#Starvation Reservoir

[rabbitcruiser]

Benches/Chairs (No. 8)

Ram's Gate Winery, CA (five pics)

Cline Cellars Winery, CA

Starvation Reservoir, UT

Denver, CO (five pics)

[shirecorn]

Changelings! Six legged insectoid beasts grown to the size of ponies, their target mimic species. Rather than evolving perfect physical mimicry, changeling imitation is a two-pronged process. In addition to a color-shifting carapace, magic distorts and twists the silhouette to match the mimicked subject. The spell is weaved with a rapid beating of the the wings, which creates a delicate network of invisible magic threads that tie the changeling's physical form to the projected mirage to make it move. After casting the spell, the changeling needs to recast it periodically, so if you doubt your friend's identity, listen for the buzzing of wings.

It takes a lot of concentration to keep the illusion in place, and changelings are naturally much taller than ponies when standing at their full height. Inexperienced or agitated changelings may forget to crouch, which breaks the illusion in a terrifying way. Because the features of the mirage are bound to the underlying insect body, moving wrong will distort the perceived form before it reveals what lies beneath.

The reason changeling bodies are so much longer than their target species is to allow a changeling to mimic creatures many times their size, provided they have the wingspan to reach the entire length of the target individual. A full wingspan is the sign of a healthy changeling, one that has enough magic to cast their illusions without much effort. Without sufficient magic, a changeling must constantly refresh their spell, and the ceaseless beating tears their delicate wings to shreds.

There is one changeling with enough magic to spare: The Queen. Drones store magic in their tails and bring it back to feed her. The queen of years past has been bleeding them dry and soaking up all their magic, leaving what should be a healthy reservoir in their tails as a withered pocket. This new style of ruling could possibly have started as a response to the ascension of the Goddess of Love, and the resulting magicification of feelings of romantic and platonic love.

For millennia, changelings evolved to feed on emotions directed at them (or rather the being they mimic) and convert it into magic. Positive emotions were the most stable, but any emotion worked. But when Love started to feel an entire meal, and gave the drones strength to subsist on their own, their queen demanded every drop of intoxicating love for herself, leaving them in a constant state of starvation and desperation.

Just a little love can go a long way. Changelings are forbidden from changing their colors or illusions to express themselves, as they must be seen as "mindless drones" and part of a single hive mind, despite their potential for individuality. Instead, they remain black unless imitating a pony or other creature. Each section of a changeling's carapace has a clear top layer with liquid suspended above the actual armor layer beneath. Microscopic grooves display different colors and shades based on how much of the liquid fills them, and how much pressure it's under. With the base colors set, wings spin the illusion of form to completely disguise the changeling beneath.

But what if they didn't have to save all their energy for disguises? What if there was enough love to go around?

The Changeling Revolution is an ongoing battle, but it has a hopeful, vibrant spark. Led by a mild-mannered former "drone," a growing faction are discovering peace, safety, and individuality by feeding off love directed not at illusions they cast, but to the people they truly are. It's a scary, vulnerable first step to allow others to see your true nature, but the rewards of loving and being loved are worth it.

Revolutionaries are not "reformed" so much as healed by embracing individual love. It turns out when each changeling allows themself to have their own color, preferences, and name, then the love felt from one changeling to another can be converted into magic, and a hive can become a thriving ecosystem within itself.

Nymphs, once destined for a viscous cycle of deception and starvation, are now able to bask in love given to them by hivemates, and they grow up stronger and kinder than any generation before. Though they can only shift into pastel colors until their carapace fully hardens and darkens, they still express by choosing their own look, name, and destiny.

The healing of the changeling population is as varied as their prismatic colors, and as beautiful as their glittering wings.

[akzgaj-writing]

How to describe a real war

These are prompts and descriptions of real events that happen in a real war. There is no censorship here.

Contents by @akzgaj-writing

Prompts:

Destruction of infrastructure and cities: during war you should stay away from the city, and places where there are groups of people and places of transport: hospitals, post offices, schools, offices, stadiums, bridges, highways, kindergartens etc.

During the war, thieves rob houses and apartments. Blocks of flats are especially vulnerable to thieves, because this is a buffet for them.

You don't know if you're about to die, because the drones fly very high, and if a bomb falls on you, you won't even know when you're going up in the Heaven.

When the enemy army retreats, it often leaves traps in civilian homes and mines them (it also mines cities and farmland). It sometimes takes years to get rid of landmines.

At the beginning of the war, bodies are buried and honorary funerals are held. Over time, the coffins turn into sheets and blankets, and many bodies are placed in one grave. The longer the war continues, people stop burying bodies and they are left abandoned on the road.

Tanks and trucks run over people and bodies.

Cannibalism from starvation may occur.

People kill people for a piece of food or a coin.

During war, people become calloused and the sight of bodies, blood, entrails, or poverty does not make them want to cry or feel pain; they often feel numb and indifferent.

Bodies lie on the roads, eaten by animals, and torn remains also hang on trees (becouse of bombs).

A very large part of people abandons morality and fights for survival at all costs.

Water is often unsuitable for drinking because it is poisoned (during wars, water is poisoned or bodies are thrown into wells and water reservoirs by enemy troops).

Diseases are common due to lack of hygiene, many injured people and overcrowded shelters.

Being a good and just person during war is very difficult because you often have to make choices between life and moral.

During war, the goverment often takes advantage of situations and do ethnic cleansing in its land, which involves sending young people to the army. At the same time, it may also happen that people murder people of another race/religion in order to take over their land and property.

There is a shortage of water, food and medicine.

Propaganda and disinformation. People outside the war zones will not know what is really happening.

Politics will not help people and victims if they if they do not benefit from it.

Children grow up faster during war and become more responsible. Teenagers and young people age faster: people in their twenties often look as if they were thirty, and people in their forties as if they were sixty.

If soldiers survived the first months of the war, they have a better chance of surviving to the end of the war than those who have just joined now (they are more prepared and more careful and know more than novices).

[peninsulaisms]

Devil bend reservoir, the Mornington Peninsula

I’m not sure about the true story behind the name, but if yous are keen, I’ll share the local legend my mates and I grew up hearing. The old-timers living around the reservoir always reckoned the name came about because the devil would lead folks astray by calling out their name in one of their mate’s voice. They’d get so lost looking around the forest for their mate that eventually they’d die of starvation or cause of an animal. So, when we were kids and went on scout trips here, we were told never to follow someone who called your name if you couldn’t see them, and always stick to the path. I got lost around here heaps as a kid, and to be honest, I’m surprised I didn’t cark it.

