spring dreams ig: camellia.dreamer
*MANGA SPOILERS AHEAD*
We talk a lot about how the micro reflects the macro and vice versa in SxF. And given what’s ‘working’ for Westalis and Ostania right now keeping some semblance of peace is both countries ignoring all the terrible things that have been done during the war and all the terrible things that are still being done after the war - remember, Ostania still has the secret police running around and governed with an iron fist - it’s reasonable to wonder whether this means Twilight and Yor just end up never addressing the two big elephants in the room just to keep their family intact.
Except we know of a relationship where people who once were enemies have since become friends, not because they ‘agree to disagree’ or because they’re willing to forgive if not forget… No, Twilight and Franky have a strong friendship because they are truthful to each other from the get go.
When we are first introduced to Franky Franklin, we see a man who trusts his handler 100%. I mean, the guy showed up on a rooftop next to the docks in the middle of the night, dressed up in tactical gear and brought a backpack full of gadgets without even knowing why he should show up on a rooftop next to the docks in the middle of the night, dress up in tactical gear and bring a backpack full of gadgets. His buddy Twilight asked him to, and that’s enough.
And throughout the series, we see Twilight lean on Franky too. They are both each other’s confidants, which is saying a lot because Twilight finds it hard to trust anyone. Franky is also the one person he lets into his family - Franky babysits Anya, he has meals with the Forgers, he gets to look after Bond.
But it wasn’t always this way. When Franky and Twilight first meet on the battlefield, they are supposedly on opposite sides of the war. [redacted] can’t help but be disdainful, seeing Franky as just part of the inhumane - but also impersonal - monolith that is the Ostania army. And Franky understands, kind of. He has lost people to the war too…
And that’s the thing. Both Twilight and Franky have seen and known the atrocities both Westalis and Ostania have committed. Neither pretend that none of it happened…
What built the foundation of Twilight and Franky’s friendship is the step after accepting their ‘own side’ have committed grave sins and told too many lies. When they pulled back the curtain so to speak and saw nothing but nationalist sentiment, they found commonality. Knowing they’ve been lie to, that they have more in common with each other than with those powerful who never have to taste war… They are both very human, and that’s what’s important here.
In SxF, the macro reflects the micro and vice versa. But not all the time. In fact, we see good relationships don’t have to be built on lies - they are established in the foundation of truths, and recognising the humanity of their counterparts.
A good thing to remember for Yor and Twilight down the road…
It's darkly amusing to me that some people thought my mom didn't "discipline" me enough as a kid, were not shy about making sure both she AND I knew it, and now as an adult I'm one of the only people in my friend group who still wants anything to do with their parents. The proof is in the pudding, as they say.
When I was a kid, I broke a ceramic soap dispenser. I burst into tears and was terrified that I was going to be in trouble. My mom told me that it was okay, because accidents happen sometimes, and the important thing was that I didn't do it on purpose and apologized.
When someone else I know was a kid, they broke a dish on accident and got screamed at and guilt tripped. To this day, they have to push down a panic attack at the sound of broken glass, and have had to actively work on healing from that trauma. They will always have to carry that.
I think maybe it's not MY mom who fucked up in the "how to discipline your child" department. Quite frankly, I think the idea of "disciplining children" is fucked up and deeply harmful on a fundamental level.
When a kid does something wrong, you have to teach them how to fix it and do better. Humans are messy and complicated and we don't know everything there is to know just by being born. Children are learning how to be human beings, and that's a really hard thing to learn.
Kids question and fight back against authority that mistreats them, but someone treating them like a human being with human emotions is usually going to have a lot of success. Kids just want to be respected, and it's our job as adults to give them that basic human dignity. The world is utterly terrifying, and made scarier when all the grown-ups seem to hate you and wish you would just shut up and go away, even the ones that claim they want you around.
Kids can be mean, because they're still learning how to socialize and communicate and collaborate. Sometimes you have to give them time to cool off, and sometimes you have to redirect them. Sometimes you have to be firm. Sometimes you have to be an adult, and hone your conflict de-escalation and resolution skills. None of that requires punishment.
And if a child does something truly cruel and fucked up and shitty, and it hurts someone in a big way? My first question isn't "what should their punishment be," my first question is always, "who taught this kid that, and is this child in active danger from them?"
I do not want my fantasy media to be realistic. I want my fantasy media to be convincing.
does this recipe exist in text format? bc that looks so good
This probably isn’t exactly right, but here are my estimates from the video:
Breading:
2 chicken breasts, or 1 breast plus 1 thigh? Cut into bite sized pieces 1 large egg 1 tsp soy sauce 1 tsp oil Grated garlic and grated ginger to taste (maybe 1/2 tsp to start?) 1 Tb cornstarch 1 Tb flour 1/4 to 1/2 tsp baking powder White pepper to taste Pinch of salt Mix it all together until thoroughly combined, then add chicken pieces and stir until fully coated
Sauce:
Zest plus juice of 1 large orange 1 to 2 c broth 1 Tb brown sugar 1 Tb soy sauce 1 Tb rice vinegar 2 Tb Shaoxing wine Grated garlic and grated ginger to taste again
Fry for 4 minutes at a time at Medium heat to cook, in enough batches so the chicken has enough room that it doesn't stick to other pieces Turn up the heat to Medium High and re-fry for crispiness until it's your preferred color, probably 2-3 minutes
Put the sauce on the heat; add 1 Tb cornstarch mixed with 1 Tb water to form a slurry; this will thicken the sauce; reduce heat to Low/Medium-Low Once the sauce thickens, add chicken back in and saute (violently)
Plate on steamed rice, and sprinkle with sesame seeds and green onion slices
Again, the real recipe might be out there, but this is my estimation based on watching the video.
