We grew Paul Robeson tomatoes in our garden this year and just had our first harvest. So, naturally, I thought of this blog. His namesake makes a mighty fine sandwich
here's my favorite tomato sandwich recipe:
toast the bread
mayonnaise the inner side of each piece (so both facing-sandwich sides have mayo on them)
gigantic slab of cream cheese on the inner side of one piece of bread (this is the base piece)
thick sliced garden tomatoes with a pinch of salt lemon juice on top of the cream cheese
medium sliced cucumbers, also with salt and lemon juice on top of the tomatoes
put top piece of bread on
grow a bigger mouth because the sandwich is enormous
Cnetizens: I know there are ling, luo, chou, duan.
OP: It's actually eight major categories, ling, luo, chou, duan, jin, xiao, sha and juan, and countless variations exist under them in history. (绫ling，罗luo，绸chou，缎duan，锦jin，绡xiao，纱sha, 绢juan) (cr珑师傅)
绫(líng): It adopts twill or modified twill weave. The fabric bears clear mountain-shaped diagonal lines, featuring light, soft texture and subtle luster. It was the designated fabric for officials’ daily uniforms in the Tang Dynasty. The varieties of Ling appearing in Tang dynasty — Pattern Square Ling, Fish-Mouth Ling, White Braided Ling, Water Wave Ling and Checkerboard Ling(方纹绫、鱼口绫、白编绫、水波绫、方棋绫) — were all recorded as imperial tributes in the Tang Dynasty.. After the Song Dynasty, it was mainly used for mounting calligraphy and paintings.
罗(luó) adopts a unique twisted warp weave. Intertwined warp threads create star-shaped holes, making it highly breathable, known as "the natural air conditioner of silks". Four-warp twisted luó demands 30 procedures. Weavers can only produce a few centimeters a day. Suzhou patterned luó is an intangible cultural heritage craft.
The fabric worn by ladies in Beauties with Flower Hairpins is luó. It is the top sheer silk fabric with outstanding transparency, yet extremely costly. Handwoven four-warp luó is priced above 10,000 RMB per meter, harder to get than an Hermès bag. What makes it expensive? Thirty elaborate steps. Threads are twisted manually, with only 5cm woven each day. It was royal exclusive. In the Zhou Dynasty, only emperors could wear it. Noble ladies in Tang and Song loved luó, including Yang Guifei. Covered with star-like holes, it is breathable yet not see-through, keeping you cool in summer.
绸(chóu): Simple interlacing, tightly woven like a fine sieve. A major category of silk, using plain or modified plain weave, referring to silks without the special structure of luó, líng or duàn. Medium weight, tight, smooth surface with soft luster, prone to creasing. Thin chóu for blouses and skirts. Thick chóu for coats and trousers, widely used as embroidery base fabric and decorative material.
缎(duàn): Long silk threads rest on the surface, creating a mirror-like glossy sheen. It adopts satin weave. One set of threads stretches across the surface with long floats, covering evenly distributed interlacing points.
锦(jǐn)/Brocade is the most sophisticated silk textile. Its weaving consumes massive time and raw materials, resulting in exorbitant costs. Constructed with multi-layer warp and weft threads, it forms patterns with colored silk yarns through figured weaving techniques. It boasts raised three-dimensional motifs and a dense, heavy texture, making it the most technically challenging type of silk. It feels substantial and stiff, featuring dazzling, luxurious luster, intricate elaborate patterns, strong wear resistance and great shape retention. Laws in the early Ming Dynasty strictly restricted commoners from wearing high-grade brocade, which was mainly supplied to the imperial court and officials. By the mid-to-late Ming Dynasty, the booming commodity economy fostered extravagant customs in the Jiangnan region(generally refers to the area south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River in eastern China). Violations of dress codes became widespread. Numerous wealthy landowners, merchants and affluent commoners ignored the regulations and wore brocade, figured flower brocade and gold-thread brocade. In short, it was prohibited by law, yet wealthy civilians could acquire and wear such fabrics in practice.
绡(xiāo) took shape in the Shang and Zhou dynasties and flourished in the Tang Dynasty. Extremely thin like cicada wings, it became the iconic fabric for overgarments worn by noble women in Tang China. It adopts plain weave or modified plain weave, featuring low warp and weft density, few interlacing points and neat, clear mesh openings. Xiao is usually woven from raw silk, granting the fabric inherent stiffness and structure. Lightweight and translucent, it holds its shape well without sagging, with open, breathable pores. In ancient times, it was used for outer cover gowns. Today, it is made into wedding veils and sun protection blouses.
