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dandelionsresilience · 2 months

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Good News - July 15-21

Like these weekly compilations? Tip me at $kaybarr1735! (Or check out my new(ly repurposed) Patreon!)

1. Thai tiger numbers swell as prey populations stabilize in western forests

“The tiger population density in a series of protected areas in western Thailand has more than doubled over the past two decades, according to new survey data. […] The most recent year of surveys, which concluded in November 2023, photographed 94 individual tigers, up from 75 individuals in the previous year, and from fewer than 40 in 2007. […] A total of 291 individual tigers older than 1 year were recorded, as well as 67 cubs younger than 1 year.”

2. Work starts to rewild former cattle farm

“Ecologists have started work to turn a former livestock farm into a nature reserve [… which] will become a "mosaic of habitats" for insects, birds and mammals. [… R]ewilding farmland could benefit food security locally by encouraging pollinators, improving soil health and soaking up flood water. [… “N]ature restoration doesn't preclude food production. We want to address [food security] by using nature-based solutions."”

3. Harnessing ‘invisible forests in plain view’ to reforest the world

“[… T]he degraded land contained numerous such stumps with intact root systems capable of regenerating themselves, plus millions of tree seeds hidden in the soil, which farmers could simply encourage to grow and reforest the landscape[….] Today, the technique of letting trees resprout and protecting their growth from livestock and wildlife [… has] massive potential to help tackle biodiversity loss and food insecurity through resilient agroforestry systems. [… The UN’s] reported solution includes investing in land restoration, “nature-positive” food production, and rewilding, which could return between $7 and $30 for every dollar spent.”

4. California bars school districts from outing LGBTQ+ kids to their parents

“Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the SAFETY Act today – a bill that prohibits the forced outing of transgender and gay students, making California the first state to explicitly prohibit school districts from doing so. […] Matt Adams, a head of department at a West London state school, told PinkNews at the time: “Teachers and schools do not have all the information about every child’s home environment and instead of supporting a pupil to be themselves in school, we could be putting them at risk of harm.””

5. 85% of new electricity built in 2023 came from renewables

“Electricity supplied by renewables, like hydropower, solar, and wind, has increased gradually over the past few decades — but rapidly in recent years. [… C]lean energy now makes up around 43 percent of global electricity capacity. In terms of generation — the actual power produced by energy sources — renewables were responsible for 30 percent of electricity production last year. […] Along with the rise of renewable sources has come a slowdown in construction of non-renewable power plants as well as a move to decommission more fossil fuel facilities.”

6. Deadly cobra bites to "drastically reduce" as scientists discover new antivenom

“After successful human trials, the snake venom antidote could be rolled out relatively quickly to become a "cheap, safe and effective drug for treating cobra bites" and saving lives around the globe, say scientists. Scientists have found that a commonly used blood thinner known as heparin can be repurposed as an inexpensive antidote for cobra venom. […] Using CRISPR gene-editing technology […] they successfully repurposed heparin, proving that the common blood thinner can stop the necrosis caused by cobra bites.”

7. FruitFlow: a new citizen science initiative unlocks orchard secrets

“"FruitWatch" has significantly refined phenological models by integrating extensive citizen-sourced data, which spans a wider geographical area than traditional methods. These enhanced models offer growers precise, location-specific predictions, essential for optimizing agricultural planning and interventions. […] By improving the accuracy of phenological models, farmers can better align their operations with natural biological cycles, enhancing both yield and quality.”

8. July 4th Means Freedom for Humpback Whale Near Valdez, Alaska

“The NOAA Fisheries Alaska Marine Mammal Stranding Hotline received numerous reports late afternoon on July 3. A young humpback whale was entangled in the middle of the Port of Valdez[….] “The success of this mission was due to the support of the community, as they were the foundation of the effort,” said Moran. [… Members of the community] were able to fill the critical role of acting as first responders to a marine mammal emergency. “Calling in these reports is extremely valuable as it allows us to respond when safe and appropriate, and also helps us gain information on various threats affecting the animals,” said Lyman.”

9. Elephants Receive First of Its Kind Vaccine

“Elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus is the leading cause of death for Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) born in facilities in North America and also causes calf deaths in the wild in Asia. A 40-year-old female received the new mRNA vaccine, which is expected to help the animal boost immunity[….]”

10. Conservation partners and Indigenous communities working together to restore forests in Guatemala

“The K’iche have successfully managed their natural resources for centuries using their traditional governing body and ancestral knowledge. As a result, Totonicapán is home to Guatemala’s largest remaining stand of conifer forest. […] EcoLogic has spearheaded a large-scale forest restoration project at Totonicapán, where 13 greenhouses now hold about 16,000 plants apiece, including native cypresses, pines, firs, and alders. […] The process begins each November when community members gather seeds. These seeds then go into planters that include upcycled coconut fibers and mycorrhizal fungi, which help kickstart fertilization. When the plantings reach about 12 inches, they’re ready for distribution.”

July 8-14 news here | (all credit for images and written material can be found at the source linked; I don’t claim credit for anything but curating.)

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probablyasocialecologist · 10 months

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Although the benefits of diverse forest systems are well known, many countries' restoration commitments are focused on establishing monoculture plantations. Given this practice, an international team of scientists has compared carbon stocks in mixed planted forests to carbon stocks in commercial and best-performing monocultures, as well as the average of monocultures.

Their work is published in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change.

"Diverse planted forests store more carbon than monocultures—upwards of 70%," said Dr. Emily Warner, a postdoctoral researcher in ecology and biodiversity science at the Department of Biology, University of Oxford, and first author of the study. "We also found the greatest increase in carbon storage relative to monocultures in four-species mixtures."

[...]

Accordingly, the researchers were able to show that diversification of forests enhances carbon storage. Altogether, above-ground carbon stocks in mixed forests were 70% higher than in the average monoculture. The researchers also found that mixed forests had 77% higher carbon stocks than commercial monocultures, made up of species bred to be particularly high yielding.

"As momentum for tree planting grows, our study highlights that mixed species plantations would increase carbon storage alongside other benefits of diversifying planted forests," said Dr. Susan Cook-Patton, a senior forest restoration scientist at The Nature Conservancy and collaborator on the study. The results are particularly relevant to forest managers, showing that there is a productivity incentive for diversifying new planted forests, the researchers pointed out.

#trees #forest #biodiversity #ecology #forestry #climate change #solarpunk

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reagent-leon · 3 months

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GUYS!!! Stop saying Coyle is singing his ABCs wrong!!

"T, P, D, A, T, F, C, I, A, F, B, I, U, S, P, I, S, D, O, D, S, S, S, U, S, A."

He's not singing his ABCs he's just using the same tune, they're all acronyms

TPD = ?*

ATF = Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives

CIA = Central Intelligence Agency,

FBI = Federal Bureau of Investigation,

USPIS = United States Postal Inspection Service,

DOD = United States Department of Defense,

SSS = Selective Service System,

USA = United States of America

Okay? So let's all stop saying he's uneducated or illiterate because he's definitely not. Pre-Sinyala Coyle kept "obsessively complete notes" according to Clyde Perry's account, and furthermore just look at his pretty handwriting on the evidence boxes, that's not an uneducated scrawl. Coyle is willfully ignorant, but he's not lacking in basic literacy skills.

"But Leon, why did he misspell Guilty as Giltee on the Scapegoat?"

Well, friend, I don't entirely know. But as he's spelt it correctly in other places, he probably did it on purpose, matching his dialect to emphasise his point. Maybe he just forgot about the U and by the time he'd started carving the L he knew he needed to commit to his fuck up.

*Sooo I have some theories as to what TPD could stand for.

Total Permanent Disability. In one of Coyles' dialogues, he mentions his Father losing his foot in the Battle of Hürtgen Forest. That injury would likely see him permanently disabled and unable to work as he had before (it's implied that Coyles' parents were cattle ranchers), therefore he would be entitled to welfare checks.

Tulsa Police Department. Tulsa and Blackwell are within 2 hours drive of each other and it's very possible that Coyle completed his training at the Tulsa Police Academy before going on to work for the Blackwell Police Department. Tulsa also has history of violent racism, which would appeal to Coyle.

Tactical PSYOPS Detachment/United States Psychological Operations. There was extensive use of psychological operations in World War II, and given everything that the Outlast Trials are about I think this is a worthy contender.

Tobacco Products Directive. This was the only other thing I could think of that would make sense in conjunction with Coyle, but it's a European Union directive, and therefore I think it's unlikely this is what Coyle is referring to, but I still thought it was worth mentioning.

