#fire threats

[tuttle-did-it]

UK folks.

You may or may not know how much I loathe fireworks.

A baby red panda died this week in terror from the stress and fear of fireworks. A woman died a week. This is, as far as I’m concerned, a horrible way to die— just pure terror.

They’re bad for the environment.

People are literally dying. A woman was murdered when kids put one through a her letterbox and her house caught fire. One of the kids got 3 years and another 7 years. For murdering this woman.

They’re bad for people like myself who have ptsd, elderly, mental health issues, misophonia, audio processing disorders and neuro-spicy people who struggle with sound and explosions. I get several anxiety attacks a year from these horrible things.

They’re dangerous— people often end up in a&e when something goes wrong.

In my area, it’s not just once or twice a year, but dozens if times a year— especially between mid Oct - early January. And random summer nights when they go off for no reason. Sometimes they’re done literally on the street behind me in a residential area.

In some areas, they can start fires. With climate change and higher temperatures, there’s a higher chance of wooded areas and dry spaces catching fire.

They are dangerous to wildlife. That poor little panda died in terror— and that’s just one we know about.

They torment households pets. My dog is not the only one crying in fear every time they go off. He throws himself under the bed, or just hides under the blankets, crying. I have a scar on my neck from when he accidentally scratched me, clinging to me in fear a couple years ago. Every dog I met in my area is panting and terrified from the fireworks when they are going off. It’s horrific and cruel.

They can make silent fireworks. Or better still, they can use light shows, which are reusable, have no risk of injury or death to anyone, and no impact on wildlife, environment or pets.

There’s no point contacting the police because there are no open civilian areas during the night, and sometimes they’ll just randomly set the fireworks off at 0200. I have tried to report them multiple times. Nothing.

There are multiple petitions to sign to control the sale and use of fireworks. Please consider signing or sharing. If you think that poor wee panda was the only creature cowering in fear, you’re wrong.

Please consider signing these petitions to the to limit the use of fireworks. Personally, I think they should be banned, but I’ll take what I can get.

Several petitions to stop this:

[demaparbat-hp]

On your most recent From the Couch post... is that a dragon tattoo I see poking out of Zuko's collar? ...................may we see more of it?

You may see all of it.

[hehearse]

[danyseastar]

hot take maybe but the only reason most show runners/producers/writers/etc. age up the (female) characters from book to show adaptation is to overtly sexualize them and not face mass amounts of scrutiny for it.

put 13 year old daenerys next to 30 year old drogo and the audience understands that daenerys is a victim to him and not an equal. put 22 year old emilia clarke as daenerys next to 32 year old jason mamoa as drogo and they’re seen as a budding romance with a tragic ending (by the general audience) due to their on screen chemistry.

flash forward to today, and now we’re dealing with 21 year old milly alcock playing rhaenyra from 14-19 and how her relationship with (28 year old fabien) a mid twenties criston is seen as -morally acceptable- and not a result of a degenerate pedophile taking advantage of and grooming his charge. “ser criston protects the princess from her enemies, but who protects the princess from ser criston?” rhaenyra was 14 when rumors started speculating that she slept with an almost 30 year old criston. a criston who had know her since she was 8 and had been her sworn shield since she was 9. obviously seeing a teenager in the early stages of puberty next to a fully grown man would emphasize rhaenyra being THE victim, as opposed to the show having an 18-19 year old explore her sexuality and seek out ‘consensual’ sex with her peer bodyguard. the discourse has even reached the point where certain stans try to paint the much younger woman as the perpetrator and aggressor of this event, who forced the unassuming man into having sex with her.

i’ll even take this a step farther, and bring up how if they had shown a 19 year old alicent abusing a 10 year old rhaenyra it would be identified and mutually agreed upon as a reprehensible act on alicent’s part. instead they’re of similar age, so people can attempt to paint the picture as two women of equal standing hating each other, and not a much older woman bullying a motherless child. once again however, some stans even go so far as to try and paint alicent as a victim of rhaenyra, and not the other way around. further cementing this is how both versions of alicent are younger than both versions of rhaenyra, AND how criston is still played by an actor who is younger than older!rhaenyra despite his character being the same age as daemon in canon.

they know exactly what they’re doing too, considering they aged alicent down to give her that innate compassion one typically feels when seeing children being abused on tv (something that can no longer be applied to rhaenyra). despite that never being her story; *she* was the abuser, and rhaenyra was her victim. criston’s victim. it’s a nasty cop out, and i wish more people would call out how sickening it is to flip the switch and attempt to make abusive individuals more sympathetic than the *actual* victims of said abusers.

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 252

“Sir, we’ve… There’s been an encounter with a Reaper class entity.” 

There were several classifications for ecto-entities. Several ways the Ghost Investigation Ward classified each. Several common ones that they could easily destroy, easily study. Others however… others were dangerous. Incredibly dangerous. 

