#2) if they're the first farmer doing it in the area or if their parents are still around and aren't on board.

[neurotypical-karen]

This is the poster we have hanging up in our office. Some of the history facts are very US nationalistic, but it really is a good visual for just how important it is to prevent erosion.

I grew up on stories of the Dust Bowl.

My dad’s parents were Okies–environmental refugees, before anyone had a word for it. They left their families, the land they were renting, their animals, took their 1-year-old daughter, and drove to California. My grandpa worked in a peach packing plant. My grandma cleaned houses.

They were so lonely that after a couple years they went back to Oklahoma, with their total savings of $20. Later, they bought land. Built a house. Survived.

My mom’s dad was a kid then, and his family stayed in western Kansas. Stayed because my great-grandpa was too damn stubborn to leave, stayed when their neighbors had all left, stayed because they didn’t have enough money to leave. They slept with wet rags over their faces. My great-grandpa tied a string around his waist, tied the other end to the house, and went to check on the cows, while my great-grandma tried to make soup from a little milk and a little flour. There was so much dust swirling in the air, the soup turned to mud. She cried, begged her husband once more to let them leave, and they went to bed hungry.

My grandpa’s oldest brother was the first one in the county to leave his wheat stubble in the field instead of plowing it under after the harvest. His neighbors made fun of him. His parents scolded him for having messy fields. 70 years later, at his funeral, someone told how people from Japan came to visit the farm, to see what he was doing differently.

More than 80 years after the Dust Bowl, I stood on a mountain in Ecuador watching, horrified, as a man with a tractor plowed a steep field. He would back up the hill, set the disk in the ground at the top of the field, and drive down, breaking up the soil, dragging it downhill. Dust billowed around him.

The man next to me, a rich-for-the-area farmer, sighed happily. “Look at all that dust. Isn’t that great?”

“What? No!” I was shocked.

“Why not? That’s what a modern farm looks like.”

I thought of the old black-and-white photos, dust clouds like black walls rolling in across the prairie. That’s what a modern farm looked like, too.

The next field down, four people and four oxen–well, dairy cows used as oxen–were planting. They used plows, too, but instead of a disk pulverizing the soil, their plow was a straight piece of wood, metal from an old leaf spring bolted to the end. One team of oxen used that plow to open a furrow, the women walking behind dropped maize seeds into the soil, and the second team of oxen dragged the same kind of plow just above the first, closing the furrow and burying the seeds. They walked along the hill–side to side, furrows running along the contour of the hill. If they were raising any dust, it wasn’t enough for me to see from across the valley.

The man with the tractor probably finished in an hour or two. The whole group, people and oxen and all, probably spent the whole day planting the same size field.

As the maize grew tall, you could see the difference: In the tractored field, the top rows were yellow, spindly, trying to root in the yellow-brown clay the topsoil had once covered. Down below, in dark, rich earth, the maize was tall, green, strong.

In Mali, years later, a farmer explained to a group of visiting scientists why, despite having made erosion control bunds, his rows of maize still went up and down the slope, instead of along the contour, parallel with the bunds. “Because of the wind,” he said, like it was obvious–because it was. In the rainy season, the wind comes from the south, and when storms come it blows hard enough to send dust and dishes and clothes left on the line flying and tumbling with it.

The rows of maize have to be parallel to that wind, or they’ll blow over. So sure, you can put the scientists’ earthen ridges in to block the downhill flow of water, but your rows can’t follow that meandering contour. Your rows have to face into the wind. 

For thousands of years we’ve been coaxing, wrestling, dragging our food from the soil. If we’re careful, and lucky, we can make our peace with it. If we charge into places unknown–the high plains of Kansas and Oklahoma, the steep slopes of the Andes, the storm-swept fields of West Africa–if we plow, and plant, and harvest without thinking? Without learning from the place? Dust clouds blackening the horizon, stunted maize on worn-out soil, crops blown down in  thunderstorms–the earth is forgiving, but only so far. We have time to learn, to make mistakes, to do what is easy even when it does harm, but only so much. Beyond that, we destroy the very literal foundations of our lives.

[haila-wetyios]

I come from a third world country. Which makes it easy for peeps from the first world to have several misconceptions about living conditions or even where I am (my favourite is the one where they think Nicaragua is located in Africa, or me being Russian).

That said, my husband (who I now believe is the saint of patience in disguise) has done his best in the 10 years we've been together to try and at least explain to his family that no, I don't live in a hut, unaware of all commodities and twiddling my thumbs, trying to marry him to get a visa and dump him right away. Or that yes, there's several towns at my country with rich agriculture but all are modern enough that you won't feel like you're in the end of the world or in some random mountain in your tent (unless of course, you really wanted to go camping to all our green areas).

