#bird extinction tw

[bird-of-the-day]

BOTD: Bermuda Petrel

^Image credit: Richard Crossley

Bermuda Petrel (Pterodroma cahow)

As of making this post, the Bermuda Petrel is the second rarest seabird on the planet. Also known in Bermuda as the Cahow, it was believed to be extinct for 300 years until eighteen nesting pairs were found in 1951. Female Bermuda Petrels lay only one egg per breeding season, with 40-50% of these eggs failing to hatch.

[cuddlefish2]

my friend told me about the carolina parakeet. it was sad, and when i saw the only known photograph of one, it made me cry. they have such kind faces…

when a member of their flock got injured, they would circle around it instead of flying away to safety. its so sad, but also heartwarming. they seemed very lovely

[crabussy]

people being RACIST CUNTS on my aotearoa poll post 0 dead 1 really pissed off

[icannotgetoverbirds]

I WOULD KILL TO READ THIS SHIT

here is a concept: time travel cop, fish & wildlife division

most of their job is dealing with the kinds of assholes who think black market tiger cubs are a great idea right up until someone gets mauled, except these are even bigger assholes with black market Smilodon cubs that they are even less equipped to care for

this is the most straightforward and therefore relatively headache-free part of their job, because it’s the same “put that thing back where it came from or so help me” song and dance every time

it’s also significantly less depressing than the trophy hunters who don’t even want an alive extinct animal. those are extra annoying because you have to undo the time travel that let them kill that poor Megatherium or thylacine or anklyosaur or whatever, and it’s always so much extra paperwork.

and those people suck, definitely, and have fully earned a stint in Time Jail. no question. but they still do not create anywhere near as much work as the obsessive hobbyists with their exhaustively careful best practices and worryingly good track-covering. also, weirdly, it’s almost always birds with them?

like. the guys who will flagrantly abuse Time Law to bird-nap breeding pairs just long enough to raise one clutch of eggs apiece, and return them seamlessly to their spots on the timeline. who are so determined to keep their pet (ha) projects going that no one even realizes what they’re doing until they have an entire stable breeding population of passenger pigeons up and running. who are now the reason that reps from six different zoos are about to start throwing hands right in front of you over who gets dibs.

those guys cause the most paperwork. and half the time they’re snapped up by the same zoo or wildlife preserve that gets their colony of ivory-billed woodpeckers or Carolina parakeets or — once, very memorably — giant fucking South Island moa, and they never even spend a day in Time Jail.

[kale-of-the-forbidden-cities]

Vespera Folend Lore Dump <3

[Vespera Folend Lore Dump]

tw: murder, death, sexual assault, child abuse, adult/minor stuff, mentions of suicide/attempted suicide(?), self harm

[tw: murder, death, sexual assault, child abuse, adult/minor stuff, mentions of suicide/attempted suicide(?), self harm]

none of the above is depicted in a positive light. i do not support any of it i'm just doing what i do best, giving trauma to fictional characters

it's vespera. of course it's not a walk in the park.

Vespera had a sister named Zyti, who was five years older than her. As a child, Vespera was not talkative. Like, at all. She didn't speak at birth like most elves do, and her parents made no effort to teach her to speak. The only one who did was Zyti.

When Vespera was four (and Zyti was nine), their parents left them outside the human/elvin city of Atlantis. They were told to wait for them to come back, but they never did. The two sisters stayed there together all night, until they were found in the morning by a half human, half elf who took them into his home.

He told them to call him Father, and he provided them with shelter, food, all the basic needs. But... he wasn't a good father. He reminded them that they were in debt to him, because he'd saved them from the streets and what would certainly have been their death. And because of that... they had to do whatever he said.

Father physically, emotionally, and even sexually abused them. He punished them for doing anything he didn't like - including normal child things, like playing around, or crying. It became safer for them to just do nothing at all. Suppress how they really feel. Now, Father spoke both the Enlightened Language and a human language that is long since extinct. The only ones who know it are Vespera and a handful of other ancients who may have lived in Atlantis before it sunk. But Vespera lost the little progress she had made in speaking when Father adopted her, and only became fully fluent at seven years old. It's also part of what contributes to some of her speaking habits she still has today - while some of that can be contributed to her being ancient and locked away for thousands of years, she does tend to not use contractions as much, for example.

Vespera and Zyti were not let out of the house, until Zyti was a teenager, and was allowed to run errands and such. While out, she met a human named Achim, who was... a generally violent guy. He was an adult, while Zyti was around fourteen.

While not quite numb yet, Vespera had been emotionally shut off since she was a child. She was extremely apathetic, living through the days just for the sake of it, enduring everything from Father, and when she was allowed out under supervision, she mostly just observed people. All kinds of people.

Light leaping hadn't been invented yet, and Atlantis was one of the most diverse places, species-wise. It was mostly humans, as they had founded the city, and elves settled with them, being the most similar in appearance, and even creating some human/elf hybrids like Father. (when atlantis was later sunk, those hybrids were cast out with the humans, meaning there are humans today with small bits of elf DNA. humans didn't used to have blue eyes before mixing with elves.) You'd also see a few other intelligent species passing through, there was a section of town where a few families of ogres lived, since they didn't really have one big land yet, and the world was less divided by species at the time.

Vespera could sit in one place for hours, so still that a bird landed on her once and she didn't even move. She observed everyone she saw. It was her only hobby. She was more invested in these people's lives than she'd ever been in her own - she would watch the same people come to the same places and learn about them, she'd know their habits and tendencies, she could make elaborate assumptions all without even knowing their names.

Zyti had begun to see how messed up everything with Father was, and frequently got into fights with him, insisting she was leaving forever and never coming back, and Father let her go, because he knew. He knew that every time her guilt would have her coming back after a few days at most. She couldn't leave.

Now, Zyti usually stayed with Achim during these days she left, but occasionally she would find someone else to stay with when Achim was away. One of these people was an elf who coaxed her into doing things she didn't want to. I won't go into detail, obviously, but... the result was, Zyti got pregnant. She was only sixteen, and she knew she couldn't hide it from Father forever. She felt like she owed it to him for him to know. Besides, while she hadn't meant to get pregnant, she cared about this unborn child. She didn't want anything that Father did to hurt the baby.

Vespera was in the room when Zyti told Father, and needless to say... it didn't go well. She kept her arms wrapped around her middle to do what she could to protect the child, and that night, she ran away to stay with Achim again, and when she explained the situation and what had happened, he was livid.

After three days of Zyti not coming back, Father took it out on Vespera. She took it all in silence, not once uttering a cry of pain or discomfort, she closed her eyes and imagined she was dying.

At the time, Vespera was eleven. She didn't cry. She wasn't truly there, in her mind. She had completely shut off.

That is, until, a few weeks later, Vespera heard a commotion downstairs. She slipped out of bed and watched as Achim, who had broken into the house with Zyti's help, brutally murdered Father. Father fought back, but Achim overpowered him. Zyti was the one to bring the blade to his throat when Achim had him pinned down. She was the one who took his life.

Vespera approached them, and they stopped. Zyti dropped the knife and backed away, fumbling to explain that they were finally free, he couldn't hurt them anymore. Achim insisted he'd deserved it. But Vespera wasn't listening to either of them. She kneeled by Father's body and began hitting him as hard as she could. Just punching his open wounds, returning a fraction of the hurt he had caused. Then she reached for the knife and stabbed him a couple times. After that, she began to cut off his hands. Like some way of making sure he couldn't ever hurt anyone ever again.

Zyti and Achim could only watch, until Vespera raised the knife to stab herself and end it all. Zyti grabbed her arms and easily wrestled it away from her, tossing it to the side. Vespera didn't react, and her sister helped her up. They began to walk further into the city to go to Achim's house.

