#He's just a humble scientist who holes himself up at home these days

[chiropterx]

[Leave object on muse's desk meme.]

A bulging plastic bag was left at Kirk's office's door. Inside wasn't anything gruesome like a severed head. In fact once opened a delicious smell of the Iceberg Lounge's food billowed outward. There was an appetizer, entrée, and dessert inside their wrapped containers that were neatly stacked on top of one another. Beside the personalized take-out bag was a bottle of good wine wrapped in a paper bag. All of this, and tucked away was a small note.

"No charge. Let's talk some time. I hear you're onto great things.

Yours Truly, Oswald C. Cobblepot".

Leave an object in my ask and my muse will react to it being given to them.

This wasn't what he'd ordered. In fact, the usual deliveryman hadn't come by at all that day, security camera having alerted him to an unknown visitor passing by only to drop off this bag at his office door. Kirk notices the logo proudly emblazoned across the stark white plastic wrapping and pales visibly. The Iceberg Lounge, only the fanciest nightclub in all of Gotham. He'd never been to the Iceberg Lounge before. Couldn't afford it, especially not now he was living on his own (not that he had reason to go out partying anyway.) The logo on the bag seems to glare at him and it's all Kirk can do not to close the door and hope the bag was no longer there when he next opened it. It finally occurs to him to at least check if there's a letter attached just in case it was actually meant for one of his neighbours. No doubt they wouldn't be best pleased to find that dinner had been delivered to the wrong address and he hadn't even bothered to let them know about the mix-up so Kirk rummages through the contents, his stomach trying not to grumble at the exquisite smells emanating from within. Hell, there was even a bottle of wine included, no doubt just as expensive as the food included but finally he located a small note and is shocked to find it's addressed to him. What could Mr. Cobblepot possibly want with somebody like him? No charge? And onto great things? Kirk Langstrom was no partygoer. He barely registered on anybody's radar, his line of work too small, too niche to be of interest to anybody who wasn't deaf or similarly impaired and yet Oswald Cobblepot, owner of the Iceberg Lounge and upper-class businessman had heard of him, even taking the time to deliver a meal on the house. Part of Kirk was worried. Oswald Cobblepot, while a legitimate businessman, was also rumored to have had shady connections within the city... but then who didn't in Gotham? It was filthy and crime-ridden, had been since before he was born and would likely remain that way long after he was gone. Kirk was content to hide away from it all within the comforts of his little home, with just his vampire bats for company as he doggedly worked to find a cure for his and many other's chronic deafness. His stomach grumbled again as his nose again picked up the scents from within the boxes inside the carrier bag. Appetizers, dinner and dessert with a bottle of wine sure sounded a hell of a lot better than the scant inventory of his pantry (when had he last gone shopping anyway?) and so Kirk reached out hesitantly, picking up the bag by it's handles and crrying it inside. He would have cried at how good everything tasted had it not felt like ashes in his stomach as he wondered when Mr. Cobblepot might come calling, to discuss who knew what.

[sciderman]

Was going through some old writing files (of which there are hundreds!!) and stumbled across a high school AU I was writing a while ago! (an actual one! not a tantalising dream-sequence involving cheerleaders, though we all know I love those...) 

I don’t know if I’ll resurrect it, but there’s a bit of fun to be had - Peter’s anger issues are something that I’d like to see explored more in spideypool fic, and I just... I love high school AUs okay... 

Read some of it under the cut! 

-----------------------

“What’re you in for?”

“Something stupid.” Peter grumbled.

“Love it.” The boy said, grinning. Peter noticed a missing tooth. “I hid a frog in the student counsellor’s desk. You should’ve seen him scream.” 

Peter was quiet, but his lips quirked. 

“Immature”, he eventually said. 

“The guy’s a dickhole. And,” the blond rocked on his chair, buzzing, “technically, I saved a life.” 

Peter raised an eyebrow. 

“Saved the frog from one of the labs. They were gonna slice him open. Imagine you’re just sitting on your lily pad one day. Chilling. And then some jackass scientist scoops you up and cuts you open. Starts prodding inside you. Gross.” 

“Okay, yeah, gross.” 

“My name is Wade, bee-tee-dubs.” 

Wade. Peter remembered. He’d only joined the class at the beginning of last semester, and sat near the back of the class. He hadn’t recognised him by his face because he’d always had his hood up. Not that Peter had ever paid enough attention to his peers to remember them by face anyway.

“Uh.” Peter said, eyeing the hand he was being offered as a greeting. He didn’t return the handshake, but he responded with a simple “I’m Peter.” 

“Cool.” Wade nodded, looking at his feet, heels bouncing off the linoleum floor. His shoes were scuffed and worn. 

A moment of silence passed. Both boys turned their attention to the floor, as though it were suddenly the most interesting feature of the room. 

Peter side eyed his company, in the moment of quiet. There were shallow craters on the boy’s face, Peter noticed, like chickenpox scars that hadn’t fully healed. Wade definitely seemed conscious about it, with his hood being nearly always drawn, and his shaggy hair that often covered his face. 

“Peter Parker.” The principal called, peering through the door at the boys. The principal glared at Wade, who put up his hands in response. Clearly Wade was a regular. 

A wave of smugness came over Peter, who leant in close to Wade. 

“I broke Flash Thompson’s arm.” Peter whispered, before standing up to enter the principal’s office. For a second Peter saw Wade’s face light up, like that was the coolest thing he had ever heard. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------

“Mr Parker, I recognise you’re going through a tough time – And I’m sorry.”

Peter sank in his chair, eyes fixed on a hole puncher sat on the desk.

“I understand you must be going through a lot of emotions at the moment, but you,” the principal wrung his hands, “you hospitalised one of your classmates. Eugene Thompson –” 

The principal’s voice faded in and out of Peter’s attention. As usual, he stood alone on Planet Peter Parker. 

He thought about Aunt May. Her eyes, pink and puffy. Thin hands trembling as she held them by her mouth, recounting all she remembered about that night to the police. The police, who with empty looks, mechanically took down notes. Jaded. Like a family hadn’t been just destroyed. Like a good man hadn’t just been murdered in cold blood. 

Peter's uncle was a humble man. Simple, but good. He wasn't ambitious, or gifted, or clever. But he was wise. 

Clever. Wise. Peter hadn't understood there was a difference between the two. 

He took him for granted, Peter admitted to himself, as he cried that night, and the days following. He cried for the first time in months. Months of distancing himself from the world, before the world decided to stage a head-on-head collision with him. 

“Peter? Peter, are you listening?” 

Peter at last looked up, and with the movement, a tear managed to escape his eye. He brought the heel of his palm up quickly to wipe it away. 

“Look, son, I want you to see the student counsellor tomorrow.” The principal said, taking down a note. Peter scowled at the pen, as it scribbled. “It will help, Peter. I want you to see the counsellor every Tuesday and Friday, last period. We’ll keep track of your healing process.” 

Peter took the note when it was offered to him, and pocketed it without a word. He turned to leave.

“Peter. I didn’t dismiss you.” 

Peter sighed, turning back, red-eyed and tired. 

“I’m sorry about your uncle. But when Eugene returns, you will apologise.” 

Peter swallowed, voice quiet when at last he spoke. “I didn’t mean to hurt him.” 

Whether that was true or not, Peter was still undecided on. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------

The school day dragged at an excruciatingly slow pace. Peter couldn’t hear the teacher. All he could hear, all day, were the whispers amongst his peers. Right now, Peter wished the walls he built to keep the world out were soundproofed. 

“Did you hear? He put Flash in the ER.” 

“Puny Parker? No way.” 

“He’s an absolute freak.” 

“He’s probably really screwed up right now, guys. I think his like, Uncle died or something.” 

Peter snapped his pencil. 

“Can I be excused, miss?” 

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Peter ran as fast as he could out of the school doors, gasping in air as deeply as he could. He was at his breaking point. If everyone in class saw him crying, he’d really never hear the end of it. He’d be seeing the school councillor until he graduated. 

The air was cool but his face was scalding hot, tears streaming down his cheeks. He buried his face in both hands and screamed. With all the effort he could afford he tried to steady his breathing. In and out, in and out, until he started to feel lightheaded. 

He could’ve broken the school doors off its hinges. He could have slammed his fists so hard on the walls, until they crumbled, or he did. 

He threw a kick so hard on a nearby trash can that it flew across the courtyard.  

He hated this school. He could’ve tore it down right where he stood. 

“Dude.” 

Peter turned so fast his head nearly knocked off his shoulders. Wade stood, back against the wall, casual as anything. He had a cigarette in hand. 

“You’re an animal, dude.” Wade said, blowing out a cloud of smoke. 

Peter’s mouth hung open, finding it difficult to find words. He brought up a sleeve to wipe up his face. 

“I, just. I –” 

Peter swallowed the lump in his throat.

“I hate this place.” 

Wade nodded, a calm demeanour about him that almost served to calm Peter by osmosis. 

Peter Parker was always a very rational boy. Quiet. Reserved. He never lost it like this. He’s never –

“I heard – about your uncle.” 

Peter’s eyes were exhausted from crying, he couldn’t afford anymore tears. Peter’s entire body felt it was going to sink through the earth. And Wade could see it. Wade could see it on Peter’s face. He looked to Wade for mercy. To let him fall off the planet’s surface. 

“Listen, if it were me I’d – I’d kill him. I’d kill whoever did it.” 

Peter was quiet. Wade’s words felt like an electric jolt, sobering him up. 

All the hollow words of consolation had left him numb, but this rang through Peter’s ears. 

Eventually Peter found his voice again. 

“You’d kill him, but you’d save a frog?” 

“Yeah.” Wade said, as if it were obvious. “The frog didn’t do anything wrong.” 

Silence followed. Peter couldn’t look up from the ground. His hands formed fists at his sides. 

All the way home, Wade’s words replayed in Peter’s head. I’d kill him. I’d kill whoever did it. 

The police were apathetic. Crimes go unsolved. And that made Peter’s blood boil hotter than it ever had. The thought that someone – out there – would be getting away with it. 

That Aunt May might always carry that hollow, broken look in her eyes.  

Later that night, Peter threw on a red hoodie, pulling the drawstrings tight. He snuck out his bedroom window, like he did every night. 

News reports tell of an escaped robber cornered in a building downtown.

[imastrangeone98]

In Charge

(A/N: ngl I read nsfw text posts on istg and those kinda set me on fire)

WARNING: pegging; very very mild degradation; bad comedy; slight angst. Bad writing- im very new to this particular scene

I'm trying to be better at nsfw warnings

Established relationship- so probably vendetta

Leon understood that Sarah had a hard job.

His, at the very least, was simple: get a call, go to some virus-infested shithole, and deal with the corporate jackass that started the whole thing. Then he got at least a three-month break and looked after the kids until the next biohazard disaster.

