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from elilla & friends’ very occasional blog thing

It's long been my goal to play with music—to riff on it, expand or embellish or change or add stuff to songs I like. There's like 1.518e7 youtube videos about jamming with a guitar, and basically nothing with flutes, so I'm having to figure out stuff by myself. I'm not skilled at any of this so take it with grains of salt, but:


  1. There's a saying, “the wrong note on rhythm is jazz; the right note with the wrong rhythm is noise”. Rhythm makes the difference between boring arpeggio exercises clashing with the music, and music; much more than any complex harmonic theories. Pay attention to the drums and percussion. Tune in with the rhythm with your whole body and keep that in your bones, that will put you in sync with the music.

  2. Easy mode: Backing tracks. The type that shows the chords on screen is ideal: look up the notes on each chord, and a pentatonic or other improvisation-friendly scale to play on that key. (For the miyakobushi scale, “Phrygian” backing tracks work well.) First play only the root note of each chord; then try arpeggios or a few free notes of each chord as they come, in rhythm. Don't get overwhelmed trying to hit all of them, one or two notes are fine – instead, focus on staying musical from the get-go. Then experiment with the rest of the scale. Don't be afraid to break the rules and play passing notes fully outside what you're supposed to play, oftentimes they sound sick.

  3. The purpose of all the harmony rules and stuff is to describe which notes sound good together. More important than that is to develop your sense of what notes sound good together. If you think they sounded good, then they did, you're making music that you like. I find the theory useful because if I just play random notes with no restrictions whatsoever it doesn't sound like “music” and I don't like it, and the theory gives me a starting pack of things that are easy to make work. But don't let the theory and the rules distract you from the need to exercise your own musical sensibility, to pay attention and tune your ear.

  4. When you find a thing that worked, milk it. Repeat that little successful riff a few times.

  5. Sometimes your intuition will want your fingers to do something with lightning-fast speed, and you have no idea why. It comes from some instinctive, sub-rational place. That place is the fountain of music; give your fingers to it.

  6. When playing with finished music, the bass is your cheatcode. In the large majority of cases the bass of each measure is informing you of the root note of the chord, right at the first note. The rest of the bass riff gives you a little bag of notes that are guaranteed to work on that passage. It's much easier to pinpoint the bass notes than trying to reverse-engineer chords from harmonies. A bass tab gives you a map of stuff you can use to jam safely, and from there you can experiment. Moreover, the bass is lowkey percussion; paying attention to bass will automatically put you in the rhythmic vibe of that song.

  7. Do like the bass and become percussion. E.g. pick a single note and go like “tuh-tuh-tuh” or dunno “tuuh, tuh-tuh / tuuh, tuh-tuh”, or whatever fits that song. Instead of trying to add melodies, add to the rhythm of the music.

  8. On a similar note: drones. Instead of adding melodies, become atmosphere. My wind instruments like the flute, the xūn and the melodica work great for this. Swell in and out of long notes on the back, like a backing vocal going “aaahhh…”, and find out how that harmonises with the passage, or doesn't. Often a single note will be common to many chords and therefore work for very large passages (someone pointed me that almost all chords of “Hey Jude” have a C note, and the ones that don't have a D note, so you can “aaaahhh...” through the entire song by singing a C and changing to D when you feel like it doesn't fits; it works and it's very fun).
    A good example of this is Otonoha's shinobue adaptation of Cosmo Canyon – not the more obvious main flute melody, but notice the “backing flute” layers playing long notes in the background.

  9. Call-response. Instead of trying to play alongside a singer or lead guitar, let them draw a melody, then try to repeat it on the flute an octave higher, or repeat it but change it a bit. Listen to jazz jamming to get a sense for how they do it.

  10. Counterpoint! I mean I can't do counterpoint on the fly with my flute lol but at a super simple level: when the singer is going up, try playing along but going down instead. See what happens.

  11. I have to take my own advice on this: just do the thing from the get-go. Since I want to play with existing songs, to embellish or change or add to them, try it. Yeah it doesn't sound very good but doing it regularly starts sinking in some skills. Just be sure to stay deliberate—pay attention to what worked and what didn't; experiment and keep what works.

 
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from zhang.dianli

This is just a straight-up republication of an article from the Toronto Star by Northrop Frye. It's increasingly difficult to find this piece so I took the opportunity to liberate it upon finding a copy and am now posting it here.


Don’t You Think It’s Time to Start Thinking?

By Northrop Frye

A STUDENT often leaves high school today without any sense of language as a structure.He may also have the idea that reading and writing are elementary skills that he mastered in childhood, never having grasped the fact that there are differences in levels of reading and writing as there are in mathematics between short division and integral calculus.

Yet, in spite of his limited verbal skills, he firmly believes that he can think, that he has ideas, and that if he is just given the opportunity to express them he will be all right. Of course, when you look at what he's written you find it doesn't make any sense. When you tell him this he is devastated.

Part of his confusion here stems from the fact that we use the word “think” in so many bad, punning ways. Remember James Thurber's Walter Mitty who was always dreaming great dreams of glory. When his wife asked him what he was doing he would say. “Has it ever occurred to you that I might be thinking?”

But, of course, he wasn't thinking at all. Because we use it for everything our minds do, worrying, remembering, day-dreaming, we imagine that thinking is something that can be achieved without any training. But again it's a matter of practice. How well we can think depends on how much of it we have already done. Most students need to be taught, very carefully and patiently, that there is no such thing as an inarticulate idea waiting to have the right words wrapped around it.

They have to learn that ideas do not exist until they have been incorporated into words. Until that point you don't know whether you are pregnant or just have gas on the stomach.

The operation of thinking is the practice of articulating ideas until they are in the right words. And we can't think at random either. We can only add one more idea to the body of something we have already thought about. Most of us spend very little time doing this, and that is why there are so few people whom we regard as having any power to articulate at all. When such a person appears in public life, like Mr. Trudeau, we tend to regard him as possessing a gigantic intellect.

A society like ours doesn't have very much interest in literacy. It is compulsory to read and write because society must have docile and obedient citizens. We are taught to read so that we can obey the traffic signs and to cypher so that we can make out our income tax, but development of verbal competency is very much left to the individual.

And when we look at our day-to-day existence we can see that there are strong currents at work against the development of powers of articulateness. Young adolescents today often betray a curious sense of shame about speaking articulately, of framing a sentence with a period at the end of it.

Part of the reason for this is the powerful anti-intellectual drive which is constantly present in our society. Articulate speech marks you out as an individual, and in some settings this can be rather dangerous because people are often suspicious and frightened of articulateness. So if you say as little as possible and use only stereotyped, ready-made phrases you can hide yourself in the mass.

Then there are various epidemics sweeping over society which use unintelligibility as a weapon to preserve the present power structure. By making things as unintelligible as possible, to as many people as possible, you can hold the present power structure together. Understanding and articulateness lead to its destruction. This is the kind of thing that George Orwell was talking about, not just in Nineteen Eight-Four, but in all his work on language. The kernel of everything reactionary and tyrannical in society is the impoverishment of the means of verbal communication.

The vast majority of things that we hear today are prejudices and cliches, simply verbal formulas that have no thought behind them but are put up as a pretence of thinking. It is not until we realize these things conceal meaning, rather than reveal it, that we can begin to develop our own powers of articulateness.

The teaching of humanities is, therefore, a militant job. Teachers are faced not simply with a mass of misconceptions and unexamined assumptions. They must engage in a fight to help the student confront and reject the verbal formulas and stock responses, to convert passive acceptance into active, constructive power. It is a fight against illiteracy and for the maturation of the mental process, for the development of skills which once acquired will never become obsolete.

  • Reprinted from University of Toronto Columns.

Copyright 1986 Toronto Star, All Rights Reserved.

 
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from SAMwad (सम-वाद)

म्हणती विश्वगुरू विश्व नका फिरू

दोन महिन्यांनंतर उघडती डोळे एरवी तर साजरे युद्धविरामाचे सोहळे

देशहित सर्वोपरी म्हणतात संघी निवडणूकांनंतरच दिसते आम्हा तंगी

मजबूत म्हणे होईल रुपया – डॉलरचे सुत्र यांचे धुर्त साधूमित्र आता म्हणती तेलगॅस जपून वापरा मात्र

 
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from Roche Limit

For any teachers heading back to school next week worried about how to deal with the proliferation of AI use by students at home, you might want to remind yourself about “Flipped Learning”

If student use of AI for homework is making it hard to assess how much learning there has been, then setting classroom style learning tasks for home study may be helpful. The classroom activities can then revolve around homework style tasks and problems, and short assessments, which will be a more reliable method of formative assessment because AI can't be used.

This doesn't have to be a complete teaching style change — normal homeworks can be set, but only mark them for completeness or effort, and restrict grading to tasks that are done in the classroom.

=> https://www.tes.com/magazine/teaching-learning/general/what-flipped-learning

 
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from zhang.dianli

Note: I am not a believer in BadWrongFun™. I do not think that you are a bad person if you like things that I don't like. This is not a hit piece on your taste. But it might be a hit piece on your frugality. Read on.

