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wipbigbang · 3 years

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2021 Schedule + FAQ

Schedule

All times are by 8:59pm PST. Convert time zones.

Sign-ups Begin- April 1st

Sign-ups Close- April 15th

Check In #1- April 22nd

Check In #2- May 15th

Snippets Due- June 1st

Art Claims Begin- June 17th

Check In #3- June 22nd

Check In #4- July 6th

Rough Drafts Due- July 15th

Posting Claims Begin- July 23rd

Posting Claims Ends- August 1st

Final Drafts/Art Due- August 7th

Posting Starts- August 8th

FAQ

Do I need a Livejournal/Dreamwidth/AO3/etc. account to participate? No! You don’t have to have an account on anything to participate, though you will need to have somewhere to post your finished work. Having one or more accounts will help for you to follow what is going on with the bang (we crosspost to Livejournal, Dreamwidth, Tumblr, and Twitter at the moment), but they are not required to participate. You can always leave comments anonymously or with an opensource ID.

Will I get emails about the bang? We do send out some emails, mostly for snippets and art claims and to ensure communication between authors and artists, but please do NOT rely on getting an email to remind you of due dates. We currently do not keep an updated email list of participants, so we only send individual emails as needed rather than mass emails.

However, email is the fastest way to communicate with the mods. If you have any questions or are having trouble communicating with your artist/author, please do email us! We will do our best to respond quickly.

Is there a minimum word count? 7,500 words, but the sky's the limit, right?

What do you mean by minimum word count to enter? This is a WIP Big Bang, therefore we ask you to have at least 500 words of your story drafted when you enter. It's okay if you have posted a few chapters of your fic already (you never know when the muse deserts you, after all), we just require you to refrain from posting more until posting begins here.

Is there anything not allowed? As long as you wrote it and you want to finish it, you're welcome to participate. Just bear in mind that original work is only allowed on AO3 if it has a fannish connection and might make it hard for artists to work with. But we'll make a dedicated post for that if there will be any.

What are 'Check Ins’? These are a way for us to see what you've been up to and for you to make sure you're still on track. It will give you a little nudge/reminder if you need it, but they are not compulsory.

What are the snippets requirements? In order to allow the artists to make art for the story they claimed, we require you to supply three snippets from your fic, between 500 – 1500 words each. The snippets will be sent to the artist after they have claimed your story. They're to help the artist match your story for artwork the best way he or she possibly can. It’s helpful to choose scenes or parts of scenes that you feel best represent your fic, but don’t feel like they have to be perfect to be submitted. Along with the snippets, we will send your artist the basic fic info and your email, so the two of you can collaborate more if you would both like.

What are the rough drafts requirements? For the rough drafts, stories should be at least 80% complete. You will not have to turn them in to us, just assure us that you are at that point. Anything less is at the discretion of the mods and those authors should speak to one of the mods asap.

What is, and do I need, a beta? A beta is basically a person who goes over your work to make sure that there are no spelling/grammatical errors and they can even be of assistance in helping you with story lines, etc. It is highly recommended that a beta looks over your work before posting. If you are having trouble finding a beta, try this post.

Where can I post my fic/art? Stories and art can be posted to your own personal journal, tumblr, ff-net, AO3, or wherever you like. For those of you with AO3 accounts, we will set up a collection that will go live on the day of the posting. Also, we've enabled moderated posting to the comm (Livejournal and Dreamwidth) for members. We will post a template for posting artwork and stories to the comm closer to the posting date.

If you don’t currently have an AO3 account but would like one, you can contact the mods for an invitation code to see if they have any available. You can also add yourself to the AO3 Invites Request queue.

How do I know when to post? Posting will be tiered; you'll each get your own posting date that you and your artist will decide on together. There will probably be four fics, plus art, posting per day between August 8th and September 30th. The post with date claims will go up on July 23rd and you'll have to choose your date by August 1st.

If you want to post your story in chapters on AO3 or your own blog (or wherever you usually post), you may do so starting August 1st. However, posting has to be finished by your chosen posting date to the comm. One of the things we're hoping to do with the posted dates is to give everybody on the comm a little bragging time in the spotlight. You know, "this story was incomplete for this long, but I finished this sucker." If you don't have time to post on your chosen posting date, you can queue up a post ahead of time and we can post it on the date you picked. Either way works for us. Art will be due on the chosen posting date to the comm.

Is there a minimum/maximum requirement for my art? There is no strict minimum, but we do ask artists to remember that the authors are writing a minimum of 7,500 words and your artwork should reflect that. You can do anything you like, including banners, wallpapers, icons, mixes, vids, gif sets, picspams, etc. Suggested guidelines for art are 500x500px (or equivalent of smaller pieces like banner + spacers, cover + icons, etc.) for traditional art, digital art, and manips; 2 minutes for vids; 10 songs + cover art for mixes; and 6 images for gif sets and picspams. We also ask that when you are in contact with the author, you work with them to see if there is anything specific they would like (i.e. a wallpaper, book cover, etc.). The art is your work, but having ideas doesn't hurt!

What are 'art claims'? The claims are when anonymous summaries of the story go up for artists to choose from. It is based on a 'first come, first served' basis and artists may choose up to three potential stories (in case their first choice is unavailable). If there are more stories than artists, there will be a second round of claims wherein artists may choose a second story to work with. And on until all stories are claimed for art.

If a fic up for claiming is rated explicit (R, NC-17, etc.), please only claim the story if you are over 18 years of age. Some authors may be uncomfortable working with underage artists on explicit works. We do not verify ages in any way for the bang, so this is solely on the honor system.

Can I get an extension? Community extensions may be given in the event that the majority of the authors/artists need one. They may also be given individually under certain circumstances, but this must be discussed with the mods and will only be a short extension for posting. If you are certain that you won’t be able to finish your story in time, please let us know by June 13th.

What do I do if I have problems or concerns about my author/artist? Sometimes authors and artists do not get along and this may cause problems with working together. If this happens to be the case with you, please email the mods and we will try to do what we can so that everyone has a chance to have fun at WIP Big Bang!

If you have not heard from your author/artist in some time after trying to contact them, you can reach out to us via email and we will try to get in touch with them for you.

Can I drop out? We have high hopes that everybody who signs up can actually finish the round and share in the joy of the reveal with us, but real life can unfortunately get in the way and we completely understand! If you feel like you just cannot finish in time and no amount of assistance from us can help you, just let us know by July 13th (if at all possible).

Is it possible to be banned? We do have a banned users list. We hope to use this to encourage participants who are having issues to communicate with the mods. We want to help you! The way the ban works is that participants, either authors and artists, will be banned for dropping out without notifying a mod. This means that anyone who has not posted or talked to a mod by the time the posting period ends will be banned. Dropping out is not in and of itself a banning offense, so please do not panic if you have to drop out! We understand that there are many reasons you may need to drop, and we want to work with you.

Bans will last one round or until the issue is resolved, whichever comes first. To resolve a ban, authors will have to finish and post the story they signed up with and artists will have to finish and post the art for the story they claimed. Three bans will result in a permanent ban from the bang.</lj-cut>

I have a question/concern that’s not mentioned here. If you need help, you can always contact a mod and we will do our best to make sure that you get your story/art finished. The best and fastest method of contact is through our email, [email protected].

#!2021 #!admin #faq #schedule #signal boost #wips #wip #writing #works in progress #big bang event #big bang #works in progress big bang #wipbb #wipbb2021

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mostlysignssomeportents · 3 years

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Capitalism's crooked refs

Capitalism is weird.

Almost without exception, people who invest in businesses do so without personally inspecting the business, overlooking its processes, seeing its bank statements, meeting its managers and going on the road with its sales-force.

Whether you’re managing a giant pension fund, buying into a fund with your 401k, or buying stocks (or STONKS) you likely have little to no direct experience of the firm you’re buying into. At best, you have visited a retail premises or tried a product, but that’s very thin.

Even if you think a business operates a tidy and efficient store, even if you love its products, you still have no basis to assess whether it is a sound investment. Maybe the business is selling products at a loss and teetering on the verge of bankruptcy.

Maybe those gorgeous stores are run by creepy harassers who’ve created billions in liabilities by abusing their employees. Maybe the owners have borrowed heavily to fund a cocaine habit.

You have no way to personally verify a firm’s commercial soundness prior to investing.

Instead, you must rely on the business’s own assurances about its viability — the balance sheets it publishes, the risks it discloses, its own profit and loss statements.

If these are competently prepared, it’s impossible to tell fraudulent statements from true ones.

Regulators aren’t much help. They’re mostly reactive, coming in after a fraud to figure out what happened and (sometimes) punish the perps.

While the fraud is in play, they’re unwitting participants, publishing those potentially fraudulent documents blended with true ones.

The main assurance that investors get comes not from regulators, but from auditors: those arms-length, third-party referees whose job it is to personally verify all those bank-statements, sniff around the shop floor, examine the P&Ls, and promise that it all adds up.

Auditors are the refs that keep the game honest. In theory, auditors are kept from cheating by strict ethics codes, licensure and regulatory oversight. Auditors are posed as neutral, trusted third parties who mediate between businesses and investors.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the Great Neoliberal Decline: world governments stopped enforcing anti-monopoly laws, allowing every industry to shrink down to a handful of firms that are too big to audit, let along punish for wrongdoing.

This isn’t just true of the companies seeking investment — it’s especially true of the auditors themselves. The Big Four accounting firms — KPMG, PWC, E&Y and Deloitte — now control virtually the entire market for auditing, having bought all of their competitors.

But these Big Four — who audit nearly every large business — make most of their money from “consulting” — selling companies business advice. The Big Four claim that their auditors and consultants are separated, but those claims are hard to credit.

Time and again, we see Big Four firms fudging the books for their best clients — as with “zombie banks” whose reckless lending has made them the walking dead, sure to collapse and require government bailouts.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/28/cyberwar-tactics/#aligned-incentives

These banks pay Big Four firms vast sums to consult for them. Between 2009–17, Big Four-audited bank financials failed 800 (!) audits (!!).

But the regulator only initiated enforcement action against the auditors 53 times (!!!).

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/28/cyberwar-tactics/#aligned-incentives

It’s not just the businesses that Big Accounting audits that are too big to regulate. Big Accounting is also too big to regulate, even when it conspires with its clients to commit vast, terrible frauds.

Accounting fraud is the norm in big business. Big Four firms have their fingers in every one of these frauds, from Exxon lying about shale gas to Facebook lying about video views.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/18/ink-stained-wretches/#countless

It’s the inevitable and foreseeable outcome of merging “consulting” and “auditing.” Auditing’s job is to bring clarity to numbers. Consulting’s job is to obscure them. You can always make more money with fraud (for a while) than you can with honesty.

