#ant-civilisation

[in-parkour-civilization]

thanks to that one person who put that fic link under one of my posts

this is the funniest shit i've ever read holy fuck mate

[notnocturne]

more academia things to research (since you guys seemed to like the last one);

each phase of the moon

the scarlet fever

letters of the printing press

the history of chanel

myrmecology; the study of ants

the salem witch trials

the bedroom of marie antoinette

indian mythology

how clay is made

the dancing plague

the mayan civilisation

dead languages

how spartans trained their children

the parts of a sewing machine

suzanne collins and her influence on literature today

love letters found in the pockets of dead soldiers

feminism in ancient egypt

the tea trade and its rippling effect

chemical reactions

warm vs cold lighting in interior design

medieval recipes for medicine

the concept of a human soul

the diary of anne frank

nature vs nurture argument

the mandela effect

[leyavo]

| Vita Ante Acta | 1

- “A life done before.”

You and Kyle know what it means to lose a beloved mate. Both feeling like you’re going through another rebirth when you feel the tethered strand of fate pulling you together.

Alpha!reader x Beta!Gaz Second chance mates. [masterlist]

TW: grief/hurt/angst (will be 18+ due to smut in next parts) 2,084word

Kyle had never known darkness till he met you. He hadn’t truly touched upon his own, instead he chased the light at every opportunity he could grasp. Knowing that his deceased mate would want him to live and not survive.

He kept himself busy, signing up for back to back missions and training courses to stop his mind wandering back to his lost love. Which was also not you.

In life, Kyle believed there was one moon and one mate. You, however, a second chance mate was not something he knew of until you arrived on base. And it was as if fate was laughing at him, your call-sign being Lux….because you lit up a hostile area with flares and blinded the enemy.

Light, the same thing Kyle chased in order to escape the darkness of the one he loved and lost. Johnny mentioned something about divine intervention.

Everyone seemed to avoid you like the plague, well the males did. You were a few years older than Kyle, Captain and now working with the welfare council for werewolves. Making sure that alphas treated their pack members fairly with no abuse or neglect. You were there permanently on the base to shadow each and every system in place.

Kyle just so happened to be the one to break up a fight between a beta and a delta. Giving a statement in your run down office on the furthest side of civilisation. A temporary mobile unit that looked like it had been there since the sixties and forgotten about.

He hesitated in the doorway, your scent nearly knocking him back outside. A strong, heady aroma he couldn’t decipher. Couldn’t quite figure out if it was something he liked or something he loathed. It burnt his nostrils, left a bitter after taste at the back of his throat.

“You feel that too?” You say, not bothering to glance his way as you stare at the computer screen, keyboard clicking away.

“Yes.” He didn’t want to admit it, neither did he want to stick around too long and tempt fate.

The pit of his stomach heated, like a spark catching off of a rock in the depths of a dark cave. One flicker of a withering flame, does he want to let it grow though or smother it? He’s not felt it in a long time, that warmth, that reassurance that someone’s there for him. The guilt eats away at him, he thinks of his mate, not you. You’re not his mate, there are no second chances and no way in hell is there any replacement.

Kyle’s heard the rumours spreading about you and he’s sure you’ve heard his. Yours much different than his though. You witnessed your beloved mate die, worked with him in the same field and continued to do so without them. His mate completely different, civilian that had never witnessed the cruel hand of fate until well her death, but that was more punishing for Kyle.

Not that he’d wish for it to be the other way round though.

You’re an alpha, maybe that’s why he’s struggling to identify your scent. Maybe you’re shielding it from him so he can’t take advantage of the situation and lie on his statement. That or his wolf’s trying really hard to block anything else, but his beloved mates scent in hopes of never losing it too.

“Why don’t you take a seat,” you say, gaze flitting to his and the name on his chest. “Sergeant Garrick.”

A shiver runs down Kyle’s spine as he sat in the chair opposite your desk. No warmth in your features, eyes dull and missing their spark. Kyle should know, he stares at his reflection daily wondering when he’ll recognise himself again. When his voice will register with the same one in his head. You seem to be observing him too, no doubt going through the same monologue in your head. Like looking in a mirror and forcing each other to see what you’ve become. A shell of your previous self.

Kyle goes through the usual questions, answering as truthfully as he can about the situation and the pack, stating that he was just a bystander who diffused the fight. He can’t stop staring at you though, wondering if this is what everyone sees when they look at him.

“Thank you for your cooperation, sergeant,” you say, stretching your gloved hand over the table and shaking his. Grip firm and gaze locked on his, like you were looking knowingly into his soul.

I see you.

He’s glad you’re both wearing layers, even if he can feel the dull tingles pricking his palms and his fingers. Doesn’t know if he’ll be able to stomach skin to skin touch. The thought alone sending a wave of nausea washing over him.

“Of course, Captain.” He nods, declining your polite offer to call you by your call-sign instead of your rank. A bit too personal for his liking considering the circumstances.

The rain meets him as his boots crunch on the gravel outside, the drops of water pelting his tactical vest. He’s about to make a run for it, when he hears a whoosh. A dark shadow looming over him and he glances up to the umbrella, your hand wrapped around the handle.

“Just take it Garrick, no hidden meaning here.” You shake the umbrella, pushing it to his chest. Not waiting for a thank you, the door swinging shut before he can open his mouth.

Kyle grips the handle, walks back to the residential house slowly as the sky begins to darken. The hum of the street lamps warming up, but the pounding in his head drowns it all out. He dumps the umbrella in his bedroom, leaning it against the desk.

It doesn't rain for the rest of the month, April normally lived up to its reputation and rained nonstop. Not since you’d given him the umbrella, Kyle thought maybe the moon goddess was telling him it wasn’t meant to be. He shouldn’t go back there, doesn’t need to. Like you said, no hidden meaning behind the gesture.

He just can’t seem to get you out of his head. Each time he stares at his reflection, rubs his tired eyes he thinks of your same stare. A knowing look of truly knowing someone. And Kyle doesn’t understand most people.

A part of him is scared to be around you for too long. Kyle lost his mate four years ago and you lost yours seven. He doesn’t want to go any deeper in his own grief, looking at you tells him he hasn’t delved deep enough. Another small spec though, wants to throw a pebble and see how far it will go. How much he can withstand, but he doesn’t want to lose his sense of self or his beloved mate.

So when he sees you a month later in May, clothes drenched and stuck to your figure he offers you a fraction of light and a flicker of hope. A cup of warm of coffee from the canteen, the white mug sliding in front of your shivering frame sitting alone at the furthest table away. Your umbrella tucked under his arm. He slides into the bench next to you, arm brushing against your shoulder.

───⋆⋅☆⋅⋆───

The months that follow since that first cup of coffee, becomes routine. Meeting Kyle whenever it’s lashing down with rain and sometimes you gaze out the window wishing for a down pour. Hoping that maybe it can cleanse you, wash away your fears and lead you to something more.

His jacket weighs heavy on your shoulders as you walk back from the main building. The closer you get to Kyle, the further apart your meetings seem to get. He’s still got his remaining spark, not familiar with the deep well you can’t quite seem to climb out of. You haven’t gone too much into your grief with him, but he understands by just the look of your glassy eyes. A fleeting moment of knowing and it breaks your heart all over again. Silences you.

You’re no more than friends, mates seems like a great dishonour to your beloveds memory. There’s glimmers of hesitation on Kyle’s part, fingers hovering close to your hands as you walk next to each other. Words left unsaid that coat the back of your throat and claw for you to keep your mouth shut. Your wolf’s been lying dormant for, you don’t know how long, no bite left as you give up your alpha senses.

It’s been years since you let someone get so close. The walls beginning to crumble and it makes you want to build them up again. Stay in the well, waiting for coins and wishes you know won’t come.

Kyle has his friends, his task force. A team to keep him grounded and take his mind off everything. You don’t, no you’re the one in charge of other people’s wellbeing. Pushing your own needs aside. Your parents are long gone, ashes in the wind and you’re not close to siblings, they’re much older than you. Just being around Kyle reminds you of what you lack. What you long for.

