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thetreehunter · 2 months

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Felling of The Newnes Oak. A 250-year-old veteran tree, Ellesmere, Shropshire

The felling of the veteran oak tree known as The Newnes Oak, a 250-year-old (English Oak) (Quercus robur ) occurred on the morning of 15th August 2023 on land belonging to Grocott Developments, Prees Ltd. As of 23rd Feb 2024 Forestry Commission England (Forest Services) investigation is on-going. The author was alerted to the felling by a concerned local resident whose property overlooks the 6.4 Ha (16-acre) field in which the oak stood. The veteran oak was the only tree standing in this sizeable field. There are several hedgerow trees, and a Business Park adjoins the field.

On the day of the launch of Tree of the Year 2023...this happened

To enable dialogue to take place with contractors at the scene, the author met with them on-site as they dismantled the oak. He was informed that the tree would be removed from the site the next day.

Photographs and video were freely shot at the scene. No requests to cease were made. The author did not take photographs of the contractor's faces or company truck.

When contacted by the author, the Managing Director of Grocott Developments Ltd explained that there were no current planning applications for this field/site. The author noted that at the northern end of the field, a mechanical digger was on site, as were a number of persons in high-vis attire. By the field gate, soil-sample bags were stacked in a pile.

When contacted, Grocott Developments Ltd's managing director spent over ten minutes extolling the environmental and charitable virtues of Grocott Developments. Also, their attention to sustainability and their actions as a company showing they [Quote 'did not pay lip service to such issues.'] When asked as to just why this significant veteran oak was felled, he declined to answer. The author is unsure if there was a professional and fully qualified tree report completed for this tree. ie, one undertaken by a VetCert qualified arboriculturist specialising in veteran and ancient trees. The author also assumes that any Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) implications will be taken into account by Shropshire Council if any planning applications for the site arise. BNG is an approach to development, and/or land management, that aims to leave the natural environment in a measurably better state than it was beforehand. Visit Govt./DEFRA here for further details... > BNG Explained

Naturally hollowed out oak with PLENTY of sap wood remaining

©Mike Coburn The Newnes Oak The oak tree had no Tree Preservation Order attached to it, as was confirmed by the author after chatting with the Shropshire Council Tree Officer manager whilst the author was on site. There was also no Forestry Commission felling licence in place. However, subsequent advice to the author made it clear that the size and bulk of the veteran oak tree may have meant that it contravened the Forestry Commission's (FC) Felling Licence regulations regarding their 5 cubic metres of timber regulations.

The exact measurements of the prone oak were later taken on-site and forwarded to the West Midlands Forestry Commission (FC) office. On 22nd August 2023, an FC officer visited the site. The oak tree had been removed by this time. As of 23rd February 2024, the Forestry Commission (Forest Services) investigation is ongoing.

Paragraph 180 c) of the NPPF states that 'development resulting in the loss or deterioration of irreplaceable habitats (such as ancient woodland and ancient or veteran trees) should be refused unless there are wholly exceptional reasons and a suitable compensation strategy exists.

Childhood Memories This veteran oak tree is a tree of the authors' childhood. Children from the adjacent housing estates would venture across the playing fields, wade across The Newnes Brook, and venture across the open farmland on adventurous childhood play. One child even worked for the then-farm owner at Newnes Farm. Like many towns across the UK, the brook and fields formed a significant part of many people's childhoods. With this in mind, you can imagine the distress of losing such a significant veteran oak tree and the loss of part of one's childhood, too.

The author is a volunteer local Tree Warden for Ellesmere under the Tree Council's Tree Warden scheme.[He has no official powers and is NOT a qualified arboriculturist]

Carl Wynne copyright

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ladylvck · 1 year

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Ok so like canon storyline for this blog is this --

A long time ago, Lucia saved Juliet from a cult that was planning on using her to sacrifice to their god. This cult worshipped Zygarde who was not a benevolent god, but a necessary evil one who existed to keep the balance and order of the infinite worlds that existed.

This cult believed that their world is one of many upon the every branching world tree that Zygarde presides over. Its god is to prune off the branches that begin to become cancerous to the rest of the tree, thus reaching other worlds and damaging it more and more. Their belief is that if they appease Zygarde by having those blessed by Xerneas AND Yveltal use their power up in sacrifice to keep the balance of their world that they would remain safe and continue to exist. Now whether or not this is true remains to be seen, however this IS what Zygarde does in its duties as the branch pruning god of the World Tree.

And the world is in decline because the balance of the world has been thrown off, especially in recent years if Yveltal's energy is more prevalent due to the involvement of Team Flare.

For generations since a time immemorial this cult has been keeping the world order balanced by using the chosen of Xerneas and Yveltal, however ever since losing Juliet, they have not been able to find another blessed by Xerneas since and thus the destablization of the world at large.

Now normally Zygarde would appear in the worlds as a single cell. This is enough to keep the order in each world. However, should Zygarde begin to form itself, it means that it has come to correct the world's balance, either by tipping the scales back the other way or by cutting off this world's branch, by destroying the world entirely. And there have been sightings of many Zygarde cells all over the world and eventually converging...

Lucia, knowing only some of the story (just the part that grown adults have this delusional belief sacrificing the life and safety of a child would somehow bring peace), has kept Juliet safe. Juliet knowing the situation more, has a difficult decision to make. Considering the circumstances, even if she submitted to her fate, she would die instantly, instead of the slow decline other sacrifices had faced in the past, allowing them to live until the next one is found and taken to be the next sacrifice.

#headcanon #worldbuilding #so yeah #me enjoying the idea of an evil zygarde #or evil-ish #it just has no mercy #it believes your branch deserves to die in order to preserve the other branches/the world tree

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reasonsforhope · 4 months

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"In an unprecedented step to preserve and maintain the most carbon-rich elements of U.S. forests in an era of climate change, President Joe Biden’s administration last week proposed to end commercially driven logging of old-growth trees in National Forests.

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, who oversees the U.S. Forest Service, issued a Notice of Intent to amend the land management plans of all 128 National Forests to prioritize old-growth conservation and recognize the oldest trees’ unique role in carbon storage.

It would be the first nationwide amendment to forest plans in the 118-year history of the Forest Service, where local rangers typically have the final word on how to balance forests’ role in watershed, wildlife and recreation with the agency’s mandate to maintain a “sustained yield” of timber.

“Old-growth forests are a vital part of our ecosystems and a special cultural resource,” Vilsack said in a statement accompanying the notice. “This clear direction will help our old-growth forests thrive across our shared landscape.”

But initial responses from both environmentalists and the logging industry suggest that the plan does not resolve the conflict between the Forest Service’s traditional role of administering the “products and services” of public lands—especially timber—and the challenges the agency now faces due to climate change. National Forests hold most of the nation’s mature and old-growth trees, and therefore, its greatest stores of forest carbon, but that resource is under growing pressure from wildfire, insects, disease and other impacts of warming.

Views could not be more polarized on how the National Forests should be managed in light of the growing risks.

National and local environmental advocates have been urging the Biden administration to adopt a new policy emphasizing preservation in National Forests, treating them as a strategic reserve of carbon. Although they praised the old-growth proposal as an “historic” step, they want to see protection extended to “mature” forests, those dominated by trees roughly 80 to 150 years old, which are a far larger portion of the National Forests. As old-growth trees are lost, which can happen rapidly due to megafires and other assaults, they argue that the Forest Service should be ensuring there are fully developed trees on the landscape to take their place...

The Biden administration’s new proposal seeks to take a middle ground, establishing protection for the oldest trees under its stewardship while allowing exceptions to reduce fuel hazards, protect public health and safety and other purposes. And the Forest Service is seeking public comment through Feb. 2 (Note: That's the official page for the proposed rule, but for some reason you can only submit comments through the forest service website - so do that here!) on the proposal as well as other steps needed to manage its lands to retain mature and old-growth forests over time, particularly in light of climate change.

If the Forest Service were to put in place nationwide protections for both mature and old-growth forests, it would close off most of the National Forests to logging. In an inventory concluded earlier this year in response to a Biden executive order, the Forest Service found that 24.7 million acres, or 17 percent, of its 144.3 million acres of forest are old-growth, while 68.1 million acres, or 47 percent, are mature."

-via Inside Climate News, December 20, 2023

Note: This proposed rule is current up for public comment! If you're in the US, you can go here to file an official comment telling the Biden administration how much you support this proposal - and that you think it should be extended to mature forests!

Official public comments really DO matter. You can leave a comment on this proposal here until February 2nd.

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luketreeworks · 2 years

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Trees are an essential feature of our world, safeguarding wildlife and the climate. Apart from this immense value to the natural world, trees also benefit people in various ways. That is why every tree planted is essential. But apart from growing new trees, it is also imperative to protect the existing ones. Trees in the city experience pressure of development. But while that may be so, there are some things that everyone can do to protect the trees in the area.

#tree maintenance #tree management #Tree preservation orders

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hedgehog-moss · 4 months

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I realised I hadn't posted a greenhouse report since spring, and today seemed like a good day for a 2023 home-grown food review!

2023 was a great year for fruit; my apple & plum trees were so generous! In the greenhouse my most successful crops were tomatoes, red chilli peppers, beans, and pickles. I was able to make spicy plum chutney using my own plums, onions and peppers:

On the other hand I was unlucky with my non-greenhouse vegetables, there were so many insects this year and my courgettes got absolutely decimated. But then I complained about my bad courgette luck to some neighbours and was gifted 9 courgettes and 3 pumpkins. I spent the first half of my autumn cooking and freezing and pickling and preserving to try not to let anything go to waste; I made:

7 jars of pesto (with greenhouse basil); 8 jars of pasta sauce (with courgette-pumpkin-tomato-red peppers-onions-basil, + parmesan); an unknown but large amount of pumpkin-tomato soup (I put them in empty glass bottles and freeze them); 7 jars of spicy plum chutney; 2 small bottles of spicy oil for my pizzas (with some of my chilli peppers; the rest are still drying by the stove to become chilli powder); 5 jars of plum jam and 3 of blackberry jam (I also froze several kg of whole blackberries for winter desserts); 6 jars of pickles (they are delicious!! I'd never pickled pickles before this year, I'm really happy with the result); 12 small bottles of elderberry syrup; 4 large bottles of elderflower syrup; hundreds of little apple sweets; several bottles of apple juice; an absolutely dizzying amount of apple puree / compote / jelly, because I refused to leave any leftover apples for the dormouse population. They are not my friends.

