#I don't think the existence of one species Your kind is good enough reason to kill millions with a press of a button

[iwonderwh0]

I hate nuke ending if I'm being honest. Not in terms of the narrative (narratively it's quite beautiful) but in terms of ideological reasoning behind anyone using nuclear weapons in general and any attempt of painting it as justifyable. If you think Markus is justified in pushing the button and if you would actually push it if you were in his place, genuinely, why?

[weaselle]

i am convinced that human evolution and development was centered around the basic up-grade from "i steal your resources" to "i steal your behaviors and concepts"

We got clever enough and we just started copying absolutely everything we observed just because now we could figure out how to copy concepts and things that other animals were doing

see that squirrel hoarding acorns for the winter? we can do that. okay now how do we make these acorns edible, cause they are poisonous to a number of animals and we don't do great with them either. What if you put them in the fire? or just on hot coals? what if you put them in water on hot coals and boil them? Oh if you soak them in cold water for 24 hours and maybe change the water a couple times you can totally eat them? YOINK storing acorns for winter is our idea now.

or, you ever seen a weaver bird do it's thing? if not i'll give you one guess what they do

or how about the tailor bird that uses spider silk to stitch the edges of a big leaf together to make a nest in

or sometimes they'll stitch a bunch of leaves into a little cup for a nest

like i'm not trying to downplay how clever it is to be the first humans to weave or sew, and indeed, being the first person to weave that anyone knew about probably happened many times throughout human existence but my conceit is that most if not all of those times was a human seeing something in nature that was basically weaving and going "i'ma do that, and get real good at it - i'ma take that concept and really make it mine"

like it wouldn't surprise me if humans got dogs because we saw how ravens were treating wolves and went "shit yeah, great idea - YOINK that's my idea now."

most of the things that we think of as special human skill or behavior can actually be found elsewhere throughout nature -- all over there are animals using tools, farming, ranching, building, etc.

my favorite primate behavioralist anecdote is a group of people studying tool use in chimps were spending their days in the bush logging the use of twigs to catch termites, and over the campfire at night they're like "it's so boring i wish they'd do something more impressive than this completely basic tool skill."

and one of them was like "actually... how do we know its not a difficult skill? has anyone tried to use a twig to catch termites and see?" and so the next day, like good little scientists, they went out and recorded their attempts at catching termites with twigs.

And lo and behold out of the whole group and all their attempts that day, only, like, a single termite was caught by a human, mostly by chance. Suddenly the whole situation flipped - they'd been thinking of it as basic unskilled tool use, but actually the chimps knew how to do something that none of them could easily figure out on their own - or even together as a group!

y'all, they had to go back to watching the chimps do it to figure out how. Think about that. University degrees, scientific minds, educated people... and they had to be taught how by the chimps.

It turns out there's a reason that young chimps will spend like a year closely studying how an adult is fishing for termites. You gotta select the right kind of twig or leaf stem, maybe you fray the end like a paint brush depending on particulars, you gotta have just the right poking and little shaking technique to provoke the termites into biting the twig, it's a whole thing. There's even regional/cultural differences in the general approach to termite fishing that are distinct between groups that live in different areas.

Now, wild chimps have been observed using objects as tools to fashion crude spears for hunting (it's the mothers doing it by the way, and slowly some of their kids have been growing up doing it, which will probably result in refinements and developments eventually.

ants do both farming and ranching. For real. Some species of ant grow a fungus they eat AND it's a domesticated fungus, like our corn, it can't actually reproduce and survive in the wild without the ants farming it. They maintain its growing conditions and feed it leaf litter mulch, and the fungus produces some kind of ant food idk i forget the details about that. But that's farming. They are farming a domesticated mushroom, basically. And other species of ant will maintain a herd of aphids; they'll move them from grazing area to grazing area, and protect them from predators, and they "milk" them for a liquid food substance and also every now and then they straight up eat one. That's ranching.

beavers sometimes have muskrat... tenants? pets? The muskrats low key pay rent by changing out the reed bedding they all use, and they live in the beaver's lodge with them and eat some of the food. So. idk

Some Tarantulas keep frogs as pets

anyway my point is, i think the true human skill that sets us apart is our ability deconstruct and reconstruct anything we see into something that is for us. Oh, you eat that? Now WE eat that. You have the perfect teeth to drill little holes in specific tree trunks to let the sap ooze out and eat it because it's high in sugar? We don't have those teeth but we're gonna do that now and if we can't figure out a tool that's as good as your teeth at it, watch out, because we will absolutely just also steal your fuckin teeth.

[drdemonprince]

Do you have any immediate thoughts about core identity and autism?

I have a great, neurodivergent friendly therapist - bottom-up, somatic, all that shit that's supposed to be good for autistic clients. But I've been stalled for the last half dozen sessions over the feeling that I have no core 'self', that I am so much a mimic of people around me that my internal self has no core qualities beyond the immediate drive to survive and avoid demands and sensations.

It comes out as "I have no inherent value" (c'mon, no one does) and "I have no inherent moral drive, I just know what causes me pain probably causes others pain, and I am aware other people are different enough from me that I have to believe them when they say something causes them pain, and I must avoid pain for myself and others"

I've been trying to express to my therapist that core identity terms are maybe better couched in vocabulary for computer programs or robots, but it's difficult to adjust therapy speak into that even with a curious and agile therapist.

I have been thinking a lot about animals lately. Animals that are not humans have no "core self." They have no thoughts of self-worth. If you truly look into the eyes of, say, a squirrel or a turtle, you will immediately recognize a great, living void. They are a collection of survival instincts, learned responses, and reactions to the present environment that have some general pattern of constancy but which are ever-evolving.

They do not exist for any "reason," they just exist. No instinct that they have is false, even one that is mimicked or new. They have no morality, only reactions that propel them and follow a sense that is senseless to us creatures with minds that are forever narrating and judging. They just exist and that existence is inseparable from their present physical reality. The same is true of each of us, our minds only complicate it.

I think it is very compelling to be much like any other animal. When I am alone, or feeding my most primal hungers (when I am famished, say, or craving a drink or cigarette), I have no worries of whether I am being authentic or valuable to society or even if I am good. I simply experience feelings and cravings. Life is lived through experiences, as a consciousness that can take things in and do things that affect reality in turn. Life is not lived via our identity or even our beliefs. The universe is horrifically indifferent to what we aspire to be, or believe is right. Entire species exist only due to mating rituals that require murder or rape, and the thriving of one species often spells the doom of others or even itself. It is disgusting and meaningless, being an animal. But in that void there is such stillness and great beauty.

I have been able to access this dark-eyed feral side of myself more lately. I have been spending more time alone, no longer even trying to mask to myself as the kind of social, giving being I had convinced myself I had to be, if my life narrative were to be that I got well. I don't care about being well. Or even being good. Those terms are playmobil level human made up stupid. When I touch that void, and dwell in it, I can see that none of it matters and none of those human judgments are real, and that the fiction of my core self does not really exist at all. And I find it very peaceful.

Lately hard core bondage really helps me get there, mentally, as do long swims and long walks late at night. Conversations with the rare few who are not afraid of almost any thought also help me get there. Most of all I just need time and fucking silence. There are pictures of me lately where I can see an animal. Not someone posing or trying to manage an impression. In those few photos I can feel some unnamable emotion that is real. It is that animal void that exists in all things, that is the breathing of life into flesh.

Therapy, I have got to say, is the stuff of small minds. I don't mean you, I mean your therapist. Therapy can only process in individual personality units, which are a fiction, and it believes that problems exist to be solved through an optimization of the self. You need to be confident. Need to know who you are.

I have often written like that, forgive me for it. But problems do not exist to be solved, they just exist, and some things do not get better, and there really isn't a better or a worse anyway, there is just a vast ecosystem responding to things. A great void of life always teeming, always changing. Great loss and growth and change, violence and birth.

And so I am not surprised to hear your therapist does not get it. The detached view you take of morality likely frightens them. But that might mean you are on a far more compelling path than what they would desire for you, which is probably self-esteem boosting exercises and tidy scripts for setting boundaries with your parents. That stuff is fine. But expecting too much from it is like asking a can opener to explain the universe.

Thanks for writing.

[jals-stuff]

hello my love! If you don't mind I would like to request something for Orter. He and reader are still students in Easton and absolutely despise each other (something like academic rivals) and they ended up having to take care for a magical creature together for a class project during a few weeks! sorry if its a bit confusing, english is not my first language 🥹

good evening darling~

First of all, I would like to apologise because I originally wanted to make something short but it ended up being just a little longer than what I expected...

edit: part 2 ← right here

also i am receiving a lot of requests recently for some reason. thank you for your patience.

word count: 5.7k

warnings: f!reader, i hope you aren't scared of snakes (this one is cute tho), bit of swearing, not proofread

Taking care of it!

Group assignments are, and always have been the worst. The extroverts usually left you with the heaviest workload and you'd just end up doing everything by yourself while they took credit for it. However this time, the assignment wasn't like anything you would've expected.

The teacher was going to pick random students and put them into pairs, and each duo would be given a small wooden box with an egg inside of it.

“These boxes contain mandragora snake eggs. This species hatches into different colours depending on how you take care of them and help them grow.”

The teacher explained and brought two different creatures to her desk. The left one had beautiful and healthy dark green, glossy scales and stunning purple flower patterns with big eyes and seemed extremely docile; it was a rather medium-sized specimen and it looked kind of cute. 

But the other one was a completely different creature; an aggressive beast with long, hooked fangs, completely hollow eyes and its scales were an alarmingly fluorescent shade of green with almost no patterns at all. Its scales were in a pitiful state and seemed uncomfortably stony. It kept trying to bite the teacher.

“The left egg has been taken care of perfectly, and is now a healthy, beautiful mandragora snake. The right one however, has absorbed too many negative energies from the ones taking care of it, resulting in… this.”

And just as you started wondering how it was possible to mess a beast up that badly with only negative energy, the teacher called out your name.

“(L/N) (Y/N) and Orter Mádl, come and get your egg as well.”

That couldn't be good, this snake was probably never going to hatch at all. The two of you exchanged an uncomfortable yet similar side eye. Existing in the same classroom as him was already enough of a pain in the neck, and now you had to raise a magical creature together?

Oh boy.

…

You were both sitting in front of this egg now, in absolute silence as none of you knew what to say or do. You had never taken care of a mandragora snake— or any type of pet other than a cat in the past, and surely anyone could guess Orter was not the nurturing type.

“This snake is going to have horrible parents.” You thought out loud, and for the first time, you saw the cold, distant jerk nod. He crossed his arms and looked at it for a while without saying a single word. Just… what was he trying to achieve? Did he think he was going to turn into a mandragora snake expert just by looking at an egg?

The teacher cleared her throat to grab everyone’s attention again and pointed at the blackboard. 

“These creatures usually hatch after approximately one week, and they will gain their patterns after one more week, but an unhealthy egg will take longer than that. You must take good care of them until their colours are completely visible. Your schedules have been cleared accordingly so taking care of the little ones should not be an issue for the next month.”

Orter didn’t quite appreciate the idea of spending a month with the likes of you, nurturing and hatching a pet together as if you were some kind of happy little family. He raised his hand.

“Is joint custody allowed?”

“Absolutely not.” The teacher deadpanned at his question and you almost slammed your own face against the desk at how dumb of him that was. After a while, everyone left except the two of you, still staring at the egg.

“That was dumb of you. I’ll be the one to hatch it since you can’t bear to have responsibilities.” You gently pet the egg with one of your fingers. “Isn’t that right, Rivers?” That last part was mumbled as if you were talking to an actual baby, and Orter rolled his eyes.

