#because otherwise I have to go on a whole rant about tourists | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

josiebelladonna · 2 years ago

Text

the amount of people in the grunge fandom who are like “i want to move to seattle because i’m a grunge fan” is honestly hilarious because i have been to seattle a couple of times, and i also have friends up there, and i can easily tell you that it is nothing like that anymore.

what you want to see up there is very minuscule and it’s one of those things where it’s like… you really, REALLY have to know where to look, like social media being a double edged sword really comes out in this way. you see like—i’m just going to use an old example but—jeff ament repainting the mother love bone wall during quarantine and you might think “oh, it’s coming back”, but see, offhand, i couldn’t tell you where it is. i have to look it up or ask one of my friends up there where it is and even then, they would probably have to look for it. west seattle is nothing like it is in singles: it’s actually kind of upscale now.

i see people on here like magpiewithacamera or fluttergirl (who blocked me for some reason, one of the first to have blocked me without a good or even legitimate reason because it’s not like i said anything bad about her before—i just said something she disagreed with and reacted in childish fashion before it was in vogue to do such a thing—y’all really need to stop doing this, not just to me but in general. you can’t be so butthurt by someone else’s opinion that you feel compelled to block them out of your life. i get it with myself because i’m just a naturally born devil’s advocate but it’s not like i bully people, though). anyway, i see the two of them going to see jerry cantrell and calling themselves “grunge tourists” and i… have to laugh. the whole “20 years behind” trope was going to hit gen x at some point but i didn’t think it was going to be so depressing, though. like… you guys are nostalgic for a time when it was considered cool to do nothing all day and heroin was commonplace.

i understand the nostalgia completely: this scene is precious to me. i discovered it when i was a kid growing up during a time of economic hardship and with alcoholic parents and so it resonated with me. but when applied to reality, it gets rather ridiculous and not to mention, depressing, real quick.

i have a friend who moved to the northwest from pittsburgh back in 2015. in the seven years she has lived in seattle, she was homeless for months, in not one but two abusive relationships, got hooked on heroin, and almost overdosed and died on the street. she’s clean and in portland right now but i can tell just looking at her she isn’t happy.

i have another friend who moved to seattle in 2016 from moreno valley, out in the desert. she wanted the full gen x/grunger experience, complete with her being a musician. i could probably count on one hand how many times i’ve seen her play guitar and sing (singing voice is okay but it’s nothing to write home about. she sounds like every other female singer right now.) every time i see her, she’s on a tiresome feminist rant—and i mean, tiresome. just to give you an idea, she’s one of those pro-life feminists and there is literally no convincing her of a second opinion, like maybe she’s wrong or her beliefs are actually very destructive and lined up with extreme prejudice.

take this from me: when you make any sort of art, promote the shit out of it. your rants and thoughts can be there (and fuck anyone who says otherwise because it’s not their account or career), but your creation should be the rule, not the exception. i have no clue what she wants, whether she wants to be in a band or go solo. i have never seen her record anything—when he worked as a seafood chef, chris always found a way to record himself.

the one place i would say is genuinely close to the whole dream of the 90s spiel is georgetown in the southern part of town, right outside of sea-tac, and… i’m not a liar, i won’t lie to you guys—i wouldn’t recommend going there alone. just trust me on this. don’t go to georgetown by yourself.

it’s also crazy expensive. i’m seeing accounts like wizwoe trying to save up money from their art to move up there and god bless them for it but every time i see their art or a promo from them, i just think “dude, you’re going to be 50 by the time you get settled in up there” (and a lot can change in a year, too, who knows what seattle will be like 20 years from now or next year, or, hell, even six months from now). i’m a little biased here because every time i see wizwoe’s art, it’s like “god, this is so close to being good in my eyes but it’s just a bit off, though”. i want to like it but it does very little for me, like i don’t get the appeal.

speaking of art, i have another friend up there who recently started making art of her own and she actually had her own display at a street fair back on sunday and she walked away with bupkiss. really, she made no money at all from it. xana la fuente (andy wood’s fiancée, also a very good friend of mine) is actually trying to leave seattle: really, she’s been selling off things so she can be self-sustaining and has been less than successful with it. so, i wish wizwoe good luck—i always wish artists good luck because we all could use it, especially now.

and i can’t believe how fucking territorial this fandom is now. the whole bullshit with me is tip of the iceberg, like you better agree with us otherwise you’re scum, you’re disgusting, get out of here freak. i came to the grunge fandom because i wanted to be a part of it, i wanted to be with people who loved that scene as much as me, and i really felt like i could be myself in it, raging warts and all. but no: i was problematic. i said something that fluttergirl took too seriously and had to be catty, and it was beginning of the end there. trevor noah says it’s easier to be poor when you know that it’s commonplace around you, you know that your friends and your neighbors are struggling, too, rather than being poor amongst affluence and seeing what you know what you’re missing out on. granted, he was talking about growing up in apartheid south africa, but it struck a chord with me. when you’re someone who has moved around from social group to social group for most of your life, and you finally find a place that you think is home, but then… you do something stupid, or something controversial and you find out no one really likes you, it hurts like hell. you see everyone else having fun with each other and you just can’t help but withdraw, like the poor kid you are.

but at the same time, you can’t help but laugh. these people are out of their minds, chasing quicksand and a pipe dream. you say “they’ll learn”, because you know they will. it’s a question of when.

#knowing you’re right will help you sleep at night #text #grunge

1 note · View note

rubbishrobots · 4 years ago

Text

I wrote a Doctor Who story for Christmas

It's been a funny old year. High highs and low lows. My brain processes everything in terms of Doctor Who, so I thought I'd write a little story about a crap Christmas.

Doctor Who - “The Best Of it”

The drop in air pressure was first detected on December 24th. About 3% approximately every 5 hours, which might not seem like that big of a drop, but when you’re in a big research base right down at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, any air pressure escaping is a bit of a big deal.

And so I found myself, on Christmas Eve, in a big clunky OxySuit, lumbering around upon the sea floor at the deepest point in the Earth’s Ocean. I moved around the outer walls of Cameron Base One with great difficulty, pushing my limbs forward through the high-pressure water, the headlamps on either side of my helmet providing minimal light.

Reaching the West Wing of the base, the first thing I saw were the cracks in the floor. It began right where the wall of the base touched the ground, and then snaked out and broke off until the ground in front of me looked like a shatter pattern. This was an alarming sight, to say the least. It meant that the ground which Cameron Base One sat on, that the crew walked across, was unstable. I would have turned around immediately and gone to raise the alarm. But I didn’t.

Because the second thing I noticed was the tall, blue phone box. With a lamp on top and two square windows that sent wavy shimmers of light wafting through the ocean. It was right at the furthest reaches of the cracks in the floor. I wondered how the hell it had got there.

Of course, then I was plummeting through one of the cracks that opened up at my feet, so there wasn’t much else I could do except fall.

I only remember bits of my plummet, so it’s hard to describe now. But it was like being on a pitch black water slide that you fully expected to die at the end of. Something had struck the lights on my helmet almost immediately so I couldn’t see a darn thing, but my stomach twisted and turned, which told me I was being tossed to and fro. Then I remember a tiny bit of light approaching fast, and an impact. Then nothing.

Nothing until I was blinking awake in a dimly lit cave, and there was a woman peering down at me.

“What size shoe do you take?” she asked.

I stared at the fractured image of her through the cracked glass of my helmet. She had short yellow hair, a long pale blue coat, and a t shirt with a rainbow stripe across it. She waited expectantly for me to answer.

“I’m Ellie Tyson, Chief Engineer at Cameron Base One,” I said, unsure what else but name and rank was appropriate in this conversation.

“I’m the Doctor,” the woman replied. “I just knock about space, really. You alright?”

She helped me to my feet and out of my OxySuit. I was bumped and bruised, and the jumpsuit I wore beneath the suit was a bit scuffed, but I was otherwise okay and able to survey my surroundings. The cave was not spacious. There were small tea light candles dotted about, and a steady drip of water coming from the breach in the ceiling that I must have fallen through.

“Right! Welcome, welcome,” said the Doctor. “Let me show you around. I’d say this is the living area over here.” She gestured to the left side of the cave, where a fireplace had been drawn on the uneven rock wall. “But to be honest, it’s a bit of a studio apartment situation.”

“How long have you been here?” I asked, eyeing the crudely illustrated roaring fire and wondering if this was the sign of stir craziness.

“About a week. Been surviving on rations.” She held up a box of dried raisins. “And a few bits I had in my coat pockets to keep me busy.” On the floor of the cave, there was the aforementioned candles, a pack of crayons, a pair of knitting needles and some wool, and a tourist pamphlet for the Blue Man Group. “Don’t suppose you’ve got any food in that big clunky diving suit?”

I shook my head no. The only thing in the utility belt section of the suit was some bandages, medical tape, and a flare. None of which struck me as particularly edible.

“No hope of escape?” I asked, fearing the answer.

“Well, not until now.” She started walking to the mouth of the cave. “Come on, then.”

I followed. There were no candles in the long, narrow passageway she crept down, but the Doctor had a metallic remote thingy that was giving off an orange glow, and she rooted around her pockets until she found a small torch she could toss to me.

“So full disclosure,” said the Doctor, “I got knocked silly on the way down. Consequently, I was half unconscious for like the first 3 days, but as soon as I was able to, I did a bit of exploring. Didn’t get very far. There’s a massive wall just up ahead that proved to be a big fat dead end for me.”

I frowned. “So why are we bothering?”

The Doctor waved a hand impatiently. “You’ll see in a min. Anyway, I knew someone else was bound to fall down the same hole I did, it being next to a massive human science-y base thing.”

The word ‘human’ got caught on some filters in my head, but I moved past it. “Nobody else knows. They sent me out to see why we were having air pressure problems.”

“Exactly, so I knew it was only a matter of time till I had a mate. That reminds me, what size shoe did you say you took?”

“I didn’t, and we have much bigger problems. If the ground up there is this unstable, the whole crew of Cameron Base One could be in real danger.”

The Doctor pulled a face. “I’m working on that! Give us a chance.”

“Except you’re not working on it – you’ve been down here a week and you’re no closer to escaping. Now I’m stuck down here too. The whole base could collapse any second and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“You literally just told me the only passageway leads to a dead end!”

“No,” the Doctor corrected. “I said it was a dead end for me.” We came to the huge wall she’d spoken off. It was about twice our height, but it did not reach the roof of the cave passage. There was a sizeable space at the top of the wall, and beyond that some source of light could be seen blinking on and off from out of view. In the torchlight, the Doctor grinned with great satisfaction. “See? All I needed was someone to give me a boost. I’ll go first and pull you up after. Don’t worry, I’m dead nimble in this body.”

The brain filter picked up that last weird comment too, but I didn’t have time to question. I laced my fingers and let the Doctor put her dirty boots in the palm of my hands, whereupon I heaved her high enough for her to grab something to hold onto and pull herself, and then me after, up onto the raised ground.

Wiping the muck off of my knees, I stood up and looked at where we’d ascended to. The sight before me made no sense. For at the top of this ledge, in this cavern deep down in the Earth’s crust, were a large pair of steel doors with a blinking control panel next to it.

“Oh, brilliant!” said the Doctor. She rushed towards it, aimed her metallic torch thingy at it, and I was amazed to see the doors rumble and draw themselves open. There was a great cloud of dust as they parted.

“These doors must have been sat closed for a good amount of time, then,” I coughed, as I followed the Doctor through the doorway.

On the other side, the Doctor stood dead still. “A very long time,” she said.

If the sight of steel doors had shocked me, it was nothing compared to the room of cryogenically frozen lizard people I was looking at now.

In this laboratory the length of a football pitch, there were rows and rows of pods, half metallic, half rock formations, and each of them contained a bipedal, human-sized lizard. There was frost on the glass of the pods, and they were cold to my touch. The creatures inside had not stirred a bit during our entrance or my examining of their containers. Astonished, I turned to the Doctor, hoping to gain some comfort in a shared vibe of ‘not knowing what the hell was going on.’

So imagine my surprise when I found her gazing at the cyro-pods in delight. “This works out perfectly.”

Silurians, she called them. I dropped to a seated position, probably going into some form of shock, while she paced around the room and ranted about the civilisation that walked the Earth eons before humans evolved (“Eons,” she paused to grin at me. “Love that word. Eons!”). Apparently they saw an asteroid approaching, and evacuated deep underground, putting themselves in stasis until such time as the damage from any impact would have passed. She’d moved over to a raised console built into a slab of rock and had been tinkering with the controls for a good minute before she realise I still hadn’t spoken.

“Soz, that was probably a bit of an overload, wasn’t it? Which bit did I lose you on?”

“The lizards who ruled the earth before humans,” I said softly.

The Doctor’s nose scrunched up in confusion. “Really? That bit makes sense, if you think about it.”

“In what universe does a secret society of Lizards frozen beneath the Mariana Trench make sense?!”

“Well that’s where all those daft stories about the Illuminati come from. It’s just people stumbling across all the different Silurian hibernation chambers and letting their imagination run wild.”

That did actually make a little bit of sense, but I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of saying so, so I just stayed silent.

“Anyway,” she said, turning back to the controls. “Cheer up, this means there’s probably a way out of here.” That got my attention. I leapt to my feet and came to her side, staring at the panel of strange, unlabelled controls. “The Silurians tunnelled all the way down here, and they were obviously planning to return at some point. So logic says there must be a way out. A lift, or a teleport, or something.” She gasped. “Could be a massive ladder!”

“I’m not climbing a ladder out of the Mariana Trench, Doctor.”

She looked about to respond, but then a shrill, angry bleeping noise erupted from the console. The Doctor stuck her tongue out thoughtfully, the pressed some other buttons, only to be greeted with the same angry bleeping noise. She then tried pointing her metallic object at the controls, but the bleeping noise sounded again. The Doctor glared at the console panel. “Well, now you’re just being difficult.”

“Doctor,” I said, pointing to a small indent in the bottom corner of the console, that looked something like a fingerprint scanner. “It must need, I dunno, authorisation or something.”

I should have noticed the Doctor’s falling expression as she stared at what I’d pointed out. “Oh,” she said, and I should have noticed it was without her usual pep. “That’s a blow.”

Maybe I didn’t want to notice any of it. I was already looking around at which of the Silurians was closest. “So will we need to fully wake them up, or can we just sort of drag one over and then put it back?”

The Doctor turned to me. Her expression was grave. I turned my back on her and marched quickly over to one of the pods so I could pretend to be having a look. “And can it be any old one or does it need to be, like, a Boss or a President or a Mayor? I don’t know what the Silurian political hierarchy was like, was it like ours?”

“Ellie…” said the Doctor. “We can’t. The Silurians wouldn’t understand. They’d want to come back to the surface with us, and they can’t. The Earth isn’t ready for them yet.”

The trip back to the cave was awkward. I walked ahead, in silence. I heard the scuff of the Doctor’s boots behind me, and I felt her worried gaze on my back. And when we got back to the cave, I sat in the corner and didn’t look at her.

I was going to die down here. At Christmas. And everyone in that base above us had no idea they were walking and working on ground that could crumble awake at any second.

And worst of all, the only company I had, the person with which I was to perish, was a buffoon. At a certain point I had to break my sulk and look up at the Doctor, because I could sense her constantly moving and wondered how the hell she could be finding so much to do in a tiny little cave at the bottom of the planet.

Watching her, I still didn’t know. She was rummaging inside her coat pocket for a while, eventually fishing out old Quality Street sweet wrappers of red, green and gold. At one point, I heard her squeak with delight and drop down to examine something in the dirt and soil of the cave floor. When she began to draw more cave paintings and hum merrily to herself, I could take no more. I briefly considered digging the medical tape out of my suit and using it to seal her mouth shut.

“What on earth are you doing?” I asked instead.

She glanced at me over her shoulder. “I’m making the best of it!” she said, and moved aside so that I could see. Next to her 2D fireplace, she had scrawled a Christmas Tree on the wall, with scribbled baubles and doodled tinsel. And now she was humming White Christmas. “We might be stuck down here with no hope of escape. But it’s still Christmas.”

