#there are many things i could and probably should say about colonialism here

[icryyoumercy]

@nimblermortal

first, because these things are important nowadays, i am not a medical professional, this is not professional medical advice, the WHO has helpful information about malaria, when living or travelling in a region where malaria happens, mosquito repellent and appropriate protective gear are mandatory and non-negotiable, and so on

quinine is made from tree bark, which makes it one of the two medically useful things made from tree bark i know of, and also makes me wonder how people learn these things. were they just. walking around biting random trees. is the desire to chew on tree bark just part of what makes humans human.

it has initially been used as a muscle relaxant by the quechua people, to treat uh. random shivering? which is apparently a thing people sometimes do? which i could look into, but then i'd probably get distracted

the spaniards brought it back to europe, as they did with so many things, and because things like germ theory and microbiology and chemistry were still centuries from being discovered, what people knew of malaria was that it causes fever and thus shivering with very noticeable periodicity. and they had just been told about a thing that can stop shivering, so might as well give it a shot. if the symptoms are all you are aware of, the symptoms are all you can treat.

and for some utterly baffling reason, it turned out it didn't just help against shivering, it actually cured malaria? which. wasn't what anyone was aiming for, but gift horses and all that.

rome, being located very conveniently in a swamp, and having a rather inconvenient amount of popes and other people important to the catholic church, was perfectly located to pioneer such treatment and make a great many of the rich and powerful (and thus by advertisment of word of mouth and rumor everyone else) want some more of this marvellous drug, which made quinine (that is, the bark it's extracted from) one of peru's most important stolen goods

then, of course, a lot of fucked up colonialism happened (including in africa, because it's hard to do colonialism while dying of malaria), because europeans were unwilling to engage in things like fair and equal trade with non-europeans, we get fun medical price gouging and attempts at monopolies and general unpleasantness, and someone finally managed to isolate the exact chemical compound instead of just grinding up the bark and mixing it with something that tastes better than tree bark

and around the 1940s, malaria treatments with fewer unpleasant side effects were discovered (which i know nothing about and won't look up because adhd), and by 2006 the WHO has declared that quinine shouldn't be used as the first choise in treating malaria for a variety of reasons, including resistant strains and aforementioned side effects

also, if you're really curious about the taste, tonic water is traditionally made with quinine, and has been used as a prophylactic against malaria. once it wasn't used for that purpose any longer, though, people have decided to add less quinine and more sugar and citrus because they didn't enjoy just how incredibly bitter that stuff was. also, the FDA says you can't have more than 83 ppm of quinine per liter of tonic water, so if you wanted to treat malaria with it, you'd need to drink some ten liters per day, and if you want to use it for prevention, you'd need around 20 liters per day, at which point malaria seems like the better option

what tonic water can help with, on the other hand, is muscle cramps! not sure how much of that is the quinine and how much is the placebo effect, but at that point, we're back to readily available and comparatively harmless

either way, in the 1860's, it was one of the few actually working medical things (along with chloroform and diethyl ether for general anaesthesia, and opium for pain relief), so they will throw it at anything that has even the slightest ressemblance to periodic fever (to be fair, a number of other things they did also had the required medical effects, they just ran afoul of paracelsus's basic adage of toxicity

Alle Dinge sind Gift, und nichts ist ohne Gift; allein die Dosis macht, dass ein Ding kein Gift ist. All things are poison, and nothing is without poison; the dosage alone makes it so a thing is not a poison.

—Paracelsus, 1538

by reaching the poisonous dosage at the same or a much earlier point than the therapeutic dosage)

[alpaca-clouds]

Some historical context for Olrox

Okay, let me prephase this with one important message: Castlevania Nocturne made me really happy by making the plot all about colonialism, as colonialism and its fallout and how it influences us to this day is a topic that I am very passionate about. We do not talk enough about it. The US does not talk enough about it because it could make white people feel uncomfortable. And here in Germany we do not talk about it, because we act as if this had nothing to do with us at all.

But the show talks about it and I love it.

And I honestly also gotta say that I love that the BI_PoC character have a concrete cultural heritage. Olrox is Aztec, Annette is Yoruba, and Drolta is Egyptian. Other shows: Please take notes!

But let's talk Olrox, because he is so fucking interesting and amazing!

We know about him that he is Aztec and also that he is 250 years old. Or roughly that old by the time he kills Julia. Which would put either his birth or his turning somewhere around 1530.

Now, the fall of the Aztec Empire has a very exact date: August 13th, 1521. But you should keep in mind that this does not mean that on that day the Aztec's are extinct. To this day there is still 1,5 million people speaking Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs, and preserving some of the Aztec cultural traditions. It was just that on that day the empire construct fell to Cortez and the Spaniad conquistadors and a lot of Aztecs went into exile to flee the genocide that Cortez was bringing upon them.

The question of course is: Was Olrox still human at this time or was he already a vampire? From his dialogue it is clear that he was at least alive and grown enough to remember the fall of the empire and the distruction Cortez and his men brought upon them. But you can bet it was very traumatic.

I also am assuming he was turned by a white man. Because so far my assumption is that vampirism is an old world thing that got brought to the new world through colonialism. (Mostly because in Dracula's court we do not see any new world vampires.)

Now, the other interesting thing is what he says about his dead lover. The one Julia killed. So, first the "town in Massachusetts" he speaks about is clearly Stockbridge. Which was the town in which many Mohicans have settled during the colonial times, as well as other people from the Iroquois Nations. Now, it should be noted that the Mohicans were not part of the Iroquois alliance and in fact went to war with the Iroquois, but by the time colonialism really geared up there was some cooperation between the Mohicans and Iroquois.

Due to this they were in an alliance with the Oneida (who were part of the Iroquois) by the time of the Revolutionary war. Now, the Revolutionary War created a lot of conflict between the Iroquois nations, because they did not agree which side they should fight on. Of course both sides promised that they could keep their land, but the Mohawk, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca did not trust the colonists and hence sided with the British, while the Oneida and Tuscarora (and through them also the Mohicans) sided with the Colonists.

And the dead lover clearly was among those siding with the colonists. Now, a quick refresher for the non-Americans (and the Americans who slept to history class, which is understandable). The Revolutionary War lasted from April 19, 1775 to September 3, 1783 (which, yes, also means that Julia and Richter probably were in the US during the war the entire time and the "evil" Julia was fighting probably was linked to it). And of course we all know how it ended for the Indigenous people: The colonists won, countless Indigenous folks died on both sides, only to get booted of their land soon after. The Oneida und Mohicans were made to move westwards not soon after the war ended. So, yes, Olrox would have seen that happen.

Now, an interesting thing in his dialogue was when Erzebet said: "We will create a new world." To which he replies: "I have heard that one before." And she says: "This time we are going to make it to last."

And the big question is to what this is refering. Is it refering to the colonialization or is it refering to the revolutionary war? Or something entirely different. In both cases it would be possible. And yes, the American Revolution definitely were claiming to create a new world. But was it that what he refered to or something else?

Well, never the less: Interesting character. Really good writing.

[a-queer-seminarian]

I've been reading up on some of the resources you've provided regarding christian zionism for a while now but apologies that I'm still a little confused here and there.

i have a question, i was wondering what we can say to counter the ,chosen people and promised land, argument because a lot of what counter argument that would be given back is that the bible is absolute, God's word and should not be contended. how do we counter these absolutionist to show that what is happening is wrong but at the same time that we do still respect, love and believe in God?

at some point i do wonder if it is worth fighting it to those who are obviously unwilling to change their stance? and if the energy is better spent elsewhere instead?

To start with your last question, yes, I do think there comes a point when you realize you cannot change someone's mind, and you are wasting time and energy you could better spend elsewhere. (And if this is the kind of person who responds to any argument you could possibly make with "Well this is just what the Bible says," that's always a good clue they probably aren't very open to change.)

My tactic when this happens is to say something like "It's clear you aren't willing to hear another perspective right now, so I am going to end this conversation. But if something happens down the line that makes you more willing to consider my side, hit me up." That way they have somewhere to go if by some miracle they one day want to learn more, but I won't use up all my energy on them now when it's clearly useless.

You may come up with a different tactic, but whatever you want it to be, it's def good to consider it before a situation arises!

That being said, for other folks it is possible to get through!

I answered an ask over on my other blog with suggestions for talking to a friend who takes that "the Bible says Israel is a blessed nation" stance. One thing I suggested was choosing language that frames things as a conversation, not an argument; here's a bit from that pasted here:

For instance, in the scenario where she said “the Bible says we should always stand with Israel,” responding immediately with “no it doesn’t!!” would shut down conversation.

Instead, you might start with open-ended questions the two of you can explore together: “I wonder what the Bible means when it talks about Israel. Would the biblical authors recognize today’s Israel as being the Israel they were talking about? / Is the Israel of today the same as the Israel of the Bible?” “What does it mean to you to ‘stand with Israel’?” “Does that have to require sending them extreme military weapons?”

If they're open to pondering those questions informally together, at some point you might be able to share some further information. I highly recommend Christian Palestinian theologian Mitri Raheb's book Decolonizing Palestine, which includes (mostly in its second half) an interrogation of how people interpret the concept of biblical election or chosenness.

I have a detailed summary of his book at this link; I'll paste the pertinent parts below:

First off, in the book's intro, Raheb notes how conflating Israel the modern state and the "biblical" Israel has been an intentional part of Israeli propoganda since its founding (he explores this further in his history chapters):

“The settler colonial nature of the State of Israel is obvious, and the reality on the ground is crystal clear. The situation is not ‘complicated’ as some claim in order to blur the issue. International law is decisive on this issue, as the many UN resolutions testify. Yet, biblical passages and terms such as ‘divine rights,’ ‘land promise,’ ‘Judea,’ and ‘chosen people’ are constantly repeated to bestow the colonization of Palestine with biblical legitimacy and thus political legality. This terminology is used in church circles, popular events, as well at the highest political levels like the UN Security Council.”

