#amazon is a mosquito

[procrastinating-falcon]

Crazy how in media, it’s the Amazon that’s made to seem as “oooh scary” when most of the fucked up giant fauna is in North America

[dachmanarts]

Katchy Indoor Insect Trap: The Ultimate Solution for Pesky Fruit Flies and Mosquitoes Check out the Amazon link: https://amzn.to/3XbBqjm

[bonzatrading]

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[atavist]

Ayahuasca, fortune-tellers, a heroic dog, and more: Inside the race to find four children who survived a plane crash in the Amazon. “Mayday,” issue no. 147, is now available:

Disoriented, Lesly unbuckled her seat belt and wrenched Cristin from her mother’s arms. She used one of the baby’s diapers to stem the flow of blood coming from her head. The smell of fuel filled her nostrils. Debris was scattered everywhere. Lesly saw that Hermán Mendoza and Hernando Murcia were dead, but that Soleiny and Tien were unharmed.

With Cristin in her arms, Lesly led Soleiny and Tien out of the plane. A few yards away, she built a makeshift camp, stringing up a towel and a mosquito net to keep the constant rain and bugs at bay. Then the four children waited to be rescued. Tien kept asking when their mother would wake up. Lesly worried that her brother was too young to grasp the concept of death, so she said she didn’t know.

No one came for them, and Lesly knew it wouldn’t be long before predators arrived, attracted by the bodies. So she gathered a few of Magdalena’s clothes, some farina she found in Mendoza’s bag, and juice, soda, and candy from elsewhere on the plane. She salvaged a few other items that seemed useful: scissors, a first aid kit, diapers, a baby bottle. Then she led her siblings west, using the sun as their guide.

[sudaca-swag]

the south american mosquitos summer 2024 edition are hands down robots released by tesla to spy on our natural resources or some german idiot scientist was resucitating eggs from the jurassic that he found in the amazon rainforest

[uncharismatic-fauna]

Good Golly Miss Amazon Molly!

The Amazon molly (Poecilia formosa) is a species of fish found only in the Tuxpan River, the Rio Grande, and the Nueces River in northern Mexico and the southern United States. Within these rivers, P. formosa typically prefers slower moving streams and ditches with plenty of vegetation, and are usually found in freshwater systems.

Amazon mollies are rather small and plain. The body is teardrop-shaped, and adults only grow up to 10 cm (3 in) long. They are mainly silver in color, although they may have rows of small, light brown spots running down their sides. In addition, some individuals may have black spots along their dorsal and tail fins.

Like most other mollies, the Amazon molly is an omnivore. They may feed on algae, seaweed, insects, and mosquito larvae. In turn, they themselves can be prey for larger aquatic insects like giant water bugs, other fishes, alligators, frogs, egrets and herons, and racoons. To avoid predators, P. formosa tends to stay in groups where it is less easy to be singled out.

Perhaps the most interesting feature of the Amazon molly are its reproductive habits. This species is entirely female, and reproduces via a process called gynogenesis. First, females are courted by males from other molly species such as P. latipinna, P. mexicana, P. latipunctata, or P. sphenops. Mating triggers the release of eggs, but the male's sperm is destroyed before it can fertilize them. Instead, the male gets the advantage of increased attractiveness to females of their own species, as these females are more likely to mate with males that have already mated with P. formosa.

After mating, the female broods her eggs for 30-40 days. She then gives live birth to anywhere from 60 to 100 fry, which are all clones of their mother. These young recieve no further parental care, but are fairly independent and are fully capable of reproduction after about 1-6 months, depending on the temperature of the water; warmer waters increase the rate of maturity. Individuals can live anywhere from 1-3 years in the wild.

Conservation status: the IUCN considers the Amazon molly to be Least Concern. However, one of the species that are used to trigger reproduction, the broadspotted molly (Poecilia latipunctata) is Critically Endangered. Primary threats to the Amazon molly include habitat degradation or loss due to construction and damming.

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Photos

Dr. Manfred Schartl

[splatoonpolls]

If you’re a fan. DO NOT SPOIL in the reblogs or comments

[petermorwood]

I first read this book when I was about ten years old - a senior cousin's copy - and finding a scan on the Comic Book Plus website let me refresh memories long ago consigned to the furthest recesses of the Mind Palace (or in my case, Untidy Mind Attic).

