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lukeskywaker4ever · 4 years

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King Pedro V 2nd Voyage (May 20th to August 14th, 1855): France

The 1854 trip was not, in fact, the last that King D. Pedro V made through the old European continent. In the following year he made a new tour and, in the excitement of what would follow, Pedro described, in his new diary, the wonders of traveling for those who want to educate themselves: “On a trip you receive an instruction that is very different from that of books, an introduction that books do not give, that instruction that you receive just because you throw your head out of the window. A trip, and a trip mainly in civilized Europe, that of the revolutions that have changed the face of our society, that shows us the remains of great nations, the effects of political errors, is a great relief to the thirst for instruction, a momentary relief and for that reason it is painful for those who see it before them only a bad time.” This time, and to fill the gap from the previous trip, France was the starting point for a new tour. It would be, again, the ship Mindelo

carrying King D. Pedro, who was accompanied, as in the previous year, by his brother Luís.

On May 25th, at noon, the ship reached the river Gironde, which bathes the city of Bordeaux. However, at that hour, the river was no longer navigable, so Mindelo had to land in Pauillac, a few kilometers from Bordeaux. Predicting that this could happen, Emperor Napoleon III

had already made available a steam, the size of which allowed him to sail to the French city. In Bordeaux, the floor of Place de Quinconces, next to the river, “was exquisitely carpeted, and had a rich pavilion decorated with the arms of Casa de Bragança and those of the Emperor, superimposed in the colors and flags of Portugal and France. The garrison troops formed in the Quinconces square

made wings in the passage of the royal procession.” When the French steam, which brought D. Pedro and D. Luís, docked: “A royal salvo announced the landing of the Augustos Viajantes; the drums played the generala; the songs played the Portuguese anthem, and the cheers of the Emperor and the King live from all sides. The population of Bordeaux was crowded on the quay, the prospect was magnificent and pompous, and the weather that had become excellent contributed to the brilliance of the ceremony.”

A sumptuous carriage had been placed at the disposal of the King of Portugal, taking him to the Hotel de Ville,

where he was accommodated. In that same space, a “banquet of 35 place settings” was waiting for him, that is, for 35 diners. In the short stay of just one day, Pedro had the possibility, right after the banquet, of watching a play in the theater where “the rich of Bordeaux are seen strutting, eager for pleasure and possessing the means to satisfy them.” However, he did not stay to meet them. The destination was Paris and he headed there. The next day he left Bordeaux to take the train in Orléans that would take him to the main Gallic city. On the way, after being delighted with the architecture of the station, he had time to admire the bridge over the Garonne,

“one of Napoleon's great public works.” As he crossed France, he meditated on the advantages and disadvantages of large and small farms: “While I did not read the story impartially, I believed in the goodness of the property division, today I am more reserved and more illustrated in my opinion .” In Paris, he had the opportunity to talk about the matter, once again concluding that the big property was the best: “Everyone lamented, like me, the extreme division of property and some [individuals] I have heard triumphantly refute the argument of the advantage of interested the small people in the territorial property and consequently in the order. I said it above that the extreme division of property is a socialism and a communism that has the only advantage, and this is very considerable because of its results, but intrinsically insignificant, of not being nailed to the side of a platform that is less than the saddle of a cavalryman. It is a communism with all its evils, except that of Mr. Proudhon's communism, who unfortunately is not incarcerated in Charenton with Fourier and all this school of men of doctrines who, during 20 years of practice, have shown their complete nullity and uselessness.” D. Pedro wished to see in Portugal large farms managed by responsible owners.

As for the railway, which he used between Orléans and Paris, he criticized the way the engineers had planned it: “It is what I have against men of doctrine, it is that imaginary life that prevents them from looking at reality . So, this railroad that crosses a very rich country out of respect for the geometric principle that the straight line is the briefest space from one point to another, passes away from important cities, it seems that to follow its route to the letter. railway title from Paris to Bordeaux.” Then he commented: “The bureaucratic administration of countries that enjoy the so-called benefits of centralization, centralizes the country's geography; geography is centralized, he thinks it has centralized the country's interests.”

Arrived in Paris, only the Portuguese were allowed to enter the station, in order to kiss the hand of their sovereign. Escorted by a cavalry honor guard, the chariot carrying D. Pedro and D. Luís, went to the Tuileries palace.

There they were expected by Napoleon III and his court and, after due cordiality and introductions, Napoleon personally led his guests to the rooms prepared for them in the Marsan pavilion,

in that same palace. The room for D. Pedro was carefully prepared, ending, in fact, a surprise that touched young Portuguese. Napoleon III “ordered the portrait of His Augusta Mother Mrs. Dona Maria II

from his nostalgic memory to be placed in El-Rei's room, and the August Guests were manifestly touched by such exquisite delicacy, shaking hands with the Emperor in a sense and silent recognition .” After dinner, where Pedro and Luís were able to exhibit the Legion of Honor

that had been conceived for them the previous year, the fatigue of the trip made them retire to their rooms by ten o'clock at night.

In the Tuileries, on the following day, May 27th, he attended a Mass, in the company of the French Emperor, who celebrated that Pentecost Sunday, having appreciated the fact that he attended Mass in uniform, which, in his opinion, contrasted with the procedure by Luís Filipe de Orléans,

who “did not hear mass, so as not to have natural science teachers, doctors and economists against him.” Then Pedro was finally able to see Paris and, as such, monuments and parks received his presence. He looked discreetly at Chantilly's horse racing

and, in horror, at a vaudeville theater. He then visited the Grenelle well,

the slaughterhouse and an establishment for the education of the blind. In general, comments about the visit are more banal than those made during your first trip. At one point, he compared London and Paris, saying that the former was a serious city, while the latter would be frivolous. He commented, in the following way, on the way the two peoples looked at their respective governments: “While the revolution of 1640 lives in the memory of all English and while the spirit of self government animates each member of that monarchical republic, where the sovereign is everything and nothing, the French people leave the care to think of the events to a few, that of governing those who carry out their interests.” The fact that Dom Pedro admired England did not prevent him from feeling any resentment against the country. The Universal Exhibition of Paris,

which he visited, made a good impression on the spirit of the monarch, who found the European continent's industry well represented. Even if promoted by the government, the Exhibition was, in his opinion, a worthy response to the British challenge: “It is the Continent to show that the germs it presented in London have developed and that it has learned to take advantage of the great lesson.” After the official visit, he returned there, repeatedly, with his brother, but incognito, certainly with the desire to escape the hustle and bustle that his presence created, serenely seeking to admire the exhibition without interruption or agitation. The Museum of Natural History

had a dubious effect, it did not criticize it directly, on the contrary, but it reflected the modesty of the collections: “In general, the collections suffer from a certain modesty, very fatal, which is also prevalent in our land , which is their lack of resources and their bad administration because, as everyone knows, the wise are not made to settle accounts. ” The big problem, according to him, was the centralizing tendency that drowned out all the forces that existed in societies: “and politician that we voted for after the people blindly left the centralizing power to think for them…”

The avalanche of visits took him to bed, this time with an attack of headaches, which the doctor treated with mustard synapisms in the bellies of his legs. The disease had a compensation, received the visit of Napoleon III and the Count of Morny,

then President of Parliament. Two days later he was recovered. During the visit to the Cluny Museum,

he reflected on the nature of constitutional government, exhibiting the mixture of idealism and pessimism that would characterize it: “If there was not so much suspicion against the real power, if the ministers did not love the portfolios so much, there were more who wanted to tell the truth to kings and their ministers, and the people understood their interests better, in short, if man were as he should be and not as he is, the best form of government was found; but that form will not see it for our generation or the next, if it is possible that man can never see it. ” D. Pedro would never understand the reasons that led men to walk “bad ways”. For him, mistakes were anachronisms. Pedro and Luís also visited the Louvre Museum,

the Palace of Versailles,

the Navy and the Artillery.

