#but how to write this made up species with made up culture that might echo these cultures and these experiences of mine

[silverserpent]

actually case in point. a quote. i wroted this

“I’ll leave you to it.” And just like that, he went on, probably to get some statement from someone, as if everything was alright.

It wasn’t alright, really. The Mimic was still loose, they were still investigating on what actually happened. But, looking at the balloons finally settling on the ceiling, things felt alright; the mundane, the silly and the colorful were just as alive and well as before.

...look the character who went through this much hardship gets comforted by the simple joys of life, bringing the conclusion that, despite the haedships, the small joys not only still exist but provide comfort.

this is TMA fanfic with Tim and Sasha. fanfic of low horror. oh look. how low brow.

"Elevated horror" is becoming the new elitist fancypants industry term du jour I'm seeing all over the place so I wanna make it abundantly clear that I only write shit, I only write popular garbage and potboilers, and you're all just jealous of my jetpack.

[ceiling-karasu]

World-Building for My Squirrel and Hedgehog AUs: Flower Hill Area Specific

I could not find the motivation to write for The Rod That Blocks the Lightning this week, so I made these instead. Splitting it into three posts, because they are pretty large and a lot of information. I also cannot draw well, so I have

So, I think I have finally figured out how my AUs work a bit in context of the Squirrel and Hedgehog universe, or at least what I will use. This is subject to be changed as time goes on, but none of this should spoil anything I have written so far, or what I will write in the future.

Shout out to @sah-headcanons for listening to me ramble nonsensically about ideas for AUs for the past 3-4 years, and offering encouragement the whole time as I had revelations to actually write it out! Might have taken an offhand comment or two they made and turned them into entire massive plot ideas.

For one, the continents appear to be about the same as in the real world. I am assuming the flag colors represent the dominant culture or country in the region.

It is likely that Asia is more in the middle, but is blocked on the screen here. Some real life world maps have their own country in the middle to make it easier. It is safe to say that North and South Korea would be in the same shape and place.

As such, I think I can say that some of the same concepts will appear throughout all of my AUs. It does not necessarily mean they are taking place in the same timeline/AU, just that the areas, countries, and concepts are the same.

History of the area Around Flower Hill:

As with regular Korea, it used to be run by emperors, and had a strict caste system split up by species. Strong predators such as tigers were at the top, while weaker animals were towards the bottom. Most creatures lived in villages located according to their species or biological (food, sleep, hibernation) needs, and did not mingle with each other.

Within each caste, there were hierarchies depending on how useful the attributes of the family bloodline were. For instance, sheep that grew wool rapidly that could be used as clothing, as with domesticated sheep, were higher ranking than sheep who did not have fast growing wool, or wool that simply blew off (wild sheep). This would help explain the appearance of domestic sheep, pigs, and Korean Village dogs in the absence of humans. Plus why accusing individuals of being a lapdog or running dog is apparently a thing in universe.

Likewise, animals within a caste with a bloodline that allowed them to see colors better than others were also higher ranking, such as wolves seeing the color green, since they cannot in real life, and seeing green made them more effective in their tasks.

Eventually, the royal families were overthrown, as was the caste system some time later. Newfound trade allowed different species to move between areas and better survive, leading to populations forming alliances with each other based on what they needed and for protection, as well as larger villages and some cities.

However, even generations later, echos of the caste system still remain. Weasels and tigers still see themselves as being superior over mice, squirrels, rabbits, and other, smaller creatures, for instance. Inter caste system issues still occur, such as canines that have trouble seeing the color green seen as lesser than canines who can see green.

Descendants of the old royal families still exist, and while some are content with their lives, others seethe over the lost power their ancestors used to hold. Some wish to hold the values of their royal ancestors, whilst living within their means. These descendants can usually be identified by the possession of a royal or high ranking family munjang, which is useless to many, but still gives the wielder much respect.

I also have the headcanon (and we came up with these ideas separately) that Mulamgcho's family are descendants of royalty. Although it does not seem as if he wishes to reinstall an empire himself, as much as live comfortably and in power somewhere with his surviving family member(s).

Food and dietary habits are close to that of real world animals. Animals that eat meat subsist on seafood (non-sentient in this universe), small non-sentient birds, and insects. Cannibalism, even of the enemy, is seen as unclean and taboo, so bodies are disposed of as quickly as possible and thoroughly as possible to prevent temptation. Crematoriums are a booming business, although the wealthy may get personalized electrified coffins to dispose of their bodies in a more individual manner, if funerals are available, as seen when General Commander Jogjebi faked his death.

The split between South and North

I hold the idea that weasels and other obligate carnivores live in villages around the ocean and large lakes in the South. There, they are able to create fish farms for food. The south of the continent is great for fish farms, as long as they are properly managed, although agriculture is possible. Other inhabitants live towards the middle of the country, or labor for the weasels.

The North of the country is better for agriculture, and proper management has made it very profitable. Fish farming is possible, but given the coast would require considerable more effort. Smaller species, and those who were not obligate carnivores, also migrated up north to avoid the amassing weasels taking over the power vacuum from the royals. Silkworms also thrive in the Northern climate.

Weasel Empires:

Location and Geography: South Korean area. The weasels mostly live in villages around the coastline in small fishing kingdoms. Smaller weasel villages might live inland around larger lakes. Non weasel species, such as mice, also live inland in impoverished villages. But the villages are subject to being raided, with inhabitants being forcibly conscripted into the service of the weasels, when not taxed heavily.

Government: A central government dictatorship, but since the territories are scattered, the strongest weasel in the area leads.

Economy: most of the economy comes from fishing. There may be small areas of agriculture for species that work for the weasels. Wheat and rice farms exist for the purpose of making soju for export in some areas. Weasels levy large taxes against all non weasel villages, leading to very poor villages that struggle to survive and trade amongst themselves. Agriculture is looked down upon, so while farming could be viable, it is seen as for servants and lesser species.

Demographics: Mostly weasels and mice, some crows, anyone else they can force to join to their side.

Foreign relations and relations involving Flower Hill: The weasel policy is to fish farm in an area until there are not enough fish to sustain the current population. Then, they will create a new territories up or down the coast. However, severe mismanagement has led to a depletion in fish across the weasel villages throughout the nation. Flower Hill has coastlines, and therefore, fish. Which means more power and food to whoever takes over the area, which is also very rich in other resources. Also, forced labor for the fish farms, so they can rule over the area while they themselves relax. Many upstart weasels are promised fame and power if they occupy a region of Flower Hill, and the temptation of new servants to rule over. The mice are mostly just desperate to take over Flower Hill for the food, and to force the residents to work for them so they can taste a bit of power for once. Propaganda posters also promise mice and crows higher pay and higher ranks for joining the army, and the idea that they can treat the residents of conquered regions as their own servants.

Political Alliances: Wolf Unit and tiger kingdoms, and what would be the equivalent of Japan, in universe, that I have not gotten around to yet as I highly doubt they will play a part.

Traditional Clothing style (other than military gear): Much taken from the Japan equivalent, clothing is a Kimono covered by a Haori, although these are usually worn more by high class individuals.

Regular shirts and trousers are worn by lower and working classes. Villagers more towards the inner part of the country wear simple, traditional Hanbok.

Other: The idea of the weasels needing to stay on the coast works with a certain concept with the Kidnapped Scientists AU. It would be an interesting idea to have the scientists eventually work with the weasels by helping them conquer inland areas around Flower Hill, knowingly forcing the weasels to waste resources trying to get extra fish to the area before it goes bad, as well as having the army be stretched thin.

While the Weasel Country is allied with the equivalent of Japan, the country is not interested in helping the weasels take over another country due to pressure from the international community, and the fact that they see countries as too small for them to want to get involved.

Flower Hill:

Location and Geography: North Korea, although I assume the rabbit villages are China. Varies between coastal, woodlands, plains, lakes, rivers, and mountainous areas

Government: Stratocracy, where the government is headed by military chiefs. Villages may have their own chiefs, but they answer to the military in the end. Strangely, more and more village chiefs are becoming military chiefs...

Flower Hill also encourages education and sending intelligent individuals for prestigious universities to hopefully bring back new ideas and information that could help the economy and the government, although it is noticeable that almost everyone that goes seems to have an affiliation to the military as well...

Economy: For the most part, Flower Hill is an agricultural nation, with plenty of food to sustain the population. Fishing is also popular, and many countries like the local goby fish. Science and research allows for many discoveries and patents to be made in Flower Hill.

Honestly, I saw sah-headcanon's post asking about what carnivores eat, and wound up seeing if insects were a food eaten in Korea. What I found was that Beondegi (silkworm pupa) is a well known food in Korea, sold as street food and in convenience stores. Which has led to me deciding that Flower Hill has a massive silk and silkworm industry that takes up the bulk of the exports. Good for lots of food, and also for fancy clothing for themselves and other countries, which bolsters foreign relations.

They will import what they need from other countries.

Demographics: squirrels, hedgehogs, ducks, monkeys, pigs, sheep, deer, geese, bears. Originally, each species had their own specific jobs, such as squirrels being farmers, hedgehogs being military, ducks being the navy, monkeys being entertainers, and so on. But that was abolished a few generations ago, and the hedgehogs encourage other species to join in the military or try other careers.

Foreign relations: Flower Hill prefers to keep peaceful relations with other countries. Even though they are being invaded by the Weasel Unit, they will still invite weasel leaders to diplomatic events and festivals. However, dark secrets are hidden deep from the international eyes. Many countries enjoy the high quality silk that comes from the area.

Political Alliances: Jindo Dog Island, Chaand Hadia, Chambelli Koh

Traditional Clothing Style (not including military uniforms): Flower Hill citizens would wear intricately patterned chosŏn-ot, bolstered by their massive silkworm pupae industry. Otherwise, shirts and trousers for when they are working.

Other Countries/continents outside of the local area:

Tiger Empires: believe that they are of royal blood, and at the top of the old caste system, and will occasionally create small empires. Their disregard for other species usually results in their collapse. Tigers tend to be the main villains for many Korean cartoons, so it is an interesting concept.

White-Naped Crane Party:

Used to be the upper class clergy and preachers meant to keep the lower castes under control. Most of this group fully supports the return to the emperors and caste system. White-Naped Cranes in real life primarily live in the demilitarized zone of North Korea, but they do migrate to other areas before returning. Therefore, it is only natural to have them appear at some point.

Their migrations have them bring back strange, new ideas of subservience to emperors, and they cause each disruptions that Flower Hill considers revoking their traditional permits to come and go as they please. They also tend to be found within the territories of Tiger Empires.

Other Countries:

I don't think other countries outside of the immediate area will feature too much. For them, It's too much effort to get involved in that type of conflict for a country that is not a big superpower. I do hold that the Geneva Convention and international courts exist, but not because of World War reasons. Due to species restrictions, events like World Wars are not possible, but rules of warfare are, for decencies sake.

Travel and trade is still allowed into the area, and both the weasels and Flower Hill avoid angering citizens from other countries due to diplomatic reasons, which can lead into reporters poking their noses in there they don't belong...

Outside of Flower Hill, in more industrious countries, there are larger cities. Universities exist, and some are very prestigious. But, due to the lack of travel ability and certain species restrictions (climate and such), long distance and online classes are available and seen as valid.

[worth-more-than-two-thousand]

Returning from the Dead is Easier Said than Done...

Request: Welcome, Shiny! May I request an x Reader (can be fem or gender neutral) where Echo (post-citadel) comes up to their s/o's doorstep to give them flowers and ask them on a date? A plus if the Bad Batch teases him for dressing up nicely and buying flowers. Thank you! (@handmaidenthesimp)

Author’s Note: Enjoy! If anybody wants me to repost with a gender-neutral reader, just let me know. 

Story Notes: Some swearing, not much else to warn you about. Take place in-between Season 7 of CW and The Bad Batch. No Omega this time, sorry! 

🖑 🖑 🖑 🖑 🖑

Being declared dead was uncomplicated. Your Republic file was branded with a "KIA" stamp, everyone stoically mourned, and someone just a bit shinier would step in to fill your shoes. 

Being declared undead, however, was decidedly more complicated. Oh, Echo was reassigned to Clone Force 99 easily enough. But it was the little things that seemed to get mired in red tape. Getting his few personal effects back. Re-opening his modest credit account.

Approving a rental application.

Admittedly, it wasn't that Echo really needed his own place; clones were conditioned to be accustomed to share minimalist, often-cramped quarters. And they were always on the move, so it hardly made any financial or practical sense, in the long run. 

But right now, oh, did Echo dearly wish that he was dressing up in the privacy of his own space...and not the shared cabin area of the Havoc Marauder. 

He kept his face stoic, as though readying for battle, refusing to acknowledge his teammates goggling in the background. They had returned early from their supply run. Echo had meant to be out of here an hour ago, but (somehow) hadn’t counted on just how difficult it would be to get dressed into multiple clothing pieces with a scomp link for a hand. 

So that’s how his comrades found him: trying to wrangle a neck accessory into submission by sheer will. 

Oh, if Fives could see him now. 

“You look funny,” Wrecker had declared decisively after an unbearably long silence. “What’s that thing you’ve got on?” 

“It’s a suit,” he grumbled, refusing to look any of them in the eye. “I’m going to see Y/N.”

Wrecker gasped like a fishwife. He leaned forward, and pitched his voice low. As though the others couldn’t still hear him in the tinny space.  “Your girlfriend? You mean you’re going to see her for the first time....since…” Wrecker made a muted cartoonish sound with his mouth, clenching then expanding his fingers in a gesture for ‘explosion’.

Echo stared at him for a moment disbelievingly, before nodding slowly, forcing the sarcastic response he really wanted to say back down. He couldn’t fault Wrecker for being...well, Wrecker. He had all the tact of a rampaging bantha. 

“An’ what’s that? Around your neck?” 

Echo opened his mouth, but someone cut across his response. “A bowtie,” Crosshair drolled, though his eyes glittered with amusement. Echo tensed, knowing that he wasn’t going to like what was coming next. 

“Fifty credits says he chokes, and he ends up strangling himself with it in shame." 

“No way!” Wrecker exclaimed, always the optimist. He clapped Echo on the back, who was unprepared so his knees buckled. He felt his metal joints strain. “Don’t worry, Echo,” his brother rasped in the loudest whisper known to man. “I bet she’s gonna love it!” 

