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plaguedocboi · 1 year

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Waterfalls! These gorgeous, powerful features of nature have been oddly lacking in my past lists, I think in part because their danger has always seemed more “obvious” to me. But doing the research for this list has reawakened my phobia of the water. Some of the later entries (numbers 9 and 10 especially) brought back anxieties that I thought I had gotten over long ago, but it was kind of thrilling. Like watching a particularly scary horror movie. Let’s get into it!

1. Underwater Waterfall, Mauritius

No, it’s not really a waterfall. It’s just an optical illusion caused by sand falling off the island’s slope down into the deeper water below. But it looks cool and scary, and the drop-off is 2.5 miles deep so that’s pretty impressive and I think it deserves at least a mention.

2. Blood Falls, Antarctica

There’s nothing particularly dangerous about this one, it just looks incredibly creepy. Obviously, it’s not actually blood, it’s just water that’s very rich in iron. But the really fascinating part of this waterfall is that its source seems to be a subglacial lake that contains a unique microbial ecosystem which has been isolated for two million years! These microbes are like nothing else we’ve ever observed in nature before. They live in an incredibly cold and extremely saline lake, and metabolize sulfur and iron ions with no oxygen present. They are being used as a model to study what life on ice-covered alien planets could be like.

3. Khone Falls, Laos

This waterfall is not nearly as famous as some of the others on this list, which is surprising because it’s the widest waterfall in the world, with an average width of six miles! Although not particularly tall, it is the second most powerful waterfall in the world, more than double the power of Niagara Falls! The Khone falls divide the Upper and Lower Mekong river, making travel by boat between the north and south impossible. What makes it kind of unsettling to me is that during the rainy seasons the falls are basically swallowed up by the river, turning them from a spectacular waterfall to a series of massive rapids.

4. Huntington Gorge, Vermont

When water levels are low, this river is a popular and scenic swimming spot, and the canyon has an almost otherworldly quality with its unique bends and overhangs. Unfortunately, these very features are what makes it so dangerous. Much like the infamous Strid, the gorge is full of holes, steep drop-offs, and powerful currents hidden beneath the water, which can suck people in and trap them against the cliff walls. Over fifty people have died here since the 1950s, and many more have been injured. With proper precautions, one can safely explore the gorge and swim in the river, but don’t forget that this water has swallowed up many people before you.

5. Victoria Falls, Zambia

I’m sure most of you already know about Mosi-oa-Tunya, more widely called Victoria Falls, as the largest waterfall in the world. Formed as the Zambezi river pours into a series of massive gorges, this curtain of water spans nearly a mile and falls 300 feet with such force that columns of rising spray can be seen for miles around. Despite this, the pools around the lip of the falls can be relatively tame, and locals have fished while balancing on the edge of the cliff for generations. The safest and most famous of these fishing holes is the Devils Pool, which allows you to literally swim right up to the edge of the world’s biggest waterfall. The pool is actually very safe when the correct precautions are taken, and I can only find one death attributed to the pool specifically, when a tour guide in 2009 fell while trying to help a man who had slipped and was dangling off the edge (and, honestly, I was expecting a lot more deaths given the amount of clickbait articles advertising it as the most deadly swimming hole in the world). Although that was the only death from the Devils Pool, there have been many other deaths at Victoria Falls, mostly tourists who underestimate the power of the river or get too close to the edge. So if you ever visit this spectacular waterfall, please observe it from a safe distance and follow all the rules.

6. Huka Falls, New Zealand

This is not a traditional waterfall, but rather a series of small waterfalls along a narrow stretch of the Waikato river, creating an incredibly turbulent chasm that ends in a whirlpool. The 300-foot wide river is funneled into a 50-foot wide stream, causing a torrent of water that flows at a rate of 58,000 gallons per second. Obviously, this is not an area that you should get in the water, but not everyone takes that advice. There have been multiple deaths at this waterfall, and a few narrow escapes, including two swimmers who, incredibly, survived after trying to raft down the falls on pool toys. Please, for the love of god, don’t do that.

7. Niagara Falls, US/Canada

These falls are the only place on this list that I’ve visited, and I can tell you they are certainly an incredible sight, but also rather intimidating due to their sheer size and power. These three massive waterfalls are fed by the Great Lakes and, combined, have nearly 700,000 gallons of water thundering down every second. There is also a permanent whirlpool in the river that has existed for over 4,000 years and reaches depths of 125 feet! Besides being huge and awe-inspiring, these waterfalls are known for their appeal to daredevils who have gone over the edge in barrels or, in one case, a giant rubber ball. But these famous success stories are punctuated with tragedy. Roughly 20-30 people die at Niagara Falls every year. Most of these, sadly, are suicides, but others are failed attempts to replicate the successful daredevils of the past, and others are accidental. An estimated 5,000 bodies were recovered at the bottom of the falls between 1850 and 2011.

8. Murchison Falls, Uganda

Also known as Kabalega Falls, this is the worlds most powerful waterfall. Formed as the Nile River flows from Lake Kyoga to Lake Albert, this waterfall is so strong it literally causes the ground to shake around it. Here, the Nile is constricted from a river nearly 400 ft wide to a passage only 20 ft wide, creating an incredibly turbulent and violent tunnel of water that tears its way into the pool below at 79,000 gallons per second. And this is no ordinary pool. Waiting below the falls is the highest concentration of large crocodiles observed anywhere in the world, waiting for any dead or stunned animals caught in the falls to wash into their lair. Although the waterfall and surrounding park are now a beautiful tourist attraction and wildlife refuge, the history of the falls includes tales of human and animal sacrifices, thrown in alive to appease the gods that some believed resided beneath the raging waters.

9. Bath Fountain, Jamaica

This is just a random little waterfall along a hiking trail, but the video triggered some intense bathophobia in me for the first time in a while. Like, I was scared to get in the shower after watching this. Proceed with caution:

youtube

10. Kipu Falls, Hawaii

This one scares me because, despite my research, I can’t actually figure out what the hell is happening here. Multiple people have died here; all tourists, all drownings, all of seemingly very unclear causes. Kipu Falls is a beautiful and popular swimming spot, and locals frequently dive off the top of the falls with seemingly no danger. However, five deaths over the course of five years from 2006-2011 challenged its reputation of being a safe swimming hole. All the articles I could find seem to repeat the same information; there is no current in the pool and the waterfalls are not especially powerful. Despite these established facts, all five deaths were the same. Someone jumped in, surfaced, and then were dragged back down to the bottom of the pool and held there until they died. This has resulted in a lot of speculation, including everything from a hidden whirlpool current to evil spirits. I’m just. Really unsettled by the lack of information on this one. Every article I found was published in 2011 and I couldn’t find any updates, which hopefully means people aren’t still dying here, but… what the fuck???? Was going on????? Sorry guys this one might not be as dangerous as some of the others but it freaks me out a lot so it’s getting a higher rating. I want to know what’s going on but I’m sure not going to investigate it myself.

#long post #water rating #bathophobia

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archivist-crow · 1 month

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Odds and Ends:

FIRE IMMUNITY

In August 1929, the New York Times carried the amazing story of Lily White, a young woman whose clothing continually, unexplainably, caught fire. It didn't matter if Lily was at home in her village in Antigua, West Indies, or walking down the street; her dresses would burst into flames and fall off, leaving her naked, but unharmed. Bedsheets would burn around her while she slept. Lily came to depend on hand-me-down garments from her neighbors to stay clothed.

In 1882 the Michigan Medical News carried an account of twenty-four-year-old A. W. Underwood, who could start fires with his breath. Underwood submitted to a rigorous examination by Dr. L. C. Woodman, who became convinced of the genuineness of Underwood's talent and wrote: "He will take anybody's handkerchief, hold it to his mouth, rub it vigorously while breathing on it, and immediately it bursts into flames and burns until consumed. ... He will, while out gunning, lie down after collecting dry leaves, and by breathing on them start a fire."

In the 1820s, in the United States, slave Nathan Coker, driven desperate by hunger, discovered his fire immunity. Finding the kitchen empty, Coker said he "shot in, dipped my hand into the dinner pot, and pulled out a red hot dumpling." Drinking cold water gave him more pain than drinking boiling coffee. Coker eventually became a blacksmith and demonstrated his talent to the town. An iron shovel, heated to white hot, was placed under Coker's feet. He stood on it while the shovel cooled. Next, Coker took the shovel, reheated to red hot, and licked it until it turned black again. Finally, some squirrel shot was melted, and the blacksmith poured the molten metal into his hands and then swished it in his mouth, until it had solidified. Coker had no burns.

August 23 is the festival day when the ancient world celebrated Vulcan, the god of fire.

Text from: Almanac of the Infamous, the Incredible, and the Ignored by Juanita Rose Violins, published by Weiser Books, 2009

#odds and ends #august #mysterious phenomena #spontaneous combustion #pyrokinesis

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industryinsightsandanalysis · 20 days

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Global Bentonite Market to witness high growth by 2027|UnivDatos Market Insights

A comprehensive overview of the global bentonite market is recently added by UnivDatos Market Insights to its humongous database. The report has been aggregated by collecting informative data from various dynamics such as market drivers, restraints, and opportunities. This innovative report makes use of several analyses to get a closer outlook on the bentonite market in the global context. This report offers a detailed analysis of the latest industry developments and trending factors that are influencing market growth. Furthermore, this statistical market research repository examines and estimates the global bentonite market at the regional & country levels. The Global Bentonite Market was valued around US$ 1.4 billion in 2020 and is anticipated to display a CAGR of ~around 6% over the forecast period (2021-2027).

Market Overview

Upsurging demand of steel from end user industries like automobile, construction, transportation, energy, and packaging would result to rise in demand of iron ore pellets which are used in manufacturing of steel. Further, sodium-activated calcium bentonite is used as a binder in iron ore pellets and is known to increase strength of both wet and dry iron ore green pellets. Owning to increased demand of iron ore from steel industry would result to higher demand of bentonite for iron ore pelletizing thereby helping the market grow at a considerable rate.

For instance, global production of crude steel in 2018 was 1,825,486 thousand tons which grew to 1,875,155 thousand tons in 2019. As per, The World Steel Association forecasts that steel (apparent steel) demand will grow by 5.8% in 2021 to reach 1.874 billion metric tons, after declining by just 0.2% in 2020, as the overall impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the sector turned out to be less than previously foreseen.

COVID-19 Impact

During the Covid-19 pandemic in the early 2020, majority of the countries and region witnessed a country wide lockdown. This has impacted the overall demand for oil and gas. According to U.S. Energy Information Administration, globally a decline of almost 9% in the overall demand of oil and gas was witnessed in 2020 for the first time since the global recession of 2009. Majority of decline was witnessed in the industrial sector, where countries had imposed shut down of manufacturing facilities to reduce the spread of Covid-19.

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Global bentonite market report is studied thoroughly with several aspects that would help stakeholders in making their decisions more curated.

By Product, the market is primarily categorized into:

Based on product, the bentonite market is segmented into sodium, calcium, and others. Among these, sodium bentonite is likely to showcase substantial growth during the forecast period. Increasing adoption and ownership of cats in developed nations like U.S. and European countries would increase the demand of sodium bentonite owing to its pet litter applications. For instance, around 42.7 million US households owns Cat as per the 2019-2020 National Pet Owners Survey conducted by the American Pet Products Association.

