#and the founders are nowhere to be seen lmao

[sometownie]

I was looking at my college picsets and just had to throw these pics together! These are graduation pics paired with pictures from their freshmen year!

I play two uni years per round, which means there's always two different age groups in the university at the same time.

Top down from oldest to newest, names go left to right on the rightside pics:

1: Oliver Aoki, Rayna Limestone (not in first pic) and Neil Waters

Rayna is the oldest of the third generation Limestones. My original plan was for Rayna and Neil to get married and start a family but it just felt SO wrong without Oliver, so now they're building a family all together! They now have two kids, third on the way. Neil and Oliver are CAS made.

2: Kanerva Huotari and Storm Limestone

Storm is Rayna's little brother, and Kanerva is a townie who was good friends with Rayna. Storm and Kanerva are married with two kids.

3: Milo Lovett, Lemon Farwood, Johnny Mills and Rosa Limestone

Rosa is the next sibling of the Limestones in university. Johnny and Lemon are cousins. Lemon and Milo are married with two kids, while Rosa is currently dating and Johnny just got married to Rosanna Sherman.

4: Apple Farwood, Jenny Mills and Shane Limestone

Shane is the youngest of these Limestone siblings in the university! Apple is Lemon's younger sister and Jenny Johnny's. They're all very fresh out of college still, only one round into adulthood, so their future is still very open :)

5: Kevin Rogan (not in first pic), Lila Hart and Ilona Tannen

Ilona, Lila and Kevin are the most recent graduates from university! Lila and Ilona are CAS made, but Kevin was the next Limestone to attend college: he's the cousin to all the earlier Limestones!

The current freshmen include Katy, who's Kevin's younger sister, and Ruby, who's another Limestone cousin to these all! And Mango is the younger brother to Lemon and Apple!

[eloise-t-g]

i think for me, the watcher situation comes down to this:

it's absolutely respectable that the watcher team wants to grow and produce better quality content. it's respectable that they don't want to stagnate and end up pushing the same content out over and over again. that's not satisfying for them creatively, i get that.

however, if higher quality, more heavily produced content is not what your fans are asking for, then you can't ask them to fund it.

this all-or-nothing method they've gone for is frankly bizarre. it feels like they leap-frogged all other alternatives to improving their finances and ended up here, alienating and frustrating the majority of their fanbase (the fanbase they thanked for getting them to where they are).

i think this could have gone a lot better if they:

Hadn't hyped up this video for a week.

Hadn't announced the worth it successor just beforehand.

Hadn't put out a wishy-washy, "boo hoo we're so sad about this", over-produced video.

Hadn't made it $6/month (more in a lot of countries given exchange rates).

Had considered that this means fans in specific countries literally cannot pay for the subscription due to geo/region-locking.

my ideas for improving their funds, aka things they could have tried before blowing their brand up: create their own website with two options - a free version with ads and a paid version without ads, OR make better use of their patreon/make their website extra content, not all their content, for example:

Put the ghost file debriefs on there.

Put shows like survival mode on there (or even shift that show from pre-recorded video to live-stream - live stream access to patrons and VOD access to everyone, maybe).

Put episode commentaries there.

Do reaction videos to their old buzzfeed content, talk about memories and BTS, and put that there.

Put one/two episodes of each show, per season on there (and ONLY there).

Put the episodes up there a few days early.

Make specific, website only content (that's not your main and most popular series aka ghost files and puppet history).

Record the live, in-person shows and put those VODs up there.

EDIT (thought of something else lmao): put extended or even uncut versions of ghost files on there. Paranormal Detour on Detune's twitch channel has shown that people will willingly sit through 6+ hours of a ghost investigation.

EDIT: idk, do livestreams once a week where you watch scary movies with fans on discord or twitch.

(side note: the fact that they're not taking down their patreon and instead shifting all of their podcast content on there, something the patreons who have been loyally giving them money for years didn't ask for, is ridiculous and greedy. add to this the fact that they don't even get a free sub to the new website, instead get 40% off - a measly 10% more than anyone else who subs before the official launch).

the thing for me is that they're claiming they want to make "television" and "television-grade content". that's completely fine. what's not completely fine is acting like your four episodes a month is equal to netflix's entire catalogue.

this really felt like it should have been something they told us they were progressing towards, not something they revealed to be on the imminent horizon. idk, it just feels out of nowhere. no, they don't owe us all of the info about their company. but something had to be better than this.

