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storiesbyrhi · 7 months

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Witch!Reader x Bat/Vampire!Eddie Munson Series Masterlist The Grimoire The Timeline

Warnings: canon typical violence, horror genre typical violence/some infrequent gore, swearing, animal death, no beta, death in childbirth (mentioned, not described), abusive parents, suicide, warnings updated each chapter.

Synopsis: No witch has stepped foot in Hawkins since 1845, but when Vecna opens the ground and poisons the town, a voice begins to call to you. Have you been brought back to this cursed place to heal the townspeople’s wounds, to save a hexed bat that always finds its way to you, or to redefine your history with a reunion 150 years in the making?

Chapter Summary: Before death. 3170 words.

1986

Led Zeppelin.

Talking Heads.

Public Enemy.

The Grateful Dead.

Brian Eno.

The Clash.

Metallica.

New Order.

N.W.A.

The Cure.

Tori Amos.

Black Sabbath.

Cat Stevens.

Patti Smith.

Fleetwood Mac.

There were a lot of cassettes in your car. Eddie looked through them with interest. Some were store bought, their original sleeves intact, and some were mix tapes you’d made yourself.

“This is the more modern stuff. It’s easy to fall behind when you live so many lifetimes. So, I try to update what I’m listening to every decade. This is mostly 1970s and 80s,” you told him.

“Where shall we begin?”

“With hair like yours… Metallica?”

Key turned in the ignition, you ran the car and pushed the cassette into the player. Fight Fire with Fire began, the first few bars melodic and calm. Then, it kicked in. Eddie flinched at the noise, surprised but not alarmed.

He leaned forward, like he was trying to decode something hidden deep within the music. Slowly, a wide grin crept across his face. He snapped to face you. “What is this?” he demanded in pure delight.

“This is music,” you replied with a casual shrug. “Specifically, this type is called metal,”

“I like it.”

Eddie looked like he was going to cry when For Whom the Bells Tolls played. Like the guitar riff and gothic sound effects were going to heal the undead body he lived in. Fade to Black made the vampire melt into his seat. He laughed then held a hand out to you. You took it, letting him thread his fingers through yours.

“I do not know what happened to me. But if it was the only path I could have taken to being here in this… car… with you and this music, then I am glad I took it,” Eddie said, closing his eyes before you could respond with expression or word.

You watched him for a moment. Something about him like this – relaxed, weird, beautiful – made you want to squeeze him. Dig your nails in. Bite to test for firmness. It was muscle memory, you realised. Your mind didn’t know Eddie, didn’t remember him, but your body acted as though she’d been by his side forever. It was too easy.

“Since we’re already in the car, should we go get you some more appropriate clothes? Maybe some other supplies too?”

One of the large neighbouring towns had a Walmart that had just been built, and it boasted 24/7 opening hours.

Eddie opened his eyes and cocked his head. “Little witch, are you attempting to court me?”

You laughed. “Are you asking me if I’m asking you on a date?”

“A date,” Eddie repeated. He was a quick study. “Little witch, are you asking me on a date?”

He expected you to blush or groan with denial. The anticipation of your reaction was written all over his face. You’d not play into his trap so easily. Instead, you shrugged and casually replied, “What if I am?”

Eddie couldn’t control his face entirely; his eyebrows shot up and he smiled. “Then ask,”

“Eddie the unhexed, my mortal enemy, will you accompany me on a date to Walmart?”

…

1587

At the age of twenty, Edward felt old. Although he had only graduated from his teenage years days earlier, as he stood on The Lion’s deck face to face with the Atlantic Ocean, he was weary.

His mother had died in childbirth, which was not uncommon. The world hadn’t begun to record statistics on such occurrences, but all things averaged, eighteen of every hundred women would perish before the birth day of their baby was done. Likely, it was much more.

Edward’s father looked at him like he was the murder weapon of his wife, life-taking and constantly reflecting a bloody image back at him. He treated his son worse. Not as a loaded pistol or sharpened axe, but as a contagion. The plague or measles. Typhoid or smallpox. Something that elicited disgust, a disease to rid himself of at the very first chance.

Edward was sold to a farmer at age seven, destined to a life of hard labour and loneliness.

However, Edward was a fighter. He fought the conditions of his gory birth. The miserable childhood. And the farmer’s distrust of him around his daughter, Lizzy.

He didn’t have eyes for Lizzy. He kept his head down, tended to the animals, worked the land, and waited to be released from his workman’s contract. For eleven years, the farmer underfed Edward. He staved off malnutrition through the kindness of the farmer’s wife, the only person the farmer treated worse than Edward.

He was beaten and broken in, the subject of the farmer’s displaced rage at not fathering any sons of his own.

On the morning of his eighteenth birthday, Edward stood at his post expectedly. The contract was done. He had earned his freedom. Perhaps there would be an offer of legitimate farm work, which Edward would decline regardless. Perhaps a parting gift of a letter of recommendation. Perhaps simply a nod of acknowledgment. But nothing came.

He knew better than to go inside the family house, but by mid-morning, Edward couldn’t shake the feeling something was wrong. Slowly, quietly, he crept in. Lizzy had grown up and left the farm, but there still should have been the noise of the wife.

The quiet was worse in some rooms than others. Edward followed the silence to the study.

The farmer was sitting in the corner of the room, curled up as if he weren’t the God-fearing iron-fisted master of the house. His rifle was held under his chin, ready for suicide.

The wife was sprawled out on the floor, eyes open and fixed on the ceiling, bleeding from somewhere Edward could not immediately see.

“Is she dead?” the farmer asked.

Edward didn’t move.

“This is your fault, boy… Look what you made me do.”

It didn’t matter that it wasn’t Edward’s fault. A second dead mother would haunt him.

The gun went off, Edward flinched, half expecting to feel the bullet pierce through his body. His eyes were screwed shut and he was terrified to open them. He stood in the void of unknown for an entire minute. He counted the seconds in his head, one… two…, while he tried to imagine how he could have been the catalyst for the violence.

The sight of the farmer, face torn off and entirely limp, was seared onto the lens’ of Edward’s eyes forever.

On the desk was the contract signed when he was seven. His father’s signature had faded, the sign of cheap ink. Other documents were strewn around, including some that indicated to Edward that it was a possibility the farmer had no intention of honouring the contract’s end.

Among the papers, Edward found the key to the safe that was hidden beneath the staircase. Inside was what he considered to be a small fortune, but to the farmer it was pocket money. Edward took the cash, knowing he was incriminating himself, and returned to his post. He slung his one bag over his shoulder, took a horse, and never returned.

For days, weeks, and months after, Edward sat on the cusp of calm, always expecting to be hunted down and hung for a double murder. After a year, he slipped from the cusp and into a sense of normalcy.