The Big Four are far more likely to cook books than straighten them — every one of the Big Four firms is deeply implicated in tax evasion, for example, using numbers to obscure a business’s financials, rather than reveal them.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/15/shorter-brother/#tax-havens

It’s been nearly two decades since Arthur Andersen — part of the then-Big-Five accounting cartel — was given the corporate death penalty for its role in the Enron fraud. That was the last time a Big Accounting company really suffered over a fraud.

Since then, the regulators overseeing Big Accounting have largely ignored its crimes, or, at worst, charged the companies penalties that were smaller than the profits they realized through fraud. A fine is just a price.

Take KPMG.

In 2019, the SEC found that KPMG’s most senior managers were helping their auditors cheat…on ethics exams.

KPMG execs bribed employees at the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board to slip them advance copies of the ethics exams.

https://www.nysscpa.org/news/publications/the-trusted-professional/article/sec-probe-finds-kpmg-auditors-cheating-on-training-exams-061819

Even better (worse): the bribe that KPMG offered to regulators was a job at KPMG.

Remember, KPMG plays a vital role in the market system: to be perfectly, scrupulously honest, so that rich people (and regular slobs) can make sure that they’re not getting ripped off.

KPMG’s job is to stop cheating. And KPMG cheats.

Not surprisingly, a company whose official policy is to help its employees cheat on ethics exams keeps getting embroiled in ethics scandals, which end up costing regular investors and even very rich people a lot of money.

Here’s a good one: since 2016, investors have been suing KPMG for signing off on the books of Miller Energy Partners, a dirty-as-fuck oil company that turned out to be a giant scam.

https://www.desmog.com/2021/06/03/miller-energy-kpmg-auditors-oil-fraud/

Miller claimed that it could profitably extract oil from wells other companies had abandoned as too dry to pump (energy companies routinely incorporate standalone businesses for each field, then declare those companies bankrupt rather than pay to shut down when they dry up).

Miller was a fraud. It inflated the value of the wells it bought by $400m. Miller was run by serial scammers. Its CEO, Scott Boruff, stole $6m from his father-in-law, and was a veteran of a company that went bust after roping for Provident Asset Management, a Ponzi scheme.

Boruff brought in Provident’s former National Sales Director to oversee Gibson’s sales — publicly praising the Ponzi schemer’s “proven track record in raising capital.”

Miller was full of red flags and might have struggled to attract investors, but then it paid KPMG millions to sign off on its fraudulent books. That was the clincher than brought in millions more from investors who lost everything.

Even after the SEC fined KPMG for helping commit fraud, the partner who masterminded the crime kept his job at KPMG, staying on until retirement.

Now, it’s possible the reason KPMG’s internal watchdog missed all this was because it was a little distracted at the time — you see, that was around the time that David Middendorf — who ran KPMG’s Department of Professional Practices — was being sent to prison for fraud.

Meanwhile, Miller’s top fraudsters got paid millions — and paid fines of $125,000, each.

KPMG tried to weasel out of the Miller victims’ class-action suiit, but a judge in Tennessee just overruled its objections, so it’s going to court:

https://www.goingconcern.com/kpmg-class-action-suit-miller-energy-investors/

But the days of corporate death penalties are long behind us. If KPMG loses this suit, it will pay out a few million, but it will continue to operate, providing assurances of probity where none exist.

Big Accounting is a rarity in late-stage capitalism: a sector that preys on wealthy people as well as everyday people. Somehow, it gets away with it — perhaps because there is no honor among thieves?

#pluralistic

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astrowithkaro · 3 years

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Language birthdays for those born in June 18??

Language Of Birthdays: June 18 - Gemini

[You can find the rest of the series here; or check out my masterlist]

The Day Of Financial Security

The influential people born on June 18 often move in hidden ways, exerting their greatest influence behind the scenes. Having an enormous personal effect on others, even defying limitations of time and space, those born on this day are capable of transmitting their energies from a distance, through powerful thoughts. For this reason they are bad enemies to make. June 18 people are extremely good with money, particularly the women born on this day, who know how to get it and what to do with it. They are especially good money managers.

Interestingly enough, many women born on June 18 are cast in a helpless role early in life and later break out of this mold by becoming super-capable and reliable. In this respect, they are fighters, capable of overcoming great disadvantages and childhood traumas. This makes them particularly good candidates for understanding the frustrations of others, and excellent counselors. Along with the men born on this day they have high potential as organizers and administrators.

Men born on June 18 rely on their personal charm and talents to endear them to others. They like being at the top and require large doses of adoration from their family, friends and public; thus they may develop ego problems. More highly developed June 18 men outgrow the need for excessive attention and become strong, self-sufficient individuals. In general, cultivating true modesty and humility is a worthwhile goal for June 18 men.

June 18 people of both sexes usually make excellent parents. They understand the need of children for both amusement and structure. Most often they invest the necessary time and interest in parenting to let their children know they really care; they also recognize the advantages of a financially secure home. They will not spoil their children, however, and are firm on matters they consider of vital importance. The development of their children's character is what they value most.

Those born on June 18 are playful and love to have fun. Yet they have nasty tempers and, although appearing mild, deal quite harshly with moral wrongdoers. Most often their attitude is "live and let live," but they are not to be crossed in areas involving honor and trust. The best way to appeal to them is through playfulness, for it is difficult for them to refuse fun and they enjoy seductive games of all kinds.

June 18 people are usually faithful to their mates, family and friends. They are, of course, tempted from time to time but will very rarely forsake those they love for the promise of a better situation with someone else. They are excellent, responsible friends as well, but they can be both manipulative and erratic, two traits they should try to minimize. Because they get bored easily, they are constantly looking for excitement and change. It is these qualities, rather than anything truly immoral in their nature, which sometimes leads them astray.

Strengths:

Lively

Money wise

Influential

Weaknesses:

Erratic

Restless

Manipulative

Advice

June 18 people must, being Geminis, beware of all problems concerning their hands and arms, nervous systems (manage depression), and breathing (beware of excess smoking). Because June 18 people are often both spiritually and financially oriented, they like to invest money and time in their health, perhaps through yoga, meditation or spiritual practices. They are also practical enough to see the value of more conventional exercises like walking, swim- ming and basic calisthenics. Sex will help keep them happy but is usually not central to their life. Usually June 18 people make excellent cooks, and can thus control their diet.

Try to pull all the varied parts of your life together

Apply your strengths to each area

Work on eliminating or at at least understanding your bad traits

Withdraw from life occasionally

#gemini zodiac #gemini sun #gemini monthly horoscope #gemini life #gemini girls #gemini #air signs #psychology studyblr #psychology #birth date #birthday #astrology readings #june 18 #baby witch

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singlecelledthot · 3 years

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Request Rules

Hello! My name is Ronnie and I am a writer who finally decided to join the request community here on tumblr! I have no works to post yet, but I will be writing some shorts as samples for potential requesters to look at. I am VERY excited to start doing this, even if I only ever wind up writing a bunch of self-indulgent fluff pieces.

Personal & Request Rules:

18+ only, NSFW present, I will block any minors who try to engage. I am well beyond legal age and only ask that this one rule be respected above all else. I apologize in advance to any minors, but I have no interest in providing underage people with adult content. I must stay firm on this as there is no way for me to prevent said content from being viewed, I am relying on respect and an honor system. Please be respectful of the rules I have and I will do my best to be respectful in turn. We’re all here to have fun in our creative pursuits with characters/series we love, lets make sure we keep it about having fun.

Characters I write for: Focusing on MK for the time being, and I am happy to write for anyone from said series. I am a Shang Tsung/Kung Lao/Kollector/Raiden enthusiast, but those Lin Kuei and Black Dragon boys have a special place in my heart too <3 So feel free to go wild and request anyone!

Things I will NOT write: I will not write anything involving children, animals, rape, scat/vomit. If I am not comfortable with a request I will not write it. For the more touchy subjects (dub-con, somno, violence..) I will do my very best to tag each submission appropriate so nobody gets a shock, if I miss a tag I encourage anybody to let me know in DMs so I can add it and ensure proper tagging.

As a heads up, as well as not being interested in providing minors with adult content, I am also not interested in engaging in internet debates on morality of fiction writing. My hard stops are posted, I am aware that other people may not be ok with other topics that I have no problem writing for---at the end of the day this is all fiction, and I treat each kink/ship/scenario like just that. Fiction. I will be tagging things (as I stated before) appropriately so that if a concept is considered upsetting it can easily be avoided with blacklist, or avoiding the post all together. With these in place, I expect people to know how to tailor their internet experience to their comfort levels, I will do my best--but I will block people who choose to attack/debate with me on the morality of fictional writing.

I am fairly open about topics/kinks/ships and am mostly interested in writing xReader. I will write for any gender happily! Request prompts should be detailed enough to allow me to write the scenario without controlling how I do so. I’ll be posting art as well if I get a request I really get into!

Thanks everyone for coming to my ThotTalk! Let the games begin!

#Request Rules #Personal Rules

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qqueenofhades · 4 years

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Question: were medieval peasants always on the edge of starving, as in couldn't waste food? Or did that vary with time and place? Thanks in adavance!

Well, I have to say that it must be fairly obvious that when we’re talking about a span of roughly one thousand years in an entire continent, in multiple countries/kingdoms/geopolitical situations, and over the course of large-scale, macro-level geographical, climate, crisis, and cultural incidents, it would indeed vary, sometimes wildly, and this is the case for almost any factor that you could possibly think of. It will not surprise you to learn that “medieval peasants were always on the brink of starving” is yet another tired old cliche from the Bad Old Middle Ages grab bag, and while it reflects a different system from modernity, it is not necessarily the case that it was always worse (especially considering the prevalence of hunger in the modern world and the parallel universes in food access between rich and poor, which were simply never that extreme in the medieval era). Today, there’s no relationship whatsoever between how rich people eat and how poor people eat; they exist in completely separate realms. Rich people simply have no worry about disruption to food supply, reliance on local economy or agriculture, the impact of natural disasters, or anything else; globalization and worldwide supply chains means that they can be assured of whatever they want, whenever they want it. Even wealthy people in the Middle Ages did not exist in their own ecosystem the way modern rich people do. Their food was grown on the same land, was subject to the same possible impacts of famine or crop failure, was reliant on having farm labor to cultivate it, and otherwise came from the same place as the food of poor people. Obviously class, status, and money affected what goods a medieval citizen had access to, whether in food or anything else, but food inequality and disparity is WAY more of a thing in modernity than it was in the Middle Ages.

