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thevividgreenmoss · 3 years ago

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My grandfather was awake and lucid for a longish while between late Friday night and Saturday morning apparently first time since this past Sunday when we all thought that was It and crammed ourselves seven people in one sedan that got a flat on the way over of course (as we were leaving the handle of the screen door came off in my hand as I was closing it behind me so the vibe was very on the nose things farcically falling apart that whole goddamn day lol) but then when we made it he was smiling and laughing and talking to and teasing everyone that was there, albeit with much more effort than it would have taken him even just a week earlier when he was already in a really frail state because of his hip surgery. My sister happened to be up later than she usually ever is and got to video call and chat with him for a bit I wanted terribly for my cousin in Colorado to be able to also but by the time he could get through my grandpa's blood pressure had suddenly spiked or something and he'd drifted back into that borderline unconscious state so they didn't get a chance to talk which makes me want to claw my fucking skin off of my face but who knows maybe another opportunity will present itself hopefully it does like he suddenly became really talkative and energized the other day after not having said more than maybe a couple sentences over the few previous days like I was there with him for several hours on Thursday and the entire time he didn't say a word and only opened his eyes once for like half a second and even that I might have been imagining after sitting there sleep-deprived and holding his hand trying not to cry because then my mom would start crying and then my aunt and on and on and if he's conscious at that point he'll start to get worried and his heart rate will destabilize but after that for this one stretch without anyone expecting it he was really talkative and alert and joking around with the nurses and doctors and all that for a while but then later yesterday afternoon he started to get disoriented and drift in and out of the present in between dreaming and waking again at one point apparently he kept saying 'look at my shoes' to my mom and her sisters and they thought it was just just the medication/pain-induced delirium talking but he kept insisting and eventually said 'you're not taking me seriously' and I guess gave up? Or said it a few more times I'm not clear on the course of events I only heard all this secondhand when my younger aunt, who also got diagnosed with cancer late last year but thankfully is more or less in the clear now, got back home last night and she and I went into his room and took all the shoes out of the cabinet he keeps them in and like looked inside and turned over and examined the soles of every pair, took the cushion insert things out of the ones that had them, checked for scooby doo-esque hidden doors, all that but there was nothing there just shoes. Her kids flew back out yesterday morning, the older one's tentatively returning to Toronto in the next week or so she had a painfully rough time in some ways her first couple of years and then abruptly had to be uprooted and leave because of covid then everything with her mom and in time honored eldest daughter tradition bearing the brunt of the familial frustration and insanity associated with that and now everything with our grandpa I really really want her senior year to go smoothly and be enjoyable and memorable in a manner opposite to how this past year+ has been I'm so worried about her and her little sister's starting freshman year there in the fall and I'm terribly worried about her in a whole different way like she's still really attached to her parents in this innocent way that still strongly resembles like a baby's adoring my mom hung the moon type attachment and it can be especially hard being away for the first time ever when that's the case...like she's hyper hypersensitive even by my family's standards lmao but she does have this sort of self-possession and inner groundedness that no one can quite pin down but it's

definitely there and maybe that

could carry her through I really hope so...they were saying to come up to visit them in the fall hopefully I can find a job soon after returning to Texas and like be able to afford to do that and also like keep paying the bills and shit lol in either case I hope so so badly that they'll be okay like I think they will be the women in my family are all really strong but they've also had to be because of various fucked circumstances and I don't want that to keep having to be the case...my grandpa's a Strong Woman in a certain way also honestly lmao like my mom's aunts have always been like your father raised you in a way beyond even most mothers which like who fucking receives let alone genuinely deserves that kind of praise from their in-laws lmao let alone a man from a notoriously patriarchal culture of a generation when fathers from any culture barely had any involvement in their children's upbringing at all which I mean most still don't but even more so back then and like literally everyone we've been hearing from or seeing drop by at the hospital has a story of how at one point or another my grandpa was there for them when no one else was like distant cousins variously removed and loose family friends all with something about how he comforted me when no one else could, I remember word for word what he said to me when I suffered some loss of my own, he's the strongest man in our family, the best times we ever had were when he was near us, when he'd take us out, his youngest brother's children saying he cared for and spoiled them as if their were his own after their dad died suddenly when they were just kids, my mom's third cousin whose own father was with her till a late age saying that he was even more of a father to me than my own father, his other brother's son who was ostracized for decades by his immediate family on some straight up racist ass bullshit on the part of his mom and older brother because he married a black woman but my grandpa stayed in touch and made sure my mom and uncle did as well and made sure we all got together when he'd came to the states, like even now lying there on what very well might be his literal deathbed when he can barely talk he was telling my uncle he's worried about him and he needs to go home and rest, asking who's taking care of the house, are the kids all okay even at this point his thoughts are for others. After I put his shoes back in the cabinet I closed it and opened the one beside just in case I guess just in case what I don't know but it was just like standard cabinet stuff clothes a shaving kit and a couple of what I assume are photo albums that I didn't feel like I should open for some reason and a few old books, a collection of Ghalib's which I can't really read very easily if at all because it's in Urdu lol, a history of government college of Lahore where his father was teaching at the time of his death and the two philosophy textbooks my great grandfather had written himself, Inductive & Deductive Reasoning, and inside the latter I found a handful of yellowed pages torn out of an old notebook upon which mostly seem to be translations of french poems and I think maybe a song or two? I guess old coursework or just for funsies I'm not sure whether written by my grandfather or his own father. My khala was mentioning just the other day that she'd kept one of my grandpa's old notebooks marked as having been designated for biology but inside it were no actual notes just urdu poetry which she wasn't sure whether it was his own original tossed off work or something the lifelong frustrated creative transcribed while bored in class. The night I got here I was looking through his bookshelves after everyone had gone to bed and then a couple of weeks ago I was sitting in the living room by myself watching archer when my cousin came and sat down next to me upset and unable to sleep on her own first night here and I held her and tried not to cry and then went through the same bookshelves again, this time with my cousin who we came to Pakistan for the first time after moving to the US

to see being born who turned three

the day we arrived on what until this current trip was the last time I was here her little sister having just been born earlier that same year (whose life I may or may not have saved when I caught her after she was dropped by the person holding her (the fact that (parentheticals within parentheticals!) I may or may not have been the one who dropped her in the first place is immaterial imo not that I'm the one on trial here but what's important is that I caught her and if anything this would be an even more athletically impressive and frankly heroic incident if I'd been the one that was holding her to begin with since I was 8/9 years old at the time and there wasn't much of a distance for her to fall and yet I kept her from hitting the ground like talk about reflexes like that's what's important and what's more important than even that @ my year older cousin (whose younger sister was the first baby in the family after myself whose arrival in this world when I was three had me positively giddy in the way that young children get when witnessing the miracle of even younger children, who's the only other one of the cousins that's been here during all this, just me and the three I got to see as darling little babies) who was the only other person in the room with me at the time, is that we take this to our fucking graves no one can hear a word of this least of all any adults in the house who like not that they're the ones on trial here either but like who allowed for this scenario to transpire in the first place where two children and an infant are in a room by themselves unsupervised in retrospect that's somewhat irresponsible not that I'd ever hold it against them or even mention it because then they might get mad and not let me hold my little cousin anymore and I do love holding my little baby cousin and carrying her around everywhere, mostly without incident)) neither of whom I'd see in person again until we visited them in Canada the summer after I graduated college the trip during which I finished the last of the Neapolitan novels the day after landing and turned 22 the day after their mother, my younger khala, turned 43, looking through my nana's bookshelves with my baby cousin no longer a baby but a U of T classics major entering her senior year, noting the overlaps with our own, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, George Eliot, the same exact copies of Cheever and Kafka's collected shorts, Umberto Eco, Proust, wondering what the various titles meant to him or what they might say about him, wondering how much of even the version of him that can be hypothesized based off his library I'm missing now that I'm limited to the much reduced version of what had been in his old home in Lahore (when he visited us after my junior year of hs and my mom was trying to convince him to downsize and move in with my other aunt with whom he's been living the past several years, the one who most resembles my grandfather the only one that has his cheekbones my khala whose eyes have sunken all the way into her skull before my eyes with exhaustion and grief over the past two weeks, when my mom was like what's the point of just hanging onto a bunch of books that you've already read: I look at them [dramatic pause], and I feel happy [my mom sighing equally dramatically in.exasperation, me cracking up in the background]) the city I was born in the house where I spent the first almost five years of my life before we moved to the US to join my dad who'd moved back shortly after my mom became pregnant with what turned out to be me, abu nana's house with the garden we'd walk through every morning holding his hand and following along as he puttered around with his plants in the garden in the house in the city he had to leave to move into my khala's house in Islamabad where I've been the past almost a month now where two weeks ago he suddenly came down with pneumonia and had to be dragged to a hospital in Rawalpindi where he's been since, not in his house, my nana's house, with the garden in the city I haven't seen since the last time I was in this country the

summer I

turned nine the day after my khala turned 30 the day before my other khala turned 32(?) the summer I first remember obsessive compulsive disorder becoming an overwhelming aspect of my consciousness although it was there before, the first summer of the Iraq war and being terrified watching the Iraq war unfold on the BBC evening news my nana would turn on

at dinner time and hearing for the first time or maybe just the first time I remember the night we left the phrase 'the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer' from my younger khala talking to her sisters and some family friends that had come over to see us off feeling terrified and cold then embarrassed because she noticed my face visibly fall from across the room and told my mom and I was like godammit everyone knows I'm scared now smhead then crying the entire flight back home because I missed everyone and maybe had a little kid premonition that I wouldn't return to my nana's house and I would be years and years till I saw any of them again some I still haven't or maybe there was nothing premonitory about it but in either case that's the way it turned out. I do feel grateful I got to see him again at all, when he last came to the US late 2016-early 2017 I was sure it would be the last time we would be in the same room. I'd make breakfast for us every morning and we'd eat together and the entire day I'd sit next to him inhaling secondhand smoke and talking and reading. I was in the midst of my initial aborted attempt to read Swann's way when he arrived. I'd gotten to Guermantes way last summer but I couldn't find a secondhand copy so I had to read it via ebook and that didn't feel right so I abandoned it until now I've been reading a copy pulled from his bookshelf. Last he visited was the first time I learned we were both Garcia Marquez-heads which I'd kind of assumed before and I showed him Mad Men which he heavily fucked with and also every John Le Carre adaptation I could track down online. From the first time I read one hundred years of solitude the summer after freshman year of college the passage describing Colonel Aureliano Buendia's death already absolutely and unbearably heartwrenching enough immediately brought thoughts of my grandfather, aching aching sorrow over the solitude that he himself existed within in all the fucking pain his life has been inordinately filled with grief over the knowledge of this inevitable final separation from him after so many years and so much distance already having separated him from the people he loved and cared for and he loved and cared for so many people so deeply with such sincerity and beauty and endless endless warmth and compassion and humor when Gabo wrote of the colonel trying to reach back through to his memories and being unable to after previously recalling that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice even years later, as he faced the firing squad, at the moment of his death like a 'baby chick' my poor frail beautiful grandfather appearing exactly the same way when he'd take off his dentures and curl over to the side to sleep, then when awake but still half asleep hearing your voice having brought his apple cider vinegar and garlic concoction or a cup of tea or just coming by to hold his hand or play with his beard the way all of his grandchildren have at one point or another and smiling with his eyes still closed smiling bright and wide the expression of a precious little cat purring as you scratch under its chin always the most beautiful smile and even as his hair turned white and his body withered and wrinkled and shrunk his cheekbones while still not bad long ago ceased being the way they were in that picture from his wedding day back when he he looked like young Robert De Niro's much much prettier Kashmiri cousin from then until now always that same radiance and those same quick-witted and kind and bright bright bright sparkling eyes. The past month and a half I've been feeling like I'm seeing my own mother dying before my eyes along with her father, my adorable beloved abu nana, I can't even begin to comprehend how she must be feeling right now I feel like I'm witnessing her death in advance through all of this and losing the part of her that is him even though I know that's not actually the case. Things have been so fucking painful and complicated between us but the one thing we've shared that's never

been painful is our love for him. When he left after his last visit four years ago I spent the next two days barely able to even talk. Compliments or like any positive comments directed in my directions have almost always caused me this reflexive discomfort and uneasiness but whenever he or anyone else would say that I'm his favorite grandchild I'd want to hold on to that as closely as i possibly can. I don't want him to leave us and more than that I want for whatever happens to at least happen with him back at home but neither of those things seem likely right now although who the fuck knows. I hope his last thoughts can be of flowers, like Kafka's, and Lispector's, or of love, wherever he is I hope it's not asking too much to hope for that at least. For someone that spent his life so deeply immersed within that Garciamarquesian solitude he never made those around him feel any way other than at home, safe and warm and loved and adored and adorable and lovable and at home not because of a place not even the garden at the house in Lahore but with him always always I've never felt more at home than during the times I spent near him, and his love and his flowers

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arcticdementor · 4 years ago

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@mitigatedchaos, I can't reply directly to this post, since OP has me blocked, but, to respond in my usual manner:

First, who was it that said that if you keep seeing a mismatch between someone's tactics and what you believe to be their goals, rather than assume they're totally tactically inept, you should instead re-examine whether what you believe to be their goals are actually their goals. You keep noting that CRT doesn't advance certain goals… well, then, maybe that's because those who push CRT actually have different goals which it does advance?

It is a de facto racialized class strategy in which the racial component makes the organization easier.

Yes, and? If a racialized class strategy advances their goals…?

No one actually knows how to fully converge the outcomes for underprivileged minorities and groups that are at or above the median (jewish, asian, white, nigerian immigrants).

You talk quite a bit about "the absence of effective interventions which would converge demographic outcomes," but really, it's only an absence of effective ways to "close the gap" from below, to improve the performance of "underperforming" racial groups. But a gap has two sides, and can be closed from other. Rephrase the problem from being about "underperforming" groups falling short, and make it about how some ethnic groups are being oppressed by the existence of ethnic groups "out-performing" them. Put that way, there appear two clear avenues for addressing the gap: the "out-performing" part… and the "existence" part.

body of work known as Critical Race Theory, which holds that “whiteness”… essentially a form of spiritual contamination

[Slips the Advocatus Diaboli hat partly on] That it's a form of "spiritual contamination" is not proof that it doesn't exist. Maybe the Hindu is right, and the Dalit really is contaminated with an indelible and contagious spiritual impurity. How do you prove that all white people aren't spiritually contaminated with the immoral taint of "whiteness."

It has lead to proposals to build explicit racial spoils systems

And what's wrong with explicit racial spoils, so long as they're being done by the right people, to help the correct people… and hurt the correct people. No bad tactics, only bad targets.

And it has lead to teaching white children that they are permanently morally contaminated by their ancestry

[slips the AD hat a little further on] Which would not be wrong to teach if it is the truth. You haven't proven that white children aren't "permanently morally contaminated by their ancestry" — what if white people are indelibly immoral from birth?

as if a negative long-term racial identity were feasible

How long is "long-term"? It seems feasible that at least some white people are able to accept a negative racial identify for quite a bit of time. And you don't need to maintain a negative identity forever, just until white people have become a small enough demographic to be able to be dealt with by other means. Why not accelerate the shrinkage by getting those who can be made to have a negative racial identity to indeed have such an identity. Sure, the rest might end up developing a positive racial identity… but hopefully by the time that bypasses all the mechanisms and pressure and institutions at work both preventing it and preventing it from organizing effectively, such a population will be small enough to be solved permanently by harsher means.

Have you considered that the development of a positive white identity might not be a bug of the CRT push, but a feature? There is a long-standing tradition in fiction wherein the villain transforms into a monster… and therefore becomes a more "acceptable" target for the hero to slay. Like in the fourth Narnia book, The Silver Chair, where, after Rilian kills the Green Witch, he notes that he's glad she turned into a snake, because he'd have found it much harder — and would have felt guilty — about killing a woman. Or Maleficent becoming a dragon in Disney's Sleeping Beauty, which makes showing the prince stabbing her in the heart more "acceptable" for the kiddy audience than doing it had she stayed a green-skinned dark-fairy-lady.

There's only so much force you can reasonably bring to bear against "content of character, not color of skin; Dems are the real racists!" Republicans. But the Civil War and World War II show how far you can go against "organized white supremacy." And those stronger, harsher measures will bring the end of the enemy quicker than the slow tactics acceptably used against the DR3 set. So why not encourage the enemy to turn into a monster, that they may be slain more quickly? Why not have your enemy gone sooner, rather than later?

The brain-meltingly racist take “its impossible 2 b racist 2 white ppl lol” is ��disproved by Rotherham.

Disproved how, according to which definition of "racist"? In one sense, Aristotle, Newton, and Einstein were talking about the same thing when they spoke of gravity… and in another sense, they were talking of very different things, in that they had very different models of what gravity is and how it works. And each obsoleted the previous definition. Are you doing the equivalent of disputing an element of General Relativity by using an argument based in the Aristotelian definition of gravity; of clinging to geocentrism while the scholarly consensus has moved on to heliocentrism; by taking a position based on an older definition of "racism" which has been superseded by a newer definition which all the most trained and most credentialed experts agree is more descriptive of reality?

>> Critical Race Theory is not known for actually measurably improving minority outcomes

Again, you can try to "improve minority outcomes"… or you can try to lower the outcomes of groups who "outperform" those minorities… or you can eradicate the groups who "outperform" those minorities. And destroying "the containment system around white identity" will transform at least one of those "outperforming" groups into the sort of monsters one can eradicate guilt-free.

Critical Race Theory was never necessary to teach about the Trail of Tears, Jim Crow, etc. These were routinely taught without it before

It's not just that they're taught, but how they're taught, the narrative context in which these are imbedded. Are these merely aberrations, places where America failed to live up to it's lofty ideals, and which we have struggled to move beyond… or are they merely predictable manifestations of America's core, intrinsic, defining character as a colonialist white supremacist endeavor from the first moments whites landed upon Indigenous lands?

incentivizes others to practice cultural and biological race science in order to defend their own demographics from accusations of immorality

[Puts the AD hat fully on]Except, the accusations of immorality being absolutely 100% factually true, any such defense must be definitionally false race science, thus a further immorality, and may be condemned and suppressed as such.

