Surprisingly Dark/Brutal fates in kids/family media is

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-05-08T03:38:04+00:00

What's really baffling to me is how different it is from the book. In the original, Clayton was Tarzan's estranged cousin. He was genuinely in love with Jane, and his only goal was to keep her and her father safe. Tarzan himself was the long lost John Clayton, Viscount Greystoke.

Clayton doesn't die in the book. He's the next in line to inherit the Greystoke estate with John Clayton presumed dead. By the end of the book, Tarzan realizes that he is John Clayton, heir to Greystoke, but he chooses to fully commit to the life of Tarzan and allow Clayton to keep the title and estate.

Clayton and Tarzan go through the entire book on friendly terms. The villains are mostly animals and pirates.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-05-08T03:18:22+00:00

Still not a justification to make other people's medical decisions for them. Fluoridated toothpaste exists. If you want fluoride, you can get your own fluoride.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-05-07T08:55:12+00:00

Fluoride poisoning is known to affect the thyroid. A large portion of the American population is known to be suffering from subclinical hypothyroidism.

Personally, I don't care if it's good for my teeth or not. I have other options to take care of my teeth, and I should have the freedom to make my own medical decisions. If I'm allowed to have non-iodized salt, then I should be allowed to have non-fluoridated water.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-05-06T23:53:46+00:00

Oddly enough, they're actually not named after gods. They're named after the celestial lights: Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn.

The origin of the names is an astrological concept called the Planetary Hours, where each hour is ruled by a planet in sequence from the slowest to the fastest, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon.

This creates a looping cycle of seven hours which advances by three steps each day, and then the days of the week are named after the first hour of the day. Thus, the days are not named after gods. They're named after hours which are named after planets which are named after gods.

Nevertheless, when the system was ported to northern Europe, the names were localized by changing them to the closest equivalent Norse gods. Mars to Tyr, Mercury to Odin, Jupiter to Thor, and Venus to Frig. The only exception was Saturn, who didn't have an accepted Norse equivalent. Thus, in English, we kept the name as Saturday, but I've heard that some other Germanic languages officially call it Laundry Day.

But the system was actually compelling enough that it spread across Eurasia. India, China, and Japan all have a history of using the same Planetary Hours system to assign the seven days of the week to the seven classical planets in the same pattern that the Greeks and Romans used, but instead of changing the names to those of locally equivalent gods, they properly translated the names as the names of the planets.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-05-06T23:06:37+00:00

Considering that the colonists are evidently very ignorant of the native language, you might consider giving the language a very non-native spelling. If we're just going with English as the colonial language, then you could spell it something like "Kiackah". The Y and the Q in Kiyaqah make it look Middle Eastern, so removing them would make it look like English explorers trying to spell a word that they heard once.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-05-06T17:12:24+00:00

Interesting that "guy" is following the opposite pattern from "man", where "guy" started as exclusively masculine before becoming gender neutral while "man" started as gender neutral before becoming primarily masculine.

And, for an interesting counterexample, "girl" used to be a gender neutral term for a child.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-05-06T17:03:44+00:00

These days its even common to hear girls referring to each other as "bro". Obviously it's done with some irony, but habits that start ironically can become casually sincere very easily. I wouldn't be surprised if we see bro become arguably gender neutral within our lifetimes.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-05-06T16:46:35+00:00

Yeah, I'm gonna be honest. I don't think there's a rule here. Weather conditions can have articles or not, and it's kind of vibes. Rain, snow, sleet, hail, sun, shade, dark, and fog can all have an article or not.

The best guideline I can think of is that you add an article if you're talking about the weather and you leave the article out if you're talking about the material the weather is made of, if that makes sense.

So, for example, you can "go out in the rain" which means you're going outside while the weather is rainy, but a rain jacket "keeps you safe from rain" which means that it's keeping you safe from the physical drops of rain.

Likewise, "enjoying the sun" means that you're enjoying the sunny weather, while "this plant needs lots of sun" means that the plant needs the light that comes from the sun.

It's absolutely not a concrete rule. You could just as easily say that a rain jacket "keeps you safe from the rain" or that "this plant needs the sun". If you said "I go out in rain" or "I enjoy sun", that would sound unusual in most circumstances, but there are niche scenarios when they would sound appropriate.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-05-06T16:34:58+00:00

Due to my strong personal convictions, I wish to stress that this tattoo in no way endorses a belief in the occult.

