#allies in the dairy islands

[terabyte-teddybear]

bee and puppycat lockscreens featuring his favorite color blue as a surprise for @cosmicpetshop <3

image description: two lockscreens, one is a muted teal background with transparency polka dots over it, there is a larger circle of a blue sky with clouds and bee standing in the middle she is a chubby white girl with long brown hair in a ponytail wearing a yellow blouse and a pink skirt with the letter B as the pattern. the other is a pastel yellow background with little blue hearts and puppycat in the middle, an angry looking white cat with a pink collar with a bell and brown paws, ears, and eyebrows. end id.

[wispythreads]

The Sugar Plum Fairy's goals...

Completely understandable that they needed to be opposed, but I still don't see her as bad. She's just, well. Not human. As far as she can tell, she is making the best, easiest choice she can see for the people who matter most to her. There isn't anything wrong with wanting to be hidden, after seeing what has happened to those like you. In her own way, she is being exactly how she wanted to present herself to other people, kind and sweet, extending that desire and method of self-preservation to that which she considers worth saving.

And, to a being that is a living spell, why would it matter if all of Candia lost its physical place in the land of Calorum? Why would it matter if the people she was saving had to "die" in the process, when, as far as she can tell, they are still just as alive in the home she's made for them as they were in Calorum?

[blueaerin]

Welcome to the Ravening War!

(or: a primer on the political state of play after Episode 1)

Jacques Tomate thinks he would make the perfect king of Vegetania, but for all his backslapping, he hasn't garnered enough support. While Fructeran nobles support his claim, the Bulbian church says his right to the throne is inconclusive. 

Lord Belvedere Cabbage insists that only Vegetanians can choose the next king. 

Incensed, Tomate rallies Fructeran forces and begins seizing Vegetanian borderlands. Fructeran armies march on Greenhold and try to take the capitol by force. Amangeaux, Karna, and Bishop Charlock are forced to flee. Amangeaux returns to her family in Fructera. 

The Ceresian senate sends troops to support the Vegetanians and they push back the Fructeran armies. However, their war footing upsets the Ceresian people.

Senator Focaccia uses the unrest to become Imperator of Ceresia. Focaccia withdraws his forces from Vegetania and launches an attack at the Meat Lands.

The Dairy Islands rally to support the Meat Lands. The Ceresians are having none of it, and mount a full scale assault on the Dairy Islands.

Candia refuses to go to war and support their allies, the Dairy Islands, leading to the rebellion of House Jawbreaker. 

1190--the entire continent is embroiled in war. 

Welcome to the Ravening War! 

[inkedcryptid]

In honor of The Ravening War, I'd like to share one of my favorite small moments in A Crown of Candy. Towards the end of episode 7, when the party was being held as "prisoners" in Annabelle's ship because helping them in any way would mean the Dairy Islands goes to war. While the party's staying silently in their rooms, the crew starts to sing old Candian sea shanties.

It is such a small thing but just imagine the situation. The entire kingdom is against you, the only way you can go home is by sneaking into a ship and hope they won't turn you in. You're asked to stay in your room because they cannot be seen with you, and then you hear songs from your home, sang by your hesitant allies in an attempt to show you their love and respect. It must've been such a breath of fresh air, to have a moment to relax and to know that there are people by your side.

I don't know about you but that made me cry

[passingnights]

Amongst a group of a queen, a powerful bishop, a skilled spy and a to be chief, only Colin Provolone, a Dairy Island runaway, really escaped Saprophus.

He whose secret forced him to escape his homeland, stay undercover, speak nothing, want nothing. He whose morality throws his sword at the feet of his good friend, a devotion severed by the burden of death, and to think that war was all he was good for.

And yet, he makes it out of the rot-filled cave. He saves Deli, half-dead, his body lying still at the mouth of the cave, and still half-dead as he walks over the horizon, never seen again. He protected Amangeaux, one who is forever indebted, her regret buried a thousand miles down a cave non-existent, a life owed to a memory of those lost and now lies dead beneath their feet.

Colin Provolone begins this journey a sword and shield. He protects and devotes and craves belonging. His allies are bloodied and shattered and their purpose lies dead, forgotten to war and revenge, names erased to the world they so desperately etched their nails into.

