#this might be my whole small town to large city culture shock but what the actual fuck is this area

[beaversatemygrandma]

An unintended advantage of this rail strike going on. I haven’t been blocked into my neighborhood by a train all week.

It’s actually a huge problem in this area. It’s mostly train and truck depots and warehouses and whatnot. And there’s this huge maze of railroad tracks around this urban residential area. So, there’s like weekly complaints to the city because there will be a train stopped on the tracks crossing the roads in a few different places doing their needed drop-offs, pick-ups, car changes, etc. But they Block the Road for hours at a time. Which is understandable, they need to do that. It’s just the absolute nightmare of the build of the area which isn’t their fault at all, just the city planning. It got so bad that they built a bridge across the residential area to cross those tracks. But, this is another fifteen minutes out of the way if you really want to escape the area behind those trains. And that’s only if you’re not heading towards the downtown area, if you’re going that way, then good luck, I think there’s another detour a half hour out if you don’t hit massive traffic.

Idk, but I’m sure there’s been a lot less people from around here being late for work and I bet that’s been nice.

[with-my-murder-flute]

Initial sketch notes of my historical research on Islamic experiences of the Siege of Jerusalem during the First Crusade, posted August 6, 2020.  This is the long version of “Why might Yusuf al-Kaysani, who is from the Maghreb, have been fighting at Jerusalem in 1099?”

Trigger Warning: Graphic violence, slavery, and genocide

Notes taken from reading Paul M. Cobb’s The Race for Paradise: An Isamic History of the Crusades and supplemented by Dr. Google. I’m reading Cobb’s book partly because it’s on audiobook (though it is a fricking Audible Exclusive) and partly because it’s written for Western non-Muslim audiences, which helps get me up to speed.

The Old Guard Through History video says Joe and Nicky met during the Siege of Jerusalem in 1099, so I’ve focused most of my research on that.

Historians generally agree that in the 11th century the Islamic* world did not have a “Muslims vs Christians” worldview like the one Christians were beginning to develop. Their experience led them to expect Christians to be allies as often as enemies. Around the 1060s Christians began a new paradigm of religious war against Muslims, which Muslims didn’t really realize at the time--they responded to times when Christians would choose religious affiliation over clear strategic gain as shocking and bizarre, a departure from the status quo

(*Islamic: Society predominantly defined by Muslim rule and culture, but containing people of many different religions)

The Islamic response to the First Crusade was decentralized and diverse. There were a lot of different groups in the Levant*, many of whom had deep divisions, rivalries, and feuds. They mostly saw the Crusaders as a new factor that might affect their existing rivalries with other Islamic states, and were used to being able to broker deals or treaties with Christian groups to turn local warfare to their advantage.

(*Levant: A term used to describe countries in the Eastern Mediterranean, especially those with traditional religious significance to the Abrahamic religions - modern-day Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and parts of Egypt and Turkey. Comes from the French word for “rising”, in the sense of “where the sun rises”)

Additional term I’m going to be using a lot: “Frank”. It’s the Islamic term for, basically, “Western European” (of both the pagan and Roman Catholic varieties). It’s easier than saying “the Roman Catholics” or “The Crusaders” (which is putting a later cultural construct on people who didn’t call themselves that)

The biggest division of Islamic society in this area is, roughly, the Seljuq Turks and the Fatimid Caliphate. 

In the year 1000, the Fatimids were riding high: They ruled Egypt and North Africa stretching across to the Atlantic, much of the Levant, the island of Sicily, and bits of the Arabian Peninsula around the Red Sea. 

Then in the mid-11th century the Seljuqs came BLASTING OUTTA NOWHERE like holy shit calm your jets and conquered a lot of Fatimid and Byzantine territory (we’re talking the yellow parts of the map, they’ll destroy the Byzantines entirely later)

In addition to losing land to the Seljuqs, the Fatimids also lost Sicily to the Normans (who don’t even GO THERE but anyway), and North Africa through?? Independence movements?? Sheer carelessness??? I’m not quite certain.

The Seljuqs were Sunni, the Fatimids were Shi’ite, I... am not gonna try to explain that whole thing. Here’s a video.

(Small note for Yusuf character reasons: A big motivation behind the move of Ifriqiya [modern Tunisia and parts of Algieria and Libya] out of Fatimid control was that most of their populations were also Sunni)

So the Franks left Constantinople and travelled through what is now Turkey but was at the time the Byzantine Empire, and then moved into Seljuq lands. Most of the fighting in the First Crusade was against Seljuqs--mostly against tribes who fought for themselves, I think? Although in Damascus (which was a huge city the Franks just breezed by in favour of historically significant ghost towns) there was a general jihad preached like “Hey somebody should do something about all these Europeans”, so some of the people fighting were like... random people from Damascus.

While the Seljuqs were distracted, the Fatimids thought they could win some land back from THOSE UPSTARTS, so they snuck in and grabbed Jerusalem.  As Peter Konieczny reports, there are scholars who think the Fatimids thought, partly because they had a lot of experience ruling Egypt’s Coptic Christian population, that they could reach a mutually satisfactory alliance with the Franks, especially since it seemed like most of the Franks didn’t intend to settle in the area, but return to Europe once they ensured pilgrim access to Jerusalem, which had mostly been hindered by banditry in Seljuq-controlled areas. 

When I read stuff just generally about the Fatimid army, it’s described as being composed of two groups:

Berber tribesmen (Kutama and Sanhaja) (I’m struggling to find more info about them)

Mamluks, who are... a cross between slaves and mercenaries? Basically, they were captives from non-Muslim territory (in the Fatimids’ case, mostly Circassia in central Asia) who were brought to Muslim lands and trained as soldiers, but once active as soldiers, were paid and hired by different groups, able to achieve freedom, often gained important government posts, and occasionally toppled the government they served and ruled the roost.

This next bit is based on fairly standard histories of the Siege of Jerusalem that rely a lot on Western sources, like this article by Michael D. Hull and this article by Michael Cartwright. Which... have to be taken with a grain of salt, because medieval military histories don’t tend to line up super well with archaeology or plain logistics. Generally, it isn’t wise to take medieval European sources at their word when they say “the army had 10,000 people” or “they killed every last person”. They’re often written after the fact and with clear biases, and, when it comes to the Crusades, with an imperfect understanding of the culture they’re describing. I’d like to have better sources, but this is where I’m starting from, especially since I have limited access to academic sources during the summer.

So, the standard history says that Jerusalem was taken in 1098 by  Emir  al-Afdal Shahinshah, but by 1099, governor Iftikhar al-Daula was in command of the defenses. and that he had a “garrison of Arab cavalry and Sudanese archers.” Cartwright reports it as “perhaps several thousand infantry and an elite cavalry corps of 400 Egyptians.” I currently have no way of knowing which of these troops were Mamluks and which weren’t.

According to Hull, when the Fatimids in Jerusalem realized they would have to face a siege, they expelled all Christians of any denomination from the city, as well as all Jews “except for those of a sect for whom it was mandatory to reside in the Holy City”. Cartwright reports it as “...all Christians were kicked out if the city. In contrast, the Jewish population were allowed to stay”. Cartwright reports that Jerusalem’s population, 70,000 at the beginning of the year, was lowered to 30,000 by the expulsions (though some people were also coming into the city to take refuge from the oncoming Frankish army). Additional preparations included poisoning wells outside of Jerusalem to deny the Frankish army water, and emptying the land around the city of livestock and people. 

The Fatimids were also expecting the arrival of an army marching north from Egypt to help them out relatively soon, which explains why their strategy was mostly “hunker down and wait” with very limited attacks outside the city.

The Franks came southward down the coast to Jaffa, where they took the nearest port to Jerusalem, and then approached the city.

June 7, 1099: The Frankish army shows up at Jerusalem with about 15,000 people total and less than 1,500 armed knights. They split into two camps, one attacking from the south, one from the north. They were in rough shape and didn’t have any siege weapons, so the Fatimid defenders were able to sit up on the walls, taunt them, and shoot arrows. They enlivened the tedium by sending cavalry units outside the walls to harass Franks who were scavenging for food and water.

June 13, 1099: Some Franks on the north side of the city managed to scrabble together siege ladders and try to climb up and assault the walls; they were repelled pretty easily by the defenders.

June 17, 1099: English and Genoese ships land at Jaffa, carrying siege equipment and fresh supplies. Hull reports that the Fatimids dispatched troops, 400 Arabs and 200 Turks, to attack the supply chain between Jaffa and Jerusalem; Hull reports that the Franks only lost 5 of the force of maybe 150-200 knights, and “all of the archers” (about 50?)

It takes about three weeks to transport the supplies to Jerusalem and for the siege towers to be built; the Genoese played an especially large role in building the siege equipment, and their chief engineer is named as  William Embriaco.

On July 10 the siege engines were finished and wheeled to the walls. That night everyone inside the city and out sat over campfires, showing each other pictures of their families and trying to humanize themselves for the audience to make their impending deaths more impactful

(I kid)

(mostly)

June 13-15: Almost continuous fighting between the Franks, who are trying to move their siege engines close enough to make it onto the walls of Jerusalem, and the Fatimid defenders, who were trying to fight them off and burn their towers down. 

June 15: The Franks breach the walls and begin pouring inside, killing and looting its inhabitants. There is well-documented destruction of Muslim and Jewish holy places, where Muslims and Jews fled for refuge and were killed. This part is. Sickening. Tens of thousands of people dead; the streets running with blood. 

The Fatimid governor and various others (possibly the remainders of the army? Possibly important citizens? Some Jews appear to be in this group?) took refuge in the Tower of David, and were able to negotiate to leave Jerusalem safely. The Fatimid soldiers who left the city that way joined the advancing Fatimid army at Ascalon, southwest of Jerusalem.

It’s unclear who the survivors were--the sources mention people left aside being made into slaves, being allowed to leave the city, or being ransomed by rich relatives outside the city. The fact that we have Jewish and Muslim accounts of what happened during this time means there were survivors

But let’s face it: The survivors were the minority. The majority of people, thousands of them, were slaughtered by the Franks as they took over the city.

Epilogue: The Fatimids tried to take Jerusalem back a month later, and failed. Jerusalem was in Crusader hands.

It’s taken me three days to write this up and I’m ending it feeling really blah and drained by the enormity of this shit. I... 

The Race for Paradise has this bit that talks about two Western ways of talking about the Crusades: 

The Traditional paradigm, where this was a great moment for Christianity, whew we kicked those guys’ BUTTS!

The Lachrymose (Latin for “full of tears”) paradigm, coming to popularity since the Enlightenment, where this was horrific mass slaughter caused by religious zealotry and it was bad and everything was bad 

But the thing is, we can’t actually stop there. Or, that is: It’s not actually useful for our only narratives about the Crusades to be either “Christians kill everyone and it’s awesome” or “Christians kill everyone and it’s terrible”. It’s not true; it feeds into the overall false narrative of “European Christians only interacted with [Muslims/Middle Easterners/People of Colour] very rarely, and only when there was an atrocity happening.” It means we fail to acknowledge all the cross-cultural contacts that happened without an atrocity, and fail to realize that a lot of these atrocities came out of the context of incredibly warlike countries whose economies depended on warfare and conquest.

Another element is... during the 11th century, when all of this happened, the Normans also invaded England. Their conquest was absolutely brutal. England was ethnically and linguistically divided for centuries between a French-speaking colonial upper class, and the English-speaking peasantry. But over the centuries, these two groups came to live together peacefully and build a distinctly new society. Most peoples’ narratives of medieval England are not “a land of massacre, genocide, and ethnic strife”, even though those things definitely happened. We just have much stronger associations with medieval English art, literature, culture, fashion, and architecture than its slaughters.

So basically: The challenge for us in the 21st century is to develop a richer understanding of the past. We know a hell of a lot about battles and armies; we know way less about merchants and farmers, and about the long decades between battles and armies. Military history tells us about waging war, but if we can look past that, we can find out about waging peace.

Now I’m going to go collapse into my bed, and in a day or five I’ll write up a TL;DR version about what I think the likeliest backstories for Joe are (Briefly: probably a Fatimid cavalry soldier or an ordinary person who thought it was safe to be in Jerusalem at the time, and had to defend himself and his servants etc when the city fell)

[seiin-translations]

2.43 S1 Chapter 1.1: Young Yunichika

1. FIRST TOUCH

For this whole series, just imagine that everyone except Haijima is talking in dialect

Translation Notes

1. Itoko (従姉妹) is the Japanese word for cousin, so Kuroba’s itoko is Itoko, it’s a pun

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Continuing to fall almost nonstop since New Years’ Eve, the snow completely buried the school building right after winter break. It was just like a drifting classroom isolated in the gaps of space-time. The window glass that was pure-white with condensation cut off any connection to the outside world, and the air warmed by the stove amassed in the classroom without circulating. Steam rose gently from the brass basin that was placed on the stovetop, and the air near the ceiling appeared to flicker.

The old school building seemed to be creaking under the weight of the snow, and he was afraid that it was going to collapse, but it had held up every year without any problems. If only somewhere else in the school—like around the principal’s office—had been crushed flat, the talks of renovation would have proceeded quickly.

I mean, Grandpa can just make a donation. Should I try asking him seriously this time?

He thought that for a moment, but there was no doubt that he would have graduated by the time the new school building was completed, so that was a little silly. The middle school in the neighboring Suzumu City, which he had visited before at a town exchange event, was a new, clean, and sturdy reinforced concrete building, and the entire building was warm even though there were no kerosene heaters to be seen anywhere. He received a culture shock when he learned that the toilets were not cold.

I wanna be in high school soon, he thought vaguely. Since there were no high schools in town, you would have to go to Suzumu City for the closest one. However, the one year and three months until graduation was a length that could be called an eternity.

Fourteen years old. He had finally just started the third semester of his second year of middle school.

“The transfer student’s late, isn’t he?”

After performing the penance of opening ceremony in the frigid gym, Kuroba Itoko said and she hung her behind on the edge of his desk during the strangely slow waiting time after they returned to the classroom. “Heave ho,” she said as she wriggled her butt back to put her thighs on his desk, so Kuroba Yuni reflexively removed his chin resting in his hands on the desk and leaned back. This is just a bit embarrassing, oi… Even if all the female middle and high school students in the city did it, it was hard to understand why so many girls were shortening their skirts when the circumstances in this snowy country was different.

Itoko’s class was Class 2 next door, but she often made trips to Class 1. From entry to elementary school to middle school graduation, the faces in each grade didn’t change fundamentally, so everyone knew each other even though the classes were different. She seemed to have gotten some kind of information from the group of Class 1 girls who were still talking at the doorway even now.

That was right, a transfer student was arriving. There was no small amount of excitement in the air in Class 2-1 for the big event of the new semester, which was rarely encountered. It was a depopulating town where the number of people in school decreased, but rarely increased. What was more, apparently the transfer student was coming from Tokyo, so the expectations were high no matter what.

“I wonder if he’ll be cute. I hope he’ll be cute.”

“He has a normal face. Maybe a bit below normal.”

“You knew him until you guys were in senior kindergarten, right? He might have gotten cute.”

“I’m telling you, he didn’t. He’s going to be a pipsqueak with glasses who’s bad at sports. He became a wuss who’d get scared by this amount of snow...”

“What’s with you, are you sulking? You really are a little kid…”

“Shut up. I told you stop acting like you’re my big sister. The teacher’s coming soon so get back to your own class.”

As soon as he told her to stop, Itoko said, “Yes, yes, what a hopeless kid” with the utmost superior look on her face, shrugged her shoulders and jumped down from the table. Her short skirt fluttered lightly.

“I’m wearing underpants, so there’s no use peeking.”

“Did you make knitted panties? So ugly. I don’t get why you try so hard to look like that.”

“Being stylish is all about grit.”

Brushing aside the unintentional insult that rushed out of his mouth, Itoko slipped through the gaps between the messily aligned desks. Since she didn’t deny the knitted panties, did that mean that was true?

Kuroba Yuni and Kuroba Itoko had the same family name, but they were not siblings. It either made it confusingly similar or easy to understand, but���Itoko was his cousin. (1) They had the same grandfather and their fathers were brothers. She always acted like his older sister, but they were the same age, and since Kuroba was born in September and Itoko was born in October, he wanted to assert the fact that he was the one who was older.

She turned her miffed face away and rested her chin in her hands again. Kuroba’s seat was at very back by the window—until today. When he came to school today, a brand new desk and chair was brought in behind him.

He wiped the condensation on the window with his palm. Even when he cleared away the white film, all you could see beyond it was a blanket of white snow. The snow had stopped for now, but heavy snow clouds remained in the sky, and it wouldn’t be unusual if it started snowing some time again. There was a narrow path created from the school gate to the building sandwiched between walls of snow, but since the snow removal operation in the early morning, it had gotten buried again by the continuing snow.

He squinted outside the window to see if there was anything visible in the white. He was a slow and clumsy kid, so I hope he didn’t get stuck buried in the snow or something…

The truth was, Kuroba took pride in the fact that he was looking forward to the transfer student more than anyone else, a hundred or a thousand times more than Itoko or his classmates. Even though he was supposed to have finished moving house during winter break, he showed no indication of coming over to his house to show his face, so he was just a little frustrated about that and his excitement went down. They parted with each other in senior kindergarten, so it had been eight years. He wondered if he had been thoroughly steeped in Tokyo and forgot about this place.

Although, it wasn’t as if Kuroba remembered a lot either. He could remember meaningless episodes like what he did to get injured or what he did to get scolded, but as soon as he tried to systematically trace his memories, they became hazy. Like a snow scene that became misty with a glass that was already clouding over again—

In the midst of the white, he could see a flicker of something black moving.

Surprised, he half-rose to his feet and pasted himself to the window. There were two figures walking in the gorge between the walls of snow that seemed like they could collapse at any minute.

“…He’s here!”

He unintentionally exclaimed, and the miscellaneous chatter that filled the classroom quickly faded. There was a beat, and then shouts of joy rose. His more than thirty classmates surged towards the window and lined their faces.

The smaller figure, dressed in a stocky blouson down coat, was an old lady when he looked closer. So that means the other, bigger figure was…? Wait, how can he be that big…He was confused for a moment because he didn’t match his image of that kindergarten kid.

However, as soon as he strained his eyes and looked into his face, a warm-colored lantern lit up the snowy landscape of his white hazy memory, and a fresh image appeared in his mind.

“I’ll never forget you, Yuni… But, goodbye…”

Certainly, there was the face of a crying kindergartener who came to say goodbye to him while sobbing eight years ago. His pale face was drenched with tears, and even his glasses were wet. No matter how much he wiped them with his hands, large drops of tears continued to run down his cheeks, so much that he was worried that he was going to squeeze all the water out of his body.

That’s right, the glasses. He was already wearing glasses in kindergarten, and that might have helped giving him an introverted and quiet impression. Glasses and short and bad at sports. That was exactly his impression at that time. Once he remembered one thing, the vivid parts increased one after the other. One lantern lit a new lantern, and it became brighter and brighter.

Immediately, he stopped caring about how he didn’t come to see him over winter break or any of those small grievances. With impatient hands, he unfastened the screw lock on the window frame and threw open the window. The cold wind blew in and his classmates reproached him with “It’s so cold—“, but everyone’s voices bounced off him. Fine snowflakes blown up together with the wind struck his face. He shook his head and brushed away the snow.

“Chika!”

He leaned so far out the window that it looked like he was about to fall down and raised his voice.

The figure stopped and looked up. His eyes met his through thin-framed glasses. How will he react at first? His heart was beating fast from the anticipation.

He just reacted in such an indifferent way, like he just happened to exchange lines of sight with a stranger. He moved his face down without changing expression and disappeared into the shade of the eaves of the school entrance. The old lady who was left behind bowed slightly like she was troubled and followed after him, her snow boots making crunching noises.

Huh…? Did he…forget me?

Feeling let down, Kuroba stood stock still near the window. The two footprints that continued from the school gate were swept away by the white snow-mixed wind as the hanging lanterns that lit his memories went out with a puff.

⋆﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤⋆

“Haijima Kimichika-kun came from Tokyo. It seems that his grandfather’s house is in town, and he lived in Suzumu City until kindergarten. Perhaps some of you might know him.”

The gazes of everyone in the class was focused on the gangly school uniform standing at the teacher’s podium. How tall is he, it looks like he’s about the same as me? Kuroba thought absentmindedly as he stared at the small tip on the first stroke of “Hai” from the family name that was written vertically on the blackboard by the homeroom teacher. From among the three past elements of glasses, being tiny, and bad at sports, the glasses remained and pipsqueak disappeared. The remaining unknown was his motor skills.

He had a pale, smooth face and a rather neat set of features. If he had to decide between strong or weak, he would say they were weak. Depending on how you looked at it, they might look reptilian. At the very least, the characteristics of an idol-like pretty boy that Itoko had sweetly hoped for were nonexistent. To be frank, he seemed unfriendly. He still hadn’t smiled even once since he entered the classroom. He didn’t even try to look around at his classmates’ faces, just pursing his lips together and staring at his feet. Hmm, shyness?

“Kuroba-kun.”

Suddenly called on by the teacher, he made a stupid “Yeah?” sound.

“Haijima-kun played volleyball in his last school, so he will be joining the volleyball team. Please teach him about the team activities. Also, Haijima-kun’s eyesight is not good, but as you can see, he is tall, so you will move a seat behind. He will be the second from the back by the window.

Still without saying a word or even making a sound, Hajima nodded, took his bag and descended from the podium. Everyone’s interested gazes moved with his movements. As he turned twice at right angles and walked over to him without hesitation, Kuroba hurriedly got up as though to jump out of the way, and he put his bag on Kuroba’s seat with a thump before sitting down.

“Oh,” When Kuroba started to talk to him,

“…?”

He glared at him with a sideways glance, looking suspicious. What he placed on his desk was a somewhat stylish dark red backpack that looked like something from a school in the city, and had a somewhat stylish, unfamiliar school emblem embroidered on it.  

“No…it’s fine.”

Kuroba took the seat behind his, thinking, Well, if he’s fine with it, then I guess it’s okay. Unlike his desk, which had scribbles carved all over it with a cutter, the desk prepared for Haijima was still brand new, the surface shining brightly.

“Hey, how tall are you? You’re seventy, right?”

He leaned over the desk, poked the back before him and started talking to him. Kuroba was 173 centimeters. He had heard that the average height for second-year middle school boys was around 160, so he was on the considerably tall side.

Haijima turned around, looking like he couldn’t be bothered. His narrow eyes glared at him again. A gaze where you couldn’t feel anything like charm or friendliness at all, as if all the temperature was absorbed while passing through the thin lens of his glasses.

“Your position?”

That was the first sound he made since entering the classroom. Similar to his eyes, the way he spoke made you wonder if he had thrown away all his charm and friendliness at a station on the express train ride here from Tokyo. His voice finished changing…maybe? He had a low voice that carried well. It was just a bit frustrating.

“On the volleyball team?”

Haijima raised his eyebrows and repeated his words when Kuroba was just staring at him vacantly. Huh? His intonation felt strange. He was speaking in standard Japanese. Has it always been that way? It shouldn’t be like that, though.

“Oh, oooh, that’s what you meant by position?” This guy talked in a way that lopped off the context before and after his words. “Well, let’s see, I feel like we didn’t really decide them…”

“You didn’t decide? What do you do in matches?”