By Application, the market is primarily studied into:

Cat Litter

Civil Engineering

Drilling Mud

Foundry Mud

Iron Ore Pelletizing

Refining

Others

Based on application, the bentonite market is divided into cat litter, civil engineering, drilling mud, foundry sands, iron ore pelletizing, refining, and others. Among them, iron ore pelletizing and drilling mud hold a considerable market share. Bentonite exhibits good strength along with high hot and dry strength which helps in preventing molds from breaking or cracking during the pouring or cooling process in the foundry industry. Owing to high strength resulting from its property to absorb and then release moisture, bentonite is used in iron ore palletization.

Global Bentonite Market Region Segmentation Includes:

North America

Europe

Asia Pacific

MEA

South America

Based on the estimation, North America accounted for considerable market position in the market in 2020 and is expected to demonstrate significant growth during the forecast period (2021-2027). Large and increasing oil & gas activities resulted in the increasing demand of bentonite in the region.

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The major players operating in the market includes:

Bentonite Mineral Performance LLC

Black Hills Bentonite LLC

Minerals Technologies Inc.

Imerys S.A.

Wyo-Ben Inc.

Tolsa S.A.

Laviosa Mineral Solutions SpA

G & W Mineral Resources

Ningcheng Tianyu Chemical Co. Ltd.

Kunimine Industries Co. Ltd.

Competitive Landscape

The degree of competition among prominent companies has been elaborated by analyzing several leading key players operating in the Global context. The specialist team of research analysts sheds light on various traits such as Global market competition, market share, most recent industry advancements, innovative product launches, partnerships, mergers, or acquisitions by leading companies in the Global Bentonite Market. The major players have been analyzed using different research methodologies for getting insight views on market competition.

Key questions resolved through this analytical market research report include:

What are the latest trends, new patterns, and technological advancements in the global bentonite market?

Which factors are influencing the global bentonite market over the forecast period?

What are the global challenges, threats, and risks in the global bentonite market?

Which factors are propelling and restraining the global bentonite market?

What are the demanding global regions of the bentonite market?

What will be the market size in the upcoming years?

What are the crucial market acquisition strategies and policies applied by the companies?

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#Bentonite Market

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poeta-nascitur-non-fit · 3 months

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6/26/2024, pt II

I've been reminiscing quite a bit about where I was in my life in 2009, 2015 and 2020. Youth. Youth would be overrated if not for the fact that you can collect a lot of interesting memories and stories from that time period. Having a vivid and nearly perfect photographic long term memory makes all of that feel like it was just yesterday, too. He always tells me that "nostalgia is a liar," and while I get where he's coming from, I don't think that's always true, that nostalgia doesn't mean much at the end of the day, because it's something we only idealize in retrospect but lose sight of the whole picture, only seeing the good and repressing the bad.

He also tells me that those good memories and special moments were less about the other people involved and more about the good energy I put into making those things happen. I don't know, I don't think all of those experiences were entirely me. Despite how much he hates on my exes for being shitty people, he just couldn't possibly know the whole story, why those experiences happened with the people they happened with, because he has never met them, and he is not me. Some of those people did end up being shitty people in the end, but people are complicated, and they weren't always shitty. Am I supposed to just write all of that off entirely? That's what he would prefer, I think. Jealousy strikes once again.

Reading through his blog and seeing him revisiting memories of some of this exes and writing about looking them up on social media makes his stance fairly ironic. Granted, those posts were written years ago, but I really do think that it's just an innate thing for people to be nostalgic from time to time, and if only I were in his head, I bet I could say with almost 100% certainty that he still gets nostalgic even now, too. And... there's really nothing wrong with that.

I *do* understand his BPD jealousy, of course, because I also have BPD, and years ago when I had no idea how to cope with it at all, my jealousy nearly drove me insane. Speaking for myself, I am glad I eventually learned how to be rational and work through all of that. I *had* to learn how to cope, because otherwise, I would've become one of those 1 out of 10 BPD casualties.

Anyway, I'm kind of burying the lede...

It's probably time for me to revisit old photographs, old writing, old blogs. Some of my most creative pieces came from those years. I don't know how feasible it is, but I would love to tap into that nostalgia and bring it up to date with who I am now, so to speak. I want to find myself again. What drove me then? And how can I recapture it? Can I build on that for something even better now? Where would I start?

Too tired to delve into all of that this morning.

It stormed before sunup. I laid in bed, window open, nodding off on Vicodin, listening to the pouring rain and the wind whipping through the trees. Few things are as relaxing as a summer downpour. Vicodin itself is one of the exceptions, though.

Time for sleep.

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buxberg · 1 year

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La carrière de DiCaprio a commencé par le tournage de plusieurs publicités

Il fait ses débuts au cinéma avec un rôle dans la série télévisée "Parents" (1990). Après que DiCaprio est apparu dans des rôles de camée dans des séries telles que "Lassie" (1990), "Roseanne" (1991) et plusieurs épisodes de "Santa Barbara" (1990).

Déjà en 1998, Leonardo a joué dans les films "The Man in the Iron Mask" et "Celebrity", et en 1999, le film "The Beach" est sorti.

En 2002, DiCaprio a joué dans les films "Gangs of New York" (réalisé par Martin Scorsese) et "Catch Me If You Can" (réalisé par Steven Spielberg). Les deux films ont été très bien accueillis par la critique. La photo "The Aviator", sortie en 2004, a valu à Leonardo une deuxième nomination pour "l'Oscar". En outre, l'acteur a reçu le diplôme de Chevalier de l'Ordre français des Arts et des Lettres.

DiCaprio continue de travailler avec Martin Scorsese et en 2006 sort le film The Renegades. La même "Bloody Diamond". Pour ses rôles dans ces films, il a été nominé deux fois pour le "Golden Globe", en plus, le film "Blood Diamond" a également été nominé pour le "Oscar".

Ces dernières années, il a joué dans des films tels que "Body of Lies" (2008), "Road of Changes" (2009), "Island of the Damned" (2010).

#cinéma #unfilmcouleur #film #comportementhumaines #actionshumaines #joie #plaisir #aventures #lesdessinsanimés #buxberg

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xxcrowx · 1 year

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Home my fingers still sting from roofs of projects the peeling paint from metal ladders, smell of iron, blood, that pours from drunken orifices in the trough of tracks, feeding muddy dust to rats

the wailing of train cars rutting against the rails the third one that my mother warned me of, sparking with blue, blue like the bars of the playground i would run away from, to chase basketballs, and bouncy balls into the street. I cried when that playground changed it’s colors and put up fences so we could not run in circles

I cried when the bakery I ate cupcakes from shut their doors

All things change here, the weather of 2009 the deep winters I carved snow out of

the blizzard that never returns up the avenue, those waves of snow I watched with my father, that fright churning into fire in my stomach, a fire I took and turned into music

bass strings I strangle myself with in dark rooms illuminated by phone light, illuminated by moving bodies, by sweating out memories of scraped knee by the grocery store and damp heat hugging me when I enter dank subway station station full of shiny black, trash cans I empty myself in, friends that forced canned margaritas down my throat

I thanked them.

I thanked the man by the escalator who asks me for change, I thanked the worker fixing the ticket machines

I did not thank the cop who stopped me at the turnstile, but he let me off easy, wind, freshened by tunnels created by the skyscrapers on 5th avenue,

my first taste of sugar in a dark bar bathroom, that girl from providence, another, from portland, who I met at the circle of concrete dead of winter, in washington square park

splattered by rain, I would roll my joints under a broken umbrella, outside my high school begging for someone to kiss the softness of my body to be loved in this dark place in this dark room surrounded by heat, this knitted quilt of people in this dark, this dark that streetlights cannot chase, this dark, only I can love, this dark that is all my own, my heritage is a mere cousin i cling to

but this city, this city is my sister, my other, my strength, and my tears, my tears, my tears.

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metalinter · 2 years

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Manufacture of bushings by manufacturing castings by centrifugal casting

In order to maximize the efficiency of drilling operations, and realizing the importance of introducing modern high-tech equipment, Bursnab LLC has developed a technology for the production of bimetallic bushings for mud pumps by manufacturing centrifugal casting castings.

During the manufacture and testing of a number of prototypes, as well as on the basis of laboratory studies of the structure and composition of materials, the company's specialists selected the optimal composition of the outer steel and inner working layer of the bushing, consisting of wear-resistant chromium-molybdenum cast iron, which has wear in an abrasive environment several times less than with conventional steel.

Laboratory tests have revealed that the presence of an inner working layer of wear-resistant cast iron can reduce the requirements for the steel used in terms of hardening and surface treatment. The resource of such bushings, depending on the operating conditions, is 700-800 hours.

After a number of industrial tests carried out at the sites of the drilling companies of OAO Gazprom and OAO Lukoil, the Bursnab company registered technical specifications and a certificate of conformity for these products, and mastered the industrial production of centrifugally cast bimetallic bushings for mud pumps.

Production of bushings of the following types:

VB-590 - for drilling pumps UNB-600 and similar; VB-640 - for drilling pumps UNB-1180 and similar; VBT-400 - for drilling pumps NBT-475, NBT-600, NBT-600-II, UNBT-950 and similar; VBt-407 - for drilling pumps UNBT-950L, UNBT-950LI, UNBT-1180LI and similar. see more about mud pumps The production of castings by centrifugal casting includes the following operations:

Obtaining a bimetallic casting by sequential pouring of the outer layer of 25L steel and the inner working layer of wear-resistant chromium-molybdenum cast iron. The existing centrifugal casting plant and foundry tooling (moulds) currently make it possible to produce castings with an inner diameter of 120-160 mm. The thickness of the cast iron layer in castings is 15-20mm.

Heat treatment (annealing) of the casting for subsequent pre-machining. The hardness of the working layer after annealing is 35-40 HRC.

Preliminary machining, including cutting of the original casting into blanks and processing according to the outer and inner diameters. The allowance for final (finishing) processing after turning is 1.0-1.5 mm per side.

Hardening, providing a hardness of the working layer of 53-60 HRC.

Final (finishing) machining of workpieces.

The economic effect of the use of bimetallic bushings is achieved by increasing the overhaul period and, accordingly, reducing repair costs. According to this technology, in 2009 more than 2,000 bushings for pumps of various modifications were manufactured and delivered to customers, of which more than 1,000 pieces were purchased by OOO Gazprom Burenie for its own needs.

In addition to bimetallic bushings, the range of production of Bursnab LLC includes:

drilling pump rods; inserts for UNBT type pumps; stem nuts. At present, the production of cylinder bushings for foreign drilling pumps is being mastered.

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filmmakerdreamst · 3 years

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Could you Handle 'Life With Derek?'

Life with Derek was a Multi-Cam Comedy that aired on the Canadian Family Channel and later on Disney Channel from 2005–2009. The story followed fifteen-year old Casey McDonald as her life turns upside down, when she’s forced to go from being a popular A+ student at an all-girls private school, to living with a middle class family in London, Ontario when her mum remarries.

There she has to adjust, with her younger sister Lizzie, attending a public school where no one cares about their grades as much as she does, making friends with her next door neighbour Emily and living with her new step dad and three new step-siblings. One of whom is Derek, the most “popular boy” in her year, who challenges her on his turf, and turns out to be as self absorbed and spoiled as she is.

The episodes follow Casey’s counselling sessions with school counsellor, Paul Greebie as he helps her adjust to her new living situation; but at the heart of it, they importantly follow Casey’s battles with her step-brother Derek, to take control of the house, their younger siblings, their school and their world.

