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sshbpodcast · 1 month

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Character Spotlight: Nog

By Ames

After some great blogposts on Quark and Rom, we’ve got one Ferengi left to shine the spotlight on, and that’s another of our fan favorites: Nog! Similarly to his father, Nog’s character arc over the seasons of Deep Space Nine is captivating to watch, as he grows from a little punk ne’er-do-well into a fully realized, complex person full of nuance and opportunities to learn. Which is pretty much DS9 in a nutshell.

So get prepared for some character whiplash, as we’ve got both childish pranks and severe post-traumatic stress disorder to explore in our blogpost below as we applaud the impressive versatility and range of the late Aron Eisenberg. Check out what your A Star to Steer Her By hosts have assembled as some of the young Ferengi’s best and worst moments, and check out our discussion on this week’s podcast episode (jump to 1:15:10 for Nog!). And there’ll be no running on the promenade!

[Images © CBS/Paramount]

Best moments

Vulcans stole my homework As usual, we’re starting off with the good moments, and early on in “The Nagus” we see Nog get pulled from Keiko’s school out of Rom’s sheer racism. But what’s most commendable in the young Ferengi is that he sticks with it, secretly learning to read in the cargo bay with Jake and entirely subverting Sisko’s expectations and systematic racism against the Ferengi!

Maybe this isn’t a problem. Maybe it’s an opportunity. While we gripe about how the Ferengi can be cartoonishly one-dimensional at times, there are times when their obsession with profit makes for good character and plot moments. When Nog encourages Varis Sul, Tetrarch of the Paqu, to view her land-rights situation in “The Storyteller” as a business negotiation, she finds a compromise everyone enjoys!

Say that five times fast Speaking of Nog’s business acumen, he’s clearly still learning some of the basics in “Progress” but we still enjoy watching as he and Jake create their own Milo Minderbinder–like syndicate to sell yamok sauce and self-sealing stem bolts for what will turn out to be great running gags for years to come… not to mention tongue-twisters that frequently plague us on the podcast.

Because I don’t want to end up like my father From what we know about Nog by the midpoint of season three (including some of the bad moments you’ll see below), it seems entirely random for him to want to join Starfleet as he says in “Heart of Stone.” But when he exposes to Sisko that he has dreams outside of making profit, of being something greater than his father, you really root for the guy and know he’s really going to do it!

Best friends in subspace When old man Jake Sisko is ready to embark on some outlandish quest to find his father, lost in subspace for decades, in “The Visitor,” there is absolutely no surprise that Nog is right there at his side in the Defiant, ready to do whatever it takes for his old friend. Sure, it’s an alternate future version of Nog, but the connection he has with Jake is as real as ever.

On Wednesday we wear red Of course, Starfleet Academy is a challenge for Nog, who has set his sights on getting into the elite and extremely cliquey Red Squad to make a name for himself. But when it turns out that Red Squad is just a bunch of cadets being used by Admiral Leyton for his coup in “Paradise Lost,” Nog helps Sisko to find the truth of the matter, even if it is reluctantly at first.

Not quite a Vulcan Hello The B-plot in “Blaze of Glory” may not entirely gel with the A-plot of watching Eddington’s sacrifice, but it’s still some cute stuff for Nog. When he stands up to Martok after a whole episode of getting walked all over by the Klingons, you’ve got to respect the guy. As Martok says, “Courage comes in all sizes,” and it’s great to watch Nog tackle his problems head on.

Have a good day! There’s just something about “In the Cards” that makes you feel good. Nog, being the best friend a kid could ask for, agrees to help Jake win his dad a baseball card, going so far as to loan all his money to Jake (I can hear every Ferengi screaming at that). And then the rest of the episode is them going around the station, making everyone have a genuinely nice day. It’s so cute!

Boogie woogie woogie Okay, Nog might only have one line in all of “You Are Cordially Invited,” but I just find him dancing with Jadzia at her bachelorette party just so endearing that I had to include it. Aron Eisenberg came up with the little Ferengi frog dance himself, and when Terry Farrell joins in, I find myself smiling every time. Thank you, Aron, for creating this adorable moment.

