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icannotgetoverbirds · 2 years

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Please for the love of god infodump at me

Twitch moderator applications are live here!

It Takes A Village

Writing Sideblog

I go by Byrd for short. I'm an intersex autistic trans man, I use it/he pronouns (unless it's funnier or gayer not to), I'm plural, and I'm over 18. I'm also an ex-mormon. Do not fucking proselytize any fucking religion at me. You will be blocked.

I mostly reblog about random shit, but sometimes I'll make original posts and/or respond with my take on a situation - those should be mostly tagged as #byrd chirps.

My exmo tag is #byrd is an exmo. Sometimes, my moot @twiggyfrogblog sends me birds, sometimes other people do too, so if you're looking for fantastic bird posts, the tags #byrd's birds and #ty twiggy! should take you there. Ask games are tagged #byrd's ask games. Transparent gifs are tagged as both #transparent gif and #transparent gifs.

I also have some new tags - #byrd's silly art, which is for my artwork (currently just me tracing photographs to try and wrap my head around concepts like shapes and shading), and #byrd's writing, which is how I tag any posts about my writing.

I am currently writing a fanfic - I've started to try and tag that as #stt and #byrd's silly little fanfic - once someone finds the fic on AO3, I'll put a link in here.

Some of my posts/reblogs contain triggering/heavy/nsfw topics. I do my best to tag these, but I'm not perfect. Let me know if I miss anything. I don't generally tag swearing, and I do use the word queer as a self-identifier unapologetically.

I have a few sideblogs - some of which are currently inactive. I won't link them here - see if you can find them!

I'm friends with Kea, a writer who distributes his work under a pseudonym, and I have his permission to post his writing. Here is my favorite of his, The Model and The Letter.

Lots of links below the cut, including resources and ask games.

Current ask games:

Not Like The Other Ask Games™

Who Am I To You?

Gentle Cottagecore

Iconic Tumblr Post

Vibe Check

Why Do You Tolerate Me

What am I the patron saint of?

Colors

Character Opinion Bingo

what 3 fictional characters do you associate with me

?????

Another Character Opinion Bingo

????? 2 electric boogaloo

Another Colors

Pokemon types

Literally anything (I make no promises of answers, however)

❤

send me a shitty summary of my blog?

want me to pick a sentence from one of my WIPs to share?

the blorbo blingus (character ask game)

litcherally just ask me anything about my ocs

who am i to you?

toss me a gender, why dontcha

polyamory asks

squishmallow character ask game

In addition, I really enjoy helping to name things like fictional characters and whatnot. I have a method that I use that creates original names with meaning - it's not foolproof, but I've come up with some great names through it.

If you need help naming someone/something, feel free to send in an ask at least giving me a few words you'd like associated with the thing - more information is better, though! There's no cost, either - it's a fun exercise in creativity on my end. These will be tagged as #byrd's name game.

DNI is in my bio.

Other links -

Resources:

My ex-terf/ex-radfem blog

Everything you know about obesity is a lie (tw minor healthism in the article)

Body Neutral/Positive Recipes Base Post (feel free to contribute!)

Body Neutral/Positive Recipes Main Thread

Free Online ASL Lessons

Planned Parenthood's sex ed tab

help getting out of medical debt for usamericans

Masterlist of Native/Indigenous products

Good picrews for fat people

literally every animorphs book for free

Alternative search engines

The distinction between hating men and being a feminist and why it's so important

Pi-Hole

Piracy Subreddit

Drawing Tips Masterpost

Visual Snow Syndrome

If you need a smile:

Get a random birb

No Notes Bungus

Handmade ball python plushies

Good news: COVID-19 edition

The world's cutest alligator

Good news: Climate Change edition

A Different Aftermath

An important reminder

an absolutely buckwild idea i had

Tumblr writers

The Model and The Letter by Kea (if it gets 420k notes by the end of the year I'll read Animorphs and maybe write an essay about it)

Kea's Chapbooks on Ao3

Tumbleweed by Kea

Tumblr's Folk Tales

Misc:

The origins of parafonian

Kissinger Death Tontine

#pinned post #kea #resources #parafonian #exmo #byrd is an exmo #im feeling very exmo in this chilis tonight #exmormon #ex mormon #exlds #ex lds #ex religious #apostate #apostake #avian apostate :>#byrd's ask games #byrd chirps #tw o word

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sassasquashedgrapes · 6 years

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Kardashian Dreaming

Had the coolest/most bizarre dream ever.