Life with Derek as a TV show was many things. A Sitcom. A Character Driven Family Drama. A Brady Bunch Remake. But its undoubtedly best remembered for the series-long slow burning subtextual “love affair” between the two eldest step-sibling’s, Casey and Derek.

In the mid 2000’s, when Life With Derek was on air, I was ironically in a similar position as the main character, Casey. My dad was going out with someone whom had a daughter my age — who I called my “step-sister” — that I clashed with a lot because we were both spoiled by our parents. Eventually I was forced out of my own home into another house (though I never had to change schools) with my younger sister whom was also called Lizzie. Let’s just say my “step-sister” and I - even though I cared about her - never really got along.

I vividly remember watching this show around that time because I did have cable at my dad’s house, but not weekly. I remember getting confused at one point because I could sense something was off about it. For example ‘hang on — why are they standing so close?’ and ‘Oh God why is he looking at her like that?’

My “step-sister” loved Disney Channel and I loved CBBC (good old British grit) so every time I finished watching something like Dick and Dom in the Bungalow, she switched to Hannah Montana. And it always felt like a packet of sugar poured itself onto the screen. It could have been something to do with the fact that CBBC had a range of different shows with multiple genres, and Disney just had Sitcoms/Comedies. Regardless, I could never fully get into those shows until years later.

I began to be interested in Life with Derek, when I watched a video on YouTube in 2015, describing “multi ships”, one of which was Casey and Derek. I got intrigued by this because it’s not every day that you hear of a teenage girl having a rather complicated relationship with her step-brother, coming from a show aimed at children which normally portrays those kinds of things as “cookie cuttered” and “safe” - not that it’s a bad thing.

I then fully binged watched the whole show in four days and thoroughly loved it. There was hardly anything sugar coated about it, which was to be expected since it was Canadian. It definitely helped that it didn’t have a built-in laugh track (even if it had heavy sound effects).

What I loved most about the show — besides it being one of the first family shows around that time that frequently pushed the message “you don’t have to be blood to be family” without glamorising the subject. Coming from experience, I know how messy that ‘Blended families’ subject can get. It showed how generally uneventful; how real relationships have a general lack of any real drama, unlike how regular TV Shows portray them.

The first season mainly consisted of the culture clash between the two families. The fight over rooms, space, possessions, etc. Casey’s family was upper class and Derek’s wasn’t, which made for an interesting dynamic on screen. It didn’t shy away from the fact that their whole situation was forced and not this ‘picturesque ideal’ that the Brady Bunch had audiences in the ’70s believe. But it wasn’t overly dramatic either.

There was no gimmick, like most Disney shows had around that time. Even Lizzie McGuire, that was considered the most realistic show on Disney, had gimmicks to an extent. Nothing really happened — other than events that happen to regular families all the time. There was no magic or goofy characters or stereotypical teenage archetypes really. Or even when there were, they always felt developed enough that they felt real. It just relied on the layered characters and domesticity to make it entertaining.

My favourite character was Casey. She had such an interesting character arc for a family show. I loved that she was able to be a multitude of things at once, more than her usual ‘Character Type’ would allow. She could be loving. She could be manipulative. She could be selfless. She could be dramatic. She could make exceptions for herself. I loved how she had no desire to be popular until she was peer pressured into having a boyfriend, which resulted in her losing who she was. When she broke up with her boyfriend in order to find herself, she was back to normal but she wasn’t the same person as she was before. But it was still considered important that she had those experiences, in order to grow as a person. I always thought if this show was made today, she would have an ‘Anxiety Disorder’ Diagnosis.

This was also the first time I learned terms such as ‘merged family’ or ‘blended family’. Often, shows like this play it safe and have the other half of the family change their last name or we never get to see ‘the other parent’. A couple of my favourite episodes were when we got to see Casey’s dad or Derek’s mum.

“It always seems like the kids (in other ‘blended family’ shows) don’t actually know their new step-family very well, which would be strange in the real world. Usually the two families get to know each other pretty well before the parents marry. The parents never seem to have shared custody arrangements either. The kids spend all their time at the same house, which is also strange. Life With Derek was actually more realistic than most of the “step-family” shows in that at least the kids’ other parents were talked about and seen on the show. Most of these shows act as though the other parent doesn’t even exist” — SqueakyPickles

The most interesting aspect of the show was that the step-family wasn’t a family right off the bat. They started off being very awkward and confrontational, until eventually, as they got to know each other individually, grew to be a family. The progression felt natural. For example, it wasn’t like the Brady Bunch where the blended family was called ‘The Brady Bunch’ from the first episode. They earned their nickname ‘The Mcdonald-Venturi’s’ over time.

I loved all the familiar dynamics that the show presented to the audience especially the friendship between the middle step-siblings, Edwin and Lizzie — who were able to find their voice and stop being at the beck and call of their older siblings because they gained perspectives from one another. The sibling relationship between Derek and Marti was also a favourite of mine. How Derek’s demeanor immediately softened and took care of his little sister when she needed it the most. I loved the nicknames they both gave each other.

But even when the family was established in the narrative, it still wasn’t portrayed as ‘perfect.’

For example, In ‘Home Movies’ (my all-time favourite episode of the show) Casey is making a documentary about her blended family, in which she wants to paint a perfect picture of how “two families who worked together, overcame adversity and bonded into one big happy family” but when she comes to film the documentary, her family is behaving all over the place. When she comes to interview Derek — about how having a new family has benefitted their lives, he frankly replies ‘No. This family is a mess.’ and just tells her how it is. This would never happen if this was an original Disney show. At the end of the episode, we get to see the finished film — that Derek edited when he became her partner — pretty much confirming what Derek said, that their family is full of chaos, but they’re always there for each other when it matters the most; which is the epitome of what the show is about.

However, on the other hand, I felt the creators of Life with Derek were making two different shows at the same time. There was the family-friendly comedy of Nora, George, Edwin, Lizzie and Marti. And then there was Casey and Derek, who almost existed in a show of their own — and is the only thing that people focus on when talking about Life with Derek in today’s world.

Now I’ve seen siblings in Film and TV, where the casting is a little too good, that it comes off as more ‘Belligerent Sexual Tension’ than innocent sibling rivalry. Life with Derek took that concept and dialed it up to fifty.

“Because it was always at the back of their minds, and the fans were so into Casey and Derek being a couple, Seater noted how actors always want to find subtext in their lines and give fans what they desire.”

Because of Michael Seater’s and Ashley Leggat’s chemistry (also them adding subtext to their lines) and Writing Fumbles here and there, it came across more as a show about two teenagers fighting an attraction while being in a sibling relationship — than a show about a power struggle between two step-siblings who eventually become family.

I admit, I’m not the biggest fan of when the ‘step-sibling or sibling love affair’ trope is used in fiction. There are exceptions to every rule, but more often than not, as I’m sure this goes for a lot of people, I find it unnecessary and a way to cause drama for no reason.

I however found Casey and Derek’s controversial, messy relationship very authentic and honest. And I think it’s because it came naturally. It didn’t feel forced or scripted. Also, It really didn’t help that they sometimes felt more like two teenagers randomly living in the same house, than new step-siblings. I almost thought the nature of their relationship was the result of their parents’ total obliviousness towards their children, since they got married and moved in with each other after a few months of going out.

I enjoyed watching their interactions where they would be antagonistic towards each other, but strangely inseparable and borderline obsessive at the same time. How they claimed to ‘dislike each other’ but yet, they would always be in each other’s faces.

“Leggat pointed out how Dasey was just like the experience of simultaneously hating and loving someone, since the stepsiblings rarely got along, but did prove to be there for one another when it really counted.”

Though it was stated they were ‘different’, they really were each other’s mirror image in a lot of ways. Which was unabashedly the strongest part of the series. Derek is shown to be a slacker; breaker of the rules. Whereas Casey is shown to be pretentious with quite the ego. So the audience never feels like the other is better, and they can often benefit from each other and help the other one out when it really matters.

Throughout the series, they both date a number of people. The most prominent ones being in Season Three. They both help each other out with these relationships too. Casey helps Derek with his communication in starting a new relationship with Sally. And Derek inadvertently helps Casey sort her feelings out when she loses herself to her relationship with Max. But none of these relationships prove to be as important as theirs.

“Casey and Derek mean more to each other than any of the people they date. In fact their love/hate relationship is the core of the series.” — Daphne Balloon (Series Creator)

Bringing back to “Real relationships having a general lack of any real drama” In most TV Shows (even in shows aimed at children) there’s usually a love triangle, a weird back and forth dynamic and in the end, there’s a big kiss and they ride off into the sunset. But in real life, and in this show, there is a lot of uncomfortable sexual tension there, but there is no ‘romance’ between the two of them. They gradually become friends over the course of the series.

Half of the tension in the show comes from them being teenagers with dominant personalities, living in a small space together against their will. And the other half, there’s an underlying threat that they both might like each other — which they don’t like at all.

“In fact, Seater revealed he thinks the duo should’ve ended up together on the show, and perhaps they did — in some kind of Twilight Zone parallel universe, that is. Leggat explained how it just made sense for Casey and Derek to be together and is “a natural progression for them.”

The infamous scene in the finale was as close as one could get to a confirmation of that, which was coincidently a trailblazer for many shows/films aimed at a slightly older audience.

Although Casey and Derek’s “love affair” never became canonical throughout the show’s run for obvious reasons, by the time it ended, it was hard to read their relationship as anything other than an unrequited love story.

“..But this was the Disney Channel, and even though Life with Derek wasn’t exactly a Disney Channel original in the way that Lizzie McGuire, That’s So Raven, and Even Stevens were, there was no way The Mouse would sanction a show with a step-sibling romance. So, of course, that Pornhub friendly plotline never transpired, and the series ended with Casey and Derek both getting into Queens University in Ontario, Canada, and living happily ever after. Whether they had sex or not was entirely up to the fanfiction writers.” — Ashley Reese

Even though the actors may have played into it — especially in the later seasons — really this seems to be a case where ‘relationships’ just kind of evolve on their own.

Though the show’s entirety — other than one aspect — seems to have faded from people’s memory and doesn’t get as nearly enough credit as it deserves, Life with Derek is still the most chaotic family show I have ever watched and remains my guilty pleasure to this day.

- Could you Handle 'Life with Derek?'

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thefallenbibliophilequote · 3 years

Text

Blank Space

Loki x Reader

1989, chapter 2

"There once was a girl known by everyone and no one"

Summary: It's hard to find the one, but even if you do find him it's always going to be a daily struggle to make it work. Can you even make it work after he broke your heart? The answer to that is complicated, but it all started when you found each other again in the stark tower- and that's where our story begins.

Word count: 4,864

Warnings: medium level angst I guess, and language as always.

A/N: writing this was challenging and I complained about this for like half of my mutuals lol. However, I did find the perfect song to mix with the title track obv and it was perfect to show their past. You will learn more about their past in future chapters.

A/N: thanks to @chrissquares for making me beautiful dividers especially for this series and @nacho-bucky for beta reading it all! A reminder to check out the song before reading/during!

No one is allowed to repost my writing or steal or copy my work! Reblog on tumblr is fine.

Series masterlist

song on Spotify and YouTube

"You know him? Y/N, why didn't you tell us?" Steve scolded you as you sat in one of the rooms, in front of him, Natasha, Thor, and Tony. This felt more like an interrogation than a talk.

"Is this an interrogation?" you looked him dead in the eyes, you saw him falter.

"It doesn't have to be if you don't lie to us again."

"I never lied to you."

"You held back information." Natasha said then.