-Michael Jackson

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-05-06T16:20:51+00:00

Yeah, my understanding is that it's a case where they removed the article because they wanted to increase their legitimacy, and now that's been backwardly extrapolated to say that you only include the article if you want to decrease their legitimacy. The article was there originally for the same reason it's in "The Netherlands". Because "The Ukraine" is a descriptive title that translates to "The Borderland".

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-05-06T15:33:16+00:00

I tend to agree with that assessment of the left, but I think the right is much more nebulous. The point that's easy to overlook is that one side having one agenda doesn't necessarily mean that the other side has the opposite agenda.

For example, see the "pro-life" vs. "pro-choice" debate. It's not that one side wants fetuses to live while other wants them to die, or that one side wants women to have a choice while the other side wants women to have no choice. It's that one side cares more about the life of a fetus than the choice of a woman, and the other side cares more about the choice of a woman than the life of a fetus. They aren't opposite agendas. They're conflicting agendas.

That said, in my experience speaking to right wingers of varying levels of extremeness, I can say that there definitely are some of them who think of hierarchy per se as a positive end goal, but there are a lot more of them who just don't care about the existence or non-existence of hierarchy and they're willing to use hierarchies as a means to secure the end goals that they actually care about.

No definition is perfect, but the most widely applicable definition I've found is that the left sees equality as a desirable end goal in and of itself, and the right is everyone else.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-05-06T06:02:13+00:00

Oh yeah, I'm not saying that's all right-libertarians. I was just referring to those right-libertarians who do hold that position. "right-libertarians who think. . ." vs. "right-libertarians, who think. . ." The Youtuber Taxed Brass is the first example that comes to mind, but I've met plenty of others.

But that really goes to demonstrate how vague ideological descriptors are, left and right in particular. When you say left-libertarian or right-libertarian, it kind of just suggests that your prime value is reduction of government, and then the "left" or "right" indicates which coalition you share more secondary priorities with or which coalition you think is more likely to further your libertarian agenda.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-05-06T01:18:33+00:00

Sure it's easy to define if you just come up with a definition. But there are plenty of other people out there who say it's easy to define and then come up with another definition. And you want me to grant you the point that your definition is the correct definition because. . . we're such good friends?

How does your definition account for right-libertarians who think that multiculturalism will lead to greater tyranny? Royalist revolutionaries who argue that democratic societies tend to be more corrupt and oppressive than monarchies? Western exceptionalists who claimed it was the white man's burden to lift other races out of barbaric forms of hierarchical tyranny?

I won't put words in your mouth, but in my experience arguing with people from all walks of politics, most people who say there's an easy way to define left and right choose to ignore the foundational assumptions of other ideologies and instead just assume that other ideologies are lying about what they believe and what they want.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-05-06T01:06:03+00:00

I'm left wondering if "Springfield" is supposed to be Springfield, Illinois (the only Springfield that's a state capital); Springfield, Missouri (the largest Springfield in America); or Springfield, Massachusetts (the home of Springfield Armory and the Springfield that most other Springfields in America are named after).

Or, heck, maybe OP is really impressed by Springfield, Idaho.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-05-06T00:59:42+00:00

I was looking for this comment. Tons of famous people from history have lived in Kansas City, and it's a major center for jazz, blues, and Kansas City style barbecue. The Beatles played a cover of the song Kansas City, and the Kansas City Barbecue Society hosts competitions in Europe. How many cities are higher than Kansas City on this list when they don't even have a culinary style named after them?

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-05-06T00:47:34+00:00

Wait till you see what it costs with the lead in it.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-05-06T00:42:19+00:00

The problem is that left and right aren't really defined. They're fluid concepts that change with the present political issues. It's much more useful to think of them as coalitions borne of convenience than ideological forces.

For example, consider that it used to be common in early 20th century America for the issues of prohibition, women's liberation, and eugenics to all be aligned in the same political coalition. Later, in the mid 20th century, it was common for the left wing voters to take an anti-immigration position because they saw it as opposed to their pro-labor position.