(If you think I'm being too mean to the dormice, please know that a) they are unrepentant thieves; b) I became so competent at hiding my apples that a dormouse ended up sneaking into the shower at night to eat my soap. My bar of homemade (not by me) goat milk soap. It's hazelnut scented so I guess if you're a rodent it just smells like lunch.)

I took some stuff out of the freezer just long enough to take this family picture; though I already gave away a lot of things to guests and neighbours, so it's just what's left! (I also froze enough chopped onions to last until summer I think)

I am terrible at labelling my jars; in my hubris I always assume I'll just remember where I put which kind of sauce or flavour of compote. I never remember. I end up having to give my guests mystery jars, like "this is fruit jelly! Made with... fruits"

So it wouldn't get too monotonous I added various fruits to my apple purees: apple-raspberry, apple-blueberry, -plum, -blackberry... I also made a few jars of apple-pineapple-pumpkin compote because I had too much pumpkin and I regret not focusing on that from the start, this combo tasted so good and was the most cheerful yellow colour.

I finally used my last apples last week, making apple-quince paste which is currently drying in order to become sweets. I bought some pretty & thick paper to origami a few boxes to put them in, so I'll have New Year presents for my courgette-providing neighbours. <3

(My cats are currently banned from this room so they won't try to lick the fruit paste) (they don't even like it, they're just cats)

#crawling along

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mylight-png · 6 months

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The Political Racialization of Jews

I think we have all seen the people calling Zionism "white supremacy" and Jews "white colonizers" in order to politically justify hating us.

But, what about the Pittsburgh Tree of Life shooting? Were we white then, when that white supremacist barged in and killed our people?

But, what about the worst killing of Jews ever, the Holocaust? Were we white when Hitler systemically slaughtered us in order to preserve his white Aryan race?

But, what about our time in Europe (where we, in fact, do not originate from)? Were we white when we were made to live separately from the actual "white Europeans"? Were we white when we were routinely and systemically attacked in pogroms? Were we white when laws were passed, prohibiting us from buying and selling certain things (ask me where bagels come from)?

But, what about America, where "no dogs and no Jews allowed" was written on businesses. Were we white when Leo Frank was falsely accused of murder, then taken out of his prison cell and lynched when his sentence was reduced? And the university/employment quotas against us? Were we white then?

Were we white any of the times we were hated and discriminated against for being "other" and different from those who were white?

In those days, we were racially categorized as being not white, because being white was seen as "moral" and desirable.

But now, what is the easiest way to strip someone of any right to consider themselves a minority or marginalized group? What is the easiest way to encourage people to disregard one's experiences of hate and oppression? What is the group society considers most privileged, and thus least qualified to define morals and ethics?

White.

We are called white, because the same people who call us white say that anti-white racism doesn't exist. So, how can hate against Jews exist, if we are white?

We are called white, because the same people who call us white view being white as a form of moral taint.

We are called white, because calling us white makes them believe that it is justifiable to strip us of our heritage and deny the fact that we are indigenous to the land they claim we are colonizing.

We are called white, even though according to FBI data, Jews are the most targeted minority group per capita in the US.

We are called white, even though our experiences are vastly different from white non-Jews.

Throughout history, we have been forced into racial categories that made oppressing and hating us easier.

And so that is why, as a Jew, I refuse to align myself with any racial category. Because I know that, depending on which way the political wind blows, no category will be safe or accurate. And because I know that those categories have been used, and will continue to be used, as an excuse to hate me.

#jumblr #jewish #judaism #jew #opinion #antisemitism has no place here #antisemitism #proud jew #jewish and proud

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ellalalala · 6 months

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A semi-long rant about Dottore's implied self-hatred, loneliness and inner struggles

I am, like many others, endlessly fascinated by Dottore, which means that I've been sucking the game dry for any Dottore content I can find; I've watched the dialogue between him and Nahida numerous times, read the "Zandik's Legacy" notes over and over and even the description of the "Wise Doctor's Pinion" from the Pale Flame artifact set. So much has already been said about him, but I'd like to offer my own two cents about an aspect of his character that is often ignored in favor of his villainy: Dottore's inner struggles.

I'll recount everything that I've gathered and tell you of my interpretation of Dottore's character.

To start, one thing that I never see people mention is a line from Nahida's retelling of the Tatarasuna incident. In the very beginning of the cutscene, we see a monster covered in light blue fur (obviously Dottore) who Nahida describes in a very interesting way. She says:

"Once in a while, the monster would take off its fox fur at night, and lament to itself as it gazed at its reflection in the water: "I am a monstrosity, yet they are too foolish to see it. I pity them."

Of course, it's easy to say that this is just a fairy tale Nahida created to preserve Scaramouche's memories and that this could've been made up - which is only half true! We must remember that Nahida has seen Dottore's consciousness. She already knew of the arguments between his Segments when Dottore confronted her to take the Electro and Dendro gnoses. Why do I bring this specific line up, though?

Because this line outright tells us that: 1) Dottore spent sleepless nights in Tatarasuna reflecting on himself; 2) That he, perhaps sincerely, pitied the people of Tatarasuna for not seeing past his facade.

I also think that the use of the word 'lament' is very interesting. To lament means to express sorrow and regret for something. I would think that this implies Dottore feeling remorseful for not just who he was, but what he would do to Tatarasuna. To provide further proof, I think it is important to look at the expression on the furry monster's face (as Nahida portrays it) when it laments to itself:

(What a cute little thing.)

It looks a bit... upset, doesn't it? Like it is mad at itself as it gazes into the water. This expression, combined with his thoughts and the use of the word 'lament' gives us a clear sign that many ignored: Dottore isn't as shallow of a villain as we thought.

Later in the cutscene, Nahida says:

"But the monster soon found solace when another came to live among the foxes who was not their kin: a kitten, carved from the wood of a white tree, who had been abandoned by the humans."

And in that moment, we see a wide-eyed little monster gazing at the kitten:

(Feels really silly to use this as an example but you've gotta trust the process)

Here, Dottore found someone like himself. An outcast, a creature that did not quite fit in with the ordinary humans - someone who could understand Dottore's loneliness and ostracization. After getting chased out of his hometown for his blasphemous ideas, after getting expelled from the Akademiya and possibly exiled to Aaru Village for his heretical views - Dottore had finally found someone to whom he could say: "See? They will never accept us. It is you and I against them, for they will never understand us."

What person wouldn't seek companionship, after all?

But things didn't turn out the way Dottore expected them to. Unlike Dottore, Scaramouche didn't need to hide his true identity in order to be accepted by the people of Tatarasuna. Thus, the following happened:

"Furious at this happy resolution, the monster lit a fire on the mountain. The terrified animals panicked as the fire spread..."

... and we know the rest. What matters is this: Dottore was angry and jealous of Scaramouche. Exiled from his hometown, rejected by his peers, insulted and looked down upon just for wanting to destroy the imbalance between Man and God - and along comes a puppet, a creation of the Raiden Shogun, who receives acceptance and guidance from the people of Tatarasuna. Not just that, but the only creature who could share Dottore's loneliness is whisked away from him, proving once again that Dottore will never know what it means to have a true companion.

Thus he tricked Scaramouche into believing that Niwa had betrayed them, had him join the Fatui and later used him as the blueprint for the creation of his Segments. Dottore basically ruined Scaramouche's life out of bitter jealousy.

That should be it about Tatarasuna for now. What I'd like to focus on next is the conversation between Dottore and Nahida in the 3.2 Archon Quest.

There are a few lines that interest me, so I'll go over them one by one.

Dottore uses a lot of big words to sound like he's saying something profound when in reality he's saying nothing at all (a nice callback to his Commedia Dell'arte counterpart), but there is one thing that both he and Nahida place great emphasis on: the fact that Dottore, smart as he is, cannot make peace with himself.

First to say it is Dottore. After asking Nahida for her opinion on his Segments, he says:

"Indeed. It's difficult for humans... to make peace with themselves, not to mention oneself from a different period."

The line still feels out of place. It sounds as if he is musing to himself.

Again, we get a line about his Segments, after Nahida asked him to erase them:

"You were observing me, and that's how you know I've long grown tired of their doubts and endless arguments."

I think it's safe to assume that the arguing is a metaphor for his struggle of self-acceptance. It seems every Segment has something to say to the others, but more on that later.

Nahida uses Dottore's own words against him:

"Like you said, it's difficult to make peace with yourself. Being as smart as you are, have you managed to do that?"

It's important to note that Dottore doesn't answer that question, but even without that, it's obvious to us, the players - of course Dottore hasn't managed to do that.

Whenever Nahida questions the relationship between his Segments, Dottore easily changes the subject. For example:

"Is the relationship between all the versions of you really that bad?"

"I don't think there's any need to dwell on that. The surplus versions of me can be exchanged for a Gnosis. Do you think anyone can offer themselves at a higher price?"

His Segments all argue constantly. When considered that they are replicas of Dottore at different stages of his life, this takes on an entirely new meaning - beyond his facade, Dottore is a man who can barely make out who he is.

Consider this also: in "A Winter Night's Lazzo", Columbina tells him, "You're looking very young today, Doctor."

To which Dottore replies, "You know very well that I do not take that as a compliment."

A piece of dialogue that had been brushed off by many, myself included - until I realized what this might imply. Dottore finds Columbina's comment insulting because he hates who he is. He hates the younger versions of himself because they represent a Dottore who didn't have the knowledge he has at this current stage of his life. They weren't as smart, as knowledgeable. But that's not really the full extent of it, of course.

Dottore was never fully accepted by anyone, this we have established. In the Akademiya, the students called him a 'madman', a 'monster' (as said in the Wise Doctor's Pinion). When we meet him in the 3.1 Archon Quest, he is referred to as 'The Outcast'. He is always being alienated, but could we assume that he just accepted this rejection and decided to embrace the titles people had thrown at him? This is just... very bold speculation, of course. It is impossible to deny that Dottore didn't always naturally stand out due to his heretical views, but I think it's worth considering that he could have just chosen to be the monster people thought of him as. After all, in the confrontation between him and Niwa, Dottore tells Niwa to think of him as a monster and a demon (for a reason that was... meant to be comforting? Not very important right now).