On the way, Vespera suddenly started to cry. She couldn't take it anymore, she stopped walking and collapsed, she was crying that hard. It was tears built up over years and years of being disconnected from everything, it all hit her like a... well, trucks didn't exist back then but you get it. Achim picked her up and carried her from there.

When people eventually found the scene of Father's death weeks later, it was clearly a crime, but there wasn't much they could do about it. Father, Vespera, and Zyti had lived just on the outskirts of the city, and nobody really knew to connect them at all, and nobody could connect them to Father's murder. Not that anyone really missed him.

Months later, Zyti ended up having her baby, but she was barely making it through. The only reason she'd been holding on was for her child, but after it was born, she gave in and her mind broke from the guilt of killing the man who raised her. There was nothing Vespera or Achim could do. Vespera tried so many times to wake her sister up, but nothing worked. It was the most grief she'd ever felt and ever will feel.

Achim was almost just as devastated, and didn't cope with it well. He and Zyti had sort of maybe been dating, well, they had something, despite the age difference. He coped with this by sexually assaulting Vespera on multiple occasions, and she just took it. She accepted it. She hated all of it, her head was filled with such horrible thoughts, but she'd grown up to never say no to something like this, especially from the man responsible for keeping her sheltered and alive. After three years, however, when Vespera was fourteen, she snapped and shoved him out a window on one of the upper floors.

Zyti's son was somehow still alive, and how the baby managed to survive 3 years in the care of a violent human and a violent traumatized elvin preteen/teenager is beyond me, but he did somehow. Feeling incredibly Nothing, Vespera left him on the side of the road at night, not unlike what her parents did with her and Zyti.

He was later taken in by a different elvin family, who cared for him and raised him in a good way. At least someone gets a happy ending. He is still alive today, and knows nothing of his dark past and connection to Vespera, despite their resemblence. He is actually the [some amount of greats] grandfather to Councillor Oralie, making Sophie Foster and Vespera Folend very, very distantly related.

Vespera tried to build her own life, but she didn't know where to start. She lived in Achim's house, and when questioned, she told every single one of them that he had committed suicide. at least that got her their pity. but she never connected with any of them. She would sit on the very windowsill she'd told Achim to lean out of and watch the people going about their lives from a bird's eye view. She was notoriously "creepy." And when people passing by glanced up and saw her, they hurried away, not wanting to witness it if one day she followed what they assumed Achim had done.

Vespera also preferred to cover up as much skin as she could, ever since she killed Achim, she started only wearing sleeves up to her wrists, gloves, collars or cloaks that covered her neck, and skirts that reached the ground. sometimes she even went as far as to wear a veil, not only because of her aversion to touch, but also because it made her feel like she had no identity- which, she didn't. She felt more like a ghost, and she often wished she was one. The extra fabric also helped her to not become overwhelmed when she manifested as an Empath, which was a conflicting experience for her. Sometimes, she would hate to touch anyone at all, but in rare occasions, she would go out to pretend to bump into someone, just to get a brief feeling of something.

After a few years, she became less strict with herself by ditching the veil and the gloves, for the most part, and began slowly trying to ground herself by journaling instead of cutting or bruising herself (which she had been doing for years). She wrote about people she saw. she wrote about Father and Zyti. She wondered how Father and Achim could have been so violent while her sister broke under it all. Speculation about the potential strength of human minds, the seeds for what would later become a full on facility.

Things began to change very rapidly, with the invention of light leaping, elves Vespera had never seen before were popping up out of nowhere and settling here. And there was talk of a king? Well, she knew that a lot of the other species had rulers, but humans and elves both either had smaller leaders for different places, or just self-governed areas. But that was to change very soon.

One of the newcomers to Atlantis was Fintan Pyren, who she encountered when he was trying to push open a pull door. She hadn't laughed, like, ever, but it did make her smile. She might have even been amused. They began talking, and Vespera wondered if she was forming some sort of connection. they talked almost every day, he reminded her to take care of herself (that wasn't her strong suit), and she did what she does best- she sat in silence. But it turned out quietly writing with someone is much better than quietly writing alone.

However, the friendship she had with Fintan was nothing compared to what she had with Luzia. She began to open up to her, to genuinely trust her, prior to going numb. Luzia was truly enamoured of her, and Vespera had no idea if she truly felt the same, or if it was just her Empathy. And while they never fully undressed in front of each other, Vespera felt comfortable enough to show her arms and legs, which was huge for her. But then Luzia went and ratted her out to the council and stole her illusions and got her sent to prison.

the end <3

[moussygarden]

This is a blacktip reef shark. I drew it for a friend of mine . My first drawing in a while, I'm not satisfied, but not too disapointed :)

But, let me infodump.

As a french boi, I know them as "blacktip shark", and I just discovered the blacktip shark exists. Blacktip shark and blasktip reef sharks are two different speces of sharks. Carcharhinus limbatus and Carcharhinus melanopterus. We know the Limbatus one as "borded shark" in french.

Those sharks are vulnerable because of overfishing, live in coral reefs (as saif in their name), in tropical water in the indian and pacifique ocean. They eat fish, cephalopods and crustaceans. Throught my researches, I discovered they eated as well sea snakes and sea birds.

As I'm here talking about sharks (I love sharks.), thes animals are very old, phylogenetically speaking. 360 millions years ago, during the devonian period, cartilaginous fishes were already swimming in the waters of the Earth when Mammals were still tetrapodomorpha (fishes with reptiles-like formes). During the carboniferous period (the one right after devonian), they were much more various than now. Like Helicoprion (search for them on the internet, they're fantastic). during the mezosoic era, they were not as glorious as they were, because of the marine reptiles as Mosasaurus and Ichthyosaurus.

Now. We all know the megalodon. And they're from the cenozoic era, the one right after the mezosoic one, (the era we're curently in). They went extinct two millions years ago and we don't know why. Carnivorous cetacea like orcas who were starting to be more present? Climat change? Rarefication of their predilection food?

This has nothing to do with sharks, but while I was searching, I discovered PELACORNIS SANDERSI. A sea bird from the same period that Otodus megalodon (Miocene and pliocene, during the cenozoic era).

They are the biggest bird that ever lived. (birds. Which doesn't count pterodactyls, who were reptiles (the biggest was Quetzalcoatlus northropi and Hatzegopteryx thambema, 10-16m wingspan)

Nowdays, the biggest living birds are the snowy albatross and the andean condor, with a wingspan of 2.5-3m. Pelacornis were 6 to 7m.

Maybe I slightly lost control of my infodump.

This is Feldup. A french youtubeur who talks about mystery from all over the internet (mysterious stories, lost medias, icebergs of youtube and the trauma of the gen z). His videos have english sub, and I really like the way he talks and the vibe of his videos. It's scary but pleasing. And he's a very good storyteller

Beware of the TW (he montions them) and if you're as mentally unstable as I am, be careful if you watch at night <3

This is Aline Dessine! She's also a videast. Doing various content. Sims, renovation work on her BIG house, work-out, investigation over people like Amberlyn Reid, Eugenia or Connor Murphy (heart on all of them) with kindness and comprehention. I also really like her vibe. Much different from Feldup's. She's very energetic, very natural and likes to troll haters (she's amaizing). Oh and besides plants and work out, she likes her son : Pipoune, the most magestic cat you'll ever see.

I searched for her here. And all I saw was sexualized pictures... She's more than that.

The english subs are only automaticals, but they doesn't look bad, for as long as I've seen?

Thanks to her, I discovered again a videast who I was watching when I was a teenager : Jimmy.

[lemonisntreal]

IT'S THE BOYYYY, MY [deceased ;-;] BOY-

My heart hurts whenever I write about him I'm gonna cry but he's so perfect to me you have no idea

Ok, so, I have written so much on this man because of how overly complicated I made Buster's entire family situation. But I can't. Share. A single. Crumb. Of. It. And it's killing me. Guys, I'm dying. I'm simply gonna perish if I don't write about him. So. I'm gonna headcanon dump, heehee :> [gonna do this with a bunch of other characters once I get art for them going ~_~] [I look at my drafts and weep-]

TD!Charley:

Age: 47 [deceased] Height: 3' 02" [96cm] Male - He/Him Sexuality: Aroace Build: H A T

The name is a headcanon in itself. Charley. He was never given a real canon name for whatever reason.

