#Pacific Four

[canadachronicles]

Oh, what a terrific game of rugby! What a momentous win for Canada! I knew, watching them play at the World Cup, they were capable of rivaling the best; but to beat the Black Ferns for the first time and on their home turf of Christchurch is absolutely amazing. They've been ruthless in this competition and they're already crowned Pacific Four Champions, with the game between New Zealand and Australia to be played next weekend. And they are the Number 2 ranked team in the world, as well!

[zeldahime]

A collection of facts:

David Tennant was a super fan of the Fifth Doctor, played by Peter Davison

He met Davison’s daughter Georgia on Doctor Who and married her

Georgia and David have 5 kids including actor Ty Tennant of House of the Dragon fame

Ncuti is a fan of Ten, played by David Tennant

British actors all tend to wind up on Doctor Who eventually

A logical conclusion:

Ty Tennant and Ncuti Gatwa have the opportunity to be fucking hilarious.

[orofeaiel]

Columbian Black-Tailed Deer | MRNP

[ungoliantschilde]

some more Barry Windsor-Smith in black and white.

[orbmanson7]

my wrist is killing me today, so have another redrawn doodle that I wanted as a sticker

[fatehbaz]

Endangered Indian sandalwood. British war to control the forests. Tallying every single tree in the kingdom. European companies claim the ecosystem. Spices and fragrances. Failure of the plantation. Until the twentieth century, the Empire couldn't figure out how to cultivate sandalwood because they didn't understand that the plant is actually a partial root parasite. French perfumes and the creation of "the Sandalwood City".

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Selling at about $147,000 per metric ton, the aromatic heartwood of Indian sandalwood (S. album) is arguably [among] the most expensive wood in the world. Globally, 90 per cent of the world’s S. album comes from India [...]. And within India, around 70 per cent of S. album comes from the state of Karnataka [...] [and] the erstwhile Kingdom of Mysore. [...] [T]he species came to the brink of extinction. [...] [O]verexploitation led to the sandal tree's critical endangerment in 1974. [...]

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Francis Buchanan’s 1807 A Journey from Madras through the Countries of Mysore, Canara and Malabar is one of the few European sources to offer insight into pre-colonial forest utilisation in the region. [...] Buchanan records [...] [the] tradition of only harvesting sandalwood once every dozen years may have been an effective local pre-colonial conservation measure. [...] Starting in 1786, Tipu Sultan [ruler of Mysore] stopped trading pepper, sandalwood and cardamom with the British. As a result, trade prospects for the company [East India Company] were looking so bleak that by November 1788, Lord Cornwallis suggested abandoning Tellicherry on the Malabar Coast and reducing Bombay’s status from a presidency to a factory. [...] One way to understand these wars is [...] [that] [t]hey were about economic conquest as much as any other kind of expansion, and sandalwood was one of Mysore’s most prized commodities. In 1799, at the Battle of Srirangapatna, Tipu Sultan was defeated. The kingdom of Mysore became a princely state within British India [...]. [T]he East India Company also immediately started paying the [new rulers] for the right to trade sandalwood.

British control over South Asia’s natural resources was reaching its peak and a sophisticated new imperial forest administration was being developed that sought to solidify state control of the sandalwood trade. In 1864, the extraction and disposal of sandalwood came under the jurisdiction of the Forest Department. [...] Colonial anxiety to maximise profits from sandalwood meant that a government agency was established specifically to oversee the sandalwood trade [...] and so began the government sandalwood depot or koti system. [...]

From the 1860s the [British] government briefly experimented with a survey tallying every sandal tree standing in Mysore [...].

Instead, an intricate system of classification was developed in an effort to maximise profits. By 1898, an 18-tiered sandalwood classification system was instituted, up from a 10-tier system a decade earlier; it seems this led to much confusion and was eventually reduced back to 12 tiers [...].

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Meanwhile, private European companies also made significant inroads into Mysore territory at this time. By convincing the government to classify forests as ‘wastelands’, and arguing that Europeans would improves these tracts from their ‘semi-savage state’, starting in the 1860s vast areas were taken from local inhabitants and converted into private plantations for the ‘production of cardamom, pepper, coffee and sandalwood’.

