#LOOK AT MY TAPIRS BOY

[happytapir-art]

If you dream it you can achieve it.

[animehouse-moe]

Suruga-Ya Art Book Haul

It's crazy. I made this order Friday night, and it's at my doorstep Wednesday afternoon. And I didn't even pay for shipping thanks to the campaign that Suruga-ya was running. The average cost of a book here is under 10CAD, all said and done, so I really can't recommend giving it a shot if you're looking for art books.

Anyways, these are the ones I grabbed, and I'd love to take a walk through each of them and why I got them.

Prince Universe - Mutsumi Inomata

This is the first, and oldest art book in the haul, and that age and position comes with reason. Inomata is an insanely tenured animator, dating all the way back into the end of the 70s. They've worked on series like City Hunter, Saint Seiya, Maison Ikkoku, and many many others. One of the best things about the art book is the age of the style, and not in a bad way. No, these drawings have aged like fine wine over the years and are very beautiful.

Hydrogen - Tsuruta Kenji

Need I really say anything? It's Tsuruta Kenji, incredible art and a healthy side of nudity are present in everything they do. Really though, I think what I like most about Hydrogen is its range, opening with a short manga and ending with a large amount of black & white line art. Though who am I kidding, his works that are done in color are still incredible, and there's something that I just love about his character designs.

Boogiepop And Others - Koji Ogata

Despite its relative popularity for the era, Boogiepop isn't something that really ends up talked about all that much. But I'm a big fan of it and its style/designs, so I had to pick up the art book from the illustrator for the light novels.

Nostalgia - Tsukiji Nao

Admittedly, I'd not heard of Nao before finding this art book. But I saw the cover and knew I wanted it, and now I'm in the middle of reading Adekan as its got me in its grips, and for good reason. Nao's art is incredibly beautiful, and I'd say the "best" out of this batch of art books.

Mix Noise - Misaki Saitou

Saitou is just a damn good artist. Their style presents a discernable age, and a very palpable edge that I just can't get enough of. They're not on the level of Nao, but it's a style of art that I could look at all day long. Side note, the art for the second was for the cover of a manga. Yeah, imagine seeing art like that on a manga. I'd immediately pick it up.

Okamarble -Okama

Despite my excitement and interest in the artist, I don't know if I'm the biggest fan of this art book. Okama is known for having storyboarded some pieces of the stunning Kubikiri Cycle ONA as well as doing some art for Arakawa Under The Bridge and even character designs for some other SHAFT series. I do think their art is pretty, I'm just not a fan of the more erotic nature of the book at large (which delves into full on nudity towards the end). So yeah, I don't think this is an art book for people that aren't die hard Kubikiri Cycle/SHAFT fans, but the art within is still really good.

Step2 - Hisashi Eguchi

Don't get me wrong, I'm definitely a fan of Hisashi Eguchi. I love their design sense, and am a massive sucker for their color design and style of shading/lighting. Buttttttt I got this art book because of the Sonny Boy art in it. I know, sue me, but this is just about the only art book out there that has Sonny Boy art in it from a staff member on the anime.

World of The Tapir - Shizuku

In a world where it feels like there's a near unlimited amount of great artists, how do you separate yourself? Well, what separates them for me is color design. Having fresh and unique art that plays on color and provides a strong sense of individuality is a surefire way to get my attention like World of The Tapir did. Not that the art itself isn't pretty, but the color design is what really singled it out for me.

Kaleidoscope - Keiko Takemiya

Being a part of the Year 24 group is introduction enough, I feel. But I'll keep going. Being a pioneer not of just shoujo manga, but manga in general, Takemiya has a pretty impressive bit of history behind her, which this book details. Not so much "art book" as it is "visual memoir", it's a very interesting piece that I'll be slowly digesting over time alongside it's timelessly pretty art.

1017 - Toinana

I...don't have anything to write for this art book. Toinana is an illustrator that I found on pixiv and so I stumbled across this art book. I love their character designs for how busy and creative they are, but I don't really have any sort of history to explain with them because I don't know too much, really.

Asai Genji / Kusanaga Rin Artworks

I've been a fan of Kusanaga Rin's artwork in The Faraway Paladin since I first laid eyes on the covers for the series, so imagine my surprise when I found out they had a penname. Even further, imagine my excitement in finding out they've done art for Fate (among plenty of other video games). If you want art closer to the video game side of JP culture then I can definitely recommend this one.

And so finally that's the end of the list. There's a lot of art for me to enjoy in these books, so I'll certainly be taking my time with them. But not too sow though, have to make sure I've got a clean slate for the next time suruga-ya has a free shipping sale. Seriously, even with the minor price differences between the JP and global website, the free shipping makes books like these a steal. Absolutely love art within books that are in outstanding or even borderline amazing condition, there's not really a way you could go wrong if you're looking for this stuff.

Also, for those that have read this far and want just a little more (literally a single image more per art book) I will have a video up on my TikTok account (yes I caved and made one, largely for art books) tomorrow morning EST, so feel free to check it out.

[confetti-cat]

Hi hi! I've never played an ask game before; is there a limit to the number of asks you can send? I'd like to know these: 10, 15, 16, 20, 21. Thank you!

Hello and welcome! I'm honored to be a part of your first ask game! Nope, I've never heard that there's a limit—Tumblr etiquette would suggest that anywhere from 1-6 is a good range so the post doesn't get too long, but that's totally up to the asker. Thanks for sending! 💖

10. name a song with impeccable vibes.

I already used My Love Has Gone Across the Sea for my recommended instrumental track, but I love it a lot and will use it here too. It has some awesome fantasy/"love creates joy amidst sadness" vibes that I think are really cool. Another one—that I'm thinking of after answering the last set of asks—that has absolutely fantastic vibes is the Mithril Disco Phial music from LEGO Lord of the Rings. It's the music that plays when you use the mithril disco phial, the best video game item ever created. It makes everyone around your character dance so hard they can't attack you. 10/10, super great.

15. tell me about a childhood memory you’ll never forget.

When I was younger, my family traveled to Central America and was considering moving there. (We didn't end up doing so, but it was a very cool experience!) While we were there, we visited a small zoo. The regulations for having a zoo there seemed less stringent than they are here in the US—i.e., most of the animals were just in enclosures with one layer of regular wire fence. I saw a tapir browsing for leaves near the front of its pen, so I walked over, crouched down, and held out my hand to see if it would sniff it through the fence. It actually walked up to me, put its huge tapir elephant nose through the fence, and licked my hand a few times. I thought that was so cool.

16. what is the first “big kid book” aka chapter book, that you remember reading after learning how to read?

Answered previously! Another early one I remember was the Henry and Mudge books, about a boy and his mastiff. There was one about "a happy cat that was always purring, whose fur looked like mashed prunes" that stuck with me for how striking that imagery was. 😂

20. if you had to pick a country to live in outside of your own, which would it be?

I've always thought it would be super cool to live in Iceland or New Zealand—they're both beautiful places in environments I haven't experienced before. Pros of Iceland include: volcanoes, glaciers, and the possibility of riding an Icelandic horse at a tölt (a special gait) - pros of New Zealand includes general beautiful farmland, being slightly less rugged, and, of course, Hobbiton! (And at least two mutuals! As opposed to Iceland, which I don't think I know anyone from.) Also up there are Ireland or Israel. Travel has never been something I felt drawn to do much, but I'd like to visit those places at least for a while!

21. tell me about your pet(s)! (if you have one of course. can also be a past pet, or family pet.)

I have two sweet, fluffy Ragdoll cats, many assorted chickens, and a few dairy cows! I've always loved animals and enjoy living on a farm.

[gkathleenk]

BELIZE

DAY ONE

I landed in San Ignacio, Belize on Tuesday, March 12th. I started my day off by checking in at my Airbnb. The place I stayed at was called "Bird Nest" and it is run by Terry who has been hosting for a year. The cost is 90 BZD (45 USD) and since I will be staying for 2 nights, my total ended up being 273 BZD (136 USD). The Bird Nest is located in the by the Mopan River, so I was only a 7-minute drive away from the city of San Ignacio.

After getting settled, I took a 10-minute drive to the Katun Ahau Belize Culture Tours. They offer 4 different types of tours along with the ability to customize a tour of your choice. I chose the A.T.M (Actun Tunichill Muknal) Cave Tour, which is a 2 1/2 to 3 hour tour that takes you all along the cave. We started off the tour by driving to the Tapir Mountain Reserve so we could take a 45-minute hike to the cave entrance. In the hike, we had to travel through knee height streams by using a rope. Once we got to the cave entrance, we swam across a spring pool for 15 seconds to get into the actual cave. We traveled through underground mazes, tunnels, chambers, and more, we ended up in a ceremonial chamber which housed the "Crystal Maiden" (a skeleton of a 17-year-old boy whose bones have been calcified which makes him look like he was made of crystals). In the same chamber, you will find "The Cathedral" this is the driest part of the chamber, and you will be asked to take your shoes off at this point. The cave is made of limestone and shoes can damage the floor. "The Cathedral" houses Mayan artifacts and 13 skeletal remains. After "The Cathedral" we kept walking and soon found our way out of the cave after spending around 2 hours there. The shuttle bus then came to pick us up and take us back to San Ignacio.

After flying this morning and going on this cave tour, I was completely drained, and I needed to sleep this instant. On the drive back to my Airbnb, I was fighting back yawns and trying to keep my eyes open. I unfortunately had to skip dinner. As soon as I got back to the "Bird Nest" I flopped on my bed and immediately crashed.

*Due to the cave's no camera rule, I could not get any photos of me in the cave. My apologies.

DAY TWO

After the huge adventure that yesterday brought, I decided to relax and just tour the city of San Ignacio for day two. I started off my morning by reflecting my time yesterday. If I'm being honest, I did not like it. The cave was beautiful and seeing all the ancient artifacts was amazing, but it took the life out of me. I have never been more out of breath and exhausted in my entire life. And on top of that, I traveled alone, so I had no one to talk with and complain to during the walk-- and I am not the one to talk to strangers. But, today is a new day that will not feature any heavy travel, and hopefully I will get to actually eat today.

I got out of bed, dressed for some warm weather due to their moist and tropical climate, and drove into town. It was around 11:30 AM, meaning The Guava Limb Restaurant & Café just opened. I was debating between getting breakfast foods and lunch, but I ultimately ended up on lunch. I chose to get the Sesame Pork Panini, which is a shredded pork sandwich with mozzarella and herb cheeses with a side of french fries. My meal ended up being 52 BZD (26 USD) but I tipped my waitress 10 BZD (5 USD). Tipping in Belize isn't mandatory, and it's not a shitty thing to not do, servers do not get offended if you don't tip.

After my amazing meal at Guava Limb, I took an 11-minute walk over to the Sacred Heart Parish church. As mentioned in my 'about me,' I am not religious, but I find religion fascinating, so I popped over to the church just to look around. The main religion in Belize is Roman Catholic. The Catholicism comes from the 16th century when Spain took over their country. After Spain, they became ruled by Great Britain. Because Belize was controlled by Britain from 1798 to 1964, their second-highest religion is Protestant, making it the country in Central America with the highest Protestant population. Before Britain took over, the Maya and Garífuna population practiced a mix of shamanism and Christianity. The main language of Belize is English, due to England's colonization.

After my look around Sacred Heart Parish, I took a 5-minute drive to the Cahal Pech Museum, which is a museum located right next to the Cahal Pech Mayan ruins, which are the oldest known Maya site in Belize (10 BZD/5 USD entrance fee). The museum itself features all sorts of Mayan artifacts, such as, pottery, sculptures, paintings, and pieces of clothing. The ruins site is about 10 square miles and has 34 separate buildings you can tour. The largest building is 78 feet tall, and it's been rumored to be a sweat house.

