#i was shortly after chased by wild boars

[fleetinggabi]

Found some modern ghosts last night as all the streetlights on my town went out due to a storm

[recentanimenews]

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Entertainment District Arc – 03 – Something is Rotten in Yoshiwara

After a noir-ish monochrome stinger and the new OP (which fuckin’ whips) we join Inousuke as he tries and utterly fails to conduct a discreet investigation of the woman who won’t come out of her room. He goes inside, feels wind even though the windows are closed, and provokes…whatever is hiding in the rafters to go on a wild and destructive chase through Ogimoto house. He’s like a boar in a brothel.

Over at Kyougoku House, Zenitsu puts down the shamisen, opens his ears, and comes to the aid of one of the young attendants, whom he finds with a brusie on her cheek in an absolutely trashed room. As he comforts her, the presence of a demon suddenly appears behind him. She is the courtesan Warabihime Oiran…and the arc’s main antagonist.

Sawashiro Miyuki is perfectly cast as the two-faced, two-voiced, but always imposing and imperious Warabihime, whom we learn was responsible for the murder of the madam of Ogimoto House. The minute the madam blurted out that she didn’t think Warabihime was human, her life was forfeit, as she is dropped from a great height and not eaten by the demonness, who is ranked Upper Moon Six. I’ll go on record as saying I love the character’s design, both in Courtesan or Demon Mode.

No sooner do we see her cruel and murderous side than we get a glimpse of her submissive and tender side, as Muzan makes a surprise appearance to both praise her (“keep up the evil work”) and warn her of potential Demon Slayer Corps interference. We learn her real name is Daki, and Muzan has big plans for her…as long as she keeps killing. I wonder if that’s what she really wants?

Fast forward a couple of days, and shortly after punching “Zenko” through two walls, Daki identifies him as a Demon Slayer, if only a weak one. Still, she restrains herself from attacking him further in order to maintain her cover, even as Zenitsu has blown his simply by not getting as hurt as he should have.

The cute little attendant Zenitsu saved and her two colleagues nurse Zenitsu back to health, and they comment on how they’ve never met anyone in this house who isn’t simply looking out for herself. It looks as though the episode is about to end on a sweet note…but then Daki’s snake-like obi instantaneously curl, whip, and envelop our yellow-haired crybaby.

Just like that, she has two captives, with neither Tanjirou nor Inousuke particularly hot on the trail and Suma and Hinatsuru still at large.

By: braverade

[blue-lions-baby]

“D” is for...? (Dimitri x Reader)

hi!! here’s another pre-timeskip dimitri x reader fanfic! as much as i love post-timeskip dimi, sometimes my heart just needs a break from all the soul-crushing angst :’)

this is my first time writing all of the Lions at once, so please forgive me if they’re a bit ooc! regardless, i hope you enjoy my fic~

all fluff and no spoilers!!

~*~

No... No no no...

You cradled your head in your palms and rammed your head against the hard, stone floor. Your ears perked at the tiny scratching echoing from the opposite side of your sorry, hunched-over frame and your eyes zeroed in on any sign of movement in the dark crevices between a bookshelf and the wall.

This is bad... This is really, really bad...

“(F/N)...? Is, uh, everything all right?”

“D-Dimitri!” Without much warning (or thought) you shot up to greet the royal, but the ebony side table you were under kept you on your knees. A sharp, throbbing pain blossomed from the point of impact and the recoiling force was enough to propel you face first onto the floor. Dimitri just barely caught the wobbling vase in time and set it cautiously back in place.

“(F/N), are you okay?! D-Do you want me to take you to the infirmary?! I can fetch Professor Byleth or even Mercedes to take a look--”

“No!”

“N-No?”

“I have to get him back!”

“Get who? (F/N), what are you--”

“My duck!”

Your... Your what?

Dumbfounded was not a strong enough word to describe what this man was feeling. All he could do was watch in silent confusion as you desperately clawed at an invisible being lurking in the dark. He stepped away and around the table you unceremoniously slammed your head on and peered into the darkness.

“Come here, darling,” you cooed gently, a tinge of anxiety tainting your sing-song plea, “c’mere, baby...”

“Um... Please come out, little one.” Dimitri commanded? Can you even call that commanding? What in Goddess’ name am I even doing He rubbed the back of his neck and looked around anxiously. Judging by the proximity of the bookcase against the wall, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to surmise that the duckling was stuck, or trapped in some way. Dimitri coaxed his chin in deep thought, assessing the situation like a tactician trying to sneak their captured comrade out of enemy territory.

“Boar. (F/N). The hell are you two doing?”

Both your heads whipped to face the steely voice by the entrance (you especially careful with your still aching head) and saw a frowning Felix glowering at the... activity, he walked in on. A glowing Sylvain followed shortly.

“W-Woah! Hey there, Your Highness! (F/N).” He purred your name sweetly and shot you a wink. “Is this really what you call flirting, Your Highness? Honestly... I know you don’t know much in the ways of love, but seriously--”

“Shhh!!!”

Sylvain’s mouth flew shut as Felix stalked over to the both of you cautiously. He planted his feet behind the side table and squinted into the dark. Sylvain took position under Dimitri just in time for him to hear faint scratching and weak chirps. A flurry of excitement and shock surged through the redhead’s amber eyes; Dimitri slapped a hand over the redhead’s piehole before a gurgle of surprise could leave him.

“(F/N),” Felix growled lowly, “what is that?”

“I-It’s--”

“Coming closer...!” Dimitri scream-whispered. Everyone instantly shut up and focused their attention down the dark trail. Soon a small, white puff with two beady eyes shimmied out of the corner and closer, closer, so close to your shaky outstretched hand. You all held your breath; the corners of your lips slowly turned up. You felt a tickling sensation at the tip of your middle finger. Almost...!

“Hey everyone! What’cha doin’?”

The spooked duckling let out a distressed cry and scurried back into its dark corner. Your insides twisted themselves into a knot as your heart ignited into pure rage. The air around you suddenly grew chillingly biting and murderous; everyone (even stone-cold Felix) shivered slightly. Your head whipped around so fast Sylvain could’ve sworn he heard a crack.

“Who,” you spat, pure venom dripping from your tone, “said that?”

Poor Ashe-- sweet, sweet Ashe. He was a dead man walking.

Your body coiled out from under the table like a snake snapping out of its hidden lair and you immediately pounced at the silverhead who scared away your baby. Ashe let out a small yelp and stumbled backwards, petrified in fear by the bloodthirsty glint in his classmate’s eyes. The three men who were with you scrambled to get you under control; it took Sylvain, Felix, and Dimitri’s beastly strength to keep you from separating Ashe’s head from the rest of him.

After that fiasco (and Dimitri hastily explaining the situation to the trembling archer), you finally calmed down and dutifully went back to your post, futilely calling and cooing to your lovely little duckling-- a direct contrast to the wild beast that everyone had just witnessed. Ashe, still understandably shaken up, kept to the door and informed anyone coming into the classroom to enter in a calm and peaceful manner (a ghastly glare from a certain (H/C) individual sent prickling chills down his spine every so often).

Before long, everyone in the Blue Lions was aware of the fuzzy little occupant wedged between the bookshelf and wall.

“Everyone, listen up.” Professor Byleth’s voice rang softly throughout the classroom. They paused, despite having everyone’s full attention. They looked at the spot where all their students were congregating and then the empty desks in front of them. With a slight sigh and a small nod, they continued.

“No lesson for today. Our top priority is getting Ms. (F/N)’s duck out of its... current location.” 

Your features lit up and tears pricked the corner of your eyes. You bowed gratefully to your teacher and whispered sweetly to your darling duck.

“Please come out, sweetie... No one’s going to hurt you...”

. . .

“Ugh, Mercie... I can’t see...”

“Oh dear, I’m sorry... Is this better now?”

“Your Highness, are you feeling all right? You’ve been hunched over like that for awhile now...”

“I am fine Dedue, thank you.”

“I read somewhere that ducks like to eat plants and small creatures... Maybe we can--”

“Ow! ... Felix, stop shoving me!”

“Shut up, you idiot. If you can’t handle a little push like that, then you should probably spend more time training than chasing girls.”

“Ugh, I swear you two don’t ever change...”

“Everyone, I am going to try and say this as politely as possible,” you inhaled sharply, “but please shut the hell up.”

Several “sorry’s” resounded around you and you internally groaned. Byleth scooted over to you and tapped you on your shoulder, motioning for you to come closer.

“Have you considered moving the bookcase?”

“We did, but... Seeing how close the bookcase is to the wall, we might squish my lil’ duckling...”

Byleth hummed thoughtfully and took a quick glance around the classroom. “Perhaps... All these people crowding around it is making it hesitant to come out?”

You lightly gasped and looked at the smirking professor with wide eyes. Dimitri’s hypersensitive ears picked up the tiny sound you made and instinctively listened in. He eventually got the general idea and (alongside Byleth) informed the rest of your schoolmates to slowly back away.

Your back cricked and ached from being hunched over all day; your vision began to blur-- possibly a consequence from staring into the dark for too long. Your limbs shook slightly and you could feel a painful knot in your calves slowly tying itself into existence. You blinked away the pain and reconstituted your mental fortitude for the umpteenth time that day. You wanted to give up, to give in to your exhaustion, but--

Chirp! ... Chirp, chirp...!

