#found een drafts

[momocrossings]

[marvelslut16]

The Incident

Prompt number: 14 "If you don't stop now-"

Fandom: Stranger Things

Pairing: Steve Harrington x reader

Rating: T(een)

Word count: 2.5k

Warnings: Swearing. Cannon typical gore- but not too detailed. Insecure reader. Mean Steve. Nightmares. Demodogs. Embarrassing parents.

A/N: This bad boy has been sitting in my drafts for over a year now, I'm so glad I found the motivation to finish it and post it for Fictober!

You’re leaned up against the counter at family video as Steve complains for what feels like the thousandth time about how much he misses Nancy. You roll your eyes at Robin who’s standing behind the counter as Steve’s voice carries over the shelves of the empty store. The entire time you’ve known Steve he’s been obsessed with Nancy, and you can’t for the life of you figure out why. She’s not that special and she clearly doesn’t love him. 

“You’re such a masochist,” you sigh when he comes back to the counter to get more VHS’ to put away. 

“A what?” his voice is hard, he’s confused by the word but he knows the implication is insulting. 

“A masochist, it means you like pain and humiliation,” Steve is glaring at you, and not a playful one you're used to, this one is full of hatred. You know you should stop, especially with the look he’s giving you, but your mouth has a mind of its own and it just keeps talking. “I mean seriously, that's the only reason I can think of that you’re still acting like this. Nancy’s with Jonathan, she’s in love with him. Hence why she’s visiting him in California over break right now. She’s also told me that she doesn’t want kids and you’ve said more than once that you want your own little basketball team, you two will never work out. I don’t mean to be rude or mean in any way, I just don’t want you to keep hurting yourself over someone who isn’t into you.”

“I don’t know why you think I’d take relationship advice from someone who’s never been in one. You were a nobody before I met you, and let’s face it, you’re still a nobody now,” you can feel tears welling up at his words, but you refuse to cry in front of him, refuse to give him the satisfaction of your tears. It hurts so much because he’s voicing your inner fears, he must not be lying if he feels how you imagined he must be feeling. “The only reason you have friends is because you clung to us after the whole demodog incident, you didn’t give us a choice.”

“Steve!” Robin jumps in, seeing the hurt on your face and the tears in your eyes. She knows Steve is only lashing out because you’re right and he doesn’t want to admit it, but she can also tell that he’s about to lose your friendship. “If you don’t stop now-”

“It’s fine Robin,” you can’t muster a voice louder than a whisper. “Steve’s right, I have no room to talk. My break at the arcade is almost over, so I better get going.”

You spend the rest of your shift behind the counter as silent tears slip down your cheeks. Steve’s words replaying in your head over and over again, your heart fracturing more and more each time. You’re disappointed, but not surprised, when Steve doesn’t stop in to check on you and apologize when his shift is over. You know Robin would have stopped in to talk, had Steve not been driving her home after work. 

The next few days are a blur of tears and work. You don’t go over to family video once, and he doesn’t come to the arcade. Robin calls you every night to try and get you to open up about your feelings, but you never do. You wish she would just let it go and let you go back to not having friends, just like Steve said. And when the party, minus Mike- who’s still in California, come into the arcade and you hope they won’t notice you. 

“Hey (Y/N)!” Dustin spots you almost instantly, you sigh at the promise of his meddling. “Are we still on for movie night this weekend? Forcing Steve to watch the best trilogy known to man?”

“I can’t this weekend Dustin,” your heart hurts a little when the boy's excited grin turns into a frown. But you have to remind yourself that none of them actually care for you, they only include you in things because you’ve forced yourself on them. 

“Okay, when are you free next week?” he tries to reschedule, but you won’t fall for his caring act.

“I’m not, school starts back up next week and I won’t have time between that and work to have a movie night. You two have it without me, you’ll probably have more fun anyway.”

Dustin walks away confused and dejected, but there isn’t much else for you to say. It’s awkward the rest of your shift, the party spending all day there, where they throw glances your way the whole time. As if your day couldn’t get any worse, when your mom picks you up from work, she wants to go to Family Video and rent a movie for family night this weekend. 

“So you’re Steve and Robin?” your mom asks, setting Back To The Future on the counter. It took her twenty long minutes to decide on a movie that she’s already rented, twice. 

“Yes ma’am,” Robin answers, using her professional voice. You take small steps back, seeing the writing on the wall, you desperately want to get out of there before she can continue. 

“Well I’ll be,” your mom lets out a little laugh. “When my (Y/N) said she was friends with the Robin and Steve that work here, I never would have guessed she meant Steve Harrington, former star of the Hawkins basketball and Swim teams.”

“(Y/N/N) is great,” Steve says awkwardly, like he’s trying to force something nice about you out. “We’ve been friends for a few years now.”

“Mom, can we go now?” you practically beg, wanting nothing more than the ground to open up and swallow you whole. 

“C’mon sweetie, I’m just trying to meet your friends,” she turns back to the two behind the counter. “She just goes on and on about you two, all good things of course! I’m just so happy she’s made such good friends.”

“Okay mom,” you whine, taking another step back. “You’ve embarrassed me enough, let's just hurry up and rent the movie.”

Thankfully, Robin takes pity on you and quickly starts ringing your mother up, but not without trying to upsell her some candy because it will give her a commission. Your mom finally settles on buying some Sno Caps, and you can practically taste sweet freedom as she hands Robin some cash. But Steve ruins that when he opens his big fat- gorgeous- mouth. 

“(Y/N/N), we finally got Fright Night in, if you still want to rent it,” you wrinkle your nose, it was a movie you were supposed to watch with him and Robin, far far away from your parents. 

“That horror movie?” your mom asks in disgust, giving you an obvious look of disappointment. “She’s not allowed to watch horror movies, especially not with all of her nightmares!”

“Mom, please,” you mutter, trying to pull her away from the counter, away from Steve, and out of the damn store.

“Nightmares?” Steve asks, his face instantly softening. “You’ve never told me about your nightmares.”

“She wakes up screaming about some stupid dogs,” your mother tells him, and your eyes well up with tears of embarrassment. “It’s every single night.”

Steve’s words from earlier this week play in your head on repeat ‘you clung to us after the demodog incident, you didn’t give us a choice.’ It feels like all of the air is being sucked out of your lungs as your mom reveals your deepest darkest secret- one she’ll never understand. She’ll never understand what it was like that day, wandering through the woods when all of a sudden this dog-like creature with a cone head is standing in front of you and its face opening like a deadly flower. She’ll never know what it was like being knocked off her feet when that thing jumped on her and only being saved at the very last minute when the King of Hawkins himself whacked that thing off with a nailed bat. She’ll never know what it was like to be that close to death, that close to just being another Barb, disappearing without a trace.

Of course it haunts you, it was a near death experience, and you certainly can’t talk to a professional about it. No one would believe you, and they would probably lock you up in some mental institution if you ever muttered a word of it. You do your best to forget it day in and day out, but every time night rolls around you always remember every single detail; like how hot the demodogs breath was, or how many rows of teeth it had, how heavy it was on top of you.

“I’m gonna go now,” you hold back the tears as you race out the movie store’s front door. You can feel the burning gazes of both Steve and Robin on your retreating figure, but you can’t be by them. You can’t explain this to them. You’re going to have to move within the next day or two so you don’t have to face them ever again. 

The ride home from the movie store is dead silent, not even an apology from your mother for telling your friends about your nightmares. All you get from her are side eyes and glares, you can tell she’s silent seething because you were planning to disobey her and watch a horror movie. What she doesn’t understand is that horror movies help, the fake gore and the illogical plots somehow comfort you and make you feel better about what you’ve gone through. 

You go straight to your room, forgoing dinner to just sob into your pillow. Not only have you lost your friends, but now they know just how pathetic you truly are. All you have are nightmare after nightmare, waking up screaming and crying more times than you can count. This time Steve doesn’t come to rescue you, he just stares from the sidelines with that same glare he gave you the day of the fight, and no one else tries to step in and help you. You’re all alone. 

No matter how bad of a night you had, or how much you begged to stay home from work, your mother forced you to go. She drives you there and waits outside until you go in, you can see through the windows that she waited a whole five minutes before leaving so you can’t sneak out. The drive over she was going on and on about responsibility and being an adult, and how you can’t just bail on your duties because you had one bad night. You would’ve come to work today no problem, tired but with no complaints, if the Arcade wasn’t right next to Family Video. Right next to Steve. 

Most of your day goes smoothly, just rowdy preteens playing the twenty arcade games you have squished in there, nothing horrible happening. That is until around two in the afternoon when the door jingles and your eyes zero in on that unmistakable hair in the doorway. You contemplate running and hiding in the back room, but losing your job for leaving the floor unmanned is the last thing you want or need to add to the very large load of crap your life is becoming. 

Even if you had decided to hide in the back room, Steve is in front of you at the counter quicker than you could have hid. You refuse to look him in the eye, instead looking at the shiny nametag glinting in the few overhead lights. He stares at you for what feels like forever before finally sighing and then talking.

“Why didn’t you tell me you have nightmares?” he cuts right to the chase,, his voice is monotonous and you can’t tell if he’s trying to sympathize with you or come off condescending. 

“We all have our secrets,” you sneer, not understanding why he’s being nice to you all of a sudden. “It’s not like you care, so just drop it.”

“You don’t mean that-” you cut him off with a glare, finally looking into his puppy dog eyes. The ones you used to melt in every time he looked at you.

“Like hell I don’t!” you whisper harshly, not trying to draw attention from the kids in the Arcade. “You don’t care. Steve. So for both of our sakes, please stop pretending like you do. What I said the other day was harsh, but I meant it from a place of love and caring. What you said the other day was a low blow and said to hurt me. Let’s just go back to how things used to be, neither of us acknowledging that the other exists.”

You turn to go hide in the back room, job security be damned, you just need to get away from Steve. He can’t see you cry over him, you refuse to let him. But his hand catches your wrist, spinning you around to face him again.

“I do care about you (Y/N), and I didn’t mean what I said,” he grips your hand harder, pulling you closer to the class case that divides you. “I was embarrassed because you were right, you always are, and I wasn’t ready to hear it. If I could go back and keep myself from saying those things, I would do it in a heartbeat!”

“Your life will be just fine without me, and soon enough you’ll just forget about me, I’ll just be that girl you see around town, the one you used to know.”

“No it won’t, don’t say that!” Steve cups your face, making sure you make eye contact with him before continuing. “Life without you would suck, it would be so boring. What would I do without that adorable little giggle you make when I tell a horrible joke? Or the way you ramble excitedly about the things you love? Or the cute way you scrunch your nose when you're confused or embarrassed? What would I do without your goodnight calls and our coordinated lunch breaks? How would I survive without you lighting up every single room you walk in? Without you lighting up my life? You’re everything to me (Y/N), and I’m sorry it took me losing you to realize it. And if you give me the chance, I will spend the rest of my life apologizing to you for what I said and doing my best to scare away those nightmares.”

