mantrasong - Tumblr blog

[mantrasong]

Just found out Sam Reich isn’t straight. Guess you could say he’s been queer the whole time.

[mantrasong]

Victoria Schwab Tweets:

“This just in: you can love writing and also find it hard.

“I was once on a panel and another author essentially said, ‘if you don't enjoy every moment, then why are you here?’ and I was...exasperated. Creativity is a complicated beast. You don't have to love every second to be a valid participant.

“I love the ideas. I love brainstorming, and problem-solving, and I love making this better, fine-tuning language.

“I also hate drafting, claw my way through self-doubt, crawl on my hands and knees through the frustration of the unrealized.

“I'm not here because I love every second.

“I'm here because the parts I love are worth the rest.”

[mantrasong]

yeah im “transitioning” *dissolves into tiny pieces as i click to the next slide*

[mantrasong]

yknow i never noticed the sheer rareness of images having ids or alt text on this website until i started adding alt text to my art (and trying to remember to add it to any images i post in general, especially text screenshots) and that makes me kinda sad

[mantrasong]

WEAKNESS IS THE BRAND

[mantrasong]

Stuck on the idea of vampires as a kind of reverse fae, or like someone's twisted, perverse attempt at moulding humans into fae.

They're repelled by liminal spaces.

A vampire could never enter fairyland, not just because they'd never be welcomed, but because most of the usual entry-ways are naturally barred to them.

They can't cross running water. They can't be seen in mirrors. They will wait forever at a crossroads, unable to pick a direction to go in. They can't even step over a thresh-hold unless there is absolutely no ambiguity about whether they are welcome inside.

They crave human blood, iron and salt, but are repelled by herbs and plants. They are supernaturally prevented from harming you unless the rules of hospitality have been invoked.

A fairy may replace your newborn child with something unnatural and ever-hungry. A vampire will do the same, but with your grandmother's corpse.

The fae are typically associated, even in stories where they're the bad guys, with flourishing and purity. Vampires, even in stories where they're the good guys, are typically associated with decay and corruption.

The fae turn ancient human burial mounds into fancy halls for their courts. Vampires take ancient human castles and let them grow mildewed and cobwebbed, exchanging the beds for coffins, turning them into burial places.

Fae don't tend to live among humans, but can generally pass for them with relative ease if they so choose. Vampires nearly always live among humans, but tend to find not revealing themselves a huge struggle.

I can't think of many stories I've read where fae and vampires even exist in the same universe, let alone ones where they actively interact. I feel like their enmity is almost more inevitable than that between vampires and werewolves, however.

The rivalry between vampires and werewolves is, essentially, the rivalry between two apex predator species who share a territory. (Even in stories where the werewolves aren't actually hunting humans.)

The vampires hate the werewolves because the werewolves interfere with their access to prey. The werewolves hate the vampires either because they consider themselves aligned with humans (the prey species), or because they are also predators and the vampires are competing with them.

By comparison, I think there's some story potential in the fae finding something genuinely creepy and uncanny valley about vampires.

They're immortal, like them, but also dead. They can be beautiful, like them, but that beauty is something they actively require humans to sustain. They like to inhabit beautiful and ancient ex-human dwellings, like them, but they actively work to make those places dark, damp and empty.

Fairies who are unflappable in the face of all sorts of Otherworldly monsters, can look an eldritch horror in the eye(s) without blinking, and have never been phased yet by any human, but will recoil from even the weakest vampire.

Vampires who hate fairies just as much, but in a more envious way. The way that the creature for whom immortality is a curse is bound to hate the creatures for whom immortality is an eternity of sunlight and laughter.

Maybe their touches burn each other. Maybe vampires can't stand physical contact with anything so alive and vital. Maybe immortal fairies become ill from too much exposure to the undead.

Maybe they fight over the human population when their territories overlap. The fairy need for servants and people to make deals with, competing with the vampire need for thralls and blood to drink.

Just… fairies and vampires. We need more stories about them interacting.

[mantrasong]

[mantrasong]

It can be really hard to learn to engage in positive self talk, but sometimes it's easier to start by pretending it's coming from a friend, first 💜

[mantrasong]

[mantrasong]

For Nature’s new series on sex/gender, I wrote with the amazing Shari Brightly-Brown and G Nic Rider about gender modality, the limits of the cis/trans binary, and how to study gender more respectfully and accurately.

