#mentions of famine

[sui-imi]

Roo meets Classic Sans

----

undereats -> mine (sui-imi)

undertale -> toby fox

horrortale -> sour apple studios

[tsuwabuki]

what if kobeni had a contract with famine?

1. she's the first one to mention starving in the infinity devil trap.

2. you could hide some foreshadowing under innocuous comments that anyone could make. it's not odd for a poor 20 year old girl to take comfort and enjoyment in tasty food. mentioning the hobby right after 'my devil is a secret' could be nothing, but....

3. someone on reddit mentioned a possible 'final girl' devil with kobeni which I love but I felt the kitchen knife mention would match better with famine. after all, we see falling devil act as a chef preparing a meal for famine. could expand that to kobeni.

4. after famine reveals her name at the aquarium, a kobeni bro makes his debut. also if the infinity devil was used by famine here, was it also used by famine the first time we see it?

5. what we know of famines motivations and context as a horseman translates well to a theory on kobenis abilities. they seem quite powerful when activated so you would need a powerful demon.

5a. ok so my theory. when kobeni is starved of enough good things (family, luck, companionship, safety, bravery, etc), to the point she is fully starved from her humanity, she becomes hyper competent.

you see her fail to reach this state in the hotel due to her clinging to humanity (feels bad about wanting denji dead, for stabbing aki, etc). I think she succeeds in reaching hypercompetence during the rhythm game bit due to being terrified and isolated, it just so happens that the hypercompetence went into playing the rhythm game.

the only other moment where kobenis devil contract ability(ies?) come into play is after her partner gets killed protecting her and she finds out her whole team has been wiped out.

5b. ok so how does this hyper competence after 'starvation' relate to famine as a devil? well the horsemen act as as symbols and metaphors for humanity/life to triumph over.

we see that supported by both conquest and famine taking the role of nurturing humans to become stronger. you could even make that claim for all devils but this isn't about that.

starving is supposed to trigger humanity's instinct to survive by Doing Whatever It Takes. this fits nicely to how I think kobenis contract functions and why she would accept a nerf on her life like that (and how it plays into mental health, childhood abuse, and how someone could choose permanent(?) self destruction at such a young point of their life).

the fact that we see her devil contract trigger (rhythm game) after she's already left public safety means she's stuck with that contract probably the rest of her life. she wanted to go to college but her neglectful parents forced her to pick between sex work and the equivalent of demon fodder.

and because we don't know anything about her contract, we don't know how much she gave up to have this power 😭 being starved of good luck sounds like a really bad longterm debuff even if you theoretically get really good luck at your most terrified moments.

i lost my train of thought here but I'll add one more tangential thing. fujimoto is showing multiple examples of what childhood abuse and/or lack of a stable life can do to someone and how those systems help, hurt, and trap them. kobeni is an example of something more grounded despite her being comedic relief and I love that contrast with her.

she was forced to join the military due to family pressure and economic situation, could not handle the mental strain and quit with a potential life long disability that could get worse over time. she gets a job at a fast food restaurant and has spent her life so far hopping from one toxic 'family' to another.

anyways. throwing kobeni famine contract into the theory pile

[serpentface]

hello i would love to hear about culturally specific dishes in the blightseed setting. what do the animals taste like hows their fat content... herbs and seasonings and the trades involved perhaps..... hows the salt economy? love your setting and if you have a list of ingredients i will invent meals in my head and be well satisfied... i just love food and cooking in world building it is so important to me :-)

OK this is crazy because I had literally just cooked a Lore Friendly Meal the night before I got this ask.

Since this is a super broad question gonna default to Imperial Wardin since that's what I'm writing in right now and has the most developed food economy. (Sorry.)

This region currently dominates the eastern Inner Seas tradeway so has a very broad access to imported foods and spices, and many of its staples are not originally native to the region. Its regional cuisine is quite diverse and varied, largely owing to its status in the tradeway and a long history of immigration to the region (as well as a wide variety of native regional variations in diet).