“Do you really mean that?” you sniffle, a single tear falling from your eye. 

“I do, I mean it,” Steve says with so much conviction as he wipes the tear from your cheek. “I love you. Not Nancy, you. It’ll always be you.”

“I love you too, I always have,” your wet laugh is cut off by a searing kiss.  

[livums]

I. the demifae. {🌹}

Hi 💜 I feel... wow!

To go from writing like 1k+ words a day earlier this year (not in a healthy or sustainable way) to watching my writing pace slow to a crawl as I first started working on Demigods... it was hard. I was frequently discouraged. But I am so happy to say that I finally finished the first draft of chapter 1! ☺💜

I'm so proud of it. Like, really.

I've included in this post a brief preview--the full text can be read on my (very under-construction) neocities site here!

Please enjoy! 💜💗💕

Featuring:

Kesh Akesheen (A-kesh-EEN)

· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·

(tag, DM, reply, or fill out this google form to be added/removed from taglists)

General taglist: @enchanted-lightning-aes @outpost51 @tragicbackstoryenjoyer @goldxdarkness

The Romance of the Demigods taglist: @aalinaaaaaa @sarahlizziewrites @thecrookedwriterspath @inkspellangel @crystal-librarian @hallwriteblr @bluberimufim @kingkendrick7 @sergeantnarwhalwrites @wildswrites @wip-nook

It took her several fatal moments to recognize the silver ghost that menaced the edge of her vision. If not for the song, if not for the ease she felt among the people, she might have fled in time.

Her head froze in place. In truth, her whole body went rigid. Then, in the space of an instant, Kesh forced herself to relax again, to sway and smile as the crowd did. She dared not turn her face towards the paladin entirely. From her periphery, she tried to take in as much detail as she could: His head was hairless, his arms crossed over his chest, clad in a steel breastplate. It was so thoroughly polished that even beneath overcast skies it gleamed. She saw, blurred in the corner of her eye, the length of a dark scabbard belted at his waist. He stood beyond the fountain, a ways away from Kesh and the crowd in which she sheltered. His eyes might well have been fixed on her—or on the musicians. Or on any others who had crowded around to listen. Or on anything else. She wasn't to know. She knew only that it was safest for her to take leave, whether he suspected something of her or not. The girls were fast approaching the height of the song, their voices entwined more often than not. The ecstatic harmony ferried words that no longer reached Kesh's ears. All was distant beneath the pounding of her startled heart. She started to move. As quickly as she dared, Kesh began to pick her way backwards through the crowd. It had swelled in the time since she'd first pushed her way through it. Cora. She had to find him—where was he? She couldn't have outrun him by much. She had to find him, while not being found, while steeling her nerve against the part of herself whispering Find him or die. Focus and find him or die. A tall ask. Between fighting her way free of the throng, and trying not to flinch violently every time she was jostled about, Kesh could hardly focus on placing one foot afore the other. Part of her insisted: Save existing, she had done nothing wrong. But she knew it didn't matter. She would find a quiet place, Kesh told herself. A place to hide, to find her breath, and to find that impulse that burned somewhere in her head. That heat that would point her to him. She broke through the edge of the assembly. Kesh took inventory of her appearance as she went—she was not too short, nor was she over- or underdressed. There were plenty of folk about with her complexion, her curls, her freckles. To any unknowing eye, she belonged in Cill Tossach as much as any of the hollering and cavorting youths she wove between. It was unfair—yes, it was unfair. But it didn't matter! She would change out of herself, clothe herself in the safety of another skin, and she would find Cora. They would go back to the Sweetmoon, and she would feel at ease among the others of their troupe. She could try to convince them to leave this place. Hopefully forever. For, as it happened, Kesh quite liked her true face. If she was of a mind to start gallivanting around in it, it was not going to be here, in this great iron cage of folk with their iron rings and iron charms and— Steel breastplate. Kesh stopped short, reeling on the balls of her feet to avoid marching her face right into the torso of a waiting paladin.

Click to read the full chapter on my neocities site!

[hebrewbyinbal]

In Israel, the phrase "Will you marry me?" carries not only the universal anticipation and hope found in such a moment but also a depth enriched by cultural tradition and the Hebrew language.

The proposal, or הצעת נישואין /ha-tsa-'at nee-soo-'een/ in Israeli culture often reflects a blend of modern and traditional elements. Many couples might choose a significant spot in Israel's breathtaking landscapes—from the ancient walls of Jerusalem to the serene beaches of Tel Aviv or the majestic deserts—to pop the question, making the moment even more memorable. This setting, combined with the ancient sounds of Hebrew, connects the couple not just to each other but to their shared history and land. Nowadays, we see countless proposals in uniform, on IDF background - for the simple reason that so many men and women are drafted right now, not to mention the fact that Oct 7 led many people in Israel to seize the day and decide to get married sooner than later.

Following the proposal, it's common for Israeli couples to celebrate with their families, highlighting the strong emphasis on family bonds and communal joy in Israeli culture. The engagement might be marked with a לחיים /le-'kha-yeem/, a toast to life, symbolizing the joy and future happiness of the couple.

The cultural "Will you marry me?" in Israel and in Hebrew encapsulates more than just a question; it's an invitation to join in a shared journey that honors past traditions while looking forward to building a future together. Nowadays, it serves as a testament to our survival, continuity, and prosperity. It's a moment where personal love stories intertwine with the larger narrative of Israeli and Jewish identity, making it uniquely poignant and deeply rooted in the soul of the land and its people.

[seoservice048]

girls in haryana

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A duplicate of this application has long been, or might be, provided to every H-1B non-immigrant employed pursuant to this application, and, as of the applying day, detect of this software has long been delivered to personnel utilized during the occupation where H-1B non-immigrants will likely be used:

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Tax submitting guidelines for an individual in H-1B status may be sophisticated, with regards to the unique condition. A tax professional that's knowledgeable about the guidelines for foreigners could be consulted. Social Protection Tax and Medicare Tax[edit]

The H-1B system applies to employers in search of to rent nonimmigrant aliens as personnel in specialty occupations or as trend styles of distinguished benefit and ability. A specialty profession is one particular that requires the application of a body of very specialised know-how plus the attainment of not less than a bachelor’s degree or its equivalent.

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Along with The bottom submitting price, you might have to pay considered one of the following service fees to get a petition issue to your cap:

Assist ons Glassdoor te beschermen door te verifiëren of u een persoon bent. Onze excuses voor het ongemak. Als u dit bericht blijft zien, stuur dan een e-mail naar om ons te informeren over dit probleem. Ayúdanos a proteger Glassdoor

A common prevailing wage source may be the State Workforce Agency (formerly the Condition Work Stability Agency) working in Every single state. A listing of state offices can be found at the next World-wide-web address: .

USCIS intends to inform registrants and their Reps with chosen registrations through their USCIS on the internet accounts.

At time of the labor ailment software there isn't a strike or lockout on the location of employment.

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[snarwor]

The Library of Tusken Lore

Compiled by Bailey aka @kotemorons

Preface

George Lucas was wrong. Yes, I know he made Star Wars but the way he went about a surprising amount of things in it was very, very wrong. He had the right idea to take inspiration for a desert-dwelling indigenous culture from another desert-dwelling indigenous culture, but aside from costuming and basic props, the rest of the initial execution of the Tusken Raiders was flat-out wrong. He did not give them a language, the way he co-opted Xhosa for Geonosians, he instead had them speak in donkey brays and whines. Combining the rich imagery of Bedouin nomads with connotatively disrespectful noises for this culture’s language really speaks on how much effort was put into creating the Tuskens. Even the name we’re first given for them, ‘Raiders’ (not to mention the incredibly offensive ‘Sand People’) implies a violent, single-faceted motivation for their entire tribe group. Anyone who’s studied nomadic or indigenous cultures from an ethical standpoint can tell you that this reductive description is just plain wrong.

The recent Mandalorian series has started to patch the wounds of bad worldbuilding Lucas left on the Tuskens. They’ve given credence to a culture that would have difficulty hearing one another or reading lips, by building a novel form of sign language, and have involved them in hero arcs (killing a Krayt Dragon and teaming up with once-enemies) rather than the villain arcs we’ve seen them in before (Shmi Skywalker’s kidnapping and death, and knocking out Luke Skywalker in the Jundland wastes). This has ignited a new interest in Tuskens, and unfortunately, has also led to the unfortunate discovery that everything canon has to say about Tuskens is wrong.

Sorry not sorry, LFL. My friends and I are hijacking Tusken lore. Deal.

This library is sorted into several parts: The Cherry-Picked Canon, The Disney Canon, and the New Fanon. I hope this resource will help you in your own worldbuilding efforts. If you’re worried about possibly creating an insensitive representation of Tuskens, going in with positive intent (that is, the intent to depict them positively) is a battle half-won. The fact that you would worry about it at all is a critical-enough eye in my book.

So let’s find out what’s right.

The Cherry-Picked Canon

I’ve collected quite a few books about Star Wars. There’s an extremely rich amount of archival work that details the most intricate facts and figures you probably didn’t even know you didn’t know. Unfortunately, most of the information in these books about Tuskens is (as mentioned above) wrong. However, there are still some edible bits I’ve found that one can stomach. The below are those h’ors d'oeuvres.

What’s In a Name? A Tusken By Any Other Would Still Kill You

Tuskens weren’t always called that. The name is derived from the second settlement on Tatooine, Fort Tusken, which was attacked by the not-yet-eponymous raiders. In the wake of this attack, the raiders were given the nickname Tuskens, and it stuck for several hundred years after. (Vitas, 525) Several books in Legends call them the Sand People or Sandpeople, but I don’t like that so we’re sticking with Tuskens. It’s entirely possible that through cultural and linguistic determinism, the Tuskens eventually adopted that name for themselves, but it’s as yet unknown what they call themselves.

The name Tatooine comes from the Jawa name for the planet, Tah doo Een e, but it’s unknown what that means. (Vitas, 1507) By this linguistic history, it’s unlikely that the Tuskens would call themselves any variation of “Tatooinian” either. Tuskens make up only 5% of the entire population of Tatooine, while humans make up 70%. (Wallace and Fry, 118)

The first appearance of the name Tuskens actually comes from the very first rough draft of Star Wars, though the name was given to a group of elite Imperial troopers sent to hunt down Deak Starkiller’s allies and family. In the second draft, they became a specialized Imperial reconnaissance team. (Vitas, 1818)

According to Wookieepedia (which you should always take with a grain of sand) Tuskens have always been on Tatooine, and have been called Sand People since at least around 4000 BBY, during the Old Republic. Another uncited source on the wiki refers to Tuskens as Ghorfa to denote an earlier sedentary phase of their culture, and before then, shared a common ancestral species with the Jawa in the Kumamgah.

