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cobragardens · 1 year

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Another Post About Crowley's Terrible Handwriting

Actually his handwriting here isn't terrible, it's just, like Anathema's spelling, 300 years too late.

So first, I posit that we can be reasonably confident this is Crowley's handwriting because he is very likely the only celestial being besides Aziraphale who can spell devourer correctly.

Crowley has taken more care than usual with his penmanship today because this is a Fancy Presentation, and there are some delightful things to note about it:

--The beautiful serifs on each letter and variation in width of the strokes (the lowercase r's especially)

--Enthusiastic but intermittent capitalization of nouns

--The L that ends "Hail" is a small capital like the ones used in the Bible to spell LORD; the l in Worlds is lower-case

--The lozenge shape of the letter o

--Both s-es are oversized and dip below the writing line

--The kerning is terrible, the script wanders off the writing line at several points, and the location of the writing line is not imagined consistently

I am not an expert in the history of handwriting, but every single point of this suggests to me that Crowley learned to write in English in the late 16th or early 17th century, between say 1570 and 1620, and he learned to do it by copying printed material, not somebody else's handwriting. And it looks like late 16th-century writing. Or rather, like somebody learned to write by copying late 16th-century print and hasn't practiced enough for his style to change significantly in the last 400-500 years.

This means Crowley would have learned using a quill pen, poor devil, and if that's true no wonder he doesn't do it more often. (I wonder if this is why he now owns a pen that looks like it can break the sound barrier; if the Bentley is a permanent replacement for the loathsome, buttocks-abusing horse, maybe he keeps the expensive pen as self-reassurance that he'll never have to write with a quill again.) Quill pens would explain the lozenge-shaped o's: quills can only make a downstroke, so writers who used them shape o's as lozenges made of four downstrokes. Someone who learned writing with a quill would shape his o's like a calligrapher.

16th/early 17th century is the earliest I think Crowley would have learned to write in English because before that there was no block print; there was no print at all, only handwritten scripts of varying legibility, none of which look remotely like Crowley's handwriting does.

Here's what print looked like in Germany in 1471 (printing does not arrive in England for another 5 years after this):

The printing press showed up in England in 1476. Between 1500 and 1600, England got its shit sorted out wrt fonts and typesetting and started turning out what we would recognize today as readable material.

Here's what English printing looked like in 1623, c. 150 years after the German one above:

Not bad, right? I've received Xerox copies less legible than this in classes I paid for. I think it is likely based on his handwriting that Crowley learned to write from printed material a decade or two older than this. The adornments Crowley puts on his letters are serifs, not ligatures: these are not letters that were ever meant to join up in cursive, but letters that were copied from typeset.

From the 16th through the mid-19th century, variations in how a handwriter capitalized letters were very common, and two of these variations show up in Crowley's writing as well.

First, English inherited from German the capitalization of all its nouns. You can see it in Titus Andronicus, above (1623). Due to variations in education and taste, this quickly shifted to capitalization of whichever nouns the writer (or publisher, or printer) felt were important to capitalize, as you can see in Paradise Lost from 1688, below. Hail the Great Beast, devourer of Worlds.

Second, It was also very common during this time to capitalize terminal letters of words, either as a sign to the reader that previous letters had been omitted or because writers using quill pens wanted to be sure readers knew what letter they were looking at through the smudges and weird spacing and general wretchedness of the reading experience imposed by quill writing. I think this latter reason may be why Crowley writes "HaiL" when his other letter L, in "Worlds," is both lowercase and carefully printed with a pretty serif.

Handwriters in English between 1500 and 1800 also had a major hard-on for abusing the letter s, which was shaped like a lowercase f (to contemporary eyes) or a loose S, either of which drop below the writing line. Here's an example in print from 1688:

Use of the long S in print fell out of favor and disappeared abruptly in the UK after 1800.

Crowley's S-es could be a holdover from this: they both drop below the writing line, and they're both oversized.

What I think we can say for sure is that he's not very good at writing s-es, so they always turn out bigger than he intends. The S in "Beast" is noticeably different at the left curve than the S in "Worlds," which I would expect for someone who hasn't written thousands of s-es yet, and the S in "Worlds" looks very much like someone has faithfully rendered a shape they have seen rather than written a letter. Since he can write a letter r elegantly but can't do a curved s, it suggests to me that he hasn't had as much practice doing the curved s yet as he has the other letters, which fits with someone used to writing a long s 75% of the time.

Even the kerning speaks to me of someone who learned to write with a quill: leaving (comparatively) large spaces between letters gives the ink somewhere to drip and smudge without rendering the letter illegible.

There's one other reason I think Crowley probably learned to write in English in the 16th century: He's lazy, and he probably wouldn't have needed to know before then.

The movable-type press arrived in England in 1476. The Protestant Reformation kicked off in England c. 60 years later in 1534 when Henry VIII declared himself head of the English Church. Prior to the surge in literacy among the wealthy and merchant classes in the 16th century, thanks to this intersection of printing press and Protestants (who believe it's important that each person read the Bible for themselves), almost no one knew how to read, including most of the gentry and nobility, and still fewer knew how to write. If you had a message, you sent a guy or you showed up yourself. If you had something you wanted recorded, you summoned a scribe. If you needed to know something, you found somebody who knew and you asked them.

By the time of Queen Elizabeth's accession in 1558, 82 years after William Caxton began operating England's first movable-type printing press, a fully literate royal court were passing each other and their spies and their assassins gossipy notes like everybody was a 12yo in math class. Elizabeth wrote letters and poems. Among the gentry gentlewomen replaced monks as the medical caregivers for their communities (bc Henry shut down all the monasteries), and they wrote and shared and copied multi-generational "receipt books" and herbals of medical and cosmetic treatments. In the space of a single generation, literacy--the ability to write, not just to read--became a prerequisite for functioning in the upper echelons of society.

So if he didn't already know by then, Crowley would have needed to learn to write in English in the mid-16th century. And he would have had to learn it with a quill. (Wearing black probably came in handy for all the ink he spilled or dripped on himself.)

Last to consider is the W in "Worlds," which has no serifs and is not written with any particular attempt at straightness or symmetry. To me this suggests that Crowley learned to write w's from a modern reference, not his original reference. And this makes perfect sense: w was very much in use in the 16th century in English, but nobody agreed on how to write or print it, so there were crossed v's, two capital U's, and this weird gothic lowercase n with extra tentacles. W, Crowley would have learned, always needs to be checked up on before you commit.

Crowley's spelling here is modern, which is frankly a huge achievement for someone who was present for the formation and transformation of all 3 English languages. The contemporary Modern English we use today was a going concern for over 2 centuries before anyone wrote an English dictionary, and it was three centuries before dictionaries became authorities on how to spell correctly and people started giving a shit about that. (Before that as long as people could read the word and understand what you meant by it in context, you'd spelt it correctly.)

Taken together, the W and the modern spelling suggest that although Crowley almost never writes by hand, he reads regularly. This matches with two Words of God I've seen from Neil Gaiman (which I am too lazy to find and link) in which he mentions that Crowley likes to read but won't admit to doing so or to liking books.

Aziraphale should get him a book about ducks for Valentine's Day.