If you have any better ideas please feel free to share them!

A big big thank you to my friends in the Coyle Crew: @misa-bun @soggy-bean and @mortisdeth for their help in researching, theorising and giving me moral support when I thought I was about to lose it

#leland coyle #sergeant leland coyle #sergeant coyle #officer coyle #the outlast trials #outlast trials #outlast #friends stuff #its just a theory #backed up by evidence

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ask-the-rag-dolly · 6 months

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PLSPLSPLS can we know more about the office ?? like what everyone did and their personalities and stuff. i love the office sm

this is going to be long

everyone has this weird thing where they're referred to by a nickname in the workplace , which corresponds to their job , appearance or generally something else they're known for . there is no deep story reason to this i just do not want to think of first and last names

they work in c&a which was at first a chill company but after the disappearance of its two valuable employees everything went to Shit™

the boss was a pretty eccentric man that bears a lot of similarities to his mascot , caine . there was only one person he allowed to call him mr. bossman . after the incident though he became more intolerant of imperfection and have a shorter temper .

king and queen were like those corny as hell old couple that unintentionally adopted their department . king was the goofy dad that always cheered everyone up and queen was a mysterious little thing with passionate dreams of arson ( there was no heater in the office )

i think you can garner a guess on where their nicknames came from

clown was the laid-back janitor that always wanted to lighten the mood with his Very hit-or-miss jokes , which is what earned him his nickname . was dolly's anchor through The Incident and the worst of bossman

disappeared after spreading rumors about the company

dolly's the darling secretary of c&a who often did her tasks with a smile and got along with everyone in the office . called ' dolly ' because of her ( suspected to be unhealthy ) obsession of raggedy ann which she often has sitting on her desk . for Emotional Support , she claims

disappeared a week after her eye surgery

jester was the accountant that was always the butt of the joke in the office . she was often the victim of pranks and was never taken seriously by a lot of her co-workers - which is how she got her nickname .

a nervous wreck but don't let that fool you .

was good friends with ribbons but that's because she was one of the only people that didn't approve of her treatment

rabbit's the only one who didn't work for the company . instead he was a feral child that kept breaking into the building and messing with everyone . given a nickname because no one fucking knows who he is or where his parents are at WHOSE MENACE IS THIS

never came back one day . for all they know he got lost in a forest and Never Returned

ribbons was the artist who helps with conceptualizing the products . she was called ribbons because she wore a bajillion ribbons on her hair . would often sleep on the job because she only ever gets 3 hours of sleep

disappeared sometime after rabbit .

scramble was the moody intern that would come back years after as a worker - to where they would last for a month before disappearing . a rebellious teen who just went to adopt a random , mentally ill 23 year old woman as their adopted mom . called scramble due to how their fashion looks like ' a bunch of things mashed together '

#[ ooc ]#[ office lore ]

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llondonfog · 9 months

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as promised for coming home on my only 10-pull key, a little birthday drabble for our beloved peepaw :) pls enjoy & happy new year to all!

". . . Cookies?"

He makes no effort to disguise the insulted disbelief as he stares down at the plate of misshapen treats, eyebrows flying so far into his hairline that they nearly disappear.

"He may be but a child, and a human at that, but surely he ought to understand the gravity of your former position, the glories in which you are entitled to—"

"Former, and disgraced if I might add," Lilia corrects him, a lopsided grin tugging on his face as he too gazes at the plate of cookies with a ludicrously pleased expression. "And Silver is all of seven, Baul. A seven year old child who worked rather hard today at staying awake to surprise me with something delicious, so I'd be most grateful if you could manage to tame that famous Zigvolt boom as I'd hate for him to wake up from his nap."

It's worse than Baul could have ever expected.

Lilia Vanrouge, the fearless and fearsome once general of the fae armies, the former right hand to their dearly departed princess, turned sentimental over a plate of lumpy, and frankly burnt on the edges, cookies.

He'd come over to further discuss the matter of his grandson training with his former commander, staunchly ignorant of his own sentimentality towards the halfling child who so closely resembled him in both pride and spirit, only to find the fae sitting alone at the kitchen table with an odd and unfamiliar expression vulnerable upon his face and cradling a cookie as carefully within his talons as if it were spun from glass. Baul had nearly leapt to arms, convinced that there had been some sort of spell or potion from those who still wished ill upon Lilia cast to tempt him into eating such bizarre looking food— even though it looked clumsily made, there was simply no way he would have been fooled into believing it had been the product of Lilia's disastrous attempts. It simply wasn't foul enough— when Lilia had startled back into awareness, only to laugh at him and proclaim to Baul's utter bewilderment that these...cookies, were in fact his birthday gift from the human child residing within his home.

To which Baul promptly informed Lilia that he had taken leave of his senses and he'd never once shared that he knew of his birthday before. If he had, there'd have been no chance of the entire country forgetting it for the wondrous celebration Meleanor and Levan would have certainly thrown in the honor of their dearest friend.

"You're right," Lilia had said, smiling that strange little half-smile as he broke his gaze away from the plate to the quiet hallway leading from the kitchen. "But then again, I had nothing about myself to celebrate until very recently."

And there, the crux of the matter, the elephant in the room that Baul never truly questioned out of loyalty to the fae that had given more than anyone ever could to the sake of their country, to the Draconias alone. The human child, the boy that had shown up suddenly and stolen Lilia away to the forest, bewitched him somehow into playing house. Baul cannot understand it— Lilia had more reason than any of them to loathe humanity, to shun it for the remainder of his life and seek to live in peace away from their kind after their unforgivable transgressions.

Instead, in front of his astounded eyes, he can only watch in silence as a tear splashes down upon the chocolate speckled surface of the cookie before it's hastily crammed into Lilia's mouth, the fae spinning around to grin at him as if in blissful ignorance of the redness gathering at the corners of his eyes.

"They're a bit salty, Baul, but I've never tasted anything better!"

Oh, he thinks, heart shaking in place as he too glances towards where a certain slumbering boy lies. Oh, you old fool. Do you even know how deep you've gone?

#twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland silver #twst silver #lilia vanrouge #twst lilia #diasomnia #baul zigvolt #lettie writes #:)#i told you all that the cookie home line had seized me

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fatehbaz · 8 months

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Endangered Indian sandalwood. British war to control the forests. Tallying every single tree in the kingdom. European companies claim the ecosystem. Spices and fragrances. Failure of the plantation. Until the twentieth century, the Empire couldn't figure out how to cultivate sandalwood because they didn't understand that the plant is actually a partial root parasite. French perfumes and the creation of "the Sandalwood City".

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Selling at about $147,000 per metric ton, the aromatic heartwood of Indian sandalwood (S. album) is arguably [among] the most expensive wood in the world. Globally, 90 per cent of the world’s S. album comes from India [...]. And within India, around 70 per cent of S. album comes from the state of Karnataka [...] [and] the erstwhile Kingdom of Mysore. [...] [T]he species came to the brink of extinction. [...] [O]verexploitation led to the sandal tree's critical endangerment in 1974. [...]

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Francis Buchanan’s 1807 A Journey from Madras through the Countries of Mysore, Canara and Malabar is one of the few European sources to offer insight into pre-colonial forest utilisation in the region. [...] Buchanan records [...] [the] tradition of only harvesting sandalwood once every dozen years may have been an effective local pre-colonial conservation measure. [...] Starting in 1786, Tipu Sultan [ruler of Mysore] stopped trading pepper, sandalwood and cardamom with the British. As a result, trade prospects for the company [East India Company] were looking so bleak that by November 1788, Lord Cornwallis suggested abandoning Tellicherry on the Malabar Coast and reducing Bombay’s status from a presidency to a factory. [...] One way to understand these wars is [...] [that] [t]hey were about economic conquest as much as any other kind of expansion, and sandalwood was one of Mysore’s most prized commodities. In 1799, at the Battle of Srirangapatna, Tipu Sultan was defeated. The kingdom of Mysore became a princely state within British India [...]. [T]he East India Company also immediately started paying the [new rulers] for the right to trade sandalwood.

British control over South Asia’s natural resources was reaching its peak and a sophisticated new imperial forest administration was being developed that sought to solidify state control of the sandalwood trade. In 1864, the extraction and disposal of sandalwood came under the jurisdiction of the Forest Department. [...] Colonial anxiety to maximise profits from sandalwood meant that a government agency was established specifically to oversee the sandalwood trade [...] and so began the government sandalwood depot or koti system. [...]

From the 1860s the [British] government briefly experimented with a survey tallying every sandal tree standing in Mysore [...].

