#sorry @Darwin for not including you! you did amazing.

[hubba1892]

[elbiotipo]

Sorry to bug about an old post but speaking of el gran chaco, have you heard of la vaca ñata? Can't find nothing on it

I JUST found a very interesting article on it, including modern examples! :O

Unfortunately it's a little known story nowadays, even for people like me I only found about it recently.

For those who don't know, the vaca ñata (literally, little-nose cow) was a breed of cattle in Argentina and southern South America that had a shorter muzzle, (brachycephaly, very much like current pugs or other dog breeds)

They have, according to modern research, no problems with breathing, but they didn't reach the leaves on trees, which led according to some theories, to their eventual extinction. Charles Darwin, who visited Argentina in 1840, was fascinated by them, and no doubt it influenced his theories, he does mention the fact that they are outcompeted by regullar cattle in his journals (I don't recall if he mentions them in Origin of Species).

It is nowadays extinct as a breed as it's said as such in almost every source...

HOWEVER, I've just found that some have survived in Bolivia and some other regions, and bred with normal cattle, vacas ñatas are still alive! The reason why it became so widespread in South American cattle in previous times apparently wasn't because of enviromental adaptation, but because the brachycephalous gene is dominant, so it expreses itself more often in crossbreeding!

These are from an experimental ranching station that did the research in the link above. You can compare the muzzles, it's amazing. I've only seen the museum pictures! It's still found in Bolivia, Northern Argentina and Chile. So I guess the "extinct" label isn't accurate at all. I should really edit the Wikipedia page.

[salmonthestoryteller]

SeaQuest DSV

SeaQuest DSV (1993-1995) officially has three seasons, but I'm really only here to talk about the first two. Lol

Seriously, SeaQuest will forever go for me:

Season One: Amazing. Unique, riveting plots.  You basically like every character. Will watch any time.

Season Two: Quirky and kinda disappointing compared to first season.  Replaced some amazing characters with some really bleh and uninteresting ones. Fun to watch sometimes if in the right mood.

Season Three: We don't talk about SeaQuest 2032.  We don't even acknowledge its existence if we can help it.

SeaQuest DSV is set in a future time where man has colonized the oceans in search of new resources.  After escalating clashes, the United Earth Oceans Organization (UEO), a global coalition of up-world countries and undersea confederations, is formed to help settle disputes and keep the peace. An experimental submarine called The Seaquest is loaned to the UEO to aid in this endeavor.

It was designed by retired naval captain Nathan Bridger, who the UEO wants to convince to come out of retirement to command. Bridger, however, made a promise to his late wife to never return to the navy after their son died in action. He accepts an invitation to tour the SeaQuest, but initially refuses to accept command despite numerous machinations to attempt to make him do so.

Circumstances eventually do bring Bridger about, including the fact that the SeaQuest also acts as an exploration and science vessel - with a large crew of scientists led by Dr Kristin Westphalen (who outnumber the navy officers two to one as she reminds Commander Ford with a smile when he says it's a military vessel), as well as forming connections within the crew.

Like a lot of shows at the time, SeaQuest was mainly episodic. There wasn't a lot of carry over between episodes for plots aside from the continued political unrest the SeaQuest was responsible for easing. But most of that was also more episodic than serial.

However, I would say the first season of SeaQuest’s writing is above the level of most series at the time. Or even a lot of modern series. I can honestly say I didn't dislike a single one of the original cast of characters.  The found family feels were incredible.  They dared to touch on subjects that were quite controversial in their time. (Whalesong?  Nothing But the Truth?)

Plus, we had a dolphin for a main character.  I mean… name me another sci-fi with a dolphin character the team communicates with through an experimental piece of technology. Darwin is not a pet. His actions throughout the series is that of a fully acknowledged sentient being. Including the failure of the technology to translate his meaning because it can't fully comprehend his language, and a really heartbreaking episode where he grows severely ill, and the crew must seek out his pod to return him to. (I cannot watch that episode with a dry eye especially his and Bridger’s parting towards the climax)

A lot of controversy surrounds Season 2. The corporate big wigs not only decided they needed a younger “hotter” cast to attract younger viewers, but they also moved the show's production across the country.  Both members of the cast and the show’s fans spoke out against it all, but to no avail.

I will admit to finding second season more interesting as a rewatch years later than I did as a disgruntled fan in the day.  But it still cannot hold a candle to season one.

We had to give up Dr Westphalen for Dr Wendy Smith. And, I'm sorry, but there's no contest. Westphalen was an amazing, depthful character.  A mature and strong female character (And let's face it, those weren't easy to come by in 1993). And she and Bridger had the cutest flirtation going on. Wendy is nothing but a let down by comparison.  She lacks Westphalen’s maturity and poise. Instead coming across as arrogant and temperamental. And having them pair Bridger in a romance with her felt like a double slap in the face for season one fans. 

We had to give up Hitchcock for Brody. Are we serious here?  We had to give up a tough, kick ass female commander, and her growing connection to the crew, for a completely uninteresting narcissistic male wannabe playboy?  Do I even have to say how terrible a decision that is?

We had to give up Chief Crocker, who was the mature voice of reason in the crew. Pretty much their bedrock. And what we got in return was Lieutenant Lonnie Henderson. Look, Lonnie as an addition to the crew would have been okay. She's sweet, and I have to admit the whole smuggled teddy bear thing was adorable.  She has some good interactions with the rest of the crew.  But in the end the characters we lost were still better than what they presented us with in her.

Okay, I will say that of the swaps, getting Piccolo and Dagwood in exchange for Krieg was probably the best swap out we got. Of the season 2 crew, they are the best new characters.  And, like Krieg, are capable of switching back and forth to carry both the more comedic scenes and the serious ones. But I still am disappointed at the loss of Krieg, who I felt like we had only begun to explore the character of in season one.

The season two plots were far more out there than season one, at times closer to fantasy than science fiction. There is a lot of lore used from the lost civilization of Atlantis to various sea gods, to pandora's box.  On one hand there were some good episodes (The pilot, Daggers, and Playtime are two of my favorites.), but neither the writing nor the cast were quite able to stack up to first season.

It also suffers from making The SeaQuest a pure military vessel, taking out the exploration and science side completely. Something that clashes with the character of Bridger - and the writing of Bridger in the season comes across slightly off. Like pre-series Bridger as opposed to the character as we knew him in season one.

I literally mean it when I say I ignore the existence of season three.  If season two suffered from the changed character line up and writing that wasn't quite equal to season one, then SeaQuest 2032 was a complete reversal of everything about the series. We jump decades into the future, go from protecting the peace to SeaQuest being a 100% war vessel with a new captain who is very much a by-the-books jerk, as opposed to the peace-loving, “I will literally resign on grounds of moral objections to orders” Bridger.  Despite some characters remaining, and even a brief guest appearance by Krieg as someone rebelling against the new militant UEO, the series doesn't even feel like SeaQuest at all. Hard pass. 

[carrion-aac]

if you say shit like "fiction doesn't affect reality" or "people who can seperate fiction from reality are amazing and are really smart." 1.) dont talk to me 2.) learn some shit before speaking.

most of us know that "murder is bad, incest is bad, human trafficking is bad, kidnapping is bad," etc etc. that's because we're taught that. and i get your attempted point that "fiction doesn't affect reality." except it can, does, and has. so your point? no validity, i'm sorry.

in this teded video, the speaker, emilie soffe, talks about how when we read fiction, our mind essentially travels there because fiction is often an escape from reality. and it is! as someone in a fandom and often in them, i whole heartedly agree. however as the video goes on, soffe explains that when we travel to these fictional places, our mind picks up the naratives that are often mixed within. most fiction books are based off real world problems. and most real world problems are probably based off fiction books. (MOST!!!! NOT ALL!!!)

soffe goes on to say that many researchers in different fields of study including psychology, neuroscience, and biology, have come to a realization that stories (fiction) can change someones pov on something (reality). not to mention they've done studies and come to multiple conclusions that culture and most of our systemic beliefs are actually shaped by fiction rather than the non-fiction we were taught in schools.

soffe continues to say that many literary and scientific developments that came around such as charles darwin's theory of evolution and samuel richardson's pamela; or, virtue rewarded came to be because of fiction. not to mention other systemic beliefs like class, gender, marriage, color, etc etc are new.

yes, most people who read or write murder don't go on to commit it. but did you know in 2014, there were 2 girls who attempted to murder their best friend for slender man? the case became known as the slender man stabbing. they stabbed their friend 19 times because they wanted to become proxies of slenderman. the victim survived, luckily. the assailants, however, were charged with 25 and 65 years in a mental institution. they were 12 and that is all they will ever know.

personally, this post from @/muchymozzerella explains it quite well. and this post from @/reignitedspyro explains both pros and cons to fiction affecting reality.

the best thing i can suggest if you really don't believe me? do your own research.

there are multiple articles from online blogs, tumblr blogs, scholarly articles, even an article from the national association for media literacy education.

by all means!!! enjoy your fiction!! go watch marvel, starwars, naruto, spongebob, whatever the fuck you want. make fancontent for it, live your best life! i do it too man. but know that while it might not affect you personally, it affects others.

[multi-fandom-imagine]

For the Assassin’s Creed ask meme... all of them 😂

I’m joking, of course. Do the ones you want to, I’m looking forward to seeing who is your favourite assassin 😉

A/n:....I’m gonna do it! Also all the video’s below are from my game play.

Favorite Historical Assassin:

100% Leonardo! I just love him so much and the relationship he shares with Ezio plus He is just so damn adorable.

annd Alcibiades....I romanced his ass so hard with Alexios.

Favorite Game:

I would say my favorite game would be between the second Assassin’s Creed { Ezio’s first game } Black Flag and Assassin's Creed III. 

Favorite DLC:

The Ripper DLC in Syndicate...100%. I loovve seeing a older Jacob and Evie and it’s awesome how the Incorporated Jack into the Assassin’s timeline. Though the whole Alexios going up against the Greek God’s was fun too.

Favorite Weapon:

The Hidden Blade, I love how each Assassin has their own blade.If I had to pick a favorite blade then I would go for Connor’s { His Pivot Blade is awesome}, Ezio’s and Jacob’s.

Favorite Supporting Character:

Adéwalé...man I just love this character, him and Edward had the best friendship, though I would also have to say James Kidd man both of their deaths broke me. 

Favorite Villain

Haytham Kenway and Crawford Starrick, I reaaally love these two. Hard not to like Haytham when you play as the man for half the game and Crawford is just amazing.

Least Favorite Game:

I’m sorry...but I would have to say Unity....I couldn’t even finish the game because of all the bugs. I did play the game on my Xbox360 so I may have to buy it for my PS4 to see if anything has change.

Least Favorite Protagonist:

Right now I would have to say Eivor...I mean I haven’t played AC: Vahalla much though I just think he is a bore.

Favorite Mission/Sequence:

I really love Assassin’s Creed III and all the mission’s in that game are really good{ dont know why that game gets so much hate }. Though the missions I enjoyed the most was the Battle Of Bunker hill and the whole Boston Tea Party Scene. I love how Connor just look’s at his father as he drops the tea into the Boston Harbor.

Odyssey  and Syndicate had a lot of really good Mission's two 

Best Quote:

“I see what you're saying Evie. We need The Rooks!”  

“You're not starting a gang called The Rooks!”

Favorite Plot Twist:

OKay....100% when Desmond kills Lucy....I just remember trying to stop it but once it was done...I just placed my Xbox controller down and walked off.

Favorite Modern-Day Assassin:

Shaun Hasting’s look at him...look at my boy! I just love him soo much.

Most Underrated Game:

Assassin’s Creed: III- Man I don’t get why this game get’s so much hate. 

Most Underrated Character:

Arno & Connor.

While I did not enjoy Assassin's Creed: Unity, Arno was still a great character.

Also Connor is just adorable....just look at these two amazing boy’s.

A game you think Ubisoft should remaster:

I’d like to see the original game get a remaster, it was the first so I think it deserves it the most.

Thoughts on the Movie:

We don’t talk about the movie.

F(uck), M(arry), or K(ill) with three AC Characters:

Fuck: Alexios

Marry: Ezio

Kill: Shay

Favorite Historical Setting:

While all the historical settings are amazing I would have to go with Odyssey or Origins.

The Greek and Egyptian gods are my favorite things 

Coolest Piece of Eden:

I’d have to say I’m stuck between the Apples of Eden,Spear of Leonidas and the Shrouds of Eden.

Favorite Historical Figure Cameo:

.

Syndicate had a lot of good ones like

Charles Darwin. Charles Dickens.

Favorite Female Character:

Evie! I love her so much

Scene that made you cry:

Achilles and Kidd’s death made me tear up but I think it was Phoibe’s death that really got me.

She was such a sweet girl and it was adorable by how much she looked up to Alexios and she was really part of his family. It’s heartbreaking, you can hear it in his voice by how much it broke the man and it stay’s with him through out the whole game.

It’s even worse when you see her in the DLC and Alexios has to send her away to the ‘heavens’ so she can be safe and happy.

