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wistfulrat · 4 years ago

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i am....wildly invested in this convo. OP i hope u don’t mind others chiming in bc this resonates so much.

im constantly mulling over the unforgivable curses in the wizarding world vs. the anglican xtian theology around unforgivable sins, post-war penance, jkr’s ambiguous as hell justice/law systems, and the different types of drarry fics that choose to deal with redemption as a character’s relationship to change as opposed to proximity to baseline goodness. bc you don’t have to ascribe to religious conceptions of grace in order to tease out those themes in your characters. honestly? i meant what i said in this post, that a shit ton of transgressive drarry fic is interesting bc they’re essentially socratic dialogues set in a love story.

as in, i think a lot of drarry writers (which includes the down-and-out trope) whether religious or not, bc they are compelled by an inherently anglican-shaped text (hp canon), are constantly responding to questions about deservedness, absolution, and grace. the entire premise of the h/d pairing pulls two literary foils together and asks for a reckoning and reconciliation—a collision, an aftermath, and recovery. and i think drarry writers thrive in that tension bc they’re interested in human longings to be good, free, desirable, wanted, forgiven, respected, seen but not hypervisible, left alone but not lonely. or at least, those seem to be driving themes.

we can talk about moral event horizons all day but i think drarry at its most nuanced is not actually about self-flagellation and “earning the reader’s sympathies” — it’s about the contradictions that exist in all humans who do shitty things. down-and-out draco then, doesn’t even always need a morally upright harry to save the villain because it’s not about contesting human worthiness at all. the fic trope seems set up to push back on the idea that a human can move from deserving of humane treatment to undeserving of humane treatment in the first place.

flannery o’connor said, “there is something in us that demands that what falls at least be offered the chance to be restored. the reader of today looks for this motion, but what he has forgotten is the cost” — she talks about the grotesque in southern literature, the christ-haunted south, and stories fixated on what many readers at the time considered ugly, irredeemable, fucked-up-beyond-repair characters. flannery’s writing focused on story arcs that humanized the worst of us by saying “yes, even they experience acts of grace and it is uncomfortable to witness that and you should wonder why you’re upset.”

now, as an indigenous woc whose people have been colonized to fuck and were almost wiped off the planet during WWII, like...of course i am hyper aware of that when im reading dracos characterization in fic. maybe it’s morally rigid or unfair, but i am looking for that rising and falling action anyway. that is not a xtian sentiment but an oppressed one. not because i need to be convinced of draco’s base humanity or goodness — but because rehabilitation comes at a personal and communal cost. i want to see that movement. as someone who lives in a place that was and is ravaged by war and militarization, i know that our relationships to oppressors are constantly shifting. our islands that were once carpet bombed and occupied by one imperial group were intermarrying with those same people only a decade later. how does that happen? on an interpersonal, communal, and cultural level? when does it become okay? the reality is, you can’t control human responses to that at all. the mess of post-war rebuilding for us was seeing that grace is as indiscriminate and random as violence. that anybody can receive and give it. that it’s not hinged on some arbitrary measure of morality — but it’s an experience that anyone can have. yes, even tragic posh racist shits who were indoctrinated by their fucked up parents.

and honestly? down-and-out draco is cathartic for that very reason. bc marginalized readers (or at least for me) want to see that in the fantasy world, there is a human possibility beyond repeating patterns of oppression. it’s not about wanting to make someone suffer gratuitously and publicly. mostly, it’s an escape into unreality: where a privileged people can be interested in real change, however unavailable that seems to be in real life.

Meta: Down-and-out Draco Malfoy in Drarry Fics

I’ve been thinking about the discussion of down-and-out Draco Malfoy trope in the bonus episode of GallaPlacidia’s Gallapod as part of the reflection on her Dad Says. Like a lot of thinking, because it’s probably my favourite Drarry trope?

I’m going to leave aside the parallels to history bits. I’m also going to leave aside where much smarter people than me have talked about how in the original HP series, forgiveness/redemption comes from a distinctly culturally Christian sensibility, because I think this is true AND that the trope also serves a narrative purpose in Drarry fics.

So here’s the scene: it’s the aftermath of a Wizarding War that destabilized their entire society. If a fic begins post-War, that is sort of the background regardless of how many years it has been. In most fics, there are Death Eaters that are going straight to Azkaban, no question. The question becomes what to do with people who are DE-adjacent. Usually in Drarry fics, it’s a reparations payment, possibly probation or house arrest, sometimes a work project, the loss of the use of magic or a wand and possibly exile. That’s the justice part of it.

Then there’s the social stigma part of it: people refusing to serve Draco in their shops, refusing to hire him and all the way up to vigilante justice. Harry Potter is a series that’s very much about good triumphing evil, so that is echoed post-War. JKR also wrote, intentionally or not, a very ruthless streak in Wizarding society even among “good” characters, so this is a little bit drawn out here.

But I think, even if the punishment is wildly unfair, this takes care of the societal part of crime and punishment. Adult Harry is a narrative moral compass a lot of the time, but when he rejects some excesses of black and white thinking and is able to shift from suspicion to compassion or indifference to an appreciation for people’s ability to change, he brings the fic back to centre.

Having evidence of a societal punishment in the world-building removes the burden from Harry to have to forgive Draco on behalf of everyone. It’s a matter of complicated, thorny, and often difficult interpersonal forgiveness but just that. They can grapple separately or together about what this means about the world they are in or in Draco’s case, may have been thrown out of.

But it also stops Harry, most of the time, from being the tool that metes out justice by himself. He is not the decider. There are times when he’s part of the apparatus of the Ministry as an Auror, but to my knowledge, it’s pretty rarely Harry’s choice whatever has come to pass even if he was able to testify at the Post-War trials.

Sometimes other characters are able to make their peace with Draco before Harry can bring himself to. Sometimes other characters can’t believe Harry would forgive Draco at all.

There’s a whole separate essay here someone could write about the fanon depictions of how that’s done and which characters are depicted as forgiving, whatever that may look like, but this is long enough! This is just a few thoughts that have been rattling around my brain that got way too long!

#drarry theory #fic theory #OP is goat for opening this discussion #also that gallapod was ace as well #txt

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gch1995 · 3 years ago

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Why do you keep starting discourses in pro Jedi posts? Did you ever think that maybe the OP doesn't want to see several people (because you also ask other antis to jump on the argument) suddenly shit on their posts? Especially since you're not actually open for a friendly discussion because you think only your opinions are valid and the other side is saying nonsense? OPs are actual people yk...

I can stop doing that. However, your posts also get 400+ likes and reblogs in agreement with you on tumblr. Whenever our side of the fandom tries to look up Anakin Skywalker on tumblr, none of us can come across a post that’s not decrying him as an “entitled, narcissistic, and petty brat” for not falling in line with his abusers and taking their shit like “the good victim” Obi Wan Kenobi. We can’t come across posts that aren’t defending the Jedi Council, Obi Wan, Yoda and all the adults who had power over him and took care of him from the time he was a child under their care.

Was Anakin selfish and wrong in his desperation to avoid potential abandonment from Padme and become a coward by participating in Palpatine’s execution of Order 66 against the Jedi Order and Republic as a weapon? Absolutely. Did he deserve punishment for those crimes? Absolutely.

However, he also had absolutely every reason to not trust Obi Wan, Yoda, and the Jedi Council who had power over him as masters/grandmasters because for the last 14 years, they had done absolutely everything in their power to earn distrust and resentment. They had proven themselves to be moral hypocrites who were only pro-democracy and anti-violence when it wasn’t risky to be. They had spent most of that time openly emotionally/psychologically abusing, emotionally neglecting, endangering, oppressing, and othering Anakin over those 14 years.

Even Obi Wan’s genuinely kind praise of Anakin in RotS for the first time in 14 years seemed kind of like a knee-jerk response to feeling guilty over just before previously accusing and victim blaming Anakin for “using his friendship with the Chancellor” to try to get a seat as master on the Council, which he didn’t. Even if he had, though, Obi Wan and the Council of adults who raised him from between the ages of 10-18 years of age were the ones who allowed and encouraged that friendship to develop between Anakin and the Chancellor from the time he was a child under their care in the first place for their own benefits, even though they knew he was shady. They would be the ones responsible for Anakin growing attached to him, not Anakin himself.

While we know Palpatine was the bad guy, Anakin didn’t know that until the end of RotS because he was grooming him, and even after he found out in that pivotal moment where he had to choose between Mace and Palpatine, Palpatine was grooming him. From his perspective, Palpatine was the only adult he grew up with who was ever consistently kind to him.

Additionally, aside from Palpatine’s years of grooming already majorly compromising his emotional/psychological agency, the high Council with power over Anakin also pushed him into a position where his agency was severely compromised to safely be able to do the right thing in RotS in that moment where he has to pick between helping Mace kill Palpatine or side with Palpatine. Say, he picks Mace Windu over Palpatine in that scene in Revenge of the Sith, helps him kill Palpatine. Both he and the Jedi Order are still going down because Yoda and Mace were using him as a mole/scape goat to try and take down the head of the Senate without the entire Senate’s consent or knowledge. Sure, Anakin and the Council knew he was a Sith Lord at this point, though not about Order 66, but the Senate did not know because Yoda wanted the Council to keep them out of the loop. That’s going to look really bad to the rest of the Senate.

Anakin should have told Padme about what the Council was making him do, but he also only got this mission like two days after returning home from battle. Padme also had a tendency to be kind of willfully naive in regards to the harsh realities of life until they affected her and/or the people she loved every time he did try to reach out to her about those things, such as his nightmares of her dying in childbirth, his desire to leave the Jedi Order, and his hatred of himself for being capable of committing violence in a blind rage.

When he had tried to tell her he wanted to leave the Order before the war started, Padme encouraged Anakin to stay with the Order. Upon first reuniting in AotC, she was so willfully blind to the harsh truth of reality in regards to Anakin that she didn’t acknowledge how much of a red flag it was that he didn’t seem to be able to handle being a Jedi after he slaughtered an entire village of Tusken Raiders in a blind heat of passion for vengeance over his mother’s death, and seemed to hate himself for being capable of doing that afterwards.

Anakin could have and should have taken that risk to insist upon telling her no and the truth about Palpatine, regardless of the circumstances, but the Council, slavery, and Palpatine had compromised his agency to feel safe being honest and leaving the Jedi Order, anyway. Additionally, he had kids on the way with Padme who would be negatively affected if it got out that he was married to the Council when they ruined his public reputation and/or tried to take them away. He wasn’t just in danger for risking himself. There was a war going on in Revenge of the Sith. He couldn’t just leave anymore.

To be honest, though, while Padme was rather willfully naive to the harsh truth of reality when he tried to be honest with her, which inadvertently made Anakin start distrusting her, too, she really holds no sort of direct accountability for contributing to Anakin’s fall because she wasn’t outright abusing, oppressing him, or limiting his options with power over him. By the time RotS came along, it seems like she had finally gotten on board with Anakin’s desire to leave the Order after the war was over. She just didn’t want for any suspicions to rise that would ruin her public reputation. She also should have done more about trying to free Shmi because she was groomed by Republic officials her whole life too, and she wasn’t in contact with Anakin again for the next ten years. It wasn’t right, but I do get it.