Instead, an intricate system of classification was developed in an effort to maximise profits. By 1898, an 18-tiered sandalwood classification system was instituted, up from a 10-tier system a decade earlier; it seems this led to much confusion and was eventually reduced back to 12 tiers [...].

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Meanwhile, private European companies also made significant inroads into Mysore territory at this time. By convincing the government to classify forests as ‘wastelands’, and arguing that Europeans would improves these tracts from their ‘semi-savage state’, starting in the 1860s vast areas were taken from local inhabitants and converted into private plantations for the ‘production of cardamom, pepper, coffee and sandalwood’.

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Yet attempts to cultivate sandalwood on both forest department and privately owned plantations proved to be a dismal failure. There were [...] major problems facing sandalwood supply in the period before the twentieth century besides overexploitation and European monopoly. [...] Before the first quarter of the twentieth century European foresters simply could not figure out how to grow sandalwood trees effectively.

The main reason for this is that sandal is what is now known as a semi-parasite or root parasite; besides a main taproot that absorbs nutrients from the earth, the sandal tree grows parasitical roots (or haustoria) that derive sustenance from neighbouring brush and trees. [...] Dietrich Brandis, the man often regaled as the father of Indian forestry, reported being unaware of the [sole significant English-language scientific paper on sandalwood root parasitism] when he worked at Kew Gardens in London on South Asian ‘forest flora’ in 1872–73. Thus it was not until 1902 that the issue started to receive attention in the scientific community, when C.A. Barber, a government botanist in Madras [...] himself pointed out, 'no one seems to be at all sure whether the sandalwood is or is not a true parasite'.

Well into the early decades of twentieth century, silviculture of sandal proved a complete failure. The problem was the typical monoculture approach of tree farming in which all other species were removed and so the tree could not survive. [...]

The long wait time until maturity of the tree must also be considered. Only sandal heartwood and roots develop fragrance, and trees only begin developing fragrance in significant quantities after about thirty years. Not only did traders, who were typically just sailing through, not have the botanical know-how to replant the tree, but they almost certainly would not be there to see a return on their investments if they did. [...]

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The main problem facing the sustainable harvest and continued survival of sandalwood in India [...] came from the advent of the sandalwood oil industry at the beginning of the twentieth century. During World War I, vast amounts of sandal were stockpiled in Mysore because perfumeries in France had stopped production and it had become illegal to export to German perfumeries. In 1915, a Government Sandalwood Oil Factory was built in Mysore. In 1917, it began distilling. [...] [S]andalwood production now ramped up immensely. It was at this time that Mysore came to be known as ‘the Sandalwood City’.

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Text above by: Ezra Rashkow. "Perfumed the axe that laid it low: The endangerment of sandalwood in southern India." Indian Economic and Social History Review 51, no. 1, pages 41-70. March 2014. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Italicized first paragraph/heading in this post added by me. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism purposes.]

#a lot more in full article specifically about #postindependence indian nationstates industrial extraction continues trend established by british imperial forestry management #and ALSO good stuff looking at infamous local extinctions of other endemic species of sandalwood in south pacific #that compares and contrasts why sandalwood survived in india while going extinct in south pacific almost immediately after european conques #abolition #ecology #imperial #colonial #landscape #indigenous #multispecies #tiger #tidalectics #archipelagic thinking #intimacies of four continents #carceral geography #geographic imaginaries #haunted

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buckets-and-trees · 2 years

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Title: Fire Burning from a Cedar Tree

Fandom: MCU

Characters/Pairings: King!Steve x Royal!female!Reader, brief appearance from Natasha

Word Count: 3.4k

Summary: Georgian-but-quasi-American royal AU. You came into the betrothal with no illusions to the situation – yours was a marriage to ensure the continuation of many generations of alliance and peace between your respective kingdoms. Very early, however, you learn what your royal union truly means to you both.

Content Warnings: politically arranged marriage, reluctant pining, SMUT (rough fucking, p in v, oral – female receiving, fluffy fucking, nipple play)

Additional Notes: The eighth and final offering in my 2022 Holiday Extravaganza. Just a smutty one-shot here with a smattering of situation painting/plot and relationship development. Did I think we were going to end up with this much Steve for the HE? Nope! But here we are, yet again ahaha. I had closed my laptop and gotten up to go to bed, had this idea while brushing my teeth, and sat back down and typed for an hour, then have been feverishly returning to it as I had the time. So I hope you enjoy, dear reader.

Music Ficspiration: Big God by Florence + the Machine, I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face from My Fair Lady, Better Love by Hozier, Movement by Hozier, So Real by Jeff Buckley, Lover, You Should’ve Come Over by Jeff Buckley

“Your Majesty,” one of your ladies in waiting enters your bedchambers and sweeps into a curtsy.

“Yes?” you prompt, turning in your chair to look at her directly instead of through mirror of the vanity.

“His Majesty the King has returned.”

You nod, “Thank you. You may retire for the evening.”

She curtsies again, bowing her head, and then leaves, closing the door softly behind her. You sigh, turning back properly in your chair so your lady in waiting, the Duchess Natalia, can resume taking down your hair.

“Your Majesty?” she prompts, noting your sigh.

“It’s good to hear the king is back.”

“He will undoubtedly request an audience with you tomorrow,” she says. She is far too observant and already knows you too well.

She is also mercifully diplomatic, discreet, and a confidant who listens and doesn’t needle you or pry, so she continues letting out the braids, letting you muse on your own and only speak further if you want to.

You don’t want to.

The product of a long-arranged betrothal to bring peace between two countries, you had accepted your fate, resigned to be a good and dutiful queen. You were not to inherit a throne in your own country, had known that from birth with two older brothers, and you had grown up ready to embrace duty and opportunity. On arriving in the kingdom of Brooklyn as the future queen, your interactions with King Steven had been limited, but pleasant. They had been sufficient for you to be secure in your hope that it would be a good union, no need to worry about him being either cruel or moronic.

You had expected to be wedded and bedded. What you had not expected was to actually fall for him after the wedding ceremony and royal festivities when the two of you had taken the custom ten-day royal honeymoon to the palace in the north of his country by the lakes. The first night, of course, you’d consummated the union. The first few days you had been tentative in each other’s company. But with few staff, few interruptions, no royal obligations, only time really to yourselves – dining together, walking in the gardens, riding in the forest, in your bedchambers… you had grown close, and you had dangerously started to lose your heart to him.

Then you had been sent back to court while he had to depart directly to attend to matters in California in Stark’s kingdom. Two weeks had stretched to three, and the longer he was absent, the more you missed him, spurring you to grow more irritated at your naivety for developing more tender feelings for him than just that of the dutiful wife and queen you were supposed to and had intended to be.

No, here you sat, hoping your husband would summon you on the morrow, as you could not simply turn up in his royal presence, even though you were queen. Indeed, you could go anywhere else in this kingdom, had the company of many – some only because they had to or were courting your favor, but enough warm and developing relationships throughout the court – but not the one person you now yearned for.

You had been prepared all your life to marry a king and not to grow sentimentally attached to him as your husband. You felt like such a fool, pining when you had been perfectly fine and content in your life a mere six weeks ago.

There are voices outside your bedchamber and you and Natasha exchange perplexed looks. Just as she turns toward the door, it bursts open, the king entering without hesitation. He takes in the scene then quickly strides forward.

Natasha quickly drops into the customary curtsy. “Your Majesty,” she says.

You should have risen from your spot and greeted him as well, but your heart has jumped into your throat, and you are momentarily frozen.

The king is across the room and standing next to you by the time Natasha rises back to her full stature. He reaches out for the brush in her hand, and you catch the nearly imperceptible lift of the corners of her lips in a smile as she gives it to him.

“Duchess, you may go, I will take over.”

“Yes, your Majesty.”

She makes to curtsy again before exiting, but he waves her off. “Go,” he commands, impatiently but somehow without any irritation, and she heeds his wishes and departs immediately.

Wordlessly, he steps right up behind you. You suppose you shouldn’t have been surprised he came to you. You belong to him, and he’s been denied by proximity for three weeks. He pulls all your hair into his left hand, then, holding it, works the brush through it with his right hand, starting at the bottom, moving up a little at a time. You marvel at how gently and methodically he works through your locks, almost reverently. Neither of you speak as he brushes your hair. You study him in the mirror. He’s concentrated fully on his task. Coming to a finish, he finally meets your gaze in the mirror, and the look in his eyes is intense. He sets the brush on the dressing table and sweeps your hair to one side, exposing your neck and he leans down to press a long, heated kiss to your delicate skin. You shiver as he follows this with shorter kisses trailing down your neck to the juncture where it meets shoulder, and it’s a sensitive point that draws a sigh from your lips.