Edward found work in Plymouth, the port city home to enough taverns and underground establishments that he could choose between the kitchens or the brawling rings. He could butcher a pig as easily as he could take a punch. Ultimately, he earned the most when he picked up the lute and made music.

Despite landing on his feet, Edward lived in solitude, afraid that any woman he loved would meet an early death, and any man he trusted would turn on him for no reason. He went by the name Wayne, simultaneously distancing himself from his past while tying himself to it. Edward had only met his Uncle Wayne once. He had come for him when he was four, claiming that he could care better for his sister’s son than Edward’s father ever could.

When Edward was free from the farm, he considered trying to find Uncle Wayne. His father has ensured he knew nothing of the man though. He wouldn’t have known where to begin. Taking his name was all he could do.

For two years, Edward eavesdropped on the comings and goings of sailors, pirates, and kingsmen. In June of 1586, he heard of the return of ships from somewhere over the sea. They had run out of provisions. The attempt to colonise had been a failure. Next year. That’s what he had heard. Next year, they’d try again.

Edward felt, for the first time in his entire life, that he knew where he should go. The Lion’s manifest read Wayne Munson, birth 1567, and set sale on May 8 1587 with Governor White at the helm.

Sea travel was horrific. Edward was violently ill with motion sickness, his skin itched as the salt water dried on him, and he spent more time picking splinters out from under his nails than doing almost anything else. When, after two and a half months at sea, The Lion dropped anchor on the east coast of what would be come to known as North America, Edward could have kissed the earth. However, he was trying to maintain a low profile.

That is exactly how he came to learn that the violence he had been running from was an unstoppable force. In all his hope, Edward had underestimated the British’s capacity for it. When weapons were thrust into his hands at the turning of a war against the Native people of the land, Edward swallowed the stomach bile that had burst its way up into his mouth.

His mother’s death weighed heavily on him. The farmer’s wife too. Edward wasn’t a passivist, he had earned coin by beating men bloody, but he was not a killer. Certainly, he would not unjustly kill.

He thought maybe he could lie to the kingsmen, weave a story of priesthood. Here, in this new place, he would bring the holy word of God. A task the Queen herself would find more than noble. A task that could not begin with red on his ledger.

Alas, a colony of only a hundred would rely on each other. He had not the economic or social currency to show weakness. So, he fought.

Edward volunteered for any role that would take him out of the offensive lines. He went on reconnaissance trips and kept watch as others slept. He learned how to offer the most basic of medical aid, and how to sneak away from action without being missed.

It was on one of these secret trips that Edward came across a Native American who looked equally as surprised to see him. Edward had wandered off into the woodland that surrounded the colony, his weapon slung lazily over his shoulder, and his attention on the strange mushrooms growing along the forest floor.

The two men saw each other at the same time and froze in almost mirror positions.

Edward watched the man’s eyes flick to the weapon, then back to his face. He could tell he was reading him. Assessing what kind of White man Edward was. Slowly, Edward opened his hands and held them up, palms showing in a sign of submission.

“Peace,” Edward said softly.

The man took a step forward, a steely expression held firm. Edward tried not to flinch, instead offering a nod. The man came closer and closer until he could really see him. Neither of them wanted to cause the other harm. Edward knew that his individual intentions were irrelevant. He was part of a brutal regime.

In the distance, a gunshot echoed, startling both men. They ran in opposite directions, like two same-sided magnets repelling apart.

Edward told nobody of the encounter.

Just over a month later, the colonists were in a tense sort of truce with the Native Americans, but their resources were diminishing faster than they could be regenerated. They moved up the coast while the British fleet prepared to leave for England.

“If this is to be a true settlement, not a failure like Lane’s, we need provisions,” Edward listened to one of the colonists beg Governor White. It was a town meeting of sorts. “Return home. Tell them it was a mistake to come without a proper show of force. We need help.”

The fleet disappeared over the horizon near the end of August.

Within days, the knocking began.

Knock, knock.

When the sun set, a low mist would bleed out from the woodland. It came over the ocean, crossing the beach to get to the colony. Somewhere deep within it, something knocked twice, as if at a door asking for entry. They knocked on the hour, every hour until sunrise.

Knock, knock.

At first, the colony responded with a British stiff upper lip. They ignored it. They swallowed their fear. Then, when the cause for concern couldn’t be contained, they blamed the Native Americans. Except, it wasn’t how the Native Americans operated, and they hadn’t seen anyone but their own since the ships left.

Paranoia and dread set in. Superstition followed.

“What ungodly force has come for us?”

“Could it be the witches? They’re all over this land, you know!”

Edward listened to the unraveling of the people around him, but never offered his own theories or fears. Instead, one night, when the mist came in and the colony locked itself away, Edward found higher ground and watched. The mist was alive. There was simply no other conclusion to draw. It moved too quickly and appeared to have no relationship with the weather. It had a purpose. It licked around the settlement like it was hunting for something. Someone. Anyone.

Knock, knock.

Come morning, the colony’s livestock were slaughtered. Edward had stayed up all night, but he hadn’t seen it happen. There had been no devils in the mist.

Knock, knock.

The children cried and the women kept themselves busy with work. The men burned the animals’ bodies, too afraid to eat any of the meat.

Knock, knock.

The next night, Edward took his perch again. And the next. And the next. Until, a week later, they came from the darkness.

He knew that they wanted to be seen. They knocked on doors, rapped knuckles on axes left in stumps. They knocked on trees and rocks, riding the fog in.

Edward saw them and there was nothing to be done about that. He saw their human forms wear human clothes but make inhuman movements. He saw them dancing, dragging animal carcasses behind them like royal capes. He saw them, and they saw him.

The colony was ripped apart. Men, women, and children all treated with equal brutality. Edward stayed positioned in his higher ground perch, witnessing evil while he held his breath and tried not to scream. Bodies limp like rag dolls. Blood drip drip dripping into buckets when neighbours were hung from trees. Horror. Carnage. Damnation.

It almost felt like mercy, Edward thought, the moment the warmth bloomed across his neck and down his chest. He stumbled as he stood from his hiding spot. The vampire was watching him curiously. Edward held a useless hand over the bite. It was mercy that he hadn’t seen the monster coming. He hadn’t felt the pain of the injury. He could just die, easily, simply, finally.

The vampire’s face broke out into a gleeful smile, its teeth off-white and sharp.

“Filius,” it hissed. Son.

The vampires had come for misery, mostly, but they had been watching the colony. They had watched the violence leveled at the Native Americans. They picked out their favourites, like children at a petting zoo. Favourites would be turned.

Edward had never been anyone’s favourite anything, until then.

When he dropped to his knees, the vampire was crouching before him. It reached out and patted Edward, watching his skin’s colour fade. Then, it pushed him onto the ground, leering over him.

Edward could feel himself dying. It was a strange sort of fading, unlike falling asleep, and nothing like he’d have expected. His senses were somehow still sharp. The sounds of the colony being bled and burnt. The smell of death and fire. He could see it all then, when the vampire bit down hard on its own wrist, tearing a gaping wound.