Consider also how different all the Segments sounded when they found out that they were being erased. All of the voices, along with their manner of speech, varied greatly; I interpreted this as proof of the many masks Dottore has worn over the course of his life. Dottore abandoned whatever humanity he had and decided to embrace the mask of a monster, constantly reinventing himself because he isn't secure in his identity - perhaps he doesn't have one at all. He is a scholar, a Harbinger, a researcher - but without those titles, what is left? What is he left with when he sheds those facades? The constant dodging of Nahida's questions about his Segments, the arguments and the worries of said Segments, the introspection in the cutscene about the Tatarasuna incident - indeed, Dottore is a man filled with self-hatred. A lonely outcast who has never known the comfort of kinship. A monster who swallowed his loneliness and dedicated his life to research.

That should be it, I suppose. My brain is fried and if I remember anything that I might have missed, I'll add that info later.

I want to mention one thing: this doesn't mean Dottore is a misunderstood good guy - doesn't take a genius to know that that is not true. Dottore has no regard for human life (which is ironic, considering how he believes humans have great potential and he wants them to be equal with the Gods). He has hurt so many and I'm sure he will continue to do so. He is evil, but it should be noted that he was once just an ordinary human, too. There must be an explanation for why he is the way he is. It's easy to paint him as just a monster because damn he's good at what he does; but I like to think that there is a layer to him that we just haven't fully seen yet. I'm excited to find out more about him when Snezhnaya gets released in like 2 years... ha. If you've read this far, thank you a lot! Curious to know what you guys think. I love Dottore

#il dottore #dottore #lore speculation #genshin impact #zandik #i love dottore!

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frannyzooey · 1 year

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Short Days, Long Nights: 1

Joel Miller x f!Reader

Rating: none — I’ll change it to E when we get there (slow burn, forced proximity, age gap — no age actually mentioned but rather more implied, competence kink)

Summary: Part of a band of travelers, your party is slowly picked off one by one, until there are only two of you left. Finding an abandoned cabin in the woods, you decide to make camp there until you figure out your next move. As the seasons change, the nights get longer and longer…..

A/N: Thank you endlessly to @mourningbirds1 for the incredible feedback, beta, and comments. As always, I couldn’t do it without you. Thank you also to @write-and-buried for her TLOU knowledge and constant support, and @the-ginger-hedge-witch for reading this one over and making me confront how much Joel Miller has rotted my brain 😉 Enjoy!

—

SPRING

The copse of trees surrounding you is dense, and from the overgrown path you’ve been following by groove alone, you almost miss it. A flash of muted, dingy blue in a sea of green.

“Hey,” you call to him. “What’s that?”

He turns, his features and body already taut with a practiced, ready tension and when he sees your face isn’t one of concern but rather curiosity, he relaxes. Walking over to you, he follows the line of your finger with his eyes.

At first, he sees nothing. Just a wall of clustered vegetation: sturdy trunks that hide behind branches heavily weighted with rain, the floor beneath them obscured by ferns that brush against your legs and growth that softens your footsteps. His eyes catch on something too angular for the setting and he frowns, focusing on it.

Barely visible in the distance and seen only through the filtered sunlight that catches the sharp edge: a moss covered roof. A structure, isolated like the two of you.

He glances over at you for a moment, reflexively reaching back for his rifle.

“Let’s take a look.”

Weapon out with his steps steady and slow, he approaches the cabin with a careful, defensive slink. As it slowly comes into view, you brace yourself for any type of movement. Second nature to now activate the constant thrum of self preservation inside you, you check for visible traps as you follow him, your eyes flitting between the building and the ground.

A specific sort of tension fills the air when something is close: you know that feeling now, have become so sensitive that it can wake you from dead sleep the second you feel it. Like a sixth sense forced to emerge due to evolution, you focus on it and feel none of that tension here: just the trilling sound of birds, the soft crunch of pine needles underfoot and the peaceful silence of total seclusion.

Joel catches your attention with the jerk of his head, motioning to stay close.

You approach the front of the cabin together. His hands white knuckle the gun, the butt tucked tight against the worn strap of his backpack where it curves around his shoulder and as his fingers flex in anticipation, you hold your breath.

There is a weighted beat as you wrap your hand around the knob and turn.

In the end, it’s all for nothing - the cabin you find, after roughly working the warped door open, is abandoned.

–

It’s like a time capsule in the middle of the woods.

A thick layer of dust covering everything, motes of it swirl lazily in the beam of Joel’s flashlight as you wander from room to room. His boots scrape against the floor with heavy footfalls, the two of you silently surveying the causally cozy and completely still disarray: a moth bitten handmade quilt thrown over the back of the couch, outdated magazines in a stack on the counter, cobwebbed toothbrushes by the bathroom sink. Bookshelves packed with faded spines, grime covered windows, dead plants in pretty pots lining sills.

Someone loved this cabin once.

Used to your partner through circumstance by now, you anticipate an order to scavenge for everything you can carry and then move on, so you’re surprised when he sets his pack down on the floor and lets himself fall back onto the couch. A cloud of dust bursts into the stagnant air, his hands coming up to wearily scrub his face. They rake through his damp, messy curls as he closes his eyes before laying his head back and letting out an exhausted sigh.

“This should do for the night,” he says. “Could stay until the rain lets up, at least. Be nice to sleep on something other than the ground for a change.”

You nod in agreement, rolling out the kink in your shoulder you woke up with. Your eyes drift over the exposed line of his tanned throat, lingering on the hollow just above his collar. You force yourself to look away. “Yea, the beds didn’t look too bad.”

There had been two of them, across the hall from each other and the idea of a mattress - no matter how old - had you yearning to climb into bed already. Nothing saying you can’t, you reason with yourself. Not when time is more of a concept than anything else these days but the gnawing hunger in your stomach immediately disagrees, knowing exactly how long it’s been since you’ve last eaten.

“I’m gonna go look for some food,” you tell him and he hums in acknowledgement, seemingly indifferent.

Not really expecting to find anything of substance, you feel a swoop of scarce felt joy when you discover a cache of canned goods in the pantry. A treasure trove.

“Hey Joel,” you call, wiping your thumb over a peeled, dried out label. “I think I found dinner.”

He doesn’t answer, most likely asleep given his ability to succumb whenever and wherever he can when he gets a moment and you take several, bringing them over to the counter. Brushing away the dust that sticks to the labels, you survey your choices: baked beans and peaches, two of each. Just what you would expect at a lake house.

Letting him rest and holding the beans in your hand and a spoon you find in another, you take bites straight from the can as you wander down the hallway of the cabin, looking at the pictures on the walls. Using the heel of your hand to wipe away the dust that covers the glass, smiling faces emerge from the fog. You study them one by one, slowly chewing.

They look like stock photos you used to see in stores: generically bland smiles, posed to perfection. An elderly couple with their children of various ages, a large family gathering photo, parents with children sitting between them. You try hard to picture those people here: sitting in the living room, sleeping in the bedrooms, playing outside. The concept seems too foreign to grasp, too far away to be real and you take another bite of food, pushing away the sudden unbidden reminder of similar photos you once had in your own home, now lost.

You hear the couch protest as Joel gets up, coming to pass you in the hallway. He stops for a moment behind you, looking to see what you’re staring at and when he sees what it is, he frowns. Letting a deep sigh escape him, he keeps moving down the narrow space and with his pack in his hand, disappears into a bedroom.

–

Wanting the safety of his nearness and given that it’s the only other bedroom, you set up across the hall when you’re done eating. Placing your own worn pack on the floor, you start to methodically strip the mattress, shaking out the bedding. Minimal creeping mold darkens the seamed edge of a mattress in otherwise good condition and you flip it, hoping for the best. Shaking out the pillow to make sure there is nothing hiding in it, you take the pillowcase with you, wanting to air it out on the deck now that the rain has stopped.

Wanting to do the same for him, you walk into the bedroom he’s claimed and even though he’s not in there, it already feels like an invasion of privacy to be standing in it. His pack slumped on the end of the bed a visual claim, you grab his pillow off the bed and start to tug off the case.

What does he look like, sleeping in a real bed? Does he bunch the pillow or tangle himself in the quilt? When he gets up, is there a rumpled form left behind, still warm with the heat of his body pressed into the sheets?

For all the time you’ve spent with him, the majority of Joel is a mystery to you. He gives away more than he knows, but that’s still not a lot. You knew of him back in the QZ: his broad frame a hard one to miss, his reputation even bigger and while your paths rarely crossed within the borders of those high walls, once you set out, it was hard to stay out of his orbit.

His handsomeness drew your eye initially, but it was his usefulness that made you stay in his shadow. His determination to fight for his own made you feel protected by proximity, even more so when he extended it to you.

Had to, once your group got picked off one by one.

You had been thankful, in a sick way, that he was the one that remained. The best one. The most ruthless one. A ruthlessness you admired, then revered, then thought about at night as you tried to drift off to sleep.

Without needing to sleep clothed to protect himself from the elements, does he still sleep in them, or will he be in less? If so, how much less?

Sharply snapping the pillowcase in the air, the sound brings you back to the present and you shake away the thoughts, leaving the room.

“Whatcha got there?” He’s sitting on the couch, a can of peaches in his hand and when you face him, you have to look away from the glistening juice on his lips.

“Oh, I was going to hang these outside, see if I can get some of the dust smell out.” Your nose crinkles and he smirks, taking another bite and shaking his head.

“Thought you’d be used to that by now.”

You shrug, taking a seat in a chair by the woodstove. Leaning forward to inspect it, your chair wobbles; the front leg rotted.

He nudges his chin in the direction of the stove when you open its door. “I thought about lighting it, but we better not. Don’t want the smoke showin’ people someone’s here.”

You nod, sitting back in the chair. “I can’t believe what a good find this is. There’s all sorts of stuff. I found some clothes in the closets, some more blankets too, if you need one.”

You watch him chew, his jaw flexing under the salt and pepper of his beard.

“There is more food where that came from, if you’re hungry. The pantry is pretty full.”

He acknowledges it with a nod, taking another bite and you glance towards the windows that run the length of the room. A miracle none of them are broken, thanks to the secured tarp that lined the outside.

“I think I’m gonna clean some of these and see if I can get a better view.”

“Cleanin’ the windows, doin’ the laundry. You lookin’ to move in?” His teasing tone is a dry one, and you smile, shrugging.

