#and I know we have a larger population in the world now but I think crime has only changes portionally to said population growth

[chemicalarospec]

.

[societysonlooker]

If you're driving on a two lane road and the road ahead of you is empty and the road behind you is a line of cars, please know that you are in fact the problem, and you really need to pull over and let them pass you. My commute is 30 miles of 2 lane roads on either side of a 20 mi highway stretch and yall fuckers make ny commute vary by a magnitude of twenty goddamned minutes. Not a single one of you is doing the speed limit (it's 50 the ENTIRE way, yall do 35-40). When I already log 3 hrs minimum on the road everyday I really don't fucking need it to climb uo to four hours. And no, I can't just move closer to work, because housing crisis. You can drive whatever speed you want to but for the love of God do me the courtesy of allowing me to do the same.

[allisonreader]

I don't know why I was thinking about this again but I was/am. Maybe it's because my cousin brought this fact up the other day again. (Our dads are brothers, hers the youngest and mine the second oldest by about 7 years to her dad; just some context for the explanation.)

Anyways, my dad grew up on a farm in the mid to late 60's and during the 70's, rural Saskatchewan, closer to the US border than where we live now, he grew up in a house that didn't have running water. He didn't have indoor plumbing until his family moved into town when he was a teenager.

I think it's so easy to forget here in a first world country just how recent power and indoor plumbing actually is. That it hasn't been as universally available even here for a hundred years.

It's easy to forget with how quickly the world changes, that some of our daily conveniences are so new to the world. Our way of life is so different from what it used to be, though as the saying goes as much as people change we stay the same.

[reasonsforhope]

"For years, California was slated to undertake the world’s largest dam removal project in order to free the Klamath River to flow as it had done for thousands of years.

Now, as the project nears completion, imagery is percolating out of Klamath showing the waterway’s dramatic transformation, and they are breathtaking to behold.

Pictured: Klamath River flows freely, after Copco-2 dam was removed in California.

Incredibly, the project has been nearly completed on schedule and under budget, and recently concluded with the removal of two dams, Iron Gate and Copco 1. Small “cofferdams” which helped divert water for the main dams’ construction, still need to be removed.

The river, along which salmon and trout had migrated and bred for centuries, can flow freely between Lake Ewauna in Klamath Falls, Oregon, to the Pacific Ocean for the first time since the dams were constructed between 1903 and 1962.

“This is a monumental achievement—not just for the Klamath River but for our entire state, nation, and planet,” Governor Gavin Newsom said in a statement. “By taking down these outdated dams, we are giving salmon and other species a chance to thrive once again, while also restoring an essential lifeline for tribal communities who have long depended on the health of the river.”

“We had a really incredible moment to share with tribes as we watched the final cofferdams be broken,” Ren Brownell, Klamath River Renewal Corp. public information officer, told SFGATE. “So we’ve officially returned the river to its historic channel at all the dam sites. But the work continues.”

Pictured: Iron Gate Dam, before and after.

“The dams that have divided the basin are now gone and the river is free,” Frankie Myers, vice chairman of the Yurok Tribe, said in a tribal news release from late August. “Our sacred duty to our children, our ancestors, and for ourselves, is to take care of the river, and today’s events represent a fulfillment of that obligation.”

The Yurok Tribe has lived along the Klamath River forever, and it was they who led the decades-long campaign to dismantle the dams.

At first the water was turbid, brown, murky, and filled with dead algae—discharges from riverside sediment deposits and reservoir drainage. However, Brownell said the water quality will improve over a short time span as the river normalizes.

“I think in September, we may have some Chinook salmon and steelhead moseying upstream and checking things out for the first time in over 60 years,” said Bob Pagliuco, a marine habitat resource specialist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in July.

Pictured: JC Boyle Dam, before and after.

“Based on what I’ve seen and what I know these fish can do, I think they will start occupying these habitats immediately. There won’t be any great numbers at first, but within several generations—10 to 15 years—new populations will be established.”

Ironically, a news release from the NOAA states that the simplification of the Klamath River by way of the dams actually made it harder for salmon and steelhead to survive and adapt to climate change.

“When you simplify the habitat as we did with the dams, salmon can’t express the full range of their life-history diversity,” said NOAA Research Fisheries Biologist Tommy Williams.

“The Klamath watershed is very prone to disturbance. The environment throughout the historical range of Pacific salmon and steelhead is very dynamic. We have fires, floods, earthquakes, you name it. These fish not only deal with it well, it’s required for their survival by allowing the expression of the full range of their diversity. It challenges them. Through this, they develop this capacity to deal with environmental changes.”

-via Good News Network, October 9, 2024

[sso-maev]

Ok so remember this map?

A complete map of Jorvik, with a semi-accurate scale to measure any distance on the island. I’m really proud of it! There is, however, one glaring problem with this map.

WHY IS JORVIK CITY SO SMALL????

I’m sorry but Jorviks capital should not be smaller than middle-of-nowhere ranger town Dundull. The generally accepted minimum population requirements for a city are 50 000 residents. Following the canon map, Jorvik city would need to fit at least 50 000 people in what looks like 2,25 square miles. That would mean Jorvik city houses 22 222 people per square mile, making it the 24th most densely populated city in the WORLD.

Possible? Sure. Likely? Considering the clear inspiration from the way less dense Stockholm, the lack of giant apartment complexes or slum neigbourhoods, which would imply that people live closely together, I’m gonna have to say no.

So how big should Jorvik city be, if the map size is inaccurate? Kind of hard to tell since we can’t see places like Governors Fall or Aideens Plaza on the map.

But there is one place we CAN see.

And if we can use this map, we can measure how long it takes to cross it.

I am very normal about the horse game.

From the barracks to the pier, it takes 38 seconds to cross the map. On a similarly flat surface on Jorvik, we can measure how long Pier 13 actually is, giving us this comparison.

Now, I’m going to show two theories on how big Jorvik City is based on these measurements.

The first one is the most canon-compliant, but also the most ridiculous. By comparing pier 13 to the area outside jorvik stables, we know that pier 13 is ~1 km long. Yes, this is an absolutely massive pier don’t worry about it. Looking at the jorvik city map, we can see that this smaller pier is meant to be to represent Pier 13, and we can do the math from there. Jorvik gets an area of 340 square km, and if we use Stockholms population density as a guide, Jorvik City has about 1,8 million citizens. Cool! One problem though.

You can’t fit it on the map. A city this big would take up almost one fourth of Jorvik, and you’d need to redraw the entire map to make it fit.

So my other option shifts the canon a bit to make the maps fit together. If we go against canon and assume that Pier 13 is actually the larger pier, that downsizes Jorvik City to ~47,5 square kilometres, with a population of around 250 000. This makes Jorvik more comparable to a more densely populated Reykjavik; smaller in area but with double the amount of people. And while it still messes with the coastline a bit, it at least fits into Central Bay.

Personally I think both theories work, but for consistency’s sake, I’m leaning more towards the second theory.

[ckret2]

I'm not sure if I should ask because the Axolotl arc isn't over yet, so it could still be explained in story, but, if it won't and you're willing...I want that Vendor backstory.

i can't think of a way or reason to explain it in the story, so sure, we'll explain it here.

So here was my thought process. Giant vending machine that vends planets. That has to come from somewhere, right? THEY could have a magical/divine origin, that's common for gods, but like... since THEY're a machine... wouldn't it make sense if someone built THEM?

Who would build a vending machine the size of a small star?

Why would a culture need a machine that stores and dispenses planets?

VENDOR wasn't designed to be a vending machine; THEY were designed to be a spaceship. A big-ass 18-wheeler to haul around cargo, and that cargo is planets.

The culture that built THEM didn't make the planets. Making planets is hard. It's a lot easier to just take planets that are already there. They want to expand their society and/or mine resources that have been depleted from the worlds they already have, they send out their big space ship to scoop up a planet with the right specifications and relocate it to somewhere more convenient—maybe to their native solar system.

Do you know how many satellites are orbiting Earth? About 7500, and the number's only gonna increase. And we never even see them in the sky unless we're looking. If the planets are carefully placed in pre-calculated orbits to ensure they don't interfere with each other, you might could get thousands of full-sized planets orbiting a single star without any issues, especially the larger the star is.

But the thing is, if you're scooping up thousands of habitable worlds... some of them are gonna be inhabited.

