Never talk to me or my Mastoson ever again.

Thanks for mentioning it, I’d like to add that Taiwan is still a settler state. Taiwanese Indigenous people still live there, and have been waging their own battles for greater rights and sovereignty within Taiwan for centuries. Unfortunately, in all the Taiwan v. China noise their voices and concerns get drowned out.

Yup, the White Terror. I didn’t disagree with that.

My point was that the KMT coming to Taiwan was a wave of migration of people who while very anti-PRC saw themselves as fundamentally Chinese and Mandarin-speaking as opposed to pre-1945 Han settlers who were Taiwanese-speaking and in many cases had been living in Taiwan for hundreds of years already.

Today, those distinctions have softened, and polling shows that even the people who are descended from that wave of KMT migration mostly see themselves as Taiwanese first and foremost.

There’s a lot of layers there, Han people have been settling in Taiwan since the 17th century and this originally Taiwanese-speaking group makes up about 70% of people in Taiwan. They don’t consider China their homeland anymore than Americans do the UK.

Han people who came with the fleeing KMT government are more directly tied to China, but even they have been largely Taiwan-ized politically since the democracy and identity movements of the 1980’s. Which is to say, very very few people in Taiwan see China as a homeland these days.

Should note that the “Taiwan is the real China” brand of politics has basically died out in Taiwan. Yes they are technically “The Republic of China” but China has said that changing that is tantamount to declaring de jure independence which would trigger a war.

Taiwan (for the most part) just wants to be Taiwan.

(See also why the “West Taiwan” meme is frowned upon and completely misrepresents what most Taiwanese people want.)

Looking at a map of their range they might be in the very southernmost part maybe near Madison, but just barely. You’d probably had to head towards Illinois or Indiana for a better chance of finding them.

If you use the app iNaturalist you can also find geotagged groves. Taking a quick peek there’s a handful in southern WI like I said, but they really pick up once you move south.

Unfortunately I’ve never used LaTeX so someone else will have to answer that.

I… love you too?

For anyone doing academic writing, I use a combination of Logseq, Zotero, and Zettlr. All open source. Collect articles in Zotero. Annotate and take notes on those articles in Logseq with absolutely amazing PDF annotation tools. Write draft in Zettlr which allows me to enter Zotero citations and reference Logseq notes.

Bonus shoutout to LibreOffice for exporting and formatting the final draft. And that’s your recipe for one all-natural, organic, FOSS thesis!

Yeah seconded that it’s not FOSS but still a great app. Logseq is a good FOSS alternative for a knowledge base, and I really like Zettlr for long form md writing and note taking too.

I use a lot of note apps partially for school partially for fun but man Logseq PDF annotation is incredible. That plus native Zotero integration is a game changer for anything academic.

Good list I make use of a lot of these too. Keep both LibreOffice and OnlyOffice around depending on how I feel that day but been leaning towards LO quite a bit recently.

I will say I had Caprine for a while but my god it uses so much memory, it has an absolutely massive footprint on my laptop. I find a nice compromise is using messenger.com as that way I can still send and read messages without delving into the horrors of FB, plus can keep it in a container.

I got the trilogy as a used box set recently and I really wanted to love them but just didn’t click for me. Don’t read a lot of YA now anyway so maybe missed my chance, definitely see the appeal though and think it’s a good fit for OP’s request!

Yes I think Babel is a little lighter on gorey excess than the Poppy Wars (which I haven’t read but my partner has described in detail to me). Which is to be expected for books designed to depict the horrors of colonialism.

But mainly mentioning it with a content warning since it’s often tossed around as an HP replacement. I think the first half of Babel captures a similar “wonders of magic school” vibe, although with a lot more caveats about how inequitable the entire system is. It does get extremely harrowing by the end so maybe should include a clearer warning in my post.

For pleasantness and YA high fantasy vibe Le Guin’s Earthsea Cycle is great.

For wizard school with a much more mature tone R.F. Kuang’s Babel is a great read. Warning though it is much darker and heavier, so prepare yourself emotionally haha.

EDIT: was recommended that I give a heavier content warning to Babel which is fair. While it is thrown around as an HP alternative it is emotionally harrowing, has some extremely violent and disturbing sections, and is generally focused on depicting the horrors of colonialism. A good read, but prepare yourself going in and don’t expect it to be quaint or pleasant.

Many locals haven’t either! They really are a hidden gem.

They make it to farmers markets occasionally, and the trees are very easy to identify and surprisingly common. If you know what to look for, most wooded areas in their range will have some pawpaw trees. They generally only fruit for a few weeks in late September/early October but the good news is you’re right on time!

Just doing my part to spread the good word.

Someone else mentioned pawpaws but i just want to emphasize pawpaws are the shit. Plus if you live in the Eastern US especially the Midwest pawpaw season is HERE. You have no excuse not to leave your house this moment and find your nearest pawpaw grove.

Not convinced? Congrats you have subscribed to pawpaw facts:

• they are related to the custard apple and were brought this far north in the shit of prehistoric giant sloths
• they taste like somewhere between a mango and a banana, and so our ancestors in all their wisdom gave them names like Indiana banana, Ohio banana, \ banana
• they are a CAPITALIST NIGHTMARE as they have terrible shelf life so can really only be eaten fresh or bought from a farmers market
• foraging for pawpaws is super fun as they grow in groves, have super skinny trunks and branches with large long leaves and surprisingly big fruit. To harvest pawpaws you give the trees a gentle shake and ripe fruit will just fall off. Don’t shake too hard or you might knock down fruit that isn’t ripe! Not cool!
• to enjoy just shake em down, cut it open and eat the fresh fruit inside (not the skin). Do not eat the big ass seeds leave them where you found em so that out beautiful native pawpaw groves FLOURISH

All in all pawpaws are 10/10 if you want to feel like a literal Animal Crossing character shaking down trees for sustenance and having a great time eating fresh fruit outdoors

The lengths to which this game goes to steal all my free time is absurd.