i can say from experience definitely more flour than that, she just only showed one 'scoop' going in
The text recipe is in the video description on TikTok:
Genuinely and unironically my philosophy abt music has expanded to “stop writing off music because it’s from a specific genre” and I think that could be applied to most mediums actually
Is country music really all bad or are you only catching snippets of christonationalist propaganda on the radio? Are horror movies always shallow torture porn or are you just thinking of trailers you saw for slasher movies? Are fantasy novels only for kids or was the last one you picked up Harry Potter? Is anime always fan service or are you just running into ecchi clips online over and over and over? Are you looking for good media or are you finding bad media and considering it representative?
Eu fiz essas ilustrações durante o Dia dos Namorados de 2022, eu amo demais esse projeto!
"Uma moça inteligente e determinada, que para salvar seu pai de uma dívida, vai trabalhar na mansão de um jovem veterano da Segunda Guerra, recluso e amargurado pelas cicatrizes em seu rosto devido ao campo de batalha."
>>>
I made these during brazilian's Valentine's Day 2022, and I love it so much!
"An intelligent and determined lady, to save her father from a debt, decides to work on a manor of a young, World War II vet, recluse and bitter due to the scars in his face caused by the battlefield."
The duchy was founded - unofficially - when some enterprising little thief had read through the royal lawbooks, looking for loopholes like a worm trying to wriggle its way through a brick, and had discovered that while the king's men could follow a man across mountains, forests, and plains, they were not granted the same jurisdiction over bodies of water.
This had started the popular idea amongst the kingdom's criminal underbelly that if a thief took a boat and paddled out into the middle of a pond, the king's men technically couldn't do anything about it.
Of course, the realist interjected, it'd never work; if you tried it, then you'd be one thief in the middle of a pond, with all those guards waiting on the shore for you to either wash ashore or die of starvation.
Still, the idea was alluring. It hung around the popular consciousness as a thought, an untested hypothesis, an interesting fact.
It would've remained so if it wasn't for Edmund Snood, an enterprising young thief who hadn't quite enterprised an escape plan, and with the guard closing behind him had grabbed a rowboat and cast himself out into the largest of the kingdom's lakes so fast that he had skipped like a thrown stone.
And as Edmund fended off the banks and the horrible, grinning, patient faces of the guards on the shore, word had spread across the kingdom. Soon enough, thieves and thugs were all paddling up to the little rowboat with a sandwich and a few words of encouragement, attaboy, Eddie, show them who's boss, eh? We're all rooting for you back home!
And after four days, the duchy was founded - unofficially - when Jack "Jackal" Jaseroque had lashed his rowboat to Edmund's and took over the duty of paddling while Edmund took the first sleep he had in four days.
After that, another boat lashed together with the two. Then another. Then four more. A lean-to shelter was built, torn down, and rebuilt bigger. Walkways were lashed together. And then in a wave of tidal force, the thieves and thugs, bandits and brigands, vandals and vagabonds of the kingdom sailed out to the little assemblage. Leather bladders were inflated to help with bouyancy. Ramshackle halls were raised. A strict rotation of paddling duty was arranged to fend off the shores.
And the tune of the realist had changed - they can't be watching all the shores, right? So if we just spend a couple days here, keep an eye out, and head out again once we've spotted a gap, then who cares about a little bit of paddling in the meantime, right?
The duchy was formed - officially - when Edmund Snood took on the role of dukedom to universal acclaim. This was also when the name of the little commune had been agreed on, as the makeshift structure bobbed gently on the water's surface.
It was called the Robber Duchy.
Beautiful!
okay so here's what gets me right in the fucking ventricles:
Claudia having the same momentary association of the rejuvenation spell with Lissa that Viren does draws a nice, meaty parallel between them, yes... but their surrounding attitudes about it are completely, deliciously different.
Viren thinks about Lissa every time he performs the spell, but specifically, he thinks about the first time he cast it--he thinks about how it failed to save his marriage. It's a little cut of that failure, every time, because he remembers that it was all futile. He was only able to paper over the problem, and that wasn't enough. The real him is still what's under the spell, that corruption and loss.
Now, Claudia smells Lissa's perfume when she casts the spell for the first time. She has just reflected on the people closest to her that have left her behind--Soren, Viren (and how juicy that she considers him as having left her, not being taken from her), and Lissa, who was the most traumatic loss and therefore emblematic of the entire fear for her. She feels weak, lost, and rejected, all emotions she associates with the memory of Lissa's departure. Then, immediately after the reassurance of the rejuvenation, she reaffirms her identity as a dark mage, though that is an identity she speculates that Lissa would not recognize, and possibly even reject.
