#The Vanishing City
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"The Vanishing City," Clyde Caldwell cover art for TSR's AD&D Adventure Book #15 by Allen Varney, 1988. That book was an adaptation of Varney's 1987 D&D Mystara module M4: Five Coins for a Kingdom. The same art was reused in 1989 for the AD&D Forgotten Realms computer game Hillsfar by SSI.
#D&D#Dungeons & Dragons#Clyde Caldwell#fantasy#fantasy art#The Vanishing City#dnd#knight#castle#fantasy castle#TSR Adventure Book#Allen Varney#Five Coins for a Kingdom#Mystara#Hillsfar#Forgotten Realms#SSI#Strategic Simulations Inc#Strategic Simulations#1980s#AD&D#horse#Dungeons and Dragons#TSR
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The Vanishing City by Clyde Caldwell
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a no showdown selkie AU does mean that something like this might honestly happen
#pitch posts#tommy's stickmen tag#tommy's aus#tommy's stick!alan#selkie sticks au#alan: these are my children‚ SC and the two infamous criminals who terrorized stick city for years that randomly vanished a few months ago#king is at first deeply concerned that he'd allow them around children#but then you see them interact with SC for two seconds and it's clear they're trying but have No Fucking Clue how to handle a baby sibling#pitch's art
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how many murder robots can there realistically be in dwemer ruins? I understand it from a game making perspective but like... they're meant to be cities. people lived there. I suppose the animunculi would have some use as an army and maybe as guards but aside from that what's the point?
most of the automatons have to be much more benign. cleaners and errand-runners and assistants in laboratories. I want to see those robots. elder scrolls six get on this
#I'm not even going to TALK about the spinning blade death traps in the main streets#the dwemer (presumably) did not KNOW they were going to become a vanished culture with their home bases viewed as resources#even if they meant to disappear#they did not build their cities with defending shit they would no longer need from nosy adventurers millennia later in mind#I'm ruminating on the defence systems of dwemer cities. considering. rotating in my mind#fay talks#fay talks dwemer#skyrim#tesblr#the elder scrolls#tes
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Book recs: Queer science fiction, part 2
There is a lot of queer sf out there, and I read a lot of sf. When I started working on this list, I quickly realized it was impossible to include all that I’ve read and enjoyed in one single rec post. Thus, this is my second queer sci-fi book rec post. For queer sci-fi part 1, click here!
A note: queer here does not necessarily mean “guarantee of an f/f or m/m ship with a happy ending”, but rather simply a significant presence of queerness. Some of the books feature no romance but has a same gender attracted/trans/a-spectrum lead, or features an m/f relationship with bisexual, trans or aro/ace characters, or simply features a world-building which is heavily queer inclusive in ways that don’t always compare to our own ideas of sexuality and gender. I have however disqualified works where the only queer presence is along the lines of “gay best friend”, word of god, and a blink and you’ll miss it confirmation that never comes up again.
For more details on the books, continue under the readmore. Titles marked with * are my personal favorites. And as always, feel free to share your own recs in the notes!
If you want more book recs, check out my masterpost of rec lists!
Empress of Forever by Max Gladstone
Vivian Liao is a highly successful innovator, but she may have bitten off more than she can chew and fears the government may be coming for her. As she goes into hiding, she attempts to pull off one last stunt that could fix everything - but something goes wrong, and suddenly Vivian finds herself waking up in the far future, under attack by an army of robots in space. Hoping to find her way back home, Vivian must assemble a crew of dangerous outlaws to help her hunt down the Empress of Forever, the all-powerful entity who pulled her into the future. Lesbian main character.
The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older
Novella. On the outpost of a human colony by Jupiter, a man has gone missing. On the case to find him - and figure out why he disappeared in the first place - is enigmatic investigator Mossa. Her search leads her to the colony's university, and with it, her ex-girlfriend Pleiti, expert on Earth's pre-collapse ecosystem. Together they come to realize that the case is much larger than just a missing man, and could decide the outcome of humanity's very future. Sapphic.