Have faith in the Great Material Continuum So the whole Rube Goldberg device that is the chain events of schemes in “Treachery, Faith, and the Great River” may be kind of a repeat of the deals from “Progress” but it’s still very clever. After he joined Starfleet, you could almost forget that Nog is a Ferengi under the ensign uniform, but he pulls off deal after deal after deal to get the chief the stabilizer he needs.

We have a casino to build While it is painful to watch Nog struggle with PTSD in “It’s Only a Paper Moon,” the way he knuckles down to assist Vic with his finances and to work on expanding the lounge into a casino is simply fascinating. It’s helping him cope, so that by the end of a brilliantly acted episode, he doesn’t even realize that he’s put himself on the road to recovery that is right for him.

He’s not just a hologram, he’s my friend Speaking of Vic’s casino, Nog is quick to pay back his holographic crooner friend for helping him recover by participating in the big heist in “Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang.” Nog’s part is to crack the safe in the countroom, and when he learns that it has an auto-relock tumbler that no one was expecting, he keeps his cool, gets to work, and helps the whole crew save the day!

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Worst moments

You never get a second chance to make a first impression The very first glimpse we get of Nog in “Emissary” is him stealing shit (almost certainly at Quark’s bidding) and getting locked in the brig by Odo. He has all of two lines in the episode – “Hurry up!” and “Now!” – but he is immediately cemented as a bad seed under the thumb of his uncle. The show literally starts Nog off with such a bad reputation there’s nowhere to go but up!

What this place needs is a school Nog’s delinquent behavior doesn’t stop there. When he and Jake strike up a friendship in “A Man Alone,” it’s by sharing the experience of pranking a couple of civilians on the promenade with some Garanian bolites, which cause them to itch terribly and turn colors in a scene that legitimately looks like torture. It’s no wonder Keiko steps in by starting up her little school.

Buckets of fun! We see another of Nog’s juvenile pranks in “The Storyteller” when he fills Odo’s bucket with oatmeal and dumps it on Jake who, utterly mortified, believes for a second that they’ve somehow killed Odo. It’s a little funny in hindsight, but at the moment it just seems cruel. Jake’s reaction of terror certainly helps that along, cementing Nog’s station status as a nuisance.

No running on the promenade! There’s one more Nog prank to make the list! When he sprays some foul-smelling fluid on Tumak in “Sanctuary,” it causes a big fight to break out with the various Skrrean kids. Nog just can’t help himself. As if these refugee kids haven’t been through enough, they have this short, big-eared, froglike nuisance wreaking havoc for them. What a brat.

No one’s asking you to think, my dear As we’ve discussed in Quark’s and Rom’s respective spotlight posts before, Ferengi culture is garbage, especially how they treat females. We see some of that come through in Nog in “Life Support” when he goes on a double date with Jake and acts like a complete asshole to Riska. He’s demeaning to her, he requests she cuts his food for him, and somehow Jake’s the one apologizing!

I’ve been looking for it for two years Even when Nog has matured and joined Starfleet Academy, we get little reminders of the miscreant that he was from the start. At his coming-of-age yardsale, Kira discovers that Nog has had her lost springball racket all along and was attempting to sell it in “Little Green Men.�� Sure, that was two-years-ago Nog, but he could have returned it in all that time!

Could you massage it some more? Across so many of these posts, every time oo-mox comes up it automatically makes the worst moments lists. So when Nog tricks Faith Garland into giving him oo-mox in “Little Green Men,” and not for the first time evidently, I find it abhorrent. Here’s hoping I don’t have to bring up such rapey behavior again for a while (at least until that one Ferengi episode of Enterprise).

Healthy body, healthy mind After a season or so at Starfleet Academy, Nog suddenly becomes a tightass. The conflict with Jake, now his roommate, in “The Ascent” is manufactured and trite – the kind of odd-couple antics of eponymous sitcoms. Nog is now a neatfreak. He constantly works out. He corrects Jake’s stories without permission. It’s like his character has been rewritten to fit a punchline, and an old one at that.

I won’t turn my back on you again This one’s just a little silly peeve. After the events of “Empok Nor” when Garak’s little murder spree on the titular station, Nog vows to never turn his back on Garak when they’re out searching for supplies in “Rocks and Shoals.” But then after they get hostage-handoff’ed, he immediately turns his back on Garak as they cross the levy. Dude! What did you just say?