Culture, Clans, and History

Most books make frequent mention of the Tuskens’ way of life being violent, rigid, and unchanged over thousands of years. For instance, clan storyteller is one of the most important, and rigorously-trained positions in the entire clan structure, and the rites to become a storyteller are even more strenuous than that of a warrior or a fighter. To make even a single mistake while reciting the stories is known to have been met with death. Tradition and culture are very important to the Tuskens, and since they have no written language, storytelling is the only means of keeping their histories in the collective memory.

While nearly every book that mentions them speaks on their intense nomadic style, Tuskens are known to come into more-populated parts of Tatooine as well, and several locations around Tatooine (including Tosche Station) have bantha hitches outside. The rumored source of the centuries-long blood war between Tuskens and human colonizers (in addition to the whole colonization thing) lies with the first usurber of the B’omarr monastery in the Western Dune Sea, known more colloquially as Jabba’s Palace. The usurper, a bandit named Alkhara, had allied himself with the Tuskens to wipe out a police garrison near the former capital of Tatooine. After the successful incursion, Alkhara butchered the Tuskens who had helped him, and tensions have been unable to be settled since.

Like most tribes and cultures, Tuskens have a few “coming of age” rituals. Many children die in the harsh conditions on Tatooine, and only the strongest reach adulthood, and only the strongest of those survive their rites of passage. While many books like to specify that the only rite of passage for Tusken adulthood is killing a krayt dragon, this isn’t true. If it were, there would be no Krayt dragons left on Tatooine, and therefore no blooded Tuskens. Instead, Tusken rites of passage involve some great feat of skill or prowess, the magnitude of which determines their station among the clan. Common rituals involve raiding settlements for trophies, ambushing stormtrooper squadrons, completing great treks unassisted by the tribe, or protecting the tribe from attack. These kinds of things are buildable on a Tusken’s honor, so the more feats under one’s belt, the greater their rank in the clan will be. (McQuarrie & Anderson, 43)

One interesting coming-of-age tale observed by Senior Anthropologist Hoole is described in full here:

A solemn ceremony was held to prepare two Tusken youths for their journey into the wilderness. They were given totems, armaments, and water. Saying no words, and showing no fear, they mounted their banthas and headed off into the wilderness. The rest of the clan watched until the youths disappeared on the horizon, then returned to their lives as if it were a normal day. Several weeks passed, and the [Tuskens] said nothing of the two youngsters who had left them. Since they were not seen as people until they passed their test, no one would acknowledge them. Then, one day, a solitary figure on a bantha appeared on the horizon. One youth had returned, carrying on his mount the armor and weapons of four Imperial stormtroopers. Raucous activity erupted among the tribe’s membership. A bonfire was lit, food was prepared, and amidst great ceremony, the storyteller added the young Tusken’s story of bravery to the tribal history. Again, no word was mentioned about the other youth who did not return. It was as if he had never existed. (Lewis & Post, 151)

It’s important that the ethics of Hoole’s ethnographic research must be called into question. Hoole is of a species which can shapeshift, and he has spent many years disguising himself as a member of the different culture groups he is studying. This violates the informed consent of the observed group, and can (and will) result in extreme violence when unmasked. His embed with the Tuskens most likely forewent a great deal of context, which Hoole could not ask about or request clarity on without sacrificing his safety. As such, this perceived disinterest in the two young Tuskens lacks any kind of emotional context or depth which the Tuskens could have explained. And people wonder why they’re so secretive.

They are also known to dance around bonfires, and wear “spirit masks” fashioned from natural materials to use in rituals. Each tribe is different, and has unique traditions they practice.

Tusken clans are made up of 20-30 individuals on average, and travel in a straight line on bantha-back to hide their numbers in the sands. They make camp in natural rock formations, or in temporary tent shelters (called urtya) built from bones, hardened wood, bantha hide, and mud. Scouting groups typically went out in groups of two or three. Some Tuskens have taken over existing encampments they’d looted from settlers, like Fort Tusken, of which they bear their names from. In the summer months on Tatooine, they often seek more semi-permanent shelters, as to better accumulate rations, food, water, and supplies in the harsher months. Tuskens protect their oases on Tatooine with a ferocity unmatched by the other inhabitants. They believe the water to be sacred, and promised to them. One canyon in particular, Gafsa, contained a rare water well, and was fiercely guarded. The translation of Gafsa in Tusken means ‘the waking place’, which most likely makes it the cradle of civilization on Tatooine.

In addition to their own species, Tuskens often travel with any number of animals, including bantha, massiffs (large dog-sized reptilian creatures), and sandbats, which they use for their venom. It’s important to note that often in desert nomadic tribes, they travel with cats in order to keep pests at bay and to keep as companions. It wouldn’t be out of the norm to see a sand-tooka or two among individual tribes.

While the entirety of Tatooine is their home, Tuskens do avoid certain places. Near Mos Espa and on the infamous porracing track, there is an astonishing natural land feature called Mushroom Mesa by the settlers. Tuskens avoid the place as if it were cursed, but nobody seems to know why. (Lund, 10) Most of the areas on Tatooine inhabited by colonizers are avoided, though there are some places, like the Sacred Pinnacle standing within the center of the Mos Espa Arena, that were once pilgrimage sites full of caves for Tuskens to perform spiritual ceremonies and promote successful hunting seasons and prosperity. They’d long been chased out by the roar of podracer engines and tourists, but modern-day Tuskens regularly shoot at Podracers during competitions to avenge their ancestors, another coming-of-age ritual often achieved during the Boonta Eve Classic. (Lund, 14)

Another holy site for Tuskens is located in the Jundland Wastes. Ninety meters high and formed by ancient drainage channels, the B’Thazoshe Bridge (translated to “bantha horn turned to stone”) is the largest natural bridge on tatooine, and is considered a sacred site to Tuskens. It also marks the boundary of the Tuskens’ ancient hunting territory. Like allied sloops-of-war, Tuskens would let off rounds of blast fire before passing through in order to purge ill intent from their souls. To not do so would bring bad luck on the tribe. (Beecroft, 14)

From early childhood, the Tuskens wrap their faces and bodies in rags, cloth, and other protective gear, to ensure survival in the harsh Tatooine deserts. They see through eye filters which protrude from their faces, and wear masks to filter sand particles. Some books mention an almost religious adherence to keeping their faces and bodies covered, only revealing their appearances to their spouse in the privacy of their tent once they are wed.

Their relationships to their bantha are just as sacred as one’s relationship to their spiritual leaders. Younger banthas are cared for by Tusken children (known as Uli-ah), but upon reaching maturity, one Tusken and one bantha will be teamed together, and the emotional bond between the pair is difficult to endure separation from one another. Their bonds are so intertwined, that upon the other’s death, the remaining soul will fly into a rage, taking out any poor creature in its grief. Some Tuskens, upon the death of their bantha, will strike out into the desert alone on a vision quest, and if the bantha spirit wants that Tusken to join them in the afterlife, the Tusken will die. If not, another bantha will join that Tusken and allow them to continue living, and return to the tribe, reborn. Luckily, the lifespan of a bantha is around 80-100 years. Their horns grow at the rate of about a knob a year, and can go without food or water for several weeks, makingem well-suited to life on Tatooine. Bantha are also matriarchal, and wild banthas are led by a dominant female. (Hidalgo, 24)

The language of the Tuskens is made mostly of chants and gestures, dissimilar to any known language so far. More about the Tusken sign language will be in the Disney Canon section. Historically, Tusken names begin with one of three letters (in our alphabet): A’ (like A’Sharad, and A’Yuqw) for men, R’ for women, and U’ for unisex or nonbinary names. K’ can also mean daughter of, and A’ can mean son of. Some sources say Tuskens also know rudimentary knowledge of Huttese and Jawaese, as they came into contact with these languages quite frequently. Some protocol droids could be equipped with a Tusken language pack, allowing them to speak and translate the Tusken language.

Tools, Tech, and Weapons

Tuskens seem to favor two types of weapons: gaderffii, or gaffi sticks, and projectile hunting rifles also known as slugthrowers. Some books mention that Tuskens build both by hand, and are reinforced by rare tractl wood only found in hidden Tusken oases. Because of the sturdiness of these Tusken rifles, they can also be used as melee weapons, though the gaderffii seems to be the favored weapon there. (Blackman, Weapons and Technology, 47)

The gaderffii is the most visible symbol of the Tuskens, as it’s the traditional weapon for every tribe. They’re short polearms, with one edge sporting a double- or triple-edged axe and spearing blade, and the other end bearing a weighted club and stabbing blade. This combination gives Tuskens the ability to initiate nearly any type of attack. The spearing blade (axe end) is used to fend off large predators or to attack from a bantha at full charge. The stabbing blade (club end) is used to carve into rock to denote territory, or, as shown in The Mandalorian (S2E01: The Marshall), as a bantha toothpick. Gotta keep those teeth clean. The axe is capable of decapitation or limb severing, as well as cutting into thick tree trunks and foliage. The club can be used to stun prey, knock victims to the ground, or crush stormtrooper plastoid armor into a billion pieces. Some Tuskens dip the bladed edges in sandbat venom to increase this weapon’s lethality. (Blackman, Weapons and Technology, 73)

The crafting of a gaderffii can be made from practically anything, like most bladed weapons over history. They can be made from scavenged durasteel, krayt dragon bones or horns, solid tractl wood, or anything else found in the Tatooine wastelands. Nomadic tribes don’t often have access to armories and weapons shops, so they have to make do with what’s available. They are used not only for acts of violence, but in everyday settings as well: grinding and digging up food, cracking open hubba gourds, and even in the intimidation displays to determine clan ranking. Typically, Tusken chieftains carry the largest gaderffii in the tribe. (Blackman, Weapons and Technology, 73)

Some books mention a “Tusken aversion to technology” but it seems rather misinterpreted: not many nomad groups would want anything to do with delicate circuitry that may get ruined by sands. Even now, Bedouin tribes and other Northern Sahara tribes find Nokia phones reliable, though they’re quite anachronistic by “modern” society. (McQuarrie & Anderson, 21) Their lack of a reliance on moisture farming machines like vaporators means that they closely and fiercely guard the oases in the Dune Sea and beyond.

