Welcome!

just a nonbinary simultaneously vibing and stressed out

[umbreonpanda]

 they/them ||

hello!! i go by panda, if you called me umbreon or anything else, i would probably not answer you. i’m 22 years old and my pronouns are they/them. i am bilingual, vietnamese/english. i am very terrible with grammar and is still working on it. 

since my blog is 18+, i will occasionally reblog nsfw posts. i would add a masterlist but since im not sure how to do it. good luck with finding my writing.

> got a trigger? please block any tags that have up {tw:}

[bee-in-your-binnet]

Literally amazing that there’s a predator that goes “mrrp” and you’re allowed to have one in your house

[hijennyt]

Rookanis Leyendecker study for @datvcompanionweeks Lucanis week! After all, it is the Year of the Horse. Hope it's ok to use that free day prompt a little early~ Instagram inprnt

[assiraphales]

ok so apparently in celebration of the 250th anniversary of paul revere’s ride this was projected onto a church in boston??

[xiaq]

“A church”?? That’s Old North Church! That’s THE church where the lanterns were lit.

[massachusetts-official]

Official Post of Massachusetts

[archivearchangelica]

Access for 10 ants only, 2006

[moleshow]

[ladythatsmyskull]

[nitpickspot]

So, what you're saying is, under no circumstances should we be reposting the above image as much as humanly possible?

[aqueerkettleofish]

Well, we should certainly make sure that everyone knows about this image, or how will they know not to post it? It's not like "That image of Musk looking like a Nazi" would narrow it down.

[snejkha]

Reference sheet for canarycreates on bsky// Thank you so much again//

[captainofthetidesbreath]

Quite honestly, very much am not a fan of one of the Mandalorian sayings Karen Traviss wrote in Legacy of the Force: Bloodlines

Ke barjurir gar’ade, jagyc’ade kot’la a dalyc’ade kotla’shya. Train your sons to be strong but your daughters to be stronger. lit. “Raise your children, male children strong but female children stronger.”

Like, well, firstly, before we get into the important issue, my minor quibble: barjurir bothers me. It’s not conjugated when it should be. And, it seems misspelled; in other places, to educate or to raise children is not barjurir, it’s ba’jurir, note there’s only two r’s, not three (as a noun, bajur, and the beten is, well, whatever). It’s silly to argue with Traviss about a language she invented, and silly to get hung up when the language isn’t overly stringent on its grammar rules, but by the few she created, it should be actually: ke ba’juri…

The more pressing issue, however, this nonsense about raising sons and daughters differently. Like, it annoys me so much that Traviss wrote (expositionally) that Mandalorians do not have traditional gender roles, or any sort of gender roles, and yet she continues to do things like this. (I will not start on RepComm, most especially ImpComm right now.) It’s even just weird, generally, when their language itself doesn’t even typically have gender. The pronouns and nouns are all gender neutral. Their adjectives male and female are used only when very strictly necessary; so, frankly, like never. It just baffles me how she can write such a saying while simultaneously trying to say that there is complete gender equality in Mandalorian culture.

I suppose it comes across to some as odd that I’m complaining about something that is apparently upholding Mandalorian women as the stronger. Well, it rubs me a little wrong because it implies that women are inherently not as strong, so they have to be trained to be stronger? Or something to that effect. I’m also not really about false flag Strong Women™ who are really just considered Strong™ because they are “like men”.

And, I’m just not really expressing myself well on this score, but that quote has always bothered me. Because, like, it’s baffling to me that Mandalorians would even treat their children differently based on gender. (Also, lmao, at least, gender binary problems here.) And it also implies to me a bunch of weird things. And, I just don’t like it.

[izzyovercoffee]

Sometimes I struggle with things that KT produced because it just does not fit into the world building she already produced, and this saying is one of the major, major times — as far as mando’a goes.

Like … in the past, and even now, my brain struggles to process this phrase within the context of mandalorian culture as it is developed, written, and shown … and the only time I can make sense of it is within the context of a society that, while they don’t recognize gender, recognize the role that gender plays in a larger society actively trying to snuff them out.

Because how many instances have we seen of societies that don’t follow or recognize a gender binary have people within those cultures face extreme hardship and violence for failing to adhere to strict gender roles of the more powerful societies they have to navigate? In this case, navigating the Republic as the Republic clearly have gender roles that are expected to be followed.

So then is this phrase meant to indicate a raising of children based on surviving a harsher galaxy where they may not always be able or allowed to be who they are? Can it be? Is that something we can twist the original toxic meaning to allow it to become?

But even so, it still causes a rift — discordance in what is mandalorian (not recognizing gender) and what isn’t (emphasizing specific gender binary). 

Even more insidiously, it demonizes weakness and softness in it’s implied condemnation of “not strong,” — it’s an important mechanism to perpetuate toxic masculinity while under the “innocent” guise of empowering women. And if a daughter is not strong, is that her failing, or her parents? Her family’s? If she then comes to be hurt in some way, is it because she was not strong enough? Is it then her fault?