#good omens #good omens fanalysis #crowley #crowley's handwriting

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dude1818 · 17 days

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Arkhangelsk

I just finished Arkhangelsk by Elizabeth Bonesteel. Very good science fiction. 400 years ago, the Russian generation ship Arkhangelsk fled a collapsing Earth; 200 years ago, their descendants established a precarious colony on a desolate ice planet; and today, an FTL ship has arrived from Earth to build an FTL communications relay in their star system. Both groups are equally shocked that there are other humans still around and have to figure out what that means for their respective futures

The story primary follows two main characters. The protagonist, Anya, is the head peace officer for the colony (Novayarkha). Outside the city is a frozen, toxic hellscape, and they don't have much food but plenty of strange illness, and the government is kinda authoritarian, but the people are generally content with survival for survival's sake. It's not that much different than Siberia. The deuteragonist, Maddie, is the captain of (what's left of) the visiting ship. This is the first time the colonists have even considered there might still be humanity outside themselves, and it creates a huge crisis in the colony now that the stakes are no longer "survival at any costs so that humanity doesn't go extinct"

The meat of the story starts out fairly simple. The governor of the colony initially wants nothing to do with the ship, fearing "contamination" with the ways of the Old World. She's convinced to negotiate with them at least somewhat, primarily to take advantage of the technology they brought with. Anya, as part of the governor's council, befriends Maddie and remains in contact with her. As things become worse politically in the colony, Maddie and Anya have to figure out how to lead these people out of their slowly-revealed dystopia and into a future that actually has hope

I really liked the book, like I said. I'm not quite sure how to describe it. It was more of a suspenseful mystery than an action story, although there are plenty of fast-paced scenes. It opens with Anya investigating a missing persons case that is almost certainly a murder, and they know who and how, it's merely a matter of why. They keep going back to that case throughout the book. There are a bunch of other "obvious" mysteries that are easy to predict (why do the parts the colony manufactures for the ship keep failing? Obviously someone is sabotaging them. What's the deal with the Exiles group who raid the colony occasionally? Obviously they're going to be even hungrier and sicker than the main colony, but serve as a good boogeyman), but the story spends a lot of time trying to really understand why these things happen, not just how, and it's very good

The biggest mystery is revealed at the very end, though, and I never in a million years saw it coming. That one goes way off the horror deep-end. (I think even giving the content warning would spoil basically the whole book. Edit: the author has a list of content warnings here.) I wasn't sure how the author was going to come back from that, but I think she managed it

Overall I got a lot of similar vibes to the Children of Time series, actually. There wasn't any of the time skip stuff like Children, thankfully, although individual documents from Arkhangelsk's archive are presented like flashbacks between chapters, which fills you in with enough pieces that you can figure out the important beats of their history. There's a similar conflict with Kern and the governor choosing to protect "their" colony and telling humanity to go fuck itself, but the real answer is that we're only humanity together. This was a much more human approach to that though (for obvious reasons)

As a footnote, Anya is schizophrenic. I haven't really read any other stories about characters with mundane schizophrenia (TLT comes closest, but Harrow has so much else going on I don't want to isolate that), and it seemed to me like it was pretty respectful. The schizophrenia is what kept Anya grounded. And yes, she was on meds for it and kept the extent of it a secret because of the society she was in, but when Maddie and the visitors found out, they were appalled at the colony for how they treated Anya. They were appalled at the colony for a lot of things that seemed normal from Anya's POV actually; it was a great depiction of moral relativism

#Arkhangelsk #elizabeth bonesteel #that's a sick-ass last name btw #science fiction #book review

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girlactionfigure · 11 months

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Lee Kern on Hamas #1

FIRST IN A SERIES OF SUBSTACKS THAT CONTAIN EVERYTHING I’VE WRITTEN ON THE ATROCITIES PERPETRATED AGAINST ISRAEL (AND THE CIVILISED WORLD) BY HAMAS

INTRO

On October 7th 2023 the Palestinian Islamic Fundamentalist Terror Organisation HAMAS committed an atrocity in Israel. Their crimes against humanity included rape, torture and the murder of over 1400 people including babies. They live streamed their crimes to the internet in a move to designed to add degradation to the victims and to instill fear and terror in Jews and the civilised world.

Since this war on Jews and civilisation began I’ve been devoting huge amounts of time trying to provide simple, no-nonsense analysis that offers humour, Jewish pride and morally just aggression. The latter is important. You can be equipped with the best information in the world, but if you don’t have the courage to go out there and say it, what’s the point.

It also communicates our need to stop being defensive and playing into the hands of Hamas. Their tactic is to throw all manner of accusations at Israel so that so we’re constantly being prosecuted and having to justify ourselves. We are not on trial. They are the guilty ones. They committed this atrocity. There needs to be less explaining and more attacking. Go on the offensive. Every time they pull us into rebuffing some absurd lie they are distracting the world from what they did to Jewish men, women and children and why people are now suffering in a legitimate war of self-defence. Keep the spotlight on them always. They are Islamic fundamentalist, muslim supremacists - racist terrorists who kill babies and non-Muslims. They are sadists and torturers. They are killers of gays and rapists of women. An ISIS style gang of criminals. Britain and America gave no ceasefire for the Nazis and there can be no ceasefire for Hamas - villains who have picked up the torch of Nazism. There is no prospect for peace for anyone in the Middle East until the world eradicates them. This is the only thing that can create conditions for some kind of future to be discussed.

As this content has proven popular, I am collating it here in a series of articles titled LEE KERN ON HAMAS. The articles will be numbered. This is the first.

These are resources for everyone. The vocabulary, language and ideas are yours to use. Feel free to screengrab and share the tweets if that’s easiest. Share this resource to your friends, family, followers, the uninformed, the hostile - anyone you think needs to see it.

Finally, whilst some of the content is entertaining, this isn’t entertainment. There is a war against us. It’s end goal is extermination. Those of you who haven’t lost family have had time to absorb the initial raw pangs of horror. It’s now time to bounce back and act. It’s up to you to pick up the slack and fight for those who have died, those who are still kidnapped, and the immediate family of victims who may be too traumatised.

Let’s win this war for them.

We are an incredible people and none of us will let each other down.

Lee

#Israel #October 7 #Hamas Massacre

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dear-indies · 7 months

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hi cat and mouse! i've been a big fan of your resources for a while now and i wanted to ask you to please, PLEASE refrain from using "from the river to the sea." as a jewish rper in this community that's already so antisemitic and unfriendly towards people like myself i feel the need to share that that phrase is not only some rallying cry for palestine's freedom but it has historical charge of antisemitism denying us jewish the right to self-determination by removing us from our ancestral homeland. hamas uses it frequently in the latter sense like on oct. 7th when they slaughtered 1,400 jewish civilians in a genocide (the largest single-day slaughter since the holocaust btw).

totally appreciate your decision to side with palestine in this situation but i wanted to inform you there's a way to do it without being antisemitic.

hey anon! tackling antisemitism is extremely important which is why i feel it's important to point out the following and reiterate to the rest of my followers that zionism is NOT judaism and criticism of isr*el is not antisemitic. if i have posted anything antisemitic please let me know but this ask is not it and has many zionist red flags.