He stands up straight and urges you to turn in your chair and face him. His fingers possessively trace along your jaw, tilting your chin up. “Did you miss your king?”

You couldn’t say you missed your husband and not your king, not yet, so instead of mincing words or spinning together something else true enough to say, you bring your hand up over his, and turn your head to press a kiss into the palm of his hand.

You try to move to kneel before him, but he says, “Oh no,” instead insisting on luring you up and pulling you into a kiss, fully flush against his body, and he leads you in no uncertain terms to the bed, shoving you down to sit at the foot of the mattress. He draws back and both of you are panting heavily. He stands between your legs, and he doesn’t take his eyes off your as he pulls his tunic up over his head and drops it to the floor. His breeches quickly follow, and his cock springs free, hard, and ready to take you. Already breathing heavily, you’re able to hide your reaction somewhat – which is a confusing mixture of both excitement and trepidation.

He urges you to scoot back, crawling up to join you,

Midway up the bed, he presses on your shoulder, “Lay back for me. “

He rucks up your nightgown around your hips, and crawls over you, using one hand to guide himself into your already slickening folds before caging you in on either side of your head and thrusting deep inside your cunt, filling you completely with the first thrust.

He adopts a frenzied pace to fuck you. It’s hard and fast. He’s no longer looking at you, his head dropped and buried into the crook of your neck. You can’t catch your breath. This isn’t what you wanted.

He holds your thigh up around his narrow waist, spearing into you again and again, his fingers digging into your flesh with a bruising force. You let out a quiet sob and he abruptly stills, raising his head to look at you, but you can’t look at him.

You’re not fast enough to brush away the tears though, and you know he sees them slowly rolling down your cheeks, tears you had fought to keep at bay.

He utters your name as if in pain and draws away completely, sitting back on his heels.

You turn away, rolling to your side, feeling so much more of you has been exposed than merely your naked body before him.

After a moment that stretches on between the two of you, his fingers tenderly caress your calf. He murmurs your name tentatively this time, a question.

You sense him shift on the bed, and suddenly you feel him behind you. You are wrapped in on yourself, but his hand brushes softly from your elbow to your shoulder. He lingers there for a moment, then you feel him shift behind you again, and he props himself up, so he can look down at you over your shoulder, and his hand moves purposefully now to your cheek to wipe away your tears. He plants a kiss on your shoulder. Then he brings his hand back to your shoulder and softly urges you to roll toward him so you’re on your back again and he can look directly at you again.

“That was too rough. You are a queen and deserve better treatment from a king.”

You turn your head away. “No, it’s not…” You bite your lip. Even the way he apologized was too detached and it made your heart ache.

“Not what?”

More hot tears spill silently over your cheeks. How can you explain? You hardly understood the tempest in your heart yourself.

But then he cups the side of your face, brushes his thumb over the apple of your cheek, and when he draws your gaze back to him, there is something in his eyes so searching and raw that your heart longs for more of that version of him. “It wasn’t that you were too rough, it was that I don’t want to be merely used and discarded.” Your admission is out in a rush before you could second guess your words or their consequences.

He frowns. “Far from it.”

He moves closer and plants a kiss on your forehead, then rests his forehead against yours. Eyes closed, for a moment you both simply breath each other in being that close, one of his hands still cupping your cheek. At length, he speaks again. “I was desperate for you.”

“Desperate for me?”

He breaks away and laughs softly, but there’s a pang of bitterness to it. “Yes, desperate.”

He sits up, facing away from you.

You sit up next to him, smoothing your nightdress down, unsure how to proceed, you don’t want to lose him in the present. “Steven?” you try to coax him for more.

He sighs. “I’m afraid you will find me to be a fool.”

You wait for him to continue, needing to hear what he means.

“I was serenely independent and content before we wed, and inexplicably in a matter of days you somehow seem to have seeped into my bones, because from the first of your absence my mind turned so often of you. I found myself wondering what your opinion would be, wanting you to try some of the delicacies alongside me, wishing to see your smiles and your frowns throughout the course of the day. When I returned to my chambers each night, they were empty instead of peaceful and solitary. I’d grown accustomed to your voice, accustomed to your face, accustomed to your place at my side.”

He pauses again for a moment, and his expression pained. “But it was more than accustomed – I truly yearned for you and was angry to feel so much unlike myself when I’ve ruled for more than a decade without you, lived a life I thought was very much complete before you, devoted to the crown and happy in my reign, and now…”

The sentiment lingers in the space between you. Surely, he must hear your thundering of your heart in your chest. Finally, you say, “If you’re a fool, I’m a fool.”

His head snaps to look at you.

You take a deep breath and expose your soul to him, too. “I was born and raised for our royal duties, to marry and become a useful and reliable queen. There was no question of your deep commitment to rule this kingdom dutifully as its king. In the days before we married, it was evident we had the same expectations of our union, no sentimental notions. It made sense, and we were well-matched. At our wedding, we became king and queen. Away from our royal expectations, alone with each other, I think we both fell into becoming husband and wife. I’ve yearned for you these past weeks as well, and I couldn’t abide how impossible I thought my situation was, so sure and confident I would make for a good queen but discovering I wanted more. It was only when you went away that I felt the lack of something – an affection as I’d never had before, both for you and from you.”

He turns fully toward you and kisses you again, and instead of the demand and hunger, as he kisses now it’s driven only by the unrestrained yearning he confessed and that you admitted in return.

He pulls you into his lap, and you straddle him. He breaks the kiss to rid you of your nightdress entirely now instead of only pushing it out of the way as before, and then his lips immediately seek yours again. Your arms wrap around his neck, and his broad, warm hands are splayed across your back, pressing you flush to him, and you are just as eager to feel every inch of his skin seared against yours

He pauses his kiss, both of you utterly breathless now. You put a hand on his chest over his heart. He looks down and smiles at the gesture before looking up and beaming at you, but his small falters a fraction at the concentrated look on your face.

“What is it?”

You speak the notion that’s newly bloomed in your chest. “We are the only two people in the world with whom we can be totally ourselves, husband and wife, not the king and the queen, just a man and a woman.”

He nods fervently. “A new vow then between us: to both guard and embrace this as a true and unfettered love.”

You kiss him, but he only returns it briefly before pausing it again. “Do you swear it?” he asks.

You bob your head eagerly, seeking his lips, but he grips your chin, holding you back. “Words.”

“I swear it with everything I am.”

“As do I,” he affirms, then captures your lips again with his, moving you both again, this time lowering you worshipfully to the mattress. His mouth begins moving slowly down your neck, and you shiver, one hand coming up to tangle in his hair, the other clutching his muscled bicep. When he reaches the base of your neck, his tongue laves at the sweet spot he discovered there in your first precious days together, making you whimper. He then mouths at the spot and plants one more kiss there before moving lower. His lips skim lightly down your chest, kissing over where your heart is thrumming. He kisses the swell of your left breast, and then moves to mirror that action on the right. He brings his right hand up to palm one of your breasts as his tongue flicks across your nipple. He works to bring both to stiff peaks, licking and sucking the right while his hand plays with the left. Your back arches in pleasure at his ministrations.

He moves his mouth back to the other breast, and before you can think to miss his hand there, it’s confidently parting your thighs, seeking your now extremely wet folds.

“Steve.”

“That’s it, my love, let me make you feel good,” he says, and you whimper again. His fingers stroke your labia slowly. Your eyes close as he stokes your pleasure. He slips a finger into your core, pumping in and out. When he adds another finger, you can’t hold back the little noises that escape you. He presses his thumb to your clit, rubbing circles, and those little noises morph into a moan. Steve moves up now to hover over you, watching your face as he works you up to your first climax that night. You would feel too exposed if he had studied you this way during your first days together, but your confessions tonight to each other leave you now feeling safe being so intimately on display. When you cry out, hips bucking, he continues to stroke, working you through the orgasm.

He removes his fingers, and you need the moment, but lament the emptiness. His eyes are still on your face, and when your breathing is close to normal, you open your eyes and look back at him. Then you glance lower to see he’s pumping his hard, thick member with the hand that was still glistening with your slick of arousal. His eyes are aflame with his need, and he moves in to kiss you again. You welcome it, parting your lips and sliding your tongue between his. He opens for you, and as your tongues tease and delve, you roll and hungrily push him back on the mattress.