[dailyanarchistposts]

Development: A Class response

Capitalism has created the Spectacle to seduce us, it has appropriated all the planet’s resources and built a vast machinery of control, including states, governments, armies, deathsquads, laws, judges, policemen, prisons, gulags, advertising, schools, socialization, madhouses and the whole process of production and consumption, in order to protect and extend that grand larceny. And to be precise, by capitalism we mean capitalists, real people running real governments and corporations, in huge mansions, wielding vast and shadowy powers. People with great wealth and no ethics, people for whom personal aggrandizement expressed in profit, status or authority is a too powerful opium.

The effect of this is the wholesale destruction of the planet’s biological and social ecologies, the mass holocaust of the poor, in which disasters are only the most visible events in an unrelenting carnage of wars, starvation, pandemics, crippling disease, ignorance, riot and pogrom. A jungle cleared, a shanty bulldozed, a golf course built on sacred land, farms drowned beneath a reservoir, chemical spills into water systems, toxins into the air from urban incinerators. These are not environmental events alone, they are social and economic events, they are battles lost in a class war, if the working class is those who must endlessly produce and yet have no say over what is produced and how. 900m die of hunger every year on a world even the despised UN says could support 14bn people. Is this just drought and famine, environmental events? Or is it because people have been cleared from the land, forced to work for pennies, droughts caused by massive dams or to fill the swimming pools and water the gardens of the rich ?

The environment was and is an area of working class struggle because it is we who suffer most from environmental degradation and expropriation of land, water and clean air. Boycotts of dam projects, nuclear power stations, forest clearances, heavy industry, the dumping of toxins and waste have been social as well as environmental victories for the working class. Early socialists argued strenuously that political and economic struggle was the means to achieve environmental reform. Revolutionaries like William Morris and Kropotkin proposed sustainable economies that were also socially just. The land would be a vast granary, water would run clean and food would be pure, free from chemicals and adulteration. Environmentally-caused diseases like cholera, diphtheria and typhus would be eliminated. These programs of reform grew out of the unrelenting struggle of working class people against bosses and owners, struggles to defend their place within ecologies (such as resistance to clearances or enclosures) or to improve environments that capitalism had ruined (for instance campaigns for clean water, decent housing and sanitation). Their struggle brought reforms, such as nationalized water companies, but because they did not change the nature of either ownership or control, they were only temporary. The same struggles are being waged by the working class in its millions today but most are equally led by reformist leaders. The anti-capitalist movement must re-learn, as the global poor already know, that the revolution must be made by us, here, on the land and in the towns, and not by campaigns against far-off institutions like the WTO or UN or without an end to private property or (so-called) democratic control.

There are a number of examples or workers taking class – based ecological action. In the 1970s, a number of groups of Australian workers instituted Green Bans, boycotting ecologically destructive projects. Builders, seafarers, dockers, transport, and railworkers boycotted all work connected with the nuclear industry, and the Franklin River project – which would have flooded the Tasmanian National Park (including Aboriginal land) for a large hydro-electric project — a victory. Similarly, workers opposed the attempts of the Amax corporation to drill and mine for oil and diamonds on aboriginal land at Noonkanbah. These workers also actively supported the militant occupation of the site by aboriginal people. In Britain, in the 1980s, rank and file seafarers boycotted the dumping of nuclear waste at sea, forcing the government to abandon the policy. In Brazil, rubber tappers forged an alliance with native peoples and environmentalists to oppose the massive deforestation of the Amazon rainforest by big landowners and business interests. Their success led to the murder of union activist Chico Mendes by hired assassins in December 1988, but the struggle continues. Mass direct action by communities (occupations, sabotage and pitched battles with police) prevented nuclear power stations and reprocessing facilities being built at Plogoff in France, and at Wackersdorff in Germany in the 1980s. In Britain communities mobilised in 1987, to end government plans to dump nuclear waste at 4 sites. In Thailand in the early 1980’s, 100,000 people rioted to destroy a $70m steel factory. Following the revolution, the working class worldwide, having seized control of workplaces, land and streets, would direct current technology to benefit the vast majority (the working class) rather than the tiny ruling class minority, as at present.

We have seen that ecological issues and class struggle are inextricably linked. The struggle for a green society where people live in harmony with the rest of nature therefore goes hand in hand with the struggle for a society free from human domination. Capitalism cannot be reformed. It is built on the domination of nature and people. We need to take direct control of every aspect of our lives through social revolution. Collectively seizing control of the land, workplaces and streets, and sharing decisions, work and wealth. Deciding what is produced and how, dissolving the divisions between home, work, and play, and those between people and the rest of the nature.

[lotharx]

starter for @ormir.

where: hrimthur's wastelands.

when: dusk of some random week, lothar's huntin'

note: miss cracker voice: kaitlyn its time for dinnnnneeeeerrrrrr

Survival was this pettish thing; basic manners, tact, and grace forgotten as the elements clawed at each survivor, as starvation and mortal wounds dared to pull them past the brink. Not that the brute of a man, this mortal supplied by alchemist tinctures, had ever been known for his tact and graceful resolve. No, he'd long abandoned such fundamental fixtures of generic poise; it'd been beaten and splintered out of the whelp of a boy he'd once been once the Warrior's Guild had accepted him into their initiations. Violence was this innate piece of the guild, but it had it's rules and limitations, it had it's places carved amongst the chasms and cloisters of each society. Iskaldrik was not known for being plush and forgiving, he'd learned that as a boy, but it was the guild that had refined such sentiment within him, allowed him to be this wretched thing that was devised as more beast than man.

Such teachings and the scant reservoir of tinctures tucked away in his satchel had prompted his survival through each damning trial of the Wastelands. He'd known ever since they'd slipped forth from the hidden channels carved into the jagged fissures of mountain -that this was only the beginning of the end for many who had tagged along for salvation.