“Dumb? Should I remind you that your last two brain cells are fighting for third spot?” He mocked, giving you a condescending side eye. “And why are you giving it a name already? It hasn’t even hatched yet.”

It was your turn to roll your eyes and look at him as if he had just asked the most obvious question in existence. He made no commentary about the way you looked at him. 

“Since you don't even care enough to give it a name, Rivers will stay in my room. I’ll take good care of it.” You shrugged and very carefully picked the box up, holding it against your chest like an actual child.

“Isn't it supposed to be a two person assignment? How am I supposed to participate if it stays in your room?” He sighed, visibly growing more and more annoyed at your behaviour.

“You can visit if you want, it's not like I do anything other than going to class. Neither do you, I’m assuming.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose and stood up from his chair to follow you as you walked to your dorm room. “You’re really going to ignore what the teacher said about joint custody? The snake-”

“Rivers. Its name is Rivers, don't call it ‘the snake’, Orter.” You shot an angry glare at him and he had to physically hold himself back from punching a wall. 

“Rivers can't only stay with you.” He sighed as he finally used the name you had given it; a small victory but a victory nonetheless, even though he seemed a little angry at you for being so damn annoying.

“Neither can it keep moving between your room and mine, and I’m pretty sure that's what the teacher meant when she said no joint custody, besides...” You trailed off, looking down at the egg. “I doubt you're the nurturing type, I wouldn't even trust you with watering a plant.”

You giggled mockingly and he clicked his tongue in annoyance, but you were also right, as much as he hated to admit it. He muttered something and walked away in the opposite direction, leaving you alone with the mandragora snake egg in your hands. 

You were determined to hatch it, with or without this jerk. Carefully, you placed it upon a cushion on the unoccupied bed in your room that was supposed to belong to your roommate, but she hadn't showed up in literal months, so Rivers was now your priority.

You enveloped the egg in fluffy, soft cloth and looked at it for a bit. Sure, you were the nurturing type… in spirit. How were you supposed to take care of a magical beast you had never even seen before?

None of your books had ever mentioned anything about it and you weren't really studious either unless Orter was about to get better grades, in which case you absolutely had to surpass yourself and crush him completely.

A few hours had passed and you were almost falling asleep, studying how the egg was reacting to sounds and touch. You could feel something move underneath the shell but you couldn't exactly tell what was happening.

It seemed stable, at the very least, but focusing so much and taking notes was draining. However, a knock on your door took you out of your drowsiness. “Come in?”

As you wondered who it could be, you were surprised to see that dear Mr. Mádl had stopped sulking and actually showed up, much to your annoyance. He closed the door and stepped closer to the egg, not even paying attention to you at all, which irritated you slightly.

“What's all this?” You asked as you noticed him holding an uncomfortable amount of handwritten notes. He pushed his glasses back up and finally looked at you.

“I went to the library to research a bit on mandragora snakes.” He stated with his usual emotionless expression. “Unlike you, I can put in some effort.”

Oh, he was getting on your nerves so much after only two minutes spent in your room. It took all of your remaining energy not to kick him out immediately. But for Rivers’ sake, you decided to keep calm.

“Look. I get that you despise me, because in case it wasn't clear, I despise you too. But for the sake of this assignment, can we please quit being passive aggressive?” You sighed softly, trying to calm your bad mood down.

“I’m not the one to blame here.” He shrugged, crossing his arms as he gave you his signature condescending look. “You didn't even research anything about this species, you're not even doing anything right now, and I bet you've been doing nothing for the past hours as well.” 

You exhaled softly, feeling the small creature in the egg get a little agitated and trying to stay calm. “I took some notes on its reactions to sounds and such. I believe it can actually sense negative energy.” You handed him your notes and he raised an eyebrow. 

“Sounds like bullcrap. It didn't say any of this in the books I read.” 

You held your snarky remarks for yourself and shrugged your shoulders. “Maybe the authors didn't think it was necessary. But it's clearly reacting. It also reacted when I sang to it.”

He chuckled, his expression unchanged, and you just knew he was about to say something rude, so you decided to talk before he did. “Anyway, it's good that you did some research.”

Orter raised an eyebrow in suspicion. Surely there had to be something snarky at the end of this sentence and that wasn't all.

“Because..?”

“Because I couldn't have done it while checking its reactions, so it's good.”

The room grew silent quickly and the snake within the egg started to calm down a little. Though Orter didn't seem convinced at all, and still thought you were bullshitting him with this whole reaction thing.

“I still don't see it. Why would you sense reactions and not me? Are you just special that way?” He asked in a mocking tone, and you were getting more frustrated by the second. 

“Just touch the egg right now.”

He did. Even without touching it, you could feel the magical beast getting agitated, but it seemed like he didn't. Not one bit. 

“There's nothing. You're full of crap, (Y/N). Just say you haven't done anything the whole time, I won't be surprised.” He mocked, but you decided not to bite back. You knew what you had felt earlier and you wouldn't take his criticism for that.

“Whatever you say, Orter. But you'll have to stop acting like that because whether you want to believe me or not, it is reacting.” You sighed softly, wanting to change topics. “So anyway, was there any advice on how to help it hatch correctly?”

He flipped through his notes with his eyebrows raised in contempt, as if you just couldn't do that without him (you couldn't, let's be realistic here) and he stopped on one of the pages.

“They need company, warmth and lightning. I suppose even you can provide that, correct?” He looked up from his notes and you didn't have to look back at him, you knew exactly what kind of expression he had right now. 

“I suppose I could.” You sigh softly, already fed up with his behaviour, and you felt the snake get agitated again. As if instinctively, you ran your hand against the shell. “It really doesn't like negative energy…” You muttered, not really towards anyone.

“I really think you're making things up here, otherwise it would've been mentioned in those books.” Orter said, putting his notes back against the bed where the egg was resting. You shrugged again, looking at it pensively, and for once, the snarky sandman didn't say anything.

“It's late… I’ll sleep for now.” You rub your face with your hands and sigh softly once more, then stand up and make your way to your bed. He, on the other hand, doesn't seem to be moving an inch. It's almost like he's trying to catch up with the egg for some reason… 

“You could directly tell me to leave, you know?” He adjusts his neck tie as he stands up and turns towards you. You wanted to shoo him, send him flying or something, but you needed this mandragora snake to be healthy and you couldn't afford to do such a thing.

“I’m… tired, is all. Really tired. I wasn't kicking you out.” You muttered, sitting on your bed and looking up at him. Even when he isn't insulting you, he still finds ways to be insufferable.

“..right. I will be here tomorrow morning to ensure you won't be doing anything… dumb with this egg.” He cleared his throat and left without another word. What kind of jerk was he anyway? He'd been especially awful today and you had no idea why. 

Maybe tomorrow is going to be better?

You spent most of the night tossing and turning, occasionally glancing at the egg, and it felt like the beast inside of it was mimicking you. Since sleep was evading you, you made your way to the other bed and sat next to the egg, looking at it in exhaustion.

“What's going on in there..?”

As if it was going to reply, yeah. You rubbed your hands against your face and sighed, lazily grabbing Orter’s notes on mandragora snakes and flipping the pages until you found the hatching section.

As insufferable as he was, his notes were flawless and easy to understand. What a pleasant handwriting… you shook your head and kept reading through it until sunrise.

He kept his word and showed up early with a bag full of… something ? He sat on the extra bed close to the egg, and pulled some more cloth out of the bag, as well as cotton and other fluffy materials he placed around it.

“I went and got some more.. warmth for it, since you couldn't do it correctly on your own.” He scoffed, and you just chuckled, not even looking back at it.

“Ahah, thank you, that's really helpful.” You were way too tired to bite back and honestly, he was putting in effort when all you were doing was go with the flow and panic when something happens.

The sn- Rivers seemed pretty stable at the moment, which was surprising considering how agitated it gets whenever… oh.

“I think it likes you,” you looked at Orter, a little amused. “It's been agitated all night and now that you're here, it's just… calm.”

He pushes his glasses back with a neutral expression and looks at it for a bit. “Perhaps it likes me better.”

You groaned slightly at the idea. Even though Orter was the one bringing supplies for it, you were obviously the one caring for it! Making sure it's stable and safe! You stood up and stretched your arms.

“Maybe… since it likes you so much, I’m going to go and get coffee or something, I’m exhausted.” And as soon as you took a step out the door, he called for you.

“Wait, (Y/N), something is wrong, come back.”

You raised an eyebrow and when you stepped back in, you could feel the beast’s agitation, like it was panicking or something. You just sat back and touched it.

“What's happening?”

Nothing. Well, nothing anymore. It just calmed down immediately and went back to being stable. You looked at Orter in confusion and he returned that same look. What was going on with this beast?

“It’s merely a hypothesis, but…” Orter trailed off as he stepped outside of the room and… the beast was still pretty much stable. Sure, it was moving around a little but nothing too critical. 

“I think it likes me more.” You muttered, and heard him chuckle dryly and walk away. Did you upset him? That wasn't your intention at all, for once. Laying down and facing the beast, you wondered what was up with it. Why would anyone get such an assignment anyway? It was so much work!

The door opened again around twenty minutes later when Orter came back with a small bag. More supplies? Again? 

He reached for the inside and then handed you a cardboard cup. “Umm.. what's that?” You asked in a confused tone and he raised an eyebrow at you like you were the stupidest, silliest little thing he'd ever met.

“What do you think it is? It's coffee, you idiot.” Oh. Oh. Ohh. You grabbed the cup and looked up at him, a bit puzzled. This man really was unpredictable.

“You… got me coffee? But… why ?”

“You said you were exhausted, and apparently you can't leave Rivers for too long, so…” He crossed his arms, and you suddenly felt really weird. Was he being nice to you? It was so odd. Right now, you didn't want to rip his head off or throw him out the window.

“That's… thank you.” 

You couldn't say anything else, looking at him with the most disoriented look he'd ever seen before; there was no malice and no anger or frustration in your eyes, just… questions. 

“Don't get me wrong,” he sighed softly, “I’m only doing this because I don't want anything weird to happen to it.” He specified, looking straight at you. Could he just not ruin a moment like this?

“It wasn't completely stable when you were gone.” You said, looking at the egg and taking a sip of your coffee. “It's only stable when both of us are here.” You muttered while adding this to your notes, and he made no commentary. 

“It gets really agitated at night, even when I’m here.” 

Orter cups his chin with his fingers and looks at the egg pensively. “Then I suppose you weren't lying when you said you could… feel it.” He reluctantly admits. “Should I keep it at night and see how it goes?”

You know for sure it's going to be a problem if you try to move the egg, so what to do..?

“I think so… but we can't possibly move it so, I would suggest…” You trailed off, visibly looking for something to say afterwards as you really didn't have a clue what to do, but Orter finished your sentence.

“...for me to sleep in this bed, is that your idea? Really?”

You blinked once. Then twice. Was that your idea? Not really, but after thinking for a while, you would've eventually brought this possibility up.

“Yes, I mean- no. Or, ahh… I guess..? I don't know. I didn't really…”

He sighed loudly and looked down at you with something of a mocking glare, and it suddenly felt really embarrassing. What was embarrassing? The idea of having him sleep in the same room as you, or the fact that he was being so condescending about it and had you stuttering?

“So, you just gave me every possible answer in one sentence…” He mused and crouched to take a closer look at Rivers. “Well, I suppose I can do that. But don't expect me to be nice to you.”

“You don't have to tell me, you ass.” You muttered and his eyes narrowed as he turned towards you. 

