#And humans also spread pollution

[dumuzithemessiah]

Look at all these extinct species

CAUSED BY FUCKING HATEFUL HUMANS

Also they forgot the Japanese wolves which the Rockruff line from Pokemon are based on!

That is why the Rockruff line are rock types as they are based on Japanese extinct wolves which Emperor Meiji ordered to be killed off!

[reasonsforhope]

Masterpost: Reasons I firmly believe we will beat climate change

Posts are in reverse chronological order (by post date, not article date), mostly taken from my "climate change" tag, which I went through all the way back to the literal beginning of my blog. Will update periodically.

Especially big deal articles/posts are in bold.

Big picture:

Mature trees offer hope in world of rising emissions (x)

Spying from space: How satellites can help identify and rein in a potent climate pollutant (x)

Good news: Tiny urban green spaces can cool cities and save lives (x)

Conservation and economic development go hand in hand, more often than expected (x)

The exponential growth of solar power will change the world (x)

Sun Machines: Solar, an energy that gets cheaper and cheaper, is going to be huge (x)

Wealthy nations finally deliver promised climate aid, as calls for more equitable funding for poor countries grow (x)

For Earth Day 2024, experts are spreading optimism – not doom. Here's why. (x)

Opinion: I’m a Climate Scientist. I’m Not Screaming Into the Void Anymore. (x)

The World’s Forests Are Doing Much Better Than We Think (x)

‘Staggering’ green growth gives hope for 1.5C, says global energy chief (x)

Beyond Catastrophe: A New Climate Reality Is Coming Into View (x)

Young Forests Capture Carbon Quicker than Previously Thought (x)

Yes, climate change can be beaten by 2050. Here's how. (x)

Soil improvements could keep planet within 1.5C heating target, research shows (x)

The global treaty to save the ozone layer has also slowed Arctic ice melt (x)

The doomers are wrong about humanity’s future — and its past (x)

Scientists Find Methane is Actually Offsetting 30% of its Own Heating Effect on Planet (x)

Are debt-for-climate swaps finally taking off? (x)

High seas treaty: historic deal to protect international waters finally reached at UN (x)

How Could Positive ‘Tipping Points’ Accelerate Climate Action? (x)

Specific examples:

Environmental Campaigners Celebrate As Labour Ends Tory Ban On New Onshore Wind Projects (x)

Private firms are driving a revolution in solar power in Africa (x)

How the small Pacific island nation of Vanuatu drastically cut plastic pollution (x)

Rewilding sites have seen 400% increase in jobs since 2008, research finds [Scotland] (x)

The American Climate Corps take flight, with most jobs based in the West (x)

Waste Heat Generated from Electronics to Warm Finnish City in Winter Thanks to Groundbreaking Thermal Energy Project (x)

Climate protection is now a human right — and lawsuits will follow [European Union] (x)

A new EU ecocide law ‘marks the end of impunity for environmental criminals’ (x)

Solar hits a renewable energy milestone not seen since WWII [United States] (x)

These are the climate grannies. They’ll do whatever it takes to protect their grandchildren. [United States and Native American Nations] (x)

Century of Tree Planting Stalls the Warming Effects in the Eastern United States, Says Study (x)

Chart: Wind and solar are closing in on fossil fuels in the EU (x)

UK use of gas and coal for electricity at lowest since 1957, figures show (x)

Countries That Generate 100% Renewable Energy Electricity (x)

Indigenous advocacy leads to largest dam removal project in US history [United States and Native American Nations] (x)

India’s clean energy transition is rapidly underway, benefiting the entire world (x)

China is set to shatter its wind and solar target five years early, new report finds (x)

‘Game changing’: spate of US lawsuits calls big oil to account for climate crisis (x)

Largest-ever data set collection shows how coral reefs can survive climate change (x)

The Biggest Climate Bill of Your Life - But What Does It DO? [United States] (x)

Good Climate News: Headline Roundup April 1st through April 15th, 2023 (x)

How agroforestry can restore degraded lands and provide income in the Amazon (x) [Brazil]

Loss of Climate-Crucial Mangrove Forests Has Slowed to Near-Negligable Amount Worldwide, Report Hails (x)

Agroecology schools help communities restore degraded land in Guatemala (x)

Climate adaptation:

Solar-powered generators pull clean drinking water 'from thin air,' aiding communities in need: 'It transforms lives' (x)

‘Sponge’ Cities Combat Urban Flooding by Letting Nature Do the Work [China] (x)

Indian Engineers Tackle Water Shortages with Star Wars Tech in Kerala (x)

A green roof or rooftop solar? You can combine them in a biosolar roof — boosting both biodiversity and power output (x)

Global death tolls from natural disasters have actually plummeted over the last century (x)

Los Angeles Just Proved How Spongy a City Can Be (x)

This city turns sewage into drinking water in 24 hours. The concept is catching on [Namibia] (x)

Plants teach their offspring how to adapt to climate change, scientists find (x)

Resurrecting Climate-Resilient Rice in India (x)

Other Masterposts:

Going carbon negative and how we're going to fix global heating (x)

[lilacargent]

Soooo first post ever and it is because i have gone down the #humansarespaceorcs rabbit hole, and my train of thought was:

Yes humans are weird and do strange things to survive. But more specifically we do weird things to our surroundings to survive, many different things.

What if, it has been a decade or two since the humans joined what ever coalition or council of aliens that work together and as a species they are mostly well known for their ability to grow crops under the worst circumstances (soil, climate anything) ofcourse the other deathworld apex predator human traits make the rounds but over time they seem to assume we cannot surprise them anymore.

Everyone knows that if a planet is ‘owned’ by a certain species they have to pay tax to the coalition, so planets that aren’t particularly useful are undesirable.