“Just so we can see what’s out there. In case someone comes.”

He looks at you, his eyes narrowing for a moment before he finishes the can, drinking the juice.

“Well don’t wear yourself out too much,” he says, standing with a soft grunt of pain. “We ain’t gonna be here that long. Not worth makin’ it all homey.”

He sets the can down on the counter, grabbing his bow and supplies off the surface. You watch him check his stock of arrows before reaching back to feel for the knife strapped to his belt.

“I’m gonna go see if I can find us something for dinner.” He gives you a look, his eyes quickly sliding down over your form and then back up. “Yell if you need me, okay? I’ll stay close.”

You nod, holding his eyes for a minute and when he goes, you use the pads of your fingers to wipe clean a clear circle on the window.

A creek lines the edge of the property, one that you didn’t even hear from the path with how thick the vegetation is and you watch him walk down along the edge of it for a moment, his head bowed. His hair is lighter in the sun, ruffling slightly in the wind and you keep watching until his form disappears behind the trees.

–

Searching the cabinets methodically for anything of use while he’s gone, you find them buried deep in a junk drawer, sealed inside a faded, dirty ziplock.

Seed packets. A lot of them.

“Holy shit,” you whisper to yourself, opening the plastic pouch. You handle each pack delicately, spreading them neatly and carefully out on the counter and marvel silently at the whole vegetable garden you’ve found in this tiny bag. The haul would be worth more than you can imagine back at the QZ, but the potential for it is even higher here, in this dim kitchen, with that patch of moist, fertile soil outside.

You pick them up one at a time, sorting them by recommended growth timelines and a thought takes root in your mind; the paper packets eventually gathered and put neatly back into the bag.

You let it stew the rest of the afternoon, into the evening. As the sky dims, then darkens, as he comes back with a skinned rabbit and cooks it, as you both sit in the living room after dinner, your dirty plates resting on the coffee table between you.

He’s sprawled on the couch, his arm behind his head with his thighs spread wide and the denim around his thighs is molded tight; his other hand resting limply against the inside of his thigh. When his eyes close, your eyes drop from his face to his hand, and then back up again.

“So I found something today,” you begin, and he answers with a slow drawl, content and full.

“Oh yea? Anything good?”

“Really good. Like, something really, really good.”

He opens his eyes then, looking over at you with a tilt of his head.

“Well? You gonna tell me what it is?”

You draw one of the packets from your pocket, holding it in your hand and he sits up immediately, leaning forward on his elbows to reach for it.

“Careful,” you warn, scared some will leak out of the thin, dried out paper.

“You found these here?”

“Yea, in a drawer. In the kitchen.”

You can tell by the way he is looking at them that he knows their value. His hands hold them more tenderly than you thought his hands capable of, and he flips the packet over, reading the front.

“I would kill for a fresh squash right now,” he mumbles, more to himself than anything, as he studies the front.

“Well…” you start, suddenly unsure of your idea when he brings his eyes back up to your face. It’s intimidating when he looks directly at you normally, but you feel it tenfold now. He’s always been the one to call the shots, his experience in this world outweighing yours and while you’re nervous to throw yours out there, thinking of the alternatives nudges you forward.

“I was sort of thinking this afternoon. About this place, and about these seeds.” You pause, looking away for a moment and then back at him. “About us, maybe staying here.”

He immediately frowns, scoffing to discourage the idea. “You can’t be serious. Stay here?”

Though you expected it, his immediate dismissive tone flares annoyance in you.

“Where else is there to go, Joel?” you ask, your voice gaining confidence. “Be serious. Every settlement has been a nightmare, every place we’ve tried —“

He shakes his head, cutting your argument off. “I said we could stay for a night, not stay forever goddamnit. We’re like sitting ducks out here, just waitin’ to get killed. In the middle of fuckin’ no where —“

“Exactly!” you say louder, before bringing your voice down. “Exactly. We didn’t even see this place from the road. Not even from the path off the road. Who is going to find us here? No one knows about this place, or else it would have been looted ages ago. The tarps hid it, the trees block it, the –”

“And then what, huh? The second we light that wood stove, it’s gonna give us away. Even so, what then when someone wandering down that path sees the same thing we saw, and they decide to come take a look for themselves? They are gonna see everything we have – everything you’re suggesting we start – and they are gonna kill us for it.”

He pauses, the next statement forcing you to look at the ground. “Just like we would have done if we found someone else here. Just like we do.”

You say nothing, letting the words hang in the air.

“Just —“ you pause, looking down at your hands. Flashes of the last few months play back in your mind: the hangings, the strict enforcement of rules for all made to benefit the few, the bleak apartment you live in. This mission, all the things you’ve seen along the way, all the fear and terror you’ve felt and how the only person who has ever made you feel safe since the Outbreak began is sitting right here in this room.

If ever this could work, it would only work with him.

You bring your eyes back to him, pleading. “Aren’t you tired of it? So restless, always fighting against everything. For everything you have. Aren’t you sick of it, Joel?”

“Don’t worry about me. I’m just fine.” His tone is clipped, but you can tell he’s thinking. He glances at his watch, the broken face staring back at him. It’s been broken for as long as you’ve known him, but he’s always treated it as carefully as his weapons, his supplies. You can see him illuminated by the moon profile in your mind, his fingers skating around the face as he kept watch, or brushing it with his thumb to delicately keep the dirt off. Seeing your opening, you take it.

“I’m not saying forever,” you press. “Hell, I’m not even saying a month. But let’s just stop for a second. Let’s… just stop. Nothing says we have to go back there. We could be dead, for all they know.”

He brings his attention back to you and placing his hands in his pockets, he straightens his spine. “Probably will be, sooner or later, if we stay here.” He looks you directly in the eye, holding your gaze. “It’s not just the supplies they’ll take. They’ll want way more than that.”

You raise your chin, ignoring the tightening of fear in your chest. He hasn’t let that happen yet, and even if it's foolish to believe, you know he won’t let it happen. When he sees you’re not going to answer, he sighs.

The lantern is bright between you, illuminating the room in a soft glow and his deep brown eyes study you. His expression is stern, like he wants to say no…but he doesn’t.

“It’s a dumb idea.” His statement is said with resignation, but with the authority of the last word and deciding not to push it any further tonight, you stand.

“Well, good thing it was just an idea.” Glancing over at the seed packet, you chew your bottom lip while he watches your face with a frown and your voice gets softer, quieter.

“I’m gonna get some rest. I’ll see you in the morning.”

—

He isn’t there when you wake up, and finding his bow gone, you know he’s out hunting again.

You wander over to the coffee table to pick up the packet of seeds you left there last night when you see a book facedown next to it. Like he was reading something he found on the shelves after you went to bed, and left it there.

Picking it up and turning it over in your hands, a smile unfurls at the edge of your mouth and you sit down on the couch, opening it to the first page:

The Basics of Gardening

#joel miller #joel miller/you #joel miller/reader #joel miller x you #joel miller x reader #the last of us fanfiction #pedro pascal character fanfiction

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rebeccathenaturalist · 7 months

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Existence Value: Why All of Nature is Important Whether We Can Use it or Not

I spend a lot of time around other nature nerds. We’re a bunch of people from varying backgrounds, places, and generations who all find a deep well of inspiration within the natural world. We’re the sort of people who will happily spend all day outside enjoying seeing wildlife and their habitats without any sort of secondary goal like fishing, foraging, etc. (though some of us engage in those activities, too.) We don’t just fall in love with the places we’ve been, either, but wild locales that we’ve only ever seen in pictures, or heard of from others. We are curators of existence value.

Existence value is exactly what it sounds like–something is considered important and worthwhile simply because it is. It’s at odds with how a lot of folks here in the United States view our “natural resources.” It’s also telling that that is the term most often used to refer collectively to anything that is not a human being, something we have created, or a species we have domesticated, and I have run into many people in my lifetime for whom the only value nature has is what money can be extracted from it. Timber, minerals, water, meat (wild and domestic), mushrooms, and more–for some, these are the sole reasons nature exists, especially if they can be sold for profit. When questioning how deeply imbalanced and harmful our extractive processes have become, I’ve often been told “Well, that’s just the way it is,” as if we shall be forever frozen in the mid-20th century with no opportunity to reimagine industry, technology, or uses thereof.

Moreover, we often assign positive or negative value to a being or place based on whether it directly benefits us or not. Look at how many people want to see deer and elk numbers skyrocket so that they have more to hunt, while advocating for going back to the days when people shot every gray wolf they came across. Barry Holstun Lopez’ classic Of Wolves and Men is just one of several in-depth looks at how deeply ingrained that hatred of the “big bad wolf” is in western mindsets, simply because wolves inconveniently prey on livestock and compete with us for dwindling areas of wild land and the wild game that sustained both species’ ancestors for many millennia. “Good” species are those that give us things; “bad” species are those that refuse to be so complacent.

Even the modern conservation movement often has to appeal to people’s selfishness in order to get us to care about nature. Look at how often we have to argue that a species of rare plant is worth saving because it might have a compound in it we could use for medicine. Think about how we’ve had to explain that we need biodiverse ecosystems, healthy soil, and clean water and air because of the ecosystem services they provide us. We measure the value of trees in dollars based on how they can mitigate air pollution and anthropogenic climate change. It’s frankly depressing how many people won’t understand a problem until we put things in terms of their own self-interest and make it personal. (I see that less as an individual failing, and more our society’s failure to teach empathy and emotional skills in general, but that’s a post for another time.)

Existence value flies in the face of all of those presumptions. It says that a wild animal, or a fungus, or a landscape, is worth preserving simply because it is there, and that is good enough. It argues that the white-tailed deer and the gray wolf are equally valuable regardless of what we think of them or get from them, in part because both are keystone species that have massive positive impacts on the ecosystems they are a part of, and their loss is ecologically devastating.

But even those species whose ecological impact isn’t quite so wide-ranging are still considered to have existence value. And we don’t have to have personally interacted with a place or its natural inhabitants in order to understand their existence value, either. I may never get to visit the Maasai Mara in Kenya, but I wish to see it as protected and cared for as places I visit regularly, like Willapa National Wildlife Refuge. And there are countless other places, whose names I may never know and which may be no larger than a fraction of an acre, that are important in their own right.