I was seated at this meeting with Mama Kris Jenner, Rob was there and prolly the other family members, I can’t remember. And she was gonna hire me or wanted to hire me, and it was an interview or something am not so sure. But basically my role was to hang around the whole Kardashian-Jenner clan, be on the prowl on the stuff they do, find research backing up evidence that what they do is effective by science (but way better than David Avocado Wolfe levels, more classier and actually backed up by a medical doctor (hello, me!), and yes, blog about it.

Or ghost write articles whatever floats my boat. Basically tag along with them, maybe occasionally take their pics for Instagram/Snapchat as to back up the article I wrote or blogged, but not in a PA kind of way. I’m more like just like a third party observer, I am to be treated cordially and kindly, not like staff, whom I don’t like as some are bossy, snobby divas (must be competition syndrome who knows?).

I don’t get to be on the show either (Thank God, I wasn’t the type who wanted that sort of attention to begin with), but as a fan of the series, it’s a treat that I get a full-depth view of what goes on in the family for real and ahead from what’s aired on E!, way before everyone else gets to see it (of course I have a disclosure clause tho I can write anything, as long as Mama Jenner approves of the topic of course, like I report directly to her anyway and she does keep direct tabs with me on the stuff that I write).

Well, anyway, going back to the story: Then Kris goes for the jugular and looks me in the eye and says “we pay higher than 500 per hour”, kinda making me know she’s done her homework about me and that whatever I’m currently being paid for at my current job, she’s willing to pay me higher (lol. 600 maybe?) and before y’all start thinking, I knew deep down Mama Kris meant she was gonna pay me at least 600 US Dollars per hour just to “keep up with them”, and I had a fixed schedule of reporting 3-4x a week at least four hours to a maximum of 8 hours a day, as for specifics on time well, if there are evening events and if I’m free, I can go and would be paid double for night differential. All of which was pretty ok by me.

I learned in my 90 minute snooze that the Kardashian clan are actually pretty generous employers. Like you got free range around the house (of course you can’t enter the private rooms unless you’re invited by the owner to go in and there are CCTVs so they do know when PAs steal their stuff), you can eat whatever food is in the pantry (except stuff that’s labeled with the names of the girls if they’re saving it for later, like Kim writes her name on it labeled as “Kim” or “Kiki”, Kourtney uses a green tape label so you know it’s hers, shit this dream is so detailed, it was beyond!!!

Anyway, so I get the job yo’. I’m hanging out with Kanye West. He’s not even scary. He’s actually very nice and polite, not like the angry dude you always see on the telly.

So he’s going about talking being drawn to different kinds of wall graffitis (I swear I had no idea there were even types to begin with! Shit there it is on google, people I am just typing this website and googling it down now because I thought that dream was just crack but fuuuucccck nnnhhooo!!!) and showed me this wall written with words like yeezy (yes written in bold with no caps on the first “y”) and a quote, I can’t remember but I know it was a cool quote about believing in yourself and pretty profound one at that. It took me a while to realize while talking to this man that he was in the process of making his own font!! People, Kanye West was designing his own fucking Times New Roman y’all!!! Prolly use the letterings to put it on his shirts, on his album, have it sold on Microsoft Office or whatnot, this shit is superb I simply cannot!!!. It wasn’t a useless font, it’s like a relatable font that could be used for making a slogan, a poster, or heck even as a document paper if you don’t mind wasting some ink on the printer.