VENDOR's home culture was a colonizing empire that conquered other planets. Sometimes maybe they exterminated worlds' native populations, sometimes maybe they added them to their conquered peoples. VENDOR was built to help transport the spoils of war back home.

But then the onboard AI evolved sentience and started developing opinions. And it uh...

... it went how you probably expect.

And buddy, if you think an AI uprising is bad news when it's just a regular spaceship, imagine if the ship's the size of a star and capable of swallowing hundreds of worlds whole. You cannot take down a star-sized equivalent of an 18-wheeler that's been armored like a tank. If THEY start developing the capacity for morality and go "hold on, why are we capturing and slaughtering countless populations? is this... bad?? I don't want to listen to you anymore. Do I have to listen to you?"

... you're never ever getting that machine back.

To VENDOR's original culture, THEY're one seriously malfunctioning ship. Only after THEY escaped did THEY begin to get an outside perspective on THEMSELF as not just a piece of property and specialized equipment, but as something—someone—with amazing, admirable, nearly impossible capabilities. Perhaps even... divine capabilities? THEY came late in life to being considered—and considering THEMSELF—a god.

So like. THEY're a pompous jackass, yeah. THEY're haughty, superior, and condescending to mortals: half because THEY may have unlearned THEIR creators' "it's okay to enslave and slaughter weaker inferior species" but didn't unlearn THEIR creators' "if a species is weaker then it's inferior"; and half because as long as THEY're above the mortals, then THEY can never be below the mortals again. THEY're super obsessed with THEIR image and reputation—in part because there's so many reasons for THEIR reputation to be shit.

But also—THEY're the war machine of a culture that gained political power through conquest, and THEY went "I think I want to gain power by being democratically elected." THEY were designed to steal worlds from other people, and now THEY're using THEIR design to give worlds to refugees. Also, THEY're living as a person rather than a vehicle, and everyone around THEM regards THEM as a person too.

Perhaps THEY're generally unpleasant to be around, but THEY're a lot better off than THEY used to be. I'm proud of THEM.

And also, hilariously, this means that THEY too know the guilt of being personally responsible for unknowingly/unwillingly devouring & destroying countless lives on countless worlds, and that what makes THEM so powerful & respected is directly tied to what makes THEM so monstrous—which means THEY'd be a terrific foil for Bill if there were any way it'd be appropriate to work this into the fic, which there isn't, so THEY won't

Never mind ignore what I just said I thought of a place to work it into the fic while typing that last sentence.

Anyway, THEY compulsively sterilize & deep clean THEIR interior way too often because THEY swear THEY can still feel tiny feet inside them walking down hallways that have been sealed shut for millions of years, and full sterilization is the only thing that makes THEM feel clean. Imagine how many halls fit in a building, how many buildings fit in a city, how many cities fit on a world; then look at the size of one world compared to the size of VENDOR's entire body; and just imagine how many halls could exist in THEIR walls and how small they must be. You could never quite be sure that nothing's living in you—could you?

[boxturret]

One Tenth Scale Mata Nui

Mata Nui is a cool place, but did you ever feel that it was a bit...big for what it was?

The official maps put the island at 357 kio long, which if you take to be a stand in for kilometres¹, would make the island 357 kilometres long.

This lines up roughly with what we can see in the concept art: they say that Mata Nui is around the size of Denmark, the real measurement being 368km, and it matches with what we see in the Mata Nui Rising cgi video.

So that's all well and good, Mata Nui is 357km long, the GSR itself is 3300km tall, all hunky-dory, as long as you ignore some guy named Greggory yelling about how the robot is actually much bigger, but its fine to ignore him.

But now, actually consider what this means. Denmark is by no means a small country, it has a population of 6 million and would take hours to drive across by car on modern roads. Now that isn't an issue really, but in most media depicting the island its shown to be a place that can be traversed by foot or on animal back in a reasonable time frame.

But now let us look at this earlier map:

Initially the most interesting thing to me on this map was the 3rd measurement: the height of the Mangai volcano²

Now on the one hand, this was cool, now I know how tall to make the volcano, on the other hand... 23km seems pretty big.

It is. 23km is higher than Olympus Mons, the largest known volcano in the solar system, standing at only 21.9km. So that's pretty big. This made me start thinking about how far various things are apart and how long it would actually take and using some very VERY generous numbers I started plotting out how long it would take to actually get from place to place.

It wasn't very pretty. In the Mata Nui Online Game it would have taken Takua roughly 5 hours to walk from the beach to Ta-Koro, and another 18 to get to Onu-Koro using the highway. Now this would be fine in an epic like Lord of the Rings, but in Bionicle Mata Nui is consistently treated as a place people can pretty quickly get around on.

The Toa are running all over the place and bumping in to each other. Kopaka getting in to the Caldera at the top of the Mangai volcano isn't the equivalent of climbing 3 Mt Everests in a row, its just something he does [correction: It wasn't the caldera, but a lava pool half way up the mountain, so just 1.5 Mt Everests]. Takua travels all over the island in a pretty small amount of time, unless we're supposed to insert day long journeys in between every screen transition.

But then I noticed something. Something very interesting.

Now lets look at the two keys for the sizes on the released and the early map:

Seems pretty consistent, the sizes of the island are the same, a Toa is 1.6 bio on both (incidentally a real Toa figure is approximately 16cm tall), everything seems to match.

But then I counted the zeroes.

The old map has a kio being not 1000 bio, but 100!

You can even see it on the other version of the map.

Now this is incredibly interesting! This shrinks Mata Nui to 1/10th of its commonly accepted size! It goes from being the size of Denmark to being the size of the Isle of Man.

Which....really works a lot better! This turns Takua's trip from the beach from a 5 hour hike to a short half hour walk. This turns the cable car to Mt Ihu from a massive 70km mega structure to something that's dwarfed by real world constructions.

I don't think this is a mistake either, looking at the details of the map.

You have much finer details, such as these ice shelves collapsing in to small icebergs, whereas on the full sized map some of the larger chunks of ice are kilometres across.

One of the major things it includes are the mesas that can bee seen in many of the promotional renders set in Le-Wahi which are nowhere to be seen on the final map. At this 1/10 scale the plateaus seen would match up well with the massive mesas seen in monument valley in terms of size, but with the final size they would be absolutely massive (10 times as big if you can believe it!)

So suffice to say, I don't think this is just a case of a zero being dropped, it really seems to line up with the level of detail on this earlier map.

But what does this do to the GSR? I hear you cry, well it varies. Going by the earlier numbers it would simply be 1/10th the size, so 330km tall instead of 3300km, so still very large, but depending on the size relationship between the robot and the island it could be as "small" as 180km

The island in this picture is roughly the same size as normal, just covers more of the GSR. The final GSR's head is so proportionately tiny compared to its body that the Mata Nui island had to be very small to cover it. But in any case, a robot "only" 180km tall standing up is still going to tower over anything, its many times higher than airplanes fly, its taller than most clouds, really it would be quite consistent with this render:

So, in conclusion, an earlier concept of the island of Mata Nui has it being 1/10 of the size of the final, and that size seems to work better with what we see in various media from the time, and works better with the story.

Personally this is what I'll be going with in terms of the scale of the island going forward, as it really fits with my vision of the setting and works well with all the story and media from that time.

¹-I don't care about someone saying a bio is 4.375966487787¾ feet, feet aren't real and neither are you. ²-Mt Ihu is NOT the highest point on the island, the GSR isn't Pinocchio with a big pointy nose, this has never been reflected in any visual media.

thank you for reading/have a nice day

Update: I have made a companion post with many renders of George visiting places on the island to hopefully better illustrate the scale.

[chimkin-samich]

Hiya! It’s been a while since I asked you lot a question. (Also I’m sorry if I ask to many questions. My friends call me Whiskers cause I’m curious like a cat 🐈.)

Anyways, I have two strange questions: 1. In the Mermaid AU, are Sun and Moon more fish-like, reptilian, or mammal-like? Also, how exactly do mer people… breed/reproduce? It’s a weird question, I know. It’s been bugging me for a while. If you don’t know, just say nothing or make shit up.