I spent around 3 hours looking around the museum and ruins, making the time around 6:30, meaning it was time for dinner. A 5-minute drive away from the ruins, I found Yoli's Pizza and I stopped in for a bite. I was feeling especially hungry, so I bought a whole pizza instead of just a slice. I got the Mediterranean Pizza which has sausage, bacon, olives, and onions, and it cost me 64 BZD (32 USD). Because it was only 7:45 PM, and I wasn't tires yet, I decided to do some exploring of the nightlife in San Ignacio. I took a 3-minute walk to San Ignacio's most famous nightclub, Revolution Nightclub. At Revolution Nightclub, I heard some live music and danced with the people of Belize. Performing at the club was DJ LYAN who is the main performer at Revolution Nightclub. Because the drinking age is 18, and I am still 17, I was unable to drink here. At midnight, the club closed, and I decided to head back to my Airbnb, so I can get some rest before my flight out tomorrow afternoon.

DAY THREE

My final day in Belize! My flight to Panama is at 5 PM and the airport is an hour and 50 minutes away from San Ignacio, so I decided to leave now and find something to eat in Belize City. The flight cost around 571 BZD (284 USD) and it should be around 2 hours and 20 minutes. I left San Ignacio around 11, meaning I ended up in Belize City around 12:50. I chose to eat at Midtown Restaurant & Bar located on the coast. Midtown specializes in lobster, but I chose to get the Jack Daniel's Burger. The burger had Jack Daniel's sauce, cheese, onion, tomato, and I chose to remove the lettuce and pickles. The burger came with french fries and onion rings, and it all cost me 64 BZD (32 USD). After lunch, it was around 2 PM, so I thought it was time to take the 23-minute drive to the Sir Barry Bowen Municipal Airport and say goodbye to Belize.

I had a phenomenal time in Belize, learning about the different culture here and eating the amazing food. I loved all the exploring and tours I went on, and I highly recommend coming if you ever have the chance.

[tsyllaes]

This is almost entirely unchanged from the original, I've just gone over them all with watercolour to fit the rest of my wildlife fact file pics. I will therefore copy-pasta all the text from last time.

Makakis came about because screw horses. Horses are way too finicky. Horsey people are very knowledgeable about horses; I couldn't give a shit about horses. I give up trying to make my horses realistic.

Also, on a side note after seeing a bandicoot digging at Mum's lawn yesterday, I had the idea that most mammals in Tsyllaes should really be marsupials, what with it being based pretty heavily on Australia and all.

I decided to try combining these ideas, starting with real marsupials, the extinct megafauna. Honestly the only one big enough to ride is the giant wombat, which absolutely bloody exist in Tsyllaes now, but not overly convenient as a steed. I looked then at extinct mammals to see if anything else might be useful, and came across the macrauchenia, some weird South American creature which was its own evolutionary branch, unrelated to anything else that currently exists. The closest they've got is the tapir/horse/elephant branch. PERFECT. Also I can find virtually no info about this thing.

The common makaki is the one people think of whenever they think of a makaki. In keeping with their not-horse origins, their patterning is generally anything that a horse can be, as well as in keeping with their being marsupials, anything marsupials can be. They're about 2m tall at the shoulder, so significantly bigger than horses, but they're also very chill with sitting, most often lounging like kangaroos. I wanted to draw one lounging here but I needed to show the heights, so I'll do that when I eventually draw the Own's makakis. They have three toes on each foot, which makes them more agile and gives them stronger ankles than horses so the sodding things don't break their ankles. They live mostly in the mountains and hills of Kazin, Llayad and northern Raykin, where they use their snoots to pull leaves off of trees for food, occasionally fruit if they can get it but they're fine off leaves. They're suited to Kazin's open forests and the plains of Llayad, not so good in full desert with their comparatively small feet and need for water. Those from tropical forests and the Llayan savanna have no mane while those from the colder mountains have manes all the way down their back. The particularly cold border between Llayad and Kazin also breeds them with floofier coats. Llayans call these ones Kazinian makakis, because Llayad has their own 'common' one.

The destrier is the one bred for battle. Bigger than the common makaki and with very strong legs, especially the back legs for springing forward from a stationary start. They have the longest tusks of all makaki breeds which can be an extra weapon in battle, and longer trunks, too, cos. I dunno. I felt like playing with the trunks. I'm sure there's an application for that. Also, side-note, this one's Mongrel! After drawing all the boys' makakis, I've better figured out how their anatomy goes, so I've tweaked this one a fair bit from the original, giving him longer, thicker legs and changing how the back legs kink to be more like how I've been drawing them, a bit more strength and spring to them.

Oooooh he's a big, beefy boy, this one. The draft makaki has been bred for pure strength, huge forequarters for pulling heavy carts and plows, big feets for digging, strong trunk and tusks for pushing over trees and hauling branches.

By complete contrast, Assiraz's makaki is bred purely for looks. The more snowy white, the pricier the animal, except their swishy gorgeous tail which has all the colours. Long, elegant legs and slender, curving neck. They're named after Empress Assiraz, who was the one to start breeding them in the first place. Literally their only use is to keep nobility's skirts clean and elevate them above the plebs, so in that regard they're highly practical. For anything much else, they're kinda useless.

Native to the tropics and bred for its meat, the stocky little tapi has patterning on its back like a giraffe and range from grey, like the above, to dark brown with black spots to better camouflage. They taste like camel. I've never eaten camel so just roll with it.

DONKEY. Or more technically a mule, but I just wanted to call it a donki. It's a hybrid between a tapi mare and common stallion to make a smaller makaki, less fragile in the legs giving them greater endurance than the common makakis, but because they're much smaller they're cheaper for the average Kazinian. More than half the donkis are sterile, which makes those ones nice and cheap for the poorer Kazinians, and even those which can breed are still significantly cheaper than common makakis and WAY cheaper than draft makakis.

The two Llayan makakis, first one just called the 'Llayan makaki,' but, as mentioned before, Llayans call this one the 'common makaki' and the other one the 'Kazinian makaki'. She reach! And she has a foal in her pouch :D Llayan makakis are a bit smaller than the Kazinian ones. Also, because they're not actually zebras, the dark stripes can be any colour, though herds are mostly all of one colour.

Secondly, the rigaffe! Tollu girl is tollu, though I did shrink her a bit from the original. I think they also have colour variations, too, but always with the giraffe-like patterning. If you're wondering how the joey gets back in the pouch, it doesn't. Once the joey has left the pouch, that's it, it's out for good.

[all-the-heart-you-cannot-see]

Things about Encanto only a colombian can tell you.

I love how ethnically diverse the cast is, considering colombia is one of the most ethnically diverse countries of latin america (i think only after brazil) the ambiance of the movie is of the zona cafetera, where most people are white so im really pleased to see they included brown and afrocolombians.

I also like that the costume design is inspired by different colombian regions, the kid with the hat is wearing a Sombrero vueltiao, typical from the colombian coast, as it is the rest of his outfit, then the boy next to him is wearing a ruana, and I inmediately think of Boyaca and the little girl next to him with the dress is more typically dressed like someone from El Eje Cafetero, where the movie is set. I've seen the blouse the little black girl is wearing before but i cant remember where and finally the little boy next to her is wearing a guayabera, which is a formal shirt also worn in the Colombian coast. update: Maribel’s outfit  colorful skirt specifically reminds me of Santander and the little black girl’s outfit is a typical cundiboyacense dress! (i don’t know if dress is the right word, im fighting against the lenguage here) 

There is a chiguiro with baby chiguiros and a Tapir and a Colombia Guacamaya and it watered my crops, improved my notes and cleared my skin. I fucking love it.

When the Vallenato started playing i fucking cried, its a rythm originated in Colombia as a mish mash of our african, indigenous and spanish ancestry and the sound of the acordeon gave me CHILLS. (Would recommend Todo de cabeza from Calet Morales if you speak spanish and are heartbroken)

The white cumbia dress is very recognizable, i wished they had used a San Juanero dress, which is way prettier and would've fit right in with the aesthetic, but since the soundtrack seems to be heavely composed of Vallenato it would look out of place, at least for us Colombians. Look for videos of San Juan ero on Youtube is a beautiful dance, my grandmother's dream always was for me to compete on the San Juanero pageant but ummm...I've never had the amount of grace and poise those ladies have lol.

The entire house is colombian inspired, but this is a detail inspired specifically on my hometown, the flowered balconies of Cartagena.

And the alpargatas 🥲, typically worn on the interior of Colombia

[haitherecaringmonke]

Other NRC students meeting Lucille’s Pokemons

Sorry this took so long but writing has been difficult for me these days.

Cater Diamond - Ampharos

“You’re so cool! Can you do that trick again so I can post it on my Magicam?”

Moves: Thunderbolt, Flash, Iron Tail, Dragon Pulse

Cater first met Ampharos back in Chapter 4, when he came to Ramshackle to pick up Ace, Deuce, Grim and Lucille for the Unbirthday Party.

He thought that the Light Pokemon looked rather goofy and adorable and tried to took multiple pictures of her.

Unfortunately, Ampharos is rather shy and bolts at the sight of him. Lucille had to comfort the saddened third year.

However, Ampharos does love the Rose Maze of Heartslabyul and would occasionally sneak out of Ramshackle to admire the flowers.

Cater was on rose painting duty and he spotted the Light Pokemon at the corners of his eyes as she sneakily watches him paint the roses.

It took some effort, but they eventually became friends.

One day, a frantic student ran into the Dorm Lounge saying they saw a yellow monster in the maze, causing Trey, Cater and Riddle to run over to check.

They didn’t find anything and went back to their dorm. When they returned, the three were rather shocked to see Ampharos eating Cater’s spicy ramen, her mouth covered in spicy broth.

He only laughed as Cater wiped the broth off of Ampharos’ mouth and made her another bowl of spicy ramen.

Floyd Leech - Eelektross

“Eh~ Shrimpy has an eel of her own~”

Moves: Headbutt, Discharge, Crunch, Thunder Wave

Floyd was just skipping class as usual when he saw this large eel like creature with a sucker for a mouth playing around in the school fountain with some smaller water type Pokemons

So, being himself, Floyd jumped in the fountain and turned back into his merman form.

The smaller water types saw this scary looking merman with razor sharp teeth and quickly get out of the fountain.

They did the right thing for the very unhappy Eelektross unleashed a powerful Discharge, shocking the eel boy in the progress.

When the other students and Lucille came out of the classroom, they saw Floyd wrestling with this large electric eel like monster in the water fountain.

Eventually, Floyd got bored of fighting the EleFish Pokemon and left. But to his surprise, Eelektross shows up to Mostro Lounge the next day and Headbutted him.

Turns out Eelektross is very protective of his friends and hold grudges for a very long time.

Lucille had to fix the electric circuits in Mostro Lounge and work there for about two weeks as a compensation.

Silver - Munna

“I didn’t think there would be a monster capable of eating my dreams”

Moves: Hypnosis, Psychic, Moonlight, Dream Eater

Silver was looking for Malleus (who had wandered off again) when he fell asleep into a bush (again).

However, when he woke up, the second year discovered that he had only dozed off for a few minutes, unlike he usually naps (which can last for hours or until Sebek woke him up).

He looked down on his chest to see this pink colored tapir looking monster with flower patches on its body staring at him in the eye.

Silver vaguely remembers her being one of the Prefect’s monsters so he carried the little monster back to her trainer.

Lucille thanked him and explained how Munna tends to wander off to who knows where and eat other people’s dreams, surprising Silver.

Whenever Munna eats Silver’s dream when he dozes off, he would wake up a lot faster and a lot more focused, and the boy is forever grateful for that.

Plus, when Munna does that, the time between Silver’s last nap and his next one would be a lot longer, so he can do more tasks during that time. This was noted by Malleus, Lilia, and Sebek as they are somewhat concerned when Silver can stay awake for so long, until Lucille and Silver explained to them.

And it appears that his dream is delicious to Munna as well, because she can be seen being near him a lot of the time. Silver usually brings treats for her in his pockets because of this.

Grim - Chimchar

“Fgnna! Stop pulling my tail!”

