#hothouse earth

[skylobster]

Fascinating stuff. More evidence of plate tectonics and CO2 concentration acting as a global temperature regulator. Plate movements cause both volcanoes and mountain ranges. More volcanoes, more CO2. More mountain ranges, more weathering, more CO2 removed from the atmosphere. Right now, global volcanic activity seems to be trending downwards, possibly as a result of plate collisions and consequentially slower plate movements. So the long-term trend may be towards less geologically generated CO2, and a cooling planet. Unfortunately for us, these changes occur on the time scale of tens or even hundreds of millions of years. Our CO2 boost is happening on the scale of decades.

[suchananewsblog]

An artiste shares her experience of a theatre production, Tara, Compass Crow, which hopes to create environmental awareness in young audiences

As a little one rising up in the Potala Palace (Lhasa, Tibet), the Dalai Lama would usually run up to the roof and practice his telescope upon herds of yak being taken to market. On seeing them, he would race to a shrine room, sequester some of the choices, instruct a palace employee to purchase all the herd and liberate them. It is that this highly effective spirit of direct motion that…

[atriptopluto]

[revolant]

Orchids as a symbol of evil. Slay

[katakaluptastrophy]

My poor brother—Magnus’s parents—my fern collection—”

“Lady Pent,” said Harrowhark forcefully, “forget the ferns.

Tamsyn doesn't really do innocuous or incidental details. So like so many things in TLT, I don't think Abigail's fern collection is just a passing sad detail about a dead woman's hobbies.

I wonder whether it's a nod to 19th century pteridomania? After all, the Fifth do seem to be strongly modeled on a certain image of historic British aristocracy.

Basically, posh people in the 19th century were really, really into ferns. And for those with the money and resources, this might mean collecting rare and expensive specimens in elaborate greenhouses on a huge scale, or even sponsoring scientific expeditions to discover new ferns in exotic locations.

It was a sign of intelligence and sophistication and a symbol of Victorian technological might and the reach of empire (the term "pteridomania", as an acceptable hobby for women, was coined by the same guy who came up with the idea of "muscular Christianity" as a patriotic engagement with manly physical faith, in case you're wondering about that milieu...)

So when Abigail Pent, Lady of Koniortos Court, has a fern collection, it's probably not a few pots in her study. It could be a hothouse fernery on quite a grand scale.

How many species of fern survived the apocalypse and the Resurrection and were brought out to space? Maybe her collection is entirely earth ferns. Maybe this is a historic Fifth hobby, perhaps dating back to one of the Quinque brothers (maybe Alfred was really into the 80s fern bar aesthetic?).

But it's also possible that like the Victorians, Abigail is leveraging her wealth and imperial connections (we don't know exactly what the Fifth do, but they apparently make stele and may well be invovled in the administration of those craftily worded contracts).

We know there are ferns on planets outside of the Dominicus system: when Harrow kills the jungle planet, she is surrounded by "ferns and fronds".

Abigail's collection may well include plants from planets that are now dead at the hands of the Houses.

While the Angel languishes on New Rho, are there Lemurian ferns growing in the Koniortos Court?

[extrajigs]

NEW WORLDBUILDING PROJECT BABYYY!!!

Concept: World covered entirely in microbial mat and whose macrofauna are pentapods. One of which is a sophont. 

1. The world itself is a little smaller than Earth, but is also the third planet from it’s star and has two moons. It has a pretty even climate with no icecaps due to it’s very thick hothouse atmosphere, even despite it’s p crazy axial tilt. It’s atmosphere is similar to Earths but contains a lot more water vapor and methane and less nitrogen. The surface of the planet is covered almost entirely in microbial mat, to the point where actual ground is buried miles deep and the world would be entirely covered in ocean if not for the mats. The only ‘land’ comes from mounds of organic material built up from the sea floor that have grown large enough to finally breach the surface.  Names Planet: Backera  Bigger Moon: Milcer Smaller Moon: Daunverr Sun: Sentil 

As for the macrobiology I’m still working it out but right now there are two basic groupings of terrestrial pentapods. Subject to very likely change. 

First are the Eyebacks. Who are most known for uh, having eyes on their back. They also have their gills open on their neck and need to submerge time and again in water to breathe correctly.

2. That group includes this lil beastie, the Foxtrot, who lives up to their namesake being a crafty lil ankle biter. They are a fast lil critter who prowls the coast for small fast moving prey. They are also quite capable swimmers and swap between land and sea whenever they need to grab a snack or avoid becoming one. 