It just felt like it fit

Oh boy,

Ok, heavy lore time-

TW: Mentions of religious trauma and [briefly] kidnapping

[there's a fluff tab if you're wanting to skip all that]

So for a quick lore-dump, there was a HUGE war between the different animals [mammals, reptiles, and birds being the most prominent groups] that lasted from 1903-1955, before finally cutting off because a bunch of animals had practically gone extinct

Koalas being one of them

And Charley was born in late 1956, right after the war had ended, so yeah. Generational trauma's real rough-

Plus his hometown [all Koalas btw] was extremely religious and controlling over him, and he wasn't even allowed to buy his own clothes until he started to carve out his own life in Calatonia

The only thing they let him do was play music, usually with the idea that he'd be playing for the church band

[which he never did]

He was set up on arranged dates, made to feel like he was wrong for not wanting a relationship, and ridiculed for his desire to have a different life in the city- along with a lot of other things I probably couldn't fit into this post

He has a sister, Holly Moon, who is 4 years younger than him, who was seen as a golden child because she always listened and did everything their parents asked

[Parents being Darrick and Kara, for more TD lore]

He had a horrible family life before sprinting away at age 18 to Calatonia to hopefully make it big

This is where he met animals who weren't Koalas for the first time

Let me reiterate that- first time

[he'd read about other animals and seen what a few of them looked like in pictures, but never the real thing]

He learned the true meaning behind the words his family always spoke

"Make a family, there aren't many of us left"

Yeah, he was the only Koala in Calatonia for a good minute

Which kinda sent him spiraling-

Imaging you growing up in a small gated community, where you're a human around other humans, and then you leave and find out that there aren't any humans left and the rest of the world has been populated by aliens or something

He was very curious at first, which got him into some trouble

He met Harry after almost getting poached/getting ganged up on and almost kidnapped. Harry saved him, took him to calm down at his restaurant for the night, and the two quickly became friends

Ok, fluff time

Meeting Harry for the first time, the thing he offered Charley was a sandwich, which would start Charley's "give sandwich = I care about you" thing

Like his go-to way of making friends after this encounter would be to meet somewhere for sandwiches

It became a comfort food, and an introduction into other flavors besides the basic food groups + eucalyptus

This little quirk got passed down to Buster

Amazing cook

Like, he invented a couple of the recipes on the menu at Harry's Bar [despite having a diet of mostly eucalyptus, which is poisonous]

Even back in his hometown with his limited ingredients, he was fantastic, but after learning that there were other foods, he got a little obsessed

He has a cookbook he put together [which got passed down to Buster, who cannot cook for the life of him lmao]

Harry tried to get him to go to culinary school or something, but Charley always insisted on loving his little bundle of odd jobs in Calatonia [including the carwash, which was his baby]

After coming to Calatonia, making his home in a shady little apartment complex [which he ABSOLUTELY ADORED], getting a job, and finally getting his first-ever paycheck, he immediately went thrifting

Which is where he got his raggedy hat and patchy coat

And learned what a turtleneck was

He taught Buster the art of thrifting too :D

He dresses like he's homeless by choice [mostly]

[money's always tight]

Back to the odd jobs that he got instead of getting a real job- Charley always hated "luxurious" things if that makes sense. Not only did it remind him of home, but he's just a minimalist in general

If he doesn't need it, he won't take it

Modest guy [opposite to his entire family ~_~]

The hat is kinda a symbol of his independence and freedom in a way, so that's a little sweet

He never takes his hat or coat off really, even in the hot summer days in Calatonia

Harry always has to remind him to drink water [woah, Koala moment]

Oh yeah, Koala stuff-

Harry ends up helping out Charley with the complete lack of Eucalyptus products in Calatonia by ordering it in with his usual imported restaurant food, and then just giving it to him

Harry insists on paying for it all, despite Charley's objections

Charley always gives monstrous tips when eating at Harry's to balance things out

He's actually pretty tall for a Koala

He made good friends with all of the waiters and staff and musicians at Harry's, and was always there for the music nights where Harry'd get someone to play atmospheric stuff on stage

You see this in the first movie

Charley's actually really great on the guitar, and has a very nice voice [I don't have a voice claim yet ;-;;;;;] so he was eventually given the offer to try playing in front of a crowd at Harry's. Which he took

[And Harry made him take money for it, of course]

Had no intention to have kids, but ended up taking in Buster due to family drama and strange circumstances [later explained in Tone Deaf] [also why they have different funky patterns btw! :DDD]

Please, it's so complicated-

He quickly fell in love with the idea of show business after seeing some street performers, and eventually got over his discomfort with doing illegal things [the idea of it being a sin really had him in a chokehold for a while-] and grew into his true personality of "very chill and very shady charlatan" after a few years away from his hometown

Actually, it was his urge to steal a ticket to see a show at the theater that drove him to get over it all

Learned how to pick locks and pockets to scrounge around enough money to get by

Charley and Harry were best friends. Practically brothers

To the point of Harry being called "uncle Harry" by young Buster

Charley was the best man at Harry's wedding to his Panda wife, Claire. Buster was given the honor of being both the flower boy and ring bearer lmao [he pulled it off]

Claire definitely mothered both Charley and Buster quite a bit

Back to Charley living in the apartment complex, he made good friends with an old Lizard who lived next door-

Yeah, Miss Crawley [Irene Crawley]

After Harry realized that Buster was an absolute demon child, Charley tried asking her to babysit instead

She must've had the magic touch or something, because he was perfectly behaved with her

Harry was speechless

Buster was absolutely a problem child, and Charley would frequently get calls from school about him [especially in elementary]

[half of the trouble he got into was due to bullies, but this ain't about him 🤭]

Charley taught Buster how to commit crime, and play guitar

And when he got older, the two would duet together at Harry's

[I'm crying it's so sweet]

Crawley would always bring homemade candies around to give to Buster when she came over to visit with Charley, specifically Turkish Delight

She eventually taught him [with lots of hand-holding] how to make the candy himself. If left alone, he'd just set things on fire and eat the chocolate chips plain though :D

She lost her lover in the war, and even before that, struggled with infertility problems [they were different species- working with the idea of a Gila Monster] so she never had any of the children she had wanted before the war basically ruined her life

She adored that child and never accepted pay

[she was paid by the government anyway since she was a war vet]

All of the money that Charley would slip into her pocket, she'd either secretly give right back, or spend it all on Buster

She was like a mother to him

Still is

She offered to help with the theater after Charley realized that the place didn't just come with staff

Charley and Buster's bond was basically unbreakable

Charley would always stand up to the school system whenever they treated Buster unjustly

[Trust me, there was a lot of prejudice against Koalas and other endangered species, no matter how small or harmless they seemed. People fear what they don't know, and to say Koalas are an oddity would be an understatement-]

[Like even irl, they're Marsupials, sure- but they're so different that they've been given a classification all to themselves called Phascolarctidae. They're so alone in the animal kingdom, it's not even funny. Their closest "relative" is the Wombat, and even then barely]

[Give me another animal that's even remotely similar to Koalas appearance-wise. Their facial structure, the double-thumbs, massive ears, the fact that they can only eat one thing, and it's poisonous [catch me writing Buster poisoning someone with eucalyptus >:D]- yeah, they're super interesting to work with. And of course, I give them hardships for it ~_~]

[Everyone that saw Buster and Charley just immediately knew they were endangered just because of how alien they looked]

["freaks"]

[They just rolled with it]

