#net weaver of all creation

[voiceoutofstars]

Fan narration of a Relic entry in HSR’s Data Bank. This is the story of all four pieces of the Genius of Brilliant Stars set.

Music is “Perfect Beauty” by Zakhar Valaha.

[searchingforserendipity25]

Hi! For the worldbuilding prompts, Galadriel + weaving or fabric crafts? — @emyn-arnens

I am so sorry this too so long @emyn-arnens! I wrote a reply to this and was a bit bashful about it (I suspect crimes against fiber craft techniques have been committed), but I'm finally posting it. Thanks so much for the ask <3

nerwen was very young, when first she asked her father to teach her how to work the wheel. 

-

this is a child desirous of learning, earwën of the teleri had laughed, when first she beheld her daughter: little nerwen had eyes like an owl, colourless and wide, watchful as she was cradled, tracking every movement and every sound. 

so it was, as she grew; artanis, her mouth pursed, her eyes hungry. earwën held great mastery in the art of the needle, from the making of nets to the impossibly delicate filigree, so thin water gathered in fine drops along the curls and curves of her designs. 

nerwen learned lacemaking from her, and from her aunts and cousins, and most of all from her grandmother, the great master and creator of the art.

the queen of the falmari worked with a hundred pins and hundred bobbins at once, her mind a mathematical marvel; and from a very young age nerwen had been sat beside her, taught how to shape her own thoughts and hands to the creation of a design. 

but the noldor dwelt in far tírion, were beset always by the cool winds that rose from túna; and so too did earwën and arafinwë dwell there often. the garments to be worn in the high city were thicker than the shifting, patterned sea-silks and bold linens of alqualondë; for the weavers of the noldor worked with wool, in the fashion of serinde, the dead queen. 

sewing was a more ancient technique than lace-making, and weaving older than either. it was the way of the noldor, that every maiden go about with their satchel of flax over a shoulder, and at every spare moment be spinning or flashing their long, long needles.

nerwen learned all she could of it, and rhetoric, the arts and the sciences, those fashionable for maidens and those most unlikely. from her father, as well, she learned much - the saw and the varnish, how to speak with living wood and make peace with dead boughs, so they might be of use again. 

 arafinwë’s craft was of making, as most of his kinsmen; but he was a petty and whimsical maker, not taken with great seriousness by any quarter in particular. less learned than his half-brother, and content with his own unglorious projects, and with making certain the projects he showed the world were so few and without distinction that none would be very curious about his craft. 

that was as he preferred. arafinwë, it was said then even by the kind, lacked a great spark of brilliance. nerwen knew the truth, even as a child: her father was wise enough not to cast too much of himself as kindling to make it into a great fire.

his concern was with the things that existed already, and those he held dear; chairs for elenwë's rest as she nursed, clever games for his children. the repairing of old heirlooms and great pieces, and of small things besides: mending the cracks of miniatures, repairing the small link of a small chain. cleaning tarnish and rust, inventing new and simpler mechanisms to repair an old engine. 

from an early age, his daughter chafed at the pretense at humility, but even in her most high-minded years she did not disdain the small wonders he did build, sometimes, for those he loved.

nerwen’s spindle was of rosewood and gold, slow to warm to her touch, perfectly balanced, well-fitted to the hands her small fingers grew into, perfectly fitted to her grasp. her father had built it for her. so too he made her first wheel from the bare bones of new timbers, and metal he worked himself in the forge.

strange were the ways of the house of the king, even among the noldor. nerwen knew this, too - for there was no ancient machine, or spindle, or row of needles to repair, and pass down as inheritance. queen indis did not spin, or sew, or spin; and all the old wheels of the palace had belonged to míriel, crafted by the king to his first queen. none touched them that did not wish prince fëanáro’s wrath. 

in the evening, when her tutors sent her away from the books and evaded her endless questions, nerwen sat by the fountains with her friends. they spun fine wool as they chatted about their lessons and their first fledgling projects, flirting with new crafts and with each other, graceless and coy, laughing swiftly, trying to get the passing swifts and robins to sit on their heads and shoulders for a little while.

and at night, narwen crept through the narrow, secret corridors that bound her father’s house to the king’s palace.

upwards and onwards, through hidden places, reciting prayers to vairë as she went, and crept, and pried open the ancient doors to the closed quarters of the dead queen.

 she ran her hands through the strong frame, still as smooth and glossy as her grandfather had first made it, when the possibility of her life had been nothing in the rightful course of things. from her satchel she brought out the flax she always carried, and setting aside her father’s latest spindle, she sat herself in the bench.

míriel’s wheel was the best of such machines in tírion, but old-fashioned. much better did nerwen love her father’s work! 

but the wood remembered. indis was the best of dancers, and a great singer, and a fine painter, but she did not spin, and taught nothing of that art to the maidens of her house - and so findis did not spin, and lalwen did not; and írissë's craft was for leather and enchantments only.

artanis laid her hands and her claim upon míriel’s wheel. it spoke to her - lent her the cold feeling of cold hands on hers, teaching how to bind work and mind to the same end. the keen memory of mastery, guiding her movements in a small haunting.

nerwen was desirous of learning always, from all the best teachers. no prince would sever her from the perfecting of her crafts; fëanáro’s wrath never found her, but from a young age she loathed him wholly, for it was a thing judged foul and ungenerous, by the falathrim and the noldor alike, to hoard a great treasure away from any grateful eyes.

[typoeastnews]

Anju Modi – Weaving History and Craftsmanship in Couture

Early Life and Career Beginnings Anju Modi, a celebrated Indian costume designer, has made an indelible mark in both cinema and haute couture. Her exceptional work in films like “Bajirao Mastani” (2015) and “Ram Leela” (2013) has earned her critical acclaim and prestigious awards, including the 2016 Filmfare Award for Best Costume Design. Since the early 1990s, Modi has been an integral part of the Indian fashion industry, committed to promoting Indian textiles and craftsmanship. Her estimated net worth is $1.2 million.

Pioneering in the Indian Fashion Industry Anju Modi journey in the Indian fashion industry began in the early 1990s. As a founding member of the Fashion Design Council of India (FDCI), she has successfully straddled the roles of an artisan and a designer. Modi’s dedication to preserving traditional Indian textiles and craftsmanship is evident in her work.

Philosophy of Design Without Boundaries Modi’s brand philosophy centers on the belief that design transcends language and communicates across cultures. Her expertise in weaving and crafts is renowned, attributing her success to the artisans and weavers who mentored her. Each couture collection evolves based on her state of mind, yet the constant thread in her designs is the impeccable craftsmanship behind every outfit.

Love for India’s Rich Cultural Heritage Modi draws inspiration from India’s history and heritage, particularly from historical characters rooted in history or mythology. Her collaborations with artisans from various regions of India reflect her commitment to preserving the country’s rich heritage.

Preservation of Traditional Techniques Modi has amassed an extensive library of traditional techniques, including weaving, vegetable dyeing, block printing, and old embroidery styles. These techniques form the foundation of her collections, blending tradition with modernity to resonate with women from all walks of life.

Celebrity Endorsement and Red Carpet Presence Modi’s creations have graced red carpets and events attended by Bollywood’s iconic figures like Madhuri Dixit, Kangana Ranaut, Sonam Kapoor, and Kareena Kapoor Khan. Her ability to create classic and versatile ensembles has made her a favorite among celebrities and fashion enthusiasts.

Storyteller Through Couture Modi’s collections often narrate stories, capturing themes like a young girl’s journey to becoming a bride. Through her couture, she seamlessly blends tradition and modernity, showcasing her artistry and creativity.

Awards and Filmography Modi’s contributions as a costume designer in the Indian film industry have earned her critical acclaim and prestigious awards, including the Filmfare Award for Best Costume Design. Her meticulous attention to detail and commitment to historical accuracy set a high standard in costume design.

Conclusion Anju Modi’s legacy embodies the timeless charm of Indian culture and craftsmanship, bridging the past with the present through her contemporary couture. Her dedication to preserving India’s textile traditions and collaborating with artisans highlights her commitment to artistry and culture, making her a revered figure in the fashion industry.

[theblueflower05]

Could we get omega lo'ak and alpha fem reader, who's Metkayina, where Lo'ak reacts to her knot for the first time? I love your writing so much!!

So like. Why are you guys trying to make me obsessed with Omega Lo’ak? It’s literally destroying my life. He’s a doll faced sweetheart and I love him.

Smut under the cut

Okay because here’s the difference between Neteyam and Lo’ak-

Neteyam doesn’t want to allow himself to be soft. He’s fighting every single one of his instincts at all times, trying to pretend like he doesn’t need anyone to take care of him. He’s rejecting any and all offers that Alphas throw at him- and that boy gets ALOT of offers.

Lo’ak on the other hand? All he’s ever wanted is the chance to be soft. To be cherished and to have someone who wants to take care of him. He’s not like his brother, he doesn’t get proposals left and right. No one wants to court the five fingered youngest son of Toruk Makto.

He hears the whispers, both back in the forest and here in Awa’atlu. He’s not a suitable mate. He has too much tawtute in him. What kind of demon children would he produce? No one’s willing to find out.

He’s gotten used to pretending it doesn’t bother him. It Absolutely GUTS him.

So when you start courting him he’s like- so confused?

You’re stunning. Waist length dark waves and big powder blue eyes. Your body endless curves. You’re one of the Metkayina’s best weavers- the fishing nets you make are highly sought after.

And you’re a Female Alpha in her prime. You have endless choices for mates so why are you interested I him?

He’s guarded for a while because this all has to be some elaborate joke. He knows your friends with Ao’nung- is this another cruel prank?

But you’re patient and kind to Lo’ak. Spending any free time you have trying to make it clear to the Omega that you’re beyond interested in him.

You make him beautiful intricate nets for his hunts, the other warriors are envious of him as he pulls them out.

Blankets. Jewelry. A meticulously hand stitched rug for his family’s Mauri. It has to take endless hours for you to weave your creations into life. So much work and patience in everything you gift to him. He can’t believe you waste all of this talent on him.

After a couple months he finally accepts your courtship.

He’s shaking, his voice trembling as the two of you talk, the beach desolate and the eclipsing sun the only witnesses to the intimate moment.

“I’m not sure why you want to be with me, Y/N. I don’t want- I don’t want you to regret this”

“Lo’ak don’t say that. Can’t you feel it when we’re together? Eywa has blessed this union. Were meant to be together, I know it. You have traveled thousands of miles to be mine- you were brought here so I could have you”

Your words are impassioned, you clutch his hands. Cradling all of his fingers. Not shying away from them the way others had before.

Even then, he’s still scared that someone might jump out from behind the trees. Laughing and confirming that this had all been a ploy.

That never happens of course.

He musters all of his confidence and courage and accepts your proposal.

Your face lights up with pure joy. He’s never seen you smile that big.

You launch yourself into his strong arms and he catches your small, powerful body mid air- before the two of you end up in the sand. Rolling around and clutching eachother tight.

It happens in a daze.

Neither of you can wait any longer.

You don’t go to your families. You don’t wait for a ceremony. You’re mated as soon as possible. Preform Tsaheylu, the sacred bond, at the Spirit Tree.

Under the water it’s still and quiet as Lo’ak let’s you into his soul for the first time.

Payakan and Efayne(your tulkun spirit sister) bare witness to the magical moment, dancing and singing in unforgettable happiness.

When you drag Lo’ak back to your Mauri he’s beyond nervous.

Your space is beautifully decorated; warm and inviting and yet he feels like an outsider in it. Like he’s not meant to inhabit something so comfortable.

All of his sharp edges will ruin the softness, he just knows it.

“Are you okay?” You whisper to him as you lead him over to your bed mat- piled high with bedding you’d woven yourself. You hope he likes the plush pillows and large quilts. That he’ll be able to make his nest here-

“Yeah. I’m alright. I just-“ he looks anywhere but at you, chewing on the inside of his lip.

“What? What’s got you so worried?” You question, sitting down and grabbing his wrist to tug him down beside you. The two of you so close that your plush thigh presses against his firm slim one.

“I’m not a virgin” Lo’ak blurts after the two of you sink down into the bed.

A look of hurt flashes across your face, briefly, before you swallow it down.

You’d saved yourself for your mate. You’d hoped they’d do the same, even though sex outside of mated couples was common. Natural. Not frowned upon. You’d been naive-

“I’ve never been with an Alpha before, but back home, in the forest there was this girl. She was a Beta but still- I just thought you should know. Fuck. I’m sorry” he speaks too fast, words jumbled up by nerves.

He wishes he would’ve saved himself for you but he had just been so lonely.

He’d given his virginity to the first person who’d looked at him twice. Of course the Beta back home hadn’t wanted to be with him after- but in that moment having someone who desired him, even if just briefly, had overwhelmed him.

“It’s okay” you speak after a moment, reassuring the both of you “I don’t care who’s had you before. Your mine now”

Lo’ak melts. Letting out a little whimper as he reaches over. Kissing you hotly and cupping your face in his hands.

He hopes he can pour everything into that kiss. All of the love and adoration he feels for you. How greatful he is for you, for your love and acceptance. He still can’t believe you chose him, he’d spend his life proving to you that he could be a good partner. That he was worthy of you.

“I’m yours, Alpha. Only yours” he whispers into your wet mouth, lips against yours.

Those words do something to you. Scratches a primal itch in your brain that has you swooning. Calling you his Alpha is big. He’d never call anyone else that. Only you.

You shiver and grasp him tighter, pulling him as close to you as possible. Your body’s grinding together almost frantically.

It’s a frenzy of sloppy kisses and wandering hands. Of clumsily discarded clothing and flailing limbs.

He tastes so good. His spit, his cock. His clenching hole. Your gorge yourself on all of it, gluttonous as you make him come over and over.

Until he’s hissing, shaking and begging to be inside of you.

When you sink down onto his hard length you both go still. Wide eyed as you take him to the hilt.

It hurts. He’s so long, his tip kisses your cervix painfully and you struggle to relax. The foreign feeling overwhelming.

“Shh” he comforts you. Massaging your hips, his hands rubbing over your thighs soothingly as you quiver ontop of him “it’s okay, relax”

“I’ve never done this before” you shakily admit what he already knows.

It’s shitty because you’re hurting, his cock is splitting you open, but the beast inside his chest purrs. No other Omega would ever get to be inside of you. Only him.

After a moment you adjust. The pain of being stretched morphs into something different. Dulls down into pleasure. Your hips move in curious little circles and Lo’ak smiles gently. Letting you take your time getting used to him.

You brace yourself, hands on his hard pecs as you discover what feels good.

It quickly turns torturous. You’re all Alpha on top of him. Chasing your own pleasure, using him to get yourself off. Every time he tries to adjust you push him down and continue what you were doing- harder.

You’re killing him. The pace you’ve set, the angle of your hips.

“Y/N” he pleas in a whine “Shit. ease up-“

You snarl in his face warningly. Your canines gleaming in the golden light that pours through the palm window shutters.

You’re in control.

It’s blatantly clear in your body language.

Your hips bouncing harshly stop of him. Your thick thighs caging him. Your core bunching as your rock relentlessly. You’re stunning. Mesmerizing. So strong, yet so feminine. He’s completely transfixed.

He lays back, almost limply. His head lolling to the side, his neck on display. Fully submitting to you.

You can do whatever you want to him.

You fuck him until he’s boneless. Until he’s a shivery mess. His eyes are squeezed close but tears still escape , rolling down his temples and into his dark braids.

You ride him until it hurts-

Lo’ak might not be a virgin, but he’s never been knotted. When yours begins to swell, so tight it feels like it’s cutting off his circulation he screeches. His finger nails digging bloody into your shoulders as you press your chest against his.

Slamming your hips down one last time before you completely lock him inside of you.

Lo’ak is staring at you, is mouth shocked open in a little “o”. He can’t breathe. He can barley think.

All he knows is that the two of you are physically stuck together. Fused into one being. It’s heady and overwhelming and he hugs you bruisingly tight as you milk him for all he’s worth.

The two of you cling to each other for hours. Even after your knots released him and his spent cock slips out of your puffy cunt- he can’t let you go.

He’s needy, whining and nuzzling into your throat. You just stroke his head, comfortingly.

Aaaaand I need to stop. Wow. This was supposed to be a drabble not a whole ass story FUCK. I might need to write Omega Lo’ak his own little series. I love him so so much.