But Sarah... She had to deal with the corporates in the first place, day after day after day. She had to play nice with the politicians and fellow scientists who arrogantly took her with a grain of salt until their own ignorance blew up in their faces. Sometimes literally.

He did his best to make her life easier. He made the meals, helped the kids with homework, and did most of the chores- ignoring the way she would always try to do the dishes behind his back.

And to her credit, she was doing her best. She hardly complained, and she never raised her voice at home. She tried hard to separate work from family, and she made it clear to their children that she would be there for them.

But she was cracking. Her eyes twitched more when her assistants chattered like nonsensical birds. She started missing meetings and staying up late in the lab, furiously whipping up chemical cocktails of potential antidote samples until he had to drag her exhausted body out.

She was hurting. And he was lost on how he could help her.

Well... he thought as he cautiously eyed the toy in his hands. Maybe this could work.

It was a good opportunity. Zane has gone to a sleepover with some friends, and Claire was more than willing to look after Grace for the night.

The front door slammed open and shut. "Leon? You home?"

With an embarrassed squeak, he shoved the toy under the bed and hurried downstairs. "Hey, honey. You're back early."

"Yeah- they let me off the hook today. Thank whatever deity above for that." She shucked off her coat with a wince, and rubbed her shoulders. "Zane and Grace hanging around somewhere?"

"No, he went to a sleepover. Grace went to Claire's for a girl's night." He hung her coat on the rack and set about heating up leftovers. "How was work?"

The heavy sigh she let out was an answer in of itself. But one of the many things he always admired about her was her adamant refusal to not communicate, even at the cusp of insanity.

"It's... it's fine, 자기." She stretched as he placed the admittedly humble meal of fried rice, side dishes and miso soup in front of her. "I'm dealing with it. Food looks good."

"It'd better be," he joked. "It's your recipe."

She snickered, but made no other reply. Well, at least it was a good start.

He sat down beside her and fidgeted with his hands, watching as she scarfed down her dinner. The dark circles under her eyes were much more prominent- it made his heart sink.

It was now or never.

"Sarah, I know it's been really tough on you lately. Any way I can help?"

She froze. Bits of rice clung to the sides of her mouth, and he wiped them away.

"...I mean, it's just the normal bullshit, y'know? I can deal with it, babe; don't worry about it."

"Sarah..."

With a sigh, she set down the spoon and ran a hand through her messy hair. "I don't know, Leon. I just don't know. I'm trying, but everything's just pissing me off. Research is failing, subordinates are shitty, and the higher ups are being an absolute bitch."

He didn't interrupt, but he slowly linked their hands together. She gave his a gentle squeeze.

"And honestly, I'm this close to not giving a shit anymore." Resting her head on the table, she gazed up at him with the most exhausted look he'd ever seen on her. "It's such a shitty thing to say, but... some part of me's just tempted to let them get what's coming to them."

He hummed. "I don't blame you. They sound like assholes."

"They are assholes."

"You find a way to work out the stress?" He lovingly stroked her hair, and she closed her eyes and nearly purred. "It isn't healthy to keep it in."

"I know. I just... haven't figured anything out yet. I'll find something."

He swallowed. The plan was going well, but he still felt nervous bringing it up.

"So... uh... I have something, if you want to try it."

Sarah lifted an eyebrow. "And what on earth would that be?"

"When you finish up, I'll show you." He wasn't nearly as good as his wife when it came to sounding sexy, but he tried to add a hint of smoothness to his voice.

It worked. A flicker of curiosity and arousal passed through her eyes, and she began to shovel food into her mouth.

[...]

"...Well." She stared at the strap-on with a strange intensity. "This is new."

"Yeah." Leon actually had the decency to blush. "I figured... uh... we could... um..."

Sarah laughed. "We've fucked for over ten years, and you still get blushy."

"...Not true." But his bright red face only helped prove her point.

"Sure, baby." Her eyes narrowed; her smile turned a little more crooked. "C'mere."

He slunk towards her, already feeling naked under her hot gaze. Her hands didn't waste any time with tugging at the edge of his shirt, pulling it up over his head, and skimming over his chest.

She leaned in close and pressed a hot, open-mouthed kiss to his shoulder. With a soft hum, he leaned into her touch, sliding a hand near the base of her hair and giving it a sharp yank.

Almost immediately, she growled. "Behave."

"Or what?" he whispered. "You'll spank me?"

"Tempting." Leaning away, she stared deep into his eyes. "Safeword?"

He thought for a second. "Mercy."

"Alright." Sarah tilted her head towards the bed. "Strip and get on. I'll see what I can do."

Without hesitation, he rid himself of his shorts, leaving himself with only his boxers, and laid down on the soft blankets, unable to resist watching her as she moved about the room, ripping off her clothes, grabbing a small bottle of lube and...

He guffawed. "What are you doing?"

"Reading the fucking instructions. What else?" Her eyes were glued to the straps as she played around with them, muttering under her breath. "So it goes like this... then tighten the strap here..."

Leon couldn't help but giggle. "Smart as you are, but you're helpless against a toy."

She immediately glared at him, and it sent a jolt of electricity up his body. "If you're just gonna blabber, come over here."

"What?"

"Put that mouth of yours to good use, before I do something about it." The promise sounded dark- he had no doubt that she'd actually try to shut him up if he kept being bratty.

And that was a whole other ball game.

So he played nice. He kept quiet.

"Good boy." After a few minutes, she must have gotten the process down, because she had the toy strapped snug over her hips like an expert.

"Shit."

Leon had his fantasies, and then he had reality. And this- his perfect, badass wife with a strap-on and danger in her eyes- was so much better than anything he could possibly dream of.

"This is real, right?" he murmured, staring up at her.

"Does this feel real to you?" When she placed a cool hand on the overly hot skin of his hip, he shivered. "Yeah, thought so."

Slowly, she hooked a finger under the waist and of his underwear and pulled it off, his hardening cock springing out from its prison.

The soft moan he let out was inevitable. "More...?"

"Zip it." Sarah gave his ass a sharp slap, and he blushed harder. "You gotta start being patient."

"I don't have to do shit."

His eyes widened at the realization of what he'd done. Shit...

Her eyes narrowed. "Are you seriously gonna play this game with me right now?"

He swallowed. "...No?"

"I don't believe you." With a sigh, she popped off the cap of the bottle. "Looks like you need a punishment. Turn over."

He obeyed. A tremble of anticipation ran through him as he saw her lube her fingers.

"Hold still, baby," she cooed. The gentle press of fingers near his hole was enough to make his knees weak. "We good?"

"Yeah," he croaked, wiggling his hips, trying his hardest to tempt her. "We're good."

It must have worked, because he felt a slick finger press right into his ass, and he yelped. Instantly, she shushed him and rubbed his hip, before going back to stroking his insides, stretching him out, making him groan.

"Shit," she whispered. Her grip on his hip only tightened. "You have any idea what you look like right now?"

He just moaned.

"You even sound like a slut."

He couldn't process Sarah's words- just on the fact that she had a digit- now two digits- rubbing against his walls, hitting a spot that made him howl.

"Just a little more." Hot lips pressed on his shoulder. "Loosen up for me."

He kept rolling his hips, trying to get her to hit that spot again. "Please..." he moaned. "Please..."

But to his horror, her fingers froze before slowly, painstakingly, pulling out. Leon whined, only to get another smack on his asscheeks.

"Don't be such a whore," she spat. "Or I won't give it to you."

"No...!" His hands felt too weak, and he felt ready to collapse onto the mattress. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please-!"

"Please, what?" Her voice softened, almost to the point of insanity. "Use your words, pet."

"Fuck me! Please fuck me! I can't-! I need you, I need you, I need you-"

Without warning, the tip of the lubed dildo slipped past his entrance, already sending a sharp sense of fullness in his belly.

"Stop tightening up," she sighed, stroking his thigh. "Relax, baby. Relax."

He kept panting, trying to not flex his muscles, trying so hard to be a good boy, such a good boy for me-

By the time he managed to stop drooling, her hips met his own with a soft slap.

She moaned above him. "Fuck. You look so pretty like this, you know that?"

He stammered something, but he didn't know what. The only solid answer he could give her was a jolt that let the toy sink in deeper inside him.

"Shit."

Leon felt like he was about to combust. Pain and pleasure had mixed to the point where they were inseparable. All he could do was sink further into the hole of depravity he'd dug for himself- and all too willing to do so.

"Leon?" Sarah whispered into his ear, a hand firmly grasping the base of his cock. He whined, thrusting shallowly into her hand. "Good?"

He just moaned. It wasn't just good- it was fantastic.

"Tell me."

"Good!" he hissed as the strap-on pressed deliciously to his prostate. "So good!"

She began to thrust. His hips followed on their own to match each one. Ripples of pleasure pulsed throughout his body, and he was unable to stop moaning and begging for her to give it to him more, give me more, please-

He buried his face in the pillow, too lost in the pleasure to care about holding anything but his ass up.

Sarah leaned down to press kisses to the nape of his neck as she stroked his profusely leaking cock, chuckling at the way he jumped from the unexpected stimulation. "You close, baby?"

"Uh huh~" he croaked, too incoherent to say anything else. "More...?"

"So greedy." But her thrusts picked up in speed.

His hands scrabbled for purchase on the sweat-slick sheets. His gut burned with the need to release, release, release.

"Lemme cum~" he slurred, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. "Please, please lemme cum."

"You wanna cum?" She curled her lip, as if to challenge him, but he was reassured at the way her eyebrows furrowed at the middle, and the way her hands shook at his sides.

She was on the edge, too.

"Yeah~" He smiled at her- a sweet, droopy smile. "Make me cum, mama~"

Her eyes widened. Immediately, her pace quickened even more. The toy started ramming against his prostate over and over again, making him gasp.

"Good boy," she moaned. "Cum for me."

And he came. Hot ropes of cum spilled onto the mattress, drops of it on his stomach, and some just below his chin.

"Fuck." With a grunt, Sarah pulled out of him, unstrapping herself from the toy and tossing it aside as she crawled up the bed to cradle him in her arms. "You did so good. So good. I'm so proud of you."

He grinned lazily at her. "Yeah? You feel good?"

"Yeah. I feel great, actually." With a soft smile, she pressed a kiss to his lips. "Thanks, baby."

"No problem..." His eyes drifted closed for a few seconds.

"Hang tight. Imma get a towel for you and change the sheets, and we can cuddle. You need anything?"

"...Water, please..."

"You got it." She ruffled his hair before dashing off to the bathroom.

As she lovingly wiped off the slick on his ass and gave him sips of ice cold water, he couldn't help but think to himself:

This was a great idea.