“You know,” Tech piped up unhelpfully, “Your strategy may backfire. The current deviation from your usual appearance may be so jarring for your beloved that she refuses your offer out of simple self-preservation instincts.” 

Echo gritted his teeth. “Right. You have stats to back that up, I suppose?” 

Tech blinked at him owlishly. “Of course I don’t. This is an obvious possible outcome.”

“I’m trying to look nice,” he snapped, scowling. 

There was a loaded pause. “...’trying’ being the objective word here,” Crosshair smirked.  

Before Echo could wipe the look off his comrade’s face with a well-placed ARC trooper punch that would’ve made Hardcase proud, Hunter wedged his way in between them, hands up in a conciliatory gesture. 

“All right, laugh it up, fellas. Personally, I think you’re all jealous because you don’t have a girl waiting for you like Echo does.” Hunter turned to face their newest member, took the bowtie that was clenched in Echo’s fist, and smoothed it out before proceeding to tie it around his neck with surprisingly deft hands. 

Crosshair ‘hmphed’ while Wrecker verbally agreed, looking slightly put out by the undeniable truth. Tech simply nodded in neutral confirmation. The group lapsed into a somewhat awkward (but not unwelcome) silence as Hunter finished tugging at the folded ends of the bow, then double-checking to ensure it was straight. He stepped back to assess his work.

“You look good,” he said sincerely.

Echo thought he was in the clear. 

Hunter frowned. “But...it looks like you’re missing something.” 

Or not. 

“Like dignity?” Crosshair drawled from a dark corner of the ship that Echo frustratingly couldn’t glare at. 

“A sense of self-confidence,” Tech suggested. He wasn’t joking. 

“FLOWERS!” Wrecker boomed confidently. “All girls like flowers. You gotta get her some before you see her!”   

“I...fine.” Echo relented, anything to get his teammates to shut up. He shoved his way through them towards the bridge. “I’ll get her some flowers. You all stay here until I get back. I mean it, Fives!” he warned.

An uneasy silence followed him, which he didn’t register until he reached the landing ramp. 

He shot an exasperated look back at them. “What?’ 

“...Your former comrade is not here, Echo.” Tech finally spoke. His words were clinical, as always, but there was a touch of understanding underlying his tone. 

Echo froze, just for a moment, then shook off the shock of his faux pas as best as he could. 

It wasn’t the first time that had happened, after all. 

Echo descended the landing ramp, squared his shoulders, and marched into town. 

Y/N lived in a run-down but culturally distinct district of Coruscant, characterized by food stalls from species and ethnicities all over the galaxy. Children often ran through the streets, sellers in colorful robes and attire shouting their wares and art for all to peruse. It was one of the nicer markets, he thought, having come here once. He had been accompanying Y/N on her usual run for specialized ingredients that made the diner she worked at the talk of the galaxy. 

Echo elbowed his way through the crowded street, content to simply blend in with the crowd, to forget about being a soldier for a moment. 

He paused at a flower stand and was mindful not to draw too much attention to his scomp-link hand as he ordered a dozen sunflowers, which he remembered were Y/N’s favorite. When his credit chip was declined, however, he sighed and reached into his pocket to see what spare change he could muster up. Being that he was wearing a never-worn suit, however, meant that there was no change to be found, and the unimpressed florist snatched the bouquet away. 

That’s okay, Echo. Y/N doesn't need flowers. She just wants to see you.

At least, he hoped that was the case. He hadn’t exactly written to her yet, unsure that he could sufficiently explain his sudden non-death in typed words...

Surprise! I’m not dead! Hey, you know that explosion on the citadel? Well, I survived! And out of it, I got an all-expenses paid trip to  the Techno Union research facility! Why didn’t I write? Well, I was in stasis most of the time and that part’s a bit fuzzy. I also was responsible for killing my brothers by using their own battle plans against them. Oh, and you might notice that I’m missing most of my fleshy bits these days… 

He shook his head to clear his thoughts, which were more rapid these days thanks to his enhancements. He was good at compartmentalizing, though. He had to be. He was still a soldier, through and through, and no one wanted a soldier who was about two seconds away from a mental breakdown.

Yeah, a letter to Y/N wouldn’t have cut it. But he still felt like maybe he could have sent ahead some sort of...heads up? A warning? A ‘Please don’t scream when you see me because I don’t think my heart could take it?’ 

His feet finally guided him to the front entrance of the building where he knew she lived on the 14th floor. Glancing around, he spotted some blue flowers sprouting in a planter near the entrance. He yanked a fairly healthy-looking handful from the soil, shaking the roots to get most of the dirt off. He tucked the strangled roots into his fist so that they would be less obvious. 

It was time. He nodded to himself, squared his shoulders, and entered the building. 

A short elevator ride later, Echo could feed the sweat beading at his forehead and neck. At least his fight or flight response seemed to be healthy and alive, and Echo tuned out everything but the door in front of him, adorned with a purple wreath of lavender flowers. 

He stood in front of the door, and raised his hand to knock. 

He stood…

In front of the door…

...and raised his hand…

...to knock, you coward. Just fucking knock. 

His raised knuckles, however, refused to move. Echo caught a glimpse of himself in the curtained window panes on the sides of the door, and at the sight of his bloodless face, suddenly felt a whole lot less sure of himself. 

He looked ridiculous. 

He and Y/N had barely gotten to know each other before his untimely death. 

What if she was with someone new? 

This was a terrible idea. Echo should leave now, before he caused himself any more embarrassment. Crosshair might get his fifty credits, after all. 

Echo had just convinced himself to turn around and admit defeat, when the door suddenly swung open. 

Two Y/C/E eyes met his. 

There were points during Echo’s battle career where time slowed to a crawl. When an explosive grenade was thrown just a bit too close, or the comrade you had just exchanged banter with received blaster fire to the face. 

Echo was experiencing the same sensation now, but he would voluntarily stay in this moment forever, if he could. He fervently hoped his nightmares would be replaced with the sight that was etched before him. 

She was wearing her yellow work uniform, white apron pressed crisply with starch...and was as beautiful as ever. Her hair was up in a messy ‘late-for-work’ up-do, a smudge of blushed color not quite within the lines of her lips smearing her cupids’ bow where she had applied it in a rush.

He couldn’t determine whether her reaction to his sudden appearance was positive or not, and so didn’t dare speak first, breathlessly afraid that if he did, the moment would shatter. 

He saw her swallow hard, glancing at him from head to toe, gaze landing on his right hand. 

He guarded his heart. 

“Ech? Echo, is that you?” she whispered. Her eyes tore away from the scomp link hand, and began searching his face as though just as afraid he would disappear. 

He nodded. “Yeah,” he rasped, then cleared his throat. “Yeah, it’s me.”

The silence stretched out, and the fight or flight response was creeping back. 

“I know I look a bit different.” He tried for a light-hearted joke, but couldn’t quite get his tone to match. “Had some work done. What do you think?” He winced slightly.

She stepped forward and he froze as Y/N lifted her fingers, hesitating briefly before gently touching one of the metal bolts by his left temple. Her eyebrows furrowed in concern.

“...do they hurt?” 

He gasped a little as he remembered to breathe again.

“No,” he reassured her, raising his undamaged hand to steady hers. “No, it doesn’t hurt.” 

“...good.” 

The wind was knocked out of him as Y/N flung her arms around him, burying her face in his neck, tardiness to her job completely forgotten. 

She began sobbing. It wasn’t neat little sobs, like in the scripted holovids, but heaving sobs that wracked her whole body, and he worried slightly that she was going to faint on him. He forgot about his scomp link for the first time as he rubbed it in circles against her back, murmuring nonsense words of comfort in her ear. 

After several minutes, she sniffled, stepping back. She rubbed her nose ungracefully where snot was leaking out, but Echo could have cared less about any of that. He only kept his arms out to steady her, in case she needed support again.

Y/N glanced down suddenly, and flushed.

“Oh. I’ve crushed them.”

Echo followed her gaze and saw that he was still holding the blue flowers from the planter in his good hand, the bouquet having been caught in between their bodies when she had thrown herself at him. They did look a little worse for wear. 

He shrugged unconcernedly. “They were free,” he said, not wanting her to feel guilty. 

She stared at him for a moment before a bubble of laughter burst from her lips. She still looked like she was about to sob at any moment, but she smiled tremulously at him through shining eyes. 

Desperate to make her feel better, he began rambling. 

“I can get you better ones! N-not right now, though,” he stuttered. “Actually, it turns out that I don’t have any credits on me at the moment. Everything’s still kind of backed up at the bank regarding my accounts. Also, this suit is new. Well. Not new. It used to belong to this woman’s father who we rescued during a mission on Bith. Long story.” His brain, which worked faster than usual these days anyways, still couldn’t seem to catch up to his mouth.

He forced himself to get back to the task at hand. “I was actually here to ask you for a date. I mean, assuming there’s no one else at the moment…oh, but you have your job to go do…bantha spit, I forgot about that...” He would have to ask Tech if it was possible for his brain to actually short-circuit.

Echo finally trailed off. Now he was the one blushing. 

The whole of Domino Squad was probably having a good laugh at his expense right about now, wherever they were. 

But Y/N was still smiling at him. And her chin had stopped wobbling. She gently took the flowers from Echo’s hand and placed them on one of the side tables in the hallway before intertwining her fingers with his and grasping his right hand without hesitation. 

“Forget about my job. Let’s go on that date. My treat. Though, if I know Dexter, he’ll give us a free meal, on the house. And the rest of the day off."

For the first time since he had joined Clone Force 99, since he had been rescued on Skako Minor, and even before the Citadel...Echo allowed a true grin of happiness to spread on his face. 

“A free meal,” he echoed. “Sounds like a plan.” 

[moiraineswife]

Worth - A Stormlight Fic

Back at it with my Jasnah/Wit crimes. Come. Feast on my content.

Title: Worth

Summary: Set pre Rhythm of War, probably fairly early on in Jasnah and Wit's foray into romantic territory (though tbh they're early on in RoW, so this is probably like...a month before or something). Anyway. Jasnah takes a moment to herself to Think Deep Thoughts about the world. Wit joins her and they Think Deep Thoughts together. 

Honestly it's just them vibing with each other for the whole fic because I get a serious kick out of that aspect of their dynamic and I really enjoy writing it. I don't know how else to sell this to you. I feel like at this point if you're here you're here for good. So enjoy.

Teaser:   "Jasnah was respected, certainly.

She might even be loved, by her family, whom she loved deeply in turn.

But she was rarely liked. And seldom wanted.

When the impenetrable tides of the Cosmere pushed someone towards her like Wit, though? Someone who not only seemed to actually like and want her, but also understand her? Well, then she was only human.

Human, and lonely. So lonely. Craving things others did not seem to believe she actually wanted."

Link: ao3

Commission Link: Have me write other cosmere characters

Sometimes, Jasnah forgot that the world was beautiful.

Academically, she knew that it was. She understood the quest of artists and poets to capture it, just as she sought to capture and unravel the mysteries of the past. Different types of scholarship, but both worthy, she now saw.

Yet practically, day-to-day, she did not often have the luxury of thinking about it.

So much of her life had been spent inside, enclosed by stone walls, buried in dusty books, surrounded by towering shelves, not mountains. The cold glow of spheres had replaced the warm kiss of the sun for her for so long now.

She had never resented her surroundings. They had made her feel contained, safe. The points by which she might have been approached, or attacked, could be easily identified, countered, and understood, when inside. It was a controlled environment, and that was the kind she preferred.

Strange, though, that close confines should make her feel protected now, considering…

Well, it did not do to dwell on that. Besides. It was the darkness that truly conjured up those particular Voidbringers.

She gave herself a little shake, refocusing on what unfolded before her, like a masterwork painting she had been included in. A single brushstroke in the centre of the piece, an afterthought, there merely to demonstrate how small humanity was in comparison to the expanse of nature.

Her chambers, by design, did not have a balcony. The danger it might allow in had not been worth risking for the sake of a pretty outlook and some fresh air. As a Radiant, she did not need to breathe, fresh air or otherwise. And if she needed something nice to look at while in her interior rooms, she’d ask Shallan for a sketch.

Still. It was pleasant to stand out here, for a moment.

The meeting she’d attended in Dalinar’s chambers had concluded, and the others had left almost at once to deal with other business about the tower.

This had left Jasnah to a rare moment of solitude and free time, when no-one expected her to be anywhere, so she had been free to simply be where she was.

In a rare impulse, she had taken the liberty of stepping out onto the balcony, and now she savoured this small gift she had afforded herself.

She missed the peace of being alone. Save Ivory, of course, but he was as much a part of her as her blood or bones, and did not count.

Urithiru was absolutely the place she needed to be. The goal of her long years of solitary research had been accomplished. It was time to move on to the next, and this tower was its natural staging ground.

Yet a part of her wished for those days. Solitude had been her blessing and her burden, back then, but now she only thought of it fondly.

She had been free, undisturbed by others and their needs, to do as she had wished to do. She had been unconstrained, unbound, save the pressures she had placed upon herself.

The burden of a dying world no-one else had noticed or heard screaming, as she had, had weighed upon her, and her alone. Like the Herald, Taln, for all those years, she had held the weight of Roshar and all those who lived upon it. Unknown. Unseen. Ignored.

Now that burden was shared. She had others that would listen to her, that could help. A good thing. For in bearing it alone, despite her torment, her pains, and her best efforts, she had failed. Again.

A part of her missed her peace, however. There was little of it to be found here.

She smiled wryly at herself, drumming her fingers on the balcony’s stone rail.

Wit would likely have had something to say had he been privy to her current musings. Something sarcastic, yet blended with enough insight to be profound all the same.

Satisfy a chull’s most basic wants and needs - food, water, shelter - and it would be content.

Satisfy a human’s most extravagant, outlandish and unnecessary wants and needs, and they would immediately discover new ones. Most likely contrary to the ones that had just been fulfilled.

Yes. he would like that idea. She tucked the thought away to share with him when he returned. He had been gone for a few weeks now, off doing whatever it was that he did. She did not begrudge him his travels. He had to do as he felt he must, and at her side was not always where he thought he was needed.

Though she did not chastise him, she did envy him, at times. What must it be like, to have the freedom to travel, not only across Vorin Roshar, but to other worlds.

