Whumpster Fire

@drakedadragon wait i LOVE it you’re so right

since summoning takes a toll and stronger magicians have more innate energy/willpower, it makes sense for weaker ones to use more tech so they don’t waste energy with a bunch of imps. Plus underwood’s are all busy doing child abuse

Diving deeper, I don’t recall Kitty ever mentioning computers either, but with all the government censorship (libraries closed etc) they probably wouldn’t want them readily available. HOWEVER we’ve also seen that some commoners with money and status (Amanda Cathcart) get more equal treatment.

All this to say that in Magical London, more tech products are only being used by middle-class workaday magicians and upper-class commoners.

My own read was of computers but no internet, as in basic elaborators to streamline typing up documents and other office work, and we see Underwood with one because, as a lesser magician with lower rank in the ministry, he has (zero or very few) personal assistants to take on some of the bureaucracy that requires dealing with technology.

Also, Bartimaeus says (AoS, ch 25 — I think, I don't have my copy with me; it's when he and Faquarl hide under the car after escaping the Tower of London) that technology carries distinctly human "feel" that's bothersome to spirits. Therefore I usually assumed that it would also make summonings and other magical activities more draining/difficult, and that magicians avoided it when possible.

we saw you from across the Prague town square and really hate your vibe.

Absolutely, babycakes! And congrats on going to school and moving in with your pal.

We've written a lot on living independently for the first time, which I'll link below. But also, here are some basic communal things you should buy when you first move in:

bathmat, shower curtain, bath towels

toilet paper and hand towels (either cloth or paper, for both the kitchen and bathroom)

dish soap, sponges, and a dish drying rack

trashcans (1 for kitchen, 1 for bathroom)

curtains (a must for bedrooms and any see-through bathroom windows, but optional for common areas)

door mat (for wiping your feet off so you don't track mud inside)

common area seating such as a couch (even if it's a couple camp chairs from Walmart, you'll be glad you have somewhere you can sit and hang out together)

common area table that can double as an eating space and desk space for both of you

Those are the basics, and you can add more as you see fit. Good luck! Here's more info:

MASTERPOST: Everything You Need To Know About Living Independently for the First Time

In addition to the doormat, get a boot tray or some other place to put your shoes so they don't drip water on the floor.

Possibly a towel rack? This is an issue I encountered in a dorm room suite in college and not an actual apartment, but I did move into a place that did not have a towel rack in the vicinity of the shower and I had to buy a portable towel rack.

Bath mat. Stepping out of the bath/shower onto the smooth tile floor with wet feet is not just a nuisance, it's a safety hazard. Putting a towel on the floor outside the shower also works, but if you don't have a surplus of towels...

Lamps. If the apartment doesn't have built in lighting in places that need it, like the bedrooms and living room, you will need lamps.

The first is that they're both the most annoying people to encounter.

The second is that neither of them care about the Iron Lung movie or game.

Like wow this crackship that completely disregards everything about the stories is popular because it is gay. This is TUMBLR. Are you REALLY surprised a bland gay ship is EXTREMELY POPULAR??? Are you truly shocked that fandom obsessed women and girls and some nonbinary people are going crazy for a ship between two hot guys?????

"Can't aroace people just have this one thing-" on Tumblr??? You think Tumblr is gonna not ship a gay ship??? Tumblr. The Destiel website. Tumblr. You really think Tumblr can resist a gay ship that has literally no chemistry????

The shippers don't hate aroace people, they're just shippers, and shippers love to get obsessed over two attractive guys. It's not special. You just don't like it because it's a crackship that doesn't make sense. But you can't say that so instead you make it about how the people who ship it don't consider aroaces to be human or some shit.

You don't have to attach aroace discrimination to your hatred of a popular gay ship, it's ok. You can just hate it because it sucks. That is allowed.

"This concept doesn't exist. Instead different word for said concept exists"

Like when people argue whether warhammer 40k is fascist propaganda that says that fascism is good, or if it's actually a satire of fascist propaganda saying that fascism is bad. When it isn't really either of those things. That's not what it's going for and that's not what it's doing. It's got satirical elements floating around in there in varying degrees depending on era and author, but the point of them isn't to instruct the audience whether fascism is bad - it's for drama, and mood, and weird interestingness, and humour, and all the other reasons why things are in art other than political and moral instruction. It portrays a bunch of fucked up stuff connected by in-setting circumstance and lets you make your own mind about it, or just let yourself think "damn that's fucked up" and leave it at that.

It's not even, like, complex, by almost any literary standard. It's the same thing with them being unable to understand marvel movies, literally the most accessible movies ever made, when they crack out the most basic #101 nuance for teenagers where a villain has a sympathetic motive or a hero makes a mistake, and they can't really understand it, thinking that because the villain has a sympathetic quality then the movie is trying to demonise that sympathetic quality, because they assume that the film is operating at the level of basic propaganda, when it's, like, even slightly above that.

Because if it doesn't support you...., what does it do? That's right it's against you. Which makes it bad.

And why would you, a good person, be interacting with something that's bad. You wouldn't. Unless you were a bad person.

OP: "Decarbonized formaldehyde is great. Just wash daikons with decarbonized formaldehyde and they turn white."

"Decarbonized formaldehyde" (脫碳甲醛) is an online phrase used to make fun of people that blindly avoid chemicals. Formaldehyde (H2CO) decarbonized is water (H2O).

Sure, love that! Haven't watched the movie or read the book but I am now thoroughly invested. Sure! Makes sense, that's usually how I find things I love.

Anyways...

I just saw a post about how eridians, more specifically rocky, would find out about restaurants and be confused (and disgusted) by the fact humans go the specific buildings in order to eat around other people.

And like-

I can't help but think about the fact that humans are hardwired to be social eaters.

