#wild soybean

[hellsitegenetics]

Listen here you toe-eyed cabbage. I wasn't born into this world so your fat ass could choke out low-level insults at me. I hope you stub your toe in the dark and have to crawl around your bedroom at 3:47AM in horrific pain after going to the kitchen for a midnight snack of cheese and crackers, you absolute gormless minger.

String identified: t t- caag. a't t t at a c c t - t at . t t t a a a t ca a at :A c a at gg t t tc a gt ac c a cac, at g g.

Closest match: Glycine soja polyribonucleotide nucleotidyltransferase 2, mitochondrial-like (LOC114411664), mRNA Common name: Wild soybean

#tumblr genetics #genetics #asks #requests #sent to me #azzydoesstuff #plants #flowers #wild soybean

[zilabee]

and when I'm down, real sanpaku, and I don't know what to do, aisumasen, aisumasen Yoko san

- Aisumasen (I'm Sorry), by John Lennon

"You," Yoko told him one day after gazing into his eyes, "are sanpaku." And thus began his life-long involvement with the philosophy of macrobiotics. Sanpaku, she explained patiently, was a Japanese term meaning literally 'three whites'. If a person was sanpaku it meant that the irises of their eyes were turned upwards so that white could be seen on three sides. The condition had been recognised for centuries in oriental countries where it was considered to signify poor physical and psychological health - caused primarily by an unwholesome diet. Worse, people who were sanpaku were prone to meet with violent accidents or death. "Look," she had said, showing him photographs. "President Kennedy was not sanpaku in his younger, dynamic years. But shortly before his assassination he became sanpaku. Hitler too was sanpaku before his death." History showed that Julius Caesar, Abraham Lincoln and dozens more had become sanpaku towards the end of their lives. The two of them had together pored over photographs of the Beatles and realise that, though none of them had been sanpaku in their early days, now they all were. John was not surprised.

- All They Needed Was Love, John Blake, 1981

For thousands of years, people of the Far East have been looking into each other's eyes for signs of this dreaded condition. Any sign of sanpaku meant that a man's entire system — physical, physiological and spiritual — was out of balance. He had committed sins against the order of the universe and he was therefore sick, unhappy, insane, what the West has come to call "accident prone". The condition of sanpaku is a warning, a sign from nature, that one's life is threatened by an early and tragic end.

- You Are All Sanpaku, by George Ohsawa, 1963.

Whatever dent the sanpaku concept has made in the Western consciousness is largely the doing of [Japanese author] George Ohsawa. He poached the concept from old Asian diagnostic traditions of facial reading, in which different features were thought to reflect aspects of your physical or spiritual health. In his writings Ohsawa claimed that three-whites was a particularly nasty characteristic, indicative of someone “suspicious, fearful, insecure, quick to misunderstand, and passive.” Furthermore, “his heart, sexual organs, liver, kidney, and lungs are very sick,” and so forth, and the condition can only be treated with a macrobiotic diet.

- Washington City Paper [x]

Oshawa pointed to individuals with sanpaku eyes that ranged from Martin Luther King Jr. to Abraham Lincoln—which, of course, implies that their untimely deaths had nothing to do with radicals upset about, oh, the Civil War or the Civil Rights Movement. [...] while a Japanese writer helped popularize the notion of sanpaku eyes in the West, it doesn't seem to be much of a superstition in Japan—especially compared to other Japanese superstitions, such as people's blood types. [...] If you do have sanpaku eyes, don't take much stock in these superstitions. As with most superstitions, this isn't hard science. It's not even soft science!

- Kotaku East [x]

#all you needed was love #(and brown rice) #you guys #wild to think that #Kennedy wouldn't even have been assassinated #if only he ate more soybeans #sanpaku #john and yoko #yoko ono #john lennon #the beatles

[morethansalad]

Grilled Wild Betel Leaves / Bò Lá Lốt Chay (Vegan)

#vegan #appetizer #lunch #wraps #vietnamese cuisine #southeast asian cuisine #grilled #wild greens #betel leaves #mushrooms #lemongrass #tofu #shallots #garlic #vegan oyster sauce #peanuts #chinese 5 spice powder #soy sauce #dips #chili #soybeans #chao #pineapple #sesame oil #black pepper #sea salt

