#and discovered it was inbred

[soulmvtes]

ethel cain being tiktokified is my villain origin story

[serpentface]

The (now extinct) utosai, the last of the great lacetors.

Lacetors are a clade of warmblooded reptiles that fill niches as large grazers. The only genera surviving in the contemporary are relatively small (averaging about the size of cattle), but many older species grew bigger than elephants. Utosai were the last remaining members of this branch, dwindling towards extinction as their once vast grasslands experienced rapid desertification over a period of a mere few millenia, becoming the massive, mostly uninhabitable desert region colloquially known as the Deadlands.

They would historically live in herds consisting of one male, several (sometimes dozens of) females, and their associated young, which would migrate vast distances to follow seasonal rains. Males would fight each other to gain control of their mates or tempt away singular females, with young males roaming in bachelor herds. As reliable grasslands grew sparser, these herds grew much smaller, with the last remaining utosai being found largely as small bands of females and lone, wandering males that would opportunistically mate when they were lucky enough to find each other.

Utosai had very thick scaly skin that folds in plates, in part a vestigial defense mechanism against large predators that had LONG vanished. Like many other lacetor, they had partly bony facial pads that grew large and colorful in males as display features. Their tremendous curving horns served predominantly as additional display features, while the smaller, jutting horns partly figured into intraspecies combat, with males standing side by side and front to back and swinging these horns at each other in ritualized combat behavior.

These horns were clearly of value to the people who once inhabited the same ranges as utosai, as their ivory figured heavily into their craftwork and holy objects and can be found near-ubiquitously in the burials of high ranking people in the east interior Deadlands. These surviving utosai ivory artifacts are of tremendous value, with the mere prospect of obtaining them tempting many graverobbers and other such wealth-seekers into the remains of ancient human settlements (a mostly futile and often deadly task, most accessible tombs have already been plundered and those still left in peace are hidden deeply beneath the sands).

Utosai lasted far longer than many of their counterparts, surviving on (and trapped within) dwindling patches of coastal grassland fed by ocean rains, too isolated within stretches of desert for any chance of migration to grasslands further from the equator. These last fragmentary populations were discovered by traders and treasure seekers sponsored by the early 2nd Burri empire, with many hatchling utosai being taken back overseas hundreds of miles north. It is unknown when the last wild utosai died, but all but the tiniest fragments of their coastal grasslands are gone and the great beasts are nowhere to be found.

The captive animals were bred in Bur and eventually produced a relatively large (and heavily inbred) population, probably maxing out at around 1000 individuals. They were never truly domesticated but could be made tame and well accommodated to handling, which eventually developed into their use as mounts, forming an elite cavalry unit used in warfare. A war utosai was outfitted with a shielded tower upon its back from which archers could fire from height, and would be driven by a rider on its neck. Their use was functionally similar to irl war elephants, being utilized for intimidation, to scatter enemy formations, and to lead (or break) charges. These were the largest animals that most people would have ever seen, and were often reckoned as nigh-invulnerable. The utosai was heavily used in Bur's wars of conquest, and became an esteemed animal emblematic of the second Burri empire's might.

Very few consistently effective counters to the war utosai were discovered during the duration of their use. One very famous, very successful counter was used by the pre-Wardi Ephenni tribe in its war of independence against the second Burri empire (which was already beginning to collapse). The province of Ephennos was of key import to the empire as a breadbasket, being highly fertile lands and providing much of the grain that sustained the empire. A cavalry of ten utosai (a VERY excessive number against a less well-trained, less well-armed group of soldiers) was brought overseas to assist in crushing dissent and were devastating in battle, with only two of the ten being killed in three years of protracted warfare.