Really, aside from Palpatine’s deliberate grooming of him for the dark side, even if inadvertently, it’s mostly Yoda and the Council who are responsible for directly compromising Anakin’s agency to ever feel safe choosing morally better options because they are the ones who raised him, the ones who had power over him in the organization, and the ones who abused that power over him to control him, limit his options, and oppress him in their organization. I’ll admit that Obi Wan and most of the Jedi also had rather compromised agency, too, but just like Anakin, they still had the option to take the risk to do better, and all the ones who were masters on the Council and/or responsible for raising Anakin had positions of power over him. Thus, they still had better chances of being okay openly defying Yoda and/or Palpatine than him. Not to mention, they weren’t being groomed by Palpatine, and allowed for it to happen to Anakin.

I just don’t understand how in 2022, so many fans still can’t admit that, while Anakin isn’t entirely innocent for his crimes either since he did know better and his motives were selfish, it’s also not possible for him to be held entirely accountable for his crimes either because Darth Vader never would have existed at all if he hadn’t been a lifelong victim of systematic abuse, grooming for weaponry, and oppression with limited to nonexistent options for healthy support and safe escape from the Jedi Order and the Sith.

Yeah, I know being abused as a kid doesn’t automatically excuse becoming a mass murderer and war criminal as an adult. However, when abuse, grooming, oppression, and limited healthy support are also this ongoing pattern throughout the whole life of a victim who eventually becomes a perpetrator as an adult under the command and/or influence of those abusive, corrupt, hypocritical, manipulative, oppressive, and unhelpful authority figures because safe opportunities to do the right thing and/or escape to anything better is always incredibly limited to nonexistent because of them, it’s also not fair to blame it all on the lifelong victim who became a perpetrator as an adult for becoming that way in their desperation to survive under that systematic abuse and oppression from which escape is always incredibly risky. They should be worthy of getting diminished capacity sentences for their crimes, and the abusive and oppressive authority figures who created and/or contributed to enabling that compromised agency in the life of their victim who grew up to became a perpetrator after cracking under the pressure should also be held accountable, and that would be Yoda, Obi Wan, the other masters on the Council with power over Anakin, and Palpatine.

That compromised agency is where the tragic hero/tragic villain part of Anakin’s story comes from. It’s why most of us are able to see any hope for him at all, in spite of all the horrible things he’s done. Aside from being his son, it’s the reason why Luke is able to feel sympathy for Vader at all, in spite of all the horrible things that he’s done that he would have reason to hate him for. Yes, he became a villain, but only because there never was a fair chance for him to find any sort of safety not being one under all that systematic abuse, neglect, and oppression.

Yeah, I know most of the other Jedi didn’t go dark, but that’s only because they didn’t know enough to understand that the Jedi Order’s practices, “therapy,” and way of life was abusive, oppressive, and unhealthy.

Anakin knew it was unhealthy, so the Council felt they had to prove him wrong over and over again by making him feel like he was “greedy,” “selfish,” and “wrong” for having valid concerns about loved ones safety, valid desires for healthy emotional support and validation, valid desires for personal freedom to have his own life and close relationships, and valid desires to help the slaves on the outer rims, and eventually betrayed them to join the enemy for the next 23 years when all his options for healthy support away from Palpatine seemed exhausted. Yes, after getting high on the dark side, he did stop trying, and that is partly on him, but it’s also on the Jedi Council masters and Sidious for compromising his agency to ever feel safe doing any better.

Dooku knew enough to eventually realize the Jedi way was hypocritical and unhealthy, so Yoda and the Council felt they had to prove to him how wrong he was for wanting better treatment, and eventually he turned on them because, even though he did come from a wealthy family, he also knew that just leaving the Jedi Order without something else to fall back on would carry a risk of ruining his public reputation and there was no other safe way for him to be a force user, so he went dark because, even if Sidious didn’t really give a fuck about him and was teaching him unhealthy ways to deal with his emotions, at the very least, he treated them as valid, rather than just denying their existence altogether. That’s the whole reason why Palpatine was able to get to Anakin. He knew what it meant to have healthy emotional support and catharsis at one point in his life Then, the Jedi Council taught him that his feelings were entirely invalid, so he went to Palpatine because he treated him with some empathy.

Obi Wan and Yoda attempted to do the exact same thing with Luke in the OT movies of proving him wrong for having normal reactions to their deceptive, emotionally abusive, emotionally manipulative, emotionally oppressive, and narrow-minded beliefs, methods, and practices that they could never admit were wrong. They allowed him to face Vader alone to punish him for taking a break from training when his friends were in danger like less than a month into training him. What great teachers…Yet, Luke ended up being the hero for having enough self-awareness and self-confidence to tell them off for trying to mold him into a perfect weapon, and saved the day by just being himself. Luckily, he grew up having a normal childhood and good guardians who taught him not to sacrifice his moral integrity and personhood to fit in.

@tragicfantasy-girl

#jedi council fuckery #star wars anon #anakin skywalker #darth vader #star wars #star wars prequels #anti jedi apologists #yoda critical #obi wan critical

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quarterdollar · 3 years ago

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deltarune discussion under the cut so don't read if you don't wanna spoil the ending

i’m animorphing into matpat and also i think this is obvious but i genuinely don’t think ralsei is a darkner trapped and lonely in the dark world, he’s from kris and susie’s world and is willingly staying there. why do we need to gather up the rest of the citizens (who are toys and playing cards in the light world) after returning to the closet the next day? why is ralsei a goat monster when everyone else represents some sort of inanimate object? most importantly i’m remembering asriel’s fight in Undertale in which is super-powered form is clearly meant to invoke the fantastical, OP self-insert a young child would create. Ralsei claiming to be the “prince” of a castle populated entirely by toys and games calls to mind similar childlike behavior. the dark world is undoubtedly physically real, but Ralsei could be contributing to make it so. compounded with Kris being suggested to be The Knight, you have these two characters with a prince-and-knight motif creating worlds of darkness essentially by Playing Pretend Really Hard.

kris is seemingly capable of opening dark fountains in the light world, and gathers up random objects into balls of their own volition independent of the player. i'm thinking that they know those objects are people the same way that Ralsei does, and that the two are not and have never been strangers. I think Kris and Ralsei are connected on a deeper level than we're lead to believe and that Ralsei has some sort of ulterior motive. It may align with the Knight's or it may not, considering he actively discourages the creation of the fountains yet stays in the Dark World indefinitely...I'm curious as to how the Ralsei/Asriel parallels are going to play out.

#shitpost #deltarune spoilers

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thebigfailwhale · 5 years ago

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Background history on the ACE OPS

“So I tried to find the Aesop fables that the ACE OPS team are connected to and write a bit about them so that maybe they can be better understood. Hope you enjoy!

Small disclaimer: I tried to write this as comprehensible as possible but as English is still my third English there might be some mistakes in my writing, so I apologize for that. Also I don’t do any studies related to studying reading/writing so if I missed anything obvious, I’m also sorry. Allright, let’s get to it!

Clover Ebi

Seemingly the team leader with a four-leaf clover pin, a horseshoe, a rabbitsfoot and what looks like a fishing pole weapon. With this knowledge it seems his origins can be partly found in the fable. “A Fisherman’s Good Luck”.

“A fisherman had been a long while at work without catching anything, and so in great trouble and despair, he resolv’d to take up his tackle, and be gone: but in that very instant a great fish leapt into the boat, and by this providence he made a tolerable day on’t.”

Now, here’s the kicker, there is also a fable named “The fisherman and his Flute”:

“It tells of a fisherman piping to the fish to make them dance. When they will not oblige, he catches them in a net and mocks their death agonies: “Silly creatures, you would not dance for me before and now that I am no longer playing you do so.” In this context the fable is given the political meaning that those who refuse a benefit when it is first offered will gain nothing by acting as asked when constrained to”

This fable makes for an interesting possibility in the future. Maybe Clover is connected to Salem? Maybe he strives to be better than anyone, no matter the costs to anyone but himself? I have no clue, but it gives us some fun points to speculate on.

Lastly, with all the imagery associated to luck, I wouldn’t be surprised if Clover’s semblance is the opposites of Qrow, where he always gets lucky. This would also be an interesting confrontation between the 2, if something like that ever happens.

Edit: My friend jonthejournalist found that there is a god in the Japanese Pantheon that’s called “Ebisu”. This is the god of Fishermen and luck, whcih explains his last name, and has more callbacks to the fisherman and luck being part of his character.

Harriet “Hare” bree:

Harriet is presumably named after the Hare from the Aesop’s fable “The Tortoise and the Hare”. Many of you have probably heard of this one, as it’s a very popular children’s fable. It’s about a Hare who makes fun of a Tortoise, who challenges him to a race. The Hare, very confidently, takes a nap in the middle of the race, and thus loses the race.

Combined with vine’s “not everything’s a competition” I can guess she’s very competition driven and always thrives to be the best, which is why she’s a part of the ACE OPS.

Elm ederne

The buff lady with the big hammer. Elm’s fables origins I believe is in the Aesop fable “The elm and the Vine”. As elm trees are usually used to support vines, it is usually taken as a symbol of marriage. A poem from the 20th century about The Elm and The Vine:

“Ageinst him where he sat

A goodly Elme with glistring grapes did growe: which after hee

Had praysed, and the vyne likewyse that ran uppon the tree:

But if (quoth hee) this Elme without the vyne did single stand,

It should have nothing (saving leaves) to bee desyred: and

Ageine if that the vyne which ronnes uppon the Elme had nat

The tree to leane unto, it should uppon the ground ly flat.

Yit art not thou admonisht by example of this tree

To take a husband, neyther doost thou passe to maryed bee.”

this poem means that the Elm and the vine need eachother, the Elm for the company and the Vine to grow up it and get its full potential.

This leads me to believe that Elm is the backbone of the team, the support and friendly, chipper team member. And seeing ep 2. Makes it even more clear.

Vine Zeki

Could be the vine opposing the Elm tree, or Elm Ederne. Which I guess would make them a couple or married?? Besides this the only other fables I can link to Vine would be “The goat and the Vine”:

“When a goat starts eating a vine's leaves and shoots, the vine retorts that it will still have enough juice left to produce grapes, the wine from which will be poured over it when the goat is sacrificed.”

The morale of this fable is “Ingratitude perverts all the measures of religion and society, by making it dangerous to be charitable and good natur’d.”

This does seem to correspond with his monk like attitude and look, but there’s nothing more I can add to this now. (Also Zeki is a Turkish name for boys, meaning “ God remembers).

Marrow Amin

So according to a tweet by Kuppa137 on a twitter conversation with Larissa Angus (Senior Character Concept Artist) he seems to be based on the fable “The dog and its reflection.”

“A dog that is carrying a stolen piece of meat looks down as it is walking beside or crossing a stream and sees its own reflection in the water. Taking that for another dog carrying something better, it opens its mouth to attack the "other" and in doing so drops what it was carrying. An indication of how old and well-known this story was is given by an allusion to it in the work of the philosopher Democritus from the 5th century BCE. Discussing the foolish human desire for more, rather than being content with what one has, he describes it as being "like the dog in Aesop's fable".”