first off, jewish palestinians exist. they've existed in peace alongside christian and muslim palestinians long before isr*el was forcefully created. isr*el is a colonizer state committing genocide and has no right to exist. palestinians (including jewish palestinains) deserve human rights. palestinians (including jewish palestinains) deserve their land back.

a select few may use it with antisemitic connotations because they're antisemitic (thats a reflection on the person, not the phrase) but from the river to the sea is not antisemitic and has never been antisemitic. it's a call for palestinian freedom and liberation. (another source) so it makes me ask, why do you, an unaffected person by the genocide of palestinians, feel aggression for a call for their freedom?

addin on isr*el has never been a safe place for jewish people especially jewish people of colour, holocaust survivors (another source), queer jewish people, and antizionist jewish people.

it was not the biggest. the biggest was with the use of isr*aeli weapons.

it was not a genocide.

additionally, the death count from the 7th was 695 Isr*eli civilians and some of which were friendly fire. that's another propaganda fact that isr*ael likes to inflate.

adding on to that, IOF has killed its own hostages numerous times. (another source, another source) and they refuse to accept any deals which would get their hostage back much to the anger of the hostages' families.

since you want to mention hamas please don't forget that the IOF are terrorists and were formed by terrorist groups a lot of people seem to forget that.

and more relevant links:

tikkunolamresistance (highlighting that they do anti-zionist torah studies on pateron if any of my jewish moots are interested!)

jewish voice for peace

if not now

jews against white supremacy

jewish anti zionist history

jewish anti zionist history 2

anti-zionist/diasporist judaica roundup!

books and documentaries mostly by arab and anti-zionist jewish people

"basic resources for anti-zionist jews who feel really alone and want to connect with each other or with our culture or history"

edgar morin

matt bernstein

sim kern - "do jews have some unique and special need and right to maintain a theocratic ethnostate?"

anita zsurzsan

isr*elism

+ please let me know if anyone needs more i follow so many antizionist jewish advocates!

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vivi826 · 8 months

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Playboy Soup Origins

Edo Playboy:

Despite how old this manga is, it’s interesting how the overall plot is something that can still be seen in media today. The story of a rich boy trying to pretend to be something he’s not is nothing new, and it’s fascinating how even back then characters like this were seen as stooges and idiots, similar to now.

Another interesting point of this reading is how it explores how widespread and popular love stories became in Japan during the Edo period. Although the story discusses it in a light-hearted way, it’s true that several young people were influenced by suicide love stories and in turn took their own lives. If I remember correctly from when I took Professor Smith’s Japanese Culture class, the problem was so severe that performances were being censored. Because of nuances like this, I can imagine how funny this comic must have been when it was originally made.

In the Soup:

I enjoyed this reading less than the previous one, but it was still interesting. I particularly liked how the story included characters from other famous stories and put them in the same world so to speak. It was basically a crossover story which I find funny considering you see that in movies made today. But overall the use of well-known and important parts of Japanese culture integrated into one setting makes this an interesting reading.

Kern Origins:

I like how this reading addressed the arguments that attempt to link what we currently view as manga to Edo-period comics like the kibyoshi. For someone who simply looked at Edo Playboy and compared it with manga, it would be an easy mistake to relate the latter as being the evolution of the former. But this reading tackles that by correctly saying that this is an overgeneralization and not accurate to say the first manga authors looked to the Kibyoshi for inspiration. The reading also explained why people may have done this in the first place, as a way to legitimize the art. Overall I like how this reading explains in detail how transhistorical essentialism occurs and how they work.

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wlw-lovestruck-fiction · 1 year

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This seems weird..but Inez fluff please??

Written by: Squirrel

Due to Inez being a triggering character for some, this fic will be under the cut - The Mods

In the wake of Valentine’s day MC and Inez were still enjoying each other’s gifts.

Inez had gotten MC some emerald earrings, which MC is fairly sure conceal a tracking device. MC had gotten Inez a book and a polaroid camera. The book acts as both a scrapbook for the polaroid photos and gives prompts for cute dates. While enjoying the date the idea is that the couple snaps a picture and immortalizes the memory.

So far Inez hasn’t been available for a single photo. With a big deadline coming up for her book MC has seen her almost exclusively when she crawls into bed in the small hours of the morning or sometimes emerges from her study to eat.

To help pass the time MC has been furthering her art career. With Inez’ connections there’s no shortage of customers.

Inez made sure MC has her own workspace. The area is the artist’s perfect balance of an organized mess. Stuck to the middle of her blank canvas is a sticky note.

Meet me in the library.

MC takes the note and has to refrain from running through the halls. While she admires Inez’ handwriting, she thinks back to when they first met. It was the first thing she ever said to Inez. She’d complimented her handwriting. Specifically her kerning.

At the door MC finds all the lights off and the fireplace burning. She creeps inside slowly, looking around. Firelight casts dancing shadows over everything and paints the entire room in warmth. All the old brass finishings and varnished furniture glitters in the light in contrast to the dull covers of the books on the shelves.

“You came.”

Inez smiles warmly, a pile of pillows and folded sheets in her arms. She stoops to kiss MC who stands on her toes just a little. MC loves seeing Inez’ smile knowing she is basically the only person who gets to see it. Anyone else Inez smiles at gets a hollow expression that doesn’t reach her eyes and lacks any and all emotion. That’s if she even feels the need to fake smile at them.

“What is this? I thought your book was due tonight?”

“It is. But I’m not about to type eighty pages in two hours only to have them throw it back in my face. I’m one of their most important clients, they’ll just have to wait. You are more important.”

Warm blossoms through MC’s chest and she feels light on her feet.

“I love you.”

“I love you more.”

Inez rounds the couch and goes to the fireplace where she’s amassed several chairs from the dining room and more blankets and pillows. Sitting in the middle of it all is the date book and the camera.

“I’m not one for spontaneity so I found one of the prompts we could do at home. Just you and me. When you showed me the book originally you seemed particularly fond of this one. I took note.”

By now MC has resigned herself to this. Inez is still reclusive. She’s still eccentric. Now she’s more paranoid than ever, expecting the Poppy to return and try to steal MC away.

But, Inez’ obsession with her also has its perks. MC never wants for anything. Inez has memorized all her favorites. Favorite restaurants, movies, songs, colors, fashion trends, important dates, even the specific brands of paint and oil pastels she prefers. Remembering this one little detail is not uncommon, Inez remembers all the little details when it comes to MC.

As they begin constructing the fort MC has an idea. It’s liable to end in defeat, but it’ll be worth it. She suppresses a smile when Inez looks at her. Upon seeing MC’s expression Inez looks at her again. In fact she’s staring now.

“What?”

“Why are you smiling?” Inez murmurs warily.

“I’m not smiling.”

“Your eyes are smiling,” Inez says, “What are you hiding?”

“Nothing,” MC smiles openly. She grabs a pillow in her hand and steps closer. Just as she anticipated Inez will never turn down the chance for a kiss and as soon as her eyes are closed MC strikes, clobbering her with a pillow and sending her stumbling onto the couch.

MC’s silvery laugh fills the quiet space while Inez tries to collect her wits and figure out what hit her. Time stretches on. Inez’ eyes are still wide as saucers and she’s splayed awkwardly on the couch. Seeing this MC laughs harder, doubling over with the force of her mirth only to be grabbed from behind.