Your foggy eyes drifted to the source of the noise and every muscle in your quivering frame clenched. Dimitri began to unconsciously float to your side but was quickly stopped by the firm grip Byleth placed on his arm. This was something you had to do alone, his professor’s eyes read. Dimitri bit his lip and tightened his palms into paling fists, praying to the Goddess to grant you strength.

Yes... Yes...! Almost there!

The prickly sensation of budding claws clambering onto your palm shot sparks through your body. Slowly shimmying out from under the table, you patted and held the little duckling close to your heart. You cooed sweet assurances into its ear as you sent the brightest, most triumphant smile to your classmates. Everyone cheered (silently, of course) and each one of the Lions took turns to pet and fawn over your fluffy companion. A look of surprise reflected in your professor’s eyes when your duckling took a particular interest in them, inciting a quiet giggle from you.

At last, the house leader sauntered up to you slowly, eyes trained on the minuscule bundle of fluff awkwardly waddling on your palms. He curved around the side of your frame and took the back of your hands in his gloved ones gingerly. Your classmates held their breath (and a few giggles from the more... knowing individuals) for an entirely different reason altogether. 

“May I...?” Dimitri mouthed, unconsciously rubbing shallow circles into your hands. You nodded quickly, pushing your darling pet slightly away from your heart lest it get spooked by its quickening pace. The corners of the prince’s lips turned upward slightly as the tips of your fingers connected with his, forming a bridge between your hands and his much larger ones. 

As soon as the duck crossed over, he slowly pulled the creature close to his heart and lovingly rocked it, akin to the tenderness of a mother cradling her newborn babe. It took everything in your power to hold in a squeal. You mentally engraved this heartwarming scene into your mind, tucking it away to cherish forever. 

Dimitri’s azure eyes flashed to yours briefly before returning it to the duckling who has long become acclimated to everyone in the room. The longer he held the baby fowl, the bigger his smile grew; everyone felt at ease watching the scene before them. Believing that he has separated you from your darling duck for long enough, he began to extend his arms to hand it back to you--

Soft gasps filled the room and you stood there, absolutely dumbstruck. Your duckling was snuggling closer to Dimitri’s chest, black eyes on the verge of closing. A full day of hiding and scurrying must’ve tuckered the poor baby bird out, and it now laid sleeping comfortably on the palm of the prince.

A look of pure panic was seared onto the royal’s face as he looked at you worriedly and apologetically. A sizable lump formed in his throat while he tried looking to his other classmates for help. Students and professor alike shot him an equally baffled look, though the streak of resignation on their faces contrasted the anxious energy that exuded from Dimitri.

You gently cleared your throat, catching the attention of the frantic teen instantly. You held up a note to him that read,

“It seems to like you a lot. I really don’t want to disturb it... If you want, you can keep it for the rest of the day; just give it back to me tomorrow.”

“Are you certain?” He whispered, overly-cautious in rousing the duckling to consciousness. You smiled happily and scribbled down your response.

“Yup! I don’t mind. I know you’re pretty fond of it too. You look super happy holding it! Just please take good care of it.”

He would’ve bowed, but a curt nod would suffice in this situation. The serious look in his eyes softened instantly when the ultra-adorable bundle of love in his hands pressed further into him. He looked up at you and beamed.

“Have you come up with a name for it yet?”

You leaned back on a desk and mulled it over, letting your head roll back slightly in your deep contemplation. You traced the curve of your chin, mentally eliminating name after name in your head. What could you possibly--?

Aha!

The somewhat frazzled man almost leaped from how fast your head whipped back into place, and the throbbing in his heart swiftly escalated to rocketing levels at the sight of your breathtakingly gorgeous smile. You excitedly bounced over to him and stood on your tiptoes; despite your best efforts to allay the obvious height difference, Dimitri still had to bend over slightly to hear what you had to say. Your answer to his query almost sent him to the Goddess above.

“D-Dimi? ... Hah... If I may be so bold, I would think that you named it after me, using a name like that.”  

“Good, because I did.” You whispered teasingly in his reddening ears. You stifled in a laugh at how absolutely red your classmate has gotten, and that lovely hue of crimson didn’t go unnoticed by the rest of your peers. For now, however, Dimitri’s social standing among the members of his house would last one more day all thanks to Duckling Dimi.

*bonus: Dimitri did not let go of the little duckling for the rest of the day, cradling and (when no one was present) humming to it every now and then. Despite already having a name, he couldn’t help calling it (Your Nickname)-- named after the cutest and sweetest person he knew.

[paperanddice]

Savager

Savagers are feral, uncontrollable creatures, appearing like a combination of a grizzly bear, porcupine and wolverine. They’re given the beast type, but the fluff regularly emphasizes that their actions aren’t normal, even if druids supposedly claim that there’s no magic behind them. They even have resistance to damage from nonmagical weapons, explained by thick callous and scar tissue. They kill not for hunger or to defend themselves, just a constant fury that drives them to injure themselves when there’s no other target available.

They’re too high level for any druids to wild shape into one, but polymorph is a valid target and the savager could sit alongside the giant ape and the t-rex as the most dangerous options for that spell. Less controllable than the others though, since the target gets the mental capacity of the savager in this case and just goes absolutely wild to murder everything. No truly supernatural features, aside from possibly the resistances and immunity to charm and fear effects, so I don’t have a massive issue of them being a beast, but they could easily be changed to being a monstrosity as well and I don’t think many would argue. I will say that their quills feature is highly unlikely to come into play, because very few players are built around grappling and even those that are may not want to grapple a giant, enraged porcupine-bear.

The king’s annual boar hunt was interrupted when a savager ripped through the hunting column. A dozen attendants and casual hunters were killed before the creature was distracted chasing a horse down and left the scattered hunters to recover and regroup. The king however has new prey in mind, and rides off after the beast, calling for those able to follow at once on this glorious hunt.

Savagers are the result of a druid circle’s breeding programs to create the ultimate warbeast. The program was wildly successful, though attempts to breed in a resistance to magic that could influence the animal meant that they are completely uncontrollable, even through training from infancy. The druids just release savagers to cause destruction, and either flee or kill them if they drift too far off the hoped for course. Ideally the beasts destroy logging camps, hamlets and other druid circles that they disagree with, but lacking control they often tear through natural environments that have no answer or protection from such a horrific creature.

A savager is a sign of a nature god’s disapproval. They are natural yet not, only appearing when the god’s domain is disrespected or their followers commit some grave sin. Almost without fail an attack on sacred spaces will draw a savager out of nowhere, sometimes the deity transforming a normal bear or other animal and sometimes the animal simply storms out of a cave or other area that was empty shortly before. Once the savager’s purpose is complete they simply vanish, wandering somewhere out of sight and waiting for the next time they are called upon.

[bbrandy2002]

Two Men and a Baby Part 7

Not your typical Royal Romance series....crazier.

TRR/TRH gang.

Warning: Language

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

Part 5 Part 6

@carabeth @emceesynonymroll @katedrakeohd @sirbeepsalot @romanticatheart-posts @rafasgirl23415 @drakensword

[[MORE]]

Part 7

" 911, what's your emergency?"

"Yeah, um, I have a guy in the back of my carriage who got his trouser snake caught in his zipper."

"Sir, is this a joke?"

"No, but, this guy sure wishes it were"

"How serious is this?"

"Let's just say, it was the 'frank..and...beans', then something popped, now its just the frank."

Poor Bertrand, all he wanted was to give his sweet Savannah a wonderful birthday. Now he's stuck in the back of a carriage with his manhood on the line.

He is aware of the news reports of a wild boar attack on Contess Madeleine earlier tonight and that said boar is still holding itself hostage inside his estate. He has no idea if his son is okay, but, has no doubt his brother is somehow responsible for the carnage that has taken place this evening.

Hospital ER

Riley and Olivia sit in Maxwell's room, waiting for him to return from radiology. They had only seen him for a few seconds before he was taken for x-rays, but, he appeared in good spirits; then again, when is he not.

They were both intriqued to find out what he meant by "the demon pig", that supposedly caused his predicament. It was surprising to hear Maxwell describe any animal with such disdain, but, apparently he met one he wasn't prepared to describe as a "life changing experience" in fond terms.

Riley jumped up from her seat, "Maxwell, you're back!"

Maxwell was wheeled back into his room on a stretcher, but, he seemed to be uncharacteristically subdued now.

"How is he? Is it broken?" Riley asked the nurse.

"He has a hair line fracture and will be down for several weeks, but, we don't expect complications. Someone will be in shortly to put a cast on him. Also, congratulations on the baby your majesty", the nurse stated before exiting.

That was the fourth time today a random person congratulated her.

"Why does everyone keep congratulating me on a baby? I wonder if it was the bean burrito I ate for dinner last night?", she questioned while patting her bloated tummy.

"You do look a little puffy today." Olivia observed.

"Thanks", Riley said while rolling her eyes, "I have been trying to drink more water and..."

"HELLLLOO!!" Maxwell interrupted in an annoyed tone, "In case you hadn't noticed, I'm here."

"Oh, I'm sorry Maxwell, how're you feeling?", she asked with concern.

"Like a demon pig attacked me, without warning, without cause, out of no where...it was a sneak attack Riley." he began to shake his fist furiously and yelling, "damn you demon pig.....damn you to hell!"

Olivia and Riley tried to calm him down. "Maxwell, Maxwell, shhhh, you've got to calm down." Riley pleaded, "you're going to disturb the other patients."

