#this could help if anyone is dealing with drought

[beardedmrbean]

Agigea, Tuzla, Costinesti, Eforie, Mangalia and Vama Veche have been the most affected with hundreds of homes flooded and many streets submerged.

There has been significant damage to property in a string of towns along Romania's eastern coast after torrential rain caused extensive flooding.

Agigea, Tuzla, Costinesti, Eforie, Mangalia and Vama Veche have been the most affected with hundreds of homes flooded and many streets submerged.

In Venus, tourists staying at one hotel found their cars full of water on Saturday morning.

And the popular tourist resort of Vama Veche is currently without electricity and an extensive cleanup operation is underway to repair the beach.

"Biblical flood! It started at about 1:00 am, a very powerful rain. You could not see one metre ahead," said one resident.

Local authorities say that despite the extensive property damage, there have been no reports of any casualties.

Firefighters in Dobruja received over 800 calls from people asking for help and since Friday night crews have been on the ground in 15 districts hardest hit by flooding.

Meteorologists say the cause of the downpours was a cyclone storm system that was stationary over the Black Sea, sucking up vast quantities of water. They say this phenomenon is rare and generally only happens once or twice a year.

A code orange rain warning will remain in place until at least Sunday and officials warn that the south of Constanta county is expected to see the highest level of flooding.

The cyclone is expected to move south to Greece and Turkey in the coming days.

[homo-house]

hey uh so I haven't seen anyone talking about this here yet, but

the amazon river, like the biggest river in the fucking world, in the middle of the amazon fucking rainforest, is currently going through its worst drought since the records began 121 years ago

picture from Folha PE

there's a lot going on but I haven't seen much international buzz around this like there was when the forest was on fire (maybe because it's harder to shift the narrative to blame brazil exclusively as if the rest of the world didn't have fault in this) so I wanted to bring this to tumblr's attention

I don't know too many details as I live in the other side of the country and we are suffering from the exact opposite (at least three cyclones this year, honestly have stopped counting - it's unusual for us to get hit by even one - floods, landslides, we have a death toll, people are losing everything to the water), but like, I as a brazilian have literally never seen pictures of the river like this before. every single city in the amazonas state is in a state of emergency as of november 1st.

pictures by Adriano Liziero (ig: geopanoramas)

we are used to seeing images of rio negro and solimões, the two main amazon river affluents, in all their grandiose and beauty and seeing these pictures is really fucking chilling. some of our news outlets are saying the solimões has turned to a sand desert... can you imagine this watery sight turning into a desert in the span of a year?

while down south we are seeing amounts of rain and hailstorms the likes of which our infrastructure is simply not built to deal with, up north people who have built everything around the river are at a loss of what to do.

the houses there that are built to float are just on the ground, people who depend on fishing for a living have to walk kilometers to find any fish that are still alive at all, the biodiversity there is at risk, and on an economic level it's hard to grasp how people from the northern states are getting by at all - the main means of transport for ANYTHING in that region is via the river water. this will impact the region for months to come. it doesnt make a lot of sense to build a lot of roads bc it's just better to use the waterway system, everything is built around or floats on the river after all. and like, the water level is so incomprehensibly low the boats are just STUCK. people are having a hard time getting from one place to another - keep in mind the widest parts of the river are over 10 km apart!!

this shit is really serious and i am trying not to think about it because we have a different kind of problem to worry about down south but it's really terrifying when I stop to think about it. you already know the climate crisis is real and the effects are beyond preventable now (we're past global warming, get used to calling it "global boiling"). we'll be switching strategies to damage control from now on and like, this is what it's come to.

I don't like to be alarmist but it's hard not to be alarmed. I'm sorry that I can't end this post with very clear intructions on how people overseas can help, there really isn't much to do except hope the water level rises soon, maybe pray if you believe in something. in that regard we just have to keep pressing for change at a global level; local conditions only would not, COULD NOT be causing this - the amazon river is a CONTINENTAL body of water, it spans across multiple countries. so my advice is spread the word, let your representatives know that you're worried and you want change towards sustainability, degrowth and reduced carbon emissions, support your local NGOs, maybe join a cause, I don't know? I recommend reading on ecological and feminist economics though

however, I know you can help the affected riverine families by donating to organizations dedicated to helping the region. keep in mind a single US dollar, pound or euro is worth over 5x more in our currency so anything you donate at all will certainly help those affected.

FAS - Sustainable Amazon Fundation

Idesam - Sustainable Developent and Preservation Institute of Amazonas

Greenpeace Brasil - I know Greenpeace isn't the best but they're one of the few options I can think of that have a bridge to the international world and they are helping directly

There are a lot of other smaller/local NGOs but I'm not sure how you could donate to them from overseas, I'll leave some of them here anyway:

Projeto Gari

Caritás Brasileira

If you know any other organizations please link them, I'll be sure to reblog though my reach isn't a lot

thank you so much for reading this to the end, don't feel obligated to share but please do if you can! even if you just read up to here it means a lot to me that someone out there knows

also as an afterthought, I wanted to expand on why I think this hasn't made big news yet: because unlike the case of the 2020 forest fires, other countries have to hold themselves accountable when looking at this situation. while in 2020 it was easier to pretend the fires were all our fault and people were talking about taking the amazon away from us like they wouldn't do much worse. global superpowers have no more forests to speak of so I guess they've been eyeing what latin america still has. so like this bit of the post is just to say if you're thinking of saying anything of the sort, maybe think of what your own country has done to contribute to this instead of blaming brazil exclusively and saying the amazon should be protected by force or whatever

[lint-beetle4]

Netflix Monkey King? I want to try. Of course when u get done with other requests😃

I would like to request a Monkey King x female celestial reader headcanons that contains fluff, slight angst and romance. Reader can be shy or any personality u want. If u do shy, they comfort Monkey King saying he doesnt need to be powerful or a god to fit in(trying to remember the plot from memory).

But I hope u do stay safe😊

Celestial Chaos (Netflix!Wukong X Fem!Celestial!Reader)

You hated the monkey that disrupted the celestial realm

Since its birth, the stone monkey had gained a name for itself, challenging gods, defying the heavens and terrifying spirits

The thing was clearly a force of chaos, a force of evil that refused to relent its tyraid

Despite it all, you couldn't help but feel pity for the poor Monkey King, the Sage that tried to fit in with heaven

It was clear his pride was merely protecting him, sending him whispers that he was enough, because he made himself be enough

The demons that fell to him proved his worth, but you knew the celestial realm wouldn't allow anyone of his nature in

Heaven only allowed obedience and order, traits the foolish sage could never have in his state

You weren't too different from him, if you could rationalize it too much

Your shy nature made you invisible, overlooked, excluded

People thought you were either uninteresting or too pompous to converse to the other gods

You never believed their words, but they still stung

You could only imagine how the sage felt when he fought his way to heaven only to be met with scorn

You did your best to soften the blows, acting in solidarity of someone who knew how the generals and gods could be

The foolish monkey became smitten, looking up to you like heaven didn't matter

In the back of your brain, you could say the same

A foolish monkey in your eyes transformed into an honest, proud man who was in over his head

His quest for power was a call for help, a plea that someone would accept him

You were briefly aware of the little mortal that followed him, ill intentions in the way she held herself, yet guilt consuming her

You could only hope that she would help the monkey

In the end, she revealed her true color, bound by a deal meant to bring the king to his knees

the foolish dragon didn't know the price he would pay, and neither did Wukong

With Wukong's revolt, you watched in horror, pleading to him, begging him to stop and calm himself

Yet, he was overcome with power, and the heavens did the only thing they could do: summon Buddha

In the end, Wukong was sealed, but a hidden blessing had been given to you: you were tasked with feeding him and ensuring he survived--something no other celestial wanted to do

You gave him snacks, peaches and all sorts of food that you could find, knowing the celestials wouldn't watch you--a lucky trait of being a doormat is that no one knows your small acts of defiance

As centuries passed by, the king had been freed, tasked with a journey

You had a recent mission to grant blessings to nearby village plagued by drought, and on your way there, you were met with a pair of arms hugging your from behind

There you saw him, your Wukong, the Sage Greater Than Heaven, freed at last

[cheeriecherrymain]

papa!Viktor blurb, anyone?

A/N: slowly, slowly, recovering from the creative drought ive been in

it's nowhere near a waterfall again, more like a frustrating dribble, BUT. It's something. But anyways, here is a Papa Viktor Thought Blurb (listen, my sister is almost three months old now, and I am so besotted with her, she's my favourite tiny person, and i am full of Caretaker Feelings)

Content Warning: 18+ MDNI (not explicit, but very very suggestive), afab!Reader, pregnancy, labour and birth (again, not explicit, but still with some depth), papa!Viktor, no beta no editing we simply die

Imagine Viktor, and him believing he'll be alone for his entire life - working so hard to make some kind of legacy for himself, putting everything he has into his creations and his machines. Every calculation, every experiment a labour of love.

This is how the world will remember his name.

At least, he hopes.

But then he meets you.

You're charming, he has to admit. You make friends wherever you go, and you have a weird habit of bringing people out of their shells. There's just...something about you that makes others want to bare their souls to you. Something that draws people in.

Like you have a tangible sort of gravity, and wherever you go, someone ends up in your orbit.