Its stories are fairly typical Ripping Yarns, but I'd forgotten just how Keen On Sport "The Champion" was. The title alone should have warned me, because there are six annuals on the website, all full of Hearty, Keen and Sporty goings-on.

I've posted more than once that Organised Sport was at the bottom of any list of Things I Liked To Do. In particular I detested the compulsory variety inflicted at Big School, which started happening when I was about eleven and made recollections of Jim's jolly-good-stuff annual increasingly sour.

A lot of the stories are pure sport, but several others have their sporting angle jammed into action-adventure yarns of completely non-sport-related genres, often with all the subtlety of a square peg put into a round hole with a sledgehammer.

For instance, "Rockfist Rogan of the RAF", hero of World War Two air-combat stories, was better known in his story universe as a boxer than as a fighter pilot.

Despite this, illustrations of aircraft were spot-on - as here, a Mosquito FB Mk VI with Dornier Do.217s overhead and a nosed-over Typhoon Ib in the background, or Spitfire Mk IXs defending B-24 Liberators against Messerschmitt Me.163 rocket fighters (though from the text description they should have been Me.262 jets. Oh well.)

If readers of "The Champion" were anything like readers of the war comics I used to read, the editor would have got a lot of disapproving letters if those illustrations weren't accurate. I might have sent one myself about the Messerschmitt error.

At least I might have done if I'd been of letter-writing age, rather than not yet born...

The Rogan stories aren't the only example of Sport In Unexpected Places. There's "Cap' Dan, the Sporting Pirate" (snrk), "The Racing Rajah", "The Sporting Mountie", "Johnny Fleetfoot the Redskin Winger" (rolleyes) and "Kog's Amazon Marathon", which reads like "Apocalypto" remade with a cast of Keen and Sporty English schoolboys.

And, thanks to how language and attitudes have changed, one story nearly sent a spray of tea across my monitor.

I don't think either the title or the plot would work very well today...

:->

[letterful]

If people know any portion of Herodotus, they almost certainly know the story of Croesus, the immensely rich king of the Lydians, who asked the oracles at Delphi whether he should go to war against the Persians: “The answers both oracles gave to the question were perfectly consistent with each other: they told Croesus that if he made war on the Persians, he would destroy a great empire.” Thus reassured, Croesus attacked and was utterly routed: The empire he would destroy was his own. Herodotus is a treasure chest of such stories and of what he calls thomata, or wonders. He tells us about temple prostitutes in Babylon, the Scythians’ use of cannabis to get high, fathers inadvertently feasting on the flesh of their own sons; he shows us the oases of North Africa (the Ethiopians, he says, “are the tallest and most attractive people in the world”), giant ants that bring up gold from underground, and Amazons who must first kill a man before they can marry; we even glimpse a high-born Persian who cuts off his nose and ears to accomplish a daring undercover military operation, a circumnavigation of Africa, and a foolish king so infatuated with his wife’s beauty that he insists that one of his counselors see her naked. With his usual charm, Herodotus notes that there are so many aromatic spices in Arabia that the entire country “gives off a wonderfully pleasant smell.” His book’s famous second chapter alone, a long excursus on Egypt, describes the use of mosquito netting, how to hunt a crocodile, the legend of Helen in Egypt, the building of pyramids, and three ways to embalm a corpse. After the mortuarial details, he gruesomely adds, “When the wife of an eminent man dies, or any woman who was particularly beautiful or famous, the body is not handed over to the embalmers straight away. They wait three or four days before doing so. The reason for this is to stop the embalmers having sex with the women.”

— MICHAEL DIRDA, from Bound to Please.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The internet is not a (link)dump truck

Monday (October 2), I'll be in Boise to host an event with VE Schwab. On October 7–8, I'm in Milan to keynote Wired Nextfest.

The second decade of the 21st century is truly a bounteous time. My backyard has produced a bumper crop of an invasive species of mosquito that is genuinely innovative: rather than confining itself to biting in the dusk and dawn golden hours, these stinging clouds of flying vampires bite at every hour that God sends:

https://themagnet.substack.com/p/the-magnet-081-war-with-mosquitoes

Here in the twilight of capitalism's planet-devouring, half-century orgy of wanton destruction, there's more news every day than I can possibly write a full blog post about every day, and as with many weeks, I have arrived at Saturday with a substantial backlog of links that didn't fit into the week's "Hey look at this" linkdumps.