A stellar tea described

As I sit here in my office, I'm sipping a lovely cup of 南京雨花茶 (Nánjīng Yǔhuā chá, Nanjing Yuhua tea). This is a famously subtle, light tea that needs patience to allow flavours to build up before they can be fully appreciated. When you first take a sip it's almost a disappointment. The liquor is pale like spring straw, and the taste is thin, almost watery. A hint of sweetness, a touch of nuttiness like chestnut, maybe a ghost of toasted pine. It's clean, cool, vegetal, and it vanishes almost immediately.

You could be forgiven for thinking this tea's reputation is grossly overrated.

But then you wait. You take a second sip a while later. And things have changed. The flavour is now clear; the thinness has fattened up. The sweet chestnut nuttiness now builds on a foundation; a kind of tingly basis on the middle of the tongue. The pine note has sharpened, giving ghosts even of dill weed: bright and resinous. And at the back of the tongue a strong umami note is beginning to build.

Sip after sip the taste develops. The sweetness transforms into a cooling finish that coats the back of the throat. The nuttiness develops into something stronger: think almonds, but raw, not roasted. The umami strengthens into something like a delicate vegetable soup's broth. Every sip layers over the previous, changing the flavour with each exposure.

This tea is not loud. It is patient and requires patience to appreciate. As you sit with it, patiently sipping, it shows off the molecules it arranges on your palate sequentially, one after another. The finish stretches for almost half a minute: a faint, sweet, yet astringent dryness that makes you reach for the next sip.

It's a tea that begins as nothing, but slowly, patiently, becomes everything. It is a true world-class green whose reputation is well-deserved.

...unless...

Unless, of course, you put milk into it. Or sugar. Because milk and sugar do to fine teas what the law at the end of Rush's “The Trees” does:

And the trees are all kept equal by hatchet, axe, and saw.

Milk in particular is the great leveller of tea. It is the hatchet, the axe, the saw, the chainsaw, and the forest fire that keeps all trees equal by force. If you're a fan of milk in tea, however, you likely won't understand this or believe it. So today I'm going to give you the science. And if you still want to drink your tea with milk and/or sugar (and there is nothing wrong with this!), I'll be saving you a lot of money in the bargain!

The lesser ruination

The addition of sugars to green tea has a direct, measurable negative effect on its “phenolic” compounds, the very core of its flavour profile. Sugar cuts away approximately 1% of the free radical scavenging activity of tea's phenols per 1% of sugar added. So you are, in effect, paying for a full symphony orchestra, but then smearing glue over the instruments that play the notes.

If you are the kind of person who brews the tea together with the sugar, instead of adding it afterwards, there's another effect that may come into play.

Tea brewing relies on diffusion. Flavour compounds move from an area of high concentration (the leaf) to lower concentration (the water). Dissolving sugar into the water changes the osmotic environment that the tea is diffusing into, subtly altering the extraction dynamics.

The result could be (the physics is sound, but there has not been any direct study of it in tea that I've seen) that fewer of the tea's volatiles are extracted. You have to make up for it by brewing for longer. And that causes the more unpleasant flavour elements to concentrate, ironically turning your tea more bitter because of the sweetener being present.

The greater bringer of devastation

Sugar in tea is ketchup on cordon bleu cuisine. It's a negative, but it doesn't stop the flavours from appearing. It merely reduces our experience of them.

By comparison milk in tea is a wrecking ball swinging through a garden shed. It leaves nothing worthwhile in its wake.

Let me explain.

At the heart of milk's devastation lies a class of proteins called caseins, which make up about 80% of milk's total protein.

These caseins form large colloidal structures known as casein micelles. Their surfaces are rich with proline residues, which have a unique affinity for phenolic compounds. And this isn't a weak affinity. It's robust, multi-point, non-covalent cross-linking acting through hydrophobic interactions and hydrogen bonding. Which is an appropriate pair of words to end that sentence on since the effect is vaguely like a hydrogen bomb in its impact on flavour.

The subtle complexity that forms the unique signature of each fine tea comes from tea polyphenols (TPP). When milk is added, the casein micelles sweep in and bind to these polyphenol compounds, effectively removing the “free” polyphenols from the tea infusion. This forming of larger complexes decreases the availability of free TPP. What is perceived as “smoothness” in the mouthfeel is, in actuality, the erasure of the fine-grained profile that gives the tea its depth and complexity. The tea's delicate astringency (the building block of that flavour development I described above) is chemically neutralized at the molecular level.

Even worse, the TPP-casein binding doesn't just affect taste perception, it also suppresses and traps aromatic molecules using the same mechanism. The aerial release of the many tea volatiles is significantly suppressed by the simple addition of milk; the very aroma of the tea gets locked up before it can ever reach your nose.

As a final kick in the teeth (yes, from a wrecking ball) there's some scientific evidence that the binding of caseins to tea flavonoids reduces their antioxidant capacity and potentially their bioavailability. So not only are you flattening the flavour of a fine tea and trapping its aromatics to reduce its lovely scent, you are also paying a premium for the bioactive compounds you're about to remove anyway.

Moneysaver

The tea I started with, Nanjing Yuhua, sells at time of writing for US$55 for third-grade tea to almost US$200 for the top grade per 500g (roughly a pound) at one randomly-selected online shop. And that's the grades you can buy outside of China. The very best grades, from specific sites, picked and processed by famed masters, etc. will sell inside China (basically unavailable outside) for an order of magnitude more. It's expensive, is what I'm trying to get across.

And the flood of casein assassins your milk has unleashed into it has taken everything that makes the tea worth that cost and removed it. Indeed it may have even reduced that tea to a quality that is lower than a robust cheap green (the kind of coarse, bitter autumn chop from unnamed plantations that sells for next to nothing). Even the lowest grade of the Nanjing tea is ten cents per gram, while the highest grade you're likely to get outside of China is almost half a dollar per gram. An autumn chop is fractions of a cent per gram. And with milk, the autumn chop might actually taste better. And sugar isn't much better. Maybe the sugared Nanjing tea will taste a bit better than equivalently sugared autumn chop, but it won't be two orders of magnitude better.

So if you really do like to drink your tea with milk and/or sugar (and again I have to stress: there is absolutely nothing wrong with this!), save yourself a lot of money and buy the cheap autumn chop. It will likely taste better, and the money you save on the tea could be put to better use buying some really nice silk wall scrolls or something.

 
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from growandfly

berjumpa dengan penggemar adalah satu dari sekian rutinitas dari pekerjaan yang tidak pernah sekali pun alla tidak menghargai itu. setiap waktu yang berlalu adalah berharga. jadi meski kadang rasanya begitu melelahkan, tapi alla tidak berpikir ia akan mencoba untuk melangkah pada alur yang berbeda andai pun dirinya diberi kesempatan untuk punya pilihan mengambil jalan yang lain.

alla cukup percaya diri untuk bilang kalau apa yang sudah ia miliki sekarang adalah sesuatu yang tidak akan pernah ia tukar untuk hal lain lagi di lain waktu.

“gimana?” itu adalah pertanyaan rutin yang selalu alla terima dari mba bibi di setiap kali schedule-nya selesai dilakukan. “happy enggak?”

“happy.”

“good.” mba bibi tersenyum lega. “kalau gitu, ayo kita pulang.”

“habis ini enggak ada apa-apa lagi 'kan?”

“gak ada.”

alla mengangguk paham. “mba duluan aja. atau kalau mau pulang juga enggak apa-apa,” ungkapnya kemudian. “aku masih mau di sini dulu. sebentar.”

“eh, kenapa?” mba bibi seketika khawatir. “kamu gak apa=apa 'kan?”

“aman, kok.” sorot mata alla memancar teduh, meyakinkan mba bibi kalau memang semuanya masih ada di bawah kendalinya. “just a bit overwhelmed, tapi ini bukan masalah.”

“yaudah.” mba bibi meraih kursi dan menggesernya sampai tepat berada di samping alla, lalu duduk di sana. “aku tungguin.”

“enggak mau,” geleng alla. ia menolak dengan halus. “aku lagi maunya sendirian aja.”

“lima belas menit,” usul mba bibi berusaha bernegosiasi. “cukup?”

“maksimal tiga puluh menit.”

“oke.” mba bibi lantas berdiri. “mba tunggu di luar ruangan.”

“jangan. di mobil aja,” pinta alla, agak keras kepala. “kalau ada apa-apa nanti aku langsung nelpon mba, kok.”

“yaudah.” mba bibi menghembus nafas pasrah. “mba tunggu. tiga puluh menit dari sekarang.”