纱(shā) is matured in the Han Dynasty and remained popular from the Tang and Song dynasties through the Ming and Qing dynasties. It was widely used for summer court robes, official garments and noblewomen’s attire. Generally woven in plain weave with sparse warp and weft threads, the fabric features evenly distributed tiny openings. It represents the lightweight, thin and sheer category of silk. Extremely light and breathable, it feels soft and flowing with natural drape. In ancient times, it was used for veils and outer overgarments; today it is crafted into lightweight dresses and veils. They may look alike, yet Shā is soft and supple with little rigidity. By contrast, Xiāo is woven from raw silk, firm and shape-retaining, and does not sag easily.
绢(juàn) is one of China’s oldest silk fabrics and a vital carrier of cultural heritage. It served as the base material for many famous ancient paintings handed down through generations. Woven in plain weave, it features warp and weft threads of similar thickness arranged in neat, uniform intersections. The fabric boasts high density and a solid, stable structure. Varieties include plain juàn, dyed juàn, and juàn specially made for painting and calligraphy. It has a fine, smooth, firm texture and great durability. Soft against the skin, it balances suppleness and structural rigidity. Its applications cover painting and calligraphy, cultural relic restoration, and minimalist luxury apparel.
There is another fabric category not covered in this video.
绉(zhòu) (ancient name 縠hú) first appeared before the Qin Dynasty and matured in the Han Dynasty. In ancient times it was called hú. It is the earliest silk fabric made with highly twisted yarns. Mostly woven on a plain weave base. Yarns are tightly twisted in alternating directions. After degumming, the threads shrink and twist, forming natural fine ripples across the fabric. It features inherent subtle crinkles and soft matte luster. Elastic and breathable, it does not cling easily to skin.
In ancient times, it was used for summer overgarments and scarves. Today it is made into blouses, dresses and silk shawls.
It's waterproof. It's windproof. It's lightweight and durable. And it's made from the intestines of two bears, painstakingly cleaned and sew
I really wanted to know more about this, especially how the water proof stitching works. Here's more information on this project, and hopefully more in the future!
Something neuroscience-y that helps with prose: attention is selective. A character will not notice everything in a room. They will notice what matters to their goal, fear, desire, training, wound, or obsession. A jealous character notices hands. a hungry character notices food. A soldier notices exits. A lonely character notices pairs. Description becomes character when attention has a bias.
i am half blind. on my eighteenth birthday, a freak accident left me with a slashed retina, a temporary eye patch and a permanent loss of 86% of vision in my right eye. i don't talk about it much, and apart from the inability to drive a car, placing my notebook next to the desk instead of on it once in a while, and making me truly abysmal at beer pong, it has not impacted my life much.
except for the bittersweet fact that i can never show people how breathtakingly beautiful the world looks when you eyesight is fractured straight through the middle. i close what my opitician calls my good eye and the world explodes in colour, every pinprick source of light spreading out into iridescent flares into all directions culminating in bright circles at the edge of my vision. every star, every streetlight, multiplying into a tenfold symphony of colour and light.
it's so overwhelmingly beautiful. how can i ever explain this to people? that when they find out and look at me with pity they should be envious instead. what an immense privilege, to be able to look at the world and see it too.
Evolution of the Mamianqun: Fabrics Design (Part 1)
Nav: Presentation // Intro // Southern Song 南宋 // Yuan 蒙元 // Early Ming 明初 // Mid-Early Ming 明中前 // Mid-Late Ming 明中後 // Late Ming 晚明 // Fabrics Pt 1 // Fabrics Pt 2 // Misc Fun Facts // Conclusion
Patting myself on the back for finally finishing the six main design posts, but still got two more to go!!! This is the fabric design post, arguably the most symbolic part of these six sets with the most juicy lore behind it, so if your thing is Chinese cosmology and symbolism this'll be your jam.
This section is very long (what a surprise), so I'll be dividing it into two posts.
Part one, which is this post, will talk about the mythology and folktale inspiration behind the design elements, and introduce the different parts of the skirt design. I will do a deep dive into the main part of the design with the longma dragon-horse that appears on the latter three time period's skirt designs.
