梅干しモノローグ

ＵＭＥＢＯＳＨＩ　ＭＯＮＯＬＯＧＵＥ

[loreleywrites]

you solve the mystery of what to have for dinner one night and you think "hell yeah case closed forever" WRONG there is a dinner mystery the next night too

[biglawbear]

I finished reading The Lord of the Rings for the first time in my life. With all of *vague gesture at everything* this going on.

I Am Not Okay

[biglawbear]

You have to understand. I watched the movies maybe once as a kid when they came out twenty years ago. I've somehow avoided learning like anything about these books my entire life. Literally everything about these books was a complete unknown and surprise to me. Totally blank slate going on. I barely even knew how it ended.

Holy shit.

[biglawbear]

Frodo didn't complete his task. Sam literally carried him up Mount Doom. And when he got to the end, he couldn't throw the Ring away.

But for Gollum biting it off with his finger, it wouldn't have been destroyed.

So Frodo's journey saved the world nonetheless.

And it broke him.

It was too much for him to bear. He could no longer live in the Shire or live in Middle-Earth. He wasn't of the world anymore. He had to go to the Undying Lands.

He took on the task that no one else would. He saved the world. Everyone got a happy ending. Aragorn became King, Sam rebuilt the Shire, Merry and Pippin became heroes. They all lived in renown.

But Frodo had the hardest task of all. No one else would do it. A simple hobbit who came by the Ring by chance. Not a King, not an immortal. Not a wizard. No power save his will and his friends. And he did it and saved everyone.

And he never got to rest. He never got to remain in peace. The task destroyed him. It was too much.

But there was no other way. Nobody but a simple hobbit could bear the ring all the way to Mount Doom and resist its power so long. Not a man, not an elf, not a wizard; they would have succumbed. Gandalf knew this, which was why he chose the hobbits in all his designs.

It's amazing that one of the precedent setting works in the fantasy genre holds up so well because it subverts what ultimately became the genre's core tropes. The hero was not the King, or a chosen one. In fact, the hero not being the King was a key point that allowed Aragorn to distract Sauron and allow the task in the first place. The hero was someone unassuming but courageous, who did the thing because no one else would, even though it was just by chance he came upon it.

But Frodo couldn't resist the Ring completely. He wasn't superior to anyone else in that way. And in the end it left him broken. The burden crushed him. No one else could do it, and in the end, he couldn't either. He wasn't so special that he was invulnerable.

I'm not okay. Holy fuck you guys.

[biglawbear]

It's been a week and I'm still not over this, I'll never get over this.

Something that I've been thinking about, as I struggle with depression and anxiety and *another vague gesture at everything* is that LOTR does not criticize Frodo for being broken. It does not shame him or deny him what he needs.

The task was too much and it broke him and that's okay. His friends nonetheless take care of him and let him go with understanding. The book doesn't treat it as a bad thing.

This seems to be a theme throughout the books. The characters rest and heal. They spend time recovering in Rivendell, Fangorn, Lorien, Ithilien. It's treated as good and necessary. They don't heroically endure endless torment from the second they set out until they're done.

And in Gondor's march from Minas Tirith to Mordor, Aragorn recognizes that some of the very few men he's taking with him don't have the heart to go to battle against the Enemy. And he says that's okay. He gives them other tasks the they can do. They hold other strategic points. They aren't shamed for not going all the way, or kicked out, or told that they aren't manly or whatever. Their limitations are recognized and respected. The task was too big and it was okay that they couldn't do it.

I don't know man. I've held on through some absolutely crazy shit. White knuckled through mental health crises when my doctors were begging me to take a break, to go to the hospital before I hurt myself. My therapist has tried to slow me down and tell me that I've been going through it and it's understandable that I am feeling some kind of way. Even one of my colleagues remarked that I've had an absolutely fucking wild career and that I've seen more as a lawyer of seven years than she has as a lawyer of forty. But I've gotten it into my head that I have to be strong, I have to be independent.