He told her of it sometimes, at her urging. He would never say what he specifically was doing there, but she didn’t much care about that. She didn’t want the details of his adventures. She wanted to know of the places he had them. What other worlds looked like, felt like, what their history revealed of them, how they differed from Roshar, how and why culture had evolved there.

Some of their most stimulating talks involved these things. Jasnah had found herself dreaming, as she had as a girl, of fantastical places that felt so tangible, so real, yet out of reach.

Wit would return soon, she believed, and bring tales of other worlds. For now, she let herself simply watch her own as it turned around her.

Thick clouds swirled overhead, like blots of ink dropped into water, expanding and encompassing. They created a cavernous ceiling so far above, making her feel enclosed, but also free.

The vastness of it made her feel small. So small. So insignificant to this world she had tried to save. Likely it neither cared nor noticed. That gave her a strange sense of comfort. It was nice, for once, not to be seen, not to feel the weight of eyes and expectation upon her.

A wild songling flew past at her eye level,  sculpting the sky with its wings, trilling in warning of her presence to others she could not see.

Wind blew through the mountains around her, rising, and falling, and echoing in a song that seemed just for her.

Yes. This world was beautiful. This was what she fought for. These quiet moments. The spaces between the words of the history books. The moments no-one thought to write of, but which they lived for.

She had become so deeply entrenched in saving the world, lately, that she hadn’t taken enough time to appreciate precisely what she was saving. It was good to look out, now, to take a moment, to remember.

This was her world. If Odium wanted it, he would have to pry it from her bloody, clawing fingers. And she would not make it easy for him.

The door behind her opened, and Jasnah felt herself tense, alert. Ivory, on her collar, always keeping watch for her, murmured, “Wit. He comes to find you.”

She smiled, in spite of herself.

“Thank you,” she told Ivory, whose careful observation of the world around her, covering her blindspots, was the only reason she felt even a little safety these days.

Excitement rose in her at the thought that Wit had returned. A part of her, that quiet, cautious part that whispered always of what might hurt her, warned that her eagerness in this moment was more dangerous to her than any blade or poisoned bread had ever been.

She acknowledged that. She would be a fool not to. She was no sheltered child any longer, believing that if a person loved her, they would be incapable of ever hurting her.

Yet, for all she valued her solitude, loneliness was something else entirely.

She would be a liar if she claimed to not have felt lonely these past few years.

Jasnah did not need people. She had built a life for herself that all but ensured she would never need anyone else for any reason ever again.

But she could want them.

That feeling was rarely mutual, however.

Oh, Jasnah was respected, certainly. She was renowned as a scholar and well-regarded in many academic circles. She was sought after and coveted as a means of cosying up to political favour or power. She was needed now as a queen, a thinker, a Radiant.

She might even be loved, by her family, whom she loved deeply in turn.

But she was rarely liked. And seldom wanted.

Jasnah did not often dwell on that. She would not waste her precious time wallowing in self pity like a hog in crem. She had far better things to do with herself than that.

When the impenetrable tides of the Cosmere pushed someone towards her like Wit, though? Someone who not only seemed to actually like and want her, but also understand her? Well, then she was only human.

Human, and lonely. So lonely. Craving things others did not seem to believe she actually wanted.

At times she had felt like the last member of a dying species. Alien. Unable to properly fit with anyone around her, no matter how hard she tried.

Then Wit. Another who did not fit his world. Someone who saw her, and knew, they were of a rare kind. And by some stroke of luck they had found another like them. Two topaz spheres in a basin full of diamonds.

She felt it as he stepped up behind her, slow, footsteps deliberately loud so she knew that he was there. Then he put his arms around her, clasping his hands in front of her, holding her to him.

“What are you thinking?” he asked, quietly, resting his chin on her shoulder.

“What makes you believe I’m thinking anything?” she replied, absently reaching up and carding her fingers through his neatly styled hair.

“When are you not?” he returned, smoothly, nuzzling at her neck. Not to entice, simply...For intimacy’s sake.

She had, incredibly, found herself missing his strange little physical displays of affection while he was gone. So she allowed this. He was always more prone to such bouts when he’d been away for a time.

“Mm, a point,” she allowed.

“Come then,” he said, breath pleasantly warm on her skin, “A clip for them?”

“A clip?” she repeated, frowning.

“Ah, yes,” he said, as if he’d just remembered something. Likely which planet he was on. Literally. “A small metal coin. Not from around these parts,” he explained, confirming her hypothesis.

“And what would I do with a small metal coin that’s not from around here?” she asked, amused.

It had likely been nothing more than an honest slip on his part, a forgotten habit, but she always liked to see what she could tease from these little lapses.

“Oh I’m quite sure you’d think of something,” he said, lightly, “Perhaps even something somewhat clever, knowing you.”

“Indeed,” she said, “And what will you do with my thoughts, should I give them to you?”

“Torment them,” he said, promptly, “Twist them, and turn them, and then make them dance for your entertainment while wearing that lovely purple havah that suits you so well.”

She smiled.

“Come then,” he said, “Tell me what wondrous, profound, revelatory thoughts the great Jasnah Kholin has been thinking on upon this lonely balcony of Urithiru?”

She breathed in the crisp mountain air, and said, simply, “I think that this world is beautiful, Wit.”

Another man might have made some empty comment regarding her own beauty, which would have done nothing but put her off. Fortunately, Wit knew better.  

He only rested his head on her shoulder again and said, with uncharacteristic reverence, “Yes, it is.”

“Beautiful,” she repeated, “And worth saving.”

He perked up at that, and though she couldn’t see his face, she could imagine the expression on it as he planned to do with this thought exactly what he’d said he would.

“If the world were ugly,” he said, musing, “Would it then not be worth saving in your estimation, my dear? Very judgemental of you.”

“If I didn’t consider ugly things worth saving, I’d have allowed someone to assassinate you months ago, Wit,” she replied.

“How kind of you to forbid them,” he said lightly, not missing a beat, "It’s been attempted recently, then?” he added, with an indecent kind of interest.

“Yes. Three times.”

“Thrilling. A good assassination attempt every so often does wonders for one’s reflexes. Not to mention their sense of self-importance. After all, no-one ever tries to assassinate the unimportant,” he observed.

She might have noted how strange it was that someone was pleased to have been the subject of an assassination attempt. But this was Wit, and that was therefore expected behaviour from him. Not worthy of any special consideration.

Instead she drummed her fingers on the stone rail in front of her, considering.

“I’d permit the next one to slip through my defences to keep you on your toes,” she told him drily, “But I fear if your head becomes any more inflated than it already is, it may explode and ruin my new havah.”

Wit laughed loudly at that, and in so doing yielded their little verbal sparring match to her. A token of her victory.

He kissed her neck gently, and she could feel the smile on his lips as he did so. That made her feel warm.

“In any case,” she said, settling more completely against him, allowing him to hold her more firmly against him, their bodies melding more as she relaxed into it, “I don’t think a world is capable of being ugly, Wit.”

“That, my dear, very much depends,” he said lightly.

“On what?”

“On how you feel about sand,” he said, with a dramatic sigh.

“I feel that it’s coarse, stubborn, and irksome to find unexpectedly in your shoe,” she deadpanned in return, “Based on that I think we’d get on just fine, given that we seem very much alike.”

Wit huffed an amused laugh against her neck at that. “I assure you, I would be much happier to find you in my shoe than sand, Jasnah. Far more so were it my bed, in place of my shoe,” he added, his voice deepening as he said it.

She smiled faintly. She would not object to spending that time alone with him tonight after his absence. They always bonded more deeply afterwards, and she enjoyed the pleasurable distraction it provided. A nice reset for her mind.

“Later, perhaps,” she murmured softly, “If you earn your place there.”

“You wound me, Jasnah,” he said, allowing the mood of the conversation to flow smoothly back to light, neutral ground again, without the heat of loaded implications. “You know I always do my utmost to remain by your side as your Wit.”

“You have done satisfactorily in that area thus far, I will admit,” she allowed.

He did make a good Wit, and she had employed him on more than one occasion, to  the general devastation of his target.

“And in other areas?” he prompted, resting against her once more.

“Mm, I’m still considering.”

Wit smiled against her once more, then stretched up and kissed her temple as he said, “I think that you’re right, dear one.”

“I may require you to be more specific, Wit,” she said, smiling slightly, “As I’m often right.”

He chuckled, “Quite correct. In this case, I believe that you’re right in saying that a world cannot be ugly. Not in a way that makes it unworthy of saving, at any rate.”

“No,” she agreed, softly, “Especially since this world still has heart, left, Wit, and that alone is worth preserving.”

He hummed softly in affirmation, then said, “Do you know, Jasnah, I do believe that I’ve missed you.”

“It’s been three weeks, Wit,” she said drily, “You’ll notice you survived my absence.”

But she smiled, in spite of her words, and that warmth flared in her again.

She believed him when he said things like that. In truth, she believed him when he said most things. They may be convoluted or misleading, but they were not outright lies.

“And you?” he said, nuzzling at her like an axehound puppy under a blanket again, “Did you survive without your Wit?”

“Barely,” she deadpanned.

Then she softened, because she enjoyed this game between them, this playful back and forth that kept them both sharp and engaged, but she was discovering something deeper that existed beneath the surface of it. And she felt that worth noting, too.

Placing her hands on top of his, she said quietly, “I am glad to see you back, Wit,” her smile genuine. “Life tends to be more interesting when you’re around.”

“My dear,” he replied, in mock outrage, “This almost implies that I have a purpose in being here.”

“Further evidence that you don’t count as art, Wit,” she said lightly, smiling.

“ Further evidence?” he repeated.

“Didn’t we already discuss your beauty? More specifically its lack?” she replied, falling comfortably back into rhythm with him.

“Jasnah!” he exclaimed, “I worked very hard when sculpting this face to make it as aesthetically pleasing as possible!”

“To chasmfiends?”

He snorted.

“You are truly irresistible, dear,” he told her, tone half genuinely fond, half playfully wicked.

“Really?” she prompted, expecting the follow-through.

“As irresistible as a man lashed to a chull being pulled irresistibly along behind it as it rampages freely through the plains,” he said, completing the sequence of their dance.

“Chulls don’t rampage, Wit,” she said flatly.

“Well then pretend that they do. For the sake of art , Jasnah,” he returned.

She smiled, then glanced over her shoulder at him, eyes bright, twinkling. He didn’t seem offended or at all hurt by her jibes but-

“Did I take that too far then?” she asked, bluntly.

She liked that she could ask him those kinds of questions, with the knowledge that they would be taken with the sincerity she intended, and without judgement. A part of her still feared the answer.

“Not at all,” Wit replied.

Though his tone was still light and jovial, she felt herself relax again. That was the truth, for he did not tell those sorts of lies.

“I haven’t had such a pleasantly stimulating conversation since, well, since our last,” he added, and there seemed a genuine fondness in his words.

She smiled again, as he punctuated this last with a soft kiss, which she dipped back slightly to receive. Then he pulled her close, hands resting comfortably against her, chin on her shoulder once more, following her gaze out over the mountains.

They stood in silence for a while, enjoying one another’s warmth and company.

Then he punctured the moment like a stray arrow to the lung by commenting, conversationally, “Have you considered that were I an assassin, this would be an excellent position from which to stab you?”

Jasnah tensed. She did not flinch, she did not . He was joking. She knew that he was joking. He had told her, quite openly,  that he could not physically harm another living person. Curiously, she believed that.

She still reacted to his words as if they were an attempted strike at her.

Then she took a breath, and allowed her shardplate to manifest around her. It was always there, safeguarding her, protecting her, but it felt good to bring it into existence in this moment.

Wit laughed lightly, but the sound seemed to be lacking his usual humour.

She turned to face him at last, sliding out of his grip. He brushed a stray strand of hair behind her ear and cupped her face with his hand.

“Always prepared,” he said softly, “Always ready for the worst to happen at all times. I know that. I know your fears, and I should not have made light of them with a jest. I apologise.”

She nodded, allowing her plate to fade back into the cognitive realm again.

Choosing to ignore the latter part of his statement, and its implications, she said, “We’re at war, Wit. It’s only reasonable to be on your guard at all times.”

Wit smiled again, that knowing, almost sad look. His hand rested gently against her cheek and he said, “What a convenient excuse that must be for you, Jasnah.”

She turned away, out of his gentle caress. Yes. It was a convenient excuse. He was getting in too close, learning to read her too well, he-

No. She shut those feelings down and took a deep breath.

He was right, of course. It was hard to trust a world that had dealt so much pain to her. Hard to trust people when they always hurt you. Even the ones that loved you. Especially those. She couldn’t articulate that to him yet, however. She was unsure if she even wanted to.

Wit seemed to sense that, and he slid his fingers under her chin, gentle but firm, and coaxed her to look up at him again. “There will be a time you can relax, Jasnah. It seems impossible to conceive of it now, but you will feel safe again. Some day.”

She leaned forwards, pressing her forehead to his. How sweet that would be if it were true. How nice it would feel. She said nothing, because she did not believe, but did not want to undermine his sentiment.

“We will save it, Jasnah,” he murmured to her, “Your beautiful world.”

She smiled, “Then perhaps we might actually enjoy it,” she said, thinking back on her earlier musings.

Wit smiled, “No, my dear,” he said, and she withdrew, frowning slightly, to look at him, “Then I will show you new worlds for you to study and learn of and feast upon.”

She smiled at that, very broadly, for it was the first time he had so directly stated, without flowery implications or vague hints, that he would like her to accompany him.

“Even the ones covered in sand?” she asked, amused.  

“For you, Jasnah?” he said, eyes twinkling, “Why yes, we can even go to Taldain. If you insist.”

“I do, Wit,” she said, turning back to look out across the mountains, taking his arm and coaxing him to put it around her once more, enveloping her in his warmth.

Safety, even in the open.

“I wish to see it,” she said, closing her eyes and allowing herself a moment to imagine, “I wish to see them all.”

[rachelsheart]

10 Signs You’re a Shaman & Don’t Know It

As I feel indebted to the shamans who saw themselves in me and helped me understand why I have always felt like I don’t belong in mainstream medicine, the intention of this article is to respectfully honor the shamanic tradition, and not to violate it in any way.

