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grimoiremanifest · 23 days ago

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ooh can you tell me about the bogdanoff scandal :3

WE ARE ALL GOING TO THE FUCKING BOGGGGGGGGGGG

im really fucken tired rn so i can't go incresibly in depth but heres the cliff notes on the Brothers Bog

the boggers were well-known French television personalities back in the 80s, mostly just in the general french sci-fi scene in how they covered English scifi shit to the French public who afaik didnt. really have much of a scifi scene to begin with (in that time period at least). that doesnt necessarily matter here but it's context.

what's particularly notable (and far more controversial) is their presence in pop science. i would place more emphasis on the 'pop' but to their credit they actually DID show a decent-ish understanding of the fields they covered - or at least they did in the areas that weren't anything less than basically proven fact - and they had a background in applied mathematics. they wrote a book or two that were interesting in how they combined a genuinely very good adaptation of concurrent scientific models for a general audience with complete hokey bullshit? or at least like it was very obvious if you had, like, a passing interest in general science. it was ultimately pretty harmless, though, as the material they produced wasn't intended to be used in scholarly settings - like, some books straight up were just treated as hard sci-fi and nothing more, although it did piss them off whenever their work was referred to as fiction (aside from the actual novels they wrote ofc) - so they were mostly fine. pretentious and a bit scummy, but largely above board.

UNTIL THEY TRIED TO SPEEDRUN A DOCTORATE IN THEORETICAL PHYSICS

so it's 1991. the bogdanov's most successful show Time X had ended two years prior, and they had kinda fallen out of the limelight in terms of television since. but their careers in science writing were doin Pretty Fuckin Well with their books reaching a pretty wide audience. they publish this hot new book, GOD AND SCIENCE, based on their interviews with some fuckin priest idk that IMMEDIATELY becomes a french bestseller. unfortunately for the brogs, this smash hit brings fame, and with it a SCATHING CONTROVERSY FROM THE SCIENCE WORLD...

an uh. accusation of plagiarism from Professor motherfucking Trinh Xuan Thuan about them ripping off his 1988 book The Secret Melody. (and as a quick note - Trin Thuan is basically like the 'real' version of what the brothers were trying to be, and has a very respectable number of books under his belt that are all about presenting complex scientific topics to a general audience. He's even a world-renowned specialist in extragalactic astronomy, and has made an insane amount of contributions to the field. like, check him out, he's cool). so this goes to court, but the judge pretty quickly taked Trin Thuan's side on this and the bogs agree to settle out of court. the suit was over in a pretty short amount of time, but it did lead to some pretty unpleasant scrutiny towards the brothers' cred: why did they have 'Dr.' in front of their names if they didn't have doctorates?

it's theorized that this caused the brogthers to seek out a fast track to PhDs - fast track being relative to higher education, that is - and in 1993, they began working on their doctorates at the U of Burgundy under Moshé Flato. Flato died in 1998, so their supervision was completed under Daniel Sternheimer of CRNS (france's National Center for Scientific Research). It is worth noting that Daniel Sternheimer is not a theoretical physicist. Mathematical physicist, sure, but not theoretical physics.

This is noteworthy because both Bogdanovs applied for a degree in theoretical physics in 1999, and here's where the story really gets going. Grichka receives a PhD in mathematics the same year, but only after being told to make EXTREME revisions to his thesis, with most of the alterations aimed at the physics contents within it. Igor, meanwhile, DID actually receive a PhD in theoretical physics - THREE YEARS LATER in 2002, as he failed to properly defend his thesis and was only allowed to receive a doctorate if he.. published three peer-reviewed papers in a journal, for some reason?? So he did. He actually published five, alongside his brother as co-author.

Getting one article in was pretty impressive. Getting five in two years is even more so! But what was most impressive about all of this is that all of them were completely fucking nonsense, and had STILL managed to make it into several established and respected peer-reviewed journals. The Bogdanov papers' main claims centered around what went down during the Planck period, aka the comically short period of time immediately after the 'Big Bang' (and i mean INFINITESIMAL. Like, zero-point-followed-by-a-ridiculous-amount-of-zeroes-zero-one seconds, I think it's 10^-43) which is something that most people have deducted should be impossible to deduct. If that didn't convince you, don't worry, because the Bogliacci articles also claimed to find evidence from BEFORE THE UNIVERSE EVEN FUCKING EXISTED. They had literally gotten speculative fiction published as academic material.

The first to privately 'discover' that they were full of shit, physicist Max Niedermaier, didn't even think they were real and suggested they were just a prank. He sent his thoughts along with some abstracts in an email to fellow physicist Ezra Newman, equating them to just fucking buzzwords. AND LIKE LOOK AT THIS SHIT -

"We demonstrate that the lorentzian signature of the space-time metric (+ + + −) is not fixed at the Planck scale and shows 'quantum fluctuation' between the lorentzian and euclidean (+ + + ±) forms until the 0 scale where it becomes euclidean (+ + + +)."

IT'S LITERALLY MEANINGLESS. THIS AB ALONE GOT INTO TWO FUCKING JOURNALS.

eventually, a copy of the niedermaier email reaches one mathematician and noted netizen John Baez (who, somewhat unrelatedly, proposed and authored The Crackpot Index, which i have an immense fondness of). in 2002, he creates a discussion thread about the Double Boggle Disaster on a pretty popular (for the time, lmao) newsgroup sci.physics.research where he compares the situation to the infamous Alan Sokal incident of '96. This caught a LOT of people's attention, including the Bog Bros themsevles, who then proceeded to wage the most dedicated forum 'war' with anybody that dared to call their hoax a hoax, including a frankly impressive amount of alt account sock puppets. this worsened their situation by getting the general media's attention, but the Bongo Boys remained undeterred - much to their credit, too, because afterwards they were just written off in word alone. they got to keep their doctorates and everything!

they kept on trying to get their shitass theory going in the public eye, at least - in 2004, they had another science show called X Rays where they covered their own theory in parallel with 'proper' generally accepted theories in a 'cosmology special', but all it really did was re-ignite the controversy. They tried again in the same year with their book Before the Big Bang (which was literally just...their PhD theses, written to be more commercially digestible), which did sell pretty well but quickly became maligned for being full of basic mistakes and innacuracies.

After all that, they just kinda fell out of the science world. The last notable thing that came of out of the hoax was in 2011 when they filed for violation of copyright against astrophysicist Alain Riazuelo for sharing and criticizing an unpublished version of Grichka's thesis online, and for some fucking reason Riazuelo was actually convicted. However, the Bogchamps were only awarded a single euro in damages, which is the funniest fucking thing to me.

oh yeah and then they became a 4chan redpill meme but that honest to god scares me a lot and i dont think it had any connection to the science scandal thsnkfully

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hollygscat · 4 months ago

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𝘭𝘰𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨… 𝘧𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘥𝘳

🎸 ᴸᴼᴺᴰᴼᴺ ᵁᴺᴰᴱᴿᴳᴿᴼᵁᴺᴰ 🎸

𝗌𝗍𝗂𝖼𝗄𝗒 𝖿𝗅𝗈𝗈𝗋𝗌 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝖻𝗎𝗓𝗓𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝖺𝗆𝗉𝗌

𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝗌𝖼𝖾𝗇𝗍 𝗈𝖿 𝖼𝗁𝖾𝖺𝗉 𝖻𝖾𝖾𝗋 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝖼𝗂𝗀𝖺𝗋𝖾𝗍𝗍𝖾𝗌

𝗅𝗒𝗋𝗂𝖼𝗌 𝗌𝖼𝗋𝗂𝖻𝖻𝗅𝖾𝖽 𝗈𝗇 𝗋𝗂𝗉𝗉𝖾𝖽 𝗇𝗈𝗍𝖾𝖻𝗈𝗈𝗄 𝗉𝖺𝗉𝖾𝗋

ᴃᴀᴄᴋ ᴛᴏ 𝟬𝟲

meet claire, 20, living in london in 2006. she’s all about music and acting. right now she’s playing music to save up for her acting career. super chill, super fun to be around and living with her besties. basically she’s just trying to make it

ᴛⲏᴇ ᴃᴇgᴉᴎᴎᴉᴎg

where london is filled with the sound of britpop and late night buskers. claire’s world is centered around her guitar strings and ink-smudged fingers, split between dim-lit gigs in camden and lazy afternoons in the park. a small flat, messy with vinyls and half-written songs, is home. shoreditch pubs are the go-to, with familiar faces and hushed conversations after long rehearsals

she’s got that effortless cool style. cropped tops, baggy jeans, a touch of stevie nicks magic. a voice that turns street performances into moments of connection, where strangers become lifelong fans

acting dreams in the backdrop and audrey hepburn on a vintage film reel, but music is her soul. late-night rehearsals. notebook pages filled with music. a scene that feels alive, electric and real

hi guys! i wanted to introduce my main dr. eventually this will evolve and become my main fame dr, taking place between los angeles, new york and london, the usual fame dr where you’re better than everyone else lol, i’ll probably make a post introducing it better and giving details. this is mostly the aesthetic of where i’ve been shifting to lately

#fame dr #reality shifting #shifting #shiftblr #shifting blog #hollygscat #*mydrs #*fame

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nana-mizu-shiki · 3 months ago

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The Fentons.

A family of scientists previously laughed out of the community before their children proved their studies true.

Well, somewhat.

The Fenton kids were remarkably different from their parents, their fields of degrees seemingly completely unrelated to their parents and their studies, but had been the ones to right their parents' previous biases and make their ecto discoveries public knowledge.

Before their kids had gone off to college, the Fentons had been studying 'ghosts' and how they were non-sentient and non-sapient. Before their kids growing into adults, their papers were downright prejudiced, dehumanizing, and objectifying towards ecto-entities. However, when Dr. Jasmine Fenton came back from college with a psychology doctorate and Daniel Fenton had went off on scholarship to get an engineering degree, their studies seemed to go 180 after months of silence.

Apparently, with their daughter knowing as much as she did now that she was back home, she got her parents to hold back on their studies while she performed her own, fascinated by the 'ghosts' behaviors.

Soon after, their son had admitted to secretly helping out the town vigilante since the beginning, and had begun telling his family of what he had learned about ecto-entities based on his friendship with the hero alone.

The Fentons amount of studies increased just as much as the validity of their new studies.

However, due to the blackout a corrupt government agency had enforced on their home town, the world was left in the unknown until the GIW was absolutely obliterated by the King of Ghosts. Nobody who was there to see the king had lived to describe him, but the appearance of a whole new city filled with what appeared to be aliens had distracted the world from that.

Noticing the attention of the whole country, Daniel had decided to act and had gotten many of his community to share his families papers as much as possible to protect the living and dead alike.

Over time, his family's fame grew and grew, with Daniel's personal connections, Jasmine's knowledge, and their parents' professionalism not unlike Brucie's, it seemed inevitable.

The family had begun traveling the country once it mostly calmed down, searching for any other natural portals that could have brought ecto-entities to their world. They helped.

With the fame for their ecto studies though, the Fenton children had released other papers that helped.

Jasmine, many, many psychological papers for children, criminals, everyday people, Daniel engineering what others thought impossible, creating the unthinkable, nobody able to replicate what hes created like he has...

They were famous. Successful. Perfect.

And had no idea how to deal with it, so didn't.

There were no interviews, no knowledge on any of them personally other than the schools they went to and Daniel's connection to the Mansons and his parents connection with Vlad Masters.

They were famous, successful, Perfect.

It was suspicious.

ﮩـﮩﮩ٨ـ🫀ﮩ٨ـﮩ٨🫀ـﮩـﮩﮩ٨ـ🫀ﮩ٨ـﮩ🫀ـﮩ٨ـ🫀ﮩ٨ﮩﮩ٨ـ🫀ﮩ٨ـﮩ

Tim watched as the family walked into the manor's ballroom. They were skeptical if they would show but Tim made a show of inviting Masters and Manson as well, the party almost specifically for the Fenton family and centered around international science and teaching it to young children.

It was Tim and Cass's job to watch the younger Fentons, Dick and Bruce's to watch the parents.

Jack Fenton had walked in proudly and loudly- and wow, that man is brick wall big, what the fuck?- suit bright orange with white stripes, his wife wearing a slim teal dress with a suit jacket over it and smiling around politely, but clearly excited.

Their kids walked in after them, and Tim subtly started to make his way over.

Daniel had come with a dark navy suit, the color making him easy to blend in in the suit filled room. However, he was much shorter than anyone else in the color, and he had paired the suit with green highlights so vibrant they could've been mistaken for Lazarus.

Jasmine stayed nearby him at all times, the two having separated from their parents since they walked in after a quick goodbye. She was wearing a nice dark green dress that fell over her knees and glared at anyone that looked at her and her brother for longer than a glance. Her hair was braided and her boots went up to her knees, but with her height they were practically the size of a small child.