“iya. makasih banyak, mba.”

maka mba bibi berlalu keluar ruangan tanpa suara, dan semua berjalan sesuai dengan yang alla harapkan setelahnya. dirinya ditinggal sendirian dalam ruangan yang beberapa menit lalu terisi riuh dari para staff dan cerianya setiap penggemar yang antusiasmenya seperti bisa terpancar menembus layar.

kini yang mengisi hanya sunyi. alla menatap lurus pada seperangkat gadget yang sedari tapi jadi alat utama yang menghubungkan dirinya dengan para penggemarnya. lalu berbagal kilas balik mulai berputar dalam bayangannya, seperti potongan film pendek yang begitu sarat makna sampai alla bisa rasanya dadanya jadi terasa hangat karenanya.

it was fun. and he's happy.

tapi kemudian ada bayangan lain yang tiba-tiba muncul tanpa sempat alla ambil alih kendalinya. kenangan lama dari sosok yang eksistensinya sudah berusaha alla coba tekan di balik ingatannya.

that one fan.

alla gengsi untuk mengakui, tapi juga perasaannya jadi seperti punya sikapnya sendiri. maka akhirnya alla pilih untuk berpasrah, toh tidak ada siapa pun yang akan menghakiminya juga 'kan sekarang?

Jagat.

akhirnya alla berani untuk mengakui. satu nama yang dulunya terasa familiar dan seperti tidak pernah ingin absen untuk mengambil semua kesempatan yang mungkin untuk bisa menyapa alla secara langsung, tapi sekarang rasanya bahkan alla tidak bisa ingat kapan mereka bertemu bahkan berbicara terakhir kali?

konyol. alla tahu mungkin seharusnya dia tidak merasa seperti ini. jagat seperti mendapat perlakuan khusus karena alla tidak melakukan

 
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from growandfly

“stop—” seonghyeon menghentikan langkah, yang otomatis membuat langkah keonho di sampingnya jadi ikut terhenti. ”—look at me like that.”

“like, what?” heran keonho.

“i don't know,” jawab seonghyeon jujur. sebab ia sendiri juga bingung harus menjelaskan bagaimana? ia cuma tahu kalau malam ini rasanya berbeda seperti malam-malam dimana mereka bertemu di acara pesta makan malam mewah salah satu kolega orang tua mereka, pasca keduanya sepakat untuk bekerja sama. “you tell me.”

“apa sih?” tanya keonho, tawanya bercampur dengan nada yang bingung. “am i not allowed to look at my boyfriend, or what?”

“nevermind. lupain aja.” lalu seonghyeon lanjut melangkah lagi. sayangnya, di langkah ketiga tiba-tiba ia merasakan nyeri di kakinya. “a-ah,” ringisnya kecil.

“kenapa?”

seonghyeon menjawab dengan menjatuhkan pandangan pada kedua kakinya, yang masih dibalut heel boot yang sebenarnya sudah agak kekecilan dan belum sempat ia pisahkan dari wardrobe-nya. maka ketika tadi tadi berangkat dengan begitu terburu dan asal ambil yang menurutnya oke tanpa benar-benar dicoba terlebih dulu maka berakhirlah seperti sekarang.

maka keonho otomatis berlutut. “lepas sepatunya,” suruhnya kemudian.

“tapi nanti aku jadi nyeker.”

“pakai punya ak—”

”—enggak mau.”

“yaudah lepas dulu.” tapi seonghyeon malah merapatkan kaki, seolah menguncinya. maka keonho mendongak, dan lampu taman menyorot berhasil sempurna seberapa serius air muka keonho sekarang. “seonghyeon,” panggilnya, yang lebih terdengar seperti sebuah teguran.

“don't lookdal at me like that,” protes seonghyeon tak suka, sambil akhirnya tetap menurut untuk melepas sepatunya. lalu tanpa banyak bicara, keonho berbalik. mata seonghyeon membola kaget. “ngapain?!”

“naik.”

“enggak. ken—”

”—kita balik ke mobil dulu. nanti pakai sepatu cadangan aku yang ada, gak apa-apa walau kegedean sedikit. gak usah ditolak kali ini.” potong keonho. “nanti kalau kamu mau balik jalan-jalan di sini lagi, terserah.”

“badan aku berat.”

“it makes everything more interesting.” keonho melempar pancingan dalam balutan nada bicaranya terdengar meremehkan. “seberat apa sih emang?”

dan seonghyeon terjerat dengan begitu mudahnya. ia pun langsung mengambil sepatunya lalu melompat cukup keras ke punggung di hadapannya, sampai si empunya punggung nyarih kehilangan keseimbangan.

“w-wow. chill out, hun.”

“rasain,” cibir seonghyeon cuek. “you asked it youself.

keonho hanya terkekeh kecil setelahnya. kemudian berdiri dengan sekuat tenaga dan benar-benar menggendong seonghyeon menuju mobilnya.

lalu setelah beberapa langkah, keonho pun bicara, “maaf, ya?”

“maaf buat apa?”

“gak bener-bener siapin agenda kabur yang sempurna,” sesal keonho serius.

“aku udah pakai baju kamu dari ujung kaki sampai ujung kepala, emang masih kurang di sebelah mananya sih?” heran seonghyeon. “you're also indulging my very impulsive thought to walk around here. padahal udah mau tengah malem. dingin.”

“ya tapi ini kaki kamu jadi sakit,” keukeuh keonho. “nanti aku belajar dulu dari martin. i know he's mastering at these kind of thing.”

lalu perhatian seonghyeon teralih sepenuhnya pada satu hal. “ini kamu gak pernah kabur ya sebelumnya?”

“it's my first time,” angguk keonho.

entah kenapa, seperti suatu perasaan hangat menjalar dalam dada seonghyeon. “awww... what a good boy you are.”

mendengarnya, keonho refleks mendengus. “as if you ain't the same,” balasnya santai.

“of course we're not the same,” elak seonghyeon. “kamu pasti enggak pernah bolos sekolah buat ngadem di uks, ya? atau minimal kabur dari jadwal les cuma buat main ke mall deh.”

keonho diam, dan seonghyeon refleks tertawa menang. tapi kemudian keonho lempar pertanyaan. “tapi ini pertama kalinya kamu kabur dari gala dinner 'kan?”

“iya sih...”

“so we still are on the same boat.”

seonghyeon terkekeh. “oh, that's quite impressive. i gotta admit.”

“i know.”

“i hope you also know that you're insufferable, most of the time.”

“tahu juga kok. haha.” entah seonghyeon sadar atau tidak, tapi keonho ada sengaja memperlambat langkahnya. “that's why i feel grateful most of the time, too.”

“for what exactly?”

“for you,” jujurnya tegas. “for choosing me.”

seonghyeon tidak menjawab langsung, tapi ia balas dengan semakin merapatkan tubuhnya pada keonho. lalu tersenyum kecil dan berbisik santai setelahnya, “let's have another fun escape next time.”

“sure. challenge accepted.

satu kesepakatan lain telah dibuat. one after another, yang keduanya jelas tahu kalau mungkin ini tidak akan menemukan akhirnya. tapi, siapa peduli? selama ini hanya satu-satunya cara bagi mereka untuk bisa saling menyelamatkan diri.

 
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from zhang.dianli

Preamble: Words have meaning. Grammar signals meaning. Pay very close attention to the title. I worded it the way it is for a reason. Make sure you understand what I actually wrote in the title, instead of what you wanted it to read, before moving on. Note also that much of the discussion here is based on Chinese sources because—get this!—only Chinese sources have anything meaningful to say about what a term “really means”. Westerners trying to claim what it “really means” are just making idiots of themselves and revealing more about their thought processes than they reveal about Chinese ones.

A capsule history of 白左's proper meaning

In 2010, the pseudonymous “Li Shuo” coined the term 白左 (lit. “white left”) on the social platform Renren in an article titled “The Pseudo-Morality of the Western 'White Left' and China's 'Patriotic Scientists'”. At birth the term referred very narrowly to young western leftists who sympathized with the communist revolution pre-1949 and came to China to assist it. It was very much a pejorative term but it was very specifically applied to a very small number of people.

It was also a term that came from a self-identified right libertarian. Put a pin on that. We're going to circle back around to this.

As is usual in language, and doubly so in the modern Internet era, there was a rapid shift in meaning, starting in about 2013. It no longer referred to this one, specific group from history, but rather became a generalized label. The implied criticism morphed into the subtext of people out of touch with reality; people who spout lofty ideals while being blind to the real-world problems around them.

The big explosion in usage started in 2015 as bewildered Chinese netizens watched the social fallout from the refugee crisis in Europe. It is unfortunate that, from my perspective, they derived the wrong conclusion from this, criticizing, for example, Germany's “open door” policy as a case of bleeding-heart saviours ignoring reality to everyone's detriment. (Note: I don't think that Germany handled the crisis well, but I don't reach the conclusion that some Chinese netizens reached that Germany shouldn't have accepted the refugees at all.)

This big explosion continued in 2016 as bemused Chinese observers divided on which was worse: Hilary Clinton's so-called “political correctness” or Trump's populism. (Note: both were considered bad. They weren't deciding on which they supported, they were deciding on which of the two was the worst.) In that period, 白左 finally settled in a relatively stable meaning as a criticism of western identity politics.

Now let's add the wrong meaning

Here's where we circle back to the origin. In 2017 the term was added to the Urban Dictionary with an already divergent meaning. It was largely correct, but it already contained the seeds of how the term would be read in the west: right wing. UD rapidly had definitions added that included equivalents to “libtard”, “woke”, and other very American views on life. This is the unfortunate product of people not understanding several key things and instead focusing on the first use of it by a self-proclaimed libertarian right-wing guy.