Yet Colin Provolone survives with a purpose so driven. He is a quiet survivor, a noble protector. He remembers his allies, their hubris, their desperation. He swings his sword so that this world may know peace a little longer, that the war may have served a greater good, that the blood spilled may have been worth it.

In nobility, in morality, in wit and in war, Provolone survives the manipulation, the secrets and the ravening war with greater purpose than he started with and more gained than lost.

Knight takes King.

[thepringlesofblood]

Relevant Dates for The Ravening War

in the trailer, it says “Two decades before the events of A Crown of Candy” and shows a banner counting back from 1210. This is because the war was from 1190-1195, though the conflict that led to it started in 1188

ACOC takes place in 1215, beginning on the 20th of Highbright, the Rocks twins’ 18th “Saint’s Day” (birthday).

I saw a post about a potential discrepancy here bc of the whole “2 decades” bit

I think they did this bc it sounds more impressive to say “two decades before” than “25 years before”

we can extrapolate the twins to have been born in 1197, one year into Amethar and Caramelinda’s marriage. (17th of Harvestdusk, 1196)

the war ended 20 years before ACOC started (1195), but it seems like The Ravening War [campaign] will start at the beginning of the war, in 1190, if the spinning back from 1210 is to be believed.

Archmage Lazuli Rocks died in 1190, at age 32-33, sacrificing herself in battle.

she had recently married, and was deeply in love with, Duchess Caramelinda of House Meringue, a match made before the war. Caramelinda was 28 when her wife died.

the wiki might be wrong - in episode 7 of ACOC amethar remembers a conversation b/w all of his sisters, including Lazuli, where Rococa mentions “Our one ally, the Dairy Islands, half of them wanna kill us for entering the war this late”

but she does die first of the sisters.

Princess Sapphria died in 1195, at age 31-32, killed by Carnish assassins

Saint Citrina died in 1195, at age 34-35, killed by Vegetanian knights ordered by a young, not-yet-Pontifex Belizabeth Brassica.

General Rococoa died in 1195, at age 39-40, shot by Ceresians (on the orders of a certain fancy-pants cakeboy) during the final battle against Imperator Focaccia.

King Jadain [the king of Candia at the time, Amethar’s dad] died a few months post-war, but Queen Pamelia died during the war, before all of her daughters. She was from Fructera (House Pomegrana) and had very different political opinions from her daughters and Amethar.

Amethar (currently a Prince) was born in 1167, and thus is 23 at the beginning of the Ravening War.

the exact dates of the deaths of the Rocks sisters aren’t super set in stone, except for the order of the last three - it wouldn’t surprise me if one or more of them die during the campaign.

lmk if you can think of any other important dates!

[wardensantoineandevka]

The idea that Colin is the son or otherwise heir to Lucas Fontina, who led a failed coup decades ago (one that is "a dark spot on the history of the isles") is so wild and funny because the political context in which that would exist is like...

You are Prince Tarthur Cheddar, ruler of the Dairy Islands. Vegetania and Fructera are at war over the Vegetanian throne. This doesn't involve you, but the outlying Meat Land clans, with whom you have a tenuous alliance, are taking this opportunity to make excursions at the northern border. Ceresia eventually attacks the Meat Lands, and you are moved to defend them. Ceresia, thus, invades the islands from the east. You petition allies in Candia for aid—and split the royal House Rocks; officially, Candia currently refuses to defend you. Fructera forms an alliance with the Meat Lands by recognizing their claim over some of your territory, invading from the southwest, and gifting these isles to the clans, who happily annex them.

This doesn't even cover whatever might be happening internally with the Dairy noble houses and people or with the growing political and social influence of the Bulbian Church.

In two years, your country has become divided between three or four political entities in a war originally about a succession crisis that did not involve the Dairy Islands. So far, you as ruler have had little ability or say in stopping or even slowing any of this.

Potentially, in this politically broken moment, you learn that Fontina, who led an infamous failed coup (the unknown details of which may be harrowing) and who maybe still has sympathizers in the isles, had an heir who is still alive.

Colin Provolone, meanwhile, doesn't want anyone thinking about him for even two seconds and dislikes being in Situations.

