#irrigation ditch

[huariqueje]

Acequia , Irrigation ditch  -   Carlos Morago

Spanish,b.1954-

Oil on wood, 30 x 30 cm.

[cactusflowerfemme]

Please, please. Always wear your seatbelts.

[ascendandt]

core is the best song ever. thank you tobyfox

[smoredoghubble]

I had to explain low value vs. high value reinforcers to my dad today because Hubble got out of the yard and wouldn't come back to me. He didn't understand why the treats I had on me at the time didn't work. I explained it to him by saying if he was outside playing with his grandkids and my mom said she'd give everyone a handful of cheerios if they came inside right now he probably wouldn't listen. But her saying there's ice cream sandwiches would definitely get everyone moving. AND HE UNDERSTOOD IT!!!

A win for me in the communication with Papa category!!

[passavantsridge]

i like to tell my wife stories of growing up in oregon because she seems horrified by most of them

[michael-massa-micon]

Irrigated Field - February 2024 This cotton field is on the north side of Casa Grande, but well within the city. It has open air irrigation ditches and the field is carefully plowed in order to distribute that water. The cotton crop is not yet planted, so no water flows in the ditches, but it is ready for when the time comes. In the meantime, it provides some interesting image opportunities for me. Note the cotton residue in the main ditch from last year’s crop. MWM

[wilwheaton]

During a speech on Sunday night, Donald Trump repeatedly spoke as if Barack Obama were the current president. It wasn’t the first time. In recent speeches, Trump has also claimed to have beaten both Obama and George W. Bush in 2016. That’s when he wasn’t promising to use irrigation ditches to bring water to bathrooms or keep California’s forests damp. It’s not that Trump hasn’t always been an egotistical, vindictive jackass with few concerns for whether his hateful, antisemitic, misogynistic, and racist rants had even a passing encounter with the truth. But this is different. In the 2024 campaign, and in the messages he posts to social media, Trump has been in a confused and addled state, one where he has frequently makes statements that are both incoherent and irreconcilable with reality. Still, did you hear that President Joe Biden made a “gaffe”? Sure you did. Because the media not only devotes heavy coverage to Biden’s every hesitation or stumble, it goes out of its way to create them even when they don’t exist. All to promote a narrative that Biden is old and losing his grip, while Trump is somehow vigorous. That narrative isn’t just a clear disservice; it’s a signal measure of how willing major media outlets are to coddle Trump, savage Biden, and keep the nation in the dark.

Donald Trump is unraveling, and the media is covering it up

[wigmund]

Something to tug on your heart strings today - researchers working with Indian Elephants in tea-producing areas of West Bengal have been finding evidence that the elephants are burying their deceased calves in plantation irrigation ditches. A common feature of all of the burials is the calves' legs sticking up into the air out of the grave.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

A First Nation in B.C.'s Interior has received more than $147 million from the federal government after more than 20 years of fighting for the acknowledgement of its water rights. The Esk'etemc (pronounced es-KET-em) First Nation, located southwest of Williams Lake, B.C., first filed with Specific Claims, which deals with past wrongs against First Nations in Canada, in 2003, raising issues arising from being prevented from completing an irrigation ditch in the 1890s.  In 1881, land was set aside for Wycott's Flat Indian Reserve #6 and the agreement noted that all the water flowing out of a nearby lake was reserved for the Esk'etemc Nation, according to Anispiragas Piragasanathar, a spokesperson for Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada.  The Esk'etemc Nation said all the water from Vert Lake, southeast of the reserve, was promised to the Esk'etemc for irrigation as part of a reserve land agreement. The First Nation started digging in the 1890s, but after two years of work and just one kilometre away from completion, it was told it had to stop.  "It was devastating," lawyer Stan Ashcroft told CBC's Daybreak Kamloops guest host Doug Herbert. "I mean, after all that effort to be told you can't continue, when I talked to the elders, they said it was completely devastating." The irrigation ditch has lain dormant since, according to the First Nation. 

Continue Reading

Tagging: @newsfromstolenland

[feybeasts]

I think I need to start inherently distrusting the opinions of people who have never had to do hard labor they didn’t really want to for a period longer than two hours

You begin to understand some very core truths of reality when you’re on hour four of digging ditches for irrigation piping

[venerablemonk27]

I've done a lot of birding the past couple months and not a lot of posting, so I'm going back to our Tucson, AZ trip from April. I hadn't been to the Western US since picking up birding or wildlife photography, so I knew I was going to pick up a ton of lifers. One of our target species for the trip was also my fifth Owl species ever: the Burrowing Owl.