I stared in disbelief. “Are you for real? It is not Christmas.”

She did that nose-scrunch thing again. “I mean, it sort of is.”

“It is Christmas on a technicality!” I yelled. “It is Christmas only in the sense that the date is December 24th. Our current predicament, that being our impending death, takes precedent. And, for that matter, negates all circumstantial Christmas-ness.” I realised that tirade had come off oddly formal, so I added: “So stop being a dope, you big blonde-haired nutter.”

The Doctor, annoyingly, did not look hurt. Or offended. She just shook her head, like I didn’t understand. “That’s not how it works. It doesn’t matter what’s happening. Could be right in the middle of wartime, could be disease and pestilence sweeping the globe, you could be separated from everyone you love. The Titanic could be falling out of the sky! But if any of those things are happening in December, you get to press pause on them for a little bit, and be happy. Because it’s Christmas, and Christmas is magic like that.”

Nice speech. It didn’t work. “You’re a child,” I said, turning back around.

We didn’t talk again for a while. I sat and sat and sat, and at some point I lay down, and at another point I fell asleep.

Hours later, I awoke to a veritable Winter Wonderland.

The Doctor had been busy through the night. She had gone all around the cave, drawing holly and garlands all over the walls. Three tiny knitted stockings were stuck to the hand drawn fireplace. She had carefully placed the different sweet wrappers around the candles, creating a fairylight-like effect of flickering red, green and gold all around. And as I sat up, she was in front of me, beaming.

“Happy Christmas!” she bellowed, and thrust a folded piece of kitchen roll in my face. I took it from her delicately, realising that it was only obscuring something folded within. “Sorry, no wrapping paper. Best I could do.”

I did my best attempt at a smile, given the still pretty awful circumstances, and opened the gift. I had expected to find some random object standing in as a gift. After all, there was hardly a Henrick’s or Magpie Electricals to pop to down here. So when I opened the paper and found two carefully knitted socks, I took me a second to put the pieces together. Finally though, I looked up at her in wonder.

“Is this why you kept asking for my shoe size?”

The Doctor grinned. “Got it in the end. Took a tape measure to your footprint.” She pointed at what I’d seen her messing with on the floor the previous night, an indentation in the mucky ground from my shoe.

That broke my Scrooge-ness. I could continue to be a misery no longer. I thanked the Doctor genuinely, pulled on my new socks, and allowed her to lead me around the cave and tell me in great detail how she had thrown together every single makeshift Christmas decoration. We played snap and charades, and then gathered around the illustrated roaring fireplace to tell ghost stories (the Doctor’s were better than mine).

“I wish I had a gift for you,” I lamented after our Christmas Dinner of raisins and half a Wham bar. The socks really were quite cosy.

The Doctor waved a hand and tried not to look bothered. “No worries. It’s not the getting at this time of year, it’s the giving. That’s what my Mam used to say.” She paused though, then added “But also, if you happened to pack a toothbrush in that suit, I’ll love you forever. It’s been a week.”

A thought struck me. I stood up and wandered over to my discarded OxySuit, and reached into the utility belt. “No toothbrush, sorry. But in the spirit of the season, I gift you the one thing in my possession and pray it brings you happiness and good fortune.” I produced the small roll of medical tape, and tossed it to her.

She did not catch it. She did not even make an attempt. The Doctor had gone dead still since the moment she saw me pull the tape out of the suit. The roll bounced off her tummy and then fell lamely to the floor. Here, she stared at it, eyes wide.

“Doctor?”

When she looked up, there was the biggest smile on her face. “Ellie Tyson, this might be the most important Christmas gift I’ve ever been given.” Then she rushed across the distance and flung her arms around me. “Do you even realise what you’ve done? You’ve saved our lives, you daft little human.”

I had no chance to question her further. The second she let me out of her death-clutch hug, she snatched up the roll of tape and went sprinting out of the cave. I followed her through the narrow passage as best I could, but she was faster than you’d think, and by the time I reached the wall at the end, she was bouncing up and down impatiently. “Come on, come on, come on,” she begged, and I quickly boosted her up onto the ledge and let her heave me up after her.

Back in the Silurian chamber, the Doctor rushed over to the nearest cryogenic pod and started messing with the controls.

“But you said we couldn’t wake them up!” I shouted.

“No time to explain,” she shouted back. “Try and find some sort of powder or talc, any type will do.”

As she pointed her metallic thingy at the pod, I searched all over until I found what was probably the lizard equivalent of baby powder in what was probably the lizard equivalent of a medicine cabinet. I came back to the Doctor to find one of the pod doors open. The Silurian was still completely unmoving, and the air coming from the pod was predictably ice cold.

“What are we doing?” I asked, handing her the bottle.

“Spy stuff,” was her reply. And then, teeth chattering from the cold, I watched her crouch down to be able to coat one of the Silurian’s finger tips in the powder. Then, taking my Christmas gift, she pressed the scale-covered finger into a piece of tape and applied pressure. “That should do it,” she said, and stood up straight again.

“Do what?” I said. Except, no. That wasn’t my voice who had said that. And it wasn’t the Doctor’s either.

It was the Silurian. He was blinking awake, groggy like he’d overslept. “What are we doing?” he asked, then squinted at what was surely a blurry sight of two strangers in front of him. “Who are you?”

“Nobody,” the Doctor squeaked, pressing a complicated sequence of buttons on the panel next to the pod. “We’re nobody. Go back to sleep. We’re just… ghosts. We’re the Ghosts of Christmas Yet To Come.”

The Silurian frowned. “…what’s Christmas?”

“Shush,” said the Doctor, and she quickly closed the door and zapped the controls with her metallic remote, and the Silurian was asleep again.

The Doctor pressed the borrowed fingerprint on the tape into the scanner on the console and it worked perfectly. We were directed to an area at the back of the chamber, where a steel compartment took us back to the surface with frightening speed. We emerged into sparkling daylight, finding ourselves on an island in the Philippines. Well, there are worse places to spend Christmas Day. The Doctor helped me find a phone, which I used to contact central command, who in turn got in touch with Cameron Base One and ordered a speedy evacuation. The Doctor made friends with an old man who had a submarine, and he said he would take her down to retrieve her Blue Box after he’d had his Christmas dinner.

While we waited for the old man to finish his afters, the Doctor and I sat on a beach overlooking the Pacific Ocean. I thought it to be the bluest blue I’d ever seen, but the Doctor said she’d seen blue-er.

“It’s going to be mental down there,” I said, thinking of Cameron Base One. “Everyone loading stuff into boxes, shutting down all the experiments. Must be chaos.”

The Doctor smiled, looking out at the point where, miles and miles below the water, there was a whole base of people packing up and heading home. “It won’t be that bad,” she said. “It will still be Christmas. They’ll make the best of it.”

#merry christmas ya filthy animals #doctor who #thirteenth doctor #jodie whittaker #revolution of the daleks

11 notes · View notes

chiisai-fukurou · 4 years ago

Text

About my hiatus :)

Long time no see... It has been a while since I published an article here...

A lot has happened and I think I cannot look at my blog the same way I did... I’ve been to Japan again last December and it was wonderful. I’ve spent a lot of time helping my friends and a lot of time visiting a neurologist for some troubles I’ve had for as long as I could think. It took a lot of time off of my schedule that I had to work hard to get back.

For a long time I had to fight with that feeling of being alien and not being able to fit in. For as long as I could think a lot of things just went over my head and I couldn’t fathom some things that happened around me. I cannot share a lot of things people around me think and talk about. There has been this suspicion that I’m autistic for a long time now so last year I decided to bite the bullet and get an appointment for a diagnosis.

It took 7 month of waiting for me to get to my first appointment. I chose a reputable neurologist/psychologist because I’m not a fan of “I think I have XX and just need a doctor to sign the diagnosis I made myself.” because if you want to improve your situation an accurate assessment of your current status is kind of paramount. I had several, hours long appointments that were quite costly but to me it was worth the time and money I paid for it. It was a very interesting experience too. There is a lot of testing and there are a lot of questions being asked to make sure it isn't something else causing you these troubles. There are a lot of things that can cause similar symptoms that are not autism. So carefully getting to the bottom of things takes time and multiple appointments to make sure that a bad or a good day didn't impact the diagnosis. I had to get a MRT too to make sure it is not brain damage that is causing the symptoms. I’m happy to declare that my brain is okay :) I’m however impartial to the diagnosis of autism/Aspergers.

I’m very happy I did this. The diagnosis allows me to get adequate help should I need it and it helps me understand my surroundings a lot better. The neurologist had a great analogy for my situation too: Autists have a different operating system running their hardware. Stimuli get processed in a very different way and there is no filter or automation happening that could help you with even simple conversations... Hence the seeming inability of autistic people to do smalltalk... Imagine the hell that human interaction can be, having to think of every sentence you say because you cannot do it casually or automatically, not being able to read the mood, knowing that you disappointed or hurt people without any chance of preventing it in the future... To many people this sounds weird and like I’m not even trying... I’m and the Neurologist told me I’m really well adapted but there are limits to how well one can adjust. Basically “normal” people have a social autopilot that handles a lot of things for them and autistic people don’t. We can never really relax in a social event because we get battered with details that we can't filter out. It’s tiring and yet I wish it wouldn't be tiring... because I wish to share things with friends and people. It took some time to get things sorted and deal with this experience.

I’m fine and in some way I felt liberated and happy I finally know what is up.

I had to weed out some connections that caused me grief and think of many things that happened in the past. A lot of things make sense now :)

I had an accident too this year breaking my left arm (;_;) and some stuff on my bicycle... I had a strained neck too... the surgeon didn't want to believe how quickly my bones healed (°_°;) The crack that ran through 75% of my Ulna wasn't visible or detectable anymore after 3 weeks... The accident happened while I was riding at 40 km/h on my bicycle and touched a curb with the wheels... It happened after a long long day at work right when the whole COVID19 thing started to take off in Germany. I couldn’t get lunch at work and had spend the whole day on water with a empty tummy... I was tired, hungry and worn out. I just wanted to go home and didn't pay enough attention...

Anyway I’m fine now :) My bike is fine again too :)

However because of this a lot of tasks at work were piling up and when I came back I had to do a lot of stuff trying to get on top of things... Because I work at a company that makes medical devices the current situation kind of overwhelmed the company as well... basically we get as many orders per month as we used to get within a year... This is incredibly challenging as our suppliers often can't keep up with the demand but I’m very happy to report that everyone of them is doing their best to keep up and to stay on top of the whole situation :,) I’m happy i can do my small part in saving lives and I think that a company where people stick together and try to do their best in trying times is incredibly valuable :)

Last year, while travelling through Japan, I once again noticed how awful tourist spots have become (-_-) Japan is close to my heart and I like the country and its people a lot. Many tourists behave badly, not out of ill intent but out of ignorance... Japanese value quiet, peaceful and clean behaviour but a lot of tourists seem to be unable to behave this way... They litter, leave toilets behind that are disgusting, are rude, don’t pay attention and seem to think Japan is a theme park. I like this country and I’m saddened that other foreigners tarnish the image of visitors and are taking advantage of incredibly kind people who welcome you as a guest :,( I felt bad that I wrote all those articles that might have inspired this kind of people to go to Japan :,( I want this kind of people to stay at home. You're ruining it for everyone else. My friends cheered me up a lot. Still the sight of drunken tourists puking on Takao-San in Tokyo or yelling loudly in a group at a shrine, throwing their cigarets and garbage on the streets in Kyoto, running through the streets while yelling or necessitating the fencing in of neighbourhood shrines because some dippshit thought it would be fun to put graffiti on them makes me incredibly sad. I’m sorry for the negativity but this has been troubling me a lot.

I received some questionable messages too... I’m a guy but some people seemed to assume that I’m a Japanese girl for some reason...

Anyway I kind of came to terms with things and will start writing again.

I hope people will become more respectful over time :)

I’m sorry for the rant I put in this article m(_ _)m I felt like I had to get it off of my chest because this has been bothering me a lot.

P.S. if you think autism is caused by vaccines, being autistic is better than being dead or to suffer from the consequences of an otherwise preventable disease. You do not “get” autism, one of the conditions that has to be met to get a diagnosis is that you had to have symptoms right from the start. Things that can cause similar symptoms are brain damage, PTSD, ADHD (you are born with that too and cannot get it) and certain medications. These however are different from autism in that they have to be treated differently. Hence the focus during diagnosis on making sure not to diagnose one of the other things as autism. I showed symptoms for as long as I can think back.

I hope you’ll forgive me for my long absence and won't change your attitude towards me :)

I’m still me albeit more confident and accepting of myself since I don't need to pester myself with questions like “why didn't i understand that.”, “Why can't I do that?”, etc. :)

Thank you to everyone who read through all of this :) I wish you a great time with sweet daydreams (^-^)/

30 notes · View notes

malereader-inserts · 5 years ago

Text

Sand Grains

Fandom: Avengers Pairing: Peter Parker x Male!Stark!Reader Summary: How much love is there? Well, it depends on how many sand grains there is in the world Word Count: 4,025 (Oof this is a long one guys) A/n: Okay, this bitch has been reading all the Field Trip trope in AO3 and lemme me tell you something, I love them, especially all the Avengers showing up at random times of the day like yes - so this is inspired this insert. CIVIL WAR/INFINITY WAR/ENDGAME NOT COMPLIANT (we’re all family here)

Peter has a great life.

He has a loving aunt, a weird second family, the two best friends ever, and a devoted boyfriend. He could not ask for a better life. He adored you, you were the most handsome person he’s ever laid eyes on and the smartest person. Well, at least for your age of nineteen. Being a year younger than you means that he still had school, bummer for him, but it was very easy to conceal the relationship between you and him.

It wasn’t because you weren’t ready to come out as a couple, you weren’t mentally prepared of the teasing the team had come up with. But, your moments were much more intimate. Especially that time when he first said those three special words.

“I love you,” He had said, as you turned around in his room with a raised eyebrow.

“Oh, is that so?” There was a playful tease to your voice, “How much?”

“Every sand grain in the world,” He replied as you look taken aback, your eyes flickering above his head to process what he had admitted before you turned your attention back to him.

“Wow, that’s a lot,” You breathes out as you leaned closer to him, inches apart, “Then I love you, just a grain more.”

You mostly hang out his apartment in Queens, with his aunt taking the night shift, you’re at his for movie nights or just nights where you don’t have to conceal your relationship. Peter comes over to the Stark Tower, which was sold for a bit before your dad rebought it to spite Ross before he got detained, to do some interning.

Wednesdays are strictly interning, Fridays are Avenger bonding and the weekends are a mixture of both. Peter had his own room in the Stark Tower when he sleeps over for the weekend, starting on Friday and leaving on Sunday night. Which means he gets to see your face quite frequently.

He adores watching you tinkering in your part of the lab, advancing the tech for the Avengers. He also watches you get trained to take over the Stark Industries as Pepper and Tony had been coaxing you in your training. On top of that, you get training with the Avengers.

But, it was Wednesday and after dinner, he’ll be going home soon.

“Pete,” You hummed, knocking on the glass window next to the glass door, “Dinner.”

He looks up from his update on the Spider-man suit, “Coming, what is it?”

“Steve made Mac and Cheese whilst Natasha made Pot-roast Bombay chicken,” You explained as Peter and you make your way to the dinner table, “They were having a competition who is the better cook, try and not get in the firing line.”

“I’ll try not to.”

Peter loves hanging around with his second family, they were loud and fun. So, his happy mood was dampened quickly the next day.

“Alright guys,” Mr Harrington vocalised at Decathlon team meeting, “I’ve managed to snag us a field trip to the one and only, Stark Towers.”

“You- what?” Peter mutters under his breath.

“He said-” MJ started as Peter gave her a look, “You need a better hearing.”

She was teasing, she knew full well of his superhero status. Permission slips were being handed out and Peter bolted out of school to avoid Flash from taunting him anymore. He got home in record time as May was there to greet him.

“How’s school, kid?”

