What Color's the Sky in Your World?

Author of Reaper and General Nerd 

[jordisstigander]

Hello there!

If you are looking for Reaper, you have found the author. That said, I am still working on this story, but have not posted for a couple of reasons. The most important right now is that I have joined a writing group and am more seriously pursuing publication of my work. Unfortunately, a lot of places do not want to publish anything that has been previously published, even on a small online blog.

So I will probably not be publishing too much more original fiction on Tumblr for the foreseeable future, and I apologize to those who have been waiting for this. But I do have every intention of publishing Reaper and sharing it with the world, and you guys are the reason why.

Here's a collection of my Tumblr-available fiction and poetry:

Reaper:

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Short Stories:

A Tail for Wings

Immorality

My Immortal (Grad Student)

A Midsummer's Eve

A Last Goodbye

Poetry:

A Box Marked Fragile

Green Martyr

Cannot

I Never Asked

Orionid

Tonight

Him, Who I Write Of, Not For

Waiting

Grief

Captured Glory

Meaning

You're Still Here

She-Wolf

Not Enough

Tidally Locked Star

[iraffiruse]

[tim-official]

see every time i see this status i get angry because i’ve played through literally every scenario in rct1 and there is no place where this is a thing. there is never more than one park per map. and in rct2 you can’t make that happen i the scenario editor either. it is not remotely within the game’s functionality to simulate two discrete parks and these games were coded in assembly for christ sake so it’s not like someone modded it in by adding the line “int const TOTAL_NUM_POSSIBLE_PARKS = 2;”. there is no conceivable way this post is anything close to true and even though i know how writing all this out reflects upon me as a person and even though i know exactly how meaningless and trifling of a takedown attempt this is on some random facebook screencap with hundreds of thousands of notes im going to post it anyway because i’m too petty to have any say in the matter

[lizardsfromspace]

Out of control Edwardian youths refuse to clap at production of Peter Pan, force distraught J.M Barrie to pull out rarely seen "Tinkerbell Fucking Dies" ending

[julianova44]

You probably know this but shitpost ruining fun fact for anybody who doesn’t:

When the play first was performed, JM Barrie et al were so concerned this might happen that they instructed the orchestra to drop their instruments and clap at this point, just in case

[lizardsfromspace]

I did not know this and I'm grateful for being informed

[sisaloofafump]

Peter Pan edited by Anne Hiebert Alton (2011)

(sorry to interrupt joke post but) this is true!

Children not clapping did happen too, (and some were even expected to have hissed, which was later written into the 1928 playscript and 1911 novel). But my all time favourite anecdote about it is from Pauline Chase (who played Peter)'s intro to Peter Pan's Post Bag 1909:

Children love to clap their hands at the play because then they feel that they are really part of it, and you can see them holding their hands poised ready to seize an opportunity. Their great chance is when I ask them to clap their hands if they believe in fairies, and so save Tink's life. But they are very wrathful if any one claps who has the reputation of being a cynic, and once there was quite an uproar in the front row of the dress circle because of a girl who clapped. Those about her pulled down her arms angrily. "How dare you clap," they cried, "when you know you don't believe in fairies!" There was one dreadfully hard-hearted little boy who came to the theatre not to clap. That was his object for coming, and he came round "behind" to tell me so in the middle of the play. His teeth were firm set. "I won't clap," he said doggedly; "I'm not going to clap." And when the time came he didn't clap; above the clapping of all the others I could hear him shouting from a box, "Peter, I'm not clapping."

(Tink was revived each time anyway)

[apesoformythoughts]

"I was getting good guidance, again in navigating the bureaucracy, when, in the middle of a black-and-white operational question and entirely unprompted, the LLM offered me sympathy. What I was going through, it told me, was “really difficult.”

My first reaction was repulsion.

This machine has never had contact with the reality of a body, of physical or emotional suffering, or the love between a father and a son. These words of empathy were in the literal sense “unreal.” And unreal words, spoken within the syntax of care, are worse than silence. They are a simulation of something sacred.

This distinction between real and unreal has become one of my first principles in assessing AI.