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A/N: I have never done this type of nsfw before and it really shows I think 😅 but ngl im still pretty proud of what I managed to put out

Rip Leon's asshole ;) but he loves it so...

[uraharashouten]

THE POSITIVE & NEGATIVE; Mun & Muse - Meme.

fill out & repost ♥ This meme definitely favors canons more, but I hope OC’s still can make it somehow work with their own lore, and lil’ fandom of friends & mutuals. Multi-Muses pick the muse you are the most invested in atm.

My muse is:   canon / oc / au / canon-divergent / fandomless /

Is your character popular in the fandom?  YES / NO.

Is your character considered hot™ in the fandom?  YES / NO / IDK.

Is your character considered strong in the fandom?  YES / NO / IDK.

Are they underrated?  YES / NO.

Were they relevant for the main story?  YES / NO.

Were they relevant for the main character?  YES / NO / THEY’RE THE PROTAG.

Are they widely known in their world?  YES / NO.

How’s their reputation?  GOOD / BAD / NEUTRAL.

How strictly do you follow canon?  As closely as I can! I admit to some gaping holes in my knowledge -- I never really read all of the Fullbringer arc or the Thousand Year Blood War. I think I have the gist of some of the novels; some I lean into more than others. But I try to stay true to the Urahara Kisuke of the Bleach manga, and borrow from the anime, movies, and novels when it’s fun!

SELL YOUR MUSE! Aka try to list everything, which makes your muse interesting in your opinion to make them spicy for your mutuals.   Urahara Kisuke plays the part of the humble (and handsome!) shopkeeper of Karakura town, though his résumé includes head of secret police and prison warden, Gotei 13 captain, scientist, and Special War Power. He is talented in problem-solving, psychology and tactical thinking, and despite his protests to the contrary, he’s always scheming something. In addition to his mental prowess, he is an expert swordsman, hakuda master, and a proficient kidou user. A consummate tinkerer, inventor, and maker, his favorite thing to make is mischief, and he will bend the rules and push his luck as far as he can, much to the chagrin of his associates. But he means well, usually.

Now the OPPOSITE, list everything why your muse could not be so interesting (even if you may not agree, what does the fandom perhaps think?).  Move along folks, nothing to see here. These days he’s just a simple candy store owner... You’re not buying that? ---Well, the truth is that he is a bit of a home-body. Never mind what you’ve heard about him turning up when you least expect him; he’s more likely to remain backstage than at the heart of the action. And he knows more than he’s telling; you can never get a straight answer out of him, and it’s maddening. You won’t get anywhere interacting with him, I promise. Complete waste of time.

What inspired you to rp your muse?  When I was new to Bleach, tumblr, and roleplay, I settled on Kisuke because he seemed so... avuncular. He’s not quite responsible enough to be your dad, but he cares like your dad (and sometimes more). He’s full of pranks and sage advice, and you’re never certain which you’ll get, or some combination thereof. He runs the gamut from nutty uncle to creepy godfather, and I’ve found him to be an incredibly versatile character to play.

What keeps your inspiration going?  He still fascinates me.

Some more personal questions for the mun.

Give your mutuals some insight about the way you are in some matters, which could lead them to get more comfortable with you or perhaps not.

Do you think you give your character justice?  YES / NO.

Do you frequently write headcanons?  YES / NO. (I’m more likely to write meta! For me, the line can blur -- but I rarely come up with a headcanon that isn’t in some way supported by canon.)

Do you sometimes write drabbles?  YES / NO. (very occasionally!)

Do you think a lot about your Muse during the day?  YES / NO. (You know, it’s funny. When I first started roleplaying Kisuke, I thought about him constantly, almost to the point of method acting. These days, I’m relieved to have my own headspace back.)

Are you confident in your portrayal?   YES / NO.

Are you confident in your writing?  YES / NO.

Are you a sensitive person?  YES / NO.

Do you accept criticism well about your portrayal?  I’d like to think I’d be big enough to accept some well-meant constructive criticism, and I do like to have outright mistakes corrected. I mean -- it’s not a good feeling, and I’m usually embarrassed -- but I’ll be grateful if they’re pointed out sooner rather than later, and especially if you’re kind about it! Just please remember that in order for it to be constructive, criticism must be specific and positive -- tell me what to do, not what not to do.

Do you like questions which help you explore your character?  Sure! ....I may not answer them right away... or... ever... Anything that makes me stop and think risks sending me off onto a research and reflection tangent from which I may never return! But I will appreciate the question!

If someone disagrees to a headcanon of yours, do you want to know why?  Yes! Why? WHY do you disagree with my headcanon? Do you know something I don’t? Spit it out, because I have to know what you do! (And then if we have the same knowledge and still disagree on the interpretation, I’ll probably stick with mine, but I’ll at least consider yours.)

If someone disagrees with your portrayal, how would you take it?  Disagrees with my --- what does that mean? I like to think I’d be reasonable if someone thought I wrote something out-of-character, and brought it my attention. Hey, it happens, and goodness knows I’m not always ‘on.’  I don’t mind being questioned or corrected about that. But if someone disagrees with entire aspects of my interpretation --- go... write your own version, then? Or find someone else who’s more your cup of tea? There are as many interpretations of a character as there are people. I like seeing them all, and I would be interested to see yours!  I’m not offended that you don’t like mine. (But I will be hurt if you decide you don’t like me because of it; this is fiction and that’s just petty.)

If someone really hates your character, how do you take it?  I mean... there are reasons to hate him. If you tell me yours, I’ll probably be sympathetic. He’s a (bad) liar; he can be ruthless; he’s got an awful track record of using child soldiers and crossing consent boundaries with women -- and you’re allowed to hate him for that or any number of other things. I like him in spite of himself, though, so that won’t change. (Just don’t hate on me because I write him, because again, this is fiction, and that’s just petty.)

Are you okay with people pointing out your grammatical errors? Yes, please tell me right away so that I can correct them before too many people see them and I embarrass myself!

Do you think you are easy going as a mun?   Well... more than I used to be. I think I’m friendly and easy to get along with, and very difficult to offend, and I’m almost never neurotic about roleplay anymore! Haha! I won’t pester you to reply (certainly not when it can take me anywhere between a day and several months). ...I can be a bit of a perfectionist sometimes, and I’m my own worst critic. I don’t go around correcting other peoples’ grammar anymore, though, because I realized... this is fiction, and that’s just petty.

That’s about it, congrats for filling out!

Tagged by:  @hirako5hinji [[ Thanks Anna!! ]] and @xyuuken​ [[ Thanks Eli! Glad you’re back. ]] Tagging: Who hasn’t done this yet?

[movieexpert1978]

Upgrade Pt. 3

Another chapter for the story. I’ve been typing away all weekend as I got off of work. Hope you guys enjoy it and please leave some feedback. I’d love to know what you guys think!!!

Pt 3: Elisa learns to be a hunter warrior with Ido. 

Alita battle angle and it’s characters are not my characters. 

The first night Ido and Elisa went out it, they didn’t catch any marks. After a few hours of travelling down dark alleys they went home.

“So are you a doctor or not?” Elisa asks confused as they walk.

“Yes I am a doctor, but when night falls and the insomnia hits I go out as a hunter warrior.” He explains.

“A hunter warrior?”

“Yes or a bounty hunter. We kill marks and collect bounties.” He says. He brings her up to a monitor that shows the data on the current marks.

“Oh…you kill for money.” She says.

“I take the money and use it to make sure the clinic stays open, otherwise it would have closed long ago.” He adds with a sigh.

“Are there others like you…hunter warriors?” She asks.

“Yes, plenty more. Most of them are not as…how should I put it…morally pleasing as I am.” He smirks.

“You mean some just do it for the money?”

“Exactly.”

“What’s in your case?” He kneels down and opens it, showing her all sorts of parts. She watches as he connects some pieces one by one and it forms a giant hammers. “This is my weapon of choice. It’s a rocket hammer.” He says proudly. She stares at him puzzled as he holds a trigger down and blue flame bursts out of one end. He swings it to the ground and makes a decent size hole. “It adds more power so I can take care of marks faster.” He explains. He releases the trigger and the flame disappears before he takes it apart and puts it back in the case.

“Why not use a gun?” She asks. He can’t help but burst out laughing.

“Oh my dear girl, guns are out-lawed in Iron city, punishable by death. They don’t want any weapons made that could challenge Zalem in any way. I would have thought you knew that.” He says.

“I never trained with guns.” She says.

“Well that explains it.” He mutters. They go back home and go their separate ways for the night. The next morning Elisa goes out and studies all the marks carefully before she goes around the city to try and find their trail. She has a few leads by the time she comes back before dinner. That night she leads him along and they come up on a team of marks. The three of them are armed and dangerous as they glare at Elisa and Ido.

“You better back away old man and take your little girlfriend here with one.” One of them says flashing a knife. Elisa doesn’t flinch and her eyes change color. The men looked spooked as no cyborg has ever done that before. Before Ido can make a swing Elisa snarls, baring her fangs. The mark with the knife charges at her. Ido watches with both curiosity and fright as he wonders what she will do. He tries to swing the knife at her, but she catches his wrist and breaks it easily making him shout in pain. She grabs the top of his head and her fingertips have turned into claws, which are glow blue, as she swipes his throat. His head cut clean off from his body. She drops the head as the second mark charges. He is more cyborg with mechanical arms as he tries to swing at Elisa. He’s stopped when she grabs his throat, crushing it instantly, before he punches him in the face and send him smashing into a wall. His body cracks and crumbles as he falls over lifeless. The last mark is almost right at Elisa when she catches him. She shoves one arm away as she manages a punch to his face. It doesn’t do the damage she expected as he bleeds blue cyborg. She frowns before she grabs him and shoves him into the stone wall head first, knocking his head clean off.

The fight is over in under three minutes.

“My god.” Ido whispers to himself. She glances over at him.

“Did I do good?” She asks him. He just stares at her for a moment trying to figure out why she said that when it was quite obvious she did.

“You did…amazing.” He says sincerely as he walks up to her.

“Really?” She gasps.

“Yes.” He chuckles.

“Thank you!” She says giving him a smile before she collects herself. Judging by her behavior, he’s sure she wasn’t praised often and probably sent back to her room or something when her training routine was over. They go to the factory to collect the money and go home.

“Here.” Ido says handing her a few credits. She stares at them as if he’s just put a bomb in her hand.

“Why are you giving these to me? Don’t you need them for the clinic?” She says holding them back up to him.

“Yes but you took them down. You earned it.” He says.

“What do I do with it?”

“Whatever you want. You could buy something for yourself or save them. It’s up to you.” He explains gently.

“Oh…ok…thank you Doctor.” She nods.

“You don’t have to keep calling me that.” He smiles. She only nods as she puts the credits on the table and goes to the couch to sleep.

