#and then banned the remaining people from setting fires
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One big thing that gets missed in the conversation about native plants is that when considering a plant, you really should ask two questions:
1. Where, specifically, is it native to?
2. Within that region, what ecosystem conditions does it live in? Will it thrive where you intend to plant it?
I cannot tell you how many times I've come across a plant labeled as native that doesn't even grow in my state. Sure, it's native to the continent, but not this side of the rocky mountains! That's not nearly specific enough if your goal is to support endemic animal species and the overall ecosystem.
You also need to consider what conditions that plant needs to thrive. One example I see a lot of here is planting understory plants in full sun. They're stressed out, they're getting sunburnt, and they're slowly dying. People will also try the reverse, planting praire plants in deep shade, and wonder why they're all floppy and anemic looking. Plants may be native to your area, but they still have specific needs and you will have much greater success if you match the conditions you have to a plant that will thrive there.
A third, extra credit question is a two parter: is it endemic (aka, unique to your region) or does it have a a broader, or even circumpolar distribution? I mean, check out the range maps for Henderson's shooting star & twinflower:
Twinflower is found across the northern portions of Eurasia as well.
The second part is, are any of the vulnerable species in your area depending on it? An example from my area is Viola Adunca, which has a pretty broad range,
But is also host to multiple fritilary butterfly species in my area, some of which are on the decline and some of which are no longer found in my state. Due to habitat loss. Both due to human activity (agriculture, subdivisions, etc) and human inactivity (banning the intentional burns the Native peoples did, that maintained the Oak savanna ecosystem, leading them to be "invaded" by non-fire adapted Douglas firs, another native species. Also at the same time making the region more vulnerable to bigger and more devastating wild fires).
#gardening#native plants#native species#intentional fires were key to managing ecosystems throughout the west#and when our government killed#removed from the land#and then banned the remaining people from setting fires#we did so much harm to not only the ecosystems but also endangered ourselves#on top of the truly reprehensible behavior we showed to native peoples#I don't think people realize how much we changed the ecosystems here by banning fires#hunting beavers to near extinction#and killing off the bision and turning the land into range land for cattle & sheep
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A symbol had been illegal for centuries. So illegal that it wasn't even drawn or described in the very law that banned it. Many people knew the symbol anyway; rumor had it that from time to time someone would see it in their dreams and feel compelled to recreate it. From childhood, everyone was warned that it was strictly forbidden to recreate any symbol you'd learned in your dreams, just in case one was the symbol. Kids got detention for doodling odd shapes, in case they were lying about whether they'd seen them in a dream, even when the teachers themselves weren't sure whether any of the doodled shapes were taboo. Every once in a while some bold rebel would take a dream symbol and carve it into a bench or spray paint it on a wall—but how could one know which one was demonic?
The otherwise secular government claimed the symbol was banned because it invited in a "demon" that wanted to destroy the world. There were, allegedly, both monks and scientists dedicated exclusively to searching for a way to permanently block entry to the demon. And there was, allegedly, a high suicide and insanity rate among these monks and scientists. Until they succeeded in their work, the law remained.
Some people railed against the ban—calling it absurd, backwards, primitive—every other law rooted in religious belief had been abolished decades ago, why not this one? The controversy had most recently flared up a few years ago when a politician had campaigned for governorship on a platform of repealing the ban, along with several dozen other laws he said unduly restricted the people's freedoms and civil liberties. "Where is this demon," he'd asked in a televised debate, his yellowed eyes darting around the room. "Can anyone produce him? Can you prove he's real? Why are we deciding national policy based on superstition?"
When he'd lost the election, he'd called a press conference, railed against the ignorant voters—"what's so liberating about democracy if you vote against your own freedom?"—and then held his fingers in front of his eyes. All the cameras had cut within a couple of seconds, but not before catching his shrill, taunting laugh.
In rebroadcasts of his scandalous speech, his face was censored by a thick black square. The disgraced politician killed himself in police custody. He'd wrapped himself tight in his cloak and set it on fire. She thought about that a lot—what it would be like to feel flames crawling up your limbs.
Enough kids at school had happened to see the live broadcast that they could teach the symbol to other kids when they thought the teachers weren't looking.
And that was how Pyronica had learned the forbidden symbol: a single eye inside a triangle.
Today, she pulled out a can of spray paint she hadn't yet converted into a makeshift flamethrower and followed in the footsteps of countless weird little girls across the multiverse seeking a remedy for their rage:
She tried to summon a demon.
#gravity falls#bill cipher#pyronica#my writing#(I just like the worldbuilding here. There's so much happening under the surface.)
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Imagine a strawhats family brunch where they go to a normal restaurant and show up with like 6 normal people, a tiny raccoon (sorry chopper), a giant robot man, and a skeleton. All the staff have to rush to put a shit ton of tables together.
Nami makes Chopper pretend to be a child so he can order off the kids menu for less money. He agrees to it until they try to make him sit in a high chair and then he gets pissed. He ends up sitting on Zoro’s lap until he picks a fight with Sanji, at which point he moves to Robin’s.
Franky breaks the chair he tries to sit on and ends up having to sit on the floor. He has to explain to the waiters that he only wants cola 3 separate times.
Luffy orders about 20 meals for just himself and they have to bring over another table just to set down all the food.
Zoro argues with the waitstaff about there being a no weapon rule. Robin adds fuel to the fire by claiming that her body is a weapon. The restaurant ends up allowing it.
Sanji tries to keep everyone in line at first and is pretty calm for most of the meal, although he does ask a few too many questions about the recipes for the chef’s liking. He also ends up ordering for several member of the crew (Chopper who can’t decide, Nami who makes him pick what she would like best between the two she’s having trouble deciding between, and Zoro who will only grunt at the waiter in annoyance after they tried to tell him his swords weren’t allowed inside).
Zoro casually tries to get Sanji to fight with him by messing with the food insulting him throughout the meal.
Brook starts playing the restaurants piano, which all the patrons find quite lovely until Franky starts playing guitar with him and then it’s just a touch too loud.
Robin uses her limbs to casually switch around peoples meals so they end up eating something different every bite. She tries to gaslight Ussop that’s she’s not doing anything when he calls her on it.
Towards the end of the meal and tired of not being able to rule Sanji up, Zoro decides to claim he’s done with his food despite there still being a large chunk of rice left. This prompts Sanji to start yelling a him about not leaving any food uneaten and culminates in Sanji trying to force the food down Zoro’s throat.
Chopper panics thinking that Zoro is going to choke and ends up physically separating the two by throwing them across the room from eachother. He gets mad at Zoro when he realizes that he is fine and just wanted to start a fight. Luffy ends up finishing Zoro’s remaining food during the scuffle.
Eventually, they scare away all the other patrons and Nami tells the restaurant owner that they will leave if they pay her the cost of the meal. She ends up leaving with double the amount she came in with.
They are banned from that restaurant and most others in the area after this incident.
#this is kinda stupid but I thought it was funny :)#I don’t know Jimbe well enough to add him but I image he would be just like a normal person among the chaos#one piece#monkey d. luffy#roronoa zoro#sanji#nami#nico robin#franky#brook#ussop#tony tony chopper#straw hat pirates#homegrown worms
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The Sign of the Four: The Statement of the Case
CW for the end of this as it includes discussions of child murder and detailed discussions of capital punishment.
Turbans have never been particularly common in the United Kingdom; these days, they are most likely to be worn by West African women or those who are undergoing chemotherapy.
It was the norm for a married woman to be referred to as "Mrs. [husband's name]", especially on something like a dinner invite. Historically, in the English common law system the United States also uses, a woman's legal identity was subsumed by her husband on marriage, in something called coverture. In some cases, a woman who ran her own business could be treated as legally single (a femme sole) and so sue someone - or be sued. This practice was gradually abolished, but did fully end until the 1970s.
@myemuisemo has excellently covered the reasons why Mary would have been sent back to the UK.
As you were looking at a rather long trip to and from India, even with the Suez Canal open by 1878, long leave like this would have been commonplace.
The Andaman Islands are an archipelago SW of what is now Myanmar and was then called Burma. The indigenous Andamanese lived pretty much an isolated experience until the late 19th century when the British showed up. The locals were pretty hostile to outsiders; shipwrecked crews were often attacked and killed in the 1830s and 1840s, the place getting a reputation for cannibalism.
The British eventually managed to conquer the place and combine its administration with the Nicobar Islands. Most of the native population would be wiped out via outside disease and loss of territory; they now number around 500 people. The Indian government, who took over the area on independence, now legally protect the remaining tribespeople, restricting or banning access to much of the area.
Of particular note are the Sentinelese of North Sentinel Island, who have made abundantly clear that they do not want outside contact. This is probably due to the British in the late 1800s, who kidnapped some of them and took them to Port Blair. The adults died of disease and the children were returned with gifts... possibly of the deadly sort. Various attempts by the Indian government (who legally claimed the island in 1970 via dropping a marker off) and anthropologists to contact them have generally not gone well, with the islanders' response frequently being of the arrow-firing variety. Eventually, via this and NGO pressure, most people got the hint and the Indian government outright banned visits to the island.
In 2004, after the Asian tsunami that killed over 2,000 people in the archipelago, the Indian Coast Guard sent over a helicopter to check the inhabitants were OK. They made clear they were via - guess what - firing arrows at the helicopter. Most of the people killed were locals and tourists; the indigenous tribes knew "earthquake equals possible tsunami" and had headed for higher ground.
In 2006, an Indian crab harvesting boat drifted onto the island; both of the crew were killed and buried.
In 2018, an American evangelical missionary called John Allen Chau illegally went to the island, aiming to convert the locals to Christianity. He ended up as a Darwin Award winner and the Indians gave up attempts to recover his body.
The first British penal colony in the area was established in 1789 by the Bengalese but shut down in 1796 due to a high rate of disease and death. The second was set up in 1857 and remained in operation until 1947.
People poisoning children for the insurance money was a sadly rather common occurrence in the Victorian era to the point that people cracked jokes about it if a child was enrolled in a burial society i.e. where people paid in money to cover funeral expenses and to pay out on someone's death.
The most infamous of these was Mary Ann Cotton from Durham, who is believed to have murdered 21 people, including three of her four husbands and 11 of her 13 children so she could get the payouts. She was arrested in July 1872 and charged with the murder of her stepson, Charles Edward Cotton, who had been exhumed after his attending doctor kept bodily samples and found traces of arsenic. After a delay for her to give birth to her final child in prison and a row in London over the choice the Attorney General (legally responsible for the prosecution of poisoning cases) had made for the prosecuting counsel, she was convicted in March 1973 of the murder and sentenced to death, the jury coming back after just 90 minutes. The standard Victorian practice was for any further legal action to be dropped after a capital conviction, as hanging would come pretty quickly.
Cotton was hanged at Durham County Goal that same month. Instead of her neck being broken, she slowly strangled to death as the rope had been made too short, possibly deliberately.
Then again, the hangman was William Calcraft, who had started off flogging juvenille offenders at Newgate Prison. Calcraft hanged an estimated 450 people over a 45-year career and developed quite a reputation for incompetence or sadism (historians debate this) due to his use of short drops. On several occasions, he would have to go down into the pit and pull on the condemned person's legs to speed up their death. In a triple hanging in 1867 of three Fenian who had murdered a police officer, one died instantly but the other two didn't. Calcraft went down and finished one of them off to the horror of officiating priest Father Gadd, who refused to let him do the same to the third and held the man's hand for 45 minutes until it was over. There was also his very public 1856 botch that led to the pinioning of the condemned's legs to become standard practice.
Calcraft also engaged in the then-common and legal practice of selling off the rope and the condemned person's clothing to make extra money. The latter would got straight to Madame Tussaud's for the latest addition to the Chamber of Horrors. Eventually, he would be pensioned off in 1874 aged 73 after increasingly negative press comment.
The Martyrdom of Man was a secular "universal" history of the Western World, published in 1872.
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By JENNI FRAZER
Describing the climbing on to war memorials during anti-Israel protests as “very sinister” for Britain as well as the Jewish community, Murray said that “the British police have this view, which is not to escalate things. This is different from the view of the French police… in France, the president is allowed to ban protests.
“Macron banned the [anti-Israel] marches, and in the first week, they happened, the police intervened and they didn’t happen again. The police in the UK believe, don’t make a fuss, record it and maybe go in afterwards. But here’s the problem with that. This is something that the Jewish community can bring to the attention of the Metropolitan Police. The problem is that nobody notices when you do a morning arrest at a house in east London. What they notice is people standing in London calling for a Muslim army… and that footage goes around the world”.