“Not bad, got a thing for you to sign,” Peter waved the sheet that needed signing, though by his look on his face May could tell he wasn’t happy, “A trip to the Stark Tower.”

“Oh honey, is that why you looked all glum?” May asked, grabbing the sheet and scanning it before promptly signing it off, “Why don’t you ask (Y/n) to come over, that always cheer you up.”

“Huh?”

“Oh, don’t act stupid now, Pete,” May laughs as he tilts his head in disbelief, “I know a smitten boy when I see one and it certainly wasn’t MJ that caught your attention this time.”

Sure, he had a slight crush on MJ for a bit but in his current situation, he loved you with all of his heart, if not more. Though his shoulders relax that his aunt had known, she wasn’t mad nor disappointed.

“Well, call him, I’m sure he’ll make up an excuse to come see you - I always wonder how that boy gets a lot of freedom.”

“(Y/n) has good lies,” Peter replies, “I once witnessed him lie to the team about being at conference meeting out of the country but had decided to take a holiday to India because he was getting sick and tired of the team.”

May shake her head as Peter calls you up, without a doubt you had come up with an excuse and had got at his apartment within half an hour. Hugging him tightly as you greeted May with a hug.

“You two have fun in the living room, no funny business going on our I will call your dad (Y/n).”

You put your hand up in defence, “I promise May, there is nothing funny than a good comedy film.”

May nodded in approval, as she shoos you off the living room, you smile at Peter, who looked down.

“I’m guessing this is about the trip, huh?” You asked, slinging your arm over your boyfriend.

“You know?”

“Yeah, everyone knows and I mean they know,” You emphasised, “Listen, it’s next Friday, there’s nothing to sweat, you know other than the impending embarrassment...”

Peter groaned, “This is the worst, it’s just my luck, Parker luck!”

“Hey, at least you get to prove that kid wrong, no?” You bumped shoulders with him, “I love you.”

“Oh, yeah how much because it’s hard to believe.”

You chuckle as you tenderly kissed his cheek, “With all the sand grains in the world.”

Peter looks up at you as he relaxes under you, letting out a wistful sigh, “I love you too, just a sand grain more.”

The days that were leading up to the trip had been eventful, with the team teasing and coming up with plans in front of Peter on how to embarrass him for the whole weekend. They even had started to tease Peter on a crush on MJ, and whilst Peter continues to redden it had contributed to the teasing.

Whilst you came off a little bit annoyed, which has caused the team to ask about why you had suddenly dislike MJ. So, over the weekend, you were actively ignoring or leave the room once they started to mention MJ.

“Come on, Petey,” You drawled out, ruffling his hair on Wednesday’s dinner, it was in two days that he will be back to face his death, “It’s not gonna be that bad.”

“Isn’t it Steve’s job to be optimistic about stuff like this?”

“Hey, the old man has been bouncing walls to embarrass you, give it to him,” You sat down at the dinner table next to Sam as Peter rolls his eyes whilst Steve calls out a ‘hey’ at being called old, “You’re staying after the trip, yeah? Don’t forget to have May have a note to leave you here.”

He had dreaded the day to come, sitting by Ned and the window with MJ behind, he was hoping that he could vanish out of thin air.

“Hey, Penis Parker,” Flash’s voice echoed.

“Flash, that behaviour is not acceptable,” Mr Harrington had warned, though it wasn’t going to stop the teenager from his bullying.

“You’re ready to be exposed for all your lies?” The boy had asked.

Whilst the rest of the team had rolled their eyes - whilst they hadn’t believed Peter and his internship they weren’t going to harass him every minute of the day. The only people who believed him was Ned and MJ, even Mr Harrington was sceptical of the whole thing and warned Peter not to say anything about this fake internship around Stark Industries to embarrass Midtown High.

So, when they had stepped off the bus, he wasn’t surprised to get pushed past by Flash, who got off the bus before Peter but held back just to dig at Peter. Ned had patted Peter on the shoulder with a reassuring smile as MJ started to scowl at Flash as she was captain of the team she took her role very seriously.

“Hi Midtown!” A preppy girl greeted the small group, her name was Emily, Peter had worked with her on some of her intern projects, “I’m Emily and I’m an intern at Stark Industries, I will be your tour guide of the day.”

Peter sighs, straightening his back as he listens to Emily rant about how they will be not allowed to take any pictures unless said otherwise.

“You will all be given a visitor pass, these passes allow clearance to certain aspects of the tower. Level one and two have the lowest clearance, level ones are usually tourist, visitors on tours such as you guys. Level two are guest who frequently visits so they could be friends and family of people who work here.”

“What level are you?” Cindy asked as Emily smiles softly.

“I’m level four, there are ten levels in total. Level three and four are usually interns or on the business side of the Industries such as sales. Usually starting interns or starting employees of the business management start at three before ranking up to four. Levels five to seven are the scientist in research and development or better known as R&D, like level three and four, they can be ranked up depending on how well they work.”

“What levels are the Avengers?” Abe asked.

“I was about to get to that!” Emily chirped, “Level eight are Lab directors, they oversee the whole lab they work in, check on interns work and all. Avengers are level nine and level ten are only to the Starks, Pepper Potts, Happy Hogan, James Rhodes and anyone who have a connection to them that needs a full grant to areas of the tower.”

Flash was about to ask an important question before she had started to hand out passes before smiling at Peter. Flash was about to exclaim why Peter hadn’t been given a Level 1 pass that was a plain white card held in a black lanyard.

“We will be passing a metal detector, it’s for FRIDAY - Starks’ AI, to make sure you are safe to enter the building.” She had explained, swiping her pass like so and passing through the metal detection.

“Emily Robinson, Level 4: Intern, all clear.” The AI voice had startled the team before Emily had beckoned the group to pass.

The group was passing through until they had noticed that Peter was pushed back with MJ and Ned coming through with white passes but with a blue, a white and red lanyard around their neck.

“Ned Leeds, Level 2: Frequent Visitor, all clear,” Friday sounded slightly warmer, “Welcome back Ned!”

MJ was quick to scan her pass and walk through, “Michelle Jones, Level 2: Frequent Visitor, all clear,” whilst the Decathlon team looked shocked MJ just rolls her eyes, “Welcome back MJ!”

Peter sighs and scans his pass, which was a light blue with the lanyard designed with red and blue with intricate details of spider webs, “Peter Parker, Level 10: Personal Intern, all clear.”

Peter had sighed out in relief when Friday hadn’t called out he was an Avenger, but then again, he was never called out as an Avenger if he as entering from the entrance like a normal person.

“Welcome back, Peter, the Starks have been informed of the arrival.” Friday had warmed her voice, Peter almost senses a smile in the tone despite being only an AI.

“WHAT!” Flash had exploded, that was one for MJ’s sketchbook.

“Miniboss has sent down a message, Peter, would you like to hear it?”

Peter chuckles at your nickname, you were either referred as Mini boss by FRIDAY or Mini Stark by the rest of the team, you don’t seem to mind it despite being grumpy about the nickname. Peter was sure you were secretly fond of the nickname.

“No, he can wait.”

He knew you couldn’t wait, it’s a Stark trait that you and your dad cannot wait. But, he was going to do it anyway, because admittedly he was a little shit. This was only the start of the tour and he was ready to end himself.

“Okay, but he said sand grains but I don’t understand.”

“I understand perfectly, thanks, Friday.”

He smiles to himself, at least you were trying to cheer him up.

He wishes the day couldn’t get any worst but it had. He had run in with each Avengers so far. Steve and Bucky coming down at the museum of the Avengers History to say hi to Peter, who turned red when they heard a girl gasp only to find it was only Ned.

Sam came down a few minutes later after Steve and Bucky tried to answer questions only to rile the Decathlon team to ask more questions. They all leave grinning and ruffling his hair.

“I’m showing Tony the PSA videos,” Peter muttered, unhappy as the three men just continue to grin.

“Bold enough of you to think I haven’t shown him already.”

Peter glanced at Sam with a raised eyebrow, “Hey, don’t look at me, blame Mini Stark on making these two old men catch up with the memes.”

Trust you to make Steve and Bucky too aware of the teenage world.

“See you later, squirt,” Steve beams, “I’m making tacos tonight.”

Then, after the Decathlon team had gotten over Peter’s interaction with three Avengers, they still haven’t gotten over Peter bantering with the Avengers. As Flash was about to hurl more abuse to Peter about his fake internship, despite many people telling already it was true, he refused to believe it.

“Hey, Penis-” The elevator door slide open earlier than usual, they were not at their stop.

“Oh, hey,” Peter offers weakly, his voice breaking, “Hi Nat.”

“Hey ребенок паук,” She smiles, entering the elevator, turning to MJ, “Hey MJ.”

Natasha gives Peter a side glance as Peter rolls his eyes, knowing what she was trying to insinuate, no doubt that you would have heard this hint in your little lab. He can’t seem to shake off the rumours that he doesn’t like MJ in that way without becoming red.

“Good thing, (Y/n) isn’t here,” Natasha hums, “I don’t understand why he’s in a foul mood lately every time we mention MJ, didn’t know he dislikes the girl.”

MJ raised an eyebrow at Peter, who looks at her with a sheepish smile, “He hears everything, Nat, you know that.”

“Still, that kid needs to sort himself out, he’s just as petty as his dad.”

“I heard that,” Your voice grumbled through the ceiling as Peter’s classmate jumped, “I’m not that petty.”

“You’re pretty petty,” Peter responds back, only to get a string of grumbling from your end.

Natasha chuckles, “Hey Stark, you better get a move on with fixing my bites or I’ll have Parker do it for me.”

The group had gaped at the Avenger, who affectionately bumps his shoulder and the elevator doors slide open.

“This is your stop, ребенок паук, enjoy the rest of your tour,” She teased as Peter’s ears flared hot.

For a split second, he had forgotten that he was on a school trip. The elevator door closed ominously as Peter noticed that they were on the R&D labs, well, one of the many labs.

“Does the rich boy not like me?” MJ asked, though on the outside she seemed like she couldn’t care less however on the inside, she was offended.

“No, he does, but the team thinks I have a crush on you and it’s getting to him so he avoids any conversations with you in it,” Peter explains as MJ nods.

It was his Parker luck that he would run into Bruce and Clint eventually. Clint had been poking at Bruce’s work before greeting Peter as hyper as he could. Bruce tiredly sighs before waving to Peter. The two Avengers leaving their interaction short.

“I can’t believe you, dickwad,” Flash hissed, obviously infuriated that Peter hadn’t been lying, “What money did you give to let you in? Did your aunt sucked dick-”

“I wouldn’t finish that Flash,” Peter growled dangerously low, a sudden protective instinct had washed over him, he will not take May slander.

“Or what, Penis?” Flash taunted.

Peter was about to punch him but Emily had called over that they were going to do a Q&A with Tony, himself as if Peter couldn’t want to bury himself in a hole even more.

Flash scoffs and shoves Peter into Ned, “Ignore him, Pete, he’s just being a dick.”

“He insulted May.”

“He insulted May?” Ned exclaims, “Changed my mind, punch him.”

“That’s not like you to say,” MJ interjected but shrugged, “But, I’m for it.”

The team had sat down in a conference room, it wasn’t just Tony speaking up but it was the rest of the team who had been notified about the bullying that was going on for the rest of the day. Even, Pepper managed to show up despite being very busy.

“You’re telling me that Parker, puny little Parker actually does work for you?” Flash exclaims as Peter stands up with Flash.

Just as Tony was about to snap at the kid Peter had interrupted, “You know, Flash, you’re gonna wish that it was them that was scowling at you and not him.”

“Who-?”

“Me,” You dryly commented at the doorway, eyes were drawn up to you, noticing a terrifying glint in your eyes, “Eugene Thompson, right?”

“You know me?”

“Oh yeah, kid,” You commented, despiting being a year older than him and taking strides to be uncomfortably close to him, Peter winces, “You’re the kid that’s bullying my boyfriend, my boyfriend who was supposed to tell me or May or anyone on the Avengers that if his bullying got worst.”

“Yeah, about that...”

“Not now, Pete.”

“See, we could all endure a 45 minutes presentation that I’ve made on why Peter Parker is fucking-”

“Language-” Tony scowls as the team smirks at the inside joke, but it had dropped that you weren’t dropping

“Wonderful, smart and amongst everything else that you could never be. I love that kid with all my heart, I love him with every grain of sand in the world. I’ll be damned if anything bad happens to him. So, what do you value more? Your fingers or your toes?”

There was a splutter of fear as the Avengers almost had an uproar when you had threatened the kid, the Decathlon team too afraid to challenge a Stark as Peter stood awkwardly watching his boyfriend confront his bully.

“Or, we could do it the easy way where you get on your knees, beg for forgiveness, though Peter will not be taking it, and admit that Peter Parker is always going to be ten times the man you’ll never be.”

Flash looks at Peter as you pressed a heavy finger on Flash’s chest to make him look at you.

“You will never have an opportunity at Stark Industries, and don’t get me angry or I will ruin your chances for any Ivy Leagues or MIT or Caltech.”

“You can’t do that!” Flash gasped, whining like a little kid.

“Why not? Going to run to daddy to sue us? Don’t worry, our lawyers are already suing you for assaulting a valuable member of Stark Industries, right babe?”

Peter reddens as eyes look over to him, “He might have bruised a few ribs when kicked me off the ropes in gym class.”

“Peter!” Tony and Pepper stressed out, as Avengers was even taken back with this revelation.

“Is there any other injuries your sustain to him?” Steve asked, concerned.

“I’ll tell you later,” Peter murmured, leaving the Avengers uneasy.

“And you-” You looked over your shoulder, turning away to look at the teacher, “See whilst you were lecturing Peter to not tarnish Midtown’s reputation, you and Flash have done an incredible job at doing so... What teacher ignores bullying?”

“I-I-...?”

“I can answer that!” MJ calls out, looking smug as she was gathering source for her sketchbook, “Flash’s parents contribute a lot to the school, telling him off would put that on the line.”

“You could have focused on students’ mentality, students in general, but no you rather feed to a kid’s ego and in a way, contribute to the bullying, and man,” you looked in distaste, “You’re a bit old to be called in the principal office at your age.”

“What?”

“You’d be lucky if you still have a job,” You shrugged, looking smug, “Made a few calls and turns out bullying is not tolerated in the school, which has been messaged through on Steve’s PSA.”

“I think that’s enough, babe,” Peter pleaded you looked at him, your shoulders deflating, you had been surprised that no one had stopped you from ranting.

“Alright,” You hummed softly, your eyes softening at Peter who smiles at you, “Only after this.”

You had a good right hook on Flash’s jaw, the Avengers quickly jumping off stage to the scene but you had backed off to go around the table to meet Peter.

“You just right hooked him.” Peter spoke astonished as you grinned at him, “You’re lucky I love you, but that was embarrassing.”

“Oh? Well, the kid needed his ego knock down a notch,” You snaked your arms around him and pulled him close.

He buried his face in your neck as you chuckled, watching Emily frantically moving the Decathalon kids out and back to the entrance. You knew that you’re going to get a lecture from one of the guys in the room.

“Look after him Stark! He’s had a bad day,” MJ calls before being the last one to exit.

“No problem MJ!” You grinned as Peter groans, “Come on, Petey I can’t be that bad!”

“You just sucker punch a kid-” Bucky exclaims but there was evident amusement in his tone.

“He’s a year younger than me, it’s fine Buck.”

“I admit that was a good hit,” Natasha complimented, “Little bastard deserves it.”

“It’s fine, there’s no video evidence of anything and Peter’s classmates all signed a form about things being slipped out, I might have slipped in some extra stuff.”

“You planned this!” Peter exclaims, burying his face out of your neck as he looks at you.

“Well, not exactly, I wasn’t expecting to punch him but he said some stuff about May but the whole rant thing was planned,” You explained, “Am I the greatest boyfriend or am I the greatest boyfriend.”

“He really is your kid, Stark,” Sam commented, “He’s all cocky now.”

Peter shakes his head, “I love you with every sand grain in the world.”

