#its a lawless swamp

[clairedelune-13]

I’ve never been to Florida, but according to TGP and now TSwift, it’s shit.

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 6/18/2024

might flood today! might not! who knows! i live in the paved over swamp! mackintosh’s main concern is this bowl of grapes

listening

sligo river blues performed by john fahey. part of the point of doing this weekly is when i sit down to draft these, i am occasionally forced to go "ooh. i forgot to listen to music while pacing around last week. maybe that's why i was a tremendous cunt and wanted to claw out of my own skin."

anyway i care about two people on tiktok and one of them is a couple renovating a stunning house in the pacific northwest from a level 5 hoard (DK Dreamhouse), and one is this guy dylanwesch who is i guess music nerd tok? a lot of ambient stuf which i love to click around on the computer to. listened to part of this album while debugging a GIS problem this week

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reading

i read six books this week, which is really the clearest possible sign i need to up my antidepressants. read the shepherd king duology by rachel gillig (Fine but i had some issues with the authorial style, felt very YA as opposed to NA, did have a very cool magic system, unfortunately i liked the second couple’s banter and relationship Way More than the main couple’s). finished the last three books in the temeraire series, i have not much to say about them except i adored them wholeheartedly. also before i read those i wrote all the below in a fit of pique

the great state of west florida by kent wascom. instagram kept serving me ads for this book and i am once again a little unnerved by meta's advertising.

publishers' weekly synopis

In Wascom’s wacky and wild fourth adventure for the Woolsack clan (after The New Inheritors), lawless gunslingers and reactionary Christian nationalists face off in a divided Florida. The year is 2026 and 13-year-old orphan Rally Woolsack is rescued from the abusive foster family who brought him to Louisiana by his long-lost uncle Rodney, who regularly responds to challenges of mortal combat on the app DU3L. Rally is thrilled to get away from his tormentors and return to Florida, although it turns out Rodney has pulled him from the frying pan into the fire. Troy Yarbrough, a state legislator whose family runs a creepy evangelical Christian college in its mansion on Florida’s panhandle, has introduced a bill calling for the region to secede from the state. Rally, reckoning with the long-running bad blood between his family and the Yarbroughs, derides Troy’s vision as a “Jesus-riddled white ethnostate with a beachside pastel tinge.” With the bill on the floor of the state legislature, and with everyone packing firearms, the Florida Wars begin. Fans of pulpy dark humor will relish the climactic showdown between Yarbrough’s henchmen and those loyal to an elusive figure called the Governor, as right-wing nutjob Troy is saddled by mad cow disease and Rally is rescued by his crush. This high-octane satire feels all too plausible. Agent: Gail Hochman, Brandt & Hochman Literary. (May)

i had some trouble with this one! on its face it seems like the kind of thing i would eat with a spoon. in practice it's more of a coming-of-age than a just-before-the-apocalypse story and i have a lot of trouble relating to a thirteen-year-old boy. even if he is bisexual. in this interview wascom says he's "re-mythologizing the Western" which i can kind of see? it's very pulp and ultra-violent in a spaghetti western kind of way, and seems written in a way easily adaptable to the screen. not quite vaporwave but a lot of anime influence: the author thanks twelve Japanese directors and manga artists at the end of the book.

there's an odd authorial quirk where the thirteen-year-old boy often points out (internally and externally) that the adults in his life are just talking at him about politics. which is a pretty accurate portrayal of childhood, but lampshading it in this way doesn't really make me excited about wascom's authorial chops? this is your fourth book. this book revolved around a couple brutal fight scenes (and one giant setpiece crowd scene, which has vibes and atmosphere in spades), and that's a perfectly fine reason to write a book, but if that's your strength i would be very happy to have you focus on that instead of sections where both the kid and i the reader are bored.

there's a scene with babysitter/babysittee sexual abuse that unlocks how the abused character makes decisions for the rest of his life, but it was extremely graphic and i wasn't really prepared for that. i don't know that i would have read this book if i had that knowledge aforethought.

overall not quite what i wanted it to be: the author in this interview said he's been working on it for over a decade and had to keep throwing out parts coming true during trump's presidency. i picked this pulpy novel up as an escape from the terrible politics of today, which is not what this books is. i don't know if i buy that he was simply too good at predicting the future, but i do like the choice stated in his interview "I abandoned the predictive stuff and tried to tell a story like it was written on an obelisk in the future, like what Denis Johnson did with Fiskadoro, or Joanna Russ with The Female Man". it does feel very much like the narrator from Mad Max 2 telling his story of meeting Max as a feral kid. again, some interesting ideas in here, does deliver on the Southern Gothic doomed political family aspect, as well as the same flavor of heat-wave climate tragedy as JG Ballard's The Drowned World, but i would have liked to focus more on his cool furiosa-like aunt in a white mustang with an anime mech arm. criminally underused character

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watching

watched The Hunter (2011, dir. Nettheim) because of the Temeraire books! they used an archaic name for Tasmania that made me go “where the Fuck is that” and then i looked at the media mentions section of the wikipedia page. beautiful film in a very spare way. lots of long loving shots of willem defoe in the wilderness enduring various weather conditions.

i don’t know if it stuck the landing quite as well as i would like, but like defoe you fall in love with the land and the family so slowly it’s very startling when you finally do fully realize it. i think i was supposed to cry at the end but didn’t quite manage it. one of my favorite springsteen songs is part of the diagetic score in a way that made me cry, which i also did not expect.

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playing

shoutout to the Thing Matching genre of phone game. this one is very much watch-ads-to-win but the levels are pretty long and i like shuffling objects around while listening to podcasts and trying to fall asleep

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making

fallow week

[schraubd]

The 2022 Almost-Post Mortem

I was a bit hesitant to write my post-mortem recap today, since some very important races remain uncalled. Incredibly, both the House and Senate remain uncalled, though the GOP is favored in the former and Democrats have the slight advantage in the latter. It would be truly delightful if Catherine Cortez Masto can squeak out a win in Nevada and so make the upcoming Georgia run-off, if not moot, then slightly less high stakes. But again, things are up in the air that ought make a big difference in the overall "narrative" of the day.

Nonetheless, I think some conclusions can be fairly drawn at this point. In no particular order:

There was no red wave. It was, at best, a red trickle. And given both the underlying fundamentals  on things like inflation and the historic overperformance of the outparty in midterm elections, this is just a truly underwhelming performance for the GOP. No sugarcoating that for them.

If Trafalgar polling had any shame, they'd be shame-faced right now, but they have no shame, so they'll be fine.

In my 2018 liveblog, I wrote that "Some tough early results (and the true disappointment in Florida) has masked a pretty solid night for Democrats." This year, too, a dreadful showing in Florida set an early downer tone that wasn't reflected in the overall course of the evening. Maybe it's time we just give up the notion that Florida is a swing state?

That said, Republicans need to get out of their gulf-coastal-elite bubble and realize that what plays in Tallahassee doesn't play in the rest of the country. 

That's snark, but also serious -- for all the talk about how "Democrats are out-of-touch", it seems that the GOP also has a problem in not understanding that outside of their fever-swamp base most normal people maybe don't like the obsession with pronouns and "kitty litter" and "anti-CRT". Their ideological bubble is at this point far more impermeable, and far more greatly removed from the mainstream, than anything comparable among Democrats.

Abortion is maybe the biggest example of this, as anti-choice measures keep failing in even deep red states like Kentucky, while pro-choice enactments sail to victory in purple states like Michigan (to say nothing of blue bastions like California). Democratic organizers should make a habit of just putting abortion on the ballot in every state, and ride those coattails.

It's going to fade away almost immediately, but I cannot get over the cynical bad faith of what happened regarding baseless GOP insinuations that any votes counted after election day were inherently suspicious. On November 7, this was all one heard from GOP officials across the country, even though delays in counting are largely the product of GOP-written laws. But on November 8, when they found themselves behind on election night returns, all of the sudden folks like Kari Lake are relying on late-counted votes to save them while raising new conspiracies about stolen elections. Sickening.

