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whitecreekvalley-if · 6 months

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[ Demo TBA ] • Character descriptions • Pinterest •

Genres: Slice of life, drama, mystery, romance

WCV is rated 18+ for explicit language, violence, alcohol and drug use, and explicit sexual content.

Life's taken a nosedive—no apartment, no job, no friends. Desperation pushes you to cling to a chance from a kindly stranger offering a ticket to a town hidden beyond mountains and plains, a place people don't seek but always seem to need.

Welcome to Whitecreek Valley, where the Brass Pine Ranch needs your unique skills to mend a crumbling homestead, and a crumbling family. As you tackle the decay of the ranch and the town alongside the rancher's son, deeper troubles emerge—livestock falling ill sparks fears of a town on the brink of extinction. Can you navigate this community, help them rejuvenate, or will it become another link in the list of ghost towns of America's Wikipedia page?

FEATURES

Customization: Appearance, personality, gender & sexuality, what job they had before, their hobbies, etc. Choose how they feel about being a farmhand, how they're adjusting to the rural life, and - with your choices - how the town as a whole sees them. Are they part of the community or an perpetual outsider?

Skills: Depending on your previous job, you'll have a unique set of skills to help the community. Choose to learn new skills, like woodworking, bronc riding, or sheep shearing, to mention a few.

Animal husbandry: The distances around Whitecreek Valley are hefty, so it's necessary to have at least a horse to get around. Choose your favorite out of a cast of individual equines, each with their own personalities. Also, help a calf into this world and realize how fun it is to raise a baby cow! As long as you're in good standing with the rest of the herd, of course.

Rebuilding: Try your best to rebuild the Brass Pine ranch, and the town adjacent. The better job you manage, the more opportunities (and challenges) come your way.

Community outreach: A dying town is still home, and there are stories to be heard, problems to solve. Lend a helping hand to your new community and see how one kindness can pay itself back.

Romance: Not everyone in town is adverse to strangers, and if your heart yearns romance, there is a chance for a spark along the way. Just be careful as to who you're trying to woo in front of whom. Small town gossips, we've all seen it.

Mystery: There's something hanging over the valley, like a rot in the air. Why are people moving out? Why are exports not moving out? And who's behind the animals getting sick? Don you detective hat and lend a hand to the entire four local police officers working the bizarre case.

THE LOCALS (RO'S)

THE RANCHER'S SON

Mason "Mace" Gannon - 27 - he/him

He used to be so much fun. I miss hanging out with him, out by the bonfires. He'd always make everyone feel so included and happy, and oh, that homemade cider he'd bring? Warmed us up on those chilly late fall nights, when we had nothing else to do. Did I tell you about the time he got us all to go skinny dipping? He was such a charmer, I wonder --

Imagine Mace as your human golden retriever – the guy who's a blast to be around, a bit mischievous, and the first to rush to your aid whenever you need it. After being gone for five years to live his rodeo dreams, he's back, now the sole caretaker of the family ranch in his hometown. He goes to great lengths to keep his personal issues personal, and it's the butt of many jokes how he's always there to help others but has the worst time asking for help himself.

He's you boss, and probably one of the best you'll ever get. Just don't pay mind to the spats between him and his dad.

THE BARTENDER

Alice Marks - 25 - she/her

Alice, she's a feisty one! Like her poppa, rest his soul. How I love the drinks she comes up with at the bar, and that horse of hers! She could go into rodeo, but I don't think after what happened with her pa... Oh, but she's a wonder! Always there with a quip, how they drive her suitors mad. Good thing she stopped with the talk about moving away, the town would be so dull without her!

Alice is the town's most known inhabitant, running the show from the only bar in town, which she just happens to own. Her mind is like a machine for fun, and she's the brain behind all the pop-up events and happenings around town. Sure, she can be a bit like a hurricane of enthusiasm, but hey, that's Alice for you. If the town had a social heartbeat, it'd be Alice – the vibrant, smartass soul making everyday life feel like a blessing.

THE DEPUTY

Word of the wise: Never challenge Alice to a drinking game. You will lose, spectacularly, and it'll all be on film.

Judge Gannon - 34 - he/him

Judge is a bit strange, don't you think? He just vanished as soon as he turned eighteen and popped back out of nowhere! That must've been, let's see... Five years ago? He doesn't spend much time with us commoners though, but I think I've seen him at the bar once or twice. I don't actually think he knows how to make nice with people, he always has that glower on. Gets it from his dad, let me tell you --

Bold and straight to the point, Judge isn't out here trying to be intimidating – it just kinda happens. If his brother is a golden retriever, he's definitely the doberman of the family. He's got this brash, no-nonsense vibe that some folks mistake for arrogance, especially when they try laying on the charm and he's not having it. He steers clear of small talk unless it involves his job, and when duty calls, he's more than ready to throw down to protect his town and county.

There's this local urban legend that he cracked a smile once, but it's like spotting a unicorn – not everyone's buying it.

THE LAWYER

Mercedes "Sadie" Diáz - 32 - she/her

The new girl, yes! Oh, a beauty! And so curious. I do love sitting down with her though, oh the stories she brings from the big city, so intriguing! I hear she finds our town intriguing too, the mayor once - don't tell anyone I told you this - the mayor once said he caught her breaking into the city hall archives! I know, scandalous, but good on her, maybe now someone will argue that my neighbors fence post --

Sadie, the big-shot lawyer from the city, doing her solo act in town. When she's not in court, folks are lining up just to get a piece of the urban tales she's got. A trailblazer and truth-seeker, she's got this knack for poking her nose where it probably shouldn't be, and surprise, she knows more local secrets than the town gossip. Sure, she's all passionate and calculated, a bit out of sync with the town's warmth, but hey, that logical mind of hers might just shake things up and get the town back on track.

It's a well known fact that she could get access to places with the right documents, but she herself has said it's more fun to pick locks. Go figure.

LIST OF MAJOR NPCs

LIST OF MINOR NPCs

#interactive fiction #wip #if wip #if: intro #cog #choice of games #interactive novel #choice script #or is it #choicescript #idk idk

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gay-jewish-bucky · 10 months

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I think Bucky's parents immigrated to America from a small shtetl in rural Romania. Winnie and George (which are English names they adopted in an effort to more easily fit into American society) had recently married and wanted to escape rising antisemitic violence in eastern Europe, especially in the form of pogroms, and they hoped for a better life for any potential future children they might be blessed with.

Bucky and his sisters grew up enthralled by stories their parents told them about the lives they lived in their small, but incredibly tightknit, Jewish community. The children also picked up bits and pieces of the little Romanian their parents spoke in front of them, it's just enough to understand the language, but not enough to speak it proficiently.

Bucky winds up in Bucharest after escaping Hydra, it's not an intentional choice, it's a magnetic pull to the place that has been etched into his family's DNA for generations.

His Romanian is spotty, but he's quickly embraced by a group of kind old bubbies who keep him fed by hiring him to do manual labour since he shies away from direct hospitality. When they take him to one of the last remaining synagogues in the country for service, he breaks down in tears as the stories his parents told come flooding back in vivid colour, overtaken by equal measures of grief and wonder.

#marvel #mcu #bucky #bucky barnes #james bucky barnes #james buchanan barnes #jewish bucky #jewish bucky barnes #jewish!bucky #jewish!bucky barnes #winnifred barnes #george barnes #Assorted Jewish Writings - Marriage/Family/Home

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manorpunk · 1 month

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3️⃣

History only makes sense in retrospect.

Take, for example, the decade-long period of the French Revolution, or the decades between World War I and World War II. A decade is like a blip to the casual historian, a mere moment, so short it was nearly one-dimensional, like a line separating the before from the after. Those who lived through it, however, must have spent years wondering each morning whether their current government and/or life would still exist by lunchtime, and even when the dust finally settles, that’s not really a feeling that one can easily forget. People can only draw neat, dispassionate little lines around such events when they no longer live in its shadow, and the shadow of the Polycrisis still loomed menacingly over the American League.

There were some who were eager to move on, who would say that progress is always disruptive - the old must be dismantled to make way for the new. Others would say that it was one thing to have a controlled demolition, and an entirely separate thing to wake up one day to find that your electricity and plumbing were no longer working, and the government was not going to help you because its existence was tenuous at best, and all of the sub-contracted third-party subsidiaries who actually did the work of repairing power grids refused to take responsibility with your piddly little suburb because they were too busy trying to keep the lights on in places that ‘actually mattered.’

The causes of the Polycrisis were many and varied, hence the name, but a certain pattern had emerged in retrospect - climate change caused natural disasters, natural disasters destroyed infrastructure, destroyed infrastructure caused economic collapse, economic collapse caused political collapse. Casual historians might note how that pattern echoed the fall of most empires going back to the fall of Rome. But it was never supposed to happen to America. The blessed antipodes were not supposed to be like everywhere else. They were supposed to be where the lights always stayed on. Always.

Well, sometimes.

As the US federal government shrank, retreated, and finally collapsed, new states sprang up soon after. New England, Tidewater, and the Free Imperial New York drew their lines along the east coast; Cascadia created itself and formed a personal union with the Californian Commonwealth on the west coast after the Jefferson Rebellion was put down; and the Texaplex Megapole asserted its authority over Texas and neighboring states promising protection against Norteño incursions. The Great Lakes Republic formed shortly and reluctantly afterwards, becoming a sprawling Germany-esque collection of mid-sized cities jockeying against one another.

The rest of America, its vast and abandoned plains, its hollowed-out mountains and sinking coasts, became ‘the manors,’ places where power had devolved down to the newest class of rural gentry: fast food franchisees, car dealerships, beverage distributors, and the like. They were small-business tyrants and petite-bourgeoise corporate middlemen who had spent their lives wishing for the government to hurry up and collapse already so that they could live out their fantasies of being petty kings, bandit chiefs, and lords of the manor (hence the name). They would not give up their fantasies without a bitter and bloody fight.

Also, Orlando had become the microstate of Disneystadt, the Founderist equivalent of Vatican City.

Also, the western side of Appalachia was now a khaganate.

Perhaps one day people would see it as something like the French Revolution or interwar period, as a goofy but brief period of liminal turmoil wedged between two separate worlds. Here is how some of her contemporaries saw it:

“They elected fucking Spongebob president,” said Cornelius Mammon, the pale and wraithlike governor of New England, seated at one end of a long semicircular table, lined with chairs along its curve, all facing a gigantic wall-mounted screen on the far end of the room. ‘Old money’ seemed inadequate to describe the austere and sunken appearance of Cornelius; he was more like undead money.