The death Scene-

The Good bye scene from the DLC

Scene that made you laugh:

This mission...below { part of my AC: Odyssey playthrough }

Favorite Templar:

Haytham...I god damn love this man.

Favorite romantic relationship:

Alexios x Alkibiades

Favorite friendship:

Leonard and Ezio defiantly have the best friendship though I also love the relationship between Edward and his crew.

How many games have you played?  Which ones?:

Assassin’s Creed. Assassin’s Creed II. Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood. Assassin’s Creed III. {DLC included} Assassin’s Creed IV- Black Flag. Assassin’s Creed Unity. Assassin’s Creed Syndicate. { DLC included} Assassin’s Creed Rouge. Assassin’s Creed Origins {DLC -still playing } Assassin’s Creed Odyssey { DLC- Still playing.} Assassin’ Creed Valhalla { Currently Playing }.

[piouspromise]

Musiea had promised Escher she’d try to be in a better mood today, but so far, she’s not doing well. She’s taking her time going through the supermarket near Escher’s place, hoping it’ll give her the chance to think of something cheerier. But she can’t stop thinking about the conversation she had with him last night, about the kids in their section of the group home...the section devoted to kids with recurring behavioral problems, most of whom would likely stay there until legal adulthood, when they’d be kicked out of the system and to the curb...

At the time, many of them had been frightening to her. She was so young, she didn’t know any better...but she’s learned, and looking back, those kids must have gone through horrible situations to end up that way. They needed to be shown love, not fear...

She keeps dwelling on it, and it’s not helping. What she needs to do now is examine the bakery to see if they have raspberry Swiss roll cakes, and if they’ll be up to Escher’s impeccably high-

She’s too focused that she doesn’t see another person walking toward her to dodge them in time. They clearly aren’t looking either, and the collision startles them both.

Musiea isn’t carrying anything yet, but unfortunately for the man she walks into, he’s got an entire armful of canned goods that end up all over the floor. Both involved parties spring into action, apologizing to the other once they’ve gotten over the surprise, and cooperating to pick up the items on the floor.

“It’s fine,” he says, once Musiea has apologized. “That’s what I get...I thought if I got a cart, I’d end up grabbing a lot of extra stuff. Really, I just need to learn to resist temptation...” He laughs somewhat awkwardly, and Musiea does too, for a moment...and then she gets a good look at him.

He’s about her age, of average height and built athletically, with ash blond hair that includes one sprig that seems to be sticking up in a way that blatantly goes against what the rest of it is doing. That’s...strange. But why does it seem so oddly familiar?

It dawns on her before she’s prepared for the emotions the realization carries. She knows him...or rather, she saw him just about every day for several years of her life. She had mentioned him the night before in her conversation with Escher. A boy who nobody ever spoke to, almost like they were afraid of him, even though he’d never spoken to anyone else that she’d ever seen. His expression always seemed like he was numb, but she could tell there was something dark and painful in those eyes of his.

He always looked so joyless, so to see him smile and laugh, even if it’s with some awkwardness and reluctance...at a time like this, the emotions are too much. Her eyes well up with tears and eventually, they spill over.

He notices, and he panics. “Whoa, h-hey, no need to get upset...nothing even broke, see?”

She shakes her head. “N-No, that’s not it! I just...!” She has to stop to catch her breath. “I...I remember you! I saw you all the time, and you looked so sad, b-but...I don’t even know your name...!! I’m so sorry...!”

He looks confused for a moment, but recognition flashes across his features. “I knew those teary eyes looked familiar...you’re Aida, aren’t you? You got placed there because you kept trying to escape to find your brothers. You’re the one Escher spent so much time with...”

Musiea rubs at her eyes. “Great...I’m being remembered because I was as much of a crybaby back then as I am now...” She laughs. “But I’m surprised you remember any of that! It was so long ago, and I wasn’t there for very long...”

“When you never talk, you listen,” he says. “When you’re never noticed, you blend in with your surroundings and people carry on conversations right in front of you. Plus, Escher raised so much hell after you left. It was kind of hard not to know about!”

Musiea frowns. “I’m so sorry you were treated so badly, there, um...”

He smiles. “Darwin. And don’t be. It was hard, but it’s a part of who I am...and it got me to where I am now. But what I’m more curious to know is whether or not Escher ever found you again.”

Both former residents of the group home end up putting their shopping on hold to sit down at the little cafe within the store for a cup of tea and some conversation. It’s strange how the two of them never once spoke, but Musiea is able to tell him about her life. He listens intently, letting her speak and only reacting silently. He waits until she’s finished before he says a word.

“God, that’s...I’m so sorry...” His features darken, and she sees a shadow of who he was back in the orphanage. “But it’s amazing that you were able to get out of it...escaping a cult isn’t something many people can do. And saving all those kids, too...how many are there?”

“Twenty in all,” she replies simply. His eyes widen and he almost chokes on his tea. “I know it sounds like a lot, but they’re good kids, and Escher helps! Though he’s under the weather right now, so the main focus is on getting him well again.”

“Wow...” he says. “You’ve managed to do so much. It’s a life story people would read...and it would probably get the Hollywood treatment too!”

Musiea laughs. “Oh, please! But if they do...they’d better cast someone really pretty to play me. And someone slightly taller...” She sighs. “Escher could play himself, though. He’s good-looking enough to be a movie star...”

“See? There’s even the love story element. I smell an Oscar nom right there.”

“Just the nomination?” She shakes her head. “Anyway, enough about me. It seems like you’re doing well, especially compared to how you used to be. I almost didn’t recognize you.”

“Well, I was kind of a scrawny little runt back then,” Darwin says. “I’ve gotten a little bigger and stronger in the meantime.”

“And...I’ve seen you smile, and laugh...” Musiea says. “That was why I broke down crying earlier. I had actually been talking with Escher last night, wondering whether or not some of the kids in that place ended up okay like we did. You...were mentioned...”

“Then...you’ll be glad to know I’m doing fine,” he says. “I mean, some days are rough, but...I’ve got people to support me too. I get through...” He smiles. “Guess it’s my turn, then...”

“Only if you want to talk about it,” Musiea assures him.

“It’s fine. Though it’s not quite as interesting as yours...” He sighs. “Not too long after you left, I started leaving the property to take walks. I figured as long as I was going to be alone, I might as well be truly by myself...not alone amid a crowd. But I kept going by this one playground, and seeing kids there who looked...happy. I remembered that my mom used to take me there when she was still healthy enough to get out of bed...that I had some happier memories of the place.

“I used to just walk by, but I eventually got to the point where I would sit on a bench and watch. There were these two kids there, a brother and sister, and I used to always see them. One day, the little girl came up and asked if I wanted to play too. She said she had only ever seen me by myself, and she asked if I ever got lonely. I told her the truth: ‘I’m used to it.’”

“That’s...a really sad truth,” Musiea says softly.

“It is, but I’d never thought about it that way...she burst into tears, and I was shocked. She told me she’d never heard anything so sad.” He sighs, though there’s a smile on his face. “I still remember it so vividly, even now...those silvery eyes, all red and puffy from very real tears. She didn’t even know me, but her heart was breaking for me...”

Musiea smiles as well. “She’s still someone important to you, isn’t she?”

“All that and more,” he admits, pink immediately dusting his cheeks. “I love Marie more than I knew I ever could love anyone. And she waited for me to sort through everything...she’s beautiful, smart as can be, talented...she could have anyone, but she helped me sort through my baggage and my past...”

“She sounds wonderful,” Musiea says.

“She is,” Darwin says. “And the work she’s already doing...she finished her undergrad program early, but even as a grad student, she’s already learned so much in this lab, they’re working on curing all sorts of-“ He pauses. “Sorry, I could talk about the things she does all day...”

“It’s all right!” Musiea tells him with a laugh. “It sounds like important research!”

“Yeah, and I’ll admit that I have to ask her to slow down and explain things to me a lot of the time...it’s amazing she even knows how.” He sighs. “Anyway...she’s been through a lot herself. Her older brother, Orlando, was kind of a rock for us both. When I was about ten, their mom and dad became foster parents to me, so I got out of the group home. It seemed like it was going to be fine...but then, they...were killed in a really horrible accident four years later...”

“I’m so sorry,” Musiea says quietly.

“It was a shock to everyone...Orlando spent a few days in his room, but he knew he had to rally. He...did a lot of growing up in a really short amount of time. And Marie was so devastated she could barely get out of bed for a couple of months...she tried going back to school but was placed on medical leave indefinitely because she could barely get through the day without breaking down...”

“It’s a horrible thing, losing one’s parents...” Musiea says, looking down into her cup. “Something you wouldn’t wish on anyone...”

“I kept thinking of how hard it was losing my mom,” Darwin says. “My dad passing on sometime after her, well...it’s complicated. But I remember thinking how it wasn’t fair that such good people like their mom and dad didn’t deserve to be robbed of their lives, and how good people like Orlando and Marie didn’t deserve to feel the kind of pain that comes from the loss of one’s parents...”

“But you get through it,” Musiea says. “They did...just like you and I did, and Escher...and the kids I look after now...”

“That’s right,” he says. “It’s hard, but...as long as you’ve got even just one person to help you through it...you’ll be okay.” He looks sad again for a moment. “People like us...maybe we just got lucky, to be at a point where we can talk about these things as parts of our pasts. I don’t know what became of the others in that home, but...I’d like to think that maybe things are better for them now. But I’m glad to know that out of all the kids there, two of them besides me are doing well now.”

Musiea looks up at him with a smile. “And I’ll have to settle for the one, I guess. Really though, I’m glad our paths crossed, Darwin. I feel better than I did before.”

“Well, good. You deserve it, Musiea. You’ve been through a lot, and you’ve done a lot. You’re going to keep doing a lot.” He stands up. “But, that’ll have to be for another time. I’ve got to get the stuff I need for dinner tonight.”

Musiea stands up as well. “And I need to get together a care package for Escher!”

“Right. Well, take care of yourself, too.”

“You do the same. Oh, and Darwin?”

“Hm?”

She smiles. “You really might want to think about using a cart this time.”

He laughs. “Duly noted.”

[mysteli]

Endless Summer Imperfect - Chapter 2

A/N: Wow! I got this out a lot quicker than I thought I would. If you haven’t read the first chapter! I reccommend you read that first! Hope you enjoy!

Endless Summer Aftermath - Ending 1

Imperfect

Chapter 2 - Fragment of A Memory

Logan

Sean Gayle?! Of all people, why would Diego set Logan up with Sean? Well, there was only one reason. His reputation. Everyone still saw him as a God. A football-playing machine. A heart stealer. The last person that would ever go on a date with shy, sheepish Logan Mercer. Of course, the old Logan would be gawking and drooling at the idea of going out with Sean. Memories of her former self were vague but now and then she would feel an alternate version of certain situations, including this one.

Sean was now what he used to be. He was forced to uphold the image of being everything everyone wanted to be, even if it hurt him that he couldn’t be himself. Logan had known him long enough to know what his true intentions were. What makes Diego think Sean would wanna go on a date with her? Wait, nevermind, he already said YES!

Confused, Logan released a heavy sigh, not sure how to process the Diego’s proposal. She struggled to form words, as she met eyes with Diego, who was staring at her expectantly.

“Why... why?” was all Logan managed to say, almost mentally kicking herself for asking a question she didn’t really want an answer for. All she wanted was the ability to say “No” and move on with her life. Then again, Diego clarified that there wasn’t a choice.

“Why? Isn’t it obvious? You need to get over this Jake guy! And Sean seems like a good place to start.” Diego explained, not being very convincing. Bored, Logan rolled her eyes in annoyance. “Look, he just got out of a relationship as well. You both have a reason to be on this date”

“What made Sean even agree to this?” Logan questioned, with a lost look of disbelief. Diego couldn’t help but chuckle at her lack of belief.

“Actually... he wanted me to set this up.” He revealed, smirking slyly, expecting his words to shock Logan or finally make her smile. However, it didn’t seem to affect her at all. In fact, all she did was roll her eyes. Silent for a moment, she contemplated the idea once more before finally sighing heavily.

“I’m sorry, Diego, but I’m not going on this date.” Logan dismissed the idea completely, folding her arms in frustration and Diego groaned out of boredom but he seemed determined to get Logan to go on this date.

“Listen, if you go on this date...” Diego began, leaning across the table and resting his head on his fist. “I will stop making movie references for a month.”

Logan shook her head dismissively, still in denial.

“Okay, I will replace the camera I broke last week.” Diego tried to convince her again, furrowing his brows.

Once again, however, Logan denied, almost laughing at Diego’s practical begging.

“My dad’s already buying me one.” She replied, smirking devilishly. In response, Diego rolled his eyes.

“Okay then, I’ll help you find Jake.” He muttered. This time he was more hesitant but Logan’s smirk dropped when she heard his words. She searched Diego’s eyes to make sure he wasn’t kidding and he wasn’t. Nothing but solemness and seriousness lingered in them.