To my A/B/O loving besties @cinetrix @tiredmamaissy and @tanhi-04 Um why is Omega Lo’ak so fucking precious? I can barley take it.

[sciencespies]

Fourteen Ways That Spiders Use Their Silk

https://sciencespies.com/nature/fourteen-ways-that-spiders-use-their-silk/

Fourteen Ways That Spiders Use Their Silk

Shi En Kim

Reporter

Spider silk is a wonder material that, weight for weight, is stronger than steel, tougher than Kevlar and can be more elastic than rubber. It’s also flexible and antimicrobial. Scientists have used silk to make bulletproof armor, violin strings, medical bandages, optical fiber cables and even extravagant clothing.

“I don’t think people would believe you if you told them, there’s this creature that, if you scaled it up … to the size of the human, it could catch an aeroplane with the material that it makes itself out of itself,” says Fritz Vollrath, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Oxford.

Spider silk is made of a blend of different proteins linked together into a chain, produced by special glands call spinnerets on the spider’s rear end. All spiders produce silk (some spiders can produce several different kinds), but not necessarily as webs like those depicted in Halloween decorations.

Here are some bizarre ways spiders use their silk beyond the static webs they employ to snag their prey.

As Cords and Nets to Actively Snare Prey

Silk as a passive web for bugs to fly into may be the least interesting spider hunting method of all. To catch their next meal, spiders may use their silk as nets—or as lassos, whips, binds, disguises, fishing lines and lures.

Most spiders avoid ants because they are often predatory themselves, but one family of spiders treats ants as chow. When the wall spider (Oecobius) gets an ant alone, it runs circles around its victim, all the while churning out a silk cord and wrapping the ant from a safe distance. After the ant is all trundled up, the spider goes in for the kill by chomping the ant at the base of the antennae.

The ogre-faced spider (Deinopis) spins a web as a snare, but deploys it in an unusual way. It weaves a web between its four front legs, holds the creation wide open while hanging upside down and waits. Once an insect wanders by, it snaps up its prey using its web as a net. This net-casting hunter can catch prey wandering beneath or even flying in mid-air, like a lacrosse player captures a ball. Then the victorious spider bundles up its prey and kills it.

As Parachutes

In 1883, the Krakatoa volcano in present-day Indonesia erupted with the force of over 10,000 hydrogen bombs, obliterating most of the island and converting it into a lifeless wasteland. Three months later, visiting scientists were surprised to find one lifeform present in the region: microscopic spiders.

These spiders weren’t on the newborn island because they survived the blast. Rather, they had travelled there in the aftermath of the eruption—by ballooning. Now a well-known phenomenon, ballooning occurs when spiders stream their silk into the air, catching the winds like a sail for loft. Spiders have been found in the middle of the ocean, hitching a ride on the jet stream and on remote islands hundreds of miles from the mainland. Not all spiders balloon to travel extreme distances—some rely on it to flee from predators or cover short lengths without expending much energy.

When a spider balloons, it literally tiptoes and hoists its abdomen towards the skies. It doesn’t always need favorable winds to kite off (breezes are better than gusts), but instead relies on electrostatic repulsion to generate most of the lift. Spider silk is negatively charged, similar to the surface of the Earth that’s negatively charged up by the 40,000 daily thunderstorms around the world. Like charges repel, so the force pushes the silk off the ground to help the spider take flight. Spiders can sense electric fields with the hairs on their legs, so they may lift a limb to survey the atmospheric conditions before executing a great escape.

As Home Décor

An orb-weaver spider found in the Uluguru Mountains in Tanzania spins a web embellished with dense stripes of silk.

Muhammad Mahdi Karim via Wikimedia Commons under GFDLv1.2

Orb-weaving spiders don’t just construct their homes from silk. Some of these spiders make an effort to decorate it too. They weave throughout their webs stripes of thickly banded silk called stabilimenta. Scientists first though these structures worked to stabilize the web, but the theory was disproved after they found that the patterns were only loosely knitted intro the web’s fabric. Today, the function of stabilimenta is still a mystery.

But several hypotheses seek to explain it. Since the stabilimenta are woven only by daytime-roaming spiders, researchers have guessed that these spiders intend for their elaborate web designs to be seen. The popping patterns may be used to camouflage the spiders by obscuring the silhouette of the spider. Scientists think they may also increase the perceived size of the spider. Other leading theories include that these structures reflect more ultraviolet light in the same way flowers and foliage do, attracting more insects to the structures. Alternatively, they could serve as a stop sign so birds don’t accidentally fly into and damage the web. The downside of these woven motifs is that they seem to also draw more spider-eating spiders by making a web look more conspicuous to these visual hunters.

As Protection from the Elements

A Carrhotus jumping spider hides in a “pup tent.”

Leana Lahom-Cristobal / Project Noah

Jumping spiders roam freely during the day, but at night or in the midst of cold or rain, they will spin themselves a silken shelter. Jumping spiders use these “pup tents” to shed their external shell safely, store their egg sacs or hibernate. One scientist has speculated that the ability to spin cozy cocoons that insulate the spider from the cold is one reason the Himalayan jumping spider (Euophrys omnisuperstes) can survive the frigid temperatures at elevations of 22,000 feet, making it one of the highest-dwelling, non-migratory animals in the world.

As Buffers Against Tides

The Desis martensi spider lives in the intertidal zone on rocky beaches.

Ria Tan and wildsingapore.com via Flickr under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

One spider spins cocoons to protect itself from the daily tides where it dwells. The Desis spiders scuttle amidst coral, abandoned seashells and the bottoms of kelp on the beach during low tides. When the water rises, the spiders seal themselves in these nooks and crannies with waterproof silk. Researchers have found that the spider lowers its breathing to reduce how fast it burns through the oxygen in its air pocket. Scientists still have questions—such as how the web can withstand salt or how the spider keeps time with the tide.

As Underwater Breathing Tanks

A diving bell spider feasts on a stickle-back in its underwater home.

Oxford Scientific via Getty Images

Only one arachnid lives most of its life underwater: the diving bell spider (Argyroneta aquatica). Like all other terrestrial spiders, it only breathes air. Before it submerges, it gloms a bubble onto its posterior as a temporary scuba tank. For a longer-term solution, it spins an air-filled, dome-shaped diving bell with silk on aquatic vegetation as its underwater home.

Diving bell spiders pump up their homes using bubbles they gather from the water surface. Their silken lair permits the exchange of gas molecules to the surrounding water. Scientists have measured oxygen diffusing into the diving bell and carbon dioxide diffusing out to facilitate a spider’s breathing. For this reason, scientists have even likened the homespun structure to a gill. In oxygen-poor waters, these spiders will expand the size of their homes to stuff in more air. Although the gas exchange is efficient, eventually the diving bells shrink, so the spiders need to resurface once a day to gather bubbles for reinflation.

As Door Hinges to Burrows

A trapdoor spider peeks out from the doorway of its burrow.

Louise Docker, Sydney, Australia via Getty Images

“Trapdoor spiders and tarantulas will use silks to reinforce the tunnels that they make. So it’s like a building material,” says Sebastian Echeverri, a spider researcher and communicator. Among his 19 pet spiders, his favorites are his two trapdoor spiders.

This kind of spider furnishes its home with a solid door made of soil, leaves and silk. The hinge of the door in particular is spun from silk. These arachnids keep the door shut in the morning and leave it open as they hunt at night, when the spiders are most active. Radiating from the entryway are trails of silk threads that act as trip lines. When a victim touches these threads, the ambush hunters will sense their vibrations through the silk and pounce.

The doors serve as protection, especially against their predatory arch nemesis: parasitic wasps. In the event of an attack, the trapdoor spiders use their fangs to hold the door shut—a move oddly reminiscent of a grumpy human teenager. But the stinging predators usually win out by chewing through the flap. The oldest known spider in the wild, a trapdoor spider residing in southwest Australia, died in 2016 at the age of 43 when it was killed by a parasitic wasp that raided its home.

As Community Hubs

The webs of the social Anelosimus eximus spiders, such as this one found in Yasuni National Park in Ecuador, can stretch up to 25 feet in length to accommodate up to 50,000 residents.

Peter Prokosch via Flickr under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Not all spiders are lone hunters. Researchers know of 25 social species out of the 45,000 described. Social spiders often live together in colonies up to 50,000 strong (although a membership of around 1,000 is usually the optimum size). Working together, such an army of arachnids can build impressive homes of silk. The Anelosimus eximius spider colony in South America can spin webs spanning 25 feet in length, constituting one of the largest silken sanctuaries in the natural world.

Only the female members—outnumbering the males upwards of five to one—work together to build, repair and clean their home. The large numbers of the colony and gargantuan web come in handy when the spiders go after larger prey that an individual can’t take on alone. The spiders work as a team to bring down these larger insects, such as grasshoppers or butterflies, by overwhelming the victims with their numbers.

If the Anelosimus webs are disturbed by predatory swarms of ants or wasps, the spider troops can mount a defense in return. The vibrations of the interlopers are easily transmitted to the vast webs, which disables any surprise attack. The victor of the battle, spider or otherwise, will have a bountiful meal from the fallen.

Large webs of silk are no good against larger animals, especially birds that pilfer the silk to adorn their own nests.

As Drinking Fountains

A wolf spider sits in a web covered in water droplets in Indonesia.

dikkyoesin1 via Getty Images

While spiders usually quench their thirst by sucking on the juices of their prey, they can also hydrate themselves the traditional way by imbibing directly from water droplets or small puddles. To save themselves a trip to a water hole, they occasionally sip on the droplets that condense on their webs.

Spider silk can be excellent at drawing moisture from the air. Researchers studied the silk of cribellate spiders and found that the key to its water collecting property is the fiber’s shifting structure itself. In the presence of humidity, the filaments scrounge up into knotty puffs spaced between smooth untangled strands to look like threaded beads on a string. These knotty puffs are moisture magnets. When water condenses onto the silk, the droplets will slide along the smooth regions towards the puffs and coalesce into larger globules there.

The knobby structure of this silk is so efficient at sucking water out of thin air, that it has inspired scientists to develop similar materials in hopes to harvest water from fog.

As Food

The worst kind of roommate, an Argyrodes elevatus spider sits on a yellow garden spider web that’s not of its own making. The spiders are known to steal prey and silk from others.

Katja Schulz via Flickr under CC BY 2.0

The proteins in spider silk are a valuable commodity. Making silk demands energy on the spider’s part, so sometimes it will eat its own silk, allowing its body to recycle the proteins to make new silk. Many spiders routinely tear down their webs and begin again, so they may as well recycle their building materials.

The Argyrodes spider, or dewdrop spider, takes silk eating to a whole new level—by robbing other spiders’ silk. This spider is a kleptoparasite, which means it pilfers the insect bounty of other spiders rather than hunt for its own. It occasionally does more than steal��it may even move in and prey on the host. During lean times when other spiders can’t land a catch, dewdrop spiders will still steal from the poor by eating the host’s webs instead. Their web heist is a temporary foraging strategy to get by when food is scarce for everyone. Researchers have observed in the lab that the veritable thieves can gorge on the same amount of silk as they would insects.

As Wrapping Paper

A nursery web spider is called what it is for good reason: the females are well-known for constructing a conspicuous egg sac out of silk as a nursery. Mothers are fiercely protective—they will carry their egg sacs in their jaws wherever they roam. When the eggs are about to hatch, the mother will spin a nursery “tent” and place the eggs inside. Then, she stands guard outside and fends off predators until her young are old enough to make their own way out into the world.

Females aren’t the only ones with a creative use of silk. Males spin the material into wrapping paper. As a token of sincerity, a male nursery web spider uses his silk to gift wrap a food item and present it to a suitor. The cost is high if he shows up empty handed: The female usually eats him. Nuptial gifts, as the silk-wrapped dowries are called, help prevent sexual cannibalism by females and extend mating time, keeping the legged ladies occupied with unwrapping presents as males have their way with the females. Researchers have demonstrated that a female is over six times more likely to eat a prospective mate if he shows up sans souvenir, whether she’s hungry or not.

“Some [males] are actually quite naughty,” says Vollrath. Sometimes, the packages “don’t even have a fly inside.” Wily males may take shortcuts—instead of investing the effort into preparing a nutritious gift, males may cheat and wrap fake ones, such as inedible plant seeds, meal leftovers or pebbles. A male might get away with the trickery and squeeze in a quickie, but the female usually cuts their romantic time short after she discovers the ruse. The deception of the nursey web male is a razor edge’s balance between cost and benefit: He may save his energy by preparing a worthless gift for the female; but on the other hand, he may not receive enough time to copulate or he may get eaten.

As Bondage During Mating

A puny male Nephila pilipes spider might bind a cannibalistic female before mating with her. This pair was photographed at Airlie Beach in Queensland, Australia.

Graham Winterflood via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY-SA-2.0

Prospective brides of many spider species are fearsome creatures—they may eat any male who dares approach. A male spider may thwart a female from eating him by binding her with his silk before mating.

Some spiders restrain the female by tying her entire body to the ground; other males throw over their brides a light veil of silk that’s infused with pheromones to turn her on. Researchers have shown that this sparse silk also soothes the female like would a weighted blanket. The Ancylometes bogotensis spider trusses a female up only by the legs, then tips her on her side to mate with her. This foreplay is done out of sheer necessity—females are generally bigger and more aggressive than the males. In the case of Nephila pilipes, the female is ten times larger and 125 times heavier. And females have no trouble freeing themselves from the bindings after mating.

As a Chemical-Soaked Road

Wolf spiders are wandering arachnids that don’t spin webs, but do use silk to drop chemical cues.

Joshua Innes via Getty Images

Wandering wolf spider females play hard to get. To broadcast that they’re single and ready to mingle, they’ll leave a trail of silk as they roam. This ‘silk road’ contains sex pheromones, coy come-hither chemical signals that will send males on a merry chase. In fact, males of a particular species of wolf spiders, the Schizocosa ocreata, are able to distinguish the virgin adults from the prepubescent females from the chemicals in the silk fibers. They prefer to chase the sexually mature females to boost their reproductive success.

Males that catch a whiff will put on a courtship display, even before reaching the female. The flamboyant show is energetically costly and may make him more visible to predators. But researchers think there’s still an evolutionary advantage to putting on a show without that coy female in the audience. The performance is a wily shortcut. The males simply hope to attract the notice of other females that happen nearby, and perhaps send out an early message to interested females not to eat the eager courters.

As a Communication Tool

The Portia fambriata spider strums spider silk like a guitar to draw in other spiders as prey.

Hua Ming Lee via Getty Images

Spiders are extraordinarily sensitive to vibrations. They can sense their prey through the miniscule tremors in the silk. Silk also provides the perfect platform for arachnids to communicate from a distance by plucking the strands or rumbling their abdomens. Spiders may communicate back and forth along a silk thread during courtship, so a male can test the waters before approaching a standoffish female to avoid getting eaten. If the female is receptive, she might just strum back.

Spiders, if it still isn’t clear, can be devious creatures. One cannibalistic spider has learned how to mimic the vibrations of an insect caught in a trap. It drops by other spiders’ webs, strums its song to lure victims into a corner, then ambushes them. The Portia jumping spider is famous for its intelligence, using trial and error to “compose” the right signals until they successfully pique the curiosity of prey. One particularly persistent Portia has been observed to keep up its experimental strumming for three days, before its prey finally decided to investigate.

Portia spiders will make a move on any spider that’s up to twice its size, so when dealing with the larger spiders, the cannibals need to quiver with caution, lest they become the prey instead. Again, this brainy spider experiments with different beats, perhaps plucking a monotonous melody that calms larger spiders. Or, its rhythm may orient the victim-to-be in a particular direction so the Portia may attack its prey from a safer angle. The impressive range of Portia’s tactics is the hallmark of the spider-eat-spider world that arachnids live in.

“[Spiders] have taken every single possible aspect of being a spider and just run with it in completely different directions,” says Echeverri.“Spiders do ‘spider’ in completely different ways.”