For simplicity's sake I'm mostly going to stick to staples that are grown in-region (whether native or not) or commonly imported. Also mostly sticking to domesticated plant life, or very common and easily acquired wild plants. (Also not all these plants/herbs/spices would be 1:1 with real-world equivalents, or would be of unique variants that don't exist irl, but if they're basically the same thing I use the IRL word)

Staple base foods: maize, barley, wheat, and rice (closer to O. glaberrima than O. sativa), red yam (a yam regarded as very delicious), white yam (a hardier but poorer tasting yam, often associated with poverty), cassava, chickpeas, other legumes.

Staple vegetables (regionally varies): Cabbage, lettuce, okra, onions, garlic, chili peppers, celery, peas, kolis (a drought tolerant, cactus-like plant. Young stems are tender and edible), camiche (a tree that produces edible seedpods and young leaves).

Staple fruits: Dates, figs, pomegranates, olives, melons, apples, bitter cherries, kolis fruit, nara (a type of citrus, comparable in flavor and sourness to lime).

Widely used spices/herbs/flavorings: cumin, saffron (VERY expensive but natively grown), coriander, culantro, thyme, fennel, sage, tumeric, cardamom, ginger, firebug (an insect that is dried and crushed, provides a reddish hue and slight acidic flavor), anuje (a tree sap which is the region's most popular sweetener).

Livestock: cattle, horses (the small 3 hooved kind), hogs, ducks, geese, one domesticated species of gazelle, some camelops (rare in this region, imported), one type of small domesticated lacetor, several types of fowl.

Other meat (common wild game, or livestock raised in smaller or more localized capacities): crocodiles, gazelles, aurochs, salutachin (a meat dog breed), doves, nechoi, lacetor, hippegalga, anara (a large semi-aquatic rodent), hespiornis, unkata (a large flightless bird), ibis, pheasants, rabbits and hares, caviar ants.

(Of the fantasy game, most nechoi have a strong, lean gamey meat, but an-nechoi is fattier and milder. Lacetor is generally mild and tough (with a few very fatty cuts) and benefits from slow cooking and heavy spices. Hippegalga is lean and mildly gamey and has a nutty quality. Anara tastes like wild rabbit, but slightly fattier. Unkata kind of just tastes like turkey.)

Alcohol: Wine is very important and is consumed (mostly watered down) on a daily basis. Date wine is most common and least expensive by far; only small parts of the region are ideal for viniculture and grape wine is somewhat uncommon. Other fruit wines are common (bitter cherry and kolis fruit being most popular). A very strong liquor is produced from anuje sap, with sweeter and lower ABV versions available as a kind of dessert wine. Grain-based beers and liquors are widely available, but not as prized as fruit/anuje drinks. Mead is somewhat rare and is mostly seen as inferior to anuje.

Salt economy: this region is a dominant player in the salt trade, having a large area of salt flats and marshes in its south. Salt is widely accessible throughout the region via internal trade routes.

Fishing: The region has a huge fishing industry along its coasts and the diet in the coastal cities is enriched with seafood. Pretty much any edible sea life is eaten. (Dozens of fish species, octopus, squid, clams, urchins, oysters, scallops, crabs, lobster, shrimp, etc etc). The tiny, schooling larval form of yotici are also sometimes eaten.

There's also a 'whaling' industry for leviathans, which have very rich, blubbery meat high in iron (I guess I'd describe it as a fattier, stronger, bloodier version of alligator meat), and uhrwal, which have very tough, gamey meat and are considered an acquired taste, used specifically for delicacy dishes.

Misc lore:

Arthropods are not widely eaten in the region and have stigma as peasant or famine food. Some local exceptions are made for locusts, and the eggs of caviar ants (there is a very small industry of ant farming in Ephennos, brought by White Sea qilik immigrants).

Dogs have been used for meat in this region for hundreds of years (largely in the form of the salutachin, a breed specifically developed for meat), but the practice declined under the 3rd Burri empire (in which context it was seen as an 'unclean' food). Cultural trauma from feral dogs eating the dead (and in turn being eaten by starving civilians) during a siege-induced famine has made it specifically taboo in Godsmouth. Dog is now widely considered a famine/poverty food in most of the region, though corn-fed salutachin is still a delicacy in the city-state of Wardin.

Animals that eat human flesh are taboo to consume in most parts of the region (whether this extends to all/most predators or just obligate scavengers varies).

Eggs of skimmer gulls and ibis are considered delicacies.