Part two will expand on the rest of the skirt sections, which are smaller and less detailed. I'll also talk a bit about the variation of the skirt designs through the different time periods.
～The Lore～
The Chinese name for the Metamorphosis set is 龍馬負圖 / long2 ma3 fu4 tu2 / "Dragon-Horse Bearing the Diagram." This is a reference to the story of the 河圖洛書 / he2 tu2 luo4 shu1 / "River Diagram and Luo Book," more commonly known as the Yellow River Map and Luo River Square. These are two visual diagrams that appear in very very early Chinese legends and mythology about the beginning of Dynastic China. They look like this:
Src: 河圖洛書, 2017
I will explain more on what exactly these represent later, but for now, just know that they appear in a number of legends recounted by very famous early writings such as thing 易經 / yi4 jing1 / "I'Ching" text, most of which share similar elements. The one that stuck out to me most was the legend of 大禹治水 / da4 yu2 zhi4 shui3 / "Yu the Great Tames the Waters," which can be considered somewhat of a secondary creation myth.
There's no evidence of this guy's existence, but the story goes that pre-dynastic China often suffered from devastating floods from the Yellow River, which kept them from advancing very far. The worst of these was the Great Flood, a massive flood that extended over at least two generations. The emperor at the time, Yao, had been trying to solve this problem for a long time, but the first person who tried, 鯀 / Gun—Yu the Great's father, also called 白馬 / bai2 ma3 / White Horse—failed to control the waters, so the task was passed down to his son.
L: Standing Portrait of King Yu of Xia, National Palace Museum, Taipei, Taiwan, 中畫000257N000000000 // R: Yellow River, whose watershed covers most of northern China and drains to the Yellow Sea, Wikimedia Commons
It's said that Yu dedicated most of his life to solving this problem. A number of stories related to this process have been told, one of which being the legend of the Yellow River Map and Luo River Square. Seeing that Yu was going in the wrong direction, the gods sent a great dragon-horse and a giant tortoise as messengers to the earth, who emerged from the waters bearing these diagrams on their backs, revealing clues about divination and geomancy to Yu the Great.
After consulting the diagrams, he realized that he had been mistaken and changed direction, ultimately succeeding in his goal after many years. Some other variations have different animals or people revealing the diagrams to different people, but for the year of the horse I focused on the version that has the dragon-horse bearing the Yellow River Map on its coat.
Eventually Yu tamed the waters through a complex irrigation system and opening an artificial channel out to sea, which made him so popular with the people that the emperor declared him his heir. He allegedly took the throne in his 50s, establishing the Xia Dynasty, the very first dynasty in Chinese historiography.
From a broader level, deluge myths are extremely common in early history across the world (although the nuwa story matches them more closely than this one tbh). I feel like almost everyone has their own version of a massive flood that ended up leading to some sort of new beginning.
I think this legend takes place in a grey area between myth and history, too far back to have much evidence of existence, but recent enough to be relatively acceptable when considered a dramatized version of events. At any rate it's an extremely significant part of Chinese folklore, and while the dragon-horse only plays a small part in it, I latched onto this as the primary inspiration for this set.
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～The Fabric Design～
Since most of the mamianqun fabrics are just variations of the same central design, I’ll use the most complex one as the visual example since it already contains all of the elements found in the other skirt designs. That would be the mid-early Ming mamianqun. At the end of this section I will talk briefly about how this design was modified for the other time periods' skirts.
We can first separate this into a few distinct repeating horizontal pattern sections. If we regard the pattern covering a majority of the area as the ‘base’ pattern (B), there are four distinct pattern sections (1,2,3,4), plus a divider pattern (D) that appears multiple times between them.
(1): Hem Block 底襴
The lowest pattern block near the hem of the skirt is also the widest and the one that appears in both of the other colored mamianqun designs (mid-late and late Ming). Some of the elements were moved around a bit to compress the block proportions for the other designs, but most of them remain the same. I regard this as the “main” design block, as most of the storytelling elements are concentrated here.
The primary scene depicted is a longma dragon-horse galloping through the waves, but every design element included has a meaning to it.