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[honourablejester]

Some more homebrew D&D deities (following this post), some old, some new. Just so everybody knows, I could imagine gods all damn day. Heh. A fair few knowledge deities this time, a good bit of chaos, and some small gods:

HEEIN-SHEEIN, HE-IN-THE-DESERT AND SHE-IN-THE-NIGHT

Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

Domains: Twilight, Trickery, Knowledge, Life

Symbol: Thorn Or Thorn Tree

Their faithful call them Heein-Sheein, the Little God in the Thorns. Others call them the Twins, He-In-The-Desert and She-In-The-Night. They’re not twins, though. They’re one being, both male and female, a deity of the in-between. They like thorn trees. They like fights where nobody’s winning. They like people who aren’t one thing or the other, but something in-between. Heein-Sheein is the little god of checks and balances, of blurring lines, of personal change, of fixing odds. They are rumoured to have been a demon once, or a demon still, or a spirit, or something else again. They don’t seem to care. Their faithful are few, but inclined to stick their oar in and change fate, to prevent certain victories and bolster outcasts and underdogs against defeat. And, in smaller ways, to help those who are lost and in pain, and need someone who’s experienced a few things to help.

ISKUUR, THE STORM LORD

Alignment: Chaotic Neutral/Chaotic Good

Domains: Tempest, Light

Symbol: Sea Wall Broken By Wave

Iskuur is a god of seas and storms and chaos, a sinker of ships. A god whose emblem is a shattered sea wall, a symbol of landbound authority sundered by his might. A god of sunken ships and broken chains, and freedom defended by might. He strongly opposes slavery, tyranny, and the restriction of free will, but also organised navies, sea defenses, and the rule of law. He has a mixed approach to fisherpeople, favouring spear fishers but violently disliking net/trap fishers, and many fishing ships pray to other sea gods for protection from him. Iskuur is a god who emphasises survival, endurance and freedom above all, and while he powerfully opposes physical constraints on a person’s will, such as captivity, that is nothing to how he opposes psychological or magical assaults on will. If you would impose your authority on another’s will in the presence of Iskuur or any of his devout, you may expect the storm, the lightning, or the wave.

ALATEE, THE LITTLE GREY GODDESS OF LISTS

Alignment: Lawful Neutral

Domains: Knowledge, Order, War

Symbol: Blank Wooden Stamp

A small and distinctly unglamourous deity, Alatee is nonetheless vital to any longterm cause of civilisation. She is, in essence, the little god of logistics. She is the goddess of lists, and trade routes, and information, and postal services, and logistics offices, and paperwork. She is the goddess of all those men and women who spend hours and years and decades of their lives making sure that everything is accounted for, that everything gets where it needs to go, that any large-scale endeavour has all its necessities behind it. She is the goddess soldiers pray to for a miraculous supply line, for a package from home, for a fresh pair of socks. She is the goddess builders and shipwrights pray to, to please let my calculations be right. She is the goddess clerks and spies both pray to, let me get this job done and not be seen. A hundred thousand tiny people pray to Alatee daily, not for glamour, but just to get the job done.

INEIA, THE WEAVER, THE MANY-HANDED, THE SILVER SPIDER

Alignment: Lawful Good

Domains: Knowledge, Life, Peace

Symbol: Silver Spider Or Spiderweb

A quiet but far from silent goddess, Ineia is the deity of connection, craft, community and communication. In particular, she is the weaver goddess, the god of those crafts that hold communities together: the weaver, the butcher, the farrier, the tailor, the shoemaker, the needlemaker, the toolsmith. The teacher, the parent, the leader. She is the goddess of community, of standing together for the survival of all. When she appears to mortals, she often takes the form of a silver-haired young woman, of any species, with six spider limbs sprouting from her shoulders, for it is said that she despaired of having enough hands for all the work that needed to be done, and that she admired the craft and endurance of the spider’s work. To serve Ineia is to value learning, craft, work, and pulling together for the betterment of all.

DORAM, THE SOLDIER’S SHEPHERD, THE RED SPECTRE

Alignment: True Neutral

Domains: Grave, War, Nature

Symbol: A Red Wildflower

Doram is the silent deity of war’s aftermath. He is the god of soldiers’ graves, of burnt villages, of broken swords, of ancient battlefields covered over by the red flowers that grow in broken earth. He is the god that hears such prayers: “Let it be fast. Let it be easy. Let earth cover me back over. Let something beautiful grow where I have passed. Let me not be bound to haunt this cursed field. Let it matter, let it mean something. Take me somewhere quiet, where all this rage has ceased.” His worshippers are few, his clerics and priests hounded and persecuted as spectres of ill-omen and defeat, but like Doram himself, they are dedicated to their quiet duty. To tend the broken and the dying. To bury the dead of war. To heal the land around its scars. To lay the ghosts of its passing.

GORBALUNE, THE TRUTH-SEEKER, THE UNFETTERED

Alignment: Chaotic Good/Chaotic Neutral/Chaotic Evil (oscillates between them)

Domains: Arcana, Knowledge, Forge, Tempest, Light

Symbol: Lightning Erupting From A Shattered Glass Sphere

Goddess of iconoclasts, researchers, inventors, heretics and the mad, Gorbalune is the Goddess of Creation and Discovery. She is the Truth-Seeker and the Unfettered. She holds that there should be no bounds on discovery, creation, invention, investigation. Risk life and limb, risk reputation and sanity, spit in the face of order and tradition. Do it all, do everything, if it brings you closer to your truth, the truth of your soul or the truth of the universe, or the truth of the seed of invention inside yourself. Run before you can walk, fly before you can run. Invent wings for yourself. Dream strange and terrible dreams. Speak truth to power, and be not afraid to die for it. Explore. Experiment. Create. Shout. No silence, for Gorbalune’s faithful. No bowing the head, no looking away. Face the world head on, and leave your mark, even if you die for it. Go out and learn, go out and do.

[min-haven-pokemon-sanctuary]

Fakemon-tober!: Day 10

They’re silkworm/alpaca pokemon! This is probably the first art where the size difference between the evolutions isn’t accurate however, as the first evolution is closer to the size of a teddy bear while the other is llama sized. But showing it made it too hard too see the detail of Fleesilk so I had to scale them up.

They are both normal/bug types.

Fleesilk

These young pokemon excrete a silk from their mouth that’s highly prized for the creation of high quality fabrics. Their silk also mixing well with other pokemon furs in the creation of fabrics, so it’s not uncommon for them to be kept with other kinds of pokemon meant for fur harvesting, or to be mixed with less conventional furs such as furfrou for yarns and fabrics with unique attributes and natural colors.

The pokemon themselves creating armor and other forms of protection for themselves out of the thread.

Mopaca

Despite growing a small pair of wings upon evolution, This pokemon is unable to fly, having instead evolved to maintain a more caterpillar like form to focus on their silk production, with the wings being a vestigial reminder of their more moth-like ancestry.

These Pokemon are natural weavers, making net’s, ropes, traps, nests, and all manner of things with their silk and any other materials they can find to weave into their creations. They can also quite easily be taught human weaving and knitting techniques as well, making them very popular among hobbyist and professional weavers. As well as being commonly kept on farms with their pre-evolutions or other farm-kept pokemon like wooloo, as they can be quite protective and motherly of even pokemon outside their own species.

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[arakhne]

The Spider and the Web

Spinning and Weaving in Myth, Metaphor and Media

It is no surprise that spiders are so often despised and vilified, considering the potential danger of their venomous bite, and the nuisance of their cobwebs. They are also widely admired, however, for the beauty and intricacy of the webs they spin, and the surprising strength of their threads. They are seldom given credit for their importance in the ecosystem, and their usefulness to humans in keeping down the population of flies, mosquitoes and other less desirable arthropods. For obvious reasons, spiders have been frequently associated with the craft of spinning and weaving, which has an important place in human culture and a rich history in myth and metaphor. In spite of this, they are also connected with darkness and danger, and have come to symbolize evil and the much maligned aspects of magic and witchcraft.

The presentation of spiders in literature and media is equally nuanced. Many writers have displayed an apparent prejudice against spiders, while others have celebrated their merits. For Tolkien, the dark female spider Ungoliant in the Silmarillion, and the giant female spider Shelob in 'The Lord of the Rings' were the embodiment evil and terror, while for E.B. White, the diminutive female spider in 'Charlotte Web' was the embodiment of charm, intelligence, and selflessness. For George Bernard Shaw, the arachnid was associated with a fear of success - the "end of one's business on earth, like the male spider, who is killed by the female the moment he has succeeded in his courtship."

The predominance of feminine associations with spiders may have a lot to do with the fact that most female spiders are significantly larger than the males, and will often eat them after copulation. The males use elaborate courtship rituals to prevent being eaten before fertilization has taken place. In the case of web weaving spiders, the patterns of vibration on the web are a way for the males to identify themselves, whereas the male hunting spiders will hypnotize the female by means of touch, and jumping spiders perform gestures and dances. All of these elaborate rituals inevitably end in the demise of the male spiders who become food for the female, and in some species the male will even assist her by impaling himself on her fangs. The females of some species meet no better fate, and after laying their eggs they too will perish. These anecdotes of nature remind us of a strange irony in our personal drive for survival. Our mortality requires us to reproduce in order to prolong our genetic heritage, yet the process of reproduction often marks the end of our lives as individuals.

The Greek word arakhne is the origin for the scientific class of Arachnida, whereas the class Araneae is from the Latin word, both meaning spider and spider web. Arachne is also the name of a character in Greek mythology, who was a great weaver, taught by the goddess Athena.

In spite of her similar sounding name, Ariadne, another character from Greek mythology, bears no overt relation to Arachne, however there are deeper connections between the two. Ariadne was known for having helped Theseus escape from the labyrinth where he killed the minotaur by providing him with a thread he could use to find his way back out. The labyrinth bears much resemblance to a spider's web, with its spiral pattern designed to entrap all who enter, and the terrifying creature that dwells within, waiting to devour the victim.

Ariadne hanged herself. Erigone ended her life by hanging herself. Artemis is referred to as the hanged one. Helen of the Trees is said to have been hanged by Polyxo.

Athena is the patron god of both Penelope and her husband Odysseus. Penelope was endlessly weaving as she waited for her husband's return.

Athena is the goddess of wisdom, skills and warfare, but also weaving and woodwork, which involve

The Roman version of Dionysis was Bacchus who gave his name to the bachanalia, the wild and drunken mystical celebrations that have been practiced since ancient times in veneration of the God of wine and revelry.

The connection of Ariadne's thread to that of the spider is repeated in the curious case of the kimura-gumo, a Japanese spider which represents one of the last remnants of the old world spiders. One thing that distinguishes this species is that the spinnerets are located in the middle of the body instead of the rear, to where evolved to in modern spiders. It makes it's home in a cave-like burrow surrounded by a protective cobweb. When it goes out of the burrow to hunt it leaves a trail of thread behind to assist in the return journey. Unlike the case of Theseus, who followed Ariadne's thread to escape the prison of labyrinth after slaying the minotaur, this spider uses the thread to return to the dark den that is its home after slaying its prey.

The thread of fate in Greek mythology has an analog in the 'red string of fate' originating in East Asian folklore, which suggests that the gods tie an invisible thread between two people who are destined to be together. Like a spider's web, this cord may stretch or tangle, but it will never break.

According to Herodotus, it was the men who were the primary weavers of the Ancient Egyptians. Nevertheless, the act of weaving was connected to the goddess Neith, whose name means weaver. She was originally the goddess of war and hunting, also known as Nit, Net or Neit. The interpretation of her name as meaning 'water' led to her role as the personification of the primordial waters of creation. She was depicted holding a goad, and part of her hieroglyph may have been interpreted as a loom, thus later connecting her with weaving, and she became the goddess who wove the world into existence with her loom. She was also the protector of women and the guardian of marriage. She was sometimes depicted with both a weaver's shuttle and bow and arrows, other times with the head of a lioness, snake or cow. She was titled the 'Nurse of Crocodiles,' and was originally identified as the mother of Sobek, the crocodile god of the Nile. Neith was also known as the great cow who gave birth to Ra. As the goddess of war, she was associated with death, and wove the bandages and shrouds of the mummified dead as a gift. She protected the canopic jar which held the stomach, considered the most vulnerable organ in battle.

The three fates of Greek mythology, known as the Moirai, or 'apportioners', were believed to control the metaphorical thread of life of every mortal from cradle to grave, and all gods and men were submissive to them, with the exception of Zeus. The first of the Moirai, Clotho, was known as the spinner, as she spun the thread of life from her distaff onto her spindle, and her Roman equivalent, Nona, or the ninth, was called upon during the ninth month of pregnancy. The second of the Moirai, Lachesis, the drawer of lots, measured the thread of life allotted to every individual with her measuring rod. The third, Atropos, the inevitable, or unturning, would cut the thread of life and determined the manner of each person's death with her shears. Her Roman equivalent was Morta, or death.

Through the metaphor of weaving, these fates can be seen as connected to spider and the story of Arachne. In Roman mythology, which was largely inherited from the Greeks, the three fates were known as the Parcae. There is also an equivalent in Norse mythology, known as the Norns. They were powerful maidens who nourished the tree of life, Yggdrasill, from the Well of Uror. One possible source for the origin of their name is from a word meaning 'twine', referring to their weaving the thread of fate. The name of one of the trio of prominent norns, Uror, means 'fate', referring to the past tense, or that which has already happened. The other norns in the trio are Veroandi, from the verb 'to be', or that which is happening, and Skuld, from the Norse verb skulle, or that which is yet to be.

The tools of weaving, in the form of the distaff used in spinning wool, are also found in the Norse sorcery or witchcraft, known as seid, or seior, which may relate to the word for 'cord' or 'string'. It was predominantly practiced by women, and involved the incantation, or 'weaving' of spells and possibly a circular dance. It was considered an unmanly and manipulative pursuit by the Vikings, and the god Odin was said to have been taunted by Loki for practicing seid. This sorcery was also practiced by the goddess Freyja, who was associated with love, beauty and fertility, as well as gold, war and death. Another related Norse goddess, Frigg, or Frigga, was associated with weaving. She was considered foremost among the goddesses and was the wife of Odin, and queen of Asgard, and she was also associated with childbirth. The term Friday comes from her name, and the stars of Orion's belt were known to the Norse as 'Frigg's spinning wheel' (Friggerock) or 'Freyja's Distaff' (Frejerock), possibly due to the spinning of the stars along the celestial equator.

Both Freyja and Frigg, who may be variations of the same goddess, can also be associated with the character of Frau Holda, or Holle, from Grimm's fairytales. She is the supernatural matron of spinning, childbirth and domestic animals. She oversees the cultivation and spinning of flax, and she teaches and rewards the hard worker, sometimes finishing their reels during the night. Thus she can be connected with the busy activity of the spider in the dark. In some parts of Germany spinning was forbiden during the twelfth night or Christmas eve festival in observance of Frau Holda, whereas in others flax is loaded into the spindles as Holda promises 'As many threads, as many good years' The work must be finished by the time she has done her rounds and returns on the day of Epiphany, otherwise she promises 'As many threads, as many bad years.' She was believed to be out in the wilderness during this time in midwinter, which was when the dead were thought to roam. She can take the form either of an old hag, or a youthful maiden dressed in snowy white. Although she has no children, she is the protector of children, and the souls of the newborn were said to enter into the world through her sacred pool. It was her connection with spinning and weaving that associated her with witchcraft in Catholic German folklore, and she was believed to ride upon a distaff, the way a witch would ride a broom.

The character of Huldra, from Scandinavian folklore, is a seductive forest creature, related to the German Holda. She appears as beautiful and sometimes naked, with long hair, but is hollow behind, with the tail of a cow or fox. She may lure men into the forest to have intercourse with her, and rewards those who satisfy her and kills those who do not, making her reminiscent of the deadly mating behavior of the spider. Unlike Holda who is a childless protector of children, Huldra sometimes steals infants and replaces them with her own ugly huldrebarn changelings.

In spite of the widespread appearance of spider symbolism throughout history and across the globe, there are very few instances of an actual spider deity. One of the few significant examples, still only a conjecture, is the Great Goddess of Teotihuacan, that is also known as the Teotihuacan Spider Woman) The representation of this goddess has been found in various murals from the pre-Columbian civilization that existed from around 100 BCE to 700 CE in the region of modern day Mexico. She seems to be quite unique to that location, and it thought that she represents the underworld, being associated with earth, water, war and creation. Along with the jaguar and the owl, the spider was considered a creature of darkness, dwelling in caves and subterranean locales. She is often depicted with spiders scurrying in the background, or on her arms and hanging from her clothing, and sometimes carries shields decorated with spider webs.