"Fine, yes I know him, I knew him." You sighed, remembering the night you met him, before everything went wrong.

You were walking through the park in the night, was it dangerous? Of course, but you needed to clear your head. That was when you saw him, sitting on a bench in the rain. He was different, you knew that the minute you noticed him- it wasn't even the weird attire he wore, but rather the feeling that came along with him, you didn't feel threatened and you have mace in your bag, so you approached him.

"You will get a cold if you keep sitting in the rain, don't you have an umbrella?" he looked at you and you got shivers from his blue eyes.

"No, I will be fine. Thank you my lady for your concern." God was his voice enchanting. Curiousity got the better of you then.

"You saw him on earth and you didn't say anything? He is not allowed to be here." Tony said, his fingers fidgeting with his cuffs.

"I knew him long before the invasion happened, it wasn't near the time when I became an avenger, or on shield's radar at all." You tried to explain yourself to them. You never lied to then, you never thought you'd see him again especially in the tower. "Look it is all in the past, there is no reason to talk about it."

"You were mad when you saw him, why was that?" Natasha glanced at you, you knew she would read you if you lied.

"Well, I knew him for a while. But he is the god of lies, I don't like being lied to. So that says it all." You shrugged it off.

"So you won't tell me where you're from?"

"I told you, I'm from England."

"No you're not, you're a pretty lousy liar you know?" you smirked at his taken aback look.

"I think you'd be surprised."

"Nope, I can already tell- you're a bad liar. Or you might be good, but I'm better." He gave you a curious look as the rain kept falling around you, the umbrella you were both sitting under protected you.

"He never mentioned you, or going to earth at all. When was this?" Thor asked you.

"Around 2009" it was so long ago, you now realized, but it still felt close to you.

"You should take my umbrella." You suggested to the man but he just laughed as you sat beside him. "What? You said that you need to go, and I live closer than you, I'll be just fine without it, the thunder doesn't scare me."

"I am not quite fond of it actually. But you should get home, it is getting late." He smiled at you and you got up.

"Let's make a trade then, you will take my umbrella" the two of you stood now. "And you will give me your name."

He eventually took the umbrella with a smile, his fingers were cold when they lightly brushed yours, and you went your separate ways.

"You have no reason not to trust me, I never saw him again after 2011!" you just wanted them to understand that it is all behind you.

"I never said I don't trust you, but kid why would you hide this from us?" Steve asked you, you were pretty close, he was kind of like a protective older brother to you- ironic since he is pretty reckless and Bucky is saner than him, but he cared about you.

"It isn't important Steve, he is a liar that isn't new to any of us. It's nothing personal or important anymore."

"Kid it seems pretty personal-" Tony started to say.

"Well it's not!"

"Okay fine, but just know that he will be here for a while until we figure out and deal with this hydra shit. Then after that Point Break over here will take him away." Tony was sincere now, you could see the worry in his eyes, you knew he was affected by the invasion the most. "So take my advice, and make sure that it really isn't personal."

You nodded to him.

"You are however more than welcome to throw him in a little nightmare, I'll pay you." He smiled and you chuckled.

"What are you saying Stark? My lady," oh you haven't heard that in a while. Fuck. "Do not give my brother nightmares, however you plan on doing that." He looked you up and down, and it was as if you could read him like an open book, you didn't have to use any of your powers because you already knew exactly what he thought in his head.

"I'll stay away from him. Just make sure he does the same."

You looked innocent, not harmful, the kind of girl you would offer help to with even the smallest stuff- a good girl. That's what they all saw before getting to know you, and maybe that was you before you got these dark powers, you knew you missed the old you but you could barely remember her.

•

"Are you certain that's what they said?" Natasha asked you from the kitchen table as you made her pancakes.

"I know, it sounds weird but it's Asgardian, they have weird names. Plus I doubt they were lying, they were sleep deprived and I can assure you they have been through a lot of stuff before I started to actually talk to them. Ready?" you looked back at her and she nodded.

You threw the pancake back and by the small 'yay' Natasha let out, you didn't have to turn back to know she caught it with her plate.

"Well, I think I'll go and make them write it down because I am certain we are pronouncing it incorrectly."

"Well I tried! Their accent didn't help at all!" you defended yourself.

"You're still pronouncing it wrongly." You froze, turning around to look at Loki and Thor who walked towards the kitchen. "One would think it was made up by how horribly you ruined the word. How would you know they were truthful after all? What could you have possibly done?"

You held his gaze before deciding to not retort back, you ignored that curious familiar look. He has some nerve to talk. You sat in front of Natasha with your own batch of pancakes, the room was quiet before Thor chimed in to break the tension.

"Are those the cakes from the pan? Oh they are tasty! Would you mind making me and my brother some, Lady Y/N?" Thor was actually nice, how could you say no?

"Of course!" you got up with a smile. "Oh, but I'm afraid there isn't enough batter for the two of you I'm afraid."

You let a small frown take over your face, and you saw Natasha's small smile when you turned to make Thor some pancakes.

"You are a bad liar." Loki pointed out and you didn't have to think.

"I fooled you." Soon enough you turned around to give Thor his pancakes with a smile, pouring the rest of the batter in the sink before sitting down to eat. "Oh and Thor, this is the second warning about what we discussed yesterday, I won't hesitate."

"Very well, however you never did tell me what-"

"It's not important." Thor glared at his brother.

"Brother please be more civil, it's for your benefit." You felt Loki's gaze on you as you ate.

"Do tell me brother, how is it for my benefit?" Loki chuckled.

"Well, you have wronged a lot of people here, and so lady Y/N agreed to not harm you if you stay away. We are here to help my friends!" Thor's booming voice alongside his hopeful smile contrasted his brother's.

You should have known he would test it.

"Oh, and how can she harm me now?" the minute Loki uttered these words you glanced at him for a moment, and the next thing he knew, his heart beat loudly as he fell down from the portal in New York, terrified when he saw the Chitauri around him, one monster opened its mouth and Loki was a moment from dying in its clutches when he heard Thor's voice.

"Enough!" Thor said sternly and Loki was back in the kitchen, disoriented as he took in his surroundings. You only nodded at Thor before you kept eating. Loki disappeared a moment later with a green shimmer.

"I don't like using my powers Thor, but if you care for your brother keep him civil." You said, sorry that Thor had to get offended by it too.

"I understand, but he is here to help right now, mere comments are the least harmful things he could do, there is no need to take it to heart." He put a hand on your shoulder and it was warm enough to get you to agree with him. Stopping hydra should be your top priority.

•

"I hate it when he does that." Tony groaned at the marking on the ground just outside of the compound.

Thor and Loki were now back at the palace gates, they heard a call, and Loki turned to see Iyllir walking up to him. She smiled at him and he smiled back, grateful for the lack of observant eyes to tell his fake smiles apart from the real ones.

"Prince Loki, what took you so long? You missed our picnic." The lady put her arm through his and he heard his brother snicker.

"How unfortunate. My brother and I still have very urgent business to tend to. I must go to a court meeting now." Loki gently tugged his hand out of hers.

"I thought you said this won't take long?" she frowned at him. She certainly was beautiful, with red hair and grey eyes, always majestic like a lady, and yet he couldn't follow both of their families' wishes.

"Well I am afraid things have changed, I won't stay here for long this visit." With that he went and followed his brother towards the big doors that opened for them and he saw Odin there alongside trusted advisers and of course- the warriors three. And then the meeting began.

Loki sat in his chair, bored as they talked about the mortals.

"Father, I can assure you that as of now there is no need in sending Asgardian forces there. My friends are handling it well now." Thor explained to his father and Loki couldn't help but get distracted.

"Let me help you, Y/N" he asked you, chuckling and biting his lip when you glared at him.

"I can handle it Loki!" you said as you tried to handle the pile of books in your hands so you could get the key for your apartment. He was thankful that you couldn't see his face now as he watched you struggle to balance the books on your thigh.

You let out a small shriek as the books fell out and were about to hit the floor when they just stopped midair, and you looked at Loki only to see him leaning on the wall, arms crossed with a smug smile on his face.

"I bet you liked my help now." You groaned.

"Yes thank you and your stupid magic Loki." You leaned down to pick up the books and stack them again after opening your door.

"If I remember correctly you were, oh what's the word- petrified when you first saw my magic"

"That is a big exaggeration! I was just a bit… startled maybe." You walked into the apartment and he closed the door behind you when you suddenly stopped, turning to him with an annoyed shocked expression, your mouth agape and your eyes wide and not amused. "You knocked my books down!"

You were met with a mischievous grin.

"You hurt my feelings darling, do you have any proof?" you huffed out a breath.

"You are insufferable!"

"You seem to manage so far."

"From what I gathered so far, the group called Hydra there seemed to have a hold of some old weapons of ours, nothing too big yet but we are looking into it to find out if there is more stuff we don't know about."

"And do you really think the mortals can handle this?" Odin asked the brothers.

"Yes father, they are very powerful." Loki couldn't help but agree with Thor, they really did manage to surprise him this time. He never expected her.

•

"What is this A children's playground? Stop pulling your punches and fight me." You grunted as you tried hitting Bucky again, you've been too distracted lately, your training didn't go too well and you ended up on the mat more often than not. At this point you considered just using your powers to make it seem like you're winning but now you were fighting Bucky, and from the day you met him you swore to yourself that you will never use your powers on him. He doesn't need anyone messing with his mind again.

So long story short you were getting your ass handed to you.

"I'm not a supersoldier may I remind you, so I'm sorry if I am a little tired! Bucky come on let's take a break." You ducked another punch.

"Maybe your mind just isn't with us right now." Natasha helpfully provided as she sat on the side with a smoothie.

"Fuck off."

"No, really, what is your deal with Loki?" at his mention you delivered a kick to Bucky that made him fall on the mattress with a thud.

"Nothing. Is this good enough for you now Bucky?" you reached out a hand to help him up.

"Now that we got you riled up about him, yes- let's go again." He laughed at the glare you gave him. Your jaw clenched as the two of you got into position.

"Bring it on, Barnes." He went in with his left arm now.

"I will, how did you know him? It certainly looks pretty personal and in-" you turned him around and pinned him to the ground.

"Shut up, just fight me." You heard Natasha laugh beside you and in that moment Bucky took advantage and got you on the ground instead. And you went back.

"What the fuck!" you screamed when you saw the figure in your room, Loki stood there, his face scrunched up.

"Sorry, my love."

"We talked about this Loki, you can't just teleport here- especially when I am sleeping!" you sighed when you saw his regretful face. "Don't stand there like a creep, come here I missed you."

He smiled and you closed your eyes, you still saw the green light that lit up the room when he changed his clothes and got under the covers with you. His hand was cold, making your skin prickle but it was worth it when he pulled you to him and the warmth spread between the two of you.

You fell asleep content with a smile on your face at the kisses he laid on your neck.

"Y/N?"

"What?" you looked up at Bucky who sat back on his heels, his brow was raised.

"You kind of spaced out, you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm- I'm fine. I probably should go though." you got up. "Bruce probably needs help in the lab."

•

"You did not tell father about lady Y/N." Thor stated the obvious.

"Don't call her that. Why would I do that? She is of no import." Loki walked towards his chambers, but alas Thor decided to escort him there with preying questions.

"How did none of us know that you spent time in Midgard?" Thor stopped Loki with a hand on his shoulder.

"That was a long time ago brother."

"And yet it seems that you have quite a history, what happened between the two of you? Were the two of you…?" Thor trailed off and Loki groaned.

