#what do you mean they need to build a new island for conservation reasons

[mimikinyuu]

rubbing my head. i dont know how to feel about these aether foundation people

[this post has been deleted.]

[breithenua]

Speaking as a former fan of Bill Maher, I think what is most disappointing is how reluctant he is to grow as he ages, and in response to criticism he just doubles down instead of even *considering the possibility* that he's in the wrong.

Everything about his attitude and his seeming to go further right-wing as things go on just screams that this is a man so resistant to change that he'd rather petulantly alienate people that could otherwise be on his side than actually listen.

And it's a shame, because he actually has a sharp wit and some poignant points every once in a while, but it's just ruined by this spirit of meanness for anyone that tries to point out problematic language he uses or problematic ideas he's proposed.

Like as an example of that mean-spirited nature, remember when Stan Lee died and Bill proceeded to mock all the people that were mourning him because he thought all Stan did was write stupid comics? I have to wonder if he just completely missed the point of X-Men, being about not discriminating against people that are different from you. And furthermore, it showed a willingness to mock people that have done nothing to him while they're mourning one of their heroes. Even if his comic books were just for kids (which they certainly are not), does that just mean what he wrote and/or supervised has no value? Of course not. There's a reason that Disney is so popular even with adults. There's a reason that to this day Littlefoot's mom dying still makes tons of people cry.

And it's not like fiction for children (which again, Marvel is not just for kids) has nothing adults need to learn. Ferngully had a message about taking care about the environment, which I know Bill Maher cares about too.

The Secret of Nimh has a wonderful story about a mother risking her life on a journey to get treatment for her dangerously ill child, a good lesson on how much you should care about your children (if you have any).

The Lion King is a story about a boy becoming a man and taking on a responsibility he didn't want, for the good of people that he loves.

The Pagemaster is about the balance between reading, book smarts, preparation and caution, versus actually trying to live your life a little.

An American Tail is about a family immigrating to America to have a better life, and all the struggles that come with it, as well as a story about a child being separated from his family by circumstances and trying to find them again. It is rich in references to the time period of Ellis Island being used as a check-in station for immigrants, the building of The Statue Of Liberty and the ideals it represents, what life was like in those days, and the oppression and discrimination most immigrants faced at the time, regardless of their country of origin. God knows a few American Conservatives could've stood to learn from that movie about compassion for those from different lands *stares in Family Separations At The Border*.

But I got off topic there, I digress. This post was originally about Bill Maher and his reluctance to take in criticism or new ideas, especially sources he treats with derision. It's more than just fiction with him, obviously. More often than not lately, it's been his language regarding the trans community, and his reaction to being asked to use different terms or think about how he talks about us in general (I'm NB). He has the wits to be a great ally for us, he just doesn't do so. And it's disappointing.

[j-graysonlibrary]

The Xiang Chronicles: Book Three Chapter 19

Title: The Xiang Chronicles: Book Three

Author: Jay Grayson

Word Count: 107k

Genres: Fantasy, adventure, drama, LGBT+

Available on: my website

Synopsis: Only one Xiang remains and her name is Merra. She hopes to unite the land by force and plow down anyone in her way—especially the people of Agni who she deems faithless and the native people of Terra who refuse to cooperate with her.

Raine continues to serve his Lord but he has taken to alcoholism to soothe his grief—a fact he keeps out of his letters with Heidi. Baiya has returned to mercenary work in order to keep his family safe while Kira is on the warpath. He, fully, takes on the title of Chaaya and means to defeat the Xiang he sees as false.

And, in a guarded castle in Enlil, a stir-crazy Princess dabbles in the dark arts, setting in motion something even Tiandi cannot see.

Full chapter 19 under the cut

Chapter XIX:

Progress in the horse riding abilities of Pangu’s companions was coming along nicely. They had even purchased another horse at a farm along the way for May. She was awkward and often yelled so much she startled her mount but she got the hang of it after a few days. Sort of.

It was difficult for her to be too upset about looking ridiculous on her horse since she was far too excited about everything else.

New skills were bound to be difficult to master anyway, she told herself as she slowed to a trot behind everyone due to her horse’s attitude and blatant disrespect.

“Listen, Marybell, or whatever the fuck your name was,” she kept her voice low so the conversation was just between her and her mare. “You need to cooperate with me. You want a carrot? Some hay? I can get that to you if you just work with me.”

The horse shook her head and stopped entirely.

May huffed and leaned forward, against the animal’s back and neck. At least her scenery was lovely; she had never seen fields like this before. She had, honestly, only assumed places like this were in Terra. She had believed all of Enlil looked like the view from her window—rocky islands with mountains in the far distance.

Everything she had seen so far was incredibly contradictory to what she expected but in both good and bad ways. Roads were longer, more boring, but the towns had all been so diverse and exciting. The people did not always want to talk to her but she could find a few people in each spot who were more than willing to chat about themselves or the area.

It gave Fujin stress, she knew, but that was all the more reason to do it sometimes. Just to see her brow crease and her jaw clench.

May chuckled to herself just thinking about it.

All of this land was new to her guards as well but they did not act as surprised about it. Occasionally, she would catch Fujin admiring the landscape or Kaz looking curiously at a building with interesting architecture but neither of them was really saying anything. May felt like an over excited child having candy for the first time but she could not help it.

At least Pangu’s conservative approach made sense. He likely had seen some of these places before and was trying to remember.

Parvati and Cuad had said that Pangu was born and raised in Enlil. But, the country was larger than May thought so their initial plan of canvassing all of Enlil to try and find where Pangu came from was beginning to seem less viable.

She still would, if he wanted to. It was all new to her and she was not in a great hurry to run across the land just to say she had been in every country. Although she was sure Sunny was becoming impatient at the lack of journal updates.

May wrote down what she remembered at the end of each day in a leather bound book she bought in Mythos before they took off. It only had four pages worth of information now since most of their days were full of riding long distances or taking a ferry down a river or across a lake. It could be fun, in the moment, but it was hardly thrilling writing material.

The sound of hooves, trotting toward her, did not make her raise herself back up. “Having trouble?” Pangu’s voice sounded and she sighed.

“She hates me,” May announced and then sat up, finally.

“I think, maybe, she is tired.” He jumped off of his horse and then helped May down from hers. With a gentle pat on the side of the horse’s face, he took the reins and started to walk with her. “I am not sure we will make it to a town or village by nightfall. There should be a port nearby though…”

“Do you remember anything?” She hastened her pace to match his and his horse followed along them, not needing to be led.

Pangu stared forward for a long moment before shaking his head. “Still no…”

Sometimes, May forgot that he had been a corpse when she met him and she looked at him as a friend that she had just met, in a normal way, two months ago. She watched him intently and could see some level of struggle in his face. He was probably worried he would never get his memory back.

But, besides her wish for freedom in general, this trip was to help him. She had not told him that, not directly, but she was as invested in his past as he was. The mystery was too enticing not to be.

“Have you thought about the possibility of meeting your old disciples?” She asked as they caught up with Fujin and Kaz who had also taken to walking with their horses.

Pangu became solemn.

Had he thought about it?

He bit down on his tongue and glanced to the ground. All of the riding and walking they had been doing had given him a lot of time to think. Probably too much, if he was honest.

Of course he had considered what might happen if he came across an old disciple. If he did not recognize even them he was not sure his memory had any hope of recovering. Yet, he did not know what kind of people they were as neither Sha-parvati nor Cuad would tell him anything about them.

He had a feeling, just as he had feelings about lots of things, but he did not know.

His heart ached when he thought about them but there was no telling whether it was an ache of longing to see them again or a warning about some danger they held.

He and Kaz discussed it the few times they were given privacy but those conversations were always short lived and whispered. His partner was supportive though he voiced hesitation when it came to the idea of blindly trusting anyone from Pangu’s past.

Sha-parvati and Cuad had worked out well but he doubted that would be the case with everyone.

That was understandable, Pangu knew, but he hoped that, when faced with someone from his past, he would be able to magically tell, one way or the other, where they fell. He wanted to believe his instincts would help him and, if he found himself confused or on the fence, he trusted his friends’ opinions.

Though, knowing them, they would all lean to the negative side on principle.

“If I see them, I may not recognize them,” Pangu said, finally.

“Well, yeah, but I bet they will recognize you,” May pointed out.

“His old disciples?” Kaz guessed and they both nodded.

“They are just four people in this big, open world,” Fujin replied, “I find it unlikely we will run across them easily.”

“Be a little more optimistic, yeah?” May complained but then yawned. “Damn, I am tired.”

“It is almost sundown,” Kaz pointed out the obvious.

Pangu sighed. “We should find a spot to camp.”

His mind was crowded with both emotion and nagging thoughts but he led everyone to the side of the road, until they were well hidden, and started to set everything up. The actions were like bathing or riding a horse—things he felt incredibly used to doing and did not have to think about.

The princess and her guards had mentioned it during their first night under the stars, commenting how Pangu must have spent a lot of time out on the open road before his death. And that felt right. Sleeping on the ground, under starlight, was quite comfortable.

Inns were better though and he kept that in mind in the morning as they headed toward the port town. If his map was correct, it would be the largest town, outside of Mythos, they had been to. So, of course, May took off in delight the second they stabled their horses.

She ran into the market district, ready to start conversations and try one of everything (assuming Fujin could not catch up and stop her in time).

“Princess!” she shouted and ran after her but, of course, that led to a lot of strange looks. Fujin cleared her throat. “Um…that is our nickname for her,” she awkwardly explained to a large fisherman who raised an eyebrow at her.

Pangu shook his head. The two siblings were already in their elite guard uniform—no one would believe there was not something strange going on with their group.

He kept his distance but still watched them alongside Kaz. It was becoming their routine, in a way, and the realization made Pangu chuckle to himself.

May found a merchant who was as chatty as she was and Pangu could tell, though he could not hear, that she was probably probing for the man’s entire life story. Even the mundane details were, somehow, fascinating to her. Just hearing another person’s life experience was like having the experience herself and it was quite endearing in a way. The past week had seen May quieter and calmer than at the palace and Pangu started to wonder how she might have turned out if she had been given a more rounded upbringing.

She was still too curious for her own good and had sharp mood swings but she was easier to relax, more understanding, and less stubborn now. Although to complete strangers she remained, often times, overwhelming.

Kaz stiffened suddenly and turned his body closer to Pangu, almost protectively. Before he could ask what was going on, he said, “Someone is walking this way—looking at you.”

Pangu searched the immediate area, fairly crowded with people, for the pursuer. It was not until they were on the other side of the street, past the merchants, that he noticed them.

A woman with a very large man trailing behind her. Their pace quickened once they were closer and Pangu braced himself while Kaz put his arm out in front of him. Fujin must have noticed as well because she and May were hurrying behind the strangers.

Pangu’s heart sped up and he could hear his blood pumping in his ears so loud that he almost missed the woman saying his name.

“…Pangu..?”

She was around Fujin’s height and had the same skin tone as Pangu. Her hair color, as well, was the same as his but her eyes differed—purple instead of green.

Tears welled in her eyes as she stopped in front of him. “It…is it you…?”

“He looks just like him, Urishka,” her male companion commented, sounding less convinced that their Pangu and him were the same person. He was at least a head taller than Kaz and much wider with tan skin, dark eyes, and pale hair that really shone bright against his complexion. He kept some distance, especially when Fujin and May joined them, creating something of a blockade in front of Pangu.

“How do you know our friend?” May asked, crossing her arms.

The woman raised her hand, just to the level of her chest and reached out slowly. She seemed to be concentrating but, suddenly, she gasped. “His energy is the same…it is him…it’s you…”

When she charged forward, Fujin and Kaz pushed her back. “How do you know him?” Fujin repeated May’s question.

“Do not keep me from my brother!” she shouted and the guards and May were all blown to the side. Her hands clamped onto Pangu’s shoulders and she drew him into a hug but he could not bring himself to hug her back.

He was too shocked and then he was miserable.

If this woman was correct—if she was his sister as she both claimed to be and genuinely looked the part of—then he could not recall her. His eyes became hot and he gently parted from her. “I…I am sorry but…I do not remember anything.”

Her face dropped and tears slipped down her cheeks. “Pangu…you don’t know me?”

He shook his head.

She took a sharp breath but it broke into a sob. “Okay,” she told herself more than him, “Okay…it is fine. You are okay and that is all that matters.”

“And you used air to push us,” Fujin said as she helped May off of the ground. Kaz stood up on his own. “You were one of his disciples then?”

“Yes…” She wiped under her eyes. “Who are all of you? Did you find my brother? When? I…we buried him…we all thought he was dead.”

“He was,” May answered easily and the woman’s jaw dropped. “I might have done something and now he is back.”

“Who are all of you?” The man behind Pangu’s sister asked.

“People.” May grinned.

Pangu sighed. “They are my friends. They want to help me get my memories back.”

It was an oversimplification, certainly, but he was not sure what information was safe to share, even if the woman was apparently his sister and a disciple. He did not feel threatened by her but Sha-parvati had warned him against saying too much, especially in such a public setting.

“I…I cannot thank you enough,” his sister glanced between all of them and said, “I would like to bring you all back to our home. We can talk more there.”

Pangu wondered if she could read his mind with that suggestion. “Was this my old home as well?” he asked.

“In a way, yes.” She smiled.

Kaz grabbed Pangu’s arm. “Are you sure about this?” He did not look away from the perceived threats but his voice was soft.

“What better way to find out more about Pangu?” May answered in his stead.

Fujin, also, seemed wary. She checked in with the Xiang as well. “Sure?”

He nodded. Even if he did not remember his sister, he still had hope that being around their childhood home and seeing familiar scenery along with familiar faces would finally force something to click. Besides, he did get the feeling that he truly loved her—where there were blanks, he found care and some sort of connection.

For now, that was good enough.

[arse-crack-thistle]

a firstprince meet-cute

the heroes of olympus au

in which the roman son of apollo meets the greek son of themis

Henry—the quiet son of Apollo and Centurion of the 3rd cohort—leads a team of five demigods through the Long Island woods. Their task: spy on the Greeks and bring information back to Octavian. The golden-haired boy wishes he could’ve refused, but anyone who goes against the Pontifex Maximus gets severely punished and he will not let any harm come to his legionaries. Not again.

The group weaves through the trees, dodging the sight of any patrols. Henry has no idea how he’ll get close enough to hear anything, but he might be able to interpret some battle strategy from the Greek’s night preparations. As his fellow soldiers fan out beside him, Henry inches up the hill. He’d say a prayer to his father if he thought it would help, but he doesn’t. After many unanswered prayers about his sexuality, about his rather fucked up influential family, he doesn’t bother with Apollo anymore.

Henry gestures for his right-hand man—Pez, son of Mercury and the only one who actually knows he’s gay—to peer over the hill with him; the others stay back, keeping watch. The Centurion readies an arrow just in case, while Pez has his hand on the hilt of his blade, and they watch Greek demigods reinforce their buildings, sharpen their weapons, and prepare medical tents. None of them are practicing formations, which doesn’t help Henry or Octavian at all. He has to come back with something, so he puts the arrow away and crawls forward.