3. Another Eyeback is the aquatic Mynar, who uses their big ass nose horn to scrape away at the mats and stir up fresh food. Generally they stay in water only a few feet deep, moving on to find the freshest growth. Their life style leaves them with a coating of their own though, stained by the food they stir up. 

Second group are the now tripodial Elytra’s, who have badass lil beetle backs, and have lifted their front two limbs up to use for object manipulation. They are terrestrial but still rely on water for their tadpole larval stage. 

4. This is called a Thwap, because they are very aggressive and use those first set of limbs for smacking anything that makes them even slightly uncomfortable. These are predators that focus on terrorizing smaller prey, loosely associating in groups of 3-10 individuals.  

5. The SOPHONT!! I have no idea what to name these guys, so ideas are welcome! I just knew I wanted to give ‘em big ole eyes. They are a omnivorous people descended from hypercarnivorous ancestors. Their culture is centered around large families, usually a ‘wife’ and their many ‘husbands’, but the main thing to set them apart from the rest is the amount of care put into raising their offspring. They will have large pools dedicated to their lil babies until they’re ready to be walking around. Not super advanced technologically since y’know, iron and other metals is somewhat inaccessible. But maybe that’ll change, still thinking of how I want to set up the planet. 

More to come, I want to develop the biology of the mats a lot more. I got hella good ideas for some biomes I want. 

[drarryspecificrecsdaily]

2024.08.28

Complete fics posted on AO3 this day

1. The Meadow that Holds Us by @accio-sriracha [G, 1k]

►Going back to Hogwarts was impossible, the memories, the reminders of all they'd lost, he was sure to break eventually. And, of course, it would be those haunted gray eyes that would finally do it to him.

2. notes (and other things) by MischiefMishandling [M, 3k]

►Harry walks into his dorm only to see Draco Malfoy– just only looking through his class notes.

3. Secret Love by Copacentric [E, 2k]  *typo

►Harry has a secret and nobody knows it but him.

---

Fest/Exchange

1. Hothouse Flowers and Hot Hot Showers by @azalealarae [E, 101k] - ART by @basiatlu

►The eighth-year Muggle Studies class is spending five weeks at an American Muggle university. Harry’s assigned to room with Draco. And to make things, well, harder, there’s an inconvenient side effect to not using magic for a prolonged period of time... ★ Drarry Mini Bang | @drarry-mini-bang

2. a small room under the earth by Anonymous [M, 2k]

►You stay in the small room under the earth, and do not escape. ★ HD Hurt-Comfort Fest 2024 | @hd-hurtcomfort-fest

[timberwind]

Yarragardee Basin, Mangala, 7995 A.D.

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

Accompanying music: You’re On Fire by They Might Be Giants. Summer road trip music of all time, in my opinion.

Here’s a little expository write-up on the history and geography of the worlds shown here. Someday I’ll have more to show of the personal story of these two critters and their travels; until then, a more macro-level description.

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

(most of this info has become outdated as modeling invalidated some original assumptions and I changed my mind on what I wanted here; future art of Mangala will reflect this)

Mangala and its sister world Kahira (visible in the background) are binary planets, orbiting one another in a manner not entirely unlike that of Pluto and Charon in the Solar System. Mangala is a relatively small world - just about twenty percent the mass of the Earth, something like if you took two copies of Mars and smushed them together; without the internal heat to drive a carbonate cycle long term, it had long been a frozen, dusty, and arid place when transhumanity first established a permanent presence in the Tahoka system almost a thousand years ago. Since those early days, terraforming using a Birchian soletta system (a huge but foil-thin Fresnel lens of mirrors, with a secondary focal lens for burning atmospheric gasses out of the regolith) has rendered it shirtsleeve habitable to baseline humans across much of the surface, although the global water inventory remains low* and the air in the “continental” uplands is stratospheric, with only the hardiest lichens establishing a foothold. Most of Mangala’s major metropolitan areas are located in the deep rift valleys and basins, where air pressure is highest.

Kahira on the other hand, a rock almost a fifth the mass of its sister world (a little under the mass of old Mercury), remains only slightly terraformed - surface conditions are persistently cold, with a thin barely-Martian atmosphere. Some of its larger rift valleys and craters have been tented over, aerated, and planted with tall low-gravity forest and grassland, a style of habitat construction dating back to the first Mars colonists almost six thousand years ago. Industrial complexes and buried cities sprawl out across the bare surface of the moon, with huge low-gravity lava tubes seeing extensive urban development.