"Yes you are", Madeleine chimed from a wheel chair at the door with an icy stare.

All three turned their heads in her direction simultaneously. To see Madeleine sitting there with a neck brace on, a black eye, messy blonde hair and a ripped green dress; it was shocking and amusing to say the least.

"What the hell happened to you? Olivia asked with her signature scowl.

"Oh, what happened to me?", Madeleine asked with a smile that didn't quite meet her eyes while patting her chest, "ask Maxwell and his quote 'damn demon pig'."

Olivia and Riley turned to Maxwell trying to make sense of what both were referring to as the demon pig.

"Maxwell, I'm two seconds away from breaking your other leg. What happened?", Olivia spat out.

Maxwell took in a deep breath and recalled the events of this evening.

"Okay...Okay, so, yesterday morning, I was attending Zeke and Penelope's outdoor animal exhibition in the capitol.  Zeke was giving me kind of a private tour before all the guest arrived. We came upon a stall that he said had a wild pig. I thought he meant it was a party animal, wild like me, which, would be an awesome addition to the next Beaumont Bash. I asked if I could have it and he said no, that it was just too wild for me. I thought, nonsense, nothing is too wild for me. I just had to have this pig. So, when I seen Penelope a little later, I offered to buy it from them. She was a little hesitant at first, but, she agreed after I forged a letter from Bastien saying Liam requested this particular pig at the next Beaumont Bash. In exchange for her cooperation, he would emcee her next Dog Fashion Show."

"Maxwell! That's sick", Riley blurted.

"Yeah Maxwell, what made you think she would just go along with that?" Asked Olivia.

"I wasn't sure she would, but, she does seem to respond well to requests from Bastien, so I assumed it would work this time too", he replied.

Madeleine spoke up, "so let me get this straight, Penelope, can't stop talking about her poodles, Penelope, just gave you a wild boar?"

"Oh, no, I had to pay for him", he said.

"How much?" Olivia asked.

"A box of dog treats", he replied.

Riley bent over in her chair, arms resting on her knees, covering her face while shaking her head, "Unbelievable....I'm afraid to ask, but, how did you get him out of there and to the estate?"

"Well, that part was tricky. Penelope told me I had to keep him enclosed or he would go wild. Well, I wanted to make sure I kept his wildness in until the Beaumont Bash. I figured it would just build up inside of him and he'd really let loose at the party",  he chuckled, "anyway, I saw Gladys there and thats when I got the idea for her to cause a disruption..."

"Hold up, Gladys...my majordomo, Gladys, helped you with this?" Riley asked stunned.

"Kind of, see I knew she had cleared the hallways when Anton and his minions kidnapped you and Olivia. I also knew she had the hot's for Bertrand, so, I told her if she would create a distraction for me, I would set her up with him".

"Maxwell, your brother is engaged", Riley stated.

"You are a lot more evil than I ever gave you credit for Maxwell; this is really elaborate for you", Olivia remarked with astonishment.

"Well, Im not proud of myself, but, greed causes people to do evil things" he replied.

"Hold up" Madeleine would interject, "So Penelope knew about this? That little....I just saw her not more than an hour ago at the Beaumont Estate, she interviewed me and everything, she never mentioned her hand in any of this".

Maxwell replied, "I would say not, Penelope's a master at keeping secrets while seemingly innocent of her involvement. She's a sweet girl though".

Riley just continued to shake her head.

"What happened next Maxwell?" Madeleine asked.

He took another deep breath, "Okay, well Gladys started screaming and running around the exhibits. Then she unlatched the pen holding the ducks. They started to scatter. Zeke and his assistants started to chase after the ducks and security went after Gladys. I grabbed a large cage and Gertrude ran right in. Penelope helped me carry him back to the limo and I took him home."

"Okay, how did you break your leg?" Riley asked.

"Welp, the driver helped me unload Gertrude and get him in the backyard. I knew I had to build an enclosure to keep his wildness in, so, I started building a small barn for him to live in until the bash. It didn't take very long to build at all. When it was finished, I opened the cage door to let him inside his new dwellings, but, he ran inside and immediately jumped out the window."

"You put a window in it?" Madeleine questioned.

"Yeah, but, I must've not built it high enough and I didn't put a covering over it. Jumped right out of it" he said while use his hand to motion the jump, "I started to run right after, I swear, I heard it say 'kill Maxwell'. It attacked so quickly, I never had a chance. I stepped on a rock and my foot went sideways, causing me to fall. It rammed me a few times, before running off. Then Drake came out to help me, but, it attacked him also. Let's just say, demon pig-2, Maxwell and Drake-0."

All three women sat in silence. There were no words they could think of in that moment to express what they just heard.

"Does Bertrand and Savannah know about this?" Riley asked.

"I don't think so", he replied.

Riley took out her phone and sent a text, letting them know Maxwell was in the hospital and Bartie was there with Drake.

Meanwhile, in the bathroom....

Drake and Liam were still locked in arms, literally, fighting over an ascot.

"Let go of my ascot Drake."

"Liam, he has to have something covering his bottom until we get a diaper."

"Then give him your denim shirt!"

"What?" Drake gasped, "take it back Liam."

Bartie, who was still lying on the changing table naked, took this opportunity to settle the issue once and for all.

"What the hell!" Drake shouted as his denim shirt was getting soaked.

"Sir Walker, I do believe you have a spot on your shirt", Liam said with a British accent and a laugh.

Drake looked at Liam, "I hope you're happy now. He just pissed all over my good denim shirt."

Liam raised an eyebrow, "Drake, that's the only denim shirt you have, or wear for that matter."

"Why do you think it's my favorite?" he remarked sadly.

Bastien cleared his throat, "Your majesty, need I remind you, we can't leave this bathroom with a naked baby. It may be in everyone's interest for you to hand over the ascot."

Liam thought about Bastien's words for a moment, then looked around to see if there was anything else that could be used as a diaper. Wadded up hand towels, too flimsy, Drakes white shirt, no, he would just be shirtless in a hospital, his own socks, no, too small. He let out a loud huff, reached up and removed his ascot.

Drake reached out to grab it, but, Liam continued to cling onto it. Drake pulled harder, Liam pulled back even more.

"Give me the fucking ascot Liam!"

Liam pouted then handed Drake the ascot.

Drake looked Liam in the eyes and said, "Dude, you need therapy."

Drake began fashioning a diaper out of Liam's ascot. "Aha, perfect fit".

"What do we do about that disgusting car seat?" Liam asked.

"After all this, just leave it in here. When Bastien opens the door, we make a run for it."

Drake picked up Bartie and he and Liam stood at the door, readying themselves for the getaway. The bathroom was absolutely disgusting, shit was on the floor, the walls, the trash can, not to mention, the sink had an exploded diaper full of diarrhea in it. Liam couldn't risk someone seeing the King of Cordonia coming out of that room.

"Alright, on my count, Bastien will open the door and we will run as fast as we can."

"Hang on", Liam said as he removed his suit jacket and covered the top of his head so no one would recognize him. "Okay, ready".

"There's no turning back now. 1...2...3...Go!"

What hijinx await in Part 8?

[dorkylittlehooman]

[ID. a screenshot of a tweet and a compilation of screenshots of article headlines. The tweet is by HIayely @geology_rocks and reads "here is my yearly roundup of headlines I screen shorted in 2020."

The headlines, starting at the top and going down by left to right read, "philadelphia flyers mascot gritty accused of punching child", "court rules subway sandwiches too sugary to meet legal definition of "bread"", "overzealous profanity filter bans paleontologists from talking about bones", "Brooklyn for real: rat takes on pigeon in ruthless NYC showdown", "3 men banned from Yellowstone after trying to cook chicken in geyser", "man on 5-day ecstasy binge was caught filling bathtub with potatoes".

The screenshots continue, reading "Virginia senator blames Canada for his 'extreme moist' microwave tuna melt", "grizzly bear can eat 4,000 moths in a day", "mississippi says including giant mosquito state flag redesign was a mistake", "german nudist chases wild boar that stole laptop at berlin lake", "titanic's greatest unsolved mystery includes a Conga Line, P.C.P., and an unidentified chowder", "Is your meth contaminated with coronavirus? This Florida police dept. will test it for free", "bolsonaro called his isolation from the coronavirus "horrible" and was shortly afterwards bitten by an emu", "self-proclaimed leprechaun whisperer reveals he's still in contact with the mythical creatures who only reveal themselves to him - and insist they "don't have a problem" with lockdown".

Continuing on with the screenshots of headlines the next one reads, "countries with more butter have happier citizens", "drake ravaged with insults from his back tattoos: "looks like a zoom meeting"", "animals keep evolving into crabs which is somewhat disturbing", "a ghost is the perfect quarantine sex partner", "AI camera operater repeatedly confuses bald head for soccer ball during livestream", "Pope Francis urges followers to pray that AI and robots 'always we've mankind'", "rats besiege new York chipotle, eating avacados and attacking staff", "US Congress rules that pizza is a vegetable". "These foul-mouthed parrots had to be separated after cursing at wildlife park visitors", "man requests sword fight with ex-wife to settle legal dispute. David Ostrom, 40, of Paola, Kansas asks judge for trial by combat in 12 weeks, so he has time to secure Japanese samurai swords", "Universe shouldn't exist says CERN physicists", and finally "and now a sinkhole full of rats". End ID]

The Headlines of 2020

[the-coconut-asado]

Food Wars in Wrigglesbrook

First they took our longhauls. Then they came for the short hops. But even in the slapped backside that has been 2020, they will never take our inalienable right to go somewhere, eat something and smugly share the ‘gram. 