The Longma
First the creature itself. This is a somewhat modern interpretation of a dragon-horse, with some modern aesthetics prioritized. The legs, hooves, body shape, and tail are all very horse-like, with some added dragon features like the flaming mane, belly scales, straight-back horns, whiskers, and wrinkled nose. The spiral patterns on the horse’s chest and flank as well as the fire wheels coming off of the hind leg joints were also elements taken from usual depictions of eastern dragons, who often have similar flaming wheels on their ankles.
There are a couple different ways this creature can be interpreted. One is as the longma dragon-horse from the legend of this set’s namesake, as one of the two creatures that surfaced from the Yellow River as witnessed by Yu the Great, as described before. The Classic of the Mountains and Seas describe longma as being able to walk on water without sinking and as a sign of a divine ruler.
Src: 图：武官常服补子纹样, 明代群臣之服：常服 // Sea-Horse ninth rank is the lower right square (武九品）
Another is as the 海馬 / hai3 ma3 / "Sea-Horse" (not the fish), a dragon-like horse which is depicted on the ninth-rank martial officer rank badge in the Ming Dynasty official uniform system, used specifically to contrast against the five-clawed imperial dragon buzi badge on the mid-late Ming set’s round-collar robe, as a representation of the wild disarray and constant flouting of fashion rules during that time period.
Src: JourneytotheWest.jpg, Tang Sanzang riding on the White Dragon Horse, Wikimedia Commons
Last is as the 白龍馬 / bai2 long2 ma3 / white dragon-horse (that's literally his name) from the famous Ming Dynasty novel 西遊記 / xi1 you2 ji4 / "Journey to the West" (you may also know it as the Monkey King), a dragon prince originally living in a river who shapeshifts into the party’s steed (after accidentally eating their horse, as you do). You’ll notice that even though they have slightly different names and contexts, all of these depictions are actually quite consistent with each other: there’s always some sort of very powerful horse-dragon mix that has something to do with a body of water.
The Waves
The top and bottom of this block are lined with a wave pattern, crested with white foam. Waves are often depicted in a very circular, spiraling manner, adding a sort of rolling motion to them. This is helped by the repeated parallel lines giving them dimension, plus the white seafoam that helps partition some of the different wave sections from each other.
Src: 武官九品海馬補子, National Digital Archive Program, Taiwan (Qing Dynasty)
The original haima sea-horse buzi depicts a horse galloping over repeated waves, so I kept that framing in the composition of this piece, though the waves are more organic and less repetitive. They also come down from the top, which is more of an aesthetic decision than a symbolic one, but I did notice that the waves look remarkably similar to clouds if you color them white, which makes sense given the Chinese term 雲海 / yun2 hai3 / “sea of clouds,” which refers to the view you often get on Asian mountaintops where the clouds are so dense and thick that they look like a white ocean sprawling out in front of you. You could say that, with the celestial nature of dragons, this horse could be either galloping over the water or treading over the clouds—you just don’t know!
河圖洛書
Next I want to go over these two repeated symbols, the former of which you’ll see in the base pattern as well. These are a continuation of the 河圖洛書 story: they’re visual representations of the 河圖 and the 洛書.
The traditional depictions of these two ‘maps’ look like this. They’re arrangements of black and white dots in kind of a square array. It’s somewhat debated what they actually represent, and their exact functional role in the legends is vague, but they’re generally considered divination or cosmology maps that have to do with the bagua eight trigrams, the five elements, and five cardinal Chinese directions.
洛書 / The Luoshu Square
Src: Luo Square, Wikipedia (various imaged pieced together by me to fool tumblr's image limit)
Upon a closer look we can see that the Luoshu has nine objects arranged in a 3x3 matrix. Each object is made up of a different number of dots: the ones with an even number of dots are black, and the ones with an odd number of dots are white. If we convert the numbers of dots into numbers, we will get a matrix that looks like this: (4, 9, 2; 3, 5, 7; 8, 1, 6).
An extremely important observation is that this arrangement constitutes what we call a third order normal magic square: if you add up the three numbers in any row, column, or diagonal of the array, you will get the same number (try it yourself—what’s the magic sum?) You might also notice that each of the integers 1 through 9 are used once—this is what we call a normal magic square.
I’d previously only encountered magic squares when playing with AMC problems in middle school, so it was really interesting to see it pop up here. Remarkably, the luoshu is the smallest possible normal magic square (reflections and rotations of the same square are not considered distinct, and squares with repeated number entries don’t count). Every possible 3x3 normal magic square is a transformation of this one.
