#bogs not blogs

[zeropro]

Comment Section: Sunstorm edition

Wow! Thanks for the analysis and thoughts, I really appreciate it!

I agree, Starscream is allowed to not want to associate with Sunstorm at all, but he still shouldn't be mean about it haha. It's not like he told Sunstorm to not follow him around and was ignored. Sure Sunstorm should pick up on the hints that he isn't wanted but lbr he was raised by Shockwave in isolation, kid’s a little bit socially inept XD

My Sunstorm isn't as crazy religious as he is in the Dreamwave comics, but he is religious enough to make people like Starscream uncomfortable, especially when as you said he uses religious language to try and connect with Starscream. I personally like the idea that Sunstorm doesnt actually think the old stories are literally true, but he finds comfort in them and so chooses to view his life through that lens. He's more of a philosopher than a religious zealot, and ultimately he is more interested in observing and understanding than converting or preaching. Still, it's one of his special interests so he will talk about it if given the chance, and it definitely makes a lot of people uncomfortable for the reasons you've stated.

Love the observation about Starscream not being used to forgiveness. He don't trust like that, no sirreeeee.

Also it was Rodimus who pushed for the group therapy and Starscream def agreed to it, but he hasn’t really been taking any of the therapy sessions seriously. He was using them as a way to make people like him, like look I can behave, I can do your little therapy stuff, I can pretend to be emotionally and mentally stable, im totally working on myself even tho theres nothing wrong with me and even if there was something wrong with me it’s so deeply rooted theres no point in working on it anyway i mean what? It's all very calculated. Maybe he decided to vent about Sunstorm during their session because he thought it would make the kid leave him alone? Haha, unfortunately for him the opposite happened.

thanks again for your thoughts, hope you’re feeling better by now

If only Starscream could communicate his feelings like a normal person haha.

I like the way you put this. The situation is mad uncomfortable for Starscream yeah. And thanks! I hope you like where it goes.

When I wrote Sunstorm’s dialogue my intention was for starscream to feel validated in a way that he isnt comfortable with but doesnt altogether hate, but then a few people pointed out how it comes off like he’s straight up forgiving him for having trauma (hes forgiving him for saying mean things to him!) and like, yeah starscream wouldnt appreciate feeling patronised x3 Prolly pissed him off. But like, maybe a little bit of the intent made it through? I wanted Starscream to feel seen, but being seen is terrifying when you feel like theres nothing but broken ugliness underneath. so i guess starscream just ends up feeling judged. But also…accepted? Starscream does a confusion.

Starscream has had like three therapy sessions and isnt making any notable progress because he’s more concerned with how he’s being perceived than actively working on himself rn. I actually think this is fine, change doesnt happen quickly. we’ve introduced starscream to an avenue of help and as calculated as it was he did still try it out. I think the seed was planted if he ever does decide he wants to do better. and In his defense, the focus rn for everyone is what do we do about Megatron’s sudden return

lmao this made me chuckle. I wouldnt say he held composure even at Megatron’s worst, but yeah he’d def be frustrated whenever he accidentally goes mask off around the autobots.

That would be very cute, but starscream isnt quite there yet XD. not that anyone would want to hurt sunstorm, he’s like the best boy!

Starscream might worry about Sunstorm exploding, but only because he doesnt want to get caught in the explosion. after therapy, he still couldnt care less if Sunstorm deactivated, but he at least sees him as a person he dislikes rather than an abomination that shockwave made. so…yay progress?