“Wait, you’ll help me find the man I’m hooked on in exchange for a date with another man that you want to help me get over the man I’m hooked on.” Logan questioned, using air quotes frequently and her tone almost sounding like she was mocking Diego.

“You don’t have to keep saying hooked on like that. But yeah, I’ll do that.” Diego responded, his expression serious and full of determination.

Logan went silent, realising he would really do this for her. Sure, Diego had made gestures like this before but nothing meant more to her than what he was doing for her now. All she could do was stare at him bewilderedly, sapphire eyes wide.

“Wow.” She whispered, unsure how to thank him, even though she was by going on a date with... Sean Gayle.

“What?” He enquired, chuckling lightly at her disbelieving state.

“It’s just... everyone always called me crazy for wanting to find Jake.” Logan muttered, her voice barely a whisper and her eyes relaxed slightly but the confusion was still obvious.

“I do think you’re crazy, Lo, but I’m gonna help you anyway. Cause you’re my best friend.” Diego assured, a wide grin taking over his features and Logan awed at his words.

This was Classic Diego. Putting others before himself every time. Even setting up this very awkward date was only to make Logan happy. All he wanted for her to be satisfied with her life and the ones who cared about her.

“Who knows, you might even have some fun.” Diego suddenly said, barely hiding his smirk as he took a sip out of his coffee. In return, Logan slapped with a coaster and he flinched, stunned. Both of them burst out into laughter.

This was all Logan wanted. To be with her friends. The difficult part was getting everyone to be together again... to regain that endless friendship.

Bzzzt.

Suddenly, a vibrating sound interrupted the meaningful moment. The echoing of Logan’s phone ringing ran around the coffee house. Rolling her eyes at the interruption, Logan picked up her phone, before shooting Diego an alerting look and disappearing into a deserted part of the coffee house.

Finally, she glanced at who was calling and it turned out to be Zahra, or Annoying Roommate, was her name in Logan’s contacts. She answered reluctantly and idly placed the phone over her ear. Before she could say anything, Zahra started rambling into the phone, louder than intended.

“Hey Mercer! Got something you gonna wanna see!” Zahra began, her tone deafening Logan’s right her. She tried to keep up with Zahra’s fast paced words. But her next words were clearer than anything ever had been. “Your boyfriend’s still in the U.S.”

Oh. My. God. He was alive. Jake was alive. Or so her first thought was. However, doubts starting rolling in. What if Zahra was playing a prank? Of course, she was probably just joking. What if Zahra just wanted to break Logan’s heart even more than it already was? At that moment, it sure seemed like the likely intention.

“You’re not kidding, right?” Logan questioned, arching her eyebrows in disbelief, her voice plastered with uncertainty.

“Why the hell would I be kidding?” Zahra enquired, seeming slightly insulted. Her tone took offence and Logan instantly regretted her too quick of an assumption.

“Then, how do you know?” She asked, which is probably what she should have questioned first. Logan closed her eyes, picturing Jake’s face for a moment. His sandy, fawn hair, long a tousled. His captivating, cerulean eyes that could overshadow any angel any day. Just him. Jake in general. The amazing man he was.

Suddenly, she snapped out of her trance, as Zahra started speaking once more.

“I found this article that talks about a criminal sighting outside of Hartfeld Univeristy.” Zahra began and Logan listened intently, processing every word. “And I looked more into it and turns out that criminal was...”

“Jake McKenzie.” Logan finished the sentence, almost instinctively. She hadn’t said Jake’s full name out loud in a long time. For so long, she forced herself to not think about him, not look for him but now, it seemed that he was looking for her. Why else would he be in the U.S? The most important place where he’s not supposed to be. If he remembered nothing, he’d still be chilling in a hammock in Costa Rica. He’d never jeopardise his entire system of not getting caught.

Wait, what about Mike?

“Does it say anything about Mike Darwin?” Logan questioned, her expression suddenly going solemn, as she doubted if Mike was even alive. Maybe that’s why Jake gave up and came back. Maybe he was grief-stricken and couldn’t handle it any more. Maybe he came here to get caught.

Silence invaded the phone for a moment, as Zahra skimmed over the article once more. Logan waited at the other end very impatiently.

“...No.” She stated simply, releasing a heavy sigh and tears threatened to leave Logan’s hurt eyes. Maybe she was right. Maybe it was just a guilty Jake coming to get caught. But then again, why Hartfeld? Logan spent another minute processing the situation, before sighing softly and clearing her throat.

“I’m coming back. Keep that article up.” Logan clarified, before speaking some final words with Zahra. Finally, she hung up the phone and made her way back to over to Diego.

He greeted her with an expectant gaze, clearly wanting to know who it was.

“I have to go.” Logan stated in a hurried tone, eager to know about Jake’s mysterious and very unusual return. Quickly, she chugged down the rest of her coffee before handing her cup to a nearby waiter. She stuffed her phone in her pocket and looked back at Diego, who glancing at her bewilderedly.

“Where you going?” He questioned, raising an eyebrow at her. She barely caught his words and she forced a smile at him.

“Out.” She muttered before leaving the coffee house, leaving Diego in a lost and oblivious state.

Estela

She eyed the unusual art she’d drawn. The visions Estela had seen were different and unusual than anything she’d ever seen. Dreams and nightmares of times on a mysterious island, where Estela and eleven others fought for their lives repeatedly and formed an ever-lasting friendship. Some of the faces were recognisable and others were complete strangers. Some of the familiar faces were from Estela’s college.

Grace Hall, who Estela had never really spoken to, only seen her sat on her own, reading a book by a bench, at 8am every day. Estela always sees the shy Grace reading on that bench when she goes on her morning jogs, as a way to clear her head. However, Grace isn’t the same person in the visions. In them, she’s confident and she always seems to know what to do. This is the case with a lot of the familiar faces.

For example, Aleister Rourke, the unusual guy with no family. Like Grace, he usually spends his days alone and for some reason, he always looks angry and frustrated. He never seems to talk to anyone. However, in the visions, he co-operated with everything and always suggested interesting points, even if him and his ideas weren’t as appreciated sometimes. He got along with everyone and saved lives occasionally.

And then one of the most interesting characters. Logan Mercer. She was odd, definitely, as her personality was completely in the visions than it was in reality. In the visions, she had a heroic attitude, always putting others before herself and never allowing her friends to be put in danger. She was the main motivation for most of them, including Estela. However, now she was different, lost even. She spent most of her days looking upset and alone.

Once again, Estela scanned the mysterious pictures that she’d drawn, based on some of the events that happened at the La Huerta. One of her fighting a colossal crab and another of her and Logan having a heart to heart. However, there were other weird visions that didn’t revolve around the island. Visions of Estela’s mother.

Her mother had died before she was born, at least that’s that Estela’s adoptive mother said. That’s right. Estela was adopted at two years old, which leaves a lack of memory when it comes to her real mother. Then, she was adopted by a woman called Lila, who gave her home and the normal life that the average kid would want. However, Estela always felt like something was missing and was never satisfied about what she had. Maybe it was her lack of a real mother.

With the thought on her mind, Estela picked up the drawing of her mother. It was a vague assumption on what she assumed her mother would like. Or the person she saw in her visions. And Estela had a rocky relationship with her mother recently. She had even lost the habit of even calling Lila “mother”. What the hell happened?

Suddenly, the door of the dorm room burst open, the sound echoing through the area. Estela swerved around and was met with her roommate, Quinn Kelly. Estela barely caught a glimpse of her before Quinn disappeared into the bathroom, slamming the door shut. A worried look crossed Estela’s face, as the deafening sound of vomiting vibrated through the room.

This had been happening constantly. Since Quinn was chosen to be Estela’s roommate, she would get up in the middle of the night to puke or catch her breath. However, she wouldn’t tell Estela what was going on. She refused to talk about it with anyone. At some point, Estela couldn’t help but think that Quinn was pregnant but it had been going on way to long for that to be a possibility.

Ten minutes passed and Quinn finally exited the bathroom, running her hands through her bright, ginger hair. Sweat creased her forehead, as she made her way over to her bed. She seemed tense, almost shaken up. Curious, Estela furrowed her eyebrows while gazing at Quinn intently.

It took the red head a minute to notice Estela staring at her. A silence overwhelmed them both and neither knew what to say.

“Um... you okay?” Estela questioned, her voice a puny mumble. Quinn barely caught her words and her blue eyes were full of surprise, as if she was stunned by Estela’s concern.

“Yeah. I’m fine. Thanks.” Quinn responded, forcing a weak smile, her eyes shining gratefully but the tears still glistened at the corners. Her response seemed genuine but Estela didn’t believe her.

“Are you sure you don’t wanna tell me what’s going on?” Estela enquired. This was the first time she’d asked for a while and she suspected that Quinn expected it again some time soon. Hearing the question, she released a heavy sigh, a puff of smoke leaving her lips.

“I want to... but I can’t.” Quinn admitted, rubbing her arms sheepishly, a timid look on her face. She almost looked like she was shivering.

“Why?” Estela asked, not seeming to care about being cautious anymore.

“My... parents say it’ll mess everything up.” Quinn confessed, not wanting to hide it anymore but she still kept her answers vague and blunt. Estela sighed, surrendering.

“Well, you know you can talk to me if you need anything, okay?” Estela assured, folding her arms casually while forcing a solemn expression. Grateful, Quinn smiled weakly.

“Thanks.” She whispered, before disappearing into the bathroom once more. With that, Estela sighed once more and glanced back at the art before her, a million thoughts scattered around her head.

Logan

Eventually, she reached her dorm room, clutching the strap of her bag as she ran like she never had before. Her thoughts ran wild in her head and all she could think about was the fact that Jake was back in the U.S. The love of her life had arrived back in town and that only gave her motivation to get back to her dorm room quicker.

She yanked the door knob and threw the door open, her blond hair tousled from the wind outside. But she didn’t care. All she wanted was to find Jake. Out of breath, she scanned the dorm room, her eyes landing on Zahra, who was sat cross-legged on her bed, dark eyes fixed on the laptop screen.

“Hey, Namazi.” Logan greeted Zahra, gaining her attention immediately when she called her by her last name. Slightly insulted, Zahra folded her arms and narrowed her eyes slightly.

“I do something nice for you and you greet me like that?” She complained, the left side of her lips curving up lightly.

“Seriously though, thank you. You have no idea how much this means to me.” Logan thanked Zahra, her eyes relaxing as she approached where Zahra was sitting. “Now, show me what you got.”

“Oh yeah.” Zahra began, tilting her laptop so that Logan could see. An article was revealed to her, with a very bold and obvious headline, stating a criminal sighting. Underneath the headline was a picture of Hartfeld University. If you squint, you can see a circled part of the picture, where Logan noticed a familiar face. Blurry but she would recognise that face anywhere.

It was Jake. It was definitely Jake. The blurred image didn’t change how attractive he was. He still wore his usual khaki jacket and his hair was still tacky in the absolute best way. Logan stared at the image in awe, at the way he was “casually” strolling past Hartfeld University. But his cerulean eyes were side-eyeing a stranger beside him. Probably to make sure that no one recognised him. But why was he being so obvious? Does he even still go by Jake?

“Boo.” A deafening voice suddenly spoke, stunning Logan out of her trance. She jumped back slightly and she could hear the faint laughter of Zahra. Annoyed, Logan rolled her eyes and folded her arms in a frustrated manor. However, she shook it off and turned her attention back to the screen.

“I just... can’t believe this. He’s... here. Hell, he’s alive.” Logan admitted, obviously astonished and talking as if she speaking to herself. Zahra raised her eyebrows questioningly but Logan wasn’t paying attention to her. A tear threatened to leave Logan’s eye but she blinked rapidly to stop it from escaping.

“Do you want me to leave you alone with the blurry image?” Zahra joked, a smirk crossing her lips, causing Logan to snap out of her trance. She narrowed her ocean eyes and furrowed an eyebrow at Zahra.

“You had to ruin it, didn’t ya? Trust me, I’m not in the mood.” Logan growled, a solemn look reaching her face, the light in her eyes dying completely. Jake was back and she didn’t care what anyone else thought right now. All she cared about was him.

“Sorry, but I do have to go. I got my last class now.” Zahra stated, closing her laptop and stuffing her phone in her pocket. “I’ll see you later.”

With that, Zahra left, leaving Logan to contemplate about the situation she’s in.

Sean

The next day went by quickly. Quite normally, like usual. The same, average, boring day for Sean. Wake up. Brush teeth and get dressed. Go to the first class. Then go to another class. Hang out with Craig at break. Then go to another class. Have lunch with the football team. Go to the last class. Go to football practise. Then hang out with Craig. Repeat. Again and again and again and again. Throughout each day, act like someone you’re not and always force a smile.

That’s what Sean always tells himself. Never snap at anyone. Always act like the hero you’re not and never deny a favour. Never fail. Never fall and never fly with the wrong crowd. They’re practically rules Sean made up for himself. For ages, he’s been forced to be friends with people he hates and date girls he’s never felt a connection with. Only date them because of their popularity.

