#reducing feed expenses

[farmerstrend]

Do You Want to Cut Your Poultry Feed Cost? Here is A Comprehensive Guide

Discover how Kenyan poultry farmers can cut down on high poultry feed costs and boost productivity with homemade chicken feed solutions. Learn more in our detailed guide! Explore the struggles of Kenyan poultry farmers facing high feed costs and uncover practical, cost-effective strategies for making high-quality chicken feed at home. Read now! Learn how to overcome the high costs of chicken feed…

[transgendz]

My roommate and I are financially unstable while he does through a long, complicated diagnosis process that started as we stopped being homeless. I just got a job, and it's going to pay well and allow us to get caught up and stable, but I don't get my check for a week and a half. We have rent due on the 1st, our storage bill due at the end of the month, and we are out of food.

Dm me for proof or details

I will do art for anyone who gives, just message me @theartistrans I also take commissions there.

Dm me for zelle

$creepiecrippl

V

PP

$0/$900

[jamescarstairs]

new year same rant: i don't think i will ever be able to forgive my parents & the rest of my family for how they treated me when i was unemployed compared to how they now treat my brother

[headspace-hotel]

I went down the internet rabbit hole trying to figure out wtf vegan cheese is made of and I found articles like this one speaking praises of new food tech startups creating vegan alternatives to cheese that Actually work like cheese in cooking so I was like huh that's neat and I looked up more stuff about 'precision fermentation' and. This is not good.

Basically these new biotech companies are pressuring governments to let them build a ton of new factories and pushing for governments to pay for them or to provide tax breaks and subsidies, and the factories are gonna cost hundreds of millions of dollars and require energy sources. Like, these things will have to be expensive and HUGE

I feel like I've just uncovered the tip of the "lab grown meat" iceberg. There are a bajillion of these companies (the one mentioned in the first article a $750 MILLION tech startup) that are trying to create "animal-free" animal products using biotech and want to build large factories to do it on a large scale

I'm trying to use google to find out about the energy requirements of such facilities and everything is really vague and hand-wavey about it like this article that's like "weeeeeell electricity can be produced using renewables" but it does take a lot of electricity, sugars, and human labor. Most of the claims about its sustainability appear to assume that we switch over to renewable electricity sources and/or use processes that don't fully exist yet.

I finally tracked down the source of some of the more radical claims about precision fermentation, and it comes from a think tank RethinkX that released a report claiming that the livestock industry will collapse by 2030, and be replaced by a system they're calling...

Food-as-Software, in which individual molecules engineered by scientists are uploaded to databases – molecular cookbooks that food engineers anywhere in the world can use to design products in the same way that software developers design apps.

I'm finding it hard to be excited about this for some odd reason

Where's the evidence for lower environmental impacts. That's literally what we're here for.

There will be an increase in the amount of electricity used in the new food system as the production facilities that underpin it rely on electricity to operate.

well that doesn't sound good.

This will, however, be offset by reductions in energy use elsewhere along the value chain. For example, since modern meat and dairy products will be produced in a sterile environment where the risk of contamination by pathogens is low, the need for refrigeration in storage and retail will decrease significantly.

Oh, so it will be better for the Earth because...we won't need to refrigerate. ????????

Oh Lord Jesus give me some numerical values.

Modern foods will be about 10 times more efficient than a cow at converting feed into end products because a cow needs energy via feed to maintain and build its body over time. Less feed consumed means less land required to grow it, which means less water is used and less waste is produced. The savings are dramatic – more than 10-25 times less feedstock, 10 times less water, five times less energy and 100 times less land.

There is nothing else in this report that I can find that provides evidence for a lower carbon footprint. Supposedly, an egg white protein produced through a similar process has been found to reduce environmental impacts, but mostly everything seems very speculative.

And crucially none of these estimations are taking into account the enormous cost and resource investment of constructing large factories that use this technology in the first place (existing use is mostly for pharmaceutical purposes)

It seems like there are more tech startups attempting to use this technology to create food than individual scientific papers investigating whether it's a good idea. Seriously, Google Scholar and JSTOR have almost nothing. The tech of the sort that RethinkX is describing barely exists.

Apparently Liberation Labs is planning to build the first large-scale precision fermentation facility in Richmond, Indiana come 2024 because of the presence of "a workforce experienced in manufacturing"

And I just looked up Richmond, Indiana and apparently, as of RIGHT NOW, the town is in the aftermath of a huge fire at a plastics recycling plant and is full of toxic debris containing asbestos and the air is full of toxic VOCs and hydrogen cyanide. ???????????? So that's how having a robust industrial sector is working out for them so far.

[poeticsandaliens]

You think Peter Lukas hangs around Elias because his mere presence feeds the Lonely? That Peter knows he can never take Elias because he belongs so wholly to the Eye, but that immortality comes at the expense of any real bond, reducing everyone you've known and loved to a fragmented past, merely tools to be watched? To see and know everything and everyone but to never truly be known yourself must be the loneliest thing imaginable. A true smorgasbord.

[sleepyparalysisdmon]

SVT doing acts of service

Requested? Yes! 

Request: 'seventeen members and what they would for their partner who’s love language is acts of service :)'

A/N: there are so many different kinds of acts of service, but I picked the ones that really stuck out to me. 

Seungcheol - car maintenance and care

You haven’t had to fill up your gas tank in months, years even, because it never seems to come close to empty. You haven’t thought about needing an oil change or tire rotation because the little sticker in the corner of your windshield always looks new. You forget how a drive thru car wash works because your car is always sparkling. And if your check engine light ever does come on with an actual issue, best believe he’s swapping cars for the day to take care of it. Almost entirely motivated by you being safe, but the shiny car with a full tank of gas kind of makes him proud when he returns it to you.

Jeonghan - does the dishes 

You said a single time that dishes were your least favorite chore. You grumbled about it but had every intention of doing it as soon as you could work up the motivation. But he’s rolling his eyes lovingly, pushing you back towards your seat saying, “I’ll do it, but you’re so whiney.” Don’t let it fool you. He doesn’t mind it and even tells you to just leave it for him later. Might even scold you a little bit if you didn't leave them for him.

Joshua - always makes coffee

Absolutely does not matter how early he has to wake up or if it might make him late, but he’s starting the coffee pot. You said one time that you were running late and really needed coffee but didn’t have time to make any or stop somewhere. So every morning when you rush around the apartment to get ready for work, you find fresh coffee with an insulated cup next to the pot for you to fill and go. So small yet so nice at the same time. 

Jun - cooking dinner

You get a little stressed about dinner. After a long day, it’s so, so easy to come home and say “fuck it, I’m ordering something.” But you lament how expensive and unhealthy that habit is sometimes, so you occasionally come home and are surprised to see him there too, cooking dinner. Will not listen to a single second of nagging for him to rest because he really doesn’t mind if it reduces your stress and ensure you’re eating properly and actually wishes he could do it more often. 

Hoshi - packing your lunch 

Similar to Jun, but you often forget to pack lunch the night before and can’t do it in the morning when you’re running late. He sends you to get ready for bed and says he’ll be there in a few. The next morning, he reminds you to grab your lunch from the fridge on your way out. It’s not always this super cute, aesthetically pleasing box lunch, but it’s always nice that he thinks to do it at all.

Wonwoo - organizing your things

You have a pile of things that need to be put away and organized, be it books, or clothes, or groceries. He’ll take over without really being asked. Your bookshelf is neatly alphabetized. Your closet is organized by color or item type, whichever you prefer. Your groceries are put away to your preferences, whether it be by date of expiration or on low shelves to ensure you can reach it. Will not accept any thanks because he just likes doing it. 

Woozi - filling up your water bottle

At the first sight or sound of your water bottle draining, he’s holding out his hand expectantly. Does not matter if you tell him you can do it yourself because you’re wasting your breath. Very much an “I know, but let me do it.” And you do let him do it a majority of the time because it’s kind of sweet how quickly he responds. 

DK - shoulder rubs

This feeds a little bit of the physical touch love language too, but it is still most certainly an act of service. If he sees that you’ve had a hard day or your shoulders are tense, he’s pulling you in front of him or coming up behind your seat to rub out your shoulders. It makes you melt, not only because it feels good and relaxes you, but because it’s always ended with a little kiss and a “feel better?”  

Mingyu - takes care of your pet

Literally the first to volunteer to scoop the litter box, or walk the dog, or clean out the fish tank. Doesn’t matter what kind of pet you have, he wants to learn about it and help you care for it. This also extends to making time for vet appointments when you’re too busy to do it yourself. If you ever say anything about how he doesn’t need to do all that, he’ll cry out, “but that’s our child!!” Don’t deny him his time with his child. 

Minghao - opens things for you

Another one that does the whole “I know, but let me.” He barely watches you struggle to open something for a second before he’s holding out his hand or just straight up taking the item from you. Might even preemptively open things for you before he hands them to you. It’s a totally silent, easy way to show he cares so please let him keep doing it. 

Seungkwan - dries your hair for you

(I’ve definitely written about this before for him, so this was an obvious choice.) Knows you’re usually tired by the time you shower at night, so he’s making you sit down in the bathroom so he can meticulously dry your hair for you. He kind of likes how it puts you to sleep too because it means it was relaxing or soothing for you. Will never let you touch a hair dryer if he’s around. 

Vernon - untangles things for you

It starts with your headphones. You lament that the cords always get tangled and bent in your bag. He takes the headphones from you right then to untangle them. He even winds the cord neatly so it won’t happen when you put them back in your bag. This little habit extends to things like necklaces when they get knotted or tangled in one another. He doesn’t even let you ask about it - if he sees a tangled necklace on your vanity or counter that you left to deal with later out of frustration, he’ll just stop and do it right then. Another one that won’t accept any thanks because he doesn’t mind doing it. 

Chan - organizing your medicine

Doesn’t want you to forget it, no matter what you might take it for. Buys a little pill organizer and sits down once a week to fill it up for you. It’s such a little thing that sometimes you forget you never have to do it. It’s just magically always full at the beginning of the week. He usually knows when you’ve run out of a medication and need a refill before you because of this little habit, and might take initiative to get them for you when he can. 

[anarchywoofwoof]

‘this is going to get worse before it gets better’: panama canal pileup due to drought reaches 154 vessels

the panama canal, a key route for global trade, is facing a crisis. 154 ships are waiting, with an average wait time of 21 days. drought has reduced the water level in the main reservoir to critically low levels, which has resulted in the canal's locks struggling to function.

40% of all u.s. container traffic travels through the panama canal every year. the current situation is a direct result of climate change and overuse of natural resources.

climate change: weather patterns have shifted, and the area is receiving much less rain than it used to. the lake that feeds the canal is refilling at a much slower rate.

overuse: development around the area has increased reliance on groundwater and freshwater sources. shipping traffic has surged, flushing more water down the canal.

each ship requires about 200 million liters to pass through, amounting to 2.8 billion liters per day at just 14 trips.

at peak season, that's 10 billion liters per day, all of it fresh water flushed into the ocean. gone. wasted. unusable.

the low water level creates two main issues: availability and pressure. emergency water conservation measures are in place, restricting the biggest boats movements and slowing down the entire process.

this ultimately leads to inflation. shit is about to become even MORE expensive.

this isn't just a problem for some boats or the shipping business. it's a reminder of how our actions and the changing climate are impacting the world in real and tangible ways. the panama canal is a microcosm of a global issue.

we have failed to recognize the interconnectedness of our world and we are paying the price. it will not improve under capitalism.

[genericpuff]

completely off topic but regarding something that i saw pop up in my FB feed and i need to rant about

please do not fall for this shit

nintendo is NOT anti-AI.

it's really easy for them to say they're not going to use generative AI to create their games, because this statement has nothing to do with the very real issues with AI art such as the blatant theft of artists' work, environmental impact, replacement of humans in the industry, and just flat out unethical shit that AI has been designed around

it has EVERYTHING to do with their intellectual property rights, which Nintendo is NOTORIOUS for protecting with an iron fist even at their own expense. and i'm not talking the usual sensible argument shit like "ofc Nintendo wants to protect their IP's, they're a business!" i'm talking about the fact that this is the same company that just recently did a major takedown of the vast majority of Nintendo-licensed games on Vimm's Lair which aren't even being sold legitimately anywhere anymore-

i have so many fucking bones to pick with the flaccid bootlicking anti-piracy arguments out there but basically it comes down to this:

Nintendo is not a small indie company. They are literally one of the biggest, richest, most powerful gaming companies on the planet, rivalling Disney in just how many major franchises they own and profit off of. Many of their games are cultural classics, not just through the sentimentality and nostalgia of our childhoods, but also for all the innovations they made through games like Super Mario Bros, Super Mario 64, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and many others that we, within the world of gaming, owe a lot to and should be able to access and play. It's not a matter of "wanting these games for free", it's a matter of wanting to be able to access these games, period, and Nintendo is deadset on making it as difficult as possible, even when it doesn't necessarily profit from them (need I remind you that many of the games that were taken down from Vimm's Lair are NOT available through their shitty, poorly-ported emulation subscription service - plus that subscription service can be altered and/or removed at any time, regardless of what you paid for, just like the Wii Virtual Console was, meaning you do not own any of the games you're paying to play on there.)

This isn't about being "cheap" or "not wanting to pay for games". This is about media preservation and the virtue of actually owning the things we pay for. If these games were resold at official outlets for reduced prices or made more accessible through e-shops that don't close down in between console generations or drip feed the odd legacy title every few months or release crappy ports on their outdated af tech for only a few months at a time for three times the price of their original value, people would gladly pay. It's the fact that people are having to put up with all of the hoops that Nintendo has put in place to prevent them from even handing them money to play their favorite titles that even drives them to piracy to begin with, and Nintendo will gladly shut those sites down to protect their IP even when it's an IP they're no longer profiting from and aren't making active efforts to sell.

Like, I would gladly hand over a reasonable amount of money (i.e. not the cost of a brand new triple A title in 2024 which is like $80-$100 here in Canada) for Diddy Kong Racing on the Switch, but ofc it's not on the fucking online play store and even if it was, I'd have to deal with paying an overpriced subscription fee for a port of the game that would undoubtedly run WORSE than it does on my PC, and that subscription service can be taken down at any time. But Nintendo wants me to not pirate the game that's not available on their shitty subscription service because... just don't do it, pretty please??

Nintendo is not anti-AI. They would gladly use AI in place of manual labor to scour the internet and dish out DMCA's to every emulation site, archived ROM hub, fan game, and artist alley creator if they could... oh wait, they already are.

Do not fall for the virtues of anti-AI when it comes to companies like Nintendo. They are not anti-AI. They're anti-ownership. They're anti-preservation.

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Lately I've been reading "Drawdown", by Paul Hawken et al, a comprehensive set of strategies for tackling the climate crisis. Your Cambrian Wildwoods post reminded me of one of the solutions - Silvopasture, from the Latin for 'Forest Grazing'.

Essentially it means proposing to farmers that a portion of land be forested and that their animals freely graze there. It can be extremely flexible - planting trees in existing pasture, thinning down woodland to allow for forage growth, using trees as natural fencing, and more.

It's got good potential for carbon capture, and also for saving farmers money in feed and fertiliser, creating better conditions for livestock by keeping them in the shade, and potentially providing secondary income sources in fruit, nuts, etc.

What do you think of it as a potential avenue for Welsh farming? The focus in "Drawdown" is on cattle farming, but I don't see any reason not to trial it with sheep - especially since it could be spun as a hybrid of both aspects of traditional culture...

("Drawdown" also emphasises peer-to-peer uptake through word-of-mouth, rather than being pushed by outsiders.)

Oh, yes - it's basically what they did at Pontbren. That was a farmer-led initiative - one of the big expenses with sheep farming is having to bring them into barns over the winter and supply all feed, but traditionally they'd have stayed out all year. So these farmers got together and went, "How do we ethically and sustainably reduce this expense?"

What they realised is that they were paying for (a) the government-enforced decision post-WW2 to swap to high-yield breeds of sheep that weren't suited to the Welsh climate and topography (i.e. wet as fuck and mostly vertical), and (b) the decline of traditional hedgerow management and shelterbelts. And so the dream was born.

They contacted the Woodland Trust purely to act in an advisory capacity - they wanted to know which trees would be best, and where. They could take much land out of production, but the beauty of hedgerows and shelterbelts is that they're linear features that replace your fences. That was how environmentalists got on board - we were invited, and we remembered that. We were therefore allowed to do a couple of experiments as it progressed, such as testing the infiltration rates of rain into groundwater rather than run-off and comparing it between hedgerow fields and fence fields. Meanwhile, the farmers replaced their stock with native breeds - I believe mostly Welsh Mountain Sheep, which look amazing:

Ain't no rain getting in THAT.

Anyway, a few strategically placed shelterbelts and hedgerows later and:

The sheep can now safely stay out all year round, excepting storms

The sheep are actually healthier and have higher welfare standards

Floods have reduced thanks to higher infiltration rates

Soil erosion is reduced so the fields and river are healthier

The farmers have saved money

The farmers are now making extra money, because they started a tree nursery and sell trees as a side project

You can read multiple publications on it here

So yes! Silvipasture is actually a huge tool for the future that we need to be embracing, as is agroforestry for arable farming, and the frustrating/hopeful part of it is, these are tools we used to use. This isn't new knowledge - it's forgotten knowledge that we need to reclaim. But even aside from the immediate benefits, it also has massive implications for resilience in a world with a warming climate, and we need to do it faster.

[draciformes]

It's so frustrating how there is so much *stuff* (clothing, electronics, furniture, food, etc) in the world and so much of that *stuff* eventually just gets thrown away and if you put effort into buying things used to try and reduce the unsustainable about of STUFF it's often just more expensive than buying it brand new and feeding into the material death march we have collectively built and something like 75 percent of donated STUFF still gets thrown away ANYWAY due to the sheer uncontrollable VOLUME OF STUFF but God forbid they let you take! any of that stuff that they were going to! Throw away! Anyway! and urhrjr sdhwhnmwh swpwpqjkadf!!!! SNQMWLWwN WNJ DNFBBdRFS

[summitprinter]

Pokimane's Cookie Addiction

Famous streamer Imane Anys, better known as “Pokimane,” had received backlash for the announcement of her newly created snack company, Myna. Critics claimed that her snacks were too expensive for their price and weren’t as healthy as advertised. So, to combat the controversy and advertise the brand, Ms. Anys came up with a brilliant strategy: Go on a Myna sponsored cookie diet for the year. As she announced her plan to her thousands of followers, many were either confused, intrigued, or just didn’t care. None of that feedback mattered to Ms. Anys, who was more bent on proving her snack project to be a success rather than a failure. Ms. Anys should be careful however; the line between ambition and hubris is razor thin…

Much time has passed since Ms. Anys had made her decision to eat only Myna branded products and it seems it has not gone well. Turns out that the cookies she has been gorging on for a year are surprisingly addictive. Less shocking is that eating nothing but high calorie, protein filled chocolate cookies tends to have adverse effects on the body. Yes, gone is Ms. Anys’ thin waist and tight figure, now only cellulite and stretch marks can be seen.

Too wide to go through any doorway and with no hope of ever losing the weight, Ms. Anys must now rely on hired help in order to function. It seems however that her maids haven’t been doing such a good job of taking care of Ms. Anys as they have instead found much more enjoyment from feeding and teasing Ms. Anys, who due to her size, can do nothing but accept her fate as a pile of lard to be played with. Of course since Ms. Anys’ inability to earn any income from both her streaming and snack career, her maids have done the honor of making her a fetish cam model star in order to cover their paycheck.

Under the name “Piggymane,” Ms. Anys has made quite the splash in the BBW cam girl scene, with thousands of viewers tuning in to gawk, laugh, and jack off at the once pretty streamer, now nothing more but a fat disgusting blob. With a portion of each donation going towards Ms. Anys’ increasing waistline, her career shows no sign of stopping soon. Ms. Anys of course isn’t pleased about any of this, but she’s far too fat now to stop it now.

As tears roll down her bloated checks, she wonders what could have been. Her daydreams of fantasy are smashed when the sound of a donation fills the room and a large tube is shoved into her mouth; Feeding time. She begins to cry harder as gallons of liquid lard flow through the thick tube into her tired mouth; each drop only causing her to grow larger. This was her life now. Nothing but forced eating and sexual deviancy. Reduced to a filth covered pig…

Alts: Clean

Clean and Crying

Sweaty

Sweaty and Crying

Slobby

Slobby and Crying

Slobby and Farting

Slobby, Crying, and Farting

[queercontrarian]

Ascension - A Beron Origin Story

@sjmvillainweek Prompt: Origin Story

In the middle of the First War with Hybern and Spring, Beron finally gets what he always wanted.

Read this story on AO3

The air was sweltering outside, only some flimsy spells keeping the inside of the tents cool and dry. In all his years, Beron had rarely known such weather within the borders of the Autumn Court. Now, with Summer encroaching on their territory and Spring breaking into their lands, the magic was out of balance and the weather followed. It was chaos. It was hell.

Athos had hoped that the fighting on the continent would distract Aldwig and his rabid hellish brood enough from the war they had started with their neighbors for Autumn to recover but Beron knew better. The High Lord of Spring would rather give up his colonies on the Continent and all his connections in the Human War than risk losing so close to home, especially to their perceived lesser neighbor, Autumn.

The attack on their borders and the southern provinces had been swift and brutal. Albéa, the once proud city which housed in equal parts Spring, Summer and Autumn fae reduced to nothing but bloody rubble and bones, many of the smaller villages along the way destroyed or abandoned, their inhabitants fleeing into the old woods.

It was from those very woods now that Beron had been launching his attacks, forced to watch as Spring and Summer made breach after breach deeper into his Court. Despite his General’s protests Athos had tried to meet the enemy in the field again and again, and each time Autumn’s army had suffered immense losses. Thousands upon thousands of soldiers thrown directly into the Beast’s maw with nothing to show for it but fewer mouths to feed. There was nothing to be done. Autumn’s forces were weakened by years of cuts to fund his father’s feasts and his brother’s expensive taste, the weapons lacking quality and the soldiers lacking training, ressources and grit. He could only hope that his wife’s campaign for support from the Day Court would be successful. To go begging at another High Lord’s court for help would have shamed him to the point of self-immolation only a few years ago, but the desperation of war had burned any such qualms out of him by this point. What mattered now was the survival of their people.

Of course his brother couldn’t know about the moves Beron had been making behind his back. Athos was already paranoid and irritable on a good day with the fire of the Phoenix running through his veins, seeing enemies in every corner, intrigues and plots to steal the throne from under him in every sideways glance, yet his brother was too apathetic and cowardly to act on what he thought he saw in any way other than to yell at Beron to somehow fix it. Beron did not have time to ”fix it” for his fool of a brother, and there was barely anything to distract the male with anymore either, especially since the camp had run out of the good wine and even the whores had abandoned the tents, instead fleeing north to hide in the shadow of the mountains along with a large part of the population.

Athos never should have been High Lord. He was a weak male, weaker even than their father, who had gone through all the effort of dethroning his own brother to be High Lord only to never do anything with the power at his disposal but throw lavish parties and spend every last coin in the Court’s treasury on food, alcohol, pretty trinkets and prettier females. Beron had shed no tears when the High Lord had been ambushed and killed near the Spring border by the younger prince and his savage war band. He’d been angry at the disrespect his family had suffered, his father’s cut-off head sent back to the Forest House in a box, his mangled body fed to Steffan’s beasts. He’d been worried for his family’s safety, devastated by what he knew war would mean for his Court, already worn out by their High Lord’s selfish whims. But he had not grieved. He’d only gone through the motions, smeared ash on his brow, taken off the jewelry, donned the black robes, spoken the prayers, and then returned to the battlefield, carrying in his heart only the burning rage he felt over the mantle of High Lord passing to Athos instead of him. Athos, who did not have any of the qualities a High Lord of Autumn should have, no claim but the blood running through his veins. Who worked only a fraction as hard as Beron did, who used his fire for parlor tricks, to amuse his tasteless companions, his circle of sycophantic noblemen who hadn’t held a sword since their hundredth birthday. Beron did not understand why, but he had no time to question it, and no one to complain to. War had come to their Court, and the Mother had chosen his brother to lead instead of him.

Twice the magic had spurned him, but not this time. He had not even bothered washing his brother’s blood off of his hands before going to see his nephew, only stopping by the tent Eris was staying in on the other side of the encampment, near the other officers. Beron did not think they would protect him if Nicholas chose to come for him, and he needed to be prepared. His nephew had fewer supporters than Beron did but was better liked than Eris, and he would not suffer any competition, even if there were no Heirs left but his younger cousins. Beron hadn’t been there when his brother had received the blessing, but it was custom for the High Lord to isolate himself immediately after the mantle passed. It was a sign of respect, both to the Goddess and to those who had come before them. To reflect. To pray. Nicholas had decided not to follow that tradition. He’d called Beron to his tent right away, to chastise him.

His nephew had been young, barely seventy, yet he’d spoken with the entitlement and false wisdom of a male ten times his age, about duty, about sacrifice and consequences. What did he know of those things? He was a child compared to Beron, even compared to half the males in this camp. He’d only lead Autumn into certain doom. He’d proven it at his first opportunity, blaming Beron for his father’s death like Athos wasn't grown, Beron’s senior by more than a century. He was a High Lord, he should have been able to hold his own without Beron having his back for five cauldron damned seconds, especially if he insisted on putting Eris and his soldiers near the front of the battle. Beron had only been distracted for a few seconds but it had been enough for some Spring Court mutt to taste royal Autumn blood. He’d killed it, of course, but not before the beast had shredded his brother’s breastplate into pieces and ripped out his throat. Even if he’d wanted to help him, there would have been nothing he could have done for Athos. He was gone before the beast hit the ground and the High Lord’s power with him.

Beron wiped his bloody dagger on one of the heavy drapes hanging by the plane of the tent. A waste, just like the rest of the finery his brother had insisted on bringing along instead of sending it into the mountains with their mother and their wives. Useless, the lot of them, but he’d set it right. He’d been preparing for this moment for years. He knew better than anyone how this Court functioned, what Autumn needed, how it fought and lived and died.

And yet the power had avoided him a second time, choosing Nicholas instead. Fortunately his nephew had never been a very quick study. It took time to get used to the powers the Mother granted them, time Beron had not given the boy. In the end, he’d looked so surprised despite everything, despite the accusations and the threats, the demands he’d made so bravely mere moments before. Kneel before your High Lord. Foolish boy. Foolish, foolish boy, so arrogant, so smug, so utterly unprepared. Beron sneered.

“Father?”

Beron turned to the opening of the tent, finding Eris standing in the fading light of the day. The sun set his hair aflame, a golden glow framing his silhouette. The markers of an Heir. A glint in the shadows broke the moment, light reflecting off the blade as Eris quickly sheathed his dagger, taking in the scene before him: Nicholas’s body on the carpet, his throat slit from one ear to the other, the blood soaking into the ground by Beron’s feet. Eris wasn’t stupid. He knew instantly what his father had done. He dropped to his knees without hesitation, his head bowed.

“Long live the High Lord, chosen by the Cauldron, blessed by the Mother,” Eris recited the ancient words, the confirmation each High Lord of this Court had received from his priestesses and subjects since Autumn was created.

For the first time, Beron allowed the power to run freely through his veins. It was unlike anything he’d ever felt before. Nothing came close, not using his natural-born powers nor his first victory on the battlefield. He’d never felt so connected to the land, feeling every tree, every river, every stone, the wind rustling the leaves over their heads, even the clouds high above. He felt the soldiers around them, their heartbeats, their breath, their blood rushing through their veins. He felt Eris, his eldest son, his Heir, closer than anyone else.

Eris had finally finished his prayer, still kneeling on the carpet, his cousin’s blood soaking into his pants. He hadn’t looked up yet, his deep red hair falling into his eyes. He was still so young. Barely older than his mother when they had been wed, Beron reminded himself.

He let the power sink back into his skin, into his blood, where it kept flowing, singing, burning in the most delightful way. He took two steps to cross the space between himself and Eris and reached out his hand, lifting his son’s chin up so he’d face him. Eris’s eyes were wide but there were no tears for his cousin to be found, no grief. If he was even surprised or shocked, he hid it well. When Beron let go, his fingers left bloody prints on his face, and he fought the instinct to wipe them away.

“Stand up,” he said instead, his voice low but clear. He took a step back as Eris slowly rose to his feet again.

“You are the Heir of the Autumn Court now,” Beron continued, watching cautiously as Eris once again took in the scene inside the tent, the blood, the gold, the glow of power that connected them both now and forever. “You will be High Lord after me, and High Lords don’t kneel.”

[mswyrr]

"In this moment, we have two months before the ship sinks lower and rather than wallowing in fear or operating from fear, I believe it is a time to get grounded, recalibrate for our coming reality, and to start planning. We have enough concepts of their plans to know that it’s probably a good time to draw closer to our communities in our geographic regions. If you don’t have one, it’s time to see how to become a part of one. It’s time to start moving away from social media because if even a fraction of what has been promised comes to fruition, a lot of us online will need to reduce our visibility.

As of right now, I am not planning to stop what I am doing but for my safety, I will be moving more of my work to Patreon and shifting how I post on these platforms. Given that I have been written about in publications and written for publications, I can’t exactly distance myself away from my work. But if you are a civilian, so to speak, it might be a great time to scrub your profiles and go low.

Start thinking about how you might live if money gets tight, reducing expenses, saving if possible. These aren’t bad ideas.

Ultimately though, don’t stop living. Instead, embrace life; embrace your people. In the days since the election, I have gathered with friends to break bread, had numerous long phone calls, and even Zoomed with my sisterhood of Black women. All of which calmed me down and got me back to reality. In this moment, I am okay, I don’t know what’s ahead but if I spend all this moment worrying about what might happen, I am not being present and, frankly, I am missing out on living. If the worst comes to fruition, I suspect I would regret spending our last days of relative peace worrying incessantly, when none of those worries can do anything.

Personally, I think self-care at this moment is reducing your time online. Fear is big business. The number of writers and creators I follow who are feeding us a steady diet of Big Fear has grown and the line between information and preparation and straight-up fear mongering has become extremely thin. Yes, there are historical markers that provide clues as to how this might all go down and being aware of them is useful but consuming them to the point where we are unable to function and plan is not helpful."

[lettersfromaphrodite]

[5.26]

―pairing :Seonghwa x fem!Reader ―genre : smut ―word count : 1.212 ― content warnings : vampire Seonghwa, master kink estabilished relationship, fingering, Seonghwa feeds from reader, medieval settings, fantasy au, unprotected sex (wrap it up y’all)

Sometimes, you wondered what your friends would think about you. After all, you left your house, your hometown, your job, anything and everything that had ever been yours in order to move into a vampire’s luxurious mansion.

You met Seonghwa two years ago thanks to a mutual friend - Wooyoung, who worked at the hospital. Chemistry immediately clicked between you two, and three dates later, you were a panting and squirming mess under a sweaty Seonghwa, whimpering in bliss as he came inside you, hovering above you as you were sprawled on his expensive linen blankets. You knew he was a vampire - Wooyoung being the good friend he was had told you immediately, but you still decided to play dumb, even if you had to wait for a whole month for Seonghwa to confront you about the strange pain you felt in your neck, somewhere between all those hickeys he left. That day, Seonghwa regretfully admitted he had been feeding from you, in the same sentence where he also told you he was developing serious and deep feelings for you; you admitted you knew that already, and Seonghwa shyly invited you to move in with him.

That night had been a rollercoaster of emotions, but of course, you said yes.

Delicate, pale long fingers firmly wrapped themselves around your neck, the slight pressure making you snap your eyes open.

«Forgive me, angel.» Seonghwa’s velvet tone intruded your thoughts, his white shirt half-unbuttoned showing a glimpse of his pale and toned chest while he was comfortably sitting between your parted thighs, one hand around your throat and the other rubbing your clit with slow and teasing feather touches. «Did I allow you to get distracted?»

«N-no.» you answered back immediately, feeling light-headed by the sudden intrusion of his middle finger effortlessly sliding inside you.

«No?» Seonghwa raised his eyebrow at you, halting his movements and slightly tightening the hold around your neck with a hint of a smirk on his lips.

«No, Master.» you breathed, Seonghwa’s smug smirk and his crimson red eyes only providing to add fuel to the flame of your arousal. The grip around your throat loosened as Seonghwa’s index finger joined the other digit and you jolted, suffocating a whimper as Seonghwa effortlessly and intentionally brushed the magic spot inside you as he was scissoring his fingers.

«Always so good for me, angel.» Seonghwa’s approving hums caressed your bare skin as the vampire traced open-mouthed kisses from your neck to your hipbones, without stopping the movements of his fingers for a second. You could feel Seonghwa’s fangs occasionally scratching your skin, goosebumps erupting on your skin as you pictured the new red lines joining the fading ones that Seonghwa loved to draw on your body. Seonghwa’s thumb started rubbing your clit with abstract circular motions and you quickly covered your mouth, trying to suppress the loud moan escaping your lips due to the intense feeling.

«You’d better keep those beautiful hands of yours by your sides,» Seonghwa’s raspy voice warned you, «Unless, you want to be punished.» his thumb pressed harshly against your clit and you whined, quickly shaking your head as your hands returned on their previous ministrations of tightly gripping the soft blankets. You licked your lips, shutting your eyes close with a sigh.

Seonghwa’s punishments were rough; he was never physically too rough during sex, but he would simply draw you closer to your orgasm and then stop. Once, twice, he could go on all night if he was in the mood, until you were reduced to a panting, crying and whimpering mess, begging him to let you come.

However, Seonghwa’s behaviour on your daily life was the polar opposite of how he behaved during sex. The cold, dominant and ruthless Seonghwa was nowhere to be seen and instead, you would find yourself in the tight and secure hold of the sweetest and caring boyfriend you have ever had. Needless to say, you loved all of this.

Seonghwa’s fingers never stopped as his mouth kept leaving wet kisses all over your waist, teasingly kissing you above your clit just to move on your inner thigh, enjoying your dejected moans and whimpering begs. The more you squirmed, the more Seonghwa’s thirst increased, and eventually granted your wish, the tip of his tongue replacing his thumb’s movement. You realized that at this point, you were mumbling incoherent phrases due to the feeling of Seonghwa’s tongue and fingers working magic on you and leading you closer to your orgasm each passing second you felt kitten lips alternating to his flat tongue moving teasingly against your wetness, slowing down anytime your moans increased.

«Master,» you breathed, in the weak attempt not to come on the spot as his tongue added itself to his fingers moving inside you, «please.» you honestly didn’t know either why you were pleading him. You wanted to come? You needed more? You wanted him to bite you? Anything and everything of the options above would have been fine with you, since you only needed him to do more. Whatever he choose to do would have been fine; you just needed more of Seonghwa, if that even made any sense.

Seonghwa scoffed, detaching his tongue from your wetness and briefly meeting your gaze, crimson eyes blown with lust and lips wet and glistening with your arousal. He raised an eyebrow at you, as his lips kissed your inner thigh once again, grazing the soft skin with his fangs.

«Yes,» you breathed, «Please, please, ple-» your sentence was interrupted by the loud and sinful moan escaping your lips as soon as you felt Seonghwa’s fangs piercing your skin. You had to admit the sting was annoying at first, but the feeling of euphoria that immediately subdued as soon as you felt Seonghwa’s started sucking on your blood with his tongue and lips moving against your skin, was something incomparable and irreplaceable. Seonghwa’s fingers brushed more insistently the sweet spot inside you and the mixture of everything plus your boyfriend’s moans of approval as he fed from you triggered your orgasm, and you came around his fingers with the hint of a jolt, grateful that Seonghwa was keeping your thigh in place with his other hand.

As you relaxed while coming back from your high, you delicately and affectionately brushed Seonghwa’s hair with your fingers, feeling him licking your small wound clean. He looked back at you once again, his eyes still a deep crimson and blood faintly smeared around his lips – mixing with the remaining of your wetness, and you tapped your lips with a smile, which Seonghwa immediately returned, leaning down to capture your lips in a lingering kiss where you could taste yourself along with your own blood.

Seonghwa smirked against your lips, one arm next to your head to balance himself and the other caressing your waist as he pressed his body flush against yours so that you could feel his neglected hardness.

«Ready for the real fun, angel?» Seonghwa breathed against your neck, licking a long, wet stripe from your collarbone to your jaw.

«Yes, Master.» you mumbled back, your hands flying on the belt of his black jeans.

all works © lettersfromaphrodite

Do not modify, repost, translate or plagiarize my stories. I only publish my works on tumblr & AO3.

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[ranticore]

very interested in siren's selkies. what purpose were they made for that the phocids couldn't fulfill?

so every subsequent generation of "aquatics" (alpha beta etc basically all the types that didn't go on to become harpies) was designed to be a testbed for different adaptions. in order - diet, aquatic locomotion, reproduction, and psychological. when ishmael provided diet data, it meant that the beta phocids could have an improvement on that, and when the beta phocids provided aquatic locomotion data, it meant that the selkies could have an improvement on that as well as the perfected dietary adaptions and so on

but aquatic locomotion was best in phocids. their bodies were very suited to pelagic life and they were fantastic swimmers. but the trade-off of this was obligate quadrupedalism - they couldn't walk on land and use their hands at the same time. so for the selkies the engineers scaled back the aquatic adaptions and made them just 'okay' at swimming so that they could be bipedal. it means they don't have the best locomotion but they do have the most efficient all around locomotion. they're all terrain vehicles lol. they also ended up with smaller body sizes and fur instead of thick blubber because the engineers - again thinking about a future worker population - figured that it would be less costly to feed & maintain a smaller population with fur to keep them warm if they were on short rations.

(length cut)

so those were the improvements on the phocid design, but selkies were a testbed for reproduction strategies. in particular, they are marsupial (and their successors, the zetas, are marsupial as well) with the capacity for four embryos at once in various developmental stages. the rationale was that it would be easy to check the neonate's health and cross-adopt between the parents if you could kinda just... reach into the pouch and grab it, instead of having to wait several months just to produce one energetically (and monetarily) costly offspring that might not be healthy or might not have the right traits or whatever. it reduced the potential toll of pregnancy on the body as well and you don't want a sick population requiring expensive medicine and prenatal checkups and so on.

basically the ability to produce an optimal design for a modified human - one that would be well-suited to their environment and might lead a strong and healthy life - was always balanced against the cost of maintaining that life. medicine and food are expensive. building new infrastructure to handle quadrupeds is expensive. the genetic engineers were not without empathy and they would often dream, fervently, of another life where they had unlimited budget and no obligations to balance some hypothetical client's chequebook. it's like that one diagram - you can have good, cheap, or fast, but never all three at once.

[robertreich]

The Biggest Economic Lies We’re Told

In America, it’s expensive just to be alive.

And with inflation being driven by price gouging corporations, it’s only getting more expensive for regular Americans who don’t have any more money to spend.

Just look at how Big Oil is raking it in while you pay through the nose at the pump.

That’s on top of the average price of a new non-luxury car — which is now over $44,000. Even accounting for inflation, this is way higher than the average cost when I bought my first car — it’s probably in a museum by now.

Even worse, the median price for a house is now over $440,000. Compare that to 1972, when it was under $200,000.

Work a full-time minimum wage job? You won’t be able to afford rent on a one-bedroom apartment just about anywhere in the U.S.

And when you get back after a long day of work, you’ll likely be met with bills up the wazoo for doctor visits, student loans, and utilities.

So what’s left of a paycheck after basic living expenses? Not much.

You can only reduce spending on food, housing, and other basic necessities so much. Want to try covering the rest of your monthly costs with a credit card? Well now that’s more expensive too, with the Fed continuing to hike interest rates.

All of this comes back to how we measure a successful economy.

What good are more jobs if those jobs barely pay enough to live on?

Over one-third of full time jobs don’t pay enough to cover a basic family budget.

And what good are lots of jobs if they cause so much stress and take up so much time that our lives are miserable?

And don’t tell me a good economy is measured by a roaring stock market if the richest 10 percent of Americans own more than 80 percent of it.

And what good is a large Gross Domestic Product if more and more of the total economy is going to the richest one-tenth of one percent?  

What good is economic growth if the way we grow depends on fossil fuels that cause a climate crisis?

These standard measures – jobs, the stock market, the GDP – don’t show how our economy is really doing, who is doing well, or the quality of our lives.

People who sit at their kitchen tables at night wondering how they’re going to pay the bills don’t say to themselves

“Well, at least corporate profits are at record levels.”

In fact, corporations have record profits and CEOs are paid so much because they’re squeezing more output from workers but paying lower wages. Over the past 40 years, productivity has grown 3.5x as fast as hourly pay.

At the same time, corporations are driving up the costs of everyday items people need.

Because corporations are monopolizing their markets, they don’t have to worry about competitors. A few giant corporations can easily coordinate price hikes and enjoy bigger profits.

Just four firms control 85% of all beef, 66% of all pork, and 54% of all poultry production.

Firms like Tyson have seen their profit margins skyrocket as they jack up prices higher than their costs — forcing consumers who are already stretched thin to pay even more.

It’s not just meat. Weak antitrust enforcement has allowed companies to become powerful enough to raise their prices across the entire food industry.

It’s the same story with household goods. Giant companies like Procter & Gamble blame their price hikes on increased costs – but their profit margins have soared to 25%. Hello? They care more about their bottom line than your bottom, that’s for sure.

Meanwhile, parents – and even grandparents like me – are STILL struggling to feed their babies because of a national formula shortage. Why? Largely because the three companies who control the entire formula industry would rather pump money into stock buybacks than quality control at their factories.

Traditionally, our economy’s health is measured by the unemployment rate. Job growth. The stock market. Overall economic growth. But these don’t reflect the everyday, “kitchen table economics” that affect our lives the most.

These measures don’t show the real economy.

Instead of looking just at the number of jobs, we need to look at the income earned from those jobs. And not the average income.

People at the top always bring up the average.

If Jeff Bezos walked into a bar with 140 other people, the average wealth of each person would be over a billion dollars.

No, look at the median income – half above, half below.

And make sure it accounts for inflation – real purchasing power.

Over the last few decades, the real median income has barely budged. This isn’t economic success.

It's economic failure, with a capital F.

And instead of looking at the stock market or the GDP we need to look at who owns what – where the wealth really is.

Over the last forty years, wealth has concentrated more and more at the very top. Look at this;

This is a problem, folks. Because with wealth comes political power.

Forget trickle-down economics. It’s trickle on.

And instead of looking just at economic growth, we also need to look at what that growth is costing us – subtract the costs of the climate crisis, the costs of bad health, the costs of no paid leave, and all the stresses on our lives that economic growth is demanding.

We need to look at the quality of our lives – all our lives. How many of us are adequately housed and clothed and fed. How many of our kids are getting a good education. How many of us live in safety – or in fear.

You want to measure economic success? Go to the kitchen tables of America.