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touloserlautrec · 9 months

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ohhhh you've piqued my interest, I'd love to hear about about Reeve and Cars and Girls' Night Out!! (for the wip title meme)

From the WIP title meme--

Thanks so much for the ask, @elizababie!

Oh, I am jazzed. I was hoping these two would get chosen!

Reeve and Cars and Girls' Night Out it is!

Let's start with Girls' Night Out! I am actually really proud of this scene. The gist of it is, Fredericka gets passed over for a job she was in line for when a man is promoted over her head. A group of the most powerful women in Sol take her out for drinks to supportively rage against misogyny.

The funny excerpt:

“It’s almost worse because Sol has this deluded idea that we’re all above prejudice,” Grace said after taking a sip of her pink cocktail. She wrinkled her nose. “What is this garbage? Cranberry juice?” “It is worse,” Temple agreed, ignoring her complaint. “Because they take it from you twice. The promotion and then your reaction to it. Invalidation is a classic tool.” “Such a goddamn joke,” Grace muttered, craning her neck to spot a server and waving him over. “Nolite te Bastardes Carborundorum, am I right?” she said to the waiter, smiling her sweetest smile and wiggling her cocktail. “Honey, I’m going to need about 300% more gin in this. Be a darling, would you?” When he reached to take the glass from her she shook her head and locked eyes with him before downing it in one gulp. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, in something of a shock as he walked back to the bar.

Aaaaand the excerpt when Mackenzie, the head of Saturn, whose Knack is temporary omniscience (she can, for very limited periods of time and with the assistance of a harrowing, life-threatening procedure, access All Knowledge of All of Existence. However, that doesn't mean she can hold all of it, retain it, or make sense of it, and it could very easily drive a person mad). When she speaks, people listen.

Mackenzie held her eyes for a moment amidst the table’s laughter. It seemed like nothing could ever make her flinch. “The reality is, there is no fairness,” she said. Her voice was rich and deep like velvet wrapped around a sharp knife. “No justice, no karma, no great equalizer. Not even death.” The table fell silent as she spoke. The woman knew how to command attention and respect. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my days, it’s that we’re not built to hold it in our fragile minds-- this reality that no amount of integrity, righteousness, or fortitude will overcome the affliction of human nature.” She looked at each of them, straight in the eyes. “But if there’s another thing I’ve learned, it’s that those same fragile minds are a weapon. We’re not built to hold that knowledge that is so endemic to existence, because that knowledge is useless to us.” Her voice hardened. “This is a war of attrition. Our fragile minds may shatter like glass at that knowledge but shattered glass can slice a man’s throat. Even the tiniest shards can cut up your insides and kill you if you’re made to swallow them. Death may not equalize the world but it can damn well make a man piss himself. So we let our minds block out the parts that hold us back and we’ll force-feed them the undoing they’ve sown. There have been days when I’ve known everything there is to know, and I can’t hold it all forever, but the one thing that I can’t un-know is that things change. They mutate because of some small itch or tiny displacement. Just look at us. Knacks. Mutations. Impossible changes. Motherfucking pearls.” She picked up the bottle of scotch and started pouring again. “So, Fredericka. You were robbed. They will try to make you thank them for it. Don’t give them that. Instead, keep your head held high and make them choke on it.” Freddie nodded, and the table sat in silence for a moment. Temple cleared her throat and said, “Air resistance is the only thing preventing water molecules from falling through space at such high speeds that they’d kill everything in their wake. Just air. You can’t see it unless particles are suspended in it. Smoke is just a poof of dust that makes the invisible visible. And even once you see it, what you can’t see is just how heavy it is. Air weighs enough to scare the living daylights out of you. Resistance and invisible, imperceptible, impossibly heavy weight. That’s it. That’s the thing--the most important thing--that keeps us as organisms alive.” She looked around the bar. “Where the fuck is the waiter?” Dakota balked. “That can’t be how you finish your thought, Temple.” Grace laughed, but Freddie didn’t. Freddie said, “They don’t see us unless we kick up some dust.” Temple nodded. “Exactly.”

Reeve and Cars is definitely more @sunset-a-story's baby, but it's an early scene where a young, nerdy Reeve first discovers his ill-advised love affair with classic cars. He later goes on to telepath-and-fake his way through making his friends all think he knows what he's doing with cars, but this? This is where his love affair with his '68 Nova all began. Haha

Here's an excerpt :

He popped the hood and Reeve moved to stand beside him to stare into the heart of it. Reeve’s eyes moved over the raised round disc that looked like some sort of air filter in the center, the tangle of black wires at the back, and thick hoses coming out of the front. He leaned down, taking in the deep smell, and touched one hose connection hoping to look as though he knew what it did. As he peered at the mysterious puzzle of it Reeve felt a whisper of that calmness. The engine didn’t have thoughts or motives or judgements. It would function in a set way or it wouldn’t. He straightened and nodded a mute approval. “You want it?” Rob asked with a look that bordered somewhere between amused and fatherly. Still Reeve could feel the doubt pouring from Rob’s thoughts at the sight of this young, freckled kid with hands that were too clean and uncalloused. Reeve kept his eyes on the car. “Yeah, I’ll take it.” “You got that kind of cash on you? No offense, but I’m not about to take a personal check and I’m not the type to haggle.” Reeve did turn then and couldn’t keep his lips from curling to one side in a smile. “I can be surprisingly persuasive.”

#sunset a story #wip title meme

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asterjennifer · 2 years

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Fake exchanges Love

Fandom: Mystic Messenger

Pairing: Ray x Reader

Category: Angst

Warnings: X

Word count: 2069

Author's Note: I can't.... I actually wrote this for a request of Ray fluff but accidentally ended up with pure angst and so I have to make this a separate story now;; *angry author nosies*

Summary: (Based on day 6 of Ray Route)

He's standing at your door, unsure if he should knock or not.

You open for him, catching him with the fake elixir and horror written all over his face.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

While his hand's up on the door, he stood unsteadily without making a move. His courage just needed a little nudge and his knuckles would hit the door, asking for your attention in serious matters. It's not like he got nothing to convey or bring when showing up at your door so late at night. Especially now, where you probably preferred him far out of your sight. Ray's bright eyes lowered down, following the carvings in the door which have been engraved unevenly. His chest contracted; suffocation almost cut the access to the cool air in the hall.

If Believers passed by, they would certainly give him weird stares for haunting the room of the guest this way. Unless there weren't any to begin with, Ray's mind couldn't seem to focus on anything regarding his surroundings. The quick beat of his heart's far more important to keep track of in case it's becoming dangerously high. He narrowed his eyes the moment his eyebrows frowned deep. Eventually he needed to take some kind of action, regardless the bravery winning or him just resigning to the pitiful fear preventing him to make his presence clear. His stare wandered, coming to a hold at the bottle in his left hand.