Red Squad, Red Squad, Red Squad! Nog got tempted by the allure of the corrupt Red Squad in “Homefront” and “Paradise Lost,” but it’s in “Valiant” that he gets thoroughly taken in. Acting Captain Watters offers Nog everything he’s ever wanted: respect, rank, and some semblance of power, in exchange for his unquestioning obedience when the utterly impossible plan goes swiftly sideways. Gee, who’da thunk?

And you find that impressive? The Dominion War sure brings out the worst in a lot of people. Sisko commits some war crimes. O’Brien is typically racist about the Jem’Hadar. And Nog starts to fancy himself a soldier, bent on killing the enemy. In “The Siege of AR-558,” he blatantly admires the Ketracel-white tubes that Reese has collected as war trophies, and Quark is all of us, displaying utter disgust at this.

You don’t come into my club and start hitting customers While we totally get that recovery from the loss of his leg is a struggle, that’s no excuse for how Nog treats his friends in “It’s Only a Paper Moon.” Living in a holodeck starts off as a way to not only avoid the people he thinks are staring at him, but to avoid helping himself get better through therapy and rehabilitation. And when Jake visits, Nog is rude to Jake’s date, and then outright attacks Jake in the middle of Vic’s set. Pally!

— You’ve got a deal! That’s the end of the Ferengi spotlights (for now?), but we’ve got more great DS9 recurring characters to examine for the next couple weeks, so make sure you’re following along here. We’re also still plodding through the Xindi arc over on our watchthrough of Enterprise, so join us on SoundCloud or wherever you get your podcasts, and hail us over on Facebook and Twitter. Now say it with me: self-stealing stem– dammit!

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theflyfishingartist · 30 days

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#outdoors #fly fishing #trout #trout fishing #flyfishing #fly fishing women #arkansas #arkansas fly fishing #tight lines #women fly fishing #white river #bull shoals

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thedoctorwhocompanion · 2 months

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Reviewed: Big Finish’s Classic Doctors New Monsters Volume 4 – Broken Memories

Reviewed: @bigfinish’s #DoctorWho Classic Doctors New Monsters Volume 4 – Broken Memories

The fourth volume of Big Finish’s Classic Doctors New Monsters takes the range to a new level, this time solely focusing on three Steven Moffat creations. They’re so unique in different ways, they don’t disappoint. And isn’t it a funny coincidence that the anthology was released a few days before the exciting announcement of Moffat returning to write an episode for Season 1 (or as I prefer to…

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biology-geology-beaches-india · 2 years

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The velocity of a stream decreases from a maximum at the center to a minimum - near zero - at the banks, the velocity profile usually a parabolic function, or a linear function, of velocity versus distance from the bank.

The reason why the velocity is so low near the banks is due to friction, a fact that these tiny fish, milling around in the waters immediately adjacent to the sandy bank, utilize to prevent themselves from being swept downstream and out to sea.

Sudden and random surges in the velocity of the river however force them to adopt a schooling configuration - the top two photos, versus the randomly oriented positions of the fish in the shoal of the last two photos - and actively swim in an upstream direction in order to hold their position at the bank.

The confluence of the Gosthani River, May 10, 2010. Bheemili, Andhra Pradesh.

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monmorgandy · 2 years

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Bathed in Golden Hour - 1055 by J & W Photography Via Flickr: Facebook | FAA It will soon be that time of a year again for the Cahaba wild waterlilies. However we won't be here that time of this year due to another trip scheduled ahead. So we would like to share a photo of the waterlilies taken last year. Hope you enjoy. For your interest, below is the information about the Cahaba River waterlilies: From early May to late June, the shoals of the Cahaba River are transformed into a showcase of floral delight as the rare Cahaba Lily blooms. Found only in Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina; the Cahaba Lily requires swift current and direct sunlight to flourish. The plant grows to about 3' tall and develops from a bulb that lodges in between rocks in the shoals. It flowers from roughly between Mother's Day and Father's Day. Each delicate, lightly fragranced flower blooms for one day.

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missing-girls-and-women · 6 months

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Lorlene Chasity Eva Bone, 31

Last seen in Shoal River Indian Reserve, Manitoba in 2016.