“Matches? Ah…”

He hadn’t heard that word in a long time. After gaping like it was someone else’s problem,

“We’ve never been in a proper match. It’s a club of guys who only belong to it in name only, and the practice days are whenever. Look, you have to join a club here. Don’t you know that?”

An expression that actually looked like an expression appeared on Haijima’s face, it looked like. Though it was only slightly, his narrow eyes widened—is this shock? And then his eyes suddenly lowered, his mouth turning down at the corners. Is this sadness?

“Oh, was your old school really strong?”

Crap, I might make him cry. He didn’t really understand, but he felt that he said something wrong, and when he panickily tried to stay on topic,

“Tch…”

He heard that. No way, did he click his tongue just now?

“So you’re just uselessly big?”

He heard a sudden, unbelievable insult from the mouth of the transfer student, who one would think would be generally burning with the desire to build good relationships with the people at his new school. With that, Haijima abruptly faced forward and started emitting an aura of “Don’t ever talk to me” from his back. Kuroba could do nothing but stare at that amazingly obstinate back with his mouth wide open.

“I’ll never forget you, Yuni… But, goodbye…”

Which station did you lose the “Chika” from eight years ago who was sobbing because he didn’t want to say goodbye?

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[allisondraste]

Temperance 30/42

Pairing: Nathaniel Howe/ Female, Non-HoF Cousland

Story Summary: Nathaniel and Elissa were childhood friends, but time and distance tore them apart. In the aftermath of the Fifth Blight, and Ferelden’s Civil War, both Elissa and Nathaniel must attempt reconstruct their tattered lives. As a series of events lead them to be reunited, both are reminded of so many years ago when things were much simpler.

Chapter Summary:    The Grand Tourney defies Nathaniel’s expectations

Note: That’s right, y’all! We have a final chapter number (and the big 3 - 0)! I have a few notes that I wanted to make about this chapter as well.  Due to the amount of suggestion, innuendo, and things referenced in this chapter, I thought it warranted a note that there are some more mature and sexual themes explored in this chapter that I did not feel necessitated a rating change. However, I just wanted to give everyone a heads up! ^^   Also, shout out to the WoT V.2 for providing me with the excellent backdrop of this story (if you haven’t read Nate’s entry, I highly recommend) as well as to @daydreamingdragonage for coming up with the awesome tavern name featured here.  Finally, I just want to thank everyone for being so patient with me in updating!  November has been a hellish month with internship apps due, a draft of my dissertation due, a conference, and some personal/mental health woes that all just knocked me on my butt, but I’m back and so happy to be writing again.  I’m so grateful to all of my lovely, wonderful readers and friends.  Thanks from the bottom of my heart. 

First Chapter

Previous Chapter

[AO3 LINK]

Tantervale, 9:26 Dragon

For all that Starkhaven made Ferelden seem like a small, dirty hovel filled with unrefined brutes and barbarians, Tantervale made it seem like a land of impious sinners.  Not only was the large marcher city-state pristine and orderly, but it’s people were quiet and mild mannered. On its own, it was not a particularly beautiful place. Plain, uniform buildings stood side by side for as far as the eye could see.  The Chantry was the only exception. Decorated with stained glass and golden filigree, the building was nothing like Nathaniel had ever seen, vibrant and large as the palace in Starkhaven and as imposing as Fort Drakon’s shadow.

Down every street and every corner, Andrastian icons and images could be found, accompanied by a fully armored Templar or two, who served as city guards and watched through the slits of their helmets with vigilant eyes.  Still, the city and it’s people seemed to revel in the presence of the Grand Tourney, decorating their plain buildings with pennants of blue and gold. Citizens and guests alike danced and sang in the street as wine flowed freely. Nathaniel wondered how the Chantry felt about the influx of pleasure-seeking outsiders pouring into Tantervale, bringing their sin with them.  Then again, it was likely a profitable venture. How else would they afford to feed their chancellors to excess or erect a fiftieth marble statue of the Holy Bride of the Maker?

The sheer opulence disgusted him, and yet he was in no position to complain.  He’d only ever read about the Grand Tourney in books, or heard about them from Liss who always enthusiastically rambled about her favorite contests and competitors.  Even her emphatic descriptions did not do it justice. He wished she could be there to see it. He imagined her face lighting up with excitement as she took everything in, and  laughed as he thought about how she might slap him on the arm repeatedly as she pointed at something she did not want him to miss. He had not seen her in four years, and yet there was a big hole at his side where she belonged.  At this point, he had no hope that it’d ever be filled.  

He shook his head, attempting to refocus on the present, where he stood in the center of the festivities in Tantervale, with a new pouch of coin resting heavily in his hand.  Ser Rodolphe had given it to him after watching him compete in the Grand Melee. Nathaniel had stubbornly entered the contest with a bow as his weapon, determined to prove to his mentor how archery could be useful in close-quarters combat.  He was faster than his opponents, and managed to duck under, dodge, and evade the many clumsy attacks against him. That is, until the end.

Nathaniel typically enjoyed irony, but the Orlesian bastard that finally managed to disarm him and force him to yield bore an uncanny resemblance to his own father.  He had piercing blue eyes and a cruel smirk, and seemed to take great pleasure in disarming Nathaniel, knocking him to the ground, and holding a sword just above his throat.  Nathaniel did not enjoy that one bit.  

To his surprise, Ser Rodolphe seemed pleased with his performance -- or at least as pleased as he’d ever seen him be.  He claimed it was “entertaining” to watch him outmaneuver his opponents, and even admitted that he might have underestimated Nathaniel’s abilities.  The knight handed him a purse of coin, gave him a good-natured clap on the shoulder, and went on his way. Nathaniel remained where he stood, dumbfounded, staring at the purse in his hand with a smirk twitching at the corner of his lips.

It was Ben who finally drew him from his pleasant stupor, running up and throwing his arms around Nathaniel, patting him on the back with some force.  His fellow squire had grown considerably over the past two years, and he did not yet know his own strength. It reminded Nathaniel of every young mabari he’d ever met.  Fully grown, with all the excitement of a pup. It was as uplifting as it was annoying.

“Nate,” Ben shouted right near Nathaniel’s ear, before releasing him from the smothering embrace, “You were fantastic!  I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. What did Rodolphe say?”

Nate grinned and held up the coin purse by its strings, letting it swing back and forth in front of Ben’s eyes. “He said to use it wisely.”

“That means ale, yes?”  Ben fidgeted eagerly. “And food?  One of the locals was telling me about this tavern--”

“Let’s go,” Nate said, laughing and putting an arm around Ben’s shoulder.  The younger man smiled in response, and they headed back toward the center of town.  

It was early in the afternoon and many merchants from around Thedas stood at kiosks that lined the streets and squares, bringing color and life to the city.  At one of the stands, Ben found a replica of Hessarian’s Sword of Mercy that caused his eyes to glitter with youthful excitement, and Nathaniel had no choice but to purchase it for him.  He swore he saw his friend’s eyes brim with tears as he thanked him profusely.  

They continued on, but Nathaniel stalled at the site of a stand owned by a Dwarven merchant with a thick, braided beard and a doublet of bright red and gold.  On the table beside him was a series of small, mechanical music boxes that the man claimed were hand-crafted. One, in particular, caught Nathaniel’s eye. It was a tiny, bronze bronto that sparkled in the sunlight.  Twisting its tail produced a tinkling, plucky sound, and a song that Nathaniel had never heard before. Liss would have loved it, he thought, remembering all the times she’d talked to him about Dwarven culture and brontos.  He wondered if she’d gotten to “meet” one yet.

Without giving it much of a thought, he bought it, and the merchant thanked him repeatedly for his business.  Apparently the people of Tantervale and the visiting Tourney attendees were tough customers when it came to mechanical, dwarven-made music boxes. Nathaniel was happy to oblige.

“Finally,” Ben said, and pointed in the direction of a tavern straight ahead of them.  The sign that hung above the doorway featured a humble templar kneeling in front of a curvy figure wearing the robes of a Revered Mother, whose face bore an unusual, shocked expression.

“The Kneeling Knight?” Nathaniel snorted and raised his eyebrows as he followed after his friend.

“Thought you’d like that,” Ben said, turning back and winking at him. “Apparently the locals aren’t as buttoned up as they pretend to be.”

“No one is as buttoned up as they pretend to be.”

“Including you?” Ben offered his typical mischievous smile as he opened the door, motioning for Nathaniel to go in first.

“Especially me,” Nathaniel answered with a shrug, and then entered the crowded tavern.

The Kneeling Knight was a spacious tavern, with a main floor filled with many wooden tables, as well as the bar area where several barmaids an a man who appeared to be the owner worked rapidly to fill mugs and flagons and carry them to guests.  A second floor housed a few more tables as well as a balcony where a minstrel stood, performing her songs and poems.  

They pushed their way past the dense crowd of people gathered chatting and celebrating to occupy one of the few vacant tables that sat against the back wall.  Several of the other patrons pointed and stared, whispering so loudly that it could hardly be called whispering. They’d watched the melee, or so it seemed, and Nathaniel was recognized as “that Fereldan dog who nearly won.” Nearly.  He huffed, and attempted to ignore the dozens of eyes that bore into him.

“What’ll you boys be havin’ today,” chirped one of the barmaids as she bumped her hip against Nathaniel’s shoulder.  He flinched, but did his best to not look as annoyed as he felt. Ben laughed into his hand.

Offering his most charming smile, he turned his head up to face the barmaid, whose lips were painted red as blood, and offered her his entire purse.  “Whatever this buys us.”

The woman grinned mischievously, taking the pouch and tucking it down safely into the top of her dress. “Say no more, sweet thing,” she said and bumped him with her hip again.  This time he rolled his eyes.

It was not long after she left that the propositions began. Handfuls of people, person after person, most of them at least twice Nathaniel’s age approached the table, batting their eyes at him, touching his arms, making completely inappropriate remarks involving his bow and their quivers.  If his face was not red, it was missing its chance. He declined each and every one of them politely, and when the barmaid returned with the first round of ale, Nathaniel could not have downed the first tankard any faster.

“I can’t believe you sent that last one away,” Ben said after they’d finished a few rounds, “He was right handsome.  That woman too! The one with the--” he made a lewd gesture with his hands.

“Ben.”

“What?”  He offered Nathaniel a bewildered expression, foam from his last sip hanging just over his upper lip.

“They’re people, not… play things.” He grimaced and Ben seemed to notice the froth on his lip, wiping it off with the back of his arm.

“Right. Sure,” Ben answered wiggling his eyebrows. “If I were you I’d really be playing up my second place finish.”

“Second place is just another way of saying that I lost the slowest,” Nathaniel mumbled as he stared at the music box he’d sat on the table as they came in.  He didn’t know why he thought the ale would make him forget about her. It never did anything except make him numb.

“You’re impossible,” Ben prodded good-naturedly, “You’re a young, decently good-looking man who just got himself some attention.  Enjoy it, man! Live a little. Unless, of course, you’d rather pine over that Fereldan lass for the rest of your life.”

“If I wanted to talk about Liss, I would have brought her up.”  He leaned back in his seat and sighed, forcing a smile he didn’t feel. “If you want me to enjoy myself, you’re doing a terrible job of helping me.”

Ben snorted.  “ You’re the one sitting in a tavern, with beautiful men and women throwing themselves at you, while you stare longingly at a toy bronto like it broke your heart.”

“Oh, piss off,” Nathaniel snapped, wishing he had something to throw at him.

“Fine, Fine,” he said, throwing up his hands.  He surrendered, but not before throwing Nathaniel a smug expression. “Here I thought that thing with the prince knocked you out of it.

“What ‘thing?’  There was no ‘thing.’”  He was lying, of course.  He and Sebastian had, in fact, had a thing.  He thought he’d been discreet enough that Ben did not know.  Clearly, he was mistaken.

Ben smirked, and shook his head. “RIght. ‘Course not.”

Nathaniel sighed and glared at the red-head, muttering. “Once.  It was one time.”

“Only because his parents forced him into the Chantry.”  His typically rosy cheeks were even rosier, as he teased.

“Ben.”

“A shame, that,” he continued, completely oblivious, “You seemed to really get on with him.”

“Ben,” Nathaniel hissed again, clenching his fists at his side.

“You could have tamed that wild boy prince for them.  No need to bother the Maker with it, really.”

Instead of speaking again, he stood and reached across the table to flick his friend forcefully right between his eyes. Ben flinched and reached up to touch the now reddened patch of skin on his forehead.  “Ow. Maker! Fine. I’ll stop.”

“Thank you,” Nathaniel muttered dryly, small smirk twitching at the corners of his mouth.  Suddenly, he felt much better.

Eventually, Ben got some attention of his own, a young woman with dark eyes and porcelain skin approaching, and whispering in his ear.  He blushed, and offered her a seat next to him. He widened his eyes at Nathaniel as she looked away briefly. They exchanged a few flirtations, and wasted no time making their lips acquainted with one another, hands moving where hands shouldn’t go in public.  He had to remind himself that Ben was barely more than a boy. Still, Nathaniel was not inclined to remain at the table and watch their publicly-displayed affection. He moved to stand quietly, but staggered a bit, vision swimming. He’d nearly forgotten how much he had to drink.  Once he steadied, he made his way to the door, and out of the tavern.

He was not certain how he wound up in the middle of the archery range, only that he did, and that a skillful arrow had brushed past him, nicking his cheek slightly.  He reached up, wiping a trickle of warm blood from his face, disoriented and searching for the direction from which the arrow came. One more step, and he’d have been dead, he thought.  Or perhaps, someone else said it. It was difficult to tell. There was shouting, a woman’s voice, and a string of profanity, and he looked down to see an elven woman, as angry as she was petite standing in front of him and glowering as if she, in fact, were his size.

“Are you mad,” she shouted, Antivan accent thick on her tongue. “You could have been killed!”

Nathaniel did not answer her immediately, completely disarmed.  She was lovely, with her deep green eyes beneath furrowed brows.  Her auburn hair was braided loosely over one shoulder, rustling slightly with the wind and her own agitated movement.  The fact that she looked at him so sternly did nothing to make her any less attractive.

“Hello,” she drawled, waving a hand emphatically in front of his face.  

He shook his head and straightened his posture, hoping to regain what little dignity he could muster in his current state. “You call yourself an archer?”  

The elf flinched, clearly offended.  “What does it look like, human?”

Nathaniel looked around dramatically and shrugged before returning his gaze to meet hers.  “No offense my lady, but you seem to be a terrible shot.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Well, first, you missed your target by quite a bit.  And second” he slurred, holding up two fingers for emphasis, “You nearly killed a man.”

“Because that man stumbled out onto the field like some sort of confused druffalo,” she spat, shaking her head in complete disbelief.  Nathaniel should not have enjoyed it as much as he did.

“Excuses,” he teased.

“You think that you could do better?”  She narrowed her eyes at him.

“I know I could,” he replied with a smirk.

The elven woman seemed to relax at his words, and offered him a smirk of her own.  Reaching behind her head, she took an arrow from its quiver, raised her bow, nocked, and fired in one smooth motion.  The arrow flew past his head and straight on into the bullseye of the target. Nathaniel observed the arrow for a moment before meeting her lovely eyes again.

“Prove it,” she said, thrusting her bow at him and handing him an arrow.

“Very well,” he answered, bowing playfully before turning around and shooting the borrowed bow, matching her shot exactly.  He was impressed with himself, considering how his head still swam. Though he was no longer certain how much of it was from the ale, and how much of it was the prospect of a beautiful woman testing his archery mettle.  He almost wanted her to beat him.  

They spent the better part of an hour taking turns making increasingly more difficult shots, each time matching one another perfectly.  A small crowd amassed watching them and cheering, and occasionally they looked at one another exchanging smiles. It was the most fun he could recall having in years.  Eventually, they tired, and decided to call it a draw. When they shook hands, Nathaniel found himself not wanting to let her go. Ridiculous, he knew, the workings of a disinhibited mind.  He did not even know her name.

“I am Erina,” she announced, as if reading his mind, “And that was… impressive.”

Nathaniel chuckled.  “It is nice to officially meet your acquaintance, Lady Erina.  I am Nathaniel.”

“You flatter me,” she answered with an embarrassed laugh.

“Is it working?”  He did not know what possessed him, nor did he care.

“Perhaps.” Erina grinned playfully, then scowled at him again. “I still think you are a fool who is lucky I did not shoot him.”

“I never said I wasn’t,” he began, “A fool, that is. I do, however, feel rather lucky.  It has been my pleasure not getting shot by such a lovely, competent woman.”

She laughed gently, darting her eyes away from his quickly and looking toward the ground where she kicked the toe of her boot into the soft, grassy dirt.  After several moments passed, she looked back up at him, embarrassment gone from her features. “What are you doing this evening?”

“Nothing,” he answered quickly, though he could not shake the feeling that he was forgetting something.  “Do you have something in mind?”

Erina grinned, eyes sparkling as she took his hand and led him away from the range, and toward the outskirts of the city.  They climbed the steps that led to the top of the battlements on the walls surrounding Tantervale, green grassland extending off into the horizon.  The sun had not yet begun to set, but it hung low in the sky, and the breeze had become cool with a hint of the approaching evening.  

“So, Nathaniel,” she said as she crawled up to perch on the parapet, legs dangling over the edge. “Tell me about yourself.”

Moving forward to rest his elbows beside her on the parapet, not trusting his current balancing abilities to keep him from falling to his death, he asked, “What would you like to know?”

“Everything,” she answered.

Nathaniel obliged.  They spent the next several hours talking, sharing stories of their troubled pasts.  He told her of his childhood and his strained relationship with Father, of the Couslands and their hospitality.  He explained how he’d been forced into a squireship in Starkhaven, but had not hated it as much as he expected. He even complained affectionately about Ben and Ser Rodolphe.  In turn, Erina told him her own story, about how she’d grown up in an Alienage in Antiva City, and trained to become a Crow, one of the infamous assassins known for their skill and ruthlessness.  She’d been disappointed when they turned her down, and so she left, hoping to find mercenary work to help her family get by.

“Why did the Crows reject you,” Nathaniel asked, “I can’t imagine that it was lack of skill.”

“They said that I was too headstrong and compassionate.” Erina chuckled. “Not exactly what one looks for in an assassin.”

“Perhaps not,” he said with a laugh of his own.  Thankfully, the effects of the ale had begun to dissipate, and his thoughts came more clearly. “But they are desirable qualities for...other things.”

Erina turned abruptly to face him, smirking. “Yes? Like what, exactly?”

Nathaniel could not bring himself to answer, instead holding her gaze for what could have been an eternity.  It was an odd sensation, he thought, to be so ridiculously attracted to someone he’d just met, so drawn to her that only a few hours left him hoping he could see her again.  Catching himself staring at her for entirely too long, noticing the knowing smile that continued to twitch on her lips, he shook his head and looked out over the city.

“It is starting to get dark,” he said, clearing his throat.

“Is the big brave archer afraid of the dark?” She elbowed him.

“Not exactly, but I am just unfamiliar enough with the area, and just drunk enough that I do not trust myself to find my way back to the inn in one piece.”

“Then, I shall escort you,” Erina remarked cheerfully.

“You don’t have to--”

“I do.”  Her words were serious as they left her lips, and he found himself unwilling to argue.  

By the time they made it to the inn where he had been staying, the sun had set completely, stars twinkling brightly against the dark sky above.  Erina entered with him, and he was glad to see that the inn was much more subdued than the tavern had been. He was grateful that Rodolphe and Ben still seemed to be absent as they would both no doubt tease him relentlessly for his drunken escapades.  He was not certain if he intended to tell them.  

“This is me,” Nathaniel stated softly, somberly as he pointed to his room.

“Oh,” Erina replied, tone resonating similarly to his. “Good.”

“I have had a lovely time,” he admitted, scratching the back of his head, “Much lovelier than I’ve been allowing myself to hope for.”

She smiled brightly.  “Me too.”

Silence stretched on for eternity between them, as Nathaniel searched for the proper words to say.  Finally, he found them. “Listen, I apologize for being so forward earlier. I was --”

He was not able to finish his apology, as Erina’s lips found their way to his, soft yet powerful, just as everything else about her seemed to be.  He stumbled, back bumping into the door so that he was flush against it. With as much force as she had given him, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into him more closely, bending down to deepen the kiss, breathing in sharply as their tongues met, as if it were his first breath in years.  Perhaps it was. Reaching behind him, Nathaniel turned the door knob and pushed open the door with his back, pulling Erina into the dark room with him. He caught a glimpse of her glittering smile in the light from the hallway just as she kicked the door closed behind her.

Nathaniel awoke to a pounding at the door, sunlight flickering directly through the closed curtains and into his eyes.  Ben’s voice was muffled through the wooden door, calling his name repeatedly, Nathaniel’s head throbbing with each word, and again with each knock.  He’d definitely had too much to drink, without question. Never again, he promised, massaging his temples as he turned to get out of bed. It was only then that he realized he was naked.  His pulse quickened as he could hear Ben fiddling with the door knob.

“Shit.  Erina,” He muttered and then turned over to where he expected her to be in the bed, but she was nowhere to be found.   Had he imagined the entire night before? Had it been some ridiculous drunken dream? His heart sank at the thought, but he did not have time to be sad, and rushed back into bed, pulling the coverlet and sheets up over his head just as been burst through the door.

“Nate,” he shouted and tugged the covers down from off his head, “There you are.  Rodolphe’s been looking all over the place for you. Said he wants to know what you thought of his joust.”

“What,” Nathaniel asked hoarsely, squinting his eyes in the still unwelcome light.

“You did go to his joust, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did,” he lied in his most annoyed tone.

“I didn’t,” Ben said, laughing mischievously, “Unlike you, I actually had a good time last night.”

Just as Ben finished his sentence, a petite figure emerged from the bath area of the room, auburn hair a disheveled mess, and clad in Nathaniel’s shirt.  “Hey, Nathaniel I --”

She froze as she saw Ben, eyes darting nervously between the red-headed stranger and Nathaniel.  A wide grin slowly stretched its way across the young man’s face, eyebrows raising so high up on his forehead they might as well have flown away.

“Ben,” Nathaniel snapped, pointing to the hallway, “Out.”

“Nate, you dog ,” Ben exclaimed excitedly, unmoving from his spot in the middle of the room.

Nathaniel glanced over at Erina, who smiled, and brought her hand up to cover her mouth.  Thank the Maker she did not seem embarrassed. “Ben. Out,” he repeated, “Now.”

“Oh, right.  Sorry,” he answered, flustered, clambering to leave the room and close the door behind him.

Once he was gone, Nathaniel sat up on the edge of the bed, so that his feet touched the cool stone floor, and brought his hands to his face.  He sighed as he attempted to scrub away the remnants of sleep and hide any evidence of his shame. The bed moved beneath him and there was a warmth at his side, a weight on his shoulder, and he dropped his hands and looked to see Erina, leaning against him.

“So that’s Ben,” she remarked cheerfully, turning her face up to look at him, smiling.

“That’s Ben,” he sighed again.

She shrugged.  “He seems… enthusiastic.”

“You have no idea.” Nathaniel laughed, trying his damndest to not stare at the woman.  She was even more beautiful than she’d seemed the night before. He was relieved he had not simply dreamed her up.

“I hope I get to know him better,” Erina stated, returning  her head to its spot on his shoulder.  