The minty contents not owing the usual threads created by the herbs inside the true elixir, Ray couldn't help himself as he drifted off for a second. He'd seen you in pain after taking the medicine. You called out his name in broken sobs until it shifted to pure rage that burned in your every feature. Blaming him for the hurt that fell upon you, that he's the reason you're now ruined beyond hope. Ray jolted up in his chair afterwards, feeling a shiver run down his back he wasn't able to ignore. Now here he stood. Biting his lip bloody as these hot tears threatening to run down.

He proclaimed you mustn't see him for the time being, he promised you didn't have to hear his pathetic, whiny voice until he's finished with his job. But there he was, about to fill your precious albeit limited freedom with his presence. No big surprise, he hissed at himself in the depths of his mind. Ray couldn't do anything right. The last thing he wanted was to bother you in these late hours of night where most already went to sleep. He didn't even check if you're inside the land of dreams before jogging down the corridors of Mint Eye. It's for your own protection, he justified his appearance at first.

Now that he wiggled in front of your door, however, it felt like a lame excuse instead. Ray missed you terribly much, yet he couldn't bring that across. The failures in the garden reminded him of his place and that he's nothing but an arrogant bug not knowing how to make someone else happy even if desired. Surely you didn't want to see his face, although you didn't say it out directly, there's no reason for you to think otherwise. Ray wouldn't blame that decision, that rotting repulsion most held against him. Because that's all he was worth.

The sudden movement of the door made him jump backwards clumsily, he almost lost balance in the process. »...!« Ray's heart slipped into his pants once he faced your pretty being staring back at him in surprise, wide eyes shining like the stars outside while your lips parted just an inch. For a second he forgot how to breathe, the sight of your figure in the night's new to him. And he's not strong enough to fight the urge of these eager compliments burning on the tip of his tongue. Then he remembered to speak, just something and cover up his creepy behavior. »S-Sorry... I wasn't trying to listen in on you.«

The panic closed up his throat, wondering if you'd yell before hitting him or simply slam the door shut into his face. It left guilty weight fall down onto his shoulders as your facial features relaxed after realizing it's him. »Come in, Ray!« You smiled when taking a step to the side. You invited him into the room? Why? Weren't you disgusted by him creeping around the door like that? »...Can I? Is it okay?« The nod that confirmed your kindness got him close to tear up for the countless time. How he missed your voice, lingering sweetly inside his ears like no other. He missed you more than expected.

Ray's fiddling with the coat before shaking his head, coming back into the moment. »Sorry to pop in so suddenly..« He apologized in a meek tone while stepping inside your private walls. In spite of his audacity, you closed the door shut behind his back. A slightly curious shimmer swimming in your eyes while his certainly drowned in fatigue, another wave of shame crashing into his heart. »...But I wanted to give you this.« He forced himself to hold out the bottle, both hands shaking vividly as you inspected his rather odd gift. »This tastes and smells and looks exactly the same as the elixir of salvation.«

Your mouth formed in a little 'o' and Ray used all strength to not stare at your lips too long. As much as he adored them when they smiled, he didn't deserve seeing you in the first place. »If someone tries to force you to take the elixir, drink this instead.« He explained and sighed quietly, white hair rushing over his eyes when lowering his head. You nodded, much to Ray's relief. Due to the confusion that slowly found its way back over your face, since you titled your head at him, he luckily managed to not bust out his worries at all once. »Uh... I dozed off for a second, and in my dream, you were in pain after taking the elixir.«

»So I couldn't just sit there.« He pressed his index finger against his palm hidden underneath leather. Ray avoided your gaze, studying the pattern of the carpet next to your bed instead. A bright shade of blush crept over his cheeks, when saying out loud what caused him to come around that late, he felt more than ridiculous. »Thank you, Ray.« The warmth in your voice drew him in immediately. He missed it. He forgot how soft you spoke to him; how sweet you were for always thanking him. The blush reached his ears next. »Uh. No need to thank me. It's really nothing.«

»Here... take it.« He nudged the bottle some more. After you accepted the bottle by taking it into your own tiny hands, Ray's heart had no business bleeding out of his chest. Wanting to just brush your fingertips. Only a second, a short moment to make sure you're real and he's not fooled by own imagination. He forbade himself the comfort by pulling away fast. Ray crossed his arms, then. Because he didn't trust his own body whenever you're around. »And... could you please keep it a secret from the Savior that I was here?« The question filled the thin air carefully.

To think what kind of punishment he could receive made him speak before thinking. Even though you're the one in danger if not being thoughtful. Why was he always so selfish? Ray gritted his teeth as he dug his nails deeper into his coat. »But of course...you don't have to do that if you don't want to.« He added hesitantly yet openly. It's the truth, he agreed to those multiple times. Your safety was his first priority for now and forever on. He couldn't possibly ask this of you, it'd been stupid to bring it up. »I'll do everything painful for you. You don't have to do any of that...«

»No matter what...« His voice trailed off, another breeze coming through the window brought your scent closer. That inexplicable but calming scent he adored so much. »...« You didn't answer, only put down the glass onto the table. Ray longed for more praise, a simple thank you wasn't enough. What an airhead he was, so greedy for things far out of his reach. His muscles were frozen despite them screaming to finally leave you in peace. He waited, unsure for what exactly. A word of comfort? A hug? A little assurance that you maybe.. somehow weren't tired of him yet? And liked him to stay a bit longer?

Wanting to bring across how difficult his job was lately? And how he struggled keeping his focus on the mission the same time your health and safety was on the line? How he missed you? Ray missed you so much more than you could ever phantom. »...Ugh...« His jaw tensed up painfully. Probably for the better you're unaware, otherwise he'd scare you away much faster. You leaving would be his biggest nightmare. How could he prove himself? What's there to achieve so you change your mind and find any value inside his worthless soul? It didn't matter, whether he'd rip out his heart or worked himself down to total exhaustion.

All he wished for was your sensual touch against his cheeks, that one thing you did in the garden before. Where you cupped them into your silk soft hands. Brushing the irritated skin underneath his eyes with your heavenly fingertips. Could he ask for it? Beg? Ray didn't know what to show you that could change your mind about him. It's a wonder you're bearing his presence so fluently. Deep down, he figured, you must've been annoyed he's still standing in front of you. But if that's the case, then it wasn't readable on any part of your body. Ray prayed he didn't misunderstand. Knowing his luck, however, the chance's low.

»Why are you crying?« You tore him out of the misery, giving him a glare filled with concern. Ray blinked bewildered after tapping on his cheek, finding the indeed wet tears running down without permission. Oh no, he thought bitter. Oh no, he started spilling his emotions without realizing it. He showed you this pest of a weakness that cried inside of him, pleading like a child to be held and caressed. »Sorry... please don't be mad. I won't cry.« He waved his hand, tearing his head away completely. You shouldn't see this; you shouldn't deal with his incompetence. »It's just that it's great to see...«

It was wonderful to see your face again. To watch you look at him, that he's there and seen for once. Ray missed your beautiful eyes shivering with happiness after gifting you something as simple as a flower. How you giggle healed his inner wounds for brief second. How your touch chased away these endless demons living inside his head, breaking him apart day after day. Ray missed your every inch and part until he got sick to his stomach. Above all, it's great to be in your space, it's lovely and warm. Like a safe haven he'd found along the path of misery. Did he deserve it, though. The only thought circling around his empty head.