The basic diet varies across the region, but a huge proportion of the established cuisine revolves around cumin, onions, and peppers for flavoring.

The majority of the diet for an average person is built on savory grain porridge and mashed legumes.

Dairy products are important to the everyday diet in the eastern 'dairy belt' of the region, but are of lesser significance elsewhere. Horsemilk and cow's milk are both common.

Maize is usually consumed after nixtamalization for greater nutritional content.

Most people (especially in the cities) do not eat meat on a regular basis, as even for self-sustaining farmers and herders, the value of livestock for milk, textiles, labor, sacrifice, and trade means that frequent slaughter is often unsustainable. Most get their everyday protein needs met with legumes, and those in coastal cities have broad access to seafood.

Animal sacrifice is vitally important to the practice of the Imperial Wardi faith, but the meat of sacrifices is not eaten (outside of a few specific rites and festivals) and is instead burned.

Khaitmeat is rarely eaten outside of desperation (or opportunistic slaughter of old/injured animals) due to their great value and a developed taboo around its consumption in some parts of the region.

Hunting is a pastime for the urban upper class and typically forbidden within the territories of the city-states without an expensive 'license' (unless one one's own lands, which also generally requires having big money). Poaching for meat in the outskirts of cities is common among the urban poor.

Hunting is a key part of the diet throughout the rural parts of the region, many rural commoners eat meat more frequently than their urban counterparts on this merit.

Some established dishes (either vaguely conceptualized, or have come up specifically in writing):

Pounded white yam and nothing else (a famine food).

Pounded white yam with whitefish and pepper soup, a hearty common meal in Godsmouth.

Savory cornmeal cakes (cornmeal cooked in vegetable broth, lard or olive oil, peppers, onions, cumin, salt, cheese, wrapped in a corn husk and cooled to be eaten on the go).

Shitty cornmeal cakes (a famine food) (cornmeal with weevils in it, you can't really get the weevils out and it's protein so might as well, salted and cooked in water).

Grain festival beef/horse stew (tough bone-in cuts slowcooked with peppers, onion, garlic, and any other available vegetables. Usually heavily spiced. The resulting broth is used to cook the grain (usually hominy, rice, or barley), the meat and vegetables are served on top, sometimes with cream or cheese).

Hominy porridge with milk and sprinkled cheese.

Wheat porridge with dried dates and anuje.

Reed duck boiled in date wine, flavored with peppers, coriander, cumin, and saffron (VERY fancy).

Pickled kolis stem bulbs.

Fermented kolis stem bulbs and cabbage.

Gannegal soup (made with bull penis, hominy, garlic, onion, cabbage, and chickpeas in a spicy broth, supposed to support fertility)

Raw hippegalga meat, thinly sliced with onion and hot pepper, all marinated and cured with nara and eaten cold atop barley or rice (also supposed to support fertility)

Anaebi soup (made with reed duck, lily bulbs, rice, and okra, supposed to support a healthy pregnancy)

Cow tripe and cabbage soup

Finely chopped meat/fish/shellfish or vegetables with onions, wrapped in dough and fried or baked.

Peledyo (A strong, heavily fermented fish sauce favored in the coastal cities (this is pretty much a garum ripoff), which is mixed with wine, vinegar, honey, etc to form the base of other sauces)

Very spicy shellfish soup with a peledyo, wine, and pepper broth.

Caviar ant eggs marinated with nara, vinegar, chopped onions and cabbage, mixed with rice.

A sweetened bean porridge made with cream and anuje.

Hummus-esque spread made with chickpeas, garlic, onion, peppers, and olive oil, usually eaten with bread.

Whole spitroasted horse

A type of root vegetable sausage (intestine casing stuffed with mashed cassava or yam, onions, garlic & cumin seeds which have been cooked down in lard, sometimes with minced meat/offal. Boiled all together.)

Blood sausage (usually horse or cattle)

A kind of donut fried in oil and then soaked in anuje and fruit syrup.

Roasted peppers and onions sauteed in heavy cream, usually served atop grain or a grain porridge.