Death was a kindness for what greeted them along the way and the pyre mounted and burning at Nornwatch Keep was this last vestige of kindness they could give for the lives sacrificed to pestilence, famine, and death. The Ax curled his fingers around a short dagger watching silently as a snow hare, ragged too from the elements, attempted to nibble at the bleak foliage of the Wastelands. His stomach growled in anticipation and it was enough for the hare to spook, dashing off into the sanctity of a burrow as Lothar's lips curled in self-contempt. When a branch had splintered in the foreground of his sight, the Ax soon realized it was not his grumbling hunger that had alerted the hare, but another within the sloped terrain.

Many had gone off in groups but Lothar had always been this solitary creature; he needn't wish to ensure safety for anyone unless it was a life or death instance, anyone tagging along to his hunt merely would get in the way. "Thought you were supposed to be the deft one between the two of us," there's a sliver of surprise wedged in his tone as Ormir slips from the shadows; the Interim King, the Raven-Feeder. Life was merciless and the span of Ormir's legacy crept around them, men carved from circumstance and opportunity, but only one regaled in the circles of royalty now.

[requiesticat]

Another update

Making a lot of progress with chapter four of the Pocket Mirror fic. It should be out in a few days. Sorry for the lack of news about it; didn't want to post on this blog until it was finished.

I'm still working on the story archive, but that will be released at some point.

Here's a preview:

It wasn't inaccurate to say that Enjel owned a unique collection of mirrors. They had all been made with precision, each focusing upon a specific area of Kosmich's reservoir, gilded frames and shape hinting at their respective hosts. He would declare that he'd spun glass and gold out of the finest minerals, and endangered his life to obtain them in the process, plucking each unrefined jewel from within the depths of an active volcano. Enjel would tell him politely that he was full of it, and moreover, that sand didn't count as a mineral. She'd learned enough about beaches from reading to know that. 

Usually, she didn't have the patience to argue with her overlord, much less entertain his wild fantasies. When Goldia was around, it had almost been a relief that she was the target of his sadistic ire. This kept him busy. After she narrowly escaped the demon's wrath with her life, Kosmich relented, spending his days lounging in the throne room, occasionally mocking the pumpkins whenever he got bored enough. He never said anything, but somehow, his threats seemed a little halfhearted. Even when he barked orders at Enjel, it was done without much enthusiasm, though plenty of arguments made up for the lack she detected. Enjel always neglected to mention this. She'd doubt her own suspicions if the others weren't equally affected by Goldia's absence, waiting endlessly for her to visit. Harpae and Fleta coped in their own ways, with respective dignity and arrogant reluctance, tidying up clutter to pass the time. Even Lisette, who always used to skulk around the corridors of a pithy dungeon, took up residence atop that hill overlooking a far-off city, tending to the madonna lilies adorning her grave. Sometimes, Enjel wondered if Lisette would consign herself to lie upon it, and wait there until starvation took hold, if it meant Goldia would remain with her in death.

The collection was on display as a centerpiece in the Star Theater. Approaching it, Enjel decided to make a point of visiting Lisette soon. Her mirror was oddly-shaped compared to the rest, angular and jagged like a rhombus. But it was the rosette-shaped one that held the angel's focus, elegant curves resembling the petals of a flower. Harpae could often be sighted within these petals, sipping from a dainty tea set, lost within pages of thick novels, playing experimental melodies on an antique piano. Enjel hadn't told the others she was watching them, lest the minute amount of trust she'd gained with Fleta and Egliette be ruined. Perhaps it was for the best. Apparently, when Goldia claimed people were living in the lower floors of the dilapidated manor Harpae inherited from her parents, it spooked the maiden enough for her to willingly venture down there, making daily rounds to search for intruders. Enjel had no intention to scare Harpae further, but required her services nonetheless. If this celebration was to be properly upheld, it needed a keen eye for organization. Someone who took their role seriously.

That, and she had no idea how to sew.

[dialogue-queered]

IDF Just Destroyed a Key Rafah Water Facility Rachel Corrie Spent Her Last Month of Life Defending

(Source: The Intercept 'Drop News Site')

By Younis Tirawi, with contributed reporting by Ryan Grim and Hind Khoudary

29 July 2024

On Friday, I discovered a video posted on Instagram by an Israeli soldier from the 601st Combat Engineering Battalion, showing the calculated demolition of a chief water facility in Rafah. The video, in three parts, shows Israeli soldiers planting explosives inside and around the water pumps of a facility in the occupied city. The video—which is captioned in Hebrew, “Destruction of the Tal Sultan water reservoir in honor of Shabbat”—ends with footage of the water facility being blown up. The soundtrack is a song produced by soldiers of the 51st Golani Brigade with lyrics like, “We will burn Gaza… shake all of Gaza… for every house you destroy we will destroy ten.”

The water facility, also known as the Canada Well, is situated in Tel Sultan Neighborhood, in the western part of Rafah city. U.S. human rights activist Rachel Corrie, who was crushed to death in 2003 by an Israeli military bulldozer while attempting to prevent demolitions in the city, spent much of her time during the last month of her life helping to protect the municipality workers at the Canada Well. The workers were repairing damage done to the well due to the Israeli military bulldozers in the area, according to Gordon Murray, one of her fellow activists.

A report Corrie wrote just weeks before her murder lays out the work she and other activists with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM)—“human shield work with the Rafah Municipal Water authority,” she described it—were doing with local Palestinian workers to protect the well and local water system. “The workers are currently building a barrier surrounding the Canada Well…in the Canada-Tel El Sultan area of Rafah,” she wrote. “This well along with the El Iskan Well…was destroyed by Israeli bulldozers on 30th January [2003]. On several occasions the internationals have witnessed shooting from military vehicles on the settler road which passes along the northwestern edge of the sand-dunes and agricultural areas on the outskirts of Rafah.”

Corrie’s report added that the Canada Well had the capacity to produce 35 percent of Rafah’s total water supply back then. The defense of the water supply, she noted, led “to ISM activists coming under fire.”

The soldiers who blew up the water system this week were carrying out a strategy that has been explicitly articulated by the Netanyahu government. In October, an adviser to Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Giora Eiland, laid out the strategy to deprive Palestinians not just of water from outside Gaza, but to disrupt their ability to pump and purify water locally, on the IDF’s radio station, GLZ. “Israel, as I understand, closed the water supply to Gaza,” said Eiland in a Hebrew-language interview. “But there are many wells in Gaza, which contain water which they treat locally, since originally they contain salt. If the energy shortage in Gaza makes it so that they stop pumping out water, that's good. Otherwise we have to attack these water treatment plants in order to create a situation of thirst and hunger in Gaza, and I would say, forewarn of an unprecedented economical and humanitarian crisis.”