Moves: Scratch, Ember, Flame Wheel, Taunt

Chimchar is one of Lucille’s baby Pokemons, given to her by Professor Rowan as the newly hatched Chimp Pokemon grew attached to her.

Like many Chimchars, this one is no exception for he is rather mischievous when he occasionally pranks Lucille and the other Pokemons.

Grim is, unfortunately, Chimchar’s favorite target, because his reactions are his favorite.

The fire cat absolutely hates this fire chimp, especially when he pulls his tail for fun, startling him in the process.

Sometimes these two get into fights, scratching each other and kicking up a cartoonish dust cloud with stars over the place.

Lucille has been scratched and slightly burned everytime she tried to separate the two fire monsters.

Grim also hates Chimchar because he would get attacked whenever the cat tried to sneak into Lucille’s Berry inventory or her bag for something valuable so he can pawn them off for money to buy tuna cans.

Despite them always at each other’s throats, the two fire monster deeply cares about Lucille, and will burn anybody that messes with their henchman/trainer.

[missmonstermel]

Baby Baku waiting for their stripes! I am painting these to look like baby tapir, boy are they CUTE. This group of finished and painted 3.5” figures will be available in my shop this Friday at 2PM PST along with a large batch of blank versions. #missmonster #missmonstermel #babybaku #baku #tapir #minifigure #sculpture https://www.instagram.com/p/CZhpY-ZvaXa/?utm_medium=tumblr

[clayanddust]

A Swashbuckle in the Mist (Bobbi +Clay)

Location: Finney Docks

Characters: Bobbi (Elle-Huxian), Clay (Tapir-Hunter) 

Summary: Clay and Bobbie fight off a raiding party from the lost fleet

Trigger Warnings: Genital Mutilation, Head Trauma 

Clay sat on a pier of Finney Docks watching the sunset spill oranges and violet across the blue sea, the water a murky mirror of the sky above. He leaned against the wooden piling, ignoring the bite of barnacles against his back, unfocused dark eyes staring past the dark forest of ship masts bobbing in the harbor, silhouetted against the evening’s roseate glow. The bustle of the docks had subsided with the waning hours. Docking cranes and fishnets lay idle while dockworkers and sailors murmured and smoked on the pier. Dockside bars were lanterns of light and laughter in the darkening evening, but Clay just kept his eyes on the horizon. 

Watch that old fire as it flickers and dies

That once blessed the household and lit up our lives

It shone for the friends and the clinking of glasses

I'll tend to the flame, you can worship the ashes….

The voices of Robin, Yates, Darley, and Sattin mingled with a practiced resonant harmony. The sailors mended nets, whittled, and gutted fish long after others had quit the pier. Sea Shanties flowed from their lips and memories, the crewmen having practiced together since a childhood of listening to their parents sing these same verses, a line of legacy that threaded the lives of hard-working people together across generations. 

Heave with a will boys and heave long and strong

Away Rio!

Sing the good chorus for 'tis a good song

And we're bound for the Rio Grande, and it's

Away Rio! Away Rio!

Sing fare thee well, my pretty young girl, and

We're bound for the Rio Grande…

The sailors noticed the fifth fellow that’d stayed with them, but Clay just listened and made no trouble. Robin had raised his eyebrows to his crewmates between shanties and gestured with a filet knife in silent inquiry if this stony faced lad was sober or ‘all there’. Sattin rolled her eyes and quietly implied that this one poked around in shipwrecks looking for some of the …strange sights…that seasoned hands knew it was trouble to ever talk about openly. The Hunter, whose mutant senses made the whispers as audible as if the conspiring crewmates were talking directly at him, just smirked and contentedly watched the sun sink beyond the waterline. 

Yew that is old, in churchyard mould, he breedeth a mighty bow

Alder for shoes do wise men choose, and Beech for cups also

But when you have killed

And your bowl it is filled, and your shoes are clean outworn

Back you must speed for all that you need to Oak, and Ash, and Thorn

Sing Oak, and Ash, and Thorn, good sirs

All on a midsummer's morn

Surely we'll sing of no little thing

In Oak, and Ash, and Thorn…

Fog rolled in after the last gasp of evening had faded, as if it were a living thing that the sun had kept chained. Sheets of thick vapor snuck over the pier and slithering amongst the ships at anchor. Clay stirred for the first time in his vigil, as the Slayer had been patiently tracking the approach of something unseen that’d shown itself at last. He stood and started doing stretches against the piling without any self-consciousness as sea shanties defied the fog. 

There once was a ship that put to sea

The name of the ship was the Billy of Tea

The winds blew up, her bow dipped down

Oh blow, my bully boys, blow 

Soon may the Wellerman come

To bring us sugar and tea and rum

One day, when the tonguing is done

We'll take our leave and go…

The song ceased as Clay interrupted after so long in companionable silence. The Slayer told the sailors, for their sake, that they needed to get inside right now and keep their doors locked.  The four sailors looked at each uncertainly before Clay slapped down money for drinks on a barrel beside the crewmates. His advice was heeded immediately. 

“I once knew an emperor, and this was almost two thousand years ago, who was obsessed with the idea of mapping out all the land that he ruled.” Bobbi heaved a sigh at the memory, sniffing at the recycled air within her houseboat. She leaned back on her makeshift hammock, a gift from one of her boys, the descendants of her once great pirate crew that now shares the struggle of mundane fishing with her, all because they knew the true value of the seas. None of them envied their peers, for they had none. “He had recreated his entire empire on an island he spent a great deal of gold, and lives, constructing… Would you believe that this was all in a lake in his imperial estates?”

Bobbi received no answer, which she had expected but could not be troubled to come to terms with, so she scoffed at the silence instead. “On this island of his, each molehill was turned into a mountain, each river a smaller rivulet. It takes him half an hour just to walk around the perimeter of this island.” She smirked as she looked up at the ceiling, eyes squinting at the artificial light that served as a beacon not only against the darkness of each cold night but also against her loneliness. In her head, she likened it to the pale light before dawn, when a hundred men would wade and swim out to carefully repair any damage wrought by the weather or the wild fowl. “Such futile attempts… But futility doth maketh purpose.”

In the silence that surrounded her and the prized katana on display, to which she was speaking, she had almost fallen asleep, her eyes heavy with the baggage of a long life lived to the fullest, only to be shackled by the loss of her soul. For any huxian, that would mean their last tail, or even just the first, but for Baozhai? Her soul was her ship, the Jade Wind, that which the Lost Fleet had taken from her, ripped from her very hands, along with the few unfortunate crewmates that had followed her to their doom. “So dramatic…” She murmured in her daze, until something woke her up, stirred her upright. “Hmm? Is that…? No, it can’t be…”

As if on a spell, Bobbi bolted from her respite and into the arms of a familiar fog, loathing rising from within her as did sparks of electricity from her own body, what remains of her huxian nature, eager to claim justice and vengeance for what had been taken, what had been lost. “Well, well, well… If it isn’t the assholes who owe me a ship… I’ve seen this movie before. You better not have a monkey with you. There’s no one here named Jack.” With a sprint and a lunge, Bobbi fearlessly jumped into the fray. For any huxian, conflict was something to avoid, but for Baozhai? She has already lost all her tails, plus her ship: She has nothing left to lose.

Clay let his sixth sense take over, each of the rising corpses registering as a blot of undeath on his awareness, a cold toxicity that called to him through the roiling fog. Thick vapor drowned docks, turning tall pilings and ship masts into lone islands in a sea of blue-white. Firearms would’ve been a liability with this much obscuration and civilian presence. So, the Slayer drew a machete from a sheath and plunged into the haunted fog. 

Corpses scaled piers and the sides with a fervor born of starvation. Sea life flourished in undead bodies that swelled with drowned bloating. Corals climbed up some of the bodies like lichen, blooming with vivid colors against cadaverous flesh. Eels and crabs gnawed in the constantly regenerating chest cavities of a few of the zombies, while barnacles and mussels had turned some of the walking dead into mollusk encrusted statues. Kelp and seaweed trailed from many undead like ragged capes. A wet misma of briny rot filled the air as Zombies emerged from from the water, like noxious gas bubbling the surface of a mire. 

Clay jumped from the pier, landing into the prow of a harboring vessel. A heaving swing severed the head of a corpse clawing its way up the anchor chain, sending the decapitated remains tumbling back into foggy depths. “Hello everyone.” Clay said to the crew of the vessel he’d just boarded from above, “might want to find some cover.”

If Mrs. Gao was here right now, Bobbi had no doubts she would rethink her business ventures. Finney Docks was, on paper, a great place for renting houseboats, especially if you have too many and none of which you’re actually interested in. The old woman’s late husband was the one with all the zest when it came to houseboats that it almost seemed an obsession. When he passed away, Mrs. Gao could not find it in her to dispose of them all, whether by sinking or selling them. So here we are.

“Here we fucking are indeed.” Bobbi scowled as she swiftly sliced the head off of a misguided zombie that tried to come near her, using only a cutlass that had been one of her favorite weapons. Back in the good old days, which was of course decades ago, perhaps even a century or two, the huxian, who intentionally lost her tails to pursue a life of adventure and some would say villainy, became a master of the cutlass. Considering she could actually shock a private’s privates off, it should have been more of an accessory, but there was something about the weapon, how it felt in her hands, how graceful she was with it, that it became her more favored tool to get things done. “What perfect timing… Just when the boys are passed-out drunk.” 

Two more charged at her, all looking like terrible extras from the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Or was it the third? Come to think of it, Davy Squidward Jones appeared in more than two movies, right? These thoughts filled Bobbi’s head as she gracefully stepped back, made three swings at the first charger that sent it back down into the sea, and basically did the same routine with the other. All she needed now was a pistol and a hat. Maybe a strange gait, almost drunken when in fact still sober. From the corner of her eyes, she saw someone, or was it something, fly aboard another ship, one that she herself was not familiar with. Did someone illegally park their boat again? She didn’t have much time to linger on the mysterious boats and its mysterious occupants, especially that strange man who hopefully didn’t fly down from the skies, as three more of the undersea-mutated corpses began to crowd her. “What is it that they like to say? Dead men tell no tales? Seems very fitting against someone with no tails.”

“Hello ma’am.” Boots slammed on the deck as a sodden figure covered in black ichor hefted his way up and over the railing. Clay dropped to his stomach as a dead man wearing the tattered beige of a World War Royal Navy jacket swung a rusted pipe into the railing the Hunter once occupied. A deceased woman in the blue fleet uniform and ushanka of the USSR used the opening to tackle Clay, the fleet pilot’s rotten jaws opening to dribble seawater and dark spittle on the Slayer’s face as she bore down on him.

“Nice…uh cutlass where'd .,.ugh..you get it,” Clay gagged as he tucked his knees up to his chest and slammed his feet into the chest of the Zombie trying to mail him, sending the dead Soviet pilot careening into one of corpses assaulting Bobbi.

“Ma’am?” Bobbi timed a step back, allowing the dead Soviet pilot to crash into one of her attackers. The forceful momentum sent them both back into the water, first colliding against the hard hull of another nearby ship. The huxian scowled as she spun around to her left, gracefully evading one of the remaining two brainless husks of decaying flesh as it tried to attack her, before swiftly kicking it towards the other, sending both of them back into the water as well. 

“How dare you? I don’t look a day over…” She almost slipped but immediately caught herself. Revealing how old she truly was would surprise the human, though she wasn’t sure if he was indeed just a normal human. His abilities and calm demeanor towards the attacking dead would suggest otherwise, but Bobbi has learned from the lessons of her past and maintained that revealing the truth about her would only lead to more problems than it was worth. “...twenty five.”

The dreary atmosphere in combination with her mood almost made her explain plainly the origins of her most favored weapon. But then she remembered something that the boys always loved to retort, and that made her smirk. Let me just… Before that, however, Bobbi spotted another disgusting ship stealer making its way towards her, so in one fluid motion, she charged towards it with a dropkick from out of nowhere, forcing it back into the fog, whatever was inside it, and then performing a kip-up without much effort. When she turned to him with that same smirk, she was already back to her feet. “...yo momma.”