In an act of cleverness, desperation, or both, a trio of khait were covered in pitch and set ablaze, and spurred into hurtling towards the bulls in the utosai cavalry. The utosai panicked and fled, trampling many Burri soldiers in the process and utterly destroying their formations, with three of the eight utosai falling onto their sides (weighed down by their towers) and killed by Ephenni soldiers. This allowed for victory in battle, and this victory ultimately turned the tide in favor of the kingdom of Ephennos and its eventual independence. A motif of three khait wreathed in flames is still widely used in this region and as emblematic of Ephenni heritage (who, while broadly assimilated into Wardi nationality, still retain a sense of individual identity, and pride in their city-state being a center of power and birthplace of kings within Imperial Wardin).

The use of utosai in warfare dwindled after the discovery of this fairly effective counter. They were no longer reckoned as nearly invulnerable, and the great cost of transporting and feeding these animals became increasingly inviable. Captive breeding began to dwindle along with their use in warfare. The last utosai were lost, killed, or slowly died off in the Burri wilderness during and after the empire's tumultuous collapse. Some folklore describes hidden populations surviving in some wilder areas- there are several places in Bur where people claim to sometimes see the silhouettes of these great beasts against the horizon, and the rural parts of Ephennos are rumored to have a few of them (perhaps descendants of the surviving war utosai, perhaps their ghosts). Otherwise, they are lost to the world.

[kedreeva]

Super curious, what do you mean by genetic deterioration? Why does that happen if in theory you are breeding with the same genetics? What makes generation 9 different from generation 15? How do you or the people to initially discovered it know when that to outbreed? Are they more likely to be ill/have physical issues after so many generations?

"deterioration" is a bit of a misnomer or maybe just not meant the way you're probably thinking. It's less that dna is "breaking down" (it's not. Well it's probably not, but we're not talking about cloning species), and more "diversity is deteriorating."

The thing is, there's no way to know for sure you've removed EVERY "bad" gene, and some bad effects are either mild enough not to be a problem in an otherwise healthy bird, or only a problem if there's not enough or the right other genes to prevent it from being a problem. And without removing all of them, eventually the population of inbred animals will lose enough genetic diversity that genetic drift can cause a deleterious gene with a weaker phenotype (ie, a non-lethal phenotype but still not a good one) to become fixed in a population with no (or so little as to virtually be no) diversity left to breed away from it, and while 1 things might not be a problem, if it's compounded with other things, it can be. The length of time this kind of thing takes can vary. Maybe you won't catch it until generation 15 or 100. Or, maybe you'll get lucky and happen into a perfect line with no bad genetic variations left- and then random mutation will get your ass and you still don't have enough genetic variety left to fix it. Or, enough homozygousity in things you may not necessarily see in the phenotype outright can start to cause a loss of fertility you can't really get back in a home breeding operation- partly because you generally can't know which gene is the problem or can't know which animals have it and which don't until it's a problem, which is made worse by the smaller and smaller groups of offspring to choose from, and the continuance of genetic drift.

So, yeah, if you had a 100% perfectly healthy bloodline with NO deleterious genes at all AND that line never ever had a deleterious de novo mutation pop up (and no DNA damage occurred in gametes or anything) in theory you could inbreed forever without a problem. But in practice, no one has that line. There's always something, and it WILL eventually rear its head, it's just a matter of how long you can maintain some/enough diversity to avoid it, if it's not obvious enough to cull out at the start or self limiting enough to kill off any carriers.

As for how you tell when to outcross- it's kind of subjective. When you notice less vigor, health problems that seem persistent, fertility problems, growth problems, etc, it's probably time for an outcross if you have been breeding a line to itself for a while. There's not a set "when" and it would vary hugely between species. When you talk to some more practical rodent breeders, they'll say you can go 100+ generations with a healthy line of mice. A horse breeder would perish at the thought of that for a horse because they're already having to do genetic tests to check that they're not doubling up on Shit That Will Kill Or Maim Offspring because there is no healthy line. Quail tolerate inbreeding more than horses. Probably worse than mice there are research mice from lines that have been going longer than I've been alive and they're fine despite being genetically identical. Generation 9 isn't different from 15 unless there's a de novo mutation, which they probably cull out anyway because they CAN do genetic testing.