“You’re pretty quiet today?” Kyle hums, head tilting as he tries to catch your gaze. “What’s going on in that head of yours?” His fingers wrap around your upper arm and he pulls you to a gentle stop. You know he can feel the same twist in his chest, the pull of fate.

The mobile unit is in your sight, the one place where you don’t have to think of anything other than work. Where you can bury your head in the files and filter out all the noise. The guilt of spending time with Kyle and the shame you inflicted on yourself for leaning into the bond with him. Your chest bruised from your fists hitting the spot, pain is better than betraying your mate.

“I can’t,” you snapped, ripping your arm out of his hold and shrugging off his jacket. You shove it in his arms, rushing to the comfort of your office door.

He’s hot on your tail though, boots crunching in the gravel and voice raised as he calls after you. You daren’t glance over your shoulder, knowing you’ll stop.

“I’ve been racking my brain for a reason as not to…” he says, heel of his boots rocking back on step as if he’s thinking whether he should carry on or leave. “Either way we’re gonna get burnt.” His palm smacks on the door before it swings back at him.

You’re nothing like him though, no light left. Afraid to snuff out his flame or drain him of life, of hope.

No, you can’t drag him down with you.

You shake your head, trying to even out your faltered breaths. He reaches for your hand, but you dart to the side. “I can’t!” Why is he still here? Why can’t he see how different you are. How you were…

“Why not?” He whispers, as if you’ll break if he’s raises his voice. Like he knows exactly how fragile you, a heart of glass. A pebble finally dropping to the bottom of your well, a crack splitting the brick wall.

“Because you remind me everyday what I have lost! What I must endure.” You don't know how he manages to coax it out of you, how easily you fall apart for something as simple as being kind. You're used to getting on with it in silence and going on without being asked, no ones dared to get this close. You've said more to him than you have your therapist.

“Why would you want to forget him? I don’t want to forget them,” he says your mate’s name like he knew him, his beloved's name making you stumble back as if you were struck in the chest.

Tears spill over your lashes, burning your checks. Your knees crashing to the carpeted floor, head hung low as you finally release the pressure on your chest.

“You don’t have to do this alone,” Kyle says, walking slowly towards you. “They wouldn’t want us to torture ourselves like this.” His arms circle you, palm smoothing up and down your back. You lean your head against his chest, fingers twisting the fabric of his sleeve.

His scent a mixture of your mates and combined with new notes of something earthy and smokey, as if cementing you were meant to burn each other.

Thanks for reading, I'll be posting part 1 of Price's mate tomorrow then be doing part 2 for each of the 141 guys :) Please note that I am dyslexic and although I check/edit my work multiple times I do miss errors/mistakes - Leya

[lilacargent]

At it again, from another angle this time.

‘Old’ weapons. Or at least redundant, as a species traverses into space the new technology makes an old gun or even older sword/arrow/spear and so on useless and nearly powerless. The new weapons are ‘ray this’ and ‘beam that’ ‘plasma so and so’ .

Ofcourse this makes sense, the energy based weapons are far less wasteful and lighter, easier to carry and easier to handle. No need to sharpen weapons with a plasma blade and even then, why use close quarters weapons if you have access to stun, kill or poison rays and many more.

On top of that many civilisations prefer to forget their less then stellar past and make analog weapons obsolete. When the humans joined the council many expected them to do the same. They didn’t, production stopped yes, but interested people could still partake in lessons and the old fashioned ways were shown off in museums. Training to be part of a spaceship crew still included lessons in their old weapons as an opportunity to be prepared for going to “newer” worlds.

So with that in mind i have a few little vignettes ideas and for ease’ sake its gonna be on the same ship, the Serpentine.

Important crew:

Primoz, captain -Limoyh a four armed species-

Krag, second in command (brother of Primoz)

Kit, dokter -avian, bird like, she has feathers like a swallow-

Ortez, ASR (all species resources, human resources in space) -kiltak, insectoid species, think ants but exoskeleton-

Lugea, helmsperson (does the steering) -rock like alien-

Artex, engineer/mechanic 1 -also Kiltak-

And then our humans:

Kamari, navigator -Eritrean woman- (has cat named Sidra)

Markus, weapons expert (knows how to use them and upkeep, also shields) -Swedish man-

Petrus, mechanic/engineer 2 -Italian man-

Lilly, administrator/note keeper (learns languages for fun)-english woman-

Yes i know all of this could have also been accomplished by saying they are all from America… nope this is more fun. This is under the assumption that to get into the joint academy for space faring you need to be able to speak and write English.

Obviously there are more people on the ship but these are most important

~~~~~~~~

1. Sparring

Ortez was having a good day, the serpentine had left port and was making good progress toward their next destination on w-kl-18, referred to as deltax by it’s residents, for a routine drop off.

In port on Unity (the planet where the council resides and the universal court is) they picked up the final crew members among who a ‘team’ of humans. Pre bonded humans were supposed to be less chaos inducing and easier bonded with the rest of the crew. Ortez was rather happy the captain listened to him on this matter.

The humans had been more diverse than he expected and were currently what they called ‘settling in’. He was on his way to the rooms they had.

‘Stop it please we’ve been here less than 4 hours!’ The soft voice he recognises as Lilly’s is barely audible over the loud clanging sounds. Rounding the corner Ortez sees a terrifying scene. The two human males locked together with two sticks made of metal baring teeth at each other, with a push the olive skinned man, he remembers is called Petrus, breaks the hold and goes in low swiping at the tall mans legs making Markus fall over.

Ortez is about to intervene when without a sound the dark skinned leader of the group seemingly appears without a sound behind him and runs into the fray with a similar stick.

Whacking Petrus stick away from Markus’ throat she steps inbetween “stop it. You’re scaring our ASR. We want to make a good impression remember.” The men look right at him and both put down the sticks, Markus puts his hand up in a ‘wave’ “sorry about that, Ortez it was right? We were just sparring.’ Moving further into the room he uncurls his front two claws tapping at the metal poles “sparring with this? We usually only do body to body training, this seems rather old.” Petrus speaks up to that “ah yes those are old earth weapons, we like keeping up a bit of skill with several kinds as a side activity. Don’t worry tho, we train with blunt weapons.”

Not entirely appeased the insectoid looks to the imposing woman, who seems entirely at ease even though two people had been fighting. When she caught his eyes, she smiled that terrible toothy grin “truly don’t worry, like Petrus said they are blunt and it is a way for us to let of some steam and keep in shape. But next time we’ll do it in the training rooms… right boys?” Pinning the two men with withering stares they nodded quickly.

Ortez did not know humans released steam, but he felt right now was not the moment to go into that. Saying his goodbye he skittered to inform the captain.

This was bound to be interesting.

~~~~~~~~~~~

2. “The Roman empire”

“So you are telling me that at any given moment you could be thinking about a several thousand years old society that no longer exists and it would surprise nobody?” Artex was perplexed, when he and Petrus were working on the reactor core Lilly had wandered through and mentioned this old civilisation sparking heated debate. She thought the greeks were far more interesting but Petrus had been unmoved by her arguments. The other man speaks while pushing some buttons “well yea, the empire made great strides and amazing structures, Lilly just prefers the mythos of the greek while i enjoy the focus on millitary prowess.” Shrugging he looks up “don’t you guys have something like that?” Artex stretches his legs, all 6 of them in a wave like motion “not really, when change happened the history books were changed to make it seem like it was always that way” the human makes eye contact “wait so how do you know how to play -old civilisation- as a kid? We play fought with wooden sticks, wooden swords and branches we cut to look like guns…” that horrofied the insectoid, raised with violence like it was a normal thing.

