#border camps

[demigods-posts]

currently writing a fanfic where thalia reflects on taking zoe's place as lieutenant. and the zoe and thalia parallels in the original series are so strong. i mean. both of their deaths were caused by their fathers. both of their deaths end with them staring up at the sky. both of their deaths lead to them being a symbol of sacrifice and heroism. both of them joined the hunt because they lost faith in a boy they cared for. both of them were trapped between a rock and a hard place. how am i just now realizing this?

[probablyasocialecologist]

Concentration camps, endless border walls and concertina wire, and armed groups of fascists are not contradictions to a First World consumer culture of electric cars, Starbucks, and online shopping... these elements of the global commodity supply chain are co-constitutive and necessary elements of the for-profit system.

Harsha Walia, Border and Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism

[vyorei]

Timestamp: 22:07pm on the 14th of November 2023.

Summary of the latest events

[rhiannatruex]

Bobo & Arnica // Misty Mornings

[fuckyeahanarchistposters]

Abolish ICE

Graphic by Neon.Scribe

[femmefighter]

When the sunrise is gorgeous, but that nose even moreso. 🥰

[green-tea-lemonade]

>:<< < you could at least sit through the first five slides befur throwing him out!

[mtg-cards-hourly]

Magnetic Mountain

Artist: Susan Van Camp TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

[megpricephotography]

Flynn & I had a tiring but enjoyable wander on the edge of the Malvern Hills earlier this week. The bracken is amazingly colourful this year! I always love the view from this spot - looking north, across to the British Camp & in the far distance, the Worcestershire Beacon. Flynn doesn’t care about the view, or the colour of the bracken but he’s a good walking buddy. 

[vyorei]

MSF speaking on the attacks on health facilities in the IOF's raid on Jenin today

[hostilemuppet]

todays mirror affirmations are "its okay if the two oranges in your outfit clash bc its a queer run business and you can just say its camp"

[anonymous-dentist]

Quackity Commits First-Degree Arachnid Vehicular Homicide in 4k: Or, the PJO au

Reblogs and likes welcome! And stay tuned for the ao3 link in the next couple of days! This one’s a doozy!

-

Now, okay, so Quackity isn’t a bad driver, really. He’s a very good one, actually. He passed his test on his first try, 100%, gold star. He’s read the California state driver’s manual back-to-front at least a dozen times. He practically had it memorized at one point before leaving. 

He isn’t a bad driver. He knows the rules of the road, spoken and unspoken. He likes driving. He’s currently at the end of an eleven-hour stretch of driving up the east coast, and he had a great time doing so. He knows his car inside and out. 

But nothing, and absolutely nothing, in any manual or any class or any instructional video or whatever says what to do when a fucking scopion the size of a Toyota jump out in front of his car and smashes its stinger right through his windshield. 

Quackity likes scorpions. He fucking loves them, actually, he had a pet scorpion when he was a kid back when he stil lived with his dad. But he isn’t eager to die to one, not yet. 

Slamming on the brakes out of sheer instinct, Quackity screeches and ducks to hide behind the steering wheel. He can hear the stinger scraping against the dashboard in front of him, a horrible scritch-scritch-scritch that leaves his teeth on edge and his nerves on fire. He isn’t scared, really. 

His car shakes as the scorpion pulls its stinger out. 

Nah, Quackity isn’t scared. He’s fucking terrified. But just over a week of dealing with this kind of bullshit has left him more or less used to the idea of gigantic creepy crawlies and what-the-fuck-evers showing up and wrecking his day. It’s just that this is the first time that one has broken his car- his dad’s car, his dad’s shitty broken 2007 Honda Accord, his dad’s single most pride and fucking joy, and now it’s going to be smashed to bits and spattered with Quackity’s guts and stuff when the scorpion finally finishes fucking around and starts to find out instead. 

But. He’s fine. He can handle this. He managed to escape the freaky killer sheep down in Philadelphia yesterday. He can handle a scorpion. It’s just a matter of calming down, and-

The Honda’s roof caves in above him with a horrifying ripping-screeching sound. Quackity just barely manages to duck to the side before a stinger as thick as his torso plunges through the hole and aims itself right where his head just was. 

Pressed against the door with his back to the bottom of his seat and his seatbelt choking his neck and pressing uncomfortably into his gut, Quackity thinks, Well, at least it isn’t a fucking spider. 