I also think that there could be some correlation to Marrow and the fable “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”:

“The tale concerns a shepherd boy who repeatedly tricks nearby villagers into thinking a wolf is attacking his town's flock. When a wolf does appear and the boy again calls for help, the villagers believe that it is another false alarm and the sheep are eaten by the wolf.”

In episode 2, when the team meets the ACE OPS, we can hear Marrow talking about the second time he got banned, and before he can tell us about the third time, Clover tells them to cut the Chatter. This reminds me a bit about the boy who cried wolf, because the morale of that story: “Liars are not believed even when they speak the truth.” Could come into play later in the series.

So that was my little analysis on the ACE OPS team, hope you enjoyed it, and I hope I’m not completely wrong! Thanks for taking the time to read this!!

#rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby volume 7 spoilers #ace ops #Marrow Amin #Harriet Bree #Vine Zeki #Elm Ederne #Clover Ebi #my posts

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captainjimothycarter · 4 years ago

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A very unfortunate Marvel comic states that where Steve is, the Avengers will form. So even when he was trapped in 1587, the Avengers sort of came to being. they just appear. So Steve, 1940s time travel, changing the timeline, and the realization that the Avengers are just sort of coming into being. Natasha with the comics origin of a 1920s birth, WWII fighter, Clint the runaway carny kid, Maximoff twins the children of holocaust victims etc. Steve changes the world, and they still stay.

I fail to see how that’s an unfortunate comic because I am in love with that idea? Steve is like hopping through time because he wants privacy. He gets maybe a day before POOF there’s Tony whose naked and clearly was in a shower beside him and just as confused. It just becomes a ridiculous thing then. But let’s go with this idea that Steve doesn’t know this? This is gonna be butchered and my own interpretations and I am so sorry OP.

Steve went back to 1946. Shortly after the events of S2 where Peggy went back to the SSR in Brooklyn.

The question of time travel had come up quite a few times when the dust had settled. Steve couldn’t tell you how many hours he spent discussing things with Bruce. Maybe the man had known what Steve would do, but he didn’t exactly say anything when they’d embraced and the man held on for a fraction of a second too long.

There was no explanation for this, then. Well, there was. Peggy had told Steve he was a carer, nurturer and it stemmed from the fact of growing up sick and wanting to do more. Even when he wanted to rest, he had to do something. Even when Steve was playing her househusband, he was doing something. Even when Steve pulled the mask back on for a mission here under her insistence, he was changing some events in time. In their timeline, that is. [Not that Peggy understood much of this time travel business.]

That being said, she had to admit this was quite off. She knew the name of Steve’s team. Of his family, his friends. Tony, who was Howard’s son [something she struggled to wrap her head around.] Clint, a guy who grew up in the circus and fought with a bow and arrow? Natasha, a product of the red room and being kidnapped. [She knew about that and with Steve’s help, had already started to get involved with searching.] Then there was Bruce? A man who was part...monster and part human? Thor, who was a God.

Not that Peggy didn’t believe Steve, it was just...hard to think of all this insane stuff so many years in the future, but that was Steve. Her Steve, coming home with an insane story she had no choice but to believe.

And the evidence was right before her.

Before both of them. Natasha Romanoff. The name had crossed Peggy’s desk in some small memo, something she almost overlooked. The second she’d read it, she called Steve to come to her office, damn the SSR, and what they thought.

Steve was there, shield and all despite how he insisted he was putting it down, but he was ready to fight. Rather than was Jack or Kirby or a Hydra bastard who won’t go down.

Side eyeing the few agents just staring at him, Steve frowned at the paper that Peggy pushed towards him. He read the sentence. A document, a birth certificate that had been recovered from what they thought used to be an old Red Room facility.

The question was, were they meant to find it, or was it placed there on purpose?

Regardless -

“I’m going,” Steve told her, sitting down heavily, the chair creaking as he stared at the name on the paper, unblinking. Natasha’s last words echoed in his head. He could do it. He could give her a better life.

“Go where exactly, Steve? The SSR has accommodated the building. There’s nothing left.” Peggy was trying to be understanding of a situation she didn’t quite understand, but she also knew her Steve. He had that look that told her he wasn’t going to listen to reason.

“I know them too. I know her. I have to try something. See something the agents won’t,” he insisted, rubbing at his temples. “Bucky, then Natasha. The Maximoff twins...” He muttered off a series of names Peggy didn’t fully understand either.

“Okay, I’m going too.” Steve wouldn’t have it any other way.

There was something. Natasha. The familiar redhead curled under a floorboard, skin, and bones, and sickly. So sickly, it made a childhood Steve look healthy. She’d heard the SSR coming and hid under the floorboards. The agents, the idiots had missed everything. Peggy quietly chewed them out while Steve and Bucky had pulled Natasha out and got her warm and boarding the plane. Least the agents had something to look sheepish about.

“She has no family,” Steve said, looking at the sleeping Natasha in the hospital bed. “Her parents were killed. If we put her in the system, they’ll find her. She has things to unlearn.”

Peggy stood beside him, holding his hand and let Steve speak. “I’m aware. I read the reports. I’ve dealt with them before.” She paused and squeezed his hand. “We’ll take her in. We have no other choice.”

That’s how Natasha came back into Steve’s life, from a scared child who refused to sleep or eat without orders, to a happy, bouncing kid within a few months time.

It was Peggy’s turn to wake her fiance up at 2 in the morning, whispering in his ear as she settled on the bed.

Steve had rolled over, frowning. Peggy was still dressed for work. She’d just gotten home. She looked exhausted. No, it looked like she’d been crying.

“Pegs? What’s wrong? Darling.” He sat up and turned the light on, bundling Peggy into his arms. Seeing one of the strongest people in his life breakdown like this just practically broke his heart.

Peggy held him close, a reminder that Steve was alive, he was here, he was hers. She couldn’t risk affording to fall apart. “I got a call from Dugan right before I was leaving...” She told him about the call. How Dugan told her about their recent patrols had lead to finding kid’s footprints everywhere. How it took them weeks to find the kids. Kids, Pegs. Kids! Kids with weird powers. Speed and...telekinesis. They called themselves Wanda and Pietro.

She recognized the name almost at once, whispering their surname because Steve had told her so much. They were victims of being in a camp and forgotten about when everyone got out. The system missed them because they were kids. They’d been barely surviving these last year or so on their own. The Howling Commandos were flying in now.

There was no question about it. They were taking them in. They were going to raise them with Natasha. They were going to do the right thing, even if it was hard.

They’d have to move, get a bigger place. And if Steve thought what was happening was going to happen, they’d damn well need a farm.

Maybe he could get Peggy a fuzzy cow. She always laughed at those...

It was unnerving to watch the people you once considered family sitting across you as kids, calling you dad. Dad. He liked that name. The sediment warmed his heart. Bucky had to move in just to help with the kids: Wanda, Pietro, and Natasha. Peggy was busy full time at Shield and Steve always was there for her and how busy she was.

They did wound up moving to a good section of land in the country side. It was a bit longer trip to the city, but it fit their lifestyle. It was perfect.

Until Howard barged into their home, one Sunday morning, Peggy was sitting on the counter, watching Steve cook breakfast and nursing her coffee in the early slumbering morning. The kids had yet to get up yet.

“Jesus Christ,” Peggy cursed, nearly dropping her coffee when her best friend barged in, a wild look in his eyes. He looked frantic, in tears. “Howard, what’s wrong? Are you okay? Where’s Jarvis?”

She sat the man down and kneeled before him, Steve putting the omlettes aside to kneel on Howard’s other side.

The man opened and closed his mouth several times before he could speak. “I have a son.”

Steve’s eyes widened, sharing a look with Peggy. No. Tony wasn’t supposed to be born for – god a damn good while. But far as he knew Tony was Howard’s only child.

“You have a son?” Peggy whispered, running her hand through Howard’s thick hair to keep him calm. “How did you find out? Did she call?”

Howard’s head shook. “No. I-I-I...She dropped him off this morning with a note. Said she didn’t want to be a mother. I left him with Jarvis. I-I didn’t know what else to do. I-I don’t know what to do.”

“I think you know what you need to do,” Steve said gentle as possible, clapping his friend on the shoulder. Howard’s cheeks burned a bright pink. “You need to step up. You can’t let Jarvis care for this kid. We’ll help you. What’s his name?”

“Tony.”

Steve stilled, feeling Peggy’s eyes on him. Impossible. The Avengers were slowly forming together.

Two years.

That’s how long it took for the circus to come into town, something Steve had been waiting for, in the back of his mind. In those two years, he’d started home schooling the kids with Bucky’s help. They’d built a beautiful farm with two fluffy cows, a herd of goats under Bucky’s insistence, and a large garden that Steve shared with the neighborhood.

When he’d first saw the flyer and a flash of blonde and ginger hair running through town putting them up, Steve had his suspicions. It wasn’t until he snuck into the camp sight that he saw them. Sure enough there were the Barton Brothers. They were practically kids. He’d never met Barney beforehand, but he knew how important Barney was to Clint, even if he insisted they were bad for each other.

“So what are you going to do?” Peggy asked, sipping on a red wine when Steve told her about who he saw. “We can’t leave them there obviously. Not when it’s gonna end bad for them.”

Steve paused and considered it, sharing a look with Bucky who shrugged. He watched Natasha trade a card with Wanda, listening to Pietro pouting about losing at poker. Damn Howard for teaching them. Speaking of – Howard was somewhere in their house putting a baby Tony to bed. The man had stayed far too late again.

“I’m gonna kidnap them.”

All Peggy could do was smirk at Steve. She expected nothing less than the dramatics.

Turns out, kidnapping the Barton brothers were easier said than done. There was fights, scuffing. Steve wounded up with a broken nose from Barney’s elbow and Peggy had bite marks on her wrist from Clint. And the kids learned a new series of curse words.

It wasn’t until Clint saw it was Captain America saving him, did he comply. Because the circus life sucked, but they were better off anywhere than here.

“I told you he’d save us!” Clint told Barney smugly as they sat in the back of the car. Peggy and Steve’s smile were hidden in the dark as they drove without their lights on.

“Gotta say...I didn’t think it happen. You’re still wrong. He didn’t save us. You agreed to go with him.” Barney pointed out and Clint huffed.

“You can just get out. I’m staying with them.”

“And let you have all the fun? No way.”

Legally, on paper, Howard and Peggy had worked so that it said that they were the adopted parents of the Maximoff Twins, Natasha, and now the Barton Brothers. A full house on a chaotic day. Unofficially, they were Tony’s godparents under the Jarvis’ of course.

Steve was still trying to figure this out as the years melted by and his and Peggy’s work as Director [unoffical for Steve], piled on. The Avengers were together, to a point. They were coming to him. They were finding him. He got to make due with his promise of giving them a better life.

Even if it was an insane life.

The last he expected was to literally run into Bruce.

That is to say a toddler Bruce Banner who had a series of bruises that looked like a handprint on his sides and wearing only a diaper.

“What the hell?” Steve breathed, kneeling down to pick up Bruce. He couldn’t explain how, but he knew that this was Bruce Banner. Maybe it was the eyes. It was late at night, Peggy had gone home an hour ago. He’d told her he needed to finish up some report for Phillips, then he’d be home.

