#transmissions from the little western

[littlewestern]

my favorite Gordon ship is Gordon/self-reflection and becoming a better version of himself

[midwestbramble]

Thirteen Pathways of Occult Herbalism Book Review

This is a book that I’ve noticed often cited or recommended recently in traditional witchcraft spaces, among other books by this author. I wanted to see what all the hubbub was about

⸙༄𓆤𓆩𓆪❁𓇢𓆸🏵

Content:

Synopsis

What I Liked

What I Didn’t Like

Overall Thoughts

Conclusion

⸙༄𓆤𓆩𓆪❁𓇢𓆸🏵

Published in 2017

“The discipline of Occult Herbalism encompasses the knowledge and use of the magical, spiritual, and folkloric dimensions of plants. This perennial wisdom animates many global spiritual traditions, especially those which have maintained their integrity of transmission when in the face of industrial development and cultural destruction. Often concealed within the deepest strata of the Western Esoteric Traditions, the green strand of wisdom, though obscured, is a potent legacy of all magic, sorcery, and occult science. In addition to the hard sciences of botany, ethnology, agriculture, and ethnopharmacology, a number of pathways can assist the magical herbalist in furthering the depth of understanding and integrity of personal approach. Thirteen Pathways of Occult Herbalism circumscribes the metaparadigm of herbal magical practice, providing useful examples of its manifestation, as well as demonstrating its time-honored routes of inquiry.”

—from the back of the book

⸙༄𓆤𓆩𓆪❁𓇢𓆸🏵

What I Liked

This book clearly reveres and respects plants. Schulke talks about the affinities of plants and looking at what natural bonds you have between them, so basically what attracts you to specific ones. Possibly having that bond can create a strong spirit ally. He also talks about the importance of paying attention to the life cycles of plants and how that can give you more information on the best way to work with them, this plus his discussion of the importance of the location the plant is found in (which can change the way in which it grows) is connected to an older belief about identifying plant medicines.

The first half of the book he talks about different paths to learning about plants and their affinities. I was impressed that he included what he calls "The Pathway of the Steward." This is basically growing the plant yourself. Being able to care for it and learn it's little idiosyncrasies can teach you a lot about what the plants talents are, as I like to call them. He also suggests a Hieros-Gamos for a year with a plant to really learn about it and foster relationship with it. I generally spend a month learning about a plant and then watching it out for it for the rest of the year and looking for it again the next season. But this is an entire year with JUST that plant.

Near the end he has a section called Praxis, talking about the importance of respect and why following plant taboos is a good idea. Another section talks about spirit marriage and how this is not something that happens overnight but takes having a relationship with the spirit over time, and just like flesh marriages (as he called it), it takes work and understanding. What he had to say was very educational.

Lastly the author discusses his experience actually ingesting Belladonna (do not do this! He had years of experience with the plant before attempting) which was very eye opening. I'd like to get to the point where I'm experienced enough to attempt but I just know I am no where near ready for ingestion of such highly toxic plants as Atropa belladonna. That said, stay safe kids. Don't ingest toxic plants.

⸙༄𓆤𓆩𓆪❁𓇢𓆸🏵

What I Didn't Like

Schulke uses very academic language. I thought I had a large vocabulary until I read this book. I had to look up so many words. At first I thought he had gone to school for botany and that would account for his language choices, however rereading his biography on the book (and what I can find online) he has a "working background" in ethnobotany. Anyway, if you have ADHD or are dyslexic this may be a hard book for you to get through in a timely manner.

There are a few times in which Schulke refers to the work of Aleister Crowley. I'm just not a fan of this man. He was demonized for all the wrong reasons in the Victorian era, and not the ones he should have been. But this shouldn't be surprising as the book mixes a lot of Hellenism, Jewish folklore and non-canonical works (such as the Book of Enoch), and Christianity while also showing disdain for the god of the last two. He is an initiate of the Cultus Sabbati which accounts for some of this, however I feel like if you're going to take from something you should at least respect the cultural practices and beliefs. Which he even says at another point in the book when talking about plant taboos and yet... anyway.

He uses the word shaman a lot, taking it from what would now be considered older historical works on witchcraft such as Emma Wilby's. He also talks about "Native American shamans." I've talked about in other book reviews how there are no Native American shamans. Shamans are a part of a specific culture, the Tungus, and has been appropriated by academics and lay people. Native Americans have their own words for the people who fill a sort of similar role in their culture. The two are not the same however.

There's also some odd sexualizing of the paths with words like "virgin" and "whore" to describe two of them. I just don't find these words necessary to describe beginners and those with experience. The general sex talk kind of confuses me anyway, but I'm on the ace spectrum so maybe that's where my hang up is. It doesn't make sense to me.

Lastly, he goes on a tangent about fallen angel lore specifically from the Book of Enoch. He's talking about the different ways plant knowledge can be transferred and the Jewish lore around it with the fallen angels, and then just goes off into the origins of them and how people see them a denigrating the earth. He also gets who's in the garden with Eve wrong. It was never said it was Samael, it's just a snake.

⸙༄𓆤𓆩𓆪❁𓇢𓆸🏵

Overall Thoughts

I probably wouldn't necessarily recommend this book, but I also wouldn't stop someone from reading it. It's hard to understand at some points due to the language use and talking in circles. I don't think it actually teaches you anything about working with plants. It's more of a book about the theory of teaching occult plant knowledge than it is actually teaching. This also seems to be a book for a specific kind of traditional practitioner as well.

EDIT: I will say that this book DOES make me want to read more of Schulkes work. I think he has some unique experiences to share and practices we don’t hear about a lot in the overall witchcraft community.

⸙༄𓆤𓆩𓆪❁𓇢𓆸🏵

Conclusion

Sometimes we find books we love, sometimes they're just ok. If this one sounded interesting to you it can be found on Amazon, Lake Forest Book Store, Microcosm Publishing, Barns and Nobles, Penguin Bookshop, Half Price Books, RitualCravt, and it's publisher Three Hands Press.

[todaysdocument]

Telegram from Commander Alfred H. Terry to the Adjutant General of the Division of the Missouri

Record Group 393: Records of U.S. Army Continental CommandsSeries: Special Files of Letters ReceivedFile Unit: Sioux Indian Papers, 1879 - Brief and Letters Received 3721 (with enclosures to 3571) Thru 5219

[pre-printed form]

The Western Union Telegraph Company.

The rules of this company require that all messages received for transmission shall be written on the message blanks of the Company.

under and subject to the conditions printed thereon, which conditions have been agreed to by the sender of the following message.

A.R.Brewer, Secretary. William Orton, Prest.

No. [handwritten] 242 [/handwritten]

[handwritten at top of page] [illegible] / 36/ 29P [/[

[handwritten at right] 123 [ppw?] [/]

Dated [handwritten] At Paul/Minn/23 [/handwritten]

To [handwritten] Adjutant Gent Division [/handwritten]

Rec'd at cor. Lasalle and Washington Sts.,

Chicago, Ills. [handwritten] July 23, 1879 [/handwritten]

[handwritten] Missouri Chicago

On the seventeenth June the advance of [Mibs?] Column

under Lieutenant Clark second cavalry composed of

Lieutenant Bordens Company fifth infantry Lieutenant

Hoppins company second cavalry and fifty Indian scouts

had a sharp engagement between Beaver Creek + Mouth of

frenchmans Creek with four hundred Hostile Indians the

indians were pursued twelve miles when the troops in

advance became surrounded [illegible letters stricken through] Main Command was moved

forward rapidly + the Enemy fled North of Milk river

Colonel Miles reports that the troops engaged fought in

admirable order + are entitled to much credit that the action

of our Indians was quite satisfactory Cheyennes, Sioux,

Crows, Assiniboines and Bannacks fighting with the troops

Killing several Hostile Indians + forcing the enemy to

abandon a large amount of property. Our casualties are

two men Company Second Cavalry wounded two Cheyenne

and one Crow Indian Scouts killed and one Assiniboine

scout seriously wounded. A large scouting party sent

upon North side of Milk river near Head of

Porcupine reports to Colonel Miles that main

camp under Sitting Bull composed of sixteen

hundred lodges is on little rocky having moved over

from Frenchmans Creek Colonel Miles says this

report is corroborated by several others + by men

who were in the Hostile Camp as late as June Sixteenth

+ that he expects to move up between frenchmans Creek +

the Little Rocky where possibly the Main body of

Indians may be engaged

Terry Department Commander

246 paid Govt Rate

# 532

[stamped] RECEIVED

[stamped] JUL

[stamped] [2?] 23

[stamped] 1879

[stamped] MIL.DIV.,MO.