On the one hand, New England was populous, urbanized, relatively geographically sensible, united by a distinct and storied culture, and had been poised to shrug off the Polycrisis and carry on as normal. On the other hand, Boston and Philadelphia.

“Here I thought things were going to get back to normal,” Cornelius continued hoarily, “and now she’s going to rename the White House to ‘the Fun Zone.’ This is why democracy was a mistake.”

“Normal?” Young Oldman, governor of the Tidewater region, scoffed. He had a calculated plain appearance, revealing little about himself. Even his skin was a beige ‘off-white’ color that made people guess whether he was biracial or Middle Eastern or just a white guy with a tan. Ruling over the former head of the imperial American government and its intelligence apparatus, Young had learned to play it so close to the vest you’d need a seam ripper to get any answers out of him. He always kept his mouth shut.

Well, sometimes.

“Would that Sunny were some unwelcome intrusion of oddness into an otherwise august body. Have you seen the other nut bars we’ve been packed in here with?” Young jabbed a thumb at his neighbor, Vinny Vidivici, mayor of Free Imperial New York, who looked like a clogged shower drain that had gained sentience and put on a suit.

“You folks ever been to New York? We exchange money for goods and services there. Greatest fuckin city in the world baby,” Vinny said.

Young nodded and silently daydreamed about hunting him for sport.

“Personally, I think Sunny is just some GLN cabalist with a voice modulator,” said Johann van Gekkehuis, the pasty, gravelly-voiced, flannel-wearing governor of the Great Lakes Republic, with a bushy copper beard and a receding hairline, “have you ever seen her and Harold in the same room?”

“Yes,” said Young. Just because he played it close to the vest didn’t mean he couldn’t mess with people, and Johann was easy to mess with.

Johann had made his bones as a podcaster and had a natural talent for disguising all manner of conspiracy theories and ostensibly playful bigotry as good old-fashioned hard-nosed socialism. But being a conspiracy theorist wasn’t fun anymore. There was no point. The globalist puppet-masters didn’t hide in shadowy backrooms. They had HR departments, they had newsletters, they sent spam emails demonstrating the ways they controlled and surveilled every moment of your life, and that was so much more demoralizing than keeping it secret.

Behind Johann paced a meticulously handsome black man in a crisp navy blue suit, his eyes hidden behind a large pair of shades. He nodded to himself as he walked and talked into his headset. He was Michael McCoy, governor of the Piedmont region. Piedmont, encompassing the eastern half of Georgia and the Carolinas, was one of the newer states, and its constituents had carried the extra burden of rebuilding and reorienting themselves after the race war. They finished what the Northerners had started and then abandoned, two hundred years ago almost exactly, Northerners who decided they would let millions of black people linger as third-class citizens rather than hang even a few openly seditious gentlemen. But not Michael McCoy. Enough with being respectable, enough with being nonviolent, enough with taking the high road. Michael McCoy wanted blood.

That was a lie - Michael McCoy was an agricultural manager who rose to prominence shortly after the bloodshed had ended thanks to a series of excellent ad campaigns and his public image as a squeaky-clean family man. He simply enjoyed a victory lap as much as the next guy. And maybe wanted a little blood.

“Listen,” Michael said into his headpiece, “I’m not saying we need the change to be permanent. I just want it to be called ‘N[redacted]land’ for like a couple hours, then it can go back to being Piedmont. We don’t even have to tell anyone else about it.”

(Certain words have been redacted in the interest of not saying them. If you wish to see racial slurs, they can be unlocked by submitting proof of relevant ancestry to your local department of reclamation).

He listened through his earpiece, then scowled. “Why? I’ll tell you why - because then Sunny would have to say it on camera, and that would be fucking hilarious. See? You laughed, you get it. You want to know what would happen. It’s - listen, just - yeah - no - if - alright, alright, fine,” he sighed, “no name change. It’s staying as Piedmont. Y’all pussies.”

The atmosphere of general grumbling was interrupted by a choir of air horns blaring the opening bars to the Star Spangled Banner. The massive screen at the far end of the room turned itself on, revealing a towering Sunny Roosevelt with a long red dress and a thin, fuming smile.

“Hi! Wow. I heard all of that,” she said.

Michael McCoy took off his headset and looked up. “Miss Roosevelt, I have an urgent request-“

“No. Let’s get a few things straight here-” Sunny began.

“No, let’s you get something straight,” Cornelius fumed, jabbing a bony finger at her and half-standing up, “you have no power over us. You’re a fucking mascot, and we are the directors of-”

“Michael, slap him,” Sunny said.

Michael turned, grinned, and dutifully slapped Cornelius across the face in one smooth unhesitating motion. Cornelius was stunned into silence, looking between the two of them, not sure who to fume at. Young bit back a smile. Sunny pounced on the momentary silence.

“Okay, thing one - people actually like mascots. They do not like a bunch of rich old ghouls who are three minutes away from eating each other alive. Thing two - I’m so much more than a mascot. I’m a widely-beloved celebrity with millions of psycho-sexually obsessed followers hanging on my every word. So, what do you think that means for the next person who pisses me off?”

Nobody said a word, but as they pondered the threat of a weaponized legion of John Hinckleys, there was the sound of several sphincters involuntarily clenching (for the curious, it sounded a little like jumping on a rubber mat).

“That’s what I thought. You see this?” Sunny pointed at her own face, “this is Angry Sunny. You get Angry Sunny because you weren’t niceys to me. If you are niceys to me, you get Happy Sunny, and you want Happy Sunny. Happy Sunny will get you re-elected. Angry Sunny will kill you. Am I understood?”

There was a nervous, shifting silence as the east coast branch of Neo-Congress began to digest their new situation, except for Michael, who was hoping he would get to slap someone again.

“Am I understood?” she barked.

There were guilty, mumbled agreements. That would have to do for now. Sunny snapped her fingers. Her red dress became shorter and frillier. A blue collar lined with white stars appeared on her shoulders. Even the lines of her face became softer and more youthful. Happy Sunny clasped her hands together and smiled radiantly.

“That’s great! I’m so glad we got that little whoopsie-doodle figured out, and I’m sure it won’t happen again. I’m looking forward to working with all of you towards our common goal of making America… well, extant again.”

#manorpunk #heaven is falling #I am making myself post this instead of continuing to fiddle with it n more days #I have a doc now where I keep all the mini-scenes I trimmed and it is GROWING

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sassypantsjaxon · 14 hours

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Okay, quick disclaimers: 1. I know some people don't like Horikoshi's worldbuilding, would say there's a lack of depth, etc, etc. I'm not one of those people, I just see it as my chance to overanalyze and fill in the gaps myself for these kind of headcanon/theory/whatever you want to call this post. 2. This post will briefly touch on my own personal headcanons of Mic being an orphan and Aizawa being a rich kid.

Okay! all that being said, I'm just going to throw some things at the wall about my own thoughts/headcanons about the world Mic and Aizawa grew up in, and you guys can let me know if anything sticks.

You ever think about how All Might is around 25 years older than Mic and Aizawa?

Given that he left Japan as a teenager and went to college in America, he probably came back and started becoming the Symbol of Peace in Japan in his early-mid twenties.

Mic and Aizawa would have been part of the first generation of kids who have never known a world without All Might

Like. Think about that. They would have grown up in a world that is just beginning to recover from the horrors (as compared to the relatively deceptively safe society we see at the beginning of the series)

Hizashi grows up in an orphanage with a lot of older kids who were orphaned by villain attacks and...not so many kids younger than him. Which is good for them, but kind of lonely for a kid like Zashi

There's a wall around the orphanage that is supposed to be for protecting them, but as villain activity decreases, it just starts to feel like it's keeping the kids in

Hizashi becomes a hero because he knows nobody else is going to save him

Shouta grows up in a high security gated community

He's always wanted to be a hero, and he's always been told it's pointless, because All Might will have eradicated villainy by the time Shouta's an adult this is of course a lie

part of the tragedy of Oboro's death is that they've heard their whole lives how large scale villain attacks like that are a thing of the past

They would have had drills for what to do in case of villain attacks when they were little kids starting school. These would have slowly been phased out by the time they were in middle school

Another thing that's changed since they were kids is the architecture

No more burned down, bombed out buildings that just sit around because there's no point rebuilding something that will just be destroyed again in a few weeks. No more business that are still open, but the windows are boarded up because they can't afford to keep replacing the glass

No more graffitied walls and fences and gates. No more anti-villain spikes on top of buildings and around cities

And all of these things disappeared so slowly that it's like one day when they're in highschool, they just look around and realize they don't exist anymore and wonder where it all went and when it happened

There was probably a population boom as All Might started to cement his place as the Symbol of Peace. People realizing their kids would have a safer world to grow up in and they didn't have to fear dying every other minute

People moving out of the safety of the cities back into more rural areas

actually hang on. that would kind of explain the racism and bigotry we know exists in the rural regions

this was supposed to be more about mic and aizawa and now i'm just spitballing worldbuilding sorry.

Mic and Aizawa are kind of in this weird inbetween of the fourth generation of quirk users, who grew up fully in the horrors of quirk wars, and the fifth generation, who grew up in the era of All Might and it's all just the past to them

Because even though they didn't exactly live it themselves, they did still see the direct effects of it

And that's the horror of this new war, because their students had been living the peace Mic and Aizawa were promised as children

#this is the thing i promised a few days ago because i just wonder about it y'know?#bnha #my hero academia #eraserhead #present mic #all might #aizawa shouta #yamada hizashi #yagi toshinori #i don't know. let me know your thoughts on the world of bnha i guess?

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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year

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How cable monopolists tricked conservatives into shooting themselves in the face

No matter how hard conservative culture-war cannon-fodder love big business, it will never love them back. Take network policy, where rural turkeys in Red State America keep on voting for Christmas, then profess outrage when Old Farmer Comcast gets to sharpening his ax.

For two years, the FCC has been hamstrung because MAGA Senators refuse to confirm Gigi Sohn, leaving the Commission with only four commissioners. What do the GOP have against Sohn? Well, to hear them tell of it, she’s some kind of radical Marxist who will undermine free enterprise and replace the internet with tin cans and string.

