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fatehbaz · 1 month

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taking relentless severe psychic damage from watching several hours of videos of television commercial advertisements from the United States in December 1999.

a world-historical moment, an all-time high peak of self-assured smirking arrogance.

ascendant home computers and internet modems. a new millennium! a time after Cold War but before Nining Leven, with saxophone-playing heads of state and cheery Spielbierg-ian sentimentality attempting to plaster over 1970s/1980s disappointments and hangovers with renewed millennarian End-Of-History optimism.

come celebrate with us! look at these images of The Nation! from sparkling Times Square and the cast of "Friends" in bustling cosmopolitan New York City, to sunny Californian prosperity, to those cartoonish frogs in the quasi-mythical Deep South-ish rural periphery of Budweiser ads, and all the suburban Midwestern Kay's Jeweler's in between! planetary hegemony. "Head east from the Colosseum, across the ruts of chariots, and you'll find an imperial estate built by a second-century Caesar. It's a rough ride. And if the agile and durable Chevy Tracker can handle these ancient roads, driving back home will be a walk in the park. Chevy Tracker: It Gets Around!"

or perhaps "our" power extends beyond this terrestrial imperium, into space, conquering the stars. UFOs; space aliens; The X-Files; Independence Day; Space Jam; Men in Black; the Phoenix Lights; Coast to Coast AM on the radio; Space Command in Colorado Springs.

the anxious fragility belied by the desperate constant promotion of an almost religious dedication to recognizable icons.

talking chihuahuas, marketing jingles, annual football game events. self-referential circular cross-promotion maelstrom.

"An all-new holiday spectacular, a Christmas special destined to become a family classic! With music from REM's Michael Stipe, voiced by Ally McBeal's Peter MacNicol, and starring Drew Barrymore! It's Olive the Other Reindeer! At 8/7 Central Fox Friday!"

trying to insist that this "classic" cultural iconography binds us. it has always lived in your heart. fabricating in real-time a supposedly shared history, insisting on this "reality" even at the moment of its very creation. hammering away at the soul.

Daffy Duck saunters in and pronounces: "Eat your way into the new millennium with this 'gigundo' party sub from Subway!"

why aren't you smiling?

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kennysbirthday · 2 months

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Vertigo

A Cot3 travelling circus au, with a touch of magic ✨ (Written for the Lockwood & Co. Big Bang 2023/2024!)

The living and the dead have always spoken equally to Lucy, and she doesn’t know where to focus any more. When disaster strikes at Jacob’s Travelling Circus, Lucy flees to London. There, she stumbles upon the world famous Fairfax Carnival, and falls back on an old con that her mother made her do as a child; swindling punters as a fake psychic. Lucy is content to blend into the background and be just another carnie, but when Annabel Ward, the trapeze star, disappears overnight, Lucy is forced into the spotlight in to a role she told herself she’d never do again. Add to that Lockwood's unhappiness about her getting a star act over him, and stopping the inspector investigating Annabel’s disappearance ratting her whereabouts to Jacobs; Lucy’s too distracted to even notice that the voices in her head are leading her right to the heart of the problem. She can’t ignore the signs forever, and when the mysterious figure lurking inside her crystal ball starts giving warnings about George and the Carnival’s secretary, Joplin, she and Lockwood must work together to figure out the dark secret behind the carnival’s popular attraction; the Hall Of Mirrors.

Welp, it's here, my fic posting day!! Chapter one is up, and the remainder of the fic will follow very soon (when work and health issues stop kicking my ass this week)

I want to give an absolutely massive shoutout to my teammates, @radishwizard and @ayeaye-capn. You two have both figuratively and literally been my rocks thoughout all of this. Without you two, this fic would not be possible. Thank you 💕🎪✨ The lovely tent illustration is what you'll see at the top of every chapter on ao3 with the chapter number, and was made by Radish, who also made a spectacular poster for the Fairfax Carnival!

