#these exiled years

[clatterbane]

One good thing that came out of today's early morning trip out for more bullshit bloodwork: I found some promising-looking vegetables, which are pretty exotic by local standards but remind me of home! One of the benefits of living in an immigrant-heavy neighborhood. (Doesn't really matter where from IME, just as long as it's got longer warmer growing seasons there.) Hasty lap shot of today's haul when I was about to head home.

Much better view after getting home! Some nice young examples of one common Middle Eastern variety of summer squash, along with some okra. Which was borderline overgrown by my standards, but it didn't feel like it was going all tough and dried out yet--and it's the nicest fresh okra my admittedly near-hermit ass has spotted in years.

On the way home this morning, I got Mr. C to drop me at the nearby shopping center, so I could pick up an Instabox package (shoes) and enjoy the weather and a little exercise while "strolling" the rest of the way.

It was still early enough that at least half the businesses weren't even open yet, but that also meant that things were enough less busy that I felt like I could get in more easily for a better look at a couple of stores I'd wanted to check out more. One of them a halal butcher shop with attached fruit and vegetable shop just across from there, obviously run by the same people. Both are usually mobbed enough that I haven't felt like shoving myself in--especially with the chair.

The butcher side was still not looking so accessible, even with only a couple of other customers in there, plus a few workers finishing getting things set up for the day. I also figured that I didn't really need to go on an early-morning meat buying spree in hot weather--much less when my backpack was already completely full of shoebox, and carrying capacity was already pretty limited. So, no meat for me.

The other side did, however, lure me over with some gorgeous plums. Which sadly turned out to still be so hard that I noped away from those. Yes, I am that produce prodder, and I can be particular. Was hoping they would have some nice leafy greens out front today, but no such luck.

But, then I did spot the okra and then the squash.

I didn't grab much today, since I am the only one in the house who really likes either thing. Plus the okra was running the equivalent of US$7.69/kg, or roughly $3.50/lb. 😓 Squash was $2.90/ or $1.30/lb by comparison. I got away at about $2.50 for both of them together, which really wasn't at all bad by local standards. I am also cheap as hell sometimes and also still mentally comparing with prices on locally grown squash and okra in a much more rural area 15-20 years ago when I was last buying anything back home.

I am also now lowkey pining for some Floyd County peaches, and J. Random Farmer's cantaloupes that he's selling off his truck by the road. Then there's the fresh just-picked regional variety corn. 🙄

If that okra is any good and I see more there in nearly as good a shape, I may have to pick up enough more to try pickling a few jars of it. That's one thing that I do miss sometimes, and I don't really want to try with the frozen stuff--which is usually better for cooking than what I see fresh anymore.

The produce side also carries a bunch of dried fruits and nuts, and some other loose bulk goods including some interesting-looking Afghan brown sugar in like fist-sized chunks which I'd never seen before, but made me think of panela or jaggery. May need to try me some of that.

Also looks like the place to go if you want a sack of pumpkin seeds or similar at reasonable prices! Today I did not, and also did not particularly want to carry that home in my lap because that would have been the only place for it.

Their produce is all out front, but I did go ahead and bull my way back through the rest of the store to get a good look at the dry goods. Needed to shove a couple of obstructions out of the way in the narrow aisles, but I was the only customer in there at that point and idgaf. It was well worth a look around. May need to go back another morning after a few things that looked good.

There is also a spice shop a couple of doors down, which always smells heavenly to go past but is usually so packed that even Mr. C hesitates to peruse it on foot. There were few enough people in there too that I had to roll through and case the joint. Did look and smell like some quality stuff at decent prices. Also some pretty good looking bulk bin dried fruits and nuts and other snack items, and some assorted Middle Eastern sweets. I didn't buy anything there either today, but will probably need to make a morning raid on that too before too long.

But yeah, the day was not all bad. I also got to see a delightful young Boxer out for a walk on the way home.

[pariahfox]

Finally going to try to embark on a new study plan, of slightly more structured DIY SFI.

The actual classes are free--but logistics, neurospiciness, and rolling burnout have been getting in the way of enrolling in any. Even what distance options I was finding for our area. But yeah, that is at least intended to help get immigrants up and at least semi-functional in daily Swedish ASAP.