The interviewer pushed back. “Giora, I want to check that I understand correctly. You are saying—get the residents of Gaza into thirst, into hunger. These are the terms you are using?”

“You understood correctly,” he said. “If you want to topple the Hamas regime, you won't achieve that merely through aerial attacks. And a ground invasion, it has its benefits, [but] it also comes with great risks, and it's unclear that the state of Israel needs to take these right now.”

For months, Israeli forces have been targeting vital water resources in the strip leading to starvation and, according to new reports, worsening access to clean water. Last week, the Israeli military and the Palestinian Ministry of Health reported that Poliovirus has been found in Gaza’s sewage, further intensifying the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the occupied enclave. 

Our exposure of the video on Friday immediately sparked outrage, with some describing it as evidence of war crimes. The soldier quickly made his account private and deleted the stories.

The Canada well was built in 1999 with Canadian International Development Agency funding. While initial reporting, based on the soldier’s caption, called it a “reservoir,” according to Gaza’s coastal municipalities water utility, the Canada well is the main water facility in the city of Rafah and provides services to 50 percent of the city’s residents, mainly in West Rafah. 

Monther Shoblaq, Director General of the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility, who oversaw the maintenance and renovation of the Canada Well, described the destruction as "scandalous evidence" of the Israeli army's deliberate targeting of water and sanitation facilities. 

Monther told Drop Site in an interview that his organization had provided the Israeli military with precise GPS coordinates for the Canada Well and all water facilities in the Strip, in coordination with the Red Cross. Despite these precautions, the well was blown up. The Canada well remained operational throughout the war until the Israeli military full invasion into the neighborhood in late May, he said. 

“The solar panels at the facility enabled water services during the war for tens of thousands of people in the area, even with the electricity shutdown,” he said.  “I was shocked when I saw the video. It’s not just that they targeted this water facility; it’s the fact that they planted explosives, celebrated the act on Instagram, and did so under the guise of honoring the Sabbath. It’s deeply cruel. This is the Canada Well in Tal al-Sultan—one of the most important water facilities in the city of Rafah.”

Monther recounts witnessing the complete destruction of one of Gaza’s vital water facilities located in West Khan Younis by the Israeli military. He requested that facility be designated a deconflicted area through OCHA and UNICEF, providing details about the employees and their families present inside. The military approved the request, and CMWU restricted access to only employees and their immediate family members. Despite this, during the Israeli military operations in Khan Younis, the facility was struck without warning, resulting in the deaths of four of its employees’ relatives. As a result, the water facility, which housed Gaza's largest water tools and equipment, was left and subsequently utterly destroyed.

In the north, too, Gaza City’s municipal government has repeatedly reported deliberate attacks on water facilities in the city. A statement by the municipality on July 15 warned that the city is experiencing “a severe water crisis, with available water amounting to only a quarter of the pre-aggression supply at best, covering only 40 percent of the city's area.” 

A BBC analysis based on satellite data from May 9, three days after the Rafah invasion, found out that 50% of Gaza's water and sanitation facilities had been damaged or destroyed since Israel began its offensive following the Oct 7 attack.

An IDF spokesperson wasn’t able to comment by the time of publication, but we will update this article with their response when it comes.

[mortheim]

The real Kitezh Grad - Mologa

The city in the photo below no longer exists. Not due to any war, pandemic, or famine - it was a man-made disaster. Maybe it didn't affect as many people as some other Soviet experiments and policies, but it is still a tragic story of how you can destroy part of your own history for mega projects.

Mologa was founded in 1149 (at least we have mentions of a settlement there during this period). During the 14th-15th centuries, it was part of the Principality of Molozhsk (the name was derived from a river rather than from a city). By the 20th century, it wasn't a big city - only around 10.000 people with 12 factories, a gymnasium 8 schools, libraries, a cinema, a post and telegraph office, a bank, a hospital, and a health center. But the region still had its value for future generations. As for the territory, that would be submerged in the future, it was densely populated (for Russia) - around 130.000 inhabitants, with some places of cultural value - 3 monasteries (one founded in the 15th century, another in the 17th, and the last one at the end of 19th), multiple manors and several churches (5 just in Mologa, 4 of which were built from stone). The region was also pretty fertile because it was situated at the bottom of an ancient lake (yep, an interesting fact considering what happened to it later). It wasn't rich, but every year Mologa allowed up to seven thousand ships from the Lower Volga provinces to pass through its wharves.

It all started in 1932 when it was decided to build the Srednevolzhskaya hydroelectric complex. At first, only a small part of the region would be flooded - but the more you have the more you want to have. However, the construction organisers, having calculated everything, decided that if the level was increased by 4 m, the capacity of the plant would increase from 220 to 340 MW. It required a doubling of the land area to be submerged. Everything was decided by profit. The population was notified about the resettlement. The townspeople were transported out of Mologa for 4 years until the flooding began, with little to no belongings. Partially, they were compensated, and they also were employed at their new places of living.

But there were a lot of animals - both domesticated and wild - and the region had forests. What happened to them? Well, some domesticated animals were taken by their owners, while others died due to starvation or during flooding. The same fate awaited wild animals - most of them died during flooding. Trees were cut and, most of them were left there, creating obstructions on Volga and on the newly created reservoir. Here are some photos of Mologa.

The culture of Mologa was similar to that of Yaroslavl Governorate, with some small differences - there were several unique holidays, and some differences in celebrations of major ones, it was also overall more rural and better maintained some older aspects of early Russian culture. But the main loss came from the displacement of people - they lost connection with their roots. And I mean not only their graves or houses but items that were inherited through generations - you couldn't take that much with you considering when and how the resettlement happened.

Why is this relevant? One of the key themes I want to explore in my story is the contrast between modern russian culture, which is more soviet than one might thing, and the older russian traditions. My goal is to show this difference. Throughout the story, characters embark on personal journeys to reconnect with their roots in various regions, seeking to understand their connections to the people who lived long before them. One character has ancestors from Lukovec, a settlement in the northern part of the flooded region.

Just a reminder - every culture that was under Soviet rule suffered one way or another. Creating Homo Sovieticus was the goal.