Stillness had settled over the deck as the unliving things lay in piles of bisected bodies and severed limbs. Clay’s shoulders rose and fell with exerted respiration, gory machete held at the ready as he reached out his Slayer sense to more oily pulses of undeath. But the only pinpricks at the edge of his consciousness were far at sea. The last remaining signal of undeath was falling away down away from him after the definitely twenty-something captain of the vessel did a drop-kick that sent it over the side. 

Ok, fine, that was a cool move. Game must acknowledge game. 

Clay’s bruised features bloomed into a grudging grin through the grime, the quip about his momma teasing out a huffing chuckle. “Ok i’ll admit Captain,” he laughed softly, looking around at the bodies littering the deck. “That was pretty badass.”

[inclineto]

Books, May - June 2021

Tess of the Road - Rachel Hartman [dnf]

A River of Stars - Vanessa Hua

The Sealed Letter - Emma Donoghue

Giant Bones - Peter S. Beagle

Moominsummer Madness - Tove Jansson *

The Beacon at Alexandria - Gillian Bradshaw *

The Phantom Tollbooth - Norton Juster *

Libertie - Kaitlyn Greenidge 

Stay - Nicola Griffith

Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age - Annalee Newitz [Thoroughly enjoyable, but also the sort of pop archaeology book where things like this happen repeatedly, and I’m sorry, but I laughed: “And then, as if by magic, the eminent University of Cambridge archaeologist Andrew Wallace-Hadrill appeared.” (As far as the narrative admits, they did not have an appointment; while they were wandering around Pompeii, collecting information about his speciality, he was wandering around Pompeii, happy to be encountered and become a source.)]

Teach Me - Olivia Dade

The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power - Deirdre Mask

We Are Watching Eliza Bright - A.E. Osworth [“I am not going to read the gamergate novel,” I said, “and especially not when it’s using 1st person plural MFA POV half of the time,” but then I voyeuristically devoured the gamergate novel which is, really, its point: “We are obsessed with what goes on where we can’t see it.”] *

Ivory Apples - Lisa Goldstein [what the hell?!? no.]

The Future of Another Timeline - Annalee Newitz

The Scarlet Seed - Edith Pargeter [the scenes that made me cry as a child still make me cry now, and that’s rather nice]

The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo - Zen Cho [Five books later, I’m prepared to admit that Zen Cho and I aligned for one glorious novel and some related characters (Sorcerer to the Crown; Rollo & Aunt Georgiana), and I’m mostly indifferent to everything else, but I keep trying because there’s always a sentence like this: “Being good-looking and interesting and having the heavy-lidded gaze of a romantic tapir does not excuse writing a foolish book.”]

Elementals - A. S. Byatt

Searching for Black Confederates: The Civil War’s Most Persistent Myth - Kevin M. Levin

What Katy Did Next - Susan Coolidge

Feed the Resistance: Recipes + Ideas for Getting Involved - Julia Turshen et al.

A Duke, the Lady, and a Baby - Vanessa Riley [dnf]

The Sibyl in Her Grave - Sarah Caudwell

Sabriel - Garth Nix *

Outcrossing - Celia Lake [dnf]

Mending Matters: Stitch, Patch, and Repair Your Favorite Denim & More - Katrina Rodabaugh [so I feel like this was a couple of blog posts inflated into a book]

Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake - Alexis Hall [extremely funny, made me want to bake during a heat wave, likely to suffer in reviews from mismatched genre expectations: it’s romantic comedy, not romance (I’ve just looked and yep! this is a major complaint)] *

Tales from Moominvalley - Tove Jansson

Goblin Fruit - Celia Lake [dnf]

Coffee Boy - Austin Chant [trying to do more than its length and thin characterization can carry, but also heartening in the main character’s explicit refusal to embody a limited and patronizing narrative of marginalized suffering; I wouldn’t want every trans romance to do this so overtly, just as I don’t want every queer romance to be about overcoming homophobia, but I want a few of them to (fair also to note that in contemporary settings, I find boss/intern scenarios really unappealing, and no, I don’t care if they talk about it; had it been longer I would almost certainly have bailed)]

Uncanny Valley - Anna Wiener [didn’t really plan to read this; definitely didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did - I thought it would be just another new adult navel-gazing indictment of tech bros, and it is, but it’s got seriously good style to go with it] *

Lord John and the Private Matter - Diana Gabaldon

Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England - Amanda Vickery

On Juneteenth - Annette Gordon-Reed

Salt Magic, Skin Magic - Lee Welch

Lord John and the Hand of Devils - Diana Gabaldon [read the first two novellas, but my tolerance for Diana Gabaldon’s Diana-Gabaldon-ness is relatively low and the second novel wore it out; dnf]

Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade - Diana Gabaldon

A Seditious Affair - KJ Charles [because once you’re 75+ comments into an increasingly-involved modern AU, the only reasonable thing to do is give in (looking back at the innocence of this mid-June annotation...oh, you sweet summer child)] *

Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America 1619-2019 - edited by Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain [in the end, I’m not sure the organizing principles of 5 year chunks and short word counts really allow enough scope for many of the essays, but look for this to show up on Most Challenged lists and as a target of reactionary legislation anyway]

A Gentleman’s Position - KJ Charles [see prev. entry in series]

The Secret Adversary - Agatha Christie [sometimes you should not reread your childhood books]

Fire Watch - Connie Willis

The Ruin of Gabriel Ashleigh - KJ Charles [possibly shouldn’t be an entry, but what the heck, it’s sold separately; see prev. entry in series]

The City of Brass - S. A. Chakraborty

American Quilts: The Democratic Art - Robert Shaw [that subtitle tells you exactly what to expect from the text, but the quilts are lovely]

Engaging Diverse Communities: A Guide to Museum Public Relations - Melissa A. Johnson

Strange the Dreamer - Laini Taylor [dnf]

[endlich-allein]

Once again, @iinchicore was very kindly to translate an article for me. This is the interview with Till and Joey in MetalHammer (January 2021). The boys tell about their journey in the Amazon and their future projects together.

A big thank you, lots of kisses and a big hug to @iinchicore ♡

Till Lindemann & Joey Kelly : Friendship Without Limits

MetalHammer: How did the preparations for this journey differ in comparison to your Yukon trip?

Joey Kelly: We took along different equipment. While riding on the Yukon we used sturdy Canadian kayaks, which we couldn't find in Colombia. So we took along our own foldable 15 kilogramme kayak. Due to the climate, our choice of clothing was also different. Besides, the Amazon is much more dangerous than Alaska. There are many dangerous animals, small and big ones. You can find snakes, crocodiles and piranhas, which is why you shouldn't bathe in the river. You have to move differently on the Amazon than on the Yukon, where you only have to keep your distance to bears and elks. Amazonia is a jungle, where only those animals survive who eat the others.

Your first river journey led you to the Yukon, now you travelled on the Amazon. Was there a reason for why you picked that river exactly?

Till Lindemann: We were considering to travel along the Chinese Yangtze or the Lena in Russia, Siberia. Siberia was my favourite, but Joey convinced me to go to the Amazon. We have both been there before and knew a little about how to prepare and what to expect. One thing we knew right away was that, in regard to the nature and people, South America was much more exciting – Siberia looks similar to Alaska. That wouldn't have been all that interesting for our second book. Now the contrast is much greater: Alaska is austere and glum, the Amazon is the exact opposite with an entirely different wildlife and vegetation. Don't forget the wonderful colours of South America!

Any fascinating experiences of nature?

TL: It is really rare to spot an animal in the jungle. You can hear them everywhere, but they hide or are disguised very well. With the help of the local guides we observed snakes, birds, monkeys and a tapir. We saw pink dolphins and watched them do their jumps on the river. Because of their skin-like colour the locals believe they're incarnations of their dead loved ones and worship them.

How did the locals at the river react towards you?

TL: Reluctant, at first. You go to them and, for example, ask whether you can stay the night. They don't really talk much in the beginning, but after a night with a lot of Cachaca they warm up to you. Usually they were interested in our fishing gear. Most of them had never seen something like it, as they were used to fishing with rolled up strings and nets. I was amazed that every village we visited, no matter how remote the location, owned fridges with cold beer, they even had solar energy. Huge satellite dishes to watch football. For three days we visited one particular village. There was a storm, so they allowed us to stay. There was an older guy who had fallen off his stilt house, drunk, and broke his foot. Two young men went to the neighbouring village, a day's journey away, to get the shaman. The man should have belonged to a hospital, but that was entirely out of the question for him. It either heals on its own or it doesn't. We bandaged his foot and supplied him with pain meds. Then we continued drinking.

Did you plan beforehand what you wanted to see during your journey?

TL: Yes, a coca plantation. We knew that they existed there everywhere. At first, it was a lot of back and forth. They were staving us off, but after a lot of endless waiting and our patient agreeing to it, they allowed us to go. Along with two attendants from the village, we paddled down a branch of the Amazon that became narrower over time. A labyrinth of branches we would have never found our way out of. Eventually, we ended up at one of the countless plantations. It wasn't harvest time, however, so the leaves weren't ripe yet. But you could see all the tools for it: mashers, bags, and hundreds of bowls. And a little storage.

Did you try the coca leaves?

TL: Yes. We were on the plantation. They hid the plants below banana trees, so you couldn't see the plantation from the air. I did try a few coca leaves, but there is no sorcery about it. You just stay awake and feel energized. Everybody is chewing on them there, it's like coffee, just ten times stronger.

Did you reach your physical limits during this journey?

TL: The body adjusts to the climate pretty quickly. After three weeks you don't sweat all that much anymore. Even the sun doesn't bother you as much anymore, because you're thoroughly cooked anyway. But the humidity requires getting used to. The people there are handling it very differently. They own to pairs of shorts, two t-shirts and beach slippers, and they walk around like that all day.

JK: The climate there is exhausting, you're sweat-soaked after only three minutes. Personally, I don't mind it, but to people who aren't used to it it's a pain. The route we went on was quite difficult in parts, it was very serpentine. You had to paddle the whole time, you had to steer, then there were shoals or the water became too flat, so we had to relocate the boat.

You didn't capsize though, like it happened to you on the Yukon?

JK: No, the water level during that season was way too low. Later on, when the water comes in from the Andes during the monsoon season, the level rises by 15 metres. It drowns out entire forests.

TL: I was there once during the monsoon season. Back then only the tree tops were peeking out of the water. That's why they build their houses on stilts, so the water doesn't reach them. Many villages are located on mountain tops, as the water level won't rise that high.

Considering the many preparations and daily challenges, did you ever find time to relax during such an extensive journey?

TL: Travelling on the Yukon wasn't stressful, because we were sleeping on the sandbanks. Those experiences made travelling the Amazon even easier. As the sun goes down very early there, our only concern was to make camp before 6PM. Whenever we found a good location we sometimes made camp even earlier than that, instead of travelling on and risking not finding a good spot. That only happened to us once, so we had to sleep in the jungle, which wasn't all that bad either.

With a camp fire and night watch?

TL: A camp fire, yes, but we didn't need a night watch. You have to trust your guide, those guys know what they're doing. Our guide went ahead a couple of metres with a bit of string and, within a few minutes, came back with six piranhas. Then we turned on the grill and ate. Piranhas are really tasty, like giltheads.

Did you gain more respect for nature due to this journey?

TL: I had a great respect for nature before that already. Still, I couldn't hold myself back from taking pictures with snakes. I love snakes, Joey thinks they're scary. (laughs)

What did you learn along the way?

JK: I asked the Indians to teach me how to fish with a cast-net and pulled animals out of the water, which an aquarist would usually pay thousands of euros for. Scalars, discus fish, loricariids, sisorid catfish, catfish in all shapes and sizes.