So while Vietnam in May and Galway in July are memories we are yet to make, booking a 19th century Romany caravan on the Welsh borders in September became the one we did.

In a normal year we wouldn’t have noticed you could stay in a Romany caravan near Wales or anywhere else for that matter,  but once you start googling you can find all sorts of ways to spend your refunds from BA: sleep with horses in Yorkshire - £250 a night for an aluminium frame bunk bed, the smell of manure and night terrors from Red Rum licking your face; or a yurt in Somerset - I’ve seen too many disgruntled Four in a Bed contestants to think this is a good idea. But the idea of cosying up in an olde worlde caravan next to an open fire and a babbling brook? You have my attention. 

The open fire and cooking pot were especially attractive as we weren’t expecting to have any memorable dining out experiences. For one thing, you never knew when the next lockdown was coming, so that Rule of Six could very quickly become a takeaway pasty on the A414; and on the other, we had yet to have a pub grub meal anywhere in the UK that gave us that irresistible string of emoji drools. We expected ‘ok’ but not OMG - so we started planning a trip for the local farm shop once we arrived and felt more Chevy Chase than the opening of National Lampoon’s vacation. 

Then we did arrive, ravenous, and resumed our Trip Advisor habit with a vengeance. 

At this point I should mention that this is a true story but names have been changed to protect the innocent. 

We knew that there was a pub within walking distance, but here’s the thing about Trip Advisor: you have to read between the lines. Too many effusive yet vague 5 stars and you start to suspect critical faculties are low; people complaining about a mardy waiter but grudgingly acknowledging the silky gnocchi may be worth closer inspection. Measured against these criteria  we were intrigued by the reviews for our local. It seemed like the food really was delicious (the degree of description, particularly of the game pie, was forensic), but that we may have a Basil and Sybil Fawlty on our hands. People talked of fights breaking out - between Basil and Sybil, Basil and customers, Sybil and customers - just name your combination. 2 star reviews were routinely met with a response that could cut you off at the knees with its sarcasm. Our dinner was decided. 

It felt easy at first. Seated away from other punters and not so near the open door as to catch a cold rather than Covid, and were served our drinks on the double. And then things got ‘interesting’. 20 or so minutes in I politely enquired if we could order. Sybil, hair bun askew,  frostily told us she was run off her feet and would deal with us when ready. We looked around - there were three covers in the restaurant and a further 3 outside. Still, we were on holiday so we took a deep breath and carried on drinking. 

Shortly after Basil himself bowled up, pad and pen in hand. ‘ Do you have the game pie tonight?’  Adam asked. With a face that said ‘thanks for reminding me (sarcastic version)’ Basil launched into the sorry tale of his put-upon weekend, churning out over 100 of them. ‘ Not enough pigeons so I had to have words with our supplier, but that’s Brexit for you (eye roll).’ 

We ordered game pie and when it arrived it was sensational. I had rarely eaten a pie with such depth of flavour and warm, autumnal embrace. When Basil came to take our plates, I asked him what was in it to give it such complexity. “ A secret!’ he snapped. “Just one ingredient then’ I coaxed. I tried to pull off a boozy conspiratorial smile, but just looked like I was having a stroke. He drew a deep breath: “ Teal, pigeon, venison, partridge, wild boar. That’s all I’ll say”. I took a mental note. 

A few minutes later he slammed a glass of something in front of me. I jumped as he said: ’ Tell me what that is then. Go on! I’ll tell you something - it’s’ not cooking sherry!”

I took a sip. “ Madeira?”

His mood changed slightly. “Exactly so. No one else round here uses madeira, just  cheap supermarket alcohol. And now..” he said with a grand sweep of his hand as Sybil approached muleishly to take our dessert order: ‘ My darling wife will tell you what we have for afters’.

“ What’s the dessert of the day?.”

“ I’d have to check” said Sybil. The frost wasn’t  thawing.

“ Why don’t you know? ‘ Basil demanded . ‘ There’s going to be words about this tomorrow”

‘Who says I’ll come in tomorrow?’ she snarled. 

‘I don’t care if you come in tomorrow!’

‘I’ll have the rhubarb crumble!’ I interjected quickly. 

Sybil was an inch away from ‘You know where you can stick your rhubarb crumble!’ so I felt I was doing my bit for the war effort. That and I did really want some rhubarb crumble and sod dessert of the day. But Sybil was aggressively set on checking it out and turned on her heel with consummate dramatic timing. She returned. It was sticky toffee pudding. “No thanks” from Adam at this stage would have been churlish. 

With no knife left on our table with which to cut a slice of atmosphere, but satisfied that I now had most of the ingredients for Basil’s secret game pie, we tucked into our puddings. They were both molten and packed with flavour. Maybe what we had witnessed was not a slanging match but their creative process.

The next morning our host at the Caravan B&B served up the best English breakfast, with a demeanour more Biden than the Trumps of the previous evening. Homemade toasted bread, local black pudding and slabs of bacon with crispy fat - he and his wife clearly knew about food. 

We decided to take one of his recommendations and try the next nearest pub that evening - a short drive away with equally complimentary reviews about the food  but no apparent  turf war between the owners. Here we dined on roast pork belly with crispy pig cheeks, a steak and ale pie (flaky delicious pastry, but without the sucker punch hit of Basil’s Game), and wondered why this part of the country had such a concentration of good pub food. And then we dined out at a third pub on our last night and our run of good luck came to an end. Partly my fault for ordering a curry because I have never yet had a good curry in a pub, but not my fault that the apple crumble had no sugar in it whatsoever. 

Anyway, here we are back at home, it’s December, the cold has set in and the first vaccines are coming over the horizon. So you might like to try my take on Basil’s Game Pie for the ultimate winter warmer, followed by my Torta di Ricotta flavoured with the sweetest Miyagawa tangerines of the season - Dessert of the Day in my fantasy restaurant. Start your dinner with the quickest and yummiest dressed Burrata (not so much a recipe as an assembly, learnt from Jock Zonfrillo on this year’s Australian Masterchef) and I promise you will find no reason to argue with anyone. 

Just don’t mention the war. 

Game and Marsala Pie with Potato Pastry

I have used a mix of venison, partridge and pheasant here, but take your pick from whatever is in season - proportion one animal to two birds (so wild boar could supplement venison for example). I found that Marsala gives that same depth of flavour as madeira and is cheaper. You can make either normal shortcrust, or my delicious (if super short and un-photogenic) potato pastry. Serves 4-6.

Ingredients

For the game filling: 

3 tbsps extra virgin olive oil

250g piece of pancetta, diced

1 large onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, grated

1 large carrot, chopped

500g venison, cubed

250 ml game stock (made with pheasant carcass) or beef stock

Meat from 2 x pheasants, cubed

6 partridge breasts, cubed

250 ml marsala

250g chopped chestnut mushrooms

Tablespoon redcurrant jelly

Handful of fresh rosemary, chopped

Handful of chopped fresh thyme

1 tsp salt

6 juniper berries

For the potato pastry: 

175g self-raising flour

125g unsalted butter, cut into small cubes

175g cold mashed potato

1 egg, beaten. 

How to Make

Heat 2 tbsp. of the olive oil in a casserole add the pancetta and fry until golden brown. Add the chopped onions, and stir to coat in the oil and pancetta fat. Continue for a couple of minutes until the onions soften, then add the garlic and the chopped carrot and continue to stir. Add the venison and continue to saute until brown, then add the game stock, marsala, herbs and juniper berries, along with the salt and a grind of black pepper. Cover and simmer for 45 minutes. 

While the venison is simmering, add the remaining tbsp olive oil to a frying pan. When hot, add the diced pheasant and partridge followed by the mushrooms. Saute for about 5 minutes until the edges of the game are brown and slightly caramelised. 

After 45 minutes, add the game birds and mushrooms to the venison, and stir in the redcurrant jelly. Cover again and continue to cook for a further 15 minutes. Take off the heat and cool. 

To make the pastry, rub the cold, cubed butter into the flour in a large bowl until it resembles breadcrumbs, then add the mashed potato to bind it all together. Roll into a ball then flatten slightly, wrap in clingfilm and chill for 30 minutes. 

Heat the oven to 200C. Put the game filling into a large, deep pie dish. Roll out the pastry carefully between two sheets of greasproof paper  (this pastry is very crumbly and won’t behave as well as shortcrust). Lift carefully and place on top of the pie dish to form a crust, and patch ad pinch where the pastry tears. Trim any overhang and pinch the edges to seal (you can make leaves and roses from the spare pastry to decorate the top of the pie). Brush the whole surface with the beaten egg, then bake in the oven for 20 -25 minutes. Serve warm with some buttered cabbage. 

Miyagawa Torta di Ricotta

I make many different versions of this light and velvety italian version of cheesecake-in-a tart, but this one has a delicious citrus hit. Serves 6-8.