Steve grabs your hips with both of his hands and moves your body to straddle him. In place just where he wants you, chest to chest, you drop down to your elbows, planted on either side of his head. As you continue to kiss, he presses his hand down to the base of your spine and brushes his cock temptingly against your entrance. You push your hips back against him, and his chest hums with approval.

“Please,” you plead.

He doesn’t make you ask twice, using his other hand to guide his length into your quim. He doesn’t rush this push into you, but it’s not slow. Once fully sheathed, he moves his arms to circle around your chest, holding you close to him as he sets a steady pace thrusting up into you. He swallows your moans of ecstasy. When it begins to overwhelm you, you have to break off the consuming kiss to gulp lungful’s of air. Seeing you desperate like this above him drives his voracity.

Still buried inside you, he rolls to bring you beneath him once more. You cling to his shoulders, and he continues to advance toward release for both of you. He shifts the angle of his hips, and he’s rewarded with a pure keen from you. He continues to hit the spongy spot up against your pubic bone. You sob, so close, and this time the tears are pure pleasure. He grasps at one of your hands, and your fingers twine together. A few more thrusts and your walls flutter around him and then he your orgasm hits. Your spasming channel is too much, and with a groan he spills inside you right after.

He collapses against you, and you welcome the weight of his body. You’re both quiet in your moment of satiation. Your free hand draws lazy patterns over his shoulder blade as your breathing returns to normal. You wonder if he’s going to drop off into sleep, but then he repositions slightly, and asks, “Are you comfortable?”

“Mhmm,” you respond. You’re comfortable physically and intimately in this moment with him.

He brings your joined hands to his lips, and he kisses the back of your hand, then tucks it close to his chest and begins conversing with you – about the mundane, the important, things from the past few weeks apart, and from your lives apart before. There’s more kissing, followed by more pleasure, pulling each other apart in turn, and no sleeping until long after midnight.

You groan when he wakes you at what seems to be daybreak. You close your eyes again swiftly, and open your mouth to protest, but he cups your jaw and his thumb brushes over your parted lips. “I know it’s early,” he murmurs, “but I want to have you once more while we’re alone and unbothered.”

And when he says it like that, with such tenderness and longing, you wouldn’t dream of denying it for either of you. You hope to grow accustomed to many more stolen mornings over your lifetime together now.

COMPANION/PREQUEL PIECE: The Thrill of Knowing How Alone We Are

READ THE NEXT PART: A SHIFT IN THE MORNING ROUTINE

↠ Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest

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My askbox is always open.

#aspen wrote something #aspen's holiday extravaganza #ahe 2022 #royal au #steve rogers fanfiction #steve rogers x you #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers smut #steve rogers royal au #steve rogers x female reader #steve x yn #steve x female reader #steve x you #royal reader #cedar trees au

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darkforestfae-tea · 1 month

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Earth's enchantment: The Earth Elemental

𖥔 ݁ ˖ ✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁༉‧₊˚.. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁༉‧₊˚..𖥔 ݁ ˖ ✦ ‧₊˚

This post has parts! -Earth, The Foundation of life -Earth Correspondences -Connecting with the Earth Spirit

𖥔 ݁ ˖ ✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁༉‧₊˚.. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁༉‧₊˚..𖥔 ݁ ˖ ✦ ‧₊˚

Earth: The Foundation of Life

Earth, often referred to as the root and the belly of the world, provides the nurturing energy and stability essential for sustaining life. Our existence is intertwined with the earth; it supports the growth of our food and serves as the final resting place for our departed. Humans owe their ability to cultivate, construct, and explore to the earth's generosity. The earth's crust harbors valuable metal ores that are vital in the production of machinery, tools, structures, and weaponry. Beneath the soil, plants communicate through their roots, sharing essential nutrients. For most creatures on this planet, earth symbolizes home, offering a supportive and grounding energy to all living beings.

Stability, grounding, and abundance are symbolized by Earth. Engage with this element through activities such as spending time in nature, gardening, or using crystals and gemstones. Incorporate grounding practices like walking barefoot or meditating on the earth to harmonize your energy with the nurturing essence of the Earth element.

𖥔 ݁ ˖ ✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁༉‧₊˚.. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁༉‧₊˚..𖥔 ݁ ˖ ✦ ‧₊˚

In earth spirituality, some common correspondences are as follows:

Orientation:

North

Qualities:

Stability, Nurturing, Growth

Magical Tools:

Pentacle, Crystals

Ritual Focus:

Prosperity, Fertility, Abundance, Stability, Money, Grounding

Preferred Places:

Mountains, Woods, Forests, Caves, Mines, Canyons, Valleys, Fields

Natural Elements:

Rocks, Crystals, Stones, Soil, Sand, Dogs, Worms, Ants, Horses, Cows, Trees, Plants, Seeds, Dirt, Flowers, Leaves, Mushrooms, Moss, Wildlife, Fruits, Vegetables, Roots, Bears, Wolves, Hares, Gemstones, Minerals, Metals, Stags, Boars, Wolverines, Goats, Ungulate Animals

Tarot Suit:

Pentacles

Runes:

Jera, Ur, Othala

Zodiac Signs:

Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn

Nature Spirits:

Goblins, Trolls, Gnomes, Giants, Brownies, Dryads, Elves, Fairies, Pixies

Deities:

Geb, Gea, Gaia, Demeter, Ceres, Cupra, Cybele, Artemis, Diana, Dionysus, Bacchus, Liber, Libera, Osiris, Cernunnos, Pan, Ariadne, Kore, Persephone, Rhea, Rhiannon, Adonis, Tammuz

𖥔 ݁ ˖ ✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁༉‧₊˚.. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁༉‧₊˚..𖥔 ݁ ˖ ✦ ‧₊˚

Connecting with the Earth Spirit

Practice patience: Take life one step at a time and acknowledge that there's no need to rush.

Connect with nature: Spend time outdoors, bask in the sun, walk barefoot on soil and grass, embrace trees, gaze at the clouds, interact with animals, and appreciate Earth's bountiful resources.

Connect with yourself: Foster a positive relationship with your self-image, encompassing your body, mind, and emotions.

Indulge in sensory pleasures: Engage your senses, appreciate your beauty, use affirming language, embrace sexual freedom, light incense and candles, savor fresh fruits and vegetables, and enjoy warm tea.

Practice mindfulness: Instead of impulsively reacting, remain composed, think before speaking or acting, and plan ahead.

Embrace discipline: Set achievable goals and persist in pursuing them, adapting or reevaluating as necessary but never giving up.

Be organized and responsible: Establish routines or create to-do lists to stay organized in various aspects like skincare, exercise, schoolwork, and chores.

Manage your time effectively: Learn about time management to prevent feeling overwhelmed and ensure successful goal achievement by understanding your limits.

Maintain firm boundaries: Stand your ground, assert yourself, and confront challenges without allowing others to undermine you.

Spend time with loved ones: Surround yourself with those who truly comprehend you, with whom you feel relaxed and authentic, enabling you to be yourself without reservation.

𖥔 ݁ ˖ ✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁༉‧₊˚.. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁༉‧₊˚..𖥔 ݁ ˖ ✦ ‧₊˚

The Earth Element is symbolized by the varied topographical features found worldwide, such as forests, fields, caves, rocks, valleys, and gardens. It is linked with abundance, prosperity, and resilience. Earth not only supports plant and animal life but has also provided the clay and minerals for crafting tools, as well as the trees and stones used in constructing our dwellings and other edifices. However, Earth's energy also has a destructive aspect, manifesting in earthquakes, avalanches, and mudslides. It can interact with the Water element by either absorbing it or being shaped by it, depending on their proportions, similar to its relationship with Fire and Air. Overall, Earth is the most stabilizing element, offering a sense of calm and grounding amidst life's unpredictable events.

Common lessons often involve grounding and understanding your position within various aspects like your social circles, life, or the ecosystem. Individuals also discover how to find beauty even in challenging times, along with the magic of home, generational connections, and harnessing personal strength. It's crucial to acknowledge the Earth's generosity, as it provides without expecting anything in return. Remember to reciprocate this kindness by giving back to the Earth in your practices, as it's unfair to take without returning the favor. Ultimately, the Earth reclaims all things from the living, reminding us of her immense power and kindness.