[ID: A Burrowing Owl stands on a mound of dirt. They are facing left and looking toward the camera. The sun is low in the sky off to the right, which illuminates the right side of the Owl's face and their back, while casting the rest in shadow. They have striking yellow eyes and a furrowed brow that gives them the appearance of a permanent scowl. Their oval-shaped head transitions naturally into a slender cylindrical body covered in mottled tan and white feathers. About half the bird's height is body and folded wings, with two naked grey legs planted on the ground. End ID]

This was the morning we had picked for me to do some solo birding, so I drove out to a spot west of Tucson where eBird indicated that Burrowing Owls were likely to appear. It was just after sunrise when I found the road cutting between farm fields where the Owls were reported. I drove slowly down the side of the road in my rented Dodge Charger, stopping occasionally to inspect a suspicious clump of dirt with my binoculars. I had not seen any sign of the Owls when a Land Rover pulled up behind me. A group of three folks in their 60s with binoculars piled out of car, clearly more birders here to do exactly what I was doing.

[ID: A Burrowing Owl stands on a mound of dirt, facing the camera. The sun is still low in the sky, but now the bird's face and chest are more brightly lit, showing the transition in feather colors from tan to mottled tan to white as they progress downward from collar to belly.]

They introduced themselves as coming from the UK, and had been visiting Arizona for several weeks in search of all the unique birds the state could offer. The driver was particularly puzzled about the location of the Owls, saying he was "absolutely foxed" that this place with no real habitat could host Burrowing Owls. I showed him the recent sightings on eBird and explained that it was possible the birds just hadn't emerged from their burrows yet.

After another 15 minutes of searching the fields, I offered to lead them to an alternate site nearby. We got in our cars and slowly drove back the way we had come. Just as we were approaching the end of the road, I spotted a small tan creature standing right on the edge of the irrigation ditch along the near side of the field. A Burrowing Owl! I swung the Charger around and flagged down my companions, who had also spotted the Owl.

[ID: A pair of Burrowing Owls stand on a mound of dirt. The one in the foreground looks decidedly sleepier and plumper than the one in the background (seen in previous images). Both Owls are similar in coloration, but the one in the foreground has an aluminum leg band for identifying them. End ID]

We got out to take a look and grab some photos from long distance, then slowly crept forward with my Charger as a rolling blind. There turned out to be four Owls spread out along the irrigation ditch, likely close to their burrows which were out of sight. They were surprisingly unbothered by the cars rolling up to them, probably because they see trucks and farm vehicles driving past all day every day. Once we were directly across the irrigation ditch from the closest pair, I climbed into the passenger seat to take some better photosm. Mostly the Owls just stood on their tiny hill and looked around. Though I did witness one of the pair above fly down to pounce on a grasshopper, then return to feed it to their partner.

[ID: A pair of Burrowing Owls stand on a mound of dirt. This photo was taken midday, with the sun directly overhead. At least one of these individuals is different from those above, as they have two leg bands instead of one. It's also apparent in the photo that the Owls are standing at the edge of a farm field from the row of green plants out of focus in the background. End ID]

I had such a great view of the Burrowing Owls that I had to bring my family back to see them on our last day in Tucson. Because we were heading out of town in the middle of the day, I was confident we'd find them right away and avoid testing the patience of my kid. It turns out I didn't have to worry. Not only were the Owls right where I left them, but the kid had fallen asleep on the drive, so we had to wake him up to see them! And seeing as I already had the camera within easy reach, I had to take a few more photos.

[ID: A Burrowing Owl stands on a mound of dirt. This one is looking alert in the midday sun, standing and scanning the area around the edge of the farm field. End ID]

On a trip full of exciting views, long hikes, and thousands of photos, it was nice to finish the trip quietly sitting in the car just a few yards away from such a compelling bird. And it always feels good to track down a lifer and share that experience with others!

[ohsalome]

I often hear comments about Crimea and the other territories occupied by Russia being the “price of peace” in Ukraine. I, like many Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians, know that rewarding aggression and brutal occupation does not bring peace.

Crimea is not Russian to be “given back” to Russia. It never was. It never will be.

It is the homeland that has been repeatedly, brutally taken from us; it is the homeland we will not stop fighting for.

My grandmother, Shevkiye, was just 11 years old when on May 18, 1944, Soviet soldiers barged into her home at five o’clock in the morning. World War II was still raging and the Soviet regime had just accused the Crimean Tatars of collaborating with the enemy, the German Nazis – a baseless allegation that led to the unimaginable horror of genocide by deportation.

My great-grandfather was at the front, fighting those same Nazis whom he was accused of collaborating with. So the Soviet soldiers found at home just his wife and four children – the youngest one only a few months old. The soldiers gave them 15 minutes to gather their belongings and did not stop hitting my great-grandmother with their guns as she struggled to pack.

They marched them out of the house and – along with other families from their home village of Ayserez – hoarded loaded them onto a train meant for transporting cattle. The wagons were packed with people and there were no toilets on them; people struggled to breathe. No food or water was provided on the long journey, during which my grandmother’s family remained unaware of their destination.

Exhausted and starved, they focused solely on survival as hunger and disease killed many along the way. One of the most traumatising memories of the journey for my grandmother was witnessing a pregnant woman give birth on the train and then pass away shortly after. A Soviet soldier threw her body out of the wagon while the train kept moving.