“Me too,” he said as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her more closely to him, his eyes fixated on the dresser at the far end of the room, where a small, bronze music box sat alone.  “Me, too.”

[sohannabarberaesque]

“Underwater America with Peter Potamus” (episode 10: A diner somewhere in the Midwest)

In this particular episode of Underwater America with Peter Potamus, imagined as airing in first-run syndication in the 1970-71 season, we take a slight change of pace as we find our rolling dive party having breakfast at some small-town diner en route to the next dive destination in their travelling SCUBA party discussing what motivated each of its members to take up an interest in SCUBA diving and the attendant lifestyle and culture....

PETER POTAMUS, as Your Genial Host and leader of the whole: I bet you didn’t expect to find us here in some small-town diner having something of a decent breakfast before our next diving destination, which will be somewhere among the World-Renowned and Far-Famed Ten Thousand Lakes of Minnesota--

MILDEW WOLF, acting the heckler: MINNESOTA?! What kind of a dive destination is that exactly, even with those Ten Thousand Lakes?

PETER POTAMUS, trying to resurrect things: As a matter of fact, we plan to be doing some diving in a few of these legendary lakes of Minnesota, the Land of Sky-Blue Waters--uh, anyway, the purpose of this particular episode is so all of us in our crew could explain away how they got interested in the SCUBA experience and the attendant culture. As is apparently obvious by now, viewers, these dive sessions have become something of an interesting friendship display as we go through unlikely wrecks, discover interesting aquatic life--both fresh and salt water, mind you--and just enjoy the SCUBA experience.

Perhaps I’ll start by explaining how yours truly became something of a diving fan: You might say that hippopotami like myself are natural-born swimmers and divers, born basically underwater and learning rather quickly at that. In my own experience, I happened to have a rather wonderful father by the name of Perry Potamus, who had me join along on numerous expeditions of his in his Magic Balloon from the age of five. And naturally, many of these expeditions included some diving adventures that, by the age of eight, included some introduction into SCUBA, which seemed rather new and a novelty. And would you believe just how amazing the experience of SCUBA was at such a young age!

By the time I was 16, my father passed away from a Rare Tropical Illness he picked up somewhere in the Congo, and he left to me the Magic Balloon. It was about that same time I was encouraged, as a way to avoid getting too emotional over my father’s loss, to get into diving again. Which I did ... and managed to find a rather eclectic little dive club which made regular trips to Catalina Island, Hawaii and suchlike. And accepted me as a rather wonderful diving companion, even if a couple such were stunned at my prowess as a hippo! At least you have diving to fall back on between voyages with the Magic Balloon, which can get to be few and far between these days.

And which, in its way, can explain such a diving party as this. So, to keep it going, may I ask Hokey Wolf to explain his introduction to the underwater experience ...

HOKEY WOLF, in that usual Sgt. Bilko tone of his; you just can’t help his using it: Well, Peter, you might say that for me and Ding-a-Ling, my lupine companion from time to time, we were in Florida a few years ago (was it off Key Largo, perhaps?) and decided to try this snorkelling thing everybody was talking about over there ... and boy, WERE WE THRILLED AT THE EXPERIENCE! [Clearing his throat] And it would be on a return visit down that way a few years later that we got our first SCUBA lessons, Ding and myself ... you can certainly say that it took a couple of dives to get the serious hang of SCUBA, feeling oh so weightless and discovering much amazing life underwater! Ding especially!!

MAGILLA GORILLA, trying not to mess it up considering that he’s now free, by and large, from Peebles’ Pet Shop: My first encounter with SCUBA, you ask? It was a few weeks after that surfing escapade in Gremmie Gulch; I assume many of you recall it still ... and I acknowledge that I was influenced by way of some tacky diving adventure movie on The Late Show, even if I had to keep the volume down out of Mr. Peebles sleeping, you know ... and in fact, it was not too far from Gremmie Gulch that my experience with the old SCUBA got started, in a rather cheesy surf shop as dabbled in diving lessons and tours. Just “looking up the scene” more than anything, but boy, did I ever get stoked on the diving bug! It’s rather unusual to imagine a gorilla underwater in the old SCUBA getup, but when you get the feel of it--boy, does it become exciting!

BREEZLY BRUIN, trying not to look as obnoxious as back in Nome, Alaska: Once Camp Frostbite had been deactivated a few years back, I took to as much rummaging through Nome’s rubbish dumps until my buddy, Sneezly Seal, suggested I get back into the water. Even if it’s the Bering Sea, and the waters can get extremely chilly--even in the summer, where the sun doesn’t set until close to midnight. Turns out Nome has a group of local daredevils who call themselves a Coldwater Diving Club, and rely on drysuits all the more because of the chilly waters. For some reason, being appointed their mascot, you might say, got me some SCUBA lessons out of courtesy. And while I may nowadays be living rather close to Redondo Beach, I can’t help but feel passionate for diving every now and then!

LOOPY De LOOP: Perhaps the most unlikely sort of place to get acquainted with SCUBA, you might say, is off the Gaspe Peninsula back in Quebec; you’ve got the St. Lawrence River meeting the Atlantic, encountering some mild ocean waters off the northern part of the Gaspesie which locals call “le Chaleur.” I’ll only say it was along the south shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence between Matane and Gaspe; I was on a short holiday of sorts there, including some hiking in the Chic-Choc range ... and the motel I was staying in was arranging diving lessons for guests, Yours truly seized on the opportunity ... and while some of the other tourists may have laughed at the fact of my being a wolf, I couldn’t help but sense a taste of something wonderful, discovering something new and amazing!

WALLY GATOR, with blatantly bombastic pride: Being a “native Floridian,” and an alligator at that, you quickly realise that you were built for diving from the get-go. But what opportunity I had to cultivate the manly sport, so to speak, fell athwart at the City Zoo under Zookeeper Twiddle, who kept me in a rather infantile cage with no better than a wading pool. Until the zoo began seriously unravelling, by which time I decided to hitchhike back to the old Everglades haunts--or at least somewhere near Silver Springs, which is where they filmed Sea Hunt, don’t you know, and decided to relearn the underwater experience I had somehow been depraved of. Which is basically what you pick up on when you spend considerable time in Florida, don’t you know ...

LIPPY THE LION: I have to admit that me and Hardy Har-Har, otherwise somewhat myopic and worried for no real reason of any kind, have gone into diving by way of stumbling upon an underwater treasure map ... and while it may not have yielded serious results in the end, it got us rather interested to learn further.

HARDY HAR-HAR, somewhat concerned about nothing: Now I have to wonder where we got the serious interest in diving, to begin with ...

LIPPY THE LION, picking up: It was at a somewhat down-at-heel resort among the lakes of Minnesota, believe you me; that bracing lake water, helped by some rather interested divers who were likewise staying there at the time, was enough to get us fascinated in SCUBA, and then some!

MILDEW WOLF, not trying to be spoilsport as earlier: I have to acknowledge that I, too, found SCUBA in Minnesota’s Ten Thousand Lakes. All thanks to a certain Bow-Wow Buttinski, as shall here remain nameless, making me lose any appetite, or interest thereof, in fresh spring lamb “on the hoof,” as it were. But for some reason, Loopy De Loop got me in contact with a dive school somewhere up by Nisswa over Friday-evening fish fry to take my mind off the whole notion of defeat with lambs. And whoever got the idea of doing practice dives around 6 am, with the lake a little chilly, was either crazy or--well, let’s just say the experience awakened me away from lamb for once. And directe me to diving.

SQUIDDLY DIDDLY, explaining his photographic angle in the whole: You might say that the shock closing of Bubbleland, where I had been expected to serve as “comic relief” more than anything, attracted me to underwater photography, cinematography even, as a way to stay busy. Even with a second-hand Nikonos underwater camera, perhaps the first practical such on the market, picked up at a pawn shop, I couldn’t resist developing such an interest in underwater photography, such eventually leading to an Honourable Mention at a photography salon I entered a couple months later ... not to mention Peter Potamus sensing some talent in me to be the series’ underwater cameraman; do I have talent here, or what?!

With that, It’s So Hanna-Barberaesque goes on the holiday-season hiatus, with new episodes in Fanfic Friday appearing in this space starting with the New Year, or soon after. In the meantime, It’s So Hanna-Barberaesque extends to all its fans the best wishes of the Festive Season, and thanks you for supporting this blog.

[loveissupernatural]

"The Man Behind the Mask"

Pt 1                      

Peter Parker x reader

Warnings: None

Summary: You’ve recently moved to Queens, New York after your father finds a new job with the U.S. government handling alien affairs in the city. You’ve grown up in a small town, and it’s your junior year of high school; culture shock takes a whole new meaning when you’re saved by the famed new web-slinging Avenger - and when you meet a new group of friends at Midtown High that seem to always be hiding something. But things quickly get personal.

Masterlist

You sigh angrily, throwing a decorative pillow with all of your might at your new headboard. It bounces pitifully on the bed before it lands on top of one of the many cardboard boxes you have yet to unpack. You didn’t want to be here.

“Hey now,” your mom scolded jokingly, appearing in the doorframe of your new bedroom, “what did that pillow ever do to you?”

You didn’t smile, despite her teasing. You were mad at her, at Dad, at the whole situation, and you wanted her to know. Ya know, just in case the screaming tantrum you threw when they broke the news of your move wasn’t enough of a clue.

“Where’s Dad?” you ask in a monotonous tone, crossing your arms and sitting on your window sill, avoiding her eyes and looking out over the begrudgingly-nice view you had.

“He’s just gone into the new office, sweetie,” she answered, her tone guarded. She crossed her arms as well and leaned against your doorframe. “He wants to make a good first impression with the new director.”

“So he drug us here and isn’t even going to help us unpack?” you spat. You knew you weren’t being entirely fair but right now you didn’t care. Your father’s new job offer uprooted your entire life - not that you didn’t want to be happy for him, but your own misery was a monster that was quickly growing. With every minor inconvenience since you’d crossed the New York state line, the monster devoured it as fuel.

“I realize you’re not happy, and that you don’t want to be here,” your mom said quite suddenly, all traces of lightheartedness gone from her voice, “but this change is happening. It’s happening right now. We’re a family, and this is the opportunity of a lifetime for your dad. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices for the people you love, Y/N.” You still refused to look at her, eyes glued to a colorful clothesline hanging a few feet below you. “Look, you left your friends, your life… I know. I had to, too. But Y/N, if you want to make the most of this, you’re gonna have to change your attitude. And you are not - I repeat - you are not making your dad feel even more guilty than he already does. This makes him happy. Alright?”

You sighed again, knowing she was right, chewing on your lip as if nursing your broken pride. You hummed in acknowledgement, refusing to give her the satisfaction of apologetic words coming from your lips. She was right, but that didn’t change the fact that you’d been wronged.

It was a mere three weeks ago when your dad made the announcement at dinner over a cold box of pizza that you were moving. At first, you weren’t upset - a new house a little further away wouldn’t be so bad. People moved all the time. You could still see your friends. But then he said those two words: “New York”. As in, halfway across the country New York. As in, you’d be lucky to see your friends once a year New York. As in, every person you knew, every nearby family member, every road you knew like the back of your hand was gone New York. It was all gone. Replaced with skyscrapers and traffic jams and the occasional alien attack.

As soon as the words “New York” fell from your father’s lips, your heart detached itself from your ribcage and fell into the dark pit your stomach had become.

“We’re gonna freakin’ die, Dad. Haven’t you seen all of the alien attacks in New York City?! What in the hell makes you think moving there is a good idea??” you had insisted, hysterical.

He sighed, suddenly looking ten years older. “That’s just it. That’s why we’re going. The Department of Defense has a lot of positions opening up there, Y/N, and they headhunted me. It’s a huge raise. It could be really good for us.”

“No, it could be really good for you,” you corrected through slitted teeth. Both of your parents regarded you with shock. You were a good kid, a respectful daughter. You rarely talked back and they almost didn’t know how to register your sudden hostility. But your dad bounced back first.

“I’ve given this a lot of thought, Y/N,” he began, and you could see the vein popping in his temple. “Your mother and I thought long and hard about this. We know it’s scary, we know it’s a big step. *We know*. You’re in shock, we weren’t expecting you to take it well. But you will not be disrespectful.”

“Disrespectful?! You wanna talk disrespectful?” you yelled, shooting up from the dinner table with a clash of glasses and silverware. Your hands were fists on the tabletop. “Disrespectful is having no consideration for anyone but your wallet. What about me? What about my friends? What about Grandma and Pop? What about all of your friends? This - this is all I’ve ever known! I was just voted captain of the soccer team this year!”

“Now, Y/N, calm down,” your mother tried to coax you, but it was in vain. You were fuming.

“No, I will not ‘calm down’, Mom!” you cried. “I’m graduating in two years! Can’t - can’t you just wait??”

“The job offer is now and it’s fleeting,” your father said. His voice was rising, too. “And I’ve decided to take it. You don’t have to like it, but you do have to deal with it.”

Before you said something that would get you in serious trouble, because you could feel the hot-worded anger boiling in your throat, you stomped out of the dining room and locked yourself in your bedroom. You’d screamed into your pillow until your voice was gone, you’d cried until there were no tears left, you’d thrown every pillow and punched every blanket until you were out of breath. None of it dulled the ache in your chest and the ice in your stomach.

With tearful goodbyes to your friends and family, and death glares at your parents, you’d hopped into the enormous white moving truck and watched your entire life fade away in the rearview mirror. All of it was gone, and you were empty except for the prickling coals of anger heating your veins. It’s all you could feel.

“I’m gonna finish unpacking the living room and order some take out,” your mom stated, pulling you from your memories. “Eat or don’t eat. Pout in your room all night. Or come out and get some of your favorite food and maybe calm down for a second.”

You didn’t reply, and after a few minutes, you’d turned to see that she’d disappeared. You fully planned on locking yourself in your new room, but your growling stomach disagreed with you. Trying to ignore it, you grabbed the TV remote out of your nightstand drawer and clicked it on. The cable had been set up a few hours beforehand, and you hoped that a nice sitcom might take your mind off of your disintegrating life.

The screen came to life and before you could change the channel, a man swinging from webs in a bright red and blue suit overtook the screen, a news woman’s voice urgently reporting as much as she could without running out of breath. You immediately sat up in bed, crawling closer to the TV screen as if you needed a better look. It was him, the guy you’d heard about all over the news for the past year. Not living in New York didn’t make you ignorant about superheroes, especially ones that had anything to do with the Avengers. They all fascinated you, to be honest.

You watched in amazement as the suit-clad Spider-Man swung through buildings, landing on top of an eighteen-wheeler with ease and stopping a large-scale bank robbery. The entire account was filmed by a mixture of news cameras and blurry cellphone cameras alike. One thing was for sure, you’d forgotten all about your bad mood.

“Spider-Man, despite his less-than-legal way of scooting around police, was the reason these criminals are behind bars right now,” a news correspondent insisted. “Police had lost the trail halfway through the chase! Without Spider-Man, these guys would probably be leaning back with their feet up in an abandoned warehouse somewhere, fanning themselves with their stacks and stacks of stolen money, Grace!”

The interviewing news anchor, apparently named Grace, nodded. “On a different note, let me ask you, Mr. Blair, what do you think of all these rumors that Spider-Man is officially part of the Avengers?”

“It’s possible, Grace,” Mr. Blair conceded. “I mean, not long ago he was swinging around in a hoodie. Now he’s got a full-on suit, looking pretty spiffy if you ask me.” He laughed. Grace smiled. “I wouldn’t be surprised if this guy, whoever he is, got some kind of backing from someone. Whether it’s the Avengers, who knows? All we know is that he helped out Tony Stark during his little, uh, dispute with Steve Rogers.”

Grace’s grin widened. “Thank you for joining us, Mr. Blair. We appreciate your input, as always.”

The words of the newscasters faded from your ears as you focused on all of the different clips playing of Spider-Man. He was pulling people out of a burning building, then he was taking on at least five different guys twice his size, letting a frightened mother and her two small children run to safety. He was so quick, knowing what the men in ski masks were going to do seconds before they did it. You sucked your bottom lip underneath your top teeth.

You’d done your research on New York, and it wasn’t long before Spider-Man became the answer to almost every Google search. Besides the occasional random story on a new construction piece or movie being filmed in Times Square, Spider-Man was all over the internet. You’d heard of him, of course, but it’d slipped your mind that you’d be moving to a city with its own bonafide superhero. If there was one tiny thing you didn’t mind about moving to Queens, it was that. As much as you wanted to meet the web-slinging hero, part of you hoped you were never in a situation where you had to.

“Y/N,” your mother called from the kitchen. “Please do me a favor and walk to the corner store right down the street and get some of that soy sauce that your dad likes so much. I wanna have it ready when he gets home.”

You groaned. “Why can’t you go get it?”

“Because I’m not sitting around watching TV,” she called back. “Now go.”

You groaned loudly and slipped on your tennis shoes, grabbing your purse and speed walking out the door. You avoided your mother’s eyes the whole way.

While walking through the apartment building’s lobby, you begrudgingly admitted to yourself how nice it was. You’d lived in a house back home, but the apartment was the same size at the very least, and ten times fancier with a large kitchen with granite countertops and large bedrooms. If you didn’t hate the move so much, you might even feel like you’d upgraded.

You asked the clerk at the desk where this corner store was, and he pointed out the window to your left. “Go down a block or two and it’s on your right. It’s called Sherman’s.”

You mustered up a smile and thanked him, and it must’ve been convincing because he smiled back. You walked through the double doors into the noisy cityscape, taking a deep breath and smelling less car exhaust than you’d expected. You began your trudge to the corner store.

You passed by people on your way, none of them looking up to smile at you or even nod a greeting. You even accidentally bumped a guy’s shoulder and he barely glared at you before walking off - you didn’t even have time to apologize. Maybe the whole New-Yorkers-are-rude thing wasn’t so far from the truth.

By the time you’d found the corner store, which took longer than you’d expected, went inside, found Dad’s favorite soy sauce (which also took longer than expected), and grabbed a few small things for yourself, it was almost dark outside. You shivered at the breeze as you stepped out of the door, hearing the faint jingle of the bell. The sun was quickly retreating. You looked around, noticing the sidewalks had emptied considerably. You decided to hurry home, not liking the dark in this new place.

With your hands full of groceries and your purse hanging limply by your side, you struggled to walk as quickly as you might have liked. Your building wasn’t even in view yet and it was getting darker by the second; the street lights were turning on. You sighed heavily and tried to pick up the pace.

An apple that you’d stuffed into the bag last minute before approaching the check out counter suddenly slipped from your bag, along with a pack of cookies and your dad’s soy sauce, which thankfully was in a plastic bottle and didn’t break.

“Fuck,” you cursed, probably more loudly than you should’ve, rolling your eyes and setting down your belongings to pick up your mess. Five second rule with the apple, you wanted the damn thing.

You stood up after picking up the cookies and soy sauce, looking for your neglected apple. It wasn’t on the ground.

“You drop something?” came a hoarse voice from behind you. You turned around and jumped, a filthy-looking man smiling teethily at you; and it didn’t look kind. The apple was in his dirty, gloved hand. He did not extend it to you.

“Uh… you can have it,” you said quickly, your voice sweet and obviously frightened. His smile only grew and it did far from comfort you.

“I’ll tell you what,” the man said, and you suddenly caught a whiff of his vile breath, “you give me your purse, and I’ll keep my little buddy here in my pocket.” Every muscle in your body froze. He pulled his tattered coat back to reveal a handgun, gleaming black and threateningly in its dingy pocket.

This couldn’t be happening. On your first night in New York, in all the places you could be, you were here, a block away from your very nice and seemingly-safe apartment building, being mugged. Of damn course. This would only happen to you.

Your mind was racing a million miles per second. Could you run? Would you make it? Could you scream for help? All of your options seemed like a bad idea as his menacing grin grew even larger, the gun still gleaming threateningly in his visible pocket. He could see you working out all of your options.

“I wouldn’t run if I were you, baby,” he chuckled, even though it sounded more like a wheeze. A shiver ran down your spine at the sound. “Even a pretty thing like you can’t outrun a bullet.”

Your purse and it’s belongings weren’t worth your life. You fully intended to hand it over, but you were frozen. Your muscles wouldn’t move. Fear nailed your feet and hands right where they were. And the menacing figure towering over you was growing angry.

“Are you deaf or somethin’?” he demanded, and suddenly the barrel of the gun was being waved in your face. “Do I gotta spell it out for ya? Give me your God damned purse or your brain is gonna be scattered all over the sidewalk!”

You were shaking. Tears were flowing freely down your cheeks, and you don’t even remember when they started. Your groceries lay forgotten on the ground.

“I - I - please don’t -“ you stuttered, but he didn’t let you finish. He yelled obscenities at you as he pushed you forcefully to the ground in the adjoining alleyway, pointing the gun right between your eyes. You sobbed on the ground, no way out. Your purse was in his grubby hand now, he had what he wanted. But you’d pissed him off.

“You dumb bitch,” he spat at you, and you heard him click off the safety. “All you had to do was give me your fucking purse but you’re gonna stand here and cry and waste my fucking time?! I should shoot you in the fucking head.”

You couldn’t see through your tears now. The streets were deserted, there was no one near enough to save you from a gunshot before they heard it. You were gonna die in this stupid city before you were even here 24 hours, and you were gonna die alone. Your lifeless body would end up in a dumpster somewhere with half of your skull blown to bits. You suddenly weren’t angry at anything or anyone anymore, you just wanted to go home.

He rose the gun, indifferent to your tears, and put his finger on the trigger. The damn heathen looked excited.

BOOM

You screamed, flinching, squeezing your eyes shut, waiting for the pain to come. But it didn’t. You gasped, opening your tear-filled eyes, to find the would-be-murderer on the ground, groaning, the gun knocked out of his hand.

And standing over him was none other than Spider-Man.

“Now that’s no way to treat a pretty lady,” the masked hero shook his finger, kicking the man’s face when he tried to sit back up. You stared in wonder, your tears forgotten. His voice was higher than you’d expected, almost like he was young. Much younger than you’d thought. His frame was lithe, thin, but muscular. You couldn’t believe your eyes.

“Fuck you, freak,” the mugger spat at him, blood running from his nose earnestly. Spider-Man seemed more disappointed in this comment than angry.

“Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?” he asked, shaking his head, but didn’t wait for a reply before he shot a web directly over the man’s chapped lips. He kicked him again, and the mugger slumped over, out cold.

You watched in amazement, everything almost moving in slow motion, as Spider-Man stepped over the criminal’s body and turned toward you, approaching. He was even more glorious in person. He knelt down, now eye level with you since you were still sitting on the ground in shock, hands and knees bloodied. His large white eyes auto-focused, squinting, like he was looking you over for injuries. You couldn’t help but smile a bit at how damn cool that was.

“Are you okay, miss?” he asked, extending a hand to you to help you up. You gladly took it, your mouth hanging agape at the sight of him. You held to his other arm to steady yourself, and you were surprised at how soft the suit was, but it looked invincible. You suddenly remembered the newscasters’ conversation about his upgraded suit.

“You - you’re - you’re him,” you stated dumbly. His mask’s eyes squint like he’s smiling.

“That’s me, just your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man,” he said, spreading his arms and making a little turn. He somehow made it seem humble.