So it's not that there's some hard line of "this animal WILL show x issues after this set number of generations" it's more "you can only roll the dice so many times before you lose." If you slowly make every number on the roulette wheel the same, you're going to hit it eventually. Even if you do manage to do everything right, you can't prevent new mutations from popping up. The longer you go without adding more numbers to the wheel so to speak, the higher the chance of hitting the wrong genetic lottery result.

[myloveonherknees]

favorite photo of ethel cain. you can only choose one

now why would you say this to me...

if i'm being real, my answer probably changes a lot over time! if i were to choose an all-time favourite, i feel like it has to be one where hayden is in all white in a vaguely pastoral setting because that imagery made me really resonate with the ethel cain project when i first discovered it. it may have to be this shot from briscoe park because it hits the white dress requirement and also reminds me of discovering inbred (ethel cain - inbred (official audio) you will always be famous....)

name-dropping some additional photoshoots as honourable mentions because i love being too much:

moni haworth for paper magazine – i love when hayden has a boy drag moment, and i love how she looks with a bleached brow

jason nocito for hommegirls – bleached brows! and i love the use of the veil

shots from the punish music video by silken weinberg – i loved the eeriness of the all black veiled figure we first got to see during the childish behaviour tour. it's a throwback to a moment of time for me!

(edit: adding a link to a post that includes the photo if you also love it and want it on your blog in a cuter format than this ask)

[anniethesilly]

Tally Hall fans when your favorite song is Hidden In The Sand instead of a song from a performance from July 16th 2007 in SXSW '07, where they perform a cover of a song called Badingus Jibbily 4012 Nib which was created by aliens who invaded the exoplanet K2-197 d 70 beyond 642 trillion Solar Cycles ago and crashed their spaceship and calculated the binary system into sound waves and turned it into a language which was later discovered by an inbred Polish-American scientist called Stinkberry Fudgeeye on September 23rd 1962 who put it on a website called www.thisisnotawebsitedotcom.com and During the performance Zubin's bass got broken into approximately 481902 pieces by the evil whales in Hawaii and the aliens with antlers who are made out of cerebrospinal fluids and can shoot maple syrup out of their exoskeletons, Andrew gets possessed by the Chuck E Cheese mascot and starts screaming "哪怕是最苛刻的弗洛伊德追随者，表达感激之情也会感到高兴。" which means "Even the most critical Freudian would be happy to express gratitude." and means absolute nonsense while being forced to eat a mix of chicken soup and asafetida with a side of a rhubarb and tiny bits of dragonfruit as he starts to transform into a 2005 Honda Civic slowly and the mitochondria in his cells vomit marijuana flavored styrofoam, Joe gets flashbacks from January 6 1988 when he was 166,838,400 seconds old when he tried to peel the skin off a banana suddenly someone poured 35 buckets and 21,5 spoonfuls of fluoroantimonic acid on him and later stuffed exactly 27830 peas in his mouth which caused him to explode and Joe starts foaming from the mouth but goes insane from it because the foam reminded him of the peas so he starts foaming from the earlobes and he starts hearing the mystical sounds from the universe TOI-849 b

[frithwontdie]

the average immigrant is smarter and harder working than you and your crowd of inbred entitled conspiracy theorist crackers<3

Not even close. Very few are, most no. I've worked with immigrats. Some of them were really hard working. Like the Asians I actually enjoyed working with. Who were hard working and smart. And some Hispanics. But most of the others, were incompetent, entitled, arrogant, rude idiots. Most mooch off of our welfare programs, are a net loss to the economy. Claiming they're smart when we had to lower our standards, test scores and things too easy for them. Each proved to be a failure. Oh, and you really need to see who's truly inbred in this scenario. Don't like it? Chimp out about it.

Although rare in the Americas and modern Europe, consanguineous marriage is notably common in North Africa and the Middle East, where it is a traditional and respected aspect of many Arab and Muslim cultures.

