#also the site said no animals would be on display but there were many animals. including animal meet and greets.

[icterid-rubus]

Went to see the Zoo lights for the first time in my life. Ever since lockdown, I’ve had this desire to go with someone and it finally happened!

[insert-content]

a summar(ule)y of 196 culture

since the tumblr veterans have been kind enough to introduce us newbies to their site and culture, i think it is only fair that we explain the culture of our glorious former home to any tumblr users who might be interested in the #196 tag. keep in mind, all these things are based on my perspective of the situation.

first of all, some general information (that you might’ve already heard):

196 (r/196 on reddit) was a subreddit with only one (official) rule; "post before you leave." it was mainly a meme/shitposting sub, but it cultivated a large queer and left-leaning community. in protest of the recent api chances in reddit, 196 has shut down indefinitely until reddit reverts these changes.

now for some culture/references that you might come across

spronkus kronkus:

spronkus is this yellow, rabbit-like creature.

they were the mascot of our subreddit. their appearance can vary from images to image, but as far as i’m aware, their full outfit consists of a bandanna in the colours of the trans flag around their neck, a gun labelled as such (other wise you obviously wouldn’t know what you’re looking at), and an axe also coloured like the trans flag.

r/place:

this is a rare event on reddit where the entire website gets a huge white canvas and can start creating pixel art on it. 196 participated by collaboratively creating our mascot, spronkus with "196!" written next to them.

this version of the pixel art was recreated by me as i couldn't find a nice image of it. there were some changes between the first version and the end result, so this might not be exactly how it looked in the end

post titles/"rule":

reddit forces it's users to title every post they make. as most of the posts on 196 spoke for themselves, many user instead titled their posts "rule", to indicate that they followed the subreddit's only rule. some people also tried to make puns with the word or tried to include it in words that shared some letters (example: wor(ule)d).

anarcho-stripperism:

as the amount of cropped porn jokingly posted to the subreddit increased, the moderators decided that porn would be banned from the sub, with one exception: anarcho-stripperism. she made food fucking videos, in which she jokingly tested the fuckability of different food items (fruits, pasta, etc.)

bigotry showcase:

bigotry showcase was a post flair (basically the reddit equivalent of tags) on the subreddit and was later restricted to only be used on saturdays. under this flair people posted instances of different forms of bigotry to make fun it.

eating babies/hungryposting:

at some point, the subreddit started to pretend to like eating babies, which started a variety of memes regarding the subject. even a post flair called "hungrypost" was added because of this

goblinhog:

goblinhog is the most prominent and well-known member of the 196 moderation team. besides this, on 196 he was mostly known for changing people’s flair if you enjoyed him enough about it.

flairs:

flairs are little tags that are displayed under your name in posts or comments, they are also subreddit specific. most subreddits give their users a palette of preset flairs and the option to make your own custom flair. however, in 196 you only had the option to customize your flair during special events. if you wanted to customize your flair outside of those events (which was basically the entire time), you had to ask a mod to do it for you.

punching nazis:

from time to time, the same gif of a person with a nazi armband getting punched in the face, and promptly falling to the ground, was reposted to the subreddit. this became a sort of tradition.

discourse/drama

wasp discourse:

the wasp discourse was a one to two weeks long heated discussion that generally divided the subreddit into two factions. one side said that they were justified in killing wasps if they were attacked by them, while the other claimed that since wasps are just animals, they aren't aware of what they're doing in the same way humans are, and therefore should be spared.

drama about the british:

there was a time when jokes along the lines of "ew, british" became pretty frequent on the subreddit. as a response, some user claimed that this was akin to racism and tried to get others to stop with the jokes. a debate over whether or not it was important or necessary to stop followed afterwards.

pillar discourse:

this was a debate over which type of pillar should be considered the best (ionic; doric; corinthian). i have seen the question "which pillar is the best?" being used as a sort of greeting between 196 refugees on here.

related subreddits

195:

195 was the predecessor to 196, and also was a social experiment with the same premise as 196 (one rule, post before you leave). as the creators of 195 ended the experiment, the community wanted something with the same vibe to continue posting, and thus 196 was born.

197:

197 is another part of the 196 ecosystem and is commonly understood to be the more politically right-leaning and bigoted as 196, as some people who were banned from 196 continued posting there. besides that, the subreddits were essentially the same in terms of how they functioned.

19684:

this subreddit adds a second rule which banned all mentions of sex (that’s why it’s name is a pun on 1984). some people took this as banning all discussion of sexuality, which resulted in a community that was slightly less accepting of queer people. it is currently still up and running as the 196 moderation team wants a way to stay in contact with the community.

amendments to the posts:

u/femboy_expert:

another well-known 196 user. as the name suggests they're an expert on the subject of femboys, with their flair on 196 reading "phd in feminine boys". as the subreddit was somewhat obsessed with femboys, it's no wonder that they became popular.

u/shitcum_backup:

this was the main account of a pretty popular shitposter on the subreddit. although i didn't see them as much in the last few months, i remember them sometimes having a unique speaking pattern, in which they referred to themself in the third person.

u/monko74:

this user commented "Every day I thank god for not making me a r/196 celebrity," which led to many users of the subreddit treating them like a micro celebrity. there are even a few subreddits solely dedicated to u/monko74.

691:

a sister subreddit that inverts the rule of 196, here you would be (temporarily) banned for posting. some time ago the members of this sub initiated a rebellion/revolution against the bot who performed all the bans (roomba).

u/Smart_Calendar1874:

this wasn’t necessarily part of the subreddit, but it was a pretty popular meme. and since it’s getting posted on here again, and i know enough about it, i’ll add it to the post. this user made a post to r/AskReddit titled "How would you get a small cylinder (5.1in length, ~4.5in girth) unstuck from a mini M&Ms tube filled with butter and microwaved mashed banana? [sic]" it was pretty clear that they were referring to their penis, yet they continued to claim "it’s a cylinder," in the comment section. this lead to comments like "it is imperative that the cylinder […] remains unharmed," in response to people’s advice of cutting the m&m tube.

it's going to be very interesting to see which aspects of 196 culture are going to survive the tumblr migration, and which aspects won't be applicable on this site.

i'm obviously not the ultimate scholar on 196 lore. if i’ve missed or left out anything, or said something wrong, please comment it.

[blueiscoool]

Medieval Gold ‘Lynx’ Earrings Discovered in Turkey

A pair of lynx-shaped gold earrings have been unearthed near the ruins of Ani, the once great metropolis known as the “city of a thousand and one churches”, on Turkey’s eastern border, across the Akhuryan River from Armenia.

The Medieval earrings, which weigh 22 grams and have engraved star, droplet, and crescent motifs, are now preserved in the Kars Archaeology and Ethnography Museum.

The priceless artifacts, which astounded archaeologists with their exquisite engravings, are scheduled to be displayed briefly at the Kars Archaeology and Ethnography Museum in 2023 after having been carefully stored in a warehouse up until then.

Yavuz Çetin, director of Kars Archaeology and Ethnography Museum, told Anadolu Agency (AA) that Kars has hosted many civilizations throughout history as it is located on the border of countries and is on the historical Silk Road’s route.

Stating that it is possible to see the cultural assets of many civilizations in Kars, Çetin said that there are many historical immovable pieces of cultural heritage such as the Köşevenk and Mağazberk archaeological sites in and around the Ani Ruins.

Çetin noted that people have benefited from animals throughout history and attributed physical or characteristic meanings to them.

“The lynx from the feline family is one of these animals. People were influenced by the ferocity and power of this animal and used it in artistic elements,” he said. “The existence of the lynx is also known in our Kars region. A couple of lynx-shaped earrings in our museum were found in the village of Subatan, about 16 kilometers (9.9 miles) north of Ani, and brought to us in 1994.”

Çetin said that they would exhibit the earrings next year.

“Our earrings are kept in the warehouse. We plan to temporarily display them to our public in 2023. I invite everyone to see this magnificent work. Our earrings are lynx-shaped, highly decorated earrings … The motifs on them show the artistic elegance of the earrings.”

Ani, which was founded more than 1,600 years ago, was located on several trade routes and grew to become a walled city with over 100,000 residents by the 11th century. Ani was in steep decline by the 1300s, and it was completely abandoned by the 1700s.

By Oğuz Büyükyıldırım.

[traipseartist]

October 14th - Pompeii Day

As Rose and I wrapped our last day in Naples, we packed our suitcases up for the first of many times for the trip and wove our way out of the kitsch rat maze of the ancient quarter to find a taxi down to Pompeii, laden with our luggage.

We flagged a car and were well on our way when the taxi driver (who professed to have very bad English) passed his cellphone back to the two of us and said that we needed to talk to his parent company (the display of the contact name not at all suspicious as "PARE NT COMPAN IE") who was currently on an active call. I took the phone hesitantly to listen to whatever had to be said on the other end of the line.

"You are going to Pompeii?" asked a voice with a thick Italian accent. "Yes, that is our destination." I stated, slowly. "Would you like us to schedule a ride back for you?" inquired PARE NT COMPAN IE. "We will actually be going directly to the airport from Pompeii, but we don't know what our timing is, so we'll likely just catch a train from there." "Oh. Well, in that case, it will cost you double to go to Pompeii, since it's just one way."

I couldn't help but nervously scoff. The worst taxi scams I've run into in my past travels were just claims that the credit card machine was broken or maybe the occasional very-roundabout-route that resulted in an extra ten bucks being snaked onto the meter. But it was already going to cost us 70€ to take the taxi from Naples downtown to the historical site...

My eyes came to rest on the placard hanging from the back of the taxi driver's seat that listed standard rates to popular destinations and a large QR code to report abuses of these government set fees.

"Hmm. Nope? Not according to this fare rate placard in the car. Oh look, there's a way to report--" "OH. Well. NEVER MIND. NO WORRIES. Not a big deal!" and a click as the line went dead. PARE NT COMPAN IE seemed to have disconnected.

The taxi driver (who I am sure spoke English well enough to understand the exchange) seemed very bashful for the rest of the trip and I ended up tipping him (though far below an American rate) at the end of the ride. It's hard to know how these predatory scams really function and who makes the money at the end of the day--but the overwhelming feeling that Naples we likely rife with petty crime based on the state of the city was no better extinguished.

Getting the bad taste out of our mouth was easy, however. Rose and I spilled out of the taxi, shoved our luggage into a locker at the front of historical site's gates, and found our tour guide with her umbrella and her very red hair waiting apprehensively with a sign outside of the entrance for us to complete her group.

Pompeii itself is fascinating. The city is both more and less intact than you could have imagined, and the sense that you are moving through a simulation is strong. Nothing wooden and few bronze items survived the extreme heat of the ash-- but paintings, frescos, stone statues and towering columns stand where they've been standing for multiple millennia.

The sentimentality around Pompeii is also present. A quote frequently surfaced on placards and by guides in the vicinity is that Pompeii as a city feels alive because it was interrupted. The casts of people and animals curled in the streets, hands covering their mouths, twisted as they asphyxiated in the heavy, sulfuric clouds of Vesuvius permeate the broken mosaic floors and carved expressions on cornices and moldings around the urban remnants.

Also, something I did not recognize from my initial research was the size of the site. There are still roughly 3+ square miles of unexcavated city in the very perimeter of the site as we know it today. The tour guide traced a small circle with her umbrella on one of the posted maps in the ancient marketplace. "We will be exploring this" she tapped the sign with the plastic ferrule, "today. But this" she gestured to the rest of the map "could take you all week, if you wish." There were seven separate entrances to the city--we would see two. There were four public bath houses--we would see one. There were several watch towers--we would see none. No time. Too much context. Too many things to explain about the similarities and differences of ancient life.