Of course, he didn't. He couldn't even protect you when V appeared out of the blue. He couldn't make you happy as he's always busy and never good enough to finish up early. He could never become the person you wanted to stay with. Not when he's this pathetic and worthless. »Ugh..no. Nothing. Please forget that I cried.« He shook his head, shoulders crouching forward to become small. Ray hated himself for trying to feel the warmth of your light on his skin by acting so shameless. It's embarrassing. You're too good for him, he finally made that conclusion. »Sorry. I'll...get going. Have a good night.«

The hot tears ran over his cheeks as he turned, lifting the back of his hand to at least spare you the sight of this kindergarten. »Ray?« Your name's reminding him a prayer in some distance sense, so kind and a touch of longing hidden underneath. Were you asking him to turn around? No, no no. That's not it. That could never be it. Ray felt his patience snap which followed by a sob. It set his feet into motion to be quick and sprint out of your room. He didn't care about confused expressions shot his way; all he could think about's how he ruined the one thing he really wanted. Ray messed up everything once again.

#mystic messenger #mm #saeran #saeran choi #mystic messenger saeran #au #ff #saeran x mc #one shot #saeran x reader #ray #ray x reader #ray x mc #ray route #mystic messenger ray #Mystic Messenger mc #angst

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missamyrisa2 · 1 year

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Do you ever do feet tickling prompts? Like if someones feet got somehow trapped and his bare soles tempted his friends to baby oil them up and hairbrush his soles beyond his limits

Anyone could see the bind we were in, Tobey just kept tempting us. The chucklehead wanted to shave five seconds from his turn to scoop the catboxes, so he crawled through the openings in the stairs onto the little landing for our furry friends. He didn't think about how his humongous soles would get stuck. We heard the pounding from below, the frustrated grunts. I saw them first, those silly toes wiggling through his dark silky socks. He insisted he didn't need help, telling us not to touch. Alex and Shannon saw the intent flash in my eyes, and probably how my fingers twitched. Looking back, I do believe they were going to dissuade my igniting the night of fun, at least until Tobey began blaming us in his frustration. I couldn't say what faulty pocket universe he spun where this was our fault because I was far too busy lining up the landing strips for my wiggling index fingers.

And very quickly the blame game turned to his making a case that he wasn't ticklish. Of course it's always suspicious when someone makes that argument before the tickling has even started. "If you aren't ticklish you won't mind this then~" I taunted with the classic tease just as I tested one sole, then the other, with a firm glide of my fingertips. Pounding resumed in the little landing. Poor kitties were not going to have any access for a while. Still, he was undeterred, even asking for another like a frat boy. While I raked my fingers up one socked foot, Alex plopped next to me and began taking their fingers on a luge rude over the silk sitting atop the underside of Tobey's ticklish toes. Squeaky giggles broke through his tough demeanor. And yet, in his world he still wasn't ticklish, that didn't tickle. We knew what we had to do next.

Alex and I took our time peeling off those socks, moving in a duet of tickly teases to stroke every bit of skin as it became exposed and taking breaks to torment the inner soles still socked. "I swear I've never seen such ticklish feet before." Shannon commented matter of fact as I mused "Doesn't he have the cutest giggle? It's like addictive." More pounding, more frantic laughs. At last those adorable toes were free of their silk wrappings, and we began probing each one on separate missions. "Toes are looking a little dry there T-Train" Alex snickered, drawing fingertips in between each toe and thoughtfully grasping one after another. The thought lingered in the air, and the light went on over my head.

"We have that bottle of baby oil in the pantry..." I barely had to turn my head and Shannon was clomping up the stairs. We kept our boy company, twirling little looping finger massages over the soles and down the wrinkles, commenting how cute his big ol feet were and how he danced so adorably for us. Shannon was back quickly, already opening the bottle and dripping the liquid down from his heels. He screeched a giggly shock demanding to know what we were doing.

I scooted up and went around the long way, the extra few steps that Tobey didn't want to take and visited him at the little door on the outside of the cat's landing. His giggly face was a riot to see through the little door. I kept the cabinet shut and spoke to him through the cat-sized opening. "Just giving you a little pampering T-Sweetner~" I smirked and got close. "I mean, that doesn't tickle, does it?" I looked from his giggly trapped face to my partners in crime who were working the oil into his oversized soles thoughtfully. Tobey blushed hotly, gathered what remained of his pride, and retorted. "Bring it on".

Oh, poor T Baby. He had no idea the danger of tempting any of us, but especially me. I had just been brushing my hair with my bamboo paddle brush when this kerfuffle started, and lo & behold it was right in my back pocket still. I drew my weapon from its sheathe and looked endearingly to Alex and Shannon as they raked their fingers over the shiny oily skin, rubbing frantically under the toes and back up the curves. With a hushed "ooooh~" they watched as I aligned my tool to what I felt was the optimal line of sensitive tickle spots.

Tobey pounded in his tiny prison and demanded to know what I was doing. "Oooh. Just a little of...this!" I squealed, taking the brush in a diagonal line across both soles before giving one a thorough scrub. The little nubs put his giggle to a new level of hysterics. We laughed perhaps as much as him while I scrubbed, because between the pounding and giggling he was still breathlessly saying it didn't tickle, he wasn't ticklish, we sucked at tickling. I alternated from sole to sole, Alex and Shannon looked on in awe though they continued to sneak little strokes with their fingers on the wrinkles, or playfully squeezed at his achille's tendons. I kept on my fact finding mission side stepping all of his exclamations, asking how much it tickled, how often his feet are tickled like this, why he was laughing ~

And even as we finally took mercy, massaging his pinkened soles and helping him free, we all knew the night wasn't over. For we all needed to take a turn on this new ride~<3

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atomicladyshark · 2 years

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I DON'T KNOW THE AUTHOR, BUT THE TEXT IS GREAT ... A son once asked his father: "How did you live before without access to technology: no internet no computers no TVs without air conditioning without cell phones? " Father replied: "As your generation lives today: without prayer without sympathy without honor no respect without shame without modesty without reading books ..... We, people born in 1939 - 1985, we are blessed. Our life is living proof of this: we never wore helmets when playing or riding bikes. We were not afraid to go to school alone from day one. After school, we played until sunset. We never watched TV for half a day. We played with real friends, not friends from the Internet. If we were ever thirsty we would drink tap water not from a bottle. We didn't get sick often, even though we shared the same glass of juice with four friends. We never gained weight, although we ate a lot of bread every day and potatoes. We are used to making our toys and play with them. We shared our toys and books. Our parents weren't rich. They gave us their love, taught us to value spirituality, gave us the concept of true human values - honesty, loyalty, respect, hard work. We have never had: mobile phones DVD, PlayStation Xbox, video games laptops, internet chat. "But we had real friends!" Visiting a friend's house without invitation, we were entertained by simple and modest food. Our memories were in black and white photographs, but they were bright and colorful, we enjoyed leafing through family albums and respectfully preserve the portraits of our ancestors. We do not throw books into the trash, we stood in the queue for them. We didn't make our lives public, and we didn't talk about the lives of others with delight as you did - showing your life on Instagram, publicly discussing your family secrets in the media. We are a unique and understanding generation, because we are the last generation to listen to their parents and the first generation to listen to their children. We are a limited edition. Learn from us. Appreciate us!