And as always, all the love towards the organisers of @lockwoodandcobigbang2023, whout whom this event wouldn't have been possible. As I've mentioned in my art posts, you guys dragged me kicking and screaming out of an art *and* writing block, and I'll forever be grateful for that 💕

To anyone reading this; feel free to come yell in my dm's with me about this fic if you so wish. I've put so much love into creating this au and world, and I'm so excited to share it with y'all. I hope you all like this weird, niche, and oddly specific au as much as I do!!

#lockwood & co #lockwood and co #cot3 #l&co big bang #lucy carlyle #george karim #anthony lockwood #jay writes things #lockwood & co netflix #lockwood and co big bang

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neotriobrainrot-reborn · 10 months

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Another Small List of Peni Parker Headcanons

She shows most of her affection physically and through actions(like hugging, grabbing other's shoulders, touching, hand holding, etc)

She tends to not get much sleep, only functioning on caffeine & coffee. This problem has gotten exponentially worst since her canon event

They sleepwalk so often that Miguel has an entire procedure & list of instructions for every Spider to follow should they see her sleepwalking

She'll often help other Spiders with tech problems or situations they encounter. She even ended up helping the Spectacular Spidermen with an upgrade to his suit on one occasion

Before her canon event, she at one point ended up getting really close to Addy Brock

Their eyes glow in the dark, which caused some funny scenarios with other Spidermen accidentally getting scared whenever they see her working on a project in the dark

They have an addiction to recees sticks

They're ace & Lesbian

She's friends with Harry Osborn in her universe that will never go wrong :)

She hates Norman Osborn and only tolerates him because she basically has to work for him because he owns the SP//DR Program and, for Harry's sake. She just views Osborn as a means to help people with SP//DR

Check out my previous headcanon post about her for more Headcanons. I might do some other characters next!

#peni parker #atsv #across the spider verse #spider man: across the spider verse #spiderman: across the spiderverse #across the spiderverse

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mdzs-fics · 4 months

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Time travel talisman VS clumsy young man = Chaos by BurningBlueDiamond

a series of shorter stories

AU - Time-Travel and … 7 parts, complete

A series based on a common theme is a reality across the Módào Zǔshī fandom. Characters and situations that move from one story to the next can be a fun read.

For their series Time travel talisman VS clumsy young man = Chaos, Author Burning BlueDiamond begins with a one-chapter tale titled A Room Full of Dead People and continues with three more stories. A few years later, they wrote three more stories that included the multi-chapter The Consequences of Accidental Time Travel.

The final story in the series serves as an epilogue of sorts that describes the changes that occur in a new timeline.

A Room Full of Dead People

“Ehm, Sizhui” his voice was hesitant but smooth and easily audible even at the very back of the room. His companion made a non verbal sound that Jiang Cheng was sure he heard somewhere else. The one who spoke continued:

“We aren't dead, are we?” at the words the one named Sizhui took his wrist and touched his own neck, probably searching for a heartbeat or spiritual energy. (Which was pretty useless in Jiang Cheng's future opinion, formulated that night as he rethought of this very event).

“No, we are very much alive, Jingyi” Sizhui answered, his voice had a musical tone to it, like he grew up listening to music, which, Jiang Cheng thought, was most likely the case since he was from the only music orientated sect. After hearing them speak most people had unconsciously relaxed a little, even the warriors like Nie Mingjue: it was clear that whoever they were they were as confused as they felt. But then Jingyi continued.

“Then why are we staring at a room full of dead people?” that caused said room full of dead people to freeze in their seats.

In which two Good Lan Boys accidentally travel back in time and, when two Fathers arrive to rescue them, the Sects get an earful from Future Wei Wuxian.

If at first you don't successed (hope that your son and his best friend aren't in the middle of a war)

The rigor payed off. Few hours after the horrifying discovery that their son and his best friend used a highly dangerous and untested talisman, Wei Ying draw the last line on their stack of equally dangerous and still untested talismans.

In which the search for two Wayward Lan Boys commences.

The Day Wen Ruohan Became a Psychic

In which a Sect Leader who ditched the latest Discussion Conference has a very bad day. And nightmares.

How Nie Huaisang Learned to Never Skip a Conference

Skipping an afternoon of the Discussion Conference means someone doesn't get all of the dirt first-hand. And boy is he ticked off.