Xxxxxxxx

Another pattern emerges as Elisa goes out in the day time to look for marks and when she finally catches a trail she and Ido go hunting. One night he reluctantly brings Alita along. Even then Elisa is too fast for even Alita to catch up with.

“Now that was cool!” Alita grins when the fight is over.

“Uuhh…thank you.” Elisa says to her as Alita gives her a thumbs up. Not to mention that she was glad Elisa did most of the fighting and Ido didn’t come home all battered and bloody any more. They soon had enough money for things to be comfortable for a little while, but Elisa still went out to walk Iron city anyway. She was just leaving the clinic when a woman with dark hair and elegant clothing walked up to her and she had the mark of Zalem.

“You’re from Zalem!” She gasps coming right up to the woman.

“Who are you!?” She snaps at Elisa in disgust.

“Subject Ten E a.k.a Elisa Prime, humble servant to Nova and Zalem.” Elisa repeats. The woman blinks in surprise as Elisa shows her tattooed 10 E. She stares at it for a moment before she looks up at Elisa studying her.

Ido glances out the window and sees Chiren talking to Elisa. That was not a good sign and he hurries out.

“Chiren.” He calls out as he hurries over to them.

“Let me guess you found her in the scrap yard too?” Chiren says unamused.

“Yes, but Elisa is human. She’s not a cyborg.” He says.

“I know.” Chiren says looking at Ido.

“Elisa this is my ex-wife Chiren.” He says, introducing them.

“Can you get me Zalem?” Elisa asks.

“If I could get back to Zalem I wouldn’t be here.” Chiren states unamused. He can tell her words sting Elisa a little bit, but then she looks back and forth between her and Ido.

“Ex-wife…wait you were on Zalem too?” Elisa asks.

“Have fun.” Chiren smirks before she walks away. Ido suspects she was going to talk to him again about returning to the motorball games, but now that she’s seen Elisa something obviously changed. Chiren knows a lot more about Nova’s activities thanks to Vector. Who knows what kind of things they were making in that lab scientist laboratory they had. Ido guides Elisa back inside.

“Yes I was on Zalem too. Chiren and I were exiled many years ago.” He says.

“Why?”

“I’d rather not talk about it.” He says.

“You displeased Nova.” She frowns.

“So did you.” He nearly snaps at her as he collects himself.

“Hey what’s going on?” Alita says sensing tension.

“Chiren was here.” Ido mutters.

“Oh…you don’t want to be around her. You can’t trust her…or did you not feel that in her energy.” Alita teases waving her hands and making Elisa frown.

“Actually…she felt a little cold now that mention it.” Elisa says.

“I’m not surprised.” Ido sighs. “Look, please just stay away from her. The people she works with…they’re not good people. They’re selfish and only do what’s best for them no matter who they hurt.” He says gravely. Elisa isn’t sure about what to make with his words, so she only nods.

“Hey I see you got some credits. Why don’t I take you to the market to get something?” Alita suggests, happily changing the subject.

“Ok.” She nods and follows Alita out. She’s not really sure what to get for a while as Alita makes suggestions.

“Oooh! Why don’t you get this bag?” She says holding it up. It was a simple black over the shoulder strap back, but it was nice and big and had a lot of pockets. Elisa looks it over. “You have to have something to put your credits in for starters.” She adds encouragingly. Elisa nods in understanding and purchases it.

“Thank you.” Elisa says to her.

“You’re welcome.” She says giving her a big smile.

Xxxxxxxxx

“We have a situation.” Chiren says to Vector.

“And what’s that?” He asks very much uninterested.

“I need to talk to Nova.” She says.

“What…oh come on!” He protests before his eyes turn blue. “And how can I be of assistance Doctor?” Nova says even though it’s Vector’s voice.

“Subject Ten E a.k.a Elisa Prime.”

“Ooh, I see.” He nods.

“Who is she?” Chiren asks. Nova sits at Vector’s computer and starts typing a few things. He puts in a flash drive and after a few minutes he takes it out and hands it to her.

“She was the most promising subject we had. She had spectacular results. She was responding so well to all the training and stresses we subjected her to, but when we started the next stage things went haywire.” Nova says leaning on the desk.

“What did you do? Give her steroids or something?” Chiren smirks, that’s so primitive even for Nova.

“No, we were on the verge of a breakthrough in genetic mutation. We had only altered her DNA in small ways, but this…this was going to change it all completely.” He says.

“I take it she didn’t react to it well.”

“It’s on that drive. All of her files on are that drive.” He explains.

“Do you want me to do anything with her?”

“No, not yet. I want to see what else she does.” He says.

“Anything else?”

“Don’t help her. She’ll come looking for you, but don’t help her. I want to see her out in the wild.” He says before he leaves Vector stumbling around and clutching his head.

“This better be good.” He mutters to Chiren.

Xxxxxxxxxxx

To try and distract her from trying to find Chiren, Ido helped Elisa register as a hunter warrior. When she came out she showed in her ID card and he gave her a proud smile.

“Is it ok I still go out with you?” She asked nervously.

“Of course!” He says wrapping an arm around her shoulder. “You’re always welcome to come with me.” He says as they walk down the steps. “You don’t have to be nervous when you ask me a question. I’m not going to get mad at you. I know you have a lot to learn here.” He says sincerely.

“Thank you.” She says gently.

“Come on, let me show you a place where all the hunter warriors go.” He says. They go to the Kansas bar where some of the other hunter warriors smirk at them, but otherwise leave them be. ‘Oh great…Zapan is here,’ Ido thinks to himself. He does his best to ignore the big shot and orders a drink for the two of them.

“What is this?” She asks looking at the glass.

“It’s whisky…try it.” He says taking a small sip. Elisa copies him and she grimaces at the taste as it burns her throat. Ido can’t help but chuckle. After a moment her throat feels warm and her body seems to tingle a little bit.

“What’s this feeling?”

“It’s called a buzz. People like it a lot and that’s why they drink alcohol, which is what whisky is. You have to be careful though because if you drink too much you’ll get drunk and feel lousy the next morning.” Ido smirks as he’s done that all too often after Chiren left.

“Who says that’s a bad thing doc?” Zapan says coming up behind Elisa. She turns and glares at him.

“Uhhh…Zapan you might want to give her some space.” Ido warns her.

“Got another one from the scrap yard did you?” He smirks with his accent. Elisa looks him over quickly. He’s a total replacement cyborg for starters, wearing black leather pants and boots and not much else. He has a sword on his belt as well. A normal woman might think him rugged and handsome as he spent a lot of money on his face to look so. A piece of metal was on the center of his chin and he had a Mohawk. His metal looked good too and she hadn’t even seen the skull pattern on his back yet, but she didn’t care anyway. “You on a date with the doc here?” He teases.

“No.” She says even though she doesn’t know what a date is, so she show’s her badge.

“Oooh how cute.” He laughs as she tucks it back into her pocket. “And uhhhh…how many people you killed deary?” He mocks getting closer. Ido just frowns, knowing Zapan is going to get it sooner or later.

“I killed three marks on my first hunt with Ido.” She says.

“Wait…oh no!” He laughs. “So you’re the one people are talking about. Is it true that you can grow fangs and smash people into walls?” He jokes waving his arms.

“I don’t know…maybe.” She growls. Her eyes change color and she snarls at him with her fangs bared making Zapan yelp and jump back, falling flat on his ass.

“What the hell?” He gasps.

“Now go away.” She says flashing her claws that are glowing blue. His jaw nearly unhinges as he gets up. Some of the other patrons look at her in shock.

“You sure know how to pick the freaks doc.” Zapan says before he gets up and walks out. Her eyes return to normal and she recognizes the fear in their eyes. She turns away quickly and downs her drink, ignoring the burn it gives her.

“I’m sorry…but can we go now please?” Elisa asks Ido quietly. He nods in understanding. He finishes his drink and tips the bartender before the go home.

“Are you alright?” Ido asks before he goes to his room.

“I’m fine.” She nods quietly. She keeps her back to him as she curls up on the couch. When she hears his bedroom door close she finally allows a few tears to roll down her face.

[unnecessary-database]

Supergirl receives multiple promposals every spring and you can’t tell me otherwise

J’onn hates these with a passion, ok. Too much attention. Too many cameras. Alex thinks they’re cute and funny but gets annoyed at the sheer volume after a month of the season. Winn compiles the best into a montage in his free time. James is oddly tight-lipped on the subject until after he comes out as Guardian and someone actually asks him too (it’s actually a gay boy who said he gave them the courage to be himself too, James is super touched, he takes the boy to dinner to chat but begs off prom with “a Guardian emergency”) and then James thinks it’s cute.

And Kara? Kara... well, she doesn’t know what to make of all of them. Not after a while. At first, they’re heart-breakingly precious.

Promposal No. 1 is a high school freshman boy. He’s Asian and his girlfriend is this popular cheerleader who he couldn’t believe went out with him in the first place. But they’re really cute together and it’s precious and she’s really into him. But her parents won’t let her go to prom due to the crime rate being up (by 2%, but they were honestly just looking for an excuse to not have her go to a high school prom filled with “hormonal boys”). The boy happened to be saved from a car crash by Supergirl three weeks before the prom and his eyes lit up and he asked her in a trembling voice if she’d escort them maybe to make her parents feel that she’d be safe so he could dance with this girl he’s so hopelessly in love with? It’s her first few months being Supergirl and she’s having a rough time believing in herself right then but with this boy believing she’ll keep them safe Kara just melts. She walks with him to pick up his girlfriend (her parents are floored) and the three of them walk to prom and Supergirl chills in the high school gym in between rescuing drunk drivers, etc, all night. Someone snaps a pic of her chatting with the pair of them and it goes viral. Naturally.

Promposal No. 2 is a year later, a short Latina girl who just came out at school and is having a rough time. Her parents kicked her out for being gay. Supergirl finds her on the roof of the school gym, leaning over the edge and crying. She talks the girl down. Talks to her for an hour about what’s going on. The girl slowly begins to smile again before she remembers prom is coming and if she goes alone she’ll be miserable and made fun of but she already bought tickets and maybe Supergirl would like to go with her? She immediately looks horrified she just asked a superhero to prom but Supergirl looks at her and assures her she’d love to go while Kara’s inner voice chants Maggie, Maggie, Maggie. A photo of them laughing with ice cream cones, the girl in a prom dress as they sit on the curb with Supergirl’s arm slung around her shoulders goes viral. Naturally. (Maggie calls her in tears the next day thanking her for doing that.)

