#surplus building materials

[virtualdavis]

Leftovers as Ingredients

Leftovers as Ingredients: Christmas dinner wondering from turkey + gravy leftovers to surplus building materials + architectural salvage...

Ingredients for Christmas Turkey Dressing (Photo: Geo Davis) Last night, I enjoyed Christmas dinner, the sequel. No, not the movie. The leftovers. Leftover turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, roasted, butternut squash, all smothered under her blanket of gravy. And for dessert, pumpkin pie, and pecan pie. And, as you may have predicted, it was delicious. Perhaps even more delicious than…

[qwimchii]

𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘶𝘯 (pt. 2) — 𝘫𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯 𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘦

𝘱𝘵. 1 𝘱𝘵. 2 𝘱𝘵. 3

𝘫𝘰𝘩𝘯 𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘹 𝘧!𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳

𝘴𝘶𝘮𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘺 — 𝘢𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘢 𝘤𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘮𝘺𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘮𝘢𝘯, 𝘺𝘰𝘶’𝘳𝘦 𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘲𝘶𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘯𝘦—𝘳𝘶𝘯𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘥𝘢𝘪𝘭𝘺 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘰𝘳𝘴. 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘴, 𝘪𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶’𝘳𝘦 𝘭𝘶𝘤𝘬𝘺 𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩, 𝘧𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘯𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘳𝘰𝘰𝘮 𝘰𝘯 𝘢 𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘭𝘺 𝘶𝘯𝘭𝘶𝘤𝘬𝘺 𝘥𝘢𝘺. 𝘸𝘤 — 3.7𝘬

𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮𝘦 — 𝘧𝘭𝘶𝘧𝘧, 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘢 𝘵𝘰𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘰𝘧 𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘴𝘵

𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴/𝘵𝘢𝘨𝘴 — 𝘴𝘸𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘴𝘶𝘨𝘨𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘴, 𝘢 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘩𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘭𝘺 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩, 𝘵𝘰𝘰 𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘦𝘺𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘤𝘵 𝘣𝘤 𝘪𝘮 𝘰𝘣𝘴𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘦’𝘴 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘺 𝘦𝘺𝘦𝘴, 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬𝘴 𝘵𝘰𝘰 𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩 (𝘴𝘩𝘦’𝘴 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘮𝘦 𝘧𝘳)

author's note: i'm so sorry for the long wait alkdsjfslkdjf but it's here now!! also i know that this is just mostly fluff for now but i wanna build up a bit before we get to the… devil's tango ;) anyways, enjoy lovies!

weeks passed since you last saw him at the bar.

it was a strange thing that left you wondering in quiet moments with glazed eyes. moments at work where you’d zone out while a student was asking you a question, or when you were sitting on the grass in the schoolyard at recess. oliver, ever the rambunctious and curious kid, had prodded at your side with big eyes that had melted away your daze in seconds. he had held up a long piece of grass, offering to play a round of grass wars with you, which brought you straight back to the lazy summer afternoons of your childhood. the sweet smile on his face made sure you couldn’t refuse.

and once he was satisfied, running across the playground and wrestling with other boys in the field, you’d pick at the grass incessantly with your eyes trained on a distant point, not sure what exactly you were focusing on.

you remembered his silhouette like it was burned into your brain—tall, broad, rough at the edges but all soft and warm against you. you remembered him as clear as day and the solidness of his body—real and strong. but now, it was like he had disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

he wasn’t at the back of the bar like usual, puffing on a cigar, with a gruff exterior and eyes searing hot when they landed on you. instead, you were slipping back into a time vault—back to running from deadlines and running from the stressors of your life. back to square one.

it seems like your prayers weren’t answered.

that was the amusing thought that bubbled up in your throat, as you poured over some textbook materials splayed across the old desk you had thrifted ages ago. it filled up approximately half the space of your bedroom, and no matter how you thought you could rearrange it all, your meager apartment seemed to always be stretched to its max. being an elementary school teacher didn’t really pay the bills. not in london at least.

and that’s why you are in this master’s degree program: to further your career, to gain a sweet surplus in your salary, to move into a bigger apartment. not to daydream over strangers you saw at the bar—no matter how addictive.

it’s what you tried to convince yourself, at least, without much success. sighing as you leaned your cheek against the coolness of the desk, you looked out over your bedroom window.

it was raining, but you pulled open the window just a crack anyways. the soft patters against the glass were comforting—like the gentle ringing of bells into the night that clashed with the lingers of sirens and the loud chatter that crowded the streets below your apartment. the humid air poured into your bedroom, and usually the stickiness would bother you, but it only reminded you of home.

back in the rolling plains, where late nights were filled with jumping into bone chilling waters on humid nights like this. where the little lake nestled deep in the dispersed woods beckoned you, your friends, and the quiet twinkling fireflies.

you closed your eyes.

you remembered the words that lingered between your friends and family. it was a small town. she wants to move to london. it wasn’t a thing that they whispered—it was more of a hiss of disapproval. growing up, you thought you never liked that small town. grown up, you don’t really think that you liked the big city either.

but you’ve come this far. there was no way you were turning back now.

those were your last thoughts before exhaustion overcame you, pulling you into those familiar deep murky waters. and the next thing you knew, you eyes were flying open with a loud gasp.

you pushed yourself up with heavy arms, willing your slow legs to move from beneath you. you lurched, almost falling off your desk chair as you blinked sleepily. the rain had stopped. the loud, drunken laughter that bounced off the walls of the alleyway below had ceased, and sirens didn’t drone in the distance. instead, you could hear the rush of automobiles and the loud sputter of the city commotion. and it wasn’t night time anymore…

it wasn’t night time anymore.

you gasped again, this time with much more urgency. finally, you registered the light that streamed through your cracked bedroom window—which you didn’t even bother to close as you dashed through your room, picking up a random t-shirt and pair of blue jeans thrown haphazardly on your bedroom floor.

shit.

in the bathroom mirror, you stripped down the remnants of last nights sleepiness with a lightning fast shower, brushed teeth, and the new change of clothes. you ran through the living room, pulling your hair back into something simple and comfortable as you juggled your work bag and all its clunky items through the front door. 

shit.

you stumbled back into your apartment when you realized you didn’t even think to put on shoes. then you snatched an untoasted bagel off the counter last second.

shit, shit, shit.

the metro couldn’t seem to come fast enough and you were bouncing from one foot to the next, as you chomped on the bagel and pushed your way into the crowded train. crumpling in on yourself, you cringed every time a stranger’s shoulder bumped against yours on the shaky train. 

that fifteen minute train ride was probably the longest wait you’ve ever felt in your life. and you stumbled off the train, shoving the last of your bagel into your mouth, when you bumped into someone and their iced coffee came pouring down onto your leg.

for an awful moment, you stared at each other in silence before you took off again, shouting an apology over your shoulder as you ran up the stairs of the train platform. quick footsteps swallowed the distance between you and that little elementary school glowering on the far corner of a well-kept suburb.

you were almost never late to work. you tried to never be late to anything. but this wasn’t just work—you were fifteen minutes late to a parent-teacher conference.

pushing into the school with a quick key swipe, you rounded the corner of the tiled hallway, almost slipping on your way, and stopped dead in front of your classroom door. using the back of your hand to wipe away the dampness of your face, you hefted your bag further onto your shoulder as you steaded your rapid breath. you pressed a hand to suppress the quick rise and fall of your chest, closing your eyes before opening the door.