This particular planet p-jx-5£2 has been moved around endlessly, given with trade deals to get rid of it. P-jx-5£2 is 97% water, with a very high salt level so inhabitable for all developed aliens. Even though the atmosphere is a nice oxygen base and the gravitational pull allright most for the coalition members the fast spinning moon and the planets quick pace around its sun make the water move and tides switch every 2.5 hours keeping no land dry outside of low tide.

~~~~~~~~

The tall Avian alian il’trexz was elated this day was going to be great, a trade deal with the hardy humans and getting rid of a useless money drain, they didn’t have a clue what they were signing up for!

Turning towards the much smaller bipedal species standing in front of the window looking down on the blue planet that just came into their possession the strange creature mumbled something to them selves, frowning Il’trezx asks ‘im sorry what did you say, you spoke but the translator didn’t pick it up?’ The human (Steve) turned to him away from the window ‘my apologies, i was talking to myself, i said that we had to send the dutch.’ Il’trezx looked befuddled ‘the dutch? Is that some kind of animal?’

Steve threw his head back and made a series of sounds that ruffled the Avians feathers and had he not known it was a laugh it would have made him run for the hills ‘HA I’m going to tell Andreas you said that, no the Dutch is what call people from a country on earth that specialise in these kinds of climates, they’ve been begging for a challenge since they stopped the flooding on the umavi home world.’ With feathers puffed up Il’trezx wonders ‘and they are going to do what? This is an impossible planet’ immediately clasping his beak he looks a the human to see if he seemed angry at being swindled, but to his surprise Steve just looks at him ‘hm so you believe we can’t use this planet. Allright let’s make a bet.’ Interested Il’trezx leans in closer ‘what kind of bet?’ A predatory grin spreads on the bipedal aliens face ‘if we make less of this planet than the amount of tax we have to pay over it we will cover all trade costs for this quarter, insurance, travel all of it.’ Eagerly Il’trezx starts nodding ‘but’ Steve keeps going ‘if we do make more of this planet you will do the same.’

The bet is put onto paper and the higher ups of both parties also agree. In 5 years the Avians would be back and they would balance the costs to the benefits. When they departed Il’trezx says too Steve ‘you must have a lot of faith in these “dutch” ‘ the man grins teeth bared ‘ofcourse, after all they conquered water before’

The five years pass and stories have been going around of a new energy supplier from the humans, producing enough energy to run 78% of their ships and several facilities. Nobody seems to know where it is coming from but no new pollution is measured in any of these facilities. None of this bothers the Avians, after all humans come up with new things all the time.

The five years are up and Il’trezx is invited to the planet with a group of advisors and other officials, the planet which apparently they have renamed to ‘posy’ which is supposed to be short for some kind of sea god from their olden days.

On arrival the amount of coming and going baffles them massive groups of ships docking or docked and all somehow attached to wires that run into machines.

The planets change alone was awe inspiring, two cities on opposite sides of the planet and what seems like millions of weird blades attached to high poles every where. Strange wheels and long walls between towers rising from the rapidly moving waters.

This… this was their new energy source. They somehow made a battery of this uninhabitable planet and then built a home.

On the meeting place Steve is waiting with a man slightly taller than him. Spreading his arms the smaller human says ‘welcome to Poseidon, this is Andreas our main mechanic here. He has been here with planning since orbit 1.’

After the introductions were done Andreas led the group through what they called the Northern city and showed on his device the steps it took to get a foothold and how they proceeded from there, mentioning that many of these steps his home country had used thousands of year ago to gain land from sea, and energy from the movement of water and air. They specialised in this form of terra forming and it showed.

The Avians were astounded, not having realised that there was more than one kind of way the Humans had battled their environment even beating back the waters of their world.

Without a doubt the humans had won the bet and had another legend added to their name. More and more humans showed that with the right motivation they could settle right about anywhere.

********

So yea… my stupid little idea. Hopefully someone will enjoy it. I just liked the idea of specific cultures and stuff. specialising in certain things.

Edit: im amazed people seem to like it! If people have ideas or other cultures they think would baffle aliens, im certainly willing to try and write something

[chthonic-sorcery]

PSA for new Pagans❗️🚩🚩🚩

(Overlooked pagan holidays)

Paganism isn't a singular religion,

it is an umbrella term for thousands of different pre-christian polytheistic faiths that span Antiquity. Heathenry (Norse polytheism) Mesopotamian, Phonecian, Hellenic Polytheism, Kemeticism/Netjerism, Slavic Polytheism, Celtic, Roman, Basque, etc. It goes on and on. Sometimes, these religions are even combined or synchronized, like Greco-Egyptian polytheism.

So, no, not all pagans celebrate Yule, or Beltane, or whatever.

Yule itself seems to be more of a Wiccan (new age) revival than a continued tradition.

There are quite literally thousands of holidays and traditions celebrated that no one talks about because people, especially newer converts, seem to believe paganism is its own singular religion.

So, here are some of my favorite holidays I celebrate that aren't usually talked about:

The Anthesteria:

A 3 day drunken celebration in honor of Dionysus and the Dead. Houses would be decorated with spring flowers, ghosts swept from the home; feasting and drinking no matter your status, and offerings given to the Dead and the Furies so that may not harm you, as they were said to roam the earth at this time.

Tar/pitch was also spread onto doorframes and black hellebore was hung to protect the home.

It was held each year from the 11th to the 13th of the month of Anthesterion, around the time of the first full moon of the year.

The Haloea:

The closest Greek equivalent of "Yule" celebrating the winter solstice and which honored Demeter, the goddess of agriculture, crops, fertility, and harvest.

During the festival, people would celebrate by preparing a rich meal with dough cakes in the shape of genitalia, telling lusty jokes and swearing with vulgarity, singing, drinking, and dancing.

The festival took place in Athens and ended in Eleusis during the month of Poseideon, which is December.

The Dionysia:

where plays originated! Comedy, tragedy, and drama.

The Festival of Dionysus, otherwise known as the “Greater Dionysia” took place in the spring (around our March) when playwrights would compete to entertain Athenian citizens,

complete with parades of giant phalluses and sacrifices of bulls!

The Feat of Sekhmet:

an annual festival at the beginning of the year, which began around August for the Egyptians following Wep Ronpet, or the New Year.

The festival was a time of drunkeness with red beer and wine, where Egyptians would dance, play music.

The goal was to imitate the drunkenness that had once stopped the goddess Sekhmet from destroying humanity.

According to Egyptian mythology, Sekhmet became so bloodthirsty from humanity betraying her father Ra, that she nearly destroyed all humans on Earth. The other deities asked Ra to stop her, and he eventually pacified her by making her believe the wine or beer was blood and she drank herself to sleep, turning into either Hathor or Bastet.

the Aphrodisia:

The festival of Aphrodite! The festival occurred during the month of Hekatombaion, which modern scholars recognize as starting from the third week in July to the third week of August.

the first ritual of the festival would be to purify the temple with the blood from a dove, the sacred bird of Aphrodite. Afterwards, worshipers would carry sacred images of the goddess, as well as Peitho, in a procession to be washed.

During the festival it was not permitted to make bloody sacrifices, since the altar could not be polluted with the blood of the sacrifice victims, which were usually white male goats.

This of course excludes the blood of the sacred dove, made at the beginning of the ritual to purify the altar. In addition to live male goats, worshipers would offer fire, flowers, and incense.

This was even celebrated in Thebes, Egypt, where Aphrodite had a large cult following.

Wep Ronpet:

Wep Ronpet is the Kemetic New Year.

It falls usually somewhere btwn late July and mid-August. The date for Wep Ronpet varies each year, as it is marked by the rising of Sopdet, modernly known as Sirius. Wep Ronpet is in fact one day long.

However, there are 5 days of excitement leading up to Wep Ronpet that we typically call the Epagomenal Days, or the Intercalary Days.

The Epag. days came about from a myth where Nut got pregnant with 5 kids. Ra got upset about this and forbade her from giving birth on any day of the year. Thoth, being the tricky guy that he is played a game of Senet with the moon, and upon winning this game of Senet, he received a small portion of the moon which he used to create an extra 5 days which she can use to birth her five children.

Traditionally, these days are said to be a little weird because they are ‘outside of the norm’. Usually great care was taken not to take too many risks.

So, each day is dedicated to the god that was born on that particular day. The order that it goes in is:

Osiris

Heru-wer (Horus the Elder)

Set

Aset

Nebhet (Nephthys)

Normally, celebrations of Wep Ronpet include prayers to Sekhmet against the 7 arrow or plagues of the year: libations and offerings to the Netjeru, song, dance, feast.

Ritual bathing for purification is sometimes done afterwards.

Personally, I like to perform execration, banishing all the illness, negativity and harm from the previous and coming year.

[apollophanes]

Spiritual Pollution in Hellenic Polytheism

In Helpol, we have three concepts known as lyma, miasma, and agos.

To some, humans are seen as naturally pure beings, but because we are living mortal creatures, spiritual dirt can cling to us and make us impure.

Here, I will discuss these three types of pollution

(Disclaimer: Some of this information comes from my own personal interpretations, and therefore may not apply to the beliefs of everyone)

Lyma

Lyma means "something to be washed away". Itis generally just physical dirt. It isn't much of a big deal when it comes to spiritual matters. However, it is still best to be free of it when approaching the gods.

Miasma

This is where things get complicated.

Miasma is essentially general spiritual pollution. Miasma is something that is completely unavoidable and should not be shamed (well, depending on the cause). Miasma is mainly caused by things related to life and death. This includes sex, childbirth, visiting a cemetery, blood, sexual fluids, etc.

However, miasma has different degrees of severity. More severe miasma comes from acts such as rape, hubris, murder, etc.

Miasma also spreads from people to people. If you walk past someone on the street who just came back from a funeral, their miasma will cling to you as well. This also highlights how unavoidable miasma is. But usually, this kind of indirect miasma is not as bad.

We are not allowed to approach the gods in a state of miasma. Luckily, miasma is not difficult to get rid off (excluding the more severe cases listed above).

All you need to do is wash your hands.

If you get a cut on your leg, the blood is miasmic and therefore you can't approach the gods. But all you need to do is wait for the bleeding to stop, wash away the blood, wash your hands, and then you're good to go.

There is a debate I once had on whether miasma prevents us from praying, giving offerings, and participating in festivals. To me, the answer is yes, but not with prayers. Let me explain why.

In a very simplified description of a certain myth, Orestes killed his mother. This caused him to enter a state of severe miasma and a state of agos (which I will explain later). Long story short, he prayed and asked Apollon to help purify him, in return for a grand offering later on. Apollon heard the prayer and came to help purify Orestes.

In this example, we see that Orestes was still able to pray to Apollon in the worst state of miasma, but promised to give offerings later on.

This implies that prayer is not an issue with miasma.

Here is another example: You don't need to wash your hands when talking to someone, but you should wash your hands if you want to give that person food.

In a similar way, in my opinion, you don't need to wash your hands for a casual prayer, but you should wash them before giving an offering. Although, I also prefer not to pray when I know I am in a miasmic state.

However, this is my own interpretation and others may have different views.

There are other ways to cleanse miasma such as khernips, incense, and scapegoats.

Ocean water is also said to cleanse miasma extremely well.

Agos

Agos is a cursed state and is the most extreme form of spiritual pollution. However, agos is not easy to get.

If you commit a horrible act such as murder, you will be in a state of extreme miasma. However, when the gods notice your crime and get enraged (keep in mind that it is usually not that easy to anger the gods), the miasma evolves into agos.

Miasma is a naturally occurring thing, but agos only comes from the wrath of the gods.

Agos is difficult to remove and is a pretty big deal.

Luckily, you don't need to worry about agos unless you're a horrible person who commits heinous acts.

Aaaand that is my interpretation of spiritual pollution in Helpol. I hope this post can be helpful to you!

Blessed be!

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Hi, wanted to ask about this since EN had the Cloudcalling event very recently. There’s a lot of talk about how the people of the Sunset Savannah respect nature and want to live in harmony with it. What do you think Twisted Wonderland at large feels about environmental efforts like that?

I think Twisted Wonderland in general probably leans toward being environmentally conscious.

I recall back in the first Halloween event that Scarabia’s theme for its area was to promote environmental preservation, recycling and reusing goods, etc. Ortho also has various lines which refer to energy efficiency, and Leona mentions interning at a mining and energy lab. That means that organizations and technology dedicated to ecological efforts exist and get funding. Clearly this is something that is valued or at least trying to be spread or made more common.

Many of the areas we visited outside of NRC try to make the best of what’s in the environment rather than force the environment to change to conform to the lifestyles of the people who have settled there. For example, Silk City is built around its waterways for trade and potable water in an otherwise arid area. The fruits they grow here are also very sweet because the hot, dry climate forces the sugar content in them to be higher. In Harveston, people forage and resell items from Mt. Moln amongst each other and to tourists. Briar Valley is mountainous, so they built Castle Blackscale behind that deadly region to safeguard the royal family. There’s many more examples of this if you care to dive into the lore ^^ I’ll just cut it here for the sake of brevity.

Another thing!! Twisted Wonderland has fantasy races to account for. Note that many, if not all of them, have close ties to nature. We know the beastmen of the Sunset Savanna value living in harmony with nature due to their animal ancestry. Merfolk live in the waters, so things like pollution and overfishing would deeply affect them and their way of life. And fae, of course, are said to be deeply connected with nature and are theorized to even draw their power from those elements. I’d imagine that there would be some pretty strict regulations among them and human societies to help maintain their environments, especially with multiracial unions (like that of the mermaid princess and her human prince).

Recall too that there have been wars over territory hundreds of years in Twisted Wonderland’s past. Humans invaded Briar country seeking its resources and land, and that resulted in much tragedy, bloodshed, and loss of life. The world thankfully seems to be much more peaceful in modern day… so I think modern leaders probably looked back on history and sought to build up from it and maintain good relationships, not regress back into that dark era of war and hatred.

[turtlesandfrogs]

Started the day by reading this article from the NY times, and I'm frankly, disturbed.

Some highlights:

"For decades, farmers across America have been encouraged by the federal government to spread municipal sewage on millions of acres of farmland as fertilizer. It was rich in nutrients, and it helped keep the sludge out of landfills."

Which I knew, and I knew that there were concerns about contaminants from like, the medications people were on. But human waste is part of the nutrient cycle, and it always made sense to me that it should be throughly composted and returned to agricultural lands, and I assumed that people in general were taking the steps necessary to make it safe.

But here's what I didn't know:

"The 1972 Clean Water Act had required industrial plants to start sending their wastewater to treatment plants instead of releasing it into rivers and streams, which was a win for the environment but also produced vast new quantities of sludge that had to go somewhere."

Which, yay, no longer polluting bodies of water, but now that means we're applying industrial waste water to agricultural lands. And have been since 1972. Which leads to this situation, among many others, I'm sure:

"The sludge that allegedly contaminated the Colemans’ farm came from the City of Fort Worth water district, which treats sewage from more than 1.2 million people, city records show. Its facility also accepts effluent from industries including aerospace, defense, oil and gas, and auto manufacturing. Synagro takes the sludge and treats it (though not for PFAS, as it’s not required by law) then distributes it as fertilizer."

So here's what some states are doing:

"In Michigan, among the first states to investigate the chemicals in sludge fertilizer, officials shut down one farm where tests found particularly high concentrations in the soil and in cattle that grazed on the land. This year, the state prohibited the property from ever again being used for agriculture. Michigan hasn’t conducted widespread testing at other farms, partly out of concern for the economic effects on its agriculture industry.

In 2022, Maine banned the use of sewage sludge on agricultural fields. It was the first state to do so and is the only state to systematically test farms for the chemicals. Investigators have found contamination on at least 68 of the more than 100 farms checked so far, with some 1,000 sites still to be tested.

“Investigating PFAS is like opening Pandora’s box,” said Nancy McBrady, deputy commissioner of Maine’s Department of Agriculture."

This is fun:

"The E.P.A. is currently studying the risks posed by PFAS in sludge fertilizer (which the industry calls biosolids) to determine if new rules are necessary.

The agency continues to promote its use on cropland, though elsewhere it has started to take action. In April, it ordered utilities to slash PFAS levels in drinking water to near zero and designated two types of the chemical as hazardous substances that must be cleaned up by polluters. The agency now says there is no safe level of PFAS for humans...

It’s difficult to know how much fertilizer sludge is used nationwide, and E.P.A. data is incomplete. The fertilizer industry says more than 2 million dry tons were used on 4.6 million acres of farmland in 2018. And it estimates that farmers have obtained permits to use sewage sludge on nearly 70 million acres, or about a fifth of all U.S. agricultural land."

There's more, but I wanted to condense it at least a little bit. I am glad we're raising awareness, and I'm glad we're starting to regular the amount in our drinking water, and I hope that we'll find a way to actually deal with PFAS. I am so frustrated that people are exposed in the first place, and in nigh inescapable ways.

Also, to all those people who were like, oh, organic isn't at all healthier for consumers? Guess what the organic standards don't allow to be applied?

[paracosm-draw]

Promptober Day 11 - Spaceship + Praise Kink ☄️

I don't have time to write or draw, this is so frustrating 😭 Anyway, enjoy a longer prompt as an apology 🫶🏻

Tags : masturbation, fingering, anal sex, shower sex, top Obi-Wan, bottom Anakin