The reality is that Sohn favors policies that will specifically and substantially benefit the rural Americans whose senators who refuse to confirm her. For example, Sohn favors municipal fiber provision, which low-information conservatives have been trained to reflexively reject: “Get your government out of my internet!”

Boy, are they ever wrong. The private sector sucks at providing network connectivity, especially in rural places. The cable companies and phone companies have divided up the USA like the Pope dividing up the “New World,” setting out exclusive, non-competing territories that get worse service than anyone else in the wealthy world. Americans pay some of the highest prices for the lowest speeds of any OECD nation.

For ISPs, bad service is a feature, not a bug. When Frontier went bankrupt in 2020, we got to look at its books, which is how we discovered that the company booked the one rural customers with no alternative as “assets” because they could be charged more for slower, less reliable service:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/04/frontiers-bankruptcy-reveals-cynical-choice-deny-profitable-fiber-millions

We also learned that Frontier had calculated that it could make an extra billion in profit by bringing fiber to three million households, but chose not to, because it would take a decade to realize those profits, and during that time, executives’ stock options would decline in value as analysts punished them for making long-term bets.

We can bring fiber to rural America, and when we do, amazing things happen. McKee, Kentucky — one of the poorest places in America — used federal grants and its New Deal era rural electrification co-op to bring fiber to every household, using a mule called Ole Bub to run it over difficult mountain passes, and the result was an economic miracle:

https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-one-traffic-light-town-with-some-of-the-fastest-internet-in-the-us

The only Americans who consistently say they like their ISPs are people who live in the 700+ small towns that have run their own fiber, mostly in Red States:

https://muninetworks.org/communitymap

Small wonder that rural Americans prefer muni fiber to commercial ISPs’ offerings. When Trump’s FCC Chair Ajit Pai gave them billions in subsidies to improve rural connectivity, the monopolists spent it pulling new copper lines, not fiber — which would have been thousands of times faster.

Given all that, it takes a lot to convince rural Americans that municipal fiber is bad for them. Specifically, it takes disinformation. More specifically, it takes the lie that municipal fiber would result in “government interference” in users’ communications.

Boy, is this ever wrong. Private companies are free to set their own content moderation policies, and can discriminate against any viewpoint they wish. They can and do remove “lawful but awful” speech like racist diatribes, vaccine denial, election denial, and other conservative fever-dreams.

Contrast that with local governments, who are bound by the First Amendment, and prohibited from practicing “viewpoint discrimination.” This means that if a local government allows one viewpoint on a subject, they are generally required to allow all other viewpoints on that subject. This is how we get the Satanic Temple’s excellent stunts, like demanding that towns that display Christian icons on public lands also display statues of Baphomet right next to them.

https://www.npr.org/2018/08/17/639726472/satanic-temple-protests-ten-commandments-monument-with-goat-headed-statue

When your town government runs 100gb fiber into your basement or garage, it will have a much harder time blocking you from, say, running a Mastodon instance devoted to election denial or GhostGun production than your commercial ISP will. Convincing American conservatives to hate municipal broadband was a gigantic self-own:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/17/turner-diaries-fanfic/#1a-fiber

Even worse is what rural America has been sold instead of municipal fiber: Starlink, the My Pillow of broadband. Starlink sells itself as blazing-fast satellite broadband, but conspicuously fails to talk up the fact that every Starlink user in your neighborhood competes for the same wireless spectrum as you, so the service can only get slower and more expensive over time:

https://www.somebits.com/weblog/tech/bad/starlink-nov-2022-data-caps.html

There’s been a concerted smear campaign against Sohn, and one of the major talking points is that Sohn is anti-cop because she sits on EFF’s board, and EFF wants to place limits on police access to commercial surveillance data. Which is wild, because one of EFF’s demands is limits on geofenced reverse warrants, where cops ask Google to reveal the identity of everyone who was in a specific place at a specific time. If you’ve heard about geofenced warrants lately, it was probably in the context of conservative outrage at their use in rounding up the January 6 insurrectionists.

Now, the primary use of these is to target Black Lives Matter demonstrators and other protestors, and EFF advocates for the normal Fourth Amendment rights that everyone is guaranteed in the Constitution. Conservative pundits didn’t give a damn about geofenced warrants until the J6 affair, and now they do — but they still insist that Sohn should be disqualified from sitting on the FCC because she shares their outrage at the abuse of private surveillance data by law enforcement.

All this raises the question: why have all these Red State senators made it their mission in life to block the appointment of an FCC commissioner who would deliver so many benefits to their constituents? It’s hard to say, of course, but Luke Goldstein has a suggestion in today’s American Prospect:

https://prospect.org/politics/democratic-majority-at-the-fcc-still-blocked/

“A torrent of lobbying money from the telecom industry has flooded Washington to block Sohn’s arrival at the FCC. AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, and T-Mobile doled out over $23 million lobbying Washington this year.”

And why would these companies spend millions to block Sohn from sitting on the Commission? Because she would help the Democratic majority pass policies that make broadband cheaper and faster for America, especially rural America where costs are highest and service is worst, and this will limit the telco monopolists’ profits.

There’s a new Democratic senate majority that’ll sit in 2023, so perhaps Sohn will finally be seated and start delivering relief to all Americans, even the turkeys who can’t stop voting for Christmas.

[Image ID: A hunter in camo firing a rifle whose barrel has been bent back to point at his own face. A muzzle flash emerges from the barrel. The hunter wears a MAGA hat. Behind the hunter is a telephone pole with many radiating lines. In the bottom left corner of the image is a 1950s-style illustration of a broadly smiling salesman, pointing at a box that is emblazoned with the logo for ALEC.]

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being-a-human-isnt-very-fun · 2 months

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Therianthropy Alphabet

credit to @local-xenogender-icon for the alphabet!

A - awakening

I always remember running around pretending to be a deer and always drawing/seeing myself as a deer. I used to push these away when I was older and never thought about it until I realized that therianthropy was a thing and I wasn’t the only one experiencing it. After that I narrowed my theriotype down to a caribou (yes, I know there are subspecies but they’re all very similar so I just say caribou).

B - balance

My therianthropy affects the way I communicate with other people, and my hobbies. It doesn’t affect my work/school/life balance as much, aside from little “quirks” like being afraid of loud noises, being very attached to people, etc

C - city

I don’t live in a city, I live in a rural area, which I’m very grateful for.

D - diary

I do have an alter human diary! It’s mostly just documenting shifts or drawing, and also functions as a regular journal.

E - experience in the community

I’ve had an extremely positive experience in the alterhuman community on Tumblr, and I’m eternally grateful for this because it helped me untangle my therianthropy identity and figure out who I am. Other social media platforms, not so much.

F - friends

None of my friends know I’m a therian, but I have a friend who is a furry who I think suspects.

G - gear

I don’t really feel the need for gear, but I get why people like it. If I had enough money, I might look into buying something, but mostly gear is centered around foxes/wolves/cats, and it would be hard to find caribou gear. I would have to buy a commission which is very expensive.

I - identity

I only have one theriotype, which is a caribou. I’ve yet to meet another caribou, but I have met so many other deer, who have all been super cool!

J - jokes

I love making little jokes about my identity, because it is very silly if you think about it.

K - knowldege

On a scale of 1-10, I would say my knowledge of alterhumanity is a 7 or 8. I still have a lot to learn.

L - liking, loving

I don’t think I could’ve had a “better” theriotype, a caribou is a lovely animal that I am grateful to be.

N - nature

My theriotype lives in northern parts of North America, and in Europe. They are migratory, so they don’t have one specific territory or anything.

O - otherhearted

Tbh I don’t really know the difference between otherhearted and therianthropy but I don’t think I’m otherhearted.

P - popularity

My theriotype isn’t very popular (unless it’s Christmas). Fun fact: in North America, caribou are called reindeer when they’re domesticated, but in Europe, they’re always called reindeer.

R - real body

I get species dysphoria from time to time.

S - sex

I never really thought about the sex of my theriotype? It’s kind of hard to tell really.

T - traits

-fear of loud noises/sudden noise

-foraging for food (gardening mostly)

-head butting things

-communicating with grunts, moving my head, pointing with my feet, or flicking my “ears” (that don’t exist bc phantom shift)

-running/hiking in the woods and swimming

-flight instinct

Urges

I think this question was centered more towards therians with prey drive instincts, because my urges are mostly just to run away, swim in random bodies of water, eat the grass, and restlessness.

W - wondering

Leaving the question here for context: “How do you think you would look like, if you could psychically shapeshift into your therio/kintype? (Describe or put an image here!)”

Y - yarn

Leaving this question for context too: “If you wanted to buy/make a tail, would it be real fur or fake/yarn fur?”

Caribou don’t have tails…

Z - zoo (as in the place)

I like zoos that are there for protection of a species or rehabilitation. I think there can be a lot of abuse involved, though.

#Therianthropy #alphabet #nonhuman #deer theriotype #deer therian #therian community #caribou therian #therian #alterhuman #otherkin

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shitpunsforshitnuns · 1 year

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OBSESSED with the fact that the infamous “gross American food” poll is fully just poor people food that people still make/buy either because it was passed through their family or because they’re still poor. Allow me to elaborate. Here’s the poll if you’ve managed to avoid the discourse:

American Chocolate tastes different because of two factors: the majority of our cacao comes from South America unlike Europe which generally imports from Africa (moving product farther costs more money). Also, American chocolate is only required to have 10% cacao as opposed to Europe’s 20% (using less cacao and supplementing with readily available sweeteners like corn syrup costs less money). In fact, the very first American Chocolate company (Baker Chocolate Company) was so aware of how much less wealthy the early US was than Europe’s established market for chocolate, that their bars came with a money back guarantee for anyone who was disappointed with the sweets. The current financial situation in the US is well known to the rest of the world- of course we still make and eat cheap chocolate, the bones of our country are exploitation. Also, the dairy content is lower in American chocolates which makes them more shelf stable. Shelf stable foods are important for communities living paycheck to paycheck who have money for a chocolate bar right now but won’t for their kid’s birthday in a week.

Bologna feels self explanatory to me. It’s made of literal scraps from the meat production industry that are then turned into a “sausage” and cured to give the product more longevity. I like fried bologna because it was cheaper for my dad’s parents when he was a kid. My dad likes bologna for the same reason.