Next, when we say “medieval peasants,” do we mean literal peasants, i.e. manual laborers tied to a single plot of land who worked it, harvested its crop yields, owed rent to a local landlord, and were often rural and on the subsistence level? Because obviously, there are social differences among peasants too, and some of them could be quite wealthy. In his usefully titled “Did the Peasants Really Starve in Medieval England?”, Christopher Dyer points out that the upper class of peasants, who had about thirty acres of arable land and access to common pastures, would easily be able to provide themselves with bread, potage (soup) and ale on a daily basis, have consistent access to dairy and meat, and even enough money to buy extra fish, meat, and prepared foods like pudding and pie from the village or market town. It would be easy for them to eat the usual 2000 calories a day, and their diet would be relatively flavorful and nutritious even by modern standards. Poorer peasants would be more reliant on just bread, potage, and ale, and have less access to meat and dairy, but they still weren’t outright starving. Manual labor doesn’t go well if the laborers are constantly underfed and/or weak from malnutrition, and while the poorest peasants’ diet would have been fairly monotonous and carb-heavy, it still would provide raw calories for energy.

Nor were food economies exclusively local, as that equally tired cliche that people never traveled more than ten miles from home would have you believe (honestly, where did that even come from?) As Food in Medieval Times puts it, “A remarkably wide variety of foodstuffs was available to consumers in the Middle Ages. Besides homegrown and raised products, exotic fruits and spices were brought by Arab merchants into the Mediterranean markets and sold across Europe at premium prices. Although bad harvests resulting in famine and disease occurred periodically, the staple foods -- bread, dairy products, cheap cuts of meat, and preserved fish -- were usually available to the general population. In richer households the foodstuffs were more exclusive and the dishes more sophisticated and varied.” Regional differences would obviously thus play a part. Common people in Iberia, Italy, and southern Europe would be more easily able to access certain delicacies not available in relatively barren England and northern Europe, and would be geographically closer to the Mediterranean markets. They still would not be able to afford expensive delicacies like saffron or other fine spice, but that doesn’t mean they never had it at all. There were many feast days and festivals in the religious and liturgical calendar, and communities would come together with food just as they do now.

There were also social welfare systems and safety nets, wherein, for example, ageing peasants could retire and be provided with a food pension by their landlord (there are numerous legal contracts of this nature, which had to be written down since what a surprise, the landlords didn’t always keep their word or honor their obligations). Even serfs didn’t have to work until they keeled over; they could take retirement and be provided with a portion of the food yield of the estate from their working-age peers, indeed rather like Social Security. There were also almoners at churches, monasteries, and other religious houses, who relied on donations from rich patrons with guilty consciences in order to feed the destitute poor, like a modern-day soup kitchen. These arrangements would obviously not have covered everybody (once again, we note, food banks and food stamps and other arrangements don’t do that for modern people either), but it doesn’t mean there was no recourse.

Of course, the food economy was more perilous than it is now, and more prone to natural disasters and agricultural disruptions. There are certainly famines recorded throughout the medieval period (such as the Great Famine of 1315-18), and several years of bad harvests could have a devastating impact on rich and poor alike. (Since again, the rich didn’t have their own entirely separate ecosystem; their food had to come from the same place as their poorer counterparts.) Climate change, too little rain, too much rain, drought, fire, pestilence, or anything else, in the absence of industrialization, mass farming techniques, factories, or anything of the sort, meant that food supplies were vulnerable to the natural environment, and people did die of hunger in the bad years. While standards did also change and improve over time, the earlier (pre-11th century) medieval period was not necessarily always worse. After the Black Death, when there were simply much fewer people than before, and increasingly so in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, peasants usually had fairly reliable access both to raw food and cash to purchase prepared food. By the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the threat of widespread food catastrophe had largely subsided; there aren’t any major famines recorded in Europe at this time, though we daresay they had plenty of other problems (not least the wars of religion). Of course, that little thing in 1492 had also happened, opening up the Columbian Exchange and new routes of supply to the New World, including large-scale transportation and trade of food.

As I’ve mentioned in at least one other ask, people also knew how to cook food properly; someone studied the latrines at Warkworth Castle in northern England (don’t ask me who thought that this is a fun research project, but it takes all kinds) and discovered a remarkable lack of food-borne pathogens. In other words, even without modern safety standards or exact temperature guidelines, people were well aware how to cook food so it tasted good and wouldn’t kill you. They also took pride in doing so. In “The Evolution of Culinary Techniques in the Medieval Era,” Barbara Santich explores the evolution of written recipes from a few notes intended to remind the chef of something they already knew, to a more detailed programmatic for someone who might not have actually made the dish before. Skilled cooks were highly prized members of middle-class and upper-class households, and people who had money to spend on food enjoyed banquets, diverse dishes, and whatever delicacies they could get from their local merchants and markets. The extensive system of medieval trade networks, as mentioned above, meant that consumer goods could travel a very long way indeed, and while you couldn’t walk into a supermarket and get whatever you wanted whenever you wanted it, there would be at least some opportunity for you to acquire something new.

Anyway, yes. Medieval peasants: usually not starving. There you have it.

#history #medieval history #history of food #anonymous #ask

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sepublic · 3 years

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Lilith’s Final Chance

Remember back in the Reddit AMA, when Dana confirmed that witches typically enter a Coven when they graduate from school (at about 17-18), but some can join earlier if they’re extra talented?

When it comes to Lilith deciding to curse Eda, so she could take the spot in the Emperor’s Coven… I think this reveals a new level of nuance to Lilith’s decision. We know that Eda is two years younger than Lilith, yet they’re both auditioning for the Emperor’s Coven. And, it goes without saying that even as a kid, Eda had always been enormously talented, to the point where an older Lilith is certain that Eda would defeat her in a duel!

This means Lilith was probably eighteen or so, and in her senior year at Hexside, when she and Eda auditioned to join the Emperor’s Coven; Meaning Eda was probably a Sophomore, maybe Junior. And you HAVE to join a Coven when you graduate, so if Lilith didn’t make it into the Emperor’s Coven, she’d be assigned to the Potions Coven and have the rest of her magic bound… And we don’t know if Coven Bindings can even be reversed, much less legally. Whereas Eda, who’s so talented that she can join even the Emperor’s Coven, earlier than others? She’s still got time to join it at a REGULAR age, which means…

For Eda, this wasn’t her only chance to get into the Emperor’s Coven; She at least had one, if not two more years to apply, before she’d have to join the Potions Coven, no matter what. But for Lilith, this is her last chance- If she doesn’t make it into the Emperor’s Coven NOW, then she’s never going to make it in again, because she’ll be assigned to the Potions Coven immediately afterwards. And then suddenly, Lilith’s decision to curse Eda and weaken her magic for a day (that’s how the curse was SUPPOSED to work), cheating to take that position in the Emperor’s Coven, it takes on a whole new level of nuance; Because…

To Lilith, she’s not REALLY cheating Eda out of her spot in the Emperor’s Coven. Lilith knows her sister is practically unprecedentedly powerful and talented, moreso than Lilith; And she’s got more chances to try. But for Lilith, she is both weaker than Eda, AND this is her last chance… The way Lilith sees it, if she wins the duel; Then she joins the Emperor’s Coven, then Eda joins next year, and then both sisters are together, living their dream as intended! But if Eda wins the duel, then Lilith will go onto the Potions Coven, and be both separated from her sister AND her prestigious dream… So to Lilith, she’s not stealing anything from Eda; She knows without a doubt that Eda WILL make it into the Emperor’s Coven, she’s got multiple chances- The only thing that changes is whether or not Lilith is there with her, or not.

(Addendum: It’s worth considering if Eda had moved up a few grades like Gus; And if so, she may have been in the same grade as Lilith despite being younger. So it’s possible this was actually Eda’s only chance to join the Emperor’s Coven as well; But I guess it all depends on what Bump and the coven system’s policy is on kid prodigies. If Eda decided that she wanted to redo a grade or two for another chance at the Emperor’s Coven, could she have done that? Or would she have been forced to join a coven, even if she was only sixteen- Because once she moved ahead of the others, there was no going back, even if Eda claimed that she felt she wasn’t ready to join a coven yet, despite her previous talent at school?)

So with this in mind, when you remember what Lilith thought the curse was supposed to be; It’s no wonder she chose to use it! And with this information in mind, it could’ve led to some additional resentment at Eda… Lilith never asked Eda to let her older sister win, while Eda herself could give a second shot at the Emperor’s Coven next year; She immediately assumed that Eda wanted to join the Emperor’s Coven, ASAP, and wouldn’t even care whether or not Lilith was beside her side. And it just shows us that Lilith was so automatically convinced that Eda didn’t care, that Eda couldn’t even be asked to accommodate Lilith and hold off on her dream for just a little bit longer, likely because Eda wanted to prove a point by joining the Emperor’s Coven as young as possible, or whatever…

And it just shows that Lilith thinks that Eda doesn’t care, and I can see why that assumption would’ve really soured things between the two. So it’s all the more painful and tragic that Eda DOES care; And when she turns down the Emperor’s Coven, obviously it’s because she realized she’d never want to join it… But even without the Coven System’s corruption in mind, it shows that Eda DOES care, and she wouldn’t have cared too much about just waiting, about letting Lilith win. That Eda might have some pride, and revel over one-upping her sister; But she’s not SO obsessed with proving her superiority, that she’d jeopardize Lilith’s future just to prove once again, in yet another duel, that she’s the better Witch!

Lilith must’ve felt so stupid, so foolish, felt like she took her sister for granted; And then she proceeded to do so for several years… Maybe Lilith tried to reason that Eda WANTED her to join the Emperor’s Coven, so Lilith was just honoring that sacrifice by pursuing her career there to the fullest; But even so… In Agony of a Witch, Lilith is once again given a ‘final chance’ by Belos, to capture Eda; While for Eda, Lilith assumes it doesn’t matter. Lilith probably thinks that if she fails and dies that night, Belos will still be able to capture Eda afterwards; It’s just a matter of when, and if Lilith will still be in the Emperor’s Coven when that happens.

So just like the night when she cast the curse, Lilith does her second Great Mistake that further drives a rift between her and Eda; She uses Luz as a hostage, because she’s desperate. Lilith wants to be with Eda, so much that she’ll threaten Eda’s own kid to do so- And yet again, she doesn’t try to reach out to Eda. She doesn’t ask for help, doesn’t explain the severe deadline and consequences set by Belos, likely out of some form of twisted pride, delusion, and maybe… Maybe because Lilith didn’t want to admit that she messed up. That if she’d just talked to Eda, the two could’ve worked something out; But for Lilith, the older sibling who had to be rescued by her younger sister? It would’ve been a sore reminder of her helplessness, of her insecurity and failure as a sibling- And that’s why Lilith insists on doing things by herself.

Lilith wants to be independent, she wants to think of herself as strong, and not needy- She doesn’t want to ask for help, least of all from Eda, because she’s already done that so many times as a kid, and Lilith wants to believe that she’s outgrown that, that’s she matured past the child who needs to rely on their little sister for help. She doesn’t want to believe she’s making the same mistake, and so Lilith continues to do so- And it’s only by acknowledging that she IS making a mistake, that Lilith can act to avoid it. It’s only after she acknowledges how badly she messed up, that Lilith can change her behavior, and finally ask for help; This time from Luz and King, because… Lilith already soured things with Eda and got her sister condemned to a petrification.