[Well, Buster was always bothered by it, but Charley was always there to tell him that it should be something to be proud of. Didn't always work all the way]

[I'll talk about Buster later, don't you worry]

[Ok enough with the gushing about Koala facts in brackets-]

Buster would also stand up for Charley during family gatherings [which they eventually just stopped going to entirely] because Charley would just freeze up and not say anything whenever people started fighting with him

✨trauma✨

The two protected each other is my point pretty much

Ok, for a rough timeline:

[1903 - 1955] - Great War [1956] - Charley was born [1960] - Holly was born [1974] - Charley ran away to Calatonia [1980] - Buster was born [1988] - Charley took Buster in [1990] - Harry meets Claire [1994] - Harry and Claire get married [1997] - Theater was sold to Charley and quickly opened [2003] - Charley is killed

It's fucking tragic how he dies

Like, him and Buster were literally in the middle of planning the show when Buster got the call

Late too

He couldn't get to the landline at first because he was busy with set design, and actually saw it a LOT later, which- yeah. Cue horrific amounts of stress as he bikes as fast as he can to the ER

"Where's dad!??" he's in the hospital bucko

Why must I kill all the characters I love-

Charley'd just gone out to get some supplies from like, home depot or something, and then yeah. Dead

Buster could never finish the show, so it sits collecting dust in the attic now

Grief made him unable to write much, which is how he eventually went into debt too

The whole thing with them is absolutely tragic, oh boy-

Can't wait to draw the funeral scene

Ok, so I keep forgetting what's been posted and what's still a draft, so sorry if something just- absolutely jumps out of nowhere here. I think I've mentioned the war before? And Poachers- I hope I at least mentioned Poachers-

Well, if you didn't know before, you do now ''':D

Thanks for reading

[yupuffin]

Oh my goodness, so with this, I just imagined that Quay's room probably has a shelf with taxidermied birds and animal skulls, and "weird" things like that. Depending on the specimen he might bring it back to see if anyone at the lab or anyone else in the response program wants it (who knows what the other researchers at the Academy collect/study), but his personal space is definitely dedicated to seabirds and the occasional marine mammal. MAYBE a shell or two -- highly dependent on the type and source, because he would definitely be a proponent of the "leave the shells on the beach where you found them" guideline. But like. Unwanted materials previously used for educational purposes? Up for grabs.

Anyway, going back to the dynamic with Valerian, this gives us a range of possible scenarios, but I find it particularly funny to envision a series of instances in which Valerian delivers Quay a specimen that he then brings back to the lab to examine and they end up being counterfeit or otherwise unremarkable somehow -- this could happen perhaps four or five times, until...

Valerian: (cheats/bets an Exile out of a sketchy specimen) Valerian: (delivers packaged specimen to Quay) Quay: (opening the package, not getting his hopes up) Quay: (suddenly very attentive) Quay: (wide-eyed, practically sticks his whole face in the package) Quay: Where did you get this Valerian: ...? idk, from some Exile like usual Quay: I need you to go back to them and get me their info now Valerian: (perhaps thinking he's finally hit the jackpot, as Quay is particularly enthused) Valerian: You want more of those? Quay: NO. I'M CONFISCATING THIS Valerian: ...? Quay: THIS IS AN ENDANGERED SPECIES AND KEEPING SPECIMENS OF IT IS SUPER ILLEGAL

(And that was how a band of Exiles was fined and arrested not for petty crimes, but for a violation of the Huanglong Migratory Bird Treaty Act. They probably didn't even bother to identify the species beforehand, smh.)

giggling i love thinking of quests that require you to do something more shady than usual to complete a task

but i doubly love the idea of valerian making bets (for the greater good) and cheating (for science) to get his task done (he definitely does it for fun and more than once) (especially for quay too cause i love imagining he'd do anything for his science friend and if his friend wants that specimen he will get that specimen)

ocs are so silly and fun i want more thoughts about all the wuwa ocs

[squish36-writes-and-draws]

17 November: Unraveling

Word count: 1385

TW: Swearing

General Taglist (lmk if you want to be added/removed!): @stellar-lune @faggot-friday @kamikothe1and0nly @nyxpixels @florida-preposterously

@poppinspop @uni-seahorse-572 @solreefs @corruption-exe @rusted-phone-calls

@when-wax-wings-melt @good-old-fashioned-lover-boy7 @dexter-dizzknees @abubble125 @hi-imgrapes

@callum-hunt-is-bisexual @callas-pancake-tree @hi-my-name-is-awesome @katniss-elizabeth-chase @sillyguy-supreme

@void-kill @thefoxysnake @the-pre-quiz

Unraveling Project Specific Taglist (lmk if you want to be added/removed/upgraded): @cutebisexualmess @crippling-pages @daizythegreat @sophiefostersno1stan @iggydancebreak

@theleopardstalker @you-will-meet-your-downfall @multi-fandom-lunatic

On Ao3 or below the cut!

First (3 November) / Previous / Next

A Script of a Video from Florent's YouTube Channel

    Alrighty, everybody. Being that I am chronically on the internet and I expect that you are as well, I take it we’re all familiar with the concept of flower shop AUs. If you aren’t, well, maybe you should preserve your sanity because one second you’re reading a cute little story about these deeply traumatized characters opening up a flower shop together and the next you know way too much about the Omegaverse. Don’t look that up.  I don’t need you to be scarred for life too. 

    Today’s topic isn’t really going to be connected to fanfic, but I needed a way to hook you into the video because let’s be fucking honest, approximately none of you are going to willingly click on a video about the history of plants. You can make your self-inserts have a crisis over the fact that Stegosaurus never saw a flower. It’s very sad. I’m sad. 

    Where I’d like to start today is with the Great Oxidation Event. It actually killed, like, everything, so it’s kind of significant in the course of Earth’s history. This was over two billion years ago—I better not see Young Earth Creationists in my comment section. Go away. Humans and dinosaurs did not coexist unless you count birds as dinosaurs but then again birds are just government spies so they aren’t real either—but essentially the whole thing with the Great Oxidation Event is that some microbes figured out how to do photosynthesis, realised it was good for making food, and then they pumped so much oxygen into the atmosphere that everything fucking died. 

    So, uh, that’s why we have oxygen in the atmosphere now, which is kind of a nice thing to have in general, I’d say. The really cool thing is that we have fossils, called stromatolites, of these microbes from that long ago. Like, we have a spotty record of multicellular life, but these biofilms of cyanobacteria managed to survive two billion years. So much has to be missing from the fossil record. 

    The next stop on our journey is a lot nearer to us. In the Devonian period, which ranged from about 420 million years ago to 360 million years ago, instead of having forests of plants like we’re used to, there were giant fungi, like Prototaxites. I know what you’re thinking and I refuse to comment. The Devonian is also home to what is currently the oldest known tree, Wattesia. Before that, it was Archaeopteris, which definitely isn’t confusing when put next to Archaeopteryx, a genus midway through the transition from dinosaurs to birds that lived during the Jurassic. 

    The Devonian ended in a mass extinction before giving way to the Carboniferous. Most of the coal that we’re using to cause next mass extinction is from the Carboniferous, mostly because there were a lot of fucking trees. Like, so many trees that by the end of the period the oxygen levels were around 35%, which is quite a lot compared to today’s 21%. Trees were having a good time. 

    Insects were also having a good time. The increased oxygen levels means that they could get a whole lot bigger and at the same time figured out how to do flight, which is good for them and bad for my mental health. Just to take a couple of examples we have the genus Meganeura, a dragonfly with a wingspan of a meter and the genus Arthropleura, which was a myriapod taller than me. 

    I am aware that I am short. However, that is still heinous bullshit and I shall not stand for it. 

    On the arthropod front, there’s a clade of spiders known as the Mesothelae featured in Walking with Monsters and it was the size of a cat. I don’t want to be here anymore. Let us move on to the Permian for about thirty seconds. 