Ingredients

For the filling:

250g ricotta cheese

100g caster sugar

2 large eggs, beaten

100ml double cream

Zest and juice of 2 miyagawas (or you can use clementines)

1 tsp. Vanilla paste

For the pastry (this makes twice as much as you need, so use half and freeze the rest)

500g plain flour

250g unsalted butter, chilled ad cut into small cubes

175g icing sugar

2 eggs

For the syrup: 

Juice of 2 miyagawas

100g caster sugar\½ tsp. Ground cardamom

50 ml water

How to make

First make the pastry. Put the flour and butter into a food processor and blitz until the consistency of breadcrumbs. Add the icing sugar and pulse for a minute, then, with the motor running, add the two beaten eggs and pulse until it just comes together (don’t overwork). 

Turn out onto a floured surface, divide in two, pat one half  into a flatish circle, wrap in clingfilm and chill for an hour. Cut one third of the second ball and put to one side. Wrap the rest in clingfilm and freeze). 

Heat the oven to 180C. Roll out the pastry to fit a 23 cm tart tin. Trim the edges (save these for later) , prick the base all over with a fork then line with baking parchment and bake blind (using baking beans or any dried beans) for 20 minutes. Remove the baking parchment and beans, brush the base of the pastry with beaten egg, then return to the oven for a further 15 mins. Remove from the oven and cool while you make the filling. 

To make the filling: mix all the ingredients together until smooth. Pour into the cooled tart shell. 

Working with your remaining pastry, roll out again and cut strips, then lattice these strips across the top of the tart. 

Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes or until the filling is firm but still a bit wobbly. Remove from the oven and cool. 

Make the syrup: Put all the ingredients into a small saucepan and heat gently until the sugar is dissolved. Bring to the boil and then boil for 5 minutes until thickened slightly. Turn off the heat and cool - as it cools, the syrup will thicken more. When cool, brush the syrup over the surface of the tart. Leave for an hour and then serve. This tart will keep well under a cover for another couple of days. 

Dressed Burrata

So luscious with an unexpected hit of chilli. From first thought to table in 2 minutes. 

Serves 2. 

Take one burrata, at room temperature, and pop it into a small bowl. Snip a generous cross in the top of the cheese with scissors, enough to let it ooze. Drizzle on some top quality extra virgin olive oil, two turns of a black pepper mill, a generous pinch of sea salt, a chopped red thai chilli and a squeeze of lemon juice. 

Eat straight away with slices of toasted sourdough or, as in this picture, some of my toasted beer and buttermilk soda bread.

[deepseawritings]

Persona non grata

I didn’t exactly specify who the protagonist it in this one; it can either be Marked One or any other unlucky stalker.

Everyone hated him. It wasn’t exactly an exaggeration, he was friendless and every other stalker avoided him like the plague. Or tried to kill him.

It all began back in the rookie village, in Cordon. Thinking of earning some money to buy better equipment, he accepted one of Sidorovich’s missions. He was tasked with killing a so called ‘sales representative’. His PDA situated him in Cordon, close to the cross by the bandit’s camp, so he accepted.

He didn’t enjoy his trek across the area. He’d been chased by a pack of dogs, and when he sat down in the decrepit bus stop to catch his breath, some freaky rats had attacked him. The railroad embankment was controlled by the military or bandits posing as military, he wasn’t sure which. The only clear thing was that they liked shooting at people. He had to run away and in the process nearly got his legs ripped out in an anomaly. From then on, he wasted an incredible amount of bolts to get to his destination, paranoid as he was, but in the end he arrived more or less whole.

There were three stalkers camped in that location. One of them was his objective, but he wasn’t sure which one. What to do? He threw a grenade at them. This would solve the issue. With the three of them dead, he got to kill his mark with no witnesses left, and there would be no angry friends who could come after him in revenge. Nice. Plus, he now could loot their belongings. It had been a very profitable mission after all.

#

The blowout had caught him in the middle of nowhere. He ran around, desperately searching for some place to hide, he didn’t want to be outside during an emission... The only shelter to be found in miles was a derelict house far from the road. Not an ideal choice, it had too many holes on the roof, but it would do.

The thing was that he wasn’t the only one in search of a safe haven to hide during the blowout. Not even a full minute later, a group of bandits came rushing into the same house. With all the rumbling and the noise from the blowout, he didn’t notice he had company until he literally bumped into one of them. He killed the bandit, only to have a bunch of them rushing to him when they heard the gunshot. He fired at them blindly, running for his life and stumbling whenever the ground shook too hard. He found a ladder and climbed up, using his elevated position to shoot at the idiots who dared to go after him.

Once the emission ended and the world stopped looking like Hell itself, he slid down the ladder. The floor was littered with bodies. Wow, he was sort of amazed he survived against so many enemies! He spotted a fellow stalker amongst the corpses, a rookie he’d met on the village. He felt a slight pang of regret, thinking that maybe he’d killed a comrade. Such feeling vanished quickly. Death was a common happenstance in the Zone and he barely knew the man, so he didn’t care much.

#

Garbage was aptly named. The area was just a giant, lethal dumpster. The garbage piles were highly radioactive, but he was sure he’d seen an artifact in one of them. As a result, he’d gotten very sick very quickly, all for a simple Jellyfish. He only had one dose of anti radiation meds. Hoping it would suffice, he washed the pill down with a bottle of vodka. If he was going to die of radiation poisoning, at least the vodka would dull his senses. He did not die, but it was a close call. Some bandits saw him and decided to go greet him in their usual style. Thus he discovered that fighting bandits off while drunk was harder than he’d imagined. But he succeeded. He felt unstoppable now.

Shortly after, he received a message from some nearby loners requesting help against more bandits. To his alcohol addled mind that sounded good. He ran to help them with his shotgun at the ready. He went to meet his fellow stalkers and reassure them that he was here to help. It was a shame that in his rush he didn’t hear one of them shouting at him to put his weapon away. He planted himself in front of them, shotgun still in hand, and was promptly smacked upside the head with the barrel of a rifle. Ouch. He had no time to berate them for their extreme rudeness because the bandits were coming for them.

The ensuing fight was a disaster. The bandits surpassed them in number and had better weapons. The loners fell like flies and soon he was alone facing a those bastards. Somehow, he killed them all, though he didn’t remember much of it. He suspected grenades held a major role in his victory. Well, he helped kill the bandits as promised, even if there were no survivors to thank him. However, he would soon discover that wasn’t entirely true.  While looting the bodies he discovered one of the stalkers was still alive, gravely wounded but alive. He could use one of his medkits...

However, he recognised him as the one who’d smacked him in the head with the rifle. Besides, the man was at death’s doorstep already, better to let nature run its course. Or better yet, help nature run its course a little faster. He stabbed the wounded stalker, telling himself it was a mercy kill and that it was the right decision. Besides, the guy had been carrying a couple of different artifacts, those were good loot!

He was loaded with stuff to sell and could barely move. A trip back to Sidorovich was in order. On his way out of Garbage, someone shot at him from behind. He ducked behind a tree and blindly shot back with one of the Abakans he’d pilfered. A cry of pain announced that he shot accurately. He bandaged his bleeding arm before going to inspect the body. His now dead assailant seemed to be a rookie. Uh, he must have turned crazy. Maybe that was how zombiefied stalkers started? He made a mental note to ask about that back in the rookie village.

#

Just as he stepped into the rookie camp, about half of the stalker there snapped when they saw his face and started to attack him. What the hell? He wasn’t going to take it lying down, so he defended himself. Wolf didn’t appreciate him killing his men, and soon he also joined the hunt for his miserable hide. He was completely screwed, unless... Yeah, running for his life and hiding in the underground bunker sounded right.

He led his chasers on a pointless chase across the abandoned houses, managing to shake them off his trail, and then he sprinted to safety in a mad dash. He was panicking; what was he going to do? Then he remembered his motto in case of doubt, grenades are the solution. He sold all his hard earned loot to Sidorovich and used the money to buy a lot of grenades and medical supplies.

Back in the surface, he started throwing the grenades around like a possessed madman. It was an effective tactic. All his attackers died, along with the few stalkers that remained neutral during this madness. In fact, when he was done the rookie camp was a ghost village. Oh well, no strategy was perfect and he was still alive, so in his book that was a win.  Looking at the bright side, now everything in the camp was his property. He was going to get crazy rich in no time!

#

He was tired of roaming Cordon and Garbage. All the stalkers in the area were out to kill him, along with the bandits, and the military. And let’s not forget the wildlife, of course. He still didn’t know how, but he had acquired the reputation of a psychopath. It was preposterous! He only killed when his life was in danger; or when one of Sidorovich’s special tasks required it. Maybe it was time to move onto greener pastures. He’d heard that Dark Valley was an area teeming with opportunities.

#

Nope, just no. He didn’t want to even think about his trip to Dark Valley. He was never, ever going back there.

Ok, so everything had been going fine at first. He arrived, admired the view and even accepted to help that Duty guy with his bandit problem. Then he saw it. A swarm of hundreds of rats appeared on the horizon, running towards them at breakneck speed.

The rodents arrived like a squeaking tide of devastation. He barely had time to jump on a high rock before they started gnawing at the other stalker and the bandit. He threw a grenade at the sea of rats, killing only a few of them and the Dutyer. Didn’t matter, surely being eaten alive was worse, right? The rats closed in on his rock and now he couldn’t even throw another grenade at them without fear of blowing himself up. He fired at them with his Abakan and made them fall back just a bit. Then he jumped off the rock and ran away screaming like a frightened child. He ran all the way back to Garbage and then kept running until he collapsed from the effort.