She also defines her true identity, the self she recognizes, as being her rejuvenated self. She's taking the opposite position from Viren, but even more than that, she's doing the opposite of what Lissa did--what Lissa was unable to do, which was continue on as if nothing had changed. Claudia has papered over the problem, and, in her desperate insistence on returning her life to normal, accepted that as being good enough.
And the real thing is, deep down, she knows it's not. Sir Sparklepuff acts as a mirror to her throughout the story, both literally and figuratively--when she sees that reproach and fear, it's her own.
ANYWAY I'M JUST
Spy x Family is increasingly just about 3 people and a dog who lack the vocabulary (metaphorically...) for love showing every day how much they love their family.
I don't think neither Yor nor Twilight at this point entirely understand what they are feeling and what they are acting on is love. The moment they realize... oof.
That’s actually really good that Endo’s characters “lack the vocabulary (metaphorically) for love”. So often in Western culture storytelling, love is said verbally sometimes through song. It’s shown physically through PDA, hugging, kissing, or through sex scenes.
But here, we see love in action. Love is taking care of the others. Wanting the best life for the others. Uplifting, encouraging, protecting, aiding etc.
(Show how in love you are)
Twilight putting up with Yuri because he’s the only family Yor has left.
Twilight validating and uplifting Yor. Affirming her place in the Forger Family.
Twilight telling her to find people that she can share parts of her life with (Patriotic Ladies Society)
Yor keeping the apartment clean, cooking even though she’s bad at it.
Yor encouraging him when he’s doubting himself.
Yor’s fierce and fearless declaration of “showing no mercy” if the SSS unjustly harm her husband.
Me, reading discourse on the internet: woah, this is JUST like dandelions and amaranth and oaks and pawpaw trees
The one thing Darwin was most terribly wrong about has done so much damage.
Darwin believed competition was the main driver of evolution. Now, many scientists are revolutionizing the field with evidence that no, evolution is equally, if not more, driven by a vast web of cooperation.
But people still think about society in a competition-based way.
A woman using the word "partner" to describe her boyfriend somehow "takes away" from gay people??? A cishet guy wearing a dress is somehow bad for transgender people???
Don't y'all know that the most tough and resilient plants thriving in a hostile environment make it possible for the other ones to survive?...
...Anyway this is why I don't shave my legs. Disaster species (autistic who is completely oblivious and indifferent to all social judgement and critique) taking hold in hostile environment (misogynistic society) preparing that environment to support a wide variety of species (many other women who would want to stop shaving but don't want to feel judged and alone)
now i want there to be a comic that's a panorama of a teeming forest with giant trees and mosses and lichens everywhere, the ground is covered in loads of fancy orchids and berries and flowers and the understory is packed with blossoming and fruiting shrubs, there are multicolored birds everywhere and deer browsing in a little meadow full of sunbeams where wildflowers and vines are going wild
Up toward the lower corner two flowers are having a conversation: "We didn't have any of this stuff back when I was young ...orchids that can't even sprout in the first place without the mycorrhizal network!...flowers that can only be pollinated by one specific rare bee...I just think it's getting a little out of control...there are even plants down there in the bog claiming to be carnivorous! Plants that don't even want to have chlorophyll anymore...We're photosynthetic autotrophs! That's a biological fact!...Don't you think it's a little ridiculous? Sixty years ago you never heard about anything like that...The weeds that came here after this place was logged wouldn't have approved of it..."
Some guy: People like you would have never been accepted when we lived in THE WILDERNESS.
The wilderness: *literally interconnected by a vast symbiotic network that distributes resources among the plant community, gets steadily more diverse and supports more fragile species with more specific needs as it matures, everything is interdependent, a huge variety of weird organisms that wouldn't survive in a more hostile environment indicates a thriving ecosystem*
The Kindness of Bocchi the Rock
Reposted from my blog over here. Spoilers for the whole show.
Seasonal sensation anime Bocchi the Rock! draws most of its comedic material from its severely socially disfunctional titular lead. It would’ve been easy for BTR to fall into mean-spirited jokes at the expense of her personality, but no matter how much a disaster Bocchi ends up being at a given time the comedy never actually feels like it is punching down on her, and instead serves to make her all the more endearing and relatable to the audience, a character one can feel themselves rooting for without question. BTR achieves this by the multi-faceted nature of its narrative and characters, expertly blending expressionist comedy and realist seriousness to tell its story about personal growth and the meaning of expression in niche art.
A 100% wish fulfillment ❤️🩹 (a type of lie in a sense) for the Twiyor/Loidyor fandom.
Happy April Fool’s Day 😌
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Partly inspired by this post by @shinybluebirdwizard and @mika213, especially the “Twiyor is a lil slow dinky boat that upgrades over time” part.
The Musebunny™ saw it, then lovingly dropkicked me on the head with this idea.
Thanks again to all my friends who were both the test subjects and proofreaders for my elaborate shitposting 🫡 You guys are awesome ❤️❤️❤️