Of everything he saw in Paris, and it was not little, he especially liked the parades, which shows the fascination that everything that was military has always exercised over D. Pedro. The night of the 4th of June was spent in Campo de Marte,

in a “highly poetic” environment, with 30,000 bayonets glowing, alongside 48 cannons, in a march that had as its backdrop “the cheerful and bellicose chirping of 6000 horses ”. He was excited: "Only those who have no soul, do not feel anything, do not feel a pleasant shiver, seeing what is most admirable in the world, how man managed to subject hundreds of thousands of men to one will." The next day, he had to go for a walk in the streets, something he looked at in a pedagogical way, that is, as something planned with the objective of “studying the physiognomy of the daily life of this great city, so full of grandeur and defects and which focuses on itself in human science and serves as a starting point for spreading over the earth.” In addition to shopping, he visited the Sèvres porcelain establishment, which motivated him to reflect: “I confess that sometimes, when I feel the lack of means that the king of Portugal has to satisfy the most innocent passions, it is precisely when I feel possessed by the desire to own what I see, but I must console myself with the idea that what is beautiful in art belongs to everyone, is, for many, the source of indefinable enjoyments that the owner often does not feel.”

Then he took off from the Vincennes polygon,

the Casa da Moeda,

the cavalry school in Saumur,

the National Archives,

the School of Bridges and Sidewalks, an Exhibition of Agricultural Machines and the Imperial Library,

where he discovered some Portuguese works , such as, for example, the Chronicle of Guinea. On the 13th of June, after a dinner with the general staff of the armed forces, he spoke, for once, of D. Luís. He did it in a negative way: “I slept all the way and was already in bed when the brother returned from the Grand Opera House,

where he had gone to see the first performance of Verdi's Sicilian Vespers. I did not envy him the pleasure of listening to such good music; I had seen Saumur's school while he was having fun.”

On the 21st of June, preparing to leave Paris, the guests were again surprised. At seven o'clock in the morning they received the presence of the Emperor and the Empress,

who made a point of saying goodbye to the travelers once again. The gesture touched the Portuguese and the farewell was made of hugs and commotion. Napoleon did everything to ensure that nothing failed and made available, again, a French steam that waited for D. Pedro and the rest of the party in Marseille. Until then, they passed through Lyon, where they watched a search of the troops and a simulacrum of war, visited establishments and bought a souvenir, but from England. It was a silk portrait of Queen Victoria and her husband. On the 23rd of June the imperial train left for Marseille, but with a previous stop by Avignon, where the former palace of the popes

was visited and admired. At the next exit, the retinue boarded the steam provided by Napoleon. They were going to Italy.

#king pedro v of portugal #xix century #grand tour #portugal #france #king luis i of portugal #emperor napoleon iii

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chinesegal · 5 years

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More infuriating bullshit again

@dairyisntscary @sebbysheepie @smellyoldblanket @vetstudentlive @agriculturalphoenix

Last night I had no internet until morning so I couldnt write this post until today but yeah, I’ll begin.

That g*ztly person is such an idiot, he accuses animal science students of “lying” because they say things they do not agree with. First off, “dairy is vile”? I dont know exactly why they consider it so but I’ve read a hundred pro animal rights articles about why dairy is evil by now and every. single. one. of them say the same shit: claiming that farmers separate cows and calves is evil even though studies say it is to prevent Johne’s disease, there are also literally videos of cows charging their own calves. I’ve also spent hours Reading studies that supposedly show that separation causes stress: every single one of them only record behaviour from 24 hours or only slightly longer on, there is no evidence that long-lasting behavioural Changes result from separating dams and calves.

(There might be slight evidence that calves that are bottle-fed have slightly less social skills than ones raised by their dams but that might be a lesser issue than increased risk of Johne’s disease).

Veal is a quickly shrinking industry, the latest data show that only 537K calves were slaughtered in the us in 2017: https://www.statista.com/statistics/194358/total-calves-slaughtered-in-the-us-since-2000/ while there are over 9 million dairy cows in the us. If even half of them give birth a year then 90% of calves do not go to veal.

Now, onto their sources:

Agricultural water and air pollution (which isnt just animal ag, plant ag as well) can cause problems but there are ways to deal with them: https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-09/documents/ag_runoff_fact_sheet.pdf Non Point pollution or sources from many diffuse sources is a major polluter. The pig farms responsible should of course improve their management to minimize pollution and there’s evidence that thats possible: for example a few years ago a fur farm around the yarmouth river was discovered to be a big polluter of the river nearby but a few years after that a report was issued that revealed that total pollution levels have decreased a lot since then: https://www.district.yarmouth.ns.ca/images/PDF/Carleton%20River%20Watershed/Results%20of%20the%202016%20Water%20Quality%20Survey.pdf

(go to results).

The decrease was a result of politicians, fur farm owners and concerned Citizens working together. The same reforms can be made with the pig farms.

Also heres a dairy farmer keeping pollution at bay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2L5V_1OUDzQ

#agriculture #pollution

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jageunyeoujari · 6 years

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cw: eating disorders, brief mention of self harm, v*ganism discourse. (i literally respect v*ganism & i support anyone who is, fyi. v*ganism itself isn’t my issue in this post.)

i am so angry. i went to this social justice meetup yesterday & i really wanted to like it & i was honestly so insightful & provided so much to the discussion. i brought up how mental illness & disability are neglected in a lot of social justice activism & people agreed. but then the white people had the GALL to call me amoral & selfish for having an eating disorder & that i’m being an individualistic choice activist. how fucking dare these white people.

so the meetup included a v*gan potluck. ok, cool! i can bring japchae! everyone loves japchae! i get there & i notice that the center seems to be in a predominately black neighborhood. nice! i go in & notice the majority of people are white & none of the poc there are black. o....k. well. maybe a coincidence?

so we start off by watching an anarchist feminist documentary. pretty good. there was a planned discussion afterwards. this white woman keeps talking to another white woman about a previous v*ganism advocacy meeting. i try to interject & talk about the movie but they ignore me. i wait for them to finish but tap my feet in obvious impatience bc what they’re talking about has nothing to do with the movie. a woman of color finally speaks up & asks them to stop talking about that & let us talk about the movie. (i give her the Thanks for Backing me Up in Front of these White People women of color glance lol)

so i start talking a lot about anti-capitalism & the inherent flaws in western mental health discourse & how that supports reconciliation to the prevailing system rather than challenging it. (everyone laughs when i say “honestly YOU’RE the one who’s crazy if you’ve never been depressed in this inherently dehumanizing world!”) i talk about how mental illness & disability are neglected in a lot of social justice activism. they all agree. i even come out to them about being a lesbian. everyone’s cool w that. so far, so good, right?

