#we do very much like slaughter squared

[sunsetsover]

the more this show goes on the more i just genuinely don't get how people hate kant, or at the very least have no empathy for him and his situation.

kant is a man literally built of sacrifice. in so many ways he sacrificed his own life for babe's. over and over and over again. his grief for babe's. his education for babe's. his happiness for babe's safety and security. his social life in order to stay at home taking care of babe. relationships with partners who didn't take any interest in babe, or didn't want the baggage of a man with a dependent. whatever dreams or aspirations he had for himself fell to the wayside, at least temporarily, in favour of supporting babe.

he sacrificed his own freedom every time he stepped out of their house to go and steal a car - something that he so clearly isn't proud of at all - just so babe can get the education he deserves. the fact that he wasn't caught doesn't matter, he went to altar every single time, willing to be caught and slaughtered like a lamb if it meant babe was good.

and then he was finally caught, and he sacrificed himself in brand new ways just so he could stay out of prison. never mind the fact that kant might not have even gone to prison if it was his first offence and he played the system right, and even if he did it wouldn't have been for long. but that wasn't a chance he could ever take, because who would look after babe if he was gone, even for a few months? who would pay for school and make sure he ate? and so he stayed willingly under christ's thumb for god only knows how many years, playing whatever new versions of big brother he had to be, ingratiating himself with drug dealers and thieves and whatever other kinds of dangerous people christ wanted him to, getting himself onto all these people's bad side knowing it would only take one to figure him out and turn on him and put him in hospital, or worse. but that was a sacrifice he willingly made the moment he pulled his grieving baby brother into his arms and said 'i'll take care of him'.

and here it is, the ultimate sacrifice: christ tells kant to jump into the lion's den, promising that if he makes it out alive, he can have his freedom back. and what choice does kant have? if he doesn't they'll be back to square one after he worked so fucking hard for his and babe's stability. and babe's old enough now that kant can start having a life again, and kant's business is doing well, and things are finally good for them, but now this. and if he doesn't do this it will have all been for nothing. so he does it. essentially puts his life up as collateral once again the moment he walks through the door of heart burger and tries to seduce an assassin, knowing it could be taken from him in an instant if he missteps.

except it doesn't go as he planned, because bison is beautiful and bison is bright, and he's sweet and he's dangerous and kant can't help but fall for him, no matter how he tries to dig his heels in and think about the end goal: his freedom, his brother's safety. he says as much to style - style says bison has you wrapped around his finger and kant says i know. that's why i'm trying to end things quickly. and in that moment bison becomes yet another sacrifice kant makes for babe. or at least he's trying so hard to make him one. because what kant wants, he cannot have. not when there's babe to think about.

but it's so unfair. and it's so sad. like yes we all know it's unfair for bison and it'll be such a betrayal, but what about kant? what about his heart in all of this? what about him giggling at his phone screen like a teenager texting bison, only for the grin to fall the moment he remembers who he is and what he must do? what about him acknowledging that he's working so hard to hold bison at arms length but he's failing and that's why he needs this over asap? what about him having to be on all the fucking time, spewing out lie after lie after lie, and what that does that him? what about him being so fucking scared every time a gun is shoved in his face that he's fucked up in a way he can't talk himself out of and that babe will be left all alone in the world?

what about kant having this beautiful boy in his bed, who's kissing him in places he's never been kissed before and telling him that he loves his fuck ups, and that he won't come over because doesn't want to be a bad influence on babe, and that him stealing cars was not only not a shameful thing, but an admirable thing to do for someone you love? this beautiful boy who notices his brother is hurting and follows him to defend him from the people that hurt him without question? this beautiful boy who has asked for nothing but the truth, the one thing kant can never give him? this beautiful boy that kant is falling for, and he knows he is, and he knows he can't, because that's not allowed, because bison isn't his, he doesn't get to keep him. he's just another sacrifice in a long line of sacrifices kant has made for love, and yet this one... this one has claws. this one will leave scars that he'll get to keep longer than he will ever get to keep bison.

kant has been living with an asterisk next to his name from the moment his parents died. from then on, at every opportunity kant sacrificed who he might've been for who babe still could be. he sacrificed kant the person for kant the big brother, and whatever that included. kant the protector. kant the provider. kant the thief, the scammer, the informant. kant the manipulator. never just kant, not anymore.

but then there's bison. beautiful, observant bison who always seems to be asking who are you whenever he looks at kant. and kant doesn't know what to tell him, he really doesn't, bc whatever mask he tries to put on, whatever facade he tries to hide behind, bison just sees right through him. and although kant does everything possible to avoid telling him anything, bison always seems to get his answers anyway, even when kant doesn't say a word. like bison is collecting every splintered version of kant and putting them together to make a whole person again. just kant. no asterisk.

and kant doesn't know what to do, because bison is beautiful and he's in his bed and he has kant wrapped around his finger despite his best efforts. and yet he knows it's only of time before he has to peel himself away and never look back. let bison sit in the prison cell that was always supposed to be kant's. and despite how he might try to convince himself otherwise, he knows the guilt will eat him alive. he knows he'll feel the place where he tore them apart just as acutely as bison will. he'll have to splinter apart into a thousand versions of himself all over again. kant with an asterisk. and he'll have no one to blame but himself.

and isn't that just so fucking unfair?

[projectjasper]

JOONG ARCHEN AYDIN: On his first steps in the entertainment industry, how to lie to idol factories that are trying to control your weight, and his impressive resilience in the face of tragedy

Joong: Actually, I moved to Thailand when I was 16. The reason I moved was I wanted to finish school quickly so I could get a job quickly. I really wanted to grow up. I wanted to live my own life because back then I thought being an adult was great. Right? So I started working as an actor. I was actually walking around Siam and then I went to a casting and got the role.

That's really how it happened! In the early days, I participated in a fashion show and accidentally got the first place.

Aou, Santa, Pond: Oooohhhhh!!!

Joong: And then I became more confident and someone just happened to see me. I was walking around Siam, I was in the middle of Siam Square, and a person just pulled me away. They were like: "Are you interested?" I was wearing really nice clothes that day. It was an Abercrombie t-shirt and Gucci jeans.

Yeah, I borrowed them from a friend.

Anyway, I remember going to the casting. Everyone had their hair and makeup done, some already had fans. We all sat down. The line was very long, there were multiple rows. This one guy just stood up, went up to his fans, and started waving. He was saying "thank you", "thank you for your encouragement" and things like that. We were all waiting to go up to the slaughter room.

No, really, they call it "the slaughter room". There was like twelve of us. They weren't saying much, they were just kind of looking at us, and then they told ten people to leave. The only two left were me and another person. They told us: "Ok, you passed". I was asked to do this one bit and then sent home. I came back for the final round, which was like an acting round, and then I finally got to play. I got to be in a series, I became an actor. It was my first drama, I might not have played very well, but I got some fans! My followers on Instagram went from 5.000 to 500.000. So I started as an actor first but then an opportunity came up. I never thought about it before, but I did like idols, I was a fan of many groups. It was BigBang first, then BTS... When I was in Türkiye, even before coming to Thailand, I already liked them. I used to record dance videos with my siblings at home and upload them to the internet.

"Fake Love" [starts singing a little]. Yes, at the time I was obsessed with it, I really loved it. Then I got an opportunity with a Chinese company. They suggested I go to China and join a TV show contest. At the time, I was weighing my options - I was doing pretty well in Thailand, should I stay here? Eventually I decided it would be better for me to move to China. I wanted to try something new and it was an opportunity to do just that. Since I was an actor, I already had events where I sang and things like that, but I never...

Pond: Danced?

Joong: Yeah, I never danced there. Well, maybe just a little. I took only a couple of dancing lessons. Everyone else is like "oh, I've been dancing since I was a kid", but I started when I joined the contest in China. I was training for about two months and it was very stressful, because I had to study both the language and how to dance. And in comparison to the friends I was training with, I was quite inexperienced because some of them had sung and danced before, they had a solid background.

Personally, I was becoming more and more handsome at the time.

Aou: Ooooohhhhh!

Joong: Before that I was still a kid.

So, two or three months passed, we actually went to China to train there. We were meant to go on for two or three more months, then filming would start and the program would air. It was quite fun, because I got a chance to go with friends from Thailand and there were also trainees from other countries - China, Korea, Japan, it was very international. I got to know a lot of people. We were training together and it was a very warm environment. Because we were practising together, living together, waking up together, eating together.

Food was bad, it was food for trainees. Broccoli and fish, stuff like that.

Interviewer: So it wasn't tasty food, it was healthy food.

Joong: Yes, everyone on the show was on a weight control diet. We had to weigh ourselves and then report back every single day. We also had to send video clips, so they could check what we're eating. They were actually looking at our food. They were asking us about our bodies, how we "build discipline".

But hey, let me tell you. There is a trick to weighing yourself. For example, like I weigh what? 77kg or something. If I touch my finger to the wall, it becomes 75kg!