He won't mean much to you, he thinks, after conversing with you a couple times. You're creative, like he is, and you're enjoyable to talk to. But nothing more. Sooner or later, you'll continue on somewhere else, making waves and drawing attention. And in your wake, he will be left to sink. It's what expects.

Except...

You don't leave.

Your chats start out small. Short and sweet, a How are you today? wondered whenever you pass each other in the halls a couple times a month, curious about the goings-on of his life.

He never has anything interesting to tell you about. No adventures or tales to tell, nothing beyond the walls of a cramped and cluttered office.

You must be bored, he thinks.

But then you start seeking him out. Instead of just catching up for a couple minutes whenever you happen to walk past each other, you hunt him down in his office - and god, he wasn't lying when he'd told you it was cramped.

You're amazed he even has the space to think in there, with how tight it is. Yet you still shimmy yourself into the tiny room, careful not to disturb any piles of papers, and find a careful seat on a spot of open floor beside his desk. There's no room for a second chair, and you've always made it clear that you dislike standing when you're having a long conversation.

It's nice to sit down and rest somewhere together, you'd told him one time.

You grow closer after that. From seeing him a couple times a month, to a couple times a week, to literally every day. You don't seem to care that he never has anything 'exciting' to share with you, even going so far as to chastise him for calling himself uninteresting.

Your experiments are cool, you'd insisted, while leafing through one of his old journals. It's incredible to get to see how your mind works, and how creative and inventive you are. You have so many ideas, Viktor, and I really believe that they could help people.

Something changes in him, after that. He'd always been quieter around you, listening to your stories, and dutifully answering your questions: never quite letting you in.

Now he looks forward to seeing you.

His heart skips a beat every time he hears you knocking on his office door, a chipper little pattern reserved only for him. You know that he doesn't always like dealing with students after hours, so you'd come up with a way to let him know that it was you who was greeting him.

Things progress...surprisingly natural.

He's not subtle by any means, even if he thinks he is. The moment he realizes that he has feelings for you, all bets are off. His cheeks dust pink whenever you're around, his palms get sweaty and he fidgets, and the staring.

Looking at you with ill-contained admiration and affection.

You can't not kiss him.

You spend the next couple years having the time of your lives. Moving from classes and overbearing internships, to actively working on experiments. Collaborating with each other, drawing up ideas and debating functionality and form. The two of you get so heated when you're creating things together.

Neither of you are surprised when it devolves. Wide gestures and hasty chalkboard sketches, impassioned explanations and wild eyes - you bite your lip as you let your gaze trail over him, in all his dishevelled beauty. Hair a mess, tie crooked and loose, shirt partially unbuttoned, and sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

Many nights are spent like that, cooped up in his little laboratory, surrounded by sketches and blueprints and scribbles and stray notes. His fingertips digging into the soft of your skin as he kisses the breath out of you. The rhythmic clunking of his crooked desk most telling, as he draws forth your little squeaks and sighs of delight.

Absolutely ruining you, filling you, stretching you open. Feeling the way you tremble in his hands, held tight to his slender body as he reaches so deep into you that you'll feel him for days.

Sinking his teeth into the side of your neck when he finds his own release - to stay quiet, he tells you. But you both know it's his way of marking you.

Claiming you.

You're his. You're his person, his love, his partner. Your eyes only ever shine the way they do when you look at him.

Your body, splayed out and spread before him, quivering and gasping and covered in a thin sheen of sweat - his.

Your taste, sweet on his tongue - your mouth, your skin, your arousal that drips out of you whenever he so much as looks at you.

His.

And he knows, without a single atom of doubt, that he's also yours. So entirely entangled with each other, neither of you knowing how you'd managed to exist separately before now.

How had you possibly found beauty in every day, when you'd never heard his voice? Never caught a whiff of his sweet shampoo as he ambled past you? Never felt the warmth of his touch, or the puff of his sighs on your cheek? Never known the tickle of his hair on your bare skin as you slowly woke every morning to find him curled around you, his face smashed into your back and soft snores emanating from him?

No matter, you think. You have him now, and that's what's important.

...until everything changes.

You miss a period.

You tell him about it.

You're both on edge, but he tries to remain optimistic. Cycles can be upset sometimes, he tells you, as if you don't already know. (You're certain he's really just trying to reassure himself.)

But deep down, you know.

You can feel it in the all-encompassing tiredness you wake with every morning. In the random bouts of nausea, and the sudden food aversions. The back aches, and all the sudden new smells you can detect.

You know something is amiss.

And he knows, too, when he finds you one time in the middle of the night. Standing in your shared little kitchen, in the dark, illuminated only by the light of the open refrigerator.

Pulling pickles straight out of the jar, dipping them in mayonnaise, and sinking your teeth into them. Like they were to most delectable thing you'd ever ingested.

You're both terrified, of course.

You're not really surprised that you've managed to fall pregnant - not with the way you two lust after each other practically every night, and sometimes in the morning. Maybe even once or twice in between meetings, when you're both squished together in his compact office.

Neither of you ever thought you'd become parents.

And certainly not right now.

But...you want this, you realize. You want this with him. You want a family with him, you want the evidence of your love - you want a future with him, and you want to see what beautiful little person you'll make together.

Would they have his eyes? Yours? He hopes they have your smile, he tells you, eventually.

It takes you by surprise, his words, what with how quiet he'd been since you'd both figured everything out. You'd been worrying that he wasn't really on board with keeping the baby - with being a father. And you hadn't blamed him, really.

You'd been beyond stressed at the idea of raising a child alone. The thought of him leaving you, leaving behind something so intrinsically tied to him, had been slowly breaking your heart. You hadn't wanted him to stay simply out of obligation - you know you wouldn't be able to cope with the eventual resentment that such an action would breed.

But to know for certain now that he'd only been anxious?

That he wanted this with you, and was excited?

You're so happy that you immediately burst into tears, squeaking and sniffling and snotting uncontrollably while Viktor bites back a laugh and herds you into his embrace. Stroking your back and murmuring the sweetest things to you while you try to catch your breath, leaving gentle kisses all over your face.

Telling you all about what kind of person he hoped your little one would be.

Your smile, most certainly, he said, resolute. You have the most beautiful smile. You light up the room wherever you go. Maybe your sense of humour, too. And certainly your compassion.

Your tears slowly began to lessen, as you let yourself be lulled by the comfort of his arms around you.

Your hair, though, you insist, smushing your face into his shirt. You look so pretty in the mornings, all fluffed up and in disarray. It's the cutest shit I've ever seen.

That garners a laugh from him.

I want them to have your eyes, as well, you admit, albeit somewhat shyly. I've never seen a colour like yours, so intense and complex. Way back when we first met, and you looked at me for the very first time? I almost lost the ability to breathe. It was...it was like I knew, right then. That you were the person I wanted to spend my life with.

He squeezes you a little bit tighter, stooping down to tenderly slot your lips together. Slow, lazy, intimate. Sharing breath and warmth and love and-

He takes you again.

Right there, in the dim quiet of his office, not seeming to care if anyone passing by in the hallway might hear you. Spoiling you absolutely rotten, speaking praises against your skin as he brings you over the edge again and again and again.

Pupils blown wide as he sinks his fingers into you, crooking them perfectly as to reach the spots he knows will drive you mad. The papers strewn around the room don't matter - they don't even cross his mind, as you wriggle and squirm and quiver and cry out for him.

How could they, when all he can focus on is the way you look when your body tenses up, another wave of ecstasy coursing through your veins, culminating in your lovely little noises, and the addicting feeling of your pleasure dripping down his fingers and over his palm, soaking him thoroughly.

He would be happy to have you like this, as frequently as you would let him.

He knows how sensitive you must be by now, not only from his ministrations, but also from the way your body is changing. He's done his fair amount of reading since discovering your pregnancy - he's aware of all the ways you might be feeling.

The hunger, the exhaustion, the aches and pains.

The all-encompassing, single-minded lust you might go through.

He's ready to please you, however you might want - his fingers, his mouth. And whenever you might want. You could wake him up in the middle of the night, for all he cares. You could nudge him from the sleep that he so desperately needs, and he'd ask not a single question besides What do you need, darling? How would you like me?

What he doesn't expect is his own desire.

You're beautiful. You always have been beautiful. Even as things change, he was absolutely certain that you would never stop being beautiful.

It's you, so of course he's going to want you.

But seeing you now, whining and looking at him like he's hung the moon in the sky, specifically for you? Your tummy already growing round with the life that you've made together, visible proof of your love? Desperate whimpers falling past your lips, begging him for more, for him to fill you up again and again and again?

He can't resist you.

Even when he starts to ache, and his arms start shaking, and his throat is raw and dry from breathing hard and calling out for you.

He can't resist you.

You're insatiable.

So is he.

He's a little more careful as the months progress. Manhandling you less, digging his fingers into the soft fat of your hips a little gentler. He's cognizant of how you're most comfortable, watching in awe as you tremble on top of him, grinding down on him and taking his entire length into you like you were made specifically for him.

Nearly every day, you beg for him.

He loves you.

And when the time eventually comes for you to waddle carefully into the labour centre, meeting your midwife along the way, Viktor tries to keep his worrying quiet. Tries to stay by your side as a supportive pillar, regardless of how well or not he might actually be able to hold you up.