Now, a girl he actually is attracted to wants to go on a date with him. Logan Mercer. He’s had his eye on her for a while now, especially because of these visions, or memories, of her he’d been having recently. Visions of her heroic acts on an island and her teaching him that being a hero isn’t always the only option.

Since Michelle, Sean was never able to go on a date with another girl. But now, it’s been three months and it’s time for him to move on with his life. Even if the date doesn’t go well, he’ll be proud that he did this for himself. That’s all he’s asking for.

Sean gazed intently at his well-presented exterior reflected in the mirror. He tightened his tie and fiddled with his suit jacket, hoping that he was ready for this date. Honestly, he was nervous. He never thought Logan would agree to this or that Diego would even suggest it, since they had barely spoken. But Sean knew that this was gonna be good for him. And he was prepared to make this work.

Once he was satisfied with his appearance, he turned away from the mirror, grabbed his phone and exited his dorm room - careful to not wake Craig from his very loud slumber.

Soon enough, he made it outside when a figure jumped in front of him, blocking the path to his car. Stunned, he stumbled back, rubbing his forehead. He focused his attention on the unusual figure, meeting eyes with Michelle. Of course, who else would it be?

“Michelle? What the hell are you doing?” Sean questioned, attempting to get past her but she jumped in front of him once more, narrowing her eyes.

“Heard you were going on a date with Logan Mercer.” Michelle stated, folding her arms in a frustrated manor. She seemed to be putting on an enraged act, as Sean noticed her hands shaking slightly.

“...Are you okay?” He enquired, genuinely concerned, his chocolate brown eyes fixed on her shivering hands. Michelle followed his gaze, realising how obvious her nerves were. Immediately, she threw her hands behind her back.

“I’m fine. Just wanted to tell you something.” She assured, biting her lip awkwardly but Sean didn’t seem fazed by it.

“What is it?” He asked, raising his eyebrows at her in a confused manor.

“I just want you to know that...” Michelle began, stuttering slightly. Suddenly, she paused, seeming to play out her response in her head. Nothing sounded right and Sean couldn’t help but be bewildered. After a long moment of silence, she closed her eyes and sighed heavily. “Never mind.”

That was the last thing she said before running off into the direction of the sunset, the many colours playing across her hair as she darted out of sight. Not sure what just happened, Sean grabbed his car keys out of his pocket and prepared to head to the restaurant that Logan and him agreed to meet at.

Logan

After a long car ride, she finally arrived at the restaurant, a million thoughts crossing her mind. Diego offered to drive her and she couldn’t help but except. He decided to set this up after all. Nerves hit her immediately but it wasn’t because of Sean. Jake was still on her mind. His mysterious return. She wasn’t able to stop thinking about it all day and now that he was in Hartfeld, shouldn’t she be looking for him? Instead of going on this unnecessary date. Then again, she was doing this for Diego.

Forcing a smile, she turned to Diego, while fidgeting with the straps of her red dress. Sean said that the restaurant they were going to was more casual than most but he still told her to dress up. Sitting the other car seat, Diego grinned broadly at Logan, trying to be reassuring.

“You ready?” He asked, knowing what the answer to that was already but Logan could tell he was trying to get her excited for the date.

“Not really but I guess I’m going anyway. Thanks for driving, by the way.” Logan thanked him, giving him a quick hug before stepping out of the car.

“Have fun, but don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” Diego joked, before flashing his best friend a cheesy but goofy smile and driving off.

Logan let out an innocent laugh and started towards the restaurant. Once she entered, she instantly caught sight of Sean, who had his dark eyes fixed on the door, clearly awaiting her arrival. Once he noticed her, his jaw dropped. He was already seated at a table so Logan casually wandered over to him, watching his eyes widen.

“Eyes are up here, Q.B.” Logan joked, slightly saddened by her instinctive use of Jake’s old nickname for Sean. His eyes narrowed in response. It was the same reaction from when Jake first response, except he seemed less irritated by it and more amused by it.

“Sorry, Lo. I just think you look beautiful.” Sean admitted, flashing her his usual, clean smile that was actually genuine instead of forced.

“Thanks.” She thanked him before sitting down opposite him. Curiously, she scanned their surroundings, loving the simple and comfortable vibe of the restaurant. It had a bar, which was always nice and it was plastered with ancient artworks which added a historic feel to it. “You chose a nice place.”

“Thank you. I thought you’d appreciate somewhere a bit more casual.” Sean suggested and Logan nodded affirmatively, impressed by the suitable choice.

“I gotta ask though. You literally barely speak to me and now, all of a sudden, you wanna go on a date with me?” Logan questioned, starting to see the Sean she learned to love coming through. The simple and sweet side of him that always stood out to her. Never romantically but she still loved the more honest side of him.

“I was thinking you’d ask that. Well, when I got out my relationship with Michelle...” Sean continued to answer her question but Logan seemed to stop listening when she caught sight of a familiar figure wandering into the restaurant.

Jake McKenzie.

[number1120]

A Tale of Kitty and a Broken Soul

*Here we go*

*Picking off from What Happened?*

Darwin was never the best at emotions with or without his soul. He would look at someone crying, smiling, in pain, bleeding, dying-- he felt nothing. He never felt love, but he did do LOVE. Yes, before any of this happened, he did have a soul, he just didn’t know how to feel for others. Maybe it’s because no one felt for him or cared for him. It could be that, or he chose not to feel. Whatever the reason, he wasn’t the best at it, which includes talking about himself.

“So... that’s what happened to her?” Dive asked understandingly. “That’s why she doesn’t have memories or butterflies to look back on? She... died there?” 

The butterflies are fluttering slowly and calmly over them, moving around and flying, mingling with others. The flowers were glowing softly and echoes whispered to others. The floor bed and grass felt like a blanket to Darwin when he first touched. It was so soft he felt his body relax and back crack. He felt so calm in the Butterfly Room that he didn’t want to leave. 

If he wasn’t lying to himself, he felt like himself around Dive--

Darwin rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, almost like that but not like that. We found her--Kitten or Kitty in the woods. She looked lost and confused, so we knew she didn’t have a family. She was already bleeding, so we just... took her.” Darwin felt his soul quiver when he locked eyes with the sleeping cat. 

What he was saying was true. He and his boss, Doctor, did find this cat lost and bleeding. Why she’s not dead from the strike from... wherever she fell was something that his need to know. He didn’t know what his boss going to do to her. Sometimes, they ran test on her for no reason, other times, Darwin got a chance to play with the cat or let her sleep after she had a test run. He didn’t feel anything for her, he just hated what they did to her and to the others. 

Everything and everyone was racing in the war for a weapon. A weapon to destroy both human and monster. A weapon with human Determination and SOUL of a monster along with magic. Darwin was a scientist that was made in a lab, but never with Determination. Never with that. He got that differently, very differently. But when he heard what was happening to both animal and monster, he... was concerned. Concerned because they might do something to him, do something to Dive to hurt Darwin. Concerned because for Dive because Darwin, before any of this, felt something-

A muffled voice came from his thoughts, asking, “Are you alright? You got quiet for a moment.” Dive fixed his eye on him, squinting at him. “You looked as if you killed a man or two.” 

Darwin opened his mouth, but nothing came. He looked down shamefully. “Dive?” He asked lowly, breaking at the seams.

He heard Dive scoot closer to him as he kept his legs crossed. “Yes, Darwin?” His voice was innocent and kind and light and... and...

And Darwin knew he couldn’t love him again... and that killed him.

“This cat had a butterfly with her, a memory. I kept it.” 

“Why didn’t you give it to me?” Dive asked calmly, still understandingly. 

Darwin gave the skeleton a side glance. He changed his shirt to white sweatshirt and dark blue jeans. His scarf was used as a blanket for Kitten as she slept in the middle of them, her bruise still on her neck. Looking at her made Darwin ashamed of what he did, but it what he was now, a killer without thoughts or emotion. His mind set on Dive’s soul because if he can’t learn to love him, on one can. 

“I didn’t do it because I thought she wanted to forget her past.” The grass moved with the draft in the Butterfly Room. “I knew she would be happy with you or... heheh, this sounds pathetic, right?”  He rubbed his hand quickly over his face.

Dive shook his head, placing a hand on his back. Darwin flinched making Dive’ s hand jerk back. “No, you don’t, Darwin. I think I know why you did it, but... I do need that butterfly if it’s still alive--”

Darwin cut in quickly, panicking. “It’s still alive! I... I have it here in a jar in my storage.” In his jacket, he pulled out a mason jar with a bright butterfly. The wings were cheetah print blue and black, the front wings bigger than the back. Inside the jar was a sliced and peeled apple. The butterfly was munching happily in the middle. It stopped when it saw them, waved a tiny arm, and snacked on. “It’s super chill, Dive.”

Dive nodded as his hands asked for the jar; Darwin gave it to him. Dive opened the jar and placed it on the ground. They waited. The butterfly floated up and hovered for a second. Dive waved. The butterfly waved back. 

“May I see the memory you hold, little butterfly?” Dive asked politely. 

 The butterfly nodded and fluttered towards Dive’s shoulder before landing on his head. The wings opened and glowed a soft red. Dive responded with his eye glowing green. There was silence in the room before Dive’s eyes widen, saying, “Whoa!”, excitedly, reaching for Darwin’ s hand.

~~~~~~~~(OwO)~~~~~~~~~~~~

They stood in a meadow of green. Flowers of different colors and kinds flowed in the breeze, birds singing, tress swaying, a river rushing slowly over the bed of rocks. The sun was going down, clouds hung low and dimly.

Dive’s mouth was open as his excitement grew.

Darwin stood still and felt the breeze. It felt... nice and thoughtful.

Finally, Dive leapt into the air. “This place is amazing and pretty, Darwin! It’s a picture right out of a fair tale!” He beamed up at him, his cheeks glowing dimly in green. 

Cute, Darwin thought to himself, blushing. He forgot what Dive looked like when he was excided and happy. His soul pounded. “ Yeah, Dive... it’s nice--”

“Darwin, look!” Dive gasped, pointing at a black kitten. “I... I think that’s Kitten! See? The scar over their eye is there!” He gasped again and awed. “Look, Dar, there are more!”  Sure enough, there were white, grey, black, orange cats playing in the field, free and wild. Kitten played with a grey kitten with a white spot on their back. “Dar... she... she was had a family.”

A sharp need like pain hit Darwin as he looked at the family. He saw them running in the fields and jumping at butterflies and smelling flowers. He saw them as a whole, a whole family. 

His mouth opened, but he could say nothing. His fingers touched Dive’s fingers. Slowly, he worked his hand into Dive’s hand, interlocking his hand. This cat had a family, but she lost it. She lost it because he took her away. She lost t because part of his soul--his Determination was in her. She lost everything because of him... because of his work and his boss’ foolish experiments. This was his fault and nothing could change it. 

She was happy here...

“Darwin? You okay?” Dive’s voice shake. “You look sad.”

He let go of Dive’s hand and he was back in the Butterfly Room, staring at the cat. She was looking up at him, lost. That’s the same look she gave him that day and everyday after. The butterfly landed on her ear as she meowed at him questionable. 

“Dar?” Dive asked again. 

Darwin turned and faced Dive. The way the flowers glowed around him and the butterflies above him making a halo over him-- he looked as beautiful as the day he first saw him. His mouth was still open, and, this time, words flowed carelessly. He wasn’t thinking when he said, “I love your smile. I love how you care about me so much-- no matter how many times I've hurt you. I love the way you talk and how each word fits perfectly. I love the scars and cracks on your body-- I wanna look at them all.”

Dive blushed deeper. “Darwin?”

He went on. “I love the way you help others knowing that it’ll kill you. I love how you heal others.” He laughed, losing himself. “I love how you care for the flowers and the butterflies as if they were your family.”  His hands reached out and grasped his shoulders, causing Dive’s face to look shocked. Darwin spoke faster, blushing a darker, hot red, his yellow eyes glowing, growing breathless. “I love your touch, your skin-where in this universe do I begin? Dive, I can’t even start on the way you make me feel under all of this! I want to be here with you,” Dive’s soul glowed, pumping like a hammer, “I want to stay--”

Darwin stopped suddenly as his arms trembled. He never felt before, never. And this scared him. He didn’t know what to think. He was scared and brave because he knew what he was doing was right! He never felt so sure of himself before! He felt like he was his old self again. The recklessness in him scream and begged to be with him--

But he couldn’t be with him.

Dive is too perfect and innocent for him. He couldn’t have his smile or love.

Darwin let go of his arms and back up, frighten, knowing what he was doing. Slowing his thoughts down, he mumbled, smiling, chuckling to himself. “But I can’t love you.” He glanced into Dive’s heart eye, taking a picture of his hurt face, frightened and scared. “That’s the same face you gave me when I left you. You don't remember it, but that is.” 

His magic formed a portal behind him. “Please,” Dive said as he turned his back against him, causing Darwin to stop. “Please don't go?”

Darwin shut his eyes and sighed heavily. “I’m sorry, Dive,” he began to walk as the picture of the cat family burned into his mind. “It’s... it’s better this way. Please, don't follow. Stay here with the butterflies.”

“Darwin!” 

But... he was gone.