Gender modality is a term I coined in 2019 that has picked up a lot of steam in the last few years. It refers to the relationship between someone’s gender identity and gender assigned at birth. It’s a lot like ‘sexual orientation’ but for trans/cis instead of gay/straight.

The term helps us be more accurate and more respectful when describing the experiences of trans people, and opens up space beyond the trans/cis binary.

For instance, it’s often more accurate to say that discrimination against trans people is based on gender modality than based on gender identity. After all, a trans woman has the same gender identity as a cis woman, so that’s not the salient point.

There are also many people who don’t neatly fall in the trans/cis binary, and gender modality helps us talk about that. Non-binary people who don’t identify as cis or trans, gender questioning folks, detrans folks, people with culturally-specific identities, etc.

Our world is incredibly rich with experiences and our language should reflect that. As we say in the paper, the first step in science shouldn’t be assuming, it should be to engage in the world in all its magnificent complexity.

I am grateful to our editor for the opportunity to publish in such a prestigious journal with such amazing coauthors. I hope you all enjoy the read!

For those who prefer to listen, here’s an audio version.

[mantrasong]

I was curious about what my wage and time, plus materials, would bring the cost of a foundation paper pieced and handquilted king size quilt to...and...

Okay, anyone willing to pay this amount will be enough to convince to make something this...outrageous. it'll close commissions for a year or two, and require frequent breaks so I don't burnout.

$23,800 USD.

$27× 900 hours + cost of materials (batting alone will be $200, 25 yards of fabric will be about what i need, i'll kill several rotary blades with all the cutting, and likely go through at least two spools of thread) = final cost

That amount of money will be what it takes to convince me to make this. If you're willing to pay for one of these now, hmu. I'll make the listing.

If you want just a king size quilt top, that's still $6150 USD. I'll need around 25 yards of fabric, a couple spools of thread (or a cone), and two to three rotary blades. This will take around 200 hours for traditional piecing. Foundation paper piecing will add another 100-200 hours easily because I have to print each section of each block, cut them out, fold along the seam lines, cut all the fabric, sew the fabric to the paper, press each seam, trim, rinse and repeat many times, sew the blocks together, remove the paper (sooooo many pieces), make the rows, and sew the rows together. So foundation paper piecing will bring the top to $11,650. For just the quilt top.

If you're 100% certain you want a king size quilt, and you're able to pay, let me know. I'll put the commission listing up for you, and promptly close commissions until further notice.

Money is good incentive.

[mantrasong]

Threerings' Dinner Plan

Okay so you've got the average or more than the average amount of stress and limitations to your time and/or ability, but you like to eat good food. And you know you need to both eat healthier and more cheaply (i.e. home cooked food.) What do you do?

Well in the past few months I've kinda perfected a system for low effort cooking of very healthy meals that last for many days of leftovers. None of this is revolutionary or anything or original but IDK it's working really well for me so I'm sharing.

(Also this is for omnivores. Sorry non meat eaters.)

Basically the idea is sheet pan meals. Like I said, not revolutionary. But I've found a system to make it as easy and low-effort as possible.

Step One: Choose your meat and recipe.

So mostly I use chicken for this, because it's cheapest. But if your store is having a great sale on pork or beef, by all means. This last week I did pork tenderloin cause they were super cheap I just searched for a recipe for sheet pan pork tenderloin and adapted it.

But we're gonna assume you're going chicken. So I really only like chicken breasts, but if you like thighs you can use those because it's cheaper. I typically use about 1.75-2lbs of chicken at at time for these recipes.

So what I do is buy the thin sliced chicken breasts from the store. The benefit here is they are already pre-trimmed of all the nasty parts so you're not paying for bits of chicken you don't want and also you don't have to handle and cut the chicken yourself. All I do is open the package and I cut each piece of sliced chicken in half in the middle, horizontally. You don't have to do that, but it makes all the pieces about the same size and it fits better on the tray and then people can take exactly as much meat as they want more easily. (I'm only feeding two adults but it would work well for kids that way.)