But even then, things might’ve gone differently, had Lilith been transparent to Luz- If Lilith trusted Luz, because she trusted Eda, and Eda trusted the human girl… Then I can totally see Luz willing to contact Eda, work something out, and help Lilith. Luz doesn’t know much about Lilith, but she knows that she’s Eda’s sister and she means something to her; And their brief encounter in Once Upon a Swap indicates that Lilith really loves her sister, so the feeling is likely mutual. Plus, Luz is just naturally compassionate… But of course, asking a child for help is even worse than asking her younger sister for help, because at least Eda is the most powerful witch in the Boiling Isles; Luz is a mere HUMAN, she shouldn’t even be able to do magic, and if she can, it’s probably not that impressive!

So a lot of it boils down to pride- Lilith WANTS help, but she wants it on very specific, flattering terms that are honestly undefinable and unrealistic. And she’s waited too many years, about thirty of them, for those specific circumstances to arise, and yet they haven’t- But even when her life is on the line, Lilith still refuses to swallow her pride. She wants to believe she’s grown past that needy, dependent child she used to be, but she hasn’t; Lilith can only grow when she admits that she hasn’t. And it’s all the more fitting, then, that Eda accuses her sister of being pathetic out of betrayal- And because it’s true. Eda IS better than Lilith, even at Eda’s worst, and it IS shameful, but only because Lilith lets it be, because Lilith lets it influence herself to do terrible things- So if that’s how Lilith wants to view things, then Eda will comply!

Maybe there’s even genuine disappointment from Eda; That she never minded looking after Lilith, never thought anything of it, never resented Lilith for not being stronger and protecting her… All Eda asked for was just unconditional love and support from her sibling; And yet despite everything Eda did for Lilith, Lilith failed to provide when Eda got cursed and was alone for so many years… And once again Lilith has betrayed Eda’s trust, and taken her own kid hostage. So of course Eda is hurt, angry, and betrayed- And of course she flings Lilith’s own rhetoric back in her face, after seeing that this is how Lilith feels; And if this is how Lilith WANTS to feel, constantly focusing on her jealousy and letting it jeopardize relationships, then Eda WILL make Lilith feel like this!

It’s just this recurring trend, where Lilith feels like she has little to nothing left, that this is all she can get; While Eda has so much else, has so many other chances… So surely Lilith can’t be faulted for being selfish just this once, for prioritizing her one opportunity, over Eda’s many other ones? No matter what happens, Eda will be better off than her, it’s always up to Lilith, and JUST Lilith, to catch up- Because even if Eda offered help –which she has- Lilith is too proud and stubborn, too humiliated to accept it. Because Lilith wants to think she can do it all on her own, when there shouldn’t be any shame in asking for help.

And I have to wonder if this refusal to ask for help ties into the Coven System’s ableism, and its rhetoric that the best witches, are those who stand alone at the top, better than everyone else because they don’t need them… But even Eda, who operated with so much power, alone for several years, needed people, and that’s why she got Owlbert and Hooty, King and Luz. There IS a strength in value in bonds and connections, and they don’t tie you down; And it’s ironic that Belos preaches unity through his Coven System, when so far all it has done with its propaganda is alienate people from each other, pit children and friends against one another, and cause division in the form of specific magic Covens with very little overlap among skillsets.

It insists that people are not equal but instead separated by a hierarchy, that others must be left behind for the sake of the best, and throws out anyone who doesn’t fit into the mold, instead of welcoming them with a proper, unconditional place. The Coven System alienates people, both from society and even one another, even the best and most privileged are encouraged to feel separate from those ‘below’ them… And I wonder if this feeling of alienation that Belos enforces onto others, reflects how he himself feels and/or has felt; But that’s a discussion for another day. Regardless, Luz is a foil to Belos, in that she shows it’s possible to have a sense of belonging, AND an individual identity; While Belos’ system results in people who feel alienated and alone, without a sense of personhood.

And Belos’ influence is precisely why Lilith is so dead-set and certain that Eda would never help her, that she has to do things by herself; Because even if Eda WOULD help, that’d be humiliating and thus unacceptable. And Lilith wants to be the best… By donning a faceless uniform that would make her impossible to distinguish from the rest, when even witches from regular covens can express their own faces. And sure, Lilith eventually gets past this too, by proving she’s so special that she can rise as Head of the Emperor’s Coven, and thus deserving of her own individuality- But it really is all so paradoxical. It just makes people deprive themselves of something they already, naturally have and are owed, handing it over to Belos; Before pointlessly trying to earn it ‘in the first place’ (not earn it back) in the eyes of Belos.

#the owl house #the owl house lilith #lilith clawthorne #the owl house eda #edalyn clawthorne #the owl house belos #emperor belos #the owl house luz #luz noceda #speculation #meta

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gukyi · 3 years

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Just saw your recent couple of asks, and this is just my two cents and it might be controversial, but I think minors (or teenagers) should be able to consume NSFW content if they’re comfortable with that? Like, they should be able to explore their sexuality/sexual impulses or curiosity if that’s something they want and NSFW fanfic can let them do that safely, especially since nowadays most have content warnings. I know when I was 16/17 I read my fair share of smut lol.

i think that this is a valid argument, but i also think it’s important to remember the writers when you’re talking about the allowability of minors reading NSFW content. a lot of NSFW writers are straight up adults (like, over 25) who do not feel comfortable knowing minors read their work, nor do they feel comfortable interacting with minors. and that’s fine. they are allowed to feel that way, because knowing that the sexually explicit content you are writing for pleasure is getting read by a bunch of people 10 years younger than you is really, really unpleasant and even brings into question some aspect of legitimate legality.

it’s also worth noting that these NSFW writers cannot mark their blog as explicit via tumblr because it removes them and their posts from the search function. and if you’re a writer who wants their work read, how are you going to be able to reach an audience if people literally cannot find your work? so NSFW writers just have to rely on the honor system when it comes to knowing if the people reading their work are over 18. it’s just another thing to consider.

all in all, i’m not saying that minors should not read smut or that reading smut is inherently bad. i just want to make it known that there’s a reason why many NSFW writers do not want minors interacting with them, knowing they are minors. which is why my blog exists--to give all people (including minors), a safe space to consume fic.

#OK. ENOUGH OF THAT. NO MORE TALKING ABOUT THIS EVERYONE LETS GET EXCITED FOR MY NEXT FIC WOOHOO!!!#anon #answered

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sawyer-craft · 4 years

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50 questions about your OC: Answered

1. How old are they? 28 years old in 1899.

2. What gender are they? Male/Nonbinary.

3. What is their romantic/sexual orientation? Pansexual/Ace.

4. How tall are they? 5’11

5. What do they look like? (See #caleb jackson tag for picrew images.)

6. What are their defining features? Caleb is tall, nearing 6ft in height and it makes him stand out in a crowd.

7. Does their name have a meaning? No, but his nickname does! “Crow” Jackson was a nickname he developed by reputation by becoming a successful collector and a vicious competitor.

8. What family do they have? As of 1899, Caleb has one younger brother (Elijah jackson, 21) and his mother. (Elanora Jackson, 49)

9. Do they have a good relationship with their family? Caleb has a close relationship with his mother and a somewhat distant but friendly one with his brother.

10. If not, why not? (Relationship status established above)

11. Where do they live? Saint Denis, USA

12. Is it a safe place? Somewhat. The law enforcement is large and mostly capable but the cities crime rate is still high, conflicts with outlaws happen often and the police themselves are known for making unjust arrests.

13. Are they poor, middle-class or wealthy? Caleb is in the middle class! His job as a collector helped him bring his family out of poverty and keeps them stable for now.

14. Do they look up to anyone? Caleb looks up to his mother for her determination, something that never faltered whenever the Jacksons were dragged through hard times. He looks up to his brother Eli for his bravery and sense of adventure, and admires him for it.

15. Who is their best friend? Unfortunately, Caleb hasn’t made a friendship close enough to call someone his ‘best friend’. He’s worked with people around the city, made some reliable informants and casual friendships in different towns but remains, for the most part, alone.

16. Do they have any enemies? He has plenty of rival collectors and writers, and has even gotten into a few close calls with outlaws on the outskirts of town. (See question below for more details.)

17. Who is the person they hate most in the world? Angelo Bronte, the local tyrant of Saint Denis. Caleb hates him the most for the way he’s taken over the city, for the way he throws his wealth around and most of all, his child trafficking business. Caleb’s investigated it before and his goal is to reveal Bronte’s crimes to the public and take him down so that his wealth will be ripped away from him (and hopefully redistributed to the community) his ridiculous mansion can be repurposed and the children he’s roped into working for him or sold off can be returned to their families. Caleb hasn’t been caught before but he’s sure Bronte knows he’s been snooping around. Bronte and Caleb occasionally bump into each other during city gatherings (parties held by mutual coworkers) and their interactions are full of barely restrained venom.

18. Do they have any love/hate relationships? Not with anyone currently, no.

19. Have they ever fallen in love? No, but its something Caleb thinks and worries about often. He’s been in a few relationships before, but they were short and they never sparked any feeling in him. It makes him feel as though there must be something wrong with him, and as a result he feels very lost.

20. Who is the person they love the most in the world? Caleb loves his mother and his brother the most, they are the people he’s closest to.

21. Does that person love them back? They do!

22. Have they ever hurt or lost anyone? Caleb’s lost his father to tuberculosis when he was a child and Eli was still very little. He’s hurt people around him as he was growing up as a result of lack of communication, anger over losing his father, and conflicts with his brother-turned-outlaw. He’s lost romantic partners before for similar reasons and he’s lost a few pets too.

23. Are they a good shoulder to cry on? As much as Caleb would like to be able to comfort and reassure without issue, he’s not the best person to rely on for it if you aren’t close to him. He panics when no immediate or logical solution comes to mind, has difficulty understanding emotional reactions to certain situations, and gets rather awkward with his words. He’ll offer his hanker-chief and listen to what you have to say but that’s about the extent of his abilities. He’s much better at offering support to his family, he allows them to hug him and sometimes words won’t be needed at all, he knows how to calm them down.

24. Are they well liked? Caleb can sometimes come off as cold or uncaring to a stranger. He’s not hated, but he’s not well known either, and he ends up unintentionally blending in as another passerby in the crowded miserable city.

25. How do they handle being complimented? Caleb does not handle a genuine compliment well, he’s more used to careless formalities since those are the types of conversation that he’s familiar with. He’ll have a hard time believing that someone has something nice to say to him, he’ll probably deflect it to divert the attention on to something else. But he won’t forget it.