You chuckled, kissing his temple, “And I love you, just a sand grain more.”

“Okay, was anybody going to tell me that Peter and (Y/n) were dating or was I just supposed to witness the cutest shit ever myself?” Steve asked out loud, quoting that one meme Peter had heard from.

“Language, Steve,” Bucky teased.

You and Peter looked at each other before looking at the superfamily.

“You got to stop teaching the old men memes, (Y/n),” Peter chuckles, you shrugged, holding his hand.

“Can’t help it,” You looked at your dad and offered him a sheepish smile as he looked annoyed, “I can explain?”

“You have a lot to explain young man.” Tony doesn’t use his father voice a lot, but the Avengers cringed because they knew Tony meant business, “I want a full rundown of your relationship with Peter, start to now, not missing details okay? Yay, girl time!”

This was going to be a long weekend, but Peter spares you a glance again and relaxes into your side. But, at least he has you and his large love for you.

#peter parker #peter parker imagine #peter parker x male!reader #x male reader #Avengers #avenger imagines #avengers imagine #personal favourite

761 notes · View notes

kshitij1997 · 4 years ago

Text

Welcome back!

Well, the die has been cast, and Europe shall endure the consequences. Or will it?

Onward with the story :)

All Frozen and Tangled characters belong to Disney. All I own is this retelling and some original characters.

Chapter 10: Felino the crooked nose

February the 5th, 1828,

‘You’re a frigid, wormy piece of shit, you know that?’, growled the recently anointed Tsar at the Arendellian Monarch. Not a good sign for the conference the concert of Europe had arranged; the Monarch of Arendelle was hellbent on closing his country yet again, and no one was willing to budge on their stance.

‘I care not for the impression you choose to have about me, your majesty. I have my reasons and my fears to support my decision. I have to do what I feel is best for my kingdom, as would you if you faced a decision of a similar magnitude.’ Agnarr stated his position calmly, even as he felt no genuine respect for the Russian Monarch. Unlike his late brother, Tsar Nicholas the first had no great capacity for empathy and understanding. He had chosen to keep himself and his people ignorant. After all, what could one say of the sovereign who treated his highest officials and closest advisors like the serfs he saw them to be, and the holy synod under him bragged openly about how it was their god given duty to keep the downtrodden as they were. Oh, how their man, Sergei Uvarov, the Tsar’s minister of education, openly declared: “If I can extend Russia’s childhood another fifty years I will consider my mission accomplished.”

Oh, the Tsar saw himself as a god, and a jealous one at that. Agnarr understood that and knew that as a fellow sovereign, the Tsar could do little but rant in his face for the insult. Even if he would want to wage war upon Arendelle, he wouldn’t wish to give up access to the only warm water seaport he had. Still, Agnarr’s worries were far greater than some disgruntled people in power.

Elsa had lost control of her powers and was crippled in her fear, Anna had been forced to selective amnesia from Grand Pabbie, leaving no trace of Elsa’s powers and Olva...well she hadn’t been so fortunate. Against the advice of Grand Pabbie, he and Iduna had insisted on the procedure of wiping her memory clean of Elsa’s powers and the accident. The hermit warned of the consequences he was facing now with Olva, but how was he to know in his panic and desperation? Now the poor girl had begun experiencing fits and severe headaches, along with bouts of fainting for several minutes. He hadn’t slept this past month properly in the worry of what could happen to his family. Now he had a solution, and he would not back off from it. He must protect his family in any way possible. He must.

‘Your majesties, please don’t antagonise each other. This concerns all of us. You’re not the only ones troubled here. King Agnarr, you’d best explain yourself.’, queen Sophia spoke firmly as she presided over the conference. Agnarr’s declaration had shocked everyone, and he was yet to provide an explanation.

‘Thank you, queen Sophia. I have no intent on stepping on anyone’s face or insulting anyone. This sudden policy of isolation is a measure of precaution. I have it on reliable sources and personal knowledge that there are elements of revolution and insurgency brewing up in my kingdom. I can’t ignore it like the previous bourbon king of France in his time, god rest his soul. I must deal with these rebels quickly and with extreme prejudice. Because if I don’t then Arendelle falls forever, and if Arendelle falls, all northern Europe shall sink along with it.

And before you decide on persecuting war against me, ask yourselves this. Haven’t we had enough of war? We saw 2 decades of war followed by a decade of relative peace. If you ask me, I’d rather prefer the latter. I make this tough choice for the safety of all Europe, please understand.’

He paused to size up the room, who could be his allies and enemies hereafter. Corona and Austria-Hungary were definitely his allies; he knew Reginald would support him in the end. Weselton and the English would be against it; his partnership with them and America would be at risk, he’ll have to accommodate them somehow. Same was the situation with Russia. Maybe the Ottomans had to be brought in to keep Russia in check? Spain and the Southern Isles could be neutral; the Spanish could not care less, their main rivals were the English and the French, they would only vote as a formality. As for the Southern Isles were represented by queen Paulina, for the king had taken ill. On the surface, Paulina looked pleasant and charismatic, yet Agnarr knew that she would be a formidable and dangerous foe if he didn’t play this right. He began to speak again but was rudely interrupted.

‘And what would be these insurgent elements? The Northuldra?’, asked the duke of Weselton. The room tensed at the duke’s blatant attempt towards badgering the king of Arendelle. Agnarr had to fight a very strong impulse towards bashing the duke’s head on the wall. After composing himself mentally, he replied with barely concealed intentions ‘Why, yes. They have been neglected for far too long. I must attempt to bring them up with the kingdom. They are too obscure and are getting discontent.’

‘Just the language your father used, didn’t he? And where is he now? Lost like the rest of them. I’m telling you; this country is a lost cause. The Northuldra are ‘discontent’? Don’t make me laugh. They’re out for your and your family’s blood. They have been for years.’, the duke was clearly enjoying himself at Agnarr’s expense.

‘And if I hope to pursue a peaceful solution and keep Europe out of the mess, what is so wrong with that, duke?’, Agnarr nearly spat out the last part.

‘It’s always something personal. What, a problem with your kids now?’

‘Why, your uncouth son of a-‘

‘ENOUGH!’, the presiding queen roared. ‘That’s the second time you have tried to lay discord in the concert on purpose, duke. Once it was over my kidnapped child and now this. I swear, if it happens again, you’re going to meet your maker without warning, in front of everyone!’

‘I can’t believe you’re still going on about your bloody kid. She’s fucking dead! I always get enraged how the kings of Europe are disturbed about such trivial matters, and I’m to be punished because I call out the bullshit for what it is?! Fine. Hang, draw, and quarter me all you want, that does not change the fact that once again, some people are sullying the good name of the concert for their own interests.’, the duke spat venom without a care.

‘I’ve heard enough. Marshals, break the duke’s kneecaps.’, an enraged Sophia gave the cold order to her personal guard. The duke’s bravado melted away instantly, and he shrunk in his stature as the marshals came to deal with him.

‘Sophie, stop!’ King Reginald shouted.

‘Pray tell, what now, Reginald?’ his spouse was beyond annoyed by now.

The king of Corona whispered in his spouse’s ear ‘We’ll get the coward some other time. I need to talk sense into Agnarr somehow. I advise you to break for recess.’ A rare sight for the usually tempestuous king to calm down his calmer, more pragmatic wife.

Queen Sophia sighed heavily and announced a recess.

Once they were alone, Reginald confronted Agnarr ‘What’s gotten into you, Agnarr? You’re supposed to be the sensible one amongst us two.’

‘I’ll tell you what’s sensible. I should invade the fucking duchy of Weselton, lay it to fucking waste, burn it to the fucking ground, and salt the fucking remains barren forever!’ Agnarr snarled with uncharacteristic murder in his eyes.

‘Oh, calm down, crusader. I hate the duke much more than you do, believe me. Nevertheless, even I must agree with that poltroon over your course of action. It’s drastic and uncalled for. Tell me honestly what’s bothering you. We’ll make it right. Tell me.’

‘You don’t believe me? I told you every reason I have for doing this. My kingdom has only just recovered from the previous war. I can’t risk another. I certainly can’t afford it to become a pan-European conflict. At the end of the day, I just want my heir to inherit a stable state. An agitated group of people is not the hallmark of a stable state. Even if it takes me years, I must resolve this once and for all.’

Reginald spoke empathetically ‘Alright, but it still is a visceral reaction to the situation. I think foreign aid would only help more. Are you sure about it?’

Agnarr thought about telling the truth to his best friend, but ultimately decided otherwise; he couldn’t let the secret get out in any circumstance.

‘Yes I am. I also believe that those so-called insurgents are supplied by foreign powers themselves; they would like nothing more than to make my kingdom their colony. And that fucking Weselton shill... I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s behind the whole damn thing.’

‘That may be true, but without solid evidence, we can’t deal with him effectively. We must be sure.’ Reginald advised him.

‘Alright, but I can’t back down from my position. Yes, my kingdom will suffer in the short run, but I know we’ll be secure and united eventually.’

Ultimately, the concert decided that Arendelle would only keep one point of access open to the outside world; the main port. Only diplomats and special traders would be allowed. Every other traveller, from tourist to student would have to be barred from entering the country. It may cause uprising among the international students in his kingdom, but he’ll have to deal with them on his down. To preserve the security, the red tape for the traders and businessmen became very harsh. All, in service towards protecting my family; Agnarr thought.

A week later

A craven figure along with half a dozen guards floated in a rowboat towards one of the northern shores of Arendelle, beyond the mist. A hooded figure in silhouette waited for them on shore, heavily dressed to protect them self against the bitter February cold. Upon reaching the shore, the hooded bowed in respect and said ‘Welcome, honourable duke of Weselton. I hope your journey was pleasant enough.’

‘As pleasant a trip I could hope in stormy, waning winter, thank you for asking.’, the duke removed his cloak and coat to make his face more visible, and gestured his guards to disembark and stand around. The scrawny man took a moment to stretch himself, and at length, spoke ‘How many instances of forbidden people wandering into your grounds?’

‘Not as many as before, however a group of the Iceni tribe were intercepted in the valley of death during patrol two months ago and dealt with without exception. No survivors that we know of.’

‘Good, the illegals are dwindling, soon they would be no problem. However, as long as Arendelle stands, you’ll never be safe. We’ll have to confront them once and for all.’

‘Let’s continue our discussion on the way to camp, honourable duke.’

The Northuldrian camp was twenty-five kilometres inland from the seashore, but the spirits had grown very erratic in recent years, so the Northuldra had to find new routes to their homes every few weeks. The latest incident was particularly severe; a landslide had destroyed the usual detour they took, so they had to take the tributaries by another boat, a slower but safer way of travel.

‘Forgive me, honourable duke. I know travel by water does not agree with you.’

‘I’ll live. Tell me, how is everything holding up north of the mist?’

‘We’re eking out a living somehow. As you know, the rivers have been gradually changing course towards the south, our arable lands are going barren as a result. Adding to the problem, the rains are becoming scarcer with every passing year bit by bit. I regret to inform you that the poppy plantation is facing a loss, the raw material for the heroin would be short this time.’

‘It seems you’ve lost the plot, haven’t you? How will I get you your weapons if your end of the bargain is low? Weapons, armament, lumber and steam technology for ships don’t come cheap, you know?’ the duke said with the faux humility that masked grave threats underneath, and the hooded figure knew well what those threats were. Nevertheless, a low yield was not the biggest problem.

‘There’s more, honourable duke. Arendelle has tried to sue for peace and is willing to cooperate.’

‘Yes, I heard. We both know it’s nonsense.’

‘I’m not so sure. The terms they have offered seem rather reasonable.’

‘I’m sure they are. They may be too reasonable, I’m afraid. Implying something between the lines. The implication being disastrous for the Northuldra. If you ask me, I would never take any terms Europe offers at face value.’

‘I’m a fair sceptic of the south, just as you are. But since the rise of the mist, they have not engaged in any big skirmishes.’

The duke sighed and said ‘It pains me to say it, but you lack an ocean of imagination. There are uncountable ways to fight a war of attrition, and Arendelle has chosen the most insidious way.’

‘What do you mean, duke?’

‘I’d rather tell this to everyone at once, instead of making it a poor game of translation errors.’, with that, the duke fell silent, knowing full well that the hooded figure’s doubts had been flared up.

After a voyage of two hours, the party reached the camp. A huge crowd had gathered upon the riverbank where the canoe stopped. The hooded figure removed his hood and stood beside the Northuldra leader as her most trusted vassal. The Northuldra leader went by the name of Yelena, a woman moving towards middle age, standing barely above the duke in stature, but those aged eyes had seen many ups and downs. The leader slightly prostrated herself before the duke; the Northuldra way of showing respect towards authority.

‘Welcome, o duke! I hope your voyage was pleasant.’

‘As much as I could hope it to be. I must say, the Northuldra’s native lands grow more beautiful every time I venture up’ the duke said.

‘Your grace flatters us. I believe my trusted vassal has given you the lowdown for everything that has happened in the past three months. We’ll be happy to discuss a compromise for the goods you need.’

‘Thank you, your excellency. However, my worries include the survival of the Northuldra as well.’

‘What is that supposed to mean?’

‘You may have received terms from the king of Arendelle for a peaceful cessation in the past few days, haven’t you?’

‘Yes, they are more reasonable than I expected.’

‘I feared so, for if you paid attention, you’d realise that the terms are too positive. They’re willing to overlook the massacre of the group of Iceni that happened two months ago. Not to mention the fact that they may have stumbled about the truth about our trade operation as well.’

‘Speaking of the trade operation, what we may be short of in terms of goods, we’ll make up in plunder in the North Atlantic. I have sanctioned three fleets for the same purpose later this week.’

‘That is encouraging, but I must warn you, the plundering operation would become very difficult very soon. What with the king of Arendelle sealing the kingdom’s maritime and overland borders.’

‘Excuse me, come again?’

‘Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you knew.’

‘No, I didn’t. Please enlighten us, your grace.’

‘Well, your excellency, the king of Arendelle has decided to isolate the country, and I quote his speech: “This sudden policy of isolation is a measure of precaution. I have it on reliable sources and personal knowledge that there are elements of revolution and insurgency brewing up in my kingdom. I can’t ignore it like the previous bourbon king of France in his time, god rest his soul. I must deal with these rebels quickly and with extreme prejudice. Because if I don’t, then Arendelle falls forever, and if Arendelle falls, all northern Europe shall sink along with it.” Now you tell me, is this the language a man would use while suing for peace?’

Yelena became quiet for a moment, taking in al the information. At length, she asked ‘What are the possible ramifications of this declaration?’

‘They could be numerous, but I’ll tell you the most obvious one. Within a month at the latest, the coasts would be dotted by the Arendellian navy, putting a blockade through which nothing except their own ships could get in or out. You can imagine they would be only too happy to hunt down your pirate ships before you’re able to secure any loot at all. You can’t raid through the land, as the mist is your most powerful jailer. It will surely be a stifling experience; I won’t deny it.’

‘What if we do sue for peace? If we sincerely send an envoy to the south?’

‘Aye, you could try that. In fact, I suggest you try that without fail.’ Interrupted a tall, dark man as he made his way inside Yelena’s tent.’

‘Mathias, just because the mist forces me to tolerate and learn to like your presence doesn’t mean you interrupt me in meetings about the matters of state.’ Yelena bristled with annoyance.

‘Believe me, once the mist lifts up, I’ll ride south, first thing on my to-do list.’

‘Mathias, you look familiar. Tall, dark, muscular, good posture. Does your Ethiopian father still till the grain and tan the leather shoes?’, making harsh, cutting remarks was a talent the duke used well.

‘No. Does the honourable duke take me for his wretched bastard slaves in the Congo?’ Mathias growled.

‘Gentlemen, please. Your grace, please don’t mind Mathias. Yes, he’s a southerner. He was in king Runeard’s personal guard from what I gather. He may look brutish and imposing, but he’s harmless and dare I say, a halfway decent man. He doesn’t usually interrupt one of my meetings, so this instance must be special. Tell us big boy, what should bother us?’ Yelena finished as she turned to Mathias.