“It's merely in case you forgot, since your brain looks a little… dysfunctional.” He taunted.

“Oh, you're taking care of my memory now? That's awfully nice of you, Orter.”

“Don't get too used to it, (Y/N).”

You chuckled as an answer and sighed softly, looking at the egg. “Can you hear that, Rivers? The audacity of that man.” You muttered, making sure he could hear you, and he gently pushed you aside to look at the egg.

“Don't listen to her, Rivers. Even you know I’m right.”

Did he just.. talk directly to it for the first time? And to say such a thing, too? You couldn't hold it in anymore and just burst out laughing, pointing your finger towards him, uncontrollably wheezing and giggling.

He looked very startled at first but then a little embarrassed. He slapped your hand away, pretending to be angry but he was just really flustered and had a very faint blush on his face. “Shut up… Hey, hey! Shut it now… Jeez.”

But you weren't exactly laughing at him. It was just very cute that he suddenly decided that it was fine to talk to this egg as long as it was to discredit you, and honestly, how could you not laugh?

Everytime he slapped your hand away, your finger came back to point at him, as if you were accusing him of something. It was really hard to stop laughing and it took you a good while to calm down, only to be greeted by Orter’s pouty expression, something you never thought you'd see.

“Ahh, I’m sorry Orter, I wasn't making fun of you. It was just really cute.” You said before realising what it implied, and it was your turn to be embarrassed. “I mean- cute as in, you know, you're talking to it now… and it's… you know.”

OHHH MY GOD STOP TALKING, SHUT UP! You internally yelled at yourself, and the way he sighed made it seem like he wasn't mad at you. Or was he? At least his flushed expression was gone, much to your disarray.

“Right…” He cleared his throat and crossed his arms as he sighs once more. “I mean… I suppose you are right and Rivers can feel our emotions..”

“..’so let's try to be good parents’ is what you're about to say, isn't it?” You muse, slightly teasing him. “C’mon, say iiiiit.” 

“So let's try to… to…” He sighs and turns around, his hand on against his hip as he adjusts his glasses again. “...I’ll get some food, since you can't.” And with that, he immediately steps outside of your room, feeling like… like something. He doesn't know, and he hopes you don't either.

You chuckle to yourself, somehow thinking he's cute when he gets embarrassed. But you remind yourself that he despises you, and that you also despise him… or, well, not that much. Maybe despise wasn't the right word. You just weren't so sure anymore.

Orter, on the other hand, was trying to get this awfully embarrassing moment out of his mind as he walked to the Academy's shop to get some things. However… He didn't know what to buy. He then walked to the counter and looked into the store employee’s eyes very seriously.

“What kind of stuff do girls like to eat?”

He should thank the gods that you weren't there because the way he asked this with a completely straight face and flat voice would've put you to your grave. 

While he was at the shop, you were reading his notes and humming slightly to try and soothe the mandragora snake inside the egg. It was working, but it definitely wanted both of you to be here. 

You stopped on one of the pages as something caught your attention: “...mandragora snake eggs will drain a parent’s energy to grow, which is why the other parent usually hunts for the family and is in charge of making the nest more comfortable.”

With this, you almost spit out your coffee. Was this the reason why you were so tired yet restless? And also why it was panicking every time you weren't close to it? Putting more thought into it, you also realised something else.

Orter was the one who brought most of the cloth to keep it warm and he had also brought you sustenance so far. The two of you had taken these roles in very seriously without even knowing it. But since you were the one giving energy to it, perhaps…

You sat up and tried concentrating your mana into your hands before touching the soft shell, as if giving it a part of it… And much to your surprise, it seemed like something happened but you couldn't tell what exactly. 

After an hour or so, Orter came back to your room only to find you laying down in exhaustion next to the egg, completely drained for some reason. You eyed the bag he was carrying and he just put it next to you. 

“I didn't know what you wanted.”

What you wanted? Does that mean..? You sat up and looked inside of it; tons of snacks, candy, pastries and whatnot. You did need sugar right now, and so you immediately grabbed a pack of sweets and opened it.

“You are a lifesaver, Orter.” You sighed as you ate a few sweets, regaining your energy bit by bit. Pointing at the specific paragraph on his notes, you slightly tapped your finger against it.

“That's why I’m so tired, this little rascal has been taking all of my energy.” You muttered, sighing softly as you kept eating more and more sweets. He read the passage, holding his chin.

“And have you tried sending mana directly into the egg?” With your nod, he hummed. “I could try it too.” And so, he put both of his hands against it and tried sending some of his mana into the shell. Neither of you could tell if it worked.

You decided that you needed to take a shower and go to sleep, and as soon as you tried to stand up, your legs gave up from fatigue and you started collapsing, but Orter was quick enough to catch you. “Oh, crap. Are you alright?”

You groaned in frustration and nodded, even though you were completely incapable of standing up again; the sweets were apparently not enough to let you use your legs. 

“You've really outdone yourself, haven't you?” He chuckled, and you looked away. He was being awfully nice and you just didn't know how to respond to that type of behaviour, especially coming from him. 

He gently lifted you up and put you down on your bed. As embarrassing as it was, you couldn't really have managed otherwise. You were thanking him when your brain just shut down and you fell asleep quickly. He made sure to pull the covers up against you and he sat there for a bit, looking at you. 

It was clear he hadn't been very nice at the beginning, and he was now trying his best to atone for that fact. While you rested peacefully, he couldn't help but move some of your hair away from your face and place it gently behind your ear. 

From that moment, this is how most of your days went. You'd spend your day giving mana and energy to the egg and Orter would bring you some coffee, water and food, and whenever he was about to sleep, he'd give Rivers some mana as well.

After six days, the egg had grown quite a lot and you weren't sure what size the “little one” was going to be anymore. All you knew was that it was getting more and more tiring to keep feeding it with your energy. 

You were laying down, exhausted even though it wasn't that late, and Orter was reading a book on the chair next to your bed. No insults, no snarky remarks had been exchanged since last time, and he was rather helpful to you. 

After all, you were the one spending all of your energy on helping Rivers hatch correctly. Most of the time, he had to move you back to your bed because you'd fall asleep while giving it your mana. You could've sworn you felt him touch your face but you could've very well been dreaming… or were you?

The embarrassing question was stuck in your mind now and you couldn't stop thinking about it as you kept giving your mana to the egg. “Should be the last day, right?” You asked quietly, visibly really tired.

Orter closed his book and adjusted his glasses as he looked at you. “Yes. If it's healthy, then it should hatch tomorrow.” His eyes softened just a bit as he looked at you. “Why don't you call it a day? You sound exhausted.”

You sighed softly and moved to the edge of the bed to stand, and he immediately stood up to come and help you. It was… unexpected. You held onto him as if the two of you had never despised each other, ever, and he helped you get to your bed.

As much as you didn't want to admit it, he was really helpful. And since he had stopped being so condescending, it felt quite comforting to have someone sleep in the same room as you, not that you’d ever let him know about this detail. He was also really thoughtful and good at taking care of Rivers, so that was a plus… 

In fact, he was rather nice overall. He seemed to remember what your favourite snacks were, and also what kind of coffee you liked, all of this just from studying your expressions carefully as you consumed what he had brought. He really was thoughtful, and since you had started taking care of this mandragora snake egg together, he hadn’t been snarky or mean even once.

“Are you alright?” He asked, looking at you with a hint of worry in his eyes. When you started wondering why he was concerned with you when you felt his hand slightly squeeze yours. Oh. Ah. Ah. You had unwillingly grabbed his hand when you tried to stand up, and hadn’t let go since then. While you were overthinking, he was just looking at you in confusion because you just… wouldn’t let go of his hand.

“O-oh. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to- uh… I was just-...” Ah, it was no use. Your face was slightly flushed with embarrassment and you were trying to stutter your way out of this situation, but no words seemed to come out. You looked up at him and noticed that he was ignoring you. He had grabbed his book again and crossed his legs, reading it while flipping the pages with his free hand.

When he noticed you were talking to him, he just raised both eyebrows, but the gesture did not change his neutral expression. “I don’t need it right now, I don’t mind you keeping it.” And with this, he immediately went back to his book, as if he really didn’t care. The truth was that he just could not look into your eyes right now.

Orter was trying his absolute hardest to conceal the very faint blush on his face while you actually didn’t let go of his hand. Was it because you just wanted to hold it? Or were you just too embarrassed to do anything about it? Or was it both? 

Even if you weren’t near it, you could feel some kind of weird vibration— or maybe just an emotion coming from the mandragora snake egg. You couldn’t tell what it was exactly, but it had started as soon as you had grabbed Orter’s hand. Was Rivers absorbing whatever emotion that was too? 

That was just too much thinking for you and you decided that the only reasonable course of action was to collapse in bed and stare at the ceiling. That being said, you still hadn’t let go of his hand, and it didn’t seem like you planned on doing it anytime soon because as soon as you closed your eyes, you fell asleep. 

He didn’t notice until he closed his book and saw you resting peacefully against the pillow while still holding it. He was about to pull his hand back and let you sleep, but it didn’t look like it was keeping you awake or anything, so he just decided to look at you for a bit, his thumb unconsciously rubbing your palm soothingly. 

Sitting on that chair was rather uncomfortable, but he didn’t feel like letting go of your hand, so he was going to bear it anyway until you’d let go by yourself. 

…which you didn’t do. You were just resting and holding his hand hostage the whole time. 

Approximately two hours after you had fallen asleep, Orter heard a weird noise, something indescribable. As his eyes searched the room for its source, his eyes widened slightly. He turned to you and squeezed your hand. “(Y/N), wake up, hey.” His free hand reached for your shoulder, slightly shaking it. 

Your eyes fluttered open slowly and you groaned in frustration. But Orter’s expression looked amused and a little excited, which woke you up immediately. “What’s the matter?” you asked as he chuckled and pointed at the egg.

“It’s hatching!”

Holy shit. You immediately sat up and made your way to the opposite bed as you watched the small snake slowly get out through a hole it had pierced. It then slithered away from the shell and looked at you and Orter, as if it was confused. You couldn’t help but squeal at how cute it looked. It was just a little baby!

You extended a hand and it instinctively moved towards you, then rested in your hand. It was such a precious little creature, you were holding back your tears. “Oh my gods, oh my gods… What are we supposed to do now?” You asked frantically as if in a panic.

Orter immediately flipped through his notes and then reached for a small bag of supplies, taking out a small piece of mandragora root and feeding it to the small snake, watching it greedily bite against it like “chomp!” and swallowing the whole piece. 

“So, according to the notes I’ve taken, we can move him now and it doesn’t have to stay warm anymore. I’m assuming it’ll need to stay with us until its patterns start appearing. It also says it might sleep a lot.” He flips through the pages again to see if he hasn’t missed anything.

You thought for a bit. Maybe you could grab one of your scarves and put some cotton and such into it to make a… snake holder? This way you could walk around the academy with Rivers in your scarf and without worrying about it too much. 

You had literal stars in your eyes and Orter looked completely lost as soon as he laid eyes upon this beautiful expression of yours while you were holding the small snake.

There was still a whole week left to the assignment, and it felt to him that time was flying awfully fast.

[tozettastone]

Bro why were people being so weird about you in the HP fandom?? I'm gonna take that as a sign that you probably won't write any further continuation for Hinata at Hogwarts, which is totally fair enough! But also, honestly that fic is probably my favorite characterization of Hinata maybe ever, and also the KakuHidan lore was FASCINATING like, I want a 500 page coffee table guidebook about Hidan's Elder God cult and their backstories and how they met, etc. Would you ever consider dropping some of the lore here on Tumblr?