He’s radioactive, so it’s a valid concern! Not that he will explode, he does have control over his outlier ability.

i imagine Rodimus is chill with ex decepticons? he went on a gay roadtrip space adventure with his best friend who is an ex decepticon and they met cyclonus who is an ex decepticon and later picks up sunstorm who is a decepticon affiliated seeker. i think as long as you prove to him you can be chill then he’ll be chill. tbh I think he just wants people to like him.

and It’s not that he doesnt mind if sunstorm blows up, he just has so much confidence in sunstorm not blowing up he doesnt think its a concern!

yeah since his spark is radioactive it hurts passively all the time. it hurts more when he pulls it in and away from others, and the pain spikes when he activates his outlier ability to actually use it, but it hurts less after it’s expelled. part of the reason why he spends so much time in a cr chamber while at shockwave’s lab is because it syphons his energy output and alleviates the pain. a win win for shockwave as he uses that energy to power his lab.

in his defence, he didnt make him radioactive on purpose, that just sorta happened

haha I’m glad y’all really liked that joke XD

of course he has, who hasnt met sunstorm! oh right, megatron…

i wouldn't recommend it. it will burn

TC has seen Sunstorm around like some cryptid, and Bumblebee prolly explained the situation after Sunstorm started staying at autobot base. TC is probably also creeped out by Sunstorm’s existence, but something about his bright eyed apperance reminds him of Starscream before the war…

Skywarp just sees him as some other guy, he’s like not bothered at all. he’s curious about him in that there hasnt been a new seeker in generations. as far as he’s concerned, Sunstorm is literally nothing like Starscream haha

Sunstorm feels bad for TC, and he empathises with Skywarp’s malfunctioning outlier ability.

Im so hecking sorry XD Sunstorm is like basically not in IDW1 at all (he shows up once in the background, and then the second time he’s in the comic arcee hecking murders him pfpfpf). If you want sunstorm content I think he features more in Wings universe and the Dreamwave continuity. I havent read them tho so I don’t actually know haha

but like, aah thanks so much, I really appreciating your kind words. and also thank you everyone who sent me asks and comments and tags. I legit had no idea this project would turn into a whole thing but I’m having fun so I’m glad you all are enjoying it too.

[clj-art-blog]

Equal and worthy of each other | Their Majesty Yue Zun Dongfang Qingcang and his Yue Zhu Xiaolanhua

[artist-issues]

do you think that it’s bad for a people group to keep thinking about the impact slavery had on them in the past?

I think the only utility in it is learning your history: that mankind is depraved and can sell and buy one another, and treat one another like less-than-human, and so watch out for the signs that a society is starting to blur the line about what makes a human a human in the image of God.

and that’s it.

I have a friend who said something really good about this when we went to Togo. After we visited the historical site where the Togolese sold one another to the colonists and saw the places where those people were treated like hated cattle, we were discussing the topic. But my friend just sat there and didn’t join in. And we were all kind of wanting her to, because her family has lived in our hometown for generations, and our hometown was on the map at the historical site where the Togolese were sold out of. So you know. Odds are, her ancestors were from there, where we were standing. Or at least they suffered the same fate from ports like it all up and down the African coast. We wanted to hear her thoughts in particular. But she didn’t say anything.

And afterward I was nagging her about it, I was like, “you have to say something in moments like that, we all want to hear you!”

And she (is not your ordinary person) just laughed at me and said, “I knew it! Every time one of you said something (about the historical site and the slavery topic) it was like you would glance at me to see what I thought or if I was passing judgement. But why should I have anything to say? I don’t speak for everyone else. Especially people who died hundreds of years ago. It’s horrible, and it’s sin, but that’s (slavery’s) not me. That’s not my identity. It’s not yours either. Just look at what God’s done since then.”

I wish I could introduce everybody to this friend of mine. You’d see she’s like that all the time. I’ve known her for almost ten years now and she’s one of the most insightful, chill, wise, fun (she can quote all of Barnyard and SharkTale) people I’ve ever met in my life. I think she was totally right about this (she’s also been right about everything we’ve ever talked about, for context.)

I’m quoting her because if anyone had a right to be thinking about ancestral slavery any type of way, it would be my dear friend. We were standing in the place with a high likelihood of being where her specific greatx grandparents were stolen from their homes and brought to this country as slaves. But she thought about it healthily instead of unhealthily.