Thus, the eighth installment in my ongoing, semiregular series of Saturday linkdumps:

https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/

This week, the miscellany begins with the first hesitant signs of an emerging, post-neoliberal order. The FTC, under direction of the force-of-nature that is Lina Khan, has brought its long-awaited case antitrust case against Amazon. I am very excited about this. Disoriented, even.

When was the last time you greeted every day with a warm feeling because high officials in the US government were working for the betterment of every person in the land? It's enough to make one giddy. Plus, the New York Times let me call Amazon "the apex predator of our platform era"! Now that it's in the "paper of record," it's official:

https://pluralistic.net/ApexPredator

Now, lefties have been predicting capitalism's imminent demise since The Communist Manifesto, but any fule kno that the capitalist word for "crisis" also translates as "opportunity." Like the bedbugs that mutated to thrive in clouds of post-war DDT, capitalism has adapted to each crisis, emerging in a new, more virulent form:

https://boingboing.net/2023/09/30/bedbugs-take-paris.html

But "anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop" (Stein's Law). Perhaps our mistake was in waiting for capitalism to give way to socialism, rather than serving as a transitional phase between feudalism and…feudalism.

What's the difference between feudalism and capitalism? According to Yanis Varoufakis, it comes down to whether we value rents (income you get from owning things) over profits (income you get from doing things):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/28/cloudalists/#cloud-capital

By that metric, the FTC's case against Amazon is really a case against feudalism. Through predatory pricing and acquisitions, Amazon has turned itself into a chokepoint that every merchant, writer and publisher has to pass through in order to reach their customers. Amazon charges a fortune to traverse that chokepoint (estimates range from 45% to 51% of gross revenues) and then forces sellers to raise their prices everywhere else when they hike their Amazon prices so they can afford Amazon's tolls. It's "an economy-wide hidden tax":

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/the-ftc-sues-to-break-up-amazon-over

Now, feudalism isn't a straightforward proposition. Like, are you sure you mean feudalism? Maybe you mean "manorialism" (they're easy to mix up):

https://locusmag.com/2021/01/cory-doctorow-neofeudalism-and-the-digital-manor/

Plus, much of what we know about the "Dark Ages" comes from grifter doofuses like Voltaire, a man who was capable of dismissing the 800 year Holy Roman Empire with a single quip ("neither holy, roman, nor an empire"). But the reality is a lot more complicated, gnarly and interesting.

That's where medievalist Eleanor Janeaga comes in, and her "Against Voltaire, or, the shortest possible introduction to the Holy Roman Empire" is a banger:

https://going-medieval.com/2023/09/29/against-voltaire-or-the-shortest-possible-introduction-to-the-holy-roman-empire/

Now, while it's true that Enlightenment thinkers gave medieval times a bum rap, it's likewise true that a key element of Enlightenment justice is transparency: justice being done, and being seen to be done. One way to distinguish "modern" justice from "medieval" trials is to ask whether the public is allowed to watch the trial, see the evidence, and understand the conclusion.

Here again, there is evidence that capitalism was a transitional phase between feudalism and feudalism. The Amazon trial has already been poisoned by farcical redactions, in which every key figure is blacked out of the public record:

https://prospect.org/power/2023-09-27-redacted-case-against-amazon/

This is part of a trend. The other gigantic antitrust case underway right now, against Google, has turned into a star chamber as well, with Judge Amit P Mehta largely deferring to Google's frequent demands to close the court and seal the exhibits:

https://usvgoogle.org/trial-update-9-22

Google's rationale for this is darkly hilarious: if the public is allowed to know what's happening in its trial, this will be converted into "clickbait," which is to say, "The public is interested in this case, and if they are informed of the evidence against us, that information will be spread widely because it is so interesting":

https://www.bigtechontrial.com/p/secrecy-is-systemic

Thankfully, this secrecy is struggling to survive the public outrage it prompted. While the court's Zoom feed has been shuttered and while Judge Mehta is still all-too-willing to clear the courtroom during key testimony, at least the DoJ's exhibits aren't being sealed at the same clip as before:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/27/23892215/google-search-antitrust-trial-documents-public-again-judge-mehta-rules

In 2023, the world comes at you fast. There's an epic struggle over the future of corporate dominance playing out all around us. I mean, there are French antitrust enforcers kicking down doors of giant tech companies and ransacking their offices for evidence of nefarious anticompetitive plots:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/28/23894863/nvidia-offices-raided-french-competition-authority

As ever, the question is "socialism or barbarism." But don't say that too loud: in America, socialism is a slur, one that dates back to the Reconstruction era, when pro-slavery factions called Black voting "socialism in South Carolina."