“He was gonna shoot me,” you stated, again, dumbly. Your mouth hadn’t caught up to your brain yet, you were still reeling. You felt lightheaded, adrenaline weaning away.

“I wasn’t gonna let that happen,” he said with a little shrug, like it was the simplest thing in the world. His voice was kind, it was like honey.

You hastily wiped your tears, suddenly incredibly self-conscious. You felt like a damsel in distress, which was exactly what you were, and you didn’t like the feeling. You felt weak.

“I’ve only been here 8 hours and I managed to get mugged and meet the famous Spider-Man?” you laugh, almost to yourself.

“Whoa, 8 hours? You’re not from around here, are you?” His voice was painstakingly sincere and curious.

You were in an alleyway, with an armed mugger knocked out cold, having your first conversation in New York, with Spider-Man. This was your life?

“Just moved here actually,” you smiled, tucking a piece of hair behind your ear. The attention he was giving you was making your cheeks very red and there was no way he wasn’t noticing.

It was evident he was smiling under the mask. He was definitely noticing. That just made you redder.

“Well, it sounds like you’re a magnet for trouble. What’s your name?” His voice was so damn sweet.

“Y/N,” you said a little too quickly.

“Why don’t I make sure you get home okay, Y/N?” he suggested, bending down and retrieving your groceries and purse for you. Your apple looked positively pitiful. You gladly took your purse and one of the grocery bags, while he insisted on carrying the other.

“Probably not a bad idea,” you laugh lightly, and you felt even more lightheaded. Your stomach was full of butterflies. “Who knows what else could happen to me in the next block?”

Then it all happened so fast. Just as you turned to head for the sidewalk, Spider-Man pushed you behind him, web slinging from his wrist toward the mugger that was supposed to be out cold. During your conversation, he’d managed to sneak toward his gun and aim it toward you two. But before any shot was fired, his wrist was webbed to the brick wall, along with his other wrist, his mouth still covered in the white sticky substance as well. He yelled and cursed unintelligibly underneath the web gag, his face pink in anger.

“Come on, man, really?” Spider-Man asked exasperatedly, rolling his eyes. Your heart was pounding but Spider-Man was as calm as if he were just talking about the weather. He was strong and lean in front of you. You tried your very hardest not to stare or enjoy his hold on you too much - after all, ogling him after he’d saved your life twice was hardly polite.

He turned to you again, much closer this time considering the fact he’d been your human shield - was he human? - and ran his hands up your arms before settling at your shoulders. For someone so strong his touch was very gentle.

“Sorry about that,” he apologized, almost sounding bashful. “Are you okay? Again?” His masked face was so close, you could see the tiny, tiny lenses that made up the whites of his mask’s eyes. You gulped.

“Uh, y-yeah. Totally fine,” you lied. Your heart was thumping so hard it was like it was trying to escape the prison of your ribs.

Spider-Man’s head suddenly turned, as if listening to something you couldn’t hear. A few seconds later, you barely heard it - sirens in the distance. Someone must’ve heard the gunshot and called the police.

“Aaand that’s my cue to go,” he told you, shrugging in an apologetic way as he backed further into the shadow of the alley.

“Wait!” popped out of your mouth before you could stop it. What did you want him to wait for? So you could hug him? Kiss him? Thank him? Grovel at his feet in appreciation? Some combination of all four? He’d already shot a web at a nearby fire escape and was readying to swing away. He turned at your sudden outburst.

You ran toward him, wrapping two arms around his neck and hugging your face to the side of his own. The mask was so soft and you could feel his cheek upturn into a grin. After a moment of shock, he returned the hug with the arm that wasn’t holding his web.

“Thank you,” you whispered as sincerely as you could.

“Y-yeah,” he said, seemingly a little embarrassed, and you felt satisfaction seep through you. You were grinning like a fool when you pulled away, and he looked at you for a second more before disappearing with a few flips and jumps over a nearby rooftop.

Pt 2

[lickstynine]

Zhao and Vodka: Origins

The glorious BrOTP is back! After writing a little modern-day drabble, and an overarcing summary of their relationship, G and I whipped out our proper storywriting gloves and wrote about the very first meeting of Ghost and Vody! It’s just plot, no whump, but I really liked writing it. 

(also remember, this is 1985, so the money amounts are a little less than half of what they’d be today)

Enjoy, and feel free to send any questions you may have.

Vody sat on the curb, head in his hands. Painful bruises coloured his ribs, but nothing hurt worse than the sinking feelings of regret making him want to melt into the pavement. How did he end up here? He’d been an Olympian - a winner, even! People had cheered for him, gushed over him, showered him in praises and prizes. And now, not even a month later, he was poorer than ever, with death threats hovering over his head. How could he have been so stupid?

Part of him knew it wasn’t totally his fault - he’d never had money in his life, much less anyone to teach him how to manage it. In theory, poker had been a great idea. He was a sharp guy, with a steely face. He could’ve multiplied his winnings, been set for life… if the game hadn’t been rigged to hell and back.

He hadn’t expected underground gambling to be fair, but he also hadn’t expected to get fucked over that hard. Now he wasn’t even safe in his own country, and he’d had to dig up all the money left to his name to buy a one-way ticket to California before he got a one-way trip to the graveyard. What a fucking idiot he’d been.

The sun was starting to peek over the horizon, sparkling on the frosty roads. Vody’s hand rested on his single duffle bag, and he slung it over his shoulder, climbing to his feet and trudging down the street towards the airport. He couldn’t tell if the ache in his chest was from the bruises, or the already-growing homesickness that made him want to turn back with every step.

Lera’s words hung in his head. “We know you don’t want to leave. If it’s what has to happen, it has to happen. We want what is best for you; being safe is obviously the best. Take care of yourself, man.”

Though he was only a train ride away from home so far, everyone already felt so distant, and Vody knew it was only going to get worse. His eyes stung with tears that threatened to freeze on the spot, and he brushed them away with one gloved hand. Going through the airport barely felt real. The voices around him sounded miles away, and he shuffled through the lines like an awkward robot.

He hadn’t expected to fit well in an airplane seat, but the cramped space was almost insufferable. His knees had to touch his chest to keep from busting through the seat in front of him, and his head practically hit the ceiling. The flight was going to take the better part of a day, and he knew he wouldn’t be comfortable enough to sleep for any of it. He rested his chin on his knees, constantly glancing up at his duffel bag, which seemed worryingly insecure in the overhead storage.

The flight went quite smoothly, but Vody almost wished something had happened, just because he was so painfully bored. He hated being so alone, with nothing to do or think about. It left him far too much time to get lost in his thoughts, to beat himself up for being such an idiot, to miss his family, to panic about how lost he would be when he got to the states. By the time the plane finally landed, it felt like his blood pressure had tripled.

Walking into the airport was already a culture shock. Everything seemed so much more lively and colourful, and the people were so diverse. He was getting a lot of strange looks, but that wasn’t new - even back home, giants with face scars weren’t exactly normal. The restaurants around him smelled amazing, if strange, and Vody’s stomach growled as he eyed the iconic golden arches of the fabled McDonald’s.

As good as everything looked, he just shook his head and kept walking. He didn’t have any money for food; he’d barely managed to scrape up enough for a plane ticket. His only chance at eating tonight were the handful of trinkets in his suitcase - his mother had given him what few heirlooms she had left, in hopes that he could maybe sell them for a bit of money to get back on his feet. He tugged his duffel bag closer to his body, not that he really expected anyone to attempt to rob him of all people.

Stepping out into the chaos of San Francisco was perhaps the most surreal experience of Vody’s life. He felt like Dorothy walking out of her grey Kansas farmhouse and into the technicolour Oz. The more he heard the people around him talking, the more painfully aware he was of how little he understood. Sure, the ones who spoke loudly or slowly or clearly were somewhat intelligible, but overall, he really couldn’t make out much.

Luckily, Vody at least knew the phrase ‘Pawn Shop,’ and he didn’t have to scan the streets for too long before he found what he was looking for. Sadly, no one was looking for what he offered: some first-edition Russian books, a handful of old copper rubles from nearly 200 years ago, and a set of beautifully painted Matryoshka dolls that had belonged to his grandmother.

One guy suggested taking them to a museum, but the word seemed lost on Vody, who eventually just sighed and walked away. He’d trudged all across town, his hat, coat, and gloves shed and tucked into his bag. The California heat was strange and exhausting, but he couldn’t give up. If he couldn’t sell these for something, he wasn’t eating tonight, and Lord, was he hungry.

After the fifteenth pawn shop, Vody was starting to get hopeless, and his energy was fading with his enthusiasm. He had made his way to a part of the city the locals called ‘Chinatown,’ and it wasn’t hard to tell where it got the name. It made him a little excited - maybe someone with a different cultural background would see more value in what he was selling.

Sadly, the pawn shop there was no more interested in Vody’s trinkets than the American-run stores. However, they had directed him to someone who might want to look at his items: a store around the corner that sold ‘very weird things, very weird’ as the pawn shop owner had put it.

As he came up on the shop he’d been directed to, Vody couldn’t help but be intrigued. There were strange animal skulls and weird trinkets in the window, and it had an almost supernatural air about it. He had to duck severely to even attempt to fit in the door, but it didn’t hinder him from going in. The walls inside were completely obscured by floor to ceiling shelves and cabinets of all different sizes, makes, and colors. The whole place seemed to be bursting at the seams with various knick-knacks, as well as some strange furniture and a cluttered table and shelves in the middle. Some of the trinkets looked to be junk, and yet others appeared quite valuable, tucked carefully away inside the glass-paned cupboards. The inside of the store was dimly lit, and a little spooky-- Vody swore there were eyes staring at him from inside many of the cabinets--  and he could only hope he wasn’t about to get murdered.

“Um… excuse?” He ventured, peering into the shop. He could see a figure shuffling around in the back room, and raised his voice. “Hello?”

An older man, probably mid-forties, appeared from behind a shelving unit toward the back of the little shop, beaming brightly, arms extended in welcome.

“Hello, my large friend, and welcome to the shop!” the man said. “You’ve got trash? I’ve got cash. You’ve got cash? I’ve got treasures!” He strode right up to the larger man and ushered him further into the store. They passed what appeared to be half a car that had been converted into a shelf, while the other half had been turned into a sofa. Vody peered around curiously.

“So, I hear you buy strange thing? I have thing, but pawn shop tell me to do the fucking off…” Vody held up his bag hopefully.

“You heard right!” the man declared. “Only the strangest things here.” He pushed an odd slanted stool toward Vody for him to sit at the desk, but thought better of it and pulled it back away. It was rickety and wooden, and Vody might just break it if he was as heavy as he looked. He looked around for something else, holding a finger up that told Vody to just hold on a minute. After much scraping and shuffling, he returned pushing a slightly worn sofa chair with dogs printed on it, and patted the cushion for Vody to take a seat.

“Alright, let’s see what you got,” he said, going behind the desk and sitting down himself.

Vody was hesitant as he sat down; though it creaked a little, the sofa chair was sturdy, and he sat down properly. He held the bag in his lap, unzipping it and pulling out items one at a time.

“First I have, uh… books. They very old, bout… eighty, hundred years, I think? First… er… oh, what is word? First kind? First one?” He sighed in frustration.

“Oh, a first edition!!” the man said, taking the book and carefully turning it over in his hands. He puffed, blowing his long hair out of his eyes so he could see better. “Very nice,” he concluded after rifling through the pages.

Vody nodded, looking very pleased. “You like?” he asked, properly hopeful for the first time all day.

“I like,” he replied with a smirk. “How’s twenty sound?”

Vody seemed surprised. The other shopkeepers had told him he’d be lucky to get a few bucks for the ‘crap’ he was hauling around. “Twenty? For just book?”

“Just book? Just book?” he exclaimed with a chuckle. “These are multiple first editions! Of I don’t even know what, but I like them!”

Vody was so relieved, he nearly deflated, sinking into the chair. “I have… other thing. You want to see?”

“Naturally,” he said, placing the books on the shelf behind him.

Digging in a small pocket of the bag, Vody pulled out a handful of coins. He had diligently polished them before he left, and they were glossy copper. “These are rubles. Russian coin. But old one. From seventeen… fiftyish, I think? Mother did not know for sure. Just know we had very long time.”

“These are beautiful! And very collectable to people who are into that kinda thing,” the shopkeeper said. “How are they in such good condition?” He pulled a pair of magnifying lense glasses out of a drawer behind the desk, and flicked two of the lenses down in front of his eyes. They made his eyes appear to take up the entire lens, and they darted about comically as he looked from Vody to the coins and back.

“Family keep them very safe, in little lock box. Before I bring, I wipe off all dust and smudge. Want them to be nice.” Vody explained, sort of miming as he spoke to make sure he was understood.

“Ya done good, kid,” he said, flipping one deftly through his fingers. “Fifteen for the lot?”

Vody nodded eagerly, his face lighting up again. “Da! Ah… yes! Yes, please!”

The man pulled a few bills out of his register drawer.

“Got anything else in that magic sack of yours before I pay you?”

Vody practically jumped out of his seat. “Da! Save best for last.” He pulled out a cloth bundle that looked tiny in his massive hands, unwrapping it as gently as possible to reveal smooth, glossy paint on a little wooden figure. “Is Matryoshka. Think you say… nesting doll? Was grandmother’s… one of first sets made.”

The shopkeeper’s eyes widened behind his glasses, and he took the doll gently.

“Are these hand-painted?” he asked, a note of awe in his voice.

Vody nodded. “Da. Think they were… wedding present.”

The man nodded, opening the first doll carefully to reveal another similarly painted one nestled inside.

“They’re beautiful,” he breathed, twisting the second doll open. The smaller one was just as immaculate, and the tiny one in the center was so glossy it was almost as if it had never seen the light of day before.

Vody watched the man with bated breath. He’d already been offered nearly ten times the money he had dared to expect; if the dolls were worth enough, he could even afford a place to stay for the night. After a long moment of silence, he dared to ask, “You… you like?”

“Like? I love!” he said. “Thirty!” he declared heartily, rummaging around in his register drawer and pulling out more bills.

Vody looked like he might actually have a heart attack. “Thirty? Just for doll?”

“Not just for doll. For handmade, handpainted, early set of genuine Russian nesting dolls,” he said, passing the small wad of bills to Vody. “And what can I say? I like them, and you seem like a good kid.”

Vody took the money, tucking it into his pocket and grabbing the man’s hand to shake. “Thank you! Very much thank!”

“Very much welcome,” the man said with a laugh, reassembling the dolls once he had been released from the ardent handshake and placing them on the shelf behind him as well. “If you ever happen to come across some other buyable things, you know where to find me,” he said. “The name’s Zhao, by the way. My army buddies called me Ghost.”

Vody looked surprised, but pleased by this information. “You in army?” He asked.

“Marines, technically. Or at least, I used to be,” he said. “Vietnam.” He pulled his dog-tags out of his shirt and jingled them bit before tucking them back in, safe against his chest.

“Really? You not look old enough for Vietnam…” Vody remarked, earning him a loud laugh from Zhao. “I was in army… couple years ago now. Afghan war. You… America… against us. But, America been against Russia long time now.” He shrugged.

“True enough,” he agreed. “Unfortunate thing, really. War. World, Cold, “police action”, or any other names they might come up with for ‘em.”

Vody nodded solemnly. “War no good. I go because I have to. Wished I could stay with family. Wish I could stay with family now.” He sighed.

“They’re, what, back in Russia?” he asked.

“Da. I… had to leave. My fault.” Vody huffed, scowling down at his worn boots.

“Damn,” Zhao murmured sympathetically. “You got anyone over here?”

Vody laughed bitterly. “No. I not even have money for dinner til I come here.”

“Double damn, kid,” he said, falling deep into thought for a second. After a moment’s silence, he slapped the top of his desk, startling Vody a bit. “Tell ya what. My wife is trying her hand at frying some chicken tonight. Never done it before. If you want, you can come up and suffer through it with me and my girls, provided you give me something to introduce you with other than “kid”, and maybe help me move some shit around the shop. You look like you could push these shelves around easy as you could me,” he said with a snort.

Vody paused, partly to process everything Zhao had said, and partly to make sure he wasn’t going crazy. “You… give food? And… work?” He asked.

“Yeah, why not. It’s just me and the missus running this place, and she’s got her hands full with the girls and her other job,” he said with a shrug. “Could use an abnormally large and strangely gracefully Russian man around.”

Vody laughed. He would’ve bowed, but there wasn’t really room for him to do so without knocking over. “Will do my best.” He paused for a moment before adding. “Oh! Almost forgot. Name. Am Vodyanov Romanovich. Friends just say Vody.” He held out a massive paw to shake again.

“Alright then, Vody.” He gave the proffered hand a firm shake. “How about you come upstairs and get yourself set up?”

“Okay.” Vody closed his duffle bag, slinging it over his shoulder and smiling. “Lead way.”

[sciencespies]

A Massive Meteor May Have Destroyed The Biblical City Of Sodom

https://sciencespies.com/news/a-massive-meteor-may-have-destroyed-the-biblical-city-of-sodom/

A Massive Meteor May Have Destroyed The Biblical City Of Sodom

The story of the destruction of Sodom is detailed in both the Bible and the Koran. The destruction was rapid and intense.

“And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace.” – Genesis 19:28

Is it possible that this story has roots in historical reality? Recent archeological findings published in Nature by researchers of the Comet Research Group indicate that a large meteor may have destroyed the ancient city of Tall el-Hammam, and that this destruction may have gone on to form the basis of the Biblical story of the destruction of Sodom.

Clues within Ruins of Destruction

Walking through the excavation of Tall el-Hammam is a fascinating, yet haunting, voyage. Puzzling findings indicate that the city was destroyed rapidly in a scorching fireball which is hard to explain. Pottery and mudbricks were melted. People were ripped limb from limb, and their bones are found smashed and scattered, buried in layers of ash, charcoal, and pulverized mudbricks. As archeologists dig through the ancient rock, they uncover a tell-tale blackened layer, where the rocks themselves tell the story of intense and widespread fires.

Three layers within the archeological dig indicate that something drastic happened here. The bottom layer is made of pulverized bricks, melted roof clay, charcoal, burned seeds, and scraps of burnt clothing. Above this is a windblown layer of small bits of plaster, charcoal, and limestone spherules. Topping it off is a dark, almost black, layer of ash and charcoal.

The destruction of Sodom by fire and brimstone. Lot’s wife is turned to a pillar of salt (Genesis … [+] chapters XVIII and XIX), illustration by Gustave DorŽ (1832 Ð 1883) (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images)

Getty Images

Perhaps most puzzling are the melted objects found in the ruins of Tall el-Hammam. Melted pottery shards, which melt at temperatures above 1500C. Mudbricks, that melt above 1400C. A host of melted elements and minerals, such as platinum, iridium, and quartz.

There are also clues at the microscopic level. Archeologists also found carbon, likely originating from wood or plants, shocked to form structures like microscopic diamonds.

Almost as if it is peaking out of a layer of ancient pulverized mudbricks, the top of a skull emerges from the rock. It’s buried up to the bridge of its nose – the rest is embedded within a matrix of melted mudbricks. Stained with ash, it now has a brick-red tinge. The right eye socket has been crushed. Around it is a constellation of tiny bone fragments, which show the scar of high temperatures. Most of them are smaller than a penny.

There is more. Archeologists found that the massively thick walls of the city were sheared off. Millions of the mudbricks that made the city simply disappeared, potentially pulverized to microscopic pieces. Another piece of the puzzle – debris, whether it be shards of pottery or melted bricks, always seemed to point to the northeast.

In the cosmic airburst of Tunguska in 1908, fallen trees all lay in the same direction. This … [+] directionality was also seen in the debris in Tall el-Hammam. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Universal Images Group via Getty Images

The spherules, tiny sand-sized balls of melted material, are particularly interesting. Some of these consist of calcium carbonate. “Extreme high temperatures (>1500 C) melted limestone plaster applied to the walls (mainly in the Palace area),” says Dr. Christopher Moore, a scientist at the Savannah River Archaeological Research Program at the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology and author on the study. He goes on to explain how these spherules were formed. “Vaporized limestone plaster then quickly cooled in the air to form the numerous calcium carbonate spherules.” Other spherules found were formed of iron or silica.

What could have caused this level of destruction?

Root of Destruction

3,600 years ago, the city of Tall el-Hammam was a bustling metropolis. With a population of about 8,000 people, it was the largest city in the region.

But around 1650 B.C.E, that came to an end.

The researchers of the study looked at several things that could account for the destruction. Warfare seemed unlikely, as there was no other archeological evidence of spearpoints or other weapons. Tornadoes are rare in the area, and it would be difficult to imagine how a tornado could cause the extent of damage seen in human bones. Earthquakes could have led to fires, but could not explain the high-temperature melting of minerals. The authors looked at all sorts of natural disasters, from widespread city fires to volcanism to lightning. Of the 17 types of observations they made, there was only one event that fit all the data – a meteor.

A meteor – either an impact or an airburst, fit the data at Tall el-Hammam.

getty

This meteor could have hit the city itself or nearby, or could have exploded in the air, like the Tunguska meteor in 1908 over Siberia. Either one could cause the level of destruction seen.

The authors used the online Impact Calculator to simulate a meteor approaching Tall el-Hammam. This meteor likely would have been between 60 and 75 m across, putting it at potentially larger than the bolide that exploded in the Tunguska event. It is unlikely to be much larger than this though, Dr. Allen West of the Comet Research Group, one of the authors of the study, explains. “Otherwise, the object would have hit the ground and created a large crater like Meteor Crater in Arizona.”

Nearby Ruins

Tall el-Hammam was not the only city to be destroyed that day.

22 km to the west lay the city of Jericho. This city was destroyed on a similar timescale as Tall el-Hammam. The city walls, along with buildings, tumbled, and the city burnt to the ground. Storerooms caught fire, causing pottery to burst. Human bones were found shattered and mixed in with the ruin. The main fortification of the city, in the direction of Tall el-Hammam, collapsed. However, no evidence of extremely high temperatures (>1200C), like melted pottery or mudbricks, was found.

Buried in Salt

The entire ancient city had another strange characteristic. It was covered in salt.

“After the excavators would finish for the day, dew would often condense in the excavated walls overnight,” West told me. “When they returned in the morning, the destruction layer often was marked by a white crust of salt that had leached out overnight.”

Where did this salt come from? It seems that the sheer amount of salt is most likely tied to the meteor impact. “Perhaps the impact landed in shallow water of the Dead Sea, which is greater than about 30% salt, and splashed across the valley.” West explains.

Salt from the Dead Sea was scattered over the surrounding area after the impact, rendering it … [+] infertile for 600 years.

getty

This salt took the once fertile land and potentially made it sterile, making it near impossible to grow wheat and barley, two of the most important crops of the era. In fact, the entire area was then unoccupied for up to 600 years.

Ties to Sodom?

Is it possible that the destruction of Tall el-Hammam was the historical basis that became the story of Sodom?

Surely, the destruction of Tall el-Hammam would have been memorable. For the unlucky people who lived within the city, it is likely that no one survived. Malcolm A. LeCompte, a researcher on the study from the Center of Excellence in Remote Sensing Education and Research, points out that it is possible that tribesmen, women, and shepherds in nearby fields may have lived to tell the tale, although they may have been blinded or deafened by the explosion. In addition, there may have been some survivors within Jericho.