We got a half assed functioning capital city, we only have Summer all year round, and greens and dairy products are so rampant that there's tons of cheeses that I can't smuggle out to my friends because they come with zero preservatives and maybe some extra seasoning from the farmer hand that handled them that had no time to wash it before we got it.

We lack a few of the fancier things in current modern society yes (as in, old models of several things), but it reflects mostly in the lack of manners and survival of the fittest practice that we have to deal with on a daily basis against each other. And of course, the government insisting on getting the country to crumble from the inside and the oppression of those against it, but that's a topic for a different writing.

This of course, has not gotten through my dear mother in law's head, and now that I'm staying for a brief period of time with them to get the hang of Canada, everyday is a very wild day of hot takes from her strange assumptions about me, or the way she handles things in general. Here are some of them:

"That's a train! Have you ever seen/been on a train before?"

"Oh I just got organic milk! It's good for your body. Have you ever had organic milk?"

Asking which Canadian brand I have never heard off I would like for certain groceries.

Going through roads I've only seen once since first arriving and asking if they're familiar to me.

"OH I HAVE TO TEACH YOU HOW TO USE THE TV" *proceeds to press the ON button and tell me to choose Netflix on the menu*

Suggesting that since they got a bag full of toothpaste, lotions, deodorants and so on, that I could grab those and make small packets to bring back to gift to my friends and co-workers at home.

Being very confused as to why I would take a walk around the neighbourhood without my husband, who is chilling playing games and letting me do my own thing.

Asking my husband why I didn't cook him breakfast instead of us sharing duties on breakfast prepping.

Asking if I've ever had cheese from Portugal often (it's always a new different brand).

"Y'KNOWWHATIMEAN?" x8 times (minimum) to me during the day.

Trying to get me to agree that the current weather is blazing hot while I'm wearing at least 2 jackets.

Being very confused when I mentioned my parents went out on a fishing trip, asking why if our house 'is right next to the sea' (we live in the city).

Insisting that I accept several cloth donations.

Insisting that my family take several cloth donations.

Asking in different words if I've ever had boiled eggs???

Losing her mind when I mentioned we don't have sweet potatoes at home.

Being shocked that we grow our own herbs in the backyard (parsley, thyme, etc etc).

Now just in case, this doesn't upset me as much as it amuses me at this point. We deal with too much shit at home for misconceptions to get to me. But those are only the tip of the iceberg of everything I've seen and heard in roughly a week of being around. And I do have to admit, I'm both wondering while also being terrified of whatever misconception comes next. I've had several moments of giving the benefit of the doubt and my dear mother in law grabs those, and throws them into a home run far, far away.

She loves me and changing the way she thinks is definitely impossible. So just gotta take the list of things and roll with them I guess. In her eyes, I either popped out of thin air, or have been living in Canada for a long while, there's no in between image of me

[tehuti88-art]

8/2/24: r/SketchDaily theme, "Free Draw Friday." This week's characters from my anthro WWII storyline are Herzog Adalbert von NN and Herzogin Adelheid von NN (full last name never given, so I use the genealogy term "NN"). They're from a very old line of dukes and duchesses and are the parents of Adel, AKA Ratdog, and Edelgard. They're long deceased by the time of the main story; I can't get into their history here (it's...weird), but most of it's already in Edelgard's Tumblr entry. There'll be more about them later in my art Tumblr and Toyhou.se.

Regarding their design, they're roughly late Victorian/Edwardian era and a bit later. Adelheid's bouffant/pompadour may be a bit much. Everyone in this family seems to possess bright blue eyes and warm/muddy gray fur.

TUMBLR EDIT: This part will be truncated in the next entry to save repetition.

You'll see these two have finally, grudgingly received first names. I couldn't figure out how to label them when I eventually put them up on Toyhou.se...I still haven't figured out how I'm going to label the older generation of von NNs, but I guess I'll wait till I get there to deal with that. You'll see that, like siblings Adel (Ratdog) and Edelgard, their names, Adalbert and Adelheid, have the same root meaning (Adel) referring to German nobility. Yes, both of them, husband and wife, share this peculiar naming trait. Because husband and wife are also brother and sister.

I warned that it's weird. See Edelgard's entry, where the saga of the von NN family was first laid out in detail. So, I REALLY needn't go into excessive detail again regarding Duke and Duchess von NN and their sad ending, though as always, I know I'll end up repeating at least a bit...I'll try to limit myself.