The Consequences of Accidental Time Travel

And then it rained fire. Jiang Cheng was caught so off guard that the thought to yell profanities at Wei Wuxian, which was exactly the reason he was even there in first place, didn't cross his mind until he went to sleep that night.

In which we get five chapters of reactions from those involved in A Room Full of Dead People, both Future and Past. The last chapter is titled "The actual chaotic conference in which Things are Discussed and Shit Hits the Fan in a rather spectacular way, mostly off-screen" … and it aims to please.

A Room Full of Dead People - Nie Huaisang Edition (an AU of an AU?)

“That is a big bold lie, Lan Sizhui. You resent way more people that both you and others think”

“Oh, really, who?” the question was posed in challenge, like he was daring Jingyi to actually answer. The other levelled him with a look that screamed defiance and did just that:

“The entire Jin Clan, save for Jin Ling, even if I'm not entirely sure you've 100% forgiven him for stabbing Xian-gege; Xue Yang, the Wen Main Clan and their followers, Yu Ziyuan. Oh, and Nie Huaisang” he quickly listed off a, quite frankly, long number of people for one who was supposed to not resent at all. Wait… Nie Huaisang?!

In which Nie Huaisang does not miss the afternoon session previously described.

All in All, Life is Good

In which … spoilers. The title is actually a line in this story, which author BurningBlueDiamond describes as "a glorified point list". All-in-all a satisfying end for a time-travel AU series.

#mdzs fic recs #lan zhan #wei ying #mo dao zu shi #mdzs #lan xichen #jiang wanyin #Lan Sizhui #Lan Jingyi #lan qiren #nie mingjue #nie huaisang #the untamed #the usual mdzs discussion conference attendees

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jadeazora · 8 months

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The Psychic Spectacular event has been announced for Sept20 at 10am until Sept24 at 8pm, local time. Here's the infographic!

It adds Shiny Solosis to the game.

#pokemon go #pokego #solosis #niantic

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aurheatum · 9 months

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toa anniversary mun day

under cut

Name:

Nel, i mean it’s Sarah technically, but once you start getting multiple notes in the mail with Nel on them I think it counts. Nelfes works too. I respond to most anything tbh

Pronouns:

she/her or they/them

Birthday (no year):

Dec 6th Saint Nicholas Day : )

Where are you from? What is your time zone?

Chicago. CST [GMT-5].

Roleplay experience:

Over ten years, started on Neopets and other forums. Moved to Gaia Online and then Tumblr indie space some time in 2011.

Got any pets?

Baby boy

Favorite time of year:

Springtime or Autumn

Some interests and things you like:

I’ve always been super into mythology, all of them. I used to think that Carl Jung was onto something with the collective unconscious but then Anthropology and the reality of multilineal evolution ruined that for me (college will teach you things); but that’s alright because humans their ability to create and interpret their surroundings with equal parts love and fear is still pretty cool.

Some funfacts & trivia about you:

-Agnostic but i work in an occult library (it’s pretty quiet; the new age bookshop across the street has all the events)

-One time on Gaia Online I was kicked out of an Okami RP bc I didn’t make my posts aesthetic enough, and I thought it was just the most heart wrenching thing -I’m not sure what people stand to gain back in Ye Old Runescape luring new players out into the wild and PKing them but I was gullible enough to follow some other players at like 7 yrs old and this would have happened to me if i wasnt SUPER good at clicking my mouse and running out of there. Surviving such a harrowing experience made me think i was truly invincible.

-I was supposed to write my final paper for my Japanese Buddhism class on… surprise, Japanese Buddhism but I really wanted to talk about Kenji Miyazawa’s writings instead so I spun it through a lens of his Nichiren conversion and its impact on his poetry. My prof saw right through me but I still got an A.

What non-Fire Emblem games do you play?

Tales of RPG series raised me as a person so u know. I like Persona 1-2 era SMT though I’ve played Nocturne and IV as well. What else? Okami, LOZ: Twilight Princess, farm sims and visual novels. Genshin, on and off.