I would like more people (in western societies in particular) to be considering this concept of existence value. What happens when we detangle non-human nature from the automatic value judgements we place on it according to our own biases? When we question why we hold certain values, where those values came from, and the motivations of those who handed them to us in the first place, it makes it easier to see the complicated messes beneath the simple, shiny veneer of “Well, that’s just the way it is.”

And then we get to that most dangerous of realizations: it doesn’t have to be this way. It can be different, and better, taking the best of what we’ve accomplished over the years and creating better solutions for the worst of what we’ve done. In the words of Rebecca Buck–aka Tank Girl–“We can be wonderful. We can be magnificent. We can turn this shit around.”

Let’s be clear: rethinking is just the first step. We can’t just uproot ourselves from our current, deeply entrenched technological, social, and environmental situation and instantly create a new way of doing things. Societal change takes time; it takes generations. This is how we got into that situation, and it’s how we’re going to climb out of it and hopefully into something better. Sometimes the best we can do is celebrate small, incremental victories–but that’s better than nothing at all.

Nor can we just ignore the immensely disproportionate impact that has been made on indigenous and other disadvantaged communities by our society (even in some cases where we’ve actually been trying to fix the problems we’ve created.) It does no good to accept nature’s inherent value on its own terms if we do not also extend that acceptance throughout our own society, and to our entire species as a whole.

But I think ruminating on this concept of existence value is a good first step toward breaking ourselves out first and foremost. And then we go from there.

Did you enjoy this post? Consider taking one of my online foraging and natural history classes or hiring me for a guided nature tour, checking out my other articles, or picking up a paperback or ebook I’ve written! You can even buy me a coffee here!

#nature #natural history #ecology #wildlife #animals #environment #environmentalism #conservation #existence value #deep ecology #science #scicomm #environmental philosophy #climate change

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lailoken · 26 days

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Raffle: Braided Crabapple Stave (CLOSED)

This raffle is for a unique Stave of braided, thorny wood that harvested from a 120+ year old Crabapple tree. It measures approximately 34 inches/86 centimeters in length and 1.5 inches/4 centimeters wide at its thickest point.

After initially acquiring the rare specimen in question, I went about curing the wood, smoothing the ends, and cleaning up some ragged branch stumps. While I usually debark pieces of this sort before working on them, the particular helical structure and profusion of thorns made me worried about being able to strip and sand the piece without damaging it. As such, I instead gave it a thin coat of handmade Dragon's Blood varnish to help stabilize and prime the wood, and then went about staining the entire piece using a polymerized oil pigment I make from Hearth Soot (Creosote) harvested from the interior of our Wood Stove. I applied layer after layer of the pigment until the bark was thoroughly coated and preserved, then used a cloth and my homemade Wisefool’s Oil (a ritually crafted oil of empowerment that also serves as a wonderful wood conditioner) to polish away the excess, before sealing the piece with my personally developed Wisefool's Glaze (a ritually empowered wood varnish made from an array of potent arboreal resins.) Finally, I gave the stave one last protective coating of polyurethane and suffumigated it with a smoke of Apple Blossoms and Dragon's Blood in a simple rite of hallowing.

While the retail price for this item is $200, I am taking the risk of setting up this raffle, in hopes that it might aid me in raising enough money to help us ease the cost of emergency surgery my dog required recently.

Tickets are $5 a piece, each assigned a number, and you can purchase up to three of them. To purchase a ticket, simply use the link below and follow the provided instructions. You will be asked to make an account and fill in your payment details, which will allow the raffle to email you your entry information, as well as automatically notifying the winner when the time comes. Participants are more than welcome to deactivate their accounts following the raffle. A random number generator will be used after ten days' time in order to determine which ticket number is the winner.

Thank you, truly and sincerely, to anyone and everyone who takes part! Please feel free to let me know if you come up against any issues! And as an aside—even if you don't end up entering the raffle, I'm sure that sharing it would still be helpful. :~)

Raffle Link: ☆

#raffle #personal #wending wares #ritual tools

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gothhabiba · 5 months

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The occupation [of Palestine] has [...] witnessed a process of economic integration without parallel political integration or representation. The OPT [occupied Palestinian territories] are highly dependent on Israel for basic goods and consistently run a trade deficit with Israel. Citrus from the OPT for example is exported to Europe through Israel and then sold back to the Palestinians as processed juices and preserves because no facilities exist to process the raw materials. Almost all of the OPT agricultural imports come from Israel, and are either grown there or imported through Israeli firms. A UN study in the-mid 1980s showed that 50 percent of Palestinian imports from Israel had been produced domestically prior to the occupation (Awartani, 1993).

Palestinians procure from Israel some 90 to 100 thousand tons of fruits and vegetables annually (Awartani, 1993). While a small portion of these exports are produce not grown locally, most are products with which the OPT suffers from severe surpluses, yet are offered cheaper by the subsidized Israeli market. Meanwhile 5,000 tons of fresh fruit and vegetables are exported to Israel and around 40,000 tons of oranges are exported to Israel juice processing factories. Therefore, the physical agricultural trade deficit of the OPT to Israel is in the range of 40,000 to 70,000 tons. This fluctuates as Israel uses the OPT as a buffer to fill shortages and stabilize prices. Israel is highly selective about what it allows across the green line and its practice of holding up agricultural produce has a crippling effect on local farmers.

Due to the high levels of subsidization of Israeli agriculture, Palestinian growers operate with considerable comparative disadvantages. For example, in 1981 the total value of Israeli government subsidies to agriculture equaled $1.5 billion – equivalent to twice the total value of agricultural output for that year (Awartani, 1993). The unique perception of the role of agriculture in building the State has been expressed in generous support programs covering all aspects of production and marketing and the full range of services supportive to agricultural development.

Israel also helps regulate risk, regulates supply through marketing boards and promotes agricultural exports. Israel’s subsidies, particularly cheap water, are particularly damaging to Palestinian agriculture, and enervating, due to the fact that the 90% of the water of the (inequitably) shared Mountain aquifer resources originates as rainwater in the West Bank. Presently, more than 85% of the Palestinian water from the West Bank aquifers is taken by Israel, accounting for 25.3% of Israel’s water needs. While subsidy levels have been decreasing since the 1980s, Israel has devised other means of restraining Palestinian agricultural activity. Chief among these is the permit system. For example military order No. 1015 (Aug. 27, 1982) gave the power to authorities to require permission for the planting of fruit trees other than that for personal consumption.

– 2009. Leah Temper, “Creating Facts on the Ground: Agriculture in Israel and Palestine (1882-2000),” Historia Agraria 48, pp. 75-110.

#Leah Temper #quote #Palestine #Israel #agriculture

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soleilnomoon · 11 months

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Hi Kaia could i order white chocolate,fruit tart,glazed Donut,nougat,Donut hole,with caramel and whipped cream for one piece men: (Luffy ,Rayliegh ,Ace, Zoro, Sanji ,Shanks,and Law) plz and thank you

hihi ty for being patient angel 🥰️ i def took some liberty w. this one, but i think i like how all of them turned out; you gave me a tall order but *clenches fist* i survived 💛💛💛 anyway, ty for requesting hope you like it :)

3.2k words, fem reader, nsfw, 18+ mdni; smut, some angst, fluff (wow i know), hurt/comfort; feat. luffy being a total menace, rayleigh being the dilf we all want, ace being mischievous as ever, zoro being a dumbass, sanji being overwhelmed, shanks being the absolute worst, and law trying to teach reader a lesson. also feat. cute stuff like: ass grabbing, rough (consensual sex), exhibitionism & public sex, lil bondage, jealousy, orgasm denial, some sof smut™ (who am i), oral (f receiving), fingering, oral (m receiving), idk other stuff probably. y/n has no self preservation ofc, these men are ridiculous (i love them). (if u see grammar/spelling mistakes no u didn't <3)

it isn’t your intention, but somehow you and your captain get separated from the group one afternoon while canvasing a new island. you normally don’t get lost, but luffy was teasing you all morning — pulling you aside for impromptu kisses, grabbing onto your hips from behind, his lips curled into a devilish smile against your neck with each kiss he left behind. luck was usually on your side during those instances, except it seems it’s suddenly run out.

“don’t give me that look,” you say as sternly as you can, eyes glancing around to see if any of your crew mates doubled back to look for you. luffy’s really to blame for you both getting lost, but he doesn’t want to admit that just yet; it’s more entertaining to tease you, because you’re cute when you’re annoyed. luffy wraps a hand around your wrist and pulls you further away from the path you came from.

in between kisses, you remind him that you’re both pressed for time.

“don’t worry,” he says in a low voice, “it’ll be fine, probably.” you’d slap him if he wasn’t already kissing you again, tongue licking inside your mouth hotly; you arch against him, face flushed from the heat. his kisses remind you of summers and warm breezes; your mouth still tastes like the mangos you consumed with him earlier — sticky and sweet, a taste he’ll always covet.

you squeeze your thighs together when his hand roams lower and take a shuddering breath once he backs you against a thick tree. you hike a leg around his hip, holding him close to you, humming pleasantly when you feel the growing bulge in his shorts. being this close to him makes you impulsive and you know that all you have to do is rub against him once and he’ll fuck you against that tree. but your conscience wins out and you pull away, ducking out of his hold quickly, panting lightly as you touch your lips with the tips of your fingers.

“we need to get back to the others,” your voice is a bit too high when you say that. luffy laughs at your act and plants a wet kiss on your cheek; you bicker with him playfully on the walk back while holding his hand and lacing your fingers together with his.

“i don’t normally do this. i have to go.”

that’s what you said twenty minutes ago, after you’d gotten tipsy enough to have the courage to flirt with the older man sitting next to you. the pub was crowded and you only ever came by if you didn’t want to be recognized. rayleigh had a dangerously devilish charm, one that extracted information out of you with ease.

his voice is thick and rich, his words a pretty distraction — hypnotizing you as you find yourself nodding along to his impetuous plans. he hadn’t intended on sleeping with anyone tonight, but he couldn’t resist himself once he saw you sitting there by yourself, swaying on the bar stool while humming a nameless tune.

you seemed so content to be alone, it was admirable.

he had a bright smile and a laugh that came deep from the soul; you felt your body flush at the thought of kissing him suddenly. you blamed the alcohol for making you foolish, but you knew that wasn’t exactly true.

now you’re seated atop a sink in the upstairs bathroom, whimpering softly as you keep your legs spread for him. your skirt is hiked up, panties discarded somewhere — they were ruined once rayleigh whispered in your ear and suggested you carry on the conversation elsewhere; his hands were skilled, his mouth even more so.

he liked how pliable and supple your body was, how plush and soft your thighs were under his calloused hands. you shivered as he ran a finger along your slit, making you tremble as you keep as still as possible. rayleigh, you come to find, is experienced and passionate; you grow impossibly drunk from all his teasing — to the point that you’re panting and begging him to fuck you.