Because modern culture doesn’t have a role for the shamanic archetype, many people who grow up outside indigenous villages are shamans and don’t know it. Many naturally wind up in overtly healing professions, such as medicine, psychology, or life coaching. But some wind up in professions where they may feel like they don’t fit in at all. Even those who enter the healing professions may feel out of place, because the systems of Western medicine and psychology leave little room for a shaman to practice his or her natural healing art. But many will wind up in various forms of sacred activism, healing the planet, for example, rather than healing people.

Are you a shaman and you don’t know it? Here are some telltale signs that you might fit the archetype.

1. You sense that you’re meant to participate in the global shift in consciousness that is currently underway.

We can all feel it, this impending shift that New Agers have talked about for decades. But those with the shamanic archetype don’t just feel it, they feel it pulling them, like a magnet, towards leadership positions that help facilitate this transformation of human consciousness and evolution of the species.

2. You’ve been through a difficult initiation, which has prepared you for this leadership role.

In indigenous cultures, the village knew who the shaman was because he or she was struck by lightning and survived. In modern culture, you may not literally be struck by lightning, but you may have survived some other life or heart-threatening ordeal. You may have experienced childhood abuse, sexual violence, a near-death experience, or some other trauma that put you through the crucible and forged you into the healing earth shaman you are becoming.

3. You are an introvert.

Shamans are multi-dimensional beings who dance between the realms of the seen and unseen worlds, so if you’re of the shamanic archetype, you may have a hard time navigating the 3D realms of this dimension, which may cause you to withdraw into yourself so you can visit the realms of consciousness where you feel most at home.

4. You feel most at home in nature.

The shamans of a culture are the bridges between nature and humans, serving as translators between the mountains, oceans, rivers, animals, and people. You may sense that nature is talking to you or that you get your most tuned in downloads when you are surrounded by the natural world.

5. You’re very sensitive.

You may feels things others don’t feel, see things others don’t see, hear things others don’t hear, smell things others don’t smell, and sense things others don’t sense. This may make it hard for you to be out in public, where you may feel accosted by over-stimulation of your senses. If you embody the shamanic archetype, it’s likely that you’re the kind of person others may feel is “too sensitive.” But this sensitivity is a blessing. It’s part of your gift.

6. You feel a sort of spiritual calling to ease the suffering of people, animals, and nature.

Many health care providers are called to medicine the way priests are called to the priesthood. But you don’t have to be a health care provider to have the shamanic archetype. It may transmute itself into healing service to animals, sacred activist causes, or conservation of Mother Earth.

7. Physical ailments that fall under the category of “shaman sickness.”

In the indigenous cultures, shamans who have been called to service but haven’t yet said “yes” to the call often wind up struck with physical ailments. In modern culture, these shamanic sicknesses may fall into difficult to treat categories like chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, chronic Lyme disease, chronic pain disorders, and autoimmune disorders. Acceptance of the call to shamanic service often resolves the symptoms of shaman sickness. If you’re suffering from one of these illnesses, ask yourself, “Am I a shaman who hasn’t said yes to my calling yet?”

8. You tend to have vivid dreams.

The unseen realm may be communicating with you through your dreams, so try analyzing your dreams. Pay particular attention to any animal totems that may appear in your dreams. Google search the animal and “spirit totem” and see if you can find any messages from the animals in your dreams. Or try a Jungian analysis, like the one described here.

9. You may discover unusual spiritual superpowers, or what the yogis call “siddhis.”

You might be psychic. You might get healing visions like the one in my previous post about the meeting of Western medicine and Shamanism. You might realize that you can heal people with your hands or that you can telepathically communicate with animals, people, or even inanimate objects.

10. You’ve always felt like you don’t quite belong anywhere, because you are a bridge.

Shamans tend to live on the outskirts of the village for a reason. They are not like the others – and this is a blessing! In village life, this is understood and recognized. But in the modern world, it may leave those with the shamanic archetype feeling like they don’t ever fit in. But don’t despair. You DO fit in. Your role is essential. You may find that you fit in best with others who share this shamanic archetype. Among your fellow shamans, you will feel like you are with family.

Embrace Your Bridge Work

Because shamans are always operating between worlds, you may find that you’re connecting mainstream culture and the culture that wants to be born in the new consciousness, and this may feel uncomfortable, as if you don’t quite fit in. When I realized that I am a bridge between mainstream medicine and the new world of medicine that is being co-created by others who share the shamanic archetype, it brought me such a profound sense of relief! This relief is shared by the health care providers who participate in the Whole Health Medicine Institute, which I founded for doctors and other stealth shamans. If you’re one of those bridge workers, please know that you belong with all the other stealth shamans in this program, designed to merge medicine and spirituality, and we’re enrolling for the 2016 class now.

About The Author

Helen Noronha

Hi there! I am someone who if given the option can read books all day, without even sleeping. I love binging on TV shows, with Game of Thrones being my favorite (duh!). Apart from that, I am passionate about writing and can write anytime and anywhere.

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Five Ways Carl Jung Led Us to the “Inner Life”

Five Ways Carl Jung Led Us to the “Inner Life”

Lying behind much of the way we talk about the inner life today is the work of the Swiss psychologist C. G. Jung. He revolutionized how we discuss dreams and archetypes and gave us our words “introvert,” “extravert” and “synchronicity.” However, what made him a true psychological pioneer was that he looked inside himself in a way that is still unique today.

#1) Dreams

From earliest beginnings of human civilization, we have considered dreams a doorway to the soul. Jung saw that they showed us parts of ourselves that were being rejected by our waking consciousness: strengths unexpressed and shadow figures run amok; qualities that we were missing about ourselves; and desires that we’d rather not acknowledge. The mission of dreams was to balance us, to compensate for our often one-sided attitude toward life and lead us to integrate what we need for health and growth. We know today that dreams can have messages for us that are not only psychologically relevant, but even biologically urgent, relaying information about illness. Jung introduced the term “wholeness” to describe the aim of the unconscious: the further filling out of ourselves; an increasing completeness in the unique being that we are.

#2) Personality Types

Jung saw the differing pathways in our personalities. He observed that some people got energy from interacting with people, while others were drained by it. Introvert or extravert, intuitive or sensate, thinking or feeling; he described these differing forms as Psychological Types and they led to today’s MBTI categories. In normalizing different kinds of personality, Jung helped us to get over our natural biases against other types.

While he recognized variety in human personality, Jung believed that there was no one-size-fits-all approach to therapy. He saw each individual as having a unique blueprint for growth, an untold inner story, and he knew – from his own experience – that one man’s medicine is another’s poison.

“The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.” – C. G. Jung

#3) Archetypes

Jung also saw that the unconscious sometimes conveys information beyond the personal. He saw that the dreams of his patients sometimes echoed mythological motifs from far-flung foreign cultures. He saw the action of peoples’ lives following forms depicted in Greek tragedy. He discovered ancient, even timeless, pathways that energy flowed into: toward some things and away from others, attracted to some things, repulsed by others. This level of the psyche is beyond the personal and Jung called it the collective unconscious.

“I thought of Jung as a noetic archeologist, [he] provided maps of the unconscious.” – Terence McKenna

The collective unconscious shows us eternal, dynamic qualities in our nature: they are alive and timeless. One of these archetypes is our inner opposite sex figure and soul guide–what Jung called the Anima or Animus. We encounter it both in our dreams and when just the right person walks up to us and we fall in love at first sight. Even though we experience this figure through others, but it is ultimately up to us to integrate it for ourselves.

Once we’ve learned to recognize these archetypes, we see them throughout classic literature and film and even in modern sitcoms. However, we may not really discover them for ourselves until we’ve been battered and bruised and are wondering how we got into this mess (again). Usually we need a little help to gain sight of these figures in our own lives.

“You don’t see something until you have the right metaphor to let you perceive it.” – Robert Stetson Shaw

#4) Synchronicity

Jung’s psychology is only really understood when it is a lived experience, and nothing exemplifies this more than the mystery of synchronicity. Jung coined the term synchronicity to refer to extraordinary moments when outer happenings reflect inner states. What we see in such a coincidence of events is a meaningful interplay alive in our reality. The notion that there’s a deeper principle actually operating in the world can be frightening to people from a culture that believes that it’s the only conscious force in the universe. Yet at the same time, discovering that there’s more going on can be experienced as a profound relief. In order to get through our resistance to such experiences, it helps to hear others’ stories and share our own (and you can do so here). Incorporating the meaning of these experiences for ourselves requires something authentic from us – a real inner change, the genuine achievement of a new attitude.

Helen

Hi there! I am someone who if given the option can read books all day, without even sleeping. I love binging on TV shows, with Game of Thrones being my favorite (duh!). Apart from that, I am passionate about writing and can write anytime and anywhere.

RachelsHeart

[shadowthrone-ammanas]

So the first thing with the tiny Hat Kid/Borrowers AU that I came up with was that originally it was based off of the visual of a mod level I was playing where there was a lantern the size of Hat Kid. I didn’t start it thinking about the Borrowers as “humans but tiny” I was thinking of them as like Hat Kid’s species. 

So when I later decided Mu was also tiny that resulted in having Mu be also distinctly not just a tiny human and it had ripple effects on the borrower species design

So, background details: Most of the characters are still the same. However, the locations are different. Mafia Town isn’t on a little island, it’s on a larger one with both underground-undersea Metro tunnels and shipping routes. There is a large forest- Subcon- and some mountains, the Alpine Skyline, which then have a desert in their rainshadow. 

So that’s all the chapters except Arctic Cruise on one reasonably sized landmass, instead of scattered all over the planet, much more accessable to tiny Hat Kid

I’m gonna put a ‘read more’ right here for the sake of people’s dashboards. I hope that’s okay.

Borrower biology notes: inspired a little bit by ruffs and also my attempts to work out having Hat Kid, Bow Kid, and Mu as members of the same species

3 or 4 sexes in a similar way to ruffs or white-throated sparrows; about all I have pinned down is that Mu’s facial-hair-no-ponytail-and-long-bangs/tendrils/flaps combo is associated with one of them, bow kid’s no-ponytail, no-hair-flaps, no-facial-hair combo is another, and hat kid’s ponytail-and-flaps-but-no-facial-hair is a third (yes this means two of them are trans)

The Borrowers, as they sometimes call themselves, are the result of an incredibly powerful spell a few centuries back. They used to be about the size of humans, before the spell; and pretty much all of them lived on two islands.

The Mafia wanted to move to those islands, so they gathered up all the Time Pieces they could get into one spot on the island and had a sacrificial Mafia member do A Thing involving the time pieces and a great deal of other magical items to remove the islanders; faking a wild magic surge. The result was that as far as the rest of the world was concerned the entire species simply vanished, turned into these tiny little echoes,and also this was much less scary than it should have been. There is still a spot on the island Hat Kid is from that will likely have nothing grow there for thousands of years.

The Time Pieces exploded into much smaller fragments, time shards, which scattered all over the world, and the shrunken islanders started to try to adjust to their new lives. 

Which was made a lot harder by the Mafia moving in; they spread false information claiming that the tiny post-transformation islanders weren’t sapient anymore and were pests, like large mice, to be dealt with with poison and rat traps. 

Some Borrowers start using time shards to power things; others do the dangerous thing of tapping electricity from wires; others use tiny candles and other pre-electric style technology or magic.

Their society adjusts to a world where “eaten by a seagull” is a plausible cause of death, everyone can double-jump, most people can carry more than their own weight, and an umbrella is easily enough to completely stop all fall damage. Square-cube law! Luckily the magic helps keep them warm, but Borrowers still have a faster metabolism than they did pre-spell and need to eat more often. 

Amongst other details, it’s common for a Borrower to end up on their own due to being separated from their clan or having the rest of their clan die. Solitary borrowers don’t tend to last long, so they generally try to get adopted by the first clan they come across, basically just showing up and starting to pitch in; there’s always something to be done.

Also Borrowers are a little more scent-focused than humans, most noteably being more able to notice the scent of borrowers than a human is able to notice the scent of other humans; this is really helpful for lost borrowers finding other clans.

Hat Kid is the kid of someone relatively important in a borrower community on the other island. They treated her poorly/were neglectful, so she ended up falling in with, basically, the local borrower criminals. (Not many places have enough clans living closely enough together to really have borrowers that are criminals by borrower standards; stealing from the taller folk is not considered a crime but rather just survivial, and attacking the taller folk is basically considered lunacy.)

Eventually Hat Kid, at age 11 (okay actually older, like 16 or so, but she maps to a human 11 year old), decided to fake her death and entirely leave her old clan. Due to various shenanigans including her not being out to her old clan, the fake murder, a real murder done by Hat Kid, and paranoia she managed to be accused of murdering herself and got exiled which is a Big Deal. She stole the one local aircraft (that she had helped build) and fled, exploring far beyond her family’s reach (especially now they didn’t have a timeshard-powered aircraft).

In between her ‘ship’, her skills with an umbrella and movement, audacity, and sheer dumb luck Hat Kid managed to live alone for quite some time, eventually landing in Mafia Town due to an incident involving a Mafia with a bugnet, losing the time shards that powered her ship in the process. She meets up with Mu and is like. FRIEND! Sure, I’ll join up with you!

…aaaaand then Mu wants to use the time shards that powered Hat Kid’s airship thingy to hurt the Mafia more. And Hat Kid is like, no, no I need those. Result: Mu leaves in a huff, Hat Kid is alone again. 

Hat Kid’s ship, by this point, has been repaired enough and has enough time shards to fly a little, so she goes and recklessly lands on the local above-ground train and hitches a ride, ending up at Dead Bird Studio. Grooves finds her and is like, this borrower-mouse is wearing decent clothing and a hat. Whose escaped pet is this.

Hat Kid is semiverbal but definitely literate and manages to get her hands on a writing implement and explains that she is nobody’s pet. The Conductor and Grooves decide to hire her for movies.

Directors: a sapient borrower-mouse who wants to be an actress and is actually good at it just when we need a new actor and fresh movie ideas! Perfect!

Hat Kid: This weird clan has lots of infighting and mostly trades in movies? I get to be adopted and to use my skill in acting for things that aren’t lying to people? Perfect!

So that’s a good month or so for Hat Kid, with the culture clash never being clarified, whoops. Both the Directors think Hat Kid is going home to her family when really she’s doing stuff like looking for that time shard she thinks might be present or fixing up her ship more or getting food that isn’t provided by the Directors. (At least they recognize that providing lots of snacks to the tiny child is a good idea.)