“Where did you come from, hm?” Steve asked the crying toddler, rubbing over his back and rocking him side to side. He wrapped the toddler in his jacket and cradled him, frowning as he came down to the labs to find a man passed out, a bottle in hand. He could smell the alcohol from here. Hearing Bruce’s whimper from under his jacket told Steve all he needed to know.

Peggy wasn’t fond of being woken up at 2 in the morning but for this, she’d give it an excuse. Howard and her met Steve at HQ, where he sat locked in her office, bouncing the sleepy Bruce. She met Steve with clothes and a bottle for Bruce, courtesy of Howard. Howard had gone straight to the labs to ‘discuss’ things with their newest scientist.

“I found her,” Peggy mused, flipping a page over to show Steve. “That’s his wife. This little one’s mother.” Her tone said all. And Steve’s heart clenched. His mother had been in the same situation.

“Pegs, its...Bruce.” Was all he whispered as the toddler guzzled the bottle down, like it was his last meal and knowing his situation, God knows when he’d eaten last.

“Your...friend? The...?” She eyed Bruce, skeptical.

“Not now, but later he will be. Or would be. There’s an accident, attempting to recreate my serum but I-I won’t...allow it. We can’t allow him to go back. The systems messed up...”

Peggy just wore a fond smile, kissing her husband on the lips. “What’s one more, Steven? He needs our help and we’re not going to let him go into a system that will hurt him. Well, come here, Brucey.”

There was one more.

Just one more and Steve was on edge. Thor. How would he show up? How would they come together?

Wanda and Pietro had been growing in their powers and gotten ahold of them. Natasha's skills from the Red Room had proved useful in many situations but she never used them for selfish needs. Clint and Barney were as siblings went, bickering, but a new love for each other was there and appreciation. Their relationship forever changed. Plus, Clint’s obvious crush on Natasha was adorable. Bruce and Tony took to one another like fish to water. Tony was obsessed with his new friend and wanted to show him everything. Often, they’d find the pair curled up in the farm house, amongst the hay, asleep.

Howard, as Steve had seen was an amazing parent. Steve had made sure of it. He wasn’t going to abuse this Tony and ruin him. Howard had even given up alcohol. Not only given it up, but Stark Industries focused on the enviornment, not selling weapons. Steve was sure Peggy had nothing to do with that.

They were all together, another family, but in a new sense. Just the question was...where was Thor?

The avengers was incomplete without him.

The answer came one winter night. There was a storm outside, thunder and lightenign clashing across the sky. There was something odd about it. That made Steve’s hair stand on end. He’d sent the kids to bed early, his tone telling them not to question him. He refused to move away from the window, holding a coffee mug and staring at the flashing clouds.

“Is that him?” Peggy asked, layin a hand on the small of his back, rubbing in small circles. “Is his arrival always so...much?”

Steve laughed, unable to help himself. “You have no idea.” He kissed her head, stroking her newly graying hair away from her face. “And yes. That’s him. I’m sure of it. We just don’t know...how he will -”

Steve’s answer came with a lightning strike that blew out the side of the barn. Bright lightning filled the sky and he had to cover his eyes, cursing. Grabbing at his shield, he ran out to the smoldering barn, trying not to think about how he just finished painting it.

Peggy was right behind him, her nightgown fluttering in the wind. She gasped at the...teenager passed out amongst the burning hay. Clearly, something different about him was a god. The hammer that he so carried laid beside him. Steve tensed before picking it up, feeling a shiver run down his spine at the power pulsing through him.

“Here,” he whispered to Peggy without thinking, passing it to him. “Don’t let the kids find that or Shield. We have to keep this under wraps. We don’t know how he’ll be.”

Not hearing Peggy speak, he turned around to see Peggy holding the manner with a confused look, it only grew at Steve’s bright smile as he hoisted the God in his arms.

“What? It’s just a hammer.”

“No, no darling it’s far from just a hammer. Only those worthy can hold it. I knew it.”

Peggy wanted to be annoyed at Steve for not telling her but instead, she laughed.

Steve can’t say he was surprised when a familiar figure appeared in his bedroom where Thor laid asleep. He’d just stepped out to check on the kids and Peggy [who was now asleep on the pull out couch], stopping to grab a wet cloth to dab at Thor’s skin.

“Frigga.” He whispered, pausing at the sight of her. She smiled, as if greeting a friend before hugging him tightly as one would.

“My Captain,” she breathed, cupping his face as they pulled away. “Do not look surprise. Of course, I remember you and know what you have done and will be and what you are doing now.” That didn’t surprise Steve, the blonde just shaking his head. “Thank you for looking after my son. We are...unsure of what happened, not quite yet.”

She sat on the bed and held Thor’s hand, Steve sitting beside the bed. He looked up to see a sleepy Peggy in the doorway. Standing up, he brought her inside and sat her down. “Peggy, this is Frigga. Thor’s mother.”

“I’m starting to wonder if I’m not the one that was frozen and this is all an illusion,” she murmured, still accepting the hug from Frigga.

“The great Carter. You are as great as a warrior as time as whispered about. Lady Sif has spoken of great things about you and how she was with you during the War.” At their confusion, Frigga did not elaborate. “Can I ask a favor of you Great Carter and Captain Rogers? There is...There are situations going place in Asgard. Situations I do not need my son getting involved in. He will be safe here, on Midgard for some time. He will have access to his powers, to his divinity, but he will be safe. Heimdall will watch him. But I do wish for him to be under your eye. You will protect him and he can learn lots from you.”

How could they say no to her? That was...a sin, if you asked Steve. How could he say no? Thor needed their help. They were going to help.

No matter what it took.

“Of course,” Peggy whispered. “He’ll be safe here.”

They were together. The Avengers. Their makeshift family was together and growing, and changing time. The circumstances were different, but Steve promised himself he’d give them a good life. He just didn’t think it be like this.

Where he was their parental figure, where he was with Peggy, the love of his life, owning a farm, helping Peggy with SHIELD, helping raise a family.

They were together. The Avengers would have the life each one deserved that didn’t mean a life of harship and recovery.

#Steggy #Post Endgame AU #Found Family aspect #just Steve is their father #This is like 3k #Wt #Wtf #I love it #I hope its what you wanted #Steve is a father #Peggy is a mother #Adopted Avengers

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autumnblogs · 4 years ago

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Day 9: Troll Time

Time to get trolled.

https://homestuck.com/story/1527

This is the first of the events that I’ve noticed enough to talk about in Homestuck that alludes to the Alpha Kids. While Roxy on the other side of the scratch is the one actually responsible for the disappearance of Jaspers and the Pumpkins, at this point in the story, we have some pretty good suspects for exactly who disappeared both of them.

I could see myself guessing that Jade’s penpal is one of the trolls, but it wouldn’t be my first guess. I’m going to pay close attention to all of the events on one side of the scratch that are caused by the other side of the scratch, because my theory is that a Scratched Universe, more than anything else, is really terminated rather than truly being retroactively erased. Too much doesn’t make sense from a causal perspective (not necessarily from a temporally linear one) if a scratched universe is actually erased entirely, or even if it is closed off from the rest of existence - why can information enter and leave a Scratched Universe at all from an outside perspective, for example?

Are Side A Side B teleporters, appearifiers, and so on and so on, loopholes? Maybe it has something to do with the nature of Void, the Furthest Ring, and their seeming exclusion from the rules the rest of Paradox Space is required to follow.

The Doylist answer, which in Homestuck is also allowed to be the Watsonian answer, might be that while a Scratched Universe is *materially* erased, information about it is still permitted to propagate through narrative contrivances such as the author. Fenestrated planes can easily be considered narrative contrivances, but if we use this as our theory, it seems like Appearifiers and Sendificators would also have to be Narrative Contrivances (which I’m going to spell with a capital NC from here on out.) I... actually don’t have a problem with this hypothesis, so it’s what I’m going with. Also, since a friend of mine who’s reading this liveblog asked, I’m going to post a link to the tvtropes article on those two terms at the start of this paragraph for anyone who doesn’t know what I’m talking about.

Perhaps, given the proclivity for the Void to preserve lost information in the form of dreams and memories, and given the nature of Space as the medium through which events normally propagate (as well as the fundamental medium of storytelling from which all other storytelling mediums derive their medium-ness), and their proximity on the Aspect Wheel, Narrative Contrivances are objects which have are shared between these two domains - as objects associated with the Void, Narrative Contrivances are permitted to follow their own set of rules which to someone outside of the universe are obvious, but to anyone inside the universe are a complete black box, and as objects associated with Space, Narrative Contrivances function as a means by which to propagate information in such a way as to preserve causality, the logical topology of Paradox Space, and with them, the self-fulfilling nature of Paradox Space. They allow the world-line of objects travelling through the narrative to remain consistent, even when they would violate material geographical conventions.

This description of Narrative Contrivances makes me think a lot of things could be Narrative Contrivances, like First Guardians, for example, who can violate the speed of light.

This is all a lot of silly bullshit, but it’s fun to come up with theories to describe and predict Homestuck (and future Homestuck works, even though I’m not terribly invested in them.)

This has been a long Cold Open. More after the break.

https://homestuck.com/story/1529

John gets cyberbullied!

Man. Cyberbullying has really gone from being an individual concern to being an apocalyptic issue. Who knew? Maybe in writing the trolls and their cyberbullying as being inextricable from the apocalypse, Andrew Hussie predicted this.

I’m not trying to understate John’s issues by comparing them to stuff like massive social media disinformation campaigns - receiving Death Threats as a thirteen year old is terrifying, and on a general level, the fact that this kind of horrible shit was commonplace in the earliest days of social media should have been a big indicator that what was yet to come was going to be so, so much worse.

I’m also not trying to jocularly exaggerate the threat that almost completely lawless social media has on society. If you haven’t already, check out the excellent documentary The Social Dilemma, and then delete your Facebook account if you haven’t already (and since you’re reading my extremely anti-capitalist anti-patriarchy liveblog on tumblr, you’ve probably already done that. If you have, good for you!) And your twitter for good measure, come on, you know who you are. Mabe your tumblr too while you’re at it.

Cyberbullying is part of a larger theme in Homestuck, another one of those things that it’s Capital A About. As a work that is not only about growing up, but specifically about growing up in the information age, Homestuck is repeatedly about the ways that Social Media don’t just bring us together, but keep us apart from one another. Cyberbullying is one of the effects of Social Media pushing people apart - it’s so, so much easier to threaten to kill someone when you don’t have to look them in the eye while you’re doing it, and when you have the anonymity of a string of alphanumeric characters as a name to hide behind.

https://homestuck.com/story/1537

The Black Queen is a very bad woman. It’s always intrigued me that the Queens allow their counterparts’ agents free movement through their territory like this even on the eve (or the advent?) of full-scale war between their kingdoms. PM is just allowed to wander around Derse unsupervised.

I suppose that if even God and Satan can afford each other a bit of token civility while discussing the fates of sinners, so can Prospitians and Dersites.

https://homestuck.com/story/1542

@zeetheus John’s definitely proceeds Rose’s bluh.

Rose sips her Mom’s martini for the same reason that she later falls prey to alcoholism. Trying to grow up without help, Rose interprets the martini as a symbol of parental authority, the same way that she interprets the partaking of beverages in general as being a ritual of intimacy with her Mother. Empty signifiers.

https://homestuck.com/story/1549

Jack Noir’s grating voice is so outrageously distracting that it prevents itself as an intrusive thought in the Narrative for PM.