Ever since, white nationalists used "socialism" make Americans believe that "socialism" was an "extremist" view, so they'd stand by while everyone from Joe McCarthy to Donald Trump smeared their opponents as "Marxists":

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4066499-trump-paints-2024-campaign-as-righteous-crusade/

As Heather Cox Richardson puts it for The Atlantic, "There is a long-standing fight over whether support for the modern-day right is about taxes or race. The key is that it is about taxes and race at the same time":

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/09/american-socialism-racist-origins/675453/

The cruelty isn't the point, in other words. Cruelty is the tactic. The point is power. Remember, no war but class war. All of this is in service to paying workers less so that bosses and investors can have more.

Take "essential workers," everyone from teachers to zookeepers, nurses to librarians, EMTs to daycare workers. All of these "caring" professions are paid sub-living wages, and all of these workers are told that "they matter too much to earn a living wage":

https://www.okdoomer.io/praise-doesnt-pay/

The "you matter too much to pay" mind-zap is called "vocational awe," a crucial term introduced by Ettarh Fobazi in her 2018 paper:

https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/

Vocational awe is how creative workers – like the writers who just won their strike and the actors who are still fighting – are conned into working at starvation wages. As the old joke goes, "What, and give up show-business?"

https://ask.metafilter.com/117904/Whats-the-joke-thas-hase-the-punchline-what-and-give-up-show-business

In this moment of Big Tech-driven, AI-based wage suppression, mass surveillance, corruption and inequality, perhaps we should take a moment to remind ourselves that cyberpunk was a warning, not a suggestion. Or, more to the point, the warning was about high-tech corporate takeover of our lives, and the suggestion was that we could seize the means of computation (a synonym for William Gibson's "the street finds its own use for things"):

http://www.seizethemeansofcomputation.org/

We are living in a lopsided cyberpunk future, long on high-tech corporate takeover, short of computation seizing. This point is made sharply in JWZ's "Dispatch From The Cyberpunk City," which is beautifully packaged as a Hypercard stack that you run on an in-browser Mac Plus emulator from the Internet Archive:

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2023/09/neuroblast-dispatch-from-the-cyberpunk-city/

Cast your gaze ahead, to the near future: Public space has all but disappeared. Corporate landlords use AI-powered robots to harass the homeless. The robots, built slick and white with an R2-D2 friendliness now most resemble giant butt plugs covered in graffiti and grime.

Science fiction doesn't have to be a warning. It can also be a wellspring of hope. That's what I tried to do with The Lost Cause, my forthcoming Green New Deal novel, which Bill McKibben called "The first great YIMBY novel":

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865939/the-lost-cause

Writing a hopeful novel of ecological, social and economic redemption, driven by solidarity, repair, and library socialism, was a powerful tonic against despair in this smoke-smothered, flooded, mosquito-bitten time. And while the book isn't out yet, there are early indications I succeeded, like Kim Stanley Robinson's reaction, "Along with the rush of adrenaline I felt a solid surge of hope. May it go like this."

And now, we have a concurring judgment from The Library Journal, who yesterday published their review, which concludes: "a thought-provoking story, with a message of hope in a near-future that looks increasingly bleak":

https://www.libraryjournal.com/review/the-lost-cause-2196385

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/30/mesclada/#melange

[notfeelingthyaster]

so, imagine tim goes to the amazon in a mission with young justice, maybe something related to that spider guy in the rr comics? who knows

he thinks it's ok to put on the short sleeve robin uniform. he's wearing mosquito repellent, he is covered in sunscream. it's fine.

the mission ends no problems, and the team goes back home... a week later, tim is at the batcomputer fighting a very surprising headache. caffeine withdrawls?

one would think so: one would be wrong. that night, he gets a 40°C (104°F) fever.

he tries and work through it, but he gets caught pretty easily, bc when he goes on patrol, his joints lock up and he almost falls from a building

it's dengue fever. now, it's nothing lethal: he just has to rest and drink a humongous amount of fluids, but he can't do ANYTHING for a week or so.

bc he doesn't have an immune system (or a spleen) so there's big worries about it becoming a hemorrhagic fever, and such, tim cannot even get a tablet to work from. just... liquids. loads and loads of liquids.

there's need to tie him up to the bed. there's need to call conner kent to supervise. there's need to exact vengeance upon all the mosquitoes of the world.

it passes. next year, he catches malaria from a mission in southern asia.