I mean we don’t do this when our family-history has a good, prosperous chapter in it, right? When your great great great great grandfather builds a thriving company from the ground up, and generations later the wealth of your family still speaks to the prosperity he had—but if you try and say, “I know about sacrifice! I know about hard work! My grandfather went through all this stuff to build this company!” Most people would roll their eyes at you and tell you you’ve been privileged, that just because your grandfather experienced and lived through some major stuff, that doesn’t mean you’ve earned the right to claim that major stuff. You didn’t go through those experiences.

That’s what we do with positive family history. But with negative family history, what’s going on? Why do we make that our whole identity? “My ancestors were slaves!” and then we don’t say “so that gives me authority to speak to this/so I know how it feels/so I deserve [this-or-that]” but we live like we’ve somehow inherited what happened to them.

And we haven’t. We just haven’t. We haven’t. It’s part of history. It’s not part of our experience.

When we went to that place in Togo they lowered me down into the hole the slaves were lowered into under the colonist’s house’s floorboards and had me squat there, in the dark, for just fifteen minutes, unable to stand up or stretch out or see, while they explained from the floor over my head that I should also be imagining that I’m naked, surrounded on all sides by crowds of frightened grieving people in the same predicament, packed in so close that we can’t even move sideways, either. And other horrors, of course, like the fact that there’s no bathroom, their own tribespeople helped put them in this hole, and the food only came from the hole itself, so if you were furthest away from it in the dark under-the-floor-of-the-house crawlspace, you could just starve to death because it never reaches you. You hope the other sufferers around you are kind enough to pass you food, but you don’t all speak the same language because you’re from different tribes all over the continent. And this is all before you’re even put on the boats away from all you’ve ever known. Just fifteen minutes, I curled up where they were forced to curl up.

Guess what I learned?

That it was just fifteen minutes.

That what I experienced in the moment I could get closest to their suffering was still nowhere even close to what they experienced.

That nothing in my life has ever approached imaginable levels of that suffering. And it’s arrogant and misguided to claim it as any part of my identity. That level of suffering is foreign to me.

And thank God it’s foreign to me.

If you want to claim other sufferings, be my guest. If you want to say, “I’ve experienced a feeling of not belonging as I waited in the line at Wal-Mart,” or “I’ve experienced my teacher using a slur to refer to me,” or “I’ve experienced the grief of a lack of justice” go for it. But it’s not the same as what they experienced.

Our ancestors who suffered through horrible things, do you think they’d want us to be going around, making our whole lives about their sufferings? Making all of our value-judgements on stories we’ve been told about what happened to them? I mean, geez, in fantasy movies when the defeated villain raises his son to burn with a lust for revenge, we think of that as a bad thing he did. He should’ve let his son grow up free, not saddled him with your hatred over experiences he was blessed enough not to have. But we don’t use that same understanding when it comes to unhealthy thoughts about our enslaved or abused ancestors.

It’s not “no thoughts at all.” It’s “think rightly.” What happened to them was an atrocity, and it should never be repeated, and if we see the seeds of that atrocity cropping up in others’ minds or our own minds—specifically a tendency to view one another as less-human-than-ourselves—we should nip it in the bud.

But we shouldn’t make that the crusade of our lives. It’s just turning yourself into a ghost. What happened to them isn’t happening to you. Live your life as if good has happened since then. You get to have friends, loves, communities, where your skin color or language or where you’re from doesn’t get to be the one thing that defines you. They didn’t get to have that. Don’t shackle yourself to an experience you never had; don’t assume that’s what your ancestors would’ve wanted you to do if they could somehow see a vision of you in the future.

It’s just common sense.

Now.

For everybody who wants to reply, “What are you on about, people groups today may not be enslaved but they are still dealing with the f***ing consequences of slavery!!! They’re still dealing with prejudices and racism and!!!” Knock it off. That wasn’t the question. The question was “should people groups who were enslaved still think about it.”

If you wanna ask me “okay then, should people who have ancestors that were enslaved/abused/massacred/discriminated against/ARE being discriminated against themselves in the present-day—should THEY think about it?!” then roll up and ask me that. But it’s a separate question. And I’m tired of this grandpa

[nextgenfoals]

It’s only fair to ask for a ship that any of the mods would like to see. You deserve it guys, your blog is incredible!