Actually, come to think of it, *all* of the Carapacians talk pretty much exclusively via narration. I wonder if that’s representative of an altered relationship with their narrative reality, which is the first time ever I’ve had that thought pretty much at all.

I always just chalked it up to one of the quirks of Andrew’s writing style, but especially when we take into account the fact that Homestuck is as metanarrative as it is, and that Carapacians are the only characters in Homestuck Proper who interface with the narrative prompt except for the audience, Andrew, and Caliborn himself, I can’t help but wonder. Maybe as living gaming abstractions, in spite of their limited intelligence and abilities, Carapacians have a unique relationship with the narrative laws of Paradox Space (perhaps in the same way that Narrative Contrivances do?)

https://homestuck.com/story/1569

Riffing a little more on the “Fetch Modus as analogous to thought processes” motif previously introduced, Jade’s excellent visualization abilities and vivid imagination serve her well as a Space Player, but tend to misfire, running wild, and seeing patterns where they don’t exist (intrusive thoughts make her see Johnny 5 in her Eclectic Bass and whatever the fuck mecha she’s about to accidentally imagine, I don’t know, I’m not a weeb.) Jade sure does think about robots a lot.

https://homestuck.com/story/1579

I have to say, I consider Terezi’s manipulative abilities to be genuinely pretty strong. I have never known a better way to strongarm me than by pointing out traits that I don’t know whether I feel good or bad about - it just terminates my thought processes.

Although in John’s case, it helps that he is, in fact, a weenie, a stooge, and most importantly, a nice guy. All these facts make him extra manipulatable.

https://homestuck.com/story/1584

I have no reason to believe everyone in Homestuck’s universe isn’t stupidly badass, but I choose to believe that no one is as stupidly badass as the leads because it makes me happy to imagine that these kids are just ridiculously OP superhumans.

(That said, it’s kind of fucked up the level of violence that these literal children are involved in, maybe I shouldn’t get so excited about it. Should we be enthusiastic about the kids’ triumph over their dangerous enemies? Horrified by the travails they are being put through? Probably both motherfuckin’ things.

https://homestuck.com/story/1588

I think about this page a lot.

Rose Lalonde is a very dangerous young lady. She is ruthless, pragmatic, calculating, and cool. She’s even a killer, and literally just killed two imps before fighting this Ogre!

Why is she choosing to show mercy to it now? Is she just trying to get Dave’s goat? Maybe the answer is, deep down, she doesn’t really want to hurt anyone or anything.

https://homestuck.com/story/1589

Kanaya and Dave have a great relationship and I love them as friends very much. I wish dearly that there was more of them in the webcomic. They have approximately the same relationship with authenticity, which is to say that they don’t have an insincere bone in their respective bodies, but practice insincerity nonetheless to impress someone they care about.

For Kanaya relating to Rose, I think it’s a lot more innocent.

https://homestuck.com/story/1590

The least eloquent character in Homestuck has his brief, and I’m pretty sure only encounter with the most eloquent character in Homestuck.

Poor, poor Tavros. While Rose is pretty much always on this level, it seems a lot more innocuous when she’s talking to her friends, or the more mean-spirited and (relatively) competent trolls, the way she treats Tavros almost feels like bullying because of how obviously pathetic he is.

That said, he turns right around, and invokes exactly what’s coming to him. Y’know as much as Tavros is an authentic abuse victim and Vriska gaslights him into thinking a lot of the bad things that happen to him are his fault, there are a lot of times where he does stupid shit that invokes the justifiable wrath of the people around him.

https://homestuck.com/story/1592

While I could pontificate about the fact that Kanaya and Rose are my favorite couple, and squee enthusiastically, instead I will call attention to the fact that, by way of mixing her metaphors, Kanaya has been the victim of an authorial pun - she’s a Fruit Ninja. (Unless Fruit Ninja didn’t exist at the time of writing? It may very well not have.)

https://homestuck.com/story/1596

As the Page of Breath, Tavros sucks at communicating. Here, he sucks at communicating because in spite of his objectively pretty sick rhymes... he is talking to someone who just can’t be arsed.

https://homestuck.com/story/1602

This is one of those absurd moments that at first blush seems meaningless, but I think helps to decipher the kinds of things that John Egbert cares about. It’s one of the moments where he ritualizes an action that one of his heroes takes - John Egbert thinks that Nic Cage is cool, and wants to be like him, so he roleplays Nic Cage for a little while.

https://homestuck.com/story/1603

We’ve barely met the trolls, and they are *already* using the humans as a convenient method to troll each other instead of staying on task.

Karkat also establishes his love of RomComs before his introduction even rolls around.

https://homestuck.com/story/1618

Conceding ground to implacable enemies is generally the correct means to win in Homestuck, usually by getting them to destroy themselves or each other purely by their own unsustainably wicked or stupid conduct. Only a being as powerful as Lord English is sufficient to destroy the Significance-hoarding antagonist that is Vriska, as she threatens to overshadow everyone else in the universe by her own inflated self-importance. Only Vriska, so arbitrarily lucky, could possibly get into position to destroy Lord English. They were made for each other. They deserve each other.

One of my favorite dialogues in the whole comic. Man, I sure love Act 4. There’s something indescribable about the dialogue Andrew writes for this part of the comic. Homestuck at its best whiplashes from silly to scary to heartbreaking to heartwarming, and back to silly again, from beautiful to ugly, and I don’t think that even Act 5, as it piles up layers upon layers, well past the number of parts needed to make a whole, captures the essence of Homestuck as well as does Act 4.

Homestuck is different in every part, of course, and for everyone who says that Act 4 is peak Homestuck you will meet someone who says that Acts 1 through 3 were peak Homestuck, or who says that Act 5 was Peak Homestuck, or that Act 6 was Peak Homestuck. I do not mean to demean any portion of the work by saying that Act 4 is my favorite. The things I like in Homestuck the most are just the most themselves in this portion of the story.

https://homestuck.com/story/1627

I’m feeling less and less intelligent as I read more and more of Homestuck, because honestly, my theories read less like honest-to-god insights, and more like somebody who just wasn’t paying any fucking attention. Here, Jade spells out basically what I’ve been saying.

https://homestuck.com/story/1640

We’ll pause here for the evening. Reading was a little sparse today, but it’s a good place to leave off, especially since for some of these I wrote just stacks of theorizing.

Until tomorrow, Cam signing off, Mostly alive except for a bit of a cough, and not alone.

#liveblogging #commentary #watson and doyle #narrative contrivances #trolls

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writingonjorvik · 5 years ago

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Can We Discuss Passive Cooperation?

Another topic I can mostly discuss before the interview. Y’all, I promise it’s coming out soon. We’ve got one more person to hear back from, but with the recent outbreak and work from home situations, things will continue to get backed up. I promise it will be out soon, hopefully within the next week or two so you can listen while you run around doing Soul Riding. With that said, let’s get into this actual topic.

So if you’ve been following WoJ for a while, you know that I think SSO is lacking in providing on that MMO experience. And I also know statistically that that isn’t necessarily a popular opinion that folks want to see more. However, I think a lot of folks think when I say I want more multiplayer experiences, they mean content that’s locked behind having to PUG, and that’s not it.

Again bringing up GW2, one of the reasons I love it is because of its passive cooperation. There are a lot of ways that game encourages you to interact with others without needing to be in a group. Did someone die? You get experience for rezzing them. Is there a big event going on? Everyone participating gets experience for jumping in and helping. Want to do a meta? Just follow the one commander willing to give instructions and you’re good. That doesn’t mean GW2 gets it perfectly. There are plenty of folks who can be standoffish in more difficult content, but overall, the game has a really solid passive cooperation built into its PvE and reward players for playing together, without locking off a lot of its content by forcing them to.

And that is what I want to see more of from SSO. Right now, the only really supported co-op mechanics are all PvP, which in a lot of ways goes against the laid back vibes of SSO. Other co-op activities, like picnics and the disco, have only gotten minimal updates over the years. By in large, the only other co-op scene is role plays, and that’s got its own can of worms. Not that it’s bad, but it can be a little bit to get into. There are very little incentives to interact with others, to include that a lot of players want a block all option, something I hope doesn’t get added outside of maybe a reduce players loaded bar of some kind. This is supposed to be an MMO after all. While it would be nice in photo mode, it’s supposed to be multiplayer.

So, what are some ways SSO could bring more cooperation without forcing people to interact? Well, here are just a few suggestions to get folks already in groups and out of groups to interact more:

1. Quest Support

I think while SSO’s story should always be soloable, I think having extra dialogue options for bringing a group with you, particularly for people who like SSO canons where there are multiple chosen ones, is fun. It also adds a much easier way to help other players find hidden objectives if you can actually see their quest goals too, even if you can’t complete it for them. Things like being able to catch hens with friends or help them get their fish for the day are all options that would make some more grindy options more tolerable. Also, with the new quests building in this “candidates” potential, I think there’s more room in the narrative for other powerful druids.

2. Championships

I know I just said we don’t need more PvP content, but championships really need an update. I’ve talked about this before and in the interview, but I really feel like these need an update to feel rewarding again to do, and also combat small groups of players dominating these races.

3. Kudos

Something else that got brought up in the interview, so here’s your little sneak peak for now. Was suggested there is some kind of system where you can give kudos to a player for being helpful. This would be particularly helpful for encouraging players to help out newer players, to host events, and generally be a chill person. Potentially could be linked to some kind of reward, like the team can review players who got a lot of kudos in a month and give them rewards, or as a recommendation for future ambassadors and moderators.

4. Dungeons

I am only going to talk about this very briefly, because I have a full post planned on this topic and it’s in the interview, but I think some kind of escape room dungeon system would be amazing, particularly if some kind of instruction pinging system were added to the game.

5. Team Competitions

Ok, again with a PvP suggestion, but I know folks had hella fun in the old SML meet-ups where we did team competitions or club competitions. Even if it’s just 2v2 to fit in the current group system, that would be great. And I imagine clubs would have so much fun with that system, or dressage teams if we could ever make our own courses in game.

6. Events

I already talked about this in events and I’m sure the system is catching up, but what if during the Yule Goats, everyone collecting the goats built towards closing a portal? Like, there are still the basic ones as there were before, but repeating the whole day, every 15 minutes, another group portal opens up and everyone in the area needs to bring 10 babies as a whole effort. There’s no talking required, and it adds another source for a relatively grindy currency.

7. Other systems I’ve already suggested

Imagine getting to collect crafting supplies as a group. Imagine running around with friends to find the things you need to finish your home. Imagine a neighborhood system in Jorvik City for housing and getting to go see your friends’ homes in game. Imagine a daily login rewards system where doing group races is an option. Imagine these systems in game.

8. Co-op collection

Combined with the pinging section mentioned above, I think there should be a collection you can only get with friends, like that one star near Forgotten Fields. I think it should be separate from the stars, so there are these soloable collections, but there’s also this one you can do with your friends. Maybe they’re a little more challenging, or precursors to a bigger system (like a dungeon system), but I just think it would be cool. Even better if it’s replayable, so you can play it again every day for a small reward, and also so you can go back and help new folks gather them too.