~~~

“Anakin, slow down.” 

An amused smirk spreads on the young man’s lips at Obi-Wan’s tensed voice. He gives him a side look, noticing how his Master’s fingers had curled up tightly on the edge of his seat, knuckles getting white with the strength of it. 

With a grin, Anakin pushes a finger on the controller, speeding up their ship a little bit more as they flew swiftly over a functioning generator. 

“Anakin.” Obi-Wan groans through gritted teeth. 

The young Jedi grabs the controller with his mechano hand and tilts it to the side, pushing the ship into a series of rolls that make Obi-Wan gasp and Anakin laugh. 

“Anakin, stop it ! You’re going to get us killed !” Obi-Wan hisses. 

“Don’t you trust me, Master?” Anakin smiles widely, just before violently straightening the ship to avoid a random electric pole. “Oops.” 

Obi-Wan’s face has turned white, he is sitting straight on his seat, back and shoulders tense, jaw locked and eyes focused on the windshield. 

“I want to get off.” He says calmly but Anakin can feel his emotions twirling chaotically in the Force. 

He can tell he’s extremely uncomfortable, and if he didn’t know him he would have said scared also. Not that any of this was showing up on his face, right now. 

“And I want you to relax.” Anakin sighs. “I want you to enjoy flying.” 

“I enjoy flying.” Obi-Wan retorts, his whole body tensing again when Anakin brushes the side of a building a little too closely. “I don't enjoy suicide attempts.” 

“I’m not landing until you admit I’m a great pilot.” Anakin replies back, a bit vexed by Obi-Wan’s comment. 

He doesn’t understand why his Master refuses to trust him in this matter. He’s been flying ships for as long as he can remember, he knows perfectly what he’s doing. 

“When was the last time I caused an accident ?” He asks before Obi-Wan can say something. 

Obi-Wan doesn’t answer, and when Anakin gives him a side glance he can see his jaw working with annoyance. 

“Doesn’t mean you’re flying safely.” He says finally. “You never know about the other’s reactions.” 

“I can anticipate.” Anakin huffs. “That’s why I’m a Jedi.” 

“Still a Padawan.” Obi-Wan mutters, even though Anakin is closer to the end than the beginning. “Now, please land somewhere so I can go back to the Temple without fearing for my life.” 

“No way.” Anakin retorts. “I’m bringing you back to the Temple.” 

He makes the ship leap into a tunnel, squeezing them between a speeder and a flying bus, adrenaline still high on his veins. Speeding up, he outdistances them both while Obi-Wan swears in his beard, closing his eyes for a brief moment. 

Anakin can’t help but smile when he catches his Master’s words. He loves more than anything making him slip from his perfectly crafted image to show the real, more human part of him. The one who swears and experiences emotions, the one with flaws and doubts and feelings. 

He stretches out the arm who’s not playing with the controller to gently catch Obi-Wan’s fingers, deeply digging into the leather of his seat. 

“Open your eyes.” He says, tugging on his hand when he doesn’t want to let go. “Enjoy the view ?” 

They exit the tunnel at the same time Obi-Wan accepts to take a peek from under his eyelids. Anakin makes them leave the circulation to push the ship up, higher and higher until they pierce the cloud of pollution hanging low on the city. 

There the air is clearer, the setting sun painting bright colors on the tallest buildings. They leave the crowded paths behind, Anakin reducing their speed to let Obi-Wan enjoy the sight of Coruscant slipping quietly into the twilight hours. 

Obi-Wan relaxes a bit when Anakin slows down, letting the ship float back to their destination, and Anakin takes the opportunity to lace their fingers together. 

“So ?” He asks, turning to him with a smile. 

“You’re a great pilot.” Obi-Wan admits with a sigh. “Probably the greatest I’ve ever encountered. I just don’t like when you put your life in danger.” 

“I’m always careful.” Anakin replies, before biting his tongue when Obi-Wan gives him a look. “Okay, maybe not always. But I’ll never put you in danger intentionally.” 

“I shall hope so.” Obi-Wan says, quirking an eyebrow. 

Anakin smiles and focuses back on their trajectory, guiding the ship with a lazy hand. 

“So you really mean it when you say I’m the greatest pilot you’ve encountered ?” He asks after a few minutes of silence. 

“By far.” Obi-Wan answers. 

He looks way more relaxed now that Anakin flies at a decent speed. He even let go of his seat entirely, one hand resting on his laps and the other holding Anakin’s. 

Anakin blushes faintly at the compliment. He can tell when Obi-Wan is sincere, and it’s the case right now. 

“Thank you.” 

“I’ve never seen someone being that comfortable with a controller.” Obi-Wan continues thoughtfully. “Or being able to fly any kind of ship. I don't really believe in talent but I must admit, when I see you…”

Anakin’s heart makes a little looping at Obi-Wan’s words and his cheeks turn a shade darker. He’s not used to such a large amount of compliments in such a short time. Obi-Wan is not really the kind to praise him every time he achieves something. On the contrary, he’s rather stingy with compliments, making Anakin fish for validation all the time. 

So for a while he doesn’t know what to say. Obi-Wan’s words turn in his head until they’re back to the Temple, filling his chest with a pleasant warmth and making something flutter softly inside his belly. He already knows he wants to experience that feeling again as soon as possible. 

He focuses very hard to make a perfect landing on the platform, making the ship touch the ground with only little shakes, and looks at Obi-Wan expectantly. 

“Nice work, Padawan.” 

There it is again, that tiny little jolt in Anakin’s guts. It feels so good to be praised for his skills and Obi-Wan seems to be in a generous mood today, so he intends on making the best of it. 

“Yeah ?” He asks coyly, looking at his Master from under his eyelashes. 

Obi-Wan turns to him and quirks his eyebrows when he notices his expression. 

“Yeah.” He smiles softly. “I might not tell you often but you’re a good apprentice, Anakin. I’m proud of you.” 

Anakin feels his heart swell with pride and affection at the words. It feels like a warm blanket wrapping him from head to toes, pushing away all his doubts, his constant anger and his insecurities. He’s afraid, suddenly, that when it wears off he goes back to being difficult, unbalanced, unworthy of Obi-Wan’s attention. 

Before he realizes it he’s clutching Obi-Wan’s robes with eager hands. 

“Tell me. Tell me again, Master.” He pleads. “Tell me I’m good.”

I want to be good for you.

Startled by the sudden desperation on Anakin’s features, Obi-Wan’s first reflex is to push him away, but his Padawan grips him tightly. He knows his anxiety is going to throw him in a loop if he doesn’t reassure him. 

“Anakin…” He cups his face gently, disturbed by the anguish in his eyes. “Of course you are. You’re good. Not only for me but for all the people you already helped and the ones you’re going to help in the future.” 

“I’m trying.” Anakin whines. “I’m trying so hard, Master. But I feel like sometimes it isn’t enough. I feel like I disappoint you all the time.” 