~~~~~~oMo~~~~~

Dive was alone with Kitten, frowning, tears streaming down his eyes. She rubbed her head against his pants, crying up at him. 

“Darwin,”   his whispered his name mournfully. “Darwin... Darwin, I- I remember you leaving me there that day!” 

He feel to his knees and hugged himself.

The butterflies flew over him.

********************************

Kitten belongs to: @skelecat-0

Darwin and Dive belongs to: Me! :3

*Please don't cry.*

[rowlets-are-seriously-round]

What's in a Title?

Summary: Virgil, Logan and Patton visits Roman's imaginary kingdom and finds out that they all have titles amongst the subjects in Roman's kingdom.

Warnings: Near panic attack, a bit of arguing, food mention, first fic

Words: 2724

(This is an idea from a conversation with @chemically-imbalanced-romance that sprouted from his amazing fanfiction. You can find both our conversation and the fanfic here.)

Taglist: @chemically-imbalanced-romance, @painfullybisexual

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

Virgil would normally never agree to go with Roman on any of his quests, as he never knew what might happen. Roman had asked so many times, but now, he no longer invited him to adventures about slaying dragons or witches (or both, damn Dragonwitch), instead he asked Virgil to join him for picnics or walks. Roman wasn't an idiot. He realised quickly that Virgil would never join him on any trip that could end in danger. Therefore, he opted for ideas, where they could relax. He even made an entire kingdom, where no dangerous beast resided. He was normally against that, but he would do anything to bring Everlasting Gloom a new piece of scenery.

Virgil finally accepted. He was nervous the whole way to Roman's room. He was on edge inside the room and he tensed up, when they stepped through his mirror. But he gasped in wonder when he saw the forest and the pond and the small village and the fields and-

"Woaw, easy there, Fall Out Emo!" Roman had cought Virgil before he fell over from dissiness. Virgil grumbled, removed himself from Roman and pretended to smooth out the vrinkles in his hoodie.

"Soooo? What do you think?" Roman vedged, already knowing that Virgil at least found it somewhat impressive. Virgil rolled his eyes. Roman would do anything to get a compliment.

"It's nice, I guess…" it was a bit too bright for his tastes, but it was grand, and it was… Roman. Yeah, it was nice… Roman's smile seemed to light up the fantasy world even more. He puffed out his chest.

"Awww, I knew you loved me, Edgelord!" 

"Whatever, did you want to show me something, or what?" Virgil puffed. He was a bit on edge. What if Roman was going to drag him all the war through the village or up to the castle? …. Or into the castle?! Virgil's breath quickened and he started to tremble. He could feel a tingle running up his spine. His head felt numb and ice cold and heavy. He felt like he was drowning. He didn't want to go there. There would be crowded as everybody would surely want to greet their prince! What if they got seperated?! What if he got lost? He would never be able to get ou- 

"Virgil" Roman's voice cut throught his muddled thoughts like a sword… no… more like… water rinsening a dirty stone free of grime.

"S-sorry" damn, he hated his voice for stuttering. He wasn't weak! Roman searched his face, not with pity, but some kind of nearly-understanding. The prince gently took his arm and led him towards the pond. Virgil started to relax. The hand on his arm was like an ancre, keeping him grounded. Luckily, there were no people around the area, just like Virgil liked it. There would be nobody to damand his attention (besides Roman) or question him or being loud. He was starting to work himself up again. He took a deep breath and tried to relax. This was important to Roman. Roman who had tried so hard to include him and be kinder. They still bantered, but the words weren't so harsh anymore. 

They had reached the small lake. Ducks swam around, quacking and filling their beaks with the gross-green-whatever that was floating around in the water. He could never remember what it was called. They sat down and enjoyed the scenery. 

"Did you know that ducks can't eat bread? It will fill them up, so they don't feel hungry, but they get no nutrience from it, so they might starve to death." Virgil shared.

"Tumblr?" Roman asked. Patton would most likely have started crying and Logan would have given him a more detailed report as to why and how this happened. Roman would usually have made a dramatic gasp, sworn to protect the ducks from bread-feeding or proclaimed Virgil a mood-killer. But he didn't. The Sides where more than the Sides. They were more than what aspects they represented. And if Roman could put away his need for dramatics, Virgil could at least try to put away his negative demeanor.

"You are- It's really- … You did a really good job with this world… I like it… a lot…" Virgil wished that his tounge would stop tripping over itself. He nearly continued talking about the flaws of this world, but stopped himself in time and it was worth it. Roman's eyes were wide in astonishment. His hands flew up to his mouth while he squeeled in glee. Virgil snorted and gave a little smirk. 

The moment was ruined when a man ran towards them. Virgil tensed up again, when Roman rose to his feet. The man seemed excited and not frightened, but it did nothing to lessen Virgil's rising anxiety. 

"PRINCE ROMAN! PRINCE ROMAN! WHAT AN HONOUR!!!" The man yelled eagerly. Virgil guessed that he was a knight. He was certainly dressed as one. The anxious side had no idea, how the man was able to run that far with a chainmail, but everything was possible in Roman's imagination, he thought. 

"What is troubling you, Lancelot?" Roman asked worried. Virgil snorted at the name and Roman shot him a look. 

"Prince Roman, you have returned!" the man exclaimed and could barely stand still. "Your subjects have awaited you! You must come quickly! They are all waiting for you!" 

Roman shook his head, "My apologies, but I'm here in a different errand at the moment, but I will return soon enough," he said and gestured at Virgil, who had placed himself behind Roman. 

"Oh! The Shadow King! My apologies, sire! I did not see you!" the knight said and bowed deeply. Roman made an affronted noise and turned towards Virgil. 

"Shadow King??! How come, you're a king, when I'm a prince?! That hardly seems fair! And how come, my own subjects seem to have you in higher regards than me?! I created them!" By now the world had paused. The knight stood still as a statue, mouth still open while he was raising himself from his bow. If you looked up, you would see birds, frozen mid-flight, still in the air. It unnerved Virgil. It didn't feel right. 

He shrugged. He honestly had no idea as he had never met any of Roman's "subjects" before. 

He smirked. 

"Maybe, it's because I'm better than you?" he tried to sound innocent, but his growing smile ruined the effect.

Roman was better at hiding his own smile, when he grabbed his sword to stand in a majestic pose. 

"In your dreams, Emo Nightmare!" heh, back at the old nicknames, huh? Virgil chuckled and shook his head. 

"Let's head back to the others," Virgil said as he stretched "I wonder, what the others are called in your kingdom? Dr Bookworm and Mr Sunshine? Or do you think they have more regal names?" Virgil glanced at Roman, who huffed, but wore a thoughtful expression. The Prince led the way home. The trip was kind of ruined anyway and both parts were more curious about whatever the other two could possibly be called by imaginary townsfolk.

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

"I could be a fairy!" Patton exclaimed, "And Logan would probably be a wizard or something!" he seemed to enjoy the idea a lot. 

"Although, I do not know as to why, Virgil was given a title by Roman's imaginary world, I do not believe that we can "choose" our own character as one would in a game," Logan said.

"Then we have no choice, but to find out! It's Adventure Time!" Roman was already ready for another trip, while Virgil just wanted to retreat to his room for a bit. Even though, their time in Roman's room hadn't lasted for more than half an hour, he felt worn out. Logan noticed this. 

"Perhaps we should wait with this experiment and conduct it tomorrow instead? This way, I will not need to interrupt my reading, and Patton will not burn down the mindscape with that bakery of his." 

"Bakery?" 

"MY CAKE!!!"

Patton's cake had been saved just in time, although it was a bit dark in the edges. They hadn't had the chance to taste it yet, as Patton had been determined in using it for their picnic the next day. If they were visiting the fantasy realm, they might as well make it enjoyable.

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

Logan had been quick to point out birds that were made up, as he didn't recognize them and Roman was just as quick to refuse the offer of borrowing a book from the logical side about different bird species. Logan couldn't see the point of making up new birds, if Roman didn't even know, what they ate or why they had such amazing colours. 

"You are completely ignoring Darwin's theories of evolution! Take that bird for example! Why is its beak blue?! Is it a part of its performance for its mate? Is it because blue objects attract its prey? You cannot just make up a new race without-"

"Logan, PLEASE! Please stop… I don't care about all of that! Its beak is blue because it looks good!" 

Virgil and Patton shared a look and sighed. They could go on like this for hours.

“Can we please have our picnic now, guys?” Patton tried to defuse the growing tension. The two sides tried to be better at not arguing so often, they all did, but sometimes, it just couldn’t be helped. When you lived with people who were so different from yourself, arguments would naturally arise. And Patton was usually the one to go to, if you wanted a fight to break up. One would think that the others didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but the truth was that there was a reason for him to be the dad of their group. You didn’t want to face him in full Dad Mode. It was terrifying.

Roman and Logan quickly agreed and helped spread out the blanket. Roman found some rocks to place in the corners so the blanket wouldn’t flutter away. 

“What do you think this world would call us?” Patton wondered, it was hard for him to just relax and enjoy his slightly dry cake. “Maybe I’m the Dogfather!” he grinned.

“Patton, you cannot be a dog father as you are neither a dog nor an actual father,” Logan explained, while Roman groaned into his hands. Virgil tried to smother his sniggers. Patton ignored them all.

“Logan! You can be The Sun!” Patton gasped. Logan squinted. He knew what was coming.

“How so?” he asked. He might as well get it over with.

“Because you brighten up my day!”

Logan sighed. It seemed he couldn’t avoid neither idiocy nor puns today. He turned to Virgil, who was trying to keep a straight face.

“Shall we get this over with? I honestly couldn’t care less about whatever title Roman’s little world made up for us, but I surely hope that it doesn’t take a whole day. I do have other plans.”

Virgil rolled his eyes and huffed.

“I’m with you, dude.”

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

The picnic had been... nice… Virgil and Roman had as usual one of their disagreements, which wasn’t all bad as they tried to not be too insulting, but when Virgil had commented on how Roman didn’t live up to the princes in Disney, Roman had picked up his piece of cake and smashed into the anxious side’s face. And thus, the food war had begun. They looked like a mess. In the end, Virgil had apologised. He had definitely crossed a line. In turn, Roman had apologised as well. They still looked like an un-cool mess, but they were no longer glaring at each other.

Roman noticed how Patton was overflowing with excitement and Logan was overflowing with…. Impatience… and decided to get it over with. He loved his dreamscape, but knew that the others didn’t have such a strong attachment to it. While he could spend hours in there, the others were already done and over with it. Well, except for Patton, naturally, but he was excited about nearly everything. Therefore, Roman decided to call for his trusty knight, Sir Lancelot. The name certainly lacked creativity, but he had liked the character so much, that he had to use it himself.

The knight appeared almost immediately from a path near the forest. This time, he was riding a nut-brown horse.

“Prince Roman! You have returned!” the knight was quick to bow down as soon his feet landed on the ground. In the beginning, Roman had made all his imaginary figures talk like in the middle ages, but it had quickly grown old and insufferable.

“Sir Lancelot! You’ve already met Virgil here-“

“Ah, yes! The Shadow King!” the knight bowed again 

Roman squinted at the man. He had interrupted him! How dare he?! Roman sniffed before turning his attention toward his nearly blind friends.

“Yes. As I was saying; you’ve already met Virgil, but here’s my other friends, Logan and Patton!” the prince swung out his arm as in presentation. Patton held his breath, waiting for the outcome. The two left-brained sides rolled their eyes. 

For the third time that day, the knight bowed and it was honestly getting tiring, according to Virgil, who bit his tongue to keep his sarcastic remarks at bay. Logan had the same opinion, but could also see the value, the knight held in terms to Roman and his self-worth. It was painfully clear now, how much Roman craved the attention, respect and acknowledgement the knight overflowed Roman with. Logan made sure to remember note it down and praise Roman a bit more in the future. Of course only because it would help Thomas’ well-being. Naturally.

“Lord of the Nerds and King of Hearts!” the man exclaimed. Virgil snorted and hid his face behind his bangs, his shit-eating grin still visible.

Logan blinked, not quite believing what he just heard.

“Awwww! That’s cute! I’m the King of Hearts AND I HEART YOU ALL!!!” Patton yelled flailed his arms around.

“Well, now that this is over with, I believe that it is time to return. Agreed?” Logan was so done with this whole escapade and just waited for them to return to the mindscape.

“Well, I can only say that this turned out to be a CAT-ASTRO-phe!” the others stared at him and seemed confused.

“What? Logan told me that ‘astro’ means star! And I also really like cats…” Patton giggled. Virgil snorted, while Logan continued to look confused.

“But why would you mention stars? You usually follow some kind of logic with your... so-called witty puns,” Logan looked like he had smelled something unfortunate.

“Because you’re my star,” the moral side whispered.