He was still catching his breath after such marathon, when three stalkers resting by the side of the road saw him. They ran towards him, screaming bloody murder and shooting at him. This was getting annoyingly familiar. After dispatching them, he racked his brain for what to do now. Then a simple idea hit him like a ton of bricks: he could go to bar, the 100 Rads. Yes, he would go there, forget about what happened in Cordon and Garbage. It seemed the best place to start anew and forge himself a new reputation.

Unfortunately, the road to the bar was blocked by a Duty detail. They were not letting anyone pass. He was arguing with them to let him go through when wild boars attacked. The Duty guys requested his help to kill the boars, so of course he complied. Getting into Duty’s good graces could only benefit him. He shot at the beasts with his rifle, decided to kill as much of them as he could. He saw one of the Duty stalkers getting harassed by a boar and he fired at the beast until it was dead. The Dutyer didn’t like that one bit. With a scream of “That bitch shot me!” he turned all of his squadmates against him.

He was forced to kill them all. Fucking hell! On the bright side, there were no witnesses to this carnage. Alright, no one needed to know this. If anyone asked him, he would try to make it pass as a bandit attack.

#

The Bar area had a serious infestation of blind dogs and pseudo-dogs. He arrived running for his life, hoping the lookouts would help him. They did, thank goodness. He knew better than to try to help them though, he didn’t want a repeat of what happened with the other Duty squad.

A loner nearby had heard the commotion and came to help. Then he saw him and went mad, shooting at him instead of the mutants.  Oh shit, not again! It looked like his reputation had spread here as well, damn. He quickly killed the crazed stalker, an instinctive reaction by now. In hindsight, it was a grave mistake. The Duty guards didn’t like that and, once the mutants were dead, they turned against him as well.

His presence turned the otherwise peaceful area into a fucking bloodbath. He used all his ammo and all his grenades, but he survived. He was bleeding profusely and his armour was not serviceable anymore, but he survived. Sweet mother of god, he needed a drink.

The barkeep wasn’t very welcoming and berated him for his killing spree. He didn’t care anymore. He was too tired to summon the energy to reply something. After patching himself up, he bought some new gear. Another sunrise suit, for starters, also ammo and grenades for the Groza he looted from one of the corpses. And of course, as much vodka as he could drink without getting alcohol poisoning.

He sat outside, basking in the setting sun, and drank amidst a pile of corpses, pondering on what happened. All he wanted was to come here to rebuild his reputation, drink in company of someone who was alive for a change, place some bets in the arena... Now everyone was dead or out for his blood. Again. What had he ever done to deserve this?

Nevertheless, not all was lost. He knew there was another faction named Freedom, one that was enemies with Duty. Yes, he was going to join Freedom. They would probably be ecstatic that he had already killed so many Dutyers. Screw everything else, tomorrow he would go to the Army Warehouses and join Freedom.

#

The journey to the Army Warehouses wasn’t overly long, but it wasn’t an easy one. It started with yet another gunfight when he found another angry Duty contingent on the other side of the bar area. What a great way to start the day. He almost died a dozen of times by the time he crossed into the new territory, running away from the angry Duty higher-ups and dodging bullets. He was overstressed and twitchy, and shooting first and asking questions later was now an ingrained reflex. When he heard voices ahead on the road, he fired at them without thinking. Luckily for him, they turned out to be bandits. Thank God. That was fine, killing bandits was a public service, no one would be angry with him for that.

Later, further along the road, he found an old farmstead turned into a Duty camp. Knowing what kind of welcome to expect from them if they spotted him, he went in for the kill before he lost the element of surprise. Time to test those new grenades the Groza carried. Once everyone was dead, he looted their bodies because if you’re hated, at least reap some profit out of it. Also, he needed more ammo for his beloved Groza.

He could already see the walls surrounding the Freedom base. He was so close to his objective! With a renewed spring in his step, he continued ahead. Then he heard some noises coming from behind a rusted vehicle. His muscle memory acted for him and he fired. The bullets went through the decayed metal and something dropped to the ground with a foreboding sound.

It could have been a mutant, or a bandit, or a merc, or even a loner trying to kill him. But deep down, he feared the truth. With his anxiety spiking out of scale, he went to see what had he killed. It was a human body and yes, the corpse was wearing the Wind of Freedom suit. Shit. Maybe no one had noticed his slip?

A bullet embedded itself in the dirt, millimetres away from him. No, the snipers on the towers definitely noticed it. He ran away before one of their shots could strike true and kill him. Oh God, now all factions were out for his blood.

What now? He had everyone against him! Wasn’t there any faction he could join that would protect him? He’d heard about the Monolith fighters, but he’d never seen one. Was it even a viable option, to get into Monolith? He then had a brilliant idea: the Wish Granter! If he found it, he could make everyone stop hating him. Yeah, he was a fucking genius. The Wish Granter would solve all his problems!

Based on the absolute mess that was one of my first experiences with Shadow of Chernobyl :D

[garyringrose]

Bali and New Zealand Day 38

Well on waking up this Monday morning I thought that I would be a bit stiff and legs aching after yesterday's climb. No such thing. I feel right as rain 😁.

Its still a bit surreal and not quite sunk in just how awesome yesterday was.

No rest for the wicked though. Our host Colin had gone to work early so we had breakfast and a chat with Theresa before saying our thanks and farewell for such a wonderful stay.

We decided to take Colin up on his suggestion of driving the 'Forgotten Highway's as this took us in our general onward direction. Before hand though I had to call into Macpac and purchase a baseball cap that I'd previously um'd and ar'd about. Decided it could be my little reminder of my summit climb.

So after leaving New Plymouth we headed back out on the road we arrived and back to Stratford where upon we turned left onto SH43 (SH, State Highway), the forgotten highway.

This road is about 150km from Stratford to Taumarunui. The road is very windy, up & down, scenic, has lots of history and great views and stopping places along the way. There are four passes that you climb up, over and go back down and a stunning gorge section. The scenery starts with hilly sheep country a bit like the peak district, goes into native bush/jungle, through the gorge and ends in a river valley with stunning roadside cliffs where you can see the volcanic layers in the rock. The horizontal layers of age work in a similar way to tree rings and mark different growth periods.

The morning was spent driving and stopping at the passes to enjoy the views. There are also loads of wild goats in this area that escaped from the early colonies and have bred. They're considered a pest and are regularly hunted . New Zealand has a huge program to try and rid it of imported animals/pests/preditors by 2050. Things like stoats, possums, goats, white tailed deer, wild pigs and rats. Before these creatures were introduced birds ruled here and in the areas which have been made preditor free (due to traps and fenced sanctuaries), they are thriving again. Lots of previous birds are extinct though as they we're flightless. They didn't need to escape things until the preditors were bought in on ships. The program is going well and the nation seems behind it. Not sure how they'll get rid of all rats though.

We stopped for lunch at the Whangamomona Hotel which was nice and the place querky as hell! It's buildings and general feel is of the wild west.

It's the only place a New Zealand rugby team can play in all black other than if your playing for the all blacks.

They moved the district border some time ago and they weren't happy about it so it's now a republic with it's own elected president. It also has it's own passport stamp and you can get your passport stamped at the hotel. Check out the link below for more info, especially some of the cheifs names like Billy Gumboot the Goat & Mert 'Mertle the turtle' Kennard!

Onwards then and a side road detour to take a short walk to Damper Falls. The walks pretty flat, about 1km and goes through fields and then native bush to the falls. Rumour has it that a local was chasing his sheepdog that was in turn chasing a wild boar and discovered the falls just as his dog fell to his death as the boar jumped over the falls with the dog attached to him. I'm guessing the boar didn't survive either, it's a long way down .

Back down the side road, past some trees that support the Kokako (Blue wattled crow), really rare, didn't see or hear any but I'm told very early Dawn is best and rejoined SH43 and on through the gorge section.

At the end of this section in the bush just off the highway is the grave of Joshua Morgan. He was an early pioneering surveyor who was mapping the route for the original road. He contracted peritonitis and died out their. They buried him nearby . His widow was cremated and her ashes put their also (she died a long time after, they didn't just cremate her because her husband died!).

The road was really hard to build because of the type of rock , the elevation, the floods and constant rockfall.

This was also why the railway was abandoned.

Shortly after we arrived at Taumarunui and checked into the motel. It was a great room, very comfortable and we had a great fish & chip takeaway. The fish was called Tarakihi (well not as in my name's Gary but as in the species, I looked it up and it looks similar to bream and is very tasty). Great value too. 3 pieces of fish (only expected the 2 ) and chips for two @ £5.50.

Boing, time for bed said zebadee.