[floof-writes]

The alternate continuities of acoc/trw due to unused backup characters literally keep me up at night. What do you mean there’s a version of acoc where Ricocco appears as a warlock revenant who sold all her sugar to come back to life and get revenge? You gonna look me in the eyes and tell me that Jet could never meet her sister and Ruby could never meet her aunt? What do you mean Caramelinda’s lesbianism could’ve been explored by Ally playing her s’mores knight mistress? Aabria conceptualized a character made of honey who was obsessed with being queen and I never got to see that realized? Lou almost played a dairy islander yogurt man whose god was a scoby?! Release the footage right now, Dropout.

I am similarly tortured by the fact that the Santus Putris plot line had to be cut from acoc, a plot point which has been retroactively explained by Colin Provolone’s life, but goddamn. “Dnd is beautiful specifically because this could only happen in this medium. Improv!” Shut the fuck up and move that quantum encounter to my computer screen

[thespoonisvictory]

What's so deeply good about Colin Provolone as a character is not only how he slots so perfectly into the tone, genre, and world of Calorum, but the way his story is deepened by and also expands on the events of A Crown of Candy. He stands on his own as a kickass character, but there are beautifully subtle ways he interacts with ACOC plot lines without ever feeling heavy handed.

In The Ravening War, we're introduced to the Cheddars as the ruling house, putting their foot down on the Fontinas and crushing opposition. Rightfully, Colin is terrified of them, and their presence constantly looms over his head.

But we know the Cheddars from ACOC. There, they're represented by Annabelle Cheddar, badass Captain of the Colby, who renounced her claim the throne and ceded her leadership to sweet, supportive Duchess Primsy. We love Primsy! We love Sir Morris Brie!

Already, there's that great dissonance and distortion of pov so typical to the genre: in the eyes of the Candians, the Cheddars are historical allies, kind, and definitely not a threat. The "crushing a rebellion underfoot" aspect of them goes completely unnoticed, because it's irrelevant to the story, and as the ruling class, House Rocks would likely take no issue with this. Colin absolutely nails the commoner side of how noble houses are viewed in Calorum, sniping an underutilized viewpoint in ACOC.

But there's more. In the ACOC timeline we're informed that House Cheddar has been greatly weakened, both by the war itself and the lack of an heir. They aren't the threat they once would have been, and Primsy certainly wouldn't be hunting down loose Fontinas or melting them in the streets. Colin would only be in his fifties by the time that the threat on his life has pretty much dissipated, a fact that an observant audience member would be aware of as he's panicking about it during TRW. The grudge that ruined his family's life will likely have petered out entirely on its own, dying a slow, unimportant death.

When Colin tells Deli that he doesn't care about his secret anymore, it rings doubly true because the audience knows he's realizing what they already know: this game of royal houses and hunting families is silly and pointless. Colin is right not to be scared! The audience knows that in about 20 years, the ruling force he was scared of will be nearly irrelevant!

It's just so neat how his story fleshes out House Cheddar and the fate of House Cheddar fleshes out the thematic weight of his choices. He's such a perfect prequel character in that sense, subtly playing the same melody as the original story without ever even interacting with anyone from it.

To get really into the depth of this: He's Liam Wilhelmina a few steps over. Jawbreaker is to Rocks as Fontina is to Cheddar (rebelling against the ruling house with noble intention), and both of them are punished for actions of their family they didn't participate in. But the Rocks' kindness to Liam puts them in a position of mutual benefit, while the Fontinas and Cheddars are both respectively destroyed and weakened by the ACOC timeline. Then, Liam, parallel to Colin, courts and presumably marries Primsy, the person who marks the end of the threat on Colin's life and a shift in leadership for the Dairy Islands.

Again: Two decades later, the successor of House Cheddar marries the son of a rebel against a noble house, the crime Aaron Fontina was killed for, also by House Cheddar. Call it the frivolity of noble conviction or a sign of genuine change, it's fun as hell either way.

I doubt Zac fully intended the depth of these parallels I'm losing it over, but I fully believe that his ability to play so well in the setting naturally lent itself to these fun complexities. He just displays masterful knowledge of the tone and genre of Calorum anytime he's in it, and it's fun to watch!

[18catsreading]

Brennan: can I just say, the dairy islands are in canon your closest allies. You have beefed it with no -- every single dairy islander has been deeply insulted multiple times by all of you at every passing moment.