This could be really stupid, but he has to try—not for Octavian but for New Rome. It’s the only place that’s felt like home to him. Back in England, there’s his grandmother, the CEO of an underwhelming home goods empire. The stuff is cheap, but they’re still the number one seller back home. His mother and brother have a part in it. His sister ran off a few years back, and he has no idea where she is or if she’s even alive. His father—or rather ex-step-father—hasn’t wanted much to do with him since about three years ago when he found out Henry’s mother had an affair at a music festival fourteen years before.

They had a scandalous divorce, covered by every major news outlet, and Henry found out his true identity when a handsome demigod knocked on his door and told him he was in danger and had to be take to California. Several monsters, a few thousand miles, and a few months with a wolf goddess later, he found himself at Camp Jupiter. Everything that happened to him up until then—the blurry images of creatures at the corner of his eyes every time he turned a corner, the dyslexia that made his passion for writing frustrating, the way he never really fit in with his family—finally made sense. He was a demigod! And when the sign of Apollo appeared over his head after he made his first bullseye at the archery range, he truly felt like he found where he belonged.

Pez whispers for him to come back, but Henry lifts a hand in warning. Just then, someone—a dryad probably—screams an alert to his enemy, and all Underworld breaks loose. His legionaries get in formation behind him, readying themselves for the Greeks. They were taught never to run from a fight, but Henry can’t allow this to happen. He’s been in enough battles to know when he can win and when he can’t. Eventually, they’ll be outnumbered because Octavian won’t send him reinforcements if he can help it. He doesn’t know how violent the Greeks will be, but if they willingly fired on New Rome when their defenses were down, then he can’t take the risk. And he won’t repeat what happened in the Titan war.

Henry orders his soldiers back, telling Pez to take temporary control of the cohort and share the minimal information they gathered with the Pontifex. If they’re to be any casualties tonight, it will only be Henry and the Greeks he can take down with him.

•••

The last thing Alex—the wise-ass son of Themis—wants to do in the middle of the night is go to a counsel meeting at the Big House. He wipes the sleep from his eyes as he walks up the creaky steps. Inside, Chiron and the other counsellors gather around a table. It’s times like this he wishes it was a year ago when the children of minor gods were left out of meetings and decision-making. But as soon as he slaps himself awake, he regains his undying need to get involved and raise hell—fair and just hell, of course.

He sits down next to Nora, the temporary head counsellor of the Athena cabin. She’s bouncing in her seat—no doubt high on caffeine and nectar and ready to get back to developing war strategy. She gives him a wink and taps her fingers like she’s back home typing on a computer. Chiron clears his throat and tells the demigods of a Roman scout team that was spotted an hour ago. Unfortunately, most of the soldiers got away, but they did manage to capture one. He’s being held in one of the Big House’s guest rooms.

Now it’s Alex’s turn to bounce. He’s been waiting for an opportunity like this. A prisoner of war means they’ll need to get information. There will need to be a lawyer present—or a lawyer in training that is. He can preside over the questioning, be the voice of justice, and maybe even get the Roman to see the right side is his. He can picture it now: Camp Half-Blood safe from the Romans and that dude reformed in his ways, joining them to stop Gaia. Yes, this is his chance to step out of his sister’s shadow.

He volunteers to mediate for whoever is charged with the interview. Alex ignores Chiron’s obvious hesitation; just because he can get a little heated—thank gods Leo isn’t here cracking a dumb pun joke at that, which would inevitably leave them both laughing on the floor—doesn’t mean he can’t be objective. So he hates the Romans’ guts and thinks they should go back to their stuck-up little camp, so what? Once he’s in the real world, going to college, running for congress like his father, he’ll have to deal with a shit-ton of people he doesn’t like. Looking at you, Bitch McConnell.

Just as Chiron decides he, Nora, Will Solace, and reluctantly Alex will talk to the Roman boy, a camper from the Aphrodite cabin bursts through the door and tells him one of the Hephaestus girls accidentally blew up a boy from the Ares cabin. Apparently, armor strapped with projectile explosives wasn’t the best idea. So Chiron declares they will talk to their guest in the morning, and in the meantime, they’ll take shifts in pairs guarding him. Alex raises his hand to get the first watch, but Chiron appoints Drew Tanaka and Connor Stoll. They both roll their eyes at the idea of being stuck together for the next few hours. Alex’s chest deflates.

Ever since his sister left—he and June are some of the rare demigods that have the same mortal and immortal parentage without being twins—the responsibility of the Themis cabin has fallen on his shoulders. He wanted it, of course, but his siblings also elected him to the head counsellor position, thinking he’d follow in June’s footsteps: ruling with truth, justice, and wisdom. Just like their mother.

Back in his cabin, Alex stares at the marble statue of her that presides over her children. Her iconic image—blindfolded, holding a sword in one hand and balancing a scale in the other—reminds him he’s definitely no June.

She was a leader of quests; Alex has never been on one. June was the voice of reason at counsel meetings; he struggles just to sit still, let alone calm a room with one enlightening sentence. When the children of minor gods were finally given their own cabins, there was no question who should run theirs. Now, he hears his siblings whisper whether they should hold another election. Gods, you call out your conservative brothers one time—it was way more than once—and suddenly, you’re imposing your opinion on everyone.

That’s not it though. Alex has never been given a chance to step up. No matter how many times he tries to convince the counsel they should establish a court system at camp—nothing settles an argument like a nice, fair trial—he always gets shot down.

Not anymore. He’s not going to sit back this time. Not when the threat to camp is this great. He’ll get what he needs from that Roman. If June were here, she would’ve been trusted to go ahead without Chiron, so Alex will do the same.

•••

Henry wakes up to angry whispers outside of his door. The twelve Greeks overtook him easily, but he did put up a good fight. At least, he did until he was knocked unconscious. On the table beside his bed, a note sits atop a plate of food.

Eat well. Hydrate. Rest. We’ll speak with you soon. -Chiron

A glass of juice spiked with nectar sits next to the plate. Why would those imbecilic Greeks give him what’s essentially strengthening serum? He intakes his surroundings: a bed, a table, a dresser, and a chair. Window to the left. Only door out to the right. There’s a clean set of clothes at the end of the bed, but Henry would rather go to Tartarus and back than put on another camp’s shirt.

He jimmies the window, but it’s locked and to hard to break. He lightly tries the doorknob, but it’s locked as well. By the sounds of it, three maybe four people argue outside his door. Romans never had this much trouble changing guard shifts. Henry fiddles about the room, looking for anything to 1. unlock the door and 2. use as a weapon. He can handle four Greeks, and he’ll do everything in his power to get back to his cohort.

Henry hears the click of the door unlocking. Gods, they’re thick, aren’t they? He grabs the wooden chair, and as the door swings open, he thwacks the person walking in with it. Just as he suspected, the chair breaks, and he uses one piece to press against the throat of the careless demigod he’s pinned to the floor.

The boy beneath him groans. He’s got light brown skin and dark curly hair, and if Henry weren’t about to kill him, he’d think he was quite cute.

“Gods, can you Greeks do anything with finesse? Even your hero, Percy Jackson, as talented as he may be, flies by the seed of his trousers.” Henry grits his teeth.

“Ha!” the boy coughs out. “Jumping to conclusions, are we? I thought you guys were supposed to be strictly trained soldiers. You miscalculated.”

He points behind him, and when Henry looks up, a girl stands battle-ready with a sword in her hand. The distraction is enough for the boy below to wrap his legs around Henry and flip them. The Greek holds a dagger to his neck.

“Listen here, pretty boy, are we going to talk or am I going to go all American Revolution on your British-ass?” He presses the dagger, and Henry yelps.

The boy’s brown eyes peer into Henry’s, and some strange part of him likes it. The Greek looks about his age and, while clearly not as capable as he, definitely has some fight in him.

“I’d like to see you try, graecus. But be forewarned, if you send me to the Underworld, I’ll drag you and your camp down with me.” He keeps his face plain and uncaring, though he can feel the heat in his cheeks. Apollo help him.

The girl interrupts them to remind her partner what they’re here to do. She sheaths her sword and closes the door.

He’s called Alex. Henry swallows. And they need information.

Alex releases him. The two get up off the ground. No one moves to sit or get more comfortable. The boys just stare at each other, long and cold.

Henry can tell this guy is a complete and total arse, and yet he can’t shake the swirling feeling in his stomach. A memory from a quest eighteen months ago flashes in his mind. In Vegas, a priest of Venus dressed like Elvis told him great tragedy would befall his love life, but with the goddess’s blessing, he’d find happiness again.

He already lost someone. The demigod who found him, Daniel, son of Ceres, his sponsor when he joined the camp, his Centurion. Everything was quiet between them—few words needed for mutual understanding. Daniel brought him fresh lavender; Henry played him a tune on the lute. But then the Titan war came. And Daniel disobeyed the Praetors’ orders to save the boy he loved. Henry barely had time to grieve before he took control of the 3rd cohort and lost four other demigods in the process. Not a day goes by when he doesn’t think of the five who died because of him. Because of love.

No. This feeling he has is the desire to beat the Greeks, nothing more. He doesn’t give a damn about happiness in love or this obnoxiously hot demigod before him. Like even as Alex breaks eye contact first, puts his sheathed dagger in his boot, ruffles his hair, puts his hands on his hips, and sighs, Henry feels nothing. Elvis can go fuck himself.

“So,” Alex says, “what do you have planned, and how can we convince you to stop? We’d really like to prevent another demigod civil war.”

Henry laughs, and even though nothing would make him happier than to stop fighting, to rest as Chiron suggested, he tells Alex, “You’re really a dickhead if you think I’m giving you anything.”

•••

“It was an accident!”

“You expect me to believe with our two camps in a centuries-long feud that the one time we let down our defenses, your lot just attacked us on accident? Right, and I suppose Pluto is actually a sweet guy once you get to know him, too?”

“My buddy Leo was being controlled by Gaia!”

“Your mate Leo should come up with a better lie.”

“You’re impossible!” Gods, Alex really hates this guy. “Nora, can’t we just—”

She shakes her head before he can finish. He’s not really sure what he was going to say. Have Drew come back and charmspeak him? Feed him to the harpies? Pin him down again? Wait—what?

“Listen, dude. We’re really on the same side here. Right now, both Greeks and Romans demigods—our friends—are fighting against a greater threat than the world has seen since the beginning of time. That’s got to count for something,” he says.

The Roman is quiet. Alex hates how he looks like a goddamn prince even after a fight. But maybe he got through to him. After all, it is true. For all the shit he talks about Romans, he knows they’re not bad, just different. They actually have more in common than they’d like to acknowledge. Jason Grace taught him that. If there was ever a Roman WASP he could get behind, it’s Jason.

So Alex tries a different approach. He gestures to the bed. “You want to?” The blond boy stiffens, and Alex clarifies, “Sit?”

“How about we start over?” He sits. Nora takes the opportunity to march to the other side and bellyflops onto the bed. “I’m Alex, son of Themis, the goddess of justice. And you are?”

He watches the Roman look from the undefended door to Alex and back again.

“You could run,” Alex says. “But then we’d have no chance to broker peace. Hera thought she could do it by trading heroes, but I think you and I both know it takes more than one person to heal two armies.”

Power swells in his chest. Alex can’t know for sure, but maybe his mother is looking out for him. This is how he can bring the demigods justice for Gaia’s destruction. June would be the better choice, but Alex is here and he has to try.

“Let’s work together. Or at least, get along long enough for the prophesized seven to come back home,” he says.

The Roman hesitates. Alex can see in his light blue eyes the number of strategies racing through his mind. But ultimately, he decides to sit. Nora snores next to them. Five a.m. and a caffeine/nectar crash will do that to you.

“So your name?” Alex asks. “It’s only fair.” Dumb pun but he winks.

The boy coughs, but then he looks into Alex’s eyes. “I’m—er—Henry, son of Apollo, Centurion of the 3rd cohort.”

so this is a little late but we’re just going to ignore that...

i just finished reading toa a couple of weeks ago, and i can’t stop thinking about it!! so when i saw the meet-cute prompt, i couldn’t resist a percy jackson-ish fic! i hope you enjoyed this little short piece. <3

rwrb romance week | @rwrb-fests

[purplesurveys]

1277

Who are you most nervous about introducing potential significant others to?  Ooooh moving forward, probably Angela hahahaha I have no idea how I’d break it to her if ever I do start seeing somebody again. She’s well aware of all the shit that I let slide so she might get intense with the scrutineering.

What is the most exciting thing about your life right now?  Just the fact that I feel on top of the world these days. My days of being depressed and picking at my insecurities seem to be far behind me and the change has looked to be apparent coming from friends who’ve told me I seem happier, louder these days.

What was the most important non-academic thing you learned in high school?  To not be scared to fight harder for the things you believe in or what make up your identity, coming from having to hide a same-sex relationship during that period. That feeling of being constricted and having to hide to stay on some conservative seniors’ good graces really pissed me off so high school was really crucial in letting me discover just how much I’d be willing to fight and test the waters to be able to live as me.

Have you ever had a job that deeply affected your personal life? How so and do you still work there?  Hmm no, not really. If anything my job is one of the things that helped make me a lot livelier and happier.

Do you have a “one who got away”?  It felt that way at the start when my view was still skewed, but it didn’t take long until I realized she was not a loss at all.

If you were in a superhero movie, would you be the hero or the villain? Hero.

If you found a mouse in your house, would you be frightened?  Mice or rats are the literal worst fucking thing I could see in my house. I definitely see myself making a big deal out of it lmao, especially rats.

Have you ever tried to perform magic tricks?  Nobody ever taught me, so no.

Can you do more with a yo-yo than just "go up and down"? Nah, which kinda makes me feel ashamed because considering it was a Filipino who invented the modern yo-yo, I feel like it should be my responsibility to know a few tricks LOL.

What is one form of technology that you wouldn't be able to live without?  Instant messenger.

Did you get an allowance, growing up? Why or why not?  Starting high school. Before that I was living in our family’s duplex, so my grandma could make packed meals for all of us – not to mention the fact that my parents were also still on their way to establishing themselves at their respective workplaces so we weren’t all that well-off yet. 

When we moved into our own place, we started with my mom making our meals but eventually it just proved to be time-consuming and a lot of work considering she also had a job to go to. With that and the fact that both my parents at that point already got a couple of promotions, we switched to allowance.

Would you rather go to a water park or an amusement park? Why?  Amusement parks though I would only probably head to the safer rides and food stalls with all the deep-fried offerings haha. I cannot handle more intense rides. On the other hand, water parks have always sounded nasty to me.

What is one instrument you wouldn't mind learning how to play?  Piano.

What's the longest amount of time you've had to wait in line for something?  The stupid LTO, because you can never count on government agencies to be efficient. Technically my whole time in there took a couple of stages, but all in all I spent eight hours there.

What is something that you would like to learn more about?  Korean. I just graduated from my Basic Korean 1 class but I already have plans to enroll in the following course, since I seemed to do well and I want to keep the momentum going.

What is something that one of your family member collects?  Mom has a large collection of chef-themed figurines and other sorts of trinkets like a chef timer, shot glasses, etc - but mostly the figurines - that she has displayed in a glass case. I should keep that in mind for when I start Christmas shopping, actually...she hasn’t updated that collection in a long time. Thanks for the idea!