The site offered little in the ways of shade--what with most thatched or terracotta shingled roofs melted or shattered into oblivion after the incident. Much of what remained of the city was in shambles not because of the eruption but, as our tour guide noted, due to a massively destructive earthquake that hit the town 17 years prior.

"As a result," she said dourly "the city as we know it was largely full of the poor and working class when it was drowned in ash. If you had money, you had gone to a neighboring town (Napoli? The Amalfi?) to wait for laborers to set the bricks right in the walls of your house."

After scratching the chins of some very comfortable Pompeii cats that had come to make the unbothered site their home, we were taken to another exit and carted to a vineyard in the city just outside of Pompeii, called Scafati, for lunch and wine in the relentless Italian sunshine.

I was expecting the wine and lunch to be middling but perhaps worth the bundling with the Pompeii tickets and tour to simplify our day's planning before heading to the airport.

I was pleasantly surprised (and maybe also annoyed) that the food was pretty good, and that the wine was superb enough that I had no choice but to order a case to be shipped home. An Italian man who had learned his English from a Bronxian relative sounded like an extra in a New York gangster film while he told us about the notes in the Rosato, and how the soil of Vesuvius made for excellent conditions to grow tricky grapes while we sipped in dehydrated fervor and munched from a delightful cheese plate spread.

After all way said and done, Rose and I trundled into a taxi that bumbled us to the airport. Sicily bound--next stop: Catagnia!

[americangrove]

Landscape in Layers: Town Creek

I

“You know it is a felony to have these,” the site manager said to the young man who had just come in and asked to speak with him. He had taken three projectile points from out of his pockets, which he had earlier taken out from a nearby public stream. “Well…I…ummm,” he was surprised by his transgression. The legal lesson given and (perhaps) accepted (“I won’t do that again”) the manager then gave a historical one. Glancing at the artifacts (now in his hands) one of the points caused a slight peak in his otherwise unvarying tone. It was a “fluted pointed” something that was “several thousand years old.” The young man was surprised again—to think that sifting through a stream could bring up a stone tool that perhaps bought down some ancient animal at the edge of the last Ice Age. 

Though earshot gave me the whole conversation, I was not close enough for eyesight to see the details of what was held; they were on the ticket-counter and gift shop side of Town Creek Indian Mound’s visitor center, and I was on the other side with the history exhibition. What my eyes could see in detail though was a display titled “Stratigraphy: the study of soil layers”. Tonally it looked like a work of abstract art from the fifties or sixties—wide tides of browns in general descent from light to dark, excepting the second layer, tonally lighter than the level above and spatially intruding, not unlike a projectile point, into the ribs of the darker soils beneath it. Captions explained that each layer was once surface upon which someone or something left its trace: the vitreous refuse of a 19th century farmhouse was uppermost, beneath that, the remnants of inhabitants from 1450-1650 AD who left their trace not only in small things long forgotten but structurally as well since the reason that layer intrudes into the next two down is because of the depth of a post, which though just about a foot deep in length proves to be well over a millennia long in time as the lowest layer which it lodges into (after breaching a seam of silt deposited by a river) holds fragments from as far back as 1000B.C.

Looking at the display—typical of the kind of the soil layers beneath Town Creek though not an actual sample of it— the ground and its supposed solidity suddenly seemed like a tower of loose papers forming an upright archive, as if it was to be organized within a filing cabinet that opens vertically, and though orderly arranged, is also subject to strange rules of retrieval and recollection for by an ordinary logic one might assume something like the young man’s fluted point would have been confined yards below other layers, accessible only by dredge or delve and yet it was much closer to the surface than the latest fiber optic lines (of which I wonder if there will ever come a time when it is a felony to remove these after they become historic artifacts). But the strangeness of retrieval is perhaps the norm when it comes to landscape and the many past landscapes underneath any of the present; every kind of ground upon which landscapes are made is peculiar—potentially covered, uncovered, and recovered (in both senses of the word) by so many acts intentional and otherwise.

II

Though the soil tells of others proceeding them there, for over two centuries—the twelfth to sometime in the fourteenth—the Pee Dee people made Town Creek a place of daily living, a place of ceremony and a place of remembrance. Pee Dee culture was part of a regional culture called South Appalachian Mississippian, itself related to general Mississippian culture which originated from the valleys of the eponymous river and spread east, down to Florida up to Ohio and to central North Carolina where Town Creek was at the seeming limit of Mississippian reach. Though not linked by language, one recurrence among people who adopted or assimilated into Mississippian culture was the making of platform mounds, raised earthen structures, stairs leading to their level tops upon which one might enter into a chief’s house, a temple, a meeting house, or charnel house among other possibilities, sometimes two or more functions combined into one place. Why and exactly when the Pee Dee left Town Creek seems to be without definitive answer, but the site did not sit abandoned, as the pottery record tells of other Native Americans inhabiting the place until at least the 18th century, when the lands around Town Creek entered European claims of ownership—in 1746 it was included in a five-hundred-acre deed to a Robert Mills by King George II.[1] By then many of the wattle and daub structures and the timber palisades had probably long sunk back into the ground, but the mound endured—mention of it made in 19th century letters and historical asides, and pictures of it made in the early 20th century, especially from the late 1930s onward as the lingering landform lured looters to it, leading its owner mull over solutions. One retelling of the story goes:

a farmer named L.D. Frutchey had to plow around a pesky hill — a mound — on his land bordering the Little River in southwestern Montgomery County. Whenever he tilled, artifact seekers came calling, crawling over the newly turned ground, looking for arrowheads and other relics. On one occasion, several men with a pair of mules and a scraping implement worked for two days; they leveled the eastern side of the mound in search of Indian treasures.

Tired of trespassers, Frutchey contemplated leveling the entire mound and moving the soil to places that needed filling in. State officials learned of his plans, though, and they visited to lobby for professional excavation of the mound. They even suggested that the nuisance in his field might need to be preserved for posterity. Frutchey didn’t believe the mound’s value, but he agreed to donate it, and a little more than an acre of land, to the state in 1937.[2]

Elsewhere it is said that his disbelief in mound’s value was so certain that he waited a couple of weeks to record his deed after signing it in March so that the date would “coincide with April Fool’s Day, perhaps expressing his opinion of the whole affair.”[3] But at least he did value the mound, or at least his time, (or his property rights against trespassers) enough so that it persisted while in his possession. Other mounds, such as the one at Kituwah, were not so fortunate, steadily eroded by time and plow, wind and harvest. But the Town Creek mound was mostly right there, a literal aporia in straight paths of a field, which also must also have seemed like a logical aporia as well given what is usually expected when the past impedes the progress (and profits) of the present. 

         The deed stipulated that if nothing valuable was discovered that the land would revert back to Frutchey, so excavation started promptly once the WPA labor arrived. The 1.1 acre island amidst the tidy waves of ag-fields steadily yielded what it had long kept: fragments, whole objects and the remains of the dead which had been buried within it. The still worked fields kept presenting things too as a tenant farmer’s mule stepped into a pot while tilling, while the pieces of yet other things rose up from out the access road. It was as if the former landscape was making offerings through the present one in exchange for its preservation. And those who held, cleaned and catalogued these offerings wanted to complete the exchange.  In 1941 a memorandum was sent to Raleigh by J.S. Holmes, State Forester, and the leader of the delegation that had first approached Frutchey—[4]

More of the land needed to be saved—even if that meant having to take it. But Frutchey’s failed reply was due less to continued indifference than to illness. He vistied Holmes when he was better, they talked prices, his high, Holmes’s low, the difference between a space for negotiation. At its end the memorandum notes the site is no longer solely of interest to scholars but that 

Part farm and part worksite, the mound also had to become part park and part museum for the interested public. In the 1940s, what they saw would seem to not have looked like much compared to other state parks.In the Pictorial Review of North Carolina State Parks (1942), one passes pictures of pristine lakes and rugged mountains, picnic areas under the shade of planted longleaf pines, fresh places for “Colored patrons” and fresh places, by implication, for everyone else, but all such niceties are in other state parks; at Town Creek (which was called Frutchey Mound until about 1941) the site seems like a forlorn trove of soil dressed in a vesture of volunteer weed all lost in a cotton field. Yet of the 1699 people who had visited in 1940, from as far as New York, Texas and even from Havana, of the few who left comments in the register, most were pleased, not many disappointed. Even more interesting than the binary good or bad tabulations were the prescriptive and prospective ones: “Make it more interesting”, “May be become interesting”, “Will become important”.

Despite expectations, the site remained the same size for over ten years. Frutchey said he had other offers at better prices, but he also agreed to wait to see what offer the state would give, but neither side acted, not until 1950, when Frutchey was dead. Writing to the State Parks Superintendent on April 2, 1950, Barton Wright, junior curator at the mound’s museum found the site in a “situation…changed somewhat”:  

In less than three months the farmland would become part of the site, as would another tract soon after; work expanded duly both by the careful pass of brush and trowel, but also by the diesel powered push of a bulldozer supplanting the furrows of the field-prior with its grousers, both kinds of digging undoing evidence of one history to uncover another which, as the work progressed, yielded even more of the place past, its artifacts, structures, and its people. 

The ground gave up so much of what it had saved that it became possible to plausibly reconstruct five structures—a minor temple, a mortuary, another hill atop the mound, the mound itself (refilled), and a palisade around the perimeter. Posts of a new village were being put directly into the postholes of the original village, it was as if a whole stratigraphic layer, instead of being compressed deeper into the earth was being raised out of it, a landscape reappearing, one neither new nor old. “Unusual” someone had called the site in the 1940 tabulations before reconstruction began and perhaps the same could be said of it after its reconstruction, for the past does not usually “repeat itself”.

III

When I stepped out of the Visitor Center, tiles gave way to low cut grass, bordered by tall uncut grasses like wire grass, switch grass and blue stem in which sweet gums occasionally rooted where they were not out shaded by the pines through whose scaly limbs I could see the mound and its temple. The palisades were not guarded though the posts themselves, bare of clay during my visit, seemed watchful. I went into the burial hut first, initially seeing nothing for it was so bright outside in the full sun of summertime that instead of adjusting to the dark of the room my eyes seemed to cease seeing altogether. But slowly they opened to behold a burial scene in-diorama, a child being lowered into an urn, as the Pee-Dee did for children and babies.

“As a guest to this burial ritual, we ask that you view this scene with respect” a descriptive card read. 

“Respect”—the connotation of the word is morally abstract, less a thing and more a quality we impart to others and hope is imparted back to us, but etymologically it is rather physical respicere to “look back at”, eyes directed towards something again because now that something requires something more than just a passing glance. And so, I looked back in my memory to one of the excavation photographs I had seen in the Visitor Center. The day it was taken must have been like the day of my visit—hot, bright, and summery. Two young boys, both shirtless, both barefoot, dig into the ground, a shading tarp above them, yet still you can see the glaze of sweat on their backs, but what you cannot see is what they unearth, the censorship not imposed from within the photograph, but on top of it, two pieces of tape placed over the glass frame. The tape makes you respect (look back at) the picture in order to make you respect (honor) the picture, layering it with a double meaning to match its doubled surface as we look at the living uncover the dead and as we look at how we cannot look at them—at least in this photo. 

Go through the archival records though and you will find that the tape is not there and that without it the respect seems to be absent too. Of two early postcards of the place, one was a broad view of the landscape in excavation, and the other was a “Typical Indian Burial”, a close up of an uncovered skeleton, buried in a bundled position; the hands positioned as if to cover their face in anticipation of photography. “I think that these are very good and should prove popular with visitors to the area” the State Superintendent wrote, probably correct—we do like to uncover someone else’s past while often burying our own.