There’d only been two other Reaper-class entities confirmed before- both contained but barely. RP-1, a large knight-like entity seemingly made from shadows, and RP-2, a child-like creature that could near perfectly mimic a human. 

And now, there was a third. A third entity that could- and judging from the reports coming in had- killed. Had done so several times even. Which meant it needed to be contained yesterday. 

“Send out the teams- I want this thing in Site X Now!” 

[paeonie-s]

my current read on yoshidas ch is that hes the equivalent of a high schooler being made manager of a mcdonald’s bc all of his adult coworkers quit which leads him to believe that the fate of the world now depends on his ability to keep the drive thru times below 90 seconds

[prolibytherium]

Would kill to read animal POV fiction that has the animal POV’s interaction with humans be like, semi realistic to the level of caution most predators take with large prey and/or competitors (including humans).

Like instead of the usual - “the human is such a weak, pathetic creature... so slow, no claws, blunt teeth… completely helpless without its 'Fire Sticks'. how is it the master of the earth?” type crap it’s like, the bear protagonist or whatever approaches some dude who spreads their arms and yells and the bear is like “FUUUUUUUUCK THAT THING JUST GOT HUGE. IT'S LARGE AND MAKING NOISES. HOLY FUCK.”

[marysblo0d]

How some of you sound

[babylonfelldown]

Everytime I see someone saying Cat was a bad mom, or some farytale like evil stepmom to Jon I wanna pull my eyes out

My girl was a SAINT, no woman would have handled the Jon situation as well as her

Can u look me in the eyes and seriously say that any highborn Lady from one of the great houses would have endured her husband bringing a bastard to their home and raising his as equal to their legitimate children? If anyone thinks that way they don't understend anything about asoiaf

[thesulkycroissant]

I love to give Bruce crap as much as the next person, but at least he's trying. Also Dickie's face in that last panel 🥹

[canon-gabriel-quotes]

Transcript:

I'm gonna pump so much of my light into your asshole, it'll feel like I flashbanged your intestines.

Audio Source

[mysterybyte]

Triple Threat

Heather Carolin: a mane of braided fire, eyes blue as the clear California sky, beautiful freckles all over, and two strawberry gumdrops, each perched on its own beautiful pedestal.

Heather Carolin / www.heathercarolin.com (defunct)

[serpentface]

Interview Question for Etsushir:

What was the vibe like as a foot soldier during the suppression of the North Finn Rebellion? Did it feel doomed from the start or did it only fall apart once the Odomache was assaulted and killed?

[deluxewhump]

the bahkauv: part three

Prev

CW: hurt, more hurt, no comfort yet but a glimpse of it. Brief verbal threat of noncon, pliers as torture device, muzzle, broken bones, ear and hand whump, nonhuman whumpee, burning alive, immortal/quick healing whumpee, slight language barrier, brief thoughts/ideation of death and mortality, multiple whumpers

Hunters camp (before):

At first, the hunters thought the Bahkauv was a vampire. It made sense, in the confusion of the moment. Vampires were far more common than its kind was anymore. That and it had fangs.

At the camp, they soon realized the Bahkauv was not a vampire. This revelation did nothing to protect it. Close enough, they said. It was still a non-human creature, and had a long history of attacking, robbing, and even killing humans.

The first day in captivity, nothing happened. The Bahkauv twisted and pulled at its restraints, trying to no avail to find some give in the ropes that bound it hand and foot. How naive it had been. It had no idea the depth of the hatred these humans had for it, and for the vampires they didn’t kill outright.

One of the hunters caught it trying to manipulate the knots and beat it with fists and boots before putting its first muzzle on its face. At first it had been angry, hissing and spitting at the hunter’s hands that were wet with its own blood. That got it a backhand that made its ears ring and its head ache. The bit was sharp and huge, shoved to the back of its throat so it gagged and secured so tightly it thought it would choke. Humiliated, it had shrunk against the clapboard wall and sulked.

Pride would soon be a forgotten luxury.

The next day, two hunters came for it, dragging it stiff and sore from its first beating out into the yard along with a couple of screaming vampires. The sun was climbing in the sky, which was why the vamps were screaming and carrying on so. It felt an intense gratefulness that it could not burn from the sun as they could. One of the hunters grabbed its muzzle and turned its chin to force it to look.

“You see that? You think you’re better than them, don’t you? I can see it in your eyes.”

Another hunter joined the first. He had a mocking, self satisfied grin. “Let’s teach it a lesson in humility then. What are we waiting for? It was going to tear Byron’s throat out before we netted it.”

“Look at these. Is this fur?” the first hunter stroked one of the Bahkauv’s ears with the pad of his thumb. It shuddered at the unexpected touch. It was not affectionate, or kind, but it happened to be very gentle, and its ears were as highly sensitive as its sharp canines. It recoiled in disgust from the hunter’s hand— and its own reaction to it.