If you are even a little bit off about the “natural” demographic makeup of an organization

Except they cannot be "off," even a little bit, because CRT has with indisiputable, absolute certainty determined the one true and correct "natural demographic makeup" of every organization, and any who question this unquestionable absolute truth is wicked for doing so.

[Doffs the AD hat .]

I took payment in “it’s just a few college kids” back on 2014. In 2020, Coca-Cola paid to tell their employees to “be less white.”

Exactly. No more free “nobody actually means it seriously when they say it” passes.

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technicallydeliciouspainter · 3 years ago

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How we got duped into cooking with gas

Gas stove actually unleash indoor air pollutants like soot, formaldehyde, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen dioxide. Beyond that, greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels like natural gas drive climate change. That’s why there’s a push now to electrify homes; electric stoves can run on clean energy.

The history of how “cooking with gas” campaigns have made a source of fossil fuel combustion in our homes seem completely innocuous gets pretty ridiculous. Leber dug up a rap video from 1988 that spends an entire four minutes hyping up gas stoves in rhyme. “Gas is so hot, it’s not on when it’s off / it’s the only way to cook, that’s what I was taught,” the rap starts off.

Fast forward to about two minutes into the video, however, and there’s a disclaimer in the lyrics that my colleague Sean O’Kane noticed: “Safe cooking begins with range location / avoid main traffic paths and also isolation.”

Today, gas groups pay social media influencers to advertise the supposed benefits of cooking with the fossil fuel, Leber reports. A public relations representative even posed as a resident in a neighborhood to stir up backlash against building codes that would discourage natural gas hookups in new construction, she writes.

You have to read the truly bizarre and alarming history of gas that Leber traces in her article. With many of us spending more time working and hanging out at home during the pandemic, it’s more important than ever to be aware of what we’re exposed to inside the place that’s supposed to be our refuge.

How to Deep Clean Your Gas Stove Burners Using Natural Cleaners

No library of kitchen cleaning tips would be complete without an article on deep cleaning gas and electric burners! Dirty, greasy gas burner grates and drip pans not only age the appliance, but they also can affect your cooking and present a fire hazard. Cleaning stove burners is simple when you use these tips from the pros. Read on to see how you can get your stove sparkling clean with gas stove cleaner made from natural ingredients.

How Often To Clean Gas Stove Burners

Tempered glass gas stove is easy to maintain. However, when the flow of gas gets blocked, the burner heads can’t burn efficiently. Check the gas burners for irregular flame patterns and yellow flames. These are the best indicators that it’s time to grab your gas stove cleaner and get to work. Other than that, cleaning your gas stove monthly should keep it working at its best.

Here’s what you’ll need to get your gas burners clean:

Dishwashing detergent

Baking soda

Non-abrasive scrub pad

Cleaning cloths

Old toothbrush

Paper clip

Cleaning Gas Stove Burners and Caps

If you have a cooktop with a pilot light, you’ll need to shut off the gas valve first. Gas burners have a removable ceramic cap that diffuses the flames. Beneath the caps, the burner head sits atop the gas tube. Remove the caps and the burner heads by carefully lifting them straight up. Avoid damaging the ignition electrode if you have one.

Soak the burner heads and caps in soap and warm water for 30 minutes. Scrub buildup from the burner heads and caps using a non-abrasive scrub pad and an old toothbrush. If the port openings are clogged, use a paper clip to clear them. Be careful not to damage the metal.

How To Clean Electric Stove Burners

Here’s what you’ll need to get your burner stand clean:

Dishwashing detergent

Baking soda

Non-abrasive scrub pad

Microfiber towel

Cleaning cloths

If your coils and drip pans have caked-on grime, turn the burners on for a few minutes to burn off residue. After they cool, wash the drip pans with warm soapy water and cover them completely with a mixture of 2 parts baking soda and 1 part water. Let the drip pans sit for 15 minutes.

While the drip pans are soaking, wipe down the stove coils with a damp cloth to remove stains and residue. Scrub the drip pans and rinse the baking soda mixture. Use fresh soapy water to wash off the residue, then rinse and dry. Buff them to a nice shiny finish with a microfiber towel. Now, on to your stovetop.

How to Clean Your Stovetop

For gas stovetops, use caution and avoid getting the electric starter wet. Degrease the stovetop by wiping it down with a damp cloth to loosen up the top layer of residue. Use a sponge and soapy water to cut through the grease and wipe down your stovetop with a damp cloth to remove the cleaning solution.

For tough buildup, turn to your homemade baking soda mixture. Spread your cleaning paste over the entire stovetop and let it sit for at least 15 minutes. Scrub the stovetop and wipe off the baking soda cleaner with a clean, damp cloth.

If you are intimidated by cleaning your gas or electric stove, or any other place in your kitchen, don’t fret. Call The Maids for a free estimate and get that good-as-new, clean home feeling you love.

Gas stove tops offer quick temperature control and are more affordable to use than electric stove tops.

The best material for a gas stove is one that can conduct and distribute heat evenly, and respond quickly to temperature changes.

For the best cookware for gas stoves, look for ones that are made of stainless steel with aluminum or copper layers.

The average household gas stove looks like it can handle quite a bit. Its sizable build, durable fabrication, rugged cast iron grates, all signify a hard-wearing kitchen appliance.

Still, as with any appliance, especially one used practically every day to prepare food, it’s important to handle gas stoves with care. This means making sure the stove is well-maintained, properly cleaned, and used with the right cookware.

While technically any pot or pan can be used on a gas stove, there are certain materials that are better suited for its open-flame style of cooking. We recommend our own stainless steel cookware for gas stoves. In this article, we’ll share what those materials are, explain why they work so well, and round up some of the best cookware for gas stoves available today.

The Features of a Gas Stove

Iron gas stove may be older than electric stoves, but they’re still the preferred option for a number of reasons.

First and most important is how easy it is to adjust the heat of a gas stove. A burner can be turned on and off in an instant. And every twist of the control knob creates an immediate corresponding change in the burner’s flame level — a lightning quick heat response that’s crucial in cooking.

Many cooks also like how the flames provide a convenient visual cue about the stove’s current heat setting. This can be a bit trickier to gauge with the dark glass tops of electric or induction cooktops.

An added bonus of the open flame is that it lends itself well to quickly roasting a few small items, like corn tortillas, bell peppers, or marshmallows.

Cooking with gas is also comparatively cheaper than cooking with electricity. Gas stoves generally run on propane, butane, petroleum, or natural gas, all of which are quite affordable. This gives gas stoves an advantage, not only for the cost-conscious home cook, but for anyone who finds themselves in the middle of a power outage.

As for cookware, gas stovetops easily accommodate a wide range. They can be used with just about any type of cookware material and shape — from small skillets to tall stockpots. Woks in particular were designed to be used over an open flame.

Flames, however, don't naturally distribute heat in a uniform manner. Some parts of a pan will have more contact with stronger flames than other parts, and the heat can be very concentrated, especially on a low setting.

Add this to a gas stove’s ability to change temperatures in an instant, and it's easy to see why it's so important to use cookware that can ably withstand these variations.

Choosing the Best Portable Gas Stove

Portable gas stoves are crucial gear for the gourmet on the go. These stoves usually come with a burner and a cooking surface, and they let you boil, simmer, sauté, and fry. If you can do it on a stovetop at home, you can do it on a portable stove.

Folding gas stove is different than a portable gas grills. Portable grills are similar to the grills you use at home. If you want to grill up hot dogs, chicken, or vegetables, you’re good to go with a portable grill. But sometimes you want more than your standard backyard barbecue menu, and that’s where a portable gas stove comes in. These have burners more like a traditional stove. They often come with containers to cook in, but many can also be used with other types of pots, pans, and skillets like a regular stovetop.

What Kind of Portable Gas Stove Do You Need?

The adventures you have on the trail aren’t like anyone else’s. Your needs and your priorities are unique. That’s why there are stoves for every type of outdoor explorer, from long-distance backpackers to car campers.

As you think about your needs, there are some specific features you may want to think about:

Size – If you’re hiking, you’ll want to save as much space and weight in your pack as possible. If you’re getting to base camp and setting up quickly, you might be more willing to haul a little more gear in the name of having the perfect home away from home.

Fuel type – There are three main liquid fuels. Each have their own considerations and limitations. Then there’s our Jetpower fuel, which combines the benefits of both.

Propane is the most common camp stove fuel. It’s high-performance, and you can find it just about everywhere. Propane is what powers the Genesis base camp system, and Jetlink technology lets you build a high-efficiency network of burners from one propane tank.

Isobutane has a lower boiling point, and it’s lighter. That means it’s easier to carry, and it’s more efficient in colder environments. However, it’s also more expensive.

Butane is the cheapest fuel for a portable gas stove, but it’s also the least efficient and reliable. It has the highest boiling point and the lowest vapor pressure of the three gases.

Jetpower is Jetboil’s engineered blend of propane and isobutane. It’s a unique mix that combines the best aspects of both, and it’s what we trust to power most of our stoves. Jetpower delivers high vapor pressure in all four seasons.

Cost – Cost is certainly a factor in choosing a portable gas stove, and there are options at every price point. However, it’s worth noting that sometimes paying more up front can save money in the long run. A high-efficiency stove means you’ll spend less on fuel over time, and durable equipment means you won’t have to buy a replacement for a long time.

Durability – Most people want a stove that holds up outdoors as well as they do. Knowing that you’ve got a well-engineered stove means knowing you’ve got a reliable one.

Number of burners – How big is the group that you’re feeding? If you’re solo, or just out with a partner, you can probably get away with one. But if you’re feeding a group, you may want a setup like the Genesis, which starts with two burners and can expand as your group dose.

Utility – What are you cooking? Are you boiling soup? Are you making a three-course meal? The meals you plan to cook may be the biggest factor of all in choosing the stove that suits your needs.

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riveir · 4 years ago

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wishlist plots & aus.

i’ve been meaning to do this for a while but because i’m a person that really strongly prefers plotted interactions and also runs into problems with actually getting those more developed things going, i figured compiling wishlist stuff and stuff that comes from my own brain might be helpful. i’ll keep this linked in the pinned post if anyone ever wants to draw from it for a starter call or whatever, and to also make it easier for me to find if plotting ever hits a road block.

peace corps. this would technically fall under the umbrella of one of river’s canon au verses, the one in which he lives but is in the less realistic scenario where he rejects his parents’ wishes and goes ahead and joins the peace corps. this could be a really good way to get muses from two different canons / universes / etc. to meet, because the organization brings all these people together into one group sent to work somewhere overseas. river works as an english education teacher, and where they’re working can be totally open. could be used as mentioned before, but also as sort of a stepping stone for river to start a life beyond the states / open up opportunities for him that will take him away from home, etc etc. just a fun way to take him out of his usual settings and throw him in a new place under new circumstances, whether your muse is in the corps with him or if they’re just in the same place and they meet under different circumstances.

political dynasty. rather than holding a high position with goldman sachs, river’s father has an influential political position ( like a diplomat or foreign ambassador, which could explain river living years of his life at least somewhat abroad ), something that would put the family under a microscope on a national scale. could be a very kennedy-esque thing where politics is sort of just like the family business and river would be expected to carry that mantle as well ( which, obviously, he doesn’t really want ). this could go a number of different directions because the barkleys would be considered high profile individuals: bodyguard stuff, danger stuff, etc. i’m open to anything here, this would just be the groundwork to set up some conflict that would be more specific to your muse and their circumstances, since this is pretty adaptable on river’s end. i’d also be willing to write river older than i usually would ( as a younger adult ), because i think being nationally known would change his circumstances a bit and yada yada i can elaborate on that more if anyone asks, if we wanted to go the route where river himself is the political figure, probably a junior congressman or something. he could pretty controversial, as mental health advocacy and gun control would probably be two of his biggest agendas / two of the most important components of his platform.

modern royalty. similar to the above, but rather than coming from a political family, river comes from a monarchical family. obviously not based in the united states but could open up similar plotting opportunities as listed above. for one example he could still be attending a traditional university, and could open up opportunities for your muse to be a classmate of his ( as a friend sure but maybe there’s some benefit your muse could gain from making friends with him or something shadier like that ), or maybe you’re super annoyed that he’s there because like who cares about the royal family and why does he get so much attention, or maybe your muse knows he hates the attention and it gets to a point where he actually has to be fearful about it and there’s some way your muse can help him out.

fake dating. this is a jam of mine always. river could have several reasons of his own to be in a fake relationship, and this could work especially well in another au like the political dynasty or modern royalty scenarios, but it could totally come more from your muse’s end as well. it could also be a thing where river’s parents are trying to set him up with your muse if that would make sense, because that’s a very wasp-y rich people thing to do.

period aus. this one is super open but river could work really well for this type of thing, especially because his family is so old fashioned in a lot of ways and very traditional in how they expect their family to be and how they expect river to be and all that. also could work super well for this letter writing plot i have in my wishlist tag.

ghost!river. this would have to be plotted for sure because the way river’s “ghost” canonically manifests is as an extension of the other person; he exists to give them advice or as their moral compass/conscience or something like that. it can be different depending on the muse, but he manifests at their own will and serves some sort of purpose for them. he’s more of a guiding force of some sort rather than an actual ghost coming back to reveal new information or anything like that. he wouldn’t do anything that the other muse wouldn’t think he would do, and wouldn’t tell them anything they didn’t already know. the exception to his in river’s canon is when the protagonist has a near-death experience and sees river in the afterlife and they have an actual conversation as two separate entities, and that could definitely be something i’d be up for, too.

champagne problems. this song off of evermore has enormous river energy. from the genius description of the song: “’champagne problems’ tells the story of a woman who shocks her would-be fiancé and their loved ones by turning down a marriage proposal right before christmas ... the song depicts ‘longtime college sweethearts [who] had very different plans for the same night, one to end it and one who brought a ring.’ the song implies that the protagonist has a history of mental illness, which the town subsequently stigmatizes in their gossip surrounding the failed proposal.” river could be either of the people in the couple for obvious reasons ( either the wealthy person from the well-to-do family all expecting the proposal, or the person who breaks it off and is subsequently - or, maybe, already is - the subject of that gossip ). the circumstances of the breakup can vary depending on the specific relationship between the muses: maybe they were really in love and had a great relationship but the influential family just had too much influence and pressure, maybe the stigmatization and gossip was a bit too much, maybe neither of their hearts were really in it and it was just an advantageous thing that appeased the big family but the other person ultimately just decided they couldn’t go through with it. as i am with everything i’m totally open here. it also totally doesn’t have to match the exact circumstances and can just be based on the general idea. ( in the same vein, here’s a link to some cool folklore-based plots )

apocalyptic danger. or to be honest, any sort of scenario that creates a life or death (or near life or death) situation for one or both of our muses. in all honesty i just love raising the stakes.

musician or actor river. even though it’s not my favorite alternative path to explore for him to seriously pursue acting or music as a career, it could open up some potentially cool dynamics that i’d be down with. maybe river plays piano in a bar or restaurant or whatever at night during college and your muse loves open mic night. maybe they’re doing a show together in college or maybe even out of college if i think it would make sense that river could get to that point in life. maybe river’s actually achieving some level of success and has some degree of notoriety. idk this is just an option that could be cool if we develop it enough ( cause like i said, without that development and specificity to our muses i’m not as into this route for him specifically)

childhood best friends to lovers. ( or some variation ). self-explanatory, just my favorite trope. some wishlist stuff here.

wishlist post #1: “i just want a plot where it’s two rich kids who live in neighboring estates and their families always throw parties together and they have vacation homes in the same spots and their elite parents are too busy to notice when they sneak off to fuck in that second guest bathroom that no one uses or get high in the back library and makeout”

wishlist post #2: “give me a we broke up because i had to move away because of school and we knew we couldn’t do long distance but oh my god i’m home for christmas and you’re still beautiful and we’re wine drunk slow dancing to the sound of elf on the television and you smell like hot chocolate and i miss you so much please don’t let this end again plot !!!!!”

wishlist post #3: “someone give me “you live in the apartment across the hall and you’re so fucking hot but i get so awkward around you even though you act completely normal and i stutter every.time. you’re out of my league anyway but then one night my stupid roommate locks me out and i forget my key and you see me sitting the hallway so you invite me in. and obviously i say yes but holy crap what is happening” plot pretty pls”

wishlist post #4: “au where it's a blind date gone wrong/really awkward first time/two people who just get off on the wrong foot but keep on running into each other and then slowly fall for each other”

wishlist post #5: “give me best friends who harbor feelings for each other . they’ve acknowledged the feelings but they don’t do anything about it , because the friendship is too precious . and when one of them is finally ready to say “ fuck it, let’s take the risk ” , they see the other making out with another person”

i also always just want more college things and things in pre-established canon universe aus ( all linked in my pinned post, but including hogwarts, gossip girl, legacies, riverdale, etc ). i’m also always down for plotting ships.

#。 ·ﾟ ⎛ 𝘰𝘶𝘵 ⎠ wishlist.

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snowflake-of-destruction · 4 years ago

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Terraqua :))))))))

1. How do much do I ship it?: Never heard of it/ Notp / Dislike / used to ship / maybe / ship it / aww / otp / IS IT CANON YET?

This rating applies to canon. Just want to clarify, since I'm going to also talk headcanons for different AUs (go to the asterisk reference sections at the bottom if you want a little explanation of AUs) in some answers, and, in those situations, feelings are different.