[scentedchildnacho]

I did find the acorn trees....acorn meal and bath house....I am going to right a note to the army recruiting station to ask for these trades...

Thank you for the roaring stay in Temecula but I suffered too much depression from lack of belief in roe v. Wade...could you think about an awakened aura....as woman did figure out God mechanics better then sun as is...and there could be an air filtration room people could learn to stop acclimating to such extremism

The modern father complex isn't woman and gainful employment

Just ask mother God and it will be okay

They are really angry with the upper classes here they can't have Renaissance fairs at the promenade mall or convert starbucks to a local sustainable music venue they cannot do anything here

Faun pagan fair pagan fair pagan fair yea

I looked for a shower to buy but only found a tanning place they submerge you in an ice bath so I was like that won't be good for homelessness

Its again a problem of tattoo privilege the people here do believe common life is invasive and institutional and that doesn't have anything to do with maternity rights

Laser is advertised everywhere....so I think Karel Lindemans and who ever started the promenade mall were very angry Jews that called everyone not Jewish Nazis

I think Karel Lindemans studied under The Jew that bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki

The international school appears prostituted but there does appear interesting stuff in architecture brought from European social theory there

So even if I had money to go I would still do classes online before braving immigration problems

To me these trees are cash crops.....so it's not to be as angry as global south indigenous groups it's to ensure that the corporate white label functions correctly

Im not normal....and so issues like tampering with white hygiene to create napalm isn't protecting ones cash crops

Excessive reliance on European intervention in counter terrorism isn't admitting that white people have indigenous groups that like it here so

The world conservation corporation and those trees were whipped like Jesus so I'm going to learn to take care of them so they stay standing

Uhm secrets to good world are to ask the longest members of a community their opinion and he survived 40 years of homelessness......because if he had a garden he took care of it

Well it doesn't make sense to plant more tree because these trees already sprout from the roots and want to modernize so this can be ending Victorian influence in starvation

I was communicating with the trees and watering and watering and watering them won't work their are maybe issues in the underground

There was maybe an underground railroad in a reservoir so

The African world view isn't indigenous so maize....it's more that there could be maize from the mountain Gods

[teslapowermena]

Know About Engine Lubrication System

A dry sump system in engine lubrication stores oil in an external reservoir, eliminating oil starvation under high-speed or harsh operating conditions. In contrast, a wet sump system holds oil in the engine's oil pan. Tesla Power USA employs innovative lubricating systems to ensure peak performance and efficiency. Read More: https://teslapowerusa.ae/difference-between-dry-sump-and-wet-sump.php

[rabbitcruiser]

Clouds (No. 926)

Dinosaur National Monument, UT (two pics)

Starvation Reservoir, UT (seven pics)

Pinion Ridge Rest Area, UT

[foxgirl-manda]

My girlfriend likes to tickle me, like, to over sensory degree at points and almost to the point where I can't take more (and she seems to stop just before I finally want it to end so she knows my limit I guess?)

And she told me last night that she does the over stimulation to like, get me more used to the physical touch and stimulation (I'm very unused to actual sexual touch and she dommes me a little when doing it) and to try to like, over load my touch starvation so it's not as bad.

And I told her that it might possible also get me so used to touch that it just deepens the touch starve reservoir 😅

[thelostboylonelyworld]

Caim’s eyes observed Julius’ words with his mind divided. The echoes of his epiphany still ricocheting into his soul, bringing him the difficulty to articulate . And yet, exactly because the catharsis ignited about the lord was still fresh that his next words were received with sharp clarity, even if he wasn’t able to speak..

He licked his lips, ready to controvert the lord’s speech and then he saw, almost as if in slow motion, Julius hand approach towards his face. Blue hues flickered to observe it with a certain detachment. A sort of estrangement that took lightly his eyes and marked a subtle vestige of a frown in his eyebrows. And then his eyes flickered back sharply, in the exact moment Julius hand cupped his face, to drink up each detail of his face while he spoke before fixing into brown hues. His certainty wouldn’t be swayed. He knew what he had saw.

He knew too that the frequency with which the man touched him had a motive. The other being aware of that or not. It was a weak spot, the touch, to Caim, and a way of showing dominion over the situation, to Julius. A double vantage to the lord. But as well, an affirmation of how he was in need to take control over a situation, that perhaps, isn’t going to where he wanted, since he had to affirm his control a second time. Caim understood another peculiarity then: The man weakness resided in the same place his strength dwelled. Julius own actions seemed to refute his previous arguments. That realization felt funny, not only felt, but broke into an spontaneous smile and a brief laugh in Caim’s lips while the man finished speaking.

“Are you able to see yourself as I am doing right now?” He asked half in genuine curiosity. “Is you that misunderstand. I am not saying you are unhappy in the present state. You are unhappy in your life, is not a state of being, it’s what you are. But you see, everything that is can be changed too. You showed dissatisfaction in belonging to someone else, yet, said it yourself, that I may one day belong to you. Don’t you see the contradiction there? If to belong to someone else brings you such sadness why you say with such easiness of owning another? You can break this cycle. You say you aren’t forcing my hand here: so what is those touches, if not a way of using my body’s starvations against my rationality? Can’t you see that your necessity to touch me is too a way of marking your territory AND dominion over me and the situation? -Situation that, for some reason, it’s moving you to such discomfort and inner fragility that you have to use of a weakness of mine to cover yours? Also, dangerous or not, I am not a pet. You comparing me to your pets shows once more your need of control over other living beings, over “dangerous” beings, because owning something that is so lethal, makes you “powerful”. It seems like an unhealthy mechanism to try not to handle with the fact you are caged too. You are right. You are jailer of yourself, and aware of that or not, you, with your touch, gentle words, warmth… you want to have dominion over me.”

He spoke that with such easiness and detachment as if he was speaking about the weather. And it couldn’t happen in any other way too. With only two months of life Caim’s perceptions about others were completely devoid of judgment. He understood the intricacies of the others while he spoke, and such informations entered in his memory reservoir like a subject to be studied, a new thing to learn and deepen. If that helped him to survive, that would be a happy plus. While he spoke, as well he was stricken by those warm shivers of before, when the other moved his thumb against his cheek, a so faint touch… could cause such a great consequence. All the hairs of his body stood on end and the struggle to not let his focus be broken while he analysed Julius was real and so hard to achieve that when he finished speaking, he let go of a breath he hadn’t noticed, until then, that he been holding.