[t-u-i-t-c]

rip to those dramas i started and dropped

#i rarely drop but i watched like half of wild ch*ves & soybean soup and not the rest #as soon as we got to the present i lost interest like all the juicy stuff happened in the first half #skimmed through the second half and most the people that deserved to be held accountable weren't #also watched the h**rs when i was in high school and couldn't finish it #everyone was so nasty and mean or victims of people being nasty and mean #i watched all but the last episode too 💀 #thinking about this bc i'm watching dramas and my taste has changed #like nowadays i watch a lot less romance and more suspense but i love romance still #so i'll throw one in there every once in a while #umbrella.thoughts #umbrella.posts #umbrella.other #misc lb

[wellnesscard]

im actually a very embarrassing human being a lot of the time and have no clue how to be normal but its whatever and i dont believe in that shit (normal?? hilarious!) anyways. doesnt fit in my philosophy. just like i have a bachelors degree in psychology and the biggest thing i understood from that degree was that we - human persons! - are the one and only creators of these boxes (diagnoses). there is no such thing as anything because it is all understood in terms we have coined in order to describe similarly recurring phenomena -- Well! what else is language! BUT it gets super zany and excitable, when wordcrafting is applied to psychology(or more-so behavior and self analysis) - at that point you can twist and distract yourself beyond truth. i dont know what im saying imstill gettiing used to this distrubution of keys upon the chromebook (junked donated old secondhanded mamadaddy laptop thank you so fucking much to be a donation bin to a family with extra provisions

#my folks are like #budget freakz #they were really good at it and good at having good old fashioned fun my siblings and i didnt even know we were poor in early 2010s #too busy singing songs and #picking wild strawberries in the countryside. on the fringes of wheat and soybean fields :) #ah! goddamn you and thank you so much for giving me a beautiful childhood . they are beautiful people i feel like i have been neglecting #their advice since 15 years old. they have very good advice. i missed out on that. ive been so distracted #i love re-knowing them #outside my - ill admit - selfish priorities #but i dont think it is necessarily wrong to be selfiesh. i do feel like a feral and hurt animal a lot of the time and that hurts #my regular brain to watch. the crisis. #so many emotions #and so intense #swear to god they wouldve drowned me by now if i werent such a strong swimmer

[bluemoonrabbit]

Various late-night ramblings through Wikipedia had led me to the delightful discovery that Benjamin Franklin read about and very much wanted to try tofu. He refers to it as a kind of cheese made of Chinese beans, and was so enthusiastic about the idea that he wrote to James Flint, a British diplomat and one of the first Westerners to "officially" learn Chinese, to find out how to make it. I can't find out if he ever succeeded in making it, and Flint's instructions leave out the very important addition of a coagulant, but the mental image is bringing me no end of good cheer.

#benjamin franklin #james flint #food history #tofu #soybeans #james flint is an interesting character #at one point he complained directly to the emperor of china #(very much a crime) #and while the people he was complaining about were punished #it was more for being involved with a horrible foreigner #and flint himself was jailed for three years for it #mostly because the entire complaint was a pretense to complain to the emperor about something else #btw I don't think directly meant face to face or even close to it #from what I can tell it was more that he went from his port city to #a city inland so he could complain to someone higher up the ladder eith the *intent* that it reach the emperor #and that was close enough #history's wild man

[ranilla-bean]

culture tips for writing asian settings: tea varieTEAs

atla's got major Tea Guy representation in iroh but let's be real, even non-tea guys are going to be drinking tea in an asian-inspired setting—you'd be served it instead of water most places. so, what kind of tea are you picking for them?

as an east asian reader, it can take me out of the setting to see the characters drink something like chamomile (from europe/west asia) or... most herbal teas, to be honest. ngl it was weird to see iroh in the show, characterised as a huuuuuuge tea snob, drink stuff like jasmine (it's fine it's just basic, is all! imo!) or like.... a random flower he encounters in the wild.

when we're talking tea, real asian tea, we're talking about the leaf of the camellia sinensis plant. the huge variety we have of tea is actually from the different ways of processing that exact same leaf. popular varieties include:

green: the leaf goes through minimal processing, can have a bright and even leafy/grassy flavour (examples: gunpowder, longjing aka dragon well, matcha, genmaicha)

white: also undergoes minimal processing, with a lighter flavour than even green (examples: silver needle, shou mei)

oolong: the leaf is semi-oxidised, curled, and twisted—can be characterised by a tanniny flavour with a bright aftertaste. my personal favourite! (examples: da hong pao, tieguanyin, dong ding, alishan)

dark (black): note this isn't the same as black tea as we think of it in english. the leaf is fermented to produce an earthy tea with a flavour like petrichor (examples: pu'er)

all the teas listed in the "examples" are fairly credible teas that i think a real tea snob like iroh would drink.

ok, but what about...