“Inez-! No-!” MC gasps out breathlessly as fingers flutter at her sides, turning her to a squirming, giggling mass.

Inez�� voice is right beside MC’s ear, purring, “You really thought that would have no consequence?”

“Uncle! Uncle!” MC is on the floor now, still trying to wiggle free. Inez straddles her waist, reveling in her victory.

“Why should I show mercy? I’m winning.”

Finally remembering the pillow in her hand MC makes a wild swing, missing Inez almost entirely. Having missed she swings again. This time Inez grabs at the pillow. With the two of them wrestling over the ‘weapon’ it comes as no surprise when they’re showered in a fine dusting of feathers.

Inez leans a hand on either side of MC’s head, looking down at her with a mix of adoration and slight annoyance. She leans down to kiss her, slowly and deeply. One of her hands moves to MC’s waist, stroking back and forth with her thumb while her eyes soften.

“You have no idea how happy you make me.”

“I might.”

“I’ll be happier when I don’t find any feathers in my hair.”

MC smiles and takes a feather, tucking it behind Inez’ ear.

#answered #anonymous #women of lovestruck #lovestruck #queen of thieves #queen of thieves inez #inez x mc #fluff #fluffy #miscellaneous monday

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reviewsthatburn · 1 year

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I started a re-read of A FAR WILDER MAGIC by Allison Saft and realized pretty quickly this time around that Wes Winters has dysgraphia.

He can speak well and easily, but has trouble with writing.

Wes knows he possesses some innate magic, a type of enchantment more banal than alchemy. When he speaks, people listen. And while that gift has landed him all his apprenticeships, it’s done nothing to help him keep them. Once he fails a single written exam, he can see the vindication in his instructors’ eyes, like they’ve been waiting for him to confirm their suspicions. They always say the same thing: I should’ve known better than to take a chance on you. It’s obvious what they mean by that gritted-out “you,” even if they never come out and say it. Banvishman.

Directions, especially when spoken aloud, are pointless and meaningless.

[The man] leans on the handle of his rake. “You lost? You won’t find any hotels this way.”

“No, sir. Not lost, sir.” Not exactly, anyway. Wes prays he doesn’t try to give him directions. They’ll inevitably slip through his mind like water through a sieve. The difference between right and left often escapes him. “Just on my way to my teacher’s house.”

He also has very little sense of direction or where he is, even in a place he knows pretty well.

He carefully navigates through the tangle of ferns that separates him from the road. His sense of direction has always been terrible, but he’s walked this route countless times already—so often he thinks he could find the way back to the manor blindfolded. But as he approaches the path, he swears the trees have uprooted themselves into some new formation. Everything looks unfamiliar, and the redwoods towering above him regard him hostilely from on high.

His handwriting is terrible, and basically illegible to Maggie (the other main character).

Margaret ducks underneath the counter and into the back office. She unfolds the paper as carefully as she can, but her wet hands are trembling with cold and nerves. When she finally manages to peel it open, what she sees dismays her. Moisture has smudged the ink, and even if she could read it clearly, his handwriting is abysmal. Is that a nine or a six? A one or a seven?

His handwriting, in addition to being generally illegible, doesn’t follow orderly lines nor regular kerning.

Wes’s notes are scrawled in tottering handwriting without any semblance of order, slanting and sideways and starred at random. His thoughts seem to launch off like a hound unleashed for the chase.

The first time I read A FAR WILDER MAGIC, I appreciated how Wes was similar to me. It’s nice to re-read knowing why.

It’s also a well-done example of a character having a disability (in this case, a learning disability) without it being the point of the story. That he keeps failing out of apprenticeships (due to issues in written exams) is very important to kicking off the plot, but it’s not a book all about dysgraphia once it gets going. It’s important to him as a character, but there’s no narrative about fixing how he is or anything.

#dysgraphia #a far wilder magic #allison saft #wes winters

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ausetkmt · 1 year

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It Could Cost $21 Billion to Clean Up California’s Oil Sites, Study Finds

For well over a century, the oil and gas industry has drilled holes across California in search of black gold and a lucrative payday. But with production falling steadily, the time has come to clean up many of the nearly quarter-million wells scattered from downtown Los Angeles to western Kern County and across the state.

The bill for that work, however, will vastly exceed all the industry’s future profits in the state, according to a first-of-its-kind study published Thursday and shared with ProPublica.

“This major issue has sneaked up on us,” said Dwayne Purvis, a Texas-based petroleum reservoir engineer who analyzed profits and cleanup costs for the report. “Policymakers haven’t recognized it. Industry hasn’t recognized it, or, if they have, they haven’t talked about it and acted on it.”

The analysis, which was commissioned by Carbon Tracker Initiative, a financial think tank that studies how the transition away from fossil fuels impacts markets and the economy, used California regulators’ draft methodology for calculating the costs associated with plugging oil and gas wells and decommissioning them along with related infrastructure. The methodology was developed with feedback from the industry.

The report broke down the costs into several categories. Plugging wells, dismantling surface infrastructure and decontaminating polluted drill sites would cost at least $13.2 billion, based on publicly available data. Adding in factors with slightly more uncertainty, like inflation rates and the price of decommissioning miles of pipeline, could bring the total cleanup bill for California’s onshore oil and gas industry to $21.5 billion.

Meanwhile, California oil and gas production will earn about $6.3 billion in future profits over the remaining course of operations, Purvis estimated.

Compounding the problem, the industry has set aside only about $106 million that state regulators can use for cleanup when a company liquidates or otherwise walks away from its responsibilities, according to state data. That amount equals less than 1% of the estimated cost.

Taxpayers will likely have to cover much of the difference to ensure wells are plugged and not left to leak brine, toxic chemicals and climate-warming methane.

“These findings detail why the state must ensure this cost is not passed along to the California taxpayer,” state Sen. Monique Limón, a Santa Barbara Democrat who has written legislation regulating oil, said in a statement. “It is important that the state collect funding to plug and abandon wells in a timely and expeditious manner.”

Representatives of the state’s oil regulatory agency, the California Geologic Energy Management Division, did not respond to ProPublica’s request for comment on the report’s findings.

Rock Zierman, CEO of the California Independent Petroleum Association, an industry trade group, said in a statement that companies spent more than $400 million last year to plug and clean up thousands of oil and gas wells in the state. “This demonstrates their dedication to fulfilling their obligations and mitigating the environmental impact of their operations,” he said.

Fees on current oil and gas production will offset some of the liabilities, but they’re nowhere near enough to address the shortfall quantified by the new report.

“It really scares me,” Kyle Ferrar, Western program coordinator with environmental and data transparency group FracTracker Alliance, said of the report’s findings. “It’s a lot for the state, even a state as big as California.”

Industry in Decline

High oil prices have translated to huge profits for the industry in recent years, but Carbon Tracker’s report found that’s likely to be short-lived. Only two drilling rigs were operating in the state at one point this year, meaning few new wells will be coming online, and more than a third of all unplugged wells are idle.

Judson Boomhower, an environmental economist and assistant professor at the University of California, San Diego who has studied California’s oil industry, said there are inherent uncertainties in estimating future oil revenues. For example, one variable is how quickly the country shifts from internal combustion engine vehicles to electric. But, he said, Carbon Tracker’s estimates for environmental liabilities track with his research.