    In the Permian, everything died. A lot. More than the dinosaur asteroid that I’m sure all of you know about. Plants died a little bit less than most things, but it was still generally not a good time. While we’re here though, I want to talk about Glossopteris. Now, all of you are looking at this and going, “that just looks like a leaf,” and, yeah, it is. But its fossils were used as evidence towards proving tectonic plates, which I think is pretty cool. I’d also like to mention Lepidodendron, which lived during both the Carboniferous and Permian and has been mistaken as being an imprint fossil of a large reptile’s skin. No. It’s just a tree with some funny-looking bark to our modern eyeballs. And, to round off this trifecta, we had conifers first appear during the Permian. 

    And now let’s jump forward to the Cretaceous. This is the one with most of the dinosaurs you know. As an audience retention strategy, I want you to come up with a list of your ten favourite dinosaurs. Unless you’re a dinosaur aficionado purposely trying to be difficult to invalidate the accuracy of my point, you’re probably going to name at least a couple that are from the Cretaceous.

    The Cretaceous is also where angiosperms, flowering plants, went absolutely buck fucking wild. Like, today angiosperms make up 90% of the living plant species on Earth. And you know what else first appeared? Well, technically it’s a flowering plant, so I’ve already covered it but, like, the concept of Earth without grass is completely absurd to my little brain. I’m sure the ecological niche was covered by other things, but the fact that most of human society exists because we domesticated grasses in the form of wheat, corn, and rice and that only appeared during the Cretaceous is not something I want to comprehend.

    And that brings us mostly to today. I mean, there was probably an asteroid in there, but I also don’t care very much about the Paleogene. It’s close enough to modern day to not be as interesting as the older periods. It’s just slightly weird. I mean, there was the family Chalicotheriidae, which looks kind of funny, I guess. 

    What does all of this mean though? Why did I bother doing all of this? Was it so that you could copy and paste what I said into your Flower Shop AU I definitely didn’t cause to start existing at the beginning of this video so you spent the last ten minutes writing instead of watching my shit editing skills? No. It’s because I know too much shit about plants and I need to tell other people about them or I’m going to be even more of a menace to society than I already am. 

    I also think that it’s important to think about plants in the context of geologic history because so much of the space is taken up by dinosaurs, and that’s kind of a shame. I’m not advocating for less dinosaurs; I just want to highlight that there are other things in the fossil record. There are people who stare at fossilized pollen all day. I’m not going to lie to you—I would sell my soul to do that. That sounds fun. I’d be so good at it, I promise. Let me see the pollen. You can trust me to not eat the rocks. 

    I definitely haven’t ever tried to eat a rock before. 

    Anyway—I’d like to thank all the people on Patreon who, for some reason, fund this mess, and if you’d like to join them for whatever reason, link in the description. I don’t know why I bother saying that. You know how YouTube works. You also know that YouTube likes it when you like, subscribe, and leave comments telling me about how I’m obviously wrong about everything ever. Genuinely though, I do appreciate the corrections you guys give me. I’m one guy here and sometimes I say stupid or stupidly worded shit. I can’t wait for the Latin scholars to tell me that I absolutely fucking butchered the scientific names. You all know who you are. In my defence, taxonomy is a dumpster fire and it’s not my fault that I’m treating it like it is. And, finally, I’d like to thank Keefe, who took the time out of his day to stare at me ominously while I was writing this script. I’m not concerned at all.

[scienceisforevryone]

TW: Anti-Arab racism

Palestinian Crocodiles

Crocodiles once lived in Palestines Coastal marshlands. (Bentley, n.d.) So what happened?

Palestinian crocodiles are not a distinct species. Palestinian crocodiles were common nile crocodiles or, “Crocodylus niloticus” that lived in northern Palestine. (Bentley, n.d.) They supposedly feasted on crustaceans, migrating birds, frogs, fish, and livestock. (Bentley, n.d.) Spur-winged plovers reportedly picked meat out of the crocodiles open mouths. (Bentley, n.d.) The crocodile eggs were eaten by otters. (Bentley, n.d.) Crocodile blood was feasted on my mosquitoes. (Bentley, n.d.)

A zoo in Jerusalem claims the last Palestinian crocodile was hunted out by Palestinian villagers in Jisar-A-Zarka in 1905. (Bentley, n.d.) Is that the truth though? Some of the villages of the marsh area are Arab Kabbara and Arab al-Ghawarna. (Bentley, n.d.) The people who live here historically lived in caves and tent encampments of the marshlands rocky hills, raising water buffalos, weaving mats with springy reeds, and being well known for their hunting skills. (Bentley, n.d.) They welcomed people fleeing violence or marginalization, and had a significant Sudanese population. (Bentley, n.d.) There seems to be no evidence of a Palestinian tradition of hunting crocodiles. (Bentley, n.d.) Colonial zoologists on the other hand, did hunt, study, and transfer the bodies of crocodiles to collections. (Bentley, n.d.) This was part of a larger 19th century craze of taxidermic decor or study of animals from newly colonized places. (Bentley, n.d.) This combined with European and white American feelings of entitlement to the holy land. (Bentley, n.d.) The local Ghawarna people were seen as capital and used to hunt crocodiles by German-American researcher Gottlieb Schumacher. (Bentley, n.d.) There were stereotypes in Europe and America of crocodiles being evil beasts, and this led to a popularity of European males going on hunting trips for crocodiles. (Bentley, n.d.) Crocodiles became something of a symbol for dangerous uncolonized otherness. (Bentley, n.d.) Crocodiles from Palestine were viewed more favorably for being from the holy land though. (Bentley, n.d.) Eventually the Zor Al-Zarqa/Kabbara marshlands were drained by the British Mandate and Palestinian Jewish Colonization Association in the early 1920s. (Bentley, n.d.) Gawharna people’s labor was exploited, and the legal battle to keep their land was lost. (Bentley, n.d.) Today the area continues to have a colonialist zoological shadow with the Israeli government establishing nature reserves being created that rename the areas to not have Arab names. (Bentley, n.d.)

People like Sami al-Ali, Mohamad Hamdan, and Saidah al-Ali are working to commemorate the past ways of the Palestinian marshlands and imagining a new future. (Bentley, n.d.)

Resources

Bentley, E. (n.d.). Between Extinction and Dispossession A rhetorical historiography of the Last Palestinian Crocodile (1870–1935). Jerusalem Quarterly, 9–29. https://www.palestine-studies.org/sites/default/files/jq-articles/Between%20Extinction%20and%20Dispossession.pdf

[melat0nin-gummi]

Jack Headcanons!!!!

Thank you iminyourwalls2 for the suggestion btw-

Ok ok so-

Jack loves hanging out in the large trees surrounding the hotel (Imagine Redwoods but like half)

For god knows what reason he likes golden hour (The time of day that is Y E L L O W)

He likes collecting body parts from the other entities to study… He still really likes cryptids from when he was alive

This dumb ass molts and he turns really skinny and fleshy and wrinkled (Think baby owls mixed with a mole rat and Brian in that one episode of Family Guy where they shave him)

Jack can turn himself into any known non-extinct flying bird but the others will still be ravens, yes this means he can be a peacock.

Jack has severe depression and probably PTSD from being in both a gang and seeing his friends rotting corpses that one time.