“People need to tell police this is utterly unacceptable and that no community should be put through this,” Murray said. “If it was any other community, that community would raise hell”. He agreed with Louisa Clein that the police were fearful of being denounced as Islamophobic, but maintained that “police are meant to step in if they see people breaking the law”.
He added: “There’s not enough noise from the Jewish community about precisely this”, noting that the police were unlikely to fight harder for the community, if the Jewish community itself were not urging action.
Asked by Clein what she should say to her friends on the left, about how to balance their political beliefs with what Murray was saying about Israel and Hamas, the commentator was in no doubt: “Ask them to tell the truth. Look frankly at what is actually happening. I don’t care if I’m thought of as right-wing or not”. He urged those on the left to “listen to the testimony of those on the kibbutzim, who were far to the left of those you are talking about…
“If you go round the sites, you can see Peace Now stickers on what remains of somebody’s fridge. You speak to the people. I spoke to a man who had been on kibbutz all his life, total leftist, peace activist. He was in his safe room on October 7 with his wife and teenage son and daughter”.
The family had shut themselves in their safe room but were unable to lock it. Murray described how the father had held the door closed for a long time, but the terrorists had set fire to the house. The family opened the air vent and were attacked. “They killed his wife, put a Kalashnikov through the shutters and shot his 14-year-old son who bled out in front of him and his daughter”. The dying boy asked to be buried with his surfboard.
“He said to me, I’ve been a leftist all my life. But now I want nothing but potato fields from here to the Mediterranean. We can’t live with these people”. Murray said there were “hundreds” of stories like this. And he asked those on the left: “Have some empathy and understanding for the people who can no longer afford to dream the dreams you dream.”
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Daughter of the Outcast: Chapter 1
Fanfic: What if Che'ri accompanied Thrawn into exile?
"Basic"
"Sy Bisti"
"Cheunh"
Third eye
----------------oOo------------------
Che'ri vowed not to cry, not in front of the assembled Syndic, who were watching the trial like hungry vultures on a piece of meat, and especially not in front of the patriarchs of the nine ruling families, who would announce their verdict any second. No, she would not shed any tears. But she could not suppress the trembling of her body. From the fear she felt at the prospect of an uncertain future, from the grief of losing everything she had ever known and from the coldness of the handcuffs that held her small hands together, making it impossible for her to move. Thrawn stood next to her right, his face like stone, one hand bound with the same handcuffs as hers. He remained silent, not begging, not trying to squirm into excuses. Everything that needed to be said had already been said. Even at her young age, little Chiss understood that this court hearing was just for show, the decision had already been made long before they were arrested.
"Since the existence of the Ascendancy, we Chiss have defended our territories. Any attacks and blood spilled, we repaid with all our might until our enemies were destroyed. However, there has always been one rule that has always honored our people. The rule that sets us apart from the monsters that threaten us and our children. Never, under any circumstances, do we resort to preemptive strikes." "Merit Adoptive Mitth'raw'nuruodo and navigator Che'ri are banned from the Chiss Ascendancy for breaking the highest of our commandments, as well as aiding. Any unauthorized return to the territories of the Ascendancy will be considered an attack on our territories and punished with appropriate severity. The Syndicure has spoken and so it shall be done."
---------------oOo-------------------
It was the first time she had seen humans. They resembled the Chiss in many ways and yet they seem so different. The eyes so dull, the foreheads too small, the shoulders narrower, not to mention the pink skin. To Che'ri, they looked like aliens through and through. And yet there was one among them who immediately caught her eye.
He was probably the youngest of the men, at least in rank he was below all the others. His posture gave that away; she had often seen it in newcomers. Looking down and stiff body, older soldiers were usually a little more relaxed. He wasn't wearing one of those funny hats that almost completely obscured the view of the eyes and made Che'ri wonder how anyone could see anything at all with those things on their face. Che'ri could feel those dull human eyes straining to examine their camp, trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together while the others waited dully, doing nothing. That was the real reason he stood out, he wasn't just watching, he was seeing.
A blaster shot just inches past her head and drilled into the wood of the tree.
Che'ri cried out in shock. She immediately covered her mouth in the hope that she had not been heard, but she was not so lucky. One of the white soldiers pointed in her direction and fired. The blaster shot missed her by only a few centimetres. Che'ri slipped off the branch and fell to the ground. The impact was hard, but little Chiss quickly managed to pick herself up again and start running.
'Hide and stay down until I come for you,' Thrawn had said. Days in which they had studied the surroundings, in which they had prepared the scarecrow, set the traps. Days of planning and preparation, for nothing. Che'ri ran as fast as her feet could carry her, but a child remained a child, it wasn't long before the white soldiers had them cornered and surrounded, and not much longer before the green soldiers caught up.
---------oOo---------
"Captain Parck, she's a child." At first, Eli thought he was dreaming. All this trouble over a child, a girl no older than ten. She was dressed in animal skins and her hair looked a little wild, but that was probably due to her escape. Frightened, she looked back and forth on the verge of tears. The stormtroopers surrounded her, threatening her with their blasters. The moment she realized she was surrounded, she had given up trying to escape.
"If that was her doing, it doesn't matter what she is."
"Sir, with all due respect, you don't seriously believe that a child could manage to attack us undetected, set all those traps and pull a grown man out of a crashed V-wing?"
"Then she's not alone, but she knows something and I want to know what." As if on cue, one of the stormtroopers approached with his weapon drawn. "Well then little one, who or what are you?" There was no answer from the frightened girl. Of course she didn't. What did Parck expect from holding a blaster in front of a child's nose, except that she shut down completely. He felt sorry for the little girl.
"Please Captain, it doesn't have to be like this, I could try to talk to her."
"And why would she talk to you?
"Because I'm not some faceless monster pointing a gun at her." In one fell swoop, Eli turned white as a sheet. He hasn't really just put his captain in his place, hads he? He, a simple cadet from the wilds of space. Was he tired of living? Of course, once again his mouth had to be faster than his brain, but he couldn't just stand by and watch a child being shot. For a moment, Parck seemed impressed, his challenging gaze daring Eli to continue, if he dared, but the cadet suddenly lacked confidence "....And .... I don't think she speaks Basic. The Chiss-" Eli stammered.
"The what?"
"The Chiss, sir," he repeated. "In the myths of my homeland, it is said that they spoke with traveling Sy Bisti."
"Very well, try your luck, Cadet Vanto, but if she makes one false move, the stormtroopers have orders to fire."
"Thank you, sir." Her eyes shifted wildly between the different men, even as Eli knelt on the ground in front of her to be at eye level with her. She couldn't manage to focus on just him. She did indeed resemble the descriptions of the Chiss from the legends, the blue skin, the glowing red eyes, perhaps this too was a truth among many myths. "Do you speak Sy Bisti?" She fixed him with a glare, the others no longer seemed interested in her and yet she nodded shyly. So the legends were true after all "What is your name?"
"Che'ri." She spoke slowly, her words laden with a thick accent, but he understood her.
"Che'ri. A beautiful name. I am Eli Vanto. Why are you here, Che'ri?" She hesitated for a moment, unsure of what to say. Her eyes flickered past him for a brief moment, almost as if she was asking someone's permission, but there was no one behind Eli. Perhaps it was more a question of what she was allowed to say? Eli had to agree with the captain on this point, she was not alone on this planet.
"Pu-punishment."
"A punishment? For what?" She didn't answer and Eli sighed, "I can help you, but only if you tell me what's going on."
Parck paced up and down impatiently "So, what does she say?" He asked, annoyed.
"Not much. Just that she was punished, but not for what."
"I don't have time for this nonsense. We're getting off this rock."
"Sir, the camp, the unknown alien protocol demands-"
"We'll take the camp with us. I'm not going to endanger my people unnecessarily, not if there's an maniac of her kind running around out there." Parck leaned down a little towards the girl. "If she doesn't want to talk, she'll come with you. Does that satisfy your chivalry, Cadet Vanto?" Eli doesn't answer. One of the stormtroopers grabbed Che'ri, lifted her in probably the worst way Eli had ever seen someone lift a child and, with heavy protests, loaded her onto the Stikefast. The girl swung her fists around, kicking, crying and screaming, but the stormtrooper was unimpressed and Eli could do nothing but stand by and watch. As the last of the stormtroopers returned from scouting, Parck turned to him one last time. "Oh yes," it was a mocking tone that Eli didn't like at all, something like that always meant trouble. "Since you seem to be so fond of this little beast, you'll take care of her while she's on board."
Babysitter. Now Eli got to play babysitter too, this day really couldn't get any worse. And then for a Chiss he had thought only a few hours ago was nothing but legends. Was it really too much to ask to finish his training in peace? Apparently not. First this stupid field mission and now this. He only wanted to become supply officer, nothing more. It was enough that he was attracting the hatred of the crew because of this training trip, he didn't need another reason. A tug on his jacket brought Eli back to reality. Che'ri looked up at him in fear, as if she sensed what was going on inside the human. She had simply been dropped off in the hangar with him. Eli took a deep breath. What the hell was he thinking? He couldn't take his anger out on her, Che'ri was the least to blame of all of them, she was a victim of the situation, nothing more. The girl relaxed a little, her gaze lowered, and yet she didn't let go of his jacket. She seemed so lost. No wonder, first she was attacked by unknown soldiers and then kidnapped. But maybe there was something good about it, maybe the Empire could help her find her parents. Surely this punishment she had talked about was just a misunderstanding. Who would abandon a child on a deserted jungle planet?
The Empire would do that, that and probably much worse. Eli wasn't naive enough to justify the Empire's atrocities. It was a job, nothing more.
Eli shook off those thoughts and took Che'ri's hand in his. It was about time this child got some food, a warm shower and sleep, she would surely feel better after that.
------------oOo--------------
After she had finished showering, she immediately looked much more relaxed. Logically, there were no child-sized clothes on a Star Destroyer, so Eli had to improvise with the help of a uniform tunic and a belt. However, the result was impressive. Provided you were blind. In both eyes. Che'ri didn't seem particularly enthusiastic about her makeshift dress either. She eyed herself skeptically, but didn't complain. He then led her to the canteen, and once they had entered, everyone's eyes were on them and the whispering began. That alone was enough to make Che'ri hide behind his legs. This was already off to a good start. Calm on the outside, but not really feeling well himself on the inside, he took the little girl to an empty secluded table while he got them both something to eat, always making sure to keep an eye on them in case something happened.
"Hey Vanto." Eli was startled by the sudden salutation. It was Brick and Elena, two cadets who went to the academy with Eli. "Who's the girl, did they demote you to babysitter now?"
"Shut up, Brick."
"Wow, is that girl a Chiss? So they're real. Does she speak Basic?" Elena asked without taking her eyes off the little Chiss, which wasn't particularly surprising. Everyone who grew up on Lsatra knew the stories by heart, even if only a few actually believed them. Eli himself had always believed them; after all, there was a spark of truth in every lie. But actually having her in front of him seemed so surreal.
"No, just Sy Bisti." She sighed, a little disappointed. "Is it true that she killed soldiers?" came from Bick, and Eli couldn't help but look at him as if he'd asked if Corusant was something to eat.
"Look at her, she's what, ten years old?" how could anyone with a working brain believe she could kill someone?
"Yeah, but she's an alien, you can trust them."
A deep sigh was released "You should spend less time in the holonet and more time with people." That was the end of the conversation for Eli and he was glad when he could pick up their food and get away from them.
Throughout the meal, the little Chiss didn't say a word, answering questions only with a nod or a shake of her head, yet Eli noticed how she was furtively observing her entire surroundings. Being around so many strangers didn't seem to be new to her, and yet he could tell that something was bothering her. "Are you all right?" he asked cautiously, catching her attention again, which was currently focused everywhere but on her plate.
"Yeah, I've never been to a canteen before. It's kind of scary." she replied for the first time. It was only half the truth, but he left it at that. If he probed further, she would probably just shut down even more.
"We can leave if you want." he asked instead. Che'ri shook her head
"No, it's fine." she replied and continued to poke at her vegetables.
"You like the food?"
"It's ok."
"You're not exactly talkative, are you?" no answer "Can I ask you something anyway?" Again, she didn't move, which Eli took as a silent sign that she didn't mind. "Where are your parents?" Eli regretted the question the moment it left his lips as little Che'ri dropped her fork in shock. "Che'ri?" he tried to reach her, but the girl wouldn't budge. He was about to go over to her when she jumped up and ran out of the canteen without responding to his shouts and all eyes were on the cadet for the second time that day. Too perplexed to react, Eli looked after her. How could he have been so stupid?