Oooh.

Well, my HP fandom experiences far predate that fic anyway. But you're right that I probably won't end up writing more of that fic series! However, I'm glad you liked it.

I can drop some lore regarding Hidan's elder god cult in that fic at least. It's just his Jashinism combined with relentless HP Lovecraft allusion. I think it's tagged with "lovecraftian" or something, but it's definitely not a crossover. I just thought Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos had good vibes for a Hidan religion in that setting. So here're some examples:

In Launch Your Assault, there's a part where it reads:

[Hinata] crawled into bed and dreamed unquiet dreams of soft, stealthy, imaginary footsteps on the roof of her tower dorm. You must sign the book of Azathoth in your own blood, whispered something, rising like steam from the sweltering sewers in her mind.

That's a reference to The Dreams in the Witch House, a short story in which the guy having the titular dreams is taken via dream to a city of Elder Things (not to be mistaken for outer gods — the elder things are basically advanced scary space aliens with crazy abilities) where he's made to do this. A lot of deaths follow. It's, like, a whole thing.

In A Strange Land opens with:

Hidan dreamed of water in his lungs and whirling stars and strange equations. He could still taste the rank salt water from a distant ocean on his cracked lips when he woke.

This stuff is kind of a melange of vague Lovecraft vibes. References to water and distant oceans are always intended to be allusions to the Deep Ones, a marauding species of humanoid fish-people from Massachusetts who worship their Father Dagon and Mother Hydra. "Strange equations" reference works like The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and The Dreams in the Witch House, texts which really lean into the convention of the delicate intellectual discovering some terrible mind-wrecking truth of reality through sheer force of mental instability. You know the kind.

Fun fact: when contemplating where some of Lovecraft's clearly pre-existing ideas about this stuff came from, you can also cf. earlier texts like Arthur Machen's The Inmost Light or The Great God Pan or also (much better known) Robert W Chambers' The King In Yellow.

There are also occasional references in all of the fics to, for example, "outer gods," which is a category that Lovecraft (and his later fans) uses to describe fantastical deities like Nyalarthotep and Yog-Sothoth. They're presided over by Azathoth, who is the greatest of them, but who also is kind of a drooling thoughtless non-being at the centre of the universe, who just kind of hangs out being serenaded by flutes that will drive you mad. Azathoth's somehow locked away from the regular universe of our daily perception, so we mostly don't worry about him. Until we do. LOL. (Since Lovecraft's work is by far at its most effective when he explains as little as possible, the deities tend to be guys of tremendous, but vague, significance.)

--

Re: Hinata's characterisation in that fic series.

I think it's more fun to write her in that spot because she doesn't actually have to be proactive about very much? One of the reasons I like sticking her in a setting with Hidan and/or Kakuzu is because they're both such assertive characters with such reliable motives that she doesn't have to exhibit any desire other than "please let everything be okay!" which we all just kind of accept as IC for anyone under the regular cohort of Hidan-and-Kakuzu circumstances. I find her canon character a bit wishy-washy as regards her internal motives, so this is my way of getting around it.

--

As for Hidan and Kakuzu backstory... I know they don't have any other family and they spend the holidays with each other, but I genuinely can't remember if I had ever thought more deeply about their relationship.

[grison-in-space]

It's never too late. We are beginning to think about how and why we exploit animals, and how it is not morally consistent with our values; several prominent anarchists and communist bloggers on Tumblr have admitted that veganism is ethically and financially superior on every level, though they don't participate in it, which is sad. All it takes is a little extra work. The collapse of capitalism will also bring the collapse of the animal industry, or vice versa. The meat plants subjugate both humans and animals, causing persistent trauma- in fact, it has the highest rate of trauma among every category of labor. If you support abolition, you should support all abolition: children, psych people, and animals. On a site like Tumblr, we have an opportunity to promote the breakdown of all positions of power. We are all equal.

Honey, you have the wrong fucking blog to the extent that I can only assume you are spamming this message to everyone you think might listen. I have gone on the record several times to say:

I am a pragmatic empiricist. I care much less about ideological consistency than I do about observed outcomes. There are traps there, too—sometimes people get too much into the weeds about observing proxies for desired goals—but essentially I do think that careful observation of the world around me is much more valuable than starting with a consistent ideology and assuming that good intentions will yield good outcomes.

I am motivated by animal welfare. For me, part of that involves meeting animals on their own level, using their own species-specific signals to assess stress and comfort, and understanding animals within their own social context. Therefore,

I am opposed to animal rights narratives that encourage people to project their own imagined emotional responses onto animals without assessing the animals' actual signals in context. Additionally,

I believe as a behavioral ecologist that, for good and for ill, humans are essentially animals participating in a broader ecosystem that includes us. I do not think humans are special or exist outside that broader web, and I think that ecological intervention works most effectively when we see ourselves as part of nature rather than as some kind of twisted unnatural personification of original sin. Conflict and death are part of life. You won't make a better world by pretending otherwise.

I am a disabled person ("psych people?!"), and more specifically an autistic and neurodivergent person. I literally spelled out for you last night that I have difficulties eating and that imposing more barriers to that ("a little extra work") is a significant burden for me. Your easy dismissal of this point is, in context, amazingly and blithely ableist. Wow.

"psych people?!" I am happy to critique coercive psychiatry and medicine more generally, but that one's new on me. If you're not brave enough to use the language of mad/crip pride, are you entirely sure you understand the points of the dialogue? Your demonstrated grasp of disability justice is already extremely poor; this ain't helping.

I am not anti-state (i.e. I am not an anarchist; I am a democratic socialist) and I routinely criticize daydreams about burning entire systems to the ground and replacing them with a vague new system. Those criticisms are usually based in historical analysis of attempts to do exactly that, which have typically resulted in a lot of bloodshed, generally from the most vulnerable people in society. They also often yield a new and not necessarily more egalitarian power structure that continues to oppress people, sometimes more aggressively than the institution preceding it.

For the same reason, I am not a communist. I think communism offers too many opportunities for unscrupulous people to seize power, creating more inequality under the banner of equality itself. Again, this position comes from reading the history of communist states from as many perspectives as I can get my mitts on.

I frequently critique assumptions that capitalism is the only root of social problems. This does not mean that I am pro-capitalism. It means that I think you have to think deeply about problems, especially when it makes you uncomfortable, to understand how to solve them. Many problems that capitalism exacerbates are actually rooted in problems about impulse control (as with Ideas Jerry the other day), basic human social dynamics, emotional regulation, complex traumas, and many other things. You must understand how these problems arise before you can construct a structure that guards against them effectively.

Fundamentally, I think you are probably optimistically spamming this message to anyone that you think will listen. I invite you to consider how effective that is as a tactic to advance your politics: when you pick the wrong person, at best you leave the impression that people serving your ideology are essentially self centered and bad at listening. At worst, you wind up pissing people off enough to sit down and lay out exactly how many points they disagree with you on. Coalitions of solidarity are based on listening carefully to one another and finding the places we agree on; shit like that is antithetical to building them because it sends a very effective signal that you are either very, very bad at listening or uninterested in doing so.

Either way, get out of my house.

[mechanical-sunchild]

Otherlinking as an origin of otherkinism/therianthropy, part 2

Alright so this time I'm actually going into my...theory, I suppose?

In the theri/kin communities we have two frameworks of supposed origins of why we are what we are;

Spiritual

Psychological

There's also metaphysical origins, but I don't have a great grasp on what counts if I'm honest but feel free to think of the variable origins I miss which could count.

Both are broad categories and what they mean differs from user to user - although there are some common specifics.

A lot of spiritual theri/kin will for example have a soul-based belief but even within that framework they may believe their identity stems from a past life, or from a misplaced soul or from a soul connected to a paralel life and more!

And that is just the very tip of the iceberg, as some who use the label 'spiritual' are basing it on specific religious or cultural spiritual beliefs which match the experience.

The same goes for psychological possibilities. Neurodivergence is the most common example, be that Autism or schizophrenia, an innate bond created without your influence or a delusion you experience which influences your identity.

But the meaning of psychological in this context really just means 'relating to the mind/brain'.

Which brings us onto the main topic. Otherlinking is when one chooses to repeatedly enforce a particular identity (any species, any kind of thing at all) until it becomes a integral part of you, until it becomes 'real'. For most Otherlinkers (incl' funlink, copinglink etc) these identities can be 'dropped' in much the same way they were obtained, or simply fade when the reason one wanted/needed the link to exist no longer holds or exists.

For a good number of linkers, these 'links' become so much a part of who they are that they cannot be actively gotten rid of and do not fade. For those of us who also have traditional involuntary kin/theriotypes these kind of strong linktypes feel exactly the same - as described by those who have involuntary kin/theriotypes and voluntary but strong enough to count link-to-kin/theriotypes.

In fact, with terms like vaguetype and quoiluntary out there it can be safely assumed that a good chunk of the alterhuman/nonhuman community has trouble identifying whether certain identities are voluntary or involuntary, suggesting that the lines between as not as exact as we may believe.

So, if a 'linktype' is more or less defined by not just it's voluntary creation, but it's ability to be essentially uncreated or to fade away without reinforcement then surely it could be considered incorrect to continue to call it a linktype when it no longer meets the entire definition?

At that point has the person in question not essentially created their own otherkinism/therianthropy from the ground up?

It is based in the mind, it involves the mind creating the identity in some way, it is not so unlike other psychological origins except that the person has a hand in it on purpose.

Maybe we need to stop getting caught up on the 'voluntary' part and focus on just making sure it is known that otherkin/therians identify as - this is, after all, the actual important aspect of those identities. One must be, not relate.

An otherlinker who is also a therian/otherkin because of their linking is going to have very similar internal and external experiences to a completely involuntary otherkin/therian.

I don't see why they cannot simply join in the otherkin/therian terms and communities when those words describe what they experience as a result of their 'linking.

If we take a deep breath and don't get defensive for a second - let's remember that antis will always think that all of us are choosing it even if we aren't.

Instead of removing voluntary otherkinism/therianthropy as a possibility and rejecting some of our fellows because of their origin to try and dispel antis - why don't we instead acknowledge that it very much does seem to exist and that going 'yeah, some of us do choose to become otherkin/therians, we're still what we say we are, so who cares?' removes one more of their flimsy weapons against us.

We are always stronger together. It is time to branch out and explore past current boundaries and understandings of how one becomes, immutably, nonhuman.

[emry-stars-oc]

Hi! Hello! I don't really have a question but could you please talk more about the aquarium au? More funfacts or storyline? Whatever you want! Sending you love <3

Hi!! 💕 I absolutely can talk about them dhsjsk, again Alyssa and Adaline belong to @silvermasquerade and the referenced post is here!