“It’s a state in the twilight of its production period, and that means big liabilities,” Boomhower said. He added that now is the time for regulators to prevent companies from offloading their wells to “thinly capitalized firms” unable to shoulder the cleanup.

As ProPublica reported last year, the major oil companies that long dominated in California and have the deep pockets necessary to pay for environmental cleanup are selling their wells and leaving the state, handing the task to smaller and less well-financed companies.

Roughly half of the wells drilled in California have changed hands through sales and bankruptcies since 2010, according to data Ferrar analyzed.

Smaller companies are often one bankruptcy away from their wells being orphaned, meaning they’re left to taxpayers as companies dissolve. The Biden administration recently committed $4.7 billion in taxpayer funds to plug orphan wells.

And the industry’s environmental liabilities in California are far bigger than Carbon Tracker’s report quantifies.

Purvis only included environmental liabilities associated with onshore oil and gas production. Billions of dollars more will be needed to plug offshore wells, remove rigs and reclaim artificial islands used for drilling off the coast of Long Beach, Ventura and Santa Barbara.

Additionally, the report did not quantify the emerging risk of “zombie wells,” which were plugged years ago to weaker standards and are likely to leak if they aren’t replugged. That’s an expensive endeavor, as the average cost to plug one well in California — to say nothing of cleaning up surface contamination — is $69,000, according to Purvis’ research. But some California wells have already begun failing, including in neighborhoods in Los Angeles.

“They’re Not Going to Have Money to Do It Later”

Time is running out to rectify the funding shortfall, for example by increasing the money companies must set aside for well plugging.

Carbon Tracker’s report — using state production data and financial futures contracts on the New York Mercantile Exchange — estimated that as production declines, 58% of all future profits from drilling oil and gas in the state are likely to come over the next two years.

“We have our backs up against the wall in California right now,” Ferrar said. “If companies don’t put money towards it now, they’re not going to have money to do it later.”

Environmental policies could accelerate the industry’s decline. California voters will decide on a ballot initiative in 2024 that would reinstate large buffer zones between communities and oil wells, limiting drilling.

Purvis said acting quickly to plug wells would also “stimulate economic activity” and help smooth the transition for oil and gas workers who stand to lose well-paying jobs in the shift away from climate-warming fossil fuels. Spending large sums to plug old wells would create short-term employment for oil field workers.

As California faces the consequences of its failure to quickly clean up aging oil and gas infrastructure, there are likely several million more wells around the country that are either low-producing or already orphaned and will soon need to be decommissioned.

“California’s going to be a test case or the leading edge of this,” Boomhower said. “This same problem is eventually going to manifest everywhere.”

#czlifornia #epa #environmental disasters #oil wells #plug oil wells in california #It Could Cost $21 Billion to Clean Up California’s Oil Sites #Study Finds

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thecyrulik · 2 years

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W 2022 roku na moim blogu pojawiło się 1337 postów

O 250 postów więcej niż w 2021!

30 utworzonych postów (2%)

1307 zreblogowanych postów (98%)

Najczęściej reblogowane blogi:

@ceph-the-writing-spook

@afrosarah

@trupowieszcz

@vjecitiapril

@centimetri

900 moich postów w 2022 miało tagi

Tylko 33% moje posty nie miały tagów

#vampires – 120 postów

#cats – 46 postów

#vampire whump – 23 posty

#my chemical romance – 20 postów

#bats – 18 postów

#song for the asking – 17 postów

#disco elysium – 17 postów

#pathologic 2 – 17 postów

#the c the c the open c – 15 postów

#gerard way – 14 postów

Longest Tag: 137 characters

#and then i have the weirdest post-story hangover ever because the story was so good and so weird and so unlike what i thought it would be

Moje najpopularniejsze posty w 2022:

Nr 5

Writing Masterlist

I was pressured into being an organized human being in at least one facet of life, so now it's everyone else's problem. Behold!

Blue Monday (Egon and Simon story)

A workaholic vampire finds a human that's perfect for regular snacking, the human isn't a fan of that but he's not really the decision maker here. Cue months or years of them figuring out a compromise.

Cross-posted on AO3

Blue Monday (first chapter created, takes place years after the rest of the story)

House Visit

Second First Meeting

The Realization

Dinner Time

Pluto's Not A Real Planet (Pluto's Not A Real Human)

BBU, deals with universe-typical violence, non- and dubcon etc

Pluto's Punishment

Close To The Heart

Fun Swamp Vacation (a.k.a. Nicodem Kern's Tormentous Nightmare)

Fanfic story to @whumpy-writings's Of Vampires And Men story, can be read separately but her stories are sooo cool you should give them a try!

An insolent soldier in a vampire army is sent with some important papers through the enemy's lands. Accompanied by a vampire kid, their human bloodbag and a mule with Opinions, they suffer through the unfriendly swamps, surrounded by the enemy and plagued by all kinds of misfortunes.

Setting Forth

Deep

Once

Leash

The Purring Vampire Story (Kosta)

Extracting Venom

Morning Surprise

Feeding Time

A Visitor

43 notki (opublikowane w 22 lutego 2022)

Nr 4

Last Line Tag

Rules: write the latest line from your WIP and tag as many people as there are words in the line

Make a new post, don’t reblog! Tagged by: @whumpy-writings

If only she knew, he thought and shivered for the last time before sleep finally got a hold of him.

Tagging: @hold-him-down @peachy-panic @afrosarah @orchidscript @ceph-the-writing-spook and everyone who feels like it - the sentence is too long to tag adhering to the rules

84 notki (opublikowane w 19 stycznia 2022)

Nr 3

Morning Surprise

Here's a continuation of Yet Another Purring Vampire story. Our poor little creechur keeps having a terrible time at the hunters' little settlement. In case anyone was wondering: the setting is mostly Earthlike in the 60s - they loved doing morally dubious experiments at that time so it seemed fitting.

CW: burning, captivity, vampires, blood, torture, discussion of experimenting, reluctant whumper, sentient creature treated like an animal (I'd call it dehumanization but Kosta isn't a human, after all)

Matt Morgan wasn’t exactly what you’d call a kind man. He wasn’t noble, and he wasn’t too generous either. And God knew he had every reason to hate the creatures that killed his wife, his sister, his fathers and one of his daughters, that much was obvious. Still, there were borders he tried not to cross. And right now he felt awfully close to one of those borders. He thought about the leech screaming like it was in agony when he pulled out its fang, when he punctured its lung, when he held it down for Dr Taylor, or when he watched it have its venom drained. He didn’t feel sorry for the beast, no. He still thought it inhumane to treat a thinking creature like that.

That’s why he ran towards the vampire’s cage as soon as he heard its screaming. It was such a miserable sound, Matt couldn’t help but feel a little bad for the vampire despite his general sentiment towards its kind. The beast was squirming now and then, trying to crawl the wall to escape the sun, obviously failing. Its struggles made everything worse.

“Hey! Stop moving so much, you’re not helping yourself!” he said, but the vampire didn’t look like it heard him through its pained gasps and whines. “Damn. Stay here, I’ll get something to shade you,” he added, aware that his command was a stupid one, as the vampire couldn’t go anywhere anyway.