Watching the stinger flail around looking for him, Quackity decides that maybe it’s time to calm down. Maybe it’s time to do that. No better time than the present, right? What calms him down? Lists, he likes lists. Lists are fun. Lists are fresh. Lists are fun! Take stock of the situation, then make the best of what he has and get away with his life and all of his vital organs and-slash-or limbs preferably intact. 

Take stock. Right. 

The tip of the stinger scrapes against the ceiling leaving acidic burn marks in its wake. 

It’s currently- Quackity checks his watch, breaths and wrist shaking an equal amount- 1:45 in the morning. He has his wallet and his deck of cards on the passenger seat. His backpack of clothes is in the backseat, as is his bag of road trip snacks. So… nothing there. He has a flat tire that he needs to get fixed at the next town he arrives in that will serve an unaccompanied 16-year-old boy with no parents and no credit card. He’s at least an hour away from the nearest town out on the highway out in the middle of nowhere somewhere in New York. Alone. 

The scorpion’s legs press divots into the ceiling. It’s on top, then, probably facing backwards based on the angle the stinger is coming in from. It can’t actually see him, then, okay, that’s good. It can’t have that good a grip on the car. Scorpions are hard to kill, but they aren’t immune to physics, unfortunately. Quackity’s pet scorpion died when his step-mom threw its tank down a flight of stairs. The tank shattered, and the velocity of the scorpion bouncing around the tank’s walls killed it good and dead, mixed up its little organs or whatever. No tank here, but Quackity is alone on an empty highway with a panic brain and a car hotwired to go above its natural speed limit. 

He whimpers as the stinger swipes through the air inches above his face. Just under a week of this, and an infinite amount of time to go. He idly hopes that Tommy, wherever he is, will forget about him if he dies. God knows that kid has enough on his plate as it is. 

Okay. Plan. Quackity loves planning. 

Plan Part One: Physics The Scorpion.

A scorpion can live without its stinger, he thinks, so that won’t work (but it’s not like he has anything to fucking- decapitate? Dismember a gigantic scorpion in the first place.) But scorpions aren’t that fast. If he can get it off the car, then he can just drive off into the metaphorical sunset and see if he can’t just get someone to fix his car down the road. His car. That’s too broken to be fixed, but that’s fine, he can manage.

Nervously, Quackity pulls his beanie down over his ears with both hands, running his thumbs over the scratchy fabric before letting out a breath and placing both hands on the steering wheel. He doesn’t know if scorpions can see if you’re, like, moving and stuff- like scorpion radar- and he definitely doesn’t know if giant hell scorpions can, but, like, whatever. If he dies, he dies. He would just prefer to die somewhere better than inside of a Honda fucking Accord.

The stinger stabs into the headrest less than a foot above Quackity’s head. 

Quackity slams his foot on the gas and can’t help but let out a nervous giggle as the scorpion lets out a surprised-sounding gurgling noise that almost borders on a scream. He kinda feels the same way, actually, and he does let out a scream of his own as a pair of legs crash through the backseat windows trying to find purchase on the rapidly-speeding car. He can vaguely see them flailing in the rearview mirror, okay, good, good. 

“This is insane!” he shouts, an anxious, yet wide, grin slowly spreading across his face despite his best attempts to look properly panicked. “I hope you’re paying for this, asshole! I don’t have any- fuck!”

He reflexively jerks his body left as the stinger goes for his head again. Why does it keep going for the face!? He has a great face! Go for the heart at least, man, make it dramatic. He’d kinda like it if someone can actually identify his body when they find it, thank you! 

“Calm down!” he snaps. “What is wrong with you! What have I done to you guys, come on! I’m literally innocent!”

He feels the car drifting left, but that’s fine. There shouldn’t be any oncoming traffic. If there is, well, poor them. He doesn’t have insurance. Maybe if they ram into him… 

But he is innocent, is the thing, he is! 

…

Okay, maybe he isn’t, but he really doesn’t think that the California State Police are investing in weird hellbeasts to send after teenage runaways. They already have the cops themselves for that. No scorpions needed! 

First it was the birds with projectile feathers that left Quackity down his spare tire and down half of his road trip budget after an emergency stop at an Autozone. Then it was the- god, he doesn’t even know what it was- the snake thing with the bitchy face and the shitty attitude. Then the sheep- oh, the sheep. If he knew that this was how running away was going to turn out, he wouldn’t have done it. But, no, he’s stuck with this for the rest of forever, curse his wanderlust and general spiteful tendencies. 

The scorpion screeches at him, loud and sharp enough to shake the remaining windows. 