However it wasn't until 2021 that Tucker Carlson's use of the term to attack Democrats that 白左 became part of mainstream western political discourse. Ironically on the right wing. (I find it personally hilarious that a 电视脱口秀演员 like Carlson, a veritable 流量奸商 or 右壬, didn't introduce other terms from Chinese that were as harshly critical of the right like 川建国 or 懂王 being used to describe Donald Trump. It's almost as if he was cherry-picking Chinese criticisms of the west to only attack one side. Almost.)

This is why most westerners believe that Chinese people are right-supportive. Because one Chinese political epithet that was poorly-understood and badly-translated was weaponized by the Anglophone right and used as an unsubtle bludgeon against their opposition. All while ignoring the far less subtle open critiques of the American right.

For purposes of this essay we will be sticking with the correct usage. And if you don't think the Chinese usage of a Chinese term used in Chinese net haunts is the correct one, get out of here. This blog isn't for you. I'm sure there's some white supremacy sites you'll like better. Like Faux News or the New York Times. Or maybe Storm Front.

Note: I'm not saying that study of the term's evolution and abuse in Anglophone circles is not a valid field of study; that's sociolinguistics in a nutshell, in fact. I'm saying I'm focusing on the Chinese usage of a Chinese term because the abuse of language by barbarians is out of scope. (Yes, the use of “barbarians” is a joke.)

The interesting spin-off

While the American left was reacting badly to the American right weaponizing a foreign term that neither side fully understood, the Chinese use of the term, with the rise of 网左 (Internet left) as a concept, started to be applied domestically as a criticism of overly dogmatic Chinese leftists. Observers tracking trends in Chinese cyberspace consistently document 白左 and 网左 appearing across political discussions, with trend reports confirming this usage as recently as late 2025. Being branded 白左 was in effect saying “you're so dogmatically left that you're like a white person”.

So a term that started life as a criticism of a historical group of people by a right-libertarian, that then mutated as a criticism of perceived impractical leftists in the west (getting internalized at that stage by the west), and then mutated further is now a domestic criticism of Chinese people by Chinese people.

But ... why? Why is this term so long-lived and so adaptive?

Here's where I get personal

The reason is ... white people don't really have a great reputation in non-white circles. It's a shock, I know, but you don't. And yes, right now, I'm addressing white folk. Even the white folk that have “good intentions”.

See the problem is that a whole lot of white people have good intentions. But they also have a degree of arrogance that is staggering. It was white people, for example, who set back queer culture in China, losing three decades of careful diplomacy that was paying dividends in recognition and acceptance ... until an arrogant LGBTQ+ group in the USA convinced a group in Shanghai that a pride parade, one that didn't have permission from authorities, was how you get results.

And they weren't wrong. There were definitely results. And the queer community in China has suffered for it nationally. About 40-70 million queer people (according to UN-aligned estimates), who were finally making positive steps toward recognition and acceptance, are back being suppressed, closeted, and and viewed with intense suspicion and revulsion. The only thing that hasn't been reversed as a result of that disastrous American intervention is the medical position on homosexuality, et al. We're thankfully not reverting back to the stage where being queer is a mental disorder that can be “cured”...

Did they mean to do this? OF COURSE NOT! Hell, I'll go a step farther. They weren't the whole reason. Rather like how there's a whole host of machinery inside a gun that has to work in concert to expel the bullet from it, there was a whole host of public security frameworks and public opinion shifts that were part of the sudden reversals in LGBTQ+ rights in China.

The thing is, that machinery in guns needs a trigger to be pulled to put it into action and send that bullet on its way. And the same was needed for the sudden shift in LGBTQ+ rights in China. The Shanghai affair was the trigger. The Chinese state, in its modern form and in much of its imperial past, has operated on a simple premise: unsanctioned public confrontation is not a tactic of persuasion, but a challenge to authority. The methods of response have shifted; the underlying logic has not. The pattern is consistent across history: method matters as much as or more than the message. Even when the state was leaning toward acceptance of queer culture, despite the already dubious status it had as “foreign ideological infiltration”, the open defiance of holding a public protest without permission was a uniquely potent trigger that led to the sudden, drastic, tragic reversals.

The sad fact of the matter is that good intentions and five bucks gets you a small coffee at Starbucks. What matters is outcomes, and the outcomes of the 白左 set are largely negative. The “white left” believes that just being “in the right” is enough; they're generally living in safe environs (by world standards) and think they know things better from their cruising altitude of 30,000ft than boots on the ground.

They're very much a model of people out of touch with reality, who think that having their heart bleed is enough for them to be a force for good, who ignore reality in favour of ideals and slogans. They're the Red Guard, in short. They spout slogans and ideals, without regard to physical reality, and leave misery and death in their wake.

On the title

The title of this rant is On the toxicity of “白左” or “white left”. Note that it's not the white left. It is the quoted term.

That, in the end, is what this essay is really about. Yes, it contains vituperative criticism of white “liberals” and “progressives”. (And, naturally, of the white right.) But I want to focus back on the term. I am, quite self-awarely and ironically, using the term to diagnose a pattern even as, starting now, I warn against its reification.

I've explained why the term has proven so long-lived and adaptive. But the more important question is: should it be? It gained traction because it described a real phenomenon. It was short, pithy, and largely accurate from the perspective of its original users. And it could be deployed across a wide variety of contexts.

That, however, is precisely where the problem lies. Its adaptability allows it to serve legitimate criticism of a genuine political tendency, but it's just as easily wielded as a bludgeon by the Western right (but who cares about barbarian duckspeak?)¹ to attack ideological opponents: “See, even Chinese netizens think libtards are bad, LOL!” And it's used, too, to beat down sincere leftists who need guidance in praxis, not dismissive labels and silencing. Its very pithiness makes it, in my view, a textbook example of Orwellian “duckspeak”: catchy, universally deployable, but ultimately a substitute for thought.

It becomes an excuse to shirk our duty to educate, to guide, and to build toward a more coherent, humane future. Just like the sloganeering of the 白左 themselves.


¹ I will personally send 500g of my favourite tea to the first person who figures out this deep cut of a joke!

 
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from SAMwad (सम-वाद)

Coming back from office yesterday (9th April) evening around 8.30 pm, as usual, I had my earphones plugged in listening to a podcast. I was just 10-15 minutes away from home walking on the footpath. A man approached with a usual pitiable expressions and said something in frail voice, which I couldn't understand as I had earphones in, and being apathetic that I am, I just passed by ignoring. After going few steps ahead I thought let's just check if he needs monies or information or something else. If he asks for money, I am out. I can try to help with information.

Once upon time, when I was waiting at a bus-stand, I had dodged a scam by offering to get a man a meal when he claimed to have stuck in Bengluru who refused the meal after walking with me for few minutes towards a restaurant. Point being, I was kind of ready and confident that I can dodge these kinds.

So I went back, he was around the same place only, but I noticed a woman and a girl child with him. I asked him “What? What do you need?” He said, “Hindi, hum marathi, hindi samazega kya?” (Here onward we spoke in Marathi only, following is English translation.) Me: “ohh, then let's talk in Marathi only. I can understand.” He: “wow, you have met like a god, no one here is understanding the language or helping. We had came a couple of weeks back here from Hyderabad and we worked at the construction site for last two weeks but contractor betrayed and is not paying a dime. It is now not possible to feed ourselves here, we are going back home but do not have means to carry out the long journey.” The accent seemed little familiar. Me: “Where do you want to go?” He: “Washim, Akola.” Now, to give a little context, Washim is just an hour drive from my hometown and thus I know area a little too well. I am at least familiar with major town names, have directional sense. I immediately thought to myself, how coincidental? Maybe I can probe more and make sure about the details. But being from nearby area there was already the development of a soft corner. He was winning, without even trying. Moreover, having traveled multiple times by train I know the how hectic and long the journey can be. It is a more than 24 hrs and there is no daily direct train to Washim. Me: “Where in Washim?” He: “Aasegaon Pen” I had in recent past visited Lonar crater and coincidentally a family friends in-laws are from a village named Maslaa Pen. That village was basically in-route from the Lonar to hometown. So I remembered the name well. Me: “Is it near Maslaa Pen?” (Because of same suffix, that was an obvious guess) He: “Yes, there is Karkhana (factory) there”. There was puzzled look on his face, probably saying, how do you know so better. Me: “I am from Pusad” They all got relieved hearing that. He reiterated that I have met him like a god ( now I think that could have worked too well). He: “I am embarrassed to even beg like this with (in front) of wife and a child. Never thought I will have to see this day.” And few more lines on the same line. The woman also pitched in now. She: “My sister was given to (married to a guy from) Kali Tembhi, but after her passing away we are estranged now. There is not much connection. (My guess, Kali Tembhi is supposed to be nearby Pusad, I am not particularly aware, there are multiple Kali nearby.) I think, by this time, I had already decided subconsciously to help, but still wanted to do more checks. Me: “So how are you going to go now?” He: “There is a train to Nanded at 11.” Me: “Hmm, it will take 24 hrs to reach” He: “Yes. Then from there another train to Washim and then bus to Aasegaon Pen” Me: “We have family friends from Maslaa pen, surname is Deshmukh” I got my phone out and searched for Aasegaon Pen on google maps. It showed around where I had hoped it would, and I also searched for Maslaa Pen and it was nearby, the details were checking out. I asked for the phone number, he gave a number, I called that number, that rang but it wasn't his handset. No one answered. That was a red-flag. He said, he might have made a mistake. Then he asked for my number and rang my number. I asked if he has UPI, he said he does not. I still copied the number and checked on the Gpay, and at least it was not registered there. I asked for name – he said – “Sunil Pawar”. Now I have saved this as 'Sunil Pawar Scammer? Aasegaon Pen', and the number is 9075**8790. He: “See help as you can.” He did not specifically ask for money or food or anything. Seeing that it is already around 9pm and train scheduled around 11.30pm, it was not prudent to offer dinner at some nearby restaurant, cause in here, it takes at least 1.5 hrs to reach railway station by city bus. I was still not so sure, and I remembered I only have a couple of hundred rupees notes in my pocket. He repeated the same sentence again a couple of times. The woman chiked in that it is already late and they need to reach station also. This was a case of 'an appeal to urgency' I did spot that and it did raise a red flag in my mind but I guess the my emotional self had already took over, I took out the pocket got 2 notes out. Told them I have only this much right now. I was kind of glad also and guilty at the same time, I wasn't so sure of my decision. Gave him the notes, told him I will call you to check if you reached. I immediately took the leave, thinking about the encounter. I thought, even if fraudster ₹200 is not going to kill me and make him millionaire, anyday better than indirectly giving away to some Vantara island. Make-believe to feel better about oneself. ₹200 in (अक्कल खातं) learning account.