Jeez... maybe Tim can stuff Damian in those shoes by getting him to provoke the woman.

Tim made his way over to the siblings, careful to be casual with it.

He had a mission to complete.

ﮩـﮩﮩ٨ـ🫀ﮩ٨ـﮩ٨🫀ـﮩـﮩﮩ٨ـ🫀ﮩ٨ـﮩ🫀ـﮩ٨ـ🫀ﮩ٨ﮩﮩ٨ـ🫀ﮩ٨ـﮩ

Danny who got his mom's build and Jazz who got their fathers wrecking havoc on any bi disaster they come across.

And the wayne gala? Filled with bi disasters.

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kwebtv · 4 years ago

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Robert Dean Stockwell (March 5, 1936 – November 7, 2021) Film, television, and stage actor with a career spanning over 70 years.As a child actor under contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, he first came to the public's attention in films such as Anchors Aweigh (1945), The Green Years (1946), Gentleman's Agreement (1947), The Boy With Green Hair (1948), and Kim (1950).

His television roles include playing Rear Admiral Albert "Al" Calavicci in Quantum Leap (1989–1993), Navy Secretary Edward Sheffield on JAG (2002–2004) and Brother Cavil on Battlestar Galactica (2004–2009).

in 1956. He guest-starred on shows such as Front Row Center, Matinee Theatre, Schlitz Playhouse, The United States Steel Hour, Climax!, Men of Annapolis, Cimarron City, General Electric Theater, and Wagon Train (in 1957 as "Jimmy Drew", brother to Shelley Winters in "The Ruth Owens Story" (S1E3).

As well as working on Broadway and in film Stockwell continued to work heavily in TV on such shows as Playhouse 90, Johnny Staccato, and Buick-Electra Playhouse. He continued to work mostly on television including in episodes of Checkmate, The DuPont Show with June Allyson, Outlaws, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Hallmark Hall of Fame (The Joke and the Valley), Bus Stop, The Twilight Zone ("A Quality of Mercy"), Alcoa Premiere, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, and The Dick Powell Theatre. He appeared with Millie Perkins on Wagon Train playing the lead character in the episode "The Will Santee Story".

He subsequently guest starred on Combat!, The Greatest Show on Earth, The Defenders, The Eleventh Hour, Kraft Suspense Theatre, Burke's Law, and had a six-episode arc on Dr. Kildare. Stockwell guest starred on Mannix, The FBI (again), Night Gallery, Orson Welles' Great Mysteries, and Mission: Impossible and had the lead in some TV movies, Paper Man (1971) and The Failing of Raymond (1971) as well as a support part in Adventures of Nick Carter (1972).

He continued to guest for TV shows such as Police Surgeon, The Streets of San Francisco, Columbo, Joe Forrester, Three for the Road, Cannon, Ellery Queen, Police Story, McCloud, Tales of the Unexpected, Greatest Heroes of the Bible, Hart to Hart, The A Team, and Simon & Simon. Following the end of Quantum Leap, Stockwell appeared in Bonanza: The Return (1993),

He tried another regular series, Street Gear (1995) but it only lasted 13 episodes. Stockwell was in episodes of Snowy River: The McGregor Saga, Nowhere Man, The Commish, Can't Hurry Love, and Ink. He later had a regular role on The Tony Danza Show (1998) which only ran 14 episodes.

He guest starred on First Monday, Star Trek: Enterprise (reunited with Scott Bakula from Quantum Leap), Stargate SG-1, JAG, and Crash with Hopper. He had a semi-regular part on Battlestar Galactica from 2008 as John Cavil. (Wikipedia)

#Dean Stockwell #TV #Obit #Obituary #O2021 #Quantum Leap #Battlestar Galactica #The Tony Danza Show #Dr. Kildare #JAG

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sashi-ya · 4 years ago

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{+18} – Cherry Blossom & Tangerines – Trafalgar Law x Y/n – Part 2

Modern AU. Living in Seoul, Sk. Trip to Jeju Do (Island). Everybody is alive. No spoilers. Female reader. No physical descriptions. Everybody is +18, canon ages. Chopper is human.

Tw: anxiety, fear of flying. No further tw warnings. Mostly SFW. Nami x Vivi & and some ZoSan.

A/N: The AU is inspired on Jeju Island, SK. I've made some research on cute places from there, such as touristic attractions and coffee shops. Even though, it may not be 100% accurate, so keep in mind is mostly inspired♥

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31059467

Word Count: 4K

» List of parts: {P1} {P2} {P3} {P4} {P5} {P6}«

Chapter 2. “Law?!...” I said surprised. “Y/n-ya?...” he asked, also surprised, but before I could say anything else, Luffy came running through the aisle and hugged Law, and I came to the conclusion that he was, indeed, Zoro and Luffy’s friend.

I moved my stuff out of the way, and after he got rid of Luffy, Law helped me to put my backpack on the overhead locker and then sat next to me.

I remained silent for a little bit, waiting perhaps for him to talk, but he didn’t. The flight attendant announced the takeoff was about to happen, so we fasten our seatbelts as the plane started moving. I looked at him out of the corner of my eye, and I could see how he seemed a little bit nervous. I thought it was my imagination, but when the plane gathered a little more speed through the runway, he began to breathe faster.

I couldn’t keep my mouth shut and I had to ask, “Law, are you ok? Are you feeling bad?”. He directed his gaze at me with blushing cheeks, and after a few seconds, he said “Y-Yes. I just tend to get a little nervous during the take off, but I’m… ok”. Poor thing, he was trying to cover his heavy breathing… “Don’t worry, it's completely normal, would you like me to hold your hand? You can squeeze it as much as you can”, I said kindly, keeping my cool just for him to see how it wasn’t a big deal, and nothing to get embarrassed of. I placed my hand, palm up, over the armrest that separated our seats and waited for him to hold it. He doubted a little bit, but he finally did it, first softly, still ashamed, but then firmly. “Don’t worry, it’ll be over soon, try to focus on your breathing”, I guided him, with a calm speech, and looking directly into his deep grey eyes, smiling kindly. He slowly calmed his respiratory frequency, and a few minutes after the plane was already flying at cruise level, he sweetly let go of my hand. Our palms were a little sweaty, but I couldn’t care less.

“T-Th- Thanks…” He said, looking at the floor. “Don’t worry, you saved me three times the other day, now I owe you only two” I said, winking an eye at him. Law smiled a little, but kept looking at the floor. I was about to point out the fact that he was Zoro’s friend when Nami peaked through our seat backs saying “Oi Torao, you finally decided to come with us!! You normally don’t go anywhere, I’m glad you separated from your books for good!... Oh, and you two must know each other, right Y/n?” she said pointing at us, “Both of you study at the same U and are becoming doctors soon”. Vivi who was next to Nami began to giggle covering his mouth. Suddenly I realized that both of my friends already knew who Law was, and began to suspect that for some reason they wanted to perhaps pair us up.

“I know him from other circumstances”, I said smirking at them, but with an underhand expression of “I’m gonna kill both of you for not telling me”. Law smiled at them, but didn’t say much, and the girls returned to their seats.

“So, your surname must be Trafalgar, right? I thought you were a Donquixote…”, I asked him. “Yeah, is a long story…”, he said with no emotion at all, and I realized it wasn’t a good topic, so I changed the curse of the conversation. “Oh, you were the one who was complemented by Dr. Marco? You are amazing, doc!”.

“Uhum, but I’m not that good. Dr. Phoenix is just an amazing teacher”, he replied. “Indeed, he is”, I said. The small talk came to an end when the flight attendant offered us something to drink. I opted for a glass of plain water, and so did Law. He then grabbed a manga from his little bag, and began to read. “Maybe he doesn’t wanna talk to me…” I thought, put my air pods on and turned on the music. Some minutes after I regretted not having any sleep last night, as my eyes were trying to close...

The voice of the captain announced over the speakers that we will be arriving on Jeju Island in a few minutes. I was being lazy to open my eyes, as I felt extremely comfy sleeping in that position… until I realized I had my head - and almost the right side of my body - over Law’s shoulder. “Oh my… I’m sorry!” I said gaining composure and sitting properly on my spot. Law gave me a smile with kind eyes, and said “Don’t worry, I was asleep too, I used your head as a pillow, I didn’t want to wake you up, though”. Behind us a few laughs from the girls were heard, and I asked, confused, “You… what?. But the landing was already happening and the cabin crew asked us to prepare, so I decided to shut my mouth. I gazed at Law to see if he needed any help with the landing, but he didn’t seem as scared as he was with the taking off.

We all descended the plane, waited for our luggage and headed to the car rental picking point. I’ve booked three cars, so we distributed perfectly on each one. Franky picked the blue Hyundai Venue. Usopp, Chopper and Brook went with him. Law chose a yellow Hyundai Sonata, of course he would, he looks so cool… Zoro, Sanji, and of course Luffy followed him. I chose the white Tucson, for me and the girls.

We left the airport and drove through the streets of Jeju, admiring the beauty of the cherry blossom trees and the yellow flowers on the side of the road. Law’s car was behind us, and sometimes I spied through the rear mirror, just to see his face fully concentrated on the road.

I asked Nami to put the GPS for me, because our Airbnb was a little bit remote from the center and I was afraid of getting lost. The girls and I sang the whole drive to the songs the radio was playing.

We finally reached the house. It was just as the photos, a white two-story house, big enough for all of us. The beach was next to our patio, the typical style of grey rocks of Jeju Do garnished the entrance and the sound of the waves crashing on the shore with a few seagulls squawking made the whole atmosphere unique.

I gave the entrance code to Robin and she opened the door. Luffy entered first running excited and went directly to the garden to see the beach. We followed him, pretty excited too. Inside, the house had a minimalistic style, everything was white and the floor and furniture was made of light wood.

There were four rooms, so the guys distributed in two of them, Robin and I went to another and we let Nami and Vivi have a room for them. We took turns to use the shower and got ready to explore the island right away.

Sanji suggested that we should go first to Dongmun traditional market to buy fresh ingredients for him to cook for us. He became a professional chef a few years ago and works with his father Zeff, on his well-known restaurant, “The Baratie”. His cooking skills are heavenly, and he loves to cook for us, so we agreed immediately.

We arrived after a 10 minute drive, the market was extremely busy, the food stalls offered a variety of typical korean dishes, kimbap, tteokbokki, tteokgalbi and fresh and canned ingredients, such as typical fishes from the island and the famous kimchi.

Luffy, as always, drove by the smell of the delicious food, ran desperately inside and tasted every single sample the sellers offered to him. Nami, Vivi and I, decided to try the famed tangerines of the island. Nami, who is an expert on tangerines, would give us the final verdict on if they are good as people say. The juicy mandarin slices we tried were exquisite, the sweetness mixed with a little bit of tartness made us want to buy bags of them.

I saw Law approaching us, he had separated from Zoro’s group who were trying the variety of Sojus. I called him with a big smile and some tangerine slices on my hands, “Law!! Come here, you should try this!”. He came closer also with a little grin. I stood on tiptoes and said, “Open your mouth!” and without any shame I offered him a big juicy slice of mandarin. He opened his mouth surprised, but accepted the fruit and while taking it, his lips softly touched the point of my fingers. It felt almost as if he was kissing them, or for a moment I wished it was the case… A little drop of juice ran from his mouth through the commissure of his lips, so I immediately rubbed my thumb over it to clean it. He fixed his eyes on mine, and for a few seconds it seemed as if the rest of the world stopped existing around us. He swallowed up the fruit and thanked me still without taking his gaze off me. The moment broke when the old lady at the tangerine selling stall asked us if we wanted a box or a bag for the fruits. I turned to her, and saw Nami and Vivi looking at the lady wanting her to shut her mouth. My cheeks thanked the interruption, though, because they couldn’t get any more flushed.

“A box would be great, thanks!” I told the seller. Law carried the box himself, and we reunited with the rest of the group.

Sanji had already gathered everything he needed, Zoro had bought his alcohol provision for the next few days, Luffy had his face completely stuffed with some meat, Franky had a cola on his hands, Brook a milkshake, Robin a bag of tangerine tea, Chopper of course some candy cotton on both of his hands and Usopp was eating some type of ramyon. We left the market and headed to our temporary house to leave the provisions and decide the plans for the afternoon and night.

“I want to go to Bomnal Cafe, I heard they serve delicious pastries! Can we go there?” suggested Chopper. “We can go there for the afternoon, and then have a picnic with a bonfire at the beach for the night. What do you think, guys?”, I proposed. “BONFIRE! BONFIRE! Sanji, you could also make some barbecue!!” screamed Luffy, excited, and everyone agreed that it would be a great idea.

Some of us headed to the coffee shop, while Sanji, Zoro, Law, Usopp and Franky stayed at home to prepare everything for the night.