I am a philosophical realist in the tradition of Aquinas and Augustine; I believe the world is intelligible. Human beings can come into contact with what is real. Evil, in the Augustinian formulation, has no being of its own. It is parasitic on the good; it is a privation of the good that ought to exist. AI-generated empathy operates in the same register. It carries the form of care without the substance."

— Luke Burgis: "The Real and the Unreal"

[michaelnordeman]

Eurasian Red Squirrel/ekorre. Värmland, Sweden (9 June 2019).

[enchantedbook]

"Three Foxes" by Ludwig Hohlwein, Jugend Magazine, 1900

[raccoonmilf]

Fun fact: due to the ongoing financial support from the people of tumblr, critically endangered pygmy raccoons being rehabbed in Cozumel are now able to get vaccines for deadly diseases like distemper and rabies before they are released.

[leebrontide]

The funniest and most enduring legacy of dashcon.

[canadiandogteeth-deactivated202]

Ice Storm ~ Montreal, Quebec, Canada 1998

[should-be-sleeping]

The Kid did not enjoy this one. A single dismayed, "Oh no!"

[necromancelena]

Die temu ad die

[necromancelena]

Hmm. Accidentally looks like latin.

[chef-boy-ar-girl]

It accidentally is latin

[saanah]

Accidental latin is my new favourite thing.

[santapau]

Found this in the margins of a medieval manuscript.

[qqueenofhades]

This is a very charming illustration and I do approve of Accidental Latin, but unfortunately, that is not what this (Fake) Accidental Latin actually says. Google Translate seems to think "temu" is identical to "timor" (infinitive, "to fear"), which would then be conjugated in first-person singular as "timeo" ("I fear"). "Temu" is not a word in Latin. So that is a very weird leap on Google Translate's part to turn gibberish into... something vaguely etymologically similar sounding? Hmm.

Next, "die" does mean "day," though nominative singular is "dies," i.e. "dies irae." It could be conjugated "die" if it was in ablative or locative case, but "die ad die" would mean something more like "day to day." "Ad" is in a "to" direction and "ab" is from, i.e. "ab urbis," and ablative case is used to indicate the movement of a thing. In short, "by" is not really a way to translate "ad"; we might want "per" here? (Through, by means of, etc.)

Not to mention, it would be weird to put one "die" at the start and another at the end The verb also usually goes at the end in Latin sentences, just for that extra bit of fun. So yes, in short, this is not actually Latin, and Google Translate is very bad at Latin in particular. Nonetheless, still charming.

[nudistcat]

@theshitpostcalligrapher

[sekkitsune]

Agree, @qqueenofhades, except on the matter of breaking “die ad die” apart. It’s a common structure in poetic and oratorical Latin to jam one phrase in the middle of another. I can’t think of an example exactly parallel to this construction, but I could believe a Roman poet would write it!

[qqueenofhades]

Ah, that is true. My Latin is of the reading-medieval-documents (particularly charters and/or chronicles) variety, where the sentence and usage structures are often more formulaic and there is less poetic license to move words around. There is obviously far less fixity for word order in Latin, since the conjugations explain how they grammatically relate to each other rather than placement in the sentence. (Coincidentally, this is why I used to say that the best feeling in the world was walking past a Latin classroom and not having to go inside it. Ahem.)

So yes: true that poetical Latin might be more at liberty to split the "die"-s up that far, though "timeo" (verb) is still more likely in most cases to go at the end, which would place them together anyway ("die ad die timeo," "day to day I fear" if translated in strict word order, which would make sense to an English speaker and sound more poetic anyway). Keep in mind, however, that my Latin is a) fairly rusty and b) mostly used for said formulaic legal document reading rather than freeform verse, so don't super-hard quote me on this.

[sekkitsune]

I saw that ablative “die” and that final -u on “temu” and thought of the ablative supine (as in “mirabile dictu”) but as you observe, there isn’t a verb that “temu” could be, and then also, the ablative supine requires an adjective, as far as I know.

But perhaps “temu” is a hapax legomenon (in which case we would need the rest of the text to gloss it) or a scribal error for temeratu, from temero, “I defile or disgrace”. In that case, and in true Tumblr form, I might translate it as “daily I disgrace, in the manner of the day”, with some errors attributable to the scribe.