Favorite Pokemon type & Pokemon:

Psychic; wooper family (clogsire im so glad u joined us)

How did you get into Fire Emblem?

My neighbor would bring over Path of Radiance so I could play it on my gamecube with my own save back in the day

What Fire Emblem games have you played?

Tellius duology. Sacred Stones, FE 13-16; currently doing Blazing Blade. Archanea one day.

First Fire Emblem game:

POR

Favorite Fire Emblem game:

Tie between 3 Houses and Radiant Dawn

Any Fire Emblem crushes? 😳

It’s rhea okay. I wont lie and i wont pretend it isnt evidence of my spectacular taste either

If you’ve played the following games, who was your first S support? Who would you S support nowadays? - Awakening: Tiki (first S support was olivia bc i wanted a pink haired kid) - Fates: honestly i’d have to revisit, i know i first married niles as m!corrin - Three Houses: I married each lord on their route tho it’s much funnier if you dont i think (First route was Crimson Flower but I saved at the split so I could marry Rhea first lmao) - Engage: Saphir 🥰

Favorite Fire Emblem class:

War Cleric or Qi Adept

If you were a Fire Emblem character, what would be your class?

I’d be the mage you have to drag around and treat with baby gloves only to learn like a single good spell I think

If you were a Three Houses character, what would be your affiliation?

Leicester Alliance tbh

If you were an Engage character, which Emblem would you Engage with?

Based purely on mechanics bc i love them all prob Soren dlc, Sigurd, Celica, and Lyn.

How did you find TOA?

End of 2020/beginning of 2021 I was really trying to get back into rp but couldn’t get into the various systems on discord. One community that I was trying was affiliates with The Officer’s Academy and an active tumblr community rly caught my interest. The rest is history!

Current TOA muses:

Rhea 3H, Micaiah Radiant Dawn, and miss Hortensia engage

Who was your first TOA muse? If you don’t have them anymore, could you see yourself picking them up again?

This blog right here! I put her down for a bit and probably will again but. It’s not like she ever leaves, instead of brain there is Rhea u see (i bear this burden so u do not have to)

Have you had any other TOA muses?

I played Sephiran for a hot sec and Ingrid for around a yearish iirc. Both very fun

Do you think you have a type of character you gravitate towards?

Not really? I need to be able to connect with them on some level obviously, and I tend to prefer characters who have like a clear childhood or background for why they are That Way. Micaiah was actually p difficult for this reason but being able to really shape her based on what little we know also made me ever more fond. ♥️ I love to stare at pegasusknight and serenesforest supports pages late at night tehe

What do you believe you enjoy writing the most?

I don’t particularly plan ahead but I really love when threads reflect past character development whether in a thread with the same muse or different. TOA extended universe… I’d like to do that more I think but first I have to actually make a support page huh? Since Rhea’s back she’s made more bonds though and that makes me happy.

Favorite TOA-related memory: Definitely Unlocked 2021! It was my first event after really starting to warm to the TOA community and i was an awe of the scope of the events. The mods thought this far ahead?! We can do this?! Every event since has just been even more fun but the surprise and intrigue i felt then really stayed with him

*How do you pronounce TOA?

Toe-uh. Like Dee-En-Dee. you know.

Got any delusions that didn’t see the light of day that you’d like to share? 😉

I think I mentioned I muse Hubert before, and also that I can't really seeing myself maintaining a blog for him? So other than that, no. I do think Nimh could be quite a bit of fun though *laughs*

#ooc #|meme response

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astoryiwouldtell · 15 days

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Thistlemas Through The Ages, Chapter 1 — "Visitations"

Synopsis

A springtime holiday spectacular. This'll be a series dedicated to the holiday of Thistlemas, which is celebrated in Inglenook on the 15th day of the Month of Blossoms, the second month of spring. Since the day's coming up for our equivalent month, I thought there was no better way to illustrate the holiday than with actual specials and storylines set during examples of the day throughout history.

I'm looking forward to doing more for other holidays in the Other Realms, so we might have a full stable of holiday specials to look forward to as the year progresses.