"Don't insinuate that, there wasn’t anything. We knew each other for a while and then we didn't. Now, if you will excuse me, I'll go to my room. Alone."

Loki shut the door behind him, in his mind he still saw you and your eyes and then the flashes of the battle of New York. The day was tiring; he decided to get some much needed rest, to get you out of his mind.

The day was exhausting; he had to stay back in Asgard. He couldn't put up illusions all the time, it was taking a toll on him, but it was worth it in his eyes.

The palace was now quiet as everybody went to sleep. Loki wanted to rest too, so he snuck out towards the bifrost. Heimdall had already seen him coming, and was ready to open the way.

"Are you going to keep going to her every night, my prince?" Heimdall asked him and Loki let out a smile.

"Yes. Thank you, truly for keeping this a secret for so long." Heimdall only nodded at him.

"If you are going to keep sneaking out to see her, someone will end up seeing you sometime." Heimdall stepped down and came to Loki. "I think I should show you another way to pass through the realms, I think you are mad enough in love for it to work for you."

When Heimdall showed him the way, he thanked him sincerely, it looked impossible at first but soon enough he was there in your room. You already fell asleep. He watched your figure as you rested, your state of calmness washed over him, and then you suddenly screamed at him, maybe he should have tried to wake you sooner, it didn't exactly matter to him much when just a few moments later he was curled up in the warmest bed he'd ever known.

•

"So you see, this part here it seems to be controlled by the holder of the gun, that must be the Asgardian tech combined with our own." Bruce told you as you gently examined the weapon.

"Damn, how long do you think they had that then? Like, just the time that it took them to develop it…" you thought. There were probably much worse things out there at their hands.

"I'd say at least a couple of months. It's a shame about those scientists." He hesitated to say that and you knew why.

"I didn't know they had that, no one checked their teeth. I was doing my job. It's okay, you can talk about it." You shrugged it off. With a power like yours, you have to get used to using it, you must fit yourself to it… because it certainly won't happen the other way around. But you were fine. You were different now.

Right?

"Well, next time we will check their teeth, to make sure this won't repeat itself. But at least we got some information before that's good right?" you nodded to Bruce and took out the bullets from one of the guns. There was something red, or was it orange, inside it. You examined it closer, moving towards the microscope to try to see for yourself before you ask Bruce about it.

Curiousity killed the cat.

Before you could reach the table, there was a warm sensation in your hand where you held it and then all you knew was that your hand hurt and you hit the floor, the bullet exploding with whatever was in it. Maybe you should've worn gloves.

Oh well, satisfaction resurrected it.

"Bruce, did you see that?"

"Yes Y/N, are you okay?"

"My head hurts but I'm fine, did you know those bullets do that?" you got up a little too fast for Bruce and your head's liking, but you went to the table nevertheless.

"No, they were fine before, you shouldn't have touched them," he fussed around.

"But I saw something-"

"You need to ice your head, tell me or Cho if you feel anything weird. This isn't something we know about Y/N." he handed you an ice pack for your head and told you to sit down, to which you grumbled but obeyed.

"Ah, Y/N, F.R.I.D.A.Y has been telling me that you've been trying to blow up the lab." Tony laughed at you as he entered.

"No, I would never try to steal your job." You shot back and he winked.

"Okay Elsa, I thought you'd like to know that we managed to make sense of some of the files we found in the warehouse and it looks like they have been making trades and dividing what they found."

"What do you mean?" Bruce asked him.

"That place we found was only dedicated to create a couple of things, but they have more out there, dedicated to building who knows what." Tony groaned, "We will need to divide and conquer this, we can't waste time and there is no way I am letting those Asgardian warriors come here. Don't blow things up kiddo!" you nodded to him, things were getting worse by the minute. You pressed your hand holding the ice pack harder against the back of your head. You were not looking forward to tomorrow, so you kept Bruce company until you were too tired to push it any longer. You went to bed and magically managed to convince Bruce to go to sleep.

•

You woke up groaning, you apparently forgot to close the blinds the night before. Going back to sleep will only cause you to oversleep, which will cause Steve to activate the stupid alarm protocol Tony built for him after you annoyed him.

You did not want to wake up to old Captain America songs blasting your ears off.

So you got up and after a short breakfast you reluctantly got on with your duties and important paperwork.

"Miss Y/L/N, you called me? I'm Mike, you asked for an analysis check on some data?" you turned to him then from looking at the board in the small conference room.

"Yes! Hi Mike, thank you. We have some encryptions that probably lead to very specific locations, check radars of isolated places or you know what- scratch that, they could be under our nose in the middle of a city." You looked at him apologetically. "Sorry, I can't narrow it down but we do need those answers as soon as possible. Okay?"

The poor guy looked horrified, his brown eyes were wide and you let out a small sorry when you handed him the big file.

"Yeah, of course Y/N, I will get right to it." With that you were alone in the room once again, going over the information you managed to get from the now dead scientists. This is going to be a long day. You saw it coming and that didn't help at all.

•

"Oh fuck." You cursed when the cold water from the sink touched your palm, it wasn't badly burned but it still hurt you.

You closed the door to your bathroom and turned around to see him standing in your room. Your eyes locked with blue ones, they certainly were familiar even after all this time, but while you could see the hesitation and the other swirling emotions in his eyes you couldn't tell anymore if you could trust what you thought you knew.

"When?" you felt your blood boil, but you knew you couldn't avoid him forever.

"Sometime after-" you hesitated with your words, walking towards your cabinet to put away the first aid kit you had. "After." You settled with that.

"What are you doing here Y/N?" Loki heard his own heartbeats, seeing you here… After all this time and he never forgot you. How could he?

"I'm an avenger now Loki," his name felt bitter on your tongue and you had to swallow to continue. "A lot has changed you know, you don't need to ask all these questions. There is no point to them."

"Oh but there is," at his angry tone you turned around. It was years of bottling the fight that you never had, he never let you have it. "You never wanted this life Y/N! What are you doing fighting out there with heroes or whatever they like to call themselves?"

"They are heroes, they help people. You however seemed to do the opposite from what I remember seeing on the TV." You laughed and shook your head. "I was still there you know, I was right in that same apartment where you left me. And there I saw you on the TV and I didn't even recognize it was you."

"Did you get hurt?" the question startled you.

"No, but it doesn't matter Loki! I am fighting alongside heroes now, I changed since the last time I saw you, this is my place now!"

"Oh darling you can pretend all you want in front of them, but I still know you." He matched your stare now. "This is not your life."

"Well yes it is!" you shook your head when he got closer now, every emotion you never got to express came back to the surface. "Why are you here? Huh? You're the one who left in the first place!"

"I've come here to help-" you stomped up to him.

"You know damn well that is not what I asked." You hated how your voice wavered.

"I did come here to help with the weapons," he continued before you could try to intervene. "And I didn't expect to see you again. But you're here now, and so am I."

"Damnit Loki, we have been through so much together, we weren't dating for only a month or two. A year. We were dating for more than a year and that is a lot." The tears were brimming now when you remembered your theory, that one little theory that ate your heart out, this one theory you found only a few days after. "Or at least here it is. Maybe in Asgard with all the almost-immortal gods a year is insignificant to you- that sure explains it all."

"No, it's not!" he dismissed it immediately and you felt your defenses shattering when he walked towards you. "I know there's pain inside of you, which was caused by me. But I am here now and I can't deny that I can still feel what I felt all those years ago. Just hear me out, we can call it even, just for a little while."

The last time you played this game it left you with a nasty scar. The more that he said, the less you knew what to think anymore.

So you didn't.

You hated the calmness that took over you the moment his lips touched yours, tongue sliding over the other, it left you breathless. You knew it was still love for you, but it was torture, you knew the high will not be worth the pain but he felt too good, too familiar that it made you question that. You didn't know how long has passed, all you knew was Loki, you still fit perfectly with his body which was pressed against you. Time flew by and you didn't know how you got here.

One moment his lips were on yours, the next you were pressed into the mattress, his figure pressing on yours. Maybe this could be good for the weekend… the next moment your legs somehow were wrapped around him and pulled him more into you. His lips trailed down to your throat, making breathy moans come out of your mouth. Your eyes opened and were focused on one spot on the ceiling, when you managed to break out of this delusional pleasure time flew by.

"No Loki, stop." You pushed him off of you. You sat up, curling your legs.

"What? Darling-" he tried reaching out for your thigh but you shook your head.

"You should go, Loki." You didn't look at him. Your hand covered your mouth as you sank into thought.

"Go? Why would I go? I know you feel exactly like I do." You couldn't deny it. You both knew that.

"You left me before Loki, what is the problem with leaving me now?" While you couldn't see him now, you had to get him out of here, so you could think clearly. This was too reckless. "It doesn't matter, this was just a relapse."

He left you there, and once the door shut you broke down, hating yourself for drowning into him again. You knew you were the one breaking your own heart when he took his warmth from the now cold bed. But it is better that you'll break it before he ever gets the chance to do it again.

Tags: @ayybtch @buckys-other-punk @chaoticpete @madcrazy50 @mishkatelwarriorgoddess

#blank space #my writing #1989 #loki x reader #loki laufeyson #loki odinson x reader #angst #loki fanfic #loki fanfiction #loki angst #loki fluff #loki odinson #loki

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tryst-art-archive · 2 years

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April 2009 Photos, pt. 2

More of that fire & molten metal event.

#Iron Pour 2009 #art archive #photography #portrait #fire spinning #poi #college life #TrysKits work #00s #2009 #Age 18

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xtruss · 3 years

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‘It Could Feed The World’: Amaranth, A Health Trend 8,000 Years Old That Survived Colonization

Indigenous women in North and Central America are coming together to share ancestral knowledge of amaranth, a plant booming in popularity as a health food

— Cecilia Nowell in Albuquerque, New Mexico | Friday, 06 August 2021

An elderly woman cuts an amaranth crop, in Uttarakhand, India. The plant is indigenous to North and Central America but also grown in China, India, Southeast Asia, West Africa and the Caribbean. Photograph: Hitendra Sinkar/Alamy Stock Photo

Just over 10 years ago, a small group of Indigenous Guatemalan farmers visited Beata Tsosie-Peña’s stucco home in northern New Mexico. In the arid heat, the visitors, mostly Maya Achì women from the forested Guatemalan town of Rabinal, showed Tsosie-Peña how to plant the offering they had brought with them: amaranth seeds.

Back then, Tsosie-Peña had just recently come interested in environmental justice amid frustration at the ecological challenges facing her native Santa Clara Pueblo – an Indigenous North American community just outside the New Mexico town of Española, which is downwind from the nuclear facilities that built the atomic bomb. Tsosie-Peña had begun studying permaculture and other Indigenous agricultural techniques. Today, she coordinates the environmental health and justice program at Tewa Women United, where she maintains a hillside public garden that’s home to the descendants of those first amaranth seeds she was given more than a decade ago.

“For the seeds, distance doesn’t exist. Borders don’t exist” — Maria Aurelia Xitumu of the Qachuu Aloom community

Since the 1970s, amaranth has become a billion-dollar food product. Photograph: Picture Partners/Alamy Stock Photo

They are now six-foot-tall perennials with flowering red plumes and chard-like leaves. But during that first visit in 2009, the plants were just pinhead-size seeds. Tsosie-Peña and her guests spent the day planting, winnowing, cooking and eating them – toasting the seeds in a skillet to be served over milk or mixed into honey – and talking about their shared histories: how colonization had separated them from their traditional foods and how they were reclaiming their relationship with the land.