[ortofosforico]

If different vampire worlds were connected and we didn't know just because they don't like eachother part 3.

Part 1

Part 2, Viago.

The Vampire Nadja of Antipaxos

.

The Vampire Gabrielle is just so refreshing! I visited once during the last century; we ate some tourists in the Amazon forest and danced naked in the moonlight swinging from tree to tree like rabid monkeys, and even went on a Zip-line! Hope the humans managed to have a go before we dismembered them because it was really fun. Truly, two nights I will never forget!

What do you mean "that's it?", What more do you want me to say Danny? Can't a lady spend two days in the Amazon with a fellow vampire and then succumb to the pull of her own home? You young fledglings don't have any sense of time.

No David, I'm telling you, I loved the mosquitoes, my clothes torn to pieces, my bags forgotten in the Amazon- and Gabrielle's lair! Beautiful: two sticks and a rock elegantly lounging on the forest floor because you know... we slept in the dirt.

Sorry, can you repeat that? Was it because Gabrielle is Lestat's what?

His mother? His fucking mother? That explains everything! Who the fuck sleeps in the ground- Even when my family was so poor we had to sell my youngest brother to survive I always had a tent on my head. And I was forced to eat a snake, Dario, a snake! Your young stupid fledgling head cannot comprehend how shameful it is for a vampire to eat something that slithers like- *gag*

But thank you for telling me about Gabrielle's offspring, now I understand. If I were Lestat's mother, I too would run off into the deepest and most humid forest I could find out of shame.

Poor thing. Do you think I should reach out? Probably not, right? Better keep this secret between us.

[nateconnolly]

"Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it," and those who don't question history's methods, standards, and values are doomed to never learn it. Here are five free historiography essays.

Venus in Two Acts: A scholar of African American history grapples with the problem of writing about a slave when "no one recorded the things she said, or observed that she refused to say anything at all".

Introduction to Agnotology: A historian and philosopher who has spent his life fighting corporate disinformation campaigns writes “about the conscious, unconscious, and structural production of ignorance”.

Introduction to Landmark Thucydides: A contemporary historian evaluates the research methods, and reliability, of a “historian” born around 460 BC. The full introduction is available in the Amazon preview.

Can the Mosquito Speak?: What happens when history focuses on nonhuman forces? How have animals shaped human society?

The Idea of Provincializing Europe: A postcolonial historian confronts his own intellectual “inheritance” of Enlightenment thought: the methods and standards of the colonizers.

[cdragons]

Revenant

Summary: Kol Mikaelson's soul manages to leave and travel while he still remains daggered in his coffin. While he wanders around and bitches about his life, he meets an unexpected friend. Warning(s): VERY HEAVY crack fic, technical crossover of fandoms, weird shit, Kol is a horny-ass gremlin, Druig & Kaety are obsessed with each other, Kol has a thing for witches bc he got mommy issues, Klaus is a bitch

Note: Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it! This fic came from an idea that I shared with @ethereal-athalia, and it is VERY much a crack fic. I don't have any plans in continuing this idea, but I wanted to write it out as a Christmas gift to @ethereal-athalia for how much of a good friend she's been to me. I never would have been able to do any of my fics without her in my corner. I own only my Hecate!OC. I do not own either Druig from Eternals, or Kol from TVD franchise. Also, Druig still very much exists in this fic and world bc I physically CANNOT write Kaety without Druig. Stay safe and hope that your upcoming year brings you all good health and happiness!

Kol hated being dead. Truly dead. Dead in a way that he couldn’t move or speak or live.

At least when he turned as a gift Mother Dearest he could still walk, even if he couldn’t use the arcane anymore. But of course, he would still always find his way back to witches and their magic. He couldn’t help it if he exuded that charm that made him so irresistible.

Gods, just remembering how pathetically sex-deprived his physical form was currently almost made him weep. He couldn’t wait until the moment he got that fucking silver dagger out of his chest. Nik was going to get it when he finally got out.

Sure, he may have crossed a line when he stated that Nik had a pair of buttocks flatter than a sheet of paper. But was he the one that gave his brother such lacking assets? No. That fault lied entirely with their mother and his biological father, thank you very much.