well, the aforementioned white woman & a white man start talking about animal rights. ok, good, also important. they start talking about how their main focus in activism is v*ganism. alright. literally have no problems w people being v*gan. but then they start preaching about how you need to be v*gan if you actually support all lives otherwise you’re amoral & support the suffering & death of animals. um. i say that i respect animal rights & their views. i tell them that i do have an eating disorder & that preaching about moral purity in any kind of diet really fuels it & that i wish they would be more sensitive to eating disorders in their v*ganism rhetoric. the white woman says that i’m being amoral & selfish for thinking only about myself & that if i was an actually good person, i would be v*gan. another white woman says that she has an eating disorder but that i’m being individualistic & that i’m killing lives for my own selfishness & that eating disorders are not an excuse to be amoral.

no one speaks up for me, not even the poc. i start zoning out. i start trying to self harm. i’m obviously hurt. i get up & stand in the corner, unsure of what to do. a man of color comes up to me & i briefly have hope he’s gonna ask if i feel comfortable. he just asks if i need to put my cup away & that he’s glad i came to the meeting. i just leave after that.

i come home & start obsessing that i am really a horrible person & that i should stop eating, period.

i never once disrespected v*ganism. they did not give me the same courtesy to respect me & where i’m coming from. not the first fucking time white people have shamed women of color for their politics not being pure enough for them while theirs is the most individualistic, vapid shit ever. how the HELL does shaming mentally ill women of color for eating meat SAVING ANIMALS? i don’t hear them talking about how to take down the meat industry (which i even agree is evil!). i don’t hear them talking about food deserts or food insecurity. i don’t hear them talk about we shouldn’t use phones & computers bc making those harm the environment & thus animals. i don’t hear them talking about how white animal rights activists have blocked indigenous people in canada from hunting seals. i don’t hear them talking about how to help exploited mexican migrant workers who pick our produce. i don’t hear them talking about unsustainable farming in the US & environmental pollution & climate change, ALL HARMING ANIMALS. all they talk about is not eating meat & how that’s going to save all the animals & i’m amoral & selfish for having an eating disorder & thus not wanting to hear them connect moral purity to eating. yeah, they’re the moral, selfless, most dedicated activists ONLY FOR NOT EATING MEAT, not even doing other animal rights activism, but oh yeah, women of color with eating disorders can just fuck right off, huh.

i am so. angry. i just sent them a long, scathing email full of swearing & really ripping apart their moral purity, identity politics, choice activist, ableist, racialized misogyny bull SHIT. i don’t need to sugarcoat myself. i have never been made uncomfortable by v*gans of color. i respect them. v*ganism itself isn’t my problem. it’s the rancid ableism that is & shaming & not even trying to do any other animal rights activism. even if my email goes over well, i’m gonna priotize this non-partisan but liberal leaning asian american advocacy group. i’d much rather be w them who actually have concrete plans to help ppl rn rather than white ‘progressives’ who obsess over moral purity. & i’m just HMMMM that despite the center being in a seemingly predominately black neighborhood, there weren’t any black ppl there & it’s majority white. that may say something?!

#uig.y.eon #ed tw #eating disorder tw

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tergelmusicblog · 3 years

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ABOUT TERGELMUSIC MARCUS TORGNY TERGEL

TERGEL & tergelmusic as a spice - a vision to vision - for a better world.

Music is a central location in all beliefs even as forbidden, oscillating between the holy and the diabolical.

TERGEL

AIM

As one of many people searching for a better world so Tergelmusic Marcus Torgny Tergel aims by ads, pictures, music and videos, transmitt a deeper dimension, not only a kick, engaging spiritualists, non believers as well as believers to be inspired to become environment friendly engaged. To expose issues and engage fellow human beings from all over earth, to participate as one of, as many as possible to get environmental engaged and expand in numbers on the road to a vision to a modern paradise.

Tergelmusic also wants to contribute in unite world religions and environment movements to enclose our environmental challenges together ! Respect how we handle all living spicies created by God ( including plants, trees, insects ). All things with DNA is alive !

A VISION - THE MODERN PARADISE

A new pact with the nature. Small scale farming not industrial. As much animals and fish as possible should live free. Go for vegetarian style. All humans should have opportunities. Combat inequality. Humans species need an Inclusive identity. One humanity. Collective approach. Nationalism is a cancer. Nationals can be a part of the same humanity. Democracy has to be RE INVENTED. Adopt the democratic system to our new world. A rising civilization; adopt to new values, universal values ! Freedom, justice and democracy. New civilizations can pre exist together. Children need to be educated not manipulated. Religion is a part of society and facilitates a better living between us. Faith is central to human liberty. Antizionism and islamic phobia is enemies of faith.

ENTHUSIASM

For the good of the people. “ Let out the primal innocence inside ourselves “ , drop our fences a bit, be more natural, like children. Getting older tend to create a fence in front our eyes. It leads to blindness regarding issues that are central for humanity. Witch means, be more like children. Learning, innocent, creative, spontaneous, natural. See what´s really important in life. At the same time balance with realism. Lead by example, stigmatise the evil , arouse opinon and seek friendship.

BRING IT FORWARD YOUR STYLE

Start picking up waste nearby your garden. Show others. Be a good example. React on animalhuntings topic, lack of waste handling or destructive forest harvesting.

ABOUT TERGELMUSIC AS A SPICE FOR A BETTER WORLD

Recently three ( 3 ) music albums. The first ( 1 ) album ” The Love I Can´t Reach ”, was released 180504, Broadly about love, dreams and expectations / broken love, dreams and expectations. The track ” Free the Solar Energy has specific religios signatures ”. Music ads extra to what we can not express.

The second ( 2nd ) album, distributed by The Orchard / Sony Music Entertainment subsidiary, was released 181102. A tuffer style, more melancholic then earlier, with the environment song “ I Believe I Can Change “. Oscillating between rock, classical, latin, avantgarde and pop. Songs about love, religion, enviroment and humanity – how we are, who we are, what we can change.…

Third ( 3rd ) album released 2020315. Seven ( 7 ) picks with songs made with three other composers.

THE FIRST ENVIRONMENTALIST FRANCIS OF ASSISI

- see link below

http://www.ushispanicministry.com/st-francis-of-assisi-and-the-churchs-teaching-on-the-environment/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDskJMgUHxo&list=OLAK5uy_mjUZtwEqFeHvF2rqbkJQVouC1T0Zf2Dxg

#photography #urban_streetart #music #culture #nature #art #illustration #music video #nonprofits #pets #covid lockdown #sarscov2 #covid vaccine #covid 19 #spiritual quotes #spiritualguidance #spiritually #earth blog

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eloquentdrivil · 6 years

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sqokscreams reblogged your post and added:

so i noticed that when you mentioned me(here v) i noticed you pretty much say the same stuff here so im sort of gonna reply to both @veganfacts said “Meat eaters abuse their pets every day and literally pay for animals to be abused and murdered” which somehow made you feel as if they’re rude and feel morally superior and not all vegans have the same views. but the thing is, that’s not just an opinion or anything. it’s the truth that every vegan knows and agrees with. a vegan stating facts doesn’t mean they think they’re better than you fam, we’re just trying to educate. like for instance, we all know that an animal has to be killed in order to make meat, right? and major industries depend on supply and demand to exist. so if many people demand meat products, more animals will be killed, and the opposite will happen if there is less demand...