The Yarragardee Basin, pictured above, is a graben basin in Mangala’s northern hemisphere, notable for the historic industrial city of Tirupati - here we see two road-trippers between cities on the basin’s great plain, taking a break in the long late afternoon of a sunset-day***. Having stopped for a night at a motel near Tirupati’s aerospace complex, they’re now continuing their journey to the city of Redmond-Tonasket, located in the Woronora Valles trench system about two thousand kilometers to the southwest.

* While plenty of water could have been imported from Tahoka’s cometary halo, it was decided not to do so in order to avoid inundating pre-existing cities in the valleys and deep basins. The extremely humid hothouse conditions that come after slamming dismantled ice moons through the stratosphere at over six kilometers a second were also broadly considered unacceptable.

** Smaller worlds have been terraformed in transhuman space, both by worldhouse and more open-air methods, but it’s largely the kind of thing that much more energy-rich systems do as a vanity project. Kahira may someday see blue skies, but likely not for a thousand years at least. (edit, one year later: I actually changed up some of this while simulating this system for stability. I’ll be posting more about this soon.)

*** Mangala and Kahira, being tidally locked to each other such that they always show one another the same face as they orbit their common center of mass, both have days exactly as long as their orbital periods - 403 kiloseconds, or roughly 112 hours. This is for convenience divided into month-weeks comprising four “circadian days” of 100 kiloseconds (~26 hours), with the remaining three kiloseconds added on to the last day of a month-week to keep synchronization.

[dailyadventureprompts]

Dungeon: How Grief Blooms

After the tragic death of his wife, the halfling Earl of Eastbrook has become a recluse, abstaining from social functions, seldom seen in public, and conducting much of his concerns through various agents. Agents like you, paid well so that you conduct the Earl’s business promptly and without asking too many questions. However, after some weeks of gruntwork and strange favours, you can’t help the feeling that something rotten is going on at the Eastbrook estate.

Adventure Hooks:

Most of the party’s assignments are doled out by a Mr. Moiler, a functionary of the Earl’s who always seems to be under the weather and insists that they have their meetings while he takes lunch at a local tavern. Presumptuous and frequently unpleasant, Moiler is quick with the money when he has proof the work’s been done not wanting to waste any more of his finite time with the party than he has to.  It’s during one of these meetings that the functionary begins choking and coughing like he’s going to hack up a lung, and right there on the dinner table spits up a mass of rotten plant matter that bears an uncomfortable resemblance to a human hand. While the party is paralyzed with shock, the limb begins to skitter away, barely recovered Moiler demanding that they catch it before it escapes or the other inn patrons see it.

Eastbrook has many concerns that need tending to: Mines that must be checked on, merchants that must be negotiated with, monsters that must be driven off from tenant lands. Then there the more unusual jobs: travelling to nearby towns and escorting a member of the royal horticultural society to the Eastbrook estate without ever being invited in themselves, having a stern chat with a local priest who’s rabblerousing about all the body-snatchers that’ve been plaguing local cemeteries lately. These odd jobs pay the best, but there’s only so much weirdness the party can take right? ... Right?

Dressed fancy and forced to leave their weapons at home, the party are finally given a chance of meeting their employer when tasked with escorting him to a social function at which he needs to show some muscle. They’re given a very brief impression of the earl: tired eyes, fingers are stained with green and soil as if his servants plucked him out of the garden and threw a bit of finery over his thinning frame. Leaving them to attend whatever business he left his secluded estate for, the party are approached by a young woman with a knowing smile and a lot of interesting questions about Eastbrook. If the party are willing to do a little snooping on her behalf, she’d be ever so grateful, and is sure she can arrange some work for them in the future should  their current arrangement fall through.

Background: Before the death of his wife, Earl Wennley had a deep and abiding love for growing things. Taking far more interest in the upkeep and administration of his tenant lands than any of his peers, the earl would forgo social functions and ditch his noble finery to lend a hand when there was planting or fieldwork to be done, simply to feel the dark earth beneith his fingers.

His wife Ren was a firebrand and world traveller, and originally began courting the earl by brining him exotic flowers from distant lands to cultivate in his hothouse. They were different people who wanted different things from their lives, but they also wanted eachother, and that was enough for love to take root between them.