‘I’m sorry. I’m not willing to entertain the stories of a deserter.’, the duke said nonchalantly.

‘As if your pip squeakiness has ever been in a battle to judge a trapped prisoner of war?’ Mathias seethed.

‘See, even he agrees, we’re at war.’ Oh, they were all playing right into my hands, the duke thought with glee.

‘Yes, and now peace must be made. Yelena, this is not the time to go on the offensive. Trust me.’ Mathias faced Yelena as he settled down beside her.

‘Maybe, but it is a peace we would be forced into. We want it on our own terms, Mathias. I understand you’re homesick, but we haven’t had a home to go back to for decades. We will assert our terms onto the king, and he will have to accept it. If he doesn’t, it’s war.’

‘Lofty words, your excellency. Alas, there’s no substance or weight to back your words. You’ll be blockaded soon, and travel by land is impossible anyhow. I suggest you make a permanent settlement here and be done with it.’, the duke laid the bait.

‘And perpetually disturb the peace of the spirits by claiming their sacred forest? Never.’, and Yelena took it.

‘Well, I can’t negotiate such a big difference in your quantity of goods. You’ll have to offer me something if I must continue supporting your struggle. What about lumber from the forest?’

‘You must be reading a fucking comedy. When we refuse to make a permanent settlement in the forest, YOU PROCEED TO SUGGEST SOMETHING FAR WORSE?!’, Mathias had half a mind to strangle the duke right there, when he was stopped by Yelena.

‘Sit down, Mathias! We’re in desperate times. We’ll have to do what we must in order to survive.’

‘Making a bad situation worse is survival?! Can you imagine or fathom withstanding the rage of the spirits if we cut down the forest?! How can you even consider this, Yelena?’

‘If I may ease your concerns, I’ll vouch for the fact that a sacred relic commands a lot of value in the market. Especially amongst those who are powerful, proud, wealthy and don’t ask too many questions. Here’s what I’ll do. I’ll introduce a tiny amount in the market. People would recognize it as sacred or magical with plenty of history behind it. Once I do that, I can manipulate the price for it and bring you all the money, all the weapons, all the ships you need.’, the duke reassured the Northuldra leader.

Yelena spoke at length ‘Alright, I agree to the venture. Let’s begin with ten logs.’

Mathias hung his head in defeat and nursed his forehead, which had begun to throb. This is not going to end well.

Yelena tried to comfort him after the duke left ‘Listen, for every tree we cut down, we’ll plant ten, I promise.’

‘Even if you do that, it won’t be the sacred forest of the fifth spirit anymore.’ Mathias said ruefully.

As the duke made his way to the ship waiting off the coast on his rowboat, one of his taciturn guards asked him ‘Your grace, why do we need these bunch of sheep worshippers?’

The duke grinned darkly ‘When a rival nation is at war with itself, best let it consume itself.’

Around the same time, somewhere in northern Greece

‘Rider, move your ass and get over here!’ A portly man called out as he wiped a greasy hand on his apron.

‘Coming, Elios!’ Flynn came running in. He was now a man of seventeen; having seen a fair bit of the world by now and had been working with Elios for a few months. Elios had hidden Flynn to save him from ‘The Hawk’, a notorious smuggler who had trapped him in his ring. In return, Flynn agreed to work for him in his front business.

‘Why must I go through this fucking chore every time? To have to call you up like a fucking parade float to just do your blessed job?’

‘I’m sorry for being two minutes late. I already did the prep for tonight; the bar has been cleaned and stocked. I just took a nap, calm your tits.’

‘I’ve heard that many times, give me something new Flynn’ Elios rolled his eyes.

‘What do you think I’ve been doing? Making merry around the city square? Come on, I know better than that.’

‘Don’t bother lying to me. I swear, one of those women is gonna make you the sacrificial goat someday.’

‘Alright, I heard your speech. Got it, can we move on?’

Elios wiped some sweat off his forehead and asked, ‘You know who’s coming tonight?’

‘Yeah I do, friends loyal to the Greek cause.’ Flynn answered without faltering

‘Not just any friend, mind you. The Gent is coming along with the Sicilians.’

Flynn’s ears perked up at that piece of news. The Gent was a legend in Northern Greece, almost singlehandedly forming the on-land resistance against the Ottomans in the Greek war of independence. He had been involved in the resistance for nearly seven years now and was lobbying for foreign support.

‘Wow, that’s a hero if I ever saw one.’

‘I told you I’ll introduce you to him soon. Today’s the day.’

‘Now, why would he visit an affluent restaurant filled with Turks day in and out, I’m sure I don’t know.’ Flynn stated incuriously.

‘Hey Flynn, let his people worry about it. I’m sure his people would be clever enough to figure it out.’ Elios was a practical man who knew the streets well, however, forethought was not his strongest suit.

‘No, Elios. Hear me out. If the Gent is ambushed here, we’re done for. Everything will be up for grabs and I know neither of us would like the prick of the cold sabre chopping our necks. And if we know The Gent is coming, the officials certainly know. And if the Sicilians find out, you’ll end up wearing concrete shoes, old boy. You may know the gutters and the roads, but I know loyalty.’

‘What do you suppose we do now? We can’t really serve them in public view.’

‘That is true. Tell you what, let’s clear the cellar for their dinner. I’m sure they don’t want any outsider to hear what they are discussing amongst themselves. Also, I think you should serve them personally, Elios.’

‘No can do. I’m the front. If I don’t stay there, they’ll investigate. You’ll have to serve them yourself. I’m sorry Flynn. The Gent trusts me, if he sees that I consider you worthy, he’ll be comfortable.’

But I don’t know the first thing about him and the others. What if I offend them without meaning to?’

‘Don’t be stupid, Flynn. We both know you know better than that. If the service is good, they’ll fill your pockets with enough dosh to set you up for years. If I truly know you, you wouldn’t miss this opportunity for the world.’

‘Alright, I’ll do it. Say Elios, what if I warm them personally first about the last-minute change of scenery?’

‘No. I’ll have to warn them myself. Set the cellar up. I did contact them two days ago; I’ll do it again.’

‘Just make sure you’re not followed.’

‘Hey Rider, who knows the street better?’

‘You do, clearly.’

‘Yup. I’ll be back soon.’

A few hours later, a party of people showed up. There was the Gent, a tall slender man, worn down by the hiding and fighting. His face was warm enough, save for the green eyes that could bore holes through the Earth, and a crooked mouth that had a scare across the top lip. Still, he felt like a man who could fight forever. As for the Sicilians, they were something else entirely.

It was a band of seven people. The man most fancily dressed, along with the ruby ring on his little finger and the gold watch and chain, was obviously the leader. The six were presumably his bodyguards, each one burlier and more imposing that the last, looking like killers happy to kill a priest in the middle of a sermon. Ruthless and royal. Dressed to the nines up to their plug caps.

Flynn suddenly felt dwarfed and puny.

‘Gentlemen, this is Flynn, he’s been working with me for a few months, he’ll be serving you tonight.’ Elios gave a short introduction and left. Flynn gave a short bow, not sure how to address these powerful men.

‘What’s your name, green boy?’ The Gent asked.

‘Flynn.’

‘How old are you?’

‘Going to be seventeen next month.’

You’re not from around these parts, are you? Your accent tells me....Austria Hungary?’

‘No sir, Corona. The Rhinelands, to be exact.’

‘Uh huh. How’d you end up in Greece?’

‘War orphan from the Napoleonic wars, pushed around all of Europe, ended up here.’ By now, Flynn knew the story by heart.

‘My condolences. Ok Flynn, you’re going to undergo something unpleasant. Forgive me, just the nature of these times. I need to be sure of your loyalty.’

Before Flynn could reply, one of the goons was upon him, almost choking him with his weight, pressing down on his spine. Even if Flynn had any wind left him, he couldn’t yell.

‘Answer me, why was the room changed at such short notice?’

‘When the Gent asks, you better fucking answer, figlio di sfagato!’

‘Get off him, let him speak.’ The goon got off at once.

Flynn coughed and gasped for air. When he could breathe normally, he said weakly , ‘Mr. Gent, it was Mr. Elios who suggested it.’ Flynn barely finished his sentence before receiving a punch in the gut, knocking the air out of him.

‘That’s a lie. Elios is not that big a thinker. You seem to be smarter than you let on. Why’d you try to protect us from the Turks?’

‘I didn’t want them to kill you here. That would be underhanded and filthy. I’ve heard....heard that you believe in engaging them head on, I didn’t want them to ambush you. You’re a hero around here, would be a shame if I couldn’t do my bit for your cause.’ Flynn was hit yet again by the goon, this time in his nose. Blood had begin ebbing from his mouth and nose.

‘You’ve said enough. I can guess the rest of the story. Either betray the Turks and face the sabre or betray us and face getting shot in the face. Why choose us over them?’

‘I gambled here.....I’d rather be loyal to someone fighting the slavers for freedom than the slaver themselves.’ Flynn braced himself for another hit, but the hit never came.

Instead he could hear a chuckle from the Sicilian leader, who had gestured his goon to stand down. He approached Flynn and held him by the cheek, saying in thick accent, ’Felino. That’s your name from now on. Felino the crooked nose. Drinks on the house, all night. Keep the drinks up, you’ll be richer than the sultan come morning. Good boy.’

The leader, or don as they were calling him now, lightly tapped his cheek and went back to his place, settling down with the Gent and the other goons. Flynn left the room and almost crumpled on the floor. I could’ve died there, he thought for a second. Nevertheless, he composed himself and put on his charm; Felino the crooked nose had a job to do.

Ha, the duke of Weselton’s such a bastard, always stirring up shit wherever he goes lol. I love the potential his character has.

Our Man Flynn is serving the big boys now! What could happen?

Thanks again to those who continue reading this silly story :P

As always, constructive feedback is always welcome!

#frozen #frozenxtangled #frozen tangled #eugene tangled #tangled fandom #tangled fanfiction #frozen fanfiction #frozen fanfic #frozen fandom #frozen agnarr #agnarr #chief mathias #Yelena frozen 2 #duke of weselton

3 notes · View notes

izzy-b-hands · 4 years ago

Note

for the pacific asks: mobile

Sorry this took me a bit to answer, I fell asleep for a little while. Also, I'm so sorry this turned into a mini rant/essay.

Mobile- How do you feel about your hometown?

Tbh, I'm not a fan lmao. And gonna forewarn ya, this became a mild rant against Bismarck and ND, so I do owe you one for asking this and letting me get it off my chest. It felt really good.

Anyway:

Bismarck is...fine. Good place to raise a family. After that, leave. As someone who should have found a way to leave years ago, I can vouch for this. If you're old and Republican and don't hate winter, then come back when you're ready to retire I guess, but otherwise? There are better places in the States, in the world. You don't want to waste your time here. Visit once, then never again, is my pitch for the next tourist slogan.

There is not much to do (bars, hunting, other outdoor activities, church, movie theater, one sad mall or the even sadder other mall, drinking in other places you aren't always allowed like by the river or at someone's mildly illegal fire pit) and if those activities aren't enough for you, you can try and catch some of the seasonal things. Some of those are very cool (like the drag show and other events held during Pride.) The issue is that those things happen for one weekend in one month, and then that's it for the year. So if you liked that activity and want more outside of that weekend...that's too bad. Bismarck will make you wait until that particular weekend next year.

Fargo, a city about three hours away, has slightly more to do (more bars, they get more bands coming to them for concerts, more seasonal events and cool locally owned unique shops) and basically is like a more fleshed out version of Bismarck. So if you want the safety of Bismarck without the boredom, you go there. Then you realise that that will also get boring fast, and you leave permanently for Minnesota or Montana or literally anywhere else.

I got off track here and made this a North Dakota diss track, but I'm right and I should say it. Even when I've tried to join local groups for various interests, to try giving the city a chance again, they either fall apart, everyone moves away, or in my case you never really feel comfortable there or make any friends, so you stop going. I'd love for there to be places aside from the public library to go and just...exist. Aside from what I will admit are nice parks, Bismarck doesn't really have places like that, and when you don't have any friends that live locally anymore like me...you really feel it.

The local economy is also...not great. Could be worse, but could definitely be better for folks in my situation (god I would kill for rent that wouldn't take like an entire paycheck, and I am so lucky my mum lets me stay with her and pay half everything including the mortgage) and my god am I sick of hearing about the oil fields. Please, oil field companies, stop fracking, and also stop nearly killing and actually killing your employees out here, okay? That shouldn't be difficult because...killing people shouldn't be difficult, and I shouldn't have to actually say that.

Particularly for an writer like me...the economy doesn't have a spot for me. Jobs for my skills don't exist out here, at all. And on the rare occasion they do, they try to basically just make you a receptionist who also does three other jobs, only one of which will use your skills, while paying you 7.50/hr without health insurance. The publishing industry has not heard of ND or Bismarck aside from some independent presses, who really only want works about North Dakota, and that's it. I can only write about the prairie so much, and not in a way they've ever wanted to publish.

This isn't even getting into the lack of diversity and the issues there (so many. That is literally an essay on its own.) Or how though the elderly are a huge part of our population, because we're still kind of rural and a lot of them live in even more rural communities away from Bismarck, we give them shit medical care and care in general. We have a shortage of medical staff and specialists because no one wants to live here, and that's a whole thing as well, in addition to what I just mentioned with the elderly and uh

Well

I feel like BDG at the end of an Unraveled rn tbh. I want to end this happily. The scenery can be beautiful as long as you don't like trees (we have not many. Lotta flat land.) But pretty scenery does not a great place to live make, or we would just live in paintings or some shit. I've personally been wanting to move away since I was about ten years old, and have made plan after plan to try and make that happen, with obviously no success. If I could move anywhere else safely right now, I would jump at the opportunity.

That said...yeah. Come to ND and maybe if you feel like it Bismarck once, take a picture with Salem Sue, go the Medora Musical so you can regret having gone to the Medora Musical, walk in a park, be sad when a band you love is only going to Fargo and not Bismarck and you can't get transportation there, get blind drunk at a bar where men have Confederate flag belt buckles and women still wear their hair like it's 1986 and or 1995, avoid any drugs because this is opoid country as in they find a lot of other drugs here are cut or made with opoids, enjoy and by enjoy I mean hate that nothing is open super late or much on Sundays because here Christianity has an iron grip on those laws, take in the fact that outside of Pride weekend there are minimal chances for any fun activities for the LGBTQ (no gay bars here, not in Bismarck or last time I checked anywhere in the state, maybe a local pride group will do something randomly or hold a book group, but you're gonna have to go searching to find that stuff), and go on and have some kuchen and knoephla soup and feel it clog your arteries.

Then leave, and be happy that you have the ability to go, and also maybe take me with you, I will pay my own way please just let me bring my cat.

#text post #im sorry this got long but holy shit was this cathartic #thank you for asking this my friend but also im sorry because i highly doubt this mini Unraveled like rant is what you expected as an answer #ask box things

3 notes · View notes

monkytown · 4 years ago

Text

The movie ‘Irresistible’

Hi’.

I have to rant a bit about the movie and I’ll use that little lone corner of the internet to do that. Hopefully disturbing noone in the process.

For those who didn’t get the movie’s point, the US electoral system is insane. It is in eternal campaign mode and spends ~$5-6 billions dollars every two years just to promote a brand. People like Greg, from Dawn Somewhere, conclude from there that politicians are corrupt and disconnected.

But.

Try and put yourself in that consultant’s feet, but you want to help that town. What do you do?

I’m not talking about thanking Evan or remembering is name if it is his name, as the filthy viewer I am I quickly wrote him off as background prop. I’m not talking about being a good tourist and asking if the kitchen is still open and stuff. I am talking about how you would be the hero, not the villain, in that story.

What would it take to help that town?

The movie’s answer is to spend the election money on the town itself. A point Billy Bob from Mudpot hammers to the donors at the EvilRich mansion. So, how much money do you have? Around $1 million dollars. Which the movie tells you is a bit above the town’s target. Just spend that on the town and you get the shiny and green happy ending, job done.