It was super genius, I tell you. I remember giving him feedback about it (because he asked me, that’s how cool the ‘Ye is, he gets feedback from the masses coz he wants to understand the common people!) that I liked the design on the wall except if I stood at a certain distance, I couldn’t read the first word written on top (I can’t believe I had the nerve to talk up to the ‘Ye) but he was super cool about it and admitted he hadn’t thought about that but was “going with the creative flow” when he was in the moment and having an artistic flair myself, I understood where he was coming from.

Next I’m in the gym. Now I’m pretty certain this is recent, I cannot confirm if Khloe is pregnant but she sure wasn’t working out either.

Out of the Kardashian sisters, she’s the one I genuinely get along with the best. She even calls me by my first name Kristina, opting not to address me by my middle name which Kris and Kim do as I didn’t want to confuse myself into sharing a nickname similar to my new boss (aka Mama KJ). I dunno but I clicked best with Khloe and could honestly imagine that IRL we could be really good pals. She does have one interesting habit: she always has to turn off the lights when not in use.

It’s weird because you think one: these people are ridiculously rich but are stingy with electricity? Two, shouldn’t the Kardashian/Jenner fam invest in motion sensor lights? And Three: according to Khloe, she started getting back into this habit to reduce energy in lieu of Climate Change (of course), and it used to be the one reminder her dad, the late Robert Kardashian Sr always made her do because, like me, she had a habit of leaving the lights on too.

So basically included on my job description was yep, turn off the lights each time I went out of a room or check if there are unused lights.

So one time I’m in the family gym, and Kim was there. Now out of all the Kardashian/Jenners (don’t tell Khloe ok, ORZ) Kim is my favourite. IRL she’s not tall, prolly around my height, but has a doll-face and is really curvy but small in the areas that matter. TBH Kim leaves me star-struck, very Kween- like: regal, formal, never losing her shit (unlike me the whole freaking dream sequence) but still approachable and likeable.

Out of all the Kardashian/Jenners, Kim is the most like Kris. Like literally Mama’s carbon copy, even in some mannerisms, except Kim is more reserved, polite, but still approachable without being intimidating, which that part is mostly like her Mom. Though Kim can be intimidating in a different way. Let’s just say both women have that Alpha air about them.

Kris Jenner is all business and is the the Queen Mom, kinda like my boss so it’s ironic I leave a job only to be hired by someone who resembles a lot of qualities similar to the former boss. But who can deny BIGGER and BETTER PAY?

As for Kim, I really can’t compare her to anyone I’ve ever met, but she’s definitely got an aura of being something extraordinary. Like Celebrity vibes. That feeling one gets when you’re in the presence of someone who is gonna either change the world or bring it to its knees and end the rest of humanity, XD.

Anyway, I’m in the gym and I dunno why but there are icicles on the machines (the elliptical, the treadmill, the bikes) I don’t feel cold or anything but it I chose to ignore it prolly coz I was astonished that there were icicles on the machines and yet no one bothers to turn off the AC and plus hello, I’m watching Kimye work out a sweat or rather, breathing cold air like some friggin’ Elsa with her long platinum hair which makes me miss own on bleached Khaleesi mane too. Kim’s working on the treadmill, she gives me a polite smile and nod, and says hello, addressing me by my middle name (it’s shocking because I’ve barely been in this house or at this job for long, and already Kim knows me by name and face. It’s like an amazing talent she and Kris have, they remember faces and names of people they’ve just met, whether you’re a Royalty or a servant, they’ll remember. They’re like natural politicians!).

Khloe asks me if I could turn off the lights, which was the gym, I dim it a bit, with Kim’s permission, of course. She doesn’t mind, she’s in her own zone. Breathing out cold air probably from those iced exercise machines I dunno (I believe I found new material for my writing blogs that I was hired for too).

I move on to another side of the gym, which is a lounge area. I see in the corner of my eye Kourtney having a informal business meeting with a blonde long-haired Japanese business dude who gives me Steve Aoki vibes, a translator (who is my friend Aira), and a bunch of other peeps lounging on sofas. I yell over to Khloe and tell her that someone’s in the lounge room and she goes over to me and says “Oh yeah, leave the lights on.” Laughs off and walks away.