Have you ever moved to a new school before? If so, how did it feel?  No, not in the middle of the same period since I went to the same school from kinder to high school for 14 years. I only “moved” when I started college. Like I’ve said in previous surveys, it felt freeing to finally not under be the hands of an environment ran by...well, Catholics. It was a culture shock to see rallies everywhere, to find out I could wear short shorts or even go to school naked if I wanted to, and to see boys in my class (I went to an all-girls), but it was all the good kind of shock.

Have you ever legitimately forgotten to do homework?  Always, because I never wrote them down.

Do you enjoy autumn leaves or spring flowers more? Why?  I experience neither season.

Depending on where you live, why might a day of school get canceled? Typhoon.

If you could meet any fictional character from a book, who would it be? Melanie Hamilton from Gone with the World.

What are some common places that people tour when they come to your city?  I rarely see foreigners here since my area isn’t particularly known for tourism; most go to the island provinces like Cebu, Aklan, Palawan, etc. If I had to recommend spots here, I’d tell them to go for Pinto and maybe the rooftop bars that offer a view of Manila’s skyline. 

What's one food that you did not enjoy as a child, but do as an adult?  Chicken curry, which I used to dread.

Would you rather have a mermaid tail, a fairy's wings or a unicorn's horn? I guess the wings just because I feel like it’s the only practical one.

What is an animal that you'd like to have as a pet but it's not allowed?  I don’t think that way about animals I can’t keep as pets anyway.

What are some things that you do to make the world a better place?  I always clean up at restaurants (my mom doesn’t understand why I do it because “the servers are here for a reason, Robyn”) but I always see the relief on their faces when they see I’ve stacked up the plates and cups so I don’t see a reason to stop doing it. I keep the door open for people who happen to enter/exit a building the same time as me, share dog adoption posts, don’t make a fuss about or towards a shop staff who messes up...things like that. I hope it’s able to help, even if just in a small way.

Has the last person you had sex with ever had sex with someone besides you?  I don’t know. I wouldn’t be surprised if she has already.

What’s your favorite store at your mall?  We have several malls within the vicinity but I like frequenting NCAT.

Have you ever done a workout DVD?  No but my mom is fond of those.

Who usually takes out the trash in your family?  Either of my parents.

What song are you currently obsessed with?  My Universe is soooooo good. It’s Coldplay’s classic sound but they somehow managed to perfectly blend in BTS’ style as well, so I love how it turned out.

When you go fishing, do you make someone else get the fish off the hook?  I've never gone fishing.

Do you take any prescription meds?  Nope.

What happens if you don’t take them?  Who was the last person you dreamt about?  My dad.

Do you prefer your tea sweetened or unsweetened?  Sweetened, though I don’t usually actively look for iced tea. I’d have it if it was served, but I don’t typically order it for myself.

How often do you honk your horn?  As long as I am annoyed, which gives my mom a mini heart attack every time because she insists I just let people have their way to avoid getting into fights. Sometimes when she’s driving and someone’s being stupid on the road I lurch forward to do the honking for her and it pisses her off soooooooooo much but it also gets the job done so *shrug*

Do you have any children? If so, names and ages? I don’t.

Have your parents ever witnessed you doing something inappropriate? What?  TMI but I almost got caught doing the m-word once but my reflexes were at lightning speed that day so when my door opened I was able to fix myself up and appear as though nothing was happening lol. My mom also saw a hickey on me once but I was able to veer the conversation away when she started inquiring.

Did you get babysat a lot as a kid?  No, I did the babysitting.

If you were the principal of a school, what would you do differently? Actually deal with teachers who mistreat or make issues towards their students. I had several teachers I know didn’t like me but I could never do anything about it because there was no way in hell the school was going to take my side.

Are you doing anything fun tomorrow?  Continued from yesterday. If I took this question yesterday to refer to today I would’ve answered yes because we actually have a really fun PR stunt scheduled for execution today, wherein we get to sponsor someone’s whole wedding from food to flowers to the host and fillm crew :D :D But tomorrow is just Monday so the real answer to this is no.

What is something you'd like to receive as a housewarming gift?  I dunno the usual housewarming gifts, but I would appreciate anything practical, or anything that you’ll need at the least expected times, like batteries or even like Sticky Tack.

How old were you when you first experienced the effects of puberty?  Oooh I was an early bird – I was 9 when I could first tell my first period was on its way; it came a month after I turned 10.

What is your least favorite holiday, and why?  I don’t dislike any holiday because they all mean a day off work lol.

What were some outdoor games you played as a child?  We usually played piko (hopscotch), our local version of freeze tag that we dubbed “Ice ice water” for whatever reason, and a garter game that we call 10-20. Dodgeball was a favorite during recess and lunch, too.

Did you accompany your parents on "Take Your Child to Work" Day? That’s not observed here, but my mom did use to take me and my siblings to her first workplace. Are cemeteries peaceful to you, or do they freak you out?  They’re actually more interesting to me than anything else. I like learning about the different lives of many different people, even if I only technically know them by their birthday and date of death. Sometimes the inscriptions would be more detailed and tell more about their life, sometimes I’d come across babies who only lived a few days...and it’s just interesting to have those glimpses into life.

Which ancient civilization would you be interested in learning more about?  Filipino, because Western colonization destroyed proof of most of it. 

Do you have better long-term memory or short-term memory?  Long.

What was the last situation that made you cry? Describe.  I cried this morning. Nothing bad or heavy, I just found myself thinking again about my mental state last year.

Which forest animal would you be most afraid to encounter?  Anything that wouldn’t hesitate to tear my limbs apart.

Do you believe in anything supernatural? (ie: spirits, etc)  No.

Has anyone close to you ever gone to war?  No. The closest link I have to the military, other than my dead great-grandfather, is Angela’s uncle who’s like a general or like a colonel or something, idk titles.

Have you ever experienced altitude sickness?  Yeah, occasionally. Pressure in the ear is a bigger nuisance to me, though.

Is there anything, any event, you wish you could remember more clearly?  The last time I saw my grandfather. My only clear memory of him that day was stepping out of the house to leave (my mom and I were visiting) and him sending me off with the message to always be kind and good. If I had known I would never see him again, I never would’ve left.

Have you ever rubbed anyone’s feet?  Hmm no, not that I can recall.

If you had to get advice from someone of the opposite sex, who would you go to?  I’d go to Hans for certain advice, but not for every single situation. He’s the only person that comes to mind.

What was the last new food/drink that you tried?  So last Wednesday I finally got to try this Instagram-based doughnut shop that I’ve been eyeing since August and it turned out to be even MUCH BETTER THAN EXPECTEDDDDDD. Like yeah their photos were always mouthwatering but I didn’t expect it to taste as good as it looks, since most pretty food I’ve encountered usually end up just tasting meh. Anywho, I got two orders of their sampler box and they served me their specialty bacon doughnut, signature brown butter, and a bunch of their chocolate and peanut butter variants and I loved every single fucking thing.

Have you had a good day today or was yesterday better?  Oh it’s hard to tell, it’s only 9:05 AM. Both days might be uneventful, though.

Have you ever played Sudoku?  I don’t actually get how to play it hahaha. I feel like I’m too stupid for sudoku.

Do you ever take surveys for money?  I tried it last year when applying for jobs was still a bitch for me, but the thing is most of those surveys look for employed participants so there was rarely ever a survey that fit me anyway.

Do you like Barbie or Bratz better?  Bratz.

Do you prefer purple or green grapes?  I don’t like grapes.

Who was the last person that made you laugh?  Idk, probs one of the boys since I was watching videos of them earlier today.

Where does your best friend live?  A nearby city.

Who did you last confide in?  Angela.

Does your car have an alarm?  Sure.

Where was your mom born?  Somewhere in Metro Manila.

What can always make you feel better no matter what?  My dogs.

What is something you’ll never eat again? Why?  I don’t think there is anything. I feel like I’m always bound to retry things and that I would be open to doing so, even fruits. One thing I’m firm about never drinking again, though, is coconut water. Get that SHIT away from me.

What is currently happening that is scaring you?  I’m not feeling scared these days.

Have you ever found a stranger’s note somewhere? If so, what did it say?  Probably. But nothing sticks out.

[sincerelyreidburke]

please tell me more about boy scout dex

My friend, let me firstly apologize because I know I did sit on your ask for a little while. I think it’s been a month (?) since I posted that original random text-post about Boy Scout Dex, but as I mentioned in this brief PSA, I haven���t forgotten about him. I come to you today with a bullet-list!

As an FYI, I am definitely going to write actual prose fic about this in the future, so stay tuned. For now: let’s talk about Dex’s Boy Scout backstory.

- The first thing we should establish is that this is in the CCU. If you don’t know what the CCU is, it’s just my understanding of the canon universe. CCU stands for Cromwell Cinematic Universe, named for a stuffed lobster Dex has named Cromwell. Given that canon has never directly contradicted the idea of Dex having a stuffed lobster, I elect that this is the closest I’ll come to being canon-compliant. Prove me wrong. :D

- Anyway, the CCU is a series on ao3; you can read it here. Boy Scout Dex is simply another part of Dex’s colorful history.

- It’s really not that colorful, actually. I mean, he’s Dex. He comes to college afraid of baking.

- Anyway. Let’s talk, shall we? (This is going to get long, so under the cut we go.)

- In the CCU, Dex lives in Bar Harbor, which is one of Maine’s more famous towns, tucked into the east side of Mount Desert Island, which is just off the coast, and is the largest island in Maine. This is not a geography lesson, but since we’re here, here’s a visual. The little marked location is MDI, and then Samwell would be in the center-left bottom of the map.

- Anyways, with that digression aside, I’m bringing up Dex’s hometown/home island for two reasons: one, because I went and looked it up, and there is a Boy Scout troop there (Troop 89, though I was prepared to invent one if there wasn’t one on-island), and two, because the natural world around the island will become important later for Scout reasons.

- In order to proceed, let me introduce you to a few members of the CCU Poindexter-family expanded universe. MDI isn’t so small that everybody on the island knows everybody— the population is 10,000, which is just around the same as my own hometown, and I definitely don’t know everybody here. But what is true about my hometown is that there are certain families who have prominent roles in the community, and I would absolutely say that the Poindexter family is well-known on the island.

- They’re a very blue-collar, Irish Catholic, patriotic American family. Dex has cousins, aunts, uncles, and extended relatives galore. Dex’s uncles are notable enough in canon for him to mention them multiple times; in the CCU, he has 6 uncles on his pa’s side and another 3 on his ma’s. We’ll focus mostly on the Poindexter side for the purposes of Scout Dex.

- I have a feeling that the 7 Poindexter brothers (aka Pa and the 6 uncles) were probably all involved in one way or another with Scouts or at least some other community-building activity as kids. The one who rose to the top was Uncle Ronny, who is now the Scout Master for the troop on the island.

- Yes, I learned a copious amount of Boy Scout terms to make this post.

- Anyway, Uncle Ronny is a carpenter by day, and he takes the scouting stuff seriously; he sees it as a sort of civic duty. He has one son and three daughters (the female Poindexter cousins probably do Girl Scouts, but that’s a discussion for another time), and all his kids participate.

- Dex’s Pa, Will Sr., definitely also was super into this growing up. (In the historical AU I’m writing, Pa was in the Navy, and I cry every day thinking about how he can���t be in it in the CCU. This, as well as his general nautical lifestyle, is my consolation to myself.)

- Okay, so what do they actually do?

- Dex and his cousins grow up in the program. I feel like tiny redheads make up a solid fifty percent of the MDI Cub Scout troop in the late 90s and early 2000s. Dex is extremely outdoorsy even from a young age, and he loves Scouting, through and through— from the camps in the summer to earning badges and working his way up in ranks to even just spending time with his cousins. Cub Scout-era Dex sort of comes before all the repression, self-deprecation, and regression into the hardened, temperamental person he shows up at Samwell as. So in other words, Cub Scout Dex is a generally happy kid.

- Cub Scouts are from around kindergarten to fourth grade, or ages 5-10. Once you’re about 10 and a half, you move to general Boy Scouting, aaaaand this is where the fun begins, because in my research, I discovered…

- Sea Scouting.

- Sea Scouting is essentially a subdivision of the general Boy Scout program, and it’s exactly what it sounds like: Boy Scouts but with more nautical themes. Look… you guys… they wear fucking sailor suits… I’m physically deceased… I don’t think you understand how much I need this in Dex’s life.

- Has you or a loved one ever thought, hey, Mel, (that’s yours truly), do you by any chance have a thing about sailor suits? You may be entitled to the knowledge that you’re right… 

- Pretty much every Poindexter who did Boy Scouts was also involved in the Sea Scout program. Why? Uhhhhh… they live on the ocean and have a fishery and also just think about all that sweet sweet oceanic Dex symbolism—

- Right, okay, so things that are important to Dex during his time as a Scout: oceanic conservation, also conservation on land because Acadia National Park is right on MDI, boating safety, actual sailing. Fun fact: they have sailing competitions.

- Through the entirety of his Scouting life, Dex is really close with Uncle Ronny. He’s one of probably three cousins who are the most active in the program, and I’m jumping the gun a little on myself here, but he definitely does get Quartermaster. This is the highest rank you can get in the program, and it’s taken very seriously by everyone involved. It’s the Sea Scouting equivalent of Eagle Scout, which is probably much more familiar to most of you.

- Uncle Ronny is his go-to uncle for all things Scouting and also probably all things outdoorsy.

- Some time later, when Dex comes out to his family, Uncle Ronny will take it very, very hard. Although other uncles will come around, his relationship with Ronny will never really recover.

- Anyway! We are not going down that road at this moment in time. Let’s move on.

- By the way, the entire troop is definitely really closely tied with the island’s Catholic church. They very likely wear religious emblems on their uniforms. There’s a lot about God in the general guidelines of being a Boy Scout, and the troop is all over this. Because New England Irish Catholics.

- Okay, Dex gets Quartermaster. It’s the highest honor a Sea Scout can have. The core tenets/skills, fun fact, include: swimming, safety, marlinspike seamanship (???), boat handling, ground tackle, navigation, weather, and environment. He’d be getting this right around the same time he’s graduating high school. To get Quartermaster, you have to physically take control of a boat for like 40 hours, with other Scouts as witness. That is super badass.

- Also, I need you guys to see these uniforms. If someone drew Dex in this, I’d die.

- This is getting so long; I’m so sorry. Okay, some other time, remind me to talk about Dex’s internal struggle in response to the Boy Scouts homosexuality controversy. (I won’t go super into this right now, but essentially, until recently, gay men couldn’t be troop leaders. Gay youth membership has also been… generally discouraged, without being directly prohibited. There’s a lot to unpack there.)

- But, y’know! Poindexter family tradition, right???

- Aside from all the nautical skills, Dex’s Scout background translates to this at Samwell: he’s always prepared. The Boy Scout motto is literally Be Prepared. I think it’s easy to see, from all our canon knowledge of Dex, how this kind of background could factor into his character.