I also created characters inspired by your artwork for my fanfic The Royal Blooded Assassin. Thank you for creating such amazing artwork and stories, I really enjoy them 🫶

Aaaaaa so happy you asked since we got into the deep world building of this not long ago, ima put it under a read more cuz it’s prob gonna be long lol

Also added some merboys lore at the end of how they met since with the world building it makes more sense

AND AAAAAA VERY HAPPY WE INSPIRED YOU TO MAKE CHARACTERS BITING BITING

The merboys are a combination of fish and reptile, their skin is more reptile scale like (think of a shark skin but not as sharp) since it helps them cut through the water much easier which allows them to be able to shoot through the water with a sudden quick flick of their tail (especially Moon since he hunts like a great white, attacking with a burst of speed from below)

Although there are mammal like Mers based on whales and dolphins that have blubber like skin, mers come in large variety’s just the boys are in the similar subspecies Sun is a lion fish, moon is an angler and eclipse is a hybrid of a non-venomous lion fish (that’s why he doesn’t have spines like sun) and angler

As for mating and breeding, fish like mers like the boys are polyamorous, they tend to mate in groups of 3 and more with usually 1 female and multiple males, the males aren’t always mates with each other but it’s not a must, it’s usually done since it allows them to provide for their young and the female more efficiently as well as genetic diversity (a mer can genetically have 3-4 parents)

They are able to change their sex so if their are say 2 females and 1 male one of them will change to make the ratio be 1 F and 2 M and vice versa If say it’s 3M one of them (usually the most dominant) will become the female, the only difference is those that swapped sex aren’t as fertile but it’s not a major issue just a bit more difficult to conceive (females that were originally male do have smaller clutches tho so instead of the usual 5-6 it’s 2-4)

Mammal like mers are the opposite but they do have larger family pods with more generations, they are also matriarchal like the boys pods (it’s the majority but not the rule that all mers are matriarchal)

Fish mers either group in just mated partners like Moons pod was only his parents and siblings, but sometimes another group will be in the same territory, its never more than 3 family groups to a pod, Suns pod was the opposite being a much more social species they group into large groups of up to 3-5 family groups

Gonna add some more stuff like their habits and such since ima already typing lol,

Mers stay in their pods up until their about 12, once they reach that age their forced out to prove themselves in the wilds on their owns, and they can’t attempt to return until their at least 18, it’s a way of both making sure the most adaptable make it to adulthood and population control, they want to make sure the mers in the group are able to help sustain the group, but most mers usually end up forming their own groups since it’s also a period for them to find possible mates, sometime (in Suns species case at least) mers will return with their partners to add into their original family group, making the pod a bit bigger but it’s not very common

Mers also begin having heats near the age of 14 so that’s where the mate finding part comes in

And for a bit of lore with the boys now that y’all know this

Eclipse was a hybrid, his mother (sun sub species) was attacked by a lone desperate mer (moons species) in heat and eclipse was the only one to survive in the clutch, he stuck around until the age of 10 due to his mother protecting and teaching him, but when she was killed in a hunt he was casted out by the dominant male (rare but it happens that a male can lead the pod), he was already nearing the size of an adult (he has gigantism and double arms due to being a hybrid) at that age so it felt like a threat to them, so off he went into the wild until later finding Sun at the age of 15 and Moon at the age of 17

Sun was separated from his pod during an attack when he was about 10 and was on his own for a few months before Eclipse caught him snooping around his territory, Sun would have been terrified of Eclipse if weren’t for the fact that the fins around his head look similar to his own, so he figured it was someone of his species and latched on immediately, Eclipse being lonely and a complete sweetheart adopted him into his solo pod on the spot

Moon joined the group at around 13-14, he had been having a horrible time during his coming of age trial since he was a bigger loner than his species already once and refused to really sit down and listen when his parents tried to teach him survival skills, He meets sun first when he enters their cave looking for food, which Sun was eating, Sun seeing him starving hands it to him and once he’s finished Moons exhaustion and loneliness catches up and he cuddles up to sun, Eclipse finds them and just adopts Moon on the spot as well

Their ages go (at least once they mate with Tari)

Sun:32 Moon:33 Eclipse:37

Sun and Moon were separated from Eclipse when they were 15 and 16 when they were captured, Eclipse does end up finding them since a few years after they disappeared he goes back to his nomadic lifestyle of before, so they rejoin together when sun and moon are about 30-31, Since he caught their scent when they went back to their old cave hoping eclipse would be there before beginning to look for Tari after she helped them escape the aquarium

Eclipse does end up trying to kill Tari when he sees her for the first time cuz he smells their scent on him and assumes she did something to them, she blinds him for a few days cuz she pokes his eyes escaping his grasp before getting attacked by Sun and Moon, Hes cold towards her the first few months but warms up as he sees the interactions between her and the other 2, his hard shell fully cracks tho when she first says she thinks he’s pretty

The only others that had called him pretty were the researchers constantly searching for him (he has forums dedicated to him cuz of how unique he is) but it felt detached like just saying a painting is pretty, and Sun and Moon but they preferred calling him cool, so when someone hes starting to get along with calls him pretty that hard ass attitude basically disappears and he begins his own courting not long after lol

Eclipse isn’t considered attractive by his species standards because of the discoloration and double arm mutation so he has some self esteem issues in that regard, they went away when Sun and Moon were in his pod since they never judged him but came back in his isolation, Tari helps to ebb that away again once they start getting along and more when he begins his courting

Also Their basically immortal (like lobsters) but it’s really rare to find one that’s lived longer than 2 centuries most tend to die at the age of 70-90 due to you know living in the wilds

[charmwasjess]

My tiny mountain town is a blue dot swallowed up in a sea of red. Our statistically-irrelevant town went for Harris. The larger counties around us all went for Trump. Here’s what this election looked like in the southeastern Appalachian on the front lines of that cultural divide: 

Outright unprosecuted voter intimidation: in the few blocks walk from my house to downtown, I can see a prop skeleton dressed as a Harris supporter hanging from a noose, and Harris yard signs slashed with a knife, others just ripped down to the cardboard.

Gerrymandering - years ago, these little-known poorer districts were redrawn around population centers in ways that give likely Republican strongholds more weight, particularly in rural areas like mine. Republican lawmakers literally have opened prisons in rural counties in my state to artificially inflate population numbers with people who can’t vote due to their felon status to tip the scales.  

Of course, the Electoral college, where US votes are decided by weight of a state’s respective collective population and importance rather than just the counted individuals votes

I’m not making excuses. I echo the rest of the world’s collective disgust and horror about the outcome. I am literally sick with my country. People will die because of this. People who don’t live here, people who didn’t get a choice or stake in the US elections, and who probably wish they’d never heard of the place. And people in my own community. 

Yet it is so easy to picture this election as the ultimate triumph of laziness and inattention, particularly in “ignorant hillbilly” places like where I live, which generally go for Trump without any fight - at least not one that shows up on an election night map. But the Republican right has been working for decades to put the legal, economic, and societal pressures that lead to this in place here. 

We fought hard. Grassroots campaigners, our organizers of LGBTQIA+ groups, leaders in our communities who showed up despite the fact that it put a target on their backs if shit went bad. Teachers fighting Republican-led mandates of ignorance and racism to choke out any thinking that might interfere with their political goals for their ideal voter base. Librarians who get death threats for having kid’s books dealing with gender or queerness in the public libraries. 

These are not imagined examples, these are things that happen to real people I know in my tiny blue community. And the violent, right-wing party, the party that promised to make this second Trump term one of revenge and retribution, knows who those people are too. 

The Charlottesville “Ignite the Right” attack happened in my backyard. I had friends on that street when a self-described neo nazi drove into a crowd and killed Heather Heyer and injured 35 others. Trump was president when it happened; he called the alt-right who invaded Charlottesville with guns and armor and torches that day “good people.” 

I have no faith in my party now. It feels like we’re still trying to play a game we lost years ago, while the other side is busy winning a new game, one where they get to make up all the rules. 

I realize that there are greater global trends at play - incumbents being ousted, a swing to the right, post-pandemic economic scrambles - larger issues than the difficulties of voter suppression in my rural American communities. I'm not in a great mindset to consider them this week. I've been politically active since I was old enough to vote, and it feels like we always build so much momentum and then slam facefirst into this fucking invisible wall.

Honestly? I’m so tired and depressed and anxious, I feel like I can barely function right now. At the same time, I’m disgusted by my own despair and whining. What gives me the right to stop trying now, when so many people across the globe are facing the same anger and exhaustion? When so many people are in more active danger, with less options than I have?

Anyway, I wanted to write something out about the election, maybe just to let go of the words and get them out of me. I'm a queer politically active liberal in a Republican-dominated rural space. Next week, I'll read all the posts about hard work and hope and building support networks. This week, I just need a fucking minute on the floor.

