#radical cat collective

[pennydykedaughter]

oc. 2024

The Radical Cat Collective has formed. Their tails are high and their claws are sharp!

[leebrontide]

Hi everyone!

I'm asking for a (free) favor from y'all.

I'm trying to get more people to sign up for my free monthly author newsletter, and I'd love for you to help me find people who might enjoy it.

Every month, I write an essay about a subject. I'm not just collecting contacts to send ads to!

Sometimes it's about writing process

A Unique Character Development Technique 

The Golden Girls, D&D, and The Newest Way I’m Refusing to Make Writing Solitary 

The Bananabook Method

Lies I Tell Myself, Security Blankets and Backstitch Drafting

On Listening When You Want to Throw Things and Break Stuff

And other times it's a deep dive into a research topic for my books

Why I’m Researching a 19th Century Cult This Month

Spider Goat is Real but is Not Marvel Affiliated

People Just Really Want to Say "Enhance"

That Most Intimate of Thrones

Whose Side is Your House On?

The Care and Feeding of Dream Homes

What Arguing About Captain America Taught Me About Psychotherapy

Nuclear Waste and the Ray Cat Solution

Sometimes it's about mental health, especially through the lenses of fantasy and scifi

Of Flesh and Gundams

What Feeling Are You Most Afraid Of?

Sometimes it's even about legal systems and their interactions with the medical field and expanding medical technologies

Tractors, Cybernetics and the Radical at the Radioshack

Because Everybody Was Calling for YA Scifi About HIPAA, Right? 

Or queer stuff

What Do We Celebrate?

What Stories Are You Made Of?

Or disability

Another Kind of Coziness 

Tinkering With Cyberpunk

Things I Stole from Julian Bashir

What Does Time Feel Like?

Or it could be anything else that I'm willing to think deeper about that month. You can browse the full archive over here.

AND it almost always includes pictures of my very cute cats!

So could you please boost, if you feel your followers might be into that?

The subscription signup is right here.

Help an indie author out?

[bonefall]

(dif anon) So is Ashfur grooming Shadowsight a plotline you would keep/rework in BB? I'm not so keen on the way canon used it to retcon his epilepsy, but I do think a plotline examining how clerics can be vulnerable to abuse from StarClan spirits is kinda compelling

Shadowsight's epilepsy is staying in BB, the Erins can try and take it away again over my dead body

Yes, that's staying and BB!StarClan was reworked with unfairness in mind.

This time around, I'm considering the idea that Ashfur didn't work completely alone. After the events of Squirrelflight’s Horror, Silverpelt's divisons are starting to crackle the stars.

Skystar and the other more traditional spirits are losing patience with the peace that Fire Alone brings, and the ways that the code has been bent.

They feel that honor is being lost in their descendants.

Even angels disrespect the collective; see how Skypelt has its own heaven? With a demon in its midst? There is blasphemy even in the skies.

Firestar and the more modern pantheon are ferociously defensive of the choices of the living. StarClan exists for them; not the other way around.

Meanwhile, Mousefur has gone missing. Others start to blink out, too. This is causing panic... and Ashfur keeps it quiet that he's the only one who knows where they've gone.

The angels that plan action probably were a small group to begin with, radical spirits. Skystar and Ashfur are two of them, and Ash is the "youngest." So when he comes down to the mortal plane and betrays them, very few other angels knew what had happened.

(I might even have a few angels be doing the various supernatural things in that first book, but slowly, Ashfur is wittling down their numbers until it's just him.)

I'm still working out specifics, but the other angels that Ashfur has consumed are giving him a massive power boost. He can use this to jump between planes freely, and he's able to do some whacky things like weave dreams and pull nightmares out of the Dark Forest.

The most important unique power he has, which he can do ALL on his own once he's absorbed enough starpower, is blast Shadowpaw with a bolt of lightning. The electric current runs through Shadowpaw's brand new scar, giving him a connection to StarClan like he's a little radio tower.

Thing is... when StarClan is blocked off, the only signal he receives is Ashfur's.

So, Shadowpaw.

From the time he was very young, Shadowkit has had an unhealthy relationship to life and death

He watched a lot of cats die before he was old enough to really understand it, and the only one who came back was Heartstar.

His epilepsy was so severe it would have been terminal. He was prepared to die as a kit.

Tawnypelt took him to the Tribe to learn more about treatments, bringing back a method of refining chamomile to manage the convulsions.

When people come back from death, it was to serve "a purpose."

He feels like he needs to be special, like he needs to find the great meaning in his life. The reason why he's still here.

In BB, there can be guardian angels. Cats you knew in life who decide to watch out for you in the afterlife. Moleflight is Jayfeather's, Shrewface is Squirrelflight’s. Ashfur poses as Shadowpaw's.