- I mean, the boy is constantly volunteering himself to fix things.

- Okay!!!! At the risk of making my longest text post ever, I will stop here for now. But please know: my ask box is open. There will be fic about this, and probably more of these bullet-list text posts. Ask or send me anything you’d like.

Thank you very much for the ask, and thank you for your patience while I put this together!

[televisedbirdwatching]

Episode 1: Parks as Public Health Infrastructure

Portland’s parks are one of my favorite things about the city. When I first moved here, I would take myself of drives just to go check out new parks; I’d walk around by myself and make mental notes, excited to share these spaces with other people in the future. 

During the Covid-19 Pandemic, those parks have become even more valuable. I remember in April, my first trip out of the house post-lockdown was to go for a walk at Pier Park in St. Johns. I remember in July, I hung out with some friends in Laurelhurst park, decompressing and enjoying the 9 PM sunset. I remember in August, hanging out with my mom and my sister in the Peninsula Park Rose Garden. These parks have always been there, but I think the pandemic has helped a lot of people appreciate their parks in new ways. 

Portland’s Mt. Tabor Park.

Portland owes many of its great parks to the Olmstead Brother’s plan. In the early 1900’s, the city commissioned the Olmstead Brothers, sons of famed landscape architect and designer of New York City’s Central Park, Frederick Law Olmstead, to design a system of parks for the growing city. Peninsula Park, Sellwood Park, Laurelhurst Park, Mount Tabor Park and Forest Park were all sited and designed in reference to the Olmstead plan.

An Illustration from the Olmstead Plan, which can be found in the book “Legacy of the Olmsted Brothers in Portland” by William Hawkins. 

When Olmstead designed Central Park for a growing city on Manhattan island, he did so understanding that parks were a critical piece of public health infrastructure. Looking at a map of Manhattan today, it seems inconceivable that 1.3 square miles of developable land would be set aside as a park, but Olmstead’s plan found support from a New York City that was recovering from deadly Cholera epidemics in 1832 and 1849 that killed over 8,500 people- bringing the issue even closer to home, Olmstead’s first child died of Cholera in 1860.

The precursor to the germ theory of disease transmission was the “miasma” theory; people believed that disease was caused by odors and vapors from decomposing garbage and sewage. It was also widely accepted that plants and sunlight were capable of sanitizing “miasmic” or “vitious” air. Olmstead’s Central Park was designed to help prevent future epidemics by purifying the city’s air and offering city-dwellers the opportunity to restore their health.

Olmstead wrote: “Opportunity and inducement to escape at frequent intervals from the confined and vitiated air of the commercial quarter, and to supply the lungs with air screened and purified by trees and recently acted on by sunlight, together with opportunity and inducement to escape from situations requiring vigilance, wariness, and activity towards other men- if these could be supplied economically, our problem would be solved.” The emergency and gravity of the cholera epidemics gave Olmstead and city politicians the political license to carry forward big ideas like Central Park, providing a public benefit and taking steps to prevent the next pandemic (although modern science tells us that plants don’t exactly sanitize the air the way they believed). 

Hudson River School painter Asher Durand painted this portrait of his children in an upstate NY Apple Orchard in 1832; continuing the long-standing tradition of wealthy people escaping to their idyllic countryside homes when pandemics strike in urban areas. Given the year of this painting it’s not hard to connect it to the 1832 Cholera epidemic in New York- bet you didn’t think I was going to sneak art history into this one.

It’s worth remembering that Central Park is a completely manufactured landscape. Marshes were drained and streams were created completely artificially. From the Central Park Conservancy, “its only natural feature is the metamorphic rock, called Manhattan schist, that’s approximately 450 million years old.” The rest is a work of art- deliberately crafted from the natural medium.

The tie between Central Park and public health goes deeper considering that the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir, across from the Guggenheim Museum, actually predates the rest of Central Park,* and was the first major attempt made to bring clean water to the growing city. Even before germ theory, public health officials could tell that there was some connection between water and cholera, and set about building an aqueduct to deliver water from the Croton Reservoir 22 miles to the north.

In an age when most New Yorkers didn’t have access to running water, the clean water that could be found in the park was another draw. An 1870 guidebook to the park encouraged visitors to ‘drink their fill’ from the ‘inexhaustible cisterns.’ Ornate drinking fountains were placed around the park, including one near The Mall that used underground blocks of ice to cool the water. 

The Bethesda Fountain, just south of The Lake, was built as a monument to the completion of the Croton Aqueduct. This statue was the first major art commission in New York City granted to a woman. Stebbins was also a lesbian and used her partner Charlotte Cushman as a model for the statue; although in 1840′s language they were just two female best friends who lived together for many years and for some reason never married men.

The huge supply of fresh, clean water suddenly available in Central Park allowed New York city planners to begin delivering running water to homes in Greenwich Village, Gramercy Park, and Chelsea, neighborhoods that were initially upper-class suburbs created for people trying to escape the overcrowded tenements in the areas around the Five Points. An 1822 yellow fever epidemic provided the first major wave of resettlement from lower Manhattan to Greenwich Village, the second was spurred by a building boom that occurred as another wave of people tried to escape the tenements for safer living conditions during the 1832 cholera epidemic. The city spread farther north to Gramercy Park in 1842 when the reservoir was complete. 

This house at 77 Beford Street is considered to be the oldest original home in Greenwich Village, depending on how you define the boundaries of the village, and depending on if you count the fact that it was significantly upgraded in 1832 as a mark against its authenticity. Rabbit hole, here.

As New Yorkers with the means to do so moved further north and closer to Central Park, the Park seems to have had a sort of “greening” influence on the rest of the city, spreading clean air and water southwards into the working class and immigrant communities in the city. In the 1860’s and 70’s, the city of New York took its first steps towards operating as a housing authority, passing laws requiring that tenements begin offering indoor, running water and at least one window to the outdoors in each unit (creating the dog-bone or dumbbell shape we know today). In an effort to bring running water and centralized sewage service further south into Manhattan, the city began tearing up the streets and installing sewer pipes. When the streets were repaved, they used materials like concrete and asphalt to allow for weekly street washing and sweeping services. City planners began including space for alleyways in their designs, so that trash didn’t have to be placed directly on the street.*

This photo by Jacob Riis from “How The Other Half Lives” was an expose on tenement living conditions. Homes were often extremely poorly ventilated, often without any kind of exterior doors or windows. Sinks were shared among many residents, and bathrooms were outdoor outhouses. 

This article from the Central Park Conservancy argues that we should think of Central Park itself as a critical piece of public health infrastructure. Olmstead’s park provided clean air and water to New York residents at a time when many didn’t have running water, a window to the outside, or a way to escape the garbage and sewage in the streets. But as time went on, the Park not only provided a place to escape to, but a place that established an ideal: that clean water and air should be brought to all parts of the city for all citizens to enjoy, not just within the 1.3 square miles of park boundary- and over time, the city housing authority made steps toward that ideal.

“All these influences have a strangely powerful force,” writes an 1870’s guidebook to Central Park, about the power of a visit to the Park. “They compel the soul. It is almost impossible to do any thing in the park but rest, breath sweet air, and enjoy.”

“Do your Part�� Coronavirus warning sign at Mt. Tabor over the summer.

I’m interested to see the ways in which Portland residents are enjoying those same benefits today, in light of a global pandemic. I’m also interested to see the other ways this cycle repeats. Will we see a post-pandemic return to the suburbs as people retreat from densely-populated and “unclean” urban areas? What kinds of infrastructural changes will be made to our built environment as city planners and urban designers imagine the next public health crisis?

Liner Notes:

*RE: reservoir- kind of. There was an older, rectangular reservoir built in 1842 that was later replaced  in 1860 with a more organic shaped reservoir designed to better fit in with the nature-inspired elements of central park, and that reservoir has also been replaced by the one there today. I could have been more careful about this in writing but I think it’s safe to say that a reservoir (of some shape) occupied that spot (in general) in the park since 1842.

*RE Alleyways- Yes, they began making space for alleyways, but large sections of Manhattan were built before this need for alleys was realized, and they couldn’t exactly go back and put them there, so there are virtually no alleyways in Manhattan; most are in other boroughs.

I acknowledge that New York City has a rocky history with parks; see Jane Jacob’s description of parks as places that provide cover for youth to bully other youth; see Robert Moses’ time in New York City and the overt racism he displayed when choosing the locations of parks and sites for playground equipment. Even within the 1840s, there would have been race and class dynamics at play, too- not everyone would have had equitable access to a public health resource like Central Park. This warrants its own investigation and I felt like I didn’t have the sources nor the scope to include that here. If anyone has any sources that talk about access to parks in the 19th and early 20th century, I’d like to know!

[allbeendonebefore]

I was kind of under the impression that this is just a widespread thing in Alberta, especially because of the Angus Reid fractured federation survey (I cant include the link here, but you can Google it, its from January 24th 2019). When got back into Hetalia, I imagined the dynamics kinda changed to this, which would be pretty bad tbh. I hope its not that aggressive in Alberta, I will never be able to go check tho, too expensive :( I loved the bad french btw

i see you guys sending these asks super late at night and i wonder whether any of you sleep - idk where you’re writing from and i may be on the west coast but are you guys ok wherever you are? I just woke up but I have my tea and if I’m not caffeinated now I surely will be as I answer this.

I’m sure I’ve seen the survey you’re speaking of before and before I address it in any specific detail I just want to back up and re frame Why I’m Being Like This in regards to recent events and my orientation towards answering these questions in terms of Hetalia the way I do, because I think it’s the heart of how I answer.

the tldr of it is:

1. I have an opportunity to make interpretations of reality in unexpected and challenging ways, therefore widespread opinions don’t govern anything but my stupid gag comics in the simple sense that if everyone was represented by widespread opinion alone all the time, nothing would change and

2. if i can answer dozens of asks about ralph and oliver hanging out there’s absolutely no reason I can’t answer asks about ralph and jean hanging out, lol.

3. If you’d like a shorter, more concise “vision statement”, I have one on @battle-of-alberta here. (although now I notice the links don’t work on mobile so you’ll have to be on desktop for that one)

I’m assuming this will be long so cut time

(and yes, alas, the bad french is my legacy and I’m afraid it has not improved much although i swear i was an A student when i was actually taking it) (and no please don’t visit now, purely for pandemic reasons, it would be really expensive And you’d have a bad time) (and talking to me is free lmao) (I do not mean to say that you need to have feet on the ground to understand a place at all, i mean, at the moment I don’t lol)

headings because I say a lot

what even is hetalia

At the most basic level, Hetalia is a tool that can be used in a variety of ways. It can be for memorization, current politics at a glance or historical relationships in different settings. I use it for all of these things, of course, I certainly use it a lot in comics that take place in the much more distant past in @athensandspartaadventures. When I was writing that, I was in undergrad and AaSA was a tool to help me pass my exams, I didn’t think of how it might be read or interpreted by people who have lived in or experienced those places these days, or what kind of political and cultural tensions it might reveal. (Not to say that it has gotten me into sticky situations, exactly, but I am more aware of where things like that would arise now).

These days I look back on a lot of my experiences - both in IAMP/Hetalia and just as a person, and I think that if Hetalia is a tool it should be used with some awareness of intention and responsibility. Things in the fandom have changed as it became more mainstream and more well known and I think there’s a definite worry about screwing up or not representing Everything or not pleasing Everybody or not doing it Right. I have a simple, insufferably academic principle.

(That said, yes, you can still do it very wrong if you write a methodology.)

Still, it’s a comfort to me that I’m just doing the things the way I say I’m going to do them, and that is the underpinning of Inspired But Not Constrained By Hetalia. I don’t do things Himaruya’s way, I can’t do things the way IAMP would do them if it were running today because it’s not and things have changed, all I can do is do them how I would do them.

I have hurt people in the past because they sometimes couldn’t tell whether I was writing From an Albertan Perspective or not, and I’ve evoked some preeetty spicy comments over the last decade, and I realized that tone and perspective are something that really shapes how people understand and interact with my work and I’m trying to use that understanding in a conscientious way)

what even is alberta

So when you’re me and you’ve grown up in a province that is the Angriest in the country and the most Misunderstood in the country and the most Entitled in the country and nobody outside of maybe Saskatchewan has a good thing to say about you half the time and maybe you’re tired of that... you get kind of depressed thinking about how every year some kiddo comes on the internet ready to be excited about making or celebrating characters that represent themselves and No Matter Where They Go running into everyone else’s negative impressions first and foremost.

We joke about how everyone hates Toronto, though I’ve always understood it in a teasing way because I’ve never ACTUALLY met someone (outside of our current legislative assembly) who REALLY hates Toronto, but it does feel like I’ve encountered (directly or indirectly) people who do Genuinely hate Alberta and hoo boy is That a strange feeling. I mean, there’s an understanding that BC also ‘hates’ Alberta but half the people in BC are originally from Alberta so it’s a, uh, different feeling.

The story of Alberta from everywhere else is always the story of that Angus Reid article and the memes and comments and listicles that spin out around mainstream media. Alberta is giving too much. Alberta is getting too little. Alberta is too stupid to understand that equalization payments are a good thing actually, and Alberta is too dumb to understand you don’t really need EI if you make enough money in six months to own a house and multiple vehicles Just Because you own a house and multiple vehicles. Alberta is destroying the environment for everybody. Alberta has a huge concentration of white supremacists. Alberta is the Texas of Canada* and has the conservative streak and bible belt to match. Alberta should get annexed by the US. Oh, but Banff! We like Banff, though.

And like I said, politicians use these widespread feelings to stir up the sentiments of people who can’t afford to travel, people who are naturally suspicious of mainstream news, people who have barely even left their hometowns let alone the province and have no other means of validating what they hear, but people who’s emotions are genuinely tied to real feelings of alienation that really exist and HAVE existed for generations. And when the so-called “laurentian elites” in ontario and quebec make fun of them for being uneducated red necks, well, you hit a wasps nest and expected what, exactly?

what even am i doing

And like I’m faced with this question every day I decide to pick up my stylus and badger you all with unsolicited comics: do I want this to continue? Do I want to wear the mask that fits? Do I want to stand aside and say #notallalbertans #notlikeotheralbertans and stand over here on the island** patting myself on the back for not? being? there? Do I say yes, you’re right, and stand aside and watch loud mouth white supremacists co-opt wexiters and let them lead the perception of the province I grew up in just because that is what’s currently happening? Do I acknowledge the widespread sentiment and then pick apart every other province to say Well Actually You’re Equally Problematic Hypocrites, So There?

