Nazis crashing the fuck out at Elmo for no reason is one of my new favorite genres. Literally this pic:
EDIT: It turns out the Jordan Peterson ones are fake (they're real tweets but not directed at Elmo). However, Peterson DOES hate Elmo and has @'d him before.
I started with The Adversary, the third book in a series I never read before, despite my better judgment. I got impatient and wanted to read the passages involving a named Chosen of Vhaeraun.
Kinda regretting it cuz now I wanna kick the teeth in of characters I should be going “Oh my poor lil meow meows :(“
this one is for all the ppl who called her "trans-coded" or came up to me and said that they relate to her struggles as a ditto who presents as and just wants to be seen as a buneary
What happens when you combine:
- The Third Sanctuary
- Last Remote
- Hartmann's Youkai Girl
- A love for progressive time signatures
Well, here it is lol
My high-hat is my friend
Out at 11 to keep the water trough from slushing up. This time I took Pity on Rosalie and put her coat on. K bought it in the fall, and I don't think she has ever worn it before. She was not thrilled.
She said, "I - can just stay on the porch? Right?"
As a matter of fact, no, Rosalie, you cannot.
I can't even.
She did eventually get the hang of moving in it, but continued jumping into the air and shaking vigorously, trying to get rid of it.
Meanwhile, Hero and the gang are just hanging out by the haybale. Enduring stoically.
The part where I had to climb the damned apple tree, in my winter layers and boots, to force the idiot chickens to go in their coop does not bear talking about. There was hostile language on both sides.
😅 sometimes, one chooses to get err... a less modern breed of chicken. Like, say, Icelandics. And chooses to let broodies hatch out chicks because chicken is tasty, and hey, I got these birds in part because of their reliable brooding and mothering instincts.
Unfortunately this means that come mid to late summer, the cockerels are ready to strike out on their own ie. Stop sleeping with those silly grownups (alternate version as reported by the adult chickens: parents kick those absolute idiot teenagers out of the coop perches due to a serious case of Excessive Hormones and Unruly Behaviour) (a pattern that does seem to match with their jungle fowl ancestors)
Then, when one goes out to lock up the coop at night, one is faced with the tree nearest the coop being filled - up to a height of about 30' - with chickens who are convinced this is the Best and Only place to sleep. (To be clear there is significantly more indoor perch space than actually needed, they could and do all comfortably fit inside)
Choices at this point are:
a) feed the raccoons (not ideal on many levels including but not limited to that's *my* future dinner dangit!)
b) shake the tree (at best resulting in confused and irritated chickens landing on one's head, also not ideal)
c) get out the leaf blower because I have yet to meet a chicken that enjoys its butt fluff being suddenly blown backwards
So C it is. Which thankfully after a few days does result in being able to run the chickens out of the tree just by turning it on for a few seconds. They aren't stupid birds. But those first few days I do have to stand around under the tree (or on the coop roof) causally leafblowing my chickens.
Summary: When Sabrae's budding sorcerous might surged again, her brother joins her with an idea.
I wanted to write a quick snapshot of Sabrae's youth (she's around 20 by this point) and introduce her brother during a time when they're both stupid. In short, growing up as a sorcerer with all of that natural magic must suuuuuuck.
Sitting atop the roof of the half-a-hole-in-the-wall cavern home, a young drow woman busied herself with embroidering the hem of a set of gentlemen's leather gloves. Her face scrunched from furious thoughts that flooded her mind, each one replaced with a new puzzle as she threaded her needle again and again and again. Her long white hair, bound in a tight worker's braid, frizzled as raw, sorcerous power radiated off of her. Her amber eyes glowed dimly. Windows from as far as four houses down opened and slammed shut on their own. The air grew thick and heavy. Her needle reddened as it grew hot, hotter, even hottter—
"OW!" Sabrae dropped her needle and stuck her burned fingers into her mouth. The pain, though, had already subsided as the wound healed on its own. No command. No spell.
No control.
Setting the gloves aside, Sabrae rubbed her face with both her hands. She took a deep breath, and then she glanced about for her needle. The gold thread from the embroidered gloves trailed off to a bare end, needle completely missing. She leaned forward over the edge of the roof and looked down to the distant street below where the needle undoubtedly rolled away.
She snatched the gloves with a vulgar curse and flung them off the roof, not even bothering to watch them disappear. It didn't matter anymore. Whoever they landed on can have a new pair of gloves on her coin.