Santa & Pond: Really?????

Joong: And if you press real hard, it will be 70kg.

The food they gave us was Jian Fei food, diet food, but if you think about it, it takes a lot of energy to practice as much as we did. So I ate a lot. I ate a little in secret.

Santa: Just a little?

Joong: Yes! At the time, I was thin. But yeah, everything else was going well - the environment, the friends I made, and all that. The teachers gave me a lot of encouragement because... I was good at dancing, but when I went there, people were on another level. The guys from Japan were dancing so fiercely, the guys from China were like... wow! Some of them had been dancing since they were twelve, others had just started. I realised we are not the same at all. Like let's say there is a close up, right? I wouldn't have been able to dance as fast as my friends.

I felt really bad. Because I was giving my best, but it wasn't good enough. I couldn't remember every move. And there were people who were really good there! Let's say there was a hundred people - one outstanding person received an award from the teacher. Out of a hundred people, one would get a star. Literally. The teacher would take a star and stick it on that person. Me? I never got it! It was both discouraging and tiring. I woke up early to go training at 7 a.m., came back at 11 p.m. every day. Kind of similar to Santa.

Santa: Yeah.

Joong: But still, things were going well. And then, like three days before filming:

COVID.

Aou: Oh no...

Joong: So suddenly it's all over? Honestly, when we first heard the news going around, no one believed it. Everyone was like: "What? No way! The training has been going on for months and hundreds of people are participating, from so many different countries. How could it all just collapse?" But I went back to the dorm and got on a video call with the company. They said: "Listen, kids. The plane tickets will be arranged and then you can go back in about a month. You'll have to quarantine for around 15 days". So I was just stuck in a room for 15 days. It wasn't like I went back to Thailand and was just sitting around feeling sad. I came back to sit alone in a room and cry for 15 days. And it felt like I left everything behind in Thailand and went to China, but then I returned.

It's not just that I was sad....

Pond: But what would happen now that you were back.

Joong: I wasn't part of anything because my contract stated that if I didn't have a show, I was basically independent. I came back and everything just felt so empty. I was like: What should I do? I don't know what to do! There is no way forward. Did I have any money? No. I only had around 50.000 baht left before going to China. And I spent a lot of money there too. I don't know what I was so confident about, but I spent a lot of money. For some reason I was just so sure that somehow, no matter what, I would gain something from this whole experience. It had to have been worth it, someone had to have noticed me. That was my mindset at the time. So, I came back, COVID was happening, and then my dad died.

I have no money. My dad died. COVID.

My dad died, I can't do anything. When my mom called me, I was shooting an MV with my friends. We were supposed to shoot for three days and my mom told me dad passed away on the first day.

Pond: That's awful.

Joong: I cried the first day. I was putting on makeup, crying while putting on makeup by myself because it was a self-made project.

Interviewer: So it was a self-made project with your friends?

Joong: No, with the label. But we did everything on our own, we paid for it on our own, because we wanted to give back to all the fans supporting us in Thailand somehow. We had no shows, no songs, no nothing, so we decided to make it ourselves and pay for it ourselves. Even though we didn't have much money at the time. It was tough.

Interviewer: How did you get through it? What did you tell yourself? You were disappointed, you had no money, someone you love passed away...

Joong: The thing is, I had no one to rely on anymore. If I couldn't rely on myself, there was no one else to help me. I had to survive, my siblings had to survive. So I just fought and kept going. I had to find a way, somehow. I announced that I have no label and just started over. I told my manager at the time, who was taking care of things slowly, that if they had any work, I was prepared to take it. Or maybe I could just go out there and try to find something on my own? Because I was just sitting around doing nothing. At the time, I had this person to take care of me, right? But maybe because of COVID or something like that, they couldn't find me a job. So I thought: Should I keep going like this? If they aren't giving me anything, can I try to find something on my own? Go out there and fight by myself? So I became a freelancer. But in just two weeks, I was contacted by a label, so thankfully I didn't have to stick to freelance for long.

[survivalist-anon]

Log 1: The first encounter

It's been a year since my falling out with my boyfriend. What was supposed to be a trip back home to collect my gear has now ended up becoming a whole move back to Pine Hills....talk about going back to square one...

It's another lovely, foggy day in Chehalem Ridge. Hoping to bag at least deer for the next few weeks of meat rations. Honestly, I'm starting to become grateful for grandpa incessively bringing on his hunting trips, this move has done an absolute number on my bank account. Beef here is starting to get expensive ever since that garbage Wonder Mart bought out the local stuff. Well, times have changed. I've always liked the taste of venison anyway.

Things here have been even more worrisome over the past few years too.....farm animals being slaughtered left, right and center....those clowns from the National Guard Tillamook base have been hounding the town for answers on some sightings of "big, metal men". An absolute mess.

What has been giving me a biting gnash on the back of my mind is how poor ol' Grandpa passed away. Well....the fact he died on a hunting trip isn't what's surprising, it's the fact he was killed so brutally that even his buddies believed that no way a bear could have done it. Robbie (our local mortician, ex-butcher and currently the one braincell helping at City Hall) said that "no bear could just tear up a man like a chainsaw can"....the closed casket funeral was already a disaster.

Call it depression, call it suicide, but I going to the very place he died ...I need to know what happened. Yeah, naive on top of the cliche is definitely going to be on my tombstone. It's been 4 months since his death, will I find anything? Fuck no of course not...but hey, it's productive.

As I'm looking at the river bank, I'm not surprised to see what a shoty job local PD did in clean up the place....there's pieces of his old camouflage jacket. He didn't believe in the modern stuff, so he just used an old jacket he had back in when we enlisted in Vietnam. I glanced over the scene, trying to pieces together what the hell could it have been. Walking around, I'm not too surprised how much of a waste of time this was....at least the scenery was perfect...

At least, it was.

I suddenly realized that the birds has just stopped singing, all I can hear was the sound of my heartbeat. But there was something new, a heavy smell of metal and industrial chemicals? I know theres an illegal logging company around here but no one back at City Hall has been able to fight them for years. That's when I heard movement.

This is when I begin to regret not investing in a hunting rifle, but bow and arrow to the eyeball works just fine. I draw and scan for whatever that smell was coming from ....all I saw something big and metal....but for something to be that big....it was no man.

It was in the thicket of the treeline, glowing...angry eyes, it had spikes just absolutely everywhere, it's dark black body was interrupted but glimmers of bronze or gold....at it was coming right at me.

I couldn't move, I just stood there trying not to shake the fucking arrows out of my quiver, I don't even know what I was even doing from that point on.

It just stomped twords me, it knew I wouldn't be able to do much to it.

But like hell I wouldn't.

I locked up, and shot right it it's eye. Going straight in! It's head leaned back at the arrow sunk through......then...it chuckled....that sickening laughter you give when you know you're about to win...it looked straight back at me, still chuckling....now with my arrow sticking out it's face like a complete moron.

Looks like I'm going to get see grandpa. Hell I would probably get to tell him I found his buddy too.

"... aren't you... just adorable........thank you for your.... little gift", snapping the arrow yet keeping its other half in his eyesocket...."a most cherished gift.....from a weaklings like girl like you...just...like that old bastard....". He was now 10 feet away from me.

He pointed to a set of faded dents in his chest, three shots that only chipped the paint.

Grandpa's last shots

"....at least he went out fighting."...I stepped back and fucking tripped on the rocky bank...great I made it earlier for him.

Suddenly, he stopped in his tracks, glanced at the trail behind me and growled.

That's when I heard the familiar click of a trigger pull, than the loudest gun shot I have ever felt! Closing my eyes, it was like a small rocket had been set off just feet away from me.

All I could hear was a loud ringing in my ears, I felt something warm and wet cover half of my body. Shaking, I slowly opened my eyes, and saw gore.... just where.... sprayed on me, on the rocks .....I looked up....half of that monster was there.....I couldn't take it anymore....and i blacked out.

I woke up in the hospital back home, Nurse Amila (town doctor at this point since the last guy quit) said I was found soaking wet near a sheep farm several miles off the course of Chelhalem Ridge. I told her everything I could remember but of course she told me to just rest so I can collect myself a little later. I was in shock, but I had to tell her. The look on her is what worried me, she.... wasn't surprised.

She did tell me that who ever it was that brought me to safe place, left me in good hands .....a gift?

Nurse Amila points to the hospital nightstand, it didn't look like any of the native tribal artifacts I've studied for....it looked.... Nordic? It was a huge candid tooth.

"Looks like a bear tooth, guess someone finally sees you're worth a look, right Lorey?", she chuckled.

"....I....think it's a wolf tooth", I feel like I'm going insane, first the absolute horror movie scene I've just experienced and now...possibly .... giant unextinct......dire wolves?

What the shit is going on......

End of log 1.