@sqokscreams

(I will touch on your major points, but I wanted to condense space by replying like this.)

I don’t need or expect you to go through the other comments and replies I’ve made on and about that post, but if you wanted to confirm what I’m about to say, you will see the evidence of this at every turn; conceptually speaking, I’m pro-vegan.

Veganism can do a lot of good things, and I always make sure I acknowledge that, because, if I’m arguing with someone, my issues never come down to the practice of, or the incentives behind veganism. Besides just animal welfare, veganism could heavily cut back our environmental impact, so even if I didn’t care about rampant animal exploitation in the meat and dairy industry, veganism would still be a quantifiably good choice.

My problem with veganfacts, and the problem I’m addressing with you now in an effort to explain, is the inflammatory language they used.

It was not a fact, it was hyperbole, and right off the bat, the framing they used showed they do not care about context. The act of stripping context and defamiliarizing a nominal task makes their own point superficial, acting as nothing more than a way to flaunt their moral superiority over people who “pay for animals to be abused.”

In that same breath, it could be said that vegans “pay people to enslave and abuse children,” because of the rampant human rights abuses the produce industry is guilty for.

But neither you, nor veganfacts are guilty of endorsing child/forced labor just because the companies that distribute your food to you are guilty of using it.

But if that had been my responding claim to the shot at non-vegans, and then proceeded to push such a claim to undermine everything else you said thereafter, would you think me a good, thoughtful, or kind person?

That framing injects violence and hate into the consumer that just doesn’t exist. It makes a rabid monster out of regular people and twists this entire issue into a moral battle between vegans and non-vegans, and takes the ultimate blame off the companies that commit these atrocities.

And in their effort to do so, it shows just how little care veganfacts has in reaching out to and educating non-vegans. There is no education to be had there. A non-vegan gleans nothing from that statement other than, “Vegans hate non-vegans. Rabidly so.”

Because that’s what you would understand in that statement if the roles were reversed. That is a hateful statement. It’s divisive and stands only to show how little regard that person has for anyone not already living a vegan lifestyle, and they do not represent a majority of vegans.

To claim that that sentiment is universal is a bastardization of what the vegan movement is trying to accomplish.

Vegans want stricter regulations and higher sanctions against those who break them. In all sectors. They do not ostracize potential future vegans by furthering a rhetoric that sees people in a grocery store as the same level of evil and complicit as dog-fighters.

On top of that, it’s ignorant and shows just how little that person cares about understanding or overcoming the roadblocks currently standing in the way of amassing more people to the movement.

You said this in your last reply:

i’m kind of confused about the links you posted, because most of them don’t affect the accessibility of plant foods. for example, hunger doesn’t affect what kinds of foods stores carry. of course the cost of the food effects what poor people would be able to buy, but you can easily buy cheap plant foods. unless you mean hunger caused by food deserts or something? but anyway, i agree that veganism would be extremely difficult in food deserts, though there are many cheap junk foods that are “accidentally vegan” such as oreos and potato chips. i of course don’t blame anyone in that situation for depending on takeout and mcdonalds and stuff, though. however, i doubt someone in that kind of situation would have time to complain about veganism when they’re in a stressful environment and need to constantly worry about getting food on the table. if you could spare enough time writing that long post, i’m pretty sure you also have time to think about making different food choices. . .

Now, I don’t know your situation, I’m not going to claim I understand what you have and haven’t faced in your lifetime, but this (and the rest of that section thereafter), does shed light on what seems to be a disjointed understanding of what poverty and restricted food choice actually looks like.

First, while looking through food statistics in the US for those links, there is no statistical data on produce availability, outside of the data they have on food deserts. And not just that I couldn’t find it; there is an actual acknowledged lack of quantifiable data. People have tried, and there’s just no way to account for or normalize any sort of hard figure on these problems from an availability standpoint.

Second, “cheap” is subjective. Your idea of cheap may not be the same as mine if we have different amounts of disposable income after bills. But when it comes to cost vs. calories, non-vegan is always less expensive. Healthy foods are up-sold at a higher price because there’s a internalized notion in capitalistic culture that says “quality” justifies a higher price. It’s worth more, so it costs more, with worth describing a physical necessity, in this case.

To someone without financial security, the question becomes, “what can I buy that will stretch the length of time until my next paycheck?”

That kind of financial insecurity isn’t so stark when you look at who it’s affecting. Imagine a scenario like a family of four in a white suburban neighborhood who can feed all four of them for a days on a boneless ham at a dollar per pound, which is a whole hell of a lot less expensive that a nutritionally comparable plant-based substitute.

Veganism isn’t cost effective, and even if someone can afford the vegan options one week, they are not guaranteed that same outcome the next, so it’s not sustainable.

For you, yeah, maybe it is, but for a majority of Americans, veganism is money and food lost. It’s getting your paycheck and attempting to cut even more room out for the added expense, without even the benefit of gaining you more food per dollar spent, and while also gambling that you’ll have the wiggle room every week to do so. What happens when that one bad week comes and the choice comes down to not being able to feed yourself for the whole week, or having to get sick when you force re-acclimation to meat-based products that’ll at least last until your next paycheck?

That’s an irresponsible risk, and that risk exists entirely because corporations stand to profit off an ideology that makes healthier lifestyle choices like veganism more expensive.

Which makes arguments like this ignorant, at best, and elitist worst:

like the entertainment thing. i know that not everyone can go vegan, but a majority of the people in the world can, so if someone chooses to eat meat when there are millions of other options, then they are doing it for their enjoyment, or as you can also say, entertainment. of course you don’t get entertainment out of what happens to the animals in factory farms, but you are still buying the meat because you enjoy how they taste. the treatment of the animals is just a factor that plays into it.

Removing this to a world-wide argument makes it even worse; 1 in 9 people in the world suffers from chronic undernourishment. And that statistic just accounts for people going hungry. 80% of the world’s population lives on less than $10 a day. That’s ten dollars spread across bills and other expenses beyond just food.

The necessity of meat-based products in most people’s lives is just that; a necessity. So long as veganism remains more expensive than the alternative, that necessity remains.

In both of their replies, veganfacts pushed an unrepentant “us vs them, and they kill animals for fun” kind of ideology. They hold themselves so high above the issue, they, again, twisted the purchase of meat products from a store to sit on par with active animal slaughter.

And the original post was just about bunnies being a good alternative for vegans trying to figure out how to find balance between their pets dietary needs and their own ethics!

They stepped into a post completely unrelated to the point they wanted to push - a point not counter-intuitive to their own ideology - with the express purpose of demonizing non-vegans.

They’re condescending and ignorant. They don’t care about facilitating the vegan movement, because if they did, they’d look at the inaccessibility of the lifestyle and fight for that instead of vilifying non-vegans for “paying people to kill animals.”

They believe veganism makes vegans inherently morally righteous in all their pursuits to non-vegans. That’s the only reason their mind would’ve gone to that reply upon reading my original post. And that is not how veganism should be exemplified.

Doing so frames veganism as an elitist movement that cares more about mocking non-vegans than it does about making sure it has the populous support to take on the animal cruelty in the animal food industry that it currently doesn’t have.

More vegans means more power against the people committing these crimes, but the more vegans there are, the less impact that “non-vegans pay people to kill animals for them to enjoy” kind of rhetoric actually has.