Fuck me, man, I'm currently white knuckling through life and hanging on by a fucking thread. A few weeks ago I was about an hour away from checking myself in to a mental health facility until my best friends swooped in to help me. And then I went right back to work.

And then I read this book. This fucking brilliant and beautiful book written by a man who had seen the horrors of war and spilled it all over the page. And I read it for the first time as an adult with full understanding and experience of what it all means. And it hits me like a fucking truck.

And it says that you can't endure everything. That at some point you need to rest and heal. That if you take on too much you will break. And that all of that is okay.

How am I supposed to move on with my life after reading this?

[three--rings]

Certainly there are many messages within Lord of the Rings, but you have to think that Tolkien would have been happy that this message in particular was still being conveyed all these years later.

[passumbapper]

it's almost summer do you guys want my stupid hyperoptimized lemonade recipe that takes half a day to make and whips absolute ass

[passumbapper]

Fruited Lemonade That Makes You Reconsider It All

ingredience:

lemons/limes (this needs to make up the bulk of the fruit being used, like at least 80%)

whatever other fruits or fruit scraps you want, plus any herbs/other flavorings you want to try. by fruit scraps I mean things like cherry pits, apple peels, pineapple cores, strawberry ends, things like that.

granulated white sugar, the coarser the better, 50% by weight of total citrus rinds + 100% by weight of any additional fruit. you'll measure this after you prep the fruit.

water as needed

equipment:

a few nonmetallic mixing bowls

a mesh strainer

a chinoise, ricer or some cheesecloth

a kitchen scale

a citrus juicer or reamer (manual or electric)

a potato masher

juice the citrus through a strainer - saving all rinds -  and refrigerate the juice for the time being. dice the rinds and other fruits if any, keeping the rinds separate. make note of weights, and measure your sugar.

 Place sugar in a large nonmetallic bowl. If using non-citrus fruits and/or any other flavorings, mix them in with the sugar and mash with potato masher. add diced citrus rinds, mix thoroughly, and mash again. cover and let stand at room temperature for at least 4 hours. this allows the sugar to draw out flavors that would otherwise get discarded with the rinds, and the rinds' acids should be enough to dissolve the sugar into a syrup.

Afterward, mash one last time, then collect the syrup by pressing the macerated mixture through a strainer/chinoise or ricer, or squeeze it through cheesecloth. if you want, this can be saved as a standalone syrup at this point, for use in cocktails or desserts. if not, slowly pour the reserved juice through the solids to to help get the remaining syrup out, and squeeze/press again. do the same thing one more time with warm water (roughly the same amount of water as juice). discard solids (or try making sangria with them!).

taste the mixture and add more water if necessary. a stronger mix is totally fine if you anticipate serving over ice on a hot day, or adding booze, or if there was a lot of non-sour fruit. keep in mind that it will taste a bit less sweet once it's chilled. pour into a pitcher and refrigerate.

citrus oils will float to the top, so stir/shake before serving. love you. enjoy.

some tried and true flavor combos:

straight lemon or lime, or any combination of the two, is of course an untouchable classic

lemon & strawberries (that's pussy babe!)

lemon & orange with a hint of vanilla (creamsiclemonade...?)

lemon & apples or apple peels with cinnamon/ginger/allspice (for late summer)

some cocktail type combos, booze optional:

lemon or lime & berries with basil + gin

lime & mint + white rum

lime & ginger + dark rum

lime & cucumber + gin

lime & orange (berries optional) + tequila

lemon, orange & cherry + brandy, bourbon, or rye whiskey

[kawuli]

random PSA, I know a lot of people use duckduckgo as a Google alternative search engine, but it always kind of annoyed me when I was using it because it felt like No Name Brand Google

I have switched to using Startpage.com and vastly prefer it. for one thing, instead of displaying an "AI summary" at the top of the search results (unless you turn it off, yes I know), it displays the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article, with link, whenever it finds one that's relevant.

also a waaayyyyy better sense of design than duckduckgo

also private, European based, least annoying search I've used lately (RIP old "don't be evil" Google)