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ficfanatictrf · 1 year

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hi, same anon that wrote before

Don't feel bad for sharing your feeling on YOUR blog, I get some people might not like that and you had other intentions regarding your blog, but everyone have struggles and if ranting a bit helps you to feel at least a little better go for it

I am really sorry about your situation, I also had rough school year and faced some injustices and teachers that love to prey on downfall of their students, it's really frustrating

Hang in there, I hope it all ends well

Thank you- truly.

I am hopeful that I will be able to remain at the school next semester (some work that I needed to do on my part), but our OARS office (Office of Accessibility Resources & Services) and our Student Health Center - Therapy Department, is working with me on making sure that I can have options when it comes to next semester and housing accommodations for my concerns.

They also want to help with me finally being able to get a formal testing diagnosis. My physiatrist is giving me medication and says I have all the symptoms of ADHD, but she can not give me a formal diagnosis without testing- which the OARS office needs for legal reasons on their end.

After spending 2 days with my cats, I am feeling a ton better - they always make me feel better.

Before anyone asks though, I would never want to take them with me to school even as a support animal. Simply because currently the situation they have at my parents house is SO much better than anything they would have at my dorm (where they would be limited to such a small space compared to my parents home + my mom being able to let them go outside because we live in a wooded area) Plus, I would only be able to take one with me if I requested it...and the two of them have been together since they were born. Even when Sunny (the boy) was away for a day due to an injury, Jaci was a crying mess without him. I couldn't even imagine what multiple days would be like.

About my ranting- I vocally process. Where my stresses need to be aired out to feel better. Normally I would be able to talk about these things with my mom, but during all of this she and my dad were on their river boat trip in Europe- which they have been looking forward too for months!

The most I could do was text, but I didn't want to ruin their vacation because of my own stressors. Which meant that I was bottling it up without meaning too.

Thank you to everyone who sent me such kind messages and checked in on me. It was greatly appreciated and I will be working on getting things out again.

#response #kind anon #this made me cry when I got it #I read this multiple times to boost my mood #Still not fully back mentally #but getting there #I wish I could hug you for how kind and thoughtful you are #ficfanatictrf #ficfanatic

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dancineyes11-blog · 2 years

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Pain Slut Diary #2

Fantasy #2

The door closes behind me.

The blindfold is placed.

I'm grabbed by the hair and thrown face up, sideways, on the bed.

Arms and feet are tied splayed wide open for easy access.

Head pulled by the hair upside down off of the bed.

I open my mouth automatically ready for use.

I hear the door open and close

Did He leave??

Did someone else come in??

The spider gag is tightened into my mouth

I'm slapped in the face with hands and then with cocks

My inner thought "I'm to serve more thabuses.

then there are no more thoughts, I'm empty ready to be filled, used, and abused.

As the first cock slams deep into my throat I hear the belt snap.

One strike then another, I begin to scream on the cock in my mouth, drooling, gasping, for air

Cumming over and over to the point of pain, and cumming from the pain

"Take it bitch! Be a good toy"

The orgasms are taking me to the limit of too much but I keep cumming, constant orgasm, no break, no breath just cum

My cunt is whipped with the belt my clit is raw and cumming.

The cock in my mouth has slowed as the other cock pounds deep and hard into my sore, throbbing, pussy.

The screams are powerful but muffled from the cock choking me

As both holes are being used my tits that have been bound and are now engorged are tortured further by clothes pins one after another placed on nipples, and around the whole of both tits. Its excruciating but more are placed, feels like hundreds.

Then the belt strikes and the pain crescendos as the clips go flying.

The cock in my mouth has cum all over my tits and under my chin. It will not be wiped off it will be my badge of honor.

The cunt cock is still pounding hard, clips are whipped off over and over.

The cock in my mouth has been replaced by fingers, gagging me, the spider gag is dragged off.

A round bristle brush that has been rigged as a gag is forced into my mouth and securely tightened.

The breast binding is loosened...the rush of blood back is extraordinary and excruciating

Now the straight pins or long thumb tacks (I can't tell I just know they are sharp and penitrating) are stabbed into my tits as the cunt cock finishes deep inside.

I struggle against the bristle bit trying to keep my mouth still because the pain is great.

But the needle like pins are making it so hard to be still.

I'm trying not to struggle or flinch away. I want to take it for Him, I will take it only because it greatly pleases Him.

I'm being watched, scrutinized, objectified. I am a breathing sex doll, tormented and used hard.

At this point I realize no human is touching me the only sensation is the pain of the pins and the bit in my mouth. The only sound is the post cum testosterone filled guttural breathing of those that have received pleasure from my body

They are enjoying watching me writhing in pain as I cum and wriggle against the restraints and the pain and the overwhelming sensations of it all.

There are no thoughts, my mind is empty, I'm simply experiencing His will I'm just a pain toy, a sex vessel for His use and pleasure.

And then it starts....

The spray bottle of what looked like water...

I remember seeing it just before the blindfold went on.

The slow, deep burn carries me away

The rubbing alcohol is misted all over the pins

It is exquisite, I instantly stop struggling with the pain and melt into it

It is a relaxing burn and the orgasms become softer, less violent but still intense.

The mist of alcohol continues multiple hands begin to remove the pins one by one.

My back arches into the glorious fire as blood rushes to the surface and is cleansed and disinfected.

Hands massage my tits, ensuring they are clean and healthy.

I am unbound hands and feet

My Dom wraps a warm blanket around me and holds me tight againstHis chest now

I snuggle into His breathing

"Good girl" he whispers into my hair over and over as I rest and He brings me safely back down to earth.

I am so deeply satisfied that He is pleased.

That I fulfilled His will and pleasure.

I have been a good toy, a good pain slut and His

"Good girl"

Love and Light

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nitiaura · 2 months

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To avoid any last-minute rush, try reaching the airport at least two hours before your flight's scheduled departure time. This way, you can calmly go through the check-in process and security procedures without feeling rushed or stressed.

Stay Connected

Bring a book or magazine to keep yourself occupied during long wait times in airports and planes, but also make sure to bring along your phone and charger for easy access to information about flights and other updates that may affect your journey.

Travel Light

Minimize the amount of luggage you take with you since it is one of the most common causes of stress when traveling by air due to space limitations on planes. Also, always keep your passport and other essential documents in a safe and easily accessible location.