Holding your hand, kissing your knuckles. Trading his fingers for a stress ball when you squeeze a little too hard (and then another stress ball, stronger this time, when the first one explodes in your fist after a couple minutes. It shocks both of you, but to his surprise, you start laughing).

He tenderly dabs the sweat off your forehead as the hours go by, keeping your hairs from pasting themselves to your face and neck. Staying nearby as a source of comfort, but not so close that you feel smothered by him - allowing you the space you need to wiggle around as you see fit.

Telling you stories to distract you, listening to your complaints and observations as his words become unable to mask the pain of your contractions. Doing his absolute best to bite back a fond grin as you breathlessly curse him for doing this to you.

I didn't mean it, you tell him, as soon as the words leave your mouth, your eyes wide and tearful with sorrow.

I know, he promises, leaning forward to press his lips to your dewy skin.

You sigh happily.

It's not for another couple hours that your baby finally decides to enter the world.

You're beyond exhausted, and Viktor is starting to get fidgety with his worry. Is it supposed to be taking this long? he wonders internally, keeping his questions to himself so as not to stress you out even more.

The midwives, to their credit, are incredibly skilled. Staying by your side throughout the whole process, carefully monitoring everything they need to in order to make sure you're healthy. That the baby is healthy. He knows that they would say something, if anything was truly wrong.

And when the little one finally arrives, she does so kicking and screaming, making an absolute ruckus in the quiet room. The door is shut tight, keeping the sounds of the busy establishment at bay, and the curtain is drawn for your privacy so no one can see in when the staff come and go.

But when your girl begins shouting her absolute displeasure into the air, Viktor swears he can hear some quiet clapping and cheering from the hallway. He doesn't know if it's for your success, or for something and someone else entirely - but for a moment, he likes to believe that there are some strangers out there who are happy for him.

They don't know his story, and they don't know yours - but they've heard a great cry from somewhere hidden and full of struggle. An all-encompassing wail that confirms the presence of life, shouting to the world I am here, I am alive, and I have absolutely no idea what's going on!

He doesn't know when the tears start trailing down his cheeks.

Perhaps it's when he first lays eyes on your girl, pink and cranky and a little bit squished. Putting up a fuss on your base chest, scrunching her little face up as you speak softly and tenderly to her.

Perhaps it's when one of the midwives hands him a very soft towel, instructing him on how to carefully pat away the blood and fluid still clinging to your child. His eyes growing wide when he oh so gently cleans her off to reveal more of her tiny features.

She's still new, and needs time to decompress (so to speak), but he stares at her with such rapture. Taking in every inch of her, burning her face into his mind so that he might never forget her. Ever.

She's still new, and yet he can already tell that she has your nose. And your lips. Your smile, he realizes, with a palpable joy spreading through his chest.

His tears eventually dry, if only so he's able to better see you and the newest member of your family. Laying kiss after kiss to whatever part of your skin he can reach. Stroking the tips of his fingers over your girl's hair - her tiny arms and shoulders, her chubby cheeks, the bridge of her nose and over her brows.

But some two hours later, when you're finally allowed to rest in your comfortable hospital bed: when your baby is now dry and fed and swaddled up happily in Viktor's arms?

The tears begin again.

Privately, in the dim of the room, while you snooze a couple feet away from him, he weeps. Silently, and without so much as a sniffle. He cannot stop the wetness that rolls down his face, even if he wanted to.

Your girl is finally relaxed, after her grand, dramatic entrance. On the edge of sleep, warm and with a full tummy, making funny little expression while she dozes.

Much to Viktor's delight, she has a head of fuzzy brown hair - dishevelled and sticking in every direction, not matter how the midwives had tried to tame it. It'll settle down in a few days, they'd promised. But he didn't care.

The wild mop on top of her head rivalled the chaos of his own. The same shade of chestnut, though perhaps less coarse in texture. Maybe it will grow to the same thickness eventually, he thinks, a fond smile pulling at the corners of his mouth as he imagines how much he's going to have to help her with it as she grows.

Brushing the inevitable tangles out with a soft brush. Pulling the strands back into braids so she can run around and play easier - or maybe little buns on the top of her head, he realizes, the image conjuring up in his mind.

All at once, pictures pop through his head, so vivid and bright that he can almost see them appearing in front of him.

Watching your daughter grow. Sleepless nights of taking care of her, catering to her every whim. Making sure she's fed, and comfortable - entertaining her with silly little toys that make silly little noises, bright colours painted across them. Reading her books with bright, enticing visuals for her to stare at, despite the fact that she doesn't know what words are.

Making trinkets for her as she gets a little older. Things that help her learn, but that also keep her excited and enticed, encouraging her exploration of the world around her. Teaching her to walk, by helping her strengthen her little legs. Sitting on a footstool, a wide smile on his face, as you hold her by her arms and support her as she figures out how to use her legs while upright. Leading her right over into his waiting arms.

Until she's able to balance on her own, after a number of weeks of practising together. Pushing herself up into a wobbly stance, doing her absolute best to try and balance. Maybe she stumbles a couple of times, but she's persistent -stubborn, like he is- and continuously rises back up until she's able to make it over to him on her own. Giggling and wiggling when he scoops her up and praises her and showers he in affection.

Teaching her about anything and everything, the bigger she gets. Answering every question she has, no matter how confusing or senseless - encouraging with his own suggestions, and prompting her to discover some answers for herself. Putting together little experiments for her, so they can learn together and so he can watch her eyes widen with the joy of new information.

Fixing her toys for her whenever they break, as she brings them to him with misty eyes and a wobbly bottom lip. Papa, it fell apart, she says sadly. To which he pulls her onto his lap, regardless of what work he was doing, and helps her repair the damage. Letting her watch and observe when she's still too small to hold a screwdriver, and carefully explaining things to her when her motor skills start to develop more.

And then helping her figure out in what way her toy broke, when she's a little bigger. Asking specific questions, so she can work to connect all the dots herself. Helping her gather the materials that she needs in order to fix things herself, and praising her to the high heavens when she presents the finished product to him.

The little thing is slightly lopsided, but he fully believes that it adds to its charm - tells her as such, when she sighs about it not being the same as before.

It's a little uneven, just like me, he says, with a laugh.

And, much to his complete shock, she wraps her little arms around him, and gives him her strongest possible squeeze.

It adds to your charm, she parrots back to him with complete honesty. I like you, Papa.

And once again, for the umpteenth time throughout his daughter's life, his eyes well with tears and he presses a kiss to the top of her head.

She could go anywhere she wanted, once she grew up. Learn anything, do anything, be anything. Perhaps she'd enjoy the sciences, like he does - machinery, and building, and designing, and inventing. Maybe she'd get into art, and spend her days painting or sketching, or writing, or making music - inspiring other people with the things she makes.

It doesn't matter, though. Because no matter what she ends up enjoying, or where she goes in her life, Viktor will support her with his entirety. Even when she grows all the way up, and inevitably leaves home to begin her own life, whatever that may be.

He knows he's going to cry then, too. So many years together, and yet it will still never be enough.

But for now, he sighs, staring adoringly down at the tiny infant in his arms. For now, they have time. He vows silently to never waste a single moment with her, and never pass up the opportunity to spend time with her. No matter how busy or frustrated or tired he gets, he won't let her grow up feeling unwanted or unloved or unimportant.

He'll give her a better life than he grew up with, and that is both a promise and a threat.

After all, he would do anything, for her.

His greatest creation.

[aziraphales-library]

Hi aziraphaels-library!

I have several fics i am mildly obsessed about and they are "What we make of it" and "Or be nice" by charlotte_madison, "Tabula Rasa" and "Clementine" by mussimm, "Demonology and the Tri-phasic model of trauma" by nnm, "Long haul" and "Search and Rescue" by snae-b. Better than many books I read, including award winning ones! Maybe you coluld recommend something as good as these? I love an anxious and off-beat Crowley, and his honesty issues, but do not limit myself to such stories. Thanks a lot!

Hello! The fics you've listed are very well known and popular within the fandom. You should check out the fics on our #fandom favourites tag for more you may enjoy. Here are some more great fics for you...

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2095. Britain is a post-apocalyptic wasteland ravaged by droughts, the collapse of civilisation, and hordes of the undead. Despite that, Aziraphale’s life is actually pretty good. He has his caravan, his books, and his work, offering his services to the men who stop by Tadfield on their arduous journey north. One day, a mysterious stranger knocks on his door. Crowley is charming and handsome and he appears to know his way around a vegetable garden. He comes with the tempting offer of a mutually beneficial arrangement. But it’s in Aziraphale’s best interest not to get too attached.

A dystopian cottagecore sex worker AU.

Readings From the Books of Ashtoreth by Quefish (E)

Vicar Aziraphale Bookman has a comfortable life. He lives in and serves the small village community of Tadfield. He enjoys contributing to local businesses, taking walks, and of course reading. His 'guilty pleasure', which gives him no guilt and all pleasure, is a series of novels by one AJ Ashtoreth. But what happens when he reaches out with an innocent bit of fanmail?