Watergate Salad is made of shelf stable ingredients. Many desserts require eggs or dairy that can be expensive and expire quickly. Those desserts then get stale if they aren’t eaten immediately. Canned fruits, pistachio pudding mix, and cool whip (which is hydrogenated oil and very little dairy) will all keep for a while. You can buy them in bulk and put them in your cabinets or freezer until you want to use them and then the salad itself will keep in the fridge. See again the importance of shelf stable foods to impoverished communities.

Twinkies are cheap and go stale slowly. See again the importance of shelf stable foods in impoverished communities.

Grits, Boiled Peanuts, and Biscuits and Gravy are all southern comfort food staples. I was born and raised in north Georgia, it’s very important to me to note that almost all southern food was co-opted from freed slaves by poor rural white folk in the south. Plain grits can be deeply unappetizing but they are cheap and self stable. You can add butter and salt or even seasoned meat and veggies. Grits are rarely a whole meal all to themselves and when they are you add some cheese or salt at the very least. George Washington Carver (a black man many people outside of Georgia should acquaint themselves with at least a little better) turned peanuts into a massive cash crop in Georgia because they are nitrogen fixing! They replace the nitrogen other cash crops (like cotton and tobacco) take out of the soil. In order for your fields to stay viable, you have to plant something like this every once in a while, so most farmers had peanuts themselves or had a neighbor growing peanuts. Boiling them is a quick, easy way to get salt on the nuts themselves. The water soaks through the shells and seasons and softens the nuts. Water is free and peanuts will keep until the fats start to go south, no wonder they picked up popularity among rural folk and travelers alike. Biscuits and gravy are another scrap food. A good sausage gravy is made of leftover sausage and southern biscuits are a savory, buttery carb that is filling and gives you energy you need somewhere like a farm. The negative stereotypes of the south are pervasive and often rooted in racism. Find someone whose grandma has been making these foods her whole life before you form an opinion.

Meatloaf is seasoned more often than not. Like. Sorry you ate meatloaf that wasn’t salted. Anyway, meatloaf is another scrap food! Meat scraps are ground up and then formed into a loaf. Most people put tomato sauce or ketchup on it. Canned tomato products are, you guessed it, shelf stable, and can also be canned at home fairly safely.

The United States at large is not ignorant of the world around it. We are aware that other foods exist. Either we are choosing to eat these or our financial situations are backing us into corners. This is all without even touching upon the prevalence of food deserts in low-income, minority communities in the US. If you’re aware of all this and you really just want to critique the wealth disparity in the US, punch up. Go after the guys with money, not the food that the rest of us find joy in making out of the scraps. Also, making fun of the British is always punching up. Maybe if you had caused fewer wealth disparities that directly impacted the food eaten in other countries, we would be nicer about yours.

#I wrote all this on mobile #so i couldn't link sources #but google is free #american food #american food poll #biscuits and gravy #american chocolate #bologna #watergate salad #twinkies #grits #boiled peanuts #meatloaf #long post

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burtoo · 7 months

Note

Hi Brendon, giant fan of your work!

I know you get a ton of questions and hope they don't annoy you or repeat endlessly, and that you havent already replied to these and I just havent seen it <3

Firstly, based on what do you name your projects? Do the titles just come to you or are they deeply thought-out? Do you have a favourite one maybe?

Secondly, I know literally nothing about photography, so sorry if this question is entirely ignorant or offensive, I came across your work on accident and have been obsessed ever since, but I don't generally take much interest in this artform in particular, what I'm wondering is, how much of these pictures are photoshopped? Are they photoshopped at all?

Thirdly, how much time does it take for you to finish a project? And how do you manage to find the time to explore all these places? Do you have a 9-5 job or is your primary field of work photography? Or just a hobby? How far have you traveled for your photography?

Thank you so much ahead for taking the time to reply! This is basically an interview with the amount of questions I've asked, sorry. Also, english isn't my first language so excuse any grammatical errors.

Hello, appreciate the questions!

I don't really like naming my projects so I often just name my sets the month they were taken, occasionally I will think of a singular name for a series but rarely does it come to me before I've made the entire body of work.

Most of my images are not edited beyond color grading, but I do occasionally composite or tweak elements to fit the vision I have for an image. I am a retoucher as my day job currently so I do my best to capture what I want in camera to avoid spending any unneeded time in front of the computer.

I spend most of my free time exploring, I always have since I got my first car. I I love finding strange new places, especially in rural America. I get homesick for the isolation. I'm lucky to live in an area that is completely surrounded by farmland and forest. As for photography being a field of work for me - I have my day job so I can cherry pick the client work I take on. I was freelance for a short period but I knew I didn't want to be forced to take on work that wasn't a great fit. I'm extremely grateful to be hired for my vision by clients who trust me.

Furthest I've traveled for photography would probably be Northern Saskatchewan. Doesn't seem like much, but being 3 hours away from the nearest civilization in a ghost town really shows how big North America is. Really want to go further into British Columbia and the Northwest Territories someday.

#ask

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thatgoblin · 4 months

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I want to write or draw but belly is just off enough that Imlucky I showered after work today. But also, the need to disassociate and maladapt day dream is strong. . .

SO HAVE SOME NONSENSE!

So, I'm from the Midwest in America. I'm 34 and was just thinking of how different my upbringing was from the 141's in the UK. Especially since Price, Ghost, and I are in the same age group. Them being four to 5 years older than me.

I don't mean the usual differences like food and how schools are run. I mean, did they have to learn how to put a textbook under their shirt in case of an active shooter? I was in 4th grade when the Columbine High School shooting happened in 1999.

Did the 141 have to worry about terrorists suddenly targeting their school? I was in 6th grade when the Twin Towers were hit with planes on 9/11. It was pushed pretty hard that anyone, anywhere in America could be another target. At least it was where I'm from.

Which is another thing. I come from a rural town, didn't even live in the town (I loved 10 miles from it and a mile in either direction of the nearest neighbor on a dairy farm), and the population was 2,500. What kind of schools did they go to and what supplies was available to them?

We had books that covered up to the late 80s, which were the newer ones, when I got to high school in 2004. Did they have to deal with being under funded and having no real insight into the education they were or weren't getting?

I just wonder is all.

#emery speaks #captain john price #captain price #cod mwii #cod mw2 #simon ghost riley #john soap mactavish #kyle gaz garrick

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ultramegagigamax3 · 6 months

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1: its just not my year / toby rogers

but im all good here

sunday morning

hands over my knees in a

room full of faces

im sorry if i seemed off,

but i was probably wasted

and didnt feel so good

masterlist ~ next

!Content Warnings!: homophobic slurs, bullying, references to drug use, vomiting

Somewhere, rural America

Your mother says that God is always giving signs, to never be surprised, always be prepared, and take whatever He gives you with open arms, no matter how you may hurt. You had believed it as a child, but after that day, you aren’t so sure. It had been a day like any other, as generally excruciating today as it would be tomorrow. Perhaps the maddening repetition of each passing day was a sign in and of itself? God had made the rising hours of the day so excessively same it had crossed over into the unusual, therefore being a supernatural sign, right? Repetition is said to drive anyone insane, let alone a tweaker like you. You splash your face with water, then grip the edges of your dirtied and broken bathroom sink; yeah, you think, that has to be it. God hasn’t abandoned me yet.

Earlier that day

You were lazing on the couch in your living room, one of your younger siblings lay across your chest. You were resting your head back on one arm rest and your legs dangled over the other; there had been a time when they didn’t hang like that, and you had begun to miss it. The 4-year-old is resting his little head on your collar bone, turned to the side as he has his eyes glued to the T.V. He had drooled on your pastel yellow tank top and was fighting to stay awake, so as to continue watching whatever garbage was playing. He is small and very chubby, making him heavy on your lungs. You didn’t mind though, a fat baby was better than a starving baby, you knew that better than anyone else. You stare up at the popcorn ceiling, an expanse you have studied a million times over. You had pulled an all-nighter, as per usual, and so you had been the only one awake to catch Joseph, the boy, crying from the living room. You didn’t know how to comfort him, you didn’t know how to comfort anyone, you just gave him a hug and turned on the T.V. Your eyes drift to the wall above the couch, every corner filled with tacky crosses of various styles and designs. You had stared at these crosses many times, during lectures and scoldings that you tuned out. You had once been in awe at the wall, when you were a child, but the novelty and charm was lost on you long ago. You have been like this for about an hour, and you would continue like this until the boy fell asleep. Staying still for long was a challenge for you, constantly twitching, cracking, rubbing, and itching at your hands. Your feet twist and bend in their sockets, your legs swing, bounce, and kick at the air. It was as if there was a constant electrical current going through your body. No part of your body felt relaxed, at ease, eternally nervous and tense, even in your own home. You could feel Joseph’s little heartbeat against your stomach, and you wonder if that’s what it feels like to be pregnant. You squirm at the thought, and your mind and body are filled with dread. Just the idea of it makes you feel sick, fills you with the sort of existential fear you might feel when thinking about death. Your brother’s breathing slows, and now you can finally push yourself off the couch.

You hold the sleeping body tight as you bring him to your room. Well, yours and three of your sisters. You place the boy in your bed, not your choice but waking your mother now would raise hell, and tuck him in. The sheets are baby pink with an outdated brown pattern, totally 2000’s. You placed your stuffed childhood lamb against his chest and swiftly escaped. It was early in the morning, about 6 am now, the time you should be waking up. Your steps are near silent on the stained grey-brown, once white, carpet as you begin your morning. You push open the door to the family bathroom and lock yourself in before showering and brushing your teeth. You track a trail of water back to your room and grab the first pieces of clothing you see, quiet as to not wake the tiny beast in your bed. You make your way back to the bathroom, trailing more water, and, again, lock the door. Theres a small window high above the shower, to let light in while still having privacy. It was never glazed over or given a curtain, and so you had a habit of staring at it, as if you would catch someone trying to peak in. You assess the clothing you had grabbed in the darkness: a pair of small jean shorts, a red T-shirt, and your underwear. It would have to do. You dress quickly and turn to the mirror above the sink, the countertop littered with makeup. You decide on something simple; makeup is a habit drilled into you by your mother. It wasn’t about liking or disliking in this house, it is about what Mother and Father want. You finish and slip on your white socks, escaping the bathroom to search for a pair of shoes.