Long story short (and I admit I had to stop typing and delete and make it shorter), despite Adalbert's efforts, Edelgard succumbs to extreme mental imbalance, likely a result of the family's severe inbreeding, and murders both parents in a fit of rage. She spares Adel, but warns him to flee before she might end up killing him, too. When he returns, he finds the family castle abandoned and Edelgard gone; the indication is that she wandered off into the snow, similar to their grandparents, to die of the cold. Her likely death (and the grandparents') is sadly echoed many years later when Adel, crushed by years of loss and grief, commits suicide by opening all the doors and windows of his home to the wind and snow, drinking himself into a stupor, and freezing to death. Even though he lucked out in the genetic lottery and avoided Edelgard's fate, he still ends up succumbing to the "family curse," such as it is. The way certain things pass down through the generations, not only connecting family but repeating history, is a major recurring theme in this story...just that, in the case of the von NNs, it's a bit more literal.

There's meant to be a sequence in the story where Ratdog (Adel's wartime sniper alias) declines a genealogist's offer to draw up his family tree (for obvious reasons...no branches), telling the guy, "I already know my family, why do I need anyone to tell me who they are?" The genealogist draws up Godfrey Klemper's tree instead. A bit of irony is discovered here, in that Klemper is shown to descend from "a long, proud line of peasant-farmers" who have lived in the same general area of northeastern Germany for hundreds of years. (Just FYI, Klemper's family is dirt poor, yet NOT inbred.) Why ironic? Ratdog's family--which he reveals to Klemper is a long, unbroken line of dukes and duchesses, going back at least five hundred years--resided in the same general area, and in their heyday, maintained a massive amount of farmland, which was almost certainly worked by peasant laborers...sort of like serfs, not much higher in status than slaves. Chances are high that Klemper's direct ancestors once toiled for Ratdog's direct ancestors, and now Ratdog and Klemper, a Junker and a farmer's son, are romantically involved. Ratdog--who before now had disowned his extinct family, and presented himself as a peasant type--inquires if this knowledge changes anything between them; Klemper mulls it over, yet says no, he can't think of any reason why it should; although he uses much simpler language, he says that nobody should be defined by the actions of their ancestors. Klemper, as superstitious as he is, doesn't believe in familial curses. Yet the more pragmatic, non-superstitious Ratdog certainly does, because he's seen the evidence firsthand.

Just another FYI: No, there is no child abuse or coercion in the von NN family history. It's not like the Dannecker family with its long tradition of generational (parent/child) incest, child abuse, and force. The von NNs just practice sibling marriage between consenting, age-appropriate parties; icky, yet not nonconsensual or abusive. Adalbert and Adelheid do love each other, just as their brother-sister parents did, and presumably their sibling parents before them going back who knows how far; by their time, the direct family line of two siblings is all that's left, so this is likely a situation that went on for quite a long time as offshoots of the family all withered away. Brother/sister marriage is pretty much all the later generations of von NNs know, so of course it's all they do. Edelgard--who, Ratdog tells Klemper, he was certainly intended to marry and carry on the family line with once he came of age--broke this tradition only with the murder of their parents and by sending Adel away; although close, the two never were in love, and this might have been one of Edelgard's underlying motivations in telling her brother to go: Not only did she not wish to harm him physically, but she likely didn't want their sibling relationship to be tarnished in the same way as previous generations, as she and Adel simply didn't feel that way for each other. Rather than submit both of them to a possibly unwanted/unhappy marriage, Edelgard seized control of her own fate for the first time in her life, and ended the family curse. (Or at least...tried to.)

Adel attempts to ensure the end of the family line first by secluding himself and abandoning their name (the full surname, which is incredibly rare for obvious reasons, is never given--they've long lost almost all importance and recognition along with their workers and most of their lands, just this weird isolated line of nobility living in the middle of nowhere, keeping strictly to themselves--and Edelgard destroys all mentions of the name remaining in the castle), yet accidentally fathers a son, Hans; Hans dies young, and Adel vows that the cursed name will die with him. He doesn't count on falling in love with Klemper, though the relationship seems "safe" as it can bring forth no children...yet in another twist of irony, Adel fails at his attempt to let his line die out, when Klemper is killed and Adel ends up with former enemy Didrika, who also lost her soulmate. Adel and Didrika have a son and a daughter, and their daughter, Tatiana, has a son of her own--Hans, named after his long-deceased half-brother--and they all require a surname. As Adel ensures the name is never revealed, his children assume a completely new surname: von Adel (of Adel). The von NN family name dies out with Adel's suicide, yet his line continues after his death, now named after him.