After 20 days on the train, they finally arrived at Golodnaya Steppe station in the Mirzachul region of Uzbekistan, where they were unceremoniously unloaded onto a scorching hot platform. With no money or support, they struggled to survive in this unknown land.

They settled in a dilapidated barrack with no roof, windows, or doors. Their food consisted of grass, nettle, potato peels, and rotten potatoes; their drinking water came from irrigation ditches and often caused dysentery. There was no medical assistance available; the Soviet authorities clearly wanted as many Crimean Tatars to die as possible.

The forced deportation of the Crimean Tatars to Central Asia resulted in the death of 46 percent of the population, leaving a gaping wound in the hearts of those who survived. It was the culmination of a century and a half of deliberate and systematic destruction of the Crimean Tatar people, heritage and culture after the subjugation of the Crimean state by Russian imperial forces in the late 18th century. It is on this obliteration of the Crimean Tatars that the bloody myth of Crimea as a “Russian territory” was built.

[daimyosprincess]

SOME REX AND RELAXATION

—PAIRING: Rebels!Captain Rex x F!Reader

—SUMMARY: After a hard week, Rex makes it his mission to see that you forget all about it.

—WORD COUNT: 3.3k

—RATING: Explicit, 18+ only — MINORS DO NOT INTERACT

—TAGS & WARNINGS: second person narration, no use of y/n, explicit sexual content, Rebels!Rex, age gap relationship between an older man and younger woman (reader is an adult), Dom/sub vibes, Daddy kink (bc I can’t help myself), nipple play, oral sex (fem receiving), fingering

Please let me know if I missed anything! Mando'a translations are at the end.

—AUTHOR'S NOTES: I miss Rex so this is getting posted today!!! After a rough week a bit ago, I started writing this as a comfort fic to make myself feel better and boy howdy, by the the end of it I was feeling way better 😈 Also: Rex, Wolffe, and Gregor deserve to live in comfy cottages in pastoral peace for the rest of their beautiful days. And I've decided that the clones age normally after the age of 25 so they have nice long lives ahead of them :)

This is my first ever Rex fic and I want to give a big shout out to my resident Rexpert @rexxdjarin for betaing this fic, I hope I did our captain justice 💙 Also thank you to @cloned-eyes for letting me use their amazing Rex art in my header!! That fresh out the shower Rex was some delicious inspo for this fic 🫠

Read on AO3 — Masterlist — Taglist

The only thing worse than the day you’ve had was this week as a whole. Nothing had gone right with the New Republic school going up in town, and somehow the solution to several of those problems was what you’d said a week ago… but only when that bureaucratic sop from Coruscant said it. Not to mention the pipes burst in your apartment, you slipped down some stairs in front of a street full of people (with the worst bruise of your entire life to prove it), and to top it all off, you dropped your overpriced caf all over your shoes this morning.

Not a great week.

At this point, you’re only one minor inconvenience away from snapping—the fact that it’s the end of the work week is the only thing keeping you together. And, of course, your perfect, wonderful captain of a boyfriend, Rex. You’ve been staying at his farmhouse while repairs are made to the water lines that caused the damage at your place. 

He and his brothers, Gregor and Wolffe, had come to your quiet little agricultural planet a couple years ago and fixed up a few of the old houses at the edge town to live in. They mostly keep to themselves, but are always willing to lend a helping hand when it’s needed, whether it’s making repairs after the annual monsoon, donating fresh produce for school meals, or digging out flooded irrigation ditches. They are good men and the town accepts them as part of their own, even if Wolffe is a little grumpy and Gregor turns all the local women into giggling messes when he’s around.

The three of them are mending a fence on the far side of the property when you arrive at the farmstead. Usually you would have taken your speeder over for a chat, but you don’t think you have it in you after today. All you want to do is take off your bra and flop face-down on Rex’s couch to wait for the world to stop sucking—which is exactly how Rex finds you when he comes inside a few minutes later. 

“Another great day then, mesh’la?” he teases with the mirth of a man who already knows his question’s answer. His work boots make a thud on the stone tiles as he pulls them off.

Without looking up, you grunt a “no” into the cushions and shake your head.

“Do you want to come shower with me or do you need some alone time?”

“Alone time,” your muffled voice answers, “then Rex time. Lots and lots of Rex time.”

His warm chuckle and beard graze delightfully over the back of your neck as he bends to press a kiss to your hair. “Alright then, pretty girl. Just relax and I’ll be back to give you all the time in the world, okay?” You give him another muffled affirmative and he squeezes your calf affectionately before heading to the ‘fresher. 

Maker, he’s good to you. 

A year ago you would have never thought you’d find yourself in a long-term relationship with an ex-clone trooper who’s old enough to be your father, or that you would be calling said ex-clone trooper Daddy while he makes you see stars. The Force works in mysterious ways, you suppose… not that you’re complaining. Far from it. 

Your relationship with Rex might have come as a surprise but you’ve never been happier: things with him are as close to perfect as they can get. He cares for you, makes you feel so safe and loved and warm that you could melt into a puddle at his feet, and you adore him. He’s kind, strong, and compassionate, a good leader through and through. The galaxy has never made a finer man, and not to mention, a finer lover.

