#another day in the colony

[lapeaudelamemoire]

Oh. Fuck. The other thing that was really getting me while writing a report for the cognitive assessment I did for a kid client is that all the fucking pages I found on therapy blogs or sites recommending games for kids to improve skills in various areas were all fucking just full of Amazon product links and 'this post contains affiliate links' disclaimers. Capitalist therapy hell.

[bonefall]

I just read your response about how the Erin's didn't realise the colonialism themes of DOTC and now I'm wondering if it's because they're British - a big fucking colonialist country

I am also British and I have seen first hand how watered down the empire's negative consequences are in schools. I still remember being told, "the only ones that weren't having a great time were the slaves." when in reality no-one but the British was having a good time

It's unthinkable that the fact they are White British Authors of a Certain Age didn't contribute to it. Like... that's just how culture works, even if it somehow wasn't at all related to their formal education. It influences how you think.

(Also as an aside, even most of The British didn't like the whole empire thing. 3/4ths of Britain isn't England. 2024 is still young, come on guys, be hilarious)

I can't ENTIRELY pin this one on you guys though, the writers are English but their biggest audience is American. And the Americans also predictably failed to catch the themes. ALSO a big colonialist country.

(I happened to get a really good education though, especially for a public school. I don't know if My Fellow Americans even learned about the Whiskey Rebellion or the Banana Wars)

It's also hard to explain it, but the Erins also have a very British way of writing fat people. There's overlap between them, but Brit and American fatphobia has two 'trends.'

American fatphobia tends to frame weight as being funny, pathetic, and a sign of a lack of discipline. English fatphobia tends use it to make a villainous or annoying character appear even more vile, greedy, and unhygienic. American media has also had a stronger trend of body positivity lately, whereas I'm having a hard time even thinking of overweight English characters who are not mocked for their size.

These are just the two things I've noticed though. I'm sure there's more noteworthy trends about WC that's influenced by its authors coming from where they do.

[pushing500]

Four-year-old Night Stalker wakes up, dons a flophat, begins working at the crematorium, and chooses violence. Big day for such a little guy!

Speaking of violence, Magic Man and Fracturedivine did some damage of their own to poor Flea, who wound up in our small hospital with a few bitten-off toes. Nice work, M.M.?

Buckeye is being strange, and it made me wonder if she has some sort of psychic link to her un-sprouted child that gives her pregnant lady mood swings.

Euclid continues to be the best tailor I've ever had in a colony.

I imagine cooking back-to-back with someone who has massive wings and a long prehensile tail is uncomfortable at best, and downright impossible at worst. Blackdragon seems to be making the best of it, though.

I've been doodling the mechanitor from the next run on everything, and getting the Archonexus popup in the wrong colony amused me.

Then finally, we had some heartfelt reunions as visitors came to see us. We're going to see if we can recruit Mr Zannakos (Vasso's dad) and Synesthete (Socks' wife) before the guests leave. It will upset their faction, but family reunions are more important, dammit!!

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[mexicancat-girl]

It feels so weird to me that people's take-away after reading/watching The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is that Sejanus was a fool and deserved what happened to him.

Sejanus was a traumatized, suicidal teenager that was ostracized for most of his life. His father essentially moved his family to a rich place where everyone hates their guts, selling out their own people in the Districts. Sejanus wanted to kill himself in the Arena because of his great sense of justice and his grief over one of his FRIENDS from childhood dying so cruelly while televised to the nation. He wanted to make a statement and show that not everyone agreed with the cruelty of the government.

Sejanus being reckless makes perfect sense in that context, but because Coriolanus is the protagonist--who has little to no empathy for others and is a kiss-ass to the fascist government despite living in poverty himself--it makes it seem like Sejanus is a moron that deserved his death... He didn't.

He was a child who trusted the wrong person, considered Coriolanus his best friend and the only one who understood him, and Coriolanus' need for power and control had him ratting out Sejanus and getting the boy executed.

Sure, Sejanus could've tried to 'play the long game' and change the system from the inside... But everyone around Sejans despised him because they still saw him as District. They would constantly talk behind his back. The only reason people tolerated the Plinths was for their money.

Sejanus had no allies or friends, minus Coriolanus. How was he supposed to make any sort of true political change when he's a child of a family who most of the Capitol elite hate on principal?

That's partially why he went to District 12, because he couldn't stand being in the Capitol anymore and wanted to create real change in the districts themselves. He went there because Coriolanus was his best friend, who saved his life before, and was the only person he could trust.

He was 18 years old and he cared for people. And I'd much rather root for someone who was willing to stick up for his beliefs and help others, even if it got him killed, than someone that wholeheartedly supports the regime of a government that rules with an iron fist and regularly slaughters children.

[nando161mando]

Tomorrow is a new day...