“Pótó,” it said to him.

Edward didn’t understand Latin, but he knew what it was saying. Drink. He held his lips together tightly. He would not follow at the heels of a monster. Whatever it wanted with him, he would not abide.

At first, Edward’s resistance amused the vampire. It let its blood drip and dribble onto his face. It grew bored quickly, clutching Edward’s head in its hands, its nails digging in, ready to pry his jaw open.

It was a blur. A weapon. Not enough to kill a vampire, but enough to send it tumbling away from Edward’s body. He felt strong arms wrap under him, pulling him up. Someone was dragging him away, yelling in a language he didn’t understand. There was fire, arrows dipped in it. Then, there was blackness.

Edward dreamed one last time.

The mist, it had still set itself upon the colony, but it wasn’t vampires. It was the witches. They looked like his mother and the farmer’s wife. Like the girl who could carry more pints at once than anyone else in the bar. Like the kid who lived on the streets that Edward would spare more money for than he could really afford.

The witches came with spells to heal and potions that tasted like warm honey, and reminded him of something he couldn’t place. They told stories to the children and baked enchanted bread with the women. For the men, there was nothing, but they watched from the sidelines with humility.

When Edward woke, the magic was gone.

He roared in pain, shooting up and panicking when his body was entirely out of his control, raging in agony, thrashing. Hands held him down, a voice doing its best to soothe him. It wasn’t enough.

Edward’s body felt hollow, like all his organs had shrivelled up, the blood lost through the septic wound in his neck. And, like any bones left inside him had shrunk too, turned brittle and too small to let him move as he wished. His flesh burned as if he’d been roasted on a spit. Everything was pain. There was nothing else.

It took only minutes for Edward to collapse again. He was vaguely aware of his own consciousness. Vaguely able to tell he was in some sort of cave or tree hollow. Something naturally formed and sheltered. Vaguely aware of a face he recognised hovering above him. As hands tried to stop the bleeding, Edward’s eyes closed.

End Note: For the anon that suggested it - 1986 Eddie listening to metal for the first time.

A huge thank you to @jo-harrington, who models exactly what it means to be a thoughtful writer. You help me navigate the writing world.

So... Did you ever think you'd get an Eddie origin story?

Fic Taglist: @paranoidmunson @idkidknemore @paprikaquinn @stardustworlds @loz-brooke @wyverntatty @vintagehellfire @dark-academia-slut @scarletwitchwhore @becks1002 @mrsdollardog @heyndrix @luceneraium @rosaline-black @devilinthepalemoonlite @goldencherriess @iamwhisperingstars @wiltedwonderland @blueywrites @breezybeesposts @jadehowlettthewolf @spikesvamp79 @foreveranexpatsposts @tortoiseshellspells @wingedpeachjudgegiant @stardustmunson @live-love-be-unique @fangirling-4-ever @reanimated-alice @b-irock @gh0stlybunnie @myown-worstenemy-2003 @woozzz @cyberxlust @hiscrimsonangel @buckysbarne @m00nlight101 @word-wytch @spicysix @briasnow-blog @goth-cowgirl-03

All Eddie Taglist: @solomons-finest-rum @ruinedbythehobbit @sweetpeapod @thorfemmes @corrodedhawkins @grungegrrrl @lilzabob @averagemisfit03 @ches-86 @ilovecupcakesandtea @onehotgreasymechanic @hazydespair @mel-the-fangirl @eddies-hid3out @siren-lungs @aheadfullofsteverogers @hiscrimsonangel

#Mine #Burning Yarrow #Eddie Munson #Eddie Munson x You #Eddie Munson x Reader #Eddie Munson/You #Eddie Munson/Reader #Vampire!Eddie Munson #Witch!Reader

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metalheadsforblacklivesmatter · 1 year

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Things about America that would give Europeans a heart attack.

Many Americans are expected to drive AN HOUR to work every day. Europeans don't even visit their mom regularly if she lives 30 minutes away.

We measure distance traveled in time. Because sometimes driving 15 miles can take as long as driving 45 miles. How long you'll be in a vehicle is most important.

Zoning laws. Many of us actually do like to walk. Our major cities were designed by automotive lobbyists to force us to buy cars.

Food deserts. There's some places in America with literally zero grocery stores within 5 miles of your home.

Hospital bills. 1 emergency room visit can cost tens of thousands of dollars. Not to mention the $15,000 of you need an ambulance.

Mental health. You can be forced into grippy sock jail against your will. Then stuck with a bill that costs tens of thousands of dollars when you get out.

Speaking of medical bills. Credit reports. Remember that medical bill that costs tens of thousands of dollars? That goes on your credit report if you can't pay it. Which makes it harder to rent, buy a house, buy a car, or get a credit card.

Retirement. You can't get social security until you're 62 and social security isn't enough to live on. You're supposed to be saving money to retire on, on top of that. And based on your family's health history and cost of living. It's not unusual to need $1-2 million to retire. And it's not unusual for people to have to work into their 80s.

College. A hundred thousand dollars in student loan debt isn't unheard of and many Americans are never able to pay it off in their lifetime because interest is like 5-8%. Also. That goes on your credit report.

Minimum wage. I don't necessarily believe that Europeans would be shocked that minimum wage doesn't cover the cost of living here. But there's people that live here that are suprised to find out our minimum wage is $7.20. I've gotten into arguments over this, several times. If Americans don't believe it, how can I expect a European to?

Lack of public transit. Only like, major cities have public transit, and only a few of them have reliable public transit.

Lack of labor unions and union busting. Many European countries like France will go on nation wide strikes if an oligarch sneezes wrong. Companies in America will shut down business in entire states if the unions are getting too strong. Honestly I'm kinda surprised that we don't strike more.

Lack of paid vacation time. In a lot of countries 6 weeks is like normal. My last job I got none. And people legitimately didn't believe me when I said I had to work on Christmas or not get paid (yeah, it was a desk job). Again. If Americans can't believe it. Why would I expect Europeans to? Also I feel like Europeans would just die from the burnout because it's not uncommon for Americans to literally work themselves to death.

No. For real. I have people mad at me because I couldn't go to a family friend's wedding because they didn't believe I didn't have labor day off.

-fae

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kirbykonka · 27 days

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Stone Ocean things I would have liked to see, as a Floridian:

—forgetting that it’s winter because it’s literally 70 degrees. 80 degrees on Christmas isn’t uncommon but it is disappointing every time it happens

—blaming deaths on not just alligators, but also pythons (works well around the Everglades)

—the fashion sense of the characters actually isn’t that far off

—they must say “y’all”

—unless it’s in South FL you’ll be seen as a traitor

—walking outside in summer and being hit with a miasma of mosquitos and heat and moisture that will make you feel like you’re being eaten alive (because you are being eaten alive)

—hitting someone with your car is so easy with wet roads

—FL judicial system is on fleek and after all the crazy shit people do lawyers are so done with us

—strip malls. No one goes there except middle aged mothers shopping for shoes or perfume.