[yomikoreadsbooks]

Keeping a list of Google alternatives just in case…

[saxifraga-x-urbium]

i have one of those, scraped from multiple different rec posts:

Search Engines

Infinity Search is an alternative search engine with a special focus on privacy

DuckDuckGo is a popular search engine for those who value their privacy and are put off by the thought of their every query being tracked and logged. Uses bangs, ![site] for in-page search (sells your data to microsoft and draws from fucking bing)

WolframAlpha is a privately owned search engine that allows you to “compute expert-level answers using Wolfram’s breakthrough algorithms, knowledgebase, and AI technology.” A data search engine.

Boardreader is a search engine for forums and message boards. It allows you to search forums and then filter down results by date and language.

Based in France, Qwant is a privacy-based search engine that won’t record your searches or use your personal details for advertising. Uses “&” as a bang search.

Another privacy-based search engine is Search Encrypt, which uses local encryption to ensure that users’ identifiable information cannot be tracked. Metasearch across multiple engines. 

Offering unbiased results from several sources, SearX is a metasearch engine that aims to present a free, decentralized view of the internet. Can be self-hosted. 

Gibiru’s tagline is “Unfiltered private search” and that’s exactly what it offers. Requires AnonymoX Firefox add-on for privacy. 

Disconnect allows you to conduct anonymous searches through a search engine of your choice.

Swisscows provides fully encrypted searches to protect your privacy and security. Built-in violence/porn filter cannot be overridden. 

MetaGer offers “Privacy Protected Search & Find” through its anonymised search. A plugin will allow it to be made a default.

Gigablast is a private search engine that indexes millions of websites and servers real-time information without tracking your data, keeping you hidden from marketers and spammers. Variety of filtration and refinement options for searching. 

Oscobo is a search engine that protects your privacy while you search the web. By not using any third-party tools or scripts, your data is protected from hacking and misuse. Has a Chrome extension to allow use in toolbar. 

https://search.marginalia.nu/ an independent DIY search engine that focuses on non-commercial content, and attempts to show you sites you perhaps weren't aware of in favor of the sort of sites you probably already knew existed. Use old-school searching rather than query-based for the best results. 

https://www.mojeek.com/ 

https://wiby.me/ - It’s goal is to index as many personalized websites as possible, and NOT commercial sites. 

https://4get.ca/ it works a lot like SearX, but honestly better. It doesn’t have its own index, but pulls from many others. I think it’s the best for research, since it allows you to search for answers from different indexes, is easy to configure, add free, and avoids censorship as much as it can.

https://www.searchenginemap.com/ for more on how search engines relate to each other.

https://yep.com/ is a crawler

https://www.etools.ch/ retrieves from Google, Mojeek, Bing, and Yandex, like Searx

https://www.dogpile.com/ 

https://searxng.org/ (next gen Searx)

https://luxxle.com/ - possibly conservative?

https://presearch.com/ - good for academic?

https://kagi.com/smallweb - free/randomised Kagi.

Other Searchers

www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.

www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.

https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.

www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.

http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.

www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.

www.base-search.net is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free.https://cosine.club/ is an electronic music similarity search engine

[nattousan]

ok so, I approached my local library with a proposal to donate a mural as a way to A: build portfolio/gain practical experience and B: give back to a beloved public institution. The director was very enthusiastic about it and i've been working on it since the beginning of March. Come with me as I endeavor to paint what is in all honesty an excessive amount of birds

I wanted the birds to look like they were actually in the space so first thing after doing the draft was to do a lighting study

after that I covered the walls in letters in lieu of a projector/vr headset bc i have neither of those :) Then i take a picture of the section of wall and superimpose the lineart over top of it so I can pencil in the lines

et voila

and that was a whole week on it's own so next comes the paintin' >:)

[nattousan]

and now, the birds

Birds 1 and 2/14: Red Winged Blackbird, Male and female, Agelaius phoeniceus

[nattousan]

Bird 3/14, American Robin, Turdus migratorius

[nattousan]

hoo boy, ok *out of breath*

GIVE IT UP FOR BIRD NUMBUH 5, THE CANADIAN GOOSE, Branta canadensis!!!!

this guy took me about 4 days to completely finish, all of those freakingk coverts were a bear to render

[nattousan]

speaking of obnoxious coverts:

bird 5/14, Bluejay, Cyanocitta cristata

the friggin stripes almost got me chat, i may not make it

[nattousan]

Madam....