Eli followed her, but when he was out of the canteen, he realized that she was no longer in sight. It had taken him less than 24 hours to lose her. He asked everyone he came across if they had seen the little alien, even though most of them only gave him a gruff 'no' or no answer at all. He wandered aimlessly for a good hour until he heard a quiet sob. He followed the sound to a droid camp. She was sitting there alone in the dark, crying barely audibly. You could tell how hard she was trying to hold back her tears when she realized he had come in, and even though he barely knew her, it somehow broke his heart to watch. Eli sat down on the floor with her "I'm sorry. But you can't just run away like that."
Che'ri didn't look at him. "I want to go home." she said, her voice ever so slightly raspy from crying. "I miss Thalias."
Thalias? Maybe her sister, Eli wanted to ask, but finally left it. It would probably only do more harm than good. "I'm sure the Empire will find a way to bring you home."
"You're lying." The accusation surprised Eli,
"Why do you think that?"
Che'ri cocked her head to the side, looking like she didn't quite know how she knew herself "You feel like it. All adults feel like this when they lie." she tried to explain. She found it hard to find the right words, or maybe she just didn't know the words in Sy Bisti.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Forget it."
"Che'ri-"
"I said forget it!"
Eli sighed again. It had been a long day for Che'ri, she'd been through a lot. Maybe she was just stressed and tired. That would probably be it. "You look pretty tired. How about we go to bed and I'm sure the world will look better tomorrow." He held out his hand to help her get up. At first she looked as if she wanted to object, but then something changed in her expression. Maybe it was tiredness, maybe it was the realization that she was alone, maybe it was the hope that he was right. Eli didn't know, but she agreed and grabbed his hand.
"Okay."
-------------oOo---------------------
Eli was glad when they reached the quarters. Due to a lack of options, she would be sleeping in his room. Fortunately, there were two beds, because he didn't think Che'ri would like sharing a bed with a stranger. She was already snuggled up in the blanket when he came out of the bathroom in his pyjamas. "You've hardly eaten anything. If you want, I can get you something quick."
"No, thanks."
"You sure?" He asked again.
"I don't need anything." With one movement, she pulled the blanket over her head and disappeared under the white sheets. Eli had to smile a little at that, it reminded him of himself when he was her age.
"If you say so. If you need anything, just wake me up, okay?" There was no reply, but Eli was sure she'd heard him. At the latest, when her stomach growled, she would come. He listened to her steady breaths for a while. She was sleeping peacefully. Basically, the Chiss weren't much different from humans, Eli thought to himself as he lay awake in bed for a good while longer. In the legends, they were always described as warriors, but Che'ri was a normal girl. She was no little murderess, he was sure of that. So despite everything, the question of who had killed the soldiers remained unanswered and Eli fervently hoped that he would never have to meet the creature that had done this.
#che'ri#grand admiral thrawn#thrawn#mitth'raw'nuruodo#eli vanto#thranto#thrawn trilogy#star wars#star wars chiss#chiss#chiss navigator#sw fanfic#star wars fanfiction#dad thrawn#dad Eli Vanto
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Can we see some cerus before his fall?
:) time for actual cringefail overlord?
Umbra: Beginning of the End
cw: war/death mention
Penumbra Masterlist
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"The rebels are gaining ground."
The scroll was small; brusque and to the point. In the last year alone, there had been dozens just like it, ill tidings scrawled across each one.
"The dissidents prevailed today."
"The rebellion has spread to the western end of Feyadel."
"The eleventh legion has fallen, sire."
Cerus tossed the small, curling piece of parchment into the fire, watched it smolder and redden and turn to ash. Defeat was closing in, like the sun setting over the course of the day, spreading slow shadow that would soon cloak the world in an all-consuming darkness.
The end was surely coming for him. It had started with his father's death. Sudden, a broken neck at the bottom of a staircase, leaving Cerus gripped more with fear than grief when he looked upon the corpse for the last time.
For what was he to do now?
He'd been the royal high mage, boosting his father's power with magical means. His father, who was supposed to live for many more years, who was supposed to grow old and hand over the throne gradually, giving Cerus time to learn and grow into the role. His father, who was now a body in the ground.
Most of King Hollowthorn's bannermen left before the grave was even filled in; the rest filed out one by one in the coming weeks. They knew the people of Feyadel were unhappy with the crown, only kept in line by the king's schemes and careful pressures. They knew Cerus had none of his father's experience, that he was weak. That the people would see his faults and find within them an opportunity. Cerus knew too, but now he was alone.
He'd gathered some meager support, elevating a handful of knights to generals and battalion leaders in preparation for the war that was sure to come.
He'd been lenient in his early months as king, conceding to the demands of a few villages for lessened taxes and a lift on the poaching ban. He'd even raised the damned dead in an attempt to cow his subjects into submission. But it wasn't enough.
It never would've been enough.
The first large-scale revolt was in a small town a hundred miles away, on the eve of his coronation, and more acts of rebellion were swift to follow.
No matter how many dead were raised, the spirit of the people outmatched the unfeeling relentlessness of his ghouls.
For six years, he'd sat anxious on the throne, lost sleep over lost loyalty, watched as his hold on his birthright was broken bit by bit.
And with it, his hopes of emerging victorious.
Soon his treacherous subjects would reach the capital city, and then there would be nothing left.
So he'd fortify it. Pull back forces and protect his last true stronghold. If he expended all his energy, he could summon enough undead that it would take all the rebel forces had to oppose them. Even if he was outmatched, his ghoulish soldiers didn't need food, nor rest, nor tending to their wounds, unlike the rebel armies. He'd wait. Let them drain their supplies before launching a counterattack. He still had a chance.
And then when the battle was won, and he stood triumphant over the bodies and the curling smoke, he'd be king of the nothing.
He'd heard some were calling him Shadow King, and whether it was a description or an insult, he didn't know. But if he won, that was all he'd ever be. King of the shadows, of the ruin that would remain of Feyadel.
How had things turned so foul? Hadn't there ever been a time where he thought he could be something more? A better king than his father? A mage that could deal in something other than death and decay?
It mattered little now, if there was ever a chance at all. Could've beens would change nothing. Cerus had to hold on to what he had, what little power remained.
And if he couldn't, he'd die fighting those who dared try and take it from him.
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@whumpwillow @rabbitdrabbles @kixngiggles @honeycollectswhump @chiswhumpcorner @whatwhumpcomments , @dont-look-me-in-the-eye , @turn-the-tables-on-them , @pigeonwhumps , @itsmyworld23 , @andromeda-liske , @starlit-hopes-and-dreams , @haro-whumps , @kira-the-whump-enthusiast , @whumpedydump , @mannerofwhump
#poor sad cerus#no friends#loser king#really he never had a chance#and while his methods of trying to stay in control *cough* mass slaughter *cough* are wrong i still feel for him#dont worry buddy it gets worse :)#penumbra: shadow king#villain whump#whump writing#fantasy whump#emotional whump#exhaustion#kira the whump enthusiast#thanks for the prompt c:
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Dungeons and Humans, CH. 1
The rewritten version of my original GiantTiny story. Much longer, and one I'm very proud to have written! Hope everyone enjoys!
Summary:
In a fantasy setting where humans are tiny and all other races are giants by comparison, a human woman is discovered by a tiefling adventurer after incidentally assisting her party in a dungeon.
AO3 link
Original Version
Word count: 7982
Damn it all. How could she have been so foolish? Her need to prove herself to the clan led to disaster once again. All she wanted was to show that her arcane talents weren't a "curse"! That she could use them to ward off the giants!
Instead, she led them right to her home.
At least the village folk weren’t around to see her fail this time. Well, they were “around”. Here, there, and everywhere. Their bloody remains strewn about the charred ruins of her once thriving home. Lana could do nothing but stare in abysmal horror as she watched what remained of her town burn to the ground. The stench of ash and fresh viscera filled her nostrils. If she had bothered to eat in the last few days, she surely would have vomited. She collapsed to her knees, wailing and sobbing, eyes blurry and drenched in tears. An enormous shadow encompassed her, blocking out what little she could see. She knew this was the end, and when the shadow's owner brought its weapon upon her, she did nothing except bawl….
~~~~~
Lana awoke with a screaming start. Another nightmare about her old home. It had been months since the tragedy, yet it seemed she was incapable of letting it go. She held a hand to her chest, and tried to steady her breathing, just as her father had taught her when she was a girl. She listened to the sounds of fresh water dripping from the stalactites above, matching their sounds with the rhythm of her breaths. In, out. In, out. Once she regained her composure, she crawled out of the discarded furs and leafy scraps she used as a bed, and got right to work for the day.
The sunlight came in through small holes in the cavern’s ceiling, allowing Lana’s tired pupils to adjust to the morning light. She rubbed the sleep away from her eyes, stretched out her aching back, and set out to work for the day.
She reviewed her morning tasks as she packed a few small berries into her pouch. Right. She needed to disarm a few more mechanisms and traps near her hideaways, gather spider silks to repair the tears in her clothes, collect fresh water from the nearby river (that would take most of the day), and scavenge some new furs and feathers for that killer crick in her neck. She rubbed the back of her neck on her sore spot, and sighed. All had to be done before dusk, earlier if she could help it, a nigh impossible task. It was these early mornings that really made her miss her village. The loss of everyone she had known already proved traumatic, the crippling loneliness was only made worse by the daunting amount of chores she previously had a town’s worth of people to help complete. At least back then they had each other for company during their morning routines. Now that it was only her, the tasks were done not for the sake of a thriving community, but simple survival. It wasn’t easy, but she managed.
Lana grabbed her handmade knapsack of leaves and leather scraps, as well as her every important "bucket" made of carved stone, and clambered her way out of her hideout. Once outside, she collected her walking stick, slinging the bucket around the far end. Once the bucket was secured around the staff's edge, she tapped it twice against the ground to activate her light enchantment she placed within it. The bright light of the staff shone through the darkness of the cave ruins, acting as a permanent torch for her expedition. She grinned slightly. Her arcane talents were nothing compared to the fire-slinging, reality bending miracles of other arcane blessed, but they were her powers nonetheless. And she’d use them as she saw fit.
She never understood her clan's ban on the arcane. When visitors from the other human clans came to her village to trade, they were always warned to keep their talents to themselves. To save their magic for the road, as any hint of arcane may attract the attention of the titans. Of course, Lana had always believed it to be nonsense, she used her arcane talents in secret with no adverse effects. At least, until the titans did come and destroy everything she loved. But it wasn’t her fault! They were going to come regardless of what she did. She reasoned that the giants always had their way, that they are the gods’ favorites and could take and destroy as they pleased, even at the expense of an insignificant, innocent village of humans. One she had desperately tried to defend using the very magics they shunned her for.
Lana shook her head to bring herself back to reality. She needed to focus to wrap the spider’s silk around the twig she picked up without fraying it or attracting the attention of the arachnins. They usually left her alone; she proved herself too capable of fighting for the spiders to bother wasting energy trying to make a meal of her. Besides, most of them were busy collecting better prey for their brood queen. Regardless, any creature was sure to become aggressive when its home was under siege. They had a delicate balance - the spiders kept the pests away while providing her with natural silks and twine, and she let them be.
Once she believed she had collected enough, Lana broke the twig so it fit nicely into her knapsack and placed it inside.
Alright, next order of business: Water. Gods she was parched. It would take several hours for her to reach the river banks, the waters were best accessed at the cavern’s entrance, and judging by the direct sunlight shimmering down through holes in the cavern top, she was already behind schedule, and still so many tasks left incomplete. Food and scraps would have to wait. She reasoned she had enough leftovers in her cavern to last at least one more night, and water always took priority.
The hours passed quickly as Lana traversed the caverns, following the markings and directional arrows she made on previous outings, eventually making her way to the river. The bright yellows of the daylight soon turned to warm orange rays as the day passed from midday to early dusk. The foreboding of the cold dark would be enough to drive any lone human mad, but Lana was well accustomed to the dark. She hummed as she walked, stepping to the rhythm of her tune. Once she reached the water's edge, she kneeled down, laid her staff to the side, and retrieved her bucket. She took a moment to admire the serene beauty of the river. From the roof of the cavern, a large (to her) portion of it had caved in, allowing for the pristine blue waters to flow in from above. Despite falling from the ceiling, the waters were actually quite calm. Once it flowed far enough into the cave, it pooled into a lake, where it settled into crystal clear shimmers. Lana sat slightly upstream, so as to catch at least a bit of cleaner running water. She first dunked her head into the river, letting it soak her hair and face. It was ice cold, but she didn’t care. It felt like ages since she had a proper wash, she ached for the comforts of warm bath and sweet smelling soaps, though an ice river bath was better than no bath at all.