#shoal river indian reserve #manitoba #canada #2016 #2010s

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whats-in-a-sentence · 7 months

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At about nine o'clock next morning three lonely figures might have been seen picking their way across the Shribble by the shoals and stepping-stones.

"The Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair" - C. S. Lewis

#book quotes #the chronicles of narnia #the silver chair #c s lewis #pauline baynes #9am #puddleglum #marsh wiggle #jill pole #eustace scrubb #lonely #river #shoals #stepping stones

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autotrails · 1 year

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American Auto Trail-Dixie Highway (Hodges to Ware Shoals SC)

American Auto Trail-Dixie Highway (Hodges to Ware Shoals SC) https://youtu.be/-Csa2yD6EmA This American auto trail explores a section of the Dixie Highway auto trail from near Hodges, South Carolina, to the town of Ware Shoals.

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#4K #american history #Auto trail #dixie highway #Greenwood County #road travel #Saluda River #slow travel #south carolina #Ware Shoals #Woodpecker Route

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lensandpenpress · 2 years

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"So long, free flowing White River!"

“So long, free flowing White River!”

Dewey Short and other VIPs say goodbye to the free-flowing White River Photograph by Townsend Godsey. Congressman Dewey Short and unidentified colleagues looking at the White River. On the back is written, “Table Rock dam site 9-14-4″ Dewey appears to be pointing out the location where the long-delayed dam would be built. Only a month earlier the President had signed the Flood Control Act of…

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#JamesRiver #Bull Shoals dam #Dewey Short #Flood Control Act of 1941 #hillbilly #James Fork of the White #Table Rock Dam #Townsend Godsey #White River

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thethirdromana · 10 months

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Visiting Whitby with Mina Murray

Last year I illustrated Mina's description of Whitby a selection of modern photos. This year, I thought I might go one better, so here are some views of Whitby as Mina might have seen it in the 1890s*.

[*or as close as I could manage.]

"This is a lovely place. The little river, the Esk, runs through a deep valley, which broadens out as it comes near the harbour."

"A great viaduct runs across, with high piers, through which the view seems somehow further away than it really is."

[I don't actually know the age of this photo, but it looks about right.]

"The valley is beautifully green, and it is so steep that when you are on the high land on either side you look right across it, unless you are near enough to see down."

"The houses of the old town—the side away from us—are all red-roofed, and seem piled up one over the other anyhow..."

"... like the pictures we see of Nuremberg."

[this is Nuremberg sometime between 1890 and 1906]

"Right over the town is the ruin of Whitby Abbey, which was sacked by the Danes, and which is the scene of part of "Marmion," where the girl was built up in the wall."

"It is a most noble ruin, of immense size, and full of beautiful and romantic bits; there is a legend that a white lady is seen in one of the windows."

"Between it and the town there is another church, the parish one, round which is a big graveyard, all full of tombstones."

"This is to my mind the nicest spot in Whitby, for it lies right over the town, and has a full view of the harbour and all up the bay to where the headland called Kettleness stretches out into the sea."

"It descends so steeply over the harbour that part of the bank has fallen away, and some of the graves have been destroyed. In one place part of the stonework of the graves stretches out over the sandy pathway far below. There are walks, with seats beside them, through the churchyard; and people go and sit there all day long looking at the beautiful view and enjoying the breeze."

[this painting by William Lionel Wyllie is from 1922, so a bit later, but I thought it was too pretty not to include. St Mary's and the graveyard are at the top left, and you can see the steep descent below.]

"The harbour lies below me, with, on the far side, one long granite wall stretching out into the sea, with a curve outwards at the end of it, in the middle of which is a lighthouse. A heavy sea-wall runs along outside of it. On the near side, the sea-wall makes an elbow crooked inversely, and its end too has a lighthouse. Between the two piers there is a narrow opening into the harbour, which then suddenly widens."

"It is nice at high water; but when the tide is out it shoals away to nothing, and there is merely the stream of the Esk, running between banks of sand, with rocks here and there."

[from Horne's Guide to Whitby, 1897]

"Outside the harbour on this side there rises for about half a mile a great reef, the sharp edge of which runs straight out from behind the south lighthouse. At the end of it is a buoy with a bell, which swings in bad weather, and sends in a mournful sound on the wind. They have a legend here that when a ship is lost bells are heard out at sea."