2. What non sexual activities do they like to do together?

KH Post Canon: Learning how to be adults together. I know it's not the most "fun" answer, and they deserve a break, but even if things stay stable, they aren't getting one as such. Aqua is now the Master in Residence at the Land of Departure and someone all the Guardians of Light will look to as an authority (and Yensid will reinforce it!) , and Terra will get a lot of the same treatment from multiple factions.

Not only will the GoL look at him as someone knowledgeable (Him! The screw up who not only isn't a master but has a lot less off-world experience where he was actually conscious than most of his new comrades), but, when it comes to the recompleted former Org members, while it's clear he is definitely not "The Superior" and they don't want him to be, even those that glance by Roxas/Sora/Ventus etc. as green behind the ears or "kids" despite their experience are naturally inclined to view him as an equal and/or someone to ask guidance from even if only on a subconscious level because he shares Xemnas features.

And neither has the first clue what they are doing. Hell, they lived sheltered with Eraqus and the Land of Departure Castle probably taking care of a lot of their needs. So, yeah, Aqua and Terra learn to cook together, hone vocabulary and speaking style to sound "like a real adult" and not like teenagers who are using bigger and bigger words to sound mature, practice how to lead meetings without voice shaking and how to make people feel heard (and refrain from interrupting with "you're wrong and also stupid because of Xyz"), read up on history and powers of old keyblade masters like they are cramming for exams (because even stuff they were taught by Eraqus...it's kind of been awhile), bitch together over how to simultaneously be 28 and 18, and basically bond over "fooling" everyone into thinking they are competent.

Then they indulge in a bunch of "childish" things they never did because they were always in a rush to grow up when they were actually younger. They slide down bannisters and have food fights and swing from the rings in the training area, feet lifted and knees near to knocking the ground.

Lost Masters AU*: Finishing growing up in the Mysterious Tower under Yensid's comparatively lax supervision, obviously effected their hobbies as much as their outlook on life. They escaped often to the book(s) where Fantasia sleeps and so they are used to music made through flora, fauna, and movements of their own body. Creating symphonies that are part sparring, part dancing, part gardening and finding out what creates the best music was a passion and it carries on beyond the Tower and beyond having (snuck) access to Yensid's books. Even in adulthood, they both have a tendency to dance when nobody's watching, and, wherever they settle there is a carefully cultivated flower bed they can be found tending to (and humming to them the whole time, teaching them the notes they should be playing but mostly refuse to) when not on mission.

Grass is Greener**: If you asked the couple themselves this question, (more politely phrased of course because you don't say the phrase "nonsexual things" in conversation) Aqua would beam and talk about going out on the boat...that they don't own anymore (Xem bought it off baby sister out of pity. He drew the short straw between him and Ansem), and didn't use much when they did. Terra would shrug and say he hardly remembers anymore, honesty slipping out because he forgets to be guarded until Aqua grips his arm too tight and says that he's joking on his behalf.

With some prompting, Terra will slowly come up with the latest Netlfix series they are binging...separately. Not that he'll say they watch separately, because that's not anyone else's business, and it's not even a reflection on their relationship, just like not remembering what they do for fun isn't as bad as it sounds (Is it? Now he'll brood too much on it). With Aqua working days that start early and Terra working mostly nights, they hardly see each other. Even before that, before Terra's breakdown, which he is more apt to explain away than she is if they ever talk about it (which they try not to at all costs), he was doing his residency at the hospital and worked a lot of odd hours. Med school is actually...wow...more of a blur than Terra realized....but they had fun? Once? Together? Since the college days? Of course they did. They have many activities together. Lots of stuff. Common interests. That's what they do. Common interests.

3. Who does chores around the house?

In General/Canonverse: Split right down the middle. Some tasks they trade off on, and some become full time assignments, like, for instance, Aqua cooks and Terra does the dishes.

Grass is Greener: Terra. Period. It's not discussed, and Aqua would adamantly refute this, but in Terra's mind he has to do everything. He did even when he was working/studying to be a doctor. Aqua knows how blessed she is to have a husband that just full stop doesn't let her lift a finger (because he loves her! And he likes doing house things), but not fully. Eraqus is old money (and so was Aqua's mom, though she barely remembers her before she took off) and Xehanort's "new money" only bolstered it, and besides just living on that kind of cushion, she was the only child with Eraqus who also had to "make up" for being a single parent for awhile, and then the youngest child and only girl when the family became blended, so she was never made to do anything in her life and kind of still believes in the cleaning fairy. She knows housework is difficult, but in the same way she knows what it's like to live paycheck to paycheck now that she and Terra don't accept any help from Eraqus and Xehanort....just live in one of their houses (to take care of it for them!) without paying a dime even towards taxes and insurance much less rent...and Aqua's car insurance is paid for six months at a time as a birthday gift in the fall and an anniversary gift in the spring...but scorn handouts otherwise.

4. Who’s the better cook?

Canonverse/General: Aqua.

Lost Masters: Terra. It starts off being Aqua, but, you know, you forget a lot of things once you're a Nobody.

Grass is Greener: Terra. Though Aqua starts to catch up once they start a couple's cooking class that Terra keeps canceling on, leaving her to take Tifa or Aerith

5. Who’s the funniest drunk?

Aqua, all universes. Terra just gets very quiet and stares at the wall to make sure it doesn't move. Aqua becomes the life of the party. Not a small task, considering their friends.

6. Do they have kids?

Canonverse/In general: Absolutely, eventually, and more than one. It would vary story to story how many, the sexes, and the ages, but they will have at least two.

Lost Masters: I wasn't planning on it, but damn if I don't now want to rework the timeline.

Grass is Greener: "When are you guys going to have kids?" That question is the bane of their existence. "You've been together for a long time." "You'd be such great parents." There's a lot of pressure, but no baby and there's not going to be.

7. Do they have any traditions?

Canon-verse: Even though Eraqus's grave is near enough they pass by it regularly, they (and Ventus) have a yearly celebration of remembrance of his life where they gather by the gravesite and tell stories. Over time they even get comfortable enough to share negative memories. It's not disrespectful. It's remembering the whole man and learning every lesson he taught. Terra and Aqua also go all out decorating the castle for solstices, though Terra takes lead with jokes about how the one time Aqua changed the castle's decor on her own she went a little overboard. Each year picking a different world they went to separately to vacation at and re-experience together in peace.

Grass is Greener: Beach vacation every year. This is carried on from Aqua's family who used to rent a condo on the beach for the first week or so of July (or, when they got older, multiple condos, next door units so there was some pretense of supervision, Aqua, Xemnas, and Ansem sometimes getting to invite friends to come meet them/stay over for part of the time). Aqua and Terra usually do a shorter time because of schedules. They also go all out for Halloween, turning most of the house into a haunted house for touring Halloween and the preceding or following weekend--and Aqua actually does most of the work on this, it's a grand creative project. Ansem's for New Year's. The Dads' for Thanksgiving. Christmas tree hunting for all the households with the Dads, Ansem, and Xemnas. Terra's family for Christmas Eve dinner and service, and then Xemnas's for Christmas because The Dads passed hosting on to him.

8. What do they fight about?

Canon/General: Projecting their own insecurities/sensitivities on to each other and expecting to hear things the other would never say. Take care of yourself statements twisted into assuming Aqua is worried about Terra falling prey to darkness again. Observations that everyone seems to be re-adjusting well to relatively normal/new normal life read as "Stay out of their lives and stop meddling, Aqua. You're what causes things to go wrong"

Lost Masters: There's only the one fight planned. I don't know what smaller fights may be. Aqua handles being passed over for Master while Terra advances worse than Terra does when the opposite happens in canon. It doesn't help that Yensid takes her demands to be given another test right away badly. Terra tries to comfort her. It does not go well.

Grass is Greener: Fight? They don't fight. They didn't fight when Terra was struggling even in his first semesters in med school (with what he wanted in life more than with the program itself, but there was a fair bit of both), confided it to Aqua, and she gently reminded him of what The Plan was--the plan that so much work and her fathers' money when someone lost some of their scholarships was put toward. They didn't fight when Aqua threw her side of The Plan out and decided it would be fun to be a teacher instead of following after Xemnas and going to law school. They didn't fight when Terra discarded more of The Plan after even more work, money, and time wasted, and started bartending of all things when even if he wasn't going to be a doctor there were so many other careers he could build. It's temporary, Aqua tells herself. He's happier, Aqua tells herself. So she's happy for him and she will not mention it and they will not fight. They don't fight over kids, or lack of kids even though that was on The Plan too that they should have one already--so they could space them out and also because Aqua had calculated the optimal age. They don't fight over money. They don't fight over hardly getting to see each other and how one or the other always seem to be late or make other plans when they do schedule off nights to be together. They just simply never argue. They are happy. Couple goals.

9. What would they do if they found their paring tag on tumblr? (If they have one)

General/Canon: They would first worry over who was watching them but then they'd get into pointing out cute art to each other and they may even write their own memoir to pass off as fanfic. It's uncomfortable how often they are the parents or aunt and uncle of the group--they aren't even completely comfortable being leaders like I said before, though they want to try their best--and even more awkward because the other Guardians of Light largely find it hilarious and tease them relentlessly.

Lost Masters: If they find it while they are together, it's cute and a sign that everything will turn out alright. If they find it later, it's devastating for Terra, and ammunition for Dark Aqua

Grass is Greener: Aqua doesn't really get a lot of the content but she likes how they seem to be popular, and she really likes her hair short. She should go back to wearing it short. Terra is into the fantasy anime vibes, and it's reassuring to think they may be together and in love in another universe. He thinks they are canon at least from how a lot of the tag is. It's validating.

10. Who cried at the end of Marley and me?

Neither, though they ended up talking about how Ventus definitely would have cried.

11. Who always wins at Mario kart?

Terra mostly. Aqua will have a well strategized/lucky race once in awhile though

12. One thing I like about this ship?

Even in the moments where they doubt or misunderstand each other or act stubborn, I feel like you can feel love, respect, and just the barest pining tinge even before everything goes wrong and it's cranked up. I'll break examples down when I get to games that include them on my replay I am sure.

13. One thing I don’t like about the ship?

That they are treated as the default and even if you ship them with other people it has to be just for fun or an extra ship because at the end of the day everyone agrees with Terraqua. That's just a lowkey pet peeve though, and for “no reason” since, at the end of the day, I agree with Terraqua.

I dislike the idea that they are "mom and dad" in a lot of people's eyes...in case I didn't give off that vibe already. Let them rest. Whether you see them are near 30 or as 18, they still deserve to just only be responsible for themselves. And, guess what, some of the kiddos have more life experience than them.

14. The song I would say fits them?

You come into my house and keep asking me this question? Be gone with you!

15. Another headcanon about the paring? (Free space)

General: They adopt a bunch of animals. Since they are often on missions and not the most stable parents of even fur babies in the first years post KH3, this, in practice, consists of claiming animals on several worlds and visiting them every time they are there to spoil them and bring them gifts. Prince Eric's dog Max? Terra and Aqua's. Nemo and his father? Marlin resents the implication, but they are their fish. Thomas O'Malley the Alley Cat? You shouldn't be allowed to call yourself a pet owner when you also turn into a cat when you go to visit them, but, yes, he is part of the family.

Lost Masters: Instead of making large wayfinder charms, since it is just the two of them, Aqua makes smaller charms that hang from woven macrame bracelets that morph meaning as they get older. Terra continues to wear his up until "present." Aqua's comes with her even when she's a Nobody, but eventually gets confiscated by Ventus though it somehow ends up with Xigbar who doesn't hesitate to literally dangle the reminder of her human life over her.

GiG: People tend to think Terra not Aqua is the one related to Xemnas and Ansem unless they specifically know better. Sometimes Terra goes along with this. He hasn't found a way to parlay this into some funny prank so far, but is on the look out for a way. Aqua doesn't see (or refuses to see) that Terra resembles Xem a little. Vehement denial is better for the sanity.

*Lost Masters AU is the name for the canon divergence where Xehaqus eloped/ Xehanort chose love over power or darkness, and it changed everyone's fate--though fate still demanded both villains and heroes. Canon divergent post Xehanort's little jaunt to the future and spanning that time of Young Xehanort and Eraqus and up through the sage so far, though, you know, skipping around the years with different protags. Yeah, ambitious, but it would be so cool. I've decided I'm waiting until after I beat Melody of Memory to consider further whether I'm writing it or just posting a skeleton in case we get some Radiant Garden/Ansem the Wise and apprentices/Kairi background I want to work in. Want to know more? Hit me up

**Grass is Greener is a modern au/soap opera-ish au created between me and Shaky. It's on both of our blogs, tagged Grass is Greener Verse.

#grass is greener verse #terraqua #the lost masters #snippets #terra #aqua #shaky-mayhemm

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the-bard-writes · 4 years ago

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Countdown to The Young Owl Episode 2: Day 2/5

In celebration of The Young Owl Episode 2 starting soon, I’m posting daily lore entries about the world of the Sodality!

Today’s Theme: The Greater Worldsneck Region

Temperate, cool, and often cloudly; dotted with villages and towns that owe allegiance only to their communities; the Greater Worldsneck region is covered with old forests, and dotted with even older history.

The Greater Worldsneck was a hotspot during the High Era, and the ruins here have held better than most in the southern regions of the continent. It lacks any strong political entities, and is mostly comprised of disparate villages and towns. The northern city of Saras and the great capital of Orestos are the only major urban centers, and the mountains between them mean little in the way of animosity or friendship. Beyond the lands of Orestos, the people are isolated, interdependent on their kin and community--and lacking in permanent guild presence.

There is little known about the Greater Worldsneck region’s ancient history. The Empire that resided among its mountains was fond of sturdy and long lasting construction, but not so much of widespread literature. Whatever information it generated, it was not stored in easily accessible places, or stored at all. Many of its ruins are built into the mountains and hills of the area, with the most precious among them being sealed tightly by still-holding locks and resistant doors. Those who have managed to enter such places have found them littered with defenses that can cut across the ages. Many adventurers have lost life and limb in these depths.

Whatever the case of the region’s prior civilization, it has mostly been resettled by its local inhabitants, who have been joined over the ages by settlers from the south. Today, there is no meaningful difference between those whose blood has run among the Neck for millenia, and those who have been there only two or three generations.

Those who call the Neck home have a strong culture of community, putting kin and kind above their own wants and needs. They will defend each other from any perceived threat, and work hard to support and enrich the community.

The Neck is a primarily agricultural region, relying on a combination of skilled forestry and efficient farming to yield good forage and bountiful harvests. A few communities strike mineral veins, but mining is considered around the Neck to be a necessary if unpleasant endeavor. Little ore among the mountains is extracted for profit, though some burghers of Orestos have attempted to expand their mining operations within the mountains. These attempts usually fail due to lack of a workforce; the people of the Neck are self-sufficient and difficult to motivate with money to do such difficult work. With the constant pressure of neighboring rivals, Orestos has never seriously considered any organized colonization of the Neck to change that fact.

The city of Saras is the only urban center north of the mountains, and formed at a nexus of older ruins for trade. The site was considered sacred and therefore safe for exchanges of resources, and its coastal location allowed the development of a port for trade beyond the Neck. The establishment of Westsaras Port was a colonial endeavor centuries ago that has resulted in a politically independent but economically subservient city on the Oresian coast.

While Orestos upholds the High Traditions of autocracy, investing power into a central Chamber of magistrates, senators, and grand-captains, Saras hosts a vibrant democratic culture. Like the rest of the Neck peoples, Sarasfolk have a strong sense of community, and the responsibility of governing, protecting, and administrating the city is considered a public concern. Taxes are paid voluntarily without enforced collection, public services are offered for free at point of purchase, and the city is defended by a rotating militia of volunteers led by a standing corps of officers who are elected from among the volunteers and limited in term of command. Saras also is one of the few cities in the world that hosts a guild-hall for all five of the major guilds, including the Sodality.

Elsewhere, the Sodality maintains two holdings in the Greater Worldsneck. The Southneck Holding is a moderate holding, while the Northneck Holding is minor in size, development, and standing population. Both are maintained as home bases for the Sodalists that wander the Greater Worldsneck tending to its peoples, and are primarily oriented as supply centers, with little research or training.

Finally, the Sanasar High Temple serves as the heart of the High Church in the region. Built atop a mountain with extensive roads and paths maintained by the monks and lay faithful, the High Temple is a place of learning and enlightenment, and is considered the oldest still-active building in the region.

#writeblr #worldbuilding #geography #fantasy #setting: the sodality

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all-things-are-nothing-to-me · 5 years ago

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Communes & Land Projects: A Nomadic Critique of Communization

The establishment of intentional communities of all kinds is a popular fad yet again. Perhaps we have reached a point where economic pressures and the failure of government have heightened the desirability of such living arrangements. Leviathan has spread its slimy tentacles across every corner of the globe, and the jungles of concrete — the urban sprawl — have reached nearly everywhere. In the United States, the furthest distance to complete isolation from any road or structure is only 18 miles from one point to another. Where I am currently, this number falls to 6 miles. It gets as low as 2 miles or less in some US States. This shows how the urban setting is now essentially inescapable. There is a total of 2.43 billion acres of land in the United States, and its overseas territories. 17.5% of this land is Alaska. Out of these 2.5 billion acres of land, only 4.5% of it is wilderness today. The State of Alaska comprises 52% of the wilderness in the US. The State of New York, an exception in terms of population, but completely median in terms of geographical land mass, has less than 1%. It is the same for my home State. As a matter of fact, every State in the US besides Alaska and California (14%) have 4% or less. 31 States, including Hawaii, plus Puerto Rico, have less than 1% of the US wilderness area. Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, and Rhode Island don't have any wilderness areas at all. In lieu of this lossage, the very human, yet also wild desire to “get away from it all’ and return to the land and nature is perfectly understandable. Our personal connections to pristine nature are as tenuous as ever. Hundreds of millions of people have never spent a single night camping outdoors. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to escape the ever-present noise and high-pitched buzzing of the AC units, Internet routers, giant flat-screen TVs, PC fans, etc. We are inundated with overwhelming, panic-inducing amounts of ads and information. On top of all this, most feel forced to engage in wage-slavery, for some boss. These realities and countless others paint an increasingly bleak picture of what civilization has to offer to the individual, or any of us, today.