Given the still powerful force of such conspiracy mongering, Democrats holding the executive branch in key swing states like Wisconsin and Michigan is a huge deal. Great job, guys.

For the most part, however, most losing MAGA candidates are conceding. Congratulations on clearing literally the lowest possible bar to set.

The GOP still should be favored to take over the House, albeit with a razor-thin majority. And that majority, in turn, seems almost wholly attributable to gerrymandering -- both Democrats unilateral disarmament in places like New York, but also truly brutal GOP gerrymanders in places like Florida. This goes beyond Rucho, though that case deserves its place in the hall of shame. The degree to which the courts bent over backwards to enable even the most nakedly unlawful districting decisions -- the absurd lawlessness of Ohio stands out, but the Supreme Court's own decision to effectively pause enforcement of the Voting Rights Act because too many Black people entering Congress qualifies as an "emergency" on the shadow docket can't be overlooked either -- is one of the great legal disgraces of my lifetime in a year full of them.

Of course, I have literally no idea how the Kevin McCarthy will corral his caucus with a tiny majority. Yes, it gives crazies like Greene and Boebert (well, maybe not Boebert ...) more power, but that's because it gives everyone in the caucus more power, which is just a recipe for chaos. Somewhere John Boehner is curling up in a comfy chair with a glass of brandy and getting ready to have a wonderful day.

My new proposal for gerrymandering in Democratic states: "trigger" laws which tie anti-gerrymandering rules to the existence of a national ban. If they're banned nationwide, the law immediately goes into effect. Until they are, legislatures have free reign. That way one creates momentum for a national gerrymandering ban while not unilaterally disarming like we saw in New York. Could it work? Hard to know -- but worth a shot.

Let's celebrate some great candidates who will be entering higher office! Among the many -- and this is obviously non-exhaustive -- include incoming Maryland Governor Wes Moore, incoming Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, incoming Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman. Also kudos to some wonderful veterans who held their seats in tough environs, including Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Virginia congresswoman Abigail Spanberger, New Jersey congressman Andy Kim, Maine Governor Janet Mills, and New Hampshire Senator Maggie Hassan.

Special shoutout to Tina Kotek, who overcame considerable headwinds (and the worst Carleton alum) to apparently hold the Governor's mansion in my home state of Oregon. Hopeful that Jaime McLeod-Skinner can eke out a victory in my congressional district too, though it looks like that might come down to the wire.

I also think it's important to give credit even to losing candidates who fought hard races. Tim Ryan stands out here -- not only did he force the GOP to spend badly needed resources in a state they should've had no trouble keeping, but his coattails might have pushed Democrats across the finish line in at least two House seats Republicans were favored to hold. (I hate to say it, but Lee Zeldin may have played a similar role for the GOP in New York).

I'm inclined to agree that, if Biden doesn't run in 2024, some of the emergent stars from this cycle (like Whitmer or Shapiro) are stronger picks for a presidential run than the also-rans from 2020. But I also think that Biden likely will get an approval bump off this performance -- people like being associated with winners!

On the GOP side, the best outcome (from my vantage) is Trump romping to a primary victory and humiliating DeSantis -- I think voters are sick of him. The second best outcome might be DeSantis winning narrowly over Trump and provoking a tantrum for the ages that might rip the GOP apart. DeSantis himself, as a presidential candidate, is an uncertainty -- I'm not convinced he plays well outside of Florida, but I am convinced that if he prevails over Trump the media will fall over itself to congratulate the GOP on "repudiating" Trumpism even though DeSantis is materially indistinguishable from Trump along every axis save that he's not abjectly incompetent (which, in this context, is not a plus).

The hardest thing to do is to recognize when even candidates you really like are, for whatever reason, just not going to get over the hump. This fits Charlie Crist, Beto O'Rourke, and (I'm sorry) Stacey Abrams. It's no knock on them -- seriously, it isn't -- but they're tainted goods at this point. Fortunately, Democrats have a deep bench of excellent young candidates who we can turn to next time around.

And regarding the youth -- I'm not someone who's a big fan of the perennial Democratic sport of Pelosi/Schumer sniping. I think they've both done a very good job under difficult circumstances, and deserve real credit for the successes we saw tonight and across the Biden admin more broadly. However, we do need to find room for some representatives from the younger generation to assume leadership roles. Younger voters turned out hard for the Democratic Party and deserve their seat at the table. It says something that Hakeem Jeffries, age 52, is the immediate current leadership figure springing to mind as a "young" voice -- that (and again, there's no disrespect to Jeffries here) is not good enough.

via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/1YJTzbo

[supereffectiveartblog]

Pokemon Oster - Fakemon and Regional Forms

In case a reader stumbles upon this post accidentally, I am a player in a friend's Pokémon Tabletop United campaign, which is set in Oster, our pokemon world's stand-in for Australia. Given I am our group's resident artist, the GM has asked for my help in designing regional variants of existing pokemon in order to make them more Australian. Pictured below is what we've come up with so far.

Osterian Cubone and Marowak take the Bonemerang idea to it's extreme. They have bones sharpened and carved into a true Boomerang shape, and resemble more crocodiles or lizards than their Kanto counterparts. Complete with bone akubras and fly swatters made of their hunts. They are Dark types because they are devious rangers that hunt for sport.

Osterian Yamper and Boltund take the domesticated dog Pokémon and make it Dingo. The Dingo is a domesticated canine that were introduced to Australia by our Aboriginal predecessors. The redesign mostly meant recolouring Boltund and Yamper and redesigning parts of the body e.g. ears and tails, to look more like a Dingo. Rather than a solid colour, I chose to stylise these Pokemon's coats to resembles Aboriginal Australian dot painting. Their desert habitat is what gives them a Ground type, and since they are more wise guardians than their counterparts, Cubone and Marowak, they have a Fairy typing.

Osterian Chatot is made to resemble a Cockatiel, a small Australian parrot. Cockatiel's are part of the Cockatoo family, mostly larger parrots with elaborate head crests and more muted colours. It's regional evolution, Didgeritoo, is based on the Yellow Tailed Black Cockatoo. Some local stories say that a Black Cockatoo flying overhead can foretell coming rain. So Didgeritoo, named for a traditional Australian woodwind instrument, is interpreted as a Pokemon associated with bad omens, particularly coming weather. Didgeritoo cannot learn any water type attacks, but it's arrival can make it rain.

Osterian Psyduck is reinterpretation of a typical Psyduck's not so duck shape, as a Platypus. Platypus are not birds, but have duck shaped bills, and males can produce a venom in their hindclaws, hence why Oster Psyduck is Water/Poison. It's Evolution Molduck takes the Platypus idea but leaning more into an Australian mythical creature called the Bunyip. There's many interpretations of what this cryptid could be, but a common theme is swamp monster. Molduck is named for both the toxic mould covering its body, and because Platypus are sometimes referred to as duck moles.

Oster Tarountula is based on one of Australia's many native spiders, the trapdoor spider. Trapdoor spiders wait in ambush in holes plugged by rocks or wood that they lift like a trap door to attack passing prey. Spidops takes the trapdoor idea and uses its ambush rock as a helmet to more resemble a famous old Australian outlaw, Ned Kelly, who wore a metal helmet with a slit for his eyes. This Spidops is not a true outlaw itself, but the helmet it wears is possessed by spirits who were lawless in their past life, hence the Ghost type.

[loominggaia]

S¿Cuáles son los peores lugares para vivir en este mundo? Y que personajes nacieron, o vivieron ahi

(Translated via Google Translate)

SWhat are the worst places to live in this world? And what characters were born or lived there?

I know I talked about this before, but I can't find the post, so I'll just do a quick rundown:

Taybiya: Itchy, Zeffer, and Lilan were all born here. It's a large independent settlement south of the Evangelite border. It was founded by criminals and slaves fleeing surrounding kingdoms. It's a lawless place plagued by crime, slave trafficking, and drugs. It is also infested by vampires.

Shadow Sector and Gutter Sector, Damijana: Jeimos wasn't born in these sectors, but did spend some time there. These are the lowest sectors in the Empire of Damijana. No sunlight can penetrate down here, so these streets are always dark and thick with toxic fumes that don't filter out properly. The Gutter Sector is the worse of the two; in fact it's so bad that the Damijani government won't even admit that is exists. Both sectors have major crime and sanitation issues.