I didn't intend this but these bullet points are kind of ordered from least to most funny, so if you want timeline thoughts start at the top, but if you want goofs just start at the bottom and work your way back up until you get bored. Putting it under a read more bc this got dense

So like working with the merfolk is dangerous right. I imagine it's because there is a non zero chance that you could be torn apart (or depending on the species, eaten) on the job by things using teeth and claws with human-adjacent brains where you are in THEIR domain. Also because some merfolk have siren-lure qualities to their voices, which probably is for facilitating catching prey. And yes some of the aquarium residents have such voices! Namely Alyssa & Adaline and Quinton. Liana's voice doesn't entrance the same way even though it should, so by merfolk standards she doesn't sound very good, but by human standards she still sounds beautiful. For some reason my instinctual thoughts are that Mercer doesn't have a siren voice, while Estes' species definitely doesn't just in general. But the most dangerous part of the job is forgetting that these eventualities exist even if you have befriended one of them

Ada and Alyssa have been at the aquarium the longest, they've also been in contact with humans in general long enough that Adaline has pretty much picked up English. I think it makes the most sense that Bo and Ambrose are working more regular jobs, maybe helping with the aquarium's "natural" dolphins/etc, when the twins arrive. Then later, Quinton, Estes, and Mercer all get there at once, though only Estes is put in the aquarium at first. Quinton and Mercer are initially in a separate facility for medical attention and testing - Mercer is released first once his cuts are tended to, Quinton is kept there longer. Estes does not take kindly to this. Then a little later they gain Liana as well

There's a tiny note on one of the sketchbook pages about aquarium employee Betony - I think they had a very unstable childhood, even homeless for a bit before Bo learned about it (despite Betony's efforts) and eventually got Betony a job at the aquarium. The deal was that Aster would convince their mom, the aquarium owner, to give Betony a job just as a souvenir shop clerk, as long as Bo got Betony to take swimming lessons. Because Aster knew as well as Bo that Betony working customer service was going to be a disaster, and the sooner they could get transferred elsewhere, the better. And like it's not ideal obviously, but the two also underestimated the power of Betony's refusal to embarrass or upset Bo by getting fired or written up. Still, Bo finally convinces Betony to let him personally teach them to swim. So though sales clerk works out, if Betony ever does get dive certified it'll be huge for them

(There's no real substance to this thought but like just the image of the first day Q is brought into the aquarium. Bo walks into work for his early shift one morning and suddenly there's the last merfolk they were supposed to be getting, sleeping on some of the smooth rocks under their big UV lamp curled up close with the seal that's been causing so much trouble, and Bo can see why they were worried about that one but also wow it's pretty)

Since it's a modern au, I was imagining that they eventually start doing post-show interviews for publicity reasons. Like post game interviews lol where they let some reporters in and do it from the side of the pool. Again ofc Liana and Ambrose are media sweethearts. Alyssa and Bo are faves for their dry comments and sarcasm. Rhydian and Quinton can be harder to watch for people that are paying attention bc Rhydian likes to hog the questions and attention (which Q would normally be and technically is fine with, but like. It's the principle of the matter. Plus we know Rhydian is a jerk so)

Speaking of interviews, every once in a while there will be a reporter that just does not or refuses to grasp that the merfolk are people that understand English. Again hard to watch but also funny when it's not Rhydian they're interviewing bc of the varied reactions the humans have. One time a reporter asked Bo if "his mermaid" had any pre-show ritual or warm up and Bo just stared at him in silence for a full ten seconds until the guy folded and asked Alyssa herself properly

Another note from the sketchbook is earrings. Idk why I thought of it but I thought it'd be cute but Q knows that asking Rhydian is a non starter bc Rhydian just dismisses most of Q's questions or requests. But Alyssa asks Bo and instead of dismissing her, Bo points out that Rhydian was lying or just lazy when he told Quinton that any jewelry would just tarnish immediately underwater because there is such a thing as water safe jewelry that will last at least a little longer. However Bo does have to convince his mom that it's not the waste of money it appears to be and that Quinton, despite being "a man" (her words), specifically requested them and should be allowed to pierce his ears if Alyssa was. So the deal is it has to be done completely professionally, and they can only wear small studs for safety reasons. The silly thing I liked the most was the image of Bo, head propped on hand at his desk at home, suddenly coming back to the reality that he really was checking to see if any of the piercing and tattooing parlors in the area would do house calls to an aquarium just because the pretty merfolk asked him (which could mean nothing)

Back to the post show interviews. There's a popular clip of one of Bo and Alyssa's interviews taken after the first show of a new season, in which the aquarium unveiled that they do costumes now! Like a cross between acrobat and figure skating costumes but put them underwater. (I just enjoy designing them tbh)

Reporter: you two look great, how did you decide on your look?

Bo: I had nothing to do with it

Alyssa: he unironically wears khaki shorts everyday, he was not allowed to make any of the decisions

Bo: it's part of the work uniform

Alyssa: I'm not saying it again. Khaki shorts are not your only option, you just keep choosing to live like this. At least get the pants

People of course also take videos at the aquarium and they have social media managers (thank you Ayre and Nell). There's one viral video somewhere out there where someone comes up to Ambrose and asks "what song were you dancing to in the tank yesterday?" Ambrose is clearly a little embarrassed but he laughs because he knows it's funny actually and he goes "uh. It was Nasty" "nasty? Like I've been a nasty girl??" "Yeah, it comes on sometimes on the before and after hours playlists and it's really catchy, the ladies think it's funny to get it stuck in my head." It fades out with the person holding the camera saying "aw, you call them the ladies?" And then it smash cuts to a video of Ambrose in his scuba gear in the viewing tank, with three of the mermaids and one natural bottlenose, doing some admittedly very good improv choreo while two of the mermaids join in to varying degrees and the dolphin waves its head around to the beat Ambrose has going on. it's perfectly overlayed with Tinashe's Nasty

I need to stop or I'll be here all night, maybe I'll keep notes somewhere as I have more thoughts lmao. But yeah they're silly and I am having fun with this little side adventure ✨

[vellichorom]

when I see thierry I get very happy

times are really bad rn but I like the thought of just getting a book read by him or hugging him

you made a good comfort character :)

You know, that " Twinkie " is such a hard one to pull off the computer. It's like trying to pry a bag of grass out of the hands of a druggie, I swear. And when they're answering mail so OBVIOUSLY intended for ME! So what, just because they designed me, they think they have full control of every aspect of my life, from throwing me into every unfavorable scenario a twisted mind could ever think up, right down to answering my mail?

Not this time, girlie! If I have any say over what goes on with my name attached, I will be the one to answer this one!

Ugh.

Anyway.

How very kind of you, anonymous user on the internet ~ I'm really quite flattered that just the thought of me can make you happy. That, in turn, makes me happy.

Yes, the world truly is in a dreadful state isn't it? And slipping further down the gutter at a speed nobody thought possible. In the latest and farthest age of human advancement at that. Two thousand and twenty-five years of evolution, now come to this. Yikes.

But, and I don't know how much this will help to hear, if it does at all, but humanity is an incredibly capable creature. For all the vile things that have ever plagued the planet, you lot are incredibly good at adapting to it and working around it- if not outright combatting it. There's a very good reason you guys *have* made it as far as two thousand and twenty-five years of age as a species, and I have little to no doubt humanity will see a good two thousand and twenty-five years more, however rocky and unstable the journey to that milestone may be. Believe it or not, for every crime committed in this world, literal and metaphorical, there's something good that happens to counteract it. It's the natural order of free will, you see. Anything's possible and everything has a reaction and opposing line of thought and action.

It may not seem like it, it may seem like everyone's out to get you right now, and it may in fact seem like the world itself is coming to a gruesome end, but I assure you, there are those who care enough about you, even if they do not know you, to fight for you and keep you alive and well.

The world as you know it is indeed changing, but that doesn't mean its all for the worst. Think about it, it can't reasonably be so. Not with how many of you there are in existence and how many of you share the same beliefs you do.

The best advice I can give in this situation is simply to hunker down- *that is - be safe*, and remember that people care for you in one way or another, be you their friend or colleague, their loved one otherwise, or a blip on the radar of thousands of millions of others worth protecting.

You can do this, can't you?

I believe you can. And I believe this will pass. Try to stay calm, and get through each and every day the best you can, find ways to pass this terrible time, just as your ancestors have done.

Otherwise, how ever will I be able to read you stories or give you hugs?

As an example.

...I'd like to preface that I don't normally do this, at least not for free, but why don't you go ahead and pick out something for me to read, find a place to sit, and we'll pass the time together. Lord knows I've been bored out of my skull for the past couple weeks or so.

Do you know what " Twinkie's " been forcing me to endure with them as of late? Oh my God, its terrible! An utter jumble of colors and whatever anime-manga nonsense they decide they'll dedicate themselves to next, its all NOISE!

But we can get into that later. Please, get me a book.

Yours Sincerely, The Narrator

...Oh, and I'll pass on your complements to the chef, I suppose.

When I decide they've earned it.

[antianakin]

Holy moly. I replayed God of War and the Norns… I wish Star Wars had something similar because their quotes?

“There is no fate. No grand design. No script. Only the choices you make. That your choices are so predictable merely makes us seem prescient.”

“You are the sum of your choices and nothing more.”

Gave me chills. Maybe then the fans would wake up from defending sith and Anakin’s fall.

What do you think about those quotes?

I mean, I have none of the context within which you found them, so I can't really speak to any of the underlying themes and messages being sent with this quote or these characters and how that relates to Star Wars, the Sith, or Anakin.

But just taking it within a vacuum, I'm not sure the Jedi entirely see things from this perspective. They talk about the "will of the Force" enough that they clearly DO believe that there is some level of grand design, even as they obviously also do believe in the power of choice. There's also prophecies, but prophecies can be defied and there's an understanding that prophecies are often misunderstood anyway and so they AREN'T predictable at all specifically due to the unpredictably of people in general.

Star Wars, and the Jedi in particular, tends to land somewhere in the middle between this quote and the idea that EVERYTHING is predetermined and everything you do must have been ordained and there is no free will at all etc etc. It leans MORE into the power of choice than the other end of the spectrum, but it's not quite at this level of "there is no fate, you are the sum of your choices and nothing more."

That being said, it's not impossible for a group like this to EXIST in Star Wars, but I think that, personally, I'd want to see them as being an extremist group who perhaps take things a little far sometimes. The thing about Star Wars is that the Force is a VERY real, measurable thing. You can literally see its effects on other people, you can SEE Force sensitive people lifting objects with their mind and doing mind tricks and calling lightning from their hands. This isn't just faith here, the Jedi VERY VERY DEMONSTRABLY have access to something that allows them to do this. And it can't be put down to just a species difference since it's obviously found in tons of different species and all different genders. They have a literal blood test for midichlorian levels. So when the Jedi talk about "the will of the Force," it's pretty hard to tell them they're just believing in woo-woo bullshit since, even if YOU don't have access to the Force and can't physically see its "will," you CAN see the rest of the things given to them by the Force (up to and including pre-cognition, as well).

Which means that a group that entirely refuses to believe in any kind of fate is just refusing to believe the evidence in front of their faces because they don't like it. It's not dissimilar to the Bendu sitting there talking about being "the one in the middle" despite a lot of evidence that this is stupid and doesn't make any sense. The fact that there is a being that exists who BELIEVES he can be "in the middle" is perfectly fine, but the Bendu is then forced to pick a side in the end and his refusal to do so DOES make him come across as delusional and almost a villain. Maybe there's a valid reason this group refuses to believe in any kind of fate, maybe there's good things that come from their insistence on saying people are the sum of their parts and no more, but there would also be downsides to that kind of closed-mindedness that I'd want to see explored.

It WOULD be interesting to have a group like this reacting to someone like Anakin, or to someone like Ahsoka who is choosing to just ignore some of the shit Anakin did so she can believe what she wants to believe. I do think it'd be funny to have them looking at the sum total of what Anakin's done and go like, "uh, yeah, sorry, one noble sacrifice at the end of his life to save one person does not in fact actually negate the over two decades of oppression and murder, our soul math says he's still a piece of shit and that he'll never balance this equation out no matter what he does."