If you look closely at each shape you will recognize that each one has a number of “lobes” or “sections.” The even-numbered shapes are filled in with red, and the odd-numbered shapes are teal and have negatives corresponding to their number. For example, the shape on the left has three spokes, and the one in the middle contains five compartments. Each of them exhibit some sort of repetition, imagery, or sectioning that has to do with their number, and they’re arranged in the same way as the Luo square, so that any row, column, or diagonal will add up to 15.
河圖 / The Yellow River Map
Src: 河圖與洛書
The Yellow River Map is a little more confusing in what exactly it is—there doesn’t seem to be an agreed-upon mathematical relationship like in its counterpart, and it’s a bit more complex. Some think that the version that we have now may not be the same as the original, and that if we had the original then the relationship would be equally obvious. It does have some established linkages to ideas in Chinese cosmology, but they won’t make much sense unless you’ve got somewhat of a background in that (which is not me).
As in the Luoshu, some of the dots (even arrangements) are filled in and some (odd arrangements) are blank. The integers 1-10 also appear once each, with 10 uniquely wrapping all the way around the central 5.
Culturally, this was the primary map that helped Yu the Great construct his irrigation and drainage system. While the myths vary in the form and identity of the person, deity, or spirit that actually gave him the map, it's generally hinted at that this was some sort of directional mapping of the surrounding land and topology, which helped Yu figure out how to build channels through what he later established as the Nine Provinces.
The visual symbol I came up with for this one is a little less abstract, preserving the dots on the outside and most of the structure, although I neglected to include the lines. The 3 and 4 I turned into a fan shape instead of just dots, and the outer four numbers were arranged in a curved shape to make the footprint of the whole symbol a bit more interesting. The top and bottom halves of the 10 are disconnected but represented by 5 teardrop shapes above and 5 below, as some other depictions have the dots split up in this way but connected by lines.
The Silk Moths
If you thought these were butterflies, you thought wrong—these are silk moths! Specifically bombyx mori, the domesticated silk moth.
Why include them? While it's not super common anymore, silkworms did have a connection to horses in older Chinese folklore, apparently stemming from the fact that the silkworm's head is shaped similarly to a horse's head. The more popular origin story of sericulture stems from Leizu, the Empress of the Yellow Emperor, who discovered silk after a cocoon fell into her hot tea and invented the art of sericulture and weaving.
Src: Silkworms, Invertebrate Welfare
An alternative is the story of 馬頭娘 / ma3 tou2 niang2 / "Horse-Headed Maiden," a girl who promised to marry her family's white horse if he brought her father home from war/kidnapping/going to the store for milk, which he did. Her father, not wanting a horse for a son-in-law, killed the horse, but when he hung its hide up to dry, it flew up, wrapped around the girl, and carried her away into a mulberry tree, where she was transformed into a silk-spitting, horse-headed silkworm. She then eventually ascended to the heavens and was worshipped as the goddess of silkworms. Records of this story appear in the Classic of Mountains and Seas, the Taiping Guangji, the Rites of Zhou, etc.
Beyond that story I'm sure I don't have to elaborate on the whole silk-clothes-hanfu thing :p
L: Domestic silkmoth, Bombyx Mori, Photo 369978040, (c) GD, all rights reserved, uploaded by GD, iNaturalist, April 2024 // R: Wild silkmoth, Photo 517391659, no rights reserved, iNaturalist, June 2025
In terms of design elements, domestic silk moths (bombyx mori) are leucistic, in comparison to wild silk moths (bombyx mandarina), which are brown. I tried to mimic the textured veins of the wings of the silkmoth in my design, as well as the fuzzy antennae, the thicker thorax, and the resting angle/general silhouette of the wings. Overall, I'm not sure how recognizable they are as silk moths, but I like that I was able to include this bit of detail.
Bird / Bat
It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a... bat?
Regardless of what it is, it's flying! I kept this shape ambiguous on purpose. Gulls flying over the sea are one option, given the ocean setting—the pointed tail and head would lend themselves to the shape of a beak and narrower tail feathers.
However, another possibility is bats. While they may seem like an odd choice, bats are also good-luck systems often depicted on woven fabrics and embroidery in Chinese clothing in varying levels of simplification.