Here in Europe we read a lot about the fact that these romantic times might be of the past soon, due to the systematic ecocide. Is that what you saw over there?

TL: When you approach Leticia you can make out the slash-and-burn methods used below. We assume that every minute jungle area the size of 1.5 football fields gets cleared, for soy plantations or pasture areas. The search for gold is also devastating for the nature. They use mercury to wash the gold out of rocks and clay. The mercury ends up in the rivers, in the fish, and then inside the people.

JK: The Amazon traverses through the entire continent. It is so broad and deep, there are even bigger ships cruising the river than on our rivers here in Europe. They carry natural resources, mainly wood. You can find a sawmill every couple of kilometres. They carry the tree trunks there and cut them along the length (4m by 1,20m or even 4m). Those planks then get transported either by ship or overland, a systematic deforestation of the Amazon area.

TL: You find a lot of filth in the main stream: huge tree trunks, garbage, bags full of plastic, and a lot of wood waste. It's illegal, but everybody does it. Very obviously, even during the day, nobody cares.

Are the locals not aware of the drastic situation?

JK: The sawmills pay the farmers 250 to 300 euros for one tree trunk. The sawmills sell it for 2.500 euros, and then here in Europe it costs up to 30.000 euros.

TL: As soon as they saw us, the lumbermen turned off their chainsaws and fled into the forest, yelling: “Piss off!” They were afraid that those pictures would be seen by the world. Same thing for the fisheries. Usually, the fish leave the lagoons during the dry season and swim back into the main stream, because the lakes dry out. The law allows it that they cast a net over half of the lake, so that a part of the fish can swim past. Now, the fishermen close off the entire lake, with up to ten nets. No fish can get past that anymore, only the very small ones. They're overexploiting the area high and low. They even steal all the turtle eggs from the clutches. It didn't used to be that way, back then they would leave half of it where it was.

Do you think that could change, if other types of income would replace the exploitation, like tourism?

JK: I don't think that the parts Till and I went to would be suitable for commercial tourism. Let's be honest, the biggest income is ensured by the coca production. You would travel right into a drug area. We could only move around freely there, because the government was taking care of the cartel conflicts at the time. Apparently, the military is now in charge of the coca trade.

TL: Corruption is the order of business. A policeman is earning less than a coca farmer. Thus, bribery and blackmail are commonplace. Almost all of it is illegal: fishing with the many nets, the gold-seeking, the wood clearing and the coca plantation. The areas are huge and hardly controllable. Since president Bolsonaro is in power in Brazil, the clearing business went up by 30 percent. Bolsonaro announced officially that the Amazon is a product, and that's how the people treat it. They expel the indigenous people and allocate them to surrogate areas, their land goes to the gold-seekers and their prospecting rights. The surrogate areas aren't of any use, however, so they don't live in villages anymore, but in small cities. That'll turn out to be very problematic in the future.

Was it a bizarre experience to you to live with indigenous people, even though it is said that there is no room for the white man?

JK: I've seen tourism in parts of the world where I'd have never expected it. An example would be the South Pole. Once I reached by goal there a plane landed, six tourists came out and paid several thousand dollars for a four to six hour long stay. I thought there was a lot less tourism at the Amazon than anywhere else. The only tourists who travel there are either extremely rich Americans or Russians who come in by helicopter, no matter how expensive the journey. As long as they were there once in their life, took a picture with an Indian and a monkey, then they fly back to Bogotá. All in all, you only meet natives here.

TL: You have to differentiate. There are also motor boats and Americans with sun hats on, sleeping in their loggias. But not in the area we were in. There were children there, who pulled at our pants and ran to our kayaks, because they had never seen anything like it. A canoe made of plastic! They only know boats made out of wood. The kids played with our fishing poles, the angling reels, and were amazed by our lures and wobblers. They had never seen something like that before. They only knew of the hooks, where you put a little meat on. There was a lot of curiosity.

Did the journey affect your friendship at all?

TL: Our friendship didn't get any better or worse, it's been a good friendship before. We want our travels to be periodic. Joey and I want to grant us this sort of time off every two, three years. We realized we're getting better at it. We drove down rapids. While travelling on the Yukon we would have peed our pants, but now we're capable of really daring manoeuvres among waves that are 1.5 metres high. You get well attuned over time, become more experienced with the daily routine, the luggage, moving around.

JK: That was one of the reasons why we planned out the next trip right after our Amazon journey. We paddled down the Rhine in August 2020. We decided to do this during the Corona pandemic, because like that we didn't have to travel through so many countries and still got to tell the entire river's history, which led us through Switzerland, Germany, Liechtenstein, Austria, France and the Netherlands.

Do these travels to the Yukon and Amazon satisfy your wish for solitude?

TL: Like we said, we already travelled along the Rhine. The Nile will be next. The Mekong river is also on our list, but with the goal to start at its origin. These journeys are really important to us. We might have published up to six books some time. We still have a couple of goals ahead of us: The Nile, maybe the Mississippi, one Russian river and the Mekong. Like that we would have visited a river in almost each part of the world.

Which seems to be a difficult goal to achieve, considering the current Corona pandemic...

JK: Sadly so. Because even if Germany will be cleared of the virus, that might not be the case for Tanzania, where the Nile originates, or in Egypt, where it ends. There are five countries in between, after all.

Symbolically, what did you take home from this journey?

TL: Humbleness! And gratefulness for what we have. At the same time, however, a sort of incomprehension for how we live here in Europe. With so much waste, lunacy and luxury. The people we met didn't really have anything. Property and wealth don't mean anything. The huts, the boats, tools, even the TV, it all belongs to everyone. You eat and drink together, and most of the work is done as a community. They say people are happier there. I won't be the judge as to whether that's true, but life there is simpler, more manageable, and thus people there live more modestly. In Germany people get up in the morning, rush to the office, are stuck in traffic, sit at the computer all day or manage machines, rush back home in the evening. In comparison, it's very relaxed at the Amazon. The people go to bed early, when they wake up they go fishing, hunt or raise manioc and corn. Life there is structured in a very simple way, it's been reduced to only the bare necessities.

What is the first image you see when you think of Amazonia?

JK: Looking back, I'm always thinking of this one boat ride very early in the morning. It was still foggy when we started paddling. To the left of us I can still barely see riverside, apart from that only fog, I can only see for two, three metres. We are on the Amazon without knowing what's ahead of us. It's quiet, there is no wind, the water is calm... That was a great experience.

[voicefromthecorner]

Hanekoma is quick to attribute Joshua's change of heart to Neku here. If that fact slipped over anyone's head somehow after playing the game, it's made irrefutable here.

I'm not too fussed about the Game not changing much, at least for now. Just wait till Uzuki is your Conductor, Josh. You'll see some positive reform then, I'm telling you.

I'm more interested in the "incident". The inversion of Shinjuku, presumably. Yo, H-man. Gonna stop talking in vague terms and tell us what's what?

Interesting. So the inversion and Coco's city noise are likely connected. Nobody's ever wrong when they have a hunch about something this big.

I'm starting to wonder what this noise looked like from the outside. Was it just the Dissonance Tapir creating its own hammerspace to put Neku, Beat and the Shibuya in? Or was it actually the size of a city? Because if it's the latter, yeah Mr H. I reckon something about that would strike you as suspicious.

Hanekoma approached this carefully and he really wanted to save our boys. He does care.

Okay, so he does describe it as a pseudo-parallel world. What I'm hearing is that my alternate timeline theory for most of my playthrough was basically correct, tank you very much Mr H, no further questions. Actually, that does imply that whatever it looks like, the noise just creates its own space and isn't the size of a city.

Hanekoma also suspects someone helped Coco out. Interesting. Another Reaper? A Fallen Angel? The Wizard of Slam? It can't be Sho, I know that much. I guess we'll meet who it is in the next game.

And darn it, Hanekoma! These reports are meant to answer questions, not ask them! Your last page is one big tease. I don't have the context of NEO yet, but I hope all of these questions are answered by it!

The stage has very much been set, that much is clear.

[shattered-catalyst]

OCD Subtypes for the RPC

Part 1 is here

Well well well, we are back for Part 2 of the Roleplayer’s Guide to OCD.

Fellow Ocd Folks, I see you in those tags and I'm going to do my best to ensure those obsessions are represented here- BUT understand that physically it is not going to be possible to list every single one because I am one person.  Regardless its incredibly brave of you all to rb and add things in the tags, I know its hard to talk about this shit and I see you. I see you.

Resultantly I typed this out and posted it in formatting to assist with accessibility in mind; if you cannot read it still ( I tried Im sorry!) i recommend the copy and paste method or getting the chrome extension bee-line reader.

 There will be grammatical and spelling mistakes. Im sure spacing is odd some places, but you have to understand doing this is extremely anxiety provoking for me so Im just getting it done when I can.

Remember to use your critical thinking; not everyone has the same symptoms/compulsions/triggers and all that.

OCD is fluid. Its like liquid mercury. One day its a handful of subtypes another day its another different serving.

If you are in general squicked about certain topics even by mention read ahead with your own judgement. Remember us folks that have OCD have many disturbing and distressing experiences so if you are writing a character who has OCD and you can’t read about it just don’t give them that obsessive thought/ compulsion. Make sure writing is still a safe and enjoyable hobby for yourself first and foremost.

But ethically and morally I cannot and will not leave out the more disturbing bits. You have the ability to scroll by, I and many others do not get the chance to escape triggering content that our own mind creates.

So read ahead with your best judgement or at least skip around the squicky parts and educate yourself on what OCD is so people quite using it as a Obsessive Christmas/Corgi/Cat Disorder thing. Alright? Cool beans.

Okay so you made it passed post 1 and got under the read more. Give yourself a gold star for diving into this monster of a document.

Below is a crash course it is not meant to replace actual psychoeducation, personal research, or google. Honestly most of us do our research extensively but because OCD is treated so horribly by social media, media, and society in general.

I wasn’t sure where to throw these together because the education tools to learn fully about OCD are very specialized and thus very restricted. I found that many people DO have these experiences with OCD though so I will represent them throughout. I’ll also sprinkle some of my own experiences so you can get a good reference of a person who has the disorder and not just a randomly generated person.

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So OCD is made up of Obsessions, Trigger, Intrusive thought, Misinterpretation/feared consequence,Somatic and Psychological Anxiety, and Compulsions/Rituals.

Your character may not be able to list all of these. In fact if they aren't in ERP therapy they may not be able to puzzle these things out. But YOU as the writer should know them. Your character won’t be walking around talking to just ANYONE that they have OCD. Remember a huge aspect of OCD is it’s Shame.  The disorder makes us feel intense shame regarding our intrusive thoughts, as a result OCD goes undiagnosed for years especially if it has pediatric onset.

  We won’t tell anyone what we are experiencing or why we are doing x y or z. We act like nothing is wrong because to emotionally react is to admit to yourself- and therefore the world- that you have had this intrusive thought and are therefore by virtue a horrible person.[For further information I would suggest also researching PANDAS].

It may be noticeable if your character has an intrusive thought. They may wince or grimace or roll their eyes certainly, but they won’t open up to Joe at the cafe about how their brain is constantly torturing them. I apparently have a very noticeable eye twitch.

 Depending on the nature of the intrusive thought it will get more or less of a reaction out of me. Its usually dependent on how distressing the intrusive thought is and/or if its a new one.

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You see OCD doesn’t sit still. It never looks the same. You’ll have your long haul intrusive thoughts that are with you for years but then you’ll have weird ass ones that just appear and demand their voice be heard yelling about cars hitting people or squirrels getting eaten.

Some people have similar ones! So while everyone is different there will always be someone out there with an intrusive thought similar to yours.

 For instance; I bonded emotionally with a lady on reddit because we both have intrusive thoughts during storms that animals and the homeless are dying. We were both horribly relieved to find another person and also distressed that every snow or rain storm brings horrible images and whispers to your mind that while you are warm and snug in bed someone is freezing to death. And its all your fault.

