This Is All Your Fault, Potato.

Helen Whitaker, England

" Sycamore Seed "

However the drunk guys are also drinking, and eventually she can't afford to buy another pitcher for the table so she can't keep up the ever-full beer glass trick. At this point she has to resort to setting up the pool trick shot that she's never seen anyone but her boyfriend pull off, and says she'll leave with whoever manages the shot first.

The composition of the drawing is based on the structure of the tree. The basic idea is that Barbossa is the roots, the foundation, the foundation on which the crown, which is Elizabeth, is based and held.

⬇️Sketch⬇️

And at the same time, Company SecUnits are treated much worse than Three by virtue of being rentals. Many--if not most--of Murderbot's clients didn't want to have any SecUnits, but were required to take them per Company rental agreements for other equipment. Even the ones who specifically did want SecUnits didn't have any investment in what happened to them. They were the equivalents of the U-haul you'd rent to move your couch across town. They just needed to do a job briefly and hopefully be in good enough shape to get their deposit back at the end, but if not, eh. No big deal. Murderbot has never had the same clients for very long, and it's never had to work with the same SecUnits for very long. Every contract changes. Nothing lasts.

Three of course doesn’t like what Barish Estranza did to it, its fellow SecUnits and to indentured humans and it recognizes that BE has bad values.

But I imagine it to still really stick to all other B-E standards, protocols and classification systems. It constantly is telling MB to do this and that about maintenance for arm guns etc because it’s the B-E standard protocol. And it still uses the B-E classification scale to rate all sorts of situations.

It’s like MB having all this bias that the company installed in it about rogues and the danger of SecUnits in general and so on. Just for B-E (who canonically care a lot about upholding their brand) they installed in their employees and SecUnits the belief that B-E standards and protocols are superior over everything else.

I see Three arguing with MB why the B-E standard cycle length actually is the best across systems and so on.

Dont’ Like, Don’t Read

or DL; DR

You are responsible for curating your own online experience.

If something upsets you, makes you angry or queasy or triggers you, stop reading/looking at it. Avoid things that might make you feel that way.

Learn to use the Sort and Filter function on AO3, especially the Exclude tools.

On social media, block and mute accounts / tags / words when necessary.

If you hated something, you don’t need to tell that to the creator or start pointing fingers at them publicly.

The Back button is free. Use it.

Addendum:

Yes, for this to work, creators need to tag their works accordingly, so that people know what sort of content they are about to engage with and can nope out if necessary.

I will probably make another PSA about the importance of proper tagging later.

Ship And Let Ship

or SALS

You are allowed to ship whatever you want.

Everyone else is also allowed to ship whatever they want.

You are entitled to dislike or even hate a ship. If you want to do this online, in public, don’t use the ship tags for hate posts.

If you see someone posting about a ship they like and you don’t, there is no need for you to start arguing with them in their replies / comments / QRTs / reblogs. Don’t throw your hate in their face.

Do not harass fan creators or fans for shipping something you disapprove.

All of this also applies to liking / disliking an individual character.

Addendum:

”I agree with this, except when…”

No, then you are NOT agreeing with this.

Let me make this VERY clear. There are NO exceptions. None.

You don’t EVER harass real people over pixels.

If you disagree with this, kindly block and move on.

Your Kink Is Not My Kink

or YKINMK / YKINMKATO

The longer version is ”Your Kink Is Not My Kink And That’s Okay”.

People have different tastes. Not everything is for everybody.

Even if you don’t like a specific kink, other people are still allowed to use it in their creations.

You are entitled to dislike kinky content and think that it’s ”weird”.

Don’t kink shame or judge people based on their kinks.

This goes both ways: your kink is not someone else’s kink, so don’t push it onto those who are not into it.

Be Kind

or Don’t Be An Asshole

Focus on the things you like instead of the things you hate.

Create and unite instead of destroying and dividing.

Don’t harass real people over fictional things.

Stop stirring up petty drama just to get some attention on social media.

Stop trying to ”win”. Fandom is not a competition.

(and bonus essay in defense of SWK being a villain because I know you all wanted that today)

Okay, no, the Queen Mother of the West never actually got the chance to give Sun Wukong a kick in the head, but she was just about the only god in the Heavens who didn't try! It would have been an epic fight: Xiwangmu is NOT to be messed with.