—The real teenage hangout place is Walmart. I am not joking. I have been there many times after school and on weekends and every single time we’d go there were other kids our age.

—we don’t even buy anything most times we just walk around

—everyone is poor af unless you’re south (Miami and the Keys)

—in Miami/Tampa/Jax or any big city people also won’t go to strip malls because there’s a 50/50 on whether or not they get shot up

—we hunt pythons seasonally since they are invasive, you can win prizes for this. I feel like Jolyne and Ermes would enjoy that hobby

—four-wheeling. More of a southern USA thing as a whole, but there are miles of open tracks to take your ATV out to. Very fun with friends where you can race and see who DOESNT stall their four wheeler in a lake

—snakes in the backyard, they’re EVERYWHERE. Could have been so easy for them to chase an albino Burmese python thinking it was White Snake 😭

—toads coming out at the beginning of spring and making every little kid so happy that they have prey again, Emporio is def a frog hunter

—when the toads are hibernating we go after lizards instead, Emporio again is def a lizard hunter

—the monkeys loose in the woods. I’ll let you research that on your own.

—thrift stores are full of winter clothing because of all the northerners who migrate down here, Weather Report must have gotten only those 💀

—you’ll know a prison is nearby because there will be a road sign saying “don’t stop for hitchhikers”

—There is no such thing as a clean beach

—marshland is more common than dirt

—“dirt” here is basically just sand there are zero minerals in it so it’s hella hard to farm

—DUST. EVERYWHERE. BUT ITS ALSO SO HOT YOULL DIE. BUT ITS ALSO WET SO YOULL MELT.

—humidity is constantly over 80%, that means you’re going to sweat no matter what you do

—and for last, the Florida man “memes” aren’t memes at all. That’s actually what people are like here. We have had kids expelled for slashing tires, we have had people arrested for driving gaming chairs, we have had snakes eat people whole.

Florida is literally hell itself.

And we are all so proud to be here.

This has been my Floridian PSA, thank you for reading 🥰

#stone ocean #jjba #jolyne cujoh #jjba jolyne #jjba weather report #jjba ermes #jjba stone ocean #jjba part 6 #jjba headcanons #stone ocean headcannons #florida #jjba memes

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saintsenara · 22 days

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for the ask game 19, 22, 26

thank you very much for the ask from the i'm not from the states ask game, anon!

now... i'm not sure if you did this intentionally or not... but these are the bag of worms questions...

19. do you like your country’s flag and/or emblem? what about the national anthem?

there are four flags [flegs] at play here [clockwise]: the union flag; the ulster banner; the st patrick's saltire; the irish tricolour flag.

in terms of aesthetics, i am sorry to say that the union flag slaps. great colour scheme. jazzy design.

but in terms of what these flags mean... well. this is northern ireland. so they all mean something sectarian. and so i would certainly say that i like the irish flag - in that i know i'm unlikely to be attacked if i'm in an area where it's flying. that is very much not the case in areas where the union flag or the ulster banner are knocking about.

do i like that this is the case? no. and while my national sympathies are considerably more irish than british, i find our flag culture both insufferable and one of the main contributors to the continuation of the sectarian divide. it's obviously a bit kumbaya to suggest that a neutral flag might make any difference... but it couldn't hurt...

in terms of the national anthems, i never have any real cause to sing any [and the sectarian context is the same] so we're going purely on which slaps the hardest:

amhrán na bhfiann [a fucking banger!!]

ireland's call [slightly cringeworthy in its earnestness, but it does bang]

god save the king [the tune is unforgivably dull, but the lyrics genuinely go really hard - especially the discontinued ones about crushing the scottish and confounding popery.]

the londonderry air [this is what we're going with? the welsh have land of my fathers and this is what we're going with?]

22. what makes you proud about your country? what makes you ashamed?

the peace process.

because my answer to the second half of this question would be enduring sectarianism - and, specifically, enduring casual sectarianism. but i am also well aware that the flippancy younger people [especially those born after 2000] speak about the sectarian divide with is something which has only been made possible by the security of peace. it's easy for the irish women's football team to sing "up the ra" when the only thing that'll happen to them is some pearl-clutching from the press and a slap-on-the-wrist fine. thirty years ago, things would have been really quite different...

the peace is imperfect. it is fragile. it has been treated with utter disregard by the british state. the extraordinary work - especially that of the british politician mo mowlam - to bring it about has faded into an easy linear story, whose stars are tony blair and bill clinton. it has not caused complete justice to be done. it has not caused sectarian violence to vanish overnight - there are stories which emerge weekly from the city in which i live about some sort of sectarian crime.

but these stories make it into the papers because they are proportionally uncommon now. and i don't think we need to lose sight of that.

i was born in the early 1990s. i was at primary school when the good friday agreement was signed. and yet, despite the relatively few years i spent in a northern ireland at war, i can still remember roadblocks and police dogs and my dad checking under the car and bomb drills and being heckled as i walked to school and having to have your bags searched before you could enter shops and my mam crying on the day the omagh bombing happened. my siblings, born in the 80s, remember these things even more viscerally. my father, born in the 1950s, remembers having guns pointed at him by british soldiers while walking down the street, or being stopped and searched on spurious grounds by the royal ulster constabulary, or a call coming in to evacuate a place before a bomb went off.

my nieces and nephews, all born after 2000, have never experienced any of this. if they are naive about the true horrors of sectarianism... then we should reflect on how lucky that makes us.

26. does your nationality get portrayed in hollywood/american media? what do you think about the portrayal?

answered here.

#asks answered #northern ireland posting

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prismatic-bell · 1 month

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Do you know if there's a video anywhere of a live performance of the extended Devil Went Down to GA? I've never seen violin strings literally smoke before. ^_^

I don’t, I’m sorry. And my mom saw him before I was born, which means sometime in the early-to-mid 1980s. The odds of a video existing are….not good. You would have needed a camcorder:

(This is a thumbnail from a YouTube video by someone named RetraCast. I found it doing an image search, but if you’re at all interested in vintage cars and retro stuff, they look like a small-ish channel that could definitely use more viewers.)

I picked this image for a specific reason: you can see the original “here are the great features this thing has!” sticker on the side. It’s three pounds and lets you play back video, which was EXTREMELY uncommon. This is a 1986 camcorder. My family got our camcorder in 1991 and it didn’t have that option (and my mom was quite the videographer).

You’d also need an extra one of these:

Because that “up to 2.75 hours” on there? Yeah, that’s a lie. My mom’s battery used to be struggling by the end of a one-hour school concert. Maybe right after you took it out of the package and charged it for the first time, but if that battery has seen any kind of use? Yeah, you’re not putting a whole concert on one of those.