Step Two: Veggies

So that's your meat, then you need veggies. I use frozen veggies because they are 1)cheaper and 2)pre-cut. You can pretty much use whatever veggies you like with whatever recipe, but I try to keep it in theme. Like with a Mediterranean dish I did onions and bell peppers and cauliflower. Recently I got a bag of "roasting vegetable blend" that was excellent with brussel sprouts, butternut squash, and onions. Get the higher quality veg like broccoli "florets" cause it's worth a few cents more. You will need/want more veggies than you think, like 20 oz total, you can mix a couple small bags of different ones per tray. And they will shrink a good deal in cooking.

Step Three: Sauce/seasoning.

And then we have seasoning/sauce. This is where I turn to internet recipes for "sheet pan whatever chicken." But I have a few I've used that I've adapted so I'll give them here. Whatever you do, basically you just mix the sauce and pour it over the chicken and/or vegetables and throw it all on a sheet tray and cook it in the oven. (Specifics below.)

Korean Chicken

4  tablespoons dark soy sauce (I've tried both dark works better)

4 tablespoons brown sugar

2 tablespoons neutral oil

1 tablespoon sesame oil

2 teaspoons Sriracha sauce

4 cloves garlic , minced (or ½ teaspoon garlic powder) (I use pre-minced jar garlic for ease)

1 tablespoon gochugaru red pepper flakes (if you don't have these just either use a smaller amount of regular red pepper flakes or just more sriracha. This shouldn't be really HOT, just tangy. )

Do Broccoli and Chicken with this, and mix it all in the sauce. It makes the absolute best broccoli EVER. Like I just want a plate of this broccoli it's so GOOD.

Greek Chicken

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp fresh lemon juice

6 cloves garlic minced

1 tbsp dried oregano

1 tbsp dried parsley

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp black pepper

1/4 cup feta cheese crumbled

(Sub pre-juiced lemon juice and jarred garlic for ease.) Marinate the chicken in the mixture for like 30 minutes first if you have time. Onions, bell peppers and zucchini is good for this. Don't add feta until the last 3 minutes of cooking, sprinkle feta over it and then put it back to get a little melty and browned.

Shawarma Chicken

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 teaspoon ground coriander 

1½ teaspoons paprika (may substitute smoked paprika)

2 teaspoons ground cumin

½ teaspoon ground turmeric

1 teaspoon fine salt

¼ teaspoon black pepper

3 tablespoons neutral or olive oil

Juice of ½ lemon

You can again marinate the chicken for a bit if you want. But you don't have to. I recommend cauliflower for this, with whatever else you like. Grape tomatoes are good too. For this one I sprinkled the veggies with curry powder to make sure they got seasoned because there wasn't that much of the marinade.

So for ALL of these the process is this:

Preheat over to 450

Spread the frozen veggies all over a sheet pan (wrap the pan in aluminum foil first for easy clean up.) You can drizzle them with oil, salt and pepper, or a little of the sauce/marinade and toss to cover. Toss the sheet in the oven while it's still preheating. This will get the veggies started and defrosted before you add the chicken so it will all cook together.

Meanwhile get the chicken ready/wait 10-15 minutes for the oven to heat and the veggies to start cooking. (If you're using smaller/more tender veggies you can cut this time. Skip this entirely if you're using fresh.)

Mix your thin sliced chicken pieces with the marinade/sauce. Remove veggies from the oven and push to the sides to make room for your chicken in the middle. You can also simply lay the chicken pieces over veggies if you don't care about the veggies getting carmelized. Arrange your chicken and dump all the sauce. Return to oven.

Cook for about 20-25 minutes. You can check the temp of the chicken with a thermometer, but it's so thin it should be fine. This is why we start the veggies first so they can get mostly cooked and have time to start browning without overcooking chicken.

Remove from oven.

Serve with rice. I have been going the ultra-lazy route of using frozen microwaveable rice, but some of you may have rice cookers.

Congratulations you have a super healthy meal. If you feel crazy you could make a second tray of veggies at the same time and just have less meat with each meal to stretch your $. You could also add beans to your veggies and same.

My husband and I can get dinners for 4-5 days out of one of these meals. But neither of us eats a lot at a sitting, so ymmv on that.

You can also probably see how to adapt this. Find a sauce/marinade recipe, choose veggies and meat, and go! You will have to figure out the cook time for different kinds of meat though.

[mantrasong]

the point of art is not to be great but to make it transparently obvious that there is something wrong with you

[mantrasong]

[mantrasong]

They stopped replying.

[mantrasong]