THAT is how I plan to address my criticism. Ashfur DOES build a very personal, trusting relationship with Shadowpaw, pretending to be the one who's here to give him the destiny he craves. Pretending like he's someone looking out for him.

I actually LIKE how desperate the situation was in-canon and I want to stress how none of this was Shadow's fault, so I also plan to keep that they had very little choice. Shadowpaw trusts his angel completely, and Ashfur coaches him on saying all the right things.

The older Clerics are suspicious, but... what else can they do?

Also, instead of framing this all as something Shadowpaw needs to "atone" for, I'm going to make certain cats unfairly scapegoat him for bringing the Impostor into the forest. Shadowpaw himself agrees with them, blaming himself, but he has to learn it wasn't his fault.

He DIDN'T let anyone down by failing to live up to great expectations, and there's no way he could have known that Ashfur was using him. This never happened before, he always made the choice he thought was right and tried to make up for harm done, and he's not responsible for what his abuser made him do.

I actually want to have him figure out some of this by talking to DF demons, towards the end. Cats faaaar more responsible for what they did in life than him.

Ravenwing in particular, who was also mislead by a rogue StarClan spirit, but... ultimately decided that if StarClan was right in their judgement.

He was told (by Birchface, but he still doesn't know who it was in particular) to make three kittens unsafe by revealing their parentage. His choice killed three innocent children, and lead to the Queen’s Rights.

And StarClan was furious that he'd ever believe they'd want something so CRUEL.

And even if they DID want something so cruel... "Then they wouldn't have been ancestors worth following. And that's why I believe it's right that I'm here."

As a Cleric, he had authority on their behalf. And if they would misuse it through him, he wishes he could have just given it right back.

And Shadowsight's lightbulb goes Ding!

The very last thing Ashfur does in TBC, when the jig is up and he's about to be killed by the Lights in the Mist and a bunch of Demons who have come to defend their home, is swallow a Founder-- Skystar.

He takes the level of a true god, and reaches a nearly undefeatable level of power. Instead of black water, he's so large, malicious, and has a gravitational pull so massive it starts destroying the afterlife. It shatters the purgatory (Meadow of Young Stars) into floating cosmic fragments, and Heaven and Hell are set to collide.

Shadowsight confronts Ashfur, politely explaining that he's, well... done a lot of thinking, and, he doesn't really want what he gave him. "You can, uh, have this back!"

And blasts the lightning from his scar right back at him, like a chain, holding the screeching eldrich horror in place. Every ally he's made, here in the DF, come down from StarClan, and as Lights in the Mist, jump to his side. They can't hold down Ashfur, but they can hold SHADOWSIGHT

While they're all supporting him, Bristlefrost sees the one chance to get rid of him, once and for all. A clear shot. She bolts, pounces, and SHOOTS right into Ashfur like a falling star, knocking them both off the edge of the heaven he destroyed, burning up in orbit with a monster a hundred times her size.

And after that, Shadowsight has to go home and live with this.

He gave up the very connection that made him so special, and now he has to go back to being a Cleric without StarClan.

but the other Clerics accept this. They have to. They were all complicit in the choices that allowed the Impostor to rise.

What Shadowsight learns is... everyone was part of this. From those who made the follies with him, to the supporters and rebels against the impostor, to those who helped him realize his worth, to Bristlefrost who ultimately killed Ashfur.

He is valuable because living is valuable.

Everyone, and everything, matters. All cats have a role to play, and he was never alone.

I want to close him out in BB!TBC on a tea scene that parallels the various points in his life. Others used to prepare his chamomile treatments FOR him, in careful doses, because it is a very serious medicine. Now, at the end, he's the one brewing it.

A fully fledged Cleric, who realizes he's never been alone. Cats who love him were around him the whole time, making his medicine, and they'll love him even after he's given up his powerful gift. So now he's at the stage in his life where HE can make that medicine, share his wisdom with others, and find fulfillment in the skills he's acquired over a hard life brightening.

[adventure-time-news]

Listings have appeared on several retailer websites for the first volume of Adventure Time (2025), which will collect the first four issues of the new comic series in one book. From the blurb, it sounds like it will collect both the main Best of Buds story written by Nick Winn, and also the backup story written and illustrated by Derek Ballard.

Amazon, Target, and various other retailers have listed a release date of 25 November 2025, and a retail price of $20 (the same price as buying the four issues individually at $5 each).

As well as Nick Winn and Derek Ballard, Amazon states that Asia Simone, Jorge Monlongo, and Brenda Hickey will all contribute as artists to this first volume.

