Seleni
@Seleni@lemmy.world
- Comment on Anon can't go on a field trip 3 days ago:
If we’re talking ‘young adult’ (which I think is a silly book classification group), the Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede always gets my top pick—shorter, sassy, fun, with well-written female protagonists. (All her books are pretty good, really.)
Another of my top choices in the Fantasy YA category are the Tiffany Aching books by Sir Terry Pratchett. Great fun and Sir Terry’s wonderful brand of biting wisdom.
If you like the ‘kids go to boarding school, have magical adventures, save the world’ formula, Mercedes Lackey did a pretty good series called the Shadow Grail. Although the kids are older (and more sensible) than the Harry Potter protagonists.
The Castle Books by John DeChancie are another fun romp of a series. Younger me loved the idea of a castle filled with 144,000 portals to adventure. Although the technology in it is a bit dated—at this point in time, rather humorously so.
Gail Carriger’s book series are all a good read; my favorite she’s done so far is the Finishing Series. Not as much magic as other books on this list, but still a well-thought-out system. Her books are really more steampunk-fantasy with a sprinkling of magic on top.
China Mievelle doesn’t really write series, per se, but all his books are fun and well-written, with interesting twists and ideas. I’d say they are the very definition of whimsical.
If your requirements are ‘good books by authors as awful as JK Rowling’, well, that’s tougher, but fortunately David and Leigh Eddings decided to throw their hats in the ring! Horrible child abusers, but their writings are genuinely good, way better than what Rowling writes.
- Comment on That's it. That's the joke. 4 days ago:
When the ‘Father of Modern Gynecology’ is a douche like this, it’s really not that surprising that women continue to be ignored.
- Comment on [deleted] 4 weeks ago:
It’s addictive. People get addicted to stress too.
The difference is hate makes you feel stronger and more focused than you really are. It gives you a target that’s not you, so you don’t ever have to face yourself.
- Comment on Paradox Interactive's return-to-office policy may be driving employees away from the studio 4 weeks ago:
This is intentional. They are doing this to force people to quit without firing them.
As a bonus, the people who leave tend to be the most skilled, and thus the highest paid, making their bottom line look even better!
Of course this also destroys morale, productivity, and long-term will probably tank the company, but as long as line go up now for shareholders/owners the ones at the top don’t care. After all, they’ll just walk away with their golden parachutes guaranteeing a safe landing.
- Comment on Pelicans will literally try to eat anything 4 weeks ago:
- Comment on Why hasn't congress passed a law saying that you can only deport people *back to their own country*? 4 weeks ago:
Because then they’d have to deport most Republican lawmakers.
- Comment on Spider mech!! 5 weeks ago:
There’s no reason to be afraid of Opiliones. Their mouthparts are the wrong shape and too small to do harm to a human. Also, unlike spiders, there are no known Opiliones with venom. Their chelicerae are for grasping only.
- Comment on Appers 1 month ago:
Satire is indeed dead
- Comment on An Experiment in Recklessness: Trump as Global Disrupter | The global trading system is one example of the administration tearing something apart, only to reveal that it has no plan to replace it 1 month ago:
They don’t want to replace it. They want to isolate the US and make the people poor and desperate, so the oligarchs and the religious nuts can break it up into their own little fiefdoms easier.
- Comment on What is your favorite movie? 1 month ago:
Blazing Saddles. Soooo many good lines!
- Comment on So this is it, is trump god? Will Republicans sacrifice their own well being to own the libs? 1 month ago:
Oh man this is perfect lol
I remember a meme circulating a little while ago that went something like, ‘People who change their opinions because they’re annoyed by liberals are weak-willed; liberals are annoyed by other liberals every single day.’
- Comment on Remember the good old days? 2 months ago:
Dang. You’ve gone from ‘that never happens (even though it does’ to ‘child labor is hilarious’. You just keep on digging, don’t you?
- Comment on Remember the good old days? 2 months ago:
- Comment on [deleted] 2 months ago:
Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’
-Isaac Asimov
- Comment on Remember the good old days? 2 months ago:
Wait… just to be clear, is your argument ‘because only a few plants have been caught doing it, that means no other companies will?’
I want to be sure I have that right before I reply.
- Comment on Remember the good old days? 2 months ago:
You do realize several plants in the US have already been caught using child labor, right?
- Comment on Receipt checkers trigger me 2 months ago:
It’s actually down in most areas.