AO3 | Tumblr | Wikidot

It was the year 1966, and the Strongman hadn't disappeared quite yet. A lot of things hadn't happened quite yet for the people of Inglenook, and a lot of things were going to change in the years after that — but for two specific people, it was a time of peace in their troubled, strange lives.

Grace Morgan and Beatrice Prescott had been through too much together, and separately. Grace's memories of her fateful family trip to Adventure Fair in 1959 had just begun to fade, while Beatrice had been living on the streets because her father didn't like that she was a psychic and a fortune teller.

They'd been living in an abandoned complex for a few months now, and in that particular year of 1966, they decided to attend a Thistlemas party together.

It was, as these things go, on the 15th day of the Month of Blossoms. Technically, though, the party was the night before and lasted well into the morning.

Beatrice heard about the party first, as she was aware of all the special, personal, hidden-away events the cool kids in Inglenook tended to love.

A street wizard named Pierce Stafford was holding the party, and it would be in the woods outside the city of Creedley, where they were all staying that year. Weirdos and witches and all types of hippies were invited, if they only knew how to read the signs and flyers he had put up, glamoured in codes and veiled with secrets as they were.

So, on the night of the party, Grace and Beatrice headed out — and had the time of their lives, singing and dancing like forest nymphs gathered around a shrine of an elder spirit.

Beatrice did most of the dancing. Grace never felt like it very much, especially during that time in her life, where she was too worried about losing her tough, care-for-nothing, emotionless exterior that had gotten her through her trauma so far, but she certainly enjoyed watching Beatrice put herself into it.

Their party even had a visitation of firefliers, which were small, pixie-like light-creatures that could leave behind trails of aetheric mist as they flew, appearing like darting orbs of rainbow fire throughout the party.

****

The next day, Beatrice woke up with a terrible headache, and Grace was left to look after her.

"Why did you let me dance that much?" Beatrice groaned, as the sun tried desperately to shine through the blankets Grace had stuffed over the windows.

"Because it was Thistlemas, Bee," Grace said. "Anyway, you wanted to."

"So if I wanted to jump off a cliff, you'd let me do that too?"

Grace thought about it for a moment. "Probably. Yes."

Beatrice tossed a pillow at her. "Screw off, no you wouldn't."

"I definitely would."

"You're the most horrible witch in the world, you know that?"

"I know. But at least you're here to keep me on the right path."

Grace and Beatrice would be called to join the 'Lonum Wars soon after that. Only Beatrice ended up staying; during their first few weeks of training, Grace had a meltdown and had to be sent home to recover, as it had brought up far too much of her past trauma for her to be useful in the Other Realm they'd be fighting in.

After the war was over, in 1973 or 1974, Beatrice tried to find Grace again, and they were almost on the right path back to a sense of normalcy. But it was never the same after that, especially after Grace began having dreams of the Black Stag, the Stag that drew her inexorably toward her destiny...toward her childhood home in the Hinterlands...and toward Grimstead, the shadow-city, in 1980, where she would spend much of the next several years of her life, alone, with the gravedigger Gallo Belgrave by her side.

#story #urban fantasy #magical realism #serial fiction #web serial #web series #web fiction

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triskhellion · 8 months

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The Depths: Chapter 1

Rated: Explicit (eventually) | 1.5k WIP

Relationship: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski

Characters: Stiles Stilinski, Derek Hale

Tags: POV Stiles, Post-Nogitsune Stiles, Sea Creature Derek, Alternate Universe, Stiles Leaves Beacon Hills, PTSD, Norway

(Getting Together, Mates Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Explicit Sexual Content)

Summary: Stiles travels around Europe to try to escape his demons. He goes to Longyearbyen because the sun won't set for months and has an unexpected encounter at the bay.

Mead Moons prompts: Becomes, Buck, Claiming, Midnight Sun, Ritual & Strawberry. @sterek-and-stuff-events

Chapter 1: Adventfjorden

The black sand beaches of Iceland were a spectacular sight, the quiet, solitary beauty of Landeyjahöfn and the crystalline otherworldliness of Jökulsárlón Lagoon, its banks strewn with glacial “diamonds.” Cold and captivating.