When you exit, a couple of your brothers and sisters are already scurrying about the house, rushing to get ready. You dodge and weave both small and large bodies, making your way into the kitchen. There, you find the 15-year-old Laura, the second oldest girl, after you, and the second mother of the household. She has made seven bowls of cereal, all the children excluding the two babies. Laura is dressed in a private school uniform, the smartest kid in the family, and is making quick work of tying the twins’ long hair into ponytails. Savannah and Violet, a mischievous 8-year-old duo, are whispering to each other about some anime or whatever they had watched the day prior. You silently chew at your Fruit Loops as you watch Laura struggle.

“You know, you could actually, like, help, you know?” She spits, earning a small yelp from Violet when she pulls her hair too hard.

You shrug, even though she doesn’t see it, “Uh, maybe later.” You lie.

The 10-year-old Zack barrels into the kitchen, snatches a bowl off the counter, and makes a break to get away. “Zack!” Laura hisses, and the boy stops in his tracks, “What are you doing?”

“Breakfast.” He replies, innocently.

“Eat at the table.” You demand, though more casual and less irritated than Laura, gesturing in the table’s direction.

“But I don’t want to.” He states, matter of fact, as if it were stupid to even think of giving the boy a command.

You walk over to the boy and place a firm grip on the back of his neck, marching him over to the table. He sits with a defeated huff and begins to eat. You raise your brows at Laura. “There, I helped.” You smirk, before leaving the kitchen and ignoring whatever little witty quip she spat back. As you walk out, you’re almost run over by Benny, 12, followed by your mother. A strange silence falls over the kitchen.

“Get the hell out of the way.” Your mother pushes past you as she shoves Benny, still in his pajamas, into the kitchen.

You don’t bother to stick around and find out what she’s so pissed about, just keep your mouth shut and move on. Behind the muffling of the door, you can hear Laura talk back to your mother, thus beginning the first argument of the morning. Back in the living room of your tiny, dilapidated house, you find Michael, 17-years-old. He is sitting on the couch, fully dressed but not making any move to go to the kitchen.

“Food’s ready.” You slur, mouth full of cereal. He doesn’t reply, he either didn’t hear you or is just straight up ignoring you. Most likely the latter. If life had gone back to the way it was 2 years ago, you would’ve pulled his hair or pinched his cheek. But that was then, and this is now, and things between the two of you wouldn’t ever be the way they were before.

You feel itchy. You ignored it as you walk back to your room, but the ache persisted. It felt as if there were little bugs beneath the skin, crawling and mating and birthing and multiplying. Your flesh and bone suddenly felt illuminated by something like an electric shock. You shakily place your bowl on a messy dresser in your room, rubbing your hands together frantically, like a nervous fly. You knew this feeling all too well; you needed to get high. You told Laura you would stop, for her sake, but she wouldn’t notice, would she? You absentmindedly grab at your hair and scratch at your belly, no, you couldn’t do it, you wouldn’t. But you needed to take the edge off, at the very least. You grab your backpack, a brown sweater, and your beat-up converse, not bothering to finish your cereal. You leave your room and enter the living room, the whole house suddenly alight with noise. Laura is holding the youngest sibling, baby Mary, while juggling with dressing Violet, meanwhile Michael is handling Savannah and Zack. Your mother disappeared, your father now in her place, and Benny is left to frantically dress himself. You pull your phone from your backpack, an outdated and beat up little thing, checking the time, 6:40 am. Normal kids who didn’t live out in the middle of nowhere would be getting up now. The walk to the bus stop took almost 20 minutes, 10 on a good day, meanwhile Laura got to leave in your father’s car.

“Why don’t drive all of us to the bus stop?” Michael had asked once, years ago.

“Nah, I’m not doing all that! Waste of time!” Your father dismissed, the same response he would give for years to come.

You’re out the door before anyone could notice you, and the thought of rolling one up now doesn’t fail to fill your mind. You pull your arms through your backpack straps, backwards, the bag hanging off your chest. You put the hoodie of your sweater over your head, not fully wearing it, the pressing humidity (and rising heat within your body) making it too stuffy to adorn. If Laura or Benny (or Michael, if he still talked to you) were out here, they would’ve said you look stupid. You had stopped worrying about how you look years ago, a premature ego death, before you even had an ego. You gripped the sides of the bag, to distract yourself from the overwhelming desire for a hit. In the distance, you could hear the gaggle of children finally leaving the house. Distant giggles, obnoxious laughter, muffled words of conversation and “I love you”. And there you were, meters away and alone. With you gone, it almost seemed like a happy family. You hear a car come up behind you, and a loud honk pulls you out of your thoughts. You jump, your heart almost stopping, too edgy from the withdrawal. You look at the offending vehicle and spot your father and Laura waving and laughing. You can’t discern whether you feel humiliated, gawked at like a clown, or loved, noticed. That fades, and then the only thing you feel is that deep, distant itch, begging to be scratched.

Violet is running up to you, followed in tow by Zack then Savannah.

“Why you so emo.” Violet pokes at your side.

You force an offended scoff, “Shut up, ugly!” You pitch your voice in a whiny tone. The poke feels like a stab, and suddenly you’re sweating. Shit.

“[ ], can you carry me? Michael doesn’t wanna carry me!” Savannah pulls at the sweater hanging from your head.

“You’re too big. You’re a big kid, right? You sound like a baby.” Your head feels dizzy, the world begins to sway.

Savannah continues to whine. Zack pipes up now, “After school, can you take me to the skate park? Please please please please…” He continues, his little fists pulled into a prayer position.

“I dunno, we’ll see.” There’s a pounding in your head, and suddenly it’s hard to breathe.

“Wait, [ ], I wanna go too!” Benny suddenly appears as he chimes in, giving up his too cool to engage act.

“We’ll see.” Your body is buzzing, you feel wired. You don’t even notice that you had begun scratching at your arms, and although it wasn’t violent by any means, it certainly wasn’t gentle either.

“Why was Josie crying last night?” Savannah.

“How did you get up so early, LOL.” Violet.

“Did you even go to sleep? You look sleepy,” Savannah.

“My legs hurt, I’m tired…” Zack.

“[ ], can we skip and go to the gas station instead?” Benny.

“Benny! That’s bad!” Savannah.

“Yeah, mommy’s gonna spank us!” Violet.

“Mom’s gonna spank you.” Benny.

“Why would she spank me, stupid?” Violet.

“For being so ugly, ugly!” Benny.

“Nuh uh! [ ]! Mommy’s not gonna spank me, right?” Violet.

Yeah, you’re never having kids. You couldn’t even itch your arms anymore, as there were children hanging off each one, begging for your attention. Well, you don’t blame them, the only time they ever see you is early in the morning and late at night. Perhaps, to them, you were something special, the way a two headed rat may be special. You’re clenching your teeth now and struggling to walk straight. When you’re like this, it’s difficult to stay calm; there have been too many times where you have lashed out, saying and doing vile things. You held onto whatever sanity you had left, to stop yourself from doing something you would regret. You wondered if Michael could tell; was he just watching, waiting for you to slip up so he could call you a stupid piece of shit again? Or was he just a fucking idiot?

“[ ]?” Zack spoke up, almost tripping you as he got into your space.

“Yeah?”

“Why are you still in school? I thought you had to go to college already?”

Oh god, the dreaded question.

“Guys, come here.” Michael finally demanded, pulling the children’s attention away from you. You let out a sigh, immediately bringing your nails to your arms once again. You continued to walk quickly at your own pace, tuning out the world around you.

You look up at the sky, it’s a gloomy grey, but the wind was warm. The moist air clings to your skin, making you feel dirtied. Mosquitos have already begun their biting, leaving red spots along the exposed expansions of your arms and legs. You look out at the fields, vast and almost endless, save for the thick tree line in the distance. You liked the fields, although ugly and littered with red necks, only because of the childhood memories you had made here. You hadn’t been out in that distant wood until you turned 16, begging your father to take you hunting. You had killed a rabbit out there, and you cried, and now the ghosts of the dead cute little animals seemed to haunt that area. Dramatic. You look down at your feet, you had been walking along a gravel path, lined with wire fences meant for cows. Bugs scattered the area, a grasshopper jumped past your feet, went down the trail, and landed on Savannah. You only know it landed on Savannah because of the shrill scream that followed. You jump, again, at the sound.

The grasshopper sits calmly in your palm, Zack and Violet leaning over you as they observe the creature. Michael and Savannah are sitting on an old concrete bench, having reached the bus stop, the older boy wiping at the girl’s tears. You’re holding the pest in your left hand, meanwhile your right grips the left wrist, tight as to control the shaking.

“Can I hold it?” Zack asks, polite.

“Wait, no, me first!” Violet butts in.

“No, me! Back off, stupid!” Zack snaps, polite façade gone in an instant.

You still feel twitchy, though now you’ve gotten better at ignoring it. The three of you are crouched down, careful not to ruin your clothing with the damp grass. You knew that they knew what was going on, but you and the children all decided to collectively ignore the elephant in the room, apparently. They had asked questions in the past, only to be met with being shut down or lashed at, and so they now knew better. Benny is standing over Zack, half disgusted, half fearful, and totally trying to play it cool.

“Ugh, just kill it!” He sneers.

“I’m not gonna kill it, you little psycho.” You observe the creature for a little while longer, not placing it in either child’s hand.

“It’s just a bug! What is it gonna do, huh?” Benny talks down to you, totally too cool. He reminds you of how Michael had once been, and you begin to rub your wrist.

You stand, rather suddenly. Zack and Violet whine, a chorus of small pleas break out, and Benny takes a step back, hiding his terror of the creature. A beat passes, the bus begins to approach from the distance.

“Bus is here.” You nod toward the vehicle and the children turn around. Benny is trudging away from the scene when you grab the back of his school uniform, shoving the bug inside. He lets out a scream, and the kids burst into laughter. There had been a small congregation of students and parents standing around as well, all turning to witness the commotion. Benny is cursing you out while he rips off his backpack and sweater, batting at his back. You cackle, wicked and evil, as the boy panics.

“Ugh, you fucking bitch!” Benny snaps as the grasshopper finally escapes.

“Language!” You retaliate, the laughter making it difficult to get the word out.

“I’m telling mommy!” Violet yells at Benny through her giggles as she runs off to the bus, hand in hand with Savannah.

“Benny, hurry! Before we lock you out!” Zack teases and cackles, your little clone.

Savannah is still rubbing at her reddened eyes, “You guys are so mean!”

Benny flees the scene, not before flipping you the finger, and hops on the bus.