“That’s not true.” Obi-Wan replies firmly, softly brushing his thumbs over his cheekbones. “You could never disappoint me, even if you don’t always listen to me.” 

Obi-Wan never understood what triggered Anakin’s sudden self-conscious, anxious crisis. He thought that with time he would identify a pattern but his efforts had stayed vain until now. He wished he could see what happened in Anakin’s wonderful brain but he had to make do with the interpretation of his emotions. 

“Now, be a good boy and go take a shower.” Obi-Wan says, gently patting his cheek. “Then join me for dinner.” 

“Okay.” Anakin replies quietly. 

He gathers all his stuff and disappears into the Temple, heading straight for the shower. 

When he’s finally under the hot water spray, he closes his eyes, trying to prevent anxiety from spilling into his blood and spread into his system to poison his thoughts for the rest of the night. He thinks about Obi-Wan’s words, at the pride he pushed into their bond to emphasize his speech. He thinks about how it felt to be recognized and acknowledged for the skills he worked so hard on. He thinks about the pleasant sensation in his belly when Obi-Wan called him good. 

With a sigh, he slides a hand between his legs, tugging lightly at his soft cock. He wants to feel good like that again. He wants Obi-Wan to praise him like that everyday, giving him the validation he so desperately needs to feel worthy of the world around him. 

He can be good to Obi-Wan, he would do anything to hear him say it once again. 

I’m proud of you.

With a moan, Anakin strokes his hardening cock, not really understanding why those little words made him feel like that. Why he felt the need to touch himself thinking about how good he wanted to be for Obi-Wan. 

“Fuck.” He whimpers, precome dripping between his fingers as he replays the scene in his head once again. 

He squeezes his cock in his palm, playing with his thumb around the head, pressing against the slick slit with each movement, making him shake and moan loudly in the confined space of the shower. A confused thought crosses his mind, wishing that Obi-Wan could hear how good he makes him feel just with the power of his words. He wishes Obi-Wan could tell him again, right now. 

As if Anakin’s shameful thoughts have summoned him, Obi-Wan’s voice can suddenly be heard outside of the door. 

“Are you almost done ?” 

Almost. Anakin thinks. He’s so close it’s hard to articulate a correct sentence. 

“Yes.” He pants, stroking his cock with fast and strong movements pushing him closer to the ledge by the second. “Give me- Give me a minute.” 

There's a silence on the other side of the door, only broken by the rush of water, the wet slapping sounds of skin against skin and Anakin’s labored breathing. 

“Are you okay in there ?” Obi-Wan asks, voice worried. 

Anakin doesn't answer. He can't answer without risking letting out a pretty suggestive moan. Instead he bites his tongue firmly, using his other hand to play with one of his nipples, rolling it between his fingers and tugging at it to add a stimulation to his already overwhelmed body. 

“Anakin ?” 

The door opens at the same time Anakin topples over the edge of his orgasm, spilling between his fingers and against the wall of the shower with a choked, pathetic sound. Pleasure comes in waves, making him fuck messily into his fist to chase it, cum spurting again and again until it calms down, leaving him lightheaded and oversensitive. Leaning forward to press his forehead against the cold tiles, he drags one of his dripping fingers between his ass cheeks, pressing it against his tight hole. 

“Oh, fuck.” He groans when a spark of pleasure ignites deep inside his lower back, making him arch and push his ass against the fingers massaging his rim. 

The haze of his first orgasm starts to dissipate, progressively replaced by another fire in his belly. A second of clarity reminds him that he's supposed to get out of the shower to let Obi-Wan clean but it feels so good and he doesn't hear his Master’s voice anymore. 

That’s when he realizes that he's not alone, his senses sharpening suddenly as he notices another presence in his space. 

Before he can even glance behind his shoulder he feels cold fingers curling around his hips, making him jump and choke on his saliva. 

“What-”

“Can’t you masturbate and shield your thoughts at the same time ?” Obi-Wan’s hot breath brushes against his ear. 

Anakin gasps, his face burning in shame as he tries to make sense of what is happening. He tries to remove his hand from between his legs, tries to do whatever, anything to protect the last bit of his dignity but Obi-Wan is faster, grabbing his wrist to keep him in place. 

“Be a good Padawan and continue what you were doing.” 

“But M-Master…” Anakin whimpers, placing his other hand on the wall in front of him to stabilize himself. 

“Don’t you want to be good for me ?” Obi-Wan whispers against his ear. “Isn’t it what you want the most in your life ?” 

“Yes.” Anakin breathes out, cheeks burning hot at the idea that Obi-Wan discovered his dirty little secret. “That’s what I want. More than anything.” 

“Good.” Obi-Wan praises, wrapping his hand around Anakin’s one to press his fingers back against his abandoned hole. “Then finger yourself open for me.” 

Anakin moans and bites his lip when he feels the press of his fingers, guided by his Master's, against the delicate muscle. Obi-Wan makes him massage his rim for a while before pressing the tip of two of Anakin’s fingers inside. Anakin lets out a shaky breath, trying to relax as much as possible against the intrusion. 

“You already did that to yourself, right ?” Obi-Wan asks before nipping at his earlobe. 

“Yes.” Anakin draws a sharp breath when Obi-Wan pushes his fingers deeper. “Oh.”

“Were you thinking about me ?” 

“Yes.” 

Obi-Wan groans at the answer, tugging on Anakin’s hand to remove his fingers before pushing them back inside. 

“Look at yourself fucking your own fingers. You’re so perfect.”

Anakin cries out at the sensation, shame and adoration mixing in his chest at Obi-Wan’s words. 

“Want to be perfect for you.” He whines, starting to scissor himself open. 

“You’re doing so good.” Obi-Wan hums against his hair, setting the pace of Anakin’s movements. “Make yourself nice and ready for me, sweetheart.” 

Anakin feels dizzy at the implication. Is Obi-Wan going to fuck him ?

“Master ?” He pants, letting their bond fill the blanks for him. 

“That’s what you want, right ?” Obi-Wan rasps, teeth grazing against his neck. “Thinking so hard about me when you’re touching yourself ?” 

“Yes.” Anakin nods rapidly. “Yes. Please.” 

“Then your pretty fingers are not going to be enough.” Obi-Wan replies. “Let me help.” 

Anakin can feel the grip on his wrist relax just before one of Obi-Wan’s fingers slips between the ones already inside him, spreading him even wider. 

“Fuck !” He hisses at the sudden stretch, trying to withdraw from the touch by reflex. “Too much.” 

Obi-Wan kisses his neck, nuzzling gently behind his ear. 

“You’re doing great, love. It’s going to take more than three fingers if you want my cock.” 

“I can’t.” Anakin pants, feeling like his legs were going to give way beneath him. 

“Yes, you can.” Obi-Wan replies softly, starting to move his finger ever so slightly between Anakin’s. “Relax, Anakin. Breathe.” 

Anakin takes a shaky breath, trying to focus on his Master’s warmth against his back, the tickling of his beard against his neck and the way his steady hands were supporting him, pleasuring him. 

It's easier after a while, his body adapting to the stretch and making his muscles soft and pliant once again as Obi-Wan fingers him with more ease. 

The sensation of both of their fingers fucking inside him is exhilarating and soon pleasure hits Anakin back again, making his lower belly tense and his cock leak abundantly. 

“I’m- I’m going to come.” He warns Obi-Wan between two shaky moans. 

Obi-Wan pulls both of their fingers out, then, making Anakin gasp loudly at the loss. 

“You’re so beautiful.” He praises, brushing his knuckles along Anakin's defined back. “Look at you.” 

The gesture makes Anakin blush and whine impatiently. 

“Take me.” He demands. “Let me please you too, Master.” 

Obi-Wan presses against his back, wrapping his arms around his waist, the weight of his hard cock pushing against the cleft of Anakin’s ass. 

“You’re such a good boy, Anakin. Do you know that ?” He murmurs against his ear before placing a sweet kiss on his cheek. 

“For you.” Anakin whimpers. “ Only for you. Please.” 

“Mmh.” 

Obi-Wan wraps one of his large hands around Anakin’s hips, locking him in place while the other guides the head of his cock down the cleft of his ass, dragging slick precome down to his already abused hole. Then he pushes inside in one slow and firm motion, making Anakin cry and press both of his hands against the wall. 

“Fuck, Obi-Wan !”

“You feel so good, dearest.” Obi-Wan sighs against his neck, settling comfortably deep inside him. “You’re made for me, I knew it.” 

Anakin grits his teeth, trying to breath through the burning sensation accompanying the challenging stretch of Obi-Wan’s cock. He closes his eyes for a while, remembering that he wanted this. 

“Move.” He groans when the sensation starts getting too unpleasant. 

Obi-Wan doesn't need to be asked twice. He starts thrusting gently inside him as soon as Anakin asks him to, well aware that his stillness might feel uncomfortable. 

Anakin grunts at this new, weird sensation. For now he doesn't know if he likes it or not, Obi-Wan’s cock feeling more like an intrusion than an object of pleasure. 

That is until Obi-Wan changes the angle of Anakin’s hips, the head of his cock brushing against something that sends a jolt of electricity along his spine, making his toes curl and his muscles tense automatically. 

“Ah !” 

“Found it.” Obi-Wan smiles smugly against his neck. “Feels good, mh ?” 

“Shut up and do that again.” Anakin grunts, pushing his hips back to chase that thrilling feeling again. 

“At your service.” 

When Obi-Wan moves again, Anakin lets his head fall against the wall, his whole body tensing with raw pleasure. 

“Fuck, yes.” 

Obi-Wan does it again, and again until Anakin begs him to go faster, to give him more. He's on his tiptoes, back arched as Obi-Wan presses him against the wall with each thrust of his hips. There’s no more shame in his moans or in the way he asks for what he wants, for what feels good. And what feels good right now is Obi-Wan’s thick cock hitting his prostate relentlessly while he drools against the cold wall, head empty. He knows he's close but he’s not able to form a coherent sentence anymore. 

“Obi-Wan…” He whines instead. 

