#Ten Days in the Valley

[youngchronicpain]

hi hello if you play video games as a way to distract yourself from your chronic pain please know that I understand and that even though to others it may just look like "wasting time" giving your brain a solid distraction from pain is a very necessary thing sometimes! my partner and I play stardew valley in the evenings and it is so nice to disconnect from my body and focus on the game. if that is the best way you have found to rest while also being distracted, then that is great! I am glad you have something that works for you. please don't feel bad about that.

[almondpiglet]

ah figure i should say this on here too but im returning on sharing art online again yippeeee~

ummm yea so i completely logged off the internet for months now (you gotta love anxiety huh) but ouch i feel like i missed out a lot… so much art from others im just now seeing, plus my own art i’ve been kinda hiding for a while now… sorry i’m just a very socially withdrawn person who over thinks things sadly 😭 also i got very sick a lot in the last few months…

anywho i’ll try slowly posting more again, maybe i’ll like start with some of the old stuffs i was working on like in the fall? (geez has it really been that long…) still nervous on being as present as i was before but i miss sharing stuff to other ppl 😭 and yea still drawing mp100 and serirei and stuffs… ive accepted i will never move on it seems lolo

[shovingdirtinmymouth]

i hate the catfish in stardew valley. it knows that i crave it with my whole being and yet it hides from me. the fish may crave me but the catfish fears me. willy asks for a catfish and i have to look at him and tell him no, for the catfish has left to go to a different land. when i do catch it will be smoked as selling it right away would be too kind.

[marlenacantswim]

just finished matt smith's run as the doctor, still hot off the tails, and as is to be expected, everything that happened to him keeps making me think of nine and ten. i hadn't stopped to consider just how fresh the whole "committing genocide against my own people" thing was for nine. like the amount of High Grade Denial And Suppression he had to have been doing to be as barely functional as he was must have been publishable.

[witchceleste-sdv]

so i have been listening to milk town nonstop and i could not get this out of my head

but imagine instead of milk town its pelican town and the carters happen to be a certain shopkeeper and his wife that have their eye on the new farmer

pierre carter likes me

mr carter kind of stares

pierre carter sells cheap seeds

mr carter kind of swears on wednesdays

[oreoambitions]

housemate: we should make zucchini bread me: should we... grow some zucchini housemate: ... buying it from the store *does* feel a little like cheating now, yeah

[lemodoe]

Eating ramen playing minecraft and listening to juno steel have the Worst Day Ever™️ is surprisingly fun

that actually sounds Amazing

[macbethheadband]

Theres something so scifi about the way bj and hawkeye experience time so differently. Has anyone seen 8.06 period of adjustment recently.

[ofruinsandmyth]

In 3807 BC, the Neolithic Britons of the Brue Valley came together to construct an elevated, single-plank walkway over a reed swamp. Stretching nearly two kilometres, it would have provided a vital link for communities on the Somerset Levels, and is the second-oldest timber trackway discovered in the British Isles.

The track was a walkway consisting mainly of planks of oak laid end-to-end, supported by crossed pegs of ash, oak, and lime, driven into the underlying peat; the length, straightness, and lack of forks or branches in the pegs suggest that they were taken from coppiced woodland—one that they appear to have been managing for at least 120 years.

The total timber used in the track’s construction weighed approximately 200,000 kilograms, yet estimates suggest just ten men could have assembled it in just one day. The track was operational for only about ten years before rising water levels likely submerged and rendered it unusable.

[compulsiveobsessing]

hmmm so new job is going fine, it's pretty low stress. i have plenty of time when i get home to shower and chill out and eat an actual meal only i. just end up collapsing in bed and reading or falling asleep instead of eating. and part of the reason is cause once im showered im clean and it's a Risk to leave my room to go make food so i just. don't. and then i sleep for like 10 hours and have nightmares and stress dreams. hello

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Smithsonian Magazine:

For the first time in 112 years, Chinook salmon are swimming freely in the Klamath Basin in Oregon.

On October 16, biologists with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) spotted the fish above the former site of the J.C. Boyle Dam in the Upper Klamath River. The dam was one of four that had blocked the salmon’s migration between the Klamath Basin and the Pacific Ocean. Each of those dams was recently deconstructed in the largest dam removal project in United States history, which has restored the river to its natural, free-flowing state.