Eventually, you muster the strength to roll yourself off the couch and ditch your work clothes for your much more comfortable loungewear, deciding to forgo panties as a nice little surprise for your boyfriend. Snuggling under his covers that smell of him, you flip onto your stomach to scroll through your datapad. Efficient as always, Rex doesn’t make you wait long, the ‘fresher door sliding open a few minutes later. The comforting, woody smell of his soap fills your nose as you take in his broad frame glistening from his shower. 

Kark, he looks good. All broad shoulders and bronze skin, thick and perfect. How has no one made a statue of this man?

Noticing your interested stare, he winks as he hangs his towel on its hook. “Feeling better, mesh’la?”

You hum your delight and click off your tablet to give him your full attention. “Yeah, could be better, though,” you add with a sneaky smile.

“Oh yeah? How?” Flicking off the ‘fresher light, he starts towards you. The mischievous glint in your boyfriend’s eye is more than enough to get your blood pumping, especially combined with his shirtless upper half. 

You flip up the covers next to you, grinning up at him. “Well for starters, you could get in the bed with me, handsome.” His brown eyes sparkle when he returns the expression, the corners of his eyes crinkling fondly. “And then you can hold me and make me forget all about this entire kriffing week.” 

Your captain is quite good at making you forget things, whether it be a bad day or your own name.

Obliging as always, Rex slides in behind you and loops an arm around your waist to pull you flush against his bare chest. Your body reacts immediately to his touch, the tension in your muscles slacking. He nuzzles into your neck, making you giggle from the way his beard tickles the sensitive skin there, and starts kissing every bit of you his lips can reach. When you try to squirm away from him and his beard, squealing and panting from your laughter, he just locks his big arms around you and keeps going.

“Eeee! Rex! S-stop, you’re tickling me-you’re tickling me!”

In between smacking kisses, he chuckles into your ear. “I thought you said you want me to make you forget about this week, mesh’la.” His hold loosens enough for you to wriggle around to face him, wrapping your arms around his neck and admiring how handsome he is up close.

You brush your lips over his, gently running your nails down the back of his neck and savoring the way he shivers at your soft touches; knowing you have such an effect on him makes your skin hot. “Well Captain,” you drawl with syrupy sweetness, “I was thinking something more along the lines of… this.” You roll your hips against his, sighing at the pleasant sensation. 

Rex groans his rumbling approval and drops his large hands to your ass to grind you harder against his center. “Anything you want, baby, just tell me and it’s yours.”

You know what you want: to be taken care of after this shit-show of a week, to be kissed and loved and cherished like only he can, doted on and held safe in his arms. You want to completely let go and surrender—no more thoughts, no more worries, just him. Just Rex. Your perfect, perfect Rex. 

Capturing his lips in an indulgent kiss, you whine your desire into his mouth when you break for air, not caring how needy you sound. 

He shushes you with gentle sounds, stroking over your hair. “Of course, sweetheart,” he coos in a sinfully sweet voice, cradling your face between his palms, “you’ve had a hard week… yeah, I know, I know. You need Daddy to make it all better, don’t you?” He pulls you crushingly tight against the strong line of his body, just how he knows you like, holding all your pieces together so you don’t have to.

“Please,” you gasp, burrowing deeper into him, “Don’t wanna… don’t wanna be anymore. Just wanna be yours.” The ache of existence in your chest is already beginning to melt underneath his weight, replaced by the tender warmth of his devoted attention. The edges of your mind go liquid as you let him pour you into his mold.

“Daddy’s going to take care of you, all you have to do is listen and let him make you feel good, okay, babygirl?” You bob your head in a nod, your eyes starry and wide as you await his next instruction. Rubbing the back of your neck, Rex places an affectionate kiss on your forehead for your obedience. “Good girl. Now turn over, face out and back to me… lift your arms… yeah, just like that,” he murmurs as he slides your top off, planting wet kisses on the new skin exposed to him.

His battle-worn hands skim up the swell of your tummy to take in breasts. You’re already buzzing in eager anticipation. You push into his touch, pressing your chest out in an offer of more, and you’re to be quickly rewarded with a low groan and his fingers rolling your sensitive nipples deliciously slow. Wanting heat rises through you like a flame catching to dry tender while little mewls of pleasure fall from your lips. 

“So beautiful, so warm, my sweet cyar’ika,” he purrs between more lush kisses, “I know this makes you feel good… I’m going to give those perfect tits the attention they deserve.” He gives your peaked tips a gentle pinch and you moan, the electric sensation shooting straight to swollen clit. Smiling at your vocal pleasure, Rex begins an erotic rhythm that has you bucking your hips as his fingers alternate between pinching and rolling.

“Ooohhh, y-you feel so… you feel s-so good,” you whine, writhing against his ministrations. With the way his breathing has gone hot and ragged in your ear, you swear it could be enough to make you come untouched. 

