Jun 6
Do you remember
The 22nd day of September
seen from Canada
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seen from Türkiye
seen from China
seen from Canada
seen from Italy
seen from Malaysia
seen from Malaysia
seen from Canada
seen from China
seen from Italy
seen from Australia
seen from China
seen from United States
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seen from Malaysia
seen from Canada
seen from United States
Do you remember
The 22nd day of September
I've heard about the dog fence, any fun facts?
Longest fence in the world (~5600km long, that's about ~3500mi to you yanks). That's longer than China's Great Wall.
Built in the 1880s to protect the best grazing regions from "dingo incursion" while we killed all the dogs south of the fence. There's still dogs south of the fence but it was largely a success. Within the fence is also the only place in Australia where it's legal to kill dingos—they're protected everywhere else.
The fence was effective at first but time has not been kind. It's full of holes now big enough for pups to pass through, and it costs about $1.3milAUD annually to maintain it.
It's also affected the environment south of the fence because of how the land has been changed by grazing animals. Wind doesn't even move the same as it did and the vegetation is different compared to the same climate just north of the fence.
Goes through three states (QLD, NSW, and SA). All of these have the highest concentration of dingos. The only state within the fence without TOUCHING it, Victoria—south of NSW—has the lowest concentration of dingos, but also has a lot of feral dogs instead.
More interesting (to me) is the rabbit-proof fence (which is not in any way actually rabbit proof). It's typically overshadowed by the dingo fence (rabbit fence—counting all three of them—is only ~3250km or ~2025mi, so it's a bit smaller than the dingo fence even though the #1 Fence was the longest unbroken fence in the world at the time of its building, at ~1830km or ~1140mi long) but I find the story of it far more... iunno, moving I guess? The concept of strict borders is a foreign one in Australia. Borders come and go with the seasons and movement of the mobs. And both of the fences cut across Country with jagged edge at a time when blackfellas were just trying to survive the onslaught of colonial white Australia that wanted them all dead or assimilated. Naturally this made travel difficult, especially when you're being shot at.
Read Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence by Nugi Garimara. It's the true story of the author's mother's journey (along with her mum's sister and cousin) back home to their Country on foot after they were taken by the white government and sent to a mission as part of the Stolen Generations (Nugi's mother and aunt were both half-white, so considered half-caste by the government and weren't allowed to be raised by their black mothers). It'll break your heart but it's a necessary read. Nugi Garimara herself also ended up a stolen child at around 3yo (as she was ¼ white), but reunited with her mother about 20yr later. Her sister (I don't know her birth name) was also stolen and raised at a mission, but her sister never went back to Country and distanced herself from her heritage as I recall.
you joke but i've actually seen people call medic a misogynist because of the period voice line
Holy fucking what. Insanity
THE GAME WAS MADE IN 2007 AND TAKES PLACE IN THE 1960S?? WHAT?
These are the same people that would look at a man in the early 1800s going "hey women are people too" and fighting for emancipation and then call him a misogynist because while he supports their liberation and their ability to choose their own husbands and own their own property and attend schooling and seek education of their choice and not need a male chaperone (which was fucking REVOLUTIONARY for the time), he still isn't sure they should vote. You gotta take the era into account, man. Credit where credit is due. Any progress is progress.
Iunno there's just a general issue of people judging other people from the past based on the ethics and morals of the present when a lot of that shit wasn't even fathomed yet. Gestures to the use of slurs in Huck Finn. "Huck's a racist because he says slurs!!" Yeah sure the kid who literally decides to CONDEMN HIMSELF TO ACTUAL, LITERAL, CHRISTIAN HELL to free his best friend, a runaway slave, is a racist cuz he says slurs that were common for the time. Did you read the book
ABOUT ME
READ THIS BEFORE YOU SEND ASKS/INTERACT. ASK BLU ANYTHING DAY (ABAD) is on the first full weekend of every month!
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G'day fellas! You can call me Blu, and I can be invoked like some Lovecraftian horror by mentioning Sniper in the TF2 tags. King of Sniper Lore (and Australia), Messiah of Bludaism, also known as the "Sheepshagging Roorooting Horsehumping Mountainfucking Melonpiping 13x-Divorced Breastmaster Hitman Inenrt Dingoboy Piss Cheese Jorts Bludysseus Blu'nt Bushgod Sniper Blog" despite not being a Sniper blog (and not actually shagging a sheep or rooting a roo or being married to start with or caring all that much for cannabis, I'm a psychedelics bloke). I'm just Like This.
Been told I'm the "Sniper kin of all Sniper kins." Not sure what a kin is these days but from what I've heard I'm content with not knowing.
This is my only blog. I have three sideblogs. One is @blu-doods, where I post my shitty stick figure art for laughs, and the other two are @art-reblugs, where I reblog art on (I reblog art here too, but the pickings are far more slim) and @post-reblugs (same as art but for text posts).
Again, not a Sniper roleplay blog. That said feel free to call me Sniper as a joke because I do very much enjoy it. Just keep in mind that I am my own person and not a fictional character. There's a real person behind the screen.