"The steps are a great feature on the place. They lead from the town up to the church, there are hundreds of them—I do not know how many—and they wind up in a delicate curve; the slope is so gentle that a horse could easily walk up and down them."

And a bonus - might Mina have bought one of these postcards for Jonathan?

[they are from 1903, so the answer to this is "no", but again I thought they were too pretty not to include.]

#dracula daily #historical context #july 24 #had this one in my drafts since may so i hope you all like it

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probablyasocialecologist · 2 months

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Aesthetic sensibilities are deeply subjective, and hard to acknowledge and analyse clearly. They take root in us from the moment we’re born. They bind us to a particular view of the landscape, something we begin to think of as ‘natural’ or, at least, benign. What we see as children, particularly where we grow up, becomes what we want to continue to see, and what we want our children to see. Nostalgia, and the sense of security that nostalgia brings, binds us to the familiar. We are persuaded, too, by our own absorption in this aesthetic that what we are seeing has been here for ever. We believe the countryside around us, or something very similar to it, has persisted for centuries and the wildlife within it, if not exactly the same, is at least a fair representation of what has been here for centuries. But the ecological processes of the past are hard for the layman – and often even conservation professionals – to grasp.

We are blinded by the immediacy of the present. We look at the landscape and see what is there, not what is missing. And if we do appreciate some sort of ecological loss and change, we tend to go only as far back as our childhood memories, or the memories of our parents or grandparents who tell us ‘there used to be hundreds of lapwings in my day’, ‘skylarks and song thrushes were ten-a-penny’, ‘the fields round here used to be red with poppies and blue with cornflowers’, ‘cod was the poor man’s fish when I was a nipper’. We are blind to the fact that in our grandparents’ grandparents’ day there would have been species-rich wildflower meadows in every parish and coppice woods teeming with butterflies. They would have heard corncrakes and bitterns, seen clouds of turtle doves, thousands of lapwings and hundreds more skylarks. A mere four generations ago they knew rivers swimming with burbot – now extinct in Britain – and eels, and their summer nights were peppered with bats and moths and glow-worms. Their grandparents, in turn, saw nightjars settling on dusty country lanes and even hawking for moths around the street lamps in towns, and spotted flycatchers in every orchard, and meadow pipits everywhere from salt-flats to the crowns of mountains. They saw banks of giant cod and migrating tuna in British waters. They saw our muddy North Sea clear as gin, filtered by oyster beds as large as Wales. And their grandparents, in turn, living at the time of the last beaver in Britain, would have known great bustards, and watched shoals of herring five miles long and three miles broad migrating within sight of the shore, chased by schools of dolphins and sperm whales and the occasional great white shark. We don’t have to look too deeply into the history books, into contemporary accounts, for scenes dramatically different to our own to be normal. Yet we live in denial of these catastrophic losses.

Isabella Tree, Wilding: The Return of Nature to a British Farm

#Wilding #ecology #biodiversity #Shifting Baseline Syndrome

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yourdarlingness · 8 months

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✦ Our Life: Beginning & Always ~ themed　NPT

╰　DAY 5 of @rumblepumm ' s event !

NAMES ︙　cove . seashell . shoal . shoaliette . sholiene . ocean . oceanide . lake . river . riverine . aqua . aqua(mu)rette . aquamarine . coralle . coralette . creek . everett . evelyn . eve . teary . tearie . tweary . tearfall(e) . teardrop . poppy . popp(i)ette . poppeine . lee . lily . leslie / lesley . lynn . francine . jackie . ari . aria . arielle . claire . elizabeth . liz / lizzy / lizzie . lizette . elyssa . elysia . reagan . noe . lain . macy . baxter . bax . baxley . barley . oakley . alexander . oliver . ollie . spade . mono . vince . victor . vincent . vinny . chester . derek . darren . dylan . daryl . darcy . darlene . devon . jaime . jamie . james . jay . taylor . harper . ash(e) . paula . pamela . pauline . miranda . randy . marissa . margot . sage . faith . melissa . terry . alex . robin . radley . marshall . max . chase . jeremy . archie . jayden . jonathan . misery . miserine . miser(i)ette . kyra . kyla . kylie . kyrelle . kier . sydney . chantel(le) . eleanor . shiloh . scout . asher . willow . adam . scott . jude . jade