“I know, love.” Obi-Wan pants right next to his face. “I’m close too.” 

Anakin moans, using his last bits of strength to reach out behind and grab his Master’s thighs, pressing him even closer. 

“Say it.” He breathes. “Tell me.” 

Obi-Wan doesn’t need to ask for clarification. He leans forward, pressing his lips against Anakin’s ear. 

“You’re so good for me, Anakin.” He whispers adoringly. “Such a good boy. I love you so much.” 

It’s all it takes for Anakin’s mind to go blank, his whole body tensing as pleasure explodes into his lower belly, flooding his senses with the intensity of it, making him cry out and cum for what felt like an eternity. 

When he’s done, his body going limp against the wall, he stays there for a little while, feeling high with endorphins, bathing in the scent of soap, hot water and sex. 

He’s almost going to doze off when a sharp knock on the door pulls him roughly from his fantasies. 

“Anakin ?” Obi-Wan’s annoyed voice resonates on the other side. “Are you done in here ? It’s been almost an hour !” 

[ranticore]

Hi has anyone ever told you Ice Storm Over Kosa has impeccable vibes and feels incredibly innovative and fresh!

In terms of the towns and communities, what types of infrastructure connects them? What kinds of technologies are common vs cutting edge in the setting’s different time periods?

hehe thank you.. i really like how the setting tag is just one of the character's names so it looks like you're saying He has impeccable vibes

<3

So there is a huge huge almost insurmountable limiting factor when it comes to the growth of towns and communities, which is that large aggregations of living creatures will attract the crawly beasts and they pollute the earth, make crops wither and die away, kill livestock, kill people, etc, and humans can't even touch them with protective gloves on since the crawlers' fluids eat through leather

humanity (and monsters) were forced to spread out over a larger surface area. villages and settlements are small and have to be actively defended almost nightly. there has been a slight stagnation of the march of progress, as just fighting off this threat takes up so much of everyone's resources, and forbids institutes of learning and the like from forming. so most of the technological advancements we see, they are in the field of long-range communication, weaponry (falconry too), and material technology that might repel crawling beasts

in prehistory, the land now called "the Ama plains" hosted a gigantic city with a hundred thousand people living in it, called Amphora. it was very advanced for its time period, with working plumbing, hot and cold water even, mass production of cloth and food, etc (not to mention the magic). Amphora no longer exists and most of its innovations were lost.

in the early time period after the arrival of the crawling beasts, humanity and monsterkind are scattered. the only established settlements are those guarded by wyrms, but it took many centuries to reach that point. human towns are ruled by small feudal lords who may form loose alliances with one another but typically rule their land as if it's a lone island in the middle of a vast sea. this is the time of Revelation's march. the most established settlement is the city of Onozar in the far west of Ama, which is ruled by a king who has a hold over many of the neighbouring towns and lords, by virtue of Onozar's size and relative safety. technology levels are low; no firearms, trebuchets and crossbows are cutting edge.

in the time of Twist and Flicker, there is an age of unprecedented cooperation with monsters (Revelation's march might have had something to do with this change). This means that towns and villages are now usually protected by something other than a wyrm - this ranges from willing cooperation to cruel self-styled 'monster tamers' who force monsters to do their bidding. This is the dawning age of harpy falconry as described in the lil story i wrote about Ice Storm of Kosa himself, though back then the old method was to make a contract with an adult harpy and cooperate that way. The infrastructure is still not very advanced; they're still struggling with plumbing and sewage systems, because crawlies come out of the ground and their poison can seep into aquifers. Anyway communication between towns is usually done by pigeon (or pigeon harpy). The ground is not a safe place to be, so houses are typically built on short stilts, or at the very least, residential rooms are upstairs. Water supply is often provided by elevated aqueducts; wells are a last resort, but often the only choice for impoverished villages. There is a culture of fear surrounding large gatherings and groups - sometimes it's unavoidable, and human/monster nature, but that anxiety is always there.

With this increased cooperation between humans and monsters, people are able to gather in larger groups. this enables more learning, more apprenticeships, more farmlands, and a more rapid development of technology. It also means a more centralised ruling system begins to form; it takes a lot of resources to supply a pack of wolfmen or a harpy flock to defend a town, so small towns must make petitions to their more prosperous neighbours, and this develops into a Government of the entire region. firearms develop in this time as a means to kill crawling beasts; they are not that successful, and it takes a while before people realise you can use firearms to kill other things, too.

A century later, developments are progressing well enough. Firearms are still rare but starting to spread. Harpy falconers have developed a new, effective technique for their art, it's called "kidnapping"; steal an egg, and raise the chick to imprint on its human parents. that way it won't want to leave. There is a sense of teetering on an edge; humanity leaning more into forcing monsters to help, instead of cooperating. But this is not the progression; the success of the Kosa flock helps convince many falconers that the kidnapping method isn't the best after all. technology is still uh bad, but this is an era where writing materials are finally becoming more mainstream, literacy rates are slowly rising. the printing press is the hot new thing. they have water towers now to provide the plumbing at a safe elevation. communication between villages is still very dove-based, since flight is the safest method of travel.

fire is the only thing that both kills and neutralises the poison of a crawling beast. by this time, progress has been made to develop "automatic fire machines". so all the R&D people put into guns in the real world was put into flamethrowers instead. it's easy enough to rig up a system that pumps out burning oil, but these devices are usually stationary, heavy, and fixed at the gates of the various more prosperous town walls.

[cosmerelists]

Tumblr Call-Out Posts of Cosmere Characters

If people were able to write call-out posts of Cosmere characters as if they were real people, those call-out posts might look like this.

1. Hoid

@libralita already wrote this one: https://www.tumblr.com/libralita/734739225821446144/some-planet-culturally-appropriated-the-marewill?source=share.

2. Siri

Just so you know siri does EXTREME fast fashion: we're talking--never wears the same outfit more than once and BURNS every outfit after she wears it and also every day she burns a couple other outfits she never even wore just for good measure. also she deliberately kept asking for fancier and fancier outfits so like even more material just needlessly burned up into pollution smoke

3. Adolin

Adolin's girlfriend is four years younger than him. Not so bad, right? WRONG. These are ROSHARAN years, which are longer than ours, it's actually way more than 4 years--probably 6. Or 8. Maybe even 10.

He's basically dating a girl a decade younger than him hello

4. MeLaan

Don't you think it's creepy that MeLaan--from a species that eats human remains--dates a human? How is that not a predatory relationship?

5. Riina

Riina built a giant spaceship shaped like a p*nis, sexually harassing a whole planet. :(

6. Lift

Just saying. Calling anyone "Tightbutt" is sexual harassment.

7. Dalinar

Brought people into his visions without getting their consent. Probably the worst thing Dalinar ever did. :(

8. Galladon

You might think that being quarantined in a horrible plague-city due to having "walking corpse" disease would make a man understand that diseases are dangerous and that maybe world hopping to a new planet without doing proper containment procedures and spreading a viral infection to an entire region is bad maybe

But you would be wrong in the case of Galladon who DID THAT

9. Kelsier

anyone who still supports kelsier after kelsier made his employee eat his bones needs to take a long, hard look in a mirror because it is NOT okay to feed ANY part of your skeleton to someone who works for you

10. Szeth

Keeping a sword sheathed all the time is exactly the same as keeping an animal in a cage--a sword can NOT get proper enrichment inside a sheath. Would you like to be kept continuously in a dark and suffocating place where you can't move or breathe? No? Then why would you be okay with keeping a sentient sword locked in a sheath all the time?

Szeth's cruel treatment of Nightblood makes me SICK

[metalomagnetic]

I asked a question about your house elf lore a while back, are you still sitting on that one or did it not get to you? or maybe you don't want to answer it? sorry to bother you I just wanted to see if I should resend it or not

I'm sorry! I looked back through my inbox until I found your question.

Sometimes asks pile up and I lose track of them! I hope no one thinks I am ignoring them on purpose.

Now, with that out of the way, here is your initial question (I hope this is yours, at least):

I love the world building you did around house elves/goblins/the fey in "it runs" all the little tidbits that get dropped make me hungry for more. Can you possibly elucidate on the full story behind the fey vs wizard kind conflict? was the black family and astral magic actually instrumental in the war or is that just black propaganda? i'm not sure how reliable of a narrator a black family elf should be considered.

So, I picture the High Elves more like the elves from Lord of the Rings. As human societies started developing and advancing, the high elves diminished in numbers, losing forests and also they were very sensitive to materials humans started using, like iron and copper and such, that was slowly poisoning them.

I like to imagine they started fucking around with humans sometimes in ancient times. Muggles weren't too perceptive to what was going on, since the elves used magical trickery, but wizards took notice. At the time, wizards coexisted together with muggles in the Harry Potter universe.

There were attempts made to accommodate both species, treaties brokered and then broken, on both sides, until the first war started.

It ended with high casualties on all sides, and with no clear victor. New 'borders' were agreed upon, places for the elves to dwell into, where humans weren't allowed, and vice versa.

Of course, as centuries passed, and muggles especially developed more and more, their villages spreading into larger areas, their needs greater, cities being raised all around, things escalated again. It didn't help that most muggles either didn't believe in the existence of elves, either considered them plights/enemies sent by their gods. Muggles have shorter life spams, and shorter memory. Besides, education and written history wasn't easily available to muggles at large. Elves, on the other hand, have incredible life spans, and while wizards don't come close, they, too, live longer than muggles and they do 'see' magic, so wizards were always more aware of such things, as they are aware of werewolves and vampires etc.

In the second war, the Black family and other great wizarding families were already established powers around Europe, far more organised than their ancestors; by now wands were much more in use, which was a vast improvement from the past, allowing all magical people easier access to magic.

Because they had means of quick communication, unlike muggles, and because the elves were far lesser in numbers than they've been previously, the second Elvish war was mostly between wizards and elves, with very little muggle involvement.

The elves didn't think they could survive as a species in this new, polluted world, so this time there will be no end to the war.

They fought to extinction levels.