[qqueenofhades]

....oh my god. You might be a genius. Because what else does Tumblr do but daily disgrace [itself, oneself, and/or numerous others] in the manner of the day, and make numerous scribal errors.

[laurenthemself]

how dare you say we error on the scribes

[jtimu]

this is what happens when you buy your latin on temu

[maemaybe]

I don't know who my intended audience is here, so whoever needs to hear this, I am begging you to learn to participate in conversations that are about things you aren't interested in.

Part of socializing and having friends is being a good listener even when you don't actually give a shit about the subject.

Your are hurting other people's feelings when you bluntly respond with "Anyway..." and then change the topic.

It can not always be about your preferred topic.

You are being rude. Yes, even if you are neurodivergent. You can be both autistic and rude.

[memewhore]

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

This man took so much longer to crack than I would have what a PROFESSIONAL

[peripetyy]

Plotting, scheming, etc.

[whatagrump]

This was filmed at the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, which rescues, rehabilitates, and releases orphaned elephants in Kenya (among other conservation efforts). Charity Navigator has given it a 4/4 star rating, and you can make donations here or “adopt” a baby elephant here.

[neilnevins-deactivated20240617]

That smile and bright eyes looks like something out of a Peanuts strip I love it I love you I would die for this possum

[twistcmyk]

[hangingfromchandeliers]

ladies if youre a kpoppie, please occasionally take the time to remind yourself that you are a fan of just some guy

[hiveswap]

ladies if youre into mcyt, please occasionally take the time to remind yourself that you are a fan of just some guy

[hangingfromchandeliers]

ladies?

[hangingfromchandeliers]

minecraft youtubers.

[rabidvampdude]

No one ever expects the spanish ministry of science and technology

[should-be-sleeping]

Everyone who has followed my blog for a while probably assumes that they have already heard the strangest anecdotes about my grandpa, but have I a surprise for you...

You haven't!

[should-be-sleeping]

For example, my grandpa had a small following of people who sincerely believed that he was Elvis reincarnated. Why? None of us know.

I need you all to be aware that Elvis and my grandpa were born in the same year.

[cheeseanonioncrisps]

Okay but imagine being the team of Eridian scientists tasked with keeping Erid's Only Human alive for as long as possible while the whole planet's environment is literally trying to kill him. And then Rocky shows up and is like:

“Grace says he would like half of dome to be water.”

“Oh, is necessary for humans to have large amounts of water question?”

Small Eridian equivalent of a sigh. “No. Not needed for life. In fact Grace will die if he falls in water and does not get out.”

“Tell him we give him water in containers that won't kill him. Lots lots lots of water on Erid for Grace to drink.”

“No. Grace say he want water on ground. Also want it with excess sodium chloride compound so it will be unhealthy for drink.”

“WHY QUESTION???”

[cheeseanonioncrisps]

To celebrate Erid getting their sun back on track, Grace asks for some alcohol. There's a small amount left from the Hail Mary and Rocky offers to take it to the science Eridians to see if they can synthesise more.

“Grace want this liquid for celebration.”

“Of course.” They scan it. “You have wrong liquid. This contain compounds which are poisonous for humans.”

“Yes yes yes. Grace say humans like feeling of being slightly poisoned.”

“WHY QUESTION?????”

[cheeseanonioncrisps]

Grace is like one of those extremely finicky tropical fish who instantly die if not kept in extremely specific conditions.

Only here the fish can talk and keeps asking you to make it vodka.

[animentality]

[arrowandaxe]

[bee-in-your-binnet]

Coyotes trying their damndest to get domesticated

[hst3000]

They coyotes are free you can just take them...

[prokopetz]

Live-action comedy short film about a wildlife researcher's repeated, increasingly cartoonish failed attempts to tag members of a particular rare species for study, and their burgeoning paranoia that it's the same specific bird every time. There is no explicit textual confirmation whether they're correct.

[prokopetz]

You can really tell which people in the notes have worked with birds.

[pfdiva]