“That’s it, pretty girl, just feel the pleasure… just concentrate on how good you feel, nothing else,” he instructs, his deep voice like golden honey to your ears. “Daddy’s got you now, he’s gonna take care of everything. He doesn’t like seeing his baby so stressed and unhappy.” Rex latches onto your pulse point, sucking your heated flesh into his mouth and sending waves of pleasure throbbing through your nerves.

“Nev-never unhappy with you,” you pant, reaching your hand back to push him deeper into your neck. Rex is your shining sun who banishes all of life’s many darknesses, and the match which lights the fire of your loins. He’s everything to you, and right now, he’s all you can feel and see and smell. It’s utterly divine. 

“Mmm, that makes me so happy to hear, you know why? Making you happy, taking care of my beautiful babygirl… it makes me happy. Daddy loves being there for his cyar’ika and he’d do anything to put a smile on her face, you know that?” Cupping your jaw, he tilts your head back to steal the little gasps of delight dripping sugary-thick from your lips. As hot and heavy as things have become, Rex doesn’t rush. He takes his time licking into your mouth and nibbling on your slicked bottom lip, all the while kneading and rolling your breasts, ever the man to keep his word.

Molten heat rushes through your veins as his words pour over your skin, spurring you onto new heights under his generous hands—the deep swell of his voice loosens the taunt aggravation of the week still stowed in your muscles. You’re like lavish wax under his care, worked pliable by him then molded into a work of weightless art, your very existence something to be admired.

His calloused fingertips sweep over the plushness of your lower belly, the shimmering heat of your arousal converging at his touch. When he dips below the fabric of your waistband, he sucks in a breath. “No panties, pretty girl? Now you’re the one spoiling me,” he groans, his cock twitching against the cage of your back. 

You let out a delighted, breathy giggle at his body’s reaction to the discovery. “I thought you might like that,” you breathe out fond and pleased, “I did it just for you.” 

He brushes lower, his middle finger tracing over the damp seam of your folds and a whimper sneaks through your smile at the feathery sensation. It’s these light, almost subatomic touches that make you come loose at the seams—and he knows it. Inside the year that you’ve been together, Rex has learned your body intimately, its history and inner workings revealed in the hours you spent in his arms.

“I love to hear your sweet little laugh, and I love to know that you’re smiling,” he murmurs affectionately, cupping your slick mound, “I’m so proud of you for letting me take some of the weight off you after this difficult week.” He takes a moment to plant kisses in the soft crook of your neck and up to your ear before continuing. “Now, just lie back, let me make you feel all warm and sweet. I want to watch you melt for me… melt and leave me with all your sweet honey to lick up.”

Each word shaped by his rich rasp further unmoors you from your senses. That sensual tingling feeling of submission bubbles pleasantly across your mind, your bones softening to downey cotton as you lose yourself to the sound of Rex’s voice. You can’t tell where the vibration of your own sounds of pleasure end and his begin, but it doesn’t matter. You’re safe, so, so safe and happy here in the glowing space between his arms. If only you could have him inside, too…

“C-can I have more, please? Want more of you, baby,” you pant, grinding into his palm between your thighs.

“Of course, mesh’la, you can have whatever you like. Anything and everything, all you have to do is ask.” Pressing into your lower lips, he spreads you apart. Your teeth immediately catch your lip when his trigger finger begins languidly sliding over your buzzing clit; the delicious friction fans the flames of your desire, heating you from the inside out. A rumble of satisfaction rolls up his chest when your head falls back against his shoulder with a contented sigh. 

Rex takes advantage of the new access you allowed him, dragging his hot lips over your collarbone to nip and suck little marks onto your heated skin. “Mmm, I love touching you, I love feeling you,” he hums, thick and heady, “I want you to feel how much I care about you…” He scrapes his teeth up your tender throat to capture your mouth with his own.

Stars-Maker-kriff does he kiss like a god. A king amongst men, really, who- “Oh!”

Your eyes fly open as your captain easily flips you under him like a ragdoll, pulling your pants down and flinging them over his shoulder in one fluid motion that has you gushing.

“That’s better,” he mutters between hot mouthed-kisses down your sternum and over your tummy. The way his beard scrapes over your skin has chillbumps flowering all over. “It fills me up with so much happiness when I get to love on my sweet cyar’ika and take care of her. Makes everything else go away for me, too, sweetheart. I get to just focus on you.” 

His large hands skate down your ribs then down the curve of your hips to massage the fullness of your thighs. “I’ve been waiting to worship this perfect pussy, pull all those pretty sounds out of you while you come over and over… just like you deserve.”

You’re nothing more than a warm soup of sparkling sensation, swirling around the ache building in your core. Rex isn’t usually one to tease you, but it feels like he’s taking an eternity to make it between your-

“Ohhhh, Reeeex!”

Wrapping his thick arms around your thighs, he literally lifts you up to his mouth, moaning like a man tasting some paradisic fruit after months in the desert. “Fuck, babygirl, your little pussy… I could feel hot and needy it was when you were rubbing up against me, how wet and messy you were… but this? Kark. I’m so lucky to be able to kiss all over this beautiful cunt. So lucky to have this pussy, this ass,” he gives an appreciative squeeze to your behind, “and this sweet little girl all to myself.”