“oh my goodness, i am so, so sorry that i’m—”

shit.

you knew as soon as you locked eyes. dark blue. a steady strong gaze that unfurled warmth in your stomach, and a deep flush rose to your cheeks because you were flustered. 

for the first time, you weren’t seeing him through a drunken stupor or the hazy dark bar air, with long drawn shadows cast over his face, but in the clear-cut mid-afternoon sunlight. the gruffness of his face was softened in the bright morning light and you could make out the gentle lines and age of his face. you could see his eyes clearer than ever, and it made all the words die in your throat.

it was him, with a simple black beanie that cut down all those sexy facades about him. it reduced him to something sweet, and weirdly, something domestic. something you wanted to wake up to cooking in your kitchen every morning. something you wanted to tuck in your arms every night.

it was him, sitting at one of the small tables, with a little blonde head tucked under his arm. you swallowed when you saw your student—oliver.

“hi miss y/l/n!”

and suddenly it hit you.

a dark feeling sunk from all the way from your throat to your stomach to the bottom of your toes. your eyes flickered, and a spark of something twisted lit within you. disappointment. you were disappointed with the way you were reacting to this.

a child—oliver was his child. a single father?

or was he married?

old worn t-shirt and unwashed, greasy hair. iced coffee on your thigh. you knew looked like a mess, and you wanted to curse him out for seeing you at some of your worst moments. drunk, late to work. irresponsible. you knew he was thinking it, or at least you thought you did.

he was the opposite of you. older, more mature, more experienced, married with a child. he was above you in a way.

and you were here, young and irresponsible and struggling and still developing irrational crushes like you were in high school. developing irrational crushes on fathers.

for a long charged moment, you just stared at them, spluttering to find the words. but he found them first.

“pleasure to meet you ma’am.”

that low, pitched gruff tone sent a shockwave through you. a familiar low vibrato that rumbled through his chest and into your skin some weeks ago. he said it with aloofness, so serious it almost came off as abrasive. that familiar tug of his lips into that gruff smirk shot a nervous twinge through the pit of your stomach.

“jonathan price.”

you just nodded at his curt introduction, pressing your body to the door behind you, anchoring yourself to the small click of the door closing. for weeks, you had been looking for this man—his stern look, the smell of pine and ash on him, and the broad safety of his shoulders. and now, he had reappeared right before you. and right now, more than anything, you wanted to escape this room and never come back.

you chewed out your name in reply, body practically flattened against the door as your staring contest ensued. with the way he was looking at you—head tilted, eyes narrowed, just a slight pinch in between his strong brows—you wondered if he even remembered you. the expression he was giving you seemed… pained. 

swallowing, the pulse of your heart only rose and thrummed from your fingertips to your toes.

you had almost forgotten your student was still in the room, the innocent look on oliver’s face cutting through the tension spearing the air. the boy waved a small piece of paper above his head, almost falling out of his seat, wobbly, with a lack of coordination that only seven year olds could carry. 

“miss! i drew this for you,” he sang, eyes scrunched in a big teeth-baring smile.

jonathan steaded him with a strong arm looped around his waist as he leaned to you, wiggling the paper between his fingers. you strode over to him, managing a light laugh that bunched at the back of your throat, as you plucked up the drawing and studied it. 

hand in hand with an abstract orange and blue cartoon oliver, the sketch of you dawned an unhealthy shade of green skin and a loud shade of purple hair. a smile tickled your cheekbones, and the brewing mess of emotions in your stomach melted away.

“i love it. thank you, oliver, ” you said, feeling all gooey inside as you moved to pin it to the cork board at the front of the classroom. and as you looked back to smile at a cheery oliver, a blush bloomed up your neck when your eyes flickered to jonathan’s. he was giving you that look again. the one he did at the bar—guarded. heavy-lidded and dark. 

you bit your lower lip, moving to sit beside oliver as you desperately tried to ignore jonathan’s gaze hot on you. you straightened your papers on the table and began recounting oliver’s eventful year as a second-grader. because that’s what you were here for, you reminded yourself like a burrowed tick in the back of your brain. for your profession.

you tucked free strands of hair behind your ears with nervous, twitchy hands.

“oliver’s very proficient at reading and writing. he’s already reading some fourth grade level chapter books.”

you swallowed, lightly pausing, when the scrape of jonathan’s chair against the tiled floor interrupted you. he had moved closer to you, and out of the corner of your eye, you saw one of his arms bracing himself against the table, knee almost brushing against yours. but you kept your eyes trained to the paper in front of you. and he kept quiet. like he always does.

“he’s also doing well in math—maths. some initial trouble with multiplication but he smoothed that out pretty quickly.” you looked up to shoot a smile at oliver, who was puffed up with pride, and you had to resist the urge to reach over and just pat him like he was a puppy.

“overall, he’s doing very well in his academics. just one thing in particular—” your eyes flashed up to take in jonathan’s expression, and he was just staring down at you, and for a moment you wondered if he was even listening to your words, “—is that sometimes we struggle to keep our hands to ourselves in the classroom. we’re quite rambunctious and eager at times.”

his eyes lingered on you, a small smile overtaking his face, a dark twinkle reaching up to touch his eyes. “‘fraid that’s a genetic hand-me-down of the price’s.” he tousled oliver’s hair. “natural-born athletes, per say.”

you hummed, giving him a tight-lipped smile. “look, all i’m saying is that maybe some extra soccer, er football, lessons outside of school could do wonders.”

“soccer, eh?” he raised a brow and you just stared at him.

“yes,” you replied, feeling a flush creep up your cheeks, before tacking on an impromptu: “mr. price.”

a little crease formed between his brows and he huffed a laugh.

“no, no, i get it. we’ll have a chat at home about it, right champ?” jonathan patted oliver’s shoulder and oliver nodded, seemingly undisturbed by your comments.

your pursed your lips, eyes flickering over jonathan’s tight expression. you felt like you had gone wrong somewhere.

“mr. price i—”

“it’s john.” 

he leaned a bit over the table, sliding closer to you, bracing his weight with crossed arms. you could see the warmth of his eyes. the light grayness lacing his beard. you could’ve sworn you felt his gentle breath brush the tip of your nose. you swallowed when his knee brushed against yours beneath the table.