Obviously I’ve been saying no for a while. I’m perfectly happy to acknowledge the reality and when I draw stupid gag comics like this or this you can tell (hopefully) from my style that it’s tongue and cheek. When I draw less stupid not-gag comics like this or this I am trying to explore the Real Sentiments in a way that doesn’t completely polarize the issue and spin it out of control. I’m more of the opinion that even though Current Sentiments do get in the way that as personifications they 1. have some perspective and as people they 2. have some interest in not throwing out a friendship that was a struggle to build up every time the polls change or some new radical party seizes power. I do a lot of research and I want that to be reflected in my understanding of each characters deep seated beliefs and motivations, but I don’t want to let either the history or the current realities dictate the future if I am going to try to do that myself. 

why even am i doing it for

So like really the heart of the matter is: I am writing what I write for my thirteen year old self. She was the me who moved back to Canada from the United States, who’s first introduction to living there was a hellish surge of nationalism after September 11th. Who’s defense against that was to hide behind a shield of Canada is Better, Actually and who returned to Alberta during the boom years to realize that, oh wait, the rest of the country thinks we’re assholes just like they think the United States is. Who spent her teenage years learning that, boom or bust, the widespread sentiment in and out of the province is just as narrow, shortsighted, self interested, and stubborn as her own fiction of What Canada Was Supposed to be Like. Who learned that propping up that image at the expense of her friendships was not worth it, that propping up that image at the expense of people who are suffering and dying under that image is not worth it. Who found herself rehashing the same sort of gut reaction defensiveness online because the Guilt and Apologizing on behalf of her province compared to others felt Really Heavy for a kid who didn’t have any clue what to do about it and was just there to have fun and learn some stuff.

So I’m writing for anyone else who finds themselves exhausted and saddened by coming online and seeing that the only way that people can imagine Alberta is as an antagonist. I’d like to challenge everyone to start to imagine it better. It’s my little “escape” from reality, and for me it’s much easier to talk to people here where the stakes aren’t as high and the grievances a little less personal.

I’m also writing (in a more secondary way) for everyone who’s ever looked at alberta from afar and wondered What is going On inside your Head and is it always This

(no comment at this time)

as always, I’m here to explain At The Very Least what goes on in My head because at the end of the day, that’s all I can do. And though there are some things that make me angry and emotional, I’m happy to explain why. Happy to answer asks or chat on discord or whatever, any time I have the time. :)

footnotes

*This is just a footnote to say something I didn’t want to interrupt the flow of my comments, but this is an annoyance that me and my Texas Tomodachi share lol

**You’ll notice angry Albertans online have a favourite tactic, and that’s pointing out hypocrisy. They can justify A N y T h I n G by calling another province a hypocrite “so there” (i.e. BC can’t claim to be environmentally conscious because of Victoria’s sewage problem or Site C) - and while I am interested in shattering the image of Alberta vs. the Perfect Rest of Canada a little bit, I feel like it’s a very lazy argument that is used to deflect and not to help. I think it is more useful to unpack the sentiment of Why Alberta Still Feels Taken Advantage of rather than mudslinging, and when the mud starts flying no one seems interested in addressing problems anymore.

[dansnaturepictures]

My photos that I’ve chosen to go on my 2021 wildlife calendar: Cover & January-September with some thoughts on each of the photos 

Just over a month ago I tweeted the lineup of photos that I’ve taken that I’ve chosen to go on my 2021 wildlife photos calendar. To those who don’t know I make two calendars for personal use and as my Christmas present each year, one from my wildlife photos another from my landscape and other outdoor photos. I make the calendars in August or September each year and leave it up to my family after that to order the calendars via the website we use, wrap up at the appropriate time etc. Its evolved that I finalise and reveal on social media the lineups for these between late April and June. There are many reasons for this and a key one being the hot, busy and long evenings/weekend mornings of summer are not a great time to be sat at my laptop choosing photos and looking at quality comparisons between photos I’ve taken. I wouldn’t want to be in a position of choosing them in September as I’d just worry if certain things come up I may not be able to get the calendars chosen in the right time frame for them to be made in time for Christmas. With other things happening in the build up to Christmas for me and the time between September and Christmas flying by every year it seems it just makes sense to get the calendar line up choosing done and dusted in the spring for them to be made in late summer/autumn and ordered in time to be my Christmas presents. 

That does then mean the photos I have chose from are any I took within about a year from spring to spring. So for example, the photos in contention for my 2021 calendars were ones I took from spring 2019 until spring 2020. I now operate a system of variety quotas of what types of pictures I want within the 13 pictures (cover and one for each month) of mine making the calendar. As part of that, using the example of my 2021 calendars, five photos on each calendar must have been taken in 2019 and five photos on each calendar must have been taken in 2020. This just makes it fair to ensure both years’ worth of photos that have fed into my selection process are represented on the calendar. So below are my Cover and January-September photos on this calendar, ordered in appearance in this photoset by their month. Below I shall say what and where each one is, when it was taken and a little bit about why I was happy to take it/its journey onto my calendar. 

I must confess I wrote this up the day after I finalised this calendar line up in late April (the choosing was sped up a little by the lockdown this year and the time I had on my hands because of that and with the amount of photos I take really increasing in 2019 and 2020 to previous years I had much higher amounts of photos to choose from so felt I had to really progress my choosing a lot in April to get it all done in time) 

Cover: One of my favourite birds the Guillemot on Staple Island, Farne Islands, Northumberland, taken June 2019 

Another reason I chose the calendar final lineups about now is because often in June we have our main holiday for the year which very often involves many photos with lots of wildlife up close and top views so for both calendars I don’t want them to be swamped by one holiday’s photos to give lots of photos at local and further afield places a chance. That can easily happen if when doing the final choosing I am still within the buzz of the many holiday photos not long after they were taken, so photos from a holiday in June 2019 say having to wait until the year after next for their chances to be on a calendar allows me to refine the choices and identify what was my strongest photos from that trip. That being said, six photos from my Northumberland holiday for the Farne Islands last June have made this calendar. This is because it was one of my greatest photography weeks ever, and this picture of a Guillemot sums up the sorts of once in a blue moon opportunities I had to take these types of close up and intimate photos with my very favourite creatures. I like how this one looks good in the sun bringing out the Guillemot’s brilliant colours. Its not only a Guillemot but a bridled one too with the ring and mark around the eye not something too common on coasts down here but there were many in Northumberland’s colonies so I was proud I could capture this in this way. When deciding my cover if felt natural to put a Northumberland one there with many of them on the calendar only one could actually represent the month they were taken in June and this felt like a natural photo to be the face of this calendar for me. 

January: Bewick’s Swan, WWT Slimbridge in Gloucestershire taken in January 2020 

The Slimbridge trip away to start this year also features multiple times on this calendar, this Bewick’s Swan photo taken on my birthday was one I was so proud of and brings a great closeup but not really needing sun to make it memorable vibe. 

February: Woodpigeon, WWT Slimbridge, taken January 2020

Features of the calendars I’ve made for wildlife the last couple of years have been handing places to photos of species that have never featured on my calendars before; Fox, Arctic Tern and Green Hairstreak among this year’s examples. But so also is Woodpigeon, a species I’ve photographed so much over the last couple of years and this one was such a memorable one for me I really like the colours especially the purple chest feathers and I think this one will look good printed. Common species can make what I feel are strong photos too.

March: Robin, Blashford Lakes, Hampshire, taken in March 2020 

An obvious choice for the calendar. At the time of writing this its without doubt the most pleasing photo in my view that I’ve taken with my new camera so far that I got in January. I’ve rarely taken photos like this for detail and it captures such an intimate moment with an iconic species. It was literally the first photo on the calendar that was taken in 2020 when the time was right to start to selections I knew it was going on. 

April: Green Hairstreak, Magdalen Hill, Hampshire, taken April 2020 

This photo is a week old as I write this and its taken me by storm to reach this calendar within seven days of being taken. Yes the timing was good with me into the very final stages of getting this lineup at this point, but I had to be happy enough with it for it to make it. Its one of the best butterfly pictures I’ve ever taken I think, like the Robin without doubt right now the best butterfly photo or photo all together that I’ve taken with my new macro lens that I also got in January. It sums up perfectly the detail I can get with this macro lens and type of picture I want to take with it. It displaced provisionally qualified photos to get on this calendar which shows how much I love it. 

May: Another of my favourite birds the Razorbill on the Farne Islands, Northumberland taken June 2019 

This was a dark horse as one of the unsung photos of my big Northumberland seabird trip. However in the selecting at all the stages I just appreciated how much I liked this photo and it just seemed to look stronger and stronger to me every time I looked at it, a personal choice I was glad I could make. 

June: Arctic Tern, Inner Farne, Farne Islands, Northumberland from June 2019 

Compared to trips to Skomer Island and Bempton Cliffs which have had many photos get onto the calendars they fed into in previous years the Farnes had something different, the terns. These Arctic Terns the standout bit of the trip walking through the colony and having them divebomb you so I just really wanted to include an Arctic Tern photo from that trip in this calendar if I could as I knew many of the photos from that time away would be candidates. This one got there on quality merit regardless of its species I feel. But it was another dark horse, at the time of the trip I did not pick this out as my favourite Arctic Tern photo of the trip of the lovely extensive set I took of this a new bird for me at the time on two visits to Inner Farne where the colony is. It soon became apparent it was though as I chose it for my “4 of my favourite ....” (pictures in categories tweets) on my Twitter Dans_Pictures in 2019 in December in a special unqique feature of the year category about the seabirds on that trip and I still loved it enough to carry it onto the calendar for next year. 

July: Brown Argus butterfly, Lakeside Country Park, Hampshire, taken in July 2019

One of my quotas as a big chunk of my wildlife photography is I must have at least one butterfly on the calendar. I am proud this one remained, despite very nearly missing out once the Green Hairstreak was on the scene (another early 2020 butterfly picture had to make way in the end), to represent my butterfly pictures of 2019 which were taken during my greatest ever butterfly year with more species seen than I ever did etc. This is another new species for one of my calendars this lovely butterfly I am getting to really like the last few years. It was one of a batch of my very favourite butterfly pictures taken last year in terms of quality and symbolised one of my best butterfly moments of 2019 as I saw it during a booming ‘Big Butterfly Count’ survey for Butterfly Conservation one Saturday morning. This photo holds so many memories of that summer day which is perfect for a calendar for me I feel. The lockdown has led to many of my strongest photos being so locally to me taken and this is an example of one I took locally under normal circumstances last year.

August: Another of my favourite birds the Kittiwake at Seahouses, Northumberland from June 2019 

This is a second calendar of mine in a row for wildlife to include a Kittiwake after a Bempton Cliffs one taken in 2018 made my 2020 wildlife calendar (It got June as its month so today I turned over the calendar to see it in fact!). But this Kittiwake picture had to be on my calendar for one simple reason beyond everything else, of the photos I took between spring 2019 and spring 2020 this was what I felt was the best one of a bird in flight out of a strong field I must say. I like flying bird photos so much I say at least one must appear on the calendar. So sometimes putting aside species that appeared here and there on past calendars of mine it really is that simple to pick pictures. This photo shows an integral part of the journey I am on really getting to love and know this favourite bird of mine more and more over the last few years. It couldn’t be on the month for the one it was taken as the Arctic Tern took June but I just had to have it for August with that blue sky even if you might not see one that month as its so summery. 

September: Fox at Titchfield Haven in Hampshire taken in September 2019 

Another easy choice for the calendar. This was one of my most magical moments in wildlife watching and photography and the photo was that photo of the species that I might never match again. I just longed for a photo and a chance to be so close to this species I scrambled to get the right lens on to get the photo when the moment came my first Fox of 2019 in fact with the Fox looking right in at us in the hide such an intimate moment with a wonderful species and I managed it, on a variable day for weather that patch of early autumnal sun just came out at the right moment to set this picture up well. With this one I admit there are shortcomings maybe bits of the photo that could have been done better but its one of those I get that I overlook them and I just get them on the lineup this was among the first few photos I chose to go on because I want to see it printed. 

In half an hour I do a post with the photos on this calendar for October, November and December and introduce five reserve photos that didn’t quite make the calendar in case I need them. 

[dlewrambo]

Déjà vu

"So you're a popular writer from the Philippines?" A doctor asked me as he was wearing his suit. I nodded in response. We are at a famous hospital here in New Jersey because I was assigned to research a disease. I'm a documentary writer at the Philippines and this project is my stepping stone to fulfill my dreams to be part of an international writing agency where they go to different places to get information.

I am here to write down what I know and to surprise my readers who will push me to join the agency. "Oh! So let me give you a tour to the hospital... I know it's not quite what you've expected since everything was a bit messed up-because of that virus, " a hint of sadness carved upon her face as she mention the word " virus" "It's okay with me actually I really like to see what's inside this hospital," I looked at him and smiled. I was in his office and I had never been to the wards where they were full of people.

He knocked on the door and started walking out of his office, and I started filming events as I followed in his footsteps. Like me they also have covers on their noses. With nurses and doctors coming from different islands, many patients are in need of immediate medication and assistance but due to the content of the responding doctors it is difficult for them to notice everything. "Dr, there's a riot at ward number 2," A nurse attached to the doctor who was the reason for the operation, ward 2 was at the end and we were able to get there quickly.

There were shouts and cries as I heard him give a hug as we walked down the road. "Have you lost your mind?!" I heard a Spanish doctor shout. There’s a doctor, I mean scientist whose crazily doing wild actions while holding a small bottle.

"We are all infected! The mask you wearing has nothing to do with those virus, they can still pass through! We... We are all going to die in here-" it ended in a riot when two men bound and released him. The silence lingered and I seemed to have a hard time standing up, that man is a very popular scientist for his discoveries and I know that he's not joking... I know that everything that he said was true. "I think the tour is over, I'm really sorry about that but I think it's time for you to go back, " the doctor grabbed my hand and pulled me back to his office.

"Dra. Kleina..." I called out for her attention. "Hmmm?"We stopped walking and turned to me. "Am I infected with that virus?" Shake it. Silently we continued walking when we met an older man. "Dra. Klein, can you please lead me to the bathroom?" The old woman glanced at me as she look back to the doctor. "Of course," its gentle promise once held in the arm of an adult for support. "Wait for me," she promised me so I nodded. When I lost my gaze, I lost sight of my surroundings. There were pictures hanging on the wall so I stepped closer and one looked at them and one picture caught my attention.

[1918]

I read in the caption below. This is the last photo of the head doctors where Doctor Kleina was the last. It's 2020 now and I'm not mistaken! Why this picture is in the year 1918? 102 years ago. The photo was too blurry because it was too cluttered but I knew I was not mistaken. I’m pretty sure about on it. I looked around and from a cozy facility it was dark and old-fashioned, with lots of dirt and dust all over the place.

With the help of the light from the sun I went to the wards where many people had been but unfortunately I could not see any shadow. I was supposed to step backwards but I noticed a newspaper lying on a bed without foam. I gently grabbed the newspaper and the sign read to me.

[SPANISH FLU AT NEW JERSEY]

The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, the deadliest in history, infected an estimated 500 million people worldwide about one-third of the planet’s population and killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million victims, including some 675,000 Americans. It was the deadliest plague of 20th century. Infectious diseases already limited life expectancy in the early 20th century, but life expectancy in the United States dropped by about 12 years in the first year of the pandemic. Most influenza outbreaks disproportionately kill the very young and the very old, with a higher survival rate for those in-between.

However, the Spanish flu pandemic resulted in a higher than expected mortality rate for young adults. The Spanish flu originated somewhere in northern China in late 1917 and swiftly moved to western Europe with the 140,000 Chinese laborers the French and British governments recruited to perform manual labor to free up troops for wartime duty. They found that a human H1 virus that had been circulating among humans since around 1900 picked up genetic material from a bird flu virus just before 1918 and this became the deadly pandemic strain. Exposure to previous strains of flu virus does offer some protection to new strains.