“It appears human when it’s not attacking. Except for a few details. The fangs are one. The ears. And of course it’s utterly vicious, despite being relatively intelligent. Can’t teach it a thing.”

“I bet I can teach it something,” grinned the first. It took the Bahvauv’s fur-lined ear between its forefinger and thumb again, this time pinching so tears sprung to its eyes and it bit back a surprised gasp of pain.

“Don’t be shy. Let’s hear a pretty little whimper at least. You’re going to make a lot of noises here.” The hunter pinched the sensitive skin and cartilage harder, his nails breaking skin beneath the soft layer of orange fur. The Bahkauv grit its teeth as best it could around the bit, and would not make a sound.

“No?” The hunter took something from the belt at his waist. Cold metal replaced fingers. Though the Bahkauv didn’t know it yet, it would come to know the word pliers very well. Such a simple tool, and so effective. Humans love tools— pliers and muzzles and fire. The teeth of the pliers bit down.

The Bahkauv screamed around the bit. It tried to pull away, but the hunter had it firm by the muzzle.

“There we go.” He gave the pliers a few sharp tugs, eliciting high pitched yelps. Its delicate ear was caught between the mean metal teeth like a fishhook.

“That was a healthy scream.”

“It’s an angry scream,” said the second. “That will change. If you take that thing clean off, you can dry it out and send it to your kids for good luck. Like a rabbit’s foot.”

It made an indignant sound, half-scream and haf-growl, saliva tinged with blood dripping from its muzzle.

“Well shit, that’s a good idea. I already ruined this one for now, it’s got a hole in it. I’ll get the other one.”

The hunter had been right that its silence wouldn’t last. It screamed as it was parted from its left ear.

—

It did not take the camp of hunters long to figure out that it regenerated itself quickly. Its ears grew back slowly, as did its fangs when they were later pulled. Everything that had a human appearance healed faster, though all the more painfully for it.

The first time they burned it, they didn’t know if it would survive. Neither did the Bahkauv. When it did, and its skin began to immediately repair itself, they were delighted. The Bahkauv was horrified. If that could not end its suffering, what could?

It was put back in its cell at dusk. It was unnatural for a creature like itself to dwell on death, but after being burned alive all morning and afternoon, over and over, with no more than an hours’ reprieve in between, it began to despair.

“Don’t cry,” crooned one of the hunters from the door of its cell. It scrambled into a sitting position, startled. It had thought it was alone.

“You were a favorite today. We all feel so much better for having played with you. A real morale boost. Look how quickly all that pretty hair has grown back. Your nature works hard to protect your disguise as human, doesn’t it? If I cut myself, the blood would clot and the skin would eventually knit back together. But not like you.”

The Bahkauv pressed its back tight against the wall as the hunter approached. This man was one of its torturers earlier that day— a younger one, not twenty five, tall and broad chested, with colorless blue eyes and close-shaved pale hair. He slipped a pair of pliers from his belt— the teeth were thick and blunt, not sharp like the ones they used to cut its ears. “And who knew you could speak? Do you understand, or did you just learn a few words like a talking parrot?”

The hunter squatted in front of it. Its heart pounded wildly, the staggering, paralyzing fear from the day returning and overriding its exhaustion. He took one of the Bahkauv’s hands in a strong grip. The pliers covered the first knuckle of its pointer finger, still pink and healing from the fire. It crunched down, shattering the first knuckle so it felt like gravel inside its skin.

It wailed, wildly trying to wrench its wrist from the hunter’s grip. It was so weak— like in a dream where it could not run or fight back. Healing and burning and healing again had sapped all its strength. Its anger at the hunters had long been replaced by desperation. Why did they want to hurt it so badly? How could it get the pain to stop? When it couldn’t, it stopped wondering why. It knew why. And this hunter was about to remind it.

“God, you sound like a person. You look human. That makes them hate you more, do you know that? It’s uncanny. Except for those devil eyes, you could be a boy of twenty summers, or less. Some of them even wonder if you’d be worth fucking. I think a lot of them wonder, and who could blame them? But no one wants to be the first to try it.” The pliers traveled to the next knuckle and perched there, waiting, on its freshly formed skin.

“No,” the Bahkauv whispered, tears flowing, saliva dripping from the corner of its mouth, raw and chafed from the bit that was always shoved to the back of its throat. “No. Pl-please.”

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Do you know those words? They’re the only ones you used all day. All goddam day, even in such unfathomable suffering. I could smell it every time your flesh melted, and still you only said no, and please. But do you understand?”

It was beginning to. Its own mother tongue was not human. But it had the same capabilities for language as the humans. More, even, and could infer with greater accuracy things the humans thought and felt as they spoke, which helped decode the words.