Well, no.

All you have done is put a bandaid on a town that will still die. It was on life support with that military base (if I paid enough attention) and the private market ain’t gonna miraculously replace it. As, again, Billy Bob said, it ain’t coming back. You effectively gave charity to maintain it in an eternal state of poverty, good job. Be proud. Also, you have ten thousands other Mudpot needing that charity and that’s already above the ~$6 billions spent at the federal level. And then! You still have a whole other bunch of issues to solve. Pricetag for fixing the infrastructure? Above $1 trillion. To everyone’s shock, charity falls short.

So why would you, as the glorious hero even bother to go to Mudpot convince Billy Bob to challenge the beloved mayor? ‘Cause a mayor is powerless, the budget remains the same and poor people are trapped in poverty. Even if your Billy Bob wins, it will only let the other party say “see? see? You elected that brand and you are not better off, but now gay frogs are in your kitchens!” You are effectively shooting yourself in the foot here.

The reason is the ‘50 States strategy’.

That is the current democratic strategy, to compete everywhere possible. And it is a game of attrition as both parties, no matter what people think, have limited amounts of money. It is about outspending the opposite side where it counts. So what you are actually trying to do in Mudpot with your Billy Bob, by getting him elected, is get those same people to also vote for your brand upwards and therefore win Wisconsin, and other States, and have your brand in power. Why? Because without that condition filled you won’t be able to enact the $1 trillion infrastructure plan desperately needed (and insufficient by itself) to save Mudpot and its ten thousands other peers. And you are seeking to achieve that either by having Billy Bob win or by having the other party waste money in this irrelevant race so that you can win elsewhere. It’s math.

Now why can’t you simply elect Billy Bob and then work with the other party to get that $1 trillion infrastructure bill passed?

WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN THIS PAST DECADE?!

And we go back to hyperpartisanship and what I call the ‘rush to the extremes’. You have problems and the status quo can’t solve them (some would say the status quo is causing them). So people move to more radical options. And more radical. And more radical. And “suddenly” you have Trump.

Understand that this hyperpartisanship isn’t something top-bottom. It hasn’t been evil corporations and corrupt politicians conspiring to brainwash 40% of the population. No. It has been far more bottom-up. Democrats were winning elections until they defended civil rights and suddenly they couldn’t get votes in the south / countryside anymore. So they started representing those who would vote for them: cities and such. Meanwhile republicans were losing elections until they realized the countryside was up for grab. So they started representing those guys and the 538 has a lovely article on that. Sure, you have Fox News and MSNBC and whatnot, and think tanks making talking points for people to use and all that. But. The Tea Party came from the base. Trump certainly came from the base. And all the pushes towards progressivism among democrats definitely came from the base. Parties move according to who is willing to vote for them.

The hyperpartisanship that has been gridlocking Congress isn’t coming from representatives. Those representatives are perfectly representing the will of their voters. Voters are intently gridlocking everything by trying to brute-force it.

And why are they? Because the status quo resulted from compromises across parties. You can’t rant about the status quo and ask for compromise in the same breath, it is nonsensical.

So.

Back to Billy Bob from Mudpot and his need for $700k to fix whatever ruin is left in his pit of poverty. What do you do?

You, as the republican/democratic hero, need him to forget gay frogs and vote your brand so you can break the gridlock and unilaterally pass your agenda. It might require a Constitutional Assembly, you don’t know and you don’t care ‘cause you have no alternative. You need to save that town. You need several bills passed at the federal level to save ten thousands Mudpot.

You will tell ten thousands Billy Bob to run in the hope to get the majority needed, not just on paper but in practice, to save Mudpot. And if you fail, what can you, as the hero, do for the town? Nothing. You can come back, say you failed, and that you can only retry two years from now. Because gay frogs. There you go. You, as the hero, are the villain, and everyone hates you for being so corrupt and disconnected.

Why do I feel the need to rant about it?

Because everyone knows the problem but noone can come up with solutions (because gay frogs) and so it’s easier to just scapegoat the leaders, say they are corrupt and disconnected when, even if they were innocent and in-touch, they would be just as powerless, and forced to act exactly the same way because otherwise Mudpot dies.

And yes, politicians profit from it. What would you do in their place, when you’re powerless and about to lose your job, other than give up? And yes, corporations profit from it. What would you do in their place, when you are told to make money at all cost or die? And yes, no matter what Jon Stewart says, even the poor would want to profit from it, that’s your Moira from Radio Skyline.

What is most frustrating however is that I am Swiss. I experience direct democracy. And while you might not like the result, direct democracy avoids such gridlocks. Brexit? Initiative, bam, done, a decade of decay spared. A wall? Initiative, bam, turns out the majority of the US isn’t racist after all. Trade war? Initiative, bam, now Joe Biden is forced to suicide the country to get an elusive deal. M4A? Initiative, bam, still not happening because Switzerland tried four times and it’s the middle of Europe and we still said no.

Politicians and corporations didn’t create this insane US electoral / political system. They sure adapted to it, but they had to adapt, because eventually it is just a collective suicide over gay frogs.

And neither you nor Billy Bob from Mudpot, with his $4.5mn scam, ain’t gonna change that.

#Irresistible #politics #Jon Stewart #gay frogs

1 note · View note

flowerfan2 · 5 years ago

Text

Affinity - Ch. 4 (10.04)

McDanno, A03

A continuous story of season 10 episode codas. Steve may describe their relationship as a dysfunctional marriage, but at some point, will he and Danny take a closer look at what it really could be?

Chapter 4 (10.04)

They stay at the bar at the Hilton longer than they should, but it feels good to relax after the stress of the day. Steve loves having his team together like this, everyone safe and in the same place. Danny’s at his side, smiling and laughing, and all is right with the world.

Steve doesn’t pretend that Danny’s playful mood doesn’t affect him, and the rest of the team is well aware. Every glance over to the two of them from Lou or Tani results in a knowing smile, and it’s a feedback loop of fond approval that just keeps getting better.

Steve vows to keep doing this, gathering his ohana around him, as often as he can. He’s not a fatalistic guy, but still, he needs to make sure to appreciate what he has. Because it’s pretty damn good.

Finally Lou announces that he needs to get home to Renee, and Adam heads out with him. Quinn looks undecided, but Tani’s ears suddenly perk up when a new band plays their opening riff on the other side of the bar, and she convinces Junior and Quinn to go check it out with her.

“She loves to dance,” Junior says in explanation to Quinn, setting his hand on the small of Tani’s back so quickly that if you blinked, you would miss it.

“Sounds like fun,” Quinn responds easily. “You guys coming too?”

Steve answers for them both. “Nah, we’re good.”

Danny shoots an approving nod at Steve. Danny may have spent the day teasing Steve about dating, but he’s right on board with the more important things in life – like chilling out right here while the kids go play.

Steve’s still not sure why Danny is so fixated on finding him a date. At one point during the day Steve had turned the conversation back on Danny, trying to find out whether he’s dating Rachel, but Danny just brushed him off and went right back to trying to set Steve up. It’s a little weird.

A waiter stops by to see if they want more beer, and Steve orders them each a whiskey instead.

“Now you’re talking,” Danny says, giving him a goofy grin. They sit companionably for a while, people watching. Danny has his legs kicked out in front of him, and his chair has migrated closer to Steve’s, so they’re both looking out over the patio. It’s like when they sit on Steve’s beach, except with Bob Marley playing in the background, and considerably more tourists.

Danny’s elbow bumps Steve’s arm every once in a while, even more so when their drinks arrive.

“You did good today,” Steve says, as they clink their glasses together. “The whole team did.”

Danny takes a long sip. Steve watches as he licks his lips afterwards, tongue quickly flickering out and back again. There’s a slight flush to Danny’s cheeks, the way he gets when he’s had just enough alcohol to loosen the tension that seems to be as much as part of Danny as his ridiculous haircuts.

“Yeah, we did okay. Wish we didn’t have to go running to Wright, though. He’s an ass.”

Steve snorts. “Can’t say I disagree.”

“Definitely makes you miss Jerry,” Danny says. “Not that that’s the only reason.”

“Of course not.” Steve finishes his whiskey and considers ordering another. Danny’s almost done with his as well, so when the attentive waiter inquires, Steve nods.

Danny grins at him. “That kind of night, huh?”

“What?”

“Hope you brought your wallet.”

“Ha ha, hasn’t that joke gotten old already?”

“It’ll never get old, buddy, not until you start paying your way.”

“Hey, I paid for our drinks last time we got the team together,” Steve protests.

“You brought one lonely six-pack of beer, and then sent Junior out for more. I don’t think that counts.”

They launch into an accounting of all the ways Steve has annoyed Danny by not, in Danny’s words, being a gentleman when it comes to money, when Quinn shows up, hair tousled and eyes bright.

“Forgot my phone,” she says, finding it under a napkin on the table. “Thought I’d take some pictures. Junior’s got some interesting moves.” She grins at them. “Sure you guys don’t want to join us? The band is pretty good.”

“Nah, Danny’s a terrible dancer,” Steve says, fighting down a smile.

“I am <i>not</i> - why would you say that? Why? You’re a terrible person-” They don’t really notice Quinn leaving.

Their friendly bickering dies down, and Danny stretches back in his chair, closing his eyes. Steve finds himself admiring the way Danny’s lashes fall over his cheeks, and mentally gives himself a strong kick in the behind. He has got to stop looking at his partner this way.

As if Steve had spoken the words out loud, Danny’s eyes blink open to find Steve staring at him. “What?” Danny asks lazily, letting his head fall to the side as he turns to Steve.

Desperate to avoid actually saying what’s on his mind, Steve reverts back to their earlier conversation. “The team did good today.”

Danny frowns. “Yeah, you said that already. Team did good.”

“I mean, everyone worked well together, especially given that it was Quinn’s first day,” Steve says, searching for a way to defend his otherwise completely repetitive statement. “Could’ve been rough for her. Yumi being a spy was definitely a surprise, right? But Quinn rose to the occasion, don’t you think?”

Danny’s looking at him with a decidedly less relaxed expression than he’s been sporting for the past little while, and Steve prepares himself for the inevitable Danny rant that seems to be coming. But then something passes over Danny’s face and he seems to resign himself, leaning back in his chair again.

“Sure, she did. So long as Quinn’s the only thing rising.” Danny adds a little sneer to this, an attempt at innuendo that catches Steve by surprise.

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“Danny – that was – that was- did you?” Steve sputters. Did Danny just make a reference to his… private parts?

Danny grins at his discomfort. “Sorry. Too far?”

“Yes,” Steve says firmly. “You’re way, way off base.”

“I just know you tend to get, shall we say…” Danny waves his hands in the general direction of Steve’s body, including his lower half, “excited… by shows of competence on the part of the female members of our team. Especially when accompanied by crazy jujitsu fighting.”

Steve can feel the heat rising in his cheeks. “Okay, first of all, it’s not as if I even saw Quinn and Tani fighting today. Second, I do not” he waves his hands back at Danny “I do not get aroused by female members of the team doing their jobs, if that’s what you are implying-”

“Aroused? That’s a good word for it, sorry I didn’t think of that one,” Danny says, his eyes flashing with amusement. “And I beg to differ. You love it when a woman goes all bad-ass on the bad guys.”

“It’s not like that – Danny!” To be fair, Steve is aware that he has somewhat of a competence kink, but it’s not limited to the female members of the team. And he is far too professional to let it distract him at work. Usually.

“I said I was sorry,” Danny says, laughing outright now.

Steve doesn’t know why he lets Danny rile him up. Okay, he does kind of know, it’s as much fun as anything else they do together. But he got sucked into this one far too easily. “You are clearly not sorry,” he retorts.

“Eh, maybe not.” Danny snorts and laughs at the same time. It shouldn’t be as attractive as it is. “But I see you watching our newest member-” Danny breaks off, eyebrows flying up as he realizes the missed possibility of making something out of the word “member.”

Steve’s eyebrows fly up. “What is this, middle school? I promise you, I am not thinking about sex when I’m working with Quinn.” At least that’s true. He’s been too focused on assessing her skills and how she fits in with the team to even consider such a thing.

Danny just starts laughing even more, enjoying the shit out of Steve’s protests. “Glad to hear it, babe, really, nice of you to be so specific. You’re a crazy man, I don’t know why I put up with you, I can’t believe those words even came out of your mouth, but I am definitely glad to hear it-”

Steve sees it happening, knows what’s going to happen before it does, but even his reflexes aren’t enough to stop it. Danny’s tilting his chair back and waving his arms as he rants at Steve, and he pushes with a foot on an empty chair just to get a little more action in his tilt, when one of the chair legs gives out and the whole thing goes crashing backwards, taking Danny with it.

Steve lunges to catch Danny, but he can’t get there in time. He sees the chair slam down on the stone paving, and flinches as Danny’s head hits the ground with a thud.

In seconds Steve is on his knees next to Danny, hands on his head. Danny’s eyes are squeezed shut, and he’s not moving, and for a long second Steve’s heart freezes in his chest. But then Danny groans and tries to sit up. Steve grabs his shoulders, his body pressed close.

“Hey, hey, don’t move for a sec, okay?” Steve runs his fingers around Danny’s head, checking for blood.

“Ow ow ow, fuck, stop,” Danny scrabbles at Steve’s hands, but Steve just shifts and holds him steady.

“Lemme check you out, hold still.”

“Fucking hurts,” Danny says, squirming. Steve satisfies himself that Danny’s head still seems to be in one piece, and helps him detangle himself from the chair and sit more comfortably on the ground.

“Danny, open your eyes,” Steve says, one hand on Danny’s shoulder to support him, the other cupping his face. “You with me?”

Danny squints at him, blue eyes meeting his. “Where else would I be?”

“Good, good.”

There’s a small crowd gathering, and miraculously Tani is there with a bag of ice wrapped in a napkin, and Junior is herding people away from the scene. There’s a manager from the Hilton, too, looking considerably worried.

Steve holds the ice to the back of Danny’s head, and Danny curses.

“Quite a mouth on you tonight,” Steve says softly.

Danny’s leaning against him, and he half-heartedly pokes Steve with a finger. “Shut up. Ow.”

Tani crouches down next to them. “You okay, Danny? Manager says this has never happened before, apologized all over the place. Even said he’d cover our tab.”

Danny laughs into Steve’s shoulder, and then groans.

“What?”

“Figures Steve would get away with not paying again.”

Steve lets out a long breath. If Danny’s ribbing him, he’s not dying, at least probably not. They sit there for a few minutes more, the ice melting and dripping down into Danny’s collar. Finally Danny fidgets sufficiently and it’s time to move.

“Come on, let’s get you up.” Steve ducks under Danny’s arm and wraps himself around Danny’s waist, helping him stagger to his feet.

“Ow, fuck,” Danny says eloquently, closing his eyes again. Steve just holds them in place for a minute, letting Danny get his bearings.

Quinn appears next to them, head turning in all directions, eyes alert as she tries to catch up. She was getting drinks when Danny fell. “What happened?”

Danny sighs and straightens, stepping away from Steve. “Nothing, relax, it’s fine,” Danny says.

Maybe, but Steve would still rather keep holding on to Danny. Steve doesn’t think he’s particularly steady. And, you know, he’s nice to hold onto.

“Danny just smacked the ground with his head,” Tani says lightly. “Didn’t like the way it was looking at him.”

Quinn doesn’t seem convinced.

“No, really, we’re okay,” Steve says, hardly noticing that he included himself in with Danny. “You guys go back and have fun, I think we’re going to head home.”

Tani fusses over Danny a little more, whispering something in his ear that makes him huff out a pained laugh, and herds Junior and Quinn away. Steve blows out a breath, and turns to Danny, who suddenly looks even less steady than he did a moment ago.

Steve’s suspicion is confirmed when Danny ducks his head and groans again, hands coming up to cover his eyes. Danny didn’t want the new girl to see him hurting. Steve gets it. This getting old thing sucks.

“Come on, buddy, let’s go,” Steve says, wrapping an arm around Danny’s waist.