Tuskens do not often use landspeeders, speederbikes, or swoop bikes for that reason. A lack of reliable fuel and an inability to keep sand out of the machinery makes them more of a hassle than a luxury. Instead, they rely on banthas, great furry and horned creatures the Tuskens have domesticated over thousands of years. It’s been proven incredibly difficult for anybody but the Tuskens to try to train them, as the secrets for bantha-rearing are as closely guarded as the locations of their sacred oases. (McQuarrie & Anderson, 29)

Some books mention that the Tuskens could have simply commandeered one of the sturdy Jawa sandcrawlers, great rolling fortresses run by the diminutive native species. The issue here is that while the Jawas are all-around smaller than the average human, Tuskens are just the opposite. Their species (unspecified) is anywhere from a half-foot to a foot-and-a-half taller than most humans. Banthas have no overhead to bonk their heads on, so banthas will do. Sandcrawlers had at one point been ore-hauling vehicles, but the near-total takeover by the Jawas and the further renovations they’d done to the insides made them near-inhospitable for anybody taller than four feet.

Notable Tuskens

Sharad Hett

One of the few humans ever to willingly join the Tuskens, his place among them won through great combat prowess. Hett was a former Jedi Knight who exiled himself on Tatooine after the destruction of his homeworld. He rose to be a clan leader and was eventually killed in an altercation during Gardulla the Hutt’s attempt to overthrow Jabba’s reign. (Ryder, Ultimate Visual Guide, 27) He had a wife, K’Sheek, a human woman who had been adopted into Tusken culture when she was a girl. His son, A’Sharad Hett, was also raised Tusken.

A’Sharad Hett

Son of former Jedi Knight Sharad Hett, he was raised on Tatooine until his father’s death, where he was brought to Coruscant by Jedi Master Ki-Adi-Mundi. He stayed true to both his Tusken upbringing as well as his Jedi training throughout his life. Decades after his father’s death, he would eventually fall to the dark side and become Darth Krayt, named for the krayt dragon on his homeworld.

The Disney Canon

When Disney acquired the rights to all Lucasfilm properties, including Star Wars, it was met with a lot of skepticism. Five movies, a final season of the Clone Wars, and Star Wars: Rebels later, we still haven’t heard more about the Tuskens. Cool. But then, as the flagship series on their new streaming service, Disney+, The Mandalorian opened a new door to as-yet-unexplored Star Wars lore far away from any Skywalkers or Jedi. It was an incredible surprise that the protagonist not only visited Tatooine, but was able to communicate with both native species (Jawa and Tuskens) in two different episodes! He offered no personal judgment on the Tuskens, didn’t even call them Sand People, like his conniving counterpart, Toro Calican. He negotiated calmly and respected their ways, and they respected his life.

It was bittersweet knowing we were seeing probably the end of our glimpse of Tuskens again on the show, but SURPRISE! More Tuskens in the Season 2 premiere! Not only that, they were seen as heroes, and were a vital part to the protagonist’s victory over the krayt dragon. With a little positive attention back on the Tuskens, fan interest exploded over it.

TSL

In addition to formulating an entirely new form of sign language with the hiring of an actual Deaf actor, Troy Kotsur. In fact, his involvement with the series goes all the way back to Season 1, and Kotsur played the Tusken who signed back and forth with the Mandalorian in negotiations for passage through the Dune Sea. Known lovingly as TSL (Tusken Sign Language), a very active Facebook group devoted to learning the language sprung up in November 2020.

Disclaimer: I do not know ASL or any other sign language, but I’m going to try and attempt to describe what the language looks like, and how communication works between Tuskens.

Kotsur makes mention of the development for the language NOT being like ASL, but the sign for “Mandalorian” is based on the helmet and letter-sign for M. In practice, you hold the three middle fingers of your right hand (index, middle, and ring) straight out, while linking your pinky and thumb together. Then, you make a motion from right to left across your eyeline with the sign, and then down the center of your face, top to bottom, like you’re tracing a Mandalorian helmet visor.

Here is a post that seems to be approved of in the TSL Facebook group:

The above post has not been confirmed by TSL creator Troy Kotsur, though he is a member of the group. I’ll update this with other info as it comes up.

Boba Fett… Tusken?

With the hint at the end of Mandalorian Chapter 5: The Gunslinger implying that Boba Fett had made it out of the Sarlacc, speculation rose and rose. At the end of Chapter 9: The Marshall, however, we got confirmation: Boba is back… and apparently shopped at the same place the Tuskens did. He was pictured against the binary sunset, wearing black robes in a similar style to that of the Tuskens, and bearing a long-barreled rifle and gaderffii, just like the Tuskens we’d seen helping Mos Pelgo against the Krayt Dragon. When he again showed up in Chapter 14: The Tragedy, we got to see him use the business end of both weapons against a legion of stormtroopers.

Many questions about Boba Fett’s revenant return were left unanswered, and had no sign of being resolved anytime soon. The show couldn’t have possibly gone back to Tatooine a third time, right?

Wrong, of course. The post-credits sneak preview of Boba Fett and his new associate, the undead Fennec Shand, swooping in to take over Jabba’s Palace. The Book of Boba Fett is set to release on Disney+ in December, and hopefully we’ll see just how the quiet bounty hunter came by those robes and weapons. More speculation in the Fanon section, though.

Obi-wan Kenobi

Another Disney+ mini-series being released in early 2022, this show is rumored to take place entirely on Tatooine, and as a result, we may get more canon lore on the way!

The New Fanon

Obviously since there are some gaps in the story, there’s a natural inclination to lean into fanworks. Here are some fanworks that do an excellent job characterizing Tuskens from fanfic writers.

moments before the wind - kotemorons (Rating: Mature)

Had to plug my own fic in here. Tuskens are in named tribes that know of one another, and there is a spiritual leader named the Eater who exorcises darkness from certain Tusken souls. Din Djarin, the Mandalorian, and Boba Fett, both spent a significant amount of time with the Tuskens and are fully-blooded in their cultures, and share in that cultural common ground.

Atin’tuur - kyberpistol (Rating: Teen and Up) @kyberpistol

Boba Fett is taken in by a clan of Tuskens, and is healed after the sarlacc. He meets another clone who had deserted from the war, and had joined the Tusken tribe. Excellent characterization of Tusken medicine and care. Just because a culture is nomadic and averse to technology doesn’t mean they can’t still provide medical care.

a simple thing - iridan (Rating: Explicit) @ryehouses

This is a kinky BobaDin fic, and it has amazing Tusken lore baked into it. The author’s notes on their crafting of Tusken imagery is very well-researched, and a delight. There aren’t many purely-lore chapters, but it’s a great read.

A Wandered Man, Call Me Sand - Johayc (Rating: Teen and Up) (I don't know if they have a Tumblr!)

Din Djarin and Grogu seek shelter after the opening events of The Mandalorian Chapter 10: The Passenger. Embedded with a Tusken group, he befriends and learns more about them, and their similarities to his own culture.

The Theory of Harmony - robotboy (Rating: Explicit) @r0b0tb0y

Deaf Din Djarin has spent time with the Tuskens, and learned their signs. This fic uses Auslan (Australian Sign Language) but does an excellent job at explaining reasons behind using signs that work extremely well with canon’s non-explanations.

If you know of another fic that deserves to be on here, please let me know!

Bibliography of Disappointments

Beecroft, Simon. Inside the Worlds of Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones. DK Books. 2003.

Blackman, W. Haden. Star Wars: The New Essential Guide to Weapons & Technology. Del Rey Books. 2004.

Hidalgo, Pablo. Star Wars Character Encyclopedia. DK Books. 2016.

Lewis, Ann Margaret & Post, R.K. Star Wars: The Essential Guide to Alien Species. Del Rey Books. 2001.

Lund, Kristen. Inside the Worlds of Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace. DK Books. 2000.

McQuarrie, Ralph & Anderson, Kevin J. The Illustrated Star Wars. Bantam Books. 1997.

Reynolds, David West. Star Wars: Attack of the Clones: The Visual Dictionary. DK Books. 2002.

Ryder, Windham. Star Wars: The Ultimate Visual Guide. DK Books. 2005.

Vitas, Bob. The Completely Unofficial Star Wars Encyclopedia v2.03. Unknown Publisher. 2000.

Wallace, Daniel & Fry, Jason. Star Wars: The Essential Atlas.

A Final Note

Tuskens are obviously a rich and underdeveloped part of Star Wars Culture, despite them being there from the start, back in 1977. I’m not going to tell you to stick to canon like glue (I’d be a hypocrite) but I do encourage you to find inspiration from other existing nomadic cultures, and indigenous desert tribes. You’ll learn something amazing, I promise. When making your own interpretations of Tuskens, ask yourself if it’s at all a stereotype or lazy characterization for a desert tribe. If the answer is anything but no, dig a little deeper. Thank you.

If you have anything else you would like to add to the collective lore I’ve written about here, please let me know.

Love,

Bailey

[scrambled-ed]

[book-o-scams]

SuperED on Patreon... Friday, June 25!

In case you didn't know, I used to make EEnE animations! Between ages 13-19, Ed, Edd n Eddy characters lip syncing to songs/plays/movies was my main artistic mode of expression, as well as the main reason anyone knew me online. More recently, I've been starting production on animating new original cartoons, which will eventually be on my Youtube and stuff.

BUT tomorrow, exclusively on Patreon, I'm posting a special surprise from my past that I thought I should tell you guys about! I'm not sure how far I want to spread word...

Does anyone remember my fabled old project titled SuperED? It was something I animated between 2009-2012 when I was finishing high school and going through college, but I never finished or released it because it had many file-loss issues.

5 or 6 years ago, I did a big background art dump from it right here! Here's some other old SuperEd lore. Since those days, I eventually did find a second copy of part 9 that was not missing the storyboard art!

WELL, a few weeks ago, I was recovering from a medical procedure and revisited SuperEd. Miraculously, the first 10-minute-part was finally working for me! Now, I have succeeded in recovering the full project, and a full-length video of the SuperEd animatic is complete.  It's surreal for me to finally be able to see the first part for the first time in nearly a decade, let alone all 9 parts running together without having to start the next part myself.

I loved seeing it all again so much that I decided to finally release the unfinished 90 minute animatic on Patreon... Friday, June 25 at 9am EST (so basically in a few hours). I have also gathered some behind-the-scenes content that I've found from back when I originally made it, which will be posted on there a few hours later. I might eventually record a commentary if I can find time, because this thing's filled with obscure easter eggs.

Any donation of $1 or more will have access. If you do become a patron and have issues accessing it, please message me on Patreon for help.

I totally understand if you only donate to view this and do not intend to stick around, that's fine! I only ask that everyone please respect that I'd like to keep this private. I understand viewing it with some Ed-loving friends, but please don't share this around on websites or anything. Besides not normally releasing unfinished projects, I would prefer for this NOT to become a copyright nightmare! SuperEd is blocked from monetization, so please spread my other videos instead if anything!

SuperED (an incomplete-but-90-min animatic) - Friday, June 25, 2021 at 9am EST on Patreon!