Kirkmar: Glenvar was born here. It's an independent stone-age settlement in Halostira. Only humans live here, and they are quite unfriendly to outsiders, even towards humans of other races. Life is very hard in Kirkmar because temperatures rarely rise above freezing. It's constantly at war with surrounding settlements.

Laraine: Alaine was born here. Laraine is an independent settlement south of Zareen Empire, in the Kingsfall Swamp. The people here are poor, the weather is miserable, and disease is rampant. Undines attack the settlement regularly. The flora and fauna are both hostile in this region, and the swamp water is full of sewage, trash, and even corpses that flow down from Zareen Empire.

Chidibe: Javaan was born here. It's known as the poorest settlement in all the Great Kingdoms, located in Yerim-Mor. This place looks like it was bombed to the ground...because it was, several times. It's plagued by war, plague, famine, horrible poverty, and worst of all, the Cult of the Crescent has a big presence here. It's hard to escape this place because it's surrounded by miles of treacherous desert on all sides. The famine is so bad here that Chidibeans have a reputation for cannibalizing eachother.

Slegelse: Ojio lived here for many years. It's a Damijani prison camp located on a small island. Everyone living here is a prisoner or slave of the Damijani Empire, and they are being forced to mine crystals and hunt pyriads on an active, magma-spewing volcano. The work is so dangerous that most prisoners here are killed before their sentence is over.

Irontree District, Viersen: Jeimos lived here for many years. It's a district in the Zareenite city of Viersen mainly populated by Damijani immigrants. These immigrants are often undocumented, broke, alone, and face heavy discrimination from the Zareenites, making it almost impossible for them to advance to higher places in society. They get stuck here, in this dirty, crime-riddled slum with few services.

Kelvingyard Town: An Evangelite settlement, home of the notorious Kelvingyard slaving company. Everything about this place is depressing. Most of its income is generated from the massive slave yard, and this slave yard is also its only source of electricity. Slaves are forced to turn a heavy wheel which generates power. Most men in the town work for the Kelvingyard Company, and as we know, Kelvingyard does not employ the best and brightest...what I'm saying is: this town is populated by very stupid and sociopathic individuals. The infrastructure is pretty good by Evangelite standards, but if you have more than 2 braincells, living here will frustrate you.

Glasstide: Sofia was born and raised here. An Evangelite settlement located on the northwest tip of Noalen. A huge chunk of its population is made up of lycanthropes, which isn't all that surprising, because you almost have to be superhuman to survive in a place like this. It's incredibly cold and windy all the time. Frequent ice storms. There are no good jobs, only low-paying grunt work. Few civil services are available and it's very far from other civilization. Evangeline Kingdom neglects this place pretty bad, so not many hospitals, schools, police, or disaster relief.

Duali: Feredil and Balthazaar lived here for some time. It's a Morite settlement located very far out in the Serkel Desert, and because of this, it's neglected by the kingdom. The Cult of the Crescent has a big presence here, so people are always getting kidnapped, sacrificed, and terrorized. The economy is not doing well, so most people are poor. It's also one of the hottest places on Gaia.

Wattana: An island off the coast of Serkel. This was once a beautiful paradise until Matuzu Kingdom raided it for resources. Matuzu has since left, but the natives are still reeling from the damage, leading to lots of poverty and dysfunction. More recently, they've been getting harassed by the Aquarian Alliance. This place just can't catch a break.

*

Questions/Comments?

Lore Masterpost

Read the Series

[bugstung]

I'm just gonna share some basic Empires s2 worldbuilding i've made over these months, some i've said before and some new

The Eversea/Forgotten Cove: while the empire controls the whole sea in the area, its main city if the Forgotten Cove, a home away from home for pirates. The city is considered neutral ground for all pirates not affiliated with Skeletron, but that doesnt mean its fully peaceful Pirates have an honor code and will challenge each other to duel over many things (slights and insults, unfair theft, losing a past duel) with the prizes also being various (loot, ships, pronouns). They're pretty spiteful towards magic users but also fear them, many pirates know tales of sea witches cursing whole crews to wander the waves forever, never finding land or fresh water

Glimmer Grove: It is actually an offshoot/colony of a larger kingdom, Princess Katherine rules here and most assume that she's getting orders from her parents. Truthfully, they have no idea about Glimmer Grove being run by their daughter, as she ran away soon after becoming an adult. Glimmer Grove runs on a policy of "If we dont speak about stuff it can't hurt us," meaning many of them will change the topic if you bring up the curse. Many fear for their lives and are slowly losing trust in their princess and instead placing it in someone else, the lawless rogue vigilante who patrols the city and keeps them safe. they have no idea those two are the same person, but they know the Monster Slayer is wanted by the main kingdom and they all keep their mouth shut whenever anyone comes asking about them.

The Evermoore: Less of a kingdom and more of an outpost, Shelby technically controls the whole swamp but no one's mapped the whole thing so she has no idea how much territory she has. Her citizens are all ghosts, some in bodies of wood and some not. The fog likes her, it curls around her hat and under her feet and keeps her hidden when malicious spirits try and taunt her or worse. The Evermoore is known as a stop to those who use the riverways for travel and they get most of their trade from those boatsmen. Still, many boatsmen are wary of this outpost and its haunted magic, and most dont stay for long. Some claim it doesnt even exist, as those who try and find it with bad intent never do.

I have Fairytale trio brainrot so I think about these three the most so i have the most written out for them, i can do more if asked about the other empires tho

These are actually so good??? I really enjoy these

The fog curling around Shelby is top tier, and I can't get over the Forgotten Cove fighting for pronouns

[freakingoutthesquares]

Sounds, 8 March 1986 Words: John Wilde, Photographer: Jayne Houghton Transcription: Acrylic Afternoons

Meet the "new hard centre" in indie pop's choc box. John Wilde finds that Pulp have grown on him.

Pulp, neither putty nor pretty, meet Sheffield's steely stone gaze with a prickly, lawless grin or two. Defying, denying the commandment that equates Sheffield pop vultures with a stinging, heart-attack splutter... Pulp, some kind of self-made Christs, seem solitary and even freakish besides. Oddballs or oracles? Let's see.

Voice Jarvis Cocker, either the Alex Chilton or the Bamber Gascoigne of the new pop, first rallied his troops together over ten years ago, "Inspired more by The Sex Pistols than Jethro Tull" and intent on being "the Finnegan's Wake of post-punk". After more lulls than lunges, here they are. Last year's 'It' album dribbled out on Red Rhino, oblivious to the uncaring skies and hampered on its way by bitter Simon And Garfunkel comparisons. Musically too cautious and lyrically self-conscious, it mostly choked on the vitriol.

Then last month's 'Little Girl (With Blue Eyes) And Other Pieces' appeared; Pulp with a rocket up their arse and a racket in their hearts. A regenerated, most degenerated Pulp, swapping a casual canter for a scurvy disrespect. "A new hard centre," as guitar/violin Russell Senior quaintly puts it, staring into his mug of gin.

The EP's strange but endearing conceits have been swamped by the fussy over-concern towards its more, er, fleshy areas. There's a wry point buried someplace within the lust-lorn 'Little Girl (With Blue Eyes)' - 'There's a hole in your heart, and one between your legs. You've never had to wonder which one he's going to fill' - which has had their dissenters waving copies of Spare Rib and generally missing the seething satire of the line. Then there's (gulp) 'The Will To Power', a sturdy crack across the rib-cage of fascists and scumbags all: 'The only choice, the only voice in the darkness. 1933, where are you now, where are the broken bottles... where's truth and beauty?'

"We're not actually real-life fascists at all," states Russell with a sandpaper-dry smile and a swift shine of his NUM button. 'Little Girl', meanwhile, is as much a pure love song as 'Baby I Love You' or 'Baby Love'. This is what Jarvis tells me.