Relax

Take a few deep breaths, find a comfortable seat, and relax—you're on vacation! Don't sweat the small stuff; if something happens or you run late, stay calm and take it all in stride.

Eat light

Especially for long flights, eating a light meal before takeoff can help keep you comfortable and relaxed. Avoid consuming too much alcohol or caffeine, as it dehydrates you and makes your journey more uncomfortable.

Immunization

If you travel long distances, it is best to check with your doctor and ensure you have completed all the necessary immunizations before departing. This will reduce the risk of getting sick while travelling or upon arrival.

Stay hydrated

Dehydration can cause fatigue and headaches, so drink at least two liters of water during your flight—especially if it is long! Pack an empty water bottle in your carry-on bag so that you can fill it up at a water station after going through security.

Now that you know the tips on how to prepare for stress-free travel on your Chennai to Delhi flights, all that's left to do is board the plane and enjoy the experience!

Conclusion

Flying doesn't have to be a stressful activity. With proper preparation, you can make sure your Chennai to Delhi flight journey is the stress-free and enjoyable experience it should be. Cleartrip's comprehensive travel assistance options and amazing flight deals make sure that you have an effortless journey! So sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride!

#travel

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ivegottale · 3 months

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DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH CO² THAT IS WITHIN THE EARTH'S ATMOSPHERE TODAY IN 2024? HOW ABOUT IN 2023?

In 2023, the CO² levels were at 0.03%. In 2024, it sits at 0.04%.

So "you-all" are telling me, that all...the "hoop-la" about climate change. Is all about a tenth of a percent a year increase. All the CO² caused from around the world is only 1% higher than last year enough of a priority concern. Congress decided our taxes were now also funding, yet another field lab study? In charge of documenting the rise of these levels. If our CO² levels go any lower than 0.02%. Plant life would die.

Half of Congress doesn't even recall what the level guidelines had been set into place. Yet along with what the results concluded or predicts from that study. Probably because Democrats are struggling in keeping all their lies straight.

Not the President, not an elected official, appointed authority or a politician ever receive validated results to the contrary. It's because the White House is no longer in control. Oh...No....Corporate business is in charge. They're in charge of our supply in supermarkets, control local media, our utilities, critical thinking, fuel and how much we'll pay. All along assuring that Americans paychecks are stretched just far enough where we can barely get by.

• Military = $712 billion tax dollars

• NATO. = $442 million tax dollars

• Congress= $200,000 tax dollars per official and their travel expenses with their stay's, bottled water for the White House floor, lunches, brothels and (+) what's made from inside trade.

• Illegal Immigrants = $2200 per month, per person (+) cell phone privileges, food stamp access, free medical, a credit card, Driver license, Voting registration, and shelter.

• SSI/SSDI = $1300 per month, discounted utilities, free medical, limited food stamp access, limited benefit card, free cell phone, discounted transportation and free public or managed shelter's at full cost.

• Ukraine = $75 billion dollars

• Lahaina wildfire =. $700 dollars victims, Maui. one time pay & out

• Palestine, Ohio = Received no help with clean water issues after the train derailment back in February. The 12 car derailment left the Palestine Village with unhealthy pool water conditions the town depends on. Even after 2 weeks when State and Federal officials stated water, soil and air quality met all safety standards. Residents still depended on neighbors efforts bringing bottled water into their community. Residents claimed they were still suffering from the chemicals the derailed cars from the crash spilled into their well water.

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jacmotorsfan · 4 months

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The JAC X200 2.8 Diesel Single-Cab Is A Steady Worker

You need a last-mile delivery vehicle; one that can carry a full ton of goods, can squeeze into and out of tight spots but doesn’t have to be fast or fancy. A standard one-ton pickup almost fills the bill. But you want more - a lot more - just not at fancy prices, thank you.

(Cue drum roll and trumpet) JAC Motors’ X200 single-cab, forward control, dropside is priced about the same as entry-level pickups from the Big Three - Ford, Isuzu and Toyota – offers a few more nice-to-haves and has similar shortcomings yet carries a bigger load, 1500 kg, in its almost 4.6 square-metre cargo bin.

Find a JAC X200 for sale now!

What shortcomings? No entry-level, single-cab, pickup on sale in South Africa offers ABS brakes or airbags. This one doesn’t either.

Those from the Big Three don’t have radios, aircon or automatic locking as a standard kit but the single cab JAC X200 for sale does. Those others are all regular pickups so loading and unloading is from the back end only, or grunt-and-lift over the sides. Dropping X200’s tailgate, or side panels, and its loading deck height of only 785 mm, allow quick and easy access to loads. That includes heavier items stacked close to the cab to improve weight distribution.

A further advantage of dropside bodies is that there are no intruding wheel arches, so all the load space is usable. On the other hand, regular pickups’ load bins are deeper, affording greater security.

Suspension is by means of double wishbones in front and two-part leaf springs at the rear. Brakes are disc and drum while steering assistance is old-school hydraulic. Other traditional features are hand-wound windows and DIY mirror adjustment.

There are other choices of dropside pickup – Hyundai’s H100 and Kia's K2700 – they cost about the same, have lower-powered engines, use more fuel (according to their makers) and carry less. Just saying. Stop right here and just find an X200 model for sale and get on with your work.

This one’s powered by a Chinese clone of Isuzu’s 2771 cc, four-cylinder, 4JB1-T turbodiesel. It’s a simple device; SOHC, eight valves and direct fuel injection from Bosch. Output is rated at 80 kW and 240 Nm, so it’s not the most powerful machine in the toolbox but it gets the job done. That’s helped along by low gearing, rather like early Land Rovers.

Torque peaks between 1800 and 2000 rpm and your ears suggest that you gear up a notch at around 2500, so progress tends to be slow but steady. And that’s all you need if you’re going to be stopping to drop off cargo every few minutes anyway.

Out on the freeway, it cruises happily at around 2250 rpm for 100 km/h in fifth. The national speed limit comes up at 2750 rpm, by which time the mill is beginning to sound busy. The rev. counter redlines at 4000 in intermediate gears but your ears probably wouldn’t want you to do that too often. Top speed is given as 130 km/h.

The two-part front seats can accommodate three if the need arises but they had better be close friends because space is rather tight. And thank the gods of transport for the air conditioner in hot weather. When carrying only a driver and one crew member, the centre seat’s backrest can fold down to reveal a nice big oddments tray and a couple of cup holders. The door bins offer space for small juice bottles and are suitably narrow to accommodate clipboards without flopping about.

Only the driver’s chair offers fore-and-aft adjustment. The passenger seat doesn’t, because it has to be able to lift up to provide access to the engine compartment. Luckily, one can get to basics like coolant and washer top-up bottles via a drop-down panel above the front number plate. Checking the oil level still requires lifting the seat, however.

Summing up, these trucks are made for working; essential frills only, no pretentiousness and no speed records. Just honest hard graft.

