some proof of life for Nightingale:
It wasn’t supposed to be a big, dramatic fight. The idea was to destroy the killer robots before it reached that point.
“They’re down this way,” Nick said. “Two guards. The problem is if we go for them, we have to make sure nobody else comes running. The doors all along this hall have more guards on the other side.”
“I can clear it out,” Flynn said.
“No, you can’t!” Carrie said. “What are you talking about? You have no powers.”
They glared at each other.
“Uh,” Nick said. He looked at Willie, who was picking nervously at his own nails. “That’s never stopped her before, but the Queen’s right. It’s not a good idea.”
“Maybe you could trust me when I say what I can handle?” Flynn said, still glaring at Carrie.
“Is this about me or –“ Nick began, but Carrie cut him off.
“Maybe you could stop putting us all at risk by trying to do things that everyone knows you shouldn’t do?”
“What?” Willie asked, jerking his head up.
“Stay out of this!” Carrie and Flynn said together.
“I wasn’t in it,” Willie said.
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So a few months ago there was the discourse about would you rather meet a man or a bear in the woods. I didn't want to touch it while the discourse was hot and everyone dug in hard because those are not good conditions for nuance, but I waited until today, June 1st, for a specific reason.
I'm not going to take a position in the bear vs man debate because I don't think it matters. What is really being asked here is how afraid are you of men? Specifically, unexpected men who are, perhaps, strange.
People have a lot of very real fear of men that comes from a lot of very real places. Back when I was first transitioning in 2015 and 2016, I decided to start presenting as a woman in public even though I did not pass in the slightest.
I live in a red state. I knew other trans women who had been attacked by men, raped by men. I knew I was taking a risk by putting myself out there. I was the only visibly trans person in the area of campus I frequented, and people made sure I never forgot that. Most were harmless enough and the worst I got from them was curious stares. Others were more aggressive, even the occasional threat. I had to avoid public bathrooms, of course, and always be aware of my surroundings.
I know how frightening it is to be alone at night while a pair of men are following behind you and not knowing if they are just going in the same direction or if they want to start something - made all the worse for the constant low level threat I had been living under for over a year by just being visibly trans in a place where many are openly hostile to queer people. You have to remember, this was at the height of the first wave of bathroom law discussions, a lot of people were very angry about trans women in particular. My daily life was terrifying at times. I was never the subject of direct violence, but I knew trans women who had been.
I want you to keep all that in mind.
So man or bear is really the question "how afraid of men are you?", and the question that logically follows is "What if there was a strange man at night in a deserted parking lot?" or "What if you were alone in an elevator with a man?" or "What if you met a strange man in the woman's bathroom?"
My state recently passed an anti trans bathroom bill. The rhetoric they used was about protecting women and children from "strange men", aka trans women.
Conservatives hijack fear for their bigoted agenda.
When I first started presenting as a woman the campus apartment complex was designed for young families. The buildings were in a large square with playgrounds in the center, and there were often children playing. I quickly noticed that when I took my daughter out to play, often several children would immediately stop what they were doing and run back inside. It didn't take me long to confirm that the parents were so afraid of "the strange man who wears skirts" that their children were under strict instructions to literally run away as soon as they saw me.
"How afraid are you of a strange man being near your children?"
I mentioned above that I had to avoid public bathrooms. This was not because of men. It was because of women who were so afraid of random men that they might get violent or call someone like the police to be violent for them if I ever accidentally presented myself in a way that could be interpreted as threatening, when my mere presence could be seen as a threat. If I was in the library studying and I realized that it was just me and one other woman I would get up and leave because she might decide that stranger danger was happening.
Your fear is real. Your fear might even come from lived experiences. None of that prevents the fact that your fear can be violent. Women's fear of men is one of the driving forces of transmisogyny because it is so easy to hijack. And it isn't just trans women. Other trans people experience this, and other queer people too. Racial minorities, homeless people, neurodivergent people, disabled people.
When you uncritically engage with questions like man or bear, when you uncritically validate a culture of reactive fear, you are paving the way for conservatives and bigots to push their agenda. And that is why I waited until pride month. You cannot engage and contribute to the culture of reactive fear without contributing to queerphobia of all varieties. The sensationalist culture of reactive fear is a serious queer issue, and everyone just forgot that for a week as they argued over man or bear. I'm not saying that "man" is the right answer. I am saying that uncritically engaging with such obvious click bait trading on reactive fear is a problem. Everyone fucked up.