The old idea was that we need to confront the bourgeoisie and the State head-on through class warfare via popular revolution. After centuries of failures, this outlook has been exchanged for one that says we can and must start doing communism now. This is often justified by obscure Easter eggs offered up from the writings of Karl Marx. Anarchy, class warfare, communization, and revolution are all seen by communisateurs as synonymous concepts. The Tiqqunistic text Call by an anonymous author describes “the process of instituting communism” as “only tak[ing] the form” of “acts of communization” [original emphasis], such as “making common such-and-such space” (2009, 22). The text also describes “this constellation of occupied spaces where, despite many limits, it is possible to experiment with forms of collective assembly outside of control, we have known an increase in power.” (2009, 17)

This optimistic talk of occupying spaces, becoming free of control, the talk of increasing power, of acceleration, is surely bothersome especially coming from neo-Marxoids like the communisateurs, but similar suggestions have also been made by anarchists, including Peter Lamborn Wilson (aka Hakim Bey). Similar claims about communes are made in T.A.Z.: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism, first published in 1991. Much of the ideas of the communisateurs seem informed by, if not lifted from, these older writings of Wilson. And much like the communisateurs have asked us today (more than a quarter century later), Wilson also queried us the same way back in 1991:

“Are we who live in the present doomed never to experience autonomy, never to stand for one moment on a bit of land ruled only by freedom? Are we reduced either to nostalgia for the past or nostalgia for the future? Must we wait until the entire world is freed of political control before even one of us can claim to know freedom?

...a certain kind of 'free enclave' is not only possible in our time but also existent"...(38)

"What of the anarchist dream, the Stateless state, the Commune, the autonomous zone with duration, a free society, a free culture? Are we to abandon that hope in return for some existentialist acte gratuit? The point is not to change consciousness but to change the world.” (39)

Wilson, like the communisateurs, sees this as “the seed of the new society taking shape within the shell of the old” (41):

“I do suggest that the TAZ is the only possible ‘time’ and ‘place’...for the sheer pleasure of creative play, and as an actual contribution to the forces which allow the TAZ to cohere and manifest.” ... “A world in which the TAZ succeeded in putting down roots might resemble the world envisioned by ‘P.M.’ in his fantasy novel bolo'bolo. Perhaps the TAZ is a ‘proto-bolo.’” (52)

Both anarchists of Wilsons ilk, and the communisateurs of today, seem unfocused or uninterested in what many across the communist left (specifically its more traditional groups) have deemed “defensive struggles”, which is a term meant to refer to the increasingly extreme austerity measures imposed on the general populous by the ruling class (attacks made by the bourgeoisie). When I talk about defense, I usually mean the defense of nature rather than the economy. We have seen these attacks come in the form of tax hikes against everyday working families, instead of tax hikes for corporations and the wealthy captains of industry. Another example of these attacks by the bourgeoisie was the use of public revenue in the US to shore up companies and ensure the economic bailout of corporations following the 2008 US stock market crash. But Wilson differs from Marxist class warfare advocates in that he advocates camouflage and social concealment; “a tactic of disappearance” (1991, 50). Wilson believes the commune should blend in to its surroundings as best it can, hide, and not be outwardly confrontational, or stir up trouble with the neighbors. It’s more anarchist in this regard, but even with statements like “TAZ is a nomad camp” (43), the bolo’boloism of T. A. Z. and Wilson doesn’t quite cross into true nomadism, advocating something more similar to hermitry.

The communisateurs differ from Wilson in this regard in that they all want communes as a launchpad for centralized communist attack. Attack is something Wilson rarely mentions, if at all, which is a shame because I like attack as much as the next person! But what is unappetizing about the call for attack by the communisateurs and Tiqqunists is exactly that they are communisateurs — they are Marxists — they want the communes so they can have spaces to build their Party, or build whatever of their organizations, to opportunistically centralize and “increase power” (anonymous 2009, 17). This is in preparation of them launching their inevitable revolutionary war against the bourgeoisie, and following their victory, the communizers would of course seek to institute the dictatorship of the proletariat (also referred to in some circles of the Marxist far-left as the proletarian semi-State).

I am not against the breaking of legs in general, in the typical sense of moral opposition to a particular action, or beyond having my legs broken. And I’m not above, against, or beyond party-crashing tactics, either. I am an individualist, and in the sense of applying force, of many kinds, an occasional nihilist. But I would never use violence with the aim of controlling others. My attack is direct, purposeful. Violence must only be applied when and where it has to be, to the appropriate degree it has to be, without enjoyment, or with the goal of controlling others in mind. Saying this is not to ignore all the reasons violence does happen. But attack to destroy, because you must. I would use violence in self-defense, and perhaps even out of self-interest, but I differ from the communisateurs in that when I apply violence, my intentions and actions are meant to be centrifugal. They are directed away from a given pole of focus or concern. That is why Bolshevik coups are of no concern to me. Neither is direct action that aims to coerce people into dictatorships, the Party, or the Parties way of thinking. This kind of homogeneity is a hallmark of the State, Civilization, and Capital. I am not at all interested in being involved in any kind of community, network, or worknet that aims to progress in a quantitative way, to grow in numbers, or one that maintains a membership. My associations with others are never aiming to be coercive. I wear my intentions on my sleeve. Whether there are two or two-hundred people doing what I am doing and communicating with me about it, makes no difference. Although, groups bigger than three-hundred are increasingly Leviathanic. I suppose this also includes domestic living communities and villages. I prefer small groups. Under ten is perhaps best for me, and we all differ, but the point is small groupings of any size within natural limits encourage heterogeneity naturally. This is another difference between the views of Wilson and the views of the communisateurs. Wilson, displaying at least some awareness of the concept of nomadology, understands the need for not just escape, but dispersal, and generally describes his writing project as being against history, progress, and the narratives they bring with them. Wilsons T. A. Z. may be utopian, but it isn’t even in the same realm as the communization texts in terms of millenarianism.

My issue with attempting to permanently occupy spaces through any means whatsoever is that land occupation does nothing but encourage and even solicit domination over nature, domination over the other animals we share space with, domination over each other, and so on. I don’t have any interest in controlling things or others. In fact, I should not even separate myself from these things I’ve just mentioned in the ontological sense. The word land itself implies domination: I landed a job, I landed a date, I landed the top prize. To land, to be landed, to have stopped being in flux, is not dissimilar to having occupied a thing, and is often the same. This is, according to James C. Scott, the primary goal of the State: to fix populations to specific geographic boundaries. We might say in English, “I have this land. This land is mine.” Which is to say, because you stand there on it, apparently dominating over it, it is yours. I am here, so now this is mine. That’s what it means to land, to have it, to be landed. It’s like Manifest Destiny for everyone, an ideology not restricted only to whites and Christians. I am not part of this community, it is mine altogether! It belongs to me. In fact, God created it like this, just for me!

As you are hopefully beginning to see, or already seeing, we can not lay claims over spaces without first attempting to ontologically separate ourselves from nature, an impossible task. We are nature. Everything that exists, and even things beyond our awareness and perception, are also part of nature. It pains me to say it, but even technology is technically part of the natural world. I refer to this as pluralistic naturalistic holism. For billions of years before our arrival, the planet Earth was already one big commune. For the fishes, for the lizards, for the flowers, for the bees and ants — I think we have just forgotten our place in it.

#zhachev #anarchy #communes #communisation theory #green anarchy #post leftism #tiqqun #communism #anarchism #anarcho communism

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ifeveristoday · 5 years ago

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god what is your childhood trauma

I knew trusting Jordie was a good idea. While I still have timeline/minor pacing issues (Issue #9 has Joyce believing Buffy’s on an out of state field trip for a week - which means the issues are covering 1-2 days at a time?) It’s all very Jeremy Bearimy.

Issue 10 introduces Kendra, more background parents, more details about Rose (!!!!), Robin’s mission, and Giles continues to have a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad attitude. Is this Toxic Masculinity or just the Hellmouth amplifying bullshit?

I will post my thoughts about the last issue of Angel eventually, because wow, the gay - but I will say it’s interesting how each line is dealing with the absence of its titular character. With Angel’s absence, the Fang Gang is concerned, but they’re handling it. Buffy’s absence in Sunnydale is having major repercussions however and while it was touched on in issue 9, issue 10 really emphasizes how she’s a necessary part of the Scoobies and how they’re floundering without her.

I could say it’s because Angel hasn’t built up a bond with his gang to the extent Buffy has, but also I think it’s just where the characters are in their lives - the Scoobies are sixteen, and it’s implied that Fred and Gunn are older young adults, with more independence and less family/school to concern themselves with.

The pressure to fit in, to be normal, to belong - it matches up neatly with Sunnydale coping with the aftermath of the Hellmouth opening. Robin, much like Willow in issue #9, is frustrated with keeping with the status quo and it's his POV this issue opens up with. He knows there’s bad shit going on, and that they should be focusing on surviving/fighting, not worrying about grades and chores like raking the leaves.

Except he doesn’t know exactly what he should be doing - and it doesn’t help that Kendra is counting on him to be her Watcher. She asks him when they’re going to be talking about hellfire and her training, and Robin tells her that they don’t do any of that, Buffy does. Except of course - she’s not there and Robin has to admit again that he doesn’t know.

For an informant to the Watcher’s Council, Robin knows less than was hinted at in previous issues, and it’s amusing that Kendra knows more about his background than he does hers. Which is a nice little inverse from the usual Watcher - Slayer relationship, isn’t it?

Kendra is apparently older than Robin, but it’s not stated by how much - she does have TV canon’s sense of tradition, but with less ‘the Watcher is always right and I am the Council’s tool,’ and more ‘we’re partners and I’m already fifty steps ahead of you, so catch up, you fool’ which is just refreshing from the start. “You’re the only resource I have in this town...it’s time you make yourself useful.”

BAMF energy.

Speaking of which, let’s talk about Cordelia, and her Jurassic park quoting excellence. I’m telling you, every character gets an issue or two (or three) to shine, and in this issue, the girls we haven’t seen as much of, really get their day.

The sequence of Cordelia walking to school is nifty for the sense of humor - Cordy has been the omniscient ‘Gossip Girl’ for the series and would naturally be the best at social media in 2019. Just as she’s documenting ‘life finds a way’ about the bird making a nest in the ruins of a tree, the audience spots what she doesn’t, the snake crawling up the other side of the tree, poised to strike.

And just as Cordy says, “Gives me hope!”

She gets lured into a trap.

The incel/sad lonely white boy in the basement stock character is not one I enjoy reading about because too many times his real-life counterparts murder a lot of people (often out of hatred of women) and I have no sympathy/interest for that.

He’s a pathetic figure but that makes it no less scary to see him throw Cordelia down a flight of stairs into his basement.

I think this being potentially excused away (thanks not vague enough official preview summaries!) as part of the Hellmouth is bringing out the worst in the dudes is weak because again, real-life losers like these characters do this without an evil mystical force being the reason all the time.

But something is clearly wrong with Giles, as he almost attacks Robin in the library, and Robin nearly attacks him back. The copious amount of sweating, the murder eyes - the verbal knives out. Giles was scary in issue 9, and he’s even more menacing in this confrontation. He’s abusing his authority as an adult and being incredibly dismissive of Robin, which is bad enough on a personal level, but as an educator - really bad.

Willow and Xander luckily come in to defuse the situation, but now Robin has a problem with them and how come he’s suddenly responsible for Sandy Noxon’s disappearance (oh yes they did and yes I saw what they were doing there).

It’s accusation town as Robin rips into Willow and Xander, but not before he tells Giles that he’s lost Buffy, they all have, and that he [Giles] is a failure. This conversation is another one of those where two characters are talking around each other - Giles is thinking Robin is being disrespectful, while Robin is pointedly calling out Giles for his failure as Buffy’s Watcher, and as an authority figure in general. Giles tells Robin he’ll do nothing, but Robin scoffs ‘Watch me.’

Old versus new, tradition battling discovery - it’s a pretty obvious parallel setting Giles up as the Old Guard and Robin forging his way with ‘his’ Slayer and their new mission.

Back to Robin tearing into Willow and Xander: their conversation in the hallway reminds me a lot of the fights that the Scoobies had in the show - while not as ugly as the DMP confrontation or that bullshit season 7 episode *cough*, it does some excellent character work in the dialogue: it reinforces the idea of Willow and Cordelia being friendly/nice to each other, Xander’s unwavering loyalty to Buffy - and getting annoyed with Robin on her behalf, and then Robin calling out Willow for ghosting Buffy (aha, so he did notice her even when he was ignoring her) in the previous issues. Robin goes a little Mr. Hyde then - accusing Willow and Xander of shifting the blame on others when Buffy isn’t around, which...kind of a stretch because how would he know? The Evil Flop Sweat is back, and he projects his frustration with Giles not helping him on them - yelling, ‘Instead of going to other people for help, why don’t you figure out things yourself, for once?’

and then ends on, “Buffy isn’t here, and we don’t know when she’s coming back...you should try to get real comfortable with that.”

The panel that follows after Robin’s outburst? A M A Z I N G.

David Lopez’s expressions for Willow and Xander is just...guys.

Xander continues to be the most emotionally well adjusted of the Scoobies (!!! The growth! We love to see it.) as Willow tells him she and Rose are broken up and for him to just leave it.

Which brings me to the unicorn I’ve been chasing since she debuted in the comic, SOME ACTUAL PERSONAL DETAILS ABOUT ROSE. I was frustrated with their breakup for a number of reasons - a) we know so little about Rose beyond the being Willow’s girlfriend, b) so much of their relationship was off-page, c) Willow was lying to her for a lot of the time, d) when they broke up, it lacked real emotional depth and I wasn’t that invested in the first place.

BUT NOW.

Rose has a tattoo! That says I TRUST YOU in FRENCH. A semi-absent father figure but one who is loving and supportive! What’s that? Two dads and a possible stepdad and Giles when he’s not being Evil Flop Sweat Man? That’s four canonical Father figures that aren’t evil or negligent. Points to House Bellaire!

And Rose being a kid that moves around a lot because her dad relocates for work, and Sunnydale being a ‘real’ home and staying for good because her mom made it happen. Then wanting Willow to meet her dad when he was in town - but now, of course, that’s not happening and guys. Character details have been provided.

I have a better idea of Rose now, and I like it. And I like that she’s kind and looks after her classmates.....

even bad news bear Luke. LUKE.

The sense of dread (and the colors! I love the work the Boom! colorists are doing for Buffy and Hellmouth) is excellent as she goes downstairs and discovers a bound and gagged Cordelia in the basement.

When Rose and Cordelia team up against Luke - it’s one of the best sequences in the issue. It shows that Cordy is unbelievably assured in every situation, no matter how dire it initially looks, and that Rose is really brave and resourceful (and deserves to be part of the Scooby Gang. Draw her on one of the covers, you cowards!)

It’s telling that Cordelia and Rose assume that it’s Buffy who saves them at the last minute - Cordelia because she associates Buffy with weird feats of strength and also just showing up at these moments, and Rose with hearsay - Buffy’s weird, but she gets results.

Kendra about to introduce herself and then Robin stealing her thunder and her reaction shot to said thievery?

I’m so glad she’s here. And that we’re going to get a girl gang in the next issue.

#buffy comics #boom! verse #boom! studios #kendra young #robin wood #cordelia chase #rose #xander harris #rupert gile #more to come

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brioandbrulol · 5 years ago

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Have a idk outline of my IwaOi Mermaid AU lol

I looked it over but, there still may be mistakes sorry!

Once upon a time, there was a kingdom that was known as Aoba Josai.

The kingdom itself was nestled between the dark cool water of the Seijoh Ocean which lay to the west of the country, and the Aoba Mountain range which cradled the nation from north to south on the eastern side closing off Aoba to the other nations that resided further inland.

Needless to say, with a mountain range on one side and a ocean on the other, Aoba Josai was mostly left unbothered being seen as too bothersome and risky to be overtaken.

Rather, places found it more beneficial to strike deals with the nation which had a fine navy, good ports and other goods than attempt to take over the nation.

At one time, one nation in particular had attempted to invade Aoba Josai only to find that their attack had forced an unlikey union between Aoba Josai and the magical merfolk who inhabited the Seijoh Ocean which was unheard of during a time when magical creatures were viewed as evil beings.

With Shiratorizawa attempting to take over Aoba Josai, they crossed the ocean with a fearsome navy which at the time was stronger than what Aoba Josai had as they had never anticipated anyone would dare to attack them by sea-especially since it was well known that fearsome merfolk dwelled in the Seijoh Ocean and were seldom kind to those who went through their territory.

Thinking the merfolk would put an end to any threats they didn't think that Shiratorizawa was prepared.

They were horrified and surprised when Shiratorizawa poached the merfolk with a wizard at their disposal who had made nets in which magical creatures could be caught and hunted.

With no other choice, the merfolk reached out to the legendary sailor known as Seaweed (his name had been long lost in history) who had always been kind to the merfolk, always leaving them gifts and never fishing in their hunting areas and always kind whenever a merperson came too close to his ship.

It was even said that at one point he had rescued an errant merman who had wondered far from the depths of the ocean and gotten injured.

He had made it a point that all on his ship the Aquamarine respected everyone, magical or not.

In return, his ship was one of the few the Seijoh people let through the ocean without hassling or completely destroying the ship.

Desperately, they pleaded with him to reach out to his King so that they could work together. He was kind and explained he would do his best to get his King to listen.

He was granted an audience with the King and the head of the navy at the time, told them what had been relayed to him and urged the King to meet the leader of the Seijoh people.

The King, understanding the risks had his meeting with the Queen of Seijoh and together, they decided they would work together for the greater good.