His third chapter hones in on the theme of land — its centrality in scripture, and its centrality in the modern occupation of Palestine. How is this theological theme exploited as ideology? What are some decolonial Palestinian readings? Ultimately, how do we liberate theological minds from their invisible colonization?

Toward a Decolonial Theology of the Land

We need our theology to pay more attention to the geopolitical situation of Palestine, which includes the two hermeneutical keys of the land and the native people

Palestine has always been a land on the margins of three continents and “five regional powers that have determined its fate”; constantly getting pushed and pulled by these greater powers, constantly forced to adjust identity and boundaries within a changing context: “Adjustment, resistance, and liberation from occupation is a connecting thread of Palestine’s history from the second millennium BC until today”

Palestinian Jews have always been part of the native “people of the land” — but settler colonial Zionists are not part of the people of the land; “They are invaders and subcontractors to empires.”

Palestinians today who don’t fit a European framework are silenced, not considered dialogue partners — this includes Muslim Palestinians and Palestinian Christians, along with native, anti-Zionist Jews and Samaritans. But their experiences — “their suffering under occupation, their aspiration for liberation, their struggles and hopes” — are the kinds of voices that the Bible holds: “the Bible is the book that contains these voices, the voices of the colonized, not the colonizers.”

Finally, we get to chapter 4: Chosen People?, which hones in on biblical election and how it “constitutes a theological dilemma for the Palestinian people.” Ultimately he concludes,

“While the original context of chosenness was a feeling of powerlessness in the face of empire, chosenness today must be sited within the context of European nationalism, settler colonialism, and American exceptionalism.”

Raheb reminds us about the four distinct Israels:

The relatively short-lived Northern Kingdom of Israel

Biblical Israel as abstract theological concept describing “God’s people”

“Ancient Israel” as a modern construct “that confuses certain aspects of the biblical story with history, thereby projecting an exclusive ethno-national and religions state into the Bible”

Modern entity called the State of Israel

All these must be distinguished from each other, from Judaism, and people of Jewish faith

General issues with “election”

“Who is elected: individuals, a group of people, a nation? “Israel”? How do we define “Israel”? A race? A religion? A state? The church?”

And what does election mean for the un-elect? - 17th century Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza wondered if it even makes sense for God to divinely elect a particular group of people: “Can we, who live in a post-Enlightenment era of human rights and fundamental equality between people, believe in a God who discriminates between people, with some being elected, and others not elected or even some elected to be damned”? .

Palestinians are equated with un-elect biblical peoples — either: - The Philistines, enemies of “Israel” - The cursed Canaanites - Descendants of Ishmael (along with all Arabs), giving them a “lesser theological status” than the descendants of Isaac, i.e. the Israelies

“While some Christians may sympathize with the humanitarian situation of Palestinians, their emotional and theological bond remains with Israel because they are seen as God’s elected people with a unique entitlement.”

Here’s Raheb’s own decolonial perspective on election:

The Bible must be read as story, not history.

“God’s own story cannot be confined to such a short period of the universe’s history or reduced to one region, or, as a matter of fact, to one planet. God’s story is not the exclusive story of people with God.”

The Bible is the story of people with God — particular people with particular cultural and geographic backgrounds

Jews, Christians, and Muslims continue to relate to this particular story, but it’s not self explanatory; it needs to be retold and reinterpreted

We can respect different groups’ experiences of being “chosen” without making these beliefs ideology or treating them as objective facts

The biblical story is particular, but it “made history because of its relevance to the diverse contexts of imperial hegemonic oppression worldwide” — the Bible helps many find meaning in the face of empire - “This is why election can never mean entitlement to a particular land or people” — within scripture, we see that God’s interest is not only with one people.

“[E]lection is God’s business, and no one has a monopoly over it. God’s salvation surpasses all understanding, and God remains the God of surprises that all our theological systems cannot contain.”

Bringing in the geopolitics of the biblical story

“The region of Palestine was too small and lacked the geographical location and resources to develop into an empire;” instead its fate was dictated by the five empires that surrounded it

This peripheral existence is the “background behind the notion of election” — it’s a promise to the disenfranchised and the desperate, those crushed by Empire.

“Election was and will always be a statement of faith; it is solely a promise…to those weak and powerless.”

Later — when the northern region became Samaria and the southern region became Judaea — this notion of election would be weaponized to give one group religious entitlement over the other. .

We must “always keep in mind these two different and opposed religious utilizations of the notion of election: one as a message of hope for the weak and devastated, and one as a tool for religious and national ideology.”

[alexanderwales]

Book Review: Time to Orbit: Unknown

My habit of putting colons in my review titles bites me for the first but probably not last time.

Spoilers for the whole thing follow, and I think you should take that seriously, because this is largely a mystery. I'm going to assume that you read it.

Time to Orbit: Unknown is a scifi web serial by Derin Edala. The meme pitch is that this is a Very Normal Spaceship where Nothing Goes Wrong. The more conventional pitch is that our protagonist Aspen Greaves wakes up from chronostasis on a damaged colony ship with no crew in sight and has to figure things out from there.

I read TTOU basically straight through, binging rather than getting weekly installments, and some of this review will probably reflect that. Pacing is a difficult thing to start with, but it's way more difficult when you're trying to pace for two different audiences who are receiving the text in very different ways. As a binge reader, I thought the pacing was mostly fine, though did suffer a little from being formatted for serial chapters, particularly the implied cliffhanger ending to most chapters e.g. "I could only hope that everything would be fine ...". There's also a little bit of reiteration, where characters are going over what the open questions and issues are, which felt to me like it was in service of the weekly reader. As a binge reader, it was often just going over things I had read half an hour ago.

TTOU starts as a mystery. Why was Aspen woken up with no one to help them with chronostasis? Why is there no crew? Why have they been chosen to become captain in spite of their nearly complete lack of qualifications? Why are the crew dead? Where are the dead bodies?

As a mystery, the starts off really well, with a nice sequence of reveals and further questions. Aspen talks to the ship's AI, goes on some adventures around the ship, gets answers and more questions, and we gradually learn just how many weird problems this ship has.

Eventually though, the story starts running into a problem, which is that too many pressing problems get solved, and the ticking clock stops ticking. This isn't great for the pacing, and the sense of momentum temporarily leaves the story, especially because these big questions have been what's propelling it forward. As soon as it feels like we're not unraveling those, my interest started to wane. This was particularly true when characters would say "well, that's actually not a problem right now, guess we'll figure it out later".

Aspen doesn't stay alone for terribly long, and soon starts reviving other people from chronostasis, which is where we get the rest of our cast of characters from. I enjoyed these additions, though this is also the part where the serial gets very talky. There are, of course, some mysteries associated with the new crew, and I think here is where I need to talk about how TTOU handles mysteries.

To my mind, mysteries are at their best when there's a singular moment when everything snaps into focus. I like epiphanies, not necessarily from the characters, but from myself. The pieces have been presented to me, and in theory I could have solved it early on my own, but instead I get to solve it concurrently with the final piece being pushed into place. A good mystery author dangles the mystery in front of you, feeds you pieces, and then gets you to share the epiphany or at least feel smart when the protagonist rips off the villain's mask or whatever.

TTOU sometimes does this in exactly that way. There were a handful of times when I thought to myself "ah ha!" right at exactly the correct moment, which is just prior to the reveal after I had been led there by the nose.

There are other times when the reveal doesn't feel like things are snapping into place, it comes with caveats and bumps and occasionally, an admission that this was not actually a mystery at all. I might be projecting here, but writing a web serial is hard, and sometimes I would get a whiff of either course correction or bailing out. I'm tempted to go through everything I would label a "mystery" and then go through resolutions one by one, but I think that would require a partial reread of the story, would possibly not be illuminating, and might just be a matter of my own personal preferences and experience of reading. I'll give two examples though:

There's an enduring mystery of what killed off the crew of that gets locked at the front of the ship. This is one of the first mysteries in the book, and it doesn't get its resolution until very far in: they got pneumonia and don't have the medicine to treat it. While their deaths do feel like they're treated as a mystery, the reveal is not treated as much of a reveal, in spite of how longstanding the mystery was. It makes sense, but nags at me, like there was a mystery there that turned out to be a red herring. (This is probably a matter of signaling, though I'm not entirely sure.)

The captain went through and killed a bunch of sleeping colonists with an ax. His initial motivation for doing this is explained as just psychosis, and later, explained as him fighting the AI, which has been taking over the brains of colonists for use in compute. We get some additional context that his husband has been secretly put on the ship, and if the AI continued, it was going to kill him (or possibly, he was already dead). This ... still kind of doesn't work for me, as it sort of makes sense, but it doesn't feel like my understanding snapped into place. It's like someone told me the answer to the riddle and I said "eh, I guess" rather than "ah, right, that was it all along". Partly the captain is crazed, acting on emotion more than with a plan. It makes the resolution of his motivations hit a lot less hard. (I think this is at least partly an issue of how the resolution is delivered, or how it all unfolds. Maybe I would have wanted to get in the captain's head more. There are decent beats in that plot, but as a mystery it felt a little meh.)

The titular unknown time to orbit is caused by an engine problem, and this felt like a mystery, until quite late in the story someone said "oh yeah, I looked at the engine and I guess it just failed or something". It looked like a mystery, and felt like it was treated as a mystery, but it turned out to just be nothing, which made all the fuss made about it retroactively feel pointless. (Technically this is tied into future issues, but it's still essentially just an accident that no one actually intended, and felt really arbitrary and pointless to me, especially given it's one of the first mysteries we learn of.)

Overall, the various mysteries are hit and miss for me, and became more miss than hit toward the middle of the book (or what feels like the middle of the book, I'm not going to go through and get word counts).