26. Are they an affectionate person? When you get to know him, yes. Caleb expresses his affection in many different ways, through gifts, keeping track of someones favorite things and special days, and occasionally an affectionate touch. (It just takes awhile to break through his shell.)

27. Are they very driven? Yes. Caleb is very passionate and works hard, when he puts his mind to something he’s not going to stop until the task is completed.

28. Are they very political? Not really no.

29. What kind of state is the world that they live in? As much as he would like to think otherwise, the world around Caleb isn’t safe or balanced. It’s not hellish but problems and stressors follow him constantly, and it’s very hard for him to maintain a routine that will keep him and his loved ones out of danger.

30. What are the world leaders like? The technical leader of Saint Denis is Bronte, because of his tyrannical control you can only imagine what he’s like.

31. Does the character worry about their place in society? Yes. While Caleb has worked hard to get where he is now, he worries quite often about how long it will last. He worries that more powerful people in society will take everything he’s built and achieved away from him, and that he’ll end back up at square one.

32. If they could change one thing, what would it be? Caleb would move his family far far away, somewhere quiet, open and safe. Somewhere like California, where they could settle down and stay close to one another.

33. Do they like themselves? Caleb likes how he looks, he knows who he is and what he is capable of, but he feels incomplete and unsatisfied with himself.

34. Are they a good person? Caleb is Lawful Neutral and his intentions are good. While he’s not high honor, he’s not morally gray either. Caleb falls somewhere between the two.

35. Are they very forgiving? Caleb might be quick to forgive a transgression but he never forgets it either.

36. Do they believe in destiny? No. Caleb thinks more logically.

37. Are they trustworthy? If you are close to Caleb then absolutely, theres little he wouldn’t do for you. But if you are a stranger or competitor, don’t be so sure.

38. Are they a good liar? Yes, and a bit of a compulsive one too.

39. How do they react to criticism? He takes criticism quite well if it’s constructive, he welcomes it and will correct and learn quickly. If it is not constructive however, he’ll have a few choice words for you.

40. What is their moral alignment? As stated above, Lawful neutral!

41. Can they fight? Ultimately, no. Caleb can wrestle fairly well as someone who grew up with a brother usually is but in terms of a proper fistfight or brawl he’s not very skilled. In a gunfight he’s decent but not quite as good a shot as his brother is.

42. Would they ever purposefully hurt someone? Mentally? Absolutely. If they are a competitor or an enemy he’s not above using his words to cut people down, but it’s something he reserves for dire situations and people he despises. Physically he would never hurt someone and he would never consider intentionally hurting a friend or someone close to him with his words either.

43. Have they ever been seriously injured? Yes. Caleb’s been stabbed and fallen into critical condition before on the job. He was once bitten by the Saint Denis ‘vampire’ and was nearly killed, but managed to escape and recover with aid.

44. Do they know first aid? Yes, Caleb learned from his mother, a retired nurse.

45. Do they have any other survival skills? Caleb’s not an outdoorsman by any means but he’s skilled in first aid and can build a stable campsite.

46. Are they a fast learner? Yes!

47. How intelligent are they? Academically, he’s exceptional.

48. What is the school system like? Caleb didn’t go through the school system when he was a child, and learned most of the things he knows from his mother and books. He learned other skills by watching and listening to people around the city.

49. What is their job? Caleb is a writer and a collector.

50. Do they enjoy their job? He enjoys both his jobs very much.

#about ocs #caleb jackson #oc #about caleb #caleb crow jackson #caleb crow #crow jackson #writing #thank you to lusus--naturae who sent these questions to me!

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sixtyfivehundredmiles · 4 years

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Long Live the Laurentian Great Lakes

Living in Geologic Time: Billion-year-old rifting events set the stage for Earth’s greatest lakes.

The five Great Lakes, as seen from left to right in a springtime satellite image, are Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario. Credit: NASA/Jess Schmaltz

From some vantage points, the Great Lakes feel more like vast inland seas than freshwater lakes. But the 6 quadrillion gallons (~23 quadrillion liters) sloshing in Superior, Michigan, Huron, Ontario, and Erie represent one fifth of the planet’s fresh water.

How long will the Great Lakes retain their honor of being the largest collection of freshwater lakes on the planet? Thanks to some ancient rifting events, possibly for a very long time to come.

Ancient Rifts and Ice Age Lakes

The story of the Great Lakes began over 1 billion years ago, when the ancient supercontinent Laurentia began splitting in half. Over the course of about 10 million years, the Midcontinent Rift System opened a massive fissure on its way to becoming a new ocean basin. But for reasons geologists don’t entirely understand, the rift failed, and no ocean was formed, leaving a 3,000-kilometer-long scar across what is now North America.

Eons of erosion have hidden this scar, which runs from Lake Superior in two forks down to Alabama and Oklahoma. “A billion years is a very long time, even by geologic standards,” said Seth Stein, a geophysicist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.

Evidence of the rift is visible at Lake Superior, which is ringed by cliffs of billion-year-old basalt that erupted into the active rift, giving the largest lake a uniquely rugged shoreline. “Lake Superior looks very different from the rest of the Midwest,” where volcanic rocks are rare, Stein said.

Lake Superior’s towering basalt cliffs stand in contrast to the sandy beaches that ring the other Great Lakes. Credit: Seth and Carol Stein

Lake Superior sits within the Midcontinent Rift scar, but all five Great Lake basins were carved out by glaciers during the last glacial period, when the region was buried under the Laurentide Ice Sheet. As the ice age came to a close, the glaciers retreated, and the lake basins filled with meltwater to form the five Great Lakes as we know them by around 10,000 years ago. Today, some scientists refer to the Great Lakes by their more formal name, the Laurentian Great Lakes.

A few summers ago, I drove hundreds of kilometers out of my way to visit Superior’s billion-year-old rocks on a backpacking trip through Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park, Mich., on the south shore of Lake Superior. Unfortunately, the pilgrimage was rushed. The moment we parked at the trailhead, clouds of mosquitoes swarmed the car. It was mid-June, and the bloodsuckers were so relentless—biting through bug spray, layers of clothes, a smoky fire, and a tent—that we cut our 4-day loop in half.

Next time I visit, I’ll avoid peak mosquito season. The Great Lakes offer a lifetime’s worth of hiking opportunities: I have my eye on the Superior Hiking Trail, a 499-kilometer-long, 2- to 4-week backpacking trip along the northwest shore of Lake Superior in Minnesota. Isle Royale, a large island in Lake Superior, “offers arguably the best backpacking in the Midwest,” Stein said.

A smoky fire did not deter the hordes of summertime mosquitoes that plagued our backpacking trip on the south shore of Lake Superior. Credit: Mary Caperton Morton

More Water, More Problems

The Great Lakes have been a nexus of migration, transportation, fishing, and trade for thousands of years, with a series of lakes, rivers, and waterways connecting the upper Midwest to the Atlantic Ocean. Records started in 1918 show lake levels fluctuating seasonally, with the annual water budget controlled by inputs from rivers and outputs to the Atlantic Ocean and evaporation.

In 2014, after years of drought and higher temperatures triggered increased evaporation, water levels in the Great Lakes reached all-time lows. “For a long time, the dominant climate change narrative was that lake levels were going to drop drastically,” said Richard Rood, a climate scientist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. “That narrative ended abruptly in 2015,” when lake levels started rising because of heavy rainfall and flooding across the Midwest.

By 2019, lake levels had drastically reversed course, exceeding their highest recorded levels. High water in the Great Lakes leads to shoreline flooding and erosion, which in turn threaten homes, industrial buildings, and port infrastructure.

“Now the narrative is that we will need to be able to cope with both highs and lows [in lake levels],” with those extremes persisting for longer time periods, perhaps several seasons in a row, Rood said.

Higher influxes of water into the Great Lakes also bring more pollutants, including nitrogen and phosphorus from agricultural runoff and Escherichia coli bacteria from overworked water treatment systems. Algae blooms and toxic water quality issues have increased.

The sheer size of the individual Great Lakes means that pollutants can stay in the system for a long time: A water droplet or molecule of pollutant will reside in Lake Superior for as long as 191 years, Lake Michigan for 99 years, and Lake Huron for 22 years, whereas the smaller Lakes Ontario and Erie have residence times of 6 and 2.6 years, respectively.

“Smaller lakes with shorter residence times can respond more quickly to changes than bigger lakes,” said Dale Robertson, a research hydrologist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Middleton, Wis. That means there’s hope for Lake Erie, where toxic algal blooms feeding off nutrients delivered by the Maumee River create water quality issues each summer. But larger lakes, like larger boats, cannot change course as quickly. It may take decades before we know how the larger lakes will respond to climatic changes, Robertson said.

Currently, around 35 million people rely on the Great Lakes for drinking water, and an additional 56 billion gallons are extracted each day for municipal, agricultural, and industrial use.

Those staggering numbers are likely to increase, Rood said, as people displaced from other regions of the country by climate-related impacts seek refuge in the Great Lakes Megalopolis.

“Compared to some places, like south Florida, the Great Lakes are going to look like a climate winner,” Rood said. “We need to be prepared for how those migrations will change our communities and water usage in the coming decades.”

Holland Beach, Mich., on Lake Michigan is one of many sandy swimming beaches around the Great Lakes. Credit: Mary Caperton Morton

Long Live the Great Lakes

The long-term trajectory of large freshwater lakes often depends on their outlet: Endorheic or terminal lakes such as the Great Salt Lake have no exit to the ocean, and the majority of their water balance is lost through evaporation, making them saltier over time.

The Great Lakes are not an endorheic basin; the outlet that connects them to the Atlantic Ocean has a 535-million-year-old history that’s unlikely to peter out anytime soon. The Saint Lawrence Seaway, along with the basins that hold Lakes Erie and Ontario, sits inside the Saint Lawrence Rift, a 1,000-kilometer-long scar that dates back to the opening of the Iapetus Ocean between the paleocontinents of Laurentia, Baltica, and Avalonia.

Unlike the long dead and buried Midcontinent Rift System, the Saint Lawrence Rift System is still seismically active, capable of generating earthquakes over magnitude 5. As long as water flows into the Great Lakes Basin and out through the Saint Lawrence Seaway, the Great Lakes are likely to retain their status as the world’s largest—and hopefully freshest—lakes for eons to come.

—Mary Caperton Morton (@theblondecoyote), Science Writer

Living in Geologic Time is a series of personal accounts that highlight the past, present, and future of famous landmarks on geologic timescales.

By Mary Caperton Morton 18 May 2020

(source: Eos)

#great lakes #history #environment #story

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wipbigbang · 4 years

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2020 Schedule + FAQ

Schedule

All times are by 8:59pm CST. Convert time zones.

We also have a Google calendar you can subscribe to with the schedule.