[nattousan]

birds 6 and 7: American Goldfinch, Spinus tristis, male and female

pleasantly simple to paint! next is the flickerrrrr

[nattousan]

*melts into goo*

BIRD NUMBER 8, (yellow shafted) NORTHERN FLICKERRRRR, Colaptes auratus

genuinely made me start questioning my sanity around day 3, it's half the size the of the goose, WHY did it take me 4 days to finish??

nothing but pain and suffering, i'm sure hope the next bird will be much easier and with FAR less barring :)

[nattousan]

in other news, I am losing my mind hairline

[nattousan]

SHE'S DONE!!

Bird number 9: Red-tailed hawk, Buteo jamaicensis

my chains are broken i am FREE. although i did have a great deal of fun with this, the barring on the wings itself took me like four days and i am READY to move on

this was a week and a half of continuous work so please excuse me for getting a little emotional in the bg 🙏

[nattousan]

*does a little jig*

BIRD NUMBER 10!!! The Male Mallard Duck, Anas platyrhynchos

the male and female ones are gonna be posted separately bc they're taking a lot longer lol but yea! super happy i was able to capture the iridescent green of the head, i found metallic green and blue paint at a craft store that really made his head POP. it looks better in person i promise

ALSO!! As this is the 10th one, BIG announcement. The end is in sight!!!!! I plan to finish within the next 3 weeks and there will be a small dedication ceremony/ unveiling happening at the library to commemorate its completion on the 16th of May. If you live in the Western New York region and want to check it out for yourself shoot me a dm!

Also thank you everyone for your kind words and support throughout this whole process, it's been a genuine treat thinking there are potentially thousands of you out there cheering me on while I paint this 🥹

[nattousan]

aaaand another one bites the duck,

we're movin right along with bird numero 11!! The lady Mallard!! Anas platyrhyncos

the 16th is looming in the distance so i'm trying to get thru these as quickly as i can so i can have as much time for the GBH as possible. i still need to do the names next to all of them so i've got about a week and a half to finish everything which is GREAT because i have adhd and nothing gets my ass in gear like a fuckin deadline, let me tell you

[nattousan]

power couple that they are, here's bird number 12 and 13,

the Northern Cardinals, Cardinalis cardinalis

and NOW that they are complete, ITS GO TIME, in the next five days (library's closed for mother's day 😭😭) i need to have the GBH fully rendered, the names of the birds vectored, weeded, masked, applied to the wall, and then painted, plus additional cattails throughout. I may be able to get away with just getting the GBH done in time for the unveiling and then just have the names and cattails added later, but i'm gonna really try to get it all done in time. BUT, i have a plan. Part of why i take so long on these is because i really am just figuring it out as I do it lmao. there have been many a time where i am sitting on top of the ladder googling "how to paint birds" but I think if i take the time tomorro to do all that figuring out how to approach it beforehand, this will go a lot faster. I may also recruit some of my artist friends to help with the placing of the names... hrmm we'll see.

Anyways, shout out to the librarian who tracked down exactly the thing i needed so i could figure out where to place the highlights in my birds eyes, ur the real mvp

[nattousan]

thanks for the reminder, kid

[nattousan]

at long last, we've reached the end...