Some days are better than others. As with all mental illnesses it isn’t CONSTANT ALARM BELLS. Some days it will be all alarms and other days it will be like a gentle whisper on the breeze. You can almost not notice it. Almost.

Obsessive thoughts run the gauntlet from ‘i will/could have/may/may accidentally harm etc’ something that you hold of value. This is any obsessive thought that you have: you think about repeatedly and not by choice, it is very anxiety provoking, it is unwanted, and unwelcome.

 Mine run the scale from ‘squirrel will be murdered’ to ‘being responsible for harm’.

Compulsions or ‘rituals’ are any behavior done to alleviate the anxiety from the intrusive thought and trigger object. In short, compulsions and rituals are not fun. they are absolutely not logical, and we know they are not logical but we are forced to do them. Thats why its a disorder. 

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To emphasize from post 1: magical thinking and the faulty link between thoughts and actions are hallmarks of OCD.  Magical thinking can be anything from contamination to if I turn around three times or stare really hard at something the bad thing wont happen. Sounds weird and is weird and we know it is thats why its a disorder and not a delusion.

The faulty belief that thought=action is the biggest hurdle it is incredibly difficult to grasp, at least for me maybe some of you that have done further ERP can attest, that the mere concept of a thought not being the same as an action is completely and totally mind blowing.

Free will? Yeah thats terrifying. IDK about anyone else but free will is absolutely terrifying; what do you mean i could do anything i wanted?

Thats how you face OCD(WITH A TRAINED THERAPIST). You give in to ambiguity and the unknown. Its breaking that link between thought and action. Its incredibly difficult and draining. A five minute exposure leaves me in shatters for a week and two five minute ones had me ripping my nails past the nail beds with anxiety.

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Just a reminder: Do not have your character expose themself or expose folks with OCD to a trigger to “ help us get over with”. That is literally forcing someone with a mental illness into a break down and is not helpful. In fact its worse because a person knows about this intrusive thought and they tried to make it real. More shame and some trauma. 

If you have OCD, more likely than not a family member or significant other has tried this with the purest of intentions. But it never works like that. Theres a reason that therapists get special training for this. If people want a post on ERP I can make one at some point. 

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Actually let’s drag me with the squirrel thing as the example- fellow OCD Folks get out a pen and paper and try breaking down one of yours;

Obsession:Squirrel will be murdered

Trigger: seeing a squirrel

 Intrusive thought: Graphic images of a squirrel being murdered by a hawk/ impaling depending on the day

Misinterpretation/feared consequence: Squirrel will be killed and its all my fault

Somatic and Psychological Anxiety:intense anxiety, palms sweating, heart racing,

Compulsions/Rituals: Must stare at the squirrel to prevent bad things from happening, 

Now imagine if that is every time you see a fucking squirrel. You have somehow become completely and totally transfixed on a squirrel and nothing is going to pull your attention away or the squirrel dies- which your mind is giving you lovely images of btw.

Cute right?

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Below are the subtypes with general information/example thoughts/ and how some of these have impacted me socially because apparently some people dont understand that mental illnesses impact their social lives?? yall...

Social: This can range from ‘ i am constantly thinking i did something wrong so i have to ask for reassurance that we are still friends’ to completely unrealistic worries. Maybe its an intrusive thought that ‘ your voice is annoying them’ . There’s reassurance seeking, internal and external checking.

 It makes friendships extremely difficult and exhausting. You’re not trying to get to know someone with an annoying frat boy egging on anxiety in your brain. This can also manifest as having strict rules for yourself and ethical codes. 

My therapist likes to say she could give us (folks with OCD) a pile of hundred dollar bills and come back and they’d all be returned. Because OCD makes you so strict and morally confined. Which ISNT fun. Like I dont get pleasure over having to memorize the entire Code of Conduct!

Social Media: Its the bane of human existence some days and a lifeline the next. But what if everytime your follower count was an odd/even number it sent you into a panic attack. What if you spent all your time with intrusive thoughts that somehow someone misinterpreted a post or that someone is going to be harmed by a post you made about tapirs. 

You may be forced to block people to get your number down or keep pornbots on your blog to keep your number what you like (see there is a use for them! We sacrifice those before actual users!) You may be refreshing your page every second because ‘what if you miss a message’. It's going to look a lot like ‘check check check check reassure yourself double check your posts check check check reassure check check FALSE MEMORY check your post etc’

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Clothing/Body Image: When its not Body Dysmorphia it can be OCD. Sometimes this looks like I obsess about a body part and therefore I choose my clothes/hairstyles to hide those.  Some personal examples: as a kid I was sure that mind readers exist ( THIS IS AN OCD THING TOO I was so relieved to find that out) and that if i didnt wear  a particular hat they would see all these horrible thoughts and it would be revealed what an awful person I was. So I wore the same dumb ass bucket hat for a year (or more I cannot remember but it was a long ass time).

I was once so fixated on being given a compliment on my eye color that I wore sunglasses (even at night) to a summer camp. And if any of those teen girls in that cabin that stood up and mocked me in a crowded lunch hall by singing ‘i wear my sunglasses at night’ you all owe me 40$.

Even younger still I had intrusive thoughts. Like say, if anyone noticed I was female that i would be kidnapped so I chopped my hair very short. I altered my appearance to be very androgynous and even switched to walking more masculine. Because omg if your hips move someones going to kill you thats just how it works. ( It doesnt help I later figured out I was a lesbian)

Your wardrobe may be impacted by OCD and yes so can your body image.

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Also yes the fear of mind readers is also a thing; i always thought I was somehow faking OCD because yes that is also a…..

Faking: Do you value telling the truth? Do you detest lying ? Boy Howdy do I have some news for you. OCD is going to try and convince you that YOU LIED. Whether it was on a chastity pledge to get a free sandwich or in a conversation you just HAD. This links a lot with false memory OCD.

Another aspect is OCD makes us doubt we have OCD and tries to convince us we have any other diagnosis under the sun and we are obviously faking our OCD.

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Sexual Orientation OCD; It is as it is called. Sexual Orientation OCD is what happens when your brain goes ‘hold on what if you’re not this orientation what if you are THAT’. It doesn’t matter where on the LGBT umbrella you fall you will have OCD trying to convince you otherwise. From compulsive staring at members of the same/opposite gender to compulsively reassuring or checking with yourself to ensure that ‘ no no you are in fact THIS orientation.’ 

This can range in behavior from binge watching porn, staring compulsively to check that there is OR is NOT attraction,self checking past experiences and memories, analyzing your clothing and your lifestyle in painful and intricate methods.

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False Memory OCD; False memory OCD is basically your brain sitting you in a noir interrogation room, handcuffing you to a chair grilling you. It demands that you did *insert bad thing here*. This can range from anything from something Harm based to pretty much *anything* from other OCD subtypes. Which is quite delightful really.

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Sensorimotor OCD; Sensorimotor OCD is obsessive body responses. These can be ‘ I have to cough really hard and really feel it right in my chest and if I can’t get it right I have to cough until I do’. This can be counting your heartbeats. Trying to check yourself that you in fact have a heart and checking and reassuring that it is still beating. It can be hyper-awareness of swallowing or even swallowing repeatedly. It is anything with selective attention; ie its an automated process but your OCD is forcing you to be aware of it.

Your OCD makes you aware of the sensation of, say, breathing, and then it convinces you that if you stop paying attention to it you will stop breathing. So now you’re horribly aware and focused solely on breathing and breathing alone. It keeps me up most nights with the pounding anxiety fueled by the pressure of ‘if you stop focusing on breathing you will stop breathing completely’ or waiting to feel that last heartbeat in your chest. 

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Existential OCD; You ever feel existential ? Existential OCD is like having a very aggressive existential crisis that turns you into NEEDING answers IMMEDIATELY. This can look anything from hours panic scrolling the net to panic inducing anxiety because you don't know what happens after death. The thoughts are like foghorns on a misty sea.

This sounds basic and the only example i can give is as a teeny tiny 7 year old I had a panic attack in bed screaming that ‘ what if im a dinosaur and im asleep and i wake up and my whole family is GONE’.

To be fair I did like dinosaurs a lot.

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Harm OCD; This is pretty self explanatory but I will give more details. Harm OCD is OCD demanding that you will/could/can/may have/might harmed yourself/others/any living creature and that you alone are responsible. 

This means anything from getting anxious driving over crosswalks because ‘what if you dont see one and hit someone and its all your fault and you hit someone go back and make sure you havent hit anyone’ to ‘im holding a knife so im going to accidentally stab someone’ to ‘ i didnt see my cat this morning and now im at work and think she must be dead and i am responsible for her demise.’

 It can be as simple as ‘if i use a pencil i will stab myself in the eye’ or as complex as ‘ i may accidentally say a slur’/ ‘ i am going to say this horrible thing out loud if i cannot control myself.’ It can also be images of terror or racist/sexist/ableist jokes in your mind that repeat like a broken record.

(Please note from section 1 that this is extremely anxiety provoking and not something you would do. OCD preys on what we respect the most.)

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pOCD; Tumblr listen the fuck up because I am tired of seeing people get called shit on this website for having this mental illness. People who experience pOCD are not pedophiles, they do not get any pleasure or benefit. The thoughts and images are meant to induce harm to the person experiencing them. Children are normally the trigger for this and the resulting images can be very graphic. Again you aren’t attracted to children- thoughts of them getting harmed hurt you so your OCD makes you see them.

Know this so you can advocate for folks with pOCD in real life. Remember we are here. We are suffering and we are terrified of your children.

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Poisoning others/or in your food; Life isn’t medieval anymore but sometimes OCD demands we have a food taster or that we obsessively worry that we may kill someone with our cooking. Personally I struggle with colorblindness so I am constantly fretful over cooking any sort of meat so it’s difficult for me to cook it.

 However this also comes as; obsessive horrible thoughts of your cooking kill someone or that you have somehow/accidentally poisoned someone’s food (even if you haven’t touched it or been within a foot of it ) or that someone has poisoned YOUR food even if no one has touched it except you. You’re going to be picking apart your food or unable to eat out at all.

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Emotional Contamination: It’s similar to magical thinking and this terrifying prospect of mind readers. Emotional contamination can manifest as anything from intense worry over somehow gaining someone else’s negative personality traits.

 Or that somehow by interacting with any role of someone horrible will make YOU somehow also responsible for the horribleness.  There is usually a person or a type of person that is a trigger, but it can also be location based.

 This is one subtype where magical thinking and superstition are apparent.  

For instance; as a teen if a male was in my space or had physical contact;like shaking hands,giving a high five, being in my room etc. I would have to go around and physically touch all the objects that I perceive they may have also touched as a way to cancel out their presence. 

This includes wiping off myself to negate even the touch of family members. It really hurts peoples feelings, my father was especially hurt by this.

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Physical Contamination: This goes beyond physical dirt and grime. Most of us dont have spotless homes because if you’re having a fist fight with your brain everyday cleaning falls by the wayside just like it would for anyone else. Physical contamination holds 2 things: physical contamination obsessions AND compulsive cleaning behaviors/rituals. We believe that a small amount of a contaminate can cover large surfaces.

 Oh, and did I mention its not JUST dirt/germs/viruses. The list is expansive but heres a mixed bag of what they can be: sticky substances,dead animals,glitter (FUCKING GLITTER),negative words or language,colors, numbers, surfaces in general, food, people, and activities.  There is also a hyper responsibility to protect yourself and others from ‘contamination’.

Strangely there is a magical separation between the contaminated world and the ‘clean’ one. Spaces designated as clean would be a bedroom/bathroom/workspace where you are most active. That space is where the compulsions and intrusive thoughts occur. Its not I MUST CLEAN EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME. Otherwise I would be working cleaning houses because why the hell not amiright?

A real world example from a colleague would be a young man with physical contamination OCD is struck with such intrusive thoughts about cleaning that they refuse to allow anyone in their room or any animals in their home. But they are not able to even flush the toilet, take out the trash, wash dishes, or do garbage because of their intrusive thoughts.