What about the timing? For now, the timing of the story of Sodom and the destruction of Tall el-Hammam seem to agree. “We can say with a high degree of confidence that the simultaneous destruction of Tall el-Hammam and every other city, town, and village in the Kikkar occurred ca 1650 BCE +/- 30 years,” says Dr. Phil Silvia, an author on the study from Trinity Southwest University, “which is the time of Abraham and Lot.”

“Abraham got up early in the morning and went to the place where he had stood before the Lord. He … [+] looked out toward Sodom and Gomorrah and all the land of that region. As he did so, he saw the smoke rising up from the land like smoke from a furnace.” (Genesis, Chapter 19, 27-28). Woodcut after a drawing by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld (German painter, 1794 – 1872) from my archive, published in 1877.”

getty

The idea that Tall el-Hammam might have been Sodom goes back to the 18th or 19th centuries. It had fallen out of favor, but is once again slowly gaining steam. Silvia was the one who hypothesized in 2018 that a meteor may have been the culprit.

“The Bible mentions only one eyewitness—Abraham,” Silvia explains to me. “He went up [to the top] and looked down upon Sodom and saw smoke rising from the whole plain like smoke from a furnace…. he probably saw the flash of the airburst the evening before, but it was to dangerous to venture out at night, so he waited until the next morning to investigate.”

#News

[heavenseed76]

Arco Iris

Summary: Everyone in the Andromeda Galaxy viewed the world in shades of grey. Until they met their soulmate. The Mandalorian’s quest completed, he is without purpose. Finding his soulmate might be the push he needs or it might just be another thing to run away from.

Rating: PG13 (for now)

Warnings: swearing, mentions of violence

A/N: Pinterest Board for this fic

Chapter 1

Chapter 2 - The Date

He didn’t intend to run. He really didn’t. His feet were moving and he was outside the city before he could stop himself. It was overwhelming, the colors. Everything was more alive, textures deeper, contrasts sharper, everything more. He stopped when he came to the cart of supplies covered with a tarp bearing the magistrate’s sigil, resting his arm and head on the packed crates, closing his eyes to the chaos to catch his breath. He absently noted the sigil was the same color as the clay pots he’d seen throughout the streets.

“Can we talk?” A hand on his elbow and the voice close to his helm gave him a start. Serafim stood next to him, frowning beneath her gauzy cloak. “Sorry.”

Din was distracted. It was a feeling so foreign that, mixed with the sensation of seeing in full color for the first time in his life, made him feel drugged. A stranger getting so close without notice had him putting a hand on his blaster. Sera’s eyes flicked down to his hand, not missing the gesture.

“Just talk, Mandalorian. That’s all. This is a shock to me too. I’m not armed.” Sera took a step away and held up her hands in surrender.

Din forced himself to let go of the blaster and put his hands at his sides. “I’m sorry. I said I would bring these supplies to the Magistrate’s office.” He said dumbly, his tongue thick in his mouth. “When?”

Sera smiled. “2200? I perform in the square, then we can go somewhere? I have to see to my grandfather, otherwise it would be earlier -”

“2200 is fine.” Din stopped her with a placating gesture. “In the square.”

Sera gave a small bow in farewell. “In the square.”

Din watched her walk away, her graceful form blending in to the tide of people that had begun to swell in the morning surf of Nevarro’s main thoroughfare. She stopped at the gate and glanced back for a moment, flashing a bright grin, before getting completely swept up by the crowd.

%%%

Even with the beskar, he could blend in to the shadows. This, he was good at. He watched her leave Ezekiel’s home - her home, carrying an instrument case and a satchel, and followed her to the square. Others were setting up on the make-shift dais, who Sera greeted with affectionate familiarity, all warm embraces and the occasional kiss. She was dressed differently, wearing a flowing tunic and loose pants, her hair half tied back with a scarf. Din noted the contrast between the fabric and Sera’s skin tone, wishing he knew the name of the color. Several metal barrels were set alight and their flames brought her features into relief as she set about helping the others prepare, blazing smile ever present on her face.

The colors had faded somewhat for both Din and Sera, but even the most muted colors were more than either of them had ever experienced. Din was mesmerized by the play of the firelight against Sera’s dark skin as she moved. Eventually the cantina began to empty and she opened her instrument case along with the other musicians, bringing out a large stringed instrument that she placed between her knees as she sat on a stool. She pulled out a long, thin piece of wood and, pushing the sleeves of her tunic up, she began to play. Din wracked his brain trying to remember the name of the instrument, but simply watching her from where he stood in the shadows, her unabashed joy and the emotion flitting over her features was an all-encompassing distraction. Passersby began leaving credits in Sera’s open instrument case, many stopping to listen and a few even stopping to dance. The music was full of a simple sort of joy, the words of the songs lost to Din, but the melodies echoing sea shanties and folk songs. They were songs carried from port town to port town and base to base by lonely rebels and even lonelier mercenaries. They were love songs and songs of loss, songs about X-wing pilots that never returned to Yavin and losing your ship in a game of sabacc. Somewhere in the performance, the singer introduced the band, giving a flourish toward “the beautiful Sera, on the cello”. Din filed that kernel of information away as Sera stood and gave an outrageous howl, eliciting another round of applause.

Din watched for over an hour, until the crowd grew thin. With some trepidation he pulled off his helmet. In the nearest shop window, he looked at himself. He’d spent most of the day contemplating: helmet on or off. The cognitive dissonance with which he’d been living, having learned that his entire upbringing as a Mandalorian was based on a twisted, bastardized version of the creed, gave him pause. If he left the helmet off, it was one less bridge he would have to cross. Sera would know what she was getting, if this went anywhere. Quickly fixing an errant curl, he stepped out of the shadows and leaned against a wall across the square. When the applause ended and the few audience members started gathering themselves to leave, Din approached the open instrument case. He noted the single credit coins amongst a few five and ten credit coins. Without calling attention to himself, he pulled a few credits out of his pouch and dropped them into the case.

“Mando?” Sera called from the other side of the stage.

“Sorry. I’m early. I thought I would see a bit of your performance.” Din was glad to have at least one hand occupied, holding his helmet under his arm as he stood a good foot below Sera, unsure how to hold himself.

“I wasn’t sure it was you without the whole get-up.” Sera smiled brightly. Din grinned stupidly back. “I’ll get packed up and we can go.” Sera collected the credits in the case and stood, turning away quickly. She faltered for a moment, looking down at the credits for a long moment before putting them in the pouch at her hip.

Din leaned on the edge of the dais as Sera helped the band pack up, taking in the muted colors of the night and the shadows that came with darkness. He caught snatches of conversation, mostly about him, some about the unexpected weight of the purse on her hip.

“Are you sure you’re ok with the Mandalorian, Sera?” a male voice asked. He didn’t try to keep his voice low.

“No, Ash. I’ll be fine. Mando’s just going to walk me home.” Sera laid her cello down in the case beside Din and closed it, smiling sheepishly at him. “Sorry.” She whispered as she kneeled close to secure the clasps.

Din gave her a lopsided smile. “Wouldn’t be much of a friend if he didn’t look out for you.” Without preamble, Din took the instrument case before Sera could take the handle, sliding it off the dais. It was surprisingly light for it’s bulk. Sera waved at her companions who were watching her closely and slipped of the edge of the dais as well. “So where are we going?”

“Walk me home?” Sera asked shyly. “I have something I want to show you.”

Din let Sera lead the way through the hard-packed clay of Nevarro’s streets, lava that had been worn down, turned to dust and reformed into paths by millions of footfalls. He couldn’t help but steal glances at her as they walked, satchel hitting her hip, silver bangles glittering like bells as she moved. Sera would glance back and smile, her odd blue eyes wide and shy.

“Has it faded, for you?” Din asked as they rounded the corner toward the market, on the last stretch to Sera’s home.

“Yes. Everything is muted now. It’s still… more beautiful than I every imagined. But not like earlier. I’ve heard the stories, but, nothing compares to the real thing.” Sera watched her feet as they walked, her voice quiet.

“I’ve only heard about this in passing. We don’t talk about it in my culture.” Din looked up at the moon, tinted orange by the sulfur hanging in the air, ever present in the atmosphere. “I never believed in it.”

Sera rounded on Din, a big smile on her face, making him stop abruptly. “Are you a believer now, Mando?” She asked.

Din took in her tunic and pants, the silver bands around some of her dreadlocks and the color of her eyes. There were glass beads of all colors woven into her hair and sewn into the fabric of her clothing. She was a stunning woman, the center of her bottom lip moist and inviting, her teeth a perfect dichotomy to her skin. “How can I not?”

Sera just stood there for a long moment, taking in the man in front of her. He was broad, his frame mostly covered in armor over a black flight suit, but his build was obvious in the way he held himself. He had a trimmed mustache, roguish smile and a 5 o’clock shadow that suited him. His eyes, though, sad, fathomless eyes the same color as his unruly hair, were what captured her attention. He looked as if he had seen enough battle and loss for a thousand lifetimes and feared seeing enough for a thousand more. His eyes just begged for a rest, a place to lay his head for even a moment of respite. And when the side of his mouth ticked up that tiny bit? She found she wanted to offer him her own lap on which to find that rest.

“This is me.” Sera gestured to the building they were stopped in front of. Indeed they had come to the little two-story building she lived in with her grandfather. Din followed to the doorstep. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.” Sera nodded toward the table and chairs, now propped against the house. Din nodded back and handed her the cello. Their fingers brushed in the exchange and the world flashed brightly again, colors blazing full force. It knocked both of them back on their heels.

Flustered, they pulled apart, Din grabbing the door frame. Sera steadied herself on a piece of furniture deeper in the room. Breathing heavily, Sera backed away. “OK, you sit. I’ll be back.”

Din sat, trying to clear his head with all the new sensations flooding through it. Sera didn’t take long to return with a bottle and two glasses, as well as what appeared to be an over-sized deck of cards.

“Ever had jet juice?” Sera asked as she set the items on the table. She went about lighting one of the lanterns above the door as Din studied the bottle.

Din huffed in amusement. “You were in the rebellion?” He started working the cork out of the liquor bottle.

Sera sat down, shaking her head with a fond smile and pulling her knee to her chest. “You know your booze! My parents. My dad was an X-wing pilot. My mom was a medic.” She held out a glass as Din offered the bottle to her and poured.

“Was?” He asked as he poured his own glass.

Sera took a sip and winced, sucked the alcohol off her top lip with an audible pop and leaned her head back against the side of the house. She looked relaxed, at ease in her own space. The facade of nonchalance was one she had honed to a fine point and easily wielded. Serafim knew her unique beauty gave her the upper hand and she used it to her advantage, though she had never gone up against a Mandalorian before. She had never gone up against one who she believed was her soulmate no less, and she was unsure of how vulnerable let herself be. Din wore his armor, but carried his helmet in his hands.

The Mandalorian’s face betrayed his stature. The kind eyes and soft curls that hung into his eyelashes were in stark contrast to the hard lines and unforgiving planes of his armor. The soft flight suit and woolen cape that could be seen between each piece - those were the pieces of him that matched the lopsided grin and sidelong glances.

“Yeah…” Sera sighed. “Death Star number two. I was already with Papa Zeke. He was stable, you know? He had lived on Alderaan for a long while and well, we all know how that ended. Went into hiding when he took me in.” Sera raised her glass in a half-hearted toast and downed a long drink.

Din swirled the liquid in his glass. “I’m sorry.” Din said softly.

Sera just shrugged. “What I wanted to show you was this.” She picked up what Din had assumed was a deck of cards, but as she laid them out, they appeared to be more like children’s flash cards. Instead of numbers and letters, they were colors. Sera laid out half a dozen before she looked up at the Mandalorian across from her, who was studying the cards with unbridled awe. Meticulously hand-written Aurebesh letters spelled out familiar words he had never been able to put into context.

He reached out to draw a finger across the lettering with a shaky hand. “The colors.” Din looked up to see Sera smiling back at him in the lantern light. “Did someone make these?”

“My parents were soulmates. They made them when my mom was pregnant with me. Being grounded drover her crazy. They wanted me to know what I was seeing if I ever met mine.” Sera took another drink from her glass to hide the nervousness in her voice.

Din picked up one card and held it up to the lantern. “This one is red, like your dress.” He looked through the cards laid out on the table and picked another. “Blue. Like your eyes.”

Sera picked up the rest of the desk and shuffled through them, finding one amongst the stack. “Silver, like your armor.” It earned a smile from Din. “I spent most of the day trying to memorize them all.” Sera admitted.

Din finally ventured a drink of Jet Juice. He winced and coughed, the home-made brew going down hard. Sera gave him an amused huff. “Are you sure this is alcohol and not X-Wing fuel?” He croaked. Despite the criticism, he took another drink.

“Brewed right here at home!” Sera lifted her glass and drank down the last of it.

Din poured Sera another glass, though he eyed it with disdain. “I’ll have to introduce you to netra’gal. Mandalorian ale.”

“Oh-ho, so there will be a second date, then?” Sera gave Din a pointed look.

Din faltered. He was just moving from one breath to the next, trying to get from sunrise to sunrise. He had no plan and no goal, and he certainly never considered dragging anyone else down into his despair with him. He had been avoiding the inevitable consequences of his actions: leaving Moff Gideon alive and winning the Dark Saber from him - consequences he worked very hard not to allow to manifest in his mind lest they become real in his waking life. He was living moment to moment. He was still grieving, if he were honest, though he was sure he was not.

Din scratched at the back of his head. “Sera… my life is complicated -” he began.

“Here it comes.” Sera cut him off. “I get it, Mandalorian. I do. I wasn’t expecting this either. I just want to live a simple life, away from all the bullshit. Neither one of us signed up for this. But here we are. Don’t you want to see where this goes?” Sera was leaning over the table now, haloed by the lantern light, her expression earnest and open.

Din blinked, chastised by her levity. “Let me speak? Please?” He said softly. He waited for Sera to give a small nod and sit back in her chair. “This isn’t the first time fate or chance or whatever - that something fell into my lap. I’ve spent the last year following a path I never planned for. It’s lead me back here. And now this…” Din growled in frustration, running a hand through his hair. “Where the fuck do I even begin to explain?” He pressed the heels of his hands hard against his eyes.

With a frown, Sera reached across the table, grasped his wrists and pulled his hands away. Her touch was less of a spark and more a soothing warmth that spread down his arms as she took his large hands into her smaller ones. She could see the swell of his inner turmoil, the lines between his brow growing deeper as he tried to find the right words. His honeyed brown eyes softened when they met her clear blue ones.

“Start at the beginning.” She held his hands, smooth thumbs making patterns over Din’s calloused knuckles as he swallowed and began to speak.

They talked until the sun rose over Nevarro.

[michelemoore]

Takhuk

May, 2021

Michele Moore V

THEM, THEY, US

And Me, in Savannah, Georgia

I was in Gone With the Wind territory, one of those places that had lived in my mind since I was 15 and had read through several nights to dawn, finishing that famous historical romance. I was with Rogerio, taking advantage of his annual travel to a professional conference that was being held this time - 2014 - in Savannah, Georgia. Atlanta, the Georgian city and scene of many of Scarlett O’Hara’s romantic vexations, was a few hours drive away, but Savannah’s surrounding countryside and old town fit perfectly with the vivid scenes in my mind.

Sitting under an umbrella of live oak trees in one of the city’s historic squares, flitting chirping birds innocent and free flashed and disappeared into the green drapery that guarded the fountain, benches, and gardens of the square. Lined up along each side of the square were immaculately preserved stucco and brick homes. Geometric symmetry and timeless materials both hallmarks of these architectural gems, these little mansions. Amongst their clean white exteriors trimmed in glossy black or green shutters and window sashes, their generous iron rails and fences and refurbished stone steps, and the square’s scrubbed clean statue commemorating a past Georgian military or political figure, I, was, there. Smack dab in the middle of the ‘old South’.

Although Gone With the Wind was a torrid love story that certainly appealed to my teenage sense of romance, it was the cultural and historical setting that was the real story, to me. It was the American civil war, that brutal dirty war over abolition. Scarlett O’Hara’s family owned Tara, a large and lavish cotton plantation. If slavery was to be abolished, how would they manage to maintain their mansion and grounds and grow and harvest their cotton crop? For Scarlett, saving Tara became more important than satisfying Rhett Butler’s desires , but what mattered most to my teenage mind was finding somewhere in those hundreds of pages proof that Scarlett would realize the enslavement of Mammy and Prissy and all the other servants and plantation workers was wrong.

Recreating in my mind scenes from the novel, I imagined a luxurious cigar scented ‘drawing room’ beyond the windows of the mansion in front of me. Convening inside were wealthy plantation owners raising money to support ‘the Cause (the war)’, while being served by slaves. When Margaret Mitchell, a native Georgian born in 1900, wrote and published Gone With The Wind, it was 1936, just 70 years since the end of the American Civil war and the abolition of slavery, and years before the era of Martin Luther King’s civil rights movement. (It would be another 32 years before Martin Luther King was murdered.) In Georgia in the 1930’s, the Ku Klux Klan was a cultural staple and racial segregation was legal standard practice – in other words, it was legal in states like Georgia to prevent black Americans from living, learning, working and recreating where they wished. Those laws are what are commonly known as Jim Crow laws that, although finally banned thanks to people like Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights movement of the 60’s, are still in de facto operation today, as I saw firsthand while visiting Savannah.

Jim Crow laws and the KKK. These facts were Mitchell’s context. Her reality. Yet she wrote a book that disregarded the truth of the slave era, imbuing her black characters with simple minds, suggesting they were content and fulfilled in their roles as slaves.  Through those long nights of reading those hundreds of pages, I kept looking for evidence that Mitchell knew. Because as any 15 year old would tell you, the Margaret Mitchells’ of the world, and every single other person, should know.

Sunshine warmed my bench and back. Women pushing baby strollers passed by, their southern accent adding an audio dimension to the scene in my mind of southern belles in their elaborate gowns, and men in breeches and tall leather boots. All being served by slaves. Those anonymous individuals central to the economy of the slaving era and the production of the wealth still being enjoyed today by the ancestors of plantation owning families and those associated with the corresponding commercial network.

I stood and walked around the fountain, the gardens. The place felt peaceful enough, yet lacking in something. Lacking in abundance – of people, of the layers of life I have witnessed and felt in other squares in the world where old ladies jammed together on benches laughed and pointed, and children chased each other around fountains and families bought sweet and savoury snacks from a rolling cart food vendor.

This square was pretty and pleasant, but it was lacking. And so I moved on.

***

At our first breakfast of the conference,  Rogerio came and went from our large round table as ever more of his professional associates appeared, leaving me with four other women at our table, also wives or partners to engineers attending the conference. (Yes, there were also female engineers in attendance, however, you are right to imagine there were far more males.)

During our initial polite introductions I learned two of these women were from Georgia, one was from South Carolina, and one from Alabama. They had been enjoying these conferences with their husbands for years. As Rogerio and I were outsiders, these friends naturally fell into their own conversation while we did the same. Being a compulsive eavesdropper, I did note references to children and family, revealing they were all mothers with kids in high school or college.

Rogerio and I were eating and talking about my day’s plans when he spotted an old friend across the room and dropped his cutlery to go say hello. Left alone to my own thoughts, I sipped my coffee and opened a small tourist magazine I had brought to breakfast.

But the conversational tone of the other women at the table pricked my ears; they were into something deep. With my eyes on my magazine, I listened to the women complaining. I heard words like ‘maid’, and ‘servant’ and multiple references to ‘she, and them, and they’.  

Although the women had their heads together and were speaking quietly, one of the ladies frequently burst out loudly with hostility over her maid’s failings. Phrases such as, “I don’t see why she can’t just…” or, “they have no business expecting…”

Perhaps it was the fact that I was the only one of us to thank the young black woman who refilled our coffee cups that finally caused comprehension to explode in my mind. I can still feel now the shock I felt then.

How naïve of me, I discovered, to expect that the breakfast conversation at a professional conference in Georgia in the year 2014, 150 years after slavery had been abolished in the United States, to be about ideas that might solve, rather than exacerbate, systemic problems, whether those problems be scientific or social.

The woman who tended to loudness was becoming riled up about ‘them’, so much that my heart began to race with the desire to fight, or flee. At the moment I was freezing. One of the other women caught me looking up from my coffee cup at the hostile woman. Our eyes locked, she saw my distress, she whispered urgently to the loud one, who immediately stopped her tirade.

This was truly an awakening in my life I never expected, imagined, or known could happen. Despite Canada’s own glaring social inequities, despite being perfectly aware of racism in both Canada and the United States, the idea that white Americans still had black domestic servants of whom they would so openly and routinely speak of with such disdain, such separateness, came to me as a true shock. No name was used to reference the individuals. Rather, ‘she’, ‘her’, and ‘they’ were the only identifiers. Speaking a person’s name, of course, acknowledges a level of humanity that would require the speaker to bestow a person with a degree of dignity these women were steadfastly withholding from their subjects.

I went back to my hotel room to record this experience in my journal. Soon after, still shaken, I headed out to spend the day walking the city’s historic centre and riverfront, and to try to understand more of the life of the ‘old South’.

Branching out from another square, I wandered up and down streets lined with more of those stately homes and attractive walk-up low rise apartments, all shaded by the green drapery of those generous old oaks, now whispering to me to look closer, look closer. The breakfast ladies had thrust upon me a new lens through which to view these homes, these squares lacking in life’s richness and diversity, these historic monuments and plaques commemorating selective people and events; expressing a preferred story, but not the whole story.

Eventually, I found the Owens-Thomas House and Slave Quarters. Here, I was able to walk through the simple wooden cabins behind the structured gardens separating the quarters from the mansion. While the mansion was busy with staff speaking with visitors, no staff was in attendance to interpret or answer questions in the slave quarters. And so I moved on.

I walked away determined to find evidence of Savannah’s black community. Where did the waiting and cleaning staff from my hotel live? Where did they go for a cup of coffee on a sunny day off? Down the streets I walked, passing homes and shops exuding prosperity and comfort.

Until I saw ahead a long line of black adults waiting on the sidewalk next to a church. I slowed in front of the building and realized I had found the African First Baptist Church, one of the Underground Railroad’s  hiding places in the south. The Underground Railroad being the secret network of people throughout the U.S. and Canada that provided refuge to enslaved black Americans escaping north to safety and freedom.  

Inside the church’s entry, I followed a posted notice of a self-guided tour of this still active church. I went downstairs first, to the basement, to stand on the wooden floorboards and discover the hundreds of miniscule nail holes in the floor, hammered there to allow oxygen down into the hiding place below. As I tried to imagine the dark damp hole in the ground under me, I wondered if any of the slaves from the Owens-Thomas House hid there, in darkness and silence, inhaling life, exhaling dreams of freedom through those nail holes, those determined, defiant nail holes.

From the website of the church:

The holes in the floor are in the shape of an African prayer symbol known to some as a BaKongo Cosmogram. In parts of Africa, it also means “Flash of the Spirits” and represents birth, life, death, and rebirth. 

Up the worn wooden stairs from the basement I went to the main level and up another flight of steps to the balcony where some of the church’s original pews were still in place. From the church’s website:

The pews located in the balcony are original to the church.  These pews were made by enslaved Africans, and are nailed into the floors. On the outside of some of the pews are writings done in a classical West African Arabic script from the 1800s.

