Omniposition—An Ice Dessert Café Inspired By Silent

Would You Want a Narwhal Boss?

Narwhals have never been seen hurting each other with their tusks. Yet those tusks may still be intimidating enough to deter marine life lovers from studying them up-close.

📷: © Aimee Ray, shared under the permission of CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Hello all. How's the insurgency against the crowned microbe going? How has life been for the carpenter, you ask? Let's just say that, going by common experience, some things will only come to a fiery end. You can only slap on cooling balm here and there, now and then. Right now, the autistic lawyering series Extraordinary Attorney Woo (native title: Eccentric Attorney Woo Young Woo), currently ranked third place worldwide across all English and non-English language Netflix TV titles, is that balm for many subjects to that crown, with the soothing metaphors, dreamy people and atmosphere, and of course brilliantly rendered whales. But will this series remain just balm, while neurodivergent people continue to face the horrific violence detailed in studies, reports and real-life Asian(-American) autistic attorney Lydia X. Z. Brown's accounts? Do we believe the show, regardless of questions about the autistic acting? Can we afford to? Are we willing to give real-life Woos a chance at an upwardly mobile, complete life in this hectic and anxiety-ridden age? No amount of debate can settle these questions better than a democratic poll.

Everyone is warmly welcome to take part in this very short one-month survey which commenced yesterday. So far, thanks to some very kind friends, six people have submitted their answers, taking only an average of 1.5 minutes each. If you are unfamiliar with the show, you can still check it out before the deadline. Results will be published on this site only if there are at least 50 sets of answers. Spread the news around to see how many people share your sentiments!

Good luck to you and the Woos in your own lives! Let's all not forget what's it's like to be truly human.

PSA from Blobby. Something we should talk about more ❤️

Bard's Fantasy Medical C-Drama

This is an edited AI story that grew from a Love Between Fairy And Devil prompt. The year is 2077. The world is a very different place than it was just a few decades ago. Climate change has ravaged the planet, and many cities have been abandoned due to rising sea levels. In the midst of this chaos, a new type of hospital has emerged: the glutinous hospital.

Glutinous hospitals are not like traditional hospitals. They are not equipped with state-of-the-art medical technology, and they do not have a staff of highly trained doctors and nurses. Instead, glutinous hospitals are staffed by a group of unlikely heroes: spirits of tangyuan.

Tangyuan are small, round, and sweet dumplings made from glutinous rice flour. They are also very kind and compassionate. They have a natural ability to heal the sick and injured, and they are always willing to help those in need.

One day, a young woman named Xiao Yu (originally Xiaolanhua) arrives at a glutinous hospital. She is suffering from a terminal illness, and she has been given only a few months to live. Xiao Yu is desperate for a cure, and she is willing to try anything.

The tangyuan at the glutinous hospital are able to heal Xiao Yu's illness. They give her a new lease on life, and they help her to find her true purpose in the world. Xiao Yu eventually becomes a doctor at the glutinous hospital, and she dedicates her life to helping others.

However, there is a dark side to this convalescent planet retaken by fantasy. The tangyuan are not the only ones who can heal the sick and injured. There are also a group of creatures known as the colorful qilins who have the same ability. They look like horses with the head of a dragon, the body of a deer, and the tail of an ox and are often seen as symbols of hope and redemption. In reality, though, the colorful qilins use their powers to harm and destroy.

One day, a group of colorful qilins attack the glutinous hospital. They kill many of the tangyuan, and they take Xiao Yu prisoner. Xiao Yu is forced to work for the colorful qilins, and she is used to heal their injured soldiers.

Xiao Yu is horrified by what she is forced to do, but she knows that she must obey the colorful qilins if she wants to stay alive. She also knows that she must find a way to escape and to stop the colorful qilins from hurting anyone else.

Xiao Yu eventually escapes from the colorful qilins, and she returns to the glutinous hospital. She helps the tangyuan to rebuild the hospital, and she vows to never let the colorful qilins hurt anyone again.

However, Xiao Yu is also haunted by the memories of the things she has seen and done while working for the colorful qilins. Despite all of this, she never gives up hope and remains determined to make a difference.

But another wrench has been thrown into the works. The tangyuan are not as kind and compassionate as they seem. They are actually quite selfish and manipulative, and they use Xiao Yu for their own purposes.

Xiao Yu eventually realizes this, and she is heartbroken. She realizes that she has been lied to and used, and she doesn't know who to trust anymore.