 In another picture where you can see the burial remains [cropped here], a young lady, trowel under her penny loafer and trowel in her right hand reaches the tip of her instrument down, gingerly lifting soil from under the bones, these also in a bundled position or, as Wade Lucas from the State Department of Conservation and Development Information Office, described in a 1953 memo “a rather grotesque cramped position with knees under chin”. His disrespect exists alongside the young lady’s regard, the two forming boundaries not so much mutually exclusive as much as the upper and lower parts of a layer of sentiment in which  of us most fall in the middle, for the burial practice is unusual from what most of us know or imagine, but at the same time this strangeness need not forsake deference. Spectatorship has its own stratigraphy as well.

IV

Across from the burial hut is the minor temple, an interior palisade guards its length save for one opening that allows passage. The door is quite low, so much so that I thought this meant it was not to be entered, but after ducking under, the room inside is quite ample. Two walls were only wattle no daub so that the greens of the outside glowed between the wooden slats. The walls that were daubed smelled of hot, clean, clay. Above, the roof was open in the center, a smoke hole that let a square of sun stream down to sit upon a bench. I took a moment to sit beside it. There were benches on all sides of the room—I could imagine people sitting here and people talking here but what kind of people and talking about what I was unsure. It is very easy to imagine how life went on even in the ruins (let alone the reconstructions) of most buildings of Europeans and their descendants in the 19th century, and probably for many centuries before this. Of course, assumptions are probably made unconsciously from our present interiors that feel right to us but in fact were historically impossible until recently—indoor plumbing, attached kitchens, closets—and yet, even when the error is revealed, we can still take for granted that there is some sense of continuity between our (“western”) life and (“western”) life past so that when we see unpeopled photographs of architecture we can easy project life and people it. That does not quite work at Town Creek. The stage is set wonderfully, but how these spaces were lived, at least to me, is not intelligible. Life happened here in a way that looks beautiful, and rhymical, but I wonder what sink and stove and shelves my imagination is unknowingly smuggling into my experience, and what struggles and shortcomings of the space I am as yet aware of.

I stood up from the bench and left the temple. Outside, I saw a young couple looking at it from a distance as they were also unsure about whether to enter and indeed they were about to walk away until I told them they had to go inside (later, when I saw them again, they thanked me).  I continued over to the main temple ascending the mound. Thick earthen walls, dark interior, thatch overhanging like hair, the threshold felt corporeal. Upon entering there is a confrontation. A blood red deer headed deity dances grievously with a stark white wolf headed deity whose teeth and eyes are stained as red as his opponents. They both hold things, weapons perhaps, though neither yet strikes the other. Past them and into the room, creatures, animal in head and body, peer from every wall painted in the same reds and whites as the doorway deities. Another square of sun comes down into this temple from its smoke hole, but here light feels overshadowed by the darkness of the space whose walls are complete and roof barely permeable to the day. Wood lays in the center for a fire that goes unlit, illuminating nothing. As I stepped out, I walked around the temple as a group of five walked up and entered. Whatever language the Pee Dee spoke has been completely lost to record, yet from inside I heard as they began to make “Indian sounds”— howls, hoots and yelps that have only ever gained coherence as invectives against the gunshots of John Wayne . Still their indiscretion pointed up the inadequacy which I had felt in the minor temple—the ground saves so much, but still so much more, such as the acoustic life of a people, is not stored in the soil, sound waves do not await a careful brush or pick to salvage them back up to hear. 

But loss is not simply loss in all cases, for while absence can be left alone it can also be worked with and added to making what we do not know sensible. At the back of the temple, above its false door, I contemplated its roof, which unlike the other two (that are in slight states of disrepair), does not readily show that under its thatch layer is added an aluminum layer, just as behind its wall is a metal mesh aiding the wattle in holding the daub of earth colored concrete.  There is a line of thinking and a way of looking that sees these half-hidden and somewhat masked modern materials underneath the façade of a supposed fourteenth century form as falsifying (coverings upon an absent knowledge); but there is also an alternative that sees these as additive moments, a literal addition in the structure, but also an additional layer in the history of the place, as past and present fold into each other not so much to recreate the conditions of the past, as much as to allow an opportunity to reconsider the conditions that go into making the present. But what does that mean?

V

Go back to 1950 when Mark Frutchey was planting corn in the family field at the same time as Barton Wright was preforming fieldwork in the same spot; their intrusion upon each other was like trying to figure out how to put a layer of aluminum under a layer of thatch, the methods of one way of living in the land converging with another—their ability to mingle not completely cordial, after all, as Wright the curator had said of Frutchey the farmer, “I believe that he is attempting to be as compatible as it is possible, however, growing crops and archeology are somewhat mutually exclusive.” His words suggest two kinds of landscapes meeting in 1950 but failing to make a coherent image in their shared frame—they both see the same land, but one sees it as a productive way to continue making a living while the other sees it as a productive way to recover knowledge of a lost way of life. But really there were at least four kinds of landscapes meeting in that 1950 letter. Mark Frutchey did not own the land he farmed; after his father’s death it passed to his older brother Llyod D. Frutchey Jr. who did not live in Mt. Gilead as a farmer but in South Carolina as a doctor. Like other sons of small towns after the second World War he found opportunities outside the ag field. While he left home to pursue a profession other sons and daughters of Mt. Gilead could stay nearby but instead of working at planting they went to work in plants—one of the five sock plants, the shoe factory, the mill or in one of the other industries opening up in the town. A post-war landscape of labor was emerging that offered an attractive alternative to the agrarian one that preexisted it. Likewise the academic view with which Barton Wright framed his work at Town Creek, was coupled with a corollary landscape to the new one of labor, which was a new landscape of leisure—people with free time and vacation who neither wanted to produce crops nor produce knowledge in the fields of Town Creek but instead desired to enjoy the fruits of a place made  “more interesting” as the tubulations demanded in the 1940s. Anticipating the impact of reconstructing Pee Dee style buildings at Town Creek, a report from the 50s noted that once all was completed: 

         In 1950 then, just before more of the property was bought, and just before reconstructions began, Town Creek was an active farm and a holdout against industrial forms of labor, it was a scholarly site and increasingly a public venue—it was in short a stratigraphy of 20th century social landscapes each of which had an impact on the living landscape and also the way in which the landscape six centuries prior would be represented again long after its passing. The impact of these four landscapes upon that of the past could be thought of variously as destructive, intrusive and insensitive, but as with the aluminum under the thatch, they can be thought of as additive as well. That it was a farm added a degree seasonal ebb and flow to the place that generally preserved it (or at least consumed it slowly), that it became an inherited and saleable property added a possibility of transferability to the land, that it was a field site added archeological knowledge, and that it was (and is) a tourist destination adds people who can now talk about it, visit it, defend it. Similar to the aluminum, none of these additions are readily visible (save the latter); they lay under the experience of landscape when landscape is understood primary as a noun, but they also operate as landscape not in the sense of a something done (e.g. a landscape painting), but something being made, landscaping—in a material and metaphoric sense—the past in order to make it visible in the present again.

VI

I walked back down the earthen ramp and toward the other opening in the palisade leading out to the path that goes near the Little River of which Big Town Creek drains into; a wooded trail starts there and leads back around to the parking lot. Stiltgrass, loblolly pine, and two stakes that would seem to hold up a sign that was missing spoke to changes in the woods though it was a quiet speaking compared to what has happened at the primary part of the site.[5] About halfway through my walk I saw a windthrown tree, not snapped but uprooted. An immense disk of earth remained gathered in the fingers of the roots and beneath it was a corresponding hole, filled with water as if an ephemeral pond. To repair an uprooted tree seems straightforward as if it should be just a matter of picking it up and putting it back in the spot to which it clearly fits, but a tree’s life spreads so much further out and down than even an exposed root ball suggests. It could never take hold to support itself again—its success in rooting in place and growing so large conversely ensures its inability to be re-righted and re-rooted once displaced. Instead, what will happen in the time to come is that the hole will fill slowly until it is a shallow depression, the trunk will, piece by piece decay until it is almost imperceptible and the root ball, now jagged and geometric like a surprised star, will smooth over and round out. The windthrown tree will create what is called a pit and mound topography, a mound made differently than the one the Pee Dee made, but a mound that similar to theirs will become a special site in the land—risen about the ground it will drier and warmer, less covered by leaf litter it will be sunnier and because of that it will be a prized place for many new plants to congregate and make an attempt at rooting, rising, residing, making the next layer of life at once indebted to and oblivious to what grounds it.

[1] Historical information about the site here and throughout this essay comes from: Coe, Joffre Lanning. Town Creek Indian Mound: A Native American Legacy. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995.

[2] See: Staff, Our State. “Mount Gilead.” Our State, 18 Aug. 2011, https://www.ourstate.com/mount-gilead/.

[3] See: Coe, Joffre Lanning. Town Creek Indian Mound, p.12.

[4] All archival documents excerpted here can be found in the North Carolina Digital Collections, specified by place to “Town Creek Indian Mound State Historic Site, Montgomery County, North Carolina, United States” accessible here: https://digital.ncdcr.gov/documents?search=town%20creek%20indian%20mound&searchtypes=Metadata|Full%20text&filter_6=Town%20Creek%20Indian%20Mound%20State%20Historic%20Site%2C%20Montgomery%20County%2C%20North%20Carolina%2C%20United%20States&applyState=true

[5] The loblolly was probably planted for timber, the stiltgrass is an invasive, the sign is an enigma.

Images:

All color images are authors. 

All archival images can be found by in the digitized archives listed in note 5.

The three exceptions are the image of the roof being thatched, the image of the completed reconstructions and the cross-section of the roof and wall of the temple. These can be found in: South, Stanley. The Temple at Town Creek Indian Mound State Historic Site, North Carolina. Notebook, Volume 5, Issue 5, 1973, pages 145-171. accessible at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/sciaa_staffpub/40/

[xtruss]

Ice Age Cave Paintings Decoded By Amateur Researcher! Patterns of Lines and Dots Associated with Specific Animal Species in Cave Art May Point to an Early Writing System.

— By Evan Hadingham

The four dots painted across the back of this aurochs (wild ox) in the Lascaux cave aroused Ben Bacon’s curiosity about the meaning of the abstract signs and symbols in Ice Age art. The latest radiocarbon dates for Lascaux indicate that the paintings are 18,600 to 18,900 years old. Image Credit: thipjang, Getty Images

The animal paintings and engravings in caves such as Lascaux and Chauvet in France, and Altamira in Spain, represent the epitome of prehistoric art in Europe. But ever since they were discovered, starting 150 years ago, investigators have struggled to understand exactly what the images meant to the people who made them. In addition to the vivid depictions of animals, enigmatic abstract markings and geometric signs often appear alongside them. Few researchers have examined them in any detail, and most have concluded that their meaning will never be known.

Now, a new study published in Cambridge Archaeological Journal presents evidence that these signs recorded specific information about the timing of the reproductive cycles of the animals depicted on the cave walls. This information would have been essential to the survival of the Ice Age hunter-gatherers who created the art, according to the authors of the study. They also suggest that the signs represent a kind of “proto-writing,” predating the emergence of token-based records in the Middle East by some 10,000 years.

“We’re able to show that these people—who left a legacy of spectacular art in the caves of Lascaux and Altamira—also left a record of early timekeeping that would eventually become commonplace among our species,” study coauthor and archaeologist Paul Pettitt said in a statement.