“call me john.”

you nodded wordlessly, eyelids fluttering, as you squeaked out a small john, feeling a bit confused by the mixed signals flying around the room.

after a long moment of him just looking at you with that gaze that sent tremors up your spine, the one that sent embarrassing waves of ache between your thighs, oliver piped up. “can i go play on the carpet, uncle john?”

your eyebrows shot up, eyes flashing to oliver’s, then back at john. you barely murmured under your breath. “uncle?”

he smirked, leaning back, somehow seeming satisfied as he adjusted his beanie. satisfied about what… you didn’t know.

“sure thing, champ.” john nodded at the eager boy, oliver’s sparkling eyes turning to yours for a long moment before you realized that he was asking for your permission too. you huffed a little laugh, waving him off to let him play to his heart’s content.

then, you were shifting in your seat, trying to ignore the heat of john’s gaze on your face. and the silence that filled the small space between you. 

he just kept staring at you, making the blush in your cheeks intensify. you tried to brush the heat away in your face with your fingertips, a bit embarrassed by the tendrils of relief that laxed that tense spot between your shoulder blades. a bit embarrassed by the messy internal panic that had set over you just some minutes ago when you first walked into the room. uncle.

as if sensing it, john tilted his head at you.

“parents aren’t in town. luckily…” he shrugged. “i was.”

you nodded, slowly, chewing your next words just as slowly. a flicker of something darker seeped into your mouth—a flicker of those moments in the past couple of weeks where you were pouring your morning dose of caffeine, quiet and wondering, why his disappearance left a soft space in your heart. and why, in his presence, every ounce of self-control was thrown out the window, overpowered an unsettling sense of longing. want.

“and you’re in town for… how long?”

his lips twitched into a smile, and in a moment of self-indulgence, you let your eyes smooth over his face. it was easy to look at him. comforting. fresh, and relaxing. masculine.

“that’s need to know, ma’am.”

you huffed at little, suppressing the shyness you knew was creeping onto your face. he was teasing you.

you watched his face pass through a range of emotions, tightness, calculation as his eyebrows pinched together, before a rumbling laugh escaped him like a sweet afterthought. his voice was pitched deep and rich with laughter. the sound sent you into the clouds.

“it would be quite irresponsible tellin’ that…” he leaned forward, heat emanating off him in slow rolls, and the breath in your throat locked itself in when a large, warm palm brushed over your thigh. “...to my nephew’s favorite teacher.”

you shifted immediately up into his touch, and he tilted his head, like he was asking for permission. “right darlin’?”

your eyes slid shut, rolls of neediness twisting into a deep ache in your stomach, when his hand made a slow path up your thigh. he stopped just beneath your hip bone, fingers digging into the soft flesh there. your heart shot through your throat, relishing in the way his breath fell over your collarbone, and that familiar musky scent of cigarettes and dark green forest filled your nose.

then, he released you and your eyes shot open.

“right?” he repeated. you blinked up at him.

“depends,” you mumbled, leaning closer to him as if the proximity would intensify the warmth he was filling you with. and his face split into a smile. sweet and soft. a far cry to the onslaught of neediness that was rushing through your pulsing veins.

“god, you are…” he hummed as he trailed off, running a palm over his beard roughly, looking at you with a twinkle in his eyes that you couldn’t even begin to decipher.

suddenly, a childish whine broke the tense air between you. and your eyes fell on oliver, small and forgotten on the carpet. a twinge of guilt twisted in you, because somehow, john always had you falling and folding however he liked with just one glance. he had the power to drain every ounce of maturity out of you—like you were a needy teenager all over again—because you had forgotten that this was still a parent-teacher conference, and poor oliver was being neglected.

“uncle i’m hungry,” he whined, rubbing his tummy and your face scrunched at the adorable image. and whatever intoxicating sexual veil that john draped over you was lifted.

“right. sorry poppet,” john muttered, standing from the table as he moved to take up oliver’s small hand in his bigger one, moving to the classroom door.

you were still frozen in place, his touch on your thigh lingering with a searing heat, and you stared at the pair in a bit of a daze before you remembered yourself and followed them with a bit of a stumble.

you leaned against the doorframe, finding purchase for the slight wobble in your knees, as you cleared your throat, brushing back your hair and tugging at your shirt. the silence was charged, bordering on awkwardness.

for a moment, you thought john was going to walk off without saying anything at all, and you pursed your lips, eyes trained to the floor. disappointed.

but he turned suddenly with that pained expression on his face again, brows pushed together in concentration. calculating.

he looked down at you, the rise and fall of chest following the swell of his steady breaths, and you fisted your shirt in your hands. you thought, if he really wanted to, he was close enough to lean down and press those lips to yours, but you immediately brushed the thought away.

“you ever drink?” he hummed, nonchalant, and you wanted to laugh knowing what happened that night all those weeks ago. his soft lips brushing yours, the prickle of his beard against your cheek, and the strong arms that wrapped around you. and the uninvited ones. a thank you lingers in the back of your head, but you’re too taken aback by his comment to bring it that night. especially not at work. especially not in front of oliver.

your throat felt bone dry. “not on weekdays,” you managed.

he smiled, slowly shuffling away as an impatient and hungry oliver tugged him down the hallway.

“good thing tomorrow’s saturday,” he called out and you bit your lip. he didn’t even have to say when and where—you already knew.

“bye miss y/l/n!” oliver shouted down the hall with a toothy grin, and you waved with a laugh, watching john’s broad silhouette and oliver’s boyish frame grow smaller and smaller.

just before they rounded the corner, john sent you a long look, dark and knowing. it left the warmest feeling twisting in your stomach, filling you whole. the smile that settled on your lips was raw and genuine.

once they disappeared from sight, you leaned your head against the doorframe, closing your eyes dreamily, like a scene out of those corny romantic chick flicks. the ones that your mother used to hate whenever you played them in your cramped childhood living room.

a snort of laughter escaped you at the memory of your mom’s beet red face, turning back to your classroom when, across the hall, in a dark classroom that you thought was empty, a pair of eyes bore into yours.

your voice shook a little as you spoke.

“how much of that did you see?”

and the shit-eating grin that split across sally’s face was enough to make you strangle her.

“oh, i saw everythin’ babes.”

shit.

tag list: @louve-barnes @projectdreamwalker @neoarchipelago

[stormy-river]

Transcripts from the Humanity Hotline 5

This one's been a long time in the making; had to make sure I did it right. Special thanks to @mothepissedoffmidget for the idea, and my roomie, @starryeyedlarkspur for helping with the advice.

-------

Operator: "Hi, thank you for holding. My name is Mindy. How can I help you today?"

Caller: "Yes, hi! I'm Nishel, the EMO [Entertainment and Morale Officer] on my ship. We hired a human about a month ago, and I'm struggling to keep up. Is it normal for humans to tire of activities so quickly?"

O: "That depends on the human, and the activities. Could you tell me a little more?"