But we must not take the metaphor of the spider too far, for then we are in danger of a fallacy known as 'reification', or 'concretism', in which an abstract idea is mistaken for a real physical entity. Certainly spiders exist, and webs exist, however their nature and behavior, while they may resemble human ideas and characteristics, are nonetheless independent of any real connection. The correlation between time and weaving does not mean that the weaving activities of some goddess somewhere causes cosmic time to come into being. Furthermore, the fact that many female spiders may consume the male after copulation has no real bearing on the nature of behavior of human women.

The critic John Ruskin coined the term 'pathetic fallacy', in his words “to signify any description of inanimate natural objects that ascribes to them human capabilities, sensations, and emotions." He saw the poetic use of anthropomorphism as a sign of artistic weakness, however many other critics have argued in favor attributing human traits to animals or inanimate objects, suggesting that this is a universally embraced approach to understanding the world, and has always been essential to mythology, art and literature. We cannot fault some of the greatest storytellers in history for using such imaginative devices to spin a good yarn.

The origin of the imaginary author Mother Goose may have been the French "Bertha the Spinner" (Berthe la fileuse), or "Goose-Foot Bertha" (Berthe pied d'oie), and she is often referred to in French legends as spinning incredible tales that captivated children. It is from this tradition that we get the tale of 'Sleeping Beauty', and the familiar image of the spinning wheel.

In order to grow, spiders, like other arthropods, must shed their skins, or cuticles, in a process called molting.

In spite of the predominance of web spinning spiders in the popular consciousness, there is a dazzling variety of feeding behaviors methods in the spider world. The female bolas spiders patrol a single line of thread like a tightrope, then make a ball of sticky silk with which to catch their prey, and they attract moths by emitting chemical that mimic their pheromones. The primitive trapdoor spiders, as well as many tarantulas, hide in burrows from which they ambush their prey. Other spiders rely solely on their vision, speed and agility to chase and catch their prey.

The portia, a type of jumping spider which feeds on other spiders, exhibit the capacity for learning and problem solving in the intelligent ways they lure or outflank their prey. The name 'portia' comes from a Roman clan name, meaning pig, and it has been most famously used by William Shakespeare in 'The Merchant of Venice', who portrays her as rich, beautiful, intelligent and gracious. It is, perhaps, ironic that the same name should be associated with a cunning spider, since it is Portia who delivers the famous speech against cruelty:

The quality of mercy is not strain'd. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest: It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.

The portia spider, on the other hand, seems to be twice cursed, not only does it use it's intelligence to the demise of its prey, but the victims also happen to be other spiders.

Spiders about in the media and popular culture, from Spiderman to The Kiss of the Spiderwoman. In Charles Dickens' novel Great Expectation, 'the spider' is used as a nickname for the rival of Pip, a despicable character named Bentley Drummie who marries Pip's childhood love Estella and treats her poorly. In the 1998 movie adaptation, Finn's lawyer is named 'ragno' which, we are told, means 'spider' in Italian.

It is possible to see many different correlations between the spider's web and human attributes. In order to be effective, the web must fulfill three important functions: interception of the prey's trajectory, absorption of it's momentum, and retention of the prey. This is similar to the factors necessary to process information - first we must encounter the information, second we must absorb it into our consciousness and understanding, and finally we must retain it, if it is to become useful knowledge.

I recently came across a quote from the philosopher Sir Francis Bacon, in which he uses the metaphor of a spider's web to decry the shortfalls of inner knowledge without external experience. In "The Advancement of Learning" in 1605, he wrote: "Here, therefore, is the first distemper of learning, when men study words and not matter." In support of his argument, he compared the spider to the wit and mind of man, "...if work upon itself, as the spider worketh in its web, then it is endless, and brings forth indeed cobwebs of learning, admirable for the fineness of thread and work, but of no substance or profit...." It seems ironic that one so learned as Bacon, who had indeed observed and studied nature extensively, should overlook the fact that the spider's web is of paramount importance to its survival, and can therefore be seen as full of 'substance and profit', especially from the point of view of the spider.

Perhaps Bacon meant to suggest that the spider's web is of no use to humans, though he even dismisses their aesthetic appeal, by referring to them only as cobwebs which, having served their purpose and being no longer functional, are discarded by the spiders and left to cause a nuisance to humans. His dismissive attitude is reinforced by Bacon's various other uses of the spider web as a cautionary example, "the reasoners resemble spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own substance," (Aphorism no. 95) and "laws were like cobwebs; where the small flies were caught, and the great brake through." (Apothegms no. 181) These aspersions undermine the glorious achievement and marvel of nature that is the spider web.

Shakespeare presents a more nuanced view of the spider and its web. In Richard III he continues the tradition of unpleasant associations, referring to the 'bottled spider' along with toads and venom, and the 'deadly web' that 'ensnareth'. In 'A Midsummer Night's Dream,' however, he alludes to the use of the spider web as a traditional form of healing band aid, when Bottom says "I shall desire you of more acquaintance, good master Cobweb: if I cut my finger." In 'The Winter's Tale', Leontes describes how a spider may be drunk unseen and do no harm, for its venom is not partaken of, but if the spider is drunk and seen, then the knowledge becomes unbearable.

The American naturalist Edwin Way Teale suggests that "the difference between utility and utility plus beauty is the difference between telephone wires and the spider web."

The spider's web can be seen as flimsy and insubstantial, "the weakest of houses is a spider’s house," says the Qur'an. They can also be associated with the delicate silvery gossamer that mystified poets like Spencer, who refers to their fine nets as 'scorched dew', or John Keats, who likens the spider's web to the 'airy citadel' of personal imagination. Yet according to the Ethiopian proverb "when spider webs unite, they can tie up a lion." The spider's web means one thing to the spider, and something quite different to the fly.

In the modern consciousness, the web has come to be the preferred metaphor for the vast network of digital information that is the internet, and a spider refers to a computer program that crawls the web for information. This metaphor might appear to overlook the intended purpose of the internet, which is ostensibly for the sharing of knowledge, as opposed to that of the spider's web, which is to ensnare its prey. However, the metaphor is more accurate than it first appears when we consider the predatory dark side of the internet, and the dangerous traps that abound online - many of which are designed to enrich the adepts at the expense of the unsuspecting. Wrote the Scottish playwright Sir Walter Scott:

"Oh! what a tangled web we weave When first we practice to deceive!"

Dangers of a different kind also exist on the web, the abundance of pornography and sexual predators lurking in search of impressionable victims. "Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly." Even the more benign inanities of the World Wide Web can sometimes catch us off guard, giving us the same unpleasant surprise that we feel when walking into an invisible spider web in the dark. To borrow a popular idiom from internet culture, one the spider has been seen, it cannot be unseen.

Without sufficient information we may risk drinking a spider or walking into its web, but sometimes too much knowledge will make us overreact to situations that may not be as perilous as they seem. The boundaries between irrational fear and sensible caution have never been easy to discern. The dangers of real world experience may seem greater than those of abstract studies, but the rewards of both may be equally worthy of pursuit.

[jarienn972]

Bloodline

From the OUAT Winter Whump 2018 event

After being inspired by @wyntereyez​ live-blogging her rewatch of OUAT S7 last night and her post reblogs today, I was originally going to just reblog this story which was my re-imagining of Season 7 episode 19, Flower Child, but I decided to create a new post so that I could attach the art work that today’s birthday girl @cocohook38​ graciously surprised me with! 

This story does feature violent situations as it was created to fix the wasted potential of the episode for those of us who enjoy seeing a little bit of whump. Please Note: Gothel is the featured villain here so fair warning as there are some vague mentions of her history with Rogers.

Also on FF.net and AO3

So little had made sense for weeks now in the Heights and Detective Rogers’ inquisitive mind was in overdrive.  Every time he thought he’d guessed the next move correctly, he’d found himself face to face with his often condescending partner who was all-too-happy to remind him of his failures.  It wasn’t as though Weaver was giving him any answers either, just more cryptic questions and general annoyance. Granted, a fair portion of his frustration was his own damned fault.  Weaver had warned him not to pursue his search for Eloise Gardner, but obsession had gripped him, forcing him to investigate every clue to hunt her down - although they’d likely never know exactly how or why Victoria Belfrey had imprisoned her in the tower.  He’d managed to uncover bits and pieces of a story about how Eloise was evil and needed to be kept locked away from humanity, but he hadn’t really believed any of it.  Not until bodies started turning up all over the Heights - Belfrey’s included.

Maybe he should have listened to Weaver’s advice, but he just couldn’t help himself. He’d been so driven to find the girl who had haunted his memory for years, only to discover that maybe she wasn’t really the person he’d imagined her to be.  Maybe if he’d heeded his partner’s warning, he wouldn’t be in his current predicament, not that it would matter for much longer. He’d be able to hang on a little while…

Maybe, just maybe, someone would come searching for him or maybe Tilly would spring back to her senses?

But the reality was - who would be looking for him?

One hour earlier

She was mad.  Had to be.  How else could he explain it?

Maybe he was mad.  How had he allowed this woman to gain so much power over him?

He felt manipulated. Used.  Hell, part of him felt downright violated, but yet he was still inexplicably drawn to her.

Weaver had warned him that she was a powerful witch, but he honestly hadn’t believed in witchcraft - at least until now as the realization struck that she had pulled him right into her coven’s waiting trap.  He’d been so gullible, but it also struck him as odd that he had no idea why she’d sought to ensnare him.  All he had wanted to do was help Tilly, and then - there she was - Eloise Gardner and her coven of witches hidden behind dark, heavy, hooded cloaks.  He and Tilly had wandered straight into the witch’s wicked web and despite knowing that they were both in grave danger, a voice in the back of his head kept telling him to protect Tilly.

“Please, don’t hurt her,” he’d pleaded with the witches as one of them grabbed Tilly from behind, clamping a hand over her mouth as they led her away from him, disappeared down what must have been a staircase.  He was at the wrong angle to be certain, even as he strained against his captor, struggling to get a better view.  “Tilly’s an innocent here…please, don’t harm her…”

Eloise approached him, drawing close as her minions restrained him.  He continued to struggle, trying to free himself from their grasp but despite their diminutive appearance, the hooded figures were far stronger than he expected. The witch pressed her body uncomfortably close to him, an air of triumph in her icy gaze.  His own eyes clung to defiance, even as her hand raised up to meet his face, fingertips lightly tracing the shape of his jaw while she stared at him with a sickeningly sweet smile plastered on her lips - the way he would imagine a predator admiring its prey.

“You’ve got this all wrong, Captain,” she insisted, never breaking her evil grin as she spoke. “Tilly isn’t the one I intend to hurt.  I need her.  You, on the other hand, are far more expendable.”

He had no idea what she was plotting or why she’d called him Captain - and she wasn’t the first to do that either.  All of his senses were screaming at him.  There was no doubt he was in way over his head, but no matter how much he struggled, there was no breaking free.

“What do you want from us?” Rogers demanded.  Hell, if he was going to die here, he at least wanted to know why.

“Oh, you’ll prove useful to me yet again.  You’re going to help bring my creation to life,” Eloise purred cryptically as she pulled her hand away from his face. “But first, I need you to stop being so uncooperative…”  Her right hand unfurled once again before his eyes, this time, revealing a clump of what appeared to be sparkling pink dust resting in the curve of her palm.  With one quick puff of her breath, the colorful particles were swirling around him and somewhere within that cloud, Rogers lost his will to resist, his body dropping limp into the arms of his captors.

**********

As his senses gradually returned, Rogers immediately knew something wasn’t right, but he didn’t know yet just how precarious the situation actually was.  His head throbbed and his recollection of the events that got him here was a tad cloudy - a sensation he’d experienced far too many times when he’d lost control of his indulgences. Only this was no mere hangover.

His eyelids parted slowly, adjusting to the dim light of the surroundings, seemingly illuminated solely by flickering flames.  Ruddy hued rocks comprised both the floor and the walls of what must have been some sort of a cave but as his sight became clearer, he discovered that this cavern held far more sinister secrets than he could have imagined.  He’d also come to the realization that he was suspended in the center of said cavern, his upper body bound tightly with vines.  Vines? It certainly wasn’t rope that secured him and as he tried to wiggle himself out of his bindings, he learned - rather painfully - that the vines were covered in thorns. Dozens of thorns, sharp as needles, jabbed into his bare skin with even the slightest movement on his part. He’d clearly been impaled a few times already as he could feel the tickle from the little rivulets of blood making a path down his leg to drip off of his big toe.

What he couldn’t tell from his vantage point was that his nearly nude body hung directly above an intricate design carved into the stone below - one the same shape as the coven’s symbol he’d been seeing all over Hyperion Heights.  Surrounding him were the dark, caped figures, each standing at one of the eight points of the symbol softly chanting some unknown incantation.  One of those hooded beings broke from the circle to canter towards him, apparently having realized he’d regained consciousness. The figure raised her head as she neared, enough for him to recognize her face as his gaze locked with that of Eloise Gardner once again.

The expression on her face confused him falling somewhere between satisfaction and sublimation. If this was indeed the same girl he’d tasked himself to locate so many years ago, what had happened to her that led her down this path? To have become involved with such a devilishly evil cult that had obviously stripped her of the innocence he’d remembered?  Well, at least the innocence he thought he’d remembered… Had she been so offended by his failure to protect her as a child that she’d spent all of these years planning ways to make him pay for that failure?  Even after he’d rescued her from Belfrey’s prison?  Hadn’t getting shot and spending the better part of a decade searching in vain been penance enough?

“Captain…” Eloise purred into his ear, her lips so close to his skin that he could feel the warmth of her breath, sending his body into an involuntary, repulsed shudder. “Just what is going on inside that pretty head of yours?”

“Why are you doing this?” was the question that crossed his lips, although there were so many others demanding to be asked as well. “I tried… I tried to help you… I freed you…” he stammered, his mind conflicted by both a desire to fight his thorny restraints and a total lack of willpower to do so.

“Oh, Captain,” she said through that same salacious grin, “we’ve such a torrid history… Where would I even begin?”

“History?” He didn’t understand how their few interactions could be construed as history.  “Eloise, we barely know anything about each other aside from the fact that I spent years searching for you…and I did find you.  Why this?”

“It’s almost a pity that your memory didn’t return like some of the others, but maybe it’s for the better…” She stepped around to his back, her right hand trailing along the skin just above the waistband of his boxer briefs as she leaned in to address his left ear.  “How about I start by re-introducing myself?  My name is Mother Gothel, not Eloise, and we do indeed have some very interesting history.  It might even have been so much more… I could have helped you seal your revenge against Rumplestiltskin while we pillaged and plundered the realms, but no.  You surprised me.  You chose the brat over me…”

“Brat? What - Tilly?” His stuttered words barely made sense in his own head, but they seemed to increase her ire.

“If that’s what you want to call her,” she scoffed. “You gave her a different name back then, but nonetheless, it won’t matter for much longer.”

“You haven’t harmed her, have you?” he asked meekly, his voice cracking audibly at the thought as his eyes grew wide with fearful anticipation.

“No, I haven’t harmed Tilly.  As I said before, she isn’t the one I plan to harm.  I need her magic to help initiate my spell…”  She paused her statement as she ambled around to face him once again, the iciness of her stare prickling every hair on the back of his neck. “But I need something else from you first…” Her fingertips made contact with his thigh, the skin searing beneath her touch as he fought back a swell of nausea. If this was what she wanted, he wasn’t interested, but as her right hand slithered up toward his hip, she raised her left hand in front of her chest, making certain that he would witness her next move.  Out of thin air, what might only have been described as a giant thorn materialized from her palm.  It was at least the length of her forearm and his terrified eyes instantly focused on its razor sharp point - even more so as she ghosted that needle-like point across his chest, drawing tiny droplets of blood as she passed it through the course, dark hair almost indecently.

“Eloise…” His voice came out as a whimper as he tried his best to shrink away from her, but the brambles encircling him only seemed to squeeze tighter. “I can still help you…” The cop in him was still trying to reason with her, even if his efforts might be deemed futile.

“Yes, my dear Captain, you most certainly can help me,” she assured him as that devilish grin crossed her features yet again.  “I absolutely require your assistance to activate a portion of my spell. More specifically, I need your blood.” She refused to give him even a moment to process her statement before thrusting the pointed end of her oversized thorn into his abdomen, angling it upward, beneath his rib cage and into his vital organs, yet stopping short of his heart.  She drew her arm backward, retracing the blood stained thorn so that she could admire her handiwork for a split-second before repeating the stabbing motion twice more.