….and don’t forget an extra tape.

And NOW you have to figure out how to sneak the whole thing past security, because up until extremely recently, concerts did not allow you to record. My first concert that sort-of allowed recording was Kesha, in 2011, and we were told individual songs were okay but if security saw you filming for more than 15 minutes you’d be asked to delete the footage. I followed Adam Lambert’s For Your Entertainment tour in 2009 and people filming had to turn off the camera and put it away between songs in order to meet those requirements, and Adam was actually pretty easygoing about cameras. In 2004 I went to see Cher with my mom and we stuffed a digital camera (no video capability, still images only) down my bra because I’m absolutely gigantic and I could make it disappear. A lot of other people were told to return cameras to their cars.

….WOW I didn’t intend for that to turn into a ramble about the difficulty of pre-digital recording. Sorry about that. Where I was going with that is, any unofficial video that exists is likely from after his popularity waned a bit and he started doing the county fair circuit kind of thing, where security could only keep camcorders relatively far from the stage as opposed to making sure they didn’t get in at all. My family has a couple of recordings of bands like The Beach Boys from doing stuff like this. They are….not good. Great memories, but horrible video. You’d be able to see a fiddle switch, but it’s unlikely you’d be able to see smoke or snapping. (Especially because camcorders in those days were mostly held on one shoulder. If you’ve ever seen a recording from the 80s or early 90s and wondered why it had that faint tremble from time to time, now you know. It was literally from the fatigue caused by holding up the camera.)

I DID find this interesting tidbit on YouTube, however:

youtube

Most videos I can find of Daniels playing, he’s already an old man and the song is being performed with significantly less fiddle work. This isn’t surprising—that kind of playing in your seventies is going to be hell on your hands and shoulders, if you can do it at all. But THIS video is from 1979, when he was still a young man…and you’ll notice, if you’re familiar with the song, the Devil’s section is actually SHORTER than it is in the recorded version, and Johnny’s is only played once. In theory this could have been done for time, but that seems really unlikely given how popular the song was. I think it’s far more likely that it was truncated because having to switch out fiddles mid-song would have been seen as bad form on television.

So: unfortunately, no video of the infamous smoking-strings performance. But I think the video evidence I CAN find—less fiddle as an old man when he would have been less speedy, truncated playing in early televised performances—suggests my mom was right: you might say it was a hell of a show.

#you ask nina answers

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tommy-doubterson · 7 months

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hey. What the hell.

Just for that, here's a few more.

Small is bigger than big. Tall is shorter than short. You get "on" a horse but "in" a car. "No yeah" is yes, "yeah yeah" is no, "yeah no" is no, and "no no" is yes. There is no plural for the word "you". "Queue" is 80% silent letters. You say "unbelievable" but "intolerable".

Don't fucking test me.

The English language is a mess. Here's a list of some more oddities I just looked up.

“Rhythms” is the longest English word without the normal vowels, a, e, i, o, or u.

Excluding derivatives, there are only two words in English that end -shion and (though many words end in this sound). These are cushion and fashion.

“THEREIN” is a seven-letter word that contains thirteen words spelled using consecutive letters: the, he, her, er, here, I, there, ere, rein, re, in, therein, and herein.

There is only one common word in English that has five vowels in a row: queueing.

Soupspoons is the longest word that consists entirely of letters from the second half of alphabet.

“Almost” is the longest commonly used word in the English language with all the letters in alphabetical order.

The longest uncommon word whose letters are in alphabetical order is the eight-letter Aegilops (a grass genus).

The longest common single-word palindromes are deified, racecar, repaper, reviver, and rotator.

“One thousand” contains the letter A, but none of the words from one to nine hundred ninety-nine has an A.

“The sixth sick sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick” is said to be the toughest tongue twister in English.

Cwm (pronounced “koom”, defined as a steep-walled hollow on a hillside) is a rare case of a word used in English in which w is the nucleus vowel, as is crwth (pronounced “krooth”, a type of stringed instrument). Despite their origins in Welsh, they are accepted English words.

“Asthma” and “isthmi” are the only six-letter words that begin and end with a vowel and have no other vowels between.

The nine-word sequence I, in, sin, sing, sting, string, staring, starting (or starling), startling can be formed by successively adding one letter to the previous word.

“Underground” and “underfund” are the only words in the English language that begin and end with the letters “und.”

“Stewardesses” is the longest word that can be typed with only the left hand.

Antidisestablishmentarianism listed in the Oxford English Dictionary, was considered the longest English word for quite a long time, but today the medical term pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis is usually considered to have the title, despite the fact that it was coined to provide an answer to the question ‘What is the longest English word?’.

“Dreamt” is the only English word that ends in the letters “mt”.

There are many words that feature all five regular vowels in alphabetical order, the commonest being abstemious, adventitious, facetious.

The superlatively long word honorificabilitudinitatibus (27 letters) alternates consonants and vowels.

“Fickleheaded” and “fiddledeedee” are the longest words consisting only of letters in the first half of the alphabet.

The two longest words with only one of the six vowels including y are the 15-letter defenselessness and respectlessness.

“Forty” is the only number which has its letters in alphabetical order. “One” is the only number with its letters in reverse alphabetical order.

Bookkeeper is the only word that has three consecutive doubled letters.

Despite the assertions of a well-known puzzle, modern English does not have three common words ending in -gry. Angry and hungry are the only ones.

“Ough” can be pronounced in eight different ways. The following sentence contains them all: “A rough-coated, dough-faced ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough, coughing and hiccoughing thoughtfully.

Source

I hope you like being outsmarted, English Oddities Anon.

#epprbcu #doubtables

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kinghaargrove · 10 months

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[ just dropping in with this thought Maybe more of a personal headcanon because I believe the reverse of this is “more popular”, but —

Neil Hargrove isn’t a drunk. He isn’t three sheets to the wind when he comes home banging on Billy’s door and demanding to know where Max is. There’s a steely cold and startlingly clear look in his eyes when he’s standing in Billy’s room with that boy’s back against the wall. Neil Hargrove isn’t an abusive drunk, he’s abusive sober, he makes the decision to lay violent hands on his boy and on his ex wife with perfect clarity and I think that makes it all the more terrifying for those living in that household.

That’s not to say he doesn’t drink at all. No, he almost definitely had a cup or two when he was out with Susan. He probably goes out and drinks with his friends every now and then, too. He definitely strikes me as the type to come home after work and kick up his feet and crack open a can of beer, but it’s just light and casual at home, not enough that he’d even get a buzz. Billy gets that beer from somewhere, after all. He probably started him in at like- 14? That wasn’t uncommon in the 80’s. Even in present day. A boy isn’t a man until he’s got a beer in his hands kind of mentality.