Danny sags against him. “Feels like my head’s gonna explode.”

“I know.”

They make their way slowly out through the maze that is the Hilton. It’s busy even at this time of night, and Steve steers Danny as gently as he can past groups of partying guests. He wonders if they should have walked along the dark beach instead, but then Danny would just complain about getting sand in his shoes.

Finally they make it to the street, and Steve quickly helps Danny into a waiting cab. Steve’s had a little too much to drink to think about driving, even though Danny’s fall has done a lot to sober him up. But in any case, he’d rather be able to give Danny his full attention.

Steve waits until they are settled inside the cab to say what needs to be said. “Maybe we should stop by the hospital, get you checked out.”

Danny moans again, but this time it isn’t because of his headache. “You incredible hypocrite. You would never go to the hospital for this.”

Danny’s right, of course, but Steve won’t admit it. “You hit your head really hard, Danny, and you weren’t braced for it at all.”

“We get our heads knocked around every day, Steve. I’m fine. I didn’t lose consciousness.”

And thank god for that, Steve thinks. He shifts Danny around and looks in his eyes again, just as he did right after the accident. Danny was tracking then, and he is now, no signs of serious head injury. “Any nausea? Ringing in your ears?”

“No, Steve. No. Drop it.”

I will for now, Steve thinks. But he’s keeping an eye on Danny tonight.

This becomes clear to Danny when they arrive at his house and Steve gets out too. It’s not the first time they’ve looked after each other after a grueling day at work. Danny doesn’t even protest.

Steve takes off his shoes and locks the door behind them, then does a quick check of the house, making sure everything is closed up. He finds Danny in the kitchen, looking a little green as he drinks down a glass of water. Danny rolls his eyes when Steve follows him up the stairs. Steve resists the urge to swat Danny on his perky ass – now is not the time – but his disobedient brain enjoys the sight anyway.

Steve uses the spare bathroom and gives Danny a minute to get changed. When he pokes his head into Danny’s bedroom, though, Danny is still mostly dressed, shoes in a tumble in the corner of the room and shirt untucked. He’s leaning against his dresser with his head hanging down.

Steve gently moves him towards the bed, and Danny sits with a wince. “I know you just want to sleep,” Steve says softly. “But you’ll rest better if you take these off.” He starts in on the buttons on Danny’s shirt, and it’s a sign of just how out of it Danny is that he lets Steve continue.

Danny rouses a little once his shirt comes off, taking over to undo his belt and shed his pants and socks. He climbs into bed in his boxers, waving a hand in Steve’s general direction. “Turn off the light already.”

Steve does, and then strips down to his underwear. He scrounges in Danny’s drawers until he finds the spare pair of sweatpants he leaves here, and then climbs into the bed behind Danny.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Danny mutters, face pressed into the pillow.

Steve makes himself comfortable, lying on his side. He’s staring right at the back of Danny’s head. If there were more light in the room, he could watch to see whether he’s got a bump there.

“Steven. Go ‘way.”

“Nope.” Steve pulls at the blankets until they are both covered up to their chins. It may be Hawaii, but it still gets cold at night. “You’re potentially concussed. If you won’t go to the hospital, I’m keeping a close eye on you.”

“How’re you gonna do that when you’re asleep, huh?”

“I’ll figure it out. Get some rest.” Steve has already set an alarm on his phone to go off every two hours. It’s switched to vibrate, so it won’t startle Danny. Steve isn’t leaving anything to chance.

“I think you’re an idiot but I’m too tired to argue.”

Steve huffs out a laugh. This is such familiar territory, it should have their names on it. “You must be really tired.”

Danny sighs out a long breath.

“You okay, Danno?”

“Yeah.” Danny shuffles his legs around, winding up a little closer to Steve. “You’re nice and warm. ‘S good.”

“Happy to be of service. Now go to sleep.”

Steve can’t help but get a little fixated on Danny’s breathing, watching his shoulder gently move as he inhales and exhales. He knows that Danny is probably right – he’s not injured any more than they usually are from a day like today – but that isn’t making him feel much better. It would be just their luck to survive countless gunfights and then get taken down by something as commonplace as a broken chair.

When Steve feels his own eyes start to droop, he decides it’s safe to sleep for a little while. He lifts up on an elbow, scanning Danny’s face in the dim light for any sign of distress.

“I’m really glad you’re okay,” Steve whispers, and presses a kiss to Danny’s cheek.

#H50 #Hawaii Five-0 #10.04 #Steve McGarrett #Danny Williams #Affinity #my fic

11 notes · View notes

toxikbubblegum · 5 years ago

Text

May Reading Wrap Up

I'm actually really proud of myself. I finished 13 books last month. Spent a lot of extra time away from screens and focusing on my mental health so I burned through way more than I normally would. So anyways, here's my reviews. - Also please understand that these are just my opinions and if I shit on your favorite book I'm sorry that I didn't enjoy it as much as you. Also, also Im terrible with character names.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor ⭐⭐⭐

I actually started this book at the end of April but didn't finish it til May 1st so whatever, here it is. This books is a YA urban fantasy novel about a girl with a double life. She spends half her days studying art in Europe and the other half running errands for a tooth collecting wish monger. I don't want to say a whole lot more because I dont want to spoil anything important about the plot. So, I'll try to be vague. Let me start by saying this story is amazing. I loved the writing and the world. I rated it so low solely because I can't stand the two main characters and it really dragged down what would have otherwise been an amazing novel. So yeah, great book but its a preference thing. Also took points off for the insta-love but not really insta-love shit. Idk. I have a lot of mixed feelings about this read even a month later. Gonna read the second to see if maybe my hatred of the two mains was just a fluke.

3/5 Stars

Spellbound by Rachel Hawkins

⭐⭐⭐

This is the third book in the Hex Hall trilogy. Not much to say about it. It was a meh ending to an overall pretty good series. 3/5 stars. Moving on.

The Wicked Deep by Shea Ernshaw

⭐⭐⭐

Realizing now how many of my reads this month were pretty middle of the world. Hopefully next month will be filled with 4 and 5 stars. Anyways, this book was honestly a struggle for me to finish and Im not sure why. It's a YA mystery magical realism story about a tiny coastal town that is cursed by the spirits of 3 sisters who were suspected of witchcraft and drowned 2 centuries prior. Because of this, every year the sisters return from the sea to take the lives of teenage boys by luring them to the sea. We follow the life of kind of meh and standard YA girl #1. She meets a strange non tourist boy and hires him to work in the lighthouse her family owns. Her dad randomly disappeared years ago and her mom is a loon. So yeah... I dont know. I kind of felt like this story was hot garbage in places. I usually dont have any trouble with the suspense of disbelief in magical realism stories but this one just had too many plot holes. Like, I get morbid stuff becomes tourist attractions but why wouldn't someone have stepped in and evacuated the town if at least 3 teenage boys die there EVERY SINGLE YEAR without fail? I honestly feel like the FBI or some other government agency would have cleared the place out after the first 20 or so deaths. There was also the whole MC can see the ghosts of the girls possessing people but chooses not to tell anyone? Like, I get it. You dont want people to label you a freak or think you're crazy but come the fuck on. You live in a tourist trap where people flock to watch local teenage males wash up on shore and you really think the authorities arent going to take you up on the help? It wasn't an awful book by any means. It was well written and extremely descriptive. Just had major beef with some of the details. Anyways, I wont say much more so I don't spoil the whole book.

3/5 Stars

An Enchantment of Ravens by Maragret Rogerson

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Finally, I get to talk about one of my favorite reads of the month. I love anything to do with the Fae in my YAfiction and this was literally everything I wanted in a Fae novel. It takes place in a town called Whimsy, a humanish town in the world of Faerie. The fae cannot do any Craft, or what we would consider craftsmanship. Art and humans who can do it well are very precious in this world because the Fae can't ever do it themselves. We follow the adventures of a girl who has been commisioned to paint the portrait of the Autumn King and the chaos that ensues. Let me just start by saying this is one of those insta-love situations where I feel like it's genuinely ok. I might be making excuses because I loved the title so much but whatever. It's explained and I accept it. Also, I realize that Gadfly had a lovely description but my brain willl not let me picture him as anything but Mr.Waternoose from Monsters Inc.

5/5 Stars

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

⭐⭐⭐

This book started out so good and went downhill very quickly. It follows the story of these two magicians who were fated by their Master's to one day fight to the death. There were so many things I loved about this book only for the last 100 pages to just take a firey dump on my face. I loved the setting and the majority of the characters. The supporting characters were so deep and interesting that I almost cared more about them than I did Ceilia and Marko (Im proabably wrong and I dont feel like googling but I think that was his name) . I don't know. I don't want to complain about anymore meh books.

3/5 Stars

Matched by Allie Condie

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Went into this book expecting to hate it. I usually don't like contemporary love stories but this had major City of Ember meets The Giver vibes and it just appealed to that 14 year old girl in me again. That seems to happen with a lot of dystopian utopia stories. Anyways, story is about a girl who lives in this town where when you hit a certain age you are brought to a place and told who the government has chosen for you to marry. She is matched with her life long best friend and all is well. Except that her little Get To Know Your New Husband microship thing showed her two guys instead of just one. And lots of bullshit ensues. I honestly think I rated this so high because I enjoy the world and not so much whats actually happening to the kids. Like, I loved the idea that art is harmful so the government chose 100 acceptable pieces and thats all these people know. I loved the brutality of the government in general. I can't say much more without spoiling some of the twists but geez did it have me hooked. I'm going to be started the second one soonish, though my TBR for June has gotten intense so we will see.

4/5 stars

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I cannot say enough good things about this book. It is so fucking good! Not going to rant about it or anything because y'all just need to go read it immediately.

5/5 stars

Would give it every star in the sky if Im being completely honest.

Reign of the Fallen by Sarah Glenn Marsh

⭐⭐

Got sucked into this book by the cover and honestly that was the best part of this book. Its about this world where necromancy is pretty highly regarded and used to resurrect the royals after they die. The only downside is that if a living person ever lays eyes on the resurrected person's skin then they turn into these horrible monsters. Maybe it's just me but like that absolutely does not seem worth the risk. Plus, in order to bring the person back, these reapers have to go into the death world and bring the spirit back. And it's HELLA DANGEROUS. So like, WHY? Anyways, there is this stupid underlying love story that I absolutely wasn't invested in. This just all around was not a good book.

2/5 stars

Monster High by Lisi Harrison

⭐⭐

Little known fact~ I'm obsessed with Monster High and Ever After High. So yeah, I realize this wasn't targeted to me as an adult but even going into it with an open mind I was disappointed. Granted I didn't read the description of the book prior. I just saw this franchise I love and grabbed it. First, if you are a fan of the mini series and the movies do not read this. It doesnt follow the cinematic canon and I think that was my biggest problem with it. Frankie's character was all wrong and I hated the whole"Normy" cast. Was really excited for these but I definitely won't be continuing the series. I don't even want to torture myself with seeing how they manage to ruin my sweet baby Draculara.

2/5 stars

Unhinged by AG Howard

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I can't say enough good things about this series. This is the second book in the trilogy and it was a fanatstic bridge book. It had me engrossed through the entire audiobook. Morpheus is still everything. If you loved Splintered I would highly reccomend continuing.

5/5 stars

Truthwitch

⭐⭐

Have had this on my TBR for a while because of how many Booktubers have hyped the series. Buy, was I disappointed. I was soooooooooo bored. Maybe it's because I don't really enjoy this type of fantasy or maybe it was just the slower paced story but I just slugged through this book. Both of the main female characters were bland to me and I didn't care about their friendship. The world was cool but not enough to keep me invested. Just wasn't my cup of tea.

2/5 stars

Paranormalcy by Kiersten White

⭐⭐⭐

Picked this up because of how much I loved The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein and it didn't meet my expectations. It follows this girl who works for a paranormal gorvenment group. She has a special ability that makes her really useful to them so they are trying to groom her basically. They capture this changeling and she befriends him and there is an overarching plot that I just didn't get invested in. The friendship between the two main characters was pretty much the only thing that I enjoyed in this title. The mother figure was insufferable and I just didn't really understand the whole org that they worked for in general. Not an awful book but not fantastic.

Solid 3/5 stars.

The Siren by Kiera Cass

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Going to preface this by saying I might be biased. I love Kiera Cass and have enjoyed almost everything she has written. That said, this wasn't nearly as good as The Selection series but it was a pretty good stand alone novel. It about a girl who becomes a siren on her deathbed and spends the next 100 years serving the sea by luring people to their deaths. After doing this for 70 years, she falls in love and pretty much ruins everything. Loved the characters, especially the male lead. The insta love was a little pet peeve of mine but the love interest was so sweet and genuine that I was willing to overlook it. Pretty good read if you dig supernatural romance.

4/5 stars

June holds the Ghibli-a-thon but also lots of holidays for my family so we will see how much I actually get read. So far my tentative TBR is 5 books but we will see where the days take me.

21 notes · View notes

theconstellationsinyourskin · 5 years ago

Note

Every number that has a "1" in it

1. “is a kiss considered cheating” i mean like. if it’s like a party game or whatever then no lmfao. otherwise probably yea, but like, pretty low on the seriousness of it imo. i dont know how non-polyam people work tho and it’s literally impossible to cheat on me because i’ll just b like “why didnt you trust me enough to tell me, i would have been happy for you ;-;” lmfao

10. Who was the last person to disappoint you?every interaction i have is full of minor excitements and disappointments. currently my father is at the top of the list though, he’s not a flat earther but he is a 9/11 truther and brought up lizard people

11. Do you like your body?sure? I know I’m cute, and I’m pretty much near-constantly in pain and/or nausea, but I’m pretty indifferent to my body as like, having feelings towards it. It sure is my body!

12. Can you keep a diet?no, why would I?

13. If the whole world listened to you right now, what would you say?i would panic and go nonverbal tf you mean? lmfao. I’d probably start ranting incoherently about anarchism though

14. do.....do i work? bitch? do I work? im on my 10th day in a row of working shut up lmfao. (i work at subway, for those of u not in-the-know)

15. If you could choose only one food to eat to the rest of your life, what would it be?marie callender’s (im looking at the box ive been spelling it wrong this whole time) chicken pot pies. ideally the bacon cheddar ones but i understand if that is not accessible

16. Would you get a tattoo?i want a snail tattoo so badly .... i figured out where i want it, too. i want it on my left wrist (palm side). im crying thinking about it

17. Something you don’t mind spending all your money on?the music game i play, apparently. i just got a 3-month subscription for 20 bucks. i think that puts me at like 80 bucks ive spent on this game in the past 3 years. lanota is just too good. i was gonna say like rent or car but like, i DO mind those, fuck capitalism

18. Can you drive?legally, yes, with a licensed passenger aged 21+. physically? no

19. When was the last time someone told you you were beautiful?i think my mom is the only person who’s ever said that specific word to me, but my partner called me pretty like three days ago

21. Do you keep a journal?don’t have the willpower for that lolz. I do sometimes but only for like days or at max a month

31. Something you did and you are proud of?Moved out of my mom’s house the moment I turned 18. I’m hella fuckin proud of that lmfao

41. What was the last concert you went to?Muse in Boston, back in April

51. Who are you most comfortable around?my partner lol, and like one or two of my other friends

61. Something you find romantic?hand-to-cheek contact is the most intimate possible physical interaction. god forbid it be both hands/cheeks. it’s very romantic and soft and i would absolutely melt if anybody ever did that to me

71. Have you ever made someone feel bad about themselves intentionally?can’t think of anything in particular but I’m sure I have. I get passive-aggressive with customers pretty often so I’m sure that counts.

81. How long have you been on Tumblr?since like, october 2015 or something like that

91. Perfect date idea?I always spring for the “go to the park and have a picnic” idea myself, when the topic of dating comes up. Going to the movies or loud restaurants sucks because you can’t talk, cafes are kind of awkward because I feel like somebody is gonna eavesdrop. I’m sure there’s something more creative you could do--idk, a museum or whatever local tourist spot or something, but that’s so location-based that I can’t really give that as an answer to a generic question like this. Picnics are intimate, calm, private. It’s not great as a first date for this reason but it’s lovely for a steady relationship.