One of the biggest and best-known cave painting is an 18-foot-wide image of an extinct wild ox, or aurochs, that seems to gallop across the Great Hall at Lascaux—and dates to around 18,000 years ago. In 2016, London-based amateur researcher Ben Bacon looked at a photo of the painting and noticed four small dots painted across the animal’s back. Wondering what the dots could signify, he quickly came across other examples of depictions of aurochs with four dots. And when he looked at other species, he found that each seemed to be associated with specific numbers, recorded by rows of dots or lines: for example, horses with three, bison with four, salmon with three and six, and so on. Moreover, a “Y” symbol (formed by a line with two branches) frequently appeared second in a row of markings.

Pursuing these clues, Bacon spent years collecting data from drawings and photos of Ice Age art in scientific publications. He widened his search to include not only cave paintings but also engravings on thousands of small, decorated objects and portable stones found in Ice Age archaeological sites.

Ben Bacon and his team determined that specific numbers of markings associated with different species tracked the timing of cyclical events such as migration, mating, and giving birth. Image Credit: Berenguer, M./Durham University

Eventually, he amassed a database of more than 700 images, many of which consistently displayed the associations he had spotted between species and specific numbers of marks. The same numbers kept cropping up across a vast range of sites, spanning much of western Europe from at least 25,000 to 14,000 years ago. The regularity of the numbers suggested to Bacon that the artists might have been keeping track of major cyclical events in the lives of each animal, such as mating, migration, or giving birth, with some sort of calendar system.

Bacon was not the first to have that idea. In the 1960s, another amateur researcher, science journalist Alexander Marshack, used a microscope to examine dozens of Ice Age carved portable objects and stones. He theorized that the rows of abstract marks on these objects represented daily “notations” for keeping track of the Moon’s monthly cycle, each day marked with a single line or notch. Since many of the animal images depict their seasonal appearance during mating or migration, Marshack proposed that the lunar counts were used to track and predict their behavior. Subsequent investigators refined Marshack’s methods and confirmed his basic idea that the intricate arrays of lines and notches carved on certain Ice Age objects were likely to be recording some type of information over time. But Marshack’s lunar calendar theory failed to get much traction as it was hard to test, and the meaning of the painted signs and notched records remained elusive.

To develop a fresh approach, Bacon contacted Tony Freeth at University College, London, a mathematician known for decoding the ancient Greek astronomical device known as the Antikythera mechanism. Freeth and Bacon came up with another lunar calendar theory, but with a crucial difference from Marshack’s: Rather than a daily record, Freeth and Bacon suggested that each marking stood for a lunar month. Building on this idea, the team hypothesized that the hunters would reset their lunar counts each year by starting them at a recurring natural event, such as the thawing of rivers or other signs of spring. Then they would count off each month after that event, enabling them to record and predict when the animals they depended on mated or gave birth. These were times when the herds would congregate in large numbers and be most vulnerable to the hunters.

But were all these assumptions correct? One way to test the theory was to compare the numbers Bacon found for the Ice Age animals against the life cycles of their present-day descendants, such as horses, bison, reindeer, and salmon. Study coauthor Robert Kentridge, a Durham University psychologist with extensive knowledge of statistics, analyzed the team’s data and found strong correlations between the numbers of marks, the position of the “Y” sign, and the months in which modern animals mate and give birth.

The lunar calendar theory mirrors numerous accounts of Indigenous hunter-gatherers who have historically relied on counting lunar months to predict the arrival and behavior of the species that sustain them. For example, each year, the Yurok of northern California used an intricate lunar count to decide when to construct a fish weir to capture migrating steelhead trout along the Klamath River. Although weir trapping is no longer permitted on rivers in California and Oregon, many Indigenous peoples in the Northwest still use and have awareness of lunar cycles in their hunting today, according to Bernie Taylor, an independent researcher who has compiled accounts and interviews with members of these communities.

Similarly, the Yami people of Taiwan continue to follow a lunar calendar to determine when to head out to sea to harvest migratory flying fish, which congregate near the surface during the darker nights around New Moon.

“The authors deserve a lot of respect for taking such an innovative approach,” says archaeologist Genevieve von Petzinger, whose extensive survey of the designs was the subject of her book “The First Signs.” “I’ve always thought that at least some of the dots and lines are probably some type of notation and involve counting, so the idea of trying to anchor them against natural cycles—whether lunar or the biology of the animals—is a great one,” von Petzinger says. But she advises caution. “We’re talking about 30,000 years of history, multiple cultures and different peoples. I don't think there's one reason why they were making the art or the signs. There would always have been multiple motivations.”

As to the question of whether the signs represent a precursor of writing, von Petzinger notes that “writing—even proto-writing—is generally related to representing spoken language and a series of connected symbols. I think it would be more accurate to describe it as a form of graphic communication.”

As the archaeological community begins to debate the theory, Ben Bacon’s team says it is preparing several additional papers that would demonstrate further associations and meanings among the signs. If their findings hold up, these studies could open up glimpses into Ice Age minds that never seemed possible before. “What we are discovering is that these ancient ancestors are a lot more like us than we had previously thought,” Bacon said in a statement, “these people, separated from us by many millennia, are suddenly a lot closer.”

— Published: Wednesday January 25, 2023

[myfeeds]

Early humans were weapon woodwork experts study finds

A 300,000-year-old hunting weapon has shone a new light on early humans as woodworking masters, according to a new study. State-of-the-art analysis of a double-pointed wooden throwing stick, found in Schöningen in Germany three decades ago, shows it was scraped, seasoned and sanded before being used to kill animals. The research indicates early humans’ woodworking techniques were more developed and sophisticated than previously understood. The findings, published today (Wednesday, 19 July) in PLOS ONE, also suggest the creation of lightweight weapons may have enabled group hunts of medium and small animals. The use of throwing sticks as hunting aids could have involved the entire community, including children. Dr Annemieke Milks, of the University of Reading’s Department of Archaeology, led the research. She said: “Discoveries of wooden tools have revolutionised our understanding of early human behaviours. Amazingly these early humans demonstrated an ability to plan well in advance, a strong knowledge of the properties of wood, and many sophisticated woodworking skills that we still use today. “These lightweight throwing sticks may have been easier to launch than heavier spears, indicating the potential for the whole community to take part. Such tools could have been used by children while learning to throw and hunt.” Co-author Dirk Leder said: “The Schöningen humans used a spruce branch to make this aerodynamic and ergonomic tool. The woodworking involved multiple steps including cutting and stripping off the bark, carving it into an aerodynamic shape, scraping away more of the surface, seasoning the wood to avoid cracking and warping, and sanding it for easier handling.” High-impact weapon Found in 1994, the 77cm-long stick is one of several different tools discovered in Schöningen, which includes throwing spears, thrusting spears and a second similarly sized throwing stick. advertisement The double-pointed throwing stick — analysed to an exceptionally high level of detail for this new study — was most likely used by early humans to hunt medium-sized game like red and roe deer, and possibly fast-small prey including hare and birds that were otherwise difficult to catch. The throwing sticks would have been thrown rotationally — similar to a boomerang — rather than overhead like a modern-day javelin and may have enabled early humans to throw as far as 30 metres. Although lightweight, the high velocities at which such weapons can be launched could have resulted in deadly high-energy impacts. The fine surface, carefully shaped points and polish from handling suggest this was a piece of personal kit with repeated use, rather than a quickly made tool that was carelessly discarded. Principal investigator Thomas Terberger said: “The systematic analysis of the wooden finds of the Schöningen site financed by German Research Foundation provides valuable new insights and further exciting information on these early wooden weapons can be expected soon.” The well-preserved stick is on display at the Forschungsmuseum in Schöningen.

[brianinjapan721]

May 31 - Ueno Park and Akihabara

Today, we started by visiting Ueno Park. The first stop we made here was at a special Tokugawa shrine. This shrine was unique because it was much flashier than other shrines we visited by including massive amounts of gold leaf adorning much of the front side of the shrine. Our next visit was to the Tokyo National Museum. I think this was my favorite part of the day. All of the pieces were incredible. Many stuck out to me. I saw a bow and arrow set with an interesting two-pronged arrow. I thought about what kind of ranked member of the Japanese military would be permitted to use an arrow as sophisticated as the one that was on display. We then visited Ameya Yokocho market. I enjoyed some great food and walked through a couple of shops. The owner of one shop thought I was from France because I didn’t behave “loudly” as an American would; he said that I behaved “quietly” like a French person does. Our final stop of the day was Akihabara. We toured the basement dojinshi level to see what all of this Otaku material consisted of. It was much like expected and I don’t think I really need to check this place out again.

The piece that stuck out to me most was the one pictured above. I selected this because I found it shockingly beautiful up close. The statue in the center is a Buddha statue. The ones in the corners were 4 kings said to protect the Buddha from those who are against Buddhism. I think something that was unique about this statue (at least compared to the other Buddha statues in the museum) was that this one has 100 hands. These were meant to represent the Buddha’s omnipotent power to aid all in reaching an enlightened state. Something else that I found fascinating about this set of statues is that each king is in a slightly different position wielding a different weapon. I am not sure if this has any particular meaning, but it added to the uniqueness of this piece.

The readings for the Tokyo National Museum were very interesting to me. The haniwa figurines were very cool! I knew nothing about the form and function of these figurines prior to the readings, so they definitely made the experience of seeing them in person much more educational. The most interesting thing to me about these figurines is that we know so little about their actual functions. Some believe they marked the boundaries of the massive Kofun grave sites, whereas others believe they housed the spirits of the dead. There are still others in the shapes of houses and animals that are believed to have other funerary purposes. Overall, these readings were very informational and gave me a good understanding of what I was looking at in the museum, but left much up in the air to wonder about their true functions.

The readings about Otaku culture, on the other hand, were very fascinating and provided me with a much deeper understanding of this subculture. Before these readings, I was a bit confused about the pornographic dojinshi that appears to be prevalent within Otaku circles. For one, some (but not all) of these fan works seem to emphasize more youthful anime character girls. From what I have heard, they tend to show young girls in schoolgirl outfits or posing with childish objects, as if they are promoting pedophilic attraction. They also confused me because the Otaku in question are attracted to these drawn images of woman that do not actually bare much resemblance to real women at all. Through these readings, I discovered that many Otaku actually lead normal, healthy sex lives with normal women. Although they may be aroused by these works, they are not indicative of the actual sexual practices of the Otaku. The database animals reading was equally informative about the Otaku and the media they consume. Moe elements refer to specific features that can be combined and recombined in different ways to produce a new thing. When walking through the store in Akihabara, it was clear to see how certain elements like different hair styles or poses were used in combination with different moe elements to produce whole new works entirely.

[bastardsunlight]

It was supposed to be a routine exchange — some dirty money for dirty weapons; cold, hard cash for smuggled missile parts and more mundane armament that could just have easily been on the way to some lawless desert to fuel another trivial, forgotten skirmish between armies too small to make headlines…had the deal not been so rudely interrupted.

Sixteen would likely never have been tasked with something so textbook, and indeed, the Left Hand returns from an extended mission — the elimination of a particularly slimy informant, rather than overwatch on an arms exchange.

His debrief takes little of Management’s precious time. The cleanup of what at first seems to be incompetent goons botching a job also takes little time to escalate, however, and the Apex has only just vacated the office to commence his post-mission ritual of gear and weapon cleaning when the field team lead fresh back from the site of the would-be deal (who has also, by the way he is shaking, drawn the short straw in being the one escorted to this particular wing by a certain petite blonde surgeon) arrives. He carries only a small tablet, the first of many blurry body cam photos already on the screen — and slides it slowly onto the desk as if he is trying not to rile a mess of agitated cobras.

“No survivors,” the rattled lieutenant manages hoarsely, his eyes pinned anywhere but on the human-shaped thing behind the desk. Were it not for Leblanc behind him, he might well backpedal out of that room with not a care in the world for his dignity.