The 1918 flu was first observed in Europe, the United States and parts of Asia before swiftly spreading around the world. At the time, there were no effective drugs or vaccines to treat this killer flu strain. Citizens were ordered to wear masks, schools, theaters and businesses were shuttered and bodies piled up in makeshift morgues before the virus ended its deadly global march I read the article with a complete silence. The flu took a heavy human toll, wiping out entire families and leaving countless widows and orphans in its wake. Funeral parlors were overwhelmed and bodies piled up. Many people had to dig graves for their own family members.

The flu was also detrimental to the economy. In the United States, businesses were forced to shut down because there are too many employees were sick. Basic services such as mail delivery and garbage collection were hindered due to flu-stricken workers.

In some places there weren’t enough farm workers to harvest crops. Even state and local health departments closed for business, hampering efforts to chronicle the spread of the 1918 flu and provide the public with answers about it. The Spanish Flu Pandemic, also known as La Grippe Espagnole, or La Pesadilla, was an unusually severe and deadly strain of avian influenza, a viral infectious disease, that killed some 50 million to 100 million people worldwide over about a year in 1918 and 1919.

I read the Newspaper slowly… "One known hospital was forced to shut down because of it's rapid increasing of that so called virus. The hospital was now closed for some reason because the virus might still live and can still affect someone who will go inside.

The doctors and all the foreign nurses were affected with their patients so they all left with no choice but to wait upon their death." It seemed to overwhelm me when I realized that all I had seen before was one soul that had forgotten that they had died....

They had forgotten their souls but still carried on with their actions as if they were a normal human being. I held my hand tightly in the newspaper as we ran out of the ward. When I got to the door I was shocked and locked it. There are so many locks and even if I kick, I can't do anything. I tried to go upstairs to find Emergency exits but I couldn’t find one. I tried to roam the whole ruined building… there’s nothing I could find, only the light of the sun that shines from above. Slowly I am conserving my energy just to find a way out, how?... How am I suppose to get out?

I tried to shout and asked for help, I see people outside the building but no one could hear me. I am soaking wet because of running and trying to escape. I burst to tears when I ran out of options. I knelt down in fear. Before .... There were people here .... Once it was an open door- Maybe this is just a dream. I tried to slap myself but I didn't wake up to reality.

I remembered that I was holding the newspaper so I quickly read it to read this hospital article but for the last part I was in tears. [This article was released by a writer, Noel Castil Tomaroy, a Filipino writer who also died inside that hospital.]

I'm Noel Castil Tomaroy....I was in the newspaper. I have mixed emotions I felt as soon as I appeared in the newspaper…. I was the writer who wrote in 1918 ... I am the writer who died in this hospital.

-Marweld M. Barillo

#ShortStory #CreativeWriting #11Humss2

[scifigeneration]

Waiting for an undersea robot in Antarctica to call home

by Jennifer Walsh

One of two underwater gliders is deployed from a research ship into Antarctic waters. NOAA

“Call! Just call!” I think loudly in my head. “Did something happen? Are you okay?”

I might seem like a worried parent waiting for a teenager to report in from an unsupervised outing. Rather, I’m a research biologist with the Antarctic Ecosystem Research Division at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It’s late February 2019, and I am waiting for an autonomous underwater glider in Antarctica to surface and call me via satellite, so I can give it new diving instructions. The longest it’s supposed to go without surfacing is eight hours, and it’s now been nine.

Did it get stuck under an iceberg? An underwater ledge? I feel so helpless; I’m 9,000 miles away in San Diego and all I can do is chew my fingernails and think, “No. This can’t happen. We can’t lose this glider so close to the end.”

The survey area where gliders measured Antarctic krill populations. NOAA

Our research team is two-and-a-half months into a three-month-long mission just north of the Antarctic Peninsula. This is our first time deploying gliders so far from home, and our hope for a successful field season – not to mention a great deal of research – depends on recovering the two gliders our group deployed in December 2018. The gliders are now full of oceanographic data that will help us provide scientific advice on how best to conserve the Antarctic ecosystem as the area around the peninsula warms faster than almost any other region on Earth, which may adversely affect the animals that live there.

9 hours, 30 minutes: No call

For over 30 years, the NOAA group I’m part of has conducted studies to estimate how many Antarctic krill, small shrimp-like creatures that support the diverse Antarctic food web, live around the Antarctic Peninsula.

Antarctic krill, Euphausia superba, can grow up to about 2.5 inches long. Uwe Kils/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

Krill feeds penguins and seals that breed in this area every summer and whales and fishes that feed here year-round, while also supporting a major fishery. You may have seen bright-red dietary supplements made from krill oil prominently displayed at the pharmacy. Our data help establish catch limits for the krill fishery, ensuring enough krill remain in the ocean to maintain the population after all people and animals take what they need to make a living. Without good data to support fishery-management decisions, krill fishing could undermine the food web for which Antarctica is so well known, as demand for supplements and other krill products surges.

10 hours: No call

Until three years ago, my program chartered a research vessel for a month each year to sail around the Antarctic Peninsula and estimate the biomass of krill. But after 2016, rising vessel costs eliminated our surveys. For our program to continue, we had to find a creative way to collect our data in Antarctica without actually going to Antarctica.

An autonomous glider in the ocean. NOAA

Our solution was to use autonomous underwater gliders, which can be deployed in just a few hours by a small team from a ship in Antarctica, and then recovered months later. Gliders can dive to 3,000 feet, cover thousands of miles and follow commands from anywhere in the world with a laptop and an internet connection. Their batteries last six months, which means that they can collect much more data for much less money than a bunch of scientists on a research vessel.

The gliders resemble torpedoes in appearance, but contain three massive batteries and an array of scientific sensors that collect much of the same data we used to collect from a ship. Although the gliders are able to transmit small amounts of data via satellite throughout the deployment, the most valuable data are stored on the glider. If we lose a glider, which is always a possibility when you let something roam free in the ocean unattended for months, then we also lose the data.

We had effectively replaced ourselves with drones. But would they work?

12 hours: No call

For most of our team, the transition just a year ago from annual research voyages to the aquatic versions of C-3PO and R2-D2 was exciting. Secretly, though, I was terrified. I had spent my career as a scientist collecting krill samples from research vessels for biochemical analyses of their tissues. Suddenly I found myself ousted by oceanographic robots full of cables, wires, circuit boards and all sorts of other technological gadgetry.

These are not what you’d call smart robots. A bit like human toddlers, they have some degree of self-awareness, but would destroy themselves without semi-constant monitoring and instructions on how deep to dive or where to go. Outside supervision is especially important in the Southern Ocean, which is full of seamounts, canyons, strong currents and, most importantly, icebergs.

You can’t glider-proof the ocean the way you can baby-proof a house, so I had to forget everything I knew about biochemistry and learn as much as I could about glider piloting in 10 short months.

13 hours: No call

All that training and practice felt like 10 minutes by the time we finally packed up the gliders and shipped them to the Southern Hemisphere for their first Antarctic deployments. The commands for how deep to dive and where to go seemed simple enough, but the gliders responded as unpredictably as the ocean itself.

A near-disastrous practice deployment in San Diego revealed how slowly they maneuver, particularly in strong currents. Piloting them felt like trying to drive a remote-control semi-truck through a go-kart course, which reinforced our apprehension about driving these things through the ocean all the way across the planet, in one of the most remote and treacherous oceans on Earth.

Never mind the wind and the currents and the icebergs. What made this deployment far scarier was that if things started to go horribly wrong, we had no way to get the gliders back. It was like dropping a toddler off at college on another continent: What if he needs you and you can’t get to him?

14 hours: No call

Almost exactly 10 months from our first day of glider training, we carried the gliders across the Drake Passage on a research vessel bound for the Antarctic Peninsula. The deployments were flawless, and over the next few days, our confidence began to build. We quickly learned that icebergs were enemy number one, and they were formidable opponents. Satellite images of icebergs were available every couple of days, and we overlaid maps of planned glider tracks onto those images so we could steer the gliders around any ice in their way. The trouble was, even the newest images we received were already a day old, and the ice had already moved.

On this chart of the South Shetland Islands, one intended glider path is marked in straight gray lines. Circled in red in the middle is the iceberg the researchers called ‘Yacu.’ NOAA

Smaller icebergs were usually avoidable, but around three weeks into the deployment, “Yacu” appeared on the scene. Inspired by a mythological South American snake that eats everything in its way, that was the nickname we gave a 12.5-mile-wide iceberg from the Weddell Sea that drifted right into the path of one of the gliders. Yacu stuck around for the rest of the deployment, every few days spawning smaller (but still huge) icebergs that posed a constant and unpredictable threat to gliders already at the mercy of currents, tides and wind.

If a glider gets trapped under an obstacle and senses that it’s been underwater for too long, it drops an emergency weight to rocket itself to the surface for an immediate recovery. Once a glider drops its weight, it can’t dive anymore. So if it is trapped under ice, it’s likely to stay trapped under ice. And one way to know if a glider is trapped is that it stops calling in, because it can connect to satellites only when it’s at the surface.

15 hours: No call

And then…

Ding ding! Ding ding! My laptop screams at me after 16 long hours: The glider is at the surface.

It is well past 9 p.m., but every member of our five-person team has been glued to a computer since early afternoon, and we collectively sigh with relief. We now think the glider probably surfaced after the first eight hours, failed to connect to the satellite and resumed diving, which can occasionally happen. The reason for the gap is unimportant compared to our elation. A couple of weeks later, we successfully recovered both gliders on schedule and completed our first autonomous Antarctic field season.

One key finding is that we can, in fact, replace a vessel-based fishery assessment with a glider-based one in less than a year. With gliders, we can get krill biomass estimates comparable to those we would expect from a ship. That means we can use gliders to continue to provide critical data for managing the krill fishery.

This is a profound accomplishment for us and for NOAA, and it also has far-reaching promise for the future of fisheries research globally. The cost of science keeps going up, and autonomous instruments offer an affordable way to collect critical data for effectively managing ocean resources and conserving fragile marine ecosystems worldwide.

Our gliders are like toddlers in one final way: They’re advanced technology, yet they’re still in their infancy. Their ongoing usefulness to understand our changing planet in real time will depend on new sensors and instruments yet to be developed. What we accomplished is only the the tip of Yacu compared to what the future of autonomous oceanographic research holds.

About The Author:

Jennifer Walsh is a Research Biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

This article is republished from our content partners at The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. 

[zekeyspaceylizard]

I’m sure you’ve heard by now they are doing a live action Lilo and Stitch. So lets skip past the middleman and get to all the ways they could potentially screw it up. If Hollywood’s obsession with remakes the last decade has shown, at least 3 of these will probably happen.

1.) they make lilo and her family american. american as possible. living in the northeast or far south so they have identifiable accents. blondes.

2.) they try to make stitch look more like a dog and give him a more quadruped body and more bulldog-like face. bonus points for fangs jutting out of his mouth.

3.) they make stitch more alien, which for hollywood means more like a cloverfield monster or like the mios from godzilla. long bug arms and legs

4.) pleakley and dr.jumba do not appear in the film at all

5.) the unique colorful spaceships from the cartoon are replaced with videogame-esque space helicopters for "realism". expect lots of blue lights and turbine sounds with lense flairs.

6.) stitch now has superpowers and fires beams or corrosive goop from a part of his body. possibly bum for “comedy”

7.) the other 625 experiments play a large part in the film, and have a giant fight scene with an astronomical budget

8.) any and all mentions of elvis are removed so disney doesnt have to pay royalties.

9.) child protection services (and Cobra Bubbles) are now the villains and not just frustrated people trying to do their jobs

10.) at least one shootout with alien guns vs real human guns

11.) an E.T. reference in the trailer or film. glowing finger. trail of candy. just take a guess.

12.) stitch talks in full sentences. unfitting hot young celebrity doing a bad impersonation necessary. like with the Chipmunks films.

13.) stitch is made smaller and fluffier like a Pomeranian or a gerbil or sugar glider so its easier to make toys of him

14.) movie takes place in big crowded city instead of countryside or coast so stitch can cause as much damage to cars, buildings, and other dogs as possible and get the most out of their cgi budget. gotta have lots of shrapnel flying around.

15.) movie isnt about stitch learning not to be an asshole. its about nani and lilo learning to live with the fact their pet is an asshole. stitch stays the same.

16.) at least 5-6 jokes of stitch doing "dog" things wrong. like he pees on a fire hydrant and it melts or explodes into flames. or he plays fetch and drags back a hobo’s leg. snare drum. canned laughter.

17.) one reference to ALIEN where a smaller mouth comes out of stitch's mouth

18.) cgi on stitch is jurassic world tier and he looks like crap in every scene. everyone hopes its unfinished cgi. then the movie is released and the truth dawns on us.

19.) lilo is an outcast for trivial reasons and not because she's actually got interests normally considered bizarre amongst children. she will be as bland as possible. for relatability.

20.) Stitch now wears a space-suit at all times. It produces gadgets that help him do things. Nobody finds it weird for him to wear. Bonus points if his suit talks as well in a famous comedian’s voice.

21.) Angel, from the animated series, added to films plot to give Stitch a love interest. if not Angel, a new girl monster will be invented.

22.) stitch is now a species and not a science experiment and theres almost none of him left so we can shoehorn in a badly written message about conservation or poaching into the film's story

23.) stitch now eats something SILLY!!!!! to make kids laugh. like other dogs poop or car tires or something. remember the hong kong phooey and chipmunks trailers? yeah.

24.) rather than have stitch be destructive and dangerous, because we want kids to look up to him because hollywood are stupid,  instead he is valuable for some reason but has the ability to be invisible to hide from things

25.) sideplot about FBI trying to track down and capture stitch like men in black but devoid of humor. so like Men in Black 2 basically. (men in black 3 was great)

26.) popular american pop star (gaga, del ray, good charlotte, kendrick lamar) does a cover of a famous hawaiian song for the movie’s theme and trailer. it will be forgotten a week after the film premier.

27.) lilo is played by like a 12-16 year old girl instead of a very wee child. her problems will be angsty teenage problems. she will be a snobby jerk to her sister the whole film.

28.) lilo and nani will be portrayed as being fairly middle-class and not basically living in poverty with broken inherited crap from their deceased parents.

29.) lilo and nani's parents are still alive but are simply absent for some reason. alternatively, nani is now written to be lilo’s mother instead.

30.) stitch is now grey instead of blue for realism. animals dont have colors in real life, and they sure as hell wont when they are a cgi monster either.

31.) any and all references or allusions to hawaiian culture and life is removed from the film so that chinese audiences will be more likely to see it and not be turned off by seeing people that arent them, thus potentially killing off most of the film’s potential profits

32.) no actual elvis songs in the film. instead terrible covers by modern day dubstep / r+b / country artists are included instead. bonus points if lilo or stitch sing off key in one of the songs

33.) movie is barely about lilo and stitch. it is about lilo's new love interest, some new character nobody gives 2 craps about. it worked for Ghost Rider / Green Lantern, right?

