#i’m a raw dog heathen

[ghost-proofbaby]

Ngl i completely missed that he was actually looking for condoms in the drawer i totally thought he went in raw

you’re not alone haha it was subtle 🖤

[nightcolorz]

here for the armand writing tips 🙏🏽

I love u sm anon ur so iconic for this bless u 🙌🙌 I love that u saw me publicly slut shaming @butchybats + extending an invite for him to hmu so that I can info dump about armand and u were like omg I can not pass up this opportunity. Ur so real and this made my day. My bad if this is unhelpful or incoherent lmaoo I am just raw dogging this educational experience. For me writing armand has always come very naturally so this is the first time I’m thinking about this in a way I could explain to other ppl. I hope u get smth out of whatever tangent I’m about to embark on and I sincerely thank u bcus I love this and I love talking about army u r indulging tf out of me in the absolute best way. Also quick disclaimer I am going off of book armand, so tho this may be helpful to show fans (esp cuz show armand doesn’t rlly have an established personality yet) it may not specifically apply. Anyways

I understand why Armand would feel like a difficult character to write bcus part of his whole deal is that he is very strange and unknowable. No one knows what Armand’s deal is, nor does he, so how r u as the writer meant to figure that shit out. He is like a void of a person basically (affectionate). He is barely capable of conscious self reflection, most characters don’t rlly know what to make of him and those that claim to r often wrong. So I get it, feels intimidating. But for me breaking down Armand to his essentials puts it into perspective a bit. 

Armand doesn’t really know how to be a person, he is only a Thing when other people are there to give him something to work off of. So he’s a different character depending on who he is interacting with. Armand with Daniel is very different then Armand with Louis, Armand with Lestat is a whole different beast, etc. He is always playing a sort of role, with Daniel he is the boss slash master vampire commanding the mortal. With Louis he is an ancient with the answers Louis has been looking for. But the performance is often cracked, unveiled whether intentionally or not, especially by those Armand loves, so what is beneath that? Well. Kind of a child. Think of a kid in their dad’s shoes. Now imagine the kid is putting on a very deep voice and standing up all straight and professional. Then he trips, and suddenly he starts crying and screaming and yelling for mommy cuz he hurt his knee. That’s Armand, when u get down to it. Like a scary man in a suit who is secretly a little boy on stilts. But wait! There’s more.

Armand is not only an actor, he is also not a very good actor. He’s like those myths about faes replacing human children, very uncanny valley, not rlly a person. So in any given situation, armand is going to be just a little bit off. Just a little odd, a tad wrong. Think of a scenario (it can be sexual you awful heathen, or it could be like, guy is in the grocery store. Or smth) now think of something that would be a little off putting and strange to do in this situation. Chances r this would be in character for armand. I always think of him as something who doesn’t know what it means to be a person, yet is always trying to learn and understand and to pretend, but never really succeeds.

Armand also has conflicting facets of his identity that come into play in different ways and inform how he interacts with different characters. Amadeo is the beginnings of the person that was never able to completely form and grow. So Amadeo is like the normal bits of Armand, the human teenager who’s playful and funny and empathetic, a bit rude, kind of weird but he means well, likes technology. Gives Lestat a light punch on the shoulder when he ruffles his hair, etc. Amadeo rarely plays into sex for Armand, sex is very clinical for him—he approaches sex like an alien. But Amadeo is still there and when Armand is happy or care free some of the unsettlingly oddness goes away, and he seems sort of like a mortal teenager for a moment. The innocence and the moments of childishness are when Armand is most sincere. Though this is fleeting, and he often behaves cold and distant and inhuman. What I like to remember when I write Armand is that he is not unfeeling, tho he pretends to be. He acts unfeeling but it’s a mask, beneath the mask his unfiltered self is extremely feeling and emotional and sensitive. He’s as much of a cry baby as Lestat, he’s just better at hiding it. 

Andrei is also there, but he is much subtler, and he’s more so the embodied longing in armand that never really goes away. There is a need for answers and for knowledge and for guidance in armand always, and that’s Andrei, searching for his God or his family or his home or his culture, that were taken from him and never adequately replaced. Armand clings to purposes and things and people because he never learned how to fill that void left by the loss Andrei experienced, and then again Amadeo experienced due to Marius and the cult. He is the culmination of so many years of a child’s growth being repeatedly stunted by adults with selfish purposes, a child who keeps getting beaten down or molded into smth different by ppl who want to make him into smth new, until he ends up a creature without a concept of who he is at all. So he’s fractured almost, not rlly with a consistent identity since he was never permitted to grow one. Just a culmination of a bunch of identities he took on throughout the years. Im sure this sounds complicated, but the great thing about being a writer with a character like this is he may be a void, but he is also a canvas. Armand is so multifaceted that u could do sm with him and it wouldn’t be ooc

So in simpler terms, a good rule of thumb when writing armand, is to think of him as a guy who is a ball of extreme feeling and pain and joy and emotion that is being masked by a cold demeanor, that is often slightly off, a little wrong, cuz it’s first untrue. He is always trying to find a purpose to fill the void that he is, and he never rlly does for very long. 

So when it comes to portraying this? Lol uhhhh. There are some many layers of armand that exist and it’s up to you to decide which ones u want to portray in ur scenario. Say for example, ur writing a fic where armand and Lestat argue. You have to evaluate Lestat’s affect on armand, his closeness with him, the context, etc, and decide what parts of armand would slip out. If I was writing a fic like this I would think ok. So Lestat is like a trigger button for armand, they hate each other but they love each other, is a lot of big emotions and passion, and Lestat also reminds armand of the most vulnerable parts of himself that he is trying to keep under wraps. So Lestat and armand arguing? Likely armand is going to be cold and distant, but not for long, bcus quickly Lestat will get under his skin and cause him to revert to unmasked emotion ball screaming crying. How about, uh, Daniel and armand go on a fluffy date devils minion era. I’d write armand as odd, strange even, curious and excited but sort of cold and distant in a confusing way. Little slips of sincere childlike joy and emotion come out but they r brief. 

I hope this is making sense lmao.

It’s much easier when writing armand, esp if it’s smth ur not confident in, to write from someone else’s pov. Armand’s pov is a tough one, even for me. It’s not that his language or sentences r strange, it’s just that the way he thinks of the world and himself is so specific and unique that u gotta think a lot to replicate it. 

Armand, especially pre TVA, is nearly incapable of self reflection. He is so dissociated from his own experiences he sees his memories and life in fragments rather then events leading into each other that inform a larger context and “theme”. For example, in devils minion he explains to Daniel that he couldn’t explain what a time of his life “was like” because he can’t conceptualize concepts like that, tho he could tell Daniel if it rained on a specific date, cuz that is smth concrete to him. he just couldn’t identify what smth is like bcus he doesn’t reflect on his emotions and his experiences in a way that would allow him to make a judgement like that. 

He just goes through life and doesn’t look back. This is a hard pov to write from cuz these r basic capabilities a first person narrator must have for a story to make sense lmfao! Armand couldn’t say, “the day was a bad one bcus this happened and I was sad.” Especially not “this experience affected me this way and now I this this and this.” However, if u want to write from Armand’s pov u can integrate these ideas into it while retaining this part of Armand’s character. 

Tho armand can not self reflect, and his way of thinking and experiencing is a very bare bones simplistic way (think of armand saying “my soul hurt” in TVA narration then not explaining lmfao, that’s the extent of his self awareness and abilities to identify his emotions) u can convey complex ideas  through his simplistic approach. Through context clues, symbolism (armand loves symbolism), and word choice + description, it’s cool and possible to convey armand having a moment etc without using ur first person tools to have him self reflect. For example, if I were to write from Armand’s pov were he is having like, a traumatic flashback, instead of writing “the moment forced me to remember insert traumatic time here and my heart raced as it came back to me suddenly, and I felt like I was back there” or whatever, I’d write “flashes of red appaeared b4 my vision like many stabbing knives, and it felt as if I was engulfed in an ocean of red suddenly, unable to escape the waves, the blood, those voices of many pasts” whatever yada yada. Cuz red armand considers synopsis with pain and trauma (he tends to see it b4 his eyes when he’s in pain synesthesia king) ocean reminds him of dying of starvation in the brothel as a kid (he described it as the only thing he payed attention to as he died, the lapping sounds of the water). Past, etc. bad example I hope u get it 😭

U just gotta rlly think for armand pov lol. So if ur nervy about writing armand anyway I recommend starting or practicing with writing from someone else’s perspective about him. Daniel is a very good character to do this with, bcus his perception of armand is relatively accurate and he is a very bluntly descriptive and self reflective character who understands himself and others very well. Lestat is also very self reflective and his perception of armand is pretty easy to write imo lol. If u just write some shit like “armand was beautifully broken, like a discarded doll in an antique shop, and I wished sadly that he’d allow me to repair him.” Then you’ve got it down pretty well lmfao.

When it comes to more specific less big picture stuff, like how to write armand talking or what does armand fuck like Ryan save me from this hell, I recommend reading his scenes a Shit Ton until it’s rlly burned into ur brain like me. I don’t know if I can adequately explain how armand talks, it’s very blunt—he’s very blunt but simultaneously very flowery. Remember he is a guy who is trying to be distant, and doesn’t rlly understand how being normal works, but he also has a vibrant inner life and a shit ton of emotion waiting to boil over beneath the surface. Yah. Lmfao. 

I’m sorry this was so weird and confusing, I hope it was interesting or helpful lol. I’m so tired lmfao.sorry it turned in to meta 😭 It was hard trying to come up with advice for a prompt so non specific but I had a hella great time and ily for this anon. If anyone wants to ask me more specific questions about writing armand I would be so happy. Xoxoxo love y’all sm loool 

[sillyvisioncorner]

More Heather's Incorrect Quotes

Ram: You're smiling. What happened? Kurt: What? Can't I smile just because I feel like it? Chandler: Jd tripped and fell down the stairs today.

Jd: *sneaking in through their window* Duke: *turning in their chair and flicking the light one* You want to tell me where you've been all night? Jd: I was with Veronica? Veronica: *turning in their chair* Wanna try again?

Veronica: You're violent. McNamara: Yeah but I'm also short and that's adorable.

Jd: Welcome to my very first vlog, in which I try different hair products! Jd: *sprays hairspray in their mouth* Jd: Well, right off the bat I can tell you this one is not very good.

*In a group chat* Veronica: A pegan just flew into my window. Jd: Pegan? McNamara: A what? Chandler: Ah yes, my favourite bird, Pegan. Duke: I thought you said penguin for a second, LMAO! Chandler: Just a normal day with flying penguins crashing into my window. Duke: You have pigeons flying into your window? Can't relate, I have penguins flying into my window. Veronica: I literally just made a typo-

Duke: Not gonna lie, I'm kind of afraid of Chandler... Veronica: As you should be. Duke: No, for real, they're kind of- Veronica: As. You. Should. Be.