[baphometsss]

say what you will about ghilan'nain's fuckery but one of the reasons she's my favourite of the evanuris is because she represents the chaos of nature. when she said 'all that i am belongs to all of creation' i felt that in my soul. she's all the ugliness and terror and monstrosity that characterises nature and evolution. in some ways she is the perfect representation of nature and the gory ordeal of living in a stinky meat sack

sometimes it's beautiful and breath-taking like the halla and other times it's terrible and horrifying like the darkspawn

sometimes nature is beautiful like lilies and sunsets and cute little baby sea otters and other times it's gross like flies eating shit and insects eating their mates' heads mid-fuck

the point is that good/evil and beautiful/disgusting are very human (mortal) viewpoints on this stuff; in fact, there is no good or evil in nature because nature has no concept of it. we have those concepts because we need them to survive, but they're not universal, and even if they were we're not evolved enough as animals to fully comprehend it all

ghilly doesn't have those concepts because she is nature, she is creation; although we don't get confirmation of what her original spirit nature was, the fact that she says 'all that i am belongs to all of creation' suggests that she was creation or creativity itself. she was also not of the first of the people so she possibly doesn't have a clear understanding of it herself

i'm kind of going off-topic here but one of the reasons why i love the dirtcore/gremlincore subculture is because it's about celebrating the less charismatic side of nature. when i say i am a dirt worshipping heathen i mean it. i'm trans; i know what it's like for people to hate you just for existing, like people hate spiders and snails and flies just for existing. but if we didn't have them, our ecosystem would be in a lot of trouble and it is! a lot of the species you hate are declining! vultures! wasps! practically any insect you can think of! animals that depend on healthy soil which is being eroded by intensive farming practices! you might celebrate this but you won't be when you can't get food on your table because there are no pollinators, no insects or fungi to break down waste, no rotting matter to fertilise the soil

anyway yeah ghilan'nain was a stroke of genius and i wish they'd delved into her a little more. how she revelled in perverting the world by taking a body. how she marvelled at the way sinew and bone and muscle can be mixed and matched. i wanna know all about her time in the abyss with andruil too. what were those weird little fucks getting up to? alas it will have to live rent free in my head forever

[seeyouonsaturn]

Finally got around to making a proper TFA version for my girl Trixie!

Her primary verse is Transformers One, and you can find its introductory post here (and all Trixie content in the tag #oc: i'll be your animal on my blog, this is my beloved freak baby!). But she's shipped with Sentinel Prime, and he must be bothered in every universe, especially TFA. We all agree he's got a very repressed thing for organics, right?

Well, here it is! TFA!Trixie [she/it]. Fucked up critter, professional menace.

I kept its design mostly as-is, only changing some minor markings, making its snout a teensy bit shorter, gave it whiskers and ear tufts (I'm not 100% sold on the ear tufts). And, of course, she doesn't have her collar, because she's not a pet in this verse.

Why is its name still Trixie if TF1!Sentinel specifically named it that, as a nickname for Matrix? I don't know. Don't think too hard about it. I'm too attached to Trixie being its name, I don't want to give her another one, so just go with it lmao.

Though she's similar in personality to TF1!Trixie – it's still Trixie after all – TFA!Trixie is not nearly as evil as her counterpart. TFA!Sentinel may be a jerkwad, but he's still a good guy, and would never be okay with the kind of shit TF1!Trixie pulls (affectionate). So she's, at least on a technicality, a good guy, and allies herself with the Autobots. That said though, she's by all means still an utter menace of a creature.

Backstory under the cut!

Trixie came to Earth on the Nemesis, but she's not, and has never truly been, a Decepticon. Rather, it was on the run from her home planet (she's still a wanted criminal, just... not quite as bad), and chose to stowaway on the wrong ship. The Decepticons were not happy to discover they had a hitchhiker, but, possibly feeling kinship to a fellow organic, or perhaps simply sensing her plot-relevancy, Blackarachnia took enough pity on her to convince Megatron to allow her to live. Trixie had no choice but to swear fealty to him, living as little more than a slave on the Nemesis for the next months, barely avoiding several sessions of being experimented on (well, there was some experimenting, but nothing that left lasting damage).

As time went by though, she sort of grew on the Decepticon crew enough for them to treat her as more of a tolerated pet rather than a captive. Her personality does mesh with them rather well, and once it felt secure enough they wouldn't kill it for speaking out of turn, and dared to diss them back whenever they insulted her, they wound up getting along, by Decepticon standards. Luckily, Blackarachnia had already outfitted the ship to support the survival of organic beings – meaning, herself – which gave Trixie access to food and water, and anything else it may need, and the two of them especially formed an unexpected bond, although they can hardly be considered close.

When the ship crashed, Trixie managed to snag an escape pod and get out of there with everyone else (except Starscream). It even brought her straight to Earth, crashing not too far from Detroit. However, the pod – another one of Blackarachnia's works, outfitted for organic life – put her in stasis, knocking her out and burying itself in the ground, never to be found by any humans. 50 years later, the dispersal of the Allspark sent a pulse through the air, finally bringing the downed pod back to life, awakening Trixie from its prolonged nap.

It crawled out, disoriented and with a headache, but otherwise not worse for wear. Once it had managed to get at least the most basic idea of what was going on, she tracked down the bots in Detroit, if only because they were the only species on the planet she knew. But it was well aware, and reasonably terrified, that Megatron would likely kill it for deserting, or being gone so long, or simply for existing – and even if not, it did not want to go back to the Decepticons either way – so she decided the Autobots were her best bet. Out of necessity, not want. For protection.

Trixie managed to befriend Sari, who has the sort of plot armor allure that makes everyone love her, even Trixie; and Sari convinced Optimus and the others to let it stay. Considering it's behaving itself at least somewhat decently, and has inside information on the Decepticons it's more than happy to share, he agreed. The citizens of Detroit barely even care at this point. What's one more alien?

And then the Elite Guard shows up, bringing Sentinel with it, and Trixie catches on very quickly that he's fun. Fun to mess with, that is. His utter disgust for organics causes him to be repelled by it even when it's not doing anything, and when it touches him he screams like a little girl, so Trixie immediately latches onto him and delights in clambering up to sit on his shoulder and licking his face. She can't help herself; his reactions are too funny. Optimus does not feel inclined to help the poor mech either.

(Un)fortunately for Sentinel, though, he comes to find that he really does not hate it nearly as much as he acts like he does. And once Trixie figures that out, it'll never leave him alone again. Rip.

Yeah, good luck with that.

[betweenlands]

a list of mods/modpacks i'd like to rattle legundo around in (elaboration under the cut):

From The Fog + Sleepless (no official download yet; here's a link to the series currently showcasing it)

The Hubris of Magic

Into The Betweenlands / Into The Betweenlands 2

Aylyth

Nevermore (Manic + Sanguine)

Dimensional Doors again

From The Fog + Sleepless (no official download yet yada yada here's the link again)

the extremely atmospheric Herobrine mod from Haunted Winter, but with a second Lunar Eclipse creation based on urban legends of the Winchester Mystery Manor.

every night, you must set your bed in a different room of your house, or Bad Things Will Happen. the rooms of the house must be connected to each other. beds can't be placed too near to where other beds were, or Bad Things Will Happen.

Sleepless turns Minecraft into a frantic crawl to get enough materials to build more and more rooms onto an ever-more-convoluted house, and it's great. pairing it with From The Fog is just kind of a given to me, but it also goes great with decor mods and other atmospheric horror mods.

this is the reason this post exists. i want this playthrough to happen so bad. Legundo's former title in Decem is the Architect for god's sake. he needs to be subjected to some house of leaves nonsense more than anything else, and it needs to be his fault.

pair with the Immersive Portals mod for extra HoL.

The Hubris of Magic

a 1.7 modpack focusing around the classic magic mod Thaumcraft, where the world is hostile and covered in sculk i mean Taint

1.7 is a hard sell, i know. here's the thing; Hubris is one of those classic "survive a horrid infection" mods, like Sculk Horde, but it's like that -- at peak infection -- by default. everything is purple, the ground wants to kill you, the corrupt magic is nearly inescapable, there are even magic nodes that want very badly to eat you

it has some of the most iconic magic mods in existence -- chief among them being Thaumcraft and Botania, of course! i also just think it has some great atmosphere and requires fun lateral thinking in terms of how to go about setting up an area that can't be infected.

everything being infected means that villagers are a super endangered species, by the way! good luck.

Into The Betweenlands / Into The Betweenlands 2 (or just play Betweenlands i guess)

a lovely 1.12 modpack that places the player directly into the swamp hell dimension known as the Betweenlands with a handful of other mods. have fun!!!!!! don't die!!!

wow, tumblr user solar betweenlands wants people to play the Betweenlands. fork found in kitchen. no, but in all seriousness, the Betweenlands is one of my favorite ever mods and it has some absolutely killer atmosphere.

i've chosen i2btl and i2btl2 because they're fully balanced modpacks that put you right in the dimension to begin with, but i mean, i would love to see a custom modpack tooled around the Betweenlands as well!

the Betweenlands really forces you to engage with a lot of its mechanics and is basically a survival horror mod that actually understood the "survival" part of that genre premise. resources are always scarce, picking fights isn't always a good idea, and the dimension itself is chewing away at you.

Aylyth

it's like the Betweenlands but in the woods instead of the swamp and also the dimension itself really wants to kill you this time

i don't have a lot to add. it's an acceptable Betweenlands runner-up for me.

Nevermore (Manic + Sanguine)

a datapack/mod combo adding Dark Magics and just straight-up blood magic. has its own extra narsty blood moons and some really fun (in)sanity mechanics.

i love Manic a lot. it's got a fascinatingly unique method of ingame documentation and some seriously cool spritework. Sanguine has some really neat pixel gore as well! they're both super cool.

seriously though Manic owns when it comes to eldritch horror mods. i am chewing on it. i'm recommending Nevermore because i feel like Manic and Sanguine are kind of a Do Not Separate Them deal.

Dimensional Doors again

dimdoors is good and i like it

[laryna6]

My worldbuilding for how nobles and werewolves happened in Noblesse goes like so:

Nobles are energy/dimensional beings and the first one to achieve sapience, the original Lord, got very bored and wanted intelligent company. So he started looking for other intelligent life: he found other beings like him, but they weren't actually smart because they didn't need to be, they just floated around and existed.

Then he managed to filter signals out of the universal background noise, and found an intelligent species roughly similar to humanity - carbon based, evolved on an earthlikeish world, etc.

Unfortunately, they had developed the ability to modify themselves, and of course the rich and powerful were the ones to benefit and use it to become even more powerful/oppressive, while treating the people who couldn't afford to extend their lifespans like their lives were worthless.

Basically, they were making the same mistake the Union made: not valuing selfhood means losing selfhood when you're an immortal. Kindness, actual intelligence - the species was losing those traits by assholes killing all the non-assholes.

So the Original Lord was like 'shit I found people but I can't use them as a template for uplifting my kind because they're devolving into mindless things that just kill, which is even worse than being mindless things that just exist.'

So he created the original Noblesse to make sure that never happened to him (if he started looking down on his intellectual inferiors too much) or his kind.

Eventually he got sick of being alone, created a child, and then went into eternal sleep (went back to just mindlessly existing) as technically the second soul weapon (the Noblesse being the first).

That Lord was the one who went 'okay, this other species became intelligent from being in bodies on a planet' and pushed the rest of the nobles to manifest bodies on Earth and also put some of the descendants of that species there too in case that helped - which it sort of did, because the species that would eventually become werewolves attacked everything including the nobles, so they had to do/get good at *something* (fighting/self-defense) instead of sitting around like lumps.

After Earth developed its own life, that Lord saw that evolution was a thing and made it a rule that if you couldn't keep your body from being destroyed you had to go to eternal sleep. However even in the present day the youngest nobles are only sixth generation so they haven't had enough time for any real evolution to take place.