final thought - it's okay and valid to be upset at the team for this. for a lot of people, it's a complete betrayal (especially the comment that $6 a month is something "anyone and everyone can afford", i mean yikes). i do think some people's anger got the best of them, and some of the comments i've seen across youtube, twitter, and tumblr are plain bullying, racism, and harassment. until we have the whole story, we can't decide that one founder (aka steven in a lot of people's minds) is solely responsible. i know a lot of these awful things are only coming from a small minority of the fandom, but they still get seen.

at the end of the day, all three of them got up in front of a camera and made this video, together. that can only lead us to the conclusion that they made this decision together. acting like these men in their 30s couldn't stand up against it if they truly wanted to, is so strange and parasocial lmao.

tl;dr there were much better ways of going about this announcement, if it even needed to be made at all. however, that doesn't excuse the hateful shit being spewed at the team. for now, all we know is the three founders decided they were done with youtube, and done with their loyal youtube audience.

(i have so many more thoughts on this but i need to stop lmao. however i do wonder how different things could have been if 1. they had hired someone with actual business experience as their CEO from the jump, and 2. this video was more of a "hey we're broke! this is a last-ditch effort to save our company!". guess those questions will remain ... well ... you know ...).

[purrvaire]

character prompt list - din djarin

oh dear I am ECSTATIC to answer this and gush over my favourite tin can man 🤍

• favourite thing about them: it's important I start this by saying that din djarin became one of my absolute fave in sw so fast it's actually ridiculous and I'm more than a little in love with him SO THAT BEING SAID he is so GENTLE like you wouldn't expect that from a bounty hunter who's seen and been through so much and YET he's the kindest person in the galaxy (if you've read my previous post about obi-wan: yes, there is a pattern here). Also, of course being a dad to grogu is a big part of his whole characterisation and what absolutely wrecks me is that he loves and cares for his child in a way that is completely disinterested about his own desires and wants... him letting go Grogu? him deciding not to see him despite being so close to him? I'm I tears.

Also every dry, sarcastic comment Din makes adds ten years to my lifespan

• least favorite thing about them: absolutely nothing I love this man so much leave me alone 😭😭😭😭

• favourite line: "he means more to me than you will ever know" USING GIDEON'S WORD AGAINST HIM WHILE BEING THE SOFTEST BADASS DAD EVER I need a minute

• brOTP: BOBA we love tin can men being besties and I hope to see him interact more with Fennec in the future 🤍

• OTP: 💗💗💗💗💗💗 DINLUKE 💗💗💗💗💗 they came out from nowhere and turned my life upside down and literally crushed my writer block... the chokehold they have on me is incredible. I could rant for DAYS about them being the most delightful ship that has ever been shipped and I think that if THE RAT WASN'T FUCKING HOMOPHOBIC and if star wars didn't care about dudebros opinions they would be 100% canon thanks for coming to my tedtalk.

• nOTP: honestly I ship din only with luke lmao I don't particularly dislike other ships, just not my thing ig??? ex I don't get the hype for dincobb but hey, to each their own, right?

• random headcanon: i think he has a very expressive face and bc he's been wearing the helmet for so many years he never really learned to control his expressions so imagine din making all sort of funny/exasperated faces under it lmao

• unpopular opinion: it's very random but in fanfictions I always read that din and han would dislike each other and I STRONGLY DISAGREE YOUR HONOR maybe they wouldn't hit off immediately but in the end I think they would be best pals and co-founders of the "I Married Into Thee Skywalker Family And Now I Keep Getting Involved In All The Galaxy Drama". Meetings are on Thursdays.

• song I associate with them: I heard some days ago "Remember Me" from Coco sang by Christina Perri and it made me think about Din and Grogu I am unwell.

• favourite picture of them:

I KNOW IT'S A MEME BUT IT SENDS ME LMAO

[hashirailme]

Mito headcanons because Kishimoto gave us nothing

- she’s Tall. like super tall. like significantly taller than Hashirama (him being the second-tallest of the founders generation)

- she has a chronic pain condition

- she’s intersex! she has Klinefelter Syndrome (XXY chromosomes); i was reading about it and thought it lined up well with some of my above existing headcanons (often associated with both above-average height and conditions like rheumatoid arthritis or lupus). ((re: anatomy: i think she canonically carried her and Hashirama’s children — i am unsure how likely it is that she would have natally had the anatomical ability to do that, so i think it’s likely that ninja medical transition was involved))

- she’s probably the most powerful sensor in the series (that might be canon, i don’t remember) — sealing Kurama in her gave her special sensing abilities, but she was already naturally gifted as a sensor before that

- as a drawaback of her sensing abilities, she CANNOT sleep if anyone else in the room (or sometimes even the house) is awake; she can’t fall asleep until the entire house does, and if anyone wakes up, she will too. and those are just her conditions to sleep at all — sometimes even when said conditions are met, the sensory background noise still prevents her from getting all the way into deep sleep. they had to build a special room with all kinds of seals on it for her to use to power nap when it becomes a problem.