𖥔 ݁ ˖ ✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁༉‧₊˚.. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁༉‧₊˚..𖥔 ݁ ˖ ✦ ‧₊˚

Ways to embrace and discover these lessons:

Spending time in nature

Tending to plants

Engaging in herbal practices

Participating in community projects

Embarking on explorations

Practicing grounding and meditation in outdoor settings

Establishing a connection with the earth

Reflecting on the essence of humanity

Common forms of Earth Divination

Bone Throwing (Osteomancy)

Dirt Divination (Abacomancy)

Tree Whispering (Dendromancy)

Reading Tea Leaves or Fallen Petals

𖥔 ݁ ˖ ✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁༉‧₊˚.. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁༉‧₊˚..𖥔 ݁ ˖ ✦ ‧₊˚

Thank you for Reading! I absolutely love sharing my knowledge & learnings with others. I try to make posts a few times a week! & they are all organized on my profile.

Until we cross paths once more! Best wishes to all you wonderful witches! Warm regards, Tea.

For more blogs, please find me on the following! Tumblr: @darkforestfae-tea Facebook: @theblackdahliaemporium

For my shop, please visit: shopblackdahlia on Etsy! Facebook: @theblackdahliaemporium

#pagan #paganism #witchcraft #folk witchcraft #pagan witch #witch #elemental witch #green witch #hearth witch #witch community #elemental magick #earth magick #magick #witchblr #wicca #grimoire

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sotwk · 1 year

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Hobbits and the Greenwood Elves

Happy Hobbit Day! In honor of Bilbo and Frodo’s birthdays, please enjoy these headcanons regarding the history and friendship between the Hobbits of the Shire (Bilbo’s people) and the Silvan Elves of Greenwood (Thranduil’s people).

Requested by my dear @laneynoir a while back--thank you for your patience!

Disclaimer: Please note that a good portion of the info below are SotWK AU headcanons only, inspired by official Tolkien canon.

Hobbits and the Greenwood Elves

Early Hobbits in Rhovanion

The Silvan Elves of Greenwood (Thranduil’s people) encountered the early “breeds” of Hobbit centuries before they came to the attention of the peoples who dwelt west of the mountains.

All three Hobbit breeds (Fallohides, Harfoots, Stoors) resided in the lands surrounding the Woodland Realm as early as the start of Thranduil’s reign, but for many years they kept to themselves and avoided contact with other races.

The Fallohides, from whom the Brandybucks, Tooks, and Bolgers descended, initially dwelt in the southern eves of Greenwood and first made friends with the Northmen in their area. Hearing tales from the Men regarding the benevolence of the Elvenking and his family, the Fallowhides accepted the outreach of Thranduil and his people, and eventually formed friendships with them.

The Stoors, who lived a little further away in the Vales of Anduin, quickly followed suit. They even established low-level trade with the Silvan Elves, exchanging their catches from the Anduin for products from the Greenwood.

The Harfoots were shyer of the Elves and lived closer to the foot of the Misty Mountains, and therefore did not have as close relations with the Silvans as the other two clans.

Two Greenwood Princes were more familiar with the Fallohides and Stoors than the rest of their family: Princes Turhir and Gelir, since the western lands under their guardianship were closest to the dwellings of the hobbits.

Prince Gelir had a special fondness for Hobbits, delighting most especially in their simple yet lively customs and culture. He continued to value friendship with them long after he departed from the Elvenking’s realm.

Dol Guldur Drives the Hobbits Away

As time passed into the Third Age, the Shadow that grew upon Dol Guldur was felt by the Hobbits as well as the Elves, and soon began to pose serious threats to their lives.

Thranduil and his sons did everything they could to protect both the Hobbits and the Northmen from the worst of Dol Guldur’s creatures. But the Hobbits in particular were incapable of withstanding the Necromancer’s strange and dark evils, and their attempts to evade the Shadow’s reach by moving northward failed.

While the Harfoots were quick to retreat across the mountain to Eriador, the Fallohides and Stoors lingered in the east for a century longer, less willing to abandon the home they loved near the Elves.

However, as the dangers continued to grow, Thranduil and his warriors could no longer guarantee the safety of the Hobbits on top of protecting their own people.

Despite their friendship, the Hobbits refused the Elves' invitation to reside amongst them in the forest. They planned instead to migrate further north toward the Grey Mountains.

Elvenqueen Maereth counseled the Fallohides and Stoors to head westward instead and “rejoin” the Harfoots in Eriador, with a vague foresight of the foundation of the Shire and its importance to the future of Middle-earth.

Only after the Fallohides and Stoors had safely crossed into Eriador did Thranduil pull back the last of his defenders north of the Emyn Duir, essentially abandoning the southwestern region of the Greenwood.

Connection with Smeagol

Around TA 1350, the Stoors residing in the Angle fled from the growing threat of Angmar upon Eriador, and some of them returned to Rhovanion to reside in the Vales of Anduin once more. From this community of Stoors, Smeagol descended.

Although Thranduil received word of the reemergence of Hobbits in the Vales, he could not spare any resources to oversee their protection.

However, Prince Gelir continued to send out his own patrols into the Anduin to check on the Stoors once every year, during the summer season.

In TA 2463, when the One Ring was found by Deagol and taken by Smeagol, the Mirkwood Elves were too preoccupied with the resurgence of Dol Guldur to notice the evil that had transpired.

Five hundred years later, when Gandalf brought the captive Gollum to Mirkwood for guarding, the Silvan Elves recognized the wretched creature as a Stoor, a race they remembered with fondness as friends. This stirred their pity towards Gollum and led them to treat him more gently.

The Long and Fell Winters

The care of Thranduil and his family for Hobbits continued from a distance well into the Third Age, even as death began to claim the lives of the princes.

In TA 2759, the Long Winter occurred in Eriador and a terrible famine followed in the Shire. Gelir, the only Thranduilion left who continued to travel across the west, learned of the plight of the Hobbits and beseeched his parents to send aid.

In response, the King and Queen sent Gelir, Itarildë (their daughter-in-law), and Anariel (their granddaughter) to ride out with provisions, provide healing, and abate the effects of the famine. This was done so discreetly (they did not reveal their identities as Elves, much less royalty), the deed went unrecorded in Shire history.

This outreach was replicated once more during the Fell Winter of TA 2911 to 2912, when Thranduil permitted Itarildë and Anariel to join Gandalf in helping the Shire Hobbits.

Bilbo was already alive and 22 years old on this occasion. He had the memory of encountering the two extraordinarily beautiful women in the Shire, whom he suspected, but could not confirm, were Elves.

Bilbo and Thranduil’s Friendship

Bilbo never truly “met” an elf before first meeting Elrond in Rivendell. However, his ancestors’ ancient friendship with the Greenwood Elves still resided in his heart. Even during his misadventures with Thorin’s Company in Mirkwood, Bilbo never really felt fearful of the Elvenking or his people, even though he could not explain to himself why.

Bilbo’s instinct to trust Thranduil and stand by him during the Battle of the Five Armies echoed the sentiments of his ancestors, who once also loved the Elvenking and trusted him to protect them.

Bilbo and Thranduil’s initial interactions with each other felt like the reunion of “old friends”, which led to their feelings of kinship and the long bond that remained between them for years after.

Even with everything that he was dealing with in his own kingdom, Thranduil managed to discreetly visit Bilbo at least once in the Shire, during which the Elvenking was introduced to the recently born Frodo Baggins (too young to have any memory of this encounter).

Regarding Legolas and the Hobbits of the Fellowship

It is a common joke in the fandom that Legolas is scarcely mentioned as directly interacting with Frodo or the other hobbits, and almost never in the films. The SotWK AU does not accept this distant behavior from the Prince of Mirkwood, but does offer an explanation for Legolas’s mental state during the Quest of the Ring.

I plan on eventually writing a separate post discussing Legolas’s mental health (which logically took a hit after everything his family and kingdom had suffered), but being around Hobbits, and in such close quarters, was a bittersweet experience for him.

Because his brother Gelir had a special closeness and bond with Hobbits, just seeing Frodo, Sam, Pippin, and Merry reminded Legolas of him. Gelir, though still alive as far as they knew, was estranged from the family at the time of the Quest of the Ring, and he and Legolas had parted on ill terms.

Observing the Hobbits in their shenanigans also caused Legolas to remember all his brothers, and the joyful times they shared when their family was complete.

Distancing himself a little from the Hobbits (but not treating them coldly or badly in any way), was simply Legolas’s method of coping with his complicated emotions.

In the SotWK AU, Legolas most certainly demonstrated a great deal of care and affection for the four Hobbits in his own ways.