From below, the sound of someone climbing up the stairs echoed through the roof, and then the trap door leading to the roof slammed open without a care. A young drow man poked his head out, grinning widely at her, and said, "Hey, Sis! Can I ask for a favor?"
She snorted at her twin brother. "Did you break your leg again from parkouring off the Vault?"
"No. When does that ever happen?" he teasingly questioned as he hoisted himself up onto the roof. Unlike Sabrae, he was average for a drow: five feet in height to her six feet, pink eyes so light they were nearly white, white hair tied back in a dignified braid, and wearing a nice black tunic with gold embroidery. Well, that was average in her eyes. Their peers in age wouldn't shut up about how handsome he was. As his sister, Sabrae couldn't see it (and she refused).
"It was last week, Velkyr! The priests refused to heal you! Instead, I had to be the one to patch you up! Like always!"
"Oh yeeaaahhh. I guess that did happen." He plopped down right next to his sister and pulled an empty messenger bag into his lap. His smile didn't falter as he brazenly said, "Anyway, about that favor."
She sighed, "What is it?"
"I was wondering if you could put some writing on my bag. Here! I even drew you a reference!" Velkyr pulled out a slip of paper from the bag and passed it over to her. On it was a crude drawing of the bag with text emblazoned on it reading "Definitely Not A Bag Full of Drugs".
Sabrae almost smiled. Too bad she lost the perfect needle for the job. She told him, "I guess I can do it. Did you want it bordered with something? Flowers? Bats? Dicks?"
Velkyr's grin grew wider. "Yeeesss! Dicks! Make it all fancy so when people look closer at the details, thinking it's all nice and stuff, they see tons of dicks!"
"It might take a little bit. I… I just lost my leather stitching needle."
"No problem! I'll get you a replacement. There's a tailor down the way who deserves to lose their needles."
"Wow, that's a curse! How did they earn your ire?"
"Eh, something about me needing to know my place. How Mom lets me run around like a wild cavvekan. You know, that kind of shit."
"Ah. Then I gladly accept the needles." As she took another glance at the sketch, she asked, "Anything else?"
"Uh, yeah, I want that written in Common."
That raised an eyebrow. Sabrae asked, "Why Common? We speak Drowic."
Velkyr turned towards her fully, his face beaming and unable to contain his excitement. He proclaimed to her, "That's because we're ditching this place! No more Ultoksamrin! No more Vault of Cloaked Midnight! We're hitting the road, you and me!"
Sabrae stared at him as though he grew two more heads. Leave the Vault of Cloaked Midnight? After how much their mother struggled to bring them here just over a decade prior? "…What?"
"You heard me! We're going back to the North! I already packed everything we need, and all that's left just so happens to be a nice bag to really drive those hoity-toity colnbluth up a wall!" He slung the messenger bag over his shoulder and flourished a hand over it. "If we're going to take the surface by storm, we gotta dress the part."
She gawked at him. The trouble they went through just to get to Vhaeraun's greatest temple, the pain of leaving their birthplace behind, all of the work to keep the twins in the safest place their parents could provide—did it all mean nothing to Velkyr? Every time she scrambled for some kind of explanation, any sense she could draw from it unraveled into a tangled mess. "But—I—why? We're supposed to be here. Hidden. Where the Spider Queen's priestesses can't find us."
Velkyr let out a nervous laugh. "Hah! Uh. Yeah, that hidden part? Not lasting any longer. You turned all of our water into holy water. That was the, uh, freshest glass of water I ever had in my life. And if your current trends haven't changed, I suspect you purified the water four stories down." Then he cheekily added, "If you wanted, we could make more holy water in a week than the temple does in a year. Outpace a god in how many gallons of water you bless. Not that I think it's a frequent request for His Lordship or anything."
All Sabrae could do was blush furiously.
The silent pause stretched for a moment longer. The twins both turned their eyes towards the horizon, where the whole of Ultoksamrin lay before them. Drowish architecture with glowing street lamps and shadowy corridors painted onto the ancient dwarvan foundations beneath, a rich mix of past and present. People of all kinds passing by the streets below on business that never knew day from night or rest from work. The din of daily life barely, faintly, reaching the newer living quarters high, high above.
After a long moment, Velkyr carefully said, "I know you've not been doing great here. I know you miss the snow, and seasons, and all the animals on the surface."