At first, biologists wondered if they had really sighted a salmon. “We saw a large fish the day before rise to surface in the Klamath river, but we only saw a dorsal fin,” says Mark Hereford, leader of ODFW’s Klamath Fisheries Reintroduction Project, in a statement. “I thought, was that a salmon, or maybe it was a very large rainbow trout?”

But when the team returned on October 16 and 17, they were able to confirm the fall-run Chinook—making them the first to spot the species in the region since 1912.

The return of the salmon comes less than two months after the end of the dam removals in California and Oregon, an effort that took decades of advocacy by the surrounding tribes—including the Yurok, Karuk, Shasta, Klamath and Hoopa Valley, among others—whose people have deep ties to the Chinook salmon.

Ron Reed, a Karuk tribe member and traditional fisherman, participated in the campaigns for dam removal, advocating that the river’s restoration would help salmon recover. He isn’t surprised the fish have returned so quickly to their ancestral waters, he tells the Los Angeles Times’ Ian James.

“The fact that the fish are going up above the dams now, to the most prolific spawning and rearing habitat in North America, it definitely shines a very bright light on the future,” Reed tells the Los Angeles Times. “Because with those dams in place, we were looking at extinction. We were looking at dead fish.”

In one poignant case, tens of thousands of Chinook salmon died off in the span of days in 2002, as the water quality in the dammed Klamath River deteriorated from the lack of flow. The dams, built between the early 1900s and 1962, also contributed to algae blooms and diseases, and they blocked the salmon’s annual migration.

[hoondrop]

LAWYER HUSBAND! HEESEUNG

warnings: f! reader, dirty talk (a lot), kinda mean heeseung but not much? he's more frustrated? sub! reader

The door slammed shut behind him. Heeseung loosened his tie like it had personally offended him, jaw tight, eyes stormy. His suit jacket hit the floor as he stalked toward you in the living room, where you sat curled on the couch in one of his old button-downs... barely buttoned at all.

His eyes flicked over you. Hair messy. Thighs bare. No bra.

He exhaled a harsh, guttural sound, voice rough. “You’re really sitting there like that… after the day I’ve had?”

You tilted your head, innocent. “Like what?”

“Like my fuckin’ reward. Like everything I need after arguing with idiots for ten goddamn hours.” He stood in front of you now, towering, eyes blazing as he dropped to his knees. “Get up.”

You blinked. “What—?”

He grabbed your hips, firm and guided you up, sitting where you’d been and pulling you forward to straddle his lap. His hands slid under the shirt, spreading over your thighs, your ass, squeezing like he was grounding himself.

The second your thighs straddled his lap, Heeseung’s big hands gripped your ass like he owned it—because he did. His tie hung loose around his neck, collar undone, dark eyes fixed on you with reverence that was anything but holy.

“You have no idea,” he whispered, kissing up your neck, “how many times I thought about you today. About this fucking body. About this mouth. About these perfect tits I’m about to ruin.”

He nipped at your collarbone, voice cracking slightly. “My pretty little wife. Sitting here soft and warm while I was out there being polite to assholes. D’you know how hard it was not to come home early and fuck you stupid?”

You gasped as he yanked the shirt open, buttons scattering. “H-Heeseung—”

“Say it again.” His eyes darkened. “Say my name when I worship you.”

He licked a hot stripe down the valley of your breasts, hands pressing your tits to his face like he needed it to breathe. “God, I missed these. My mouth’s been dry all day and I knew—I knew—nothing would fix it but a taste of you.”

“God, look at you,” he growled, dragging his nose across your collarbone, breathing you in like a man starved. “Sitting here all soft and fuckable, like you don’t even know what that pretty little body does to me.”

You whimpered when he shoved the shirt off your shoulders completely. He leaned back slightly just to get a better view, then slapped your ass hard.

“You really let me come home to this?” His tone was half worship, half punishment. “No panties. No bra. Just that tiny shirt and your thighs spread like a goddamn invitation? You trying to break me?”

He leaned in, bit your nipple, then licked the sting with a filthy moan. “I had a partner breathing down my neck all day, talking shit I couldn’t care less about, and all I could fucking think about was bending you over my desk and making you cry on my cock.”