It never hurts to keep looking for sunshine by elf_on_the_shelf (E)

After Adam's parents die in a car crash, Aziraphale is forced to start taking care of him as more than just an uncle. Don't get him wrong, he loves the little devil, it's just that he is completely clueless and could rather use some help. In comes Crowley, Adam's new nursery school teacher with his amazing skills in dealing with kids. Could he be the answer to all of Aziraphale's prayers - Adam-related and otherwise? Well, it looks like he might be just that, judging by the weird things Aziraphale's heart seems to be doing whenever he sets eyes on the man. Now, if only the tall ginger returned his feelings...

I Knew I Loved You by AppleSeeds (E)

In September 1999, when his family gets connected to the internet, prospective Marine Biology student Crowley discovers an online forum where he can actually talk to people who share his passion for saving the whales. He begins corresponding with a kind stranger he knows only as Ocean_Angel, and is incredibly excited when the opportunity arises to meet this mysterious person in real life.

As their friendship develops, Crowley shares things with Angel that he can't talk about with anyone else, and Angel's insights help him to explore and embrace his own identity. As Crowley works towards finding a place in this world where he feels like he really belongs, he realises that a big part of the answer to that question might actually be right in front of him. What if where he belongs is with Angel?

secondhand smoke by PaintedVanilla (T)

you're second hand smoke, second hand smoke i breathe you in, but, honey, i don't know what you're doing to me mon chéri

the year is 1990, and anthony crowley is looking for a church in london that might be tolerable. the one he winds up attending isn't exactly such, but he decides to stick around for one reason. said reason happens to own a bookshop that crowley begins to frequent, much to the surprise and delight of anathema device and newton pulsifer, who seem quite convinced that crowley could use something else to focus on besides gardening, their campaigns, and visits to tadfield.

Siren's Song by Kedreeva (T)

Crowley, a lone siren, calls a ship to wreck upon his reef, but finds when he meets pirate captain Aziraphale that sirens are not the only ones able to lure another creature to their heart's desire.

- Mod D

[ryin-silverfish]

You said that the execution of S4 failed, so how should it have been or what were the steps that should be followed? Genuine interest. Might help anyone who is writing about Jttw.

Basically: Extraordinary twist requires extraordinarily good explanations, and the big honcho of the Celestial Realm getting killed by a Bodhisattva's cat is one such twists. Yet it isn't explained properly other than JE's vague statement that "his time is up".

(Is this an attempt at alluding to the concept of "Peril" (劫), something even immortals and celestials must endure in order to continue existing, and the Buddhist idea that beings of the Path of Heaven are still not free from the cycle of life and death, however near-infinite their lifespan is?)

(If so, then SAY IT.)

But my biggest issue is the huge Show-not-Tell problem regarding the corruption of the Celestial Realm.

Like, due to the influence of 1961 Havoc in Heaven and the "SWK as peasant rebel" reading that became the dominant narrative during the Maoist era, the Celestial Realm ("feudal" regime), as well as the Buddha and the Buddhist pantheon (religion), get demonized a lot in Chinese JTTW media.

Through that lens, Havoc in Heaven is the story of a grassroot hero fighting against a huge, ancient, corrupt institution, and either winning or losing, and even when he loses, it's the crushing of a revolutionary martyr by the old reactionaries: tragic, but the nobleness and righetousness of his goal is never in doubt.

(I dislike the "class warfare" reading too. A lot, in fact. But that's a story for another day.)

Which is what LMK S4 seems to be going for…and where it flounders.

Like, a Chinese viewer has that context, because most of our popular JTTW adapations dial up the Celestial Realm's prejudice against SWK and its corruption to some extent, as a justification for Havoc in Heaven.

A western viewer who hasn't watched the '61 film, or the '86 TV show, or the '99 cartoon, doesn't have that context, and LMK's oddly empty Celestial Realm that seemed to be populated entirely by Nezha, JE and nameless NPC soldiers doesn't help in the slighest.

(As a JTTW novel liker, my personal opinion is that book!Celestial Realm, even though it is not cartoonishly evil, still sucks ass, and the JE is a typical, mediocre dynastic ruler who's good at upholding the status quo, but extremely petty and vicious to subjects who have personally offended him, like Sha Wujing or the governor of Fengxian Prefecture.)

(They did show more leniency to SWK pre-Havoc in the book than in most modern adaptations, however, despite their fuck-ups.)

And that's how you get fans claiming "SWK never wants the Havoc in Heaven!"

After all, we haven't seen the Celestial Realm being assholes, or, y'know, subjecting a prefecture to an eternal-in-all-but-name drought until people sold their children for three bushels of grains and were driven to cannibalism, because the governor spilled JE's offerings and fed them to the dogs (novel canon, btw), and Nezha seems like a nice guy! How bad could the regime be, really?

Like, you can absolutely show a rebellion falling apart, becoming corrupted from the inside, causing just as much damage to the commoners as the regime they are fighting, and rebels who are far from heroic.

Or how popular rebellions like these were against the corrupt officials and laws, but seldom the emperor himself, and even those that did aim at deposing an emperor were about putting their guy of choice on the dragon chair, instead of dealing away with the dynastic system itself.

Yet the grievances behind those rebellions were also 100% real. The corruption, the abuse of power, the massive human sufferings that led to armed uprisings thoroughout Chinese history, many of which failed while others became the last straw that toppled a dynasty.

And that part, I feel, is neither shown well nor explored properly.

[honey-minded-hivemind]

could you do an alligator hybrid reader with water magic and platonic yan Wolverine? I imagine they’d be kinda sleepy but really sweet, and just look scary on the outside

Yes, an alligator witch! Reader! And you can bet platonic yandere Wolverine would be trying to dad them so much! Guy just wants Reader as his kid😊 Let's do it like this:

• You didn't choose to be a witch. You didn't even choose to be an alligator hybrid. But you were here, and you were you, and that wasn't changing anytime soon.

• Being an alligator hybrid and having water magic made you a pretty valuable witch. Especially if it involved dangerous aquatic animals or helping the environment. You took a different jobs, ranging from moving actual alligator and snakes and turtles and fish to safer, not-people's-homes places, helping farmers and florists water their fields and crops and flowers, forming lakes and pools and rivers, even causing small rainstorms if an area had experienced a drought or bad fire.

• This new person was... not what you expected for a teacher/guardian who needed you to fix a fountain. The guy had sharp, long claws, fluffy ears, a fluffy, short tail, and patches of fluff and fuzz in different areas. Yep. The guy was a wolverine hybrid. And his name was Logan.

• According to him, one of the kids of his coven had frozen the water in the pipes, then another kid set fire to the lawn, then their resident rain weather witch had stopped the fire but wasn't able to unfreeze the what was in the pipes... So, he was told to call you.

• Thawing the water didn't take long, nor was removing any caught coins or jewelry or wands that had made their way in as well. By the time you'd finished, there was a small pile of items that'd been lost or stuck, and you had a few pipes to replace. Yet-

• You didn't have the pipes needed for it.

• Logan offered to drive you to the nearest parts shop/market, where the two of you could pick out replacements, so you went with it. Which led to the best three hours of your week, as you got to joke around with someone who understood looking a bit scary, and having others look down on you for that, as well as being a hybrid. (Not to mention getting seafood with him. Eating some fish and shrimp and fries with someone was pretty nice, since you tended to be left alone). By the time the two of you had gotten back, you had enough time to set the new pipes in and to test the water pressure before you had to go.

• But before you left, you were slipped the address of the place, as well as a ring shaped like an alligator. You couldn't help but smile smile yourself, and making plans to check in on your favorite wolverine...

• And Logan was happy to have met a sweet kid, one who looked a bit rough and tough, but had a good heart and fun laugh and funny sense of humor...

• If anyone gave his new kid trouble... they'd have to deal with him and his coven knocking at their door...

• Now he just needs to set up a few lunch dates with his kid, and figure out what meals he should cook for them once he gets them into the coven... Hopefully they don't fight him too much on being brought into it...

[redladydeath]

Okay, this post got me thinking about Proto Vox's relationship with his sexuality and whoops, now there's 700 words.

On Earth, Vox was your typical insecure narcissist. He felt a great deal of shame about his attraction to men and always felt like any threat to his masculinity would cause his identity to crumble, so he overcompensated by taking refuge in the parts of masculinity that he was "good at." Vox was a very handsome, charismatic man, and he used those tools to his advantage. He'd flirt with women at his station and, once he was in a position of influence, was no stranger to using sex/sex acts as a bargaining chip. Suck his dick, and he'll put in a good word for you with the producers. Vox loved the respect and attention he got from being a successful, good-looking white man in the 1950s– he fed off it, using it to keep his insecurities at bay.

In Hell, he's no longer able to do that. The three traits he used to build his whole identity around– his masculinity, status, and charisma– are all gone. He looks and sounds like an adorable child, he's treated like a pet by his boss, and no one takes him seriously because of these things. No one cares that he used to be rich and successful, or even that he's actually an adult; all they see is someone weak that they can belittle in order to make themselves feel more powerful.

Vox had no choice but to surrender his dignity, although he still tries to hold onto bits of it in private. He knows that he's an intelligent adult man, even if nobody else knows or cares. However, that's not enough for someone as self-conscious as Vox. There's not a day that goes by without him feeling ashamed or embarrassed in some capacity, even as he grins and bares it externally and desperately clings to his old identity internally. It all comes together to completely obliterate his self-esteem. He can't even take comfort in the simple fact that he's male, because he knows that privilege could be taken away at a moment's notice due to his lack of any traits that people of the time would call "male." Put Vox in a dress or even stop affording him a gender at all and the only person who'll know the difference is him.