The little coffee shop had a minimalistic, all white and grey, and maybe a little vintage atmosphere. We ordered a few pastries, puddings and lattes that tasted exquisite. We sat by a big window that let us admire the beauty of a little garden with cherry trees and a little pond with some fishies swimming peacefully. We were making stories for Instagram, taking photos, having fun. “Oi, Y/n, pose for me!” said Nami and took a photo of me with her iPhone. I didn’t have time to pose properly, so it was a pretty casual photo of me drinking a matcha latte. Brook insisted on me posting it, because he said it was cute. Chopper and the girls agreed with him, so I uploaded it to my Instagram.

Suddenly, a new notification popped up on my screen, “@DrHeartSteeler liked and commented on your photo”. “Hey guys, do you know who is @DrHeart…” I was asking them while opening the notification and realized it was no other than Law. “@DrHeartSteeler > Beautiful… place. Can you bring me one of those when you come back home?”. I hadn’t had the chance to say anything else when my friends began to make a fuss about the comment. “WHEN YOU COME BACK HOME?, Torao what the fuck?” said Nami laughing out loud. Chopper who was a little innocent, started asking why everyone was laughing, and it only fanned up the flames that were blushing my cheeks. “Yohoho… I guess you have to bring him “home” a matcha latte, Y/n, he probably misses you already…” mocked me Brook. Robin, who is the most mature of all of us, simply laughed and looked at me with kind eyes.

“Stop it guys, he is just asking for a latte…” I said, fanning my face with my hand. “Oh, yes, of course. He wasn’t even following your account. Before we left home, he asked Vivi for your user, right babe?…” said Nami and Vivi nodded with her mouth full of chocolate cake. I didn’t want to show the excitement I was feeling on my insides, so I simply replied that he probably wanted to follow me because he was already following everybody in the group. We decided to come back before the sun set, so we could see it on the beach and after buying Law his tea, and some pastries for the guys we left the pretty tea room and drove home.

“Guys, we are home! we brought you some pastries!!” I said, while carrying the papers bags, and Law’s latte on the other hand. Everyone came running to me and grabbed the bags, while Law, who was sitting on the couch reading, looked at me above his manga, as if he was waiting for me to say something. I tried to act cool, so I said “And oh, uhm, Law your matcha Latte. I hope it’s the right size for you”. He smiled at me, left the book on the armchair and stood up. He walked towards me slowly, I didn’t know if he was trying to be sexy or it was just how he was… Because he certainly was, only using black with yellow spots, swim shorts and a yellow open shirt, that let me admire his tattooed chest and abs.

“Thanks, Y/n-ya. When I saw your picture, I craved for…” he made a little pause, and continued while grabbing the plastic cup, “some matcha latte”. Well, now I crave... you… I thought. I gave him a look from head to toe, and said smirking “It’s nothing, now I only owe you only one favor, so, you tell me if you need something more”. “Mh... I’ll keep it in mind”, he said with his low sexy voice and a little side smirk. I smiled at him and went upstairs.

I threw myself on the bed and sighed loudly. My heart was racing, my lower parts were feeling funny and the sexual tension I’ve just experienced was too much to handle for me. “How hot he is, damn it”, I expressed out loud covering my eyes. “Who is hot, Y/n?” asked Zoro, who apparently was entering my bedroom to ask me something. I almost had a heart attack, but calmed myself down and asked him what he needed. He told me that we were getting ready to go to the beach to prepare the picnic and watch the sunset and if I could bring some blankets. I told him ok and he left my room laughing.

“I came here to rest, and I’m getting more stressed than during finals”, I thought, annoyed, while gathering for a few blankets and pillows to bring to the beach. I headed downstairs. Everybody has already left the house and I could see them walking towards the beach from our patio. I was about to leave and closed the door trying not to throw the blankets I had in my hand, when someone scared the hell out of me. “Oi, you almost let me locked in..., let me help you with that”, said Law who was still inside. “God… Law, you scared me… what are you doing? I thought I was alone…”. “Sanji forgot the salt shaker, I returned to bring it to him”, he calmly answered. “Oh, I see… Well let’s go” I said, still breathing fast from getting scared, and handed him a few blankets to help me carry them.

The chilly sea breeze kissed our cheeks, and the sound of the beach began to fill my ears. I was wearing a long silky dress that danced with the wind, as well as my hair. The sun was going down, everything was golden. Oranges, violets, reds, were the colours that tinted the clouds above the sea. Law was walking right by my side, and both were admiring the beauty of the evening lights that bathed the cliffs. I decided to stop, and take a picture with my analog camera, and as I did, Law kept walking a few steps more until he realized I had stopped. He turned around and looked at me, just when I pressed the shutter. “I’m sorry, I… didn’t know…” Law excused himself for appearing in the photo, but I wasn’t mad at all. I gave him a smile and told him, “It’s ok, you are part of the trip, I’ll give you a copy when I develop the film if you want”. “Thanks…”, he said, and we kept on walking admiring the beauty of the sun setting.

We finally arrived at where everybody else was. Law gave the salt to Sanji and helped him with the barbecue. I started to set up the blankets with the girls and told Brook to play some music with his guitar. The boys had already put up the bonfire and some torchlights that lit up our night.

The night was lovely, it was a little cold, but a few beers after I was dancing with the girls barefoot on the sand to “A lovely night” from the movie Lalaland. Suddenly, Robin said to me “Hey, Y/n… it seems that Torao-kun can’t take his eyes off from you tonight”. “Huh?” I told Robin, confused. She pointed to where the boys were cooking and I turned my face to them. Law was indeed looking at me, with a beer in his hand. I smiled gazing at him over my shoulder, and he did too. I turned back at the girls and kept on dancing covering my mouth, giggling a little. Vivi, Nami and Robin also giggled and gave me a complicit smile.

“Dinner is ready, everybody! “announced Sanji and we gathered all around the grill to receive the plates that surprisingly Zoro helped Sanji to serve. I guess alcohol and food made them somehow get along, at least for a few hours. I wonder when they are going to stop the fighting and begin the kissing… fufufu…

The brochettes were heavenly, we ate them sitting around the bonfire while singing “Binks no Sake”, one of Brooks classics. He is the musician of the group, and even started his professional career a few years ago as “Soul King”. He is such a talented guy.

As the night passed Law and I sometimes interlocked eyes, or exchanged little smiles. I took some more photos during the picnic and we kept on dancing until 3 am, when we decided to raise camps and head to our beds.

I was exhausted, yet, the idea of stalking Law on Instagram was on my head and didn’t let me sleep. I covered myself completely with the sheets and searched for his user on my phone. He has no more than 5 photos posted. One of them was with Luffy and Zoro, after training, another one of him and Rosinante -he called him “Cora-san” on the image caption, how cute - when he was a little boy. The rest of the photos were with some friends dressed up as pirates for Halloween and in the comment section they called themselves the “Heart pirates”, ha-ha funny.

I suspired whenever I zoomed the photos over his eyes. I was starting to like this man, way too much... I tossed and turned in bed trying to fall asleep, but I simply couldn’t, so I thought drinking some tea would help me. I went downstairs, trying not to wake anybody up and got to the kitchen. From the big glass door that looked at the beach I saw how the moonlight lit up the waves crashing on the cliffs and the whole kitchen. The scenery and the chamomile tea were slowly fading away the image of Law’s eyes, until I felt someone placing a hand over my shoulder. I slightly gazed at it, and it only took me a few seconds to know it was the tattooed hand of the guy who was keeping me awake. He was wearing black shorts, and a loose white shirt. His hair was more disheveled than ever. What is it with this guy that looks so good no matter what he looks?...

“I see I’m not the only one who can’t sleep”, Law whispered. “Yeah, I’m exhausted but somehow I can’t fall asleep… I guess it must be the bed, I don’t know. Do you want some tea?”, I offered him. “Yes, that would be great”, he accepted.

I was turning on the electric kettle when we heard some noises coming from the living room. I looked at Law and both of us peaked through the kitchen entrance to see what was going on…

“Shitty cook… we shouldn’t….”, “What? are you afraid, idiot Marimo?”. Sanji and Zoro seemed a little drunk and were somehow hugging and walking at the same time. At first I thought they were trying to help each other to go upstairs, so I started walking towards them to help. I couldn’t walk any further because immediately Law grabbed me by my waist, and pulled me back into the kitchen covering my mouth. “Shh… just wait”, he whispered into my ear and let go of me. What I saw next was something we’ve all been waiting for. Finally, Zoro and Sanji accepted how much they loved each other, and went upstairs kissing as two teenagers in love.

I opened my mouth and looked at Law with a surprised expression, that soon turned into a happy face. I started making little jumps in my place. “I knew it!!” I said and Law giggled almost without making any sound. With the excitement I didn’t notice how near we were from each other, until Law softly caressed my face with one of his soft hands. He, of course had the hands of a surgeon, long fingers, soft skin, perfectly cut nails. “Why don’t we do the same as them?” he asked me, and I gasped and stood still in front of him. He slowly approached his face to mine until the point of our noses were almost touching. I got lost into his grey eyes, my mouth was ready to receive his lips. The sweet torture of the moments before a first kiss, I wished I could make it last as much as I could, but at the same time, I wanted him to kiss me, passionately, now, right now.

My eyes probably showed how desperately I was for him to kiss me, that he smirked and finally planted his luscious lips against mine. He explored my mouth with his tongue, with no modesty at all, and as we were passionately kissing he lifted me up and sited me over the kitchen counter.

Without stopping the kissing, I open my legs to allow him to come further and as he did, he slid a hand to my sex…

Part 3

PT1

#trafalgar d law x reader #trafalgardwaterlaw #trafalgar law x reader #trafalgar law x y/n #trafalgar law #law x reader #one piece law #torao #one piece x reader #one piece x y/n #onepiece #one piece #monkey d. luffy #straw hat nami #one piece zosan #zosan #zoro x sanji

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differenzeartistiche · 4 years ago

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It’s Gavin Creel’s birthday, so let’s bring back this ranking of all his performances that I’ve seen.

I’m adding A Tale of Two Cities since I last posted this two years ago.

Gavin Creel, 14 performances, ranked!

14. Nick Piazza in Fame

This show has some merits, although it’s definitely not one of my favorites. It’s Gavin’s professional debut and I can forgive him some naiveté in an otherwise competent, beautifully sung performance. His rendition of “I wanna make magic” is lovely.

13. Charles Darnay in A Tale of Two Cities

Ok, so this was a concert performance, so it’s not really fair to compare it to the others, but I’ll just throw it in here. Mainly because it’s such an unusual show for Gavin. It’s something that tries very hard to be on the level of Les Miserables, without much success, and Gavin is not a huge fan of that kind of show. That said, it’s a nicely sung performance of a classic romantic hero role. Nice, nothing more.

12. Jean-Michel in La Cage Aux Folles

Great show, poor but still competent production. The role’s literally the most boring in the whole play, but he gets to sing the cute “With Anne on my arm” and he nails it.

11. Hollis Bessemer in Bounce

Sadly a lesser show by Sondheim, I still love some aspects of it, and Gavin’s wide-eyed artistically-inclined dreamer is one of them. His big solo “Talent” is the best song of the show and touches me on a very personal level.

10. Matthews in Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure

Gavin voicing a Disney villain! A Disney villain with a secret! A Disney villain with a French accent! Talk about playing against type. There’s something of Kodaly here, and of Lumiere and of Pepé Le Pew. You can tell he had a blast recording this role, and the design is exquisite.

9. Bill in Eloise at the Plaza / Eloise at Christmastime

Effortlessly hilarious on screen as he is on stage, he goes full-on old-time Hollywood star in the Christmas-themed sequel and I love it. A mix of Dick Powell and Fred Astaire.

8. Dr. Pomatter in Waitress

Sara Bareilles’ little gem of a musical often finds its strength in the absolute realness of its characters, flawed human beings looking for a little sparkle of happiness. Drew Gehling’s Dr. Pomatter was awkward and fun and sad-eyed, but I think Gavin wins infusing the character with tenderness and truly lived-in melancholy. A few weeks in a well-worn musical could be seen as a footnote in a great career, but it’s such a lovely performance, enhanced by the incredible chemistry he has with Bareilles.

7. Bert in Mary Poppins

My introduction to Gavin and since then I’ve come to appreciate him as heir to impossibly gangly male leads like Dick Van Dyke, so this feels like such a natural fit. I find the show a little bloated, but watch him defying gravity in that one “walking on air” scene: it’s irresistible.

6. Ugly in Honk!

Having him play the ugly duckling ALSO feels like a natural fit. Gavin’s at his best when he plays lost and confused dreamers, and the fairytale touch with the surreal setting makes for a wonderful variation on that theme.