Sign-ups Begin- April 30th Sign-ups Close- May 9th Check In #1- May 16th Check In #2- May 30th Snippets Due- June 13th Art Claims Begin- June 17th Check In #3- June 27th Check In #4- July 11th Rough Drafts Due- July 25th Posting Claims Begin- July 29th Check In #5- August 1st Posting Claims Ends- August 8th Final Drafts/Art Due- August 15th Posting Starts- August 15th

FAQ

What is the WIP Big Bang? Good question! This is a Big Bang with one goal in mind: to clean out your drafts folder. These are stories that were unfinished for whatever reason, that authors returned to and completed, and the art that goes with them! Do I need a Livejournal/Dreamwidth/AO3/etc. account to participate? No! You don’t have to have an account on anything to participate, though you will need to have somewhere to post your finished work. Having one or more accounts will help for you to follow what is going on with the bang (we crosspost to Livejournal, Dreamwidth, Tumblr, and Twitter at the moment), but they are not required to participate. You can always leave comments anonymously or with an opensource ID. Will I get emails about the bang? We do send out some emails, mostly for snippets and art claims and to ensure communication between authors and artists, but please do NOT rely on getting an email to remind you of due dates. We currently do not keep an updated email list of participants, so we only send individual emails as needed rather than mass emails. However, email is the fastest way to communicate with the mods. If you have any questions or are having trouble communicating with your artist/author, please do email us! We will do our best to respond quickly. Is there a minimum word count? 7,500 words, but the sky's the limit, right? What do you mean by minimum word count to enter? This is a WIP Big Bang, therefore we ask you to have at least 500 words of your story drafted when you enter. It's okay if you have posted a few chapters of your fic already (you never know when the muse deserts you, after all), we just require you to refrain from posting more until posting begins here. Is there anything not allowed? As long as you wrote it and you want to finish it, you're welcome to participate. Just bear in mind that original work is only allowed on AO3 if it has a fannish connection and might make it hard for artists to work with. But we'll make a dedicated post for that if there will be any. What are 'Check Ins’? These are a way for us to see what you've been up to and for you to make sure you're still on track. It will give you a little nudge/reminder if you need it, but they are not compulsory. What are the snippets requirements? In order to allow the artists to make art for the story they claimed, we require you to supply three snippets from your fic, between 500 – 1500 words each. The snippets will be sent to the artist after they have claimed your story. They're to help the artist match your story for artwork the best way he or she possibly can. It’s helpful to choose scenes or parts of scenes that you feel best represent your fic, but don’t feel like they have to be perfect to be submitted. Along with the snippets, we will send your artist the basic fic info and your email, so the two of you can collaborate more if you would both like. What are the rough drafts requirements? For the rough drafts, stories should be at least 80% complete. You will not have to turn them in to us, just assure us that you are at that point. Anything less is at the discretion of the mods and those authors should speak to one of the mods asap. What is, and do I need, a beta? A beta is basically a person who goes over your work to make sure that there are no spelling/grammatical errors and they can even be of assistance in helping you with story lines, etc. It is highly recommended that a beta looks over your work before posting. Where can I post my fic/art? Stories and art can be posted to your own personal journal, tumblr, ff-net, AO3, or wherever you like. For those of you with AO3 accounts, we will set up a collection that will go live on the day of the posting. Also, we've enabled moderated posting to the comm (Livejournal and Dreamwidth) for members. We will post a template for posting artwork and stories to the comm closer to the posting date. If you don’t currently have an AO3 account but would like one, you can contact the mods for an invitation code. You can also add yourself to the AO3 Invites Request queue. How do I know when to post? Posting will be tiered; you'll each get your own posting date that you and your artist will decide on together. There will probably be three fics, plus art, posting per day between August 15th and September 30th. The post with date claims will go up on July 29th and you'll have to choose your date by August 8th. If you want to post your story in chapters on AO3 or your own blog (or wherever you usually post), you may do so starting August 8th. However, posting has to be finished by your chosen posting date to the comm. One of the things we're hoping to do with the posted dates is to give everybody on the comm a little bragging time in the spotlight. You know, "this story was incomplete for this long, but I finished this sucker." If you don't have time to post on your chosen posting date, you can queue up a post ahead of time and we can post it on the date you picked. Either way works for us. Art will be due on the chosen posting date to the comm. Is there a minimum/maximum requirement for my art? There is no strict minimum, but we do ask artists to remember that the authors are writing a minimum of 7,500 words and your artwork should reflect that. You can do anything you like, including banners, wallpapers, icons, mixes, vids, gif sets, picspams, etc. Suggested guidelines for art are 500x500px (or equivalent of smaller pieces like banner + spacers, cover + icons, etc.) for traditional art, digital art, and manips; 2 minutes for vids; 10 songs + cover art for mixes; and 6 images for gif sets and picspams. We also ask that when you are in contact with the author, you work with them to see if there is anything specific they would like (i.e. a wallpaper, book cover, etc.). The art is your work, but having ideas doesn't hurt! What are 'art claims'? The claims are when anonymous summaries of the story go up for artists to choose from. It is based on a 'first come, first served' basis and artists may choose up to three potential stories (in case their first choice is unavailable). If there are more stories than artists, there will be a second round of claims wherein artists may choose a second story to work with. And on until all stories are claimed for art. If a fic up for claiming is rated explicit (R, NC-17, etc.), please only claim the story if you are over 18 years of age. Some authors may be uncomfortable working with underage artists on explicit works. We do not verify ages in any way for the bang, so this is solely on the honor system. Can I get an extension? Community extensions may be given in the event that the majority of the authors/artists need one. They may also be given individually under certain circumstances, but this must be discussed with the mods and will only be a short extension for posting. If you are certain that you won’t be able to finish your story in time, please let us know by June 13th. What do I do if I have problems or concerns about my author/artist? Sometimes authors and artists do not get along and this may cause problems with working together. If this happens to be the case with you, please email the mods and we will try to do what we can so that everyone has a chance to have fun at WIP Big Bang! If you have not heard from your author/artist in some time after trying to contact them, you can reach out to us via email and we will try to get in touch with them for you. Can I drop out? We have high hopes that everybody who signs up can actually finish the round and share in the joy of the reveal with us, but real life can unfortunately get in the way and we completely understand! If you feel like you just cannot finish in time and no amount of assistance from us can help you, just let us know by June 13th (if at all possible). Is it possible to be banned? We do have a banned users list. We hope to use this to encourage participants who are having issues to communicate with the mods. We want to help you! The way the ban works is that participants, either authors and artists, will be banned for dropping out without notifying a mod. This means that anyone who has not posted or talked to a mod by the time the posting period ends will be banned. Dropping out is not in and of itself a banning offense, so please do not panic if you have to drop out! We understand that there are many reasons you may need to drop, and we want to work with you. Bans will last one round or until the issue is resolved, whichever comes first. To resolve a ban, authors will have to finish and post the story they signed up with and artists will have to finish and post the art for the story they claimed. Three bans will result in a permanent ban from the bang. I have a question/concern that’s not mentioned here. If you need help, you can always contact a mod and we will do our best to make sure that you get your story/art finished. The best and fastest method of contact is through our email, [email protected].

#WIPBigBang #WIP Big Bang #schedule #FAQ #2020 #mod post

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fierceawakening · 4 years

Note

⚡️ Per the DSM, ASPD requires fulfilling at least one of the seven sub-features, which can include a history of crime, but doesn't require it. Some of the other Criterion A sub-features are pretty alarming behavior that constitute a safety hazard, but others, like "impulsive behavior" and "a pattern of irresponsibility" are extremely open to interpretation, and can cover everything from seriously damaging behavior to "I will label these ordinary flaws in the most stigmatizing way possible."

oh my gosh! an actual answer that isn’t just “frce u meen”

THANK YOU

anyway, this is the list:

A. A pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others, occurring since age 15 years, as indicated by three (or more) of the following: 1. Failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors, as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest. 2. Deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases or conning others for personal profit or pleasure. 3. Impulsivity or failure to plan ahead. 4. Irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults. 5. Reckless disregard for safety of self or others. 6. Consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations. 7. Lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated or stolen from another. B. The individual is at least age 18 years. C. There is evidence of conduct disorder with onset before age 15 years. D. The occurrence of antisocial behavior is not exclusively during the course of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.

So the idea you’re proposing, from what I gather, is “what if the person has the most innocuous three of these criteria though”

And I mean, it’s a judgment call which three those are, but here are the ones I personally find Not Scary and what we’d get:

A pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others, occurring since age 15 years, as indicated by:

Impulsivity or failure to plan ahead. (people can do bad things on whim, and a lot of us do, but we also can do plenty of neutral or good things on whim!)

Failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors, as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest. (For example, if we think using drugs or doing sex work shouldn’t be illegal at all, then there’s a lot that could go here that we actually don’t mind. My suspicion is that this is meant to cover things most of us think are rightly illegal, not just things we argue about in PHIL 102, but teeeeechnically... okay.)

And then... okay let’s try to find a third... hmm

Deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases or conning others for personal profit or pleasure.

Well, I mean, all of us lie sometimes, so “repeated lying” could be any human... but... hmm, aliases? I mean I guess you could argue people have, like... pen names or user names, but those aren’t really ALIASES... er... conning others? no, that’s always bad... for personal profit it’s already shitty (EAT THE RICH right?) but for pleasure? seems dickish, if not maybe even sadistic. This seems bad.

Okay, next?

Irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults.

Well, aggressiveness is a bad thing to hang stuff on. A lot of mental illnesses make people aggressive without necessarily making them violent! Hell,. my therapist calls me “high aggression” and all I do is Internet fights, sparring, BDSM, and writing blood-filled nonsense in my stor... uh... wait... repeated fights? Hmm, I mean, I guess there could be situations where someone is in a violent situation and has to repeatedly defend thems... wait assaults? Huh. This is starting to sound like someone who means it. This seems bad.

Reckless disregard for safety of self or others.

I know some really daredevil people. One of my play partners some years back had seriously injured his back diving around a rocky waterfall, burned off a swath of his chest hair and the skin underneath trying fire play irresponsibly, and done a whole litany of odd risky things that had my eyebrows traveling to the dark side of my head. But he seemed happy. You do you, boo.

“...or others.”

Wait, no, no, as soon as you stick other people in there that seems bad.

Consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations.

Fuck capitalism, right? Not everyone can work! Except wait, if somebody hired you that means you SAID you could, and you’re not reliable for others in that workplace. What are you doing to help them or ensure they’re not covering for you? If nothing, this seems bad.

Same issue with “not honor financial obligations.” If you’re just poor that’s fine, but if, again, you’re going around promising you will or can pay, inducing other people to rely on that money you’re not going to give them, this seems bad.

Lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated or stolen from another.

Okay, I gotta admit, this one creeps me out so maybe I’m misanalyzing it due to EMOTION.

