face reveal if anyone was wondering
Northern River Terrapin (Batagur baska), male, family Geoemydidae, found in South and SE Asia
CRITICALLY ENDANGERED.
photograph by Rupert Kainradl
Feyd Rautha, pointing to Chani: Who's that? Your pet?
Feyd Rautha pulls out his phone and opens the gallery in the same second: Look, I have three too! This picture here is of them eating a human, this one too, and this one.... They're pretty voracious. I love them.
"It was a traditional humiliation, going back centuries, that peoples conquered by Rome should see themselves paraded in the names and titles of their conquerors, 'Africanus', 'Asiaticus', 'Germanicus', and so on.
There was even a dark joke that, after he had killed his brother Geta, the emperor Caracalla should be called 'Geticus'."
From Mary Beard's Emperor of Rome, pg. 314
~~~~~~~~~~~ Author's Note: This is that Angel Face backstory I was talking about. His name is Caleb Handover because I'm not going to call him Angel Face the whole time. There will be no "spice" because I type this on a school computer and honestly I want to expand my writing abilities. ~~~~~~~~~~~
This is a horrible way to start a journal, probably the most over-done and unintriguing sentence used to start a story, but my name is Caleb Handover. I’m 16 years old, and I live in Wilmington, Delaware. I go to Mt. Pleasant High School, class of 2001. That makes me a Junior.
It’s boring. Every single day is the same. The ducks pass over the sky when I’m walking to school, and it looked cool when I was nine, but nowadays it just feels like I’m watching someone drive to work.
Delaware duck schedule: 6 AM, wake up to the same alarm as everyone in the neighborhood. 7 AM, fly to the pond for breakfast and a bath. Pass by that blond kid again.
My hair was born white. People on the street asked my mom while she was pushing the stroller, why do you bleach your baby’s hair?
She never did.
First period is Advanced Placement Calculus. I’m thinking about ducks. Derivatives, ducks, hyperbolas, ducks, factorials, ducks, integrals…
My mom called my hair duck-fuzz.
I like math, but I only say that because high schoolers have to like something. If you say you don’t like any subjects in school, you sound like a wannabe-dropout loser. I’m 16 years old and taking AP Calculus. I don’t think I’m a wannabe anything, but I don’t think I’m genuine, either. I’ve already done the warmup question on the board. Find 34! It’s just a factorial. Does anyone see me?
“Caleb Handover?”
Only during attendance.
I raise my hand until my elbow is about six inches off of my table, parallel to the smooth, fake-wood surface. Not high enough to seem like a geek, but still giving effort.
Invisibility is a science.
“Here.”
There’s a pause. My hand stays in the air.
“Caleb Handover?” my teacher tilts his chin up and surveys the room, his pencil hovering over my name, ready to write truant.
“I said I’m here,” I said louder as I raised my hand higher. My pen balances between my peace-sign fingers. My teacher flicks his eyes to me, and his eyebrows soften. He adjusts his glasses. The sad taste of desperation lingered in my mouth after essentially begging to be accounted for.
“Oh, hello Caleb. Sorry I didn’t see you.” My teacher laughs dryly and clears his throat. “Serena Hofstadter?”
She has mono.
“Gordon Jacobs?”
That’s how Serena got mono.
For a moment I picture Serena and Gordon as Romeo and Juliet during the final act. Gordon drinks from a tall, crystal vial of mononucleosis extract and collapses. Serena, covered head-to-toe in orange spray tan and blonde highlights underneath her Shakespearean garb, discovers him on the floor and gives a tearful soliloquy before kissing him feverishly in an attempt to drink the mono from his lips. In the end, they’re both bedridden, and everyone knows.
In fair Delaware we lay our scene.
I don’t know why, but I’m angry at them. Serena and Gordon. My knuckles turn white as I grip my pen harder, gritting my teeth and thinking about my peers who go to parties to drink and kiss and do drugs. I didn’t even think parties were a real thing until I started listening to rich kids’ conversations.
“I got home so late last night…” quote from the boy wearing the same clothes as yesterday.
“I’m, like, so hungover.” quote from the girl wearing sunglasses indoors at 8:30 AM.
“Her house was so tacky.” quote from the girl whose locker is head-to-toe in sequins and leopard print, who uses perfume to cover the smell of anxiety pheromones.
I’m not jealous, and I’d rather have lifelong diarrhea than be in the same boat as these kids, but it would be nice to have a life.
It would be nice to be a part of something bigger than myself.
~~~~~~~~~~~ Author's Note: Please let me know what you think, and if I should keep writing this. It would be appreciated :)
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TRICKY RICK MIGHT NOT HAVE DONE IT????
english people know what stonehenge was for. they just wont tell us so that we have to come to their wet little country
daniel wake up. daniel my love the people online are making fun of me. look at this. i—yes i know you just woke up and i’m levitating over our bed in a quote unquote “ominous” way. just look. you see, they are taking this photograph of me and adding ridiculous captions. and look. daniel stop laughing please. do you honestly think that i, a five hundred year old immortal vampire, would be so easily swindled by an internet scammer? i have seen empires rise and fall. i’ve watched time, people, landscapes, all turn to dust around me. do they truly believe that i am so foolish as to—daniel you promised not to bring up the Credit Card Incident. nor the Social Security Number Incident. look at this one. daniel. daniel beloved this is serious i don’t even play minecraft that much anymore. i’ve branched out. it’s like you don’t even appreciate our tiny perfect life in the sims four. daniel. you hate our virtual child. our beautiful mr pickles the cat. is this what i have to put up with for the rest of our immortal lives? you laughing at me? daniel—
Do you think Felix paid for Oliver's top surgery?