The air is suctioned from your lungs by the gravity of his pleasure; it’s unrelenting and all-consuming, it’s all you can comprehend. Squeezing your eyes shut in focus, you manage a reply. “S-so l-lucky to have you, Rex. You’re s-so good to me… love you… love you so much.” You cut off with a shuddering cry when he sucks your bud between his lips, not caring that you’re swiftly losing a battle you don’t want to win.

“I love you so much, my mesh’la,” he pants into your heat. “My sweet, precious girl, I’m going to give you my fingers, okay? Gonna give you just what you need so you can come all over my face.” He slips two of his fingers in his mouth, sucking and releasing them with pop before easing into your soaked entrance. The twin sounds of your satisfaction fill the room, the stout stretch of his fingers making you moan while the clutch of your cunt has your captain grunting praises against your clit. 

“Kark, you’re so tight and wet, so perfect… clenching around me,” he crooks his fingers as much as he can in the restrictive walls, “Don’t hold back, beautiful, let me hear you. Let me hear how good you feel.”

His words scorch your nerves to ash with a molten magma of pleasure that erupts from your core. Your spine bows up, making Rex find the soul-shattering spot that makes you scream in ecstasy. The world around you snaps into sharp focus, bright and loud before exploding in a shower of stars and lambent energy. You’re unmade, unwound down to your most basal form of hot-blooded, carnal need where time and worldly matters no longer reign in your existence. Primal satisfaction and the thrill of euphoria rule you instead for several effervescent moments.

When the flood of electricity flowing from every cell and synapse begins to ebb to jolting aftershocks, the sweet praise of your lover floats over you in warm waves. “So beautiful like this… keep going mesh’la, take what you need… I love you so much… love making you feel good, love feeling your perfect pussy on my fingers…”

Reverent kisses are bestowed like offerings to the divinity of your pleasure as you materialize back into reality one pounding heartbeat at a time. Joy radiates from every molecule in your body, the stress of the mortal coil dissolved and washed far away, leaving you light, free, and happy. You want nothing more than to revel in this glorious sensation with the love of your life, and you call out to your captain with a breezy sigh, “Rex…”

“Cyare…”

“Want you close, my love, want you to hold me.”

You barely register his movement in your hazy after-glow, but soon your chest is pressed against a familiar wall of muscle and there’s a blanket wrapped around your shoulders. Snuggling into his open warmth, you nuzzle into his neck and inhale Rex’s timber-fresh scent. 

Safe… happy… love. Him. Forever. 

Your hazy thoughts drift across the clear sky of your mind, eventually coalescing into a nebulous sentiment your lips can form around. “Rex… love you so much… thank you, baby.”

Curling around you tighter, Rex’s beard brushes over your shoulder as he leans in to kiss your temple. “Anything for you, my sweet, perfect girl,” he smiles into your hair, “You are everything to me, the light of an old soldier’s life. I will always take care of you, my mesh’la, no matter what.”

And with the certainty only love can bring, you know him to be true.   

MANDO'A TRANSLATIONS

cyare - beloved, love

cyar’ika - sweetheart, darling, (a diminutive of cyare)

mesh'la - beautiful

[fatehbaz]

In the late 18th century, [...] Lahaina carried such an abundance of water that early explorers reportedly anointed it “Venice of the Pacific”. A glut of natural wetlands nourished breadfruit trees, extensive taro terraces and fishponds that sustained wildlife and generations of Native Hawaiian families.

But more than a century and a half of plantation agriculture, driven by American and European colonists, have depleted Lahaina’s streams and turned biodiverse food forests into tinderboxes. Today, Hawaii spends $3bn a year importing up to 90% of its food. This altered ecology, experts say, gave rise to the 8 August blaze that decimated the historic west Maui town and killed more than 111 people.

“The rise of plantation capital spawned the drying of the west side of Maui,” said Kamana Beamer, a historian and a former member of the Hawaii commission on water resource management [...].

---

[S]ugar and pineapple white magnates began arriving on the islands in the early 1800s. For much of the next two centuries, Maui-based plantation owners like Alexander & Baldwin and Maui Land & Pineapple Company reaped enormous fortunes, uprooting native trees and extracting billions of gallons of water from streams to grow their thirsty crops. (Annual sugar cane production averaged 1m tons until the mid-1980s; a pound of sugar requires 2,000lb of freshwater to produce.)

Invasive plants that were introduced as livestock forage, like guinea grass, now cover a quarter of Hawaii’s surface area. The extensive use of pesticides on Maui’s pineapple fields poisoned nearby water wells. The dawn of large-scale agriculture dramatically changed land practices in Maui, where natural resources no longer served as a mode of food production or a habitat for birds but a means of generating fast cash, said Lucienne de Naie, an east Maui historian [...].