[leroibobo]

the portugese synagogue in amsterdam in the netherlands. it was founded in 1675.

while most expelled sephardic jews headed to the maghreb, ottoman territories in the middle east and eastern europe, or european colonies around the world, a minority went elsewhere in western europe, mainly to england or the netherlands. the sephardic community in the latter became the largest and richest in europe during the dutch golden age. despite the netherlands' proximity to germany, they predate the arrival of ashkenazi jews to the country by about three centuries.

[koropukgoro]

Actually I will ramble a bit cuz my friend & I do have a hc we’ve been playing off of that involves tiny Vash but since it’s canon in stampede that Vash can change the density of his Gate & in maximum (my preferred trigun) how Vash can grow really Big and Monstrous (so can Knives) if he adds to his mass so he can support his size that maybe an Opposite effect can happen. While growing, Vash needs added mass to support his weight, but the bigger he gets, the more inhuman and more of a flesh singularity he becomes; that growth also causes him to lose his identity and get consumed by himself temporarily. Because I’m a silly guy who likes thinking his GT with logic… but also… maybe when Vash overuses plant juices, or his body needs to fall into recovery mode after extreme body harm / near fatal situations (or extreme psychological stress), he goes into what my friend and I call “power saving mode”. Back up battery. His body shrinks. Size varies but the smallest he’s gotten is 2 inches. There’s an inherent fear he has if he pushes himself over his limits he might go quantum & never recover… like how in stampede he shrunk his Gate into a quantum state… it’s a very round about kind of canon aligned hc to make Vash shrink and be tiny. And cuz he neglects his plant powers so much he can’t control it… not until much much later in maximum… but he mostly can’t… also reflects his plant ability to absorb / store energy and release it.

Something something we’ve had scenarios where Vash’s body & mind gets so stressed out mini psychotic break or physical issue just causes him to shrink in his hotel room in front of Wolfwood & the Girls… and basically whatever’s on him at the time shrinks too so what he’s wearing n stuff… hehehe itty bitty & a lil squeaky and definitely extremely nervous exchanges between handling & being handled. Also accidentally freaking out his companions. Being small reminds him he’s not human & it makes him feel a lil self conscious…

[vettelcore]

people with outdoor cats be like: yes my cat came back home half dead, caught hiv, is full of parasites and sometimes has gone missing for weeks but i don't care bc at least the cat is free and not locked inside like selfish people do!!!

[funkylittlebats]

I've been writing more again recently and I've been rereading some of my old stuff and I kinda wanna share some of it. But first,

I'd also have to come up with a tag for them so they're all searchable (to the extent that you can search tags on tumblr)

Here's a cute bat for your time

[dying-suffering-french-stalkers]

god help me i'm going insane about dickson xenoblade again

[dark-bear-productions]

When worldbuilding, what's your favourite thing to include?

I would love to hear about people's personal passions in worldbuilding. Allow me to start with one of mine:

I really like that food forests (or forest gardens) are gaining in popularity. They promote biodiversity, they yield a truly wild amount of food for the amount of space they take up, they promote good soil health, and on top of that they're a non-European tradition and I love me a bit of postcolonialism/anticolonialism.

What I also really like is worldbuilding for Fantasy, and Fantasy has a tendency to be very agricultural/pastoral/etc. Huge stretches of grain, herds of cattle driven through town, maybe a rugged hunter in the woods, that sort of thing.

So creating a Fantasy realm in which the people of a city inspired by London gain their food not from those (let's be honest, colonialist) classics, but from food forests they were taught to cultivate by foreigners... Well, that was very fun!

It creates a fun new setting that I personally haven't seen a lot of stories take place in, it creates an interesting political dynamic -- especially when pseudo-London becomes a colonial force all the same --, and it brings something I think is very valuable to people's attention without being forceful or didactic or anything like that. Perfect mix!

So, have you considered using a food forest in your worldbuilding? Or is there some other specific technology, theory, innovation, custom, or what have you that you loved / would love putting into one of your worlds or stories? Do tell me about it; I'm eager to hear!

[swagging-back-to]

ok update i decided im gonna introduce mochi, sushi, and jasmine to the main colony and I'm going to sell both ten gallon tanks and the 30 gallon, keeping the 15 gallon for a quarantine tank.

[pushing500]

I have now also finished Children of Ecthuctu. I was not at all expecting this colony to be so wholesome together. Such sweet cannibalistic torture cultists.

They'll pretend the "wholesomeness" is on purpose and a cunning ploy to earn the trust of unsuspecting strangers, but they're really just Like That. Well... Laursen and Bella are, and nobody else has the heart to contradict them.

[davidtennantpussytulpa]

anybody wanna nominate themselves to kill me with hammers?

[nando161mando]

Just Another Day

[pandora-midnight]

The vast majority of the left has repidly devolved into accelerationists, authoritarians, and sccelrationist authoritarians. Ideologies we used to all rightfully know are actually terrible praxis.

And the worst part is basically no one seems to care.