Victim blaming is insidious, and easily stems from common phrases that were so innocuous on first glance. Then there’s a lot to be said about this phrase and it’s purpose in the grand scheme of things as KT writes mandalorians — that is, there’s a lot of female-coded labor that is purely expected and hoisted onto the shoulders of all the women that she writes, and to a degree that renders her female characters not as individuals with autonomy but servants to perform that labor that “of course” the men can’t (emotional labor,  “housekeeping” and “cooking/cleaning” that’s traditionally coded as “women’s jobs”). The woman is expected to act as the foundation and hold up the clan, and it is ultimately a thankless job that can (and often is) taken for granted.

I’m really concerned about the demonization of “not strong” as a serious issue, not just because traditional femininity is coded as soft and fragile, but that the idea of a person being soft and fragile is no longer someone deserving respect — and that is something that leads to dehumanization, and abuse. 

And for a series that so carefully emphasizes that Mandalorians mark helmets to indicate disabilities as both a badge and a quick forewarning to prepare the person who approaches of any issues so that they can accommodate any disabilities, why then have a phrase that flies in the face of that kind of mindset and culture? Because having a disability is usually coded as not strong, especially when they are not “earned in battle,” ie another facet of the toxic meaning of strength. 

Or is it a different kind of strength, and thus our translation is then lacking? Not strong in the physical brutal way, but strong in the way that it means to survive anything? Because even weak, fragile things can and do survive in the face of adversity — and is that something that we can then use to restructure the phrase, to give it an alternative meaning or connotation that translates more appropriately?

I think of, sometimes, a flower growing upwards through cracks of concrete. A visual metaphor of strength and the survival of something simultaneously fragile and vulnerable and yet strong enough to erode what was once solid and whole and suffocating. 

[sithness]

When I am writing, massive societal hypocrisy is the only way I can square the circle that is the Mandalorian people according to KT (and Disney, too). And that’s okay. Societies are hypocritical. People often do not live up to the values they purport to hold.

[thedogeveryonehates]

new fav video just dropped

[tgatbc]

[armengoldira]

[blacklicoriceaddict]

[bevsi]

”this file type is not supported” umm grow up?

[longnuts]

Your ass is getting opened in notepad

[fuckyeahchinesefashion]

OP: Why couldn’t traditional Chinese Yinpiao银票/silver drafts be forged if they were merely slips of paper? (cr大明宝钞，渐越)

Traditional Chinese yinpiao/silver drafts were paper vouchers issued by private banks starting from the Song Dynasty(960–1279). People could exchange these slips for physical silver at bank branches across the country.

Silver drafts were made in multiple copies with matching serrated seal edges. One copy went to the customer and others stayed at the bank. All edges had to fit perfectly together to withdraw silver. The unique split edge marks were almost impossible to copy.

This mechanism is known as qifeng骑缝 (split-joint seal) in China. It first originated in the Western Zhou Dynasty (1046–771 BC). The Rites of Zhou records that contracts were written on bamboo or wooden slips in duplicate. Notches and marks were carved in the middle before splitting the slips, with each party keeping one half. The two halves would be matched by their notches for verification.

During the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods (770–221 BC), this idea evolved into hufu虎符/tiger tally tokens. A military tally was split into two pieces with identical inscriptions carved along the split edge. Troops could only be deployed if the patterns and characters on both halves perfectly aligned, serving as a metal version of the split-joint anti-counterfeiting system.

The technology matured in the Tang Dynasty (618–907). Government documents and private contracts commonly used split-joint seals stamped across the dividing line. The Chinese character "hetong合同" (contract) was written across the middle before the paper was torn apart, so the complete characters would only appear when the two halves were put together. This split-coupon system was later adopted for Song Dynasty (960–1279) jiaozi paper money and yinpiao/silver drafts of the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368–1912).

Official Song dynasty paper money (Jiaozi交子) was abolished in 1107. Private silver drafts issued by Qing-era piaohao票行 (ancient exchange banks) vanished completely in 1951, hit hard by modern banks and currency reforms. Nowadays silver drafts no longer circulate as currency. Their collectible value depends on their rarity and physical condition.

Split-joint seals (骑缝章qifengzhang)are still widely used on important paper documents in modern China, an anti-tampering technique passed down from ancient times. They are applied across the edge of multi-page contracts, bidding documents and official archives. If any page is removed or replaced, the broken seal pattern can prove the file has been altered.

[ariaste]

OMG I got so excited about this because they used a really similar (though far less refined) version of this for contracts in the European medieval period!

First they were called "chirographs", but later the word "indenture" (in its earliest meaning as just a legal document of any kind between two people) came to be used, originating from the practice of a contract being written twice on a single piece of parchment and then cut in half with serrated edges (as in dent, "teeth" -> indents -> indenture) in order for each party to take one half, so they could later piece them together and verify that there had been no forgery -- same as the Chinese silver drafts!

(Charter of the Clerecía de Ledesma, 1252, showing the serrated indents at the top -- presumably they are cutting rather than tearing because they're using parchment, which I expect is much harder to tear than wood-pulp paper like the Chinese were using)

Delights me when human beings find similar ways to solve the same problem at two different ends of the world. <3

[angel-derangement]

“we live in an uncaring universe” yeah dude and I live in an uncaring house. and I shit in an uncaring toilet. but do you touch an uncaring lover? do you comfort an uncaring child? do you guide to sleep each night a cold and uncaring self?

[halicablissoutv11]

2010

[scarlettaagni]

so i think the solution is to give dachshunds a third pair of legs right in the middle