9. Club Collections

Riding clubs so desperately need an update. But like, what if there was something to do while you’re in them? What if there were club only collections to unlock and/or upgrade the club hall? What if there were tools for making club races? What if riding clubs just got an actual update after SIX years? Look, I think this is just an underloved feature and I want to see it updated.

10. Community Objectives

I loved the “get to this many races” social media thing SSO did. I think they should do that more often, though with a variety of challenges that can be measured in game and don’t require social media. If there was a bi-weekly or even monthly goal like that, to get the community to get on and engage on something frequently, it’s more likely then that people will connect. It is technically co-op, on the biggest scale and I just think that would be amazing to see more of.

11. More Fox Hunts

Another topic I recently brought up, the fox hunt. Y’all, I loved this and doing this was the most engaged I felt with the community since the first batch of stars. I want to see more of this moving forward, with loads of hidden achievements put in to encourage the community to get out there and look for secrets and work as a team with different skill sets. Just, there’s something amazing about seeing the community come together for something like this, and I love it.

12. Incentivizing Co-op

I think another thing SSO doesn’t do well is actually encouraging people to play co-op. Doing races in a group doesn’t provide any reward outside of achievements and champ rewards. There’s no reason to go back and do races in a group outside of maybe getting pictures in the circus. I know this gets into balancing economy, but having some kind of reward for actually doing group races would be a great way to encourage people to actually do those over just soloing the races with a group, like how most people will do group training. Like double horse exp, or a shilling reward, or something that makes doing a race in a group worth it outside of...bragging rights? Even if these were like, temporary tonics you could buy, like lures in Pokemon Go, but for horse exp, that would be something. I guess this depends on how competitive you are, but there’s not really a reason mechanically to get you to do races this way.

13. New Race Modes

I know this is another big system one, but imagine the Cloud Kingdom race with friends. Imagine the chaos of everyone bringing Shires to block everyone’s view of the race. Imagine a very basic item system with like a knockback, a stop, and a speed boost (all things already in the Cloud Kingdom race) as magic items. I suggested a full on 5v5 magic training race in the finale of SSL’s map which I still think would be amazing to teamwork out closing the seals and getting out while the other team hunts you down to run out the clock. Just like, these things would be amazing.

14. PUG Menu

I think a PUG menu is vital to not only easily finding groups to say do collections with or get help with quests, but also to get club and role invites out of Global. Why advertise in Global when you can just open the PUG menu and find or make an open group? It just organizes it a lot better, and it would probably cut down on spam.

And I’m sure there are a dozen more, but until I think of them, what are some of the things that would encourage you to play with others? Do things like the Chaos Stampede encourage you to hang out with the community? Is there some kind of co-op content that would get you to engage more with new players? Be sure to let me know!

#sso #star stable #starstable #star stable online #starstableonline #woj analysis

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brendamariesmith · 4 years ago

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WHAT TO STOCK OR WHAT NOT TO STOCK FOR AN APOCALYPSE SUMMING UP (Updated)

In the King James Version of the Bible, in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 6:19 and 6:20, Jesus is quoted as saying:

“Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth

and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:

But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven…”

A beautiful sentiment. For purposes of this discussion, I would focus on the real treasures worth laying up on Earth, regardless of your religion or lack thereof, and whether or not an apocalypse ever comes.

Rather than stockpiling cash, precious metals, and investments in Fortune 500 companies, instead of collecting hot cars and designer homes and electronic devices, it’s best to invest in land and water resources. Solar and wind power, farming equipment, tools, goats, chickens, canned food, dried beans and grains, and vegetable oil by the barrel, plus massive quantities of fresh water.

I’m talking cisterns, lakes, rain barrel collection systems, deep Artesian wells with hand pumps, solar-powered water filtration systems, great rivers, aqueducts and other plumbing fed by gravity, ponds stocked with bass and catfish, plow horses with hay and oats for them to eat, acres and acres of arable land, and food seed by the ton.

Perhaps more important, invest in each other. Keep your lines of communication open and your relationships intact. Keep your loved ones close at hand. Take extra good care of those in need. Join a co-op and learn how they operate, their systems of true democratic governance: one member, one vote.

Be prepared to set aside your egos and complaints so that you can work together to save yourselves and thereby save the world. Because it’s the ones we love who are the point, after all—our reasons to live.

It’s all been done before, folks, and it can be done again, assuming we have any air left to breathe. Best to start making sure of that now by planting trees, like gigantic forests full of them.

“Shovel shit till you turn blue and fall down,

Laugh and cry

Keep your focus, keep your eyes upon the prize

Never quit, DO NOT GIVE UP, love each other well

Please learn to steer before you drive off in the night

Take from those who went before and find your own way too

But be relentless in your protection of the trust

Make your mom’s proud and your founders rest to know that you

Will not devalue what they left or let it rust

The magic of pure agreement, your most powerful tool

You must cherish it with all your earthly might

For it’s the whole of you, your vision, from whence attainment streams

Lock on toward It, plunge forth boldly, hold on tight

And, if I could leave you anything ...

Perspective

Is the one thing I would most so love to give

A dimension to your viewpoints, a belonging

A sense of humor, history, patience as you live.”

Here’s hoping that our plans and stockpiles for apocalypse are never needed. Maybe if we start living more sustainably now, we can improve our odds of long-term survival no matter what happens next.

Thanks for reading. If you haven’t seen it yet, please check out the companion series WHAT NOT TO STOCK FOR AN APOCALYPSE.

To see how my unlikely apocalyptic hero, seventy-year-old Bea Crenshaw, shepherds her grandkids and neighbors through the aftermath of a solar pulse, check out IF DARKNESS TAKES US on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Darkness-Takes-Brenda-Marie-Smith-ebook/dp/B07WK9BQHNor order it from your favorite indie bookstore:

The sequel, IF THE LIGHT SHOULD COME, will be out June 2021 from SFK Press.

Please return to this blog soon for discussion of living off-grid, apocalyptic movies, and more.

#apocalypse scifi thrillers survival dystopia stockpiling novels

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itsadragonaesthetic · 7 years ago

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Some otherkin/therian/copinglink/other-hearted video game suggestions

For most types of therians. Includes playable animals such as a fox, goat, badger, lynx, baby bear, frog, rabbit, and some other ones I’m probably forgetting.

It’s an online game where you do nothing else but explore and collect with other people in an amazing environment, and you only communicate through emoticons, body language, and sound. You start out as a badger and unlock new animals and skins as you explore. The aesthetic of the game itself is too amazing to miss.

Shelter, and Shelter 2

I can’t talk about Meadow without mentioning its two predecessors.

Shelter is a game where you play as a mother badger with her cubs, simply looking to live and survive. The game is pretty linear and has a bit of a distinct story line, but it’s worthwhile experience nonetheless, and it will probably leave you in tears.

Shelter 2 is the same sort of concept, except you are a mother lynx. The game is a lot less linear and lets you choose your own adventure in a way. Every playthrough of the game won’t be the same, not to mention that you can play as your kids who survive a generation. Hunting and fighting off other animals for your kids is almost an emotional experience. There’s a certain power you feel when you play as one of the most rare and magnificent cats in the world.

Definitely a wolf/canine therian kind of game. You start out as a (customizable) two year old gray wolf in Yellowstone National Park who has just left their pack to learn to live on their own, and eventually form their own pack. The game is super educational and is currently being remade to be less linear, more open world, and more accurate to the lives of the wolves of Yellowstone. It also has an multiplayer feature and a forum where many people love to discuss wolves, and roleplay in their own stories. There is hardly any doubt you won’t find another therian in the community. I’ve met plenty. Not to mention that most people in the community are very like minded and stretch to more than just the game and the forums.

The Guardians of Ga’Hoole video game

I know, a kinda weird choice for this list but hear me out. This game follows a very linear story in the world of Ga’Hoole about a young owl rescued by guardians of The Great Tree when he was orphaned. This owl’s name is Shard, and he is trained in the art of being a guardian of the tree. You can choose your species of owl (great gray, barn owl, horned owl, or spotted owl) and it is so much fun to play regardless of the slightly mediocre graphics. But hey you might be one of those people who doesn’t give two racdrops about The Guardians of Ga’Hoole, or the thrill of shredding other birds in aerial dogfights, but once you have cleared a series of levels, you get to fly around that map and do whatever the hell you want. This game is kinda therapeutic for me in the idea that sometimes I just wanna be a bird, and sometimes I want to throw my foes into pools of lava.

A simple, unfinished, and FREE game. You get three levels to fly around as a dragon, burn towns to the ground, and eat humans alive. Such a cool game for when you just wanna be a dragon, I just wish the developer would pick it up again.

The Endless Forest

God has this game gotten so much shit for being boring, laggy, weird, and even scary. They couldn’t be more wrong. Yeah the game is simple and has pretty outdated graphics and controls, but there is too much to love. You are simply a deer with a human face who wonders and endless forest, wielding magic that allows you to change the appearance of other deer. It’s an online game and you communicate with others through sound and body language; your truest distinction is a glowing glyph above your head. You bond over playing chase, dancing, and casting spells. Other than that, you can just sit and look pretty, and listen to the birds and array of sounds in the forest. This game also has a forum and a decent community who all love art and deer of various kinds. This game is also being remade in Unreal Engine and has an indiegogo to fund more projects for the game.

I’d also love to mention that this game has something called Abiogenisis, which are events where the two creators come into the game and put on shows. Did I mention it’s free?

Again, a bit of an odd choice for this list but seriously. This is a game where, in the vanilla version, is a game where you make your own zoo. Pretty cool and simple, but being a long time player of this game, there’s a lot more to it. You kinda have to play with mods (which are easy to download) in order to really enjoy this game, but this game has the capacity for you to have a little spot of land where you can put down any biomes you want, any plants, and any animals that act on their own accord. Each time you open it up, it’s an investment kinda like the sims, but it’s a cool way to build natural environments and just kinda see what everything does, as long as nothing goes wrong.

A pretty ancient game that I only played for a portion of my life, but this is what I remember; you play as a selection of three dragons who all have their own abilities, and you defend a land from an ancient evil with the help from some human friends. I remember the controls being weird and being a bit on the uninteresting side, but still a decent game where you play as a powerful dragon in a large world.

The remainder of these games I haven’t played for myself yet, but I sure do wanna

Dragon: The Game

An early access alpha game where you play as a customizable dragon (crazy right?) in an open world where you choose your path of benevolence or destruction. The environment is destructible and has human settlements. You can claim territory and grow in size. There is also multiplayer, co-op, and PvP. The game is pretty simple at the moment, but it is community driven and will only get better with more support. If you want an ACTUAL dragon simulator, (not these sad fkn mobile games) please support this game.

Fugl

A simplistic game designed to simulate the thrill of flying. Explore an endless and diverse environment as a shapeshifting bird where you can literally shapeshift into any animal you see in bird form, as well as natural birds. The voxel world of Fugl is described as liberating and therapeutic. This game is also early access at the moment.