But alas, here his soul was, walking in a forest in the middle of some mosquito-flooded country.

At the very least, his gorgeous body was safe from the onslaught of bug bites and sweltering humidity. Only in the fucking Amazon did winter feel like summer.

Kol audibly groaned once more at the thought of his immaculate figure rotting away thanks to Nik. He couldn’t bear to think about how his illustrious fair skin being that dull grayish hue from being confined by death. At least when Bekah got daggered, Nik had the decency to make sure that her body remained stored in proper conditions and carefully encased in magic to prevent any harm coming to her. He had no guarantee. No, such love and devotion only went to ‘Lijah and Bekah when it came to Nik.

Story of his life: always an outsider, even with his own fucking siblings. Gods, he wanted nothing more than have his powers return to him. At least with magic by his side he’d finally be able to show Nik he wasn’t the only one with threats, he’d show him, he’d –

“Well, well, well,” came a new voice, “aren’t you a strange sight?”

Kol immediately turned his head to locate the mindless idiot that dared to interrupt his thoughts. Did humans devolve so pathetically that they no longer understood that when they see a soul wandering alone, that soul would likely be uninterested in any attempts of conversation? But looking at the individual who spoke to him, he was shocked beyond himself to witness such a devastatingly gorgeous woman before him. She had dark almond-shaped eyes and tall with legs that went on for miles. And her thick and illustrious raven waves practically flowed down the middle of her back like a black waterfall.

Dare he say it, this woman was almost as beautiful than him.  

But regardless of how pleasing her outward appearance may be, she still would not be spared from his fury.

Pity, he would have loved to wrap those legs around his waist if he were actually here.

The corners of the woman’s lips went upward, and the cupid’s bow of her mouth was slightly pursed as she smirked, making her lips look plumper and more bitable than how they had right to be in the Original’s opinion. It was only a few seconds before the succubus burst out laughing. Her entire body arched with her back as she simply couldn’t contain herself.

“I’m sorry,” she said once he began to calm down, “but I’m afraid that I happen to be very happily married. In fact, I have been for the past near seven thousand years.” After making a quick glance up and down Kol’s near transparent form, she continued with a cat-like grin. “And I highly doubt someone as woefully young as you could satisfy a woman like me.”

Oh, now he was offended. Not being able to satisfy– did this woman have any idea who she was talking to? The list of names of men and women that swore they only believed in Heaven when Kol fucked them was so long that it would wrap the Earth twice. And she better believe than each time was more than consensual – they were begging him very enthusiastically to say the least. Who was this lady to assume –

Wait, did she say seven thousand years?

As if she could hear his thoughts, all the woman did was smiled before extending her hand.

“I think I’d like it very much if you and I became friends.”

Extending his own, Kol was surprised to see that his hand didn’t just pass through like it normally would for most physical objects. He could actually grasp her hand and feel the warmth passing through it. For the first time in…forever, Kol felt warmth flooding through him. He stared into her eyes, wondering how on Earth someone could live for seven thousand years. Even if she had the gift of mediumship, his presence was too well-hidden for even the most gifted and powerful medium to sense him.

Kol had to know more of her. He’d go mad if he didn’t.

“What are you exactly?” he carefully asked.

He could sense that this person was a being of extreme power. In the top of her finger, she likely contained far more power than Nik could possibly imagine, even in his wildest dreams. It seemed that being an invisible soul floating in the wind had its perks after all. If he was alive, walking and about, he’d never come across this marvel of a woman.

“I’d prefer if you began that question with ‘who’ than ‘what,’ but I suppose that matters little in this situation. My name is Kaetlyn, I prefer Kaet for my friends, but you may know me better as-”

“Hekate,” he whispered in awe, “Goddess of Magic. Titaness Mother of Witches and Monsters.”

“Surprised in a good way I hope?” Kaet asked with one brow raised.

“More or less, but I did imagine you about 30 feet taller with the night sky for skin and two more heads.”

“Well,” she softly chuckled, “I hope I didn’t disappoint you with my appearance. Now I’ll forgive you just this once for interrupting me. But only if you allow me to take you to my home.”

“Oh?” Kol asked, a salacious grin spreading across his face. Now things were getting interesting.

“Save it Kol Mikaelson-” ordered the ancient goddess as she raised her hand to her face as she pointed at him in warning- “I am taking you to the village that I run with my husband. So, I suggest that you keep your hands to yourself because he has a nasty little habit of being showing exactly how off-limits I am to youngsters such as yourself.”