5. Steven Kodaly in She Loves Me

Easily the odd man out of the list. The evil, scheming, suave and self-centered Kodaly is a delightful departure from all the romantic leads and clueless buffoons of Gavin’s career. The showstopper “Ilona” brings out all the manipulative nature of the character, a snake that always finds a way out and always gets what he wants. A remarkable performance that makes me want to see him branch out into even more strange territories.

4. Jimmy Smith in Thoroughly Modern Millie

Again with the old-time charm and humor. Millie is a show dominated by women, and Gavin’s male romantic lead manages not to be swallowed whole by them by being so wonderfully easy-going, hilariously aloof and occasionally sassy. It does also help that in “What do I need with love” he has one of the catchiest numbers of the show.

3. Cornelius Hackl in Hello, Dolly!

PUDDING. That alone deserved the Tony. It’s an overwhelmingly funny turn that makes the best of the original, almost vaudevillian nature of the show. So full of tricks and ticks and winks to the audience, deliciously aware of its own absurdity, it’s the kind of scene-stealing performance that not every actor can pull off. And oh my god, has anyone ever sung Jerry Herman’s beautiful tunes so gorgeously? You almost wish he could have sung “Put on your Sunday clothes” in its entirety.

2. Elder Price in The Book of Mormon

Somewhere between the rubber-faced humor of Jim Carrey, the earnest straight man hilarity of Jack Lemmon and the physicality of Dick Van Dyke. A perfect combination that captures the sarcastic, yet disarmingly sweet nature of the show, with its hints of meanness and self-devouring doubt.

1. Claude Hooper Bukowski in Hair

Unquestionably the masterpiece of Gavin’s career. A towering performance that starts with the iconicity of the role and the visuals associated with it and finds the core of Claude’s humanity: a scared, earnest, sometimes self-centered, mostly clueless young man that has to face something so much bigger than himself, something that is so far from the made-up world of fake accents and films in space that he has created for himself and that will eventually consume him. Moments like “Where do I go” and “The Flesh Failures” are moving and brutally honest.

#gavin creel #Broadway #the book of mormon #hair #rapunzles tangled adventure

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tahitinuifan · 4 years ago

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Arctic Diet Gone Toxic

Pitching a makeshift tent on sea ice, where the Arctic Ocean meets the North Atlantic, brothers Mamarut and Gedion Kristiansen are ready to savor their favorite meal. Mamarut slices off a piece of raw pink whale blubber as a snack. Mamarut’s wife, Tukummeq Peary, a descendant of famed North Pole explorer Admiral Robert E. Peary, is boiling the main entrée on a camp stove. The family dips hunting knives into the kettle, pulling out steaming ribs of freshly killed ringed seal and devouring the hearty meat with some hot black tea.

Living closer to the North Pole than to any city, factory, or farm, the Kristiansens appear unscathed by the industrial-age ills. They live much as their ancestors did, relying on foods harvested from the sea and skills honed by generations of Inuit. But as northbound winds carry toxic remnants of faraway lands to their hunting ground in extraordinary amounts, their close connection to the environment and their ancestral diet of marine mammals have left the Arctic’s indigenous people vulnerable to the pollutants of modern society. About 200 hazardous compounds, which migrate from industrialized regions and accumulate in ocean-dwelling animals, have been detected in the inhabitants of the far north.

The bodies of Arctic people, particularly Greenland’s Inuit, contain the highest human concentrations of industrial chemicals and pesticides found anywhere on Earth-levels so extreme that the breast milk and tissues of some Greenlanders could be classified as hazardous waste. Nearly all Inuit tested in Greenland and more than half in Canada have levels of PCBs and mercury exceeding international health guidelines. Perched atop a contaminated food chain, the inhabitants of the Arctic have become the world’s lab rats, the involuntary subjects of an accidental human experiment demonstrating what can happen when a heaping brew of chemicals builds up in human bodies.

Studies of infants in Greenland and Arctic Canada suggest that the chemicals are harming children. Babies suffer greater rates of infections because their immune systems seem to be impaired and their brain development is altered, slightly reducing intelligence and memory skills. Scientists say the immune suppression could be responsible, at least in part, for the Arctic’s inordinate number of sick babies. They believe the neurological damage to newborns is similar in scope to the harm done if the mothers drank moderate amounts of alcohol while pregnant. The tragedy for the Inuit is that they have few, if any, ways to protect themselves.

Many Arctic natives say that abandoning their traditional foods would destroy a 4,000 year-old society rooted in hunting. No factory-engineered fleece compares with the warmth of a sealskin parka, mittens, and boots. No motorboat sneaks up on a whale like a handmade kayak latched together with rope. No snowmobile flexes with ice like a dog-pulled sled made of driftwood. And no imported food nourished their bodies, warms their spirit and strengthens their hearts like the flesh they slice from the flanks of a whale or seal.

“Our foods do more than nourish our bodies. They feed our souls.” said the late Ingmar Egede, a Greenlandic educator who promoted the rights of indigenous people. “When many things in our lives are changing, our foods remain the same. They make us feel the same as they have for generations. When I eat Inuit foods, I know who I am.”

Unexpected Poisons

In 1987, Dr. Eric Dewailly, an epidemiologist at Laval University in Quebec, was surveying contaminants in breast milk of mothers near the industrialized, heavily polluted Gulf of St. Lawrence when he met a midwife from Nunavik, the Arctic portion of the Quebec province. She asked whether he wanted to gather milk samples from women there. Dewailly reluctantly agreed, thinking it might be useful as “blanks”, samples with nondetectable pollution levels. A few months later, the first batch of samples (glass vials holding a half-cup of milk from 24 women from Nunavik) arrived by air mail at the lab in Quebec.

Dewailly soon got a phone call from the lab director. Something was wrong with the Arctic milk. The chemical concentrations were off the charts. The technician thought the samples must have been tainted in transit. Upon checking more breast milk, the scientists soon realized that the chemical concentration numbers were accurate. The Arctic mothers had seven times more PCBs in their milk than mothers in Canada’s biggest cities.

Dwailly contacted the World Health Organization in Geneva, where an expert in chemical safety told him that the PCB levels were the highest that he had ever seen. Those women, the expert said, should stop breast-feeding their babies. Dwailly knew that Nunavik (located on the Hudson Bay) is so remote that mothers had nothing else to feed their infants. As a doctor, he couldn’t in good conscience tell them to quit breast- feeding, but he knew he couldn’t hide the problem either.

“Breast milk is supposed to be a gift,” said Dewailly, who today is among the world’s leading experts on the human health effects of contaminants. “It isn’t supposed to be poison”. Nearly a generation has passed since those first vials of breast milk arrived in the Quebec laboratory. The babies Dewailly agonized over are all grown up and will pass to their own children the chemical load amassing in their bodies.

Top of the World

From ice-clinging algae to polar bears, the Arctic has a long and intricate ladder of life. An estimated 650,000 indigenous people inhabit the top rung, and their population is steadily growing. About 90,000 are the Inuit of Eastern Canada and Greenland-a territory of Denmark under its own home-rule government. Others, spread across eight nations and speak dozens of languages.

Environmental scientists suspect that industrial chemicals first hitched a ride to the Artic in the 1940s. The chemicals originate in cities in North America, Europe, and Asia. They travel thousands of miles via north winds, ocean currents, and rivers. In the Arctic, the sea is a deep-freeze archive storing contaminants that are slow to break down in cold temperatures and low sunlight. Ingested first by zooplankton, the chemicals spread through the food web as one species consumes another.

Scientists say that the Arctic’s water and air are much cleaner than in urban environments. PCBS and DDT in the fish and mammals of such areas as the Great Lakes, the Baltic, and North Sea are 10 to 100 times higher in concentration than in the Arctic Ocean. But most urban dwellers consume food from a host of sources, eating comparatively limited amounts of seafood and no marine mammals or other top predators high on the food web. Instead, they consume mostly land-raised food with low contaminant levels.

Inuit, by contrast, eat much like a polar bear does; consuming the blubber and meat of fish-eating whales, seals, walruses, and seabirds four or five links up the marine food chain. Contaminants, which accumulate in animals’ fat, magnify in concentration with each step up, from plankton to people. In newborns’ umbilical cord blood and mother’s breast milk, average PCB and mercury levels are 20 to 50 times higher in remote villages in Greenland than in urban areas of the United States and Europe.

In far northern villages such as Qaanaaq (where the Kristiansens live) one of every six adults tested exceeds 200 parts per billion of mercury in the blood, a dose known to cause acute symptoms of mercury poisoning. “That’s a huge amount of mercury,” said John Risher, a mercury specialist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control toxic substances agency. “At that level, I would really except to see effects, such as paresthsia, an abnormal tingling or numbness in the hands.”

Few details are known about Russia’s Siberia, but scientists are expected to soon release data showing that residents of the region are more contaminated than Greenlanders. In contrast, Alaska’s Inuit carry low concentrations because they eat bowhead whales that are low on the food web. PCBs and DDT, the so-called legacy chemicals banned three decades ago in most developed countries, peaked in the 1990s and since then have declined, although they remain at substantially higher levels in Arctic people than people elsewhere.

Other compounds are increasing, including mercury and brominated flame retardants called PBDEs. Much of the mercury comes from coal-burning power plants, largely in Asia, while the United States is the major source of flame retardants, used in plastics and polyurethane foam. Subtle health effects are occurring in certain areas of the Arctic due to contaminants in traditional food, particularly for mercury and PCBs.

Building up over a lifetime, chemicals stored in a mother’s body cross into the womb, contaminating a fetus before birth. Then the newborn gets an added dose from breast milk. A study in Arctic Canada has shown for the first time that the risks of traditional foods seem to outweigh their benefits. 11-month-old Nunavik babies were repeatedly shown a picture while researchers recorded how readily the children recognized images they already had seen. The infants with high amounts of PCBs in their bodies were 10% less likely to recognize the images than infants with low PCB levels.

A separate, smaller study also linked PCBs with slight neurological effects in older children in Qaanaaq. The studies confirm similar neurological effects detected in children elsewhere including the Great Lakes region. Also in Nunavik, infants exposed in the womb to high levels of DDT and PCBs suffered more ear and respiratory infections, particularly in the first six months of life. An increased infection rate is the most serious of the known threats because Arctic children suffer extremely elevated rates of ear infections, which often lead to hearing loss and respiratory infections.” Nunavik has a cluster of sick babies,” Dewaily said, “They fill the waiting rooms of the clinics.”

No Cows, Pigs, Chickens

A year-round icy shield-thicker than a mile in some places-covers 85% of Greenland. The island has no trees, no grass, no fertile soil, which means no cows, no pigs, no chickens, no grains, no vegetables, and no fruit orchards. Instead, the ocean is Greenland’s food basket. Sandwiched between Canada and Scandinavia, Greenland gets the brunt of the world’s contaminants because it is in the path of winds from both European and North American cities.

In remote parts of Greenland, such as the Kristiansen’s village of Qaanaaq, people eat marine mammals and seabirds 36 times a month on average, consuming a pound of whale and seal each week. About one-third of their calories come from traditional foods. “We eat seal meat as you eat cow in your country,” said Greenland’s premier, “it is important to have meat on the table.”

The Inuit say their native food strengthens their bodies, warming them from within like a fire glowing inside a lantern. When they eat anything else, instead of fire, they feel ice. “We are living in a place that is very cold and it’s not by accident what we eat. We are not able to survive on other food,” says a Greenland native, “hunting is so important to us, so fundamental, that we will not be able to survive without it.”

Everything else, from tea to bread, must be imported. In remote villages, stores stock processed and canned food that is expensive, frequently stale and not very tasty or nutritious. In Nunavut, across Baffin Bay from Greenland, store-bought food for a family of four would cost $240 a week, more than one-third of the average family income there. “We can buy lame lettuce, really old oranges, and dried up apples or eat fresh and nutritious beluga, walrus, and fish,” says a local, “there is really no alternative.”

In some respects, the marine diet has made the Inuit among the world’s healthiest people. Beluga whale meat has 10 times the iron of beef, twice the protein, and five times the Vitamin A. Omega 3 fatty acids in seafood protect the Inuit from heart disease and diabetes. Seventy-year-old Inuit men have coronary arteries as elastic as those of twenty-year-old men from European countries. Although heart disease has increased with the introduction of processed foods, especially among Greenlandic young people, it remains more or less unknown.

Public officials are torn whether to encourage the Inuit to continue eating their traditional diet or to reduce their consumption. Government officials and doctors fear that Inuit will switch to imported processed foods loaded with carbohydrates and sugar, risking malnourishment, vitamin deficiencies, heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. “The level of contamination is very high in Greenland, but there is a lot of Western food that is worse.” says a doctor.