That’s a rhetoric veganfacts pushes. That’s why they jump down the throats of people discussing vegans as morally level with non-vegans. They were defending their own moral righteousness, not a movement that seeks to foster education toward better lives for the people they vilify.

Other vegans are doing that though. They educate. They facilitate and they’re tackling the issue of food availability, and they are honestly working their asses off to make a real change in the world.

And you’ll recognize those people when you start looking for the pattern. They’re the ones who acknowledge and understand why the vegan movement stalls the way it does. They’re the ones building community vegetable gardens and making sure people have food on their table before they even begin worrying about making sure that food is cruelty free.

They don’t use divisive or inflammatory language, and the word carnist is the last thing they��d think to call someone because they know that word mocks basic human needs and makes monsters out of people just so they can justify the claim that that’s what’s wrong with the world.

Veganfacts is not how veganism should look. Their rhetoric is not universal, and they do not deserve to be exemplified.

Veganism is good.

That person is not.

#sqokscreams #veganism #vegan

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tumblasha · 10 months

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Your complicated feelings about eating animals and how people view it depending on cultural biases make sense. I appreciate the view that dogs, cats, and other animals are equal even though I think they collectively should be treated better because factory farming is such an abusive industry that constantly tries to damage control with labels like “free range,” “grass fed,” and “cage free” that just mislead customers into thinking they’re doing something different and less severe. Whether it’s in the US, Europe, Asia, etc. it’s the same evil industry and people okay with one but not the other are showing their biases.

I think conversations about cultural nuances are important to understanding one another better. As a queer vegan active in leftist spaces, I think a lot of people are trying their best with the resources they have. I have complicated feelings about my culture since I love it deeply but also disagree with how meat centric and anti-LGBT people can be in my home country. Granted, those are separate issues but both stem from toxic masculinity and patriarchy. I’ve veganized many of my cultural dishes even though it takes a lot of time and effort into relearning how to make things in a plant based way which may not be the most accessible thing for everybody. I’m curious your perspective of impossible meat products since that’s lab grown meat!

I think wanting to be more connected to your culture is a beautiful thing and it’s something I’m working on as well.

oo thank u anon! i'm glad that the sentiment is shared among other queer people from a meat-centric and sometimes lgbtq-phobic heritage

i think that lab-grown meat is v cool! i've been to a few events in my former university where they serve lab-grown ice cream (their attention-grabber on the flyer was "vegan but not dairy-free" or something haha) and lab-grown chicken (usually nuggets rather than something more "structured")

i think that if lab-grown meat continues to be researched, fine-tuned, etc. it'd be really cool to see its presence grow! and i'd love to incorporate it in the food that i make

i currently see a lot of my friends have this diet where they order meat in restaurants but never buy those animal products from the grocery store (if they can afford it, etc.), and i think i might shift to that??

pls feel free to leave more thoughts in my inbox, anon!

#bc i think that at least half of the food i eat starting in the fall will be provided by my company so i don't have Too much say on the menu #anon ask #dash rambles #vegan #impossible meat

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symbianosgames · 7 years

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The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

This blog was originally posted on the RetroNeo Games blog page on May 27th, 2017.

Let me tell you a story. It’s about a boy who was born into a fairly poor family who eked out a passable existence on a family plot in the mountains. When he was only 12 years old, his father was killed in a tragic farming accident, and as his mother was too ill to work, he became the sole breadwinner for a family of six younger siblings.

He had a talent for singing. His deep and melodious voice, paired with a deep well of emotion bought from years of personal sacrifice, won him many admirers in the taverns and dance halls around the local villages. It wasn’t long before the girls started to notice him.

As his younger siblings matured, he dreamed of leaving the farm and pursuing a career in music, until one day a paramour told him she was pregnant with his child. Dreams of a life of travel and singing were forgotten. They married and his love gave birth to twins some few months later. He was the happiest man alive!

Unfortunately, the harvests had been poor for years, and the bank reclaimed his family’s farm as the twins neared their first birthdays.

With not one, but two families to support, and no means of doing so, he joined the army, one of the few employers who was always hiring. He moved both families to the city as he began boot camp.

His first post was guarding a hydroelectric power plant. It was hard to be away from his family, but he knew that they were safe and provided for.

One day on duty, as he quietly hummed a lament, thinking about the night he first met his beloved, this happened…

GIF recorded from tommytep's YouTube Channel. Click image for source.

THE END

Like that one? Let me tell you another (shorter) story.

A class sits idle in some code, waiting. Its name is Soldier 4. It’s basically frozen in time. It doesn’t even look like anything yet because its mesh hasn’t been rendered because the player camera’s frustum hasn’t come across it yet. Suddenly, the player enters a trigger area around the corner and the class springs to life in glorious pixelated detail. It starts playing an animation, shifting its weight back and forth on two legs. Then a raycast determines that it’s just been shot 3 times. A rather slow and painful looking death animation is chosen from a small list of predetermined death animations. After a few seconds, Soldier 4 lies still, fades to nothing, and the garbage collector erases any trace of his existence shortly thereafter.

FIN

Okay, which story do you like better? Which is more true? Which is more believable?

Which would you tend to think of when playing a game? I suppose that would depend on how immersed you are, and what lengths the game goes to in order to inform you about non player characters (NPCs).

I used Goldeneye because it’s one of the earliest examples I can think of where my mom was a bit upset that I was shooting people in games, rather than speeding through checkpoints and jumping on robotic animals. It’s also one of the first games I can recall that put some real effort into showing pain in the enemies. You could shoot them in the foot, hand, or crotch, and they’d stop shooting, grab the injured area, make a pained noise and hop around (if they still could).

I was too busy at the time being blown away by the speed and the technology (I’d also never played Doom or similar 3D shooters at that time) to think of the enemies as anything more than obstacles to progression, but I can see now in games what my mom saw then. And it’s got nothing to do with graphics, or realistic animations. It’s partly a question of emotional maturity, of course, but also of storytelling. Where I just saw ‘baddies’ my mom saw me walk into a room and gun down a random young man in a Russian uniform with no provocation. Goldeneye didn’t really give you reasons to kill most of the game’s enemies other than “you’re James Bond and they’re Russian. Duh!”

Twenty years later, we have plenty of room on the disc to fit even a little audio that can precisely let you know why you should (or shouldn’t) want to kill these dudes. Yet in those situations where we have the opportunity to do better, how often do we actually strive to?

When to dehumanise

There are so many games of all sorts. I’m not at all trying to argue that we do want backstories for all game characters in order to make them better. That could often do the opposite.

Brutal Doom's OTT gore doesn't exactly inspire regret or sympathy. Because demons!

Take Doom (new or old). It’s an unapologetic power fantasy, delivered through the medium of speed and violence. Killing demons removes any need for cumbersome storytelling. It’s black and white. Demons are evil. Kill demons. A game shouldn’t try to do too many things. If the extras conflict with the core idea, cut them.

We often dehumanise the enemy in games. Literally. Whether to simplify story, avoid moral debates or to sidestep local censorship laws, we turn our targets into zombies, monsters, robots, or aliens. It works really well. Robots and zombies can also relieve the impact of bad AI, since they’re not meant to be particularly intelligent to begin with. Great! Over the top violence and power fantasies can be fantastically fun, and I wouldn’t change Doom 1 or 4 one little bit.