Then the movies (both of them) are finished, and the directors are like. Thanks for working with us. There’s no more movies for you, kid, stop showing up to filming there’s no more filming involving you. (Grooves never really started seeing Hat Kid as fully a person and is pretty cruel about kicking her out from his side of the studio, too.)

In the Director’s culture: “Seriously kid contract is done, the movies you starred in have no more filming, wouldn’t mind working with you again later but uh we are not currently working on a movie right now why are you here?”

In Hat Kid’s culture: “We’re exiling you. Again.“ 

So she goes to Subcon Forest. Yes, this is stupid and risky. Hat Kid does not care.

Snatcher sees this absolutely tiny person and is like. You’re too small to be a threat. Also too small to have a soul worth the effort of eating it. 

So he hires her to do stuff like detail work on repainting the Subconites’ houses and other stuff a tiny person can do. 

He proceeds to assume she’s being cuttingly sarcastic when she calls him "dad” or “dadcher”. Instead of 100% serious. (Her perception of this as an adoption is helped by Snatcher making an effort to dig out old books and old memories on what of the local flora and fauna is edible and provide Hat Kid with fresh local food, which is a Special Effort as, well, subconites and dwellers feed off of ambient magic and abstract stuff while Snatcher eats souls.)

After maybe about two weeks he’s out of work for Hat Kid and tells her so, like, “No more work for you, kiddo. You’re free to leave.” Then is mystified when Hat Kid leaves in tears. Like what did he do wrong??

I have no clue what Hat Kid would be up to in the Alpine Skyline. Something. Probably trying to impress random nomads and goats and not understanding why they’re impressed but still leave her. 

Eventually she finds out that Mu has gotten her hands on time shards and is managing to use them to set places on fire. Hat Kid goes to stop her because no!! You do not just indiscriminately set Mafia Town on fire! Even aside from all the tall folk living there you don’t know how many borrowers are living in the walls! 

So she stops Mu, then realizes that pretty much everyone watching her has either ‘exiled’ her or has been known to hunt borrowers before (eg the Mafia) so she flees down a subway tunnel and lives in the Metro for a few days before meeting the Empress. By this point Mu’s very public yelling about how the Mafia were killing her people has gotten on the news, so she’s aware that at least some borrowers are sapient and people, and is like. You work for me now.

Hat Kid is like, my greatest fifth chance!

Eventually, though, Hat Kid manages to annoy the Empress. By this point she’s gotten used to the idea that something is wrong with her, people really don’t care about her, and at any point she could be abruptly betrayed and exiled, so she panics, assumes she’s going to be kicked out very soon, and ends up deciding to preemptively betray Empress by stealing her time shard. Empress is throughly baffled and also very upset and puts out a bounty of a few thousand or so on Hat Kid’s head; time shards are valuable damn it but also…only one?? she’d been known to bring back five or six at once? 

(Time shards aren’t very tangible to most people by default. Borrowers can interact with them always and make them solid to everyone. Hat Kid could’ve easily reversed that and forced Empress to use magically charged tongs to pick up her time shards and hire another borrower to fix them but she didn’t. The longer Empress thinks on this, the more confused she gets.)

At some point during Hat Kid’s time in the nyakuza Mu ends up adopted by Cooking Cat. She shows up on TV sometimes, joining in an episode with stuff like running commentary while perched on CC’s shoulder or butting in to help frost cakes or whatever. 

Hat Kid’s confused upset post-nyakuza wandering ends up leading her to where the Conductor is just coming back from a cruise. Conductor is like LASSIE I HAVEN’T SEEN YOU IN FOREVER! Hat Kid is like ??? and then decides that maybe…maybe kicking her out was entirely Groove’s idea and Conductor still likes her? Maybe?

And then in the ensuring confused discussion Conductor begins to realize the culture clash. Conductor ends up adopting Hat Kid, and later takes in Bow Kid as well because she was separated from her family and saw Hat Kid riding on Conductor’s shoulders and just sort of. Jumped on his other shoulder, startling him, and was like “HI”.

At some point Hat Kid and Bow Kid end up guest starring alongside Mu (they made up) on Cooking Cat’s show. Possibly several times. Hat and Bow are adorable and while they don’t really say much unscripted and it’s usually sentence fragments they’re still popular for a mixture of Adorable and their sense of humour eg Bow Kid insisting that duck is actually “quackers” in a dish involving duck and cheese to set CC up for a terrible “cheese and quackers” pun. 

Mu, Hat Kid, Bow Kid, and the TV Trio end up working together a lot to try to change things for the better for the Borrowers. Meanwhile Snatcher is off doing his own thing, having heard of the culture clash (Mu explained it on TV at some point) he works out a schedule for when Hat and Bow are staying with the Conductor and when one or the other or both are staying with him. He ends up with a few borrower clans living in his forest (they followed Hat Kid) and is just like, sure this works. 

I greatly admire people who can just come up with AU ideas and build on them and then come up with a whole story for the AU. I love that it has a happy ending too. :)

[monstersandmaw]

After learning of the Bolas Spider and how it attracts male moths by using female moth pheromones, I can imagine a moth boy writing letters back to an alluring lady moth who seems to feel the same way about him. Only until their meeting in which it’s revealed the lady moth is a Bolas Drider, who is genuinely in love but was afraid to meet him because most people are afraid of spiders/driders. But the moth boy reciprocates and they smooch 😘

I love this SO MUCH. Like, SO MUCH that I wrote out the whole plot and decided to add it to my list of things to write. While both male and female bolas spiders release the pheromones (I did my homework because this sounded fascinating), only the females use a ‘bolas’ of sticky web to hunt, so I kind of made this mlm because I wanted the male to be slightly less aggressive than the female of his species. I hope that’s ok…  

Mentions of one species traditionally hunting the other, but it’s more as a background scene-setting. Drider boy is not hunting moth boy.

c.1200 words of story planning, featuring a ‘forbidden/unconventional’ romance, and two slightly hopeless monster boys… :). I’m in love.

Spider boy has some serious answering to do for misleading the sweet moth, but once they do talk about it, and we see that drider yes, mishandled it, they could probably get along wonderfully (surprisingly given the animosity between their species!)  

Drider boy didn’t set out to deceive the moth boy like this. Bolas drider society is matriarchal, and he was sent out to hunt a male moth man and bring him home as a kind of ‘coming of age’ thing. He was reluctant because he’s actually kind of peaceful, but he was following his clan’s orders. On his first night, he encounters no moths, and rests for a while in a snowy meadow on the edge of a pine forest. He brushes up against a large, flat boulder, taking a moment to enjoy the moonlight on the snow, and then he leaves, heading back into the forest to face the anger of his mothers (they’re raised communally by a group of mothers) for not having returned with a kill.  

He’s sent out the next night, and finds a note placed under a stone on the top of the boulder. He reads it, and he’s instantly in love. Moth boy has beautiful, neat handwriting, and seems sweet and shy and honestly surprised that there’s a female in his territory who might be interested in seeking him out. Drider is head over heels immediately.  

He didn’t know how to get the moth to come back, so he repeated his ‘signal’, and the next night he returns and leaves a note as well in his truly terrible handwriting. He’s punished by his mothers for returning without a kill for a third night in a row, but he’s not discouraged. Moth boy’s letters are a thing of beauty, and honestly, a real ray of light in his misunderstood existence. He finds another letter waiting for him when he comes back on his fourth night.

This time he leaves his reply and hides in the trees, watching moth boy land gracefully in the snow and cautiously approach the boulder. He’s surprised that moth boy hasn’t noticed his somewhat distinctive tracks in the snow, but moth doesn’t seem to see them (spoilers, he’s really short sighted and actually kind of oblivious too). Drider boy is entranced by how graceful and elegant moth boy is, but he’s also strong and his shoulders and torso are fairly well built, but maybe that’s just the soft down of his coat. He has pale, creamy coloured wings, and a silvery grey body.  

Drider boy is still too afraid to show himself though, fearing that he’ll lose the tenuous connection between him and his moth because of the history of moth-folk hunting practised by driders. These days it’s only really done for rites of passage - adulthood, sexual maturity (two different things in drider culture), and sometimes a male will present a female with the carcass of one of the moth-folk as a courting gift, but this is sort of archaic now. Our drider doesn’t really want to do that, but (like with vampires, I suppose) there is something about moth boy that’s enticing on a baser level as well as intellectual. He’s able to get past that, but he’s too shy to show himself because he wants moth boy to get to know him through letters. He feels guilty for deceiving moth boy, but he’s started it now and he’s not sure how to come clean.

I imagine a soft, fluffy moth boy being incredibly lonely and saying that he’d discovered the scent of the ‘female moth’ in his territory and was frankly astonished that someone was interested in meeting him. He then writes a bit about himself, how he likes early 19th century Romantic poetry (the Romantic poets like Byron, Keats, and Shelley etc. were all part of this monster-verse… maybe even monsters themselves), and he adores flying over the nearby pine forest towards the sea (even though he’s been warned that it’s drider territory), enjoying the glitter of the moon on the waves at night, and the hiss of the retreating tide… He admits that he was only able to win this territory because it was so close to the drider forest, and that no one wanted to come near enough to claim it, but he adores its rugged, remote beauty. He writes that he hopes that the ‘female’ will meet him the next night, and that he will wait for her.  

Drider boy emerges slowly from the forest the next night, walking on silent legs as the moth boy perches adorably on the rock, swinging his little fluffy legs, his delicate feet brushing the snow. Drider boy clears his throat, and the moth jumps, flapping awkwardly back and stumbling, terrified, into the snow, creating a kind of snow-angel with his wings. He’s terrified.  

Drider boy is devastated at his reaction, even though he was expecting it, and he holds out a letter to him. “I’m sorry,” he says. “It… It was me. I’m the one who’s been writing to you. I… I should have said sooner, but I knew you’d run away when you knew it was a monster you were writing to, and not a beautiful moth like you. I’m so sorry. I won’t… I won’t come here again.”

He drops the letter in the snow and turns away, heading slowly back towards the trees, his pale body glimmering like a pearl in the moonlight, his blond hair falling down his back in a ponytail, his arms hanging limply by his side.  

Moth boy picks up the letter in shaking fingers and opens it. It explains everything. He’s angry and hurt and humiliated.  

But he calls after drider boy. “Wait. Stop. That was really you? You wrote those things to me?”

Drider boy halts, the moth’s husky tenor echoing off the glittering snow and the trunks of the trees. He turns slowly, his pointed legs spearing into the snow, and he looks forlornly at the moth boy. He nods. “Yes,” he croaks. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”

“You didn’t,” he says, dusting himself off and shaking his wings. “I mean… finding that someone is interested in learning more about the Romantics was… a pleasant surprise, for sure. Your writing is terrible, by the way…”  

He smiles, and drider boy feels a little hope kindling inside him.  

But then his sensitive feet - spiders sense vibrations very easily, especially through their feet - pick up the approach of another drider. He’s sure it’s a warrior female. He tells the moth to go and not come back. It’s not safe any more. Moth tells him to come south, and to look for him in a glade of birch trees guarded by a single yew, on the banks of the river.  

Drider boy nods and then flees back into the trees, just in time to find a huge female sentry. He distracts her and moth boy escapes.  

The next night, instead of going hunting, he leaves everything he’s ever known, and treks south to find moth boy in the glade of birch trees…

I’m going to have to write this, asap! *adds to list of things to write!*

Let me know if you folks are keen for it though, and I’ll see what I can do. If anyone is super desperate, my ko-fi commissions are open, and it can be commissioned from me that way.

[ghost1643]

Seven deadly sins gem AU (cause why not) (part 1)

Okay so been looking through the gem AU's on this and noticed there's a few anime ones but, not a lot..so I figured might as well write one down cause why not.

Elizabeth is a half breed star sapphire who's been living on earth for many years now. Her mother died having her and her father wanted nothing to do with her. So she got adopted and has two humans sisters. Yet, she has been locked up in her house out of fear that someone will take and experiment on her. Thus why they live far out of a town and have a forest around their home, so no one can get to them easily. Yet, she sneaks out with two of her sisters on her 17th birthday.

While exploring they find a destroyed gem temple. Margert is a little on edge during the whole thing while her two other sisters are just running around looking at every bit of the temple just wondering what happened. Then they find a huge pink bubble with a green gem in it. Even though Margert tries to convince her sisters to leave, Elizabeth pops the bubble, releasing a gem.

That gem would be Meliodas who is green Quartz (secretly green dimaond), who is rather calm for someone who has been kicked away in a bubble for thousands of years. His gem stone is in the same place is tatto is in the anime and manga He buddies up to Elizabeth and Veronica quickly. Enough that they want to take him home so that he has a place to stay.

So he now lives on Margert's closet mainly because she doesn't trust him around her sisters and yet he has no where else to go. The three girls get closer to Meliodas over time, Elizabeth liking him as a crush, Veronica as a weird friend and Margert still is on edge about having an alien live in her house that is not her sister.

One day when their dad is out of town Elizabeth and Veronica sneak Meliodas out of the house so he can experience the new human world for himself. Just so he knows what earth is like.

They stop at a yard sale where Meliodas just kinda freezes in his spot looking at a necklace with a bright orange gem on it. He randomly just starts begging for them to buy it saying that he'll do anything. It makes them a bit curious as to why their friend is begging for a necklace even though he's male but, they figure he must like how it looks or it has something to do with what everyone back home did. So they buy it for him without really questioning it.

Once they get home Margert is waiting, ready to scream at them when she finds out about the necklace. She starts questioning them about it and demands to know why they would buy something without thinking. For all they know it could be a weapon from his home planet or something.

While they argue the neklcace falls to the ground, gem popping out of it. Everyone falls silent before Meliodas grabs the gem stone and rushes outside to their back yard. The girls follow thinking they've done something to upset him. Yet, as soon as they get to the middle of the forest they see why he dropped the gemstone, there's a giant gem reforming.

Soon infront of them stands Diane, the tallest orange jade on homeworld (gem in the same place as the manga as well) She shape shifts to make herself smaller as she introduces herself. Elizabeth instantly befriends her. So guess who else moves into Margert's closet for safety.