There are also some new story details in the blurb:

C'mon, grab your friends and head to distant lands for a brand-new ADVENTURE (er, TIME!)! When Finn and Jake save the newly installed Computer Princess from the clutches of the evil Ice King--he just wants a bridge, OK, is that too much to ask?!--the two escort her back to the Computer Kingdom, where she gives the Best of Buds a new quest: find the powerful guide for heroes, the Enchiridion, and bring it back to her so she can scan it for her digital archive! But where are they going to find it? And how?! From songwriting with lovesick poets to attending art shows with megalomaniacs to dance battles with the Cat Queen in the funk reaches of outer space, Finn and Jake find themselves on a truly mathematical (and dare we say . . . radical?!) journey on their quest to complete CP's request--but surely nothing can stop the Best of Buds! That is to say, surely their friendship is totally, completely, definitely not about to be put to the test! Right? Written and drawn by Annie-nominated designer for TV and feature animation Nick Winn, highlighting a host of talented artists and featuring backup stories by Adventure Time alum Derek Ballard (Cartoonshow), this new Adventure Time series is one you won't want to miss! Collects issues #1-4 of the new Oni Press Adventure Time series.

The first issue of Adventure Time (2025) releases on 9 April 2025.

[someonesrealityshifting]

.・✭・. Life Explanation .・✭・. ・

✭ My life is like a 2010s coming of age novel, but one of the ones with a shitty ending, like Before I Fall. Except it doesn't have a shitty ending, you just worry it might. My life is dancing in the rain and forgetting a coat and ending up with a cough but not caring because I was dancing with him. My life is climbing into abandoned buildings and befriending the rats who live there, leaving them food and telling them how pretty they are. My life is finding roadkill and bringing it home to pray for it and to send it to Thanatos gently, as he would want it.

✭ My life is making stupid decisions because I never got to as a kid. My life is smoking cheap cigarettes and coughing so hard I vow to quit, only to come back six hours later when he pulls out his lighter. My life is drawing on myself and loving it so much I go get it tattooed that day. My life is incohesive playlists and rants about movies and bugs I love. My life is collecting rainwater and rocks and bones I find, pressing flowers and leaves between the pages of limited edition books.

✭ My life is collecting soda pop tabs and butterfly wings and walnut shells because I can. My life is crying over the dead things I find and mourning them, giving even the worm I find on the sidewalk as it pours the simple respect of life. My life is constantly defending my position as an ambiamorous gay trans man as well as a leftist, an anarchist, quite possibly a communist, because my idea that all living things have inherent worth is apparently 'radical'.

✭ My life is tiny jars and using watercolor on canvas even though you're absolutely not supposed to use watercolor on canvas. My life is painting my nails outside because I don't want to risk my dog inhaling the fumes and feeding my gecko by hand because he's a diva but I also can't touch him because it frightens him. My life is car rides to vibe-based playlists, sticking my arms out the window and screaming when I see a puppy in the next car.

✭ My life is loving, endlessly and without remorse. Giving my love to anyone who will take it, accept it, regardless of whether or not it's reflected back at me, because if one can hate without cause, why can I, too, not love the same way? My life is shamelessly blocking and cutting off toxic people because I'm worth more, because the people I love are worth more.

✭ My life is holding a cat like a baby, because I'm a bit too fucked up to have a real one, and dancing around the house with it, telling it how much I love it as shitty music blares from the phone in my pocket. My life is putting stickers on my canes and headphones and every electronic device I have because they deserve to feel pretty, too. My life is putting too many layers of dye in my hair and not caring because it makes me feel better. My life is asking "would you still love me if I was a worm?" a thousand times and never getting bored of the answers.

✭ My life is keeping Loki's altar in my kitchen because it's never not chaotic as all hell in there, even if the odd assortment of things he likes is a bit of an eyesore; that's where he belongs. My life is keeping Christmas lights up all the year round because they're pretty and I love them. My life is finding a spot where I can see the sky without light pollution and staring at the stars for as long as I can, even though I know so very few of them, just because they're beautiful and I can. My life is getting a shitty camera from, like, 2015 because it's cheap and it has decent exposure, and even though the pictures always come out a little blurry, I pin them to the wall over our bed anyway.

✭ My life is writing poetry on every available surface, buying a shit ton of notebooks in August when they're 25 cents each and them all being full by March. My life is texting him "this song reminded me of you" at 3am when I know we should be asleep but neither of us are. My life is freaking out anytime I see a cat, because fucking look at him, he's such a cutie, aaa he booped meeee. My life is listening to Taylor Swift because they like it, and because I'd do anything to make them smile, even if I think "Antihero" is the single stupidest song I've ever heard in my life.

✭ My life is the word 'paladin', which is not only my dad's favorite WOW class, but it's my mom's favorite episode of bones. "Paladin" means, "I will always protect you. I will not choose violence for myself, because I can keep myself safe enough, but I would burn the world for you, because I love you, and I will hurt anyone, even myself, to keep you safe." My life is my parents telling me at age 9 that to love a hero was to hate one's self. That a hero would sacrifice you to save the world, that a villain had no such obligation. To always love the villain, the person most likely to hurt everyone but you.