The topic I’m addressing is what to do when we have human adversaries, who are meant to represent believable people. Because this is the greater challenge, and it’s likely that you seek to tell some sort of story when you’ve chosen to have human antagonists.

There are two types of games that use humans as enemies; those with either fictional or non-fictional settings.

Fictional Settings

GTA V is one of the most realistic, alive open world games that’ve ever been created. But players have zero empathy for the citizens of Los Santos. The game’s over the top satire, occasionally wonky physics, and amazing yet vastly imperfect AI, prevent any great depth of immersion. That’s not to say that you can’t get lost in the game for hours, but you’d never mistake it for a real experience, and you wouldn’t really start to feel for the characters. The emphasis on driving fast across a world populated by pedestrians is fundamentally incompatible with any sort of attempt to make you care about individuals in this world. And that’s fine. GTA V is incredible for what it is, and no game can be everything (though it’s not far off, to be fair).

Now take Rise of the Tomb Raider, which I just finished playing yesterday. As in most games, you’ll mow down hundreds of enemies, but narratively there’s something interesting going on. If you listen to the idle dialogue and/or audio records, you’ll come to appreciate a depth to the enemies. There are the core villains but also their paid and oblivious contractors. Trinity are out to do bad things and don’t care who they kill, but most of the enemy army are hired mercenaries who don’t know about or don’t believe in the religious fanaticism that drives their employers. Among these contractors, many start to realise that their bosses are nuts, and say that they didn’t sign on to round up and shoot local tribespeople. Some talk about trying to get out asap. Some other contractors are psychopaths themselves, and then Trinity are always evil. This approach did make me want to avoid killing certain guys, or at least regret having to do so. A little. It also made me more eager to hear what type of group I was about to go up against, by stealthily sneaking up on their positions instead of opening fire early. It’s a pity that there aren’t any non-lethal options or other mechanics to expand on this narrative theme. Once the bullets start flying, the good ones and the bad ones all want to kill you just as much.

Still, it was a good effort at adding some depth to the game, and I appreciated that it was there. Because personally I’m usually (when facing human game enemies) thinking that they’re probably not all bad and they don’t all deserve to die. It was nice for a game to respond to this.

Of course, other games have done this, and done it better. If you haven’t yet played Spec Ops: The Line then do it now! Even if you think you know all the spoilers, it’s a masterpiece in subverting player expectations. The whole journey through the game is brilliant.

Fundamentally, I think that most conflicts only occur due to a lack of understanding or empathy (including an unwillingness to share resources). With better communication and patience, most could be avoided. Games so rarely attempt to show this, but if narrative is a serious part of the game you want to deliver, then it should be strongly considered.

Games are such a powerful medium for delivering understanding and empathy because the player actively takes part in them. I’m not saying that every game should be doing this, but we could certainly be faring better as an industry.

Historical Settings

Real world armies have forever attempted to dehumanise the enemy in order to make it easier for your own troops to kill them. They’re all savages. They’re all baby killers. They’re all rapists, thieves and murderers, and God is on our side. War films are almost universally anti-war films (especially since Vietnam) and they usually tap into the folly of these lies. Yet war games still seem to find it more convenient to buy the lie hook, line, and sinker.

Maybe it’s because you’re asking the player to do the killing directly for hours on end that designers have felt the need to retain these lies. I remember that in the opening minutes of Call of Duty World at War you’re being brutally tortured by Japanese captors before being rescued by Kieffer Sutherland and his band of more morally upstanding brothers. It’s set up so that you will have no problems killing Japanese or German pixels for the next several hours. Of course, the Japanese and German armies were conducting genocide and torture, and stopping that is a fairly justifiable goal (as long as we’re clear that no side was squeaky clean), but I’m just saying that I’ve never seen a game take the opportunity to do what Letters from Iwo Jima by Clint Eastwood did.

This is why I’m a bit concerned that Call of Duty are returning to World War 2 as a setting this year. For the last several years they’ve been doing fictional settings and usually have some big opening set piece showing you exactly how evil your enemies are and why you should kill them all (they blew up your house and neighbours, usually). Their games are so formulaic that I’m concerned they’ll miss their chance to advance the genre of war games by just ticking all the same boxes in a new (well, old) setting and perpetuating the notion that Americans are always good, and Nazis are always bad. That said, they seem to be heavily influenced by Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan so maybe they will have some shades of grey in their narrative and do something new.

Battlefield 1 at least lets you play as both sides in a conflict and although human lives are reduced to mere ‘tickets’, I do admit that I felt remorse when sitting in a machine gun nest, mowing down a charge across the trenches by the players on the other team.

Yes, it’s a game, but it represents something. Yes, the players will respawn and so it’s more like a game of paintball or virtual tag than an actual battle, but this is where my empathy for pixels idea comes in. Real lives were ended doing exactly this kind of action that I’m doing right now. I sincerely hope that when you watch the last hour of Titanic you feel a lot more moved than when you watch Con Air. Similarly, I hope than when you play games based on the world wars or Vietnam, that a part of you doesn’t glorify the killing in the same way as you the glory kills in Doom.

They’re different beasts, I think, and deserve different treatments from the creators. I hope that Call of Duty: WW2 gets some of that.

Games with more moral weight

I’ve referenced more linear games here so far, but RPGs are traditionally much better at giving weight to your moral decisions, even if they are nearly always set in fantasy or post-apocalyptic worlds.

I recently played Westerado, an indie cowboy RPG/ murder mystery in an open world that you have a lot of agency over. It doesn’t take itself fully seriously, but because you can go anywhere and kill anyone, you feel like you’ve some real responsibility in the world. Because of this responsibility, when I found myself riding out with some US Army soldiers who’d been fighting with native American tribes, and we than happened upon said tribes in a sudden ambush, I said “oh f**k no I will not be killing native Americans and still pretending I’m the good guy”. I ran from the fight. I failed that side quest. I think the army were regrettably all killed but I’m not sure. But that was my story. The game didn’t establish that these natives were out of line in any particular way, just that the army were fighting them. So my own knowledge of history filled in the rest. While I was happy enough to help the army bring food to settlers (or whatever we were doing in that quest) I was not taking part in any genocide. Pixelated or not.

Here is an example of an extremely unrealistic looking game reaching me on a real level. An historical setting (fictional as the specifics are) and a game where my choices can have a lasting effect can create real empathy even for pixelated characters.

Mechanics for deeper, more sympathetic NPCs

Assuming you want some moral ambiguity or emotional weight in your game, particularly if you’re making a war game, what tools could be used to advance this agenda?

Just having NPCs chatter together is a very simple way of humanising them (for better or worse) before you go in guns blazing or not. It’s tried and true in linear games, but challenging in open worlds where the dialogue inevitably can start to repeat, and feel insincere.

The opening level of Battlefield 1 had you fighting a pitched battle on the Western front. Each time you died (in this level only), as the screen faded to black, you got your character’s name and the year of their birth and death. What it would say on their tombstone, basically. You then respawned as a new soldier elsewhere in the battle. This gave a weight to death that most war games (and the rest of this one) usually can’t deliver. If you add to that system something like “loving father and husband” or “always dreaming” you’ve a better system already.

Valiant Hearts has you play as characters from both sides of the trenches, and actually never has you kill anyone. It shows your Franco-German family in tact before the war, then watches as, torn apart by circumstance, they struggle to reunite.