For more Thranduil/Mirkwood headcanons: SotWK HC Masterlist

Elves HC Tag List: @a-world-of-whimsy-5 @achromaticerebus @aduialel @asianbutnotjapanese @auttumnsayshi @blueberryrock @conversacomsmaug @elan-ho-detto-elan-15 @entishramblings @freshalmondpandadonut @friendofthefellowshipsnerdblog @glassgulls @heilith @heranintomyknife23times @ladyweaslette @laneynoir @lathalea @lemonivall @LiliDurin @quickslvxrr @ratsys @scyllas-revenge @stormchaser819 @talkdifferently6 @tamryniel @tamurilofrivendell

Other useful links:

Introduction to SotWK

Fanfiction Masterlist

Fanfiction Request Guidelines

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beguines · 27 days

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The Indian state has already begun to evict indigenous communities from their homes. In late 2020, tribal communities received notice that labeled their homes as illegally occupying forest land. Their homes were demolished. This bears an eerie resemblance to Israel's targeting of Bedouin communities of Naqab, where Israel gave the lands of these communities to Jewish settlers and the military. The logic of Bedouin dispossession was premised on the fact that as nomads, they had no right to the land.

In Kashmir, these communities were living on lands that the Indian state wanted to use for the development of tourist infrastructure. Part of the plan is to transfer agricultural land to Indian state and private corporations. Kashmir has already lost 78,700 hectares of agricultural land to non-agricultural purposes between 2015–19. This decline in agricultural land—which a majority of Kashmiris still rely upon as the foundation of their economy—will disempower farmers, result in a loss of essential crops, make Kashmir less agriculturally self-sufficient, and create grounds for economic collapse in the near future. It is of course, only when Kashmiris are economically devastated that India's job in securing their land will be made even easier.

Alongside the destruction of agricultural land, the Indian government has also been charged with "ecocide" in Kashmir, which, "masked under the development rhetoric . . . destroys the environment without care, extracting resources and expanding illegal infrastructure as a way of contesting the indigenous peoples' right of belonging and using the territory for their own gain." During the lockdown in late 2019, the valley saw unprecedented forest clearances. In June 2020, the Jammu & Kashmir Forest Department became a government-owned corporation, allowing it to sell public forest land to private entities, including to Indian corporations. The rush to secure and extract Kashmir's resources has typically come at an immense cost to the region's vulnerable ecology, prompting local activists' fears that a lack of accountability will almost certainly exacerbate the climate crisis in South Asia. Just as Israel has secured control over Palestinian resources, India's stranglehold of Kashmir's natural resources and interference with the environment will ultimately make Kashmiris dependent on the Indian state for their livelihoods.

All of these shifts in land use reflect the "Srinagar Master Plan 2035," which "proposes creating formal and informal housing colonies through town planning schemes as well as in Special Investment Corridors," primarily for the use of Indian settlers and outside investors. Indeed, the Indian government has signed a series of MOU's with outside investors to alter the nature of the state by building multiplexes, educational institutions, film production centers, tourist infrastructure, Hindu religious sites, and medical industries. Kashmiri investors are no competition for massive Indian and external corporations and have a fundamental disadvantage in investing in land banks that the government has apportioned toward these purposes. Back to back lockdowns have resulted in massive economic losses for Kashmir's industries, including tourism, handicrafts, horticulture, IT, and e-commerce. Furthermore, "as with other colonial powers, Indian officials are participating in international investment summits parroting Kashmir as a 'Land of Opportunity', setting off a scramble for Kashmir's resources, which will cause further environmental destruction." India has always kept a close eye on Kashmir's water resources and its capabilities to generate electricity, while intentionally depriving Kashmir of the electricity it produces.

As more economic and employment opportunities are opened up to Indian domiciles, Kashmiris will also be deprived of what little job security they had. In sum, "neoliberal policies come together with settler colonial ambitions under continued reference to private players, industrialization and development, with the 'steady flow of wealth outwards.'"

Azad Essa, Hostile Homelands: The New Alliance Between India and Israel

#azad essa #hostile homelands

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tooningin · 3 months

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2012 Lorax Rewrite

The movie would open up with the scrapped Thneedville song. In the visual department, there would be this subtle yet noticeable sense of sadness and resignation from the citizens, indicating that maybe they regret their plastic dystopia, but are too far gone to change.

As for the song itself, Ted would be given a verse at the end, expressing his dissatisfaction with the lifestyle Thneedville has, and wondering if its really too late.

The song ends, and he then walks home and finds his family gushing over the new oxygen masks they’ve invented. Ted tries to tell them that instead of celebrating these oxygen masks, they should see the fact that they’re needed as a massive red flag, but his points are dismissed as jokes. Ted’s dad then hands him some packages with the oxygen masks to deliver

Ted rides his bike around Thneedville, further hammering in just how messed up the society is. Everyone happily accepts their oxygen mask delivery… Except for the girl that was Ted’s GF (Who I’ll just be referring to as Taylor Swift)

Taylor Swift’s reaction surprises Ted, who was used to the enthusiastic reactions from the customers. He asks her why, and she explains that she feels like a prisoner in the town of Thneedville, and yearns for a world where products aren’t being shoved down her throat (It wouldn’t be this on the nose I swear) Ted relates, and the two bond over this. Taylor Swift is called inside her home, and right before she heads in, she tells Ted that she’s happy that she’s not alone in her beliefs.

With this, Ted decides to leave for the Truffula Tree woods in the middle of the night. He’s not the only one who hates what the world has become, and if he can show proof, everyone will agree, and maybe, just maybe, Thneedville could have a better future

But once he arrives he sees the woods with zero Truffula trees and almost devoid of life, save for a tiny handful of struggling animals. At first Ted tries to tell himself that this state is just in this specific part of the woods, but as he wanders through the woods, this is all proven wrong.

At the end of the trail, Ted finds the Onceler’s house, and he bitterly tells Ted to leave, stating that the world is destroyed, and that he should just go back to Thneedville.

But Ted ain’t havin any of that. He wants to know how exactly the world came to be the way it is.

And with this, the Onceler begrudgingly begins his tale.

We flashback to a young Onceler and his family. They run a failing clothes business, one that’s doing so bad, they’re on the brink of poverty

One day the Onceler decided to go on a walk, and that’s when he found the Truffula forest. He’s awestruck by the beauty of the place and all the life in it, but it’s the truffula trees that really catch his attention.

He grabs on to some of the tree’s leaves/material/whatever and decides that maybe he and his family should try making clothes with its material. He gets ready to chop the tree down, but the Lorax jumps out and stops him. Lorax berates the Onceler for attempting to chop down the tree, to which the Onceler says it’s not a big deal, after all it’s just one little tree. How bad could he possibly be?

The Lorax grabs the Onceler’s hand and takes him around the woods, explaining how one little thing could affect the whole forest, and the importance of preserving the environment through song. However he does have some sympathy for the Onceler’s situation and allows him to take a small amount of the Truffula’s leaves.

The Onceler walks back home, but on the way, trips on a rock. He gets up and is about to pick up the Truffula’s leaves, but notices it coiled up. He places it on his head, and fiddles around some more with it, and gets the idea for the Thneeds. He runs home, and tells his family about his idea, who, having been backed into a corner in terms of financial stability, decide to give it a shot.

And the Thneeds end up being an overnight sensation, so much so that the family is soon pulled out of poverty. Talk of the Thneeds spreads, and soon, everyone wants one.

With the demand for Thneeds being so high, The Onceler begins taking more and more of the Truffula trees. Lorax worries about the effects, but tries to be somewhat lenient, after all, the Onceler and his family are no longer poor, much to the animals’ chagrin. But it isn’t long before the rapid success and profitability of the Thneeds gets to the Onceler’s head. He puts the money towards expensive stuff things that only benefit him, chopping down more Truffulas than necessary, and overall forgets the whole reason he began the whole Thneed thing in the first place: His family, who in his obsession with chasing profits and fame, he has pushed out. At this point the Lorax decides to put his foot down, the Onceler isn’t using Truffulas to provide for him and his family anymore.

With a montage of the amount of trees being chopped, the sky progressively getting foggier, and Thneedville’s growth, we transition into the one and only, “Biggering”

As we know, in this song, the Onceler knows damn well what he’s doing, but justifies it to himself. The song would end with the final Truffula tree being cut down, and the Onceler, seeing everything he’s done, the pain he caused, would have an absolute breakdown, one of both happiness and sadness. Happiness cause, as he would tell him himself, he has everything now, his biggered his business to the point where now he has an empire, and sadness because what all that stands for, and cost the world as a whole. Basically think that one scene with Simon from Infinity Train.