✭ My life is painting on a 60 year old denim jacket and having no idea how to get the paint off so I just take a razor to the paint to get it a bit thinner and then saving up money so I can buy a Vincian flag to hide the marks it left behind. My life is having a bunch of scars from stupid things, and being proud to share each misadventure, because they define me, because I let them. My life is wishing I wasn't clean until I meet him and them and maybe deciding that I prefer having marks from love than self loathing.

✭ My life is waking up with my legs tangled in theirs only to get up before they do, going to make us shitty coffee because it's the only kind I know how to make, but they drink it anyway because I also make French toast so it's palatable. My life is house plants that I take care of exquisitely for years only to leave them in his care for a week and find them to be on the verge of death. My life is eating too much chocolate and dragging them both into the living room to build a pillow fort and watch Bluey for 6 hours on a random Friday night.

✭ My life is thrift shopping and buying shit I know I'll never use, simply because I can afford it, and because I love it, and because I can. My life is gardening all of spring and summer and never leaving the woods in autumn and shoveling until my knees buckle in winter. My life is learning how to swim in a creek because I don't trust anyone but the two of them to teach me.

✭ My life is love. My life is light. My life is making myself feel whole, and being able to give myself to the people who love me and the people whom I love. My life is happy, and warm, and safe. My life is starlight and wholesome until it's dark moons and dirty jokes, and even then, the sun comes back the next morning, and so do the gentle kisses and caresses. My life is safety and comfort and value, inherent and known, in every person I come across.

[yuk-tepat]

Tepat Master Post

[Slow - Construction ahead] Updated 2025/1/20 (Good luck, America! You'll need it)

Yuk Tepat is the language of the Conciliarity of Tepat, and the language of civilization and learning on the continent Tiptum. It is a member of the Macro-Tepatic language family, of course.

Sites/Blogs: Andolenda (accumulated information about Tepat ends up here as it becomes more refined and coherent) / DeviantArt: conciliarityoftepat / Conlang Wikia: Yuktepat

Languages

About Yuktepat

What kind of language is Yuk Tepat?

Posts about Yuk Tepat

Lexember and other words/glyphs featured on this blog

History of the Writing System: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7

Glyph Radicals

Grammar: Phonology - ...

Texts and Translations

The Declaration of Independence (2, 3) - The Great Gatsby

Culture

All posts tagged “Culture”

Culture Topics: Kinship in Swira (NEW) - New Year - Evil Santa - Differently-Flawed Prophecies - Volcano Cult - Concept of the Soul - Furries - Death the Winnower - Concept of Rights - The Thread of Sleep - Winterval - For the Arrow to Fly Forth - Souls of Objects - Human Sacrifice (NEW)  - Reactionary Geography - The Covenant of the People - Sorcery (NEW) -

Geography / Maps

Posts about geography / maps

Climate - Vegetation - Population - Tiptum (general) - Tiptum (language families) - The Dragon's Fang (NEW)

Surrounding nations

The East Coast (Amtom) (tagged) – collection of small states, frenemies with divergent socioeconomic views, who sometimes cooperate as guardians of cilivization

Swira (tagged) (and other northern barbarians) – nomadic herders, and very good horsemen, inhabiting the plains north of Tepat, occasionally gathering into confederations that threaten Tepatic security. Tepat has been pushing its frontier northward and settling tribes within its borders in “independent barbarian homelands.” Kinship (NEW) - Lunar New Year 1, 2 - Protolanguage - Horses/Thunder/Shrooms - For the Arrow to Fly Forth -

Muqali (tagged) - that backward country up in the mountains that everyone makes jokes about.

Milim (tagged) - extinct kingdom Tepat overthrew, famed for massive human sacrifices - Pictographs (NEW) - The Tsaltep and his demise (NEW)

Life

Vegetation regions - Pseudotaxites, the Confungus (2) - Bearded Tree + Assassin Tree - Nemul - Oregano - desert vegetation - the boss cat (NEW) -

Stories and Narratives

Yom and the Demon: A Supernatural Tale of Tepat

Vignettes: No Sheep in the Sky - New Year - Approaching Luqtal

Folktales: Cougar woman - Ice Woman - The Lonely Tombstone -

Other stuff

General worldbuilding, linguistics, and other stuff

Other conlangs

Çomyopregi - an Indo-European language

Languages from the Chained Adept books by Karen Myers: Kitali - Zannib

About the process

How I organize it

- O -

Glad to answer questions about the world. Also do freelance worldbuilding for other creators.