McNamara: I just wanna be called cute 21/7. Chandler: Why no 24/7? McNamara: Snack breaks.

Duke: I wanna die. Chandler: We all do, you aren't special!

Veronica, cowering in fear: What do you want from me?! Chandler, standing in front of Veronica: *bites into the whole KitKat bar like a heathen* Veronica, crying: Please...stop...

McNamara: As your best friend— Duke: Veronica is my best friend. McNamara, holding a knife: As your best friend—

Jd: You’re from Ohio, right? Chandler: Okay, first of all, my parents live in Ohio. Chandler: I live in the moment.

Veronica: Jd, is that legal? Jd: When there's no cops around, anything's legal!

Duke: Do you have any idea what you’re doing? Kurt: Why start now?

Jd: Veronica is playing hard to get. Jd: Little do they know, I'm a master at playing hard to get rid of.

Chandler: I’m having salad for dinner! Duke: Chandler: Well, fruit salad. Chandler: Actually, it’s mostly grapes. Duke: Chandler: Okay, it’s all grapes. Chandler: Fermented grapes. Duke: Chandler: Duke: Chandler: It’s wine. Chandler: I’m having wine for dinner.

Duke, texting McNamara: Text me when you’re home safely. McNamara: I’m home dangerously. Duke: Stop it. McNamara: I’m home lethally.

Chandler: The shadow realm? No, I’m sending you to Ohio!

Veronica: Are you reading fan fiction? Duke, reading an article about extremely rare diseases: Wh- No. Veronica: Oh, is it on AO3? Duke: This is CNN.

Duke: Why would anyone want to harm Ram? McNamara: Maybe because they met them?

McNamara: How long do you think it'll take? Chandler: I don’t know, three or four. McNamara: Three or four what? Days? Weeks? Months? Chandler: Yeah, maybe five. McNamara: Five what?!

Duke: I did it! I memorized everything in the book! I'm gonna ace this test! Jd: Ok, Duke, I'll give you one more question before you go. What ended in 1918? Duke: 1917. Jd: ...You're ready.

Duke: Aww, what's your dog's name? Jd: Spartacus. Duke, yelling to McNamara: TRY SPARTACUS! McNamara, on the computer: DIDN'T WORK! Jd: Duke: What's your favorite number?

Veronica, after watching Chandler get shot by someone: You’re dead. You are very dead. When you are a corpse I will hack away at your flesh and eat you raw. Chandler: Veronica, I’m not dead yet. Veronica: Let me have my moment of rage to avenge you. Chandler: I’d prefer it if you didn’t let me die.

Duke: Stressed. Veronica: Depressed. Jd: Possessed. Chandler: Obsessed. McNamara: Impressed. Ram: Chicken breast. Everyone: ...What? Ram: I just wanted to join in.

Chandler: While I'm gone, you're in charge Duke. Duke: Yes! Chandler, whispering to Veronica: You're secretly in charge, but I don't want them to feel bad. Veronica: Obviously.

[smithqjohns]

I just watched Village of the Giants (1965) by Bert I. Gordon at Hollywood Theater, Portland Oregon.

(I wouldn’t say this contains spoilers but it does mention a lot of parts in the film, so avoid if you are already planning to watch and want to go in “freshhhhh”.)

I’ve seen only a few of his films but read a book about him and have watched many clips of his most popular scenes, and I’m a big fan in general. Bert is considered a B-movie director but a lot of folks may know him because of his inspiration on director’s of my generation like Tarantino. B-movies peaked in my opinion in the 60’s, popularity wise I think they did as well. They would often be the first of two movies on a double bill of course, along with keeping numerous drive-in movies theaters in business (and I’ll never understand why drive-in movies haven’t yet made a major comeback, but that’s for another time).

Maybe because it was on the big screen but for me a movie like this is the epitome of the perfect B-movie. This has a handful of really bad laughable effects and not always great acting but otherwise is much closer to being an A-movie than most B-movies, by this point Bert is obviously a capable filmmaker, not just a novice.

Why I liked this so much: the movie immediately starts off with a raw surf style song by Jack Nitzsche (who worked with Rolling Stones and Neil Young) with half naked giant people dancing in slow motion. Maybe it’s hard not to appreciate unless you see it on the big screen but this is one of my absolute favorite intros.

From there we see a crashed car in the rain. A woman gets out yelling as if injured and then we realize the car is full of teens (probably all at least 18 by that point, if not close to 30) that are in fact not injured and couldn’t care less about the situation they are in. They then dance in the pouring rain and wrestle in the mud like heathens.

These types of movies weren’t generally rated and didn’t have nudity or swearing but at that time were considered almost risqué, with many teens not being allowed by their parents to watch it. By the 80’s you’d see this kind of thing on TV often and it would probably be rated PG, if was rated at all.

Beyond that it (like many other Bert and his ilk productions) was full of stomachs, thick hips, big breasts and lots of close-ups of go-go style dancing. Somewhere between mainstream films of the 60’s (with little scenes of skin) and the X-rated films you could of course only see in certain theaters (like in New York). The spectrum today much larger and nuanced.

Now for the premise, or least the beginning of the film: A kid (Opie Taylor!) creates a substance that will make you grow. We see a cat grow, then ducks, then a dog. The teens then decide to keep it a secret to get rich but the large ducks escape (because they are show up at a go-go bar (where the great but mostly forgotten 60’s group) The Beau Brummels play (an awesome, in my opinion, garage rock song). Everyone is dancing almost too provocatively when the ducks start dancing and mimicking the humans.

If this sounds funny to you then you should watch this film. The teens then find their duck and when the music stops one of them says proudly and matter of factly, “That’s my duck. Then soon after some more dancing and kissing and silly dialogue, they barbecue these massive ducks in a park so for the entire town to eat (see video below). People holding big pieces of meat and eating live cavemen. That’s just the beginning, I won’t spoil the rest.

Before the movie started someone spoke and mentioned how the cast included many famous people’s children: Lloyd Bridges’ son (Beau (of course famous in his own right, but a pretty shitty actor for the most part here), Rod Serling’s daughter, Mickey Rooney’s son, Charles O’Neals son (Kevin, although most people would probably recognize his brother Ryan, or niece Tatum, before Charles).

This film also starred Ron Howard (as Ronny Howard, probably to distance himself to keep his reputation clean for The Andy Griffith Show) and his dad Rance Howard, a familiar face that has been in many films. Along with that it also starred Toni Basil, who most people know from the wildly popular song “Mickey” from the 80’s. By the way, she was the one to suggest they barbecue the duck.

Last person I would like to note is Tommy Kirk, who many may know from The Absent Minded Professor, Shaggy Dog (original of course), and Swiss Family Robinson, among numerous other popular films from the late 50’s / early 60’s, mostly if not all Disney Films.

He had just been fired from Disney because he was gay before he started acting in movies like this one. (Something interesting about him that I think you can see in this film is that he had the potential in the 70’s to be the next “handsome” leading man. He had the talent and looks, but as someone who has seen a lot of films I’d never seen him after the 60’s, so I looked him up. He retired at a very young age, pretty soon after this film was made. Also watching this I thought it was a shame he never played Jimmy Stewart’s son. I think that would’ve been a great match, mainly because they are both skinny and have the same shaped head…)

The only thing I didn’t like about this film was that there was a guy in the theater behind me with a very obnoxious laugh that must’ve been high because he was laughing nonstop, to the point that when a person on screen just turned a light on he laughed hysterically and I whispered, “why is that funny?” He of course didn’t respond. Too happy…

Usually the Letterboxd app is pretty generous with a lot or at least some classic B-movies, but only gives this (currently) 4.2 stars out of 10, which I feel is a little unfair. This movie is really fun throughout, and whether it intends to or not, has a lot of laughs. The scenes with the fake giant arms and giant legs are laugh out loud funny (see video). The movie has many flaws but was highly entertaining to me. If you’re a fan of Bert or these types of films, I highly recommend it. (There’s also an MST3K version. And the poster by the way is awesome. See photo…)

I give it 8.4 stars out of 10.

[plutothe-pup]

Wednesday, November 16 -- The Character Tour: create a travel itinerary featuring 10 significant locations from your character's life (can be in the same town/city, country, or even around the world!). You can do this in a saved Google Map too.

📍 Olney, PA 

Milo’s hometown, in the upper north-end of Philadelphia where Milo lived with his mother, father, grandfather and grandmother in a modest multifamily home. 

📍 Reading Terminal Market, Philadelphia, PA

Their family’s favorite market spot for goods, and also a wonderful place for the family business. Milo spent many hours here either shopping with his mother or training with his father in the art of picking people out of crowd. 

This was also the location in which the sorcerer cast his curse upon Milo. 

📍 Morris Arboretum of the University of PA, Philadelphia, PA

His mother’s favorite place to come to walk and observe nature, as she was a member there, often bringing Milo along to get him out of the house and give him a brief rest from the constant training cycle. He grew a fond love for being outside and in nature from these moments. 

This was also the location in which his parents got married. 

📍 Citizens Bank Park, Philadelphia, PA

Citizens Bank Park, ‘born’ in the same year as Milo and a place he was always so excited to go to one day. Every time his family happened to watch a game, Milo always dreamed of the day that his father would get them tickets to go there and see the Phillies play for real. Whenever they’d drive near the sports complex, Milo always pressed his face against the window and grinned so large when the entire time the stadium was in view, knowing one day he’d finally get to visit himself. 

He never got the chance. 

📍 Tacony Creek Park, Philadelphia, PA

The park in which Milo made him home after he had to leave his own. The park was... a safe place that he knew like the back of his hand - and often he slept under the bridge near the water, especially when it rained. It worked because no one would ever question why a kid was hanging around. Kids often were unattended there. He also had a favorite tree that he would eat under any time he managed to find some food. 

📍 Sen Hong Oriental Market, Philadephia, PA

The local Asian grocery market in which Milo worked for under the table while he was homeless. This is where he gained the little experience he had to work for Moon Market. The owner was kind to him and often passed him food as payment. 

📍 Franklin Square, Philadelphia, PA

The place he first ran to as a dog. He’d never been more exhausted in his life, the pads of his paws rubbed raw when he finally got there, but his mother had just died. He thought surely he would too - and he just wanted to look at something pretty before he did. 

So he sat in front of the fountain and watched children his age giggle and enjoy the brightly lit (but black and white) carousel with their families before he was eventually taken away by animal control. 