The coppery scent of his own blood filled his nostrils as his mind and body were both overwhelmed by the shock of the assault.  Blood mixed with his saliva as he coughed up a bubble that he couldn’t swallow back down.  Sanguine trails flowed from his torso to form a small puddle on the carved rocky ground below as his instinct to fight for his life finally kicked in and he gathered his remaining strength to try to free his arms so he could put pressure on the seeping wounds.

“Struggle all you want,” she taunted him as she dropped the bloody thorn to the ground as she cupped his jaw with both of her hands.  “My vines will only grow tighter, driving those thorns deeper into your flesh.  Since we’re going to be here for a while as your body is slowly drained of its blood, you may wish to spare yourself further anguish.  I need your heart to keep pumping as long as possible to keep that blood fresh and potent until the entire medallion beneath you is filled.  Then, I won’t need you anymore…”

His body shook from a combination of fear and pain-driven convulsions as his blood flowed from the trio of punctures in his gut, but even with the agony she’d already inflicted upon him, the witch wasn’t done with him quite yet.  New vines began to sprout from those encasing his upper body, spiraling lower to wrap the rest of his torso and both of his legs with the constricting brambles.  Every nerve ending in his body felt assaulted as dozens of newly formed thorns tore into his skin, drawing more blood.  Rogers couldn’t even remember if he’d screamed but a silent prayer kept reciting within his head that maybe someone would find him.  And that blissful unconsciousness would befall him soon…

**********

Rogers didn’t know what stirred him back to consciousness but the immediate wash of pain over his entire being reminded him that he was still alive.  The dead didn’t experience pain, did they?  He assumed he’d learn that answer soon  enough - as soon as his lifeblood drained from him, his heart would inevitably cease and his lungs would no longer need to draw breath.  He didn’t have the energy within him to fight against the tightening vines, still feeling their intrusions across his arms, chest and back, but scarcely able to feel his legs anymore.  He wanted to just go numb, to return to the peaceful, pain-free oblivion, but his mind apparently wanted him to be awake to bear witness to his own torture.

“I’m surprised to see you awake,” a voice rang out from his right. Or was it from the left? Clearly his head wasn’t thinking straight, the blood loss leaving him disoriented. “Perhaps you’re a tad more resilient than I’d thought…” The voice continued in a sickeningly sweet cadence that made him want to retch even before he sensed the warmth of fingers brushing against his blood-soaked thigh. “You still have so much more to give…” He wished he could pull his leg away as the sensation of fingernails drawing lazy circles through the dampness only increased his nausea.

“What do you want?” He knew he’d asked the question before, but in his weakened state, he didn’t remember the answer - certainly not the answer she was about to give.

“Oh, Captain, this goes back so far…,” she mused.  “Years ago, we met in a far away land, high in a tower where I needed you to provide the one thing that would allow me freedom from that prison - a new bloodline.  You were so, how should I say this? Eager? So willing to provide me what I needed, but then, you betrayed me…”

Tower? Betrayal? Her words were conjuring images that bombarded his psyche, but were they memories or hallucinations?  He didn’t know if he could trust his own brain right now.

“Eloise…”

“Not Eloise - Gothel,” she reminded him, her tone more annoyed than playful this time. “You really should try to remember me.” Her hand instantly snapped from caressing his thigh to clutching his throat, her thumb and forefinger pushing his head upward to meet her gaze.  “I want you to look at me while you hang there dying.  I want you to regret ever choosing that brat instead of me!”  She stabbed a manicured index finger towards one of the cloaked figures as he recognized Tilly’s profile beneath the hood.

“Tilly…” he whispered, not even certain if his voice was loud enough for her to hear.  

“She can’t hear you.  She’s caught in a trance that I placed upon her.  She’ll keep mindlessly repeating that incantation over and over until your blood fills the rest of the medallion here.  Then, as soon as she steps into the center, the mix of bloodlines will enact my spell and bring about the return of this land to its rightful ruler - Nature.”

“Why Tilly? If we have history, that’s between us,” he argued weakly, energy waning quickly, but still possessing a flicker of determination to protect his young friend from this madwoman. “She has nothing to do with this…”

“Oh, but you’re wrong there, Captain,” she laughed. “Tilly - or Alice, as you used to call her - has everything to do with this.  She’s our daughter - the blend of our bloodlines - possessing some of your spunk and some of my magic.  I need to draw that magic from her and it just so happens that her father’s blood is the perfect conduit to do so.”

“Wait - daughter?  Tilly… Alice… she’s my daughter?” he stammered, trembling as his already pain-wracked brain overloaded. “How can she be my daughter?  I’m not old enough…”

That statement brought an amused cackle from his captor. “Looks can be so deceiving, Captain, but then curses can certainly play such tricks with your mind… You really don’t look a day over two hundred.”

Images came to him once again in vivid flashes as his barely lucid mind struggled to make sense of them without any context.  A pirate ship.  A tall, isolated tower.  A small, blonde haired child.  Eloise, yet not Eloise…

A hook.

His sullen eyes drew downward, seeking out the prosthetic hand attached to the wrist of his stumped arm which suddenly didn’t feel right to him.  The weight, the fit - all wrong.

He’d lost that hand in a bad car accident, hadn’t he? He questioned his own recollection, no longer sure if anything he knew about himself was real. He was hanging here, slowly bleeding to death at the hand of a woman he’d thought he’d rescued and yet he felt as though he was right on the cusp of an epiphany.

His eyes squeezed shut as his body convulsed involuntarily.  Why hadn’t he told Weaver what he was doing? The only other person who knew he was here was Tilly and she was lost to some hypnotic trance. He didn’t dare think what this witch would do to her once she’d served her purpose.  He fought through the impending darkness to take in Tilly’s features for what he feared would be the last time.  Could she really be his daughter? He’d likely never know now as a single tear rolled across his cheekbone, its saline trail finding its way to the corner of his mouth just as his lips parted.

One single word rolled off his tongue as his body fell limp against the imposing vines.

Starfish.

His voice was scarcely a whisper yet that single utterance reverberated throughout the cavern, reaching the single pair of ears it was intended for.  It echoed into Tilly’s ear as a plea and her eyelids flew open, the chanting instantly ceased.  Her hands raised to her head, tossing the hood off of her blonde locks as she lifted her chin.

She’d only been vaguely aware of her surroundings, but now, her senses were overwhelmed.  The voices of the other hooded figures were all she could hear and she just wanted to drown them out.  She tried to focus on something else - the crackle of the flames from the candles and torches positioned around the circle.  Focus, Tilly, focus, she told herself.  She concentrated on those flames, inhaling the scent of the burning wood, but she could smell something else too.  Something faintly metallic…bloody…

Only then did she realize that there was another person in the center of the ring of caped figures - a person whose body was nearly obscured amongst a tangle of thorny vines.  There was a pale, dark-haired man bound by those vines and while she couldn’t make out the majority of his form, she could see that his legs were riddled with crimson trails and there was a pool of dark red liquid beneath his feet.  And she could see just enough of his face to recognize that man suspended lifeless before her: the man she’d known as Detective Rogers. But she also felt an awakening within her muddled mind which reminded her that she’d known him far longer - and by a different name.

“Papa?”

The moment she uttered that single word, the rock walls of the cavern began to shake as if from the rumbling of an earthquake, showering her with pebbles and dust that rained from above.  A newly defiant Tilly shrugged off the heavy dark robe, eyes wide as she frantically searched for the monster.

“Show yourself, Witch!” Tilly hollered, bolstered with newfound bravado.  If he was still among the living, she had to save him.  Had to save her Papa from this monster witch.  It was all up to her and this time, she was determined to listen to the little voices within her head that assured her that she possessed the power to defeat this witch.

“I’m right here, Tilly,” the witch replied as she took a step from behind her nearly lifeless prisoner.

“Let him go, you monster! You’re hurting him and I can’t allow that!” Tilly shouted. “You said that if I helped you, no one would get hurt but you lied!  You always lie!” Both of Tilly’s hands clenched into fists as Gothel continued to stare blankly back at her, entirely devoid of any human emotion.

“It’s entirely too late for that, little girl,” Gothel snapped back confidently. “As soon as his blood fills that medallion on the floor right there, my spell will begin and there’s no one powerful enough to stop it.  Not the Evil Queen nor the Wicked Witch.  Not even the Dark One himself.”

“Then I’ll stop you,” Tilly responded as she stood her ground with equal confidence. “You took my Papa away from me once.  You aren’t going to do it again.”  Her blue eyes reflected a fierce determination as Tilly set her jaw and racked her brain to recall how to harness her magic.

“Please…,” Gothel dismissed her with a haughty wave of her hand. “You aren’t any match for me.  Just get out of my way and do as you’re told…” With a faint flick of her wrist, another new growth of vines sprouted from the cluster binding Rogers and jettisoned toward Tilly.  With only a fraction of a second to react, Tilly threw up her hands defensively in front of her face and instantly, the brambles froze mere inches from her, the thorns separating from the vines and falling harmlessly to the floor while tiny, white four-petal blossoms took their place.  Tilly blinked a few times until the realization sunk in that she’d used magic to defend herself.  She wasn’t mad - well, at least not when it came to the existence of magic.

“Impressive, but you’ve still so much to learn,” the witch continued to taunt her as Tilly attempted to move from the carved coven symbol beneath her feet.  Gothel smirked as she watched the rock beneath Tilly’s feet dissolve into mud that the younger woman sank into it, only to have it harden back into stone around her shoes, entrapping her in her position on the outer ring. “It would be rather rude of you to leave before my big performance - and I’m not done with you yet…”

Unable to step away, Tilly’s eyes flittered wildly between the nearly inundated medallion on the ground before her and the pallid, expressionless face of her dying father whose head was drooped against his chest, body clearly only held upright by the witch’s enchanted vines.  She watched in seemingly slow-motion as a drop of blood fell from his toe and splashed into the sticky, crimson puddle.

“It’s nearly time,” Gothel announced with a giddy chuckle as a tiny evergreen tree pushed its way through the solid rock to emerge in front of one of the remaining cloaked figures.  As the tree grew in stature, the cape worn by the nearest coven member slumped to the floor and the person who’d been beneath it seconds earlier vanished in the blink of an eye. “Six more to go… Then you.”

“No,” Tilly sobbed, cursing herself for ever agreeing to help this monster in the first place, but now, the witch had to be stopped. “No - I won’t allow you to do this!”

“You won’t allow me?” Gothel laughed off Tilly’s cockiness.  Apparently the girl had more of her father’s personality than she’d believed. “Then stop me.”  

The challenge was issued as an insult, but Tilly didn’t take it as such. She was going to prove that she had the strength to defeat this horrid person.

“Stay with me, Papa,” she called out to him, still uncertain if he was alive or dead. “No matter what happens, I love you, Papa…”  Silent promises now made, Tilly squeezed her eyes closed as her outstretched hands began to tremble.  Another low rumble echoed throughout the cavern as flames flickered, billowed by some unseen wind that swirled dust and rubble around the young woman.

“What are you doing?” There was a faint hint of alarm in Gothel’s voice this time as she feared she may have underestimated her daughter.  She’d long known that her child possessed powers, but with no one to cultivate them, she’d doubted Tilly’s ability to harness magic.  But it was Gothel’s discounting of that untamed nature to Tilly’s magic which might prove far more dangerous.

“Love is always stronger than hate,” Tilly stated as she clasped her hands together sending out a blast of powerful energy towards the blood-drenched medallion.  The ground began to shake, mildly at first then growing in intensity as the rock began to crack, fissures zigzagging across the entire coven symbol until they reached the stone that encased Tilly’s feet.  The rock holding her crumbled away, allowing her to hop out of the circle and sever the connection necessary for Gothel’s spell to proceed.  The evergreen tree that had sprouted within the cavern withered away to ashes as the magic sustaining it evaporated.

“You insolent little brat!” the witch shouted, seething with anger. “How dare you?! Now you’ve ruined it!  I should have killed you years ago - both of you!” She took a step forward, hands extended and prepared to unleash some new horror against her beleaguered daughter.  But so blinded by her hatred of her own offspring, she failed to notice that the cracks beneath her feet were widening from the tremors, opening into a chasm that swallowed the witch, plunging her screaming into the void.  Tilly didn’t know what she should feel as the monster disappeared into the earth.  She just stood there frozen until another voice roused her attention.

“Tilly?” she heard the voice call out to her, but was it merely inside her head?  “Tilly?!” came the voice yet again as she blinked her eyes trying to figure out where the familiar voice originated. She recognized it now - Weaver - but she couldn’t reply yet.  Her fragile mind was still processing all that had just transpired.  Everything she’d just made happen… And oh, no - Papa!  She saw the familiar face of Detective Weaver - Rumplestiltskin - emerge from the entry passage, weapon and flashlight extended before him. “Tilly, are you alright?” he asked as he ventured deeper into the subterranean cavern.

Alright? Was she alright? She didn’t even know but there were more important things to attend to… “Yes, I am,” she responded frantically as she hurried toward the center of the room. “But he’s not…” Weaver stopped short of entering the circle as he spied the huge, gaping cracks that transected it.  His focus was drawn to the cluster of vines at the center of the ring where he now spotted his partner hanging motionless and entirely encircled by those same bloody vines which seemed to be withering away as Gothel’s magic faded. Despite the fissures crisscrossing the ground beneath him which had drained away most of the blood, there was still enough visible on the rock for Weaver to know his partner wouldn’t survive long with this amount of blood loss.

“We need to get him down from there somehow,” Weaver stated. “The vines are dying and won’t hold him for long…”

“I know,” she insisted, trying to locate that magical trigger within her one more time.  “I’m trying…”  She’d never been particularly good at concentrating - at least not lately.  She had to try and push all of her jumbled thoughts away to focus on her most important task - rescuing Papa.  As the brambles crumbled, an invisible force caught Rogers, his limp form suspended in mid-air but seemingly with nothing holding him aloft. The unseen hand carried him safely across the fractured floor placing him gently atop a boulder beside Weaver just before the vines completely disintegrated to a pile of dust.

Without the bindings in the way, Weaver could see that his partner’s body was riddled with puncture wounds, some of which were still oozing blood - a positive sign that his heart was still beating.  Satisfied that immediate danger was over, Weaver tucked away his weapon, shining the flashlight’s beam onto his partner’s unconscious form as he felt for a pulse.  “He’s alive. He still has a heartbeat.  I’ll get the paramedics down here…”

A small smile crept across Tilly’s face as her resolve finally broke, but that smile rapidly faded, her eyes welling with tears as yet another realization struck.  His heart. Without another word, she bolted past Weaver and darted out of the cave.

She couldn’t be here. She couldn’t cause him more suffering…

**********

The next few hours were tense ones.  While her father was barely clinging to life, Tilly had vanished, leaving Weaver to be the one holding vigil in the hospital waiting room.  Thankfully, the trip from Gothel’s hideout beneath the old theater to the hospital was a short ride. Weaver had followed the ambulance in his own vehicle with lights and siren blaring to keep up with the paramedics. By the time he reached the Emergency room, Rogers’ blood pressure had dropped to dangerously low levels and his breathing was erratic, but his most life threatening battle was against the uncontrollable bleeding.  Something in his system was preventing his blood from clotting properly - likely Gothel’s work as well.

But as far as the Emergency room personnel were concerned, Detective Rogers had been a victim of the Candy Killer, attacked while investigating the cave beneath the theater. He answered the barrage of questions as best he could, not even attempting to create a plausible explanation for the multitude of puncture wounds from the thorns.  He just told them his partner had multiple stab wounds and didn’t elaborate. There would be no mention of Eloise Gardner in Weaver’s report, even though he had actually found his way to the cavern just as the witch plunged into the chasm, presumably falling to her death although one could never be entirely certain when there was no body left behind as evidence.

After the first hour of waiting, he’d called Roni and Henry to see if either had seen Tilly and filled them in on his partner’s condition.  Neither knew where Tilly might be but both offered to help locate her.  Roni left the bar in Remy’s capable hands as she left a message for her niece, hoping Tilly would seek out Margot’s company and Henry set out to search some of Tilly’s usual haunts.  Only Roni, Kelly and Weaver knew the truth of Tilly and Rogers’ relationship and while they understood her reasons for running, she needed to be aware of what was happening with her father, lest her fragile hold on her sanity be lost.

