Enbylvania65000 - Enbylvania 6-5000

The Early Therocene: 30 million years post-establishment

In Plains Sight: Life in the Noderan Plains

The continent of Nodera is thriving in the beginning of the new era of HP-02017's history: the Therocene Era. New forms of hamsters have gotten bigger and bigger as time went on, and thirty million years later they have finally attained the niches of megafauna, and spread upon the continents once the land bridges became exposed during a brief period of glaciation that marked the end of the Rodentocene Era 5 million years earlier.

Today the ecosystems of Nodera have attained a diversity like never before, as enormous creatures of various clades have spread throughout its grasslands and filled numerous herbivore niches. Most prevalent are the bipedal hopping boingos, large descendants of the jerryboas that have become widespread as the predominant plains grazers, with the boldly-striped streaky zibba (Saltozebroides melanoleuca) being one such example. Another common grazer is the massive Noderan plains mison (Buffalomys noderus), the heaviest megafauna of Nodera.

Despite competition from the mison and the boingos, the hamtelopes of Nodera are also thriving in the plains. Some have evolved to become much smaller, feeding on low-growing softer plants in the plains, such as the lesser plains phonie (Equinomimus minimus), while others went the opposite route, becoming the towering long-necked girats, such as the axehorn girat (Altocervimys securiceros) which became high browsers specializing on the sparse, thorny trees that grow sporadically throughout the open grassland.

Such a wide diversity of herbivores in one same ecosystem is made possible by the unique phenomenon of niche partitioning, where each herbivore specializes in eating different plants, or different parts of the same plants, and thus can coexist with minimal competition. Tall, tough grasses grow in abundance in the Noderan plains, and the mison greatly relish the leaves- but not the sheaths and tough woody stems. Once the mison have passed, the boingos move in: with teeth adapted for abrasive vegetation they feast upon the woody stems and twigs that the mison ignore, and once the boingos too move on, the grass begins producing tender new regrowth, which small hamtelopes such as the phonies in turn feed upon.

The abundance of herbivores brings about in turn a diversity of predators, which specialize to hunt in the plains. Ratbats-of-prey such as the northern striped hawkbat (Nyctaccipiter borealis) soar above the plains seeking out small prey, such as jerryboas and small hamtelopes, while on the ground, large carnivorous fearrets, known as the carnohams, reign as the top predator of the open grassland. The largest of them, the lion-sized grassland nottiger (Pseudopanthera tigrileo), is Nodera's biggest carnivore, and specializes on hamtelopes, boingos, and the young of girats and mison, though adults are far too large for them to tackle.

This diversity is but a tiny fraction of the large new life that has dawned on the planet in the Early Therocene. In other continents and other biomes, thousands of other species thrive and evolve: all from one single species millions of years ago.

The gals are feeling circular, absolute little creatures.

Every person is inherently bad because they [are tainted by Original Sin / have privilege and benefit from colonization]. Some people are good, however, because [they became Christian / are oppressed minorities], and these people cannot do any wrong. The problem is the remaining people, who are [minorities and Jews / oppressors and capitalists and Jews], who cause all the problems in the world. But the [Democrats and Zionists / Democrats and Zionists and Republicans] have a vested interest keeping them in power. We should ally with [Russia / Russia and Hamas and Hezbollah and Houthis] to take down the true enemy, [immigrants and Arabs and Jews / America and Jews]. Once we kill all the bad people, the [Rapture / Glorious Revolution] will come, and everything will be better.

I been having way too much fun with one of the Rider-Culture’s many non-war-games, goat-pulling! Inspired by the game of the same name played by many cultures of central Asia throughout history and still popular today! Though because the ‘horses’ in this case have a little more opinion and propensity for wrasslin’ it’s more like football than the real world counterpart. It’s a very popular game with the Rider centaurs as it combines their two other favorite pasttimes- racing and wrestling, depending on who has the goat!

In more organized games the goal is to take control of a stuffed goat/sheep-skin and keep control long enough to get it into the possession of a family/herd mate that’s on the sidelines watching (or doing something else when they get pelted by a goat-pillow) though most casual games wind up just being basically keep-away until everyone’s wore out. There’s two ways it usually winds up going, giant wrestling pile free-for-alls like shown above or all out races after whoever has the goat at the moment, depending on how good the grip the Riders have. While wrestling is usually what it comes down too, a frequent winning strategy is just waiting for your opportunity, having your Rider cling on like a koala and running like hell. Using one of your littlest rider cousins is recommended for their light weight and killer grips, much to the auntie’s dismay.