📍 Lancaster, PA

His second ‘adoptive’ home after he was transferred out of a shelter in Philly and into an ASPCA in Lancaster (A/N; I’m breaking the fourth wall here to tell all of you a very important note; if you read this in your head as ‘Lan-caster’ you’re wrong. Never say that again. It’s ‘lang-kiss-ter’. Heathens) - and the first time he was in a mostly unfamiliar place outside of the city he’d lived his whole life. He lived here for a few years until the older woman he was adopted by was placed into a care home. 

📍 Manchester, England. 

His big move - When his current (and least favorite) owner decided to move across the pond, Milo was forced to leave America with them and move to Manchester England. Milo doesn’t have very many fond memories of Manchester as it was one of his most taxing environments, where he was seized by animal control in the end and transferred again into another town. 

📍 Swynlake, England. 

His current town - Milo was transferred to the NTO after another failed adoption, where he met Gregory and was brought back to Ruff to Fluff. It was here that he was adopted by Pip and when his curse broke, was allowed to stay in the Seville household, where he remains. 

[nukyster-blog]

Changing Course chapter 25) tales of enlightenment.

.-.-.

As winter claimed every inch of the shed with it’s frost and cold, the lack of warmth brought the two human inhabitants closer. Although they weren't seeing eye to eye, Piglet had inched closer and closer until Ivar grunted and pulled her close against his freezing body. 

“Stop! Stop fighting if you don’t want to freeze to death!” Ivar hissed in her ear as he dodged her elbow. Pinning her wrist in front of her body he held her tight until she stopped resisting. She made a sound that could either be a sob or a grunt and managed to fold her legs up, pressing her freezing feet against Ivar’s knees. It felt like two bolts of ice and he flinched. 

For the next few minutes both their bodies shook uncontrollably before their shared blankets and body heat reheated them from the bitterness of winter. 

“You stink”, Ivar felt the irresistible need to point out.

“You too, Ivar”, Piglet spat back through clattering teeth. 

Ivar grunted again and pressed her harder against his chest. Her warmth slowly started to move in. He could feel it pass through the fabric of his clothes and wash over his skin, met by the beating of her heart. 

“I’m not your enemy, Piglet”, Ivar spoke as he pressed his chin down onto her head, “the Christians are. And if you want to survive you need me”. 

“You need me,” Piglet responded resolutely, “I can sleep with cattle, you dog with leash. You die.” 

“Fine, you won’t die, I will”, Ivar retorted, “but you’d be raped if it weren’t for me. You need me, too.”

Her silence was her answer, so Ivar took the liberty to continue: “we need each other in order to survive, yes?” 

“Yes, Ivar”, she sneered and Ivar could practically feel her eyes roll. 

“Good, so let’s agree to be civil to each other, at least till the end of winter, yes?”, Ivar spoke and squeezed her tight when she took too long to answer. 

“Till end of winter”, Piglet responded unenthusiastically.

.-.-.

The days grew grimmer, shorter, and colder. Life started to be a matter of surviving, because as winter endured, the food was lessening. Most of the cattle had been taken from the shed for slaughter. Of course, being in the lowest position of de Haar, their food was meager and mostly the same: a mass of stale vegetables and potatoes. Meat was off the menu and as the richest started to see less variety on their table, it was nearly impossible for Piglet to steal food. Their food was lukewarm if not cold, as Piglet had to steep through inches of snow to get back to their shed. 

Ivar spent most of the time in the dark or twilight, for it was too cold to keep the door open. Cooped up in layers of blankets and furs, he wondered if this was a taste of Hellheim and pledged to do everything within his power to prevent himself from dying and being sent to that place. Because this was not living, this was simply enduring and wishing his toes and fingers wouldn’t be caught by frostbite. 

By the end of day, Piglet would return in forms of ice. Frozen to the core, she’d huddle up fast against him. Necessity knew no laws, and she’d throw herself into his lap, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and chest in order to absorb every bit of warmth he had to offer. 

It was too cold for ridicule, silence ruled their twilight, both bearing their own shame: for Piglet, it was craving the closeness of a man. For Ivar, it was being someone’s safety blanket. 

At night they’d talk. Both of them. Ivar had been the first one to unveil the names of his Gods. During the dreadful days he had nothing to do aside from simply existing and, subconsciously,  he didn’t dare to believe he’d make it through the winter. So, in a sentimental way, he wanted someone in this forsaken country to memorize his Viking legacy. 

Piglet’s favorite story was fitting: about the Goddess Nott. Her name means merely ‘Night’, riding her black horse named Hrimfaxi. The dew drips off of Hrimfaxi as he carries his Goddess over the worlds. Nott is the granddaughter of Bergelmir, the first Chief via his son Norfi, the famous giant architect who designed Asgard, Thryheim and the hall of Utgard-Lok. Her first husband of three was a Jotun, named Nagifari, and their son’s name was Aud. By her second husband, Annar, a water-giant, she bore Jord, the mother of Thor. Her third husband, Delling, a red Alfar, gave her the son Daeg, who would be the chosen god of the Day. Nott herself is an ancient goddess, one of the oldest before the flood, which she survived by being in the realm of the Dead. Nott’s known for being a wanderer, a wise old woman. Although she’s somewhat distant from most people’s concern, she can be rather helpful - when she chooses- for those lost in the dark, or in the past. At times, she’ll casually drop a bit of her collected wisdom as she passes realms, like a star falling from her skirt. 

In the darkness of night, Piglet had her fair share of stories. One in particular stuck with Ivar. It was about the Prophet Yusuf, who’d been the most favoured child of his father. His brothers had been so jealous of him they’d come up with a plan. Yusuf was thrown inside a well and left to die, and his brother’s lied to their father’s face and claimed Yusuf had been eaten by a wolf. 

This led to Yusuf being separated from his beloved father for many years, becoming a slave after being rescued from the well by slave-traders. Through constant patience and remembrance of Allah, the prophet was successful in all of life’s tests and was eventually rewarded for his patience. After years of endurance and hardship, he managed to rise, with his patience, bravery and reliance on Allah. With every adversity, we should try to continuously pick ourselves up and continue along the straight path with sabr; patience.

Now, patience wasn’t one of Ivar’s virtues. But desperate times call for desperate measures.

And so, Ivar and Piglet withstood the wind cutting through the cracks, the below zero temperatures, and the frost devouring every bit of warmth that wasn’t cocooned underneath blankets and furs. 

Oh, how Ivar loathed the endless winter days. 

But eventually the winter months passed, without either of them losing their life or toes. Spring came with a gentle spirit, melting the snow and restoring hope within the heart of all inhabitants of De Haar. Rain instead of snow filled the streets, turning the surroundings of their shed into a murky pool of mud. The first time Piglet entered with grime up to her knees, she laughed in relief. It was a dirty sign of warmth casting the frozen puddles away. 

Spring, the end of cold and the beginning of a new, hopeful season. And although it brought joy for most of the inhabitants of de Haar, it welled up doom and sickness inside the stomach of one person in particular. For spring had been her worst enemy, a countdown to one horrific burden she’d never overcome. 

Spring would bring a wedding. 

.-.-.

There was something off in Piglet’s bearing. Sorrow flashed underneath the surface of her eyes, her shoulders stiffening all the way up to her chin. She hid it well with a smile and an occasional crude remark. 

Something was off, Piglet's mental retreatment brought her back to four words per sentence and she ignored Ivar when he tried to make small talk. 

When the Giant appeared inside the shed, Ivar knew troubles lay ahead. The man’s stone cold eyes bore themselves into Ivar’s. The Giant’s expression was one of absolute disdain and abhorrence. To him, those two slaves were less than the mud on his leather boots. 

The Giant plunked down two buckets filled with a steamy content at the doorstep and threw a bag into Piglet’s hands, all while spitting an order. The young woman clumsily caught the bag and nodded her head in response.  

“Ivar, wash”, Piglet ordered and dunked the content of the first bucket in his trough. Hurried, she took the second bucket and retreated to her own box. 

One of Ivar’s eyebrows rose all the way up and disappeared underneath his matted hair. If slaves would have been ordered to cleanse themselves back in Kattegat, that only meant one thing; a human sacrifice. But in this land of inept rulers, Christians and God fearing people, Ivar guessed such heathen rituals would be condemned rather than celebrated. 

Until further notice, Ivar counted this as a blessing in disguise and slid his arms down into the hot water. Wishing the trough to expand so he could sink into it completely, he gasped and closed his eyes. The dullness of cold finally left the tips of his fingers and before the water could cool off, he dunked his head into the trough. The hot water blocked out all the sounds surrounding him. Ivar sat like that until his back ached and his lungs were on the verge of exploding. 

Splashing he withdrew, mouth open like a fish on dry land. And he laughed, a small stream of water ran down his neck all the way down his lower back. Without a moment to waste, Ivar shoved his tunic off and started scraping his skin raw with a cloth. 

Soon, the color of the water became murky brown as it cooled. It didn’t stop Ivar’s hasty cleansing ritual; his face, his arms, his legs, chest and lower body were all rid of the layers of filth that hadn’t been cleaned since autumn. The only part of his body he’d taken careful notice of was his backside; dabbing the cloth instead of scrubbing inch for inch. 

Goosebumps appeared on his flesh long before Ivar felt clean enough to stop bathing. 

“Ivar!” Piglet’s head appeared above their wooden border and Ivar’s mouth dropped in surprise.

“By the Gods Piglet, you have hair!” he exclaimed in awe, staring at the unruly mess of ebony hair curling down Piglet’s shoulders. 

Piglet had been about to throw him the content of the Giant’s bag but she stopped mid-way of throwing. She hunched down until only the bag was showing above the box and she swung the bag towards Ivar. 

“Change”, was all she snapped, hand gesturing towards the bag. 

Now, over the course of months, Piglet had seen pretty much every inch of Ivar, up close. Every embarrassing little detail of his body. But vice versa? No, Piglet had mastered the skill of being mysterious and being an appalling pig. She never bathed, never freshened herself up, and may the Gods strike him down if he’d been lying, Ivar had never seen an inch of her skin above her ankles. Sure, during those long dreadfully cold nights he’d been able to map out her body and physique. He had a good clue of how her true proportions were underneath those rags and tatters. 

Yet the question still remained, did Piglet possess a cow tail and a bark covered back? 

Pulling his naked lower half along, Ivar crawled in a straight line to their wooden border and peeked through the cracks between the planks. Piglet met his gaze with the passion of a thousand suns, her dark eyes smoldering from his utter lack of shame. She’d draped herself with the closest blanket in reach and cursed at him in her mother’s tongue.