He rushed to the hunters’ storeroom and frantically searched for a piece of cloth big enough it could cover most of the cage. It only took him a moment and he almost ran back to the miserable beast that was already shrieking – and in doing that, waking the whole village, it seemed – and threw the white cloth over the cage’s roof. The screams eased down as he walked around it, pulling it higher and unfolding the edges so it would cover more area.

The sounds the vampire was making as he was done with sunproofing the cage were more keening than blood-curdling, but it was still an awful noise. Matt wondered about throwing the last piece to the vampire so it could wrap itself in it just as the fucking doctor appeared out of nowhere.

“What the fuck did you do?”

“Someone forgot about making sure the vampire wouldn’t burn to a crisp, so I covered the cage a little. Just take a look, it’s pretty fucked up.”

He leaned back and pulled the cloth away a little so they could both look at the creature sobbing and muttering on the ground. It flinched when a ray of early sunlight caught its bare foot again, so Matt pulled the material back.

“Well shit, it looks bad.”

“Obviously it looks bad, the sun burns them! But I wanted to know how bad while it’s still fairly well-fed, you dumb brute! Experiments are supposed to be done in set conditions and now I don’t know how long it was really exposed to the sun and the whole test is ruined,” the doctor explained, his voice dripping with disdain.

“Well, try a warning next time, then. Ungodly shrieks like that aren’t what we need here in the early morning,” Matt sneered as he considered the doctor’s words. His explanation made little sense. Weren’t scientists supposed to supervise their experiments? Taylor was nowhere to be found as the sun rose and started burning the leech, which was suspicious to say the least.

Still, the hunter said nothing. The last thing he wanted was to be accused of being too soft on vampires. He just pretended to listen as Dr Taylor grumbled for a little while about how his experiment was ruined and how he had to wait now until the vampire healed to start anew. He checked on the creature, still curled up, its arms and legs twitching in pain, but the noise coming from its mouth was much quieter, which Matt considered a good sign.

Finally the doctor was done complaining and simply left without a word of goodbye. Matt figured it would be okay for him to let the beast heal for now, given how Dr Taylor wanted it in good condition for ‘experiments’, whatever those were.

He slipped under the cloth covering the cage yet again. The vampire was just a trembling mess in the far end of the cage. The white material was far from opaque, so the beast was still burning slightly, but it seemed not to care much now that it wasn’t actively being set on fire. The whimpering was barely audible, actually.

“Here, bloodfuck. Cover yourself up,” Matt said as he threw the last piece of cloth at the vampire. It raised its head, staring at Matt with pure hatred. After noticing what was being thrown at it, it moved suddenly, much faster than the hunter anticipated it to. He stared in morbid curiosity as it curled up yet again, wrapped in white sheets slowly darkening with burnt skin bleeding slowly. The hunter felt a subconscious urge to pull out his gun despite the vampire being in such a terrible state. It couldn’t hurt him right now, that much was obvious, but still. He knew too well how an angry or pained vampire might wreak havoc on its surroundings.

The leech grabbed the cloth tight, wrapping itself as much as it could and curling up on the ground. It raised its head to stare at Matt and for a moment the hunter saw something like gratitude in the monster’s eyes. Its expressions were hard to understand, given the muzzle, but it seemed that it appreciated the material partly protecting it from sunlight. The hatred was gone and the beast seemed to be just lonely and miserable, and not particularly dangerous anymore.

He thought about grabbing the key to the cage. He knew where they kept it, and the vampire was obviously not a threat, charred and miserable as it was now. He worried about seeming too soft about the bloodfuck, yes, but if anyone was allowed to hate the vampires with the hatred he felt, it was Matt.

But there was no point in getting inside either way. If he wanted it hurt, all he had to do was to pull the sheets down again. If he wanted to help it – and why the fuck would he want to do that? – he already did much more than the vampire could hope for. Surely it knew it wouldn’t be getting out of here alive, right?

He stared at the creature bundled up on the ground. It seemed not to move at first, but looking closely, he saw fine shivers passing through its whole body. The now-familiar purring sound started again, the vampire quite obviously trying to self-soothe and calm itself down, results of that rather unclear. The smell of burnt skin was still quite intense and Matt wanted to leave, but the sight of this dangerous beast he was raised to hate captivated him. He thought about Dr Taylor and his experiments. The venom extraction made sense – it served as a pretty strong drug, working better than any chemical the weird doc had in his lab. Defanging the creature could only make things safer for them, too. But as much as he tried to convince himself he didn’t care, it was one thing to hunt vampires and another one entirely to keep them caged and tortured. There was also the audacity of keeping a dangerous beast like that, in the middle of their village. The men who raised him would never agree to such a risky thing – but they were dead now, and the doctor was basically ruling the whole settlement.

The vampire didn’t seem to realize it was being watched, its fate being pondered on. In fact, it didn’t seem like it was aware of anything beside the burns on its skin and the sun seeping through the cloth, no doubt still causing some discomfort. The purrs were constant, growing and fading slowly, occasionally interrupted with sounds that were too close to actual human sobs for Matt’s comfort. He slipped from under the cloth and pulled it back, suddenly wanting to get far enough not to hear the creature’s misery.

Tagging the vampire gang: @ceph-the-writing-spook @whumpy-writings @whumpsday @hold-him-down @deluxewhump @aswallowimprisoned @melancholy-in-the-morning @wolfeyedwitch @whump-for-all-and-all-for-whump

DM/ask to be added or removed

87 notek (opublikowanych w 13 kwietnia 2022)

Nr 2

A Visitor

Chapter 4 of The Purring Vampire Story! Poor Kosta finally has some peace and quiet, and gets comforted, too!

CW: some slight dehumanization, restraints, fear of burning, starvation, otherwise pretty mild tbh

They left him in a room with a window, of all places. It didn’t look like a cell made to hold vampires specifically, so the unfortunate souls that were here before him probably found this tiny square of the sky a small mercy. What it meant for him, though, was that he had to keep changing place all day as the patch of sunlight followed the sun’s movement. It took him 3 days to give up and become diurnal for the time being. It was better than waking up all the time and maneuvering in his tiny cell to avoid the sun.

So here he was, sleeping in the night like the humans and trying to stay awake during the day, fighting the sun-headache and playing the slowest game of chase with the bright spot on the floor. Hungry, but not starving anymore, he had all the time in the world to think about all the things that ailed him. The removed fang was budding and itched like a bitch, for example, and daylight made him feel too hot regardless of the actual temperature in the damp basement.

He curled up in the corner, his forehead touching cold metal bars, his side almost glued to the concrete wall, trying to cool down. He managed to nap despite the discomfort, though he knew it wouldn’t last. He had to move soon, to crawl his way a few feet further like the days before. It was preferable to being left outside with only some thin material to protect him – partially – from the sun, but Kosta wouldn’t hesitate to call it torture.

His musings were interrupted by the sound of light steps at the end of the corridor. A door creaked and closed with a soft thud. The steps slowly got closer, and with them a quick heartbeat and a human smell. No metallic stink of guns, though, just plain human blood smell. This one was… green, like a barley field in May, growing but far from ripe.

“Oh. Wow.”

Ah, so that’s the reason the blood was unripe. A child.

“Uh, hi?” the girl stepped a little closer, still far from Kosta’s reach, but getting there.