Stiles stayed on the southern coast of the country for a nearly week, but it wasn’t far enough for him, the shadows still deep and capable of hiding monsters. Now he was in Longyearbyen, on the island of Spitsbergen in the archipelago of Svalbard, over 500 miles north of the Norwegian mainland and equidistant to the North Pole.

The ocean called to him no matter where he’d gone on this journey, ever since he fled with a backpack and a shiny new passport. It didn’t matter that the water was frigid and foreboding even in the summer, that he currently had on multiple layers for today’s high of 46 degrees, which felt colder still from the wind.

He’d been here for a few days now, repeatedly visiting the same stretch of Adventfjorden. Advent Bay.

Sometimes it felt like he was being watched, could swear he caught movement in the rippling waves, but that was nothing new with the echoes in his mind. Call it figments of his imagination, products of hyper-vigilance and paranoia or straight up hallucinations. Little slips in reality between consciousness and dreaming. As long as it wasn’t that. As long as it wasn’t him.

He bought strawberries from a fruit stand outside the market, small and ripe and red. The kind that were sweet like candy instead of the giant, watery fruit that stores back home so often sold, grown to survive being shuffled across continents rather than for flavor. These were for eating within days of harvest, would spoil if in the blink of an eye, but so worth it if you were lucky enough to have a taste at the right time.

Stiles took his little carton down near the water’s edge, watching the tide come gradually closer. Between plucking off the green bits and eating them whole he’d occasionally bite one in half and run it over his mouth like lipstick, staining the flesh there red like his fingers were. Like his hands would always be.

When he came back to himself again there were people coming out of the water.

People. Coming. Out of. The water.

Not divers in wetsuits that he’d missed seeing before somehow, but a dozen or so…humanoid creatures who were all bare chested except for some jewelry and miscellaneous accessories.

He looked around to ask “Are you seeing this shit?” but then he realized that there was no one else on the beach. As if the half dozen or so other visitors had gotten some psychic memo to depart. Everyone, but him. How long had he been staring at his hands, transfixed?

The sun wasn’t noticeably lower in the sky than it was before, though of course it wouldn’t actually slip beneath the horizon. That was the whole point of this latest detour on his odyssey, months on end without night. Well, fewer than two left since it was now the end of June, a bit more than halfway through, but a welcome respite for however long it could last. Not that the nightmares couldn’t find him the daylight, but it at least made his wakefulness less terrifying and strange no matter the hour.

Until this one.

Most of the sea people stayed at least half submerged, but one stepped onto the shore. What seemed like a man only with jet black legs and arms and a tail.

Stiles sat there frozen as he approached, a shiny, crinkly looking fabric draped around his hips and between his thighs in greens and browns with stripes of red. He immediately thought of nori, which made sense since he was 99.3% sure it was made from seaweed.

There was a grayish tone to the pale, too smooth skin where it wasn’t the color of a moonless midnight. On his face and throat and most of his chest and abdomen. The palms of his hands and the underside of the end of his tail, which was long and thick and had flukes like a cetacean. A bristly black mohawk reminiscent of the crest on a Roman optio's helmet was the only hair that Stiles could see, what appeared to be eyebrows actually flexible darkened ridges instead. The Sea Man, er, Sea Dude, stopped before him and silently held out a large, semi-webbed hand. Stiles stared into piercing pale eyes before turning to where the entourage watched them intently.

He dropped his head to stare at his own skin once more, still ruddy from dried juice. Again his sense of time went wonky, his mind skittering and skip-skip-skipping like a smudged dvd. In his peripheral vision the creature began to fidget and he glanced up to see discomfort on the somewhat reassuringly discernible features. Huh. Stiles met that keen gaze and exhaled slowly, reaching out to him with his left hand while popping the last two strawberries into his mouth with his right. Why the fuck not? At least whatever this was would be interesting.

The flesh was warmer than he expected and he marveled as the rubbery, alien extremity surrounded his and he was pulled to his feet like he weighed nothing at all.