#245

[covid-safer-hotties]

As new school year opens, COVID-19 surge forces abrupt classroom closures in the US

In the opening days of the 2024-25 school year, at least two schools were forced to shut down due to SARS-CoV-2 outbreaks. This is only the tip of the iceberg, as 1.3 million Americans are currently being infected daily, and most US schools have yet to reopen. For instance, in New York, Michigan and many other northern states, districts typically start after Labor Day.

On Monday, August 12, Jefferson-Abernathy-Graetz (JAG) High School in Montgomery, Alabama closed, moving to remote learning. Fifteen educators reported COVID-19 infection after last week’s two-day orientation. Officials said they would reassess the situation and possibly reopen the building by Friday, at which point they said masks and disinfectant wipes would be made available to students.

The same day as the Alabama closure, Humboldt schools in western Tennessee called off classes at Stigall Primary. Officials informed parents by letter that the school would be closed for “sanitizing” due to an “uptick in COVID.” A later report said an undisclosed number of students and staff tested positive for COVID-19, while others were symptomatic.

“Everyone’s like, ‘COVID is back, COVID is back’,” said Jessica Williamson, a parent of a first grader at Stigall. “I just feel like it didn’t really go anywhere,” she told local media. “Those are little kids. They’re the most prone to put things in their mouths, to touch each other, to just share germs,” Willamson said.

Why, indeed, is “COVID back”? The response of the Tennessee school to the outbreak provides a partial answer.

The district said it was carrying out a “deep clean, disinfecting every surface,” according to Ginger Carver, the communications director for the school district. She added that teachers and staff would follow protocols to keep the classrooms and common areas disinfected. “When students move from class to class, teachers will be wiping down the desks, the desktop surfaces. They’ll be using disinfectants. Basically, the protocols that we were doing back when COVID was full blown,” she said. Humboldt schools reopened on Wednesday.

In other words, COVID is returning with the new school year because no action is being taken to combat the main cause of COVID transmission, the aerosolization of the virus. Furthermore, schools are being reopened almost immediately despite high community spread.

As scientists have demonstrated and nearly five years of COVID deaths have underscored, the key to fighting COVID is disinfection of the air. Without the use of HEPA filtration in all indoor spaces and other mechanisms, including Far-UV light, schools will dramatically exacerbate the spread of the disease. Despite the use of these methodologies by the ruling elites to protect themselves—at the Davos Economic Summit or at the White House, for instance—no such measures are in place for millions of schoolchildren.

The Biden administration, with the full support of the Republican Party, has deprived schools of the funds necessary to make schools safe and prioritized spending for war. The Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds allocated to schools beginning in 2020 were purportedly aimed at counteracting COVID. However, they fell far short of addressing the urgently required but costly upgrading of air quality in schools. ESSER amounted to a financial band-aid to districts reeling from decades of budget cuts and inflation.

A House of Representatives study prior to COVID showed that US school buildings were so antiquated and dangerously unsafe that outlays of $145 billion per year were required to modernize and maintain them. The costs of air disinfection would no doubt significantly increase that figure. For its part, the Biden/Harris administration allowed ESSER to end while funneling more than $1 trillion into its rapidly expanding wars against Russia in Ukraine and its military build-up against Iran and China.

Death and disease have been normalized, while mitigation measures as important and effective as masking have been demonized by the right wing among both Republicans and Democrats. This is another reason COVID is back to greet returning students.

An important new study in The Lancet has shown the critical importance of face coverings to prevent transmission in indoor spaces. As Bill Shaw reported on the WSWS:

Face coverings dramatically reduce the load of SARS-CoV-2 in exhaled breath from infected persons. The reductions reached as high as 98 percent, with variations according to the type of face covering worn.

Despite this clear research, neither these schools nor others will require masking when they reopen, spurring new outbreaks of COVID.

Reacting to the new school-related outbreaks, healthcare expert and data analyst Greg Travis posted on X/Twitter Wednesday, “FYI since 2020 more children have died of their SARS-CoV-2 infections … than from all other infectious pathogens COMBINED Stop pretending that SARS-CoV-2 spreading in schools is only a problem for parents, teachers, bus drivers, etc. It is killing kids.”

It is killing and disabling parents, staff and family members as well. JAG High School in Montgomery was the workplace of beloved school custodian Morris Pitts, who died of COVID on November 29, 2020. Pitts was one of eight educators from Montgomery whose lives were taken over a matter of weeks. State, local and federal government officials turned a blind eye to the rampaging virus to keep students in school and parents at work.

The criminal “let it rip” policy of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Biden’s ending of the Public Health Emergency in May 2023 has left the working class abandoned to the ravages of the disease and the growth of Long COVID.

In that vein, Montgomery parents were also instructed—in the most milquetoast language—that when their children develop symptoms, “it’s best to keep them at home.”

Education unions, including the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and National Education Association (NEA), have said nothing about the inevitable superspread resulting from the beginning of a new school year in the midst of a record summer surge. As their websites testify, the AFT and NEA are instead hyperfocused on getting out the vote for Harris/Walz in November in order to maintain their lucrative role as labor contractors and government partners.

Clare, a member of the Alabama Educators Rank and File Committee who protested the unsafe conditions in schools on the Montgomery County Court House steps in October 2020, denounced the failure of schools and health authorities to protect children. She noted that she is herself currently recovering from the virus and had been told by a Veterans Administration nurse, “Just treat the symptoms.” She angrily related that the nurse “had the nerve to say the common cold is just a variation of coronavirus, an extract of COVID. She refused to test me, telling me people are not dying as before and that I’d be alright. They denied me a test. I think they just don’t want to pay for tests anymore.”

Referring to the Montgomery educators who formed “No Plan, No Personnel” and then the Alabama Educators Rank-and-File Committee, Clare said, “This was the problem from the beginning, they have no plan. They should know we might have to go remote at any time because nothing has been done to make the schools safe.”

Clare said a recent family funeral resulted in at least eight members of her family contracting COVID in the summer surge. Bitterly refuting the claims that the virus has mutated to a mild, non-threatening disease, she said, “I felt like I was dying, I never felt like this before. On my third day, it was not a headache—it felt like a migraine. I had body aches from my head through my spine to my feet. I couldn’t breathe and was nauseous. It’s been two and a half weeks now, and I’m fatigued from just doing simple things. It’s debilitating. I get so tired I can’t even pick up the phone.”

While these two schools have been forced to close, right-wing administrators around the country are vowing to keep schools running no matter the cost. On July 31, Arizona State Superintendent of Education Tom Horne told ABC News that despite the surge across his state, “If anybody talks about closing school, I will fight it as hard as I can.” He added, “Closing of the schools that occurred last time was an unbelievable disaster.” His contemptuous disdain for the health of students and their communities was buttressed by his referencing of the CDC’s prescription to treat COVID “like a common respiratory virus.”

While the fascist right is pushing for prohibitions on school closures and outright anti-vaccination policies, the dismantling of the public health system has been bipartisan. It began with Trump but was then spearheaded by the Biden administration. Both ruling class parties insist that workers should report to work, whether or not they are sick. Under the Biden/Harris administration over 800,000 Americans died from COVID, while millions more suffered debilitating Long COVID, for which the long-term generational impacts of annual reinfections will not be fully grasped for years or decades to come.

The two schools in Tennessee and Alabama are the only sites currently reporting outbreaks, but this has more to do with lack of media coverage than lack of COVID. For instance, in a San Diego high school, the administration sent a cart around with free COVID tests (although well past their 2022 expiration dates).

Another reason for the return of COVID arises from the years of right-wing disinformation campaigns to spread confusion and conspiracy theories within the population, cultivating the most backward and fascistic conceptions. This has resulted in a terrible decline of vaccination rates for all preventable diseases, not just COVID, which will continue to worsen the impact. The share of kindergarten children with a vaccine exemption has increased in 36 states since the pandemic began. Twenty-one states have banned student COVID-19 vaccine mandates, both Republican- and Democratic-dominated states, including Michigan, Ohio, and New Hampshire.

WSWS writer Benjamin Mateus reported on the declining rates of vaccination:

As of May 11, 2024, only 22.5 percent of adults have received an updated COVID vaccine since September 14, 2023. However, for children six months of age through 17, that figure is a deplorable 14.4 percent.

He noted the social impact of these abysmal numbers:

Including the complete abandonment of all mitigation measures, the ongoing surge of infections is being driven by the waning immunity in the population.

The pandemic has revealed the contempt of the ruling elites and both of their political parties, Democrats and Republicans, for the working class. It has exposed the role of the pro-capitalist AFT and NEA, which continue to insist educators work in an unsafe environment and children breathe unsafe air.

Every day, countless people continue to die or be sickened needlessly while mankind has the capacity to end this and future pandemics. The working class must end “Forever COVID” by ending “Forever Capitalism,” taking health and safety into its own hands, and ending the subordination of social life to private profit. Join or build an independent rank-and-file committee at your school or workplace today.