The Blacks and their use of astral magic were, indeed, a big part of the war ( in my backstory for this, it was a man named Helix Black the First that was in charge of the family back then). But other families were as instrumental as them. Many great houses perished in the war, and even the Blacks were decimated in numbers, losing nine direct family members, and many other distant relatives or in-laws.

As the war was drawing to a close, and wizards were emerging on the winning side, they started hunting down what remained of small clusters of elves still surviving in deep forests .

They found the elvish children, having been kept hidden during the war (elvish children age far slower than human ones).

Some wizards wanted them killed, to end this once and for all. Others weren't so keen on this plan. A great council was made to decide on their fates.

The side against the slaughter won, but everyone agreed it wasn't a good idea to just leave them be, risking another uprising in the future.

A witch of great power came up with the idea of cursing the elvish younglings, and forcing them into complete obedience. The curse affected the development of the elves, leaving them stunted, emotionally, mentally, and physically.

A Sacred Circle was made out of witches and wizards that gave their lives to power the curse. From England, twenty eight wizards and witches participated in the Circle, including a Black (And because of this, all the families that lost members to this curse, are now know as the Sacred Twenty-Eight. I know that's not what they are in canon, and it was simply a list made by one Mr. Nott, but this is just my head canon to give more depth and history to the wizarding world).

As the curse was cast (I like to imagine it took like two days of casting to manage such a feat of magic) some of the older elvish children managed to escape their makeshift prisons. They sought refuge underground. The curse still reached them, but because of their age (say around 30 years olds, which was still child by elven metrics) they managed to resist at least the compulsions and they remain hidden underground. Their bodies naturally adapted to the environment. They eventually became goblins.

The younger children that didn't escape, including a twelve year old Tessuth, were fully affected by the curse. They never grew properly, their bodies shifted, too, the dark magic wrecking havoc on them. They were then enslaved to wizards. There weren't that many children, but the Sacred Families that fought hardest in the war, and that sacrificed their own to cast the curse, had priority in picking. Helix Black demanded two elves. Tessuth, and her even younger sister (who will eventually become Kreacher's grandmother). People just thought he's a greedy dick for wanting two.

In reality, Helix had deep trauma from the war, had developed a begrudging respect for the elves in the years spent fighting them, but he had also lost his twin children in one battle. When he went to take one elf, he found Tessuth cradling her younger sister, and on an impulse, with his twins in mind, he didn't want to separate them, so he took them both.

Unlike many other houses that took their anger for the losses they suffered on the now newly made house elves, Helix never could put aside the tragedy of it all. He saw the extinction of elves as necessary, he never regretted it, it was wizards (in fact, all humans, not just wizards) or elves, and he served proudly in the war, but the horror of it all stayed with him, and he treated Tessuth and her sister more as prisoners of war than slaves.

He killed himself when his only surviving grandson, who was Tessuth's age, reached adulthood, leaving him in charge of the family.

Eventually, a century or two later, when goblins resurfaced, no one wanted another war. Concessions were made, goblins were allowed to live in the wizarding world, but it was never an easy peace, and that, too, led to many goblin rebellions.

In one of life's ironies, in the last goblin rebellion, the Head of House Black was another Helix.

By that time, however, house-elves had been completely brainwashed into hating goblins. The very old house elves like Tessuth and Kreacher's grandmother, were not only brainwashed, but held resentment for being abandoned by their fellow elven siblings, during the first war, that they escaped without them. The newer generations of elves, completely unaware of this history, simply hated goblins because their masters told them so. House elf magic was used heavily in goblin rebellions, to guard wizarding homes, because goblins and house-elves obviously share the same type of magic.

A true tragedy, and the story of the High Elves, regal, powerful, arrogant, that died off to make way for humans.

Some of the magic in the world died with them, which also affected wizards, turning them weaker. Wizards of today will never be as powerful as the wizards that lived in the time of the High Elves.

There will be short mentions about this in the fic, just a sentence or two, as we already had, but not very much. It is of no importance to Sirius and his journey, and we already know he doesn't care much about house- elves, even if he is fully aware of their history. He doesn't spend time thinking of this, he just barely learned to get along with Kreacher and he's a little scared of Tessuth, so there is no reason to have much of this mentioned.

[warrior-cats-rewritten]

If I had to rewrite Changing Skies:

Tawnypelt

The Clans are going to fight the humans.

Tigerstar is too busy leading and keeping everyone calm, so he sends Tawnypelt and whatever friends she wants to go on a mission to find out how they can stop the Twolegs.

Tawnypelt doesn't really WANT to, but does it because she wants her son to know she trusts his judgment.

She brings along Crowfeather (let me cook) and Brambleclaw. (LET ME COOK)

First major event is Crowfeather dying. He gets a terrible wound on his back leg from doing something Tawnypelt TOLD HIM NOT TO, and the infection kills him.

Tawny and Bramble are on their own now, and tensions are high. Not only that, but they have NO CLUE what to do, and the Twolegs are getting closer every day...

The only clue they have is with a strange kittypet named Rufus, wearing a strange bulky collar.

Tawnypelt is getting angry, and tired with Brambleclaw. He isn't the brother she thought he was, and their relationship has been fractured since the reveal that he trained in The Dark Forest. Sure, she supported him during TBC, but that ended up not being HIM and it was a terrible mistake to make...

It's his insistence that she listen to him, that he "prove himself", that he is the choice-maker and... Tawny's had enough.

"Brambleclaw, you're older than most cats around the lake, for Starclan's sake, GROW UP ALREADY!"

He leaves, insisting that he knows what is best, and she'll feel so sorry once he's right! No one ever believes in him, just because of his father!

She finds his body the next day. Rufus helps her bury him, but there isn't time to dwell, she needs to keep going. Rufus keeps walking up to humans wearing sleek white pelts that hild little flashing boxes up to Tawnypelt, he keeps saying it's fine but the way he lets them PICK him UP is going to give her a heart attack!

Kids these days. (Affectionate. Bewildered. 3 seconds from signing adoption papers.)

Leafstar

Leafstar is suffering from depression, and notices that her sight is starting to dim.

Fidgetflake tells her that she is developing cataracts, and Leafstar just takes it as "one more thing to happen to me". Her mate has died, her daughter Stormheart was killed in the horrific war against Splashstar and Berrystar that she herself barely made it out of with her last life... Her children have grown and have kits of their own, they don't need her anymore, cats don't want to talk with her...

She's completely lost her spark, and finds no joy in anything. She's not only losing her vision in a physical sense, but she's lost her 'vision' for Skyclan.

She also needs to hold the election for a new deputy, as Skyclan does things differently, and Hawkwing has been killed by a polluted stream.

The candidates are: Violetshine (who now has trained Beetlepaw instead of Reedclaw), Macgyver, and Rileypool (death swapped with Sagenose and mentored Kitescratch).

Violetshine is selected, and immediately some cats are calling for her to be made leader instead. A vote goes through, but not enough cats vote in the theoretical Violetstar's favour. (She doesn't mind!)

Leafstar is distraught when the construction comes Skyclan's way, poisoning their main stream and leading MANY cats to sickness, including her sweet granddaughter Wrenflight, born of Harrybrook and Bellaleaf.

The others Clans have less sympathy. Skyclan is using kittyp-er Daylight Warriors, they'll be fine if they just go back inside their homes. Maybe Starclan's angry that they're taking resources.

She slams her paw down onto the Moonpool's thin frozen surface, it cracks beneath her paw, the cold water spreading its horrible chill, ignored as Leafstar snarls at Starclan.

"Answer my pleas, stop punishing me, or my Clan, or I am taking us back to The Gorge, Other Clans be damned. Help us, or you will prove to me that you truly are a bunch of useless dead cats parading around with sparkling fur and empty promises!"

A ghostly figure appears, just for a moment, whispering to her.

"You may not have sight any longer, and I know all hope seems lost, Leafstar, but brighter times are coming. Do Not Let The Moon Fall."

Moonpaw

Since the writers wanna be awful about Sunbeam, I'm going to one-up them and do this pre-emptively.

Nightheart brought Sunbeam to Riverclan. He wasn't made Leader or Deputy, no, that was given to Icewing and Minnowtail.

Sunbeam, tragically, passed in childbirth soon after she got pregnant by accident... She left Nightheart with a single kitten, a tiny tortoiseshell tabby molly with a white chest, and wide blue and yellow eyes.

Nightheart, still stubborn about names and meaning and holding a grudge against his mother for not providing him with the Orange Gene, names his daughter Moonkit, determined to constantly remind her how she Doesn't Have To Be Like Sunbeam. She has quite a few friends, some in different Clans!

Moonpaw is apprenticed to Flame. An ex-Kin member that joined Riverclan during WCR!AVOS who Nightheart hates with a passion. Guess why.

Moonpaw is a good kid, but her relationship with her father is strained beyond belief. She wishes he would stop... Acting like this. Like he's the only cat to have ever suffered, stop arguing with her sweet mentor over the pettiest thing, stop comparing her to her mother in the most backwards way he can by trying to push her to somehow be the opposite of a cat she's never met...

She is good friends with Frostfeather and Whistlemoon, especially Whistlemoon, for obvious reasons. Moon buddies!

Moonpaw is dared by an older apprentice, Rapidpaw, to "go spend a night at the Moonpool when it's a new moon with all the ghosts!"

She's scared, not of the dark but if her dad finds out. "Sunbeam LOVED breaking rules!" He would always say, "But you can be good and do what YOU want. Just because your mother liked to stand out, doesn't mean you always have to! You can be special in your way!" She always saw Frostfeather glaring when he said that...

"Rule breaker." Frostfeather would scoff. "Didn't know her at all..."

Anyways, aside from a fright from a possum, she makes her way to the Moonpool with ease.

Too much ease.

She walks around, stepping into the pawprints on the ground, and batting a little plant that's growing at the entrance.

Not scary!

She walks into the main chamber, eyes sparkling and growing bigger as she lays eyes on the Moonpool for the first time.

It's the most beautiful thing she's ever seen.