I have been on hiatus from this site and will continue to be for a while. Just have no energy to sort out who to unfollow anymore

Context: they were in a bar that can give you any liquid in the world

My friend: I take a bottle, not looking at the label and drink it.

Me: okay, roll a d100 for the drink

*rolls a 10*

Me, with the evilest smile: that’s f*cking vinegar, mate.

Number of people I have seen that are Jewish saying that criticising individual Jews, thinking Jews "aren't perfect" or saying that criticism of Israel is inherently antisemitic: 0

The number of non-Jews I have seen absolutely insist that saying "Jews aren't perfect" or disagreeing with a jew or that having criticism of Israel isn't antisemitic and implying or outright saying this is a common thing: I have lost count.

Weird, you would think that looking at Jumblr and being on Jewbook I would see more of this.

You know, even if there are like....nutters out there who insist on this, the absolute rampant amount of people saying "it is NOT antisemetic to be critical of x y z" is absolutely overwhelming and you should find it weird.

Why don't some of you find it weird? If someone said "no matter what anyone says, you don't HAVE to date someone who is bisexual and it is not inherently biphobic to not date someone who is bi" I know I am hearing a biphobic dogwhistle.

Because no one says that. No one says you HAVE to date a bi woman, or a trans woman, or a...anything. That is not a discourse that exists. What they are doing is strawmanning the discourse that does exist like "if you meet someone and they are great and they tick all your boxes and you won't date them BECAUSE they are bi/trans/whatever then you may have some issues related to those people" and then you will see them responding like "they told me I HAVE to have SEX with someone I don't WANT to" which is certainly....an interpretation of the text, I guess.

So it is...odd, interesting? How many people don't see or chose to ignore how fucking weird it is that this disclaimer is just...everywhere? Literally people I have known for years have added it to posts. Like, they will have a perfectly legitimate post being critical of Israeli action or something and then either preface it with that disclaimer or end it. Sometimes they bookend it.

It is so bizarre.

Because if someone said "Israel is bad and therefore should be bombed off the map and cease to exist, can't wait until they don't exist anymore" that is where you might get someone pointing out that it is the largest concentration of Jews in the world, many of which are from other Middle Eastern nations and have literally nowhere to go. So you might just be being antisemetic to have this particular energy towards Israel and ONLY Israel and not a single other country you talk about being actually destroyed like it is a good thing. (Even if the person was just being hyperbolic, although I have seen a few....less than covert nazis saying similar). Because it wasn't a criticism of anything, just a wish for the dead of many people to solve the problem of...people dying.

Now of course there exists the possibility that people who have been heavily exposed to this kind of rhetoric will be overly sensitive and take any criticism of Israel as bad faith. Of course that exists.

But I should still not personally see so overwhelming an amount of "it is not antisemetic to-" posts that are completely non-sequiter.

And I don't think it is just me. This seems to be an issue that is being noticed by others, that this ratio of people saying it is antisemetic to critique Israel at ALL and the people saying it is not....are wildly uneven.

Y'all need to stop letting Jews be the only ones to call this out, or at least be honest that you don't care.

It is not an appropriate way to engage in this topic. Stop allowing dogwhistles and strawmen to cut off any potential avenue of criticism and continue this "unreasonable jews" narrative.

Tl;dr: when someone says "it is not antisemetic to-" chances are they are about to engage in antisemitism. Just say what you want to say without the "not to be homophobic" type language. If what you are saying is informed and thoughtful then just fucking say it in a way that reflects that, even if people don't agree with it.

And I unfollowed another person, a game creator I've been interested in. But this time it wasn't surprising, as it's only a more extreme version of what they said in 2021. I pretty much thought that account would say what they ended up saying; only they didn't open their mouth on it until today.

So far unfollowed two people over the war in Israel and Palestine. Thought that after the last conflict I had already sorted out who not to follow. At least none of them are mutuals, but one of them is a conlanger and linguist I've admired for so many years whose insights on PIE reconstruction have been of great interest to me.