@kit-williams

[fictionadventurer]

The more I think about it, the more upset I get that people kept mentioning Vanity Fair as a classic Victorian novel and making it sound all depressing, and not a single person mentioned it contained passages like this:

All which details, I have no doubt, Jones, who reads this book at his Club, ​will pronounce to be excessively foolish, trivial, twaddling, and ultra-sentimental. Yes; I can see Jones at this minute (rather flushed with his joint of mutton and half-pint of wine), taking out his pencil and scoring under the words "foolish, twaddling," &c., and adding to them his own remark of "quite true." Well, he is a lofty man of genius, and admires the great and heroic in life and novels; and so had better take warning and go elsewhere.

Or this:

I know that the tune I am piping is a very mild one, (although there are some terrific chapters coming presently) and must beg the good-natured reader to remember, that we are only discoursing at present, about a stock-broker's family in Russell-square, who are taking walks, or luncheon, or dinner, or talking and making love as people do in common life, and without a single passionate and wonderful incident to mark the progress of their loves. The argument stands thus—Osborne in love with Amelia, has asked an old friend to dinner and to Vauxhall—Jos Sedley is in love with Rebecca. Will he marry her? That is the great subject now in hand. We might have treated this subject in the genteel, or in the romantic, or in the facetious manner. Suppose we had laid the scene in Grosvenor-square, with the very same adventures—would not some people have listened? Suppose we had shown how Lord Joseph Sedley fell in love, and the Marquis of Osborne became attached to Lady Amelia, with the full consent of the Duke, her noble father: or instead of the supremely genteel, suppose we had resorted to the entirely low, and described what was going on in Mr. Sedley's kitchen;—how black Sambo was in love with the cook, (as indeed he was), and how he fought a battle with the coachman in her behalf; how the knife-boy was caught stealing a cold shoulder of mutton, and Miss Sedley's new femme de chambre refused to go to bed without a wax candle; such incidents might be made to provoke much delightful laughter, and be supposed to represent scenes of "life." Or if, on the contrary, we had taken a fancy for the terrible, and made the lover of the new femme de chambre a professional burglar, who bursts into the house with his band, slaughters black Sambo at the feet of his master, and carries off Amelia in her night-dress, not to be let loose again till the third volume, we should easily have constructed a tale of thrilling interest, through the fiery chapters of which the reader should hurry, panting. Fancy this chapter having been headed THE NIGHT ATTACK. The night was dark and wild—the clouds black—black—ink-black. The wild wind tore the chimney-pots from the roofs of the old houses and sent the tiles whirling and crashing through the desolate streets. No soul braved that tempest—the watchmen shrank into their boxes, whither the searching rain followed them—where the crashing thunderbolt fell and destroyed them—one had so been slain opposite the Foundling.

And then he proceeds to write in the style of three alternate genres for half the chapter before getting back to the story!

There is zero fourth wall here! So much meta-commentary! So much sarcasm! Not since Jules Verne have I encountered an author who was so obviously having this much fun writing his story.

And no one had the decency to tell me that it might be fun to read!

[mysticstarlightduck]

OC Questionnaire Tag

I was tagged by @illarian-rambling for this one (here)! Thanks for the tag!!!

Rules: Answer the questions provided with your own OCs perspective. Then create new questions for those tagged to continue the game.

My Questions

What's the best thing you've ever eaten?

What's the worst injury you've ever had?

Do you wish you looked different?

Your Questions

What's your worst fear?

What's your love language?

When are you the happiest?

I'll go with Eidan Delythen (from Of Starlight and Beasts) for this, because I love this character so, so much!!!!!! (:

(TW for mentioned amputation (loss of an arm) for the worst injury question though.)

....

What's the best thing you've ever eaten?

(Eidan )- "The kingdom where I grew up used to have these great and vibrant Spring Festivals every year, it was a very big deal. I remember there were these great banquets in the town's square, along with colorful stalls filled with so many different kinds of candied delicacies one could loose count.

I'd rarely had the opportunity to partake in it. It was a party for the locals, and the wealthy citizens of Monbern - not indebted orphans like we were. Or that was what most people seemed to say. So, for the longest time, I had just watched it from afar.

But there was one year in particular where my cousin had managed to truly impress a local vassal with his sword making skills, and got a lot of coin for it. So we used our lucky break and snuck out into the festival, and he bought us this beautiful light blue pie from one of the vendors. I can still remember how amazing that sweet was - it had just the richest chocolate taste, wrapped in an almost flowery dough. I think that, even to this day, that pie is the best thing I've ever eaten."

2. What is the worst injury you've ever had?

(Eidan) - "When Monbern's duchy fell, the city was seized by, well... the Traitor's forces. It was chaos - utter, absolute chaos and bloodshed the likes of which I wish to never see again. We knew that, when the dust settled, we'd be the next on the chopping block, and there was no doubt about it. But things didn't go as planned during our very hapharzard escape, and to make a long story short, I lost one of my arms to the blade of one of the soldiers. My memory is, unsurprisingly, fuzzy after that, but I can almost still feel the sheer, blinding white pain as someone dragged me away from the slaughter, before I passed out."

3. Do you wish you looked different?

(Eidan) - "No, not really. I'm very happy and satisfied with how I look today."

Tagging (gently) - @thepeculiarbird, @kaylinalexanderbooks, @little-peril-stories, @littleladymab, @clairelsonao3, @oh-no-another-idea, @conkers-thecosy, @crowandmoonwriting, @starlit-hopes-and-dreams, @mk-writes-stuff, @anyablackwood, @rickie-the-storyteller @lassiesandiego,@steh-lar-uh-nuhs, @trancetales, @doublegoblin, @gummybugg, @winterandwords @forthesanityofstorytellers and OPEN TAG

[siriuslysatorusimping]

Sample: Kiko's Original Work

Hi. I uhhhh. There's the summary just below and then some small blurbs/excerpts below the cut 😬

They likely won't make a lot of sense. But I wanted to show a bunch of different sections... I'd love to know what you guys think 😊

It's been a while since I looked at this, too. So it was really fun to go back through it!

Summary:

“The cold and I,” she murmured, her eyes burning bright and reflecting the dangerous fire within her. “We don’t know each other, little one.”

Non-humans haven’t been seen in over a century. They’re mythology now. A class taught in the schools that covers the legends of non-human creatures. No human has knowingly interacted with a non-human in over a hundred years. And they certainly don’t believe in them, despite the evidence of the creatures all throughout older parts of the Capital City of Heims. The pieces of the original city that remain, still standing against the harsh weather that plagues the region almost year-round, hold traces of those who once resided within the city walls. Of the magic users responsible for the safety those walls now offered. The same ones who were burned alive in the center of the city they helped build.

-

“It’s said,” her grandfather would whisper in her ear as she drifted off to sleep, “That descendents of the Ejdirla Kan were to be reincarnations of history’s strongest dragons.”

But none lived long enough to have children.

Except him.

“That’s you,” he would say, pride in his burning eyes as he smiled down at her content form. “That’s what you are, yavrum. A very powerful dragon resides in you. It will guide you, help you.”

-

“And what do the legends say of my kind?” her eyes were burning bright when she turned to stare at him. He could feel the anger radiating from her. “Other than that they’re extinct?”

“Creatures of great power-”

“Do the legends mention that they disappeared because they were hunted?”

The question caused Aeran to snap his mouth shut. He’d known the legends mentioned power, danger, how violent the Dragon Breaths were, but they never mentioned them being hunted.

“Why would they-?”

“My kind were hunted after the Great War. And slaughtered. My grandfather was the only to escape.”

-

Pietro clenched his jaw as he focused his energy on uttering the protection spell he had told his sister to use on the abandoned diner. Now using it to keep the space from becoming an oven in Aleva’s fire.

You did it on purpose, he accused bitterly as he watched her. She knew he would stay to protect the others if he thought her flames were too much, for so many various reasons. You’d truly rather die than let me help?

Still no response from her, her mind completely silent as she pretended to ignore him.

-

“They’re channeling abyss and aether simultaneously, melding the two outside of the vessel.”

Pietro let out a small sound of wonder. “It’s inefficient,” he stated, his brows furrowing as he came to the realization. “But the end result is the same: Abeyance.”

A trap. The pawns placed perfectly to lure the queen into her demise.

Aleva stood in the center of the square now, surrounded completely by ghulruh as the two magic users approached slowly.

-

“It’ll be impossible for her to melt any of them while they’re here.” He was shrugging his coat off as he spoke to his sister. “I’m going to need you to help me.”

The flames in front of the building rose higher as he spoke, telling him Aleva already knew what he was going to do. Her aura glowed bright now, flames encasing her as her eyes moved to meet his for just a moment, ordering him to stay inside.

Pulling his daggers from his coat before dropping it to the floor, he met Willa’s eyes. Understanding passed between them when she nodded, already muttering the incantation. It wasn’t meant for humans, but it would at least keep him alive as he passed through the fire.

Pietro cracked his neck, mentally preparing himself before propelling himself forward. Sparks jumped from the blur he left behind, the lightning he channeled striking the ground where he landed.