#therian #otherkin #other hearted #copinglink #wolfkin #dragonkin #deerkin #foxkin #bearkin #catkin #rabbitkin #badgerkin #birdkin #owlkin #felinekin #caninekin

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nancygduarteus · 7 years ago

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Why People Don't Take Lifesaving Medications

DURBAN, South Africa—Ronald Louw was a human-rights lawyer and professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, the South African province that’s one of the most HIV-affected regions of the world, so he must have known about the dangers of the virus. In April 2005, he was taking care of his mother, who had been diagnosed with cancer, when he noticed he had a cough that would not go away. He went to a doctor, who treated him with antibiotics.

Four weeks later, he got even worse, fighting a fever, night sweats, and disorientation, as his friend and fellow activist Zackie Achmat recounted later in a journal article. It was only then that Louw finally went in for an HIV test. He was positive.

A month later, doctors told him his persistent cough was actually tuberculosis—one of the leading causes of death for people with HIV. Three days later, Louw was dead at the age of 46.

“Smart, educated, and surrounded by friends who understand HIV/AIDS, yet even Louw failed to get tested early,” Achmat wrote later in an op-ed. “He died because he did not get tested early. And, when he discovered his HIV status, his lungs and immune system were destroyed.

Louw’s case provides a stark example of one reason why the HIV epidemic in South Africa remains the largest in the world, even though the country provides antiretroviral treatment to anyone for free. ARVs, which slow down damage to the immune system, are now able to help HIV-positive people live almost a normal life expectancy. But only about half of infected South Africans take ARVs consistently. And not everyone even knows their status: About 14 percent of South African adults who have HIV are not aware of their status.

The reasons why are complex, involving both myths and misunderstandings specific to South Africa, as well as the frailties of human nature you’d find anywhere. The world over, humans are rather bad at acknowledging we have a disease and taking medications regularly to treat it. This is apparently true even when the disease is one of the worst ones ever, AIDS, and if the medications save us from it.

In conversations with dozens of South Africans last month, I learned that people here do, for the most part, know how to prevent HIV. You’re supposed to use condoms, be circumcised, stay faithful, get tested regularly, and get on treatment. Almost everyone I met, young and old, was able to recite these steps like a very regionally specific Lord’s prayer.

Three high-school girls joke around near their home in the Valley of a Thousand Hills, South Africa. (Khaya Ngwenya / The Atlantic)

The problem is in the implementation—at seemingly every step. It starts with condoms. On the northeast coast, I visited a village called Somkhele. At a clinic in which babies screamed on the inside and goats wandered around the outside, a nurse told me that only flavored condoms are in high demand, but the regular kind aren’t.

Zothani, a 33-year-old man I met in a nearby town, said it would be hard to keep using condoms with a girlfriend over a long period of time—like, say, three months. (“Flesh to flesh!” a friend of his chimed in from nearby.) Besides, Zothani said, a pack of three condoms costs the same as a loaf of bread.

The next hurdle is testing. Men are much less likely to be tested than women are—women’s status is often discovered when they become pregnant and show up for their prenatal visits. But men have little reason to visit the clinics, which tend to have long waits and might be far from their homes.

Even though it’s no longer a death sentence, there’s still a fear of discovering one has HIV, or in admitting to having it—even though about one in every eight people here does. A college student I met in Durban, Phumelele Mpungose, had a brother who died of AIDS. But she “would never be able to accept” having it, she told me.

This could be because “men avoid dating women with HIV,” as Sanele Ndlovu, a 20-year-old who lives in a rural area in KwaZulu Natal, put it.

Though South Africa has grappled with the reality of HIV for decades, the illness is still linked with sex and other taboos. People go to faraway clinics for treatment to avoid being seen by friends and neighbors, and some parents won’t allow their kids to get tested because it suggests they’re already sexually active.

In the Valley of a Thousand Hills, a group of teen girls told me the local clinic has a special HIV section, and people find it embarrassing to sit there. Ntethelelo Mbatha, a high-school senior, suggested peer educators might help, since “it’s easier for young people to speak with people who are the same age [about HIV]. It’s harder to speak with an adult.” His friend, Siyabonga Ngcobo, recommended testing people in churches and other places that aren’t as associated with sickness and death.

A deep vein of traditionalism runs through the rural areas, where unemployment is rife and the AIDS epidemic wiped out so much of the population a generation ago. “The middle-aged people, many of them died,” said Maryam Shahmanesh, a senior lecturer at the University College of London who works near Somkhele with the Africa Health Research Institute. “The older people feel they need to protect the younger ones. A lot of the interventions the community talks about is about abstinence, virginity testing, and male circumcision. It doesn’t leave a lot of space for open discussion about sex.”

It was near Somkhele that a local, chief-esque “head man” prevented me from interviewing several study participants, saying he wanted to know the names of any residents who would be talking to a reporter. Zothani said he’s heard of people going to sangomas, traditional healers, instead of getting on ARVs.

But beyond that, people, in general, are rather flaky when it comes to taking medications—especially those we’re supposed to take for life. Sure, you might take them when you first get the diagnosis, freshly shaken up by having gone from “healthy” to “sick” overnight. But months later? Years? About half of people stop using lifesaving, cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins six months after being prescribed them. About a fifth of people stop taking antidepressants without even telling their doctors.

Toward the end of my trip, I sat down with Olivier Koole, a researcher at the Africa Health Research Institute, and asked him this same question: Why don’t people here just get on ARVs and stay on them? Sure, there are some myths, he acknowledged, like the idea that they might make you sicker.

But there’s also the fact that not even the threat of AIDS can make taking perfect care of your health less hard. Koole got reflective. “If I was positive, would I start treatment immediately?” he wondered aloud. Koole, it’s worth noting, is a well-educated white man who has studied the reasons why people don’t take their ARVs. (The most common reason: “forgetting”).

“Probably not,” he said. “I would probably start within a few months.”

from Health News And Updates https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/03/why-people-dont-take-life-saving-medications/556538/?utm_source=feed

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ionecoffman · 7 years ago

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Why People Don't Take Lifesaving Medications

A month later, doctors told him his persistent cough was actually tuberculosis—one of the leading causes of death for people with HIV. Three days later, Louw was dead at the age of 46.

Three high-school girls joke around near their home in the Valley of a Thousand Hills, South Africa. (Khaya Ngwenya / The Atlantic)

This could be because “men avoid dating women with HIV,” as Sanele Ndlovu, a 20-year-old who lives in a rural area in KwaZulu Natal, put it.

“Probably not,” he said. “I would probably start within a few months.”

Article source here:The Atlantic

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freecycleusa · 8 years ago

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New Post has been published on http://www.freecycleusa.com/mini-farming-ultimate-beginners-guide-mini-farming/

Mini Farming: Ultimate Beginners Guide To Mini Farming

Building A Backyard Farm And Growing Organic Food At Home

One’s ability to be self-sufficient goes hand-in-hand with their potential for resiliency. When you can depend on yourself and your land to produce something as necessary as food, you can become someone who is no longer vulnerable to spikes in produce prices or dependent on trips to the grocery store for fresh ingredients. Building your own backyard mini-farm doesn’t have to be a huge task, either.

This short guide will provide you with the basic guidelines of building your own farm, starting from proper soil preparation, growing your seedlings, plant placement and selection as well as potential integration of farm animals and some tips on using your resources efficiently. At the end, you can find the perfect combination to suit you and your family’s needs that reduces your carbon footprint, reduces food costs, provides fresh, organic, homegrown produce and overall simply makes the most of your space. Why pay someone else to do something that you can easily do yourself? Plus, it can be really fun!

What Is A Mini-Farm?

Have you ever imagined yourself “living off the land”? Being self-sufficient to the point where you no longer are dependent on your local grocer for food? You may think that this is only possible in huge, rural spaces, far away from any sort of civilization. However, it is actually completely possible to grow enough food for self-sustainable living on an acre or less of land! This is otherwise known as a “mini-farm”, “micro-farm”, “small-scale farm” or “urban homestead”. Yes, really! You can have your cake and eat it too! Actually, in this case lets say, “you can have your homegrown, organic quinoa and eat it too!”

There are many reasons why you may be interested in creating your own mini-farm. With climate change on the forefront of many governmental policies and discussions worldwide, reliable food production is a major concern. While most citizens of first world countries are not subjected to the possibility of food scarcity, it can never hurt to become more self-sufficient and reduce your carbon footprint at the same time. When you have a “sustainable farm” you essentially consume what is raised, grown and produced on your plot of land. This is different to commercial farming, which is primarily for profit. Furthermore, growing your own food reduces your need to purchase it at the store, therefore lowering overall food costs and saving you money!

The main element of a sustainable farm is its ability to keep working with no or the least amount of imported resources. Utilizing natural resources, reusing and recycling waste is key as well as establishing a balanced cycle is essential to the success of your farm. For example, if you are keeping animals such as chickens, goats or sheep, a good example of the cycle would be feeding the animals with yields from the farm and in turn using the manure to enrich the soil, making it healthier and more productive to grow more plants that will again feed the animals.

Preparing the Soil Building your soil is the first step.

Two essential ingredients for healthy soil are water and air. Many times, new gardeners will simply dig a small hole in the topsoil for the plant. However, one must consider how to the plant will grow, including the direction and depth of the roots and how the plant will draw water and nutrients from the soil. Therefore, it a good rule of thumb that healthy soil will be sufficiently aerated so that air and water can move freely within the soil, but not so uncompacted that the soil falls apart. Properly aerated soil will retain more water, which will require less watering as well as allows roots to easily penetrate to the desired soil depth.

Learn how to greatly improve your garden soil beyond belief with simple, very easy methods.

When selecting your area for planting, make sure the space will get plenty of sunlight and is not too close to other plants that may put your plot at risk to pests. Once you have selected the land are for planting, preparing the soil properly will give you the best chance for success. The size of your planting beds is dependent on your available space, but keep in mind that paths should also be established as walking on the soil will compact it, which will reduce the aeration of the soil. It is recommended to dig at least 12 in (30 cm) below the surface of the soil. For some crops, it can be beneficial to dig as low as 24 in (60 cm) below the surface.

When digging, make sure to remove all weeds, weed roots and stones. As you are digging, take a look at the soil. Does it appear more sandy or clay-like? The answer will be a good indicator of what you would add to the soil to enhance it for plant growth. If the soil is more clay, it may feel more sticky and dense and it can easily be rolled into a ball, with no or limited cracking. Clay soil can be very fertile, but may also be very heavy and slow to drain. To improve clay soil, you may consider using a raised bed to assist with drainage or adding additional bulky organic material such as “horticultural grit”, which can essentially be small pieces of angular, crushed materials such as limestone or granite. This will assist with aeration and infiltration. If the soil is sandier in texture and appearance, this may be easy to dig, but will not hold nutrients and water efficiently.

To improve sandy soil, compost is recommended. This can be easily purchased at a garden center. However, if you want to maintain a more sustainable cycle with your mini-farm you may want to consider establishing your own compost. Composting is the perfect way to reuse your farm’s “waste” in a way that will improve the fertility and condition of your soil, provide nutrients for plants and microorganisms, help to increase water retention and reduce landfill waste. Your compost should be made of a mix of carbon and nitrogen with a good rule to use one-third green materials to two-thirds brown materials. “Green” materials include: table scraps (avoiding any meat, bones or fish scraps), green leaves, weeds, flowers, coffee grounds, tea leaves, etc. “Brown” materials include: dried leaves, hay, pine needles, corn stalks, newspaper, cardboard, and even dryer lint!