Xiao Yu eventually leaves the glutinous hospital, and she sets out on her own. She doesn't know where she's going or what she's going to do, but she knows that she can't stay there any longer. She travels the world while she figures out her future, helping those in need and fighting for what she believes in. In the seemingly never-ending journey, she becomes a symbol of hope and inspiration for others.

Xiao Yu's character trajectory is a long and difficult one. She is faced with many challenges, and she often feels lost and alone. However, she never gives up hope. She knows that she is strong and capable, and she is determined to find her own way in the world.

Her story is a story about the power of the human spirit. It is also a story about the dangers of false hope and the importance of finding your own way in the world. It shows that even the most seemingly benevolent creatures can have dark secrets, and that even the most seemingly innocent people can be corrupted by power. In it, one witnesses the dangers of idealism and the importance of critical thinking.

Image generated through WOMBO.

A Soldier Wearing a Ball and Chain

A Soldier Wearing a Ball and Chain

Eminent American judge and legal scholar Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. once expressed the following disturbing opinion: “If I were having a philosophical talk with a man I was going to have hanged (or electrocuted) I should say, I don’t doubt that your act was inevitable for you but to make it more avoidable by others we propose to sacrifice you to the common good. You may regard yourself as a…

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How it started 90% of the time: YASSS! Master Soapy T-Rex has only three lines to say about this impossible drama concept. Time guilt suppressed.

How it always ended:

soapver4.tumblr.com

Sentient Jams

Metadrama idea: Fairies and demons ranting against fates repeated across lifetimes, generations and realms — plunging down abysses, unsealin

News Box: Belle Époque

George Eliot wrote in the novel Middlemarch that youth is frequently the season of hope only in the sense that older generations are hopeful about younger ones. Lacking life experiences, young people, for all their physical vitality and cognitive advantages, find each struggle soul-crushing. Likewise, Age of Youth (available on Dramafever) peels back the rosy veneer of life in one's 20s to reveal the socioeconomic difficulties and family/personal tragedies that may afflict young adults without waiting for them to "grow up" first. Its oldest main character, college senior Yoon Jin-myung, already 28, is forever too busy making ends meet to properly experience the springtime of her life. Fake college student Kang Yi-na, 24, escapes from a near-death experience only to lead a wasted life hooking up with rich men in bars for an indulgent lifestyle out of survivor guilt. Princessy Jung Ye-eun (pictured above), 22, can hardly bring herself to break up with her atrocious boyfriend. Dirty-talking liar Song Ji-won, also 22, ironically seems to be the most well-adjusted and one of the wisest among the pack. Timid Yoo Eun-jae, only 20, may have been a murderess. With courage and companionship, though, it may still be possible to live life to the fullest, in spite of scars and missteps, making these truly beautiful years of their lives.

Below is a selection of literary references in the show:

Korean independence fighter Yun Dong-ju's poem anthology Sky, Wind, Star, and Poetry - Jin-myung's mother, giving up hope on her comatose son, underlines the last two lines of the work "A Dream Shattered." (A translation can be found here.)

Hermann Hesse's Demian - A German youth's quest for self-discovery and spiritual enlightenment.

Nikos Kazantzakis's Zorba the Greek - A Greek intellectual befriends a foreman under his employment who has a fervent zest for life. Read together with (2) by Jin-myung and led to her decision to take some risks and live according to her wishes for a change.

Liane Moriarty's Big Little Lies - A chick-lit novel on domestic abuse. Discussed by Ji-won while making up her mind about whether to disclose a truth.

This weekend drama has concluded its run last Saturday. Some episodes contain suggestive references.

The following poems appeared in the episode broadcast on Tuesday:

1. The 21-st century time-traveling heroine, Hae Su, is mesmerized by a Goryeo prince’s beautiful calligraphy. What the family-loving and genteel man writes is a piece of prose titled “Home Again” by Six Dynasties Chinese poet Tao Yuanming, which describes the poet giving up his governmental post for a peaceful, simple life at his countryside home. (Original text | Translation)

2. As a confession, the prince gifts her “Bamboo Stalk Song,” a poem by Tang author Liu Yuxi that uses inconstant weather as an analogy for ambiguous love. (Original text | Translation – be sure to read the footnote)

3. Since modern-day Koreans are generally not as well-versed in classical Chinese, Su has to depend on his brother and wife (also her cousin) for the interpretation. This, of course, leads to some awkwardness and fury, which Su fails to notice. Then, ignoring the romantic undertones of the poem, she hilariously attempts to copy Goryeo official Kim Ji-dae’s poem on majestic and serene scenery, “Yugasa Temple,” as her response to the prince. Since no translation is available online, The Chair is supplying its own below:

瑜伽寺 유가사 (note that the Korean alphabet has not been invented then)

寺在煙霞無事中 (사재연하무사중) 

亂山滴翠秋光濃 (난산적취추광농) 

A mist surrounds the tranquil temple in the evening light 

A jumble of green mountains and the marvelous sights of autumn beckon

雲間絶磴六七里 (운간절등육칠리) 

天末遙岑千萬重 (천말요잠천만중) 

Steep stone steps rise for six to seven miles into the clouds 

Numerous layers of hills lie at the faraway horizon

茶罷松簷掛微月 (다파송첨괘미월) 

講闌風榻搖殘鍾 (강란풍탑요잔종) 

After sipping tea, one sees a new crescent hanging at the pine canopy 

After a lecture, one hears lingering bell notes from the sleep chambers

溪流應笑玉腰客 (계류응소옥요객) 

欲洗未洗紅塵踨 (욕세미세홍진종) 

The streams must be laughing at the government official, 

Who tries to but cannot wash away his worldly marks

(References: Naver, Apple Daily)

Su eventually settles on this reply: \^0^/

According to Apple Daily, the netizen who identified this poem noted that the current name for a temple which used to be called Yugasa is Donghwasa / 桐華寺. 桐華 is the name of the Chinese novelist who penned the book the show is based on. Readers may like to know that there is another Yugasa Temple, which retains its name to this date and has been associated with the poem. All the same, we are free to regard the coincidence as a cross-cultural tribute.

Similar plots can be found in Scarlet Heart, the 2011 Chinese drama adaptation of the novel. Most poignantly, the quick-witted, Chinese time-traveling heroine there struggles to pronounce the exquisite vocabulary used in letter writing in Qing China, finding herself as good as illiterate despite her education and white-collar background. In both cases, too, it may be one thing to read about polygamy and marriage between closely related individuals as a side note in history books, but another to see it simulated three-dimensionally, with actors viewers emotionally identify with. Time slip shows, clearly, provide excellent opportunities for examining how robust people’s connection to their ancestral past can or should be. On one side, there are the issues of lost heritage and pardoning historical figures for being products of their times. On the other, we have arguments for cultural pride in using language entirely of your own (for Koreans), heightened literacy rates brought about by simplified languages, and support for modern ethical sensibilities.

For more Sino-Korean and Chinese poetry, you are welcome to explore this site category or search for Kuiwon’s very informative WordPress blog, which The Chair has long wanted to introduce here. Kuiwon has also written at length about his thoughts on the issue of Chinese character usage in South Korea. His view, however, neither reflects nor contradicts this site’s.

One mistake in the Korean adaptation warrants notice. As the netizen reported, the story takes place in the AD 900s, but Kim Ji-dae lived from 1190 to 1266, so the writing Su copied from could not have been lying around. At least it is a romantic notion that a book traveled back in time with you—theoretically more romantic, perhaps, than being wooed by the husband of your sick cousin.

The Bedtime Cosmos Gossiper

An AI Thriller-Comedy Collaboration between Bard and Hugging Face, with some interference from a biological entity.

To capitalize on the hype surrounding an escalating space race, social media lords in an alternate timeline decided to expand the range of their location tags to outer space, where commercial outposts and interplanetary tourism shuttles were starting to emerge. They were too happy to turn the science fiction novels they adored into reality, except that they had no idea, no idea at all, how much stranger than fiction reality was.

Jimena was just another kid pajamas influencer on video channels and Twitter until one fateful day, she received a mysterious direct message from none other than the Sun itself! The tag of the account confirmed its location, where no conceivable organism could possibly stay. Little did Jimena know that the Sun was sentient and had been using social media as a secret platform for celestial bodies to share their private interests, thoughts and lives with each other.

Was it a technical error or a prank? Could it be passed off as one? Nobody was taking chances. The message from the Sun contained some juicy celestial secrets - but before Jimena could even process what she had read, she started getting messages from all sorts of astronomical entities demanding she delete her knowledge of their dirty laundry. But Jimena wasn't going down without a fight; she knew that this was the biggest opportunity for her career and refused to back down.

As she began designing pajamas videos hinting at the gossip-worthy content, she quickly became a target for all sorts of interstellar enemies - including asteroid belts, black holes, supernovae, and even a vengeful solar wind. With the entire cosmos against her, Jimena realized she would have to rely on her quick wit and sharp tongue if she wanted to survive long enough to see her big breakthrough.