He was led toward the water, which duh, he should’ve expected, and stopped several feet away. The creature didn’t let go, but didn’t drag him either, just stared at him with an unreadable expression. Stiles looked back and forth between the bright, little settlement behind him and the murky, unforgiving expanse ahead.

With shaking hands he started unzipping his jacket, warm fingers finally slipping away to allow him to take it off. He was glad that he left his phone and wallet tucked away back at his cheap, four person room at Gjestehuset 102. Quickly, he removed everything except his T-shirt and underwear, shivering immediately. It’s not like more layers would keep him warm where he was going and it’d only make moving around harder.

You really think that’ll be a concern?

He threw his bundled up clothing back up the beach as far as he could, but doubted that he’d ever wear them again.

The creature took his hand once more and he gasped when his feet touched the water. Fuck that was freezing. Intellectually, he knew that it would be, but nothing could compare to feeling it. On his ankles and calves, his knees and thighs. His whole body clenched when he waded further still and he was pretty sure that his balls had been permanently relocated inside his body. The others watched him curiously as he hyperventilated, teeth chattering.

The chill was already deep in his bones and he wondered how long it’d take for hypothermia to set in, trying to remember what he’d read before. What was it about water and the air temperature? Five degrees or so above the daily low? If that was the case it was probably around 40 degrees. And 40 degrees meant...

He tried to visualize the chart in his head. 40 degrees meant 10-20 minutes before muscle weakening and loss of coordination. It had only been one or two so far, right?

When it came up to his stomach the fear kicked in, the natural dread land animals had for the depths from which they once came, but could no longer call home. The ocean held no mercy in its heart for its endemic children much less those long estranged.

Stiles tried to calm himself, closing his eyes and taking deep breaths. Cold shock, right. That part should go away soon. Breathe. In and out, in and out. Nice and slow, bring it down.

They suddenly drew to a stop and he opened his eyes. The Sea Dude was already gorgeous, but then he smiled and it was brilliant. Breathtaking.

If Stiles was a normal person he would’ve swooned or something, but he’d known too many killers who loved to smile and he couldn’t help thinking Anglerfish-ass man despite the whole not being a hideous abyss dweller with a dangling lure thing. (Or was he?) It was kinda too late for second thoughts, though.

The smile fell from that overcast sky-hued face, replaced by what appeared to be puzzlement and then concern. Long fingers connected at the second knuckle rose toward his temple and Stiles tried not to flinch.

There was a sensation of tendrils slither-swimming through his head like octopi, multi-limbed and picking through his disparate thoughts. Twisting into nooks and crannies. Words that weren’t words echoed in his head as the creature frowned.

I’m not going to eat you.

Strangely enough Stiles hadn’t truly thought that he would, though he probably should have given it real consideration after his run in with the wendigo. He was assuming more of an inexplicable murderous ritual if harm was intended rather than wanting him for the merman snack bar. Perhaps a drowning fetish.

The creature shook his head with exasperation, a reaction that Stiles was all too familiar with, but then he let out a musical, effervescent laugh and grasped his hand again, tugging him further into the deep.

Come.

#sterek #sterek fanfic #sterek & stuff events #trisk #mead moons #mead moons becomes #mead moons buck #mead moons claiming #mead moons midnight sun #mead moons ritual #mead moons strawberry #mead moons trisk

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chocney · 7 months

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I only realised earlier that there were collection challenges in Pokémon GO for the Psychic Spectacular Event!

Marvelous Minds Challenge:

🔮Medicham

🔮Gardevoir

🔮Slowbro

🔮Alakazam

I checked my Mega Energies and I did not have any Medicham ones!