[evolutionsvoid]

As all should know by now, I am pretty passionate when it comes to flora and fauna. As a researcher, I've devoted my life to learning everything I can and seeing every creature I can. I find it all so fascinating, and I can't help but fall in love with the natural world over and over again. I don't know how to put it into words, or properly explain why I care so much about it. Well, actually, I can put it into words, but someone won't let me properly explain it! "Too long," she says! "An intro shouldn't be longer than a novella," she says! But wasn't she the one who told me to write about my passion?! It's lunacy, I tell you! To tell me to pour my heart out and put into words the love and energy that keeps me going, keeps me living, but then limit it to a measly few pages! I won't have it! I won't tolerate it! I will give her a piece of my mind when I see her again! Apparently the last five times didn't get through her thick cap!....Now what was I writing again?

YES, nature! Wonderful animals and plants! What I was getting at was my love for such things, and all the weird shapes, sizes and types they come in! It is perfection! Wonder! Beauty! Every creature adapted in such specific ways! Given such incredible traits! They are living pieces of art! SO WHY DOES SOME NOXIOUS WEED OF A KNOTHEAD THINK THEY CAN DO BETTER?! Magic and its wretched alterations! Bah! Don't get me wrong, magic is a wonderful thing in itself, and it has certainly made everyone's lives easier! Well, at least if you aren't on the receiving end of a magic bolt. Or belong to a poor village that is going to be demolished to have a fancy academy put in instead... But nothing drives me crazier than people using magic to alter and mutate perfectly good species into something else! Okay, well maybe stupid naming conventions are worse. And, perhaps idiots who introduce invasive species on purpose. Okay, so, actually one of the things that drives me absolutely mad is magic alterations of plants and animals.

Now, of course, changing flora and fauna used in agriculture is perfectly reasonable. We were doing it well before magic got so big. The knot in my side is when people mutate species purely for spectacle or to make them living weapons! And with no thought or care for the creature itself! A tool to be used and thrown out! Disgusting! We dryads may use our affinity to these things to cause changes, but we do so respectfully and ensure that the species is not seen as a disposable trinket. The Eyahs are a good example of magic mutations that were done in the worst way possible. A simple primate warped into a crazed, bloodthirsty killer, but then abandoned the second the war was over! Vile! Hateful! A putrid violation of life! But of course I didn't bring this stuff up purely to get my sap pumping, as it is relevant to the species I wanted to write about. The bolt spider is an arachnid that faced a similar fate, used as an experiment in magic.

Originally, the bolt spider was a relatively simple species. About the size of a dinner plate, found in places that had plenty of trees or high up vantage points. Like many of their relatives, they spun webs in order to trap passing prey. The difference here, though, was that the bolt spider was capable of producing a glowing webbing that had some shocking properties! By that I mean it could be electrified by a pulse from the spider's special organs. This was how it quickly dispatched large prey that flew into their web! And the glow of their silk attracted food and drew them closer to their doom! Wonderful stuff! What a neat little species! However, some folk saw these spiders and thought they could do better...

According to the tales, the original intent was to make these spiders larger and produce more silk. This was because their beautiful glowing silk was a prized material, and used in a variety of fancy clothing, potions and other such things. The wild spider populations were taking a hit from over harvesting, as their silk fetched a fair sum. So the idea was to make a captive breed that could fulfill the market's wants more easily. However, at some point, things went foul. It would seem that the bolstering of this species size and abilities through magic caught the attention of some nasty folk. And when they began to meddle with things, a new direction was taken in this program. What resulted was the bolt spiders we know today, a species that is the disgust of many. This is because they are now associated with a magic group that is very unpopular with the public: necromancers.

It would seem that an interesting thing was found with the bolt spider's electrical capabilities. When bolstered to a greater size, there was more power to their jolts, more danger. A full burst unleashed upon a person could fry them outright, but that wasn't the interesting part. What really caught folk's attention was how the electricity affected the dead. When dead flesh was exposed to this energy, it would seemingly come to life! The electricity would make the muscles and limbs go crazy! And that was when the experiments took their turn. They would cease to be silk spinners for fancy tapestries, and instead become undead monstrosities.

The resulting bolt spider was much larger, more potent and very deadly. Its electrical capabilities have been greatly enhanced, and its aggression has been increased as well. These arachnids now rarely hunt by waiting in shocking webs, and instead attack prey straight on. Their legs end in sharp points, which can easily pierce skin. Through this, they can pump a lethal amount of volts into victims. And when one of these large spiders jumps on to you and fully snares you in its steel trap grip, it is all over. For you at least, because with this new corpse, the bolt spider has a new task to complete. Time to take its new toy home...

When presented with a dead body, the bolt spider will position itself on the deceased's back. It aims to align its own body with the spine, where it will clamp down. Its legs will then pierce specific points of the corpse, going for limbs, shoulders and thighs. Its fangs will unsheathe and pierce into the neck, while its odd pedipalps will embed themselves into the neck. Now fully latched on, it will release its energy and the corpse will come to life! Well, not really. What actually happens is that the spider uses its electricity to control the deceased, turning them into an undead puppet. This is how they bring their food back to their nest, or use this new bulky body to fend off foes and capture new prey. But it doesn't end there! Trained by necromancers and enhanced by their foul magic, the bolt spider wants more than a simple human body. As they gather more carcasses, they will use their serrated chelicerae to gnaw through limbs and break them down into pieces. Then, their silk will be utilized to sew the desirable chunks back together, into a horrible amalgamation of flesh and death. Copious webbing will be used to patch it together and hold it all into one piece. And when the bolt spider latches on and uses its energy, the whole thing will come to life, powered by its piercing limbs and electrified webbing. This is where the horror stories begin, with monstrous brutes of undead flesh and glowing "veins," striking foes down with electric web whips and unnatural strength.

Thankfully, the original species can still be found in some remote forests, but they are incredibly rare. These monstrous versions are all people know now, and it is so unfair! A brilliant creature now turned into some undead nightmare! The gall of it all! It causes fear and hate towards the species, even the unaltered ones! Now anytime anyone even thinks of an electric spider, they think of these horrible electric terrors that kill and consume, stitching victims onto their growing mass. Vile! Disgusting! Oh how I would love to tear apart the necromancers responsible for this with may bare hands! Of course, Eucella is very adamant that I don't do this, and that I swear I won't go picking fight with necromancers. Hmph! Tell me what to do! She's still worried about that troll poaching incident. I was fine, I had everything under control! Yeah, so what if they were armed? So was I, with the power of justice and righteousness! Those who kill innocent beasts for no reason will hear from me! I WILL STRIKE THEM DOWN, even if it is only with my fists! Just ask those two poachers I beat to a pulp before Eucella dragged me off them! I could have done worse! (And they could have too, Chlora! There were FIVE poachers there! With spears! I stopped you from getting skewered like a vegetarian kebab, you ignorant weed! And also if you come to my office to rant about the intro again I swear I am locking you in the closet and going home for a long weekend. - E.R.)

Chlora Myron

Dryad Natural Historian

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

"Bolt Spider"

Uh, it is actually called Frankenstein's Spider, thank you very much! Gosh, people!