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Yet attempts to cultivate sandalwood on both forest department and privately owned plantations proved to be a dismal failure. There were [...] major problems facing sandalwood supply in the period before the twentieth century besides overexploitation and European monopoly. [...] Before the first quarter of the twentieth century European foresters simply could not figure out how to grow sandalwood trees effectively.

The main reason for this is that sandal is what is now known as a semi-parasite or root parasite; besides a main taproot that absorbs nutrients from the earth, the sandal tree grows parasitical roots (or haustoria) that derive sustenance from neighbouring brush and trees. [...] Dietrich Brandis, the man often regaled as the father of Indian forestry, reported being unaware of the [sole significant English-language scientific paper on sandalwood root parasitism] when he worked at Kew Gardens in London on South Asian ‘forest flora’ in 1872–73. Thus it was not until 1902 that the issue started to receive attention in the scientific community, when C.A. Barber, a government botanist in Madras [...] himself pointed out, 'no one seems to be at all sure whether the sandalwood is or is not a true parasite'.

Well into the early decades of twentieth century, silviculture of sandal proved a complete failure. The problem was the typical monoculture approach of tree farming in which all other species were removed and so the tree could not survive. [...]

The long wait time until maturity of the tree must also be considered. Only sandal heartwood and roots develop fragrance, and trees only begin developing fragrance in significant quantities after about thirty years. Not only did traders, who were typically just sailing through, not have the botanical know-how to replant the tree, but they almost certainly would not be there to see a return on their investments if they did. [...]

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The main problem facing the sustainable harvest and continued survival of sandalwood in India [...] came from the advent of the sandalwood oil industry at the beginning of the twentieth century. During World War I, vast amounts of sandal were stockpiled in Mysore because perfumeries in France had stopped production and it had become illegal to export to German perfumeries. In 1915, a Government Sandalwood Oil Factory was built in Mysore. In 1917, it began distilling. [...] [S]andalwood production now ramped up immensely. It was at this time that Mysore came to be known as ‘the Sandalwood City’.

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Text above by: Ezra Rashkow. "Perfumed the axe that laid it low: The endangerment of sandalwood in southern India." Indian Economic and Social History Review 51, no. 1, pages 41-70. March 2014. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Italicized first paragraph/heading in this post added by me. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism purposes.]

[kadala1]

GRAVITY FALLS NEXT SUMMER IS BACK! redoing refs but here are the canon 4 (minus Apollo because he’s an oc sadly)

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Gideon actually gets a growth spurt when it enters season two- and dipcifica is bi4bi idc idc

[lonestarflight]

The HS-4 Sikorsky SH-3 Sea King 'old 66' landing on the flight deck of USS HORNET (CVS-12) before it was moved down to the hanger deck.

"Donned in biological isolation garments, the Apollo 11 crew members, (L-R) Edwin Aldrin, Neil Armstrong (waving), and Michael Collins exit Old 66, the recovery pick up helicopter, to board the USS. HORNET (CVS-12) after splashdown."

"The Apollo 11 crewmen, wearing biological isolation garments, arrive aboard the USS Hornet during recovery operations in the central Pacific. They are walking toward the Mobile Quarantine Facility (MQF), in which they will be confined until they arrive at the Manned Spacecraft Center's (MSC), Lunar Receiving Laboratory (LRL). Apollo 11, with astronauts Neil A. Armstrong, commander; Michael Collins, command module pilot; and Edwin E. Aldrin Jr., lunar module pilot, onboard, splashed down at 11:49 a.m. (CDT), July 24, 1969, about 812 nautical miles southwest of Hawaii and only 12 nautical miles from the USS Hornet to conclude their historic lunar landing mission."

Date: July 24, 1969

source, source

U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command: Apollo 11 Recovery Photo 11

NASA ID: 6900595, S69-41573, link, 6901201, 6901225, 6900607

[coldarena]

we criticise lt spiers' terrible "we're already dead get used to it" advice to blithe compared to winters fatherly words of wisdom and care, but we seriously dont badmouth hillbilly jones' "lol idk just remember ur training" enough

[vertigoartgore]

1998's Shadows & Light Vol.1 #2 cover by cover artist Lee Weeks.