He wasn’t overly surprised when he heard Roni’s voice in the corridor, asking a nurse where she’d find the Emergency waiting area.  He lifted his chin and nodded a greeting to her as she passed through the doorway, walking quickly across the crowded room to join him on a bench positioned against the far wall, away from prying ears.

“Have you heard anything yet?” Roni asked in a hushed whisper.

Weaver shook his head. “Not yet.”

“Gothel?”

“Hopefully gone, like most of the objects she conjured. She fell into a giant crack that opened up beneath her.”

“Did Tilly do that?” Roni wondered if battling her mother had contributed to the younger woman’s unease.

“Yes,” was Weaver’s unpretentious reply as he slumped back against the wall.  Roni mouthed a wow as she copied his posture, crossing her legs at the ankle.

“Margot thinks she knows where to find her,” she told him. “Henry’s taking a loop around the neighborhood too.  She’ll turn up.”

“She knows she’s Alice,” Weaver stated without preface.  “As soon as I said that his heart was still beating, I saw it in her eyes.  She panicked.”

“She remembered his poisoned heart…” Roni sighed. “That poor girl… She didn’t want to cause him more pain.  She must be devastated…”  Weaver didn’t answer; he already knew she was right.  Getting her memory back, watching her father suffering and then having to destroy her mother just might have short-circuited Tilly’s complicated mind.

But it was Roni who suddenly sat up straight, a quizzical arch to her eyebrow as she contemplated a thought that had leapt into the forefront of her mind.

“Did his heart stop?” she asked, almost a bit too loudly as it drew some unwanted attention from other people in the waiting room.

“What?” He’d heard the question, but wanted her to repeat it.

“Do you know if Rogers’ heart stopped beating at any time?” she inquired once again, this time keeping her voice low since their conversation was about to head in a direction that wouldn’t be easily explained to eavesdroppers.

“I couldn’t hear everything that was said when the paramedics brought him in, but I thought I overheard something about him coding in the ambulance.  Pretty sure that means his heart stopped, but he had a pulse when the ER took over.  What are you getting at?”

“Have you been out of the magic business too long, Rumple?” she asked, using his real name in public for the first time since they’d awakened from Gothel’s curse.  This was definitely Regina talking now, not her barmaid alter ego, Roni. “Gothel placed that poisoned heart curse on him a long time ago and we were never able to find a cure.  The only way to end the curse was death - his heart no longer beating.  Do you think there was a time limit as to how long his heart needed to be stopped before they brought him back?”

Weaver’s lips pursed in thought as he rubbed the hint of stubble sprouting on his chin.  He definitely needed a shave, but whiskers were merely a distraction as he tossed ideas around in his head.  “CPR isn’t exactly commonplace in the Enchanted Forest, nor are machines to shock a heart back into rhythm.  A curse such as that one should die along with its victim…”

“Then it’s possible that the poison died when his heart stopped beating the first time.  There’s no way a curse from our land would have a caveat built in for someone being brought back from essentially being dead.”

“There’s only one way to test that theory though…and Tilly is nowhere to be found,” Weaver reminded her.

“We’ll find Tilly and explain.  If your partner pulls through this, I’m pretty sure he won’t be going anywhere for a few days.  We’ve got some time.”

“There is still the matter of breaking the other curse,” he added.

“One curse at a time, please…”

Two days later

There was that pain again.  Maybe not as intense as before, but definitely still there.  Little pinpricks he could feel everywhere - annoying and even a little bit itchy but they were only the prelude to the dull, somewhat burning ache that radiated through his chest and abdomen. His head was still on the fuzzy side but he remembered someone stabbing him - Eloise.  No, not Eloise - Gothel.  The witch that Tilly had been correct to call a monster.

He struggled to force his eyelids open, his vision assaulted by the bright lights above him.  He remembered being in a dark cavern, completely bound by thorn-covered vines that were constricting him tighter and tighter until he’d blacked out.  Or maybe he’d blacked out from the blood loss…? Maybe both? But it was apparent that he wasn’t in that dank cave any longer.  He blinked a few times to allow his sight to adjust, turning his head slightly to get a look at a stark white wall that contained only a clock and a dry-erase whiteboard that was filled with incomprehensible scribbles.  

He started to become aware of additional sensations as he started putting the pieces together.  He wasn’t hanging from those vines anymore; he was laying down, presumably in a bed.  He could feel the softness of fabric beneath his fingers and thought he sensed something encircling his wrist, although not as painful as the witch’s brambles.  He raised his hand to a height he could see it without moving around too much and learned he’d been correct - some sort of rubber or plastic band was fastened around his wrist and there was some plastic tubing affixed to the back of his hand with tape that was irritating his skin.  An incessant beeping resounded in his ear, mixed in with other faint sounds he’d yet to make sense of, but it was enough for him to figure out his location.  

He was in a hospital - which meant he’d survived the witch’s attack.

And surprisingly, he discovered he wasn’t alone.

“It’s about damn time you woke up.”  He knew the voice instantly, recognition sending an involuntary shudder down his spine.  The demon masquerading as his partner.

“Crocodile?  Come to execute me while I’m vulnerable?” he asked his visitor.

“If I’d wanted to do that, I wouldn’t have waited until you awakened, Captain,” Weaver replied.  “I’m just Detective Weaver now.  I put the rest behind me to honor Belle’s wishes, although being caught up in Gothel’s curse hadn’t really been a part of my plan.  I’m just trying to do my best to help people so that someday, I’ll be able to join her - and that includes trying to help you and your wayward daughter…”

“Tilly - does she know?”

“She does.  It was her magic that defeated Gothel and her coven.  The witch was swallowed up by the earth she revered.  Alice is down the hall in the waiting room with Regina.”

“She’s here?  Alice is here?” Rogers asked, his voice growing agitated.  “But the curse…”

“Relax… She’s not close enough right now to disturb your poisoned heart, but Regina has a plausible theory that might mean you’re cured.”

“There’s no known cure for a poisoned heart,” Rogers scoffed, his eyes dropping with disappointment.

“That’s not necessarily true,” Weaver began. “Facilier was able to cure Henry’s heart with a bit of magic born from Lucy’s true belief and the remnants of Ella’s glass slipper.  While that same magic isn’t available for you, you may still have been cured in a much simpler manner - your death.”

“My death?  My head is muddled enough right now but clearly, I’m still alive - despite many valiant efforts…”

“Technically, you died twice,” Weaver stated. “Your heart stopped beating twice - once in the ambulance on the way here and once on the OR table while they were trying to stitch your insides back together.  From what we were told, you were technically dead for over a minute before they were able to resuscitate you.  Curses aren’t designed to survive death - even mine.  Generally, where we come from, if your heart stops beating, you’re dead.  They don’t try to bring you back.  The curse should have ended the moment your heartbeat ceased.”

“Should have?  That’s an awful stretch… What if you’re wrong?  It’ll only cause both of us more pain…”

“Then it’s a good thing to do it here in the hospital where they can treat you should we be wrong, but what if we’re right?  You can be with your daughter again.”

Rogers had to contemplate the possibility for a moment.  As much as he loathed trusting his long-time enemy, he also had the memories of being Detective Rogers and in this world, he actually trusted Weaver’s word.  He’d also become close with Regina, the reformed Evil Queen, whom he’d now entrust with his life.  What strange company he was keeping…

“What does Alice think?” This was going to affect his daughter as much as it would him so he wanted her to be involved in the decision.

“She’s frightened, naturally, but she’s also very curious.  She believes that Regina might be correct, but there’s only one way to find out…”  Weaver motioned toward the hallway beyond the room’s doorway as he stood up. “Should I go get her?”  Rogers swallowed back the lump in his throat, but nodded an affirmative.  Whatever would happen, he was prepared to face the consequences.

Seconds later, he smiled at the sight of his daughter’s unruly golden locks flashing past his window into the corridor before she bounded through the open door, although she stopped short of approaching her father’s bedside.  He suddenly felt horribly exposed, clad only in the thin gown the hospital had dressed him in, his truncated left arm bare, no hook or prosthetic to hide his deformity.

“Starfish,” he greeted her with her childhood nickname.

“Haven’t heard anyone call me that for a long time, Papa…,” she replied, her cheeks flushing with a mix of anxiety and embarrassment. This wasn’t how he would have wanted her to turn out, but she didn’t care anymore.  She wanted her Papa back more than anything.  “I’ve missed you so much.”

“And I’ve missed you, too, Love,” he insisted as he shifted nervously on the bed.  “There’s only one way for us to know if this curse is really gone…”

“You think…?” she asked timidly, taking one tentative step closer to the bed.  

“Come closer,” he instructed, bracing himself for the onslaught of pain as she made her way across the room at an almost agonizingly slow pace.  He felt a few twinges, but nothing was any worse than the discomfort from the stabbing.  “It’s okay, I’m fine.”  He offered his reassurance with a weak, timid smile.  He extended his hand to her, eyes begging her to grasp it, eager for even that tiny bit of contact.  

Alice squeezed her eyes closed as she reached for his hand, awaiting the burning sensation from the mark emblazoned into her wrist as their fingertips touched for the first time in many years.  Neither knew what would happen, but there was nothing.  No burning.  No aching.  No magic driving them apart - and there was absolutely nothing containing Alice’s ecstatic joy as she nearly threw herself into her papa’s arms to hug him as tightly as she could.

“It worked! Papa, it worked!” she exclaimed gleefully, excited that she could finally embrace him after such a long time - almost so excited that she missed his pained grunt beneath her, turning her head expecting to see his smiling face but instead seeing an uncomfortable grimace and the dampness of tears around his eyes.  “Oh, no…” her mood turned somber in a split-second. “ I spoke too soon…?” She backed away, ready to run, but he held tight to her wrist.

“It’s alright, Starfish.  My heart is fine.  It’s just my other injuries…”

“Oh, Papa, I’m so sorry!  I was so excited, I forgot what that monster did to you!  I hope I didn’t hurt you too much…”

“Nothing that won’t heal,” he chuckled as he gritted through the ache in his chest, drawing his arms in tighter as if trying to hold his guts in.  “I promise, it will all be fine…”  There were more tears flowing now but all were tears of joy.  

“I love you so much, Papa.”

“And I - you, my Starfish.”

[warriorssurvivalandstuff]

I'm not one for crossover-style AUs but ugh, I saw someone else on discord talk about it and that actually fits. Warrior cats are mostly having religion wars these days and Hollow Knight's plot is basically the aftermath of two gods fighting.

The Radiance. The sun but in the image of a cat-like being with various moth features, antennae and wings maybe. Golden and long-furred, of course. She created a tribe of cats and naturally had their following. Rad is still only present in dreams and is powerful in the realm, her creations are physical, but she also grants them mind powers in the form of herbs. She's relatively chill in the dream realm until her cats forget about her and goes absolute haywire then. With her remaining power, she took the spirits of the Pale Wyrm's clan (and more) to recharge, using their bodies and tainted minds to spread her memory beforehand.

Pale King and White Lady. Two pure white cats that seemed to glow who claimed to be born from the moon itself. The Pale Beings are not as strong when it comes to mind powers, but he and WL has a calming quality, a sort of aura that turns the alleyway brutes agreeable. Before their arrival, most of the cats that would be under their rule were scattered rogues and loners that quarreled often, with a few exceptions. The two made rules for the place, set up a system, etc. Made the place orderly and safe. PK does a lot of negotiating with neighbouring groups, one to keep peace and with a slight hope to annex more territory. And after the Radiance fiasco he sought outside help for vessel creation and dreamers. WL talked Unn into letting her have a part of the herb garden.

Void and Ancient Civilisation. They were said to have been once a great clan like what PK has but looked to the power of darkness, which are a cat's natural environment. Nowadays it's mostly gone, with just a few roaming around and spreading tales. The remaining ones are eerie and weird, can draw energy from the air and do some magic. PK sought them out after the sun goes mad and used their power to create vessels.

Unn. She created and leads a bunch of healers and cats interested in vegetation. She is actually a sheep. Her cats wear flowers and stuff on their fur, mostly by mushing the stems into their pelts until they stuck there. She gave a part of the land which she grew special plants on to White Lady after gentle persuasion and disappears later on, her cats grow worried.

Nightmares. Can't really put them as the dark forest? Weird creepy "cats" with differing level of fire manipulation, they also try to scare everyone and absorb their fear. Like to visit sites of fallen cat groups where loss from battle is common.

Moths. Creations and previous followers of the Radiance, well-learnt in visiting the dream realm and trance-inducing herbs. Some can read your mind, some can draw out objects from memories and some just talk to ghosts. And the Radiance. They're pacifists and so are intriguiged by the moon cats that can calm the most battle-scarred brute into a friendly guide. They decided to follow PK and WL instead and forgot about Radiance.

Mantis. One of the orderly "rogue" groups that have a code of honour. It functions like an arc one canon clan. Hostile, warrior code above all, clear boundaries, or death. No deputies though and leader candidates duel each other until satisfied. Won against Deepnest with their tactics and craft.

Deepnest. Largest rogue group, takes a large stretch of dark forest with a tunnel system. Border skirmishes with the mantis are frequent as they keep trying to take mantis territory, it's a kill on sight if they meet. Though most warriors are simpleminded and function on bloodlust, higher ups are pretty crafty with their new members, the weavers. Weavers can make stuff like nets and protective domes out of grass and animal fur, which is used for hunting and basic traps. They can also do some magic.

Hive. Closed off group of cats who is really just their queen with a hundred bodies. Very sharp and incredibly long claws. Can somehow taste sweet and eats honeyed ham. Mouse.

Mushrooms. No idea on this. That one big mushroom in Fungal Core knows what PK knows so I guess I'll have to put it in somehow.

Jellyfish. It seems like Monomon is the one doing most of the stuff and she might be creating test tube babies. I have literally no idea. But she's a Dreamer ughhh.

[gopat78-blog]

Nerds and Baseball

With the baseball season going bold, it's an ideal opportunity to chart how nerds and progress have changed the sport of baseball. Over the level of driving decades, the web, consistent advances, and the globalization media have on an astoundingly critical level traded how fans gobble up baseball and how ballplayers play America's bit of room. Coming up next is a graph of a scramble of the penchants where improvement has impacted baseball, and a couple of contemplations on how some new advances will keep influencing baseball baseball seth levinson .

Baseball, Technology, and Fans

1. PC games

From the most solid starting stage sort out, PC games have attempted to go over baseball. In 1971, Don Daglow at Pomona College made ''Baseball.'' During the mid 1980s, Atari and Mattel what's undeniably discharged baseball PC games. In 1983, Mattel discharged Intellivision ''World Series Baseball.'' For the standard comprehension, players of ''World Series Baseball'' could utilize fluctuating camera centers to show the progression. A gamer could see the player from a changed "focus field" camera, see baserunners in corner insets, and view mindful plays from a camera behind home plate. ''World Series Baseball'' additionally joined fly balls into their interface.

In 1988, baseball PC games made another ricochet, when Electronic Arts (EA) discharged ''Earl Weaver Baseball'', which solidified a bona fide baseball chief gave run by man-made scholarly breaking point. The stigmatizing of ''Earl Weaver Baseball'' was seen by Computer Gaming World in 1996 when it named ''Earl Weaver Baseball'' 25th on its system of the Best 150 Games of All Time. This was the second most fundamental orchestrating any games game in that 1981-1996 period behind FPS Sports Football.

Nintendo correspondingly hit a superb sledge, in 1988 when it discharged ''RBI Baseball.'' RBI was the standard PC game to be kept up through the Major League Baseball Players Association. The game contained genuine colossal class players and records, and unquestionably was a goliath hit with players.

Twenty years after the central baseball PC game, ''Tony La Russa Baseball'' showed up on racks the nation over. The game made immense updates in ball game play. In any case, ''La Russa'' joined a degenerate Fly Ball Cursor that showed up where the ball was going to land, and made or diminished in size subject to the stature of the ball. In the event that the breeze was blowing the cursor would move its area to mirror the changing course of the ball. The Fly Ball Cursor displayed genuine fly balls and pop-ups to PC ball games, disposing of the last bit of the game that had never been imitated completely. Second, ''La Russa'' permitted clients to filter through drafts and set up their own classes, all with access to the game's wide player estimations. Third, ''La Russa'' was the basic ball game to offer exact nuances for every individual pitcher against every individual hitter, information that veritable manager utilize extensively more dazzling than broke. Rather than different games brute names who on a fundamental level attributed their names to games, Tony La Russa ate up wide sessions over a time of years endeavoring to look good as careful as would be sensible.