C: "Yes. When we hired the human, she brought books and knitting supplies to entertain herself, which I though was helpful, but after a day or two she requested some puzzles. I was able to approve and acquire some fairly easily, but the human returned only a few days later asking for scrapbooking materials, and, well, the same thing happened. Over the last month, I've acquired puzzles, scrapbooks, a climbing wall for the gym, locks and a lockpicking set -- that one was a hassle to get approved, more knitting supplies, crochet supplies (I don't even know how that's different from knitting?), painting supplies, face painting supplies (again, I don't know how that's different), strange plastic bricks that fit together, and a violin. And that's just what was approved. I've also heard from the crew that she's downloaded more books, started writing stories on her personal computer, and started learning how to write programs, and yet, with all these things, she told me this morning that she has nothing to do and was bored. I don't know what else to do. I've spent 78% of this year's entertainment budget this month!"

O: "That's a lot. Some humans have a few different hobbies at once, but usually not that many. Do you have access to crew psychological evaluations?"

C: "Yes, when necessary for morale concerns."

O: "Is there anything in the human's file?"

C: "It says Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, which is also something she's mentioned a few times, but that's tagged for possibly interfering with work, not morale."

O: "ADHD would explain it. It shouldn't only be tagged as work-related as it can actually affect a human's whole life. This is another human thing that's different for everyone, with some hyper-fixating on one thing for a really long time, or different aspects of a single subject, and others, like your crewmember, gaining and losing interest in many different things very quickly."

C: "So this will keep happening? I can see about increasing the budget for next year, but I don't think this is sustainable long term."

O: "Don't panic, there's actually a cheaper method. Communicate with other ships and supply stations with humans on board to see if they are having a similar problem. If you can find others who get and lose hobbies quickly, you can trade the supplies; give them what your human is done with, and receive their extras for her. This will also have the extra benefit of building social connections as they discuss and trade."

C: "That makes sense. It would take a lot of coordination, but I can start asking the nearby fleet."

O: "Good. I will also send a report to the Alliance to see if something can be officially established. Is there anything else I can help you with today?"

C: "No, thank you, Mindy. You've been a great help."

O: "Of course. Don't hesitate to call again if something else comes up."

End Transmission

Transcription Note: Following this call, the Alliance established the Hobby Interfleet Trade Service, now the Interfleet Surplus Exchange (ISE), commissioning a fleet of delivery ships to shuttle supplies.

[eezordalf-the-ardent]

We should also consider if the inhabitants of the mega-sites consciously managed their ecosystem to avoid large-scale deforestation... Archaeological studies of their economy suggest a pattern of small-scale gardening, often taking place within the bounds of the settlement, combined with the keeping of livestock, cultivation of orchards, and a wide spectrum of hunting and foraging activities. The diversity is actually remarkable, as is its sustainability. As well as wheat, barley, and pulses, the citizens' plant diet included apples, pears, cherries, sloes, acorns, hazelnuts and apricots. Mega-site dwellers were hunters of red deer, roe deer, and wild boar as well as farmers and foresters. It was 'play farming' on a grand scale: an urban populous supporting itself through small-scale cultivation and herding, combined with an extraordinary array of wild foods. This way of life was by no means 'simple'. As well as managing orchards, gardens, livestock and woodlands, the inhabitants of these cities imported salt in bulk from springs in the eastern Carpathians and the Black Sea littoral. Flint extraction by the ton took place in the Dniestr valley, furnishing material for tools. A household potting industry flourished, its products considered among the finest ceramics of the prehistoric world; and regular supplies of copper flowed in from the Balkans. There is no firm consensus from archaeologists about what sort of social arrangements all this required, but most would agree the logistical challenges were daunting. A surplus was definitely produced, and with it ample potential for some to seize control of the stocks and supplies, to lord it over others or battle for the spoils; but over the eight centuries we find little evidence for warfare or the rise of social elites.

a description of talianki (located in modern day ukraine), a neolithic site from 5,700 years ago (inhabited from roughly 4100 to 3300 bc) from the dawn of everything by davids: graeber and wengrow

once again this book is fantastic - and one of its main theses is that "the agricultural revolution" and some of the conclusions we draw from it are, largely, not true.

the development of farming in human societies is a much much longer and more "playful" process than popular narratives would have us believe. 'agricultural revolution' suggests an on/off switch almost. and the way it's usually taught sees agriculture being "invented" and then spreading like wildfire to take over the globe - only then allowing for true cities and the "necessary evils" they entail. this simply isn't true. an urban, farming society is not automatically doomed to bureaucracy, inequality, and exploitation.

all across the world the archaeological evidence points to the domestication of plants taking literal thousands of years longer than it "ought to." and then, even when the domestication of a wild plant was complete there isn't an immediate rise of huge fields and class stratification (as the popular narrative goes). again - in the magnitude of multiple thousands of years. we have generations upon generations of humans with farming know-how who don't immediately begin a march of politics and inequality precipitated by farming.

agriculture isn't humanity's curse no matter what the memes and capitalists say. we are not doomed to our current ways - we can imagine, we can build, we can create new ways of being. the past is the present is the past. and fuck you capitalism and doomed "human nature" debates. and read the dawn of everything <3

[fitographia]

HOW TO PUMP UP YOUR BUTTOCKS

This is the headline that will attract maximum attention 😅 and below I will give some tips on how to gain muscle mass (not just buttocks)

1. Food:

We need a calorie surplus (we need more food), we focus primarily on carbohydrates, yes, yes, on carbohydrates, because we need energy and strength during training, the next point follows from this

2. Training

Strength training with a gradual increase in difficulty due to weight, our muscles need a stimulus to grow, and the best stimulus is overcoming the load (buttocks will not grow from squats with 5 kg throughout the year 🤷🏽‍♀️)

3. Recovery

The more often and more does not equal better and faster. Muscles (including the buttocks) do not grow during training, they grow during rest and recovery, for example: go on Monday to do some lifting, don’t load the same muscle groups on Tue and Wed (and don’t forget to eat well on these days to To grow during the recovery period, muscles need building material - that is, a balanced diet 🙌🏽)

*well, don’t forget about good, full sleep and try to live without stress, although who am I kidding 🤣

©️Credit ig @katesurina

#fit #fitness #fitgirl #fitnessgirl #gym #fitnessmodel #workout #squat #sportgirl #abs #glute #glutesworkout #glutegains #hip #leg #legs #legday #cardio #core #body #bodypositive #bodybuilding #bodygoals

[themedialmercurial]

Asteroid Vibilia (144) and how you travel pt. 1

This asteroid was named after the Roman goddess of travel, representing both short and long journeys. Depending on the placement of said asteroid, it can point towards your preferred travel destinations and where you may choose to take a journey - - - 🛩️

P.S this is based on my observations, by all means I’m far from a pro. Take this with a grain of salt and feel free to share your thoughts!