She shook the cold water off like a wet dog, wringing out the long waves of her red hair. By the stars that felt good. If she wasn't before, she was certainly awake now, the ice cold water forcing her body to pump some much needed adrenaline.
With that burst of energy, Lana grabbed the bucket and stuck it into the running water. In only one hefty lift against the currents of the waters, she brought the bucket out, filled to the brim with fresh, lifegiving water. Still, she'd have to boil and filter it later, the water did no good as it is. Full of diseases and other contaminants, it was barely worth the trouble. Not that she really had a choice in the matter.
She stared into the murky bucket water with discontent. Once again she found herself longing for the comforts of her former home, with well water and fresh pots of tea to satiate her. She watched as the water rippled in the bucket, thinking back to when she would toss stones into the lake with her father.
Wait. Why was the water rippling? She hadn't moved it. A loud thudding sound brought her off her knees. The ground shook, bits of old soil and rock fell from the cavern ceiling. It was likely some animals fighting over territory again. They always caused such a ruckus. It was rather disruptive, even if it was just their nature.
She listened intently, hoping to catch the sound of horns on horns, hooves to hooves, or claws against the ground. She heard nothing for a bit, until another thud was followed by distant chatter. Hm. Odd. She had never heard such bizarre animal cries before. They continued on, they were loud and distinct from one another. They called and responded to each other, as if communicating with one another. The sounds got closer, louder, until it seemed as if they were all just on top of each other. They went silent for a moment, then they laughed. The distinct, unmistakable all-too-recognizable sound of laughter. Giant, loud, booming laughter. She froze. Those weren't the cries of territorial animals. No, the noises were too big, too complex, too intelligent. Those weren't animal cries at all! It was… a conversation! Oh no.
~~~~~
The party's laughter rang out through the forest canopies. Ashero, embarrassed, buried his head in his caster's hood. The elven man landed flat on his butt after attempting to float down to the entrance of the cavern. Thankfully, the height hadn't been tall enough to hurt anything save for his pride. Once she was able to stifle her laughter, Allynna followed her companion down with a graceful leap, a twist in the air, and stuck the landing. She posed for a moment, taking in her successful acrobatics, her cloak flowing behind her, before reaching a hand down and helping Ashero to his feet. The elf stood up with a “harumph” and a roll of his eyes. Allynna laughed again, flicking her tail back and forth, she had known him long enough to know that was Ashero’s way of saying “Thank you”. They were childhood friends, the three of them. Ashero, herself, and Thailna, an unlikely group of an elf, a tiefling, and a half-orc, who at present was climbing down the side of the cavern with their guild-assigned cleric, Irala, on her back. She descended, one foot after another, until both her and Irala could touch the ground. Irala curtseyed to show her gratitude, the elder moon-elf not so much as attempting to hide her wrinkled smile. Thailna returned the smile and wiped the sweat from her brow, her muscles showing some signs of strain.
“Well, we’re a bit later than expected, but you did manage to cross the trail despite the hardships along the way.” Irala spoke with a calm demeanor, her voice showing no sense of remorse or disdain for their late arrival to the caverns. Which was good news for the younger trio, she was the evaluator for their guild membership, afterall. The three of them had agreed to follow in their parents’ footsteps and join the guild as a traveling party. As was protocol for guild applicants, they were given “trials” to test their abilities, ensuring they were properly prepared for the dangers they would face. They passed the first few with little difficulty, impressing themselves as well as their evaluators. Now, for their last trial, they would traverse outside the city limits and into the wilderness. Of course, allowing young adults with little to no experience in the outside world to travel on their own was irresponsible, so each new party was assigned two older, more experienced members of the guild to guide them, evaluate their abilities, and act as chaperones for the prospective members.
“Would o’ been ‘ere sooner if it weren’t for them bandits along the road!”
The second of the seasoned adventures landed with a thud right beside the rest of the party. He had spent a little extra time climbing down to the cavern, given his shorter stature and heavy armor. He had also been tasked with carrying the remaining supplies, as Thailna was not quite able to carry both their supplies and Irala down the edge. Allynna watched as the dwarf paladin lay the bag next to him, removing his helmet as he did so. He stroked his long silvery beard, the fine hairs rustling in the wind.
“Well, we took care of them easily enough, and rescued the trader caravan while we were at it! It may have taken extra time and some of our supplies, but a good deed is a good deed.” Thailna shrugged as she spoke. Her rough exterior betrayed her kind heart. She always looked on the bright side of things, as well as using her natural strength to defend those that could not defend themselves. She was a shining example of what the guild strove to be. So when the opportunity arose for her to save a traveling merchant’s caravan from a bandit ambush, she leapt on it without thinking. The bandits may have had numbers, but they had the combined ability to easily overpower them. The bandits were quickly dispatched, they scrambled for their loot before retreating off further into the woods, leaving behind only scraps and blood as evidence of their scuffle.
Of course, when all was said and done, the kind hearted Thailna and Allynna offered the caravan a good chunk of their own supplies, just to ensure they made it back to the city in one piece. Ashero and Gamdon attempted to speak up against giving away so many of their necessary supplies before even reaching their own destination, but a subtle glare from Irala was enough to shut them both down in one fell swoop.
“You daydreaming again, Allie?” A familiar rough hand on her shoulder brought Allynna out of her memories. Thailna gave her a warm smile as she ushered her along with the others of the ragtag group at the mouth of the caverns.
“Save the dreams for another few hours or so, Allie. It'll be sunset soon.”
With a slap on Allynna’s shoulder and a hearty laugh, Thailna walked over to Gamdon’s side, who had already begun to unpack their camping gear, setting out a make-shift fire pit surrounded by their bedrolls. Allynna hurried along, sitting comfortably next to Irala, who was busy reading over a scroll, and Ashero, who was leaning over the fire pit with a flint and steel. She stretched her arms out, yawned, and made herself more comfortable by unhooking her dagger belt from around her waist. She set it beside her, at the ready for when she lay down for the night. Before her head could hit the bedroll's pillow, a hearty "ahem" from Irala brought her focus onto the older woman. The rest of the party, too, momentarily stopped their tasks to listen to what she would say.
"Before we finish setting up our campsite and begin turning in for the night, let's review our purpose for being here."
Irala turned the scroll she was reading around, the pristine parchment and inked image of a large arachnid in clear view to the captivated party. She spoke with a projected voice that contradicted her normal gentle tone.
“We are here on the final evaluation trial for these three young adventurers. You may have passed the initial simulation trials and earned your place back at the guild, but this will be your way to prove that you can truly handle yourself in a real life quest. Now, let's review,” She cleared her throat and began reading directly from the scroll: “You are here in service of the guild for the mission of slaying one arachnin queen. The beast has set up its layer and brood in the ruins of an old cavern research facility located within the Belfa’ir Woods outside of the capital city of Ijora. This creature has proved a nuisance to trading caravans, trappers, and hunters alike. It commands its spawn to prey on local fauna and unsuspecting travelers. Slay the beast and bring back the requested parts and your trial will be considered complete, allowing you to become full members of the guild. The guild will ask for a portion of your reward, but you may keep any treasures you find. Good hunting!”
Irala bowed as she finished reading the scroll. She rolled it up and stuck it back in her travel pouch before settling cross-legged on her bedroll. “And remember, Gamdon and I are here to assist, but we will be taking a back seat to your quest. You three must prove your skills to us on your own. That said, please do not hesitate to ask for assistance if you need it. It is better we all complete our mission in good health, than to perish because of our own pride.”
Ashero finally managed to get the fire going, basking in its warmth before settling into his own bedroll. It was not long before Irala and Thailna had produced an iron pot from their bag of holding, from which they cooked a good night’s meal for the tired group. With the smell of a campfire in the air and a warm meal in her belly, Allynna was ready to retire to her bedroll. A light tap on her head from the cleric’s staff prevented her from falling asleep. The old woman smiled down at her with a look that reminded her of her mother on an afternoon when she forgot her to do her daily chores.
“Allynna, since the others worked so hard to get our campsite ready and prepare a nice meal, would you be a dear and take the first night watch for everyone? We would so greatly appreciate it.” The words carried no malice, but Allynna understood the message. She had been so preoccupied by her own excitement for the mission, she had forgotten to actually assist with basic necessities for it! She stood up and brushed herself off, then gave Irala a nod, returning her smile. It was only fair, afterall.
~~~~~
No! It's not fair! Lana paced the floor from the safety of one of her hideaways as she considered the situation. She came out all this way to avoid these giant monstrosities, and now there were several that set up a camp inside her shelter, getting ready to do who knows what! Her stomach growled, reminding her of her priorities. She hadn’t yet finished her errands for the day, and with the sun sinking below the horizon and the group of giants currently blocking her only access to the bounties of the forest, it seemed she wouldn't be able to, not without great risk to her well being. Still, the pang in her stomach couldn't be ignored, as with all living beings, the threat of starvation outweighs the risks of obtaining food. She ceased her pacing and slouched against the cave wall, placing a hand on her aching belly.
Survival is about making quick decisions in desperate situations. She could wait it out, letting the giants do whatever it was they were going to do and leave, letting her come out without worry of being spotted, but she was certain that if she put off eating any longer, she might not be strong enough to gather the food she needs. On the other hand, if she went out now, there was the risk of being spotted by the giants. And was that really better than starving?
Lana creeped over to the crevice entrance and surveyed the giants. Their cooking fire still burned, serving to light the cavern walls as all but one of the giants lay on the ground, fast asleep. The one that remained awake was preoccupied with its blades. It stared off into the distance, whilst idly twirling the knife between its fingers. By some trick of the light, she could not make out the features of the giant. It was as if the shadows swarmed around it, obscuring it from view.
One thing she could make out, its focus was solely in the direction of the dancing flames of their campfire, away from her. If she was going to get past it, it was now or never. Lana hugged the walls, making careful, quiet steps as she inched towards the cave’s exit. She never took her eyes off the giant. Inch by inch she made her way across the cavern ground, until just as she was getting past the giants’ camp, she heard a shift of movement from behind her. She watched as the giant stiffened, then stood up swiftly, becoming more alert. Its long, pointed ears twitched as it turned to face her direction. Lana froze. She held her hands over her mouth, and tried to steady her breathing. The humongous being scanned the area, its eyes seeming to glow in dark as it surveyed its surroundings. Lana dare not move, fearing that even the slightest tremble would alert it to her presence. She backed into the rocky wall, knocking a few pebbles down. She gasped, and held her breath, watching as the giant’s eyes focused directly on her. It was unmoving, just staring through her. Lana stayed still as a statue, praying to whatever god would listen that the creature would just forget she was there.
For a moment, it appeared as though the giant had given up. Lana allowed herself to relax, her shoulders drooping down towards the floor. Only to tense back up when the giant began to shout and move in her direction. It pulled out its remaining blades, and that was all she needed to see before bolting back towards her hideout. She didn't care how much her lungs burned, how tired and hungry she was, in that moment she only knew survival, and every instinct was screaming at her to run. She darted as fast as she could for the opening, leaving the shadows behind in trade for the glow of moonlight. She could hear the hollers of the other giants as they awoke, their metal garments making a ruckus as they arose. Though her ears rang with their shouts, she could swear she heard a rumbling scuttering behind her as well. She dared not turn around to see the chaos that followed, solely focused on making it to the relative safety of her home.
Lana ran as fast as her legs could carry her, past the camp, far from the shouts of the giants, and into the enclosed space of her hole-in-the-wall. She only stopped running when she hit the edge of the wall, her muscles no longer able to carry her. She collapsed to the ground, panting and wheezing as she attempted to catch her breath. She rolled herself over and crawled to a corner, where she continued to pant, absolutely exhausted. Her body still shook, her arms barely able to stay steady on her chest. Once the adrenaline wore off, she could feel the aches throughout her body. She tried to calm herself, but found it difficult to slow her breathing, her body left her short-winded as it tried to catch up with her racing mind
Alright Lana, deep breaths. In, out. In, out.
It took some time, but her breathing eventually did begin to slow. With a now calmed mind and body, she took in her situation. The sounds of battle echoed outside her hideout. She could hear screeches and loud scuttering matched by shouts and clashes of metal against solid stone. The ground quaked, rubble falling from the ceiling of her hideout. For a while, she feared the cavern may collapse, crushing her within her own home, until finally, one final shrieking howl that violently shook the whole cavern was followed by a thud, then, deafening silence. Though her curiosity peaked, she dared not move. Her survival instincts overtook any irrational thoughts of satiating her curious mind.