TW SELF HARM I THINK?????!?!? He plucks his feathers when he’s stressed and this can lead to minor/major bleeding or scars(They do regenerate fairly quickly and it’s not often but hide always has to stop him or calm him down)

The last fact wasn’t just to be edgy is also because birds do that and he’s a bird :]

He likes eating rats and large bugs (Like roaches not Timothy)

He’s self conscious about his weird chicken feet that he has in his human shape

It’s all fun and games until Rush tries to hold him as a bird and squeezes a bit too hard-

He’s red on the inside! Almost all the other entities are black or black mixed with another colour

He drinks soy sauce instead of coffee because he’s a fucking idiot but also I think it’s by choice

Very shy about his emotions so much so that when he was alive if he told anyone about his girly popness he would probably have a heart attack

It took a lot of convincing from Hide while dead to get this man to admit that he’s into cock (Pun intended)

His favourite fruit is walnuts… That’s it.. He’s odd

If you were to touch him it would feel like the softest most comfortable and pillowy thing you have ever touched

He will never need a coat to go outside that’s what dawn is for 😎😎😎

Secretly this man is more kinky than Ambush just with a lot lower sex drive-

He loves to write, notes, letters, short books, basically anything. Along with that they’re arn’t many children’s books in the hotel so he had to write and illustrate all of the ones sally and timothy were every read :]

[sigh-artist]

Half Bird KO just has wings too small to fly... but he can float quite nicely. Yessss... Avian Seekers and Glider KO is such a nice concept.

Even better if he's not afraid of heights... but doesn't want to hang out with the pure seekers who always flock to them. Cause I imagine they make fun of him. Why wouldn't they? Plus? That would add a reason for his "I'm better than you" behavior. He's told he's the worst, so he acts like he's the best. Combine that with Peabird's and their pride and... welp. Good luck with him lol.

What BD btw?

Okay first I wanna say thank you so much for the ask! I don’t mean to be weird or awkward but I get really excited and really genuinely happy when people show interest in my ideas, so thank you!

And Yesssss! I was thinking the same, this is why he has the “I’m better than you attitude” and the pride thing is probably definitely why I chose a peacocks design for him.

As for bd, i think he’s just a “normal” grounder here, but he supports his husband regardless of him not being a pure seeker, he thinks his drop dead gorgeous anyway and loves him. Bd/breakdown is a strong supporter. But that being said, you know how breakdown is known for his huge chest? Well…. Similar to some mammals and how they have multiple…teats? As some people call them? Tits/nipples, well that’s how my breakdown is like, a lot of nips, i think eight, three smaller ones underneath his normal chest/booba. Now it’s weird but since they are aliens , why not have fun and give them weird biology?

But in my lost wings au ,all my humanoid formers have little “mutations” or quirks if you will, so they aren’t quite human, example is starscream and seekers being bird man/woman or heavily similar to harpies.

My Airachnid, similar to how a spider have multiple limbs, has four-six arms, i think six might be overkill but the extra arms are to make her resemble a spider, she has a normal amount of legs, in my original art she had two prosthetic arms underneath her normal ones I think? But designs might change.

TW: for fictional racism-ish stuff/concept/i don’t support or condone real life stuff of course (it’s gross and makes no sense)

but i do imagine seeker’s might have a bit of racism? Prejudice against grounders, of halfbreed seekers or disabled seekers at that, not all seekers are ,i like to think , but seekers have beauty standards and all and if you can’t fly then they don’t think you are as good as them, some think disabled seekers are a disgrace. It’s really sad, honestly, and i think this version of ko might be a victim of this. They see grounders as being “dirty” or “too rough” or “brutal”.

And…whilst I love starscream, he do have old man/boomer vibes and i think…he might be a “tad” (putting it very lightly) prejudiced against grounders too, old bird man racism.

Oops 👉👈 i accidentally rambled again.

Oh before I forget! I’m not the first person to have the idea of seeker ko! I believe I saw another post with a similar concept (of normal robot ko) so credit to them! I was inspired.

Also, notice how seekers can have different body types/be different models of jet? Starscream being more sleek and tiny and dreadwing being more bulky and big? I headcanon there’s different types/species or subspecies of seekers too, rare/hybrid halfbreed or extinct. Or some are just rumors/near extinction rare like vampiric types.

[vinnamah]

TW: mentions of animal abuse (below tthe "read more" dropdown)

As a child, I was labeled by my family as "the kid who is SUPER into animals. Like, she's crazy about 'em" and I kind of just accepted and internalized it and believed that was who I was. Now that I'm older and looking back, I am realizing that isn't the case, I just grew up in a messed up family.

Sure, I loved to read and learn about animals. A lot of them are really cool. We grew up with pet dogs that I loved very much, as a normal kid loves their family pet(s). I tried to befriend any stray cats I met. I loved going to the zoo and I had a lot of stuffed animals. These are all normal things for a kid. I wasn't, like, trying to convert my family into veganism or begging for a million and one pets or anything like that.

I loved showing off how much I knew about animals because another one of my labels was "the smart one," and I was trying to lean onto that because I didn't have my own identity outside of what my family said I was.

But what got me labeled as "super into animals" as a kid, was how I just had basic empathy for them. I didn't want my brother to go shoot squirrels and birds with his pellet gun. I didn't like it when I heard about my cousins going hunting for sport with my uncle, their father. It made me sad to hear about animals going extinct directly because of humans. When my horrible stepdad decided to kick my beloved childhood pet dogs out of the house and live out in the back yard, I made a big stink about it, how they would be cold in the winter and sad that they weren't allowed inside anymore.

I just didn't want animals to be suffering, needlessly, just for peoples' entertainment. I loved the family pets and wanted them to have better living conditions than the screened-in back porch and sandy back yard. And to my family, only a little kid who is WAY too into animals would think that way.

[theshiaxartistwrites]

Dawn of Trouble

Fandom: Five Nights At Freddy's: Security Breach Rating: Explicit Tw: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Violence, Blood and Gore, Child Death, Character Death, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence AO3 Link

Chapter Three

The elevator to Gator Golf was crammed with rowdy kids and exasperated parents. Don was forced to press himself into a corner to avoid being knocked into by the flailing children. The crackle of the speaker caught his attention, the children quieting when an automated voice came on.

“Did you know that bears love pizza sauce more than honey?"

Don's nose wrinkled.

"It’s true! Before their extinction,"

'Extinction?' Don arched an eyebrow at the speaker.

"Bears were known to attack pizza delivery trucks more than any other food service vehicles. This has been another fun Faz Fact!”

'Fun Faz Fact'. What bullshit. Teaching kids that bears were extinct? Some dumb kid was going to get hurt some day while trying to feed a bear pizza. The shrill noises of amazement from the younger kids in the elevator were not a good sign to the contrary. Don was beside himself with relief when the doors finally opened and they were able to exit.

The elevator let off on a carpeted upper walkway that curved around the left side of the attraction, with places to sit and eat while you watched kids play mini golf. Don walked to the railing to look out over the room, taking in the synthetic jungle beneath him. It was a bit dark for an indoor golf course, only the winding walkways were bathed in a neon green light. The little orange bulb lights that dangled from the ceiling looked more like fireflies than actually lighting up anything. Don could hear the heavy snarl of fake gators around the course, but with the sounds of birds, bugs, and frogs beneath the sounds of music and running water, it really did feel like a jungle swamp. Did children really find this fun?

Across the way from where he stood, Don could see a narrow stage with two animatronics standing on it. It was hard to see exactly who, but the long tail on the one was sure to belong to Montgomery. Despite being on stage, neither seemed to be playing their instruments, facing one another instead in a rather aggressive manner. Was this part of a show?

Don started to walk around the walkway towards the stage, squinting to see if he could tell what was happening. Montgomery let out a snarl that Don could hear from halfway across the room, a child began to cry somewhere in the dark. Whatever was happening, it was his job as security to make sure it didn't get violent, so he ran.

The walkway let down right beside the stage, Don taking the steps two at a time once he could hear the yelling. Getting up on stage was easy, Don pulling himself up behind one of the giant speakers so he was out of view of the audience. He still had no way of knowing if this was an act or not.

Both animatronics had bass guitars, but neither were playing, their instruments tucked to their sides so they could stand nose-to-nose. One was obviously Montgomery Gator, a large green alligator with a black oilskin hat tipped forward over his angry eyes. His casing was painted to have gator-skin pants and black gloves, with a paint job on his torso to mimic a black bush ranger jacket, metal studs on his shoulder pads, gloves, and belt. It wasn't hard to see that his face was much less expressive than the Daycare Attendant’s had been, looking more like stiff plastic like Foxy's.