[biblioklept]

Mass-market Monday | Ursula K. Le Guin's The Compass Rose

The Compass Rose, Ursula K. Le Guin. Bantam Books (1983). Cover art by Yvonne Gilbert. 271 pages. A strong collection, containing one of Le Guin’s classic stories, “Schrödinger’s Cat,” which I wrote about a few years ago. From that riff: Ursula K. Le Guin’s 1982 short story “Schrödinger’s Cat” is a tale about living in radical uncertainty. The story is perhaps one of the finest examples of…

[sillybub]

My disorganized two cents about PAC NYC Cats being humans:

I think the more divorced from the original cat context the nonrep is the funnier it is that they talk about everything from an explicitly cat perspective. Like "yeah that extremely debaucherous sexy human person rum tum tugger gets stuck in drawers and chases rats and mice. And we all want him carnally for it"

It's different and that's good!!!!!!!! If you're gonna deviate from the og production I love to see folks doing something VASTLY different and transformative. Like 90% of nonreps still play them as cats. It's fun to see them as not-cats imo.

Like I'm not gonna go to a nonrep wanting to see the normal dynamics and characterization. If I wanted them to be the same I'd watch 1998 again, give me all the recharacterizarions and reimaginings. Scrap Munk as a character and invent a new one that has a different deal.

Excited to see how certain characters are re-characterized or scrapped or invented?? Like strictly the only characters they gotta to keep are the ones that have their own songs for the most part. And those song characters may be interpreted VASTLY different as to how they're usually portrayed and I for one am pumped to see new shit

I get the thought of like "if you're gonna make it so different then why even do cats at all" but like. I think given the fact that Cats the Musical took the very basic and simple collection of Old Possum's poems and radically recontextualized them into the musical we all know and love, I think its actually very much in the spirit of Cats to take something's base form and give it a complete makeover

Like "ALW if you wanted to do a hypersexual dance show then why did you base it on children's poems?" well because wouldn't that be just a fun thing to pull off?

[solarbird]

I’m going to say one final thing about the Trump shooting, then turn the rest of this into a resource post, highlighting some useful information about Project 2025, JD Vance, and the two together, since there is some involvement.

I argued in the past that it doesn’t matter whether Trump’s ear was hit by a bullet or shrapnel, because it fucking doesn’t, it was still an assassination attempt. I’ve argued about how Democratic conspiracy theories give us more MAGA and give them something to counterbalance against January 6th.

But most importantly, going off about which happened gives Donald Trump more attention for something he wants attention about.

For a blessed few days, nobody was talking about the stinking orange buffoon, not really, and given that literally nothing changes about the story he wants to talk about if it’s shrapnel or if it’s a bullet, that was a really good thing. It was “fuckity-bye, ear” in the news and I was delighted for it.

Even talking about him overhyping the damage or whatever just gives it all more air.

Don’t give it – or him – any air. Don’t let him get up. Until and unless something actually major actually happens – not hypotheses or speculation, actually something major – keep it quiet, because it helps shift the focus back on him.

Keep the focus on Harris and on Vance. That’s what’s good for us. Not speculating about trivia nobody outside the obsessed cares about: himself, as victim.

Make sense? Good. I’m shutting up about it until and unless there’s some actual hard news, and I recommend you do too.

Have some more resources on Project 2025 and JD Vance; use them as appropriate when talking to your friends and family about the election, particularly the Trumpy ones:

This is a two-fer: Trump again denies Project 2025 — despite Vance writing foreword for chief architect’s book. This is the same book that calls progressives “unhumans” and praises the January 6th insurrectionists. So that’s fun.

You’ve heard the “childless cat ladies” with “no stake in America” quote, of course. Push comes to shove, he really doesn’t think women – certainly not childless women – should be able to vote. He doesn’t just come out and say it like the GOP candidate for governor in Nroth Carolina did, but it’s in there.

There are so many levels of Christofascism in the Project, here’s yet another one: A Jewish couple were rejected as foster parents because of their religion. This is the future Project 2025 envisions

FBI director issues warning on ‘frightening’ Project 2025, specifically its plans to make the FBI directly responsible not to the constitution but to one man, Donald Trump.

How J.D. Vance Went From Green Tech Investor to Climate Change Doubter – it’s about money and power, naturally.

JD Vance roadblocked dozens of US diplomats while he obsessed over their views on gay rights, because he really, really hates the queers.

Anybody remember the Spoils System in the Federal government? I kind of doubt it, because nobody – I mean, literally I’ve seen nobody – talks about it in relation to J.D. Vance’s radical plan to build a government of Trump loyalists based on Project 2025. Not only was it massively corrupt from top to bottom – absolute looting for the winning political party – but it even triggered the assassination of President James Garfield.

Enjoy this big collection of JD Vance being absolutely evil. He really hates women without children – no, he really hates women in general, and hating women who don’t have (white) children is only the start.

Here Vance supporting police tracking women’s periods for evidence of abortion.