My Heart is Human by Reese Hogan
Nine years ago, all complex technology was made illegal. This complicates life for Joel, young transgender single father, as a bionic just uploaded itself into his brain without consent. Scared of losing his daughter, Joel tries to keep the bionic secret while using it to fix his life, but things quickly get more complicated as the bionic gains more and more control of his body. A bit simplistic in writing style but makes a lot of cool parallels of bodily autonomy to Joel’s experiences as a transman. M/M romance.
The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez*
A strange child lands on an isolated planet, scaring its inhabitants into handing him over into the hands of Nia Amani. As captain of a transport ship, Nia is not only the planet's only contact with the outside world, she is also a woman out of time, years compressing into months as she travels through space at high speeds. Now responsible for a child who doesn't speak and in a galaxy that wishes them ill, she must rethink exactly what she wants to do with her life, and what she's prepared to give up. Features multiple major queer characters.
The Abyss Surrounds Us (The Abyss Surrounds Us duology) by Emily Skrutskie
Young Adult. Tumblr classic back in the day! Cassandra Leung's family are keepers of sea monsters, genetically engineered and trained to protect ships from pirates. On her first solo mission, Cas finds herself kidnapped by pirates seeking to obtain their own monster. Now they need her help to train it. As Cas seeks to regain her freedom, she must also reckon with unfortunate growing feelings for one of the pirates keeping her under guard. Sapphic.
Ancestral Night (White space series) by Elizabeth Bear
Haimey Dz is part of a three-man salvage crew in space (one of the crew being the sentient spaceship himself). When the small crew comes across a derelict ship that proves the scene of a horrible crime, they must go on the run as they seek to uncover a conspiracy that involves both ancient secrets older than humanity itself, and Haimey's own hidden past. On their tail is a dangerous space pirate, convinced that Haimey is the key to it all. Lesbian main character.
Ancillary Justice (Imperial Radch) by Ann Leckie*
A space opera in which sentient spaceships can walk the ground in stolen human bodies, so called ancillaries. One of these ancillaries, the sole survivor after the complete destruction of her ship and crew, is one the hunt for revenge against the most powerful woman in the empire. This series does very cool things with gender!
The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin
Five New Yorkers find themselves experiencing strangness as the city itself begins to wake up. They are its soul, its avatars and its protectors, and now they must keep it safe as it wakes as something alien and monstrous attempts to kill it before it's even fully alive. Mix of sci-fi, supernatural, and lovecraftian horror. Multiple pov characters of varying queer identities.
Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb series) by Tamsyn Muir*
Gideon, raised as a swordswoman by unfriendly nuns, would rather run away and make her own life, but her services are needed. The Reverend Daughter, Gideon's childhood nemesis, has been invited to a trial to win a place as an immortal by the Emperor's side, and she's in need of a bodyguard. Listen, if you’re on tumblr I probably don’t need to explain this book to you. Trust me when I say it’s exactly as good as people claim. Humorous and spooky but also absolutely gut wrenching and clever with a lot of political commentary. There are also, indeed, lesbian necromancers in space.
A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe (Salvagers trilogy) by Alechia Dow
In a universe run on science and magic working hand in hand, Boots Elsworth makes a living selling fake treasure maps and Nilah Brio is a racer. When one of Boots' maps turns out to be more real than expected and Nilah has to go on the run after having been framed for a murder, the two find themselves on the same spaceship, working with Boots' old captain to find the rumored treasure and reveal the conspiracy its hiding before the people hunting them catch up. Features a main f/f relationship.
The Company of Death by Elisa Hansen*
A wild mix of genres, where a zombie apocalypse has struck and vampires gather up humans to keep their food source from going extinct, a robot travels across America with a young man she’s tasked to keep safe, and former-vampire-hunter-recent-zombie Emily teams up with Death himself to stop the apocalypse. Features bi and ace characters! Bonus rec: the author also runs the youtube channel Maven of the Eventide, where she talks about various vampire media. Check it out!
Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki
Shizuka Satomi is a violin master who made a deal with a devil, and who must now save her soul by delivering the souls of her students in place of her own. Lan Tran is a mother and a refugee of an alien war, hiding on Earth with her children in a donut shop. Katrina Nguyen is a trangender runaway and violin player, in the need of a mentor. As their paths cross, their lives change forever. I would categorize this as cozy, however it does also deal with some pretty heavy themes.
The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson*
Young adult. Young artist June Costa lives in Palmares Tres, a beautiful, matriarchal city relying heavily on tradition, one of which is the Summer King. The most recent Summer King is Enki, a bold boy and fellow artist. With him at her side, June seeks to finally find fame and recognition through her art, breaking through the generational divide of her home. But growing close to Enki is dangerous, because he, like all Summer Kings, is destined to die. While the main relationship is m/f, it features a worldbuilding where bisexuality is the norm, which is portrayed in its major characters.
The Gilded Abyss by Rebecca Thorne
Nix Marr is a soldier and damned good at it, but that doesn't prepare her for her next mission: bodyguard for Subarch Kessandra, beloved royal and Nix's bitter ex, as she ventures into the underwater city of Fall to seek the cause of a bloody murder spree and a possible deadly contagion. But Kessandra has enemies, the answers she seeks marking her as a possible threat for the nation's rulers. On their way in an isolated and enclosed underwater ship toward Fall, the contagion catches up, and Nix will have to put her hurt feelings aside if the two are to arrive alive. Sci-fi with flavors of horror and the supernatural.
Adaptation (Adaptation duology) by Malinda Lo
Young adult. Strangeness is afoot: all over America, birds are hurling themselves against airplanes and causing crashes. As flights are canceled and travelers stranded, Reese and her debate partner and longtime crush David are forced to head home by car. Accident strikes, and the two wake in a military hospital with no memory of the last month. Returning home, strangeness follows the two, especially as Reese encounters the mysterious and beautiful Amber Gray, who may know more than she lets on. Features a bisexual love triangle.
Lizard Radio by Pat Schmatz
Young adult. Fifteen-year-old Kivali, abandoned at birth and adopted by the nonconformist artist Sheila, has as a girl in boys clothes never fit in with the other kids. Sheila has always been supportive, until she one day sends Kivali off to CropCamp. While Kivali chafes at the strict rules of the camp, she also finds herself making friends, and maybe more, for the first time. Strange coming of age story, featuring exploration of gender and sexuality in a dystopian setting.
Isle of Broken Years by Jane Fletcher
Young spanish noblewoman Catalina thinks she’s done for when the ship she’s traveling on is attacked by pirates and she’s captured. Things gets worse when the entire crew is stranded on an inhospitable island where time works strangely, dangerous monsters terrorize the woods and something alien stops them from leaving. Strong Lost vibes. Lesbian romance. Admittedly quite indulgent but very fun and creative.
All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries) by Marta Wells*
After having hacked its own governor module, SecUnit uses its small amount of new freedom to secretly download and watch as much media as it can between doing its job guarding humans. But when the scientists it’s been charged with keeping safe come under attack, it must make a choice about whether to continue keeping its freedom secret or risk it all to save them. The series features both novellas and full length novels, and balances humor with scathing critique of capitalism. While it can be debated whether SecUnit counts as agender, asexual and aromantic, as it is a robot (I leave this up to individual judgmenet), however the series also has a diverse cast overall.
The Quiet at the End of the World by Lauren James*
Young adult. After the spread of a global virus causing infertility, teenagers Lowrie and Shen are now the youngest humans alive as the adults around them race to find a cure. As they investigate the ruins of the world, the two come across records from the past, of how grief stricken people turned to raising artificial children in apps and how these 'children’ developed, and through these records the two learn of their history. Bisexual main character.
Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah*
In a near future America, inmates on death row or with life sentences in private prisons can choose to participate in death matches for entertainment. If they survive long enough - a rare case indeed - they regain their freedom. Among these prisoners are Loretta Thurwar and Hamara “Hurricane Staxxx” Stacker, partners behind the scenes and close to the deadline of a possible release - if only they can survive for long enough. As the game continues to be stacked against them and protests mount outside, two women fight for love, freedom, and their own humanity. Chain-Gang All-Stars is bleak and unflinching as well as genuinely hopeful in its portrayal of a dark but all to real possible future. Sapphic.
