, you would!" Yes. I would. I have! But I lose interest faster, don't pick it up again, because the materials I need for the next step are...somewhere on the top floor. But I'm working on the bottom floor. And in-between, the living room is super cozy and pleasant, so I watch TV and doomscroll instead. Not healthy.

Our environments have such an impact on our lives! Walkable neighbourhoods encourage greater interactions between neighbours and stronger communities. A result of that is usually more awareness of what's happening in your area, what problems your neighbours face, what people are thinking, what you might have missed.

Honestly I think we need to get ourselves off the internet to allow ourselves to run into that information organically. It's increasingly skewed, and with recent events stands to be incredibly tightly censored within weeks if not years. We won't know anything reliably unless we get out into the physical world: print news. Chats with neighbours. Town halls.

[newsfromstolenland]

B.C. man’s sasquatch-seeking expeditions used against him in spousal support case

A man’s ongoing efforts to track down the elusive sasquatch in remote areas of British Columbia suggest he’s capable of working, and therefo

A man’s ongoing efforts to track down the elusive sasquatch in remote areas of British Columbia suggest he’s capable of working, and therefore not entitled to spousal support, a judge has ruled.

The unusual circumstances were detailed in a recent divorce decision handed down in B.C. Supreme Court, which makes multiple references to the 57-year-old’s sasquatch-seeking expeditions.

It was one such venture that led to the couple’s separation in August 2020.

His wife told the court he went on a camping trip on Vancouver Island that month in search of the mythical ape-like creature – and brought along an ex-girlfriend without telling her.

“The respondent was extremely upset by this,” Justice Robin Baird wrote, in his Jan. 17 decision.

“Before the claimant returned home she fired off a text to him declaring that their marriage was over, and she never changed her mind.”

The husband’s claim for spousal support also hinged on him being unable to work due to a mishap that occurred during a previous sasquatch outing years earlier.

[...]

But Baird was ultimately not convinced the husband was left “totally disabled” by the accident, or that he “cannot earn income from employment of some kind or other” – partly because of his ongoing sasquatch-related endeavours.

“The claimant continues to enjoy camping, fishing, hunting, riding ‘quad’ motorcycles, and exploring remote areas of B.C. in search of sasquatch,” the judge wrote.

Full article

Tagging: @allthecanadianpolitics

[shanlonwrites]

Oh, we had a good laugh reading this one.

[apersnicketylemon]

Remember kids! NEVER save left-over antibiotics! You should never have leftover antibiotics, because you have to finish the whole course! Not doing so, or giving your antibiotics to someone else who hasn’t been prescribed them is how we got superbugs, that are resistant to antibiotics! 

ALWAYS finish your antibiotics, even if you don’t think you’re sick anymore! NEVER give your antibiotics to other people, there is no guaruntee they will have any effect, or the same effect, and without a full course, will not help them even if it is the right medicine for the job. 

BOTH cases result in resistant superbugs, which are dangerous to everyone, and hurt everyone. You might think you’re helping your poorer friends who cannot afford an antibiotic/to be seen by a doctor, but you’re not. You’re just hurting everyone. 

[apersnicketylemon]

Medicine that treats symptoms and painkillers are not antibiotics! Please stop bringing these up! 

I am talking ONLY ABOUT ANTIBIOTICS ON THIS POST, please, please stop adding in about drugs that are not antibiotics on a post about specifically antibiotics! ONLY antibiotics cause super-bugs when taken incorrectly, medicine that alleviates symptoms, pain, or other things do not create super bugs, and I am not talking about them! Thanks!

[caitas-cooing]

Take antibiotics until they’re gone or your doctor tells you to stop.

[shanlonwrites]

I legitimately had a coworker in a former job tell me her two kids were feeling unwell, coming down with a cold, so she gave them some of her mom’s leftover antibiotics from ??? Some other illness???