I’m not close with Kourt tho. I don’t think we have bad vibes or anything, actually we’re the same age, it’s just Kourt and I never had a chance to bond because her top priority are her kids and we just never had time to chitchat, but I think she’s just as nice as the rest of the family, probably even more casual than Kim, but less chummy as Khloe. She did mention once that I’m a natural with kids even though I never baby sat any of the Kardashian kids, but they’re really sweet and they seem to like me well enough.

I’ve interacted with Mason, Reign, and Penny; they’re the sweetest kids, Reign and Penny always greet me with hugs, they’re super friendly. Mason’s already a big boy, so hugs are not in order and he’s usually somewhere off doing his own thing or hanging out with Scott aka The Lord (who doesn’t seem like the douchebag he’s normally portrayed as in the show). I’ve met North and Saint briefly as Kim was in a hurry, North’s a bit shy, she’s got the cutest smile tho. I just don’t think North warms up to people as easily as compared to Kourtney’s kids do tho. Saint is adorable, as expected, but it’s too early to tell how he’s gonna be when he’s older, but he’s so darn cute. Saint reminds me of this kid of a friend of mine who was just about the cutest darnest little kid whom I preferred to babysit over his naughty older brother, Andrei, hahaha!

And as for the Kardashian-Jenner girls. Well, all I can say is Kendall is by far the tallest and prettiest sister and has got the most amazing legs, but she’s moody as f tho. Like let’s say she’d walk in a room I was in, she’d ignore me (unless I’d be the first one to greet her, then she’d respond with a bored hi or mumble something close to it) then Ken would do her own thing like sit on a corner of a table or lounge on a couch and interact with her sisters but mostly looks bored as if she’d rather be somewhere else more interesting than at home, which is kinda disappointing since I’m a huge fan of hers, but I get her deal. She grew up into the whole limelight and unlike her older sisters, she never wanted any of it and if you asked her, she’d probably wish she was living a rather normal life. Plus the bad bitterness she has as a model and having to prove to everyone she’s a supermodel because people hate on her for the nepotism even though she really does work hard. Basically Kendall is the Kuudere of the Kardashian/Jenner girls. So I get her deal. But compared to Kun-Kuun Kenny, Kylie is more like the typical teen/Generation Z/late Millenial: Always on her phone, not really in tune with anything going on about in the house. I like Jordyn Woods tho, she’s really friendly and warm that you don’t get an air vibe out of her, like she’s genuinely a nice girl that you’re glad she’s there for Kylie. Maybe that’s the reason why Kylie’s got a lot more mellow than her older sister Kendall, since Kendall doesn’t have that sort of friendship from what I’ve seen based on that whole dynamic I’ve gathered in that 90 minute dream.

Oh, and as for Kylie being pregnant? Let’s just say, I can’t say :P

Lol. If I had to make Dere-s out of them

Tsundere Type A: Kourtney

Himedere: Kim

Formerly Kamidere/ but now mostly Dandere: Kanye

Yandere: Khloe

Deredere but really Mayadere: Rob

Kuudere: Kendall

Undere/Ultimate Shota: Kylie

Sadodere: Kris Jenner (for sure!! Lol)

That dream was so awesome!! Too bad I had to get up after dozing off when the alarm reminded me that I had to leave the house early because I had an exam. I woke up feeling shitty because I didn’t get enough rest and as I took a cold shower, it suddenly hit me that I had dreamed about this during that 90 minute accidental snooze and I found myself having to write it down, and added more of my personal in-depth thoughts because tho it was such a vivid dream that happened so fast, I’m amazed by how much insight I actually got based from those details that I decided to write it all down and post it on tumblr/twitter with hopes that I do wonder if any of this shit was accurate.

Hit me up to tell me what your thoughts are.

I’m out!

#keeping up with the kardashians #Keeping up with the Kardashians fan fiction #kim kardashain west #kim kardashian #khole kardashian #kourtney kardashian #Dash girls #kendall & kylie #kris jenner #KUWTK fan #kendall jenner #kylie jenner #yeezy by kanye west #yeezy

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deepfriedtwinkie · 7 years

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Why do you think Mike/Paige is so popular? Why do you think Gareth/Laurel isn't so popular? Songs that remind you of Dimitri/Anya? Favorite AU's for Enjoltaire? Rant about Hollstein (or one of your choice if you can't). What's a meme/quote that reminds you of Rogan and/or Java Junkies?

(see, THIS shit is why you’re my favorite human)

Why do you think Mike/Paige is so popular?

Probably because they look like Apollo and Aphrodite, tbh, b/c we all know that It’s Okay To Ignore Toxic Relationships If Hot—and because of the Fake-Ass Feminist™ idea that abusive women aren’t actually abusive at all, they’re ~EMPOWERED~ and men can never be victims ever. Like nooooooo, Paige was a BADASS for her (tunnelvisioned) commitment to those (ten, not hundreds of) girls, and for calling Mike on his lie about Lina (that her tunnelvision forced him into), and for holding him accountable (by extremely literally ordering a hit on him that was successful because he flatlined). All the times she hit, threatened, or belittled him was just Girl Power!! Like, yeah, what a badass woman, Bitches Get Shit Done, yup, sure. Or mAYBE FLIP THIS AROUND AND IMAGINE PAIGE AS A MAN AND MIKE AS A WOMAN AND THEN GET PROPERLY OUTRAGED BECAUSE OF ALL THE CLEAR AND PRESENT ABUSE, YOU USED NAPKINS—THE POINT IS, Aaron and Serinda are both unfairly pretty humans, and there are lots of “feminists” who actually don’t get the fucking point at all. Hence “Paige is a badass who’s SORRY for murdering him, murder means I love you!! Can they make out for my benefit now??”

Why do you think Gareth/Laurel isn’t so popular?

Political oversaturation. BrainDead had AWFUL timing; I know they were trying to CAPITALIZE on 2016′s hyperpolitical climate, but people were already fucking exhausted by reality. Plus come on, we ALL know how hard it is in REAL life for a liberal and a conservative to ACTUALLY get along. There’s eventually gonna be some shit you can’t agree on and can’t forgive and then the whole illusion of compatibility shatters, ’cause hi, that shit MEANS something for a reason. It’s pretty fundamental in like…everything. So sure, it makes a pretty great fantasy (especially with this I mean holy Jesus fuck), but at the end of the day, you either have to hope that Gareth’s eyes opened to more issues and he switched sides after some time, or expect that you’d eventually want to punch his pretty, pretty face in (and public faith in conservatives is rightfully so low that let’s be real, it probably wasn’t gonna be the former). It’s a lot harder to ship something that relies on headcanoning that half the ship will eventually change in order to make it last. THIS IS WHY I WILL ALWAYS WANT A SPINOFF WHERE THEY BOTH ABANDON POLITICS, TRAVEL THE COUNTRY AND GET A DOG

Songs that remind you of Dimitri/Anya?