#Pokémon #Pokémon GO #Chocney Plays Pokémon GO #Psychic Spectacular Event

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fatehbaz · 1 year

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Midway through Jamil Jan Kochai’s collection The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories, which maps generations of Afghan and Afghan American lives against over a century of entwined wars, sits what appears to be a résumé. Entitled “Occupational Hazards,” it meticulously records the everyday labors of an Afghan man: [...] his “[d]uties included: leading sheep to the pastures”; from 1977–79, “gathering old English rifles” left over from the last war while being recruited into a new war; in 1980–81, “burying the tattered remnants of neighbors and friends and women and children and babies and cousins and nieces and nephews and a beloved half-sister”; [...] becoming a refugee day-laborer in Peshawar, Pakistan; in 1984, becoming a refugee in Alabama, where he worked on an assembly line with other Asian migrants whom the white factory owner used to push out the local Black workforce; and so on. Dozens of events, from the traumatic to the mundane, are cataloged one by one in prose that is at once emotionless and overwhelming. [...] Kochai interviewed his father for the résumé’s occupational trajectory [...]. An Afghan shepherd [...] is displaced by imperial wars and then, in the heart of empire, is conscripted into racialized domestic economies [...]. [M]ethodically translating lived violence via a résumé, a bureaucratic form that quantifies labor in its most banal functionality, paradoxically realizes the spectacular breadth of war and how it organizes life’s possibilities. [...]

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In this collection, war is past, present, and plural. In Afghanistan, Kochai recounts the lives of Logaris and Kabulis, against the backdrop of the US occupation, still dealing with the detritus of previous wars - British, Soviet, and civil - including their shrines, mines, and memories. In the United States, Afghan Californians experience the diasporic conditions of war -- state neglect of refugees combined with targeted surveillance -- amid the coming-of-age of a second generation that must confront inherited traumas while struggling to build political solidarities with other displaced youth.

These 12 stories explore the reverberations between historical and psychic realities, invoking a ghostly practice of reading. Characters, living and dead, recur across the stories [...]. Wars echo one another [...]. Scenes and states mirror each other, with one story depicting Afghan bureaucracies that disavow military and police violence while another depicts US bureaucracies that deny social services to unemployed refugees. History itself is layered and unresolved [...]. Kochai, who was born in a refugee camp in Peshawar, writes from the position of the Afghan diaspora [...]. In August 2021, the US relegated Afghanistan to the past, declaring the “longest American war” over. Over for whom? one should ask. [...] War, in other words, is not an event but a structure. [...]

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In Kochai’s collection, war is not the story; rather, war arranges the scenes and life possibilities [...]. Kochai carefully puts war itself, and the warmakers, in the narrative background [...].

This is a historically incisive narrative design for representing Afghanistan. Kochai challenges centuries of Western colonial discourses, from Rudyard Kipling to Rambo, that conflate Afghanistan with violence while erasing the international production of that violence as well as the social and conceptual worlds of Afghans themselves. Instead, this collection moves the reader across Afghans’ transcontinental, intergenerational, and multispirited social worlds -- including through stories of migrations and returns, homes populated by the living and the martyred, language that enmeshes Dari, Pashto, and Northern California slang, as well as the occasional fantastical creature [...].

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Like Kochai’s debut novel 99 Nights in Logar (2019), this collection merges realism and the fantastic, oral and academic histories, Afghan folklore and Islamic texts, giving his fiction a dynamic relation to history. Each story is an experiment, and many of them are replete with surreal or magical elements [...].

As in Ahmed Saadawi’s 2013 novel Frankenstein in Baghdad, a nightmarish sensorium collides with a postcolonial body politics [...].

In a recent interview, Kochai said that writing about his family’s experiences of war has compelled him to explore “realms of the surreal or magical realism […] because the incidents themselves seem so unreal […]. [I]t takes years and decades to even come to terms with what had actually happened to them before their eyes.” He points not to a documentary dilemma but to an epistemological one. While some scholars have argued that fantastic genres like magical realism are often conflated with exoticized imaginaries of the Global South, others have defended the form’s critical possibilities for rendering complex realities and multiple modes of interpretation. Literary metaphors, whether magical or otherwise, are always imprecise; as Afghan poet Aria Aber puts it, “you flee into metaphor but you return / with another moth / flapping inside your throat.” [...]

Kochai does not “escape” into the surreal or magical as fictions but as other ways of reckoning with war’s pasts ongoing in the present.

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Text by: Najwa Mayer. “War Is a Structure: On Jamil Jan Kochai’s “The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories.”“ LA Review of Books (Online). 20 December 2022. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me.]

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