Nobles interacted/contracted with more species than just early hominids and gradually started to pick up how to think/solve problems from the minds around them, which accelerated when proto-humans came around and they started cohabitating. The Lord then ordered that nobles had to take human form because human brains were good at thinking.

Unfortunately, the werewolves were modified into chimeras that got the abilities of other species by eating them, and humans obviously objected to being eaten. But if werewolves didn't keep eating humans for their neurons their intelligence dropped back down. Nobles lent humans power so they could defend themselves and there was basically a werewolves vs. nobles/humans war until the Previous Lord figured out enough of werewolf biology that he could make them grow their own neurons and pass quasi-human bodies with brains down to their descendants. This is the result of a ~spell anchored in one of the noble sanctuaries and one of the reasons Muzaka was 'if we fight with the nobles and humans we don't win' when other werewolves were 'why DON'T we subjugate the inferior humans?' because forget fighting, the noble Lord could have turned off the array and lobotomized their entire species. (The Previous Lord did NOT pass any of this information down to Raskreia. None of the awake nobles know how their species originated except Rai, because the Noblesses have some programmed knowledge so they know what their job is.)

The rest of the werewolves didn't know about the array because like the nobles, they lacked any oral history tradition and the older werewolves didn't want to talk about how they once had no choice but to eat actual people because they were ashamed of it. Muzaka was told about it by the werewolf he defeated to become Lord.

So even though there are two other species on earth that are in theory very different from humans, they both think a surprising amount like humans because they're mostly using human brains to do it with, so there's no Lovecraftian 'these beings are so different from us we're just ants to them' and this is enforced because the Noblesse exists and their job is to go 'oh, so you think the powerful have the right to crush the weak? Alright, have it your way' before people who think that way can kill, or worse, influence others.

The concept of superior(gets to abuse)inferior is a predatory meme that already wiped out one sentient species - the modern werewolves are descended from that species, sure, but they're so different from them it would make more sense to call them humans than remnants of that species.

The nobles were confined on Lukedonia because they kept getting attached to humans and then as a species of immortals, not having any healthy way to deal with LOSING generation after generation of humans was really fucking them up. So the nobles still awake were quarantined on Lukedonia until humans became less fragile/achieved immortality and would stop dying on the nobles. The Previous Lord took most of his generation of clan leaders into eternal sleep so that their kids would have tons of problems and would have to get better at thinking to solve them. That's why he didn't want Raskreia to be Lord, because he felt guilty about how his entire plan for noble development was making the lives of the next generation of nobles as hard as possible, with them barely having any idea what they are or how their powers worked and then starting to interact with humans again when humans are predators and humans thinking nobles are shiny isn't necessarily going to end well for a noble once the average human is capable of fighting a noble without a contract.

So the project to uplift nobles is doing pretty well, but they still need to actually start talking to each other and passing on information. Given how good some oral traditions are, certain humans probably remember more about what things were like when nobles like Gejutel and Lagus were young than those nobles do.

The Union/Maduke's fascist 'family' need to be taken out before they do to this planet what happened to the original werewolf species.

Rai's brother tried to wipe out humanity because in their generation there were two noblesse and so their job got split in half, with Rai being tasked with internal threats and his brother with external. Rai's brother decided that humans were causing so many nobles to enter eternal sleep and humans were also possessive of nobles, so once humans evolved to be equal to nobles they'd probably try to subjugate them, so they had to be wiped out. Rai was 'the strong killing the weak is a much bigger danger to nobles than humans are' and ofc genocide is wrong, so Rai had to take him out. Some nobles who lost too many family to humans (those family members choosing to enter eternal sleep instead of staying awake with the noble family who loved them) were making bloodstones to support Rai's brother because of all the nobles who were attacking him to protect humans.

Rai's brother didn't want Rai to die, so the idea was to knock him out until he was done eliminating the humans and then make him eat a bloodstone to repair the damage. Most of the humans Rai's brother killed and the nobles who also died in the conflict were resurrected by the Previous Lord: there's an array that gathers human souls so they don't cease to exist on death that he created. It's powered by the array that drains the Lord's power in the throne room so they don't rip open the Earth's crust every time they lose their temper (see the two large blue crystals). He didn't tell Raskreia that the castle array does anything but protect Lukedonia from her power either.

Gejutel knows about the artificial afterlife but it wouldn't occur to him to tell anyone because talking is a fairly recent concept for him and doing it unnecessarily is being noisy. Raizel knows about it too but assumes Franken knows about it because Franken knows a lot of things. It's possible to resurrect them just like it's possible to wake up sleeping nobles. Unfortunately it doesn't work on werewolves because werewolves have defenses against getting engulfed by foreign energy fields and dragged out of their bodies, so werewolves actually die when they are killed.

[katyspersonal]

I've been thinking about God and religion recently 🤔 There is honestly something very wack with us as species if we can somehow put "God's love and patience are infinite" and "you will go to Hell if you express bad thoughts and feelings or live your life out of a very specific script btw 🙏" back to back

For example, there is a person living in poverty and struggling very hard to make the ends meet, and there is a person who gets wealthy by extorting and stealing from others and worse. The concept of God's patience is that both of these people will be embraced and forgiven in the end equally, no matter what. And this logic applies to EVERYTHING. It is really hard to understand where his patience and kindness end I think, if they do at all. Seems like even though he realized what pure cringe (human species) he created, he just kept seeking ways to save us and push the bar of what it takes to be saved lower and lower. Maybe the requirement was to "behave" at the starting point, but that didn't work, so God pushed the bar lower by promising redemption if we just trust him. And that didn't work, so he pushed the bar even lower by promising redemption literally no matter what. Like, you have to officially and consciously straight up sign the contract to sell your soul to the Satan (?) to dodge that, but knowing God, if enough time passes, he might as well offer salvation EVEN to those poor fools because why not! He genuinely tested the limits of humans' depravity to find how much kindness we require to have it dealt with. Maybe what people have for now isn't even the end yet. After all, thousands of years is absolutely nothing in terms of history.

So like... if you think of it, does anything means anything, in the end? Is there a reason to be good, if being bad would earn you the same treatment? If the course of your actions is only truly limited by your drives, values and personality? What is the point, if Hell is as good as empty?

But I can see where the concept of rejecting and villianizing Jesus for promising indiscriminatory redemption for good and bad all comes from tbh. It is more than vanity. It is also the fear of oneself. Like, of course people who speak for God would claim it was a misunderstanding and weeelll aktually you WILL still be rejected by God and go to Hell if you are bad. After all, human nature is so that most people won't be good if they don't HAVE to be. We are just really imperfect, and scaring ourselves into submission is a way to prevent the impending chaos and doom. Like... I can see where THAT comes from, I really do. The intention was good, but eventually it transpired into something suffocating, something evil and rotten. I think God has more faith in us than we do in him, and also I think that WE are on the more realistic side here.

What I am less understanding of though, is the whole fuss about different interpretations. Again, how can you put "God is impossible to comprehend" and "THEIR God is the WRONG God!!!" back to back? If human mind is too limited to comprehend God, then OF COURSE there will be different names and looks for him, different rituals to honor him, different backstories for him and so on! You know how color pink is not a real thing but instead our brain's placeholder of what it looks like, because it exists in a length our eyes can't see? It is just a dodgy color. Imagine how much more the brain will struggle with seeing a being it has no physical capacity to see or even imagine in full extent? It will always be a contact of something divine + the way specific humans are trained to interpret things. Polytheism is especially valid; God technically exists in every concept, natural or psychological, if he IS creation of the world. Naturally some people would get the glimpse of that! The whole policing of headcanons and interpretation is purely tool of control to justify taking something from other folks (because well you see, THEIR God is the wroooong one!!!1!) 🤦‍♂️ This one doesn't have nuance or second bottom, because if every interpretation of God is acceptable due to limitations of human mind, this just brings people to having to mutually respect each other's groups and not fight them for resources.. and it is something humans really enjoy behaving as.

I guess I don't really know where I was going with this tbh. I've been struggling with ideas of universal justice, but God doesn't quite thinks like humans would. There is no point to hold my grudges against those who harmed me or my friends because they will also just be saved in the end, even if they've never felt any remorse or admitted their wrongs. At the same time, for this same reason, there is no point to NOT hold my grudges because there is no ultimate punishment by God for being angry and resentful and hurt person, or even taking out revenge. It is just a lot of freedom.. More than humans can reasonably handle or understand. Part of me wants to be better just in reaction to the sense of universal kindness. Anger becomes less meaningful when I know that no matter how far I push it, no matter how many people I'll hurt in my paranoid PTSD outbursts, there is someone who will still love me and accept me even like this. There is a point where it no longer sits right with you.. Where you want to be better than just slacking off and taking advantage of this kindness. It is similar to the windows of "wanting to do things" amongst depression, spots of blue sky amidst rain. It is comforting. At the very least, I am not obligated to forgive anyone, but this applies to others in turn. God is merciful with amount of faults and sins beyond human reason.

There is just. so much dumb nonsense that literally doesn't matter within religion as a concept. But also humanity can't be beyond saving because from what we can piece together God always bends the requirement of what it takes to be saved for the sake of humans. And I don't believe that life on Earth is some Eugenics plot to select out the "best" humans and leave the "sinners and heretics" behind at this rate. Something so cruel is something a human would do, and God already promised equality and forgiveness beyond human society's reasoning. God extended his mercy, and Hell is basically just a dormitory for those who want to live in it.

And, I don't know. The fact that we could not fully accept the gift of infinite love, struggle to make amends with failed creation and nullification of sins and faults, for multiple reasons, is just a testimony to how imperfect humans are. When it isn't chaos that *eventual* absence of consequences brings, it is moral issue of giving peace to those who took it away from others. When it isn't that, it is also the question of why those who just sinned get the same reward as those did their hardest to live virtuous and good life. It is not that these concerns aren't fair or valid, it is just that the abyss between us and God is kind of too huge for the statement that we were created in his likeness, no? He will forgive me for everything, but he will also forgive those who traumatized me... I can accept these terms, I suppose... It is a "trade off" that goes beyond time and lives and everything. All or us or none of us. It is the absence of discrimination that humans can't feel or think

[unclefard]

shut the fuck up about australia

"australia australia! nope land! too many dangerous animals!"

let's see... they got:

-a bunch of snakes and spiders

-dingoes

-kangaroos

-like 2 crocodiles

-venomous ocean shit:

africa and south asia have all that + big angry herbivores + actual large land predators +political/economic instability, terrorists, war, and shitty societal structures. i would take living in australia over pretty much anywhere else in the world. i definitely wouldn't want to go swimming there, but i wouldn't want to go swimming in the american southeast or basically anywhere else warm enough for crocodilians and lots of venomous shit.

aside from the ocean shit i would be most afraid of going hiking somewhere in the central deserts and getting lost. yeah, they have very venomous snakes, but the snakes that are most dangerous are not the ones that have the deadliest venom but the ones that are extremely common, well camouflaged, and readily bite: Big Four (Indian snakes) - Wikipedia. the humble saw-scaled viper, to which more fatalities are attributed than any other snake, is far deadlier to man's existence than the taipan: List of fatal snake bites in Australia - Wikipedia. not to mention Australia is a developed country with good hospitals and shit.

now, australia does get pretty funky:

memes about it are fun and all, and yeah, there's some scary shit there (i would never touch the ocean), but the problem with memes is because people tend to have a social media induced goldfish attention span and don't want to actually read anything, so they build their opinions, beliefs, etc off of memes. thinking australia is the scariest place on earth is harmless and mostly a joke, but when you build your worldview off of little comedic blurbs of information your worldview is usually bad. there's a reason a lot of far-right bullshit thrives off of innocuous little memes and social media clowns. i'm not saying i'm perfect or enlightened or anything because my worldview is that of an angry, self-centered hermit, and i too have the social media induced goldfish attention span. however, it's important to think and read a little more if you want to/are going to form an opinion/belief on something. it's too easy to see a few little bits of information, take them to heart, and subconsciously decide you are well-informed on the topic and your emotionally induced beliefs are absolute.