The problems start with the revival of new crew members, particularly Captain Sands, who becomes captain due to his ranking within the AI systems. He immediately becomes a soft antagonist, and Aspen immediately takes a back seat in terms of agency. More people get revived, and they have their own stories, and then there's a hard pivot into a murder mystery, and ... this is where I sat and thought for a bit about whether I wanted to continue reading.

I think there was some good character work in the murder mystery arc, but it felt like there were too many characters, and I cared about too few of them, and our protagonist wasn't doing all that much proactive about anything. I didn't care about the victims, and the only reason I found the question of their murder compelling was the idea that this tied into some larger plot, that it would reveal some of the outstanding questions about the ship.

The resolution to what I'll call that middle chunk of the book seemed to me to be a soft reset, and I found it very welcome. The "new crew" were all dead, some old plots got somewhat messy wrapups, and we were very clearly off to new horizons. I don't have any idea if that's how it was written, but it came off as "alright, let's go back to what works".

And the good news for me was that there were more mysteries, this time as the crew reached the planet they'd been aimed at. From then on, I liked basically everything again. There's a big ask that happens in the middle, and conventional wisdom is that your scifi is Like Earth Unless Noted and that you should put your notes at the start ... but I was interested enough that I didn't mind it in this particular case.

The new planet is already settled, you see, and the how and why of that is fun to explore, as well as sort of making sense of a few earlier things that were pointed out. And the settlers have their own weird societies with their own mores and quirks, and there are culture clashes, and mysteries, and ...

For the most part, I found the sociology stuff more interesting than the mysteries. I wanted to know how these weird new people worked, how they organized their settlement, what their tax policy was like, how they made their houses and what they did in their leisure time. Thankfully, the book seemed as interested in this as I was, and while there are places that I think some readers might have found it to be "slow", I really did enjoy all the time and effort spent on describing these people and how they operated given their circumstances.

I don't know how well this all works in terms of resolutions. At least some of the outside threat is treated almost like a joke, and while there was some tension, it wasn't the sort of tension/release dynamic that I like in my stories, just tension followed by things going right in spite of that tension, with not much feeling of climax. I didn't particularly mind that though. And in the end the ship gets retrofitted, and Aspen becomes the new AI, and it all felt to me like it fit, even if there's quite a bit of fridge logic about why they couldn't just stay on the planet, and what a slow death as a generation ship might look like.

So all in all, I think I enjoyed the story, if less than I hoped I would. The beginning was a banger, made retroactively a little weaker by some of the resolutions to the mysteries. The middle was a slump, but after the soft reset, I was much more enamored with the story, and glad that I didn't actually put it down. I liked it better when it wasn't trying to be a mystery, when it was about the characters and the engineering, the vibes and an interesting future.

(It probably suffers a little bit from me comparing it to the last "woke up on a spaceship with dead people and no idea what's going on" book I read, Project Hail Mary, which was not written under the constraints of webfic.)

[thethirdromana]

In honour of Doctor Who's 60th birthday, here are 60* things that I like about less popular** Doctor Who stories.

(*in multiple posts because I'm falling foul of the character limit)

(**IMDB rating of less than 7/10)

1. Susan is great in The Sensorites. She's at her absolute best in stories like this where she gets to be genuinely a bit alien and a bit weird.

2. "So," said someone at the BBC, "we're going to produce an allegory for different political systems, using insects. Choreographed by a mime artist. On a budget of about £2.50." The Web Planet might not entirely have succeeded, but my god, you have to love that they tried.

3. They introduced Jamie, the best companion, in The Highlanders! How is does this have less than a 7/10 rating, what is wrong with you people. It's Jamie.

4. I applaud the utter bonkersness of The Underwater Menace, and Patrick Troughton really gives it socks.

5. The Wheel in Space is proper 60s sci-fi: Servo-Robots, x-ray lasers, radio beams! I can practically smell Penguin mass-market paperbacks thinking about it. And with the introduction of Zoe, it completes my all-time favourite TARDIS team.

6. The Dominators contains the Quarks, who are adorable. They weren't supposed to be, but it doesn't matter.

7. Zoe is still relatively new to the TARDIS, but she has heaps to do in The Krotons. Nice having a female companion who's written as smart and capable.

8. We have entered the 70s, so with Colony in Space, we get Social Issues. Especially an Evil Mining Corporation, which are always fun.

9. More Social Issues in The Mutants, but this time they're paired with big sci-fi ideas. Ancient tablets! Strange life cycles! Love how much is going on here.

10. The Time Monster is like the Eurovision of Doctor Who. Deeply silly, but what would Doctor Who be without silliness? I'm sorry about Jo's coccyx too.

11. I love that they returned to Peladon in The Monster of Peladon, especially with the 50-year time jump. I'd like to see that kind of follow-up more often.

12. Is it not cool to love K9 any more? Well, I like my Doctor Who with a dose of silliness, and The Invisible Enemy delivered that. Every time traveller needs a robot dog.

13. The design of the Seers in Underworld is excellent, I love a brass dome.

14. Doctor Who doesn't have enough giant squidmonsters looming on the horizons. I'm glad the The Power of Kroll does something to address the deficit.

15. The Creature from the Pit gave us the line "a teaspoon and an open mind", and I appreciate it for that at least.

16. Romana wears one of her best of many splendid outfits in The Horns of Nimon.

17. I liked all the arch dialogue between the Doctor, Enlightenment and Persuasion in Four to Doomsday.

18. Heathrow airport is an underrated setting. I also appreciate how Time-Flight prominently features Concorde, making it far more 80s than they could ever have planned.

19. I don't intend this to be damning with faint praise (even though it probably sounds like it) but my favourite thing about Arc of Infinity is that we get a little jaunt through 80s Amsterdam. I do love a tram.

20. Babyfaced Martin Clunes doing his spoiled princeling thing in Snakedance is enjoyably disconcerting.

21. Terminus is tense and scary and bleak. Another one that I'd expected to be more highly rated.

22. Warriors of the Deep gives us a very solid base under siege. Silurians + Cold War is a winning combination.

23. Landing in a modern village doing a historical re-enactment in The Awakening is a witty touch.

24. I can’t say I enjoyed the idea of the Doctor’s violent moods in The Twin Dilemma, but I have to commend it as a punchy way to introduce the new regeneration.

25. The Mark of the Rani should surely get some love just for introducing the Rani: camp, delightful, iconic.

26. Herbert turning out to be HG Wells in Timelash is a lovely twist and handled well.

27. The Trial of a Time Lord is so grand and ambitious. If the show hadn't been struggling in general at this point, it would be among the all-time greats.

28. With its colour-coded gangs and faux-urban slang, Paradise Towers is gloriously of its time in a way that currently feels quite naff, but that I suspect will be fascinating to revisit in about 30 years.  

29. Delta and the Bannermen is action-packed and has one of the best titles in 80s Who.

30. Possibly the most terrifying moment in all of Doctor Who is Kane's face melting in Dragonfire. This series is nothing if it doesn't send children running for safety behind the sofa.

31. Got to love it when Who gets aggressively anti-Thatcher, and they never did it more than in The Happiness Patrol.

[drdemonprince]

Dear dr. Price,

A follower pointed out your book Unmasking Autism to me and said it was a life-saver. I have put in on my birthday wishes list.

According to lists on the net, I am supposed to reflect on whether I am behaving in a way that is aims at others' needs or my own and so on. This is precisely my problem. I am closer to 50 than to 40 and have probably been masking for over 40 years. How can I know what type of behaviour is learnt? What is ingrained? Is it possible that I have passed the window where I can still find natural conduct?

If you could see your way clear to answer my concern, I should be much obliged.

Kind regards,

Maarten

Hi Maarten!

Thank you so much for your question. While I understand deeply the desire to try and sort out which elements of yourself are naturally you and which elements are learned behaviors linked to a lifetime of trauma, in actuality there is no separating them. There is only one you. You have only lived one life, and it was the (at times very challenging and invalidating) life that you had. Humans are social beings, it almost makes as little sense to thing of humans in individual terms as it does to discuss ants without talking about colonies. Who we are is social, interpersonal, relational, and interactive.

The good news about that, however, is that who we are and how we feel can change, so long as our circumstances do. To some degree, masking and inhibition may always feel natural to you. I've been utterly fixated on unmasking both personally and professionally for years now, and while I've opened up a lot and learned many communication skills, my default mode of operating is still always to clench up. I will probably carry that reflex inside me for all of my life. That reflex has helped me. That reflex has saved me a great many times. It's just also hurt me and cost me a ton. And these days I try to accept all of that, and accept myself as the mutable, fragile, self-protective, sensitive being that I am.

I think it is far easier to focus on small behaviors and desires (and not-desires) than it is to worry too much about who we "really are" who we "would have been" in a completely alternate reality where we hadn't suffered the experiences that we have. Thinking about a fully liberated and unfiltered alternate self is enticing, I fantasize about who I'd have been in a better world all the time, but that person does not exist, and never did, and never ever would have.

Neurotypical are harmed by neuro-conformity pressures too. Capitalism, white supremacy, and the gender binary restrict how all people behave today pretty severely. Nobody lives fully free right now. This might sound bleak, but it's also a fact that unites us, and thinking about it gives me some hope. It helps me realize that I'm not uniquely boxed inside myself and separated from other people -- I'm suffering from the exact same forces that all people do, just in my own way.

I'm not uniquely broken. Neither are you. But we are irrevocably shaped by our life experiences. Instead of trying to change who we are, or find some inner true self, which is a daunting task, I think that instead, we can just practice saying no to things that make us uncomfortable, asking for the changes to our environment that we do need in order to feel comfortable, sharing what we feel, and taking time regularly to take stock of our lives and figure out what it is that we want and we wish for. It starts small.