Greenland’s home-rule government and doctors have issued no advisories. Many Greenlanders are aware of the contamination, although they know few details. In Canada, however, there has been extensive outreach to indigenous people, including trips by Dewailly and other scientists to explain their findings in detail. But public health officials there still struggle, after 16 years, with what dietary advice to give.

Last year, Nunavik leaders initiated an experiment in three communities that gives women free Arctic char, a fish high in fatty acids, but low in PCBs, to encourage them to eat less beluga blubber, the main source of contaminants there. Most Inuit have not altered their diet in response to contamination. In Arctic cultures, people rely on the traditional knowledge of hunters and elders, and with no visible sign of pollution, many are skeptical that the chemicals exist. Some even suspect talk about the chemicals is a ploy to strip them of their traditions.

Moreover, health officials point out that the risks of contamination are greatly outweighed by other societal problems, including smoking, suicide, domestic violence, and binge drinking, which have severe and immediate impact on life and death in the Arctic. For example, more than half the pregnant women in Greenland smoke cigarettes. Those who are aware of the dangers of toxic chemicals say that their meats are too nutritious and important to give up.

Anthropologists warn that efforts to alter Inuit diets can unwittingly cause irreversible cultural change. If hunting is discouraged, people quickly would lose their traditional knowledge about the environment and their hunting skills. Their art, their spirituality, their celebrations, their storytelling, even their language would suffer. Inuit dialects are steeped in the nuances of nature that their national languages (English, French, and Danish) ignore.

The most important damage would be to Inuit values and attitudes. In the Arctic’s subsistence economy, people share prey among neighbors and relatives. The best hunters are leaders in the village and they are generous with their wealth. If the Inuit switch to a cash society, the communal generosity would disappear. It is more than the food you are changing. It’s the actual catching and hunting of it that really generates the cultural characteristics. Even skipping one generation would impair hunting skills and once they are lost they may never come back.

Survival of the Fittest

Like everyone else in Qaanaaq, the Kristiansens remain mostly oblivious to the scientists and political leaders fretting about how many parts per billion of toxic chemicals are in their bodies. They simply don’t have the luxury to worry about dangers so imperceptible, so intangible. Instead, hunters worry about things they can see and hear: thinning ice conditions and where their next meal will come from. Anxiety about chemicals is left to those who live in distant lands, those who generated the compounds, those whose bodies contain far less.

About 850 miles from the North Pole, Qaanaaq, an isolated village of about 600, is the closest on Earth to the archetype of traditional polar life. Every Spring, when the midnight sun returns, the Arctic’s treasures, long locked in the ice, are within reach again. On a freezing-cold June afternoon, Gedion and Mamarut head out on their sleds, their dogs racing 35 miles across the glacier, toward the Kristiansen’s ancestral hunting grounds.

A little over a century ago, the people of Qaanaaq had little contact with the outside world. Today they can buy salami, dental floss, and Danish porn magazines in their local small market. They watch “A Nightmare on Elm Street” in their living rooms on the one TV station that beams into Qaanaaq. The people have learned about the contaminants from listening to the radio, but they will not change their diet.

Discussion Questions

1. How did the article make you feel?

2. How does geography play into their high levels of contamination (discuss multiple reasons)?

3. How do the Inuit’s culture, food customs, and environment play a role in the pollution levels in their bodies?

4. What can be done or recommended, if anything, to protect the Inuit culture?

#sociology #geography #arctic diet #greenland

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acaseforpencils · 5 years ago

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Adrian Tomine.

Bio: Adrian Tomine was born in 1974 in Sacramento, California. He began self-publishing his comic book series Optic Nerve when he was sixteen. His comics have been anthologized in McSweeney’s, Best American Comics, and Best American Nonrequired Reading, and his graphic novel Shortcomings was a New York Times Notable Book of the year. His most recent book, Killing and Dying, appeared on numerous best-of-2015 lists and was a New York Times graphic bestseller. Since 1999 Tomine has been a regular contributor to The New Yorker. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughters. His latest book, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Cartoonist, a “comedic memoir about fandom, fame, and other embarrassments,” is out today.

Buy this print here!

Tools of choice:

Muji Low Center Gravity mechanical pencil

Uni 0.5 mm mint blue Nano Dia lead

Tombow Mono Zero eraser

Tachikawa school nibs

Tachikawa T-25 nib holder

Faber-Castell PITT artist pen, sizes XS, S, F, and M

Winsor & Newton series 7 brush (size 3)

Dr. Ph. Martin’s ink, either TECH or Black Star

Muji correction pen

I don't use tablets, but I do the coloring on my computer, using a bizarre mix of Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign...all in service of a coloring style that replicates the pre-digital era.

I've never tried one of those screens that you draw directly on. I mostly just use the old, non-wireless mouse that came with a computer I bought decades ago. I sometimes use a tiny Wacom Intuos, but that's really just like using a mouse shaped like a pen.

Tool I wish I could use better: Computer, tablet, Photoshop, etc.

Tool I wish existed: An intern/assistant that I wouldn’t feel guilty about employing.

Tricks: They might seem like an unnecessary or esoteric extravagance, but I will heartily endorse Dr. Martin’s Bombay pen cleaner and B&J brush cleaner. They’re both relatively cheap, and they have definitely extended the life of my nibs and brushes. (Also, I just love that these antiquated, ancillary items are still being produced, and can’t help but feel some kind of kinship with whoever else is still buying them.)

Misc: Like every other aspect of my work, I learned a lot from basically copying other artists. I was definitely influenced by the color work of Dan Clowes and Chris Ware, but I hope I've arrived at something that's a little bit my own. I think I'm a little more pastel-y and low-contrast than those guys, and sometimes I have to really force myself to type in the numbers of a bolder color if I need it for emphasis.

Even though he doesn't work digitally, I learned a lot about color from the cartoonist Seth. He taught me a lot about muddying up colors, moving them away from their primary versions, and not feeling obligated to use all the colors at my disposal.

And as far as the evolution towards a more subdued palette, you're absolutely correct [Editor’s Note: I asked him what caused his color palette to evolve from the brighter colors of his earlier work with Optic Nerve to the more subdued palette that he employees today]. When I first started making comics, I still had the comics of my childhood in my mind as my primary inspiration for color, and I carried a lot of the quirks of that influence with me for awhile. For example, if I was drawing someone with black hair, I'd think back to something like Superman, who often had blue highlights in his ostensibly black hair for some reason. I was conscientious of the fact that my work was going to be sitting on the racks in comic book stores, so I felt like I had to "fit in" to some degree. And eventually I realized that it was actually better to make something that stood out from the Marvel and DC and Image stuff, not only to differentiate my work, but also because it was truer to my own aesthetic taste.

Website, etc.:

www.adrian-tomine.com

www.instagram.com/adriantomine/

BOOK: The Loneliness of the Long Distance Cartoonist is out today. Be sure to pick up a copy here or from your favorite independent book store! You can read more about it here!

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Editor’s Note:You can also find more posts about art supplies on Case’s Instagram and Twitter! There is also a Patreon and a Ko-Fi account Thank you!

#Adrian tomine #Adrian tomine art supplies #Adrian to mine drawing process #Adrian tomine cartoonist #Adrian tomine cartooning advice #Adrian tomine comics advice

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timeless-hollywood-classics · 5 years ago

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Francis Phillip Wuppermann (June 1, 1890 – September 18, 1949), known professionally as Frank Morgan, was an American character actor on radio, stage and film. He was best known for his appearances in films starting in the silent era in 1916, and then numerous sound films throughout the 1930s and 1940s, with a career spanning 35 years mostly as a contract player at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, with his most celebrated performance playing the title role in The Wizard of Oz (1939). He was also briefly billed early in his career as Frank Wupperman and Francis Morgan.

Morgan was born in New York City, to Josephine Wright and George Diogracia Wuppermann. He was the youngest of 11 children, and had five brothers and five sisters. The elder Mr. Wuppermann was born in Venezuela, but was brought up in Hamburg, Germany, and was of German and Spanish ancestry. His mother was born in the United States, of English ancestry. His brother, Ralph Morgan, was also an actor of stage and screen. The family earned their wealth distributing Angostura bitters, allowing Wuppermann to attend Cornell University and join Phi Kappa Psi fraternity and the Glee Club.

Morgan starred with John Barrymore in Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman (1917), an independent film produced in and about New York City. His career expanded when talkies began, his most stereotypical role being that of a befuddled but good hearted middle-aged man. By the mid-1930s, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer had been so impressed by Morgan that they signed him to a lifetime contract. Morgan is best remembered for his performance in The Wizard of Oz (1939) where he played the Wizard and five other roles: the carnival huckster "Professor Marvel", the gatekeeper at the Emerald City, the coachman of the carriage drawn by "The Horse of a Different Color", the Emerald City guard (who initially refuses to let Dorothy and her friends in to see the Wizard), and the Wizard's scary face projection. Morgan was cast in the role on September 22, 1938. W. C. Fields was originally chosen for the role of the Wizard, but the studio ran out of patience after protracted haggling over his fee. An actor with a wide range, Morgan was equally effective playing comical, befuddled men such as Jesse Kiffmeyer in Saratoga (1937) and Mr. Ferris in Casanova Brown (1944), as he was with more serious, troubled characters like Hugo Matuschek in The Shop Around the Corner (1940), Professor Roth in The Mortal Storm (1940) and Willie Grogan in The Human Comedy (1943). MGM's comedy film The Great Morgan (1946), was written with the story centering on the latter.

In 1936 Morgan played alongside Shirley Temple as Professor Appleby in Dimples. In the 1940s, Morgan co-starred with Fanny Brice in one version (of several different series) of the radio program Maxwell House Coffee Time, aka The Frank Morgan-Fanny Brice Show. During the first half of the show Morgan would tell increasingly outlandish tall tales about his life adventures, much to the dismay of his fellow cast members. After the Morgan segment there was a song, followed by Brice as 'Baby Snooks' for the last half of the show. When Brice left to star in her own program in 1944, Morgan continued solo for a year with The Frank Morgan Show. In 1947, Morgan starred as the title character in the radio series The Fabulous Dr. Tweedy. He also recorded a number of children's records, including the popular Gossamer Wump, released in 1949 by Capitol Records. Like most popular character actors of the studio era, Morgan was sought out for numerous supporting roles. He played Barney Wile in The Stratton Story (1949), which follows a baseball player (James Stewart), who makes a comeback after having his leg amputated due to a hunting accident. His final film, Key to the City (1950), was released posthumously.

Morgan married Alma Muller (1895–1970) in 1914; they had one son, George (1916–2003). They were married until Frank's death in 1949. Morgan was widely known to have been an alcoholic, according to several who worked with him, including Margaret Hamilton and Aljean Harmetz. Morgan sometimes carried a black briefcase to work fully equipped with a small mini-bar. Morgan's niece Claudia Morgan was a stage and film actress, most notable for playing the role of Vera Claythorne in the first Broadway production of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. Morgan was also a brother of playwright Carlos Wuppermann (1887–1919, stage/pen names Carlyle Morgan and Carlos Wupperman), who was killed in the Rhineland in 1919 while on duty there with the Army of Occupation. Wuppermann had only one play produced on Broadway, The Triumph of X which opened at the Comedy Theater in New York City on August 24, 1921,[8] but ran for only 30 performances. The production starred Morgan, and also featured Helen Menken as the female lead. Also in the production for his first Broadway outing was Robert Keith, father of actor Brian Keith and one-time husband of Theater Guild actress Peg Entwistle.

Morgan died of a heart attack on September 18, 1949, while filming Annie Get Your Gun. He was replaced by Louis Calhern for the film. His death came before the 1956 premiere televised broadcast on CBS of The Wizard of Oz, which made him the only major cast member from the film who did not live to see the film's revived popularity and how it would become an annual American television institution. Morgan is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. His tombstone carries his real name, Wuppermann, as well as his stage name.

Morgan was nominated for two Academy Awards, one for Best Actor in The Affairs of Cellini (1934) and one for Best Supporting Actor in Tortilla Flat (1942). He has two stars dedicated to him on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Hollywood, California: one for his films at 1708 Vine Street and one for his work in radio at 6700 Hollywood Boulevard. Both were dedicated on February 8, 1960.

#frank morgan #classic hollywood #classic movie stars #golden age of hollywood #old hollywood #1910s movies #1920s hollywood #1930s hollywood #1940s hollywood

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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MobMovieCon and SopranosCon to Have a Sit-Down in Atlantic City

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It’s time for the punks to meet the godfathers. The creators of SopranosCon merged with MobMovieCon for a family celebration. From July 23 to July 25, Harrah’s Resort & Casino in Atlantic City will house the boardwalk’s biggest gangster gathering since Nucky Johnson hosted the mob’s Atlantic City Conference in 1929.