“all in good time.” his voice is gravelly when he nips at your exposed clavicle, cock hard and heavy; he knows he should hurry up, but something about you makes him want to take his time — so he can see all the frustrated expressions on your face. you pull him close and wrap your hand around his cock, stroking his length, rattling his nerves until he finally gives in.

he buries his cock to the hilt, hips pulling back and snapping forward roughly against you. letting out a breathy moan, you can feel just how slick your pussy is from your arousal. legs wrapped around him, you lean up to kiss along his jaw; he chuckles and indulges you, hands gripping your thighs, fingers likely to leave bruising marks behind from how tight he’s holding you. rayleigh fucks with you with fervor and selfishness that serves as a daunting reminder — that you’ll never find someone else like him after this.

“ace,” you pant as quietly as you can, but you’re struggling badly. the 2nd division commander has you in a back hallway on the ship early in the morning. he’s grinning like a fool, clearly entertained by your insistence on keeping quiet. he kisses you as he knocks his hips against yours, his cock sliding deeper inside your pussy; he holds you up against the wall as your legs stay wrapped around him.

you buck your hips against his, doing your best to match his thrusts, but his strokes are deadly and frenzied.

“wait, wait, ace slow down,” you whisper, sighing pleasantly when his cock reaches a sweet spot that has you clenching around him tightly.

“can’t,” he says in response, breath warm against your jaw, “stay. unless you want to get caught.” he gives you a meaningful look that’s accompanied with a smirk. you purse your lips but shake your head. it would be easier if you could stay mad at him, but he’s too cute and funny and attractive — plus, you like that he’s bold enough to fuck you in public without a care in the world. you hear voices off in the distance and panic, eyes widening as you look back at him.

but ace only winks and tells you to hold on tight.

as you bite down on the fleshy part of your palm to keep yourself from screaming, ace pummels his thick cock into your cunt mercilessly, balls slapping against you loudly. the sound is lewd and tantalizing; you find that you can barely keep up with his thrusts, but you do your best anyway.

apparently, he’s determined to make you cum before your crew mates catch you. and as much as he jokes that he wouldn’t care if someone saw you, a small wave of jealousy passes through him at the thought of anyone seeing you like this. he wants to finish up quickly so he can take you somewhere more private. it’s when he bites your neck roughly and pants against your skin that you cum unexpectedly, a blinding, white hot flash filling your vision as you forget yourself and scream his name.

the rain has yet to let up, not that it matters to you since you’re trapped in yet another argument with your thick-skulled boyfriend. you can’t even remember what triggered the argument in the first place, and because stuff like this makes you extra sensitive, you end up crying.

he sighs at the sight of your face flushing and eyes closing as you try to wipe away the tears, as if they were bothersome and unnecessary. guilt eats away at his chest, making it hard to swallow or breathe; he knows he should apologize, but he’s just so terrible at it. so, he does the one thing he knows how to do — apologize with his hands and mouth.

the mattress is soft beneath him as you straddle his hips and slowing sink onto his cock; you both shed your clothes some time ago, lips swollen from kissing him hungrily, an insatiable need seeping into your pores and making you greedy. you place kisses along the base of his throat, hips rocking forward as he thrusts into your cunt slowly. and while he’d love to just fuck you senseless — something quick and dirty — he knows that you’d appreciate his apology more if he took his time.

so, he does.

you sigh against his lips, fingers threading through his hair, tugging on the short strands. his chest is broad and firm, your nipples harden each time they rub against his light brown skin. slipping your tongue into his mouth, you cradle his face in your hands as he continues to give you broad, sensual strokes that have you whimpering in the most pathetic way against him. he likes you like this, though, and tells you as much when he presses a kiss along your jaw.

he finds forgiveness when you bounce on his cock a little harder, his hands rough against your skin as he grabs onto your ass to thrust into your pussy at a devastating pace. tears coat your eyelashes, but they primarily because zoro’s fucking you like he loves you. and maybe he does; you don’t want to think about that too much, because the intimacy behind it scares you.

jealousy, you think, looks good on him.

sanji rarely likes to show his true jealous side to you, it’s less playful and much more charged, possessive but you don’t mind that at all. earlier, zoro had offered to help train you and before you could turn him down — you’d seen firsthand just how brutal he is with his workouts — sanji was already up in arms over it. they argued for the entire afternoon, but by then you were already annoyed over the situation and dragged sanji off to calm him down.

his face is flushed when you kiss him suddenly and pull him into a broom closet without thinking too much about it. you can’t remember if you locked the door, but it doesn’t really matter. all you care about is wanting to give your silly boyfriend a little bit of attention.

your idea of giving attention is rubbing his half-hard cock through his pants, smiling slyly against his lips when you feel him shiver. in one fluid motion, you sink to your knees, fingers quickly unzipping his pants and tugging it lower. you pull his cock out and admire the shape of it, the slight curve always made your mouth water; before he can say anything, your tongue darts out and swipes at his slit, the pre-cum slightly salty in your mouth.

you make a big show of licking your lips, which only causes another flush to stain his cheeks. whenever you get like this, he has no choice but to follow your whims; he likes that about you, a lot. that you take charge and keep him grounded whenever his feelings get to be a bit too much for him to handle.

he opens his mouth to apologize, but you kiss his tip and he forgets all about it, mind short-circuiting momentarily, which gives you the opportunity to take him by surprise again.

“i don’t care that you’re jealous,” your voice is honeyed and sweet, wrapping itself around him comfortably, a lust-filled haze taking over his mind when you wrap your lips around him and suck. you run your tongue flat along his length, taking your time to lick all over before you take his cock into your mouth completely.

sanji’s breath slows and he does his best to not fuck your face, but then you’re massaging his balls and bobbing your head faster — so he does the most impractical thing and bucks his hips forward and thrusts his cock further down your throat. you gag around him, the pressure intense but welcomed; if he didn’t already know that you like it rough, he’d feel bad — and he still does, but he hasn’t voiced that out loud just yet. you don’t care though; truly, you don’t. you just want him to feel as relaxed as possible, but how can he relax when your mouth is warm and wet, when you’re looking at him tenderly, like you’d be on your knees for him every day if he asked you?

you let him have his way, and he doesn’t last very long, but you keep still, hold onto his thighs, nails sinking into his skin when his cock goes a little too deep. when he sees the tears roll down your cheeks, it ignites something in him and he cums in your mouth, your name a soft chant that tumbles out of his parted lips. he feels feverish and dizzy, but very much alive. you rub your thighs together as you swallow the thick load, smiling prettily at him, head tilted slightly while you boldly ask, “do you feel better now?”

he knows better than to piss you off, but he does it intentionally anyway. the captain of the red hair pirates loves pushing your buttons; he likes when you roll your eyes at him, when you pout cutely and demand he take you seriously; he likes when you don’t stop him when he kisses you openly, mouth possessively staking its claim against yours.

if you weren’t so used to his whims, you’d have the decency to act bashful.

you have a short temper that he’s been warned about time and time again; except, shanks doesn’t fucking listen — nor does he care.

so when he has you bent over one of the tables in the kitchen late one night after you both argued and drank and argued again, you have no choice but to forgive him. especially when he his thick cock is buried deep inside your pussy, his large hand pressing down on your lower back as you grip the sides of the table. your legs shake, but you know better than to complain right now. shanks fucks you hard, the wooden table scraping against the floor every time his hips knock roughly against yours.

“shanks, fuck,” you cry out, chest heaving as you try to keep your sanity intact. his chuckles annoy you, but he knows that you only pretend to act annoyed with him because you like the way he makes up with you. your ass bounces back against him, jiggling from the ferocity behind his thrusts.

“careful, doll,” he grabs your hip to power into you — his strokes turning you into a mumbling, delirious mess, “thought you didn’t want us to get caught.” he sounds so fucking pleased with himself, and you hate that your pussy is wet enough that you can take him without much prep. you blush at the thought of being caught and remind yourself to keep quiet.

“oh, don’t stop now on my account,” his voice lowers substantially, you crane your neck to hear him better, and you just know without having to look at him that he’s got a pleased smile on his face. that man works every nerve in your body, but you like him too much to leave him properly.

you press your lips together to stifle another moan, but then shanks keeps his hips close to yours and gives you short, rough thrusts that you struggle to keep up with. with your back arched, you make for a pretty sight; he knows he should finish quickly, but he likes watching you hold onto the edge of the table like it’s your only lifeline. you don’t even have time to process the orgasm that passes through you because it happens so suddenly.

he teases you mercilessly and without remorse, but you take it; you take the rest of his frenetic thrusts, take the way he slides his hand underneath you to rub your clit. your body is much too sensitive, and when you moan his name like that, it flips a switch in him. you doubt you’ll be able to walk properly after this, but you’re not too worried about that; shanks bullies his cock in and out of your needy hole until he’s satisfied, successfully wrenching another orgasm out of you that makes you slump over the table weakly.

“don’t tell me you’re all done,” he presses a kiss on the side of your neck, lazily grinding against you, every bit as greedy as he always is. you can barely stand, but you feel alive in the best sort of way, already forgetting that you were mad at him in the first place.

you knew better and you still didn’t listen.

the restraints around your wrists dig into your skin a bit, but they don’t hurt that much; you squirm around on the bed, not liking that you can’t touch yourself or him. but he told you earlier to behave and you still chose to ignore his warning.

now you’re paying for it.

although, you wouldn’t exactly call this sort of thing a punishment.

law’s mouth latches onto a patch of skin on your inner thigh, teeth and mouth leaving behind marks that serve as little reminders for later. you whimper softly, but he pays you no mind, instead moving to the other thigh, tongue running along your skin. you buck your hips forward to get him to touch you properly, but all he does is click his tongue at you in faux-disappointment.