Src: 乾隆青花粉彩桃蝠纹双耳抱月瓶, 满清文物中的传统吉祥纹样——蝠纹, Prince Kung's Palace Museum
Bats are considered lucky because of their name in Chinese, 蝙蝠 / bian1 fu2, or just 蝠 / fu2 in its bound form, which is pronounced the same as the character for good luck, 福 / fu2. They're incorporated into ceramics, textiles, carvings, paintings etc. in various levels of simplification and abstraction. I find that the most common indicator of a bat being depicted is the forward angled point of the wrist joint on its wing, which is sometimes pointed and sometimes just curved. My design does have a forward curve, but it's not very exaggerated, so it's sort of up to the viewer.
壽字 / The "Shou" Character
Above the longma there's a red circle representing the sun (Chinese depictions of the sun are usually more red than yellow) and the Oracle Bone Script (really old) version of the character 壽 / shou4. Shou is a word that means everlasting, long-lived, etc. It's technically a combination of a phono-semantic character (形聲字 / xing2 sheng1 zi4, aka one part of the character represents its sound, and another part represents its meaning) and a compound ideogram (multiple pictograms combined to create a scene related to the meaning).
Src: 寿字的源字形, 雲美名網
We can divide the character into two pieces: the top part, which is the character 老 / lao3 / "old," and the bottom part, which is an archaic form of the character 疇 / chou2 / "field." The 老 character represents the meaning, and it is a pictogram of an old person with a hunched back. In this ideogram, the person is leaning over the 疇 character like a cane. 疇 in this case functions as a phonetic indicator of the pronunciation of the whole character, shou, which is similar to chou. Later on the 壽 character became more common and culturally significant than 疇, so 疇 was retroactively changed into its own self-referential phonogram: 田 / tian2 / "crops" to denote its meaning and 壽 to denote its sound.
Culturally, the 壽 character is one of the most common good-luck character motifs used in Chinese designs, just like the 福 / fu2 / "luck" character (Chinese people just really wanna get rich, live a long time, and have good luck). The character is often stylized into three types of patterns: 長壽紋 / chang2 shou4 wen2 / "long shou pattern," 花壽紋 / hua1 shou4 wen2 / "flower shou pattern, "and 團壽紋 / tuan2 shou4 wen2 / "round shou pattern." They often appear on embroidery and fabric patterns throughout history as well.
L: 明 缂丝“十二章纹”皇帝衮服（复原件） 十三陵特区办事处藏, 理解自己的文明（16）：华服锦绣（下）｜图鉴, October 2024 // R: 壽字紋, 燎泽文创｜中国传统纹样之寿字纹, November 2025
The other thing is that 壽 is a homophone for the character 獸 / shou4 / "beast." In the Ming Dynasty nine-rank badge system, there are two categories of officials—civil and martial—with nine ranks each. Each rank/category combination was represented by an animal depicted on a badge they wore on their uniforms. The animals depicted for the civil ranks were all heavenly animals, like birds. The animals for the martial ranks, however, were earthly animals, or 獸. The dragon-like 海馬 haima sea-horse, representing the ninth rank martial official, is one of those—tying it all back together.
Okay I'm tired now, saving the rest for the next post!!! Hopefully won't put it off for like three months again x-x
Okay we're almost done! Just a fabric design post + concluding comments left! Also sorry for lack of pics in the first half making it really dense lol, the 30 image limit is lowkey killing me
every once in a while you will come across a designer who really runs with it, makes it their mission to showcase exactly what one can do with knitting
Scalindra
Sun King
Fairly Squarely
Thrills with Frills
Da Vinci Wings
Tassel Dazzle
Helix Felicis
Batman & Robin
Wizard Lizard
Lindworm
That's not even all of them. I'm not a huge fan of the term fibre art but this really is it. Wearable art. Look at the geometry of it all! The structure, the chaos, the whimsy! God I love modular knitting
She has lots of very fun socks as well, and even a couple of cowls and fingerless gloves. Go look at her page immediately.
My brain told me it was a good equivalent to white noise VS brown noise
Like
Morally Grey is doing good shit and bad shit, right? Sometimes bad shit for understandable reasons. Killing someone who kills people. It works, but it sucks. There are alternative, but we can debate the efficacy. It's the only 100% option.