The most famous would be compulsive hand washing but I feel it is important to also note OTHER aspects of physical contamination because everyone sees the hand scrubbing stereotype. 

Other compulsions include intricate rituals, not touching the floor (i played X-treme the floor is lava during college. I couldnt let my feet touch the floor because it was ‘dirty’),excessive showering (2-8+ hour showers guys, 8 hour showers. Thats what we’re talking about.)

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Relationship OCD: This comes as no surprise that yes you will have intrusive thoughts that you are somehow harming/ will harm/ may accidentally harm your significant other. Whether that be by physical or emotional means. It can look like ‘ I may have lied to her about how much I love her’, ‘ i may not actually love her and I may be leading her on’, and ‘ I must be corrupting her’. These can extend to certain physical activities with false memory OCD as a cherry on top. A great finishing garnish to leave you feeling absolutely dismayed and unable to trust your own perception.

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Scrupulosity: Religion! Whatever that may be! Its a thing with OCD.  With Scrupulosity obsessive thoughts run all over the board from; you committed a sin and forgot about it you monster to having to pray continuously/ a certain time/ until its right. What is right?Ask OCD that’s the only person who knows. 

We are fairly certain my grandfather had OCD because he went to church for every single Catholic Mass. Every single day. Every. Single. Day.  That’s not a healthy amount of attendance(I'm calling you out posthumously because I care Robert!). This can also look like: praying a certain amount of times. Praying until you do it ‘right’. Confessing every single potential sin. Cataloguing and dwelling over ‘sinful’ things. 

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Symmetry or Just Right OCD: Symmetry OCD is the runner up for ‘most likely recognized on tv shows’ award.

Symmetry OCD convinces you that if *insert thing here* isnt symmetrical or ‘just right’ (a magical position or number of objects that makes 0 logical sense) that something bad will happen.

This can range from the known; rearranging things. But it also looks like buying more objects until you reach the right amount and even throwing out objects if theres ‘too many’.

It can range from ‘the walls are percievably not straight so now i avoid that room at all costs otherwise i will be trapped traveling the edges of the wall with my eyes otherwise it will fall in and murder us ALL.’ to ‘ this historical bust is one inch off to the left and now all i see is visions of it breaking against the ground.’

So that is what I have time for. 9 pages on subtypes and basic information. If you find yourself wanting me information all of this is easily accessible online. So go, be free and dont ever compare people to Monk again. Write Batman and Scott Summers with OCD. Give us ACTUAL representation and not throw away joke lines. We are here. Our suffering isnt funny. We deserve representation too.

[acidgirl]

what are your top three favorite: 1. albums 2. movies 3. animals 4. foods 5. travel destinations (either places you've been or places you want to go!)

God ok let me think

A. Top 3 favorite albums:

A New World Record - Electric Light Orchestra (self explanatory that’s like Clara 101)

All Things Must Pass - George Harrison (insanely good, like godly levels of perfection)

The SMiLE Sessions - The Beach Boys (Kind of cheating but when I first started doing psychedelics I would just loop that album)

B. Movies I listed in a previous ask but for funsies I’ll list 4 and 5

4. Baby Driver (2017, Dir. Edgar Wright) there are some movie that you watch at just the point in your life when you’re looking for a new schtick… no but this is the movie that got me into filmmaking and I love it to death

5. Ok I saw airheads (1994) recently and genuinely maybe that

C. I don’t have very strong opinions on animals but if I HAD to list my top 3

Dogs

Cats

Tapir (naturally)

D. Favorite Foods:

Lasagna

Wings

Pussy

E. Top 3 Travel Destinations:

I’ve only ever been outside the US to visit El Salvador but I’ve always wanted to go to

Italy

Ireland

Australia

Thanks anon you’re the best <3333333

[walker-journal]

Fae Bay Productions (Mina +Adam)

Characters: Mina Fitzroy (Nix-Virginia), Adam Walker (Hunter-Tapir)

Timing: Before the events of Promise to Bind

Summary: While out on patrol, Adam and Mina find themselves trapped inside cinema tropes and a Fae experiment to understand human television.

Content Warning: Brief allusion to Emotional Abuse

Sometimes when your adrenaline is pumping things seem to slow down, but this is mostly just a memory trick. Your brain remembers novel experiences in more vivid detail. While it's true that you're stronger and faster while under the influence of adrenaline, things being slowed down is a cognitive illusion. Adam’s training had been quite clear on this.

But that being said, he’d been watching his knives cut into this thing for a while now.

Adam had taken to counting each of the distinct blood droplets swiveling through the air as his tactical knife plunged into the hellhound’s neck. The Hunter’s heartbeat was a slothful metronome in his ears as the knife sank by fragments of an inch.

Thirty six...thirty seven…thirty eight

Adam watched beads of sweat slowly slide down his taut biceps and the raised veins of arms, highlighting each glistening contour in the alley’s inexplicable mood lighting.

Aw fuck, he was trapped in a gatorade commercial!

Everything snapped back into focus with a whiplash of sensation and Adam became cognizant of the alley again. “Hey uh...Mina,” Adam asked, yanking his knife out of the Hellhound collapsed at his feet. “Was anything kinna weird just now?”

His head jerked back around at a sputtering sound, and the Hunter watched the slain Hellhound collapse into a mass of black and red paint. “The hell..”

This wasn’t quite what Mina had been expecting when she’d been asked to go with Adam on a hunt. Her boundaries were clear: nothing humanoid. That… was it. Mina would admit that she was having a hard time on coming up with boundaries, but, hey, at least she had one. So this was supposed to be normal, run of the mill, seek and destroy. But this? This was weird. For starters, she felt it as soon as they’d arrived, the feeling in her chest, at the back of her neck, that there was another Fae around, but, before she could even warn Adam about it, they’d been attacked, swept up in the action. Literally, it felt like.

Then when one of the beasts charged Mina off her feet, it felt like she’d been in the air for far too long before she’d landed on her hands and managed to flip herself back onto her feet. Really, if it was a long time that she was in the air. She’d started reciting pi while in the air and gotten 46 digits in before she stopped “falling.” She turned to Adam, looking around them trying to figure out what was going on. “Something’s really weird. I meant to tell you, before we got attacked, but I sensed another--” She was cut off by the sound of a growl at the other end of the alleyway and watched as a spawn jumped on top of a dumpster. “Are you kidding me?” Something looked off about it. Despite being under the streetlight, it was still covered in shadows, the harsh, inhuman glow of its eyes the only thing to be made out.

Adam turned to meet the approaching Spawn, drawing a stake from his belt in one hand while settling into a stance to meet the shambling chiropteran’s charge. The spawn’s mouth split into four fanged mandibles as it lunged towards Adam. The Hunter let out a measured exhale as muscle memory guided the feinting sweep of his knife….

The Spawn’s unearthly shriek and sounds of White’s Crest were abruptly replaced with climbing pizzicato chords.

Sail away, sail away, sail away Sail away, sail away, sail away Sail away, sail away, sail away Sail away, sail away, sail away

Adam and confused Spawn looked up as one as all the color faded to the tune of Enya’s Sail Away “Uuuuuuh Mina do you…”

From Bissau to Palau, in the shade of Avalon From Fiji to Tyree and the Isles of Ebony From Peru to Cebu hear the power of Babylon From Bali to Cali, far beneath the Coral Sea

Everything became shrouded in sepia colored haze, as from an old photograph.

Adam glanced to the side and saw a familiar shaggy-haired preteen holding an oaken stake while a statuesque woman with brawny arms and eyes like flint guided the boy through stances. “No love,” Esther Walker chided in a firm contralto voice. “Your breathing is throwing the strike off center.” The Hunter in training inhaled and lunged forward, only for Esther to step aside from the stake’s momentum at the last moment and send the boy sprawling in the dirt with a brusque backhand to his spine. “Better Adam,” the Esther allowed, “but choreograph your movements like that and you’ll never survive the night.  Now again”

Turn it up, turn it up, turn it up, up, adieu. Ooh ooh Turn it up, turn it up, turn it up, up, adieu. Ooh ooh Turn it up, turn it up, turn it up, up, adieu. Oh

Adam looked around in the sepia mirage of images of himself and Esther Walker training over many years of montage like an exposed photograph’s afterimages. “Uh, hi mom? Kinna busy ”

“Remember your stances…….”

Adam sighed and assumed a fighting stance again.

“.....and your footwork,” reminded an echo of the phantom voice.

Adam scooted his back foot forward a few inches.

“Remember…..”

“Damn it mom stop backseat slaying for a sec!”

The sepia overlay to everything snapped back to full color with a fading of Enya and the Spawn was on Adam again in an eyeblink. One grudgingly perfect harmony of stances and footwork later the Spawn had been staked into nothing more than a puddle of black paint.

Ok fine! You win not-mom voice. Got sloppy on the left withdrawal counterpoint there! Happy?

“Um Mina,” Adam, “not to make this weird but uh…...did you happen to have a like...flashback just now?”

Mina remembered being young and hearing a man pounding away at a piano in the bar below where she and her dad stayed. Frantic, panicked sounds that kept her awake at night, even when she couldn’t hear him playing. That wasn’t when she decided she wanted to play the piano. If anything, it turned her away from it, from the emotional complexities that music could convey. She heard it now, as she watched Adam deal with the spawn by himself, as the image of him shifted and distorted, everything changing, everything like something out of one of the movies she’d watch with Bex. She saw her dad, along with Alexei and Katya Orlov, a father daughter pair of slayers, dealing with a spawn very much like the one she and Adam were dealing with.

“The fuck are you doing?” Eric Fitzroy yelled at his daughter.

The piano seemed to get louder in her ears, the sounds of it stressed. Her frantically beating heart made an excellent percussion. She couldn’t move. The three of them were dealing with the spawn, and Mina couldn’t move. She watched as the creature lashed out at Katya, grabbing her around the neck, and Mina dropped the stake she had in her hand as she panicked. One of the keys on the piano was broken, the sound of it loud and off in her mind, and it was like it was being tapped over and over again, and her dad was the one to stab the spawn, turning it to dust, and the music stopped immediately.

Eric whipped around to face his daughter, walking up to her and gripping her shoulders tightly. “You hesitated, Mina! You can’t hesitate! Never hesitate! Not only could you get hurt, but someone else could get hurt! Get your head out of your arse, girl!”

Mina could feel his words bouncing around in her skull like the music had been as she looked at Adam, trying to piece together where she was, who she was with. She wasn’t a teenager anymore. She was with Adam Walker. There had been a spawn. He’d killed it. She’d hesitated. She always hesitated. “I--” She cleared her throat and looked around them again. She’d dropped her knife. She picked it up, hand gripping it tightly. “Something’s wrong,” she said instead of answering his question. She didn’t want to talk about flashbacks. Not at that moment, at least. “I wanted to tell you, before the spawn showed up, but there wasn’t any time. There’s another Fae around here. I don’t… I don’t know what kind, but we should be prepared.”

“Fae huh, why would one of them be around Spawn? Vamps love Fae blood. Why did this one  turn into paint instead of dust?  Adam frowned in thought, trying to piece it together. His eyes strayed to Mina for her input, but it suddenly struck him that she didn’t look ok. It also clicked in his head what Mina had once told him about being hated by all sides. What must it be like for her, facing another Fae alongside a Hunter, probably unable to fully trust either.

Cherry blossoms began to lightly drift down from the sky as Adam frowned, their soft feather-like touches brushing the Hunter’s cheeks as he struggled to find the worlds.

“Hey uh Mina...look its obvious somethings playing with our heads, maybe Fae magic, maybe something else…”

High descending piano notes played in the background, crisply poignant and thoughtful.

“Just like, I’m glad you have my back you know? And if you ever need me I’ll back your backup.”

Soft rosy radiance backlit Adam, accentuating the concerned set of his lips and the imploring glisten of his eyes. The petals swirled about them in a sudden breeze. The soulful piano notes abruptly ascended up the scales!