The Disasters by M.K. England
A decade ago, the massive ship House of Wisdom was abandoned in orbit after its entire crew was killed in an outbreak in a matter of hours. Now, Zahra and her people hope to claim the ship as their own by kidnapping the sole survivor to gain access to its systems. But the danger of the House of Wisdom is far from gone. Horror, no major romance but has a major gay character.
Nax Hall may be a hotshot pilot, but that doesn't stop him from being expelled from the prestigious Ellis Station Academy in less than 24 hours. But as he's to be transported back to Earth alongside other failed students, the school is viciously attacked. Nax and the three other students only barely escape, and are left as the only witnesses - and the perfect scapegoats. Now they must go on the run together and find a way to clear their names. Bisexual main character.
Dust (Jacob's Ladder series) by Elizabeth Bear
In a dying spaceship, orbiting an equally dying sun, noblewoman Perceval waits for her own gruesome death. Having been captured by an opposing house, her wings severed and life forfeit, Perceval’s execution is imminent - until a young servant charged with her care proves to be Perceval’s long lost sister. To stop a war between houses likely to doom them all, the two flee together across a crumbling, dangerous spaceship. At its core waits Jacob Dust, god and angel, all that remains of what the ship once was. And he wants Perceval. Sapphic and asexual characters, however be prepared for kinda fucked up relationships.
Under Fortunate Stars by Ren Hutchings
Two ships have gotten stuck in a rift in space, isolated outside of time. One of them is the Jonah, a ship dodging a generations long war against an alien species, carrying a small crew of smugglers, an unintended passenger, and a hijacker. The other ship is the Gallion, which arrived from 150 years in the future carrying an alien ambassador - and whose crew is awestruck at meeting the heroes of the Jonah, known to have ended the war. As the two crews struggle to understand each other's timelines, they must also work together to leave the rift before they're stranded forever. Multiple queer characters, however the main romance plotlines are m/f.
One Last Stop by Casey McQiston*
Twenty-three-year-old August has a lot to deal with. She just moved to New York, got new job at a pancake diner, and acquired several slightly chaotic roommates. So what if she likes to flirt with the pretty girl on her subway commute? But Jane turns out to be more than just a charming stranger: she's lost in time, displaced from the 70s, and unable to leave the subway. Romance with a dash of timetravel sci-fi, One Last Stop is a delightful story of love and queer community.
The Women Could Fly by Megan Giddings*
In an alternate version of our present, the witch hunt never ended. Women are constantly watched and expected to marry young so their husbands can keep an eye on them. When she was fourteen, Josephine’s mother disappeared, leveling suspicions at both mother and daughter of possible witchcraft. Now, nearly a decade and a half later, Jo, in trying to finally accept her missing mother as dead, decides to follow up on a set of seemingly nonsensical instructions left in her will. Features a bisexual lead!
Salvation Day by Kali Wallace
A decade ago, the massive ship House of Wisdom was abandoned in orbit after its entire crew was killed in an outbreak in a matter of hours. Now, Zahra and her people hope to claim the ship as their own by kidnapping the sole survivor to gain access. But the danger of the House of Wisdom is far from gone. Horror, no major romance but has a major gay character.
Alien: Echo by Mira Grant
Young adult. Twin sisters Olivia and Viola's parents are both xenobiologists, bringing them all over the galaxy. Most recently they’ve settled on a new colony world to study its life, but it proves more dangerous than they could’ve ever imagined. Under attack from alien monsters, the sisters must keep each pther alive while also coming to terms with a dark family secret. Sapphic horror. Part of the Alien franchise but stands well on its own.