“Al Capone will not be coming though,” VirtualCons CEO Michael Mota tells Den of Geek. “Those were the mobsters. I would say this would be the biggest gathering of mobster wannabes.” The Sopranos fan convention has come a long way since it was dreamed up by three gangster movie aficionados from New York, Maryland, and Rhode Island. The 2019 SopranosCon drew thousands of fans from as far as The Netherlands and the United Kingdom to the Meadowlands Exposition Center in Secaucus. A planned expansion to MobMovieCon had to be pushed back because of the pandemic, but the organizers introduced VirtualCons’ free downloadable app to host fan “experiences,” like a trip to Tony Soprano’s house in Caldwell, N.J.

“It’s grown unbelievably well,” Mota tells us. “We started with SopranosCon of 2019 and got 15,000 people over two days. We decided to open it up to be both SopranosCon and MobMovieCon, but the global reach we have, because of the virtual apps we built during the pandemic, has been unbelievable. Not only will we have thousands of people in Atlantic City, we’ll also have hundreds of thousands of people that will stream it through our app. It’s a great way to connect people to this genre.”

The opening shot for the weekend is a one-night event showcasing the 1996 HBO film Gotti. “It kicks off the weekend, ‘The Gotti Reunion,’” Mota says. “We’ll have Armand Assante, William Forsythe, Dominic Chianese, who was Junior in The Sopranos, but played in The Godfather, and Gotti, and in a tremendous amount of movies.” William Forsythe, and Robert Miranda will also join in the live reunion, which will culminate in the event’s big, as-yet secret announcement.

In Atlantic City, crime pays off. This year will premiere the convention’s Mob Movie Awards, which takes place 8 p.m. Saturday. “It’ll be just like watching the Academy Awards and the Emmys,” Mota says. “There will be a dinner served, people will be dressed up, there’ll be a red-carpet event. We’ll have live music. It’s going to be a really nice night of just appreciating the art of mob movies.”

The Mob Movie Awards will be hosted by a bona fide O.G. One of the premiere gangsta rappers who also wailed in heavy metal, and a Newark native. “Ice T became a partner of ours on the app that we came up with during the epidemic,” Mota says. “He crosses over from the music genre to the movies. He’s been on Law & Order for over 20 years, so we just thought that he would be the greatest addition to it.”

According to advance press, awards will be given in categories like favorite depiction of real-life gangster in a film or TV series, and a James Gandolfini Humanitarian Award. “There will be 10 awards,” Mota says. “One is going to be given to someone that’s no longer with us and there’ll be a tribute. Some of the categories are greatest hits. We have the greatest mob wives. I don’t want to give too many away.”

This year’s guests include Paul Sorvino, who played Paulie Cicero in Goodfellas; Lorraine Bracco who played Dr. Melfi on The Sopranos and Karen Hill in Goodfellas; Aida Turturro (Janice Soprano); Vincent Curatola (Johnny Sack); Kathrine Narducci (Charmaine Bucco); Federico Castelluccio (Furio Giunta), Dan Grimaldi (Philly and Patsy Parisi), David Proval (Richie Aprile) and Jerry Adler (Hesh Rabkin). Also on deck are Michael Madsen, Kathrine Narducci, Tom Sizemore, Tony Darrow, Sofia Milos, Jerry Adler, Jeff Marchetti, Taral Hicks, Eric Roberts, Ray Abruzzo, Matt Servitto, Dan Grimaldi, Jason Cerbone, Oksana Lada, John Bianco, Johnny Martino, John Fiore, Frank Santorelli, Garry Pastore, and Artie Pasquale.

The first event hosted 54 actors from the series, but didn’t stop there. There was a “Pine Barrens” tribute maze, an escape room designed like Dr. Melfi’s office, Bada Bing dancers, costume contests and cannoli-eating tournaments.

“The convention is very different than most,” Mota explains. “We have the traditional, celebrity autographs, but we try to really think outside the box. We have Tony Soprano’s truck, the white Escalade. We have the vehicle that Silvio and Patsy Parisi got shot up in. We purchased that from HBO. We have a motorcycle with all the autographs, so we have a little bit for everybody. It’s very experiential. There is a feast-like atmosphere.” So far, the organizers haven’t told the caterers to use Martin Scorsese’s mother’s famed recipe for tomato sauce. “Not this time,” he says. “We will consider it for next time.

Mota hopes upcoming MobMovieCon gatherings will mix in some of the older classic mob movies as well as gangster with gangsta movies. One day we may see New Jack City playing along with Once Upon a Time in America. “Yes, exactly, Mota says. “We want to make sure that it’s very diverse and hits on everything. We actually are working right now on the west coast and December doing one in Las Vegas,” he says. “We would like to do one on the east coast and one on the west coast. And each time we do it, we’ll theme it out. This one is mostly focused on the Gotti movie and then obviously it brings in The Godfather, and Goodfellas. But we’ll pick one or two classics that everybody loves.”

There are a lot of reasons to appreciate the genre which go beyond crime and punishment. “I think people love the connection with family,” Mota says. “I think that people do like to root for the villain. It’s got that constant idea of the government against these folks that came over to this country. They had it tough. They had to come up with a new way of life. And then there’s a balance of glamorizing that type of life, but it is just so it’s just so exciting to see. The diversity of people who were able to come out and come up with their own way of living.”

As a fan of both the series and the genre, Mota doesn’t quite see the upcoming The Many Saints of Newark becoming a gangster classic on the level of its source material. “I was just having this conversation yesterday,” he grins. “I don’t think anything can touch The Sopranos. As much as I want to watch it. I’m afraid that nothing will be able to live up to that standard, for me personally, to be even close to what The Sopranos was able to achieve, but we’ll certainly see.”

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

MobMovieCon will happen in Atlantic City on July 23 through the 25th at Harrah’s Resort. Tickets start at $50 for general admission and $75 for a two-day pass. VIP tickets cost up to $1,000.

The post MobMovieCon and SopranosCon to Have a Sit-Down in Atlantic City appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3rr6MRR

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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springsfordays · 5 years ago

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Okay so this is entirely self indulgent and incredibly silly but I keep thinking about it so imma type it out lol!

PNF x BNHA AU

Where UA is the best hero academy in the tri state area and is actually a middle to high school academy.

O.W.C.A.

OWCA is one of the many hero agencies in Danville and is specifically made for heros who have animal based quirks.

Major Monogram

Quirk: not sure probably something with acrobatics.

while technically a retired hero in action he still runs his hero agency with an iron fist. (Eh or so he claims in reality he can hardly control most of his agents.)

Carl Karl

Quirk: Squirrel (anything a squirrel can do he can do)

While he is a 3rd year UA support course student he also interns at OWCA for first hand hero and support experience. Though the agency actually has him spend a lot of time there rather than school. It didn’t cause him too much trouble though cause of a couple new students he’s been mentoring at school.

Perry the platypus

Quirk: sentients

I was thinking about how could Perry be a animal based hero while still being involved with the Flynn-Fletchers somehow but I think I like the idea of him being a Principal Nezu of sorts. Where he’s an actual platypus but was experimented by humans and given the quirk of sentients but he’s also their pet still.

Pre-Support Course

(Just wanted to point out that all the kids in this au are 13-14 years old instead of like 10)

In this course middle school students have the chance to get a head start for their support studies. Not many apply for this class but there are a few. These students specifically help the pre-hero course students the most. And are mentored by Carl.

Most notably students are the very talented Flynn-Fletcher brother duo.

Phineas Flynn

Quirk: Work hands (he can turn his fingers into small work tools such as a blow torch, screwdriver, magnifying glass, essentially his hands are Swiss army tools. However he cannot do this for significant amount of time so he uses regular tools more often)

Phineas has always wanted to be hero since he was very young. But as time went on and he became slightly more realistic he realized he couldn’t be the hero he wanted to be. But he was fantastic at building and has been doing it since he was little. He then realized his talent and love for building gadgets didn’t have to be a hobby or a completely different career. He could support heros and make their quirks more powerful with his inventions.

Ferb Fletcher

Quirkless

A very quiet nearly mute young boy Ferb is but also an extremely intelligent one at that, with a knack for building. When he was younger he had been waiting and waiting and counting the days until his quirk would appear. But his ripe ages of 5-7 when most kids got their quirks quickly passed and upon examination was told he was quirkless. He was down for a while since he couldn’t be a hero but quickly followed his brother’s philosophy and decided that ensuring the safety and strength of heros so they can save more lives was good enough for him.

The brother duo are also still best friends with Isabella, Buford, and Baljeet since they’re all neighbors. The five grew up together and experienced one by one how they all got their quirks. Isa, Buf, and Jeet have amazing quirks which only made the anticipation and eventual disappointment of Ferb being quirkless that much heartbreaking. But never did any judgement hold up and the three used their quirks to defend their friends from constant bullying. And in return the duo were always coming up with new ways to help them advance their quirks.

Also Irving is in general studies and is still an obsessive fanboy. He keeps journals similar to how deku writes and analyzes heros and such. His quirk is camera eyes. (Which explains all his weird photos) He likes to hang around Phineas and Ferb since he really admired their inventions for the cool hero students.

Pre-Hero Course

In this UA the middle school side has a pre-hero corse where students can get a head start for their high school’s hero course but only accepts the strongest of students.

Isabella Garcia-Shapiro

Quirk: Firey Explosion ((Okay so this is basically bakugou’s quirk but a bit different sorry but his quirk matches Isabella’s firey determination plus her having a quirk that you wouldn’t expect for a little cute girl to have is funny to me,,,) a combination quirk since her mother had acidic fluids that concentrated enough can make small flames or tiny combustions and her father could sweat glycerin the two combined making Isabella create giant explosions from anywhere in her body. Since all her fluids, sweat, blood, spit, tears, etc have the acidic glycerin she can also create flames that come out of her body when she over uses her explosions that she usually has come out of the palms for her hands. (She can also breath fire because of this which makes a pretty cool surprise attack))

Isabella is one of the best and most powerful students in her class. She has always had a protective nature to her and is a strategic genius when it comes to battle. When her quirk had first developed she had used it to defend Phineas (she still has a huge crush on him lol) and Ferb, her best friends that were constantly made fun of for being ‘useless’. One day Phineas told her that she was his hero and from there she’s worked hard to one day become a hero.

Baljeet Tjinder

Quirk: Giganta Growth (He could grow into any size he desires even taller than most buildings and mountains. However he cannot retain size for very long and becomes extremely nauseous.)

Another top student in his class similar to Isabella. Most people cannot actually figure out his quirk sometimes and are extremely surprised when this turns out to be his actual quirk. Appearance wise he has longated fingers, ears, and feet. He has blue skin and monkey tail and even has fully red eyes. His blue skin, which is from his family’s genetics, is actually mostly gravity resistant so when he is normal sized he can fly. Not only that but he is remarkably intelligent. In fact when he was little he had zero interest in becoming a hero, he rather had been a scientist of sorts. But it was when two of his best friends couldn’t realistically become heros he felt selfish that he was given such a great power and he was choosing not to save lives with it, with that he decided to become a hero.

Buford van Stomm

Quirk: Wind Gust (From his lungs to his breath he can control the air around him to create powerful gusts of wind and manipulate air waves. But he must be careful with this because he endangers himself of collapsing or bursting his lungs.)

Buford just like Isa and Jeet is one of the top performing students in his class. This is because he can control his quirk pretty well and is great to have in battle. However he is still a bully by nature and most say he suits being a villain more than a hero. He considers this a compliment since this means most villains will fear him. His motivations of becoming a hero are entirely selfish. Wanting to be a star and make tons of money. He wants to blow away all the villains and become center of attention. (Also as a gross joke he’ll collect a bunch of wind and blow it out by burping which disgusts everyone)

Other students and advisors call these three the “Mini Three” modeled after the “Big three” who are in the hero course and are the top students in their class. But there are about seven others in the pre hero course so I’m just gonna name them off with short quirk descriptions.

Ginger Hirano Quirk: Wing growth (for this one just look to Stacy’s cause it’s pretty much the same since it is a hereditary quirk)

Adyson Sweetwater Quirk: Werewolf (Can change into a large wolf man at will)

Katie Quirk: Electricity (Essentially Denki’s I just like this quirk)

Holly Quirk: Hallo glow (She can exude out hallo like rings from her arms and legs stunning villains when they are hit by them)

Milly Quirk: Spikes (She can create large spikes from any point in her body and can even control them to create some forms)

Gretchen Quirk: Erasure (Like Erasurehead’s but she can erase multiple quirks at once but she has to use special glasses since it strains her eyes)

Django Brown Quirk: Vine Hands (He can shoot out vines from his hands)

Hero Course

I don’t have to many ideas for the hero course students but whatevs here’s the “Big Three” of the hero course!

Candace Flynn

Quirk: Sonic Voice (it’s Present Mic’s SORRY BUT COME ON IT SUITS HER SO WELL. But yeah she can make her voice create sonic booms in whichever direction she wants.)