“Because I’m not going to claim I know whats like but I do at least know…Woah! .Ok what the fuck?

Adam flailed his way out of the pink petals now covering his hair and shoulders like a dog shaking off water. The piano solo ended with an abrupt off-key thonk.

“Wait whut? Is this like...a flower Fae? What's happening?”

“I don’t know why they’re around the spawn, or the hellhounds, or the paint. Wait, paint. Wait.” Mina looked around, trying to figure out what was going on. She could tell that the other Fae was close and moving closer, and she almost allowed her senses to lead her to it, but then Adam was talking, and she wanted to pay attention.

It was hard to pay attention with the music playing around them, and Mina frowned. “No, no. I mean, well, yes, they can mess with your head, but it’s a little harder to mess with mine. I-- I think they’re messing with the environment, actually.” And the music was so loud, and normally that wouldn’t be a problem, but it was all that Mina could focus on. That and the pink swirling around them, and the scent of flowers. “Wait, why is your face doing that thing? Why are there flowers in the alley?”

Adam was close, and Mina leaned back a bit, before the piano stopped and Mina jerked to look up and see a saetimp shaking its fist from one of the dumpsters. No, not a saetimp. The saetimp. The one that gave her that bloody tattoo. “No,” she snarled, an actual growl in her voice. “Not a flower Fae. A fucking saetimp.”

A saetimp wearing a movie director’s hat and sitting in one of those strange chairs. He made a bunch of angry sounds and pulled out his paintbrush, painting a boombox. “Careless Whisper” started playing loudly. The pink aura refilled the air.

“First a monster attack and now this? What bloody genre is this?” Mina pulled a throwing knife from her belt and just started cursing at ram-like Fae in English. And Polish. And German.

Maybe he didn’t understand everything that she said, but the saetimp seemed properly scandalized.

“Stop, now,” Mina said, waving the knife threateningly. But she wasn’t going to kill it. She told herself that it was because she wanted the mushroom tattoo removed, but, really, she just didn’t have it in her. She looked at Adam, hoping for support.

Adam looked from Mina to the suited Saetimp for a calculating moment before sheathing both his blades in one smooth motion. “Hey what are you…”

Director Saesese Bay held up a gloved hand in a shushing gesture before pointing towards sheets of poster paper and markers that were abruptly there at Adam and Mina’s feet.

Careless Whisper lilted through the alley as Adam and the Saetimp fixed each other with a long stare. Eventually the Fae’s painted eyes proved too unnervingly dollike and the disgruntled Hunter relented for the sake of looking at something, anything, else.

Adam sighed. “Love fucking Actually right now,” he told Mina before taking one of markers. “I hate romcoms, stalker clingy creepy shit made out to be wholesome,” the perhaps biased fraternity boy groused as he wrote on the poster. Felt point squeaked for a moment before Adam flipped over the paper and held it above his head for the Saetimp to read. .

-Yo Mickey Mouse fairy. What the actual Fuck are you doing?-

Director Saesese Bay turned literally purple with approbation, eyes widening across their face until the pupils were just tiny dots that were a bit too perfectly stationary to be entirely convincing. It took only a second for the Fae to produce poster paper of its own with beautifully flowing script worthy of any medieval illumination.

-We are incorporating masterpieces of human cinematography into our artistic odyssey! :O  You are my star characters! : ) You’re welcome-

Staring at Adam incredulously for a moment, Mina frowned before putting the knife back into the pouch attached to her belt. Why couldn’t Adam just be his usual utilitarian self for a moment and allow the two of them to dispose of the threat instead of humoring it. Not that saetimps were particularly threatening. Creepy? Certainly, their eyes really made her uncomfortable. Like all Fae, her body had practically been programmed to dislike that instant tingling sense of familiarity that came from being around them. But threatening? Rarely. Even if this one had sent painted monsters after them and had poor choices in music.

With a sigh, Mina picked up her own poster and marker. She couldn’t believe they were playing along with this. How could they possibly get this to stop? She didn’t want to spend all night playing leading actress in some sick, twisted little creatures production of… “I’ve never watched that movie,” she muttered. Love Actually. What even was that? Adam’s description made it sound terrible. She preferred Jurassic Park or the Mummy. Not that she wanted to give the saetimp any ideas about siccing dinosaurs or reanimated corpses on them.

Mina scribbled a poorly drawn sketch of a hand holding up a middle finger on her poster board and wrote, ‘Stop. Please.’ under it. She didn’t feel like humoring this creature any more. If they weren’t careful, she and Adam could get seriously hurt because of its games.  

Adam scrutinized the faerie director for a time in thought. Mina seemed ready to shank the shit outta bobble eyes here and it might well come to that. But this bohemian goblin thing was an intelligent being that didn’t want to eat people. Adam felt it behooved him as a guardian to try to broker peace if it could be done.

If not? Then iron Mickey Mouse shikabobs it was.

-Hey Director. Learning about human cinema, like how it's structured, the symbols we use, that sorta thing. That’s what you want? For your odysseus shit right?-

Director Saesese Bay regarded the more thuggish member of his action hero duo for a moment, as if doubting that the murder monkey could have much to offer on the matter of high art. Nevertheless, a response came into being on the poster paper.

- ; /  Yes, I want to understand the patterns within this medium of recorded motion and light. But aren’t you wasting time? I have explosions for you to depart from while not reacting! :D -

“God I wish Bex were here,” Adam confessed to Mina, wishing he had someone more versed in media culture before trying diplomacy with an art major.

-If I offered you the location of a grimoire in which humans collectively archive and gather all the patterns and common themes in our cinema culture, would this be enough to cancel the production and let us retire alive from your show business?-

Director Saesese Bay gave start, conflicting eagerness and suspicion playing across their features in waves of pixelated green and yellow.

-:O Are you toying with me action primate?-

-No Director- Adam wrote. -I promise to provide to the location of a huge collection of human cinema lore with references to thousands upon thousands of other works-

Saesese Bay sealed the promise with a flourish of paint.

-Agreed, with one stipulation, a single closing scene, and you may both retire from your careers alive and unharmed ; ) agreed? -

Adam turned to Mina. “Well?”

Mina would have stabbed the little bastard and forced him to undo the tattoo and whatever weirdness he’d forced on the town, but that wasn’t the way to go about this. She knew that wasn’t the way to go about this. She was letting her feelings towards the saetimp, negative and irritable as they were, to skew her judgement, and that wasn’t right.

“I do, too,” Mina said quietly, thinking about how Bex being there would probably just make the situation better regardless. Even if she didn’t want Bex to get caught up in whatever nonsense this, no doubt, ended up becoming.

Eyes widening at the promise Adam made, Mina looked between him and the saetimp and wondered just what it was that the hunter had up his sleeve. She had no idea what he was referring to. For all she knew, he could be making something up. But he couldn’t be. He made a promise.

Alive and unharmed sounded a bit too good to be true, but a deal was a deal, and that was really the best that Adam and Mina could ask for. She sighed. “I hope you know what you’re doing.” WIth the felt point marker, she wrote -Agreed- on her poster board, the middle finger she’d crudely drawn vanishing through some sort of movie, saetimp magic.

“Woah wait...did you just censor her?” Adam tried to flip the bird experimentally but found his middle finger’s silhouette suddenly blurry. “Woah...ok like dick move but that is kinna cool...so what if I like….just dropped trow now there’d be a….”

-:O Focus monkey focus! Where is the grimoire of cinema secrets!-

Welp here goes. Adam put on a grim face, as if the Director had managed to pry from him one of humanity’s greatest secrets, the hidden repository of all human film knowledge. A dramatic inhale and exhale latter, the squeaking of a felt pelt forever put mortalkind at Saesese Bay’s mercy.

-https://tvtropes.org/-

Director Saesese Bay squinted curiously at the eldritch formula by which humans arbitrarily assigned spots in an infinite electronic space full of upsetting slander from people they’d never meet.

- O.O?? This is the grimoire?--

-Yup- Assured Adam. -In it you’ll find almost every thematic pattern outlined and described with examples and links to more patterns and the works they come from. This I promise-

Director Saesese Bay drew a properly devious mustache on their face and rubbed their gloves together in an appropriately machiavellian fashion while smirking at a nonexistent audience.

Adam knew he needed to move this along and more felt pen squeaking ensued.

-So what's the last scene director?-

Director Saesese Bay made a flourish and the alley was bathed in hazy golden light and a flurry on lens flares. The clarion notes of the Mission Impossible theme from nowhere, drums and bouncing synthesizer notes rippling across the now brilliantly lit night.

-The dramatic slow action exit!-

Adam turned to Mina, hair swishing with unnatural slowness as sunglasses appeared on his face from nowhere. “Well Mina...shall we?”

Mina almost wanted to ask what tv tropes were, but she didn’t want to invalidate Adam’s claim. She didn’t like when the saetimp gave itself a mustache, and she didn’t like the command of a slow and dramatic exit, but hadn’t that been how the night had been going, anyway? Lots of slow, dramatic sequences that, really, she just didn’t understand and probably never would.

Looking down at her hand, Mina looked at the pair of sunglasses in them. It was the middle of the night. Why did they need sunglasses? This was terribly ridiculous, and it didn’t make any sense at all, and she was reminded of the few instances that she’d complained during movies about the lack of believability, at least when compared to her own experiences.

“I suppose we shall.” In slow motion, Mina shook out her hair, the loose waves of it cascading around her shoulders, even though she just knew she’d put it up in a ponytail before they went on their hunt. The sunglasses went on in slow motion, and she gave Adam a nod in slow motion, and, together, the two of them walked out of the alley, their strides matched. Something exploded behind them. Mina flinched in slow motion but kept walking, and she and Adam walked away from the sound of a car alarm going off.

Eventually, when they could walk at a normal speed, Mina looked over at Adam and groaned. “I fucking detest that little monster.”

[misterllamawwama]

Sandsverse Scrolls I: Seymour, The Demigod Babyboy; The Dealer Of Sands

AKA what if sandsverse was a series of dungeon synth albums

1. Babyboy Seymour; The One Who Reaps The Dividend; Look At My Little Rump And My Cute Snout.

2. The First Dictum: Gerold

3. The First Dictum: My Insipid And Brutish Cosign Giuseppe (Don’t Forget To Gawk And Giggle And Show Your Love)

4. The First Dictum: The Building Of Great Palaces Beyond Counting: Working And Playing Suite

5. The First Dictum: Working Without Vigor; Playing Without Gaiety; The Holy Discipline

6. The First Dictum: The Great Snout Which Blows Forth Bountiful Futures

7. Seymours Lessons: Be Grateful For Meal, Like Giuseppe; Have A Small Ego And Live Life To Full

8. Godspeed We You Boys: A Rally Of Cosigns Suite, Chapter 1

9. Powers Shared And Magnified: A Rally of Cosigns Suite, Chapter 2

10. The North Answers The Call Of Tapir: A Rally Of Cosigns Suite, Chapter 3: The Finale (Bottoms Up And The Tapir Laughs)

11. Mother Fucker Contest (I Am Winning)

12. Dancing And Conga In Hot Desert Sun

13. Day Off With Cosign Giuseppe On The Sailing Ship

14. The Almighty Powers Of A Shrill Tapir Shriek

15. Wet-Sloppy Snout-Kisses

16. Fighting Giant Monkeys And Other Beastly Creatures

17. $500 Pounds Moneys For A Small Handful Of Quality Sands

18. Selling Of Sands; The Life Of Famous And Moneyed Boys.

19. I Was A God Of Destruction Long Before These Sands

20. As Seymour Staunchly Trudge Along, His Genius Mind Produce A Song; Because Poor Seym Has Naught To Do, He Thinks He Will Share Song With You.

21. Heed The Words Of This Humble BabyBoy

track listings for the other godspeed weyou boys to follow sometime. someone with actual talent pleaz take musical inspiration from my genius/shitpost