Today, 70 percent of all Pakistanis are inbred and in Turkey the amount is between 25-30 percent (Jyllands-Posten, 27/2 2009 “More stillbirths among immigrants”). A rough estimate reveals that close to half of everybody living in the Arab world is inbred. A large percentage of the parents that are blood related come from families where intermarriage has been a tradition for generations.

A BBC investigation in Britain several years ago revealed that at least 55% of the Pakistani community in Britain was married to a first cousin. The Times of India affirmed that “this is thought to be linked to the probability that a British Pakistani family is at least 13 times more likely than the general population to have children with recessive genetic disorders.”

The BBC’s research also discovered that while British Pakistanis accounted for just 3.4% of all births in Britain, they accounted for 30% of all British children with recessive disorders and a higher rate of infant mortality. It is not a surprise, therefore, that, in response to this evidence, a Labour Party MP has called for a ban on first-cousin marriage.

[dolphin-lover1]

The functionally extinct orca ecotype (that no one speaks about)

Type 2 Eastern North Atlantic orca (exactly how they should be classified is up for debate, but for the sake of simplicity this is what I'll go with) inhabit the shores of Britain. With just 2 males remaining, each in their sixties - W001 'John Coe' and W008 'Aquarius' - the ecotype faces certain extinction. But what happened?

(Aquarius left/John Coe right - photos from HWDT)

Though this pod could have numbered >15 at one point, only 10 individuals have ever been officially recorded - never with a calf. The main reasons for this being inbreeding and pollution.

Having never been recorded interacting with the other orca pods that are occasional visitors to their home range, they certainly are a highly inbred group of orca. With only one small pod of this ecotype known, they've always been in a fragile state, perhaps destined to fail from the start. It's believed that these are orca from a different region that tried - and, unfortunately, failed - to cut out a niche for themselves in waters where orca were a rare sight. Their population simply wasn't sustainable long term - however, this is no doubt due to pollution, as well as inbreeding.

The most polluted marine mammal discovered thus far was the last female of the pod, Lulu. Lulu passed away after becoming entangled in a creel rope. Her body contained almost 1000 mg/kg of PCB's (a toxic compound used in the making of electronics). A safe amount is considered anything below 20. Evidence suggests that Lulu never had any calves, despite being well over the age of maturity. The combination of PCB's and inbreeding likely rendered her, perhaps even the entire pod, infertile.

It's a tragic end for a beautiful group of orca - with large, downward sloping eye patches, colossal dorsal fins, and an impressive size, these are absolutely beautiful orca. Very little is known about them, unfortunately - in fact, we have only 3 clips of their vocalisations (which are adorable, by the way) vvv

What we do know is that;

° they travel alot, and fast

° they prey on mammals

°they are quiet and reserved (ignoring boats, somewhat inactive, rarely vocalising)

We're witnessing the devastating end to an incredible group of orca - we can only hope this doesn't happen to others. :')

Here are some photographs from HWDT of the beautiful 'West Coast Community' orca.

[issdisgrace]

Can I please have Thomas Hewitt x male reader where the reader is also serial killer?(he was a serial killer before he met Thomas)

🔪

MOVED AWAY

WARNINGS: Talks of bullying. use of the f slur, murder

I met Thomas Brown Hewitt when I started working at the local slaughterhouse. He was a big quiet guy that wore a leather mask covering the bottom half of his face. Because of said mask and his quiet nature, he was frequently made fun of, called names, and made the butt of many jokes. But Thomas was a hard worker. He worked harder than any of the low lives that made fun of him. He was always the first one there and the last one to leave. I admired him from a fair for a while until one day the harassing was just so bad and Thomas was just taking it. It had started since those low lives arrived for work today, and now it was well into the afternoon. It was getting on my last nerve and when they started calling him an inbred faggot, something inside of me snapped. I finally said something and let’s just say some words were exchanged and coupled with the fact Ii was similar in height and stature as Thomas, they backed away, clearly not brave enough to face me like true men.