Ball games has kept making since ''La Russa.'' The advancement of EA's ''MVP Baseball'', Sony's ''MLB The Show'', Out of the Park Developments' substance based distraction ''Out of the Park Baseball'', and the and improvement of gaming frameworks (from Genesis to XBox360) has changed the centrality and truth of ball games. Inspiration driving reality, even players themselves confess to utilizing them plan for games. As showed up by a FHM article made by 2004 AL Cy Young Winner Johan Santana (April 2006 pg. 113), "I can see the hitting zones of every player and quantifiably where he was unable to think about the ball. I can in like way find when he will swing at fastballs and when he may not expect a switch up. I wouldn't express that I would add to an individual a genuine game an inside and out that really matters dubious way, yet it gives you assessments of how to progress toward unequivocal hitters."

2. Web Fantasy Baseball

Really disdain it (lady mates, life associates) or love it (on a very basic level each baseball fan), dream baseball has become as standard as the game itself. Decisively when requested to detail addicts who distressingly picked and empowered everything in division, the progress of the web has permitted boundless fans to investigate association with sidekicks and different fans all through the nation. This couldn't in any way whatsoever effect the ensured game itself right? Wrong. Dream Baseball hugy impacts fan intrigue. Did your social event quit mid-season, or at present in an unwatchable fixing year? That is OK. You can at present follow your dream collecting and can keep watching games including your players by techniques for the MLB Baseball Cable Package. Key League Baseball is a thing, and anything that permits your clients to interminably dismember, make, and talk (in that capacity advancing) about your thing in a stimulated way gets colossal.

Dream baseball would not have gets imperative without progress. PCs and the web demonstrated this games upset. The closeness of dazzling PCs and the Internet changed dream baseball, permitting scoring to be done absolutely by PC, and permitting classes to build up their own scoring structure, usually dependent on less recognizable bits of information. Considering, dream baseball has gotten a kind of in-time redirection of baseball, and permitted different fans to build up a dependably pushed awareness of how this present reality game limits.

As showed up by an inciting Fortune article, the "American male's fixation on sports is old news, yet give this a shot: More than half of inventive character sports darlings experience over an hour dependably essentially thinking about their get-togethers." Fantasy baseball is a ''billion dollar industry.'' However, Much like the RIAA and MPAA, Major League Baseball is putting cuts on the dream progress that filled fit baseball's recuperation after the 1996 strike. MLB has chosen to in a general sense re-attempt how it licenses affiliations that run dream games on the Web. Official licensees will now likely be obliged to a Big Three of ESPN, CBS Sportsline, and Yahoo! (a couple of reports interlace AOL and The Sporting News other than). "Mother and pop" shops that helped usher the dream baseball wonder into reality will be truly obliged by the permitting bargain. They might be permitted data to help 5,000 clients each. Every single other individual utilizing baseball estimations to run little dream classes should pick between lessening their endeavors, setting up camp, or getting a visit from MLB's authentic supporters.

3. Client Created Media

Going before the web, media creation was obliged to authorities. Papers, radio, TV, and quality games magazines like Sports Illustrated had a virtual stranglehold over the dispersal of sports news and data.

The key client made games media happened with the approach of Sports Talk radio. An improvement of talk radio, which has existed since the 1940s, sports talk radio took off in the mid 1980s. Today, more than 30 essential games talk radio broadcasts exist all through the nation. Sports talk radio gave fans a soapbox to voice their grumblings, examinations, and assessment of sports. In any case, instead of raging just to their loved ones, sports talk radio pulled in fans to transmit their ways to deal with deal with a conceivably epic get-together.

Requiring a voice, sports fans utilized progression to disseminate their evaluations over the web. The first of these advances was sports messageboard structures. While sports messageboards have never arrived at standard certain quality, they have a strong closeness on the net. A central purpose fundamental "baseball messageboards" in Google will return over 8.5 million hits.

Web messageboards other than paid uncommon personality to the first Petri dish for client made media. This supposition that is best exemplified by a nonappearance of regard that happened around the start of the 2000 season. Bobby Valentine, by then the New York Mets chief, gave an exchange at the Wharton School of Business - an "unassumingly" talk. In any case, "unnoticeably" is just a term epic to writers. While the ''Daily Pennsylvanian'' (Penn's school paper), gave a shallow caution to the talk, one understudy part went in a general sense further. Brad Rosenberg, utilizing the username brad34, meandered onto a Mets message board and articulated that Bobby V affected a couple of players and the virtuosos. The basic press put in most extreme exertion; by then head official Steve Phillips skiped on a plane to Pittsburgh to pow-wow with Valentine; and minor disfavor was in progress.

[beaudry73-blog]

Nerds and Baseball

With the baseball season going fearless, it's an ideal opportunity to outline how nerds and progress have changed the sport of baseball. Over the extent of propelling decades, the web, supportive advances, and the globalization media have on an astoundingly significant level traded how fans gobble up baseball and how ballplayers play America's bit of elbowroom. Coming up next is a blueprint of a scramble of the tendencies where improvement has affected baseball, and two or three thoughts on how some new advances will keep impacting baseball baseball sam levinson .

Baseball, Technology, and Fans

1. PC games

From the most dependable starting stage organize, PC games have attempted to go over baseball. In 1971, Don Daglow at Pomona College made ''Baseball.'' During the mid 1980s, Atari and Mattel what's more discharged baseball PC games. In 1983, Mattel discharged Intellivision ''World Series Baseball.'' For the principle experience, players of ''World Series Baseball'' could utilize varying camera centers to show the development. A gamer could see the player from a changed "focus field" camera, see baserunners in corner insets, and view wary plays from a camera behind home plate. ''World Series Baseball'' in addition joined fly balls into their interface.

In 1988, baseball PC games made another ricochet, when Electronic Arts (EA) discharged ''Earl Weaver Baseball'', which merged a genuine baseball manager gave run by man-made scholarly capacity. The disparaging of ''Earl Weaver Baseball'' was seen by Computer Gaming World in 1996 when it named ''Earl Weaver Baseball'' 25th on its outline of the Best 150 Games of All Time. This was the second most crucial planning any games game in that 1981-1996 period behind FPS Sports Football.

Nintendo similarly hit a wonderful sledge, in 1988 when it discharged ''RBI Baseball.'' RBI was the standard PC game to be upheld through the Major League Baseball Players Association. The game contained genuine tremendous class players and records, and clearly was a goliath hit with players.

Twenty years after the central baseball PC game, ''Tony La Russa Baseball'' showed up on racks the nation over. The game made significant enhancements in ball game play. In any case, ''La Russa'' joined an aberrant Fly Ball Cursor that showed up where the ball was going to land, and made or diminished in size subject to the stature of the ball. On the off chance that the breeze was blowing the cursor would move its territory to mirror the changing course of the ball. The Fly Ball Cursor demonstrated authentic fly balls and pop-ups to PC ball games, disposing of the last bit of the game that had never been imitated completely. Second, ''La Russa'' permitted clients to sort out drafts and set up their own classes, all with access to the game's broad player estimations. Third, ''La Russa'' was the significant ball game to offer exact nuances for every individual pitcher against every individual hitter, information that certifiable chiefs utilize extensively more shocking than broke. Rather than different games monster names who fundamentally attributed their names to games, Tony La Russa ate up wide sessions over a time of years endeavoring to make the game's modernized sense as cautious as would be sensible.

Ball games has kept making since ''La Russa.'' The headway of EA's ''MVP Baseball'', Sony's ''MLB The Show'', Out of the Park Developments' substance based diversion ''Out of the Park Baseball'', and the and improvement of gaming frameworks (from Genesis to XBox360) has changed the centrality and truth of ball games. Purpose of actuality, even players themselves confess to utilizing them plan for games. As showed by a FHM article made by 2004 AL Cy Young Winner Johan Santana (April 2006 pg. 113), "I can see the hitting zones of every player and quantifiably where he was unable to think about the ball. I can in like way find when he will swing at fastballs and when he may not expect a switch up. I wouldn't express that I would add to an individual an authentic game an in every way that really matters unclear way, yet it gives you contemplations of how to progress toward unequivocal hitters."

2. Web Fantasy Baseball

Seriously despise it (lady mates, life partners) or love it (basically every baseball fan), dream baseball has become as standard as the game itself. Decisively when urged to detail addicts who distressingly picked and facilitated everything in division, the advancement of the web has permitted endless fans to investigate association with sidekicks and different fans all through the nation. This couldn't in any way whatsoever effect the ensured game itself right? Wrong. Dream Baseball hugy impacts fan intrigue. Did your party quit mid-season, or at present in an unwatchable fixing year? That is OK. You can at present follow your dream gathering and can keep watching games including your players by procedures for the MLB Baseball Cable Package. Fundamental League Baseball is a thing, and anything that permits your clients to unendingly dismember, make, and talk (in this manner advancing) about your thing in an excited way gets huge.

Dream baseball would not have gets remarkable without progress. PCs and the web demonstrated this games upset. The closeness of shocking PCs and the Internet changed dream baseball, permitting scoring to be done absolutely by PC, and permitting classes to build up their own scoring structure, ordinarily dependent on less noticeable bits of information. Taking everything into account, dream baseball has gotten a kind of in-time redirection of baseball, and permitted different fans to build up a consistently pushed awareness of how this present reality game limits.

As showed up by an impelling Fortune article, the "American male's fixation on sports is old news, yet give this a shot: More than half of inventive character sports darlings experience over an hour dependably simply thinking about their gatherings." Fantasy baseball is a ''billion dollar industry.'' However, Much like the RIAA and MPAA, Major League Baseball is putting cuts on the dream progress that filled fit baseball's recuperation after the 1996 strike. MLB has chosen to in a general sense re-attempt how it licenses affiliations that run dream games on the Web. Official licensees will now likely be limited to a Big Three of ESPN, CBS Sportsline, and Yahoo! (a couple of reports interweave AOL and The Sporting News other than). "Mother and pop" shops that helped usher the dream baseball wonder into reality will be truly obliged by the permitting bargain. They might be permitted data to help 5,000 clients each. Every single other individual utilizing baseball estimations to run little dream classes should pick between reducing their endeavors, setting up camp, or getting a visit from MLB's legitimate supporters.

3. Client Created Media

Going before the web, media creation was obliged to authorities. Papers, radio, TV, and quality games magazines like Sports Illustrated had a virtual stranglehold over the dispersal of sports news and data.

The key client made games media happened with the approach of Sports Talk radio. An improvement of talk radio, which has existed since the 1940s, sports talk radio took off in the mid 1980s. Today, more than 30 basic games talk radio broadcasts exist all through the nation. Sports talk radio gave fans a soapbox to voice their grumblings, assessments, and assessment of sports. Regardless, instead of seething just to their loved ones, sports talk radio attracted fans to transmit their ways to deal with a possibly epic party.

Requiring a voice, sports fans utilized progress to scatter their assessments over the web. The first of these advances was sports messageboard structures. While sports messageboards have never arrived at standard certain quality, they have a strong closeness on the net. A driving force imperative "baseball messageboards" in Google will return over 8.5 million hits.

Web messageboards other than looked out for the first Petri dish for client made media. This supposition that is best exemplified by a lack of regard that happened around the start of the 2000 season. Bobby Valentine, by then the New York Mets chief, gave a discussion at the Wharton School of Business - an "unpretentiously" talk. Regardless, "unnoticeably" is just a term gigantic to writers. While the ''Daily Pennsylvanian'' (Penn's school paper), gave a shallow caution to the talk, one understudy part went in a general sense further. Brad Rosenberg, utilizing the username brad34, ventured onto a Mets message board and declared that Bobby V influenced a couple of players and the pros. The essential press put it all out there; by then head official Steve Phillips skiped on a plane to Pittsburgh to pow-wow with Valentine; and minor shame was in progress.

[brooklynislandgirl]

Guide to the Traditions

A Tradition is a group of mystically-oriented mages allied with the Council of Nine Mystic Traditions. That is, they believe in magick and understand that they manipulate magic to create desired effects. This contrasts with scientifically-oriented mages, who believe that they use Enlightened Science rather than magick, and this Science is manipulated to create desired effects. The Traditions' counterparts among the Scientists of the Technocratic Union (and in an earlier age, the Order of Reason) are called Conventions.

Each Tradition claims a seat on the Council of Nine, representing one of the Spheres of magic. That Sphere is that Tradition's speciality.

Although the Council did not technically exist until the grand Convocation in 1466 CE, many Traditions count their origins to much earlier periods, as they existed as discrete magical societies. Many other Traditions were created from the joining of several disparate groups; as such, their formal creation may be fairly recent, but their component factions may have existed far earlier.

The Traditions are the backbone of the Council. The modern Council is comprised of:

The Akashic Brotherhood While most Traditions tread the path of Ascension, Akashic Brothers positively flow along its course. They pursue the path of least resistance, not because that Way is easier, but because it's more natural. Akashic Brothers believe that one must understand one's Self before one can understand All. Only by perfecting body and mind, and by creating harmony between them, can one understand one's place in the Cosmic All. This end is true enlightenment — and Ascension. In sanctifying a temple of the Self, the Brotherhood meld seclusion with mental and physical exercise. Together, this amalgam of martial arts and meditation is known as Do, or "The Way" of life. Renowned for their deep introspection, the Akashic Brotherhood appropriately occupies the Council Seat of Mind.

The Celestial Chorus High upon the Seat of Prime, the Primus of the Celestial Chorus observes his spiritual domain. He sees that humanity has forsaken faith in favour of reliance upon cold and impersonal technology. This is a sad fall from the Middle Ages, when the Church dominated Europe and spirituality pervaded all the world. Yet all is not lost. As the darkness of the world deepens, strays return to the fold. If the Celestial Chorus can outlast the night, morning will bring this Tradition to great influence.The Chorus sees its magick in a religious framework. All houses of worship — temple, mosque and church — are considered equal under the sun; all godheads are but shards of the Shattered One. Above all, Chorus members are concerned with the well-being of humanity. As Good Samaritans and religious leaders, they serve Sleepers by maintaining a vigilance against evil, tending to those in need, and providing guidance through example or word.

The Cult of Ecstasy  From the Cults of Bacchus to Woodstock, there have always been those who believe that free action and self-expression can lead to something greater, whether this is heightened awareness or revolution. The Cult of Ecstasy was formed by such people. In the realm of their experience, no stimuli can be ignored. They open the floodgates to all six passions: taste, touch, hearing, sight, smell, and awareness. A Cultist can find deep meaning in a gourmet meal or home-brewed alcohol, dance or love-making, heavy metal or sonnets, Cubist art or psychedelic drugs. All passions are constructive in their way. Cultists rarely push their agenda; every Cultist (and like-minded Sleeper) is left to his own devices. At the same time, no one will take responsibility for his actions but himself. Paradoxically, this most uninhibited Tradition is also one of the most disciplined.The Cult of Ecstasy occupies the Seat of Time.

Dreamspeakers  From prehistoric times, Dreamspeakers have wandered the meandering paths of Ascension alone, meeting occasionally to compare journeys but more often communicating through spirit messengers. With the aid of drum-beats and other rituals; many even shape-change into the animal-forms of their guardian familiars. Dreamspeakers are one of the two most primal of Traditions — those who seek insight and attunement with the Worlds. They work less from service than from respect and harmony. Nevertheless, they can be quite brutal. Nature magick often requires self-mortification or symbolic death.Undisputed masters of animism, Dreamspeakers occupy the Seat of Spirit.

The Euthanatos  The Euthanatos use Entropy to reduce and recycle. Without some breaking-down, they know, reality would become dense and unyielding — a static set-piece rather than a dynamic experiment. One means of ensuring this is to deliver the Good Death upon those who are ready to die — those who take life's gift too lightly, or have suffered but cannot heal. The spirits of those dead may then reincarnate into more productive forms. Their seat, of course, is Entropy.Though many Euthanatos kill, few enjoy it. They mourn deeply for every loss of life, so as not to forget the gravity of their charge. Thus, they often seem dour and distant. Yet Euthanatos do not fear death, either; every apprentice visits the Other Side during initiation, and the Ever-Turning Wheel assures them that death is only temporary.