“The land was turned from this fertile plain – with these big healthy trees, wetland taros and dryland crops like banana and breadfruit – to a mass of monoculture: to rows and rows of sugar cane, and rows and rows of pineapple,” she said.

---

The Great Māhele of 1848, a ground-breaking law that legitimized private land ownership, laid the ground for big developers to hoard water for profit, said Jonathan Likeke Scheuer, a water policy consultant and co-author of the book Water and Power in West Maui. [...] [T]he creation of private property allowed agricultural corporations to wield “political and ultimately oligarchic power” over elected officials. In 1893, a group of sugar magnates and capitalists overthrew the Hawaiian Kingdom’s Queen Liliuokalani, paving the way for the US to annex Hawaii five years later. Sanford Ballard Dole, a cousin of Dole Plantation’s founder, served as the first governor of Hawaii.

When the last of the sugar companies closed in 2016 [...], Scheuer said, the farms were purchased by large investors for real estate speculation and left fallow, overrun with invasive grasses that became fuel for brush fires. Developers [...] took control of the plantations’ century-old irrigation ditches and diverted water to service its luxury subdivisions. In doing so, it left scraps for Indigenous families who lived downstream. [...] [O]n Maui, 16 of the top 20 water users are resorts, time-shares and short-term condominium rentals equipped with emerald golf courses and glittering pools [...].

---

Text by: Claire Wang. "How 19th-century pineapple plantations turned Maui into a tinderbox". The Guardian. 27 August 2023. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me.]

[deanmarywinchester]

previous years: 2022, 2021 / list of worst sf/f/horror

the bangers were BANGING this year, I kept mentally readjusting my top 5 list every time I read something good so the honorable mentions are extremely honorable this year. I hope you read anything that sounds good from this list and tell me about it!

top 5:

chain gang all stars by nana kwame adjei-brenyah: when I say that this book is like the hunger games for adults, I’m not making a glib comparison between two books about fighting to the death, I’m saying that I haven’t felt so intensely about a book since I stayed up late to tear through the hunger games and sob about it when I was thirteen. this book is satire as real and devastating as I’ve ever read, with action scenes that feel like they’re being dripped directly into my hindbrain and a unique and believable love story. put it on hold at your library literally RIGHT now.

the actual star by monica byrne: about a post-climate catastrophe utopian society built around a religion started by a teenage girl in 2012 based on mayan traditions, and also about the teenage girl, and also about the maya. this book made me crazy because the future society felt real enough to touch, with its radical openness and collectivity solving problems that exist today but causing new ones that are totally novel and meaty and interesting to dig into. read it if you’re interested in different ways of being.

the spear cuts through water by simon jiménez: really, REALLY good, fresh, original epic fantasy. jimenez picks a few perspectives to stick to but hops fluidly into bystanders’ brains to give you their perspectives, so even background characters feel fleshed-out and no one’s pain is dismissed as a side effect of heroic battles or whatever. highly recommended if you like framing narratives and stories about stories, and like epic fantasy but wish it wasn’t mostly about finding acceptable enemies to slaughter with cool swords

the dispossessed by ursula k. le guin: I love how much this book is about hope as clear-eyed commitment to the boring and difficult work of a brighter and necessary future. sometimes the work of the glorious anarcho-communist revolution is leaving your university post and romantic partner for months at a time to dig irrigation ditches so nobody starves when there’s a drought. read this book for diplomatic conniving, a clash of values between a capitalist planet and its dissident moon, and hope.

imperial radch trilogy and its spinoffs by ann leckie: what if you were built to be a weapon of the empire, a serene sentient battleship with thousands of human bodies all containing your consciousness, and you lost all bodies but one and had to figure out how to be a person, singular and alone? what if you were a 19th century british military officer and you slept for a thousand years into the decline of the empire? what if you were grown in a vat to be a facsimile of human and then told off for eating all your siblings even though eating them was SO interesting? what then. leckie’s prose is incisive and funny, her unreliable narrators are wonderful, and her stories are intimate even though the backdrops are insanely huge. 👍.

honorable mentions:

house of leaves by mark z. danielewski: guys? anyone hearda this one? anyway. Something Is Wrong With This House horror with themes of storytelling and grief. recommending that you slam this book as fast as possible like I did so you can hold all its layers in your head at once.

the lathe of heaven by ursula k le guin: i thought I didn’t like ursula k le guin, and then I read this book, went OH and immediately devoured the hainish cycle. im so sorry miss ursula. this book about a hapless pacific northwesterner whose therapist is making him dream different realities into being is so sharp and sly and funny. themes of choices, ends and means.

he who drowned the world by shelley parker-chan: I liked the prequel to this addition to the radiant emperor duology. I LOVED this book. parker-chan has invented new and exciting modes of fucked-up codependency and im obsessed. historical light-fantasy with themes of ideals vs what it takes to reach them, gender, and regret.

babel by r. f. kuang: found the didacticism of this book annoying, but i really loved the concept of this novel and the way it slowly ratchets up the stakes. this novel is for people who want to smash the fun of the magic school genre against the reality of universities’ complicity in the imperial machine.