Almost like they never left their dark ages

~~~~~~~~~~~~

3. Whats in a name (bit off topic but the idea just kinda happened)

Te very first time the humans were introduced to their new crew there was a bit of a hiccup. When Kamari introduced herself they looked up a bit confused but went further down the row. After Lilly they came back around and referred to Kamari as moon. Now Kamari recognised the strange look, they had translators that only had basic human translation, which means that her name “Kamari” which comes from Arabic and is a word for moon/soft glow of the moon, is translated fully but not as name so when they speak to her it translates out of their language to English which would be moon. This is luckily easily fixed with an update, but it was something that stil spoke of how new the human race was to the cosmos.

Her cat Sidra made them laugh as that means Star so she was the moon with her star.

(Random thought about how multiple human languages could screw with translations)

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Soooooo kinda had a 4th story that is pretty sad but also bad ass, but this is getting too long already

Imma write that in a new post over the coming days

Hopefully people like this, if you have prompts you’d like to see with this crew feel free to ask.

[huggingtentacles]

Magic is real. The discovery shook the whole world: speaking certain words out loud can cast "spells". The thing is, those words are in a dead language of a long-lost civilization.

Suddenly a lot of things that were a mystery to science make sense with this discovery, it's as if the whole world can be formed and molded with those spells, but only if you say them exclty right. Linguistics becomes the most important science in the world: they are the ones leading the frontier, discovering rules and patterns and grammar of this ancient language, slowly, sound by sound, learning new spells and enchantments.

Some spells are harmless, like creating a mirage in the distance for a short time. Some are very confusing, like closing your eyes and seeing through the eyes of the closest ant. They are rarely dangerous, but someone figured out how to turn leaves into glass and that spell got leaked online.

You are an immortal who has enjoyed life on earth for many many years, disguised as a human. You are the only remaining native speaker of that language, and you know why your civilisation didn't make it.

You have to stop humanity from making a terrible mistake.

[whatudottu]

Hello Ben 10 fans, it's been a hot second hasn't it, it's time for another round of Whatudottu Rambles and it's been a long time coming! Not just because of the gaps between posts but because this original idea comes straight from 2023 notes yay!

Today, we'll be talking about vulpimancers, but specifically their history and the politics of Vulpin! Because! For some reason! Whenever I think about vulpimancers, Vulpin, and vulpinic tortugans I think about their relation to the rest of the universe at large and frankly I want to elaborate what has been years of note taking!

God it's gonna be LONG!

So! One of the caveats when dealing with societal structure and the politics therein with significantly more animalistic appearing species, especially vulpimancers who do not have the actual physical structure to speak Earth languages, is that trying to base them off of a real human culture is a SIGNIFICANT FAUX PAS let alone taking inspiration from more traditional and indigenous cultures from around the world. It's part of the reason my obviously-armadillo ant bio talpaedans have their cultural influence taken from historial Europe more specifically during the time of their royal blood swapping since that's the basis of the tradie marriages.

What this means for vulpimancers is that I won't be taking from any modern world culture and hopefully harkening their lives and otherwise timeline to be kind of the present day equivalent of early human communities. Vulpimancers don't exactly have hard borders on territory beyond their stable hunting grounds and are nomadic, sticking together in communities, working within packs, then bundling for rest with families. This will persist until the 'modern era' which consists of a lot more than just the last 25 so years 'today' means, and that territory ends up becoming a whole country, a few communities per country with their relevant amount of working packs and individual families within.

Communities are 'run' by family elders and pack leaders, being a combination of 'the eldest takes care of the youth' parent style but also of those in charge of resource gathering being the... I suppose statistical analysts of the community who take stock of the resources they have, the mouths they need to feed, the seasons of their country, and how well one resource is actually growing (in the case of plants) or breeding (in the case of animals). It's not completely flawless sure, but it's certainly a system that works in a deadly pitch black environment filled with predators galore. Each country has a basic sense of politics even without a so called 'government head' or unified governing body, and historically their international politics extend to the access foreign vulpimancers have to the lands and resources of their country. Often smelling like a region none of the communities have traveled through (and countrymancers would have had interactions with the other communities and familiarised themselves with their scents), the allowance of foreign travel are limited in small numbers to only a few members of a family and only one or two members of a worker pack just outside (never within) the border; a whole community is expected to remain well away from the border unless the border happens to be at the centre of a river or by a dense cave system.

This system would have gone uninterrupted were it not for the fact that early tortugan settlers, an old species already at space fairing technology well beyond many of the civilisations we know were what they are today, landed on Vulpin during their mission to colonise their star system. One argues that the tortugan got to their level of technology from having a lack of predators and thus more proposed 'free time' to dedicate to advanced sciences, another says that they were simply haughty and underprepared for an environment that they had no ability to even understand beyond the atmosphere let alone the conditions on the ground. What inarguably happened though was in some way the settlers were stranded, their ships corroding and decaying from the harsh chemicals of the air, fighting for their damn lives in the pitch black of Vulpin. Forced to adapt or die, the settlers faced the wild threats of Vulpin fighting tooth and nail to live, running into what would and will continue to be the apex predator vulpimancers reacting in fear to their initial 'foreigners in our territory' related hostilities. It was a reluctant few vulpimancers who saw the fear of the settlers and tried to, realising they both shared the same sapience (or at least an intelligence that was not well adapted to the daily stress of Vulpin), allowing their kindness to inform the tortugans of their own intelligence in turn.

However over time, evolving not only themselves but the environment around them in small yet incredibly noticeable ways, the nations of vulpimancers (particularly near the original region/s of the settler landing zones) were quick to notice and many quick to anger in reaction to the distortion of THEIR land - their COUNTRY - some even quick to forgo what kindness they had extended to the quivering death fodder. Hodgepodging together shelter from their ship scraps, warped metal and corroded rust making for an ironic newly created collection of beaten up shanty towns, the torugans (on their way to becoming the vulpinic tortugans of the modern era) were either left to fend for themselves as communities of vulpimancers dropped their support or had to rebuild again and again as some ran them out, furious at the junk obstructing their riverways, digging up their plants, and diverting the natural and long studied hunting grounds of their prey. The very rare few communities - or rather, specific individuals - leave the attempts at expansion to run it's course and to meet it's maker at the hands of the weather and wilds seeking to erase the settlers' old technology, truly predating on anything the tortugans have build up whether it be the walls of their home or the flesh beneath their skin.

Unlike the nomadic vulpimancers, the tortugans are sedentary in their housing and are densely packed into small Minitowns so to say, their population never particularly comparable to the large number of vulpimancers. Minitowns are only ever really found in countries that have notable 'places of evil' that the communities of the region avoid like the literal plague, especially areas that not a lot of wildlife disturb, which technically makes for shit city planning since it means prey species and plants aren't nearby in the area, but the tortugans would take anything to get predators off their backs even if it means they need to have their own versions of worker packs. Some Minitowns have actually consulted with a few communities about where best to place a sedentary 'camp' so to speak, which varies given the relationship a specific group or nation of vulpimancers have towards the settlers whether they'd rather hide them away near a cave system that could provide good shelter and cave-dwelling prey, or in specific colder locations where the tortugan-vulpimancer relationship is actually neutral to positive, they might suggest a Minitown to be built adjacent to a winter site to help during what might usually be a deadly chill.

Tortugans however can still be 'on the run' however if they've wondered into regions where vulpimancers hate them, but unfortunately the early settlers who have not yet adapted to the conditions of the planet are run off to die instead. This and the former paragraph would be referred to in modern times as the New Settler policy, more of a general reaction the general vulpimancer had to the tortugans rather than an official decree, but a generalised trend that can all be connected under a retroactive title.