Most of the imagery is inconclusive; poor stills pulled from video of a firefight in the dark. But one clip is damning. For a single frame, the side of a truck passing through headlights is clear, and on the side of that truck a small, stenciled red insignia in the form of some sort of animal skull flanked by wings, with crossed lightning bolts between its teeth. Perched on the side of the truck bed, silhouetted against the glare of either fire or other headlights in the background, is a humanoid shape: armored and masked, hanging onto the truck by one hand on the mounted gun. The other is leveling what appears to be a large shotgun of some sort at a target off-screen.

There is the undeniable boom of shotgun fire in the seconds after this frame, followed by at least two distinct voices screaming in what might be Swahili, and then the point of view of the camera suddenly and violently pitches sideways with a tremendous impact. The camera wearer does not move after this, and the footage cuts off.

“That would be our dealer contact and his bodyguard yelling in the background,” Leblanc comments lightly, “right before something caved his skull in. Do you mind translating, Lieutenant?”

The wiry man wishing for all the world he was at his own desk instead of this one fixes his stare upon some point on the desktop.

“He said, ‘fisi, fisi’.” He swallows hard. “It means ‘hyena’.”

“And the other one? What is he saying?”

“Red-eyed devil.”

Leblanc meets Wesker’s gaze with a pointed expression of something indeterminate, and only now moves to the side of the room, around their exceedingly uncomfortable guest.

“Leave the tablet.”

With a slight nod of his head, Management dismisses the lieutenant. He doesn’t have to tell the man to shut the door on his way out; that is a given. Rewinding the footage, he stops it, enhancing the frame that displays a blurry version of the logo they’ve come to recognize as that of Revenant. Like the name suggests, the group is damn near a ghost, but the upper echelon of Wesker’s cadre knows.

“So she returns… and in greater strength, it seems,” he comments, his tone dispassionate, almost offhanded, as if it’s merely an observation and not a detriment to their operations in that area of the world—or any area, as Revenant seems to be extremely mobile.

“I’d like someone inside,” he continues, pushing the tablet away with fingertips as if it disgusts him. Gaudy, he thinks, how very… Apex. I wonder if they realize. “I think the next outing should include some… rather damning evidence—a hint about what remains of the Paris facility.”

Pulling another tablet out of a desk drawer, he powers it up and begins skimming data. Name after name slides up the screen, all color coded and given various labels. He stops at L.

“Lancaster,” he purrs, reading the file. The label on the name, V. Lancaster, is “DECEASED*”. “Nineteen.”

“Master…?” Her sycophantic purr resounds from the adjacent, small “war room” attached to Management’s office.

“I have a job for you, my dear…”

[legaciestold]

claire's petting a small dog in the aisle that she's fairly certain just came from a session in the groomers based on the bandana proudly displayed around it's neck when her phone chimes in her pocket. oh yeah, she was trying to decide what to get roci. focus claire. sometimes she was just as bad as sherry in a pet store. she might not want to take the animals home but sue her, she did think they were cute and when she spent so much time looking at images and hearing stories about the effects of bio-terror on innocent people, claire liked to embrace the brightness that a few random animals could bring to her day even if it meant she was going to be in the store longer than she planned on.

"you're sure adorable but i think my friend's dog would eat you so i can't take you home with me." she jokes, standing up to her full height and offering a 'mixed breed' comment to the dog's owner who asks what kind of dog she was buying stuff for. it wasn't entirely inaccurate even if one of those breeds was a wolf. all dogs were wolves once right? leave it to leon freaking kennedy to bring a wolf back from europe. maybe her and chris should have brought back a polar bear from antarctica if this was gonna be their new status quo.

what a sight that'd be.

claire allows a soft chuckle to escape her, reaching back into her pocket for the phone and reading leon's texts. 'you're welcome.' she huffs, fairly certain she doesn't need to send him a picture of her face for him to see in his mind the look she's giving him through the phone.

[text; leon] that's because my house is cooler and sherry talked me into building that dog couch for him in front of the coffee table. [text; leon] that means he likes me more than you. :P [text; leon] it also means he likes sherry more than both of us.

'go with the bone.' leon texts her and claire's gaze washes over the aisle. why were there so many? what happened to taking a bone home from dinner at a restaurant and giving it to your pup? then again, claire had found out that cooked bones could cause issues because she'd researched what went into having a dog when he'd first brought roci to her house. not that the dog was hers too. not that she expected him to be at her house. not that that mattered when the dog, had, in fact, treated her house like a second house. claire takes so long to pick that a employee with a name tag comes over siting herself as rebecca and claire smiles. the girl looked nothing like the rebecca she knew but held the same bubbly air as her. except, maybe she was a bit too happy. still, she helps her find a bone for a strong chewer.

[text; leon] i think i'm in the twilight zone. [text; leon] they definitely keep the employees here locked up in their brainwashing dungeon before letting them out. that girl was on another planet level too happy. [text; leon] she also said to tell roci she said hello.

she sends the texts off at the same time his picture reaches her phone, taking a moment to load. it's adorable, as the dog always is. though her eyes linger on leon and the blurry background of files that were half off the coffee table in the corner of the picture. she frowns because she knows she's guilty of the same and that half the time she gets so caught up she forgets lunch or dinner. she's also fairly certain that he wasn't immediately leaving on a mission that went with those files because she'd likely have had fielded a text about watching the dog if that'd been the case. so a paperwork day was the next logical assumption. her need for coffee was forgotten now. she didn't need to be anywhere that day aside from a single phone call in a few hours because of the time difference of where the person she had to talk to was.

[text; leon] chinese or italian? [text; leon] it's not as if you can move when you're busy being a pillow. so i suppose superclaire has to come save the day and bring a late lunch over. [text; leon] besides, i have to give roci his bone so he likes me more than you. ;)

as she goes to pay, she saves the picture in her phone's memory, deciding to change leon's picture in her phone to it.

@legaciestold said:

march 3rd, 2005 (around 3pm) claire's rapid fire texts are sent to leon in the middle of the day because somehow going to the coffee shop that was in that one plaza resulted in claire ending up at a pet store to buy things for a dog that didn't even live at her house. except those random times over the last year that he somehow does get puppy watched at her and sherry's house almost more often then claire actually see's the dog's owner for any significant amount of time. the dog doesn't have two human parents. he doesn't. he doesn't.  [text; leon] you know, i managed to dodge the puppy question for years. [text; leon] the dog doesn't even live at my house. most of the time... [text; leon] yet here i am trying to decide between buying pig ears or a stuffed bone. [text; leon] begs the question. which one leon? 

It's not a day off ( Leon needs only to glance towards his coffee table, where his laptop is surrounded by haphazardly placed piles of folders, to confirm that much ), yet it's the closest he's usually apt to get. As it is, he's taking full advantage of it: he's gone from sleeping in before setting off on a run with Roci to now lying on the couch in his living room with the curtains drawn and all the lights off while The French Connection plays across his television screen. And speaking of Roci — the dog is next to him, partly draped across his chest as if of the belief that he's much smaller in stature than actuality would suggest. Leon had initially attempted to maintain boundaries on the furniture, a resolve that lasted less than a week and has instead grown into a full-blown habit.

When his phone vibrates with a series of texts from Claire, he reads them before tipping his head to the side to glance at his companion. "She's asking about you." The yawn he receives in response only coaxes the quiet grin that's already crept across his lips to widen slightly.

[Text; Claire] You're welcome. [Text; Claire] I'm pretty sure he thinks your place is his second house, anyway. [Text; Claire] The question has been begged, and I think..... [Text; Claire] Go with the bone. [Text; Claire] I'd confirm with him a second time, but [Text; Claire] Photo attachment.

In the picture Leon sends her of the pair of them, Roci hasn't even deigned to open his eyes for half a second ( if there was any knowledge that it's for the benefit of one of the dog's favorite people, he would have been suitably excited as opposed to utterly languid ).

[watsername]

either way i think drantis are way worse than the reputation they’ve built for dream fans despite how much they preach political correctness and moral superiority . i’ve been watching dream for just over two years now and here’s a list of my interactions with antis

March 2021 - Somi Malek

a 16 year old girl from new york made a total of 8 tumblr accounts to

-harass me

- send me fanfiction about mutiliation rape incest and animal abuse

- write a fanfiction in my asks about me being raped by both dream and sapnap (separate asks)

- sent me suicide bait, death threats, rape threats

- downloaded and sent mw pictures of myself from my private social media accounts and threatened to post them online on body rating sites .

i almost had to get the police involved because tumblr wasn’t responding to my harassment reports

this was because i posted under #dreamwastaken

The First Las Nevadas Stream (also march 2021)

i made a post saying it made me uncomfortable that people were saying dream deserved to be tortured under the cc!dream tag

antis used this an excuse to tell me

- i deserved to be tortured ‘just like that f****t streamer*

- i needed to be raped with a rusty pipe (i’ll never forget that one)

- i got sent suicide bait for a week straight

there was some overlap with the somi incident here

October 2022-

anti commented under my post about how ugly dream is and whatnot post face reveal stuff u know anyway i told them it was unnecessary and to get some friends and make their own post and they

- called me a slut

- tried to imply i was a child predator for telling a minor to stop fighting with them under my post (i have the word slut in my url which means all my interactions have a sexual undertone apparently)

- tried multiple times to trick me into saying i hated poly people

- when i shut down the conversation they forged screenshots of me saying i hate poly people and they aren’t valid and threatened to send it to people

this was for saying idc if dream isn’t your type tell him he’s pretty which most people would know is lighthearted stan behaviour

those are the biggest issues thatve stuck with me but there’s been so many incidents where i’ve had to shut my ask box or close anon asks or take a whole break from tumblr because people stalk the dream smp tag to see who they can target

i get hate asks on a near daily basis and here’s what they come to

- sapnap would sexually assault me

- i deserved my sa (happened after i opened up about it for the first time and when i said i hates what minx said about the recent situation)

- general death threats

- slut shaming

- dream is a bad person (the reason varies) and he would commit a violent crime on me (also varies sometimes he wants me dead sometimes he wants to rape me depends on what the antis are thinking about)

- sui bait (expected)

- sui baiting dream in my inbox

- dream is going to rape george

- sapnap is going to beat george to death for being gay

amongst other things this is only the things i can think of that happened to ME and i know that there’s so many people who revive so much violent hate for just existing on their blog and posting about their interests from people who take a personal offence to people being a fan of someome they don’t like . and they have the gall to say that WE are the aggressors in the situation when they’ve been telling us to kill ourselves for years now

dream fans have a reputation from the way SOME people acted on twitter, but antis are using the facade of moral righteousness to disguise the fact that they are displaying all the violent behaviours they project into us

[blueiscoool]

Archaeologists Uncover a Phoenician Sarcophagus in Malta

Phoenician sarcophagus discovered in Rabat being conserved, will go up on permanent display.

The Superintendence of Cultural Heritage, Heritage Malta and the Department of Classics and Archaeology at the University of Malta have joined forces to work closely together on the research and conservation of a Phoenician stone sarcophagus discovered 21 years ago and excavated last summer at Għajn Klieb, on the outskirts of Rabat.

Sarcophagi feature very rarely in Maltese archaeology, so much so that the previous discovery happened some 300 years ago.

The tomb containing the sarcophagus was discovered by accident during trenching works in 2001. At the time, the decision was taken to preserve in situ but, notwithstanding, the Superintendence continued to monitor the area. In the past months, increased development pressures to improve infrastructural services in the area led to the decision by the Superintendence to investigate the site through a joint collaboration by the three mentioned entities to ensure the best use of the available resources in view of the rarity of the find.