But if you do something that is absolutely horrific, but that no court on earth would actually condemn you for... like shooting somebody because someone else has a gun to your head.... that feels morally brown. It also sucks, and it also reflects pretty bad on you, but either way somebody was gonna die because of an unrelated third party.
Like. Niether are black and white, but in one scenario you're the hammer and in the other you're the nail. Either way someone else is weilding the arm, right, but I'd say the hammer probably has a slightly more active role than the nail.
Is this anything at all? I'm talking entirely out of my ass
I'm still talking out of my ass here and I don't know fuckall about wavelengths but I think if "morally grey= choosing to do bad things for ultimately good outcomes/choosing to do good things for ultimately bad outcomes" and "morally brown= choosing to do bad things because inaction is impossible" then the opposite of morally brown should be "choosing to do good things because you are incapable of doing bad things", which makes me think of morality, biblical angels, and the ultraviolet spectrum in a way that makes my brain tingle
All of this is nonsense talk but I'm gonna do art about it now anyway
my piece(s) for @mcytblraufest! this was my first time participating and i i had an absolute blast with @aliteral-ghost and their rock band/superheroes au! go check out their amazing fic!!
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Hello! I've got two questions which are kinda related to each other, so I'm putting them in the same ask. Please don't feel pressured to respond if you're not comfortable though!!
Do you have any advice for managing ADHD/symptoms of ADHD as a Proper Adult (tm)? I'm a Newly Minted Adult (19), and I haven't been diagnosed one way or another, but I have a lot of the symptoms of ADHD (executive dysfunction, difficulty estimating time, constantly fidgeting, getting focused on something and feeling unable to put it up for hours, probably some others I'm forgetting). I have systems in place that help mitigate some of this (longform journaling, physical to-do lists and chore charts, playing music while cleaning, backing up when I'm trying to get out the door so that when I do eventually leave I'm (close to) on time, pomodoro timers, and so on), but I still feel like I'm treading water, especially as the things I'm responsible for keep growing in number. A lot of things will also work great... for two weeks, and then I'm back where I started. I'm worried that my life is going to end up being controlled by these symptoms (particularly executive dysfunction) and I'll never be able to feel like it's *mine*--ironically enough, the actions I struggle with the most are the ones that I *want* to do, like crafting or replying to a letter. You seem like you spend a lot of time doing things you enjoy and have made a life that feels like your own, so I'm hoping you might have some perspective/advice about this.
2. Do you have any advice for accepting/coming to terms with having to actively manage mental health for the rest of your life? I recently realized that what I thought was Me Doing Fine was actually Me With Mild Depression, which like. What the hell, man. I'm kinda thinking of myself as being whatever the mental health version of immunocompromised is, where I *can* have good weeks or even months, but a) it takes me more effort than most people to maintain and b) it's much easier to slip back into depression. I know it's better to realize this now than realize it ten years down the line, but I'm still feeling this weird combination of denial/anger/sadness/resentment/fatigue about the whole thing (like, you're telling me I have to do extra work?? Just to not feel shitty all the time?? For 60+ years?!?!?!). Similarly to pt 1, you've mentioned having depression but still seem to enjoy much of your life, so I'm wondering what your take on it is.
Okay that's it!! This turned out way longer than I expected, oops 😅 Thank you for the various wisdom you share, and please pet your kitties for me :)
Heya, Anon! Sorry it took me a while, but, you know.. I also suffer from executive dysfunction. XD
On managing ADHD as an Adult
My advice here is what works for me, someone who is AuDHD (and also a hoarder, to up the difficulty challenge).
At 19, you are in a place where you can learn new skills, but your systems are still going to carry you throughout most of your life. And that is fine. The most important thing to learn is when and how to meet yourself as you are, and how to graciously accept your limitations while still pushing yourself to do better.
What has helped me:
Be ok that not all of your systems are going to be aesthetic. If I regularly dump my clothes in a pile in a specific place on the floor, I either need to put a basket there, or completely block the space. If I forget what is in a container or in a drawer, it needs a label. I am going to take better notes at work in the notepad app vs by hand in a leather-bound journal or some hyper-optimized note taking program. And so on.
Understand when routine can lead to a type of time/clutter blindness. If the chore board is collecting dust and you're skipping days, it's time to reboot and remix the routine. Don't force yourself into a system that isn't paying off. It's better to jump from system to system if they work, even for a few weeks, than doing nothing at all.