The bus leaves you and Michael there, and you hold your stomach as you try to catch your breath. Once your laughter finally dies, you find yourself standing in silence. Michael is still ignoring you, and the other highschoolers waiting by the curb are in their own little worlds. You stare at the back of Michael’s head, and you feel alone once more. You sit down in the wet grass, not caring about the stains, and scratch, twitch, and jitter in silence.

You hurry to the back of the bus, Michael in the front. Even on the bus, he tries to stay as far from you as possible. The front is quiet, nerds and losers, but the back is rowdy, losers in denial. You sit next to a girl, a skinny little thing. She’s engulfed in large hoodie and sweatpants, light grey with the school’s name plastered in red. You plop down next to her and pull off your hoodie, pulling it over your front like a blanket.

“Who’s the father?” The girl exclaims, bringing her hands to her face in fake shock.

You glance down at your backpack, still hanging off your front, “Shut the fuck up.” You reply, though with no real bite.

She is Mariah Smith, local pothead and one of your few friends. You aren’t the best of buddies, she had been a friend of a friend, but you were beginning to grow on her. She has dark skin, a rarity in this side of town, and wore short braids. She has a nose ring, done at home by one of your other friends, and had a girlfriend in the city. You two had met in pre-calculus the year before, when she was a junior and you were a senior. Then you failed, obviously, and now you two are in the same grade. You had a feeling she was trying too hard to seem cool because you were older? The thought of being respected, although slightly, filled you with both pride and dread. Pride, because someone thought you were cool. Dread, because you knew you were destined to disappoint. You almost wanted to turn to her and warn her not to get her hopes up.

“Did you see Kay?” You inquire. You had begun to dig your nails into your thighs, the overwhelming sensations of the bus would get to you if you couldn’t distract yourself.

“Yeah, fucking long ass drive, though. But her mom let me spend the night,” Mariah smirks, “very much worth it.” A beat passes before you force out a small laugh, forgetting you had to respond. Mariah goes on to tell you the story of her eventful weekend, trying to look cool despite her giddiness. “…And then we went downtown, and holy shit [ ], we…”

You can’t help but wonder at the feeling, being loved like that. Sure, you’ve had boyfriends… in the 8th grade. That last “relationship” you had was with some new kid in marching band when you were 13, and that never moved past awkwardly standing near each other. But, as far you knew, no sane male has attempted to even look at you since then. There was a time when this would eat you up from the inside out, and there was a time when you were happy to be finally left alone. Now, you feel as if you are better off not burdening your existence upon someone for longer than necessary, even if that pang of longing still runs within you. Maybe just once, with a shitty guy whose heart you wouldn’t mind breaking once his body has done its job… But what if he wants to kill you? Men are always killing their lovers after being tossed to the side, you’ve seen it. You wonder for a moment… you’ve dealt with worse at this point, there’s no situation you couldn’t snake your way out of. How much worse could it really get?

You don’t even know the half of it.

Suddenly, you realize Mariah is silent, you are silent. “[ ]?”

“Yeah?”

“You, uh, okay?”

“Huh? What? Never better!” You shake your head and rub your eyes, “Pulled an all-nighter s’all.” Among other things.

Mariah nods, not seeming convinced but not wanting to dig any further. An awkward silence falls over the two of you for a moment. You’re biting your lips, tearing off the dead skin. Mariah eventually moves her attention to other kids on the bus, making lighthearted and shallow conversation with the boys sitting in front of you.

Suddenly, you’re overcome with a wave of sick. Your eyes are squeezed shut, you’re breathing hard, and your leg is jittering.

“Fucking shit, [ ]…” She wasn’t angry, but she disguised her worry with frustration. “Are you good? What the hell is going on?”

You shake your head, slowly, always quick to give in.

“You sick?”

You shrug, kinda.

“What, is this fucking morning sickness or some shit?” She chuckles, trying to lighten the mood.

You let out a huff through your nose, then shake your head no.

“Flu?”

No.

“Uh… cold?”

No.

“… Cramps?”

No!

There’s silence for a moment. “Did you, uh, relapse?” There is something strange and awkward in her voice. The tone you use when you get dumped with the burdens of a (near) stranger.

No, and she lets out a small sigh.

“Oh… is it, like, withdrawals?” She whispers, too ashamed on your behalf to risk being overheard. You nod. You’re terrible at keeping secrets. Mariah is different from the rest of your friends; unwavering cool with an underlying softness, and little experience with anything harder than a “special brownie”. She’s more innocent than she seems, more innocent than a creature like you. Mariah doesn’t know what else to say, so she doesn’t say anything.

You were clenching your jaw as you got off the bus, leaving Mariah behind. She calls after you, but it’s no use. She doesn’t follow or chase, and you disappear into the crowd.

You lock yourself in the stall and lean over the toilet. You’re leaning a hand on the eroding brick wall and bring the other to your thigh. You open your mouth, and the vomit just slides out, leaking like a faucet. It had come up somewhere along the bus ride, but you weren’t about to just start puking all over yourself. You had swallowed as much as you could, but now you could feel it coming back up. You drop to your knees, probably bruising against the dirty tiles, and hunch over the toilet bowl. Your mouth suddenly tastes like milk and cereal again, and you look down at the rainbow mass in the toilet. At some point during your little puke sesh, the empty restroom became alight with noise. A giggling and gossiping cancerous mass infect the dingy room, only quieting when you begin to gag and puke up some more of your breakfast. Keeping quiet is no use, and you know the bitches outside the door can hear you now. Someone gasps and another giggles, soft mutters of holy shit and what the fuck fill the empty spaces between each gag and cough. When you were done, you stayed there, silent, for a moment, until someone began banging on the door.

“[ ]? That you in there? You okay?” Jessie’s hick accent is so thick, her stupid words so slurred, it’s difficult to discern what she’s saying.

“How did you…” You slur, some bile still coating your mouth.

“We can see your ratty little backpack.” A squeaky voice whines, making you cringe and bring your hands to your head.

“Maybe she’s like anorexic now.” Mutters a friend.

“Or pregnant!” A shrill voice squeals.

“Oh, hell no!” another voice gagged, and the group breaks into laughter.

“Not… pregnant…” You reply, what is with you and pregnancy today? Was that a sign? Please, God above, don’t let it be.

“Get out of there, fat ass, puking isn’t gonna make you prettier.” Jessie bangs on the door. Their words shouldn’t hurt, by now you’ve been hurt worse, but they still haven’t lost their bite. You feel so utterly small and insignificant in that restroom stall. It’s not as if you aren’t aware of how unimportant and infantile their words are, but that doesn’t stop them from sinking under the skin like venom. You aren’t sure when things became this way. Jessie had been your friend once, as children, but things took a dramatic shift in middle school. Her parents are hardcore conservatives, lived in the “nicer” side of town, your dad used to work for them, and you go against all their values. Now which one was it? Is it because you’re poor? Because your dad quit? Because you aren’t cousin-fucking hick? Hell, Jessie could be in love with you for all you know.

“Are you doing this because of some,” Your mouth started running before you could stop it, like vomit you couldn’t swallow, “like, weird sadomasochistic lesbian… fetish… thing?” The words were pushed out of you with each heavy breath. There was a mix of laughter, surprise, and disgust behind the door. You rested your head on your palm, holding your skull to dull the throbbing, but it was no use.

“Ew! I’m not a nasty fucking dyke, unlike you! You fucking… dyke!” The girl screeches.

You reach around for your backpack, thrown off in your haze. You rummage around, cigarettes, weed, something, anything. “It’s okay if you are…” You mutter to yourself, bringing a cig to your chapped, dirtied lips.

There is more screaming and banging, and Jessie had even gotten down on the floor to crawl under when a teacher barged in.

You were all sent to the office, luckily you were able to hide your cigs in time, though. They question you lightly, send you to the nurse, and she sends you to class. No true effort is put into your wellbeing. Jessie and her friends are given a stern talking to, lunch detention, and are sent back to class. No justice served, like the movies, just simply moving on to class. Utterly anti-climactic.

A counselor walked you to class, so you couldn’t skip. You walk in late to pre-calculus with Mr. Davis, being met with giggles and snarky remarks by your peers, which you try to ignore. You scurry to your desk in the back corner of the class, pulling your hoodie over your head to escape the prying eyes. But it’s all in vain.

“Alrighty, students!” Mr. Davis’ voice is booming. You could puke, again. “My apologies, Miss Jones, but I need to have a very important talk with the class.”

You hid your face in your arms, as the classroom quietly erupted into stifled laughter at your expense. Your brain was spinning, and your face was hot with humiliation. The only thing you could do was lull yourself into a dreamless sleep.

The sound of the bell pulled you from your nap, the sound knocking through your skull as if it to crack the bone. You stand so quickly you almost knock your desk over, haphazardly pulling on your sweater. You zip it up to the collar, feeling exposed, and clumsily throwing your backpack over your shoulders. You speed out of the room, sweet escape. You make a B-line for the other end of the school. Through the commotion of rushing waves of students, you are able to slip out of the building and towards the football field.

The sun has risen on the dewy landscape, beaming down on you with bright hot rays. The wind chills, but the sun burns. You keep your hoodie on anyways, unable to help the bubbling insecurity within your veins. You hide away under the bleachers, practically tearing your backpack apart as you search. And, finally, you bring that little cancer stick to your lips, and inhale that nicotine infested cloud, feeling your body become warmed by the smoke. It’s not enough, obviously, it’s just a fucking cigarette. What you really needed was leagues harder than this. But you’ve quit, cold turkey or whatever they say. You’re running on pure love and spite… well, mostly spite. You were gonna prove to your stupid parents and stupid brothers and sisters, stupid Jessie and all her stupid friends, your stupid teachers, your stupid classmates, your stupid counselors, everyone you aren’t a pathetic fucking loser. Despite what other might say about you, you had a lust for life and a childishly ambitious mind. Sure, you had ruined your life two years ago, witnessed and committed many sins before you were old enough to even go to the bathroom without permission, but your life wasn’t over… was it?