Speaking of satiation, Lana's stomach growled. In all the "excitement" She had yet to eat anything for the day. She rolled over and reached for her sack where she packed away the berries from the morning. When she felt only air, she could feel the rush of panic set in once more. It had to be here somewhere! She scoured the floor for it, scanning every corner, only to come up empty handed. She ran her hands through her hair in frustration.
Stupid stupid stupid!
An entire day's worth of scavenging, all gone to waste. No silks, no water, and now no food. As if that weren't bad enough, another worrying thought crossed her mind -
What if the giants find it first?!
Her heart sank at the thought of leaving a trail right to her. Against her better judgements, she peered out from her hideout. She traveled further than she initially thought - finding that this was not her normal hideaway, but a different crevice that led to an enclosed room, cut off from the rest of the cavern by a humongous ancient door. She recognized her own writings and symbols from previous outings identifying the location. This was a treasure room, filled with gemstones, old scrolls, and of course, plenty of gold. It was hidden away, disguised as just another rocky wall in the cavern that was barely noticeable from the outside. In her previous outing, she had marked this place as a means of secondary egress, should the need ever arise. There was a small crawl space on the other side of the room that she could just fit through that led to the outside world. However, she rarely came here. The primary entrance served as a much roomier and convenient exit, and while the treasures were certainly nice to look at, they were hardly useful for survival.
Until now, that is. An idea crossed her mind. If the giants were as predictable as she believed them to be, all she had to do was guide them to this hoard. They'd take their fill, and satisfied with their haul, they'd go back to whatever nightmare they crawled out of, leaving Lana free to roam around in the open without fear.
She crawled back into her hideout, and searched around for a palm-sized pebble she could use. Finding a decently shaped one, she hurried her way back through the crevice out of the chamber and into the open space of the cavern. She peeked out, making sure the giant’s camp was far enough away, before setting out against the wall, climbing a decent distance, and drawing arrows, symbols, and directions to indicate the treasure room, how to access it, and the possible exit, should the giants be strong enough to remove the boulders blocking the way.
When Lana finished, she took a moment to admire her work before scurrying back to her hole. There was one more thing she needed to take care of. The treasure room contained many valuables precious to those who created it. Naturally, this meant it was also full of ancient traps and mechanisms made to protect those precious gems. To Lana, such traps were easily avoided and dismantled, however, to a less observant bumbling giant, they could prove deadly, which was far more trouble than Lana was willing to deal with.
She made her way back into the treasure room once more, maintaining a cautious awareness of her surroundings. One little slip up was all it would take to bring traps from mundane to harmful, and attract more of the already unwelcome attention of the giants. She started with a smaller trap, one that had weathered with age, and took it apart piece by piece. Without proper tools, there was only so much she could do to disarm it, but the mechanism had rotted away enough that it was relatively easy to pull apart by hand, even for someone her size. With the tattered remains of the first trap in hand, she made her way once more back to the cavern. It was at this point she began to realize just how tired she was. Several days without proper food, water, and rest was fully taking its toll on her body. Even just walking to the chamber entrance left her winded.
Ignoring the cries of her body, she set the trap’s parts out in a line at the front of the room entrance, wide enough that they’d be noticeable to even the largest of giants. She figured it would be enough of a warning. She wiped the sweat from her brow and one final time made her way through and back into the treasure room. She walked again to the front entrance, though this time she had to sit down to catch her breath. This whole plan would be pointless if she killed herself just trying to set it up. Her eyes felt heavy, and she could feel herself falling into slumber.
“Just… a quick nap. To restore my strength” she muttered to herself. Her eyelids closed, and the weight of her body seemed to float away as the slumber of exhaustion took her.
~~~~~~
Allynna munched on her breakfast rations whilst she studied the small object left behind by the fleeing little creature. Opening the top, she flipped through its contents, there wasn't much, just a small thing of silk-string and a couple of barely ripened goodberries. Though, it wasn't the contents that had her interest. It was more the construction of the object. It reminded her of her knappsack, but with a more 'scrounged together' look about it. It was held together by leaves and twine, but the general material was like a type of leather and fabric blended together. What's more, if it was a bag, it surely fit for the size of the creature that left it. Small, and easily fitting within the palm of her hand. She had hoped that by studying the 'bag' she might learn what the tiny creature was, but she wasn't quite well versed enough in the types of creatures in the area to even take an educated guess. It could've been fey, but even at this distance they were far too close to the city for there to be any feywild portals. Definitely not an imp, too small and it lacked that distinct sulfur smell. Human, perhaps? Unlikely, those traveled in groups, one all by its lonesome would be a death sentence for the poor thing.
At the very least, she knew it had dropped the bag when it darted by, likely trying to avoid the arachnin hoard's ambush. She was thankful it did, too! If not for the tiny creature's presence, she may have missed the ambush altogether and failed to alert the other members of her party.
The five of them were more than capable of dealing with the smaller spiders, even in their great numbers, but once the humongous queen showed its ugly face, things became more difficult. It took everything they had to bring it down, but one final blast from Ashero's Fire Bolt brought the beast to a screeching halt, as well as scattering the remainder of the arachnin hoard. There was no time to celebrate, however, as in the chaos of the battle, the entrance (and only exit!) to the cave collapsed in on itself, leaving them trapped in the dark. After their restless night, the party agreed to travel further into the cavern in the morning, hoping another exit was possible.
"Hey, come check this out!" Thailna's voice echoed through the cavern ruins. Allynna quickly pocketed the small object, making a mental note to return to it later, and ran to her friend's side. The rest of the group soon followed behind. Thailna held her torch up high, to better light her discovery. The torchlight revealed what appeared at first glance to be little scribbles all along the wall. The group followed the scribbles down deeper into the cave until they merged together, forming one large oval that reached to the ground.
“It's… a door!” Allynna took in the odd “door”. The lines were hardly straight, appearing as though they were drawn on by a child. Nonetheless, the outline of the door was clear, a hidden passageway masqueraded as just another piece of the wall. Had it not been for the chalk outline, they would have easily missed it. Surrounding the door were small drawings, each depicting a different shape surrounded by smaller, more complex shapes.
“These glyphs around it, never seen anything like them. Think a bandit gang left them?” Ashero placed a hand on the glyphs, tracing in their patterns as he studied them. Allynna could see the frustration on his face. Years learning all manner of glyphs and runes and yet he could not discern simple drawings on a cave wall.
Thailna shook her head in disagreement
“Too recently done. We would’ve heard them drawing on the walls or sneaking about the cave. Plus, you said it yourself, this looks nothing like anything a greater race would make. Although, this one looks like a sun of some sort? Think there’s an exit here?”
“Only one way to find out.”
Ashero attempted to push open the door, barely budging it before a jerk on his hooded robe pulled him away. He let out a yipe as Thailna yanked him away like a dog on a leash.
“Slow down there, death row, look beneath you.”
Sure enough, just underneath Ashero’s feet lay the remains of a simple trip wire trap. The pieces were scattered about and rotted through. The rot only accounted for a small portion of the damage done to the trap, missing parts, broken mechanisms, and the wire itself appeared to have been intentionally cut.
“It's rotten and old, same as everything else in this cave,” Ashero picked up the rotten wire, presenting the frays and old molds to the party. “I highly doubt any of the traps within will pose any threat to us. Most likely they'll collapse upon activation.” Ignoring the bemoans of disagreement from his friends, he barely managed to slide the ancient door open through brute force.
The inside was breathtaking. Lining the walls were gems of all kinds, their shapes, sizes and colors all clashed together in sporadic decor. The floors were paved with gold, with ancient coins piled in the corners, each pile was topped by a wooden chest, darkened and rusted by the passage of time. The western side of the room was less glorious, but adorned with a different type of treasure: sunlight. It trickled in from the outside, blocked only by old rubble and stonework. He had found their way out.
Ashero stood in awe of the treasures surrounding him before regaining his usual confidence and walking nonchalantly into the dimly lit room nonchalantly, before turning back to face his friends and allies.
“See? Nothing to worry ab-” Ashero never finished his sentence. The party watched as he was hoisted into the air by his foot. Sharp spines came from the ceiling, closing themselves around his leg like the jaws of an animal. The group acted quickly, rushing in just behind him, the cave shaking as they entered. Rubble fell from the ceiling, the ancient mechanisms creaking to life as other traps attempted and failed to activate, their old rusted parts shaking loose debris long trapped by stillness – the cavern was caving in, and this time it certainly would bury them alive!
Allynna wasted no time going to assist her friend, but from the corner of her eye she spotted a small creature scurrying across the ground. She recognized it as the very same creature that passed her by just before the arachnin ambush. Only this time, with the added light leaking from the outside, she could see it a little clearer. Pale skin, long hair, tattered cloth covering its body, and the distinct rounded ears. It was human after all! But, why was it out here by itself? A question for later. She watched as it scrambled into a small hole in a wall, cornering itself just out of sight.
Once Ashero was safely removed from the trap and in the care of Irala, she ran over to the hole and looked inside. She could see the little thing pressed against the corner, shaking like a leaf in the wind. When she determined this to be its only means of exit, the other sides of the crevice blocked by carved stone and fallen rubble, she placed her hand at the entrance, and attempted to coax it out of its hiding place.
“Come on out, little one," She gently wiggled her fingers in a ‘come here’ motion. "I won't hurt you." Her voice was soft and quiet. She made special care to hide her fangs behind her plush lips, so as to not further frighten the poor thing.
“Allynna, the hell are you doing?” Ashero shouted. The highlands elf was understandably agitated, his poor attitude amplified by the throbbing injury on his leg.
“There’s a human in here! We must’ve startled it when the trap was triggered.”
“And? You're wasting time, this place could collapse any minute!" As if to reiterate his point, the ruins shook, small pieces of rubble raining upon the adventurers' heads.
"Quit yer shoutin' and hold still! Yer gonna bring the whole damn place down on us!" Gamdon grumbled as he continued to wrap the elf's wounds. Irala had already finished mending the more gruesome parts of the injury, it merely needed a few bandages. A simple process that would take but a moment, had Ashero not continued to fidget, much to the dwarf's annoyance.
“Would you two cut it out?! Irala, help me move this rubble, I think I can see a way out through here!” Thailna took off to the other side of the cavern, Irala right behind her. Allynna paid them no mind, focusing still on trying to retrieve the small creature from its hole.
"Why are you so fascinated with that thing?" Ashero's hollers drew another shake from the ruins, and a glare from Gamdon
Without turning to address her colleague, Allynna replied,
"It's been helping us! I know it has!"
Ashero lifted his leg, nearly kicking poor Gamdon, and showed off his freshly wrapped wounds.
"Yeah, a real help it's been!"
"That's your own fault for darting ahead into the room unprepared! One disarmed trap at the entrance doesn't mean there aren't more inside! Besides, it warned me of the arachnin ambush! And, the markings on the walls that led us to the treasure room? I've never seen anything like them! The details are too small and intricate to have been drawn by anyone of the greater races. Plus, the disarmed trap? What else could pick apart those tiny, delicate, near-invisible wires, but something equally as tiny and delicate!"
Allynna's eyes lit up as she spoke of the fascinating deeds the human had done for her party. Perhaps she might've thought herself crazy, had she not seen it with her own eyes. Being a tiefling had a few benefits, dark vision being one of them. Her mother had taught her that if all else fails, trust her eyes. She had never really bothered with humans before, nor did she understand the other races' judgements of them, but this one had caught her attention. She had so many questions bouncing around in her mind. Where did it come from? How did it know about all the traps and treasures? Why was it all alone out here? And most importantly, why would it risk getting caught to help them?
She flicked her tail once more as she pondered what to do. It was clear the human was not going to come out willingly. However, if she forced it out, she would risk either further frightening it, or bringing it unintentional harm.
Her thoughts came to an abrupt halt as the ground violently shook. Large chunks of rubble fell from the crumbling ceiling, narrowly missing Allynna. The shock from the near-miss caused her to jump to her feet. She turned to see her companions frantically dodging falling rubble as they grabbed as much riches as they could carry.
"Good news is we found another way out! Bad news is it was the only thing holding this place together!" Thailna shouted as she ran down to help pack the heavier possessions.
"Well then, what the fuck are we waiting for! Let's get out of here!" Ashero replied with equal volume. He wasted no time packing what he could as he stumbled for the exit. The pain in his leg caused him to fall over flat on his face, dropping what little he had been carrying.
Gamdon retrieved the fallen items as Irala helped the admittedly embarrassed Ashero up. He placed his weight on her and used her as a crutch as they limped for the exit.
"Wait!" Allynna exclaimed as she once again bent down on her knees and held her palm to the crevice. "What about the human!?"