I'm sure that at least some generations of the von NN family weren't entirely thrilled with the prospects of marrying each other--similar to arranged marriages, they probably had to get used to the idea first--but as I said, there's no known family history of coercion. I also imagine at times there were additional siblings, brothers and sisters who weren't involved in carrying on the line (the oldest brother and/or sister would carry this responsibility), though they too, in their extreme geographical and social isolation, knew no other way of life, and so never got married or bore children to carry on the family name. (There IS the possibility of extra brothers/sisters having children out of wedlock with the increasingly rare neighboring peasants/laborers--meaning Adel could have a few distant relatives still out there--yet none from the direct line, and none with the family name. As their isolation became near-complete, and the von NN family was whittled down to just two surviving siblings per generation, this possibility died out as well.) Edelgard and Adel were the first generation, it seems, in centuries to even think of breaking this custom, largely because of Edelgard's mental instability. Surely there was a "weird" sibling here and there, though they seem to have been rare; from the looks of it, the von NN gene pool was relatively stable, without a bunch of troublesome recessive traits: The grandparents, Adalbert, Adelheid, and Adel, at least, were outwardly normal and healthy. With such a long history of inbreeding, however (Adel never clarifies how far back it goes, but given the typical reasons for such behavior--isolation, and desire to keep a pure bloodline--it likely goes back quite far), it's to be expected that a recessive trait would make itself known, and this finally happens with Edelgard. By a random genetic quirk, she inherits and displays this trait, while it remains dormant in Adel (he admits to Klemper that, despite having no way of knowing for sure, he believes he does carry this genetic trait, and it's the reason he doesn't want kids); and in yet more irony, this inbred family trait is what leads to the family name's extinction.

Edelgard doesn't exist in a vacuum, however. Nurture, not just nature, does play its role. Her mother's early mistreatment and lifelong rejection of her, followed by a rash cruel comment by her father when he discovers his wife's body ("You're a monster!"), go far toward contributing to the underlying problem; although Edelgard manifests violent tendencies from the start, Adalbert's compassion and dedication to making sure she's loved and treated properly, along with her refusal to harm Adel even when given the chance, prove that at least to some extent, she's redeemable. There are simply too many circumstances working against her, however, for it to stick. The "family curse" hits poor Edelgard in more than one way.

All this having been said...Adalbert and Adelheid are generally decent people, though Adelheid is highly flawed. She's the one to initially reject Edelgard and lock her away in an isolated part of the castle, where she spends her early years mostly neglected; even Adalbert has little to do with her. Adel is the one to first show her kindness--the little boy, while exploring, finds her room and gets in, and shows no fear of her, not even when she holds a scissor to his neck on their parents' arrival. Adelheid persists in her refusal to show warmth or love to her own daughter, though this is largely because she fears for Adel's safety--as the firstborn son, he's the sole carrier of the family name. Despite the family tradition, Edelgard is ultimately expendable, her brother is not. Adelheid lavishes her affection on Adel and ignores Edelgard, which has serious consequences for her later. Something just now occurred to me, however, that Adelheid's behavior might not ENTIRELY be based on her concern for Adel and the family line...she almost OVERreacts in her treatment of a mentally fragile little girl. Could this be a more moderate manifestation of the same emotions that overwhelm Edelgard later on...?

Adalbert displays no such overreaction. He disagrees with Adelheid's decision to lock their daughter away, and insists on rehabilitating her once she refuses to harm her little brother. He takes over all the duties a mother normally would, washing, brushing, and cutting Edelgard's knotted, filthy hair, scrubbing her clean in a washtub and wrapping her in a big fluffy towel, and dressing her in the most beautiful, lavish little dresses he has the few remaining staff sew up for her. He adorns her with ribbons and jewels and shiny shoes and beams at her in the mirror, as proud as any father could be; he teaches her German, and history and literature and mathematics and science, and also teaches her the expected arts of sewing, cooking, cleaning, and how to read and understand the Bible and pray. He spoils both children, but Edelgard more, to make up for Adelheid's neglect, with fancy clothes, toys, and candies; Edelgard carries around her hand-sewn babydoll, though she barely pays any attention to it, perhaps mimicking her mother, instead watching Adel play with his favorite hand-carved wooden horse. Edelgard makes occasional efforts to earn her mother's affection, before giving up entirely, the two avoiding each other outright; and despite Adalbert's efforts, she's always rather aloof toward him as well. Adel is the only one she seems to connect with, much to Adelheid's chagrin. (By now Adelheid has decided Adel will have nothing to do with her as a bride, family tradition be damned. Adalbert thinks he'll just wait her out; who else would Adel end up with...?)