I did call that number a day later and later 2 times also, it rings but no answer. I was earlier not inclined to put out the number in the post, but I guess I don't care about the privacy of the individual.

 
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from SAMwad (सम-वाद)

संदिप खरेंची माफी मागून सादर करीतो

प्रत्येकाच्या घरामध्ये एक तरी (भोंदू)बाबा प्रत्येकाच्या डोक्यावरती घेतला त्याने ताबा प्रत्येकाच्या जीवनामध्ये कुठली तरी चिंता प्रत्येकाच्या डोक्यामध्ये कसला तरी गुंंता प्रत्येकाच्या पत्रामध्ये दोषारोप नशीबा

प्रत्येकाच्या डोक्यामध्ये ओसंडून भक्ती प्रत्येकाच्या प्रश्नावर लगेच यांची उक्ती प्रत्येकाच्या व्याधींकरता यांच्याकडे थांबा

प्रत्येकाच्या आश्रमी उत्पादनांची जंत्री प्रत्येकाच्या खिशाला स्वतःहून कात्री प्रत्येकाच्या तर्कावर यांच्या उलट्या बोंबा

फिटावेत जर तरी शब्दांचे देणे एक तरी विडंबन असे लिहावे बहाणे प्रत्येकाच्या पानी कशी विशुद्ध प्रतिभा?

 
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from aerkiaga's blog

Long time no write! This is a blog to publish updates on my projects, so that's exactly what I'll do here.

Regex engine

Right now I'm writing a fast regular expression search engine in Rust. In case the reader doesn't know what a regular expression is, they allow specifying some rules about what some text should look like (e.g., think “starts with H”, “has 5 letters”), and then you can reason whether a text follows them (like the words “Hello” or “Hopes” do), or search for strings fulfilling the rules within a larger text. In our case, the regular expression to specify these rules would be H[A-Za-z]{4} (“H” followed by 4 letters).

There are quite a few software libraries that implement regular expressions in Rust. To name a few:

  • regex: the most widely used, pretty fast.
  • fancy-regex: supports more features.
  • regexr: tries to get the best of both worlds, fastest implementation.
  • resharp: quite custom-built, fast implementation.

I ran a benchmark consisting on generating various lengths of random sequences of A, C, G and T and then searching for all (possibly overlapping) matches of the regex ATG([^T]..|T([CT].|G[^A]|A[CT]))*T(A[AG]|GA) (which recognizes possible forward open reading frames). The results are these:

  • regex: 8.8 MB/s, slowest.
  • resharp: 65 MB/s.
  • My crate in progress: 99 MB/s.
  • regexr: 222 MB/s, fastest.

If we replace that regex with ATG(...)*?T(A[AG]|GA) (which matches the same regions but uses the lazy *? metacharacter for a more concise representation), then we get:

  • regex: 8.8 MB/s.
  • resharp: doesn't support that metacharacter.
  • My crate in progress: 109 MB/s, fastest.
  • regexr: 5.5 MB/s, slowest (why?).

regex and resharp had also the highest overhead, in the hundreds of microseconds, while both regexr and my crate could compile the regex in about 20 microseconds.

I would like to work a bit more on this crate. Specifically:

  • Support capture groups, which the other crates do and I think is pretty much an expected feature of any regex library.
  • Stabilize it some further. I'm using cargo llvm-cov and cargo mutants, but I may resort to cargo afl to weed out bugs even more aggressively.
  • Make it faster. I have some tricks up my sleeve that could manage gains.

Career

I'm working as a Resident Physician in Psychiatry. Also trying to get a Master's degree in Biomedical Engineering. Pretty exciting stuff going on in that front.

 
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from elilla & friends’ very occasional blog thing

Once at a Hbf there were some immigrant-looking folk (Turkish, as it turned out) selling traditional candy like, in a super pushy way, and I went talk to them half because I like sweets and half because I like being sweet-talked (hey the latter is a super rare experience in Germany, yes even including salespeople, I knew something was sus with that couple but I like to live dangerously ok. Yes, she was pretty. haterz gonna hate~).

So the lady was like at the top of her game, asked about my country, praised my tattoos, told relatable stories about her own life etc., and she was so bright about showing me the vegan options, and made me try like half a dozen different flavours of halva. (It was genuinely delicious). She was a great conversationalist and I had a pleasant time chatting with her for a long while.

So finally I decided to bring home 10€ in caramel halva. This is where the scam hit: she was already packing it but at the minimum quantity of 100g, which was some ridiculous abusive price, 38€ or something. At this point I wall up and put on my best bimbo face to claim that this 10-buck bill is all I have. It's obvious that it's a lie and she knows that I know that she knows it's a lie, this is a glove slap: I mean what are you gonna do about it, call the cops? So the man of the pair approaches and starts a spiel that they've already cut the halva so now I have to pay. So I say with the most blatant cara de pau I can muster that oh well, my train is about to leave, and I give them the warmest goodbye smile and a wave, and leave them protesting without looking back.

Only afterwards I realise that I had tied up the woman for a good fifteen minutes that she could have been hustling, plus I got to try a significant amount of halva of various flavours, without paying a cent. She was good at the game so the sample portions were quite generous, too.

The lesson we learn from this is, you gotta roll with the punches; your story can't be static, it's a tool not a script. Con artistry is a dance, at the first sign of resistance from the mark you have to change your step. They really should have cut their losses and given me a miserable thumb of candy for 10€ profit, I had opened myself a weakness when I said “gimme this much in candy” without checking the price/kg first. But thanks to their all-or-nothing commitment to the script, I ended up indulging my sweet tooth for free and out-scamming the scammers, purely by instinct. And if they're smart they'll think twice before trying to con a Brazilian again lmao (I mean the Germans are right there—)

 
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from Liza Hadiz

How dark is Dark Academia? As dark as the society we live in. Beyond the comfort of its moody, sometimes haunting ambience, Dark Academia reflects the fractures of a broken society.

Dark Academia debuted on Tumblr in 2015 and spread across various social media platforms in the late 2010s, reaching mainstream popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, it remains a subject of discussion, inspiring recent novels and films. Even the vintage tweeds and wool fabrics associated with Dark Academia fashion continue to find their place in the wardrobes of younger audiences. Moreover, the appeal lies in the imagery of a nostalgic dark intellectual fantasy world, embracing isolation, melancholy, and the pursuit of knowledge—an escapism from the drudgery of academic life.

Why the need to escape?

Students entering college in the 2010s faced a labor market still recovering from the Great Recession. While a college degree was considered the path to many middle‑class jobs, investing in a degree presented a higher risk. In some parts of Europe, austerity measures led to budget cuts in universities, while in the US, state funding for public colleges fell sharply. As a result, many colleges raised tuition and fees, and youth unemployment pushed more students into prolonged study. In the US and UK, students heavily relied on loans with rising debt levels. Furthermore, following the recession, youths saw an erosion of humanities programs through budget cuts, departmental closures, and declining enrollment. All these pressures set the stage for the Dark Academia trend.

Dark Academia unfolded across social media, connecting students and building collective identity.

Amid growing anxieties over student debt, cuts to humanities programs, uncertain career prospects—and later, the isolation and loneliness intensified by the pandemic—Dark Academia unfolded across social media, connecting students and building collective identity. It offered study rituals, academic identity, and even fashion style—all of which functioned as coping mechanisms. Moreover, in times of uncertainty, the aesthetic provided comfort by affirming that the pursuit of a degree, particularly in humanities, could still yield cultural capital.