Thank you!! Here’s a Applebloom/Tender Taps/Lily Longsocks poly foal! Foxglove is an apprentice potion maker with a mischievous streak. I’m going to keep them for my own next gen c: (~ Mod Ace ♥️)

thank you so much for the opportunity, this was a lot of fun to do!! here's a couple of rarity x princess cadence kiddos for you! fraternal twins marquise & princess cut are both jewelers, though their specialties slightly differ— marquise does engagement rings while princess does the actual wedding bands. i will also be keeping these two! <3 (~ mod honey 🍯)

i chose to do muffindash !! im honestly surprised they havent been requested yet. i would be keeping dribble drop if they werent so similar to my muffins redesign. theyre a free spirit, hopping from job to job trying to find their purpose. — mod bog 🌿

[have-you-seen-this-animal]

Bog turtle (Glyptemys muhlenbergii), please!

Excellent choice!

The bog turtle is the smallest species of turtle in North America.

[naskaolgia]

Ahem..

STANLEY MARSH, YOU ARE A FAG🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️❗❗❗❗❗❗🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

obviously not

[minty364]

DPXDC Prompt #94

Danny falls through a portal to the DC world from a natural portal that opened up while he was in mid fight with Skulker a fight that began at Vlads where the creep put a collar on Danny that kept him in ghost form, Vlad thought he’d force Danny to reveal his secret to his parents by taking away his human form. Looking around he’s in a dark city with dark smog colored skies. Unfortunately he’s stuck here as the portal closed leaving him trapped. He tried to find help but no one can see him in his ghost form. He starts tailing the vigilantes of this world and eventually follows one onto this space station through this tube (possessing inanimate objects sure comes in handy). He wasn’t expecting for the random British guy in a trench coat to see him.

[riacte]

Bogwaters Dev Log 22/5/2021

Because apparently I'm doing this thing now (interactive fiction parodying the 2021 Treebark Rise and the "hidden" Discord server that nurtured it)

I'm trying to make a mini demo version just to test out mechanics and what is feasible. It'll probably last around seven days (June 1 to 7) with individual dashes for each day and 5/6 NPCs you can invite

On June 1, you're pretty much guaranteed to unlock 2 invitable NPCs that act as a tutorial. One of them will accept, the other will reject. The one who rejects you has no negative consequences because it's a tutorial and because they're chill about shipping. The one who will accept should be as obvious as 2021 Tumblr would allow when everyone was on their eggshells

You can make one (1) post each day, which in this game mostly serves to raise "friendship levels" with NPCs. On June 1, you will be given three choices to post— they each correspond to a different NPC with different interests and will give you a slight boost for the one you chose. Your goal is to gain enough friendship to invite them. These will require effort unlike the tutorial NPCs

The first NPC is one who follows and likes you but is skittish about openly shipping. You can increase friendship by posting things they like (since they will see you on their dash), reblogging their posts, and showing your approval, which helps them to open up.

The second NPC is one you follow, is fine with shipping, but doesn't follow you back. You can increase friendship by reblogging from them with nice tags (to tell them you exist since they won't see your posts on their dash). Or you can be mean and they'll block you and you won't get enough people to win.

The third NPC is one you don't follow and they don't follow you back, but you get the vibes they're a covert shipper and you'll need all the help you can get. This one deals with the paranoia of "is this stranger chill or not?" as you frantically hunt into the depths of their socials

Shoutout to my current NPCs platypus-crown (player character aka PC) kindredwaves judasredemption benbiggitybong gayshulkerbox starfish-wizard and 9-blue-blobfish.

I have added block/follow choices which I am lowkey regretting because every post will be forced to do a "have you blocked this user?" check (not feasible with complicated conditional choices). Then again, if you see a post from someone you blocked, it feels like realistic Tumblr bugginess. And you shouldn't be blocking people for no reason because your whole dash will be empty and you'll lose lmao

Altar scene speech is here somewhere. As is gray long and strong #whoremembers

SHIPlakebog. Or whatever.