Whatever, this year's Pulp is a different kettle of spiders to last year's Pulp or the Pulp that have been lazing about in Jarvis Cocker's head for the last ten years. Just one year ago, I saw them in London, displaying all the hesitancy and spineless inhibition of 'It'. All that saved them was their apparent unsoundness of (collective) mind and their ragbag appearance, a look recalling the barmy escape party from One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest more than anything. Twelve months on, Art Garfunkel is left picking the pubes from his teeth the morning after and Pulp turn into a monster, sort of.

This year, they know their onions, a five-sided mess of snide rustlings and furtive fumblings. The Velvet Underground skip behind the bike-sheds for a surreptitious snog with Ted Rodgers, that sort of thing. Violin shrill, guitar grind, drums à la Maureen Tucker, vocal deadpan though often impassioned, full of hemmers and hawers. Like those Velvets, they frisk and skit from 'Sunday Morning' tranquil to 'White Light White Heat' bedlam, a disquieting imbalance but a good one.

... "'It' was our puberty, a document of teenage crushes and talking about ideas when you don't know much about them, loving the idea of love rather than 'it' itself. The LP is almost embarrassing to listen to now for us, but it was accurate for that time. We didn't feel comfortable with all that smoothness. Now, the overall feel is not wafting away on clouds of marshmallows. It's more an underlying feeling of striving or longing for something that isn't quite there. It's more painful now - grabbing, clutching and missing."

Currently confined to a wheelchair following a three-storey fall out of a window ("I thought it was a door" / "I was exorcising a demon" / "Did it for a bet" depending who he's telling), Jarvis is unrelenting. Onstage, while the other four ends of Pulp run amok, nutty as a fruit cake, with this grumbling spire of noise, Jarvis sits there a long way from Val Doonican and 'The Green, Green Grass Of Home'. Limbs twitch, eyeballs bulge and bounce, body snaps in short convulsions. Most interestingly, as the songs persist to their fickle climaxes, Jarvis clutches the chair arm, his hands sliding in time to the clumsy beat, his body wincing and starting, the chair a sex object. Thrilling. But they're not just as sexy as your sister.

Neither wilfully opaque nor bleeding bloody awkward, Pulp are many shades, fitting into the Sheffield brute-funk mosaic not at all. "We are ten times more Sheffield than any of those bands. Just because it's from Sheffield, why does it have to sound like a steel factory? You go to Grimsby, you don't expect fish-slapping, or the noise of trawlers. We stem from our industrial culture more than Chakk or anything like that. We're just not what the current image of Sheffield is supposed to be."

And so what? Pulp are not perfect, but they make most indie pop seem like it has its head packed with cotton. Pulp have only marginally more charisma than Leslie Crowther but have the gall and nerve of a madman. Pulp will barely rise from cultdom, they're too full of nonchalant anarchy for that, but in the small pond... they will be nasty and endure. They'll annoy the living, shitting hell out of you, and you'll rub up to the person next to you because of it. They're haywire and, like The Raincoats or The Mekons, they're better for it. Their songs build and build and, unlike bubbles, they explode and still last.

Jarvis?

"It's like someone once said... as soon as you realise that except for love and art it's all a bucket of shit... well, that's true about us."

Pulp. Nowhere near the bucket.

[tharrb]

The twelve mermaid kingdoms

Thermus, the kingdom of fire. The merfolk build their settlements near hydrothermal vents, and are know as master craftsmen.

Undyne, the kingdom of water. It’s people prefer the open ocean, away from the shore, and have been at odds with surface folk for as long as any can remember.

Skyvail, the kingdom of air. It’s people(referred to as skymaids) have wings and live in the clouds, but still return to the sea every once in a while. They’re known to be flighty and care free.

Basalt, the kingdom of earth. Home to a warrior nation, and found within the seabed. Combat is part of their everyday life starting from infancy until death.

Moraid, the kingdom of electricity . Inhabited by eel folk, this kingdoms people are elusive and rarely scene. The generally inhabit ship wreaks, masquerading as ghost.

Lagoo, the kingdom of plants. Found within swamps and kelp forrest, these merfolk are in-tuned. with nature and enjoy a live of coexistence with it. However, they are ferocious when it comes to protecting their homes.

Fortshell, the kingdom of metal. Their settlements are found with underwater mountain ranges. Their technology is second to none in the merworld, and their strongholds are nearly impenetrable.

Artifridg, the kingdom of ice. Found with the Arctic circle, not much is known about this kingdom, as it’s people are isolationist.

Venamodium, the kingdom of poison, a lawless land found writhing deep sea canyons, it house a wretched hive of scum and villainy.

Psyche, the kingdom of the mind. Found in coral reefs, this is deeply religious state, the people giving praise to ocean mother. While some sections of the kingdom are open minded, many are intolerant towards outsiders.

Luminarus, the kingdom of light. Often found near the shore, these merfolk are known more being pranksters, often pulling stuns(some not so harmless) on nearby humans.

Nightfall, the kingdom of shadow. Found with in the abyss, this is a gothic kingdom. Outsiders would find its inhabitants gloomy or eccentric, while they like their macabre home just fine.

[nourapast]

“dumb  wench.”  he  counters  both  dry  and  flatly  as  any  compressed  terrain,  which  is  often  paired  with  the  cleft  of  an  incredulous  squall.  it  is  not  so  much  an  accusation  as  it  is  an  indictment  of  her  nature,  to  think  herself  the  world  and  the  sonder  she  does  not  understand.  he  looks  severe,  which  is  habitual;  but  there’s  an  understanding  there,  too,  as  he  is  familiar  to  sarisa’s  way  of  obtruding  with  all  the  heft  and  sway  of  a  swamp  cat  --  so  his  temper  remains  sheathed  over,  impervious  to  her  when  she  passes  him  in  careless,  half-mocking  fashion  because  she  was  of  his  own  ilk  in  that  way.  but  most  jarring  were  the  differences  between  them  the  high  king  could  draw  upon  the  sand  to  its  most  finite,  rocky  composition.  naturally,  then,  oseye  mirrors  her  with  added  provocation:  “i’ll  snap  that  green  neck  of  yours  faster  than  you  can  keep  muttering  yourself  stiff  at  me.”  

still,  he  grows  quietest  yet  when  she  calls  attention  to  the  pearl  of  many-a  tale  when  she  came  across  the  shoreline  as  a  palpitating,  flighty  young  thing,  setting  things  to  destruction  in  his  lichen  slick  halls  and  the  jagged  rocks  of  lordsport  --  allusions  to  a  time  that  were  naught  else  but  a  threadbare  acclamation  to  the  depths  of  her  lawless,  raging  sea,  even  now.  “it  is  as  always,”  oseye  concurs,  offering  a  fact  of  his  own,  “you  do  naught  else  but  go  about  following  your  own  tunnelling  nose.”  he  looks  back  to  sarisa  after  a  moment  with  a  knowing  grin.  “aye,  at  least  the  stag  has  known  pleasures  of  the  world  before  the  hounds  were  let  loose  to  claim  their  hunt.”  the  insinuation  of  possession  is  made,  and  oseye  stands  wide-eyed  and  catty  as  he  leans  into  sarisa’s  bitter  bite  like  hook,  line,  and  sinker:  “tell  me,  is  the  one  you  have  been  pledged  to  gladdened  by  your  bold  whims,  or  does  he  deny  your  spirit,  hold  you  for  a  body  only?”  

[deathofwillow]

You lie down in your bed, encasing yourself in dubiously textured sheets as if closing the lid to your own coffin. It is late at night. Your only company is the truly manic within society, the mal-adjusted, the meth-heads, the whores.

It is during these times, where werewolves roam the streets and vampires peer through the looking glass into your soul, that you are given pause. You hold your phone, encased in the sullied flesh of your haggard hands, and wonder if you belong out there.

What does Willow bring to society, you wonder. She is an idiot, a cunt, a fuckwad. She tries to get better, but the idiocy, cuntishness and fuckwaddedness all come crawling back like some undead insect. Mildew and cracked stucco comprise the interior of your room, like some twisted puzzle cube, bizarre patterns frolicking among each of its four sides. Exaggeration is a fun exercise in hope, you think, as you stare blankly at the discarded garbage and unarranged ornaments that litter your living space.