A 3rd year student in UA. Ever since she was young she has always wanted to protect those around her especially her little brothers. She was almost slightly relieved when she learned neither of them could really become heros. But she always had a nervous breakdown whenever they’d build ridiculous gadgets that could potentially harm them. She became a hero mostly for fame and glory too but her natural protective skills puts her as one of the school’s best students since she can use her quirk so well. She also can do parkour pretty good which only makes her a better hero.

Stacy Hirano

Quirk: Wing Growth (As said before this is a hereditary quirk amongst the Hirano family. Basically she has multiple pairs of wings on her body (one on each side of her head, two pairs on her back, and a pair on each foot. For reference look to Ryo’s satan design from devilman crybaby) but can only grow one pair from her back to any size. With her strength and agility she can use her wing growth to hit her opponents. She can fly extremely fast but growing too much hurts her ability to move her body)

A 3rd year student in UA. All Stacy’s life she’s wanted to impress her mother. Dr. Hirano being a highly respected doctor within the hero industry has high expectations for her daughters. So Stacy opted to become a hero and is shaping up to be a fantastic one. Even if she’s a little dopey at times she’s extremely agile with her wings making her a great rescue hero.

Vanessa Doofenshmirtz

Quirk: Demon Titan (She can turn into a gigantic demon looking titan, similar to Baljeet’s but her physical appearance changes entirely and she could only grow to one size. She can’t retain this for too long otherwise her muscles give out entirely)

A 3rd year student in UA. As the daughter of one of Danville’s top villains combined with her quirk and physical appearance most people think she’s a complete villain in the making. In her normal form she has blueish gray skin, a demon tail, large horns, completely white eyes and black lips. Most are afraid of her especially since she’s seemingly so cold and distant to everyone around her. But in reality she really does wish to right the wrongs of her family and help people around her. She interns at OWCA.

There’s about seven other students in their class as well but I don’t really know too much about them and their quirks but just know their classmates are Monty, Jeremy, Coltrane, Jenny, Lacie, Johnny, and Albert (he’s like the Mineta of their class).

Villains

Again haven’t put too much thought into this one but yeah.

L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N. is still a villain organization in Danville and their main rival for control is OWCA.

Dr. Doofenshmirtz

Quirkless

We all know Doof’s incredibly sad backstory and it is still all that but with the more embarrassing tale of how he brings shame to his family by being quirkless. So he dedicates his life to learning evil science and to destroy the tri state area and heros all together. But of course he’s always thrawted by Perry the platypus. Even though he’s super disappointed in the fact his daughter wants to be a hero (who by the way looks nothing like him all her looks come from her mother) he’s still loves her the same and even supports her. He’s even attacked certain places in Danville just so she could get hero practice by defeating him. Which she’s super embrassed about.

And that’s about it for now. Just thought this would be a fun au to write about sometime lol. But yeah I love my hero and Phineas and Ferb totally is works for this super intellect society.

#phineas and ferb #phineas flynn #ferb fletcher #isabella garcia shapiro #baljeet tjinder #buford van stomm #candace flynn #stacy hirano #vanessa doofenshmirtz #dr doofenshmirtz #major monogram #carl karl #bnha au #bnha crossover #phineas and ferb au #irving du bois #ginger hirano #adyson sweetwater #perry the platypus

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asocier · 4 years ago

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because i forget my own headcanons and have yet to really flesh out very important details, here is a masterpost of topaxi headcanons and lore pertaining to alison/nathalie, emile, and leah!

tl;dr: new locations mentioned in this post include alsace ( alison and emile’s home country before topaxi ), district 104 ( aka the artists’ corner/the arts district; alison and emile’s home district ), hue ( leah’s family’s home country ) and district 249 ( aka international district; leah’s home district ).

alison/nathalie and emile clair

previously mentioned in this post ( but never discussed at length ): the clair family do not have roots in topaxi. more specifically, the family do not have roots in the city of topaxi, though their home country of alsace located on the continent of gaea is part of the topaxi empire and has been for some time. as such, the decision to move to the city of topaxi was a rather easy one, the move done out of much convenience considering how fast the family wanted to start over after alison and emile’s father’s disbarment.

to elaborate on the disbarment and its effect on the family ( also pulled from that same post from earlier ):

the decision to move to topaxi was hastily made in an attempt to start anew after an unfortunate courtroom incident involving emmanuel clair, emile’s father, who made his living as a well-established defense attorney. his reputation in the courtroom ultimately led to him making some enemies, and a well planted piece of forged evidence in a high profile case led to emmanuel’s downfall and subsequent disbarring ( think ace att/orney tbh ).

the blow to emmanuel’s reputation drew media attention not only to himself but his family as well, and with two young children, it was decided that moving away from their home and taking up a new life would be the best, even if this new life wasn’t as lavished as before. and so topaxi was chosen to be their new home – and topaxi is mostly what emile and his twin sister alison know.

to expand on the last sentence: emile and alison moved from alsace to topaxi when they were five years old, meaning they’re still able to remember their early days outside of topaxi in addition to the family’s move and the reason behind it. they were quite aware of the differences between living in alsace and in topaxi as they adjusted to their new life, and the twins’ slight accent in speech drew attention from classmates who were born in topaxi. all in all, however, the twins do see the city of topaxi more of their home than alsace, and they have a significant attachment to the district their family moved to and grew up in.

district 104, nicknamed el rincón de los artistas, the artists’ corner, or the arts district for short, is well known for its colorful buildings, cobblestone paved streets, street murals, and frequent live performances in the park located at the district’s heart. many of topaxi’s artists, musicians, and writers either have called district 104 home, performed in one of the district’s performance halls, drawing many from all over to visit the city, even if it’s only for a night, or contributed their works to the district’s own museum. during the day, bazaar vendors are often showcasing their handicrafts, and local performers looking for their big break can be seen busking at the train station or outside restaurants. upon first glance, district 104 seems to be thriving, but many areas of the city struggle financially.

similar to how some artists successfully secure and hold onto fame while others struggle, the same can be said about the locals of district 104. on paper, district 104 seems to be doing quite well, but the locals know better than to consider the district wealthy. toci elementary school ( escuela primaria toci ), the school emile currently teaches at, is an example of this dearth in financial support that can exist in some parts of 104. this school, located at 7Sc 19 D104, is home to a little more than 100 students and is considered to be the worst school in district 104 on account of how underfunded it is, how “misbehaved” the children are said to be, and how run-down the area seems to look in comparison to the district’s center.

this school also happens to be where alison and emile attended as children. the twins often found themselves returning to this school even as they aged to volunteer and play with the children, the twins acting like older sibling figures to many in the area. considering the fact that the clair family was generally well off and lived quite comfortably, they did as much as they could to support their local community, a sentiment emile still holds very close to his heart. while alison ends up leaving her home district for the central district, her impact in the community can be seen via the murals that are painted on the side of the elementary school and on the side of some of the local businesses. she played an active role in encouraging the youths in her neighborhood to express themselves artistically, and many of those who bonded closely with alison have taken interest in studying art when they’re older.

leah nguyen

district 249, nicknamed el crisol del mundo ( the world’s melting pot ) or more succinctly, the international district, is where leah calls home. while topaxi as a whole is known to house people from all over the world, district 249 has taken the idea of a cultural melting pot to a new level to draw in tourists. rumored to have been a district that acted as a refuge for those displaced from their home countries by the many topaxi conquests decades earlier, district 249 today is comprised of many ethnic enclaves that neighbor one another and is considered one of the most culturally diverse districts in topaxi. any tourist who comes to visit can clearly see the variety of sights, sounds, and tastes the district has to offer just by walking down the main road that splits the district in half.

originally from hue located on the southeasten part of the houtu continent, leah’s parents found themselves in district 249 after the second most recent topaxi conquest. with much of the continent already under topaxi rule, it was only a matter of time before the topaxi advancement foreces ( taf ) would move into hue next, and despite the country’s effort to defend itself, it was inevitably conquered, sending many to either flee to neighboring nations or to topaxi itself in hopes of finding refuge and better living conditions than their war-torn homeland.

many of leah’s family members participated in the war between topaxi and hue, including her father. while her father speaks little of what he experienced during the war, she’s aware of his continued military service even after he had fled hue with her mother, a story many from hue share as they looked to topaxi for new opportunities and better living conditions than their newly war-torn homeland. enticed by the taf’s promises of honor and good pay, former hue natives swallowed their pride and began to fight on the side of the victor in the most recent set of conquests. this is a story many in district 249 share, as well; after having their homeland ransacked and conquered, many find themselves desperate for ways to support their families and turn to enlisting in topaxi’s army, which seems to be always looking for disposable members. unfortunately, ichor poisoning on account of being exposed to high levels of ichor in a short period of time was common for those enlisted in the army, and it wasn’t long before miasmic symptoms hindered many soldiers from living their lives normally after they were discharged.

growing up in a community so heavily affected by ichor poisoning is actually the driving force behind leah’s decision to attend university and pursue her current research interest. her studies are very interdisciplinary: while she is officially a student of the psychology department, the research she conducts with her supervisor is a collaborative effort between the engineering, psychology, and robotics departments. interested in measuring the public’s perceptions of the newly developing prosthetic technology and capturing the stories and experiences of those who suffer from miasma ( as a result of warfare, ichor mining, or other sources of ichor poisoning ), leah plays a role in the interview and transcription process of the research and works closely with her research team to present this information to the other departments.

having grown up in district 249 all her life, leah was exposed to many different cultural influences at an early age, and as such, she picked up on many useful phrases in different languages during her time in the district. she’s only fluent in two languages, but her ability to understand bits and pieces of conversation in other languages seemed to have added to her appeal to both the admissions office and her current research lab at topaxi’s autonomous cultural university, or universidad cultural autonoma de topaxi ( ucat ). being the first in her family to attend college, there are high expectations resting on her shoulders to be successful, and there’s a constant need for leah to better and prove herself as she navigates academia. she currently resides in district 21, the university district, to complete her studies. it’s a bit far from district 249 so she doesn’t return home often, but she writes to her family when she can and visits during long holidays.

#( private verse ) your name is #topaxi verse #cw: long post #i didn't proofread this dont come at me

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starr-fall-knight-rise · 6 years ago

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Humans are Space Orcs “Rival in the Circle”

First, I want to apologize, I wanted to make this a single longer story, but I have been traveling the past few days, and haven't slept much. Plus the guy sitting next to me n the airport is taking a conference call and won’t stop talking, so I cant concentrate :). So I am going to have to do this in two parts. I hope you like it anyway.

Forgive my writing when I am tired :)

Sunny was worried, very, very worried, her stomach had been in a constant state of churning ever since the transmission had been intercepted from Anam (her home planet) bringing with it the news of their bicentennial war gathering, which consisted mostly of ritual combat and war games conducted among all the major military leaders across the whole of Drev society. These games were primarily conducted in order to prove their worth as a Drev citizen. During this time bets could be waged, land could be fought for, and tribes could be absorbed or dissolved. Not only that but subordinate Drev soldiers could publically challenge any rival leader for their position by way of combat. This ritually would generally happen only once or twice a lifetime for the average Drev, and participation was only possible if you were lucky enough for it to fall in the prime of your life.

Neither of her parents had ever participated though they would have been alive as children the last time the gathering was held. Smaller trials of combat were held on a daily basis in Drev society, and though they did not lead to fame and fortune as fast as the gatherings could, they were also far less potentially lethal.

The ritual in itself wasn’t troubling to her exactly, it was the fact that, ALL Drev leaders MUST attend mandatory or lose their right as Drev citizens, lose their respect as warriors, and forfeit their command positions. Of course you could challenge someone to a fight simply to prove your superiority, but that wasn’t guaranteed to happen, and all other options were far worse.

As a Drev leader, she would be required to go, but of course she didn’t worry about that, what worried her was the fact that she had, without thinking, given up her position of command to Adam, and by Drev law, as an adopted member of her tribe, he would be required to participate.

Every time she closed her eyes, she imagined his small, squishy breakable human body collapsing under a Drev beating. Yeah the humans had won the Drev war, and dominated them in combat, but it had been at a terrible price proven by Adam’s missing leg…. The leg she herself had taken from him.

He was a warrior, but he had no idea what he was getting himself into.

Just as her thoughts were beginning to wander down that dark path, she felt a familiar weight settle itself onto her back feet standing lightly on the buddy-pegs that had been applied to her armor when she became part of the human crew.

Adam leaned against her shoulder peering at her with a bright casual smile, “Brooding isn’t a good look for you.”

As all Drev could, Sunny saw the world through a four rod spectrum consisting of the visible light spectrum, as called by humans, and the UV light spectrum, used as an auxiliary by the Drev. With their colorful carapace, UV light became an important aspect of beauty on their planet, a fact that many humans would never be able to see. Sunny saw the world in a multitudinous array of color and light.