[askmeaboutmyoctopustheory]

I'd love to hear about your calorum coffee setting

so my brain got started on this because the thought of a dairy sea is deeply unsettling to me so i thought of what other liquids would be able to be formed into large bodies of water and naturally thought of a coffee sea, which could even eventually meet with the dairy sea to make lattes.

Then because my main touchstone with this comes from ASOIAF I started kinda analoging this Coffee-land to the Iron Islands. Coffeefolk worship the Bean instead of the Bulb, but it is more of a geocultural religion rather than one with practicing hierarchy. Elders of the Church of the Roaster being somewhat seen as extremists but otherwise the Bulbian church recognizes them as not a real threat to the church but could cause strife if organized into rebellion.

The different lords and castles would be named around the different type of coffee plants with the royal family being of course Arabica (i am not going to discourse about coffee on my AU infodump post). They are strong allies of course to other seafarers, the Dairy Islands and Candia(chocolate espresso beans) ; and have made allegiances in Ceresia (coffee cake).

This is about as far as I got idk i've thought of like other random little things here and there but this is the main schpeel

[terabyte-teddybear]

pokémon team for @p-p-pandemonium

houndour

zorua

unown

bounsweet

litwick

gothorita

[bowl-o-queerios]

Colin Provolone is an ex-noble!

1. Colin is afriad of attention. He dislikes the spotlight. He specified that he hated combat being focused on himself. I think Colin was one of those targetted by the coup, and so he fled the dairy isles. He doesn’t like attention since he wasn’t a spy. He knew about the borderfolk the most, probably learned about when he fled the dairy islands.

2. He’s extremely insistant that he has never had a title. Immediately established that he didn’t know why he was invited to the FDA meeting, since he wasn’t important. When Delissandro gave him a title, his first response was to say he’s never had a title before.

3. He’s immediately allied with Deli. He wants protection from a meatlander clan. Those are known for raising fierce warriors, who could protect him. He’s insistant on keeping Deli alive, so he may want a political boon from him.

4. He was incredibly secretive about minute details about his past. He didn’t want to tell the Bishop that he had any relation to religion, even if it wasn’t that unique or interesting (if he was telling the truth). The bishop couldn’t find anything on him in two goddamn years.

5. He knows how it is to be on the streets. He probably didn’t have any money and had to live roughly on the run from the isles, and had to work his way from 0 once he got out.

Most of this is pretty circumstanial, but I had no evidence for this theory when I concieved of it so I’m doing pretty good.

[flyonthewallmedstudent]

Brucellosis

Case Report

a 45M goat herder in Malaysia develops 3 weeks of fevers, lethargy, night sweats and headache

history revealed he drank unpasteurised milk from said goats, which he also sold to consumers

blood cultures were negative and he tested negative for more common tropical diseases such as malaria, dengue, typhus and lepto

eventually he tested positive for brucella serology, unfortunately about 80 people also developed brucellosis from drinking milk from his farm, and a few lab staff also picked it up from handling their blood samples

consider this differential in PUO

Microbiology

causative organism: Brucella melitensis

gram negative coccobacillus, facultative intracellular

hardy bacteria that can survive prolonged periods in meat/dairy products unless pasteurised/cooked as well as dust & surfaces

picked up in the intestinal submucosa on ingestion and transported by macropahges to lymphoid tissue

it then has the possibility of spreading haematogenously in the liver, spleen, joints etc. causing systemic or localized infection

Transmission

zoonoses (animal associated)

in particular: feral pigs, so hunters are often at increased risk (due to handling the carcasses), but also cattle, sheep, goat and dogs

outbreaks often associated with consumption of unpasteurized milk from infected animals

Epidemiology

global and notifiable disease in most countries

endemic to Mediterraena, South America and the indian subcontinent

in Australia - largely QLD and NT, but now NSW

Increased risk groups (i.e. what to ask on history and what clues on history to consider for brucellosis)

regular contact with animals (herders, abbatoir workers, vets - there are case reports of lab workers who pick up brucellosis etc)

people who ingest unpasteurized dairy/milk, or the undercooked meat of infected animals