Little phrases like "I don't like that," "I don't feel good," "I'm not interested in talking about that," "I'm going to go do something else," "Here's what i believe," "I don't agree with you," "I really need [thing]," and "I want to build a life with more room for [thing] in it" are some places to start. Truly, the more you get in the practice of saying such things, the better you get at noticing how you are feeling, and the more feelings and wants and not-wants you become able to self advocate for. It's not about becoming a new person, or throwing off the mask in one go. It's a skill, and anyone can develop a skill. You might as well make the rest of your life better. No amount of suffering in the past condemns you to needing to feel shitty about your desires forever.

[pigeontheoneandonly]

Storm Warning

Read on AO3

David Anderson barely glanced up as the shadow of an asari fell across the bar.  Asari crests formed a distinctive silhouette, even distorted by the poor lighting, and there was only one asari likely to come looking for him just now.

Menea didn’t request an invitation. Instead, she sat down and helped herself to his beer.  “To be frank, I expected I’d find you drowning in harder stuff.”

He grunted. The day’s events—hell, the month’s events—hadn’t left him in the mood for talk.

But Menea rarely needed any assistance to hold together a conversation.  “Not that I’m mourning your restraint.  At least you should be coherent.”

Events had left him short of patience, too.  With an edge, he said, “What can I do for you, Spectre D’Sorn?”

“Don’t fret. I’m not here to relive your humiliation. I’m here about a plan.”

Anderson snorted. “What plan?  Even your influence with the Council won’t outweigh failing my spectre evaluation to the tune of losing an entire colony.”

“One town. Don’t be dramatic.”  A hint of amusement crept in.  

He looked at her for the first time.  “This isn’t funny.”

“No, it’s not,” she said, switching to English as if to underline her point.  “Saren is a problem.”

“Don’t get me started.”  Actually, a big part of Anderson wanted nothing more than to get started.

She was pure exasperation. “I mean for the galaxy. The Council.”  Then, “No offense.”

That broke through his fog of morose.  “Now I am confused.”

“A few of us are talking about it.”  Meaning spectres.  “Quietly.” As if it could be discussed any other way, Saren being who he was, a spectre’s spectre, and a respected turian to boot.  

She fidgeted with the pint.  Probably figuring out what she could say openly, in this venue.  “Even for Saren, this was wild.  I have…concerns.”  

“Blinding hatred will make a man do strange things.”

“Maybe.” Doubtful.  “This was more than that.  Your presence meant he got to pin the mess on you.  But he couldn’t certain it would stick, not certain.  And the one thing Saren Arterius would never risk is his own reputation.  There’s some deeper motive.”

“What?”

She drank.  “That’s what’s keeping me up nights.”

“I’m not in a position to assist,” he said, shortly.  “Saren saw to that.”

“He did.” And there was an oddness to her tone, a piece falling into place.  “He eliminated the one sort of candidate not inclined to trust him on strength of title or reputation alone, because humans didn’t grow up enmeshed in galactic culture. Isn’t that perfect.”

It hadn’t struck him until then.  Slowly, he turned it over in his mind.  “Saren is a lot of things.  But I can’t picture him a…”

Traitor hung unspoken on the air.  Menea heard it just fine.  “Is there another human candidate?”

Anderson’s subconscious pushed forward an image, incongruous with the conversation—an eleven-year-old girl, absolutely incorrigible, with more gumption than half the Alliance marines, and currently ensconced in the limited family quarters aboard the Tai Shan.  It left him disconcerted.  

Menea fixed on his expression, misreading.  “There is someone.”

He shook it off, and shook his head.  Took back the beer and sipped.  “I can give you names, but it won’t help.  What you need now to get past the Council is a model soldier.  Perfect record.  No mistakes. No misjudgments.  Not even a whisper of insubordination or independent thought.  And if that soldier exists and if we find them, all that means is they won’t be capable of looking outside the box.”

“Which is a baseline requirement for special tactics.” She sighed.  

They sat in that defeated silence for several moments.  Then he cocked his head.  “Why do you believe me?  Most of my own command barely buys my story.  You never questioned it?”

She took a long drink, taking her time.  At length, she said, “I’ve examined your record in excruciating detail.  We’ve spoken to your skills, your personal and professional history, your mindset, your ethics, many times—officially and otherwise.  I’d like to think I’ve taken the measure of you.”

Menea rolled the glass between her palms.  “And you have integrity.  Maybe too much for us.  You’d lie to save your life, you’d lie to defend others, but over a matter of politics? No.  No, you’re not that sort of liar.”

“Saren is?” he asked on a hunch.

She drained the pint and set it down with a click, shoving back from the bar.  “Something’s not right.  Stay in touch.”

Then as she made to go, he said, “Thank you.”

Her gaze was very sober.  “Thank me when we win.  A storm’s coming, Anderson.  Attend to it because not enough of us will.”

And then like a shadow, she was gone.  

[jellybeanium124]

it's not anti semitic to be against zionism. Regardless of how zionism intended to start out (whether it had good intentions or not) its clear that today its movement is equivalent to extremism and white supremacy in other parts of the world. Its anti colonial to be against zionism.

I did not bring up israel or zionism or palestine in my post. you decided my post about how a lot of people on this website are being openly antisemitic is me calling out """antizionists""" (whatever you mean by that, because zionism and its converse have completely lost any meaning to me online because everyone means something different when they say those words). people are being antisemitic. I have seen so many posts that are like "when someone tells me they're jewish I just can't trust them anymore idk, what if they're a bad jew??" PEOPLE ARE BEING ANTISEMITIC. LISTEN TO JEWS. PLEASE, PLEASE LISTEN TO US. no one is listening. no one hears us when we cry out. no one cares. you all think we are lining up to suck netanyahu's dick and praise him for his political decisions. we're not. netanyahu is a fascist and the sooner he's removed from power (or dies, hopefully) the better for israelis and palestinians and just everyone.

why did you feel the need to immediately send me an ask like this? is it to defend yourself? is it to quell the idea that maybe you need to look inside yourself and check yourself for antisemitism? because if a goy these days ain't checking themselves, they will say or reblog or agree with something antisemitic. THE WORLD IS ANTISEMITIC. society is racist. society is sexist. society is homophobic. society hates jews. you grew up in society. you need to unlearn the jew hatred you were fed.

the free palestine movement and """antizionist""" movement have a nazi problem. not everyone in it is a nazi. I am for a free palestine. I've been a proponent of the two state solution before most people my age could locate palestine and israel on a map, because when you're jewish you have to know about these issues, and you have to know about them young. I've said this over and over. I keep telling you people I think palestinians should have their own free, peaceful, and democratic state, and you never fucking hear me. you disregard me saying that because it isn't enough. it won't be enough for you until I think israel should be destroyed too. but I will never believe that. israel gets to keep existing too, because otherwise half of my people will die. israel gets to exist despite it's horrible, terrible wrongs, same as america or britain or china. you don't get to call for the destruction of a country that contains half the world's jews. I will never be on the side of history that is calling for the murder of half of my people. we have to stick together. there's so few of us already. we haven't recovered from our most recent genocide.

I've probably been a bit rude and angry in this post. The past several months have been tiring, hard, and terrifying, that's my excuse. I know you, though, you're not some anon. I like your art. we were mutuals for a short stint, until you unfollowed me, probably because you don't like any of my opinions on i/p, which is your right. it's also your right to block me after reading this. I'll miss seeing your art. it's nice. I like the animatics you made, particularly the "I won't say I'm in love" one. it's a classic. it's sad, really, losing friends. not that I would call us friends, exactly. I don't think we ever spoke until literally right now. still, we run in the same group. I recognize you and you recognize me. so I will say one last thing as kindly as I can, because I don't actually like being mad. I don't like arguing. I don't like being blocked. None of this is fun.

Here it is: when a Jew talks about antisemitism, it is a gentile's job to listen.

Same principle as everything else. When Black people talk about racism, it is white people's job to shut up and listen. When queer people talk about homophobia, it is cishet people's job to shut up and listen. When disabled people talk about ableism, it's abled people's job to shut up and listen. No matter how much you want to speak up, no matter how much you want to counter what they're saying, no matter how much you want to argue with them, it is your job as someone not in that group to close your mouth and listen and think.

This can be difficult and uncomfortable. I say this from experience as I am not in every minority group ever. I've felt uncomfortable before listening to people in minority groups I'm not a part of talk about the bigotry they face. this doesn't make me evil, and it doesn't make you evil either. I'm not perfect. You're not perfect. Even the best allies fuck up sometimes.

Thank you for reading all of this. Genuinely, seriously, and from the bottom of my heart: thank you. This goes for any gentile reading this, not just Wen. Thank you, all of you.

[growing-yet-into-magic]

The United States of Cryptids by JW Ocker

Here are my horribly blurry photos. Behold.

Firstly: this book was written by the author who wrote the Salem book I read mid quarantine. I don't remember it being particularly exceptional. This book reads more as a reference book, which immediately makes it more tolerable than a rambling sort of narrative, and separates each region of the country to help further organize cryptid lore around the country.

However. LOOK at that block of text. It's formatted so tightly. It's not horrible to read, but in a tiny book...it's dense to look at. It's a lot. I wasn't pleased.

I forgot that people are more aware of the Jersey Devil now, so I was surprised to see the local mascot show up in the book. First off, when telling people how popular Jersey Devil iconography is, instead of naming a couple small sites and restaurants, you should probably point out that our hockey team is literally The Devils. I'm fairly sure that's our main export of Jersey Devil paraphernalia. It feels Relevant.

Secondly. There are two books on the Jersey Devil that I consider must reads. (The two books are The Secret History Of The Jersey Devil and here by The Jersey Devil by McCloy + Miller). Having read both of them, there are things the author missed that would have been GREAT to add. Without that context, the bulk of the books's description is a little...off.