And just like every other time in her life, Sunny was struck by the human’s unseen beauty. His bright eyes, in her perception, almost glowed with their green intensity shot through with turquoise. Strange patterns and swirls stood out on his skin, detailed stripes that only she could see, that appeared like a constellation across her skin, perceived in her brain as a glittering trail of blue green sparks across the human’s skin.

She frowned craning her neck around to get a better look at him. One gold eye met one green eye, “I just don’t think you understand what you are getting yourself into.”

When the human smiled his teeth glittered with highlights of delicate purple “Contraire my shiny friend.” He patted her arm, “I have actually been planning for this eventuality for a while now.”

Her brows scrunched in surprised confusion, “You have.” Inside her head she tried not to imagine what color his blood would be under the strength of their sun.

He raised an eyebrow, which just barely peeked out from under the edge of his eyepatch “What’s with the note of surprise. You act like I just spend most of my time flying by the seat of my pants.”

That made her laugh, which broke some of her nervous tension, “That’s because you do. You are the LEAST prepared person I know.”

He waved a hand, “Well this time I planned.” He grinned. I have been dying to show you the surprise for ages now.”

“Surprise, what surprise?”

“Shhh, now MUSH, onwards! To the equipment room.” He gripped his arms firmly around her neck, as she trotted away towards the equipment room generally relishing the familiar weight of her first and only battle partner.

Reaching the equipment room, she was surprised to find that the usual stacks of ammunition, and boxes of batteries had been cleared away leaving room for a large open space that was teaming with engineers, both Drev and human.

Commander Vir dropped from her back as they entered and scampered, with his quick human step, across the open floor and towards a glittering metallic behemoth at the center of the room attached to various diagnostic equipment by way of a myriad of spider-webbing cables and tubes. Sunny had to filter out the UV light in order to get a better look at the thing, and image which quickly resolved into the tall figure of a….. Drev? Well not exactly a Drev, but a pretty good approximation of one made entirely from the same materials used to make the Commander’s prosthetic. It had a light titanium skeleton barely seen through a thick, stretchy layer of material approximating skin. Over top of that steel plates had been fitted in to replace armor. Looking at its face, she could see it had a convincing set of false mechanical eyes.

Commander Vir turned a wide grin splitting his face, “What do you think.”

She stood frozen in place staring at the shell, “What is it?” She wondered distantly

Energetically, he leaped up to pat his creation on the elbow, it was pretty small for a Drev, maybe only eight feet tall, but still a good two feet taller than him, “This is tactical exo suit repurposed to look and move like a Drev, though as our lovely Drev tell me, your kin won’t exactly take me seriously if I cannot feel pain, so it’s been completely integrated with a neural link with touch, pressure, and pain sensors in all the appropriate concentrations. It can even see in Ultraviolet as I am told, though how that is going to look is beyond me.”

He motioned her closer, and she walked up to examine the thing, where it stood tall and soulless above her.

The human looked up, his wide, guileless eyes begging for her approval, but she didn’t know how she was supposed to feel just yet.

“See, take a look.” The sea of engineers and consultants parted as the man stepped onto the platform pressing a release sequence on the suit which split open at the midline and moved outwards. The torso, parts of the legs, parts of the upper arms, and the head cracked open to reveal a human shaped hole on the inside. With the help of a few levers, and some convenient handholds, he hoisted himself into the machine and stepped backwards.

His body fit comfortably into the opening, a strange gel like substance suctioning to his body even as the metal casing began closing around him with the soft rattling of multiple latches. The machine powered up with a short of mechanical hiss, and before she knew it, it wasn’t a shell that stood in front of her, but another drev.

It drew itself up against the leads, flexed its legs, and arms, and rotated its head.

“When its eyes opened, she found two very human eyes looking back at her, bright green and glittering. When the mouth opened, it spoke with a very human voice, “What do you think.

Softly, she stepped onto the platform and looked upwards towards the face, so strange, but somehow familiar.

He was taller than her now.

They stood staring at each other for a long time before, “There is one thing….”

***

When they walked out into the Drev sun for the first time standing side by side, she was hit suddenly by the volcanic rush of air she hadn’t felt in over a year. Glancing over, she looked sidelong at her companion. He was a good foot taller than her, with unnaturally green eyes, and a glittering carapace of vibrant green. She wasn’t sure why she chose that color for him…. Perhaps because it had always been her favorite, or maybe it was because naturally it would have been such a rare color, maybe it was that she wanted him to be different.

She had spent the night before alone in the equipment bay gently applying the color to the cold steel. Her own little silent project.

It was a strange sort of feeing on her part, but she felt a melancholy watching him with this new armor. Things were so different when he was a human, their dynamic was different, but the addition of this….. well it changed things.

She found herself glad that this suit was not intended to last.

“Engaging UV operations.” He said from inside the suit.

The eyes flashed rebooted, and then he was back. His head turned in a wide circle confused and dazzled all at once, “Holy Shit! So many….. Colors.” Overwhelmed by the sight before him, he turned his head in a wide circle before stopping to land on her. There was a long pause as the head tilted to look at her more clearly, “Wow…. Sunny, you…. You’re beautiful.”

She was left standing in his tracks as he walked off along the landing strip and towards the distant moss-covered fields.

She caught up with him eventually, “And thanks to me you aren’t terribly hideous.”

An eye turned to look at her sidelong. No matter how much he looked like a Drev, he still moved like a human, lithe quick movements on the balls of his feet, with a grace that openly contrasted the brute force of the average Drev.

“Thanks for that.”

“I mean the suit is a great help, you know coverers up that ugly problem you have.” She motioned wildly with her arm.

“You just motioned to all of me.”

“Yeah, and your point is?”

He nudged her rather aggressively to the side just then knocking her off balance and nearly tripping herself onto the tarmac. He cackled and flexed his arms, “Oh yeah, I think I could get used to this.”

She rubbed her arm, “So now you can be big AND dumb.”

They were still laughing by the time they made it to the edge of the tarmac followed on either side by an entourage of Drev and marines. The Drev who were unwilling to pass up this once in a lifetime opportunity, and the humans who just wanted to see their commander get a righteous ass whooping.

All in good fun of course.

A group figures waited for them at the edge of the field. There was the Drev GA ambassador, with his distinguished silver carapace and towering height. Next to him stood, who sunny assumed to be his battle mate. Her armor glittered a pleasant orange peach, and a thickening about her trunk suggested she carried an unborn Kit within her. Behind them stood other members, of what she could only assume to be, the temporary Drev council. They weren’t exactly functional, or even useful in these particular situations, but they had found in prudent to at least create a figurehead council to demonstrate the illusion of control.

Most Drev tribes refused to work together on principal, and since the council members were a representative of the tribes, they tended to disagree so much that doing anything was out of the question.

Commander Vir stopped before the council. Even in his new armor, the average Drev towered a foot to half a foot over him.

With a sharp hiss, the carapace opened, and the man stepped off onto the stone for the second time in his life.

To the surprise of the council, he then preformed a traditional Drev greeting. Compared to most Drev his vocal range was quite high, but his human voice box managed the sounds well enough that the council understood and glanced between each other in shocked surprise.

“I am Commander Adam Vir of the U.N.S.S Harbinger, protector and envoy of the galactic Assembly and Battle commander to the wandering tribe. My command is loaned to me by Sunny Lumnousdaughter rightful battle commander of the wandering tribe, and we are here by tradition to take up your challenge as obligation demands.”

At the back of the group, one of the Drev gave a snort of derision. He was tall enough, but his carapace was nothing more than a muddied brown giving him a distinctly brutish cast. That had Sunny worried. With a carapace like that, he surely didn’t gain command for his beauty, but his fighting ability, “What right does an outsider have to our traditions.” He had o translation device and spoke only in the Drev native language.

Commander Vir responded, though his accent was poor, and his voice rather broken, “I was rightfully adopted.” He lifted the pant leg to show the Drev prosthetic to the watching crowd, “And if that is not enough, I have bested many of your brethren in battle during the war, and despite losing one of my limbs, I STILL live as a functional warrior, which is more than many of your soldiers can say…. I hear.” He grew quiet then, and Sunny waited with bated breath. It was a gamble, the Drev didn’t feel the same way about the crippled as humans did. What was inspiration to one was a hindrance to another, but eventually the Drev nodded.

“Very well human, you may participate, and you will be shown no mercy.”

At the head of the group, the GA representative stepped forward, “And what is this.” He prodded at the mechanical armor, “Tradition requires that no armor shall be used during the proceedings…. You would ignore our tradition/”

Commander Vir Stepped back into the carapace which closed around him, “To the contrary, Here I can see what you see and feel what you feel. It may look like armor, but as my Drev engineers can attest, I have full access to pain. In that case it is poor excuse for armor. Furthermore, it would hardly add to your honor to rip apart a human. If anything it would prove you a coward for fighting me in unfair combat.”

She had to give him credit, he knew what was important to the Drev, and that shut up their arguments for the time being. Together they walked side by side down a short, mossy trail to where a massive encampment had been made. Unlike humans they required no temporary dwellings, but rather contented themselves with sleeping under the stars their backs to rocks and cuddled into the moss. The important part came by way of a hundred or more circles of dirt and stone cleared completely of moss, which would in turn be used to feed the many mouths that had come to participate.

Even as they watched a good twenty or more duels were already in progress. From what she could tell they were relatively low ranking duels probably between subordinate members of the tribes looking to rise in status by way of combat. The humans watched with great interest as they were lead to their spot to wait, a few of them parked themselves where they could more easily see one of the closer duels, discreetly exchanging credits as they amused themselves with betting on the fights.

Sunny stood with Commander Vir, and together they waited for the real fighting to begin.

***

To her surprise, Sunny found herself first in the ring challenged openly by one of the younger Drev of, what was left, of her old home tribe. Though he was young, he was nearly a foot taller than her, but had a rather unattractive mustard yellow carapace. She felt bad for him, if he couldn’t find glory in combat, there wasn’t likely to be any other way for him to move upwards, but she wasn’t about to give up her hard earned respect for this runt, and quickly pounded him into the dirt. A few of the moves she used were unknown to the Drev, and a Reconciler had to be brought forward to determine if her action was legal. In the end they determined that new fighting styles were acceptable, and she was given the win.

Once upon a time, winning a duel would have been a big deal to her, and despite this being her first formal duel, she felt nothing more than pity for the young Drev carted away in shame.

It was all too easy now.

Fighting had never been easy for her.

As day moved into night, a few of the council members were challenged, but subsequently defeated their subordinates. Sunny fought in two more duels winning easily on the first and more slowly on the second.

After her second fight was when Adam was first challenged. It looked like some new and unchallenged juvenile assuming that the human would be easy to defeat. Sunny worried for the first few minutes that that might be true, a defeat at such a low level would be catastrophic for his reputation.

She shouldn’t have worried though.

Where the Drev had brute force and determination, the human had guile, refined tactics from greater experience, and a greater reason to win. Sunny had never assumed their species capable of such acrobatics, but, Commander Vir put the Drev body through its paces locking the young Drev into a crushing chokehold in under three minutes. If he had wanted, he could have snapped the younger creature’s neck, and was completely in his rights to do so, but it was generally frowned upon to kill a young Drev in a duel, especially if the terms of the duel did not contain a, to the death, clause.

More people were looking him over sizing him up as a true threat now.

Most of the time, he kept himself on the outside of the suit standing next to it and staring down anyone who dared look at him wrong. As a predator, his stare could be pretty intimidating, but she just found in sort of cute. Humans were adorable when they were trying to be intimidating.

There was a soft pad on the stone behind her, and she turned around to find a familiar face.

Moss, a member of the crew, and an old acquaintance of the tribe stood behind her. His handsome green carapace glowed in the sun above, and at over nine feet tall, he posed a strapping figure.

She found herself reminded suddenly of an ashen day, and the feeling of terrible humiliation.

“Sunny.”

“Moss.”

Commander Vir had turned from his position watching the fights, his eyes falling on the conversation. He grew very still head tilted slightly to the side. The invisible constellation over his skin glittered softly.

“What do you need?” She wondered voice stiff but not unkind.

The Handsome head lifted itself high, “I am here to challenge you.”

Everything around her grew suddenly silent. Commander Vir had stood from his seat and watched with wide shining eyes. The other humans stood as well staring onwards at the two of them standing atop the hill, feet resting against the cool stone.

Moss lowered his head, “I challenge you as equals and offer myself as your partner in battle if you can match me in combat.”

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silent-era-of-cinema · 5 years ago

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#frank morgan #silent era #silent hollywood #silent movie stars #golden age of hollywood #classic movie stars #old hollywood #1910s movies #1920s hollywood #1930s hollywood #1940s hollywood

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