Start by loosening the soil up to approximately 12 in (30 cm) below the ground. Add a small layer of twigs or straw first to assist in aeration and drainage. Then, add thin layers of compost material, switching between wet ingredients, such as table scraps, and dry ingredients, such as leaves. Don’t make the layers too thick, as this will slow the decomposition process. Finish with a layer of green manure such as grass clippings, or any other nitrogen source, and then cover the pile so that it will retain proper moisture. Make sure that you either water the pile occasionally or uncover during rainfall.

Placing the pile in the shade can also assist with moisture retention. You may also need to turn the pile every few weeks with a pitchfork or shovel to ensure proper oxygen. The compost should turn from a musty smell to an earthy smell, where the materials become more difficult to recognize and feel rich to touch. Most piles will be ready in four to six months depending on materials used as well as the climatic conditions.

Growing Your Seedlings

Growing your own seedlings versus purchasing the already sprouted plants may seem as though your just adding extra work to the already seemingly large task of building your own mini-farm. However, there are many benefits associated with sowing your own seeds such as lower costs, a larger variety to choose from, potential to grow high quality plants and, of course, the satisfaction of knowing that you have completed the entire cycle of your plant from seed to harvest.

The first step will be to choose the right container. Depending on your plants, the container should be about two to three inches deep (five to eight cm), with plenty of options for drainage. You should plant the seeds about one to two inches (two to five cm) apart. Keep an eye on your seedlings to ensure that roots are not touching the bottom of the container, as this is a signal it is too small and may damage the plant.

Create a protected space such as a small greenhouse for the seedlings to begin the sprouting process. This will also help to keep them free from pests. Once you begin to see some sprouting from your seeds, keep in mind that proper transplanting to your garden area will be vital to the health of the plant. Start by “hardening off” your seedlings by transferring them from the protected temperature to the temperature of the surroundings.

After a few days, the seeds are ready to be transplanted into the garden. It is very easy to find seeds at any garden center, however, to maintain a self-sufficient farm cycle, it is recommended to use open-pollinated (OP) seeds. OP seeds are naturally pollinated, either by insects or wind and allow the farmer to save the seeds on the farm, which will provide for future crops, thus saving resources and lowering costs. OP seeds are not genetically modified and will breed true-to-type plants, which resemble the parent plant and not a hybrid. You can then reuse the OP seeds harvested the year before for the next year’s plants. Do a simple online search to determine where you can find OP seeds near you.

Plant Selection And Placement

Grow Robust Organic Vitamin Rich Vegetables for a Healthier Diet

To maximize your production in a small space, implement an intensive planting design. Intensive planting creates an environment for your plants where roots and plants have an uninterrupted grow space, while at the same time the close proximity of the plants enhances soil and establishes a consistent area of living mulch, ideal for growing conditions. This placement will also reduce weed growth and maximizes the number of plants in the given space so production is increased.

Companion Planting

Companion planting provides benefits for your entire farm by establishing a planting layout of vegetables, fruits and flowers that support each other and deter pests to create a mutually beneficial relationship to bring harmony between the plants, insects and soil. Some common companion choices are: Basil near other garden crops such as tomatoes or lettuce, which can improve the flavor and growth as well as deter pests.

Beans near crops such as beets, cabbage, catnip, marigolds, cauliflower, cucumbers, potatoes, corn, savory and strawberries and away from crops such as beets, garlic, kohlrabi, leeks, onions and shallots.

Beets near crops such as broccoli, brussel sprouts, bush beans, cabbage, cauliflower, onions, chard and kohlrabi away from crops such as field mustard, charlock and pole beans.

Corn near crops such as melons, beans, peas, early potatoes, pumpkins squash and soybeans.

Garlic near crops such as cabbage, cane fruits, fruit trees, roses and tomatoes and away from crops such as peas and beans.

Onions near crops such as beets, cabbage, carrots, chamomile, lettuce and parsnips and away from crops such as peas and beans.

Peppers near crops such as basil, carrots, eggplants, onions, parsley and tomatoes and away from crops such as fennel and kohlrabi.

Potatoes near crops such as basil, beans, cabbage family, corn, eggplant, flax, hemp, marigolds, peas and squash and away from crops such as apples, birch, cherries, cucumbers, pumpkins, raspberries, sunflowers, tomatoes and walnuts. Also consider that crop rotation will also be necessary to maintain the health of your plants.

When large groups of the same crop are placed in one area for an extended period of time, they become an easy target for pests. Furthermore, when crops of the same family are placed the same location over a long period of time, this depletes the nutrients of the soil, potentially requiring additional artificial fertilizers to maintain soil health. Instead, to maintain a healthy, organic soil, do not plant crops of the same family in the same location within a period of three years. This creates diversity for the plant bed, enhances the soil and minimizes the potential for disease and pests.

Plant Classification

To classify plants in terms of a crop rotation plan, follow this helpful guide:

Brassicas (cabbage family) Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, all cabbages, kohlrabi, cauliflower, kale, mizuna, pak choi, arugula, rutabaga, turnip

Legumes (bean & pea family) Snap peas, peas, bush, pole, lima, fava, dry beans

Solanaceae (potato & tomato family) Eggplant, potato, tomato, peppers

Alliums (onion family) Garlic, all onions, shallot, chive, leek

Umbeliferae (carrot & root family) Celery, celeriac, cilantro, fennel, carrot, parsnip, parsley, dill

Cucurbits (squash & marrow family) Summer/ winter squash, cucumber, melon, pumpkin

Chenopodiaceae (beet family) Swiss chard, spinach, beet,

Miscellaneous All fruit, mint, oregano, rosemary, sage, basil, lettuce, endive, cress, Jerusalem artichoke, asparagus, okra, corn salad, chicory

A simple classification of various plant species. Source: growveg.com. When planning your crop rotation, keep in mind some tips such as brassicas (cabbage family) will fix the nitrogen in soil, making it ideal for legumes to benefit from the nutrient rich conditions.

In areas where there is very rich soil, avoid planting root vegetables, as this will cause lush foliage instead of the edible parts of the plant. Keeping in mind the difference between calorie crops, carbon crops and staple crops will also benefit your garden as well as the dietary balance of your yield.

Calorie Crop is a vegetable that will produce a large amount of food energy (calories) in a specific unit of space. Examples of calorie crops include root crops such as potatoes, garlic, parsnips and perennial vegetables. Calorie crops are typically considered the best option for feeding yourself and your family as they provide the most amount of nutrition in the smallest amount of mass. Calorie crops tend to be heavy feeders and may drain your soil’s nutrients quickly.

Carbon Crop, also known as “biomass”, is a food plant that produces a large amount of carbonaceous material to be used in compost. Carbon crops are perfect for promoting sustainable soil fertility, as they will establish a balance for heavy feeders such as calorie crops when used as compost and are recommended to make up approximately 60% of your total planted area. Carbon crops include maize, sorghum, amaranth, quinoa, millet, rye, wheat, barley, rice, oats, and sunflowers. In addition, when you grow carbon crops such as grains, they also provide a beneficial addition to your dietary calories.

Staple Crop, can be considered a mix of carbon and calorie crops. These are crops that you could consider necessary parts of your diet that have the potential to be stored for long-term periods without spoiling. Examples include grains, root crops, and dry beans, including soybeans, which can be used for other purposes such as soymilk or soy flour. A crop could also be considered a staple crop if it can easily grow well in your region, provides high nutrients or calories, is easy to harvest, process and store as well as adds to healthy soil fertility.

What Animals Would Be Suitable For A Mini-Farm?

Depending on the amount of available space, you may also consider adding some farm animals to make you mini-farm complete. Large livestock such as cows or horses should not be considered, as they need a lot of land area to thrive. Animals can assist in maintaining a healthy sustainable balance as they can feed off of grains, as well as provide manure for compost or fertilizer. As well, they can provide other benefits such as goat milk or chicken eggs.

Adding animals to your farm, however, will surely increase your responsibilities on various levels and may be subject to certain regulations. Therefore, it is imperative to do proper research as to which would be best suitable for your purposes.

Rabbits

Rabbits are excellent candidates for small spaces. They can easily be managed in small, wire hutches and tend to be odor free and do not attract flies. They can also provide a high meat return for the amount of feed and labor invested. Rabbits can be very predator prone, however, so it is important to ensure their enclosing is secure to so that they won’t become easy prey for any neighborhood prowlers.

Chickens

Chickens are also a great option for a mini-farm. They can provide highly efficient meat as well as eggs daily. They can happily feed off of meat scraps, bugs, weeds and table scraps and are relatively low-maintenance. Like rabbits, however, the chicken’s enclosure must be secure as they are also an easy target for predators.

Goats

Goats are also a popular option as they are very intelligent and are highly efficient produces of milk. You can easily gain about a gallon of milk each day with three to four pounds of grain and a few pounds of hay. During the lactating period (typically 10 months), however, the dairy goat must be milked twice per day, everyday, which may be more responsibility than you are looking for.

Pigs

Pigs are one of the most efficient animals to raise in regards to their waste-to-meat ratio. Pigs can eat kitchen scraps, garden greens, grains, roots, eggs or other meat, making them the perfect example of recycling! Pigs also don’t require a great deal of space.

Using Water Efficiently

To build you sustainable farm, maintain the mindset that “everything can be used”. This is especially true for your already present natural resources. We’ve already discussed ways to improve the already present soil, utilizing yields for compost and positioning your vegetables in proper sunlight, but what about the one ingredient that is absolutely essential to any healthy farm: water?

Conserve rain water and grey-water for reuse in your garden. City water bills just keep going up and up!

If you already have a water supply such as a small stream or river on the property, consider how this can be used for your farm instead of relying solely on your well supply. Gray water refers to the water that has already been used in the sinks, bathtubs, shower, dishwater or washing machine. This is no longer fit for human consumption, but would be absolutely fine for your garden. You can choose to manually collect the water from the bathtub or even simpler is to reroute drainage pipes to a small storage tank. With the reuse of gray water, you can recycle up to 50 gallons of gray water per week!

Another great option would be to harvest rainwater. You can easily and inexpensively place a storage barrel at the bottom of the gutter pipe to collect large amounts of rainwater from the roof. For example, a 1,500 square foot (139 square meter) roof in a region that gets at least twenty inches of rain per year, could potentially gather about 18,600 gallons of water annually to be used for gardening.

Conclusion

If you are someone who likes the idea of reducing your carbon footprint, saving money on food, eating fresh, homegrown produce and just overall making the most of your living space, a mini-farm could be the perfect option. The best thing about building your own mini-farm is that there is an infinite amount of combinations of fruits, vegetables, flowers and even animals that you can choose to suit your needs and space availability. There is no simple formula for success; instead, it is a process of trial and error, determining what the best mixture is for you. You can also seek out others in your area that share similar interests for swapping of ideas, produce and maybe even make some new friends. So what are you waiting for? Get out there and get your farm going!

If your interested in starting your own Mini Garden, I strongly recommend this very informative book called the Shoestring Gardener.

The Shoestring Gardener

A Compendium of Hundreds of Eco-Friendly, Creatively Frugal Gardening How-Tos, Remedies & Tips

#mini farm #Mini Farming

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