With a somewhat stable environment, the remaining survivors and the descendants of the settlers would have adapted and become the vulpinic tortugans, now able to sustain themselves and not be as entirely reliant on their historical Minitowns; they still aren't an apex predator by any means, nor too far removed from being a prey species, but their poison spines and defense curl allows them not to be completely food. Due to the inherent limitations of even the recommended locations of Minitowns, a fair many tortugans become nomadic out of necessity, the growing number of mouth unable to be filled with the lack of resources. Tortugan and vulpimancer relations are still heavily varied between regions, but with the new nomadic tortugan groups - tending towards groups of friends or small families - there may yet be more opportunity for the two species to bond in the best case scenario. In a neutral but positive case, some countries that had been very hostile to the tortugans may view the up-and-coming nomads to not be as much of a threat to their land and allow them transit, though nothing more and in the most untrusting of cases they'll be escorted to the next border with haste or even only allowing passage if the path to an adjacent nation is otherwise hard to cross over.

Throughout their entire time trying to survive Vulpin, the tortugans previously didn't have enough time to consider anything as formal as politics. With their physical adaptations, now they can enter the world of more unspoken politics that the vulpimancers were already scent deep into, splitting into the primary two demographics of settler and nomad tortugans. Settler tortugans typically stay within the country, even if some may have nomadic tendencies to travel between known Minitowns of the region, often having a specialised class of the worker pack to rely on food and materials; they still cling onto every scrap that their ancestor came with, though they have long forgotten a lot of what they specifically meant to them. Nomadic tortugans can but often don't travel exclusively within their country - a contrast to their neighbouring communities - needing to avoid countries that actively hate them and only occasionally daring to step within countries that tolerate them at BEST but would rather not have to interact with them; they often sympathise with the original vulpimancer communities affected by their coloniser ancestors, those who ultimately failed in their goal regardless, travelling around the world that they know would have had attempts made to terraform it into something unrecognisable should the colonists have had 'better' circumstances to do so.

It was sometime in the modern era that Vulpin began to become an intergalactic dumping ground fueled by the tortugan colonies, or rather the United Tortugan Market - a trade colony built up of several planets within the same system, except for Vulpin - who are filling up with excess waste, recalled that one of their ancestral colony ships failed to produce any results on Vuplin and thus considered it the trash they they dumped onto it. Ignorant not only because the settlers failed to report back about a sapient species, they also wholeheartedly believe that the passengers sent to the planet on that initial voyage died before they could populate, they emptied out their waste bins and tossed them down onto the planet at ranges that would not allow corrosion to interfere with their ships flight. And now, where both the vulpimancer communities - disgruntled about repeated history - and the newly adapted vulpinic tortugans - newly afraid to taste their own ancestors' medicine - have to deal with their lands and homes being ruined and overrun by scraps and busted machines, the UTM begins selling a service to local customers for their new planet sized dump, dubbing it Vulpin: the Market Junkyard.

With the intergalactic trash piling up, destroying the ecosystem, damaging ancient lands and displacing many communities and even whole fucking countries of vulpimancers, new political ideologies start to form. There are the 'fuck aliens' crowds who - despite reluctance - allow for vulpimancer refugees of neighbouring countries, beginning to revert to (or worsing their already bad relationship to the tortugans) xenophobia towards both settler tortugans and nomadic tortugans, some countries turning to the ones cohabiting with them to 'go back to where [they] came from' and leave their planet alone. Others have put their foot down and - essentially - form the political ideology of 'learn to fucking cope' where communities specifically refuse to share their unmarred land to even their fellow countrymancers, splitting off into the 'okay LET'S fucking cope' ideology where the otherwise displaced community in reaction would essentially sever that community's nomadic path from the rest of the country by actively posturing against any movement into what is now deemed their own new country.

The last two ideologies, loosely titled 'maybe we need help' and 'there's too much shit to ignore', mirror the initial settler/nomad tortugan political split that spawned initially from vulpimancer influence. The first ideology works in stark contrast to the 'fuck aliens' ideology where displaced communities find refugee within tortugan settlements, between small families making homes in Minitowns or whole communities and even countries depending helping tortugans with Junkyard Cities - cities that are still only technically about the equivalent for maybe suburbs at most, Vulpin countries aren't particularly large but they are numerous - making use of the intergalactic trash to build homes and (unfortunately) having a steady supply able to repair and maintain them; it is however more common to have Minitowns with a partial nomadic life, even if it's only for the purpose of resources which still stem from their initial hurdles in town construction. The 'too much shit to ignore' ideology mirrors the international tortugan nomads where an entire country's worth of land is filled with rubbish that not even the native wildlife can make use of it's resources buried beneath the scrap, making the region an undeniable dead zone that may bring many species into extinction, if not simply endanger them; international travel would probably only be for family sized groups, probably only families given that, and only if they have experienced enough worker pack members.

Vulpinic tortugans, in contrast to the disgusted and resentful opinions that the vulpimancers hold for the trash piles, generally speaking simultaneously view the growing junkyards as horrendous yet rife with opportunity as the lands they were forced to call home fill with materials they can use to build their homes and potentially enter the stars their ancestors had dreams of one day returning to. Nomadic tortugans are revolted as though this may not have been the terraforming they feared their ancestors could have fallen into doing, they are still affecting the planet as if they were dominating the land with technology and greed, and settler tortugans specifically in areas not yet prone to junkfall do not much benefit from the opportunity they'd provide in order for their opinion to differ from the nomads, unless their worker packs reach further into the the junkyards for 'treasures'. As mentioned in the afforementioned 'we need help' vulpimancer ideology, settler tortugans in junkfall regions would gather around junkyards and build cities from the scraps, using the fact that the wildlife would steer clear of the cluttered regions as a deterrent to the risks of expansion to make larger settlements than they could have otherwise on an untainted Vulpin, especially with the wealth of materials able to maintain the structures of the city. But even the Junkyard Cities require an ample source of food and other resources not found in the trash, so overrun countries and the deep centre of the junkyards forming around the planet cannot support a city of needy people, displaced or otherwise, and thus even the settler tortugans of Junkyard Nations must leave to find greener-but-not-literally pastures; depending on the population of the displaced settler town, they may resettle at the edge of the junkyard to create a city, move even further away to recreate a Minitown just for them, or even become nomads and set a course away from their ruined homes.

With all these broadstroke political ideologies, there is the fundamental truth that within these junkyards houses 'useless garbage' from societies with much higher tech levels sitting in scraps of themselves, the levels ranging from interplanetary to even intergalactic levels of technology that may be broken to the point of being garbage, but their structure still exists and the stray opportunist to take the time to reverse engineer the scraps can do so with lots of trial and error. The tortugans have to learn by this exact trial and error having long forgotten the sciences their ancestors used to strand themselves on Vulpin, and ever watchful the vulpimancers (especially those displaced, especially those cohabiting with the tortugans) keep an open ear (gill?) to the goings on in the junkyards, enough so that a handful of individuals take the same route as their junkyard neighbours to trial and error their own tech.

Leaving a planet and it's inhabitants to rot under the piles of trash and metal you litter it with leaves for bitter peoples who scrap themselves their own frankensteinian machines of your and all your customers' technologies, influencing a rising tide of Vulpin spacefarers that offer no fealty or kindness to the United Tortugan Market your own peoples find respect in. Junker Pirates, you call them, rising from the pitch black of the corrosive atmosphere you first lost a colony fleet to, and how interesting. The settlers DID survive. And they've made pets- or so the tortugans and the rest of the intergalactic community believe.