There’s more, but this is getting pretty long. I’ll leave you with this last little nugget:

The AP had to take down their fact check about JD Vance never having sex with with a couch. This is because while he didn’t actually tell such a story in Hillbilly Elegy, they can’t prove a negative, so couch time is back on.

And with that, enjoy the weekend.

[ma1eficar]

I just finished the quest where you collect solas' memories and uhhhh I have some thoughts and they are not good

This is purely my own opinion and it's not at all positive so fair warning if you want to avoid bitching about the game

(major dragon age Veilguard spoilers under the cut, major lore-altering spoilers)

Haaaate what they've done with the Blight, the Titans, Solas and Mythal, etc

Hate hate hate it

They did not have to write their slave-freeing rebel as a disloyal murderer, but they did

And I hate it because (I'm going to show my irl political hand here) now more than ever Solas resembles that trope that mainstream media likes to do, of making your antagonist a person with leftist ideas addressing real and valid problems

but then you can't have your audience sympathize with the lefties toooo much so you write them doing cartoonishly evil shit, while also presenting a more moderate, less radical option as being better (i.e. killmonger, that cat girl rights thing from rwby, etc.)

They did not have to write him sacrificing his own unwitting friends and allies (the spirits) but they did

They did not have to have him commit a horrific unforgivable crime against the dwarves and Titans (also making him responsible for the most dangerous and evil thing in Thedas) but they did

And they did not have to present Mythal, an imperialist who owned slaves (unless they reconned that too idfk), as a voice of reason while also setting her up as a victim of evil leftists Solas' violence, but they did.

(And, might I add, they did not have to write Solas being willing to kill thousands of people in the first place)

I am pretty tired of this trope to begin with, but also the fact that they wrote Solas this way but still want me to sympathize with him is wild.

I will say I am still enjoying the game, because I quite like the companions and the combat style. But the writing is just. So disappointing so far. That's not even touching on their handling of the Antaam, and my confusion around the Crows.

My partner and I have spent the last few years doing a huge roleplay/writing project where we use the parts of dragon age we like as a basis, and change the stuff we don't like. And I just want to say I'm glad I have that, otherwise I'd be sad that this is where they went with ancient elves, Titans, and blight

[pennydykedaughter]

oc. 2024.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from The Revelator:

Japanese knotweed. Purple loosestrife. Kudzu. Mesquite. Giant hogweed. Bitou bush. What do these plants have in common? Easy: They’re among the most “invasive” plant species on the planet. When humans bring these highly adaptable, fast-growing plants to new ecosystems, whether it’s on purpose or by accident, native species often get squeezed out and pushed toward extinction.

But, unlike predators such as rats and cats — which have threatened animal species and caused extinctions around the globe — have displaced plants like kudzu ever actually driven another plant species extinct? The authors of a 2016 paper published in the journal AoB Plants couldn’t document any confirmed cases.

Not yet, anyway. But that’s only because globalization is a relatively recent phenomenon.

“The main reason why there is no clear evidence of extinction that can be exclusively attributed to plant invasions is that invasions have not been around long enough,” co-author Dave Richardson of the Centre for Invasion Biology at Stellenbosch University, South Africa, said in a prepared release. “Our research shows that plant extinction is an agonizingly slow process. However, red flags are evident in numerous locations around the world — species that now exist in fragmented populations, with radically reduced opportunities to reproduce.”

Richardson and co-author Paul Downey from the University of Canberra looked at these “red flags” and came up with a six-point “extinction trajectory” for native plant species facing threats from displaced vegetation:

Plants die more quickly than they can be replaced by their offspring in some locations.

Plants disappear from some locations entirely, but potential offspring remain as “propagules,” seeds or spores that could regenerate a new cohort of individuals.

Some locations lose both individual plants and their propagules. With no plants or seeds, this is a local extinction.

The last locations hosting a species lose their individual plants, but in some places seeds or spores remain in the soil.

The species is entirely lost in the wild, with no individuals or propagules. The only survivors are held in botanic collections.

The remaining plants are lost, and the remaining seeds or spores are no longer capable of becoming new plants.

Downey said that this research suggests we need to start managing threatened plants much earlier than we currently do.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Parker Molloy at The Present Age:

Alright, folks, let's talk about the strangest new trend in politics: calling your opponents "weird." Yes, you read that right. In the past week, the Democratic camp has decided that the best way to take on Trump and the GOP is to break out their middle school vocabulary. It all started when Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (a potential VP pick, by the way) described GOP nominee Donald Trump and "cat lady"-obsessed running mate JD Vance as "just weird." From there, it's like the entire Democratic Party collectively went, "You know what? He's onto something," and ran with it. Now, I know what you're thinking. "Parker, are you seriously telling me that seasoned politicians are resorting to playground insults?" And the answer is... kind of, yeah. But here's the kicker: it's working. Or at least, it's getting one hell of a reaction.