This War of Mine has you play a war game from the point of view of starving families trying to survive amidst the rubble, where you make decisions to kill innocents because you need food for your own kids. The shocking reality of the unseen other side of war games was powerful.

Apart from historical settings that bring their own moral weight (and ethical dilemmas in terms of storytelling) to the table, you could use procedural generation to fill out backstories for each and every NPC that lives or dies. It’s its own challenge, but it’s possible. Watchdogs had a system where you could hack the phone of anyone in the open world and get a little summary of that person as an individual. That’s not an end in itself, but it’s a tool in the box.

Dwarf Fortress procedurally generates its entire world and history when you launch a new game. Co-creator Tarn Adams and Kitfox Games’ Tanya X Short have some great GDC talks and blogs about procedural generation, including a book they co-wrote called Procedural Generation in Game Design coming out soon. Do check some of it out if you’re interested in the area.

I’ve experimented myself with generating a small town’s size of population. Everyone gets a name, age and job. Every year people grow up and either die, marry, have kids, or do nothing extraordinary. Over a few seconds I grow this town by several generations and all of a sudden have a family history for every character still alive at the moment I start playing the game properly. I’m planning on using something similar to this in Sons of Sol to flesh out your wingmates’ backgrounds, though we don’t yet know the extent of player interaction with wingmates outside of the main missions.

In Conclusion

There are many more ways we could flesh out NPCs. Better AI is one. We could even get as far as giving NPCs the levels of interactivity that the hosts in Westworld have. Though I think the point of that show is that some people will just refuse to acknowledge the humanity in artificial things, while others can empathise with them very naturally; less because they’re fooled by looks or behaviour, but more because they’re emotionally invested in the story.

Humans have always loved storytelling, and creators have always found new and better ways of expanding our toolset for crafting them. We have amazing tools for creating empathy and understanding through interaction now.

Games are chief among the most consumed media in the modern age. Violence and conflict are a core part of many of our games, but also a significant part of the real world that we live in. In a world that too often seems to lack empathy and a willingness to understand our adversaries, games could be our best tool to foster a willingness to understand other sides in a conflict. I think it’s important that we start to do this more often. It doesn’t suit every game, but where killing humans is the main activity, and especially in historical war games, I think we can and should do better than we have been. We’re moving the right way, I think, but let’s keep it up.

Until next time..

#IFTTT #Blogger

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thevalicemultiverse · 7 years

Text

Things You Need To Know About: Pern Crash

Tag: ~V: Pern Crash

Premise: It’s hard enough dealing with losing your fiancee to another man, without an inquiry into whether or not you’ve been practicing illegal necromancy and your parents disowning you for the shame. But Victor’s hopeful of a new future in London. He’s got a brand-new fire lizard friend named Moonlight, a job under barrister and solicitor Wilton Radcliffe, and a little flat just big enough for two. And then, one day, one of Mr. Radcliffe’s clients, a Miss Alice Liddell, came around in quite a huff…

This AU is a very low-key crossover between Corpse Bride, the Alice games, and the Pern book series. Specifically, it steals fire lizards from the latter and puts them into the world of the two former. In this world, H’lip and his brown dragon Ipswidth, transporting fire lizard eggs and a few live dragons from one Weyr to another on Pern, had a very strange Betweening (teleportation/time travel) accident, and ended up crashing into 1750 England -- specifically, Kensington Gardens. The dragon and some of the fire lizards died on impact, but the rest of the group escaped, and the rider hung on long enough to explain to the startled royals just what fire lizards were and how to "Impress," aka bond with socially and mentally, them. The royal family adopted the feral fair and Impressed some of the hatchlings from the eggs that survived (with the future George III getting Earth’s first gold queen), and soon fire lizards became the hot new pets of the land.

The incident also brought magic into the common knowledge, as a maid at the castle enlisted the help of an Earth dragon friend to help the fire lizards adapt to their new world. Learning how to cast spells, enchant objects, and make potions became a respectable profession, and in 1762, a magician named John Harper figured out how to permanently “enchant” people by using potions as tattooing ink, allowing anyone to cast any spell their personal magic “pool” could fuel. This new “modern magic” quickly became quite popular with those frustrated with the limitations of “classical magic.” This was not without its problems, though -- in 1789, a necromancer used his newly-tattooed power to raise corpse puppets to kill people he didn’t like. He was caught and executed, and all forms of necromancy (even the completely benign, such as exchanging messages with dead relatives), were outlawed.

Skip forward to 1875, and the Van Dort/Everglot wedding. Victoria has a fire lizard friend this time around, a brass named Mary -- fortunately both flitt and lady like the groom-to-be. Victor likes them both in return, but can’t conquer his nerves during the rehearsal. Fleeing to the woods to practice his vows, he accidentally awakens the corpse bride Emily. Initially terrified (both of the walking dead and of the fact that he broke one of the biggest laws of the land), he soon warms to the friendly Land of the Dead and his accidental bride. Unfortunately, this does not stop him from tricking her into bringing him back Upstairs under the pretense of meeting his parents so he can get some help in explaining how he’s already engaged. And when he seeks that help from Victoria, two things happen:

1) Mary, upon seeing Emily follow Victor onto Victoria’s balcony, panics, making Victoria panic a bit too and bringing her parents running -- and the moment they see Emily, they believe Victor’s dabbling in forbidden necromancy

2) Emily, hurt by his deceit, whisks him back to the Land of the Dead before Victor can even begin to explain anything that’s going on.

The Everglots, considering Victor an unacceptable suitor now, promptly force Victoria into a marriage with local newcomer Barkis Bittern -- unaware this is the same man who murdered Emily for her money and plans to do the same with Victoria (he being unaware the Everglots are broke). Victor, hearing this news second-hand from his parents’ recently-departed driver, decides there’s nothing left for him in the living world and agrees to marry Emily properly via drinking poisoned wine. The dead ascend to the Living world for the wedding, but when Victoria comes in to see what’s happening after her own marriage, Emily can’t go through with the vows and stops Victor from drinking. She reunites the couple, Barkis barges in to reclaim Victoria, Emily recognizes him as her murderer, he and Victor duel over Victoria’s fate, Emily saves Victor’s life, and Barkis accidentally drinks the poisoned wine as part of a mocking toast and is dragged away by the vengeful dead. Emily ascends to heaven, leaving Victor and Victoria to be together. . .

. . .except that the terrified Everglots promptly grab their daughter and flee in the wake of the dead rising, and not long after Victoria sends word via Mary to Victor that while she still cares for him, her feelings are complicated by the whole incident with Emily and she doesn’t think she can marry him. Especially since she’s starting to fall for someone else. Victor lets her go sadly but understandingly -- but the news, coupled with an official inquiry into Victor’s necromancy by the Crown (fortunately some truth spells lead them to agree that he didn’t break the law intentionally and thus spare him punishment) leads Nell and William to disown him. Victor’s allowed to stay in the village until he finds a job elsewhere. Before he does, though, he first finds a fire lizard egg, the only survivor of a fox raid on the nest. Victor Impresses the hatchling, a silver he names Moonlight, and together they eventually depart for London, working as a clerk under solicitor and barrister Wilton J. Radcliffe.