I think one of the many saddest things about Billy's situation is that - as we see daily with Billy-anti's - people will almost always take Neil's side, or take pity on Neil for having Billy for a son, because Billy acts out the way he does and nobody understands why. Because Neil isn't a drunk, because he's a hard working, conventionally handsome man, who presumably goes to church on Sunday's, because he's ex military (ask me how I know), people think very highly of him because he's got it all put together, he talks the talk, he walks the walk. He's very charming up front, but, 'oh, that Billy, it's a damn shame he is the way he is, Neil's such a good man, it must be such a struggle to raise a wild boy like him.' And nobody sees, nobody knows, and nobody fucking cares that he just put a fresh hole in the drywall with his fist next to Billy's head that night because Billy's struggling to keep up with the rigid expectations to raise his sister when he's barely (or timeline dependent, not yet even) 18 himself. Nobody knows he calls his son a f*g, or that half of the bruises on his body are from Neil and not just another high school scrap. Nobody knows how much physical and emotional abuse Billy takes, and that there's not a single day that goes by that that boy ever knows peace.

What makes things even more sad is Billy still loves his dad for some of those same reasons that everyone else does, admires him, even, because abuse isn't black and white, especially with abusers like Neil. Neil isn’t an absent father. He’s shown up for ball games when he was a kid. He probably shows up to his basketball games, too, provided his work schedule allows. (He never has a good thing to say to Billy before or after the game, but his presence is noted as a good thing, by the other parents). Neil gave Billy his car. He taught him everything he knows about cars. There are good days and there are bad, there are horrific days, but sometimes those good days give him hope, you know? That maybe his dad loves him, that maybe, sometimes, he's enough. He doesn't know that he deserves better, that his dad shouldn't fucking hit him, ever, that no parent is justified in hitting their child, because the rest of the world has him believing he doesn't deserve that basic kindness either. ]

#ooc; kel speaks #♔ hc

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8bitbobby · 1 year

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Co-op with Coop

On April 1st, I had a visit with the benefactor of my longest friendship Mark Cooper or “Coop” as I called him back in the day. It was April Fools, but this is not a prank and the only fool was me for not snapping a picture to mark the occasion. Coop and I met sometime around 1979 on the neighborhood streets of what was then called Lakeview Heights. Growing up in the late 70s and early 80s was one of those amazing times that, looking back on it, I feel so fortunate to have been a part of. Our upbringing in those days has become solidified in modern pop culture by way of memes, pictures and stories from those who survived that time. Depictions of kids jumping their BMX bikes over a rickety, hand-made ramp while 6 or 7 hapless friends lay prone beside the warped, plywood slope-- like decommissioned school busses in an Evil Knievel motorcycle stunt-- resonate with our generation on a deep level. How about the memories of what water tasted like coming out of a garden hose and the reminder to let the water run for a good 30 seconds on a hot day or else you got a mouthful of 90 degree plastic hose-flavored H2O? Mark lived one street over from me in those days and the shenanigans we found ourselves in never ended. We honestly didn’t stop from sun up to sun down (except for the occasional dinner bell or call of nature). All the kids in the neighborhood had each other’s phone numbers memorized back then there were no smartphone contact pages. The prefix was all the same and Mark’s # and mine were only 14 numbers apart. His number ended in 5-7-1-1 and mine in 5-7-2-5 and it wasn’t uncommon in those days to know your best friend’s number better than your own. From street hockey matches with anyone that walked by and wanted to join mid-game, to playing tag and kick-the-can in each other’s yards, knocking the pickets out of our fences when we used them as make-shift soccer nets, to pranking unsuspecting families with nicky nicky nine doors and running onto the road and mooning oncoming cars -- there was never a lack of crazy things for a bunch of 6-10 year olds to do back in those days. We would ride our bikes everywhere we could and usually that was to the local corner store, Grant’s Market, or a little further down the road to the laundromat or video store. Westside Video Classics was THE place to rent all the latest movies and games back in the day.

If it wasn’t movies or wrestling, Coop and I bonded over hockey cards (playing scramble, knock-downs and closeys), making comedy tapes on our cassette recorders (we thought we were a regular Bob & Doug McKenzie duo) and later on playing video games. At my house I introduced him to the two full-sized arcade machines my dad had bought from a co-worker and put in our rumpus room as he liked to call it: Super Soccer and Wild Cycle and then later games like Raid on Isram and Cosmic Cruncher on the Commodore Vic-20.

At his house we played endless rounds of Ring King and Super Mario Bros. 2 on his NES as well as countless hours of board games like Crokinole, Rummoli and Crossbows & Catapults. We had the definitive 80s childhood: trick-or-treating together in our shared neighborhood for years at Halloween time, sleepovers almost every other weekend, birthday parties and endless summer nights of hi-jinx. We shared in common younger siblings that tried to do everything we did at that time and rivalries with our respective kin that gave us even more to relate to. Sometime in the early 80s, Coop tattooed the drywall on his bedroom wall, in permanent marker no less, with the inscription: Best Friend Bobby since 1980. An homage to a friendship that, at that time, was a few years on but looking back now has been a friendship that has endured nearly 45 years. To take a page out of his playbook, I mocked my 7up sign to display the following:

I am getting away from my story. All of this to say that Mark came by to meet the family and check out my game room, but became quickly overwhelmed with it all. He was audibly giggling from the moment I greeted him at the front door to the moment we made our way down to the ‘Arcade’ and then back up to the kitchen to sit and catch up. His energy was infectious and I knew that we would likely not be doing a lot of gaming on this visit but rather getting reacquainted and spinning shared experiences from those good old neighborhood days.

Fast forward a week and we got together again and this time we ended up spending a good hour re-living some of those nostalgic times down @ 8bit Bobby’s. Coop’s one pre-visit request was that he wanted to play some Raid on Isram. To make this possible, I had to hunt through various backups to find my rom files for the Vic-20 and then figure out how to interface it with my current Hyperspin setup on my M.A.M.E. Arcade machine. After some tweaking I managed to get it setup and somewhat playable. The game itself is nothing earth shattering and is essentially a watered-down clone of the popular game Scramble, but, to a couple of 40 somethings reliving the times when they were likely in the 10 and under category, it was pretty neat to play again. The object of the game is literally survival. You shoot a laser cannon and drop bombs on enemy ground-to-air missiles and fuel refineries. It starts out scrolling left to right in a pretty wide open playfield but as the game wears on the air-to-ground missiles begin taking off and you begin to enter narrow tunnels with what can only be described as flying spiders coming at you. You can shoot off the stalactites that make the caves a tight squeeze but if you are too busy contending with them you are sure to get hit by the unpredictable and weird trajectory of these squiggle-like arachnid creatures. Raid on Isram is a “one and done” game meaning you have one life to get as far as you can and then that’s it. No extra lives, no continues, nothing. THIS was the epitome of gaming back in the days before infinite lives, cheat codes and save states were a thing.