PRNS ︙　sea . wa / wave . sea / shell / seashell . sea / foam / seafoam . sea / bun / seabun . wae / water / waterfall . pud / puddle . su / surf . ae / aqua . tea / tear(y) . shy . cry . fi / fish . swi / swim . co / cor / coral . pop / poppy . li / lily . da / dance . ste / steps . rhy / rhythm . mo(e) / mono . wa / waltz . fe / fetch . fri / friends . mie / mis / misery . si / silly . lo / love . ado / adore . he(a) / heart . 💧 . 🌊 . 🐚 . 🦈 . 🦑 . 🦞 . ⛴️ . 🚢 . ⛵ . 🎹 . ♠️ . ♣️ . 🖤 . 🎧 . 🎵 . 🎶 . 🎼 . ⚽ . 🏈

TITLES ︙　the alluring mermaid/merman/merperson . the heart of the sea . the [x] / prn who was washed ashore . prns graceful/tidal wave . prn whose soul is pure . the [x] with a peaceful life . prn who surfs . the lady / maiden / [x] of the deep sea . the one who sets sail . the [x] in the sea of stars . prns aquatic adventure . the [x] in coral reefs . prn who swims with fishes/sharks/etc (any aquatic animals) . the [x] of the blue waves . the seashell collector . the master of waltz . the born dancer / prn who is a born dancer . the ballroom dancer . the divine dancer . the charming dancer . the Victorian-era emo man . the one of all smiles . prn who is monochromatic . prn who moves flawlessly . the dancer of arts . the one with conflicting feelings . the [x] whose story begins . prns prologue . prns beginnings . prns start of dreams . prns opening acts/chapter . the [x]'s new beginnings . prns new chapter . prns divine plot twist

[x] — any nouns　;　examples below

the angel who was washed ashore

the ghost whose story begins

the boy of the blue waves

sorry that its long :3

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swanmaids · 4 months

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Following the tapestries of the Lady Ever-Weaving that line the Halls of Mandos, if one concentrates hard enough on what they are seeing, one could easily feel as though they are not simply viewing a great work, but truly travelling backwards and forwards through time.

The weavers of the House of Vairë depict with their own hands every life that has ever lived – here a fat ptarmigan hides amid the grasses on the banks of the river Aros; there a patch of amethyst-coloured crocuses grows by the Withywindle. They tell the tale of everything that has ever happened.

Here a great wave destroys all of Númenor; there a shoal of tiny fish swims through the sunken wreckage.

Such work is far beyond the skill or even conception of most. All but one of Vairë’s weavers are servant-spirits made in the mind of Eru, to aid Lady Vairë in her storytelling and loom-work. Only one of the Eldar is permitted to dwell among them.

Yet Míriel the Broideress is at peace within her Lady’s halls, in a way that she had never been in wider Aman. Here, she exists almost out of time, where her sorrows and those of her kin are but one weave in the ever-growing tapestry of Arda.

Here Maedhros casts himself in the flames; there Eärendil stands aboard his ship and lights the whole world.

To truly love a great work is in many ways to love its creator. That Míriel who lives and breathes the tapestries should come to love the Valië created for the preservation of Arda in thread is perhaps inevitable. Vairë is everywhere in her workshop: when Míriel strokes the shuttle she touches her, when she gazes into the threads of her work, she gazes into Vairë’s thoughts. There is a certain depth of knowing another, that once reached, is indistinguishable from love.

That Vairë could come to return her handmaiden’s love is perhaps more surprising. Or perhaps not. Vairë was made to weave, and Míriel is the greatest among all weavers.

Here and there: two women travel through time.

#my post #my fic #feb ficlet challenge #sapphictolkien

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yesterdays-xkcd · 5 months

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I'm waiting for the day when, if you tell someone 'I'm from the internet', instead of laughing they just ask 'oh, what part?'

Online Communities [Explained]

Transcript

[Hand-drawn fantasy style map with land and sea areas representing populations of online communities, plus some fictious jokes and references. Each area or item is labeled.] Map of Online Communities and related points of interest Geographic area represents estimated size of membership

[A giant continent with:] The Icy North (Yahoo, Windows Live) containing the Mountains of Web 1.0, AOL, Qwghlm, Yahoo Games, Reunion dot Com, Classmates do Com, Faceparty, E-Harmony, Friendster (off the coast of which is the The Lonely Island), My Space containing The Series of Tubes, MySpace Bands, and the much smaller Attractive MySpace Pages, Blurty, O.K. Cupid, Cyworld, Orkut, Facebook, and Livejournal & Xanga - the coasts of which form the Bay Of Angst.