When the sarcophagus was opened, it was found to contain the remains of two individuals, possibly a male and a female, one of whom was wearing jewellery made of a metal alloy. A small number of Phoenician pottery vessels and an animal inhumation were also discovered within the burial chamber.

All these objects, along with the sarcophagus itself, were extracted from the tomb chamber and transported to the Superintendence’s laboratories in Valletta and Heritage Malta’s laboratories in Bighi. A preliminary date of around 600 B.C. has been assigned to the tomb.

All the objects are also being analysed by specialists from the three entities so that the information extracted from the artefacts will eventually shed more light on the Phoenician culture to which the people buried here belonged.

Commenting about this project, Kurt Farrugia, the Superintendent of Cultural Heritage, said that the decision to investigate the burial site at Għajn Klieb was taken in view of the substantial infrastructural works planned for the area, which could compromise the site’s integrity. He explained that the three entities will be collaborating on all the necessary studies, analysis and interventions. The studies will be extended to include other tombs discovered in the immediate area in recent years, to provide a more comprehensive perspective. Currently, the Superintendence is carrying out conservation and analysis of the pottery artefacts and skeletal remains found in these tombs.

Professor Nicholas Vella, from the Department of Classics and Archaeology at the University of Malta, spoke of the importance of this discovery. He said that the Għajn Klieb area in Rabat has long been known to be the site of a long-lived burial complex dating back to Phoenician times. Many of the tombs were explored a century ago, often without a clear record being kept of what was found. The University of Malta is delighted to have been invited to collaborate in the exploration and study of this tomb, with its unique stone sarcophagus and the goods that were placed to accompany the two individuals buried inside it. This research will throw light on the death rituals prevalent in Malta in the second half of the seventh century BC, said Prof. Vella.  

Noel Zammit, Heritage Malta’s Chief Executive Officer, said that Heritage Malta conservators are currently working on the sarcophagus and the metal objects discovered on site. Plans are underway for a temporary exhibition at the National Museum of Archaeology later this year, where some of the objects would be exhibited for the public to appreciate and enjoy them as soon as possible. The sarcophagus and the related artefacts will then be on permanent display – possibly at St Paul’s Catacombs – for constant public accessibility.

[heejinnien]

bts | roses chapter one

word count: 3.9k words

pairing: bts x reader

synopsis: y/n is a member of the seoul behavioral analysis unit. usually, she’s the cat in the typical game of cat and mouse played with the criminals they catch, but when a mysterious string of murders has her on edge, she discovers she’s caught the attention of one of a dangerous criminal — and he’s determined to make her pay for it.

or, not all attention is the good kind.

genre: horror, angst

warnings: yandere themes, descriptions of gore, descriptions of violence, murder, the reader carries a gun because they need to defend themself against bad guys, guns, manipulation, victim blaming, this is overall just a very dark fic

author’s note: this chapter takes place one month before the events of the prologue, and the prologue isn’t necessary to understand it. this chapter was originally 2k words before i did a deep edit. the “terms used throughout this fic” section of the masterlist was updated to include terms in this chapter. if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to shoot me an ask or dm, or just let me know your thoughts! i would be happy to explain things to you, and i would also love to hear your feedback or who you think is suspicious. as always, adhere to the warnings and do not read if any of those things trigger you.

roses masterlist

“Y/N! How have you been?”

The elevator doors open with a ding, revealing your best friend and coworker, Jungkook. He gives you a hug, squeezing you tightly. “I missed you so much, how was Busan?”

“It was great, Kook, thanks for asking.” Your lips quirk upwards as you smile at your best friend. “I’m ready to be back, though.”

“I’m ready for you to be back, too, Jimin has been insufferable with you gone. He keeps stealing my banana milk,” Jungkook whines, and you laugh, ruffling his hair playfully.

“Well, did you steal his jam? Again?”

Jungkook coughs, suddenly taking interest in the floor’s pattern, and you laugh. “I haven’t been gone that long and you’ve already managed to get yourself into trouble.”

“He started it — ”

“Y/N, Jungkook.”

Jungkook immediately ceases his accusation, and you both turn at the familiar sound of your team’s leader’s voice. Namjoon walks down the hallway towards you, air full of authority and pristine shoes echoing against the tile floor, giving you a nod in recognition. You recognize the grim set of his mouth and already know what he’s going to say.

“I’m sorry to cut the reunion short, but we have a case,” he says.

Silently, you and Jungkook follow your team’s leader to the briefing room. The rest of your team is already there — Hoseok gives you a friendly wave, Seokjin blows you a kiss, Jimin nods in your direction, Taehyung smiles, and Yoongi grunts, leaning back in his chair and looking as if he’ll fall asleep at any moment. As you and Jungkook take your seats, Namjoon turns and powers on the TV screen mounted in the room, pulling up an array of photographs. Three unfamiliar faces are positioned at the top of the screen, and photographs of the crime scene and what you assume are their bodies are displayed below.

“This is Soojin, Miyeon, and Soodam. Over the past month, Incheon police have been finding their bodies scattered in alleys cutting through the city. Soodam is the most recent victim and was found this morning, and that’s when the police contacted us. Yoongi has sent further details about the crime scenes to your tablets.”

You reach down for your bag, pulling out a thin, black device. Around you, your teammates do the same, and you power the device on, quickly bypassing the standard security protocol and pulling up the recent photographs. Instantly, the photographs of the crime scene make you reel back in a mixture of surprise and disgust. Although you are by now a decorated agent, the sheer brutality of each murder catches you off guard.

Stab wounds and lacerations cover each victim. Blood mats each victim’s skin, making their features almost unrecognizable, and a jagged, gaping incision at the neck immediately draws your attention. Each victim’s skin is ashy and waxen, and copious amounts of blood are spattered throughout each crime scene. Beside you, Yoongi, never one for gore, looks as sick as you feel.

“The coroner said that the cause of death for each victim was exsanguination,” Jimin says, reading the forensic report off his tablet. You quickly switch to that file, scanning through the official document.

“This definitely looks like overkill,” Jungkook adds, and his face is so calm and composed it is as if you are discussing the appearance of a floral arrangement. Looking around the table, the rest of your teammates’ faces are also indifferent. You suppose that’s what happens when you’ve seen as much as you have, but the sheer brutality of this crime still makes you uneasy.

“It says the unsub has been leaving behind white roses at each crime site,” Jin, passively swiping through the crime scene photographs. “They look staged, each victim was posed so that they’re holding the rose.”

“White roses typically symbolize innocence and purity, while red ones symbolize love.” Taehyung ruminates. “Maybe the killer is trying to make some sort of point about his victims?”

“Like they’re cheaters?” You suggest. “This could have a double meaning, maybe he sees them as tainted or impure.”

“Whatever it is, it’s clear he has a preference.” Hoseok waves his hand idly. “Each of the victims had black hair and brown eyes.”

Namjoon nods at each member’s point, face thoughtful. “When we get there, we should break up into smaller units and examine each part of the profile. Y/N and Jungkook, head to the crime scene. The leading detective on the case will meet you there, see if he can tell you anything else. Taehyung, begin a geological profile, Hoseok and Jimin begin the unsub’s profile, and Jin and I will begin victimology. Yoongi, start checking into each victim’s lives, we need to see if they had any overlap or somehow knew each other at all.”

You and your teammates nod at your assignments, standing and gathering your things. Yoongi gives everyone a lazy smile before slipping out the door, heading back to his computer lab.

Namjoon continues. “The unsub will strike again soon so the Incheon police need us down there now. It’s a half-hour drive down there, so wheels up in twenty minutes.”

“Detective Jaehyun.”

You and Jungkook slam the doors of your car shut, gravel crunching underfoot as you greet the Incheon police’s head detective. You give him a courteous smile, you and Jungkook both giving his hand a quick, firm handshake.

“Pleasure to meet you, although I wish I could say it was under better circumstances.” You jerk your head in the direction of the alley. “What can you tell us about this victim?”

“Agent Y/N, Agent Jungkook.” Jaehyun nods at both of you before waving an arm in the direction of the crime scene. “A random passerby stumbled upon the body this morning.”

“What were they doing in this alley? It’s pretty remote,” Jungkook asks, boredly appraising the empty lot around you that the alley leads from. “You said they were coming from this direction, too, right?”

“The other end opens up along a busy shopping street, and if traffic is busy sometimes people will park here and use the alley to get there.”

“Are there any cameras?”

“Here? Unfortunately not.” Jaehyun’s face is grim. “We’ve been asking the city for months to get them repaired, but with everything happening an old parking lot isn’t on their priority list. They would rather keep making the main city look more modern and impressive because that’s where all the tourists go.”

You hum, noncommittal. You step in the direction of the alley, soaking in every detail of the scene. Although you saw photographs of it, you still don’t ever think you could ever be truly ready for the gravity of it to sink upon you.

Blood coats the walls like a mural, pools on the ground like a shimmering mirror. The blood staining the concrete and brick is dark, while the liquid pooled on the ground still appears bright, fresh.

“This is a lot of blood.” You observe dryly.

“Yes, well,” Jaehyun purses his lips. “Recent lab results show that most of the blood doesn’t actually belong to the victim.”

You pause, head snapping up to look at the detective. “That wasn’t in the report.”

Jaehyun swallows dryly. “We didn’t think to check for it in our first few victims.”

“Did you not run toxicology on them?” Jungkook asks, voice hard, and if possible Jaehyun looks nervous.

“We didn’t think to; the cause of death was obvious.”

Jungkook exhales, closing his eyes for one beat, two, and then opens them, fixing Jaehyun with a look that could send him two feet under. “The report you gave us said that there was a one week window between when each of the victim’s was reported missing and when they were found. That means they were most likely kidnapped and subdued during that time. There are abrasion marks on their wrists and ankles from when they were held captive, but no blunt force trauma to the head, which rules out the unsub launching a surprise attack on them when capturing them. Did you not think to investigate how they were taken?”

Jaehyun stutters, unintelligible, and Jungkook scoffs. Glancing at Jungkook, you speak to the detective, voice soft.

“It doesn’t matter now. What kind of additional blood was found?”

Jaehyun’s eyes flicker between you and Jungkook, and he swallows hard. “We aren't sure, but the coroner narrowed it down to animal’s blood. He thinks it might be lambs.”

You silently exchange glances with Jungkook, recognizing the familiar furrow of his brows that signals he’s deep in thought. “What are you thinking?”

“Well, the killer definitely knew their way around the streets here,” Jungkook theorizes. “The use of lamb’s blood was probably to add to the terror of whoever finds the body.”

You nod in agreement. “This is a city, so there aren’t many farms or areas to house animals here. So if the animals aren’t alive, then they’re probably dead and the next likely answer would be a butcher. We should ask Yoongi to see if any butchers or any businesses who deal with animals, alive or dead, reported anything suspicious.”

Jungkook nods and steps out of the alley, pulling out his phone. You watch him go for a moment before refocusing your attention on the alley.

“Um, Agent Y/N.”

Jaehyun shifts from foot to foot beside you, looking as though he’ll vomit. When he speaks again, it’s as if the words pain him. “There’s something else we didn’t mention.”

You allow a beat of silence to pass before raising an eyebrow, waiting for Jaehyun to continue. He clears his throat, once, twice, before continuing.

“We found a note next to the latest victim, along with the rose.” Jaehyun wordlessly pulls out his phone, seeming to struggle under your scrutinizing gaze as he searches for something before he holds the device out to you.

Displayed on it is a picture of the bloody rose that you had seen in official crime scene photos, a pair of hands wrapped around the stem. You recognize the photograph from the report sent to you, and you open your mouth to ask Jaehyun about it when you spot a small piece of cream-coloured stock, poking out of the hand.