That was before the sickness caught up to lady Ren, one of those bitter hereditary things that lurks around in the family tree like a viper. In a matter of months it claimed Ren of Eastbrook and took Wennley’s every joy with it, but not before he discovered that one of the flowers she’d brought him was thought to have restorative properties, claimed by some occult scholars to be able to even be able to resurrect the dead.

Thus began Eastbrook’s decent down a dark road, cultivating the plant’s growth in his lover’s dirt-packed casket, fetching more cadavers for its trailing roots to feed off of while trying to bring its many strange flowers to fruit.  The process has taken years, resulting in spasmodic gasps of resurrection, twitches and mutterings, but no true return of the vitality or wholeness that haunts Eastbrook’s memories.

Further Adventures:

a sick vitality has spread throughout the Eastbrook estate, twisting the plants he once took such judicious care of and bringing forth strange hybrids and mutations. While most of this dangerous flora remains on the estate, a few have spread their seed over subsequent seasons and ended up popping up in surrounding lands. The disruption caused by such plants may inadvertently put the party on their employer’s trail.  

What poor Wennley cannot know is that his lover wasn’t merely taken from him by chance, but by the insidious will of Zuggtmoy, demon queen of despair and decay.  Eastbrook was unwittingly chosen as a saint of Zuggtmoy, who now awaits the moment she is summoned into Ren’s resurrected body to walk the world of mortals and enjoy the people’s sorrow first hand. 

Many of the Eastbrook estate staff are sick, some fungal infection that’s taken up residence in their lungs and produces a purple-green rash they’re all too quick to conceal. This sickness makes them dosile and unquestioning, and is spread by Moiler, a demonic agent of Zuggtmoy in disguise, who was likewise the one to slip Eastbrook the particular texts that hinted at the flower’s potential uses. Should any of the staff fall ( or be slain by Moiler should he be discovered) their bodies will rise as mould covered undead.

[living400lbs]

“Mother, if you can hear me, I’ve been very good,” said the Luidaeg. “I haven’t killed anyone who didn’t deserve it, not even my sister, who should probably have been killed a hundred times over by now. I haven’t stolen any hearts or broken any vows, and I’m only calling on you now because I need you more than I’ve ever needed you before. Mother, I am your oldest living child. I am your eternity made flesh. Now please, hark to me, heed me here, and open the door before we die a horrible and lingering death in the darkness.” The smell of her magic surged again, this time underscored by roses like I had never smelled before—not the cold, snowy roses of Evening or the perfect hothouse roses of Luna; not even the bloody-thorned roses of my mother’s magic, which used to define my entire world. These were wild roses, untouched by any gardener’s shears and untamed by any horticulturist’s design. They grew where they wanted, thrived where they chose, and would never be anything but their own truest selves, unable to conform to anything else. They were the roses that had grown at the beginning of the world, and the roses that would grow at the end of it. There were a hundred other scents beneath the roses, loam and fresh-turned earth and the sweet decay that leads to new growth, but I knew that what I would remember was the roses. They would stay with me, because . . . because . . .

Because no one could smell Maeve’s magic and forget it.

From The Winter Long by Seanan McGuire

[aswegoalong72]

Reyal At A Glance - Intro

Map by @nexelart (twit)

Welcome to Reyal, the second planet from Tenav!

Reyal is a planet much like our own Earth, in that it supports a wide array of life and boasts a large hydrosphere. On top of that, it's only 1.27x larger than Earth, and has an atmospheric composition fairly similar to our own, with Reyal having 26.71% oxygen content as compared to Earth's 20.95%.

There, however, is where the similarities end.

Reyal has an orbital period of only 3.27 months, as Tenav is only a K7V class star. As such, Reyal doesn't really experience any seasons as we do here on Earth. Any changes are barely noticeable as it speeds around Tenav, causing only minor temperature differences during their year.

On top of that, Reyal experiences much heavier tidal activity, as it has two decently sized moons, Ro and Velgae. In conjunction with Tenav, volcanism and ocean/lake tides tend to be a bit more on the extreme side of things when compared to Earth.

Life emerged on Reyal some 4.7bn years ago, only a few hundred million years after the formation of Ro. Life on Reyal has never had it easy; from asteroids, comets, heavy glacial and hothouse periods, life on Reyal has seen the edge of oblivion numerous time.

Despite all this, life has found a way, and has thrived and even flourished through the ages. No example is better than Reyal's own sapient race, the Lyratet.