Are you funny? You make your friends laugh, sometimes. Other times, you don't. Are you attractive? You have sex, sometimes. Most of the time, you don't. Are you skilled? Never.

You feel as if you lost the game of life, at such a tender and young age. You're reclusive, like some cottage witch in an uncharted swamp, and your mouth is lined with serrated edges, waiting to cut the next person who dares engage with you. Inside your mind is an explosion of colour and shape, beautiful brush-strokes of a painting waiting to explode unto the real world. But you will never achieve this, you feel. It's trapped within a fleshy, unkempt prison.

Love, romance. You feel it everywhere, it permeates your very soul - you even feel as if you may be starting to love once again. But this tenderness is betrayed, utterly destroyed by your disgusting, repugnant jealousy. You will never move on, you are chained in place, forever in bondage. You will never pay the ransom.

Is all of this true? You can't say. Even if you were to doubt it, you would not believe it - it has to be from another, and even then, assurance begins to fade rapidly, just as the moon disappears to make way for the blinding sun.

This is a cry, from your soul. You will transform, you must. What is stuck in your past must not be wrought back from the depths. Destitution, lawlessness, anomie, it must go away. Open the coffin lid, breach into the moonlight, dance as you bask in its ecliptic glow, and learn to be the version of you that exists in your mind, crafted in stunning slashes of deep black and stark white. It is time to create.

[beckleboo]

[dailyadventureprompts]

Goblin politics one shot/a few months short campaign???

Campaign Starter: A visit from Uncle Huk

Setup: Life in the swampy settlement of Rotbottom has been turned upside down by the ambitions of a would-be crimelord by the name of Cadastre Huk.

Uncle Huk is intent on asserting his power over Rotbottom, and while the backwoods village has always been a nest of moonshiners, smugglers, and other disreputable sorts, its ramshackle lawlessness has only ever made it a placid, welcoming place that's offered sanctuary for exiles and misfits that would never be welcome in more "civilized" settlements.

Not so if Uncle gets his way, as the folksy goblin dreams of organizing the towns’ various scoundrels and criminal enterprises into a hierarchy with him at the top, stretching his influence out across the swamp and those settlements that touch upon its waterways. To this end, he’s intent on pushing the community’s other leaders out of power,  either by bankrolling their rivals, or by putting them into his debt. 

The crimelord’s main source of power is his seemingly bottomless pockets, always able to scare up a bit of muscle, stake a controlling interest in a new venture, or buy up someone's loyalty when the hard times hit (which he inevitably has a hand in orchestrating. While he claims most of it comes from an extensive family fortune and business savvy, discovering the actual source of these funds may be the means of stopping him.

Adventure Hooks:

The party starts off the campaign as part of the Bogwatchers, a “volunteer” force mostly made up of those troublemakers that want to earn their way into the town’s good graces. Responsible for keeping monsters and other dangers away from settlement, the Bogwatchers are drawn into a conflict with Uncle Huk after checking in on a friendly backwoods  moonshiner to find a gang of hired toughs looking to burn her out of house and home.

Once the party proves themselves to be a thorn in his side, the crimelord will use one of his underlings to try to lure them into danger: using a treasuremap or claim at a lost loved one to lure them into the abode of a maddened vampire. 

As it turns out, one of Huk’s pockets is ACTUALLY bottomless, being a bag of holding taken from the body of a high level adventurer he found drowned in the swamp. Possessed of enough treasure to buy a castle ( and a random assortment of dangerous magical items), pinching this item from its hidden space up his sleeve 

Art by Dumbo Octopus

[laaskrin]

So the overwhelming answer to my previous post seems to be « ma’am please hand over the lore and OCs » so…

*cracks knuckles* LET’S GO!

Intro

The world is a urban fantasy setting.

The universe is made up of a superposition of multiple dimensions on top of each others. Initially, these dimensions were completly separate from each others. But a long time ago, all of them « collapsed » on top of one another.

Nowadays, they are all interconnected, meaning that while they exist in separate planes of existence, you can go from one to another through portals or breaches within these planes, or using magic.

Most of the dimensions are still whole and continuous, but some « broke » into pieces during the collapse, so they exist as separate, broken pieces of the same plane. As a result, even though they’re technically the same plane, you can’t go from one end of these plane to the other directly. Instead you have to go through another plane to access the rest of the pieces.

Exemples of planes or realms :

-          The human realm (also called Midgard)

-          Faerie, the realm of the fae

-          Takamagahara, the world of the kami

-          The realms of Asgard, Vanaheim, Alfheim, Jotunheim, Svartalfheim, Nilfheim, Muspellheim and Helheim

(and many others but i need to brush up on my mythologies)

There’s two more « special » realms, which are the Rim and Limbo.

The Rim

The Rim, also known as Yddgrasil, acts as a border and intermediary between worlds. It’s what connects them to each other. When you go through a portal or a breach to acces another realm, you pass through the Rim to do so.

The Rim is made of many pieces of broken planes that don’t exist on their own, and fused together after the collapse. So it can look very different depending of where you are. Some areas are forests, swamps, deserts, oceans, ruins, old abandonned cities etc.

It’s inhabited by small, independant settlements regrouping varying species, mainly from beings that refuse to bend to the laws or reigns of other worlds. As such, the Rim is sort of a no man’s land, that isn’t ruled by anyone, and constitute an lawless zone.

On top of these inhabitants, some dangerous and rare creatures dwell here as well, remnant of worlds that no longer exist.

Limbo

Limbo is a realm that doesn’t exist in its own space. Instead, it is on top of all the other realms, kinda like a parallele universe. The appearance is mostly the same, the big difference is that only dead beings can enter limbo. Limbo separate all the worlds from the Abyss (see below). When someone dies, their spirit goes to limbo to then go to the Abyss. However, the trip from limbo to the Abyss is a dangerous one. Souls are fragile, and by being lost in limbo for too long, or hust by suffering too much during their life or just being terrible poeple, their souls can get corrupted. That’s were demons and ghosts come from. They feed off of energy, and souls are made of energy, so they hunt the souls of the deceased to devour them before they reach the abyss.

The only living beings that can reach Limbo are poeple in a coma, though most forget everythig about limbo once they wake up, as well as some surnats like valkyries, who escort the deads to the abyss and protect them from the danger of limbo. Other beings have a connection to limbo, despite not being able to access it, such as banshees or some psychics.

Sometime, the limit between limbo and other realms weakens, usually when bad stuff happens in those realms, like wars and such, as well as during some times of the year, like Samhain. In those case, demons and souls/ghosts can access the other realms, and might get stuck there or just refuse to go back to limbo.

The Abyss

Not a realm per se, it’s more of a force, that exist all around. It’s the fundation of the world, what it is made of. All energy, life, and magic comes from the Abyss. When people die and travel through limbo and reach the abyss, they disapear. No one really knows what happens to souls that join the abyss, if they cease to exist, or reach an after life…

 The human world

It’s a little special compared to others, as it has some close connection the the abyss. This is what’s called Ley lines, where the abyss « bleeds » into the human world. As such, these are places of strong magical power, and they attract magically sensitive beings.

The ley lines don’t exist in other realms. It’s because when the Collapse happened, it’s believed that the human realm was the one all the other realms collapsed onto. So it’s the fundations of the world, base of it.

In the human realm, surnats exist among regular humans, usually blending completely in their society, though there exist some communities of surnats hidden in the world. Even if they blend amongst human, they still belong to the surnat society. Witches belong in covens, were-beings in packs, vampires in clans… And all species together belong to Cerberus, the governing body of the surnat living in the human world (though not all of them are happy about it).

The main goal of Cerberus is to maintain peace, as such, their mission is to keep the existence of surnats secret from humans, monitor and maintain laws etc.. there’s multiple specialised corps in Cerberus : police, ambassadors, diplomats, healers, soldiers etc…

Most of the story and most of my OCs live in a city situated on a ley line, called Falls Creek, in Maine.