The Evolution of Political Language

Remember when political debates were all about tax rates and foreign policy? Yeah, me neither. Welcome to the era of political discourse where calling your opponent "weird" passes for a campaign strategy. But before we judge too harshly, let's take a step back and look at how we got here.

Over the past few decades, we've seen a gradual shift from policy-focused debates to character-driven campaigns. It's no longer just about what a candidate plans to do, but who they are (or who they claim to be). This isn't entirely new; politicians have always tried to sell their personalities alongside their policies. But social media has cranked this up to eleven. In a world of tweets and TikToks, nuanced policy discussions don't exactly thrive. Instead, we get catchy slogans, memorable insults, and yes, apparently, the word "weird." It's like politics has merged with reality TV, and we're all just waiting for someone to say, "I'm not here to make friends." But here's the thing: as much as we might roll our eyes at this trend, it's not just about dumbing down the discourse. These simple, punchy messages often cut through the noise in a way that lengthy policy papers never could. They stick in people's minds, spark conversations (or Twitter wars), and sometimes reveal more about a candidate's values than any carefully crafted speech ever could.

Unpacking the Appeal of "Normal"

Let's talk about "normal" for a second. It's a concept that's been at the heart of conservative messaging for decades. The idea is simple: we're the normal ones, the real Americans, the default setting. Everyone else? Well, they're the outliers, the deviants, the ones trying to change everything. As writer A.R. Moxon puts it in a recent Twitter thread: ["What recent discourse is exposing is something I've been trying to say for years now, which is that there is little conservatives care more about than being considered the only normal ones by everyone else, and they'll use bullying and the threat of punishment to get it."]

This obsession with being seen as "normal" isn't just about feeling good. It's a powerful political tool. If you can convince people that your way of life is the default, then anything else becomes a threat. It's why we see so much fear-mongering about the "radical left" or the "gay agenda" or whatever the boogeyman of the week is. But here's where it gets interesting. By labeling the GOP as "weird," Democrats are flipping this script. They're challenging the very foundation of conservative identity politics. And boy, are conservatives not happy about it. Julia Serano, in her recent blog post, nails why this is hitting such a nerve: ["I think it has to do with the MAGA worldview being centered on them being the supposed norm. They are heavily invested in the notion that their perspective and lifestyle is the one true and righteous way that all others must follow. Calling them 'weird' upends this worldview."]

Parker Molloy with another gem of a post on the GOP’s weirdness to Americans who aren’t in the MAGA Cult.

See Also:

The Advocate: Democrats embrace ‘weird’ label, turning tables on conservative rhetoric often used against queer people

[fenmere]

Coming July 31st, 2024! (probably)

A sequel to the Sunspot Chronicles.

It's definitely not The Day the Earth Stood Still meets The Doom Patrol, but, before anything really happens, Erik of Aunti Zero's Coffee Collective thinks it could be described that way.

Narrowly rejected alternative titles: Phage goes to Portland, A Sunspot Pember in America, and How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Nanites

Authors' bio (my system):

Born in the mid '70s, the Inmara are the daughters of a couple of printers living in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. They used to work as a graphic designer and are intersex, ace, autistic, biromantic, polyamorous, trigender, trans, and a plural system with a high therian count. They've wanted to write novels since they were 14, but ended up making a webcomic titled Harmless Free Radicals in their early 20s. In 2015, while outlining the closure of that comic, they discovered that they were trans and plural, and quickly worked out they were autistic shortly after that. And that's when the novels started pouring out. They've written and self published most of the Sunspot Chronicles, a web series about plurality, gender, and familial relations on an alien generational starship. With the Tunnel Apparati Diaries they hope to craft a new entry point into the series that can also work as a sequel, and maybe to bring the story down a little closer to Earth. When not writing books, they live in an apartment with two of their girlfriends, a teenager, a cat named Tuck, a paralysis demon named Phage, and a computer with the latest version of Blender on it.

[forthedancingandthethriving]

Here's an interesting idea:

SMG4 Shattered Timelines: Reflected Generations A Mira-centric side story happening parallel to the Shattered Timelines AU's main plot that's heavily based on Shadow Generations. It wouldn't actually interact with the main plot in any way, so no need to factor it into events (unless any of the characters mentioned was going to be part of said events, in which case I can probably shuffle some things around. or scrap it if said involved characters include mira and/or worm)

Basically, thanks to the Abyss's time breaking bullshit several major events are in a state of flux, including both Worm's death in the Legacy Arc and his defeat at the hands of the First Four. He's fully aware of what's going on and capable of manipulating the fractures to a degree, and decides to use this as an opportunity to come back more powerful than he was even at his prime. Problem is, he needs someone with a significant amount of his code who isn't in temporal flux to act as a vessel, since otherwise his soul won't have any code to attach to when reality reasserts itself. And rather poetically, only a certain supersonic traitor fits the bill. He just needs to give her a push in the right direction using the other half of her code...