It is not a moral failing to experience fear, but it is a moral responsibility to keep a handle on that fear and know how it might harm others.
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Oh my god I'm sooooo mad right now
So. I have no business telling people not to collect wild plants/materials.
I do it all the time.
However.
The words "wildcrafted," and "foraged," even "sustainably harvested," are terrifying to see in an ad on Etsy or Instagram
There is a such thing as the honorable harvest where you ASK the plant if it is okay to take, with the intention of listening if the answer is NO. Robin Wall Kimmerer talked about this, She did not make it up, it is an ancient and basic guideline of treating the plants with respect.
Basically it is not wrong to use plants and other living things, even if this means taking their life. But you are not the main character. You have to reflect on your knowledge of the organism's life cycle and its role in the ecosystem, so you can know you are not damaging the ecosystem. You have to only take what you need and avoid depleting the population.
Mary Siisip Geniusz also talked about it in an enlightening way in her book Plants Have So Much to Give Us, All We Have To Do is Ask. She gave an example of a woman who was on an island and needed to use a medicinal herb to heal her injured leg or she would not survive the winter. In that situation she had to use up all of the plant that was on the island. This was permissible, even though it eliminated the local population, because she had to do it to save her life. But in return the woman had the responsibility to later return to the island and plant seeds of that plant.
And what makes me absolutely furious, is that there are a bunch of people online who have vaguely copied this philosophy of sustainability in a false and insulting way, saying "wildcrafted" or "foraged" materials to be all trendy and cool and in touch with nature, when it is actually just poaching.
If you are from a capitalistic culture the honorable harvest is very hard and unintuitive to learn to practice. I am not very good at it still. This is why it is suspicious if someone is confident that they can ethically and respectfully harvest wild materials with money involved.
So there's this lichen that is often called "reindeer moss." It looks like this:
It grows only a few millimeters a year.
This is "preserved" reindeer moss.
It is from Etsy, similar is also sold in many other online shops, many of which have the audacity to describe it as a "plant" for decorations and terrariums that needs no maintenance.
It is not maintenance-free, it is dead. It has been spray-painted a horrible shade of green. The people buying it clearly don't even know what it is. It is a popular crafting material for "fairy houses," whatever the hell those are. So is moss, also dead, spray-painted, and wild-harvested. Supposedly reindeer moss is harvested sustainably in Finland, where it is abundant, for the craft industry. However poaching of lichens and mosses is absolutely rampant.
It's even more upsetting because there's hardly any articles drawing attention to the problem. This one is from 1999. And the poaching is still going on.
There is a "moss" section on Etsy, and it is so upsetting
These mosses and lichens were collected from the wild. Most of the shops are in the Pacific Northwest or Appalachia, which are the major locations of moss and lichen poaching. There are some shops based in Appalachia selling "foraged" reindeer moss.
Reindeer moss may be abundant in Finland, but in Appalachia it should NOT be harvested to be sold on Etsy as craft supplies! Moss doesn't grow quickly. Big, healthy colonies like this took years to grow. Some of these shops have thousands of sales, all of bags and bags of moss and lichen, and thinking of how much moss and lichen that must be, I am filled with horror.
Clubmosses do not transplant well, and these ones have no roots. The buyers do not realize they have bought a dead plant because clubmoss stays green and pliable after it is dead.
This is especially awful because in Mary Siisip Geniusz's book she talked about clubmosses being poached so much for Christmas wreaths that they had almost disappeared from a lot of forests.
I don't even know if this is illegal if it's not a formally endangered species so I don't know if I can report them I'm just. really sad and angry
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something i feel like we don’t talk about nearly enough is the fact that percy is healed by water.
it’s so normal to us because it’s one of the first abilities we discovered he has. and it makes complete sense. but like… he’s the only demigod with that ability. jason doesn’t get healed by a gust of wind. hazel doesn’t get healed if she touches a diamond. nico doesn’t get healed if a skeleton gives him a hug. annabeth doesn’t get healed if she walks into a library.
like percy could be stabbed in the chest multiple times, he could break every bone in his body, he could be slammed in the head resulting in a crushed skull and hemorrhaging, but get him to some water fast enough and not only is he good as new in no time, but he’s stronger and freshly rejuvenated.