You pull out your phone, you needed to call someone. You thought of the dealers on campus; Mariah, who only sold weed, and one Jack Petrović, a tall, creepy guy and the one of the other “super seniors”, besides you. Jack dealt with the heavier side of the scale, and, frankly, had some pretty shit product. You stare at the contacts in your phone; Mariah! Smith:) And Jack #6. You don’t know how long you sit there just staring, until you realize you’ve already smoked your whole cig. You groan and grab your crappy little black backpack again. It’s old and falling apart, you’ve used the same one since the 5th grade now. It’s then you notice the ringing in your ears. It’s not an uncommon occurrence, that metallic shrill is a familiar guest. However, the squealing in your skull is persistent, and only grows louder. The sound becomes so intense, you’re grabbing at your skull and pulling your head between your knees. Is this it? Is this how you die? After smoking a fucking cigarette? Eh, you had expected a worse death, but that didn’t mean you didn’t wish for a righteous one! You wanted something gentle, surrounded by your siblings and their children (like hell you’d have your own), if not, you wanted to go out with a bang, something to be talked about for years to come. But no, you were going to die with your cigarettes in your high school football field, probably to be found by a couple trying to fuck or your other junkie friends looking to get a hit before 3rd period, how ironic.

You’re squeezing your eyes shut, bracing for impact. Then it’s over. The ringing, that is. You’re not dead, though you think you are for a second. You looked up at the bleachers, “You fucking kidding me?” You hiss to yourself, “God, I really am in hell…”

“You… You could say that again!” A voice chirps up behind you.

#toby rogers x reader

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likehephaestionwhodied · 1 year

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Hi! I saw your comment on leatherdaddies/leather/kink at pride and you mentioned how this type of masculinity isn't meant to be performed for a het audience, and removing that framework is essentially hollowing out this type of masculinity. (?) I've been looking into modern media portrayals of non hegemonic masculinity and I was wondering if you had some good intro sources for leather culture? Based on the info in that post I'm wondering if there's some bleed through with pop culture/TV and the modern pop cowboy/space western but I could just be jumping to conclusions. At any rate would sill love and appreciate any recs you would be able to give--if not, totally understand! Either way I love the info that you added to that post a lot!!

It's like you knew I didn't want to be working on my thesis and have come to save me.

Okay so, it really depends on what you want for like "sources for leather culture" because if it's leather culture as it exists today put on your tightest Levis, and your heaviest leather boots and go to the local gay bar on leather night and make friends (easier said than done I know I've always lived in rural America, also pls don't go gawk leathermen we can tell) But if you want historic sources that I can help you with better.

The two books I cite the most in my thesis when it comes to leather masculinity are 1. Urban Aboriginals: A Celebration of Leathersexuality by Geoff Mains and 2. The Leatherman's Handbook by Larry Townsend.

The first is much easier to get your hands on than the second. You can just by Urban Aboriginals on Amazon or Thriftbooks or bookshops, probably even your local gay bookstore if you have one, it's still in print. I have the third edition I love that book SO MUCH it was originally published in the early 80s, and I use it as a reflection of the "golden" age of Leather in the 1970s.

Unfortunately, The Leatherman's Handbook and The Leatherman's Handbook II are out of print. That is not to say you can't get your hands on them. I spent an obscene amount of money to buy the pair on ebay. But also, I once found a Lesbian SM reader in my school's library, so you might beable to get it though an interlibrary loan? or maybe a pdf exists?

Another useful text that I cite quite a bit is Leather Folk: Radical Sex, People, Politics, and Practice, edited by Mark Thompson. This is an anthology of essays written by, you guessed it, leatherfolk both gay men and others. (I am assuming because of the post that you are most interested in gay leathermen)

Regarding the rest of your post on pop-culture portrayals of non-hegemonic masculinity (I am assuming you are using that term in an academic "I've read R.W. Connell" way, if not RIP, sorry again I'm working my thesis the first chapter of which is very "I'm Read R.W. Connell") I have one thing to say:

I am 90% sure only three of these men are gay, that only three of these men are intimately aware of the costumes they are wearing. David Hodo, the construction worker, Randy Jones the Cowboy, and Glenn Hughes. I wish I could find the photo of the three of them in their costumes with one very important detail, a single button of their 501s is undone. If you are a gay man crusing in the 1970s you own a pair of levi 501s that are so tight you have to shimmy into them, and you leave one of the buttons undone to make your dick bigger. You can also just tell when they're dancing who understood the assaignment.

I give all this information because the village people have such a weird relationship with the gay community. I haven't done a lot of work with them specifically so I'm sure someone is gonna read this and know xyz. But these guys are named after the west village, where gay men lived in new york, and got their start preforming for gay men. the costumes they wear are of course different types of masculinity idealized in the gay community. Their songs (at least the first iteration of the village people) are usually about gay things. YMCA is of course about crusing, but "San Francisco" from their debut is even more overt along side "Go West," "In the Navy," and "macho man"

youtube

I've inserted this video as a visual so when I say, "the three gay ones understand the assignment," you know what I mean, their performance is campy where, where the other two are missing that.

But deconstructing the Village people, or at least the three queerest ones takes an understanding of queer history. In the same way that the Leatherman is a "biker," the construction worker is not really a construction worker (this is not to say that Leathermen are not often bikers, they are) The construction worker is a "Clone" the promiscuous gay men of the 70s who wore Levi jeans, work boots, tight t-shirts, and flannel and solicited sex from other clones in public. Similarly, the cowboy might be a cowboy, but he might also be one of the hundreds of men who hung out at western-themed bars (closely related to leather) and are the prototype of the bear. All three of these particular queer masculinities resist the feminine archetype of queer men HOWEVER, when produced for mass conception, they are camped up.

I think that this would be an instructive place for you to start, I don't know that I can help with more modern pop-culture though.

#leather history #queer history

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supersoftly · 4 months

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Do Canadians have a fireworks holiday? Here in Hawaii New years is the big one and I have fond memories of making sparkler bombs as a child. That being we'd unwrap sparklers to extract the gunpowder placing it in a vessel of tin foil. Then we'd wrap it with an improvised fuse place it in the middle of the street use a sparkler to light the fuse and run like hell away from the large explosion.

Adendum to previous sparkler bomb ask somehow everyone involved has survived to adulthood with all limbs and digits intact

Well I'm glad you clarified that, admittedly when I hear stories from my mom who grew up in rural post-war Japan, you hear some pretty crazy stuff about fireworks! :p

In Canada, we do have fireworks holidays, but pretty much the same as most North American stuff, like New Years and our national day, Canada Day (pretty much same as Independence Day but way less patriotic :p) I grew up right by the border, Niagara River (see war of 1812 if you want to see the landscape and how close we are to America physically), it's a bikeable range to the States if there wasn't a body of water in the way, but often one of the safest and more popular area for fireworks shows. Where I live, we're pretty anal about our fire-related regulations cuz of the forest fires and such, so most of the time, firework stuff is run by somebody official™️ if you're doing anything big and near densely populated areas.

We would get in our families cars packed with snacks, blankets and foldable furniture, park on the grass in the dark with all the other families right by the edge of the border overlooking the river (it's a bit of a sheer drop, but there's fences 👍), and watch fireworks with our American neighbours cheering on the other side of the river where you could hear the booming echoes bounce between the two countries walling in the sound for miles around. Then Independence Day would happen a few days later and we'd get to see another firework show lol ^^

It's funny thinking about it again, how that pivotal location was a strategic point for how our country was shaped today and yet now, we happily share with our neighbours on the otherside, the delight and wonder of both of our countries gaining sovereignty despite the past painting us as enemies. Not to get deep or whatever, it's just a pleasant memory I have of growing up. Anyways, thanks for sharing, I love hearing about stuff like this, makes me feel like we all get to know each other a little better :D

#kinda rambly sorry anon lol

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limerental · 1 year

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here, have a half-finished witcher americana retelling I've been sitting on for years now. I didn't quite have the gusto to go everywhere I wanted with it but here she is. I got in my yenralt & ciri feelings mostly :')

It did not go like this:

Yennefer was born the unfortunate eldest daughter of a local farmer of dairy goats and hogs, the sort of farm built into a gully that boiled up with mud and shit when it rained. Born all twisted up in the womb, her spine curved in a permanent hunch.

Some devil got to her mama, her daddy always said, leaning on a fencepost, hard-eyed and jeering as he spit tobacco into the dust.

Some devil had likely looked a lot like the young man her mama fancied just a few months before she was married quick to her daddy.

The devil long vanished off to the city.

Yennefer was no good for farm work, but she could do well enough bussing tables at the diner off the main road. She worked there more hours than not for less than scraps, but she did her work and ducked her head and kept mostly quiet about it. If she was just patient enough and careful, she could find her way out of there in time.

Yennefer kept a secret.

She'd been born with witchcraft hidden in her crooked body, the sort that ran in rich veins through the land itself. The kind that sang in the creek-carved ravines and thrummed through the gnarled roots and swaying branches of the forest.

She could call the animals to her and find anything lost and drive out the snakes from the chicken coop with a word, and she'd heard stories about things like that all her life so wasn't surprised by the possibility at all. Except for the fact that no one had ever taught her those things, and nobody knew she could do it.

In only a few short months she'd come into the full depth of her magic and the Witch would come for her and changed her life for good.

Before that, she met Geralt.

Yennefer'd long given up fantasies of being spirited away, thinking about strangers' lives with the kind of detached daydreaming of a girl who did dull work for ceaseless hours.

She wondered who this man was, old enough to have seen the war but younger than her daddy, who had been exempt from the draft on grounds of being a farmer. Which was good fortune, because he would have made a bloodthirsty soldier.

Geralt was a simple man who worked in travelling pest control. His beat up company van coughed over the miles, tools of the trade rattling in the back, big cartoon rat grinning evilly painted across the side.

Geralt kept a secret.

He knew every trick and gimmick to eliminate a rodent problem, could give his usual spiel about baiting and trapping to any fellow who asked, but had never employed anything that mundane even once. The pests he controlled and catalogued tended to be bigger and meaner and not as pretty splashed over the panels of a van.

Monsters were real, and he knew them by name. Kept tabs on the quiet ones and put down the loud and messy ones.

Always respectfully, that is.

Most of them weren't evil, just creatures as old as the land or older, the growing civilizations on this Continent encroaching more and more on the wild places they had once owned.

The war was many years over, and they said the future was bright. The future was now. Geralt didn't know by what metric they measured those things, because to him the world looked the same as always.

He'd done pest control enlisted in the war too, chasing the sort of monsters that paled in their wretched cruelty in comparison to men. Most of the things he sought out were just trying to survive with shrinking odds in a world rapidly forgetting them.