Adalbert's hard work redeeming his broken daughter, unfortunately, doesn't pay off. His and the teenaged Adel's plans to go out hunting are scuttled when Adelheid falls ill and Adalbert stays behind to tend to her; Adel heads out alone. Edelgard stops by her mother's room; despite her illness, Adelheid flies into a fury, demanding that she get out. Normally, Edelgard would just leave, yet this time, seeing the hatred in her mother's eyes--maybe, indeed, this is exactly what she inherited from Adelheid--something inside her sparks, the old destructive rage that Adalbert tried so hard to suppress, and Edelgard reaches over toward her mother's vanity and picks up a hatpin. Adelheid continues spitting at her angrily as she approaches, not realizing what's about to happen until Edelgard reaches the bed and raises her arm; then her eyes go wide and she shrinks back but there's nowhere to go. Edelgard brings the hatpin down.

Adalbert responds to the strangled screaming he hears coming from upstairs, dashing up the steps, rushing down the hallway, bursting into Adelheid's room. "Adelheid! Adelheid--?" he calls as he nears the bed, yanking back a gauzy drape. "Adelheid! What..." And then trails off in disbelief at the grisly sight that greets him. He lets out a cry, hurries around to the side of the bed, reaches out for her, getting her blood on his clothes, crying her name repeatedly yet she's obviously gone. Hearing a noise, he jerks aside and spots Edelgard. "Edelgard," he exclaims, "what..." but then sees the bloody hatpin, and the blood all over Edelgard herself. "Vater...?" Edelgard says imploringly, and holds out her arms as if for a hug. Any other time, no matter what the risk, he would have obliged; anything to let his daughter know he loves her. Now, however...he hates her. "You..." he whispers, loses his voice, then gains it again. "You're...you're a monster!" His voice rises into a cracking shriek: "A monster!!" he screams again, leaving no room for doubt; Edelgard's eyes widen in genuine surprise, then narrow and darken, a small crinkle marring her nose. Just like Adelheid, Adalbert realizes just a moment too late what's coming; he lets go of his wife and tries to evade his own daughter, yet she's smaller and much faster and has not fear, but pure hatred, fury, and betrayal on her side--"Edelgard!!" he manages to yell, "Edelgard, stop!"--before she launches herself at him, hatpin raised.

Adel returns to a silent, seemingly empty home. Even the few remaining help staff seem to have gone. "Vater? Mutter...? Edelgard?" he calls as he wanders around, then, puzzled, heads upstairs. He finds his parents...the trail of blood...and Edelgard with gore spattering her and the dripping pin in her hand.

Adel doesn't try to run. Doesn't scream at her, what has she done. "Edelgard," he says softly, tears streaming from his eyes, voice choking. Edelgard mentions how their mother reacted, why she reacted in turn--when Adel says, "But...Vater. Vater's always been good to you. Why...?" Edelgard's eyes glitter with spite, and Adel takes pause--he's never seen her look that way about their kind, patient, loving father. "He called me 'monster,'" Edelgard says, and her tone of voice makes it plain that this, this one unplanned, un-thought-out comment, was far worse than anything their mother ever did to her. She expected this from Adelheid...not from their father. Adalbert ended up betraying her worst of all.

Adel attempts to entreat Edelgard to let him help her, yet she's adamant that he leave--she has enough self-awareness to know that he'll never truly be safe as long as they live under the same roof. He refuses to go, refuses to turn his back on her like their parents did, until she screams at him. He hastily gathers a few things, pauses before the entry in the great hall--"I'll come back for you," he calls out into the echoing castle, a promise, though there's no response. He departs, trudging back out into the snow. By the time he returns a few days later, the castle is completely abandoned, its doors and windows thrown open, snow gathering in drifts all throughout the halls and rooms. Adalbert's and Adelheid's faces and names have been effaced from everything in the residence. Adel searches the nearby forest, calling for Edelgard until his throat goes raw, yet he never sees her again. He imagines her, like their grandparents, curled away in a cave, cold and stiff and still.

Many years later...long after the death of his little son Hans, the very last of his name (an accidental son whom he nevertheless loved more than life), long after the death of Klemper (emotionally volatile, mentally broken Klemper, who lashed out so much at first, certain Ratdog would abandon him, yet he never did, as by then he well understood the hurt--Klemper's wounded expression looked the same as Edelgard's, after Adalbert's betrayal)...Adel opens all the doors and windows of the little stone cottage he built after leaving the castle, opens a bottle, and drinks until both the shivering and the tears fade into numbness, curls up on his bed with the toy horse which Klemper had brought back to him, and lets his eyes drift shut. He's thinking of Klemper, longing to see him again even if only in a drunken dream (he doesn't believe in an afterlife), yet he can almost swear he hears Edelgard's voice faintly calling his name. Eventually he doesn't hear that anymore, either.