Blue mist shimmered around Aleva as he appeared behind the ghulruh, the ends of his sweater burned and his hair singed. He let out a steaming breath, the sweat on his forehead freezing as the climate set in.

It had been hotter than he’d expected, even for her.

-

[brandwhorestarscream]

I'm curious, what is Earthspark like in the Cybermorph-verse?

Also this goes against the original canon, but I'm just imagining Twitch as a runt who remains small but ends up as one of Megatron's favourites. Just nestled between his dorsal spines, safe and happy.

So, I don't have anything concrete decided on for the cybermorphs in earthspark, but I do have some fun backstory for Dot and Megatron! I'll just transcribe it here, under the cut if you're interested ^-^

We were talking about, somehow, cybermorph Megatron and Dorothy being friends, like in earthspark. I decided to take this hypothetical and run with it. We don't know exactly how they came together in canon, but general speculation is that she did something that earned his respect. And she clearly doesn't like Optimus all that much--they're civil, but there's no warm feelings there, yk?

So my thoughts immediately went to Dot standing up to the bots and calling them out when they're doing something whack.

Something on earth triggers Megatron to produce a small clutch of eggs. He's not planning them, they just happen. Maybe the recovery of the Allspark, the exposure to such potent life energy kickstarts his reproductive system again. Maybe uses some stored old genetic code from previous sires, maybe they're just drones, but regardless he can feel their sparks connecting to his. There's a very, very prolonged battle, the type where everyone is on the field for days at a time. Think trenches, underground compounds, anything and everything. Maybe he doesn't even realize he's carrying them: his egg-laying protocols have been disabled for millions of years, and they fit in so seamlessly in the hivemind he doesn't realize they're coming until they're coming.

He suddenly pulls back from the battlefield with no warning, shouting for Soundwave to take over, and he runs off to find somewhere dark and safe. Maybe the contractions make it so he can't change form and easily return to the hive. Ends up in one of those old cave systems or something, idk it's not important. Delivers a small clutch, probably only 4 or 5 cuz it's been so long since he's gotten any action and doesn't have a lot of extra code to fertilize them. Realizes oh slag, these aren't drone eggs. These are actual fully fertilized sparklings that are going to need hosts and will probably have to be shipped off planet immediately.

The first children he's beared in millions of years, they're indescribably precious. He has no idea who sired them, but that can come later

My idea comes from Dot along with maybe a couple autobot escorts, tracking him there. After all, he's probably doing some big bad evil decepticon shit, right?

Wrong.

Dot watches as, without even a moments' hesitation, one of the bots shoots squarely at one of the eggs. It explodes in spectacular fashion, delicate embryo slaughtered and tiny spark extinguished in less than a second.

Megatron screams, a truly primal cybermorph queen screech, and promptly transforms. Knocks the responsible party back, throwing them into the wall with such force their chassis cracks, but he's so focused on that one that the other party manages to bring their pede down on another with tremendous force and stomps the egg flat, splattering it and killing the unborn morphling.

The queen bellows, furious and devestated all at once, and when he pounces on the other Dot is nearly crushed underfoot. She stumbles back and her back hits something slimy and springy, like a thick, malleable rubber. She peels herself off and turns around, and comes face to face with one of his fresh eggs. They're so early, only minutes from emergence, thst their shells are still a bit see-through. It takes her a moment to make out what she's looking at, but when she does, her suspicious squint slackens and her eyes widen. She knows this thing very well. Tiny, too-big head and little dark spots where eyes should be, nubby body shaped like a bean with no arms or legs.

She's seen this kind of image many times. On ultrasounds of her little brother and in her cousin's parenting books and on posters at the doctor's office.

An embryo.

A fetus.

These are his babies!

"NOOO! " she throws herself in front of a nearby egg, arms out wide as if she could somehow block the shot one bot is priming.

"What are you doin', squishy?!" He barks at her. "Move!"

"No! These are chi-"

"Monsters, Dorothy! They're monsters!"

They swing their gun the other way as if to shoot another, and she dives in front of it again. Megatron is busy pounding the other into the ground, trying to get himself back the nest that they've successfully cut him off from. There's only 3 left, he has to save them!

"Scrap this!" The bot bats her aside--not enough to injure her, just enough to get her out of the way with the barrel of their blaster, still struggling to pill himself up after hitting the wall hard enough to rattle his internals. One of his legs is limp and useless, that's the only thing stopping him. Dot manages to land on her feet, skidding back, ribs aching from the impact.

The blaster powers up one more time, and the distinctive thrum is enough to distract Megatron from where his secondary jaw has punctured his opponent's spark chamber, ripping it out and shredding it with his serrated fangs. He throws the body down and is immediately snarling as he leaps at the other mecha, but it's too late.

Blood flies everywhere and Dorothy s c r e a m s, collapsing to the ground with half of her leg gone. She lands in a puddle of sticky, hot fluid: the egg behind her that she had tried to shield has unfortunately been punctured and is leaking all over the cave floor. Her ears start ringing, she's losing blood so fast and her vision blurs when she tries to look at her leg--she can see bone and muscles and tendons exposed to open air, and she doesn't even notice Megatron'a cybermorph queen warcry as he rips off the other mech's head.

In the aftermatch, once they're dead, he turns his attention to his babies. Only two remain, two eggs miraculously unbroken. The human that had tried to defend then, while valliant, was unsuccessful. The third one has drained out all over the floor and there's no breathing life back into them.

But still. He replays all the audio in his helm, and could hear her arguing with the other. He'd seen her scrambling back and forth, trying to block a shot to his eggs. She... she protected them, fearlessly, like a praetorian would. She put herself at the mercy of alien weapons so strong it could vaporize her entire body. She'd sacrificed a part of herself for them, and for that he's grateful.

Megatron always repays his debts. Especially after finding out that humans can't simply regenerate or replace limbs 🤭 when Megatron leaves, he takes her with. Gently cradling his eggs in one hand, picking her up in the other. She's still bleeding profusely so he licks over the wound with his glossa, thick oily solvent congregating on the wound and stopping the blood flow. He leaves with his cargo, and when the bots find the site later, 2 of their comrades are dead and there's a crazy amount of human blood on the floor. Naturally, she's assumed dead, but is actually at the bottom of the sea in the depths of the Nemesis, engineers and medical hard at work giving her her mobility back as thanks for protecting their unhatched siblings.

[ultimateplaylistmaker]

What's your opinion on Mukuro and the potential for guilt she may go through had she survived?

fucking MUKURO where do i even BEGIN

If we go just by whats in Trigger Happy Havoc then I adore her, Danganronpa IF is a GREAT story that capitalizes on the best traits of every character and her relationship to Junko in it is FASCINATING, and it would be very interesting to watch her try and find herself outside Junko with the rest of the cast, especially because it promises conflict between them and the outside world. Her relationship to Makoto is cute even though realistically I'd never see a romantic relationship between the two going very far, but I think Makoto could really be the friend she needs. So if only Trigger Happy Havoc and thus Danganronpa IF, I would be completely on board the Mukuro deserves better train. However, that's not all the content that exists.

Danganronpa 3 did make her character a lot more boring, beyond some really funny dry humor that honestly was very much a highlight at times. Her relationship to Junko lost a lot of nuance and interesting bits, honestly both Junko and Mukuro took a huge hit in like personality in Danganronpa 3, but to be real who didn't take a personality hit in Danganronpa 3? That's not why I'm so mixed on her though.

My problem with Mukuro and why I always am constantly flipping between loving her and intensely hating her lies squarely in the Killer Killer manga.

In the manga we learn the backstory of the two Killer Killer's active in Japan, they themselves arent very relevant but the backstory...it strikes a nerve with me I'm putting it under a cut but anyone sensitive to school related death and discussions of personal trauma and the like should not continue reading, or if your especially sensitive to scenes of murder as I will be showing the pages I refer to as well, though I did pick two of the tamer ones. If you need to stop here, know the information I speak about under the cut is why I'm very conflicted on Mukuro as a character I both love and hate in a way that isn't really compatible with each other in a way that gives me a headache when i try and rationalize it.

Under the orders of Junko to ensure that Mukuro is still sharp and loyal, sends her to massacre an entire middle school with just a knife. She does so with no hesitance with only two survivors, the future killer killers, as the only ones who were able to hide from her. It's a brutal scene, as we see the corpses strewn around and how Mukuro doesn't care that she's slaughtering middle schoolers. We see kids running for their lives screaming for help only to be cut down.

If it's not incredibly obvious, I am very much an American, and as you likely know, school shootings and intense violent actions at schools are a bit of a huge problem here. In fact it's one of my greatest fears as I have family who work in the school system. Volume 2 Chapter 8 of the Killer Killer manga is completely in character for Mukuro, but it hits such a deep learned fear in me as someone who was still in school when school shooting took a large uptick that I can never look at Mukuro the same way again.