Toasted locusts, locusts fried with rice or barley, pounded white yam stuffed with fried locust and onions (opportunistic meals during locust plagues)

Fried sprats with pepper and onion sauce

Crab stock soup with onions, peppers, crab meat or whole softshell crabs, and crab roe (sometimes with cream)

Squid ink soups (variety of seafood or seafood-stock soups, blackened by squid ink)

A simple 'trail mix' made with dried camiche seeds and hominy

Dessert bread glazed with fruit syrup or anuje, covered in dried dates

Raw minced lacetor with peledyo, garlic powder, cardamom, coriander. Used to top grains or to be eaten with pounded yam.

Thinly sliced uhrwal flank simmered with date wine and vinegar.

Fatty cuts of an-nechoi belly, usually slow cooked and eaten in soups.

Minced kolis stalk, onion, and pepper, salted and marinated with nara or vinegar

Roasted figs with cheese

Also here's the lore friendly meal I cooked, the grain festival beef stew. Here served in only the lore friendliest of dollar store paper bowls

This specific dish is eaten as a part of yearly grain festivals celebrating the end of the harvest. In most contexts it's an agricultural community event with each family contributing whatever vegetables and spices are on hand, and each donating some of their harvested grain. It's cooked in a huge pot and usually serves dozens of people.

The exact vegetable/herb/spice components would vary wildly within the region, timing, and by the success of the various harvests, but will generally be farmed (rather than foraged) due to the nature of the festival as an agricultural celebration and thanks-giving. Cumin, peppers, and onions are considered the absolute bare minimum necessity. The grain will usually be maize, barley or rice, and may be mashed into a savory porridge instead of eaten whole.

This will usually be one of few times a year where meat is eaten in abundance in the agricultural context. The meat is almost always beef or horse, usually tougher bone-in cuts are chosen for this specific dish. These animals will have been slaughtered specifically for this festival, with the best cut of meat from each being burnt in an offering of gratitude to Ganmache and Anaemache (ox-face and river-face of God, both of which are associated with agriculture and harvests), at the base of what will become the cooking fire.

The meat and vegetables are cooked on low heat in water until the meat is soft and tender and a broth is formed (which should be very strong and spicy, as it will be used to flavor the grain). Some of the broth is drained and used to cook the grain, which is then served with the meat, vegetables, and a few spoonfuls of broth on top. In the eastern dairy belt, milk/cream may be added to the broth, and/or it may be topped with crumbled cheese or sour cream. This is next to heresy in the west.

---

For my easily accessible grocery store equivalent, I used a beef shank, 2 onions, 2 jalepeños, one habanero, a bunch of garlic, okra, and cabbage. Seasoned with cumin seeds and tumeric (very lore friendly) and a sazon packet because I had it (most of the spices involved are at least passably lore friendly). Also jasmine rice (not lore friendly but it's what I had).

I first toasted cumin seeds in olive oil, then added the vegetables and stirred until they were cooked down. The meat and vegetables/spices were cooked in water on low heat for ~5 hours and seasoned to taste. Some of the broth was then removed to cook the rice. Meat + vegetables are spooned on top of the rice, along with some broth.

Results: It's preddy good. Might be a little better with roasted or sauteed rather than heavily cooked down vegetables, but the latter is how it would be eaten. I also had a sore throat at the time and ended up just drinking the rest of the broth. It felt amazing. 6.5/10.

[thestressedsimmer]

Lady Hadley had been noticeably missing from most of the birthday festivities and the Christmas preparations. For the past few days, the woman had been dealing with horrible stomach cramps and spotting that concerned her physician. She was instructed to rest as much as possible, so that meant she left her chambers less and less.

She was proud of herself for managing to get up and get dressed every single day. Her husband would stop in for a few hours, typically. They were still getting used to each other.

The morning after Water's birthday, she woke up in more pain than ever before. She felt truly awful.

The pain was excruciating. It rivalled anything she had ever felt before; but it was far too early for the pain that she'd heard other women speak about. She hadn't even had the quickening yet, it could not be time for the baby to arrive!

Glancing down, she dared to dip a hand beneath her skirts. . . blood. There was a lot of blood. It felt as if the floor was ripped out from under her and the room was spun around in the way that Zachrie was so fond of doing with marbles.

Her knees buckled, she hit the floor - the last thing she remembered before the world went dark was shouting for her husband.