Future bits:

Yes there will be a MGC this month (Minecraft Gamer Championship). Yes it is Purple Piranhas 15 with Ben Mars River and H2OBomb, making it 3/4 Blue Blobfish 9

Yes Mars will make his stupid jealousy comment and the dash will explode

[drumlincountry]

hypothetically if someone were to want to

A) Learn more about bogs and plants/wildlife living there

B) Get involved in some way in trying to preserve said bogs, especially ones local to said person

Would you have any advice/information to offer them?

BOY DO I!!

Tl;dr - you can protect bogs using knowledge and methods acquired from other types of organising. For knowledge, there is probably an organisation of nerdy old people you can join. They will be delighted to have you. If a particular plant/species takes your interest, research it until you're satisfied. Don't be afraid of academic articles.

Well first off i'm delighted that you're taking an interest! Over 85% of wetlands have been destroyed since the industrial revolution. 35% of this destruction has occurred since 1970 and the rate is accelerating.

GENERAL ADVICE

If there's a topic u know interests you, research the hell out of it. It is your key. You'll discover other stuff that interests you as you go, and its all connected, so start by getting a real concrete knowledge of what interested you in the first place.

Look up "[your continent/country/county] peatland talk" on YouTube and see if u can find some lectures! Then, look into the organisation running those talks. Email them, they may have reports about your local bog, or be able to point you towards people who can tell you more. Mention "i'm particularly interested in dragonflies/carnivorous plants/sphagnum mosses/ground nesting birds, if you have information about that."

If u don't get a response, email again. Or message them on Facebook. Usually these organisations are like 3 people, and they might have lost the email password lol. This stuff is fractal, so even if you can't find resources about, say, the peatlands of Longford, you will be able to find resources about the Irish Midlands; failing that, Ireland; failing that, western Europe. If you can't find public talks/articles, you might have to dive into the scientific literature. Read the most recent research. Write down words you don't understand and look up the definitions. Look at the articles frequently cited by the articles you read. Take it slow. Discuss them with a friend if you can, and let them ask you questions - they will help you uncover gaps in your knowledge.

World Wetland Day is an international campaign about protecting wetlands. If you look into who is posting about it in your country, it's a good place to start.

Oh, and try get better at walking/existing in bogs. Hiking friends can probably help with this. Buy some DEET-free insect repellent. Good leather boots are waterproof if u maintain them well. Gaitors and waterproof overtrousers are your friends.

PROTECTING IT

PROTECTING the bog is a political issue.

General organising advice is useful no matter what you are organising around. Learn about direct action. Learn about ecological movements in your country, but also about national and international LGBT+ rights movements, tenants rights movements, minority ethnic rights movements etc. Get involved if you can. You'll learn what works in your circumstances, and what does not apply.

Learn your own limits too - what are you happy to give? What can you force yourself to give, at a push? What can't you give? Just because something is important doesn't mean you have to do it. No need to knock yourself out of shape to manage social media accounts if there's someone else who is better at it and happy to do it. Its good to develop your skills, but giving other people a chance to participate is also a skill.

The antifracking movent in Ireland is a great case study of how to protect your local ecosystems. They managed to get fracking completely banned in ROI, and ban the importing of fracked gas (though that fight is ongoing, I won't get into it). I duckduckgo'd "antifracking campaign Ireland" and found pages and pages of useful articles. Take your pick!

SPECIFIC ADVICE:

In Ireland: Community Wetland Forum is a charity whose whole deal is connecting communities to the bogs they live near. https://communitywetlandsforum.ie/resources/ They have resources about bogs AND about EU and national policy designed to protect bogs.

Ireland or the UK: the BSBI. They are full of knowledge. They run field trips a several times a year to various habitats. There's one in Longford on 19/07/25 on a cutover bog. This will be a great chance to learn about the species that live on even quite damaged bogs. https://bsbi.org/events/corlea-co-longford-2

I recommend reaching out to your local BSBI vice county recorder, who will likely be a strange and enthusiastic old plant nerd who will be delighted to bring you to your local bog. The BSBI also publishes many many many articles. Like all the time. They probably have an article about your local bogs, even if its from 1893. BSBI membership is like 35€ a year, if you can afford it. If you can't……message me. I am willing to share some PDFs.