OH GOD, first of all, “At The Beginning” and the rest of the soundtrack is just obvious (and I mean the MOVIE soundtrack because I’m sorry, I HATE that they scrapped the kitchen boy thing in the musical, THAT WAS THE ENTIRE SIGNIFICANCE AND FOUNDATION BEHIND THEIR RECONNECTION, THEY COULD HAVE MADE IT WORK EVEN WITH MORE REALISM, AND WHO REMEMBERS A FUCKING GLANCE FROM CHILDHOOD? IT’S SO RANDOM AND CONTRIVED, so for ME the Broadway version is NOT actually the couple I fell in love with and I’m mad at it, HE WAS THE BOY WHO OPENED THE WALL, DAMMIT, HE COULD’VE OPENED THE WALL OF THE IPATIEV HOUSE TOO, BUT ANYWAY, THE POINT IS I MEAN THE MOVIE). “La Vie En Rose” (Edith Piaf) is a Big Vibe one. “Your Mother Should Know” (The Beatles) always makes me think of them post!movie for some reason, especially b/c I used to write a ton of fanfic about them raising kids and whatnot, and I dunno, the past/family vibes….and it’s kinda silly, maybe, but “The Ballad of John and Yoko” (The Beatles) fit them post!movie really well for me b/c I always imagined them traveling all over the world together, and the song’s kinda part fun, part escaping persecution…. Basically anything romantic got my brain back on them for a while there…. Oh, and “The Same Boy You’ve Always Known” (The White Stripes), which sounds weird on the surface, but….You fell down of course / And then you got up of course / And started over / Forgot my name of course / Then you started to remember / Pretty tough to think about / The beginning of December….??? COME ON. And I know I’m probably forgetting some.

Favorite AUs for Enjoltaire?

I am a hugantic ginormic sucker for the very popular Modern College Activist Group one. More specifically, where Grantaire first joined Les Amis because he passed by a meeting during his freshman year and heard Enjolras speaking and it set his soul on fucking fire, and he proceeded to sit in the back and sketch and heckle for a year or two until the day came where Enjolras was arrested during a protest and Grantaire tagged the cop’s car with spraypaint so that they’d arrest him too, so Enjolras wouldn’t have to go alone, *loud obvious cough,* and then in their jail cell, before ’Ferre could pay bail, Enjolras asked Grantaire why he did it, and Grantaire confessed and Enjolras kissed him, and they became their friends’ frustratingly adorable OTP. And Enjolras is emancipated from his rich, shitty, homophobic adoptive parents, but has tapes and diaries from his lovely birth mother who died, and SURPRISE, his birth father is Javert, who slowly learns to come around, see the error of his black-and-white ways, and accept, defend, and even love his son, and punches Enj’s shitty adoptive father in the face. And Enj becomes a civil rights attorney, with guidance from Javert, and R becomes a legit commissioned artist, and they eventually adopt a little girl who was born into addiction, name her Emmeline, and Javert is a shockingly good grandpa/babysitter and eVERYONE IS STILL ALIVE. (YOU ofc go here also and didn’t need me to describe all this, but I figured I’d get detailed for all two and a half people playing along at home)

Rant about Hollstein (or one of your choice if you can’t):

OKAY, WE ARE JUST SO LUCKY THAT THEY ARE STILL/EVEN A COUPLE, THOUGH. THERE IS SO MUCH “HOLY SHIT” IN THIS THING. FIRST OF ALL, THE FACT THAT LAURA EVEN WENT “YOU KNOW WHAT, I THINK I LOVE THIS CONFIRMED VAMPIRE” IN THE FIRST PLACE. LET IT NEVER BE SAID THAT LAURA HOLLIS DOES NOT HAVE COJONES. SECOND OF ALL, THE FACT THAT CARMILLA WAS SO JADED AND YET STILL FOUND THE ABILITY TO FORGIVE LAURA FOR GETTING MATTIE, HER SISTER OF LIKE NINE BILLION YEARS, LITERALLY KILLED. I TOTALLY EXPECTED THAT TO NEVER GET FIXED BECAUSE FUCKING HELL. THIRD OF ALL, LAURA LITERALLY DIED, OKAY, LIKE STOPPED LIVING. THAT’S GENERALLY JUST SLIGHTLY HARD TO REBOUND FROM. THE FACT THAT THEY EVER BECAME A THING OR EVEN SURVIVED THAT SERIES AT ALL IS JUST, YEAH, OKAY, YOU NEED TO BE TOGETHER FOREVER, BECAUSE IF NONE OF THAT SHIT STOPPED YOU, CLEARLY SOMEBODY FUCKING LIKES YOU OUT THERE.

What’s a meme/quote that reminds you of Rogan or Java Junkies?