My notes on the matter are:

The date is wrong. Or, more accurately, there IS no set date; Ocker gives us a definitive year for the Jersey Devil's birth, when the actual date for the events of the story depends on who's asking. There are only certain dates that are documented, and that includes a) The Magical Week, which is a week in which phenomena attributed to the Jersey Devil was published in newspapers for about seven days in NJ and PA, and b) That Time Napoleon's Brother Fucked Back Off To France (because he SWORE he saw the Jersey Devil). 1735 is a very specific date, and certainly not the only one attributed to the story. It feels disingenuous to add it very confidently to the story without further detail.

The book gets the Leeds family origins wrong— or, again, not quite correct. Ocker claims that the Leeds family was ostracized for being supporters of the British right to rule during the revolution, which ignores the way more relevant reason they were ostracized; the Leeds family owned a printing press and published almanacs that promoted astrology, which was considered evil occult knowledge at the time. There was a religious division in the community between the local Quaker population (against this) and the Leeds family (trying desperately to get on the ball of what the main man thought was a Hot New Science) after the book almanacs were published, which raised local tension pretty high. I could summarize this more but honestly just read The Secret History of the Jersey Devil book by Esposito and Regal; it's pretty thin anyway.

All the facts in the author's description are presented as if they're certain and true, BUT worded very vaguely as to obscure the actual situation: that there are many stories about the Jersey Devil instead of one carefully worded one. Instead of briefly mentioning different versions of different details that emerge overall, a pretty interesting story from an area famous for resisting colonial overtaking has been flattened down and ironed of all its cool details. Lame. He didn't even name the Magical Week, which has a name. Instead he just said "there was a week in 1909 in which a lot of stuff happened." It has a cool title!! Come on!! It was published in two different states!! Say its name!!

Also, respect the Pine Barrens more. They're an ecological wonderland. I'm also pretty sure they have the largest indigenous population in New Jersey. Add some respect when you say that name.

I can't do the same fact checking of every other cryptid in this book, obviously, as I lack similar expertise, but between this book and the author's Salem trip, I'm kind of over this author on the whole. I don't think I'll finish this book.

(I may skim it though.)

Best regards, readers;

[iheartgarrus]

N7 Month Day 30(!!!): Heritage

(AO3 Link - OMG! We're here! I made it! WE made it!! My end note from AO3 is going to go in a separate post on here because I do want to include it. For now, I hope you enjoy this feels-y piece about Calain [Shepard and Garrus's adoptive daughter]. Note that this is pretty much all about adoption-related themes.)

Calain Vakarian was turning 10 years old, and she had a decision to make.

She sat at the dining table staring at the datapad in front of her. On the screen were two holos of herself, taken staring straight at the camera specifically for this reason. Over one, she had drawn on colony markings identical to her father’s - her adoptive father’s - and on the other, she had drawn Invictus markings like the ones in the only holos she had of her birth parents, from their official Hierarchy ID records.

Carthidax and Mercia Veranis. Their names, birth dates, places of birth, and where they had lived when the Reapers came - that was all Calain really knew about them. She’d only been 3 when they died, and even though she still had dreams about Reapers sometimes, her mother and father were never there.

But… they were still her parents. And so were Garrus and Viola. So what was she going to do?

Neither Palaven nor Invictus was really home to her. She’d only been to Cipritine a few times to visit Grandpa Castis and Aunt Sol, and Invictus was just fuzzy memories from the group home before she came to live on the Citadel. But there were no Citadel markings - turians born there inherited them from their parents.

She idly zoomed in and out on each photo. It felt wrong to make a “pros and cons” list like she’d learned in school - this was too big for that. But if she couldn’t decide for the reason she was supposed to, maybe she’d just pick the ones she liked better. The ones from the part of Palaven that Dad was from were blocky, but a nice shade of blue - hers would be a little lighter to stand out on her dark brown plates. The Invictus markings were more elaborate. They were usually white, and they covered most of the person's face in precise shapes across their forehead, nose, chin, and mandibles.

She liked them both, really. They each tugged at her heart for reasons she couldn’t understand.

A distressed subvocal rumble started to rise in her chest, but she pushed it down, not wanting Dad to hear from the next room. They’d said this was her decision to make, and she didn’t want them to think she couldn’t handle it.

She sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. What else was there? There weren’t many turians from Invictus on the Citadel, so maybe she should try to fit in? The ones in her class were starting to wear their markings, and she hadn’t seen any yet. Then again, her parents were always saying not to worry about “peer pressure”.

Calain wished someone could tell her the right thing to do. She didn’t want to make her parents feel like she didn’t love them or wished she was still on Invictus. They said they would support her decision no matter what - that it was okay and even admirable to want to honor the place she was born.

She swiped the two holos aside for the moment and pulled up the few that the group home had sent - the only ones she had of herself on Invictus. None with her birth parents. Any of those that had existed were lost in the war.

Her mandibles trembled a little. She didn’t usually think about them - it was so long ago and she didn’t remember them anyway - but now, trying to make this decision, she wondered. She asked questions she’d never asked before.

Did they die saving her? Would they be happy with her new home?

The folder the photos were stored in was labeled the same as it had been when the home first sent it: “Calain Veranis - 2188”. Vakarian had only officially been her name for not even two years, but she would probably have it forever now. Someday Shepard too, even if Mom was nervous about it.

Would that have made Carthidax and Mercia sad?

She flicked back to the two side-by-side photos. This time she only needed a few moments to think before she shut off the datapad and went to the living room where her parents were watching a vid. Her nervous subvocals gave her away before she could say anything, and Dad paused the vid. "Hey, c'mere," he said, waving her over. "What's going on?"

They made room for her on the couch, but she stayed standing - she wanted to be able to see them both when she told them. "Um…" she started, twisting her fingers around each other. "I think… No, I know. I've decided. About the colony markings."

Mom smiled a little. "That's great, Calain! What did you decide?"

She took a very deep breath, her heart beating fast. "I want Invictus markings," she forced out all at once. Then, before Mom or Dad could react: "It's not that I don't want yours, Dad, or that I don't like Palaven. It's just that they're- I mean, my parents - my birth parents - they're gone and I don't have their name anymore, and I like having your name but I don't want it to be like- like they never existed, so I thought-"

"Hey, hey, slow down," Dad said gently, taking her hand and tugging her into his arms. She hadn't even realized her subvocals were so all over the place until he interrupted, but she eagerly accepted the hug. She felt Mom's hand rubbing her back too, and when she felt a little bit calmer, Dad pulled back to look at her. "You don't need to worry, sweetheart - we meant it when we said we'd support you no matter what. All that matters is that you're sure and that you took the decision seriously."

"And it's obvious you did," Mom added. "I think you've got a very good reason, wanting to honor them in some way, and I'm proud of you." She leaned over to kiss Calain's cheek and pulled her into a hug as well. "We love you so much, and so did they. It's okay that they're a part of you, too."

Calain wrapped her arms around Mom and squeezed hard, her subvocals buzzing with relief and love and safety. "Thank you," she said, her voice muffled in Mom's shoulder. "I love you guys, too."

[perfectlyvalid49]

Hey, I don’t mean to come across as confrontational or rude at all. I am not Jewish or Palestinian, but I would like to know a bit more about what you mean by “I’m a Zionist depending on your definition” thing.

As far as I’m aware, the definition (or at least a piece of it) is someone who thinks Israel is a valid country and that we shouldn’t bring back Palestine as a country. I also am very aware that many Jews who aren’t Zionist have been accused of being so by people who are upset about the Jews defending themselves from antisemitism.

So, I wanted to know what your definition of Zionism is and if you are a Zionist by your own definition. Just because I’d like my context on what you’re trying to say.

Again, not trying to rude and I’m really sorry if I ever came off that way in this ask. I also know that some anon asks are often cowardly, so even tho I didn’t mean anything bad by this ask, I’m also not doing it anonymously.

I hope you have a wonderful day and please, don’t rush to answer this, I understand you probably have a lot on your plate right now between usual responsibilities and the antisemitism that’s been going on

This did not come across as rude or confrontational at all, so no worries there! And I’m always happy to share information with people, so I like answering things like this.

There are a few problems with defining the word Zionism. The first, as you alluded to, is that some people will use the word “Zionist” to mean either, “Jew I don’t like,” “Jew who disagrees with me,” or “Jew who complains about antisemitism.” This is not what the word actually means, and I want to be clear, when it is used in this way it is absolutely a slur.

The other is that Zionism is a political ideology with a lot of sub-branches. Different branches hold different beliefs, so some Zionists are in favor of a two state (Israel AND Palestine) solution and some are not. It’s kinda like leftism that way – you can be an anti-capitalist leftist, a post-colonial leftist, an anarchist leftist, etc. People ascribing to those different types of leftism will disagree on a lot, but they’re all still leftists.

But that doesn’t give an actual definition of Zionism. I would say that to start, we should look at the origins of the political movement. You say that you are not Jewish, so I’m going to get into some history here that you may or may not be familiar with. I apologize if you know this already, but I don’t want to assume. I’ll keep it high level and you can google or ask me if you need more info.

Antisemitism has historically ALWAYS been a problem for the Jewish people. Sometimes it meant that Jews were treated as second class citizens, and sometimes it meant that Jews would be rounded up and killed. Back in the late 1800s things were getting particularly bad across Europe. In particular there were a series of pogroms against Jews in Russia, and there was the Dreyfus affair (basically a Jewish army officer was convicted of a crime he didn’t commit, and when evidence came to light that he was innocent, he was re-tried and *checks notes* found guilty again. Don’t worry, he was declared innocent 12 years after the original trial) in France.

Jewish intellectuals in Europe responded to all this by forming some new political ideologies. One was Bundism, which basically said that if we assimilate hard enough into the culture of the countries we live in, then they will stop bothering us. It was a very popular movement in Russia, Poland and Germany, but lost steam for some reason in the 1930s.