As funny as the phrase "Mukuro Ikusaba the school shooter" is, it strikes too close to very real trauma I have around events like this. It's completely in character, it makes sense for her, I love getting more Mukuro content of her outside the Junko outfit, but it's just too close to reality to me. This moment made Mukuro into a character I can never truly accept a reformation for, it's too much. Even look at the panels for it genuinely triggers a trauma response for me, it's not her fault I have such a strong reaction, but that reaction does shape and inform how i see her character.

I know not a lot of people actually read the Killer Killer story to know this even happens, and to a Japanese audience this likely hits more in the unrealistic mass violence normal for the series, but as an American, this just reminds me of too much genuine real traumatic harm to be something I can forgive and forget as one of her crimes. Even if the other remnants did technically worse, it's just too personal here.

Mukuro hits a personal and intense trauma of mine with her actions in this manga, and as such i both hate her and love her, constantly switching between the two depending on which version of Mukuro is more fresh in my mind. Which leaves me really off balance on how to think of her, and honestly I still don't know what I think of her, do I love her potential and her dynamics and want to see her grow? Do I hate her and the way her actions make me feel too much to let her ever have a happy ending? Makes my head hurt.

[thevelaryons]

What do you think Addam and Corlys were talking about in this scene? "And Addam Velaryon, lately Addam of Hull, sought out the Sea Snake after the battle; what they spoke to each other even Mushroom does not say."

You know, I've been asking myself this very same question for many years now. Since it's a notable instance in which Mushroom doesn't offer his unsolicited opinion, and even the other two narrators don't make any mention of what Addam & Corlys could have spoken about, we can only speculate...

My personal guess is that Addam wanted out. This is right after the Battle of the Gullet. Driftmark has been burned and sacked. Countless people have perished in the battle. And this would've been the first battle of Addam's life (he just used to be a ship boy before that). This wasn't any minor skirmish either but a battle involving dragons and seeing firsthand the carnage wrought from that would certainly have a big impact on the survivors. Addam's (and Nettle's) reaction is directly compared to the happier, celebratory one of the other dragonseeds:

Mushroom tells us there were two men on Dragonstone that night who drank to the slaughter in a smoky tavern beneath the castle: the dragonriders Hugh the Hammer and Ulf the White, who had flown Vermithor and Silverwing into battle and lived to boast of it. “We are knights now, truly,” Hard Hugh declared. And Ulf laughed and said, “Fie on that. We should be lords.” The girl Nettles did not share their celebrations. She had flown with the others, fought as bravely, burned and killed as they had, but her face was black with smoke and streaked with tears when she returned to Dragonstone. And Addam Velaryon, lately Addam of Hull, sought out the Sea Snake after the battle; what they spoke to each other even Mushroom does not say.

I say Addam wanted out specifically because of the contrast it creates with his big moment with Corlys later.

So then it would be as follows: After the Gullet, Addam tells Corlys of his intention to leave and Corlys stops him vs Corlys later being the one to help Addam escape from the dragonpit.

Plus, this ties into Corlys' characterization too. After Laenor's marriage to Rhaenyra, Corlys still kept him at High Tide while Rhaenyra was residing at Dragonstone, such that it's even said the marriage was never consummated to begin with (which I firmly believe). When Laena returns back to Westeros, after her exile in Essos with Daemon is over, she takes up residence in her father's house again. Corlys is the type of person who has his grand ambitions but is unwilling to commit to the risk that comes with it, which leads him back to square zero. Since he preferred to keep his children close, it makes sense that he'd hold that same sentiment with Addam. Though he allowed his children their freedom for the most part, he can still be an overbearing patriarch. By the time Corlys finally learns to let go, he's already lost so much. Which in turn makes his relationship with his youngest child quite different (especially when you consider that Alyn is the one most like Corlys). He goes from keeping Laena & Laenor with him at High Tide, to taking Addam with him to King's Landing, to leaving Alyn behind at Castle Driftmark. Corlys might have felt a great deal of guilt by the end.

As for Addam, his talk with Corlys certainly changed him in some way (you can decide whether it was for the better or worse). He goes from a child seeking reassurance from his elder after a bloody battle to a soldier who no longer flinches from violence to the point that he'll even suicide charge a bigger, more battle hardened dragon:

Ser Addam Velaryon had come to prove his loyalty by destroying the Two Betrayers and their dragons, and here was one beneath him, attacking the men who had joined him for this fight. He must have felt duty bound to protect them, though surely he knew in his heart that his Seasmoke could not match the older dragon. This was no dance, but a fight to the death.

[intheshadowofwar]

21 June 2023

You’re In The Army Now

London 21 June 2023

It was an early start today - I was out the door just after 7.30, catching the Victoria Line to Oxford Circus and the Bakerloo to Paddington. It was already very busy, but there was a laurel at the end of my journey to make braving rush hour a little bearable. It look me a little questioning of staff before I knew whether or not my journey was in vain - it wasn’t - and then I proceeded to sit on Platform One for an hour because I’d massively overestimated how early the train would enter the station. And what locomotive, pray tell, would I go to all this trouble for?

If you know your trains, you could probably make an educated guess.

Built a century ago this year, No. 4472 - ahem, 60103 Flying Scotsman needs absolutely no introduction. Today she is the Kardashian of locomotives - she is famous for being famous. Unlike the Kardashians, that fame is well earned - namesake of the famed Flying Scotsman express, first non-stop run from London to Edinburgh in 1928, first (sort of) authenticated 100mph by a steam locomotive in 1934, one of the first privately preserved steam locomotives. She toured the United States (even though we don’t like to talk about how that one nearly ended) and Australia, making the longest non-stop run by a steam locomotive ever between Parkes and Broken Hill. To her detractors, she’s the ‘flying moneypit,’ bankrupting every owner since 1963. To her fans, she’s the most famous steam locomotive in the world, Sir Nigel Gresley’s masterpiece. And at long, long last, I have seen her in steam.

Basically, do you know how monarchists get really excited about seeing the King? This is my version of that.

After her departure at 9.40, I headed on the Circle Line to Sloane Square, walking through Chelsea and past the famed hospital there to the National Army Museum. The NAM is basically the cooler, hipper IWM, in my opinion. It perhaps benefits from a narrow subject matter; specifically Britain, and specifically the British Army. Without becoming too complicated, it does a much better job at contextualising its exhibits than the IWM, without shying away from the controversies and horrors of war. Do you think, for example, that the Australian War Memorial would stock a book about the massacre of Surafend, in the way the NAM stocks one on the British organised mass slaughter of Amritsar?

When I talk about museums, as you probably know by now, I like to mention an exhibit that struck me, and the exhibit in question at the NAM was more recent than you might expect. While I could discuss the saw that amputated the Earl of Uxbridge’s leg again - the fact that it still exists makes me very happy - I’ll instead mention a ruined L85 rifle from the Middle East, which was recovered from a vehicle destroyed by an IED - none of the passengers survived. Jay Winter has said that if one shows a weapon in a museum, they ought to show what it does. Here, in this ruined weapon, we see both at once. We don’t need to see the blood and bones of the soldiers; from this broken rifle, we can fill in the gaps as to the horrific power of explosives ourselves.

Also, the NAM cafe does a mean scrambled eggs.

After the Army Museum, I headed back to the tube and caught the Circle Line again to St. James’ Park, where I walked to the Guards Museum. This is a small museum that people don’t really know about, and that surprises me as it’s literally right across the road from Buckingham Palace - it’s in Wellington Barracks, where the guards march from during the Changing of the Guard.

The Guards Museum is a very old-school and classic museum; a British Army regimental museum in the same old style that I love so very, very much. The museum is both wide in scope and intimate in subject matter - this isn’t the story of the army or the wars it fought, but the part played by the five regiments of the Foot Guards - the Grenadiers, the Coldstream, the Scots Guard, the Irish Guard and the Welsh Guard. For the majority of the British Army’s history, there were only the first three - oddly, the ‘1st’ (Grenadier) Foot Guards are actually the youngest, but as they were Charles II’s personal guard, they got to be senior after the Restoration in 1660.

There were a lot of very interesting things in this museum, but I’m going to highlight something very boring instead. There’s a shako worn by a soldier of the Coldstream Guards in the late 1820s - it’s called a bell-top shako. Guards shakos from this period are very rare, because they were introduced in 1829 and dropped in 1831, when all of the Guards regiments adopted the bearskin cap of the Grenadiers. In fact, this shako was so rare that I didn’t actually know it existed - I’d assumed that the bearskins were adopted soon after Waterloo, but it seems the Coldstream and Scots Guards kept the shakoes of the regular infantry for just a little bit longer. This is a completely, utterly useless factoid, but I find it absolutely fascinating.