If it was hard for the lord to know what Caim was good at to Caim himself was simply impossible. He had learnt to be a librarian only. In two months he wasn’t able to learn anything more. Jenny gave him books about herbs and he quite liked it. But from liking, to actually know what he was doing ,it was a long path.

The man was so strange… he was so contradictory.

“You say I have to choose, but you have to choose too. Your actions say one thing to me, your words says another: you want to dominate me, or give me an opportunity to be free… I don’t know… to do anything good, that would exclude then… wait-“ his head lightly tilted to one side, eyes wide and intrigued. “… being cute is an offense?”

He was visibly confused now and his ask was a genuine one, as if was a child’s question. Perhaps was the effect of the warmth of Julius hand still seeping into his skin, it was… sidetracking...Doesn’t what he just spoken seemed like as if he was actually considering to go with the lord?

"You misunderstand. For as astute as you are, and I can see those stunning ocean eyes reading me like a book, you don't quite get it. I am unhappy- who is happy in war? I'm not thrilled by this. I'm also not the one putting you in reins. You said you aren't going back- fine. But I have no control of what happens to you if you don't go with me. I'm not forcing your hand on anything here."

Julius reached with his free hand and cupped the other mane's face gently in his palm, his thumb brushing Caim's cheek gently. He really was like a puppy, so observant and eager to live. There was something Julius found refreshing about his will to survive.

"I am not sure you look dangerous at all. Even if you are dangerous. But beautiful things can be plenty dangerous. My pets are exquisite and they are dangerous. I have lots of snakes. They are like glittering jewels but a bite could kill a hundred men. I don't know your name- but you're welcome to come with me and recoup yourself in my estate. Or you can escape now and wander into the night. It's up to you. I'm not your jailer."

Julius took in refugees and prisoners of the war, he housed the orphans and the homeless. Of course he got things in return, labor, knowledge from other lands, sometimes even gratitude.

"I'm not going to hurt you. I promise. I swear on my title, my lands. I won't violate you. I will ask you to take up a job while on my lands but that's all I ask. You can even pick the job, I hardly know what you're good at besides being cute."

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[midori-laboratories]

Ashes In The Fall - Chapter 11: We All Fall II

Book 2 of the Calendula Chronicles

Resident evil, Wesker X OC

Story Summary: Marigold Ashford escaped the mansion, only to face new incarceration with a familiar jailor. She may yet have to make a deal with the devil, if she can unearth what this Faustian bargain would cost her.

There is always something left to lose.

Chapter summary:

Marigold Ashford finally gets someone to explain what the internet is, and learns Microsoft Office.

Oh, right. There's also sex, plotting, some insight into how Marigold's viral expression works, and the development of a concerning ability. NSFW, minors DNI.

Marigold was trying very hard not to think about how easily she had adjusted to no longer waking up alone.

It wasn’t working very well.

She kept coming back to those studies about touch starvation that had come across her desk back in the day. Children who weren’t touched enough, early in life, would wilt and wither, sometimes to the point of death. Human touch, basic intimacy, it seemed, was a necessity of life.

Marigold had imposed her own moratorium on human touch long ago, as her virus matured within her body and made contact a dangerous gamble. The parties she attended back then, once she understood the risks, did little more than to slake the maddening edge off.

Poppy, her devoted chambermaid back home in England, had been exposed early and seemed to have developed a reservoir tolerance for her presence. It was still dangerous, but they had taken up a ritual where she had combed out Marigold's hair every few nights when she was at home. Utter bliss, for back then. If anyone had figured out that she was awake and out without prompting, it was likely Poppy. She hadn’t dared reach out to anyone back home, not yet.

Every now and then she would indulge for real. The village and her staff back home were out of the question- that was just asking for trouble. Sweet, confident Kate, wanting to explore and play in a way rarely afforded to her, had been a bit more (she’d had her favorites, even as she tried to spare their minds).

After a while, her body had stopped craving touch quite so much. She’d grown a little colder, a little crueler. A little more imperious.

No wonder she had shut down at being handled. Marigold’s body had gone into shock at the sudden, violent abundance, like an overdose.

And then, it had happened again with that first encounter in the gym. Her body had simply taken what it needed. The primal abandon of it had been horrifying…and breathtaking.

Afterward, goaded into attacking, she’d been forced to look closely at that euphoria. She’d trailed after Wesker, straight into his bed, almost drunk on the sensation. Marigold had felt so damned clever at the time.

She hadn’t slept in her own bed once since that night.

Five days. Five nights.

She should have been worried. But, true to his word, she had slept. And, for a little while, the nightmares were held at bay.

She still dreamed, of course. The feeling of floating. She dreamed of people she had known from her past life, an age ago.

Kate, dozing off in a car.

Poppy, sitting in her old rose garden, watching the sunrise.

A young bureaucrat she had met in Eastern Europe years earlier, now a cabinet minister.

A desk, with a pale gaunt hand holding a snow globe. A cold, cold place, and that feeling of floating. A dark room, in terrible pain. Bound, helpless. Always cold.

The deeper sleep held her down in those places, made it slower to rise to the surface.

Then, every time Marigold rose to the surface, that watchful, predatory presence seemed to roll into a state of languid hunger. She’d wake to her own whimpers, halfway into that first cresting peak.

No two mornings were the same. On the fifth day, after seemingly exhausting themselves, Wesker had turned her face to his and kissed her, long and deep. She froze - this had meant something quite different, more weaponized, to her for ages. The monster that lived under her skin, however, had all but purred at the gesture. After a moment, Marigold had finally relaxed into the kiss, letting it deepen, harden, and soften.

More than anyone, he’d walked into this with open eyes. And if things went badly- more than anyone, he’d get what was coming to him. This all but sealed it. So why not enjoy the moment?

After a moment, Marigold had relaxed enough to let her hands wander, and Wesker had hummed in approval. Continuing this very important business of exploring her mouth, Wesker wound his fingers through her hair at the back of her head, near her scalp and pulled, forcing her head back so that she had to arc even harder into his mouth. It was the sort of move that had always turned her bones to water, a very long time ago in a slightly more innocent time. She had moaned into the kiss, shivering.