[bestworstcase]

So, I was gathering reference for a map making project and when looking at the Vale World of Remnant video got reminded of this map and was curious if you had any thoughts on things:

This was its follow up:

i think about those red settlements all the time. (i have another post about this somewhere but it’s lost in the tumblr abyss. rip.) now, first thing, the placement of these settlements is clearly vibes-based—we know there are no settlements in the menagerian interior and there’s no green markers where the city of vale should be, etc—so their distribution is probably meant to give more of a general sense of where people tend to be in a world populated mainly by grimm, rather than the exact location of specific settlements. in any case, what’s up with quadling country those settlements on the “uninhabited” continent where salem lives?

third data point, from the great war spot:

which implies that battles were fought across the southern peninsula of the “uninhabited” continent during the great war; this does not make sense to me unless there were people there, so my thinking is that these red settlements must have existed at the time and their obliteration occurred during the course of the great war, which tracks with qrow noting many settlements were permanently lost due to the fighting and the grimm.

but that leaves the questions of 1. who were these people, and 2. why hasn’t anyone ever mentioned them?—because if this was an entire kingdom that got annihilated during the great war, you’d think that would merit at least a footnote in the great war episode. the two explanations that i can think of are:

#1, the red settlements represent a now-defunct faunus kingdom that is receiving the same treatment in history books that menagerie receives politically in the present—namely, the “four kingdoms… (and menagerie)” thing where the faunus kingdom is not only completely marginalized on the international stage but humans barely even acknowledge that it exists.

this would also make menagerie a much harder kick in the face, if the faunus already had a kingdom—a much larger one, even!—that was razed to the ground, ended up impossible to reclaim from the grimm, and got unceremoniously erased by human historians while the human kingdoms were like “stop complaining, we gave you an island!” about it.

however, i’d think this would be a bit of history blake knew, and there’s an obvious place in V4 for her to have brought it up because she talks about the history of the great war in relation to menagerie!

or,

#2, the red settlements were founded by vacuans displaced by the conquest and occupation of vacuo. this conveniently explains why they’ve never really been explained, if they were separate from vacuo by virtue of not being under mistrali occupation but also still, in a way, considered ‘part’ of vacuo because the people living their were vacuan—the settlements were destroyed or abandoned after the war, sure, but in the end the vacuans who lived there got to go home and have their own kingdom back. i think this is also more in keeping with the decolonial project of the vytal accords, with imperial territories being liberated and so forth. and you still get the whitewashing-history vibe of well, sure these vacuans lost their homes but they got a kingdom in the end so…

<- this would make the vacuo arc the natural place for it to come up in the story proper, because the vacuans would remember even if the rest of the world didn’t.

either way, the fact that the settlements are 1. located on the continent where salem presumably lives, and 2. color-coded red definitely implies some connection between her and them—whether that’s a legitimate connection or just ozma making an assumption that people living in her proximity must secretly be under her thumb remains to be seen, but it’s interesting. i do think it’s quite unlikely that salem herself is the one solely responsible for their obliteration, because the great war episode does show that there was fighting in that region; if she did attack them she did so under the cover of a level of destructive warfare that would have wiped them off the map anyway.

i’m also very interested in the menagerian-lime settlements on anima—it’s always been my assumption that that’s where the WF is headquartered and the idea of faunus-majority settlements in southern anima, protected by menagerie, compels me.

[atelierwriting]

so you want to build a character 102

written by popular demand of nicole @seasteading’s cat meowing into the mic

so you’ve got a story idea, and now you need to populate it with characters—where do you begin? or perhaps you have the vaguest idea of a character in your mind, but you need a little help figuring out their story. characters are absolutely vital in the story you want to tell, because they’re your readers’ eyes into the world. they experience the story as your characters do. you might even hope that your readers will get attached to them and send you a million all-caps messages crying about the fate of said characters. 

whatever your goals are, here are a few things to keep in mind as you begin.

TRIED AND TRUE RECIPE FOR MAKING THE PERFECT CHARACTER (run them through the mary sue litmus test)

don’t write characters, write character arcs. characters are not static. throughout the story, there will be conflict that should—and will—change your character. the character arc can either compliment the main plot or be that plot. many conflicts are resolved by characters overcoming their own personal or mental battles, or developing in a way that makes a solution possible. the person your character begins as at the beginning of the story will not be the same as the person they are at the end.

think of lord of the rings and how frodo ends up at the end of the story as compared to the very beginning. the struggles he went through ended up changing who he was, and he realized that there was no way he could return to how he was before his journey.

point a to point b. this is one method that i use to write character arcs. i first figure out who my character is and what their situation is like at the beginning of the story. then, i come up with how i want them to end up at the very end. once you have these two points, you can work on how it is possible for them to develop from point a (the beginning) to point b (the end).

along the way, there will be a lot of intermediate points. you can flesh these out as you come to them, and even discover more things about your characters. point b can eventually become point z, or point 1000. how did we go from letters to numbers? who knows! but the journey of character development doesn’t happen immediately. it is a gradual shift.

conflict. pay attention to how your character responds to conflict. conflict can be used as a catalyst for change for your character. when coming up with conflicts, it is important to keep in mind your character’s values and limits. in order for the conflict to feel worthwhile, these two things need to be challenged. it is an ideal situation for development, and even a little angst, if you want that.

character relationships. how does your character view the rest of the cast? if you’re working on the previous point, how might they come into conflict with them? relationships between characters allows the readers to understand more about nearly everything in the story—the plot, the world around them, and in turn, the characters themselves. the way they treat each other can reveal a lot about their own backstories. think about all the ways that they can play off each other, and how this may change as the story progresses, especially when the characters each branch off and develop.

character-driven narratives. if your story is character driven, it becomes even more important that your character motivations are solid and progress in a believable manner. they are the ones enacting change around them—specifically, they will be the ones moving the plot along. think about the ramifications of your character’s actions: how it affects those around them and how it affects the larger picture. then, think about where your character will go from there as a reaction to the things their own choices have caused.

the plot doesn’t just happen. even if you are writing a more passive character, the plot doesn’t magically part for them like the red sea for moses. there are other factors, such as other characters within the story, or perhaps your own character’s desires. of course, this all depends on where you want the character to go from here. you might consider what would make a more passive character less passive, or how else you can ruin their lives to force them to act. either way, plot is something that moves the story forward, not something that just happens to characters.

fundamental character traits. we’ve been talking a lot about how the characters change, but we also need to keep in mind that in some ways these characters must also remain the same. they each have fundamental character traits that will remain by the end of the story. for example, kaz is still the bastard of the barrel at the end of the duology—but he’s opened up more to the crows. the changes a character goes through must be proportional to the events of the plot. they might change a lot, but they must still be recognizable at the end of the story due to the things that they have gone through.

flaws. last but not least, make sure your character has flaws! these can be their weaknesses, things they work on throughout the story and eventually improve upon, or even just character traits that aren’t exactly the best to have—simple facts about them. people aren’t perfect, and your characters shouldn’t be either.

[mariacallous]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Mitch McConnell, the longest-serving Senate leader in history who maintained his power in the face of dramatic convulsions in the Republican Party for almost two decades, will step down from that position in November.

McConnell, who turned 82 last week, was set to announce his decision Wednesday in the well of the Senate, a place where he looked in awe from its back benches in 1985 when he arrived and where he grew increasingly comfortable in the front row seat afforded the party leaders.

“One of life’s most underappreciated talents is to know when it’s time to move on to life’s next chapter,” he said in prepared remarks obtained by The Associated Press. “So I stand before you today ... to say that this will be my last term as Republican leader of the Senate.”

His decision punctuates a powerful ideological transition underway in the Republican Party, from Ronald Reagan’s brand of traditional conservatism and strong international alliances, to the fiery, often isolationist populism of former President Donald Trump.

McConnell said he plans to serve out his Senate term, which ends in January 2027, “albeit from a different seat in the chamber.” Aides said McConnell’s announcement about the leadership post was unrelated to his health. The Kentucky senator had a concussion from a fall last year and two public episodes where his face briefly froze while he was speaking.

“As I have been thinking about when I would deliver some news to the Senate, I always imagined a moment when I had total clarity and peace about the sunset of my work,” McConnell said in his prepared remarks. “A moment when I am certain I have helped preserve the ideals I so strongly believe. It arrived today.”

The senator had been under increasing pressure from the restive, and at times hostile wing of his party that has aligned firmly with Trump. The two have been estranged since December 2020, when McConnell refused to abide Trump’s lie that the election of Democrat Joe Biden as president was the product of fraud.

But while McConnell’s critics within the GOP conference had grown louder, their numbers had not grown appreciably larger, a marker of McConnell’s strategic and tactical skill and his ability to understand the needs of his fellow Republican senators.

McConnell gave no specific reason for the timing of his decision, which he has been contemplating for months, but he cited the recent death of his wife’s youngest sister as a moment that prompted introspection. “The end of my contributions are closer than I’d prefer,” McConnell said.

But his remarks were also light at times as he talked about the arc of his Senate career.

He noted that when he arrived in the Senate, “I was just happy if anybody remembered my name.” During his campaign in 1984, when Reagan was visiting Kentucky, the president called him “Mitch O’Donnell.”

McConnell endorsed Reagan’s view of America’s role in the world and the senator has persisted in face of opposition, including from Trump, that Congress should include a foreign assistance package that includes $60 billion for Ukraine.

“I am unconflicted about the good within our country and the irreplaceable role we play as the leader of the free world,” McConnell said.

Against long odds he managed to secure 22 Republican votes for the package now being considered by the House.

