Vii or Jehan / 🏳️⚧️ / 27 / religion major who is sometimes affectionately irreverent / "nonbinary like an open library" (they/them/theirs) / Mostly Untamed/MDZS / AWTWB has arrived!!! / Slowly being consumed by Beholding as we speak (TMA break bc pandemic) / All aboard the USS Discovery! (Ft. ENT/AOS/Disco are good y’all just don’t like post 9/11 Star Trek agenda)
As a result, gay literature continued to gain prominence in mainstream culture, as evidenced by its increasing number of entries on The New York Times Best Seller list. Historical fiction became especially popular at the time: its distant settings, particularly in Greco-Roman contexts, provided a veil of detachment that alleviated public unease and enabled more candid depictions of homosexuality.
Hi. My wife referred me to you for your knowledge and enthusiasm for ecology. If I wanted my fictional fantasy world to have a saltwater river (my world is weird), how could I explain or justify that? Is it even possible, ecologically speaking? Anyway, love your posts and thank you!
I have been considering this with my colleague who is a physical geographer with a passion for riverine geomorphology and she wants to sit down with me and discuss the possibilities more fully. So I may yet update this post with more options.
But, the short answer is yes, there are options to make it possible.
The one we’ve best fleshed out so far basically comes down to groundwater contamination. Groundwater is contaminated with massive salt input (this would likely need to be anthropogenic - up to you whether that looks like Evil Factory Output, massive magical damage post-war, or any other consideration.) One or more of the river’s main tributaries is fed primarily by this groundwater store, so it cannot flush through. Once it meets the sea, it would be brackish around the estuary anyway, but this would mean halophilic species - those tolerant of salt - would be able to spread backwards back up the river channel. Depending on what you want, for plants this could mean cordgrasses (saltmarsh formers), seagrasses along the riverbed in slower areas, or potentially long, linear stands of mangrove forest; in all of those cases, it’s much more likely on a slower river than a faster one.
Now, a salt river will be far more erosional than a fresh one, so the river banks and bed would be eroding more. This means higher quantities of suspended sediment in the water, so the water colour would be murkier and browner than if it were fresh. However, if its a river with slow meanders, you might get little patches of saltmarshes establishing, where the erosion turns into deposition instead, so although the water would have a colour difference it would be extreme; on faster bits, though, it would.
There would be, either from the groundwater at the top of the catchment or along the river channel, a certain amount of salt incursion into land. This would basically make arable agriculture in those areas nigh-on impossible, but you could maybe try farming something like samphire along the banks. The exception would be areas that were away from the contaminated aquifer, that also got plenty of rainfall OR freshwater groundwater imputs from another part of the catchment. Even then, though, it couldn’t go too close to the river.
Floodplains need considering, too! Floodplains only flood during wet weather events that cause the river to overtop the banks; the rest of the year, they’re dry. In this case, that means you might have areas that are freshwater marshes, or maybe even normal grasslands/scrub for most of the year, which then suddenly get inundated with salt. That’ll kill all those organisms quite rapidly. You wouldn’t have any trees in those areas, and they’d look like mudbaths for the majority of the time, I’d imagine. Very ugly wastelands. These would then provide even more lost soil into the river, for even more browning of the water.
That much sediment would therefore mean the estuary would be a depositional one - new land forms at it. It would probably have a delta. This means lots of mudflats with lots of marine worms and other invertebrates, and consequently insane levels of wading bird diversity to feed on them (plus foodstuffs - oysters, cockles, octopus, smaller fishes, etc). Loot up Korean getbol for an idea of how impressive these things can get. Saltmarshes and/or mangrove forests, too! Depending on climate. Mangroves are a tropical species.
HOWEVER, this is just one idea we’ve explored so far, so I shall update you if we think of others
Not sustainable over geological timescales, but a halite bed could have been exposed to groundwater at the source of the river by erosion of an aquitard or fault movement to contaminate the water without an anthropogenic water source.