I was horrified. There was just… so much danger there to unpack. She was a very involved, caring mother. Her kids were the world to her. She endangered them in multiple different ways by doing that. I told her not to, and why not to, but who knows if it stuck. Her mother taught her to do that. I’m just some schmoe at work.

I learned a very important lesson: Don’t assume people know anything about what antibiotics are, how they work, or how to safely take medicines.

I thought people knew. I thought they listened to doctors, pharmacists, PSAs, and read the safety information that came with their medicines. They. Do. Not.

[bookcub]

Cozy Fantasy and Why It Doesn't Work

I think I am among many who feel like they should love cozy fantasy and have found it an incredibly lacking genre.

This newly branded "cozy fantasy" genre that has taken readers by storm since 2020 and while it is new that books are now marketed as cozy, the genre itself isn't new. Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones is a great example of the genre before it was labeled and also how to make it work.

Cozy fantasy is defined by many as fantasy with low stakes. Fantasy aesthetic but less sword fights. On paper, it sounds great. But the execution has been less than stellar for readers like me. The lack of physical stakes has also impacted the emotional stakes of these books, creating forgettable characters with boring problems. As a romance reader, I find this frustrating. Romance is known for being a predictable and formulaic genre, the now defunct Romance Writers of America defined romances as needing happy endings, a term romances have continued to follow. Yet these romance texts manage to have low physical stakes (how to date your neighbor, how to confront your toxic friends, etc) while still maintaining high personal stakes that keep readers invested and begging for more. So I was initially confused why cozy fantasy authors struggle to write texts that connect to readers like me.

I think I have found the answer which is the genre is just here for vibes. It is all about aesthetic, not even worldbuilding that fantasy is known for as most cozy fantasy I read have so many problems as soon as you ask one question. It is hard to acknowledge that a genre that is pitched to work for readers like me doesn't work for many of us. Especially because occasionally there is one that works beautifully to my taste.

I often say my favorite cozy fantasies that are more contemporary are short and visual, which I plays into the idea of the genre being an aesthetic. The Bakery Dragon by Devin Elle Kurtz is a good example because it is a simple story that is given the perfect amount of pages and gorgeous visuals without dragging on when the message is very clear and easy to understand. Books like The Phoenix Keeper and Legends and Lattes have absolutely nothing for me, their very clear message hitting the reader over and over so the readers don't miss it and focusing on the aesthetic of worldbuilding rather than the reality of the fantastic elements within the world.

I guess my point is. . . I realize this genre isn't for me since I have realized it is more of an aesthetic than anything. .. .but I want it to be. Should I let it go and put my efforts elsewhere? Or should I keep exploring this new trend and find the hidden gems?

[logarithmicpanda]

I think you nailed it on the head but also:

So many cozy fantasies seem to do no work to make you like the characters. They feel like the epilogue to another story, or like fanfic in the sense that you're expected to already care about these people, but they're skipping the leg work to get you there.

Legends and lattes worked for me mostly because I had fun with the exploration of how a fantasy setting would reinvent a coffee shop. It also felt a bit like a videogame, delimiting tasks and creating new, small problems each time one goal was reached. Which is to say, it appealed to the part of my brain that likes puzzles, but failed to reach me with its characters. I don't remember a single thing about the love interest aside what she looks like on the cover lol

Stories with high stakes immediately make you see what your character cares about: justice for murdered parents, saving their home from the armies of evil, and so on. In low stakes fantasies, you're handed a character whose values are just the bland goodness people pretty much universally strive for. It makes them both forgettable and unremarkable. And a story that has no plot and very little worldbuilding cannot afford to have weak protagonists on top of it.

Which honestly might bring me back to my main theory of what makes a story good: it's a balancing act of Plot, Worldbuilding, Characters, and usually the stronger a book is in one of these aspects, the more likely I am to overlook flaws in the others. But by definition, cozy fantasy starts off with only two of these, so it makes it all the more important and unforgivable when an aspect is weak. Its like trying to build a stool with two legs.