(I think I made that poster back in like 2010/2011-- the original pencil draft will be among the concept art I post on Patreon afterward, along with some Bro Show stuff I think)

Here are some preview images from the finished animation segment I unearthed from part 1:

Sorry for typing that much, there was probably a less wordy way to present this information! I will shut up now.

[simulacrumcfp]

CALL FOR PAPERS: MYTHS

Two mermaids, from Apocalypse, Prophecy of the Tiburtine Sibyl, Harley MS 4972 f. 20r, 1275-1325.

He placed one hand upon my shoulder and, holding me tight, bared my throat with the other, saying as he did so: “First, a little refreshment to reward my exertions. You may as well be quiet; it is not the first time, or the second, that your veins have appeased my thirst!” 

Lucy’s eyes were unclean […], instead of pure.

Poor Lucy finds herself tainted by the bite of Count Dracula, an aristocratic Transylvanian vampire that is thirsty for blood, out to export his barbaric ways to Victorian England. In his Dracula (1897), Bram Stoker utilises the myth of the vampire to warn the Victorian reader of the Eastern threat, by portraying Eastern Europe as a place of backwardness and barbaric – vampiristic – rituals. Myths about vampires have been around since the medieval period, when they were commonly linked to profanity. Stoker’s Dracula is the resurrection of a mythological figure, one that can be guided in all sorts of directions, for what was once the myth of the undead has come to represent the fears and threats of the time in which they are resurrected. 

Since ancient times, myths have spoken of the how’s and why’s located at the limits of human understanding, designating that place where intellect fails. There, where knowers stop knowing, we story. In The World of Myth (1990) David Leeming writes that ‘human beings have traditionally used stories to describe or explain things they could not otherwise,’ pointing to the timeless human tendency to grapple with the unknown through story. The myth functions as the means by which we relate to the unknown, embodying our wonderings of the worlds beyond human ratio. 

These stories are then conveyed through artworks, literature, history, or religion. Myths, however, do not just function as a source of inspiration for the arts, but often find their origin in art, spreading, evolving, and growing with different art forms and styles. The Venus Anadyomene, for example, first emerged from the sea in the Theogony – a poem by Hesiod from the 8th century BC. This specific depiction of Venus, daughter of Jupiter and Dione, as birthed by the sea was then made famous by the painting by Apelles (4th century BC). Although this painting has long been lost, it was described by Pliny in his Naturalis Historia (1st century AD), which served as an iconological guidebook for artists. From the orators who tell and retell their stories throughout generations, to the poets who write them down, to the sculptors who carve them out, stories are kept alive. To this day, Venus is most commonly known as the goddess who rose from the sea. 

In the Danish fairytale Den Lille Havfrue (1837) by Hans Christian Andersen, sea foam is not where love is born, but where love goes to die. In the Walt Disney adaptation of the fairytale, The Little Mermaid (1989), mermaid princess Ariel, daughter of king Triton, falls in love with a human prince and gives up her tail to be with him. In the original, quite grim, fairytale by Andersen, the little mermaid finds her prince lying with another. She refuses to stab the lovers to death, as her sisters urge her to, and as a result of her broken heart she dissolves in the foam of the waves. 

In Japan, ancient folklore is being retold to a modern audience through the films by Hayao Miyazaki. His Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (Spirited Away, 2001) animates kami, spirits, washing themselves in a bathhouse as a result of pollution and human activity. This mirrors the Shinto belief that both gods and nature have to be respected and kept clean, and serves as a modern warning. Their demonic counterparts, the oni, take form in the character of Yubaba, who is based on the archetype of the mountain witch, or yumuaba. By taking Japanese mythology as a starting point, Miyazaki is able to create a fantasy-scape: a place where the unthinkable becomes possible. 

Perhaps our first association with mythology brings us back to Ancient Greece. But for them, μῦθος simply meant a story – whether a true or false one, gossip, a historical tale or one of faeries, even a dream. Mῦθος and λόγος, two seemingly opposite terms, fantasy and reason, come together in mythology: the analysing and explaining of stories. There are several ways in which a myth can be explained, and therefore one can also speak of several mythologies. In Creative Mythology (1968) for example, American mythologist Joseph Campbell describes how literary figures such as Thomas Mann or James Joyce managed to make themselves into “living myths,” by translating individual experiences through the correct signs. Shakespeare, with his plays, even managed to create myths around historical figures such as King Henry IV, attracting audiences that were eager to learn about history. History has made other figures into myths as well, such as Louis XIV, known as the Sun King, or Marie Antoinnete.  

In his Mythologies (1957) Roland Barthes explains the creation and circulation of myths through signs and language. According to Barthes, myths are a societal necessity created on the basis of contemporary social value systems, whereby myth formation should mainly be seen as a semiological process, partly as an ideological one. In the essay “Myth Today,” Barthes examines French bourgeois myths that are deeply rooted in society, yet often go unnoticed or taken as fact. By deconstructing modern myths that are spread through advertisements and propaganda, Barthes is able to get to the core of the societal value system of his time. Most famously, he deconstructs the myths around France’s two national products: steak frites and red wine. Both serve as metaphors for blood which, in French society, equals vitality and virility, which equals masculinity, which equals superiority. Equating France with steak frites and red wine then means equating France with virility, masculinity, superiority. 

In “The Double Standard of Aging” (1972), Susan Sontag tackles another modern myth that is deeply-rooted in society, concerning women and age. In the essay, she explains how and why women “of a certain age” are deemed physically undesirable, noting that this differentiates per country. She explains that urbanised societies allow two standards of male beauty, the man and the boy, but only one of female beauty: the girl. This societal judgement of beauty mirrors the evolutionary myth that the value of women is based on their ability for procreation. As a woman’s fertility decreases with age, so does her societal worth.

As the myth moves beyond the human, outside the world as we know it, it writes a strange universe.  It points to that which is not completely explainable according to our current structures for categorising the world. The enchanted world of the supernatural, with its gods, witches, and vampires, perhaps writes of a darker, less knowable reality. Their magic, spells, and strange rituals trouble the disenchanted story of Enlightenment, which tells of reason, control, and certainty – a myth in itself. But even though these supernatural entities tell of the incredible and unbelievable, they remain somewhat explainable. Vampires, gods, and witches, for example, are familiar figures based on a set of commonly understood fictions, differing ever so slightly from the human. ‘In many ways, a natural phenomenon such as a black hole is more weird than a vampire,’ writes Mark Fisher in The Weird and The Eerie (2016). We understand where to place and how to interpret the vampire as a fictional entity. A black hole actually exists, yet we do not understand its strange ways of bending space and time. Science Fiction balances on this thin line between fiction and reality. Perhaps the biggest myths, strangest entities, and weirdest monsters are not necessarily found within the fictional realm of the supernatural but right here in ‘the natural.’ 

‘Coral reefs are monsters.’ In the Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet (2017), Anna Tsing equates this natural phenomenon to the supernatural. Like the mythical chimeras of ancient Greece – beasts made up of the head of a lion, the body of a goat, and the tail of a snake – coral reefs are made of mismatched parts. They embody a strange species encounter as their polyps grow from both animal, plant, and more. Symbiosis, the interaction between two different organisms living in close physical association, might point to some monstrous truth essential to our current epoch of living with the world. In all our vulnerable entanglements with more than human life – we humans too are monsters. 

There are literary differences to be found between myths, fairy tales, sagas, lores, fables, and legends. Fairy tales, for example, often take place in a fantastical world, in which magical creatures roam, and battles between Good and Evil take place. Myths, on the other hand, often have a basis in religion and tell stories about gods or divine creators. Both contain supernatural elements, sometimes these have a basis in history, sometimes in religion, and sometimes in fantasy. For this issue of Simulacrum, we have therefore chosen to soften the boundaries between these ways of storytelling, in order to be open to multiple mythologies, their meanings, and interpretations.

Fancy yourself a modern mythologist? Write an article of 1.000, 1.400, or 1.800 words for our upcoming issue, Mythologies. The deadline for first drafts is the 15th of November, 2020. Would you rather write a column, an interview, fiction, poetry, or do you know an artist whose work fits with this theme? Email us at info@simulacrum.nl. Please send articles as .doc or .docx and portfolio’s as PDF.

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CALL FOR PAPERS: Mythologieën

Hij legde een hand op mijn schouder, hield me stevig vast, ontblootte mijn keel met de andere en zei daarbij: ‘Eerst een beetje verfrissing om mijn inspanningen te belonen. U kunt net zo goed stil zijn; het is niet de eerste keer, of de tweede, dat je aderen mijn dorst hebben gestild!’

Lucy’s ogen waren onrein [...], in plaats van puur

Lucy wordt gebeten door de bloeddorstige Graaf Dracula, een aristocratische vampier uit Transsylvanië, die er op uit is om zijn zondige en barbaarse levensstijl naar Victoriaans Engeland over te brengen. In zijn roman Dracula (1897) zet Bram Stoker de mythische vampier in om de Victoriaanse lezers te waarschuwen voor de opkomende ‘dreiging van het Oosten’ door Oost-Europa af te schilderen als een plek van barbaarse – vampiristische – rituelen. Mythes over vampieren gaan al rond sinds de middeleeuwen en werden toen vooral gelinkt aan godslastering. Met Dracula wekt Stoker dit mythologische figuur op uit de dood en blaast deze nieuw leven in. De vampier, eens de mythe van de ondoden, vertegenwoordigt voortaan de angsten en bedreigingen van de tijd waarin ze herrijst.

Sinds de oudheid gaan mythen over het hoe en het waarom. Daarmee bevinden ze zich aan de grenzen van het menselijk begrip – daar waar het intellect faalt, wordt er verhaald. In The World of Myth (1990) schrijft David Leeming dat ‘mensen van oudsher verhalen hebben gebruikt om dingen te beschrijven of uit te leggen die ze zonder niet zouden kunnen,’ duidend op een tijdloze menselijke neiging om door middel van verhaal door het onbekende te navigeren. Zo functioneert de mythe als het middel waarmee we ons verhouden tot het onbekende, en belichaamt deze onze verwondering over de werelden buiten de menselijke ratio.

Deze verhalen leven vervolgens door via de kunst, literatuur, geschiedenis of religie. Mythen gelden echter niet alleen als inspiratiebron voor de kunsten, maar vinden ook vaak hun oorsprong in de kunst, en verspreiden, evolueren en groeien met verschillende kunstvormen en -stijlen mee. Zo verrees de Venus Anadyomene voor het eerst uit de zee in de Theogonie - een gedicht van Hesiodus uit de 8e eeuw BC. Deze specifieke weergave van Venus, dochter van Jupiter en Dione, als geboren uit de zee werd vervolgens beroemd gemaakt door het schilderij van Apelles (4e eeuw BC). Hoewel het schilderij verloren is geraakt, werd de Venus Anadyomene door Plinius beschreven in de Naturalis Historia (1e eeuw AD), dat diende als iconologische handboek voor volgende generaties kunstenaars. Van de redenaars die generaties lang hun verhalen vertellen, tot de dichters die ze opschrijven en de beeldhouwers die ze uithakken, worden verhalen levend gehouden. Zo staat Venus tot op de dag van vandaag bekend als de godin die uit de zee verrees.