The other animatronic was a purple rabbit, with a hot pink bowtie and black suspenders, though the suspenders attached to his studded belt, since his pink and black tiger-striped pants were merely painted on. His eyes were narrowed at Monty past star-shaped sunglasses with yellow frames. Given that Don only knew of one rabbit at the Pizzaplex, this had to be Bonnie.

Where he was now, Don could barely hear their argument, which was mostly Monty snarling and pointing aggressively at Bonnie.

"-you're nothing but a spoiled, egotistical, bitch!" Monty snapped, his teeth inches from Bonnie's nose. That kind of language seemed out of place for kid's entertainment, maybe this was not an act and needed to be stopped.

"And you're a second-rate pool toy." Bonnie scoffed as Don stepped out from behind the speaker, stepping up behind Monty. Monty let out a growl, reeling back his fist with malign intent. Don saw the gator's elbow wind back and put up his hand to block the blow.

CRACK.

Don stumbled and dropped flat on his back, hand and nose flaring in pain. He hadn't managed to stop the blow at all, only managing to cushion the blow of Monty's elbow to his nose. He'd caught plenty of thrown punches and elbows in the past, but the strength behind the animatronics' swings was something beyond inhuman. He'd need to avoid a physical fight with any of them if he was going to survive this place.

"What did you do!?" Bonnie snapped, stepping forward to shove a stunned Monty out of his way. Don sat up rather quickly, pinching his nose shut with his right hand and looking woefully at his already bruising left. Between the spots in his vision he could see Bonnie, knelt down to make sure he was okay. Bonnie turned on Monty so fast, Monty flinched.

"Are you trying to get decommissioned?" Bonnie hissed, Monty looking as frantic as a robot could. Bonnie stepped behind Don and slipped his hands under Don's arms, carefully standing him back on his feet. One glance at the kids who were watching the stage with wide, fearful eyes and Monty was gone, running off backstage and disappearing behind the curtain. Don was still too dizzy from the blow to give chase, turning to look at Bonnie instead.

"Thanks for-" Don blinked, Bonnie had already turned away and was moving to get off the stage, leaving Don leaning against the speaker.

"Hold on!" Don called, collecting himself and walking after the rabbit. Bonnie stopped and sneered over his shoulder.

"What do you want?" Bonnie asked in a huff. Don frowned, an anger flaring in his chest for a moment before he quelled it.

"What was all that about?" Don asked, his thanks abandoned.

"The crocodile was throwing a pity party." Bonnie dismissed it and took another step down the short stage stairs.

"Hm," Don's unamused noise seemed to halt the rabbit. "Anything I need to worry about?"

"Oh please," Bonnie turned to look at him, sneering down his nose at Don despite being below him. "You're here for appearances only, little man. Clean yourself up, before a kid sees you making a disgrace of the Pizzaplex." Bonnie turned and walked away, leaving Donald f u m i n g.

Would he break his hand if he tried to punch that stupid purple rabbit? A crowbar might work. He regretted getting in Monty's way now, he could absolutely understand the desire to assault him. Anyone with that much ego was bound to piss off every single person they came into contact with. Still, the tin hare had a point, Don could feel blood on his fingers and didn’t really want to deal with stains on his nice white shirt.

–

The bathrooms in Monty Golf were crowded with children, mostly little punks that were making a ruckus in the stalls, flooding the toilets, and tormenting the wet floor sign bots and staff bot that was mopping the floor by covering them in toilet paper. When Don stepped inside, his hands and face bloody and his glare one of pure aggravation, the bathroom was very quickly emptied.

"Damn, those little shits made one hell of a mess." He grumbled, grimacing at the wet shlap of his shoes across the floor. His nose wasn't dripping at the moment, so he took a second to help get all of the toilet paper off of the staff bot and sign bots. Using some of the paper to get up some of the water before throwing the mushy mass into the nearby trash bin.

"You good?" He asked the staff bot, who was recollecting its mop. It turned to look at him, but did not nod or say anything.

"I'll, uh, take that as a yes." Don stepped away to wash his hands and face and see the extent of the damage. His nose wasn't broken, but he had some decent bruising and a small cut on his nostril that stung. Both sides of his hand were bruised and his palm was swollen slightly, a nice cut across his palm that he hadn't noticed before. Thankfully, his nose hadn't bled enough to get on his shirt, but his palm had managed to stain his cuff enough that cold water only got rid of most of it.

"Fu-" He caught one of the sign bots staring at him in the mirror. "Uuuuuuum. Hm." With how small and cute it was, it felt like cursing in front of a toddler. "Er, I need a first aid kit," Don said aloud, turning to the staff bot that had returned to its mopping. "Do you know where one is?"

There was a soft ding and Don looked down at the sign bot that was looking up at him.

"You know where one is, lil bud?" Don asked again, amused when the sign bot spun in place. Don grabbed a paper towel to keep the cut on his palm from bleeding and followed the little bot when it sped out of the bathroom. It led him to the elevator, which was thankfully a little less jam-packed, and out into the main Atrium. Don kept track of where they were headed with his map app, his curiosity peaked as they passed into Rockstar Row. Where was this thing taking him?

The 'hallway' that was Rockstar Row seemed to be a museum dedicated to Fazbear history, framed posters and artwork hung on the walls and glass cases full of memorabilia and…

Don stopped by one of the cases.

It had a strange, rusty metal skull with one eye attached to it. Bits of dirt clung to it and the frayed old wires that stuck out of it. It was strange to see this so close to where the main animatronics spent their time, like the decapitated head of an ancestor set out on display for children to gawk at. Perhaps he was reading too much into it. It was likely the animatronics didn't even acknowledge this thing as any more than an old chunk of metal.

A bump against his leg yanked his attention from the case and back to the sign bot that was looking up at him.

"Sorry, got distracted." Don said, motioning the bot to lead the way. The bot made a noise like a chirp and turned, rolling away once more. Don followed close this time, taking a glance at the massive curtained windows they passed. Above each window was a character in neon lights, Chica, Bonnie, Roxanne, and Freddy. Chica and Bonnie's curtains were closed, the lights turned off inside to denote that they were elsewhere. Roxanne's, however, were drawn back so you could look inside. The wolf was sitting at her vanity, taking pictures with a young girl in a racing jumpsuit, even signing the little Roxy plush that the girl held out to her. These animatronics really were just robotic celebrities that they didn't have to pay.

Don stopped again, this time because the sign bot had led him into a small hallway beside Freddy's room that had velvet ropes leading to a door that the little bot stopped in front of before turning to him again.

"Uh, I don't think I'm allowed in there, buddy," Don didn't approach the door. "Pretty sure that's the big guy's room."

The curtain to Freddy's room had been pulled shut, but Don had been able to see the light on inside. If the big guy himself was there, it would be a little awkward to just walk inside-

Though.

He WAS supposed to introduce himself to him.

Don crossed his arms with a frown, thinking it over while the sign bot stared at him.

What was the harm? He gets talked down to again? Big deal.

Don stepped forward and knocked lightly on the door, stepping back when he heard the heavy thud of metal footsteps approaching almost instantaneously. The door slid open and Freddy Fazbear stood there, a pristine example of what a well design animatronic could look like. The bear smiled down at Don.

"Hello-" Freddy was cut off by the sign bot wheeling its way into the room, Freddy quickly moving his feet as if to not have his toes rolled over.

"Ack! Sorry," Don tried to grab at the little bot and missed, watching it roll away to an arcade machine in the corner of the room. "I'm not sure what's gotten into him."

"Oh it's quite alright!" Freddy said with a toothy grin, he seemed to have a little more emotive capability than the other Glamrocks, but not much. "You're Roberts, the new security guard, right?"