Vox can't have sex, and even if he could, he can't imagine anyone ever wanting him unless it was for explicitly fetishistic purposes. He has no genitals, no asshole, and no mouth. His body is made of smooth, featureless wood and metal. He might as well be a doll with an overly large head. Vox can't think of a single aspect of his body that would be sexually appealing to anyone who's not a complete freak. Even if he could pay for sex, he hates himself so much that the thought of getting with another person is just as humiliating as it is tantalizing. He doesn't want anyone to look at him, even though being seen is everything to him. And yet, he has no choice but to let people look. He's an entertainer, and now it seems like that's all he'll ever be.

All of this may have played a role in why he eventually gravitated towards Valentino. It'd been fifteen years since Vox last felt like a sexual being, and the last person he'd been attracted to had laughed in his face when he tried to confess to him. Val made him feel desirable– powerful, even. He treated him like a man, and that was like a rainstorm after a drought for Vox. It barely even mattered that Val was very openly queer; Vox gladly threw his once precious mask of heterosexuality to the winds in order to once more have a partner who actually respected him. Val helped him build functioning genitals for his new body. He helped him gain power so they could build their empire. Valentino is inexorably tied to Vox's new/restored identity, which makes him willing to put up with Val's more unappealing traits. Vox doesn't think he'd be nothing without Valentino by any means– he knows he could've achieved all this even if he never crossed paths with Val– but he'll always be the cornerstone that everything about his new life is built on.

[moongothic]

You know people often talk about how Crocodile is a "mafia boss who has tons of connections to other criminals in the underworld for running all his criminal businesses" and like

Does he???

Because like??? Yes, he did run ONE secret criminal organization, and he did need at least ONE connection to acquire the Dance Powder for causing the drought in Alabasta, but like

Crocodile's whole deal is that he doesn't trust anyone and thus he doesn't interact with anyone. Like his funny little criminal organization was functionally ran by Robin since she was the one doing All The Interacting and the Actual Working, Crocodile was just giving out orders for Robin to pass on (though yes people did know the Mysterious Mr 0 was The Real Boss of BW, not All Sunday). So to me it sounds so unlikely if he actually had like tons of personal connections, because surely he wouldn't actually trust anyone for doing any criminal business with them, right??

Not to mention, being an underground crime boss with a massive network is like. Doflamingo's thing. Like that is literally Doflamingo's whole deal, he was the one running a ton of criminal activies across the globe ranging from slavery and drugs to the SMILE production. So it'd just be weird if Crocodile was also meant to be a crime lord of similar caliber when at best he'd be a Budget Mingo. Like Doflamingo already occupies that role in the story, would we have needed two former Shichibukai to be crime lords?? (Yes you could argue Crocodile could've become Doflamingo 2 had he gotten away with his plans (and thus Doflamingo could've been like, a way for Oda to show what the Strawhats helped stop from happening to Alabasta), but again, his goal is and has always been to gain military power, so?? Why bother with dealing with other criminals??)

Like I just genuinely don't remember the idea that Crocodile has connections ever being brought up in canon? Like, I could be just forgetting something, but the closest thing I can remember was Chapter 1058 mentioning Cross Guild was "getting funding from shady organizations", but keep in mind, this is probably more due to Buggy's own fame than Crocodile's new involvement. Like Buggy's Delivery was already doing mercenary work all over the place, so while the mercenary work changed into marine hunting with different branding, it doesn't mean whatever connections Buggy already had made suddenly vanished, just that they now have more

And the one last thing is that like. In Punk Hazard we see Ceasar Clown show off his new weapon of mass destruction, Land of Death, to a ton of crime lords all over the world. Amongst the people there's plenty of randos we can't recognize, but then there were also Pekoms and Tamago, as well as Kid, just tuning in to the show. Considdering Crocodile is supposed to be interested in weapons of mass destruction (unless he lost interest in them), if he had any criminal connections then surely he would've also been amongst the people watching Ceasar's presentation, right? And if he was, surely Oda would've shown him to us, right?? But no, he's not there

So like???

Is there something I'm forgetting, some canon lore drop that does actually confirm Crocodile has tons of criminal connections???

Or is this just. Fanon that people don't realize is fanon?? Somekind of a fandom mandela effect??

[lostcol]

Sunday Six 2.18.24

Tagged by @violetbaudelaire-quagmire but it's not letting me tag you help somebody please!! 💚 (Nvm I got it to work ignore me 😂)

I got on a bit of a roll yesterday (thanks to my fellow sprinters and cheerleaders and those with way more boat knowledge than I have!), so I've finally got something to share after the complete drought last week. Thank you to everyone who tagged me last week, but it just wasn't happening, please continue to tag/harass me 😘

From, as always, my tknp lakehouse summer vibes fic:

“How do you feel?” he suddenly thought to ask, mentally smacking himself on the forehead for only thinking of it now. He gently placed his hands on either side of TK’s jaw, his fingers wrapping around the back of his neck and his thumbs cradling his cheeks so he could tip his head back and forth a little, look into his eyes and check over his face for any sign that he wasn’t okay. Physically that is; fucking obviously he wasn’t okay mentally right now, but they’d deal with that later.     “I’m,” TK rasped, “I’m…” He petered out, seemingly not knowing how to answer that.

You get 5 sentences, because the sentences immediately before and after this are massive spoilers 👀😁

Tagging @eusuntgratie @bigassbowlingballhead @getmehighonmagic @madsworld15 @matriaya @winderlylandchime and anyone else with words to share!

[breathe2-fr]

Eye of the Storm (pt 2)

(part 1)

The next morning, the clan got to work gathering food. The night had been uneventful and the travel plans needed to be discussed. After breakfast was had, she called a meeting to order.

"My brothers and sisters. Please forgive my naivety, but I have never made such a journey, and I have no idea what is in store once we enter the Expanse. If anyone has any sort of experience with the lands of Stormcatcher, please say so."

SnowyMorning spoke up, "I've never been there, but I've talked to drakes who have. Kip's right that it's not going to be easy to cross. Sandstorms rage across the Charged Barrens, which we'll need to cross to get to the Spire. Not just that, but lightning runs across the surface of the sands."

Kiptalon frowned. "That can't be possible." Snow shot him a look of irritation, so Kip continued. "The sand should stop the lightning's current."

"How would you know?"

"I'm an Earth dragon." Kip lifted a claw of sand and let it slip through his talons. "I know a thing or two about sand."

Snow shifted uncomfortably. "Well it's what I've heard, just sharing in case it's helpful."

"Thank you, Snow. We'll keep it in mind, whether or not it's just a rumor." Spelldancer knew the two didn't get along, and she hoped to steer them away from a pointless argument now. "What else do we think might be there?"

Kip became more aloof as the conversation continued, "Storms. Drought. Beastclan and wild beasts."

"Beasts and beastclan will not be an issue with our defenders." Spelldancer nodded to Venomous and her crew, and the guardian gave a stern nod back. "It's unfortunate we do not have a Water dragon in our clan. Perhaps we should find some way to carry water with us on our journey."

Snow stood up and made a sweeping gesture with a wing toward the ocean. "Well, why don't we find a Water dragon?" At this, Kip scoffed. "No, really! Maybe someone's nearby who's looking to do some traveling!"

Kip shook his head. "Why don't you go find them then, hm?"

Snow defiantly kicked the sand with his back foot. "Maybe I will!" And before Spelldancer could call to him, Snow lept into the air and took off for the coastline a mile away.

"Kiptalon! Why are you pushing him?!" Spelldancer glared at the skydancer, who looked surprised at the callout.

"I'm not doing anything--"

"My tail, you aren't! This will cease now! We need to work together and you're giving me a headache by squabbling with him!" As she scolded him, Spelldancer looked around. Her clan was exhausted, dirty, and injured from their journey. She could see in their eyes that some were losing faith in her ability to lead - was this yelling really helping anything?

"M-my apologies, your highness." Kiptalon bowed meagerly. "It won't happen again."

Spelldancer took a deep breath. Why were these dragons following her, anyway? What made them think in the first place that she was worthy of leading them, or being "queen"? She exhaled, and when she did, she could almost feel Baerka at her back. His massive arm like a small tree trunk behind her, supporting her, lending his strength to her voice. It wasn't just her that they followed, it was the two of them, and that two was now one. No, by herself, she wasn't worthy of her clan. And she was putting them in danger by leading them into the desert, to plea to a strange god for protection.

"... Mother." Gloam tugged at Spelldancer's wing, and she turned to her son. She realized Gloam was imitating his father, seeming to think her silence was her drifting off again - and she supposed she was. She stroked his forehead, then turned to Kiptalon.

"No more squabbles. We focus. Serious answers only." She would deal with her conflictions later. For now, she owed it to her clan to give this all of her focus as well.

The discussion that followed lasted hours. From the air, they had seen a canyon that had some sort of activity there. It was a decent first stop and perhaps they could ask for the safest route across the desert. They discussed food, electing hunters and gatherers to help stock the clan as they traveled. They created protocols for how to react to an attack, should one happen. Gloam recorded these and a slew of backup plans and other notes, furiously writing into his scrolls.