#nella talks books#empress of forever#a mimicking of known successes#my heart is human#the vanished birds#the abyss surrounds us#ancestral night#imperial radch#the city we became#the locked tomb#a big ship at the edge of the universe#the company of death#light from uncommon stars#the summer prince#the gilded abyss#adaptation#lizard radio#isle of broken years#the murderbot diaries#the quiet at the end of the world#chain-gang all-stars#the disasters#under fortunate stars#one last stop#the women could fly#salvation day#alien echo#jacobs ladder
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spending two days on a mountain felt so good I am seriously considering a social media break
#personal blogging#also considering moving out of the city and making major lifestyle changes but yknow small social media break could happen first#it was amazing how instantly my ibs cleared up and my anxiety vanished#i'm about to join the ranks of the obnoxious hiking people
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I know I bang on about this pretty regularly but god every time I do the Thaumanova fractal I think about the city that had been above it. I think about people trying to figure out what was going on, if it was just a light show, or if someone had messed with power crystals in the core again.
But then the stones start breaking apart.
Creatures blink in and out of existence, and so do people standing three feet away from you.
The reactor having a city high above it is a throw away piece of lore. Only really mentioned in one place and then swept under the rug. Hundreds of people displaced or killed, the first city that was victim to Scarlet's actions.
Everyone remembers Lion's Arch.
#bunny rambles#thaumanova#thaumanova reactor#I do think that the Uncat fractal is the Thaumanova city cube#or what's left of it anyway#and I think being a fractal echo Dessa doesn't remember that's where it had been#yes the raving asura was important to her but the city was still a CITY then#and then she vanished#that's why it's uncategorized... it's an empty husk of a city with only one resident left#and that resident is mad
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I wanna be a vanisher so I can go from place to place without anyone trying to talk to me.
Like ik it’s my fault for being really friendly, but sometimes (often) I am in a rush😭
#kotlc#keeper of the lost cities#kotlc thoughts#biana vacker#kotlc biana#kotlc vanishers#vanishers#onemoreattempt op
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Debbie collecting the receipts left, right and centre
#jumblr#i remember when roots was shadowbanned and her acconts vanished. a low moment and hoestly terrifying#also shocking.... bisan accidentally went full mask off#👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀#also “our” dear city... ummm#beirut is in Lebanon not Palestine (by any potential boarder discussions)#unless ... oh wait... maybe she thinks Hezb0llah might take Beirut and join with her friends in h4mas to become one#she has no claim over lebanon...
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Being brought up on a farm and only ever going back indoors to head right back out again for my whole life, the decreasing amount of insects has been extremely noticeable and it's been going on for years. Of course it's been worrying with the climate catastrophe, and once I became a beekeeper and learned more about my village's local flora it became even more glaring.
So imagine my surprise this year when there are more insects than I can count. Sitting on my porch (practically my room during summers) I'm noticing species I haven't seen since I was at least a young teenager, and there are more butterflies of different varieties than I even remember from my childhood!
There are so many bees flying around too, probably from the hives down by the old homestead buildings by the church and school, owned by the woman I know from the local beekeeper's association.
What's more is that this year there has been no drought OR flooding, so there are a lot more flowers blooming for longer, and everyone in my village as well as the surrounding villages are reporting a burst of activity in their hives... as well as higher activity from the wild bees and pollinators. For the first time in years it's starting to resemble the way it was when I was younger.
All that is to say, the climate catastrophe is real, and in my area it's causing a lot more violent thunderstorms... but oh my god all this reminds me why I persist despite the despair that tries to dig its claws in.
I may not be able to do major change on a global scale, but you can bet me and everyone here will at least try and support this little place. We can keep going in the fight against the municipality that wants to urbanize at the cost of our precious biodiversity, and we can continue to fight to keep out the cities that tries to enroach on us and get closer.
It is rare for villages in Götaland to remain this free from urbanization despite being nestled right in the middle of multiple major cities, and there's no excuse to destroy what little there is left of it down here in the south.