The other major Jewish political ideology formed at that time was Zionism. In its original form, Zionism was simply the belief that Jews should have their own state – a place where Jews could live with a guarantee that there would be no state sanctioned violence against them for being Jewish. And if you look at all the different sects of Zionism, that’s the one idea that they all have in common. Originally the Jewish state being in what is now Israel was not included in the definition of the movement, but it was added not too long after.

As for my definition of Zionism? I would say it goes something like, “The right for Jewish self-determination in their ancestral homeland.” And by that definition, yes, I am a Zionist. Having said that, I also believe that the Palestinian people also should have the right for self-determination in their homeland. The fact that these homelands overlap means that these two peoples will have to find a way to share the space – that’s the only way for a real, meaningful peace to be achieved.

[alpaca-clouds]

Solarpunk in Space?!

Let me talk about something, that is not necessarily a biome, but that kinda gets brought up in a lot of Solarpunk discussions. So I thought it would be a nice thing to end this week on. "If we had a Solarpunk society, should we still go to space?"

It might seem like a weird question at first, but there is reason to ask it. A couple of good reason, in fact.

Baring a space elevator (aka a technology that we know in theory how we could do that but that might or might not work in practice), going into space will always burn fuel and quite a lot of it. As such, it will always release greenhouse gasses. So, is it worth it to go into space?

What goal would we have going there? Do we just explore for explorations sake? Do we want to find life? How would we go about it, if we did? Do we want to have space colonies? If so: What for? There is a certain senselessness in it and for that it takes a ton of effort.

Maybe we should just focus on fixing everything on this planet first, before going to another planet.

There also is the issue, that if we think about space colonialization, we think of it as that: Colonialization. And maybe... That's not a good thing.

So, yeah, to paraphrase a certain fictional scientist: "You thought so much about how you could do it, that you never once stopped to ask yourself if you should."

Here is the thing: Yesterday we spoke about how humans are surprisingly bad at surviving in the ocean. But we are even worse at surviving in space. So, every bit of space exploration will always bring with it the risk of killing people involved. Which is... generally bad. But yes, there is undoubtedly the fact that there are some scientific endeavors that can only be explored in space for one reason or another.

There is the other thing, though. See, in our SciFi media we always imagine those space ships and space stations with all that artificial gravity. Something that leans more heavily on the Fiction part of Science Fiction. While, yes, we might be able to create something like gravity by rotating our space stations... this will not happen for space craft. So, yeah... It will involve a lot of floating and hence a lot of tight spaces.

Why tight spaces?

Well, if you made a place without gravity not tight but had air inside of it... You would run into the problem, that people would get stuck in mid-air, because they pushed themselves off without the right amount of force to overcome the drag. Or maybe they collided with something else, that counteracted their propulsion. And then they would just hover there, mid air, unable to do a thing.

Beause of that (and of course the need to use air sparingly) real life space craft are very, very tight.

What I am trying to say with this is... there might be some reason to go into space. Yes. To explore it further. Sure. But it will never be this great fiction that we see in so many SciFi shows.

If we had a Solarpunk society... Would they still do it? Well, yes, some of it probably. For the science. But I doubt that any Solarpunk society would ever do any sort of space tourism or something like that.

Like... Space is pretty awesome. Yes. But... Realistically speaking, it is not quite as cool as Star Trek or Star Wars would make you believe.

[princeoftherunaways]

2023 book recs! (to read and to skip)

inspired by @deanmarywinchester's incredible rec list and general reading reviews!

RECOMMEND:

The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells: I love you autistic androids. forever and ever. I'm pretending the adaptation is not happening bc I don’t think the screen can do it justice so I’m simply enjoying every single page of these books before there’s inevitable show Discourse. I love the plots and the dialogue and just like murderbot I too wish I could be left alone to watch my shows.

Something That May Shock and Discredit You by Daniel Lavery: this book has a couple excerpts on here that make the rounds and piqued my interest and holy shit. if you are trans and queer and probably autistic. read this book as fast as you can. I felt seen in every word and also. Absolutely read to filth.

The Traitor Baru Cormorant (the masquerade series) by Seth Dickinson: I think I finally started this series because of my bestie @ofbowsandbooks (as is the case with so many things) but who's to say. either way I read this towards the beginning of the year and have not stopped thinking about it since. if you read it. please listen to so much (for) stardust by fob. I cannot recommend the specific kind of damage it does to you while rotating baru and tain hu in your mind. just. tailored to me in so many ways (fantasy story about imperialism and masks and lying and the terrible power of math) so I do admit bias there.

Settlers by J Sakai: If you can only read a book or two about understanding why colonialism/capitalism is at the root of all evil...read this book. It's at the top of my general list of political nonfic recs (next to capitalism & disability by marta russell and border & rule by Harsha Walia). I like to describe it as a leftist pov of us history that pulls apart some of the liberal/white "optimism" of People's History of the US.

They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us by Hanif Abdurraqib: I think this was also based on an excerpt I saw on here. I finally started getting into memoirs/essay collections this year and WOW. I mean, even if that genre isn't your thing, you should still read this book. It's just so so good, and utilizes unique topics (particularly music, I love his FOB essay) to explore both small personal moments and larger existential issues.

The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon: This is considered a staple of anticolonial movements & education for a reason. Definitely helpful for understanding the global decolonial revolutions of the 1960s.

Decarcerating Disability by Liat Ben-Moshe: An incredible study of abolition from a disability lens. Clear (if a bit repetitive at times) but overall an engaging read that definitely brings a much needed addition to larger abolition texts.

Chain-Gang All Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah: I read this one after seeing @deanmarywinchester's posts about it. I read it in two days and it knocked me so hard on my ass. Especially as someone who was obsessed with the hunger games in middle/high school. Just. Wow. holy shit. we knew this already but abolish prisons police etc etc and also we have GOT to be done with tiktok. and alexas. and just being okay with casually reposting/consuming videos and images of violence against people of color and and and -

Exile & Pride by Eli Clare: transmasc disabled PNW crew rise up!!!! the trauma of growing up as all these things in a small rural town!!! I have very rarely felt so deeply seen and understood as when I was reading this book. It's heavy emotionally & topically, so warnings there. I did struggle a bit with it but only because of how deeply some of his story reflects my own.

Innocence & Corruption by Aiyana Goodfellow: This book and its author demand a fundamental shift from how we as a society view and treat children. If you are planning on having kids, have kids in your life, are a teacher, etc etc, cannot emphasize enough how important this book is to remind us that kids are people now, and they deserve autonomy, respect, and support.

Honorable Mentions:

he who drowned the world by shelley parker-chan : this was moved down a category only because the book before this one (she who became the sun) is literally just setup for this sneaky gut punch. So as a duology, could be stronger. this book as a standalone? Wow. There's some banger lines and concepts and characters in there. (Wang baoxiang. Just. Oh boy). Definitely fascinating in convo with baru cormorant, and I think a reason it's lower for me as well is because the lens of hwdtw is much more of an internal power turmoil than a study of imperalism, which I'm biased towards interest-wise. I read this purely because of @ash-and-starlight's incredible art, so please go check that out if you read the book - It is absolutely worth the read for their art.

the Black Jacobins by C L R James: I'm a french revolution bitch. it was a special interest of mine as a kid and got me invested in history. that said, we gotta talk about france's fuckery. which is to say, slavery/genocide/colonialism etc etc. This book is somewhat tricky to read at points, especially in keeping track of who's who, but a really incredible explanation of the beginning of Haiti's fight for independence. If you enjoy French or Caribbean history, anticolonial revolutions, and some of the nitty-gritty details of history textbooks, this is for you.

life under the jolly roger by Gabriel Kuhn: who here has seen black sails. (thee gay pirate show. Original edition.) strikes a good balance between an understanding of what pirates have/can/could represent, and absolutely clarity about their actual violence, legacy, and politics. Informative without being drawn in by the romanticism or dismissing its power completely.

the essential June Jordan: Politically relevant and also just lyrically beautiful poetry.

hell followed with us by Andrew Joseph White: trans horror fans w/ Christianity beef, this is for you. I am NOT a horror fan, but it was so well done and resonant with me that I stomached the gore for it and do absolutely recommend. if that’s your thing

DO NOT RECOMMEND:

the invisible life of addie larue by ve schwab: I love VE and am a bit of an apologist for her prose over plot bc her worldbuilding is always so cinematic to me, but this was such a frustrating waste of a brilliant concept. It was just...boring? Neither Addie nor Henry are particularly interesting (Henry's relatable, but again, not engaging as a character) and for someone who's been alive for a long time, I expected more unique flashbacks and worldbuilding. I expected the ten thousand doors of january, but this was not that, although I think at its soul it wanted to be.

the lies of locke lamora by scott lynch - Been meaning to read this forever since it was recommended a lot on here if you liked six of crows. I would say a similar setup (dickension fantasy) but that's about it. Characters aren't that likeable or clever, the action is slow, and I take issue with the ending.

unwieldy creatures by addie tsai - I so badly wanted this book to be good. It was not.

a day of fallen night by samantha shannon - It was fine, it's just such a long book I think time is better spent elsewhere, ya know?

provenance - second ann leckie book that i've finished unimpressed. despite murderbot being top of my list, this similar vibe of sci-fi did not strike me as one with such a unique clear voice. It just felt like a more inclusive version of many average space books.

[annefic]

What do you think Anne and Tim's political views are?

Am I even legally allowed to speculate about that?

With the background that:

1. I'm pretty sure Anne is not allowed to vote at all, and Tim's ballot should he cast one is his own private business like anyone else in a free country with fair elections

2. I am American and there is a lot about UK politics that strikes me as asinine posturing for clout or pure dee archaic nonsense (not that the US doesn't have these factors but our problems seem to stem less from them and more from the willingness of our politicians to sway their opinion based on whichever corporate CEO sucked their dick the hardest this cycle)

3. I am American and there is a lot about UK politics that I deliberately exercise my right to not have an opinion about because it doesn't affect me and it's not really any of my goddamn business. This includes republicanism, the Scottish and Northern Irish questions, colonial reparations and the Commonwealth's existence as anything deeper than a particularly bizarre sports league, etc.