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This is gonna sound weird bc we are on the site that has a huge fan base for it bit have you read any of Terry Pratchett's Disworld books/series?
Because if not I feel you'll enjoy them bc there MO is basicly Sir Terry flipping tropes/archetypes on their head while giving damning thought provoking commentary on society but in that same breathe give hopeful encouragement for change/ the future. His word play is also very witty and sticks with you. Some of his older works have blatant prejudice bc you know author bias but he has apologized for such things and worked to learn more about the groups he was prejudice towards and has rectified it the following books related to those older works.
The Witches series and the City Watch series I feel would mesh well with you bc it has its main characters that it sort of centers around be curmudgeons who prove that doing/being good is an action and a discipline.
The Witches series play with the genre of fairy tales and Shakespeare and it's sort of interesting how the Witches series play with that; in the aspect that the Witches in that World are self aware of the tropes. ( The third book of this series plays with it as the Main Character goes off on how they wanted to be one half of a duo trope (like red oni, blue oni) but since the other half of the duo chose that part they resigned themselves to play the remaining part/trope.)
The City Watch is what would happen if the noir genre was dropped kicked into a fantasy world. Here we have our main character introduced with him drunk in the gutter and he is one of the most noble and righteous man in the city and it's bc of that, is way he's drunk and in the gutter. This series deals with if fantasy aspects were real how would it become mundane and off course police corruption/brutality and reform.
I also feel the Mort series would entertain you since it's about Death as a character and in a way slowly becoming humanized. Like he is Death but it's also his job to be Death and on his off time he enjoys other things and is not just doom and gloom. He has family, he likes cats and his horse name is Binky. The Reaper Man even though it's the second book in the Mort series, it's the book that plays with the Western genre and it's the one where Death gets fired from his job. It also has one of my favorite and comforting quotes, '“LORD, WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN?”' [To me, maybe bc I'm Mexican, I enjoy when death is not viewed as a horrible thing but as a process of life and as a being that will be your companion when you leave life behind.]
Sorry for the short info dump 😬 😅😅 just thought you might like the series.
I tried to get into it sometime last year at the recommendation of a mate and basically got the reading version of executive dysfunction that I get whenever I try to get into a long-running series, which is to say I started reading Men At Arms (as I like crime novels I figured it was a good place to start, at least to picque my interest in the series as a whole) and just got overwhelmed with the sheer amount of books. There's a reason I never finished the Warriors series and never touched Harry Potter—you kinda lose me past three installments. It's one thing if I'm growing up with them and have time to process the lore (looks at World of Warcraft and their expansions that I can remember Too Much Lore About even far after I've stopped playing the game) but if I'm coming into a long-running series... Well, unfortunately my information retention isn't that good. I don't have time to mull over and learn things before I'm hit with the desire to pick up a new book, which means I don't retain much at all.
It's not that things get confusing, just that they get extremely overwhelming. Choice overload. There's this intense dread of "I am not going to have time to finish these books" and the awareness that I will get bored of them quickly as they won't provide much in the sense of having accomplished something, unlike when I've actually finished a novel or shorter series. This is also a lead reason why I haven't worked on LTBs in a while—the sheer scope of how much I have left to write has burnt me out.
ADHD is a bitch.
Dunno about the source material but the list is pretty accurate/funny here's a link
https://schlockmercenary.fandom.com/wiki/The_Seventy_Maxims_of_Maximally_Effective_Mercenaries
Yeah I just went through it 😅
Well number 64 is: An ounce of sniper is worth a pound of suppressing fire
Oh. I adore this actually because it's fucking true.
I'm going through them now and will list my favourites.
Close air support covereth a multitude of sins (4)
If violence wasn’t your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it (6)
Never turn your back on an enemy (9)
Everything is air-droppable at least once (11)
Do unto others (13)
Your name is in the mouth of others: be sure it has teeth (16—I swear I've heard this before and personally, I adore it)
If you're not willing to shell your own position, you're not willing to win (20)
If a manufacturer's warranty covers the damage you do, you didn't do enough damage (25)
The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy, no more, no less (29)
A little trust goes a long way. The less you use, the further you'll go (30)
If you're leaving tracks, you're being followed (33)
That which does not kill me has made a tactical error (35)
There is no "overkill". There is only "open fire" and "reload" (37)
If it's stupid and it works, it's still stupid and you're lucky (43)
Let them see you sharpen the sword before you fall on it (51)
The pen is mightiest when it writes orders for swords (58)
Anything labeled "This End Toward Enemy" is dangerous at both ends (62)
An ounce of sniper is worth a pound of suppressing fire (64)
After the toss, be the one with the pin, not the one with the grenade (65)
Negotiating from a position of strength does not mean you shouldn’t also negotiate from a position near the exits (68)
Failure is not an option. It is mandatory. The option is whether or not to let failure be the last thing you do (70)
Thanks I'm now gonna study this for the next however until I have these fucking memorised
Have you ever read the 70 maxims of maximally efficient mercenaries?
No and what the hell is Schlock Mercenary?
...Should I read it?