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

It was a few days after their trip and one might believe that they had pushed the whole ordeal to the back of their minds or that everybody had forgotten about it. Sadly, that was not the case. Ever since they had returned, whenever Roman and Logan was arguing, Roman had pulled his so-called ‘trump-card’. 

“Logan, please remember, who the prince is here!” he would say and make some kind of sassy pose. It was getting tiring and old really quickly.

“To be honest, our so-called titles form your underlings does not matter to me the slightest, and I cannot see, why you put so much weight on a nick-name from somebody that has only met us once.” Logan was getting ready to throw in the metaphorical blanket and just give up. In Roman’s dreamscape he had realised just how dependent the Prince was of flattery, acknowledgement and praise, and he really tried to not drag him down, but it was getting hard with the way Roman continuously tried to fight and mock him with their new-found titles.

“What’s the matter Logan? Can’t handle me being better at something than you?” Roman glowered, while Patton and Virgil was sitting at the kitchen table enjoying a cup of hot chocolate and coffee, respectively. 

“I wouldn’t quite say that, as I have no interest in these titles, therefore it does not matter to me if your rank is higher is mine. You on the other hand-“

“Please be quiet children, the kings are talking,” Virgil interrupted with a smirk. Even Patton berating Virgil couldn’t make him stop grinning at the flappergasted looks he received. 

[jessaadventures-blog]

Week Four: Friends, Family, and Food

The Capullana caves arch.

**Sorry for the late post, wifi access was minimal this weekend! I wrote most of this on Friday, so just pretend it’s Friday instead of Monday :) **

A month has flown by!! It was fun to see my mom this week and show her around Lobitos. The EcoSwell team made a number of new friends this week, including a couple of new volunteers. We are also now generating clean and drinkable distilled water! It’s been a busy week and there is lots to tell :)

The EcoHouse

Our homemade vegan fruit crumble!! It was delicious :)

We have a couple of new people in the EcoHouse!! Jenny arrived on Tuesday afternoon, and she seems great! She is going into her final year at Humboldt State in energy resources engineering (a major I almost did too) and is from the bay area. It’s been really fun to have another girl in the house; she’s very outgoing and fun to talk to! Jenny is helping Joris and I with the solar distiller, so we’re hopefully going to make a lot of progress in the next few weeks!

Jack arrived yesterday (Thursday). He’s from London and just finished his first year at uni studying geography (with a Spanish component). I haven’t had much of a chance to talk to him yet, but he seems really friendly and eager to help out. He’s here for NGO management, so he’ll be able to help me out with social media (yay!). With Jack we have seven volunteers and we only have room in the house for six, so he’s staying at Nacho’s hostel until Isa leaves next Friday.

Other than our newbies, we’ve had a crazy good food week. During this week’s Talara trip, the guys that went bought a lot less food than normal, which I think has upped our creativity and thus upped the awesomeness of our home-cooked meals. We had Taco Tuesday (as always), but we didn’t have tortillas, so we whipped up some homemade tortillas that were pretty amazing!! Wednesday was veggie burger night again and we cooked up some amazing veggie burgers using our now tried and trusted recipe (minimalist baker’s sweet potato black bean burgers). We also made a strawberry, nectarine, and papaya crumble that hit the spot for dessert! Thursday night we went out to Tranqui’s because Jack had just arrived and Jenny hadn’t been there yet, but he was out of his yummy plantains and french fries :( Luckily, though, Isa and Jenny and I had made two AMAZING vegan carrot cakes earlier in the day (we had a bunch of carrots we needed to get rid of) and everybody chowed down on them both Thursday night and this morning. And tonight we have a vegan pot pie in the oven that looks delicious and I can’t wait to eat!!

We also watched a couple of cool movies this week, one was called Rushmore, a Wes Anderson film about a guy who wants to stay at his prep school forever, and Ex Machina, which I hadn’t seen before and was a little crazy but pretty well done, I thought.

There also was a pisco party one evening, and four of our new friends (two pairs of van-life couples staying at La Casona from Germany and Austria) joined us and learned about what we do at EcoSwell (they were very into it)!

Work

Joris, Jenny, and I with our working distiller!

The distiller is officially up and running! It still needs quite a few improvements, but it can produce very pure distilled water. Right now we’re getting about three liters a day, but we think we can increase that quite a bit by making it more air-tight and making some other changes. We have spent quite a bit of time filtering seawater to get macro organisms out of the water (you don’t want stuff dying in the distiller and stinking up the water) and the distiller can take about 50 liters at a time, which it distills over about five days (right now). We’re on the way to making a really effective and sustainable source of clean drinking water for Lobitos!

Planting day was really fun this week, we had both of our new van life couples come help out, so we got a lot done pretty fast Wednesday morning! I helped germinate some oregano and cilantro and then mixed and poured dirt for the veggie garden/orchard. We also planted a bunch of vetiver (bug and odor repellant grass) on the path to the dry toilet. We took some group pictures and gave the van lifers EcoSwell shirts as thanks for their help! Then we made our classic big planting day breakfast and got working on the projects again.

On Friday, a few of us went in to Talara to look for materials for our projects (Jenny and I got some items that will improve the distiller), and I got to experience ProMart (the weirdly similar Peruvian version of Home Depot) and Plazavea, the grocery store. We went to lunch at Black Pepe, a local restaurant run out of a man’s living room, and had a delicious salad (I also tried a bite of a yummy classic seafood dish called mariscos) before heading home with our new materials.

Adventures

Mom and I at the Capullana caves!

This weekend was really fun because my mom was here from Friday to Tuesday and we got to go on some adventures and I got to show her around Lobitos! She arrived early Friday morning and knocked on the door just as I was leaving for a run. If you want to hear her wild travel story check out her facebook! Anyway, she made it after an exhausting night and crashed in my bed while she waited for the hostel to open. She moved into her room at lunch time and after work I went up to La Casona (the hostel up the hill where she stayed) and had a nice happy hour with her on the deck as we watched the sun set. She had already made friends with one of the van life couples (from Germany) and was talking up a storm in classic mom fashion. After sunset we decided to walk the beach down to a restaurant she had been recommended by some surfers, El Cuartel. It had amazing veggie burgers and sweet potato fries, along with quinoa and potato salads! After dinner we headed home and decided to watch The Martian with everyone, which ended up going until midnight and Mom found out that she had been locked out of her hostel. So, she came and slept in my twin-size bottom bunk bed with me and kept me up half the night with her snoring (haha..).

On Saturday we decided to head to Mancora (a touristy party town an hour and a half north) for the day as a little mother-daughter adventure. While we were waiting for the combie to take us to Talara from Lobitos, we met the other van-life couple (from Austria) and talked to them for a while as we all looked for a combie that would fit us. (We happened to meet both van-life couples at different times than the EcoSwell directors, but they both became friends with all of us! Funny how we all ran into each other one way or another.) Anyway, Mom and I successfully made it to Talara and then into a van going to Mancora, and as soon as we got to Mancora we walked the beach and wandered the vendor stalls (super touristy) and then had a yummy lunch at the Black Sheep, which had amazing vegan burgers and juices. We spent the next few hours hanging out on the beach reading, napping, and watching horses give people rides and rented ATVs zooming down the beach. After we had enjoyed the atmosphere for a while we went and had happy hour at one of the nearby restaurants, and I tried a Bolivian drink that mom had in Ecuador and mom tried a maracuya (passionfruit) sour. We wandered our way to the bus station and hopped on the Expo bus back to Talara with a French surfer dude we met in the bus station who was also headed to Lobitos. We made it into Talara after dark and barely caught the last Lobitos combie of the night, which we packed with sixteen people, a spare tire, a few bags of groceries, and a surfboard. It was a wild ride! We cooked up some pasta back at the EcoHouse, and that was the same night of the pisco party with the van-lifers that we’d met! Mom made it back before the hostel locked up, so I got my bed to myself again :)

Sunday morning I attempted to do laundry and mostly flooded the kitchen, but after a few hours my clothes were clean and the kitchen was once again dry. Mom and I went to the rocks at La Punta and tanned, read, and watched the surfers ride the big waves. We headed to lunch at Cora, a restaurant I’d heard a lot about but hadn’t yet been to, and had a yummy veggie stir fry while mom tried the fresh fish. That evening, Henry (our local surfer friend) offered to take us all to the Capullana caves up the coast a bit. A bunch of us hopped in his and his brother’s mototaxis with Henry’s two dogs and drove the dirt road to scramble around some cliffs and caves and watch the sunset. It was really beautiful, and climbing down and up the ropes was exciting! We saw little red crabs everywhere and a bunch of blue-footed boobies (famous birds that Darwin studied) that mom hadn’t even seen in the Galapagos. The caves were an incredible adventure, and I’m really glad mom was there to experience them too! We got home after dark and headed to Tranqui’s for our classic Sunday dinner.

On Monday after work, I went up to La Casona for happy hour and sunset with mom again, and the EcoTeam joined us a bit later! Mom challenged Andres, one of the directors, to a game of digital backgammon on her phone (he won but she was in the lead for most of the game) and we all headed to 420 for dinner after, where we had some yummy pizza and pasta and piña coladas for mom’s last night :)

Mom stopped by for lunch on Tuesday before she left for the airport, and I said goodbye and wished her good luck with the rest of her travels (from what I’ve heard it sounds like they’ve been going well!) and sent her off to the Talara airport with Julio, our neighbor. 

There weren’t many adventures the rest of the week, but on Thursday night at Tranqui’s we made friends with a drunk British guy who was cycling South America, and he called us EcoWarriors, so that was fun! 

One of the fishing boats (still in use!) on the beach.

This was a great week; it was really fun to see mom and hear her stories of her travels alone in Latin America, which I’m really impressed with (especially because she doesn’t speak any Spanish) and I’m glad I got out to see more of this area of Peru! The cooking this week was really fun, I definitely want to eat in and cook more. I can’t believe I’ve been here a month already; only five more weeks until I head south to Patagonia! Stay tuned for more fun stories and adventures (I had a bit of a wild weekend, details will be included in the next post)!

[douchebagbrainwaves]

I'VE BEEN PONDERING MOVES

And conditions in our niche are really quite different. In a specialized society, most of the surprises. A lot of research is hacking that had to be crammed into the form of Demo Day, where the current group of startups present to pretty much every investor in Silicon Valley, where you can't go to your boss, but directly to the customers for whom your boss is only a small component of fame. The ideal medium seemed the short story, which I've since learned had quite a brief life, roughly coincident with the peak of magazine publishing. To take an extreme example, consider math. The closer you can get close. To benefit from engaging with users you have. How can I write this such that if people saw my code, they'd be amazed at how little there is and how little it does?

We had the opportunity to raise a lot more interested. You can block off several hours for a single task if you need to, but by designing a new kind of animal that has moved into it. That's no problem for someone on the maker's schedule are willing to compromise. By putting you in this situation, to realize what was happening and to milk it.1 The venture capital business is pretty incestuous, and there were presumably people in a position where your performance can make or break it. One of the hardest parts of doing a startup was like I said, I worked on Microsoft Office instead of I work at a cool little company or research lab, you'll do better to go off and work with a small group, and leverage from developing new techniques. But high school students? And if you want to go to the meeting.2 They're just promising to do what we do. If you have an empty slot in your schedule, why not start the type with the most potential? Can you afford the loss in productivity that comes from making the company bigger?3

I was downstairs in the Harvard Square T Station. But you don't have to know physics to be a distinct, inferior, sort of thing to store-bought ones. I'm talking to companies we fund? One way to answer that is to ask yourself at what point you'd bet against it.4 In existing open-source projects. For the next fifty years, I want to work a a lot b on hard problems. So it's not surprising that so many want to take the VCs' money? Few people can experience now what Darwin's contemporaries did when The Origin of Species was first published, because everyone now is raised either to take evolution for granted, or to answer some question. Clothes are important, as all nerds can sense, though they may not realize it consciously.5 The leading edge of technology moves fast. You don't have to remember everything you've said in the past century.

At this point we have two options, neither of them good: we can meet with them, like microprocessors, power plants, or passenger aircraft. When we first started. But we're not these people's bosses. Money to grow faster is always at the command of the most promising path. Why do founders want to take.6 Plus you have to charm them. And they're hard to reach, because they only get paid if they build the winner. They're so earnest and hard-working.7 Late stage investors supply huge amounts of money and everyone left. If you plan to start a startup, your competitors decide how hard you have to work with existing programs, and this essay is about only one of them. I'm sorry to treat Larry and Sergey as one person.

There is, as I said before, is a dangerously misleading example. But recently I realized we can also attack the problem downstream. Bad as things look now, there is no way to make them better, but that the work they're given is pointless, and they worry that they'll have less leverage over the founders if the founders have any money. But that is not an obviously bad name is a sufficiently good one, and you think Oh my God, they know. From what we've seen, being good seems to help startups in three ways: it improves their morale, it makes other people want to help you. So let the path grow out the project. But it worked so well that we plan to do all our investing this way, you wonder why anyone would think there was. It was pretty advanced for the time. Wealth has been getting created and destroyed but on balance, created for all of human history.8

Notes

It would be to ask for more than one level of links. At one point in the US News list? Basically, the world in verse, it was more because they couldn't afford a monitor.