When she came to, she was in her nightgown with a soft-spoken midwife talking to her. She had miscarried. It was too early to know if her child would have been born a boy or a girl, but the midwife said that was just as well. It wouldn't do to dwell on what could have been. She was instructed to rest before she was left alone.

Hadley didn't agree that it was best that she didn't know what her baby was. Hadley didn't think that anything could be for the best in this situation. She had never felt so strangely empty. She hadn't realized how much she could feel the little life inside of her until it was gone. She hadn't realized how much she loved her unborn child until the chance to keep them was taken from her.

On top of that, her marriage was now in jeopardy. She's not so naive as to think she was married out of love. No. Bartlet married her because she was pregnant and he needed more legitimate children. It wasn't a grand love story, no matter how fond he was of her.

She had failed him and their child.

She was so lost in the hell her mind created for her that she didn't hear the door open or her husband's approach. If she had, perhaps she would have tried to quieten her sobs. Maybe she would have tried to dry the tears that were flowing down her cheeks. Maybe she would have sat up and tried to give him a warm greeting in hopes that her demeanor and the ability to suffer with grace would convince him that she was still worth keeping around.

". . . Hadley? Dearest?"

"They told me what happened," he said with an uncharacteristically soft voice.

"You can say it. They told you that I lost the baby."

"Yes."

Rolling over to look at her husband, she was surprised to see how soft he looked. How sad. There wasn't anger like she had been expecting.

"How are you feeling?"

Bartlet had no way of knowing how hard it was to answer that question. First, she had to decide if she wanted to lie or not. If she wanted to repeat the midwife's words and try to put on a brave front. If she wanted to tell the truth, how much truth? There were no words to describe the ache in her soul.

"I don't know."

Hadley's answer inspired Bartlet to climb into the bed, tugging her into his side. She sighed softly, letting her head lay on her husband's shoulder as the tears continued to come. She thought that she would have run out by now.

"We will have more children," he said firmly. Maybe he was trying to convince himself. "These things happen. The Watcher works in mysterious ways."

Hadley didn't respond. She had no words left.

[ask-mobile-iterator-project]

do yall know Five Pebbles? Just curious.

[BROADCAST HANDLED BY ADMIN]

admin notes: none of them know him personally, if that's what you were asking. However, his construction was a very widespread source of gossip.

ok I've dropped some terminology and I need to explain it again

Architects: in-universe name for the Ancients. I did not come up with this. I may consider referring to them in other ways, too, mainly depending on the context / their social position, etc. Like... I have seen the name "benefactors" suggested. I might consider that for perhaps higher-class ancients with a lot of wealth or influence. Or perhaps ancients who specifically sponsored projects like iterators.

"Citizens" is more context-dependent, and kinda self-explanatory, but it might also come up. Still not entirely sure about all the various titles and such I want to use for world-building. Fortunately, NCTG uses the titles of "Director" and "Creator" regardless... lucky me!!

Major Cycle: ok time for the timescale brainrot.

I have crossed out the real-world equivalencies, since they are meant to be vague rather than hard guidelines. I view cycles as a measurement of time that vary, after all. (though I'm still not entirely sure how I want them to be measured...)

I don't want to lock myself into restrictions with timescale and measurement. It's just a useful tool for determining a vague ... timeline of events.

I will say, though, that a major cycle is considerably longer than a single human year. So, um, don't equate them.

Additionally, 100 major cycles is considered a dynasty.

...this is subject to change. Apologies if this is confusing.

[c00kietin]

do you want to see an orca?

yes please fellow Irish person!!! :33

[nerdemic]

lemme just say to my moots and followers who are a little younger

if you feel consumed by the choking dread that all things are about to end, please know that when other people tell you that feeling is going to pass that they're telling you from experience. i have under my belt:

2012 - was convinced we were all actually going to die because of a random calendar myth

2016 - was convinced we were all actually going to war (I forget who it was even with, Korea??)

2020 - convinced we were all either going to die of a plague or war ourselves to death

now I'm near my 30's and reading Ecclesiates has finally clicked that Oh this is literally just how the world is, oh I got you God.

Pray, pray, pray. Write out your fears to get them out and pray over them. Then go outside, play a game, spend time with your family; be here in this moment where God has you, stop trying to prepare for a future of your own invention.