“Hello, child.” He tried to make his words soft, but they still came out hoarse. The girl flinched, surprised.

“Oh, you can talk?” she asked, delighted surprise in her voice.

“Wh– why the hell would I not be able to talk? Do you know what I am?” Kosta was too stunned to say anything else.

“Uh, I thought you were a dog.” The girl sounded a little disappointed. “You have a dog mask. I wanted a dog for myself, and none of the other dogs can talk. And you use bad words!” She seemed thrilled by the last fact.

“Wait, what?” His voice was getting better and it looked like the girl understood him just fine with him still wearing the muzzle. “’Hell’ is a bad word for you?” Kosta snorted, which made the child pout, insulted.

“As it happens, my daddy says it’s a bad word and I can’t use it,” she explained, making it very clear undermining her daddy’s authority was not something she would stand for. She made a move towards the door.

“Wait! No, your daddy’s right, it is a bad word. I’m just very used to using bad words all the time and I forgot,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Please, come back!”

“Okay,” she huffed and returned, seemingly content with his apology. Still, she was too far for Kosta to reach her.

Reach her? What do you want to do, kill a child? She doesn’t have a key, you can’t even drink her blood with a muzzle on, you’d have to slit her throat and lick it off the floor, and still you would fail because the holes on the muzzle are too small, he chastised himself. Coming up with a strategy was difficult during daytime, his mind foggy and baffled with the encounter, so he tried to just buy some time:

“What are you doing here? How did you get downstairs?”

He tried to make his voice sound curious and not interrogative, but the girl seemed happy to chat anyway.

“Well, as it happens, I simply took the key and opened the door. I was bored.” There was an air of pride to her voice and Kosta was willing to admit she had the right to feel it.

“The key? Is it still in the door? You should bring it here, or someone will see it and know you’re here. And you shouldn’t be here, otherwise the door wouldn’t be locked, right?”

She made a face, but seemed to accept his reasoning. She ran up and down again, the key in her hands. Kosta’s heart dropped when he saw it was just the one.

“Good job,” he praised her anyway, “now you can stay here and no one will bother us and tell you to leave.”

“Why are you here? I don’t like this place. Can’t you go upstairs with me? We could play outside, it’s fun there.”

“I can’t,” he shrugged. “This–“ he shook the barred door with bound hands –“is locked.”

“Oh! I’ll tell daddy to come and let you out, then! He probably has the key!” She sounded ready to run up the stairs and get her father there, which was the last thing Kosta wanted, so he shouted “No!”

The girl almost jumped, a little scared.

Well shit, he thought, and added out loud, “I’m sorry I shouted at you. But you can’t tell your daddy you met me. First of all, you would get in trouble for being here. Second, he was probably the one who put me here, him or his friends.”

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114 notek (opublikowanych w 24 kwietnia 2022)

Mój post nr 1 w 2022

Yet Another Purring Vampire?

Hello friends and foes, recent talks about the concept of some vampires' ability to purr in various situations gave me no choice but to join with this little piece. I am unafraid to admit this is quite self-indulgent and written for a very specific audience of me and about 5 other whump blogs I saw enjoyed the concept.

Tagging at the beginning of the post so you can see what's this about quickly and decide if you care about the piece at all (also tagging some of my vampire squad and the people I know have their own purring vampire OCs - ignore as you wish): @hold-him-down (thank you for helping with this nightmare of a language) @whumpy-writings @whumpsday @deluxewhump @ceph-the-writing-spook @wolfeyedwitch - I apologize for random tags, but consider me a toddler running up to people on the street, showing them a drawing they made and were super proud of while the parent is 2 steps behind and a little embarrassed. LMK if you want off the list if I ever write part 2

MIND THE WARNINGS ON THIS ONE: mouth whump, defanging, dehumanization, restraints, forced drugging, it's not intended as torture but it is, collars, lab and med whump of sorts.

The metal parts of his cage clinking in irregular intervals have brought him onto the edge of madness. He wanted to snarl and hiss and bite at the humans who put him in his cage, who chained him and muzzled him and bound him in silver and brought misery upon him, but he couldn’t do anything.

They dragged him to gods knew where and it took ages and he wanted to snarl and hiss and snap but no one paid him any mind. The cage bumped with every other turn or change of terrain and he was as miserable as could be without being directly tortured, for now at least.

Kosta hissed as the carriage bumped and made him hit his head on the silver cage bars. Hissing didn’t help him at all, and he imagined none of the other protests would work better but he still couldn’t help himself. Maybe that way he would prove to his captors he was a thinking, intelligent being?

Heh. Hunger made him foolish and naïve, it seemed. It was obvious the hunters wouldn’t care about his thinking abilities at all. Kosta knew they all thought vampires were all half-feral beasts that killed every time they fed and left an awful mess behind. They would also do everything they could to keep thinking that way. He had no way of making them see either, especially now when they kept him starving and in pain. He’d love to drain any of them right away. If they really want a beast, he’ll show them a beast, he thought, full of simmering rage.

***

“Goddamit, Jim, pull it down, down!” the wide-shouldered man at his side shouted. Another one, Jim, whose blood smelled like fresh hay, returned to Kosta reluctantly. The vampire snarled again, struggling hopelessly against his restraints. Jim grabbed at the chain attached to a metal collar on his neck and pulled sharply. Kosta let out a strained sound, panic rising in his chest as he was being choked by the thing.

“Okay, good. Hold it down like that. I need it still for a couple of minutes,” the wide man – a doctor? A scientist of sorts? – explained, his annoyance palatable. Jim grunted somewhere under the table Kosta was lying on, and the pressure on his neck eased just a bit.

“Stay down, bloodfuck, and I won’t have to choke you again,” he said, a little out of breath. Kosta hissed, but stayed still – for now, of course.

“I don’t get it. I gave it so many sedatives it should be barely able to breathe on its own, so why is it still fighting?” The doctor seemed like he didn’t really expect an answer as he prepared… something, on a metal table next to the one Kosta was bound to. The vampire felt the slurred way his thoughts moved in his mind, so the drugs definitely worked partially. He kept still, now hoping he could make them believe he was out of it so that they’d get careless, giving him an escape opportunity.

The doctor returned to his side, strange tools in both his hands. Kosta stared with more confusion than fear as the man nodded to someone in front of him. Before the vampire realized there was another hunter at his other side – fucking wonderful, you didn’t notice a human standing next to you, for this kind of sloppiness you deserve everything they do to you – a sharp piercing pain started on the left side of his chest. He gasped, his head lifting against the metal collar, his fangs jumping out without any decision on his side. At the same moment, the doctor was pushing one of his tools inside his mouth. His fangs locked on the metal parts, and he couldn’t move his jaw at all.

“Pull it out. No point in it bleeding out on my table,” the doctor said and Kosta felt as the sharp thing was being pulled out of his chest, metal scratching on his ribs. He could barely breathe, his lung punctured, freeing the air and collapsing when deflated. Even if he didn’t have that strange metal bit in his mouth, he wouldn’t be able to say anything at all, so he just glared and tried to breathe slowly as the wound in his chest healed slowly oh so slowly.

“Ah. Lovely. Perfect access, and on the first try!” the doctor sounded disgustingly pleased with him. He leaned over Kosta’s face as he inspected the inside of his mouth. “Listen to me, vampire. I’m going to collect your venom now.”