Shared from https://jaconly.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-jac-x200-28-diesel-single-cab-is.html

#jac #jac work bakkies #commercial vehicles

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shrimpwritings · 6 months

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Kitchenless Cooking Techniques

I wanted to share some nice lil' cooking techniques I've learned during my time utilizing my air fryer and double-burner hotplate.

If you're using a skillet, always make sure you not only clean the inside and bottom but also the space where the handle connects to the pan. If you use any kind of oil or butter to cook stuff with, it splashes literally everywhere, and that space is in the splash zone.

Hydrogen peroxide and Dawn soap mixed together in a spray bottle is a great dish-cleaning liquid if you don't have access to a dishwasher. Kudos to my mom for coming up with that idea.

Use a sponge (I recommend the dreadfully named "Scrub Daddy"s or "Scrub Mommy"s) to clean your dishes, hotplate, and countertops. It gets a lot of stuff cleaned in a faster time period than using a dish rag.

Always make sure you clean behind your hotplate as well as the area around it! Also, never clean the bottom of the hotplate because you can fuck it up.

Depending on the type of air fryer you have (I have a Nuwave), parchment paper liners limit the amount of stuff you need to clean when using it for cooking. You can get a pack of them for dirt cheap on Amazon.

I hope y'all enjoy these little tips and tricks I've taught myself while learning how to survive off of the bare minimum kitchenware you can have in a tiny, kitchen-less home!

#cooking #cooking techniques #air fryer #hotplate #shrimp says stuff #shrimp is a sad version of gordon ramsey #i have no kitchen but i must cook

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americangrove · 7 months

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Medicinals

On taking an herbal medicine course

Everclear could be an effective means towards confirming the existence of the soul. As some touched my tongue, an intangible yet material pneuma evacuated my body just behind my breath, leaving me in a half-second state of suspension before I drew it (and air) back in. This happened having had about a single rain drop worth of it. Feeling much, I tasted nothing, though I know that there were other things in the drop besides 190 proof alcohol, specifically the essences (i.e., plant souls) of echinacea, elderberry, prickly ash. These were the ingredients that CoreyPine Shane told us he combined as he passed around a one-ounce amber glass bottle, its rubber pipet loosened so we could each take our try of his tincture meant to treat common colds. The most alcohol I get probably comes from senescent bananas, so a drop of everclear was bound to feel unpleasant. But CoreyPine, like his name, and like his herbal practice, brings together disparate things and makes them work; his 200 proof enthusiasm for what he does acted as the solvent in which my distaste for alcohol combined with my interest in plant medicine so that what I would get out of his course at the end of five days was something sanative in terms of understanding if not also health.

The course took place at the John C Campbell Folk Scholl in Brasstown, North Carolina. Campus was enlivened with the activity of woodworkers, potters, painters, blacksmiths, leather workers, kaleidoscope makers and others, including us herbalists. This list perhaps seems like the groupings of an open world medieval game or middle ages movie that should also include guilds, great halls, and grands quests to capture grails from the surrounding world—and indeed all these were there too.[1] The motto of the school, “I sing behind the plow” further rings of time past, not so much for the tool invoked, as the relationship to the tool, which, in allowing, if not enabling the worker to sing, suggests a form of labor not synonymous with depletion (of the worker and world as we tend to think today) but with attainment—attainment of an accord with what one does, makes, and, implicitly with what one receives (materially and otherwise) from being occupied in the world. If you get that from work, why not sing?

Our herbalist group was ultimately a septep, led by CoreyPine. For a week we meet at 9:00 in the morning and ended around 5:00 in the evening. The first hours of the first two days I doubt any of us sang as much as we mumbled trying to remember the differences between an infusion, a tincture, a decoction, and a powder, weight to volume ratios, whether to use brandy, vodka or everclear as menstruum, the properties of plants that we had probably seen but never named and the varying legality of harvesting these plants in national and state forests (broad rights) compared to national and state parks (limited to fruit and mushrooms). But as soon we went outside to the school gardens, and later to Nantahala National Forest—“laaaaaaaaaaaa” songs coming not so much out of our mouths as happening inside them (and the nose): the sharply pungent rhythm of wild cherry, the low chthonic chanting of catnip, the musty serenade of beebalm, the brassy bebop of spicebush. Ratios, terms and legal rights suddenly seemed less arcane, because then they were not forbidding us from walking in the wind and sun, but rather they became the means to safely accessing, using and enjoying the tasty, fragrant and alluring life rooted in the ground.

The “folk” in folk school is not actually meant to connote something past. Olive Campbell (1882-1954), who named the school in honor of her husband and collaborator, the educator John Campbell (1867-1919), spoke to this matter at the beginning of a speech given in Knoxville at the Southern Mountain Workers Conference on April 9, 1924, a year before the school opened. The Danish “folkehoiskole”, which provided the model for their idea, is “literally translated [as] ‘folk-high-school’.” But, as she explains,

I am trying not to use the term for it does not convey the same idea in English that it does in Danish. “High-School” at once suggests to us the education of adolescents. The Danish institution is for adults, —18 years and over. “Folk” in English has come to be associated with people of a past period, “folk-song, folk-dance”, while the Danish folk are the Danish people. Peoples College is the nearest equivalent. It is not an entirely satisfactory term but so far, no one has found a better.[2]

The name problem aside, the hope was to create an institution that like its Danish counterpart could be a place where the “deepest culture is on the land, not in the city”—a hope resonant with the Southern Mountain Workers, and indeed the Southern Mountain people generally, for, by the early 20th century the idea of the area as backwards, delayed, undeveloped, and behind in time had become a common national sentiment. In “Our Southern Highlanders”, a 1912 essay for the New York based weekly The Independent, classicist William Goodell Frost, born in western New York, educated at Oberlin and then president of Berea College in eastern Kentucky, began with an observation that stimulated two questions:

The daily press is bringing us news from the Virginia mountains which is startling indeed. What are the conditions which makes such lawlessness and bloodshed possible? How are we to believe that the Southern mountaineer is the most hopeful man in the South when representatives of mountain clans are guilty of such deeds?[3]

While immediately alluding to the Hillsville Massacre from the month prior, Frost, who is credited with coining the term “Appalachian America” knew that that sensational event was but one recent consequence of a century long series of systematic privations in the region.[4] The first photograph in his essay carried the caption, “Bad Mountain Roads Mean Isolation”; his subsequent words suggested that this physical isolation begot other forms of isolation: economic, intellectual, and cultural, none of them resulting in wholly bad developments, though certainly not ones Frost deemed advanced either.

From his position as president of an Appalachian college (which for a time served black and white students), he, like Olive Campbell, was committed to improving his chosen home through school instruction, though a structural difference between the two can be detected in his final lines:

Change, then, is knocking at the door of every mountain cabin. The mountains must receive new elements, and their population must overflow. The mountain people have the basal element of strength. They are promising as were our own ancestors in the days of Elizabeth. But they do need a friendly interpreter and a guiding hand.