Since the 1970s, amaranth has become a billion-dollar food – and cosmetic – product. Health conscious shoppers embracing ancient grains will find it in growing numbers of grocery stores in the US, or in snack bars across Mexico, and, increasingly, in Europe and the Asia Pacific. As a complete protein with all nine essential amino acids, amaranth is a highly nutritious source of manganese, magnesium, phosphorus, iron and antioxidants that may improve brain function and reduce inflammation.

“This is a plant that could feed the world,” said Tsosie-Peña.

For her it also has deep cultural value. She is part of growing networks of Indigenous women across North and Central America who have been sharing ancestral knowledge of how to grow and prepare amaranth. Seed exchanges, including those in New Mexico and California, are part of a larger movement to reclaim Indigenous food systems amid growing recognition of their sustainability and resilience in a time of climate crisis and industrialized agriculture.

“Supporting Indigenous people coming together to share knowledge” is vital to the land back movement, a campaign to reestablish Indigenous stewardship of Native land, and liberation of Native peoples, Tsosie-Peña said. “Our food, our ability to feed ourselves, is the foundation of our freedom and sovereignty as land-based peoples.”

This is a story of two histories: the remarkable survival of amaranth through colonization and the women like Tsosie-Peña who, in the last 20 years, have expanded networks of Indigenous people celebrating its ancient cultivation.

“This is a plant that could feed the world,” said Tsosie-Peña.

Beata Tsosie-Peña winnows amaranth, the process of separating the seeds from the chaff. Photograph: Brooks Saucedo-McQuade

Seeds Hidden Under Floorboards

Amaranth is an 8,000-year-old pseudocereal – not a grain, but a seed, like quinoa and buckwheat – indigenous to Mesoamerica, but also grown in China, India, south-east Asia, west Africa and the Caribbean. Before the Spanish arrived in the Americas, the Aztecs and Maya cultivated amaranth as an excellent source of proteins, but also for ceremonial purposes. When Spanish conquistadors arrived on the continent in the 16th century, they threatened to cut off the hands of anyone who grew the crop, fearing that the Indigenous Americans’ spiritual connection to plants and the land might undermine Christianity. Yet, farmers continued secretly growing amaranth, which sprouted up like a weed in their fields – even as far north as the modern-day United States.

Although the Spanish outlawed amaranth when they arrived in Central America, Mexico and the south-western United States, Indigenous farmers preserved the seeds – which grew with remarkable resilience.

In Guatemala, amaranth faced another near-extinction when state forces began targeting the Maya people, and burning their fields, during the 1960-1996 civil war. To preserve their traditional foods, Mayan farmers poured handfuls of seeds into glass jars to bury in their fields or hide under floorboards. One such farmer was Magaly Salazar, a Maya K’iche’ woman from San José Poaquil, who hid a small glass jar of amaranth seeds behind one of her ceiling tiles. After the civil war, when it felt safe to start growing amaranth again, Salazar retrieved her seeds and started sharing them with other farmers.

In 2004, Sarah Montgomery, a New Mexican who’d moved to Guatemala to do food justice work with Mayan women, read about Salazar’s seeds and invited her to Rabinal, where a few dozen mostly female, survivors of the armed conflict had formed an agricultural community called Qachuu Aloom – Maya Achì for “Mother Earth”.

From left, Sarah Montgomery, Maria Elena Alvarado Ixpata and Beata Tsosie-Peña handle red plumes of amaranth. Photograph: Liz Goetz. Amaranth is a highly nutritious psuedocereal with antioxidants that could reduce inflammation. Photograph: Getty Images/StockFood

When Salazar and a friend arrived in Rabinal, they distributed their amaranth seeds among members of Qachuu Aloom and began teaching them how to plant and cook amaranth. But as they gardened, speaking in a mix of Maya Achì and Maya K’iche’, the women began exchanging stories of surviving the conflict. At one point, Montgomery overheard one of the women say, “We had no idea that what happened to us was happening to other people.” Today, Salazar’s seeds are growing in hundreds of Guatemalan gardens – Qachuu Aloom has grown to include more than 400 families from 24 Guatemalan villages – as well as in Tsosie-Peña’s yard and a public garden in northern New Mexico.

While amaranth is no longer banned, Tsosie-Peña says “planting it today feels like an act of resistance”. Reestablishing relationships with other Indigenous communities across international borders is part of a “larger movement of self-determination of Indigenous peoples”, she says, to return to the “alternative economies that existed before capitalism, that existed before the United States”.

‘I Remember My Grandma Planting This’

Tsosie-Peña first saw amaranth growing in her pueblo at her good friend Roxanne Swentzell’s house. The president of the Flowering Tree Permaculture Institute, Swentzell was teaching classes on how to garden in the high desert and also doing work around seed saving. Tsosie-Peña was interested in learning more, and in 2008 she received her Indigenous sustainable design certification from the Traditional Native American Farmers Association in Tesuque Pueblo. Montgomery was at the workshop and introduced the class to a handful of farmers from Qachuu Aloom. The next year, members of Qachuu Aloom made that trip to Santa Clara to plant amaranth in Tsosie-Peña’s garden.

Every year since then, Guatemalan farmers with Qachuu Aloom have traveled to the United States to share their knowledge of amaranth with predominantly Indigenous- and Latino-led gardens. In California, they’ve shared seeds with members of the Bishop Paiute Tribe and with urban gardens in Los Angeles; and in northern New Mexico, they’ve hosted gardening and cooking workshops in the rural community of La Madera. In 2016, when Tsosie-Peña and her colleagues at Tewa Women United broke ground on their public garden in Española, Qachuu Aloom was there to plant amaranth once again.

But Qachuu Aloom hasn’t always been the one bringing seeds – many Indigenous gardeners, such as Tsosie-Peña’s friend Roxanne Swentzell, have preserved their own amaranth. On the Hopi reservation in Arizona, for example, members of Hopi Tutskwa Permaculture still grow Hopi Red Dye Amaranth, and have shared it with Qachuu Aloom.

Tsosie-Peña says that this exchange between North and Central American farmers isn’t just about amaranth as a crop; it’s also about reconnecting to ancient trade routes that have been disrupted by increasingly militarized borders.

Left: A worker in the candy factory Dulceria Juanita in Mexico City uses amaranth to form skulls that will be decorated with sweets for Día de los Muertos on 10 October. Photograph: Carlos Tischler/Eyepix Group/Pacific Press/REX/Shutterstock. Right: Tamarind is added to the amaranth skulls and small candies are added for decoration. Photograph: Carlos Tischler/Eyepix Group/Pacific Press/REX/Shutterstock

Maria Aurelia Xitumul, a member of Qachuu Aloom since 2006 who has traveled on exchanges to California and New Mexico, echoes Tsosie-Peña. “The goal is to share experiences, not necessarily generate income, like capitalists. What we want is for the whole world to produce their own food,” she said in Spanish. “For the seeds, distance doesn’t exist. Borders don’t exist.”

Montgomery says she noticed the presence of borders in a different way when coordinating Qachuu Aloom workshops in California: many of the people they began working with in community gardens were very recent immigrants from Central America and Mexico. Their memories of amaranth were fresh. Montgomery recalls one participant seeing the amaranth and exclaiming, “I remember my grandma planting this.”

She also began noticing participants in different workshops she hosted – such as one with African refugees who’d settled in Albuquerque – connecting with the amaranth. It seemed like it had grown all over the world, but come and gone with cycles of colonization.

“There was a lot of really similar stories of colonization and how seeds were taken in these different places, how similar strategies were used to make seeds disappear, and create this domination and dependency,” Montgomery said. “But the thing about amaranth is, it comes up everywhere.”

A ‘Superweed’

In 2010, the New York Times published an article about the looming threat of superweeds – weeds which have developed to be resistant to Roundup–including amaranth. When sprayed on a field, Roundup is designed to kill all plants except Monsanto’s genetically-engineered Roundup Ready crops. But, somehow amaranth has survived – just like it did during the Spanish conquest.

“You can grow it in Hispaniola, you can grow it in northern New Mexico and the mountains of Guatemala,” says Montgomery. Xitumul was shocked when she visited the Hopi reservation in Arizona and saw how well it grew in the arid climate so different from her forested home town.

A single amaranth plant produces hundreds of seeds – something that the farmers of Qachuu Aloom celebrated when the small handful of seeds Magaly Salazar sequestered away turned into hundred-pound bags of harvest the next season.

For many Indigenous farmers in Guatemala and the United States, growing amaranth has provided a degree of economic independence, but it has also offered a route to food sovereignty.

Blanca Marsella González, a member of Qachuu Aloom, harvests amaranth plants. Photograph: JC Lemus/Juan Carlos Lemus

“Amaranth has completely changed the lives of families in our communities, not only economically, but spiritually,” said Xitumul. Growing traditional crops has allowed many Guatemalan farmers – herself included – to support their families from their ancestral homes, rather than working in Guatemala City or coastal coffee and banana plantations.

More recently, during the pandemic, Xitumul said that people with their own gardens, especially in communities that had long lockdowns, felt more secure knowing they had control over their food supply. In northern New Mexico, many pueblos, including Tsosie-Peña’s, implemented strict quarantines. To support her neighbors in navigating a food desert, Tsosie-Peña distributed seeds at the outset of the pandemic.

The week before the emergency declaration of the pandemic Tsosie-Peña was in Guatemala. When international borders began closing, she had to rush home to the United States. But a few months ago, after vaccines were widely distributed in the US, she and a handful of delegates from each of the farms that had begun planting Qachuu Aloom’s seeds traveled back to Guatemala. With them, they brought seeds from the amaranth they had each grown in their home gardens – descendants of Qachuu Aloom and Magaly Salazar’s seeds – to plant in a shared plot: a kind of solidarity garden.

“We’ve always viewed our seed relatives as relatives and kin,” says Tsosie-Peña. “We have co-evolved with them as fellow Indigenous peoples of this place.”

— Cecilia Nowell is a freelance reporter who writes about gender, inequality and the Americas and is currently based in Albuquerque, New Mexico

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seashellsoldier · 3 years

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“A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear” by Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling

This is undoubtedly the most entertaining book I’ve read in years. Not that libertarianism isn’t hilarious on its own ridiculous footing, but every attempt at some microcosmic utopia fails miserably. Free Town probably earns second prize in crackpot ideas though, just behind Jonestown. “Get yer gov’ment out of my taxes!” “Get yer gov’ment out of my Medicare!” “Get yer gov’ment out of my unemployment insurance . . . those COVID relief checks . . . my potable water . . . the electrical grid . . . fire departments and hospitals and community centers . . . school systems and healthcare and libraries . . . game wardens . . . and bridges . . . and roads . . . and dams . . . and get yer g’damned gov’ment out of my guns, Guns, GUNS!!!!” (To libertarians, it seems, everything can be resolved with guns.)

“The creation of America’s first Free Town was so ambitious in scope that it seemed doomed from the start, and indeed, almost every such population-level social experiment in history has failed spectacularly. Most efforts at planned communities involve artificially populating an uninhabited place, like a stretch of desert or an island—as in 1972, when a Nevada millionaire and his libertarian friends declared independent ownership of an island off the coast of New Zealand (a claim that was promptly quashed by the New Zealand military).