"black tea" as we know it in the west—assam and ceylon etc? this variety is actually called "red tea" in chinese. we don't drink it with milk but to be honest, i've just... never really heard of anyone drinking chinese red tea? which is why i've kept it off the list. (there's lapsang souchong, but i associate that with bri'ish people...) anyone who does drink it, let me know! on the other hand something like assam/ceylon, while extremely delicious and also asian, is a product of british colonialism and is consumed with milk. i think if you wanted to massage some of the traditions & have chai-drinking indian-influenced characters, though, that's cool!

do you actually not drink herbal tea? we do... but a lot of it is considered medicinal. we've got stuff like herbal "cooling tea" with ingredients like sour plum, mesona, or crysanthemum; tea that warms you up like ginseng or ginger. the whole concept of hot/cold in chinese medicine though... that deserves another culture post

camellia leaf murdered my family & i have a grudge against it; what else can my blorbos drink? there'a some good, tasty stuff made of wheat, barley, buckwheat, even soybean. wouldn't be egregious for the characters to drink that!

is milk sacriligeous? a real tea snob would think so, but a lot of asians nowadays are chill about milk in tea—usually in western-influenced red tea. hong kong, thailand, india, taiwan, and malaysia (among others) have their own cultures of milk tea, which has even become a democratic rallying point.

what do you think of iroh inventing bubble tea? my main issue with it is it's anachronistic! it was invented in taiwan in the late 20th century, but atla's set in the equivalent of the mid-19th century... you could also make arguments about whether iroh's too snobby about tea to invent it LOL

there's soooo much more i can say about all this so: keep your eyes peeled! i'll talk about medicine & tea ceremony in the near future <3

disclaimer | more tips

#atla #atla culture #atla meta #avatar the last airbender #iroh #asian culture tips #tea #so i'm making this post as not QUITE a certified Tea SnobTM the way iroh is #but i do really love and enjoy many east asian teas #and i start every day off with a cup of strong milk tea (probably reflecting my own cultural heritage tho ;) ) #and i do look down on white ppl tisanes. that shit aint good!!

[botanyshitposts]

takeaways from seed hunting over the weekend:

-SOOOOO many seeds right now. GREAT time of year for seeds

-asters are off the chain rn making 20000 individual little seeds with little unique parachutes on them. i knew the family was huge but for some reason I didn’t know that so many of them did that for dispersal???

-big bluestem seeds are so cute and hairy and pretty and weirdly expressive. i found some on the side of the road and it’s like damn you guys just live here on the side of highway 30 looking like this?????

-WHERE did all the dandelions go?? it feels like there’s exponentially fewer of them around here (Iowa) than last year, I could only find like, one patch of them in town to sample.

-I found a shrubby weird plant outside a used farming equipment depo with big black pods attached that open and spill like, 2 little seeds per giant pod onto the ground around it. from just an initial investigation it looks like it’s some kind of bean, but not a soybean or a bean I recognize. wild times

-milkweed seeds on their GIANT poofs. i let them go on their way but I loved seeing them again, it seems like they’re mostly done blooming for now

-waiting patiently for the asters who don’t attach their seeds to parachutes to finish up so I can collect some

-I got some giant ragweed seeds, which is good because I was looking for them! unfortunately the inside of the container I collected them in is coated with pollen, though, so I might have to take it outside to clean them and get the flower bits out lmao

#seedposting

[bonefall]

Herb Guide to HRT for Warrior Cats

Have a warrior OC you would like to show being on hormone replacement medication? I’ve gone through herbs historically associated with femininity/masculinity, as well as those with effects on sex hormones, that a wild cat could hypothetically find and use.