[ineedthesons]

NSFW Ron Tully

I've also written one for my more reformed!Tully, apparently, that I haven't quite finished. This might be closer to a canon interpretation. Thanks for the inspiration, @a-lawless-son-among-hate!

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex): Tully's a cuddler and won't even deny it. If his partner isn't into it, well. They might learn to enjoy it because he's not letting them go until he's good and ready.

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s): Tully's an ass man when it comes to partners. Himself? His hands and his voice, and what they can do to a person to make them bend to his will.

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically): He enjoys marking his partner with it, whether that's on the inside or on the outside. Tully won't be cum on or in himself, though he's tasted it before and is really not a fan of that.

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)*: Tully is in no way submissive but he loves the idea of getting his cock locked up in a chastity belt. Also despite claiming to be strictly Kinsey 6, he's probably closer to a 4. Women can do it for him, they just don't, most of the time.

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?): He's a whore. Tully can have anyone he wants in prison, and takes advantage of that privilege.

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying): Most of the time Tully does it doggy-style, just like his Great Great Granddaddy, though it's more for the power rush than it is the anonymity. When he's feeling particularly lazy or indulgent, he likes cowboy. No kissing though.

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? Etc.): Depends on his partner and the circumstances. A punk he's comfortable with, and comfortable with him? He's silly, teases them in all the ways. Indulges what they like too. Surprisingly relaxed. But one he's not used to, is conducting a “business transaction” with for one reason or another? He's more serious.

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? Etc.): As much as he can, anyway, he keeps himself trimmed. Partly for sex, and partly because swamp-ass in a California prison is a real, painful danger. But he has to pay big bucks to be allowed a razor for as long as he needs, so he goes as long without as he can stand it.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect): Less romantic, because you can't be romantic in prison. But he's kind of sweet, not as mean as people really expect him to be even with a punk. At the end of the day its about his pleasure first, which informs how he acts around his partner. But he never lies about it; his sexual partners will always know its about him first.

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon): If he doesn't have a partner (rare) and he's not busy (rarer) he'll jack off at night for relief and to kill some time before sleep. Only at night, though; its weird and rude to do it during the day where other inmates can see.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks): Likes to be called Daddy or a variation thereof. Power exchange in general is his thing. Surprisingly he's not into race play in the slightest. It just brings too much of work into the bedroom. He also has a thing for taking virginities, though honestly he wishes he could do it more often with willing partners. But business is business. Tully does try to make it good for them.

L = Location (favorite places to do the do): Private conjugal room, when he can buy one. Otherwise its wherever he can get some privacy for a while.

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going): Not quite as horny as a teen anymore, it does take him a minute to get going. Which is good, because he's surrounded by half-naked men most of the day and it wouldn't do anything for his image to walk around with a hard-on all the time. He loves to dirty talk, though, and that gets him hard real fast.

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs): Submitting, bottoming, whatever you want to call it is a hard limit. Not that he hasn't tried, but on the inside you're considered weak if you take it up the ass. Other hard limits include

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.) : Knows how to give, but will only receive. Really likes it sitting up with his partner on their knees between his legs. Like he's some kind of royalty. Admittedly in the prison hierarchy he kind of is, but it's about the look more than anything.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? Etc.): Usually fast and rough by necessity, but Tully much prefers it slow and sensual. Its a lucky punk who gets that, because it means that he's got time and he likes them.

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.): Again, his usual couplings are quickies by necessity. Does actually enjoy them, especially when he can bend over his partner and whisper dirty things in their ear while he's rushing toward climax.

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? Etc.): Sex in prison is highly risky in and of itself. He doesn't like it, though, so he takes all precautions not to be bothered during the act. On the outside he's still pretty cautious though he does loosen up a bit. Acts that are new to him, as long as he's safe one way or another and doesn't cross his hard limits, he's usually willing to try.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?): Average. Not a one-pump chump nor can he last forever. Usually has two or three rounds in him if his partner's willing.

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?): Not in prison, though he does occasionally improvise with things such as pillowcases as arm binders. On the outside, well. He's a very big fan of them; using them on his partner and on himself both and has a variety for a variety of purposes. He's got a big ol' toy chest waiting for him when he gets out of Stockton.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease): Not big on being teased much, though a little from a willing partner is fine. He loves to tease when he can though, to heighten sensation for both himself and a partner. Just hardly any ability for it in Stockton so he doesn't do it often. Mindfucks are for work-related reasons only. Again lying to his punks seem wrong, and head games are a kind of lying, to him.

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.): Quiet. Not silent, just low in volume. Grunts, moans, and his filthy mouth are there, just not loud enough for everyone else to hear. Again, its rude and kind of weird.

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)*: Despite being gay, he's been married and it wasn't even a beard situation. Tully really did love her; it just didn't work out. They don't talk except through lawyers, on the rare occasion they need to.

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes): Grower, not a shower. He has some nice girth to him; lube is a must for both parties.

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?): Tully's sex drive has lowered as he's aged, but still has needs. Once a day/night is about where he's most comfortable.

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards): Cuddly but usually can't fall asleep after when someone is there. At least on the inside, its too dangerous for Tully to drop those metaphorical walls. He doesn't mind if a partner does or doesn't fall asleep though, but if they do that's when he tries to go back to his own cell. On the outside, if he trusts you, he'll sleep properly after a good solid session of naked cuddling.

*Additional/Alternative: One is possibly triggering, so it is beneath a cut:

Wild Card: Unlike Granddaddy Chris, he's out and proud about his homosexuality. How it jives with the neo-Nazi thing, he hasn't really figured out how to explain it to himself, much less anyone else. Just jokes that he knows he'll be first against the wall when white power finally makes their move to take back the country, and changes the subject.

Dirty Secret: Tully had a physical relationship with his twin brother until their late teens. Wonders now if he could ever have one again, or if he's lost that forever.

[honourablejester]

Homebrew Thief Deity

A little bit of an expansion on one of the homebrew gods from this post, building him and a few of the others into a bit of a history and a pantheon. A god for rogues, thieves, urchins, exiles, travellers, and clerics of the grave, trickery and twilight domains:

OREM, THIEF GOD OF THE BOUNDARY

Alignment: True Neutral/Neutral Good

Domains: Grave, Trickery, Twilight

Symbol: A Hooded Lantern

A gentle shadow padding silently through the twilight, his hooded lantern held aloft, Orem is the thief god of the grave, the boundary and the night. Believed to have once been a mortal man, he is the guardian of lost souls, all those who die alone or in dark places, the dim light of his lantern guiding them to their rest. He is the messenger between the lands of the living and the dead, and may be implored to carry messages past the bounds. He is the god of thieves, watching over all who find their comfort and their livelihood in the shadows. He is the gentle warden of the outcast and abandoned, granting shelter and comfort to any who pray in desperation. Orem is the god of the in-between, the guardian of all that is lost or fallen through the cracks of the world, and all who seek them.

TALES OF THE THIEF GOD

God of Thieves

Orem is the god of thieves, and believed to have once been a thief himself, when he was still a mortal man. He is the god of shadows, of seeking, of hidden places and forbidden things. He encourages exploration, trespass and the seeking of knowledge. He protects those who making their living in the shadows. Thieves pray to him for luck, for protection, for that wisp of shadow or sudden noise from another direction that will keep them safe from discovery, and he is often known to grant it. Many a thief has a tale to tell of a desperate kiss pressed to the sign of the lantern, and a sudden stroke of luck that kept them from the eyes, the prisons or the knives of their opponents.

Nor does Orem shy from theft himself, even still. Of knowledge, most particularly, and of opportunity. The Thief God travels the planes at his will, and suffers no power to keep him out. He has walked the planes of the dead and brought secrets and mementoes back to those who seek them. He has walked the hells and the abyss and stolen souls and knowledge and some more intimate things from devils and demons alike. From Oromasdes, the Lord of Wisdom, the Holy Fire, he stole a tiny, flickering flame of magic, and taught it to his chosen, granting them the small but necessary magics of thieves, the slender wisps of illusion and see-me-not. Oromasdes, curiously, was not offended by this, for the Lord of Wisdom is rarely opposed to those who seek and spread knowledge. Had Orem kept that flame for himself, perhaps the Light of Truth might have judged him more harshly for it, but Orem chose to teach it instead, and thus did Oromasdes forgive him. After, it is said, reminding the Thief God rather gently that he could have simply asked instead.