4. Nothing in here is to be taken as reflective of my or anyone else's actual personal views. I am basically speculating about issues that largely fly over my head day to day and I may not have any of the context necessary to truly understand it. So if it sounds like I'm talking out of both sides of my ass it's probably because I am.

There are a lot of factors at play here.

The royal family, as many people have made a personality of pointing out over the past month, is basically the concept of The Establishment personified, and relies on a certain level of status quo being maintained in order to stay relevant or even keep existing at all. However, watching Anne one gets the feeling that she would be just as competent and probably more content as a relative nobody private citizen farmer. Which is to say - like others in the family before her - maybe she would be more neutral on republicanism than you'd expect, though I certainly wouldn't expect them to be proper Marxists or anarchists. Tim I'm not as sure about - on one hand choosing the military in general and the Navy in particular as a career, and possibly pursuing a route through it that put him close to the seat of power (I don't know if his posts on Britannia and as equerry were something he had to apply for or a voluntold situation) would seem to indicate he doesn't at all question the authority or purpose of the monarchy - but he has also been perhaps the best positioned of anyone to see the effect that the position has had on his wife and her family, so perhaps if he doesn't question its legitimacy he does at least question the wisdom of placing that responsibility on someone who never asked for it.

One of the few things we can say with certainty about Anne politically is that she does not take kindly to corruption and kickbacks (see: her history with the IOC) and I think this could have an influence on how she would vote were that an option for her, potentially leading her to choose someone with views she may not agree with just to get a corrupt official from the party she does support out of office.

Through her charity work, particularly the very "scrubbed in" approach Anne personally has taken, she and Tim have had the opportunity to gain a lot more perspective of what life looks like for the other half than most people with their level of wealth and privilege. Many people said of the late Queen that she was privately a lot less Tory and a lot more sympathetic to her Labour prime ministers than one would expect, and this may also ring true of Anne. Again, I don't expect them to be hard leftists, but it wouldn't surprise me if they are critical of the hardline Tory and UKIP (when that was a factor) policies as well. I think the fact that Anne tends to choose charities which are less paternalistic in their action and more about asking the folks on the ground what would materially improve their situation and then working on the practicalities to provide that is also an indicator of how she thinks about these issues.

We know Anne sings Flower of Scotland at rugby matches, but I have no idea how much of the baggage attached to that action she's even aware of, much less subscribing to. She and Tim clearly love the country, but whether that is in a sense of wanting it to self determine regardless of what that means in the end, or wanting to keep it around and accessible to them at any cost, is in no way clear.

As country landowners and "horsey set" members there are some peculiarly British social issues you would expect them to likely have a certain opinion on - foxhunting, badger control, land use and development, animal welfare, trade protection for domestic agriculture, etc. The question is how this set of issues would influence their overall voting patterns. There are a lot of places in the US where it has been common for a good 40 years to vote one way in the local elections and another way entirely in the national ones; I also know a lot of people whose generally more moderate views tend to get overrun by one single issue or by social pressure to vote the "right" way for their lifestyle and social class (or the one they're aspiring to) when they actually get to the ballot box. If their views on these particular issues didn't align with the rest of their politics, either of those routes could wind up being their path.

Anne's quote on AIDS being "an own goal scored by the human race against itself" is often ripped kicking and screaming from its context to paint her as a hard-hearted homophobe in contrast to Diana's babykissing (fuck the Crown, fuck it so so hard for pulling this crap back into the international limelight and if this is actually a scene in the next season I am [STRONGLY IMPLORING PETER MORGAN TO HAVE A NICE DAY]) but the reality of that speech is that, IIRC, she was referring to how the choices of leaders like Thatcher and Reagan to deliberately ignore the urgent need for action because of the stigma around the disease led to it becoming even worse of a problem. i.e. exactly what the queer people and close allies who lived through the AIDS crisis have been saying for years. What other views she and Tim have on queer rights and how they've evolved over the years, I don't know; what I do know is that there is no statistical way all of Liz's descendants and their spouses are proper 0-on-the-Kinsey-scale straight and Anne tends to be a top pick when people start speculating on who's hanging out in the closet. (Ma'am, if you're reading this and want to test the waters... call me.)

Both of them have had leadership roles in charities which undertook rather progressive changes while they were in office. I think Tim's time at English Heritage is a good example of this, with the move to focus the blue plaque scheme more on figures from traditionally marginalized groups in society. It's unclear how much of that can be owed to a deliberate commitment on the part of the leadership versus what is just the savviest move to keep pace with the way society is changing, though.

I think she probably found BoJo a right tosser, but frankly, I'm pretty sure that's true of everyone in Britain at this point. She's known for not suffering fools gladly but I don't know if she'd vote for one if it was the more politically agreeable option.

Overall they both come across as being very committed to staying well-informed, so I certainly think they would be the type who research the issues they care about and know how they are going to vote in every race on the ballot, rather than just voting straight ticket or picking whichever box looks good in the minor races.

Thanks for the ask, that was an interesting question that really got me thinking.

[ingek73]

In Buckingham Palace and outside it, we know what it means when people ask ‘where are you from’

Kohinoor Sahota

When Susan Hussey asked that of a black British charity boss, she echoed the words of many who alienate people of colour

Wed 30 Nov 2022 18.22 GMT

Follow Kohinoor Sahota

Charity leader Ngozi Fulani, centre left, at Buckingham Palace

“Where are you from?” is a question that every person in my family has been asked, from my parents in the 1960s to my little nephew, crying on his way back from school. I’ve faced the question from schoolteachers who want to know if I speak English, dates trying to exoticise me – and a manager who laughed afterwards, knowing he should not have asked.

“Where are you really from?” is the follow-up, if you don’t give someone what they want. While the question can come from a place of curiosity, it is hard to ignore the sinister undertones, especially when it’s repeated.

So, when I read that Ngozi Fulani, the head of a domestic abuse charity, was questioned where she was from while in Buckingham Palace, I wasn’t surprised. What did surprise me, however, is how it has become headline news and a sackable offence, as the honorary member of the royal household who asked the question has since apologised and resigned. Dear, oh dear.

Fulani’s story is every person of colour’s story. I wish I could say it’s unique. I wish I could say that nobody else has been asked such a thing. But that isn’t the case; if it seems unique it is simply because not all of the people of colour get the chance to tell their story. I have had my own day out at Buckingham Palace, and found it similarly unwelcoming.

The grandest invitation I ever received as a journalist was to attend an exhibition at the palace. It arrived in a small cream envelope, with my name – spelt correctly – in calligraphy.

Regardless of whether you’re a kid from a council estate like me, or a prime minister going to a weekly audience with the monarch, I imagine that everyone feels some sense of wonderment when they drive up the Mall. Fulani probably felt the same. In the palace, your eyes widen as you are blinded by the bling – there’s lots to take in, after all – with the sky-high ceiling, crystal chandeliers and that balcony.

‘In the palace, your eyes widen as you are blinded by the bling.’ Camilla, the Queen Consort gives a speech at Buckingham Palace. Photograph: Kirsty O’Connor/AFP/Getty Images

The crowd was all establishment figures in Savile Row-worthy suits and designer dresses: Tory politicians, mid-level royals, a David Attenborough here (talking in that wisdom-filled staccato tone), and a David Starkey there. There’s feeling out of place, but then, sure, there is this. Almost any person would feel some discomfort, but when you also realise that every single person in the room is oh-so white, darling, it’s one of the most uncomfortable feelings in the world.

There were jokes about the “exotic” art in reference to the Asian pieces. Someone recognised one of their aristocratic ancestors in a portrait on display as if that were ordinary – it consolidated how somebody like me could never belong in the establishment.

The only person I saw all night that looked like me – aside from a glimpse of Patricia Scotland – was a single Asian man. We locked eyes and smiled at each other. I’m sure if we’d have spoken I’d have had more in common with him than anyone else at the party. But he was a waiter, and I was a guest. In that moment, you are reminded that it’s merely by an accident of birth – or, more accurately, the aftereffects of colonialism – that you’re on one side and they’re on the other.

It all reminded me of the pervasive feeling of not belonging. That is why “where are you from” is such a politically loaded question. The answer should be simple, but it is a way for people – white people – to rank you on the social ladder. I know what I am actually being asked: why is the colour of your skin different? Why are you brown? Why aren’t you white? Why are you here? Should you be here?

Since I am brown-skinned and Indian, time and time again I have to prove my Britishness. When people ask me where I’m from, saying “Oxford” never meets their expectations. I’ve had enough. If I don’t call out the question, I allow the problem to persist; if I do call out the question, I make white people uncomfortable.

The thing is, I’ve assimilated into their version of Britain, so it’s time for them to assimilate into mine and the “minority” version – a multicultural, truly British society. The face of Britain is changing. Whether you like it or not, there are more and more people who look like me. The British story is a multicultural story. Whether it’s Labour MP Robin Cook hailing curry as the national dish, the most diverse team making up the England football squad, and now the first British prime minister of colour being of Indian descent – we are part of the fabric of Britain.

But who gets the privilege of being labelled British has always been a controversial subject. Ever since Britain began its overseas expansion, people of colour have been made to feel like guests in our own home as well as our new home – welcomed with one hand and scolded with the other.

Working-class people of colour are unlikely to stumble upon people that share their melanin, let alone long-lost relatives on the walls of galleries, museums or Buckingham bloody Palace. So, let’s make everyone feel welcome.

It’s time to start asking new questions.