 From then on, me and Thomas started to become friends and good ones at that. He was much smarter than they had given him credit for. And as I grew to know Thomas more, that burning desire that got me here in this shit town was back again. The only reason why I was in this town in the first place was because my little hobby was discovered, but I manage to avoid police and ended up here. The law didn’t take too kindly to people like me, anyway I guess they just don’t enjoy ridding the earth of scum. God where those people that said all those things to Thomas scum. A couple of them had already “moved away.” But there were still some to go, like David Sinclair, one of the biggest piece of shit that made fun of poor Thomas. He “moved away” a yesterday.

Now with every mostly quiet. Me and Thomas were left in peace for the most part. Our relationship was flourishing. It was nice, so nice that today I asked Thomas if he would like to have dinner with me tomorrow as it was both of our day off. He nodded, and we made it a date. It was around 5 when I started getting dinner ready nothing to fancy, just some steak and potatoes. It was around 5:30 when Thomas arrived. He looked nice. You could tell he cleaned up, and he cleaned up nicely. No doubt by his mother??? Luda May that I have been told much about but yet to get the privilege of meeting. I let him in and we made small talk while we ate.

It was halfway through dinner when a thud is heard, then followed by David bolting out of the room, he moved to down the hallway towards the front door. I quickly get up, not paying attention to Thomas any more, grab one of the steak knives and chase after him. Stabbing him in the back before he was even able to make it off the porch. He screamed as I dragged the knife down his back, cutting him open. I got off of him as he started to bleed to death. I sighed as I stood. This was definitely not how I expected my night to go. I look back to the door way there Thomas standing there watch his eyes flicker from David to me.

“Look, I can explain. Trust me.”

The conversation that followed was quiet, along with one. Starting with why I moved to the town in the first place and my hobby. Then to why David was well kidnapped and now dead to the others that “moved away.” It was hard to tell if Thomas was flattered or not, but he didn’t seem bothered by it at all. Not by the murders and, least of all, not bothered by my feelings for him. It was nice to have confirmation that he felt the same way I do about him. It was refreshing, to say the least. I could tell that this would be the starting of a very long relationship. 

[despazito]

I saw your tag on the egyptologists with the insensitive colonialist LARP thing going on about them having basenjis. I'm curious, is there some shady breed history I'm unaware of?

I mean besides being first discovered and exported by europeans during the scramble for africa there's nothing really bad about them (besides how inbred they are, the foundation stock began with only a dozen dogs and they're slowly importing more)

But many basenji enthusiasts say they belonged to pharaohs because similar looking dogs are in Egyptian art. They certainly look similar and I'm sure they're closely related to modern basenji but my personal peeve is wishing they were instead labeled basenji-type dogs

Idk I feel like it implies the congolese people haven't developed their hunting dogs any further in the last 3000 years, meanwhile a yorkshire terrier with white markings becomes a biewer terrier

But yeah it's so predictable that those two loons would own basenjis. Fork spotted in kitchen

[vampyr3wife]

February sucked but it wasn't all bad so! a little diary entry update of the things that happened while I was gonee :3 ⊹ ࣪ ˖

Peanut continues to be the bravest girl in the world... she's getting much more confident about coming inside a bit + she has discovered the joys of forehead kisses and being blanketed in cuddles =) ... also I saw a rabbit that was as big as her last week. Cleo was reunited with her beloved gen 3 my little ponies and Loki has been an even cuddlier bug than usual ! The weather got a lot nicer for a while so I started exploring again n I managed to expand my dead-things collection a bit! I also visited some really cool places that r said to be haunted and I've been making a list of more.. I'm going 2 a cat expo this weekend and I'm hoping my next adventure will be to a cat graveyard / shrine I know of that was built by witches..