100. Can you keep a secret?Of course. My primary skill is being good at talking to people, and one of my favorite things to do is get to know people. It would be kind of silly to sabotage that by telling everybody’s secrets.

#personal post

4 notes · View notes

rodricksfilipinagf · 2 years ago

Text

Friendtopia Part 3: ...So, You’re Planning the Ball, Right???

We’re in Kuzco’s large bedroom. His headboard nearly reaches the ceiling, and his marble floor is expansive. There was another bed moved along the opposite wall, because I feel weird about sleeping alone in this new, unfamiliar place, and we agreed that my visit here would have more of a sleepover vibe if we slept in the same room. If it were any other person, he would have balked at having to share a room, but I just think he’s delighted to have a 24/7 audience to hear him talk about himself, and the bed in the otherwise unoccupied area of his gargantuan room was a small price to pay.

“Can you believe he said I had to get my own stuff?” Kuzco rants. “Who does he think he is?”

“I- I don’t know.” The downside to this whole sleepover vibe is that I have to listen to nonsense like this. But you know what, even if I did have my own room, I 100 percent guarantee that he would have came in there and the same thing would have happened.

“It’s called a convenience store. It’s whole purpose is to be convenient. It says so, right in the name.”

“Right, yeah,” I say, trying to get comfortable on my bed.

“What’s convenient for me is for someone else to get what I want. You know what’s not convenient? Me. Having to get everything myself. It defeats the whole purpose of the name. Why even call it a convenience store if you’re just going to inconvenience me? Might as well call it an inconvenience store.”

“Yeah, yeah that name should absolutely be changed. Convenience is relative.” I’m humoring him at this point, but I bet he’s going to think I’m serious.

“See, you get it?” (Knew it). “Why can’t the entire empire be on board? Or at least the stupid owner.” He buries his face in his hands.

“Hey, Kuzco? I know that this was a really rough day for you, but you know what might cheer you up?”

He slowly looks up at me. “I’m listening.”

“We throw a ball tomorrow,” I suggest. “When was the last time you threw a ball?”

“Years ago,” he says. “Throwing balls is a lot of work. It cuts into my sleep and hot tub time.”

“Okay, and I understand that, but how fun would it be to wear the new clothes we bought today, and dance, and…”

“And meet girls?” He lifts a brow knowingly. “Don’t lie, you’re doing this so you can talk to that girl you saw before.”

“Ughhhhhhh, okay, you’re so right, but not in the way you think. I was wrong. She’s totally annoying and pretentious and she won’t stop talking about manatees. Oh, that reminds me, the ball has to be ‘save the manatee’ themed.”

He wrinkles his nose. “What? That’s an awful theme.”

“I know, but she was talking shit about how you don’t care that manatees are an endangered species.”

“I don’t,” he reminds me.

“Well can you pretend like you do? She thinks both of us are superficial, and I’ve done a lot of social justice work, and I can’t have that.” I flop down on the bed dramatically. I squeeze my eyes shut. When was the last time someone was so wrong about me? Oh yeah, I remember. That foreign dignitaries dinner.

I feel extra weight beside me on the bed. “You know you don’t have to prove anything to her, right?” I hear his voice say softly. “She’s a basic bitch who has no idea what she’s talking about. And she doesn’t know you.”

“You’re right,” I say. “But she will. We’re going to throw the best ‘save the manatees’ ball this empire has ever seen.”

“Whyyyy,” he moans. “Why the theme? Why can’t it be something cooler? And about me?”

“Because proving people wrong is what we do. And,” I let out a sigh. “If I’m being honest, maybe raising awareness for endangered manatees isn’t the worst thing in the world. I mean, it’s so terrible how tourists assume they’re dangerous and kill them.”

“That’s so dumb. They’re like the laziest creatures in the Incan Empire.”

I snort. “Second laziest.”

He turns to me. “Yeah, that reminds me, can you plan the ball? I’m going to need my hot tub time after how stressful today has been.”

I let out a sigh. “Yeah, fine.” Planning a ball wasn’t exactly on my list for this getaway, but I’m great at delegating, and at least I’ll be able to make it look like a legit “save the manatees” ball was the plan all along, and not something I spontaneously came up with on the spot. I start to head for the door, but I feel a hand close around my arm. “What now?” I ask.

Kuzco looks at me concernedly. “You haven’t screamed yet.”

“What?” I ask.

“Back in the marketplace, you said that you needed a place to scream without seeming crazy, and you haven’t done that yet. I can’t have you taking your angry energy to deal with my servants. It’ll make me look bad.”

I don’t even know where to begin with that. “…Me? Make you look bad?”

“You know where’s a great place to get rid of anger? Hot tubs.”

“That doesn’t even make any sense!”

“So? I need company and my servants can wait. It’s hot tub time.” ~ “She called the beach superficial?”

“I know!” I explode.

“Fuck that!” Kuzco says, slapping the hot tub water. “She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

“And-and…” I was on a roll. “If she claims she’s not superficial, or whatever, why does she have to have a bag that costs…what’s the conversion rate here…” I try to mentally convert in my head. Math has never been my strong point.

“No clue,” Kuzco says. Such a promising emperor, he is. You know what, actually, that’s not fair. You can be a world leader and still be shitty at math.

“Two thousand Kuzcoins,” I estimate. His eyes widen. “Yeah. I’m telling you, what she’s doing is all for show.”

“Wait, so does that make us…superficial?” Kuzco asks, a furrow between his brows.

Good question. “I mean, I hope not,” I say, sinking further into the hot tub. “Honestly, at least we own what we are. At least we never claim not to like expensive things, rather than claiming that it doesn't matter while enjoying all the benefits.”

“Yeah,” Kuzco says. For a minute I think he’s actually mulling it over. Then he says, “So are you good? The ball won’t plan itself.”

I shake my head. “You may be the only emperor who hands off ball planning responsibilities to his honored guest who is supposed to be on vacation.”

He looks confused. “But you like it, don’t you?”

I let out a sigh. “I want it to go perfectly,” I say, getting out of the hot tub.

“Same difference,” he calls out as I dry off in a rose-scented towel.

#kuzco #emperor kuzco #disney kuzco

1 note · View note

orcinus-ocean · 7 years ago

Photo

What we have lost

Apparently the least interesting of all the topics I bring up, is the topic of rewilding, because my rewilding posts typically only get 1-3 notes, when I present you with amazing videos or other material.

And I think that is an outrage, because in my opinion, this is the most important topic anyone could talk about. Of every topic in the world, in politics, social problems and topics of the natural world, if I had to choose one, rewilding would be my number #1 topic to talk about.

Yet almost nobody is talking about it, or has even heard about it.

So prepare to be bored some more, because I’m not done talking. Although my post about diminishing habitats of present-day animals, many of whom we think of as "African" (while they actually belong over most of Eurasia, and some even in North America) got pretty popular, I want to focus more specifically on the destroyed state of Europe today.

We can whine, yell and complain until our faces turn blue about the destruction of Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Amazon. And we wouldn't be wrong, as China-India-Indonesia and everything inbetween is the most heavily populated place on Earth currently, and Africa is going to become the next one.

“Only” a little over a billion people in Africa today, but if current population trends continue for 82 years, until 2100 (they won't, because numbers always change and this number is impossible to reach without a massive change in how we make and distribute food, but for the sake of argument), the human population in Africa will reach 15.5 billion people by the turn of the century. That's more than twice the entire worldwide population today, crammed into in Africa alone.

African animals are already in a dire state, there is hardly any wildlife left in west Africa, or really anywhere outside of reserves. Not to mention the huge human rights and welfare problems on the continent, but this is how bad the population explosion is right now.

And then there is South America. The northern part, the Amazon, to be precise. We hear all the time how much of the Amazon has been destroyed, mainly in order to graze cattle that we eat in Europe and North America.

But when do we ever talk about environmental destruction in Europe? We don't, because we're used to it. In the other three continents I talk about, we are seeing things change drastically within a single human lifetime. And it's really important and great that people are talking so much about it.

But we are not talking at all about the destroyed state of Europe, simply because it's been this way for centuries and we think this is "normal". We think Europe is the only place on Earth that's "boring", not "wild". It never was, it was always just houses, farms and few wild animals tougher than a fox or bigger than a roe deer.

But it has not at all always been like this.

And this is where my main gripe with the current discussion comes in. Because most of us love to bash on people in these other continents. Poor, uneducated farmers (really, I can't understate the difference in their kind of life to yours or mine, or their education level and understanding of the natural world compared to yours or mine, because they were simply born with different opportunities), whose very livelihood depends on their hard, manual, thankless jobs, and they simply can't care about some elephants destroying their crops, or some tigers or lions killing and eating their livestock.

As disturbing as this recent photo of a young elephant being set on fire was, and how evil this seems to me and you, it does no good for the elephants or the other animals there to meet the people as a whole with hate, or say things like "they are devils with no heart or feeling for their fellow creatures", or "may they burn like they burned this poor elephant".

These are not direct quotes, but approximations of what I see every time these human-animal conflicts come up.

These people's opportunities in life are so different from yours and mine, that they simply have never been able to see an elephant, a tiger, a lion, a rhinoceros, the way you and I see these animals.

It's easy for us to sit in our golden towers (and even if you live in a shitty studio apartment, it is a golden tower compared to their existence, and you'll never have to worry about your children starving to death) and talk about kind and majestic, intelligent and feeling animals.

They see a wild beast who's threatening their very lives. And none of that is going to change by hating on them and telling them they're worthless pieces of shit. It can only change by educating them about the animals, and minimizing the risk for human-animal conflict.

Why all this then, what does this have to do with Europe? Because we're such horrible hypocrites. We sit in our (comparatively) golden towers, in our (comparatively) comfortable existence, and judge these people, when our own home has been destroyed and practically empty of wildlife for centuries.

This is the state of wilderness in Europe. And as a Swede, I'll let you know that most of our forest (the light green) is planted woods, not ancient, actual intact forest. And while people from continental Europe or Britain look dreamily at Sweden, Norway and Finland's vast wildernesses, we up here are terrible at taking care of our predators, as I have brought up many times, but lately have found it too heartbraking to keep up with.

We shoot bears and wolves "for protection" practically as soon as they're spotted. Young bear just left his mother, and is grabbing some apples? Shoot it. Mama bear just woke up from hibernation and tries to feed her three hungry cubs by killing a reindeer calf? Shoot her, and her cubs too.

And the reindeer industry is nowhere near the "cultural heritage" it is called. Back in the day, one man had maybe a hundred reindeer he herded with dogs, and on foot. Now they own ten thousand reindeer in a single herd, they herd them with helicopters and snowmobiles, and transport them to slaughter in massive trucks. Cultural heritage my ass. And if a genetically important wolf from Russia kills 5 out of these 10 000 reindeer over the course of several months, it has to be shot NOW, despite massive taxpayer money for every single predator-killed reindeer, and for the reindeer owners to simply have wolves on the land. Our peninsula is a disgusting outrage (Finland too, these three countries are all terrible at valuing their natural predators).

*End rant*

It is funny how this map considers Scotland "intact wilderness", since it is a completely ruined landscape filled with nothing but sheep, deer, and grass, as I have brought up multiple times before (the rewilding tag).

About the British Isles.

The wolf is believed to have become extinct in England as far back as the reign of Henry VII (~1500), and the last confirmed wolf in Scotland was killed in 1680.

The last wolf in Ireland was shot in 1786, the century when rich landlords all over western Europe were intentionally propagandizing people to fear wolves. You see, the landlords wanted wolves off their land, so they could have all the deer to themselves. But the poor farmers had much better things to do with their time than to chase after wolves, so they couldn't be bothered.

Thus the landlords conjured up this image of the blood-thirsty, man-eating wolf, the Devil's pet, the one who must be exterminated at all costs. And from there, we have a three hundred year history of wolf hate which has lasted in western culture to this day (and which European emigrants brought with them to America).

Modern-day anti-wolf propaganda in the United States.

The United Kingdom today, Great Britain to be specific, is a truly mind-boggling country, so outrageous that I can barely put it into words. They actually pay people (with taxpayer money of course), to destroy their land so that nothing can grow on it. And in Scotland specifically, they call this destroyed landscape "come see wild Scotland, please give us your tourist money!" You can hear all about the outrageous state of this island here.

In other places, like in South America, Africa and Southeast Asia, we shout and yell and do everything to defend the rainforest against the ranchers. In Britain, we defend the ranchers against the rainforest and call it “conservation”.

The map above shows the range of the grey wolf in Europe today. It has a strong population in eastern Europe, where it is, incidentally, not hated irrationally like in the west, and also in northern Spain where there are roughly 2000 wolves (to compare, Norway has about 50, Sweden 300, and Finland 100-300). It's not like eastern europeans are huge wolf-huggers or nature lovers, but they don't have the old cultural hatred of wolves that westerners have been instilled with.

Brown bears have a strong population in northern Europe of several thousand, but are otherwise restricted to distant mountain ranges, like the Pyrenees and Alps.

Eurasian lynxes have likewise been extirpated (been made regionally extinct) in almost all of Europe, except again for Scandinavia, the Baltic countries, and a few remote pockets in continental Europe. Despite the fact that this is a relatively small, very shy and completely harmless cat that hardly ever takes livestock due to their fear of humans, and prefers to live off of hares and small deer, there seems to be no room for them in modern Europe.

Not to mention the smaller, unique Iberian lynx species, which lived only in Spain and Portugal and is today all but extinct.

Those are just the largest predators. Then there is the Wisent, or as I prefer to call them in order to give people some emotion when they hear the name, the European Bison.

This megafauna of Europe once stretched from northern Spain to southern Sweden and Finland, all the way to Lake Baikal and northern Mongolia.

In the middle ages, they were restricted to central-eastern Europe. Today there are only a few thousand left, most in captivity or reserves, though the map is not completely accurate, as today they have been reintroduced in small numbers in Poland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Romania, Russia and strangely enough, in Kyrgyzstan.

Meanwhile, we have invasive musk ox in Norway and Sweden that are protected, but nevermind that. Invasive species are protected, while our native megafauna is extirpated, and our "protected" predators are massacred.

And the Aurochs, the wild form of our domestic cattle, once ranged across all of this. Then they were domesticated, the remaining wild animals were in the way of the domestic stock (as in Africa today), and the last Aurochs died in 1627.

Projects exist to try to breed it back from domestic cattle, but that's kind of like trying to breed a replica wolf from domestic dogs, or quaggas from zebras. The animal is still gone (but the replacement could fill the same ecological niche, unless you're a complete conservation purist, which I'm definitely not).

That's our top predators, and our most recent megafauna. I definitely don't think it's too much to ask to bring these back, in my lifetime even.

That is what rewilding is. Not just the dramatic introductions of large animals of course, there's also the lot less sexy topics of planting trees and reintroducing ecosystem engineers like beavers, but these large animals are the best advertisement for rewilding. A healthy ecosystem with them back as the kings and queens of their former domains is the goal.

There also used to be lions, cheetahs, hyenas, rhinos, hippos and straight-tusked elephants all the way to Great Britain, but that is probably too extreme even for rewilding projects in this century. That is why I added that picture of the lions by the way. Those are African lions in a zoo, but even they grow thick winter coats when put in a cold climate, and they once roamed all over Europe.

And this is why I can only shake my head when people hate on said poor, uneducated people in Africa and Asia (less sympathy from rich cattle ranchers in South America from me, it's not poor natives cutting down rainforests or killing Jaguars there, it's an entirely different situation).

Because if you are a sheep farmer or reindeer herder in Scandinavia, you can change your job. Easily (again, comparatively). You and your family will not have to go hungry one day in their lives. You are educated. You know about these animals. You know about how ecosystems work. You have resources. Yet, as a collective, we do this.

Conservation is about trying to preserve what's here today. Rewilding is about ecosystem restoration, to revive what we have already killed.

Destruction in Borneo.