I found examples of that script, by squatting down and looking low, as if the engraver wanted even this evidence of his or her existence to remain hidden. I wanted to touch the script, the patterns were beautiful, but I stopped myself. There was good reason the signage asked visitors not to touch. Such artifacts are truth telling. It seems these artifacts will need to keep speaking for a long time yet.

Feeling sombre over all that I had learned, I left the church and weaved my way back to a street where I had seen a sidewalk café with tables along the paving stones under the shade of those beautiful trees. I needed to sit and reflect, to process things.

But while sipping my coffee, more reality rudely elbowed itself into my space. Two businessmen carrying coffees and sleeves of papers wrangled themselves into the chairs at the table beside me. The space was close, I could smell their cologne, see the precise separations in their gelled hair. They were already talking before they sat down and continued enthusiastically, pouring over papers while they planned openly and urgently to remove from office the president of the United States, who at the time was Barack Obama. Their language and tone was unequivocal: ‘he’ was an affront to the office of President and nothing else in the world mattered but to return dignity to the American people by removing ‘him’ from the White House. Their hatred of Barack Obama was as plain to see as Georgia’s blue sky. Everywhere in the white population here in Savannah, it seemed, was evidence of a bitter, ingrained culture of contempt toward black Americans. I must stress: it was open, shocking, and repellant.

That evening I joined Rogerio on a river cruise and dinner, a special event organized for the conference attendees. Several hundred guests mingled under the shelter of the riverboat’s canopies and inside where a lavish meal was being laid out for our enjoyment. All the waiters were black. The guests were not.

***

I had now spent three days walking to Savannah’s old town and gone in every direction down side streets lined with those lovely houses and walk-ups. I had strolled a famous cemetery, the business district, and the Savannah River, yet I had not found a neighbourhood where I could see people living that might be the staff at our hotel. So on this last walk, I went back to the First Baptist African Church and continued further beyond that landmark. Soon, an abrupt change in the landscape presented itself, and I was walking down narrow cracked streets with no sidewalks fronting small homes and low apartments without adornment, most in need of painting and repairs. A few seniors were sitting together in front of one house on a street otherwise empty and devoid of motion. On another street one little girl skipped her way toward the open door of a home. No other people, no cars were coming and going from these streets, they were almost eerily silent.

Nearby I found a small park, the grass worn down to bare soil. It was a scrappy, sorry looking patch of land, I remember only a low, curved concrete wall, damaged so that I could not read the stamped words along its length.

I returned to my hotel that day feeling profoundly disillusioned and heartsick.

***

We were in a cab heading for the airport, our stay in Savannah was over. We passed a beach where dozens of people were out enjoying the water and sand. Our white cab driver slowed and watched the scene. His window was open, his arm hanging lazily over the door. With his hand he casually indicated to us what he was looking at while saying, ‘yep, them people like that spot, hellofa mess, look at it, but they keep to themselves there so that’s good anyway…”  “us kind have our places, them kind have theirs…”

They. Them. Us.

Postscripts:

I did find one statue in Savannah, far from the squares of the historic centre, of a family of slaves in chains. A quick Google search while writing this piece revealed that Savannah’s leaders are only now beginning to discuss the gaping absence of public art and the complete lack of preservation of the places and acknowledgement of the lives of the enslaved people whose ancestors continue to live in the city and region.

There is a term being used today – ‘food desert’ – which means a lack of grocery stores or other whole food vendors within a low income urban area. The neighbourhood through which I walked where black residents of Savannah live had no grocery store, no corner market, no vendor of food. These ‘food deserts’, throughout the United States, have a high correlation with diseases such as cancer, obesity, and diabetes. Reasons for the existence of food deserts include systemic indifference to the needs of the people living in such low income areas.

www.michelemooreveldhoen.com

photo by Ali Arif Soydas, courtesy of Unsplash

[sportsfitterr]

Ultimate Quest:Silverpine Forest

Welcome back to the Ultimate Quest, where I play through each zone in World of Warcraft to decide, through a demanding and thorough science, which mission is genuinely the best of all!

Hot closely following Tirisfal Glades, so ailing in fulfilling answers, comes Silverpine Forest, which answers even less. What it does, nonetheless, is pose some extremely fascinating inquiries. This week, we rejoin Professor Ammiel, (undead) refined man and researcher, as he scans Silverpine Forest for a decent skin cream.

The second demonstration of Silverpine Forest starts as you ride close by the Banshee Queen, Sylvanas Windrunner, as she subtleties the historical backdrop of the Forsaken. As the story finishes up and you turn not far off to the Sepulcher, Sylvanas uncovers what is next for her kin.

The individuals who considered this land their home throughout everyday life, do as such in death too.

But the Alliance doesn't perceive our privileges. They guarantee this land is their own while endeavoring to discredit the cases of the originators of this realm.

I will never permit it... Never!

 Lordaeron has a place with the Forsaken - consistently and for eternity.

A previous arrangement brings Garrosh Hellscream, Warchief of the Horde, to Silverpine to talk legitimately with Sylvanas. She shows him the intensity of her new val'kyr (a prize from the past development in the game's timetable, Wrath of the Lich King) by raising many creatures from the dead. shocked.

What you have done here,It conflicts with the laws of nature. Sickening is the main word I need to depict it.

 Warchief, without these new Forsaken, my kin would cease to exist... Our hold upon Gilneas and northern Lordaeron would disintegrate.

 Have you given any idea to what this implies, Sylvanas?

 What is the contrast among you and the Lich King now?

 Isn't it self-evident, Warchief? I serve the Horde.

Notice how Sylvanas first endeavors to clarify her conduct by reminding her Warchief this is the way undead replicate. However, recalling her crowd, she rapidly deserts that contention for the military one. She is making warriors for Garrosh's war, to indict the Horde's will in a land a large portion of a world away from its seat of intensity.

Around these times, World of Warcraft asks: if the undead are conscious creatures, do they not likewise have rights - to hold property, to self-assurance, and to duplicate? Where Tirisfal Glades posed the inquiry, "Would we say we are individuals? Should we exist?", Silverpine Forest underestimates that answer, and steps it further. "We are individuals. So how would we proceed?"

Obviously, Sylvanas Windrunner knows the appropriate response, thus she takes her kin to war.

The tale of Silverpine Forest is based on a Gilnean insurrection, pouring out of the Forsaken attack and control of Gilneas, a human realm only south of Undercity. It is a war arraigned by Sylvanas for one clear explanation, paying little mind to the empty talk she pays to Garrosh Hellscream about making sure about Lordaeron "for the Horde": the Forsaken are battling for power.

Yet, the genuine topic of Silverpine Forest is uncovered through a progression of groupings with the Gilnean worgen (read: werewolves) that set up their own side to the story. They are shielding their territory while battling with a lycanthropic revile that, in a cunning turn, makes them safe to undeath simultaneously it fates them to a lifetime of stunning hair style bills.

So who is justified?

The Battle of Gilneas isn't about acceptable and insidiousness however Us versus Them. It is about the Other, and the subtlety set up by Silverpine Forest's groupings presents a captivating response to the inquiries of who should win this battle. The appropriate response is both - and not one or the other. Also, despite the fact that the Forsaken eventually end the contention, they do as such at incredible expense.

An early battle to restore honor for a band of orcish mariners becomes shocking when they are later wrecked by the worgen. What starts as a mission to fortify the Forsaken position in Gilneas closes in retreat. Furthermore, the whole clash is eventually settled using a prisoner - the Gilnean pioneer's little girl. It is a military triumph just as in a military strike caught the lady. No perfect triumph, at that point.

See Also Quels Serrar guide in wow. 

At the point when you initially meet the Wardogs, orcish mariners sent to help the contention, they are spread around a Forsaken town, crushed, disrespected, and alcoholic. Furthermore, the journey isn't to win their fights for them, however make space for them to accomplish their own triumph - by discovering them supplies, annihilating their alcohol, and safeguarding the injured.

Afterward, you collaborate with a threesome of (presently undead) Gilnean aristocrats, each with their own shocking backstory. You learn, generally through coincidental discourse, that their chief, Lord Godfrey, was an intensely steadfast man in life who felt sold out when his ruler, Genn Greymane, succumbed to the worgen revile. As opposed to serve such an animal, he ended his own life. As an undead, he helps you against your mission to crush the worgen yet is plainly shaken by his new presence. His possible selling out (and murder) of Sylvanas is important to satisfy a supervisor prerequisite in the rebuilt multiplayer prison, Shadowfang Keep, but on the other hand it's advocated by the story.

Note:Want to know more about world of warcraft check here. 

A portion of these minutes are undermined, nonetheless. A journey to pulverize a shield ensuring a coven of wizards, so they can be raised into undeath, self-destructs. For what reason would these mages, who so scorn the Forsaken, promptly need to serve Sylvanas in undeath? (It brings up another disrupting issue about what Sylvanas is truly doing.)

An orcish envoy, left by Garrosh to keep a not really thoughtful eye on Sylvanas' dealings, turns out to be altogether thoughtful to her at long last, irate and clearly daunted at her demise. However this progress happens completely off-screen. The last time you heard him talk, he appeared to be anxious to take care of the Banshee Queen. Permitting him to develop into a thoughtful partner is a superb improvement that produces compassion toward the Forsaken, and it is a wrongdoing to not witness that.

Be that as it may, Sylvanas is the genuine focus of this story. At the point when she has Lorna Crowley in her grasp and understands the lady isn't worgen - helpless, as such, to undeath - she remains in return for a cease-fire. Darius acknowledges, and the two chiefs part moving forward without any more clash. It is a snapshot of extraordinary restriction and honor for Sylvanas, roused by the insight to know when a war does not merit the expense any longer. Note, as well, her lines as she crosses that front line to convey the final proposal:

Sylvanas: Look at them, Ammiel. They run like rodents, veering head-first to their fate. Doubtlessly Crowley and [his armed force, the] Bloodfang can see the vanity in this!

Sylvanas: To the Graymane Wall! We will pressure them to reveal more than was prudent.

There is a propensity of pity in her lines here, as she observes the battling. Hitched to her goal to secure Lorna Crowley, you can see a bit of acknowledgment underneath her assurance - the worgen, as perilous and ill-disposed as they may be, as individuals as well.

Thus the storyline for Silverpine Forest finishes up. Despite the fact that they part out of resentment and disdain, there is a feeling that Sylvanas Windrunner and Darius Crowley have started to address a portion of these inquiries for themselves. The war closes, not in triumph, however acknowledgment. There is, most importantly, acknowledgment that the expense of the war for Us might be excessively high - yet additionally a small break in obscurity billows of northern Lordaeron where both undead and worgen have started to see past the cloak of Other.

Silverpine Forest is a staggering zone, loaded up with subtleties both enormous and little. The missions never direct you to those creases in the level plan that uncover the sham of a computer game world.

Stacking WORLD...

... wherein we watch a portion of the more unobtrusive, successful, and not all that viable methods at world-working for the zone and the more noteworthy world through this current spot's condition and characters.

While chasing for worgen radicals, Belmont covers his weapon in wolfsbane oil - a straightforward, missable second, yet all the better for it.

The city of Dalaran was wizarded away for Wrath of the Lich King; a short grouping in and around the hole left by its nonappearance is downplayed however captivating.

Gilneas is a staggeringly rich district meriting its own investigation, with compositional plans that interface the speck from Stormwind to Undercity, a progress from the dyed, precise stonework of Stormwind to the gabled, gothic engineering of northern Lordaeron. The city itself feels like a genuine spot with genuine articles occurring inside.

BASILISK URETHRAS

We are asked, as usual, to recover creature organs to help in "speculative chemistry" - however there is a cunning turn in that conflicting drop rates for the plunder is clarified by the requirement for "clean" organs. The sick wolves and bears in the area, however mending, are not yet entirety.

Compulsory POP CULTURE REFERENCES

Without a doubt present, however I lost a large portion of my notes for this review and have none to report now.

Fix NOTES

Belmont transports to Godfrey's carcass

Val'kyr in two places immediately after cut-scenes

Difficult to move with the Godrey threesome

Silverpine Forest widens the World of Warcraft all in all and extends the tale of its undead saints specifically. Despite the fact that there are stumbles (the orc represetative's speedy turn, the Dalaran mage's faulty loyalties, more missions to build up a Plague without clarifying what the Plague even is), there are likewise unfathomable triumphs.

So how about we perceive how we do.

V. TIRISFAL GLADES

Tirisfal Glades arrangement a considerable lot of the topics Silverpine Forest investigates, and we can't applaud the last for the monster shoulders of the previous. However insufficient basis was laid for Tirisfal Glades' irregularities to peruse as deliberate or hazardous in a mindful manner; rather, they read as oversights in the composition and plan. The bad faith of the Horde and the Alliance in Silverpine Forest, on the other.

[meganmckinleymace]

The Reality of Being a Woman in the Music Industry

Hi guys! I realize it’s been an eternity since my last blog post, my apologies. Today however, I was feeling rather inspired. I thought I’d share with you, from my point of view, the reality of being a woman in the music industry today.

My sister and I have been in this business since we were 15. Sitting here now at the age of 24, I feel like I have some fairly-decent insight and a whole lot of experience on the subject.

 Prepare for weird, sexist comments.

 The way we started was on YouTube. It all started as sunshine and rainbows in the beginning; lots of “wow you guys are so greats” and “keep uploading” types of comments. However, after the first, I guess you’d say, “big video” for us, we realized that this industry was a whole lot tougher than they lead you to believe. It was around the 300k subscriber mark when the comments comparing our looks and voices against one another began, the “you sucks” as well as the “take your shirts off” or the “are they kissing yet” comments. At this point, we were freshly 17-years-old, still in high school living in a small town of 1,200. It was a hard dose of reality, but you could say coming up on this platform gives you a very, very thick skin. Friendly reminder; it’s a whole lot easier to say mean, rude or hurtful things behind a username and a computer screen. We held our heads high and continued-on this journey with confidence because passion is passion.

 From 18 to 19, let’s just say a lot of things changed. We went from living in a small town to living in Nashville, with no friends except our champion of a mama, going into this business fearlessly. We not only lived in a new city in a new house, but were also spending a large amount of our time in LA. Now LA is crazy at any age you go there, but to us it was the biggest culture shock. At this point in time, the thought of living there was a joke. (little did we know we’d want to move there in just one short year.) Anyway, this is when what Liz and I like to call “music business university” began.  Here’s just a few of the highlights of what we learned about being a young woman (or woman) in this business:

 Are you a cute boy who sings? No? Keep moving please.

 This was possibly the most frustrating part of performing live. At 18, 19, 20, you’re already insecure about growing into the woman you will be and constantly comparing yourself to the impossible standard that society sets us up against. However, Liz and I stepped on so many stages owning ourselves and accepting who we were at that point in time. The most difficult part came when we would follow or open for the young, attractive teen boys. To go from watching most of the girls in the audience screaming until their voices were gone and quite literally throwing themselves at the stage to rolling their eyes when we stepped on stage and mouthing insults to you and their friends was all sorts of discouraging. We could never understand where we were lost in translation. What did we do? Why don’t they react to our show like they do the young boys? Why aren’t we teenage boys? It was as if there was a mute button everyone pressed when a girl stepped on the stage.

  Hair and makeup

 Let me just say this: it is terrifying to walk into a new hair and makeup situation with a stranger who doesn’t know what kind of makeup you like. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve had to “suck it up” and deal with what makeup and hair we were given that day because there “wasn’t enough time” to fix it. Talk about a confidence killer. I understand why most artists have a hair and makeup person they know they like travel with them, unfortunately we never had this luxury.

 Not only that, but you have to make sure you have at least 2 extra hours to “get camera ready” or “stage ready.” This already puts us 2 hours less of sleep behind the boys, and yet we are still expected to get out there and do the same things. Not to mention you feel like the biggest diva ever for “demanding” enough time to get to looking like the standard everyone holds a young woman to look like.

 Make sure you’re tan, skinny, wearing a good outfit, and push up your boobs if you’ve got them.

The impossible standards women are held to in society and in the music business are infuriating. Say you have an 8 AM soundcheck. As a woman, to adhere to society standards, you’d need to get up at 6 AM, workout, take a shower then head to your soundcheck. Then you’d head back to the bus eat, get your face and outfit on for the meet and greet at 3, then head back to the bus and change into yet another outfit (because outfit repeating is a no-no,) then head to stage at 7. Now keep in mind, if you were a boy you could have used this time to take a nap if you wanted. You play your set, hop off stage and back to the bus. Odds are there are a handful of people to meet or see after your set, then you wait for the headliner to finish around 11. You say your goodbyes, do a few more selfies and head to sleep at around 1. This leaves us a whole 5 hours of sleep. We are tired and we get up and do it all over again every morning.

 Remember, you’ll do all this work to be 1 of the 4 female voices on the Country Top 40 Chart today.

I’m not writing this post to complain. I love every second of every minute of what I do. I just wanted to write this post to make more people aware of how hard women work in the music business. Now I’m not saying men don’t work hard, because they do. I just feel like society forgets all the extra little things women are expected to do. Be kind, be respectful, and remember that we’re doing this because we want to connect with you and share our stories with you, among many other things. We’re all that 8-year-old girl singing karaoke in her mirror, daring to dream big enough to make it in the big leagues. Next time you hear a female voice at a show, on the radio, at a bar, put yourself in her shoes. She’s honored to have the opportunity for you to hear her voice and her songs. She is probably running on little to no sleep and spent the last week picking out her perfect outfit. She might have just come from a meeting where someone told her no, or maybe this is her second show of the day where she was ignored by the male artist’s fans and she’s feeling discouraged. You don’t have to like her music, but respect her. You never know what battles she had to fight to get to where she is today. As women, if we all stood together and supported one another not only in music but in life, what an amazing world it could be. Women, listen to your fellow women.

[amollion]

Newcomers Pt 17

Creten gathered what was left of his belongings from his home that had been burned down during the battle for his small town. There was not much left but he was happy to find a few of his books were still in good order or were salvageable. The Humans had offered his father a temporary robotic arm that he refused probably still bitter about being defeated. In fact Creten was sad to be leaving at all, for the last few days he had been welcomed by them and they had answered his mountain of questions and seemed pleased to meet someone who was interested in their culture. He and the rest of the now refugees as the Humans called them were being sent to Geeda with the others, they were told that it was being used as a holding area for those caught up in this war.

Ruffling through the burned wreckage he found what he was sent to find, a picture of his mother, he snatched it and ran out to the street.

“Father I found it!”

“Ah good” he said taking and looking at it with a smile on his face, he ran his finger over her features as if he was scared he might forget them. He knew that she had gone west towards the capital and that was likely where the Humans were going next. He hoped like they had done here they would not kill anyone they did not have to.

“You guys ready?” asked one of the Humans that was helping them into the trucks.

“Yes, let us go”

Creten helped his father to his feet and the Human picked up the bags and followed them to one of the rear trucks. Just as his father got on Creten turned to the Human.

“Can I really not stay here? I want to stay and see everything”

Hopkins looked down at him smiling and handed him one of the bags.

“You are brave little one and you have a good head on your shoulders, but the front is no place for you. Your strength lies inside your mind and your people will need you once this war is over”

“Can I at least...” Creten looked at Hopkins pocket smiling and he pulled out a few sweets.

“There those are my last ones”

“Thank you”

Hopkins lifted him into the truck and he sat by his father.

“Take care all of you, there are clean beds and hot meals waiting for you in Geeda.

“What about those who defended it?” asked Creten's father and Hopkins turned to him.

“I can't say for anyone specific but there are many survivors” Hopkins banged the side of the truck and it began to pull away with Creten waving goodbye to the Humans they passed.

They rode for hours with the tracks of the truck kicking up dust and dirt behind them making the small town they had called home fade from view as if being erased.

Going past them heading the opposite way were Gal and Human infantry running on foot and vehicles carrying other supplies and to Creten's joy a Bastion. Behind him a flap that separated the drivers from the occupants opened and a Human handed them some protein bars saying the journey will be longer than expected.

The reason was traffic, there were a lot of vehicles trying to get in Greeda through only a small number of gates, and not all were Human vehicles.

In the weeks since Greeda fell it became the place for refugees to go and be housed by the Humans who felt it their duty to help those caught up in the war. One thing they did not stop and even in fact they encouraged was the travelling of Benemar merchants. They would come and trade their goods with the refugees and Humans alike who paid them well. Soon other merchants were making their way into Human controlled territory to trade their goods.

It was nearly midnight when they arrived at one of Geeda's recently repaired gates and they were stopped once more by Human guards that came and inspected the truck. Many feared this was the moment the Human would show their true colours and kill them but all the guards did was ask them their names and hand them ID bracelets.

They passed through the gate and into the city which was rather quiet as it was close to the middle of the night now and everyone had retired to bed, the truck suddenly stopped and they were asked to disembark.

There was a waiting waiting of them and once they had all exited the truck it left them in the middle of the street with this guard holding a clipboard watching them.

“Hello everyone my name is Lieutenant Rosev and I am the one in charge of this section of the city. This building behind me is your new home” he indicated the large housing block that could hold hundreds of families, small townsmen like them could only dream of living in one of these.

“They have all been checked and stocked with beds and basic living needs, the water is a bit dodgy but we are working on fixing it. Tomorrow food will be distributed from a centre down the road. So yeah, find a bed and fall in I guess, goodnight” he saluted then and walked off.

They all looked around a bit dumbfounded, these were supposed to be luxury apartments for only the highly rich or privileged Benemar and they were being given to them freely and without questions.

“I don't know about you lot but I have no intention of freezing out here on the street” Creten's father Malthos said heading inside. He had become the town elder since the last was killed during the battle and the town survivors looked to him for guidance. They slowly followed him inside.

The next morning Creten ran to the window having been woken by the sound of low flying aircraft, there were hundreds of fighters and bombers heading west and flying low. He watched excited and memorizing their strange shape and holding his ears at the loud booming sound they made when they passed overhead. His father was none to happy at being woken so abruptly and simply shouted at his son to go to this distribution centre the Humans had told them about to get food.

Creten did not need telling twice as he already had his boots on when his father called for him.

The streets were packed, you would have been forgiven for believing that the city never came under attack nor was under Human occupation. The streets were filled with Benemar, both survivors of the when the city fell and refugees from other such towns like his. Children played in the streets, merchants had set up stalls and adults chatted. He headed in the direction the Human had told them the centre was and on the way he passed a building that was once a gathering hall but had been turned into a walk in hospital by the Humans. He looked inside and saw Human doctors treating sick Benemar offering such services freely. Such services on Bento were hard to come by sometimes and even if one could find a healer the price of such treatment was extortionate. But the Humans asked for nothing and gave without question. They were not unobserved though, looking up he saw Gal, not a large number maybe half a dozen looking down and moving along the buildings slowly, there were a few Humans sitting on perches but they seemed more interested in chatting with each other than keeping an eye on them. He went on his way and found the food centre, naturally there was a long line as it was the morning and people were waiting for their morning meals. He hated waiting, he wanted to explore and talk to the Human soldiers who he saw every so often wandering around unarmed but completely at ease.

“Creten?” he heard someone call his name and looked around but could not see where it was coming from. “Creten!” he heard again louder and closer and he was suddenly seized from behind and spun to face this newcomer.

“Selan!” he shouted leaping into the arms of his big sister “You're alive!”

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“Um..our town fell, the Humans sent us here”

Selan's face fell “Why didn't you leave and go to the capital?”