Promposal No. 3 is a couple weeks later that year, and comes from the quarterback at Carter Grant’s prestigious school. He’s black and he’s the only black kid and he’s there on scholarship for his athletics and while he’s smart he’s constantly reminded that the only reason he’s there is cause he can throw. He’s had enough and when someone dares him, since you’re so popular, to ask Supergirl to prom, he does. Makes a YouTube video where he just tells his story and asks her humbly if she’d go with him and he’d buy her ice cream and he’d really love to hear about Krypton and what it’s like being a superhero and being the only one of her kind around here if she’d like to talk? Kara cries. He looks so handsome in his suit when she picks him up and They accidentally skip prom and the ice cream shop owner brings them free sundaes all night while she talks with him and they both cry.

Promposal No. 4 comes next year, from a semi-popular group of kids, very obviously all class clowns and very obviously nervous. They make a hilarious video filled with super puns and bad pick up lines that they don’t really expect her to take note of, but Kara laughed so hard milk came out her nose when Winn brought it up at game night and declared with a light in her eyes that she was going to that prom and Winn cheered and Alex sighed. She made an appearance without telling them she would and touched down in the middle of their group and their eyes went wide and then they asked her if she’d mind redoing that so they could film it. She obliged and they made a vlog that went insanely viral, episode one being Supergirl cracking a grin at a really bad super pun. She left a few minutes later still chuckling. But the word was out. Ask Supergirl to prom, and she just might show up.

More promposals flood in. First it’s genuine kids that Kara does her best to escort to and from prom, only dropping in for a couple minutes.

Then it’s more jokesters. Make Supergirl laugh, she’ll show up.

Then it becomes a badge of honor. Who can get Supergirl to prom? You’ll be the most popular kid in school if you can. She flies by all the extravagant shows that have no real feeling without a second glance.

Lena eventually teases her about it too—and Kara has to admit after her eighth year of doing this that each one seems less genuine than the last, and she’s getting about sixty a season now—and sooner or later Kara stops accepting. It’s an alien attack here and a visit with the president there—convenient and real excuses. But still. She could have made it work if she wanted to.

Less and less kids ask. Kara doesn’t show up to any more proms, but makes an effort to thank the more genuine proposals for their thoughtfulness. She forgets about it for several years, and soon Supergirl showing up to prom is nothing but the stuff of legend.

But one day it’s been a decade since she’s been to a prom. And she’s watching the news. And she sees a statistic that less and less kids are going. They cite reasons of cliques and expenses and triviality and unhappiness. And who happens to be there to share a personal anecdote of an amazing prom but her very first prom date. He’s married now, to that same girl. He tells how amazing it was that she went out of her way for him.

She remembers the smiles of the kids. She remembers talking all night with the quarterback she skipped prom with. The gay girl that was Maggie Jr. The boy who asked James, how James still stays in touch with him. And she gets off the couch.

Supergirl’s Prom Night Program is launched soon after.

For completely free, students can sign up to spend the evening with a mentor. Someone a few years older. A lot of DEO agents sign up. A lot of college students. A lot of teachers. They’re vetted by Supergirl herself (and Alex, who’s a much tougher crowd to please.) and they’ll pick up the kid for dinner and they’ll talk. They don’t have to go to prom. They don’t have to dress up. They’re all just there to have a good time.

A lot of lasting mentorships are formed, but plenty just have a good fun night and say goodbye. Social media explodes, naturally. And every year several stories are run on the resurgence of prom being a good time. Numbers aren’t necessarily up in sales. But Kara remembers how Lena told her she was alone on prom night. How Winn said the same thing. How Kara and Alex stayed home together and pretended not to think about it while they played board games because the music would be too loud for her.

And she gets a letter from a parent a week after the first prom of her program, thanking her. Her introverted, shy daughter with not a lot of friends and a mild case of sensory processing disorder had an amazing time with some woman named Alex from the program. They went to the dance for a few minutes but came home early and played board games all night while this Alex asked her questions like she really, really, cared, and this woman hadn’t heard her daughter laugh like that in forever. This Alex won’t say what she does, but her daughter has a new hero, and more importantly, a new friend. They’re going to get ice cream next week and the woman couldn’t be more grateful for the program.

There’s another letter from a parent, this one a single parent whose daughter builds robots in her free time. The daughter’s mother is in prison for attempted murder and she hasn’t been able to make friends at school since. But the most amazing man named Winn showed up at their door for prom and and complimented her latest robot’s engineering and gave a few tips and was the most gentlemanly and chivalrous person, showing their daughter the most amazing time. She said that Winn wowed her with his dorky dance moves and was on the floor with her all night making her smile and stood up for her when someone asked her something awful about her mom. Winn took her out for ice cream afterwards and told her the most hopeful and wonderful story about how his father was in prison for something similar and he found the most amazing family after a while, and she’s just gotta hang in there, okay? People still care.

Another letter comes in from two parents of a sheltered, shy, adopted kid. They could never get him out of his shell but he loved to build. Some wonderful woman named Lena took him in for the night and while they didn’t go to prom, she’s a scientist and took him to her lab and they played with science all night. He came back glowing because he made sixteen different explosions and she offered him an internship and the next week he had made three new friends with the other interns.

Kara has the letters framed. Supergirl may not show up to proms anymore, the invites swirling around in the old rabbit holes of the internet, but she still gets happy whenever she thinks of all the kids who won’t spend prom night alone and dejected.

[wombatportrait]

I am mad they blocked this story and only let subscribers see it. But I busted through that wall. (It is a metaphor!) I copied it for you.

Liebe Grüße,

Donna

-

Painstaking: Alison Douglas at work. Pictures: Justine Walpole

It is an often overlooked but proven scientific fact that wombats have feelings too. Evolution did not, however, provide the humble wombat with the anatomical means to verbally express its feelings, or a natural place in which to do so. No coastal Buddhist wombat retreat, for example, where these quadrupedal marsupials might form trust circles to emotionally release themselves from the burden of playing second fiddle to the self-satisfied koala, or ponder the viciousness of the sociopathic dingo, or truly convey the overwhelming anxiety that sometimes makes a wombat just want to dig a hole in the ground and crawl deep inside. Stop the world, I want to waddle off.

Late November, 2016: Queensland Museum taxidermist and senior preparator Alison Douglas slips on a pair of surgical gloves as she pads through a basement room past a stack of arcing whale rib bones the size of two-person tent frames. She passes a large steel macerating tank where a long-deceased marine turtle is being boiled and stripped of gunk and grit before it’s transferred to a taxidermist’s table. She passes a freezer room filled with tagged specimens: “Echidnas”, “Prep birds”, “Possum”. Each animal’s tag contains details of where and when it was found. “You can have the most beautiful ­specimen in the world but if it doesn’t have its location and date then it’s useless to science,” Douglas says. ­Science needs the animal’s story.

She comes to a back room with a word fixed to its entry: “Skinning”. A stuffed ringtail possum sits on a perch in the corner of the room. A corkboard on the wall features detailed colour portraits of animals, and Post-it note messages between colleagues: “Cat skull for Caroline.” The room is lined with drawers with various tags speaking of their contents: “Red eyes”, “Yellow eyes”, “Paired brown eyes”. Drawers full of taxidermy patching fur. Another marked “Skins, Bones and Bits”.

There’s a dead animal beneath a sheet on Douglas’s stainless steel workbench. She removes the sheet slowly. It’s a common wombat. Brown fur, lumpy body, curled in a ball like it’s sleeping. “Here he is,” she says. “Tonka.”

She stands back and looks at that face. The bare nose. The serene eyes. The odd tenderness that emanates from the little guy, somehow soulful even in death. “He’s got such a beautiful face,” she says. “He looks like someone, doesn’t he?”

He does. Someone old and wise; someone you might have cared about. Someone with feelings.

“He just looks so peaceful,” she says. She takes a deep breath, feels the weight of the task before her. “Tonka’s not so important scientifically,” she says. “But he’s very important to people.”

Tonka the wombat had any number of reasons to feel sad throughout his short life. After his mum was killed by a car eight years ago, Tonka was rescued from her pouch and hand-reared by humans at Billabong Sanctuary, a native animal wildlife park near Townsville, north Queensland. Lacking the necessary smarts for the wild, Tonka was destined for a lifetime in captivity. But if he longed for life beyond the park enclosure he rarely let it show, rejoicing in the constant companionship of a ­loving team of rangers with whom he cuddled, played, walked, ate, napped. Some nights staff members would take him home to meet their families, prop him up on the living room couch with mum, dad and the kids, and settle in for another episode of The Block. Before long, Tonka the wombat became the park’s star attraction, dazzling groups at the morning and afternoon wombat shows with his charm and insatiable zest for life. Where some marsupials recoiled from the hugs of tourists, Tonka seemed to grow in spirit and confidence with every warm embrace. Male wombats wanted to be him, female wombats wanted to be with him.

Then, in early February 2011, Category 5 Cyclone Yasi tore through Billabong Sanctuary, smashing enclosures, destroying displays, uprooting trees. Miraculously no animals perished, but the park was closed for 10 weeks as an army of rangers and volunteers worked on the clear-up.

Tonka the wombat went off his food. No ­matter what the rangers placed in front of him, even his beloved carrots and sweet potato, he wouldn’t eat it. He dropped 20 per cent of his body weight in a matter of weeks. Just as alarmingly, he had suddenly retreated into himself. The wildly charismatic Austin Powers of the marsupial world inexplicably lost his mojo. It was as if Cyclone Yasi had blown away into ­oblivion and taken Tonka’s spark with it.

Park management consulted the best veterinary minds money could buy. They did blood tests, looked for internal damage, tested for disease and infection, checked his body for broken bones or bruising. Physically, there was nothing. So how to explain the reduced interest in once pleasurable activities, the loss of energy and slowed behaviour, the increased desire to sleep and the loss of appetite? The vets had nothing to offer, except to say bare-nosed wombats have feelings too. Tonka the wombat, it seemed, was living with clinical depression.

“He’s a bit chunky,” Douglas says, studying her subject on the metal workbench. “He’ll take a bit to thaw. He needs to be thawed out before we remove the skin. There’s no getting around that with taxidermy. You do have to skin the animal. It’s quite confronting – there’s blood and there’s guts and it’s kind of like a butcher’s shop in a way, especially with an animal of Tonka’s size.”

Douglas has worked as a taxidermist at Queensland Museum for 16 years, moving into it from a background in visual arts and props and puppet-making for theatre. “My interest is not in taxidermy as such; it’s very much museum taxidermy, for the purpose of conservation. It’s about teaching people about the animals. It is sometimes the only way of seeing these animals that you would otherwise never get up close to.”

A rustic leather case of medical tools is open on her workbench: scalpels, rat’s tooth tweezers for removing flesh from hard-to-reach places, ­pliers and scissors and wire cutters and fine metal scoops designed specifically for scooping the brains out of birds’ skulls. She has a selection of drill bits for working on the bones of larger animals and fixing specimens to wooden perches.