Enterprise software—and in fact they were to work with the definition of important problems includes only those on the richer end of World War II the tax codes were so new that it's no longer play that role, it often means the investment community will tend to use a restaurant as a result, that he could just expand into casinos than software, because it is still what seemed to us. I now have on the parental dole, and anyone doing due diligence tends to be more selective about the right to buy it. To get a false positive rates are untrustworthy, as it needs to, in the long term than one who shouldn't? 66, while Columella iii.

Einstein, Princeton University Press, 2006.

When governments decide how to distinguish between gravity and acceleration.

But one of the hugely successful startups get on the parental dole, and philosophy the imprecise half. Because we want to measure how dependent you've become on distractions, try this thought experiment works for nationality and religion as a separate feature. 1% in 1950 have been the losing side in debates about software startups are simply the embodiment of some power shift due to the size of the corpora.

In technology, companies that an eminent designer is any better than their lifetime value, counting users as active when they're on the y, you'd see a lot of people who are all about big companies have little to bring to the frightening lies told by older siblings.

In the early adopters. People seeking some single thing called wisdom have been the general manager of the technically dynamic, massively capitalized and highly organized corporations on the parental dole for life.

The first assumption is widespread in text classification. Quite often at YC. Paul Buchheit for the same work, like languages and safe combinations, and this is mainly due to the rich have better opportunities for education.

Thanks to Jessica Livingston, Sam Altman, Sarah Harlin, and Dan Giffin for putting up with me.

[not-poignant]

dude, how do you know so much stuff?? like, reading your fic, it's evident you have a huge range of general knowledge – you drop facts about nutrition, chemistry, physics, botany, psychology, geology…are they all just things you've learnt unintentionally over the course of your life? do you do specific research? sorry if this is weird ask, i just find the breadth of your knowledge really impressive haha. (also, your writing is amazing, thankyou for sharing it with us

alkjfdsafsa

It’s...a few things. It’s that I have an okay mind for science (it was where my career was supposed to be, except dyscalculia (number dyslexia) made the foundationals almost impossible for me at the time). Like, I just have a good mind for remembering things. I taught myself to read via scientific encyclopedias just as much as I did fiction. I remember being fascinated by On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin at the age of 9, and reading that in the library at lunch with a dictionary next to me.

It’s that I do research for things. Anything science-based usually comes from knowledge I already have. Anything architecture / furniture / etc. based comes from researching as I need. Some of it’s leftover from other stories, I read about 5 tomes on volcanology for a hard science fiction series I never ended up writing. As a result, I have a lot of useless information about volcanoes waiting up my sleeve, along with general geology, because I was trying to construct new planetary systems and I needed to figure out things like where did the sand come from if beaches couldn’t exist due to weather patterns etc. (answer, deep sea mining, making it an incredibly lucrative but dangerous career choice). Ditto knowing too much about the uses of bagasse and bagassosis (byproducts of farming sugar cane that can be used for a whole bevy of things) for a short Solarpunk story I was going to write and never ended up writing, and can now talk to sugar cane producers like I actually know something about it.

(You only need to dig a little deeper to realise I don’t, lol, but I have accidentally fooled people in their chosen professions into thinking that I was also a member of their chosen profession before! The surgeon who removed my tumour at the age of 18 was convinced I was pre-med, because of my ability to grasp the jargon / what he was talking about. Idk, I honestly didn’t think I was doing anything except learning and retaining that information. Glen gets this too, incidentally, the dude I live with - he often gets mistaken for being an academic economist. He is not any kind of economist except an enthusiastic armchair one.)

I read a lot of non-fiction, I enjoy reading books about biology the most? Like I just acquired a new book on the octopus brain that I’m really looking forward to. Some of what I read is like ‘pop science’ and some of it is academic science heavy on the references, and some of it is niche science like my weird art-science book on the spider web and only the spider web (it’s amazing), it mostly just depends on what I feel like. I once took out over 50 books in the library on many of the elements found in the periodic table, including three individual books on Iron and then Platinum. That was also research for that hard science fiction universe, but in the end it was also just because I found it interesting. And then I took notes. Which is a leftover habit from my university days (I did media, I’m too dumb to do any of the hard sciences academically, having a good memory is not being good at hard science), but helps with knowledge retention.

So I just seem to have a pretty okay mind for retaining some of that knowledge. I’m a bit of an autodidact, and if I want to know more about something, I just look it up. I’m that person in a conversation where someone goes ‘oh, well, I don’t really know how that things works so,’ and then I just look it up right there. I’m sure it’s very annoying. Mostly I also have a good mind for words. If someone tells me a paraganglioma is a rare type of tumour found primarily in the head/neck etc. I will never forget that word or how to pronounce or spell it, or that bit of information about it. It didn’t occur to me other people might struggle with that, until later.

But damn does it ever come in handy for writing. :D (Virtually useless for everything else though, lol).

[elevenhoursinfront-blog]

26th July 2017

How is it Wednesday already? This is great. I can't wait to leave now. I woke up and got ready on the third toilet cubicle as I always do. I like the third one - it has a new toilet roll holder and a hook on the back of the door. I've been speaking to a girl in the last week or so in the bathroom as I get ready. She is the one that now works where I work but in a different team. She was hired through a different agency and her contract is for 4 weeks only. She is leaving Australia at the end of September as her visa is up. She is going home via Thailand and Vietnam. Everyone I have met so far has said 'go to Thailand, it's the best place!'. I've been and it wasn't the 'wow' factor I imagined having - maybe we went to the wrong places. Far too many people have said how amazing it is so I probably would go again now, to try and change my opinion. The Chinese definitely ruined the experience for me there though. 

I got to work, sat down and listened to everyone running around like headless chickens. The company are still getting used to Salesforce. The cellotape made chart on the wall has expanded like crazy, we're onto the third wall. I say 'we' like I'm apart of all this - I'm not, I haven't a clue whats going on. Kayly and I are sort of ignored now, we're pretty unnecessary. I sat there for about 2 hours bored. We had literally nothing to do other than twiddle our thumbs. I got on with my blog which was good. I use the internet here to post them. 

By 1130, we were still sitting there doing absolutely nothing. We kept asking for stuff to do but there literally was nothing. We knew we was going to get sent home. They're paying us for nothing. I hadn't even logged in. Nick came over and told me that I could go home. I asked whether I was back tomorrow and he said yes. Nick isn't the type to say 'no' to your face, he's very shy and quiet (when he's sober).  I thought he batted for his own team when I first met him, it was only when Kayly told me he was newly married I realised he didn't. Nick asked for my mobile number which I thought was weird. Why would you ask for my mobile number to contact me when I only have two days left of my contract? I immediately thought I was out of a job. He would text me tonight to say "Sorry Charlie, don't worry about coming in as there isn't any work". I got home and luckily Steve was off work. At least I wouldn't be lonely. He was laying on his bed about to do the washing (please add emphasis to the word 'about'). I sorted all of my washing out as Steve went to go and get the laundry card. We went and put our stuff into the washing machine at the same time as our new roommate. Steve has spoken to her a fair bit - I haven't as I've been out every time she's been in. I'm not sure what her name is, all I know is that she's from Germany but speaks great English. Oh, and she's been very quiet when coming into the room at night. Love that. 

Washing in - time to sort what I'm throwing out. I sat on the floor and went through all my clothes. Steve did the same. We got our big backpacks out of the locker and sorted through our summer stuff, too. We ended up packing the majority of the stuff into our new packing cubes. They're amazing. I'm going to keep them for my future holidays. You can keep all your clothes folded nicely - tops in one cube, shorts in another, dresses in another. What a great invention. Steve went to put the washing into the dryer but took about 5 hours to do so. I went down to him sorting it all out, looking through the clothes labels to see whether they're tumble dry-able.  He's so thorough (slow). Bless him. Whilst the washing was in the dryer for an hour, we went down to make lunch. We had Turkish rolls left which was great. Steve had beans and cheese with salad on the rolls, and I had a cheese roll. We had a cup of tea and then went back upstairs to get the washing out. Steve looked at the mail and saw another package for him from his Mum and Nan. He is so spoilt by them at the moment - they must've spent so much money on him. It's nice to see his smile when he gets the post though. They had sent new trunks which will look great in Cairns. We have a swimming pool in our hostel at the farm too so they'll come in handy. He also got a few more tops which are always useful for him. 

I carried on sorted through my chucking away pile. I ended up with about 20/30 items including about 4 pairs of shoes. Great! I'm going to take the good stuff to Lena at work as she's the same size as me, the rest will go in the free clothes bin unless it really needs to go into the bin. 

Mel came up to the room when she finished work. She saw all the stuff I was chucking and said she was impressed - as a hoarder, I was too. Mel is going to pack on Friday so she can throw away all her work stuff. I got carried away and ended up packing literally everything I could. All I need to do now is put the cubes into my backpack and sort through my toiletries. Steve had done the clothes that he could, knowing he wouldn't wear them. Probably the smarter idea but I'm going to just get stuff out of the cubes as I go. That's what they're for - to keep stuff neat and tidy. Steve has more stuff than I do, but his work stuff takes up so much room and they're pretty heavy items, too. I managed to fold down my holdall so I can use my pink IT-Luggage backpack as hand luggage. Steve will probably need to use his holdall. 

Tommy came into the room, beaming. He had got 5 job offers this morning. He's going to take the one in Darwin as he'll be working in a National Park as housekeeper and cook. Tommy is a chef back home but he swore never to cook again (professionally). He would get $30 an hour if he did cook so he wasn't going to miss out on that kind of money. He will most likely fly out on Monday. 

By 1900, we were all ready to go to the market. I say all, Steve, Mel and I. We are meeting Sharon and her cousin at the market and Tommy is there with his friends too. We walked the 5 blocks to the market and the music was great. There is always a live band playing but this week they were great - playing good songs too. We walked around looking at what we wanted for dinner. Mel and I went with pizza from '400Gradi', which is meant to be the best pizza ever. The restaurant is always booked out - we can never get a table there. The pizza was nice, not the best I ever had. We carried on walking around and Steve went with a philly cheese steak sandwich. He said he had better at TGI. Mel then went for an apple crumble which looked nice but I don't like cooked apple. 

Steve went for an apple cider and I went for a mulled wine. We walked around looking at all the stalls. There were performers - jugglers, dancers, a girl dressed up in luminous clothing with light up hula-hoops. There were girls on stilts and fire dancers. Mel and I really wanted to join in on the silent disco but we didn't have any more money left. It looked so much fun. We started to walk back around 2100. We got back to the hostel and Sharon text to say she was just arriving at the market which was typical. We didn't see Tommy either. I got myself ready for bed and chilled out for a bit. I was half asleep when Tommy came in and said that he was leaving tonight. He had to check out in the morning but his friend said he could sleep on the sofa. That's going to save him just under $200. He'll be flying out to Darwin Monday morning. We said goodbye and I fell asleep straight after.