Of course, this would still require a bit of a leap as there’s no herb in nature that can replace our friend Spironolactone... but if you’d like some herbs with a grain of truth or history to them that wouldn’t poison a semi-realistic cat? Here you go!

(DO NOT USE THESE HERBS ON YOURSELF OR A REAL ANIMAL.)

Let’s identify what we’re looking for;

Hormone suppressing herbs = antigonadotropins Prevents production and recognition of present hormones. This is going to be big for an agender transition; but even in a binary one, they’re often taken with- 

Hormone producing herbs = estrogen/estradiol & testosterone/androgens Make sure your warrior doesn’t start on huge amounts! Smaller, controlled doses are more effective. Too much can cause the opposite effects and slow down transition.

Historical precedent = Just Cool If I find a cool story I’m just going to include it, but note that it doesn’t hold pharmacological basis.

I considered also including some thoughts on surgical treatments as well, but I’ve decided I’ll save that for a follow-up. This guide is purely focused on medication to stay SFW!

Hormone Suppressants

Lycopus (also known as Wolf’s Foot, Water Horehound, Bugleweed) is such a widespread species and has several other medical uses. Not only is it THE most well documented antigonadotropin I came across, but its different species have a wide variety of medical use, including treating anxiety, heart palpitations, stopping bleeding, and respiratory illness. This is also a mint that is not toxic to cats. Also it can be used as a dye.

THERE IS A CAVEAT; if Lycopus supplements suddenly stop or overdosed, it can cause thyroid enlargement. Keep this in mind if your trans warrior ever gave up their medication to a sick clanmate in leafbare!

Lithospermum ruderale (Aka western Stoneseed or Lemonweed) has similar suppression properties, but only in American fanclans, and not as many secondary uses.

Comfrey ROOT can also be used for this purpose, in addition to its canonical uses (funfact this plant is also called knitbone). But can cause liver failure in high doses.

Rosemary suppresses feminine hormones in the uterus, for warriors going from Female to Male. Additionally, it’s an excellent antifungal, smells great, and can be used as a cooking spice.

Molly to Tom (Female to Male)

Pine Pollen (particularly from the Scots Pine), can be added to water or foods and increase testosterone.

Stinging Nettle ROOT could also be taken for a transmasc warrior. The above ground plant can be processed for use with allergies, but the relevant part here is the root underground, which has no stinging hairs.

Sarsparilla ROOT is historically associated with testosterone, though modern studies haven’t held up the claims... but, it is a plant an American clan would have access to, and is also used to make root beer.

Tom to Molly (Male to Female) 

FENNEL?? AGAIN??? It’s true.

Through Fennel, all things are possible

It has estrogenic properties in all sexes and has been explored for the creation of synthetic estrogen since the 1930s. This can be used for a transgender warrior, as well as for a cisgender queen with a hormone issue. It must be remarked though; it looks alarmingly similar to poison hemlock, and should not be collected by untrained cats.

Hops (Humulus lupulus) is up next, but first I think this education is worthwhile; phytoestrogens aren’t exactly like true estrogens, but in high enough quantities (as in, much, much more than a plate of soybeans or a mug of beer) they can have estrogen-like affects.

Hops are the uncontested queen of these, and they grow wild in several continents. Hops can sometimes be toxic to cats, based on a genetic predisposition, and mostly to the ‘cone’ (female flower). For the best hormonal effect, the ‘flower‘ (male flower) would be dried and eaten.

Flax flowers don’t contain nearly as much phytoestrogen, but are safer for cats. Additionally, flax is extremely useful in construction, and can be used to make fabric or twine if your Clan is advanced enough.

#I don't have a DNI so here's the warning; If I see TERFs clowning on his post I will block on sight. #Trans rights #I'm as queer as a rainbow steer #transgender #Clan Herbs #Clan Culture #Warrior Cats #Fennelposting #I have no idea how Fennel ends up on every single one of these lists somehow #In love with Bugleweed btw #God it has SO many uses #Most of this was sourced from The Review Of Natural Products #The fifth edition specifically because that was the one I could find #The newest one is going for like 200$ jesus christ

[fatehbaz]

On Saturday, August 2, 2014, the water supply for the city of Toledo, Ohio, was poisoned. Officials issued an unequivocal order to the half million residents connected to the municipal intake: Don’t drink, cook, or brush your teeth with the water. [...] Stores ran out of bottled water, leaving residents to queue up at local fire stations [...]. The culprit was a bright green plume of Microcystis, a cyanobacterium that thrives in warm water [...]. In spring, rains wash a pulse of nutrients off the surrounding region’s fertilized farms and send it down the Maumee and Sandusky Rivers and into western Lake Erie. [...] Tests showed that the city’s water contained dangerous levels of microcystin, a liver toxin produced by the bloom.

