calling it now it’s gonna be a conan gray summer

Faerghus is based on Russia and Adrestia on Rome right? I can't tell why they made the agarthan language Russian. Is it some kinda big brain move to connect them like Ancient Greece and Rome are connected, or was that just a coincidence?

On another note, some nabatean names (among other things) are inspired by Celtic/Irish mythology so their language can even be old Irish.

In the end it depends on who you attribute Ancient Greece to. It could be the original of both of their cultures and they split off and did their own thing? Idk, we just don't know enough...

Eh...

I don't remember where I saw that post (maybe the dev interview from 2020?) but Faerghus's real life inspirations was a mix match between various "northern" "european" countries, idk, Fr-england-ssia or something like this.

While Adrestia has a coliseum and used to rule over "the world" a long time ago, Enbarr's current architecture is closer to the eastern part of the roman empire (that'd later be called the byzantine empire!) who... used way more greek than latin! IIRC in that same interview the devs said Adrestia was inspired by Germany and Italy? Italian inspirations (historical at least) are evident with the coliseum and Enbarr's palace (it has a crapton of mosaics in Nopes!) while the German ones can be spot through names of Adrestian characters and particles, and how squads are called.

I think the first historical nonsense that pissed me was about someone trying to fit ancient greece/rome in the Nabatean/Agarthan conflict - but reading too much about languages and irl parallels, while fun to honeypot, is ultimately a sterile debate when Japan has been known to use several languages/names in various video games because they sounded cool/exotic enough (Jugdral's Sigurd and Deirdre and Chulainn come to mind, but then Granvalle's knight squads made me learn the name of some colors in german!) - even if Agarthan units being named after ancient sages, and their titans - i mean giant robots - having an arte called "titanomachy" is pretty revealing on the aesthetic the devs wanted to give them, which is also all kinds of interesting when you take into account that Rhea is the only one of Sothis's kids who is named in this fashion - from her name we could guess she's an Agarthan, but no, Sothis named her youngest kid the Agarthan way?

Anyways, I thought about it for funsies in the original language post (rather, tags) to be something like aramaic, with an alphabet that would be so different from modern day Fodlan's alphabet that randoms who never thought those symbols might be letters would just, ignore it - but it's basically headcanon land.

If nabatean language came from Sothis, is it like "the blue sea star's language", or are they even communicating in "Nabatean" through words, can this language be vocalised by humans, is it like entish, or was it kept secret and only used between Nabateans like Tolkien's khuzdul?

Or, about Agarthans - maybe they used a certain language before being wiped out and shared it with those lizards and some other random humans, Sothis confined them underground, Enbarrians kept on using the Agarthan language and through centuries of usage it eventually branched to become the Enbarr language - and pissed to speak something even similar to the language of those beasts, Agarthans evolved their original language to the one we can now spot in Shambala?

mr. and mrs. tweedy walked so buttwitch and big deal could run

Just found out yesterday that the guy in my uni class that liked to be characterized as a big huggable bear golden retriever bf type was accused of raping a drunken girl from our degree at a camping trip (idk which year) and his feminist polyamorous mom friend gf has done nothing but defend him ever since how is ur week going so far

opinion on the Golden Lovers?

One of my favourite ships every, I love writing them and ugh! theyre fucking important to wrestling fans queer and straight imo! I need more of them when both kenny and ibu are healthy and ready to return to wrestling

franz joseph in situations

Hi! How you doing? You seem to be one of the actives ones remaining on tumblr.

I can't sleep so I will get a bottle of water; get one for yourself too and take care please just a gentle remainder.

thank you for the kind words <3

i'm doing alright. seeing more people pay their respects to him on twitter made me cry all morning. even john green tweeted.

i'm feeling better overall. it's friday. the sun is shining. i get monday off from work. and i know it'll be ok even if it isn't right now.

going through my google docs and it turns out i remember strikingly little from 2020..

Sometimes it’s impossible for me to watch Voyager without thinking about what the concept inevitably would have been translated into had it aired 5-10 years later. Battlestar Galactica was on in 2004 - which is mindblowing to me! Especially when Voyager went off the air in 2001. Especially knowing that RDM cut his teeth on and was hugely influenced by Star Trek.