- being from an influential family within her clan, she received only rudimentary training in ninja fundamentals and did very little field work, the bulk of her education being extensive political grooming and fūinjutsu studies. between her massive chakra reserves, fūinjutsu mastery, and probably a few hard-hitting offensive ninjutsu, she definitely could (and did) hold her own in a fight if need be, but she has weaknesses in physical stamina, taijutsu, and general field skills. given her aptitudes and her chronic pain symptoms, she generally stays in the village maintaining and monitoring the wards and barriers involved in the village’s defenses except under extenuating circumstances

- one such exception to this was Hashirama’s last battle with Madara. i think canon makes reference to her sealing the ninetails AFTER Hashirama’s victory against Madara, but i think it’s a bit more believable for me if it was actually DURING the battle; i think Hashirama was hard-pressed dealing with Madara and Kurama, so Mito came to the battlefield, sealed Kurama into herself, and retreated to recover (hence Kurama being nowhere to be seen by the conclusion of the battle)

- despite her regal af energy she’s actually very down to earth and non-judgemental

- she is THE emotional intelligence of the generation. she has a bit less situational angst(/cluster B/mood disorders) than most others in her generation and flawless emotional control besides, and because she has her emotions very healthily managed and she spends a good deal of energy managing those of others’ (i hate to assign this role to a female character bc stereotypes so i compensate by making Tōka more emotionally ignorant than Madara lmao)

- bc she’s such a controlled person, she had a better time of managing the ninetails than others, but it was super traumatic and scary for her if it ever did get hold of her; the aftermath of that was probably the only time anyone ever saw her like break down emotionally, including all the deaths of her loved ones she had to live through

- when she was younger she was actually awkward AF but she put a lot of work into developing her social skills and she’s very socially fluent now

[amekkusuu]

madara & uta headcanons

i love you anon

thank you for requesting the beauty that is madara uchiha

okay so, this man- this man is the head of the uchiha clan, co-founder of konoha, and a legend among shinobi

bUT he’s also a total sweetheart

like, he doesn’t know how to deal with romance, at all. he’ll think about asking hashirama but then he quickly backtracks after thinking about the horrible, horrible consequences. :)

if he’s attracted towards you, he’ll still remain cold and distant as he is with 99% of all people

but inside he’ll be freaking out

eventually he asks you out completely out of nowhere in a private setting so nobody around them hears

and freaks out because holy shit did madara uchiha just ask someone out!???

(if you say no he’ll brush it off like it’s nothing but how could you say no? that’s impossible. nope. not happening. never.)

first date will be in one of the forests within konoha

you guys’ll feed the wildlife probably and look out over konoha from above where hashirama’s face is under construction

& also madara will be expertly avoiding the hashirama trees because they really unnerve him. (they reek of hashirama. hell, they even look like him! really, enough’s enough; he has to deal with the man 24/7. can’t he get a break?)

first kiss will actually be pretty far into the relationship. early on the most he would do is brush hands with you but that’s a lot for him so, yeah, haha...

anyways, back to the first kiss- hehehEh- it will be a meaningful moment between the two of you once he’s 100% confident you two are meant for one another. (he’ll initiate it. not you. never you.)

he gets jealous very easily, actually. (you are his. he is yours. but you belong to him more than he does to you.) he just doesn’t show it. to you, at least.

“madara, do you know where ____ went? i haven’t seen them in a while.” “i believe they aspired to travel the world. my condolences.” “wha-”

madara is actually a really good cook? his mother probably taught him because tbh all uchiha women are scary af and she probably beat it into him lol

he will cook for you and absolutely refuses to let you cook for yourself as long as he’s around

if you insist on cooking for him for a special occasion like his birthday he might let you lmao

okay i just imagined madara in a frilly pink apron doing the dishes help me

(minato wears it better, though.)

uta will approach you after a long, long time of harboring his feelings. they will fester and infect him, corrupting his thoughts and poisoning his-- ahem.