Kohinoor Sahota is an arts and culture journalist. She is working on a book titled Where Are You Really From?

[the-heaminator]

2.2k of useless fluff between Australia, New Zealand and Germany in the 1890s, and a brief reunion 60 or so years later. This came out of some deep dark crevice of my mind and I do not know how to feel about that.

Dresden, 1890s

The summer warmth and smog had settled itself over Europe quite resolutely now, the stifling heat doing nothing to aid Ludwig nor Eleanor in their endeavours of trying to do anything at all, too warm and sunny to do anything but play inside away from the hustle and bustle of the house and far far away from the fraying tempers that had collected in the dining room, though not for eating just yet.

That did not stop Jack, who aunt Brighid always said was made of sunlight itself, from going outside and picking at various creepy crawlies and from hiding in trees and playing with sticks, the other two, set to keep watch on the sunshine child by both England and Prussia had to contend with the shelter of the veranda and ate Creamed Ice, sweetened with honey and finely chopped nuts. While they watched Jack do what he did, Ludwig was overheating far far worse than Elanor, she had the pleasure of wearing a relatively loose summer dress, mainly because England was not the most well-versed in what to make a girl wear, so he seemed to go for practicality unless it was a formal function.

Which to be fair this was, but they had no need to be here, they had just pestered him often enough and there was nobody to look after them, he would never trust any of the housemaids enough to entrust them to her, Matthew was in Canada now, Uncle Rhys and Uncle Alisdair were in America dealing with something or the other, Jack probably would never forget the incident of when he was still physically about the size of a toddler and accidentally got passed around one too many times in the great exhibition and ended up with Alfred who recognised him as one of England's quicker than Jack could say "Bloody fuckin fast!"

He always had a filthy mouth, not that he had no reason to, Ludwig had heard Prussia say, on multiple occasions, that England should at least to attempt to clear up his speech, which was more than once met with a tirade of enough curse words both nautical and not, that he could feel his ears shrivel up and he didn't even know what half of them meant?

Jack may have been a lizard, with lack of a better way to put it, but Ludwig must certainly was not, he was wearing rather stuffy grey wool over a shirt that didn't cover his forearms, Eleanor asked if he wanted heatstroke, but he really just didn't like showing his forearms to anybody, apparently they were far too thin and boney, with many bruises that weren't inflicted by anyone hand, but by the nation as a whole, it seemed as of they didn't understand this very well, they had seen it happen to their father and his siblings, but they never seemed to get them themselves unless something markedly severe was happening, apparently, it usually affected their father more than it affected them, supposedly because they were colonial holdings and England held jurisdiction of them.

They were stewing in silence for a while, Ludwig had started to nod off, it being far too hot to deal with right now, so that he didn't realise that Eleanor had started to draw in the hard dry earth in the flowerbeds with a twig.

She drew the magnificent Carracks that sailed the seas in the 1500s by the Spaniards, well according to what her sailing book said, she had heard that her father had been a pirate at some point but she found that incredibly hard to believe, but whatever, she drew the Barques that were used to get to her lonely island, that fared through storms and whatnot.

They weren't the most detailed, how could you make drawing in the dirt all that detailed, but in the still, sultry air, they seemed to be by far the most appealing thing in the garden just about now, her doodling even managed to attract the notoriously flighty attention of her dearest brother, and he squat near the flowerbed, in the full sun, clearly unperturbed the sun beating the back of his neck and frying what few braincells he seemed to resolutely own, he started adding his details as well, doodling in the dirt as Ludwig stayed asleep, but this is jack, he would never particularly let anybody sleep especially not in such weather, he would get heatstroke really goddamn fast, especially if he stayed in what he was wearing, honestly who would wear a woollen jumper in such weather?

Plus he was already borning, in Jack's eyes he already acted like an old man, despite being physically about the same age as him and as a nation he was quite a bit younger, but he already acted painfully stuffy, he sat with the same almost military-like posture that both their Father and Prussia tended to sit in, he was touchy, especially about seeing his arms unclothed, quite like how Uncle Rhys was sometimes, and he genuinely seemed to have a stick up his ass already, no one seemed to ever treat him like a child and well, Jack knew that getting treated like a child too much felt terrible, but also never being treated like one, especially if, physically at least, he still was one, he never seemed to experience the pure awe or interest that Jack did, happier to sit on the side passively and watching then to ever take part in anything, he was quite boring usually; but sometimes he could see that underneath all that, he was still very young, when Jack pointed out different bird species a while ago he seemed to copy all Jack had to say down with uncharacteristic zeal, copying everything down almost word for word in the flowy cursive that Jack associated with old men and Matt; not something that one would expect from a 14 year old for sure, Zee joined in the conversation and that was one of the few times they saw him looking like an actual child, it was odd.

"Jack, what are you thinking of?"

"What?"

Jack had been squatting on the soil, not moving, seemingly deep in thought.

"You know, he acts like an old man sometimes," He said pointing at Germany, who was quite fast asleep in the shade, the heat clearly having got the better of him "But I want to think that he isn't and throw mud at him, but if I did I don't even know how he would react."

"Jack that is way too specific, but you have a point."

At that he had an idea, half-baked as it was, it was an idea nonetheless, it was to start with him being awoken, Zee would do that and hopefully, he did not have a particularly strong reaction to physical touch, he was particularly young even for their kind so he shouldn't, but Ludwig seemed to break more than a few long-established rules of nationdom, so who knows.

Zee had her reservations, she always did, being the voice of reason amongst the two, sometimes seeming to be the voice of reason in their entire family despite being one of the youngest, but Jack very much did not, and unfurled himself from his crouch to full height, ruddy face smiling like rays of the sun itself, before he poked Ludwig on the shoulder, once, then again, achieving only a sleepy grumble which caused him to move his head, which therefore caused him to lose his very carefully made position, and he fell onto the hard soil, quite sufficiently waking him up.

The look on his face caused Jack to fall into an absolute fit of laughter, and even Zee who generally prided herself on not doing that started to giggle at his expense, Ludwig picked himself up quickly and dusted himself off, grumbling all the while, the language was quite bland, especially considering his company and their vibrant vernacular of curses, but if Gilbert had heard him he would have surely got his mouth washed out with soap.

He returned himself to his perch on the veranda, well in the shade as Jack sat down next to him, looking markedly more scruffy than before he dozed off, how long had it been anyways?

They all sat in silence for a few moments before Ludwig enquired what the drawing in the soil was of.

"Don't tell me you've never heard of a carrack?

"Or a galleon?"

"Or a schooner?"

Ludwig knew that they were boats, he had read about them, but had never actually seen one, they were quite before his time, really before all of their times, but Arthur had a fondness of the sea that Gilbert most certainly did not possess, he had only seen the sea a few times, and it was steely grey the few times he did see it, the waves choppy and the air cold with a cloying smell of dead fish and other wonderful nautical scents, like alcohol as well as the smoke of the coal ships making it difficult to breathe if he stood too close.

"They are boats no?"

"Of course, they are boats, banana face, but do you know what type of boat it is?"

Ludwig searched his mental inventory for the type of boat, it seemed to not fit into any of the well defined categories and that annoyed him very much, outwardly he looked mildly constipated and the both of them looked on in interest.

"Is it a...collier?"

The two looked impressed "Not exactly, but that was the point, it is a barque, which is basically where all the boats that do not fit any other categories are lumped together, and that does look like a collier quite so."

Jack absolutely lit up and started to go on about the ocean, specifically the ocean at botany bay, the slick rocks that he used to climb over and hunt for mussels and crabs, and try not to fall into any of the rock pools, lest Aunt Bridghid had to fish him out and he would get a good smack upside the head for it, about how many birds nested there and how he knew where all the nests were, the blue-green water that had so many fish in it despite being close to the coast, he started to talk about how blue the sky was, the smell of salt in the air as he walked alongside Aunt Bri.

He started to spin elaborate tales about the birds and their migratory journeys, creating epic-like sagas and whatnot before finally stopping, beaming at the rapt attention of his audience of two.

"What about you Ludwig, have you ever seen the ocean?"

Ludwig seemed to take a moment before saying "It was nothing like yours, there was a lot of grey, a lot of smoke and noise, pebbles that hurt to fall on," he scrunched up his nose "It smelt like rotting fish, tobacco alcohol and sadness."

Jack made a face "That sounds fucking depressing, like the limey coast!" He thought "Were there crabs."

"There were no crabs, not that I looked."

Zee continued to watch, she liked seeing those two talk, unstoppable force meets an immovable object and all that, they bounced off each other really very well.

"I want to see the ocean like yours." Said in such a childlike manner that for a moment you could believe the voice actually did belong to a teenage boy, forced to grow up too fast and not the tired middle-aged man he already seemed to be acting like, and it was nice for the three of them.

*

Sydney 1950s

They were older now, two men of admirable height, no longer an oddly proportioned German and an Australian who always had mud on his knees, Jack watched as Ludwig just looked out upon Botany bay, sure it wasn't as it was 300 years prior, but enough of what Jack said stood the test of time, the rocks were slimy and Ludwig was terrible at climbing over them, the rock pools with the mussels and crabs remained, Jack showed him different types of crab while they squatted in the sun, Ludwig wearing a coat of sunscreen because he absolutely burned in the sun.

The green-blue sea and the birds that preened themselves haughtily when they passed, the sky far more blue than he had ever seen it at home, the smell of salt tickling his nose most pleasurably, such a far cry from the first time he saw the sea

They were both quite worse for wear after the wars, it was difficult to imagine that that conversation happened not 70 years prior, but that was besides the point, Jack may have not been small enough to fall into rock pools and Ludwig was not small enough to cry after tripping over rocks, but they were young, younger than most really, Ludwig had barely been around for 80 years, a blip in time for older nations, but at least now, after all the years had thrown at them, they could enjoy.

"Come mate imma teach ya to surf!"