[The Noob Sea is bordered by AOL, the Icy North, MySpace, and an island system off the coast of Yahoo Games consisting of:] Second Life (and the much smaller island Third Life), Lineage, World of Warcraft, Runscape, Ultima Online, EverQuest, Final Fantasy 11, and further off, 2Channel and 4Chan. [To the east is labelled "Here be anthopomorphic Dragons].

[The Gulf of Youtube is bordered by Facebook, Myspace, and the island continents of:] Piczo, Broadcaster, the river Bit Torrent, Flickr, Last.FM, and DeviantArt with the subsection Gays of Web 2.0, and off the south coast and between another island is the Straits of Web 2.0.

[Off the pennisula of MySpace, island of Second Life, and island continents of Broadcaster et al is the Sea of Culture which hoasts the Peer-to-Peer Shoals. The Sea of Culture is separated from the Ocean of Subculture by and island system consisting of:] Digg, Fark, Reddit, Slash Dot, Soviet Russia, and Something Awful, which surround the Bay of Trolls, and Spaaarta (You're The Man Now Dog), Stumble Upon, and Delicious on the south end of the Viral Straits and the north end of the Sea of Memes, the Isle of Slash, Numa, and Your Base.]

[On the south end of the Sea of Memes, mostly made up of the IRC isles with a dotted outline where Usenet is located, is:] Stallman's Airship, Google's Volcano Fortress, Sourceforge, and the Wikipedia Project bridged island system that connects to M.I.T., EnGadget, Gizmodo, and Make Blog.

[West of the Wikipedia Project lies the Blogipelago with:] BoingBoing, Technorati, [something that can be read as T.W.B. or T.M.Z.], Cory Doctorow's Balloon, Sulawesi, Xu Jinglei, Post Secret, the Shipwreck of the S.S. Howard Dean, the Huffington Post, and the Wet Sea.

[North of the Blogipelago lies the Compass Rose-Shaped Island, with the north arm labelled Practicals (Noob), the south Intellectuals (Pi), west Focus on Real Life (I.R.L.), and the east Focus on Web (dot Com).]

(Not a complete survey. Sizes based on the best figures I could find but involved some guesswork. Do not use for navigation.) Spring 2007

#xkcd #xkcd 256 #online communities #2000s #2007

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welcome-back-to-hoimycraf · 2 months

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A man arrived in town yesterday.

Actually, let her rephrase that- a man washed up in town yesterday.

She’d woken rather abruptly to the familiar sound of rocks shredding lumber like paper, and knew that another had been claimed by the sea. Gem sighed, pulling herself out from under the comfy, warm blankets that she oh-so desperately wished to return to and threw on her large jacket to protect her pajamas from the salt.

Hopefully whoever had crashed was alright, but she knew better. The stony shoal at the base of her lighthouse had taken plenty of lives in only her first few months of being its keeper, and she only expected more to follow. She made her way down the spiraling tower.

Through the dim light of the entryway she found the telephone at its usual spot behind the stairs. Gem hoped the operator was awake as she pressed the earphone to her head, listening past the buzzing for his voice. She tapped her foot impatiently as the seconds went on. Finally, she reached her hand up to rattle the receiver and get his attention. The slacker! she thought, though she really couldn’t blame him for neglecting his duties this late at night. It seemed to work, as his bumbling voice swiftly answered on the other end.

“Sorry- uh, what number?”

“Mumbo,” she spoke as clearly as she could through the crackly static, “I need Scar. As soon as possible.” She vaguely wished she could afford to be more polite, but she quickly stamped the thought out. Mumbo would understand.

“Ah! Okay, will do!” The faint sounds of movement started over the line as he worked the wires. Knowing it would take a moment, she let him fish for the information he wanted. “So, what happened this time?”

The lighthouse keeper sighed, a sound she’d become quite familiar with over the months. “An accident at the shore, probably a bad one, judging by the sound.”