As time progresses they learn more about homewolrd and what left the gems here while in turn the two gems learn about human culture. The gems fleed their destruction at the hand of a rogue gem who has started a bloody rebellion back home. Meliodas and his friends took a stand against the rebellion leader but, next thing he knew he woke up from being trapped in a bubble for many years. As for Diane, she remembers is battling someone with a friend, then she just woke up from being trapped in a necklace.

So neither of them know what happened, just that they all got separated. So Elizabeth make sthem a promise, that she will help them find the rest of their friends. Veronica offers to do the same. Margert meanwhile just wants a drink.

While all this has been going on Margert has been working at a bakery in town with a boy she goes to collage with named Gil-Thunder (Gil for short). They have been awkward friends for years but, both are to scared to admit their feelings for one another. Yet, they are still for one another no matter what.

While trying to find more gems, Margret turns up back home from work with the stomach flu. While her two sisters are out doing something and her father is at work, Meliodas and Diane start to take care of her the best they can. This leads to Margret trusting gems a bit more...

that is until Gil calls to see if she's okay which no one planned for. Needless to say it's nerve wracking. Especially since Margret is to busy being sick in the bathroom to answer and Meliodas doesn't know what to say. He answers thinking it was Elizabeth and panics hearing a male voice. So he just freezes up and Diane has to answer the phone. She panics a bit and tells Gil that Margret is dying from the plague befroe hanging up in a big nervous mess.

Needless to say Margret is mortified and calls her boss soon after telling them the truth. Yet, she can't get a hold of Gil. The gems assure her it's nothing to worry about and Diane takes her back to bed. After Margert has slept for an hour however she hears someone knocking on the door. She tells Meliodas to go answer it, assuming it's her sisters.

Instead it's Gilthunder, who starts screaming swing a green male with seemingly glowing eyes standing in the door way of his crush's house while a taller female one is cleaning up a mess. The gems in turn start screaming because they have no idea who this is and are scared this is a government official here to experiment on them like in ET (which veronica made them watch). Margert runs out into the hall hearing all the screaming and soon finds her self sitting Gil down and explaining everything. And by everything I mean everything. Including her sister possibly being the same species of alien as the gems.

Gil is freaked out but, none the less agrees to help the gems just so Margert can get a break. So another person is add to the gem squad as Veronica calls it. And the search gets more funds backing it up.

The search however is put on hold during the town's Halloween celebration. Afterall it's the one time Meliodas and Diane can go out without getting weird looks or questions about why they're displaying. Plus they get to wear costumes which Diane finds super fun. Diane goes a cute pumpkin dress she found and even gets to try on makeup. Veronica goes as an alien for fun. Elizabeth goes as a princes while Meliodas goes as her knight. Menawhile Margert dresses up in all red pretending to be a vampire just to stand out. She soon gets a text from Gil during the celebration to come meet him up.

The whole group meets up at this old abandoned house where Gil is, also dressed up as a vampire. He tries to explain why they're all there when a glowing light can be seen from the top window and a blurry figure. Gil cuts the story down explaining that he believes is a gem in there. And then Meliodas practically drags everyone into the house.

Once in they hear echoing screams. As well as other creepy noises. There's lose floor boards and the lights flicker. Veronica loves it all since she's always wanted to be the hero in a horror movie like this. Meanwhile her sisters hate it since they get really scared during a lot of horror movies. Diane is fine, until she sees a bug. Same with Gil who screams like a little when he sees something move, which ended up to be a spider.

They're all ready to leave when they see a gem stone shinning in a light. Without thinking much Meliodas calls out one of his friend's names getting closer to it, only to get attacked by a corrupt gem. The gem looks like it's limos have all been stretched out and has the body of a ckeleton with no eyes and mouth down shut. As the humans run, Meliodas summons a sword. Diane leads the others out befroe returning to her friend with her weapon which is a hammer.

The humans are left sitting outside looking terrified. Soon the two gems walk out, corrupt gem stuck in a bubble. Once Margert finds her voice and asks what that was, Diane just breaks down in tears crying while Meliodas has to explain that somehow it's a gem that's form has been shifted into something monstrous. A form that is so painful that it made the gem lose it's mind and become a wild animal which is most likely what happened to the rest of their friends.

The night ends with the bubble locked in Elizabeth's basement and everyone eating comfort food as they watch a child friendly movie upstairs in their living room. All while Meliodas wonders if this is truely the fate of all of his friends.

A few days later to try and cheer them up, Veronica takes the gems out for some ice cream. Elizabeth demands to come as well which no one complains about. While hanging out and trying to cheer up the two gems, the girls are doing all they can. Yet, as you can guess they can't cover up the fact that their friends might have been turned into insane creatures that are in constant pain that by for death by attacking whatever they can.

The whole day is a bust. Nothing works at all. So Veronica pulls out the big guns. She drives all the way up to a waterfall they have that empties into a tiny broke everyone goes swimming in, just so the gems can be amazed by scenerary or go have fun swimming for once. Yet both Meliodas and Diane refuse to go swimming. That is until Elizabeth pushes Meliodas in. He freezes before laughing and dragging Elizabeth in by the wrist. Veronica and Diane gladly join in afterwards.

They spend two hours swimming and laughing, just all around having fun. Then Meliodas decides he's gonna jump off the water fall. He starts trying to climb it while everyone says to be careful and not jump. Yet, Diane seems oddly calming talking about he'll learn his lesson when he poofs. As she tries to explain it to the two girls, she hears a yelp. And next thing anyone knows Meliodas falls back onto the water holding something in his hand. Elizabeth screams assuming he's hurt and dunks under, grabbing him and dragging him to land. She starts doing CPR. He soon pushes her off and started to cough up water. Yet, soon he holds up a red stone in a ring. Diane freezes as Meliodas breaks out in a smile and just says, "guess who found Ban."

The rest of the night it storms while Meliodas sits close to Ban's gem whic Gil came over and took out of the ring for him. He just sits there hoping to god he's right and his best friend ever isn't dead while gem is resting on a red pillow, blanket over it, Meliodas sitting on one side of the couch waiting for his friend to reform while Diane sits on the other side so nervous that she's chewing her hair. Elizabeth keeps being over snacks and other things but, she's turned down each time. Veronica keeps trying to keep the gems calm which also fails. So the night is just everyone sitting around this gem on the couch, watching films on Netflix. No one dares say a word as it turns to five hours of waiting for Ban to reform when Meliodas sighs trying to find the words to say he was wrong and it's not his best friend when the gem starts to glow. Diane squeals in excitement as a red morganite reforms on the couch. He slowly looks around before seeing his friend and casually asking how long he was out. Instead of getting an answer, Ban just gets held in a tight hug by both gems and soon the humans join in to.

He just lets the hug happen, enjoying it a bit which he would never admit before he acts like his normal grumpy stuff which makes the two other gems laugh. Then he's setttled into a guest room downstairs which he will now be sharing with his friends, something Margret is thankful for, yet, the second the gems are alone they start talking about the dmiaonds and just wondering if they're coming for them for disobeying orders of coming home if they lived. It has them tiredfied enough to stop talking for a long time, while their minds scramble wondering if their friends were shattered of corrupted...yet, only time would tell at this point.

To be continued in part 2!

[starcatcher-wulf]

Ren Astana

The Basics ––– –

Age: 29

Birthday: 6/28

Race: Hrothgar

Gender: Male

Sexuality: Bisexual

Marital Status: Married

Server: Cactuar

Alignment: Neutral/Chaotic Good

Physical Appearance ––– –

Hair/Fur: Brown

Eyes: Amber/Aqua

Height: 6′11″

Build: Tall,stocky and athletic

Distinguishing Marks: a large scar on the right side of his face, and a teal pattern dyed into his fur

Common Accessories: Scarf, Eternal ring on a necklace

Personal ––– –

Profession: Various (adventurer)

Hobbies: reading, writing, cooking, swimming fishing, gardening, mineral collecting, and much more

Languages: Common (Echo)

Residence: Dawn Brigade Guildhall, Lavender Beds, Gridania

Birthplace: Illsabard (Exact Location Unknown)

Fears: Unknown

Relationships ––– -

Spouse: Falx buran

Children: None

Parents: Unknown parents ( Presumed deceased), Tobias dus Astana ( Adoptive Father)

Siblings: Many Fellow Orphans

Traits ––– -

* Bold your character’s answer.

Extroverted / In Between / Introverted

Disorganized / In Between / Organized

Close Minded / In Between / Open Minded

Calm / In Between / Anxious

Disagreeable / In Between / Agreeable

Cautious / In Between / Reckless

Patient / In Between /  Impatient

Outspoken / In Between / Reserved

Leader / In Between / Follower

Empathetic / In Between / Apathetic

Optimistic / In Between / Pessimistic

Traditional / In Between / Modern

Hard-working / In Between / Lazy

Cultured / In Between / Uncultured

Loyal / In Between / Disloyal

Faithful / In Between / Unfaithful

History ––– –

Ren’s earliest memories were of him running around an orphanage that had been converted from a regional church. it was an austere upbringing, but he never found that he wanted for much. despite being of a different species, he found himself making friends readily with the other orphans, often playing with them as if nothing were amiss, though as they began to age, and imperial views took root, he found himself growing distant from those he once called his friends. he had always wanted to be a hero. His good nature, and his long life without being adopted lead the headmaster of the orphanage, a retired spy known colloquially as “the faithbreaker” by the name of Tobias dus Astana to formally adopt the boy into his family. a mere few years passed before the scouts came by for conscription. Due to his adoption, Ren technically didn’t have to enlist, but he knew what would become of his father's reputation if he didn’t. So off he went to join the legion, to see the world and be a hero for the empire! ... Right What it really got him was slapped with a shock collar like some common criminal and brought out to the frontlines in Ala Mhigo. There he spent a couple years, marching about, following orders, quelling rebellions. after a while, things settled down, and his unit was sent to a small village to keep the peace. He spent several months there, and they were kind. he kept order, helped the villagers settle disputes and safeguarded them from wildlife attacks. In thanks, they would often teach him Eorzean customs, share how to make their crafts, and one old man, in particular, taught him the basics of Red Magic, an art the naturally sorcerous hrothgar took to very well, as his talent to manipulate aether was what made him a prime target for the legion in the first place. But eventually, tragedy struck. evidence of harboring resistance troops was found, adn the elders, women, and children were rounded up and Ren was given the order to immolate the village, and them along with it. And for the first time in his two year conscription, did something that no one expected. He refused. In a heated moment, ren managed to slay his commander before he could deploy the collar and dispatched the entirety of his unit in short order. The villagers showed mercy for their release. they swore secrecy and managed to smuggle the young mage onto a wagon bound for the Black Shroud. The rest, as they say, is history. RP Hooks ––– –

Just ask or toss me an idea. I am pretty open to plotting, rp scenes, ideas and what not. I prefer to start from a base concept and let the rp lead.

Ren’s canonical occupation is that he’s traveling the realm learning as many combat disciplines as he can, magical or otherwise, as such, he’s always looking for mentors. Maybe you can see his potential, or a spare soul crystal begins to resonate in his presence.

Fellow defectors might find him a friend to confide in.

I’m open to having characters know ren or know of him ahead of time, but i much prefer that to be discussed beforehand.

Additional Information  ––– –

Prefer messages here first and then I’ll give my discord if needed.  

Ren avoids talking about his past when he can. it wouldn’t do to know a warrior of light was a former imperial soldier, but he also values his privacy and his status as one is a well kept ( If slightly floating) secret.

He’s a good boy, please talk to him.

For more information, ask or rp. Thanks.

[tmnthpdisneyjurassicpark-blog]

Hey guys! So this is the first in my AU series. I thought I'd take a shot at writing based on the question "what if TMNT didn't grow up in NYC?" I was imagining the 2k7 version of the turtles for this but picture it any version you like.

"Tell me again, why're we doin' this?" Casey grunted as he pushed yet another branch out of his face.

April couldn't help but smile. They were so close she could taste it.

"Because of the Legend." She responded gleefully.

Casey rolled his eyes as he trudged deeper and deeper into the heart of the African rainforest. The lush green around them brought an earthy smell to their delicate nose, their feet silent in the damp soil beneath.

Around them was the sounds of all kinds of creatures, calls of the birds, growls of large cats, echoes of Gorillas and hisses of nearby snakes all kept Casey on alert.

April on the other hand was ecstatic. She originally was travelling with Casey to go gorilla seeing, as part of her new job as a photographer and reporter in bringing awareness to different species around the world.

When they had stopped at the local village where they had been staying, she couldn't help explore their rich culture and to learn about various legends.

"You know all that talk 'bout animals that look like humans is full of crap, right?" Casey called out, disturbing April's thoughts.

Sighing at Casey's word, she snapped her heads towards him.

"It might be true, Casey. There have been signs. " April countered.

"Oh yeah, sure" Casey huffed, "a few odd foot prints in the ground, a couple of sightings of things moving at night, a few break ins and SUDDENLY theres a whole new species that act like humans. Tell me April, are we going after bigfoot next?"

April was about to answer Casey when she felt like she was being watched.

"Hold your sarcasm for a moment Casey," April called in a hushed tone. Immediately picking up on her seriousness, he kept his voice down.

"What is it? What's going-" Casey's sentence was cut off as a trap sprung onto the left and yanked Casey straight up into the trees.

"CASEY!" April cried out, reaching and barely brushing his fingertips as he slipped out of her hands.

Casey's screams where loud enough to disturb the peace of the jungle and April looked up to see two shadows holding onto him in the thick foliage.

They moved ahead of her and were jumping from tree to tree, while Casey struggled in their grasp.

Breathing hard April took off after them.

"I'm coming Casey!"

Her feet pounded against the jungle floor, her heart slamming in her chest at the thought of those...those things hurting Casey.

She wouldn't let that happen.

She ran faster.

Jumping over rocks, ducking under branches, April didn't dare stop, keeping her eyes to the sky as not to loose sight of her fiance. How did they always get stuck in these situations?

"Hang on Casey! I'm-"

Snap!

April didn't have the chance to scream as she was swept up in a thick net made of vines and was hanging precariously above the jungle floor.

"No, no, no!" April is screamed in anger, reaching for the hunting knife in her left short pocket.

April focused on the task on hand, her panic rising as Casey was dragged further off into the distance.