If you want some more dramatic geology you could have a version of the Zanclean flood. Alter the topography and ocean size to customise the flow rate a bit, but you're still probably looking at a maximum of a couple of centuries for an active river unless you've got some really big oceans.
Something really amazing happened in France, and I think it'd help us in the US to learn about it. Forgive the long read, but I think this is genuinely great both because of what happened and how.
So as some of you might have seen, in a decision historians will debate for years (mostly to figure out just WTF he was thinking, even though he is alive right now and can be asked), the French president, Emmanuel Macron, currently in power and THREE YEARS before the scheduled election, seeing the far right rise in popularity decided to dissolve the assembly and hold snap elections.
577 seats were up for grabs. Remember that number. Since half of that is 288.5, 289 seats is needed for a majority.
The first round happened last week and boy, was it bad. The far right made HUGE gains. It won or was in first place in so many races. And Macron's party ended up third!
Overall, this is how things ended up after the first round:
Far right bloc: 33%
Left bloc: 28%
Macron's centrist party: 20%
Conservatives: 7%
The way the French system works is that if a candidate gets over 50% of the vote, they win outright, and some of the far right did manage that. But, many races went to a runoff.
Immediate projections after were that the far right bloc might win anywhere from 240 to 310 seats, a catastrophe.
A shameful swing to the far right leading to the first time they'll be in power since the 1940s? Yes, but maybe not??
This is where things get interesting.
Unusually, a lot of these runoffs are 3-way, instead of a simpler 2-way choice. And in pretty much every case, that helps the far right.
So on June 30th, the night of the first round, this is how things went down:
Immediately, the left parties put out the call: anywhere they were third, they withdrew and their voters would go over to whoever was running against the far right candidate. Their goal: form a "republican front" to block the far right. The far right cannot get 289 seats.
Macron's bloc was not so...motivated. Different people put out different instructions: in some places, if they were third, they should drop out, but only to help the center left, not far left, in other places, see how far you are, only then drop out, that kind of thing.
The conservative party simply said they won't drop out and won't give their voters instruction either way in races they're not involved in.
Late night developments:
More people in Macron's party are now beginning to realize the situation and starting to coalesce around whichever candidate can beat the far right one. Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, from Macron's party, says clearly the priority is to block the far right. BUT, some Macron spokespeople on TV say they'll form a coalition only with the center left and conservatives, splitting the left bloc if needed. Some individual Macronists still saying they won't drop out, even if there's no hope of winning.
ALT
Lol.
So, now July 1st:
ALT
Only half so far. In one race, where the sister of Marine Le Pen (the far right leader and the face of their movement) was leading, the third place Macronist refused to bow out.
Excellent quote from another Macronist:
ALT
Perhaps realizing the same thing, that Macronist in the race against the Le Pen sister now drops out.
In some places, third place Macronists are dropping out DESPITE Macron bewilderingly telling them NOT to?
Halfway through the day:
Of the 311 3-way or 4-way runoffs, the number is down to 135 because of these candidates dropping out: 121 Left, 56 Macronists, 1 conservative.
Oh, there was this, in case people had any doubts about how terrible the far right are:
ALT
And to show the selflessness of the left:
ALT
July 2:
The deadline to decide if they want to stay in a runoff is today.
A dozen new third place Macronists who said they'd stay in have now dropped out. One got a call from both the PM Attall AND Macron to drop out, signalling the dawning understanding of the importance of this moment.
Even some conservative party members are now backing the left candidate who faces the far right.
A Macronist who had 30.55% of the vote in the first round and came in third to the far right's 33.11% and left's 32.73% and who would have been tempted to stay has dropped out.
ALT
ALT
The deadline to stay in or not has now passed.
Look at these far right shenanigans!
ALT
Macron still being a freaking loser:
ALT
July 3rd:
In the end, of the 311 3- or 4-way run offs, only 91 left. Some polls come out that have the far right getting between 190 to 220 seats.