"What about it?!" Ashero's pained expression turned to annoyance. He was willing to deal with Allynna's nonsense under normal circumstances, but at this moment, their lives were in danger, and the pain in his leg had drained all his patience.
"It'll die in here!" Allynna cried with genuine worry in her voice. She couldn't let the poor thing die for their carelessness, not after it risked itself to help them.
"We'll die in here if we don't leave now!"
"Then I'll stay behind! I'll make sure everyone gets out and that we didn't leave anything important!"
"What!? Are you insa-"
Irala forcefully pulled Ashero to the side, just managing to avoid falling debris. The two fell, with Ashero landing on top of Irala.
Gamdon helped them both to their feet. Irala dusted herself off and slung Ashero’s arm over her again. She was about to scold him, but a shout from Gamdon reminded her of their current situation.
"By the Gods, 'eres no time for 'is! Get up 'n' get movin'!" He grabbed Ashero’s other arm, tossed their packs on his back, and rushed them all through the exit.
With the rest of her companions safely escorted out, Thailna ran to Allynna's side. The younger woman was still attempting to coax the small creature out of its hole. Though clearly desperate, she still spoke in a hushed voice, ignoring the deafening noise of the collapsing cavern. Thailna placed her calloused hands on Allynna's shoulders. She knelt down next to her and calmly spoke to her friend.
"We need to go. Now."
She stared deep into Allynna's golden eyes, hoping she might give in. When she refused to move, Thailna sighed, rose to her feet, grabbed the last of their belongings, and moved for the exit.
"I know your mind is set. I'll be waiting outside. Don't take too long, I really don't want to have to drag you out kicking and screaming."
Thailna took her leave without looking back. She had known Allynna long enough to understand that when her mind was made up, nothing short of death would stop her. As she took a step out of the exit and into the light of the outside, she prayed to the gods that Allynna would come to her senses before she had to drag her out.
Allynna was out of options and time. She flicked her tail and bit her lip as she reached into the crevice. She felt around the inside until she bumped into something soft and warm. She knew what she felt was the human. She grabbed it before it could escape. It struggled in her grasp, and she tightened her grip around it in response. She could feel the little creature still kicking and squirming in her hand.
"I'm sorry little one, please don't hate me!"
She took a deep breath and pulled it out of its hiding place. With her free hand, she opened the pouch hanging from her thigh, then carefully tucked the human away inside. She could feel the human's squirming die down as she closed the pouch. There would be time for apologies later. Right now, she needed to run. Without taking a moment to breathe, she raced for the exit as fast as she could, never slowing down, not even when she had to dodge falling rocks as the ceiling caved in. She could see the light from the outside just ahead, but the collapsing tunnel was gaining on her. She picked up speed and dove through the exit as the last of the falling ruins sealed the opening behind her.
She landed belly down in the dirt, sliding a few feet from where she landed. Allynna let out an audible sigh of relief and turned over on her back. She made it.
Her relief quickly became panic as she had a sudden realization. The human! Had she accidentally crushed it when she dove through the exit?! Quickly, she ran her fingers over the small bulge in her pouch. When it moved in response to her touch, she once again let the wave of relief come over her.
"Nice landing, Allie." Thailna stood tall above her friend. She laughed as she watched Allynna's expression turn from surprise, to confusion, then to embarrassment. Grabbing her with one arm, she lifted her off the ground, and helped to brush the dirt off of her ragged garments. She gave her friend a hard pat on her back, before letting out a hearty laugh.
"Come on, we found a place to set up a new base camp before we head back to the city in the morning. Irala promised to cook up some of our leftover rations. Let's go catch up with the others before Gamdon eats it all again!"
Thailna continued to talk to Allynna as they walked deeper into the surrounding forest, but Allynna was only half listening. Her mind was preoccupied with other thoughts. More specifically, she was pondering just how she was going to explain her tiny passenger to her group. She placed her hand over the pouch and felt the human move again. It would have to wait, she decided. First, she needed a warm meal.
~~~~~
Pain. Unbearable pain. That's all that ran through Lana’s mind while she screamed and begged for mercy. She wanted to kick, to fight, but her body refused to obey. The darkness of the giant’s pouch consumed her, gnawing at what remained of her sanity. Light, she needed light! She tried to reach for something, anything that she could touch to bring forth the same light she once brought to her staff. Instead, she only grasped her leg, sending waves of pulsing pain through her body. Lana screamed, her cries falling upon deaf, uncaring ears. Tears welled in her eyes. The only solace she knew was that once they got to wherever they were going, the giant would end her suffering. She grasped tightly to her leg, begging for at least a little rest, a little tolerance before the end.
“Please…” she cried “Just feel better!” Her eyes were growing heavy, the dim light fading into an empty blackness. However, just before she completely lost herself, she swore she saw a bright light encompass her leg, and the pain ever so slightly weaned as she let herself lose consciousness.
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By: Andrew Doyle
Published: Dec 12, 2023
Towards the end of Christopher Marlowe’s play Tamburlaine Part Two, our marauding anti-hero burns a copy of the Quran, along with other Islamic books, as a kind of audacious test. “Now, Mahomet,” he cries, “if thou have any power, come down thyself and work a miracle.” Two scenes later, he is dead.
We might see this as a cautionary tale for our times. After all, it isn’t only Turco-Mongol conquerors who find themselves punished for Quran-burning. Last week, the Danish parliament voted to ban the desecration of all religious texts following a spate of protests in which copies of the Qur’an had been destroyed. Inevitably, the new law has been couched as a safety measure. This burning of the book, claims justice minister Peter Hummelgaard, “harms Denmark and Danish interests, and risks harming the security of Danes abroad and here at home”.
He has a point. Even unconfirmed accusations of Quran-burning can be sufficient to prompt extremist violence. In 2015, being accused of defiling the holy book, Farkhunda Malikzada was beaten to death by a ferocious mob in Afghanistan while bystanders, including police officers, did nothing to intervene. Many filmed the brutal murder on their phones and the footage was widely shared on social media. In 2022, a mentally unstable man called Mushtaq Rajput was similarly accused and tied to a tree and stoned to death in Pakistan. Earlier this year in Iran, it was reported that Javad Rouhi was tortured so severely that he could no longer speak or walk. He was sentenced to death for apostasy and later died in prison under suspicious circumstances.
But while we might anticipate that the desecration of the Quran would be proscribed in Islamic theocracies, it is troubling to see similar laws being passed in secular nations such as Denmark. The government had not been so faint-hearted when faced with similar problems in 2005. After cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed were published in Jyllands-Posten, a global campaign from Indonesia to Bosnia demanded that the Danish authorities take action. The government stood firm and the judicial complaint against the newspaper was dismissed.
In a free society this is the only justifiable response, albeit one that takes considerable courage. And the climate of intimidation that has descended since is a product of our collective failure to defend freedom of speech against the demands of militants. When the Ayatollah Khomeini pronounced his fatwa on Salman Rushdie for his novel The Satanic Verses, one would have hoped for a unified front on behalf of one of our finest writers. Instead, much of the literary and political establishment abandoned or even censured him. In the Australian television show Hypotheticals, the singer Yusuf Islam, formerly known as Cat Stevens, implied that he would have no objections to Rushdie being burned alive.
That a work of fiction such as The Satanic Verses could not even be published today gives us some indication of the extent to which we have forsaken the principle of free speech. If we are so squeamish about the burning of Qurans, why were so many of us indifferent to the burning of Rushdie’s book on the streets of Bolton and Bradford? Yusuf Islam’s remark about the author’s immolation might have been flippant but, as Heinrich Heine famously wrote: “Where they burn books, they will in the end burn people too.”
The ceremonial burning of books in Germany and Austria in the Thirties has ensured that the act will always have a unique charge, and a disquieting, visceral effect. It is why, for instance, the most memorable scene in Mervyn Peake’s Titus Groan is when the villain Steerpike sets fire to his master’s library. It is a gesture designed to repudiate the very heights of human achievement, to hurl his victim into a spiral of despair. When Rushdie saw his own novel publicly incinerated, he confessed to feeling that “now the victory of the Enlightenment was looking temporary, reversible”.
The burning of the Quran leaves many of us similarly troubled. We do not need to approve of the contents to sense that the destruction of a book is symbolic of a desire to limit the scope of human thought. When activists post footage of themselves gleefully setting fire to copies of Harry Potter, one cannot shake the similar suspicion that they would happily substitute the books with the author herself.
But while many of us find the burning of books instinctively rebarbative, to outlaw this form of protest is essentially authoritarian. And to reinstate blasphemy laws by specifying that only religious books are to be protected is fundamentally retrograde. Of course, such laws already exist in most Western countries in an unwritten form. In March, a 14-year-old autistic boy was suspended from his school in Wakefield, reported to the police, and received death threats after he accidentally dropped a copy of the Quran on the floor, causing some of the pages to be scuffed. He may not have committed a crime, but many people behaved as though he had.
And the same unwritten laws are in force in the fact that few would be brave enough to publish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed after the massacre at the offices of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in 2015. Five years later, the schoolteacher Samuel Paty was beheaded on the streets of Paris simply for showing the offending images during a lesson on free speech. Closer to home, a teacher at Batley Grammar School in West Yorkshire is still in hiding after showing the images to his pupils and stirring the ire of a righteous mob.
The failure of the school’s headmaster, as well as the teaching unions, to support this man against the demands of religious fundamentalists is revealing. Why must those who claim to be defending the dignity of Muslims treat them as irascible children? At the same time, as Sam Harris recently pointed out, there is an oddity in the fact that so many Muslims do not appear to be alarmed that “their community is so uniquely combustible”.
The bitter reality is that terrorism works, particularly when so many governments across the Western world are seemingly willing to fritter away our bedrock of liberal values. This has been actuated, in part, by an alliance of two very different forms of authoritarianism: ultra-conservative Islamic dogma and the safetyist ideology of “wokeness”. The latter has always claimed that causing offence is a form of violence, and the former has been quick to adopt the same tactics. This is why protesters outside Batley Grammar School asserted that the display of offensive cartoons was a “safeguarding” issue, and the Muslim Council of Britain criticised the school for not maintaining an “inclusive space”. The same censorious instincts have been updated, and are now cloaked in a more modish language.
In a civilised and pluralistic society, the burning of a holy book might provoke a variety of responses — anger, disbelief, or just a shrug of the shoulders — but it should never lead to violence. Back when The Onion still had some bite, the website satirised this “unique combustibility” through the depiction of a graphic sexual foursome between Moses, Jesus, Ganesha and Buddha. The headline said it all: “No One Murdered Because Of This Image”.
Freedom of speech and expression still matters, and if that means a few hotheads and mini-Tamburlaines might burn their copies of the Quran then so be it. It is unfortunate that we have reached the point where Islam must be ring-fenced from ridicule or criticism, whether due to fear of violent repercussions or a misguided and patronising effort to promote social justice. But for this state of affairs we ultimately have only ourselves to blame, and in particular our tendency to capitulate to religious zealots when they seek exemption from the liberal consensus.
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#Andrew Doyle#blasphemy#blasphemy laws#quran burning#quran#islam#islamic authoritarianism#authtoritarianism#i'm offended#offended#religious authoritarianism#free speech#freedom of speech#freedom of expression#criticism of islam#religion#religion is a mental illness
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Just to put it out there, this is the post that set this off though I've been seeing shit like this for weeks. I'm not reblogging it because I don't want to directly spread this.
Can't believe I have to say this, but: AO3 is not an inherently community properties. It is a Non-Profit Organization that was begun and organized by people with certain ethos in mind; in a very condensed nutshell, the freedom to write and share any and every kind of fic, no matter what subject matter it contains. Period. They wrote the charter to suite their ideals, funded it alongside like-minded individuals, and manned it for many years. People who believe in the dream that they set up are the ones largely running the show now (a few founding members may still be around, though I'm not sure about that,) but so far that ethos has remained in tact.
While AO3 was always meant to serve the community (and they do,) it was never meant to be run by anyone who does not share their ethos. That's why actively contributing to the organization itself--ie, through volunteering, and/or donating--is a requirement for having a say in what the archive does. You do not get to vote on board elections if you are not involved. You do not get to be on the board if you do not do these things. That is how all non-profits work. A non profit is not a union (and outside of possibly the original vote to organize, no union I've ever heard of allows non-union members to vote on union procedure, policy, or in elections.)
One of the reasons why this is true is that anyone who doesn't agree with the founding tenants of absolute free speech, no matter how vile that speech may be, will not stick with the organization long enough to change things internally--that is a feature, not a bug.