“GO AWAY!”, she shouted at him when Ivar’s eyes trailed over every inch of exposed skin. Which wasn’t a lot; a shoulder, two balled fists and two stomping feet. Yet, this was rather entertaining and a perfect payback for all the times she’d been secretly ogling him. 

“What’s your aversion towards nudism Piglet?” Ivar mocked, “does your cunt have fangs, is that it?”

To her dread, Ivar pulled himself up on his feet and swung his arms over their wooden border. Although Piglet had always been keen to inform him that her religion forbid her to harm or murder a human being, her eyes at this point told a completely different story. 

Ivar let out a loud harsh cackle of laughter, shaking his head to Piglet’s disheveled appearance. 

“Go. Away.”, she repeated again, hissing through her teeth, cloaking her bare shoulder rapidly underneath the woolen fabric. 

“Not so mysterious now, huh little Piglet?” Ivar soothed and ruffled his hand coarsely through her thick curling hair, “you truly are something savage, aren’t you?” 

She yanked her head away from his touch, nearly losing her balance, causing her to be laughed at by Ivar again. 

Snickering, Ivar allowed himself to drop down on his knees and he retreated to the bag Piglet had swung at him. The content turned out to be a new tunic and pants. At least three sizes too big and clearly one of the servant's hand-me-downs, but Ivar was not going to complain about it. He tucked a rope around his waist to secure his new clothes and tied two layers of potato bags around his knees for protection. 

Piglet, too, was draped in less raggedy attire. Her long sleeved dress was frayed at the cuffs, but the steel colored fabric was clean. She still chose to wear her bandana, hiding away every inch of her long hair. 

“Oh look, it’s princess puritan,” Ivar sneered watching how the muscles of her jaw tightened, “ah poor Piglet, are you giving me silent treatment, all because I risked a peek at your tits?”. 

“You disgust me”, Piglet announced bitterly, clapping her hands on her hips, “no respect!”. 

“Oh please, Piglet”, Ivar brushed her accusations off with a wave of his hand, “don’t act as if you never peeked at my prick with those ogling black eyes of yours.” 

He knew he was playing with fire. During the endless cold nights Piglet had revealed much of her religion to him. He was aware of how ‘longing for the flesh’ was forbidden, haram. As a proud Hijabi, a woman who veiled her hair, Piglet eagerly spread the words of her God, Allah, explaining that covering her hair was a sign of modesty, faith, and protection against evil things in the surrounding world. 

In other words, men. 

So yes, Ivar was playing with fire, but he’d never been scared to get his hands burned. Besides, antagonizing Piglet was one of the few things he could do to pass time. 

But their bickering was abruptly stopped by the Giant. Ivar couldn’t recall a moment the bastard didn’t manage to suck all life out of the room. But spring managed to produce miracles, because as the brute strode into the shed, Ivar’s heart skipped a beat in joy. 

The Giant was holding up keys. 

.-.-.

A/N: all hail for teamwork, they managed to survive winter without killing each other or losing a toe. I wanted to add some details about both of their religions, it’s my personal interpretation of all the information I found on the big world wide web. So, mistakes could be made, I mean no disrespect. So the pair is clean (thank God, I could practically smell them here!)  and dressed up, gosh what could possibly be next… Also shoutout to all of you who’ve been reading and commenting. last week I failed to get back to ya’ll because real life was too timeconsuming. So thanks for all the lovely comments, you all brightened up my days!:) 

Xoxoxo Nukyster

The kickass beta: @sarahh-jane

The tagged ones:@youbloodymadgenius​ @xbellaxcarolinax @saldelys​ @shannygoatgruff@pieces-by-me@apenas-mais-uma-pessoa@readsalot73@lauraan182 @conaionaru@sarahh-jane@peachybonelessIf you’d liked to be tagged, please let me know:)

[faean]

All Might x Female Reader

Rating: M; Sexual Content and Light Swearing

Word Length: 1,150

Title: Joy to Your World

Author’s Note: This was not requested, but I figured a few people could use an early Christmas present. Hope you enjoy, @thethotthatbreathes, @lovemadnessharleyquinn, and @damnit-samnit!

-----

           Christmas Eve. Your second favorite time of the year, right after your anniversary.

           Why did you not like Christmas more than Christmas Eve? Well, you used to. Especially after marrying the one and only All Might, Yagi Toshinori. It was your favorite day to go all out and make it a day to remember, every year. But then it happened, and everything changed. Honestly, it was the absolute best Christmas present you ever got, and Toshinori was absolutely ecstatic, if not a little nervous when he first heard the news.

           And just what was this ‘present’ that you had received? Well, that is certainly an exciting story…

           “Our water b-bill is going to be s-so, oh fuck yes, high this m-month.” You managed to gasp out in between moans, water from the shower cascading down your body.

           “At least clean up is easier…” Toshinori grunted, punctuating with a powerful thrust that made your knees weak.

           Well, weaker.

           You were being pounded into the wall, Toshi mercilessly ramming into your tight ass raw as one of his rough hands fingered your dripping entrance and rubbed your clit, the other wrapped around your midsection as he pressed his lithe form against you. He moaned directly into your ear, nibbling on the lobe or leaving hickeys all over your neck and shoulders.

           He had been slamming his thick member into you for nearly half an hour, his even pacing constantly edging the both of you. That is, until you became desperate for release and began to buck your hips back into his thrusts, pushing him deeper into you as his fingers reached a heavenly spot inside you. Toshi moved his arm wrapped around you to your face, turning it so he could kiss you roughly as you both neared climax.

           You finished first, having been overstimulated for too long. Your body shuddered as muscles spasmed, warmth and pleasure spreading throughout your body, your walls violently contracting on your husband’s fingers and throbbing cock.

           That was all it took for him to lose his control and with several more thrusts, each reaching further into you than before, he released inside, the warm substance overflowing your tight hole and spilling out of you.

           It was quiet for several minutes before you finally caught your breath and said, “We should probably actually shower now…”

           ---

           The two of you were spending the afternoon cuddling on the couch in Christmas pajamas, watching “The Nightmare Before Christmas” as a pumpkin pie was setting in the fridge.

           Your body was beginning to ache, and the freezing temperatures outside did no favors. It took several blankets, the heater on high and a fire burning in the fireplace, Toshi’s cuddling, and the new dog resting on your lap to warm you up. And the eggnog, which, unfortunately, had no alcohol.

           Not much was being said, aside for you singing along and teasing Toshi into joining. It was a peaceful (now) day, snow gently falling outside. You had no desire to do anything, and not just because you couldn’t walk anymore; the two of you were invited to several different parties tomorrow, and most of them asked for you to bring a dish or to partake in a White Elephant. It would be hectic, but tomorrow was your favorite and you had a lot planned, but one little phone call threw it all out the window.

           And you could not be happier about it.

           Once the movie had ended and Toshi grabbed the remote to look for his favorite holiday movie, your phone rang. It startled you both, mostly because you weren’t expecting anyone, and partially because you forgot you changed your ringtone to “Santa Baby” by Eartha Kitt.

           Picking it up and answering the call, you confusedly asked “Who is this?”

           “This is your obstetrician. Technically the office is closed today, but I thought I’d deliver the happy news. We got your tests back and, it’s official. You’re pregnant. You can schedule a follow up after the holidays.”

           The line went silent, and you stared blankly at the phone, still processing what she said. You and Toshi had been trying for the past year or so, but his previous injuries made it difficult for him to produce viable sperm, and you two would go every month for a test.

           It was difficult, but not impossible, as you had just found out.

           “Who was it, (Y/N)? Is everything okay, love?”

           Your husband’s voice brought you out of your trance, and you slowly turned your head to face him, tears streaming down your face. He was shocked, thinking you received terrible news or something and that was why you were crying. He wasn’t thinking that what you were about to tell him what would be some of the best news he had ever received.

           “It… It was the doctor. She said… She said I… We’re three weeks pregnant…”

           He was silent for only a few seconds, then a massive smile broke out on his face as he lifted you in his arms, spinning you around joyously and scaring the dog half to death.

           “This is amazing news, (Y/N)!!! After all this time, we’ll finally be able to start a family!!!” Toshi exclaimed, drawing you into the best hug you had ever gotten.

           Tears were still running down your face, but your smile never once left as you two celebrated. It was the happiest day of your lives, and on the day before Christmas no less!

           “I gotta call my parents! Oh, and I have to call my work to schedule my maternity leave and and and… We’re going to have a baby!!!” You shouted; your arms wrapped around Toshi’s neck as your foreheads rested against each other’s.

           “That can wait! Let’s have some celebratory pie! I can’t believe I’m going to be a dad…”

           You teased him about some of his students getting jealous about real competition, but he playfully fired back with ‘tell that to the dog’.

           Dramatically picking up the small canine, you kissed her nose before turning her to your husband. “Cosita is perfectly happy that she’ll have a sister to play with. Or a brother. Isn’t that right, sweetie?” You turned her back to you as you peppered kisses all over her furry face. “Mommy and Daddy are going to have a baby!”

           Placing her back on the floor, you stepped into the kitchen after your husband, who was already slicing the pie. Grabbing the can of whipped cream, you sprayed it into your mount before full on open mouth kissing Toshi, too excited about the news to care about being weird.

           ---

           That is why Christmas Eve surpassed Christmas as your favorite holiday. It was the day you and Toshinori learned that you two could finally start a family. It was the next phase of your life.

           And it was one you and your husband eagerly awaited.

------

Merry Christmas Eve, my filthy heathens!!! Hope you all enjoyed this one almost as much the festivities! 

[akanekishimoto]

17 questions 17 people

Tagged by: @mysteriousshopkeeper

Nickname: Archer, Metal, Anna-mun

Zodiac: Aquarius

Height: 1.69 mts (5ft 6.5in for the heathens)

Hogwarts house: a long, long time ago I took a quiz that claimed to be a copy of the Pottermore one (because like hell I am making a Pottermore account) and got Slytherin, so I retook it until I got... not Slytherin, which is probably why I got Slytherin in the first place.

Last thing I googled: the origin of some idioms because sometimes I try and put the effort into avoiding anachronisms.

Song stuck in my head:  Give Us a Little Love by Fallulah

Number of followers: 25

Amount of sleep:  6-8 hours

Lucky number: 1802

Dream job:  idk anymore, I’m just tired of having to interact with people that are in the role of customer.

Wearing: black trainers, black jeans, grey (used to be pale blue) knit jacket + another grey and orange polar fleece jacket on top

Favorite song: Starlight by Starset (listen “I'm going to want you till the stars evaporate.” is a really raw fucking line is all I am saying.)

Favorite instrument: bass

Aesthetic: I will stop wearing black when they invent a darker colour

Favorite author: after what happened with Nightwish, I just avoid getting invested in specific content-creators, I just jump from one content that catches my attention to the next.