Wesker had paused then. When she opened her eyes to look at him, his eyes had a glow to them. Nearly feral.

She had stared, eyes wide. Swallowed hard.

Wesker gave her that fucking smirk again.

That was all the warning she got before she found herself pressed facedown into the mattress, holding on for dear life while Wesker pounded into her from behind.

She’d tried not to scream since they had fallen in bed together. As much control she had ceded over the short-term, she’d held back on that. Call it pride, but there was a practical element as well. With her moods as they were, it had been dangerous to let go back home, at the manor, with so many people nearby, and she had an image to uphold at Umbrella.

But then, without breaking pace, one of his hands slipped up, squeezing gently around her throat. He’d bent forward, trailing his mouth along her spine before sucking hard at the join of her neck and shoulder. Wesker sank his teeth into the bruising flesh, hard enough to make her hiss out in pain. Letting his weight settle across her back, keeping up the relentless pace. Marigold didn’t tell him to stop. If anything, she arced up into the pressure, shuddering violently at the overwhelming sensations.

God help her, it felt like being marked. Claimed. The dual sensations of pleasure and pain swirled, amplified, primal. The orgasm tore through her so fast that there was no time to react, only release. Marigold had turned her face into the mattress to try to muffle the raw cries, to very little avail.

-----

An hour or so later (or five minutes, or a hundred years; time was indeterminable in that state), he had showered and headed over to his office. Marigold was free to return to her room and read, or head back to the gym, so long as she agreed to daily vitals and tests. She headed back to her own room, to get a shower of her own and change.

The quality of the books had improved somewhat. She was working her way through a battered copy of The Sicilian before an ear-shattering whining drone burst out in a whine of static from down the hall. Marigold had heard it before, but somehow it was even louder. I’m fairly certain that dial tone had already broken under torture by now. Not sure why it hasn’t already told you all where it keeps the narcotics, she thought, sardonic.

Then a feeling, like startled surprise. Something clattered to the ground down the hall. One of the muppets yelped in alarm. Then, in reply, Wesker’s voice in her head. Now that is interesting.

Oh.

Bollocks.

-----

“They’re smaller now. So it sends pictures through a phone line?”

The muppets looked torn between being amused and aghast. The shorter one spoke, timid. “Were you homeschooled or something?” Wesker snorted in the corner. She glared at him. The taller muppet had the good grace to cough, sheepishly. “It’s a network, miss. We send work through it.” He glanced nervously at Wesker.

She also looked at Wesker. “Are there any other massive shifts of ubiquitous technology I ought to be aware?”

“That’s the largest one, I believe,” he allowed, from the peanut gallery. She got the distinct impression he was laughing at her.

“Hmm,” she replied, then pivoted back to the machine. If she was ‘broadcasting’, she’d need to figure out just how blurred the line was. Standing around ruminating could be a problem if she aimed it recklessly.

She looked at the taller, braver muppet. “How does it work?”

Which was how she found herself with a slightly older, wiped machine in the examination room, isolated from the network. This was one of the rooms she could explicitly come and go from. The tech opened up a blank writing document, then a spreadsheet file to show the utility. “I think there’s a CD-ROM of Encyclopedia Britannica kicking around,” he muttered.

He explained the basic commands- copy, paste, save, close- and promised a list of key commands later. Partway through his jittering explanation of the TAB key, she leaned forward, ignoring the nervous tech in her fascination. “I used to do all of this by hand.”

The tech- Stattler? - laughed, nervous. “I guess you could estimate a few of the baseline readings, eh?”

“Eidetic memory makes you dull at parties, but it’s useful for a few things.” She tentatively navigated the mouse around the screen to the spreadsheet window. “Charts? Ah, I see…”

“Show me,” Wesker said from the doorframe. The tech jumped up, spooked at the silent approach.

Marigold ignored the theatrics. “Which ledgers did you actually recover?”

“December 1968 through to the following October.”

Marigold wrinkled her nose at that. “First year in London.” She had had a few…incidents…early on, while working out the finer details of her abilities. At the time, she had been required to be present at the London office. She’d managed to make her own name and start to bolster the investment profile of the nascent company back then. A few pompous young men at the office didn’t like being shown up that way.

She’d dealt with it. Quietly. But, truth be told, not gently. One of the perpetrators became her greatest supporter back in those days, a true ally. The other, well…she’d had to figure out what she could do to Marcus somewhere.

”That book’s a bit rough. Inconsistency and the data itself.” was what she said aloud. She’d learned shorthand partway through that particular year, which had likely annoyed her keepers. Curious, she decided to just ask. How much are you picking up?

She could almost feel the contemplative tilt of his head. You murmur to yourself quite a bit. Hardly any definition there. I heard you complain earlier, clearly. And now, of course. Is that a problem? Smug. Possibly a bluff. That wary feeling was back.

Perhaps only unaccustomed to the abyss looking back from this angle, she snapped back. In a cool tone, she said aloud, “I’ll see how much I can do with an hour or so.”

They left her to it. The tech lingered a moment, but she waved him off. “I’ll work it out, go on,” she gestured to the machine. “If It’s so terrible, I know where you are.”

-----

After a few moments of tentative exploration, Marigold began to type. That much, she could manage at least. The keyboard orientation was about the same as an ordinary typewriter, with more options to navigate and make changes. She fell into a rhythm of filling out a table with her readings from that year.

In the back of her mind, she fretted. Another variable. Marigold would have needed to know what would happen when interacting with other intelligent beings afflicted with the virus- and truth be told, she could do worse. She thought back to that morning and bit her lip. Much worse.

Marigold might have assured herself to be careful, but that ship had sailed. More worrying were the hormonal repercussions of prodding her stress responses and libido like that. She’d never fully given in before, and the first…symptoms…hadn’t even shown up yet.

Maybe she’d get lucky, and they wouldn’t come. This was the first time in ages she’d let her instincts take over. But she hadn’t been lucky so far.

Taking a deep breath, she counted down from twenty before refocusing on the work.

Her thoughts drifted to her family. Alexander, keeping secrets, absconded to one of the most remote parts of the world to focus on building his Veronica. Alfred’s neglect, trailing after his sister. Alexia’s single-minded poise and drive. Even at eight, the girl had questions for her about pheromone responses, asking for endocrine data over the telephone. She had mused on contractile strength in individual muscle fibers.