[donuts4evry1]

having a blast at @aquariumpacific​‘s jellyfish stream 😳😳

aquarist jen gave us this gem on stream while I was drawing so I absolutely HAD to make it a meme 🥺🙏

and finally, a quiz! :)

You should stop by the stream if you have a chance! It goes on until 9pm PST

[orofeaiel]

Grazing

[hyposwapgreen]

Hyposwap Green: Swapping the Kids

Welcome to Hyposwap Green! A slowly ongoing project of both the mildly artistic and majorly imaginative varieties. It’s an original (somewhat) take on Underswap, inspired both by p0pc0rnprince’s “canonswap” that started it all, various fandom interpretations, and my own thoughts on the matter.

I think it is only apt to start with Undertale’s big trio: the Kids!

In Canonswap, Asriel is swapped with Monster Kid while Chara is swapped with Frisk. While I think the Chara-Frisk swap makes sense, I don’t particularly care for Monster Kid, and think it would be much more interesting for the Kids to be swapped with each other instead. So!

CHARA

The most recently fallen human in the Underground, Chara takes Frisk's place as the playable protagonist.

They have an unfortunate home life which led them to run away from their family. Armed with whatever supplies they could save money for and scrounge up from the house and various dumpsters, as well as a single woodcarving knife, Chara left for Mt. Ebott with the hope that they'd be lost forever: not dead, but undiscoverable, leading an idyllic and isolated life in the forest for the rest of their days. That did not happen. Chara tripped and fell into a hole instead, landing in the Underground as the first human since Frisk's death.

Yeah! The first! In Hyposwap Green, Chara is the second fallen human and the first human SOUL. I think it fits with the general "swap" fuckery that goes on in Underswap AUs, plus it puts a different spin on the situation that Chara will find themself in.

Chara's somewhat brutal upbringing made them especially prone to violence as a means of self-protection. They want to learn what being happy feels like and live in peace, and if the monsters want to kill them that badly, well, they're not going to make it easy for them! As Chara is the second human, the death of Frisk and Asriel is still fresh in the monsters' eyes and SOULs, so they tend to be more vicious towards Chara than they are to Frisk in Undertale. As a character, Chara would retaliate in kind, attacking with the INTENT to win (kill) and get out, finally able to live a happy life (they hope). Chara is DETERMINED as hell to get their happy ending. While naturally leaning towards a somewhat violent Neutral and possibly leaning to Genocide, Chara can be persuaded towards Pacifism by....

ASRIEL

Asriel is the angel on Chara's shoulder--a fitting swap for Chara themself! HSG Frisk and Asriel died much in the same way that UT Chara and Asriel did, but instead of becoming a flower, Asriel became the ghost haunting the narrative. Except instead of being a Demon of the Genocide timeline, Asriel is the Angel of the True Pacifist Route, giving Chara various pointers in dialogue boxes and whispering in their ear to not fight, please.

Asriel realizes that because Chara is the second human and there is not an abundance of people falling into the Underground, Chara will most likely have to kill Asgore or Toriel to be able to cross the barrier and leave. He hopes in part that by teaching Chara that monsters are good, just hurt and wounded and struggling to hold onto hope, they will find a home Underground, with their friends (and newfound family).

FRISK

Frisk takes UT Asriel's role as Flowey the Flower, but Chara's role as the first fallen human and Asgore and Toriel's adoptive child. In HSG, Frisk was very fascinated by the Underground when they had fallen in, especially the more magical aspects. Their favorite region by far was Waterfall, where they and Asriel would often go to sing to the echo flowers to the tune of the rushing water, weaving eerie yet soothing lullabies that filled Waterfall's caverns with gentle noise. Asgore ended up making a little echo flower garden in the New Home Castle where the royal family lived, which Frisk was very attentive to. They and Asriel would put on performances and "talent shows" for their parents, using the echo flowers as a choir.

I imagine that instead of the "Chara's Creepy Smile" tape in the True Lab, the player would find a cassette of a creepy lullaby Frisk would have the echo flowers sing for Asriel--perhaps about their plans on how to free the monsters and destroy the barrier.

The flower on Frisk's head and what I wrote so far makes the next part of their design very obvious; instead of being a golden Flowey the Flower, Frisk the Flower is instead an echo flower! Inspired by the fandom sometimes interpreting Frisk as mute or autistic nonverbal/semi-verbal (or both!), Frisk the Flowey would only be able of communicating through echolalia, a speech quirk that can be found in some autistics! They can only repeat what had once been spoken around them, withn the same inflection, tone of voice, and same voice wholesale! In the game, this would look like switching fonts (when using the skelebros' speech) as well as discordant and constantly-changing "voice dings".