Something breaks with Adel's death. Not just his adult children's hearts; son Godfrey grieves, yet suspected what was coming, but daughter Tatiana is inconsolable. Adel had just met his new grandson (for whom Tatiana had hoped to ask him to be the godfather), and had given his blessing to name the baby Hans. He isn't Hans von NN, but Hans von Adel, as Adel's own children never learn his real surname...it dies with him, just as he'd wished it to. Yet so, apparently, does the "curse" he'd come to believe in after all. Godfrey and Tatiana grow up healthy and happy (they're close, but the family tradition itself died with Adalbert and Adelheid), and although the loss of their parents breaks their hearts, they carry on. Tatiana asks Adel's wartime acquaintance, Otto Himmel, to be godfather in his place, and he consents; he lost his mother to suicide, and comforts her in her pain. Hans grows up, carrier of an old name and a new name, surrounded by the sort of pride and love that Adalbert and Adelheid wanted to show their children, yet never quite could.

Please see ADELHEID'S ENTRY.

[Adalbert von NN 2024 [Friday, ‎August ‎2, ‎2024, ‏‎12:00:09 AM]]

[pressurewashinginorlandofl]

Oviedo, Florida - A Great Place to Raise a Family

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[the-vengeful-rose]

"sure hunny. I'm your new daddy."

Life with Kaida isn't easy, after all you're a simple farmer, you don't make much money. And understandably having to feed yourself and a half-dragon child (who has a considerably larger appetite than a human child) is a little more expensive than what is considered normal for a single farmer with no children (that any one in town knows of) to be required to make in a week. But even through all the hardships and challenges you two have to face, Kaida is still your daughter and you love her all the same.

There wasn't many overly memorable moments with Kaida other than stuff that normal fathers and daughters go through, but the was one time that still remains in your memory, one time when Kaida was 12, (she was dropped at your house when she was 3) (most dragon children are able to fully transform by the time they are 2) the dragon came back to check up on how well of job you were doing taking care of her, Kaida was very mad at him for leaving her, you remember that was the first time Kaida swore in front of you, but later told you she was thankful he did because you were beat father she could ask for. The next day Kaida asked you to hire a draconic magic trainer to help her with gaining control over her draconic powers.

You are now 39 (you were 24 when she arrived) and Kaida is now 18 and ready to move out and get a job, and maybe start a business, just so you can live a better life than you had when she was growing up. When Kaida tells you that she plans to leave, you start tearing up, like any parent would, but, when Kaida promises to visit at least once a month and on holidays, you let her go and get back to the farm.

A few years later (when she's 22) one time when Kaida comes on her monthly visit, she tells you some good news, she managed to start her own hotel for non-human races in a primarily human populated area in a popular cross road in the main road in the area.(for reference your town is in an area mostly populated by humans, that is used as a stop on a popular trail to a big multi-race city) She decides that you should be the front desk manager and that you get to have permanent residence there along with her and her future family.

You are now 52 and Kaida is 31 with a wife and an adopted a half-orc child(they're 8) (yay! You're a grandfather!) And you all live happily with one another in the owners section of the hotel, you still man the front desk, Kaida's wife, Elanor, an elf, is the head of the room cleaning staff, Kaida obviously is the owner, and Istrax, their child helps with the guests' luggage(his orc DNA makes him stronger).

———————

This is background information, it is not necessary but is interesting (to me at least)

You never got married, you didn't need to, you got all the love and eventual support you needed from Kaida.

Kaida is lesbian.

Istrax is non-binary.

Elanor was a farmer when she met Kaida.

Istrax was at the orphanage because his tribe got killed in a raid.

Kaida was really successful because of her idea for the hotel, she made more than enough from the hotel to support the five of you,(she's basically the family's sugar mommy) but you and Elanor still work jobs that don't pay much but you both are really passionate about. You took up word carving, and Elanor took up sewing.

Istrax is an art prodigy and hopes to become an artist one day.

You are a humble farmer when a dragon suddenly appears, he wants you to take his young dragon daughter that is unable to turn fully into a dragon and no longer wants her, before you could respond he fly’s away leaving her behind, she then looks at you and ask “Are you my new daddie/mommy?”