You get depressed if you have no one to eat with- I have skipped meals because I don't like eating alone.

I think it would also be good to note it might be a survival thing. Humans choke easily and having someone around can be a comfort and a safeguard.

And our saliva is literally full of drugs- watered down so we aren't high all the time- but our saliva has highly effective painkillers (opioid i think but don't want to research it) and antidepressants??? Which is tied to comfort eating.

But more on communal eating. Its also a social behavior, a bonding activity. Its important for our brains to eat with people.

Its simular but not as extreme as the eridians sleep watching behavior.

Safety;

Eridian sleeping- vulnerable, paralyzed state

Human eating- vulnerable, body is focused on digestion instead of activity (stomach cramps if you run right after eating) worse hearing (your chewing is loud) personally I get super zoned out while eating (lost in the sause)

Social behavior;

Eridian sleeping- shows trust

Human eating- shows trust (i would not let a stranger anywhere near my food) used to socialize

What im getting at is maybe the eridians would not find it *that* weird. In context its an important behavior.

The things about being vulnerable while eating would definitely apply to them because even if their senses aren't messed up as much it's one of the only times any of their organic tissue is in contact with the outside world, so the cultural taboo against eating in public may be a more recent development in their technological history. But regardless they just find it gross / immodest. I guess the only two stable states for eridian culture are "no modesty taboos" or "everything that requires opening yourself is rude to do in public, including eating."

YOU DO IT ON ONE OF THESE! OBVIOUSLY!!!

and that brown end? the hard bit? pencil sharpener. or sharpened with a blade. are you following me? now, attach six of those to a harpy.

I do not like this style. I will never like this style. ... My biggest criticism is that I merely dislike this [art project]. Make me hate it. Make me furious over how much fun you're having with this thing I hate.

This website is never beating the "no reading comprehension" allegations. "Claws like sharpened bananas" is an extremely evocative image and pretty scary.

Something in the vein of Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adams? Perfect.

YOU DO IT ON ONE OF THESE! OBVIOUSLY!!!

and that brown end? the hard bit? pencil sharpener. or sharpened with a blade. are you following me? now, attach six of those to a harpy.

I do not like this style. I will never like this style. ... My biggest criticism is that I merely dislike this [art project]. Make me hate it. Make me furious over how much fun you're having with this thing I hate.

This website is never beating the "no reading comprehension" allegations. "Claws like sharpened bananas" is an extremely evocative image and pretty scary.

1) most of the world does not have the right to not self-incriminate. In the US, let's say I happen to pull out of a parking lot entirely unknowing that a murder is happening at the other end. I can plead the fifth and say I'm invoking my right to not self-incriminate. If I'm basically anywhere else, I have to admit I was in the parking lot and hope the other evidence saves me.

2) most of the world doesn't have the "you don't have to testify against your spouse" law. You can't rob a bank together and then refuse to speak badly of each other.

3) not all countries operate on "innocent until proven guilty." I don't know for sure a full list of who doesn't, but I know "guilty until proven innocent" is true in Japan and Thailand, and basically any country with a dictator. "But it's not a dictatorship" is not an indicator.

4) you do not have the right to remain silent in most of the world. Silence will be taken as an admission of guilt even if your silence is only "I'm not fluent in this language, and don't want to speak until I have an interpreter."

5) most places have absolutely terrible disability protections laws, if they have them at all. I know the "hate America" website is going to hate hearing this, but the US still has some of the strongest laws in the world for protecting our disabled citizens in terms of both accessibility and discrimination. "You can sue for that" is not necessarily true--often it isn't.

6) whether or not your country has freedom of speech laws is a crapshoot, and countries you might expect to have them often don't. I was stunned to learn the UK doesn't have freedom of speech laws. "This country is not a dictatorship" is not an indicator.

7) I already knew this one before Tumblr, but it bears repeating for the people who don't, alcohol laws vary wildly throughout the world and the US has the highest age of legality and second-strictest laws about alcohol in the world. (The strictest are in Islamic theocratic countries where consumption is forbidden and punishable by death.) Most of the developed world has ages of legality between 14-18 years old, often with "split" ages (e.g. you can drink beer and wine at 14 but you can't drink hard liquor until you're 16). Some places may not have minimum ages at all.

8) the "parliamentary government" is a lie. All parliaments are different, sometimes wildly so. Maybe you, like me, had a civics teacher who actually explained the differences between monarchy/democracy/republic/parliamentary and so on. That teacher, unlike mine, might even have been very good. But their class time was limited and they absolutely did not give you the whole picture. Unless you're talking to someone in the UK, "contact your MP or local council" is not necessarily how their government works, even if it's parliamentary. "It's like Congress except with more than two parties" is how a very, very limited number of parliamentary governments actually work.

9) "military service" doesn't necessarily mean the same thing everywhere, and militaries are not inherently repressive. Very few people would argue the Ukrainian military is a bad thing when it's fighting against a genocide, for example. And I learned from a German military friend that the primary purpose of the German military is actually public service--they cover a lot of the functions that would be handled in the US by stuff like FEMA.

10) not quite a legal thing, but most of the world doesn't use 911 for their emergency services and those who do are doing it in response to widespread ignorance of the real number. 112 is a common emergency number, and I think I've also seen 111 and 999. If you're in a non-US country and dial 911, at best you'll be rerouted to the actual emergency services number. At worst, nothing will happen and you'll still need help but not know how to get it.

And that's only stuff I've personally picked up. That's absolutely not a full rundown of all the common misinformation pieces.

To be fair, the US military also plays a pretty big role in disaster relief, especially the National Guard IIRC (and the Coast Guard does a lot of maritime safety and rescue stuff). This could also be the primary purpose of our military if our government could manage to go 6 months without starting yet another war.