Pirates are treated like pirates, of course; arrested like the criminals they are. Unfortunately this is one of the first instances of not recognising vulpimancers for the sapient beings that they are, where the vulpinic tortugans - revealed to be the closest cousin species hereditarily to the arburian pelarota, and thus obviously capable of sapience even if 'more feral' 'more savage' 'more undeveloped' - are sentenced to whatever punishment suits the declaration that they are indeed guilty of piracy, the vulpimancer crew on the other hand are treated like trained dogs and sent into the null void where a large population begins to form and a new brand of hostility begins to brew. Given that the vulpimancers with tortugan crew have to actually tolerate the tortugan enough to be isolated on a ship with them, the null void pirates do not generally resent the vulpinic tortugans of the crew, rather they may despise specifically the tortugan cousins or even the UTM, if they do not generalise and grow to hate everyone not from Vulpin. If the tortugan pirate are sent back to their planet - deported so to speak to Vulpin - and carry back the news that the vulpimancer members of their crew were sent to the null void without due processing, new hostilities spark on homeground. Communities that grow to despise the pirates for giving Vulpin and it's newly discovered people an even worse reputation that it already has, those that once again circle back into hating the tortugans - now their reasoning being that they 'keep getting away' from karma and still hurting their vulpimancer kin - and then there are those that grow to hate the intergalactive governments for stealing their family away and locking them between the folds of the dimensions. The pirates are still going to pirate, regardless of if they are breaking their terms by leaving the planet again, and those who have lost crew to the null void seek to find (and steal if necessary) null void technology and in a worst-case scenario memorise the construction of the projectors so they may smuggle back those illegitimately 'processed' back on Vulpin.

Other pirates that are either set free or are bound to fulfill the conditions of community service (which if word ever got back to Vulpin, the returning pirates being the key here, those that resent the intergalactic governments would resent the community service in turn) more often than not find themselves in the long term not returning to Vulpin. The pirate whom were set free may return full force into piracy once again, though this time without their vulpimancer crew - at least those that do not follow through with finding null void tech - and may begin to accrue members of other species into their Junker Ship, if they were open to such ideas. Those that were given community service may learn more about the intergalactic governments and try to find a way to fix their perceptions of vulpinic tortugans, vulpimancers, and Vulpin in it's entirety by eventually settling somewhere where they can begin getting into the far more structured and far more... loophole ridden poiltics of written law and relations. Those in the political field will begin to realise that Vulpin is legally speaking a part of the United Tortugan Market, that it's official name in the colony is Vulpin: the Market Junkyard, and that very distinctly is NOT UNDER THE 'OWNERSHIP' VULPIN'S OWN PEOPLES. The ex-pirates that happen to return home, learning a little of the politics if they are not politicians themselves, spread the news back home inciting others (including the very fucking understandably furious vulpimancers) to potentially engage in interplanetary and intergalactic politics of their own, especially vulpimancers who are tired of others - which includes the vulpinic tortugans who have been the most vocal not necessarily by choice, mind - speaking over them.

The introduction of interplanetary and intergalactic communications, even if it is limited to visitations as the environment in Vulpin (especially with Junkfalls now present as an element worry about) makes setting up a communications array for the height required to transmit and receive signals rather difficult on a good day, let alone a day shared with very... opinionated communities, has allowed for the ability to access foreign language and common symbols that can help with interspecies relations. Or hinder them, if you teach a very well used universal 'fuck you' sign to a very understandably pissed vulpimancer forced to be treated like an animal deaf to all the words being spoken around them. The access to language also helps form the first technologies allowing for Vulpin languages to be added to translators. However, with a lot of the languages in the intergalactic community having their own writing system (with Vulpin languages not needing a writing system for the longest time), the previously unwritten Vulpin languages are given one by the vulpinic tortugans who use a carved variety of and Old Tortugan writing system and transliterate many of the sounds, especially vulpimancer languages as unlike Vulpin tortugan languages, the sounds did not already have close equivalents. Writing it planetside is often done with sheets of metal rather than wasting plant material, but intergalactically with sighted individuals it is written on the average data screen.

With it's basis in Old Tortugan, modern tortugan languages with the same root language such as Arburian languages, not only can tortugans begin to read Vulpin languages, but anyone who has knowledge on tortugan languages can engage with Vulpin languages more thoroughly than they were able to previously. Which considering they considered the vulpinic tortugans as the 'most' sapient of the Vulpin species despite them both speaking in what essentially amounts to growls and yamper, is quite significant of a development, even as it is functionally once again removing the voice of vulpimancers in favour of the tortugan voice. Sometimes vulpimancer politicians are willing to let that slide in favour of being understood, walking around with tortugan liasons who have the mouth structure in other to reciprocate more common intergalactic languages. Other vulpimancer politicians refuse to rely on their fellow Vulpin national to speak for them and instead insist on using some newly created translators fitted with their relevant Vulpinic language pack, speaking for themselves with a voice technically not theirs but one that they can assuredly say voices their own personal experiences.

On Vulpin, there is a growing community of junkers, a variety of members not exactly connected like the communities of vulpimancers and their own ideologies made up of tortugans and vulpimancers (often called weirdos mostly because of their more nontraditional tortugan-like behaviour and interests), who spend most of their time in the junkyards scrapping together all the tech tossed homeward bound into their lands to develop distinctly Vulpinic technology. Unlike the pirates - which if questioned, they'll say they 'heeded the warnings' from the pirates and elect not to fall into the same trap - Junkers often remain on ground zero and don't actively seek out revenge, not like they are suddenly so much kinder than the Junker Pirates, but rather they use their pretty fucking justified anger to fuel their projects and scavenger hunts; it's also not like they're push overs with hearts of gold either, especially since some a working on building pretty powerful machines that could be considered weapons, they WILL defend themselves and they have quite a bit of faith in their abilities. And remaining on the planet is quite the majority of the vulpimancer communities, and not just the xenophobic ones, as they have unlike the politically motivated interplanetary travelers they choose to remain in their home territories (or as close as they can if they are one of the displaced communities). They are the communities and countries that try to maintain the general political interactions between each other that had been present for a long time within their evolutionary history, which does mean they do not explicitly care about the interplanetary affairs beyond hoping that the Vulpin politicians can get them to stop using the planet as a dumping ground. They - unless otherwise stated in their individual political ideologies - do not care to pay much attention to the weirdo vulpimancers and the alien tortugan who are a very clear example of how no other alien is likely to decide to live on Vulpin willingly ever.

One of the first interplanetary organisations that Vulpin and it's peoples were introduced to were the Plumbers, and given that their first interaction was with the Junker Pirates and their very severe sentences, Vulpin and Vulpin officials stationed even in government bodies are rather typically ACAB (or I suppose APAB, All Plumbers are Bastards), and many of the politicians are moving to get legally defined rights not just for the recently reintroduced vulpinic tortugans but also the very hard to fight for, very tooth and nail political clambering, establishment of rights for vulpimancers as well. Regardless of how well the pirates are breaking out the members of their crew from the null void, getting the official rights to trial and thus the ability to call the illegitimate processing of vulpimancer pirates as a violation of a vulpimancer's sapient rights and thus hopeful (doubtfully) garner some consequences for the hasty arrest of the early pirates. Politicians were also attempting to get the rights for Vulpin into the legal 'ownership' of the people of Vulpin, specifically recognising the vulpimancers as the original custodians of the land and respecting the national land of the vulpinic totugans that have evolved to live on Vulpin, but in order to do so they would need to actively find the current root owner of Vulpin within the United Tortugan Market. As much as the pirates and all those resentful of the intergalactic governments and the UTM would have liked to tear at the throats of the trade colony, the Vulpin representatives are in a tentative situation trying to prove not only the species' sapience, securing the rights in which that is allotted with, but also that the peoples are of... sound sociability in order to gain any semblance of recognition of being even a national people.