as i was saying, he’ll approach you after maybe one or two years of admiring you from a distance

will probably drag you to his shop and ask you there because he’s actually rather self conscious when it comes to romance- he doesn’t want anyone else to see anything. (nadda. nothing. zero. zilch. diddly-squat.)

first date will probably be at a regular, normal, 100% human run cafe. he’ll order coffee and something small so it’s easy to throw up later. you’re probably a ghoul, but if not he’ll tell you soon.

you’ll probably meet kaneki & friends soon enough. uta doesn’t like keeping secrets.

his coffee is okay, but that’s why you guys go to anteiku so often!! 11/10 coffee mmmmm

mm

yes

coffee

mMM back on track sorry

you guys will play video games together. like, kingdom hearts or smth. or zelda??

sorry im in a phase rn

he likes making masks for you- he fixes yours when it gets damaged. who knows- maybe he made it himself?

100/10 enjoys spending time with you. needy boi. he will cling to you (not literally (most of the time)) 24/7, no exceptions.

always kinda affectionate, y’know? just, a distant-but-close kind of clingy-affectionate, yeah?

hmm... his favorite thing about you is your voice. he loves listening to you speak while he works on his masks!!

but he’s not ready for kissing. he’ll get there soon!!

[thetimelordbatgirl]

@epickiya722 (ask box is still bugged over here and tumblr isn't responding still to my email about it).

Honestly, same- I don't see Uma and Audrey as bad guys- and it pisses me off they either seen as that or just generally made to be like that when they our two dark-skinned girls in a cast of diverse characters versus the stories always focusing on Mal, one of the white characters- and honestly yeah, Uma needs some love for once as all shes gotten in these movies is shit talk and being made out to be the bad guy and most likely kissing Mal's feet in D3 and like the other VKs on the Isle- if Disney even recalls the first films message of not being born evil and being children- was most likely abused- again if Disney covers abuse finally in these movies instead of just implying it- though at least we got Harry Hook being us when it comes to Uma, aka worshipping her and adoring her.

As for Audrey, honestly it feels like Disney didn't like her from the start- in D1 shes dragged down by Mal to cheer up Evie, shes made out to be in the wrong for worrying about fashion and her liking pink seemed to be apart of it too and now in D3 shes looking to be the villain- as much as I think its going to be possession, im still uncomfortable with the idea of body possession, especially as again, one of our WOCs- like.....its like the movie makers cant be bothered with her and in order to make Mal look good, they make her into the bad guy and don't give her any love as a result.

Tbh I wouldn't mind insight on Jay and Carlos- ESPECIALLY JAY, seriously, outside of D1 do we know what hes even up to besides being with the VKs and sports?- also cause Carlos I feel could help with the Isle more then Mal, especially as he knows what those isle kids would be feeling like, being constantly hurt in the name of revenge on heroes- but as for Harry and Gil, so far D3 promotional is forgetting they exist as Uma got stuck onto Mal's crew- seriously that's giving me the hives, WHERES UMAS CREW- but Harry I hope we see more of him, especially with Uma- and give Gil more lines at least as he didn't have many in D3- and Dizzy, dear god, I pray shes off the Isle in D3 cause for some reason in Under the Sea, she was back on it despite leaving at the end of D2- also again, praying she has character outside of fashion and probably supporting Mal too- and of course, with our new VK, Celia- RIP Freddy- I pray she gets development and isn't just shoved in there cause Disney felt like adding more characters for no reason.

I'll get to Ben soon, but as for Chad, Jane, Doug and Lonnie? Yeah, they need a bit more for them at this point- so far Janes just had zero almost in D2 outside of romance, while Lonnie kinda got something- im still confused by the no-girls rule even existing when MULAN exists- but got paired off with Jay at random at the end cause Audrey wasn't in D2- but again, needs more development on her own turf- Doug needs 101% development already cause we're had stalker joke in D1 and him acting clingy in D2....just, at least make him and Evie stand out by the end of this- and Chad.....as much as I don't really care for him, I still feel like he got the worst of character development, hes either a joke or hes maybe implying he wants to be king and it goes nowhere- he still needs to develop or at least get a better hairstyle.