Aspects to the sun-many prominent and important trips during your lifetime

Aspects to the moon-intimate trips, meant to evoke strong emotion, emotional development

Aspects to mercury-trips involving a life lesson, challenges your way of thinking

Aspects to venus-trips based on aesthetics, art and love

Aspects to mars-action filled trips, fast-paced, living on the "wild side"

Aspects to jupiter-potentially winning a trip to a destination, or winning something during a trip, luck

Aspects to saturn-trips that are structured/serious in nature (defined itinerary), prominent business trips

Aspects to uranus-random and spontaneous trips, many surprises during the trip, unexpected events

VIBILIA IN THE FIRST HOUSE

The native with this placement will travel in relation to personal benefit, as the first house is representative of personal pleasures and interests. They may also embark on journeys as a means of finding themself, likely taping into their arian nature. Solo-travel is the name of the game, adventure-seeking and taking risks for enjoyment purposes. Aries in the first house is likely to demonstrate extroverted behaviours when encountering strangers and will appear confident in their interactions with those from another country. These individuals seek martian-like activities and destinations, with high-energy sports and bright, colourful environments.

A sport with arian traits that comes to mind is skydiving, an activity that excited and enthrals the native. Fox Glacier, New Zealand is notorious for this life-changing experience and beautiful views

VIBILIA IN THE SECOND HOUSE

The native with this placement will travel in relation to monetary affairs (maybe insufficient funds or a surplus of funds leading to plenty of travel), adopting a "why not" mentality and acting on impulse. The native may enjoy collecting souvenirs and anything visually appealing (house of venus) and in the case of an arian, said items may appear as red things (jewellery, shoes, bags, etc) and/or sporting attire (jerseys, hats, other merchandise).

There too may be a tendency to overindulge and lose the self to materialism if undeveloped, buying items on impulse potential lack of foresight for future financial consequences. The perfect taurean activity for the individual to partake in is shopping, taking on the mall like it's the latest competition to win. Paris comes to mind as a place in which this person would love to indulge endlessly, with finite shopping options to literally or figuratively shop until they drop.

VIBILIA IN THE THIRD HOUSE

The native with this placement will travel for affairs related to communication and the sharing of information across many populations (house of mercury). The individual could be a public speaker (TED talks come to mind) or an author and voyages as a means of spreading their messaging to the masses, sporting a powerful, confident means of articulating themself. As this house that is ruled by mercury, places in which one can be educated are pertinent, particularly post-secondary institutions. Prestigious post secondary institutes come to mind.

The native could also take a liking to constantly improving their own source of knowledge, basking in the opportunity during their travels to learn plenty of new. They too can find building relationships with people they meet during their numerous travels to come more naturally. In their travels, they will also collect books and notes to help them along the way and build on their interminable studies.

VIBILIA IN THE FORTH HOUSE

The native with this placement will travel for familial reasons, setting off to visit for a family vacation or a simple check-up from time to time. Places such as Disney World (Florida) and Universal in Orlando come to mind. The fourth house is the house of cancer and, as such travel destinations associated with plenty of water (the beach of course) would be the perfect place to kick back and relax.

The native could also develop a fascination or curiosity for their heritage and culture, wanting to know as much as they possibly can. In their travels, they will collect anything that gives off “homey vibes such as sea shells, crystals, rocks and pictures of themselves but mostly their family. The native is nostalgic, always romanticizing their trip regardless of the actual events.

As a collective, water signs would likely prefer travel destinations closer to bodies of water such as an island or coastal environment🏝

As a collective, fire signs would likely prefer travel destinations that are warmer in temperature with sun-filled days 🏜

As a collective, earth signs would likely prefer travel destinations that are mountain-filled along side valleys and rocky places. The Appalachians come to mind 🏞

As a collective, air signs would likely prefer travel destinations riddled with cooler, windier weather🌬

Part 2!🛩️🛩️

[legend-as-old-as-time]

Headcanon that for the Great Beings, one of their most important discoveries about energized protodermis and its derivatives?

It was that it can circumvent / ignore physics as they knew them and create “cold” as its own element. It keeps stable by absorbing the energy of heat and “creating” more cold.

I’m not good in physics but you can’t “make” cold. Cold is the absence of heat, and the heat has to go somewhere else for something to become cold.

This is how fridges and freezers work. The heat gets artificially removed and dumped outside.

And when something is cold, it often usually warms over time because it’s an absense of heat that will be filled.

Overheating is a huge limit for many mechanical and electrical devices and how they work. The generated heat can deform or even melt the devices.

So they need mechanisms like a ventilation system to dump the heat that they generate; or a liquid that cools the heating parts and the liquid must be constantly replaced and / or recooled.

And those systems need space which they might not have depending on the device and / or location.

You also have to consider how you remove the extra heat. Maybe it can be used for something else like heating rooms, but it can’t just spread inside a building.

Having suddenly access to something - let’s call it advanced science or magic, we don’t know - that remains at a freezing temperature for long stretches of time? A material that replenishes itself by partly absorbing the heat diffusing into its area of effect and transforming it?

That makes a lot of new things possible.

Second headcanon: Ko-Metru serves double duty for Mata Nui’s brain in a mental sense and in a physical / mechanical sense.

The Ko-Matoran read the stars = signals of Mata Nui’s brain, interpret them, and send them ahead for further processing.

Ko-Metru serves as a “heat sink” to counterbalance Ta-Metru’s massive forges. It cools the entire head and neck area of the GSR. Otherwise the systems necessary to pour out the surplus of heat into space would’ve needed to be even bigger and crowded out many other important parts that keep the GSR functional.

[silverskye13]

Attunement is an amazing thing. Creatures of magic and power, like the vex, thrive on it. Well, they require it to live and function. But it's not like air. You don't thrive on oxygen. You can't consume a surplus of air and become a better, stronger, faster human. You can function a little better but it's not... Quite the same thing. Attunement is like... To be unattuned is to be distant and ethereal. In Cub's experience, it makes it hard to really engage with the world. So attuning to a new world is crucial to living. Attuning well, however, is crucial to thriving. You can build an empire when you're attuned to the basic image of the world. You build a legacy, you become powerful, when you're attuned to it's pulse.

So obviously that's the first thing Cub does when he gets settled into Empires. Building underground helps a little, but it's literally just scratching the surface. He sinks his teeth into it. Building materials from every Empire worked into a house. He lives and breathes what these people value. He digs through the world, he speaks with its inhabitants, he engages with his friends. Attunement isn't always work, after all. More often than not, it's play. It's reveling in the fun, in the living. It's letting the world be an extension of yourself.

He likes it here. This place is... Old in ways Hermitcraft isn't. Hermitcraft resets itself. It's as young as its inhabitants' fancies. Empires has history, a fabric and weave to it. It settles in Cub's chest like a stone as he attunes, warn smooth by time and more obstinate for it. Attunement takes a little longer than he's used to, but he has nothing but time with the Rift closed.