piranesi by susannah clarke: im late to this book but it’s such a weird little gem. peaceful yet unsettling. a man takes care of an endless house with an ocean inside it until he realizes the house is stealing his memories. themes of memory and devotion.

hell follows with us by andrew joseph white: I can only read YA these days if it’s a reread or if it’s genuinely good and really really strange. this is that. weird gory fantasy about a trans teen who escapes his militarized post-apocalyptic christian cult and finds himself turning into something Different. my only gripe is that he uses 2023-perfect language to describe transness and I think he should be inventing genders weve never even thought of. such is YA.

some desperate glory by emily tesch: a rolickin’ good space opera time with terrible women <3. a thriller about how the golden child of her isolated human-supremacist space station cult deprograms and the consequences of it. this feels like a grown-up SPOP until the theoretical physics gets involved. big fan

the library of mount char by scott hawkins: this book is harrow the ninth in suburbia until it becomes a more macabre version of the absurdity of the gomens apocalypse. God raises his children, sometimes brutally, to hone their powers in a neighborhood that mysteriously keeps out outsiders. came for the dysfunctional mess of the god-children and now I can never look at a grill the same way

runners up:

bunny by mona awad: books that make you WISH you were in mona awad’s MFA program where she must have been having a terrible time. the weird one out in an MFA program accepts overtures into the unbearable rich-girls’ clique to find out what they’re Up To. themes of aimlessness and the intersection of class with the art world

camp damascus by chuck tingle: have you ever wished that you were simply too autistic to be successfully demonically brainwashed into not having gay thoughts? horror-flavored thriller that was just fun

light from uncommon stars by ryka aoki: this author put a bunch of genres in a blender and came up with something fun and surprisingly cozy. an immortal woman must sell violinists’ souls to the devil in exchange for their fame, or he’ll drag her to damnation instead. there might be aliens and coffeeshop romance involved. definitely a blender.

the fragile threads of power by v. e. schwab: if you haven’t read a darker shade of magic and you like tightly paced high fantasy and historical fantasy elements, political intrigue, and pirates, read that first. if you have, there’s more now! lila bard are you free on thursday when I am free

the library of the dead & our lady of mysterious ailments by t. l. huchu: a teenage girl provides for her family in soft-apocalypse magic edinburgh with a job carrying messages from ghosts to their living relatives. an ongoing mystery series about the intrigues she uncovers among the dead.

severance by ling ma: this books is on the list of media that is the terror to me: it's about an apocalyptic disease that makes people reenact their routines mindlessly until they collapse. intimate apocalypse novel with themes of late capitalist malaise.

ocean’s echo by everina maxwell: i didn't really like winter's orbit because i'm just not a romance guy, but this second novel stands alone and the romance is more insane and less of the entire point of the novel. (also it's between essentially Discworld's Carrot and Moist Von Lipwig, which is. really something.) in the Space Military, a buttoned-up mind controller must pretend to bend a socialite with illegal mind-reading powers to his will. what if fake relationship but the relationship they have to fake is "brain linked master/servant pair."

the murderbot diaries by martha wells: novellas about a misanthropic security android who jailbroke itself in order to watch tv. the name "murderbot" is a joke but it very much did kill people <3 themes of paranoia and outsiderhood, corporate wrongdoing, repentance, and trust

black water sister by zen cho: zen cho is good at any kind of fantasy she writes, including this, her first modern fantasy novel. a closeted lesbian has to move in with her family in malaysia after college in the US, only to discover that her dead grandmother has some unfinished business involving a local goddess and a conniving real estate developer. themes of family, gender, and place.

the way inn by will wiles: a man who’s paid to pretend he’s other people to attend conferences in their place gets trapped in an endless Marriott. has the sharp humor of a colson whitehead corporate satire until it becomes more straightforwardly horror-flavored.

[pinkelotjeart]

So about the funny ‘translate the silt verses to Dutch post’

I’m thinking about how the Netherlands is literally what would happen if the trawler man got legalised in the long term. Because our country’s entire thing is being control freaks over water. We are technically in danger of flooding all the time but we don’t because of how much thought goes into our dams. We restrict the water, build on top of it. In every sense that’s such a unnatural concept. A country literally under sea level keeping itself dry by its own ingenuity.

If the Netherlands existed in the silt verses universe, how many sacrifices would go just to keep the water from not drowning all of us. Do you think we’d have sacrificed people to create Flevoland, so we have the power to build land on sea.

And like specifically Frisian’s just- work so wel with the whole silt verses fibe. ‘the name is derived from the verb fresare in Vulgar Latin, meaning 'milling, cutting, grooving, crushing, removing shells'; this name may have been given to the Frisii because they 'cut the land': digging ditches and dykes to irrigate the wet marshlands they lived at.’ (According to Wikipedia.) Like it is most definitely unintentional but I always see my own culture back in the silt verses. With the way so much of ours has been defined by our relation to water.

Uh conclusion I think Faulkner would hate the Dutch lol.