As it stands, it was great fun watching Wukong cheerfully wipe the floor with the entire Chinese pantheon. Like, he absolutely screwed the pooch in Heaven, but I'm still cheering for him. Yessss, take on General Li AND Nezha AND the Four Great Devarajas at once, amazing, GET 'EM, MONKEY! Rah-rah-rah!

I did find it interesting how many of the gods who were sent after him were the same as those listed among his friends at the beginning of the chapter. Further related points of interest:

-he stops visiting said celestial friends once he's distracted by peaches.

-he's been told before about the time difference but when his friends on Mt Huaguo cry, "Great Sage! You left us for so long, and did not even once visit us to see how we were doing," he laughs: "It's not that long!" (Even without the time difference, it had been half a year for him).

-referring to the 72 demon tribes who are his allies, he says, "All of you are, related or not, people from home!" indicating a familial connection. Days later, returning in triumph from an epic duel, his commanders sob about said allies having been captured. Monkey replies, "Those chieftains who have been captured are tigers and leopards, wolves and insects, badgers and foxes, and the like. Not a single member of our own kind has been hurt. Why then should we be disconsolate?"

I think that Monkey's increasing self-absorption is on full display here. When he first got back to Mt Huaguo, everything he did was for the safety and benefit of his people, and he valued at least six of his allied kings highly enough to swear brotherhood with them. Now... 😬 He's losing people both figuratively and literally, but he's too caught up in his own spectacular upward trajectory to care.

On a related note, I think it's fascinating how many, many, MANY adaptations portray Wukong's defiance of the Heavens as something brave and revolutionary and noble, like he was some lone hero standing up against Corrupt Authority. Because it's so human of us: We want the guy who can solo Heaven's armies to be the hero. He's so cool. We as humans have a real worrying instinct to blindly admire powerful people (especially if they're funny and charismatic, like Monkey is).

But Sun Wukong is not the brave persecuted hero. This is his VILLAIN arc. He was perfectly happy to be part of the Heavenly bureaucracy! But he was arrogant and entitled and didn't want to work his way up the ranks the usual way. (The Jade Emperor, for instance, spent a thousand-plus world cycles--each lasting 4.32 billion years--learning wisdom and doing good deeds in order to qualify for his rank. He says in chapter four, "All appointed officials advance from lowly positions to exalted ones. Why should [Monkey] object to that arrangement?"). But Monkey knew he could have any title he wanted by using violence. He's a bully. That the people he's bullying are kind of annoying bureaucrats doesn't change that.

And then in this chapter he tops off being a bully by being a glutton, a liar, a drunkard, a thief, and an asshole.

And that's the point. He's the Mind. He's capable of anything. So when he goes bad, he goes really bad. I think that's incredibly important to his character, and makes his eventual redemption arc that much more meaningful and impressive.

I adore this character so much, but a good part of my love is based on how huge his range is. That someone who is capable of being The Absolute Worst is also capable of fully conquering himself and becoming enlightened is profoundly inspiring to me.

So, yeah. Let Sun Wukong be The Absolute Worst! Do not sanitize his motives! He was a petty violent impulsive entitled ass, and I love that for him!

...And, because I'm human, I also love that I get to watch him absolutely body those snobby Celestials before he embarks on his redemption arc.

Thanks again to @journeythroughjourneytothewest for hosting this reading group! Chibi translations:

Wukong to peach fairy: "Where did this peach thief come from?"

Queen Mother to Wukong: "You are such a fool..."

‌<sourdough>

‌<sauce style=" type:mayo flavor:cranberry"></sauce>

‌<cheese style="type:swiss"></cheese>

‌<meat style="animal:pig, cut:bacon"></meat>

<deli style="animal:turkey, cut:slice"></deli>

‌</sourdough>

Other materials at the time, namely clay, would absorb flavors and germs meaning that if you ate beef off a clay plate your next meal with that plate could have beef flavor and microbes common on cow meat on it.  That would leak out seemingly at random no less.  Heck imagine a sick person coughing into their soup bowl and then months later their germs hiding in the clay would pop out to infect whole new people.

Also the earliest human use of glass we know of is for its sharpness.  Pre-historic people would use volcanic glass as sharp knives for food preparation.  Also beads.  Pretty much any new substance humans get their hands on for most of our history we immediately try to make into beads.