I’m 100000% sure I’m not saying anything that hasn’t already been said, but like - what a huge departure in worldview, re: how our culture circled around this new, grittier, more “realistic” vision of exploring the possibilities opened up by the science fiction genre. Two space operas about a disparate group that has to either pull together or die while stranded in the unknown: Voyager and its rampant idealism, an arguably sanitized process of telling ourselves stories about the human condition and its constants now and the future the story envisions for ourselves, vs. the endless fault lines and compromises of self and scraping for survival and humanity, and if you’re lucky you get both together, of BSG.

it’s my little brother’s birthday so I called him and we chatted for a very long time and made plans to play video games together and it made me very happy especially cause I know this last year has been very hard for him and it sounds like he’s doing better and !!! i’m just really happy for him and excited to try and virtually hang out with him more often!!!

"What emerged in two interviews with Trump, and conversations with more than a dozen of his closest advisers and confidants, were the outlines of an imperial presidency that would reshape America and its role in the world. To carry out a deportation operation designed to remove more than 11 millions people from the country, Trump told me, he would be willing to build migrant detention camps and deploy the U.S. military, both at the border and inland. He would let red states monitor women's pregnancies and prosecute those who violate abortion bans. He would, at his personal discretion, withhold funds appropriated by Congress, according to top advisers. He would be willing to fire a U.S. Attorney who doesn't carry out his order to prosecute someone, breaking with a tradition of independent law enforcement that dates from America's founding. He is weighing pardons for every one of his supporters accused of attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, more than 800 of whom have pleaded guilty or been convicted by a jury. He might not come to the aid of an attacked ally in Europe or Asia if he felt that country wasn't paying enough for its own defense. He would gut the U.S. civil service, deploy the National Guard to American cities as he sees fit, close the White House pandemic-preparedness office, and staff his Administration with acolytes who back his false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen."

-- "How Far Would He Go", TIME Magazine's interviews with Donald Trump, April 30, 2024.

I know we're saturated in coverage of Trump and it's easy (and probably better for our mental health) to usually ignore most of the articles when we see them, especially since he's so full of shit and infuriating. But it's also important to recognize that he is going to be the Republican nominee for President and he could absolutely be elected in November, and if you thought his first term was scary and dangerous, you need to understand that in a second term he's going to have people around him that are better prepared and VERY willing to do the crazy shit that he wants to do to this country. They aren't even hiding the fact that they are seeking vengeance against political opponents whom they feel have wronged them, and are ready to fundamentally dismantle the democratic foundations that are barely holding this country together after nearly 250 years.

Just look at what Trump says about the people who he incited to attack the United States Capitol in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election and halt the peaceful transfer of power that has happened every four years since 1789:

"Trump has sought to recast an insurrectionist riot as an act of patriotism. 'I call them the J-6 patriots,' he say. When I ask whether he would consider pardoning every one of them, he says, 'Yes, absolutely.' As Trump faces dozens of felony charges, including for election interference, conspiracy to defraud the United States, willful retention of national-security secrets, and falsifying business records to conceal hush-money payments, he has tried to turn legal peril into a badge of honor."

Oh, and please note that Trump -- a former President of the United States and possible future President of the United States -- said on the record in these interviews with TIME: "There is a definite antiwhite feeling in the country and that can't be allowed either." We are at a point where political leaders are outright saying that in this country again, and it's because of Donald Trump.

So, take the time to recognize that Trump is straight-up telling us the country we're going to be living in if he wins again in November. And understand that your vote matters -- and WHO you vote for matters -- because, as I've been saying for years now, ELECTIONS HAVE FUCKING CONSEQUENCES.

i still don't know what my degree was about

Something to beware of

Via my old friend and editor Bob Greenberger, on Facebook:

“Yesterday, I was invited to be interviewed for a podcast. Buried deep in the details of what they do and who they have hosted previously was the mention that they charge $30 for the interview.

“I wrote back: ‘Rule number one for a writer: money flows to the writer. While being on your series is flattering, it is not worth paying for. If you wish to proceed, let me know.’

“This morning, I was informed, ‘Even if I want to proceed, I wouldn't because of your insult. Saying my show isn’t worth paying for is extremely insulting. Plus, it's so delusional of you to think this way.’

“'Nuff said.”

And herewith the details on the clueless parties, so that they can be avoided and/or shown the virtual door:

“Founded in 2020, P English Literature is a literary organisation dedicated to the promotion of English Literature regardless of genre.

“Our triweekly publication of book reviews, author interviews, opinion commentaries, literary criticism, writer's conferences, open mics, and other literary activities are explicitly done to publicise and incite authors and writers of different backgrounds, heritages, and cultures.

“Originally focused on promoting self-published authors and their works, we have expanded to traditional books and authors as well.”

Beware these guys and folks like them. Always read the small print.