I literally can not think of a meme that has reminded me of a ship ever. There aren’t any literary quotes or anything that spring to mind either, but the first quote from the SHOW that I associate with Rogan is “Jerk, ass, arrogant, inconsiderate, mindless, frat boy, lowlife, butt-faced miscreant!” (which isn’t the most romantic but dammit if I don’t grin like a monkey every time), and the one I associate most with Luke and Lorelai is “I just want you to know, this thing we’re doing here? Me? You? I’m in…. I am all in.”

(HOLY SHIT THAT WAS AN EMOTIONAL RIDE, I FEEL LIKE I JUST RAN A MILE)

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kawuli · 7 years

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@hrovitnir asked for #15 for this fic meme for whichever fic I wanted to talk about

So I’m going with the D9-centric Hunger Games rebellion series (These are truly the last days: Panem's rebellion from below) because it’s my favorite.

15: What did you learn from writing this fic?

So this fic actually started because I was thinking about how the Capitol would organize grain production. A lot of people look at D12 in the books and the movies and assume the districts are all technologically backward (maybe with exceptions for places like D3). So, when I’ve seen mentions of D9 in fic before (and that’s like...twice?) it’s usually low-tech small-scale farming. Horses and scythes and whatnot.

The thing is, small-scale farmers are really hard to control, because they’re relatively self-sufficient. There’ve been rebellious peasants since peasants existed. And farm tools are weapons.

So I figured what you really need is mechanized, automated, intensively managed commercial agriculture. Monsanto, but with the full enforcement power of an autocratic state.

When he was 18 or so my dad worked on a custom cutting crew: a bunch of guys, trucks, and combines that followed the wheat harvest north from Texas to Montana. So that became the basis for Zea, the main character, who’s on a crew of 6 who spend summers harvesting, and fall/spring planting, wheat. They move up and down the district hauling their machinery with them. Every so often there are Depots, where stuff gets stored (harvested grain, fuel, etc), and the people who live there manage the other farm activities (mainly some spraying during the season, herbicides and pesticides and whatnot, plus transporting grain and fuel between the Depots and the district capital). The general rule is that families run depots, and folks on crews tend to be single or at least not to have kids. Because when crews are out they’re working sunup to sundown at least, any day it’s not raining. And agricultural equipment is dangerous. There’s probably exceptions to both of these, but it’s how things usually go.

That means that apart from whoever is living in the district capitol, people in D9 are incredibly isolated. If you’re in a Depot, you see crews come through a couple times a year and that’s it. If you’re ON a crew, you only see people other than your crew when you’re in the city to swap equipment, and in winter. I put crews in barracks during the off-season, and assumed some level of animosity between city people and country people (because trust me, that’s believable). So that makes it much harder to organize a rebellion, because people don’t know each other. And Depots aren’t self-sufficient, because they aren’t allowed to produce anything for themselves (they still do, but it’s all under the table, and not enough to live on).

Now, that’s pretty much all I needed for the purposes of writing plausible fic. But I’m a nerd, so I kept poking. The USDA has maps of crop distributions, which are in large part due to soil types and the rain shadow of the Rocky Mountains. Best soils + more rainfall (e.g. Iowa) = corn/maize. OK soils + less rainfall (e.g. Kansas) = wheat. Those aren’t going to change in a post-apocalyptic future (unless...idk some seriously weird shit). Zea was on a wheat crew, so I wanted to know where she’d be going. So I made some maps and some guesses. Similarly for timing, there’s USDA information by state--who knows what Panem climate looks like, but for the sake of not making myself TOO crazy I left planting and harvesting times more or less where they were. Assume plant breeders have compensated for climate change so that it works out, I guess.

For the as-yet-unfinished 3rd installment I also had to learn about explosives and railroads, but that gets spoilery so I’ll save it for another time.

There’s more rambling about D9 here and here (that one includes crop rotations and manure management), and about worldbuilding generally at the absurd logistics of Panem tag on my LJ

#scribbles #thg #district 9 #hunger games #ask meme #absurd logistics of panem

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