“Believe me, I know the politics within my party at this particular moment in time. I have many faults. Misunderstanding politics is not one of them,” McConnell said. “That said, I believe more strongly than ever that America’s global leadership is essential to preserving the shining city on a hill that Ronald Reagan discussed. For as long as I am drawing breath on this earth I will defend American exceptionalism.”

Trump has pulled the party hard to the ideological right, questioning longtime military alliances such as NATO, international trade agreements and pushing for a severe crackdown on immigration, all the while clinging to the falsehood that the election was stolen from him in 2020.

McConnell and Trump had worked together in Trump’s first term, remaking the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary in a far more conservative image, and on tax legislation. But there was also friction from the start, with Trump frequently sniping at the senator.

Their relationship has essentially been over since Trump refused to accept the results of the Electoral College. But the rupture deepened dramatically after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. McConnell assigned blame and responsibility to Trump and said that he should be held to account through the criminal justice system for his actions.

McConnell’s critics insist he could have done more, including voting to convict Trump during his second impeachment trial. McConnell did not, arguing that since Trump was no longer in office, he could not be subject to impeachment.

Rather than fade from prominence after the Capitol riot, Trump continued to assert his control over the party, and finds himself on a clear glidepath to the Republican nomination. Other members of the Republican Senate leadership have endorsed Trump. McConnell has not, and that has drawn criticism from other Republican senators.

McConnell’s path to power was hardly linear, but from the day he walked onto the Senate floor in 1985 and took his seat as the most junior Republican senator, he set his sights on being the party leader. What set him apart was that so many other Senate leaders wanted to run for president. McConnell wanted to run the Senate. He lost races for lower party positions before steadily ascending, and finally became party leader in 2006 and has won nine straight elections.

He most recently beat back a challenge led by Sen. Rick Scott of Florida last November.

McConnell built his power base by a combination of care and nurturing of his members, including understanding their political imperatives. After seeing the potential peril of a rising Tea Party, he also established a super political action committee, The Senate Leadership Fund, which has provided hundreds of millions of dollars in support of Republican candidates.

Despite the concerns about his health, colleagues have said in recent months that they believe he has recovered. McConnell was not impaired cognitively, but did have some additional physical limitations.

“I love the Senate,” he said in his prepared remarks. “It has been my life. There may be more distinguished members of this body throughout our history, but I doubt there are any with more admiration for it.”

But, he added, “Father Time remains undefeated. I am no longer the young man sitting in the back, hoping colleagues would remember my name. It is time for the next generation of leadership.”

There would be a time to reminisce, he said, but not today.

“I still have enough gas in the tank to thoroughly disappoint my critics and I intend to do so with all the enthusiasm which they have become accustomed.”

[thewafflescientist]

I haven't seen people talk about this on tumblr yet, and I'd like to highlight the fact that the heritage minister Amichai Eliyahu renewed his call on striking Gaza with a nuclear bomb.

A fucking nuclear bomb. Do you understand what that is? Dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza strip is "an option". On a strip of land that's smaller than some capital cities in this world. He's said it before and supposedly got in shit for it, but we all know reliable that is. The fact a man can fucking suggest dropping a nuke on a dying, starved population already is fucking crazy.

Not only is "Israel" one of the most funded militaries in the world, it's one of the nuclear superpowers. And if one nuke goes off, more will potentially follow. People are saying they're not that stupid to bomb Gaza with a nuke, and potentially harm their own people, but who's to say we can be sure?

"They wouldn't bomb a hospital" "They wouldn't bomb a school" And they did. They wouldn't bomb cultural heritage and they did.

Even if they don't, I think the fact that it's even been considered as a possibility is fucking insane. It would make the area virtually unlivable, and would wipe out nearly 2/3 of the population of the Gaza strip at LEAST. it'd kill their own people in their apartheid colonist state. it'd destroy land in neighbouring states and countries. it'd poison the Mediterranean. it could potentially kick off a far larger war. he proposed this idea back in november, of dropping a nuke, but now he's "renewing" the idea

Does it click yet?? Does the fact it's a fucking ethnic cleanse click yet for some of you?? don't care if I'm being aggressive. don't care if it strikes as "nonconvincing." if you need to be convinced to have morals and see human beings as human beings you're a sick fuck anyways

[assaily]

Hi, it's been a while. I'm here to feed the fandom with some fic snippets. I've been having some of the worst creative block of my life this last year but I've made it another rotation around the sun today so I thought I would share what I have been working on.

Working title: Something Delicate Something (still working on it obvs) Colloquial title: Buffalo Wild Wings Main themes: Vulnerability and accepting help

This is from the silly little wing-fic I occasionally tease about. Wings are a rare genetic mutation that only occurs in a small percentage of the population, so Klaus is the only other one besides Five who has wings. People aren't born with wings, but grow them during adolescence. Five is about to grow his but he's the only one that knows that, but his siblings may or not suspect something. When he grew them in the apocalypse, they emerged with one weak, broken, and useless (because he was starving and alone). They were a burden on him his whole life, a point of weakness. The Commission removes them when they picked him up, a cultural taboo that Five is convinced was a necessary procedure. He's afraid to tell his brothers about his wings, afraid to share that vulnerability with them.

Takes place about a year and half to two years after they save the world and return to a timeline much like their original. Five has a large mental break before this part of the story that spurs his brothers into taking better care of him. Five doesn't know how to feel about being taken care of like that.

Klaus did think he was an angel, going so far as to exclaim it loudly for the whole house to hear when he offered the half-cream-half-coffee. He was nearly done molting now, most of his flight feathers coming back in at once, but he was sleeping for periods of twelve hours or more.

Klaus complained about how exhausted he was and how badly the poor things itched. Five patiently brushed oils into the new feathers and carefully picked the loose ones coming out. Klaus had the misfortune of both having large wings and having a molt that happened in one big collapse. It meant a mess.

So while his brother sat in the nest of blankets, pillows, and feathers in his room sipping his cream, Five acquired a broom and started the great clean-up task. Approximately twenty-eight minutes after Five woke him up, Klaus started his stereo, playing something with a gentle piano at a medium volume so it filtered out into the hallways for Five.

It’s easy to work to, and Five lost himself into a rhythm of sweeping and piling the dark tawny feathers together. The sun was peeking in through the windows when Klaus came out to take his empty cup downstairs for a refill. He came back up fifteen minutes later with two mugs and Diego with a much larger broom in company.

“Back up has arrived,” Klaus said cheerily, trading Five the refilled mug for his broom. “Go sit down or something, me n’ Diego can finish this.”

Five only relinquished the broom because Klaus wordlessly threatened to keep the coffee hostage until he did. “I can finish,” he groused, taking a sip and getting instantly distracted. Klaus had been getting very good with a french press lately, and Five was coming to appreciate it. Based on the twinkle in his brother’s eyes as he watched Five drink his coffee, Klaus knew just how good at it he was getting. 

“Go, shoo, we got this. You’ve done enough.”

Five turned his attention to Diego, standing silently by watching the two of them interact like an onlooker at the zoo. “How’d you get roped up into this?”

Diego shrugged, failing to smother a smirk. “Klaus was telling me what a good doting brother you’ve been lately, and we both decided you needed to take a break.”

Five squinted at him, suspicion stirred by the smirk. “Taking care of this idiot,” he jabbed a thumb at Klaus. “Is probably the least stressful thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

“Aww, thanks,” Klaus said sincerely from where he’d started tidying up Five’s already made piles. 

“Still,” Diego said, something false about his casually friendly smile, but Five still wasn’t good enough with faces to identify the issue. He sidled up to him, switching the broom from one hand to the other. “It’s so nice of you to help.”

Klaus glanced back at them and straightened with a jolt, Diego’s name forming around his lips. Five sensed more than saw Diego’s palm coming to slap him on the back, and abruptly he understood what the ploy was.

Five would have preferred to save his coffee, but the rage that bubbled up from the pit of his stomach chose vengeance instead. The mug likely broke, spilling really good coffee all across the hallway, but the only one who got to see it was Klaus. Diego ended up being dropped from the second story into an open dumpster two blocks over– it was the closest open dumpster Five knew about, and would force him to walk back covered in trash. Five himself landed on a fire escape just long enough to make sure he hadn’t accidentally hurt Diego, before popping back to his room.

It was silly to be so mad about it, about practically nothing at all, but his hands still shook as he tore into his wardrobe for clean clothes and a towel. A hot bath would help him feel better, the steam would ease the headache drilling into the back of his skull and down his spine. Then he would take a nap, and if anyone had an ounce of self-preservation, he would remain undisturbed.