The unlikey friendship had opened a whole new world between both the Aoba Josai humans and the Seijoh subjects who together battled off the invaders and formed a strong friendship between to the two nations that would last centuries after all was said and done.

They merged together customs and traditions, the capital of Aoba was even moved near the coast so that the King's castle- rebuilt with a rare blue stone-could include waterways from the ocean so that the Queen of Seijoh could visit whenever she pleased.

They took the world by storm. Soon, other nations followed their example and one by one began to accept magical folks instead of treating them like dirt.

It is said, through the two nation's bonds and as a blessing of Seaweed's marriage to the Seijoh princess, that from then on mermaids were able to tranform their tails into legs if they should ever fall in love with a human.

The story of how the two nations came to be as they were had been passed on for many generations and would come to be the favorite story of the little prince Tooru who would listen to Hajime's mom tell the story to him and his best friend, her son, prince Hajime.

To give some background, Hajime's mom was originally a Nekoma princess who was supposed to marry in to Karasuno but instead married into Aoba.

She remains on good terms with the Karasuno king who was the prince she was supposed to marry. Karasuno has two prince's, Daichi who is crown prince and his younger brother Tobio.

Tooru is the only prince and second royal child of the Seijoh mermaids, he has an older sister who is crown princess.

Many years before the events of this story, a group of Seijoh mermaids had left Seijoh under the leader ship of Hiyoshi Ushijima, father of Wakatoshi Ushijima.

They left Seijoh because they believed the Aoba people took advantage of the Seijoh mermaids and when the Seijoh king refused to cut ties with Aoba, they left and formed their own kingdom on the other side of the Seijoh ocean calling themselves the Shiratorizawa mermaids.

The two mergroups have a rocky but mutual understanding.

Growing up Hajime and Tooru spend all the time they can together until suddenly in the year they turn ten, Tobio is sent to be with them during the Summer, taking up all of Hajime's time, Hajime telling Oikawa they'd still get winter to hang out, so why worry?

Tooru starts feeling neglected because Hajime knows Oikawa can't come from his city too often during the winter since it is extremely freezing outside the protective bubble around the mermaid's main city.

Hajime explains to a sulking Tooru that for him it's nice to hang around other humans and begs Tooru to try and get along with Tobio.

Tooru feels hurt beyond belief and stops asking for Hajime as he's tired of waiting in the pool for Hajime to come and when he does arrive it isn't until hours later even when he tells Mattsun to tell Tooru he's on his way. Even more stinging is that Hajime usually brings Tobio along to see Tooru as well.

Tooru instead begins hanging out with Hajime's mom who he's always adored. He also starts hanging out with a young noble boy named Hinata with Hanamaki joining in as he's Tooru's attendant.

Noticing Tooru hasn't been asking for him Hajime confronts him and accuses Tooru of replacing him and Tooru laughs saying Hajime did it first.

In the midst of the argument, Tooru tells him he won't be back since all Hajime cares about is humans.

Hajime's mom and Mattsun and Makki are present as they argue, eventually the queen steps in pulling Tooru into her arms and telling him the castle will always be his home no matter what. she also tells him to send her best wishes to the newborn mermaid princess.

Tooru thanks her, pulling himself away when Hajime pulls on his hand, shocked, and asks when Tooru suddenly got another sister. Ignoring him, Tooru continues on into the waterway Hanamaki following.

Tooru leaves and doesn't come back till the following year. Hajime sits there shocked, crying as his mom explains how Tooru had been feeling, how he eventually felt so abandoned and hurt he could no longer even transform his tail into legs, not even for the queen and king he loved so dearly.

She tells him how she hoped he would find his way back to Tooru and understand the importance of working out time for all his friends.

Hajime cries as he tells his mom that while he likes Tobio he really loves Tooru and how he thought he'd be there forever since they promised to always be there for each other.

The queen holds him and says he can always try to be friends with Tooru again and determined, Hajime starts writing letters everyday and sending them to Tooru through Makki whenever he comes to visit until next summer comes.

Tooru does come back, this time to properly introduce the newest Oikawa to the king and queen as well as to meet Hajime's new baby brother.

Tooru is shocked at how Hajime clings to him and the absence of one Tobio. The boys didn't know that previously the queen had sent a letter to Karasuno asking for Tobio to stay home that summer as she had a lot on her hand with a newborn baby.

Karasuno complies and over that summer Hajime tries to win Tooru over again.

After much begging Tooru accepts his apology and they work together figure out a way for them to play with everyone and they end up roping in Hinata to play with them all and he keeps Kageyama pretty occupied.

A few years later, Karasuno has been putting pressure on Aoba's queen and king to arrange a marriage between Hajime and Tobio, but, Tobio is in love with Hinata and Hajime in love with Tooru not to mention that the queen and king would rather not force Hajime into an arranged marriage especially given Karasuno and Aoba's relations are well and strong as ever.

At this time, Hajime and Tooru are as inseparable as ever, Makki and Mattsun have become an item, and Tobio is rarely seen at the castle oftentimes spending most of the summer at Hinata's house.

Then, one day, the Shiratorizawa Mermaids make demands of Seijoh who refuse and Shiratorizawa attacks them killing the king.

Tooru's sister takes over as queen immediately and Shiratorizawa tells them they'll keep attacking and demand Tooru get arranged to marry or marry Prince Wakatoshi.

Tooru rushes to Aoba to ask Hajime if he'll marry him instead because he would rather be married to someone he loves and Shiratorizawa would have to be complacent with a noble Mermaid instead since the youngest Seijoh princess is too young to be put in an arranged marraige per law.

Hajime doesn't want Tooru to lose his family and be away from them, he also fears that their marriage may also provoke another attack from Shiratorizawa mermaids and tells him that for his own safety, that while he loved him he only wants Tooru as a friend and that he was going to accept the offer to marry Kageyama.

In shock, Tooru transforms into a mermaid and cringes half in tears and so so so hurt. He tells Hajime who is he to decide what is best for him? Hajime tries to reach out and pick him up to carry him to the water softly asking Tooru to calm down and telling him that he will still always be his best friend and number one.

Tooru cries and screams and pulls away desperately everytime Hajime reaches out to him, trying to drag himself down the stairs and into the water.

Hearing the cries, Mattsun and Makki come in and seeing Tooru, immediately take him to the water. As they put him in, he asks to see the queen and king and the second prince, blatantly and coldly ignoring Hajime who is still trying to talk to him, tears in his eyes.

Hajime is hurting too and begs Tooru to understand why he is doing this.

Tooru doesn't even glance his way simply saying "It's Oikawa-san to you. I don't know why I ever thought you loved me all you've done is hurt me. Goodbye Iwaizumi-san."

Hajime cringes as his family shows up he stands back as they look from him to Tooru confused. Softly holding the hand of the queen and in tears Tooru thanks them for their love and all the good times and wishes them the best.

Hajime's brother cries and asks where Tooru nii is going to which Tooru hugs him and tells him far far away and that he'll always remember him.

Hanamaki takes the time to say goodbye too also breaks up with Mattsun to whom he explains that he'll follow Tooru anywhere no matter what.

Tooru tells the queen how he'll marry Ushiwaka and how he has nothing left for him here. Turning away without waiting for a response the mermen leave.

Hajime's brother immediately cries even more and Mattsun shoves past Hajime angrily.

His mother quietly holds his brother, tears running down her face for the boy she loved like a sonand for his losses and sacrafices.

His father turns to Hajime and demands an explanation and he silently tells his parents of his plans they are both shocked.

The wedding is set in motion. Everyday leading up to it Hajime yells at the ocean trying to get Tooru to come.

He wants to be selfish and ask Tooru to be his best man since a member of the Seijoh royalty has to be present at the wedding.

As per tradition the new Seijoh ruler comes to have a meeting with the Aoba royalties though they've know the crown princess, now Queen, all her life.

Hanamaki, Takeru, the new queen, the young princess and her mom, the former queen all arrive. Nobody says anything about the gaping hole Tooru's absence makes.

When it comes time to meet Hajime and his fiancé, Tooru's family members do not shake either or their hands.

Coldly, the queen informs Hajime that he has tormented her brother enough and that she has already ordered that he is forbaded from attending the wedding and that the only person from the royal family attending would be her mother as current queen and Tooru would be busy setting up Tooru's wedding.

Hajime bites his tongue, ignoring the looks of sympathy Tooru's mom gives him. She pats him on the shoulder softly. He looks down at the youngest princess who at one time thought the world of him only to find her hiding behind her mom and refusing to look at him. He storms away, heart broken at losing part of his family. Tobio follows him, frowning.

The day before his wedding, suddenly Hanamaki arrives at the castle looking for Mattsun. He's crying and tells him how Tooru removed him as his attendant and asked specifically for him to be relation between the castle and Seijoh. He had told his friend that at least one of them would be happy

The day of the wedding Hajime goes through everything robotically, a broken man now.

The wedding has started and like a fool he keeps expecting Tooru to arrive. Right when they're about to say I do, Hinata interrupts and tells Kageyama that he loves him and doesn't want to see this happen. Hinata and Kageyama marry that day.

Realizing how stupid he's been Hajime asks Hanamaki to deliver a message.

Tooru shows up that night. They talk and cry and scream and shout and cry and laugh. But by the end they hold each other close and kiss.

Tooru's sister breaks off the engagement between Tooru and Wakatoshi and instead negotiates for the things they want and introduce Waka to their cousin Tendou whom Wakatoshi comes to love.

Tooru and Hajime decide to wait a bit longer to marry, happily ever after.

#IwaOi #iwaizumi hajime #iwaizumi x oikawa #oikawa tooru #mermaid au #haikyuu #hanamaki takahiro #matsukawa issei #idk #fair warning IwaKage is there but like for plot it's not romantic or lasting #angst

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jaeokita · 5 years ago

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Book Review on Frankly In Love by David Yoon

Frankly In Love by David Yoon is a book I picked up a while ago because the synopsis captivated and hit too close to home for me. I recently finished reading it and initial review is that this book is such a laid book and steady flow read for me. It was like reading an asian soap opera watching everything unfold at a nice pace. The book gives the reader a very accurate view on how asian culture and family is. Asians are a very close and tight knit race that stick together in a foreign land.

I love how Frank struggles with pleasing his parents so he doesn't follow his sister, Hanna's old road in life. Hanna was the perfect daughter, becoming a successful lawyer and the jewel in their parents' eyes until she chose to fall in love with an African american man. This is a big no no for a lot of old school asian families. You will face being disowned by your family and that's exactly what happens to Hanna. I know it's much more open minded now in reality but there is still a certain amount of distaste in the back of a lot of asian parents' mind when their children bring home significant others of a different race.

Another aspect I loved, was the foundation that was built among the older generation of how they would have these monthly gatherings at each others' houses to catch up on life, let their children hang out and continue the tradition hopefully. When asians immigrate to another country, they certainly do make it a goal to move to a town or city where there are other asians or try to locate other asians. In the book, seems like the few families mentioned were old school friends who landed in the same area in California. They are all well off whether it was starting their own laundromats, restaurants, and stores. And when asians get together they typically like to boast and show off what their wealth and success have gotten them. For example, expensive cars, giant houses, living in nice neighborhoods, and how smart and accomplished their children are. This rings very factual as whenever I go out with family the conversations always spiral to my son or daughter works there or did this so forth. It's normal and definitely was vert enjoyable to read about in the book.

When Frank's relationship with Brit goes down the drain, and he and Joy became official, I was leaping and squealing in joy. I had been cheering for them since they both appeared in the same scene in the book. Everything was fine and dandy until a joke goes wrong at a gathering and everything started going south for them too. I was screaming no after watching them go through everything with their previous significant others and Joy being there with Frank when his father got shot and learning his father was diagnosed with cancer. Thick and thin in other words.

This shows us how much influence parents hold over their children especially in asian families. In the book even Frank wonders how long do parents hold power over them and if it is only as long as we allow them. And then he believes they will hold power over them until they die and beyond. Typically it's the girl that usually crumbles under a parent's pressure to stop seeing someone and Joy does crumble before Frank. Frank only crumbled and let go when he sees that Joy has completely lost her footing in what he describes as love being a mutual belief and once one side starts doubting that's it. That section of the book broke my heart. Two people that loved each other but watching them slowly being forced to let go because their parents' are unable to put down their pride.

Pride is a major thing in asian families and something that they won't let go of even if it kills them which to me is stupid. I see how pride has torn families apart including my own. It's a trait we need and yet it will also destroy us. And even if differences are resolve, pride leaves a scar wedged between people forever. It's a cruel thing.

When Frank's dad condition starts getting worse, there is a show of sincere concern and closure when Joy and her family come back to visit Frank when he broke his ankle and Frank's dad condition is known to everyone. I wish that scene was elaborated a bit more between the two father's - some sort of resolve would have been nice to see but that's typical asians for you. What I did see was Joy and Frank still in love but unable to fight to break free from the power of parents.

The most touching part to me was when Hanna and Miles came back home to spend time with the family in their dad's last days of life and finally see acceptance. Frank states his parents were finally able to see how stupid their pride was, how ashamed and bad they felt for how they treated their daughter and her husband. Remorse is never too late. That was a very bittersweet moment for me to read.

Joy and Frank's final goodbye was heart wrenching to me. They will always love each other but because of their parents' pride - we don't get a direct answer on whether or not they will ever get back together.

Overall, this book was amazing. I loved it. The writing style, the backstory, the genre was just too close to home. This one is definitely in my top ten favorite reads of all times.

#davidyoon #book #korean #franklyinlove #frankly in love #review

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starsailorstories · 5 years ago

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“500 Babies is A Lot Of Babies,” or, a post about astraea Mothers and genviae

I’ve not gotten too deeply into this because it’s not something that many of my characters are directly touched by (after all, most of them are lux, made in factories and necessarily motherless) and also because I recognize that it is Weird, but Mothers and the specific conditions they need to have children are a pretty major factor in why astraea society has developed along the lines that it has, and it’s hinted at through things people say, so I think it’s important that these questions have canon answers even if I never Get Into All This in the books beyond the extent that’s needed to understand the clone-class situation. I feel like someone was going to ask eventually so, yknow, it’s out there

Fidelity Fortefemen Vega-Revoni half-reclines, in respectable fashion, on a sofa in the fonsilia collonade; solelas stuck flush against her cheeks; shoulders veiled in her long, dark curls; curls veiled in the mantillas of Ouria’s sacred moon. It’s mid-summer, and her body glows softly through the loose weave of her dress; soon she will sleep for the second time. The grey-haired colony midwives attend her constantly, hovering at her extremities with vapor-pipes and paper fans [....] the basic dynamics of the Vega sisters survived the marriage intact until the delivery of Fidelity’s first genvia. At that instant--when Chivalry was seven and a half quinturns old--the sister she and Dignity had known suddenly became honora pecara, the future hope of the family name and the nucleus around which life at Fortune Flats revolved.

The above (from the vol. 3 draft) is a glimpse of the figure around which, by the conservative/traditionalist ideal, all astraea life is meant to revolve--the titled, landholding colony Mother, who is seen as a giver and sustainer of life on both the biological and social level.

Mothers are born with some characteristics specific to their reproductive capability--they tend to be bigger and may have specific markings or other bits, depending on species (for a bunch of species, including Basillans and Caesurans, mothers are born with spots on their faces that fade away as they get older; a few cultures, like the Zasci on Caesura, tattoo these into place so they don’t).

From birth they carry a mini-nebula in an abdominal pocket--it’s the same spot where a human might have a womb, but a bit of a different structure. What happens inside an astraea Mother before she “gives birth” (to chrysalises, not live babies) is basically akin to the start of the stellar life cycle. Her nebular material begins to form protostars, which start to produce light as they develop the potential to form a baby once in a chrysalis.

Mothers usually get glowy every few planetary cycles, often in accordance with shifts in atmospheric pressure (which may have some role in how they take in nutrients from the air). It’s quite easy to halt the process here, if 500-800 new children and a nearly two-(earth) year-long gestation process wouldn’t be convenient for the Mother or the colony, with various medications.

If the process isn’t halted, the Mother will eventually need to go into a hibernation-like state to take in and consolidate trace solids from the atmosphere with which to spin chrysalises. The hibernation prevents too many of these solids from being burned up in her light, which can be deadly. Before astraea species developed their current understanding of this state, it was common for Mothers to simply be out of commission for months with no resulting children--if a certain amount of solid matter isn’t breathed in and stored in specific organ systems (the same ones they use to regrow limbs and stuff) the protostars will simply disperse inside her body and the process starts over from scratch.

But with the proper atmospheric composition--nowadays often delivered by a pneumatic pump fastened directly to one of her spiracles, just to take all the variables out of the equation--the Mother will eventually rouse and start to produce silk from spinnerets on her inner thighs. The bit that follows looks a lot like human childbirth with two key differences: first, the “baby” is just a little glowing blip that’s born into a kind of bag made outside the body, and second, any astraea who has ever been involved in the process will tell you that the hibernation period is the part that, you know, sucks. That’s their equivalent to human labor. The actual birth event--which is called a genvia, as is the particular “batch” of children born in said event--is usually very peaceful and repetitive, with drama occurring only if the Mother runs out of natural silk before she runs out of nebular globes (for which there are fairly easy-to-operate artificial-cocoon incubators--this tech was actually part of what got the cloning industry started).

Chrysalises are mostly air, with superstrong carbon-based tissue (?) woven around. The Mother usually just detaches them from her body and lays them out somewhere comfortable where they can be easily checked on and where the babies will be safe once they start to hatch, which uhhhh they do by chewing their way out. There is no way to make that not sound like a creepy sci fi monster of the week thing but it’s just normal to them and in some smaller/more isolated colonies the sisters even come visit before the kids are properly “born” and just sit and tell them hello, it’s all in how you frame it.