[ariaste]

Hello, professional author here, I have a *slight* tweak of a suggestion to offer, or an alternate take from a slightly different perspective. First, I 100% agree with the meat of what you're both saying here, and I absolutely share your frustrations with the genre of cozy fantasy as a whole -- so many of them have something going wrong with the engine of the story. The car won't start. You turn the ignition and all you get out of it is a weak grumbling. So what's happening here from a mechanical perspective?

We're talking about cozy fantasy being "low stakes", and that's certainly how it bills itself. But low stakes are not the source of the problem -- there are plenty of stories/movies/tv shows with very low stakes that we still enjoy watching! Great British Bake Off, for example. The stakes are only "Will the cake come out right" and "how will the judges react". Right? Those are low stakes! The world is not ending, society is not in danger of crumbling to pieces, there is no great battle between Good and Evil for the fate of all humanity. But we watch GBBO and we're ENRAPTURED. We're INVESTED. Why?

Not because of the stakes, but because of the tension.

wait hang on i need to say this in the loud font because it's crucially important

IT'S BECAUSE OF THE TENSION

Both readers and apprentice writers often confuse "stakes" and "tension" because, frankly, increasing the stakes is often a cheap and easy way to increase the tension. Here's the difference, just to make sure we're all on the same page: Stakes are an external, objective thing -- "will the cake come out right, how will the judges react" -- but tension is internal. It is the pull between two things: On one hand, how much this contestant wants to win, how hard they've been trying, how emotional they're getting about a mishap, and our knowledge from an earlier episode about how their mum always believed in them and how they've struggled to believe in themself but since making it onto GBBO they've been thinking that maybe... maybe they can believe in themself.

And what's pulling from the other side is: How their nervousness and lack of confidence is causing them to make mistakes; how we as the audience don't know whether this challenging thing they're trying is going to turn out well; how they're ever going to recover from a cataclysm like forgetting to turn the oven on; whether they could do their absolute best and try so so so SO HARD and it might not make any difference because the other contestants also were all trying their hardest.

Man, I don't know about you, but even just as I was writing that out, my heart was in my throat and I was getting a little choked up.

THAT'S tension. And that's what a lot of cozy fantasy is lacking, because they say "low stakes" and they think that stakes and tension are the same thing, and so they forget that YOU STILL HAVE TO MAKE YOUR CHARACTERS CARE PASSIONATELY IF YOU WANT THE READER TO HAVE ANYTHING THAT THEY CARE ABOUT. As readers, we care when the character has something that really, really, REALLY matters to them. We literally cannot help it -- look up "mirror neurons" if you want the neuroscience explanation for why we literally cannot help it.

High stakes is a cheap cheat code to tension because something like "We have to save the world to keep the Dark Lord from invading the kingdom and slaughtering everyone" is sort of self-explanatory about why it matters. Ah, yes, We Don't Want To Be Slaughtered. Got it. No explanation necessary. You can get away with not really showing whether it matters to the character, because the audience just naturally ASSUMES that it's a Good and Important thing to be doing.

You can't get away with cutting corners like that if you're doing low stakes. Here, look:

High stakes & high tension = Think Mad Max: Fury Road. It is a LOT and you can't look away but you might feel sort of exhausted afterwards and need a nap.

High stakes & low tension = Many Marvel films. Sure ok yeah we're saving the world, that's fun, whatever. Probably saving the world is a good thing to do so that's fine

Low stakes & high tension = GBBO as previously mentioned. Also pretty much any sport (sorry, sports fans, but "will they win the big game" is not high stakes, it just SEEMS like high stakes because of ow much you care about it -- which is TENSION!!!) You will be on the edge of your seat, you will be crying about how amazingly well that border collie/papillon mix did in the agility course.

Low stakes & low tension: Legends & Lattes. Probably if Plan A doesn't work out, the character could just wander off and try Plan B and it wouldn't be that personally upsetting.