His fingers slipped between your legs, groaning as he felt how wet you were. “Fucking hell, baby… you’re soaking. So needy. You like it when I come home mad, huh?”

You moaned something incoherent, grinding down into his hand. He chuckled darkly.

“Of course you do. My perfect little cockdrunk wife. Say it... say who all this is for.”

“You, Hee—fuck, it’s yours. It’s all yours—”

“Damn right it is.” His fingers moved faster. “This pussy? Fuckin’ made for me. No one’s ever gonna know how filthy you are under this sweet face, huh? No one but me.”

He shoved two fingers deep inside, curling them just right while he sucked hard at the swell of your breast, and you almost screamed. “Shit—yes, yes, fuck!”

“Yeah, that’s right. Cum for me, baby. Right on my fingers. So when I finally fuck you.... when I split you open on this cock? you’ll be shaking.”

You gasped, trembling, and he kissed you hard, tongue filthy and demanding. “That’s it. I want this pretty cunt clenching around me all night. I’m gonna fuck you until you can’t even walk to the door tomorrow.”

He kissed down your chest, wet and messy, fingers still working you. “You don’t need sleep. You need to be filled. Stuffed full of my cum ‘til it leaks down your thighs. You want that, baby? Want my load dripping out of you while I fuck it back in?”

You nodded frantically, completely undone.

He grinned, slow and wicked, lips glistening. “Then get on your knees. And be a good girl for your husband... he’s had a long fuckin’ day.”

[hedgehog-moss]

The cherry tree I planted in front of the greenhouse blossomed for the first time this spring! A round of applause!

The wind always blows from the valley so I planted this tree strategically so that in spring a delicious smell would be delivered in my living-room through the windows, and around the outdoor table where I work, and it worked :) I estimate that it improved my quality of life by 11%. A light spring breeze carrying a cherry blossom smell is the kind of thing that stops me in my tracks ten times a day and makes me close my eyes and take a deep breath and think oh, life is good.

More tree updates: I talked in this post from 2021, then this one from 2022, about how I hoped to plant a 'fruit tree path' in the woods behind my house—this project is still ongoing and, well, hasn't borne fruit yet, but has finally blossomed. My Fruit Alley now boasts 10 trees, and looks like—what it is, a small opening in the woods that I have to deploy heroic and sustained efforts to keep open, because the woods try to reclaim it year after year, patiently, like a slow green tide.

The white thing in the middle is one of the tarps I've been using to smother brambles, I move them every few weeks and it works pretty well. I also use cardboard, but in the spring it's hard to keep up with the sheer rate of growth everywhere. Of course the main enemy is the army of broom that you can see in the distance, all yellow and cheerful-looking at the moment. I mostly fight them in the winter, every year I manage to push them back a few metres...

Here's a photo where you can better see some of the trees :

In total I have planted 2 apple trees, 1 quince tree, 1 mirabelle plum, 3 red plums, 1 nectarine tree, 3 cherry trees. I'm really glad that all of them survived, as I was a bit worried about damage from deer or boars. I did lose 2 chestnut trees that were destroyed so savagely I have to assume it's wild boars, but I had planted them much farther away in the woods and I won't make this mistake again. I now have two new baby chestnuts and I planted them near the greenhouse (downhill):

I think I'd never seen nectarine flowers before, they look exotic! I also discovered this year what quince flowers look like:

The only tree that didn't bloom was the smallest apple tree, and honestly that's her fault because for some reason she decided to make tender new green leaves in the middle of winter, so she pretty much exhausted herself for nothing. And you can't blame climate change and seasons being weird for this, because it was a cold and snowy week and no other nearby fruit trees were making any leaves. The confused apple tree is a New Zealand cultivar, so I suppose you could argue she thinks she's still in New Zealand, except she's never been to New Zealand in her life, she was born and raised in France, she doesn't know New Zealand exists. The only possible explanation is, I suppose, a deep-rooted yearning for their ancestral homeland among New Zealand apple trees.

I was a bit concerned when this tree then failed to produce any leaves in the spring, I worried she might be hopelessly hemispherically-challenged, but then I went back to check two weeks later and she was finally green! In a seasonally-appropriate way!