DESIGN NOTES

I don't have much to say besides the fact that the colors are of the human kids are inspired/based on the inverted colors of their clothing. I prefer darker, more desaturated tones, so Chara's inverted colors and Asriel's natural colors got strongly muted to fit with the vibe I was going for. Asriel's inverted coloring is included mostly just to fill that space...

Frisk went through more changes. I based their skintone off of the inverted blue of their romper (that's what they're wearing in my drawing, anyhow!) but a little desaturated, but the rest of their clothing is colored mostly just to match Asriel. I want for most if not all of the monsters to have some green element in their clothing (it's Hyposwap Green after all), but I also found it cute how UT Chara and Asriel wore matching shirts. Chara likely borrowed Asriel's clothing. I wanted to make Frisk match Asriel, since they were now the adoptive sibling stealing their brother's clothes. I made their clothes a bit dark though, so to help the siblings match, Asriel's shorts are the same dark green as most of Frisk's romper.

[orbmanson7]

Not sure why I drew this, just take it

[fatehbaz]

But what is more upsetting about sugar is its atrocious history. To this day, working conditions in sugar are among the world’s worst. [...] For nearly five centuries, European planters made dizzying fortunes in sugar, made possible by enslaving workers in colonized lands. [...] Canadian investors, too, have reaped massive sugar profits. During the 1700s and 1800s, most Europeans, in what is now Canada, were implicated in the transatlantic sugar and slave trades. Not only did many consume the fruits of the enslaved sugar industry — including molasses and rum, in addition to sugar, as historian Afua Cooper writes — but some also invested in Caribbean trade, itself powered by enslaved sugar work.

Several Canadian banks — including the Imperial Bank of Commerce and the Bank of Nova Scotia (now known as Scotiabank) — have their origins in the West Indies, where their forerunners established themselves early in the 19th century. According to Cooper, the Bank of Nova Scotia exists “in the shadow of West Indian slavery.”

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Western Canadians have also profited from unfree sugar labour. The famed western Canadian brand, Rogers Sugar, was established by American Benjamin Tingley Rogers who moved to Canada in 1889. Having grown up in the sugar industry, Rogers had both sugar connections and expertise.

Building a refinery in Vancouver, a city newly constructed [...], Rogers created a western Canadian sugar empire — one that sourced raw sugar cane through the Pacific, refined it in British Columbia and sold it throughout the Canadian West. Railway magnate William Cornelius Van Horne, together with noted investors [...], were among the ventures’ early shareholders. By the time of his death in 1918, Rogers had become “quite wealthy.” Now owned by Lantic Inc., Rogers Sugar remains a recognized Canadian brand. Less well known, though, is Rogers Sugar’s violent past. [...]

Refined predominantly in Vancouver, Rogers Sugar was made mostly from raw cane sugar. Since sugar cane cannot grow in Canada, B.C. Sugar sourced internationally [...]. B.C. Sugar also ventured into sugar cane plantation ownership: in Fiji between 1905 and 1922, and in the Dominican Republic between 1944 and 1955. Notably, it purchased the latter from the Bank of Nova Scotia. In both cases, workers reported horrendous conditions. The pay was so low and the work was so menial in the Dominican Republic that, as historian Catherine C. Legrand points out, workers left the plantation whenever they could.

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In Fiji between 1905 and 1920, B.C. Sugar employed indentured workers from India who migrated to the colony on five-year contracts. [...] Forced into hard physical labour with little time for sleep, indentured workers at B.C. Sugar’s Fiji plantation endured sickness, confinement, hunger, abuse, injuries, whippings, beatings and more [...]. When Fiji de-criminalized the desertion of indenture contracts in 1916, it is little wonder that hundreds of workers left the colony’s sugar plantations. [...]

Canadian sugar was built upon violence, including upon enslaved and indentured labour.

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All text above by: Donica Belisle. “Uncovering the violent history of the Canadian sugar industry.” The Conversation. 16 March 2023. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Images and captions are shown unaltered as they originally appear published with Belisle’s article. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism purposes.]