And then, in September of that year, one of Radcliffe’s clients, Alice Liddell, shows up to speak to him. Victor takes an immediate liking to the young lady after chatting with her outside the office, and is disgusted to discover that Radcliffe’s been skimming money from her inheritance to fund his own love of Asian artifacts. Revealing this fact to Alice causes her to go ballistic on the lawyer -- Victor stops her from attacking Radcliffe, but is promptly fired and thrown out. A guilt-ridden Alice gets him a position under her therapist, Dr. Bumby, as a general errand boy, and the two quickly grow a friendship, bonding over a shared love of butterflies, learning, soft furry animals, and Moonlight.

In October, however, Alice, who has been struggling with hallucinations, plunges back into her Wonderland in an attempt to find the truth about the fire that killed her family. Losing her on the streets of London, Victor and Moonlight search to find her and keep her safe. Moonlight is the first to find her -- but runs afoul of a spell tattooed on her by an unscrupulous (if genuinely trying to help) doctor in Rutledge, which allows her to share her thoughts with anyone who touches her skin-to-skin. This unfortunately includes accidentally forcing her hallucinations on people (or fire lizards) when she’s not well. The two faint, and are taken back to Bow Street’s gaol -- Moonlight is able to alert Victor to his location, and the young man takes Alice back to his flat. She escapes when she’s called to Queensland, and Victor and Moonlight find her again in Hyde Park, where she explains what she’s learned about Bumby. As she navigates the Dollhouse, Victor is able to steal Bumby’s diary admitting his guilt, and the two hide out at the shop of a sympathetic local magician, Dr. Fixxler, until Alice is well enough to bring the evidence to the police. Dr. Bumby attempts to flee to Moorgate Station when confronted -- a furious Alice follows, and when she comes back, she claims Dr. Bumby “fell” onto the tracks trying to attack her. Everyone is content to accept this explanation, and Houndsditch is turned over into better hands.

During all of this mess, Victor has fallen in love with Alice (who he considers incredibly brave and kind-hearted) -- to his joy, Alice reciprocates his feelings, and the two end up marrying and moving out to Sandford -- though not before Alice adopts her own fire lizard, a white named Snowflake. Two others eventually follow -- a black female named Sooty for Alice, and a blue male (the son of Sooty and Moonlight) named Skyfall for Victor. His own little fair of fire lizards, a nice house in the country, an amazing woman who loves him, and a job that does not involve running a fish cannery -- Victor thinks he’s done very well for himself.

This verse has two distinct time periods/locations threads can be set in:

Made The East End Into A Privy: September 1875 to July 1876 -- basically anything involving Victor living in London, either working for Radcliffe, working for Dr. Bumby, or helping Houndsditch transfer owners after everything with Alice. He’s missing some of the comforts of being a rich man’s son, but he’s determined to stand on his own two feet -- and besides, freedom and self-respect are worth having to give up a few luxuries and get a real job. He’ll do his best to help anyone who needs it -- so long as they don’t accuse him of being an evil necromancer. He’s had enough of that.

Simple Farm Life: July 1876 onward -- anything involving Victor living in Sanford. Life’s settled down after the excitement in London -- now Victor’s in the card illustration industry, doing something he loves in a place he can breathe. And with someone he loves and a whole gaggle of mini-dragons by his side. Who could ask for anything more? Neighbors, come on and all -- he’s only too happy to share his latest sketches, or perhaps talk about the latest fire lizard news.

Common NPCs:

Alice Liddell (throughout)

Victoria Everglot (and Mary the fire lizard) (throughout)

Christopher White (throughout)

Dr. Jeremiah Jack “J.J.” Fixxler (throughout)

Moonlight the fire lizard (Victor's) (throughout)

The Houndsditch Orphans (Charlie, Abigail, Elsie, Reggie, Dennis) (Made The East End Into A Privy)

Snowflake the fire lizard (Alice's) (Simple Farm Life)

Sooty the fire lizard (Alice's) (Simple Farm Life)

Skyfall the fire lizard (Victor's) (Simple Farm Life)

Shipping: Just Valice for this one -- Victoria's married to Christopher, and Victor's fine with that. The closest they’d come to a romantic connection these days would be if Moonlight flew Mary during a mating flight -- and considering that Christopher’s own brown fire lizard, Trumpet, is pretty protective of her. . .

NPC Ships: Victoria Everglot/Christopher White; Mary/Trumpet; Sooty/Moonlight

Important Facts:

This universe uses the range of colors as provided by the Nest o’Flitts journal on Dreamwidth -- which means that, in addition to the canon gold, bronze, brown, blue, and green fire lizards, there’s also the noncanon brass, silver, copper, red, black, and white ones. This is largely because this verse is a result of Forgotten Vows getting a silver fire lizard from the journal in a meme over on Dreamwidth. You can read more about the colors here: The Colors on Nest o’Flitts

And for those who don’t even know what a fire lizard is. . .well, this PDF article is a pretty good starter: Firelizard Biology and Behavior In general, just think “small dragon with a forked tail and a limited teleportation ability.”

Victor knows magic, though the only spells he’s really familiar with (all classic, not tattooed) are Glowing Orb (used as a nightlight growing up), Mend the Shattered (useful during his clumsy moments), and Flower’s Blush (minor healing spell -- again, useful during his clumsy moments). He’s planning on learning more, especially now that he’s friends with a more powerful magician. He’d actually like to learn some spells that would allow him to talk to his friends in the Land of the Dead -- but he’s mindful of the fact that he had a narrow escape concerning the law about necromancy before, and thus is contenting himself with the knowledge that he’ll end up there again in due time.

Alice knows Protection (shield spell) and Shadow Play (allows one to use shadows as puppets to illustrate something one’s saying) from childhood -- she used the former to protect herself from danger and the latter to make playtime more interesting. She also can use the spell Mind To Mind, though it’s a rather borked-up version -- a doctor named Grantham tattooed it on her without her permission in Rutledge, hoping to make contact with her catatonic self. His lack of skill means that she now can communicate telepathically with anyone who touches her skin. On good days, this is fully under her control; on bad ones, she overwhelms anyone who touches her with her hallucinations. She has a natural affinity for the disguise spell False Flesh, though she doesn’t use that much. Later she’ll figure out how to use Travel Into Fantasy as a way to actually invite people into her mind.

Necromancy being a “forbidden art” means that, while Victor himself won’t automatically hate any undead characters (in fact, if you’re from the Land of the Dead, he’s probably happy to see you), he’s going to do all he can to keep them away from the general public. He does not need another accusation of practicing illicit magic!

Other characters with fire lizards or other kinds of dragons are more than welcome! We can even do awkward “sharing the fire lizard’s feelings during a mating flight” threads if you like, though Victor isn’t going to want to “cool down” with anyone but his wife.

Moonlight’s a lazy, gentle, sweet-tempered little fire lizard. He’ll generally be content to say hello to strangers and ask for pets and treats. Threaten his “daddy,” though, and you’re likely to get claws in the face. (This works both ways too -- Victor is particularly close to Moonlight because the flitt helped pull him out of a pretty deep depression. Hurt at your own risk!)

This verse is open to everyone!

#~V: Pern Crash #~T: Made The East End Into A Privy #~T: Simple Farm Life #~C: Alice Liddell #~C: Victoria Everglot #~C: Christopher White #~C: Dr. Fixxler #~C: Orphans #~C: The Menagerie #~M: when he was a boy (headcanon)#~M: meanwhile in our reality (OOC)

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