Her monthly calls with Alexander had begun growing terse whenever his children were concerned. Isolation had been hard on her, and she had people around her all the time. Alexander had chosen the location of his exile. The children had never chosen any of it for themselves. **Marigold suspected a rift might have grown had she been given more time.

Deep down, Marigold had started to become very anxious about what sort of fate awaited her if she did end up at Rockfort at the end of the five years grace period that she had promised Alexander. Marigold had pushed the idea away at the time- what else was she to do? But the anxiety remained.

The full scope of the horrors had only manifested for her quite recently. It hardly mattered now that the only one left was a shattered shell of a man who facilitated Spencer’s grip over the massive company, possibly as a means of keeping his hand in. Like Alex did. Like his father.

“There are incidents. Accidents. ..Do you realize that there’s a whole paramilitary arm of the company now? Who do you suppose is more than happy to manage their training? I suppose watching you work all those years, he wanted to put a new spin on an old family recipe.” Wesker’s words, goading her into an attack.

Except…Antarctica wasn’t empty. She had cast her mind out in that direction just before Wesker had…corralled her in, felt their presence there. She had briefly touched two minds.

Alexander, gone. Alexia, felled by her research. Alfred, broken, alone, cryptically warning her that a strategy was in play.

She stopped typing.

Oh god no.

In her mind’s eye, she thought of a December day back in Rockfort, when Alexia had been so small, yet impossibly bright already. “Reputations are fickle things, dear. If the company finds out about me before I’m ready for them, then your hands will need to be clean.”

What had they done?

---

Wesker’s own sense of detachment had alerted him to the effect that Placidia- Marigold, he corrected himself, this wasn’t Arklay- had in others carrying the stable T-virus. Fluid exchange strengthened the connection. Saliva shouldn’t have quite that strong an effect…except that was also the primary vehicle for T-virus infection.

The coupling of oxytocin from a kiss with latent transmission seemed to amplify the effect to the point of telepathic connection -an extreme effect for a social bonding hormone. First a candle, then a torch.

That implied interesting things about Ms. Everett, who had only been a floor away. Interesting, though as it turned out, no longer truly relevant. Looking back, that effort had drained Marigold greatly, and she had still put up a solid fight. Had she not been taking suppressants, they might have lost the facility.

Without the suppressants, she took on a rather different set of vulnerabilities. Biochemical analyses, done regularly since her arrival, had produced some fascinating hormonal surges from her blood samples. She’d hesitated to ask for her medication on arrival, and hadn’t said another word about it since. Still trying to hide the cards in her hand.

Marigold’s viral expression had an interesting ability to heighten eusocial traits in those she held contact with. No wonder her niece had gravitated to studying ants, trying to harden the loose human eusociality into something more stringent. The family had held the blueprint all along.

He’d need to develop something to counter how his own system responded to her, of course. In a poetic turn of events, the neurology of the sort of person who rose to the top at Umbrella was likely resistant to the more domineering aspects of exposure to her. The enhancement of the T-Virus prior to exposure seemed to have gone a long way toward leveling the field.

Wesker had no intention of becoming another mindless automaton like he had seen back when Marigold had stepped into the initial trap. Yet…that near-encounter at the edge of the forest in Arklay was instructive in its own right. He’d scented her adrenaline in the air when realizing she was being watched, had felt a push of resistance emanating from her then.

Had her nerve broken and made her run, Wesker’s newly heightened predatory drives would have overrun his restraint. Loathe as he was to compare himself to Marcus, the only true difference there in this regard was that the woman had managed to alter Marcus’ paralimbic physiology before he had been exposed to the core virus. Wesker himself was inoculated just enough to hold the balance.

That constant impending threat of self-control had been a problem. Fortunately, the solution had some rather gratifying side effects. Gratifying enough that maintaining the solution would not create an undue burden on his other projects.

Speaking of which- his other work was meeting with mixed results. Sergei’s intervention at the mansion had greatly set back his projections for HCF. All of that data. What he had managed to bring in had given him some tenuous footing with the organization. Just enough to give him probationary status. Just enough to let him work towards redeeming himself.

Getting William to come over would be a coup. Getting a hold of Ashford had been unexpected, and an amazing display of how arrogant Sergei, and by extension, Umbrella- had become.

Spencer had his reasons for keeping Placidia away from research, of course. The man could rationalize anything. The Tyrant program had been experimenting with means of controlling their behemoths for years. Parasites and computer chips implanted in the brain had both been used to moderate success- to replace minds that had been destroyed. No one knew how it would interact with a working mind, much less one that had developed viral equilibrium independently of their control.

And that last part- the part where Marigold had worked out the tenor of Spencer’s intentions, if not the details, was the crux of it. Spencer had cut off his own nose to spite his face out of sheer pique. Punishing the surviving Ashfords had only confirmed the worst for the survivors. He’d forgotten that they were of the same stock- just as patient, but with the sense to keep the circle small enough to manage. There was something to be learned from that, but Spencer had chosen to move with a heavy and reactive hand.

Distantly, Wesker could feel Marigold struggling to maintain focus. A sharp spike of anguish came from her direction. Wesker was glad they were at an isolated facility for this part, at least. This would take some getting used to. In the meantime, the walls that his charge had built firmly around herself were crumbling down around her.

T-Veronica was real, completed. Wesker was sure of it. Alexia Ashford was an entitled brat in her time, but she was methodical, and the farthest thing from negligent. He’d been feeding Marigold just enough information about the surviving Ashford heir to direct her line of thinking to some rather dark conclusions. Dark, though very likely true, should his theories prove correct.

And if he could drive that particular fox into that den ahead of the hunt, he might just be able to take it. Birkin would make his move anytime now; HCF was already reporting suspicious activity happening around Raccoon City. If he could secure her fidelity, he could make up the shortfall from the mansion quickly.

As if on cue, a whisper came through from Marigold. I miss my knives. It had the air of a confession.

In his office, he grinned. There was nothing soft in that expression, nothing tender.

Spencer had been envisioning soldiers in his arsenal, a cadre of loyal thanes serving a central sovereign. When one emerged almost organically out of Marcus’ malicious incompetence, they had trapped her like a feral animal and set her in storage. And now she was asking him for weapons.

This afternoon, they would test out just how well she knew how to use them.