The building of utopias is limited by the rarity of visionaries with deep pockets. Building a new community from scratch requires millions or billions of dollars to create an infrastructure and overcome the challenges preventing people from living there in the first place. Henry Ford, whose assembly line kick-started the automobile revolution, learned this the hard way when his planned Amazonian utopia, Fordlandia, succumbed in the 1930s to the threats of rainforest blight, cultural clashes, and an unhelpful Brazilian government.

The four libertarians who came to New Hampshire had thinner wallets than Ford and other would-be utopians, but they had a new angle they believed would help them move the Free Town Project out of the realm of marijuana-hazed reveries and into reality.

Instead of building from scratch, they would harness the power and infrastructure of an existing town—just as a rabies parasite can co-opt the brain of a much larger organism and force it to work against its own interests, the libertarians planned to apply just a bit of pressure in such a way that an entire town could be steered toward liberty” (p. 48).

New Hampshire really is a microcosm of Caucasian America’s problems, fueled by Ayn Rand’s Galt’s Gulch rose-filtered parable, and the Free Town Project a fringe of that, with Free Town having a fringe of their fringe, and a fringe of that fringe’s fringe on downward into those who wet-dream of 1790s’ live-off-the-land pioneering colonialism.

“For Grafton’s Free Towners, Rand’s vision of a market-driven society was what kept them privatizing and deregulating everything they could. For seven long years, they joined thrift-minded allies in issuing vociferous challenges to every rule and tax dollar is sight; one by one, expenditures were flayed from the municipal budget, bits of services peeled away like so much flesh”</i> (p. 125). The results are predictably ruinous. Infrastructure fell apart; crime went up; disputes, blame, and tribalism poured from social media feeds into the streets; and all the while, the bears foraged throughout. <i>“What seemed clear was this: in a town that refused to allow the government to protect it from bears, vigilantism seemed the only option. Just as libertarians wanted, it was every man, woman, and bear for themselves” (p. 234).

BBQ BEER FREEDOM

From Ruby Ridge to the Capital Hill insurrection, ignorant flag-waving yokels have screamed for their moronic “freedom” from the chains of civic responsibility, the duties of citizenship, and simple Christian moral accountability. “Freedom. Freedom! To the obedience-averse libertarians, the clarion call was—ironically—irresistible, a liberation-tinted tractor beam that drew them deep into Grafton’s wilds.

Those who moved to Grafton under the banner of the Free Town Project between 2004 and 2009 were free radicals, unbounded to existing living situations, because they had either too much money or not enough” (p. 78). It’s better to watch your neighbor’s house burn down than fund a local fire department.

Now of course if governments big and small managed their budgets better, libertarian-bashing would be an easier argument, Charles Koch, Roger Stone, Jeff Bezos, Donald Trump and their ilk be damned. It’s almost impossible to count how many hundreds of billions—maybe even trillions—of dollars get wasted every year, from healthcare to the military, grift and graft, bridges to nowhere, etc., food and electricity and potable water, subsidies for monolithic industries year after year and decade after decade, and tax breaks/shelters/loopholes for the filthy rich and their corporations, while our physical and human infrastructure continues to suffer and degrade year after year and decade after decade. Our plutocratic priorities are backwards (unless you’re a plutocrat), and finding an unbiased assessment of waste in the US, for me, is challenging. Ugh, I digress.

This really is a funny book; I laughed out loud often at the author’s wit and sarcasm. Hongoltz-Hetling’s literary voice harkens back to the glory days of A Prairie Home Companion, and this cast of characters fits perfectly into the good-natured buffoonery of such backwoods stage-play. These aren’t your Nazi-saluting gym rats cosplaying Call of Duty soldiers with their American flag capes and InfoWars codpieces. These are “rugged men” (and some women) who languish (not unlike Ted Kaczynski) in the woodland fortresses of their own Fantasyland, armed to the hilt and proud of it, and they have apparently been infecting the entire state with their wingnuttery. If New Hampshire tries to “secede from the Union”, I say let ‘em. “From my cold, dead hand!”

(shrug) “OK.”

The bears, of course, have a serious role too, and Hongoltz-Hetling gives them pleasant prominence. Patrick Blanchfield reviewed this book for The New Republic as well, highlighting the problems of New Hampshire overall (https://newrepublic.com/article/159662/libertarian-walks-into-bear-book-review-free-town-project): “The bear problem, in other words, is much bigger than individual libertarian cranks refusing to secure their garbage. It is a problem born of years of neglect and mismanagement by legislators, and, arguably, indifference from New Hampshire taxpayers in general, who have proved reluctant to step up and allocate resources to Fish and Game, even as the agency’s traditional source of funding—income from hunting licenses—has dwindled. Exceptions like Doughnut Lady aside, no one wants bears in </i>their<i> backyard, but apparently no one wants to invest sustainably in institutions doing the unglamorous work to keep them out either. Whether such indifference and complacency gets laundered into rhetoric of fiscal prudence, half-baked environmentalism, or individual responsibility, the end result is the same: The bears abide—and multiply.”

Another imploding social experiment, but it will surely not be the last. “I have no doubt that Grafton will make the news again, in some wild, unpredictable way. The soil there may be rocky, but it’s fertile ground for dreams, and humans will always be drawn to places where they can slip off the radar of communal oversight and nurture their own private worlds” (p. 316). This nation as a whole needs serious course-correction, and such Petri dishes like the Free Town Project show symptoms of a sick society desperately grasping for alternatives. The fabric is frayed, fraying further, possibly deteriorating for certain circles, and I wonder if it can ever be sewn into the beautiful tapestry it could possibly be.

#libertarianism is moronic

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alystayr · 4 years

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Playlist musicale 2021 (1/2)

Liste des chansons (playlist 2021 - part. 1)

Mise à jour : 30 juin 2021

playlist 2020 (part.2), playlist 2020 (part. 1)

playlist 2019 (part.2), playlist 2019 (part. 1)

playlist 2018 (part. 2), playlist 2018 (part. 1)

playlist 2017 (part. 2), playlist 2017 (part. 1)

playlist 2016 (part. 2), playlist 2016 (part. 1)

playlist 2015

0-9 #

AC/DC - Demon Fire (2020)

Bryan Adams - Summer Of '69 (1985)

Alabama Shakes - Hold On (2012)

America - A horse with no name (1971)

Angèle - Balance Ton Quoi (2018)

Archive - Fool (2002)

Jean-Louis Aubert - Bien Sûr (2019)

Asaf Avidan - Different Pulses (2012)

George Baker - Little Green Bag (from Reservoir Dogs) (1969)

Band Of Horses - No One's Gonna Love You (2007)

The Beatles - Strawberry Fields Forever (1967)

Jeff Beck (feat. Imogen Heap) - Blanket (2007)

Bee Gees - Stayin' Alive (from Saturday Night Fever) (1977)

Chuck Berry - Darlin' (2017)

The Black Keys (cover John Lee Hooker) - Crawling Kingsnake (2021)

Black Pistol Fire - Morning Star (2016)

Black Pumas - Colors (2019)

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - What Ever Happened To My Rock And Roll (2001)

Black Sabbath - God Is Dead? (2013)

Blind Melon - No Rain (1992)

Blondie - Heart Of Glass (1978)

The Blue Stones - Black Holes (Solid Ground) (2015)

The Blues Mystery - Back to the Dirty Town (2013)

Blues Traveler - Run-Around (1995)

Blur (Feat. Phil Daniels) - Parklife (1994)

David Bowie - Survive (1999)

Jacques Brel - La chanson des vieux amants (1967)

Brigitte - Battez-Vous (2010)

Francis Cabrel - Peuple des fontaines (2020)

J.J. Cale - Durango (1997)

CAN - Vitamin C (1972)

Cats on trees - Sirens call (2013)

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Distant Sky (2016)

Tracy Chapman - Give Me One Reason (1995)

Joe Cocker (cover Randy Newman) - You Can Leave Your Hat On (from 9½ Weeks) (1986/1972)

CocoRosie - Did Me Wrong (2020)

Cœur de pirate (feat. Loud) - Dans la nuit (2018)

Leonard Cohen - Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye (1967)

The Cranberries - Animal Instinct (1999)

Creedence Clearwater Revival - Fortunate Son (1969)

Sheryl Crow - If It Makes You Happy (1996)

Eddy de Pretto - Bateaux-Mouches (2020)

Lana Del Rey - Chemtrails Over The Country Club (2021)

Depeche Mode - Freelove (2001)

Détroit - Null And Void (2013)

Dinosaur Jr - Freak Scene (1988)

Dire Straits - Expresso Love (1980)

Eels - Earth To Dora (2020)

Eminem (feat. Anderson .Paak) - Lock It Up (2020)

Endless Boogie - The Artemus Ward (2013)

Piers Faccini - Foghorn Calling (2021)

Mylène Farmer - Fuck them all (2005)

Léo Ferré – Les anarchistes (1969)

Feu! Chatterton - Monde Nouveau (2021)

Foo Fighters - Walk (2011)

Maxime Le Forestier - Saltimbanque (1975)

Foster The People - Sit Next to Me (2017)

Franz Ferdinand - Michael (2004)

Fugees - Ready or Not (1996)

Peter Gabriel - Mercy Street (1986)

Serge Gainsbourg - Requiem Pour Un Con (1968)

France Gall - Evidemment (1987)

Genesis - Invisible Touch (1986)

Girls in Hawaii - Found in the Ground (2002)

Goldfrapp - Ooh La La (2005)

Jean-Jacques Goldman - Comme toi (1982)

Grand Corps Malade & Louane - Derrière le brouillard (2020)

Juliette Greco - Le p'tit bal perdu (1961)

Greta Van Fleet - Age of Machine (2020)

Guns N' Roses - Sweet Child O' Mine (1987)

Bill Haley & His Comets - Rock Around The Clock (1954)

PJ Harvey - Dress (1992)

Murray Head - Say It Ain't So Joe (1975)

Heartless Bastards - Revolution (2020)

Bernard Herrmann - Taxi Driver (theme) (1976)

The Hives - Hate to Say I Told You So (2000)

The Hollies - Long Cool Woman (In a Black Dress) (1971)

Hollywood Undead (feat. Hyro The Hero) - Comin' Thru The Stereo (2021)

Romain Humeau - Echos (2020)

IDLES - Mr. Motivator (2020)

Interpol - Stella Was A Diver (2002)

Iron Maiden - Hallowed Be Thy Name (1982)

Michael Jackson - Black or White (1991)

The Jesus And Mary Chain (Feat. Hope Sandoval) - Sometimes Always (1994)

Quincy Jones - Soul Bossa Nova (1962)

Kaleo - Backbone (2020)

Kansas - Dust in the Wind (1977)

The Killers - Caution (2020)

The Kills - The Search For Cherry Red (2020)

Kings Of Leon - The Bandit (2021)

Kiss - Heaven's On Fire (1984)

Lenny Kravitz - Are You Gonna Go My Way (1993)

Kyo - Le Graal (2014)

Led Zeppelin - Since I've Been Loving You (1970)

Liars - Sekwar (2021)

Limp Bizkit (Feat. Lil Wayne) - Ready To Go (2013)

Louise Attaque - La plume (2000)

Mad Season - Wake Up (1995)

Manu Chao – Clandestino (1998)

Laura Marling - What He Wrote (2010)

Memphis Slim - Born With The Blues (1972)

Metronomy - Walking In The Dark (2019)

Mickey 3D - La mort du peuple (2005)

Steve Miller Band - Jet Airliner (1977)

The Mission - Wasteland (1986)

Moby - Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad? (1999)