#whats more is that its getting easier and easier to buy local produce and meat and materials#the very thing both my parents and many others had to give up on when industrialization hit the final nail in the coffin#the thing that killed my farfar who inherited the old farm that stood no chance against industrialization#theres so much left to be done of course#for one it will be hard to reintroduce the flora thats vanished over the years#as a result of climate change and utterly botched use of the land and fields#not to mention the forest industry placing forest keepers in a position where they have to sell lumber in order to keep going#but god fucking damnit im not going to lose hope#i refuse to pass on without having at least tried to keep this place safe#the municipality can talk all they want about making it so more people can live here#out of all the locales within its borders we have several major towns one airport and access to two major cities#and YET we also have this one place of relatively untouched countryside with farmland and high biodiversity#without being rural thanks to the railroad and public transport#why shouldnt we preserve that! when the surrounding municipalities are constantly becoming hard to live in without cars!#theyll have to pry it from my cold dead fingers#silvi talks#im sorry i have a Lot of feelings about this
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Is there even any infrastructure for humans visiting merfolk underwater settlements? Or are they too deep for humans to comfortably dive/swim in? Or maybe the merfolk just say, "of course we don't have any support for you under several hundred feet of water. literally why would you even try?"
there's not any infrastructure for human (or any other sophont besides gorgons that already live there, anyhow) visitation! mostly that's because this is a bit of a first contact situation, albeit one that was born more out of political isolationism and not necessarily caring about the land-based sophonts...
basically, the current political entity overseeing all existing or known merfolk settlement is a fairly old one, that slowly grew from a smaller polity into a more all-encompassing unit by swallowing up its neighbors. it's more of a complicated shell game than this necessarily makes it seem - like i said, a lot of time has passed, and significant cultural shifts have happened within that time, as well as shifts and establishment on how its government and policies would function, so it's a little bit more of a larger conglomerate containing within it many smaller governments, who are allowed independent control of the populations within their allotted territories, just so long as they take up the job of translating the broader governmental laws and taxes down onto that population. the details are rather vague, and so long as the results are what the larger governmental body asked, the intermediary areas are allowed a lot of different ways to interpret what that means.
however, one of the things that got lost in that shuffle of politic and history was the presence of merfolk inland. historically, merfolk have actually periodically spent time inland! usually it was still very tied to the water, being more like seasonal beachcombing using temporary shelters and housing, but they utilized the land a lot more for potential resources and ways to live. the nomadic families especially used to take advantage of these opportunities, and there was much more interaction with landfolk in these contexts.
the exact way it was lost varies, in that not everyone agrees what came first or what was the reason or who did what, but most of this was probably limited and then lost due to the larger governmental body, in the process of colonization, banning merfolk from going up onto the land in order to prevent political enemies and refugees from fleeing up and onto the land, using it as a base of operations, or otherwise using it as a means to escape to other bodies of saltwater. like i said, these periods inland were mostly seasonal, and merfolk did still majorly depend on the water, so what merfolk did make settlements inland mostly ended up vanishing over time anyways - either through simply vanishing into landfolk populations, or through dying out, it wasn't particularly sustainable.
but, time still went on, and this ban remained, and somehow it slowly disseminated into popular thought that the land was just not really very interesting in the first place. sure, merfolk knew there was stuff up there, and other animals and even fairly smart animals, but that doesn't necessarily make it worth investigating. travel over land is hard for them, and it's hard for them to live on land for long periods of time, and everything that they need and depend on is in the ocean anyways. there's a lot less space to the land, there's nothing that would interest merfolk, it would be uncomfortable and painful for them to visit (a lot of myths and legends about the land and what lived there got started in this time, with a lot of focus on undead monsters that had dried out and were lit from within by the hateful light of the sun, and a lot of merfolk made a habit of coming up with scary stories about the weird things that must've lived in such an extreme environment), and there was a lot more political movements and such focused on other merfolk to begin with.
even moreso because merfolk still, technically, did go out onto land? it just wasn't very large portions of land, that is. mostly they would set up on much smaller islands and atolls, which would mostly be used for manufacturing or more technical jobs that required being done in the air. they really just needed the space, not anything specific already on the land itself, and the space was all functional, very little exploration or relaxation areas. sometimes these were used specifically to produce novelty items or experiences, but usually this didn't go much further than exploring the uniqueness of being in open air for the first time, and wasn't really pursued as much more than that.
so merfolk still knew the land was important and needed for ecological functioning - something they had learned the hard way, after an earlier period in their history pre-unifying government became known for a particular and acute ecological disaster, felt even harder by all merfolk on account of the properties of water and everyone living in the ocean. they view the land as functional in its own right - a needed recycling facility that operates itself and helps keep them alive, and one in a place that they had no interest in and could set aside for such tasks.