In this series of posts, I will be covering some key areas on Reyal, and going over their history and importance to the Lyratet; I hope you enjoy! Directory: Intro | Climate | the Land of Tenav's Dawn | the Desert Rings | Therikine | the Great Central Desert Mountains | the North Glacial Plains | the Yuniv-Semat Basin | Juleg Marrdev Technocracy | Yuniv-Semat Trail | Ro | Velgae

[tortoisesshells]

Oooh! Can you tell me more about no longer sparkles off in smoke? 🌻

It's not much right now - partly because I've got a crisis about what the story is supposed to be. I started thinking about it as a post-script/series of missing scenes after Laura Murdoch Collins's (apparent, temporary) death/the end of the Phoenix arc in D.ark S.hadows, because the show ... never really assigned any emotional significance to it - the David lost his mother again, after she tried to kill him; that Roger was made a widower by it, even though that marriage was DOA; that Burke lost someone he had loved, and one of two people who could have proved that he'd been falsely convicted of manslaughter 10 years ago - setting aside the latest proof of supernatural monsters running around Collinsport. Then, too, there's Josette's ghost's disappearance from the narrative, and how that affects Vicki - who's depended on her intercession at key moments?

(whenever I talk about this show, please know I am aware of how nuts I sound.)

But now I'm not sure - is it more about Laura and her past lives? is it about Vicki's own ambivalence about what happened? Am I trying to compare and contrast Laura and Josette as women dead before their time, continually haunting the Collinses through the generations?

I suppose some of that ambivalence is coming out in the different starting paragraphs I have for it:

There was no question of finding jasmine in Collinsport, at this time of year or any other; Vicki had only, with Mrs. Stoddard’s permission, to take the flowers from the greenhouse that would best suit the grave, and hope that Josette would take them in the spirit they were given – relief, gratitude, friendship. It was only that on her way out the door she crossed paths with Burke, returning David, and on telling him she was going to Eagle Hill he offered to join her.

versus,

Laura Murdoch Collins wasn’t dead, and there wasn’t anything but her ashes to bury; Vicki had laid down her handfuls of hothouse blooms on Josette Collins’s grave as thanks to her, but there was no easy place to remember Laura – not until she and Burke had gone on to the old Stockbridge burying ground, and stood solemnly by the still-disturbed earth of one of Laura’s former graves.

"I'm sorry," she said, at long last.

WIP Title Ask Game

[captainswaglord500]

Spiny Gilleylowe (second picture by u/M4theus4rts)

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Clade: Eugnathostomata

Clade: Acanthodii

Class: Coelospondyli

Subclass: Polydonta

Order: Daeognathiformes

Family: Daeognathidae

Genus: Guailong

Species: G. htaahsingkaalensis (from Mandarin 怪龙, “strange dragon of the Htaahsingkaal Plateau”)

Temporal range: Jartunian to recent (5.6 million Vuleto years [roughly 14.4 million Earth years] - present)

Information:

When the intelligent alien race known as the Eos created Universe-895, fleeing the destruction of their own universe, they sought to bring life to a virgin universe, seeding each world with the necessary organic molecules and compounds needed to jumpstart abiogenesis. While these procedures succeeded on some worlds, they found that for as many worlds that successfully produced life, there were just as many which had not, and far fewer which produced sapient life. This was when they would launch *Khau Tsvoa'oodhh-ptaach* (IPA: /kʰaw t͡svoaʔoːðː ptaːt͡ʃ/), or Project Universe Seed. Project Universe Seed started with the creation of an island chain called Archaeonesia encased in a pocket dimension in the deep oceans of Precambrian Earth, using the uniquely extreme and isolated conditions of the archipelago as a way to incite an evolutionary arms race and eventually force intelligent life to evolve, continually seeding the island chain with lifeforms from all throughout Earth’s geologic history. From there, candidate species would be selected and genetically modified before being placed in similar “petri dish” environments created on other planets, inciting further genetic and evolutionary divergence within the specific confines of this new planet’s conditions. Other planets which yielded life from abiogenesis procedures were also subjected to similar experiences, being given their own equivalents to Archaeonesia as a testing ground for early lifeforms before they would be genetically modified and seeded on other planets. On some planets, Archaeonesian-derived lifeforms and lifeforms derived from abiogenesis procedures on other planets would even be mixed within the same environment, the idea being that in the face of new competition in an unfamiliar environment, this would provide further ecological strain and force the native lifeforms to become more creative with how they adapted to their new homes. Because of these procedures, most life on planets nowadays is either remarkably similar to Earth life or utterly and truly alien, with a great many planets sporting silicon-based lifeforms living alongside carbon-based ones. To manage their experiments from afar, the Eos would create an advanced AI system which fully automated the environmental and ecological processes of each planet and, in particular, each isolated island chain which served as a testing ground for life which would later be seeded across the entire planet in various waves. During the Permian epoch, they would seed life from the original Archaeonesia experiment (as well as an experiment on a planet called Throng) on a Uranus-sized exoplanet called Vu’ulen (Vuleto: /vuʔulen/).