It is with the arrival of the tick on Arburia that presented an... ample opportunity to try and... convince the United Tortugan Market of that 'sound sociability' and potentially... a bargaining chip to their own planet's ownership. As much as the potential of damning an entire planet to suffer in ways similar to how they have suffered was very appealing, it would have been significantly detrimental to the work the politicians and the future of Vulpin against the tide of Junkfalls if they left the innocents of Arburia to die or to in fact use them as hostages to outweigh the biases to give them their legal ownership. Instead, at the begging of Vulpin representatives - with the help of the onboard communications of Junker Ships and the pirates that drove them - the members and species of Vulpin gambled on kindness and sought to rescue and save the arburian pelarota and their families like the early vulpimancers once did with the early tortugan settlers, ships lined full of fleeing families even as the government heads of the UTM began to panic upon seeing the pirate ships, especially when infamous crews and ships began to be sighted. Arburian pelarota's, being exposed in their time of need to the act of kindness from both vulpinic tortugans (which they believed to be more violent cousins) AND vulpimancers (where they had been wrongly informed where simple trained animals) had allowed them to understand their mutual sapience, regardless of the roughened and angry exterior of the peoples of Vulpin in addition to their nature as pirates. Fully willing to deliver the inhabitants of Arburia (which, they were not the only ship fleet, but they were the ones willing to keep searching even as the planet was in it's death marches) onto solid ground within the UTM colonies, they seek to enter the atmosphere of any of the requested planets. Hesitantly, not willing to let pirates into their planets, it was at the behest of their Aburian inhabitants that they allow the Junker Ships entry. It is with the evacuation of Arburia that Vulpin gained it's first ally.

It does not mean they suddenly have all the goals they have set out to do, but it means there is someone who is not themselves who have a ball in their court.

[godofliestreacheryandrebellion]

Ancient Arlathan Timeline is weird?

I was reading up on the timeline and I'm already hitting snags because, well they aren't plotholes or continuity breaks or anything, but the timing is not what I expected.

Ancient Arlathan is founded in 1 FA or -7600 Ancient give or take (as said on the wiki & in The World of Thedas, vol 1).

Presumably the First Elves (Elgar'nan seems to have a fair claim to being the first ever Elf, and Mythal seems to be of a similar age) came into existence not long before that - maybe a couple centuries older (so around -7800 Ancient).

Solas could have made his body before or after 1 FA. I presume before as he also seems to be fairly old, as he is part of Ghilan'nain's generation (as said in her reply letter), and likely helped to build Elvhenan.

the part that I'm finding odd is the timing of the Titan War.

The Elves meet the Dwarves around -4600 Ancient or 3000 FA (wiki). That's roughly 3000 years after they've established their empire, but we also know that the Elves would imprison the Dwarves in the Deep Roads at the end of the Titan War (wiki), and that the Veil and the end of the Evanuris occurs at around -3100 Ancient or 4500 FA (wiki).

so... Arlathan is established in 1 FA, is fine for around 3000 years (under unknown rule if any at all), then the Titans and their "soulless" (wiki) workers (like 99% sure the workers are the Dwarves, probably considered "soulless" because of their "Isatunoll" ability to connect to each other like ants) go to war with them over their theft of Lyrium.

Only after this war is won, the Titans are made Tranquil and the Dwarves are imprisoned, do the Evanuris rise up as "gods" (as said in Solas' Regrets). So only after this event can they begin to take slaves and brand them with vallslin, and only after that can Solas stage his rebellion.

which means that the Evanuris ruled for less than 1500 years. and were fighting Solas' rebellion for several of those.

that... doesn't feel like any time at all?

It felt to me that the Ancient Elves were sort of built up as this slow-moving, stagnating civilisation that couldn't move forward because they felt they had thousands of years of life ahead of them.

and instead they were around for maybe 4500 years and about 30% of that time actually had the Evanuris in any sort of power.

like, take Solas:

he spends 3000 years living in Ancient Elvhenan, then joins the war agaisnt the Titans, then spends less than 1500 years living under the Evanuris' rule and then as leader of the Rebellion. then he's in a coma for 4000 years?

He's been asleep for almost as long as he's been alive???? what??

it just feels so incredibly short - esp for an Ancient civ, populated by unaging immortal beings that influenced pretty much everything in Thedas?

[sentimental-darkness]

I have no scientific knowledge here but it’s interesting because isn’t it hard to tell? Like, with animals, who never really evolved in a way we did, they would be at that stage humans once were. So if an animal or alien ancestor had some weird telepathic sonic waves or something, such abilities, then it could be something totally different for communication but still elaborate like our ‘spoken’ language. But if they didn’t and it were just primitive sounds or like dog barking at first stages, then surely it would be something written and maybe comprehensive “spoken” speech later, because what else? The only problem could be different bodies and inability to replicate their sounds

People dreaming of establishing communications or common language with aliens is such a funny concept. It's always expected to be spoken or written language, but if we look at human history with pets, it's what is most likely to happen, conveying our intentions with intonations, repeating words and showing their meaning, not actually creating a language in between. Hell, we can't even agree on one common language among ourselves, let alone with someone alien.

It's almost as if nothing else matters unless it's our equal, or rather, functioning the same way.

[vicit-vim-virtus]

(no one is here to help) + reverse: Ingvar is taken to [... Or perhaps presented to? Shown to?] Luran as his captive.

The carriage sped across the countryside, barely permitting its passengers to marvel at the sublime, mountainous landscape and the lush, prismatic meadow that lay amidst. Prolific brooks slithered down the precipitous mountainsides and meandered through the lavish grasslands, like glimmering veins, nourishing the wildlife that strayed there and granting life to the beauteous flowers and plants that grew there in abundance. The environmental splendour was completely lost on Luran, whose mind was wholly occupied with the latest developments up north.

A giant was — allegedly — running rampant in the fields, devouring livestock, setting farms ablaze, and not only that, but citizens, waking up one morning and carrying out their mundane duties during the day, were brutally slain in the passing of the night. And all these diabolical and heinous atrocities bedeviled most sacred grounds. Or so, he’d been told in the written correspondence he’d received from the archbishop who governed the city. Rumours? Truth? Or merely an unfortunate accumulation of events that were unrelated to one another? Perhaps some astute fearmonger was taking advantage of the pandemonium and opted to deploy a malicious scheme of their own?

While he listened to the captain of the royal guard fussing incessantly about his safety, the elf’s mind wandered; he tried to conjure up the little knowledge pertaining to giants he possessed. It wasn’t much, regrettably, just the fables he’d told his brothers, but were those fact, or mere fiction? Luran didn’t dare venture a guess. Most of the fictional giants were depicted as the bloodthirsty antagonist determined to obliterate the valiant elven protagonist who brazenly stood up against the brute to protect the elven people — knowing the deplorable history of the elves, Luran deemed those myths, sagas, and legends alike heavily unreliable. Thus, consulting them would be pointless, if not injudicious. Perhaps a scholar could fill him in when he arrived...

In a matter of hours, the carriage came to a staggering halt several kilometres outside of the city — in farmland. Until then, Luran had no idea what to expect, but the giant was — well — gigantic... The captive stood, at the very least, more than ten metres tall — a truly fearsome sight to behold. Ropes and chains restrained him, and the pervasive, acrid stench of elven magic permeated the air, to enhance the durability of the tools utilised to confine him, presumably. Or as a mere warning.

The elf let out a shaky breath — what the hell was he even doing here?! What if this creature decided (and rightfully so) he had enough of being detained by a bunch of pointy-eared ants and simply pulverised them beneath his feet?! Why had these people not chased him off into desolate and uninhabited lands? Why had they reeled him into the centre of civilisation? What if he ended up devouring them, too? Or did only ogres and goblins have an insatiable appetite for elves? It’d be best not to dwell on the particulars...

‘It’s the devil’s work! Evil incarnate!’ the archbishop — a short, elderly elf — cried and scampered over to Luran. ‘It pains me to suggest it, but...’

‘—Then, don’t...’

‘—we must excise it.’

‘Excise? Don’t you think that’s a little harsh? Maybe the giant has come bearing gifts and all you want to do is put him down? like a mortally wounded badger on the side of the road?’ Luran was a diplomat at heart, and thus, preferred to coax his adversaries, gently, deceptive them into doing his bidding, or reaching a compromise, a decent middle ground. He abhorred violence; there was no profit in brandishing swords and daggers, and thrusting spears and arrows in others without seeking to ascertain their motivations and intentions, their needs...

‘Oh, did I say excised? I meant exorcised!’

The high-elf rolled his eyes in exasperation and disregarded the archbishop’s words as malarkey. He tentatively approached the giant, but remained at a safe distance. He was well-versed in the art of public speaking — his voice could project, though he’d never tried it on a giant before, so hopefully his words landed.

‘Greetings. May I ask, what is your purpose here? What business do you have in elven territory?’ he inquired, repeating his question in Common, in case the giant didn’t comprehend the preposterously intricate elven language.

[professionalowl]