[kingdoms-and-empires]

If were putting our two cents into the whole Silverhill fiasco, then I have a hot take! We likely wouldn't be in this situation in the first place if the kingdom had jobs or some kind of benefits for the farmers to fall on in regards to taxes and their people getting drafted.

I admit I wouldn't know what it would look like, but while I think the taxes are at least somewhat necessary, the lack of any support or alternatives for the obvious pitfalls of increasing taxes is a problem. As we see now.

Like no shit their desperate enough to try and overthrow their local Duchies, their literally dying and we are just kinda, ignoring that.

Idk maybe after this horrifying and traumatic experience is over for everyone we can like, work on that maybe

Actually ill answer this but put it below a spoiler line as this is kinda spoilers.

The way i set up the story, is deliberately avoiding or misdirecting the attention given to the Church of the Goddess' destruction. This is like the Vactican being erased from the map by the Mongols in the medieval ages. Yes, the nobility took advantage of the situation to wrest back control of their local churches and regain lost taxes or labor given to the old church back into their pockets. But they're also terrified. The empire is terrified. Our parents are terrified. But they're not showing that to you yet. Cause you're still a child. And this isn't something where everyone is going to be openly preparing for. Ill explain more. The commoners are obviously worried about this, but moreso in the rural areas of the kingdoms and empire, where the V'era are now periodically striking.

So the entire continent is in a state of faux wartime, on a massive scale. Everyone is deploying and mobilizing armies on a scale that isn't giving back a return on that investment. Rulers are thinking they have to levy so much manpower to combat the V'era, thinking that'll put the people at ease. Instead, we're seeing the opposite affect. People are being too long away from their fields and workshops, from their families. Taxes are being levied in the form of products and foodstuff.

If i had to give a comparison, look at the Bretonnian Peasant Economy of Total War: Warhammer.

The gist is this, you have 10 peasants. When all 10 are working the fields, the economy is BOOMING. When there's 7-8 working on the fields, the economy is steady and average. When there's only 1-2 on the fields, you're militarily strong, but the economy is about to collapse on itself from supporting the military.

Anyways, now with that explained, about the return on investment from fielding such large armies. Theyre only hunting for V'era, when normally armies could take territory or sack towns and cities for treasure and such.

Here, youre only losing on manpower, economy, and control on your people. But that's not all, remember when i said people arent talking about the fall of the church openly and what that can mean? Heres another REAL spoiler line, and this one you should read at your peril

Birthday Arc Spoilers! Don't read if you wanna fully enjoy it naturally.

The church was the entity that kept nobles on a leash in regards to their Blessed Weapons and their use in war against their fellow man. By virtue of having the largest force of soldiers (the knights) in possession of Purified Steel and Blessed Weapons, they could threaten a noble into falling in line. This was done in response to what Emperor Saldwin did to the Kin of Arava. After the entire continent witnessed the capabilities of what a full suit of Blessed Armor could do when unleashed to its fullest, deadliest extent, the nobles and church petitioned Saldwin to agree to a continent-wide agreement that the use of Blessed weaponry or armor was prohibited in use against other humans, and that it should be used only against the V'era. Before this, it was sort of an unspoken "Gentleman's Agreement" where the rulers and nobles of the past just went, "if you don't use it, i wont use it." And it generally worked with a few hiccups until the Beltheans arrived and messed the geopolitical table of Nareth up. Argent obviously didn't use theirs much either and kept to themselves in their corner.

So now the nobles of the continent are scared someone is going to use their Blessings now that the Church is gone. But no one is openly discussing this, especially in front of you who is a kid at the moment.

This is why our parents went to that meeting with Daerin in Zalderick. It's why on our birthday arc, lots of outsiders will be coming to Argent to meet with our parents and discuss things. Such as possible alliances and betrothals. People are preparing. And it's why rulers are keeping their forces deployed in wartime readiness.

Thankfully though, our other grandfather, Emperor Otto, is already taking advantage of the situation and attempting to fill that hole the church left and place something loyal to him instead. That's why he's letting more commoners join the academy, so that they may become V'era Hunters trained and kitted out with Purified Steel. this way he has a POWERFUL force of professional soldiers who can fight with V'era and know how to use Purified Steel expertly loyal to his family alone, that would fill in the same job the Church did to ensure no one uses their family's Blessings against other nobles. So in one stroke he'd be eliminating the need to keep such expensive armies in the field in response to the V'era threat, keeping his nobles in check, and creating an elite force of loyalists. This of course will all be explained in the Birthday Arc. I just told you guys now for the people that cant wait and have burning questions lol.

[beaubirds]

Alright. Y'all want me to go off? I'll go off.

First i wanna debunk some things they got wildly incorrect.