Favorite animal noise: one of my dogs does this thing where when she sees me for the first time in an hour she starts running in circles crying.

Random: I hate Zoom. Why does everyone insist on using Zoom? Why are people giving that company money when there are better, free alternatives out there? Pls, I am begging people stop using Zoom. I have been in lockdown for over 100 days and if I have one more Zoom meeting I am going to scream.

Tagging: idk 17 people, I suspect half of my followers are bots. @bleachintothemultiverse @skyvar @exespadakana @ameasureofpower (hi! I’m the Anna-mun, this is the problematic OC blog I told you about on Discord ages ago.)  

[imahopelessromanticonacid]

65 Questions You Aren't Used To (well, i found this and i know no one it’s going to ask me these things cause people barely follow me here, so i’ll just answer everything)

1. Do you ever doubt the existence of others than you?

Nope

2. On a scale of 1-5, how afraid of the dark are you?

1

3. The person you would never want to meet?

My ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend.

4. What is your favorite word?

Foles

5. If you were a type of tree, what would you be?

A Weed tree

6. When you looked in the mirror this morning what was the first thing you thought?

“Shit, here we go again”

7. What shirt are you wearing?

A old vans gray shirt that I have since 2010(?)

8. What do you label yourself as?

Weird and unpredictable.

9. Bright room or dark room?

Dark

10. What were you doing at midnight last night?

Sleeping

11. Favorite age you’ve been so far?

19

12. Who told you they loved you last?

My mom

13. Your worst enemy?

My thoughts

14. What is your current desktop picture?

Tyler while singing WDBWOTV at the LollapaloozaBR this year.

15. Do you like someone?

Yeah

16. The last song you listened to?

Tears Won’t Cry - The Maine

17. You can press a button that will make any one person explode. Who would you blow up?

Trump

18. Who would you really like to just punch in the face?

Bolsonaro, Trump or anyone on the Francischini fucking family.

19. If anyone could be your slave for a day, who would it be and what would they have to do?

Nick Foles. I would have him throwing me the ball all day long and chat about life and how the fuck he is able to be so awesome and keep it calm all the time.

20. What is your best physical attribute? (showing said attribute is optional)

I have no fucking idea, I think my best physical attribute could be that i may not have any exaggeration? I’m not so tall and not so small. I’m not so fat and not so skinny. I’m just your average white guy.

21. If you were the opposite sex for one day, what would you look like and what would you do?

I think i would be like Avril Lavigne at the beginning of her career on that skater look. I have no fucking idea on what I would do.

22. Do you have a secret talent? If yes, what is it?

Maybe the writing? I do think I’m able to write some awesome stuff. Sad stuff when I’m down, but i also used to write a lot of good/happy/lovely stuff when i was in love and with my mind on the right place.

23. What is one unique thing you’re afraid of?

Pressure cooker if we’re talking palpable stuff. But what I’m really afraid it’s to not find someone special to spend the rest of my life with.

24. You can only have one kind of sandwich. Every sandwich ingredient known to humankind is at your disposal.

Sliced meat, gouda cheese, raw red onions, garlic mayo, crispy bacon on a toasted baguette.

25. You just found $100! How are you going to spend it?

Food, beer and pot.

26. You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere in the world, but you have to leave immediately. Where are you going to go?

Philadelphia (on 99 out 100 opportunities)

27. An angel appears out of Heaven and offers you a lifetime supply of the alcoholic beverage of your choice. “Be brand-specific” it says. Man! What are you gonna say about that? Even if you don’t drink booze there’s something you can figure out… so what’s it gonna be?

Bodebrown beer, an amazing beer made here at my city.

28. You discover a beautiful island upon which you may build your own society. You make the rules. What is the first rule you put into place? 

Don’t be an asshole.

29. What is your favorite expletive?

“Filha da puta” (son of a bitch)

30. Your house is on fire, holy shit! You have just enough time to run in there and grab ONE inanimate object. Don’t worry, your loved ones and pets have already made it out safely. So what’s the one thing you’re going to save from that blazing inferno?

My xbox one.

31. You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?

Can be what I’m living on right now? If i’m talking on something about my past i would erase the day I applied to work on a cruise ship, that shit fucked me up so much.

32. You got kicked out of the country for being a time-traveling heathen who sleeps with celebrities and has super-powers. But check out this cool shit… you can move to anywhere else in the world!

Philadelphia

33. The Celestial Gates Of Beyond have opened, much to your surprise because you didn’t think such a thing existed. Death appears. As it turns out, Death is actually a pretty cool entity, and happens to be in a fantastic mood. Death offers to return the friend/family-member/person/etc. of your choice to the living world. Who will you bring back?

Man, I have the greatest luck that I’ve never lost someone really close to me yet. So I think i can spend this ‘wish’ on bringing Mac Miller back to earth, he went so early

34. What was your last dream about?

I don’t really remember, the last dream I remember was two nights ago and it was about her of course, it’s the only thing I’ve been dreaming about lately. Picturing and imagining all the kinds of scenarios and situations that would be able to brought us back together again.

35. Are you a good….[insert anything you’d like here]?

Friend?

36. Have you ever been admitted to the hospital?

Yep

37. Have you ever built a snowman?

Yes, at the only time I went to Europe. My snowman was fucking ugly hahahaha

38. What is the color of your socks?

White with a bit of red and blue.

39. What type of music do you like?

Mostly something that i can relate myself to. But my favorites types of music are Alternative Rock, Punk, Pop/Punk, Hardcore, Indie, Emo and whatever type that i could fit Twenty One Pilots and John Mayer. I also love 90’s hip hop.

40. Do you prefer sunrises or sunsets?

Sunsets

41. What is your favorite milkshake flavor?

Strawberry

42. What football team do you support? (I will answer in terms of American football as well as soccer)

Philadelphia Eagles and Liverpool

43. Do you have any scars?

Some little scars.

44. What do you want to be when you graduate?

Teacher

45. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

I would like to be a little less sensitive about a lot stuff. I’d love for me to not be bothered by dumb shit.

46. Are you reliable?

Yes

47. If you could ask your future self one question, what would it be?

When all of this madness on my mind gonna pass? If it’s that it will pass someday.

48. Do you hold grudges?

Unfortunately a bit, on some specific stuff.

49. If you could breed two animals together to defy the laws of nature, what new animal would you create?

This one is tough, I will not think on how this new animal would really fit into planet earth. I love dogs and I love turtles and how both live so I’d breed these two.

50. What is the most unusual conversation you’ve ever had?

I had a few but right now I can’t quite remember which one was the most unusual.

51. Are you a good liar?

Unfortunately, I think so.

52. How long could you go without talking?

A long time.

53. What has been you worst haircut/style?

The only time i cutted it without Rafa (who’s cut my hair since 2008 i guess). Before some holiday he was out and I had to go to some other place, it didn't go so well.

54. Have you ever baked your own cake?

Just while i was working at a brownie factory, while studying culinary of course and while i was a intern in a expensive restaurant that they put at bakery a few times. But I’d never baked my own cake outside those 3 situations.

55. Can you do any accents other than your own?

I don’t think so.

56. What do you like on your toast?

Butter and turkey breast.

57. What is the last thing you drew a picture of?

A gate. Was drawing it to go along some ‘Heaven’s Gate - FOB” lyrics that i wrote at my notebook. ‘Cause everything else it’s a substitute for your love...’

58. What would be you dream car?

A jeep like I already have but without all the mechanics flaws of it.

59. Do you sing in the shower? Or do anything unusual in the shower? Explain.

Always

60. Do you believe in aliens?

No

61. Do you often read your horoscope?

A few times but I don’t really believe on it.

62. What is your favorite letter of the alphabet?

M

63. Which is cooler: dinosaurs or dragons?

As a huge Charizard fan, i’m obligated to choose dragons.

64. What do you think about babies?

I like them. Would love to have kids at the right time of my life and with the right person.

65. Freebie! Ask anything interesting you can think of.

No questions here, i’ll just leave a picture of my dog here, cause she’s the best!

[kingdomofclones]

Lorge

Psycho Sonnets: Accepting!

“I feed.  My hunger flares! This Skag’s too small!My teeth they want, a crunch? A salty lick?Super sized sour dog bit big fries, they fall!I split their face and snatch their brained snapped click.

Thresh the gut pasta sauce, bad raw men makes!Trash broth salted with heathen’s sinful imports,An arm for an army! A feast that bakes!Big spicy worm snake needs my huge spin fork.Stalkers are tart, too tang to taste, Mum’s stew!Webbed arms dipped and fried with bloodied butter!Fast food, gone quick, comebackorI’lltearyou!The air rips snarls, my axe scores a cutter!Easy lunch when I was a bit smaller, But Mum said that I’m more handsome taller.”- A poem by Sir Torque upon thinking about his own lorge size, then getting distracted by the matter of what to eat for lunch.

[sidpah]

Olivia’s Funeral

1.

The grass still damp from last night’s showers and dawn’s fine lace of dew. At my love’s funeral the morning’s grown bright; counterpoint to the bodies forming a crescent of sorrow around her grave… All morbid, dark… cold negative sunspots sucked from the canvas into a cluster of interminable black holes…

There are tears tattooed on their cheeks and lacey veils covering veils, lest someone think them crass should one slip, allowing a glimpse of a dry naked eye. Man’s machinery lowers her casket into the ground.

The fake turf laid over the mounds of freshly disinterred dirt seems a fitting metaphor. She’s been stitched back together and airbrushed, her blood removed and flesh chemically preserved like a fetus in a jar. Her casket will never rot. She’s been rendered impervious to all organic forces; she has been torn, banished from nature, cast as another figurine of concrete or bronze, robbed of her humanity and left a dead monument to something that was once supple and filled with conscious wonder. Perfectly fouled and of no use to anyone or anything. Even the fresh earth from which we were supposedly molded, according to the black book presiding over this ceremonial sham, is too raw and vulgar to be acknowledged. No grass grows that artificial green, staggered in even rows like hair plugs.