"Yes sir," Don smiled back and offered his good hand to shake. "You can just call me Don though."

Freddy took his hand and shook it gently.

"A pleasure to meet you, Don." Freddy gripped his hand, concern suddenly taking over his tone. "You are injured."

"Oh, uh, a little mishap with Monty is all," Don tugged his hand back, lifting his injured hand to show Freddy the paper towel. "I asked the little guy here for a first aid kit and he brought me here." Don motioned to the sign bot, trying to ignore how horrified Freddy looked.

"Goodness," Freddy crossed his arms anxiously. "I do hope Monty didn't hurt you on purpose?"

"Oh no, it was an accident, that's all." Don assured him, feeling a little silly reassuring a robot.

"I'm glad, Monty likes to be rough, but he's never been violent before."

Don just hummed in reply, thinking that Monty had been rather violent with Bonnie, or had attempted to be.

"But!" Freddy turned as though he remembered something. "Let me get that first aid kit for you!" He exclaimed, moving to the arcade machine the sign bot still sat beside. He excused himself as he reached into a spot between the game and the wall and pulled out a small red and white box.

"I like to keep one here for emergencies." Freddy explained, opening the box and pulling out several things as he returned to Don's side. With Freddy's help, Don set about doctoring his palm. An alcohol wipe to clean it out, a bit of antibiotic Faz-sporin cream, and a nice clean roll of bright blue Faz-wrap gauze to finish it off.

"Thank you, Freddy, a bit embarrassed that I got hurt on my first day, to tell you the truth." Don helped put the trash in the little bin under Freddy's vanity, while Freddy repacked the first aid kit and put it away.

"Oh please don't be! Injuries happen-at no fault of Fazbear Entertainment or its affiliates, there's no need to worry over the little things. Have you met the rest of your coworkers yet?"

Don was rather focused on the 'no fault of' part, but lifted his head when he realized Freddy was staring at him.

"I-uh, haven't met any of them yet, actually." Don admitted, thinking on how he hadn't seen a single human staff member since he arrived. Freddy gave him an odd look, ears swiveling slightly to express his confusion.

"I thought you said you'd met Monty?" Freddy mused.

Oh.

Freddy meant the other animatronics.

Of course.

The big bear probably had them coded as all being coworkers. It was only reasonable that Don was now added to that list.

"Oh!" Don smiled. "Sorry, I misheard you." He laughed it off before Freddy could question it. "I have! I had a run in with Monty and Bonnie, I got to play a bit with Foxy, and I got to see Sundrop in action."

"So you still need to meet Chica and Roxanne?"

"And the DJ." Don amended. Freddy nodded in understanding.

"I think you will like the DJ, he is such a nice fellow. I do believe Chica is down on the dancefloor currently, you may be able to meet them both. Two birds, one stone as the saying goes?"

"What kind of bird is the DJ?" Don asked, internally kicking himself for the terrible joke, Lark would have laughed. Terrible taste. Freddy just looked confused.

"Nevermind," Don waved it away. "It's been nice to meet you, Freddy, but I should let you get back to it."

"It was a pleasure," Freddy's ears wiggled happily. "You are always welcome here, even if I am not available." Freddy pointed to the ceiling. "There are no cameras here, so if you ever need a break-" Freddy winked.

Don laughed and patted Freddy's arm before turning for the door. No cameras? In the main Star's greenroom? That felt like either a lie or a massive oversight. Can robots lie? Don nearly tripped over the sign bot, who rushed for the door the moment it was open.

"Careful, little dude." Don chided, sidestepping out of its way and watching it zip off down the hallway. Don sighed, checking his watch and glancing at the map. It was already past 11am and it was a good walk from Rockstar Row to the DJ's stage in the West Arcade. At least he only had three more animatronics to meet, though Freddy's comment put a weird feeling in his stomach. -Were- there any other humans working at the Pizzaplex?

[gone-imagining]

The Law of the Jungle

TW: More Dinosaur related gore and violence. mostly just the usual

Chapter 4: The Terrible Claw

"Quiet, we're being hunted"

Jacob followed the trail of blood, his weapon trained on the hallway ahead, his breath becoming focused and methodical. Now that he knew the enemy, he could be prepared for it. He methodically checked every room, observing the strange, long dead moniters. It was nostalgic, looking back on the past of this national park. He grabbed a keycard on the desk, as something from further down the hallway began walking. Ducking behind a desk, he peered out into the dark hallway. It was like staring into a black void. He held his breath as the dinosaur finally showed itself. It was large and long, as it's neck craned into the office. It let out a small hiss as it entered, a large, viscious claw tapping on the metal floor. Jacob swallowed and held his breath, "This isn't good" he thought, as the dinosaur sniffed the ground, and began its hunt. It was almost nostalgic to Jacob, in a weird way. It reminded him of a mission in Peru, where he accidentally ended up being hunted by a jaguar. At the memory, Jacob instinctively scratched his eyepatch, and quietly slung his rifle over his shoulder.

He needed to play his cards carefully. If this dinosaur was anything like the jaguar, then it was a powerful animal, and a dangerous threat. So he began his own steathly approach, as the dinosaur continued to stalk him. It was uncanny the way the creature moved, like a bird, but it hunted like any other predatory animal. Navigating the office did not help ease his nerves, as the metal labyrinth continued to twist and turn. He could feel his heart pound in his ears, and he prayed that the creature couldn't hear it. It was as he paused to calm his breathing that the creature jumped up onto a desk, letting out a loud screech.

The sound nearly gave Jacob a heart attack, as he clutched his chest. Shaking his head, he steeled his nerves, and made a break for the exit. The dinosaur whirled around and hissed at him, before lunging after the merc. The chase was on, and it was anyone's game. He knew he couldn't outrun the beast, so he just had to outwit it somehow. But he had to come up with something soon, or else he was going to be extinct.

[odysseywritings]

Received What Was Given - Day of the Insects

(tw, animal cruelty / death, emetophobia)

The life of insects is a battlefield every day. Simple lives cut down by the curiosity of the child, the frustration of the bullied, the detached trap of starvation, the inhalation of the chemical, the burning of the magnifying glass.

They do not have faces that beckon empathy nor the low numbers that beckon protection. They are squished by accident or with purpose. Infestation wielding the poison dipped swords attached to abdomen are no match for a flyswatter. The impervious cockroach causing disease and dying by a crunching shoe. To survive is to live as a group, not alone.

Yet pain and death come for every being no matter how small or alien. The slaughterhouse exists for every insect who lives under the thumb of humanity.

People woke up one day without any insect scrounging for food, rotting away house wood, sucking blood, destroying clothes, infecting the vulnerable. It was a peaceful life for the domestic dweller.

Until the birds and frogs found themselves weak without food. Their deaths led to further deaths as the food chain broke and reformed into a hydra of fragments transforming into a cluster of chaos. Everything could eat everything. Man himself was not immune to the hunger of beasts.

His empathy smothered by the killing of creatures with eyes, pleasing noises, animated movements, visible curiosity, and blood. Until he was all alone in the world. How quiet it was until man hungered for man for protein.

Ravaged by dumbfounded killing, the sun was blotted out, and a blackening covered in the sky. Humans heard a buzzing noise coming closer. The same forgotten insects of yesterday returned with the sizes of the recently extinct whale. Their indecipherable expressions, wild antenna, and erratic movements startled everyone into frozen panic.

The insect gods took their pick of any human to eat. But some were not content. A bombardier beetle dissolving a family. A praying mantis pulling apart a man limb from limb. A wasp laying her eggs in another. Others merely squished by accident or with purpose.

Only several cadres of humanity were saved and protected by the living automatons, corraled like cattle into peaceful nature or in contained fences, living in anxiety if these monstrosities should ever change their mind and kill them for any reason they could not fathom. Such is the battlefield of humanity every day from now on.