So Mira's now being forced to confront both sides of her origin story while running through areas from all over the AU timeline and beyond to restore them. And in the process she ends up meeting the time-displaced Chip (Sonic Unleashed Chip, not Admin Chip), Glitch and Red Doomguy, and getting assistance from Amy, Eggman and Larryboy.

Her version of the Radical Highway hijacking sections are Eggmanland from Sonic Unleashed (It probably should've been Apotos but an idyllic Greek seaside village with rolling green hills and windmills don't exactly fit the Vibe like a rusted, smog-choked cross between a factory, an amusement park and a medieval torture dungeon does), the two acts of each area are Day and Night stages Because Werehog Good, and she's collecting the Chaos Emeralds as well as new Malware Commands that let her actually tap into her virus side.

It's also a bit longer than Shadow Generations, with 5 bosses besides Worm; Rejection Waluigi, Cat Cursor (the alt timeline evil version in post-reveal form), Spicy Meme Generator 4000 (he's also aware of the timeline thing but doesn't get a chance to do anything with it), Showtime (her mind is actually from the present and she is EXTREMELY happy to not be a Prinny...and then she gets defeated and is transformed back into her Prinny form because of course), and a very different version of Mira from a completely separate universe (you know that one Danny Phantom RP that I sometimes mention certain ocs originated from? yeah Mira's from there too. She was completely different though, had nothing to do with Sonic and was instead a crazy evil AI accidentally created by MERF (from Fairly Oddparents) who was going to Frankenstein herself a cyborg body out of alien tech and freeze-dried Pixie organs and become a really fucked up Magical Girl).

Also, Worm's realized that by holing himself up in Eggmanland he has access to all the Dark Gaia energy it's mining, so that's gonna be a problem.

Ough!!! Nothing to say tbh, I love this a lot. And it doesn't interfere with anything so it's all good!!

[leebrontide]

Shed Letters: the complete archive so far

For all the people who've followed me recently- at least SOME of whom must be actual people and not clickbait bots- I have a free monthly newsletter that I'm really proud of. If you like what I write here, you can access my once month efforts to present organized, spellchecked, researched thoughts, often with cool links for further reading.

If you wanna read about writing, ableism, queerness, psychology, research deep dives into history, science, and current events that are funneling into my writing, consider looking over some of what I have on offer, and maybe consider subscribing.

Also contains cat pictures!

Reblogs welcome!

You Heard It Here, First! An announcement of a co-authoring project in the works where we use a pulpy vampire romance to explore queer history in MN

What Stories Are You Made Of? A meditation on renegotiating my relationship to the problematic queer media I had access to in the 90s

What Do We Celebrate? Pics and the story of how I ended up throwing a T(ea) party to celebrate starting HRT, and my nonlinear path to hormone therapy

Why I’m Researching a 19th Century Cult This Month What’s a civil war era cult have to do with the scifi YA I’m writing? (Hint- they were literally trying to breed messiahs into existence).

Another Kind of Coziness How can anti-ableist theory make my writing space so damn cozy and effective?

A Unique Character Development Technique  Learn about one of my most ridiculous ways of intuitively developing new characters. 

The Golden Girls, D&D, and The Newest Way I’m Refusing to Make Writing Solitary This is actually all one topic

Tractors, Cybernetics and the Radical at the Radioshack That time I got radicalized by a Radioshack cashier and what it has to do with disability activism

The Cartoons Are Coming for Our Collective Trauma A therapist/YA writer’s thoughts about why kids shows are all about intergenerational trauma these days, and what I think it means for our future

People Who Need People Writing about The Giver, Each of Us a Desert, and what it’s been like having one of those faces that compels people to tell me things I have absolutely no business knowing

The Bananabook Method  What I call “The Bananabook Method” of book planning/pre-writing. Please enjoy my collection of absurd tiny colorful notebooks and this explanation of my *~process~*.

Because Everybody Was Calling for YA Scifi About HIPAA, Right? Why I’m writing about medical data privacy practices in scifi books for teens. Contains a LOT of info about the current systems and their limits.

Tinkering With Cyberpunk I was interviewed about cyberpunk and disabilities by the lovely Zuhura Ismail, whose wonderful cyberpunk art is also included in this edition.

Lies I Tell Myself, Security Blankets and Backstitch Drafting Another writing process post! Features a very nice cat picture, more writing with memory problems, and my proposal that creative project advice is only as useful as it is adaptable.

Of Flesh and Gundams What somatic psychology has to say about the pursuit of perfection and immortality via tech.

Gods and Ink - the new digital era of old school mythmaking and my newest tattoo.