#So I started a thing

[craftingcreatures]

Spectember 2023

For this year’s Spectember I present to you the world of Earth, about 15 million years in the future, during the Ultracene epoch. This is a little project I’ve been working on on-and-off, and which I often use as a kind of “dumping ground” for spec concepts that don’t fit into any of my other projects. It’s a mixed bag of good, bad, and mediocre, and over the course of this month (weekends excluded; I do have a schedule, but it’s anyone’s guess if I can keep to it) I’ll be showing you some of my favourite concepts from this project.

DAY 1: Welcome to the Ultracene

15 million years in the future, the world has changed. The Anthropogenic mass extinction has brought an end to the Pleistocene Glaciation, and the world is now hot, wet, and verdant, much as it was in the ancient Paleocene. The deposition of massive amounts of greenhouse gases by humanity irreversibly altered atmospheric composition, and the subsequent high global temperatures melted ice sheets and caused sea levels to rise by nearly 100 meters. Vast tracts of South America, Eurasia, and Australia are now underwater. As a result of the increase in the ocean’s surface area and temperature, the atmosphere has much more water vapor in it, leading to higher precipitation across the globe; deserts like the Sahara are much wetter, sandy wastes replaced by rolling savannahs and grasslands.

The continents have changed, as well. Tectonic activity has led to the collision of western Africa with southern Europe, closing the strait of Gibraltar and raising up the Castillian Mountains where the western Mediterranean used to be. East Africa has broken away from the mainland to form a new island continent, Somalia. And Arabia has crashed into Iran, opening the strait of Suez into the Indian Ocean and pushing up the Zagros Mountains until they rival the Himalayas in height. In the western and southern Pacific Ocean, volcanic activity has led to the generation of new island chains and the enlargement of old ones. Australia has drifted north and collided with New Guinea. And so on and so forth.

The changing climate and colliding continents, combined with the action of humans in the modern era, have had serious effects on the biogeography of animal species. North America, for example, is now home to old-world pythons and monitor lizards. Descendants of the hippopotamus thrive in the swamps and coastlines of South America, and Elephants and Hyenas once again range across the palearctic, from Spain to Siberia. Humanity itself has succumbed to the ravages of time, having been devastated by mosquito-borne illnesses in the aftermath of the apocalypse; but the world they created lives on, forever bearing the indelible mark of the upright ape.

Over the next month, I will take you on an adventure through the wildlife of this strange new world. From Arctic Macaques to Arboreal Sharks, from the austere grasslands of Greenland to the stormy Argentine Sea, this world is at once intimately familiar and undeniably alien. Come with me, my friends, on this journey to the future. Welcome... to the Ultracene.

(Map modified from one created by Reddit user m4nu. I moved the continents around according to my basic understanding of tectonic plate movement speeds and directions, and added biomes where I thought they should go. Take it with a grain of salt - I study ecology, not geology or meteorology.)

[bitchfitch]

writing advice for characters with a missing eye: dear God does losing an eyes function fuck up your neck. Ever since mine crapped out I've been slowly and unconsciously shifting towards holding my head at an angle to put the good eye closer to the center. and human necks. are not meant to accommodate that sorta thing.

[spitblaze]

[guy who doesnt watch shows voice] yeah ive been meaning to watch that show

[riacte]

not romantic not platonic but a secret third thing [what would happen between earth and the moon if the earth stopped spinning as illustrated by xkcd randall munroe]

[bored-boring-and-tired]

i propose that instead of pride month, we have queer year (queer people are treated like actual people all year long)

edit: @ilackhumanqualities wins best addition to this post

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The math just adds up!

[mroddmod]

rough seas

[illusioncanthurtme--art]

Physically? I am sitting in my bedroom. Mentally? Spiritually? I AM DEAD ON THE FLOOR!!!!! THESE TWO HAVE KILLED ME!!!!

(Another drawing! This was originally attempt #1 at drawing stan, and then fiddleford just showed up. Kinda feels like them five minutes after the above acting like nothing happened though, so it works sdjkgkjfshj)

[chloesimaginationthings]

"They call it the MANGLE" - FNAF 2 phone guy

[wonkyjaw]

Quilt update. This is split somewhere in the blues and I have to sew that together and then I have to add one more yellow row to the top. Then the quilt top is finally, finally done.

[hinamie]

I don't want to regret the way I lived

[cozylittleartblog]

"content creator" is a corporate word.

we are artists.

[ash-and-starlight]

taking the crumbs of venetian agna qel’a chewing biting gnashing on them until there aren’t even bones left and then spitting out. carnevale northern water tribe style

[spitblaze]

considering how many transmascs were legitimately way angrier BEFORE starting T and have since calmed down significantly have we perhaps considered that maybe the reason so many cis dudes are angry and aggressive isn't because of testosterone but maybe. like. personal issues. unmet needs. a social climate that teaches them that there are only like three acceptable emotional outlets for men max and one of them is being angry and shouting

[clarisse-doodles]

inspired by this post, in which Damian does not know what Vine is

[sqrkyclean]

being vulnerable for a second to use my pooltoy furry oc to convey what recovering from contamination ocd has been like while undergoing hrt.