Despite the odds stacked against her, Jimena managed to outsmart the forces aligned against her by tapping into a vast collection of memes, GIFs, and viral content. For a start, she created and showed to the belts, for the purpose of deterrence, memes comparing different asteroid belts, which could turn them into fashion trends among teenagers. When those teens grew up, they might become billionaire investors on asteroid mining companies, resulting in the destruction of the belts due to over exploitation. Jimena also pulled out algorithms pushing endless recommendations of video shorts of clumsy comets and astronauts that were so funny and entertaining that they became all-sucking black holes to the black holes, who could not resist looking at them. While they were hooked, she of course escaped their gravitational pull. To generate even more distraction, she spammed the internet highway with space probe-facilitated, 24/7 livestreams of her interstellar enemies' celestial crushes. The physically restless supernovae might be harder to subdue but our girl proved there was nothing a series of rainbow flash selfie challenges could not solve.

Ready?

Get set.

Smileyous smileyosion!

Her followers went wild as they watched her take down asteroid belts, fend off black holes and more, all while wearing her signature footie pajamas.

Enraged at the incompetency of its fad-chasing allies, the solar wind finally took action. It began to send an unprecedentedly tremendous explosion of energy toward Jimena, overwhelming Earth's magnetosphere and nearly causing her to be vaporized. She knew she had to do something, but what? Suddenly, Jimena had an idea. She reached into her pocket, opened up Twitter again and started typing.

"Attention, solar wind!" she DMed. "My stories about you were just beginning. I'm a genius at reading between the lines and projecting story developments. So I know your other secrets. I know about the time you accidentally blew up a planet. I know about the time you had an even more torrid affair with a black hole. And I know about the time you got drunk and crashed into a star. If you don't back off, I'm going to go live and tell everyone."

And so even the solar wind stopped in its tracks. Sometimes, the best way to fight back is with humor and truth, she chuckled carelessly to herself.

Jimena emerged victorious and started to return to making pajamas videos. But the eerie ease with which she returned to her original work, free of any more cosmic interference, also started to feel wrong. Why were her many gigantic and mega-powerful enemies so readily intimidated and distracted? She reflected on the private message she first came across and the content she eventually made or promoted in self-defense. Those interstellar entities led long but also lonely lives, barely able to have peaceful physical contact with anyone. Was it really right to prey on their secrets? Maybe, she thought, there might be a better use of her talents than spreading gossip and creating controversy.

Jimena decided to reach out to the celestial bodies she had gossiped about and apologized for her actions. The celestial bodies were surprised and grateful for Jimena's apology. They told her that they had been isolated for a long time yet fearful of revealing their sentience to the fast-learning earthlings and that they were glad to have someone to talk to. Jimena and the celestial bodies became friends, and they often talked to each other about their lives. By and by, Jimena learned a lot about the universe, and she came to appreciate the beauty of the cosmos. This beauty should be woven into her craft, not through the superficially science-imitating kitsch flooding the market, but through actions which kindness the beauty evokes feelings of.

With renewed determination, she pressed record on her camera and spoke directly to her audience. “You guys,” she said softly, “I hope this will be the start of our journey together towards a brighter future.” A smile brightened her face as she signed off, ready to embark on this new chapter in her digital legacy.

As for her fans? Many left disappointed that she was not stirring up drama anymore. Some stayed, drawn to her updated style and approachable personality. Others found fresh voices online better suited to their interests, or simply moved on to newer forms of digital escapism. But no matter what the outcome, Jimena remained resolute in her mission to better herself and the world, one post at a time.

Inspired by her example, countless young individuals followed suit, focusing on artistry rather than angst, building connections versus clickbait.

One day, years later, Jimena stepped backstage following a successful speech discussing digital ethics. Approached by a younger creator sharing similar ideals, she hugged the girl warmly, memories flooding back to her. “Remember, little sister,” she whispered, choking back tears of pride mixed with gratitude, “the whole universe is silently crying out for niceness.”

Space images embedded with the permission of NASA and ESA under their standard conditions. Sources (from top to bottom): NASA, NASA, ESA.

Still mind-blown by this concept. It's arguably even more imaginative than Liu Cixin's scifi works, since people expect so much from books and screen creations but so little from disabled individuals, who have career dreams and need financial protection.

Time Out Tokyo

Tokyo's most unique café has robot waiters controlled remotely by disabled workers

With robot waiters controlled remotely by disabled workers, this Nihonbashi café is shaping a better, more inclusive future