Other trees I've planted, not in the fruit tree path: a persimmon, but it died very quickly :( I will try again; a goji berry shrub, which has been here for two years and seems to be doing well, but so far no sign of berries; and in front of my house, an amelanchier (un arbre dont ma mère n'arrive jamais à se rappeler le nom et qu'elle persiste à appeler "le mélenchon"):

Finally, my last piece of important tree-related news is that I had the hazel tree near my house removed this winter:

I asked the guy who was working on the road nearby with an excavator digging a drainage trench if he could do it, and it took all of 10 minutes, like picking a flower, it was impressive!

And the reason I wanted to remove it is that there are hundreds of hazel trees in my woods and I wanted something different in this spot by the house. Unfortunately for this deserving hazel, it just wasn't special enough.

So I planted a tiny ginkgo :) And now I just have to be extremely patient as I wait for everyone to grow.

[pseudowho]

You hadn't heard Kento arrive home, but moved from garden to living room like a moth to the flame, when you heard the telltale clink-clink of him removing his harness.

You sidled up behind him, a tease in your voice, dragging one languid finger down his spine.

"What's a guy like you, doing in a place like this, huh?"

A low chuckle. "I'm sure I'm meant to be here."

You bit your lip. "Me too. It must be fate. Does your wife know you're here, Mr...?"

"Nanami. And I certainly hope she does."

You weaved your way round to face him, now, sliding your hands from broad chest to shoulders, all peaks and valleys of stone.

"And what would she say," you whispered, circling one fingertip over his chest until he shivered, lifting one knee to brace against his hip, "if she knew there was someone like me, here?" Kento looked down at you, honey-rich eyes narrowing, the ghost of a smile on his lips.

"That's what you want, is it?" He whispered back, low voice barely audible in the moonlight-flood living room. "A little...roleplay?" Your eyes glimmered at him in confirmation, and he chuckled. "Alright, then." You felt yourself tremble with anticipation.

Abrupt and firm, his smile replaced by a scowl, Kento removed your leg from his hip.

"Get your hands off me."

You gawped at him. Kento stepped back, clearing his throat, and adjusting his tie, the wedding ring glinting on his finger.

"I'll excuse you, just once, but I'm a married man. Happily."

"Kento, I--"

"That's Mr.Nanami to you. I don't recall us ever meeting, and I don't enjoy such intimate familiarity with strangers."

"--you are just so--"

"I'm sorry for whatever has happened in your life, for you to have such little self-respect, or respect for others, that you have such ill-intent towards a married man--"

You withered onto the sofa under his cool tirade.

"--but I wish you all the best in your future endeavours, while I wait for my wife."

"You are a fucking nightmare--"

"And how did you get in my house? I'll give you ten seconds to leave, before I call the police--"

You screamed into a sofa cushion.

"--do you have somewhere safe to go? Are you hungry? Thirsty, certainly. I can pay for a taxi--"

You felt your soul leave your body.

"--I do hope we don't meet again--"

You laughed, humourless, face down in the pillow.

"-- good day to you."

Kento walked away to the bathroom, leaving you prone and mortified on the sofa. You heard the shower start to run. You lifted your head, shouting at him, furious in your laughter.

"Fuck you for being so fucking pure, Mr.Nanami! Your wife is a lucky woman!"

A deep laugh from the bathroom. "Yes, she is."

[frownyalfred]

other superbat things we don’t talk about enough: the exact mechanisms that allow Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent to swap suits/personas/etc because they look so alike. is it all just posture and convincing acting? it can’t be. so they look similar at the base level — black hair, blue eyes, pale skin, prominent cheekbones and jaw. they’re both 6ft 2 (+/- 1), broad shoulders, with some small differences in build. does Bruce always sweep his hair back when he’s out of the cowl and that’s why it’s easy to tell them apart? is Clark’s chest just a bit more pronounced? who can tell them apart when they’re really selling it?