As befits my nerdy, "unusual relationship to language in general" ass, I am currently all over the map in terms of skills here. Deciphering some written Icelandic and spotting German cognates, sure! Scanning "normal" written material, and at least getting the gist of maybe 50%-90% depending on subject matter? Usually yes, by this point. Formulate a halfway comprehensible e-mail with some vocabulary help from a dictionary? It'll take at least 3x longer than in English, but I can mostly manage. Just don't ask me to carry on a basic conversation, or do much more than (badly) order some coffee.

The osmosis approach really hasn't been helping so much with this. Neither has the fact that I haven't been able to get out and interact with people even anywhere near as much as my awkwardness could handle otherwise. Honestly haven't had the best luck trying to figure out how exactly to remedy any of this either.

So, my idea to get my ass in gear now is to pick up the appropriate textbooks (likely through less-than-official means) and follow along with at least one of the frequently recommended folks like Peter SFI covering this shit less officially online.

Also, suck it up and practice on the household captive native speaker more than I have been up to this point. If anybody is used to ridiculousness coming out of my mouth, it would be him. It just feels harder when it is someone that you do care what they think of you, who was also at near-native level in your primary language when you met them over 20 years ago. 😬

There are obviously the executive function pitfalls to keep in mind, but yeah. Trying to get more organized on my own is probably a better approach than doing much on a more formal basis. So, we'll have to see how putting an hour or two a day into this semi-structured approach might go.

My brain is pretty fried tonight, so I intend to start into that tomorrow. (Cue "Jane Says"... 🙄)

[senvurii]

oh bedrock bros. i wish you could come home

[indimiart]

thank you for reminding me what the sun feels like

They’ve both got a lot of years of missing sunlight. Lucky they get to relearn warmth again together🫶🏼

[janadoesstuffwrong]

Something that I think ppl who ship both sukka and zutara don't acknowledge enough is the fact that poor Hakoda met both his kids' future spouses on the same day, in the same place and that place just happened to be prison.

[boneshine]

Brush my hair

Read my lines

It’s time to go

Wear my suit

Put the make up on

Put on a show

Up, up, up, to the Heaviside layer

Up, up, up, I'm going straight up

Take my lunch Lose my lunch It's a shaky start

I'm old Deut

Now he's old Deut

I've lost the part

Down, down, down, to the center of the Earth

Down, down, down, I'm going straight down

[theokapuco]

A broken hero

[thegreatyin]

when the interactive fiction has an option you can't select as part of the narrative >>>

[doodlebloo]

"Yeah, you probably wouldnt exile me." "I wouldnt." "Because I would've actually listened to you, and done what you said."

^ This line kills me because it's true. Even if cTubbo has 100% certainty that cTommy is leading him to his own death, he goes along willingly. He calls it respect, but it isn't that, and it isn't even trust. It's a blind devotion that, despite it all, cTubbo never lost.

It's hurting cTubbo here to realize that cTommy doesn't share that blind devotion. He would take a thousand bullets for cTubbo, but his principles come first. His need to not let cDream continue to bully LManberg won out over his devotion to cTubbo, and that's really the root of the argument here.

cTommy didn't really see that, so he didn't apologize properly, and by the end of it all cTubbo starts to realize that, if he (in his eyes) isn't cTommy's priority anymore, cTommy shouldn't be his.

cTommy, in his mind, is putting cTubbo first still. cTubbo and LManberg are synonymous to him. They are home and comfort and his reason to wake up in the morning, and cTubbo being president really helps cement the two together in his mind. cTommy wants to get cDream to leave Lmanberg - and, by extension, cTubbo - alone. He wants to make sure that the future of Lmanberg - cTubbo's future - is a safe one. But, crucially, he communicates none of this, at least not in those uncertain terms.

Of course, it's a lot more complex than this, cTubbo has many other lives to think about. But I think if this argument between them had gone differently, cTubbo would've once again thrown away all logical thought in favor of cTommy.

(And, for what it's worth, we do see cTommy realize that cTubbo IS always going to be his priority, as seen in the disc finale, so it gets resolved eventually a few lifetimes of torture too late)

[ctommy-antigone]

ON EXILE AND LOSING YOURSELF.