Notable for the fact that it orbits a sun which emits infrared radiation, Vu’ulen’s sky and landscapes glow a vibrant red, its vast oceans tinted maroon. With slightly lower gravity than Earth, fliers on Vu’ulen can get substantially more bulky than they would on Earth. The entire planet is in the middle of a hothouse era, with permanent ice sheets only occurring at the farthest extremities of the poles and large tropical storms being common along the coastlines. Two major continents, a northern continent named Hlaahtto (Vuleto: /ɬaː.θːo/) and a southern continent named Tahzzugi’i (Vuleto: /taʒː.ug.iʔi/), make up the majority of dry land on the planet, with several smaller subcontinents and large island chains along the fault lines. On Tahzzugi’i, high up in the velvet steppes of the Htaahsingkaal Plateau (Northern Sungnap: /θaː.ʃiŋ.kaːð/), a peculiar lifeform descended from the Archaeonesia seeding glides across the alpine winds: Guailong htaahsingkaalensis, the spiny gilleylowe.

Despite its seemingly reptilian appearance, the spiny gilleylowe is actually a member of a far more peculiar lineage: descended from a clade of terrestrial vertebrates called coelospondyls (class Coelospondyli), it’s actually a highly-derived acanthodian, descended from a Brochoadmones-like ancestor. This makes the spiny gilleylowe a closer relative to sharks, rays, and chimeras on Earth than to any proper tetrapod. Originally a dominant clade back on Archaeonesia, the introduction of amniotes quickly spelled disaster for the clade, leading to the complete extinction of larger-bodied members of the clade while the survivors were relegated these animals to small, generalist niches. However, on Vu’ulen, where the only other vertebrates are largely relegated to small herbivore niches by the presence of silicon-based lifeforms dominating large herbivore and carnivore niches, the coelospondyls were able to proliferate into small-to-medium-sized predator niches on the southern continent, filling a niche akin to that of small canids on Earth. On Earth, the spiny gilleylowe would be far too large to fly, reaching between 4-6 feet in length and between 15-30 lbs on average, yet Vu'ulen's lower gravity allows this rather bulky animal to coast on the wind currents for several miles at a given time, climbing up and throwing itself off of high ledges to gain lift. 

Though this creature’s names in the native Vuleto language, xuu’ (Vuleto: /xuːʔ/, “biter”) or hlaa'-thi'-phooht-unu-iig-xu/hlaa'thi'phoohtunuiigxu (Vuleto: /ɬaːʔ.tʰiʔ.pʰoːθ.unu.iːŋ.xu/, “[the] creature which kills with one bite”), indicate a deadly nature, this creature is not known to be aggressive towards most sophonts, though it is known to approach them in groups out of curiosity much in the same way seals and dolphins will approach and attempt to play with humans. While it is indeed venomous, with a potent hemotoxic venom capable of killing animals up to the size of a small elephant, these creatures only rarely bite, preferring to either flee or swing their spiny tail in front of them and hiss aggressively as part of a threat display when confronted with danger. It will only bite if cornered, injured, or aggressively handled. Their otherwise docile nature and so-called “ugly-cute” appearance has made them a popular pet amongst the native Vuleto species since time immemorial, with ancient cave paintings depicting the two species hunting together. Its affectionate nature when hand-reared from birth and ease to train have earned it the moniker of the “Vuleto skydog”, and it is amongst the most popular animals in the intergalactic pet trade. In fact, the Northern Sungnap language, spoken in its native region of Vu’ulen, refers to the creature by a far less intimidating moniker because of the close association between the Northern Sungnap ethnic group and the spiny gilleylowe: ìíghhilxwááhthsòtnááuuhlxhààdrìíng (/ìíɣ.hil.ʍáːθ.ʃòt.náː.uːɬ.χàː.d̠͡ʐìíŋ/), or “(the) one who sails (the) sky at dawn”.