[electronickingdomfox]

"Ishmael" review

Novel from 1985, by Barbara Hambly. A pretty great read, it's actually a crossover between Star Trek and a Western show from the 60's: Here Come the Brides. However, you don't need to have watched the other show to understand the novel, since the characters and their relationships are properly developed, and no previous knowledge is assumed.

The plot follows an amnesiac Spock waking up in 1860's Seattle (the setting of Here Come the Brides), and learning to navigate among the people there, all the while hiding the fact he's an alien (which is one of the few things that Spock remembers about himself). He takes the identity of "Ishmael", the nephew of local businessman Aaron Stemple. Funnily enough, Stemple was played by Mark Lenard (Sarek in Star Trek), which may have given the author the idea to combine both shows. Interspersed with Spock's chapters in Seattle, there are chapters focused on the "present", with Kirk and McCoy trying to figure out what happened to the Vulcan. I ended up finding those chapters a bit more interesting, since the reader is as much in the dark about the mystery as Kirk. But it was also nice to see Spock adapting to the townspeople, and being more human and emotional, given how little he remembers about his Vulcan education. Besides, this serves to confront Spock's values against those of XIX century America (addressing subjects such as the sexism and racism of the era).

I can't judge how well portrayed are the Brides' characters, not having seen the show myself, but they're all lively and easy to warm up to. As for the Enterprise regulars, they're fine, and in particular the portrait of Spock as a rootless, lonely stranger, carving his own place among those humans, is pretty moving.

On another note, it's curious how this is the first novel to involve time-travelling to Earth's past, considering it was a recurring theme in TOS (which even had its own Western episode!). And there are also parallelisms with the later movie The Voyage Home, where a somehow amnesiac Spock also visits San Francisco, though at a much later date. Apart from this, Spock's unofficial family name: "S'chn T'gai", is first introduced here.

To summarize, this is an intriguing story, that also manages to be quite poignant at times. Though there's still no cowboy Bones...

Spoilers under the cut:

During shore leave at Starbase 12, built in the vicinity of the Tau Eridani Cloud, Spock notices some unusual dealings in a Klingon cargo ship, and he's authorized to conduct a solo infiltration mission aboard the transport. Time passes without Kirk receiving any news from Spock, and the Enterprise follows the cargo discreetly, once it leaves the starbase. Suddenly, the cargo starts accelerating inside the Cloud, which is rife with magnetic anomalies, and then it simply... vanishes. The only transmissions from Spock that they receive before he disappears, are a cryptic series of words and numbers: "White dwarf. Khlaru. Tillman's Factor. Guardian. 1867."

The story moves then to 1860's Seattle, where Aaron Stemple finds a badly injured and unconscious Spock in the forest. He recognizes immediately that Spock's an alien, given his green blood and strange ears, and understands he's been tortured and will die if left alone. Not without misgivings, Aaron decides to take the alien to his cabin in the woods. There he takes care of him, until Spock recovers, and is surprised to find out that the alien can speak English. Spock, however, can't remember anything about his past or identity, though from time to time he gets impressions from his previous life, that he can't pinpoint. The only other person who is aware of the alien's existence is Lottie, the local saloon owner, but she keeps the secret. Back in the saloon, Lottie notices two foreigners asking a hell lot of questions (the reader will identify them as Klingons at once), but she doesn't mention it to Aaron, despite her suspicions.

Back in the starbase, Kirk, McCoy and Maria Kellogg (the starbase commander), try to make sense out of Spock's transmissions. The mention of a "Guardian" is taken as a reference to the Guardian of Forever, and implies the Klingons are trying to tamper with the timeline. This is supported by the mentions of a "white dwarf" and "Tillman's factor", which describe a method to open a time warp. After some discussion, they also determine that 1867 must be a date... but from what calendar? As for "Khlaru", it could refer to a Klingon historian that was researching at the starbase. Khlaru's colleague, the Vulcan historian Trau, tells them a bit about their research. They were studying ancient Karsid records; a civilization that used to subtly infiltrate other societies through economic deals, before annexing them to their empire. The Klingons were part of that empire, until the rebellion that gave them independence (which is a very unusual backstory for the Klingons). However, Trau fails to see any connection between Karsid history and the Klingon's current plans.

Meanwhile, Spock is adapting to Seattle's society. He lets his hair grow to cover his ears, and passes as Aaron's nephew Ishmael, working for him as accountant at the mill. The general situation in the town is also explained. The Bolt brothers (Jason, Jeremy and Joshua) had brought several women from the East Coast to marry local workers. Aaron has placed a bet with Jason: if he fails to get all the women married by the end of this year, the Bolt's mountain property will pass to Aaron's hands. Ishmael (I'm going to refer to Spock as such, since that's the name used for most of the story) shows his super-human abilities when he's able to locate Jeremy and his fiancée Candy, lost in the forest, by hearing alone. However, Aaron manages to dispel any suspicions about his "nephew". Ishmael's acute hearing also comes in handy to save Aaron's life during a trip to San Francisco, where two men assault Aaron in the street. During this trip, Joshua meets Sarah, a doctor who faces discrimination for being a woman trying to work in the medical field. This is something that Ishmael can't understand; and he's constantly worried about slipping up, and showing traits unusual for a human in this era. The San Francisco bay also stirs something in his memory; Ishmael is certain of having seen that landscape in other time and shape, but whenever he tries to recover those memories, he feels intense pain around his temples (and if you know your Klingons, you'll probably guess by now that they used a Mind-Sifter on Spock).

For his part, Kirk consults with an engineer in the starbase, Aurelia Steiner (a curious alien that looks like a blob of gelatin, and shows her emotions through variations in her color and perfume). She devises a means for the Enterprise to create a time warp like that of the Klingons. At this point, they're certain that 1867 is a date from Earth's Christian calendar. And after Klingons try to kill Trau, and destroy the Karsid records, the historian concludes that there must be some relation with Khlaru's research. Effectively, they find out that the Karsid tried to infiltrate Earth around that date. However, they were stopped because a representative from Washington, Aaron Stemple, showed an unusual hostility and suspicion towards them. The Karsid abandoned their attempts, and soon thereafter, the Klingon rebellion put an end to them. Kirk and co. suspect the Klingons will try to kill Aaron before he enters local politics, so the Karsid succeed in their invasion and the Federation never comes to be. There's still the question, though, of why Aaron was so convinced that the Karsid were aliens (given how good were their disguises), since humans of that era wouldn't have reached that conclusion easily.

Back in 1867, Ishmael accompanies the Bolt brothers to San Francisco, in a gambling quest to earn $50.000 at the casinos. Aaron had promised Jason that he'd forget about the bet in exchange of that sum of money. Jason was likely to lose the bet, as nobody wanted to marry one of the girls, Biddy Cloom, who is considered loud and unattractive. Aaron and Ishmael, however, had grown fond of the girl, and deep down, Aaron doesn't want Jason to marry her just to win a bet, since he's developed feelings for Biddy. The Bolt brothers start making money at the casinos using Ishmael's mathematical system. And again, the two foreigners from the saloon show up there. Meanwhile, Joshua meets with Sarah and proposes to her, but he disappears before going out on a date with her. They find Joshua a while later, apparently drugged and with marks around his temples similar to those of Ishmael. He also suffers from a minor memory loss. In the end, Jason fucks up when he abandons Ishmael's system to win money more quickly, and ends up losing all their cash (and this whole passage, with Jason's winning streak surrounded by impending doom, was pretty exciting). So they return to Seattle empty-handed.

A bit later, during Jeremy's wedding with Candy, Aaron finally asks Biddy to marry him (even if this means that Jason will win the bet and keep the mountain), and Biddy agrees, as she also loves him. Sarah also comes from San Francisco to accept Joshua's proposal. However, Aaron receives a sudden call from the mill, and leaves the party alone. Ishmael notices two men following him, and recognizes them as Klingons. This brings back all his memories (and from this point onwards, the novel refers to him again as "Spock", to signify the change). Spock follows Aaron, but he arrives too late, and finds him gravely wounded by a disruptor blast. The Klingons take Spock for a common human, and not wanting to disrupt history further, they leave, confident that Aaron will die anyway.

Spock and Sarah try to keep Aaron alive during the following days, but with their primitive medicine, there's not much they can do for him. Fortunately, Kirk and McCoy arrive in the cabin just then, having finally pinpointed the correct time and place. They take Aaron to the Enterprise for proper treatment. And Spock has a tender farewell scene with Biddy, where he promises to bring Aaron back in a few days, even if Spock himself will never see her again. Aaron is healed and brought back to Seattle, with the Enterprise returning to its proper time. As it turns out, it was the Klingons' interference precisely, what thwarted their own plans. By sending Spock to that time and place, Aaron became familiar enough with aliens, to resist against the Karsid later. The novel ends with a nice touch, as Kirk consults Spock's family records, and discovers that one of Amanda's surnames is... Stemple.