1) You will not be able to find one apartment for rent under 1,000-1,500 unless you specifically choose the city and a studio apartment in a moderate area. Moderate meaning the crime rate is at a reasonable level to live with.

2) There is no way someone is going to be paying 150 a month for a decent car. My first car was a 2011 and just teetering on the edge of junker and i paid 158 on it a month. It ran, but it could not do over two hour long trips or hills very well. Go check out autotrader and see what you get for 150 a month. I got extremely lucky.

3)Same with car and health insurance. Too low guys. Now, the car insurance is tricker, since mine is 98.00 a month, but thats with a good credit score rating and a couple of negotiations with progressive. Go get progressive their awesome. However, places like allstate or Farmers tend to charge up to 500+ dollars for their basic packages. Maybe mine was a bit inflated due to my two accidents, but even so thats kinda nuts.

Health insurance wise: im paying 98 dollars for a basic package. Again this is allstate so maybe there's better, but still. They're low balling it.

4) Seriously? You didn't add heating??

5) That other better mean groceries which even so: tends to run higher per person so if this person has kids it is once again too low.

This is putting aside the fact that this person may have kids who have thwir own extra expenses! Which 200 (their 100 estimate savings doubled for benefit of the doubt there's two parents) does NOT cover for and also takes away that little savings niche you got.

My monthly expenses look pretty similar to this, so lets compare.

Heres what i pay in rounded estimate:

Rent 500+ (which is half since i live with another person. We pay 1,100ish total)

Car 200+ (2018 preowned. Pretty good deal i got lucky with)

Insurance 98 (progressive amirite?)

Health 48 (base level stuff)

Heating 400 all winter (we get oil delivered for a furnace so its p high, not sure what regular heating would REALLY round to tbh)

Phone 85 (113 when i was paying for the phone itself as well)

Electric 60 (kinda same so they hit this pretty close)

Also hey ive got student loans at 113 a month heyooo

My monthly expenses usually come to 1,600. This is without savings AND a thing or added (i think water and sewer as well as groceries).

8.25 is not enough you stupid rich bastards.

[skin-slave]

This really reminds me of the nightmare that was living in rural IL, working permanent entry-level jobs, and me at 40+hrs/wk while still being part-time, and living in a closet. You literally had to swing your ass over the tub, which was so tiny you could maybe bathe a child, to close the bathroom door. There was one cab company in town, no bus, no train, 1 school, 3 doctors, no hospital, 2 grocery stores, and in most industries you had to wait for someone to die to get in, or take so few hours at such a small rate that it didn't cover gas. SO ended up working 6 12+hr nights a week in a factory with mandatory OT and no holidays and it was hell. I had to quit school (which was fine bc I was "supposed" to have babies by then; the ideals are as shitty as the economy).

We had to save money to move here. They don't just hand you a U-Haul and a stipend for a security deposit and groceries when you get there. Which... Save what money??? Our $60 grocery budget? Gas money? We did eventually do it. I was able to transfer with a recommendation bc I'd done so much for so little, and SO took the first job he found (which barely paid enough to matter, but at least got him a local reference, bc no one wants to hire the out-of-towner).

If we'd had kids, forget it. No way we'd have been able to get out. And since all the factories have since closed, we'd just be in an even worse situation.

"Go work for a farmer" made me laugh. Idk about elsewhere, but where I'm from, private farmers don't have employees. They can't afford it. The guy on the tractor is the guy who "owns" the land, and during baling season the people on the rack are his wife and kids (and maybe a nephew whose parents don't farm). As the old-school farmers got old and died, if their kids didn't take over and the neighbor couldn't buy the land at auction, some ridiculous factory outfit would buy it for pennies, bring in their own workers and more expensive, efficient equipment, and make it even harder for the small farmers.

Shit's collapsing. Industry is leaving. What's left is skeezy on labor regulations bc they can afford to be. What are you gonna do? Quit? Someone else will take your job in a heartbeat and you're gonna learn fast that Walmart and McDonald's are your only other options and they're exactly the same. The one lawyer's office in town is gonna tell you what they tell everyone else. You can't afford to fight them, or the landlord who evicted you from his basement on 15-days notice, or the tenured teacher who ignores curriculum and pushes creationism and abstinence instead.

There's a reason rural areas have so many serious drug problems, nationalists and bible-thumpers. You gotta have something to get you from one shitty day to the next. When I was younger, it was meth, motherhood, military or the Methodists. Given how much things have deteriorated since I left, it's gotta be so much worse.

Pls don't make the mistake of thinking rural America is a great untapped resource. It's just poverty and corn.