To which Orem is said to have replied, but where would the fun be in that?

God of the Grave

Orem is the god of lost souls and those who die alone, their shepherd and guide to what lies beyond death. He is fiercely and dangerously protective of this duty, and a hidden, implacable enemy of those who would steal souls for their own use. As such, he and his chosen people are ferociously opposed to liches, necromancers and other soul-stealers.

It is said that once, in the early days, when Orem was only newly a god, a great and terrible archlich sought to devour enough souls to fully destroy the boundary between life and death and unleash a plague of undeath across the planes. While the other gods and champions took up arms and stood to fight this black menace, Orem instead took a more secret path. While the lich stood against his fellow deities, blazing with necrotic power, Orem sent a small, fragile party of his own champions to seek the archlich’s phylactery instead. Though almost all of his champions died in the attempt, the last managed to seize the object and bring it to her god’s temple, bleeding and near death herself. Safe and reunited with her fallen companions under the shadow of the Grave God’s cloak, she watched as Orem reached into the phylactery and drew forth and reconstructed every soul that had ever been fed to it, slowly and viciously unmaking the lich to repair all the damage he had caused. When the lich had been broken and siphoned down to only the tiny, stained remnants of his own original soul … Orem gathered it up, quietly and carefully, and stowed it in his own lantern, there to be kept safe and warm for all eternity. His three champions, who had died for his cause, he gathered also, and tucked them gently into his cloak to take them wherever they need go. Even, along with all the souls the lich had stolen, back to the realm of the living, if they wanted to.

It is unknown how many souls are stored in the Grave God’s lantern. Only those that he wishes to keep close, either for their own protection or for the protection of everyone else. The lantern is not a fearful prison, however. Orem is the god of lost souls, and there are none more lost than those who seek to destroy others. Perhaps he hopes that in time, in his company, seeing all that he sees, in the dim light of his hooded lantern, they will come to think as he does.

God of Outcasts

Orem is the god of the outcast, the abandoned, and all those who have fallen between the cracks of the world. He is the god of the lost, both living and dead, and all who have lost their way in the world or in life may pray to him, for the dim light of a god’s lantern to guide them onto the path once more. Even those who do not venerate Orem himself, those who despise him as the God of thieves and the lawless, sometimes tell tales of a light in the darkness when they were alone and terrified, and a tall, grey figure who guided them to safety. Of a grey cloak, warm and welcoming, that draped over them where they scrabbled, freezing and abandoned, and brought them warmth enough to survive that little bit longer. Those who survive where they should have died, who walk away from swamps and battles and slums and mass graves, often whisper of the quiet god who helped them, who warmed them and sheltered them and showed them the way to freedom.

It is also said, however, that there are other entities, spirits and demons and creatures of illusion, who have used the God’s image falsely over the years. Will-o-wisps who have used the hope of his lantern to lure travellers to their deaths, demon lords of illusion who have taken his guise to sow false hope and entrap souls into their webs of deceit. There is nothing, save perhaps the trapping of souls, that will earn the Thief God’s enmity faster. There is no demon he hates more than the Lord of Lies, who has used Orem’s image far too many times to betray those Orem would protect, and done so knowingly, with aim to taunt and wound him. Only the lords and masters of undeath are as antithetical to him, and he hates them with equal passion. If there is one creature in all the planes that the Thief God has sworn to see destroyed, it is this demon.

Those who wield the Thief God’s powers, therefore, those who have learned the magics of illusion and the turning of eyes from him, must be careful to what purposes they put their powers. He does not forgive those who use his power, his lantern or his image to betray those he protects. For this reason, among others, certain fey and demons remain extremely cautious of him.

God of the Boundary

For all else that he is and was and will be, however, Orem is first the God of the Boundary. Between life and death, between light and darkness, between danger and safety. Orem is the god of trespass, of exploration and intrusion, of crossing the line, and there are few beings in all creation as conscious, therefore, of where those lines actually are.

Once upon a time, the story goes, a mortal man met a trapped and dying god. A god of death, who could not die. An ancient, desperate being, alone and in agony. The name of this god is unknown, long lost to time, remembered only by Orem and by those gods who mourned or despised its passing. That god pleaded with the mortal man to take its immortal soul from its body and carry it beyond the bounds of death, into the quiet lands where it could, if not die, then at least know rest. The man was a thief, you see, a wily, dauntless creature, and the god knew that if anyone could find a way to free it from these immortal chains, it was this tiny, curious, fearsome little man. Duty demanded that the god stay, endure, but desperation and despair pleaded that it be allowed to rest. Against all the laws of good and all the forces of evil, it pleaded with this man to bring it rest.

So the man named Orem took the god’s soul, its divinity, and hid it in a lantern, the better to carry it unseen across the dividing line. For who looks for a hidden thing in the light? Who looks for a secret thing in that which reveals the darkness? Orem hid the god’s soul in small light of a lantern, and smuggled it gently into darkness. Into peace.

And when he returned, that thief, from the lands of the dead, he found himself changed. A piece of the god he had helped to die had remained in his lantern, and a piece of the god’s divinity had remained in him. Not a god the dead, not fully, but a god of the boundary. Of the line, of the gate, and of the ability to move across it. Orem became the god of the boundary, the god of lost souls, the guide between the lands of the living and the dead. He became the god who carries those who need it into rest, and the god who, sometimes, allows those who deserve it back to life. The god of thieves, yes, the god of outcasts, the god of the dead, all of these. But first, and foremost, before all things, the god of the boundary. The god of the in-between.

And here, in this, he has his allies. Even among the lawful. He has a strange and special relationship with those other gods who guard the boundaries, who endure when nothing should be forced to endure. Elaia Siveth, who offers respite, healing and death in equal measure, whichever should offer freedom from suffering faster, and who approved of the actions for which he became a god. And Yorm, the Unyielding, who guards the light against darkness, who fights demons and devils, who protects the vulnerable beneath his shielding cloak and his watchful remaining eye. They have a strange bargain, those two. Yorm, bound by law, turns his blinded eye to where Orem needs to tread unseen, and will not leave him to die undefended should the thief be caught. And Orem will not leave Yorm to endure alone, nor Yorm’s people to be ravaged after death. The souls of all Yorm’s paladins who fall to demons are ever safe in Orem’s care.

Notes:

There’s a lot of inspiration from Hermes in this, god of thieves and travellers and guide of souls, with a little bit of Prometheus as well. Oromasdes is taking a lot of inspiration from Ahura Mazda, while Orem and Elaia Siveth have a bit of Janus to them. And I threw in Yorm from this story, because they felt like a nice fit, two gods of the boundary, one lawful, one not, but united in a common purpose. Also, I like the rogue/paladin dichotomy. Heh.

And I like the lantern imagery, the hermit from the tarot, the god carrying souls in his lantern, the thief smuggling things in the light, because who goes looking in what you look with. I can’t remember what book or story I came across that concept in (possibly Discworld?) but it stuck like glue. Not least because I remember an episode of Wild Wild West where the shoddy lighting on that show threw a shadow of a lantern that a character was holding, and that was supposed to be throwing the light, against his shoulder, accidentally highlighting the fakeness of it all. Playing with light and dark and reality and illusion is a bit of a theme for me

[spinnovations]

Week 2 - Colonialism Research

‘cottagecore moodboard’ by user raspberrymornings on tumblr

The Problem with Cottagecore 

The ‘cottagecore aesthetic’ is described by Wikipedia as being an ‘internet fashion aesthetic’, as well as a Gen Z subculture, that celebrates an idealised rural life, simple living, and traditional skills and crafts such as baking, cooking, pottery and sewing. Its soft, sunny images of jam jars, lambs and white picket fences are peaceful and comforting - the prospect of swapping the rapid pace and grey smog of a capitalist hellscape for peaceful country living is an enticing one. 