♪ We hold each other. ♪

-Lyrics from We Hold Each Other by Great Big World. After season 1 I made a couple gifs based on this song focused on James. Two years later I’ve made a new one with a Tristan focus.

[Maggie and Tristan hug in the ACGAS 2020 season 3 Christmas special. Added text reads: “Something happens when I hold her. She keeps my heart from getting older.”

James and Tristan hug in that same episode. Added text reads “Something happens when I hold him. He keeps my heart from getting broken.”]

I would have reacted that way too if my friend did that to me like I would feel like such an afterthought :( U better still go on your own and have fun don’t even think about them!!!! ❤️❤️

I would feel awful if I went on my own though because Yoongi is her bias and I would just be thinking about wanting her to be there. But it's probably a better idea than going with them because I'll just be a third wheel. I guess I have a couple weeks to figure out what I'm doing, assuming that either of us get presale.

Measure 110, or the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

So if y'all aren't local to Oregon, you may not have heard that the Oregon state legislature just voted to -- essentially -- gut Measure 110, the ballot measure which decriminalized all drug possession and use in the state. It turned all drug use into a citation instead, and the citation and fine could be waived by completing a health screening. The entire point of Measure 110 was replacing jail with health care and services to help people instead, and while I could probably write a very long side post on the imperfections of that approach, it was at the very least a move in the right direction after decades of the pathetic failure and absolutely racist mess that is the "War on Drugs."

You may hear this pointed to in coming years as a reason why we have to just throw people into jail for using drugs, because Measure 110 failed. And like... it did fail, kinda. Sorta. It failed in that it did not manage to fix everything immediately, and it created some new issues while also exposing older issues more sharply.

It also saved the state $40 million in court costs prosecuting low-level drug offenses, kept thousands of people whose literal only crime was putting a substance into the body of a consenting adult (themselves) out of jail, put at least one addiction services center in every county in the state, invested $300 million in addiction services, and an awful lot more. See the end of this post for more reading.

But where it failed, it failed because it wasn't supported. Police and advocacy groups both asked for specific tickets for this new class of offenses which had the phone number to call to go through the health screening and the information about how going through that health screening would make the ticket go away printed on it prominently - lawmakers declined to fund this. Governor Kotek budgeted $50K to train officers on how to handle these new citations and how to direct people to the treatment and housing supports, but lawmakers thought that training officers on this new law at all was a waste of money. Money moved extremely slowly out to the supports that were supposed to come into play to help people obtain treatment or get access to harm-reduction strategies. People freaked the fuck out about clean-needle outreach, fentanyl testing strip distribution, Narcan training, and other harm-reduction strategies.

And at the end of the day, Measure 110 gets called a failure because it wasn't a silver bullet. Never mind that thousands of people are not sitting in jail right now for basically no fucking reason. Never mind that people have gotten treatment, harm has been reduced, overdoses have been prevented...

So, yeah. You'll probably start hearing this trotted out as proof that, well, we triiiied decriminalizing drugs, but look what happened in Portland! Well, what happened in Oregon is that we got set up to fail, and still didn't fail, just didn't totally succeed.

Measure 110 highlights, quoted directly from Prison Policy Initiative:

The Oregon Health Authority reported a 298% increase in people seeking screening for substance use disorders.

More than 370,000 naloxone doses have been distributed since 2022, and community organizations report more than 7,500 opioid overdose reversals since 2020.

Although overdose rates have increased around the country as more fentanyl has entered the drug supply, Oregon’s increase in overdoses has been similar to other states’ and actually less than neighboring Washington’s. A peer-reviewed study comparing overdose rates in Oregon with the rest of the country after the law went into effect found no link between Measure 110 and increased overdose rates.

There is no evidence that drug use rates in Oregon have increased. A cross-sectional survey of people who use drugs across eight counties in Oregon found that most had been using drugs for years; only 1.5% reported having started after Measure 110 went into effect.

There has been no increase in 911 calls in Oregon cities after Measure 110.

Measure 110 saves Oregonians millions. Oregon is expected to save $37 million between 2023-2025 if Measure 110 continues. This is because it costs up to $35,217 to arrest, adjudicate, incarcerate, and supervise a person taken into custody for a drug misdemeanor — and upwards of $60,000 for a felony. In contrast, treatment costs an average of $9,000 per person. The money saved by Measure 110 goes directly to state funding for addiction and recovery services.

There is no evidence that Measure 110 was associated with a rise in crime. In fact, crime in Oregon was 14% lower in 2023 than it was in 2020.

Further reading/sources: