#rural farmstead

[backroad-life]

Credit: Erik Mclean

[feral-violet]

August

[littleflowerfaith]

The last gold-tipped fingers of the day touch the clouds as dark falls over the valley

[resfebernights]

Farmhouse / A barn, nestled within the quiet valleys

[turtlesandfrogs]

You know what I'd like to see more of? People romanticizing making your life good in the cities and suburbs (as opposed to moving to the a rural area and having a farmstead).

Like, how cool is it that I can walk to the grocery store? That a library, a farmer's market, and a plant store are all a short bus ride away? How wonderful that I can engage with a community of gardeners, foragers, circus folk and more without having to drive half an hour or more each way? That should I need it, a hospital is less than 10 minutes away?

I think we could stand more imaginating about changing zoning codes so that more neighborhoods are mixed use, so we no longer have vast spreads of suburban houses with nary a grocery store or library. I would love to see more posts about how people are working to actively build community in their neighborhoods, building mutual support networks, and engaging in what's already there.

Are there down sides to living inside of city limits? Yes, of course. But there's downsides to rural living that get washed over, and more than half the population lives in suburbs or cities. So maybe we can do some daydreaming about how to make life here good?

[whore4abby]

a room with a view; abby anderson

part one

warnings; older!abby, ditzy fem!reader, mdni

wc; 1.1k

you were getting tired of the bustling city-that-never-sleeps lifestyle, and it was starting to take a toll on you, leaving you feeling burnt out and in need of a little getaway for a while. you had decided to surf the web and look for any airbnb listings, preferably something a couple hours outside the city.

whilst idly scrolling through the available rentals, you eventually stumble upon a listing that catches your attention. the listing is for a room to rent on a charming farmstead nestled in a serene and rural part of a small town, surrounded by rolling hills and lush greenery that seems to span for miles and miles in all directions.

intrigued by the listing, you quickly make up your mind and decide to book this spontaneous getaway. the thought of being on a farm for a few weeks has you feeling giddy and excited about your new adventure, picturing yourself in the idyllic fields and playing with the animals, maybe even going for a dip in a nearby creek.

and after a few swift clicks of your freshly manicured fingertips and a trip to your purse to fetch your credit card details, you’ve finally secured your reservation. you try to hold back your excitement but before long you’re giggling and kicking your feet like a schoolgirl, rustling the soft floral sheets beneath you with your frenzied movements.

a couple weeks later, you find yourself driving up a long and winding path up towards the farmhouse. the fields either side of you filled with gorgeous wildflowers and tallgrass, the gentle breeze causing them to sway slightly. you hum along happily to the music emitting from your radio, a little smile on your face as you feel the warmth of the sun hitting your cheeks.

abby sits on the front porch of the farm house, a coffee mug in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other. she hears the low rumble of your engine and looks over as you slow down and pull up outside the quaint farmhouse. she watches you hop out of your little white convertible and prop your sunglasses up on your head, your wedged sandals crunching at the gravel beneath your feet as you saunter around to the trunk to grab your bags.

abby stands up, taking a final sip of her coffee before walking off the shady porch and towards you. she crosses her arms across her chest and stares at you, clearly unimpressed with your arrival. the clothes you’re wearing scream ‘city girl’ and she thinks you look a little ridiculous walking around in a short dress and high heels.

��i think you're in the wrong part of town, darlin’…” she blows out a big cloud of smoke and raises an eyebrow at you, looking you up and down and throwing the cigarette butt to the floor and stomping it out with the heel of her beaten up cowboy boots. “y/n right…?”

“yeah, that's me…and you’re abby, right?” you smile, before attempting to haul your luggage out of the car. abby nods and sighs before getting closer to help you with your things. “here, let me…” she mumbles, not waiting for your response before grabbing your bags and suitcases one by one. you watch her as she effortlessly lifts the bags and walks with them towards the modest home. you finally get a good look at the woman you’re gonna be spending the next month with, and you feel yourself start to get a little flustered around her as you watch her biceps strain against her plaid shirt.

you giggle softly and look up at her “i could’ve done that myself-” she smirks ever so slightly and gives you another subtle once over, “a pretty little city girl like yourself…? i don't think so, honey.”

abby looks down at you smugly, and gives you a sceptical look, speaking lowly, “ya know.. this is a farm right? this ain’t a vacation. you can’t be wearin shit like that. jesus christ, girl.” she mutters before she starts to take your bags into the farmhouse.

“this is where you’re gonna be staying.” abby sighs and almost rolls her eyes as she leads you down the corridor and into a bedroom. its a small room, nothing like what you’re used to back at home, but you’ll make do just fine. she sets down the pile of bags and stands with her hands on her hips in the doorway. “set your shit up…” she looks at you sternly.

“listen to me missy….im not dealing with any of this bullshit-” she gestures to the excessive amount of belongings you have, from the makeup to the ungodly amount of clothes and other useless material items.

“i don't want you leavin all your things around, yeah? this is my house and you’re gonna follow my rules whether you like it or not…understand?” you resist the temptation to roll your eyes and give her attitude, instead choosing to just nod for the sake of staying on her good side. and with that she turns on her heel and retreats back down the hallway and disappears out of sight.

you let out a heavy sigh and lay back on the bed, giving yourself a little time to adjust to your new temporary home before you start to unpack.

the next morning, you step out of your room, heels smacking against the hardwood flooring as you join abby at the table. she looks up from her newspaper in disbelief and scoffs at your choice of outfit, but its obvious she likes what she sees as her eyes drift down to your thighs, which are barely covered by your itty bitty denim shorts. “coffee?” she pushes over the pot towards you and your eyebrows furrow, “no iced lattes?” she snorts in amusement and shakes her head, “just drink the damn coffee, doll~”

you huff but still bring the mug up to your freshly glossed lips, drinking from the steaming mug, and shuddering a little at the bitter taste, “not even any sugar?” you give her an innocent smile, hoping to woo her into agreeing with you. but instead she looks at you as if you’ve deeply offended her, making it pretty clear she’s not willing to compromise on this.

she finishes reading and snaps the newspaper back together, throwing it down on the table and standing back up. “hey, wh- i wasn't finished!” you pout as she scoops up your mug and pours the coffee down the drain.

“remember what i said!? my house. my rules. now hurry up we got work to do-” she bites back harshly and opens up the door, ushering you out and resisting the urge to slap your ass as you pass by.

god this was gonna be hard work.

[6thofapril1917]

sarie ethnicity musings (with historical context!!)

It’s hard to overstate just how much Sarie’s Jewishness impacts her as a character, specifically how she views herself in relation to other people. Afrikaans-speaking Jews (Boerejode) lived mainly in rural areas where knowledge of Afrikaans would be needed in daily life (mainly the rural Cape and the Transvaal). However, the biggest waves of Jews immigration came from Lithuania in the 1880s and 1890s, followed by an influx of German Jews in the 1930s. Most of these immigrants (with the exception of people like Sarie’s mom who married into Afrikaans-speaking families) settled in cities like Cape Town, Johannesburg, and Durban, where knowledge of Afrikaans wasn’t needed. So right off the bat, Sarie is alienated from the vast majority of her community by virtue of being Afrikaans-speaking.

But that doesn’t mean she belongs among the Afrikaans-speakers, either! White Afrikaans-speaking (Afrikaner) identity is fundamentally tied to adherence to a deeply-rooted Calvinist tradition (non-white Afrikaans-speakers are generally split between Calvinism and Islam). For a nationalist hardliner, it’s impossible for a Jew (or even a Catholic or an irreligious person) to be considered an Afrikaner, regardless of how White or Afrikaans-speaking they are. And in the 1930s and 1940s, these kinds of hardliners were everywhere.

The intensification of Afrikaner nationalism in this period would culminate in the accession to power of the National Party in 1948, which would go on to enjoy both the near-unanimous support of Afrikaners as well as considerable support (albeit less fervent and at times more tacit) from white English-speakers for the next forty-odd years. Expanding on the structures left behind by English colonial rule, the successive National Party governments would institutionalize the draconian policies of mass disenfranchisement, arbitrary displacement, censorship, economic disempowerment, imprisonment, and segregation — all enforced through brutal violence against non-white populations — that we know as apartheid.

Sarie is born at the tail end of 1921, meaning she comes of age in the mid-to-late 1930s. This is where it’s necessary to elaborate on the role that the Depression played in the upswing of Afrikaner nationalism. Lord Kitchener’s scorched-earth policy in the second half of the 2nd Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) destroyed thousands of Afrikaner farmsteads across the northern Cape, Orange Free State, and Transvaal. Afrikaners had always been an agrarian people; in 1947, less than thirty percent of all Afrikaners worked outside of agriculture. The loss of land forced a majority of mid- and small-scale Afrikaner farmers to either become sharecroppers for English and wealthier Afrikaner landlords, or go into mine or factory work in the cities and towns along the Rand. And as in all societies, these groups were hit hard by the Depression, leaving many Afrikaner workers, poor to begin with, destitute (farmers, especially wool farming families like Sarie's, would also be significantly affected). Suddenly, Afrikaners found themselves living in the same slums, standing in the same job lines, and eating the same food as their Black counterparts — and this is what sparked alarm in the middle-class and wealthy Afrikaner establishment.

Fearing that Afrikaner destitution would erode the myth of white supremacy which legitimized minority rule (or, to take a more Marxist perspective, that the poor Afrikaners would gain class consciousness), Afrikaner nationalists and their English supporters spent untold amounts of time and effort trying to rectify this supposed reversal of the “natural” racial hierarchy. This would culminate in the Carnegie Commission of Investigation on the Poor White Problem in South Africa, a 1932 report by the Carnegie Corporation which recommended racial segregation as a solution to the “problem” Throughout the 1930s, Afrikaner nationalists would appeal to the mythical Voortrekker (pioneer) past to foster increased national affiliation. This would culminate in the 1938 Voortrekker Centenary, which saw Afrikaners reenact the trek from the Cape to the interior taken by their ancestors a century earlier.

Sarie would have felt this increase in nationalism acutely, not just as someone whose religious affiliation excluded her from the mainstream Afrikaner milieu, but as a woman. The ideal Afrikaans woman, the “boeremeisie” (farm girl) or “volksmoeder” (mother of the people), was, in the words of author Lize van Robbreck’s high school principal, “proper, humble, and chaste.” Van Robbreck was the daughter of Catholic Flemish parents, and while she had spoken Afrikaans her whole life and been raised on a steady diet of folk dance and traditional songs, in her Afrikaans high school she realized that her Catholic heritage fundamentally differentiated her from her peers. “I could never be one of them, no matter how hard I tried.” Sarie, as both a Jew and as a woman who is neither proper, humble, nor chaste, already finds herself distinctly isolated from the other girls at her school.

And yet, at the same time, I think that Sarie does, to an extent, resent this exclusion. While she frowns on the racial discrimination and antisemitism inherent in Afrikaner nationalism of this era, and as much as she takes pride in going against the grain (manifesting in an admittedly not-like-other-girls attitude towards her fellow Waasies), a part of her is still desperately searching after the validation from her peers, the validation of inclusion, that she was never going to be able to receive. This, I think, is what fuels her continuous affirmation of her South African — and Afrikaans/Boer — identity amongst her fellow soldiers in the SAS. In the SAS there’s nobody who can call her out, who can deny her Boer identity — even if it’s just by virtue of the fact that they don’t know enough to say otherwise. However, I don’t think that Sarie herself would realize that this is what’s pushing her — to her, she’s just explaining her identity with the same aggression she has always had to use to justify herself. I think that there's a reason that Sarie only ever refers to herself as a Boer or a Boerejood, and never, ever, as an Afrikaner.

I’m probably going to follow this up with a whole other essay just about her gender but I spent all of today flying home and there’s hockey on TV and I’m tired so this is all you’re getting for now. Thanks for reading this absolute fucking thesis of an OC post <3

[angela-maps]

Farmstead

An idyllic farmhouse, its outbuildings, crops, livestock, and plenty of room to raise happy children by the babbling stream that feeds fresh water to these happy lands. Or perhaps the produce that is the output of this particular farm isn’t quite so wholesome, but rather fit for evil wizards and mad alchemists the realm over?! Or maybe you happened to settle in the fey lands. Behold the three variants of this fully animated farm map, where your players might find rural bliss or something more sinister altogether!

[blueiscoool]

1,500-year-Old Anglo-Saxon Cemetery Found in UK

One of the most notable discoveries was the burial of a teenage girl and child.

Archaeologists in the United Kingdom have announced a major historical discovery dating back to as early as the 6th century after finding the buried remains of over 20 people alongside a range of grave goods including knives, jewelery and pottery vessels, officials said.

Scientists working on the National Grid’s Viking Link project -- construction of the world’s longest land and subsea interconnector involving installation of submarine and underground cables between the United Kingdom and Denmark -- have dug 50 archaeological sites along the onshore cable route since 2020, according to a statement from Wessex Archaeology in the United Kingdom.

“The wealth of evidence recovered is shedding light on life across rural south-east Lincolnshire from prehistory to the present day, with highlights including a Bronze Age barrow and a Romano-British farmstead. The most striking discovery, however, is the remains of an Anglo-Saxon cemetery,” according to Wessex Archaeology.

“The burials in the cemetery deliberately focus on an earlier Bronze Age ring ditch and indicate the funerary landscape was long established,” scientists said. “Archaeologists uncovered the buried remains of over 20 people alongside a range of grave goods including knives, jewellery and pottery vessels. From these 250 artefacts, experts know the cemetery dates to the 6th and 7th centuries AD.”

Among some of the most notable discovery was the burial of a teenage girl and a child, both of whom lay on their sides with the child tucked in behind the older girl, officials said.

“Two small gold pendants set with garnets and a delicate silver pendant with an amber mount were recovered from around the teenager’s head or chest, together with two small blue glass beads and an annular brooch,” according to Wessex Archaeology.

The relationship between the child and the teenager is not yet known -- and may never be -- but scientists are now conducting research and analysis on the subjects, including isotope and Ancient DNA analysis of the skeletal remains.

Officials say that this critical research could help to identify “familial relationships and broader genetic links both within this community and between others in the region, and the movement of people in wider society.”

“I really enjoyed being part of the project. It was surprising how many artefacts we found across the route - the gold Anglo-Saxon pendant from the burial ground was a highlight as was the outreach with the local communities to share what we found,” said Peter Bryant who led the project for Viking Link. “It has been very interesting and exciting to help unearth the hidden treasures that have lain dormant for hundreds of years, in such a careful way.”

Specialists will also be looking at the artefacts discovered on the burial site as well as the layout of the cemetery in hopes of learning more about the economic, cultural and social factors affecting this specific community, “including the import of exotic goods and the health of those buried within different parts of the cemetery,” according to Wessex Archaeology. “Although many Anglo-Saxon cemeteries are known in Lincolnshire, most were excavated decades ago when the focus was on the grave goods, not the people buried there,” said Jacqueline McKinley, principal osteoarchaeologist of Wessex Archaeology. “Excitingly, here we can employ various scientific advancements, including isotopic and DNA analyses. This will give us a far better understanding of the population, from their mobility to their genetic background and even their diet.”

Said Wessex Archaeology following the discovery: “As this research unfolds, we hope to greatly extend our understanding of Anglo-Saxon life and death in the region."

By Jon Haworth.

[altruists-reverie]

Straw Guardian

On a rural farmstead, A scarecrow jolts to life. He draws his first breath And watches the corn forever.

Seasons shift into decades, But his sense of duty never dies. Armored with tattered denim, He is the sentinel of the harvest.

[hamilonia]

Horror! Colonists Attacked! State of War Declared!

From The Federal Gazette - Article written by Tul M'tram

On the planet of Surilia, a desert world meant for our kin, exists a species of subservient aliens who have been - for some time - tending our fields, cooking our food, and generally helping our rule over the planet. They are known as the My'hram to us and had a name for their kin before we entered their lives. When we arrived in Surillia, we found them wanting leadership and a purpose in the galaxy. We have given that to them and more, they are much healthier than when we found them and have been given a better education than they could have imagined before our arrival.

Their culture sees us as holy beings, descending from the stars to improve their lives. This is, of course, a great burden placed upon our kind, but we do not refuse burdens and have taken this mantel - the colonists treating their My'hram as a folk to be led and protected. They, in turn, treat us as their holy defenders. A strange predicament, but not one that we would try to change.

Eventually, though, some of the My'hram began to note that their Holy Masters, as they refer to us, have different rules and different punishments in their realms. This is, apparently, a large theological issue. The Federal government was soon told about this and began to work on a standard set of rules for this planet, to maintain our role as the native's holy rulers.

The rules were soon decided and delivered to each farmstead and city by an "Archangel" - Senator Jypa 'Tasov, who is from Surilia - with a theological reason for the change. This settled most of the problems that the My'hram had, in all parts of the world except for one.

On the Grand Plateau, which stretches for thousands of kilometers and holds a population in the millions, the My'hram were not accepting of the Archangel's new rules. They rallied, denying our rightful rule, and were subjected to the punishment that we decided for them - the removal of vocal cords. The leaders of the rallies were the ones subjected to that, the masses were allowed to return.

This was a mistake. Days later, the main administrative building came under attack by a group of My'hram. Later that day, a general revolt of the species occurred, killing many of our peaceful colonists brutally. The local militia was called up and was able to contain their massacres to the rural portions of the Grand Plateau, the cities and major estates being in the Republic's hands.

The colonists called upon the Federal Government to aid them in quelling this.

The President of the Republic, Ra'daan, soon declared a State of War on the planet, mobilizing an army and a naval group to head to the planet and deal with the rebellious natives. Their armor had been modified to look more divine to the My'hram and have been given the task of retaking the territory from them while handing out the proper punishment for such a crime. In this case, that punishment is a sacrificial death.

As I write this, many thousands of the My'hram have been captured, ready to meet their end, with many more still in open revolt. Our tools will allow us to know which of the My'hram did not kill or speak out against our kin to ensure that only the guilty are punished.

Readers, know this, I will be at the Temple of the Grand Plateau when the day of punishment occurs and will give you a first-hand account, instead of this poor excuse of journalism.

[vicesario]

living in my cottagecore farmstead in rural northern saskatchewan and every once in awhile the cute neighbor witchgirl comes to my humble abode to milk my moly cow while we converse about todays Environment Canada weather report. this , this too is yuri

[litcest]

Crônica da Casa Assassinada, by Lúcio Cardoso

Crônica da Casa Assassinada ('Chronicle of the Murdered House') is a 1959 novel by Brazilian author Lúcio Cardoso. The book was adapted into a movie in 1971 by director Paulo César Saraceni under the title of A Casa Assassinada ('The Murdered House'). There is only one English translation, by Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson, from 2016, which is from where I'm pulling the quotes.

I first began to write this on January 22nd. And it took me until today, April 11th, to finish this book, because it's hella boring. I think I made a good job of summarizing only the interesting bits (a.k.a. the incest).

The book takes the form of an epistolary novel, with each chapter being a letter or a journal entry by one of the characters, which all come together to tell the story of the Meneses family, an oligarch family from Minas Gerais which, through the novel, slowly loses their wealth and falls apart. However, the chapters are not organized in chronological order, making it a bit hard to understand at first read, but I'll lay it out in order.

Nina is most certainly at the heart of the story, as the book opens with André, her son, morning her death. It all begins with Nina marries Valdo Meneses and moves into the Chácara Meneses ('chácara' means 'farmstead') along with Valdo's brother, Demétrio; Demétrio's wife, Ana; Valdo's other brother, Timóteo; Betty, the governess; and Alberto, the gardener. Nina, who had lived in the muzzling city of Rio de Janeiro, gradually becomes bored with the rural lifestyle and is often butting heads with her sister in law, Ana, who takes the tradicional role of "wife" very seriously. Honestly, though, Ana is obsessed with Nina - and her clothes, her city manners, her personality - in a way that borders a repressed homosexuality (which, considering that Timóteo is homosexual and a crossdresser, just like the book's author, maybe isn't that much of a far reaching conclusion).

One day, Demétrio catches a very pregnant Nina with Alberto in what she later calls a "carefully staged act of adultery", with the man kneeling at her feet in romantic devotion. Demétrio then leads a smear campaign against Nina, not only among the Meneses, but through the town, which leads to Nina moving back to Rio. Valdo attempts suicide after losing his wife, but survives.

Months later, Ana goes to visit Nina, who by then had given birth. I wasn't sure if I should let you all know now or hide the revelation until the end of the book, where it's revealed to the readers, but I decided to reveal part of the great twist: Nina was indeed having an affair with Alberto, but she wasn't the only one: Ana had also had sex with the gardener, and had gotten pregnant as a result (when Alberto lays dying from his self-inflicted gunshot wound, Ana pretends to be Nina to comfort him, since Nina was the favourite among the two of them).

So when Ana goes to Rio, she isn't simply trying to take back her nephew, she's trying to hide her own pregnancy and subsequent childbirth. As such, Ana returns from Rio with André, who is raised as a true Meneses, son of Valdo and Nina. Fifteen years passes by, with André having been allowed all the freedom he could possibly want, until Nina falls sick with cancer and write's to Valdo asking for help. Valdo, much to Demétrio's displeasure, agrees to take her back in the Chácara.

André never knew much of his mom, with Nina being a short of taboo among the Meneses. When Valdo tells him that Nine is returning, he gets eager to get to know his mother. When he first sees her, he noticies how beautiful she is. André quickly realises that he feels differently towards Nina than he does towards his Aunt Ana or Betty, who raised him, seeing Nina not as a mother or a relative, but as a woman he can lust for.

"Beside me now was the woman I had been physically closest to so far, since I could not consider Aunt Ana or Betty as proper women, but merely dull, familiar, domestic beings with whom I lived. Yes, there she was, intoxicatingly close, the mother who was a stranger to me, and who, in my eyes, was so thrillingly real and possessed of all the heady fascination of the female sex."

One day, she tells him that she will visit his bedroom at night so they can talk. Just when André is starting to think Nina forgot about their encounter, she shows up. She cries about the the fact that Demétrio hates her and makes André swear that he'll take stand against her, all while she caress his body in a way the André isn't quite sure mothers should touch their sons. He swears and then kisses her between the breast, but she removes his head when it the kiss starts to "last longer than most simple manifestations of filial affection".

Yet, despite pushing him away, Nina continues to entice him, asking him to show himself to her. In doing so, André turns on the lamp and, in turn, also exposes Nina (who was dressed beautifully for a party) to his eyes. She tells him goodbye and leaves, but this whole interaction leaves André certain that Nina knows the truth about his feelings towards her.

Both Valdo and Betty begin to suspect Nina's and André's closeness and to try keep them apart. In secret, André sends Nina a note to tell her to meet him in the garden at night. She does so, but tells her son that meetings such as these are only appropriate between lovers. Despite telling him that he's too young for her, Nina doesn't rejects him when André finally gives her "thee first and most desperate of loving kisses".

As they talk in the garden after the kiss, André has the feeling that, although Nina is there with him, her mind is far away, perhaps recalling another furtive love affair she had in those same gardens. Nina leads him to a barn in the property, where they consummate they love.

"For as long as I live, I will never forget the feel of her breasts beneath my hands, her soft throat beneath my lips, the warm, sweet perfume she gave off, like a whole bed of crushed violets. And I cannot even say I was unaware of the extent of my sin because, however often I repeated to myself that I was caressing and biting the very body that had borne me, at the same time, I took a strange, mortal pleasure in that, and it was as if I were leaning over myself, and, having always been the most solitary of creatures, I was now plunging into a perfumed tangle of nerves that was me, my most faithful image, my conscience and my hell."

After they are done, André comments that has a feeling he's being watched and leaves. That feeling was true, as we learn in the next chapter that Ana had followed Nina and seen it all.

Nina spots Ana and confronts her, believing that Ana was watching out of jealousy and desire for André, which Ana denies. The two woman argue a bit and then Nina begins to brag about how good André was at sex: "a grown man couldn’t do it better", which was when I remembered that André is a fifteen/sixteen here.... Then the subject is brought back to Alberto, whom both of them had loved, and Nina once more brags about the sex, before saying that Alberto and André kinda look alike, almost as if André isn't a Meneses, but actually Alberto's son (which is true, dear readers, but not how you think it is).

What's really crushing about this conversion is that, at least if we are to believe Ana's account, Nina doesn't care at all about André, all she sees when she looks at him is a substitute for Alberto. Which, considering how much André talks about loving her, makes for a very sad situation.

However that conversation put the idea of André being a double of Alberto in Ana's mind and, later that night, she goes to André's bedroom. He welcomes her, believing her to be Nina, almost kisses her, before recognizing her as his aunt and exclaiming "Aunt Ana", as he backed away. She asks why does it matter if she's his aunt, since she's also a woman and tries to convince André to sleep with her, but he refuses and calls her mad. Still, she grabs him and sexually assaults him, touching him and kissing him as he tells her not to. He escapes her by biting her hand before running away.

Meanwhile, Nina is going through a crisis after sleeping with André and tries to arrange her return to Rio. André notices that she is pulling away from him and laments it, but doesn't know what to do to keep her around, turning to violence and then regretting it.

"Woman and mother, what other hybrid being could better contain the force of our feelings? Loving her means becoming easily, seamlessly reunited with the person I was. It’s a return to my country of origin. Loving her as a man, I feel that I cease to be myself in order to complete the whole being we must have been before I was born. There can be no shame in this urge to be conjoined, because there’s nothing immoral about it."

Nina leaves for Rio once again, unable to stay in the same house as André and Valdo. She goes without saying goodbye and André tries to hold onto the memories they made together by writing down their encounters.

However, her departure doesn't lasts long and Nina return after two weeks, after being given a bad prognostic for her cancer. Ana observes bitterly as Nina and André dance together in the living room. Valdo and Demétrio also watch the duo, with the suspicions of incest rising high. Later that night, André and Nina rekindle their romance. André proposes that they run away together, but Nina says this can't be done and they talk about her illness.

The days passes on and Nina lays in her deathbed. André visits her alone and confronts her for leaving him. They argue and have sex one last time (this seems that their relationship follows this pattern: argument and then sex). Not longer after this encounter, Nina dies, devastating André and Valdo.

After the funeral, André runs away to never return, telling Valdo that he doesn't sees him as a father, nor did he see Nina as a mother.

And he just might be right, as the book ends with a priest's recollection of a conversation with Ana, in which Ana had confessed that André was her child, born of a sexual encounter with Alberto, and that she had gone to Rio all those years ago to hide said pregnancy. André was the baby that Ana gave birth to, with Nina's baby having been abandoned by Nina herself in the hospital after birth.

I do not know whether Nina knew André wasn't hers or whether she believed that Ana had somehow tracked down the baby and brought him back to the Meneses (as Ana had told Nina she would do). Ana herself thinks that Nina knew the truth and was only interested in André because he reminded her of Alberto (which is the same reason that Ana gives for having tried to kiss André), even considering it malicious of Nina to have let André believe he had committed the sin of incest when he had not. To this last bit I say, why didn't you tell him the truth, Ana?

In the end, the Meneses dynasty falls apart, with the only heir having disappeared (never mind that he wasn't a Meneses after all) and it wasn't because of the incest.

[littleapocalypsekitten]

*Realises special talent for remembering very weird, old sitcoms.* Yeah, I saw something that had me flashing back to an old Fox series, Herman's Head (1990s adult Inside Out). I suddenly remembered Whoops! (survivors of a nuclear war try to rebuild civilisation and live with each other on some little farmstead property they find, played for humor as they're all a bunch of quirksters and losers, only ran one season iirc). Get a Life (a sitcom about an immature man in his 30s still living with his parents and working a bike paper-route, couldn't be made today as it hits too close to the lived reality of too many people in today's capitalist hellscape). I remember quite a bit of the TGIF lineup, too, like Family Matters and Full House. I also remember one really awful show about a teenager becoming his best friend's guardian angel after he food poisons himself eating a bad burger - Teen Angel. I didn't have cable / satelite growing up. Lived rural, too many mountains, cheap / thrifty / poor-ish parents. I was also introverted, outcast and lonely. I had cats and... a lot of shitty network TV when I was a teenager. I'm just surprised at how much I remember.

[sonofthedunes]

part one of angsty luke/andrie headcanons under the cut. be warned, they’re all various shades of depressing and some of them are extremely dark.

some of what i’ve mentioned before applies here: andrie is the only surviving child of an unhappy marriage-whose mother never really seems to want her (perhaps because she sees her daughter’s force sensitivity and is appalled by it) and who leaves her family when andrie is 8, whose father is barely around and dies of exhaustion when andrie is 13.

her great-grandmother is kind if distant, and her uncles treat her well (in particular garit, for reasons that will be explained later). but to her grandmother zaria she is more like a live-in servant, a bothersome mouth to feed until she’s old enough to be married off. nothing andrie does seems to please her; the older woman is forever telling her that her tongue is too sharp, her eyes too direct, that mykarrah women are to be composed and quiet at all times (andrie would dearly love to point out how hypocritical this is, but doesn’t relish the thought of a slap for her trouble).

years later garit tells andrie why her grandmother was so insistent on her meekness, and why she coerced her into suppressing her abilities: because andrie’s great-aunts (zaria’s sisters) were both force sensitive just like her, they didn’t hide it, and they were murdered for it. in zaria’s eyes, this was the only way to save her granddaughter-and while andrie obviously does live, this choice is partially what makes her into such a temperamental and combative young woman.

in andrie’s early childhood, her aunt ylva (garit’s wife) serves as something of a surrogate mother to her. a genuinely sweet and selfless woman, she loves andrie just as much as her own sons and andrie adores her right back. but in perhaps the first great tragedy of andrie’s life, just before her niece’s fifth birthday ylva suddenly takes ill and dies. the family is devastated, but worse is still to come.

when andrie is 10 years old in 9 BBY, a sand fever epidemic sweeps across many of tatooine’s most populous settlements-and moisture farmers in rural areas carry it back to their own families from doing business in town. children and the elderly are particularly vulnerable; though her great-grandmother contracts only a mild case, andrie and her cousins conor and trager all become very sick. andrie recovers. her cousins do not. garit has lost his entire family, and from then on regards andrie as something of an adopted daughter. (her other uncle, orin, never marries and has no children.)

because of her cousins’ deaths, it becomes imperative that andrie marry and produce an heir to keep the farmstead in the direct mykarrah line-otherwise it will go to the son of zaria’s brother. as soon as andrie gets her first period at 12, zaria begins searching for a suitable husband. andrie is never asked how she feels about this or if it is something she wants.

but the force works in mysterious ways, and this ends up being how andrie formally meets luke when they’re both 18. there isn’t exactly a surfeit of eligible young men in the area, so zaria must consider them all-even an orphan from a poor family who bears a slave name. (mykarrah is not a slave name-and in the past andrie’s family has in fact owned slaves.) the marriage doesn’t happen bc owen objects to the idea of his nephew basically being adopted for use as a breeding stud, but during the negotiations the teenagers are sent away and discover they have more in common than they thought. they become friends-but zaria declares luke to be “surly” and “obstinate” (even though he was incredibly polite) and forbids him from setting foot in her home again. andrie’s uncles disagree with her assessment and help foster their niece’s new friendship; since she’s not allowed to leave the farm without an escort, they simply happen to run into luke and owen on visits to anchorhead, or accompany her to the lars homestead on occasion.

when word reaches the mykarrahs of the destruction of the lars farm, it is garit who gently breaks the news to andrie that there were no survivors. of course she is devastated; her friend, her only friend (who she’s been slowly developing feelings for), is dead, and she is condemned to a lonely life until she is forcibly married off. but the more she thinks on it, the more it dawns on her that she’s had enough. that for both luke and herself, she is going to leave this place and travel the stars. make something of herself. so that night she runs away from home (without telling anyone, which does come back to bite her in the ass) and hitches a ride on a trader transport to mos eisley. and in the spaceport, guided by the force’s hand, she sneaks aboard a junky corellian freighter and hides in one of the floor compartments…

during her service in the rebellion, andrie learns the meaning of real terror many times: during the battle of yavin, on her first few recon missions, dashing to make a transport ship when the rebels must flee yet another base. but perhaps the most potent of all comes when luke is rescued from cloud city. she knows the facts of his physical injuries, but not how they occurred…until she and luke are alone in his quarters on home one, a terrible thought enters her mind, and she asks him “it was vader, wasn’t it?” averting his eyes, he nods. a wave of fury and horror sweeps over her and she fiercely swears the Sith Lord will pay for what he’s done; were he standing before them now she’d attack with no hesitation. but when she demands to know what exactly happened, luke is unable to speak-he trembles, his eyes fill with tears and he slowly falls apart in front of her. to see someone so courageous, so headstrong, reduced to quiet sobs at the mere thought of that confrontation…that is the true measure of vader’s terrible power. luke buries his face in andrie’s neck and cries, and moved by helplessness and sorrow she cries with him. they have never wept in front of each other like this before. somehow, they forget to be ashamed.

just before luke returns to dagobah to complete his training, he and andrie spend the night together. the following morning, he tells her that there’s one last thing she can do for him. and so it is that andrie cuts his hair, giving him the style we see in return of the jedi-stripping away the last vestiges of the boy to let the man face his destiny. she turns her back when he steps out the door, unable to bear the sight of him leaving for who knows how long…but just prior she declares “the force is with you.” (not may the force be with you. it is. it has to be. the galaxy depends on it.)

as always, drop any questions you may have the askbox. part two soon.

[silvesary]

Don't mind me going through my especially bad older pikmin ocs and updating their designs to be more original! Teddy(whose name is subject to change) was a biiiig copy paste of another character from a game I was obsessed with at the time so I'm quite happy I managed to change his design in a way I'm happy with! (Some rambling below)

Obuga isn't a real planet in the canon of pikmin, but I just really thought it would be neat if there was a farm planet of sorts! A very chill rural-ish planet that has a huge focus on farmsteads and family, with any technology progression thanks to bartering with other planets. Teddy is basically a run-of-the-mill farmer from Obuga, he lives alone and specializes in honey making but left his homestead at an offer from Corbin(another older oc) to travel abroad and study plant species from other planets! His headband was actually made while abroad due to being inspired by a strange statue they found on one of the planets they explored, he thought the ears were cute.

Out of his crew, he's the more resilient one, who has incredible general senses all around! He also cooks all the meals too, and ends up having a huge love for the pikmin and wanting to learn more about cultivating them for other needs!