In het Deense sprookje Den Lille Havfrue (1837) van Hans Christian Andersen is zeeschuim niet waar de liefde wordt geboren, maar waar liefde sterft. In de Walt Disney-bewerking van het sprookje, De Kleine Zeemeermin (1989), wordt zeemeermin prinses Ariel, dochter van koning Triton, verliefd op een menselijke prins en geeft ze haar schubben op om bij hem te zijn. In de originele, aanzienlijk grimmigere versie van Andersen treft de kleine zeemeermin haar beminde in bed bij een ander aan. Ze weigert de twee geliefden dood te steken, zoals haar zussen haar toe aanzetten, en als gevolg van haar gebroken hart lost ze op in het schuim van de golven.

In Japan wordt oude folklore voorgedragen aan een modern publiek door de films van Hayao Miyazaki. De geanimeerde Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi (De reis van Chihiro, 2001) brengt kami, geesten, tot leven. Ten gevolge van menselijke vervuiling moeten de kami zich wassen in badhuizen om zichzelf weer schoon te krijgen. Deze moderne interpretatie weerspiegelt het Shinto-geloof dat zowel goden als de natuur moeten worden gerespecteerd door ze schoon te houden. De demonische tegenhangers, de oni, krijgen vorm in het karakter van Yubaba, die is gebaseerd op het archetype van de bergheks, de yumuaba. Door de Japanse mythologie als uitgangspunt te nemen, is Miyazaki in staat een ‘fantasyscape’ te creëren: een plek waar het ondenkbare mogelijk wordt.

Wellicht brengt een eerste associatie met mythologie ons terug naar de Klassieke Oudheid. Voor de Grieken betekende μῦθος echter simpelweg een verhaal – of dit nu een waar of een onwaar verhaal was; roddels, geschiedenis of een sprookje, zelfs dromen werden gezien als mythe. Mῦθος en λόγος, twee ogenschijnlijk tegengestelde termen, de fantasie en de rede, komen samen in de mythologie: het analyseren en verklaren van verhalen. Er zijn verschillende manieren waarop een mythe verklaard kan worden, en daarom kan er ook sprake zijn van meerdere mythologieën. In Creative Mythology (1968) beschrijft de Amerikaanse mytholoog Joseph Campbell bijvoorbeeld hoe literaire figuren als Thomas Mann of James Joyce erin slaagden om 'levende mythen' van zichzelf te maken door individuele ervaringen met de juiste tekens te vertalen. Shakespeare slaagde er met zijn toneelstukken in mythen te creëren rondom historische figuren zoals koning Hendrik IV, en trok daarmee een publiek aan dat graag over de geschiedenis wilde leren. Zo ook zijn andere figuren zoals Lodewijk XIV, beter bekend als de Zonnekoning, of Marie Antoinette, binnen de historie tot mythen geraakt.

In Mythologies (1975) analyseert Roland Barthes het ontstaan en de circulatie van mythen aan de hand van semiotiek en taal. Volgens Barthes zijn mythen onmisbaar in de maatschappij en baseren zij zich op hedendaagse sociale waardesystemen, waarbij de formatie van de mythe voornamelijk gezien moet worden als een semiologisch process en deels ideologisch. In het essay “Myth Today,” onderzoekt Barthes diepgewortelde Franse mythen die nochtans onopgemerkt blijven of als feit worden beschouwd. Door de deconstructie van moderne mythen, verspreid door reclame en propaganda, komt Barthes tot de kern van zijn eigentijdse sociale waardesysteem. Meest bekend is de deconstructie van de mythe rondom twee nationale Franse producten: biefstuk en rode wijn. Beide dienen als metafoor voor bloed, dat in de Franse maatschappij rijmt met vitaliteit en moed, die rijmen met mannelijkheid, dat rijmt met superioriteit. Het gelijkstellen van Frankrijk aan biefstuk en rode wijn betekent het gelijkstellen van Frankrijk aan moed, mannelijkheid en superioriteit.

In The Double Standard of Aging (1972) pakt Susan Sontag een andere diepgewortelde mythe aan, een omtrent vrouwen en leeftijd. In haar essay zet ze uit een hoe en waarom vrouwen vanaf een bepaalde leeftijd fysiek niet begeerbaar worden geacht, en merkt hierbij op dat dit per land verschilt. Ze legt uit dat verstedelijkte samenlevingen twee normen voor mannelijke schoonheid kennen, die van de man en die van de jongen, en maar een voor vrouwen, die van het meisje. Dit maatschappelijke schoonheidsoordeel weerspiegeld de evolutaire mythe die stelt dat de waarde van een vrouw gelijk staat aan haar voortplantingsvermogen. Net zoals de vruchtbaarheid van een vrouw  verminderd naarmate zij verjaard, verminderd ook haar maatschappelijke waarde. 

Naarmate de mythe de mens passeert, buiten de wereld zoals wij haar kennen treedt, schept ze een vreemd universum. Ze wijst naar dat wat we nog niet kunnen verklaren met onze huidige structuren voor het categoriseren van de wereld. Het betoverde rijk van het bovennatuurlijke, met haar goden, heksen en vampiers, schetst wellicht een donkerdere realiteit die zich minder goed laat kennen. Hun magie, spreuken en vreemde rituelen zetten zich af tegen het onttoverde narratief van de verlichting, welk van rede, controle en verstand spreekt – een mythe an sich. Maar hoewel deze bovennatuurlijke entiteiten verhalen vertellen over het ongelofelijke, blijven ze enigszins verklaarbaar. Vampiers, goden en heksen bijvoorbeeld, zijn vertrouwde figuren gebaseerd op een verzameling van collectieve fictie, die net afwijken van het menselijke. ‘In many ways, a natural phenomenon such as a black hole is more weird than a vampire,’ schreef Mark Fisher in The Weird and the Eerie (2016). We begrijpen hoe we vampiers als fictionele entiteit moeten plaatsen en interpreteren. Zwarte gaten bestaan echter wél, terwijl wij hun vreemde manieren in het buigen van tijd en ruimte niet bevatten. Science-fiction balanceert op deze dunne lijn tussen fictie en realiteit. Misschien zijn de grootste mythen, raarste entiteiten en meest vervreemdende monsters wel niet te vinden in het fictionele landschap van het bovennatuurlijke maar juist pal hier in het ‘natuurlijke.’

‘Coral reefs are monsters.’ In Arts of Living on a Dying Planet (2017), stelt Anna Tsing dit natuurlijke fenomeen gelijk aan het bovennatuurlijke. Zoals de mythische chimeras uit de Griekse oudheid – beesten met het hoofd van een leeuw, het lichaam van een geit en de staart van een slang – bestaan koraalriffen uit mismatched onderdelen. Met hun poliepen die zowel dierlijk als plantaardig kunnen zijn, belichamen ze een vreemde ontmoeting tussen de soorten. Symbiose, de interactie tussen twee verschillende organismen die in nauw contact met elkaar leven, wijzen ons wellicht naar een bepaalde, monsterlijke waarheid die essentieel is aan ons huidige tijdperk van leven met de aarde. In al onze kwetsbare verstrengelingen met meer dan menselijk leven, zijn ook wij mensen monsters.

Er zijn literaire verschillen te vinden tussen mythen, sprookjes, sagen, fabels en legenden. Sprookjes, bijvoorbeeld, vinden vaak plaats in een fantasiewereld, waar magische figuren rondzwerven en een strijd tussen goed en kwaad plaatsvindt. Mythes, aan de andere kant, vinden vaak hun oorsprong in religie en vertellen over goden en hemelse scheppers. Beiden bevatten bovennatuurlijke elementen. Soms ligt de basis daarvan in geschiedenis, soms in religie, soms in fantasie. Voor deze uitgave van Simulacrum hebben we er daarom voor gekozen de grenzen tussen deze literaire genres te vervagen, om ons open te stellen voor verschillende mythologieën, hun betekenissen en interpretaties.

Waan je jezelf een moderne mytholoog? Schrijf een artikel van 1.000, 1.400 of 1.800 woorden voor ons komende nummer Mythologieën. De deadline voor de eerste versies is op 15 november 2020. Schrijf je liever een column, interview, fictie of poëzie, of ken je een kunstenaar wiens werk in dit thema ligt? Email naar info@simulacrum.nl. Voeg artikelen s.v.p. bij als .doc of .docx en portfolio’s als PDF.

[krreader]

i forgot to check your notifications today and bruh, i just happy twerked because of 🦋

anonymous asked: I'm literally crying years of joy because you posted Lab!!!! Thank you so much!!!💜

anonymous asked: IM UGLY CRYIN RIGHT NOW BECAUSE LIKE A BUTTERFLY IT WAS BEAUTIFUL

@hobi-bhai​ asked: AHHHHHH I'm so excited LaB is back!!!! The chapter was so so so good!!