The Order of Hermes The Order of Hermes is a magickal Tradition to ancient Egypt and the near East. Once, their Houses included nearly a dozen different magickal societies, each practising an elaborate ritual Art. Fate's fortunes, however, have since thrown them all together and cost them much of the power they once held. Proud and select, Hermetic mages are jealous of their secrets. They conceal their Arts in arcane tongues, numbers, rituals, complex calculations and metaphors such as the Tarot. Their most elaborate schemes are reserved for the destruction of the Technocracy, who brought their treasured Mythic Age to a premature end. Persistent and patient, these masters of Force magicks, occupying the Seat of Forces, are content to manipulate politics, finance, and education — for now. But when the stars are right…

The Sons of Ether  The Sons of Ether are a wacky and diverse lot. Equally comfortable with cigar and brandy or aviator goggles, lab coats and particle rays, they are one part Buck Rogers, another part Proper Victorian and a third part Mad Scientist. As many Technocrats could confirm, this is a volatile mix.To understand the Sons of Ether (if that is indeed possible), one must grasp three basic tenets. First, they believe that True Science is Art, and expression of the human spirit. Every machine should reflect the unique inner version of its creator. Inspiration is beauty, even if the final product appears quirky to others, and since this Science is personal, no theory can be proven "wrong." Second, the role of Science is to bring peace to the world (a la Captain Nemo) and Awaken humanity. Finally, the unseen, ever-present "fifth essence," Ether, must become a prominent part of any theory, experiment or device — if for no other reason than it exists.After defecting from the Technocracy to the Traditions, the Sons of Ether accepted the long-vacant Seat of Matter.

Verbena  "Verbena" is the Latin name for vervain, an herb with manifold properties, both real and imagined. Through the ages, it has been held as a miracle plant. Romans used it to consecrate temples; herbalists included it in love potions; superstitious peasants believed it warded against witches. Ingesting this herb causes nausea. Each of these aspects make "Verbena" an appropriate name for the Tradition that occupies the Seat of Life. Verbena are fate-weavers and rune-cutters, shape-changers and bewitchers, herbalists and midwives dedicated to learning the secrets of healing and life, pain and death. To them, Life is the most potent force in existence. The growing ash can crack mountains. The living cauldron, the womb, is a constant source of generation, unequalled since original Creation. Thus each body is a sacred shrine; the substance and power of body — blood, sap and other live-giving fluids — serve as sacraments. Life, therefore, is their speciality and their chosen seat in the Council.

The Virtual Adepts  Virtual Adepts invented "morphing," cyberpunk and interactive video, and perfected the computer as a means for people to reach beyond a hopeless world. Champions of the Fifth Amendment, these hackers liberate the most sensitive information and post it on the public forums. Virtual Adepts, it is said, were responsible for a practical joke which sidetracked the FBI toward an anonymous role-playing publisher in Texas, instead of their own subversive front company. The Virtual Adepts discovered and refined the Digital Web (or Net). This alternate reality, they believe, will become humanity's new home. Having heard about their explorations of the Net, the Council offered the Seat of Correspondence to the Virtual Adepts. These ex-Technocrats gladly accepted.

[fabcurate]

Latest Designer Sarees that will give you a beautiful and unique look.

In the Indian subcontinent, saree is a name for feminine clothing. A saree is a length of unstitched fabric that may be draped over the body in a variety of ways. Its length ranges from four to nine meters. Traditional sarees come in a variety of forms, including the Sambalpuri Saree from the East, Mysore silk and Ilkal from Karnataka, Kanchipuram from Tamil Nadu in the South, Paithani from the West, and Banarasi from the North. The most typical method involves wrapping the saree around the waist and draping one end over the shoulder to expose the stomach. Typically, a petticoat is worn below the saree. Blouses can have halter neck styles or be "backless." These are often dressier and have more decorations.

Designer sarees have ingrained themselves in Indian culture, and today people all over the world are wearing them. There is now a pressing need for designers to meet consumer expectations. The festive and wedding seasons are the peak times for the demand for ethnic clothing. The general appearance of the woman wearing it is much improved by the designer blouse. Despite the fact that western clothing has a big impact on us, the use of designer sarees is steadily rising.

Silk Sarees

Indian ladies notably love to wear heavy silk sarees to big events like weddings and other social gatherings. Silk sarees come in a wide variety of styles. The most popular material for saree creation is silk. one of the oldest materials ever employed by humans. The royal family members wore silk sarees throughout the medieval era to display their appreciation for luxury. Silk sarees are now worn for celebrations, weddings, and festivals. These sarees' beauty is enhanced by hand-embroidered, zari work, beads, mirrors, and zardozi borders. Each saree is an amazing masterpiece made by Indian weavers who use complex artworks to construct fantastic fantasies.

Saree Designs

Saree designs have changed dramatically over the years because of the impact of social media, and today's designers largely rely on methods that are both fashionable and in keeping with Indian culture while creating new saree designs. Traditional saree patterns include the Kanjeevaram, Bandhani, Tant, and Chikankari sarees. However, with the development of technology, digital printing has proliferated throughout the textile industry. Now that materials can be customized, anyone may obtain the designs they want on the material. It's similar to becoming your own designer and making sure you choose the things that suit you the best.

Cotton Saree

Cotton sarees are timeless garments that will never go out of style, especially in regions of India where the summer heat is intolerable. Cotton saris are light, airy, and comfortable garments that are weaved in almost all regions of the nation, including West Bengal, Bihar, etc. Cotton saris, block designs, floral themes, and animal prints are the most popular patterns. For daily use, cotton sarees are preferred since they keep you comfy all day. When it comes to cotton's reputation, it is well-known all over the world.

Party wear Saree

Today, sarees are frequently worn at parties. Sarees allow ladies to make an effect that is unmatched. Designer Net Sarees, Ruffle Sarees, Striped Party Wear Sarees, Floral Print Sarees, Sequins Sarees, and many more are some of the greatest party wear saree samples that may be worn to showcase your ethnic flair in gatherings. Comfortable materials like cotton, silk, and others are taken into consideration while producing sarees for parties since they make your appearance unique while also offering you comfort.

Organza Saree

One of the nicest silks with a strong feminine appeal is organza, a fabric with a dreamlike quality. The elite, the nobility, the royals, and the common people have all always been drawn to organza's uptown look since it is appropriate for prom nights and elegant cocktail parties! Organza is a fashionable fabric that has been popular since the Victorian era because of its subtlety and delicacy. Organza appears to be soft, but it is actually a very durable cloth. It stands out right away as a classic plain weave thanks to its see-through surface and solid fall.

The majority of businesses have gone online due to the ease with which fashion trends can be tracked on social media, which has increased sales. India is a vast and diverse nation that produces a wide range of textiles, fabrics, and well-known Indian sarees throughout its various regions and towns. The saree is arguably the most exquisite piece of traditional Indian clothing! Given the vast selection of exquisite Indian sarees available in India, women enjoy wearing saris not only in their daily lives but also on special occasions like weddings, parties, festivals, and events. Regardless of your personal style, you are sure to find a lovely sari that will suit your taste. There are sarees for every occasion – Bridal Sarees, Wedding Trousseau Sarees, Party Sarees, and many more. Saris also make excellent gifts for the women in your life! From simple cotton sarees to sarees made using distinctive textiles, fabrics, colors, patterns, motifs, designs, precious zari, beads, stonework, etc – the choices available are unlimited.

Sarees for women are like the cover of their souls. Indian women can’t get enough sarees and blouses. One can look for beautiful and gorgeous sarees online

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[shopwildcactus]

Full Moon 🌝 in Leo ♌️ ✨ Tonight is a great night to charge Kunzite and Sun Stone under this full moon in Leo. Kunzite helps release us from emotional restriction caused by trauma and abuse, allowing us to love more freely. It allows us to flow with life and let events resolve themselves. Sun stone restores happiness and and fulfillment within us. It relieves stomach ulcers, tension, spinal issues, and helps sore throats. Sun Stone is perfect for people born under the moon sign Leo, Pisces, and Libra. For tonight it’s a good stone for everyone. Today is particularly powerful. Charging your curtails under this full moon would be wonderful to do 🔮 We have the full moon in Leo representing creativity. We have Venus and Mars in conjunction representing the harmony of the divine feminine and the divine masculine. Very passionate and fiery. Emotion and action together. We have Venus as the morning star representing love, passion, and beauty. In the Mayan Cosmovision we are in the trecena of Tijax, with the obsidian blade heloing is to cut away so we can heal. We are in the betty of 7 K’at today. 7 representing finality, finishing projects. We have K’at representing the net, the spider. In our nets we carry abundance, but sometimes we hold onto things we need to release. Today we cut away what no longer serves us. The spider weaves her web, but mustn keep everything that sticks to her web. As weavers of our story we must decide to what threads to keep and what threads to cut away. It is also the time of the Wayeb, today being the most potent day, we move through the energy of acceptance. This acceptance that we reflect on today allows us to accept what we must release- whether it’s old patterns, relationships, stories that don’t belong to us, limiting believes, we accept that we must detach and move forward. This full moon in Leo has potent energy to help us release in order to creat and call in so much abundance— blinking abundance (@joplinmarleystudios ) 😉✨ I wish you all a beautiful full moon. I invite you to light a candle and to call in joy in creation ( thank you @nick.lasky ) and I also invite you to journal during this time of inner reflection. ,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆　 https://www.instagram.com/p/CaDmV18LSyV/?utm_medium=tumblr

[fabricpitara]

Comfortable Cotton Fabric

Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fibre that forms in a boll, or protective casing, around the seeds of cotton plants in the genus Gossypium, which belongs to the Malvaceae family of mallows. The fibre is almost entirely made up of cellulose. Cotton bolls will aid seed dispersion under natural settings.

The shrub may be found in tropical and subtropical locations all over the world, including the Americas, Africa, Egypt, and India. Mexico has the largest diversity of wild cotton species, followed by Australia and Africa. Cotton was domesticated independently in the Old and New Worlds.

The fiber is most frequently spun into yarn or thread and wont to make a soft, breathable textile. The utilization of cotton for cloth is understood so far to prehistoric times; fragments of cotton fabric dated to the fifth millennium BC are found within the Indus Valley Civilization, also as fabric remnants dated back to 6000 BC in Peru. Although cultivated since antiquity, it had been the invention of the gin that lowered the value of production that led to its widespread use, and it's the foremost widely used natural fibre cloth in clothing today.

Current estimates for world production are about 25 million tonnes or 110 million bales annually, accounting for two. 5% of the world's arable land. India is that the world's largest producer of cotton. The us has been the most important exporter for several years. Within us, cotton is typically measured in bales, which measure approximately 0.48 cubic meters (17 cubic feet) and weigh 226.8 kilograms (500 pounds).

Early History of Cotton Fabric:

South Asia

For More Information: Tree cotton

The earliest evidence of the utilization of cotton within the Old World, dated to 5500 BC and preserved in copper beads, has been found at the Neolithic site of Mehrgarh, at the foot of the Bolan Pass in Balochistan, Pakistan.

Americas

Cotton bolls discovered during a cave near Tehuacán, Mexico, are dated to as early as 5500 BC, but this date has been challenged. More securely dated is that the domestication of upland cotton in Mexico between around 3400 and 2300 BC.

In Peru, cultivation of the indigenous cotton species sea island cotton has been dated, from a find in Ancon, to c. 4200 BC, and was the backbone of the event of coastal cultures like the Norte Chico, Moche, and Nazca. Cotton was grown upriver, made into nets, and traded with fishing villages along the coast for giant supplies of fish. The Spanish who came to Mexico and Peru within the early 16th century found the people growing cotton and wearing clothing made from it.

Kingdom of Kush

Cotton may have been domesticated 5000 BCE in eastern Sudan near the Middle Nile Basin region, where the cotton cloth was being produced. Around the 4th century BC, the cultivation of cotton and the knowledge of its spinning and weaving in Meroë reached a high level. The export of textiles was one of the sources of wealth for Meroë. Aksumite King Ezana boasted in his inscription that he destroyed large cotton plantations in Meroë during his conquest of the region.

Agreeable Cotton Fabric:

Cotton fabric is arguably the staple fabric of humanity. it's widely used across the planet and has been wont to make clothing for thousands of years. Cotton fabric information may be a vast repository of interesting facts and comparisons which further increase the fascinating history of this humble yet ubiquitous fabric. The plant which is employed to source the fiber for cotton grows naturally in tropical and sub-tropical regions like the Indian sub-continent; however, the production of cotton and its immense importance within the textile industry and economy is essentially thanks to western countries that chose to form this the staple fabric for each day wear. Cotton fabrics have a huge and universal appeal and are produced and utilized round the world to make all kinds of garments.

Cotton fabric features a lot of various characteristics that make it extremely appealing for designers and customers. it's a cushty, skin-friendly fabric that permits the skin to breath, a crucial benefit in hot and humid environments. it's known to be airy and soft, which makes wearing cotton clothing a particularly comfortable experience. Cotton also can be easily blended with other sorts of fabrics, which is why women can find all kinds of cotton blends such jute-cotton, khadi-cotton and cotton-silk within the market, besides the soft and supply the pure cotton fabric. Cotton also wins calls at the design department because it is particularly absorbent which will easily be dyed and printed with bright designs; this is often one among the explanations Indian weavers, artisans and garments makers love cotton such a lot. Though it's soft and cozy, it's a really smart appearance and may easily be worn during a formal environment also.

There are many various sorts of cotton fabrics within the market. They will be differentiated on the idea of the variety of things. Textile experts tend to specialise in factors like thread count, geographical origins, chemical treatment etc. While these are certainly important, for the buyer of ethnic fashion, what matters is that the look and feel of the material. Popular cotton fabric types in India include unwoven fabrics, modern knitted cotton also as regional sorts of fine woven cotton which are produced for several centuries. Many regions like Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal are known for his or her fine cotton textiles. Typically, woven cotton is employed to form pretty sarees and one can find many beautiful traditional cotton sarees like Embroideried sarees, Maheshwari sarees, Chanderi sarees, Narayanpet sarees and Jamdani sarees. While some are distinguished by the fine texture and shimmering appearance of the material, others focus more on the creation of unique and vivid designs.

These sorts of traditional woven cotton fabric types also can be won’t to make salwar kameez and kurtis, but typically, plain cotton fabric is preferred for daily wear and casual wear outfits. Knitted cotton has become a favourite in western fashion and is usually wont to create colorful and distinctive looking tunics and dresses.

Since cotton is so absorbent, it are often dyed into many various colors and takes on a spread of bright hues beautifully.

 This is often why women will find an incredible sort of cotton fabric prints within the market. In India, cotton is that the preferred fabric for the creation of hand block printed designs. Hand block printing may be a traditional way of decorating fabrics within the rural regions of Rajasthan and Gujarat; a carved woodcut is dipped in bright colors then pressed on to the material to make beautiful designs. There are many sorts of block printing like Batik, Sanganeri, Dubka etc. Cotton fabric prints also can be done by machines and may include diverse Indian motifs, starting from intricate nature-inspired and/or floral patterns and kaleidoscopic plays of geometric shapes to depictions of myths and divine beings. An outfit made from designer cotton fabric also can accompany abstract western designs and graphic digital prints. Tons of various outfits are often decorated with cotton fabric prints, from sarees and salwar kameez to kurtis, tunics and leggings.

Cotton fabrics also can be embellished and embroidered using traditional Indian techniques like resham, zari, aari, beads work, mirror work and patch border work.

 Appeal of Cotton Fabric

The best part about cotton is that it's the one fabric that never falls out of fashion. However, certain sorts of cotton do enter and out of fashion. At the instant, knitted cotton fabrics and woven cotton fabrics are extremely popular in casual wear.

Cotton fabrics are often wont to make a good spread of ethnic wear outfits and therefore the styling and accessorizing will depend entirely on the outfit in question. Generally, funky ethnic jewelry like wooden necklaces, beaded necklaces, oxidized jewelry sets and tribal earrings are an honest choice with cotton clothing. They carry out the sweetness of the colorful prints and vibrant designs that are often seen on Indian cotton fabrics.