jasexists

[jasexists]

Nowadays we still associate scythes with grim reapers, but forget the original cultural context: scythes being a familiar farming tool that most people had at home, a mundane domestic object, elevated into a poignant symbol of the harvest and the cyclic nature of time. and a fitting symbol, because death also is as mundane, familiar, and reliable as the changing of the seasons.

my point being: a modernized grim reaper would be best portrayed as a skeleton carrying a leaf blower

[jasexists]

Confession: The letter “t” key on my laptop has been broken since 2024. From what my research tells me, they can’t fix individual keys on that model, and my laptop is no longer under a warranty, but it seems foolish to fork out over $900 for a new computer, so instead I’ve trained my brain to hit ctrl+v every time I want to hit “t.”

But sometimes I have to copy-paste something else besides “t,” which means I need a readily available place to copy the “t” from.

My first thought was to search “tiger” on Google, but if you can’t type the letter “t,” you just get search results about Bob Iger.

I realized words that end with “t” are easier for Google to autocomplete, so the first one I thought of was “crypt.” But wouldn’t you know, googling “cryp” takes to you to cryptocurrency results, and I REALLY don’t want my algorithm thinking I google that multiple times per week.

Then I remembered a cool place I went in London, called Cafe in the Crypt. It’s exactly what it sounds like and located below St. Martin-in-the-Fields Church. When I type in “Cafe in Cryp,” Google does indeed autocomplete it effectively! So I either keep that search result open in a tab or Google it every day.

So, that being said, if anyone works for St. Martin-in-the-Fields Church’s marketing department and has been utterly flummoxed by an IP address from Virginia that has googled their cafe hundreds of times over the past 6 months… that wasn’t a bot, that was me.

I am the Spiders Georg of Cafe in the Crypt.

Anyway, it’s a pretty cool place to check out if you’re ever in London. Just maybe not cool enough to Google it on a daily basis for months straight.

[jasexists]

I saw a sign at a nearby village advertising a "veillée", a storytelling evening, which sounded intriguing, so I went out of curiosity—it turned out to be an old lady who had arranged a circle of chairs in her garden and prepared drinks, and who wanted to tell folk tales and stories from her youth. Apparently she was telling someone at the market the other day that she missed the ritual of the "veillée" from pre-television days, when people would gather in the evening and tell stories, and the people she was talking to were like, well let's do a veillée! And then she put up the sign.

About 15 people came, and she sat down and started telling us stories—I loved the way she made everything sound like it had happened just yesterday and she was there, even tales she'd got from her grandmother, and the way she continually assumed we knew all the people she mentioned, and everyone spontaneously played along; she'd be like "And Martin, the bonesetter—you know Martin," (everyone nods—of course, Martin) "We never liked him much" and everyone nodded harder, our collective distaste for Martin now a shared cultural heritage of our tiny microcosm. She started with telling us the story of the communal bread oven in the village. The original oven was destroyed during the Revolution; people used to pay to use the local aristocrat's oven, but of course around 1789 both the aristocrat and his oven were disposed of in a glorious blaze of liberty, equality, and complete lack of foresight.

Then the villagers felt really daft for having destroyed a perfectly serviceable oven that they could have now started using for free. "But you know what things were like during the revolution." (Everyone nodded sagely—who among us hasn't demolished our one and only source of bread-baking equipment in a fit of revolutionary zeal?)

The village didn't have a bread oven for decades, people travelled to another village to make bread; and then in the 19th century the village council finally voted to build a new oven. It was a communal endeavour, everyone pitched in with some stones or tools or labour, and the oven was built—but it collapsed immediately after the construction was finished. Consternation. Not to be deterred, people re-built the oven, with even more effort and care—and the second one also collapsed.

People realised that something was amiss, and the village council convened. After a lot of serious discussion, during which no one so much as mentioned the possibility of a structural flaw, people reached the only logical conclusion: the drac had sabotaged their oven. Twice. (The drac, in these parts, is the son of the devil.) The logic here, I suppose, was that no one but the devil's own child would dare to stand between French people and their bread.