But if you hurt me and you don’t mind it, I mean, shame on you for taking advantage of me, but also, shame on me for expecting you to feel bad about things you don’t feel bad about?

So it seems like I should avoid this person, probably.

But even supposing some weird mental gymnastics like “someone who doesn’t mind having hurt you can still have valid reasons to apologize” I still think this one falls apart, because

“being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from”

That’s not just “I don’t tend to have Big Feelz when I upset my friends but I still fix things.” That’s “I don’t care about it” and/or “I explain it away.” This seems bad.

So three of these criteria, even the three most innocuous, lands me at “Oh God that’s IFFY!” And that’s if I’m being REALLY, REALLY SOLICITOUS.

So it seems to me that what I said, “you probably shouldn’t become close with sociopaths unless you’re trained in dealing with them,” is... reasonable. Even if it’s not an obvious conclusion, it still strikes me as a defensible one.

Especially given “A pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others.” Like... someone’s been demonstrating willingness to DISREGARD AND VIOLATE MY RIGHTS since AGE FIFTEEN and I’m mean if I avoid them? The hell?

By that logic don’t we all owe a BFF bracelet to like, Lindsey Graham? He’s (arguably) only been doing it since it became cool.

Which is why I’m so baffled.

I mean, I know that interacting with the psychiatric system is draining, and I feel bad for people who tend not to be able to find social circles outside the system. But I don’t understand what’s supposed to stem from that exactly. When I say “no one is obligated to hang out with someone they’re suspicious of” people say “no one said that.” So I’m left ????ing.

#the empathy discussion #Anonymous

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chooserofslain · 5 years

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*: ·ﾟ✧ ⚔ 𝙸'𝙳 𝙼𝙰𝙺𝙴 𝙰 𝙻𝙾𝚃 𝙾𝙵 𝙲𝙷𝙰𝙽𝙶𝙴𝚂 𝙰𝚁𝙾𝚄𝙽𝙳 𝙷𝙴𝚁𝙴 / The Governance of New Asgard

I have been meaning to write this out since ‘ Endgame ’ came out & these are some general thoughts / headcanons about how Valkyrie decides to rule New Asgard. These headcanons are pretty flexible & will probably change over time -- & I will make an update when / if they do. & of course we’ll see what happens when Thor : Love & Thunder comes out because ... FINGERS CROSSED we get all the details about how New Asgard is governed & I will be totally validated in all ways!

If you are curious about anything please drop me an ask !

1. Once Thor leaves to join with the Guardian’s, Valkyrie calls a town meeting - if not right at that moment very early the next morning. She makes the announcement to all of Asgard & -- while she wants to respect Thor’s choice & it is his crown to give ... she does all her people the chance to VOTE on this change. It is a resounding ‘ yes ’ -- but in the name of transparency, the Valkyrie vows to have another vote in nine months time to check in on her leadership. If they believe someone else is more worthy -- she will turn over the honor.

2. In the same meeting, the new King of Asgard asks that the people elect a Ruling Council, of FIVE members from the community. Two should be elders, one should be of middle age & the final member a young Asgardian, so all views are represented. The elections happen approximately three weeks later & citizens may elect themselves or someone else. Anyone over the Asgardian age of 18 can vote using a write in ballot system. Elections continue until a consensus is made which in its first iteration - does not take any more than a day. Votes are counted by a trusted panel of three elders. The new Ruling Council will meet with the King every three days ( or more if necessary ) for a meeting, on that same day there is OPEN COURT - where citizens of New Asgard might bring problems, concerns or questions to the King & council. The Council also rules for nine months & then there is a vote of confidence. Members can remain on the council for terms no longer than three years & may run again after three years have passed since their last tenure.

3. After the initial nine month trial period, the King may rule for three continuous years before there is another vote of confidence. Unless there is an emergency or scandal, where the King may be disposed. The Ruling Council must be put up for a vote of confidence every year and a half, if no one wishes to oppose the current members a vote can be skipped.

4. There is no coronation for the King of New Asgard, instead after the second & final vote after the initial nine months there is a FEAST that lasts three days. & while she resists the idea, at the end of the three days, the people do present the King with a crown, made of melted down gold trinkets & jewelry salvaged from what was left of Asgard’s ore. It is a simple circlet with a piece of the root of Yggdrasil that once sat in Asgard in its center instead of a stone. The King wears this only on sacred days or when a vote is called -- or on another special occasion.

5. On days of Open Court, the King & Council meet openly in the temple, under the newly planted World Tree. A simple carved chair sits under this tree, where the King sits to hear the concerns or complaints of her people. It is without ornament but instead carved with sacred runes & patterns. When considering a case brought before her, the King often relies on her council to help with the final judgement. FAIRNESS is valued above all else in New Asgard & if claimant feels a decision is unfair they may appeal the decision.

6. The King of New Asgard does not enjoy many perks -- & this is PURPOSEFUL. There is no palace ( she lives in a simply renovated cabin a top a hill, that is not much different than those of her people. The only difference is that her cabin does include a separate room which she uses as an office & armory ) & she works on a rotation of tasks ( fishing, cleaning, building repair, training & farming ) just like any other citizen of New Asgard. The only difference being - she does skip days to attend council meetings & open court, along with any travel she may need to take into the wider world. But often still haul in fishing nets or help till a field even with these other duties.

7. While New Asgard is open to ALL, currently -- voting & other privileges is currently restricted to only Asgardian refugees or - ( although this has yet to happen ) if a Midgardian or other is married to a naturalized Asgardian. Once they have been married, the non-Asgardian might then participate in the same way. If anyone wishes to live in the village they must ask leave of the King & Council to be given a living space, if permission is granted they will also get a food & beer ration, clothing & a work rotation. Eventually citizens of New Asgard will have specific citizenship but - that needs to be further figured out with the country of Norway, who will have to gift the land to the Asgardians.

#「 ᴏᴜᴛ ᴏғ ᴠᴀʟʜᴀʟʟᴀ ⚔ ooc 」#( Headcanon. )#「 Fᴏʀ ᴘᴇᴀᴄᴇ ᴀɴᴅ ᴛʀᴜsᴛ ᴄᴀɴ ᴡɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴀʏ ⚔ king of new asgard / post endgame /mcu based 」#( omg i have so many thoughts )#( im two seconds away from drawing out a map of new asgard whoOPs )#( i probably will once i can see it from the scenes in endgame .... so )#( DON'T JUDGE ME I LOV THIS AND MY TRASH KING A LOT OK )#( yes yes i have been thinking about this for thREE MONTHS ITS FINE )#( feels good to have written it out ! )

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rowxngreen · 5 years

Text

18 years old from tucker, atlanta and has lived in atlanta for 18 years . currently working as a computer repair person/staff at his family’s store in marietta [ kit , 25 , mst ] | @atlanta-rpg

tw: self harm, depression, sexual assault, substance use

Age: 18

Gender: Transmasculine, he/him

[Boxcar - Jawbreakers] - “Uhhh, shit, I guess if I had to pick a theme song it’d be Boxcar. I like the whole vibe of it, like, calling out punk purists. Punk should have no room for purism. If you say you’re a punk and you’re not a nazi, cause in the words of Dead Kennedys ‘nazi punks fuck off,’ you’re welcome. That’s what the whole point of punk was, dude. It’s the ultimate counter culture movement ‘cause it welcomes fucking everyone unlike mainstream culture.”

D.O.B: February 14, 2001

“Why the name Rowan?”

“So, like, originally I was named Hannah. Which is totally a bullshit name and when I met my forever family I decided to give myself a new name and I wanted it to be all nature-y because they all had nature names. They like helped me look and I found Rowan and read this folklore about how a rowan tree was where the devil hanged his mother and I knew right then. That was my name.”

Ethnicity: Half white, half mestizo

Enneagram: 8

Relationship Status: single - “Single and definitely not ready to mingle. If it happens it happens but I sure as hell ain’t seeking it out and I don’t think it’s gonna happen anyways so it don’t fucking matter.”

Sexual Orientation: Unsure “Yeah, I don’t really wanna think about sexy shit. I was raped as a kid, I’m not especially into remembering it. And all this sexual orientation shit makes me remember it.”

Appearance:

Height: 5’0

Build: Smaller than he looks from far away. He’s actually really tiny. And he hates it.

If he wasn’t so intimidating he could be cute. With a small stature, high cheekbones, a cocky swagger and big brown eyes he is definitely attractive. But the scowl that takes over his features whenever he’s around someone he doesn’t trust and the aggression that seems to exude from every pore disguises that attractiveness pretty well.

Ripped flannels paired with crop tops and t-shirts layered with fishnets are among Rowan’s signature looks. There’s something decidedly sexual about how he dresses but he doesn’t seem to register that. He just wears what he likes and hopes will scare people. He displays his self harm scars like a badge of honor – or insanity. They seem to warn: I AM UNSTABLE, DON’T FUCKING TALK TO ME.

Look at Rowan the wrong way and at the very least he’ll gnash his teeth at you. At the most he’ll pull a knife on you and threaten to gouge out your eyes if you ever look at him again. He claims he tried to once but that’s unlikely. He would be in jail if that was the case. …right? Better not to risk it.

History:

Rowan was born to a teenage mother in an abusive household.

When Melissa Webber got pregnant at only age 15 she knew she would be in trouble. Her father, Frank, wouldn’t approve. Melissa kept it from the man as long as she could. Eventually, of course, he found out. Frank was livid. Melissa was banned from leaving their little trailer, she was banned from seeing her friends, and she was even banned from seeing her boyfriend of just over a year and the father of her baby. She was to be homeschooled for the rest of her high school career so, in the words of Frank, she could no longer “be a slut.”

Her baby was born on Valentine’s Day in a house with no love left. Melissa’s mother had died when Melissa was only 11, and it often felt like she took any warmth and care that had been lingering in the corners of rooms, hidden among the shadows with her. How funny then that Rowan, initially named Hannah Jane, was born on Valentine’s day.

Frank’s anger and the isolation he forced on Melissa eventually pushed the girl to run away. Rowan was only 6 months old. She initially swore she would be back for her baby when she had a safe place to stay. She never came back. Before Melissa left, Rowan had been largely ignored by Frank. Now, however, he became the scapegoat. Melissa hadn’t left because she was isolated from the world. Nor, apparently, had she left because of the intense abuse she faced. Instead, according to Frank, she had left because the baby had ruined her life.