The source of the problem stretches for thousands of square miles across northwestern Ohio and eastern Indiana. The rich earth [...] in the region produces hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of soybeans and corn, as well as wheat, vegetables, pork, and poultry. The landscape is a vast, flat expanse of tidy fields and modest farmhouses crisscrossed with county roads — but it wasn’t always this way.

Centuries ago, this part of the Midwest was a wild expanse of wet forest and marsh stretching across a million acres, and early settlers who slogged through the muck and mosquitoes called the place the Great Black Swamp. [...] On an 1808 map, the swamp, which covered most of northwestern Ohio, was designated as “land not worth a farthing.” 

But settlers came anyway, felling the giant sycamores and oaks to create roads, and digging miles of drainage trenches to slowly bleed the water away from the muck. [...]

They [”the wetlands”] are considered a menace, a threat, a thing to be overcome. These attitudes are enshrined in state law, which makes impossible any action, including wetland restoration, that slows the flow of runoff through those miles of constructed drainage ditches [...].

[S]oldiers recorded the striking bounty of the Black Swamp and Lake Erie’s southwestern shore. On an April morning in 1813, two hungry soldiers stationed at Fort Meigs, near present-day Toledo, walked down to the Maumee River. The clear waters swarmed with perch, muskellunge, sturgeon, and catfish. Plunging spears into the water at random, they caught 67 fish in 30 minutes, often killing two or three with a single stroke. Every river mouth west of the Sandusky held dense beds of wild rice, where waterfowl settled to feed, then rose in flocks that darkened the sky. The rice stalks stood taller than a man’s head: to feed, ducks grabbed the stems with their feet and tugged the seed heads down to the water. [...]

In 1859, the Ohio General Assembly passed a law authorizing county commissioners to construct drainage ditches. Farmers benefiting from ditch construction shared the cost. The other Midwestern states also enacted laws authorizing drainage districts, enabling the construction of vast networks of ditches that drained great swathes of land — a mission that required investment and coordination, and could not have been accomplished by individual landowners.

Through the work of drainage districts, the Corn Belt states would lose more than 95 percent of their native wetlands. [...]

Some enterprising soul tested the abundant clay that lay a foot or two beneath the soil of the Black Swamp, and found that it made excellent tiles.

By 1880, more than 50 tile factories operated in northwest Ohio, and the Black Swamp was dismembered and used to feed an accelerating and diversifying cycle of human industry.

The great wetland trees — ash, elm, oak, sycamore — were felled and used to build houses, make furniture, and power the railroads that sprouted up across Ohio. In the 1860s, Ohio’s railways consumed one million cords of wood each year as fuel, and an unknown quantity for ties. The discovery of underdrainage created a growing demand for tile. All this drove an orgy of forest clearing and land draining which in the course of five decades, from 1870 to 1920, completely erased the Black Swamp. A wilderness went up in the smoke from railroad engines, and flowed in drainage ditches down to the Maumee and Sandusky, which began to run murky and lost their once-bountiful populations of fish.

Among the descendants of the settlers who conquered the Black Swamp, drainage is viewed as sacred, while wetland restoration borders on the profane. In terms of water quality, a prime place to create wetlands would be where they intercept the flow of polluted water in farm ditches. That could cause water to back up and flood the fields, however, and it is forbidden under Ohio’s ditch laws, which have changed little since 1859.

-------

All text, images, and captions published by: Sharon Levy. “Learning to Love the Great Black Swamp.” Undark. 31 March 2017. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks added by me.]