"Come on April, come on!" April called to herself as she moved the knife back and forth over various vines.

With a snick the vines snapped and released her.

April miscalculated the distance to the ground and cried out, her arms flailing about, trying to grab any handhold she could.

She fell from the net....

....right into solid arms.

Looking up her eyes met the face of something that wasn't a man, but wasn't a creature either.

Light green scaled skin, a curved beak with human mouth, two slits as the nose, and purple designs around the eyes.

Those eyes, deep brown, were so...

so...

human...

~part 1.

[wisepuma23]

Lost in the Starlight

So I decided to take the prompt challenge by @sanderssidesspook ! However, my take on the challenge will be different. There are so many great AUs in this fandom that I want to write for, so might as well hit two birds with one stone, and write a Halloween ficlet for them!! Today I’ll start with @teacupfulofstarshine LDAD AU + corn maze. Uhh, you’ll see!

Warnings: offscreen violence, swearing, implied death

Word Count: 1, 838

Pairing: Romantic Analogical 

Read on AO3!

Logan didn’t want to go on this ‘road trip’ but Roman and Patton absolutely insisted on visiting the human world. Virgil, however, wanted to stick close to the coastlines and smell the sea spray and Logan was inclined to agree. Straying so far from home made his insides twist with a feeling he didn’t understand.

Unfortunately, Thomas needed to go inland for a conference. Something about a scientific meeting about rising coastlines and the implementation of hydroelectricity on a national scale. Human stuff.

His pod practically begged to go with Thomas, but after their traumatic parting three years ago, Logan couldn’t stay behind. So Virgil grudgingly decided to come with, as their tour guide, since Thomas would be preoccupied with meetings.

Virgil dropped Thomas off in a place with glittering mountains. He’s never seen them so tall and square. His fins rippled in excitement at the order of it all. In the streets, there were lights strung up through the trees and creatures that had him ducking down out of sight. He thought Virgil said there were no other creatures who had claws as Logan did. Or was he lying?

Fake.

Logan mulled over the word as he squinted at the fake creatures. Virgil still giggled as they drove through the dark trees. He explained it all punctuated with muffled laughter. Halloween, what an odd word. 

His own smile tugged upwards. He would never tire of the sound of his mate’s laugh. Beautiful as the pearls in seashells. Roman and Patton squealed as their fins rippled as if in a storm as more creatures walked through the streets of the small town.

Their claws were fake. Plastic teeth and temporary makeup all for the purpose of a holiday. Whatever that is. Logan hissed as a small one with fangs and a black cape walked too close. It startled and ran off. Roman and Patton laughed. Almost like they enjoyed the feeling of fear. Logan rolled his eyes, then again, Roman was the one who often dove into the deep end without looking.

“Oooh, what’s that?” Patton pointed over Virgil’s shoulder, as Virgil yelped in surprise and almost yanked the wheel into the opposite lane.

Logan squinted at it in the darkness. It was a sign written in English with a giant yellow object above it. He dug his claws further into his sweater, his eyes worked far better underwater, up here they were useless. Glasses irritated his scales but he wore them anyway. Tch, he couldn’t protect his pod like this. What could he do? Flop around and squint?!

A hand tugged on his own, gently prying his claws out of his sweater, and squeezed. Logan met Virgil’s eyes, the same color as the world outside, brown and soft as the ground outside. The fist of icy anger in his chest melted.  

“It’s a sign for a corn maze,” Virgil said, excitement creeping into his tone, “They’re more popular around Halloween. I forgot that they had them here,” Virgil scratched his head, almost embarrassed as he admitted, “Corn mazes are one of the few cool things we have inland. You can’t exactly float up and over it like your reed farms.”

Logan’s face warmed as Virgil turned to him with a smile as the backseat chanted, “Yes, I would love to see a ‘corn maze’. It sounds...interesting.”

So, really it was his own fault.

Logan stared up at the stars and shivered under the coolness of the moonlight. The rustle of the corn like a steady heartbeat in his ears. The ground roiled with movement and scratching his poor eyesight couldn’t pick up. For all he knew, a shark could be circling him.

Virgil had given him and the others a wheelchair with a specially designed pouch for their tails. Then heavy blankets over their laps to keep their tails warm and covered. However, he hadn’t realized how hard it would be to push against the uneven grass and roots of the corn. Roman and Patton went on ahead, Logan encouraged Virgil to catch up, and he never did.

And so, he spent the better part of an hour utterly and hopelessly lost.

“It’ll be fun, they said,” Logan muttered as sweat dripped down his temples, pushing his wheels forward on the small path, “It’s not even a big maze, they said. Well, bullshit.”

With a grunt, he rolled into a clearing.

Logan blinked around the flattened circle of grass. Was this the center? He sighed a breath of relief as his wheels didn’t squeal in protest. Even ground, how I missed you! He looked up and bit down on a scream.

A man hung from a post with his arms out and his legs limp. A big hat, much like the farmers here, hung low on his head. He didn’t know it was a human practice to hang their dead in the middle of corn mazes. Logan rolled forward as he squinted up at it. He took in a hard sniff.

Straw and dirt.

Not the rot of flesh and bone.

Logan tilted his head as he remembered Virgil’s huff of laughter from earlier. Fake. This man must be one of those costumed creatures walking out there tonight. Logan raised up a hand to touch it when--

“Whoa there, pardner,” a deep voice drawled, Logan snapped his hand back, “Awfully rude to touch me without even introducing yourself first.”

Logan looked up and his gills stuttered in surprise. The scarecrow had a face underneath its dark brim. The eyes were crossed black stitches and its mouth hung open with yellow teeth that reminded him of the sea snakes in the shallows. Sharp and thin and too many to fit in its stuffed head. Logan raised an eyebrow, he could’ve sworn the creature had a stitched mouth earlier.

“Oh excuse me,” Logan said as he smoothed his hands down his lap, “My name is Logan. I apologize. Your culture is still new to me.”

Silence echoed through the yawning fields for a few moments.

The man cackled, its whole body rocked the pole with the force of it. Logan dug his claws into the metal armrests. It was the truth!

“For a creature concerned with my rudeness, you don’t consider your own,” Logan snarled, “I should hope to learn your name in retaliation.”

“No, it’s just funny, I’m not human either,” the man giggled, the sound made his fins itch to propel himself far and fast, “And my name, sir? Why it’s been so long,” it looked up at the moonlight, “Call me Scarecrow.”

“You’re wrong! I’m a human!” Logan shouted up to it.

Scarecrow slowly looked down at him, “No, you’re not. I can smell the sea right off ya. I’ve never had fish in so long…” its mouth opened to an impossible length, as rows of teeth caught the moonlight, “I’ve kept all the crows away. Away, away, little birdies! Why I’m a little hungry now after my hard work.”

Shit.

Scarecrow smiled as it jostled in its post again. He could tell the jig was up. Logan couldn’t hide the truth from another….creature. A different species of other Scarecrows? He shoved the questions aside about the cruelty of humans stringing something alive in their fields.

Logan wheeled back, “You won’t find me easy prey. I’m a formidable predator myself,” Logan bared his teeth as his eyes glinted in the moonlight, “Sharks have met messier ends at my hands.”

Scarecrow’s smile disappeared, “You’re out of your fishbowl, little goldfish.”

Logan bristled and opened his mouth when--

Wood splintered and cracked like a thunderclap in the hushed fields. Logan thrust his arms up against the blast. Wood debris bounced off his arms but tore his sweater into rags. Damn it, Thomas gave him this one for ‘Christmas’. Logan squinted into the darkness, ears straining for any sound, any foot fall.

Up high above the fields stood a lonely post.

And no Scarecrow.

A guttural snarl cut the night as a gaping maw of teeth overcame his vision. The wheelchair clattered against the ground, wheels spinning uselessly in their sockets, blankets sodden against the dirt. Blood splattered the homemade designs of stars and planets. Splatters of red against the milky blue of Neptune. Ripping and snarls echoed through the air.

Then silence.

The corn rustled indifferently, the reeds whispering against each other, as the fireflies danced above the maze. Flowers bloomed drinking in the cool moonlight, petals delicately held up to its pale face. Mice twist and turn in their homes as they slept. Then blink one beady eye open as footsteps stomped through the quiet peace of the evening.

“Logan!” Virgil shouted, his voice crackling after screaming himself near hoarse, “Where are you?!”

Flashlights swept through the corn stalks. The murmur of people and the static of radios. Virgil ran a hand through his sweat-drenched hair. It only took the others to find the center and get back out again in twenty minutes. Not...not two hours! Shit, he’s heard stories of people going missing or even found dead in corn mazes.

He wanted to curse his own stupidity. It could stand to reason that if mermaids existed, why not others? Flashbacks of Bigfoot and Wikipedia rabbit holes of various cryptids ran through his mind. If he found a Child of the Corn, he’ll be drop-kicking them before Thomas can break out the lollipops.

He wanted his fucking boyfriend back.

Virgil pushed aside the stalks to the center of the maze. He’s swept this place so many times in the past two hours. Like every ten minutes but he never saw hide nor hair of the missing mermaid. The police chattered into their radios but the sound grew distant.

Virgil’s flashlight landed on a straw-covered mass next to a knocked over wheelchair. He tore out into a run as he made a strangled noise of Logan! Virgil muttered curses as Logan blinked blearily up at him. Blood trickled down his temple and faint scratches down his arms. Virgil swore bloody murder as he saw ripped fins up and down his arms.

“My….tail…” Logan said, his voice strained with the effort, “The others…”

Virgil looked down and red mist overcame his vision. More ripped fins and long red scratches like someone jabbed a knife and went to town on his boyfriend. Virgil pulled Logan into a hug, relief overcoming his anger and fear for a brief moment, reveling in the fact he was alive.

“Don’t you know?” Virgil huffed out a hysterical laugh, “It’s Halloween night. They’ll think it’s a realistic costume,” then in a lower voice as the others came close to the center, “God, Lo, what even happened? I walked through here and every inch of this maze for two hours,” his voice wobbled with choked back tears, “Where did you go?”

Logan blinked and then pointed a claw at a mess of fabric, “I met Scarecrow.”

Virgil looked at the dark lump and then back at Logan, “What are you talking about? There’s never been a scarecrow here. It’s just a corn maze.”

“Well, there isn’t one anymore.”

[welcometothepenumbra]

PETER NUREYEV AND THE ANGEL OF BRAHMA (PART TWO)

CONCIERGE: Welcome back, Traveler, to Part Two of Peter Nureyev and the Angel of Brahma. Now sit back, relax, and enjoy the tale. Or else.

***

SOUND: FABRIC RUSTLING. DISTANT AMBIENT ECHOES.

NUREYEV: Good morning, Juno. Did you sleep well?

JUNO (NARRATOR): I didn’t open my eyes for a minute. So long as I kept them closed I could imagine I was somewhere else. In a hotel room at one of those hot springs on Venus, maybe, or just in my apartment, waking up at noon on a Tuesday with a killer headache and Nureyev… there too.

I opened my eyes. No spa, no apartment. Just the holding cell Miasma had prepared for us. Couple of bedrolls in a Martian burial chamber.

SOUND: FABRIC RUSTLING.

JUNO: How long was I out this time?

NUREYEV: Careful, don’t sit up so quickly. You’ve taken quite the hit to… wherever that thing hits you.

JUNO: (PAINED) I’m alright. Just gimme a sec—

NUREYEV: Shhhhh. Lie down again.

JUNO: I said I’m fine, damn it! Just—

SOUND: RUSTLING.

—turn down the walls, wouldya? They’re… they’re so damn loud; every time I look at ‘em my eyes try to make a break for it.

NUREYEV: Yes, those carvings are… unsettling, aren’t they? The writings of an extinct species: symbols and even ideas from minds millions of years gone.

JUNO: I don’t care what they say, those damn things give my heebies jeebies.

Hell were they writing in a burial chamber, anyway? The guy’s dead; it’s not like he’s gonna get up and read all their bad poetry anytime soon.

SOUND: FOOTSTEPS.

NUREYEV: Now that you mention it, Juno… I’m not certain this is a burial chamber.

JUNO: There’s a coffin right there.

NUREYEV: The dangers of looking from one culture to another. It looks to us to be a coffin, but these carvings suggest otherwise. This set of drawings shows the box in use: one Martian is placed in the box; they seal the lid; and when they open it again: two Martians exit.

JUNO: Glad to know stage magicians were alive and well in ancient Mars.

NUREYEV: These carvings… they’re the best-preserved I’ve ever seen. I didn’t know there were any drawings of the ancient Martians, yet here they are. Miasma must have found this tomb and kept it a secret. These symbols, here…

SOUND: FOOTSTEPS.

A single Martian body; it spreads, its hands reaching to either side; a gap begins to form, and then—

JUNO: Ugh. Stop it.

NUREYEV: Fascinating. They reproduced asexually, by splitting. This isn’t a burial chamber – it’s a birthing chamber.

JUNO: Eww.

NUREYEV: You’ve taken a rather aggressive disinterest in these Martians, Juno. Aren’t you supposed to be a detective? Hunting down mysteries, exploring the unexplored…

JUNO: It’s enough trouble trying to figure out why people do what they do. I don’t have time to worry about a bunch of supersized germs a million years dead.

NUREYEV: They scare you, don’t they?

JUNO: Swinggggg and a miss. Haven’t been scared of ghosts since I turned thirty-seven.

NUREYEV: If they killed each other off, you wonder—

JUNO: Stop it.

NUREYEV: What’s keeping humanity from doing the same?

JUNO: I said stop it!

SOUND: RUSTLING. FOOTSTEPS.

NUREYEV: Juno… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.

Come back. Sit down. Don’t walk away.

JUNO (NARRATOR): And then it hit me all over again. That red room. Mag, with the huge owl-eyes. Nureyev. The knife.

NUREYEV: (ECHOING) Don’t… walk away from me! …I’ll do it! I swear I will!

JUNO (NARRATOR): A murderer. A monster.

NUREYEV: Juno? What’s wrong?

SOUND: FOOTSTEPS.

JUNO: I-I just… (CLEARS THROAT) Nothing, I’m fine.

NUREYEV: You hardly look—

JUNO: You wanna get your hands off me?! This isn’t a goddamn honeymoon suite.

NUREYEV: …Alright.