In awe, Moonpaw slowly steps up to it, looking at her own reflection in the sparkling, crystal water, she pokes a paw in.

The gentle ripples lap at the edges, and Moonpaw swears she can hear a soft whispering.

Immediately though, she is bombarded with noise, giggling kittens, cats chatting with one another, and a soft warning.

"Careful, don't fall in!"

Moonpaw looks around for that voice, softer than any others, yet more clear. She stares into the crystal clear, sparkling water of the Moonpool, deeper, deeper, and deeper, drawing her in and making her more calm than she's ever felt...

She falls into the Moonpool.

[balkanradfem]

I've been reading 'The Climate Book' from Greta Thunberg, and I have to talk about it. I've never seen a book written so brilliantly and desperately, pleading for awareness, for action, for survival. I thought I was aware of the climate change, but there was a vast amount of information I did not know. I'll start from the ones I did.

I knew that the climate has already changed, and will continue to change until a lot of animal species will go extinct, and a big amount of human beings will suffer, end up impoverish, misplaced, in starvation, or dead. I knew the culprits were the companies that refused to stop taking down forests, burning fossil fuels, promoting lifestyles of consumerism, over-consumption, generated the amount of waste that the planet could not safely consume or store. I also knew that one of the biggest pollutants were big oil, animal and plant agriculture, fast fashion industry, travel industry, and the capitalistic system that enabled 1% of humanity to own and over-consume 90% of the resources available to us. Knowing this made me feel powerless, because even as I boycott all of it, I can't do much else, and I'm not enough to stop what is going on. I am merely a drop in the ocean - which is what Greta points out as well. But, Greta doesn't think we're powerless.

This book is incredible in the sense that it goes over and beyond to think practically. It doesn't despair, it doesn't panic, it doesn't think any other way but how to practically and effectively bring change, what are the options and possibilities, what is true and what is propaganda, how to avoid millions of deaths and extinctions that are sure to come, if we do nothing. Greta has analyzed all action that is 'being done', and found out most of it was fraud, cheating, lying. All of the governments and companies who were bragging about reduced emissions, or offsetting emissions, have simply found ways to outsource them and to emit them in another, poorer country. The amount of emissions has actually increased.

She has also interviewed the world leaders, and people responsible and suffering from climate change - and these are the results: Nobody feels responsible, nobody feels as if it's their turn to change, to reduce, to do anything to help it. Even interviewing people whose livelihood was taken away from them due to climate change, who have lost their living environments already, their trees and animals and fields and fertility and soil, when asked if they would be willing to work ecologically from now on, with reduced or low emissions, their answer was 'Why should we? It's not fair, they took from us and enjoyed, while we suffered. We won't stop until we have what they have. We deserve it.'

With this information, Greta has found a truth of how humans influence each other - we imitate. If we see someone else doing something, or having something we find desirable, we also want it. We look at ourselves in relation to other people that surround us, we take responsibility according to what others around do, and we hold ourselves accountable only as much as others do. And this is why we have a power that goes beyond individual action, beyond simply lowering our own emissions and boycotting companies that are responsible for pollution - we are able to influence others. We're able to influence the media, which forms public opinions, and using the media, force into action those who benefit from polluting the planet.

What I didn't know, and this book taught me, was that from the times humans started to hunt, they didn't only have a great effect on the environment, they were the absolute leading agent on it. Soon after hunting the megafauna into extinction, the environment started to change not just because we affected it, but because we directed it to. We caused the extinction of many species throughout the past, by hunting, taking wild spaces for our own use, polluting water sources, changing the climate, spreading predatory species,  like cats and rats, and we didn't stop there. We changed the landscapes of forests and fields, into human-used agricultural land that was effectively deadened for the purpose of wildlife. We domesticated, and then farmed animals, to such extreme degree, that right now what is left of the wildlife, is mere 12-15% of all animals out there. More than 80% of current animals by weight living on earth, are put there by animal agriculture, meant for human consumption. That is absolutely insane. We did the same with the wildlife environment as well – there is now only 3% of the forests on earth, that are still considered intact. We changed the landscape, not only slightly, but by erasing most of it, making it unusable to animals, insects or wild plants, appropriated only for agriculture, grazing, and human-only environments. And, we dug up and released so much carbon into the air, it is coming close to the amount that we had on the earth, at the time of dinosaur extinction, which wiped out a third of the planet's species. And we keep doing it, even knowing what will happen, knowing that every single time this happened in the past, it created mass extinction.

I wasn't aware how serious and extreme the changes we made were. Knowing what is going out, makes it very clear why we have a crisis, it would be crazy to expect not to have one. These changes were not reported, nobody was asked to approve of them, there were no regulations or limits, no environmental studies on consequences, and it keeps going. We keep increasing the demand for agriculture and animal products, increasing our consumption even though we are running out of the natural resources used to create the products. And it is not our fault. Most of the food and meat created by destroying this land, will go to waste, for the profit of the corporations. The world will keep living in starvation, despite so much of natural life getting destroyed for food, despite the climate crisis being caused, partly by our food production.

This doesn't mean we can't sustainably feed ourselves anymore, it just means we can't do it the way we're used to. It just tells us we need to use more resilient and less land and water consuming food. Plant based diets demand less soil and emit less carbon, gardening reduces the amount of agricultural space needed to feed us, supporting and protecting wildlife wherever it's still thriving, will save both soil, animal species, and biodiversity that is very quickly fading from the planet.

I've also learned that even as we're close to the tipping point, but haven't reached it yet. Whatever we do right now that stops us from reaching it, will mean the difference between life and death to the future generations of people, animals, and plants. If we manage to make changes now, to stop the ice from melting past the tipping point, we can save millions of lives, that would end in certain death otherwise. If we can create policies that are not volountary but binding, we have a chance to save livable land, animal and plant species, biodiversity, and human quality of life. It's not too late to act, in fact, this is the vital time to act, and we're the only ones who can do it.

And the way you can act is not just by reducing waste, reducing the amount of energy you consume, reducing animal-products in your food and refusing to waste and throw away usable goods, but by being public about it. By making it clear it's a positive improvement on your life, on your quality of life, that it's both moral and enjoyable, both inspiring and encouraging others to do the same. Some of us have bigger impact on others than we might know, and if we start doing it and visibly enjoying it, there are others who will follow.

This book has taught me immense amount of science behind the climate crisis, and gave me incentive to do more than just live and feel helpless, I need to do more. I recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn more, and wanting to act more. I will be from now on, writing more about ecology and preserving the planet, and how to do it. If we're the directors of where this planet is going, we have to be so intentionally, with knowledge, wisdom and awareness of what we are doing. We can do good, and humans have been doing good, any time there's been wisdom, awareness and intention in how we're shaping the environment. And if anyone wants the book in the audio form, send me a message and I will give it to you.

[qweerhet]

I see some of your pro-ai stuff, and I also see that you're very good at explaining things, so I have some concerns about ai that I'd like for you to explain if it's okay.

I'm very worried about the amount of pollution it takes to make an ai generated image, story, video, etc. I'm also very worried about ai imagery being used to spread disinformation.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to go by the stance that since we can't un-create ai, we should just try our best to manage. How do we manage things like disinformation and massive amounts of pollution? To be fair, I actually don't know the exact amount of pollution ai generated prompts make.

so, first off: the environmental devastation argument is so incorrect, i would honestly consider it intellectually dishonest. here is a good, thorough writeup of the issue.

the tl;dr is that trying to discuss the "environmental cost of AI" as one monolithic thing is incoherent; AI is an umbrella term that refers to a wide breadth of both machine-learning research and, like, random tech that gets swept up in the umbrella as a marketing gimmick. when most people doompost about the environmental cost of AI, they're discussing image generation programs and chat interfaces in particular, and the fact is that running these programs on your computer eats about as much energy as, like, playing an hour of skyrim. bluntly, i consider this argument intellectually dishonest from anyone who does not consider it equally unethical to play skyrim.

the vast majority of the environmental cost of AI such as image generation and chat interfaces comes from implementation by large corporations. this problem isn't tractable by banning the tool; it's a structural problem baked into the existence of massive corporations and the current phase of capitalism we're in. prior to generative AI becoming a worldwide cultural trend, corporations were still responsible for that much environmental devastation, primarily to the end of serving ads--and like. the vast majority of use cases corporations are twisting AI to fit boil down to serving ads. essentially, i think focusing on the tool in this particular case is missing the forest for the trees; as long as you're not addressing the structural incentives for corporations to blindly and mindlessly participate in unsustainable extractivism, they will continue to use any and all tools to participate in such, and i am equally concerned about the energy spent barraging me with literally dozens and dozens of digital animated billboards in a ten-mile radius as i am with the energy spent getting a chatbot to talk up their product to me.

moving onto the disinformation issue: actually, yes, i'm very concerned about that. i don't have any personal opinions on how to manage it, but it's a very strong concern of mine. lowering the skill floor for production of media does, necessarily, mean a lot of bad actors are now capable of producing a much larger glut of malicious content, much faster.

i do think that, historically speaking, similar explosions of disinformation & malicious media haven't been socially managed by banning the tool nor by shaming those who use it for non-malicious purposes--like, when it was adopted for personal use, the internet itself created a sudden huge explosion of spam and disinformation as never before seen in human history, but "get rid of the internet" was never a tractable solution to this, and "shame people you see using the internet" just didn't do anything for the problem.

wish i could be more helpful on solutions for that one--it's just not a field i have any particular knowledge in, but if there's anyone reading who'd like to add on with information about large-scale regulation of the sort of broad field of malicious content i'm discussing, feel free.

[askgildaseniors]

Moises Santillan draws attention to the pervasive problem of microplastics, which are becoming an increasingly serious environmental and health risk. Microplastics, or minute plastic pieces, are not just found in water but appear to be prevalent almost everywhere. Moises notes that they may be found in a variety of daily plastic goods and in locations excessively contaminated with plastic garbage. The widespread prevalence of microplastics is an increasing concern since these particles infiltrate both our environment and our bodies, as scientific investigations show.