#

recently they made "direwolves" and i made fun of it. they don't even seem to fit the pop-culture perception of direwolves, which are basically just wargs, let alone the real animal which would have looked more like south america's modern wild dog species:

these colossal direwolves just look like regular ass wolves. i went to northwest trek sometimes when i lived in western wa and they had wolves that looked just like them: A Tale of Two Wolves - Northwest Trek. it's been said already, a lot, that it's a shitty lie, a shallow grab for pr, so on and so forth.

my problem with these wolves is that there is no real reason to make genetically engineered apex predators besides selling them to rich people as pets. yeah it's cool, yeah eventually there might be gene animal zoos, but these aren't the real dire wolves. they weren't raised by direwolves. they can't fulfill the niche direwolves did. polar bears and brown bears are closely related enough that they can interbreed, but a polar bear is highly specialized for a very particular way of life. if you wiped out polar bears and engineered a slightly larger, white brown bear to replace them, it wouldn't work because the brown bear, however white and large, still has the brown bear software.

there's no reason to introduce these direwolves where actual normal wolves live either, as normal wolves, despite being perhaps the most charismatic apex predators, already have enough to worry about (habitat destruction, ranchers wanting them dead, etc). are we slowly inching towards some kind of designer ecosystems where rich techbro fucks release shitty pop culture ideals of extinct predators, because our modern and already heavily imperiled ecosystems aren't good enough?

now i think there is a lot of value in this kind of work. we have a number of large, charismatic animals that are on extinction's door, already opening it up and starting to walk in. a company like colossal could focus their efforts on stuff like: Yangtze giant softshell turtle - Wikipedia (please do this evil corporation please these are the best animals ever to exist (besides triceratops)) and Sumatran rhinoceros - Wikipedia. not to mention a number of animals who we know for sure were wiped out by humans, like the thylacine and the steller's sea cow. i wouldn't be opposed to creating solid proxies of very recently extinct animals like the thylacine and releasing them in viable habitat, as these kinds of animals should still be here.

i've heard that shit like the direwolves and mammoth is mostly to get funding, public attention, etc, so they can work on stuff like the red wolves and thylacine. if true i can respect that. i'll take selling designer wolves to protect actual modern animals in danger of extinction. however, some of the comments by the evil company people suggest a very shitty view on extinction and bringing back those animals, the surface level bullshit fucking jurassic park was criticizing. the whole "these aren't the real dinosaurs, they're the ones people expect". the ceo apparently went on the joe rogan show or podcast or whatever variant of phlegm it is, so there's that too. at least horner's chickenasaur had/has some sort of scientific benefit.

i could see in the future them making a "deinosuchus" (enlarged alligator) or "titanoboa" (enlarged anaconda). perhaps a tiger with enlarged canines. oversized bison and elk with slightly larger horns and antlers. stating the obvious but you can't bring back extinct animals. when they're dead, they're dead, and gone. deinosuchus may have been essentially a giant alligator, but scaling up a modern alligator won't make a deinosuchus. you can make it forty feet long. you can alter its proportions to match the skeleton. it can look exactly like how we imagine deinosuchus looked. but it won't be a deinosuchus.

there's no reason to "bring back" the vast majority of extinct animals aside from entertainment, as you're not really bringing back the animal, you're making an imitation, and putting it in a world in which it has no place other than as an oligarch's pet.

I will say however that I think/believe that a considerable amount of the Pleistocene megafauna should still be here. The whole "it was climate change" argument genuinely pisses me off. People are really good at killing animals. They should shut up about it, but they are. You have two and a half continents full of large, slow-reproducing animals who are dependent on large, stable habitats and are naive to hominid predators, already made vulnerable by the advance/retreat of the ice sheets (which would have caused widespread climate change). there's a reason that all the modern ecosystems with a lot of large mammal diversity roughly coincide with the distribution of homo erectus:

the megafauna of africa+south asia were adapted to humanity. they knew/know how to behave around people. it's a known fact that mammals heavily alter their behavior in areas of high human presence, becoming more secretive, nocturnal, etc. if a highly seasonal, arid habitat with extreme droughts can support this:

then the lush, temperate forests and plains of north america can support this:

of course big animals are vulnerable to major changes in climate/habitat. i think that, if humans were magically not part of the equation at the end of the pleistocene, there still would have been a significant decrease in large animal diversity around the world. but north america would have had more than just deer. everyone says mammoths, which i think is fair. i think without humans we would have still had mammoths way up in northern canada and russia. it's very telling that the last mammoths lived on an isolated little island. that island wasn't prime mammoth habitat. it just had no humans.

large animals are vulnerable to change, but they are still very adaptable, and often better at surviving in and exploiting different habitats than smaller ones. black bears, for instance, can be found in the pacific northwest's temperate rainforests, florida's swamps, the desert scrubland of arizona, and the rocky mountains. ungulates from africa and asia thrive in texas and arizona. there is a feral breeding population of rhea, a south american flightless bird, in germany. mastodons were temperate forest browsers. there were temperate forests then, and there are temperate forests now. by all accounts the mastodon should still be here. the foliage of the ice age is mostly the same foliage as now. there are plenty of relict plants adapted to be distributed by giant herbivores left in north america.

i think that, without humans, the american megafauna would be much more diverse. some would have gone missing, but i think for the most part the ecosystems would be pretty similar. i think good candidates are actually the mastodons+cuvieronis. their diets suggest a preference for the habitats that still cover north america. sloths are another good one. i think they suffered similarly to giant tortoises (these used to be found on the mainland continents) and glyptodonts: their defensive measures, so effective against all other animals, made them helpless to humans. especially seeing as many of the ground sloths were reasonably sized and probably lived in the same kind of tropical forest and savanna south america has today. also, just like mammoths, their last examples were island dwarfs.

mastodons/sloths/etc did die out earlier than mammoths, which i attribute to their living in temperate habitats and thus being more accessible (vulnerable) to humans. easier to find, easier to ambush. mammoths would be living in wide open, freezing tundra. they'd see you coming, at least. mastodons would be lumbering through the mild hardwood forests, with plenty of nearby shrubbery to conceal hunters. i can see the changing climate hurting the more temperate-specialized of the ice age giants, but not outright wiping them out. especially in south america's tropical savannas, which, like africa and south asia, would probably be relatively insulated from the effects of the melting ice.

i don't think people systematically worked to extirpate the megafauna. maybe the large predators, especially if they had no fear of people. it's commonly thought that hunter-gatherer societies have no impact on their environment and live in complete harmony with nature, but they often heavily alter/impact their environment. apparently native americans practiced routine burning to clear forests and make it more suitable for travel and wild game. south american people extensively modifed theirs as well.

that aside, you don't have to completely wipe out mammoths and sloths, rather extensive hunting just needs to fragment and cripple their breeding populations. killing a mature bull elephant has disproportionate effects on the local population. killing a mammoth matriarch could easily cripple a herd. or, if heavily hunted, a herd could not have enough members left to effectively defend each other. with such wide ranges hunting pressure could make it extremely hard, impossible even, for large, slow-reproducers to mate. if you still have mastodons, but it's a couple scattered, tiny groups seperated by hundreds of miles, you probably wont get more mastodons.

yeah, i think mastodons should still lumber north america. giant sloths should still lurk in south america. a few mammoths should join the reindeer in canada. we should experience a greater diversity of large ungulates, and the predators that hunted them. they should still be here, but they shouldn't come back.

there is a massive struggle to preserve what we have, everywhere. the americas are struggling to preserve what wild spaces and megafauna they have left, and there's a major push against it. if you cant be trusted with wolves and bison you shouldn't get dire wolves and mastodons. the places they could live are so heavily fragmented, interfered with, and already imperiled that they could not reliably support populations of these creatures. dire wolves aren't tundra animals, and they're hunters of animals that mostly no longer exist. mastodons could technically, i think, still inhabit most of north america, but there's not a whole lot of extensive, lowland forest/scrubland left for them. they'd alter whatever national parks they'd be released in, perhaps detrimentally for the modern animals already struggling to exist.

now, i am not entirely opposed to the mammoths, mostly because if we could hypothetically get a modern "mammoth" there's still a considerable amount of mostly undisturbed tundra for them to inhabit, and they would have a beneficial effect on preserving permafrost. yes, they'd just be fat, hairy asian elephants. my issue isn't the non-authenticity but rather that there's a lot of issues ethics wise as well as adapting these mammoths to being mammoths. fat hairy asian elephants would still eat and act like asian elephants, tropical forest browsers, not tundra grass enthusiasts. this is where i take issue. more than likely it would be a long time and a lot of suffering test mammoths before we got an actual viable mammoth proxy that could live and act like a mammoth. even then, it would mostly just be for spectacle. the permafrost effect thing could be done with the northern herbivores we have today. it's one thing to make bulkier wolves or a bigger crocodile. creating a mammoth would likely involve a lot of suffering on the part of the prototypes.

the world of the pleistocene should in large part still be here. but it's not. the world has changed massively since. what we think of as pristine, untouched nature is often a recent development, either heavily managed and altered by the original human tenants, or barren, emptied ecosystems filling in the gaps as best they can. it's been said a lot but the focus should be on protecting what we have.

no half-decent wildlife program, department, or conservation group is going to want to reintroduce pop culture Pleistocene proxies into their parks and reserves. no good zoo will likely be able to afford them. it's not an apocalyptic jurassic world "folly of man" scenario. it's just more stupid useless clickbait. maybe in the future, as genetic engineering gets better, and we can do more than designer wolves, it'll be a problem. people will decide that their artificial animals are more deserving of the world than the originals, and we'll get butchered designer ecosystems of artificially bloated populations of furry oc megafauna.

i think that is a good ways off, however. so far we've got normal ass wolves and hairy mice. both could be produced with a couple decades of selective breeding.

on the other hand:

technology has developed incredibly fast.

you can track the development of the generative ai with those stupid fucking ai cat videos

"meow meow meow meow" going from still images to brief, animated clips. the fucking cats run and cook food. it's still shit but the shit is getting bigger, riper.

i've always had a subconscious assumption that the world would remain mostly the same over the course of my life, leaving me free to focus on my little sphere of life. when i was little i imagined the future as centuries later. i didn't think of ai or gene-modified animals. i remember seeing a documentary with horner's chickenasaur and even then i thought it was bullshit. i always assumed the environment, political structure, and technology of the world would sit and fester in comfortable stagnancy. unfortunately things constantly change, frequently aping the past but change nonetheless. i assume the world will be much different in a few decades. for a single person, facing it all by themselves, in its grand bloat of distortion, lies, and selfish indulgence, this is not a pleasant prospect.

endangered species pose a threat to the limitless wealth extraction that the world's greedy, understimulated, underfulfilled fucks have not yet figured out wont make them feel better. but it's okay! we'll make new ones, better ones! you remember the cool ice wolves from your medieval drama thing! They're real now! We don't need those raggy ass normal wolves around anyways! africa a little boring? how 'bout some trexes! you can pay to shoot mammoths in siberia and sabercats in texas! i wont lie that in a way it is cool. but, regardless, fuck this shit.