That's probably what does him in, really. Vex are inherently cocky. It comes with the territory. You get used to knowing everything about magic and forget that even with that knowledge, that super-mortal disposition, you're not infallible. And it's been an awfully long time since Cub has needed more than a few days to attune to anything. He should have realized something was wrong when he fought the young god and lost. Not that Joel isn't powerful. But he did trivialize that fight. Cub's hands were clumsy. He wasn't used to the movements of his body. It wasn't second nature yet, stuck somewhere between second and third. He wasn't attuned as much as he was used to.

Shubble wants his help - as a scientist, not as a magic user. She probably doesn't know he's vex, and he's fine with that. It's a fun little surprise he keeps to himself until it's opportune to reveal it. If she'd known, she never would have asked him to go into the Mangrove. Even knowing she didn't know, Cub should have been smart enough to refuse. It's that vex arrogance, his worst enemy.

Any creature attuning is vulnerable. It's like an open radio frequency, or a valley between two waterfalls. It doesn't take much for an invader to come pouring in, drowning out whatever was there before. But it'd been so long since Cub took that long to attune, and Shubble didn't know he was vex and vulnerable.

The fog felt little resistance when it invaded his mind, and it revelled in it's catch. It wouldn't do to hoard this soul to itself. No. No. This was opportunity on its doorstep, with power and mischief and it was so, so wide open to influence. Cub might as well have put a bit neon sign over his head, "Come and use me as a weapon, a tool."

The will attached to that fog attached itself to Cub, the stone of the Empires world still settling in his chest cast out to make way for a lungful of Mangrove mist.

Spread the Darkness.

Spread the Skulk.

[racefortheironthrone]

Is there room in a standalone ask to talk about why Eduard Bernstein "concluded...that Marx was basically wrong about the internal dynamics of capitalism, their effects on the class structure of society, and the implications for political action"?

Ok, so there's part of this that I'm really not going to get into, because all you really need to understand is that Marx had this theory of falling rates of profit being inherent to capitalism, and Bernstein did all of these calculations of German industry at the turn of the 20th century that he felt showed that wasn't happening, and all of that stuff is really only interesting to Marxist political economists of a particular age.

What I find more interesting is Bernstein's work on immiseration and the class composition of the industrial workforce. A big part of Marx's theory of the inevitability of revolution is that he argued that capitalism would constantly oppress workers with lower wages and worse working conditions (in order to extract more surplus labor-value from them), that artisans and the petit bourgeois would find themselves squeezed down into the proletariat by the forces of capitalist competition, and in this fashion, the industrial proletariat would not only become radicalized, but they would also become the overwhelming majority such that they could overthrow the capitalist system by force of numbers, once they had been properly educated and organized.

Bernstein did a bunch of empirical analyses of the industrial workforce of Germany and realized that Marx's predictions were not coming true - wages were going up not down, but more importantly the middle classes were not becoming proletarianized, nor were the proletariat becoming the numerical majority. Instead, what was happening was that industrial capitalism was calling forth a new middle class - engineers, clerks, accountants, corporate lawyers, foremen, etc. - and the working class was becoming increasingly subdivided between unskilled, semi-skilled, and skilled workers.

To Bernstein, this empirical fact had important political ramifications: if the socialist movement wanted to prosper, it needed to build a cross-class alliance with the bourgeois political parties of the middle classes to establish democracy and civil rights, and then to use those rights to push for the eight hour day and old age pensions and other reforms that would improve the immediate material conditions of the working class.

And, arguably, Bernstein was right about this - a lot of socialist and social democratic parties got into office for the first time through alliances with non-socialist political parties, whether that's the Scheidemann cabinet pulling together the SPD, the DDP, and the Center Party or the Swedish SAP starting their historic run at government with an alliance with the Swedish farmers' party.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Marxism has its own critique of growth, which connects to capital’s compulsion to grow—think of concepts such as surplus value, accumulation, formal and real subsumption, expanded reproduction, and imperialism—all concepts of growth. Economically, capital is dependent on surplus value generation—the basic and most essential form of growth under capitalism—without which there can be no interest payments on loans, no rental payments, no profits, and hence no investment, hence crisis. Moreover, the stabilisation of social conflicts under capitalism requires a growth that goes beyond capitalists’ requirements: there must be a taxable or otherwise redistributable surplus to pay for police and courts, and welfare and wage rises to otherwise restive workers. But this only amounts to a critique of capitalist growth and how growth is leveraged to secure capitalist hegemony.

From an ecological perspective, degrowth is much more radical. It stresses that compound economic growth, often considered in terms of ecological economics as material and energy throughput, is ecologically destructive and unsustainable, also when managed on a non-capitalist basis. Thus, degrowthers have done impressive amounts of work establishing the possibility and desirability of non-growth economics and modes of life. You can see why degrowth becomes a reference point for many Marxists and communists who take the ecosystem crisis seriously. In fact, we may question if there can be any renewal of communism, which does not build on the problematic of degrowth (i.e. the ecological critique of growth and the question of post-growth economics and modes of life).

Conversely, Marxism and communism have important things to contribute to degrowth. Degrowth tends to speak in a straightforwardly normative register, stressing the different socio-economic arrangements that are necessary and desirable to end the destruction of climate and ecosystems. But while it is true that a phase-out of growth is necessary, and that it is desirable that it is managed and planned, this does not prove that an orderly phase-out of growth is possible. Given capitalism’s dependence on growth, it is hard to imagine any absence of growth, including degrowth, which will not be highly tumultuous and conflictual. And while scientific necessity has clearly inspired many people to direct action, and has fostered experiments with sustainability, it is very far from moving a decisive number of people. Here a core lesson of communist politics is that broad social transformations from below are unlikely except where people’s faith in and reliance on the status quo are shaken, and they become open to reimagining survival and who they are in the world. Another lesson is that as long as growth means jobs, wages, livelihoods, welfare, social peace and the promise of progress for vast numbers of people, it will remain a beacon of hope or nostalgia. Except, that is, if the absence of growth is accompanied by deep transformations of economic relations, from expropriations of wealth of the rich, to the socialization of housing, land, utilities, and core factories. In short, it seems degrowth is unlikely to get mass support without communist measures.

Nick Dyer-Witheford, Bue Rübner Hansen and Emanuele Leonardi, Degrowth Communism: Part I

[appalachianfuturism]

“We’re using machine learning for all the wrong things, as I write about extensively in Ways of Being: to make things that beat us at games, deplete the planets resources more efficiently, confuse images and art, and so on and on. What we need are intelligences that help us do useful things in new and better ways, ways which we could not have imagined alone. AIs which are colleagues and collaborators, rather than slaves and masters.

Here’s one idea: an optimisation engine for woodworking: an AI Carpenter – except that the human is the carpenter, AI is the planner / assistant. (Gepetto? Jiminy Crickett? Kricket, like in Douglas Adams. They could have carved a Wicket and Bails.)