[mofffun]

Takano Minato I just want to talk

[dontforgetukraine]

To understand Ukraine better, think about Ireland

What analogy would help American Catholics understand the situation in Ukraine?

Perhaps we should think about Ireland.

Like Ukraine, Ireland was dominated for more than 200 years by a huge imperial neighbor. Britain in Ireland. Russia in Ukraine. Both nations disappeared from political maps for more than two centuries.

Ireland got its independence from Britain in 1921 after 230 years of domination. Ukraine was finally free of Russian (Soviet) domination in 1991, after more than nearly 300 years of domination. Ukraine had the added problem of more than one colonial ruler, with Poland and Lithuania and Austria in the west, the Ottoman Turks in the south, and the Russians in the east.

Ukraine is a huge country, with relatively level topography, in the middle of Europe. It has been overrun with invaders since the Mongols invaded in the 13th century from the east. Poland and Lithuania dominated Ukraine in the west. In 1686, the Treaty of Eternal Peace between the Polish/Lithuanian confederation and tsarist Russia divided Ukraine in two, with everything east of the Dnieper River and Kyiv going to the Russians. So, beginning in the 1690s Russia dominated eastern Ukraine. They did their best to eclipse Ukrainian culture and referred condescendingly to Ukrainians and "Little Russians." Even the name "Ukraine" is from the Russian perspective. It means "borderland" — and the border is from Moscow's perspective. 

Language is an important part of identity. The indigenous languages of Ireland and Ukraine were both suppressed and supplanted by their colonial rulers. Ireland's educated elite spoke English and were sent to England to study. Ukraine's educated elite spoke the languages of their cultural masters: Polish in the west, Russian in the east. Under the tsars and the Soviets, the elites from Ukraine were sent to Russia to study and were expected to become cultural Russians. Today the Ukrainian language is making a comeback, even in the east. In Ukraine, I've met several Russian-speaking Ukrainians who now refuse to speak the Russian language. And Ukrainian is not a dialect of Russian, any more than Spanish is a dialect of Italian. They are distinct.

Both Irish and Ukrainian cultures were preserved in the rural areas. In the countryside, people spoke their native languages at home, in church and among themselves. But in business and in cities they spoke the language of their colonizers, English and Russian. That seems to have been especially true in Ukraine.

While neither Ireland nor Ukraine governed themselves for more than 200 years, their sons were drafted to fight the wars of their colonizers. The people of both nations generally remained poor, while the agriculture of both nations fed their rulers.

Both nations were visited by unnecessary starvation, despite their rich land and agriculture. Ireland had the Great Hunger of the 19th century, brought on by the potato blight and land rents. It killed a million people and sent another million into exile.

In Ukraine, the breadbasket of Europe, at least 4 million Ukrainians starved to death in the 1930s under Joseph Stalin during the Holodomor ("death by hunger"). It was totally unnecessary, brought on by Stalin's policy of  "collectivization" of farming and persecution of Ukraine's Culak farmers, who were perceived as anti-Bolshevik. Russian police entered Ukrainian homes and literally took the food from families.

Eastern Ukraine was severely depopulated by starvation, war and political purges by the end of World War II. Russian speakers were brought in to repopulate eastern Ukraine. (That's similar to what the English did in Northern Ireland when they brought in Scots.) This "Russification" changed the ethnic makeup of eastern Ukraine. 

World War II was especially cruel in Ukraine. Between 7 and 8 million Ukrainians died in the war; at least 5 million were civilians. The population of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic was 41 million in 1940 and 36 million people in 1950. 

Millions of people have emigrated from both Ireland and Ukraine. After World War II, many Ukrainians came to the U.S. and Canada. The Ukrainian Catholic churches that dot our landscape today are testament to their presence here. A new exodus took place from Ukraine in 2022, when about 6 million people left the country as refugees in just a few months. They settled mostly in western Europe. The population of Ukraine had been 41 million before Russia's full-scale invasion began Feb. 25, 2022. Now it is estimated at about 36 million. (No one is sure because a census is impossible to do in wartime.)

Both Ireland and Ukraine have seen severe religious persecution. In Ireland, the British crown banned Roman Catholicism under Irish penal laws. In Ukraine, under the Soviets, all religion — except Orthodox Christianity under the Moscow patriarch — was banned. The state was officially atheist during the Soviet era, 1921 to 1991. Today, as a result of Russia's invasion, the number of followers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate is  declining and the independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine is growing. Whole parishes are leaving the Moscow patriarch. A July 2022 survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found only 1 of 25 of Ukrainians (4%) identified with Moscow Patriarchate, a considerable drop from nearly 1 of 5 (18%) in June 2021.

Catholics, of both Eastern and Western rites, saw their churches, seminaries, monasteries, convents, schools and universities seized and closed during the Soviet period. Many church leaders had to go into exile. We visited one formerly Latin Rite church in Lviv, built by Polish Jesuits in the 1700s, which had been a book warehouse under the Soviet regime.

The war seems to have promoted the growth and independence of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. It was recognized as a self-governing (autocephalous) church only in 2018, by the Patriarch of Constantinople (Istanbul). That resulted in the patriarch of Moscow excommunicating the patriarch of Constantinople. 

Why is this important for American Catholics? Because I have heard a fair amount of Russian disinformation from American Catholics after our two visits to Ukraine in the last two years.

People ask: Isn't Ukraine really just part of Russia? Answer: No. Not willingly.

Isn't the Ukrainian language just a dialect of Russian? No. It is a distinct Slavic language.

Wasn't Crimea always Russian? No. Catherine the Great seized it from the Ottoman Turks in 1783. Stalin deported most of the local Tatars to concentration camps in the 1930s.

History matters. It helps us to understand the past and deal with the present.

In 1991 Ukrainians took their rightful place among the peoples of the world. It has been a centuries-long struggle to be free of domination by their imperial neighbors. From what I have seen, they are absolutely determined that they will not again disappear from the maps of the world. 

[skrunksthatwunk]

post-forced-extension of that assignment i was losing my mind about tuesday/wednesday i experienced a very familiar "ah.... it's as if the deadline no longer exists....." feeling that has now been replaced with "wait i still can't find the resources i need. and i don't know how to organize this. and i don't know what im presenting on (<- super broad topic and i can't fucking find the information i actually need bc our university doesn't?? give us jstor subscriptions or whatever anymore??? so it's all scholarly stuff i can't read or ppl's blogs which im not fucking using for this and half of them just copy entire paragraphs from encyclopedia britannica. who is saving my ass but whatever)" mixed with "I'll figure it out later 🙂‍↕️" IM PRESENTING IT IN 11 HOURS 💀💀💀

[thestressedsimmer]

Baroness Elanor Despenser has been delivered of a son on December 14th, 1317 at 7:27 AM

Unfortunately, the child was born sleeping. In light of their family tragedies, the baron and baroness have asked for privacy.

[llycaons]

hate it when you rec something and you're like yeah it's SO good and then you go and check the beginning to remember how it goes and then it's the most embarassingly modern and dialogue-wise, kind of ooc and extremely explicit sex scene. like I PROMISE this doesn't represent the story 😭

[ivyprism]

Wait. Did. Did the old au horrortale boys escape? Did they escape their universe?

Ooooooo?

Old Horrortale AU: Storm and Carollan did escape, but their AU is a bit different from the others as Toxin's destruction left what was left of their AU in a famine and led to even worse and slower deaths while they were still fighting him. They struggled to find resources, will, and hope to fight him as Toxin's attack did not relent even as they had fallen into a famine. They escaped after Dusk decided to make a way for them to escape without them knowing. As a result, Storm and Carrollan helped better lead the Sanctuary as they already had experience in leading one and they were apart of Dusk's crew (Carollan takes up the position Clove seems to have) to help actively find AUs and save them from near destruction.