they also knew there was life up there, even intelligent life, but considering the period in time when merfolk ceased interacting with land-based societies, and the predominant view that what makes something sapient for them being a multiplicity and plural nature to it, on top of the complex interweave of language and meaning, they basically just viewed it as "smart animals". i've compared it before to like if we actually discovered warrior cats was real and there was a population of feral cats in a national park that had their own tiny society. it's interesting, for sure, but it wouldn't be the kind of thing that they might feel too passionately about, and can easily pass it off as a curiosity and a thought experiment all of its own.
the fact that this has changed at all, and especially in such a small time frame and with such major turnaround and abrupt interest in the outer governing body is actually really odd, and a major question and mystery in what i'm writing! the starting interest happened only just in the previous generation, and now they're making major steps towards introducing themselves to land-based civilizations in just miranda's generation, even to the point of sending her inland as an ambassador and an active participant in this shift.
most people on the land already knew that someone was in the ocean and actively preventing anyone else from crossing it or even getting particularly close, but they had no context for this any more than anyone else, and thus they might not raise as many questions about why this is happening than they should, especially since they don't know merfolk history. even most merfolk don't necessarily have all of the details of this shift, but they do know more than nothing, and certainly can note how odd it is and how weird such a change is.
likewise, neither civilization has very much to accommodate for the other, given as they barely even knew of each other by the time they were already designing how it was laid out, so the issues humans have accessing merfolk spaces is at least mutual, if nothing else. it's also something very likely to change over time, depending on how said first contact goes.
#all the care guide says is 'biomass'#asks#brothermanwill#theres also the aspect of. said governmental body enforcing that border and ban on contact#and majorly affecting the history and development of everyone else who wasnt a merfolk#because the ocean is now entirely inaccessible#many empires have ceased to exist because Oops You Need Naval Power For That#many places dependent on fishing have also vanished too tbh-#most of humanity's big cities and cutting edge technology is confined the usual river valleys#and other towns and cities exist but they are much less interconnected and have much more varying levels of whats available#the only way ''over'' the oceans is through setting up teleportation gates with everything they need on both ends#because making flying machines just. ah. results in them vanishing and Never Coming Back#but also yeah unless you use magic theres just no way down to most merfolk areas if you dont breathe water#theyre fairly deep too. even the more shallow settlements are very much deeper than most humans are ready for#and only those island stations are anywhere that you might be able to regularly return to the surface from#theres also the issue of magic which is. another reason why a waterbreathing spell isnt Easy#magic and especially magic that affects the body is so complicated and so easy to mess up#and when it messes up. it messes up Bad.#anyhow thank you for the question!! i am. chatty.#the gorgons who settled underwater just live like merfolk tbh#and thus their opinions arent really meaningfully different#i dont think they even know there are gorgons inland tbh. not sure they would care if they did.
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7.30.2022. Reading + writing at Bryant Park.
#new york#young and in love in new york city#new york city#nyc#summer#Bryant park#vanishing New York#books
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Today is the only day you can post this
#the flash#newspaper#2024 april 25#flash missing vanishes in crisis#central city citizen#cw flash#red skies vanish
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twst dividers
#twisted wonderland dividers#twst dividers#dividers#twisted wonderland#twst#heartslabyul#savanaclaw#octavinelle#scarabia#pomefiore#ignihyde#diasomnia#preset: silk city#i had an ask about this but it vanished#if that was you#enjoy
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Three Loaves of Bread, Athens, 2024.
#john perivolaris#city#black and white#greece#europe#urban#street#blackandwhite#athens#phone booth#graffiti#loaves#bread#vanishing point#Leica M11 Monochrom#Summicron f2 35mm
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LMAO nah I’m going into hiding I legit ruined it 💀
I’m gonna find you 👹🔪
#my hopes are all vanished 😭😭#you owe me#football#macllisters#liverpool fc#lfc#liverpool#Manchester city#city
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