We then flashback to the present, with The Onceler looking to the side in shame, and Ted looking to the Onceler in pure horror. He tries to proclaim the Onceler an absolute monster, but is unable to bring the words out due to how much shock he is in, and instead turns around and is about to run back to Thneedville in tears, but before he does so, The Onceler gives him the last Truffula seed.

By the time Ted returns to Thneedville, the Sun is almost up, and upon seeing Taylor Swift sitting on the front steps, he rushes to her and tells her what he has learnt before revealing the Truffula seed the Onceler gave him. Together they plant it, and sit together watching life in the plastic wasteland of Thneedville go on

#The Lorax #onceler fandom #lorax 2012 #the onceler #illumination studios

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novelmonger · 7 months

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I'm continuing on to the next LotR audio commentary. This one is with the design team, and there's a lot more people talking in this one! Including:

Grant Major (production designer), Ngila Dickson (costume designer), Richard Taylor (Weta Workshop creative supervisor), Alan Lee (conceptual designer), John Howe (conceptual designer), Dan Hennah (supervising art director/set decorator), Chris Hennah (art department manager), and Tania Rodger (Weta Workshop manager)

So here are some highlights of things that are new to me (after avidly watching all the BTS documentaries multiple times over the years) from FotR:

The guy who made the One Ring originally didn't want to do it because he didn't like fantasy, but then his sons badgered him until he agreed to do it - kind of a similar story to Viggo Mortensen, I think. He ended up contracting cancer and dying during the production of the first movie.

Alan Lee storyboarded a potential sequence for showing how Bilbo got the Ring. They would show Gollum grabbing a fish, taking off the Ring while he ate, and then it would roll away until Bilbo found it.

Some of Ngila Dickson's phrases and diction are pinging really loudly in my sense of deja vu - like, I remember hearing those exact phrases before. But I even went and watched the costume design portion of the Appendices, and none of it was a repeat. Have I actually heard this commentary before and then forgot all about it? @_@

The guy (the primary guy? I can't imagine it was only one person) they put writing on all the scrolls and things worked in a bank and had a hobby doing calligraphy. They hired him to do just a few things at first, putting writing on some props, but then it got to the point where he actually had to quit his job at the bank and start working full-time for LotR, and then continued to do stuff for merchandise for New Line. I do wonder what he did once the movies were all made and over with....

I always forget how they had to have two scales of everything. Not just stuff like Gandalf's staff or the sets, but they had to have two scales of all the props like cups and books and things. They even had to have two different sizes of horses, depending on the scene!

Lawrence Makoare, who played Lurtz, would have to start getting into makeup at 10 p.m. the night before he had a scene, so that he would be ready at 8 a.m. the next day @_@

Most of the horses used in the movies were Andalusian horses imported from Australia.

When they would film outside in nature, like in the forest where they shot on-location scenes for Rivendell, they would have to remove the native plants that were there, keep them in a greenhouse, plant whatever plants and other things they needed for the movie, then take them out again and put the original plants back. This would actually leave the area better than the way they found it, because they would remove weeds and things like that.

John Howe commented on how difficult it is to do hair in something like this that's meant to be kind of "historical," even though it's fantasy. Hairstyle is one of the things that is quickly outdated, so if you do it wrong, it can be jarring to watch the movie in later decades. He said, "I wonder how it will look 20 years from now." It's twenty years later, John. It looks every bit as good as it did in 2001 :')

Okay, I feel like this had to have been in the BTS documentary, but I don't remember it. For the moment where Bilbo goes Gollum-esque for a second when Frodo puts the Ring away, they morphed between his face and a puppet they made of Ian Holm looking deranged. Ian Holm was thrilled with the puppet and had several photos taken of himself with it, and then when it was time for him to leave New Zealand, they made a bronze version of the puppet and gave it to him as a memento! XD

For the shots of the Fellowship bursting out of the snow after the avalanche, they went to the Mt. Hart ski field, which was closed because of a blizzard. They were allowed to go out on the ski field, make snow caves, and film the actors bursting out into the open. The Hobbits wore Ugg boots over their hobbit feet in the snow when their feet wouldn't be in the shot XD Apparently, Richard Taylor actually asked Peter Jackson if there could be a scene of the Hobbits wrapping their feet in bandages or something, just so the actors could protect their feet a bit more in harsh terrain like that, but PJ said no, because the Hobbits' feet would be tough enough to be able to withstand all of that. Poor guys! x.x

Huh. I always assumed that they made the effect of ithildin by putting little glowing lights on the doors of Moria, or else maybe added it in post. But actually, they put some kind of reflective material on the design, and then shone a light from behind the camera, so it would reflect on the design and make it look like it was glowing! I feel like, if this movie were made today, they would totally have just done it with CG, but this makes it so much more realistic. Also, they had to paint the doors, but obviously couldn't paint over the reflective material, so they put plasticine over the design, then painted it, then took the doors to the site. They were still taking the plasticine off the doors when the whole crew and the actors turned up and started rehearsing the scene! So apparently, if you look hard enough, you can actually see a few small parts of the design on the door that are missing, because they accidentally left some of the plasticine on!

Okay, we all know about the crazy amount of attention to detail in these movies, but this story just takes the cake. In the room with Balin's tomb, there's all this Khuzdul writing on the walls. Someone wrote out all the text and had their in-house translator translate it into Dwarvish runes that they then carved into the walls. During one of the days they were shooting the cave troll battle, they had invited a Tolkien language scholar to visit the set, and he stormed out in an outrage, saying that someone had written something like "Joe was here" on the walls, which was disrespectful to Tolkien's legacy, etc. etc. Horrified to hear this, the art department got their translator to go over the set with a fine-tooth comb, trying to find the "graffiti" this guy had seen, because they'd already filmed a lot of shots of this scene, and they knew that there would be fans who would freeze-frame the scene and translate what's written on the walls. But they couldn't find it anywhere! So eventually they cornered the Tolkien scholar and asked him where he'd seen it, and it turned out that it was just some guy on the crew who'd told him that. Apparently, the Tolkien scholar was so uptight and serious about everything, this guy was just poking fun at him, and it snowballed from there. So they ended up wasting a lot of time looking for a mistake that wasn't even there, because that's how dedicated everyone was to getting every detail of this movie right.

The Moria orcs were originally designed to have pale, almost translucent skin (inspired by an axolotl! O.O), but when they saw footage of it on the first day, they realized the contrast with all the darkness in Moria was too much, and it made the orcs look like they were glowing, so they had to make them darker.

The eyes of the Moria orcs were enlarged after the fact, so when they made the prosthetics, they had to make the eyeholes extra big so the eyes would look like they fit after they were enlarged.

Originally, there was an idea that the Balrog would burst out from a wall somewhere while they're trying to jump across the gap in the stairs, and just generally make that scene even more tense and exciting, but then they realized that to do so would basically eat up half their budget, so they decided to do it the way it is in the final version XD

The boats' design was based on a leaf of a lemon tree. If you drop a lemon leaf in the water, it will look like a tiny version of the Elven boats! 8D

Ohhhh, so the scene where the Fellowship gets attacked by Orcs along the way down the Anduin was going to be a sequence at Sarn Gebir, where there are dangerous rapids, so the Fellowship has to land on the shore and carry their boats past. But then Orcs attack, there's a whole action scene, and they have to hurry back onto the water and navigate the rapids. But they never shot it, because right after they'd built the set and got all ready, they were hit with a lot of rain and flooding, and the water level in the lake where they were filming rose five meters and completely washed away the set. So that whole sequence got permanently canceled.

While working on Amon Hen, Alan Lee fell off the stone seat (kind of like Frodo!) and broke his wrist. Thankfully, it was his left wrist, so he could keep drawing.

The Uruk-Hai's hair was horsehair that they had to import because they needed it in such large quantities. In the location where they shot the battle at Amon Hen, the ground was covered with prickly bracken of some kind, so every time an Uruk fell on the ground and then got up for the next take, they would have to carefully pluck all the bits of bracken out of their hair @_@

The fletching on the Uruk arrows is supposed to be, not feathers, but Warg hair O.O

Okay, I knew they made a silicone dummy of Boromir for when his body goes over the falls, but they only had four days to make it?! :O

In the final scene, where Frodo and Sam are looking out over Mordor, what Sean and Elijah were actually looking at was a ski resort with cabins and a ski lift. "The one place in all Middle-Earth we don't want to see," indeed! XD

#lord of the rings #lotr #behind the scenes #gotta say it's MUCH harder to keep track of who's talking when there's so many people @_@#some of them have very distinct voices like richard taylor or john howe #but some of the kiwi accents just kind of blurred everything together and i couldn't tell who was who ^^'

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