There are usually a few older daughters who stay around where their Mother lives and become “midwives” (obviously it’s my translation of their word but it is analogous) and are stereotypically very present and very fussy, especially when the colony’s Mother is young. They are basically a necessity though, both because in the hibernation phase and the weeks leading up to it the Mother’s health is really vulnerable and it’s hard for her to muster the energy to take care of herself when her body’s forcing her to stay at a super-low baseline, and because 500 Babies Is A Lot Of Babies even if they’re still developing. Once they start to hatch more sisters will show up and help and begin divvying them up to adopt into the various individual households of the colony but also just kind of keep them corralled because they can toddle as soon as they hatch.

New Mothers aren’t generally born until their own Mother is older. As she ages her chemistry will change just slightly, making the subtle “genetic” adjustments needed to create a Mother more likely. Because of this it’s very rare for a new Mother to be born in her Mother’s first genvia, leading to the tradition of Mothers being raised by First Daughters.

A lot of astraeas have strong psychological drives to care for and protect Mothers at all stages of their lives--similar to the drive to nurture children, it’s tied up in the perpetuation of their species. The hierarchies of Basilean society, however, heavily exploit this reasonable tendency. In noble colonies, where the Mother is titled, the peasantry will still be made up of her biological daughters, who idealize her archetype and may feel strong loyalty to her even though she’s given them the short end of the stick. The powers that be of Basilean capitalism, meanwhile, dangle the opportunity to secure comfort for one’s colony’s Mother and future sisters and daughters in front of the lower classes to rope them into various forms of wage slavery.

ON THE OTHER HAND, Mothers who are...good mothers and really care about their daughters as people (rather than out of noblesse oblige or w/e) are a really powerful force for social change, because they tend to be highly influential within their colonies and more or less have the ear of a few thousand people by default, and can say to those people “let’s all act in our best interests together” and be listened to, at least to a certain degree.

#sweet chariot #astraea biology #semphorean concerns #uh #ask me to tag?#childbirth/#maybe???? but it's aliens

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geek-patient-zero · 5 years ago

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Part 1, Chapter 3 (Pt. 1)

Or: Mage Chat at The Club Diabolique

Blood War: Masquerade of the Red Death Volume 1

This chapter features a scene most V:TM fans will be familiar with: important vampires meeting in a seedy nightclub to talk about vampire shit.

Thanks to some reckless driving, Dire McCann arrives at Club Diabolique’s front door at exactly midnight. We also learn that he has a late-model Chrysler, but since I’m not a car guy I don’t know if that means anything about him as a character.

Originally an abandoned warehouse, the building had been converted into a disco by several ambitious young capitalists ten years earlier.

There were still discos in 1984? Wait, when did Xanadu come out?

When that craze had died, so had the club. It passed through several hands and incarnations before being bought by the present owner, Oliver Pearson. After several months of extensive interior designing, the nightspot had reopened with a new name, The Club Diabolique, and a new attitude. Converted into a Gothic-Punk haven, with live music, a huge dance floor, and an exclusive “Members Only” upper level, the bar had quickly developed into the hottest place to be in town.

It wouldn’t be a Vampire: The Masquerade story without a shady nightclub in there somewhere. This one, despite its Gothic-Punk theme, has a mixed crowd of patrons. Most importantly are the vampires, as Alexander Vargoss holds court in that members only area, but obviously none of the mortals in the club know about them.

There were rich, middle-aged businessmen wearing expensive suits, accompanied by much younger women dressed to kill in skin-tight designer dresses and five-inch heels. Club Diabolique catered to mistresses and expensive ladies of the evening, not wives. Morals and inhibitions were checked at the door.

I have a hard time believing this club could remain the hottest nightspot in town for very long if they cater to creepy old stiffs cheating on their wives. It’d hurt the club’s image with the rebellious young goth generation the club’s theme is supposedly catering to. Speaking of, we of course have some goth kids. Most of page thirty-one is spent describing them.

They were punks with an attitude.

You can tell this was written in the 90′s because the word “attitude” here doesn’t really mean anything.

Generation X-ers without much money and without much hope, they felt cheated by a world spoiled by their elders.

The kind of subculture that doesn’t mind hanging out in the same club with creepy middle-aged businessmen and their mistresses, right?

This line could also be a good way to describe how many neonates, newly-Embraced vampires, might feel towards their sires and the older vampires. You can easily make a comparison between these fledgling vampires and the disaffected mortal youth they once were, and the connection could both say something about them and help them maintain their humanity when everything else about vampire life, nature, and society is pressuring them to be monsters. But Blood War is one of those V:TM stories that doesn’t focus on neonates.

Their quest for identity had led them down some strange paths. Searching for meaning in a meaningless world, they turned to the 19th-century Gothic traditions for inspiration. Their look was a mix of black leather and Victorian finery.

A look that probably clashes with the “without much money” description. One disadvantage goths have when it comes to image, compared to punk and grunge, is that being able to afford their fancy outfits out them as suburban middle-class. There’s a whole paragraph describing their look, but I’m assuming you all know what goths look like.

McCann sympathized with the Goths. Most of them were bright, sensitive young men and women trying desperately to cope with a world of diminishing returns. Lonely and bored, they had created a whole new subculture based on a romanticized view of decadence and death.

After that “goths are punks with Attitude® “ line I was expecting the descriptions for goths to be Weinberg talking about how weird the youth of today is mixed with misconceptions like that they worship the devil or something. But this was pretty good. Their disaffection and feelings of hopelessness might be exaggerated, but that’s justified given the World of Darkness’s generally bleak setting. And there’s no mention of the music scene the subcuture came up around, but I don’t think McCann’s much of a modern music person, so it makes in-character sense. And if it’s not perfect, who are we to judge? How many of you on this hellhole of an internet know the goth subculture as anything other than a meme and a fetish?

The most relevant thing about the narration’s description of goths is their view on (the pop culture version of) vampires, and how that clashes with reality. It’s what you’d expect.

Many of them, not realizing the bitter truth behind the legends, fantasized about becoming vampires. Sometimes it happened, turning their dreams into nightmares.

[...]

Their view of the undead came from erotic novels and movies, not the Kindred. As he strolled past them, he uttered a silent prayer that they forever remain ignorant of the truth.

Aw, that’s sweet of McCann. Maybe under that master schemer detective persona beats the heart of a big old softie. Well, no, not at all, but despite being secretly really old he isn’t a dick about young people.

Club Diabolique has a doorman who’s described as “a giant of a man,” even compared to Dire McCann, who is merely big.

Dressed in undertaker’s garb, he exuded an air of restrained menace. This was Brutus, nicknamed the Arbitrator of Souls. In more mundane terms, the ex-wrestler worked as the doorman.

I wonder, does he have that nickname because goths are over-dramatic, or because vampires are over-dramatic?

Brutus is one of those unbribable club doormen who picked who can get in based on a certain criteria beyond “is the person old enough to be here” and “is this guy gonna start shit if he gets inside?” Thing is, no one knew how Brutus decided who gets in and why, and since he’s a huge scary motherfucker no one asks. Given some of the patrons, and the fact that Brutus is one of Vargoss’s ghouls, I’m guessing he judges based on who looks like they have the tastiest blood.

McCann doesn’t have to worry about Brutus, though, since they both know he has an appointment inside. There’s two paragraphs describing the club, but since the plot doesn’t spend any time here, just know that the music’s too loud to talk over and everyone’s there to dance, drink, and sin. And the band playing is called the Children of the Apocalypse, which McCann finds darkly amusing given the news he received last chapter.

Instead we’ll skip to upstairs, at the door to the member’s only area, guarded by a young “looks-eighteen-but-is-actually-a-hundred” vampire named “Fast Eddie” Sanchez, named so due to his skills with a knife. McCann asks him what’s up, and we learn that Vargoss’s guest is “some big shot Tremere sorcerer” and that “word on the street is that bad times are coming.” McCann says that it sound like a good reason for Eddie to keep his knives sharpened.

“I always keep my knives ready, McCann,” said Eddie, seriously, as the detective walked past him and into the next room.

You notice how that quote’s in italics? There’s several different instances in this chapter where lines are randomly written in italics and I have no idea why. The first thing I assumed is that it’s a subtle way of showing that a vampire is using a speech enhancing discipline, like maybe Eddie’s using a Presence power here to sound more intimidating? That’d explain lines of dialogue, but there are lines by the narration that’re randomly in italics too. You can see that here, since the description of McCann walking into the next room is also italicized along with the dialogue. I have no idea what the writer was doing here, and this is the only chapter where this happens.

McCann describes the members only vampire part of the club:

There were a dozen round cocktail tables scattered about the private chamber, with perhaps fifteen Kindred and twice that number of ghouls present. A small bar served whiskey for the ghouls and blood, both human and animal, for the Undead. Neonates, recently embraced vampires, worked as the waiters.

One criticism I’ve heard about the earlier versions of the Vampire: The Masquerade tabletop game is that players, despite being big tough vampires with cool powers, are usually railroaded into being neonates doing low-level schmuck work for the actually powerful Count Dracula level vampires, rarely in a position to do much politicking or even hunting. Superpowered errand boys instead of, you know, vampires. These poor waiters here reminded me of that, though in the tabletop’s defense I doubt you’re expected to work a minimum wage job instead of something more exciting and action packed. In the end, it depends on the storyteller. Also, as the book goes on, I think it unintentionally makes an argument for why campaigns about elders and methuselahs might not be the best idea.

To the rear of the room, on a small raised stage, an undead trio of jazz legends were playing some of their greatest hits for a small but appreciative crowd gathered nearby.

I hope those poor bastards aren’t Toreador, but given that they’re just playing their greatest hits about sixty years after their embrace...

Alexander Vargoss hated rock music and refused to have it in his domain.

Unlike McCann, Vargoss is not down with the youth of (about forty years ago up to) today and hates their “rock” “music.” I was also going to ask why Vargoss holds court in a room over a place he can’t stand, but I figure since he’s a Ventrue he’s compelled to follow the money regardless of where it leads. The member’s only area’s soundproofed, anyway.

They kept the noise outside, and, sometimes, held the screams inside. Humans other than McCann had entered the private chamber. But he was the only one who had ever left alive.

Kindred can drink from humans without killing them, so either the humans killed here are Masquerade threats being dealt with discreetly, Vargoss is a low Humanity bastard, or everyone in the club has bad luck with frenzy-stopping dice rolls.

A stunning redhead was singing with the band tonight. Wearing a green sequined dress that sharply delineated a near-perfect figure, she possessed a deep, syrupy voice that blended in perfect harmony with the three musicians.

Of course she’s hot.

McCann’s never seen the singer before, but she looks “vaguely familiar”, so he asks one of those vampire waiters who she is. Turns out she’s a ghoul belonging to a Toreador named Iverson, whose been visiting St. Louis on business for the last month and is sitting nearby watching her. We’re also reminded by the narration that Toreador are known for their “obsession with the arts.”

“He watches her real, real careful. Doesn’t like anyone else taking an interest in the lady. Can’t say I blame him. She’s good.”

“She’s terrific,” said McCann. “I’m surprised he’s left her mortal. Having her as his childe would really boost his prestige in the clan.”

“I think he’s worried she might lose her sultriness if Embraced,” replied the waiter.

See? Even the Toreador know their art sucks.

The waiter advises McCann to stop gawking and get over to Vargoss’s table. Vargoss is getting impatient and that flashy Around the World in Eighty Days style “arriving at your destination at the exact time” entrance only counts if you arrive in the exact room you’re supposed to meet in. So, somewhat unceremoniously given that this is the Prince of St. Louis, McCann walks over to Vargoss’s table, apologizes for being late, and that’s that. The Prince is there, sitting with his back against a brick wall because he’s paranoid about attacks from behind, along with his bodyguards, ~*~The Dark Angels~*~ Fawn and Flavia, at either side of him, and their guest, a little rat-faced Tremere wizard. We get more random italics.

“You delayed our conversation until this kine arrived?” the wizard snarled at Vargoss, making it quite clear he considered McCann a step below a monkey. The Tremere Clan were not noted for their social graces.

The Tremere guy’s an asshole. No surprise there.

Vargoss seems to ignore him and asks McCann what he thinks of the singer, who we learn is named Rachel Young, but his “icy tone” implies that the wizard’s bad manners have offended him as a host, and the wizard realizes this and shuts up. We also learn that a “closely trusted Tremere councilor” had tried to betray Vargoss a few months ago, but McCann uncovered the plot and stopped him, so Vargoss is especially pissed at he Tremere’s sudden dickishness and general presence.

After some banter about Rachel Young, during which she meets McCann’s gaze from the stage and smiles enigmatically at him, Vargoss chews the Tremere out, warning him to watch his manners or else. He also says that McCann is no ordinary human.

The Prince showing off his pet human, thought McCann sarcastically.

And now the random italics are showing up halfway through sentences. What’s with this? Was there no editor?

What makes McCann “no ordinary human” to Vargoss has nothing to do with his detective skills. Instead, McCann traces “a certain proscribed cabalistic phrase” on the table, presumably with his finger but I’m not ruling out a nearby spoon. The letters he made glow red for an instant before disappearing. It’s not very impressive given the vampire powers we’ll see elsewhere in the story, but it’s enough to prove that McCann is magic. And one of the biggest conversation derailers in the franchise.

“You’re a mage?” he whispered. “Of what tradition?”

“Euthanatos.” replied McCann, naming the infamous Death cult. Several of their number cooperated with the Kindred, lending credence to the detective’s lie.

Hoo boy, mages.

Mage: The Ascension is another game that’s part of the World of Darkness franchise. I can’t tell you much about it since I’d only ever been interested in V:TM. But from what I’d been able to understand from online chat, there’s one important thing to keep in mind when it comes to mages in relation to Vampire: The Masquerade.

You should NOT. TALK. ABOUT MAGES IN RELATION TO VAMPIRE: THE MASQUERADE.

Mages tend to be way, way more powerful than vampires thanks to having fantastic cosmic reality warping powers or some shit. They’ve also got technology. The Technocracy, which I’ve seen get brought up a lot, have orbital mirrors that can create sun-powered space lasers, and goddamn space travel. On top of the obvious power level arguments this’d cause, the nature of mages tend to lead to more “high-minded” concepts like the nature of reality and finding a way for all of humanity to “Ascend.” Compare that to the Kindred’s pettier goals like hiding their existence from the average mortal, manipulating each other, and seeking individual power. When there’re all these factions of magic mortals reshaping reality and burning things with sun lasers in space, it makes the Kindred and their petty earthly squabbles seem pretty damn stupid and unimportant.

So when you’re chatting about Vampire: The Masquerade, bring up mages at your own risk, unless you want to cause long derails about what the mages would do, how they could solve any big problem for vampires without even trying, why they wouldn’t get involved, how something contradicts the lore of one of the two franchises, why are the Antediluvians a threat in the first place when the Technolocracy can sun laser them from space (and they actually do this to one, read up on The Week of Nightmares), and of course, why someone’s pet vampire can totally beat a mage in a fight. And lore dumps. Pages of ‘em.

Hell, I’m derailing right now, and this post is long enough. Back to the story.

The rat-faced Tremere, shocked and more than little scared to have insulted a mage, apologizes, introduces himself as Tyrus Benedict, and assures that he meant no disrespect to McCann or his “order.” We also get this little bit.

Like most Kindred, he was extremely wary of mages. Those beings foolish enough to cross magicians usually ended up perishing in peculiar fashion. Including the Undead.

Also remember that the Tremere used to be mages, so that’s a another group of even more dangerous people who’d like to stick a foot up the Tremere’s asses.

McCann’s trying not to laugh at the easily fooled vampire. See, he’s lying about being Euthanatos. He isn’t even a mage. He just knows a few simple “parlor tricks” like creating glowing red runes with his finger/spoon to fool vamps like Vargoss and Benedict here into thinking he’s a mage.

The Kindred were masters of deceit and deception. Yet they much too easily accepted the unbelievable when confronted with the obvious. They saw complications where none existed. It was a basic character flaw that Dire McCann understood and exploited quite effectively. And had done so, in various guises, over the milennia.

So. He’s at least a thousand years old, but he’s mortal, not a Kindred. He knows some minor magic, but he’s not a mage...

Also, I’m not seeing how “I’m a Mage, I can do magic” is any more complicated than the truth here.

Vargoss and Benedict have some “blood cocktails” (the whiskey here’s too smooth for a big tough guy like Dire McCann, and the twins, edgelords that they are, prefer drinking from the source) and they finally get down to business. The Camarilla elders sent Tyrus to St. Louis to inform Vargoss of current events in the former Soviet Union. Why Vargoss is important enough to bother informing I don’t know, but McCann has to find out somehow, so here we are.

It all started about three years ago, a year before the prologue.

“...at the height of Boris Yeltsin’s unexpected rise to supreme authority in Moscow, all communications with the Kindred inside the former Soviet Union ceased. In the period of a few days, an Iron Curtain of silence descended across Russia. It was as if the Earth itself swallowed up our brethren.”

According to the wiki, this was called the Shadow Curtain.

The European Ventrue and Toreador clans sent some spies into Russia to find out what’s going on, but none returned. Vargoss doesn’t find this very mysterious.

Vargoss shrugged. “Obviously it was a Sabbat takeover. The Brujah elders in Moscow underestimated the discontent among their kine. Their puppet rulers spent too much money on weapons and not enough on food. Without a strong leader like Stalin to keep the commoners in line, discontent and anarchy flourished. The fall of the government, and the Brujah with it, was inevitable. No mystery there. We saw it take place on television.”

How topical for the early 90′s... I have some opinions about Vampire: The Masquerade’s use of historical and current events, and how vampires were involved with them, but that’ll wait until I get to a more offending example toward the end of the book.

Vargoss thinks that the Sabbat, experts at staging revolutions, caught the Brujah unaware and took over. Benedict says the Camarilla elders thought so too, but their spies within the Sabbat revealed that they lost a half dozen of their own people when the curtain fell. They sacrificed dozens of “packs” to break the “barrier of silence,” but they got nothing. Whatever’s causing the Shadow Curtain is stronger than both the Camarilla and the Sabbot. Vargoss asks what could be stronger than the Camarilla, and Benedict answers. Still in italics, of course.