Nostalgia is central to Dark Academia. The aesthetic romanticizes an era—particularly the early-to-mid 20th century, or even earlier—when intellectual life was closely tied to Western elites and studying ancient art, Classical Greek, and classical literature conferred social prestige. Ivy League institutions, along with Oxbridge, cultivated an exclusive world for those fortunate enough to belong. In modern life, Dark Academia goes beyond imagery of books, libraries, and the walls of Gothic university architecture. It extends well into the lifestyle of coffee shops and late-night studying accompanied by classical or gothic-inspired music, and the fashion style of distinctive Ivy League cardigans, tweed blazers, and plaid shirts.

Why this obsession with studying and nostalgia?

As mentioned above, Dark Academia emerged as a form of escapism to cope with financial anxieties surrounding higher education, the pressures of academic life, and the uncertain future of the humanities. As a psychological response to these crises, imagery of Ivy League and Oxbridge traditions from a time when intellectual and academic identity defined prestige—a distinctive feature of Dark Academia aesthetic—served as a nostalgic refuge.

The solitary life of late-night studying is romanticized in Dark Academia, somewhat sensualizing the image of the tortured poet, artist, or intellectual and casting moody, melancholic ambience. This allure is further reinforced by an interior design trend that favors muted palettes of white, black, beige, brown, dark green, and navy blue, accented with textbooks, candles, and vintage ornaments. Such settings echo the atmosphere described in The Secret History—the Das Kapital of Dark Academia.

The grandeur of solitude in pursuing intellectual growth within the fantasy world of Dark Academia has, over the years through various digital platforms, built a collective identity and a flourishing community among younger audiences grappling with the lingering effect of the recession while adjusting to isolation under COVID-19 policies.

While Dark Academia romanticizes the imagery of studying humanities, its appeal expanded during the pandemic, reaching students across disciplines and even audiences beyond academia because it offered a community, belonging, and a coping mechanism. With the erosion of humanities majors intensifying in recent years in the US and parts of Europe, Dark Academia continues to serve as a nostalgic refuge. For humanities students, it provides a way to reclaim intellectual identity as well as cultural capital amid the devaluing of their field. It serves a similar purpose for other students and young people who—amid instability—yearn for intellectual prestige alongside its cultural identity.

A self-reflective evolving aesthetic

Paradoxically, while idealizing a bygone world centered on academic elitism, Dark Academia classics—such as the film Dead Poets Society (1989) and Donna Tartt’s novel The Secret History (1992)—also challenge the tradition of conformity and the moral codes long upheld in academic institutions. Thus, Dark Academia is a trope of nonconformity, antiauthority, and, to some extent, antiestablishment—a self-reflective aesthetic, ever evolving.

Dark Academia is a trope of nonconformity, antiauthority, and, to some extent, antiestablishment ....

Therefore, we cannot talk about Dark Academia without addressing its white, male-Anglo elitism. This ethnocentrism has been widely discussed, and as the trend continued to spread, criticism as well as resistance to its Western elitism gave rise to what can be described as a neo-Dark Academia, where the aesthetic is adjusted and adapted to embrace inclusion and diversity. This reformed or reimagined Dark Academia—while still loyal to the rebellious spirit of its prototype, Dead Poets Society and to the dark allure of its birth mother, The Secret History—has transformed itself by bringing feminist, queer, black, and decolonial reinterpretations. Since its peak, Dark Academia has increasingly incorporated non-Anglophone literature, traditions, and cultures into its narratives, drawing from Asian, African, and Latin American sources.

Reinterpretations in contemporary works have carried Dark Academia beyond nostalgia. R.F. Kuang’s Babel (2022) lays bare how colonialism, racism, sexism, and class inequality are embedded in academic institutions. In satirical mode, Emerald Fennell’s film, Saltburn (2023) mocks the toxicity of Western elitism and the pursuit of class mobility. M.L. Rio’s If We Were Villains (2017), echoes a Shakespearean tragedy while centering on queer love in an academic setting. Other works, such as Victoria Lee’s A Lesson in Vengeance (2021) exemplifies how contemporary Dark Academia has shifted away from male‑dominated narratives, emphasizing women and queer voices, while Katie Zhao’s How We Fall Apart (2021) moves further by centering Asian American women’s experiences. Yet across these diverse reinterpretations, the persistence of rape culture—manifested in hazing traditions and other practices—within elite universities remains underexplored in Dark Academia critiques.

The paradoxes that dismantle a broken society

In short, Dark Academia is both a literary genre and an aesthetic subculture that indulges in a nostalgic fantasy of an imagined past. The decolonial reinterpretations and resistance which have emerged within the Dark Academia community challenge the Anglo-elitist and patriarchal narratives reproduced through this aesthetic, seeking to re-write them. This creates another paradox: Dark Academia as both nostalgic escapism and cultural resistance. It is through these contradictions—elitism versus nonconformity and nostalgia versus innovation—that Dark Academia evolves into an aesthetic mirroring the fractures of a broken society, while simultaneously dismantling the cracks that hold it together.

-Some Thoughts from the Cappuccino Girl- (2026)

#literature #subculture #fashion #film

You might be interested to read: The Art of Controlling Cultural Meaning: Art Nouveau and Art Deco in the Third Reich

Images: Pinterest
Sources
Bookish Brews (2022) Dark Academia: The Truth About the Genre & Subculture. https://bookishbrews.com/dark-academia-the-truth-about-the-genre [Accessed 20 February 2026].
Bulaitis, Z. H., (2025) ‘Navigating Dark Academia: Student Identity, Nostalgia, and neo-Victorian Influences Online.’ Open Screens 7(2). doi: https://doi.org/10.16995/OS.10894.
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (2018) Unkept Promises: State Cuts to Higher Education Threaten Access and Equity. https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/unkept-promises-state-cuts-to-higher-education-threaten-access-and [Accessed 12 March 2026].
Cordon, Nancy (2025) '“Not by a Jury of Our Peers”: The Roles of Privilege and Critique in Dark Academia.' Paper Shell Review. https://english.umd.edu/research-innovation/journals/paper-shell-review/spring-2025/not-jury-our-peers-roles-privilege-and [Accessed 13 February 2026].
Millán, Lara Lopez (2023) The Dark Academia Aesthetic: Nostalgia for the Past in Social Networks. https://doi.org/10.33008/IJCMR.2023.08.
Nguyen, Maryann (2022) Nostalgia in Dark Academia. University of Strathclyde, Scotland. https://pure.strath.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/156280631/Nguyen_EWCP_2022_Nostalgia_in_dark_academia.pdf [Accessed 24 February 2026].
Wikipedia (2026) Student Loans and Grants in the United Kingdom. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_loans_and_grants_in_the_United_Kingdom [Accessed 10 March 2026].
 
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from growandfly

tw/cw: nsfw. implied sexual content.


Seonghyeon? Dia enggak bisa bersanding dengan rasa kesepian. Setidaknya, begitu lah yang Keonho pikirkan. Kadang kala rasanya seperti sebuah anomali; sosoknya terlihat tenang dan pancarkan kenyaman, tapi justru itu lah yang membuatnya jadi riuh.

Sejauh apa yang Keonho bisa amati, kemana pun Seonghyeon langkahkan kakinya maka akan selalu ada ramai di sana. Pun tidak peduli di mana Seonghyeon berada, presensinya senantiasa bagai magnet yang menarik banyak orang di sekitarnya untuk nyaman mendekat.

Hal yang selanjutnya menjadi alami bagi Seonghyeon adalah dirinya jadi melebur; ikut masuk dalam perangkap ekspektasi orang terhadapnya sampai ia sibuk sendiri untuk memenuhi semuanya dan akhirnya justru jadi lupa pada apa yang sebenarnya dia inginkan.

Lupa pada apa yang sebenarnya hatinya butuhkan.

Maka seiring dengan waktu yang berjalan, Seonghyeon mendapati dirinya merasa berhenti pada satu titik kekosongan. Sebuah hampa yang mendorong muncul sebuah obligasi untuk diisi. Caranya? Berkelana tanpa henti; dari satu tempat ke tempat lain, pada tiap hati dari tiap orang yang coba mendekati.

Seonghyeon berkelana, sejauh yang ia bisa.

Seonghyeon berkelana, pada siapa saja kecuali pada sosok yang kini ada di hadapannya dan tengah menahan semua beban tubuh Seonghyeon di pangkuannya.

“How I wish, I am someone’s favorite.”

Seonghyeon berbicara lemah, sebagaimana dirinya yang memang sedang berada di titik terlemah. Tubuhnya kini terkulai lemas dalam peluk Keonho yang selalu menerima bagaimana pun kondisi dirinya. Dahinya bersandar di bahu yang kekar, deru nafasnya patah-patah, kakinya bergetar hebat seiring dengan lelehan cairan yang basahi pahanya bahkan sampai ke tubuh sosok di hadapannya itu, pun seluruh tenaga terkuras habis hanya baru dengan sentuhan jari.