Spirk Meter: 6/10*. Kirk becomes very depressed after Spock is lost in the Cloud, having recurring nightmares and being unable to sleep. To the point that he hopes that Spock was already dead, to not suffer anymore. It qualifies as McSpirk too, because McCoy is shown to be similarly depressed, and turning to heavy drinking. At the end, both Kirk and McCoy stare open-mouthed at Spock being so affectionate with Biddy (of course, it's not romantic affection... but they don't know that yet, and it's easy to read it as jealousy). Besides this, there are many mentions of Spock being unable to appreciate feminine beauty, and he takes his inability to ever marry a woman as a matter of fact.

*A 10 in this scale is the most obvious spirk moments in TOS. Think of the back massage, "You make me believe in miracles", or "Amok Time" for example.

[meirimerens]

Hi Ersher anon from a bit ago I’ve come with another question, do you have any thoughts on artemy’s mother? What she was like etc.

oh my god you do well to come back i had forgor💀 to reply again. you get a two for one deal.

as far as artemy's mother: she's [here]. i need to redraw her one day but she's one of the three p2 mothers i've drawn (her, stamatina, and dankovskaya). clay type of woman. even if she was a capital/western transplant to the town (as most of the non-Kin people used to be before they started popping out kids. orphans mostly. who didn't start off as orphan due to the Being born thing) i think she really quickly adopted the whole mother earth customs even without fully believe in them because Makes More Sense than sky father being father of everything and woman being born of man's rib, due to the She Can See Kids Are Born From Her. her clay (pottery) work kinda existed in this continuun of Creating Stuff, so was gardening. i think she did a lot of the plates & bowls & cups & whatnot that can still be found in the burakh's lair, all these little cups for mixing tinctures... i think she might even have made a first alambic prototype with a clay body, something like this.

i think she was weakened quite a bit by ersher's birth, and the second birth killed her.

i will not lie to you i don't think much about ersher because i love this ambiguity of it. i love that we know nothing about him except his bonds (burakh's brother, likely burakh's parents' son due to the Family thing), we don't know what he died of, at what age, and if artemy ever knew him. "My older brother. He died young." (artemy's quote) does not even tell us if he even knew ersher. it is implied they must've have at the very least cohabitated for a while, but maybe artemy just knows him from being told about him, but holds him dear enough that he calls him "older brother".

considering kids around 15yo are ruling the town, forming gangs and discussion politically-motivated loveless alliance marriages, i take "young" to mean "under 14", even younger than that. to me, ersher died around 10. i like the number 10, because it is the one who keeps coming back in p1 (10 years since the last outbreak). equally for that numerology grind, i think he and artemy have 5 years difference, for 5 is the number that comes back in p2 (last outbreak). so ersher died at 10 when artemy was 5. i'm not sure what i want him to have died of (.......... very strange formulation but you know what i mean). on one hand, i could see the steppe swallowing him. just straight up doing that. the steppe refuses to eat the elder burakh (cannot be buried, beginning of P2) because he has unfinished business at the surface, swallows the eldest son, refuses to eat the youngest because he must stay on the surface, he is the tether at the surface. i need to check the geology of that part of the eurasian steppe but this ^ would be inspired by something that happens in a land i love, where basically it's a mountain of sometimes-hollow limestone, covered with soft ground, and sometimes a hiker can fall through that soft ground into a big hollow, and never be found, or be found at hunting season when the hunting dogs sniff out the corpse. scary stuff. my other thought is he died... of something "stupid". something that now is very preventable, even easy to help with, but wasn't for a long, long while. cold. flu. some kind of vitamin deficiency. poisoning. tetanus (not "stupid", very dramatic and scary, the vaccine is from 1939). actually i might go with the tetanus thing: it's a really nasty, scary disease (like the pest), but not transmissible. it can happen from getting a wound infected. i think he was handling his father's tool, maybe to learn to butcher; got a cut; got infected; died.

i think artemy was not shielded from seeing this, even if his mother really insisted he be. i think he doesn't remember much, if anything of it; seeing illness does not trigger memory of his brother, but he has this. apple seed of grief inside of him. lodged somewhere all bitter and dark. i think it made him be a little morose as a person, which he still is, but it has been so long it has become his "baseline". i think artemy has very, very little memories of his brother; basically his brain is blank from 5yo and back, most of his core memories come from 7 & up, where he truly bonded with the friends he still has (still tries to keep). i think ersher's death devastated his mom, who was already weakened from the birth, and grief + weakness during the second birth killed her. now i could get into how isidor has made plenty of selfish choices which are are not yes no if you see it that was if you don't see it that way Selfish and he tries to justify and he doesn't and he knows and he doesn't... and what it could have meant for him to try to have a second kid when his wife was like that... because she's not the virgin mary that thang did not pop up like that... there is stuff to say there isn't. she wanted artemy too she did. she just didn't make it to see him.

ersher in my mind didn't get to like. be much of a person due to the Dead At 10 thing, but he was more jolly that artemy has ever been (also i think bc the second son was raised in more morose of an atmosphere, with a dad having already lost a son & his wife). he was a brunette ☝ in my mind mom's blonde & isidor was brown-haired (even if Bald), artemy got mom's blonde & ersher had dad's brown. i think he had his hair longer, And i think stakh, who knew him just a bit longer because barely older than artemy, because he has his whole. gestures. cain and abel if they (tried to) slayed (each other)/wants to be isidor's son sooo bad started growing out his brown hair for that. his problems and issues notice how i keep making it about him. stakh always at the scene of the crime.

basically yeah 👍 thank you for enjoy his mom i miss her so bad

[average-transdalorian]

I think I may be a bit too invested in this fictional culture <-(voice of a girl who thought “hey, wouldn’t it be neat if a huge section of Mandalorian history [as I specifically interpret it because of course I like my interpretation] was canonized by way of an in-universe essay written by a Mandalorian breaking down modern (from the Ruusan Reformation to a little bit before Attack of the Clones) Mandalorian history, with a particular focus on trying to prove that the New Mandalorians are a settler-colonial state, with citations to other in-universe texts that don’t actually exist, but do have publication details? The author wouldn’t be able to use Mandalorian texts, as between the Dral’han, New Mandalorian rule, and various times that cities holding libraries and archives were active war zones, texts looking favorably upon Mandalorian culture before the Dral’han probably wouldn’t exist, and even if they did, they would be dismissed by core-worlders (the author’s target) audience as biased, so the author would have to use texts published on other planets. To get the clearest look at how the New Mandalorians came to be, they’d probably have to stick to sources in the ~240 years between the Ruusan Reformation and the Dral’han, which was also when the Core was undergoing a rising fear of Mandalorian attacks, which is what lead to the Dral’han in the first place. Obviously, to be seen as credible by the core-worlders, the texts would have to have been published on a “civilized” (read: core-like) planet, and would probably take a patronizing tone towards Mandalorian culture. One in particular that I want to write the publication details for would be something like ‘The Quaint Ways In Which Mandalorians Survived the Candorian Plague,’ as that would be used to show that Mandalorians shortly before the Dral’han had a strong cultural impetus towards mutual aid, regardless of whether or not they like each other. The author would understand that this impetus came about during the reign of Shae Vizla, Mandalore the Avenger, as mutual aid would have prevented some of the tragedy that came to her (yes, this is headcanon territory, I know), but the “civilized” worlds, with their heavy focus on individuality (like Western countries in our world), would probably assume that it came from Aga Awaud’s reign, as he lost his family to the Candorian Plague and clearly mutual aid would have prevented it (again, hc territory, but I’m gonna say that nothing could have prevented their deaths as they were some of the earliest casualties, before anything was known about the plague’s transmission, symptoms, and treatments). So, I’d need to find a planet imitating the Core, but not so politically important as to censor any extant Mandalorian-positive content right after the Dral’han.” Said girl did not decide on the best planet for that, but Telos IV is in consideration)

[mixotrophics]

Recently, a copy of Alpines & Bog Plants by Reginald Farrer fell into my hands (thank you, antiquarian bookseller). At first I thought it would be botany but it is actually a mix of hobbyist naturalist & horticultural anecdotes.