“The Army of Night,’ said Tyrus Benedict, his voice rising in intensity. An unholy band of demonic Kindred belonging to no clan, they are allied with the forces of hell. The fiends belong to the brood of the most feared sorceress of all time—the Hag, Baba Yaga.”

No, not him.

“She awoke from torpor several years ago and has now reclaimed Russia as her own. Armageddon approaches. The Nictuku are rising!”

The legendary Baba Yaga’s a vampire in this setting, the one responsible for the Shadow Curtain, and yet another one of the Nictuku. When Benedict mentions Armageddon here, he doesn’t just mean because some old and cannabalistic methuselahs are waking up just to annoy them. The rising is said to be a sign that Gehenna, the end of the world for vampires and mankind, is starting.

Again, the Nictuku are 4th generation Nosferatu, completely loyal to their sire, the Antediluvian Absimiliard. And Absimiliard apparently hates his descendants, since he was a vain handsome bastard before Caine cursed him and the ugly little rat people living in the sewers remind him of his curse. It’s said that when the Nictuku rise, they’ll wipe out the later generations of Nosferatu, just as their sire wants. Except, funny enough, for Baba Yaga here. She’s apparently a rebel among the Nictuku, and is said to even be the direct vampiric ancestor of all modern Nosferatu, done just to piss Absimiliard off. Seems she just wants to gain power for herself, which is what she’s doing in Russia.

In short: If the Nictuku are rising, they’re probably going to do Absimiliard’s bidding. And if they’re rising, maybe Absimiliard is stirring too. And if he’s beginning to rise, so are the other Antediluvians. And if that’s happening, boom. Gehenna. Everyone’s fucked.

Going according to Camarilla policy, Vargoss angrily denies that the Nictuku (and what they represent, though that’s left unsaid) exist, that they’re just myths “invented by the Nosferatu elders to frighten their rebellious childer.” But turns out Benedict has photographic evidence. He hands over some photos, informing Vargoss that many bothans Tremere wizards met the Final Death getting them. The Sabbat and the rest of the Camarilla couldn’t figure out what was going on in Russia, but somehow the sneaky fuck blood magic clan managed to get pictures of the cause.

McCann doesn’t get to see them, and thus neither do we. But Vargoss tells us all we need to know.

Vargoss’s eyes narrowed as he stared at the photos. Raising up one particular picture, he showed it to Fawn and Flavia. “She has teeth of iron and six-inch claws,” he stated in hushed tones. “Just as the legends claim.”

It’s enough to shut down any more “Nictuku aren’t real” talk.

McCann, meanwhile, notices that Benedict hadn’t said anything since he revealed the photos, which, come on McCann, it’s not even been a minute. But this is supposed to hint that something’s off, because Benedict is staring at the stage with Young and the jazz trio. Who’ve stopped playing.

Suddenly, they hear Young scream.

McCann and the vamps at the table (except Benedict, the wimp) jump up and face the stage, forming a neat little group action pose that’d make for good promotion material if this were a visual media and not a book.

In one hand, he gripped his machine gun pistol, ready for action. At his side were the Dark Angels. Each of them held a pair of short swords they were capable of wielding with deadly efficiency. Right behind them stood Alexander Vargoss. The Prince of St. Louis was no coward.

Says the book after specifically describing him as standing behind the other three. But, alright, I know what Weinberg’s going for.

“Who in hell’s name is that?” whispered McCann ... “What in hell’s name is that?”

Time to meet the bad guy.

Tall and gaunt, a lone figure dominated the center of the chamber, a few feet in front of the stage. It had not been there a moment ago. Somehow, it had materialized out of thin air. That was what the Tremere wizard had seen. It was a magical feat that challenged even the most powerful of Kindred.

You sure he didn’t just reveal himself after deactivating Obfuscate? Or turn into an animal, sneak in, and change back at a dramatically appropriate time? Or-

The newcomer wore a single garment consisting of a ripped and tattered shroud held tightly in place about his body with moldering white bandages. His chalk-white face was that of a long dead corpse. Ancient, decaying skin stretched tightly across a hairless skull. Paper-thin lips, a beak-like nose, and hollow, gaunt cheeks combined in a look of utter malevolence. Huge unblinking eyes, like the black pits of hell, took in all those in the chamber.

A creature of blacks and whites, streaks of brilliant crimson marked his face, his hands, and his arms. Hands and fingers glowed ghostly red. The bright scarlet of fresh blood. There was no question in McCann’s mind that here stood the Red Death.

And his body seems to be generating great heat, and not in the fun wrestling terminology kind of way.

The floor surrounding the walking corpse sizzled. The vinyl bubbled like lava beneath the creature’s feet. Waves of superheated air rose around the figure, giving it an eerie, unearthly vagueness. The Red Death blazed, but did not burn.

Fire’s a fatal weakness for vampires, and that presumably goes for heat so intense it should make things burst into flame too. If you’re playing the tabletop game, you gotta roll to see if your character will freak out and run from fire or not. So this corpse-looking guy generating heat that can melt the floor with no harm to himself is a big deal. Benedict and McCann hype him up a bit more for good measure.

“In three hundred years I have never seen its like,’ muttered Benedict, still seated. ‘How can such a monster exist?”

McCann wondered the same thing. And he based his observation on a much greater span of time.

Vargoss speaks up, trying to live up to that “no coward” description from earlier.

“Who are you?” The Prince’s voice rang like a bell through the silent chamber. “And how dare you violate the traditions and enter my domain without permission?”

“This is how you face the devil straight up, McCann, you wuss.”

The figure raised its head until its eyes glared directly at Vargoss. “I am the Red Death,” the monster declared in slow, deliberate tones. “I go where I want. Your petty territorial claims mean nothing to me. My will is the only law.”

We’ll stop here for now, with McCann and the vampires about to take on the titular Red Death. He acts tough and yeah, he made quite an entrance, but in the end, who knows? Maybe McCann and the vamps’ll do alright.

#vampire the masquerade #vampire: the masquerade #vtm #vtmb #world of darkness #blood war

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mister-lucky-bunny · 6 years ago

Text

Scooby Doo: Monster Menagerie Chpt. 10

Description: Shaggy and the gang meet up with Colonel Calloway to schedule the volleyball tournament.

Dusk was coming to a close, which would soon welcome the dark night sky, the moon barely visible beyond a thick sea of clouds above. During this time, any occupants of either school that sat next to each other would be inside, keeping to themselves with dinner, studies, or any other interests. In the military school, Colonel Calloway would be studying over his calender. Unsurprisingly, each day would be completely filled with his neat, yet tiny, writing. Black, red, and blue ink would be used for reasons only he knew, for different situations.

Currently, he was searching ahead a month, looking for any open positions that he may schedule the annual volleyball tournament between the two schools. In his opinion, volleyball was a little bit... dated. Especially since the students who took part in it were now much older, and probably didn't have as keen of a liking to the sport. However, it was also tradition, and he himself didn't like to stray too far from the usual. After all, as a headmaster of a military school, it was his job to keep everything as orderly as possible.

His finger carefully moved from day to day, thinking to himself about which day could work best. After a couple of minutes, he reached towards a pen, resting on his desk, and began to write neatly into the box. Exactly one month from today, the day before Halloween. It would work perfectly. After placing his pen down and stepping back from his desk, he moved over to his door, lifting his hat and jacket off of the rack before him and putting them on. The Colonel began his walk towards the old mansion of a private school.

The man kept an even, brisk pace, standing up straight and looking professional. Despite having a plain, thoughtful look on his face, his brain kept going, as it often was. Calloway knew that it wouldn't exactly be enjoyable to visit the school, though not because of the school itself. He was quite used to the odd exterior (and interior, for that matter). Instead, he knew that the monster students inside would not be happy to see him. He was thankful that he did not have to teach physical education to them anymore, but that just lead to another question that he began to ask himself. Who was teaching them? That question never left his head, though due to the fact that he was already quite a busy man, he never bothered to look for himself.

Now that he had a perfect opportunity, though, he would finally get his answer. As the Colonel crossed the border between his school and Miss Grimwood's, his movement slowed to a halt, an eyebrow perking at the vehicle parked nearby. He remembered that the only other coach he could remember seeing there drove a red van. The van parked here, however, was a strange clash of bright green, robin's egg blue, and orange. A very... retro hippie feel to it. The name on the side of it was also brought to his attention, his eyes thoroughly scanning over it. 'Mystery Machine'? For some reason, the name was somewhat familiar. Where had he heard it before? Radio or newspaper, most likely.

The Colonel shrugged to himself and sighed gently, turning his attention back to the school. If it was the same guy, maybe he touched up his van with a new coat of paint? Or maybe it was a new van altogether. Maybe, he secretly hoped, it was a new coach as well.

After moving across the drawbridge, he reached the front door, rapping his knuckles against the door before waiting patiently. Eventually, the door would open, revealing the strange octopus butler. If it were anyone else, they probably would have been weirded out by such a sight. However, Colonel Calloway was used to the cephalopod butler, and merely greeted with him with a tip of his cap. Soon enough, the octo-butler gave a small bow of it's own, stepping to the side and allowing the Colonel in. Time to get down to business...

___________________________________

Despite Shaggy ultimately being okay after the odd incident with him fainting for no apparent reason, the news would still come as a shock to the others once they finally returned from the crime scene. The fact that Phanty seemed so nonchalant when she brought up the fact to them didn't do anything to soften the blow. It wouldn't take long before the rest of the gang swamped around the lanky man, regardless of how many times he told them he was fine.

After the fifth examination from Velma, Shaggy waved them off, beginning to feel a bit overwhelmed. "Like, c'mon guys! I've already been looked over plenty of times! Nothing is wrong!" He insisted, sitting at the dining table with everyone else, Velma having just stepped away from checking his head.

"There aren't any injuries, that's for sure," Velma said, sitting beside of him, looking over him in a thoughtful manner. "Still, it's awfully strange how you just fell over so suddenly like that."

"Maybe you're just a little overworked, Shag," Freddie suggested. "I don't imagine being a coach is all that easy."

"That's probably it," Elsa interjected. "If it's been awhile since you've done any actual teaching, Coach, it's safe to say that your body is trying to get used to it again."

The lanky man scratched his head, thinking a little bit. He didn't feel worse for wear when that happened, but he also didn't want to worry his friends any more than he already had. With a small grin and a weary laugh, he nodded. "Like, that's probably it. Having a class before dinner probably distracted me or something."

Despite a small wave of laughter among everyone, there were still a couple of people who were worried, though kept it secret. If Shaggy looked and felt okay, then there was no reason to worry right? It was still concerning because no one knew why. Googie, with a raised eyebrow, turned to the detective, who sat across from her, eyeing the other man over some. "What do you think, detective?" She asked in a quiet, worried tone.

He remained quiet for a bit, not looking at her. After a few seconds, his grin flashed and he merely shrugged, turning to her. "It might just be exhaustion, like they said. I'm not a doctor, so unless he's dead, I wouldn't have a clue," He chuckled. That statement did little to make her feel better. With an uneasy glance back towards Shaggy, she sighed and fixed her hair idly with one hand. Nothing to fret about for now, at least.

During their dinner of some sort of quiche, Sibella had decided to speak up about a topic that Shaggy had not elaborated on. "So, Coach, if it's no trouble, could you please tell us how you, Scooby, and Googie met my Father?" Shaggy glanced upwards in the middle of his bite, first looking to the imploring vampire and then to Googie, who was looking at him back. Scooby was also looking to her for affirmation, which she gave with a small nod, mixed with a shrug. The rest of Mystery Incorporated had already heard the story, but they tensed up, wondering how she'd react. The detective looked their way, an eyebrow raised. It was obvious he was interested in hearing the story as well.

The other ghouls were very intrigued by this development too. Phantasma, not wanting to turn down a free opportunity for a free story, perked right up, eyes glued to her coach as she rested her chin in her hands, waiting eagerly. Winnie also perked up, becoming curious. "Hey, yeah! What happened between you and Bella's dad?" She'd ask, her words slightly muffled due to the fact she was eating with her mouth full.

Everyone was soon watching him, silently urging for the story. Even Miss Grimwood looked expectantly to the coach, a small, knowing smirk forming on her face. 'Like, does she know? Or does she just like watching me react under pressure or something?' Shaggy found himself asking to himself. After setting down his fork, Shaggy cleared his throat. "Well, uh... like, here's how Scooby, Scrappy, Googie, and I met the Count..."

The next few minutes would be Shaggy retelling the story of how he became a werewolf, with Googie adding in some points from her perspective, with Scooby concurring. Just like before, reactions were somewhat mixed, though from the ghouls' side, the most palpable emotion would be anger. Especially from Sibella, who's facial expression barely changed. While she did listen with interest, her somewhat curious look became more unreadable and stone-faced. With how badly her hand was shaking, though, it was clear to say that she was not pleased. She made sure to put her dining utensils down, hiding her growing fury. The anger from a vampire was so feasible, you could cut it with a knife. Winnie, who was much less subtle, looked less than pleased by this. On one hand, Shaggy had been a werewolf. On the other, it was against his will. And for what? A dumb road race for monsters? If she'd have known that this was going on, she would have immediately gone to her Papa and told him.

Tanis listened to the story with her eyes wide, rapt with attention. She was clearly shocked and horrified that Sibella's dad would do such a thing. After all, she had met the Count many times before, and he had always seemed so nice and pleasant! Why would he do such a thing to their coach? She was thankful that it didn't seem to leave any lasting effects on him, at the very least. Still... being turned into a werewolf against one's will didn't sound fun.

Elsa, Phanty, and the detective seemed to share the general emotion of vast intrigue. In Elsa's case, she was mostly wondering how (and why) the full moon could possess such powers to randomly decide when someone would become a werewolf under it. Was it even random? This was something she'd have to study about, surely. The detective's train of thought was more or less the same, minus the fact that his face was split into an expression of what could best be described as maniacal glee. To him, nothing was more fascinating to him currently than learning about gaining a werewolf curse without actually being cursed. As for Phantasma, her thought process didn't have as much depth as the other two. She was merely captivated by the amazing story the two were telling!

After a bit of time, Shaggy awkwardly ended his story with, "So like... that's it, I guess. All in all, a very weird story."

"I'm just glad that we don't have to see Dracula again..." Googie gulped, quickly turning her gaze to Sibella. "Um, n-no offense of course!"

Sibella didn't turn her gaze to the blond, looking as if she was doing everything to keep herself from flying off the edge, so to speak. "Oh, none taken, I assure you," She replied, her voice sounding quite cold. "I sincerely apologize about my Father. If I'd have known sooner..." The vampire quickly stood up, quickly turning away and moving out of the dining area. "If you all will excuse me, I have a letter to send to Father," She continued, almost sounding as if she was suppressing a growl. No one dared to try and stop her, not even Miss Grimwood. The aura she was emitting was frightening enough as it was.

It wasn't until the room was one vampire short did anyone speak up anymore. "...well I know someone who won't be getting any Christmas cards this year," Daphne muttered, grinning a little at her own joke.

"Well, that was an awesome story, regardless, Shaggy!" Phantasma giggled. "It does suck that you all got kidnapped like that, plus having to go through with that awful race? My dad's very lucky he doesn't have to partake in that. Glad you all made it out okay and taught him a lesson or two!"

"If he did do something, though, I wouldn't have hesitated to teach him a lesson myself," Winnie huffed, growling some. She did flash Shaggy an apologetic look, though.

"All I know is, I have a very stern letter to send to my parents," Elsa lamented, deciding to keep her interests to herself. After all, it was clear that they had been through a lot, and being reminded of it or showing any levity towards it probably wasn't very polite.

"Same here!" Tanis interjected. "I can't believe Mummy-Daddy would act so mean for a race! He was no better than those Calloway boys!" She huffed, crossing her arms.

"Like, girls, relax! This all happened years ago," Shaggy commented, moving his eyes from one girl to the next. "I'm just thankful we don't have to go through with that again."

"I'm not willing to forgive Dracula just yet, but as long as he doesn't butt into our lives again, I'll be thankful," Googie sighed, turning her attention towards where Sibella walked out from. "Is she gonna be okay..?" She asked cautiously.

"Oh don't worry about her," Miss Grimwood said, waving her hand. "I don't assume she's going to do much more than send a very strongly worded letter to her Father." She took a sip of her drink, thinking a couple of seconds before continuing. "...however, if she remains in her room, I'd be cautious about checking up on her. A brooding vampire is one that is filled with emotions. Sibella will be ready to talk about her emotions when she feels like she can. Until then, we'll just have to wait."

Dinner soon ended afterwards, since everyone had finished eating. Just as the detective was about to question Shaggy about the whole race, he was saved when someone had knocked on the door, gaining everyone's attention. As the octopus butler walked himself to the door to answer, Freddie spoke up. "Who could be stopping by this late?"

"That's probably the Colonel," Miss Grimwood answered, a snort of disdain coming from a certain red-haired werewolf, who soon got up and began to head to her room. After a glare towards Winnie, she continued. "He's probably here to schedule the volleyball tournament, and meet up with his replacement."

"Like, I remember him. Is he still as stuck up as usual?" Shaggy joked, sharing a laugh with the headmistress.

"I doubt he's ever going to loosen up, Coach."

The rest of the Mystery gang decided to stick with Shaggy, curious as to who this Colonel was. The detective was going to join them, but was soon flanked by Phantasma, who eagerly suggested that he tell her about the crime scene they had investigated earlier. More specifically, the dead body. At first, Velma wasn't too keen on the fact that he quickly agreed to do so, beginning to head up the stairs after Phanty flew into the ceiling, laughing in her usual giddy manner.