An understanding hum carried through. “Understood. You’re on route to Scar now.”

“Thank you.”

After a bit more waiting through the growing sense of urgency caused by the ringing of the call later, the man’s voice, much too bright and cheery for the hour, crackled through the other end. “Hello! Mayor Scar, at your service!”

“Scar? It’s Gem. We’ve got an emergency at the lighthouse,” she started, attempting to give as much detail in as little time as possible. “Bring medical supplies and…” The words died on her tongue, but she cleared her throat. “Some body shrouds.”

“Alright, we’ll be there as soon as we can. Be safe out there,” he finished. It was rare to hear Scar be so serious, but she supposed the guy was just concerned for her being out on the slippery cliffs in the dark.

“Will do.” The low tone of the line going dead prompted her to set the earphone back in its rightful place, but her hand ended up slipping and banging the receiver. She said a silent apology to Mumbo.

Gem knew she was wasting time leaning her head against the wall, but she needed some damn air alright? She took a deep breath to sober up before gearing up to face her burdens. She made sure to grab her flashlight from its home on the shelf beside the door that was there in case of nights like this, only pausing for a moment at the knob to prepare herself for whatever viscera she might find past it.

The night was dark, as usual, with very little moonlight to allow her to see. She felt along the flashlight’s corroded surface to find its switch, the beam flickering to life once she found it. Though she wanted to, she wasted no more time in her search. Someone, maybe even multiple people were counting on her. She was the bringer of life and death in this moment- she only had to choose which she would be.

Her journey down wasn’t very long until she first saw signs of the wreck. Pieces of debris floated past her feet, on its way down to the mouth of the river. From what she could tell it was… bamboo? Who builds a boat out of bamboo? Whatever. It wasn’t her job to question it.

The detritus only became thicker the closer she got to the base of the lighthouse, the shallower water between the rocks providing ample view of the wreckage. Among the rope and bamboo sat something much more eye-catching.

A person laid face down in a pool of water. Their heavy red sweater, while good at keeping out the brisk wind of the night, only served to soak up seawater like a sponge. As Gem approached, she heard them groan lowly- in pain or annoyance, she couldn't tell. At least they were alive, thank god. "Are you alright?"

"Ugh,” they grumbled, lifting their head from its place in the wet sand. “Blasted raft, couldn't even handle a few pebbles," they complained, picking themself up and brushing off sludge from their pants. Their distinct English accent caught her off guard with how out of place it seemed- though she supposed Mumbo and Joel were British as well. “And I got my clothes dirty, great.”

Gem blinked in shock. That was what they were worried about? “I’m sorry?”

The person whipped their head up to look at her. It seemed like they just noticed she was there. “Oh. Uh- hello,” they said, shifting from foot to foot awkwardly. The only sound she could hear aside from the crashing of the waves was their sopping hair dripping onto the stone. Gem couldn't even tell if it was brown or blonde.

“Are you alright?” She eyed them up and down, but they looked to be in good condition despite the circumstance. In fact, she couldn't find a single scratch on them- or even a rip in their soiled garments for that matter.

“Never been better!” They grinned, clapping their hands together in a way that startled Gem with the sound. “Now, where can a guy find something new to wear around here?” They- he? looked around as if he would spot a shop on the beach.

“Uh-”

Thankfully, the situation was taken out of her hands as the sound of automobiles rumbled up behind her, blinding her with their headlights when she turned.

“Gem? You found a survivor?” Scar’s voice was a nice touch of familiarity as he climbed out of the driver’s seat.

The rest of the night was a blur. She assumed the shock came from the man- which she now learned was Grian- being so nonchalant. Weird name, but who was she to judge? Her best friend’s name was Etho, so she had little say in the matter. What truly was weird was how calm he was. It was like he hadn’t washed ashore in a new, unfamiliar place. Once she made sure he was safely in the hospitality of the town, she made her way back to the lighthouse. She had expected to find a gored body earlier that night. Luckily, she seemed to be wrong about him.

>Next<

psssst @bed-of-ashes asked me to tag them so i did ^^

#fanfic #my fanfic #hermitfic #hermitcraft #hermitcraft 10 #grian #geminitay #mumbo jumbo #goodtimeswithscar #mayor scar

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