Frank turned this rage on the baby. Rowan’s earliest memories involve him being tied onto a tiny children’s chair for hours because Frank didn’t want him to make a mess in the house; Frank coming into the bedroom at night to ‘visit’ with him in a way that, to this day, has left Rowan extremely anxious about sex and sex repulsed; Frank holding his hand against a hot burner to 'teach [him] a lesson’ (Rowan was never told what the lesson was); having his face pushed under water in the bath to stop him from crying; and other acts that could only be described as torture. Rowan lead an extremely isolated life for the first several years of his life. He was homeschooled, like his mother, and besides Frank and a handful of Frank’s friends he was largely alone. Most of his socialization came from the television. Frank justified this by saying school was how Melissa got pregnant so he wouldn’t “make the mistake of sending another one there to be a slut.” Instead rowan was kept inside the house during school hours.

It had been noted that Frank was capable of abuse and neglect when Melissa was little (she had spent several months in the system when she’d come to school with visible bruises as a child), however, for the first 7.5 years of Rowan’s life, overworked and under-competent social workers consistently overlooked the abuse in the Webber household. Eventually one of the social workers noticed and cared enough to go through the proper procedures to get Rowan out of that living situation. She reported it to her supervisor and a full scale investigation was launched. The abuse was soon discovered through talking to and examining Rowan and Rowan was removed from the situation. For the first time in his life, he was safe – though Rowan did not know what ‘safe’ meant or felt like yet.

Rowan was given a temporary placement in the Green household, because, at the time, the Greens were acting as an emergency house for children who had just been taken away from their parents. He was only supposed to be with them a week but the Green adults fell in love with the skittish, self reliant child they had taken in. They asked for him to stay with them and began the process of adopting him soon after. It took a long time for Rowan to realize he was safe and he was loved. For months he put up with people touching him because he was afraid that if he spoke out he would face some sort of punishment. For months he distrusted everyone in the Green household despite how much they loved him. He was always wary, always waiting for the other shoe to drop and for him to be hurt again. He was placed into therapy when he was young and has gone off and on since.

The Greens are a stereotypical homeschool family. Rowan was kid number 11, they own their own business and they bake their own bread. Mr. Green is a carpenter and Mrs. Green runs the little gift shop + bakery in Marietta. There were so many siblings that the older ones had to help care for the little ones when the younger ones were little. To this day the entire family is very close knit and the older siblings constantly rely on the younger ones to watch their children.

The Greens practice a form of schooling called unschooling. It is a child-led education where children get to decide what they study and when. Additionally, they’re what’s called whole-life unschoolers and the green parents take a stance on parenting where they don’t give their children orders. They talk to them and treat them as if they are capable of making their own choices and decisions, except when it is something that puts their health at risk.

Rowan thrives with that educational setting. He learned to read so he could use his brother’s computer, he learned math while cooking and found it fascinating so he learned it more in depth, he learned how to build robots and how to break into the coding of popular websites well enough that he even figured out how to monetize it when he was 12 (he tests websites for weaknesses and when he finds them he points it out and gets paid to do so). He learned how to play keyboard and guitar and began recording and publishing his music on Soundcloud and Youtube.

Within a few months of living with his new family, his new dad built him a beautiful, fully enclosed, treehouse in the large tree in their backyard. Rowan loved it so much he lived in it for almost a year only coming in to use the bathroom or on the most sweltering days when his family insisted he stay cool inside. He took his baths in the kiddie pool since he lived “outside in [his] own house now.”

Around this time he got a pirate costume and a knight costume. He changed his name to Rowan and began to trade off between wearing those two costumes. When he was in the knight costume he insisted on being called Brave Sir Rowan. When he was a pirate he insisted he was Cap’n Ro.

For a period of Rowan’s life you wouldn’t know he went through the abuse he went through. He seemed happy, healthy, well adjusted.

And then puberty hit.

With puberty came deep gender dysphoria. Suddenly his body was changing in ways he hated. He was developing curves and stopped growing. All the mental illness his family thought they had under control resurfaced along with a large new helping of self-loathing triggered by dysphoria.

Rowan began to self harm. It started small. He would lie in bed and fantasize about cutting off the parts of him that didn’t look right when he saw himself in the mirror. One night, he crawled out of bed and grabbed a kitchen knife and tried cutting his breasts just to see if it was possible. The scratch was so small it didn’t bleed. But, relief flooded through him. He was able to breathe and the crushing weight of dread had let up just a bit. He stopped crying and crawled back into bed and slept well for the first time in weeks.

Whenever he was upset he began to run to the sharp sting of a blade. He stole a pocket knife and a pack of razors and hid them in his treehouse. His family discovered the harm almost a year after he started. By then the little scratches had turned into proper injuries. He was immediately sent back to therapy and was diagnosed with gender dysphoria soon after.

Rowan socially transitioned. It helped a little bit but pandora’s box was open. His brain had tasted self destruction and it was hooked.

The last several years have been a slow but steady spiral downwards. He made friends with other sad, breaking kids and they broke together. They began to experiment with alcohol and substance use young, Rowan would swear he’s fine but whenever you put alcohol in his hands he binge drinks to get as drunk as possible as quickly as possible. Whenever there’s a chance for him to get high off something new he takes it, barring only the most stigmatized of drugs.

Somewhere during this spiral he realized the easiest way to make people leave him alone was to scare them. So he began dressing in ways he thought would scare them and carrying himself like at any moment he could snap.

Personality:

“Sometimes I wonder what his life could have been if he had come to us as a baby and if we had known about his gender. You should have seen him when he was little. He was such a cute kid and was so passionate about, well, everything. And he’s so smart it’s intimidating. But then he hit puberty and we all lost what little stability he had. Last time I talked to mom, I heard he set a trashcan in the park on fire while he was drunk or high or both and it breaks my heart because I know he’s a good kid underneath it all. He’s just a good kid who’s really struggling right now. I hate it because I can’t even trust him to be alone with my kids anymore. What if that comes out around them and he hurts my crew?” – Clay Green, older brother.

“Rowan likes to act like he’s tough shit but he’s not. He can’t sleep unless he has his favorite stuffed animal with him and once I saw him crying over the sounds sloths make. The tough guy act is just that. An act. I mean, look at his cat. He only has the thing because he saw it was scared and got gentle with it. And now he’s the only person that cat tolerates and he has it perched in his tree house half the time so you can’t even go up there if you’re not him. Which, like, not cool when your little brother is practically sprinting to a drug addicted future and you really should be making sure he doesn’t have the worst of it in your parents house.” – Rosemary Green, older sister.

At first interaction it’s easy to think Rowan is all rough and ready to fight. And that’s exactly what he wants you to think. His fighter persona is designed to scare anyone who would hurt him away. Give him some time and a little patience and it becomes obvious that Rowan is much more complex than that. Rowan is confusing. There are so many elements to him that it’s hard for any one person to get a full picture of him.

There’s his brash fighter side – the part of him that stabbed a child for being mean to his sister once. There’s the sweet side of him that takes lost animals and lost people under his wing and cares for them when they can’t seem to care for themselves.

There’s the engineer part of him that builds useless robots constantly just because he’s bored. There’s the witch part of him that has an altar in his bedroom and that celebrates every pagan holiday he knows about so none of the gods feel left out.

There’s still a childlike part of him that hangs out in the tree fort his dad made him as a kid and still holds conversations between his stuffed animals. There’s the teenage part of him that’s looking for any substance to numb the pain of becoming an adult coupled with the pain of his past.

There’s the creative part of him that comes up with bizarre ideas for robots, off the wall pranks (like leaving loaves of homemade bread all over someone’s living space) and interprets almost every song he likes into his own version. And then there’s the part of him that named his cat “Cat.”

Rowan is nothing if not complicated and confusing. He doesn’t mind that though. He’s used to being the smartest person in any room he’s in but he doesn’t make it a big deal. He just watches everyone else and works on mentally figuring out how to fix the coding of whatever website he’s working on at the moment.

He doesn’t love easily but when he loves he loves deeply and unconditionally. If you find yourself lucky enough to be one of Rowan’s chosen few know you will have him on your side for life. He’s ride or die with everyone he cares about.

Hobbies:

Robotics

Singing (he actually has a really good voice)

Collecting stuffed animals

Programming

Baking (he works at a bakery but he also just enjoys it)

Sloths. They’re his favorite thing in this world and he is almost obsessive in his quest to see sloths, collect sloth mementos, and learn sloth facts.

Trivia:

Rowan has a car named Bloody Mary. It’s an old fashioned VW Beetle he spray painted black and red. He got a beetle because he “wanted to inspire violence in children.”

He’s really good with anything that uses his hands. Baking, playing guitar, building robots, etc. If it’s a hands-on, kinesthetic task Rowan excels at it.

He is terrified of butterflies and giraffes.

He collects stuffed animals so intensely that it can be hard to walk in his bedroom because there are so many stuffed animals lying around. He sleeps with a build-a-bear every night who he’s named Floyd and a stuffed animal of the Peanuts character Woodstock (who he has named Oscar).

Health:

Rowan downplays how he’s feeling most of the time. The physical abuse and neglect he faced as a child left him with chronic pain. He doesn’t mention it very often. He doesn’t want to admit to any weaknesses. If you watch him closely enough you’ll notice him rubbing his joints or squirming in his seat. Those are his biggest tells with his pain.

At 7 he was diagnosed with dyslexia and he still struggles to read and code (coding is worth the struggle, reading is not). At 13 he was diagnosed with gender dysphoria. Besides changing his pronouns he doesn’t seem too interested in transitioning (he’ll tell you he doesn’t see a point but in reality he’s afraid of the medical procedures involved). At 15 he was diagnosed with mood disorder not otherwise specified. He was given medication that he promptly threw out but he still attends weekly therapy sessions to try and help.

He doesn’t think it’s doing anything but sometimes it’s just easier to go along with the things expected of you.

Connections:

Bandmates: Rowan can either be the lead singer, guitar or bass/keyboards but the band should definitely be punk/post-punk influenced. I’m super broad within that. Want a sound closer to Pale Waves? Cool, sounds good. You into The Smiths and want that dance depression? kk, you got it. you into old school punk and want melvins vibe? coolcoolcool, love to live hard dude

Friends: Rowan might be a little shit but he’s a little shit who has a handful of friends. Because he’s the youngest sibling in his household, he gets along with older people really well.

Mentors: This lost teen needs people to look up to. It takes a lot to break through to him but he needs someone who’ll try.

Adversaries: These are people who rowan Does Not get along with. This can be for personality reasons or just simply because they try to keep him out of trouble and he wants very much to be in trouble.

Biological Dad: I love the idea of Rowan’s dad watching from the sidelines and watching Rowan grow up but not being able to legally reach out until Rowan is an adult. NOTE: Rowan’s dad needs to be hispanic. Rowan himself is half hispanic and it’s not on his mom’s side bc I wasn’t about to make the brown people abusive and add to that stigma.

Reluctant Romance: Rowan doesn’t want to date. He really doesn’t. BUT! I love the idea of him falling for someone and someone falling for him. I’m even down for an uncomfortable age difference so long as that’s acknowledged in plot. ;)

#atgaintro #atgaooc

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