Your eyes flicker up to Jaehyun. “Why didn’t you include this?”

Jaehyun shifts uncomfortably. “I don’t know if you know much about us, but we’re a small force policing a huge city. If word of this got out, there would be panic — much more than there already is.”

“Lives are at stake here, Detective,” you say, voice firm but not unkindly. “You can’t play around with that.”

“I know,” Jaehyun says quickly, before sighing. “Listen, Agent. Both of our jobs are to keep the people safe. You may not agree with me or my decision, but this was the right call.”

You stare at Jaehyun wordlessly, scanning Jaehyun’s face to see if you can detect anything that will tell you what to say next when you hear a crunch of gravel and look to see your best friend approach. He scarcely saves Jaehyun a glance, focusing instead on you.

“Namjoon wants us back at the station,” he says. “The rest of the team is going to share their profiles with us.”

You nod, glancing at Jaehyun briefly before heading in the direction of your car. As you turn, you spot Jungkook staring at Jaehyun, expression unreadable, and then they are both out of your sight. You open the car door, sliding into the SUV’s passenger seat and waiting as Jungkook walks around the front of the vehicle, slipping into the driver’s seat.

“I don’t trust him,” he says simply, staring out the dash as you fasten your seatbelt and he starts the car.

“Jaehyun?”

Jungkook doesn’t say anything else, humming as he pulls out of the parking lot. The tune is eerily beautiful, and it sends chills down your spine as Jungkook pulls onto the main avenue.

“That tune is beautiful,” you confess.

From his profile, you see Jungkook smile boyishly. “Thanks, I picked it up from Jimin while you were gone.”

“What song is it?”

Jungkook’s smile vanishes. “I don’t know, he never told me.”

For some reason, an uneasy air settles over the car. You wrack your brain, trying to figure out if it’s something you said, when Jungkook laughs and the tension dissipates.

“Do you remember that time you got a pair of chopsticks stuck up your nose?”

You let out a string of expletives as Jungkook laughs, the sound light and cheery, and Jungkook’s suspicious behavior is pushed to the back of your mind, already forgotten, as you two trade sarcastic comments.

With the conversation flowing smoothly, it doesn’t take long for you to arrive at the Incheon police station. You quickly hop out of the car, a sharp wind that wasn’t present earlier biting at your exposed flesh. A shiver wracks its way down your spine as you hurry to the station’s entrance, pushing open the doors, Jungkook close behind you.

Inside, Taehyung is the first to greet you, standing near a desk and flashing you a smile as he jerks his head in the direction of the back of the station. “Namjoon and the rest are in the back, I’m just picking up some files from the detectives here.”

Jungkook nods, heading in the direction Taehyung indicated and you move to follow him when Taehyung’s hand shoots out and grabs your wrist, grip gentle but firm.

“I need to talk to you.”

He glances over his shoulder and then tugs you after him, scarcely giving you time to follow his words and react.

“What is it, Taehyung?” You ask as he drags you down an empty hallway. He stays quiet, stopping outside of a door labelled “break room” and pushing it open. It’s deserted, the door swinging shut with a soft click behind you, and Taehyung turns to you, expression is inscrutable.

He opens his mouth, speaking so quickly in a low, furtive tone you strain to follow along with what he says. “I was doing some research into each of the victims. Before she went missing, Soojin had red hair, and Miyeon had brown. I couldn’t find anything on Soodam, but…”

“You’re assuming her hair was dyed, too?” You presume.

“Yes.”

“Why aren’t you telling the rest of the team this?” You grab Taehyung’s wrist gently. “And I thought you were doing the geological profile.”

“Why are you telling me this now?” You ask gently, recognizing the fervent, determined glint in Taehyung’s eyes.

“I am, I mean, I was. I was going to, I just…” Taehyung groans and runs a hand through his hair. “I was, but something about the victims was nagging me so I called Yoongi to see what he had.”

Taehyung fixes you with an unimpressed look. “You know why, Y/N. Don’t tell me you didn’t think about it earlier.”

You swallow, remaining pointedly silent. You had thought about the similarities between you and the victims earlier, but had pushed it aside as your paranoia, a hazard of your occupation.

“Just promise me you’ll be careful, okay?” Taehyung pleads, voice soft.

“I will be,” you promise. “We’ll catch this guy, don’t worry.”

Taehyung smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes, and you can’t erase the sinking feeling in your gut.

“Detective Jaehyun, I just saw you a few hours ago.”

You release a pair of gloves, feeling the latex snap against your skin and give the Incheon detective a wry smile, flashes of blue and red lights illuminating his face. You and Jimin stand at the entrance of another alley, the lights of the police cars responding to the scene and flashlights from the other officers providing you your only source of luminance. “Who’s the latest victim?”

“Kim Jisoo,” Jaehyun says, holding up the police tape for you to enter the crime scene. You do so, Jimin following close behind you. “She was found by Kim Jennie, her roommate. She said she had just seen Jisoo this morning, and they often cut through this alley to get back to their apartment.”

You crouch by Jisoo’s body, nose wrinkling at the combination of death and copper that pervades your nostrils. Out of the corner of your eye you see Jimin cringe at the sight, and you can’t help but agree. Somehow, it looks more visceral, more horrifying in person.

Like the other victims, multiple stab wounds litter Jisoo’s body. Blood matts her hair and clothing, and a gaping, visceral hole is torn in her neck. Her hands are positioned so that they are resting on her stomach, a single rose clutched in between them. Your eyes seek out any hints of cream, but you find none and your eyes flicker up to Jaehyun.

He opens his mouth, hesitating. Ultimately he decides against whatever he was going to say next, staring at you wide eyed, and you gather the meaning perfectly well. There was also another note. You purse your lips, annoyance rippling through you.

Jimin reaches for the flower, gently tugging it from Jisoo’s grasp. “The flower is freshly cut,” he says, prodding carefully at one of the petals. “I’ll have the lab run the blood who or what it belongs to.”

“Most of the wounds on her body aren’t as deep as the previous victim’s.” You gesture to the victims’ body. “Maybe because she wasn’t kept as long as the others and the unsub couldn’t take his time.”

“That means the unsub is speeding up his attacks and most likely devolving,” Jimin says grimly.

“I’m willing to bet the victim was killed in this alley, the time frame was too short for the unsub to abduct her, transport her to wherever he kept the other victims, and dump the body.” You chew on your lip in thought. “Detective, are there any cameras nearby?”

“There are cameras positioned on the main street, but with the way they’re positioned none of them capture the alley’s entrance,” Jaehyun responds, grimacing.

“How many alleys aren’t covered by camera surveillance?” Jimin asks, handing the rose to a nearby officer to place in an evidence bag and standing, peeling off his gloves.

“I don’t know for sure, but I would say about fifty or so.”

Jimin swears, and Jaehyun flinches at the sound. “That’s fifty places the unsub could be heading next. This city is ripe with potential victims, too.”

“We should head back and let the rest of the team know,” you suggest to Jimin. He nods, and together you walk out of the alley. You pause by the entrance. “I’m going to get a ride back with Detective Jaehyun, there’s something I need to talk to him about.”

Jimin nods, unquestioning, and slips silently into the car. You stand, watching him drive away before turning to the detective. His appearance is ashen in the light, and you give him a dry smile.

“Well, Detective? Shall we?”

He nods stiffly, slipping into the police cruiser. You slide into the passenger seat as Jaehyun turns the key in the ignition, the car rumbling to life beneath you.

You waste no time, and as Jaehyun backs the car out you ask, “What did the notes say?”

“Agent Y/N — ”

“Listen,” you say forcefully, cutting the Incheon detective off. “I don’t agree with your reasoning, but I’m not going to fight you on it. But I need to know what those notes say.”

Jaehyun is silent. Finally, he sighs, keeping one hand on the steering wheel and, briefly pressing his finger against it, tossing you his phone with the other. “It’s in the gallery.”

You pull up the app, ready to chastise Jaehyun about why he has official evidence from a crime scene on his personal phone when you spot them.

It’s a basic photo, the cream paper the focus of the frame and resting on a desk, words typed on it in black ink. You swipe through them, quickly scanning the paper’s contents until you reach the most recent one. This photograph is different, blurry and dark, and you can tell it was taken at the crime scene you left moments ago.

“Do you see why I kept them hidden?” Jaehyun asks when you wordlessly hand his phone back to him.

“Let’s just say,” you begin, pausing to consider your words. “For your sake, I hope that your actions aren’t to blame for anymore deaths, Detective.”

You sit cross-legged on your hotel bed, idly scanning through case files and eating a carton of take-out jjangmyeon. Even though Incheon is not far from your residence in Seoul, Namjoon had still decided that the team would stay in a local hotel; in case anything happens, you can respond quickly.

Taehyung had shared his discovery about the victim’s hair with the team earlier, and you would have been blind to notice the glances that flickered between your teammates and the photographs of the victims and yourself. Luckily, Namjoon had chosen not to comment on it, instead instructing you all to focus on the results of your team’s earlier profiling.

Hoseok and Jimin reported their profile of the unsub (“upper twenties to early thirties, male”). Jin reported that he hadn’t found any overlap between the victims’ lives, and you and Jungkook reported what Jaehyun had told you about the animal blood. You had chewed on your lip earlier, unsure whether or not to tell your leader about the notes. Fortunately or unfortunately for you, that’s when Namjoon had received the call about the latest body, sending you and Jimin to check out the crime scene before you could say anything.

You pick up a photograph of Kim Jisoo, your latest victim. It is a recent picture of her and a group of her friends, given to the police by her roommate to help with the positive ID. In the picture, both are wearing a pleated uniform and holding up diplomas. Your heart wrenches as you realize that she was a recent college graduate and now will never have a chance to pursue her dreams. Another life cut short, just like that.

A heavy knock on your hotel room door causes you to jump, your hand knocking your noodle container aside. You curse, quickly scrambling for the napkins on the bedside table.

“One moment!” You say loudly, hoping whoever is knocking can hear you. You swear under your breath as you throw the napkins on your bedspread, moving aside the case files that were luckily spared and pressing down on them, hoping that can remove the dark stain that formed from the oily noodles. After a few frantic presses and a few noodles thrown off the bed, you rush to the door, hurrying to unlock it.

“Who is it?” You ask, sliding the lock open and pulling open the heavy door.

You are greeted with silence. The hallway is empty.

You frown, scanning the empty corridors for any sign of life but tacky, floral wallpaper is the only thing that greets you.

You glance down at the disjointed striped carpet and see a blank white envelope. Glancing down the hallway once more, you pick it up, retreating into your room and shutting the door behind you. You reach for your phone, tempted to text Jungkook about it, but you stop before you can press the call button, assuring yourself it is nothing. You plop in your desk chair, tearing the side and running your finger along the top of the envelope.

Peering inside, you are greeted with a plain piece of cream colored cardstock. Realization dawns on you and the stench of copper and rose wafts out of the letter as an image of Jaehyun’s phone flashes in front of your eyes.

You scream.

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[cosmic-robot-menace]

I'm not gonna say who it was, because why would I do that. I don't want the person to be harassed either, because after all they were just venting, and that's okay!

I want to preface that I am on the ace spectrum, and I get exasperated over the overabundance of sex and romance sometimes, believe me I do, and I fucking love family dynamics! And I wish more people understood love can take many more shapes than just romantic and sexual ones!

So, basically, I saw someone say they wished that affection between siblings was more normalized and not treated as weird, and I agree! Having been raised in a pretty mediterranean family, with an argentinian mother, it's pretty common to display physical affection between relatives. It's not uncommon to kiss them on the cheek/forehead, hug them and hold arms/hands or sleep in the same bed as them!