Loads of wild goats, Yellowhammers, Harriers, magpies, Tui, kingfishers. 😎

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whangamomona

[thedeadshotnetwork]

Jerry Brown, President of the Independent Republic of California VATICAN CITY—On his way to the United Nations climate talks in Bonn, Germany, this week, Jerry Brown stopped over at the Vatican, where a doleful group of climate scientists, politicians and public health officials had convened to discuss calamities that might befall a warming world. The prospects were so dire—floods and fires, but also forced migration, famine and war—that some of the participants acknowledged difficulty staving off despair. California’s doomsayer governor did not express much optimism either. Seated between an economist and an Argentine bishop at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Brown leaned into his microphone and said, “It is despairing. Ending the world, ending all mammalian life. This is bad stuff.” “There’s nothing that I see out there that gives me any ground for optimism,” he went on. Still, he promised action: “I’m extremely excited about doing something about it." Even though President Donald Trump has abandoned the Paris climate agreement and called climate change a “hoax,” and even though he is proceeding to scrap the Obama-era Clean Power Plan and promoting the production of coal, Brown insisted to his audience at the Vatican that these policies do not reflect the true sensibilities of the United States. “This is not just a top-down structure that we have in the United States,” the governor said. The small crowd burst into applause when he added, “Over time, given the commitments that we’re seeing in this room today, and what we’re seeing around the world, the Trump factor is very small, very small indeed.” In the raw balance of power between a governor and a president, Brown has almost no standing abroad. What he does have is a platform, and a proposition: Crusading across Europe in his Fitbit and his dark, boxy suit, Brown advances California and its policies almost as an alternative to the United States—and his waning governorship, after a lifetime in politics, as a quixotic rejection of the provincial limits of the American governor. In the growing chasm between Trump’s Washington and California—principally on climate change, but also taxes, health care, gun control and immigration—Brown is functioning as the head of something closer to a country than a state. In his final term, Brown has lobbied other states and regions to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, while augmenting California’s already expansive suite of climate change programs. But Trump’s election—and the specter of Brown’s own retirement—have lately set the governor on a tear. In a rush of climate diplomacy this year, Brown traveled to China to meet with President Xi Jinping, then to Russia to participate in an international economic forum. This past week saw him address lawmakers in Brussels and Stuttgart, Germany, and he was preparing for roundtable meetings with scientists in Oslo before arriving in Bonn for a climate conference, where Brown will serve as special adviser for states and regions. And he is preparing for California to host an international climate summit of its own next year in San Francisco. In one sense, Brown’s fixation on climate change would seem unremarkable, the predictable conclusion of a career steeped in the ecological and environmental movements of the 1960s and 1970s. The 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, early Earth Day rallies and the Stockholm conference on the environment weighed heavily on the public consciousness when Brown was starting out in politics, and observers of a certain age will still recall him mystifying audiences with pronouncements about “planetary realism” and the “spaceship Earth.” He was still talking about the need for a fundamental shift in lifestyle when he said at the Vatican that confronting climate change will require “a transformation of the relationship of human beings to all the mysterious network of things.” “It’s not just a light rinse,” Brown said. “We need a total, I might say, brainwashing. We need to wash our brains out and see a very different kind of world.” But in his climate diplomacy today, Brown is performing a more urgent, final act. For nearly all his public life—from secretary of state to governor, to mayor of Oakland and state attorney general before becoming governor once again, at age 72—Brown’s near-constant state was to run for public office. Now, for the first time, he is not. Term limits will chase Brown from the state Capitol in January 2019, and today he calls climate change his “campaign,” dismissing the idea that after running unsuccessfully for president three times, he might try again in 2020. “I’ve thought because people like you ask me,” he said in an interview before leaving for Europe. “But no, I’m not running.” Now, Brown’s future rests on a family ranch in Northern California, where he is nearly finished building a remote, off-the-grid home. These days, he talks more about rattlesnakes and wild boar than the presidential election, and he has turned his focus from electoral politics to more existential concerns. “I find a lot of what is included in politics doesn’t count that much, at least for my salvation or my peace of mind or my interest in life,” Brown said. The climate, he went on, “is fundamental. It’s not like dietary requirements. It’s not like a tax measure, or a school curriculum, or many of the issues, even a crime bill. It goes to the essence of being alive, living things. Whether it’s humans or fauna, flora, the basis of life is embedded in this chemical structure, biological structure. And it’s threatened.” Sitting in the back of a Ford Crown Victoria on a tarmac at Los Angeles International Airport, Brown added, “This, to me, seems worthwhile.” *** Brown often borrows from the writer Carey McWilliams’ description of California as “the great exception,” a colossus that McWilliams said, “always occupied, in relation to other regions, much the same relation that America has occupied toward Europe: it is the great catch-all, the vortex at the continent’s end into which elements of America’s diverse population have been drawn, whirled around.” Trump’s election nearly spun that vortex off its axis. In a state where Democrats had already battered Republicans to near-irrelevance, voters last year installed Democratic super-majorities in both houses of the state Legislature. They approved higher taxes and stricter gun controls, legalized marijuana and made certain felons eligible for early parole. They handed Trump the most lopsided loss a Republican presidential nominee has suffered in California in 80 years. Then they slumped in front of their TV sets as the rest of America went the other way. The morning after the election, the leaders of the state Senate and assembly issued a joint statement in which they said they “woke up feeling like strangers in a foreign land.” Brown had joked before the election that if Trump were to become president, “We’d have to build a wall around California to defend ourselves from the rest of this country.” Now, the state Legislature and a large share of Brown’s constituents expected him to hoist it up—to assert California’s sovereignty in the Trump state. As Trump started dismantling his predecessor’s climate policies, Brown helped organize an alliance of 14 states and the island of Puerto Rico, pledging to meet their share of the U.S. commitment to the Paris climate accord. He redoubled his efforts outside of the United States, expanding on a joint project with the German state of Baden-Württemberg: recruiting nearly 200 mostly subnational governments to sign a nonbinding pact to limit global temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius, the threshold beyond which many scientists predict environmental catastrophe. On top of that, Brown negotiated legislation extending California’s signature cap-and-trade program for an additional 10 years, then signed an agreement with leaders of Ontario and Quebec to integrate their cap-and-trade systems with California’s. Trump’s election shook Brown and his home state in other ways, too: California relied on billions of dollars in federal health care funding that Trump threatened to undo, and the president’s hard line on immigration sowed fear among California’s large population of undocumented immigrants. When the Trump administration started conducting immigration sweeps in Los Angeles, protesters strung “No I.C.E” signs from freeway overpasses, and Brown—who had signed legislation granting undocumented immigrants driver’s licenses and access to college financial aid—negotiated state legislation curbing local law enforcement officials’ ability to cooperate with federal immigration agents. By this fall, California’s feuding with Washington had grown so routine that it barely registered as news when, during the span of seven hours one day last month, state Attorney General Xavier Becerra announced four separate lawsuits against the Trump administration on issues ranging from health care and education to immigration and oil extraction on public and tribal lands. Before Trump’s election, Brown existed largely at the margins outside California. When he returned to office in 2011, a fellow Democrat held the White House, and no one had to look West for an expression of leftist causes. In that context, Brown presented as a moderate, taking criticism from environmentalists for his permissiveness of hydraulic fracturing, while others dismissed as insignificant the nonbinding climate agreements he pursued. But then Trump, less than a month in office, told a national TV audience, “California is in many ways out of control.” Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, addressing California Republicans shortly after Brown signed legislation expanding protections for undocumented immigrants, said that if California kept this up, it would eventually “try to secede from the union.” The governor factored so heavily in the specter of a civil war that House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, himself a Californian, slipped in a speech last month in which he rebuked one “President Brown.” The nation’s most populous state was cleaving from Washington, and Brown was its marshaling force. “Trump is leaving many vacuums, and I think Jerry Brown has long imagined himself as a kind of global player,” says Orville Schell, who wrote a biography of Brown in 1978 and remains in contact with him. “He does see California, as the sixth-largest economy of the world, as capable of playing more of a nation-state-like role.” Brown “sort of accidentally has had the world thrust in his lap through the climate issue, which he passionately believes in,” Schell adds. “The opportunity has presented itself, the inclination is there, and he’s sort of ratcheting the state up to rush into that breach that Washington is leaving.” *** In the role of a statesman, Brown so far has been met with doting audiences in Europe. When he arrived in Stuttgart for meetings this week, local officials sent a seven-car motorcade to the airport to deliver him to his hotel with lights flashing, an unheard-of accommodation back home. And when Brown spoke in Brussels on Tuesday, before the hemicycle of the European Parliament, the body’s president, Antonio Tajani, said the governor’s presence gave Europeans “some comfort” in the era of Trump. Muhterem Aras, president of the parliament of Baden-Württemberg, told Brown through an interpreter, “You and your work are needed more than ever.” She cast Brown as a warrior “facing a mighty lobby as an adversary.” Yet in the polished, grip-and-grin world of diplomacy, Brown can also seem out of place. He has sprinted through his trip on a borrowed charter plane with his tiny entourage—a handful of aides, a small protective detail and his wife and adviser, Anne Gust Brown, straightening his collar. He maintains an exasperatingly loose schedule, suffers posing for photographs and sometimes wanders on stage. Before he strode into the Vatican headquarters of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, a 16th century summer residence for Pope Pius IV, Brown darted for a table of coffee and cookies that waiters were starting to clear away. “You had to eat, didn’t you, love?” his wife asked her husband, who has a sixth sense for free food. Throughout his trip, Brown has also carried copies of two articles he wrote about the threat of nuclear proliferation, his principal concern other than climate change. The first, “Nuclear Addiction: A Response,” was written in 1984 for a now-defunct Jesuit publication. The second is Brown’s review in the New York Review of Books last year of former defense secretary William Perry’s My Journey at the Nuclear Brink . Leaving a meeting one night in Rome with Arturo Sosa, the superior general of the Jesuits, Brown squinted over his hawk-like nose and said that while “going around enlisting allies … I bring my two little articles and I pass them around.” Depending on his audience and mood, Brown vacillates between optimism and dread for the future. Signing a government guestbook in Brussels this week, he quoted Virgil: “Ad astra per aspera”—to the stars through difficulties. Later, when the elevator taking Brown from a meeting went up instead of down, he first complained, half-joking—“Mistake!”—and then said, “That can happen with missile launches, too.” As frequently as Brown is asked about Trump, Brown has mentioned the president only sparingly on his European tour. Although he has called Trump the “null hypothesis” for climate change, a politician who by “making his case of denial so preposterous, helps the other side,” he insists the problem of climate change is bigger than one leader, and has acknowledged he is trying to make “lemonade out of a lemon.” A year ago, it appeared that Brown might not be able even to do that. Two nights before the election, he was eating chips and salsa at an airport bar in Durango, Colorado, where he had spent the day campaigning for Hillary Clinton. If Trump took the White House, he said in an interview, it would be “game over” for climate change. “Game over,” he said again. Asked about it recently, on the tarmac in Los Angeles, Brown said, “I say a lot of things while waiting for a drink in bars across America.” “We’re fighting,” he added. “The game is over in Washington for the moment … But not in the world.” Later, at the Vatican, he put it this way: “You should despair, but that won’t help. So be optimistic, and do whatever you can.” *** Brown said he has met Trump once, when he was mayor of Oakland in the 2000s and considered bringing a casino to the city. The two flew together in Trump’s plane to Oakland from Palm Springs. The governor recalled being impressed with a Renoir that Trump had hung on a wall in the plane. “I don’t know whether it was real or not,” Brown said last year. “But I thought it was. I thought it was a hell of a statement.” Brown, more than many politicians, could appreciate the populist appeal that swept Trump into the White House—and that Brown sought to capture in his own three presidential campaigns. In 1976, he called for an “era of limits,” then campaigned against the North American Free Trade Agreement and the influence of corporate money in politics in his 1992 campaign. He refused campaign contributions greater than $100 and, in rhetoric reminiscent of Trump’s “drain the swamp,” criticized “the basic fact of unchecked power and privilege.” Pat Caddell, the veteran pollster and political analyst who gave advice to Brown in 1992 and Trump in 2016, says, “Brown was way ahead of his time, really … I think if Jerry had run in ’16, he could have won the Democratic nomination.” Today, Brown’s mind is elsewhere. He deflects questions about his legacy, arguing, “Everything we’re doing can be framed as either a model for everybody else or building my legacy that I’m going to be reviewing in my dotage.” Yet the issues that consume him—climate change and nuclear proliferation—are legacy concerns of humankind. “Human civilization is on the chopping block,” Brown told an auditorium full of lawmakers and students this week in Stuttgart, his voice rising almost to a yell. “We have to wake up the world. We have to wake up Europe, wake up America, wake up the whole world to realize that we have a common destiny.” While climate change has afforded Brown a degree of notoriety outside California, he believes that history is not kind to governors and a politician’s relevance quickly fades. “It’s just a matter of time before your irrelevance engulfs your total being,” he said in Los Angeles, chuckling. “I’m pretty focused on today.” He is at least thinking a little about the near future. Dna Hoover, who is building the Browns’ ranch house, said Anne Gust Brown called recently to ask about stucco samples and a generator, and the couple ran a herd of goats through the property, where the Browns have planted olive trees, to chew down grass to prevent fire. “He’s ready,” Hoover says. “He’s really so connected with that place and is ready to get up there full-time.” Brown has even discussed the possibility of creating some kind of meeting space on the ranch. Before he was to arrive in Bonn on Saturday, he left his aides behind and swung south to Bremen, Germany, to visit with Silja Samerski, who had once helped him organize a salon he called the “Oakland Table,” attracting intellectuals such as the late social critic Ivan Illich. “We’re going to talk about unfinished issues from the Oakland Table,” Brown said of his visit with Samerski. “The good life, and how are we supposed to lead it. What are we doing? So, that’s getting ready for the Colusa Institute,” he explained, laughing a bit. Colusa is the name of the county where he is building his ranch. Brown is also contemplating writing when he leaves office, something he tried, but largely gave up, after his first two terms as governor. His work at the time, he says, “didn’t rise to the quality that met my standards.” Decades later, Brown says, “I have much more to say.” At an event held alongside the Democratic National Convention last year, Brown had compared his retirement to that of a Roman statesman, “a fellow named Cincinnatus who saved the Republic, and then he went back to the plow.” November 11, 2017 at 12:19PM