Once the conversation ended, SnowyMorning flew in, beaming with a smile. "I told you I'd find someone! Everyone, I'd like to introduce you to Shimmer!"

A young imperial glided up behind the pearlcatcher, his white and silver scales still wet from the ocean, almost blinding the other dragons in their reflections. He gave a modest head-bow.

Shimmer explained he'd been through the Expanse a handful of times and would be happy to lead the way. "It's dangerous, yeah, but there's a way through. Lightning has these pylons littered throughout the place. They're lightning rods. As long as you travel along the pylons, you'll be protected from the storms."

Snow was clearly proud of himself for finding the now-popular Shimmer, shooting grins to Kip, who simply turned away. As everyone began asking the new drake questions, Spelldancer couldn't help but wonder if Snow had told him what they were running from. Would he be so willing to travel with them when the Shade is on their tails? If there's a chance he'd leave when he found out, is it wrong to keep this information from him? Does her clan's need for water during their travel outweigh his right to know?

As the moral dilemma played through Spelldancer's mind, Gloam actually broached the question, standing tall before the large dragon. "Imperial! You do understand the severity of our quest, yes? We seek the Stormcatcher at the end of the desert, to protect us from the Shade attacks that have driven us out of our home. Are you prepared to fight in the event of such attacks during our journey?"

"Yeah bro," Shimmer answered with a relaxed smile.

Spelldancer was taken aback.

"Are you sure?" Gloam pressed.

"Yeah! I've never seen the Shade before! I want a go at them!" Shimmer raked his claw through the air. "Isn't that why the gods made us? To protect this world from the Shade? I'd be honored!"

Spelldancer felt a twinge of shame in that she was too afraid to even ask this dragon, but her son wasn't. Again, she felt she should be leading, but she was falling behind.

[starsbegantofall]

Not that you should listen to a stranger on the internet for advice, but here is my thought on pirates in this age of extreme inequality and injustice.

As long as it's the classic definition of piracy ("I offer you a clearly illegal shaky cam footage of a movie with incorrect subtitles, you offer me an extremely low amount of money that is much less than a movie ticket or probably even nothing, we do not speak to each other about this after"), piracy can be essentially not bad. People are so quick to defend themselves pirating stuff; they're living in a war-torn third world country, no one they know owns anything legally obtained because of their colonizer-oppressors, they would have never been able to import dvd/books in even if they did have money and freedom because of customs, they're archiving this old videogame for future generations (like there will be any future for humanity at this point), many other reasonable explanations... but it's not needed. The fact is, as long as no one is deceiving each other, it's a fact of life, not a crime. Trying to justify morality in piracy when there are much more evil people in charge of the government is kinda laughable. I'm not saying humans have a free pass to crime of their choice, but when the crime is piracy or genocide, just sail the high seas.

The problem is when someone sells you fraudulent, tampered goods as the real deal. Or when they plagiarize an artist and sell as the real thing at full price, no credit, no collaboration. That's malicious.

I come from a poor immigrant background, pirated stuff was basically the norm, I rarely felt bad about being poor, unless it was extremely inconvenient for school events or something. My mom also had other options, like going to the library, Xmas or birthday gifts, hand me downs from other families, actual things to look forward to, so it wasn't all stuff sold out of the back of someone's car in Chinatown.

When I did have money, I would buy whatever I could through proper channels, to get the best quality, get the extra goodies and benefits that pirated goods won't have, and support the artist if possible so they can continue to stay in business. But always buying new stuff is kinda wasteful and harmful to the planet, so I also thrift and buy other people's unwanted stuff even if that's not exactly helpful to the company or artist. To me, as long as no one was being deceived and everyone knows what they're getting at the correct value, it's better than having nothing at all.

Was this going to be about fashion replicas or A.I.? I already forgot... Well, to me, both fashion replicas and generated imagery cause extreme harm to the planet, much more than a dvd or hard drive with pirated books and games, so even if you could convince me they are both victimless crimes in regards to intellectual copyright, I'd still say... surely... surely there is another way to get what you want that doesn't enslave children and pollute the water and ground and increase the temperature to unlivable degrees causing mass extinction and potential drought and famines.

Anyway, in case anyone ever wanted to know my childhood was like.

[amoveablejake]

Spring has sprung

Dreaming of the pacific North West yet again.

Over the past one hundred years there has been a definite shift away from religion. Ofcourse, yes countless people across the world do still believe in a high power but more people have stepped away from religion or at the very least are less devout than historically they would have been. And yet, in these days where faith is perhaps being questioned it ofcourse still exists. Faith or having faith in something surrounds the human race everyday. By no means does it need to be in a higher, omnipotent power, faith and the belief that comes with it can be in anything or anyone. Faith and belief is ultimately support and it is perhaps more meaningful when it is turned towards humans than it is any spiritual being that may or may not be out there. As technology progresses and humankind develops alongside it, new ways of thinking do come to the forefront and ways of thinking from days gone by are looked at but throughout all of the reviews, the idea of belief is still there and it should always remain. It should because to believe in something can reap wonderful rewards, believing in someone or something helps you to form an even deeper connection to it and those connections can become key parts of us. Do I believe in general, ofcourse. I believe in many people and many things and one of those that I believe in is something that I hope one day will come to fruition. I believe in the Seattle Mariners and maybe this year, they’ll believe in themselves soon. 

That may have seemed like a little bit of an odd introduction to talking about a baseball team but it is grounded in a real run of events. As the Mariners ended their playoff drought last season the messaging coming from the organisation was to believe. Thats what the team needed, belief. To know that their fans were out their thinking of them and knowing that they could do it. Ofcourse, as my lack of a last minute ticket to Seattle shows, the Mariners did not have a prolonged play off run and did not make it to the World Series. But, the play off appearance was enough for now. As I say, it ended a wait that had been going on for years and years and allowed the Mariners fan base a feeling of accomplishment that has been a little rare as of late. It also helped to install some optimism. I do always in my heart believe that the Mariners will win the World Series, what sort of fan would I be if I didn’t, but after reaching the play offs last year I feel that my eternal optimism for my baseball team is actually founded and that things are looking more positive for this upcoming season. Spring training is currently ongoing at the moment and the results have been quite positive, which is only making me believe even more. Who knows, maybe this will be the year. Maybe. Just maybe. 

There are a few different sports teams that mean a lot to me, I have my NFL team, my NBA team, I have the drivers that I like in Formula One and a couple of baseball teams that I do have soft spots for. But really, the Seattle Mariners always have a special place in my heart. If you’re a regular reader of the blog this ofcourse will not come as a surprise as I have mentioned it before but there is just something about that baseball team from the Pacific North West that always brings me a great deal of comfort. As I have said before, to know that they’re out there playing, doing their thing, makes me very happy and one day I know that I’ll get to see them and it will feel like a homecoming. I am going to watch a Major League Baseball game in June but it won’t be with the Mariners, not this time at least. And thats, thats okay. I am extremely excited to watch the Chicago Cubs take on the St Louis Cardinals and to soak in the MLB atmosphere knowing that at some point down the line I will be doing the same for my Mariners. And also, I am hoping for two things when I do watch that game. One, that by that point in June the Mariners are emerging as one of the clear favourites to go to the World Series and two, that I’ll finally be able to find a Seattle Mariners cap because at this point my hunt for one is getting a little ridiculous. But, with all things, you just have to believe. And you bet I do. 

In the Mariners and the cap. 

-Jake, a man still waiting for invitation to play in the Major Leagues, 12/03/2023

[glitchlight]

(to preface, i'm aware of the irony of a scientist telling history to a historian, and I had some trouble verifying but here's the story)

Something that is easily missed in the 21st century to non experts is how much of 20th century american infrastructure was obsessed with flood control. Outside of the arid west, most major communities that aren't on a natural water body is next to a reservoir or major dam, the majority of which were constructed for flood control. Even a cursory understanding of the great cataclysms of history reveals the cyclical and predictable nature of disastrous floods along major rivers, which are simply too economically valuable to most cultures around the world to leave behind. That disastrous floods in the modern US are almost exclusively the results of rainfall, hurricanes, or dam failures is something of a miracle of public engineering.

(leaving aside all the ecological reasons why dams are ruinous; which are well worth discussing and arguably more important than flood control in an era of reliable weather forecasting but outside the scope of this discussion!)

so what the hell does this have to do with soil and prop comedy.

one of the main factors that created the dust bowl was outdated traditional farming practices which were tolerable in the humid south and temperate midwest, but ineffective in the semi-arid great plains. Practices such as constant tillage, removing buffer plants, and the transition from the fibrous roots of grasses to the more tap like roots of corn and wheat mean that the soil that previously was anchored in place by roots was now constantly being turned over, with nothing to break the winds howling across the plains.

Combined with a drought, you could not create more perfect situations for wind erosion to occur. That windstorms became black blizzards was only an inevitability.

And so, the precursor to the modern federal agency which advises farmers and regulators, the Soil Conservation Service (later renamed to the Natural Resource Conservation Service--which is more apt but less catchy) was proposed out in Washington, with several main goals: focused on stopping wind and water erosion of arable cropland, helping farmers manage cropland in more sustainable ways, and developing better farming practices via the extension service.

