Widely Hated For The Unforgivable Crime Of "being Mean To Meeeeee (((("

i don't really like when people say dungeon meshi is accidentally good autistic representation, because while i understand not wanting to make conclusions without explicit confirmation from the author, there's always the weird assumption that non-western authors somehow don't know about things like neurodivergency/queerness/etc. (on top of the assumptions that east asian authors are somehow more naive or oblivious to "western" social issues).

given that dungeon meshi started being published in 2014, it's not really a "work belonging to its times"—it's as contemporary as any other media we discuss on this site, which means it should be fair to assume it engages with contemporary topics (and at the very least, you shouldn't say that the representation is accidental with so much confidence)

but anyways, the chapter "perfect communication" in ryoko kui's "terrarium in a drawer" is some of the most straightforward autistic representation I've seen, and from now on I'm going to assume that laios's character writing is absolutely intentional in that regard:

they should invent a way to read in bed that's comfortable

from impossible to difficult to unfamiliar to familiar to easy to automatic

Brutalism haters will say "Top 10 worst most evil buildings in the world, signs that humanity is doomed and a dystopian apocalypse is upon us lest by the Lord's mercy they all be demolished" and then show you 10 of the most gorgeous badass buildings you've ever seen in your life. every time

Music fans reblog this with an album you consider “your” album… one that is part of your personality, one that means a lot to you, or just one you really like… Mine is The Perfect Shade of Green by Skittish :>

I need the rainbow trout truck so bad

to be honest, to me starting at the top seemed easy. the way i learned was basically a sequence of "this is how x really works under the hood"-type revelations, which suited my learning style reasonably well. im sure i could have gone the other way around too, though i feel like you might have lost me starting at assembly because a high level language was relevant to my other interests then in a way assembly wouldnt be

half of the mystique around "tech stuff" that most people experience is mostly just because they don't know the difference between a "tech enthusiast" as constructed by Apple et al's marketing team and "people who know computers work" and how there's very little actual overlap between these two categories. the only actually good programmers are the ones who want to fuck the computers or perchance have undergone some other technopsychosocial adaptation, which does not correlate with knowing how many dozen cameras the latest iphone has or being able to get along well with the business major interviewer at a startup called Zyergote who drives a tesla

but on the positive side the photos you take of the armed police shooting you can have swirly bokeh

Opinions on the Zenit Photosniper?

they’re calling it ‘a great way to get shot by armed police’

to go even further, im not sure that "the brain without sensory input" is right either. im not sure that there *is* a brain, while you are in the pale. maybe you are dissolved into concepts, just a memory that remembers its own self. and with the aid of some techniques, you are simply re-embodied in a different place where the pale meets material reality. and the effects of the pale on cognition are a sort of conceptual cross-radiation, where other things become part of this idea of yourself, and as you are re-embodied, you still carry them with you

quick question to the lore masters: is the pale white or black? the paledriver says it's like looking into the ocean at night when harry asks how it looks. but it's called pale lol and in some canon artwork i saw it look like white clouds. i suppose realistically, the light should not be able to penetrate it at some point right? and if it's the opposite to things existing it makes more sense it's a literal hole in the world so should look pitch black?

you can find some of Yefremov's sci-fi in English - at least Andromeda. there is also a fan translation of The Bull's Hour by what looks to me like some sort of esoteric red-brown cult, which means it probably sucks

Are there any actual communist fiction writers from the Soviet Union whose works are accessible in English today?