Convenience is worth the expense/investment. Automate bills if possible. Have 2 bathrooms? Buy duplicate cleaning supplies and put them in each room, so everything is *right there*. Got to where you have some extra income? Grocery delivery, meal boxes, housekeeping, lawn services -- all of those remove cognitive load off your shoulders and are not "giving up", even if you are capable of doing these tasks.
Get some use out of your fidgeting. I pace when I have bees in my brain. When I'm in that mode, I try to look for any trash I can pick up, a counter to wipe, anything to quickly tidy. Something that takes no more than 30 seconds. It really helps with keeping the clutter down in my working areas. I also have some exercise equipment that is fidget-friendly -- an under-desk pedal machine and an indoor rebounder.
Body double when possible. This is like parallel play, but for work. Have someone else in the room, or in a voice/video chat while you work on a task. A lot of folks find they focus well this way.
Rewards cannot be something you regularly do. My reward for doing big projects and deep cleaning is to listen to an audio book during the chore. I cannot listen to an audio book at any other time, because I'll just skip the chore and go straight to the book. This is because I am lazy and my internal boss is a big pushover. So, the reward MUST be special, not something routine like "30 more minutes of video game time for the day."
Don't tell people about big plans if it gives you a serotonin hit. I have learned that telling people about my planned projects gives me almost the same amount of satisfaction as showing off finished work. Then, I just never actually begin. So, I hold off until I've put enough work in to commit.
Don't wait for Big Stuff to practice locking in. Practice with something low stakes. I have been doing my nightly GOOD NIGHT cat photos for like a decade now with about 99% reliability because it is low stakes. And it's proven to me that I can indeed commit to a regular task.
The first 10 minutes will suck. Get used to it. I love to hike, I love to make things. But the first 10 minutes are absolute ass. But enough repetition and I can convince myself to start because I am now confident there will be a payoff.
Don't try to do everything all the time. Half-assed is also better than no-assed. Some days, it's cereal for dinner so you have the spoons to clean the toilet. It's better to negotiate with yourself than do nothing at all.
Be honest with the people in your life that you trust + take responsibility for when your mental health makes you do dumb shit. I have an awful memory. My partner knows this and I have to delegate some things to them to remember for me. I get agitated when my routine and plans get stalled and I go non-verbal or get snappish. My partner knows I am not angry at them, but I still apologize for my behavior as soon as I am able to.
Know when less is more. Regularly declutter your living space. Lack of space and too much stuff can make you over-stimulated. Don't worry about sunk cost . Things that never worked out, like old organization systems, old hobbies -- these can find a new life with someone else. If you find yourself routinely having decision paralysis, remove the number of options. This could mean shrinking your wardrobe, doing a craft room purge, etc.
Remind yourself that you are not an optimization problem to be solved. You will fuck up, you will need more time to recover, etc, etc. It's fine, just adjust your commitments whenever you can to give yourself room to breathe. Burnout is far more difficult to recover from than taking pre-emptive mental health breaks.
On the grief of living with a disability
I've written about this kind of grief before. You are doing yourself a kindness to admit that some things are not going to get better. It's ok to be angry at a future you felt got taken from you.
This grief will never go away. It can sometimes motivate you -- living well out of spite, for example. It can lead you to form lifelong community bonds. And sometimes, it just sucks ass.
Don't let the grief turn into toxic stoicism. Many big problems can be broken down into more manageable little problems. Seek professional help where you can -- get medicated if necessary, hire a professional organizer, go to therapy, join a support group, etc. Like my advice about housekeeping, this is not a form of "giving up". Trying to think your way solo out of a mental disability is akin to trying to run a marathon with a freshly broken leg.
What also helps me is documenting the good times in my life. That way, I have something to look at when I feel like the past year was just a haze.
So what I take the same dozen hiking and museum photos. So what if my crafting documentation skips steps or fizzled out. I still have all these artifacts that help me remember a live well-lived.
Notice I said well-lived, and not necessarily *productive*.
Because remember that you are not an optimization problem to be solved. Even if I didn't have ADHD, I wouldn't be able to do all the things I want to do. So, I try not to beat myself up about *only* reading so many books, making so many arts, etc.
I hope all this helps. It's easy to turn self-awareness about your mental health into self-loathing, so above all, give yourself grace. <3
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