So that's my two cents on where a lot of cozy fantasy is going wrong. And like, I can kind of see where my colleagues are coming from and why books like this keep being produced these days??? Like the pandemic really fucked up everybody, and so many of us are incredibly burned out and running on fumes... And so sometimes it feels impossibly challenging to write any book except one where nothing bad happens and nothing is in danger and nobody is really bothered or worried about anything and everything is mostly fine and there aren't any major setbacks.....

But that leaves readers cold. And frankly, I don't feel like it does much of anything to nourish either our souls or theirs. It feels like eating a bag of potato chips for dinner instead of going to the effort of even just heating up a frozen dinner that has a vegetable in it.

idk, man. I've taught university classes about this shit, but what do I know. Maybe I'm talking out of my ass. (Also, if you would like an example of cozy fantasy where it really fucking matters to the person going through it, may I humbly suggest Yield Under Great Persuasion? I wrote it partially as an illustration of how there's a difference between Stakes and Tension. :D)

[hyba]

This is all super interesting and I recommend you read it especially for the tension bit because it's so critical 👆👆👆 But the whole conversation has me wondering about something I saw floating around recently about whether it would be feasible to write cozy horror.

I think I understand the idea of cozy horror, but like someone said with cozy fantasy up above, my initial reaction was that it would to some extent be about vibes. An aesthetic piece. With a lot of horror the stakes are high, so 🤔 I'm wondering just how possible it would be to write cozy horror and still have it be horror 👁👁 I don't know if cozy can be applied to all genres, or at least, if it can be applied and still keep the essence of that genre.

[shanlonwrites]

I recently read a cozy fantasy, and I enjoyed it, but I was always struck with the poor technique. Characters outright state everything. We are reminded every five seconds of the traits of the characters instead of allowing the characters to demonstrate those traits. It felt like the author didn't trust the reader. It felt...well, a lot like mediocre fanfiction. One of the points above: it felt like we were both expected to already know and relate to the characters, while also being beat over the head with telling.

I still enjoyed the book! There were big external stakes in this one, but the prose took time to be slow and gentle in more personal areas, and I enjoyed that. I liked the balance. It was poorly constructed, poorly executed, but I could see the diamond in the rough (and technique improved through the course of the book). There was also some tension, even if I knew everything had to turn out okay in the end because of the genre. But that was part of the comfort of reading it: the world is incredibly distressing right now, so I want to know everything will turn out just fine even if there are exciting bumps in the road on the way.

So I think I can see where cozy horror would fit!

That feeling of safety is, I think, very important in cozy genres. It's why cozy whodunits took off after WWII: the victim is never very well defined for the audience, and the events play out with low stakes, relying on the combination of mystery, and exploration of tension between the characters, to drive interest. But we know that, in the end, Miss Marple, or Poirot, or Nancy Drew, will succeed. They have to. That's the safety of the genre. And that can make cozy horror difficult, but I don't think impossible!

Horror often comes with high stakes, but the very best horror is more about tension. If it's all-stakes-low-tension, that's an action plot! So to me, a cozy horror would focus more on the psychological, less on life-or-death, and will have an ending that feels safe: if characters die, they aren't the ones we've come to feel attached to, and we can rest easy knowing that.

One source of possible cozy horror is the collaborative SCP Foundation project! There are so many different stories, only a few would fit "cozy horror", but I do think SCP-3004 might fit the bill. We know from the very beginning of the file that this is no longer a threat, it is neutralized, but the stories contained in the attached files are chilling and fascinating. There's a distressing question at the heart of the story, which the best horror often has, and no clear answer to that, though we can still feel safe even while exploring the horror contained.

I also have to wonder: Does House of Leaves fit into cozy horror?

Or maybe I'm too much of a horror fan to the point I find found footage genre to be...kind of cozy by nature. I don't know! But it's really interesting! :)