it’s insane when you think about it. no one else can do that. do you know how hard it is to kill percy? even if he’s not near the ocean, he can be healed by rivers and lakes and streams and ponds and all sorts of water sources. water recharges him. it makes him immediately stronger.
that’s a huge reason why i argue percy is the most powerful demigod. yes, he’s shown he has incredible super strength and super speed. yes, he’s a legendary sword fighter - arguably the best one alive. yes, he has control over air, land, and sea. (deadly hurricanes with heavy winds and thunder and lightning, huge volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, etc.) yes, he’s capable of mass destruction. yes he can single handedly cause natural disasters and mass casualties. and yes, he’s capable of controlling people’s bodily fluids, including their blood and saliva. he is terrifying
but even if someone manages to beat him, he dips one toe in some water and he’s immediately healed and even stronger than before. whether the injury is internal and external. he’s healed all on his own. no ambrosia or nectar or external remedies necessary.
guys. percy is insane. he’s way overpowered.
and i love it.
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pt.1
shoko has never seen satoru gojo; the strongest, look quite this weak. he’s sprawled across his office desk and the smell of vodka hits her so hard her eyes water.
“what are you doing?” she drawls, eyes flitting around the room as she tries to make sense of the man’s pathetic state.
“y/n?” he slurs and struggles to raise his head up.
shoko sighs.
“not quite.”
she drops her cigarette to the ground and crushes it with her heel as she walks over to him. he finally meets her eyes and she frowns. he looks… dead. the look reminds her of someone long ago… and for a brief moment she’s terrified of the sorcerer in front of her.
“what’s going on gojo?”
he shakes his head and mumbles incoherently, laying back down on his desk. shoko has to force herself to not roll her eyes and she clenches her teeth together.
“you think this is gonna help you?”
she picks up the nearly empty bottle of alcohol and smashes it on the ground.
“you’re fucking pathetic,” she spits, “get yourself up. you’re not… you’re not going to turn out like him no matter what. you’re gonna man up and fix whatever has caused this.”
satoru stares in drunken shock at the smashed bottle. he sighs.
“i can’t… i can’t fix it,” he mutters, “messed it up to bad.”
shoko sighs again.
“did something happen with, y/n?”
he sniffles at the sound of their name coming from shoko’s mouth and gulps.
”i had to protect them,” he whispers, staring emptily at the ground, “i’m dangerous. being around me is dangerous.”
shoko doesn’t know what to say, she watches him as he watches her.
“… you’ve never been the smartest, have you, satoru?”
he scoffs and swings his arm up wildly.
“you’re so mean to me,” he pouts, the momentum from his arm causes him to slide and stumble out of the chair and onto the floor. he groans and flops defeatedly around.
“you’re a mess. stay right here and try not to hurt yourself please.”
— —
satoru doesn’t know when he blacks out or how long he’s been asleep before he hears muffled voices outside the door. his head is pounding but he feels sober enough… unfortunately.
“i don’t know shoko… after what he did…”
“at the very least talk to him, it may give closure for both of you if nothing else.”
there’s silence. then the wooden door creaks open and he winces, flinching away from the light. your blurry form comes into vision. god you’re just as beautiful as the day he left.
“satoru,” you say.
your voice is like honey to his ear, so sweet and soothing. he lifts his head, his blue eyes shining. it’s been weeks but it’s felt like years. your hand comes done to touch his cheek and he shivers, his eyes almost rolling back at the feeling of your skin on his again.
“what’s going on?”
“i miss you,” he mumbles, nuzzling into your palm. you instinctively stroke your thumb along his cheek bone.
“you cheated on me. you… you left me.”
he shakes his head.
“no.”
you raise an eyebrow and cup his chin, forcing him to meet your eyes.
“what do you mean, no?”
“i could never cheat on you.”
the way he says never almost makes you swallow hard.
“you told me you did.”
”i… lied,” he admits, shame in his voice. you freeze.
“you what?”
he groans and pulls away from you, finally sitting up fully and facing you properly. he wants you in his arms so badly.
“i lied,” he sighs, “i thought it would be better… I thought i was protecting us both.”
he feels the sting of your slap before he can fully process what happened.
“that’s for fake cheating on me.”
he gapes at you, hand coming to his cheek.
“you hit me?!”
“you deserved it.”
“… you’re right.”
you sigh one last time before leaning in and kissing him. you still taste just like strawberries and mint, he thinks.
“and that is because i’m stupid enough to still love you after all this.”
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