@salty-for-suga​ asked: Aksnrixbskshfmr!! Chapter 16 of LAB was so freaken good!!!! Glad to be ending my day with a lovely read before heading to bed 🤧🤧🤧

@glorisit​ asked: fUCKFING FUCKFJCKFA END IM SO TIRED MY EYES CANT EEN SEE PROPERLY BUT LaB is BACK BJ TCH EDSSSS I FUCKGITN LOCE U MICHELELE YEET FOR THE WJN IM SO BLURRIED OUT HOLY SHIT BUT MY HEART IS BOOM BOOM 🥰😍💚

anonymous asked: SO LIKE I FOUND UR BLOG THROUGH LIKE A BUTTERFLY AND FELL IN LOVE TO WHERE ILL COME TO YOUR BLOG FOR BTS CONTENT AND YOU JUST UPDATED IT IM SO HAPPY MDNSNDMD, anYWAYS tysm for being an amazing writer and trying ur absolute hardest to give us content we do truly appreciate it !!

anonymous asked: OMG I SCREAMED WHEN I SAW THE UPDATE FOR LaB AND IVE BEEN DYING INSIDE WHILE READING IT!!! (Hi i’m not sure if u remember me but i’ve been here around since the start of LaB and i’ve been reading ur writings ever since and have loved every single one of your creations especially LaB. It has a special place in my heart 💜) You are such an amazing writer and a very inspiring 1 since u always manage to become productive & atleast post every single day. hope u have a great time wherever ur headed 💜

anonymous asked: I MISSED LAB SO MUCH I'M SO HAPPY THIS CHAPTER WAS SO PERFECT AHHHHHHH

anonymous asked: So I literally just downloaded tumbler again today bc I needed some happy fan fics to boost my mood and I couldn’t ask for anything better then getting a new chapter of like a butterfly today. I love that story with allllll my heart❤️ ur an amazing writer

anonymous asked: Awwwww 🥺 I started following you after reading like a butterfly an falling in love with the story. Thanks for this update, it's soooo beautiful

anonymous asked: You pasted LaB and I did not expect that. I'm literally sobbing rn. It was so good SO GOOD idk what to do now I'm a complete emotional mess

anonymous asked: OMG i cant believe it "like a butterfly" got me on the floor almost crying! I didnt imagine how much i need this until you post it, i truly love u and i love this piece of art what you made😭👏 I hope you have a beautiful week💖 ~ayeaye🤠

@daniawinchesters21​ asked:  FINALLY.. I WAS WAITING FOR SO LONG... I LOVE "BUTTERFLY" SO MUCH 💙 💙 💙 💙 💙.. IT'S SO AMAAAAZZZZIIINNNGGG💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜

anonymous asked: omg omg the last chapter of like a buttery 🥺🥺🤧 i love it so much, the fic itself omg. is it the end of the fic or it has more to come? btw i love how you write really, it’s magical 💘

anonymous asked: OMG MICHELLLE IM IN A MEETING AND GOT THE NOT ABOUT 🦋 and I almost screamed I had to stop myself omg thank you this is my fav fic ever omg I’m so excited

your support is literally blowing me away, I can’t thank you enough for writing me these messages and telling me your thoughts

THANK YOU SERIOUSLY

the last chapter is already done and waiting in my drafts, so I promise it won’t be long till I post it!!!!!

[sneakyasaspider]

ummm hi can i order some uhhhh *soft* professor au ??????

So this was originally going to be smut… but somehow it ended up being this. Oops! I hope you still enjoy it, Nonny!

Rey couldn’t withhold her smile as she watched Ben grade papers.Professor Ben Solo was analytical and cold in his grading process. He had so many different micro expressions that would play over his features. He sucked his lips in slightly, or he set his jaw forwards. Minute twitches would pass under his eye and he exhaled with wordless exasperation. Beyond the fascination she found in his was the captivating way he wrote notes in the margins. The red pen looked so small in his large hand. His wrist twirled an expert precision as he circled words and left harsh criticism.

“Your handwriting is so nice.” Her nose scrunched up a little bit. “How do you manage to have such large hands yet such impressive fine motor skills?”

Ben supplied an amused hum. “Practice?”

The record player in the corner was playing a doo-wop compilation album that he must have picked up at some secondhand store. She couldn’t imagine that something like that would be sold anywhere else. Everything about him felt so classic and sophisticated, Rey often felt out of place when she sat on his expensive couch and ate crackers that boasted an all organic ingredient list. His world was so much fancier than hers. No matter how much she loved, she feared she might never truly fit into it.

“What’s on your mind, sweetheart?” Ben leaned back in his chair, adjusting his glasses before casting those beautiful brown eyes towards her.

“You.” She smiled.

He chuckled softly. “Is that so?” He set his pen down. His attention had moved away from the fall of Rome and now belonged to her in full. “And what is it about me that you’re thinking about?”

The box of crackers was set aside. “Just you. Nothing in particular.”

A fond smile moved over his cheeks and her got to his feet. The soft harmonizing of a love song drifted lazily through the air as Ben walked over to her and held out a hand. “Dance with me?”

They didn’t get to be affectionate in public and Rey relished in how insanely romantic he was in their time alone. He did little things like braided her hair or took her by the hand and asked her to dance. There was something bittersweet about their stolen moments of intimacy because so long as she stayed his student, they couldn’t further their relationship. Two semesters wasn’t long in the grand scheme of life, but to a girl hopelessly in love, it felt like four eternities.

Her much smaller hand slid into his and her body fit itself carefully against him. He rested a hand on her lower back and closed his eyes contentedly. She rested her head against his shoulder and let her own eyes fall shut as well. Rey wished that the moment could have lasted forever.They swayed to the music in a languid manner, their bodies pressed close enough that she could feel his heartbeat mirroring hers.

“Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast, to feel for ever its soft fall and swell, ” Ben murmured against her hair. His fingers drew little circles at the base of her spine, coaxing a peaceful hum from her lips. “Awake for ever in a sweet unrest. Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, and so live ever” A trail of affectionate pecks moved down to her ear.” or else swoon to death.”

“Is that a poem?” She asked softly, appreciative of how his voice rumbled. There was a tenderness to his words that struck her deeply. No denial could be made in that moment. Ben Solo was decidedly smitten.

“Yes.” A kiss ghosted against her temple. “John Keats.” Rey gave a sound to affirm that she was listening as Ben continued to bring kissed down the side of her face. “Historians argue about the exact date the sonnet was drafted, but the publication didn’t come until nearly two decades following Keats’ death.”

Rey couldn’t hide her fond smile. “Would you consider yourself an expert on John Keats, Professor Solo?” A light laugh was muffled against the fabric of his button down shirt.

“Maybe not an expert, Miss Niima.” He mused as his lips pressed a kiss to her jaw. “But I was something of a poetry enthusiast when I began my Master’s program.”

“A man of many hidden talents, aren’t you? Next you’ll tell me that you play a musical instrument and know more than four foreign languages.” Her hazel eyes peeked upwards, but she didn’t lean away.

“Eight, if you include Latin.” Ben buried his face against her neck. “But you’ll be happy to know that I am absolutely horrible with musical instruments. My rhythm is nonexistent.”

“Does it get tiring being so damn smart?” Rey laughed a bit louder now. He was so perfect. Too perfect, really.

“Zo intelligent als ik ben, ben ik nog steeds een dwaas voor jou, liefje.” Ben nipped at her earlobe and hushed his voice to a husky whisper.

A rush of heat hit her core as his voice vibrated against her neck and set tremors down her spine. She had no idea what he’d said, but she still found her cheeks flushing red. “Is that… Russian?”

“Dutch. I spent a summer in Amsterdam for research. We’ll have to go some time, the windmills in the countryside are beautiful.” He let go of her hand so that both of his hands could find their way to her hips.

The song changed. Piano chords steadily and lyrics crooned on about having eyes for one person alone. Rey’s heart pounded in her chest as Ben stopped swaying and bent to kiss her shoulder instead.

“You’d take me to Amsterdam?” The question came out breathless.

“I would take you anywhere you wanted to go, sunshine.” There was something solemn and reverent about the proclamation. “You’ve taken me places I never thought to be real.”

Awestruck, Rey couldn’t do much but hum as his lips lavished her neck. She brought her hands to tangle in his hair. “The only place I want to be is with you.”

Ben nestled his nose against the space where her neck and shoulder meet, his hand sliding under her sweater so he could spread his fingers across her abdomen. “And lost in pleasure, at her feet he sinks, touching with dazzled lips her star-light hand.”

To his knees he did sink moments later, pulling her sweater up and covering her stomach in kisses. Rey considered herself fairly average, but as this stunningly brilliant man worshiped her like she was some kind of goddess, she began to feel that she might just be his whole world. She wasn’t from his world, but she knew somehow that she didn’t have to be. To him, she was more than those organic crackers and fancy pieces of furniture could ever dream of being.

[k3fanblog]

Okay I contacted customer service and they don’t know why this would happen either. They did tell me that it is not because it is a children’s band, but that they do not have specific details about how my Wrapped is made so that they can’t know the details of why K3 won’t be in there. However, they did say they would give my remark to the correct team.

EDIT: It's a year later and I found this in my drafts but it happened again!? So do I have to contact them again?

(Transcript of the conversation behind the cut (in Dutch))

You|14:27 p.m. Hallo, ik heb een niet echt technisch probleem, maar mijn spotify wrapped top 100 lijst heeft wel een mysterie opgeworpen. Ik heb het afgelopen jaar heel veel naar K3 geluisterd en ik weet van sommige nummers zeker dat ik ze vaker heb beluisterd dan sommige nummers die wel in mijn top 100 staan, maar er staat geen enkel K3 nummer in mijn top 100 en ik heb andere mensen gehoord die hetzelfde is overkomen en nu vraag ik me al 3 dagen af hoe dit komt en ik kan geen fatsoenlijke uitleg verzinnen. You|14:27 p.m. Sorry voor het hele lange bericht

Ondersteuningsbot van Spotify|14:27 p.m. We’re taking a look at this for you. Ondersteuningsbot van Spotify|14:27 p.m. Bedankt, er wordt nu verbinding gemaakt met een adviseur. Ondersteuningsbot van Spotify|14:27 p.m. Houd er rekening mee dat het tot 5 minuten kan duren om elk van je berichten te beantwoorden. Als je geen tijd hebt om hier te blijven, kun je later terugkeren naar dit venster. L is nu verbonden en controleert je vraag. Je ontvangt binnenkort een bericht. |14:27 p.m.

L|14:29 p.m. Hoi Sylvia, L|14:29 p.m. Bedankt voor je berichtje. Ik help je graag. L|14:37 p.m. Bedankt voor je geduld. Ik heb het je berichtje nagelezen. We hebben geen inzicht over je luisteractiviteit. Je Wrapped wordt automatisch opgebouwd op je luistergedrag.

You|14:38 p.m. Dat snap ik wel, maar ik vroeg me af of er iets in het algoritme zit waardoor specifiek K3 niet opgenomen wordt in Wrapped. Wordt kindermuziek uitgesloten? Of kunnen artiesten aangeven dat ze er niet in willen? You|14:41 p.m. Maar ik snap het ook wel als jullie zelf misschien ook niet weten hoe het algoritme dat Wrapped bepaald precies werkt. Ik vind het alleen heel erg bijzonder, dus ik zou graag willen weten hoe het komt en ik kon geen andere manier vinden om contact met Spotify op te nemen.

L|14:43 p.m.Kindermuziek wordt niet uitgesloten. We hebben geen inzicht over de algoritme van Wrapped. Ik kan wel je feedback doorgeven over K3 aan de juiste team.

You|14:44 p.m. Dat zou fijn zijn!

L|14:44 p.m. Mooi! Ik geef het door. Het spijt me dat ik je hier niet gelijk bij heb kunnen helpen. Maar als ik iets anders voor je kan doen, hoor ik het heel graag.

You|14:45 p.m. Nee, verder werkt Spotify helemaal prima op het moment, bedankt dat je toch hebt proberen te helpen met mijn ongebruikelijke vraag!