“A thing like you shouldn’t beg, anyway. It won’t work. You don’t deserve our mercy.”

Muscles flexed in the hunters thick, tanned forearm as he squeezed the plier handles together. Another crunch, and a second knuckle was destroyed under their powerful metal bite like glass broken inside a cloth sack. It shrieked so it thought its throat would tear open, pounding its foot uselessly against the wooden floor. The hunter narrowed his blue eyes as its scream tapered off into raw sobs, shaking its head no, over and over.

The pliers retracted and settled over its middle finger, on the first knuckle. The Bahkauv keened in dread, looking into the hunters face and finding not a flicker of regret or a glimpse of mercy. It knew hurting it entertained each hunter in different ways, but it pleased them all none the less. Each crunch of the tool was cataclysmic, and it was hard to imagine how at any point today it would have chosen this immediately to get the fire to stop, because now it did not think it could handle another crushed bone. And it had many more knuckles.

“Either way,” sighed the hunter. “Tomorrow we will burn you again, and see if you know any more words, little parrot.”

__

After they made camp, the three friends slept around the dying fire in their bedrolls. Francis tied a rope to his own waist and looped the other end around the Bahkauv’s collar so it slept six feet away from him. No more escape attempts. If it moved, he would feel it, and they both knew it.

The men slept. The Bahkauv tried to lie awake and alert, but its exhaustion was too great, and soon it slept too. The howling of wolves woke all of them in the wee hours of the morning. Disoriented, it leapt awake, scrambling along the length of its rope. In the hunters encampment, this would have led it to a solid wall it could press itself against, but now it led to Francis. It bumped into him and whimpered, waiting for a backhand or a cuff to the ear.

“Hey. It’s alright,” Francis told it gently in the darkness. Why were their voices so soft and blameless when they spoke to it? It had been waiting all day and now all night for the first blow, the first violence or pain from its captors, and still it had not come. It was like waiting for the pliers to crush another bone.

“They won’t come much closer. You’re alright. You’re safe with us. They sound kind of beautiful, don’t they?”

Stephan and Arthur got up out of their bedrolls to settle the horses, who were stamping their hooves and whickering nervously.

It hadn’t meant to crawl so close to its captor, but once again it was not punished for doing so. Something was different about them than the hunters, but it didn’t know enough about humans to assign much meaning to this observation. It was true the unmistakable sounds of the wolves had frightened it awake, and made the fine hairs on the back of its neck stand up. But it wasn’t afraid in the way it understood fear now. That kind of fear was reserved for humans, with their tools and fire and deliberate malice. But what a strange thing to say. Safe with us. Like they would protect it. It could not imagine humans as protectors.

Still, it slept closer to Francis til first light, with three feet of slack in the six foot rope.

-

Tags

@paperprinxe @whumpsday @i-eat-worlds @handsinmotion @stormchaser819

@annablogsposts @clickerflight @daffyduckcommittedtaxfraud @scoundrelwithboba, @blood-and-regrets

[flying-ham]

It’s interesting that mirri maz duur (whether on purpose or inadvertently) kills rhaego to prevent future suffering he and his khalasar might commit, but ultimately causes the birth of a much more destructive entity. She tells dany that, “The stallion who mounts the world will burn no cities now. His khalasar will trample no nations into dust,” after the stillbirth, believing that rhaego would become a Genghis Khan esque figure in essos. However, it is rhaego’s sacrifice that quickens dany’s eggs, allowing drogon, viserion, and rhaegal to be born. In the end, mirri gives dany far more power than she ever would have had under drogo and rhaego, and far more destructive capabilities.

[coastalraccoon]

[ID: Digital drawings of Flame and Viper from Wings of Fire. In the bottom left are two halfbodies of Flame and Viper. Flame is a pinkish-red with a dark purple back. He has lighter beak-like markings on his snout and lighter spots on his chest. A scar snakes just under his squinted eye. Above him is the writing "Best friends :3", referring to him and Viper. Viper is a whitish-gold with a darker sail and stripes along the back of her neck. A large burn scar is visible on her shoulder that starts at the end of her sail. She glares back at Flame. In the top right is a fullbody of Viper. Her front legs are spiky around her elbow just like her neck. On her back, tail, and hind legs are large burn scars. Her right hind leg is completely scarred and is missing multiple toes. Writing just above her foot points to it and reads "2 toes". Her wing is burnt and torn and above it is a spread wing with the writing "Outer edge of wing singed and torn" beside it. At the end of her tail is the writing "Barb gone :(" In the bottom right corner is a small, hastily colored drawing of Viper as the autism creature with confetti surrounding it and the writing "VIPER LIVES" sandwiching it. End ID.]

Silly little au where Viper survives falling into the lava by grabbing Flame's tail at the last second, leading to only half her body getting burned.