34.) lilos obsession with photographing people on the island is changed to her photographing animals which is how she finds stitch in the first place

35.) alien council want stitch back. not because he's a criminal or dangerous but because he stole [insert macguffin] and gosh they need it back right away!!! bonus points if this leads to a chase scene on surf boards.

36.) alien council dont decide to forgive stitch and leave him on earth. they try to take him back by force and have to be defeated/blown up by either stitch/lilo/the army

37.) Ohana and what it means is never mentioned in the entire duration of the film.

38.) Stitch now makes generic monster sounds you hear in every movie. are you tired of hearing elephant honks slowed down by 600% yet? TOO BAD.

39.) Stitch is played by an actual dog and they superimpose cgi quills and an extra pair of legs onto it. when he talks his mouth will be CGI and look kinda crap. like those AIR BUD movies.

40.) they make stitch more humanoid and the movie is now a romance between him and lilo. everyone will feel really uncomfortable.

[cattimeswithjellie]

I would love to see this as the concept despite the fact I'd need to get one some kind of blood pressure medication to even cope with watching the episodes. I will, however, continue shouting from the rooftops that Scar would absolutely not be doomed by an elytra season because Scar is _good_ at elytra flying. Have you watched him in MCC lately? Rocket Spleef Rush? Terra Swoop? He doesn't lead the field, but they are routinely among his best events because all Hermits can use elytra.

I mean think about it. Many SMPs are generally walk friendly, and a lot of speedrunners only touch the End long enough to kill the dragon. Creative types just float. The Hermits, though, they grabbed hold of the Elytra when it came out, said "this is how we do now" and never looked back. Hermitcraft is not navigable on foot after maybe the first six weeks of any new season, to the occasional consternation of folks who break their beds and wind up naked at spawn. When the Empires folks came and visited, they were literally trapped in Grian's basement until they received wings and rockets. Joe Hills derives an enormous amount of content from the conceit that elytra and rockets are rare enough to be conserved and should be supplemented by trident and ender pearl, because it's so much more difficult to just get around that way. Scar and all his hermit friends spend a huge amount of time flying everywhere.

The reason that Scar dies so often while flying is that he does the equivalent of flying with a full latte in one hand and his phone in the other. Watching him stream is an absolute trip because it is clear that he is paying no attention whatsoever to what he is doing, but he is still flying. When he gets really wrapped up in his latest Disney/Star Wars/NASA rant he will stop building and instead will just start rocketing around his base wildly, going nowhere for no reason and spamming rockets to emphasize his points. He does not eat while doing any of this, nor does he check his elytra. The real wonder is that he doesn't die _way_ more often. I have personally seen this man, flying through the End with a full inventory, take _both hands_ off the keyboard to gesticulate wildly about Star Wars and not even notice he was losing altitude until he blapped into the side of an End Island. And he lived!

The difference in the Life Series is that death matters. Hunger matters. There's no streaming. And it's only three hours a week to have to concentrate and pay attention. Let's be real, he still takes insane risks during the Life Series and sometimes he dies of it, but the guy has skills and he uses them. If he dies, it's not going to be a ridiculous distracted plunge into the ground. (It may well be something equally ridiculous with no flying involved at all, but I'm just going to assume history will hold true and most of his deaths will be Grian-related.)

Man, now I want this to be an Elytra series just because I want Scar to _win_.

my money for the next life series gimmick is something elytra related btw like maybe they spawn with permanent elytra they can't take off or something. bird life.

[kindabraveandlittlestupid]

Donald Trump is a fucking idiot. Not exactly breaking news but he continues to remind us how idiotic he is almost daily and beyond belief he still has people who support him. It feels good to say that and even write it on the screen. A sweet sweet catharsis of stating an established truth about the current President is a moron. That being said, with his inability to lead the country (even in the most basic of ways), we can talk about one of his ideas that has the potential to be either something very exciting or a complete and utter waste of taxpayer money depending who is steering the end result of the concept.

The concept at hand? Space Force.

I will be going over who this idea might be used for good, why it will likely be bad and why it is a stupid distraction from the next true battleground.

The Good

Now the ‘good’ elements of Space Force is circumstantial. If you know your US History, you will know when the US considers any massive spending bill for the military there are sometimes social programs linked to it and often advances in science. If you need an example of how war spending ended up creating programs, look no further then National Defense Education Act from 1958 which basically spent a huge amount of cash to help establish public schooling as a means of shoring up the United States Intelligence against the Soviet Union for the long run. I will let that sink in for a moment... the US paid for public schooling because it would make the country safer. I can hear the brain vessels popping in Conservatives heads when the account for education system being partially created by a military spending bill.

There are other examples of how spending in the Military sector ended up improving the lives of Americans across the country. Your Freeways? Military spending was involved to help move mobile missiles around the country. Power? US nuclear weapons and the eventual development of nuclear energy as a power source. The Internet? Created by ARPANET which was funded by the Department of Defense. International Travel? Radar and GPS allow thousands of flights to lift off and land across the world, also thanks to military spending. On occasion, the spending on military budgets creates social systems that enhanced the overall living in this country and around the world.

If we are able to tailor this USSF (United States Space Force) we might create some long-term benefits for space travel, colonization, mining of asteroids, and advanced satellites (to you know to add more proof to global warming because apparently some people still need MORE evidence). This military spending also may supplement NASA’s dwindling budget and expand some of their long-term projects like visiting Mars or keeping the International Space Station up in orbit. So at least we can see some potential good come from it.

The Bad

The concept of Space Force isn't a new idea. Infact the United States Space Command existed from 1985 to 2002 as one of Americas first flirtations with the idea. Do to infighting and the fact that the ARMY, NAVY, and Air Force already had their own ‘space programs’ in regards to GPS and Satellites the agency was redundant and mothballed. 

NOTE: Just keep this in mind when a Trump supporter acts like their great dictator is break barriers with his ideas, he isn't.

The real issue with Space Force is the fact this will become the next big spending project for Conservatives. They have a habit of waving their flags not because they actually are proud of the military service members (I am sure some Republicans are) but the real reason why they love military spending is that it is taxpayer money (IE socialist spending) investing into private companies and when they pass bills like this those private companies suck from the sweet breast of military spending as long and hard as they can while contributing to those candidates that helped them get the contract.

This is why we saw great mismanagement of military spending during Iraq and Afghanistan where private companies loved to bill the US for work they weren't even doing. This happens stateside as well as companies build tanks with taxpayer money and the US proceeds to sell said tanks to Saudi Arabia and so on. While I do not outright hate capitalism, when it comes to programs like this there is no doubt once you have those private contractors building the United States Space Force, their objective will be to do it cheap enough to get the contract but expensive enough to maximize their profits once they have their foot in the door. This is where programs like NASA are superior because the mission isn't about profits but making sure those astronauts don't fucking die. 

The Stupid

Trump sells Space Force like the next great battle will be in space (someone in the White House has been watching Roger Moore’s Moonraker) when in reality its more likely to be over things like fresh water, China’s rapid expansion into the Pacific with their man-made islands or most likely a ‘Cyber War’ which is kinda already taking place. No one views the armchair soldier who codes all day as someone who deserves a medal but when you protecting connected infrastructure (water/power/etc), the global stock markets, satellites and pretty much your personal data, they deserve some big credit for being a digital-front line. 

The problem with the concept of cyber warfare is that it isn't ‘sexy’. People enjoy the scenes where Neo is shooting up a lobby far more than were him doing his hacking in the beginning of the movie and that is what Trump thinks about when pitching Space Force. What can he sell this to his base? What is marketable to the populace? I imagine the idea of Space Force is easier for him to wrap his small mind around then the concept that hacking is taking place all the time and white hats are trying to keep black hats from doing destructive acts day and night.

The Wrap Up

Really the whole problem with Space Force isn't really that big. Trump won't be president forever which means whatever lucid ideas he has for this new branch of the military will likely be sculpted by men and women with at least triple his unimpressive IQ. If the USSF does end up being launched there could be unknown good that comes from it; that perhaps relieves the pains of climate change and improving lives across the planet.

What is sad about the concept (besides the con man pitching it) is the fact we are drawn to looking at the stars (which I am excited about exploring) instead of being aware of the next battleground that is very much likely to be a digital one. The shoring up of defense is a conservative value to some degree (if only for the most profitable reasons for them) but the world is not yet free from bad actors looking to cause chaos. We should be spending our money in actual branches that could actually help with our defense and space is simply not yet one of those locations.

As always thanks for reading.

Regards, Michael California

NOTE: I feel as though I left out the fact that Space Force will be incredibly expensive which could fall under the ‘bad’ or ‘stupid’ part of this post. We all know and heard this argument which is why I kinda left it out but now that I am finished writing? Yeah, it's gonna cost billions; health care, clean air & water, cybersecurity, free college, taking care of the homeless, serving our vets, or building green energy are far better ways to spend money then this concept.

[anicegaykid]

who dis?

#firstpost seems more daunting than it needs to be. Got myself all creative blocked up so here is a little diddy to get to know me better.. 

Are you named after anyone?

I am actually named after Jessica Wakefield from Sweet Valley High

When was the last time you cried?

tbh, I tend to flip from emotionless to SUPER emotional like 0-60. Sometimes no response, sometimes (like this afternoon) I see a beautiful pond surrounded in nature, being natural and beautiful, water sparkling in the sunshine and the tears just roll.

Do you have kids? If no, how many do you want?

No kids atm, but a couple kiddos would be nice in the near future

If you were another person, would you be a friend of yourself?

..like.. what.. ? am I just like a duplicate of me? Like am I the same person I am now and would I be friends with someone JUST like me? Or am I someone else? Who am I? Like, I enjoy spending time on my own? 

Bottom line, I like me. 

Do you use sarcasm a lot?

100%

What’s the first thing you notice about people?

eyes, smile, lips, face bone structure

What is your eye color?

blue, sometimes they get a little grey

Scary movie or happy endings?

BOTH. 

Favorite smells?

Citrus, patchouli, cut grass, peaches and strawberries

Do you have any special talents?

Talents include: fantastic with horses, very good dog mom, I can cook frozen pizzas to perfection -- if I don’t get distracted, designing queer tees, i can roll a pretty decent j, solid problem solver, got some wit and can be funny. 

Where were you born?

Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada

What’s your zodiac sign? Do you believe in it?

Leo; I mean it IS surprisingly accurate like all the time. 

What are your hobbies?

I am kind of in between hobbies right now.. I dabble in some things. I go to the gym like more than average, but I would like to go more - said everyone ever. I’d like to hike more, camp more, build more things out of pallets, you know.. the usual

Do you have any siblings?

I have a 21 year old brother and a 14 year old sister.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Life is pretty great tbh, I’d like to continue being happy with my little fam

Who was your first best friend?

My first best friend would have to be my cousin, Brittany. Like a sister.

How tall are you?

5′6″

What is the least favourite thing about yourself?

I wish I was a lot better at expressing how I feel. 

Things that still bother me - my wife and I had a discussion about proposals and who would ask who. We landed on me asking her, which I did and am SO happy about, but the reason behind it being that I am so poor at expressing emotions that she was afraid it would affect her confidence in my response. 

For a first TMI moment of the blog, I have so much anxiety in my ability to express myself that I can’t even manage to make any “noise” during sex. Doesn’t even matter that I am my most comfortable self with her, STILL struggle. A work in progress for me I guess. 

Funniest moment throughout School?

There was a time when we were at a beach party when I was 17, the RCMP showed up to break it up and snag any and all intoxicated minors they could. The tide had recently come in, but where we were was a little dip in the side of the cliff so the path back to the road was water-covered. So someone peeks around the cliff to see the two Mounties wading through the water. This party crew are country-folk and are 100% ready for this situation with a wooden ladder that leads up the side of the cliff into a field close to where all the vehicles are parked. As party-goers are running through the field to cars, someone shouts, “PIT PARTY” and everyone heads towards the local Pit. Along the way someone with a truck steals a round bale from a field and uses it to create the BIGGEST bonfire I’ve ever seen. 

How many countries have you visited?

like ~10

What was your favourite/worst subject in High School?

I struggled with math but funny enough my career path has led me to a life in the casino so I do math daily and enjoy it very much!

My favourite courses in High School were Conservation and Agricultural Science. 

What is your Favourite drink? Animal? Perfume?

Coke Zero Cherry

Horse

Karma by Lush

What would you (or have you) name your children?

I really like Posy, Daisy, Freddie and Loren

What Sports do you play/Have you played?

I used to Figure Skate, Horseback Ride, Ringette

Who are some of your favourite YouTubers?

I’ve always been a Grace Helbig, Mamrie Hart, Hannah Hart fan

I like Phil DeFranco for news, Pewds for some lulz, love me some Tyler Oakley, Whitney Simmons and Chloe Ting to work the booty, Vox for learning, FunForLouis has some BEAUTIFUL imagery and plays to the traveler side of me and I recently discovered Will Smith’s channel and cannot get enough!

How many Girlfriends/Boyfriends have you had?

I have had an unsettling amount of bfs for a lesbian, but 2 of them really stand out as being genuinely decent guys and I would still hang out with, platonically, to this day.

I have had a grand total of 4 gfs, I married the fourth bc I got LUCKY AS HECK!

Favourite memory from childhood?

The day I got my first puppy.

One time I was gifted a horse for Christmas bc my Dad felt so bad that I had to have my first pony put down earlier that year. 

I also was old enough to remember both my siblings being born!

How would you describe your fashion sense?

tom boy hyper femme 

What phone do you have? (iOS v Android?)

iPhone6s

Tell us one of your bad habits!

I bite my nails and chew my cuticles

3 things that upset you?

inequality

excessive force

did I say inequality?

3 things that make you happy?

Olivia

My animals

family

How is your relationship with parents?

My Mom is one of my best friends in this world! My Dad is an odd case, he struggles with my sexuality, I understand that it is because of where and when he grew up, he is never outwardly rude or mean to me, he’s a quiet country guy, he was at our wedding, he gave me away with my Mom, he’s kind to Olivia, he’s kind to me, he doesn’t understand but recognizes that it is real. I love my Dad, I really do. I’m proud of my Mom for educating him and ensuring that he is present and polite. I get frustrated from time to time and I have cried a lot of tears about it. Our relationship can be strange but at the same time hasn’t changed. He’s been a great Dad and he’ll be a fantastic Grampy. I have to check myself because there are people who are much worse off than me. I get jealous of Olivia sometimes because her Dad is so sweet to her and treats me like a daughter so easily, but my Dad has never been the soft spoken lovey type. We’ve hugged twice in my life. One of them was when I was leaving for England with a one way ticket and no foreseeable return plans and one was when he was jokingly blocking my path and I used it as a disarming mechanism to scoot through. 

What’s on your mind?

All I can think about today is the fact that I became an aunt at 5AM this morning and I’m going to see his later this afternoon. I SO excited!

What’s your talent?

troubleshooting queen.

naturally creative to my own surprise.

One word that describes you?

patient

What’s your favourite quotes?

No Pride for some of us without liberation for all of us . Marsha P Johnson

We way too fly to partake in all this hate, we out here vibin’ . Ariana Grande

Any pets?