Dan bukan tanpa alasan kenapa Seonghyeon bisa sampai berujar begitu, pun berakhir dalam dekap Keonho begini. Faktanya adalah kisah cinta Seonghyeon baru saja kandas untuk kesekian kali, yang pada kali ini harus terjadi karena sebuah kebohongan fatal yang dilakukan sang kekasih (well, sekarang sudah jadi mantan sih). Seonghyeon jadi harus kembali ke titik nol; kehilangan semua rasanya sekaligus harus menerima nyeri dari kehampaan di hatinya lagi.

Sementara di sisi lain, Keonho rasanya ingin langsung balas dengan lantang, “You are my favorite, Seonghyeon. You will always be my favorite.”

Tapi tidak, Keonho pikir saat ini bukan momennya. Saat ini, bukannya saat yang tepat untuk jadi soal tentang dirinya, ini harusnya jadi seluruh waktu yang didedikasikan hanya untuk Seonghyeon.

Cuma Seonghyeon.

Lantas dibanding suarakan apa yang ingin kepalanya ucapkan, Keonho memilih untuk balas bertanya, “Feeling better, hm?”

Sejujurnya, jawabannya adalah iya.

Seonghyeon sudah ditelanjangi, dan Keonho sudah jamah seluruh bagian tubuhnya tanpa kecuali.

Seonghyeon sudah sempat dibuat lupa akan dirinya dan segala nyeri dari kehampaannya sebab Keonho sudah berikan apa yang orang biasa sebut sebagai surga dunia, lewat semua sentuhannya.

Jadi jawabannya adalah iya; Seonghyeon merasa lebih baik. He feels so, so, so fucking good.

Tapi itu saja rasanya seperti belum cukup, dan Seonghyeon sedang ingin jadi serakah. Sebab siapa pula yang akan tetap merasa baik-baik saja, setelah sayangmu ternyata ditipu? Setelah percayamu disia-siakan seolah tak ada artinya begitu?

Seonghyeon masih patah hati maka ia jelas masih butuh penawar dalam bentuk afeksi, dan Keonho adalah satu-satunya yang akan selalu siap beri penawar itu tanpa peduli pada konsekuensi.

Selalu.

“Jawab, Sayang.”

Sayang.

Di setiap aktivitas seksual mereka, Keonho kadang memang biasa memanggilnya begitu; sayang. Seonghyeon juga tidak tahu ada sihir macam apa di balik satu kata yang sangat biasa itu.

(Bagi Seonghyeon, ini tidak begitu ada maknanya. Terlalu sering disuarakan orang, terlalu sering ia dengar.)

Tapi anehnya tiap kali Keonho yang bilang, rasanya seperti Seonghyeon benar-benar disayang.

Makanya sekarang ini rasanya wajah Seonghyeong jadi memanas dan itu membuat rona merah mulai menjalar ke hampir semua bagiannya, sehingga yang bisa ia sampaikan sebagai responnya hanya sebatas pada gelengan lemah yang bisa Keonho rasakan di ceruk lehernya—sebab wajah si cantik sedari tadi memang bersembunyi di sana.

Keonho tahu, makna dari jawaban Seonghyeon. Tentu Keonho mengerti itu. Lantas lengannya yang semula rengkuh pinggang Seonghyeon dengan protektif itu, kini bergerak naik; jarinya bermain-main dia atas punggung mulus yang telanjang, bentuk sebuah pola acak sensual yang memprovokasi hingga sukses buat sesuatu dalam diri Seonghyeon untuk bangkit kembali. Badannya mulai menggeliat, masih terlalu sensitif untuk terima sentuhan seperti itu, pun tanpa sadar bibirnya jadi ikut keluarkan suara yang seharusnya ia tahan hanya dalam fantasinya saja.

Tubuh Seonghyeon bereaksi, dan Keonho bersorak dalam hati.

Lantas dilepaskanlah pelukan tubuh Seonghyeon, dengan posisi yang sebenarnya tak banyak berubah; Seonghyeon masih di pangkuannya, dan hanya jarak di antara wajah mereka tinggal sisa napas.

“Ngomong yang bener.” Kini ibu jari Keonho usap bibir ranum si manis yang begitu merah, mengkilap dan bengkak. Karena tentu saja, bagian itu sudah diporak-porandakan oleh Keonho sendiri tadi. Usapannya itu kini semakin melambat, seolah memberi waktu pada tiap saraf untuk sadar bahwa ia tengah sengaja disentuh. “Bisa ngomong gak?”

Suara Keonho makin terdengar menuntut. Tapi alih-alih buat takut, Seonghyeon justru sengaja untuk jadi enggan bicara dan malah membuka mulutnya—seolah memang sengaja mengundang sesuatu untuk masuk ke sana.

“Kotor.” Keonho sengaja lecehkan si manis di hadapannya. Sebab keduanya jelas tahu, humiliasi seperti itu justru jadi trigger yang sanggup bakar adrenalin Seonghyeon sampai ke puncaknya. Lantas ia tarik bilah bibir bawah Seonghyeon secara sengaja. “Mikirin apa sih? Gue suruh lo buat ngomong padahal.”

Tapi Seonghyeon mana bisa balas kasih jawaban? Ketika yang dilakukan Keonho selanjutnnya malah lesakkan ibu jarinya ke dalam mulut Seonghyeon.

“Ngomong, Sayang.” Kontradiktif titah Keonho yang bicara penuh penekanan, seiring dengan ibu jarinya yang makin melesak masuk; rasakan sensasi empuk dan lembut, serta basah yang tanpa sadar buatnya jadi mulai ikut merasa gila. “Lo punya mulut, kalo gak dipake buat ngomong ya buat apa lagi coba?”

Maka yang jadi jawaban Seonghyeon adalah mulutnya ia pakai untuk langsung hisap ibu jari Keonho di sana, diiringi dengan mata setengah sayunya yang enggan lepas untuk balas pandangi tatapan tajam dari si yang lebih tua. Dan tindakan itu, tentu sukses terbitkan seringai puas di wajah Keonho.

“Beneran kotor ya.” Sekali lagi, kontradiksi antara ucapan dan perilakunya; sebelah tangan Keonho kini mengusap wajah Seonghyeon, coba singkirkan anak rambut di dahi yang bisa halangi indahnya paras si cantik, lalu turun ke bawah untuk usap lembut pipi yang jadi mencekung akibat kegiatan menghisapnya. “Kotor banget sampe bisa bikin gue mikir buat masukin sesuatu yang lain ke mulut lo ini.”

Seonghyeon seketika pening. Kalimat Keonho barusan masuk dan membayangi dalam kepalanya, buat hisapan pada jari di mulutnya jadi makin kuat. Sesekali gumamkan nama Keonho dengan suara yang sama sekali tidak koheren, dan buat si empunya jadi makin mendorong masuk ibu jarinya dengan kasar sampai Seonghyeon tersedak dengan air mata yang menggenang di pelupuk mata.

Lalu tak lama setelahnya, Keonho akhirnya tarik ibu jarinya yang kemudian basahnya dari liur Seonghyeon di sana lantas dilumurkan di atas bibir si empunya.

Kacau.

Nafas Seonghyeon berderu, dengan wajah memerah dan mata yang sayu. Belum lagi kini Keonho baru sadar dan lihat dengan jelas, betapa tubuh si cantik yang awalnya polos itu kini telah penuh dengan ruam merah bekas ia gigit di sana-sini; di leher, di bahu, di dada, di hampir semuanya.

Sekali lagi. Seonghyeon kacau, dan cuma Keonho yang sanggup jadi penyebab dari semua kacau itu.

Keonho lantas mendekat maju, untuk cium sudut bibir Seonghyeon yang basah. Lalu lumat seluruhnya sampai semua bagiannya jadi bersih mengkilat. Tapi Seonghyeon tak lantas bisa diam dan menerima begitu saja, sehingga ia balas melumat hingga buat keduanya saling mencium.

Panas dan berantakan.

Buat Seonghyeon jadi tak sadar kembali gesekkan diri di paha yang lebih tua—sampai ada becek di bawah sana, dan Keonho yang dengan kurang ajarnya langsung mencengkram pinggang Seonghyeon begitu ia sadar—hentikan pegerakan si yang lebih muda.

“Mmh—Keonho...” Seonghyeon lepas ciumannya dan langsung suarakan erangan frustasi, matanya balik jadi berair lagi. “Please—!”

“Ngomong, Seonghyeon,” pinta Keonho dengan tegas. Dia tidak akan lanjutkan, kalau Seonghyeon tidak benar-benar suarakan apa yang diinginkan. “So, say it. Then I’ll do it.”

“Kiss me. Touch me—” Seonghyeon merengek. Ia cuma bisa suarakan apapun itu yang lewat di kepalanya, sudah tidak sanggup suarakan satu kalimat penuh. Sebab makin lama, isi kepalanya malah jadi cuma diisi Keonho, Keonho, Keonho, dan Keonho saja. “—Fill me. Makes me forget.”

Sedangkan Keonho sendiri, tentu tidak banyak buang waktu untuk wujudkan apa yang Seonghyeon mau. “Sure. I’m going to fill you up, so you remember who fucks you so good.”