During my exploration I also discovered a colony of feral cats.. Despite making kitty friends it is not a good thing.. there were around 15 cats I saw around a small group of houses and the majority of them were not fixed. I made some calls to my friend who was experienced with TNR in the area and she told me that there is a lady in that neighborhood tht is known to feed & let ferals breed in her yard without letting anyone try to get them fixed. Of course this results in giant inbred colonies and sick kittens. One of the first cats I spotted there was a black kitten that was very clearly sick with some kind of eye and respiratory infection. I was able to catch her the day after I found her and I brought her to the kitty clinic.. she is still there getting help right now and I've been calling every once in a while to check up on her. I very much feel like I was meant to find her because not even 10 minutes after I scooped her up a rainbow appeared in the sky n stayed until I got home from dropping her off.. but I am still unsure of what to do about the colony,.. many people see it as a lost cause but I still feel like I should try to help. If I see that evil lady I'm genuinely gonna start cryign about it right in front of her.

I was very heartbroken in the summer when my sweet beloved ancient laptop joined the angels in heaven .. n WELL !! I was pretty much given a laptop tht my dad fixed up bc no one was using it.. ?? I feel extremely lucky.. Aside from that I've been giving into my urge for Projects ... I also found a mini chainsaw so uhh look out for that I guess

[nightfury-2001]

The dragons going back to dragon prison the Hidden World at the end of The Nine Realms is the absolute cherry on top of why that show was a waste of time

Because when you hear the premise you think:

“Oh wow! Some random boy discovered Toothless’s hideously inbred descendant thousands of years later! This must finally be the time humans and dragons are meant to co-exist after the Berkians did nothing to help make the world a better place for humans and dragons to co-exist because the dragons left them!”

But no. The dragons piss off back to their hole in the end.

So…I guess there will never be a time where humans and dragons can co-exist? What an uplifting and heartwarming saga!

It really was a waste of time and it once again shows why every single dragon going off to hide in a mushroom infested hole while the Berkians chill in the middle of nowhere on top of a Minecraft chunk error was, perhaps, not the best way to pave the way for peaceful co-existence between humans and dragons.

[bastam]

White lotus aka the show where I have to pretend I don't want to kill myself every time I glance at these inbred homunculi that make up a cast of people who should have been summarily killed by warring homosapiens during a bronze age standoff that pseudo-scientists still speculate to this day over after discovering the graves of particularly ugly skeletons in some Spanish mound

[heimeldat]

You asked for it. *deep breath*

Quentethisseronvardence has loved vortisaurs since he was a little loomling staring out the windows of his House at the funny time-birdies. When he got to Arcalian Academy, he was overjoyed to discover tame riding-vortisaurs and spent waaaay too much time in the mews instead of studying. He did ok in classes, except biology, he was brilliant at that.

But Quenteth didn't really care about grades, because he'd already found his calling as a vortisaur breeder. When he graduated, he got a job working with pedigree vortisaurs, breeding and training them for the snobbier more proper Time Lords.

But most of them wanted either tame riding-beasts or stupid little inbred shoulder-pets, and Quenteth got bored with that after a couple centuries, so he started hunting nests, bringing back eggs and hatchlings to add new varieties to the breeding programs. That went great until he fell afoul of an angry mama vortisaur.

His second self was a lot more chill and preferred staying out of direct danger, so he used his hard-earned expertise to join a group of biologists who were researching vortisaurs among other time-sensitive non-sapients. (He unexpectedly also started a brief fashion trend for clothing in vortisaur-patterned stripes.) Despite his relative caution, he was still the most active and daring among the researchers, so he got assigned to study wild vortisaurs in the Vortex.

They offered him a perfectly nice Type 60 TARDIS, but instead he claimed a malformed ship that was slated for destruction. It couldn't change its interior dimensions, and its exterior was always some variation on a coral/crystal structure radiating glaringly obvious temporal energy -- which the vortisaurs absolutely loved, so every time his TARDIS entered the Vortex, they swarmed him, making for very easy research opportunities.