From here we moved on to some co-op games starting with Golden Axe. We got swiftly through the first two stages cracking heads and laying the boots to the little magic-stealing gnomes that appear between checkpoints only to have the game freeze without warning. I have played through several of these games and never had this happen before. It was a definite headscratcher but we were undeterred. We continued our co-operative game play with the Midway classic, Rampage. Just like back in the old days when we used to stomp around the neighborhood, we joined forces to destroy buildings, smash tanks and defeat digitized army men as George and Ralph the giant, Kong-like Ape and Wolfman respectively. We played through 19 “days” or cities and after each one we wondered how long the game went on for. After a quick Wikipedia search it would appear that the game has 128 days that, when completed, repeat 5 more times. It was good to know that this was a game we were not likely to finish in one sitting. Maybe a future stream event or something? Pictured below are our two protagonists: Coop & Bobby and in true fashion I am showing my age and lack of tech savviness by being unsure as to where I am supposed to be looking at the camera. I suppose a goofy picture is better than no picture at all.

This game room of mine and friends like Coop remind me how much of a role nostalgia plays in my life. The way certain sights or sounds can just transport a person back in time. I know we are not the same kids who hid in the willow trees on the neighbor’s property, cut through a field and hopped a fence into each others’ backyards with the ease and agility of an Olympic vaulter, and had water balloon fights while eating home-made popsicles to beat the summer heat, but for the hour or so that we connected tonight, we were transported back to a much simpler time. I leave you with the meme pasted below (which came up in conversation during his visit and I think really hits in the gut). Even though we can’t go back to that moment and give it the recognition and closure it deserved we can at least reminisce about what it was like just hanging out and teaming up against whatever was out there. Co-op with Coop 4 EVA.

#nostalgia #retro #80s #childhood #bmx #games #boardgames #arcade #friends #1980s #videogames #gamersunite #flashback #throwback #memes

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thestobingirlie · 1 year

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Jumping off the Steve's fashion thing. His bedroom wallpaper in s1. From a modern perspective, its ugly as hell. But at the time it was pretty normal. Striped or plaid wallpaper wasn't that uncommon in the 80's. Just a quick search can find examples of plaid wallpaper from the 80's. I even found a website that sells vintage deadstock wallpaper and pretty much all of the 80's stuff is floral, striped or plaid.

So people probably wouldn't make fun of his room decor as much as fics make out.

But the matching curtains, that pushes it over into the "your mom chose how your room looks" category.

yeah! like, i don’t like steve’s bedroom, but it’s so stupid that everyone is just constantly shitting on it. did his mummy pick it out for him? yes! but she’s a fashionable woman!

like, is his room totally missing most personal items? sure. he has a picture of a car, a picture of a girl in a bikini, and a couple of baseball awards, and that’s it. it’s weird. but the plaid isn’t going to get him relentlessly mocked.

#steve harrington #stranger things #asks #anon

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radracer · 6 months

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Ford Probe GT

@ta22.chris @hahn_noah

#Ford Probe GT #usdm #modified #stance #tuning #retro rides #tuner #slammed #street #imports #lowered #pop ups #fitment #static #80s uncommon cars #oddballs

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geeeraald · 1 year

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10 UNCOMMON WORDS IN FILIPINO

1.Batlag

English Translation: Automobile or car

Definition: Is a wheeled, self-powered motor vehicle used for transportation and a product of the automotive industry

Use in a Sentence: Naku, nakabangga daw yung batlag na bago mong bili dun sa kanto!

2.Di Mapahayang-gatang

English Translation: Grumpy woman

Definition: A moodily cross woman

Use in a Sentence: Mahirap magkagusto sa isang di mahapayang-gatang.

3.Himaton

English Translation: Clue

Definition: A piece of evidence that leads one toward the solution of a problem

Use in a Sentence: Bigyan mo naman ako ng himaton, di ko mahulaan ang bugtong mo.

4.Alimuson

English Translation: Fragrance or scent

Definition: A sweet or delicate odor

Use in a Sentence: Nakagagaan ng loob ang alimusom ng mga bulaklak.

5.Panghiso

English Translation: Toothbrush

Definition: A brush for cleaning the teeth

Use in a Sentence: Bumili si Euan ng soft-bristled na panghiso.

6.Asoge

English Translation: Mercury

Definition: Is a chemical element with symbol Hg and atomic number 80

Use in a Sentence: Nakakamatay ang asoge na nasa loob ng thermometer.

7.Dumatal

English Translation: Arrived

Definition: Reach a place at the end of a journey or a stage in a journey

Use in a Sentence: Dumatal na ang in-order mong pagkain sa McDonalds.

8.Duyog

English Translation: Eclipse

Definition: The total or partial obscuring of one celestial body by another

Use in a Sentence: Nakita mo ba ang nangyaring duyog nung isang araw?

9.Baro

English Translation: Clothing

Definition: (also called clothes) Is manufactured fiber and textile material worn on the body

Use in a Sentence: Nagpalit siya ng kanyang baro dahil basang basa siya ng pawis.

10.Ilaya

English Translation: Farm

Definition: An area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops; it is the basic facility in food production

Use in a Sentence: Sariwa ang hangin sa ilaya.

#ozlacabylime

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cleverthylacine · 1 year

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I am probably cranky and I will probably continue to be for a while.

If so, I am apologising in advance for it.

My family is very fractured and it doesn’t help that my father died in 2009 and my wonderful stepmother and the horrible woman who was my father's first wife and my alleged adoptive mother both have significant memory loss, plus the horrible one is drunk all the time.

My brother and I have recently become rather close although we used to have a fraught relationship. He lives in Indiana. I live in California.

He is on disability and broke as fuck. His son is also disabled. I have been trying to help him out when I can. (That is why I won’t be going to TFCon in March, and my brother is more important than TFCon, I’m just saying, all my plans were already in the air as it was before last week. Our mother has money but has not been helping him because her evil wife* won't let her.)

Please note: my mother is actually a raging homophobe and she is not boning *KC; I just call KC her wife because KC acts as though they're in a horridly dysfunctional codependent QP, though my mother does not actually acknowledge that such things exist; my mother can't comprehend the fact that I date people of more than one gender.

Last week he started coughing up blood and also crapping blood, he told me he’s lost 40 pounds and his son took him to the hospital. I am sure you know what I’m about to say next, but we don’t know what kind. They were talking about NSCLC, but the symptoms he was having sound more like colorectal cancer with lung mets to me. Anyhow, he was supposed to have surgery today and his doctor was supposed to talk to me and him together via Zoom after the surgery.

I got up at 9 AM and got fully dressed and have been waiting all day and haven’t got a call, a text or anything from my brother, his son or the hospital.

I don’t know what hospital he is at. My nephew hasn’t returned my text but he’s probably at the hospital and has shite reception.