[littlefaefeather]

Black Butler manga foods/drinks

I'm sure I missed some things, but it was all things that weren't really named or specified, or I couldn't tell with certainty what they were. @sebastian-ciel-mutual-bullying this is for you! feel free to take and use as you need o7 Book 1 breakfast: poached salmon and mint salad with toast, scones, and pain de campagne on the sides, ceylon tea horribly salty lemonade dinner: Japanese green tea, gyuutatakidon, Italian red wine, apricot and green tea mille-feuille dessert: orchard fruit cake with pears, plums, and blackberries dessert: deep-dish apple raisin pie milk

Book 2 assam tea afternoon tea: keemun and summer pudding of currants and other berries lunch: stuffed cabbage and minted potato salad chocolate earl grey afternoon tea: cornmeal cake of pears and blackberries salty rosehip herbal tea

Book 3 hot milk with honey or brandy peeled apple assam tea with milk oranges with shalimar tea steak and kidney pie and salmon sandwiches messy birthday cake and donburi strawberry-decorated birthday cake

Book 4 fish chai with ginger breakfast: shrimp curry and French toast with ginger mackerel with gooseberry sauce and cottage pie

Book 5 British-style Bengali chicken curry chicken curry afternoon snack: gateau au chocolat beef curry blue lobster with seven curries curry bun assam tea white darjeeling tea champagne sushi

Book 6 Christmas pudding cookies shaped like bones fish and chips, meat pies, bread

Book 7 rice porridge dinner: milk risotto with a three-mushroom medley, a pot-au-feu of pork and wine, and a warm apple compote with yogurt sauce

Book 8 oranges afternoon tea: chocolate macarons with fruits and three-berry shortcake

Book 9 custard cream puffs red wine white wine brunch: herring pie and spinach quiche dinner: curry, and chopped vegetables for an appetizer

Book 10 dinner: soybean hamburg steaks

Book 11 elevenses: darjeeling tea and petits fours tonkatsu, shougayaki, tonjiru, tonshabu, yakiton

Book 12 cake with strawberries on top

Book 13 spiny lobster saute, roast turkey, sticky toffee pudding, fairy cakes (cupcakes) warm milk with honey

Book 14 watered-down darjeeling tea darjeeling tea dinner: roast duck and gateau chocolat

Book 15 golden syrup sponge pudding tea cakes lemon myrtle souffle glace with milk tea

Book 16 lunch: beef mince pie

Book 17 dessert: strawberries, cream, and meringue (Eton mess) with a side of iced summer pudding

Book 18 chicken pie coffee and walnut cake

Book 19 ravioli (maultaschen) and wurst soup, stewed pork with herbs and spices (eisbein), and rote grutze (sour berries boiled and chilled to jelly, served with cream) evening snack: caramel macarons, coffee cream eclairs, dark chocolate florentines. black tea ceylon tea

Book 22 earl grey tea with orange almond cake and berry tarts

Book 23 smoked salmon sandesh (milk sweets)

Book 24 soft licorice candy apples

Book 25 berry-filled pudding fish and chips and steak and ale pie gulab jamun (fried balls of dough drenched in syrup)

Book 29 kidney pie, fish and chips, and ale wild-hare pie tapioca steak

Book 30 nilgiri tea breakfast: pea soup, meatballs, croissants, boiled egg, orange jelly chicken and steamed vegetable salad, oxtail stew, pain de campagne with butter oolong tea

Book 31 candy cigarettes

#speaking #black butler #kuroshitsuji #food

[thereignclub-trc]

Ancestral diet 💀

An ancestral diet means eating less:

refined sugar

industrial seed oils such as canola and soybean and margarine

refined grains

processed soy products (soy, soy protein, and soy-based fake meat)

genetically modified foods

artificial colors, flavors and sweeteners

additives and preservatives

And eating more:

grass-fed and pastured meats, poultry, eggs and dairy

wild-caught seafood

seasonal fruits and vegetables

fermented foods including sauerkraut, kimchi, and kefir

ancient grains such as wheat, barley, rice, legumes and beans

unrefined fats such as butter, extra virgin olive oil, avocado oil, and coconut oil.

#trcask #ask

[eleemosynecdoche]

"Can you straddle the line between being a youkai and being a human in Touhou?"

Sure. Does make you extra delicious for youkai, does make it harder for you to live anything close to a typical human life in the modern world, but I'm sure you can *exist* in that condition, probably for a long period of time if your surrounding environment is amenable.