“Mother did, father and me along with a number of others stayed and fought”

“You fought the Humans?” Selan said shocked at the thought of her baby brother even lifting a rifle let alone firing it.

“We lost as you can see but they did not mistreat us, most of the those who stayed survived”

“Father?” Selan said quickly.

“He is at home, or the home we have been given”

Selan let out a breathe of relief.

“Where is Jeqan and Kop?” Creten asked.

Selan's face dropped and she shook her head “They died fighting to the last and with honour”

Creten grew angry, he hated that word honour for in his mind it was worthless and so many died for it. “They shouldn't have died at all and we shouldn’t be fighting either”

Selan glared at him “They are the enemy” she hissed.

“Are they? They have been nothing but kind to me and father once they saw we were not warriors, like now I am in line to get food which they say they do not charge for”

Selan said nothing.

“How many long hours did we spend in the salt fields scratching at the dirt in the hopes we might eat something or find enough to sell?”

Selan was a bit taken back by this, Creten was usually so submissive and easily spoken down to but now he stood tall. He had a new confidence that she had not seen before.

Finally he arrived at the desk where a Human female greeted him.

“Bracelet please” she asked holding out her hand and Creten put his arm up with his ID bracelet on and it was scanned.

“I see you have your father is in the city with you” she said reading a screen “Do you want to collect for him as well?”

“Yes please”

“One meal or the entire day?”

“Um...the whole day please”

She disappeared behind a curtain for a few minutes and Creten turned back to his sister who had said nothing.

“Have you tried their food?” he asked.

She looked at him out the corner of her eye as if refusing to face him “It's not bad” she finally said and the Human reappeared with three large bags.

“This is your morning meal, your afternoon meal and your evening meal. There are few sweets in there as well”

“Chocolate?” he asked excited and the Human smiled and nodded. “Yay”

“Yay?” Selan asked not familiar with this word.

“It's a Human word it's used as a small celebration for when something happens that they like”

“Oh” she said “Let's go see father then”

Creten turned and led the way and Selan watched him go a few paces “Traitor” she whispered to herself before following.

[aleatoryalarmalligator]

Life Story, Part 39

My father had planned a family trip to Florida, for us and Tammy to come along the summer of 2004. The plan was that we get into a rental vehicle, and we drive out to Portland Oregon, stay the night at a fancy hotel that my second cousin Jason (no relation to friend Jason at school) had a prominent position in, and then fly from there to Florida where my uncle Bob would be waiting. I had never heard of Portland before. I had actually never been to a town bigger than Spokane (though I had been to Florida once before as you may recall, and Florida, by comparison to the northwest seems to rarely become rural and therefore seemed like a town that never ended). And I had only been to Spokane about three times in my entire life.

Tammy was upset at having to leave her kids behind. Her and my father seemed to be having problems, but were trying to make the relationship work long enough to go on vacation. I remember I foolishly stayed up the whole night before we left. Back in those days MTV used to give it's users the option of a personalized page, where you could discover music and connect with other users. It was kind of like a more limited MySpace. Nothing of the sort exists on MTV any longer of course, and I doubt very many people even remember. My new favorite band was Rancid. I would listen to ..And Out Come The Wolves about three times a day. I loved Tim Armstrong. He was my hero. I wanted to be punk, but at the same time I knew it wouldn't be cool to profess yourself as punk, so I wanted others to label me as punk so I could then dismiss that I was punk, therefore proving even further just how punk I really was. At least that was my whole internalized logic on the matter.

I thought I knew what punk was, and I felt like even though I wasn't edgy and punk, I could at least put others down who were less edgy and punk than I but thought they were – for the sake of keeping punk 'pure' whatever that means entirely. I was obsessed with condemning posers. I would go on these absurd rants against 'the posers' all day sometimes. I am sure Sarah, bless her soul, who had to passively listen to countless hours of my concern for the teenyboppers who thought that Avril Lavigne and Hilary Duff were true punk rockers, simply because Hilary Duff had worn a bracelet that had spikes on it for a photo shoot one time was weary of it, even when she chose to agree. In my mind, I was defending some great concept from the end. I wanted to be someone who had strong opinions. It didn't matter if I was able to defend them or not.

The night before heading out to Florida, I was spending so much time watching and thinking about musicians I hated, that I might as well have been considered a fan really – having spent as much time thinking about these artists as an admirer would. I started sending these unnecessary messages to people whenever I could to people who liked Hilary Duff, Avril Lavigne, but also to people who were fond of Courtney Love. I thought she was also extremely trashy, and I did this thing where I compared her to Kurt Cobain and put her down. I would message these people and let them know how shallow and trashy they were, and how they were killing punk and should ashamed of themselves. They would  generally jump into a very pointless argument with me, having found the strong need to defend their favs. Somehow, I guess I must have thought I was making some kind of difference. It's such a foreign notion to me now, sending hate mail. I would have to be getting one hundred dollars an hour or more to waste my time pestering people. My only stab at guessing is that I was perhaps displacing my frustrations in life onto something I could attack, rather than all the things that I could not.

I was exhausted all the way to Portland, having stayed up all night embroiled in pointless back and forth between strangers online. I had never been farther than ten miles west of Lewiston in my entire life. So it was a shocking surprise to me when I found that past Lewiston, the world continued. We drove through an endless sea of dry empty Eastern Washington desert and heat. We drove through small towns even more empty and vague than Kendrick, towns like Waitsburg and Dayton. It was hard to imagine places more desolate than the small towns that I hailed from, but these places were even farther away from the cities than where I hailed from, and they were surrounded with nothing but fields for hundreds of miles.

A million years later we arrived in Portland. Despite my bleary eyes,I had never seen such a place and could barely contain gasps of disbelief. Despite my exhaustion, the view of The bridge that separated the east and west side was overwhelming. I had never seen such tall buildings. These buildings and this bridge, though large, are not the stately sky scrapers or bridges you see in New York or Chicago. But having lived in rural Idaho my whole life, the only real bridges I was used to seeing were the rustic kind that went across a roaring creek, or a small river.

I was also amazed to see all the obvious poverty. In Lewiston, there had been a man called The Bridgewalker who had been homeless more or less by choice, and he walked back and forth across the bridge all the time. I had seen him going to and fro for most of my entire life. Unfortunately, in 2001, he was found stabbed to death by someone who never was caught. Aside from him, I had been honestly unaware that there were homeless people that simply had nowhere to go. I had always assumed that the government would prevent this kind of poverty from happening. How could people simply walk past this without having a gut instinct that something in our society was horribly sick. Even if these people were uncooperative or to a degree driving themselves down, that too said something about our society. It was something new for me to contemplate.

We parked our vehicle at some point and walked down the streets. I saw people of every walk in life, including punks. I was fascinated by just how many staples and fliers there were on the wooden street poles. As we went along, a woman fell out of a building in front of us, and was instantly on all fours on the sidewalk throwing up her guts. I couldn't look away, though my father strongly insisted that I must.

The hotel was quite nice. When we went into the hotel, our cousin Jason (whom I had not really ever met) was gracious and brought us to our rooms. As an employee there, he had been able to pull some strings and get us a discount. From our place in high building, we could look down over the whole of the city. As the sun went down, the night lights were brilliant. Portland was a town of energy and decay. It reminded me of garbage that was given new life and in so doing became precious. I had never seen hip hop culture in real life. I had never seen real punks, or an counter culture really aside from a very small amount of hicks who happen to also line up with metalhead.

This stuff is just a day in the life for a great many people. I realize my shock and awe is probably a little bit silly sounding, but just this introduction to a city blew my mind. I felt in my bones that I belonged in a place like this. I couldn't wait to tell Sarah all about it, so that someday we might move to the city to become recognized and earn our place as rock stars. Underneath this big glorious egotistical craving for fame was of course the rage and disappointment of having had a life full of disrespect and abuse. Imagining that in the end, all the losses in my life might make sense made living worth trying. It also kept me distracted as well from the underlying fatigue of missing Zack all the time. I wanted to become a legend. I wanted to be adored and loved by endless amounts of people to make up for all the empty sadness I felt all the time.

In the morning, a tax picked us up and we were on our way to the airport. Tammy and my father didn't seem to be enjoying themselves in the least. I was, however. As we were situating Allison and David and getting our luggage in the vehicle, a homeless man came up to the cab driver in the window. He asked for money, threatening to prevent us from leaving the area until he got his money. The cab driver seemed callous and had a personality naturally ready for any bit of conflict that came his way. The both of them cussed one another out. We all got in the back with our stuff, and as we were leaving I watched the homeless man run after the car and throw a slushy (where this came from I shall never know) screaming obscenities at us the entire time.

The airplane ride over from Portland, to Denver, to Florida was of course fantastic. I had said it before, but air travel is one of my very favorite things in the whole world. I was given a window seat, which I deeply appreciated. We flew all day, and showed up to Florida that night. Its always a shock to arrive in the south by plane. Idaho has extremely dry air. It is very much what I am used to. To me the air is almost unbreathable down south. It's hot and moist and dense. I always go into mild shock when stepping of the cockpit. My uncle Bob and his wife Marty picked us up in two separate vehicles. Marty had been fond of me when I was younger. I had thought in my youth that she was pretty nice as well. However, now that I was older, I soon saw past this. It was her in the driver seat, I in the passengers side. Allison and David were in the back seat sleeping.

Marty apparently could not see me in the darkness of the car. She started talking about how disgusting it was that people dyed their hair. She thought people with piercings and tattoos deserved to die. She then started talking about how even though she liked the south, she wished that most all of the (insert racial slur)'s would go back to Africa, China, Mexico, Israel, Eastern Europe. She talked about how dirty other people were. She literally said she hated all music, blaming it for most of the U.S's problems. That the young people having a sex life made her sick. Marty hated children and had abandoned her own, feeling nothing for them. She was very proud of this fact. I didn't say anything. I didn't know how to make a point back then, and was somewhat used to agreeing for the sake of agreement in the moment, but this was too far. I mostly just sat there – wondering when she would see that I had dyed my hair black and my eyebrow was pierced. Also, I was chubby, and according to her, she honestly wished slow and painful deaths on overweight people – though she herself was a little chubby. I realized very quickly I didn't like her. And the shock on her face when I stepped out of the vehicle and into the home was priceless.

I was set up in a separate bedroom for my visit. I crashed that night after a day of flying, and woke up in the morning in a pool or sweat. They turned the air conditioner off at night. I thought this was very strange. If anything, I find that in places were it is always hot, it is actually much more beneficial to keep the air conditioner on at night instead. I have always been overly sensitive to heat. I realized in dismay that a gel pen I was using to write had fallen out of my pocket. I had been so tired, I had fallen asleep in my street clothes. The pen had leaked all over the sheets I was sleeping on. Ordinarily I would have told someone in the house and apologized, but Marty had seemed so atrocious the night before, I chose not to. It seemed like it would only add to the stress.

Bob was really into music. He had a lot of money, being a superintendent to several schools, and he was able to buy enough to keep several guitars. He had specialty Eric Clapton kinds of items. My father and him messed around with guitars in the music room, but as far as playing the instruments went, nobody in the house was allowed to make a peep, since soulless Marty hated all music. I had troubles understanding why Bob was married to her. Eventually, probably a week later, Marty discovered the spilled ink on her sheets. She also discovered that I opened my bedroom window at night. It was so hot at night I was beginning to feel dizzy, and even the outdoor air was preferable. I guess, though I don't know if this is a fact, if you leave a window or a door open too long in Florida, than some kind of rot will begin taking over almost immediately. At least that is what she insisted. She also exaggerated and said the sheets were three hundred dollars. My father looked them over, and honestly, they were absolutely not that much money. Marty hated me. She took Allison and David aside throughout the trip and told them as much. The entire time, she seemed to find reasons to be upset with my being there, once even shouting at me. My father had to step in on my behalf.

We tried to do fun things everyday. It really felt like Tammy was annoyed most of the time, and my father was stressed and trying to win her over somehow. At some point we went to a flea market. I still have a wraparound that I bought from one of the vendors. I stared longingly at the Buddhist statues and knickknacks on display, and my uncle Bob ended up buying one for me – which  I also have kept. I tried to enjoy the ocean again. We arrived on the shores of the Atlantic, and for the second time I couldn't handle it and went crazy. I loved it at first, though I couldn't help but look at a this person who was so tan that their skin was a dark orange brown and get a bit disturbed. I also really wondered how so many people enjoyed being in the same place. I tried to dig after a clam, but with little success, the bugger was too fast. The ocean was also nowhere a person could reasonably swim. And as I looked at it, I began questioning who I was. I became separated from my thoughts somehow, and started sensing the notion that there was not one version of me, but several, all of us looking out at the ocean, and none of us being aware or understanding one another. I started feeling shaky and confused. I felt like the tide was static, and it was the land that was moving back and forth. I became dizzy and almost passed out. I became nauseous. I knew from previous experience that something was actually wrong with me and nothing had actually changed, and after an hour of being separated from the ocean, I felt better again. The ocean and I can never be a match. I have tried looking up what this feeling could be. I guess it's some kind of seasickness or vertigo. But there is this strange psychological element to it that baffles me to this day.

We visited Disney World again. This time we went to Magic Kingdom. I don't remember everything about it, other than there was this 3D movie. They had us put on glasses, and I watched in horror as the Bug's Life bugs on the screen became real, and flew into my face. When one of the bugs began blasting acorns into the face of the audience at one hundred miles an hour, a blast of air from the seat in front of us blew air in our face. They had these choreographed fans, and when the bee flew behind and stung the audience, a pointy object came out from the backs of our chairs. I had had quite enough of this and took the glasses off and closed my eyes.

Most of Disney world was waiting in line. Most of the people seemed unhappy. I was able to get somewhat close to the fantasy castle that I had so dearly wanted to live in when I saw it in pictures as a young child, and I was disappointed to find that the castle wasn't really a castle. It was more or less a prop held up by planks. There might have been some places a person could be in inside the monument, but this was probably for those who worked on or around the castle. I couldn't help but take note that many things I had believed were magical and enchanted as a child were actually very much this way. Though my favorite ride (maybe the only one I really thought much of) was the It's A Small World Ride, which was basically being in a boat that carried you through these intricate vivid surreal settings with these electronic puppets all around you singing and dancing. Randomly the lights would go out and you would drop thirty feet or so. Allison was crying by the end of it.

We also went to the Everglades, and I adored it. There is a unique loveliness to that place that is hard to explain unless you have been there. Dead trees, moss, and living organisms of all kinds were teeming out of this swamp. There was this overfed alligator that laid out in the front of the resort area. It seemed to be overfed with the intention of showing guests just how big a gator could be. I was astounded, but couldn't help but feel that the alligator's life in that small containment was quite unnatural and a little sad. We took a tour on a motor boat that stopped at random places. It was marshy and intricate in detail of twigs and muck. Little alligators and large turtles swam up to the boat. I tried my very best to get a good photograph, and my father had to hold me back from getting too close to an alligator for the sake of a decent picture. After the trip, which I wanted to do again, but couldn't, we went into the restaurant and I ended up breaking my vegetarian diet and eating alligator. I remember liking it, though nothing distinct about it comes to mind.

My father wanted to go to the Florida Keys with Tammy, and we wanted to see my older sister Maria, who also lived in Florida. We didn't exactly, want to, but I hadn't seen my niece Jasmine in a very long time, and now I had even more nieces and nephews. Florida is strange in that you seem to be able to drive from one side to the other with a relative amount of ease. We drove a few hours to this other part of Florida. This part was really rugged it seemed to me, and beaten down. The buildings looked to be falling apart and neighborhoods far more seedy. There was a lot more graffiti on the walls of businesses, and a fair amount of small loan businesses and places of that nature. Florida wasn't all resorts and sandy beaches.

We found Maria's house and were dropped off with the promise of getting picked up in a week. This ended up being one of the most unpleasant weeks of my life. The place was run down and garbage was everywhere. There wasn't very many decent places to sleep or sit. The couch I was sleeping on was soiled and gross. There wasn't really any food, though there was enough. Maria made hamburger helper every night. And the family all watched either cheap infomercials or this bad tasteless comedy called Stuck on You, about conjoined twins. Everyday I found myself bored out of my mind, wanting to be anywhere else. It was always hot, the carpet was sticky. Jasmine was five now, and I did enjoy being around her. Ian was two or three and he seemed to be a bit more of a handful, and Chantelle was just a little baby, with a particularly pretty face, which I don't give that compliment lightly. Babies can be cute, but they often aren't pretty.

In order to get by mentally, I ended up spending several dollars on Ben and Jerry's ice cream at this nearby corner market. By this time in my life, I was eating a lot, and it would be dishonest for me to underplay it. I was eating two or three of those small five dollar containers a day while visiting Maria. Ordinarily, I never had the money to buy snacks, but given my situation and the feeling of being trapped, I felt I really had no choice. I ended up spending around eighty dollars on ice cream. It was one of the biggest amounts of money I had ever had in my pocket at any one time, and that is what I blew it on. I really regretted it. So in order to make up for this, when my father finally came and got me – which felt like years later, I lied to him about where my money went, and I told him that I spent it on food for Maria, since her and her kids seemed to be starving. He felt badly about my martyrdom and reimbursed me. I had also eaten so much ice cream that I had made myself disgusted even at the site of it, and it was almost two years before I would partake in eating it ever again.

I wish I could say that my favorite thing about Florida was Disney World or the beach. The Everglades were close. But to be honest, we went into a department store and I found Radiohead's 'The Bends'. It's something I could have found at home in Idaho, but the new setting, the new kinds of trees, weather, and overall tropical nature of Florida brought this album to life somehow. I might be one of the only people in the world that feels on instinct that The Bends is a tropical album in any way. I spent most of my time in Florida listening to The Bends over and over again on my headphones with my portable cd player. My greatest memories were of listening to this album on repeat, while watching the world shower with rain.

I kept thinking about Zack, somewhere out there. And I thought very hard about the promises he made to me before he left. He had promised me that he would come get me one day, him, Melissa and I, and we would escape. I wondered very seriously where people could ever go to escape truly, as it seemed that there was a homogeneous undercurrent to the world, regardless if you lived on one side of the globe or the other. And what was there to escape? What was it we were fighting against exactly? He seemed to doubt the legitimacy of everything, and had been paranoid about the government in all it's forms. So really, could there be such a place?

I have no idea of the details behind all the days that Tammy and my father were gone, but they seemed miserable with each other when they arrived to pick us up, and for the remainder of the time, it only seemed to get worse. Eventually, Tammy seemed to befriend Marty, and the two of them started openly talking badly about both my and my father. I knew something was up, but it was hard to put my finger on it. And there were moment where my uncle would look me over, and I felt kind of strange about that as well. I didn't want to think that he was being a pervert, but I had some indication to believe that he may have been being one. He was also being very accommodating and friendly. He burned me the Beatles Anthology 3, which is my favorite Beatles album. He gave me a small acoustic guitar as well.

The last days I mostly stayed indoors in the overheated room that I could no longer cool down by opening the window, else the spores of fungi come in and take over the entire house. My CD player ran out of batteries, and there was no available opportunities for me to go get more. So I mostly laid in bed all day and watched all of The Tenth Kingdom – which I found a copy of somewhere in the house, and hours and hours of the Ricki Lake Show. I felt gross. And everyone was angry at one another. It was hard for me to leave the bedroom without one of the adults making me feel weird.

On the last day, my father came into the room. He sat me down and told me that Uncle Bob and Aunt Marty were willing to keep me. Basically, they felt that I was a lazy teenager who needed a kick in the boot, and having me stay there with them would be a bit like bootcamp for me to reform me – change me from a bad teenager into a good one. They were willing to pay for me to get the schooling I needed to catch up. They might have been willing to even pay for my college if I stayed long enough. They would set me up in one of the rooms and I could have things that I never even really thought about having since they were so far out of reach. My uncle had money after all. They also wanted to get me into the habit of doing a lot of chores. I felt very strongly that Marty was hoping to turn me into a maid that she could ridicule whenever she wanted.

With the reality of the situation at hand, I told my father I would think about it, and I did. I wanted a new life away from Kendrick, but the pain of Ava and Zack was still very much a part of my daily life, that seemed like it would never go away and was always staring me in the face when I woke up in the morning. I wanted to stay close with Sarah, but most of the time it was hard to do much with her. She slept till four in the afternoon and rarely left the house unless it was night time. And most of the time she just wanted to sit at the computer and talk to people on the CKY forums talking to her online friends. This might have been a chance for me to be a new person. The money was there at least.

But I couldn't help but remember my uncles strange way of looking at my chest, and then just thinking of living with my wretched racist aunt. Something felt very wrong about it. Not to seem totally shallow, but it never made much sense to me how Bob was married to Marty. She had female baldness, a squinty mean face, this strange shrill voice that was constantly criticizing and angry, and most of the things she said were horribly racist and disgusting. She was honestly too horrible to even get a job. Whereas, my uncle didn't share any of her values, had a fancy job, looked pretty normal and seemed very bright and talented. He had paintings he had done all over the house, and they were amazing. They seemed to have nothing in common. So why did they want me to be a part of it? Like, both of them were willing to keep me around, but with both of them it seemed to be for entirely different reasons. Marty wanted to beat down a young woman since she felt this cruel vindictive urge to do that sort of thing to someone else seemingly all the time, and my uncle wanted to shower me with gifts – and look at my chest(?)

I had this strange hunch about the situation, and I could think of many scenarios that seemed horrific, that involved good cop, bad cop, blackmail and guilt, possible molestation, and ultimately two sociopathic people looking to destroy my spirit. This might be a very unfair assessment and the ravings of my own mistrustful imagination. I realize it might shock and horrify my uncle who might have honestly felt he was trying to do right by me. I am being honest writing this now in a way I never really have been too often about the situation. Because really, nothing happened. I am going purely on small microexpressions and notions that I was given. After a week of being home, I declined. My father seemed relieved. In doing this, I might have turned down a free education, a possible grand future, but it seemed wrong on instinct, and if for no better reason, I could not imagine calling Florida home. It seemed wrong to leave Sarah and Zack if nothing else. As hard as life was in Idaho, I couldn't simply deny my destiny there. And even for all the problems I had, I would have missed my own father, whom I could at least trust to never look at me inappropriately.

On the plane trip home, I was disappointed that I would be getting a middle seat instead of a window. Allison took the aisle seat next to me. At first, nobody seemed to be taking the designated seat by the window in my lane, so I held out hope that the person would not arrive. As I sat there, a very large woman boarded the plane. She was the largest woman I had ever seen. When I call her fat, I don't mean it as an insult. It was simply and truly the case that she was so large she could barely walk. And her seat was right next to mine as the window seat.

There really was barely enough room for her. We both got up for her and let her get in her seat. She seemed extremely uncomfortable. I got this strong feeling that she was actually terrified. People were looking over the seats in front of them just to get a look at her. I didn't want to be rude either, but her girth was such that she was spilling into my seat, and there was really almost no room for me. I could not really operate the video screen in front of me to watch anything, since her fat had spilled over  the armrest with the buttons on it.