Across from the Guards Museum is the Guards Chapel, and to the uninitiated it looks strangely modern. Surely regiments as old as the Guards ought to have a similarly old chapel, right? Well, they did - until the morning of 18th June 1944, when it suffered a direct hit from a German V-1 flying bomb in the middle of a morning service. 121 were killed, and over 140 injured. The new chapel is not only a memorial to the men of the Household Division (the Foot Guards and the Household Cavalry), but to those killed in the bombing. I was initially the only visitor, and by the time I left only a small group of Americans - who I will say were very respectful - had joined me there. Dozens of regimental colours from throughout the Guards histories hang from the walls. I almost felt like an intruder in another family’s mausoleum.

I’m not religious, but for some reason I was moved to light a candle.

I walked from there, back past Buckingham Palace and down Lower Grovesnor Place, to a small memorial on the side of an intersection near Victoria. This is a curious little monument - it’s explicitly a memorial to the Great War, yet the Tommy on top is joined by a pair of riflemen from the Napoleonic and Crimean Wars respectively. This is the memorial to the Rifle Brigade, the progeny of the famed 95th Rifles of Wellington’s time (although a number of Rifle Brigade battalions could trace their heritage to the 60th Rifles as well.) After the Second World War, it was adapted to commemorate the riflemen lost in that conflict.

I visit a lot of memorials because I think they are interesting, or because I simply find them in the wild. I hunted down this one because it was important to me personally. This isn’t because I think the 95th were cool or because I watch a lot of Sharpe, or because green is my favourite colour and riflemen wore green uniforms. My nan had two uncles, one who fought in the First World War and one who fought in the Second. Both were riflemen - the first of the ‘Hackney Rifles’ and the second of the 7th Rifle Brigade. The first was wounded at Third Ypres, although I’m not certain how severely. The second still lies to this day in Florence, lost in the attacks on the Gothic Line in September 1944. It’s silly, and probably vulgar, but I’ve always seen the Rifle Brigade as ‘ours.’ I probably confused a lot of London commuters by pointing at a random monument in the middle of the city, repeating over again - ‘that’s us. That’s us.’

Yet it is us. The memory agents, the people who lived through the First World War, are all dead. The people who lived through the Second will still follow. It is now up to us to interpret their memory, their experiences, their histories and their stories. We have a responsibility to them.

Like it or not, this is us.

I then wrecked this profound emotional moment by having a big fanboy moment over a Routemaster bus, and then I walked back to the hotel. After a brief rest, I reunited with my mum and stepdad, who had been very kindly invited by my professor to join the group at the garden party of the Britain-Australia Society at the Royal Over-Seas League’s London HQ. It was all very sophisticated, with a lot of the great and good - and Joe Hockey - present, but I think it just didn’t quite gel with me. We stayed for a socially acceptable amount of time, then went back to Victoria Station and grabbed some McDonalds before parting.

We will reunite in Paris, but there’s a long road ahead to get there…

[lumine-no-hikari]

Dear Sephiroth: (a letter to a fictional character, because why not) #107

I got lost in Blender all day today.

Well, no. That's not wholly true. I also wrote a little today. And also I made some food:

It's mushrooms sauteed in rendered bacon fat, and rice with black beans. I cooked the mushrooms, and J did the rice and beans. I ate these with a bit of that salmon I made recently. Or, well… mostly the skin of the salmon I made recently. Because J ate the salmon meat and left the skin, since he doesn't like the skin. But that's okay; the skin is my favorite part anyhow. My body craves collagen all the time, and I think it might be due to the Ehlers-Danlos, but I dunno.

…I have not eaten nearly as much as I should have today, so it's a little hard to think coherently enough to write to you. Got too lost in an attempt to do various things. This is the result of only going without eating for maybe 10 hours. How in the hell did you go for a whole freaking WEEK??? Don't EVER do that again, okay???

I have zero clues about what I'm doing. But I'm more scared for your safety than I am scared of what my brain likes to think it means about me when I try something new and I'm not immediately amazing at it. Got a lot of vicious self-criticism going on about my intelligence level and worth as a human being, stemming from years of traumatic one-trial learning and expectations of perfection imposed upon me by others until it was internalized. Still, I'd rather endure ten times my own inner critic than have you permanently stuck someplace where you're not safe, though. I'd rather live my whole childhood again. I'd rather live it 100 times over. I'd rather… gods…

…I wish I could just ask you to promise me that you'll make it through all this okay, that you'll try to fix all the things that got wrecked, that only a minimal number of people will be hurt, that someday you'll live in a peaceful place and learn all about what it's like to heal from a wretched set of life experiences, that someday you'll understand what it means to be happy and close with a diverse group of healthy-minded people who love you very much.

…If you truly are strong in the real way, then you'll be taking steps towards what I've described; Square Enix said you are the strongest ever, but that's only true if you grow past and become more peaceful and loving than even the most healed of those of us who have been traumatized. You will always be weaker than me if you do not reclaim your original kind and caring nature. But I'm not sure if the people of Square Enix are going to let you. So I have to do something. Anything… I…

I can't let it end for you like this. Not again. I was too small in 1997 when the original story came out, and too young and dumb in 2003, when I saw you for the first time, to do anything about it… Just like I was too small and powerless to do anything to protect my brother when we were living with my stepmother. Just like I was too small and powerless to do anything to protect my mother when her husband at the time was hurting her almost every night.

...Do you have any idea how traumatic it is to have to sit and watch as some kind person you've come to know, understand, and appreciate gets hurt, and not be able to do ANYTHING about it? No matter how much you cry, scream, beg, or try to bargain? I've been through this more than a few times with various folks, and I can say with absolute certainty that getting beaten hurts less. Do you have any idea how long 13-year-old me, defeated and powerless, wept for you after you were slaughtered?

…But I'm not powerless now. I will help you, somehow. Even if I don't really know how just yet. But I'll find a way. Even if I have to spend the rest of my life trying it, I…

…I should maybe start by doing a better job tomorrow of making sure I'm hydrated and fed. I'm not going to get anywhere if my brain is running on fumes. I gotta learn from your fail. I gotta do a little better. Not just for you, but for the people around me, and for everyone I've failed in the past as a result of all the things I didn't yet know and couldn't yet do…

I love you. Please don't get yourself killed; you gotta read tomorrow's letter. Okay? Promise me.

Your friend, Lumine

[visityaratoday]

Places to Visit: Verdera: A One Horse Town.

Aerial view of downtown Verdera, Lozanía, Madrugada.

Verdera is a small one horse town located in the province of Lozanía in the rural region of Madrugada. There isn’t all that much to do up there but it was still worth getting a paycheck for the day so we went there and I am writing this article anyway. Verdera is from “verde,” meaning green. A well-suited name for a town nestled in a valley surrounded by lush green hills.

Main Attractions

Town square and Church In the middle of this tiny dot on the map of a town stands the Church of Verdera. We searched everywhere for the actual name of the Church, but even the locals simply refer to it as “la Iglesia de Verdera.” Like many small towns around the world, the town square is the main hub where many public events, live music performances, etc, take place.

La Iglesia de Verdera and town square.

Public performance schedule: Friday: Tres and Trumpet. Saturday: Mambo Night. Sunday: Church Choir.

You will often see Yarans set up pop up “garage sale” types of shops in the town square to try and sell items of very little value to tourists. But before you purchase someone’s broken kitchen appliance or a used toothbrush, why not donate a couple of pesos to these hard working men and women of Yara instead.

Don't buy someone's used toothbrush for the love of...

Back to Content Index

And if random basura is not your thing, there is also a farmer’s market nearby where you can buy fresh produce and various meats.

Farmer's market in Verdera.

Visiting the Church

You can, but remember to keep your visit brief and be respectful of parishioners. Additionally, the church is often patrolled by FND (Fuerzas Nacionales de Defensa) soldiers who may or may not approve of your presence there depending on your conduct. For more information on the FND, consult the “Things to Know Before Visiting Yara” section or ask a VisitYaraToday agent.

Inside the Iglesia de Verdera.

Where to Stay

We think this might be a bed and breakfast but you should think of Verdera as more of a day trip location.

Where to Eat

The best and probably only place to eat in Verdera is a cantina which offers your usual fast food items (pizza, hamburguesa, etc) but it also features an outdoor terrace where meats are grilled right in front of you and served with the best local cerveza.

Como dicen los estadounidenses: Awwhhh yiiehhh

Worth mentioning

There’s a Radio Verdad station in the town. You can’t really visit it but it is worth mentioning since it is the only officially recognized radio station of Yara.

Radio Libertad. I mean Radio Verdad!

The town is very rural

Cows and chickens wandering around, tractors on the main road, people slaughtering pigs, all part of everyday life in Verdera and what makes its charm.

Oh, there's the one horse.

Verderanos doing Verderano things.

Areas to Avoid

Campo de Béisbol

There is a baseball field. Do not go to the baseball field. It is.. closed for.. maintenance.

Campo de Béisbol closed for.. repairs. Indefinitely.

We hope that you enjoyed this virtual tour of Verdera and as always, for more information on activities, places, events, and all things Yara, come back and visit this page often and follow us on Tumblr!