Bird number 14 out of 14,

The Great blue heron, Ardea herodius

thank you to everyone who reached out or got excited about this project, it genuinely gave me the fuel i needed to keep going. In total, the 480+ total hrs it took me to cover this wall pales in comparison to how long its expected to spend on there, hopefully imparting a sense of beauty and love for the natural world to the next generation and here's hoping i'm only getting started with these.

i'll see y'all soon :')

[tpwrtrmnky]

Analyzing the politics of a work that's meant to be apolitical is actually a really interesting exercise because it asks you to critically examine what the creator considers to be "political" in the first place. Which ideas are just How Things Are, and which ones are Political, and how is that influenced by the creator's beliefs?

[takashi0]

Usually this just ends up with you looking like a moron btw

[tpwrtrmnky]

Angrily lashing out at the suggestion that it's possible to do basic media analysis was foundational to the ragebait ecosystem of the 2010s, from which we got basically the entire culture of modern far right politics, btw.

[iteh3xael]

I genuinely believe myself and others are being so sincere and literal when we say TOUCH GRASS

[tpwrtrmnky]

I went outside and got an education, that's where I learned that you can obtain knowledge and insight through analytical methods, then noticed that some people who sit on the internet yelling at strangers get really mad about that constantly.

[pensivegladiola]

Don’t make me point to the Omar Sakar poem

[manuciruja]

[blackjame]

[facts-i-just-made-up]

Edgar Allan Poe was known in his time not only for his writing, but for the exotic animals he imported and bred. He developed several breeds including an all-black "Gothic" butterfly, the well known Poe Possum, and even new kinds of alligators, crocodiles and caimans.

Many of these animals got loose in Boston after his death, and while most like the birds or butterflies were left to fly away, others like the large reptiles were quite dangerous and none could be left unaccounted for lest they reproduce.

When it came to the Poe caiman, they had to catch them all.

[evergreen-femme]

im just so happy i live in a time period where actual meaningful biological transition is possible. even if we lose rights or the ability to exist in public, nothing can turn back the clock on that, and just by having any sort of access to that our lives are made immensely better. millions of our sisters throughout history would never have dreamed of a day where they could have what HRT does for us.

please don't lose the plot of this. if you're a trans person on HRT you're a living miracle, the dream of hundreds of millions of your ancestors. your lives are all deeply meaningful no matter what anyone says.

[t4t4t]

תפילה להפך – מאבן בֹחן | Prayer for Transformation, from the poem "Even Boḥan" by Rabbi Ḳalonymus b. Ḳalonymus ben Meir (1322) • the Open Si

A prayer by Kalonymus b. Kalonymus ben Meir that appears in his poem ספר אבן בוחן, יג Sefer Even Boḥan (§13), describing the author's wish t

[unabashedllamamusic]

Cursed be the one who announced to my father: “It’s a boy!"... ...How could he twist the course of the stars so much? How could he have erred so in his astrology? A lying tongue, a fool’s mouth it had given him For he foolishly transformed justice to poison He altered the law and transposed the lines

Oh, but had the artisan who made me created me instead – a worthy woman... ...I would say "how lucky am I"

Father in heaven who did miracles for our ancestors with fire and water... ...Who would then transform me from a man to woman? Were I only to have merited this being so graced by goodness...

What shall I say? why cry or be bitter? If my father in heaven has decreed upon me and has maimed me with an immutable deformity then I do not wish to remove it. the sorrow of the impossible is a human pain that nothing will cure and for which no comfort can be found. So, I will bear and suffer until I die and wither in the ground. Since I have learned from our tradition that we bless both, the good and the bitter I will bless in a voice hushed and weak: blessed are you [HaShem] who has not made me a woman.

I think I'm gonna go lay down for a little while.

[aletheyass]

tes THDPSSSSPS 💜

[apas-95]

wgat did u say

[zekedms]

I'm out of words to complain about how advertisers can do anything they want that users can't and how much i hate Ai slop apps at this point.

This sucks, man. Jesus Christ.

[zekedms]

You don't say?

Come on, let's see that double standard in action baby.

[fuckyeahchinesefashion]

cr 大同云冈蛋雕-凯哥

[murderofsomeone]

I need to make something really elaborate and cool (doesn't move

[fansplaining]

The Elation and Anxiety of Reading Fic in Your Native Tongue

For fans in Kenya, Nigeria, and Burundi, “uncringing” non-English fanfiction is an endeavor in decolonialism.