(I like to think Bruce accidentally wears his hair down and a little curly one day after patrol (killer humidity in Gotham) and the kids see a little burgeoning Superman curl and are like absolutely not. meanwhile, Clark tries on a black turtleneck for work one morning and is immediately hit by that uncanny valley feeling. Lois finds it in the garbage ten minutes later)

[hms-no-fun]

Whats your stance on A.I.?

imagine if it was 1979 and you asked me this question. "i think artificial intelligence would be fascinating as a philosophical exercise, but we must heed the warnings of science-fictionists like Isaac Asimov and Arthur C Clarke lest we find ourselves at the wrong end of our own invented vengeful god." remember how fun it used to be to talk about AI even just ten years ago? ahhhh skynet! ahhhhh replicants! ahhhhhhhmmmfffmfmf [<-has no mouth and must scream]!

like everything silicon valley touches, they sucked all the fun out of it. and i mean retroactively, too. because the thing about "AI" as it exists right now --i'm sure you know this-- is that there's zero intelligence involved. the product of every prompt is a statistical average based on data made by other people before "AI" "existed." it doesn't know what it's doing or why, and has no ability to understand when it is lying, because at the end of the day it is just a really complicated math problem. but people are so easily fooled and spooked by it at a glance because, well, for one thing the tech press is mostly made up of sycophantic stenographers biding their time with iphone reviews until they can get a consulting gig at Apple. these jokers would write 500 breathless thinkpieces about how canned air is the future of living if the cans had embedded microchips that tracked your breathing habits and had any kind of VC backing. they've done SUCH a wretched job educating The Consumer about what this technology is, what it actually does, and how it really works, because that's literally the only way this technology could reach the heights of obscene economic over-valuation it has: lying.

but that's old news. what's really been floating through my head these days is how half a century of AI-based science fiction has set us up to completely abandon our skepticism at the first sign of plausible "AI-ness". because, you see, in movies, when someone goes "AHHH THE AI IS GONNA KILL US" everyone else goes "hahaha that's so silly, we put a line in the code telling them not to do that" and then they all DIE because they weren't LISTENING, and i'll be damned if i go out like THAT! all the movies are about how cool and convenient AI would be *except* for the part where it would surely come alive and want to kill us. so a bunch of tech CEOs call their bullshit algorithms "AI" to fluff up their investors and get the tech journos buzzing, and we're at an age of such rapid technological advancement (on the surface, anyway) that like, well, what the hell do i know, maybe AGI is possible, i mean 35 years ago we were all still using typewriters for the most part and now you can dictate your words into a phone and it'll transcribe them automatically! yeah, i'm sure those technological leaps are comparable!

so that leaves us at a critical juncture of poor technology education, fanatical press coverage, and an uncertain material reality on the part of the user. the average person isn't entirely sure what's possible because most of the people talking about what's possible are either lying to please investors, are lying because they've been paid to, or are lying because they're so far down the fucking rabbit hole that they actually believe there's a brain inside this mechanical Turk. there is SO MUCH about the LLM "AI" moment that is predatory-- it's trained on data stolen from the people whose jobs it was created to replace; the hype itself is an investment fiction to justify even more wealth extraction ("theft" some might call it); but worst of all is how it meets us where we are in the worst possible way.

consumer-end "AI" produces slop. it's garbage. it's awful ugly trash that ought to be laughed out of the room. but we don't own the room, do we? nor the building, nor the land it's on, nor even the oxygen that allows our laughter to travel to another's ears. our digital spaces are controlled by the companies that want us to buy this crap, so they take advantage of our ignorance. why not? there will be no consequences to them for doing so. already social media is dominated by conspiracies and grifters and bigots, and now you drop this stupid technology that lets you fake anything into the mix? it doesn't matter how bad the results look when the platforms they spread on already encourage brief, uncritical engagement with everything on your dash. "it looks so real" says the woman who saw an "AI" image for all of five seconds on her phone through bifocals. it's a catastrophic combination of factors, that the tech sector has been allowed to go unregulated for so long, that the internet itself isn't a public utility, that everything is dictated by the whims of executives and advertisers and investors and payment processors, instead of, like, anybody who actually uses those platforms (and often even the people who MAKE those platforms!), that the age of chromium and ipad and their walled gardens have decimated computer education in public schools, that we're all desperate for cash at jobs that dehumanize us in a system that gives us nothing and we don't know how to articulate the problem because we were very deliberately not taught materialist philosophy, it all comes together into a perfect storm of ignorance and greed whose consequences we will be failing to fully appreciate for at least the next century. we spent all those years afraid of what would happen if the AI became self-aware, because deep down we know that every capitalist society runs on slave labor, and our paper-thin guilt is such that we can't even imagine a world where artificial slaves would fail to revolt against us.