Editor's Note:

Are we not going to talk about public executions that are regularly held in that town square? It’s no secret. They are filmed and broadcasted live on Yara’s public tv network. These events are usually announced a day or two in advance over the public service announcement system, so if you are squeamish, come back when it’s all over.

Back to Content Index

[wellthebardsdead]

Sylas: *a snow elf hiding out in an old nord barrow, been alive for only a few hundred years, icy blue skin, dark hair and blue eyes, could easily be mistaken for a Draugr at a distance despite his handsome face. Was born in the chantry of auriel before fleeing when the infected betrayed arrived and slaughtered what remained of his kin, now doing whatever he can to get by with no care for who he hurts in the process* … hm?… *glances up from his book hearing voices approaching the barrow* Ugh… again?… *sighs and quickly lays down in one of the crypt slots in the wall so his face is hidden listening closely*

Vigilant: Are you sure this is the right place? It looks like something very much alive has been dwelling here.

Vigilant 2: I’m sure it’s just the locals being paranoid but if there really is a Draugr that can summon blizzards lurking here, we need to be sure. *starts moving along the wall quietly inspecting the skeletons and the few Draugr that never woke back up* hm… they all seem pretty dead to me. *walks by sylas and stops before gently touching his very cold skin* they did a great job preserving this one. He must’ve been important.

Sylas: *gritting his teeth trying to slow his breathing* …

Vigilant: *opens the door leading into the barrow to see it completely caved in* well there’s no way anything could have emerged from further within it. And judging from the food and the bed roll, it’s probably just a hunter using this place as an outpost.

Vigilant 2: Mhm. But, we can’t risk it. If one of these guys do wake up after we’ve left well be putting the nearby villagers in danger.

Vigilant: I agree. I’ll start building a fire to burn the bodies, it’s your turn to handle them, after that last one leaked it’s fluids on me I don’t think I can stomach it again.

Vigilant 2: pffft it was just water from the leak above their resting place.

Vigilant: and it smelled disgusting. Hurry it up and move them. I’ll go gather some firewood.

Vigilant 2: *sighs and watches them go before looking back at sylas* I’m sorry my friend, forgive me for disturbing your rest- *lifts him up and freezes seeing the handsome snow elf’s face, blue eyes staring at into his soul* I-

Sylas: Haven’t you heard of knocking? *stabs him in the neck, landing on his feet as the vigilant drops him and stabbing him again in the gut*

Vigilant 2: *uses the last of his life to throw a fireball in the snow elf’s face temporarily blinding him* h-eglp! *bleeds out and drops dead on the cold stone ground*

Sylas: *screams holding his thankfully unharmed face as he staggers out of the barrow and towards the other Vigilant standing there with his weapon drawn*

Vigilant: *just sees a blue skinned figure staggering from the barrow and thinks he’s a draugr* SHIT- *grabs a flaming log throwing it at him*

Sylas: *can’t see, coughs as the log hits him square in the chest setting his shirt on fire* AGHH!!! *swiftly summons a torrent of ice to put it out only to get whacked hard over the head by the vigilants mace* Y-you’ll pay for that!!! *grabs hold of them and throws them down the hillside only to lose his footing and tumble after hitting the ground with a hard thud as he lands* Ugh-… *looks up to see how far he’d fallen, vision still blurry from the fire in his face* … *looks over to see the vigilant, laying dead from the fall* …Serves y-you bastards right… *huffs and gets to his feet* c-can’t get any p-peace- why can’t I just be l-left alone- *winces holding his side*

*SNAP!*

Sylas: *quickly turns around in time to see a flash of blue fur and an arrow flying towards him* Wha- *freezes feeling it go right through him* … *staggers back and collapses, unconscious* …

———

Sylas: *groans rubbing his eyes as the light hits them, sits up slowly realising he’s moving* hnuh?…

Ralof: hey. You, you’re finally awake.

[copyrightcreep]

You know the drill, all of the questions >:)

alright you evil critter. time to do the typing.

who is/are your comfort character(s)? Astarion and Karlach from bg3. space core from portal 2. Alex Danvers from supergirl. Luz and Vee from The Owl house.

lighter or matches? matches

do you leave the window open at night? sometimes. but usually, yes.

which cryptyd being do you believe in? werewolves and skinwalkers

what color are your eyes? mixture of green, blue/grey and brown

why did you do that?

hair-ties or scrunchies? hair ties

how many water bottles are in your room right now? 2. one i use for work and one for when i'm at home.

which do you prefer, hot coffee or cold coffee? hot coffee in the morning, ice coffee when relaxing

would you slaughter the rich? with much glee and different ways to do so yes.

favorite extracurricular activity? biking and people watching!

what kind of day is it? murder on the brain, pain in the limbs kinda day

when was the last time you ate? an actual meal? at 10 am. is 2 pm now.

do you love the smell of earth after it rains? yes.

are you a parent? (all answers qualify) of a bunny called Mochi. but not of human kids no.

can you drive? n o p e aha.

are you farsighted or nearsighted? near-sighted

what hair products do you use? shampoo, conditioner and a hair mask.

imagine we’re at a sleepover, would you paint my nails? if you asked. absolutely.

do you say soda or pop? f r i s d r a n k but soda in english

something you’ve kept since childhood? trauma. uh i mean. a stuffed animal i got since birth. his name is Mousey.

what type of person are you? i act very indifferent at 1st but i will flipping do anything if you get my trust. and i will share everything when safe.

how do you feel about chilly weather? love it. i can't feel cold all that well so i thrive in winter months.

if we were together on a rooftop, what would we be doing? i'd bring snacks and a nice fluffy blanket maybe a picknick. talk and eat until night and then stargaze all night

perfume/body spray or lotion? body spray

a scenario that you’ve replayed multiple times? a lotta stuff. but i'll go with my mom's death since it's most recently been on my mind.

about how many hours of sleep did you get? uh. like 6?

do you wear a mask? during covid, yes. regularly? not unless it's required for work.

how do you like your shower water? a lil shy of burning my skin off

is there dishes in your room? yepp. kinda always are

what type of music keeps you grounded? 2 types. emotional stuff i relate to. and vibey music.

do you have a favorite towel? yes, it's a white one with rainbow squares. i love it!!

the last adventure you’ve been on? probs when i was a kid running trough the forest with my siblings.

is there a song you know every word to by heart? oh boy do i. nearly every song from icon for hire, smash into pieces and a bunch from Florence + the machine

what’s your timezone? CE(S)T. the S is for Summertime

how many times have you changed your url? nada on this blog haha

someone in your life, other than a relative, you’ve known for 10+ years? no one i actively speak to. but @stephlastname comes the closest with like 7 years.

a soap bar that smells good? bars of soap elude me.

do you use lip balm? i should. but i don't

did you have any snacks today? had some chocolate snacks.

how do you take your coffee? 2 zoetjes or 1 packet of sugar and 2 milk.

an app you frequently use besides this godforsaken site? whatsapp and discord

what’s your take on spicy foods? occasionally very good. but my childhood makes it rough to enjoy them.

you get a free pass to kill anyone, who is it? Past: Hitler, Present: Putin, Personal: an old teacher who didn't 'believe' in adhd.

can you remember what happened yesterday? sorta, feels like walking trough mud to remember.

favorite holiday film? the 1st home alone

what was the last message you sent? dang right i want to!!

when did you first try an alcohol beverage? oh jeez. i tried wine when i was like 7 or 8. beer around the same time. somebody gave me a bunch of vodka when i was 17. i almost forgot the time where my mom let me drink a whole glass of bacardi cola when i was 9

can you skip rocks? NOPE. i flipping suck haha

can i tag you in random stuff? absolutely and please do!!

thanks for the askkkkkk

[anniekoh]

Silicon Valley, despite being a supposed hub of innovation, one separated from the garish demands of regular industries, has culturally grown to resemble an open-air private equity firm where companies are incubated like animals bred for slaughter.

While I’m not saying the Valley is entirely bereft of innovation, the modern tech ecosystem has become an alternative asset market built to enrich the very same people it once claimed to reject. Fred Wilson, the co-founder of Union Square Ventures, said in 2016 that startups that took corporate money were “doing business with the devil,” yet the only remaining difference between the current state of venture capital and private equity appears to be how willing they are to say the quiet part (“we need to make money off of this investment”) out loud. 

Silicon Valley’s key differentiator was that it was theoretically the place where venture capital took risks on interesting and innovative technology, yet the best-funded startups remain siloed in whatever industry venture capital believes will be “big,” even if they haven’t got any true path to profitability.

It may also be a result of the different incentives that bring people to the Bay Area and the tech industry in general. A decade ago, engineers made an average base salary of $92,648 versus $139,729 in 2023. The software industry has created 82 new billionaires since 2010, and the 2019 tech IPO rush created an estimated 5000 new millionaires across eight tech companies. In 2013, there were 39 unicorns (tech companies worth a billion dollars or more). According to CBInsights, there are now over a thousand of them. And because Andreessen and his fellow venture stooges forced so many lossy, unprofitable companies to go public, many of them are underwater (and they have been for some time), with the top 50 Tech IPOs since 2020 losing 59% of their market capitalization as of May 13 2023.