“I never told you my-”

“You were once a witch, and I am the mother of magic. All witches and their magic came from me, including you.”

It really was so unfair how good she looked while talking over him. Oh well, he might as well play along. Finally, something interesting was happening in his life.

“So, who is this husband of yours, darling? And how can you be so sure that your husband could be a threat to me? You know who I am, what I became. What makes you so sure that once I enter your village, I won’t use my ghostly ways to end him.”

When Kol finished, he immediately felt a shift in the air. It was as if the sun had disappeared and the jungle went silent. It seemed that the animals that served as their audience went dead silent as if they were in anticipation for his end. The kind and amiable mirth of the chthonic witch shifted to dangerous and cold.

Kol had lived for over 700 years and after everything he done and witnessed, he had never felt such chill run down his spine.

“Listen well,” she began – her tone laced with the power and authority that came from someone of her position, “I won’t try to humor you with answering that ridiculous question, nor do I intend to let you presume that my kindness can be mistaken for naivety. My husband is one with abilities as ancient and powerful as mine. If you truly knew what he was capable of, you’d be far more terrified of him than you ever were of your father. That being said, if you ever try to threaten my husband or even think about go so far to joke about it again, I promise you that I can produce torture and incite fear that would make the devil weep in pity for you.”

Oh fuck, even as a ghost, Kol should not have been as aroused by her threats as he was in that moment.

But soon the tension dissipated and warmth from the sun returned to pass through him once more.

“Now that we have that matter cleared up, we really should get going. The sun’s about to set and you never know what or who would be lurking at night.”

With that being the final word, The Good Lady of the Night and Shadows turned around and made her way back to where he presumed to be the location of her home village. And what else could he do but follow her by how the slight sway of her hips seemed to beckon him.

Threats and chills mixed a beautiful witch with magic more ancient than time itself, Kol couldn’t remember the last time he felt so alive.

Authors' Note: And when Kol enters the village, he tries to flirt with Kaet in front of Druig like a dumbass, and his soul gets a major ass-whooping.

Tagging: @ethereal-athalia, @valeskafics, @klauslove, @carolineforbae, @misssophiachase

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[jadegretz]

Laura: The Pulse-Pounding Warrior by Jade Gretz

The humid Amazon air hung heavy as Laura Matsuda stalked through the dense jungle undergrowth. Mosquitoes whined in a relentless symphony around her head, their bites mere annoyances compared to the gnawing unease that clawed at her stomach.

For weeks, cryptic messages had led her deeper into the heart of the rainforest, each one hinting at a fighting tournament unlike any she had ever encountered. The promise of a worthy opponent, a chance to test her Capoeira skills against a true master, had initially fueled her journey. But now, an unsettling silence had descended, broken only by the rasping calls of unseen creatures.

Reaching a clearing, Laura stopped, her senses on high alert. The air here held a different feel, a stifling heaviness that made the hairs on her arms prickle. Before her, nestled amidst the towering trees, stood a dilapidated temple, its moss-covered stones and crumbling statues hinting at a forgotten glory.

A low growl echoed from within the temple, sending a shiver down Laura's spine. It wasn't the guttural roar of a beast, but a sound that seemed to emanate from the very fabric of the ancient structure itself – a sound that whispered of primal savagery and a hunger for violence.

Ignoring the growing unease, Laura stepped through the temple's crumbling archway. Inside, the shadows were thick and oppressive, broken only by shafts of sunlight filtering through cracks in the decaying roof. The air hung heavy with the scent of decay and something else – a metallic tang that evoked images of countless battles fought within these walls.

As Laura walked deeper, the growl intensified, morphing into a chilling laughter that echoed through the cavernous hall. It was a sound devoid of joy, a chilling symphony of madness and bloodlust.

Suddenly, a hulking figure emerged from the shadows. Its form was vaguely humanoid, but its skin was a sickly gray, stretched taut over bulging muscles. Razor-sharp claws tipped its elongated fingers, and glowing red eyes burned with an inhuman ferocity.

