Tea In Space

Just a chap with a blog, nothing to see here, move along!

[tlirsgender]

Hi it's me your cat coming at you again with Yucky Wet Sneeze

[only-cat-memes]

[sashimi55]

Human bodies are so weird like the upper half consists of every single vital organ and the lower half is legs

[dambiex]

[blumineck]

Inspired by my recent love of the Raven Thrower (it looks like a corvid that you chuck at things!)

Also obligatory reminder that it’s the final week on my Bluminarmour fundraiser. If you want to see me test dumb stuff in proper historical armour please consider pitching in and/or sharing!

The Bluminarmour Project

Blumineck is trying to fun a video series doing fun and serious historical and fantasy testing in fitted plate armour.

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

"Clearly I wasn't talking about disabled people-" yeah part of the problem is that the existence of disabled people just isn't considered in your worldview like that's the problem we're criticizing not a get out of jail free card

[elbiotipo]

More than "here in the Southern Hemisphere we have inverted seasons :)" thing, which is TECHNICALLY true, I would go a step further and encourage to think about that "much of the world does not exactly has a spring-summer-fall-winter season sequence as they show in cartoons"

[paperdragonsong]

I will scream about this to anyone who listens forever. AUSTRALIA DOES NOT HAVE "ENGLISH SEASONS BUT BACKWARDS" and the insistence that it does creates a massive layer of alienation from the natural world.

I never really realised how much difference it makes until I went to England and realised that here the change of seasons is an obvious, visible, physical change in the world. Like, everything REALLY IS orange and foggy in autumn! In spring there are flowers EVERYWHERE, so much more than any other season, and the trees really do have all blossom and no leaves. Even if it doesn't snow, in winter there's frost all the time and the trees are bare and the sky is visibly greyer all the time. You don't need to be told "this date is the first day of spring", you can SEE IT (although this is getting way messier and less precise due to climate change).

By contrast, most places in Australia the seasons we're taught feel like arbitrary categories - and is it any surprise considering they're colonial constructs? Orange-leaved autumn and blossom-covered spring is a cartoon stereotype with no relevance on a continent where ALL NATIVE TREES ARE EVERGREEN!! Snowy winters are a joke in the desert, and even sunny summers don't ring particularly true considering that much of the country is in the tropics, where summer means monsoons - not that I've ever seen the concept that WE HAVE A MONSOON SEASON taught at an Australian school.

Most Indigenous nations around Australia had six or more seasons, revolving around wet and dry times as much as hot and cold, and marked by the appearances of certain native animals and flowers. Schools need to start teaching the real seasons, and explaining that climate cycles are too complex to generalise globally, or else we will keep raising generations who view the natural world as hostile and unpredictable and climate predictions as generally irrelevent and frequently wrong - and I'm sure I don't need to spell out why that's a problem in the era of climate crisis.

[tiredtransgal]

i want to add that 40% of the world's population lives in the tropics, and the 4 season model just doesn't make much sense for a lot of places in there. usually it's just the wet season/monsoon season and the dry season. it's often hot year round.

the 4 season model as you and i know it is a european invention, though 4 season models aren't unique to europe! most notably china has the same type of season subdivision.

in general the way humans define seasons is largely subjective and varies across cultures. the one you were taught is not at all universal!

[kvothes]

a good thread

[elumish]

I agree with all of this. But! I think it is also important to recognize that there are subgenres where it is significantly harder to find certain things, and it's actively unhelpful to readers to pretend that you can just find whatever type of book you want to read if you just know how to look for it, especially if you are sticking to trad publishing.

It is possible to find both sapphic SFF and M/M fantasy. It is significantly harder to find, say, aro urban fantasy. Or trans romantic suspense. Or intersex mystery.

A lot of the advice above only really works for trad published or popular books and for identities/subgenres/content that aren't too niche.

So here's some advice if the advice above isn't working for you (either because you can't find books with what you want or because the books you are finding don't end up being the vibe you want), from someone who reads a few hundred books a year:

Find websites or lists dedicated to the specific thing you are looking for. They will generally have more variety and will post you to examples that don't show up in regular rec lists. (ex: aro book recs, ace book recs, intersex #ownvoices database, sapphic books). Goodreads lists can (sometimes) also be your friend.

Get comfortable reading self-published and small press books. Trad publishing has its blind spots.

Check Reddit for recommendations

Start figuring out what it is specifically that you like and then start making your searches more specific. This can be subgenre (if you want urban fantasy, you're rarely going to find it just searching "fantasy"), tropes, plot devices, vibes, etc.

Look at the "readers also bought" on Goodreads/Amazon, similar books on Storygraph, etc. if you read a book you like. Even if you don't end up reading the one you click on, it can show you similar authors (similar to looking at the blurb on a cover), especially because far fewer books have blurbs now.

Check out the Literature Map for similar authors.

[lakemojave]

People are unfazed if you hate women but if you dislike dogs they assume you're a bad person

[lakemojave]

Tumblr users will read a post complaining about normalized misogyny and hyperfocus on your claim that it's ok to dislike dogs

[chiral-dimensions]

Propane tank pig family

[animentality]

[bobcatmoran]

I absolutely blame Facebook for this shift. Words cannot describe how freaking WEIRD it was in the mid-00s when there was suddenly this popular website where you were required to use your real, brickspace name and encouraged to post photos of yourself. Every single bit of Standard Internet Safety prior to then said that you should never ever ever do either of those.

[thepromiscuousfinger]

[nevercure]

Honey, put your glasses on

You've been washing the dishes with quilava again

[jaybler]

Live action remake

[ode-on-a-grecian-butt]

[allegedly-human]

I will. I WILL!!

[strawberry-seal77]

time loop with two people in it but one person refuses to acknowledge the loop and pretends to be looping with everyone else. meanwhile the other person is freaking out

[teainspace]

#100% not acknowledging it#do as many timeloops as i can the same#then like... 60? loops in when theyre comfortable do one loop acting as if ive always been looping and they've not#when ive got them shaken up from it i can then go back to repeating the loop#occasionally breaking my repetition to fuck with them a lil#Surely there's no reason or lesson for ME to learn from the timeloop

I swear, this is the loop in which I kill you

[jessebloom]

first day of pride month

[lookcaitlin]

[theprofessional-amateur]

How your email finds me

[razziecat]

"BEGONE, FOUL FALSE INTELLIGENCE!! "

[wandererriha]

The scrying cube is filled with ill portents.

[digitaldiscipline]

"I am being catfished, Tad Cooper!"

[my-dailydreams]