Again, all was well until he got caught in a freak Vortex storm; he'd probably never have made it home if his TARDIS hadn't shielded him from the worst effects.

This time he was determined to really properly stay out of danger. He stayed on Gallifrey, taught some classes on vortisaurs, advised the breeders and trainers, and kept researching in lab settings. He became known as the foremost expert on vortisaurs and might have even become truly respected, except that he was getting really weird about it. He learned and imitated the nonverbal communication among his lab specimens, kept designing clothes that made him look more like a vortisaur, and became increasingly solitary.

He also became fascinated with the way his TARDIS had protected him during his last regeneration, and started studying their symbiotic link. He got obsessed with the way both vortisaurs and TARDISes swim freely in Vortex, and got fixated on the idea that Time Lords should be able to do the same. Eventually he started experimenting with vortisaur DNA, trying to grant himself natural protection against Vortex exposure. Instead the DNA graft killed him.

He wound up regenerating full of vortisaur DNA and acquiring a few random vortisaur traits. He thought this was pretty cool, and he dismissed his few remaining friends' concerns about his increasingly erratic and bestial behavior: he seemed to have acquired some vortisaur-like thought patterns and instincts as well. But he still couldn't jump in the Vortex.

People kept treating him like a freak, so he ditched Gallifrey and returned to studying the vortisaurs in the Vortex. They mostly accepted him as a weird-looking vortisaur now (which caused a few embarrassing incidents with female vortisaurs) and he started scooping them up with his TARDIS and living with a few on board. He dropped out of contact with all but a couple other Time Lords and became increasingly close with his TARDIS.

He continued his experiments in becoming immune to Vortex-forces: this time he figured he should try to adapt the ability from TARDISes. So he started messing with giving himself TARDIS DNA, knowing full well that such an extreme gene-splice would kill him. Sure enough...

Now Quenteth is a thoroughly unbalanced amalgamation of Time Lord, TARDIS, and vortisaur. He has a crazy collection of instincts and thought patterns from all three sources and often forgets that he's humanoid. He can eat artron energy instead of food, communicates more easily telepathically than verbally, and sees time in very strange ways. He also regenerates more like a TARDIS than a Time Lord, regrowing or rearranging bits of himself instead of taking on a completely new form, so this is kiiiind of his last regeneration. He can still heal from should-be-fatal injuries, and small details of his appearance and personality might change, but he doesn't regenerate entirely.

And most importantly, he can ride vortisaurs in the Vortex without any protection! He tends to keep his TARDIS open to the Vortex so the vortisaurs can fly in and out at will, meaning that the internal environment on that end of the TARDIS is usually not very welcoming to other life forms.

He still stays in touch with one former colleague back on Gallifrey, passing on his research results, though it's more habit than anything else; he doesn't really care any more about sharing his findings. He spends more time in the Vortex than anywhere in spacetime, though he drops out occasionally when the whim takes him.

[saintsenara]

i remember someone say a hc about Eileen and Tom going at Hogwarts at the same time (not in the same year tho) and i got the thought of a possible relationship between not strictly romantic tho, just something that left a mark in both. What do you think?

thank you very much for the ask, @midnight1404!

once i stopped singing "tom and eileen" to the tune of come on, eileen, i decided to settle on the idea of this... partially flopping.

that the two might have been at hogwarts at the same time is completely plausible - although i do prefer the idea of eileen as marrying tobias and having severus when she's very young, since i think it adds something to the sadness of her story for her to end up trapped in such a horrible situation with her whole life stretching before her, which means i tend to imagine her being around fifteen or so years younger than voldemort - but i think that, if they were, eileen would never have been someone who tom paid attention to.

i've said elsewhere that i've never gone in for the fanon that eileen comes from an elite pureblood background [the only person who ever suggests she does is harry, who has absolutely no evidence other than it being something he reckons].

this isn't just because i find the idea that all purebloods are swaggering aristocrats tiresome, but because i think it's more interesting to imagine her as being raised adjacent to a working-class muggle area, having loved tobias since childhood, and then having discovered as an adult that his childhood fascination with her magic turned into resentment and violence as he lost his work and turned to drink.