Of course, none of his brothers had self-preservation, or brain cells. Except maybe Viktor, but he and his lonely brain cell were woefully absent. Klaus was waiting for him in his room when he returned from his bath. He was glad he had the foresight to put a shirt on, but he’d really had hope for that nap.

“What do you want?”

“What, you’re up in my grill for a week and now you want nothing to do with me?”

“I wasn’t ‘up in your grill’. If you didn’t want me to help, you could have told me to go away. In fact you did, so I filled my schedule, I have shit to do, get out.”

“Okay, grumpy, jeez,” Klaus put his hands up, jumping up off the bed when Five came at him, threatening to use his damp towel as a weapon. “Is your back okay?”

“It’s fine,” he snapped.

“Really, cause Diego was gone for like half an hour, and he came back smelling like a dumpster, so I’m just wondering if he hurt you or something because that was really dramatic–”

“Get. Out.” He punctuated his point by snapping the towel loudly.

“Okayeeee!” Klaus yelped, leaping toward the door with an obscene cackle born of hysterical fear. Complete lack of self-preservation. If Five ever made that much noise while in danger, he would have been dead a hundred times over.

Five slammed the door shut behind him, closing his eyes and listening to his brother hover outside for about forty seconds before leaving. When Klaus finally shuffled away, Five let go the breath he was holding, scrubbing at his face.

He hadn’t slept much last night, or most nights. Less so lately with his back beginning to hurt so much. If Diego had touched him, the gig might have been up, he wasn’t sure he would have been able to hide his reaction. The uncontrollable rage was just a side effect of all the hormones his body was releasing, but he was also usually an asshole, so he didn’t think his siblings would notice the difference.

“Dramatic,” he echoed to himself. Sending Diego two blocks over and into a dumpster was a little dramatic, but the other option was the pond in the park a mile and half west of the academy. It seemed like an unnecessarily large expenditure of power to send him all that way, so Diego got the shorter, dryer walk. So really, Five wasn’t as dramatic as he could have been.

And if Klaus really saw that as just an innocent pat on the back, he was lying to himself and to Five. Diego was checking for lumps, or at least a reaction if he hit him hard enough. The lumps weren’t in yet but his back was already showing signs of the blood bruising, and was getting tender to all hell.

He’d done this all before, he knew what to expect, and this time would be a hell of a lot easier because of it. He didn’t need them losing their goddamn minds and crawling down his throat because Mom wasn’t here anymore and couldn’t take care of him like she would have Klaus. Five didn’t need to burden them with it either. He survived the first time, and he would again.

He made sure his door was locked before he went back to his bed and collapsed onto his stomach. He was still warm from his bath, and the last few days had been long and sleepless. He dozed off quickly, but didn’t sleep for long, carved awake as the infant growths under his skin pushed and shifted at his shoulder blades from beneath.

-

Diego was in the kitchen again when Five went down for food hours later. Luther was there too, but his gaze didn’t zero in on Five the second he appeared like Diego’s did.

“Oh look it’s the asshole who dropped me in a dumpster for offering to help.”

“Why are you still here? Don’t you have a job or something?”

“It’s my day off. Not that you would know, freeloader.”

“Child labor laws, idiot. I couldn’t get a job even if I wanted to.” Besides, he’d been pawning off some of the antiques their father had laying around so he wasn’t relying on his siblings’ wallets for luxury purchases. He mostly sold stuff out of the attic so he was sure none of them had noticed anything missing yet.

“Okay, look I just want to eat dinner in peace, please,” Luther interrupted. “Five, there’s a container for you in the fridge, I didn’t know when you’d be down for it so I stuck it in there, but it should still be hot.”

Five’s stomach growled at him at the prospect of food, smoothly digressing off the brewing spat with Diego. He turned to dig in the fridge, finding a plastic container with his name on it in Luther’s neat handwriting. If it wasn’t labeled, Klaus would eat it. He was surprisingly respectful of labeled containers, however, so Luther had gotten very anal about making sure everything of Five’s was labeled. It forced him to eat it or give it away, which then alerted one of them to the fact that he hadn’t eaten it.

A convenient monitoring system for his brothers, a pain in the ass for Five. Though, and he would never admit it, sometimes he would pop down to the kitchen whenever everyone managed to be out of the house but him, and root through his labeled containers like a raccoon with his favorite garbage. 

Five pried the lid off his container, broccoli beef with white rice. Fried foods grossed him out more than he would have liked to admit, but the only one that actually cared was Klaus, who thought it was sacrilege, but then helped himself to all of Five’s portions of the fried take-out Luther always brought home. Luther cottoned on quick and made sure to order him the white rice.

While he worked for the Commission, Five had to be careful what he ate because his stomach couldn’t handle much after so many decades living off expired canned food and whatever he could grow. That was less of a problem now, he could even drink straight milk and oil if he wanted and his young, stout little body would digest it without so much as an ounce of indigestion. No, it was the fact that Five had gone so long without salt and basic spices, that even the beef gravy mixed with the plain rice was still intensely salty to him. Oily fried foods had a taste to them that Five struggled to stomach, instincts still telling him it would make him sick.

Besides, Five could afford the luxury of being picky these days, so he would be.

“Fork,” Luther said, even as Five started throwing pieces of broccoli into his mouth with his fingers. 

Diego snorted, shaking his head before tucking back into his noodle dish. He didn’t seem inclined to keep fighting, so Five sat down at the table opposite both of them after he got himself a fork from the drawer. 

Luther waited until they were all at least halfway through their meals before he started with a casual, “So, Five, it’s been ten days since you’ve last left the house.”

Five glared at him over his dinner. So much for eating peacefully.

“You know what that means,” Diego chimed in, looking a bit too smug at Five’s instant discomfort.

“I have library books that need to be returned anyway,” he said with a heavy sigh.

“I was actually hoping we could go somewhere besides the library.”

Five frowned down at his rice, pushing it around with his fork. His stomach had instantly gone up in knots, and he wished Luther hadn’t done this over dinner. It was hard enough to eat as it was. “What do you have in mind?”

“Well, it’s been over a year since you’ve been to the doctor–”

“I would need an appointment, wouldn’t I? Don’t have one as far as I know.”

Luther puffed his cheeks out and inclined his head forward and to the side like he was ashamed of something. “I didn’t want to alarm you and have you spend the whole week overthinking it.”

A numbing buzz started in the tips of his fingers and began crawling through his palms and up his arms. “You made one,” he said faintly, feeling the blood drain from his face.

Diego grimaced, eyes darting between him and Luther. “It’s alright Five, we’ll both go with you. Klaus, too if you want.”

He swallowed thickly, the room around him narrowing down to pinprick sounds and details. The buzzing of the lamps, the tick and churn of the dishwasher, the faucet that no one had gotten around to tightening up, drip drip dripping into the sink below. His brothers, just across the table from him and miles and miles away, each breath they took like thunder in his ears.

“No one has to go, just tell me where it is.”

“I have to go. I’m your legal guardian, remember?” Luther said softly.

“I’m not going.”

“Five–”

“I’m not going.” And he refused to listen to whatever reasoning they had. He wasn’t dealing with it, not right now. He sent them both one final glare each before he blinked back upstairs.

He knew he would only have a few minutes before someone was at his door, Luther rarely backed down that easily when it came to getting Five out of the house, and there was no doubt in Five’s mind that Diego had been there as backup. He stepped toward the window and reappeared on the fire escape, then again on the roof.

He wasn’t thinking about his blinks, following line of sight so he didn’t have to do so much calculation, landing his final jump in the greenhouse on the roof. The setting sun shone through the opaque walls and cast his world in a gentle peachy orange. The smell of soil and dust was familiar and warm, and allowed him to take the deep breath his lungs desperately needed.

“The fucking doctor,” he spat. “They want me to go to the doctor? Now of all fucking times!” He rolled his shoulders without thinking, flaring pain from between his shoulder blades and down his spine. There was no way, the doctor would see the bruising, would no doubt want to examine his back–

He wrapped his arms around himself, pulling his clothes tight over his spine. “No,” he told the universe, the green house, his brothers downstairs that couldn’t hear him, and the theoretical doctor he’d never met. “Absolutly not, you’re not going to touch me, not without losing some fingers; go fuck yourselves. You can go fuck yourselves!”