"Well then, why doesn't Kasen-"

Because Kasen doesn't actually try to live like a human and doesn't act like a human. She has a fetishized understanding of humanity, one which transmutes her youkai-as-predator-of-humans status into her seeking to become more human than any human, superior to them. She wants to be an oni that nobody can ever throw roasted soybeans at. The definite humans we see interact with her in Wild and Horned Hermit are aware that she's not like them in some deep way.

This is also relevant to what "youkai" means in the context of Touhou, because while I think it's easy to be on that straddling line, we don't have characters who return to being human, even as a rumor. Something about surviving as a youkai means that people don't want to go back and try to be human again. It's somehow... liberating to them.

This is also not the case with another duality in Touhou, youkai and god. Indeed, three of Mountain of Faith's bosses are entirely about this duality being compatibilist. Hina's whole boss conversations are about whether she's a god or a youkai; she's clearly both, but would rather be seen as a god by humans. (Because she's small fry as far as youkai go, but as a god, she's hooked into an annual festival where she's minor but important. Her existence is much more stable as a god!)

Nitori and Aya (and Momiji by extension) are simply both and comfortable with it. Tengu and kappa are (perceived as) divine as groups, but (perceived as) youkai as individuals. People can approach them as gods, beings that can switch from angry to helpful at the drop of a hat, but can be appeased, as an anonymous group, while fearing meeting an individual kappa on the road or worrying that their house is shaking in a strong wind because a tengu is flapping her wings, ready to spirit them all away when the walls collapse.

(The Aki sisters, I would argue, straddle the line between gods and fairies. But that's another post entirely.)

Anyways, Touhou metaphysics are, as the refined girlthings keep saying, tied up in the themes and symbols used in Touhou as a work of art made up of multiple works of art. What it means to be a youkai, a god, or a fairy- and especially what it means to be a human- is tied up in that.

[buffalojournal]

Two Poems by Jessie Lynn McMains

Secret

is I stabbed summer      watched it twitch and spurt, dark, arterial        crunched the husks of late cicadas esoteric as the leaves                 we use to cross our sacred wounds            mystic is her lemonlips         the fuzz soft above        them charcoal smudge of shadow                   over her clavicle I wanna wake up in       November with a sprig       of verbena planted        in the pocket of my leather jacket       her fingers fuzzing on the stubble of my                  brooding clouds crisp wind rustle in        the oaktrees how sweet how soft she                 sing to me

At the Denny’s in Michigan City, Indiana, at 2 a.m. in Mid-October

everyone’s loonier than a junebug in a Canadian goose- feathered bed. One middle-aged fella in a Van Halen t-shirt with the sleeves torn off stuffs his mouth fulla straws and whistles “Dusty Crabapple Pie.” The old-timers in the back booth play poker for packets of non-dairy creamer and Sweet n’ Low, sling stories of glory days hunting Mud Mermaids and Wild Men. There’s a drunk lady who’s 30 or 45 or maybe 67, she doesn’t need anybody but she wants somebody to love. She stumbles from table to table, asks every man and half the women if they want to go neck in the bathroom. Her hair is the color of motor oil puddled on the floor of Moore’s Auto Repair, and if she’s especially fond of ya she’ll pull her shorts down and give you a flash of her star-freckled ass— but she’ll smack ya if you try to trace the constellations.

At the Denny’s in Michigan City, Indiana, at 2 a.m. in mid-October they have a secret menu. Sure, you can get the Grand Slam Slugger or the Moons Over My Hammy, but you should ask about the house specialities. Like Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammo, where they cut the flapjacks into crosses and arrange the bacon in the shape of a gun, and the eggs are boiled hard as bullets. Or Uncle Sam’s Thanksgiving—a deep-fried turkey leg stuck through with lit sparklers. Sometimes, if the fishing was good that day, they have fillet of Mud Mermaid. Once in a blue moon you can get The Elvis Platter.

At the Denny’s in Michigan City, Indiana, at 2 a.m. in mid-October they only play one song, which is a mashup of songs by the most famous Hoosier musicians. It’s called “Hurts So Good Runnin’ With the Devil Billie Jean in Paradise City.” It would be obnoxious if you could hear it over the din of spoons and trash talk, if you weren’t so tired you’d pass out facedown in your flapjacks if you didn’t have to get back on the road to Michigan.