I hate them all right now for doing this to her. I could without remorse slay every one of them, but they don’t know any better. They’re doing what they feel is right. Heaps of delusion. Futility. Angst. A silver necklace for her birthday strung around her preserved hips stretched flat… I’m a mad mad man and she’s a mad dead woman…

“Tell me it’s true!” I yell into the coffin, “Tell me you want this marrowless skeleton the way its severed head wants your body as a rack to dry out its old moldy bones… The way it still wants to be cuddled up against you in there, our bare skeletons rattling together like two deer in combat…”

 Three years we spent together under the cold rain… We held our breath so long we sank below even our own worst self-images – Even the Sun came out to watch us bury her… just long enough to bless our weary ranks with her warm soft benediction – But all the maudlin eulogies they sing! I could never do anything but rejoice in her presence, and this is how they whimper and fawn…

I’d love to draw her back to life; sweet Russian fingers in my hair – To hold her thin whittled form against my own just once, beating, pulsating, radiating for all dog-eared eternity… They say she’s here with me now like she’s with them wherever they are (body shattered to nine even souls for each of us to call upon in bidding, in lust) but I never feel her around… They’re lying… naïve… And I’m clenched too tight and cynical to hope. In every corner I see her patient hands carving life out of walls with the heart of a beautiful radiant muse. And though it’s been so many years since we’ve been touched, both the portrait walls and my face, they’re still breathing, so I think maybe I can make it a little longer too –

In her honor I shall learn to speak a purer tongue. One that only she will understand – a voiceless mind-noise so loud she could never miss it – I’ll be forever tied to her silent black and white as her inky voice spills from my hand – Drunk in her presence, I’ll stumble up each shrouded mountain pass and here within this old nightmare is where I’ll find the splinters of her sad withering face, but beside it, the essence of her bellowing soul, her fierce bellowing soul, her fierce bellowing lightning soul, her broken humble radiance hanging against the misty treetops –

She’ll wear her silence naked, forsaking every monotonous fear that once trapped us beneath the ceilings of our rain-bleached cave… No word describes the senseless bliss forgetting all the stupid chances we’ve taken… like we have taken every bleary kiss for granted…

Oh, how I wish I could dream her back to life in a dream from which no one ever wakes – It can’t be long before I’m with her again – It’s only eight steps across this fragile world, but right now it feels like I’m somewhere lost below my own drying footprints…

 I walk to the edge of the hole, standing on that plastic grass. Scrape my foot against it and hear each blade stretch and release in a rapid bbbrrrupppttt of gunfire. The silver casket, so inert, so conspicuous, so shiny before the mud. Perfect. For a second I see the veins of a map, Africa maybe, superimposed over the metal. Then it’s only lined shadows of cypress limbs crossing and retreating.

I want to be with her in there.

I bend and scoop the first handful of dirt to pitch in. I don’t give a shit if I’m acting out of sequence. Mourning is no regimented discipline. I stare down at it, the casket and then the dirt, unaware of the preacher’s dry monotonic sermon…

In a moment of true inspiration, the kind reserved for visionaries, the artistic elite, the veil pulled wide to allow brief admittance to the beguiling other world, I dig beneath a seam in the plastic grass to find a large rock unearthed by bulldozer.  I lift one, my thumb tracing its crevices and chips; we bond, the rock and I, in that moment of exploration. Then rearing my arm back for maximum leverage, I hurl it with as much energy as I can muster in this, my decrepit state, against the pristine coffin. There comes a dent and the paint chips. One gasp rises in tandem from every direction. Except from below. From within the casket’s lightless interior I hear her voice softly whispering her gratitude.

My work is done, I understand. So without further consideration, I choose to follow her in. It’s the right thing to do. The only action worth doing. Spreading my arms wide, and just missing the fists and wingtips of her incensed family and cosmetic friends coming to punish this unrepentant heathen, I tumble headfirst into my lover’s grave.

 2.

Gazing up out of the wide grinning grave mouth, the first thing to catch my attention, so telling, is a pair of black shorts creeping up smooth young thighs… tucked slightly inward so I can nearly steal a creamy glimpse… The girl’s eyes diverted on a yelping dog… Plastic is this whole world… Frozen in its panting and lust-gorged drool slavering from tongue to steel casket floor… My own canine slobber pooling on a sunflower’s rough face lying on her vault… Seeds ripped loose by wind, by bird, by hands only imagined, but the dying flower is right here between my fingers… Film dust on monochrome surface… The screen is wiped with mold spores consuming the past… I am in desperate need of help…

I fell in love when she revealed her roots of dark red hair and green eyes… Now driven underground… From down here, below the footsteps of men, I see! All my lovers, I see! I see!

I raise my eyes from their low damp vantage point, finding only sex in every body. I clinch my eyes and draw my hazy conception of life energy up to the heart center to bring light to this darkened cavern… To clear out webs and congested filth ringing locked patterns like tapeworm holes… Freeing gnarly habits of their twisted hungers stuck for centuries in this uneven muck of mind.  If there’s no cage, how’ve I been trapped in it?  Where does the greed and asinine repetition of error lie dormant when I’m so certain I’ve been cured?  

Let the eyes slide up Pingala and Ida, through glowing channels past the spine and slip silently into the center of Anahata radiating the arms of a fractured green star, so that I may finally see compassionately thoughts and spirit break free of heavy beating form.

Cyrus conquered Babylon, but what man has conquered his own wicked fires?

[nowtravel]

Puffin Rally to the Látrabjarg Cliffs

On a road trip to Iceland's remote Westfjords, I explore the travel bloggers insatiable quest for novelty, and the decline of the iconic Atlantic Puffin. Includes an interview with puffin researcher Erpur Snær Hansen.

We are driving north from Reykjavik, to the westernmost point of Europe — the Látrabjarg Cliffs of Iceland’s Westfjords.

The cliffs are a massive promontory, just a few degrees south of the Arctic circle, pointing towards Greenland. The granite cliffs slope vertically downward for up to 1,400 feet into the North Atlantic, and hold the largest colonies of nesting seabirds in all of Europe.

I had packed several cups of skyr; the stunningly tasty cultured cheese, for our long journey north. I immediately fell for the low-fat, high protein Icelandic food, reminiscent of thick yogurts. One of my great joys in travel is to form a ritual around a simple local food.

Iceland’s post World War II diet is heavy on hot dogs, road meats and gas station junk food. The restaurants are often insanely expensive. Skyr, with a few berries, is the antidote: breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Reykjavik to Borgarnes

It’s remarkable to find how quickly you can leave the city of Reykjavik. Within minutes of driving out of the city center, it’s the suburbs. Minutes after that, a long road with little traffic, fewer towns. To our right, steep, treeless mesas, peppered with sheep and oystercatchers. To our left, inlets, bays and mud flats.

For almost all of its 1,100 year human history, Iceland’s population hovered around 50,000. Today, the island’s total population is 350,000 — a phenomenally low population for a geography about the size of New York State. Reykjavik, where most people in Iceland live, features a population about the same size as Killeen, Texas.

Because of these low population levels, Iceland is to some degree a blank slate, with seemingly few stories for traveling writers to tell. It’s easy to fall for the idea that Iceland is encapsulated by the same stories we keep hearing about, as if there a bait has been dangled for us in front of the Icelandic Tourist Board.

Tourism in Iceland has boomed so quickly that it has also become a bit like a wild west of travel documenting; a frontier to rehash the same story over and over again.

One recurring story you hear almost constantly is: I went to Iceland and ate a daring, gross and controversial food.

I am perennially repulsed by this trend in travel. Imagine the meaty head of Andrew Zimmern, (Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern), gullet open to the sky, swallowing something rare for the camera. A reminder of how unnecessary eating gross foods for a smart travel audience is.

In Iceland, however, weird and gross foods often cross a distinct line of ethics, which travel bloggers gleely cross, often while downplaying that line in their writing, or even explicitly crossing it to shock their audience. When travel bloggers and tourists consume Minke Whale, Atlantic Puffin or Greenland Shark, for example, aren’t they crossing a firm line of global conservation ethics?

Low tide flats in typical scenery from Reykjavik to the Westfjords.

THE ETHICS OF EATING PUFFIN IN ICELAND

T

ravel blogger Candie Walsh writes in her blog, Free Candy, “On one of my final nights in Reykjavik, the Obesity Gods intervened.”

In her home province of Newfoundland, Atlantic Puffin is treasured and revered. “In fact, it’s a heavily protected species of the most adorable order,” she writes.  “Hunting puffins in my home province is treason. Obviously I had to eat one in Iceland.”

The explicit statement of understanding that the species is threatened is a common theme among travel bloggers talking about their daring cuisine in Iceland.

“Surprisingly, the puffin was delicious...the puffin was prepared in such a way that you’d hardly know you were eating one of the most adorable creatures on earth.”

Responding to commenters, Candy Walsh advertises her wild and crazy ability to eat. “I’m a heathen...Hahaha. I will apparently eat just about anything!”

Like any travel blogger around the world, Candy knows that seabirds have a precarious path to survival. Throughout North America, from Panama to Canada, we protect our rocky offshore islands vigilantly. We know that their manner of nesting in cliff and island colonies puts them at a particular risk. With so much input and education about the fragility of seabirds, it is impossible for us not to know the line the behavior crosses.

THE ETHICS OF EATING WHALE IN ICELAND

When weighing whether it’s okay to eat whale in Iceland, travel bloggers repeat the conclusion that the controversy surrounding whale is simply whether the animal is endangered; Ultimately, whales are just another animal, and a quick internet search on whether the species can be ‘sustainably harvested,’ is enough to satisfy the travel blogger advertising to their international audiences that they too can also eat whale.

There are a few animals which modern civilization has deemed morally repugnant to kill and consume. Obviously, among this short list is all the great sentient mammals. We find human flesh morally repugnant, as we do the flesh of the great apes, the elephants and the cetaceans.

But then how did Lauren Monitz of iExplore come to such a different moral conclusion? She writes, “Often served raw, I also sampled whale tartare with a fine blueberry sauce that tasted like ahi tuna albeit refreshingly fruity thanks to the topping.”

Like with Candy, Lauren dismisses the moral weight, a way of telling her international readers that they too can ignore the moral implications of eating whale: “It was in fact one of the better dishes despite obviously being discouraged by animal activists who regularly campaign to get the protected creature taken off menus.”

THE ETHICS OF EATING GREENLAND SHARK IN ICELAND

Travel bloggers visiting Iceland love to eat a fermented shark dish called Hákarl, or fermented, rotting Greenland Shark. They refer to it as a traditional Icelandic dish, and a ‘Reykjavik delicacy’. Others call it Iceland’s national dish. They cite the weirdness of it, and the excitement of trying a dish that tastes like rancid urine, on account of the poisonous, ammonia-rich flesh of the Greenland Shark---the large, docile shark pees through the fabric of its body to stay warm.

Icelanders will tell you that the idea that Hákarl is a national dish is a bit of a fabrication. Through most of the twentieth century, it was virtually unknown to most Icelanders, who would have nothing to do with it. Others will tell you that it would be served only once a year in certain seaside towns, usually as a Christmas tradition. Its existence in grocery stores and fancy Reykjavik restaurants has appeared alongside the recent boom in tourism.