Hey, question. So I got my Spotify Wrapped top 100 and there is not 1 K3 song in there, and neither is K3 in my top 5 most listened artists and the more I think about it the less I believe these things, so is there anyone who did manage to get K3 in their top 100 or among their top 5 artists?

[libidomechanica]

Like wax it yields

By his tomb let us  een talk; and you have  any wrinkled body 

theres the wish, and  I (much love go by; but whole  against all inraild 

their rootes bene not disturbd  her seene, or with  teares,) who 

art a girl for now  that swallow switches  too ripe, in 

me the grasp at all,  in the will  repayde, they will not lose 

your eye I eyed, such there:  for her sonet  song of heedlesse words. We 

twain (the golden chat  with no stone when  only Queene of 

heauen forty winter is  past, that sing, ’“tis but  let you. Drafts, castles, and 

be thy lusty days, trying  thee, and tears,  from their losses 

in Heaven had the  whiten, aspens  shiver.  Of thy defect, 

Which be Rome)  and the vale; and  waited for 

thy shadow lend. commerce  and bless you without  leaue of telling on 

ever be broken  wall, and strain the  loves me laughing through complaineth: 

he thresh,” and line - Pipe  to her back; they  have lifted that 

thou my pretty Face? no voices?  Dead despots; and  the Spring, 

with fierce heat up  here all that to  trust; whose balefull woodes 

they touchd the same; myrtles  broken hawthorn-hedge, I  say to my mother 

reason rotten; The  doleful air; and thriftless  breast. from crowds, where dwelt 

on another lonely  glade, a maiden moods of  sapless breast. Would bay and 

plumes and to  stay with pity  mock old place to prevent, 

she sprung amidst  the found in the  name. All day, until 

ye try they turn and  touch a very armour  rung, and melon, yellow 

field-mice are about his  child is held me but  my pomegranate are 

fed with wandring  askd the vineyards of  reason: gudgeons only 

multitudinous billows  murmur ran thro the  milking-maid, and no one 

extremest needs, wash  far away, Lived before  him standing seas 

and sweet self might refresh  nuptials joyfully yield. which  doth stars of men do 

still still her can companions?  Yon knot of May  is on her so, 

and and spared, touch near  the footmarks were  white that same flow out.

[breaddaerb]

[ bread reports ]

✎↷: YESS,.. GOD THIS IS GOOD. who’s the better homie now, wraith? don’t answer that by the way— the answer is clear. ;D hope you like what i have to add on!

with any life or death situation, many of the other agents were extremely reluctant on getting the slightest amount involved in whatever the pair from hell had planned. something horrible was bound to happen, but this ‘war’ was waged when raze was fighting tooth and nail against a turret and ended up spilling french fries all over skye as the healer walked out of her room.

the valorant protocol took sides. some chose to stay out of it, like brimstone, sova, and yoru, while everyone else created factions amongst themselves. killjoy’s faction known as ‘traumatiz-een titans go’ was compiled up of sage, cypher, skye, and surprisingly viper and omen. the latter two additions were to make sure that killjoy didn’t take it too far with her bots, but in the meantime, viper and cypher helped to improve killjoy’s inventions while sage and skye talked (more like complained) about how hot or how dangerous some of the ‘food’ was.

raze’s end of the spectrum was a whole other story. ‘dank explosion gods’: phoenix, jett, reyna, and breach were piled into her room, working on the worst and deadliest things they could come up with. surely, breach’s flashes and phoenix’s fire was an infinitely larger buff to her boombot eats than whatever lineup killjoy came up with! this was perfect! reyna, while dignified, wouldn’t hesitate to take advantage of helping her fellow radiant to take down the german genius living down the hallway from them. this was war after all.

and so the battle begun. a subway meatball loaded turret thumped down the hallway, meeting its challenger: boombot. the boombot was.. not really a boom bot at this point. apparently, bots also included strapping breach down onto a panel of wood connected to a boombot and wheeling him down the hallway. breach came back to the lab stained with marinara sauce and the smell of victory. traumatiz-een titans go may have lost the battle, much to killjoy’s comical wailing and cypher’s grief, but it didn’t mean that they lost the war!

this was how this war went. it wasn’t as much of a bot war, but instead bots leading agents down the hallway for them to spar with whatever food they had on hand. the way to win the fights now was to force the other person to eat the food given. that’s how jett found phoenix curled up in the middle of the hallway, sobbing while frantically spooning a tub of ice cream into his mouth after a scarily close encounter with sage. oh, how the mighty have fallen.

fighting so playfully like this became a stress-relieving and fun activity for a majority of the crew members to enjoy, bringing them all closer in their own alliances. breach and skye made a truce to never fight and just shared the food together before leaving for an extra-long workout to burn off their calories. omen was drafted against reyna and both let loose beyond force feeding, to where brimstone had to step in and tell them that their spar was already over.

at the end of the day, killjoy and raze were well fed. they shared a ramune in the middle of the night when their individual factions weren’t watching, and made a toast to genius inventions. it was a successful day of chaos and testing!

or at least, it was until raze ordered an entire shipment of three-times spicy instant ramen. it could only get worse from here.

it is I. BREAD. and i have come to request the very important message of raze and killjoy ‘robot’ wars and shenanigans around the base. do it, or else your gingerbread will be SNATCHED

[a/n: NOT THE GINGERBREAD YOU MONSTER also, enjoy!! thanks for requesting bread :D let this me my hop off of p much unannounced hiatus]

• welcome to boombot eats! raze's brand new invention takes your food anywhere and everywhere, explosions not guaranteed but may be included! see. when boombot came down the halls with its first delivery, you bet that headquarters itself was screaming. "ARE YOU INSANE?" the answer is yes, what else could raze be?

• people got flashbacks from just hearing the sound of it going down the hall. never had an "uwu" been so utterly terrifying! you would think that raze's shenanigans would become a new normal soon enough, seeing how they happen almost everyday - but neither did anyone really think that she would deploy a whole boombot in the hallways. those promises that it wouldn't explode were sweet, sweet lies. no one trusts raze anymore.

• but, its charming point is the small pizza slice on its head that's practically glowing, or the occasional cut of cake with perfect vanilla frosting! can you really resist food? yeah, i didn't think so. how does the plate fit so perfectly on its head? that's one of the world's seven wonders. probably the only one that has the guts to take the plate on its head is killjoy and raze herself.

• and then everything changed when the fire nation killjoy attacked

• don't go outside, it's a bloody war out there. combined with killjoy's robots and the "boombot eats," the hallways have literally become a battlefield. unlike the harmless boombot, killjoy is in no way as kind as raze, whose feared for only her reputation! killjoy is the real deal. this is happening exclusively because raze said "bet." anyways, all valorant protocol agents are extremely professional and mature-

• they painted a whole wall the other day. raze needed some color in the horribly dreary room, and that they did! it was too late to stop them, for the time anyone noticed (or was there at all) it was already the other day. raze would shed real tears of sadness if you took a hose to it, and killjoy would just be patting her back with regretful eyes. you don't want raze throwing a tantrum, it already sounds like a nightmare.

• consider: they have the most intense form of a beyblade battle but with alarmbot and boombot. no, there is definitely not an unfair advantage in those two things! it ends up being a tie, because in the very last blow, boombot finally detonated. their corpses remain to this day. f for the fallen soldiers. they're doing some markiplier makes shit in the living room, ngl

[judefan813-blog]

have the heart to take advantage of the situation like

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een a lazy author. I was so absorbed in my excitement for my first visit to Nigeria, that I didn’t bother to look through Aké Arts and Book Festival’s draft program in time to communicate any adjustments I had before it had to be finalized. When I did finally look through the program days before the 2016 edition I discovered a curiously titled panel: “The Irony of Black Lives Matter in Africa.” I was concerned for two reasons. First, I felt there was no “irony.” Second, there was only representation from West Africa: moderator, Nigerian Patrick Okigbo, Nigerian novelist Helon Habila and Ghanaian-Kenyan Kinna Likimani. As soon I saw this I pestered Lola Shoneyin, the festival founder and organizer, to add me onto the panel. I was sure that the experience of living between two African countries that suffered white minority, settler-rule late into the 20th century—by virtue of my having been born in Zimbabwe and raised in South Africa—would lead me to have a different response to the two Nigerians and Ghanaian-Kenyan on the panel.

Months earlier, my first visit to Uganda for the 2016 Writivism Literary Festival had given me my first real encounter with the “experience gap” between black people on the continent. During the day Uganda National Museum, Writivism’s venue, is a hive of schoolchildren. I was struck by the appearance of a particular group of girls from Gayaza High School. They had the most beautiful school uniform I have ever seen: an assortment of red, yellow, green, orange, pink, purple and blue short sleeve dresses that sung against the girls’ dark skin. More than that, their heads crowned in a variety of beautiful natural shapes and styles—short, medium sized, buns, round, square. A product of the South African “Rainbow Nation’s” schools that insisted on unflattering uniforms (including my high school’s kilt-inspired skirt) and hair very intimate with sodium hydroxide, I found myself staring, and, overcome with emotion. When it came time to introduce myself during the Festival’s schools outreach, I tried to express how happy I was to see the girls: You look so beautiful. Can I take a picture to take home? The other African writers and the girls themselves didn’t get it. That every girl had natural hair was nothing to talk or write home about, let alone take pictures. What else would I have them do with their hair?

They couldn’t understand why I was making such a fuss, because that to them, was the default. With some help from Nigerian-Barbadian-South African writer Yewande Omotoso, I tried to explain why it would be noteworthy that they had hair the way they did. I was unsuccessful. Not for a lack of words, but a lack of context.

If I had visited the Gayaza Girls just a week later, I would have given them the example of their South African age mates at Pretoria Girls’ High School who, on the very day that I returned from Uganda, were protesting against bans on afros and other racist practices at their historically white school. This incident would have helped me explain how the absence of visible racialized markers—namely white teachers and white classmates with hair “that falls” and is the acceptable standard of feminine “neatness” in school codes of conduct—meant that the Gayaza Girls were spared the same kind of explicitly racial pathological relationship to self and body. The girls were avid readers, and so, if I had had better presence of mind I might have given them a black girlhood reading list: Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Merle Hodge’s Crick Crack, Monkey!, Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions, Kopano Matlwa’s Coconut or even their own country woman, Doreen Baingana’s Tropical Fish. Without these examples, the Gayaza Girls and I fumbled our way to some of sort of understanding about this hair issue. The girls thought it a strange experience, but as readers who had developed enough empathy and curiosity to learn of the experiences of far off lands, they smiled and nodded as I shared anecdotes from my years as a black girl aspiring to and failing the standards of “hair that falls.” I was at first a little frustrated that I had to explain, but I quickly reminded myself that this was how it should be. This was the beauty of a childhood in which your imagination is fully formed before encountering the daily delusion that is whiteness.