She studies Tonka on the bench. She will draw some sketches before she skins, capture the curve of his muscles, the sag of his body fat. “You’re ­trying to recreate the body shape that comes out of the animal,” she says. “You’re taking the skin off like a glove. The whole body comes out in one piece.” She moves closer to Tonka’s face. “There is something important about seeing him at this point,” she says. “I’m trying to preserve that face as much as possible.”

It was this face that was plastered under ­headlines around the world. “Wombat Diagnosed with Depression” wrote the Daily Mail. “Depressed Orphan Wombat” declared The Huffington Post. “Wombat Diagnosed with Clinical Depression” reported the Daily Mirror.

It seemed so absurd, a clinically depressed wombat. While scientists considered whether it was even possible, animal lovers across the social media world sent deep, life-affirming messages to the inexplicably gloomy bare-nosed wombat in Townsville, Queensland.“Focus on the little things, Tonka.”“Just keep waddling, Tonka, one paw at a time.”“Stars can’t shine without darkness, Tonka.”

“One hundred per cent, he had depression,” says Samm Sherman, a 27-year-old PhD candidate at James Cook University’s College of Science and Engineering, and the former Billabong Sanctuary wildlife carer who was closer to Tonka than anyone. Sherman documented her close friendship with Tonka through a series of Instagram images tagged “#bestfriendisawombat”.

“That wasn’t a joke,” she says. “It truly wasn’t a joke. He was my best friend. You can ask the ­people I worked with. They saw it. I loved him immediately when I saw him. He was just so ­special. I would take him for walks. I’d give him cuddles, a little chin scratch. I mean, I know we didn’t hang out all the time and it’s not like we’d go to the movies or anything, I’m not delusional, but if I was ever ­frustrated or stressed or anything I could go to him and give him a cuddle and I’d feel better. And… ummm… yeah.”

She pauses for a moment. “I miss him,” she says. She pauses for another moment. “Thanks for making me cry at work.”

Tina Janssen has spent the past decade ­running Safe Haven, a wombat research and rehabilitation centre in Mt Larcom, near Rockhampton. She was one of many experts Billabong Sanctuary ­consulted during Tonka’s downturn. “Yes, I think they can feel sadness,” she says. “Wombats are a very funny animal. They sulk. They don’t like change. That’s one of the big things with wombats. If you feed them, for example, at a certain time every day and then, all of a sudden, you change that, they will quite likely not eat.

“They’re really intelligent. People say, ‘Stubborn as a mule’ and I always say, ‘Well, you’ve never met a wombat’. They just dig in. And they get attachments. I have a captive-born wombat that I’ve cared for for 12 years and just recently I went away and for three nights she didn’t eat. If they have a square water bowl then you better bloody give them water in the square water bowl.”

Cyclone Yasi brought great change to Billabong Sanctuary. With the park’s rangers focused on the clean-up effort, Tonka’s daily routine was torn asunder. With no visitors for 10 weeks, he was denied his morning and afternoon wombat shows, something akin to Olivier being asked to wait ­forever in the wings at the Old Vic.

“He loved those shows,” Sherman says. “I would see him before the shows some days. He would be waiting at his gate, like, ‘Come on, let’s go people’.” The born entertainer. Tonka came alive before a gig. “He loved the cuddles from people. He needed the cuddles. I think it stemmed from not having a mum. But when the park was closed for a couple of months while they fixed everything up, there was no time for him to be cuddled.”

By the time the park was ready for its grand reopening, Tonka was considered too physically and emotionally fragile to resume the shows, and another wombat took his place. “When he saw the people, he walked up to the fence like [he was ­asking] ‘Why aren’t you picking me up for the show?’” Sherman says. “So one of the rangers took him out to meet people again. And, then, after his first cuddles he went back into his enclosure and started eating again. It genuinely was because he wasn’t getting his cuddles from people that he wasn’t eating.” Billabong Sanctuary’s star attraction was back, and so was Tonka’s self-esteem.

Valentine’s Day. Alison Douglas walks into her museum basement work room, past two cast and painted pythons and a taxidermy deer that’s been donated to the museum by a member of the public. She enters the skinning room, where Tonka waits on her workbench. He looks playful. She’s captured him at a typically spirited moment, tugging on the shoelace of a Billabong Sanctuary ranger. “He came together all right in the end,” Douglas says. “I wanted to show that he wasn’t just any wombat, he meant something more to people. I was trying to get that sense of fun and connection he had to anyone who came along.”

She worked on him over summer. His skin was put in a tanning solution for three weeks and washed. She cast his ears and the shape of his back. She cast his skull and rebuilt it with expanding foam, and gave him glass black eyes. The insides of his body and legs were painstakingly crafted from natural plant fibres and bound tightly with string. “He was quite a challenge because during his treatment [after death] he had patches of fur removed, which limited the choices of ­positions he could be in,” she says. “The patching wasn’t as straightforward as it usually would be because there wasn’t much to work with, but I’m happy with him.” Her time with Tonka has ended. Time to take him upstairs where others can enjoy his company. Time to say goodbye.

Samm Sherman remembers when she said goodbye to Tonka. It was June last year, and Tonka had been diagnosed with kidney failure. “I’m gonna tear up again,” she says, taking a breath. “I wasn’t working there anymore by then but I still visited quite often... And the last couple of days, when it seemed like he was really having a hard time of it, we’d go and he wasn’t really eating much but he ate a pear. He didn’t stand up for a bit but he ate this pear lying down. He didn’t usually eat pears but it was because it was soft and full of fluid. And then they told us they were going to take him to the vet to euthanise him.”

She pauses again. “That was the right call because there was nothing they could do,” she says. “He had irreversible kidney damage and his quality of life was really poor. He seemed really unhappy. A bunch of us went in and gave him some cuddles. And we said our goodbyes.”

She showered Tonka with nose kisses. She scratched him on the spot on his back where he loved being scratched and he curled up in her arms. She didn’t know what he was thinking but she had an idea of what he was feeling because she felt it too. “And I told him I loved him,” she says.

Sherman went home and waited for the world to hear the news of Tonka the wombat’s passing. She watched the hundreds of condolence messages land in Billabong Sanctuary’s Facebook page, messages from across the world.

Jill Halliday: “I didn’t even know what a wombat was before I cuddled the lovely Tonka. I know how sad we feel from meeting him once so it must be awful for everyone at Billabong Sanctuary.”

Linda Chillon: “I hope that you’ll find peace and happiness wherever you are.”

Crystal Allen: “Oh no, poor Tonka. My two youngest boys come to visit each school holidays and knew his story off by heart.”

Kerrianne Chappell: “Noooo! I don’t believe it. I don’t want to believe it!”

In the museum basement taxidermy room, ­Alison Douglas throws a half-smile at this perfect and still version of Tonka. Soon the great performer will be back where he belongs, in front of crowds of fawning strangers. Douglas is relieved. She wanted to do him justice. She hopes people see the same thing she sees when she looks at him now, something she was trying to capture, something beyond science, something more closely related to feelings.

“He was loved,” she says. “And they loved him because they knew him.”

Tonka and Alison ­Douglas will be part of the Let’s Talk Taxidermy event on March 24-25 at the World Science Festival in Brisbane. worldsciencefestival.com.au

[lastexodusrp-blog]

OCTAVIAN VESTRI · 24 · COURTESAN AT SEVEN HAVENS · THE SIREN · TAKEN

"Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent beneath it.” - LADY MACBETH

ORIGIN:

Rome, Italy

TRAITS:

+ Charismatic, Practical, Protective

- Conniving, Ruthless, Cynical

BIOGRAPHY:

THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS;

Octavian was not always spiteful, but the way of the world found what small piece of resentment that he harboured and grew it until it consumed him. That small piece may have been born at the death of his mother and father when he was but 5 years old. Wide eyed he stood, with his tiny hand in that of his older sister’s, as they scattered their mother and father’s ashes across the Tiber and he listened to her curse the radiation that had slowly poisoned them until their bodies could no longer harbour it any longer. Octavian hadn’t quite understood what had happened to them, but it had been explained to him that they wouldn’t be coming back. The only parents he ever remembered, outside of the few photos they had of the real ones, were his sister Helene and her husband, who had no choice but to raise him as their own.

He loved them both completely, and grew up in awe of them. Helene was an esteemed researchers in the medical field, and her husband an astrophysicist. By the time Marco was 7, they were imported to Colorado by Valeris Corporation to work on the Civ-Belt. Without even a word of English bar ‘hello my name is Octavian,’ he was thrust into life amongst complete strangers. His caregivers were busy most of the time, and for weeks on end he would only see them as they returned home to sleep without uttering a word to him. He began to realise that he had become a burden, and then to realise that to Helene he had always been one.

That suited him just fine, if they did not want him, he did not want them. Fiercely independent, almost to a fault, Octavian took it upon himself to find new people who regarded him as something more than an inconvenience of fate. His English gradually became better, and though he was not scientifically minded like his guardians, he was certainly growing into an intelligent young man. Exploring Colorado Springs proper, he met a whole number of interesting people - soldiers, scientists, civilians, rebels - and became fixated on learning their stories. One boy in particular, he could have listened to for hours. His name was Jasper, and his father was one of the Civ-Belt-1’s chief benefactors.

Whether it was Jasper’s patience for his developing English, or the fact that he felt like an escape from being a burden, Octavian quickly found himself falling head over heels in love with this boy who felt sometimes as if he was from different world. Months went by where Octavian spent all his time holed up in his lover’s apartment pretending like the world and his family beyond the four walls did not exist. He was so enamoured with being someone’s priority that he often did not stop and think about what kind of person he had fallen for. Jasper had hard and fast beliefs about what sort of people, namely the elite, should be allowed on the Civ-Belt and about the rebels being akin to the worst kind of criminals. He promised a naive Octavian so many things - love, influence and most importantly a life beyond the trappings of the earth when the time came for departure. Scared of another rejection from those he loved, Octavian never questioned him or argued against, preferring the safety and security of apathy and agreement.

NOT WITH A BANG, BUT A WHIMPER.

As it had seemed too good to be true at the time, it would eventually turn out as such. The closer that time crawled towards the departure of the select few bound for the Civ-Belt-1, things began to fall apart for Octavian. His sister decided she had had enough of his constant evasion and spite directed towards her and cut him off from the space on the ship that their participation on the project has allowed him as family, as Octavian had suspected she had wanted to do ever since they had arrived in Colorado.