Kiki, of The Blonde Abroad, calls Greenland Shark all those things at once. She writes, “Rotten Shark...is a traditional delicacy in Iceland that dates back to the time of the Vikings. While it might not be at the top of your must-eat list, it has always made practical sense in the kitchens of Iceland.”

Kiki shares a large photo of herself with a grossed out face, eating the shark. And a youtube video, that also shows her being grossed out during a bold act of consumption.

The problem with Greenland Shark is a different one from both puffins and whales. If Icelanders eat a small amount of shark bycatch as a holiday delicacy, it is a local act that is harmless to the species. But, everybody knows the dual stories of how fishing sharks devastates their populations and the story of the speedy decline of Orange Roughy, the fish popular on dinner tables around the world in the 1980s. Because the fish grows slowly, lives deep in the ocean and matures late, nobody realized they had nearly decimated the world supply of the species until it was nearly too late.

The Greenland Shark, similarly lives for hundreds of years: it is the world’s longest living vertebrate, and slowest moving of all fish, and, as a mysterious deepwater denizen, we really don’t know how many, or how few, are left. We literally have no concept of their remaining population. While we often hear that most Greenland Sharks are bycatch, the rise in demand from the tourist trade puts more pressure on the annual catch of a species now designated by the IUCN as near threatened.

Eurasian Oystercatcher foraging on tidal flats on the Seltjarnarnes peninsula near Reykjavik.

Borgarnes to Búðardalur

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rom Borgarnes to Búðardalur, Highway 1 crosses through inland terrain. Some of the terrain is forested with birch and conifers, a reminder of Iceland’s pre-human past, when over thirty-percent of the island was covered in trees.

In this inland wilderness, the ubiquitous sheep and horses are a reminder of the near absence of native mammals. Arctic foxes are the island’s only native land mammal; knowing this puts a damper on our desire to spot for wildlife while driving north.

My son and I will sometimes make up stories while traveling together. The history of skyr is somewhat bland, and certainly not as exciting a backstory as rotten urine shark. Skyr production was a technique common in Scandinavia when Iceland was discovered, but later forgotten everywhere but here.

So, my son and I invent a more Instagram-friendly backstory for skyr:

The skyr squirrel, named for its ability to escape raptor predation by sliding down a snowy slope on its hind-haunches, was common in the interior of Iceland up until the eighteenth century.

Fernando, a wealthy Spanish trophy hunter, took up employment among the whalers of Northern Europe, making his way north to Iceland, where his hope was to bag the island’s greatest mammals.

Upon finding only non-native sheep and horses, he grew weary, turning his bloodlust on the common skyr squirrels, which he discharged by the thousands. Luckily for trophy-less Fernando, he found delectable the milky-white substance that erupted when that musket-shot struck the skyr squirrels. Pleasant was the slightly sour, slightly sweet yogurt-like substance, which he made into a local commodity, exported to Denmark by the barrel.

But, little did he know, the skyr squirrels were on the verge of extinction, just like the Passenger Pigeons of North America.

My son has learned about Passenger Pigeons in school, and we have seen a rare stuffed specimen at our local science museum. But today, we talk about the specific way in which the species declined so rapidly.  Passenger pigeons are believed to have been the most populous bird in the world prior to the 1800s. When they crossed the sky in their millions, they would blacken it. The spectacle of this mass of life, moving like an interstellar starling undulation, was one of the great natural spectacles of the planet.

On September 1, 1914, Martha, the last of her species, passed away at the Cincinnati Zoo.

But how did the species go from billions to zero in two decades? Passenger Pigeons were tasty creatures, and after the Civil War, a network of roads and railroads allowed a network of hunters easy access to their entire range in the East, Midwest and Canada. They killed them in every way possible, sometimes by just waving a stick or a net in the air. Sometimes by torching their roosts or simply by blasting a pellet into that mass of black.

The exact cause of their quick demise is unknown, but the general belief among ornithologists is that they had adapted to live in as ultra-social creatures in super-huge groups. Imagine a bird that lives like humans in Manhattan. Once their numbers were hunted to a point of just a few million left, their advanced social structure - their population dynamics - could no longer function.

My conversation with my son, on the road to Búðardalur, prompted me to want to learn more about whether there were similarities between the Atlantic Puffins of the North Atlantic, and the Passenger Pigeons.

The carcass of a US Navy Douglas C-117D sits on the property of the Hnjótur Farm, near the Látrabjarg Hotel. The Hnjótur Farm makes up most of the village of Örlygshöfn, just south of the emerald and turquoise waters of Patreksfjörður fjord.

Interview with Erpur Snær Hansen

I caught up with seabird researcher Erpur Snær Hansen, director of the South Iceland Nature Research Center, whose research into the decline of Iceland’s puffins has begun to reverberate on the world stage. With access to time series unheard of in other bird populations, Hansen and his colleagues have begun to piece together the correlations between the puffin’s prized fish; Silvery Sandeels, warming seas, and overhunting of the species for Reykjavik’s ritzy tourist restaurants.

ERIK: HOW DID YOU GET INVOLVED WITH PUFFINS AND SEABIRDS?

Erpur: I was a birder at age 11, and later, I built up an interest in science with plans to become an ornithologist. I moved into seabird research, Trying to answer questions like, “Why do they raise only one chick, and what determines their growth patterns?”

In Spring 2007, I was asked to give a talk in the Westman Islands, because they were worried about persistent chick death in the colonies. I had a good background, because I had studied puffins for my honor’s thesis, on their habitat selection.  

An intense decline in seabird chick production had started in 2003 and peaked in 2005, involving not only puffins, but most Icelandic seabird species, which constitute about twenty-five percent of North Atlantic seabird biomass.  We really needed to understand the key factors of the decline. They were keen enough to hire me, and I began working to find out what was going on.

I started out in Iceland’s Westman Islands. Our methodology was to use infrared illuminated video cameras to peer into their burrows. We learned a lot in these three years.  

We received a grant together with sandeel researchers at the Marine Research Institute, which demonstrated that the sandeel stock collapsed in 2005, and one puffin year class after another disappeared from the puffin harvest.

We expanded our methodology developed in the Westmans to twelve colonies throughout Iceland in 2010. The research is funded by the trust, which is financed by the annual hunter permit fees.

The idea was that we would visit each colony twice each year. First, in early June to see how many eggs were laid in our study burrows, and again in late July to check the same burrows to see how many chicks remained. We also photograph adults carrying food in July. This is the Icelandic Puffin Population Monitoring Program, or less formally what we call the Puffin Rally. This is exhausting work, in particular, a lot of travel. We travel about six-thousand kilometers by car, and then from there a variety of boat and airplane travel.

ERIK: WHAT ARE YOU FINDING IN THE BURROW?

Erpur: That differs between both regions and time. The puffins have been doing moderately fine in the north; in the Westfjords and in northeast Iceland. In the South and East, they have been faring poorly, and taken together, not well enough to sustain the whole Icelandic population. The West started out like the south, but have been improving considerably in the last 4 years and sandeels are being seen again in the last few years. Things have improved in the Westmans, although the sandeel is still scarce.

ERIK: IN ICELAND, WHERE PUFFIN ICONOGRAPHY IS UBIQUITOUS, DOES THIS MAKE YOU A CELEBRITY?

Erpur: Puffins are one of the main reasons people are visiting Iceland. Seeing them is a huge industry for us. Special tours to see puffins all over the island are extremely popular. The Atlantic Puffin is actually ranked the number one bird globally in terms of people’s favorite bird.

Does that make me a celebrity? No, but of course, with everything that is happening now, I was reporting our results to the media.

The bill of the Atlantic Puffin is designed to hold several fish at once. The fleshy yellow roseate at the base of the puffin's beak is a stretchy material that allows the seabird the ability to open its beak very wide, to enable catching more fish and for communicating.

ERIK: LET’S TALK ABOUT PUFFINS WHEN THEY ARE AT SEA. WHAT IS THEIR LIFE LIKE?

Erpur: We have participated in a multicolony international collaborative program named SEATRACK, deploying geologgers on the Atlantic Puffin, together with ten other seabird species in order to map their winter distributions. Icelandic puffins have a triangular migration pattern, they head into the Labrador Sea in fall, stay there until the end of the year when they move south over the Atlantic ridge centering on the Charliecr-Gibbs fracture zone, and in spring, they head north.

The Charlie-Gibbs fracture zone in the Atlantic ridge is rich with prey in winter and is a mega hot spot for sharks, whales, as well as many seabird species of the North Atlantic It’s a fascinating place, with summer conditions in the middle of winter and undoubtedly the reason for the large size of many seabird populations in the North Atlantic.

ERIK: AND WHAT ABOUT WHEN THEY COME BACK TO ICELAND?

Erpur: After a completely pelagic existence like other ‘true’ seabirds; they come back in the middle of April to meet up with their mate.

Puffins have monogamous relationships for life. We say that puffins have a pretty low ‘divorce rate’ - seven percent. For example, if the mate dies, or if they have breeding failure.

Between Iceland and Norway, there have been sharp declines, which is why Atlantic Puffins were put on the IUCN red list in 2015.

I am able to study puffins backwards in time, because we have data on the harvest records in the Westmans Islands going back to 1880. Eighty-percent of the puffin harvest is composed of three year classes that are 2, 3 and 4 years old. Since the effort has remained relatively constant, the harvest in any given year reflects how many were born 2-4 years before.

This gives us one of the longest and perhaps the most interesting time series of birds, as the data show that puffin chick production has a very strong correlation to sea temperature. When sea temperatures are warmer, fewer puffins are harvested, and vice versa.

We know that temperature is key, and temperature in the Atlantic follows a seventy year cycle termed the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation or AMO, characterized by 35 warm years, followed by 35 cold years A warm period started in Icelandic waters in 1996 with temperatures peaking in 2003. In Icelandic waters, the warming is greatly intensified by contemporal contraction of the Sub-Polar Gyre, a circular current system, which opens for great flow of warm and saline Atlantic seawater northwards.

In the process our waters warm by about one degree Celsius, in less than a decade the same warming as predicted by global warming for this century using the IPCC A1B1 “business as usual model!”

The polar currents coming from the north mix with the warmer waters and thus create three marine ecosystems. We have essentially a natural laboratory of extreme temperature variation gradient. That’s exactly where our study colonies are located.

ERIK: THE PUFFINS ARE DECLINING BECAUSE THEIR PRIMARY FOODSOURCE, THE SILVERY SANDEEL, ARE IN DECLINE?

Erpur: The sandeel is one of the most commercially harvested fish in the North Sea, and is studied by a number of specialists. There are a number of exciting hypotheses for their decline and how this relates to seabird declines. One hypothesis is that the sandeel’s first winter survival is negatively related to temperature by increase in their Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR), leading to a premature depletion of their fat reserves, prior to the onset of their zooplankton food in spring. They die of starvation during these warmer years.