Broader claims about trends in retail theft have not panned out. Walgreens, for example, cited spikes in shoplifting as an explanation for falling profits and store closures. The claim has since been retracted. Target blamed theft for a rash of store closures. But an analysis by researcher Jeff Asher showed that, according to the limited data available, the stores Target closed in Portland and Seattle had less crime than stores that were not closing. Reporting by CNBC in September 2023 also cast doubt on retailer claims about the impact of theft, noting that “certain retailers” have “pulled back” from blaming organized theft as “a primary cause of losses.” In fact, to the extent it can be relied upon, industry data cuts against the idea of a recent national spike in retail theft.
- Comment on Why do people give their unwaivering support to autocrats? 2 months ago:
It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone’s fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I’m one of Us. I must be. I’ve certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We’re always one of Us. It’s Them that do the bad things.
-Sir Terry Pratchett
- Comment on Receipt checkers trigger me 2 months ago:
Nothing like being treated like a criminal when I go into a store to give them money.
- Comment on woolly mice on rice all nice 2 months ago:
I wants it! They look so fluffy and soft
- Comment on Why build for tomorrow when it's someone else's tomorrow? 2 months ago:
I mean, I get that it’s a metaphor.
The answer to the MAGA thing is simply that you build, not for them, but in spite of them. You build for everyone. If you want to exclude people who aren’t willing to follow the rules of society and only cause trouble you can, but that’s different than refusing to build anything because they might use it.
The people like MAGA that only seek to tear down what others build, or who refuse to build at all because there’s a chance someone who they don’t approve of (ie PoC) will use it hurt not only themselves, but everyone around them. They are destroying the future by refusing to help build the present, and I think it’s really sad that they would rather a terrible future than one that has things they don’t like in it.
We must build despite those attitudes, or we will simply end up following them into a bad future.
- Comment on Why build for tomorrow when it's someone else's tomorrow? 2 months ago:
They meant the question showed a viewpoint that seemed to center entirely around you (also a rather libertarian thing, honestly).
‘Someone who would never build something for you’ sounds a bit like you’re expecting a tit-for-tat, I-do-this-for-you-so-you-have-to-do-something-for-me in everything, and that’s just not how societies work.
I’m curious; are you using that phrase to refer to, say, rich assholes who just take and take, or Nazi assholes that would rather cut off their own hands than build something a black person might use? Or are you using it to refer to people like severely disabled folks, or say, low-functioning autistic people, who society supports but who don’t have much capacity to ‘return the favor’?
Or are you just referring to future generations, who will be around after you’re gone?
- Comment on Why build for tomorrow when it's someone else's tomorrow? 2 months ago:
I think it’s just your question comes off as nihilistic and a little bit libertarian, and neither of those is mentally healthy really
- Comment on is it wrong/selfish to cut contact with my trump-supporting father? 2 months ago:
With Trump, it isn’t a difference in politics.
It’s a difference in morality.
- Comment on Just Saying 2 months ago:
11 whiny baby Nazis saw this and went crying to their mommies lol
- Comment on What Did William Burrito Mean by This? 3 months ago:
They still wouldn’t be white. Up until maybe a century ago Irish and Italian people weren’t, after all.
- Comment on What Did William Burrito Mean by This? 3 months ago:
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People who’ve never met one, and find it easier to blame others for their issues than blame themselves or their friends.
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People who think white people are better. It’s not that they hate Mexicans, per se, it’s just that Mexicans are obviously inferior (or they’d be white!), and they’re getting all uppity, wanting to be treated like equals or some such nonsense.
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A combination of the above.
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- Comment on So, is the USA screwed? 3 months ago:
Shoot the dictator and prevent the war? But the dictator is merely the tip of the whole festering boil of social pus from which dictators emerge; shoot one, and there’ll be another one along in a minute. Shoot him too? Why not shoot everyone and invade Poland? In fifty years’, thirty years’, ten years’ time the world will be very nearly back on its old course. History always has a great weight of inertia.
-Terry Pratchett (Lords and Ladies)
Been thinking about this quote a lot lately. The fact that Trump is so popular shows that he’s just the symptom of a deeper, possibly terminal disease.
- Comment on So, is the USA screwed? 3 months ago:
To be fair though, Texas seceded once already and within a year or two was begging to be taken back. They probably would have crumbled too.
- Comment on [deleted] 3 months ago:
Pretty sure you’re too old to be this stupid, dude.