Satsuma @Satsuma@cat.family

@Lore hopefully someone else will have a fuller / more useful reply! But since it looked like no one had answered yet I figured I’d share what I did know

@Lore if you mean Lamium purpureum, then it is native to Europe — some plants do manage to provide useful ecological niches in nonnative contexts, particularly ones that have been around for a while like dead nettles but I’d generally recommend choosing a similar native plant if at all possible

@Cyborgneticz wheely boys are a local institution!

@twistylittlepassages @human and I was about to go “well he did get assassinated” so I guess there’s more than one issue with this theory 😂

@naga@octodon.social @ljwrites I do think this idea has gotten a bit less prevalent over the years, thankfully, especially along certain axes — you see a lot more books with female main characters & queer main characters at the Hugos these days!

That’s a hard lesson to learn, but I’m glad your kiddo will get to see all sorts of people right from the start

@alpine_thistle yeah that makes sense. Still kinda hilarious timing tho!

@alpine_thistle what so its like an outsiders only fish fry?

@Cyborgneticz I do not have the gumption to haggle tbh

@Cyborgneticz makes sense

They can be kinda standoffish until they’ve decided you aren’t going to get weird about religion at them but they’re pretty cool after that

@Cyborgneticz that plus storage veggies & apples and some farms can sell produce all winter

@Cyborgneticz depends what he’s selling I guess? Tunnels should already have a good crop of winter greens & the beginnings of some early spring stuff like rhubarb

@Cyborgneticz oh yeah thats a thing! Moreso in PA than Maryland I think bc we’ve got a greater Amish / Mennonite population

@ljwrites and it starts so young they don’t even know the deal they’re making. It’s just the toys their grandparents buy them for christmas, the books their parents read at bedtime

@ljwrites I’ve thought about this before, in the context of movies & books about straight white men are advertised to everyone while a book about a woman, or a black person, is assumed to only be of interest to members of that group

Like, for some reason we’re training this particular fragment of society to deaden their empathy, that things are only relatable if there’s a literal stand in for them on the page. That’s gotta fuck you up