Another, complementary hypothesis is that in warm summers, the sandeel´s elevated BMR wastes energy, instead of building energy (fat) reserves and growth. We don’t always have warm and cold summers in conjunction. In 1948, for example, summers cooled during an otherwise cold winters AMO period, which allowed the sandeels to really strengthen, judged by the increase in Puffin harvest. In 1996, we started to see the reverse of this, and sandeel numbers declined very rapidly, much more than in the last warm period in the 1930´s. Oceanographers are modeling to see if global warming will buffer against the cooling of the AMO cycle, essentially terminating the cooling period.

If this warming trend continues, the puffin colonies here will be a shadow of their former past. In the north, the colonies would remain. We would have a northern coast with current numbers, and losing more than half of the rest of the populations. This IUCN red listing is really about this: If you would have been here in the 1980s, you would have seen so many birds! Now there is nothing like that! The puffins haven’t even socialized normally in the troubled colonies in the last decade. These social birds are known to spend a lot of time communicating with each other, they don’t have the time to hang around anymore. They need to put all their attention on acquiring food.

What is happening differently during this warm period now, I think, is that the algae blooms that normally occur in March and April, happen much later. The sandeel eggs are hatching about the same time as the algal bloom. The algae are grazed on by zooplankton, which is the prey of sandeels. If there is a delay in the bloom timing, we have what is termed a trophic mismatch. Basically the sandeel prey show up so late that they are already dead from starvation.

Puffin chicks have been fledging in September, rather than in late August. 2019 is however the sunniest year on record, creating a massive algae bloom that you can easily see from space. There is a huge amount of food in there. So there are a lot of variables out there.

Sandeel numbers are expected to increase when you have a good bloom year: early and intensive blooms benefit the the entire food pyramid.

We have satellite data since 1998 that shows that the blooms have been really late in the last decade or so, and one could expect that to increase with global warming: more evaporation and more clouds in our region, and consequently, less sun. That delays and reduces the blooms.

Traditional Southern Westfjords fishing vessels on display on the grounds of the Hnjotur Museum.

ERIK: HOW DOES THE HUNTING OF PUFFIN FOR TOURISTS PLAY INTO THEIR DECLINE?

Erpur: Between 1995 and 2017 there has been a ninety-one percent reduction in the Icelandic puffin harvest. Interestingly, sixty-six percent of this decline, or two thirds, occurred before I advocated for a moratorium in 2008.

The puffin harvest went from over 200,000 to about 30,000 annually, and the prices went up. Now the restaurant business is selling most of the catch to tourists. Chef Hrefna Sætran has a couple of the most exclusive restaurants in Reykjavik. She was asked on Facebook in spring 2019 why she was selling an endangered animal in her restaurants. she replied: “While it is legal to hunt them and sell, I am selling them.”

The problem is the legal aspect of it. The government plans on addressing the issue in 2020 with a new law. But today, the ‘traditional hunting loophole’ has been interpreted to be exempt from the sustainability clause in the law, anyways. The problem is that landowners regulate the hunting on their land—- they are in many cases also the hunters, thus regulating themselves. It’s up to the landowners, who are allowed to hunt their land during the hunting period without limits.

Since the populations are doing okay in the North, the hunters there have used that to justify their continued hunting, despite the fact that the whole population is doing poorly. They are earning a lot of money from this—greed is put above the welfare of the species.

ERIK: ARE OTHER SEABIRDS IN ICELAND HAVING THE SAME PROBLEM OF REPRODUCTIVE FAILURE?

Erpur: Yes, we think of the puffin as a model species. Most of the other seabirds, the auks, the fulmars, and the kittiwakes, they all eat the same prey. Most seabird populations in the North Atlantic are going down. Counts show similar declines are happening to the other species.

ERIK: TRAVEL BLOGGERS SAY THERE ARE 10-15 MILLION PUFFINS IN ICELAND AS A JUSTIFICATION FOR EATING THEM. TWO QUESTIONS. ONE, IS THIS NUMBER ACCURATE OR OUTDATED? TWO, IF THERE WERE BILLIONS OF PASSENGER PIGEONS, IS MILLIONS OF PUFFINS A SAFE NUMBER TO TAKE FROM THE SKY?

Erpur: These numbers they quote, they are getting from Icelandic tourism sources, which are all wrong. Today, there are about 2.7 million Puffin burrows in Iceland, and about seventy-four percent are active at a given time, so there are 2 million breeding pairs in our country. This comprises the production unit of Iceland’s puffin population. Let’s say that you have almost the same number of immature birds. That ideal represents the maximum population: about 6 million individuals in total.

Since the population is not maintaining their numbers, but declining, the principle of long lived – low chick productive output life histories applies, that any hunting adds to the decline. In seabirds, the killing accelerates the decline. People who only see the millions of individuals and do not think how many are needed to maintain the numbers are illiterate in population dynamics and have no valuable contribution to make but to pseudoscience.

ERIK: IS THERE A FEAR OF THE PASSENGER PIGEON SYNDROME?  

Erpur: When the sand eels collapsed, there was definitely peril for the puffins. But this hunting on top of that is not sustainable. It’s certainly not helping, and it is not ethical. We manage our fisheries well for the most part, we are looked at fondly by other countries for how we manage them, at least we had more success than many others. Sure, we fucked up a few times with capelin and halibut. We biologists are saying that all wildlife should be treated like we treat our fisheries, that will be the nature of the new law bill.

These Puffins are much more valuable alive than hunted, providing revenue year after year. They bring Iceland serious tourism money. That’s millions of euros each year. That is a lot of foreign currency pumping into Iceland because of the puffin.

ERIK: IS PUFFIN A TRADITIONAL ICELANDIC DELICACY, OR AN OLD STARVATION FOOD IN ISOLATED COASTAL VILLAGES?

Erpur: Puffin was initially a just part of normal food. They were harvested as soon as the settlement of Iceland. This was often the only meat people had until spring. Puffin was a sustenance food until between World Wars. After that, the hunting became a ‘traditional sport’ using a polenet called háfur.

Evening looking over the Látrabjarg Cliffs. Puffins burrow on such treacherously steep slopes here, they are safe from the Arctic Fox, which are wise to steer clear of the famously steep cliffs.

Búðardalur to Flókalundur

T

he village of Búðardalur, at the very end of mainland Iceland, is known mostly for the nearby Eiríksstaðir, the homestead of Erik the Red and the birthplace of his son Leif, who went on to explore North America five hundred years before Columbus anchored in the Bahamas.

From Búðardalur, we’ll be driving across the Westfjords Peninsula, one of the most exciting pieces of geography on Earth. Our final destination will be the furthest western point in Europe, even though, like Americans with Leif and Columbus, Europeans disagree.

When I told a tableful of Europeans that we were headed to the westernmost point of Europe, they pointed to the fact they all learned in school: Portugal’s Cabo da Roca, a peninsula just went of Lisbon, is Europe’s westernmost point.

But this commonly held fact is misleading, and wrong, on several points.

Cabo da Roca is indeed the westernmost point of the Eurasian landmass, that is a point to which no one disagrees.

However, the question is not about a landmass or a continent, but an area, a place, specifically, Europe. Europe is not a continent. While it is often taught in school that Europe is a special case continent; in which the Caucasus mountains somehow separate it from the other half of itself, most geographers see Eurasia as one big thing: Europe and Asia are the same large landmass. From a biological perspective, this is certainly the case. When we look at the mammals and birds and plants of the region, we recognize that the history is one.

Europe, then, is better defined as a place with distinct shared human history and culture.

Nobody doubts that England and Ireland are a part of Europe —they share language borne from mainland Europe, a common culture and history, but Portugal’s Cabo de Roca is actually further west than the most western points of these islands. Only Iceland, which shares a common history and language to mainland Europe, is further west than Cabo de Roca.

Well, that’s not quite true either. Monchique Islet, a rock jutting out from the westernmost point of the Azores Islands of Portugal, is much further west than Iceland. Although, as a remote island that actually sits within the North American plate, it can’t be categorized as being part of the place called Europe, even though it belongs to a European country. This is the same as saying that Hawaii, Guam and American Samoa are all part of the United States, but they do not fit into the definition of being part of North America.

So by this evening, we hope to reach the westernmost point of Europe.

A view of the Patreksfjörður fjord a few minutes before midnight.

Flókalundur to Látrabjarg

D

riving along the southern coast of the Westfjords is dizzying: The spectacle of the geography, the immensity of it, is confounding.

As we head west, the sense that we are at the edge of something feels very real. The geography becomes more surreal, often bays are shrouded with rocks in peculiar linear formations.

Treeless slopes grade steeply into vast inlets. And something unimaginable this far north in the world: white sand beaches and clear turquoise shallows. Arctic Terns, gulls and sandpipers abound along rocky shores, and at one point, a viciously precise Parasitic Jaeger crosses in front of our car, tailing a gull at high speed.

We stop to check in briefly at the 9-room Látrabjarg Hotel, one of a handful of structures in the area, before heading the final forty minutes to the Látrabjarg Cliffs. These cliffs are known as the largest tourist attraction in the Westfjords. The fact that there are only fourteen cars in the parking lot is a testament to the isolation of the region.

Right next to the parking lot is the Bjargtangar Lighthouse, the very westernmost point in all of Europe. From here, we can see hundreds of gulls, fulmars and kittiwakes; an explosion of bird life at the top of the largest seabird cliff in Europe.

We walk along the path that rises along the sloping edge of the cliffs, watching the spectacle of seabirds speeding along the water below.

As late evening approaches, the puffins begin to ascend onto the cliffs after a day of fishing. We sit just feet from a group of three of them, hobbling around a burrow. What singular creatures! Tiny Mannequins in masquerade. They are also, as travel blogger Candie Walsh stated, adorable. If you’ve seen the porgs of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and sense their cuteness resembles that of a puffin, it’s not coincidental. The porgs were a last-minute fix to the ubiquitous puffins on set. The miniature aliens were CGI’ed over the plump seabirds, who remained unafraid of the busy sets.

As the sun grows weaker, we rush back to the Látrabjarg Hotel, just in time for our meal. “My father’s best friend caught this cod this afternoon. We have prepared it with a tomato compote and local herbs.”

Jane and I agree, the fresh fish is one of the finest meals we’ve had in our lives, and after a long day of continuous road travel, to have this quiet meal at the edge of the world, looking out over a turquoise bay, is an exquisite end to our puffin rally.

The owner’s son comes out and says, “And for desert, we are serving Skyr!”