I work in a hospital myself and have done so for most of my life; I know that it’s a Federal holiday, he was almost certainly an add-on case because of his urgency, and that it’s not uncommon for there to be delays on holiday weekends because that’s when all the chucklefucks go out and get drunk and drive around in their cars, shoot each other and hit things.

So I know this could all be just ... Murphy’s law in action.

But at the same time I’m terrified that he has died on the operating table and that’s why nobody’s called me or called/texted me back.

So there’s that. I would just like the one relative I can have regular conversations with to not die for a while and also not be in horrible pain. And to get to know my nephew better, whom I have never met because he has severe muscular dystrophy and my brother and I had our reconciliation in the middle of the pandemic so nobody’s been flying nowhere no how.

Just why is my family the most ever.

Lord I never did think that either my brother or I would make it this far but in the 80s we all expected the world would blow up any minute all the time and then all the people I was friends with thought we were gonna get AIDS. Some of them did.

At least he's eating because my nephew has made sure he's got weed gummies now that he can't smoke. He's already on chemo.

#venting #family #this is the place to come if you want to get murdered by lunatics #(that's a sarah rees brennan quote I just happen to relate with a lot)

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strangermoons · 10 days

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The Beat Has Just Begun - chapter 8 extras

While outing as, like, a thing people do to other people has been around as long as society’s been weird about sexual orientation, the term itself, used the way we do now, hasn’t always been. As far as I know people did not yet say “Eddie got outed” or whatever in the mid-80’s. The vocabulary available to the average person around gender & sexuality and mental health was much more limited in general.

Never heard of Mikesells potato chips? Then you probably don’t live in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky or Illinois.

Okay, so, okay, the thing is: I can’t actually confirm if Steve’s 1983 BMW 733i could have had seat warmers. It may well not have. I tried to find manuals online and everything, but no dice. What I can tell you is that seat warmers first showed up on the market in the 60's and took a while to get off the ground. I would say they were still fairly uncommon and luxury-adjacent in the mid-80’s. Point being, Steve’s car is fancy.

#The Beat Has Just Begun #TBHJB #my work

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karibukwetuzanzibar1 · 2 months

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Unlocking Zanzibar: Your Guide to the Best Car Rental Adventures

Zanzibar is a historical and charming resort in the Indian Ocean. With the freedom of your own wheels, discover its riches. In Zanzibar, renting a car offers a carefully planned trip across a variety of cultures, settings, and cuisines. Find out the most important things to pack for your trip to Zanzibar and the best car rental choices.

Preparing for the Road Less Traveled

Before you hit the road, several crucial preparations can make your Zanzibar car rental experience smooth and memorable.

Navigating the Paper Trail

Ensure you have all the necessary documents:

International Driving Permit (IDP): While not a requirement, an IDP is recommended as it provides an authorized translation of your driver's license.

Valid Driver's License: Your domestic license should be in English or accompanied by an official English translation.

Passport and Visa: These will be needed to rent a car, and to enter and exit the country.

Understanding the Road Rules in Zanzibar

Zanzibar drives on the left side of the road, and like many countries, there are certain road behaviors and rules to be aware of:

Speed limits and signs: These are generally in kilometers per hour (km/h). The speed limit in urban areas is typically 50 km/h and 80 km/h on open roads.

Drinking and driving: The legal blood alcohol limit is 0.08%. It's best to avoid alcohol if you plan to drive.

Seatbelts: It is compulsory for drivers and passengers to wear seatbelts.

Embracing the Island's Unique Road Conditions

Zanzibar's roads vary from newly laid highways to ancient village paths. Expect:

Potholes and speed bumps: Be cautious, particularly when driving in rural areas where these can be numerous and unexpected.

Pedestrians and livestock: It's not uncommon for people and animals to wander onto the roads, especially in the more rural areas.

Beach drives: Some areas can only be reached by driving along the beaches, which is permitted, but be mindful of high tides and erosion.

Selecting Your Ideal Wheels

There are several options for car rentals in Zanzibar, from local agencies to international chains. Here's what to consider:

The Zanzibar Airport Advantage

Renting a car from the Zanzibar airport is convenient, with numerous agencies having desks in the arrivals lounge. Look for:

Round-the-clock bookings: Many airport rental services operate 24/7, perfect for those with late night or early morning flights.

Selection and availability: Due to the high volume, the airport usually offers a larger selection of vehicles.

Deals and packages: Look for specials unique to airport rentals.

Off-Airport Options and Local Vendors

For those looking to explore more, renting from elsewhere on the island can offer some distinct advantages:

Flexibility in drop-off locations: You can drop off your vehicle in a different location than where you picked it up, allowing for a more diverse trip itinerary.

Tailored services: Many local vendors can provide personalized service, including tour guide recommendations and local road insights.

Budget-friendly: Off-airport rentals often offer cheaper rates than the airport.

Choosing the Right Type of Vehicle

Your travel needs should influence the type of vehicle you pick:

SUVs/4x4s: Ideal for those planning to venture into the more rugged terrains common to Zanzibar's interior and coastal tracks.

Sedans: Perfect for city driving and exploring Zanzibar's regions with well-paved roads.

Mini-vans: A great choice for larger groups or families traveling with more luggage.

Weighing Costs and Inclusions

Rental costs vary depending on the vehicle type, rental period, and agency. Look for:

Insurance: Ensure your rental includes basic insurance. You may also wish to consider top-up options that protect against things like undercarriage and windscreen damage.

Mileage limits and fuel policy: Some rental companies limit the miles/kilometers you can drive without incurring additional fees. Also, understand the fuel policy – Full to Full is often more cost-effective.

Hidden fees: Read the fine print to understand potentially hidden costs such as additional driver fees, young driver surcharges, and road tolls.

Crafting Your Zanzibar Itinerary

Explore the wonders of Zanzibar with a rental car. From the historical streets of Stone Town to off-the-beaten-path beaches and serene retreats, there's something for everyone.

Experience idyllic beaches, breathtaking sunsets, cultural immersion, wildlife spotting, culinary delights, spice tours, and wellness experiences. Zanzibar is your gateway to adventure and relaxation.

Safety and Security

Zanzibar is generally safe for international visitors, but taking precautions is important. Inform someone of your itinerary for remote exploration and ensure vehicle maintenance. Keep valuables hidden, have emergency contacts, and use navigation apps. Friendly locals are usually willing to assist if needed.

Conclusion!

Renting a car in Zanzibar unlocks a world of diverse experiences and the freedom to explore at your own pace. From the UNESCO World Heritage site of Stone Town to the tranquil beaches and wild landscapes, Zanzibar's charms are best discovered through the open window of a rental car. With the right preparation and rental partner, your Zanzibar road trip will create unforgettable memories.

Source Url:

#best car rental zanzibar #car rental in zanzibar #car rental zanzibar #zanzibar airport taxi

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