"They wanted to help us out, right? Might as well share the details with those who are willing," He answered simply before heading out. Velma's intuition told her that the ghost girl asking about the crime scene would not lead to her helping with the mystery, but she decided against bringing that point up to him. Phanty was nice and all, but she was a loose cannon. The only thing more dangerous than one of them is two of them in the same room.

Miss Grimwood, Shaggy, and the rest of the humans seated themselves in the living room, watching as the octopus butler walked in with the Colonel, still dressed in his navy blue suit, medals His mustache was still long and stringy underneath his long hooked nose, although it was clear that age was starting to take it's toll on the man. Despite that, he still carried himself with immense dignity and pride.

The look of pride soon wore off as his eyes fell upon the group of humans, recognizing two specific ones out of the whole group. Mainly, the tallest one and his dog. The look on his face was comparable to one who had just stuck his nose in a garbage can. This look quickly went away as the man cleared his throat. "Coach Rogers. I see we meet once again," He began, offering a hand. Shaggy quickly shook it, smiling politely.

"Like, good to see you again too, Colonel," He answered. Afterwards, Scooby took the hand with his paw, confusing the Colonel, but returning it.

"Er, likewise." His attention looked around to everyone else. "Are these fellow staff members?" He asked, sounding quite perplexed, soon taking a seat that was offered by the butler.

"Oh no, Colonel," Miss Grimwood replied. "They're all here to assist the local town with a few... attacks that have been occurring there, lately. I'm merely allowing them a place to stay and work until they solve it."

"A pleasure to meet you, Colonel," Freddie began, pointing between everyone in the group. "My name is Freddie, and that's Velma, Daphne, and Googie." Everyone gave a small wave to the man, who saluted them back briefly as a greeting.

The Colonel would then look a bit apprehensive about the headmistress's comment. "I see... well, good luck with that, in any case. That's one good thing about being in the middle of nowhere. I do have to protect my students, as I'm sure you understand Miss Grimwood." After a bit, he cleared his throat and straightened up. "However, right now I am here to discuss our upcoming game, if that's no problem."

With a nod, Shaggy leaned forward a bit. "Like, what do ya wanna discuss?"

________________________________________

It took every ounce of self control for Sibella not to slam her door shut and let out a loud exasperated scream. Rather, she gripped her fists tightly and let out an exasperated groan. She absolutely could not believe the nerve of him! Hadn't he sunken low enough without having to resort to kidnapping people for his dumb hobby? The vampire stormed over to her desk, digging out a spare sheet of paper and reaching for a pen, starting to write a letter. Her scrawl was a bit messy, due to rage, but she didn't seem to care about that.

At least, she wouldn't care about it until she heard something clatter against her floor. Her hand froze in place as her eyes widened, her face turning from anger to fear. Another small clatter got her to turn around towards her coffin, seeing a suitcase tremble around some. Sibella slowly set down her pen and made her way over to the suitcase. It was still closed tightly from the day she first arrived.

As the vampire reached her hand out towards the twitching suitcase, it seemed to pause, as if expecting her. She hesitated, as if it was going to suddenly attack her. She quickly moved her hands to the clasps and undid them, slowly opening the case up. Her large eyes seemed to widen some more upon what she saw. She had almost forgotten she had packed this, or rather, she wanted to forget she packed this.

Without waiting a second longer, she grabbed the item in her bag before it could move around some more, clinging it tightly to her chest. This had to be the reason for all of her nightmares, right? Had to be. Sibella moved towards her door and quickly opened it, peeking her head out. No one was in the hall, and she could hear talking. One conversation was coming from Phantasma's room, though music would play out in between every few sentences. Good. That would keep her distracted.

It was better to be safe than sorry, however, so she decided to levitate, though just barely. It was best to make as little noise as possible. As she carefully floated herself down the stairwell into the foyer, she peered her head just barely into the living room. Miss Grimwood and the others were having a conversation with Colonel Calloway. A perfect distraction, though she knew he wouldn't be sticking around for long. She had to hurry and hide this... particular item.

Thinking quickly, she hurried off towards the laboratory. Despite the door creaking open some, it didn't attract anyone closer to her, so she hurried down further into it. She was greeted with the dark room, barely lit by small candles that never seemed to burn out. Sibella began to look around, trying to find the best spot to hide it. The first thing she did was look towards her desk. That wouldn't do, there wasn't anywhere to hide it with her desk. Sibella's eyes then darted towards the cauldrons. Nearby shelves and boxes kept ingredients for potion work, but all that would do was make a big mess. Besides, with how often everyone went over there, it wouldn't be long before someone found it.

She then turned to the bookshelves. Debatable, since no one's really looked through a book there in awhile. With the layer of dust masked onto the shelves, it would be easy to hide her item. It would still stand out, though, if she put it there. Moving her gaze to the side, she figured it out. Rather than hiding it in the shelf, she would just have to hide it behind the shelf. Thankfully, the shelves weren't pushed up too close to the wall, but it would still take a bit of effort in hiding it in such a place.

Sibella got to her knees and started to shove the item inwards. It was much tighter than it looked, but thankfully managed to hide it away, almost out of sight. If anyone bothered to get really close to the back of the shelf, they might be able to see it, but other than that, it was a pretty good spot.

A thought occurred to the girl as she began to levitate once more, starting to move back to her room. She could easily destroy it, as she had the capabilities. She shook her head upon thinking that, though, knowing better. First of all, it was her Father's, and despite the fact that she was still rather angry with him, this was a very important item for him to protect, and he didn't even know that she had taken it from him in the first place. Incurring the wrath of her father wouldn't do her any favors, especially since this item was incredibly important. And also very dangerous. The vampire quickly closed the door behind her and sighed, moving back to her desk.

'Hopefully the bad dreams will stop, at least,' Sibella thought to herself, continuing her letter.

____________________________________________

"Burns and scratch marks?! Oh how gruesome!" Phantasma giggled madly, floating at least a couple of feet off of the floor, making the detective have to look up at her.

"Oh it was. Any hair remaining on him was smoking and singed so badly, I'm surprised he even had any hair," The man replied, grinning in an excitable manner. He did so love to share details of his investigations, even to a ghost that was just as crazy as he was. The man was leaning against the nearby wall, hands remaining in his hoodie pockets.

"How much blood was there?" The ghost asked curiously, her voice just as eager for more details.

"There definitely wasn't a shortage, though most of it was around the body, as to be expected," The detective mused, almost disappointed that there wasn't more.

This didn't stop the phantom from giggling crazily. "Eww, gross! I bet that whole place just reeked!" She floated closely, face to face with the other man, both of them sharing wide smiles. "Tell me, was he missing any limbs? Fingers? Maybe something spilling out of him?!"

"Busted nose, though it was kinda hard to tell due to the fact that he had no face on him." The detective's grin seemed to widen in amusement as Phanty reacted in shock.

"Woooah! No face, really? I can't imagine being without a face!" Phanty spoke aloud, crossing her legs as she 'sat' in midair. "Whatever's out there, it must be mad as hell!"

"That was the case with the other one we found. No face, scratch marks, burns, all that jazz." He put his hand on his chin, looking marginally more thoughtful. "I'm not sure if that's a motive or not. All it proves to me is that this thing is persistent, whatever it is."

"Well, let's hope you and the others figure out what it is before it finds us! I mean, I'm pretty sure I'm safe, since I'm incorporeal and all that, but it still wouldn't be pleasant to have that face burner come around here," Phantasma rambled, shrugging and grinning.

"I'm sure we will. I believe we're getting closer." With that, he stood straight and turned his attention to the large organ in the room. "On a different note, I take it that's your organ?"

Phantasma brightened up, giggling madly as she floated to the organ, sitting herself down at the seat. "Yup yup! Well, sorta, anyways. Technically it's the school's and Miss Grimwood's, but she lets me play it! This is technically the music room, but I stay around here so much, it's practically my bedroom at this point!" After saying that, she began to play a small, haunting refrain on her organ. The man listened to it, smiling and enjoying the music. After a minute, she stopped and turned around, returning to laughing. "Do you play anything?"

The man merely shrugged, eyeing over the old, yet very intricate, detail of the organ. "Well, sort of. Not an organ though. Used to want to play in a band, so I learned guitar." At this point, he moved a hand out of his hoodie pocket, showing his fingers, which were very calloused and scarred. "I decided towards a different career choice when that didn't work out."

Phantasma eyed over his hands a bit before getting an idea. "Oh really? One second!" She soon got up and floated over to a large walk in closet, rummaging around. The man raised an eyebrow and watched her, curious as to what she was searching for. In a few seconds time, she came back, holding a dusty old acoustic guitar, which she quickly handed over to the detective. While it looked old, it was still in perfect condition.

After giving it a quick glance, he turned to look at the ghost girl, who was now eagerly watching him. It was clear she was expecting him to play. With a small shrug, he grinned and pulled the strap on, straightening out the guitar. He'd strum the strings a couple of times, using his other hand to tune. Once that was done, he began to play, shutting his large, owl like eyes. The song he decided to play was also a bit of a haunting refrain, with almost a Spanish feel to it. He wouldn't keep the song to simple strums and chords. He wanted to play.

He kept going for about a minute as well, stopping and looking up at the Phantasma, who soon began to giggle and applaud for him. "Wow, that was... awesome!" She fixed herself on the seat, her body facing the organ once more, but turning her head to look back towards him. "Say, wanna try and see if we can work out a duet together? Or I guess in my case, a 'boo-et?'" She laughed at her own pun, which the man followed with a wide smile.

"Sounds like a scream," He answered, giving a few idle strums to the old guitar.

__________________________________________________

"The 30th of October will work just fine, correct?"

"Like, sounds good to me. What do you think, Miss Grimwood?"

"Works perfectly for us."

The meeting was moving to a conclusion as the Colonel confirmed the date. For the most part, no one else really had anything to add, and merely observed. Thankfully, the meeting wasn't too long or boring, lasting about five minutes.

"Excellent. I will be expecting you," He concluded, standing up and offering another handshake to Shaggy, which he took.

"Sounds cool, man. Like, may the best school win!"

With a somewhat smug grin, the Colonel replied. "Don't you worry, Coach Rogers. We intend to." With a small tip of his cap, he bid the others good day and left the building, heading back to his own school. Scooby and Shaggy scratched their heads as Miss Grimwood spoke up. "Well, I'll be expecting you to whip those girls into good shape, Coach! After all, you did such a good job last time, I assume it'll be no problem."

"Yeah, Shaggy! It shouldn't a problem. They're already really talented, and with you helping, they're bound to beat that military school," Daphne concurred enthusiastically.

"I have to admit, I didn't believe it at first when you said you used to be a coach. But now that I've observed how you do it, I think it's safe to say that we all have a lot of confidence in you two and the rest of the girls," Velma added, smiling at gently at him.

"Reah, Raggy! Re got this!" Scooby said, wagging his tail as he beamed up at his best friend, who returned the smile.

"Wow, like, thanks everyone! I know we'll all do the best we can. The girls are already showing lots of improvement. Like, we'll win for sure!" He added, chuckling some.

"That's the spirit!' Freddie beamed, adding in a thumbs up for good measure.

_____________________________________________

...

I see now.

The skinny one.

He has the most experience out of everyone else.

I am quite lucky to have gazed inside of his mind.

...

But this is only the beginning for me.

I know more than before, but not enough.

Never enough.

If I want more, I must delve deeper.

But who?

...

Oh.

Perfect.

They won't suspect a thing.

I will have to wait.

It will be torturous.

I do not like waiting.

No no no no.

But it must be done.

Until then, I must wait.

...

_________________________________________________

Author's Notes: To be honest, I don't like how short I made this chapter. It took me forever to figure out any sort of direction, and even then I don't think I added in enough. Writer's block sucks, so sorry if I made you all wait for a short chapter that probably isn't written well. Regardless, I hope you all enjoy it! Leave a review on what you think of the story so far and what I could be doing better. Until then, thanks for reading my works!

#scooby doo #scooby doo fanfiction #scooby doo monster menagerie #dylan writes #fanfiction #iunno

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eretzyisrael · 7 years ago

Link

The Jewish Food Society wants to preserve your grandma’s recipes — before they’re lost forever By Josefin Dolsten

August 25, 2017 1:12pm

TENAFLY, N.J. (JTA) — Ayala Hodak usually cooks the way her mother taught her: adding a pinch of spice here or relying on her eyes — never a measuring cup! — to judge how much liquid to add.

But on a recent Tuesday, she was being much more meticulous.

At her spacious home in this suburban town less than 15 miles from New York City, Hodak, 52, who grew up in an Iranian family in Israel, measured the amount of salt and pepper she added to a stew. She also paused to demonstrate how thickly to cut a piece of beef.

Her reason for the precision: Hodak’s recipe was being recorded by a new nonprofit, the Jewish Food Society, which aims to be an archive of Jewish recipes from around the world.

Its kibbutz-born founder, who once promoted Israeli culture as an employee of the Israeli Consulate in New York, was inspired by the diversity of food traditions in Israel and her desire to preserve them in the Diaspora.

“I realized there is an urgency in capturing these stories because the older generation is about to leave the world, and many of these recipes are labor- and time-consuming in a way that we should really protect them,” the society’s founder, Naama Shefi, told JTA. “These are skills that would just disappear if no one could capture them in a methodic way.”

The project, which launched officially in March and receives financial support from several Jewish foundations, has added over a dozen recipes to its online archive, and more are on the way. Along with the recipes are photographs and stories of the cook’s family history, as well as how he or she learned to make the dish.

Each week, the group interviews a chef and takes down his or her story. If distance permits, a New York- or Israel-based employee will meet with the cook in person; if not, they communicate long distance. All ingredients are measured, and dishes are then re-created in a test kitchen and adjusted accordingly.

(Continue to site for a video of a recipe)

Though some participants work in the food industry — Hodak is the manager and co-owner of Taboon, a Hell’s Kitchen restaurant serving Middle Eastern and Mediterranean-inspired food — others are home cooks.

Shefi, 36, came up with the idea after a Shabbat meal in 2005 at the home of her now-husband’s grandmother, who was born in Turkey but also lived in Greece and South Africa prior to immigrating to Israel with her family.

“The flavors really represented all of their previous immigration stories and journeys, and some worlds that do not even exist anymore,” said Shefi, who lives on New York’s Lower East Side. “It was such a vivid expression of disappearing worlds, and of bitter and sweet memories. It was just moving, so I told him, let’s just spend a day with her try to capture a few recipes. It was just really inspiring.”

Shefi has always had an interest in food, though she did not get it at home.

“Good food wasn’t part of my childhood,” said Shefi, who grew up on Kibbutz Givat Hashlosha in central Israel. “Between the [kibbutz’s] communal dining room and the fact that my mom is not the best cook in the world, good food was out of reach.”

But as a young girl, she would urge her parents to take her to Tel Aviv’s Carmel Market or a nearby Yemenite neighborhood to try different types of cuisines.

“It became my life’s passion,” Shefi said. “At the beginning just because it tasted really good, but later because I realized it tells a fantastic story about families and people and cultures.”

In 2008, when she took the consulate job, she could use that passion in a professional way. Having just graduated from the New School with a master’s degree in film, Shefi was tasked with promoting Israeli culture. She decided to do so through food, hosting Israel-themed dinners, wine tastings and panels in New York. She also organized trips to the Jewish state for American food writers.

In 2013, Shefi launched the Kubbeh Project, a three-week pop-up in the East Village serving kubbeh soup, an Iraqi Jewish dish featuring meat-filled semolina dumplings in vegetable broth. The project received wide media coverage and had people lining up for hours for a taste of the delicacy.

“The first day I came to the venue at 2 p.m., I saw this line around the block, almost like a ‘Shakespeare in the Park’ line,” she said, referring to the popular free performances in Central Park. “And I was just amazed that these people are waiting for us. This line never stopped for these three weeks and people stood hours and hours in the snow.”

Hodak’s ghormeh sabzi, a beef stew with herbs that is served with rice. (Josefin Dolsten)

Now the Jewish Food Society, for which Shefi works full time, provides a way to combine her two passions: food and storytelling.

“For a while I was really interested in storytelling through filmmaking,” she said. “Still my main interest is storytelling, but the medium changed to food.”

In addition to the weekly cooking session, the nonprofit puts on larger-scale events, such as a Passover sederthat showcased three Mexico-born Jewish chefs, and Schmaltzy, a yearly storytelling event where people share the stories behind family recipes. A Moroccan-style Mimouna, a bread-filled celebration held the day after Passover, is in the works, Shefi said.

Her family are Polish Jews, not Sephardi, but Shefi said such distinctions blur in Israeli kitchens.

“Israel is a not just a melting pot, it’s a pressure cooker, so a Polish girl like me considered kubbeh as my own,” she told The New York Times.

Shefi’s long-term goal for the Jewish Food Society extends beyond the archive of recipes. She wants to establish a center for Jewish food in New York, where visitors would be able to take cooking classes and learn about their family’s culinary histories. Shefi describes her vision as “the James Beard Foundation for Jewish food.”

For now, the Jewish Food Society provides a way for Jews to engage with their culture, Shefi said.

“These [recipes and stories] are just huge parts of our lives, of our history as a people, and I feel that for many people that are less connected to Jewish culture and Jewish life, it’s a very inviting window to engage and to explore their identity,” she said.

Food also provides a lens through which to understand Jewish history, she added.

“I feel that recipes really carry our cultural DNA because they tell stories not just about a particular time in history, but also about how people used to live, how people used to celebrate, how people used to mourn, how people used to get together,” Shefi said. “It’s not just about the flavor and the food, it’s really about the experience.”

For her part, Hodak is excited to have her mother’s dishes — including ghormeh sabzi, a herb beef stew that her family would eat for Shabbat dinner, and a yogurt soup with cucumber and mint eaten on Shavuot — recorded for future generations.

“I thought it’s a great opportunity to spread my tradition,” she said, “to talk about my mother’s food and to keep it alive.”

#Israel #Persia #Jewish #Recipes #Culture #Cooking

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