And after this his final picture, “Playthings confiscated at Berea”:

Education for the folk, does but not necessarily mean education by the folk, who clearly, for Frost, still did not quite carry the means to achieve it alone, though they did carry the means to achieve other things…

CoreyPine rarely told us what we had to do (even when we wanted him to), and he rarely used the word “rule”. Instead, we were given guidelines, suggestions, and encouraged to listen, listen to our own bodies and its herbal needs, but also to listen to the needs of the herbs themselves, hence some of his “Wildcrafting Principles”:

“Harvest from abundance; take only what you need”

“Don’t harvest if not in the right mindset, e.g.—feeling greedy or angry”

“Take a moment to tune in before beginning”

And after you have gotten yourself ready, as he writes in his book, “ask the plant’s permission.” He admits that “Maybe this sounds woo-woo,”

but trust me when I say it make a difference. If you, like me, have a more science-y mind, think about it is as quieting your mind and tuning in to your intuition, which is really just the sum of all the factors you’ve already unconsciously noticed but can’t put into words. Find the largest, most robust plant, or maybe just the first plant you saw, sit down and quiet your mind, then introduce yourself to the plant and ask permission. Next, and most importantly, stop and listen.[5]

Maybe the plant will say yes, maybe the plant will say no, but the primary aim is awareness. In wildcrafting you are coming into a place not your own with intentions that will cause disturbance. It is not about limiting the change you will cause (if that was the goal you would stay home, buy your herbs online or in store), so much as recognizing it, taking responsibility for it, and telling it to the (vegetal) community involved which means committing to responding to its feedback even if you do not quite know how to hear it. As he says,

Our attitude has to be less of a colonial mindset of coming in and taking what we think we deserve and more about creating a relationship with the wild plants. Growing into this relationship earns the respect of the plants as well as fellow wildcrafters and herbalists. And every time I harvest plants from this place of respect, I always come away feeling like I know the plant better.[6]

Before announcing the change she hoped to realize through a people’s college, Olive Campbell also took a moment to “tune in before beginning”—"Are we who are carrying on work in the Highlands, most of us in a high spirit of service, really thinking out what we wish to accomplish, where we are trying to go?”[7] She asked because she knew that there were two ways this service could go, at least where education was concerned. The first way was what might be called the way of the grade school, which not only organizes students into age-based grades but also gives grades based on acquired facility in skills deemed necessary standards in a modern society. “One cannot, however,” as Campbell says of this kind of education “escape the feeling that in our efforts to impose our standards on the mountains and measure results by those same standards—an effort which, by the way, is itself open to question, we are instead of furnishing leaders to the mountains, hastening the present tendency of stronger stock to migrate from country to city.”[8] Which is to say that those who get an education attendant to nowhere in particular, end up using that education everywhere but at home once they have acquired it. The other way to offer education is through the “folkehoiskole”. It is different from grade school type education in that its classrooms are small, and its students are adults (pupils aged 18 to 30yrs old), but where it “depart[s] radically from the type of school with which we are familiar” is its goals—

the Danish People’s College cares little about imparting exact knowledge as such; for knowledge in itself does not make men good, useful or happy. The real aim of these schools is to awaken, enliven, and enlighten. An awakened, enlightened spirit will go on of itself. If it feels the need of exact information, it will seek it. If it possesses the quality of leadership it will exercise it. Only a comparatively small average in any population will be professional men, but all citizens should be enlivened and enlightened. Hence, it is follows naturally that in such schools there are no requirements for admission, no examination, no credits. All need the stimulus and who can measure the extent of its effect on the spirit? But to awaken and enlighten are indefinite terms. How shall this be done?[9]

She knows this sounds “woo-woo”—the idea that you can bring pupils together and invest in them not formulas and vocabulary, but with something that might be called a soul, or at least a character that respects place and community as much as self—but just like CoreyPine’s belief that talking to plants works, Campbell believed that putting conversation between people rather than putting standards and competition between them made all the difference. As you cooperatively gain a skill in some activity what you are also gaining is a community and familiarity among the others you work with and/or work on (in the case of the plants involved)—

most influence is personal—that is passed by one personality to another. Compared with this, books are lifeless things. We hear much in the People’s Colleges, of the “living word” which means simply that the warm, emphatic spoken word, the living expression of a personality is the medium through which the spirit is reached and stirred, far more effective than through books, the “dead word.”[10]

I encountered many “warm, empathic” beings during my time at the Folk School; perhaps the one with the most personality was mimosa, Albizia julibrissin. Even without knowing its herbal properties, I knew its name and its summertime “face”, so to speak, always smiling sedately along roadways and the edges of woodlots, its pinnate leaves slightly sluggish, moving slowly in wind like stirred sweet tea weighed down by too much sugar; its threadlike flowers however are all alert, beaming in the sun certain of their hot pink beauty. CoreyPine told us sometimes you do not find the plant, but the plant finds you, as if it knows what you need before you need it; echinacea once sprang up for him unasked, but it knew the cold he was about to catch. Mimosa, called “he huan pi” in Chinese medicine, means “collective happiness bark”— made into tea from its flowers or into a tincture or glycerin by its bark it is, as the name suggests, supposed to be good for good-feelings, conviviality, the rising of the heart out of depression and loneliness; if we all drink it (as we all did) it becomes a plant that makes community.[11] Perhaps it springs up without planting then in order to offer medicine for the social cold we often endure—and not just because it is a very successful non-native species.

In some respects, all of us attending class at the Folk School were “non-native”. Our teacher, CoreyPine began his studies with 7Song (what a name) in New York state. Karen, our co-instructor made her way down from Oregon before settling in the area. As for the pupils: Graeme now living in Ashville, is from New Zealand; Elaine from Mississippi; Meredith just east of the mountains in Hendersonville; Kim, now living nearby, before this was of the Southwest deserts; and I grew up seven hours east of Brasstown, in the coastal plains of North Carolina. If I spent that seven hours driving north instead of west I would pass through Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, nearly to New York, and so nearly all the major Atlantic cities, which in fact I have passed through many times in pursuit of my education, one largely funded through grades, exams, credits and degree progress. The roads were never “bad”, my isolation modest. This trip was my first time driving west.