Our latest piece is live! The brilliant Soila Kenya writes about the dominance of English in fandom and especially fanfiction spaces, and why for her and the fellow fans she interviewed from Kenya, Nigeria, and Burundi, this is partly about the global dominance of English-language pop culture, but especially about the legacies of colonialism:

The deep psychological imprints of this language disparity remain. And therefore, when I encountered fanfiction, it didn’t even occur to me that there were fanfics written in any language but English, let alone Swahili or any of the 42 indigenous languages in Kenya.

Click through to read the whole piece or listen to a full audio version! And if you enjoy it, please consider becoming a (free) member or especially a paying subscriber—we want to commission more pieces from Soila and other smart writers and we need your help to pay them!

(As a reminder, we have a discount rate for anyone who wants it, no questions asked—if you're a student, educator, un/underemployed, have a lower income, or literally any other reason, just email [email protected] and we're happy to provide!)

[elizabethminkel]

This piece is SO good—absolutely worth your time to read or listen (I always love hearing the writers read their work, but since the focus of this piece is language, it was especially great hearing Soila read it). If you enjoy it, please share widely: I know what Soila writes here will resonate with so many people across fandom.

[bookshop]

Just seconding the love for this piece! It really is SO tremendously worth your time.

Soila was one of my favorite WorldCon panelists last year and here she's written a really thoughtful but also extremely enjoyable treatise on what can sometimes be the "cringe" effect of reading—let alone writing!—fics in your native tongue.

I found this piece so engrossing, delightfully wry, provocative, and educational. It makes me so happy and proud to be a part of this era of Fansplaining.

[rainbow-femme]

Cliff wants to be a good bro and a good ally so when he and Ilya hang out to watch a movie, he decides they’re gonna watch a Gay Movie. And what is the one Gay Movie every straight guy knows? Brokeback Mountain. And what is the only thing straight guys know about Brokeback Mountain? That it’s the gay cowboy movie. And hey that sounds fun, cowboys are fun

Shane gets a text two hours later from Cliff that’s a picture of Ilya on the couch with his head down between his knees and he’s just like “HELP I BROKE HIM IM SORRY I DIDNT KNOW THEY BROKE UP AND THEN THE ONE GUY GOT HATECRIMED TO DEATH I THOUGHT THERE WOULD BE GUNS AND TRAIN ROBBING”

[rainbow-femme]

“Bro what are you so upset about? It’s just a blonde guy and a black haired guy who spend years in a gray area secret relationship where they hook up a few times a year and have feelings for each other but are kept apart by society, only for the black haired guy to not be able to wait for the blonde guy anymore and tries to move on only to be killed in a brutal homophobic attack that the blonde guy hears about well after the fact because no one would know to contact him. I don’t understand why you’re identifying so heavily with this narrative, it’s crazy.”

[ayagdos]

Navigating gender dysphoria? Be heard and be counted in the science.

Join our confidential, cross-country study of 18-25 year olds to tell your story, challenge preconceptions, and have YOUR experience reflected in the science on queer youth | ayagdos.org

[moonfox-mumbles]

‼️ DO NOT TAKE THIS SURVEY ‼️

[pt: DO NOT TAKE THIS SURVEY]

The Same Dark Money Behind Project 2025 Is Bankrolling A Northwestern Study Recruiting Trans Kids

Project 2025 outright calls on conservatives to fund and manufacture more “studies” on the “negative” effects of trans-affirming care.

[reishi-wants-noodles]

guess we need to be circulating this psa again. This Is A Fucking Trap. Do Not Participate.

[cargifs]

[loveamongthesailors]

legit excited to see this come around again

[wizardofgaysex]

my checking account is called my Lamborghini account and my savings is called my Hollywood hills account. when I have to go to the bank they see that shit. if they knew if was from this dumb fucking video I think they would execute me