When Kosta didn’t answer, the doctor raised his eyebrows in pleased surprise. He seemed to have forgotten the bite guard – because that’s what the metal thing had to be – or maybe he expected the vampire to snarl or hiss anyway.

“There’s two ways it can go. One, you do as I say and let it flow like a good little beastie. Two, you fight me and I drain your venom glands with a syringe.”

The vampire felt a low grumbling rising in his throat. There was some shuffling behind his head and then the young hunter’s face appeared just above him.

“What is this noise? Is it the vampire?” Jim asked with a hint of disbelief.

“What did you expect, son? It’s a beast and it wants to get free. Come on, hold its head down, I can’t see anything like this.”

Kosta felt a warm human hand push one of his shoulders down to the table just as the metal band started pressing on his throat once again. Another one – the stabber – brought a lamp that shone brightly in the vampire’s face, forcing his eyes closed for a moment.

“So how’s it gonna be?”

He growled again, sure that his sentiment was clear without words.

“We’ll see about that. Morgan, push his chin up?”

Another two hands, one on his jaw, the other one on his forehead, pulling his head back, baring his throat to the doctor. Kosta felt dread pooling in his stomach like icy water, burning and paralyzing at the same time. The man’s hands smelt of his blood, sourdough-like and warm. Kosta stopped his growling and braced for whatever was coming.

The stab of pain was white and blinding when it finally came. Kosta’s body tensed, but the drugs in his system and the hands on him kept him down and unable to escape as the doctor searched for his gland with a needle. Quiet hissing and weaker, more bearable stabs told him that the doctor found this task harder than anticipated. Every time the needle got close to his gland, he shivered and whimpered.

“Fucking finally.”

Kosta sighed with relief as he felt the change of pressure in his mouth. The pull of the syringe was uncomfortable and humiliating, but not terribly painful. He closed his eyes again and breathed a little easier. The tears stayed at bay for now.

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174 notki (opublikowane w 6 kwietnia 2022)

Zobacz Przegląd roku 2022 już teraz →

#tumblr2022 #przegląd roku #mój przegląd 2022 roku na Tumblrze #Twój przegląd roku na Tumblrze #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #this is underwhelming but also very me-like #i like it

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violence-as-a-love-language · 2 years

Text

I posted 4,378 times in 2022

That's 3,198 more posts than 2021!

96 posts created (2%)

4,282 posts reblogged (98%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@commandrogyne

@eggyleg

@crack--attack

@skullscramblies

@vesper-thejester

I tagged 3,777 of my posts in 2022

Only 14% of my posts had no tags

#wwdits - 986 posts

#our flag means death - 693 posts

#nandermo - 394 posts

#blackstede - 328 posts

#ofmd spoilers - 315 posts

#guillermo de la cruz - 300 posts

#q - 274 posts

#nandor the relentless - 255 posts

#blackbeard - 210 posts

#good omens - 206 posts

Longest Tag: 126 characters

#and he gets so many followers who keep commenting on how cute and sad it is that he's trying to hard to get his ex's attention

My Top Posts in 2022:

Gotta say, i'm getting real tired of seeing Oluwande drawn skinny in every fan art I see of him

41 notes - Posted March 24, 2022

[I.D. A picture of the book Spitfire by Maya Kern sitting on a desk /end I.D.]

Thank you @mayakern for writing a book so beefy, it should last me through most of my top surgery recovery lol. I just got it yesterday and I'm excited to dive in once I get some sleep.

64 notes - Posted May 18, 2022

Rewatching Dimension Jump and wow, its so fascinating to see Ace's arrival for two reasons now.

1) While Ace is more successful and lusted after, he's still not very secure in his sexuality. He keeps playing up how macho he is and making references to not 'being a sissy.' He's still a repressed version of Rimmer and thats so fascinating to me, since you'd think he would have gotten more secure in his sexuality considering.

2) Rimmer immediately starts insinuating Ace is queer in multiple (obviously degrading) ways because he feels threatened by him. But considering Ace is, well, him, it makes the situation all the more telling. And Kryten confronts him on this, but doesn't get to finish pointing this out to him, which I think is such a shame.

As a bonus, its even more funny to me that Ace immediately becomes best friends with Lister. Like, I want a fic where Lister tries to get with Ace to make Rimmer jealous, only to find Ace is just as repressed as Rimmer.

102 notes - Posted February 26, 2022

Ace and Rimmer are both so similar. Yeah, Rimmer is extremely bitter and insecure, but Ace is just as insecure. He just swung the other direction to complete selflessness.

He has no concept of care for his own well being. Hell, Lister mentions he's fuckin up for 36 hours with a broken arm (which he still hasn't taken care of), fresh off of Cats surgery, and he's teaching Kryten to play the piano.

This man wants so terribly to be liked and loved he will never put his own happiness first. Everyone else comes first. Yeah, he may be a 'hero,' but at what cost?

120 notes - Posted February 26, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Okay I'm gonna make this it's own post cause it's important.

Good Omens, WWDITS, and OFMD are all queer rep. But I really do think the main reason why ofmd feels the most 'real' for some people is it scratches a particular itch a lot of people on Tumblr have been trying to get for years.

Good Omens has two characters who appear to be men. Both characters spend thousands of years pining after each other and falling in love, but it's not 'explicitly states' not is there a kiss. There is rep for nonbinary folks, AroAce folks, but it's not 'gay.' The rep is purely 'queer.'

What We Do in the Shadows has a romance between two men. Both, while confirmed to be gay/bi, have not kissed or hugged or been 'romantic' on screen. They've been intimate and have had arcs to show care, jealously, and whatnot but nothing very romantic. At least, not from a classic standpoint. The creators are pushing a 'will they/won't they' arc. This is normal in many TV shows, but for many queers who are used to queerbaiting, the expectation is to be let down. Even if all the signs point to 'they will' it still hits that traumatic 'queerbaiting' tone for many.

Our Flag Means Death has a romance between not only two men, but a side romance between two men that has a kiss scene. The two main leads are romantic towards each other. But not only that, the creator has made it explicitly clear this is a romance. He has pushed again and again that this will happen, it's just a slow burn. There is explicit 'gay' rep on screen and promised future 'gay' rep.

The reason ofmd resonates is because of what other posts have pointed out. Supernatural, Merlin, Sherlock; over and over two men have been shipped together with such fervor, it feels like a betrayal when it's ignored. Or teased and then ignored. We don't want to be traumatized again.

But also, they all represent one type of rep. Romantic, gay rep of two cishet men finding love. Even though in the case of Destiel, Cas is rarely viewed as anything but a cis man (even though that's very not true). The expectation that those previous failures are being redeemed by this one show can make the queer rep in other shows seem less desirable.

Good Omens, WWDITS, and OFMD are three different types of queer rep, but ofmd has a specific trauma reaction being healed tied to it. And it's okay to recognize that, but also, it needs to be recognized that does not take the queerness away from other shows.

None of these shows are queerbaiting. Acknowledge your trauma and enjoy them all for what they are, not what you want them to be.

3,016 notes - Posted March 23, 2022

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#year in review #I have no idea what that longest tag is for #Wwdits being my main tag doesn't surprise me tho

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