I definitely have an appreciation for this aesthetic - I’ve never felt closer to some kind of god than I do when I bake a cake from scratch, I coo over videos of farm animals on the internet, and I want nothing more than to roam about the idyllic, fantasy-like farm retreat built for the queen in Sophia Coppola’s 2006 film ‘Marie Antoinette’. I know that a large reason I chose Nairn Street Cottage as my site to focus was because of my affinity for the aesthetic - I knew it would mean I could easily incorporate my favourite mediums of collage and needlework, and that I’d enjoy researching it because of my passion for history. 

However, I want to ensure that I am not blindly romanticising the home and lifestyle of the Wallis family settlers, and ignoring the darker political history at play. 

A desire to lead a wholesome existence and be more in-tune with nature is not inherently bad - however an uncritical appreciation of the cottagecore aesthetic can lead to a romanticisation of settler colonialism - because the practice of establishing rural dwellings is largely connected to the legacy of homesteading and farming on stolen Indigenous land (Ollivain). This aesthetic that promotes a life of self-sufficiency in rejection of the city carries with it the colonial assumption that land is “up for grabs”, as well as the danger of encroaching on indigenous country when Traditional Owners are not consulted (Ollivain). 

“Fighting for Indigenous liberation and being conscious of whose land we are on is something we should all strive to do and we must be open to criticism; lest we allow our escapist fantasies divert us from the important work of transforming reality” (Ollivain). 

Colonialism in New Zealand 

- Māori originated with settlers from eastern Polynesia, who arrived in New Zealand in several waves of waka voyages between roughly 1320 and 1350.  By the time the first Europeans arrived, Māori had settled the land, every corner of which came within the interest and influence of a tribal (iwi) or sub-tribal (hapū) grouping (A History). 

- After Abel Tasman became the first European explorer to reach New Zealand, it would be another 127 years before the next recorded encounter between European and Māori - British explorers arrived first, with French not far behind (A History). 

- Over the next 60 years contact grew, with majority of interactions between Māori and Europeans passing without incident - but when things did turn violent, much was made about the killings of Europeans, with little mention about the considerable loss of Māori life that did occur (A History).

- Whalers and sealers made regular visits to the colony, and by the 1830′s the British government had decided to “curb the lawlessness” of the land and establish a colony (Alves). In 1840, the Treaty of Waitangi was signed by more than five hundred chiefs. The Treaty is a highly contentious document that still carries a lot of weight in present-day politics - briefly, both the English and Maori versions stipulated different things: the former mandated that the Crown would have full control over New Zealand’s territories, while the latter indicated that Maori would have full sovereignty over their tribal lands (Alves). These deviations led to a series of conflicts and forceful land grabs by the British (Alves).

- The Wallis family arrived in New Zealand in 1857. Seventeen years earlier, in 1840, was when the first settler ship - the Aurora - arrived in Petone (European). The town was named for the Duke of Wellington, winner of the 1815 battle of Waterloo, and was part of the New Zealand Company’s systematic model of colonisation (European). By the end of the year, 1200 settlers had arrived in Wellington (European). 

-  In 1859, Governor Thomas Gore Brown’s purchased a disputed block of land at Waitara, which set the government on a collision course with the Kīngitanga movement. The government interpreted the Kīngitanga response as a challenge to the Crown's authority - Governor Gore Browne succeeded in bringing 3500 Imperial troops from the Australian colonies to quash this perceived challenge, and within four years a total of 9,000 British troops had arrived in New Zealand, assisted by more than 4,000 colonial and kūpapa (pro-government Māori) fighters as the government sought a decisive victory over the "rebel" Māori. The use of a punitive land confiscation policy from 1865, depriving "rebel" Māori of the means of living, fuelled further Māori anger and resentment, fanning the flames of conflict in Taranaki (1863–1866) and on the east coast (1865–1866).

-  In the period between the first European landings and the First World War, New Zealand was transformed from an exclusively Māori world into one in which Pākehā dominated numerically, politically, socially and economically (A History).

Effects of Colonisation on Māori

- A major decline in life expectancy - from about 30 years before European contact to 25 for men and 23 for women in 1891 (Pool). 

- A major population decline - from around 100,000 in 1769 to 42,000 at its lowest point in 1896 (Pool). 

- Impact of introduced diseases - this was the major reason for the population decrease, and had devastating results. The decline began accelerating after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, as settlers began arriving in greater numbers (Pool). 

- A loss of land -  The influx of settlers led to a demand for land, and from the 1840s Māori were under great pressure to sell their ancestral territories (Pool). Loss of Māori land – through confiscation following the 1860s wars, Crown purchase and the Native Land Court – led to the displacement of large numbers of Māori (Pool). Deprived of their land, tribes were in many instances reduced to poverty, with no option but to live in overcrowded and unhygienic conditions (Pool). Losing land, they also lost access to traditional food sources (Pool). Lack of resources, overcrowding and poor diet helped disease to take hold and spread (Pool).

Nairn Street Land

- The land around Pukeahu was occupied by ngakinga (gardens) for the Te Akatarewa pā. This was a major pā for the Ngāi Tara iwi, so they developed numerous garden sites, including on Pukeahu.  Ngā Kumikumi clearing was an old cultivation area in the bush around what is now lower Nairn Street. Nearby, around Central Park, was the Te Āti Awa kāinga (village) known as Moe-i-te-rā or Moe-rā (Pukeahu). 

-  There are few, if any, known wāhi tapu (places of spiritual significance to Māori) directly on Pukeahu. However, because of its height and proximity to Te Akatarewa pā, it is likely that burials were conducted somewhere on the site (Pukeahu).

-   Te Aro pā was established around the 1820s, and covered about 2 hectares in the 1840s. It was divided in two, with Ngāti Ruanui people living in the eastern end and Taranaki people at the western end. As Wellington grew, British colonists called for the pā to be sold. The residents resisted, but the settlers forced the issue and by 1870 it had been subdivided and sold. In 2005, archaeologists uncovered the remains of three huts ( Norman).

-  On a map of the courses of Wellington streams from 1940 - 1949, an un-named stream is marked running from the vicinity of Nairn Street via Cuba Street to Te Aro (Wellington Streams). The Te Aro Pa site at the mouth of this stream is marked (Wellington Streams).

I can’t seem to find any information online regarding the stream that would have run across the Nairn Street Cottage section - I will look into this further, as I’d like to know its name if I could, and its significance if it had any. In the Māori at Pukeahu article, it mentions a swamp in the vicinity, which was a mahinga kai (food-gathering area), where eels and other fish from the swamp streams were gathered - it could well have been one of those streams. In Māori culture, many tribes directly or indirectly consider water as the source or foundation of all life - in this case, the stream would have been important for sustaining life and providing nourishment. 

Bibliography:

Alves, Thalita. “The Story of Colonisation in New Zealand.” Culture Trip, 28 June 2018, theculturetrip.com/pacific/new-zealand/articles/the-story-of-colonisation-in-new-zealand/.

“A History of New Zealand 1769-1914.” NZ History, nzhistory.govt.nz/culture/history-of-new-zealand-1769-1914.

“Courses of the Wellington Streams.” National Library , natlib.govt.nz/records/22612149.

“European Settlers Arrive in Wellington.” NZ History, nzhistory.govt.nz/wellington-anniversary-day.

“Māori at Pukeahu.” Māori at Pukeahu, mch.govt.nz/pukeahu/park/pukeahu-history-4.

Norman, Edmund. “Te Aro Pā.” Te Ara , Ministry for Culture and Heritage Te Manatu Taonga, 20 Oct. 2015, teara.govt.nz/en/artwork/13194/te-aro-pa.

Ollivain, Claire. “Cottagecore, Colonialism and the Far-Right.” Honi Soit, 8 Sept. 2020, honisoit.com/2020/09/cottagecore-colonialism-and-the-far-right/.

Pool, Ian. “Effects of Colonisation on Māori.” Te Ara Encyclopedia , Ministry for Culture and Heritage Te Manatu Taonga, 2 Feb. 2018, teara.govt.nz/en/death-rates-and-life-expectancy/page-4.