Each meal in the dining hall, we were encouraged to sit with people we had not sat with before; each time I did so, I met people usually from the local elsewheres of Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina, Mississippi. Most students who come here have already had full careers and are retired. Half the age of many of those I talked to, it was encouraging to think that I may have as many years ahead of me as years that I have already lived in which I get to do something, and then once that is over I may still have enough curiosity to learn a whole other skill set amidst like-minded people who will welcome me (this could just be the A. julibrissin talking but still…). Nevertheless, I do not think we are the people Olive Campbell had in mind when she started the place, the people living just over the hill and down the street.[12] Every week the school hosts a community old time jam, and this brings people in from town. The banjos play with the dulcimers and fiddles as the wood floor shakes with the feet of people led on by the increasingly complex dictates of a caller as we contra dance—“dos a dos” and we are all mixed up together, strangers wet kissing one another with the sweat of elbows entwined by the crook. Moments of union though also have moments of division. I listened as vacation cyclist told their road stories: chasing dogs, failing brakes and an irate pick-up truck drivers who passed then stop downhill awaiting the cyclist who had to dodge the shovel coming directly for his head (helmets have unexpected uses). I have my own story as well. The one rule of the folk school, emphasized in bold, is to never walk in the road. And yet, there I was on my last night faced with either groping in the darkness down an unlit and unmarked wooded path to my room or attempting to run the four hundred feet or so down the road to get there. Before I started, I saw no cars in the distance but as soon as I was running around a curve, headlights glared behind me. Bright orange shirt, white pants, I figured I’d be seen as a someone quickly trying to make their way somewhere but—

Person 1: “What’s that?!” Person 2: “It’s a deer! Speed up! Hit it! Car: Vrooommmmmmm Person 1: “Ah, it’s a goddamn human!” Car: >still speeding up< Vrooommmmmmm

No shoulder to jump to as the road hugged the steep hill, I ran still faster and reached an opening that I bounded into as the car flashed by laughing in the night as I breathed in its fumes while catching my breath. Though said to be mostly for anti-inflammatory purposes, to calm down I held and smelled unripe black walnuts I had picked earlier in the day. The first note of the scent, citrus like, says “be here”, the subsequent earthiness, says “let it go.” I slept well that night.

Near the end of her speech, Campbell conjures-up an opponent to her project—

“Too late,” I hear some of you say. “The American habit of thinking of education as a stepping stone—the diploma—the credit system, have too firm a hold now on the young people in the mountains as elsewhere. What young man or woman will go to a school which offers his or her nothing but the intangible one of spiritual awakening?”[13]

More so than a simple binary of two forms of education, one competitive, one communal, one based on standards, one based on folk, what Campbell seems also to have on her mind is how best to convince people of the benefit of what they cannot count, record or definitively grasp, of what cannot be graded so much as believed in, of what cannot be assessed by finals as much as by faith. Once you can add, read and write, you can add, read and write, but if you ever get a spiritual awakening, or at least social accord, among work, place and people, you do not have skills that you can just take for granted but rather you have relations that must constantly be cultivated for relations are not so much cumulative achievements (one more good grade, one more degree) than they are ceaseless efforts towards something that can never be fully achieved or achieved only temporarily (on the dancefloor, in the forest). Herbal medicine seems to be like this too. CoreyPine divided it into three categories for us:

Tonic—Gentle herbs that are nourishing and balancing (a “nudge”)

Acute—Strong herbs used for short term issues (a “push”)

Heroic—Powerful herbs that have a strong effect on the body (a “shove”)[14]

Aside from naming the poles of the weakest and strongest plant medicines, “tonic” and “heroic” imply a binary that is similar to that between effort and achievement. Heroic herbs achieve things; pokeberry for example is described as a “powerful lymph mover for swollen glands, tonsilitis and more” but side effects can include “nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea, as well as migraine-like headache”. Take it, and regardless, something definite will be achieved (whether desired or not). With “heroics” herbal medicine seems to come nearest pharmaceutical medicine where definite achievement is also the goal, sometimes positive, sometimes negative, oftentimes both as the accelerated disclaimers at the end of drug commercials forewarn—your blood pressure improves but your kidney function decreases. The victory of achievement usually comes at the cost of something or someone else, whether it is the drain of sons and daughters, who, once they achieve success in local school, leave home never to return and give back, or the achievement of health after illness whose expense may in fact just be another illness only deferred.

Tonics, conversely, are the unending efforts of herbal medicine, the plants you take every day, perhaps primarily, at least in the beginning, for their purported benefits, but eventually it is process that becomes the prize, the process of wildcrafting with others, whether these others be human or vegetal, the process of searching outdoors, then bringing materials back indoor turning fibers into liquids and salves then ingesting or rubbing them onto ourselves as a part of a process of care, not just care for our body but also (ideally) care for the place where the body and the plants dwell. It is also a process of caring for the past, for though many of the plants of herbal traditions are now the topic of laboratory studies, knowledge of most of them come from what has been recorded by written word and remembered by mouth (in more than one sense). These are the remedies of grandparents, and great grandparents, community elders and other compilers who gathered and held the experience of their communities (chosen or otherwise) even as these communities were dissolved and devalued if not outright deconstructed.

Medicine as a word may be related to related to other “med-“ root words like mediate and moderate suggesting not so much a middle but rather the process of figuring out a middle, and so a process of measuring and so a process of expanding awareness so as to be able to accommodate as many salient relations among things as possible to make a judgement, which, in its herbal instantiation means measuring not just the effect the plant will have on you, but also measuring the effect you will have on the plant, which is really to say measuring the effect you will have on the place—what will or will not grow after you take what you want, what will you leave behind, what will you do with what you make out of the lives you are disturbing? Did you ask? Did you say thanks? The same questions that we ask coming into communities of plants, are the same questions we ask coming into communities of people—the difference being in the way each responds to the answers we give ourselves to guide our acts. Listening may be difficult, but how could feigned deafness be defensible, let alone desirable in a world that sings as constantly from the strings of fiddles and guitars as it does from the stems of figwort and ginseng.

[1] Outside of their day jobs or complementing their retirement many participate in the guilds of their crafts; all the meals for the one hundred of so us were taken in a large dining hall; and as for quests, our days into the gardens and woods were satisfying open air errands.

[2] See: Campbell, Olive. “Address at Southern Mountain Conference.” Folder 153 in The John C. Campbell and Olive D. Campbell Papers, UNC Chapel Hill, p. 1-2. Accessible online at: https://finding-aids.lib.unc.edu/03800/#folder_153#1

[3] Frost, William G. “Our Southern Highlanders,” The Independent 72 (April 4, 1912), p.708.

[4] For the Hillsville Massacre, the Wikipedia for Floyd Allen, the principal instigator of the shoot-out is a good place to start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floyd_Allen. For more on Frost, whose tenure oversaw Berea’s mission change from an interracial school to one that served the “mountain people” whom Frost felt like he had “discovered”, see: Wilson, Shannon. “William Goodell Frost: Race and Region”, online at https://libraryguides.berea.edu/frostessay

[5] The above bullet points are from a handout given in class. The rest is from his book. See: Shane, CoreyPine. Southeast Medicinal Plants. Portland: Timber Press, 2022. p. 14.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Campbell, “Address”, 5.

[8] Campbell, “Address”, 4

[9] Ibid., 9.

[10] Campbell, “Address”, 10.

[11] Shane, Southeast Medicine, 158-160.

[12] It would be interesting (and perhaps has already been done), to trace the ways in which the Folk School’s primary population has changed over the century from a place originally meant to aid the local population amidst the industrial changes of early 20th century America, to something of an art school today that preserves and extends an extensive range of crafts and traditions.

[13] Campbell, “Address”, 30-31.

[14] This information was from a classroom handout, though in his book he notes the strength of each plants in his descriptions.

#landscape #north carolina #plants #essay #writing #herbal medicine #folk school #education

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