At the Denny’s in Michigan City, Indiana, at 2 a.m. in mid-October the night manager—who’s also the host—is the spitting ghost- twin of latter-day Elvis. Fat and bedazzled with a queasy quaalude smile. When you arrive, he greets you with a ‘hunka-hunka-burnin’ love,’ and when you leave he says: “It’s so good to see ya, darlin’. I haven’t seen ya ‘round here in years.” When you tell him you’ve never been to that Denny’s, or to Michigan City, before in your life, he says: “Of course ya have. I knew ya when you were knee-high to a soybean. We’d go down to the Town of Pines and boogie with the Wild Men. We’d go up to the state park and have hotdog-eating contests on the sand dunes. Don’t ya remember?”

At the Denny’s in Michigan City, Indiana, at 2 a.m. in mid-October you say no, you don’t remember, that wasn’t you, he must have mistaken you for someone else. “Not possible,” Elvis says. “Not possible.” And at the Denny’s in Michigan City, Indiana, at 2 a.m. in mid-October when you’re goose-tired and fulla greased hash and headed for Kalamazoo you never know. Darlin’, you just never know.

🦬 Jessie Lynn McMains

[babygray-dam]

Gin-Iro-Neko Tea Salon’s second set of Gintama-inspired tea blends, 2022.

Kondo’s blend is a genmaicha with dandelion, chicory, cloves and ginger. With a “strong taste that makes you feel wild”, it invokes Kondo’s cheerful, boorish nature.

Hijikata’s blend is a green tea with juniper berries, black pepper, fennel, and eucalyptus. The refreshing tea and sharp herbs resonate and make a toned, unwavering flavor.

Okita’s blend is a bergamot-flavored jasmine tea with lemongrass, ginger, lemon peel, and golden berry. A translucent tea with a sharp hint of ginger, its gentle look hides a cold attitude.

Yamazaki’s blend is a red-bean paste-flavored houjicha, with black soybeans, azuki red bean, orange peel, and yomogi mugwort. A natural Japanese tea, with the rustic sweetness of azuki. “Why don’t you take a break with a simple tea that reminds you of anpan?”

#gintama #kondou isao #hijikata toushirou #okita sougo #yamazaki sagaru #tea #ginironeko tea salon #i still haven't tasted the last set. #already ordered tins of this new set. #thank the heavens hijikata's blend isn't mayo-flavored???

[jupitervega]

i wish i could make us both nine or ten again & take u to my woods. i wanna hold yr hand & walk u down the back pasture, past the bush castle in the big thicket next to the barn & through the thistles & violets to the edge of the woods at the bottom of the hill. we'll climb over the heap where grampaw dumps the lawn clippins & down a ways to the mostly shallow little brook that burbles & chirps as it flows through the trees

goin left would take us downstream, past the catfish pond & under the barbwire fence to the cow pond on the neighbor's property & their soybean fields beyond. today we're followin it right, up & over the next couple hills. tiny pebbles glimmer in the sandy bottom like spilled gems, & the bank widens from the breadth of a hand to a distance too far to jump & back again. some spots the water is nearly hip deep. there's a big tree fallen over in one of the broad spots that's a perfect bridge, but it don't matter what side of the stream we walk on

-mind the greenbriars before they catch yr jacket, & devil's walkin sticks besides-

the brush gets pretty heavy when we're gettin close, little saplins & stickerbushes crowdin the banks. we pick on through the thorns, creepin under bodock branches & givin the poison ivy a wide berth. almost there, stay with me. i'll hold the briars to the side so u can get through

now, here, in what makes for deep woods to a kid, the stream has carved a maze of gullies and little islands into the earth & the trees closed in around it. when i clamber down to the damp sandy bottom, the bank is so high i cant reach on my tippytoes. vines snake through the branches & hang like drapes in the still air. the birds still sing, but they sound so far away now. the whole world is now just this vibrant green hush, the gentle murmur of the water, & a magic deeper than any of us can name

i want to look for fossils with u. chase minnows, dip our feet, drink from the cool clear water. we'll find the perfect big sticks for swords or wizard staffs. we'll eat wild blackberries & honeysuckle nectar until we can't move

in my heart i'm holdin the brambles back so u can follow me into the magic place in the woods. cmon let's go play

#ri writes #stream of consciousness #writing