"That. Doesn't. Matter, Velkyr," she insisted. "Living here is what you needed. We're in a place that doesn't limit you to just 'masculine duties.' I can put on my big girl panties and be responsible."
"Oh, I'm not denying that Ultoksamrin was great for me. But I can't stay here forever. That just sets me up for stagnating. If we want to be big and independent, then we need to get out there and see the world!" He nudged her shoulder with his. "Come on. Let's go to the Sword Coast. I hear there's always some adventuring bullshit going on in… What were those cities called again? Neverwinter, Waterdeep, and Bald Gate? Okay, maybe someplace other than Neverwinter, if we wanna see snow again."
She did miss the snow. The crunch beneath her feet, the sharp bite of the cold, the way soups and teas warmed her to her core…
Softly, quietly, she asked, "Do you think Father will be angry we left?"
Velkyr waved dismissively. "Naahh. If anything, I think he'd be pretty happy. Imagine if we came back as, like, nobles. No, great heroes of legend! No, better, we could be gods!"
"If someone who didn't know you heard that, they'd accuse you of heresy."
That just made him grin even wider. "Heresy? No, they'd just call me an arrogant jaluk. And to that, I say let's become gods. There's room for another set of twins! So let's get out there and figure out what we'd be gods of!"
"Oh, I already know what you would be a god of. You'd be Velkyr, the God of Hold My Beer."
He seemed a little less amused by that. "Whatever. Just know that when we're powerful, it's because of me."
"Sure. Whatever." Sabrae held out her hand and said, "Now are you gonna give me your bag so I can work on that?"
"Let's go steal Old Lady Burkacha's sewing needles first. Mom will run her out of business by the time she replaces them."
I always wear my black tank top w my leather jacket that has this cute cheetah print on it its like my fave outfit and usually I wear a hat but the hair was glitching....
@flopqed I don't want to think of anyone else to tag rn sorry guys
Teachers have tried this and are amazed when their classes don’t go feral like in the book. It’s almost as if the book was supposed to be satire and not a treaty on the nature of humanity.
after losing control of the signal fire there’s a FUCKING TIMESKIP and when the next chapter starts everyone’s hair is several inches longer and their clothes have rotted to shreds and they’re still just kind of chilling!!!!
IT TAKES THE TERRIBLE IMPERIALISM MIND-POISONED EXCESSIVELY BRITISH BOYS IN THE ACTUAL BOOK SEVERAL MONTHS TO COMMIT A SINGLE ACT OF INTENTIONAL VIOLENCE, EVEN THE ONE (1) CHILD WRITTEN AS AN ACTUAL SOCIOPATH
AND then when they DO turn on each other it is because
THERE’S AN UNSPECIFIED WORLD WAR HAPPENING
AND A PILOT’S CORPSE CRASH LANDS ON THE ISLAND POST-DOGFIGHT AND THE CHILDREN MISTAKE THE PARACHUTE FOR A MONSTER AND SPIRAL INTO PARANOIA
BECAUSE CHILDREN INHERIT THE LEGACY AND TRAUMA OF VIOLENCE FROM THE ADULTS WAGING WAR AROUND THEM
HURR DURR IN THE REAL WORLD IT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN LIKE IN LORD OF THE FLIES -
IT DIDN’T HAPPEN THAT WAY IN LORD OF THE FLIES EITHER YOU JUST HAVEN’T READ IT SINCE HIGH SCHOOL IF EVER AND DON’T REMEMBER WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED IN THE GODDAMN BOOK
yes. yes he did. i’m also gonna direct you to the real life ‘lord of the flies’ which occured in the 1960s, when six tongan schoolboys got stranded on a desert island for over a year before being rescued by an australian fisherman (who, it should be noted, later took on all six as crewmembers because the reason they were out in the first place was because they wanted to see the world, and named his ship the Ata after the island they were stranded on). nobody died. the only injuries that occurred were accidental, and when one of the boys broke his leg falling down a cliff, the others braced it and looked after him so well that it healed perfectly. if they argued, then they would literally go to opposite sides of the island until they’d cooled off. after leaving the island, they remained friends for the rest of their lives. here’s a photo of them as adults, with their rescuer (who is third from the left) and other members of his crew.
i read about this in rutger bregman’s human kind, a book i cannot recommend highly enough, but if you don’t want to go and read a whole book about the inherent goodness of humanity (which again, you really should) then the relevant excerpt can be found here.