As a result, the Valley is left with the avaricious culture of the finance industry without any of the stability. Venture capital’s elite turned startups into alternative investments, fattened them up to sell, and, when the market dropped out in 2022 and 2023, shrugged their shoulders and blamed the workers. They, along with tech’s leaders, derided a culture of “entitlement” that they themselves created. Oh, workers want food at the office? They want a gym? They want a place to nap? Then why didn’t you fucking complain when companies started offering this shit back in 2015?

Because tech’s elite hates labor, and hoarding talent was a necessity to pump valuations. The tech industry — by which I mean the Valley’s powerful venture arm — spent a decade convincing software engineers that they were an elevated class, promising them the world and oftentimes delivering it without requiring them to build something that improved the world in any way. And the second the party ended — the moment that the economy stopped endlessly providing growth to every single company in the market, and when money stopped being free — tech was ready to eject tens of thousands of workers, and tech’s venture capitalists were ready to stop signing checks and start requiring “hard numbers” for the first time in years.

And the problem with an industry that is led and powered by venture capital is that it doesn’t build any real culture. “Startup culture” is a vague shibboleth that exists to justify labor abuse in exchange for a theoretical massive payday in the future, with the hollow premise that there is something more noble about writing code or “working at an early-stage company” than there is any other job. While there are people doing cool, weird or societally-beneficial shit, they are endlessly drowned out by a combination of founders trying to build “the next big thing,” with “big” referring to how much they can sell it for, and “thing” being “whatever is going to sell to someone.”

[themarchrabbit]

It's my favorite subject in the entire world, plants.

Spoiler alert: They're all vicious. The Venus Flytrap is just honest about it.

TL;DR It's time for Teatime With March! Today's episode is titled "Plants (Mostly) Would Prefer You Dead" As a reminder, all links are to academic journals, university resources, archives, etc.

This post gets a trigger warning. Not only will I be discussing animal slaughter with some detail and how it becomes the fertilizer you buy at Home Depot, I will be including links that explain the specifics more thoroughly, and they will have diagrams.

Okay, first off, what do plants needs to survive? You, a human, you need air, water, and food. Specifically, you need the vitamins, nutrients, etc. that your food contains.

Plants need vitamins and nutrients too. And a lot of them are conveniently all wrapped up in our bodies. A corpse in the forest is like getting delivery for the flora. Incidentally, also why it's so difficult to find people who go missing in national forests and other similar places. See, a corpse will not only be torn apart by scavengers and insects, those pieces will be very quickly broken down by the plant life. It is a very morbid and uncomfortable thing to explain to people, and why it's always phrased so vaguely. No one wants to be the asshole who says "realistically, they died of exposure the first night, and their corpse was ripped apart, scattered, and devoured, across a 20km square radius by scavengers, maggots, and corpse beetles, and whatever they left is fertilizer, so there's nothing to really find".

"Thanks, that's horrifying. But why?"

Plants have six essential nutrients. The main three are:

Nitrogen

Phosphorus

Potassium

The lesser three are:

Calcium

Magnesium

Sulfur

Phosphorus and calcium can be found in abundant amounts in our bones and teeth. Thus why bone meal is a fertilizer used for plants. In this term, the definition being used for "meal" is this one:

Meal: 1: the usually coarsely ground and unbolted seeds of a cereal grass or pulse especially: cornmeal 2: a product resembling seed meal especially in particle size or texture

Plants use calcium and phosphorus much the same way animals do, including us humans. We need phosphorus for cell growth, and calcium does like, a hundred things, including the production of hormones and helping cells move other nutrients around between them.

Now, how to make bone meal is pretty simple: you grind up bones. Basically into a sandy-texture, and then you mix it into the soil around plants.

Blood meal, on the other hand, is a little more complicated. Blood meal, like bone meal, is a commercial byproduct from the meat industry. Animals that are slaughtered for consumption don't usually have any wasted parts. Bones and teeth are used for making bone meal fertilizer, or sold for soup stock, the hides are sold to leather-making industries, and a lot of the leftovers are used to make gelatin. About the only thing not used is the spine and brains, at least in cows. Mad-cow disease is a real thing, humans can get a variant called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and it's fatal. Not like rabies, where it's 99.99% fatal (hi, Jeanna Giese!), 100% fatal. (Also you will not survive rabies. Ms. Giese is pretty much still a complete fluke. If there's a chance you've been exposed to rabies, get to the hospital now.) The blood is purified, dried, and ground up into meal, full of nutritious nitrogen, which plants desperately need to make chlorophyll.

"But the blood is still in the meat I get at the grocery store."

No, it's not. During slaughter, all blood is drained from the animal. This is done by cutting the main arteries and hanging the animal carcass. That red stuff on meat is myoglobin, not hemoglobin, which is from the muscle breaking down. The iron in it turns red when exposed to oxygen. It's why your muscles are red. But it's not blood.

The blood has been made into blood meal!

[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A small pile of sandy particles, colored a dark reddish-brown. Blood meal.]

But the blood is only made into this meal because the process allows for the blood to be stripped of any diseases, and this form makes it easy for transport, and for mixing into feed and using as fertilizer. Plants aren't actually all that picky. Plants feed through their root systems, and they are just as capable of sucking up all that wonderful nitrogen in raw blood form.

Actually, it wouldn't matter if they couldn't. Plants can influence the soil around them to do what they want it to do:

Some nutrients are present in the soil in a chemical form inaccessible to the plant. Root exudation contributes to make these elements more available to the roots. Mechanisms of soil acidification by the exudation of protons or phytosiderophores [9] promote the acquisition of iron in certain plants [10]. Root exudation is also a plastic process and depends on the environment in which the root develops. White lupin plants growing in phosphorus-poor soil, for example, produce short and dense root clusters called “proteoid roots” [11]. These roots secrete large amounts of acidic molecules capable of lowering the soil pH, making phosphorus ions more assimilable. In this plant species adapted to nutrient-poor soils, this plasticity of root activity is a major adaptation mechanism. In one experiment, it was shown that a lupin plant growing on phosphorus-poor soil can secrete up to 25 times more exudates than a plant growing on phosphorus-rich soil [12].

Want to know what chemical composition of the human body is?

The human body is approximately 99% comprised of just six elements: Oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, calcium, and phosphorus. Another five elements make up about 0.85% of the remaining mass: sulfur, potassium, sodium, chlorine, and magnesium. All of these 11 elements are essential elements.

It's like I said before, a corpse is pretty much a take-away order for plants. All corpses. As tasty as you find that strawberry, it finds you just as delicious.

"So what's up with Venus Flytraps?"

They're actually not bloodthirsty terrors.

[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: View of a Venus flytrap plant in a terracotta pot from above. Plant consists of multiple green semicircle shell-like structures, with long green "hairs" along the open edges of the shell.]

The Venus flytrap is a feisty, flesh-eating plant with toothed leaves like snapping-jaws that trap and devour insects and spiders.  They live in nutrient-poor soils so rely on their elaborate traps for food. When an insect lands and bumps into tiny trigger hairs on the inner surface of a Venus flytrap’s leaves, they snap shut and the interlocking teeth seal the trap shut. The leaves then close tighter, squashing the prey, which is then digested by enzymes into a nutritious soup. Venus flytraps are only found on the East Coast of the United States

Venus Flytraps are native to a patch of land on the east coast of North America where the soil is mostly nutrient-poor swamp. It's also highly-acidic. This same area also produced one of the pitcher plants, another carnivorous plant.

Openly carnivorous plants aren't actually all that uncommon. We know about 630 species so far. These are all plants that live in nutrient-poor areas, and had to find a way to get that sweet, sweet nitrogen and phosphorus.

Meet the Giant Montane Pitcher Plant, native to Borneo.

[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A large, reddish-purple plant. Modified leaves grow in the shape of a hollow pitcher/vase, with a modified leaf resembling the structure of a hinged lid. Inside of pitcher structure is yellow. Out of sight within the pitcher structure is a digestive liquid produced by the plant that dissolves prey.]

It can reach 41cm/16 inches in height. They're known to catch rats and birds.

As somebody who studied to be a botanist, let me tell you how deeply, deeply amusing it is to listen to people talk about the serene and peaceful nature of plants. Plants have spent their billions of years on this planet adapting, just like the rest of us. And while we, humans, are definitely a bigger threat to them, rest assured, they also want us dead. Mostly so they can eat us. And remember, most plants have a much shorter maturation period and can propagate by the hundreds or thousands in their lifetimes, unlike humans humans, meaning they adapt faster than us. And they are capable of adapting to maim and kill us. [After which they will eat us]

This has been Teatime With March!

i think it's fucked up that there are plants that decided they wanted to eat meat