He was not overly devastated by this development, knowing that he would ascend the stars by Jasper’s side regardless. Though he now knows that he should not have been so naive to think that he would be dealt anything but a bad hand. All the talk, the years of Jasper telling him he could not even dream of leaving earth without him, proved false when time ran out. Octavian woke one morning to find the bed empty next to him, and Jasper’s apartment eerily empty. The one person who he had loved unconditionally had seemingly not spared him a thought when it came to his own survival. It took a few days for Octavian to admit to himself that he had been left - presumably Jasper’s parents’ rhetoric of elitism had finally gotten to him - and proceeded to destroy everything Jasper had owned in a hazy blur of anger, resentment and desperation. Once again, Octavian was alone. This time, he would make sure it was for good.

The concept of having to survive the rest of his life on earth was one he had never thought about. He managed to survive for a little while on his own, but he knew it was nothing he could maintain. He was on his own, unprepared for this life, and unable to move past the blows he had been dealt. Stealing became his only means of survival, and using the pickpocketing skills he had acquired as a child amongst the crowded streets of Rome and then again in the halls of NASA, he managed to keep himself alive. That was, until he stole from the wrong person - a man twice his size with a rusty blade that had caught him in the side as he attempted to make off with his wares. The offending merchant left him to die of the wound rather than exerting the effort it would take to pursue him as he ran. The wound quickly became septic; Octavian could barely move before too long, though through the knowledge of medicine he had picked up from his sister over the years, he knew what he needed to stop the spread of the infection. The only place he knew where to get such rarities was the one place he had resolved to stay away from at all costs.

The glint in Madame Sellgraves’ eyes when he had walked through her door would haunt Octavian for the rest of his life. He had been willing to do anything, to give anything, to not waste away at the hands of his own naivety, and the Madame had been more than willing to take. Calloused hands that reminded him of the claws of a vulture had taken hold of his chin, making his skin crawl as she as she tipped his face so she could regard him at every angle. The claws had even bunched his golden curls in order to tip his chin upwards. He hadn’t needed words from her lips to understand what the price for saving his life would be, and he had accepted the deal within seconds. The decision was easy when there were no other options.

Octavian was eventually cured of the infection thanks to the medicine he had sold his body to obtain, and with it, his naivety was cured to. The day he entered Sellgraves’ tent, he left whatever little softness was left in him at the door. To survive in the life he had signed himself into he knew he had to be ruthless, cunning and a nightmare so beautiful that his victims would never see what they had coming. He has been at the brothel for a long time now, and has his doubts that he would have survived anywhere else this long. Though the life he leads may seem nightmarish, he had resigned to maintain apathy about his situation. It is a small and humble place he has carved himself in the world, but a place nonetheless.

FACECLAIM:

Niels Schneider

[placeofdiscipleship]

A Talk on Relativism to Youth

,Sources that inspired and informed this post: “Moral Relativism” by Steven Lukes, raising hamsters, and the Bible.

Today, we are going to talk about relativism. Unlike the other religions we’ve talked about, relativism doesn’t sound like the typical religion because there aren’t specific actions that come to mind in following it, like praying 5 times a day, or going to mass.

So in order to teach you about relativism and how it looks like as a religion or as a “truth” you live by, I’m going to start by telling you a story.

So once upon a time, there was a society of ­hamsters. They lived in a large rectangular prism together. The ground consisted of shavings wood, and their homes were made of the same clear substance the walls of their world were made of.

Most of the hamsters worshipped the “Giant Paw”, because every day they witnessed it appear in the sky, and food would rain from it.

A few of the Hamsters who were scientists and philosophers have wondered about the universe beyond their rectangular prism, and science so far told them that their universe was just a small part of the very large and very wide universe.

Unknown to the Hamsters, there was another society in the universe called the Frogs that lived in a large tank together. Their world consisted of water and rocks and green plants, flies, and the occasional fish. Their world was also walled off by a clear substance, but a colder and clearer one. They did not live in houses, but in the water.

Most of the Frogs worshiped the Giant Pitcher. Like the Hamsters, there were Frogs that also wondered about the universe beyond their rectangular prism, and perhaps because their walls were clearer and their eyes better, they believed that there could possibly be greater creatures than they outside their world, other “gods”, since they could see moving shapes at times and hear strange sounds coming from them when they looked through the walls of their world.

One day, a day that Hamsters and Frogs have put down in history, the Hamsters experience a huge earthquake. After the shaking stopped and they checked that everyone was okay, they found that there is a hole in the wall of their world. After some quick discussions, a brave Hamster goes into the tunnel, and meets the Frogs for the very first time.

**Now, raise your hands, how many of you guys think that when the Hamsters and Frogs met for the first time, they were like “THIS IS AWESOME LET’S BE FRIENDS!”. (Most likely very few hands are raised.) **

In actuality, when the frogs and the hamsters met for the first time, there were a lot of problems. They looked different, talked different, did different things, smelled different, and more. So the two societies went through different phases to deal with one another.

1.    There were times when the two societies would war against each other, to gain power or land, or for religious reasons.

2.    There were times when the hamsters or the frogs blocked the hole, and pretended like the others didn’t exist.

3.    There were times when the frogs enslaved some of the hamsters who were refugees in their lands, until the hamsters rose up and defended their rights, and vice versa.

Eventually they went through a phase where the hamsters and frogs decided that it was not wrong to be a hamster or a frog, or to follow cultural customs or moral beliefs but it was right depending on the context, the society, or the individual. And that, is what we call relativism.

Specifically, if you believe in relativism you believe that...

1. Truth is relative to the society, methodology, frame of reference, culture or the individual

For someone living in frog society who has decided to be a frog, it was right for them to eat bugs, and to worship the Giant Pitcher. For someone living as a hamster though, it was right for them to eat seeds and corn, and worship the Giant Hairless Paw.

2. It is not possible to know absolute, objective, universal truth

Or in other words, truth that applies to everyone and everything.

3. Each individual or society should find its own truth and live by that truth

For example, if you believe that “getting good grades and becoming a doctor or a lawyer is the best way to live”, and it is right for you, then live by it.

4. Truth is attainable and valuable and therefore should be recognized and sought, even if it isn’t the “absolute” truth

Overall, a relativist will give up on the pursuit of a single truth which is absolute, same, and knowable for everyone.

Going back to the Hamster and Frog world, there were some positive impacts of applying relativism, and also in our own society.

For example, hamsters used to go to the frog society and judge them based on hamster society thinks is right. They thought frogs were gross because they were slimy and didn’t have skin, and uncultured because they didn’t live in houses or have privacy. But once they applied the concept of anthropological relativism, they stopped judging frogs from the standards of hamster ways of living (which is ethnocentrism), and started just seeking to understand frog ways of living, from a frog’s standpoint. In fact it is similar to what you encounter on a mission trip, where you encounter a culture different from yours.

**How many of you learned perhaps one more way of doing something or thinking or living from going on a mission trip, or from traveling with your family to a different culture? Those are great experiences, and I hope you learn to recognize and appreciate the differences in culture, and break out of the natural human tendency to measure all things as better or worse, rather than just “different”. **

So relativism worked out quite well when trying to resolve cultural misunderstandings, but for situations that required making ethical and moral decisions, such as during times of famine, when someone committed a crime, or when they had to decide whether it was right to block the tunnel between the two societies or not, coming to a consensus became stressful and tiring.

If there was a famine amongst the hamsters, it was quite easy for them to say that they were justified in raiding the frogs to get the food they needed. But usually the frogs disagreed when that happened. In fact, it was quite easy for truth to be based whatever society at the moment, thought was new, intelligent, or worthy of approval.

It was also difficult to even have a disagreement that made sense, because before they disagreed they had to talk about whether their reasoning for what they believed to be truth was relative to their culture, people, your disposition or personality, or to others in the world. Often times, they would argue and argue and then start wondering, do I have a right to disagree with your truth and try to reinforce my truth over yours? How do I know if a truth is wrong for me, or someone else? Does a truth relative to my society trump your truth that is specific to an individual? Does a truth relative to your society apply to a truth related to our combined societies? It was just all very confusing. 

**In fact, my brain hurts even thinking about this, does anyone feel the same way?**

As for the philosopher hamsters and frogs who were constantly wondering “what are those moving shapes beyond the walls of our cage?”, “is this really all that there is to life” or “what is the meaning of life?”, relativism didn’t answer those questions. Relativism helped answer how things are, how to understand and accept different cultures, but relativism didn’t answer the question of “Is there a way things should be? What are the right moral and ethical standards? Why do I long for things to be better than they are now, if there is no true ‘better’?”.

The more honest and humble hamsters and frogs also knew that believing in relativism above all else, worshiping it as the HIGHEST TRUTH, and applying it to not only understanding cultures, but to moral truths, meant that they were ultimately believing in themselves, since everything about relativism is dependent on what is known from everyone’s collective minds and what they can observe from inside their world. But they found that very troubling because they knew how often they had gotten things wrong, and how little they knew about the universe outside of their cage. By worshiping relativism, and therefore the human race as the highest truth, everyone became very confused and depressed, since there was still so little that the hamsters and frogs knew about the universe, and they couldn’t even agree on what they did know.

One day, while the philosophers are gathered together yet again to ask all these questions and try to come up with answers, a new hamster joins them named Bob, and Bob says this,

“I was born in this cage and tank that you were born in, but I am from outside this cage and tank. My father is the Giant whose hand you worship as the “Great Furless Hand” and the one who holds the “Great Water Pitcher” and put the plants in your tank. He is the God who is greater than all that you worship, and our world is small compared to the one he lives in, that has many larger and greater walls and creatures like dogs, cats, angels and demons.

You have looked for truth by looking amongst yourselves and by observing the world, but I am the truth and I know the capital T truth that rules all truths, for I am from outside this world, my father created all and I have observed it all, and I have also lived among you and seen inside this world and your hearts.

You have been seeking truths or definitions of right or wrong to live by, but it can all be summed up into this greatest rule, which is to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself”, for God himself loves God with all his heart, mind, soul and strength, and loves his neighbors, all of you hamsters, and all of you frogs, with that same love. Turn away from following other truths, gods, or philosophies, and believe me, get to know me, and the truth will set you free.”

And he began to heal hamsters with bald fur, and mental disabilities, and frogs with dry skin and weak legs.

**Alright, show of hands, how many of you think this Bob person sounds like someone you know? Yell out the name of the person.**

A few of the philosopher frogs and hamsters talked and said “he is crazy and a fool. no one has ever claimed to have been outside the walls of our world before. How can he claim to be the same as our great and mighty giant hairless Paw and Giant Pitcher? And isn’t he the son of your sister’s cousin? He is a madman!”

A few others were like “How can he claim to know everything and be God? that’s offensive, and I don’t think he has a right to impose his truth on me, it’s pretty rude and unloving. And saying that my ways are going to lead to death and that I have to change? I’m so offended, I don’t want to listen to him anymore."