-H

[deckdancer]

The older and more aware I get, the more I feel the romanticism of vampires is a special kind of classist "pick me"-ism. Kinda like the dream of winning the lottery. It's the idea that if you're special enough, in the right place, at the right time, someone can remove every mortal ailment and stress from your body in exchange for a small act of service that ultimately perpetuates the cycle. Bram Stokers Dracula should have been fought. Vampires from their inception have not been sexy. Vlad Tepes, who we often associate with the original Dracula, was a psychopathic aristocratic murderer who had the bodies of thousands of dissidents in his courtyard. And yet now, the narrative of vampires has shifted from the elites of society sucking the blood of the poor to sustain themselves ad infinitum, to something sexualized and romanticized. I don't blame kinks at all for the romanticization of vampires, kink unfortunately was the community the propaganda spread through. It makes sense from a surface level. The neck is a very intimate part of the body, something we only allow someone we truly trust to get near. That, mixed with the humanization of vampires, having them need consent in order to feed, helps play them into the role of the victim of circumstance, just needing to do what they do in order to survive. That, or they find a substitute, and thus once again human blood is seen as a treat, an indulgence, that only furthers home that those born into wealth and capital don't have a choice but to live in that lifestyle, and those that don't live like others are seen as odd. The humans in these stories are us. They always are and always were us. We feed the vampires, willingly or unwillingly. But to think that we can slough off every problem we have by a single act of service to those that think themselves higher than us is a fallacy. Because a vampire must always feed, and when it can no longer feed on you, they will dispose of you, because then you are competition. The best you can hope for in that situation is eternal thrallhood, never reaching the status of vampire, never sinking low enough to be seen as a human again.

[disasterhimbo]

In addition to it being nowhere near enough food and far less efficient than the trucks that are literally waiting at the border, it contained very little water, much if not all of it was expired or nearly-expired, and it was not halal.

it broke today that biden airdropped aid to gaza. other than the fact that this is an obvious pr move ahead of his re-election campaign, i think it's important to stress how ineffective this method is compared to just allowing humanitarian aid to come through. airdrops carry far less aid than truck convoys, for one, and require an airdrop zone with a lot of idealistic conditions that don't often coincide. this is a major reason why you hear a lot of airdrops being conducted at beaches--and why a lot of them have been blown to the sea. and what's even more dangerous about that is that a lot of these palestinians are malnourished, starving, in a delirious state of mind. many of them are so utterly hungry that they'd be willing to swim through just to get their hands on a sodden meal. but apparently this is the best thing the us, which literally funds israel's ongoing genocide, can do for palestinians at the moment.

[thestressedsimmer]

November, 1317: The Glasse Estate, Windenberg

Much like when Ulric died two years ago, Olive found that her form of grief was pragmatism. Throwing herself into what she could control and ignoring everything she couldn't. This time, there were no sad orphans to bring food and fabric to. The grieving children were the ones that came from her womb and there wasn't anything she could give them.

Ylving had been preparing to start his studies with his father, his seventh birthday on the horizon, but that wasn't possible anymore. She had to find somebody else for him to train under. She had plenty of offers from the nobles in the community, either out of genuine kindness or out of hope that the boy would turn into as skilled of a fighter as his father. Hugh Despenser's offer seemed the best. Instead of charging a fee, he was offering to train Upton's son as repayment for the knight saving his life years ago.

Olive struggled with it more than she thought she would, constantly finding herself on the brink of tears at the thought of sending her baby boy away. How would he ever make it as a page? He vomited the last time he skinned his knee and saw blood. He cried when he saw a spider and cried even harder when his sister killed it. At least under his father, there would have been some understanding.

She didn't know where life went now. She didn't know how she got here. Soon, her home would be empty. No husband, her son off learning to fight in wars he might not return from, and her daughter married and risking her life to create heirs for the Duke of Britechester.

While his mother struggled and shut herself up in the study for longer and longer, Ylving distracted himself with his newfound friendship with the princess.

She was a kind girl and understood that he wasn't always in the mood to play. She understood that he wasn't always in a good mood. She understood. He didn't know how, she hadn't had a family member die, but they didn't talk about it much.

Why he lashed out at her in anger sometimes was a mystery to even him. Maybe he was angry that she still had a father, even though it was good for the entire realm that she did. Maybe it had nothing to do with her at all.

Luckily for him, someone was keeping a close eye on him.

His older sister Camilla would always step in whenever she saw him getting a little too harsh with his friend, dragging him inside to scream and shout until he broke down in tears.

More and more frequently, Camilla would put her little brother to bed and coax him down from these fits of grief. Slowly but surely, her romance with Thomas became her second priority and her first became keeping it together for her brother and mother.

She was sure that they would start to pull themselves from the depths of despair eventually. She didn't even begrudge her mother, this had all happened so suddenly.

She would hold the family together until Olive could manage again.