The next step was even more obvious: they passed around a hat to raise money, assuming the devil’s son was after a cash donation. But (and I'm skipping a few twists and turns of the story here) the son of the devil did not want money, he wanted half of every batch of bread, for as long as the village oven stood. Consternation.

People simply could not afford to give away half of their bread, and were about to abandon the idea of having their own oven altogether—but then Saint Peter came to the rescue. (In case you didn't know, Saint Peter happens to regularly visit this one tiny village in the French countryside to check that its inhabitants are doing okay and are not encountering oven issues.) Saint Peter reminded them of one precious piece of information they had overlooked: holy water burns the devil.

People re-built the oven, for the third time. The son of the devil returned, to destroy it and/or claim his half of the first batch—but on that day, the villagers had organised a grand communal spring cleaning, dousing every street and alley in the village with copious amounts of holy water. The poor drac simply could not access the oven; every possible path scorched his feet for reasons he couldn't quite explain. So he was standing there, smouldering gently and wondering what was going on, when some passing tramp seemed to take pity on him, pointed at his satchel and told him to turn himself into a rat and jump in there, and the tramp would carry him where he wished to go. The devil's son, probably a bit frazzled at this point, agreed without much thought, became a rat and jumped in the satchel, and of course that's the point when everyone in the village sprang from the shadows, wielding sticks, shovels, pans, and started beating the devil's son senseless. (Old lady, calmly: "You could hear his bones crack.") So the son of Satan slithered back to Hell and never returned to destroy the village oven again—and the spring cleaning tradition endured; the streets were washed with holy water once a year after that, both to commemorate this glorious day of civic resistance when the village absolutely bodied the devil's offspring and to maintain basic oven safety standards. (Old lady: "But we don't bother anymore… That's too bad.")

She told us five stories, most of them artfully blending actual local events or anecdotes from her youth with folk tale elements, it was so delightful. She thanked us for coming and said she'd love to do this again sometime. I went home reflecting that listening to an old lady happily tell stories of dubious historical veracity involving the Revolution, property damage, demonic mischief and baffling municipal decision-making is literally my ideal Saturday night activity.

[jasexists]

Wise men say Only fools rush in But I can't help...

Maigu Ridge Jess Version~ Read left>right! ;D Enjoy!

[jasexists]

So one of my neighbors has a lawn Roomba or whatever they're called, and this thing trundles around looking like a background robot in the background of the original trilogy, and ABSOLUTELY BAFFLING THE DOGS.

They have concluded, I think, that it's some kind of prey animal because right after this video ended they decided to crouch down and stalk it, which means I'm 90% sure I'm going to have to stop Arwen from eating it at some point.

[jasexists]

LGIEF Fanart <33

Finished !! I was surprised how quickly I finished but I really loved drawing this !! It's cute and I think shows how adorable they are !! It's also my first time drawing a background that isn't just [ box ] ,,,

[jasexists]

a handsome rider with maple earrings meets a cute daozhang 🍁

the revised introducing these cute new scenes between hualian has me on the floor i love them

[jasexists]

Y’ALL THERE’S A CHOCOLATE GUY IN CHINA TOO

His name is Kris Zhaokai (kris_zhaokai on Xiaohongshu/Red Note) and his creations are incredible

Imagine what he and Amaury Guichon could create together terrifying

[jasexists]

beloved

[jasexists]

My little animation about teen Hua Cheng trying to put his love on the paper. @oryunart

[jasexists]

"As long as we're apart together, we shall certainly be fine."

[print available here]

[jasexists]

I’m six episodes into the TGCF donghua and based on what my wife told me, this is what I understand Hua Cheng’s deal is.

[jasexists]

i just KNOW hua cheng was mad about using the same tactic as tweedle dee and tweedle dum

[jasexists]

when i tell you i had an aneurysm

[jasexists]

Hualian text post again because I keep finding them ✨

[jasexists]

Dianxia and Hua Cheng in the latest TGCF CNY greeting video (2025)

[jasexists]

Shoutout to the U.S. embassies in Austria, Chile, India, and South Korea who have directly ignored orders from the Trump administration in flying the pride flag