It’s a first edition, published in 1908 -- remarkably well kept, pretty obvious spotting & foxing and one plate appears to be detaching from the spine. The book is remarkably poetic, but it would be free verse with binomial nomenclature, which I haven’t seen before,

The dedication is an excerpt from Hippolytus by Eurypides, roughly (according to my friend who studies classics): “For you, lady, I bring this plaited garland I have made, gathered from an inviolate meadow, a place where the shepherd does not dare to pasture his flocks (except rabbits), where the iron scythe has never come;” In Hippolytus this is spoken to Artemis, but in this case the dedication is to Farrier’s mother which is heartwarming :) Here I will note that the idea of “nature” as something undisturbed (ungrazed, unharvested) is central to the colonial conceptualisation of ecology and has contributed to the forceful removal of indigenous peoples from their land (and the subsequent loss of biodiversity, as humans are not separate from nature and we can play an important role in ecosystems) Not calling Eurypides or this book inherently bad/colonial (more on the book & colonialism later) but this idea is def present in modern ecology and colonialism and important to highlight when present.

The book is full of black&white photographic plates which have held up really well for being over a century old. The plates themselves are beautiful:

The photographs were taken in Farrer’s own garden. Little snapshots of the past :)!!

The text content of the book is quite intriguing and not all good, definitely carries heavy cultural baggage as does modern Western biology in general. I will preface this by saying I have absolutely not battled my way through this book, but I have read sections. there is a definite 1900s-Englishman tone in all the ways that can mean. part of that is most certainly a degree of both xenophobia and orientalism. When venerating the beauty of the wilderness and of Japanese/Chinese garden design, there is obvious othering in the language used & Farrer is dismayed at the effects of cultural transmission (this is most notably in European gardens attempting to mimic the artistic style of east Asian gardens but using the “wrong” plants, usually European plants rather than importing non-native varieties that are more “authentic”). Farrer was deeply in love with Asian biota and was notable for collecting plants to bring back to Europe, and while I cannot speak on Farrer’s techniques specifically, such practices are deeply intwined in racism and colonialism. In many cases, economic systems & resulting hardships forced on other cultures by Europeans allowed them to exert control over certain groups, stripping them of agency and employing them to extirpate “uncooperative” groups. I haven’t found anything re:Farrer in this context but it is essential to place the entire book within this context!!

However the majority of the book is Farrer describing gardening as well as his travels to collect plants for propagation in the UK (notably he died while on one such plant-collection travel). Apparently (& corroborated by the preface) the plants he searched for were ones that would grow well in the UK w/o much care, to make having a cool garden more accessible regardless of income. so if a plant needed extensive care and things like hothouses, it was not his priority.

The way he describes plants is vaguely anthropomorphised in a generally appealing way, trying to make the reader appreciate the plant for things such as hardiness and robustness, which I suppose would align w/ the idea of making gardening easier. also in the sense that the robustness is tied in with beauty as well, as these features are of course not opposed to one another.

I may snoop through this book further to see anything else , we will see.

[frogfishwastaken]

Fish are smart and social and have memories and feel pain and people calling them stupid and using that as an excuse to treat them less humanely than other animals makes me so sad :(

For context, a biologist named Culum Brown has been doing fish research for years and has found that they are simply deeply misunderstood because the way they’re adapted to their aquatic environment is different from how terrestrial animals are adapted to land environments. People just see fish doing thing and don’t understand that it’s useful for survival in the deep sea. They don’t bother to observe them enough because of preconceived biases constructed by society’s portrayal of fish and our experiences on land.

(This has connections to the Bible and the hierarchy of animals established in it as well. I don’t think we realize the extent to which Western culture and Christianity have consciously and unconsciously shaped science.)

Despite the widespread and deeply pervasive myth that fish are dumb they actually have been proven to have the ability to remember how to evade traps even years after first learning how to do it and they can observe and learn from other fish and they have cultural transmission and friendships with fish they recognize and I’m going to cry

There’s also very little concern for fish welfare, since they aren’t beloved flagship species like dolphins or whales or seals, and generally they’ve been so poorly understood that people basically think of them as having the same level of sentience as plants. That is NOT TRUE and the conditions fish are subjected to before they die are FUCKING AWFUL and nobody’s out here protesting against that when there have been so many efforts to reduce the suffering of farm animals. Nobody ever really labels a can of tuna “free range’ but they’ll label it “dolphin safe” bc we’ve always cared more about the species that are similar to us.

And! Hot take! Maybe we shouldn’t associate intelligence with value in the first place! That has historically had some pretty awful implications for how we treat other humans based on how they are perceived or presented by people in power!

All this definitely has some sociological ties and implications.

[haljathefangirlcat]

As promised a while back to @fate-magical-girls, a (handmade, and therefore a little rough) translation of a small excerpt from the book Il Carme di Ildebrando: Un padre, un figlio, un duello ("The Song of Hildebrand: A father, a son, a duel") by Alessandro Zironi:

"4.1.1 Theodoric

Around the year 375, the Huns, moving from the Asian steppes, venture into the west and overwhelm the Ostrogoths, who are staying in the southern Russian plains. From that moment, until the death of king Attila (453) they'll be part of that congeries of peoples that goes, indeed, by the name Huns. Attila dies suddenly; his unexpected passing triggers centrifugal forces: the Ostrogoths, now, make themselves autonomous, led by three brothers. Just one year after the death of Attila, in 454, a son, Theodoric, is born to Theodemir. Our Theodoric. At the age of eight, he is sent as a hostage to Constantinople to seal a deal with the emperor: he stays there for a decade; soon after his return, after the death of his father and uncle, he becomes king. The years of his rule spent at the side of the Eastern Roman Empire, are quite troubled, a long period that concludes fifteen years later (489), when Theoderic with his people enters Italy, sent by emperor Zeno to conquer the peninsula from Odoacher, he who in 476 deposed Romulus Augustus, last emperor of the Western Roman Empire. Theoderic's Italian campaign starts off on the the right foot, as testified by his military victories on the Isonzo and, especially, in Verona. After these first assaults, though, the final victory is long-awaited: only in 493, after a three-year siege, he'll set foot in Ravenna capital of the Italic kingdom, thanks to the mediation of the city's bishop, who convinces the two contenders to rule jointly. Immediately after, however, Theoderic, by his own hand, kills Odoacher,, remaining the only sovereign, and he'll rule until his death, in 526, at the age of seventy-two.

Following this, the fate of the Goths in Italy swiftly goes downhill: nine yeas after, emperor Justinian will unleash a war for the conquest of Italy, that will conclude, with the Byzantine victory of 553, after eighteen years of devastation and the destruction of the peninsula. Theoderic is nonetheless esteemed, even by the Byzantine enemies, so much that the reinstatement of all property rights in Italy is traced back to his time. Soon enough, however, a hostile opinion on the sovereign forms, too, of which we already find traces in historical sources very close to his death, but is affirmed especially thanks to the words of Gregory the Great, who paints him as a persecutor of the Roman patricians, particularly Symmachus and Boethius, whom the Goth had sentenced to death for high treason. It's the same disparaging tradition found in the Anglo-Saxon world, surely not among the Longobards, who as we were saying were in close contact with the Goths, and whose sovereigns are related to the Amal dynasty.

Right away, the Theodorician biography starts cloaking itself in with episodes that have more to do with legendary transmission than with historical reality. But the tale, quickly become an integral part of the narrations focused on the king, is tied to the end of the Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy and to the political vicissitude of Theodoric, the only ruler we have memory of, the most prestigious. He is the Gothic king par excellence and so it is to him that the loss of the kingdom is connected. Such a defeat is not tied back to military events such as a long war but rather to an usurpation, which the Hildebrandslied attributes to Odoacher. The narrative mechanism, then, is that of a legitimate sovereign, in this case Theoderic, who loses his kingdom due to a fraudolent dethroning, on which are grafted subsequent attempts at a recapture.

At first sight, this upturning of historical reality appears curious, since it's Theoderic who forces out Odoacher, but there is a reasonable explanation. The historical vicissitude, according to some sources, see the Goth reach Italy after pressure from and deals made with the emperor of Constantinople to conquer the peninsula and reinstate the legality compromised by the usurper Odoacher. This justifiable diplomatic reading of the facts, once far from the intrigue in the palaces of Constantinople, finds, in later narrations, simpler motivations, according to which Theoderic would sit on a legitimate throne that belonged to other Goths before him; Odoacher is, then, labelled an usurper, but he dethrones Theoderic instead of the Westerner emperor. Theoderic is then forced into exile, and following that tries to recapture his own kingdom.

The loss of Italy, the exile and the attempts to recapture the royal seat are, in nuce, the fundamental themes that characterize all heroic-legendary narrations about Theoderic che the critique has grouped under the label "historical Theoderician epic", transcribed and composed, in the German area, starting from the XIII century. Still to the theme of Theoderic's exile is also tied his presence in Attila's court in the Nibelungic-Volsungic cycle, represented, in the German area, by the Nibelungenlied, and in the Nordic area by some heroic poems preserved through the Eddic collection. Therefore Germanic tradition in the German area frames the Gothic ruler in a context of tragedy and sorrow due to the loss of the kingdom and his companions (a trait, this one, that predominates in the Nibelungic-Volsungic narrations) and sees him as guest among Attila's Hunnish court. It is easy then to comprehend how history turned into legend: as Theoderic is the quintessential king of the Goths, so Attila is the only Hunnic sovereign heroic tradition remembers. So, when Theoderic loses his kingdom, it is among that people that he finds refuge and hospitality and from there he'll go on to recapture Italy.