The message was all fine and dandy for me until OP said the following:

"Can we go back to the sixties where affection between brothers was seen as normal (...)"

And I froze and thought "oh my god OP, I get it but oh my god you did fucking NOT say that just now"

So, I don't know if OP is from the US, but since the majority of the userbase of this site is American, I'm gonna pull stuff I could find out (if my research was correct):

American women weren't allowed to have their own bank account until 1974

Racial segregation in the US was (legally) ended in 1964

Interracial marriage in the whole country has been legal since 1967

And a whole lot more stuff I'm probably forgetting.

Also, sometimes, same gender relationships were often brushed off as "just family", even in the current day. I've seen people insist that two men literally making out in the music video of Clean Bandit's Symphony were just "father/son" or "just brothers", despite the video quite insisting they were a couple. Let's not also forget how the f/f couple in the og Sailor Moon anime were written as "just cousins!" in the english dub.

I'm not saying the OP is "problematic" or a "bigot" just that they're... clumsy. That's it, tone deaf and clumsy. I share their frustration, but I really think they should have taken their time to think on how to formulate this post, because intended or not, it's best not to glorify the past because of a few good things. Let's not got back to the sixties, they sucked for a lot of marginalized people.

you ever see a post that, technically you know OP had no bad intentions, but it's so fucking tone deaf it makes your skin crawl

[kyotakumrau]

A thread with the 1st slot report from azifxxx, Zepp Tokyo with Kyo and Shinya

F: Hello everyone at Zepp Tokyo! I'm DIR's manager Fujieda.

T: I'm manager Takabayashi.

F: today in Tokyo it's the last day (...) now I'd like to invite two band members to start the talk event! Give them applause!

Shinya arrives, then Kyo.

Kyo wore a black beret and big glasses, blackish grey jacket, some yellow badge on the left side? and grey denim. Shinya (Yamo-chan) wore all black, double jacket? it looked very soft. When entering the stage Kyo did 'Fujifuji pose' to F...

F: today Kyo and Shinya came to the event! How are you doing, the two of you?

S: I'm always fine. 24h a day. Just got bit foolish in Sendai due to snow...

K: yeah... I'm also good...

F: for both of you it's your second time, going straight to the point what's the most impactful/memorable thing in 2020 for you?

S: not COVID?

F: from the band's point of view it is.

S: it didn't feel like being in a band. There were no concerts at all.

F: for you, Kyo? (pretending to eat)

K: PS5.

S: I see.

K: I couldn't get it. That's all I can think about.

S: I want it too, but not that much... can you play Dead by Daylight on PS5? having ps4 edition?

K: you can.

S: then I want it. I also applied for it, but as I wasn't contacted I don't think I won.

F: there's nothing besides PS5?

K: the fan who said in the message they're getting it next day, they are probably playing right now..  I get angry again when I think about it. And not just a bit....(F: what would you do if after you got PS5?) Eh? I have to say it each time？💢 (makes dissatisfied sound and turns away, for a while stays silent) 

F passes them the merch items.

S&K: ... (silently checking the items)

When prompted to say something

S: mini water bottle.. is for when you go out for a bit...

K: is that a pig?

S: it's a bear

But it has 3 fingers? The hoofs? 

S: a bear isn't like that? 

K: but only 3 fingers?! 

K: you draw 3 or 4 fingers for a bear! A horse gets 2! is the claw here (between the fingers?)? the claws come out here (pointing back of the hand)? 

S: there are no fingers there (in the back of the hand) 

K: and it is listening standing in front of the speaker? Its ears will get bad! Listening to such loud sound in front of the speaker! you will go nuts! 

F: so Kyo, you were praising the choker a lot in Osaka. 

K: ... (looks at the choker) ...(starts to tie the choker)...(puts the choker in front of F) 

F: it can be tied up? Is that a good point? Ah, you mean that it can be displayed like this? It's a very popular item so everyone please get one! 

Today there are only two tables, on the right (kamite) sits Shinya with Takabayashi, on the left (shimote) Fujieda with Kyo 

F: any no-no topics for the questions? (S says nothing) I hope it’ going to be interesting... what kind of outfit are you wearing today? 

S: I’m wearing black... the hood is...(hesitates) like Penyu 

K: (smiling😊) 

S: I realized today that it’s like Penyu. Not because Kyo came today as well. 

K: suddenly getting closer, feels bad 

F: Kyo... today you’re also wearing a total outfit idea? 

K: you think there’s a theme? 

F: a bit... like in an older coffee shop.... cafe... like sitting in a coffee shop... 

K: it’s monochrome checkers! 

F who got told it's checkers went 'i see~'

K: what, so today's theme is let's have a smoke or let's go to a cafe?

The usual atmosphere... like Kyo who always corners F until he's lost what to say

Ta chooses a question: 'what's the memorable small (v-kei) venue for the band members?'

S: Area or Cyber recently got closed, right? I really don't remember... didn't we only play at Rock-may-kan? I think no small venues [we played at] are left in Kansai? only Cowboy or Muse Hall.

K: I guess only Rock-may-kan.

Ta: how about for Shibere Bajiru?

K: with going straight to Shibire (like paying too much attention?), is that a shoulder pad. No? I wanted to see~

F: Cyber, Area is a very sad news... K, you don't have any [venues]?

K: not really...

Ta: 'what's the book you've recently read or a movie you've seen?'

S: ehm... nothing much... I also don't really read manga. But I've seen Demon Slayer. I got into it after watching anime.

K: heh, about Demon Slayer, I ordered the comics to be delivered, but only volumes 4~8 came. Am I supposed to start from vol 4? Wouldn't it be horrible? don't wanna start there

K: there's this thing I have, only get into it after it stops being so popular. I also didn't watch yesterday.

F: what kind of books do you read?

K: I read various things ... but I'm really excited about the new story from the Innocent.

Ta: 'what's your kanji of the year?'

S: 心・kokoro from 心夜・Shinya

Ta: isn't that the same every year?

K: for me... nothing really.

Ta: what was it this year (officially)?

S: 密・mitsu・crowd/carefulness, right?

K: (still trying to think) ...nothing really.

F: 'if you were to play on a different position in a band?'

S: by elimination only the guitar is left.

K: not the vocals? You're going for the guitar??

S: I'm not going for the vocals...

K: but you sing in karaoke?

S: I can't sing...

K: there's emotional singing! You're often angry!

S: I haven't gotten angry in 10+ years

K: but you sing the chorus!

S: but there's only short phrase with the chorus...

K: but you're doing lotsa of choruses

S: well... I'm practicing...but vocals are the most impossible for me...

'If you done something else than vocals?'

K: Takumi's position is good, watching the band members from the side, if it's something else than vocals then from the side is good.

S: but you like bass? That's the only idea I have for you.

K: that's only when song writing though!?

S: but you've been playing everywhere, right?

K: where everywhere? I haven't!

S: you have that time... (=sukekiyo)

Ta: aren't we going fast today? 'is there any country you'd like to visit?'

S: if possible I don't want to go...

K: but you're always going somewhere alone. To play board games etc

S: it only happened because I was already going.

Ta: Kyo doesn't want to go like "I'm!Not!Going!"

K: I'm playing a bit online games (Fortnite), but I'm told I suck at it. When you suck at something it's usually better to quit, I'm told so, many times, why is this guy going that way or is he going to the enemy's site on purpose? I'm told things like that from 6:30 in the morning sometimes.

K: if I (my heart) get broken by that how should I continue living?

S: I'm being told 'how are you living?'. I'm using the pig character but it feels like I'm living like a pig. I can block out the talk, but I'd rather hear those terrible opinions.

K: but it's hard

S: it is really hard.

K: when I played with Fujieda it was going well! He told me, get down or make your nose bigger

S: it also went well when we played, don't go there, let's go there and so on.

K: but the fights take about 20 mins in DbD, right? I'm dead in Fortnite in about 10 seconds

Ta: 'what do you like about F?'

S: he's always full of energy and almost never gets sad

K: his nose? Doesn't it get bigger as you look at it?

F: is that a praise?

K: it's easy to breathe and the mask stays on. Hands down it's your nose.

F: 'what song would you like to listen to very loudly?'

S: I'm not good with loud sounds... I prefer to listen quietly.

F: what do you listen to nowadays?

S: our new song(s)

K: I also don't want to listen (loudly), not really...

F: how about a song to listen quietly?

K: nothing special

F: Fujifuji!x

K: (ignoring him) (removes invisible dust from his shoulder)

Ta: 'what would you ask Santa for?'

S: it would be PS5?

K: Me? After all of that, I don't need it anymore, don't come. How does he get inside? There is no chimney. Is he picking a lock? Is Santa like a cockroach? Pretending to be dead when they're not... but maybe Santa is fine with all of that.

K: in the past, when I was in elementary school I was happy when Santa came, but then at some point he stopped coming. Wasn't that a crime (Santa's visits)? and parents also don't know how he comes in, isn't that scary? And from that time he doest come. I don't want him to come anymore.

'What song do you want to play when you can do concerts again?'

S: And Zero. I saod that in Sendai as well, but if it's not mode of Arche we probably won't...

Kyo: I don't really have one..

F: Do you want to play new songs?

K: I haven't listen to it (them). Isn't it how it is that you listen to them even when you weren't planning to? you dot feel like listening so much to the song you made yourself, no?

S: I also haven't listened to the new song(s) much.

Ta: Fujieda is listening to new songs a lot, in a car.

K: isn't that a bit narcissistic?

F: you don't want to perform new songs?

S: I already did while filming the music videos... doesn't that count?

'what time you go to bed and wake up?'

S: I go to bed at 6 and wake up at 1pm. It's my cycle.

K: I go to sleep at 1 and wake up around half nine. Should be around then? So there's someone who wants to know information like this?

F: they want to imagine (their lives)

K: and for what? Even if they know the time they don't know what we do

K: what time you wake up and then what time do you make coffee, make a toast, I don't understand why asking that, what's the point?

F: Shinya, is there something you'd like to know about Kyo?

S: I want to know everything.

K: I hate it that this person is called a doctor.

F: when the band has just started you two have met as first, right? What was your impression then?

S: I thought he's a really good person.

K: ...Oh?

F: And did you hit it off/became friends?

K: he didn't speak like this then. He spoke one or two things a day. He had long black hair and earrings.

S: You've bleached that black hair for me.

K: and, he said 'thank you' but... he said his kanji of the year is 心・heart, but he's the one without one. For over 20 years all band members are saying that he's like a robot or humanoid. When you go to his house he will reply with 'what is it?' with the chain on the door.

S: this is because when a certain member came some things happened...

K: But when I came over I was nice! I want to  visit! Remodel stuff! (with enthusiasm)

S: remodeling... (like the certain member) there are issues like that and that's why you're banned...

'is it weird if your mother comes to the concerts?'

K: isn't it okay?

S: and brings dad...

K: I'd love to see mother headbanging. The deep one when you start from waist!

F: do your parents come to the shows?

S: mine often come.

F: your parents as well, Kyo?

K: sometimes.

F: is it something you welcome?

K: yeah.

And then F asked when they came last time but probably T said nlt to ask something like that

About the avatar Music Clip for the 12/31 stream.

S: the video looks like PS2 game..

K: like that from Virtua Fighter.

The last comments

Shinya: Thank you for today. I think we won't be able to meet for a while, but there will be the nye stream and also a knot calendars, I hope you will spend the next year using them. Let's meet again.

Kyo: We couldn't meet at all this year, but after this long time seeing everyone's faces I calm down. I think it's a good thing. Everyone knows through social media what others are doing, but it is important to meet in person. We will be looking into concert plans, hope you stay tuned and thank you.