And now for Ben....dear god, he and his parents are plot points at this point- D1: brings the VKs over, gets love-spelled, turns out he likes Mal anyway cause screw Audrey apparently- still pissed about her treatment in this Bal BS- and then in D2, gets screwed over a lot as how dare he be pissed Mal is lying to him and trying to spell him and then dude in distress, spelled again- though I found it funny we meant to pity Mal here but not Audrey in D1, just, really 'funny'- and then splits up a fight between Uma and Mal....but given no credit as his dad says, "How about that son of ours" only for Belle to make it about Mal- come on at least give him his parents plot- and....that's it- feels like the plot was done with him the moment he got the VKs over- as hes not even in D3 promotional material yet while Mal, who note isn't even queen yet, has future queen material already while the actual king of auradon has nothing- just, it feels so wrong really- boy is nothing but Mal's plot point despite having hints at even going beast- let him please, PLEASE- and honestly, D3 so far is giving him nothing yet either despite being the founder of the VK program- just....I can go on about Ben for ages really, lmao.

So in the long run, Disney probably does forget they exist unless they can drag them out for the Mal plots, lmao- so guess press f to pay respects for any love they deserve or any character or plot they could have had.

[junker-town]

Secret Base reviews: The Darien Scheme

A colonial venture so inept that the perpetrating country ended up getting taken over by someone else.

[I]t may be doubted whether, even now, after the lapse of more than a century and a half, feelings hardly compatible with temperate examination will not be stirred up in many minds by the name of Darien. In truth that name is associated with calamities so cruel that the recollection of them may not unnaturally disturb the equipoise even of a fair and sedate mind.

I’m not much of a historian, but I (pretend to) have a well-tuned sense of tragicomedy. That sense went into overdrive when I read Thomas Babbington MacCauley’s introduction to one of the most bizarre and ill-conceived episodes in history: the Darien scheme.

The late 17th century was a strange age for European colonialism. The New World had been parcelled up long before; the Scramble for Africa was still centuries away. Foreign expeditions were fragile things, highly vulnerable to disease, logistical mishaps and war. It was clear, however, that colonies could be forced to yield up enormous wealth.

One country in desperate need of enormous wealth? Scotland. The crowns of Scotland and England had been united in the person of James I for generations, but there was as yet no real political union. What there was on this ‘sterile crag’ was a mess: Minor civil wars, climate-induced famines, declining trade and industry, a capital-M Massacre at Glencoe. The government was more or less broke and the overall population wasn’t much better off. They cast around for a magic bullet, and they eventually settled on ... this:

Ok, so a settlement in Panama wasn’t the Scottish Government’s first choice. The Company of Scotland was chartered with the intent to trade in “Africa and the Indies.” The problem? England, of course. The East India Company had exactly zero interest in enabling the growth of a Scottish competitor, and contrived to block funding for any such project from south of the border.

A trimmed down mission — it was now the Company of Scotland for Trading to Africa — still managed to raise a significant amount of cash, despite the population being broke. £400,000 was invested in a matter of weeks. That might not sound like a lot now, but the total amount of capital in Scotland at the time is estimated as on the order of £2,000,000. In other words, 20 percent of the available money in the whole country was marked for this project.

When one fifth of an entire country’s capital is invested in a scheme, one would expect that said scheme wouldn’t immediately change in every detail. But that reckons without my good and dear friend William Paterson. Paterson was one of the most influential men of the age, a slave-trading (ergo shithead) co-founder of the Bank of England. Here’s what MacCauley has to say about him:

The great projector was the idol of the whole nation. Men spoke to him with more profound respect than to the Lord High Commissioner. His antechamber was crowded with solicitors desirous to catch some drops of that golden shower [ed: lmao] of which he was supposed to be the dispenser ... His countenance, his voice, his gestures, indicated boundless self-importance. When he appeared in public he looked — such is the language of one who probably had often seen him — like Atlas conscious that a world was on his shoulders. But the airs which he gave himself only heightened the respect and admiration which he inspired. His demeanour was regarded as a model. Scotchmen who wished to be thought wise looked as like Paterson as they could.

When Paterson had viable ideas, such as founding banks and kidnapping random Africans for a hellish life in the colonies, this level of blind admiration was, perhaps, fine (as long as you weren’t, you know, one of the thousands of people he helped enslave). Slightly odd, but fine. But blind admiration was about to lead Paterson’s admirers blundering madly into the Darien Scheme.

The English and Dutch controlled the route to the East Indies. In Paterson’s day, that involved a long trip down Africa’s Atlantic coast, around the Cape of Good Hope and up through the Indian Ocean. But a simple look at the map gave another possibility: go west.

This was, of course, what Christopher Columbus was attempting to achieve when he stumbled upon the Americas in 1492 and launched a chain of events that virtually annihilated the human populations of two whole continents. By 1698, the geography was far better known. Weathering Cape Horn from the Atlantic was a nightmarish venture, which ruled out a purely oceanic route west from Europe to the East Indies.