Geralt got that.

Got it in ways rural poor America did, living the same rusted out life they always had, going on in the usual quaint and tragic ways.

Yennefer didn't quite get it yet, but she was going to.

She poured burnt coffee for the grey-haired stranger in the far booth, a typical dusty midday silence settled over the diner. The slanted cartoon eyes of the rat on his sepia-toned van stared at her from where it was parked beside the pumps.

Places in towns this small wore many faces, general store, filling station, and diner in one. The main road was a common route north, and Yennefer liked to wonder where passersby were going, what lives they led. Imagine what faces they hid from the world, same as her.

Geralt had a job out this way with a few hours left to drive, hoping the company van didn't shit the bed again before he made it there, and he watched the waitress' hands shake as she poured him his coffee. Crooked through the shoulders, she limped when she walked and seemed to have trouble with the weight of the full carafe. Geralt smiled at her, an ugly, little smile on a face unused to such gestures, but the girl smiled back. He hoped they paid her fair. She had nice eyes, sharp and a cool violet.

Yennefer brought him a slice of apple pie and wondered where the stranger'd got his scars. He had a number of them on his face and hands alone, pink puckers and angry mauve ridges and was sure to have more hidden by his dark coveralls. Probably the war. If it had been the other waitress working, the chatty one, she would have asked, mister, did you get those in the war, must have gotten half blown to hell, but Yennefer didn't ask.

She smoothed her hands down the front of her starched apron and got back to work filling salt shakers, and neither spoke a word to the other.

Geralt didn't make much of a living on the road, but he lived simple and didn't need much anyhow. The pie was an extravagance, tart and sweet. The girl had working hands, calloused. He thought of saying something to her, making conversation, but he didn't. There was the sound of flies humming against the dust-streaked glass, the occasional rumble of traffic on the road, the quiet noise of his fork on chipped china.

He didn't stick around to watch his dollar tip fluster Yennefer's cheeks red. Didn't look back at all. If he had, he would have seen her pause in the screen door to watch him drive off, wondering about what sort of work he did in a strange vehicle like that, what sort of man he was.

The van's ignition choked and then caught. He had some miles to go.

Neither left a lasting impression on the other at that first unremarkable meeting, but when Yennefer next saw him two decades on, she knew him at once in the way that witches always know those sorts of things.

How fascinating it was to see that the stranger looked exactly the same despite the years. Same greyed hair, same dour expression, probably same pale orange van parked at the edge of the festival grounds. Witchers didn't age the same as men, after all, and that's the sort of thing she saw he was. Perilously slow heartbeat, calculating look in his newspaper yellow eyes, scars curved by talon and tooth and not shrapnel.

Geralt had known what she was by her description, whispered low and reverant like something holy, that this woman was no ordinary medic. Knew before he parted the canvas flap of a shabby tent in some muddy, over-trodden field and stepped into an opulent throne room, the stone walls hung with erotic tapestries, the high ceiling shimmering with a cloud of stars.

The witch herself sprawled perfectly naked on a high-backed throne with a seat of red velvet. Alone, she looked on in detached interest, still as a statue, a haughty and omnipotent sentinel. Geralt thought her ethereal, beautiful, enthralling.

Trouble.

In truth, Yennefer was wretchedly hungover after a riotous orgy the night before and could avoid the throbbing of her temples if only she kept perfectly still.

It was by her eyes, shrewd and violet, that, with a jolt of surprise up his spine, Geralt recognized her as the crooked waitress from the diner many years past.

There'd always been witches hidden behind any great power, old world or new. King Arthur ruled by the guiding hand of the wizard Merlin and JFK by a blonde starlet in a snow white dress, though none would ever have taken the latter for a sorceress.

How tiresome it was, thought Yennefer, how empty, how thankless.

Geralt sighed and adjusted his hold on the unconscious Dandelion's thighs, hitching his friend higher across his back as he wheezed into Geralt's ear. Would have rather gone elsewhere. Would have rather the idiot had not offended the ancient, moth-winged creature Geralt had come to reason with into making less noise.

But there was no talking sense into Dandelion. Damn lucky the creature the locals here called Mothman hadn't thought to curse him with something more severe than whatever ailed him.

It didn't take kindly to flirting.

Dandelion was a poet and a philanderer and a starchild and a balladeer and a free spirit and a scholar and a conscientious objecter and a right pain in Geralt's ass, except that he was also good to talk to and steadfastly humorous even all these years on and the sort of friend who remembered little details like your brand of cigarettes or your favorite candy, who Geralt liked even for his numerous flaws because Geralt liked most people truly and was a good man and loved deeply and loved consistently with his whole damn too-big heart.

"A friend?" asked Yennefer and Geralt shrugged.

What happened next happened the way it always did in every version of the story.

Two broken, fragile-hearted people and something close to tenderness.

It didn't happen like this:

Somebody had a pest problem, a wealthy widow with a pretty young daughter. Somebody'd cursed a poor son of a bitch into beastly form. Said he roamed the hills howling by night and walked the streets a man by day.

The curse broke in the usual way, just as Geralt said. The daughter's kiss on a full moon. True love and all. Happily ever after.

Except a new war broke and in time, it widowed the daughter too and her poor heart couldn't take the grief, and then the market turned sour and the wealthy widow lost her fortune and hung herself in the pantry. Geralt got a letter naming him next of kin by some questionably legitimate legal twist of fate and then, he sighed deep and resigned and drove north to pick up the girl.

It wasn't so unusual in his line of work, strange orphans scattered all over like grisly flotsam. But he didn't usually see to raising them. He'd never had a father besides the old man, and he'd never thought much of having his own children.

He couldn't know the true dark web of conspiracy around her and would never know the whole of it. The sort of man her daddy was to bear a curse like that in the first place. The old and intricate magicks, bound up in blood and circumstance. The sort of woman young Ciri would be.

Even if he'd known, Geralt would have drove to get her even so. He found the girl buck-toothed and scrawny and lugging a too heavy briefcase down the slumped front stoop of the elderly neighbor who'd been putting her up. Hair the pale color of woodsmoke, eyes like her mama, green as a copper kettle.

And just like her mama, young Ciri had some whisper of something else in her. Something carried over from older lands than this and bolstered by the ancient things here, passed on like the detritus of trauma gained generation to generation. Something tainted and bigger than he had the know-how to suss out.

Geralt sat down and fumblingly wrote a letter.

Meanwhile, young Ciri passed an idyllic summer and cold as tits winter on the isolated Morhen ranch in the rural mountains. She'd never worked a farm before and never even seen a farm animal up close, especially not a ranch like that one which was straight out of some pastoral fantasy.

A painted red barn and swaying, golden fields and a willow tree with a swing beside a white farmhouse on the ridgeline and a little cliche collection of animals. A black and white cow and a billy goat and a pair of checkered chickens and an old, whiskered horse and a little, scrappy dog.

Keeping up appearances, old Vesemir said and made her go muck out the pen. She wished they'd keep up appearances with mucking too and when she said that, the old man's eyes bugged out his head and Uncle Eskel wheeze-laughed folded over smacking his knees.

But the others didn't come until later into fall when the harvest needed brought in. For many long, humid, dust mote days of summer, it was just Ciri and her new, mysterious guardian and the old man who trundled on his tractor with a pipe dangling from his lip, mowing grass and cussing when the tires dipped into a whistlepig hole.

Most days, Ciri was expected up early to feed and muck and clean, which she did with a healthy amount of complaining. Her little pink hands sloughed red with oozing blisters, and Geralt held them in his rough palms to apply salve, feeling like he wished he could give this girl something more, something grander, but this was what they had, this was what he knew.

But Ciri liked the idea of it, her hands going rough and calloused and big like his, her body going hard and lean. She wondered about his scars and his lined face and how strong he was when he lifted her up in his arms.

The lightning bugs came out over the fields each night, so numerous that she could cry over it, and Geralt taught her how not to be afraid when catching them cupped in her hands, kneeling before her with the flickering light held out like a solemn offering.

He prayed it would be enough, the small things he could give her, but Ciri had never known anything bigger. Her daddy sitting on the creaking edge of her bed in the attic to tell her a bedtime story. One with the true monsters and evils smoothed out into a fairytale.

Geralt told her many stories. Long ago, there were elves and giants and wizards and queens and all of them tangled up together in mysterious and elaborate ways. Ciri reminded him about the knights, and he said, ah yes, the knights, and told her about the quests and the riddles and the labyrinths and the dragons. Ciri liked the dragons best. And the swords that slayed them.

When she asked about his own monsters, he said only that there were things in this land older than all of them.

Sometimes the land itself resisted occupation.

And if she was ever on a dirt road along a field of corn or alfalfa at night, never stray in, no matter what beckoned. And if the screams of the coyotes took on a different pitch, don't go looking. And if the cicadas and the crickets went silent all at once and the woods gathered a hush, run home and run fast and don't glance behind your shoulder.

She brandished a pitchfork out in the animal pen, playing at killing beasts, and Geralt watched from the front porch of the farmhouse wishing he could make it all true for her. Heroes and legends and noble truths.

Instead, he whispered a prayer to the wind rattling through the corn fields and held tight as he could to her little, calloused hand.

It all went more or less the same in the end.

"And that's it!" says Ciri, waggling her fingers in a dramatic flourish. "Well, it didn't happen like that." She keeps her voice low and steady in the manner of storytelling, perched up on a fence rail, hands dangling between her legs. "Well, it all did happen. But not like that. Not in those places at that time."

The farm boy she is speaking to looks at her with big eyes, dumb as a newborn lamb. He doesn't know where this America is or half of the words she uses.

Ciri yawns. She doesn't think she'll tell that version again. Or else be choosier with her audience. The sky has started to go red with fading light, and the bats loose themselves from the eaves of the barn to take wing over the fields.

"Don't you have evening chores to do, boy?" she asks, and the boy startles as though awakening from a dream. "Those sheep won't feed themselves."

Later, when his mama cuffs him over the head for his tardiness, he will not be able to explain the reason for the dawdling. He remembers the dark silhouette of a stranger on the border of the fenceline and a peculiar sort of hollow sadness.

In all the darkest and strangest days of his life afterward, his thoughts will return sometimes to that shape in the cradle of dusk.

And one night when his own young, sleepless daughter asks to hear a story, he will close his eyes and draw a breath and tell her one.

#the witcher #yenralt #ciri #my fic

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