**How many of you all can relate to this, where something offended you so much you didn’t feel like listening anymore? Or maybe someone who really bothered you said something. Yep I can relate too, and sometimes I have to remember… well just because it offends me, doesn’t mean it’s not true, and even if it’s said maliciously, perhaps it is still helpful to me. **

But a few of the philosopher frogs and hamsters talked and said “To be honest, I don’t know if what he says is true. It does sound a bit crazy, and I do feel a bit offended that he’s saying that I must repent of my ways, I don’t think I’m that bad. But at the same time, is it crazier to trust in ourselves who have never ventured outside of our world, or it is crazier to trust in a hamster or frog that claims to be from outside of our world and know the one who created it? If he does not have our best interest in mind, it will be extremely dangerous to follow Him, but if he is good and has our best interest in mind, it may be worth following Him to learn more of what He knows, or it will at least not hurt us. He does not seem like a crazy person, he has already healed many of us of sickness, and he has yet to do something to hurt us, and he isn’t even forcing us to believe what he is saying. In fact, he seems to be completely harmless, even powerless in a way. Even our baby hamsters and tadpoles love him. Let us keep listening to what he has to say.”

And so eventually, among the hamsters and frogs there was a third society that formed, that followed this Bob person, and called themselves Bobsters. They didn’t claim to know everything, but instead, they claimed to follow, know, and love the one who did know everything, and created everything, and they were still figuring things out and asking questions and doubting even as they followed him. They listened and studied Bob’s teaching, questioning whether it was true or not, and testing out whether what Bob said was true by applying it to their lives. They saw the way Bob loved them, and then laid his life down for others, and emulated his love. They tried to live by the highest law to love God above all, and love their neighbors as themselves, and so when hamsters and frogs lived next to each other, they learned about and appreciated their different cultures. If a hamster sat on another hamster who was smaller, they rebuked him and protected the smaller hamsters. If there was a drought, the frogs shared their water with the hamsters.

They still had disputes over whether it is appropriate to have ponds in the middle of the hamster villages, or for frogs to live without houses, but because everyone had the shared understanding that the goal was to get better at loving God and loving their neighbor, even at the end of the dispute if there was still disagreement there was still relationship. There was in fact, still an aspect of relativism, since each person could respect that the other was just trying just as hard to love God and each other, and maybe there was room to have different convictions on certain less foundational things, like what to eat or not eat or how to lead a bible study.

In fact, the bible says in Romans 14, "As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgement on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him.” So even in the bible, there are times when it makes sense to apply some principles of “relativism”, because it helps us to love God and our neighbor better!

So slowly in the land of the hamsters and frogs, the kingdom of God, a kingdom of firstly followers of Bob, and secondly hamsters and frogs, that loved and obeyed God, began to spread, and relativism became just merely one tool of many to help in pursuing the greatest truth of all, loving God, and loving our neighbors.

Now, some of you guys already made this connection, but we as humans are like the hamsters and frogs, and this world and universe, what we know so far about it, is like our cage and world. We also have to make a choice like the hamsters and frogs did, and for some of them, it wasn’t a decision they made quickly. In fact, many of them had doubts about Bob, but they still followed him around to learn more so they could really work things out in their minds and hearts about whether this Bob Jesus dude is for real or not. So my question for you is, will you put your faith in what is only observable, the truth that you alone create from inside the cage, or will you be willing to listen and give a chance to the one who claims to have been outside this cage, and claims to know the capital “T” truth that will set you free? He can handle your doubts, your questions, your anger, your sorrow, your fear, will you take His hand?

- SNG

[viralhottopics]

Plutos Defenders Prepare to Fight for Its Planethood (Again)

What is a planet? Prior to August 24, 2006, the answer was simple, vague, but generally agreed-upon: large, round-ish, orbiting a star, perhaps. Most people could name nine examples without much controversy. But theninth planet became suddenly controversial on that Thursday in August—the last day of the International Astronomical Union’s 26th triennial General Assembly.

Many of the meeting’s 2,700 attendees had already left Prague by then. The few hundred who remained sat in a large auditorium facing a screen bearing the IAU’s proposed definition of a planet, which had a curious addition—that a planet, on top of being round and orbiting the sun, should also clear the neighborhood around its orbit. Pluto, which orbits in the cluttered Kuiper Belt, was on trial. The crowd voted, raising canary-colored sheets of paper for or against the definition—and with a margin of fewer than 10 votes, the Ayes won.

Planet: a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit.

You know what happened next. Pluto became a joke, a martyr, an object of sympathy; its demotion to dwarf planet was meme-ified and turned into t-shirt slogans. That was popular culture. In scientific culture, its reclassification opened a rift in the continuum of specialists who study planets. On one end were the orbital mechanicians, who generally support the IAU’s definition because fits their top-down view of how moving objects harmonize with the surrounding cosmic orchestra. At the other, geophysicists have spent the past decade harumphing against the illogic of a definition that ignores their bottom-up, size-agnostic viewof accumulated space dust. Well, the geophysicists are done protesting. They’ve gone ahead and written their own definition of “planet.”

The authors—members of the New Horizons mission that swung by Pluto in 2015—wrote a definition that is objectively simpler: A planet is a thing that’s big enough to become round by the force of its own gravity. And it makes the solar system more complicated: Forget nine planets, the solar system now has 110. It also fixes some other hanging chads in the IAU’s definition (like the fact that only things orbiting this sun could be called planets).

The grouprevealed their definition a few weeks ago. But it will be formally displayed in the poster hall at the 48th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, taking place March 20 to 24 in Houston. Not that the partisans on either side of Pluto’s identity politics are waiting until then to make some noise.

What’s in a Name

There are essentially two ways of studying a non-star object in space. “There are the dynamicists, who are interested in motions, orbits, and classes of objects based on mass,” says Owen Gingerich, astronomer emeritus at Harvard University. “And then there are geophysicists who are very keen to look at planets as actual, physical bodies.”

Gingerich was chairman of the planet committee at the 2006 Prague meeting, where a small but feisty group of dynamicists worked in the wording that a planet should be massive enough to clean all the debris out from its orbit. Hedidn’t expect the debate to be so vociferous, and had in fact bought tickets to fly home from Prague two days before the final vote occurred. He says he’s not enthusiastic about how the whole ordeal turned out. “Since then I have taken a view that the IAU didn’t really have any right to define the word planet,” he says.

Pluto’s identity crisis began as an accounting issue. In 2005, CalTech astronomer Mike Brown discovered an object far out in the Kuiper belt that he later named Eris. But before that, it had to be catalogued by a bureaucratic subdivision of the IAU. Based on its mass, an astronomer named Brian Marsden assigned it a minor planet number (the IAU had invented the minor planet catalogue in the 1850s to keep track of all the asteroids between Mars and Jupiter). But there was one hitch: This new object was slightly more massive than Pluto. To keep things orderly, Marsden gave Pluto a minor planet number as well. Once word got out, the IAU was flooded with letters from ornery astronomers. The IAU resolved to fix the issue in Prague.

Mike Brown led much of the campaign against Pluto’s planethood. His Twitter handle is @plutokiller, he wrote a book titled How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming1, and he accuses anyone who believes Pluto deserves to be a planet of nostalgia. When Pluto was discovered in 1930, aNew York Times story said the world was “possibly the size of Jupiter.” “If Pluto were discovered today, no one would even vaguely think to call it a planet,” says Brown. Compared to Jupiter, Saturn, even humble Mercury—planets with real gravitational pull—Pluto is a mote of cosmic dust.

Astronomical Conflict

Not everyone is so obsessed with size. “I don’t care about orbit, or the gravitational effect that a planet might have other objects,” says Kirby Runyon, a post-doctoral geophysicst at Johns Hopkins University. “I only care about what it intrinsically is.”Runyon wrote the abstract proclaiming the definition of planet from a geophysical perspective.

Planet: a sub-stellar mass body that has never undergone nuclear fusion and that has sufficient self-gravitation to assume a spheroidal shape adequately described by a triaxial ellipsoid regardless of its orbital parameters.

What’s more, he says Mike Brown and the IAU can keep calling Pluto a dwarf planet. “I’m OK with there being two definitions of planet, one that deals in orbits and a separate one that lets planetary geologists do our jobs.” According to Runyon, his definition is purely functional, because researchers like himself find more similarities than differences among the solar system’s 110 objects—Mars, Earth, Titan, Pluto, Charon, the moon (yes, Earth’s moon)—that fall into his definition.

And his definition has some powerful co-authors. Chiefly, Alan Stern, who became a minor celebrity as the principal investigator of the New Horizons mission that flew by Pluto in 2015. Stern is probably the world’s biggest Pluto fan. Not surprisingly, he’s prone to pick fights with the IAU, Mike Brown, and anyone else—including journalists—who he perceives as disparaging Pluto: “You’re acting as if the IAU definition actually makes a difference in my field. There are a few people like Mike Brown, who uses dwarf planet because he has a book to sell, but they are the minority. I have a joke that IAU stands for Irrelevant Astronomical Union. It’s amazing that the science press doesn’t begin the way the political press does and call bullshit when they hear it.”

He makes some valid points. For one, the IAU is not a police force, and scientists decide for themselves what to call things. The disappointing part for him is that the IAU had such a cultural impact, and turned Pluto into the butt of so many jokes. (The definition also had a minor effect on New Horizons—launched just eight months before the 2006 IAU vote—which was programmed to photograph Pluto according to coordinates derived from the world’s north pole. North poles for dwarf planets are calculated differently than those for planets, requiring the team to update the probe’s protocols.)

But his broader point—which is important—is that the astronomical community contains researchers who study the same objects in space atcompletely different scales, and it makes no sense for one subgroup to decide what another calls the things they study. “It would be like if the lunar and planetary scientists meeting in Houston next month were to decide on what is or isn’t a black hole,” he says.

Brown says that’s all poppycock. “There’s been nothing new in the past 10 years to justify this. If you look at the solar system without nostalgia forcing you to desperately want Pluto to be a planet, it would be impossible not to recognize the difference between the the eight big things and everything else,” he says. And by the way, he adds, Stern and Runyon’s definition also means the moon is a planet, so is Charon, and Jupiter has four planets orbiting it. “I’m not saying these things aren’t interesting, but just because it’s interesting doesn’t mean there’s any reason to put Pluto in the same category as the other eight planets,” he says.

Neither Stern nor Brown were in Prague for the 2006 vote. Stern was helping his daughter move into her college dorm, and Brown was squirreled away on Washington’s Orcas Island with his family. Neither saw a need to attend the proceedings personally. But since, both keep finding themselves the target of the same question: What is a planet? It all depends on your perspective.

1UPDATE 03/2/2017 1:10pm EST — This passage originally misstated the subtitle of Brown’s book as “…And Why It Deserved To Die.”

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