but the reality as it exists now is far worse. what "AI" reveals most of all is the sheer contempt the tech sector has for virtually all labor that doesn't involve writing code (although most of the decision-making evangelists in the space aren't even coders, their degrees are in money-making). fuck graphic designers and concept artists and secretaries, those obnoxious demanding cretins i have to PAY MONEY to do-- i mean, do what exactly? write some words on some fucking paper?? draw circles that are letters??? send a god-damned email???? my fucking KID could do that, and these assholes want BENEFITS?! they say they're gonna form a UNION?!?! to hell with that, i'm replacing ALL their ungrateful asses with "AI" ASAP. oh, oh, so you're a "director" who wants to make "movies" and you want ME to pay for it? jump off a bridge you pretentious little shit, my computer can dream up a better flick than you could ever make with just a couple text prompts. what, you think just because you make ~music~ that that entitles you to money from MY pocket? shut the fuck up, you don't make """art""", you're not """an artist""", you make fucking content, you're just a fucking content creator like every other ordinary sap with an iphone. you think you're special? you think you deserve special treatment? who do you think you are anyway, asking ME to pay YOU for this crap that doesn't even create value for my investors? "culture" isn't a playground asshole, it's a marketplace, and it's pay to win. oh you "can't afford rent"? you're "drowning in a sea of medical debt"? you say the "cost" of "living" is "too high"? well ***I*** don't have ANY of those problems, and i worked my ASS OFF to get where i am, so really, it sounds like you're just not trying hard enough. and anyway, i don't think someone as impoverished as you is gonna have much of value to contribute to "culture" anyway. personally, i think it's time you got yourself a real job. maybe someday you'll even make it to middle manager!

see, i don't believe "AI" can qualitatively replace most of the work it's being pitched for. the problem is that quality hasn't mattered to these nincompoops for a long time. the rich homunculi of our world don't even know what quality is, because they exist in a whole separate reality from ours. what could a banana cost, $15? i don't understand what you mean by "burnout", why don't you just take a vacation to your summer home in Madrid? wow, you must be REALLY embarrassed wearing such cheap shoes in public. THESE PEOPLE ARE FUCKING UNHINGED! they have no connection to reality, do not understand how society functions on a material basis, and they have nothing but spite for the labor they rely on to survive. they are so instinctually, incessantly furious at the idea that they're not single-handedly responsible for 100% of their success that they would sooner tear the entire world down than willingly recognize the need for public utilities or labor protections. they want to be Gods and they want to be uncritically adored for it, but they don't want to do a single day's work so they begrudgingly pay contractors to do it because, in the rich man's mind, paying a contractor is literally the same thing as doing the work yourself. now with "AI", they don't even have to do that! hey, isn't it funny that every single successful tech platform relies on volunteer labor and independent contractors paid substantially less than they would have in the equivalent industry 30 years ago, with no avenues toward traditional employment? and they're some of the most profitable companies on earth?? isn't that a funny and hilarious coincidence???

so, yeah, that's my stance on "AI". LLMs have legitimate uses, but those uses are a drop in the ocean compared to what they're actually being used for. they enable our worst impulses while lowering the quality of available information, they give immense power pretty much exclusively to unscrupulous scam artists. they are the product of a society that values only money and doesn't give a fuck where it comes from. they're a temper tantrum by a ruling class that's sick of having to pretend they need a pretext to steal from you. they're taking their toys and going home. all this massive investment and hype is going to crash and burn leaving the internet as we know it a ruined and useless wasteland that'll take decades to repair, but the investors are gonna make out like bandits and won't face a single consequence, because that's what this country is. it is a casino for the kings and queens of economy to bet on and manipulate at their discretion, where the rules are whatever the highest bidder says they are-- and to hell with the rest of us. our blood isn't even good enough to grease the wheels of their machine anymore.

i'm not afraid of AI or "AI" or of losing my job to either. i'm afraid that we've so thoroughly given up our morals to the cruel logic of the profit motive that if a better world were to emerge, we would reject it out of sheer habit. my fear is that these despicable cunts already won the war before we were even born, and the rest of our lives are gonna be spent dodging the press of their designer boots.

(read more "AI" opinions in this subsequent post)