[onewheelneil]

Hungary last day

Today I didn't get out of bed until 10 am waking up to my friends dogs happy to see me. I slept so well being in my own room for once during this trip. I said my good mornings and did my morning routine. My friend was having some trouble paying something this morning so he was busy. Then when he finished he offered me breakfast of cereal toast and cheese. It was pretty good and I had Hungarian chocolate flavored cereal and some smoked cheese with my toast. After breakfast we planned on taking a hike across the river. We caught a ferry across the river that took like 3 seconds. It's a very small part of the river. We got on the boat with both dogs and payed the 200 forint ticket then shortly got off at the other side. Then we crossed the street and were in dense forest in minutes. It was amazing the transition from river to forest so quickly. It was a nice hike up a decent steep little hill about 30 minutes. The mountain was called peanut mtn but I didn't see any peanut plants. We got to the top and it opened up to a field with a little wooden playground that had see saws and a tire swing and other things to play on. We rested for a bit and then played around on the seesaw trying to balance 3 people on it and keep it level in the air. Also playing fetch with one of the dogs who would chase any thrown stick. Then we went to a close by restaurant cause there was a tourist road nearby to a castle and had a good lunch. On the way we passed a fenced off area and saw some wild deer and goats just grazing. To me the deer looked huge. At the restaurant I ordered roasted boar with a really nice sauce and potatoes and cheese. It was absolutely delicious and only cost 10 bucks. I also ordered a beer as well and drank that down. Afterwards I was still a little hungry so I also ordered a dessert pancake with chocolate and nuts. Honestly it was gross. I don't know why because everyone else at the table enjoyed theirs but to me it didn't taste good and I figured out it was what they mixed with the nuts didn't taste good to me. Apparently it was good to the Hungarians haha but oh well. The pancake and chocolate were good by itself but not with the nut mixture. I ate around what I could and then I was full. We paid and started hiking down in time to get the next ferry back across the river. The dogs ran with us all the way back down the mountain. It was so much fun but it made me have to pee badly cause of all the beer. We got back to the house and packed up to go back to Budapest. My friend drove me and his buddy back to the train station. The train arrived right when we got there and we hopped right on. It was a short ride back into the center of the city and then we transferred to the metro. I got off before him and said my goodbyes. I made my way to a different hostel than before that was more comfy and less party. It was called unity hostel and it was on the second floor of a bar. It looked pretty cool and after I checked in I got my bed and it was so much softer. After resting and charging my phone I went to a bar I was recommended just down the road. I didn't know what to expect and it was this super fancy library bar. I felt just standing in it I was making it dirty. I got a seat right away and didn't even look at the prices cause it was my last day and I still had plenty of Hungarian money left to spend. I ordered their craft beer and the main dish.

[bkwrm523]

[image id: Tweet from Hlayaley @geology_rocks saying “Here is my yearly roundups of headlines I screen shotted in 2020″

And there’s a lot of headlines here’s a bulleted list

Philidelphia Flyers mascot Gritty accused of punching child

Overzealous profanity filter bans paleontologists from talking about bones

Court rules Subway sandwiches too sugary to meet legal definition of bread

“Brooklyn for real”:  Rat takes on pigeon in ruthless NYC showdown

3 men banned from Yellowstone after trying to cook chicken in geyser

Man on five-day ecstasy binge caught filling hotel bath with potatoes

Virginia senator blames Canada for his “extra moist” microwave tuna melt

Grizzly bears can eat 40,000 moths in a day

Mississippi says including Giant Mosquito State Flag redesign was a mistake

German nudist chases wild boar that stole laptop at Berlin lake: “When he returned from the forest, everyone applauded.”  Man retrieves laptop in chase

Titanic’s greatest unsolved mystery involves a conga line , PCP, and an unidentified chowder (there’s a subtitle under this one but it’s small and blurry and I can’t read it)

Is your meth contaminated with coronavirus?  This Florida police dept will test it for free

Bolsonaro called his isolation from coronavirus “horrible” and was shortly afterwards bitten by an emu

Self-proclaimed leprechaun whisperer reveals he’s still in contact with the mythical creatures who only reveal themselves to him - and insists ‘they don’t have a problem’ with lockdown

Jose Canseco worried Bigfoot or Aliens  can ‘get coronavirus’

Countries with more butter have happier citizens

Drake ravaged with insults about his back tattoos: “Looks like a zoom meeting”

Animals keep evolving into crabs, which is somewhat disturbing

A Ghost is the perfect quarantine sex partner

AI camera operator repeatedly confuses bald head for soccer ball during live stream

Pope Francis urges followers to pray that AI and robots “always serve mankind”

US Congress rules that pizza is a vegetable

Rats besiege New York Chipolte, eating avocados and attacking staff

These foul-mouthed parrots had to be separated after cursing at wildlife park visitors

Man requests swordfight with ex-wife and lawyer to settle dispute (there’s another subtitle under this one, but it’s blurry and small and I can’t read it.  Something about japanese swords?  Idk)

Universe shouldn’t exist, says CERN physicists

And Now, A Sinkhole Full Of Rats

end image ID]

Tag yourself, I’m rats attack a chipolte

The Headlines of 2020