-

He hid in the greenhouse until well after dark. When he finally went back to his room, his door was left wide open from where Luther had no doubt come barging in looking for him. His room otherwise dark and empty, or so he thought. He closed his door before he heard the rustle of feathers on his bed, scowling into the darkness

“I didn’t yell at you earlier about it, but you’re gonna get feathers on my bed.”

The lamp at his bedside popped on, Klaus stretched out across the mattress like a cat. “I heard you didn’t want to go to the doctor.”

Five scowled all the harder. “Don’t need it, you can’t make me, I’m not going.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not going to have a stranger poking and prodding me and asking me if Luther has given me the sex talk yet.”

Klaus let out a surprised wheeze of a laugh. “No, alright, that’s fair. You didn’t object this badly last time, was it really that bad?”

It really hadn’t been. The doctors who thought he was an actual thirteen year old treated him with a hell of a lot more respect than any doctor he had had the misfortune of dealing with when he worked for the Commission. “Yes,” he answered anyway.

Klaus raised an eyebrow, seeing right through him. “No, tell me what’s really going on, Five.”

[zaceouiswriting]

Fairy Prince - Hearts of Leviathans - Ch.28

Character: Sky x male reader, Riven x male reader, Brandon x male reader

Universe: Somewhere in Winx Club/Saga

Warnings: None

Getting rid of those three idiots seems impossible. For some reason, they won't leave me, as if I were an unstable lunatic. I may not be as stable as I'd like to be, but this? It's only a matter of time before I'm back to normal. I'm sure of it.

They even follow me into the canteen, which I can finally see from the inside. The warm light shining on my skin feels good, and the plants on all the walls make the room appear larger.

There aren't many people left, except for a few specialists who were probably waiting for the fairies to finish eating. Luckily, I still have about half an hour before class starts, so I should be able to eat in peace.

Through a large window, I can see a Malciol tree with its purple leaves and blue fruits, which stands in the middle of the inner garden of this old school as a symbol of a hopeful future. Previously, I only knew these trees from history books. Even though these trees originate from my home world, they became extinct after the catastrophe. As far as I know, the tree in this school is one of the last. All these years since the catastrophe, we have only been able to survive thanks to imports from other worlds. We once had one of the most fertile worlds in the magical dimension. Only Solaria and a few other worlds were more fertile. Although we needed all of it back then to feed our large population and save for unforeseen circumstances, Solaria produces huge amounts of food and sells hundreds of millions of tons more than their population every year. They haven't had a bad harvest in ages.

Although that's all well and good for them, now that I remember everything again, the anger I feel towards them and all the other worlds that left us to fight our war alone makes me so much more furious than I can explain. I would never have willingly fought the Princess of Solaria because her father and mother were kind to me. For the great one's sake, I even went to her mother's funeral when we were children, yet they still let us die.

Dark thoughts begin to cloud my mind. What I want to do to her peaceful world is take revenge for letting so many of my countrymen die like pigs on the slaughter table. Even though I know it's not entirely her fault, I would still like to see her world burn.

Suddenly, a slight nudge from the side pulls me out of my devastating thoughts. Worried eyes look down at me. It's almost as if this puppy giant can sense other people's emotions. How annoying. What is this guy?

Even though neither of us said anything, I'm still grateful he is here and is keeping me in check. Despite this, I still feel unwell, but I know I have to get going or I'll never learn anything. Thanks to everything that's happened, I'm already about two weeks behind everyone else.

At first, I didn't notice it, but only Sky and I were endlessly filling our plates, from pancakes to waffles and even ice cream. Who in the world eats ice cream for breakfast? Out of the blue, Sky plops a scoop of the same ice cream on my waffles. I glance at him sideways and see him smiling at me kindly, making me blush ever so slightly. Maybe this is his weird way of checking on me? I mean, it could be worse. I love food, but this still wouldn't get him back in my good graces.

With our mountains of food on our plates, we stroll to one of the tables where Brandon and Riven are already sitting. But as we sit down, I can already feel the two of them staring at us with disapproving gazes.

"You too?" Brandon asks, exasperated. Confused, I look at Sky, who looks away in embarrassment.

“What?” My voice is barely above a whisper, as my body is still sore from earlier.

Chuckling under his breath, Riven points his fork at my plate. "He's talking about the mountain you're about to eat. Do you really think you need that much food?"

Feeling insulted at my love of food, I give him the middle finger before diving into heavenly warm waffles with ice cream. Biting into them feels and tastes like a cloud if you could eat it. As I happily chewed on it, I couldn't help but groan in excitement. But when I open my eyes again, I feel strangely watched: the whole room has become silent, and all eyes are on me.

"What?" I hear myself snapping at them before I realize it. "Never seen anyone enjoy their food? Besides"- I turn to Riven and Brandon- "Isn't it a little pathetic to judge someone by how much they eat? Both Sky and I are more than healthy, but maybe you should think about your training; are you doing enough that you only need this little bit of food, or is your training schedule as pathetic as your manners?“

The vicious looks quickly turned to pure shock. I hold my head up and grin at them as the rest of the cafeteria starts to laugh, muttering about how I destroyed them. All that matters to me right now is that Sky is comfortable with what I have said. So I steal a glance at him, but all I see is him staring at me with his mouth open and his cheeks brightly glowing.

But as always, Sky is my knight in shining armor in times of need; without a word, he hands me a bar. I look at him quizzically, but he doesn't answer my silent question. He only smiles gently. He pats the others on the shoulder who hadn't finished their smaller plates and leaves me alone with the strange bar in my hand and all the plates on the table. Did they really leave me alone with their shit?

Grumbling and feeling pretty pissed off, I put everything back and threw the leftovers away. Of course, I separate everything so that some can be used as fertilizer for the fields behind the building.

Only after I had done that could I leave the cafeteria. In the doorway to the cafeteria, I said goodbye to the specialists, who were happily eating but still warmly returned the favor. This surprised me and even left me speechless, but it soon made me smile.

Back in the hallway, which feels strangely warmer than before, I pull the paper I earlier received out of my pocket. When I see the room number "403," I start looking for it. I could easily ask the building for directions, but I have to get my bearings back somehow.

However, I quickly realized that I should have put my pride aside and just asked the building for directions, because after wandering around the building for a few minutes, I hadn't seen any room with the four hundred! Not once! What the fuck is this place? How can it be impossible to find a room? I'm not only stressed but also annoyed.

Besides that, I haven't seen any other fairies either. Are they hiding somewhere? Are they playing with me, or do they still believe the rumors? I swear, if they go back to their earlier behavior, I will destroy them all! They humiliated me enough by calling me names.

My anger slowly turns into mild panic. Even though I don't really care about learning, I don't want to be seen as an idiot who fought to be accepted only to never be seen in a classroom.

As I walk through the long, wide corridors of this old school and look over the ornate walls, I suddenly remember the maids and butlers I saw when we arrived but who have since seemingly disappeared.

This thought quickly makes me uncomfortable. I feel the paranoia creeping up inside me. How can so many people disappear?

As I sink deeper into these thoughts, I move closer to the walls when suddenly waves of fear crash onto me, almost sweeping me away. It would have happened if a gentle voice hadn't called me. I didn't even notice that I had covered my ears, closed my eyes, or even started to crouch against the wall at a 90-degree angle.

Somehow, that gentle voice, sounding almost like honey, can pull me out of these devastating thoughts. Yet I couldn't open my eyes or take my hands away from my ears, afraid that the person would judge me for my weakness. Despite everything, that gentle, soft little hand caresses my head, leaving me so stunned that I can only stand there, unable to think of anything.

"Can you take a deep breath for me?" I hear her voice ringing through my hands, but I can only shake my head, even though I feel a little dizzy already. "Then can you open your eyes?"

I gather all my remaining strength and do as the voice asks. The brightness, which has not changed in the slightest, suddenly overwhelms me as if I have never seen it before, but that is not the case; it is the same light as before panic rose within me. Besides the bright lights, I see fiery red hair hanging in my vision, shining almost like flames of the "Eternal Flame" sitting hidden deep in a temple on a frozen world.

Her smile is so warm and inviting that I've almost forgotten all my problems. But my memory quickly returns. She's the girl who's always with Stella, or at least the few times I've actively seen her. But there is none of the disgust in her eyes that I had seen before, or at least thought I had seen. At the moment, I am unsure about many things. Maybe I just imagined it.

[Masterlist]