Sources: ship of theseus, britannica / @.thunderbottle / rat a tat, fall out boy / silhouettes, shadows and reflections, mission vista / i don't know, ghost quartet / window of awareness, holly warburton / exile vilify, the national / @.waddei / rat a tat, fall out boy / event horizon, wiktor jackowski / tommyinnit tvtropes page

[clatterbane]

Who'd have thought. I just deliberately added some of the mushy-cooking orange sweet potatoes to a grocery order basket. 🥴

Eating them as a vegetable honestly makes me kind of sick, and usually orange sweet potatoes are one of my few hard food NOPEs. Taste and texture both. But, they are actually usable for making pie/baked puddings and the like. Mash that shit up and pretend it's pumpkin puree, basically. And those are much more readily and cheaply available here than suitable squash.

One of these days I will psych myself up to trying to make one kind of Korean sesame-encrusted basically mochi flour doughnut with Chief Gross Vegetable in the dough, but that's more work and I'm kinda craving something more typically seasonal in my neck of the woods.

I resorted to this a time or two in the UK as well. (Hell, the frozen premashed was a decent option there to avoid having to work with the things nearly as much.) These are apparently the depths I will plunge to for sweet baked goods, on occasion.

[neloangelo0]

....happy jostiversary @exilethegame (I'm a month late)

[littlerune]

i hate the "banish the wardens from orlais" option because it's like.... by what authority?? i get it, the inquisition is framing itself to be a powerhouse but i feel like they still don't have the ability to banish people from a kingdom they don't rule lmao

[ranticore]

sorry if u already posted this. but is there a side by side comparison of cuinn/ice storm over kosa before and after becoming a king? im interested in how that process would change a harpy

yes there is!! it's old but shows it off well i think

here's cuinn with his old king thunder strike, when cuinn was a tiercel

the main changes are 1. size, a king is about 1.5 - 2x the size of a regular harpy, this is true for all types, 2. beak - it gets bigger and turns the face less human, 3. streamer feathers grow longer and more pronounced, this is what makes up their mane.

i did once write up a timeline of changes but i don't remember exactly how long it takes. it's definitely more rapid than you'd think, a couple of months. the most noticeable feature (i.e the beak) develops last, because if your established kings see you turning into one they'll treat you as a potential threat. so the winning strategy is to keep it under wraps for as long as possible before very quickly (one month ish) changing and immediately challenging an established king. it is at this stage that most new kings die.

before that final big change the regular cob or pen seems to have an increased appetite and more prolific feathering, but that can be excused by other factors and isn't necessarily a kingification warning sign until they start getting bigger

[netmors]

Last year, after watching the Ahsoka series, I discovered Karyn as a character (I haven't finished the books yet, but I got obsessed with her regardless), and imagined her meeting Hera Syndulla after joining the New Republic.

Needless to say, when I discovered your Eleventh Fleet AU after that, it turned me into a fan of your art and head canon. :D

Karyn and Hera have… Let's say, a complex and confusing relationship, but they often have to work together.

“Spectre-2” and “Seven” cannot stand each other, but they have been very diplomatically trying to get along with each other for the last five years. True, they don’t always succeed.

Thank you, glad you like "Eleventh Fleet AU".

[the-ind1gen0us-jude4n]

יום העצמאות

On this day, 76 years ago, the Jewish people emerged from exile. The tragedy of the Holocaust was still only three years ago.

On this day, 76 years ago, the Jewish people finally regained their right to self determination and self governance.

On this day, 76 years ago, the Jewish people reclaimed thousands of years of history, and established their state.

On this day, 76 years ago, the Jewish people emerged from the most costly and horrific genocide in human history.

On this day, 76 years ago, the Jewish people were faced with several invading Arab armies, wanting to take our right to self determination and our land away from us once again, we would be victorious.

After nearly two thousand years of exile, it is important to remember the millions of fallen Jews who died for their people during these tough two millennia. It is also important to remember those who were killed due to people wanting to take our land away from us again, and those who were killed because of terrorist acts of violence.

We must remain proud of our history, how we got our land back, and how we fought with blood, sweat and tears to get it back from Arab, Ottoman and British colonists. And we must remain sure, that something as detrimental and tragic as the Holocaust, or two thousand years of exile never happens again, Never again!

"A people once liberated will not easily return to the ghetto" - Napoleon Bonaparte.