There is then another, incredibly wide narrative tradition tied to the figure of Theoderic of an adventurous and fairy-tale-like tradition, mostly set in Italy, in the king's younger years, who dedicates himself to clashes and fights against giants and dwarves. Finally we must mention the Þiðrekssaga af Bern: it's a complex text, in many aspects epigonal, which gathers in one narration the most important cycles of continental Germanic tradition with at its core (but not exclusively focused on) the vicissitude of Theoderic and the Nibelungs. Among the numerous episodes, of particular relevance, for the relationships with the Hildebrandlied, is Theoderic's undercover entry in Italy with Hildebrand.

4.1.2 Odoacher

He's born two decades before Theoderic, around the year 433. Odoacher is mentioned by historiographical sources coeval to after the death of Attila. He accompanies powerful rulers who move on the chessboard of the by now dying, fragmented Western Roman Empire, both in Gaul and in Italy. His political and military ascent becomes more and more important, enough to reach the highest levels of the Roman warrio hierarcy. In 476 he deposes Romolus Augustus, becoming the only, undisputed ruler of the peninsula. His control over Italy is, in those tempsetuous times, rather long, 17 years, reaching 493, when Theoderic enters Ravenna. The sources remembers in various ways his murder; some suggest vengeful motives, others reasons of safeguard against plots, a last one hold Odoacher to be the victim of a betrayal. Theoderic's ruthlesness towards the enemy's kin is also remembered: his wife Sunigilda, for example, his made to starve.

Odoacher's figure, even if symbolically relevant from a historical point of view, having deposed the last Western emperor, did not find gret fortune in the Germanic literary tradition. He appears in the Hildebrandslied, where he's referred to as the cause of Theoderic and Hildebrand's exile, and is mentioned in a very late text, one of the printed versions (known as Ecken Auszfahrt, The death of Ecke, 1559) of the Eckenlied (Song of Ecke) which is part of the group of fairy-tale-like Theoderician narrations. At the end that poem is remembered how Odoacher deposes Romolus Augustus and takes control of the kingdom of Italy, until Theoderic defeats him.

Thus Odoacher knows no tradition outside of the vicissitude of Theoderic, to whom he's closely tied. His name will be lost quickly enough in the literary narrations, but we can follow his progressive oblivion. He's rapidly replaced, in his function as Theoderic's antagonist and the usurper of his kingdom, by Ermanaric, an Ostrogothic king who lived in the IV century, of whom on the other hand, legendary tales preserve a wide memory. Ermanic, it must be remembered, is in the Theoderician heroic tales Theoderic's uncle: the political conflict between king and usurper, a strong theme in the Hildebrandslied, is move to a more understandable family rivalry between uncle and nephew; after all, Germanic tales paint Ermanaric as an evil ruler even in narrative contexts not connected to the Theoderician cycle. The Annals of Quedlinburg still mention Odoacher, but he's not Theoderic's direct rival anymore: there, he's Ermanaric's evil advisor, who recommends exiling his nephew to the king. As the literary transmission goes on, Odoacher disappear, leaving the role of evil counselor to Sibeche. Finally in Kaiserchronik (Chronicle of the Emperors), a Middle High German work in verses with historiographical aspirations but actually with a good filling of heroic traditions, it is remembering that, on entering Northern Italy, he was defeated by Theoderic when he came back from his exile in the court of emperor Zeno. After that, nothing more, until the 1559 print of the Song of Ecke, but there the information is much more likely to come from historical sources rather than from a legendary tradition."

[littlewestern]

I must inquire about your feelings on douglas and oliver 👀

(Tags by @mean-scarlet-deceiver)

Absolutely! These tags are fantastic, and I think this is a great time to talk about a phenomenon I've noticed in certain fandoms. I don't have a word for it yet, but something that can happen, especially in cases like this where a ship is sort of a foregone conclusion (either for lack of options for the characters or - in this case - because there's one really compelling point of shared development), is that it can often feel like we are *supposed* to ship something, and that there aren't any other options.

I think 10x11 is absolutely one of those ships, and I can totally understand why it might not work for some the same way it does for others. It's easy to fall into the trap of complacency or to feel like there's not actually anything there and the rest of the fandom is just shipping cardboard cutouts. And because everyone treats the ship as default, there's no one out here really up on their soapbox for it or making any groundbreaking content. It runs the risk of feeling stale.

Luckily, I'm here, and I do this shit for free. In point of fact, you couldn't pay me to stop. So let me make the case. Hopefully by the end of this we'll all come away with a better understanding of the characters, their relationship, and ourselves. (I like to aim high.)

So there are a few major pitfalls that this ship can succumb to right out of the gate that I think can frequently make this a harder sell as a romance specifically:

First, the rescue. The foundational text. Everyone loves Escape!, and for good reason. It's an extremely rich vein to mine for drama and feelings and having these characters bond in a way that feels complex and authentic and real... And it also can make a relationship founded on romantic love between them feel compulsory on the part of Oliver. This is not at all cool or fun or sexy or even really in-character, and I expect it's one of the reasons this ship can be hard to work with at times. To put them in a romantic context without any kind of examination of what is desired vs. what is owed feels rushed and disingenuous to me. If your only reason for shipping Oliver and Douglas is that one of them saved the others' life - full stop, no further examination required - this ship is going to be quite boring and a little iffy besides. This is a fantastic foundation, but it can't be the only thing holding them together, or else you've just reinvented the booktok romance novel.

The second pitfall is one that isn't the fandom's fault but is definitely worsened by years of fandom dilution: Oliver lacks a lot of direct and explicit characterization as a result of showing up late to the RWS party. He has this great origin story, fucks up once, gets a few funny scenes, and then about drops off the page. This leave shippers in a bit of a predicament, because really compelling character romance needs really compelling characters in the first place. Oliver has such a great backstory and that immediate bond we talked about with another well-developed character who also has a great backstory. It feels like it should be very easy to make this work, but it just... doesn't. Because Oliver in-canon is often a role-fill character. He's great, but no one (least of all the later season TVS writers) can seem to agree what his personality actually is, so he ends up being written to slot wherever he's needed or to achieve a specific narrative beat. The resultant 10x11 content which is informed by this feels flat and boring because if the only goal is for them to end up together, you simply have to write that happening and it occurs. Fandom Oliver often has no desires or wants outside of getting together with Douglas, his knight in shining paintwork, and it makes for dry reading.

So how do we reconcile this? What can we do with this information to make it work in favor of our desired outcome instead of as a hindrance to it? How do we use the facts to enhance our fiction?

The first key is remembering that Oliver is actually a little badass who, for 95% of his time on the run, did not actually need any help. The only reason he got to the point at which Douglas could come rescue him was because he fled under his own power from the southern part of the country all the way up to Barrow. His journey only ended there because they ran out of coal, which probably wouldn't have happened if Oliver hadn't also elected to take a coach and an unrelated break van along with him. Because, again, he's a badass. When the big engines say that Oliver has "resource and sagacity", they're absolutely correct. There's material to work with here, we just need to spin it out.

So let's start there. Let's give Oliver that plucky spark back, and have him be a wee bit peppery as a treat. A guy doesn't outrun packs of rabid diesels only to come out the other side a meek and obedient little bore. Let's really lean into his loyalty and bravery too, since an engine willing to risk his own life to save the lives of some lowly rolling stock must be both. And finally, let's also have him really appreciate that second chance he's been given! My favorite Oliver characterization is one that swings at every wild pitch just for the joy of feeling and moving and being alive.

What Douglas has given him isn't a debt, it is a gift, and paying him back doesn't mean feeling like he owes him anything, it means hitting the rails every day with as much enthusiasm and excitement and verve as a little engine possibly can. I like an Oliver that works hard and plays hard and - crucially to the relationship in question - I think Douglas likes this too. Here's a pair of guys who are both brave, loyal, adventurous, quick-thinking, generous, and god damned happy to be alive. Their experiences in Escape! shouldn't make them rescuer/rescuee, it should make them some of the only guys on the railway who know what it's like to look death in the face and laugh. They're equals, and more importantly, friends.

And maybe I buried the lede a little bit there, but I think this really is the crux of it. To me, this relationship is one that starts as a very long, very close friendship with that little bit of extra complexity always simmering below the surface and the little bit of weirdness of falling in love with the guy who saved your life isn't something that should be swept under the rug, it should be an active part of the core relationship conflict.