Seonghyeon bilang, buat dia lupa. Tapi yang Keonho mau Seonghyeon untuk ingat, and Seonghyeon will gladly do so. Meski yang selanjutnya sanggup ia ingat hanya dirinya yang cuma bisa suarakan desah dan kalimat-kalimat tak koheran ketika yang Keonho lakukan disepanjang waktunya adalah memuja dambil mengukung Seonghyeon di bawahnya, dengan suarakan ‘cantik’, ‘indah,’ dan kalimat pujian lainnya tanpa henti pada tiap inci dari bagian tubuhnya, dan mencium tiap bagian yang belum sempat diberi dijamah cumbunya.

Begitu seterusnya, yang memenuhi pikiran keduanya cuma untuk puaskan satu sama lainnya, dengan nafsu yang terus mengudara dalam seisi ruangan hingga terus hanyutkan dua jiwa itu sampai pagi menjelang tiba.


 
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from elilla & friends’ very occasional blog thing

Companion piece to the casual relationship vocabulary.

  • Carinho: caress; cuddle. Literally “little care”. In the strict sense, a gesture of physical affection; more generally, any action that makes you feel cared for.
  • Carinhosa: cuddly in a caring way. Affectionate and care-giving. A highly valued trait in a partner.
  • Carente: the emotional state of being in need of carinho. Care-seeking. Like “needy” but without the negative connotation. “Hon, be nice to me cos today I'm carente.”
  • Chorosa: the emotional state of feeling prone to crying. Vulnerable due to an influx of emotions. “Feeling fragile right now”. Implies similar needs as being carente. Distinguish “chorona” which is crybaby; being prone to crying as a stable personality trait.
  • Aconchego: coziness; a cuddle that feels cozy.
  • Chamego: a more intense form of carinho. In some dialects it's sexually charged, like, to grind on someone while dancing can be described as giving chamego.
  • Chameguice: chamego-ness. The trait of being highly affective, in a physical sense.
  • Colo: “lap”. But metaphorically like, nestling. The happy safe place in your lover's arms. To be “asking for lap” is essentially a way of expressing being physically carente.
  • Cafuné: headstroking. Making carinhos by lightly massaging their head, passing your fingers between their hair and so on. Used symbolically in a similar way as English “headpat”, but it's slower and more intimate than simple patting.
  • Xodó: someone who is your xodó is your baby. A xodó evokes in you an intense warm fuzzy protective care-giving emotion, maybe to the point of you getting overprotective or jealous. Not an exclusive term to romance; can also be used e.g. of a child or a pet, or a prized collector's item, etc.
  • Mimar: to spoil. To treat someone; to go all-out on spoiling them, no holds barred. A highly valued behaviour in a partner.
  • Mimo: a treat. A single “spoil”. Can be like, a physical gift, or a service like making fancy breakfast, or just a bout of intense affection, praise, cuddles etc. “You better be ready cos I'm gonna stuff you full of mimos tonight you cutie”.
  • Dengo: when you act in a childish or playfully cutesy-dramatic way in order to elicit mimos and get a good chamego. The quality of dengo-ness is denguice.
  • Manha: similar to dengo but hits different in a way I have trouble expressing.
  • Manhosa, dengosa: being in an emotional state where you do dengos or make manha; or having that as a personality trait. Bashful from Disney's “Snow White” was named Dengoso in the Brazilian dub. n.b. being dengosa is a positive trait in a partner.
  • Melosa: “honeyed”. Someone who expresses affection verbally to a shamelessly intense degree.
  • Grude: “sticky material”; “glue”. Someone who wants to be up close to you at all times. can be used negatively or positively; e.g. “these two are such a grude lately [admiringly]“.

Much of our rich vocabulary for this field is indebted to Bantu languages. Once again, there's probably more I'm not remembering, exact nuances vary with speaker and age and subculture etc.

 
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from elilla & friends’ very occasional blog thing

With the major cultural tradition of my people being “fooling around”, we have developed a rich vocabulary that I miss when I speak English or German or Japanese, so I'm trying to list all terms that I can remember. See also the affection/cuddling vocabulary.

Have fairly close English equivalents

  • Namorada: girlfriend
  • Esposa: wife
  • Mulher: woman, as in wife
  • Amante: lover (illegitimate)
  • Amizade colorida: friendship with benefits. Implies a recurring sexual relationship with no or lightweight emotional involvement. Lit. “colourful friendship”.
  • Flash: a hookup. a one-night stand.
  • Crush: as in English.
  • Parceira: as in the English cognate.

No exact English equivalent

  • Ficar: to make out with; lit. “to stay with”. Probably but not necessarily staying short of sex, though often sexually charged. Implies a fun/joyful aspect, and also probably an emotional/honeyed/crush aspect. Can be a one-off thing; if it's recurring, you have a
  • Ficante: “stayer”, “stayent”. Someone you often make out with, but no committed relationship is declared. Implies non-exclusivity. You probably have feelings for one another, but keep it light.
  • Pegar: to hook up with; probably but not necessarily sexual. Literally “to seize/grab/take”; often implies an active seducer role on the part of the speaker (“see that hot piece on that table? I been grabbing her”). Implies emotional casualness. Can be used of a one-night stand; if it's recurring, you have a
  • Pegante: someone you have a sexually torrid, emotionally light, non-exclusive recurring relationship with.
  • Peguete: same as “pegante” but the suffix makes it feel even more casual. Has a connotation like “plaything” or “boy toy” in my mind.
  • Pegadora: assertively promiscuous and good at it. Seductress. “She fucks.”
  • Ficante séria: You never declared a relationship but she's de facto like a girlfriend and if you forget her birthday or cheat on her there's gonna be trouble. Extremely Brazilian concept in that “serious casual” is a logical contradiction and makes perfect sense.
  • Ficante premium: More or less the same as “ficante séria”, but funnier. Can be extended like “ficante premium gourmet comfort plus”, etc. “Yesterday my ficante premium plus saw me with the ficante comfort limited edition and SHTF.”
  • Pensante, olhante, conversante: “thinkent”, “lookent”, “chatent”. The concept of “ficante” is so useful that the -ante suffix (the same as in “student” or “resident”) has now generalised to describe your beloved at stages of the flirting process, from when you’re thinking about or staring wistfully at her down to the actual making out.
  • Ex-ficante: You never declared a relationship and you were never exclusive but your former ficante came to the same new year's party as you and your current ficante and now there's a maior climão (A “biggest atmosphere”. I think you get the idea.)
  • Amigada: The wife equivalent of “ficante séria”. You live together and are for all intents and purposes a married couple, but never legally married nor declared your relationship to your family. Very very old word, like literally from the renaissance, so it has a bit of a grandma energy—it sounds to me like, “and your aunt ran away from home and became amigada with her cousin back in '63…”—but I still see young people using it, too.
  • Namorido: Portmanteu of namorado “boyfriend” and marido “husband”. Not your husband but the relationship is so serious that the social role is like a husband. Maybe you live together (=amigado), or maybe not but you stay at each other's houses so often that you practically do; you go to family events together; you travel together in vacations etc. Boyfriend with husband characteristics.
  • Namorida: Feminine of “namorido”; girlfriend with wife characteristics, even though the implied marida (a feminine of “husband”) isn't a regular word.
  • Rolo: “It's complicated” relationship. “Situationship”. “In a dynamic with.” It's recurring, and it's not just sex for fun. Maybe not formally dating but there's too many feelings involved, you're falling for one another but one side or both is afraid to say it aloud; or you want to live in this state of ambiguity for longer; or maybe it's illegitimate on the part of someone; or not-quite-illegitimate-but-better-if-she-doesn't-know, that kinda thing. Literally a “roll”, but it's originally slang for trouble; mess.
  • Rolo compressor: “steamroller”. You had a rolo and they came drunk to your party when you were petting your peguete and made a scene and you're the talk of the town for a month. Then they called you at 2am to break up, but then called next morning to say they're sorry, and…
  • Caso: A “case”. An affair. An older word that can be used like amante (illegitimate lover) or like rolo (it's complicated). For example, a torrid, intense, and knowingly temporary relationship for the duration of a summer trip would be a caso de verão (“summer case”). Has a mature adult connotation in my mind, compared to the more young folk/nightlife energy of ficante/pegante.
  • Contatinho: “little contact”. “I'm in her DMs”. Nobody has proposed or confessed anything yet but it's clear for everyone involved that you two are a thing already. They're like, incoming queue. You get sugar syrupy/flirty every so often to keep moving things towards IRL skinship. Back in my day we called this being fofinhas no MSN (“being cute on MSN”) but nobody uses that anymore.
  • Contatinho de reserva, aka step: “Backup little contact”, aka “spare tire”. Not a side piece but a side potential piece. Someone in your DMs you've been jogando verde pra colher maduro (“playing it while it's green so you get to harvest it ripe”), like, no expectations, but the hustle never stops…

There's probably more I'm not remembering. This is like, slang, it has all sorts of variants and different nuances depending on dialect, subculture, generation etc. This is how the words sound to me in particular and, I think, most folk from my area and generation.

 
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