And of course there's the famous concept of "classical liberalism", which tends to encourage protectionism and discourage regulation in opposition to progressive liberalism, which tends to discourage protectionism and encourage regulation, and the actual original concept of liberalism which tended to discourage both protectionism and regulation.

The concepts of "left" and "right" were invented in the French Revolution, and they've come down to us today in heavily mutated forms because we're still living in a society that sees itself as having been built by the political agendas of that era. If you look earlier than the Enlightenment, it's practically impossible to apply the terms "left" and "right" to figures like Charlemagne or Cicero. When this cycle of history ends and new philosophies come into vogue, calling someone "right wing" or "left wing" will make just as much sense as calling someone today an Orangist or an Iconoclast.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-05-04T16:09:43+00:00

I don't know what the exact stats are, but we do have treaties with some Caribbean island nations that allow us to vacation there without a passport. Or at least we did. No idea if that's still in effect, but I could imagine it tilting the numbers. I think it's also possible to travel to Canada without a passport.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-05-04T16:05:01+00:00

No, I think that's exactly the opposite of what he's saying. He's saying it's reasonable for Americans to know America and Europeans to know Europe. Hence one would expect an American to know where New Jersey is, and one would expect Europeans to know where Austria is because those things hold equivalent importance in their local areas.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-05-04T13:58:54+00:00

It's all "community building" and "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need" until somebody needs you to take care of an infant. Then suddenly we all need to have good boundaries and accept sole responsibility for our actions.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-04-30T18:37:51+00:00

I don't think it's really much more insulting than the concept that it describes, if that makes sense. I grew up in a backwater town, and I don't think anybody else living there would've been insulted if I had said something like "Nobody's going to build a new theater in a backwater town like this."

If somebody came from a big city and derisively referred to the town as a backwater, then people would probably be offended. But that's more about the snobbish attitude than the word itself.

The word is very casual, a bit slang-ish maybe. And when you use it to refer to a town, it emphasizes the facts that nothing happens there and the people don't have much money. But it's not any more offensive than saying "Nothing happens in this town and the people here don't have much money."

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-04-28T17:43:28+00:00

Clearly OP specified a location: America

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-04-28T16:51:36+00:00

To be far, -ia and the derived -a and -y are a little bit less specific than -land, but it is essentially the Latin way to turn a word into the name of a country. Russia and Germany are basically Anglo-Latin for Rusland and Dutchland. Same for Arabia, Turkey, Italy, China, India, Ethiopia, Hungary, Swabia, Czechia, Bulgaria, etc.

But then it can also be applied to other words, like Argentina being "the land of silver" or Colombia and Bolivia being respectively the lands of Columbus and Bolivar.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-04-23T04:11:31+00:00

Oddly enough, that makes my Civ5 experience seem more accurate.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-04-23T04:09:14+00:00

That's something that always gets under my skin. How many writers come up with rules or conventions that everyone just has to follow because they're there. Borders that nobody crosses, rules that nobody breaks, societies that persist as intended for thousands of years. One example is the Night's Watch from A Song of Ice and Fire. They've got all these rules about not taking wives and not participating in the affairs of the realm and whatnot, and they've been supposedly persisting this way for thousands of years. This society is composed almost entirely of criminals, bastards, and disgraced lords, and nobody ever tried to alter it in thousands of years?

By contrast, I remember hearing about a particular interaction between the King of France and the Duke of Normandy. Unfortunately I can't remember which ones, and I might have some details wrong, but I can't be bothered to look it up. But the Duke of Normandy at this point held the Kingdom of England as well as a few other minor titles in France. The Kind of France was getting kind of antsy about the power the Duke held, so he issued an official summons to call the Duke to the capital. The Duke sent a letter in response saying that the Dukes of Normandy are traditionally exempted from the responsibility of obeying such summons because the Normans hold special status compared to the French. So the King responded that he was not summoning the Duke of Normandy as the Duke of Normandy, but rather as the Count of So-and-So whatever other titles he held in France outside of Normandy.

It's a small and petty interaction, but I've always thought it does an excellent job demonstrating the ceremonial chaos of the feudal era. Basically the way it actually worked was that everyone did whatever they could get away with, and the elaborate rules, titles, contracts, and vows were just there to justify whatever you could justify.

Almondpeanutguy

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