We started flying and when we reached a level altitude, as is the custom, a flight attendant served us Sunchips. She accepted them, but I noticed that as she was eating them, she started crying. I felt so horrible for her. I didn't know anything about her life at all in any way, but I really had this strong sense that whatever had brought her onto an airplane had to be really traumatic. And I could tell that she knew that her fat was spilling over onto my lap. She was humiliated. As uncomfortable as I was, with this close of proximity, I really could understand that this was causing her serious fatigue an distress and misery was so much worse. The plane ride was several hours. In that time, without having any window to look out of, being trapped between Allison sleeping against me, and her on the other side, I was stiff as an uncomfortable board. She continued to cry for a good many hours. The minor bit of turbulence made me feel kind of sick. It was not a fun plane ride home.

However, I will say that this trip made me really think about what it means to be that heavy in the world. I was able to get a grasp of the humanity of her situation in a way I may never have been had I not been thrust into this circumstance. Sure, I have always been somewhat more or less heavy myself – but not on that level. For her, there was no escaping just about every technical and societally negative aspect for this woman who clearly was suffering and simply wanted to be able to be treated with dignity. It's an uncomfortable situation that I think many people would have gone home laughing at, if they had been in my shoes – because most people, if I am going to be honest, are not very kind. Her experience was something nobody should have to go through with. And people her size should not have to pay for an added seat. It's dehumanizing. There should be seats that are designed for people like her, and she shouldn't have been forced to put herself in a situation where she was humiliated like that. And when a few years ago, that Nicole Arbor 'Dear Fat People' video came out on YouTube, I really thought everything that was said was horrible and vicious. I couldn't help but feel like Nicole Arbor was targeting this woman that I sat next to a decade previous.

My father and Tammy ended up breaking up when we got home. By the time we were on the plane, Tammy was saying she felt sorry for me that my father was Dave. I listened to her awkwardly. I guess Tammy had been pregnant, had not told my father, and had chosen to get an abortion instead as soon as she got home. Or something like that, I am not entirely sure of the time scale of this situation. My father was an angry sobbing mess, feeling that Tammy had somehow aborted his baby – as he is pro-life. He wasn't quite so adamant that this was a case of murder, as he has at least the vague notion that abortion isn't exactly that simple. But he was upset. He tried to visit Tammy here and again, but eventually they were done, and another potential stepmom was out the door.

And that more or less was my trip to Florida. It cost my father over eleven thousand dollars, which seemed unreal to me. I never told him that my favorite part had simply been listening to The Bends on my headphones while watching it rain, an experience that had only cost me a mere 14$.

PART 38 - http://tinyurl.com/ycr7la8q

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PART 1 - http://tinyurl.com/l8xbvg8

[charllieeldridge]

Digital Nomad Guide to Living in Penang, Malaysia

I am no stranger to expat life. I’ve lived in London, Cape Town, and Brazil. But in December of 2012, on holiday to Penang, something drew me in and grabbed hold of me.

By September 2013, my husband and I had sold everything and were living in Penang — an island off the west coast of Malaysia.  

What exactly drew me in is challenging to pinpoint, but what has kept me here is easy to explain.

Walking around George Town (the capital city of Penang) is like stepping back in time. It was listed as a UNESCO heritage area to preserve the bygone era and architecture.

Centuries-old shophouses are still in use today but with a trendy new boutique hotel just a few doors down. It’s both historical and modern. Its crumbling walls give way to contemporary street art murals. It’s this mashup that makes it so exciting!

When you are sick of the hustle and bustle of George Town, take a quick ride to the Botanical gardens. Besides all the trails, you’ll come across monkeys, sea eagles, and monitor lizards. It feels like I’m living in a National Geographic magazine.

Living in Penang affords all the modern comforts needed for a home, but it’s still raw enough to keep it interesting. In this guide, I’ll share everything you need to know about being an expat in Malaysia and living in Penang.

What It’s Like To Be An Expat in Malaysia?

My everyday life is much the same as it was in Chicago. I still have to work (albeit, remotely from home), I still have to do the laundry, the grocery shopping, and the cooking. You know, the usual stuff that makes up our daily lives.

But the backdrop has changed considerably.

My life is exotic in ways that have become intrinsic to me now. I often have to remind myself of how different I used to be.

Just today, as I was sucking the juice out of a prawn head (sorry vegans), I commented to my hubs that I would never have done that while living in Chicago.

These days, we won’t buy prawns unless the heads are on, it’s the best part. And it’s how everyone eats them here in Malaysia.

It is our new normal. And it couldn’t be further from our old normal. Those are the kinds of little things that make being an expat in Malaysia exciting. It’s pushed me to grow.

Kirsten and her husband enjoying Chinese New Year in Penang

I’ve never felt anything but welcomed by the locals, and I feel like I’ve become part of a community.

Since everyone speaks English here, it has been easy to adapt to my adopted home. I never had the frustrations of getting lost or feeling out of place because I could just ask someone for help.

I think that played a large part it settling down without too much culture shock.

What Are The Best Areas to Live in Penang

There are a few places to live in Penang, but some are more desirable for expats than others. Here are my recommended areas to live:

George Town

George Town is the heart and soul of the island and the reason people travel to Penang.

It is definitely my first choice for any digital nomad living in Penang. It’s also where most of the co-working spaces will be.

The town has an eclectic mix of highrises and temples, street food stalls, and white table cloth restaurants.

It’s listed as a UNESCO heritage area, so wandering around the streets feels like you are in a living museum, one where you get to appease all of your senses.

Everything is within walking distance in George Town, so you won’t have the added expense of transportation.

Gurney Drive

This is another popular area full of apartments in Penang. It’s a 15-minute drive north from the heart of George Town. But this neighbourhood is all about shopping and modern-Western conveniences.

It’s where there are two major shopping malls — Gurney Plaza and Gurney Paragon. Aside from stores like H&M, Top Shop, Sephora, and Mango, there are little boutiques, grocery stores, gyms, and movie theatres.

This is a super modern area, without the charm of George Town. If amenities are what you are after, this is a good area to live in Penang. But if you want to be a part of the allure of George Town, you’ll need to take a bus or a Grab car into town.

Tanjung Tokong & Tanjung Bungah

These two areas are about 20-25 minutes north of Geroge Town. Both areas are packed with locals and expats living in Penang. They are neighbouring towns and are often intertwined.

It’s located right in between George Town and the beaches of Batu Ferringhi, which is why we chose to live here. It’s really the first suburb of George Town with walkable beaches.

There is only one co-working space in the area, but if you can work from home, this is one of the best areas for living in Penang.

This area is real-life Penang. There are only a few beachside hotels, so it’s not a very touristy area. It is a bit sleepy, especially at night. There are plenty of restaurants but no real nightlife to speak of.

Batu Ferringhi

Batu Ferringhi is another beach area in Penang and definitely the most touristy one. There are bunches of restaurants and high-end beachfront hotels, but not a lot of conveniences for living. There is no major grocery store and only a small market.

This area is the furthest from George Town and has no co-working spaces. You will need transportation to get into town and it will take about 30 minutes.

If you are going to be living in Penang for a few months, Batu Ferringhi might be too far from George Town unless you plan to have transportation.

The Cost of Living in Penang

The low cost of living in Penang is one of the biggest draws for many digital nomads. Few places have all the modern comforts needed for a digital nomad lifestyle with such incredible affordability.

In other words, you get a lot of bang for your buck.

Let’s start with housing…

Accommodation Costs in Penang

This is where you’ll spend most of your budget. Albeit still a small amount.

Depending on your style, location, view, and the amenities of the building, you can find rents starting from RM2000-6000 ($450-1380 USD).

A lot of the apartments in Penang have large spaces, gyms, and pools, which adds to the cost.

If that isn’t important to you, you can find accommodation on the lower end of the price spectrum. Older buildings with the same amenities also are cheaper than the shiny new highrises that are all over town.

Food Costs in Penang

Penang is known for its cheap street food. Not just because it’s cheap, but because it’s crazy good. Legendary.

It’s just as easy to find a RM5 ($1.15 USD ) plate of delicious noodles as it is to eat a lobster buffet for hundreds. It is cheaper to eat out than cook at home, so most locals eat out almost all of their meals.

Food is very cheap, but alcohol is not. We spend way more money on booze than we do food when we eat out.

Street food prices:

Char kway teow – a famous local noodle dish is RM5 ($1.15 USD)

Assam laksa – fish-based sour noodle soup dish RM5 ($1.15 USD)

Chicken Rice – a big hearty dish of rice mounded with chicken, all covered with garlic chilli sauce. It comes with soup. RM7 ($1.60 USD)

Satay – marinated chick on skewers cooked over charcoal 10 skewers for RM12 ($2.75 USD)

Grocery prices:

Chicken – RM17 ($3.90 USD) per kilo

Pork – RM17 ($3.90 USD) per kilo

Large bag of fresh veg from the market – RM25 ($ 5.75 USD)

Bottle of wine – RM45 ($10 USD) Booze is expensive here

Can of local beer – RM8 ($1.83 USD)

Transportation Costs in Penang

Public buses cover the whole island and range from RM1.40-4.00 ($0.32 – $0.92) depending on the length of your ride. However, if you stay in George Town, you’ll only need them if you decide to go to another area of the island.

You can also rent a bike, scooter, or car if you plan to stay elsewhere.

Grab (Malaysia’s version of Uber) is by far the best way to get around the island. It is more expensive than buses, but it is faster and way easier. They are still very cheap. From our condo to the airport is a 1-hour drive, and it only costs around RM35 ($8 USD).

Best Restaurants in Penang

When living in Penang, street food is a must. It takes on a few different looks here.

There is the general street-side stall that they push into place right before mealtime, but there are also hawker centres or food courts.

Not like the food court you’d find in a North American mall with McDonald’s, KFC, and Sbarro Pizza. Here they are packed with food being cooked to order using recipes handed down from generation to generation.

A hawker centre is where you can go to find 30 or more different “restaurants” or stalls under one roof. It’s where the locals go and where you will likely spend most of your time stuffing your face with all the local dishes.

Red Garden

This is my favourite hawker centre. It’s in the heart of George Town and where Anthony Bourdain ate when he filmed here. It’s one of the biggest in town, so you’ll be able to try everything your heart desires.

However, if you get overwhelmed easily, don’t worry – the locals are super friendly and love talking food.

If you see someone eating a dish that looks good, go ahead and ask them what it is. They’ll tell you what it is and happily help you make some good choices. Click here to find Red Garden on the map.

Kimberly Street

By day, Kimberly Street is any normal road in town, but at night, street food stalls are pushed into place, and it starts humming.

There aren’t as many choices as at Red Garden, so it might be a great place to start without getting overwhelmed. Click here to find Kimberly Street on the map.

Kebaya

After eating street food for so long, once in a while, we want something a little nicer. We don’t go here every week, but for special occasions, Kebaya is the best.

It is located inside the 7 Terraces Boutique Hotel. From the antique plates to the food, the attention to detail is incredible. This is Nyonya food at it’s finest. The kind of food that has 25 ingredients to each dish yet tastes like your auntie made it. It has soul.

They serve a price fixed, four-course meal. You can pick your courses from a long list of options that has something for everyone. The price is RM128 ($29.50 USD), which is an incredible bargain for what you are getting.

You can’t even get two martinis for that price in a nice restaurant in Chicago where I’m from.

How to Find Apartments in Penang

Finding short term rentals used to be very challenging. Nowadays, more and more are cropping up, especially in George Town and Tanjung Tokong/Tanjung Bungah.

However, the shorter the term, the higher the price.

Airbnb is ubiquitous on the island and one of the best ways to source apartments in Penang.

Another option is Agoda. They showcase condos and homes for rent. Some hotels offer long stay promos so it’s worth checking into that as well.

In the last few years, the number of serviced apartments has increased as well. Serviced apartments always have housekeeping and a kitchen so it’s homier than a room in a shared apartment.

Whichever route you choose, negotiate your rent. It is very common here, and the longer you stay, the more negotiating power you have.

What’s The WiFi And Data Like?

Believe it or not, we have faster internet here than we did in the US. A lot of areas on the island have a fiber optic system, which makes the internet lightning fast.

We’ve had Digi since we moved here and found it to be the best overall internet service on the island. You can buy a Digi Sim card at the airport.

A lot of the apartments in Penang have free WiFi. As do the cafes, restaurants, and every co-working space. Keep that in mind when buying a SIM card.

No matter how much data you buy, you can always top it up at a 7/11 or local convenience store.

Digital Nomad Groups and Co-Working Spaces

As a digital nomad living in Malaysia, work is part of your everyday life. There are almost a dozen co-working spaces in George Town to choose from. Here is a list to get you started.

Scoopoint has a very laidback vibe. They have a nap room, a hammock, a party, and a play area. But it’s not all play and no work, they just believe in balance. It is a space geared toward creatives with hot desks and dedicated desks. Monthly hotdesk rentals got for RM280 ($64.45 USD). Click here for details. 

@CAT has a totally different vibe than Scoopoint. It is geared toward tech entrepreneurs and start-ups. The goal is to make Penang even more innovative and start-up friendly. Monthly fees are RM300 ($69 USD) for a fixed desk. Click here for details.

MSOGO is inside Prangin Mall in George Town. The space is massive, so it will be easy to find a quiet spot. It’s bright and extremely colourful. If you like a zen-like working atmosphere, head elsewhere. There are various seating areas throughout the space as well as a kitchen and a game area. Monthly hot desks are RM300 ($69 USD). Learn more here. 

If you arent looking for a co-working space but still want a sense of community, check out the Penang Digital Nomads Facebook group for all things digital nomad.

Pros and Cons of Living in Penang

Since I’ve been an expat in Malaysia, I can honestly say there are more advantages than disadvantages. But no place is perfect. Here is my list of the biggest pros and cons of living in Malaysia.

Pros:

Low cost of living

Almost everyone speaks English

It’s very safe

The healthcare is excellent

Locals are very friendly

The food is delicious

Affordable travel anywhere in the region

It’s multicultural

There is a large expat society

Cons:

We chose to move to Penang so clearly for us there are a lot of pros. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t some cons as well. Here is my list of the most significant disadvantages of living in Malaysia.

The public toilets are pretty gross

Not a lot of care for the environment – people litter because “someone else” will pick it up.

Driving is pretty insane

No such thing as customer service

Booze is expensive

It’s really far away from my family in the USA

Things To Do in Penang

There are so many sites and things to do in Penang that I’m still discovering new things, even after 7 years. These are some of the must-see places while you are living in Penang.

Khoo Kongsi

This place is my favourite Chinese temple and Clan House hidden away in the heart of George Town. It dates back to the mid-19th century but has been painstakingly restored over the years.

It is incredibly ornate with its mosaic dragons on the roof, black and white drawings of mythical creatures, gold-gilded doors, and carved windows. It brings you back to opulent times.

Kek Lok Si

As one of the largest Buddhist temples in Southeast Asia, it is a must-see while living in Penang.

This temple has instagramable nooks around every corner and over a million images of Buddha within its complex. They started building it in 1885 and are still constructing new parts today.

The 36-metre bronze Kuan Yin (Goddess of Mercy) statue was the latest addition. There are gardens to stroll through, and a turtle pond on the grounds.

The temple is a bit outside of George Town, so you’ll need to take a Grab or a bus there, but it’s worth it.

The Habitat on Penang Hill

Penang Hill is the highest peak in Penang. If you are struggling with the heat and humidity of the island, take the funicular to the top and get a drone’s view of the whole island.

On a clear day, you can see the island of Langkawi, and Thailand.

The Habitat is an eco-tourism site with a canopy bridge and walk, a nature trail, and a zipline. But the focal point is the Curtis Crest Tree Top Walk. An oval-shaped walkway on top of the trees.

Street Art

Penang is renowned for its ever-evolving street art. There are maps for it, festivals around it, and new pieces popping up daily. The best thing to do is wander the streets of town and find it as you go. Half the fun is hunting it down.

Some are tiny little scenes in the back of a dilapidated alley. Others are welded iron and tell the story of Penang’s history.

Final Thoughts

There is something for everyone in Penang. It has nature, art, food, history, and culture. And for expats and digital nomads, it has the extra important things — fast internet, friendly locals and a low cost of living. 

It is easy to fall in love with Penang. More and more digital nomads are calling this little gem of an island a temporary home.

Most people don’t stay here long enough to get the full effect. But if you stay a month or three, you’ll discover it is a perfect concoction for nomads and anyone else looking for a new adventure.

Note: The images in this post are courtesy of Shutterstock.com. Click here to learn more about their royalty-free images and videos.

The post Digital Nomad Guide to Living in Penang, Malaysia appeared first on Goats On The Road.

Digital Nomad Guide to Living in Penang, Malaysia published first on https://travelaspire.weebly.com/

[straykatfish]

Demonstration of technical and visual skills – materials, techniques, observational skills, visual awareness, design and compositional skills.

I found four paintings by different artists using different styles and made sketches of these in soft pastels, the originals being oils, acrylics, and woodblock print. I translated these, adhering to a differentiating extent to the key approaches used by the four artists: stylised and linear (Hokusai’s The Great Wave [~1829]), blended (Turner’s Fishermen upon a Lee shore in Squally Weather [1802] ), naïve and almost abstract (Klee’s Golden Fish [1925]), and gesturally expressive (Hambling’s Bold Breaking waves series [~2012]). I began then to consider texts that might be relevant to each one and to look at typographic art, some of which I’d seen in a gallery in Brighton earlier. I was drawn back, though, to a poem I’d read by Marianne Moore called The Steeple jack (~1930) in which she writes, “Durer would have found a reason for living in a town like this … with eight stranded whales to look at.” I could not reconcile this with the art work I had chosen and nor could I see how I could use text in the very sophisticated way I had observed, a graphic rather than a drawing/painterly skill set.

As a result, I found myself deviating from my original plan and went on to work on sketches applying the different styles to reference photographs driven by sea scenes and whales. These I eventually amalgamated into one A1 image in which the four styles were represented in different areas. Finally, after a number of iterations at A1 size and some experiments at A2 portrait format, I developed the submission piece (A1 landscape) as a coherent whole but with small details that, for me, acknowledge the less foregrounded styles. As part of the process of composing the eventual image, I used the Fibonacci spiral to find the ‘golden ratio’ focal point then, using cut-outs from elements of earlier large scale sketches that I had printed out, found the placements and spaces I wanted.

The submission in its final form comprises images based on photographs of an exemplar of a huge wave in the north Atlantic, and whales surfacing to feed. The whole owes its expressiveness to Hambling’s energetic style, blended areas of foam to Turner, and some details in both the sweep of the wave and the foam to Klee and Hokusai. The large expanse of black gesso is unadulterated beyond a detail of dark red wash and is, for me, a triumph of leaving things alone instead of filling them up. Gesso is both textured and reflective so its surface changes depending on lighting and angle of view. For me, this seems to indicate that it is not a neglected unfinished space but one with its own dark movement and content.

Quality of outcome – content, application of knowledge, presentation of work in a coherent manner, discernment, conceptualisation of thoughts, communication of ideas.

This task permitted the use of any medium on any support of any size and I think it’s telling that, despite developing a fondness for soft pastels, I chose acrylics which would permit the large scale (A1) gestural marks I felt at least parts of the eventual piece merited. I wanted the height of the wave to be emphatic and the several iterations of the piece, including two I portrait orientation, were often about the position and relative size of the whales such that they would emphasise the scale by complementing each other. People know how big whales are and so if these were recognisable as such, the size of the wave is inescapable.

I have shown the evolution of the final piece in my contemporaneous blog posts where each image and associated discussion appears as a developmental stream, moving from the initial direct copying through the application of the individual styles to reference images and then to the eventual amalgamation of elements and blurring of styles. This was unplanned but grew, I believe, out of experimentation and productive extension of the principles of homage and progression.

Demonstration of creativity – imagination, experimentation, invention, development of a personal voice.

I really valued the copying process and I want to do more as it made me zoom in mentally to the techniques of the individual artists and what made them different. But I was also anxious not to attempt replication, not just because I lack the skills but because I am not those artists and developing my own voice is important. Amalgamation led to some backgrounding of the styles drawn from Hokusai and Klee as these did not sit well with the other two which I found could merge along their edges and in pockets within each other. In essence though, the piece travels right to left from Hambling-esque to Turner-esque with dots of reference to Klee and Hokusai within that broad area.

There are parts I like more than others; the leading edge of the wave for instance, and the turbulence around the whales. I have cropped these and put them in a folder accessed by my Echo Show devices which is a method I use to distance myself from a piece of work and see it as nearly as possible the way someone else might, and they still please me. I am less sure of some of the other parts, including the expanse of sea/sky on the left although I think that serves to balance the energy of the rest.

An intriguing observation is that I felt very present in this image; cold and small in the freezing environment I was trying to make. Is that the voice I’m trying to find? Being there in the image as I am when I write? Perhaps it’s an essential, and hopefully I will develop in time the skills and techniques to begin to do that justice. 

Context reflection – research critical thinking (as evidenced in learning log).

I am not sure what to say here beyond the shock of finding copying the styles of four different artists using different media, different supports, and most likely a different dominant hand something I could do sufficiently well to feel I had accomplished something important in learning how art works. This was a revelation and I intend to do more of what I’m seeing as ‘copies+’ – someone else’s design, my interpretation or slant. I am beginning to understand a little of the debate about representation and what second order art work might be via the materials for UVC (2016) which I dropped as a qualifying course but still have available to read. But I’m not sure what term might apply to the use of an original representation re-presented in a different style.

My research I would define as exploration of different media – inks, soft pastels, acrylics, pen and brush, and devices to scratch at a surface to allow layers beneath to show or to give ink a channel into which to accumulate. I also went back to my original idea of four small pieces in different styles, illustrating a stanza from The Steeplejack, and made a series of drawings in inks and pastels on a piece of A3 watercolour paper, incorporating the text itself. Researching typographic art, I saw how sophisticated and graphics-driven it appeared to be, the lettering inventive and tailored but very precise so as to be clearly the vehicle for the image. What I produced is a essentially a prototype, an idea that requires its own process to develop for which I am not at all equipped.

Hokusai, K. The Great Wave off Kanagawa (1829-1833). The Met Museum

Turner, J.M.W. Fishermen on a Lee-shore in Squally Weather, (c 1802) Southampton City gallery. 

Klee, P. The Golden Fish [also The Gold Fish] (1925). Paulklee.net 

Hambling, M. image selected from the series Bold Breaking Waves (c 2012). My Modern Met.

Moore, M. (1932) The Steeple Jack. The Poetry Foundation.

All sites last accessed 18/01/2020.

  Typographic art

https://mymodernmet.com/what-is-typography-definition/ This was the first set of examples of typography art I found and the quality is such that I realised I would be unable to produce anything remotely satisfying. Site accessed 17/01/2020.

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/heart58/typographic-artwork/ This is an annotated Pinterest collection with a wide variety of types, styles, and artists. Site accessed 17/01/2020.

Discussion of representation, resemblance, nesting, meta painting, and auto/allographics attributed to Michael Belcham, author of Understanding Visual Culture course materials, OCA 2016 pp 72-75

Blog posts

Part 5 – personal project preparatory work, digital seas

Part 5: personal project – introduction

Part 5: task remit, artist statement, supporting images – first thoughts

Part 5 – personal project, sketches and ideas #1

Part 5 – personal project; sketches ideas #2

Part 5: Personal project – expanding on sketches #3

  NB I may edit this post prior to submission, but will not do so subsequently. 

  Part 5 self evaluation Demonstration of technical and visual skills - materials, techniques, observational skills, visual awareness, design and compositional skills.