Oliver looks at Douglas and thinks: He's my best friend. I love him. He saved my life. I don't know whether that last thing is influencing the other two and I'm worried that trying to find out will ruin everything.

and Douglas looks at Oliver and thinks: He's my best friend. I love him. I saved his life. But I don't want him to think he owes me anything just because I did.

So Douglas is waiting on Oliver, and Oliver is waiting on his complicated feelings to resolve themselves. In the meantime, in Ray world, I like to imagine them carrying on a very raucous and boisterous friendship/working relationship involving a lot of pranks and good-natured ribbing, because I think the Little Western being the most efficient branch line while also being the one comprised nearly entirely of chucklefucks is hilarious.

I also like the idea that during all of this, Oliver is constantly going through romantic partners because, again, just happy to be alive here! But also because maybe if he finds the right engine those sticky feelings he has towards his bestie will go away. And all the while Douglas looks on and smiles and plays his cards very close to the chest.

Maybe even gets himself a girlfriend in the meantime.

I have this whole arc plotted out for a story I will never write where Douglas and Emily become an item and everyone else loses their minds because oohh it's just so cute and they look so great together.

Very suddenly Douglas has a girlfriend and also very suddenly Oliver does not have a best friend anymore. And (much to Oliver’s surprise) he’s kinda upset about it!

At first he thinks it has to be jealousy, because like... On one hand, he’s over the moon for Douglas. Douglas seems happier now, quicker to laugh and more easygoing (not that he wasn’t always). But on the other hand, they’re not hanging out as often anymore and it’s not really fair that Douglas lands the perfect partner on what is ostensibly his first attempt when Oliver’s been trying and failing at it for so long. He writes it off as him being jealous of Douglas and tries to put it out of his mind.

Except he sees them together, and he sees how happy Douglas is in-person and how Emily is nice enough but all wrong for him. For one thing, she’s the *safety* engine, which– ha! Douglas? Not the most risk-averse engine to ever grace Sir Topham Hatt’s Railway. For another thing, she’s not willing to go on any of Douglas’s more adventurous errands. Too, her more staid nature doesn’t seem to be rubbing off on Douglas at all, so it’s a source of friction in their relationship. Oliver delights a little bit at that, and goes out of his way to tell Douglas he’d be happy to see how fast they can get the goods train to the harbor, speed limits be damned, just because Emily won't like it.

When Oliver explains this to Mavis later (the third time they’ve rehashed this subject this week) she pauses to fix Ollie with a Look.

“Are you sure you’re not jealous of *Emily*?”

“That’s ridiculous,” Oliver scoffs, dismissing it before the words have really sunk in. “If I were jealous of… of her, I’d– I’d be–”

And then the other shoe drops.

“Oh.” “Mhmm.” “Oh no.” “MmHMM.”

Oliver has fucked another of his relationships, the only one that actually mattered in his estimation. And now he’s stuck, because this is the happiest Oliver’s ever seen his best friend. And a real best friend wouldn’t try to sabotage that just because he was too stupid to see what was plainly obvious to everyone. No, he has to be cool about this, and it’s going to nearly kill him.

But hey, look who else in the yard is single and pining over a Caledonian engine. You wanna have a Great Western Time about it?

Again, because I am a sucker for true romance, this sorts itself out in time. Douglas and Emily realize they're not actually that great a fit for one another, Oliver and Duck get as much out of their time together as they like before moving on, and Douglas and Oliver get to have a long overdue conversation about what they mean to each other - no jokes, no bullshit. I'm sure it would all be very cute and romantic, if I were the type to write that sort of thing.

In the meantime, I hope I've at least made a case for why this ship tickles me and where I think everyone can improve in their writing of it. Thanks for the ask, sorry it was so long!

[valhallakonbi]

u said not covid but inane ask time, which chars would still be masking properly and which wouldnt.

LOLLLLLLL ok well everyone is japanese except shinobu so my immediate answer is shinobu KFHQDJFHQJKDF

i haven't read shinomonogatari btw (it seems fantranslators didn't like it so they haven't worked on it) but i just remembered COVID-19 IS CANON... so i don't know if any of this has been adressed already in story... i will answer with what i believe would match everyone... sorry if it's OOC you guys.....

now... as the epidemic slows down and people in society start wearing it less, i think (pre-kuchinawa) nadeko would keep it on most of the time, without any suspicion or symptoms or anything. she just wants to hide her face from as many people as possible for as long as possible without anybody questioning her about it.

even though he probably wouldn't have to deal with covid in any significant ways, koyomi keeps it on at all times. he's a canon neat freak and kind of a goody two shoes when it comes down to it.

senjougahara is smart enough to know exactly when it's appropriate to wear it and when wearing it becomes useless (like wearing it outside in vast, uncrowded spaces). same for oikura.

hanekawa wears it for exactly as long as the recommendation lasts.

kanbaru exercises a lot so she has trouble keeping up with it. since she becomes a sports doctor later on i feel like she would feel some kind of responsibilty when it comes to disease transmission after graduation.

i feel maybe meme wouldn't wear it since he's a giant loner and it looks lame? yotsugi also doesn't wear it, she has no use for it...

ougi wears black ones. similarly to nadeko they enjoy wearing the mask. mysterious...

karen wears it and is normal about it. tsukihi is extremely pissy about having to wear one. she goes along with it but only for impressions. miraculously enough, despite frequently crossing the line, she never does get sick (she's a phoenix). if wearing a mask wasn't proper japanese etiquette and their experience was closer to how westerners had to adapt to covid, i think half the time karen and tsukihi put their mask backwards or inside out or below the nose. (koyomi scolds them)

hachikuji is a little kid so she gets away with not wearing one, even though it doesn't really matter to the only people who know about her. she boasts about it in front of koyomi and makes fun of him. shinobu joins in and also makes fun of him.

kaiki somehow builds an empire out of covid paranoia and manages to sell all kinds of charms during the crisis. he would wear it to begin with, but the mask also helps not getting caught...

[great-and-small]

RES anon. Thank you for replying! I'll switch the tank as a whole to collard greens/pellets until the little guy gets released, the shrimps and fish shouldn't mind. I also have mealworms. Still adjusting the basking area temperature, need to get the platform's distance from the basking lights right, but the water is a consistant 80F which I read is what baby RES should have. Water quality should be ok, it's a very established tank with a lot of cleaners and I'll do water changes if needed. Would you be willing to talk more about the disease transmission you mentioned in your tag, please?

Sounds like a good set up! I mention infectious disease transmission because turtles are particularly susceptible to certain pathogens, especially when it comes to commingling species. For example, a herpesvirus that is asymptomatic in RES can be fatal to the western pond turtle (a vulnerable species). For that reason I get nervous about introducing a turtle with unknown pathogens to a new environment.

To be safe, I’d recommend reaching out to Fish and Wildlife in the county you plan on releasing the turtle (make it very clear that this is not a pet) to ask for their recommendations. The will likely be able to give you better answers about the local ecology and if it’s advisable to release there. Would also be a good idea to call your local F&W to get their thoughts as there are some regional pathogens that should be taken into consideration. If transporting a RES out of Florida for example I’d be concerned about spreading turtle fraservirus. If you are unable to release the turtle in its native range, you may be able to find a museum, garden, or educational facility with a turtle pond that would be able to take him in.

[mariacallous]

All across the country, there are signs of a more radicalized American populace. It’s become impossible to ignore over the past few years. The US has witnessed an insurrection, the rise of QAnon, increasing anti-Semitism, attacks on the LGBTQ community, and more. While radicalism has risen to some degree in many other Western nations, this trend has been exceptionally more pronounced in the United States. It is, therefore, necessary to determine the root causes of it and what makes America, well, exceptional. 

To better understand extremism in the US, it’s necessary to understand who is being radicalized. It’s primarily right-wing extremism, but right-wing extremism covers many different groups and types of people who engage with it. It’s not just the people who join militias like the Proud Boys or the Oath Keepers, it’s the seemingly ordinary people who latch onto QAnon or other conspiracy theories. 

The January 6, 2021, attack in Washington is a good case study on what kind of people have become radicalized in the US. There were members of militia groups there, but research has shown roughly 90 percent of the people who stormed the Capitol were not affiliated with militias or other far-right groups. Many were business owners or regular working people who became convinced over time that the 2020 election had been stolen from Donald Trump.

Conspiracy theories like those under the QAnon umbrella have infiltrated many groups of people one might not expect. They’ve found their way into yoga and parenting groups. A neighbor you regularly encounter at the grocery store and don’t think twice about could be in the process of being radicalized. People from all walks of life can be influenced by these conspiracy theories. 

All of that said, there are some notable psychological and social factors that could be causing Americans to become more prone to embrace extreme ideologies. One of the key factors appears to be a strong sense of uncertainty. The human brain doesn’t like uncertainty, and it can cause people to seek out a path to feeling more certain and assured by any means possible.