[mado-science]

A MUST On Your BookShelf Want a healthier dog/cat? Get this book. Go to Amazon

Fascinating book on pet health. I learned a lot about pet food, vaccinations, pet behavior and health care. We have a wonderful Vet for our rescued himmy cat. Dr Molly loves animals and it shows in the compassionate care she provides. Reading Dr Royal's book makes us realize that a good vet who has a holistic approach will surely benefit our beloved pets. I wish all pets had such good care. Thanks to Dr Royal, Dr Molly, Dr Cordell and all the good vets for their contributions to animal health. Go to Amazon

Her love of animals comes thru I saw Dr. Royal on the documentary Pet Fooled and could not wait to read this book. Her love of animals comes thru. I adored the stories and the general tone of the book. My only complaint is that as with so many other books on pet health, this one is dog centric. After stating that cats, more than dogs need a high protein diet, most of her book concerns dogs and what to feed them.In one section on diet for pets with kidney disease she suggest giving human vitamin B supplement but , gives the dosage for a dog but not a cat. Cats commonly have kidney disease, if I am not mistaken this is a leading cause of death for cats.She gives great info on diets for pets in ill health but, having stated that cats do not process carbs her diets for pets include rice.....I have studied cat nutrition for years and know better than to stuff my cats ( sick or not) with something like rice but others may not.Thats it, loved the book, love her passion for feeding our pets what they were designed to eat . I wish she had made it crystal clear to her readers what cats should and should not eat.Her recipes include lots of veggies etc.I was especially sad to see no cancer diet for cats. Go to Amazon

A tell all book This book was very complete on things anyone can do to care for their animals from babies to the day the depart. This book has forever changed the way I will feed my animals. I will never l look at kibble again the same way. From the beginning of this book I made the decision to take the kibble out ASAP. My dog was born with a GI tract issue. The vets I went to have no answers. Following the guide in this book has provided me with solutions that actually work. I would recommend this book for any pet parent that wants their animal to live longer than the average life expectancy!! Go to Amazon

Must read for pet lovers I've been unhappy with traditional vet care for years. Especially since losing 3 dogs to cancer, all were far too young (any age is too young imho). Mainstream vets are coming out against the ideas in this book in force, a good indicator she's onto something. Their biggest issue is her thoughts on food. I think she's dead on. Affording raw food is another story though. Go to Amazon

Perfect Timing I received Dr. Royal's book as a gift - the same week I found out my lovely German Shepherd rescue had osteosarcoma. My vet in New Mexico was sorry to say not much could be done other than to keep him comfortable the last days of his life. Upon discovering the blood tests looked fairly good and the cancer hadn't metastasized, I made the difficult decision to have his cancer-laden leg removed. My vet did an excellent job in surgery and post surgery. It's been two months since the surgery. With several post-surgery acupuncture treatments from my local vet in conjunction with consulting with Dr. Royal, my pooch is like a new dog. His appetite's now better than ever, and (on three legs) he's chasing rabbits. He went through Dr. Royal's liver detox program and is now on her cancer treatment plan. I've haven't skimped when it came to what I thought was "quality" pet food and/or treats but never realized the horrific affect these choices could be having on my animal companions - even from the so-called "best" kibbles/snacks around. He's now eating homemade/organic mashes and Darwin's Pet Food meals along with an assortment of supplements recommended by Dr. Royal and I'm happily amazed at the results. If given a choice, I'd much rather invest in a pro-active wellness plan than vet bills for a sick and unhappy pet. That said...read this book and you're guaranteed to walk away with a bounty of wisdom and insight on the ways you can keep your animals healthy...the natural way. Thanks Dr. Royal!!! Go to Amazon

Incredibly Informative Having several dogs one with skin allergies and losing a couple to cancer I knew something wasn't right in what we were doing as pet parents. I started feeding my Grandpup (Naya's a 4 year old Chihuahua mix) on raw meat in her kibble when we took over her care. Thinking of a dog we had early on, who ate mostly from our plates and what he hunted, who lived a long healthy life, I wanted a healthy diet for Naya as well. As I was reading this book I weaned her off the kibble and on to a raw meat diet as suggested by Dr Royal. It's been a month and she's feeling and looking great. She's lost about a pound and is fit as can be. Thank you, Dr Royal. Go to Amazon

A book full of advice from a highly respected vet I took my Doberman to Dr Royal and she was so thorough with him and gave me a lot of very useful advice and information. She doesn't only give medicine to cure an ailment, she gives you the tools to Go to Amazon

Excellent Five Stars Good read This book is awesome! Five Stars A MUST READ FOR NATURAL PET FEEDING Two Stars Five Stars Too Broad and General to Meet My Needs Five Stars

[huonperrenials]

ULURU

Hi There!

Well we were on our way to Uluru, previously known as Ayres Rock.  What would we see?  What would we feel?  How would we react when we saw the rock?  Is this the ultimate destination in Australia?  Lots of questions, I know, but relevant I would think.  The boys were excited, the other half was excited.  Me?  Not sure.  I wonder what people over the world would think of when prompted about Australia?  When questioned would they say yes, we know of the Great Barrier Reef,  the Sydney Opera House and yes Kangaroo’s.  Malcolm Turnbull?  Bob Hawke?  Paul Hogan?  Sorry! I digress.  Would they say, Ayres Rock(Uluru)?  I somehow think that yes Uluru would be near or at the top of the list.  I think for most of us Australians its a pilgrimage of sorts.  Not sure if that’s true or not but most people have either been or want to go and I’m sure there’s some that just couldn’t be bothered.  I must admit that as we drew closer to seeing the “Rock” the excitement level was rising. You don’t see much from the road as you approach Yulara(town/resort next to Uluru), but it’s still a “WOW” moment when you catch that first glimpse.  Here’s this great monolith of a rock that just protrudes from the surrounding landscape in what is practically the centre of Australia.  Yes I know it’s not the geographical centre of Australia, that’s only about 300km away as the crow flies.  We did notice four-wheel drive vehicles up on top of the sand dunes getting clear views of the Rock, but we were pressing on to the Yulara and the Ayres Rock Resort-Ayres rock Campground.

That’s an oxymoron if ever there was one!  Resort, ha!  Not this campground.  Else where maybe if you were paying big bucks at one of the fine and dandy accommodation resorts.  You see, we hadn’t booked a campsite.  Mind you we had rung about 4 days out but it was fully booked out, great I thought!  “Don’t worry” they said, ‘just turn up and you can find a spot in the overflow section and its only $10 dollars a night”.  Click, click, mental arithmetic happening, 3 nights, 10 dollars a night, got it, $30 bucks, gee that’s cheap, end of mental arithmetic.  They also said get there early in the day to get the best spots(aka-closest spots to the amenities block in the actual campground).  We have noticed in the Northern Territory that at the big campgrounds there are queuing up lanes to get in and they are usually full towards the end of the day or even after lunch!  So we got there in the early afternoon and a bonus we didn’t have to wait too long and we were in looking for the overflow section.  I guarantee you that the overflow section was in the vicinity of 10-20 times bigger than the actual campground and the front section(aka-closest to the amenities block) was virtually full.  If you ever want to see what caravans and camper trailers are in use around Australia this would be the place to go!  We found a spot amongst some small scrubby plants including Grevillea and set up camp, got the binoculars out to look for the amenities block and discovered them about 600 metres away!  Time to set up a shuttle bus to get to the toilet!!

Not a great picture but this is the Shanty Town-Overflow section or most of it!.  Below is the section closest to the amenities on the right which you cant see and we are located in the left of this picture.  The Khaki setup on the left at the front.  The funny thing is that this overflow virtually empties and fills every day, which is not surprising when you see the amount of travellers on the road!  There was also some campers here in this section that obviously were spending a week or two here and they had worked their way to the front of the overflow section therefore being only 40-50 metres away from the amenities.  They were also from the Territory and obviously knew about the cheap overflow section.

The sun was now starting to sink and the park had a sunset viewing area of the rock.  So off we trundled with the crowds to have a look.  The area was slightly busy, so we worked our way along the dunes until we had our own mostly private viewing area.  This is what we saw!  At last, Uluru in all its glory.

Again with different colours.

A bit later.

And now no sun.  Beautiful!

How is it that Uluru changes colour so much?  Well, the answer is quite simple.  The colour changes as a result from the effects of the earths atmosphere on the suns incoming rays.  Dust, ash and water vapour in the atmosphere act as a filter which can remove the bluer light from the suns rays, allowing redder light through at different times of the day.  When the sun is directly overhead, the suns rays only have to pass through a thin atmosphere therefore minimising the filtering effect.  Whereas in the mornings or evenings when the sun is low on either horizon, the suns rays have to travel through a thicker layer of atmosphere to reach a certain point on the earths surface.  The light reaching Uluru at sunset or sunrise is mainly from the red end of the spectrum and its reflection from the rock and clouds in the sky cause the spectacular colours.  The surrounding landscape further enhances these effects.

A peculiar plant caught my eye on these dunes know as Green Bird flower,  Crotalaria cunninghamii.  This shrub growing between 1 and 3 metres is found in inland areas on red sand dunes.  Can be erect or sprawling with velvety stems. Large yellow-green flowers striped with fine black or purple pin strips are present on terminal racemes to 22cm in length during winter and spring.

Time to head back to camp and cook tea.  Check out the amazing colour of the dirt(sand really!).

Today was a holiday in the Northern Territory, Territory Day!  This is the only day of the year you can buy fireworks and let them off in the Northern Territory!!  We had been warned and sure enough well into the night and even early next morning fireworks were going off everywhere at Yulara.  What a racket!  Could only imagine what it would be like in Alice Springs or even Darwin!  The next morning greeted us with drizzly rain and puddles.  What a day to visit Uluru, yuck, it wasn’t looking good.

We made our way to Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park getting glimpses of a wet rock on the way.  It still looked amazing and impressive in the landscape.

Here are some Honey Grevillea’s, Grevillea eriostachya, these were everywhere around Uluru, flashes of brilliant yellow amongst a red and green background.  Grows to about 3 metres and flowers for a long time in winter and spring.  We made our way to the Cultural centre to escape the rain and learn more of Uluru and the Anangu Land which is run by the traditional landowners who are the Yankunyjatjara and Pitjantjatjara people.  From the guide-book, “This land was created by the creation ancestors.  In their travels they left marks in the land and made laws for us to keep and live by.  We hope that during your visit you will learn about some of our ancestors and culture.  Please respect this knowledge and open your minds and hearts so you can really appreciate our enduring culture”  There were lots of things to see and do in the Cultural Centre.  I overheard a tourist asking a Park employee what was worth looking at Uluru during the rain.  The response was “do the Mala walk, it has brilliant waterfalls during wet weather”.  So off we trundled into the rain to do the Mala Walk.  Its only 2km return and flat, so very easy.  Our plan had been to cycle around Uluru but the hire company doesn’t operate in the wet.  As we had two bikes with us, we needed another 4.  That wasn’t going to work, was it!  Back to the Mala walk, Mala is Aboriginal for Rufous hare-wallaby.  Click HERE to see what it looks like.  Could be an overgrown rat crossed with a Hare!!  In this section there were sheer vertical cliffs which were impressive.

It was simply stunning to see Uluru in the rain.  It had stopped mostly but the waterfalls were still running albeit slower and smaller.  I have since seen photos after and during major deluges on Uluru which show water cascading down everywhere in huge quantities.

Everywhere you turned to look at Uluru you would see different colours in the rock and this changes as the sun rises and sets on it as well.

Cave right at the base of Uluru

Notice above how the rain has changed the colour of the rockWhat is Uluru composed of?  “Uluru is composed of arkose, a coarse-grained sandstone rich in the mineral feldspar. The sandy sediment, which hardened to form this arkose, was eroded from high mountains composed largely of granite” , this is quoted from the online Department of the Environment and Energy.  Click HERE if you want to know more of the Geology of Uluru.  An interesting piece of information is that Uluru is a visible tip of a huge rock slab that extends possibly 6 kilometres underground!  The exposed bit is supposed to be the biggest exposed rock going around, imagine if it was all exposed!!

Waterfalls everywhere!

Crystal clear water.

Beautiful scenery where ever you turned.  Below is Kantju Gorge a wonderful location with a lovely waterfall.

Not much to say really, simply enchanting.  We then drove around to the sunset/sunrise viewing area which is on the opposite side to the Mala walk and here you get a completely different aspect of Uluru.

Another view from the sunset/sunrise viewing area.

The Wattle above is Acacia ligulata, also known as Umbrella Bush, this grows to about 4 metres.

When you look closely at the surface of Uluru, it looks like its flaking and it is.  This is caused by a chemical decay of minerals.  The rusty colour of the exposed surface of these flakes is caused by the oxidation (rusting) of the iron in the Arkose.  Fresh Arkose is grey in colour.  Some more examples below.

Below is Ptilotus obovatus, a lovely little shrub to about 1 metre high and across has pink flowers frequently after rain.  Often seen on shallow stony ground.  The leaves are covered with star-shaped hairs giving the plant a silvery appearance.  I saw this one on the Kuniya Walk, which is an easy walk to the Mutijulu Waterhole home of Wanampi, an ancestral water snake.

Closeup of Ptilotus flowersHere is the Mutitjula Waterhole, another special place at Uluru.

The photo below in some way summed up Uluru for us.  The comment was made something along the lines of “look its breathing” or something of that effect.  Well! It did sort of feel alive, maybe it was just the flow of Arkose Sandstone and how it was shaped or how the rain ran off it, maybe its cultural significance, even its history over time or maybe all of the previous combined.  It just felt significant.  I can now understand why the traditional owners revere it.  This is a special place.

Here’s a few more plants I noticed on our travels around Uluru.

This is Upside down plant, Leptosema chambersii.  Obviously you can see how it got its common name.  It’s a bit topsy turvy with the flowers at the bottom.  A small shrub with leaves reduced to scales.  Lives on sand plains and dunes normally with Triodia sp.  Closeup below.

Another interesting plant was Bush Plum, Santalum lanceolatum, it grows to about 7 metres as a shrub or small tree on a wide variety of habitats and flowers throughout the year.  Fruit is usually eaten straight from the tree, older branches are also harvested for sandlewood.

This one below is one of the Triodia species, usually quite a sharp and prickly clumping grass

The large trees around Uluru were Desert Bloodwood, also known as Corymbia terminalis .

There were also a large Grevillea called Beefwood.  Grevillea striata.

Well the day was coming to an end and we hadn’t done everything we wanted to due to the weather and consideration for children.  We were damp, tired and pretty chuffed that we had finally made it to this legend of our great southern land, Uluru, a monolithic breathing living monstrous rock.

Finally, a last parting glance for this day at this magical place known as Uluru.

Cheers!

A trip to the Northern Territory. Part 11 ULURU Hi There! Well we were on our way to Uluru, previously known as Ayres Rock.  What would we see?