4 dogs:

Finnley - Great PyreneesXAustralian Shepard

Effie - Border CollieX

Shiro - DacshundXMiniature Australian Shepard

Moose - Great PyreneesXFinnley

2 Cats:

Priya - long haired tabby, kinda sorta Ragdoll’esque

Punkin - short haired orange tabby with a poofy tail

2 Beta Fishies:

King Push & Todd

What is the farthest you’ve been from home?

I lived in England for 2 years & travelled Europe for a month

Are you an extrovert or introvert?

I think TECHNICALLY an introvert?  I can be v extroverted but I really need time to recharge. Recharging for me is being home with my comforts. My wifey, doggos, snacks and Netflix.

Are you left or right handed?

Right hander

Do you consider yourself a good cook?

Like.. sort of? I don’t cook much but when I do I always surprise myself with how well I do lol

Does your name have a special meaning?

It means my Mother was 18 when she had me and REALLY liked Sweet Valley High

If money were no object what would you get for your next birthday?

2 weeks away from home/work, road trip to Halifax for the fertility clinic, get started on a baby and then fly off to one of those tropical cabins on the water. 

If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be?

I would love to have a few homes! A winter getaway BC. A condo in Halifax, NS and a cute little hobby farm here in PEI in some rolling hills somewhere in between Kensington and Charlottetown. 

What’s your favourite thing to have for breakfast?

I love chocolate chip waffles/pancakes, French style pastry breakfast, and when I’m feeling fab, some eggs benny on smoked salmon with a couple mimosas on the side. 

What’s your favourite gadget?

I just got a Fitbit so thats been pretty exciting, aside from that, my phone is on me at like all times. 

What’s your longest relationship so far?

My current one. We’re about to hit 4 years together, married for a little over a month. 

[webuyhousesworld]

Housing Market Slowing Down?

Housing Market Slowing Down? In this video I discuss is the housing market slowing? As a mortgage broker who has worked with thousands of buyers, I feel like I can get a feel for buyer sentiment and market trends before the data hits the radar of analysts. This video is my hunch and my “feel” for what is going on. Please comment below how you feel about your market and let's discuss I love real estate and everything that has to do with real estate investing mortgage, and personal finance. If you enjoyed this video and found value, please consider subscribing! This time last year, housing industry insiders were predicting that the market would collapse under the weight of the pandemic. The opposite happened. Even as the economy suffered its worst year since World War II, the housing market boomed. But that doesn’t mean all is well. Rising prices have masked but not eliminated longstanding problems and vulnerabilities at the heart of America’s housing market. Most urgently, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—the government-sponsored enterprises that own or guarantee roughly half the $12 trillion mortgage market—lack the capital to survive the next inevitable downturn in home prices. The good news is that unlike the crisis in 2008, should the GSEs fail again, creditors, rather than taxpayers, can absorb the losses. That’s because the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which I direct, completed a new rule last month that creates a process to end taxpayer bailouts of the GSEs once and for all. Housing Market Slowing Down? By requiring the GSEs to maintain credible resolution plans known as “living wills,” the new rule will enable a failing GSE to be restructured without risk to business continuity or America’s mortgage market. Similar to the requirements put in place by the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. under the Dodd-Frank Act, the resolution plans will facilitate rapid and orderly resolution if necessary. For the first time in history, the GSEs are required to demonstrate how, in the event of insolvency, core business lines and charters would be maintained to support the housing-finance system without extraordinary government assistance. By establishing the rules of the road in insolvency, these living wills give future investors the information they need to price risk appropriately. This is a prerequisite for the GSEs to raise private capital, which is key to the housing market’s long-term stability. The housing market is hot — but is it too hot? That’s the question a lot of Americans appear to be asking themselves. Data from Google GOOGL, +2.21% underscore the concerns that many people have about the state of the market. Searches for the phrase, “When is the housing market going to crash,” are up 2,450% over the past month. Similarly, Americans are searching in droves for explanations about why the housing market is so hot and why home prices are rising, Google reported. Americans’ concerns are perhaps a natural by-product of today’s extremely competitive market, economists said. “If we see prices rising as quickly as we have, for some people it might spark some memories of the last time around,” Matthew Speakman, an economist with Zillow ZG, +4.69% Z, +4.46%, said. “After robust gains over the past five years, the nationwide nominal house price index is now 40% above its 2012 low-point and 4% above the peak reached in 2006. If 2006 was a historic bubble, then current price levels should be looked at more closely,” according to J.P. Morgan Research. ‘Slowing employment recovery and still-high unemployment levels are not supportive of long-term sustainable price growth.’ — Suzanne Mistretta, senior director at Fitch Ratings For some, today’s real-estate market might feel eerily similar to the market conditions that preceded the Great Recession. Given that the last housing boom triggered a global economic meltdown, these concerns are certainly understandable. But housing experts argue that Americans don’t need to get themselves too worked up — yet. Fitch estimates that national home prices are approximately 5.5% overvalued. “Slowing employment recovery and still-high unemployment levels are not supportive of long-term sustainable price growth,” wrote Suzanne Mistretta, senior director at Fitch Ratings, in a recent research note. And even the more optimistic forecasts from within the industry don’t see current prices lasting. Housing Market Slowing Down? “We’re not going to see a crash in the housing market, but we are expecting some cooling on the really unsustainable growth rates that we saw, particularly in 2020,” said Robert Dietz, chief economist at the National Association of Home Builders. “When home prices are growing faster than incomes, ultimately that is an unsustainable trend.” What’s going on in the housing market? Housing Market Slowing Down? A year ago, when COVID-19 cases first skyrocketed across the U.S., the home-buying market came to a screeching halt as people were advised to stay home to avoid getting sick. At the time, it seemed the housing market was poised for a downturn. What the News Means for You and Your Money Housing Market Slowing Down? Instead, the opposite occurred. When real-estate transactions were allowed to resume, Americans flocked to buy homes. With jobs turning remote and schools becoming virtual, families sought more space in the suburbs. Some city residents tired of their cramped apartments and decided to make a permanent move to more rural areas, while others merely opted to purchase second homes to escape to amid the stay-at-home orders. Fitch calculates that U.S. home prices in a quarter of the country’s metropolitan statistical areas are more than 10% overvalued. With the sudden crush of people seeking to buy homes, prices skyrocketed. By November, home prices were rising at the fastest pace since the Great Recession, and price appreciation has yet to slow. The demand for housing also triggered a building craze. Last year saw a 12% gain in the construction of single-family homes, Dietz said. The sudden increase in home-building activity has since caused a surge in the prices for lumber, driving up the prices of new homes even higher. Fitch calculates that U.S. home prices in a quarter of the country’s metropolitan statistical areas are more than 10% overvalued. Home prices in Idaho (30%-34%) and Nevada (25%-29%) are “becoming more unsustainably inflated while Texas (15%-19%) has become frothier over the last year. “ What’s more, markets like Rhode Island and Washington (both 10%-14% overvalued) that have traditionally experienced more sustainable house-price increases “are now seeing similar disconnects between home price growth and economic fundamentals in place to support the rate of growth,” Fitch added. Strong housing demand is pandemic-related But experts are hesitant to make apples-to-apples comparisons between this housing market fueled in part by pandemic-related demand and low-interest rates, and the one that preceded the Great Recession. The circumstances contributing to today’s booming housing market are very different from what precipitated the last boom and bust cycle. In particular, lenders are being far more careful. The housing boom that prompted the Great Recession stemmed from the rise of sub-prime lending. Banks and other mortgage lenders were originating riskier loans — often requiring little in the way of documentation from borrowers to prove they could afford their monthly mortgage payments. Many loans also featured adjustable rates that ballooned after an introductory period. At the time, homeowners were also treating their homes like ATMs, refinancing into these risky loans to cash out the equity they built up. Experts are hesitant to make apples-to-apples comparisons between this housing market fueled in part by pandemic-related demand and low-interest rates, and the one that preceded the Great Recession. — Danielle Hale, chief economist of Realtor.com By comparison, today’s lending practices are far more conservative. “Banks and mortgage lenders have been disciplined in extending credit, a very different approach than we saw in the previous housing boom,” said Danielle Hale, chief economist of Realtor.com. “In fact, banks have tightened underwriting requirements in the wake of lockdowns last year, so buyers today are more qualified than they’ve been in quite some time.” As evidence of that, mortgage lenders are offering loans to borrowers with higher credit scores. Mortgage credit availability plummeted in the immediate wake of the pandemic to the lowest levels in six years and has only slightly recovered since according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association. Mortgage credit availability plummeted in the immediate wake of the pandemic to the lowest levels in six years and has only slightly recovered since. With banks being so careful, the demand seen in the housing market today is much more organic. And the lifestyle changes brought about by the pandemic is not the only reason why demand has surged. “Current demand is built on a significant growing demographic wave, as we have many millennials turning 30 — a key age for first-time home buying,” Hale said. The common wisdom in real estate is that people are primarily motivated to buy a home not because of low-interest rates or the investment potential, but because of life changes. Millennials are the largest generation — and they are getting married and having kids. As they experience these major milestones, owning a home is becoming a bigger priority. Home shortages push prices higher Florida, a housing market that was hit hard by the Great Recession, is also experiencing potential overheating, according to Ken. H. Johnson, a real-estate economist and associate dean in FAU’s College of Business. Single-family homes, condominiums, townhomes and co-ops are more than 17% above their long-term fundamental house-price growth, but the extent of overpricing of these homes remains far below the 65% during the 2006 peak of overvaluations just before the Great Recession. The big problem for home buyers right now is that there are not many properties to go around. As with the surge in demand, the rise in home prices isn’t artificial, unless you consider the coronavirus pandemic a temporary and/or artificial force fueling house prices. “The heady home price appreciation during the pandemic certainly has some frothiness to it, but there is a substance not far beneath that froth,” said Daren Blomquist, vice president of market economics at Auction.com, a real-estate platform that specializes in foreclosed and bank-owned properties. Many home builders were burned by the last housing bust. Prior to it, some companies had engaged in speculative building practices, so when the market bottomed out they found themselves saddled with newly-constructed homes and few interested buyers. Single-family homes, condominiums, townhomes and co-ops are more than 17% above their long-term fundamental house-price growth. — Ken. H. Johnson, a real-estate economist and associate dean in FAU’s College of Business. As a result, home-building activity slowed considerably. Homebuilders have only ramped their operations back up in the last couple of years, experts say. In the meantime, many Americans were busy getting married and having kids — creating a huge gap between supply and demand. A recent report from Freddie Mac estimated that the U.S. is 4 million homes short of being able to meet the demand of home buyers. That figure has grown by 50% since 2018. Making matters worse, would-be home sellers have remained on the sidelines, constricting the availability of existing homes for sale. Some sellers are likely still nervous about the health risks associated with putting their home on the market amid a pandemic. Others are likely dismayed because they’re having just as hard a time finding a new home to live in, causing them to delay listing their home for sale. Will COVID-19 spark a rise in foreclosures? The housing market may be on solid ground when it comes to the demand for homes and the fast pace of home-price appreciation, but some risks to its health remain. The biggest of these might be the ongoing forbearance situation in the mortgage market. As the economy went into a downward spiral at the start of the pandemic, lawmakers and financial regulators quickly instructed mortgage lenders and servicers to offer relief to borrowers who may have lost work or income. In particular, Americans could request forbearance on their mortgage — allowing them to make reduced mortgage payments or skip them altogether — essentially without any questions asked. At the same time, a moratorium on foreclosures was enacted. By late June, more than 4 million Americans were in forbearance on their mortgage. Millions of homeowners have since exited forbearance and successfully resumed making their monthly payments. However, the federal government has extended both the forbearance program and foreclosure moratorium on multiple occasions. As of mid-April, roughly 2.3 million homeowners were still skipping mortgage payments, according to an estimate from the Mortgage Bankers Association. As of mid-April, around 2.3 million homeowners were still skipping their mortgage payments, according to one estimate. It’s not clear how many of those homeowners will be able to eventually restart paying off their mortgage, and the fate of the housing market could hinge on regulators’ success in preventing a wave of foreclosures. Having all of these homes go into default at once “would tank the market,” said Joan Trice, CEO of the Collateral Risk Network, an organization of real estate appraisers and risk managers. “The forbearance rate is two times what it was in the last crisis,” Trice added. “It would be chaos and devastating to the market.” The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau recently proposed extending the pause on foreclosures until 2022 and making it easier for borrowers to request changes to their home loans that would allow them to afford to stay in their homes. The consumer-watchdog agency also suggested it was going to scrutinize lenders’ and servicers’ practices to protect homeowners. Plus, regulations introduced under President Obama make pursuing a foreclosure more onerous than it was during the last housing downturn. ‘The forbearance rate is two times what it was in the last crisis.’ — Joan Trice, CEO of the Collateral Risk Network “Combine all of this and the risk of large-scale foreclosures diminishes substantially,” said Edward Pinto, co-director of the American Enterprise Institute’s Center on Housing Markets and Finance. To the extent that some homeowners may still go into default, it would not necessarily be widespread. Forbearance rates are higher among people who took out loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration, or FHA. Housing Market Slowing Down? “The biggest risk lies with Federal Housing Administration (FHA)-backed loans originated since 2014,” Blomquist said. These loans were riskier, featuring higher debt-to-income ratios. Many of these borrowers relied on down-payment assistance to purchase their homes. “Those FHA loans will be the most likely to fall into foreclosure post-pandemic, and markets with high concentrations of these loans could suffer as a result,” Blomquist said. The housing markets that have the highest risk based on FHA delinquency rates as of February include Atlanta, Houston Chicago and Dallas, according to research from the American Enterprise Institute. The good news for homeowners in a bind right now is that, generally speaking, they have built up equity in their homes. And given the high demand for housing nationwide, housing experts say that most of these families should be able to sell their homes — even for a profit — and return to renting. What happens if mortgage rates rise? Housing Market Slowing Down? Based on past econometric modeling, J.P. Morgan Research found that “a reasonable rule of thumb” is a 100 basis-point decline in mortgage rates is associated with a 10% increase in home sales. But, experts caution, the opposite is also true. The difficult forbearance situation isn’t the only threat to the housing market. Indeed, with home prices having risen as high as they have, many buyers are walking a fine line when it comes to being able to afford to purchase a property. Rising mortgage rates threaten that equilibrium. “An extremely rapid and sharp rise in mortgage rates could cool demand so abruptly that it quickly shifts the market from boom to bust,” Blomquist said. Most housing experts project that mortgage rates will only rise somewhat modestly this year. Interest rates have rebounded from the record lows set at the start of the year, but in recent works, they settled around 3%. Should rates resume their upward climb, home price growth is likely to slow in response, experts say. And that could give some buyers an opening, as affordability pushes others out of the market for the time being. We Buy Houses World Housing Market Slowing Down? #we #buy #houses #love #sell #realestate #instagood #homes #you #realtor #house #usa #home #us #invest #luxury #are #miami #instagram #architecture #the #realestateagent #hiphop #rent #luxuryhomes #beautiful #design #artist #sale #happy Read the full article