Why? In this case, because of that ethos. Because of the fic bans and the purges that the idea for AO3 was born out of, which always stemmed from "concerned individuals" and calls for "morality." Completely unironically, because of all the shit that's happening to regular libraries across the US right now. Essentially, because of all the things AO3 was always meant to stand against.
God fucking damn but am I tired of this latest round of anti nonsense disguising itself as "Proship" and "Anti-racist" and "Anti-harassment" in order to try and drive a wedge between AO3 and its donors. I've seen this song and dance before. We all have. It used to be "child porn" and "think of the children," and now its "harassment," and "abuse!" Ie, the exact things that the modern lefty is hard programmed to fall into line behind without actually considering the evidence.
People please read through this shit critically before just assuming its valid. Note the lack of actual, clearly displayed and easily legible proof*. How all the "I've complied everything in one page!!!" posts seem to just be paragraphs after paragraphs of conjecture and vague statements without, again, any goddamn proof (except, maybe, a list of links entirely removed from context, appended to the bottom.) Be critical of authoritative statements about how things "should" be run without any sense of where that authority is coming from, and the lack of solid answers (or even suggestions) as to how the problems should be fixed in any way that isn't "Fire everyone I've decided is responsible for this (again, without proof,) and replace them with people who want to completely rewrite the ethos of the site to allow bans on content that everyone (and by 'everyone,' I mean me, the speaker) agrees is objectionable."
There is an alarming number of parallels I've been seeing lately re: how people are currently attacking AO3 and how bad actors in various states are forcing through book bans. Please be mindful.
*"easily legible" is kind of a weird phrasing, but i can't think of a better one. What I mean, specifically, is a good 90% of the "proof" links I've found are all links to mid-page comment streams on anonymous wank boards which mostly start mid-conversation, effectively removing them from their original context, and never site any sources of their own. Literally everything is He Said/She Said levels of bullshit with some corporate buzz words tossed in to make it sound more valid than it is.
#call out culture nonsense#i thought we left this behind in 2016#ffs#i really wish people would stop couching things in the language of 'abuse'#suspending someone you think is involved in an attack is not abuse#it is LITERALLY responding to the problem you say you want them to respond to#also the Legal team IS the team that should be interpreting the TOS#that is literally their thing#The TOS is a legal document#someone without a legal background should not be interpreting it
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Since that seems to be the topic if Marijuana should be legalized, I’ll add my two cents!
But trigger warning, it’s gonna piss off 90% of this site. 🤣
Should it be legalized? Absolutely not.
For the record, I also think nicotine should be banned too but one battle at a time right? At least nicotine doesn’t kill the brain and cause people to become incapacitated to drive or make decisions.
It was determined to be a scheduled class 1 narcotic for a reason. The only reason it’s being pushed is for profit now by political leaders, ignoring the entire medical & scientific community. Medical use is far different than recreational use. It’s weird that most democrats are for the legalization too especially since they always push the “trust the science” angle and as a fellow democrat, I’m mad as hell because it makes us all look stupid & sound like a hypocrite. There is a reason other countries will not back off from making sure it’s banned and it’s for their citizens safety.
The argument that it addresses crime and crime rates will go down is absurd. In fact crimes rates have remained the same, just in a different way now. Many of the establishments around Detroit that opened when our state legalized it have been broken into, vandalized or have had fires set. It’s caused more chaos in those areas and many times local neighborhoods don’t want distilleries around due to the smell and the chaos that comes from those crimes.
And the smell is very real along with 2nd hand smoke. Others can still get high around you. I remember I was only 6 years old and we had all our windows open during the summer. Our neighbor was smoking weed. It drifted into our house and I got high as fuck as a 6 yo. I’d like to think most people would try to be good about it around children, but it’s another PSA that will have to be put out. As an asthmatic as well, nicotine smoke greatly affects me no matter what. Even if people come from outside after having a smoke break, it’s still on your clothes and sends me into a flare. There was a reason they tried to ban smoking at places because of second hand. And now we’ll have to fight weed too because everyone has the conception that it’s somehow different. It’s not!!
Now to the health part - smoking whatever is just bad for your lungs. Any kind of smoke. Your body is not meant to inhale it!! End of story. My dad was exposed to 2nd hand smoke growing up and became a heavy weed user (illegally) in his late teens and early 20s. It landed him with extreme scarring of his lungs and permanently on oxygen. Yes weed is still harmful to the lungs!!!
Second, yes there is some beneficial properties but this is solely linked to only the cannabinoids found within the cannabis. THC which is the part that gives you the brain alteration effects is the dangerous part. It does disrupt and kill off neuron pathways and has a higher chance of leading to stroke. Having large amounts of THC in your system over time can cause permanent memory loss, nerve damage and even death. Yeah I said it, death.
This is why science has been studying CBD oil. It still comes from cannabis and brings all the health benefits weed smokers boast about but without all the other stuff that damages your body. CBD is what has been helping the people with seizures, not weed. If the FDA wants to clear CBD use, I’m all fucking for that!!!! 👏🏼 I take it daily myself and even my dog took it. It works!! So I’m not saying there isn’t some truth to weed.
Now medically, if someone has terminal cancer or something absolutely painful & their doctor and them have discussed medical marijuana would be a better option than whatever the alternative - by all means, that is between the patient and their doctor to choose that route. Note that medical marijuana only provides so many grams a month. It’s CONTROLLED. Just like opioids and everything else. If someone really needs it, they’re not gonna go selling it or sharing it.
It’s the recreational users I’m not on board with. Some growers experiment adding different things and you don’t know what you’re getting. At the border we catch a lot of weed (and cocaine) laced with fentanyl. It’s not controlled and therefore more dangerous legal or not. Also many still choose to smoke and drive. Again, it alters the brain like alcohol. Idk but I want my loved ones and I to not be on the road with more asshats who decided to do a 2am Taco Bell run cause they had the munchies.
Which brings me to the final argument people try to convince me with and that’s “well alcohol is a thing and that’s not illegal.” True. And again it’s big business and brings money to the economy. Only reason they want weed legal - money. I’m not even for alcohol either so don’t try to start. I’m sober now after a brush in with alcoholism. Trust me, life is more fun on the other side once you’re completely sober and you realize alcohol is actually a pretty disgusting business. Alcohol and weed is an addiction, I’m sorry but it is. And yes, I’ll be the 80 year old grandma that says weed is a gateway drug. It creates the high feeling and then people want more and more and are willing to try other substances to recreate that high - especially if they do have an addictive personality. Some people don’t and won’t go beyond it but addiction is a very real trait some people are genetically predisposed to.
I don’t agree that having weed should be a large incarceration either. It’s a misdemeanor at best, not a fricken murder. But no I don’t believe it should be legal outside medical use.
I’m usually for do whatever you want to your body as long as you know the risks and don’t cry about it later, but this one is only being pushed because of lobbying and money. It is. Doctors are already tired of telling nicotine smokers smoking is bad as they place the 2nd stent in their heart and now they have to fight another battle as that field is fighting staffing shortages across the nation. They don’t need more patients making dumbass decisions for “fun.” I don’t know why it’s suddenly being brought up again when all the medical facts are out there. I feel like people got confused with the CBD studies and ran with it. 🤦🏻♀️
Also personally to me, it just smells like rotten shit. Idk how people do it. It’s super gross and disgusting.
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Rammstein - Elysée-Montmartre, 25.11.1997. Review by Hard-Rock. Photo by Marc Villalonga
Till Lindemann, the singer, is lucid: “This Strasbourg date will give us no information about our popularity in France: 90% of La Laiterie is filled with Germans. We will see tomorrow, in Paris.”
Appointment made backstage the next day with a crestfallen Lindemann: "As expected, yesterday's concert was excellent. It was a concert in Germany, actually. But tonight we have never played under such pressure. The Prefecture of Police wanted to ban the show. They let us play but warned us that they could cut the whole electrical system if they didn't like what we were doing. We were tense and gave an abominable concert. But I retain one positive thing from all this: the public. He saved us with his indulgence and above all his enthusiasm. “
Bad gig Till? You don't have to say anything, though. At the end of the rather short set, the reactions were all excellent. In the toilets of the Elysée-Montmarte, the fans queuing to drink a little water all went there with their rave comments. It's true, you don't see concerts like that every day. There was not the whole show of course since the Prefecture had put its nose in it: the group had the right to use explosives. But French explosives. And go and find some in Pigalle. Administration is fine. So, we can talk about a stripped-down show, and ultimately, so much the better: the star tonight was not the fire. It was the music. Sublime, with surgical precision. Listening to Rammstein's rhythm guitars makes you want to go buy a six-string as everything looks easy and remains so effective. Like when Mac Enroe was playing tennis and it seemed like nothing could be simpler. The public did not always show overflowing enthusiasm beyond the first ten rows. But who would blame them? There were a lot of curious people, people who came to see the beasts of the fair, the phenomena, the freaks. But between the pieces, the respectful applause was deafening. In a very theatrical way (the guitarists freeze when they are not playing), the group gave an amazing concert in Paris, unfortunately one piece was cut off from Strasbourg, the drummer having burnt out during the whole concert because of of a spotlight placed too close to his back. Till, sickly shy, who had entered the stage with his Terminator glasses, said only two words on stage: "Thank you Paris". Behind the scenes, looking us straight in the eye, he said, "I'll be back." This is what we hope with all our heart.
#Rammstein#Till Lindemann#Flake#Paul Landers#Christoph Schneider#Richard Kruspe#Oliver Riedel#1997#translation#review#*
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"We should swing in a row at Newgate in six weeks’ time!"
CW for discussions of the mechanics of capital punishment.
Newgate was one of the places in London that you least wanted to end up for most of the second millennium. Located near the "New Gate" of the City Walls, it began life in 1188 as a collection of cells to hold those awaiting trial.
It had a rather long and dark history, with many famous inmates (such as Daniel Defoe and of particular relevance here, Oscar Wilde spent some time), quite a lot of abuses and generally unpleasant conditions. The prison of this period dated from 1782, the third on the site. The second had been almost finished in 1780 when it was set on fire during the Gordon Riots, an anti-Catholic outbreak of disorder that saw 300-700 deaths. Charles Dickens used it as the backdrop for Barnaby Rudge, one of his lesser-known novels, possibly due to the limited number of adaptations. Other works of his set there included Oliver Twist, where Fagin spends his final night.
It was attached to the criminal courts colloquially known as "the Old Bailey" after the street is was on. By 1891, it had become the Central Criminal Court, dealing with high-profile cases from across England.
Many people only left Newgate for their meeting with the hangman. In 1783, London's gallows were moved from Tyburn to the front of Newgate prison. Until 1868 (three years after the opening of the first bit of the Underground!), these executions would still be done in public. Prisoners would take their final walk along Dead Man's Walk, over the quicklime-covered bodies of the previously executed under the flagstones, before coming out to see the crowds of spectators, looking forward to the show. It was quite common in the Bloody Code days for pickpockets to operate at the executions of people hanging for theft. The nearby Magpie & Stump pub would hire out upper rooms for those wanting a better view and also send the condemned a final pint.
After the end of public executions, the gallows were moved inside the facility. From 1881, a dedicated execution shed was built where up to four people could be hanged at once, although that only happened on one occasion, so a triple execution would have been perfectly possible. And "by once", I mean at the same time; the hangman would open the trapdoor so all were dropped into eternity at the same time.
There was a spectator's gallery outside for the press and official witnesses - their view was restricted so all they would see of the actual execution was the condemned drop into the pit below and the rope go taught. The prison was also used to train new executioners.
By 1891, the British government had clamped down on some of the dodgier practices engaged in by hangmen at this point after the Aberdare Committee of 1886. Like going around the local pubs the evening before and showing off the rope to the drinkers. Or selling said rope and the dead person's clothes to souvenir hunters after the fact. Or charging people to act as extra assistants at the execution, including one actual baronet. A standard "table of drops" was also set up, although not always followed initially.
In 1902, the prison was closed down and demolished in 1904. A rebuilt and expanded Central Criminal Court, opened in 1907 covers the old site - some of the old walls form part of it - still being known as the "Old Bailey". Trials are open for the public to attend, subject to a strict security check and an outright ban on taking photos inside.
Some of the remains of the hanged were removed and placed in a plot at the City of London cemetery.
The gallows moved to Pentonville and remained there, with the last execution occurring at that site in 1961, capital punishment ending three years later.
The Magpie & Stump remains to this day, heavily rebuilt. I might go there for lunch at some point.
A door from the prison is in the collection of the Museum of London, but the main site closed in 2022, with the facility moving to a new location in the Smithfield area that is due to open in 2026.
The six weeks reference? That was how quickly you could go from arrested to hanged in England.
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Jerusalem, right now.