In Scotland, the BSBI is currently (?) running a survey of plants on the summit of mountains, so now is a great time to reach out to them saying you're interested in learning about blanket bog plants! In Ireland, this is the first year of the upland plant survey. Likewise, this means blanket bog plants are a focus rn.

I like the IPCC (Irish Peatland Conservation Council) less well, because they are less ambitious about conservation than I'd like, and at times they pursue methods that I think are ineffective or counterproductive. However, they do have useful resources https://www.ipcc.ie/discover-and-learn/

And uhmmmmmmmm have fun! Its beautiful out there and we are so so so lucky to be in a position to enjoy and protect our local wetlands ♥ ask me follow up qs any time!

If any nerds got this far, add the names of good orgs in your area? in case anon isn't from the small island I live on lol

[chaifootsteps]

You know what bugged me the most about Apology Tour? No it wasn't Stolas being a manipulative duplicitous piece of shit and the narrative trying to make him the good guy despite that.

It was how shamelessly the writers ripped off the gift basket gag from that episode where Butters thinks Cartman is a ghost. There's referencing something but putting your own twist on it, and then there's just being lazy and derivative. Helluva Boss went with option B

Viv's got this way of stealing things where she completely fails at making it funny, either in the way it was originally intended or some new way that's all her own. It's almost impressively incompetent.

[sleepytrancysub]

The real problem with VTM being a deeply horny game is not actually the potential for awkwardness at the table, but instead the fact that I'm always tempted to write some fucked up smut set in the WOD, but then, because I'm an autistic nerd, I always get too wrapped up in trying to fix lore inaccuracies to actually finish it 😔

[the-octonauts-but-past-au]

go ahead, have a dashi character sheet, I totally didn’t suffer trying to make her design

Her last name’s the same cause yeah

[nextgenfoals]

Sunny (g5) x Razzaroo (G3)?

wipes the cobwebs off myself.

missus mercy matazz loves to celebrate her friends with parties and gifts from the heart !! — mod bog 🌿

[thatskynews]

We've got an exciting update for you Sky kids!

Together, the Sky community raised $287,583 in support of The Trevor Project during Days of Color. ✨️🎨

Thank you for your generosity and support. ❤️

[txttletale]

speaking as someone who isn't quite sure where i fit on the anarchism-communism spectrum

one of the things i really appreciated about you was a post you made months, maybe even years ago, about how even if you disagreed with anarchists and can articulate your disagreements that they were still comrades and you weren't interested in infighting or snippiness, unless i'm remembering wrong. so i'm kinda disappointed in what's been going on over the past day.

if i was making posts on either side of this and some moderately popular blog made a joke at my expense i would be really hurt and embarrassed and it wouldn't get me to consider the substance of any of their critiques.

i don't think the anarchists that you're making snippy, quippy posts about are acting any better but i also am not really familiar with them as much.

i mean, i still hold that position! that's why the posts i've been made haven't been aimed at 'anarchists' or 'anarchism' in any nebulous sense, because there are many anarchists i like and respect and i do genuinely consider anarchists, broadly, to share my own political goals and worth working with (selectively, on a case by case basis, where agreements can be reached about scope and tactics)--i have been responding to specific individuals and their ideological statements!

sure, i could have illustrated with more precise and dry language why 'fuck the consumer' re: diabetics is an incorrect position to take, but frankly i don't think that position merits precise and serious discussion. i have taken pains to acknowledge anarchists who have their own disagreements with the post that kicked all this off and that anarchism is a heterogenous ideology with multifarious tendencies that should not be dismissed off the words of one or a certain group of people claiming the label.

at the end of the day, this is blogging, i do this for fun and because i like getting my thoughts out, not as a platform for serious political organization.

[katkalis-the-fanartist]

So like you take all of em and merge em right?

Yeah?? Right?? Agree??