Given the dimensions of some wood – or even of a tree – but preferably a bunch of surplus or recycled wood, whatever materials and shapes and planes you have lying around, and a sketch of the desired structure, the machine outputs a complete guide/spec for building.

Where it gets interesting is when you see it doing some of the deeply weird stuff AI is really good at, optimising for strength and structure no human would conceive of, like (via):”

[violant-apologia]

HO HO HO

(a neon future seasonal visit with mr bricks – otherwise known as the violant-scrawling apologist!

shamelessly inspired by @alexis-royce's post about the ex-disgraced academic.)

An option on "Don your Incarnadine Fur Rube":

Mr Bricks

Seller of land, buildings, and the materials to construct them.

This option will gain you a Wall of Hell (Reconstructed), a Home Comfort which increases Dreaded and Watchful.

Memories in masonry (Success)

The first thing you notice about Mr Bricks' spire is its warmth. It's nothing out of the ordinary – the room is well-ventilated – but that's precisely what makes it strange. The Bazaar is a building seemingly constructed with no heed to human comfort, but this room feels almost homely. The second thing you notice is more expected: the bricks. The walls are layered with weathered, uneven brickwork. Some are from Berlin, a few from the Fourth City (and some, you guess by their age, from even older cities), but most are the red bricks of London – the Fifth. That is, except the wall which Mr Bricks now stands before. Those bricks are a strange green-grey. They look more weathered than any, and very far from home indeed. "Mr Sacks!" Bricks says suddenly, wheeling around to face you. It teeters in your direction, clasping an armful of those strange bricks. Up close you notice how its robe hangs off its frame. Perhaps, beneath, it is horribly emaciated – or is nothing but a robot endoskeleton! It would explain the glowing eyes, at least. "Take this surplus material!" it says, dumping about a dozen bricks into your sack. The sack does not appeciate the weight, and about a dozen bricks land on the carpeted floor. "Oh," Bricks says, as you sigh and begin to collect the gift, "sorry about that."

You've lost 1 x Incarnadine Fur Robe

You now have 1 x Wall of Hell (Reconstructed)

Wall of Hell (Reconstructed) (Home Comfort) These grey-green bricks were once part of Hell's very own walls. They have been cobbled back together, for some reason or another. It makes for an intimidating anecdote, though. Watchful +3; Dreaded +1

[dailyanarchistposts]

Chapter 3. Economy

What about building and organizing large, spread-out infrastructure?

Many Western history books assert that centralized government arose out of the need to build and maintain large infrastructure projects, especially irrigation. However, this assertion is based on the assumption that societies need to grow, and that they cannot choose to limit their scale to avoid centralization — an assumption that has been discredited many times over. And while large-scale irrigation projects do require some amount of coordination, centralization is only one form of coordination.

In India and East Africa, local societies built massive irrigation networks that were managed without government or centralization. In the Taita Hills region of what is now Kenya, people created complex irrigation systems that lasted hundreds of years, often until colonial agricultural practices ended them. Households shared day-to-day maintenance, each responsible for the closest section of the irrigation infrastructure, which was common property. Another custom brought people together periodically for major repairs: known as “harambee labor,” it was a form of collective, socially motivated work, similar to traditions in many other decentralized societies. The people of the Taita Hills ensured fair use through a number of social arrangements passed on by tradition, which determined how much water each household could take; those who violated these practices faced sanctions from the rest of the community.

When the British colonized the region, they assumed they knew better than the locals and set up a new irrigation system — geared, of course, to cash crop production — based on their engineering expertise and mechanical power. During the drought of the 1960s, the British system failed spectacularly and many locals returned to the indigenous irrigation system to feed themselves. According to one ethnologist, “East African irrigation works seem to have been more extensive and better managed during the precolonial era.”[48]

During the Spanish Civil War, workers in occupied factories coordinated an entire wartime economy. Anarchist organizations that had been instrumental in bringing about the revolution, namely the CNT labor union, often provided the foundations for the new society. Especially in the industrial city of Barcelona, the CNT lent the structure for running a worker-controlled economy — a task for which it had been preparing years in advance. Each factory organized itself with its own chosen technical and administrative workers; factories in the same industry in every locality organized into the Local Federation of their particular industry; all the Local Federations of a locality organized themselves into a Local Economic Council “in which all the centers of production and services were represented”; and the local Federations and Councils organized into parallel National Federations of Industry and National Economic Federations.[49]

The Barcelona congress of all Catalan collectives, on August 28, 1937, provides an example of their coordinating activities and decisions. The collectivized shoe factories needed 2 million pesetas credit. Because of a shortage of leather, they had to cut down on hours, though they still paid all their workers full time salaries. The Economic Council studied the situation, and reported that there was no surplus of shoes. The congress agreed to grant credit to purchase leather and to modernize the factories in order to lower the prices of the shoes. Later, the Economic Council outlined plans to build an aluminum factory, which was necessary for the war effort. They had located available materials, secured the cooperation of chemists, engineers, and technicians, and decided to raise the money through the collectives. The congress also decided to mitigate urban unemployment by working out a plan with agricultural workers to bring new areas into cultivation with the help of unemployed workers from the cities.

In Valencia, the CNT organized the orange industry, with 270 committees in different towns and villages for growing, purchasing, packing, and exporting; in the process, they got rid of several thousand middlemen. In Laredo, the fishing industry was collectivized — workers expropriated the ships, cut out the middlemen who took all the profit, and used those profits to improve the ships and other equipment or to pay themselves. Catalunya’s textile industry employed 250,000 workers in scores of factories. During collectivization, they got rid of high-paid directors, increased their wages by 15%, reduced their hours from 60 to 40 hours per week, bought new machinery, and elected management committees.

In Catalunya, libertarian workers showed impressive results in maintaining the complex infrastructure of the industrial society they had taken over. The workers who had always been responsible for these jobs proved themselves capable of carrying on and even improving their work in the absence of bosses. “Without waiting for orders from anyone, the workers restored normal telephone service within three days [after heavy street fighting ended]... Once this crucial emergency work was finished a general membership meeting of telephone workers decided to collectivize the telephone system.”[50] The workers voted to raise the salaries of the lowest paid members. The gas, water, and electricity services were also collectivized. The collective managing water lowered rates by 50% and was still able to contribute large amounts of money to the anti-fascist militia committee. The railway workers collectivized the railroads, and where technicians in the railroads had fled, experienced workers were chosen as replacements. The replacements proved adequate despite their lack of formal schooling, because they had learned through the experience of working together with the technicians to maintain the lines.