This wasn't just a fighter; it was a monstrosity, …(see the rest of the story at deviantart.com/jadegretzAI). For more supergirl, chun li, batgirl, tifa, lara croft, wonder woman, rogue and much more, please visit my page at www.deviantart.com/jadegretzai - Thanks for your support :)

[xxjadeablexx]

Hazbin Hotel Synopsis

Salutations! My name is Jade and I have to make a blog for my Composition class. When given a free range of topics, I decided to write about Hazbin Hotel. Mainly character information, headcannons, theories. You know, that kinda stuff. I realized for my professor to care about any of this stuff, she probably needs to know about the show. And I highly doubt she already does. So! let's get into a basic rundown of the show, in mostly my own words. Obviously, spoilers ahead. On October 28th, 2019, YouTube channel "Vivziepop" uploaded a video named "HAZBIN HOTEL (PILOT)." The video soon blew up, and got praise and backlash for the idea of the show. It got a lot of criticism for being an animated musical, since those are mainly geared towards children. However, Hazbin hotel is a show with a target audience of 18+ (weird to think I was like 15 when this came out.) With many dark themes including commentary on the toxicity of the porn industry, this show is obviously not meant for children.

Despite the backlash, it obviously did something right, because in early 2020, before the second episode could come out, A24, an American independent film company, decided to take the concept and make a whole series out of it. Four years later, on January 19th, 2024, the show's first series was released on Amazon Prime. The show follows the Princess of Hell, Charlie Morningstar. She is a very energetic demon who believes the sinners in hell deserve a second chance. She builds a hotel and basically gets laughed at by everyone. But after getting back to it after an interview about said hotel, there's a knock on the door. We then meet one of my favorite characters, Alastor. Alastor is known as the "radio demon." He offers to help Charlie with the hotel. Charlie says yes and that's kinda the end of the pilot.

Alastor then enlists the help of Husk, a cat-like demon who runs the bar, and Niffty, a small cyclops who does the cleaning. It is immediately evident that Alastor is a powerful demon. He is known as an "overlord," and is feared by many, having the ability to control basically anyone, along with summoning help for any number of things.

As the show goes on we find out that redemption is basically impossible. The angels literally laugh in Charlie's face when she suggests it. Adam, the first human soul in Heaven and angel, lets it out that his army "exterminates' sinners and demons like once a year (which later gets changed to 6 months and then 1 month.) This upsets Emily, a Seraphim who shares the views of Charlie. Emily and Charlie say that:

If Hell is forever, then Heaven must be a lie (Emily!)

If angels can do whatever, and remain in the sky

The rules are shades of gray when you don't do as you say

When you make the wretched suffer just to kill them again.

Adam then says he will see them in 1 month instead of 6. (this is apparently because of a major timeskip, but I feel like it wasn't really explained like that in the show. it really just reads that Adam keeps moving up the date cause he's a prick that wants to kill all the demons.) Charlie decides to take things into her own hands and finds someone who knows how to Kill the Angels. So, what does she do? She gets her own army, her own weapons, and the guts to kill, and proceeds to kill literally any angel she can. Alastor gets injured and is unable to fight off Adam, which ends up fine because Niffty kills him. The scene is actually hilarious because Niffty is described as “10 pounds soaking wet,” by Angel Dust. So this tiny demon who was given a knife and told “stab any angel you see,” kills what is essentially the hardest angel to even touch. That's like the president dying from a mosquito bite. 

That’s not even mentioning Sir Pentious, who originally tries to kill Adam. After Alastor is killed, Sir Pentious decides to go after Adam himself. Pentious is one of the most cowardly characters in the whole show. He is so scared to confess to a girl at some point, that upon her questioning why he bought her a drink, he says  “Because i bought everyone drinks!” when he hadn’t but then he does because everyone hears him. He does that like 2 more times and the situation repeats himself, even when the drinks turn into sex. He is too cowardly to admit to liking her that he has sex with a stranger instead of just confessing. But I digress, because he redeems himself by going after Adam. He resolves. He confesses to his crush. He kisses her. And then Adam kills him like, almost immediately. Despite Pentious being a coward, he isn’t weak in any sense of the word. He is a skilled inventor with many war machines that could have killed Adam. Adam just kinda snapped and suddenly Pentious and his minions and his blimp are dead. But Niffty, a masochistic, child-like cyclopes kills Adam. I love Niffty, but how does that work?

It fine though, because Sir Pentious ends up in Heaven. His sacrifice for his friends proves enough that after he dies, he ends up in Heaven in front of Sera and Emily, the Seraphim. Thats the end. The last thing we see of the main plot is confused faces and a less dark version of Sir Pentious.