July 4th:
New polls say the balance of the voting itself isn't transferring between the left and center and predictions have risen for the far right, now predicted to get between 210 and 250 seats.
July 5th:
New polls again, left voters now predicted to do better transferring vote to the centrists, decreasing the far right projections again.
However, scandalous reporting emerges: while Attal was trying to fend off the far right, Macron was not only NOT taking the far right seriously, he was undermining efforts to defeat them. His team shrugged off the first round results and celebrated a BIRTHDAY as the results were still coming in?
ALT
July 6th:
A few runoffs happened yesterday, nothing much unexpected, some left and center wins.
July 7th:
The day of reckoning. At this point, the expectations are that the far right won't come close to that 289 number but could still easily have the most seats.
GUYS.
It's over and the left are in the lead!
ALT
A LOT of cases where a leftist or centrist was 2nd in the first round and now won.
Amazing:
ALT
SO many lessons to take from this.
First, you have to vote! You have to. You can't do anything without voting. The freaking French, who'll protest for anything, are showing up to vote. If you're trying to achieve any kind of result and it's not going to happen by January 2025, you have to vote now.
But just as importantly, the left and center (and even conservative) parties made very key decisions. They were all lucky that Attal, who Macron chose, saw the big picture, bigger than indeed Macron could. A stupid selfish centrist leader could have still ruined everything if it were up to him.
ALT
TL;DR: After a disastrous first round in the national French elections where the far right was on the cusp of taking power, the left and center formed a strong coalition and through the power of voting and unity, overcame the far right AND their selfish centrist president to win.
People are like “these animals have exoskeletons and these ones have endoskeletons” but no. It’s all exoskeletons, your exoskeleton is protecting your bone marrow which is where your soul (which is you) is. The rest of the stuff is extraneous decoration that Big Pharma wants you to think is important/
Why do you think there’s so few ghosts around? Why are most ghosts
people who died violently? You gotta crack the bones to let the soul
out. Most souls are trapped alone in the dark and silent ground (or
teaching hospitals) for hundreds or thousands of years until the bones
eventually start to break. People who are cremated get their whole soul
released and it can reincarnate. But if someone dies violently then
maybe only a couple of their bones are cracked and a little scrap of the
soul escapes but it’s incomplete and confused. Can’t figure out how to
leave, gets obsessed with its own circumstances, repeats actions, CANNOT
be reasoned with. PROOF that the soul is in the marrow.
Sin is stored in the teeth btw which is why young children are innocent (they’ll get a do-over with replacement teeth) and the elderly are shameless (once you have no teeth to remember your sins, you have nothing to fear).
It takes surprisingly little alcohol to completely remove my filter and make me just post any old random thought actually. I can’t get plastered because right after “tipsy” is “I must sleep immediately”
This is the greatest map I have ever seen. I want an interactive version where you can click on any city in the world and get a pop-up list of all the climate-equivalent cities.
Binding:
My stab at the three-layer version of the dos rapporté binding with minimal instructions (details of how I tackled this below the cut). In short, it involves taking a very long piece of cardboard, folding it a bunch of times, and sewing it to itself (and the text block).
Size:
15 cm x
11.1 cm x 1.1 cm (the text block is A6: 14.8 cm x 10.5 cm)
Contents: “Der Pressbengel” (=special type of lever used in a printing press) by Ernst Collin, a sort of pop-sci book on bookbinding written as a dialogue between a professional bookbinder and a bibliophile and published in the early 1920s. The English translation is called “The Bone Folder”, a name that fits the construction of this book rather well.
Inside the World’s Only Surviving Tattoo Shop For Medieval Pilgrims
The Razzouk family has been inking religious pilgrims in the Middle East for 700 years
A tiny shop, almost dwarfed by its prominent sign, lies across a quiet cobblestone road. If you didn’t know anything about the incredible, centuries-long history of the family who runs this particular shop, the sign’s tagline might cause you to do a double-take: “Tattoo With Heritage Since 1300” it reads. Read on