@astriiformes tagged me to post about the books I have on my to-be-read list for 2025, and I promised myself I'd get through at least twelve of them, so here's a selection of the "at least twelve" I want to get through. I'm a habitual non-fiction reader because when I was 12 I hated everything "written for twelve year olds" and switched my focus to pop science (and to a lesser extent history) instead, so I am, consequently, much better at judging and picking up quality non-fiction than I am finding and reading fiction. I'm trying to spice it up by adding some (science...) fiction to the list this year, as I did last year.

I'm currently reading the very last one, Selfish Genes to Social Beings, and am hoping (in vain?) to get it done before I get back to university on Sunday. Currently stalling on chapter 6 of 13-or-so, so probably not. (It doesn't help that like...see...I've been to the optician four times in the past three weeks...and I've come away with a new prescription three of those times, with more on the way...and on top of all that, I have a "dissertation to draft" or something. It's hard.) It's very readable, though, I'd recommend it.

Tagging: @magiefish, @t4tbruharvey, @specialagentartemis and...whoever else I've interacted with who has a long list of things to read on their plate.

Detailed exposition below the cut, because one of my other goals is to get used to expositing more frequently and more clearly:

Fiction:

On The Origin Of Species and Other Stories (Bo-Young Kim, 2021) - I was looking for short story collections to try and get back into the habit of reading at lunchtime, and a user I follow recommended this one. The theme is, roughly, "posthumanist stories about evolution" and it's great so far - I've only read the first one, but. Like. (Staring out over the water) Man.

Children of Ruin (Adrien Tchaikovsky, 2019) - I really liked Children of Time, which is about artifically-evolved hyperintelligent spiders colliding with the descendants of the dying civilisation that accidentally created them while trying to force-evolve servile primates. They make a computer out of ants and store a person on it. It absolutely ruled the whole way through, so obviously I have to read the sequels - I hear this one is about octopi, but I'm about 12 pages in, so who can say.

Absolution (Jeff VanderMeer, 2024) - again, I finished Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance last summer, specifically because I discovered he was dropping a new one, and really enjoyed them. I think my sibling has made off with this one for now, though.

Non-fiction:

Planetary Social Thought: The Anthropocene Challenge to the Social Sciences (Nigel Clark and Bronislaw Szerzynski, 2021) - my best friend got me this for my birthday. I've read a small chunk of the literature on the Anthropocene, and the concept succeeds and fails in ways I find really interesting, so I'll happily read an entire book about it.

The Serviceberry (Robin Wall Kimmerer, 2024) - I've been meaning to read Braiding Sweetgrass since forever, and the economic angle of this one really intrigues me - I've encountered similar ideas in the course of reading anthropology, but one of my missions for this year is to start reading indigenous authors directly instead of just letting anthropologists paraphrase them, so I'd like to get a hold of a copy at some point.

Rebirding: Restoring Britain's Wildlife (Benedict Macdonald, 2019) - I read the first chapter of this in Year 13, which was about the history of Britain's relationship with its wildlife, and it was horrifying. I must read more.

The Museum of the Wood Age (Max Adams, 2022) - my brother gave this to me for Christmas and it looks awesome. It's about wood technology - "basic devices" like screws, levers, and wheels, as the blurb calls them - and its adaptability. I'm always a fan of flipping the script on quote-unquote "basic technologies" and simplicity/complexity is a favourite issue of mine, so I'm quite excited about this one!

The History of Magic: From alchemy to witchcraft, from the Ice Age to the present (Chris Gosden, 2020) - picked it up at a local bookshop for £6 (a steal) last Christmas because it was there, started reading it, got distracted, never made it past the second chapter. What I did read was very good, as is everything else I've read by Chris Gosden - albeit very broad in scope, so it'll be interesting to see what he chooses to cover! Probably one for after I graduate in June. Most of these are for after I graduate in June.

Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture (Suhir Hazareesingh, 2020) - another book I got halfway through and then dropped when school started again, way back in 2021. I distinctly remember that it was impressively well-written and engaging, and I'm not usually one for biographies, but the guy is really compelling, as are the details Hazareesingh includes on the specifics of the Haitian Revolution and the links between revolutionary action and Haitian culture. It's high on my "HAVE to finish this at some point" list.

What An Owl Knows (Jennifer Ackerman, 2023) - Ackerman's The Genius of Birds had a massive impact on me and the way I thought about intelligence (human and animal) when I was like, 14, and I was a big fan of the half of the sequel The Bird Way I managed to get through in 2020. I've always been a fan of making the self-deprecating joke "I call myself Owl online because I appear to be wise but am actually very stupid," and this book seems like it's trying to swing the pendulum back in the other direction - so, of course, I must read it.

Are We Smart Enough To Know How Smart Animals Are? (Franz de Waal, 2016) - relatedly, I've read a lot of cognitive archaeology over the course of my degree, much of which plays on the same things I found interesting about The Genius of Birds, but it's obviously hominid-focused, and where it isn't the lens is mostly on other primates and occasionally some cetaceans and corvids, and it's prone to making sweeping statements about what animals can/can't do. This one came up in a book I read last year, which was also about conceptions of 'intelligence,' and we had a copy lying around, so it's on the list.

Selfish Genes to Social Beings: A Cooperative History of Life (Jonathan Silvertown) - relatedly relatedly, I know a guy who does social cognition and philosophy of nature, and this one partially derives from trying to pick up on those threads, as well as get to grips with the "cooperation versus competition" arena of the philosophy/science of evolution. I'm reading it right now and while I have some nitpicks about the way it talks about human cooperation (of the "reliance on modelling leaves it stripped down and apolitical" variety), the science is very clearly presented and the author is pretty funny.

Assume also that whatever godforsaken iteration of the Skulduggery Pleasant threequels drops next is on this list, as well as a variety of other books I have yet to acquire a copy of. Most of these are recent to very old Christmas/birthday presents, so I'm prioritising the things I have a physical copy of for now.

[kikunai]

had an interesting thought of what would civilisations look like if humans and ants swapped their intelligence and lifespan

[tyrannuspitch]

6,14,19,23 :D

6. Have you watched any of the deleted scenes from Thor 1, The Avengers, or Thor 2? If yes, choose one deleted scene that definitely deserved to have stayed in.

Odin and Frigga's fight from Thor 1! I'm on my hands and knees beginning the MCU to spare Frigga a scrap of complexity, and the combination of this fight and Frigga fervently defending Odin to Loki during the Odinsleep could be so interesting. To me it looks a lot like she fears Odin here, but she also seems to sincerely believe a lot of the fucked up things she says in his defence. But she's also kind of known for lying. So like... Is she lying? Or has he won her over? Is she choosing harmony over justice? Is she choosing herself over her children? Does she really believe she's doing the right thing? I don't have the answers, but I wish there was more discussion of it. And maybe even more Frigga scenes in TDW as a result of living in the Complex T1 Frigga universe. Put it back!!!!

14. Do you have any headcanons about Jotunheim?

I'm not the best worldbuilder so I basically have two in total, which you might already know about:

A) That Jotunheim and Asgard's rivalry is ancient. The two civilisations have been in contact since time immemorial and they define themselves in relation/in contrast to each other.

B) That bilgesnipe are Jotun cavalry animals.

19. Find an insect/arthropod that reminds you of Loki (aesthetically, behaviourally, etc.)

Ant; boot.

I'm partial to a bit of spider imagery. The webs, the dark hiding places, the intricate schemes and need for control. The kind of elegance and dexterity that people find inexplicably unsettling. Being unjustly feared and persecuted for their "creepy" appearance and for their vital role in the ecosystem/narrative that they did not choose. It's all very gothic and fun. I should use it more.

23. Headcanons about Loki's Jotun form?

LOKI! HAS!! DWARFISM!!! This is deeply Real To Me, to the extent that I was genuinely surprised when I first realised that there are other interpretations. His father thought he was "too small" and abandoned him to die. Does that not sound like a disability narrative to other people? Does it not resonate perfectly with his pervasive but unsubstantiated weakling-coding?

I do see people's point about Loki not quite looking like other Jotuns and so possibly being partially another species, but IDK. That option just doesn't quite compel me the same way. The idea of Loki being caught between cultures/species is *already covered* by his fucked up adoption situation. Physical disability is a whole new thematic layer.

-> Ask me about early MCU Loki!!

[leahnardo-da-veggie]

The End of the World

She hobbled beneath the canopy of soul-oaks. Their bone-white branches intertwined, blocking out almost all light, casting a haze of crimson onto the grove. Her body felt infinitely heavy, like she was dragging the weight of a world with her. In a way, she was.

Her golden trail of blood dragged like a snail's slime, staining the scarlet leaves with the last dregs of a god's life. Her wings drooped on the ground, limp. It was the end of her, and she knew it. Yet she continued walking, through the faint dappled light filtering from beneath heart-leaves, into the clearing beyond.