The health consequences of microplastics are especially concerning. Moises emphasizes that enhanced microscopy and other technologies have enabled researchers to detect microplastic particles within the human body. Considerably more troubling is the potential for microplastics to break down into smaller particles known as nanoplastics, which are considerably more widespread. These nanoplastics can enter the circulation, spread throughout the body, and potentially disrupt numerous biological activities. This compounding effect, in which plastics degrade into increasingly minute particles, raises major concerns about their influence on human health.

Microplastic pollution of the environment is also a significant concern. Moises notes that microplastics may be discovered anywhere plastic debris collects, contributing to the overall pollution catastrophe. Their persistence in the environment and tendency to disintegrate into smaller particles make them incredibly difficult to control. Pollution not only endangers animals, but it may also impact land, water, and food quality. As microplastics permeate many ecosystems, the long-term environmental consequences might be severe, threatening biodiversity and altering ecological equilibrium.

Moises emphasizes the urgent need for study and action to understand and reduce the impact of microplastics. The presence of these particles in the human body, their metamorphosis into nanoplastics, and their widespread environmental distribution all necessitate further scientific investigation. Potential solutions include lowering plastic manufacturing, improving waste management systems, and developing creative methods to break down these polymers safely. Through collaborative effort and ongoing study, humanity can address the threats posed by microplastics and move toward a healthier, more sustainable future.

[sleepyfan-blog]

B(r)other

Author’s Note: Nadesir  part three! I hope you enjoy :D first.

Previous.

This fic features Khopesh, @c-u-c-koo-4-40k ’s lovely NL! Thank you for letting me borrow him. 

Tagged: :@egrets-not-regrets @kit-williams @bleedingichorhearts @the-pure-angel@whorety-k 

Warnings: accidental marriage, 

Summary: You wait for Nadesir at the surf’s edge. You’re greeted by a different Night Lord. 

Three weeks later at sunset find you once again by yourself as you wander the beach. You'd hoped to find Nadesir amongst the waves, or perhaps in the shallows. You'd brought along a picnic basket full of food to share with him, as he'd expressed an interest in trying human food. You'd done some research to make sure everything that You'd brought with you was safe for him to eat, not wanting to accidentally give him something that would make him sick. 

Allegedly, astartes could eat nearly anything apart from certain kinds of toxic industrial waste… and from the forums You'd wandered into (and back out of) even that was up for debate, depending on the type of astartes. Allegedly there was a green type of astartes who thrived in polluted waters and consumed garbage and spread disease and parasites like it was their divinely mandated duty. 

You were pretty sure that was hysterical bullshit, as You'd also been warned that all night lords were vicious and cruel bastards who enjoyed tormenting and slowly killing any human unfortunate enough to meet one, no matter the circumstances and Nadesir has been a wonderful companion.

You kicked off your sandals And went wading knees deep into the surf, a relaxed sigh leaving your lips as the constant itching that plagued you whenever you were out of water for more than a couple of hours went away. None of the doctors you went to for the issue could do anything to actually help. The medicated lotions and topical steroids had done fuck-all and your skin had been biopsies several times in different spots, to inconclusive or negative results. 

You'd resorted to going swimming once a day whenever your work schedule allowed, and showering daily in the evenings, which at least allowed you to get enough sleep throughout the night. You also wore mittens to sleep to avoid scratching your skin raw in your sleep.

A deep, gleeful voice called out from the next cresting wave, a marble in his voice that you did not trust “Ohh? What's a tasty little mortal morsel like you doing here? Don't you know that dangerous creatures lurk in these waters?” A large, midnight blue mer with red ear-fibs and lightning-like patterns on his scales rumbled. He looked similar to Nadesir, but he had a distinctive scar on his lips that Nadesir didn't.

You explain earnestly “I’m waiting for someone. Are you one of Nadesir’s older brothers?” He had warned you that some of his older brothers were likely to be suspicious or wary or both of you at first, in addition to hostile. He’d given you a beautiful necklace made of shell and bone to wear the last time the two of you had met up, both as a gift and a way to prove that you and he were close, so that they wouldn't try to chase you off. You'd carved something for him out of a hardy wood and lacquered it with a waterproof sealant. Yo hoped that he’d like the gift.

THe strange Night Lord let out an amused trill, swimming closer to you, the crooked smirk on his face turning into something more thoughtful “I have several q questions little mortal, though I can guess their answers. How did you and Nadesir meet? How… Close are the two of you~?”

A bit of a blush warms yoru face and you shift a little in place before you answer “We met several months sago and I helped him out of a tight spot… every so often after that we meet up again. He gave me this last week.” YOu explain, lightly touching the hand-crafted necklace he’d gifted you. You weren’t sure as to how much detail you should give without asking nNadesir first. You imagined that being trapped in an industrial fishing net was a humiliating experience, in addition to being mildly traumatizing nd awful. You also weren’t sure the exact nature of the relationship that you and he had. Sure, you and he spent time together - some of that time was spent kissing and being physically intimate, but it wasn’t as if you and he had talked about what each wanted out of this relationship, and any plans either you or he had for the future in regards to whatever this was.

The night lord grinned, sharp teeth flashing in the low light of dusk “And just what sort of trouble did Nadesir get into, hmm? He's a fairly capable scout, though his curiosity can get the better of him.”

You hesitate for a moment, fairly certain that you shouldn’t tell this strange astartes about how your… Lover? Boyfriend? Situationship? Had gotten entangled and washed up on shore, trapped for hours until you came along and rescued him. “Oh… He just needed a hand, so I helped him out.”

“Uh-huh. Any particular reasons why he wou- off! Rude!” The night lord spluttered as a fast moving, midnight blue blur crashed into him at high speed.

You take a half-step back towards the shore in surprise before stop backing up, as the blur turned out to be Nadesir, who hissed “YOu have your own human to woo! Leave her alone, Khopesh!”

“Aww, I wouldn't steal your mortal from you, little brother! I was just curious about her, considering how much you sigh wistfully for her presence when you’re not at her side… And the moon-eyed daydreaming you do is endearingly annoying.” Khopesh purred, smirking at Nadesir as he spoke.

“You also pine for your human when you’re away from them!” Nadesir snaps back, still attempting to wrestle his older brother with limited success.

“Khopesh spluttered “I… I just… THat’s not… So? You’re the one who’s tied a sanguinary bond to his chosen human. I haven’t done that yet. I hadn’t realized you were so serious about her.”

“A what?” You ask, confused.

“A what?” Nadesir echoes, letting go of his older brother, head tilting a little as his ears fin flicked in befuddlement.

“... Well I suppose they can happen accidentally, although I’m curious as to how she accidentally swallowed a little bit of your blood, younger brother of mine. Bleeding around humans can have… Interesting consequences.” Khopesh rumbled, arching a judgmental eyebrow at both you and Nadesir - though mostly at Nadesir it seemed.

Nadesir looked as confused as you felt “What do you mean by that, Khopesh? In.. In the hypothetical situation of an Astartes bleeding near a human… Not that I would have… necessarily had cause to bleed around any humans, and particularly not my love specifically.”

“Well, you know how sometimes when a human has become so deeply loved and/or needed by an Astartes, the human is granted a lifespan similar to us, as wella s turned into a mer, so that they can spend far more of their time with their beloved?” Khopesh explains, pausing for a moment to make sure that Nadesir was following his explanation.

You’d heard stories about Mers being able to transform humans, to grant them eternal life somehow. You’d thought it was bullshit… But apparently there was truth to those myths after all. You stayed quiet, listening closely.

“Transforming a human into a mer requires that the human either consume the flesh of an Astartes, or drink a large amount of blood from an astartes. The transformation is slow and takes place over the course of several months, with the final stages causing the human to return to the site where they’d consumed flesh or blood of an astartes, where they shed any clothing they are wearing and venture into the ocean… There they shed their human form, transforming into a mer. Your human hasn’t consumed enough blood or flesh to transform, but your scent and hers are inextricably intertwined.. It is a claim and a warning to other astartes that she is yours, and if they try to poach or kill her, you will come for them… It’s similar to wedding vows for humans, though truly permanent.” Khopesh explained with an amused hum.

“Married?” You and Nadesir splutter at the same time. You’re internally reeling at the thought. You’re quite fond of him, yes. But… Married? You’re not entirely sure how you feel about that. At least Nadesir looks as shocked and surprised as you are. You’re pretty sure he didn’t meant to lay claim to you on purpose. You also… Find yourself… Not minding the idea of being his… It also means that he is yours, or at least a piece of his heart? You mentally shake yourself. Once this older brother of Nadesir leaves, you’re going to ask him out right about what sort of relationship he’s interested in pursuing with you, and what if anything he’d like to do with this… Bond between you and him. 

“I… I do feel very much for you and have been courting you! I just. Uhm. I didn’t mean to marry you before starting to date you. I was going to ask, later!” Nadesir blurted out, sinking up to his nose in the water, blushing darkly at you “If… If our courtship went well.” 

Khopesh dipped out of sight, but you could still see his dark eyes watching you and him, laughter in them as well. You ignored his watchful gaze and answered earnestly “I care for you deeply as well. If you asked me now if I wanted to marry you, my answer would be not yet, as we’ve only known each other for a couple of months. Perhaps we should come back to the accidentally married thing in a few months?”

Nadesir nodded, a small smile lighting up his handsome features beautifully “That sounds like a good idea… And not to change the topic so quickly but I really would like to know what’s in the basket you brought? Whatever it is smells really good.”

You are happy to pivot to a different topic of conversation. This relationship between you and Nadesir is very  new, and he’s one of a handful of people you’ve ever dated. You don’t want to rush things. “I brought some  human food that I really enjoy, for the two of us to share. You mentioned wanting to try some, so I brought a bunch of different kinds of snack-type foods to try.”

Nadesir beams and follows you up onto the shore as you sit down, spreading out the blanket and patting a spot for him to sit next to you “That’s wonderful! Thank you.” He murmurs, eagerly reaching into the now open basket, helping you pull out the many small dishes you’d brought.