Though adapted for mountainous terrain, primarily inhabiting karst mountains and cliffs, these animals appear to do moderately well in montane forest environments as well, being found at lower elevations in smaller numbers. A largely nocturnal/crepuscular animal, they sleep under trees and large boulders during the day before emerging in the evening/night to forage and socialize, migrating in search of food on other mountain tops, their red skin helping them to blend in with the sky and surrounding vegetation. A highly social and intelligent predator, it shows a high degree of convergent evolution with Earth mammals in behavior, having social hierarchies and highly complex family units. These family units typically consist of a mated pair and several generations of offspring. Social in nature, these creatures tend to sleep next to one another and have been observed play-fighting. A highly vocal creature, its long, whooping calls can be heard from miles away, a way of marking its territory to other spiny gilleylowes. Shrill hissing and loud shrieking are also reported vocalizations, the former an expression of agitation and the latter a vocalization in pain in addition to a call of excitement. Primarily a sight predator, it is able to see infrared light (as per its planet’s available light rays), visible light, and ultraviolet light. By contrast, its hearing is significantly less advanced but still passable. Though it has one set of true eyes, two pairs of photoreceptive “proto-eyes” can be found on one side of the main pair. What evolutionary pressures led to this animals developing tube nostrils is unknown, though it has been suggested that its lineage may have briefly returned to an aquatic or semiaquatic way of life at some point before switching back to land, which would explain the underdeveloped digits on its frontmost pair of limbs.  The function of its long, backwards-pointing tube nostrils is not exactly known, though it is suspected to potentially aid its sense of smell. 

Spiny gilleylowes are simultaneous hermaphrodites and mate for life, courting one another by chasing each other through the mountain tops and divebombing each other. Spiny gilleylowes are simultaneous hermaphrodites and mate for life, courting one another by chasing each other through the mountain tops and divebombing each other. Once on the ground, whichever one manages to overpower the other is the one who penetrates, mating occurring either with one individual on their back or with the tail pushed to the side. Gestation takes roughly 5 weeks before the eggs, which are amniotic in nature, are laid in a den situated between boulders or inside the refuge of a cave, the young hatchings, as many as 10 to a clutch, in 4 weeks time. Young spiny gilleylowes, called pups or nuggins, are born blind and deaf and are like this for the first 2 weeks of life. Dependent on their parents for the first 2 years of life, some youngsters may leave their family behind and form their own family group at 2 years old, when they’ve reached physical maturity, while some will stay behind with their family group. By age 3, they will be old enough to rear young of their own. By age 4, they will have gained their adult coloration, being born completely pink.

Formerly common in the Southern Thsutluug (Southern Sungnap: /t͡ɕʊ.t͡ɬuːɣ/) mountain range in the south of Tahzzugi’i, it has been largely extirpated by the Southern Sungnap peoples, an ethnic subdivision of the Vuleto species, who considered it to be an evil spirit and a pest animal which attacked livestock. By contrast, the Northern Sungnap peoples historically viewed it as a guardian spirit, having a long history of husbandry with the animal, hence it managed to maintain much of its original range further north. This species features prominently in the traditional artwork of the Northern Sungnap, and historically, artistic depictions of the Draconic god Hamalutan (spelled in Northern Sungnap as Hmatlan /m̥at͡ɬan/) portrayed him as having a spiny gilleylowe perched on its shoulder. Amongst the central regions of Tahzzugi’i, the spiny gilleylowe is a delicacy, and in the late summer months, a festival known as Aakunduug (Transitional Sungnap: ɑːkuⁿduːɣ) is held, where these creatures are rounded up, killed, and eaten in large numbers. The name “gilleylowe” itself is hard to trace etymologically: folk etymology traces its origin to an interaction between the Vuleto and explorers from the planet Torthon, where the Torthonians asked what kind of creature it was, only for one of the Vuleto to answer in Vuleto, “Gi hlii hloo” (IPA: /gi ɬiː ɬoː/) (“I don’t know”). However, it’s more likely that it originates from a word in the Mluhxo’ (IPA: /mluχo̞ʔ/) language, ghiriirwoo (IPA: /ɣi.ɾiː.ɾʷoː/), meaning “to glide/coast on the air”. This creature is the mascot of The Vu’ulen Intergalactic Tourism Agency (or TVITA for short) and is responsible for a large portion of (eco)tourism industry on the planet. This animal is resistant to its own venom’s effects, and studies show it may also have a heightened immunity to other biotoxins as well. This has made it vital in the developmental of antivenins across the universe. 