(Which is itself a weird legacy thing worth discussing more, and which kind of does and doesn't exist -- there's no federal agency under the USDA that is called the extension service, and it's actually administered by each States' land grant universities, but from a practical perspective a significant proportion of USDA is involved intimately with the extension service, and the NRCS is deeply interwoven with it).

OKAY enough detours: Prop comedy time. And where the loose facts become apocryphal.

Supposedly, Congress, even in the New Deal era, was uncertain about passing the bills that would create the soil conservation service; especially as far away as Oklahoma was from Washington in that era. So the gentleman spearheading the intiative for soil conservation (who as best I can tell is Hugh Hammond Bennet) goes to Congress and frames good soil conservation as a matter of flood control to them, because being from the east and south and midwest, they are living in an era where floods have wiped out communities in the night with no warning their entire lives.

To do this, he takes a pitcher of water, and walks up to the desk where the congressmen are sitting, and pours it out onto the table in front of them, splashing everyone with water. Before anyone can start to yell and scream at him however, he takes a towel and places it on the table, and repeats the demonstration. The towel, naturally, soaks up all the existing water, and the added water just soaks into it gently instead of running off everywhere. And then the congressmen CLAPPED.

So that's how, allegedly, prop comedy ended the dust bowl.

we're going to have to rework the u.s. economy so it has a greater focus on prop comedy

[finalgirlrick]

Ain’t It Easy

Pairing: Rick Grimes x Reader (prison era)

Word Count: 1k 

Warnings: none I think, just fluff. 

A/N: this is my first ever fic & I've had it done for weeks but I've been terrified to post it lmao. might be my first and my last fic but i hope someone out there likes it lol. pretty common trope, but reader has trouble sleeping & stuff commences. there is a rick grimes fic drought which is simply unacceptable, that man is too hot. shoutout @weretheones & @normanplusdaryl for reading over it & motivating me to finally post it :') also, i named this after a random song & it probably makes no sense.

You were no stranger to insomnia. Even before the world went to shit, you often found yourself tossing and turning endlessly until you could see the first glimpse of sunrise. It only got worse after the fall. Now in your cold prison cell, with the threat of growling blood-hungry walkers right outside, the ability to get a good night’s rest felt even more like a fantasy. 

It was impossible to know what time it was. And who cared anymore anyway? There were more important things to worry about. All you knew is that you were fed up with trying to get rest when your mind and body clearly had other plans. You could only lay on your thin prison mattress and stare at the ceiling for so long. If sleep deprivation was how you died, so be it. You were done trying. 

So you decided to take a walk around the prison, careful not to wake anyone and envying all of the people that were able to get a few hours of peace. The bags under your eyes proved that this was something you hadn’t experienced in a long, long time. Daryl’s loud snores almost stopped you in your tracks, but onwards you went past the other's cells. Reassuring yourself that everyone in your group was safe was a welcome distraction from the weight of your heavy eyelids. You found yourself zoning out while taking in the details of the prison when a sudden whisper made your body jolt upright. 

 “Everything alright?” said the raspy southern drawl that you would recognize anywhere. Rick. He was carrying his newborn daughter, Judith, seemingly lulling her to sleep. “Yeah, just going for a walk,” you said with a chuckle, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible. Somehow, whenever you were around the leader you couldn’t help but turn into an awkward babbling mess. 

“Can’t sleep?” he asked looking up at you with a gaze that made you feel like he could see right through you. There was no use in lying, standing in front of him you lost all of your willpower. You looked down at the ground, feeling your cheeks turn pink as you answered — “Nope.” You felt a strange sense of embarrassment. At what exactly? You didn’t really know. Or maybe you were just ignoring it, knowing that whatever stupid feelings you were having were to be kept buried deep. At least the prison was dark enough to mask it. 

“Judith couldn’t either, just knocked out almost this second,” he responded, flashing you a smile that made you just about melt. There was a subtle shift in his expression, as his gaze once again moved to Judith. “Yeah…I’ve been having trouble sleeping too ever since - ,” he stopped himself mid-sentence. You looked at him in understanding, unsure of what to say. There was really nothing to say in these situations. You knew that all too well. 

Swallowing his emotions down, he urged you to go inside his cell with a simple hand movement. He put Judith down into the small crib that Glenn and Maggie scavenged a few weeks ago, where she lay soundly asleep. An awkward silence filled the room, broken only when Rick suggested, “Try sleeping here.” Although, with his authoritative demeanor that always captivated you, it sounded more like a gentle order. 

You felt your eyes widen in shock and almost immediately, you explained to him that you couldn’t possibly do that. You didn’t want to bother him, and honestly, your lack of sleep wasn’t that much of a big deal anyway. But he interrupted all of your excuses by repeating again, “Try.” And it was hard to say no with the look he was giving you. When he so carefully explained to you how it is a big deal, and how your well-being is of grave importance to the group. You didn’t necessarily agree, but hearing the words from his mouth felt good, and the last thing you wanted to do was disappoint him. 

“You’re scared,” he said as he sat down in a chair a few steps away from his bed, where you now sat anxiously. “What?” you snapped on impulse, quickly regretting it. “Of everything outside the walls,” he whispered shaking his head. “All of it,” he continued. “Not just the walkers, everything out there we don’t know about. That’s why you can’t sleep. And I get it, I do.” You took notice of the way his wet curls framed his face and moved as he spoke. How there was genuine concern for you in his bright blue eyes. 

Maybe he was right, you told him. But what was the solution? This was life now. Rest wasn’t ever going to come easy again. Not for you. Until he proposed you with a plan. He would stay awake alongside you as you tried to drift off for the millionth time tonight, in an attempt to make you feel safe enough to do so. It didn’t hurt to try it, he reiterated. And so, you agreed. 

With a swift tilt of his head he encouraged you to lay down on his mattress, and although you couldn’t shake the feeling that you were invading his privacy and robbing him of well-deserved rest — you swore you never felt more comfortable. And it certainly wasn’t because his bed was of better quality than yours, or because the temperature of the room was just right. His presence was a comfort, and goddammit he was right — maybe this was all that you needed after all. To feel safe. To have someone near you that made you feel safe. As you closed your eyes, you eventually felt the world fade away and finally drifted off into a deep sleep. 

In the morning, while gearing up for your shift at the fences you recalled a memory - or, perhaps a dream - of feeling a hand tuck a strand of hair behind your ear at some point during the night. But there was no use in entertaining silly fantasies, back to work you went. 

[vickyvicarious]

For the ask game: Regina, Emma, and Killian from Once Upon a Time?

Three, huh? All right, can do. I’ve done this game for at least Emma and Killian before, a long time ago... hopefully I won’t be repeating anything!

(Once again, these are based on pre-Camelot, since I stopped watching fairly early on into that arc.)

Adding a readmore partway through Regina since this got long...

Regina

Headcanon A:  realistic

Being Mayor of Storybrooke was a really good learning experience for her. Sure, she had been a queen for a while before that, but based on the flashbacks I would say she was not paying much attention to the day-to-day duties of being a ruler. No trade deals, no study of the law of her country, no effort put in to learning what kind of taxes might be reasonable, or coordinating aid efforts to help with that drought/illness/bad crops, etc. She was very focused on herself at the time, and just didn’t pay much attention.

But in Storybrooke, while everything came pre-set in the way she wanted, she was still Mayor of an actual town for a long time. Not only was it more expected in this world, but there’s also just upkeep that has to happen. The magic kept people from getting older, but not Henry’s playcastle on the beach, for example. Regina had to be in charge of keeping the town functioning, and there’s only so much magic could do. So she actually learned how to do the right paperwork, a bit of how to allocate a budget, etc.

Headcanon B: while it may not be realistic it is hilarious

Regina was all ominously proud of her apple turnover in S1. Obviously, this was actually about the poison apple thing, but I think it would be really funny if she’d made that joke before. Like, Storybrooke probably got kind of boring at times when she was the only one who remembered. Add in the fact that it’s definitely the kind of place that had an annual baking competition or something...

Regina got the idea once to make an apple-based dessert and submit it to the competition, after ensuring Mary-Margaret was a judge. It wasn’t poisonous, but it made her very amused to see her once again just willingly eating the apple, so to speak... however, Regina lost the competition horribly that first year. Her dessert did not taste good at all. This did not sit well with her, and so she practiced and practiced (full on training montage) until she has pretty much mastered several apple-themed desserts, specifically to win the competition every time and make Mary-Margaret have to eat them for her own private amusement. She also definitely did the “give an apple to your child’s teacher” thing multiple times as well.

Headcanon C: heart-crushing and awful, but fun to inflict on friends

When she was a little girl, Regina used to write letters to an imaginary friend. She couldn’t send them to anyone, since she didn’t actually have any close friends (closest she had were polite acquaintance of similar social class or nice servants/staff in whom she knew better than to confide), so she just collected them. They were a sort of diary for her. At first, she was really friendly and optimistic about her home life, but this soon devolved into lying fantasies about what it would be like if she had a happy family. She wrote about a mother who loved her deeply and wanted to spend time with her, about messing something up and no one scolding her, about her father defending her from some mean lady who’s clearly a stand-in for Cora (since letter-Cora is perfect), and all that sort of thing. It wasn’t all about her family, letter-Regina also had a super special horse who she rode to win a race, and the cook always made her favorite treats, etc., but the family stuff was the majority of it.