[and i also actually think that severus snape's canonical relationship to his own social class makes much more sense if we imagine it belonging to a boy who comes from several generations of aspirational-working- or lower-middle-class princes, who wants to both give the middle finger to the inbred toffs who surround him at school and have their social cachet and easy way of moving through the world.]

if we imagine eileen in this vein, then - certainly not as destitute as tom [her copy of advanced potion making was probably new, after all] but still from a background without wealth or influence - then she's going to be someone tom wouldn't give a solitary shit about because he couldn't use her for his own social advancement.

for her part - if she's anything like her son - she'd probably regard the teenage tom as a pretentious, social-climbing dickhead [i'm on the record that - for all severus likes and admires the adult voldemort - he'd loathe the young tom riddle].

but - with this said - she might also have her son's interest in magical invention and experimentation. and, since this desire to push and play with magic is clearly one of the things which leads voldemort to favour severus, why wouldn't he find it equally worthy of his attention in eileen?

i don't think it goes any real distance - eileen's too hung up on tobias; tom doesn't only surround himself with attractive male quidditch players for nefarious reasons - but i think a brief flicker of nostalgia does make its way through lord voldemort's atrophied soul when lucius malfoy informs him that he's found a young half-blood potions genius who's interested in becoming a death eater.

[x-files-polls]

Kazuo Sakurai: love how he went through all the work to become a diplomat just to be able to commit ALL the crimes with diplomatic immunity

Sheriff Andy Taylor & Barbara Taylor: In my opinion the most tragic and heart-wrenching part of the episode. At least the other woman under the bed wanted her situation.

TW: Violence and character death

Don't like this propaganda? Reblog it with your own or send some in my askbox

Nisei: A mail order videotape of an alien autopsy blossoms into a much more complicated investigation when Mulder and Scully find the distributor of the tape killed in his own home apparently by a high-ranking Japanese diplomat. While Mulder's search for the video leads him to a train car, Scully investigates a Mutual UFO Network group and discovers several women who claim to know her.

Home: In a small, otherwise peaceful town, the agents investigate the death of an infant with disturbing birth defects, and the trail leads to a clan of inbred, genetic mutants

[hypotheticalprose]

No, YOU’RE Derivative: The Hidden Benefit of Being Late to the Party

There’s something extremely intimidating about enjoying a remake of a classic story, getting super into it, casually deciding to write your own take on it, and then discovering far too late to turn back that the ground is littered with the bones of writers long past, and the original work has been a topic of heated debate among some of your readers for longer than you’ve been alive (holy shit, why did I decide to write Ranma 1/2 fanfiction, I can’t even remember 9/11). 

However, I believe that there is a benefit to having a mind unsullied by the weight of past fans, especially in the earliest stages of writing. Fan communities can be conceptually incestuous, and if you worry too much about convention you’ll end up with a story that resembles someone’s pet English Bulldog: inbred, static, and neutered. At their worst, fan communities can be utterly murderous to creativity (see Star Wars, which is ground 0 for that shit). 

Here’s the lesson: If you’re writing a derivative work (commercially or otherwise) you obviously have to balance existing concepts with your own spin. You’ll have to be in conversation with the other writers of that work. That’s ok, they’re your comrades. You know who you shouldn’t listen to? Readers. Never, never allow a reader* to dictate your work. They can’t give you an idea they haven’t already had, and your job is not to give them their own ideas processed into sludge. Your job is to expand their horizons in ways they can’t even imagine yet. If a reader tries to assume control of your work, you must destroy them. Ok, I’m exaggerating slightly, but I’m trying to prove a specific point. 

*Don’t confuse editors for readers. They only look similar if you squint. Editors aren’t reading your work, they’re editing it. Treat them with respect. Fear them.