Municipal transportation workers in Barcelona — 6,500 out of 7,000 of whom were members of the CNT — saved considerable money by kicking out the overpaid directors and other unnecessary managers. They then reduced their hours to 40 per week, raised their wages between 60% (for the lowest income bracket) and 10% (for the highest income bracket), and helped out the entire population by lowering fares and giving free rides to schoolchildren and wounded militia members. They repaired damaged equipment and streets, cleared barricades, got the transportation system running again just five days after fighting ceased in Barcelona, and deployed a fleet of 700 trolleys — up from the 600 on the streets before the revolution — repainted red and black. As for their organization:

the various trades coordinated and organized their work into one industrial union of all the transport workers. Each section was administered by an engineer designated by the union and a worker delegated by the general membership. The delegations of the various sections coordinated operations in a given area. While the sections met separately to conduct their own specific operations, decisions affecting the workers in general were made at general membership meetings.

The engineers and technicians, rather than comprising an elite group, were integrated with the manual workers. “The engineer, for example, could not undertake an important project without consulting the other workers, not only because responsibilities were to be shared but also because in practical problems the manual workers acquired practical experience which technicians often lacked.” Public transportation in Barcelona achieved greater self-sufficiency too: before the revolution, 2% of maintenance supplies were made by the private company, and the rest had to be purchased or imported. Within a year after socialization, 98% of repair supplies were made in socialized shops. “The union also provided free medical services, including clinics and home nursing care, for the workers and their families.”[51]

For better or worse, the Spanish revolutionaries also experimented with Peasant Banks, Labor Banks, and Councils of Credit and Exchange. The Levant Federation of Peasant Collectives started a bank organized by the Bank Workers Union to help farmers draw from a broad pool of social resources needed for certain infrastructure- or resource-intensive types of farming. The Central Labor Bank of Barcelona moved credit from more prosperous collectives to socially useful collectives in need. Cash transactions were kept to a minimum, and credit was transferred as credit. The Labor Bank also arranged foreign exchange, and importation and purchase of raw materials. Where possible, payment was made in commodities, not in cash. The bank was not a for-profit enterprise; it charged only 1% interest to defray expenses. Diego Abad de Santillan, the anarchist economist, said in 1936: “Credit will be a social function and not a private speculation or usury... Credit will be based on the economic possibilities of society and not on interests or profit... The Council of Credit and Exchange will be like a thermometer of the products and needs of the country.”[52] In this experiment, money functioned as a symbol of social support and not as a symbol of ownership — it signified resources being transferred between unions of producers rather than investments by speculators. Within a complex industrial economy such banks make exchange and production more efficient, though they also present the risk of centralization or the reemergence of capital as a social force. Furthermore, efficient production and exchange as a value should be viewed with suspicion, at the least, by people interested in liberation.

There are a number of methods that could prevent institutions such as labor banks from facilitating the return of capitalism, though unfortunately the onslaught of totalitarianism from both the fascists and Communists deprived Spanish anarchists of the chance to develop them. These might include rotating and mixing tasks to prevent the emergence of a new managing class, developing fragmented structures that cannot be controlled at a central or national level, promoting as much decentralization and simplicity as possible, and maintaining a firm tradition that common resources and instruments of social wealth are never for sale.

But as long as money is a central fact of human existence, myriad human activities are reduced to quantitative values and value can be massed as power, and thus alienated from the activity that created it: in other words, it can become capital. Naturally anarchists do not agree on how to strike a balance between practicality and perfection, or how deep to cut in order to root out capitalism, but studying all the possibilities, including those that might be doomed to failure or worse, can only help.

[minscribbles]

Decided to go the traditional rough sketch route when it came to getting some tulum “wake up” visuals out of my head mm wanting to get better at depictions of that exposed muscle and parts of mummified scalp with thin hair remnants regrowing >:Tc LOVED drawing out the bat girl Alex  for the first time tho, very fun design to play around with

Notes of interest: Did not expect seeing such odd variety in coatimundi skull research especially when it came to length and tooth protrusion! Characters: Hyden and Alex @chocodile, Theo @kwillow  Rambling prose context read below!:

Main gist:  (keep in mind this is all limited to whats revealed so far about the shadow in main amaranthine verse so AU fun otherwise)

Group research expedition into some far off location with the hope of some leads into combating/eradicating The Shadow goop problem plaguing the world, courtesy of Hyden (most likely due to credible reports of it behaving uncharacteristically in one particular area and amassing consistently there over the years despite complete lack of population density that it would normally be voraciously seeking out to feed on). This eventually leads to the group winding up somewhere far underground (we’re talking Atlantis: The Lost Empire movie level montages of occasional dynamite use to unblock passages and paths that were assumed nonexistent until closer inspection). Until the expedition finally reaches a very well-sealed chamber (magically and physically) they decide to forcefully open and it appears to be much like an ancient tomb complete with decorations and murals.Obligatory cautious and eerie exploratory sequence that obviously leads into a raised focal point of the room, a stone-carved container structure complete w/ heavy stone well cap. Cue The Shadow goop absolutely bum-rushing into that chamber in overwhelming mass to the horror and subsequent confusion of the group, as its’ singular point of interest is breaching the stone-carved container.

Surprise! As everyone there already assumed, It’s a coffin! Bigger surprise!! Hey, wow, that’s weird The Shadow kind of looks like it’s reanimating whatever remains were in there!! Hello Tulum! :•)  asjdlkasjda oof thanks to a thumb adjacent hotkey on my mouse I lost about 3 pages worth of writing here I did in explanation regarding Tulum, her situation, and why her circumstances probably aren’t technically a case of Necromancy among other detail oriented things I can’t be bothered to redo from scratch again right now. LMAO  If you’re curious uh  feel free to reach out or reply asking more about those details;;

tldr bad short read: Mega specific series of contractual magic spells by an ancient eldritch deity tied for use with a specific individual’s (Tulum) base DNA for stupidly rapid controlled cellular regeneration/tissue growth/grafting/healing etc without repercussions of rejection or body shock. Caveat is that it only works when there is immediate proximity to biologically appropriate building block material to be used to make flesh. (ie, people fodder or the shadow sure sucked up a surplus of donor folk parts that would work for that sort of thing, huh? )

But that doesn’t account for the concept of the soul necessary in the body (soul in this context = consciousness, collection of individual’s stacked memories/experiences, basically all the pivotal formation points that made that person themself)

So before all that fun biology specific magic, this ancient eldritch being involved with Tulum first and foremost has a not really repeatable by anyone but themself magic involved in the ownership and perpetuity of Tulum’s “”soul/spirit”” via power of what dominion they have.

While Tulum is a character inspired by a combination of various Mayan civilizations of differing locations, timelines, and beliefs; The paired OC with her I keep referring to as the eldritch being/deity is a reflection of that who is inspired by Maya Mythology, rituals, and deities (particularly The Descending or Diving God)

I just haven’t fleshed him out too well yet beyond some basics as I’m still mulling over how they get on with one another;; but there’s, definitely some good messed up romance build there i keep knee jerking back to.