Quackity winces as the oncoming wind sends a shower of shattered glass from the windshield right into his face. But, hey, it isn’t all bad. The rearview shows the scorpion’s legs are about out the windows. If he just speeds up some more… 

The speedometer hits 100 as the car hits the shoulder of the road. Quackity yelps as the car jolts and bumps, but he can’t help but let out a cheer as he hears a loud squelch as the scorpion is sent flying off of the roof. And then he screams again as he hears a crunching-scraping noise as his car goes flying through the barrier on the side of the road. Oooooooh, fuck. 

Scorpion gone for the moment, Quackity bolts upright in his seat and tries to get the car under control. He’s going downhill- steeply downhill. It’s not a mountain, but it’s definitely not flat. 

He can almost see some lights in the distance, maybe a farm? He remembers seeing a billboard for some strawberry farm a couple of exits back, maybe this is it? Would they help if he came up in a busted car and told them that there was a monstrous evil scorpion thing trying to kill him? Probably not, right? That’s crazy. It would be crazy. This is all crazy. 

Another nervous giggle escapes his lips. His hands adjust on the steering wheel, fingers gripping and ungripping on a cycle, left pinky to right pinky, and back and forth. He’s fine. That definitely isn’t the scorpion scuttling behind him like a fucking steamtrain. He definitely isn’t about to die in a nameless field in a Honda Accord. A Honda Accord. Somehow, that’s the funny thing here. Not the comically-oversized scorpion chasing him, his dad’s car. 

But the scorpion is right on his tail, and he doesn’t wanna die yet. Not here, anyway, maybe if it was further down the road he’d think about it. But not now, and not here, and certainly not in a Honda. 

So. Plan Part Two: Scorpion Homicide. Let’s gooooo.

There’s a group of trees just over the horizon whose tops he can just barely see and a scorpion charging so fast in such a straight line that it’s destined to crash into whatever is in front of him. Who says that it has to be him that gets hit? 

With an upset little sigh, Quackity presses the gas pedal down to the floor. He leans forward over the wheel like that will somehow convince the car to go faster. He thinks the airbags are working, maybe, possibly, maybe. Maybe. Probably not, but! Maybe they are!

He has to time it just right. He’s a goddamn excellent driver, so he’s got this. Just one… more… 

The trees are right in front of him, less than thirty feet away. The scorpion lunges. Quackity grits his teeth and suddenly jerks the steering wheel to the right as far as it goes. He tries not to get too choked by his seatbelt as he and the car go flying to the right in a sharp turn. 

Out the side mirror, Quackity watches the scorpion slam headfirst into a tree. The tree shakes. The scorpion lays there, dazed and unmoving, but Quackity doesn’t waste any time in skidding into a very illegal u-turn and lining up the angle juuuust right. 

He looks up at the ceiling and lets out a brief prayer before plunging his car right towards the scorpion. Just before he hits it, he swears that he hears someone shouting from outside, but he swears that there’s nobody around. 

And then it’s all noise and blinding darkness as he crashes his dead father’s car into a tree. He can almost make out the soothing noise of a bug getting squished to death above the gut-wrenching crunching and shaking and shattering. A hiss- that’s the scorpion. A pained scream- that’s him. There’s something wet dripping down his forehead, but he can’t see what. Everything is dark, and thank god for it. He might have a panic attack if sees the state his car is in. 

Everything is… muffled. Airbags, that’s the airbags. 

Quackity is pretty sure that he shouldn’t be moving right after a car crash. His brain could be, like, mush. His spine could be broken in seven different places. His arms sure feel broken, and his neck, but maybe that’s just the shock. 

But he moves, anyway, fumbling to unbuckle his seatbelt and to try and open the driver’s side door. There’s kind of an air bag in the way, but he manages. The fresh night air is, uh, well, a breath of fresh air, and Quackity tumbles his way sideways out of his car gratefully. 

He rolls onto his back and stares up at the sky, heart a million miles an hour and lungs screaming in pain. His entire body is in pain, actually, but he still has a terrified, exhilarated smile on his face, and he can’t help but laugh almost maniacally. Adrenaline, baby! He may die of broken bone disease in a minute, but at least he’s out of that goddamn car. 

In a sudden burst of excitement, he pumps both of his fists in the air and lets out a, “Yeah! Take that, bitch!”

He points at the smoking remains of the car and the smoking remains of the tree. He can see the scorpion’s tail poking out from above the car’s roof. It’s twitching, but the scorpion has to be dead. It has to be. 

It has to be. 