J. M. Berger, an author and researcher who focuses on extremism, says there have been many reasons for people to feel uncertain over the past decade or so. Rapid changes in technology, major shifts in the labor market and the economy, the Covid-19 pandemic, and more have caused many Americans to feel unanchored. This creates a situation where extremism can flourish.

“What you find is people are most vulnerable to authoritarianism and extremist impulses when they don’t know what they’re supposed to do,” Berger says. “They don’t know where they fit in the world.”

Arie Kruglanski, a professor of psychology at the University of Maryland, says that something that motivates people in uncertain times is a need to feel significant. 

“These things increase the motivation to reassert your significance. Once you have that, you’re vulnerable to narratives that promise you a restoration of your significance,” Kruglanski says. “Many of these conspiracy theories—most of them, I would think—do that.”

Extremist movements can make people feel significant, give them a sense of purpose, and provide them a narrative that explains why everything seems so screwed up. They also give them a sense of community and support. Kruglanski says the more you feel embraced by a network of people, the more you feel motivated to embrace their narrative, even if it’s extreme. Oftentimes, he says, people don’t realize how extreme the group they’re joining actually is until they’ve become invested in it.

Berger says social media has ramped up feelings of uncertainty. He says that’s partly due to the fact that ideas can now almost instantly be spread far and wide with little effort, which can be destabilizing.

“In the past, when transmission of ideas was slower, the ideas had a chance to evolve as they were being transmitted. This would sometimes create a sort of moderating influence,” Berger says. “With social media, ideas move so fast that there’s really no prospect for moderation. Even the most extreme ideas can spread incredibly quickly.”

Social media has also made it easier for people to become radicalized because they can easily find people who share any extreme views they may have and who will happily invite them into a movement. Someone who wouldn’t have met people who share their views in the small town they lived in years ago can easily find a community online and become further radicalized.

“Social media has radically changed how people communicate,” Berger says. “It’s radically changed the kinds of ideas people are exposed to.” 

Research has shown social media exacerbates political polarization, often pushes users to view more extreme content, and helps extremists organize and coordinate their efforts. Social media also has positive impacts in terms of helping organize activists and connecting people in beneficial ways, but its negative effects and uses are significant.

“The network support, the clandestine conspiracy narratives combined with the sense of uncertainty, sense of lost significance—these elements create a combustible mixture that can be lit and lead to radicalization and radical action,” Kruglanski says.

So, many people feel uncertain and insignificant, and social media is flooded with disinformation and groups of extremists who will invite them into a movement. That’s some of it. The more obvious aspect of this, but one that is important, is the role of political leaders in America and a Republican Party that has become more extreme itself. 

“We have people who are the top leaders of a right-wing party who are really just willing to come out and express and endorse positions that are much more radical than what used to be the norm in American politics,” Berger says. “They’re creating a permission structure for people to talk about racism and violence in ways that previously would have been outside of the realm of civil discourse.”

Thomas Zeitzoff, an associate professor in the School of Public Affairs at American University, says the Republican Party has embraced—and is now largely controlled by—extreme figures who would have been sidelined in the past.

“The people who used to gatekeep and keep out people like Pat Buchanan or kick out the John Birchers are not running the party,” Zeitzoff says. “I’m a big believer that parties have to be strong gatekeepers. You have to push people like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert out. They have no business being in a mainstream party.”

Bringing the US back to a more stable place and countering extremism isn’t an easy thing to do when extremism has become this rampant, but there may be some solutions. Kruglanski says those who oppose this extremism need to find positive ways to offer people significance, dignity, and a sense of certainty. Berger proposed a similar remedy.

“If there is a solution, I think it’s to pursue policies that give people some sense of security and understanding of where they are and how they’re supposed to interact with the world,” Berger says.

There will always be conspiracy theorists. Social media isn’t going anywhere. And political leaders will forever use fear and lies to influence people. But America will have to deal with these conditions that are making extremism more likely if it’s going to continue to function politically. A house built on dynamite is a dangerous place to live.

[emergentharmonies-localgroup]

Blog run by @transgenderfivepebbles

General Information

Little if any art, for now at least. As much as I'd love to, I'm not an efficient artist, and any substantial amount of traffic would make drawing for every ask take all day :(

All out-of-character text will be marked with [OOC] at the beginning of each paragraph.

Asks are public transmissions, i.e. visible to all characters, by default. Private transmissions should be explicitly marked.

The header is a screenshot by rainworldhourly on Twitter, from Aether Ridge by Kaeporo. All art, including the icon, is original.

Rules and Guidelines

Be a decent person in general. Should go without saying

You may ask about canon characters or OCs that have been previously mentioned. Including your own OC in an ask is fine, too! Just don't expect us to know everything about them '^^

I've seen this happen on other blogs before, so no magic anons or anything of the sort, please! Just simple messages, images are welcome, though.

Sparkle on! Don't forget to be yourself!

Characters are a bit to cover, so below the cut:

Characters

Reflections of Song [ROS] (they/them)

The group senior(s), two puppets in a single large can. Both open for conversation.

Dawn (she/they)

The more chatty of the two. She once managed the eastern side of the duo's (very large!) city, but has since taken up historical archiving as a pastime. They're fond of the memories, and it's fun to see what the folks up there used to be up to!

Dusk (he/it)

Past manager of the city's western industrial region. Talented bioengineer and geneticist, sequencing genomes for many purposed organisms for maintenance and repair. Loves every minute of it. No one knows why, except possibly himself.

Entangled in Promises [EIP] (he/him)

Second oldest, only slightly younger than Reflections. He's not too serious, having abandoned his original purpose long ago, and although enigmatic at times, he's got plenty of stories to tell, and all the time in the world.

Nascent Sparks [NS] (he/they)

Youngest of the local group. They once dedicated themself to the Great Problem before moving onto better, more fun things, like talking to his friends and designing creatures! He loves good company, and will be glad to answer your questions or just talk about anything.

Two Ashen Bells [TAB] (she/her)

She won't answer you. She hasn't spoken to anyone in dozens of cycles, and there's no way she'll start now, for someone she doesn't even know.

…But I suppose you could always try.

———

That's all for now! Hope you enjoy your time here :)

[scotianostra]

The Scottish nurse Mary Helen Young was born on June 5th 1883 in Aberdeen.

Another very brave lady who is little known in Scotland.

Her mother died while she was a baby, after which she moved with her family, her father and two elder siblings, to Edinburgh. After school, she worked as a dressmaker at Jenners department store.

She left Edinburgh in 1904 to go to Surrey to train as a nurse, gaining state registration in 1908. In 1909 she travelled to Paris, France, to work as a private nurse.

At the outbreak of World War I Young volunteered for service with the British Red Cross, working in the British Army zone in France, nursing wounded troops on the Western Front. Young's fiancé was killed during the war.

After the war, she returned to private nursing in Paris travelling occasionally to Scotland to visit her sister Annie Sutherland in Aberdeen and her aunt in Bllater.

When the Nazis occupied Paris in June 1940 Young chose to remain in the city and continue her nursing work. In December of that year, she was sent to an internment camp for allied civilians near Besançon and released after about six months as result of poor health, from where she returned to Paris. Despite being under surveillance by the Gestapo she received, into her home at 69 Rue Laugier, people sent from Britain who were assisting with the French Resistance. Her apartment was also used as a base for sending and receiving covert radio transmissions from London.

On 11 November 1943 she was arrested and interrogated by the Gestapo on suspicion of helping British servicemen escape. In February 1944 she was sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp for women, as a political prisoner. News of her death did not reach Scotland until September 1945.

After the war, investigations by the British Embassy in Paris and United Nations War Crimes Commission proved that Young had been put to death by the Germans by being "put in a gas chamber or otherwise" sometime between February and March 1945.

Her sister and sole next-of-kin, Elizabeth Ann Sutherland, raised a legal action to settle Young's estate. On 30 January 1948 at the Court of Session, Lord Blade issued a judgement that presumed Young's death had occurred on 14 March 1945. Evidence given at the trial included letters that spoke to her courage and cheerfulness.

The French novelist, Simone Saint-Clair, who was also an inmate at Ravensbrück, said of her, "She always kept her chin up ... and all of us liked the little Scotswoman, Mees Young".

Young has been compared to nurse Edith Cavell who was executed by firing squad by the Germans in World War I.

After the Second World War the Aberdeen Press and Journal learned that Mary-Helen had ‘died as she lived, a brave Scotswoman’. The newspaper proudly acclaimed her as Scotland’s very own Edith Cavell - ‘Right up to the very end nothing could break her. She would smile, even in this hell that the Germans had made for us, she was a brave woman, the bravest of the brave’