History

first described by another European white man, Dr. George Cleghorn, British Army Surgeon in minorca in 1751 on the island of Malta following the Crimean war

it was named for another British white man, Sir David Bruce who led a commission into a fever outbreak among the army in Malta before they found the organism causing the disease (Sir Themistocles Zammit identified that goats transmit it in milk)

Sir bruce also discovered that trypanosoma brucei (also named for him) was the microbe responsible for animal trypanosomiasis/sleeping sickness. incidentally, he was born in Melbourne Australia

trivia with the Crimean war - was ironically a war fought between Russia and the UK + it's Western Allies and the empire that preceded Turkey (Ottoman)

Today the Crimean war is more well known for producing Florence Nightingale, founder of modern nursing and yay, finally a woman in random medical history that hardly is related to brucellosis.

Clinical features

PUO - cyclical fevers, fatigue, headache, insomnia, myalgias/arthralgias, weight loss, anorexia (fairly non specific, but also systemic)

incubation times can be long, which can be deceptive, reportedly up to 50 yrs from first exposure

otherwise, most cases it ranges from 3 days to several week, on average, expect 2-4

sometimes: hepatosplenomegaly

critical on history to clarify travel/living situation or contacts and consumption of unpasteurised dairy or undercooked meat

localized disease also possible, depending on organs involved

up to 40% will report peripheral arthritis, sacroillitis and spondylititis (kinda sounds like ank spa), at worst can cause osteomyelitis and septic arthritis

endocraditis is a rare but serious complication, with a 5% mortality rate, outside of this it's rarely fatal

if the lungs are affected, cough and SOB can occur but hte CXR will be lcear

GBS has been reported to occur following infection

hepatic abscess and granulmoa in a few

also possible: epididymoorchitis and skin manifestations like erythema nodosum

ocular changes like uveitis, cataracts etc.

it really feels rheum flavoured.

Investigations

hints on basic bloods - neutropaenia and anaemia, thromobcytopaenia in the case of hepatosplenomegaly or ITP

raised ESR and CRP, ALP and LDH

elevated LFTs in hepatomegaly

but diagnosis: blood cultures --> can take weeks as slow growing (due to aerosol transmission, must be handled in a biohazard hood as with the case report)

key really: serology is the most commonly used tool

PCR can also be used, including 16S

tissue also an option depending on organ affected

Management:

atypical cover: azith and doxy

several weeks of treatment usually - i.e. if uncomplicated, doxy for 6 weeks (however relapses are common on monotherapy, up to 40%), often rifampicin 600 mg daily for 6/52 is also added or gentamicin

where doxy can't be used, bactrim is the alternative

Sources

CDC guideilnes

WHO guidelines

ETG - behind a paywall, if your institution covers it, uptodate is gold standard, that said, plenty of free resources that provide a great start

Wikipaedia

Statpearls

Case report (There's actually a lot of background pathophysio, investigations and treatment listed in case reports and many are free)

[wilderebellion]

Ravening War and Speculation Spaghetti: Throwing Theories at the Tumblr Wall

What if each episode centered around a battle or negotiations in each region? So like, in one episode we're in Carn, the next we're in Greenhold, and whomever is the 'point person' rotates due to their geographic allegiance.

Maybe one is about the Dairy Islands calling on their Candian allies, and making do with whomever else they can find while King Jaidan refuses to honor their oath? And then concluding with the finale in Ceresia.

Six episodes.

Six nations.

[trainradicalism]

Currently developing the Weird Guy theory of history. Basically, history is shaped by the masses, but that shaping gives rise to the conditions that allowed truly strange people to thrive. Like Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, considered one of the founders of modern rocketry despite being entirely self taught (no school would accept him; he had gone deaf from Scarlet Fever at age 13. Or Fidel Castro, who refused to acknowledge the realities of raising livestock in the Cuban climate and decided he was going to turn the island into a dairy producing paradise because he liked cheese. Or Nikolai Ceausescu, who outdid his Soviet allies with the scale of his projects and built the Peoples' Palace, which has at no point ever been more than one eighth occupied. Then you have everything Hemingway ever did. Or that leader of child soldiers who managed to pivot when he got out of the country and toured the US as a born again Christian, milking the evangelical right for cash. Weird dudes, the lot of them. Anyone who comes to some sort of prominence is going to be deeply strange or they don't last long.