Drifting Aimlessly in an Endless Sea of Mysteries

Happy birthday, Nelson Mandela! (July 18, 1918)

One of the most famous freedom fighters in the history of Africa, Nelson Mandela was born into a prominent Xhosa family in Mvezo, South Africa. He studied law and worked as a lawyer in Johannesburg before involving himself in the struggle against apartheid, the system of racial segregation imposed by South Africa's ruling white minority. He joined the African National Congress, which he would later go on to lead, as well as the South African Communist Party, having come to embrace socialism and Pan-Africanism. He was originally committed to nonviolent protest, but ultimately founded the uMkhonto we Sizwe ("Spear of the Nation" in Xhosa), the ANC's paramilitary wing, and led them in violent resistance to the apartheid government. Mandela was captured and imprisoned for 27 years, becoming an internationally-recognized political prisoner and representative of the anti-apartheid struggle before his release in 1990. Mandela was instrumental in negotiating the end of apartheid, and in South Africa's first multiracial elections, was elected President. He served from 1994 to 1999, overseeing a reckoning with apartheid's legacy, as well as introducing moderate social reforms, though never pursuing particularly radical policies. After leaving office, Mandela remained an elder statesman and an international figure until his death in 2013.

mutual-1: had eggs for breakfast today

mutual-2: this post contains blocked tags

one-smeemble-figure-a-day: Smeeble with Strawberry, Happy Fun Company, 1997

fandom-mutual: does anyone ever think about blorbo’s oedipius complex

fantasy-nouveau: the most gorgeous illustration you’ve ever seen from some book published in 1903

retching-ribcages: a bunch of pictures of a sculpture collection depicting various household objects as meat

mutual-3: i hate this show i hate this show i hate all of you this place sucks

birds-are-cool: Splendid Fairywren (Malurus splendens), Native to Australia

blog-you’re-trying-to-impress: snorkum does NOT give good head hes gonna bite your shit and then start crying

fandom-polls: Who gives better head? (blorbo) (snorkum)

pretty-colors: #857ef4

A reference sheet for great alver I made last year and forgot to upload. This is still pretty accurate!

Alver are diprotodont marsupial sophonts native to the Terran biotope. They have moderate sexual dimorphism, with males being slightly larger and in possession of mobile display fangs. Female coat patterns tend to be less patchy and with fewer colors, tending towards solid coats, but there is a lot of variety in color and pattern so this doesn't always hold true.

A couple more beastfolk cultural designs. These are minotaur, large semi bipedal herbivores.

Uplifted to sapience through a similar process as most of the other beastfolk on the island of Gliozep. The minotaur are common in the southern grasslands and inhabit about half the island. They are large and fearsome, though gentle in nature. Being pure herbivores a lot of their day is spent farming, eating and pondering.

The Southern Nomads in inhabit the coastal regions, moving along the coast in loose bands or herds of up to around 300 individuals.

The Golmatrem or "Gardenmakers" are part of the Grand Coalition and their territory serves as the bread basket for the whole operation, as their knowledge and skill in agriculture is unmatched.

By 'low-impact' do you mean impact on the material reality of people's lives, of politics, of marxism? Do you think that someone can make art that is effective propaganda without meaning to?

I agree that people especially on the 'art appreciation' website will have strong reactions to that statement as did I when reading it, I think it would be silly to expect otherwise, but I think it's something worth thinking about. I'm not super well-read even though I'm trying to fix that and I'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter if you have a moment.

i mean, like, any individual media object just has an extremely low impact on the world, materially and politically. when art or even specifically directed propaganda has influence on the world, it is in aggregate, as the manifestation of a cultural trend or the characteristics of mass media production--for instance, i don't think gears of war or top gun are individually very influential on the world in a vacuum, they are simply individual examples of the very influential billion-dollar mass culture imperialist propaganda industry.

and like, in case where a particular work or piece of propaganda can be singlehandedly influential, the properties of the work itself are secondary to the material factors propagating it and the political factions adopting and appropriating it. like, to take a very extreme example, the protocols of the elders of zion became a hugely important pillar of global antisemitism because of its usage by the black hundreds and later by white russian emigres, not because of some remarkably convincing element of its own rhetoric