“seems like you still need to learn,” he says sharply, his eyes a dark amber, the look he gives you is equal parts fierce and mesmerizing. you want to kiss him, to run your hands down his chest, but he won’t let you and you’re upset about it.

when it looks like you’re about to say something that’ll piss him off, he stuffs your panties inside of your mouth to keep you quiet. your pleas are muffled but he pulls your hips close, mouth brushing along your slit, making you tremble with need.

he knows he should probably ease up, but if he doesn’t teach you now, then you’ll keep the same bad habits and he can’t have that, now, can he? you’re nearly in tears when he finally flicks his tongue against your throbbing clit, hips jerking forward when he swirls his tongue around. you can feel your saliva dampen your panties. you close your eyes briefly, ecstasy filling every part of your body when he stops and says, “keep your eyes on me.”

you want to tell him that it’s damn near impossible, but you try to follow his instruction anyway.

law eats you out with purpose and vigor, his mouth a sinful delight as he french-kisses your pussy without restraint. he teased you for so long that your nipples ache from being hard and untouched. you could kill him for that. and law is smug in his own way, enjoying you at his leisure, slurping and licking your pussy with fervor.

you thrash against him and he holds you steady; you can barely keep your eyes open and you feel like you’re having an out of body experience when he glides his lithe fingers inside your cunt. law fingerfucks you lazily, sucking on your clit like it’s his favorite piece of candy. when you cum, your moans are strangled and garbled, vision blurring as you ride his mouth shamelessly, a sharp pain on your wrists from the way you keep tugging fruitlessly.

he could let up but won’t, taking pleasure in watching you fall apart for him; you tell yourself that once you’ve calmed down, you’ll just have to pay him back in kind later when he least expects it.

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edenfenixblogs · 3 months

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Look what Google just recommended to me!!!!

I already own (and love) Shabbat and Portico.

But I am OBSESSED with the rest and must acquire them immediately.

Top of my list is Love Japan because LOOK AT THIS BEAUITFUL BOWL OF MATZO BALL RAMEN!!!!!

We hear a lot about Jewish people in Europe and MENA, but we do not hear a lot about Jewish culture as it blends with East Asian cultures, and that’s a shame. Not just because it erases the centuries of Jewish populations there, but also because there are plenty of people of mixed decent. People who may not have come directly from Jewish communities in East Asia, but people who have a Japanese Father and a Jewish Mother, for example. Or people in intercultural marriages. These are all real and valuable members of the Jewish community, and we should be celebrating them more. This cookbook focuses on Jewish Japanese American cuisine and I am delighted to learn more as soon as possible. The people who wrote this book run the restaurant Shalom Japan, which is the most adorable name I’ve ever heard. Everything about this book excites and delights me.

And of course, after that, I’m most interested in “Kugels and Collards” (as if you had any doubts about that after the #kugel discourse, if you were following me then).

This is actually written in conjunction with an organization of the same name devoted to preserving the food and culture of Jews in South Carolina!

I’m especially excited to read this one, because I have recently acquired the book Kosher Soul by the fantastic, inimitable Michael J. Twitty, which famously explores faith and food in African American Jewish culture. I’m excited to see how Jewish soul food and traditions in South Carolina specifically compare and contrast with Twitty’s writings.

I’m also excited for all the other books on this list!

A while ago, someone inboxed me privately to ask what I recommended for people to read in order to learn more about Jewish culture. I wrote out a long list of historical resources attempting to cover all the intricate details and historic pressure points that molded Jewish culture into what it is today. After a while I wrote back a second message that was much shorter. I said:

Actually, no. Scratch everything I just said. Read that other stuff if you want to know Jewish history.

But if you want to know Jewish culture? Cookbooks.

Read every Jewish cookbook you can find.

Even if you don’t cook, Jewish cookbooks contain our culture in a tangible form. They often explain not only the physical processes by which we make our meals, but also the culture and conditions that give rise to them. The food is often linked to specific times and places and events in diaspora. Or they explain the biblical root or the meaning behind the holidays associated with a given food.

I cannot speak for all Jews. No one can. But in my personal observation and experience—outside of actual religious tradition—food has often been the primary means of passing Jewish culture and history from generation to generation.

It is a way to commune with our ancestors. I made a recipe for chicken soup or stuffed cabbage and I know that my great grandmother and her own mother in their little Hungarian shtetl. I’ll never know the relatives of theirs who died in the Holocaust and I’ll never meet the cousins I should have had if they were allowed to live. But I can make the same food and know that their mother also made it for them. I have dishes I make that connect me to my lost ancestors in France and Mongolia and Russia and Latvia and Lithuania and, yes, Israel—where my relatives have lived continuously since the Roman occupation even after the expulsions. (They were Levites and Cohens and caretakers of synagogues and tradition and we have a pretty detailed family tree of their presence going back quite a long time. No idea how they managed to stay/hide for so long. That info is lost to history.)

I think there’s a strong tendency—aided by modern recipe bloggers—to view anything besides the actual recipe and procedures as fluff. There is an urge for many people to press “jump to recipe” and just start cooking. And I get that. We are all busy and when we want to make dinner we just want to make dinner.

But if your goal isn’t just to make dinner. If your goal is to actually develop an understanding of and empathy for Jewish people and our culture, then that’s my advice:

Read cookbooks.

#Judaism son #Jewish culture #Jewish cuisine #culinary tradition #culinary history #foodways #cultural preservation #tangible culture #jumblr #Judaism #food #cuisine #kugel discourse #Jewish joy #jewish positivity #Jews around the world #East Asian Jews

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decolonize-the-left · 6 months

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You are literally going to get people killed by pushing them to vote third party. People voting third party is why Trump won in 2016, which allowed him to stack the Supreme Court with conservative garbage which is going to negatively affect us for DECADES to come (already has, since it led to the repeal of Roe v. Wade which has LITERALLY killed people). I'm baffled, because you've done so much good work on this website (like I still go back and regularly reread your posts on whiteness etc because they're so informative), but advocating for voting third party going into one of the most important elections in recent memory is actively harmful.

Like have you heard of Project 2025? In case you haven't it's literally like a 1000 page manifesto for the Republican party to reshape the federal government to essentially let the President become a dictator. It also expressly mentions plans to roll back rights for women, the LGBT community, and pretty much any other minority you can think of. I know things are bad now - not arguing that at all - but if Republicans win next year, things will get EXPONENTIALLY WORSE.

You can sit there and yell about Democrats being "just as bad" until you're blue in the face, but it's literally not true. The Democratic Party itself is obviously just another problematic institution and there are definitely Dems who showed their entire asses with supporting Israel, but like... Progressive Democrats do exist and while they're obviously not perfect, it's absolutely a step in the right direction. Not to mention Republicans literally need to cheat by gerrymandering and attacking voting rights for minorities in order to even get elected in a lot of places, whereas Democrats tend to win when more people are registered and actually show up to vote. They are not the same, and the harm they do is not the same.

Again, I have a lot of respect for the work you do, especially with your recent posts on the Palestinian genocide. But I vehemently disagree with your stance on voting third party in this upcoming election. Ideally I would love if we could vote third party and actually have multiple options that more accurately represent us as a population, but our current system is a two party one and unfortunately we literally do have to vote for the lesser of two evils, because one option sucks but preserves what little democracy we have (and gives us a chance of making it better) and one will literally bring genocide against trans people. I would personally rather not see that happen.

How can you say this and mention the Palestinian genocide in the same ask.

Democrats are getting people killed. In fact they're committing one of The worst crime against humanity possible and then only thing you're worried about is that things might get worse for gay people if a Republicans wins.

I'm the biggest queer I know. I'm native. I'm brown. I'm almost definitely on a watch list. And listen to me and understand the depth of my words when I say: my people have been oppressed the way Project2025 outlines.

And maybe you personally cared or helped us protest that. But most people didn't. In fact I can't remember the last time the US supported native rights at all.

But now that YOURE under threat I'm supposed to risk my life because the queer community can't be bothered to stop discoursing about neopronouns long enough to actual give an shit about saving the community?

Y'all got a lot of damn nerve, let me tell you.

Go bark up some other tree cuz this is not the one.

Also I'm not pushing anyone to vote 3rd party. I'm laying out facts. Facts are a Gallup poll says 63% of people would vote 3rd party. Facts are my Tumblr poll says that number is STILL at least 45% on the hellsite.

And since people are interested in voting 3rd party they should know their options. The people who say "I would vote 3rd party but they don't have support" also deserve to see the articles that said 63% of people would join them.

They deserve to know that 3rd parties currently hold a not insignificant amount percentage of support from the two main parties. 20% of votes. When 33% is an even split are good odds. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Sorry, blue Fascists, but this country is in fact still a democracy and just because you Want people to vote blue doesn't mean they have to and you feeling they're the best doesn't make you right!

Other people aren't "wrong" for not wanting your conservative Jurassic party in power anymore.

They can vote how they want.

And if you see a poll that says 63% of people would rather NOT vote for either major party and your first thought is not: wow 63% is enough to elect someone we want, I'll support that.

And instead you go: how can I force them to vote for my party instead.

Then please understand it is not THEM splitting the vote. Biden will get MAYBE 40% votes. You gonna force 63% of the country to vote for someone they don't even want?

There's a name for that yeah?

How'd it work out in 2016 when y'all "forced" us to vote for Hillary by putting her on the ballot? She lost and she wasn't even actively commiting a genocide.

But you think Biden will not only earn votes from that 63% but he'll also win the election. Against trump. Which less blatantly shitty democrats have struggled to contend with?

Democrats are legitimately delusional.

Your problem is you see Democrats as being better than Republicans. While the rest of us see less and less of a difference every year. And you can only say you're "better" if you're different enough.

See this is what happens when you vote for the "lesser evil." Eventually that evil balances back out and you're left with the truth that your two main options are just evil.

Now the only people actually different enough to make that argument are third parties.

Coincidentally, that's what people are drawn to right now.

I know, go figure. It's almost like it makes sense to lose support when you consistently prop up shitty candidates nobody asked for every 4 years.

We do not have a two party system and you know that, that's why you sent this ask.

Cuz you're stressed dems might lose. Cuz you KNOW people have other options.

Good. Cuz they will lose if Biden is the democrat's nominee and Claudia de la Cruz stays in the race, which she will since she's running with PSL not democrats. So there's no competition. Her party is organized and chosen her and a VP already, she's guaranteed every one of their votes because her party works like a union does.