Paterson’s mega-brain realised, however, that a route need not be purely oceanic. The Isthmus of Darien (you know it as Panama), for some reason not yet properly colonised by the Spanish, was narrow enough to transport goods overland. If rival powers controlled the eastern route, Scotland’s response, the strategic thrust which would reverse their economic misfortune, must be to forge a western one. They would colonise Darien.

Strategically, this was a brilliant, visionary idea, which would eventually result in the Panama Canal, one of the key trade arteries of modernity. But strategy does not exist in the abstract, divorced from opportunity and operational constraints. If you are, say, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, attempting to prop up Austria and Poland as a bulwark against possible Russian aggression makes a great deal of strategic sense. If you are, say, me, it would not.

Paterson was convinced that Spain hadn’t touched the isthmus because they were blind to the possibilities of global trade, instead obsessing over relieving their possessions of material wealth. Darien, he insisted, was perfect:

[The harbours], he averred, were capacious and secure: the sea swarmed with turtle: the country was so mountainous that, within nine degrees of the equator, the climate was temperate; and yet the inequalities of the ground offered no impediment to the conveyance of goods. Nothing would be easier than to construct roads along which a string of mules or a wheeled carriage might in the course of a day pass from sea to sea. The soil was, to a depth of several feet, a rich black mould, on which a profusion of valuable herbs and fruits grew spontaneously ... the isthmus was a paradise.

Scotland threw itself into Paterson’s scheme in a sort of mania. July 1698 saw five ships outfitted and sent to the Caribbean with twelve hundred colonists (and several more desperate stowaways) aboard. It took them four months to cross the Atlantic and make landfall off what they christened the land of ‘Caledonia.’ The Company of Scotland’s rising sun had a home.

All appeared to be going well. The colonists entrenched themselves on the peninsula of New Edinburgh, building a town, fortress and watchtower. The natives, enemies of Spain, happy to encourage any rival power, supplied the new arrivals with food. Letters sent home talked of plentiful provisions, a healthy climate and the unexpected discovery of gold mines in the interior. In August 1699 four more ships were dispatched to join burgeoning colony.

They couldn’t find it.

The Darien Scheme had been doomed from the outset. While Spain didn’t have an active presence on the isthmus, it controlled the area and was totally unwilling to tolerate a foreign presence threatening its colonial wealth. The Dutch and English, meanwhile, were totally unwilling to provoke the Spanish in support of an enterprise that was actually aimed at themselves. The colonists had to face the Spanish response alone.

Meanwhile, the reports of New Edinburgh’s paradisical qualities had been vastly overstated. The anchorage in the Bay of Caledonia was nowhere near as good as had been reported. There was not enough food, and what little there was didn’t agree with the colonists. Natives of the actual Caledonia suffered in the tropical heat and perished daily from malaria. The letters home were an exercise in denial and misdirection. The colony had failed with great loss of life, and the survivors had evacuated to the English colonies in North America.

All of this came as a surprise to the ships sent to join New Edinburgh. Eventually the reinforcements discovered the ruins of those who’d gone before them, rebuilding as best they could. Since this expedition was intended to resupply an existing colony rather than creating a whole new one, they were not equipped to do so, leaving New New Edinburgh even worse off than it was before. Everyone had a pretty bad time.

And then the Spanish showed up.

In Charles II’s opinion, which counted for a bit, the isthmus was rather less available than Paterson and his hangers-on had believed. Spain had been in possession of Darien for hundreds of years. It was from the isthmus that the Pacific had first been sighted, in 1513. The reason that there wasn’t an actual colony there is because it was a malaria-ridden hellhole which would almost certainly kill any European stupid enough to try living there.

Just to make sure, though, the Empire sent 11 ships and a whole army to stamp out the scheme once and for all. The besieged, succumbing to the same afflictions which had wiped out the first wave of colonists, had no strength or stomach for a fight. They opted to surrender. Here one more problem manifested itself: despite the aim of planting a colony in the heart of Spanish America, nobody involve thought it would be a good idea to bring along a Spanish speaker.

The Darien Scheme was dissolved as it deserved, in broken and barely comprehensible Latin, against a background of farce and death. The fallout of the collapse was so severe that within ten years Scotland had been forced to acquiesce to the Act of Union, joining itself to England to form the United Kingdom. In partnership with their new colleagues, they got more competent at the whole ‘colonialism’ thing.

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