Mogwai - It's What I Want To Do, Mum (2021)

Moondog - New Amsterdam (1997)

Morcheeba - Sweet L.A. (2018)

Motörhead - Till The End (2015)

Jason Mraz - I'm Yours (2005)

Muse - Supermassive Black Hole (2006)

Nine Inch Nails - The Fragile (1999)

Nirvana - All Apologies (1993)

Noir Désir - Aux sombres héros de l'amer (1989)

Claude Nougaro (cover Chico Buarque) - Tu verras (1978)

Oasis - D'You Know What I Mean? (1997)

Of Montreal - The Past Is A Grotesque Animal (2007)

The Offspring - Why Don't You Get A Job? (1998)

Panaviscope – Sham (2020)

Pigalle - Dans La Salle Du Bar-Tabac De La Rue Des Martyrs (1990)

Pink Floyd - Us And Them (1973)

The Police - Synchronicity II (1983)

Pomme (cover Mylène Farmer) - Désenchantée (2020/1991)

Iggy Pop - Dirty Little Virus (2020)

Portishead - Chase The Tear (2009)

Portugal. The Man - Feel It Still (2017)

The Pretty Reckless - My Bones (2021)

Queen - The Miracle (1989)

Queens of the Stone Age - Go With The Flow (2002)

The Raconteurs – Broken Boy Soldier (2006)

Rammstein - Du Hast (1997)

Chris Rea - The Blue Cafe (1998)

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Suck My Kiss (1992)

Lou Reed (cover The Drifters) - This Magic Moment (1995/1960)

R.E.M. - What's The Frequency, Kenneth? (1994)

Renaud - Mistral gagnant (1985)

Rival Sons - Too Bad (2019)

The Rolling Stones - Star Star (1973)

Royal Blood - Typhoons (2021)

David Lee Roth - Just Like Paradise (1987)

La Rue Ketanou - Le Capitaine de la Barrique (2014)

Olivia Ruiz - De Toi A Moi (2003)

Santana (cover Fleetwood Mac) - Black Magic Woman (1970)

Shocking Blue - Venus (1969)

Simple Minds - Mandela Day (1989)

The Sisters of Mercy - Emma (1987)

Slayer - Raining Blood (1986)

Sasha Sloan (feat. Sam Hunt) - when was it over? (2020)

The Smashing Pumpkins - Disarm (1993)

Patti Smith - Rock N Roll Nigger (1978)

The Smiths - Barbarism Begins at Home (1985)

Sonny & The Sunsets - Too Young to Burn (2009)

Regina Spektor - One Little Soldier (from Scandale) (2019)

Spoon - The Way We Get By (2002)

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band - Backstreets (1975)

St. Vincent - Los Ageless (2017)

Stereophonics - Bust This Town (2019)

Sub Urban - Cradles (2021)

Superbus - Mes Défauts (2010)

James Supercave - Better Strange (2016)

Taylor Swift (feat. Bon Iver) – Exile (2020)

System Of A Down - Spiders (1998)

Téléphone - Au coeur de la nuit (1980)

Têtes Raides - Tam Tam (2007)

Charles Trenet - Je chante (1937)

Tool - Schism (2001)

Tina Turner - The Best (1989)

U2 - Angel Of Harlem (1988)

Van Morrison - Country Fair (1974)

Laurent Voulzy - Rockollection (1977)

Tom Waits - Wrong Side Of The Road (1978)

Weezer - Beverly Hills (2005)

The White Stripes - Hotel Yorba (2001)

Amy Winehouse - Fuck Me Pumps (2003)

Woodkid - In Your Likeness (2020)

Wovenhand - Crook and Flail (2016)

Shannon Wright - Division (2017)

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Heads Will Roll (2009)

Yes - Roundabout (1971)

#Musique #Listes #Playlist #2021 #Rock #Pop #Electro #Blues #Metal

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buxberg · 2 years

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La carrière de DiCaprio a commencé par le tournage de plusieurs publicités

Déjà en 1998, Leonardo a joué dans les films "The Man in the Iron Mask" et "Celebrity", et en 1999, le film "The Beach" est sorti.

Ces dernières années, il a joué dans des films tels que "Body of Lies" (2008), "Road of Changes" (2009), "Island of the Damned" (2010).

#cinéma #unfilmcouleur #film #comportementhumaines #actionshumaines #joie #plaisir #aventures #lesdessinsanimés #buxberg

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cwmoonglum · 4 years

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The Atomic Death of the Moon

20/05/07 – The Moon is on Fire. Atomic death pours from the skies. Sneaking onto the family computer at 7.30am per my orders, I find my email inbox flooded with furious diplomatic cables. My real life friend, fresh from holding Stalinist show trials of those who objected to a recently ratified treaty, is facing fresh calls to resign. In the parlance of the day; the moon is closed.

In 2007, adolescence was being revolutionised by access to an internet much more anarchic than today's. Youtube was only two years old, music was something to be downloaded illegally via megaupload and imageboards proliferated. Within a year 'Anonymous' would announce its opposition to Scientology in the much touted Project Chanology; a celebrated mainstream debut that often overshadows its precursor events. Anonymous – a loose alliance of mainly teenagers drawn from across the constellation of imageboards – had been conducting 'raids' for years prior to Chanology. From the occupation of Habbo Hotel with offensive statements and racial caricatures to the scripting of endlessly self-replicating cubes and storms of horse dicks that would crash Second Life servers, the absurd and often cruel humour of the group was stamped across the internet. Anonymous were the degraded Situationists of the commercialising internet, squeezing jouissance from the newly colliding social groups of odd hobbyists, lonely eccentrics and baffled normies.

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With widening internet access yet many people connecting via low powered computers, a market emerged for browser games. In these, roleplaying and metagaming were as compelling as in narrative games. One such game that persists today,Cyber Nations, found itself targeted by Anonymous. A political simulation game where players controlled their own nations, the gameplay was itself was fairly monotonous, but the wider system of alliance forming resulted in elaborate treaties, wars and diplomacy that was truly gripping. On Cyber Nations, Anonymous went under the banner of /b/ (named for the 'random' board on, amongst others, 4chan), and spent 7 months growing itself. With a loose governing structure, /b/ existed mostly on the sidelines before it was dragged into Great War III, a multi-faction conflict that was to have been non-nuclear. However, two rogue actors within /b/ launched nuclear weapons, causing both the mass of members to follow suit and the nominal leader of the alliance, Furseiseki, to disband it. Now pariahs, /b/ spammed the Cyber Nations forums with all manner of shock images to disrupt the game, culminating in a DDoS attack and hack where the home page was defaced and the game's source code stolen. Cyber Nations was down for a number of days, and upon restart my own nation, designated as part of /b/, was stomped into the ground by furious players. The 'disbandment' section on /b/'s official channels read 'many lulz were had, but now we're off TO THE MOON.' Opened to public beta in February 2007, Lunar Wars was a political simulation game that took the broad strokes of Cyber Nations and refined them. Developed by Alessandro Bassi ('Sandro') as a way to teach himself web development, it swiftly attracted players, and offered a new theatre for Anonymous following the dissolution of /b/. I joined up as a junior diplomat for the Elitist Lunar Superstructure on 18/04/07.

The ELS was more disciplined than /b/ from the start. Allied nations were assigned squads to cooperate and trade within, and all announcements were handled through the ELS forum and emailed to members. A greasemonkey script (in 2007, we all used Firefox) was thrown together to assist players. Guides on increasing power quickly were disseminated. Notably two of the admin/developers for the game, skaladis and owl, were ELS members and the recruitment drive across various imageboards was persistent. The IRC channel was anarchic as usual, but diplomats and the leadership convened within a private channel to guide policy. Eph, the alliance leader, designated myself and select others to open lines of communication with smaller groups within the game. Of course, enemies from the days of Cyber Nations had come to the moon. It seems strange now that 4chan is so identified with reactionary politics, but in these games Anonymous enjoyed bullying the sad little men who named their nations things like 'Wolf Reich ov Iron' and roleplayed as Nazis in their alliances. In Great War III, /b/ had been opposed to Nordreich ('German Nationalists'), and FAN (Federation of Armed Nations), and these groups reemerged on the moon. Leftwing alliances like the Red and Black Block or Union of Lunar Socialist States (ULSS) tried to combat the Nazis on the moon, but the appeal of roleplaying internecine Left political conflicts was limited. To actually wield power capable of slapping down the fascists often meant joining with apolitical, carnivalesque groups like Anonymous. As fun as dunking on fascist cosplay was, however, the real enemy was FARK.

In the ecosystem of the 2007 internet, imageboards were not the only hangout. There were also humour sites like YTMND (You're the Man Now Dog), Something Awful and FARK. The content filtered through to everyone, but allegiance to any one site was performatively over the top. It was as good an excuse as any for enmity.

As a junior diplomat for ELS, I handled treaties with various smaller alliances, most notably the aforementioned ULSS which had been captured by my friend in early May 2007. The tension was mounting palpably across the lunar community as treaties were signed and mutual defence agreements entered into. Something like the network of alliances that ensured the nightmare of World War I was formed, overseen entirely by spotty teenagers and shitposting idiots. Notably GOONS, formed by SomethingAwful forum members, had joined with ELS; FARK was left out in the cold, and allied with FAN. On the night of 19th May 2007 as I stretched my allowed time on the family computer, diplomatic channels became frantic as spies within IRC channels let FARK/FAN know of a planned attack, per ELS internal communications;

GOONS is likely to be attacking FAN within 48 hours. We will receive target lists of anyone GOONS has trouble with. Do not fire counter offensives on FAN unless necessary (problematic targets, etc.)

FARK retaliated by launching the SHIT HITS THE FAN war, beginning perhaps ten minutes after my parents told me to turn the computer off and go to bed. Tossing and turning, I considered diplomatic avenues to strengthen the ELS cause. However as I finally fell into an uneasy sleep the metagame overtook the roleplaying.

For a while now Sandro had been teasing the existence of Galava, a new, more complex browser game with a medieval setting that further developed the gameplay of Lunar Wars. Given that the moon had only been open for a few short months, the kids who had wasted the back half of their school year building alliances on it were grumbling that Lunar Wars was being abandoned before it had even exited beta. The two ELS-allied admin/developers, skaladis and owl were similarly irritated. According to a post by Arciel, head admin of the Lunar Wars forums;

owl had not only given herself nukes; she had given herself and ELS members 9001 nukes each, in reference to a meme. The balance of the game was completely upended; by the time I awoke and booted up the dusty Dell in the spare room Sandro had locked the game. In private conference, Eph and the leadership decided to disband ELS. I was appointed interim Chief Ambassador for the continuity faction, but within a scant few hours I had come around to the joke. Emails continued to go out to rally the faction, but Anonymous' attention, and my own, was shifting elsewhere. The next time I encountered the group, the kids who shut down Habbo Hotel were going up against Scientology.

My friend lost his leadership position in the ULSS after the coup he helped lead was put down. He's involved in actual Leftist politics now, though he's not a Stalinist. In October 2007 Galava was released, and I received an email via the ELS list;

I didn't join. The internet got less wild, more scary. Megaupload was taken down in 2012 and Anonymous initiated a DDoS attack on Universal Music Group. 'Youtuber' became a job, and 4chan birthed the alt right. Both Galava and Lunar Wars continued until October 2009. For me and many others, though, it ended in the atomic fire of 9001 hacked nukes. Anything else was epilogue. The tribute page for Lunar Wars sums it up perfectly;

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