It's a wrap.

Biden can't use his "lesser evil" script with Claudia De La Cruz on the ballot actively challenging his genocide and imperialism.

Vote Claudia De La Cruz cuz you are a scooping water out of the Titanic trying to get 63% of Americans to think voting for a Genocidal warmonger is what's best for any of us, let alone the planet. And we didn't want him BEFORE he did any of this.

#asked #answered #voting

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drgrlfriend · 6 months

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@brilcrist created this lovely art depicting a scene from my fic! My Heart Will Be Your Home by dr_girlfriend

Excerpt:

That is … definitely a guy fighting with a bow and arrow. He’s tall and blond — could probably pass for Steve at a distance, but maybe even a touch taller and built a bit leaner — wearing jeans and a t-shirt, a fancy-looking recurve bow in his hand and a quiver strapped slantways across his back. He’s got his back to a giant maple tree, and is firing arrows in a blur of motion while ducking lasers from the bots. These ones look a little like the Daleks from that show Tony and Bruce love — vaguely conical and stumpy, with what seems to be a single laser on each.

“Why ain’t he gettin’ up in that tree?” Bucky wonders aloud, revving through the preserve. “It’s a better tactical position.” He’s starting to see scattered bots now, and he slaloms a course through them, swinging his metal arm and sending them flying as he zooms by.

“Not everyone has sniper training,” Sam suggests. “He’s probably just some archery hobbyist, or something. Probably doesn’t know the first damn thing about fighting.”

A bot has gotten close up on the guy’s flank, and he seems to realize just in time. He somersaults sideways, coming up with an arrow in his hand and jamming it directly into the bot’s side just as a shot from Redwing finishes it off.

“I don’t know about that,” Steve says dryly. “Seems to be doing pretty good to me. Either way, we’re almost on him; Bucky, I’ll take the right side, you take the left.”

“Copy.” There’s a line of bots advancing on the guy and Bucky pulls up with a sharp twist, planting his left foot and letting the rear of the bike skid sideways so that the back wheel takes out the bots like a row of dominoes.

Out of the corner of his eye Bucky sees Steve hurtle over the handlebars of his own motorcycle and yeet the whole damn thing at a cluster of bots. No finesse, that guy.

Bucky jumps off his bike, swinging at the bots closest to him. He’s just about dealt with that cluster and is only a few paces away from the archer when the guy’s eyes widen. He lunges toward Bucky, pushing him aside just as one of the bots on the ground fires.

The man yelps and staggers, pressing a hand to his side.

“What kind of idiot are you?” Bucky growls, pulling the man back and putting his own body between him and the bot. “Let me take the hits!”

A furrow appears between the man’s brows, his mouth gaping for a moment, and then he seems to shake it off, nocking another arrow and loosing it. It skims so close to Bucky’s face that it stirs his hair, and Bucky whirls to see another bot was sneaking up on him.

“Jesus, these things are everywhere,” Bucky complains, drawing his Glock and firing, taking out the laser of the one on the ground.

“There’s a weak spot in the armor plating on the left side,” the man yells.

Time seems to stop for a moment, Bucky’s heart stuttering and then kicking into overdrive. The air around him suddenly seems crystal clear — Bucky can see every individual leaf on every tree, can hear the sighing of the wind and the rustle of the leaves, the whirring of the bots and the heartbeat and panting breaths of the guy as he ducks another laser.

“Bucky, did he —” Steve starts over the comm.

“Not now, Stevie,” Bucky manages. He shakes off his shock and forcibly shoves the revelation to the back of his mind in order to focus on the task at hand. Time seems to lurch back into a normal speed and Bucky concentrates on blocking the man from the line of fire of the largest cluster of approaching bots.

“I’ll make an opening, you run for it,” he shouts.

“I’m not leaving,” the man shouts back. Jesus christ, another vigilante-wannabe. They’re coming out of the woodwork these days. Was this guy even in the park when all this started, or did he come looking for a fight?

“Watch your back,” Bucky instructs with a mental shrug, and then there’s no more time for words, the two of them fighting fiercely against the oncoming wave of bots.

#bucky barnes #the winter soldier #clint barton #hawkeye #winterhawk #marvel #avengers #fanfiction #my heart will be your home #my fic #fan art #brilcrist

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sorcerous-caress · 6 months

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How do you think the party would react if Tav was a Fallen Aasimar? I sure it hinges on the God's aliment. What if it was a God they worship?

Reacting to a fallen aasimar Tav

[Bg3, fluff, nb!reader]

[Shadowheart, Wyll, Karlach, Halsin, Astarion, Gale, Minthara, Laezel]

You used to serve a god they worship/worshipped. I took some liberties with the godless characters.

Shadowheart - Selune

Assuming it happens either after the game ends or in an alternative universe where Shadowheart never abandoned Selune. Then she'd be very conflicted.

What could you have possibly done to have the most gentle of goddesses stripping your wings? Moonlight melting your silvery feathers until they're nothing but abyssal black and ash.

Her lady is wise, therefore she will be very wary of you. Yet at the same time, she can't help but feel a sense of familiarity when she looks at you. It drives away her prejudice for a moment and lets her judge you for your action, no matter how blasphemous the act of questioning her goddess's judgment might be.

Wyll - Tyr

To fall from celeste is to become a fiend. How are you any better than the devils below in the hells?

If he was his younger self, he wouldn't have hesitated to deliver you to justice, and yet the horns on his own head weight heavy like a crown paid for in a lifetime of experience. He knows better than anyone that nothing is ever what it seems like.

This Wyll is wiser, more understanding and open. He's willing to extend the same courtesy to you that he wished someone would've done to him before.

Let him hear you out, friend. Tell him what befelled this fate upon you.

Karlach - Tymora

She is more confused about how you managed to anger the smiling lady herself. It takes a special kind of asshole to turn their back on good fortune and lady luck.

An aasimar at that too? A messenger of luck?

She's never been big on the whole religion thing, to be honest with you, yet the wamrth and good fortune her goddess extended to her is still one of the best gifts she has ever been given.

So what happened? How did this even happen?

She'd never be hostile towards you nor exlude you as long as you don't do anything sinister. She genuinely belives in sharing her good fortune with everyone no matter who.

Halsin - Silvanus

Oak father preserve him. To Halsin, seeing you brings as much joy to him as seeing the shadow curse spread.

His God's teachings aren't that hard to follow, just respect the natural order and preserve all living beings. He has been diligently upholding this code through his life and spreading the teachings back at the grove.

Yet, the oak father himself marked you as an endangerment to the very being of nature. To the ancient trees and sprouting spring flowers, you reprsent the slithering all-consuming wither and rot.

He is very uncomfortable around you, not just on his guard, but you can see that he would rather be anywhere else than near you. Yet, feels like he had to keep an eye on you just in case you burn down a forest or something behind his back.

Astarion - Corellon

Honestly, he doesn't even remember worshipping the old elf or anything. He just assumes it given his previous stature and ancestry.

Not that the self-proclaimed protector of all elves has ever given him a single second of his time since he became an undead. No matter how much he prayed, it seems that the blood running through his veins barely counted anymore when it wasn't his own blood to begin with.

Fuck him, along all the other gods who turned their back on him for 200 hundred years of pure shit. It's a good thing you fell, he tells you, at least now your powers are yours alone. What's a god if not just another master to get you to do their biddings?

He is interested in you, mostly in your powers, to be more precise.

But it also encourages you to seek your own path and never think of grovelling for forgiveness or your feathers back.

Gale - Mystra

He makes a lame ass joke about if that makes him your stepfather. Dad puns included.

Surprisingly, he doesn't make a big deal out of it, even if it was before he fully got over his ex.

He's a scholar first and a lover second. He is genuinely very interested in learning about you and aasimars. Meeting one in a lifetime is a miracle. They're so rare that they're barely documented even. So imagine meeting a fallen one? He is beyond intrigued by you and your nature.

Sure, your morality might come into question, but he will worry about that later. For now, he is more interested in inspecting your wings and asking borderline intrusive questions about how serving Mystra was like.

Evil alligned deities.

Aasimars don't have many rules about them in dnd, but for one, they are classified as celestial beings. So technically, they can't ever serve evil alligned gods. It's never officially stated, tho so it is up to interpretation.

Devils or fiends serve the evil deities instead, so i thought why not make the reason the aasmire fell is because they decided to serve the evil god for the character.

In the next headcanons, falling is considered a good thing. Whoever your previous good god was that you used to serve, you abandoned them and went to serve an evil deity instead which is why you fell.

Laezel - Vlaakith

A good choice, a wise choice even. Laezel might not be versed much in the gods pantheon but she is sure whoever your old deity was, they couldn't have compared to her queen.

You have her respect, the same respect she'd extend to a kitherak even. In her eyes, you're the embodiment of the red dragon and rider knight both in one. Your wings and shinning blade speak for themselves.

She is honoured, fascinated too. Yet her admiration is a double edged sword, for she will hold you to impossible standards and consider it meeting the bare minimum.

Minthara - Lolth

She almost pities you, willingly becoming another pawn in this endless chessboard of drow conflict. Another gem to decorate Lolth's whip with as she inflicts it on whoever she sees fit.

Either you're foolishly naive or a complete masochist to dedicate yourself to the spider queen. Either way, she will test you herself to see exactly what you're made of.

As someone who abandoned Lolth, she'd be wary of anyone who serves her goddess. Yet you haven't cut off her head yet, how strange?

Minthara doesn't hide her disdain for Lolth around you, both warning you of the cruel fate awaiting you no matter how much of a good pet you're to your goddess.

For the longer you stay loyal to Lolth, the more of an endangerment you become to Minthara herself.

Shadowheart - Shar

Another child of the darkness, another sibling of the night to guide her through this journey. Shadowheart thinks your meeting was fate, a reward from her dark lady.

Especially if you saved her from the ship, she'd see you as her hero, a shining black diamond amonst the rubble and mud.

Mirroring how Laezel would've acted in fact, their dangerous fickle admiration of you that you never asked for would force a magnifying glass over both your flaws while exaggerating your achievements.

She doesn't hide her Shar worship from you this time around. She is proud, especially by you by her side. She will be your shield and recovery as long as you be her sword and wings.

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