[Eric Alterman]
* * * * *
We're now seeing the final hours of Israeli democracy. Yuval Noah Harari:
To understand events in Israel, there is just one question to ask: what limits the power of the government? Robust democracies rely on a whole system of checks and balances. But Israel lacks a constitution, an upper house in the parliament, a federal structure or any other check on government power except one — the Supreme Court.
This Monday, the Netanyahu government plans to pass the first in a series of laws that will neutralise the Supreme Court. If it succeeds, it will gain unlimited power. Members of the Netanyahu coalition have already disclosed their intention to pass laws and pursue policies that will discriminate against Arab people, women, LGBTQ people and secular people. Once the Supreme Court is out of the way, nothing will remain to stop them. In such a situation, the government could also rig future elections, for example by banning Arab parties from participating — a step previously proposed by coalition members. Israel will still hold elections but these will become an authoritarian ritual rather than a free democratic contest. Government members openly brag about their intentions. They explain that since they won Israel’s last elections, it means they can now do anything they want. Like other authoritarian forces, the Israeli government doesn’t understand what democracy means. It thinks it is a dictatorship of the majority, and that those who win democratic elections are thereby granted unlimited power. In recent months I have talked with many Netanyahu supporters, and they genuinely believe that any restraint on an elected government is undemocratic. “What do you mean we cannot take away people’s basic liberties?” they say. “But we won the elections! That means we can do anything we want!” In fact, democracy means freedom and equality for all. Democracy is a system that guarantees all people certain liberties, which even the majority cannot take away.
The establishment of a dictatorship in Israel would have grave consequences not only for Israeli citizens. The ruling coalition is led by messianic religious zealots who believe in an ideology of Jewish supremacy. This calls to annex the occupied Palestinian territories to Israel without granting citizenship to the Palestinians, and ultimately dreams of destroying the al-Aqsa mosque compound — one of Islam’s holiest sites — and building a new Jewish temple in its stead. Jewish supremacy is not a fringe notion. It is represented in the coalition by the Jewish Power party and the Religious Zionism party. Finance minister Bezalel Smotrich (from the latter) has recently called to wipe out an entire Palestinian town in retaliation for the killing of two Jewish settlers.
Men like Smotrich now command one of the most formidable military machines in the world, armed with nuclear and advanced cyber weapons. For decades the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has waged a campaign to stop Iran from going nuclear, warning the world about the dangers posed by a fundamentalist regime with nuclear capabilities. Now Netanyahu is establishing exactly such a regime in Israel.
This could set fire to the entire Middle East, with consequences that will reverberate far beyond the region. It would be incredibly stupid of Israel to do something like that, but as we learnt from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we should never underestimate human stupidity. It is one of the most powerful forces in history. The good news is that in recent months a powerful resistance movement has emerged to save Israeli democracy. Rejecting the ideology of Jewish supremacy, and connecting to ancient traditions of Jewish tolerance, hundreds of thousands of Israelis are demonstrating, protesting and resisting in every nonviolent way we know. Since Friday, more than 10,000 army reservists — including hundreds of air force pilots, cyber warfare experts, and commanders of elite units — have publicly declared that they will not serve a dictatorship, and that they will therefore suspend their service if the judiciary overhaul continues. By this Tuesday, the famed Israeli air force — which relies to a large extent on reservists — may be partially grounded.
To appreciate the magnitude of this step, it should be recalled that military service is a sacred duty for many Israelis. In a country that emerged from the ashes of the Holocaust, and that has faced existential threats for decades, the army has always been off-limits in political controversies. This is no longer the case. Former chiefs of the Israeli army, air force and security services have publicly called on soldiers to stop serving. Veterans of Israel’s many wars are saying this is the most important struggle of their lives. The Netanyahu government tries to depict this as a military coup, but it is the exact opposite. Israeli soldiers aren’t taking up arms to oppose the government — they are laying them down. They explain that their contract is with the Israeli democracy, and once democracy expires — so does their contract.
The feeling that the social contract has been broken has also led universities, labour unions, high-tech companies and other private businesses to threaten more strikes if the government continues with its antidemocratic power-grab. Israelis understand the potential damage to our country. As the so-called Start-Up Nation is closing down, investors around the world are pulling money out. The internal damage is even greater. Fear and hatred now dominate relations between different sections of society, as the social contract is ripped to shreds. Government members call the demonstrators and army reservists “traitors”, and demand that force be used to crush the opposition. Israelis worry that we might be days away from civil war. But the hundreds of thousands of us protesting in the streets feel we have no choice. It is our duty to ourselves, to Jewish tradition and to humanity to prevent the rise of a Jewish supremacist dictatorship. We are standing in the streets, because we cannot do otherwise if we are to save Israeli democracy.
[Israeli Democracy Is Fighting For Its Life :: Financial Times]
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Im honor of spooky month, just imagine childe finally able to be out and about bc people will think its just a really high quality costume. Children will smile and scream playfully and childe will just play along! The other abyssmal monsters also come out to play!
...now where did your candy basket go- KAEYA GET BACK HERE THATS NOT YOUR CANDY!!
HAPPY SPOOKY MONTH MY DEAR THIS IS SO CUTE <333
Childe would be so happy to be able to walk around town!!! even more so that people aren't afraid of him!! if they do scream, it's all in good fun, and you can see how much fun he's having from how he chirps and trills in delight when children run around his feet. Childe also just can't let go of you- you're in his arms at all times when walking around, mostly because he doesn't get to look around the city with you that often!! but also because he is still wary about being around so many people, so he wants to hold onto you just in case something goes wrong <33 sometimes leaves will float into his hair and fluff and you're in the perfect position to brush them off!! you show him the ones you think are the prettiest and he playfully nips at them (a few times he actually DOES bite into them and yelps in surprise!!!)
*rubs my hands together* oh the other Abyss creatures GOODNESS- the most trustworthy apart from Childe is Albedo, hands down. he's calm and collected and knows to stick close to you, plus he doesn't mind children fawning over his cool scales and wings!!! Diluc is... he's a bit jumpy, in all honesty- he trusts people the least out of everyone and being surrounded by so many, even if they're well meaning, can be quite nerve-wracking!! but he'd LOVE some quieter moments just admiring the ambience and atmosphere of the season. Kaeya is most definitely a mischievous little monster who steals sweets from you!!!! you've banned him from stealing stuff from anyone else because that's rude but you weren't on that list so there's many times that you find the treat you were waiting to enjoy mysteriously missing. you're never super upset or anything, but if you WERE Kaeya would immediately apologize and treat you to extra snuggles- he's a bit smug and mischievous but he still doesn't like seeing you unhappy!! (and the snuggles definitely turn into a pile of Abyss monsters with you in the middle)
and if we're including the Harbingers in this, there can and WILL be chaos. some of them (just Pierro and Pulcinella honestly) are trying to keep order, some are just napping or sitting beside you (Sandrone, Signora, Pantalone, Capitano, Arlecchino) and the remaining few are making an attempt to set the city on fire (Columbina, Dottore, Scaramouche)
#genshin impact#childe#tartaglia#foul legacy#foul legacy childe#genshin tartagalia#genshin childe#genshin tartaglia#corrupted albedo#abyss kaeya#abyss diluc#genshin harbingers#chit chat#darling mutuals#people ask how you deal with this daily and you just shrug#diluc wants to be outside but not around people so you'll go hiking somewhere to admire the view <333#childe is sosososoooo happy to be out and about even just for a little bit <333#kaeya will steal your chocolate.#and albedo is happily vibing!!!!#the harbingers are. being harbingers#most of them are pretty chill!!! but the ones who aspire to start fires are VERY determined#short scenario#other's stuff#sanctuary au#also foul legacy just crunching on a leaf fills me with joy
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PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A voter-approved Oregon gun control law violates the state constitution, a judge ruled Tuesday, continuing to block it from taking effect and casting fresh doubt over the future of the embattled measure.
The law, one of the toughest in the nation, was among the first gun restrictions to be passed after a major U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year changed the guidance judges are expected to follow when considering Second Amendment cases.
The decision was handed down by Circuit Court Judge Robert S. Raschio, the presiding judge in Harney County in rural southeast Oregon.
The law requires people to undergo a criminal background check and complete a gun safety training course in order to obtain a permit to buy a firearm. It also bans high-capacity magazines.
Measure 114 has been tied up in state and federal court since it was narrowly approved by voters last November.
The state trial stemmed from a lawsuit filed by gunowners claiming the law violated the right to bear arms under the Oregon Constitution.
The defendants include such Oregon officials as Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek, Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum and State Police Superintendent Casey Codding. They can appeal to the Oregon Court of Appeals and the case could ultimately go to the Oregon Supreme Court.
Rosenblum plans to appeal the ruling, her office said in an emailed statement.
“The Harney County judge’s ruling is wrong,” the statement said. “Worse, it needlessly puts Oregonians’ lives at risk. The state will file an appeal and we believe we will prevail.”
One of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, Tyler Smith, welcomed the ruling.
“We hope the Attorney General’s office will realize that the ill-conceived and unconstitutional ballot measure should not be defended,” he said in an email.
The decision is likely “the first opening salvo of multiple rounds of litigation,” said Norman Williams, constitutional law professor at Willamette University.
During an appeals process, it’s likely that the injunction freezing the law would remain in place. Raschio was the judge who initially blocked it from taking effect in December.
The different lawsuits over the measure have sparked confusion over whether it can be implemented.
In a separate federal case over the Oregon measure, a judge in July ruled it was lawful under the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
But because Raschio found it to be invalid under the Oregon Constitution during the state trial, the law remains on hold. This is because state courts can strike down a state law that violates the state constitution, even if it’s permissible under the federal constitution.
“The U.S. Constitution sets a floor, not a ceiling, for rights, so state constitutions can be more rights-protective than the federal constitution,” Williams said.
Because of this, Oregon officials would have to win in both state and federal court for the law to take effect, he said.
During the state trial, the plaintiffs and the defense clashed over whether the permit-to-purchase provision would hamper people from exercising their right to bear arms. They also sparred over whether large-capacity magazines are used for self-defense and whether they’re protected under the Oregon Constitution.
The plaintiffs argued that firearms capable of firing multiple rounds were present in Oregon in the 1850s and known to those who ratified the state constitution, which took effect in 1859. The defense, meanwhile, said modern semiautomatic firearms were “technologically distinct from the revolvers and multi-barrel pistols that were available in the 1850s.”
In his opinion, Raschio disputed the defense’s claim that banning large-capacity magazines would help make mass shootings less deadly. He recognized that mass shootings “have a significant impact on the psyche of America when they happen,” but said they “rank very low in frequency.”
“The court finds that 10-round magazine bans are no panacea to prevent a mass shooter,” he wrote.
“People tend to believe these events are prolific and happening all the time with massive levels of death and injury,” he added. “The court finds this belief, though sensationalized by the media, is not validated by the evidence.”
The Oregon measure was passed after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June 2022 created new standards for judges weighing gun laws. That decision fueled a national upheaval in the legal landscape for U.S. firearm law.
The ruling tossed aside a balancing test that judges had long used to decide whether to uphold gun laws. It directed them to only consider whether a law is consistent with the country’s “historical tradition of firearm regulation,” rather than take into account public interests such as promoting public safety.
Since then, there has been confusion about which laws can survive. Courts have overturned laws designed to keep weapons away from domestic abusers and felony defendants. The Supreme Court heard a case on one such law this month and is expected to issue a ruling by early summer.
In her separate federal ruling over the Oregon law, U.S. District Judge Karin J. Immergut appeared to take into account the Supreme Court’s new directive to consider the history of gun regulations.
She found large-capacity magazines “are not commonly used for self-defense, and are therefore not protected by the Second Amendment.” Even if they were protected, she wrote, the law’s restrictions are consistent with the country’s “history and tradition of regulating uniquely dangerous features of weapons and firearms to protect public safety.”
She also found the permit-to-purchase provision to be constitutional, noting the Second Amendment “allows governments to ensure that only law-abiding, responsible citizens keep and bear arms.”
The plaintiffs in the federal case, which include the Oregon Firearms Federation, have appealed the ruling to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The case could potentially go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Nine other states have permit-to-purchase laws similar to the Oregon measure, including New York, Hawaii, Maryland and Massachusetts, according to data compiled by the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
Apart from Oregon, 11 states including California, along with Washington, D.C., limit large-capacity magazines holding more than 10 rounds, according to the Giffords Center. California’s ban on higher-capacity magazines remains in effect while the state fights a lower court’s ruling from September that the law is unconstitutional.
#nunyas news#CA court did this with a measure years back#still wild to me that it works this way#but also probably good
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