But, to make sure, Quackity forces himself to his feet. His legs shake under him and his eyes swim with the effort, but he still forces one step, and then another, and then another. 

There are footsteps from somewhere, he can hear them. He can also hear voices- some shouting, some whispering. He’s always been good at hearing, but not too good at listening. He doesn’t know what they’re talking about, but he could care less. He is on a mission. 

He leans against the car to catch his breath, squinting up at the twitching tail. How is it not dead yet? 

“What the fuck?” he wheezes, one arm clenched around his aching chest and the other just barely propping himself up on the car. “You should be dead.”

Somewhere beyond the trees, someone shouts, “Hello? Is there someone there?”

“You should be dead!” Quackity yells. His panicked laugh returns in full force, growing in volume as the car slowly starts rolling backwards, the scorpion unpinning itself and turning around and starting to crawl towards him with purpose. 

He backs up just as slowly, stumbling over his own feet. He thinks that he has a concussion. He thinks that maybe he is about to die after all. 

There is a light through the trees that seems to be growing closer, rapidly closer. That has to be someone. The strawberry farmer? Someone. Maybe they know how to- how to kill a gigantic evil scorpion from the pits of hell. 

So. Plan Part Three: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

The scorpion looks rough. Half of its legs seem to be broken, either dragging uselessly on the ground or missing altogether. One of its pincers is immobile. Its tail is flopped behind it, the stinger’s tip missing entirely. Okay. It wants to kill him. Quackity swears that it has bloodlust in its beady little eyes. Okay. 

But there’s the strawberry farmer, or the whoever, in the trees. Hopefully an adult, ‘cause Quackity is starting to feel like he needs an adult right now. He’s 16, man, what the hell is he doing fighting monsters when he should be learning trigonometry? 

“You’re absolutely disgusting, I hope you know that,” Quackity says. 

The scorpion, expectedly, doesn't respond, and thank god for it. 

“I’m going to be very disappointed if you kill me,” he continues. He lets out a long breath and looks over the scorpion’s… shoulder? Its shoulder. “I promised myself that the only thing killing me is myself or God, and you sure as hell aren’t God.”

The scorpion hisses at him. Quackity, in a sudden burst of spite, hisses back. 

Taken aback for whatever reason, the scorpion stops its approach. It blinks at him confusedly, the perfect picture of arachnid bewilderment. 

Aaaand, go!

Quackity takes advantage of the monster’s pause to summon every bit of strength he has left in his body and charge at it. The scorpion tenses, prepared to snip his body in half, but, at the last second, he ducks left and just keeps running. 

The air above his head swishes as the scorpion flails its tail at him in hopes of somehow managing to skewer him on its pincer. No dice. He’s nimble as hell, motherfucker, he’s fucking nimble. He definitely has a concussion, though. Gut feeling on that one. 

The light in the woods grows closer and closer until Quackity can actually make out the source: a guy not much older than he is with an old-school flashlight from, like, 2005 holding a… okay, sure, he can have a sword. Not the weirdest thing that Quackity has seen today. 

Quackity fucking throws himself at this guy, dashing right into his body and scrambling to find purchase in his horrible orange t-shirt. 

The guy stumbles back, arms outstretched in a T so as to not skewer Quackity on his literal sword. 

“What the hell?” the guy asks, sounding confused as all hell. 

Quackity, gripping the front of the guy’s shirt, looks up at him with more conviction than he’s ever felt in his life and says, “If that thing kills me, I’m going to haunt the everloving shit out of you.”

And then he passes the hell out. 

Whoops.

[heavywithplot]

Do you ever devise plots around the children your characters have? What their family life is like? How they raise these kids?

I'm just curious to know as I love your plots and they are so fun and intriguing.

it depends! for stuff like john and the harvester, there are no children involved, so there's nothing there to explore, but for things like the knock off ancient world narratives: absolutely! there's nothing messier than high stakes inheritance claims, and for stuff like that, you need to world build the family life otherwise it's. boring.

I have this one ancient-rome-but-I-filed-the-serial-numbers-off-it story where this one guy hooks up with general of his father (the emperor) (everyone's above 20 here btw), and a week later the emperor is assassinated, and the guy realizes he's pregnant. the general is making a play at assuming power, even though the main character is technically listed in the will as successor, and he hates the idea of the general taking advantage of the pregnancy to legitimize his take over for power, so his best friend comes up with an idea to get married and pass the baby off as his, and there's like. another 20 years of story I've built up in my head after that. there's parricide and everything!

also tysm!! 💞💗💖