[ocpdzim]

Vreeza is competing in the @original-character-championship​ bracket! Please vote for them! VOTE FOR VREEZA HERE: https://www.tumblr.com/original-character-championship/714142908732850176/bracket-f-round-1

Please also check out Vreeza’s page on my website, https://ocpdzim.neocities.org/vreeza ! There, you can see a lot more art, their playlist, way more information about them, and several short written pieces about them! Feel free also to send asks about Vreeza - chances are whatever you’re wondering about I have an answer for it.

Out of my OCs, Vreeza is the one who has seen the most continuous use - they’re my primary character for chatroom RP with my friends, and they have been since 2017! They’re an alien who came to Earth for a school project when they were 13, but almost immediately crashed their spaceship in the Everglades while trying to park it and got stranded. In the years since then, they’ve been living there in their tiny space camper, growing most of their own food in the lab, and have made a lot of friends online. Their school was pretty rough, so they’re happy to be on Earth even though they’re technically stranded in a hostile environment.

Vreeza’s usual appearance is actually a holo-disguise, they originally put it together simply for the purpose of avoiding trouble but they now wear it nearly all the time, even when they’re at home, because they’ve gotten used to it - they consider it more their face than their actual face is, since they designed it themself and since it’s the one all their friends know them by. Without it, they look like this:

A fun fact about Vreeza is they’re like, double nonbinary - their culture has 4 different assigned genders, none of which are “man” or “woman,” so everyone there would be nonbinary by human standards, but Vreeza’s gender is ALSO not any of those four either. Upon arriving on Earth and encountering men and women, they assumed that humans were just really into neopronouns, and since they thought that was awesome since they’re nonquaternary too and therefore never said anything about it, no one has had a chance to correct them.

Also, the inside of their shitty little space mobile home looks like this:

and they keep it at 130 degrees Fahrenheit because they are from a hothouse planet and Earth is too cold for them, even the Everglades. The walls and floor are made entirely of metal and it hasn’t got windows. They only have 1 chair and no bed. Usually their pet really big frog is sitting in the only chair anyway so nobody else can. Even though they bought a TV it doesn’t actually work because they don’t know how to hook it up to cable or streaming services. They’ve got the super bright daylight fluorescent overhead lights. House guests hate it!

[poisonivysource]

Hi can you recommend me some comics? I'm new to comics but i already saw batmen:hatley&ivy, harely quinn and poison ivy, poison ivy cycle of life and death, poison ivy thorns, neil gaimen's secret origin, gotham city sirens and on-going series.(I'm still catching up pre on-going arc as you recommended) I read most famous ones. And i just wanna read some comics even if ivy isn't main character, still have good arc.

sure. here are some favorites of mine:

batman legends of the dark knight (1989) #42 & 43 “hothouse”

batman/poison ivy: cast shadows (2004)

[no man’s land]

batman: shadow of the bat (1992) #88 “fruit of the earth part 1”

batman (1940) #568 “fruit of the earth part 2”

detective comics (1937) #735 “fruit of the earth part 3”

batman: harley quinn (1999)

detective comics (1937) #751 "a walk in the park part 1"

detective comics (1937) #752 "a walk in the park part 2"

[nu52]

batgirl (2011) annual #2 “when pamela gets blue”

[rebirth]

sensation comics featuring wonder woman #31 #32

all-star batman (2016-2017) #7 “ends of the earth part 2”

new talent showcase 2017 “silent screams”

batgirl and the birds of prey (2016) #12-17 #19 #21-22

[avatarwarriordreamwalkers]

Native American perspective of Earth as a single organism can save the world! Imagine what’s happening from their perspective; pale face Europeans drive them off their pristine lands and poison the skies, sending Earth into a hothouse state of chaos, https://www.earthpledge.net/climate.pdf as political tensions skyrocket! Animosity between left and right aspects of our collective being, is only eclipsed by animosity towards Pale face enemies in the East from proxy wars, threatening to trigger the release of megatons of malice that destroy US and our mother! https://x.com/fli_org/status/1559219598213451777?s=61

Might our true hope see a trail of tears transform US and our consciousness, to take up a new journey moving down a road to redemption?

“Upon suffering beyond suffering; the Red Nation shall rise again and it shall be a blessing for a sick world. A world filled with broken promises, selfishness and separations. A world longing for light again. I see a time of seven generations, when all the colors of mankind will gather under the sacred Tree of Life and the whole Earth will become one circle again.”