Her father found the letters one day, and thought they were sweet. Meaning well and absolutely missing the context, he showed them to Cora. She called Regina in to watch as she burned them, scolding her for wasting time daydreaming when she should be focusing on bettering herself in order to make a good match down the line.

Headcanon D: unrealistic, but I will disregard canon about it because I reject canon reality and substitute my own.

Regina was not able to give Henry a TLK. I have talked about this in the past (here’s the link to the TL;DR, which itself has a link to the longer rambly thoughts), but I don’t think their relationship was such that she could, despite wanting to. And that’s not even taking into consideration that she lacked a heart at the time.

In my ideal world, Regina secretly hoped to be able to give him a TLK, and her failure to do so was kind of a wake-up call. It could easily go the other way into feeling like the whole world is against her, but this time it didn’t. She thought about her relationship with Henry and when he was saved (through whatever other reason), she realized just how badly she never wanted this to happen again. She wanted to change - and this time, she was willing to put in the work. Of course, it took time and there were probably backslides and stuff, but Regina began to really put in the effort to repair her relationship with Henry, to actually treat him as important and to value him outside of herself. This didn’t magically repair her relationship with anyone else (the whole point of this headcanon is effort vs magical change!) but treating Henry with respect and care meant not starting stuff with the other people he loves, and in general it became easier over time. Emma supported Regina a lot too, mostly for Henry’s sake in the beginning, but it did help.

Basically, the failed TLK led to a more realistic ‘redemption arc’ where Regina was kind of shocked out of being selfish or taking Henry for granted, and this eventually led to a much healthier outlook on her part where she felt less persecuted and accepted her responsibility for her actions, without feeling too overwhelmed to keep on trying for a better future even if not everyone can/does forgive her. She and Henry would be so much happier, despite it taking a while, and it would feel earned to me. Plus, it means that she wouldn’t succumb to the temptation to blame everything on the Author, a storyline I really hated.

.

Emma

Headcanon A:  realistic

She’s very smart, got a good sense for when people are lying, and is good at noticing and following up on relevant details. Emma never finished high school, though she did later get her GED, and definitely never went to college. While she was doing pretty well for herself as a bail bondsperson, she actually had been thinking about getting a private investigator’s license and starting her own business. There’s a fair bit of overlap between the two careers, and Emma liked the idea of not having to work for anyone else, and also being able to hopefully be a little more choosy about the clients she chose.

She was still in the process of researching the requirements and debating over taking some local college courses in that field before trying to actually make any big changes, when Henry showed up at her door.

Headcanon B: while it may not be realistic it is hilarious

I really love the idea of Emma bipiddy-boppedy-booing about once she gets better with her magic. Just using it for little, silly things that no one else really uses magic for. (Maybe the reason is that most people don’t have that much magic to use for frivolous stuff, or the magic always has a price makes them way of depending on it too much.) But Emma doesn’t depend on it, she only just kind of plays with her magic, pretty much only in private, but she finds it really fun. So she will sneakily change the color of her dress while spinning in the mirror, or she will animate all the socks to race one another into the laundry machine, or whatever. Just small things, only sometimes, but it’s really cute and she always gets a little giddy/silly about it.

At one point, Killian catches her pretending to have an argument about dishes that don’t want to be washed because they’re scared of the overzealous sponge, and he can’t help laughing. Emma is super embarrassed and makes him swear never to ever tell or even hint to anyone, ever. He eventually agrees but teases her about it, saying he’s rooting for the sponge, or whatever. It’s just fun and cute and very silly. :)

Headcanon C: heart-crushing and awful, but fun to inflict on friends

Emma’s first memory is of her first ‘parents’ giving her back. They were the Swans, they took her in when she was very cute and small, but then when they had their own kid they basically said they couldn’t support multiple kids and couldn’t keep Emma. Either they had already finished adopting her, and now gave her up for adoption again, or they were still in the middle of the process and just stopped it. But they kept her until their child was born a healthy baby, because they had already had multiple miscarriages or something. Emma obviously doesn’t remember all the details of this, but she has a vague first memory of the parents she loved leaving her behind and never coming back, which for a long time she secretly thought might be about her bio parents despite knowing she was a literal newborn when she was abandoned.

As an adult she researched her own past, and learned about this whole situation as well as the ‘left on the side of the road’ thing. She visited the Swans secretly/looked them up, and they were living happily with their biological kid, showing all signs of being great parents and having a close-knit family. Emma never confronted them, and doesn’t like to admit her complicated feelings about them, or even that this ever happened to her. But she absolutely has conflated her issues with them/her birth parents, and yet she’s clung to the last name ‘Swan’ since it indicates someone loved her enough to make her theirs, even if only for a little while.

I wrote a short little ficlet about something this once and ever since it’s been my headcanon.

Headcanon D: unrealistic, but I will disregard canon about it because I reject canon reality and substitute my own.

Probably some of the others already contradict various moments in canon, but whatever. Here’s the one I’m going with:

I firmly believe in bisexual Emma who absolutely fell in puppy love with Lily, please and thank you. (I wrote a fic about it, even.) Also, I quite like the idea of her wanting to have a one-night stand with Ruby to stop thinking about could-have-beens and feelings after Graham died. However, things were happening pretty quickly, and in such a small town she didn’t want to get involved in anything else potentially messy at this point. Add in that she saw Ruby almost every day so there would be no avoiding her, and fearing Mary-Margaret would try to either help her find love or give her some kind of intervention about Graham if she found out, and Emma never went beyond thinking about it. (After the curse was broken and she learned that Ruby had been her mother’s close friend, she was pretty glad about that choice.)

.

Killian

Headcanon A:  realistic

Killian gets phantom pains sometimes in his missing hand. He’s been missing it for much longer than he ever actually had two hands, but that doesn’t make a difference as far as those go. (It also doesn’t change the way he sometimes forgets he only has one hand when he is half-asleep. Only ever for a moment, but long enough to reach for something and not be able to pick it up.) He has various things that tend to trigger the pain (when he’s thinking too much about the time he lost it, it always pulses with a strong pain that he just determinedly ignores whenever he’s around Rumple; heavy rain can trigger it; if he does too much work with his left arm, like carrying something heavy with his hook or something, often that night or the next day will hurt), though sometimes it seems to come on randomly. Likewise, he has a few different methods to deal with it, from painkillers to getting drunk to putting the stump in a warm bath to trying to imagine stretching out his hand, that all help sometimes. Other times, though, he just kind of has to wait it out because nothing works.

One time, Emma notices he’s bothered and finally gets him to tell her what’s going on. At the moment, there’s nothing she can do (it’s a ‘wait it out’ day), but she looks up other methods of helping, and the next time she notices Killian going through it, she gives the mirror box a try since it is relatively easy to do in the moment. It actually helps, and after that she and Killian are able to figure out a couple other ways that can help reduce his pain.

Headcanon B: while it may not be realistic it is hilarious

Killian gets motionsickness on long car rides or roller coasters. He’s perfectly fine on a boat that is swaying all over the place in the harshest of storms, but for some reason riding in the Bug for more than thirty minutes will make him feel sick to his stomach. He finds this deeply ridiculous and does not like to acknowledge it in any way. Emma find this deeply ridiculous and loves to tease him about it.

The issue with roller coasters was a complete surprise - again, because he’s usually fine with high-adrenaline activities, they both thought it was only cars that bothered him. When Emma first took him and Henry to a roller coaster park, he was actually most interested in all the fast rides, only to be disappointed and have to sit down in the sun and drink some water while Emma and Henry were completely fine.

Headcanon C: heart-crushing and awful, but fun to inflict on friends

Killian has been alive for a long time, and most of the people he loves have been dead for the vast majority of that time. Even as a child, he could barely remember his mother - a vague impression of her voice, of the way her hair would sway... After Liam died, Killian was left without any kind of memento of what he looked like. When they were together, Milah drew several portraits of herself and Killian bother separately and together. She also drew her son, determined to keep him with her and not forget what he looked like. Killian thought about asked her to draw Liam for him as well, but he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to describe him well enough and that the portrait being only a half-likeness or something would just bother him more, so he never did.

He deeply regretted this later, when after nearly two hundred years in Neverland he realized that he could no longer remember what his older brother looked like. Sometimes, kind of, but nothing clear or reliable. He still remembered how much Liam meant to him, what they did together, of course all of that - but he couldn’t recall exactly what his brother’s voice sounded like when he was angry, or the particular shade of his hair, or whether he ever had freckles. Over time, Killian forgot most concrete details about Liam, no matter how much he tried to cling to them. He was terrified of losing Milah’s memory in the same way, or Emma during the year apart, and would often try to think of them as clearly as possible, to linger on specific memories and indelibly etch them into his mind. Still, he couldn’t help but notice that (particularly with Milah) some things were slipping away despite hims best efforts. Small things, like not remembering how Milah took her coffee, but he is still terrified of losing even the smallest of memories.

Headcanon D: unrealistic, but I will disregard canon about it because I reject canon reality and substitute my own.

My mind is blanking for some reason. Maybe I’ve just been doing this too long... How about, Rumple was lying when he said Killian’s briefly restored hand was never cursed. I can’t remember if that was implied to be a lie or not, but I’ve always thought it was. Maybe not a deliberate “curse” exactly but I have always liked this idea that the hand is frozen in time in more ways than one (and Rumple would’ve known that).