Her job was completed, her succession settled. She could lay down her arms and die peacefully. Oh, how her heart yearned to do so, and her body was falling apart with the need to take a final nap. But she knew she would never awaken, and she had one tiny task to complete.

In all her millennia of wandering through the planet, she had never found the End of the World.

The soul-trees were thinning to reveal a rocky beach, and a pitch black starless sky. Wind howled against the remaining trees, screaming a mournful harmony to a world long gone. Just a few steps away lay a precipice, a thin carcass of stone overlooking the Void. An endless darkness. Infinite. All consuming. The End of the World.

And if she had it her way, it would be her end too. No reincarnation, no restless ghost roaming the galaxy in search of a cure to its lassitude. No, she would have nothing but eternal sleep.

The wind caroused with her hair, toying with the battle braids, nipping at her exposed skin like a rambunctious child. But she had no eyes for anything save that ledge. 

Sour bile and sickness. That was what she smelled of. A dying woman. She had lived so long, so very very long. Long enough that she thought herself to be immortal.

"But the sun will rise and the mountains will fall and all things will come to an end," she croaked, reciting a trace of a poem from another age. The rest had been lost to the void, just as she was soon to be.

One step closer to the edge. Another step. The pain was excruciating, every millennia of her life weighing down on her body. 

She had been beautiful, once. Fearsome, awe-inspiring, worshiped by all. But she was old, old, old beyond belief.

And her skin, once clear and milky pale, had crumpled like paper, folding and crinkling until her face was an old map of all her travels, becoming ashen and waxy.

Her hair had once been the passionate scarlet of fire, her eyes the crimson of blood and battle-lust. The colour had been drained away from her, leaving naught but a shell of her magnificence. 

She had towered over the mere mortals, made them cower and whinge with her great magic. Yet here she was, hunched over herself, unable to so much as summon a spark. 

She would have wept to see herself reduced to this, but she was too weary to feel such passions. 

One more step. She stood on the tip of the ledge. The Void stared into her, an ancient enemy. She met its gaze evenly. From the very beginning, she knew she would die in its maw. 

In the fathomless depths, she saw her past. Empires wrought by her hand and obliterated at her will. Civilisations, rising and falling like ants. Temples and cathedrals alike raised in her honour, whilst every other god dwindled to nothing. Feasts and festivals in her name, vast tributes of meat and wine. Wars of faith, crusades to appease her. Luxuries and pleasures beyond a mere mortal's comprehension.

But everything she had treasured, everything she had truly loved, was gone. Her children, slain at her own hand to keep her throne. Her sisters, lost to the annals of time. Her love, her one true love, resting beneath the ocean waves. And now, she would die too. Her name would be snatched away by the wind. Her statues and temples would crumble into oblivion. 

She closed her eyes. Clumsy fingers removed her necklace, the mark of her power, tossing it onto the sandy bank. Perhaps someday, an explorer might stumble upon it. With the last dregs of her heart, she wished it was so. In the end, she did not want to be forgotten.

She took the last step.

Then she fell into the Void, and welcomed its cold embrace.

[samueldays]

Cyclops, thou askest me of my glorious name, and I will tell it thee; and do thou give me a stranger's gift, even as thou didst promise. Noman is my name, Noman do they call me—my mother and my father, and all my comrades as well.’

-The Odyssey.

I might make a longpost out of this if I weren't already revising the long response to Caplan, and/or a repeating gimmick where I use this quote as the summary reply to every "Universal Culture" dipshit who thinks their ingroup isn't a group, it's just the nameless default that everyone else is an barbarous aberration from. Do you fucking listen to yourself when you say things like this?

everyone who's not a dumbass territorial ant goes get shit done in large cities of [My Culture] like fucking civilised humans

"universal culture", where have I heard that before, oh right it's the Catholic Church!

[theskyexists]

Children of Time (3/5)

It's lucky the uplifted spiders are so instinctually resistant to war and slaughter amongst themselves because they're connected by nanovirus (doesn't REALLY make sense as other species also possess the nanovirus.) because Fabian could have reprogrammed all the ants to attack the females. In fact. It's a mystery why he didn't program them to just STOP and coerce a feminist turn in society. And grab all the big wigs and kill them. And commit a coup. But the spiders seem to really value the web of 'civilisation'. And it seems like a coup has never ever happened or even been conceived of. So it makes sense. It also makes sense for this sci-fi author's distinctly lacking description of the political economy. The ants do all the agriculture and one would think there is no particular limit on the products of their labour except the resources to do the labour on and control them (how cheap!!). So the products and the means can be gatekept and are from banished females and the many unfavoured males. But up until this point no enterprising chemical genius female apparently had the opportunity to seize power over the colonies - probably because reprogramming is such a slow and collective process. For some reason (blah blah the nanovirus) the spiders have never turned the ants on upstart or dominant nest groups as a nest group. As though there is no group think (nest groups! City states!) no competition (explicitly named, and the females have very strong aggressive instincts), and no ego delusions of grandeur (they decorate themselves for status). Even the banished females never seem to raid the communities they're thrown out of, as though they cannot simulate the nest group at a later age. They're doomed to solitary cavespider life. This might be because banishment is no death sentence as these (female) spiders have retained the ability to survive in the wild, the wild hasnt disappeared yet to survive in, either. So spiders don't NEED to fight, but humans dont much NEED to fight either, generally. Yet the first time war becomes a THING so to speak is when god announces herself and the temples start really going into repressing their own and killing other cities - because god is making too many resource demands???? Lol. There were no resource demands before? Are humans unique in wanting more and more and more? It does seem that spiders are less focused on objects and INDIVIDUAL property. Nest property though... We learned at the very beginning that spiders are territorial and can anticipate and will want to resist foreign expansion (stone age spiders!). It makes no sense to me that an oligarchy is only NOW starting to come into existence. In fact, the most baffling thing is that no spider ever thought to coerce spiders to pay taxes. Which is the fundamental deeply defining social relationship for humans in history. Spiders don't seem to THIEVE. Maybe because they have such formidable weapons on them at all times? Those fangs and the venom. They do a fight dance to scare others off for that reason. But back in stone age times they've already developed distance weapons.

The basis of civilisation is argued to be a symbiotic subjugation of other living species - and I am a bit sad to agree. But the other thing I fear, that the subjugation of certain groups of the own species is a necessity for the development of civilisation (because it facilitates the concentration of resources at one point) is counter-argued here. The spiders draw together to benefit from collective infrastructure and accumulated knowledge and for prestige. This is also true for humans. Gotta admit they've got a subjugated ant species doing all the hard work and males doing the logistics. The underbelly of the city are slums of barbarism.. not part of society - a wilderness - and across 'class' lines (this is difficult to say because the author does not drill down into the material reality of (nest) property rights) and gender lines, it's argued that society is wasting potential talent by discarding spiders there. Once again, the question is, why do hatchlings there not form their own nest groups that go on to either torment regular society (theft and raiding) or build out into the wilderness? Because they don't have the ants to do it? I'm thinking about this too intensely.

Holsten is such a mediocre protagonist. All the humans are. It's partly because they have no background - no family, no history - and partly because they're so... quietly miserable (as acknowledged this chapter). Maybe lady god over there is right and these last dredges of humanity arent particularly....human. Because they also don't seem to have dreams, or wishes, or much of any kind of feeling for others or the group they're part of.

This book was promoted as hard sci fi but it's far from that. The suspension is not at all explained in any detail. Somehow they make cell division impossible by freezing people??? How

[gravevelvet]

PINNED

interests are changing constantly . it/she+

(more info under the cut)

stuff i like includes the mighty boosh, anything to do with adam ant, red dwarf, black books, most films by romero and his pittsburgh film group (esp. dawn of the dead, return of the living dead), subcultures especially in britain (mainly mod/mod revival, two-tone/ska rock, new romantic, punk (inc. american punk i LOVE decline of western civilisation)) + probably a ton more im not mentioning :o) i reblog a ton of fashion stuff i like and will never be able to afford

music i like changes a LOT. obviously i love adam ant hes all i post about. also listening to a bit of industrial (gary numan, skinny puppy, chemlab, spahn ranch) and a bit of the specials and the jam. i like a lot of 70s and 80s stuff mostly at the moment.

check out my letterboxd and my fav films list if you want! you can also see my filmblog here (where i basically just post more stuff about films im obsessed with)