JUNO: So how are we gonna get out of here, anyway? Master of break-ins isn’t worth much if he can’t break out.

NUREYEV: We’ll escape when the opportunity presents itself. No guard patrol is perfect; this one will make a mistake eventually.

JUNO: Only question is whether that mistake happens before or after we’re dead.

NUREYEV: We’ll survive. We’ve never failed yet.

JUNO: The hell do you call this, then?

NUREYEV: A momentary inconvenience.

JUNO: God damn it, would you just… knock it off!

NUREYEV: Knock what off, Juno?

JUNO: I don’t know! Just cut it out!

NUREYEV: (SIGHS)

SOUND: FABRIC RUSTLING.

JUNO: Back off.

NUREYEV: No, I think I’ll sit right here.

Juno, I thought I heard Miasma ask you something. Something I’ve asked you before.

About how you could have looked me up any time you wanted to.

JUNO: I know.

NUREYEV: So. Why didn’t you?

JUNO (NARRATOR): We’d been in that tomb for days. We’d hardly slept, hardly eaten. Miasma had done everything in her power to break us.

And then I looked at him, and… those eyes. Even in this cave underground, they were so bright.

How the hell did he do it? Stay so bright through all of this?

JUNO: I was scared, okay? Scared I might find… aughhhh.

NUREYEV: Afraid you might find something you couldn’t forgive?

JUNO: If it turned out you were a monster… like if you’d done something really unforgivable. What would I do?

NUREYEV: It sounds terrible. To be a detective with the key to a mystery in your hands… and too full of fear to turn it.

Well. What if we solved that mystery now? Together.

JUNO: Look you up? Sorry, I don’t think I’m gonna get a good comms signal ten miles underground.

NUREYEV: We don’t need the comms. You have an uplink right here.

JUNO: You want me to look through your memories?

NUREYEV: You can’t run from my past forever, Juno.

JUNO: You sure about that? I’ve been doin’ some cardio lately and I think I’m gettin’ pretty quick—

NUREYEV: You’ll discover it all eventually. There’s no getting around that. So… look through my memories now. Then decide whether Peter Nureyev’s baggage is worth your time. Or if you and I part ways, once all this is done.

JUNO: Nureyev…

NUREYEV: The choice is yours – but, I’d rather you made it now.

JUNO (NARRATOR): I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to know. But… I had to know. Comes with the territory, in my line of work: get too curious for your own good, poke your nose in where you shouldn’t, and if you hurt yourself along the way, well, maybe you’ll live to lick those wounds later.

JUNO: (SIGHS) Alright. Let’s do it.

NUREYEV: Excellent. Only… Juno?

JUNO: Yeah?

NUREYEV: When they brought you in, your face… there was so much blood, and…

JUNO: Yeah, yeah, I got it under control. Let’s just get it over with, alright?

NUREYEV: Alright.

Now, um… how does this work, exactly? Do we say a magic word, or something like that?

JUNO: You shut up and let me concentrate, mostly.

NUREYEV: Ah. Will do.

JUNO: And… (SIGHS) Just try to clear your mind. Or whatever. I guess.

NUREYEV: (CHUCKLES)

JUNO (NARRATOR): It was almost easy by now. I closed my eyes. I let my mind reach out to touch his. I felt for the handle.

In the distance, back where my body was, I felt a set of slender fingers close over mine.

I opened the door.

SOUND: STRANGE HUM STARTS, STOPS.

MAG: (WHISPERING) This should be the central security room. Now, Pete: the plan?

NUREYEV: (WHISPERING) Make it to the Guardian Angel System’s core, steal the reactor that powers it, and make our getaway. But I still don’t see how we’re supposed to get from here to the Core with all of those security cameras—

MAG: Hush, hush. You think I don’t have another trick up my sleeve? For shame, Peter. Lesson one of thieving: a security camera is an obstacle, yes, but it has one glaring weakness: it sees.

NUREYEV: This is a very inconvenient time for you to go senile, Mag.

MAG: I think you’ll understand in a moment. Now, prepare yourself. You’re going into this security office and taking care of the constables on your own.

NUREYEV: I’m what?!

MAG: Bon voyage, Pete!

SOUND: DOOR OPENS. SOFT THUD. DOOR CLOSES.

VOICE 3: D– did you hear that?

VOICE 4: Sounds like it came from around the corner. Probably just another supermaggot. I’ll take care of it.

NUREYEV: (WHISPERING) Damn it, damn it! Mag, what in the hell do you expect me to—

SOUND: FOOTSTEPS.

When trouble arises… I disappear.

SOUND: CHOKING, GASPING. THUD.

VOICE 3: So? Did you take care of the… who the hell—

SOUND: WET THUD, GRUNTING, THUD.

NUREYEV: (SIGHS) Alright, Mag. The room’s clear.

SOUND: DOOR OPENS, CLOSES.

MAG: And in record time! Incredible, Pete! Your fingers always were quicker than mine.

NUREYEV: Care to explain why I wasn’t privy to this part of the plan?

MAG: You’re learning on the job, my boy, and half of expert burglary is reacting on the fly. So just call me “the fly.”

NUREYEV: No.

MAG: Now take that constable’s clothes. I’ll take the one by the door.

NUREYEV: How can you be so sure that they’ll… fit.

This constable is exactly my size.

MAG: And this one is my size! Fancy that! Ha-ha! Lesson one of thieving, Pete: you can do anything with unlimited access to a digital work schedule and complete roster of all employees.

NUREYEV: Including getting them to deliver you exactly the uniforms you want, so that we can pass through the security cameras.

MAG: Precisely. Now, move out of the way and pay attention. I’m going to show you how to work a security console.

During my tour with Rossignol, I was able to get the security camera image of every room in this compound…

SOUND: ELECTRONIC BEEPS.

…except for one. There were several cameras pointed at that door, but none showing what lies on the other side of it. So what’s the only conclusion to be drawn?

NUREYEV: It’s a bathroom?

MAG: Of course not—

Well. Hadn’t thought of that.

NUREYEV: Mag!

MAG: Well, we’ll find out shortly, won’t we? Think of this as a learning experience. You’ll have a very short career as a thief if you don’t keep learning.

NUREYEV: Mag, what do you plan to do after all this?

MAG: Enjoying life without the constant fear of being murdered by the sky is fairly high on my list.

NUREYEV: You know what I mean. What’s next for Peter and Mag?

MAG: Well, Pete, I suppose what you do is entirely up to what you want to do. All jokes aside, I think I… might want to retire.

NUREYEV: (SCOFFS) Retire? You? I don’t believe it. Someone would have to chain you to a resort planet first.

MAG: Well, perhaps, but… I’ve been at this a long time, Pete.

NUREYEV: Well, I certainly won’t be retiring. I’ve hardly gotten started, and I want to be big, Mag, the biggest. I want everyone to know who I am. I want the wealthy to fear me and those in need to call for me. I want—

MAG: Whoa, whoa! Save some future for later, would you? We still have a job to do in the now, boy.

NUREYEV: Right. Sorry.

MAG: Don’t be, don’t be. I’m just as excited for that day as you are, Pete – I expect reading your name in all the papers will be the crowning achievement of my very accomplished career.

There. We’re in the system. I have access to the video feed from the other side of that blind door. Now we can prepare for what lies on the other side…

SOUND: BEEP.

Four armed constables. Wonderful.

NUREYEV: Let me guess: “Lesson one of thieving: never go in outnumbered?”

MAG: Well, this must be an outpost before the final room. Four guards is… extensive.

NUREYEV: But… not undoable. Can you shut down their communications with this security device?

MAG: Absolutely.

NUREYEV: As long as we ensure that no more can enter once we’ve started, we should be able to incapacitate them in this order…

JUNO (NARRATOR): (OVER THE ABOVE) Nureyev walked Mag through the whole process. Now, speaking as a guy who’s made a career of getting into trouble completely outnumbered, it was a good plan. Better than I could’ve come up with. And from the look in Mag’s eyes, better than he could’ve come up with, too. They talked it through a few times and made their way to the door.

NUREYEV: (WHISPERING) Ready?

MAG: (WHISPERING) Ready.

NUREYEV: (WHISPERING) Alright. In 3… 2… 1…

SOUND: DOOR OPENS. SLOW FOOTSTEPS. DOOR CLOSES.

VOICE 5: (YAWNING) Is it time for the shift change already?

VOICE 6: It isn’t. What’s going on? You two don’t have clear— (YELPS)

SOUND: THUD.

VOICE 5: Call for help—! (GRUNTS)

SOUND: PUNCHES, WET THUDS, GASPS.

SOUND: COMMS BEEP.

VOICE 7: This is Wilkins, reporting in! We’ve got a situation down in… hello?

SOUND: COMMS BEEP.

You… you cut the signal, didn’t you?

NUREYEV: Pray that’s the only thing we cut today, sir.

VOICE 7 [WILKINS]: D– don’t move! You can kill me if you want, but… but I’m not lettin’ you through here!

MAG: Well, I think you’re a bit confused about how killing works.

NUREYEV: Mag! The plan!

MAG: But I suppose this is not the time. (SIGHS) Alright, alright, my hands are up. I suppose you’ll want us to call off our third comrade, then?

WILKINS: Your what?

MAG: Our compatriot? Colleague? Coworker? I’m having difficulty understanding your difficulty, sir.

WILKINS: Where are they?

MAG: Where else? Right behind you.

WILKINS: (GASPS) I-I can’t believe I fell for… where– where’d the other one go?

MAG: Oh, the friend I came in here with? He’s an interesting one. Very impressive. When trouble arises, he just… disappears.

WILKINS: Where are you? Show yourself!

MAG: One minute, he’s there; the next, he’s taken off. One minute, your head is there; the next, he’s taken it off.

WILKINS: Stop, stop!

MAG: I’ll give you a piece of advice, if you like: he always strikes from above.

WILKINS: Up… up in the ceiling? Where? I don’t see— (YELPS)

SOUND: THUMP, GRUNT.

MAG: Well done, well done! Posing as a corpse. Master of disappearances, my Peter Nureyev!

NUREYEV: Well, I learned from the second-best.

MAG: Very funny. Now, shall we deal with the reactor?

SOUND: FOOTSTEPS. DOOR OPENS, CLOSES.

NUREYEV: So this is it. The core of the Guardian Angel System.

JUNO (NARRATOR): The room was a big metal cylinder, stretching up so high that the ceiling was lost in shadow. Sticky red light clung to every surface. In the center of the room stood a huge transparent column, and within the column, glowing softly, floated—

MUSIC: STARTS.

MAG: The reactor. Look at it. Untold lives, like your father’s, taken by the lightning bolts of this self-proclaimed god. We destroy a deity today, Pete.

SOUND: FOOTSTEPS.

Now, to unlock the reactor…

SOUND: ELECTRONIC BEEPS.

NUREYEV: That music… we must be just below the square.

I think I remember that place, Mag. When we were up there, I-I swear, I remembered… something.

MAG: A memory? Really?

NUREYEV: I… think so. But not like any other memory I’ve had. Just… a feeling.

MAG: Peter, it will really be best if you forget all of this about the square, hm? You’ll sleep better.

NUREYEV: Forget? How am I supposed to forget the city I was born in?

MAG: (GROWLS)

SOUND: BEEPS.

COMPUTER VOICE: Reactor shield disengaged.

MAG: This is it. The ship I’ve arranged for us should be waiting outside once the shields go down. Are you ready to make our big getaway?

NUREYEV: …Wait. What do you mean, “sleep better?”

MAG: I’m grabbing the reactor. Get ready to run.

SOUND: CANISTER UNSEALS. LID CLOSES.

COMPUTER VOICE: Warning: Levitation reactor disengaged. New Kinshasa will fall in—

MAG: Go!

COMPUTER VOICE: —approximately ten minutes.

NUREYEV: What did that just say?

COMPUTER VOICE: Warning—

MAG: Our death sentence, if we don’t leave now!

COMPUTER VOICE: —evacuate. Evacuate. Evacuate.

NUREYEV: New Kinshasa is going to fall? Crash into Brahma, with all of these people on it?!

MAG: That was always the plan, Pete!

NUREYEV: You said we were going to stop the weapon!

MAG: I said we were going to take down New Kinshasa!

NUREYEV: I didn’t think you meant literally!

COMPUTER VOICE: Levitation power at ninety-five percent.

NUREYEV: We can’t do this! If my father risked his life to keep people free, Mag, I don’t think he’d want you destroying his home!

MAG: What’s gotten into you today, Pete? I feel as though… I don’t even know who you are!

NUREYEV: I’m home for the first time! I could have family here! You can’t just take it away from me after one day, there has to be another way—

MAG: Peter, stop this nonsense! You couldn’t possibly remember New Kinshasa!

NUREYEV: Why not? I lived here with my father, you said so, and if he—

MAG: Oh, for God’s sakes, there’s no time for this. You can’t remember New Kinshasa because you’ve never been here before!

NUREYEV: I… what? But… you said… m-my father…

MAG: I said your father was a great man, and I meant it. To make you, he would have to be.

NUREYEV: Have to be…

You never really met him, did you? You just… made it all up. You lied to me for years.

MAG: I may have said things that I invented, Pete, but I have never lied to you. Everything, everything I’ve said… it’s all been in service of the truth. New Kinshasa has to be stopped. That is absolute. For life to be worth living for those down below, this city has to be destroyed.

NUREYEV: But… why would you lie? People already think it’s terrible, they know it has to be stopped, they—

MAG: I lied because of how you’re acting this moment, Pete! Because in the face of uncertainty, a revolution crumbles. History is complicated. Facts take years, decades to prove absolutely, and in the meantime, people are killed.

Did I ever know your father? No. Am I certain there was a man like him, somewhere on Brahma? Completely. And I know that there will be more like him if we don’t stop this city now.

NUREYEV: And… you’re certain there’s no other way to do this, then?

MAG: Absolutely.

NUREYEV: How am I supposed to believe that, Mag? If you’ll lie, if you’ll say anything to prove your truth, how do I know this isn’t a lie, too?

MAG: Peter—

NUREYEV: We can’t do this. Even if it isn’t my home, it’s someone’s, and I won’t destroy it. Put that reactor back, and we’ll find another way.

MAG: And how long will that take? How many more deaths?

COMPUTER VOICE: Levitation power at ninety percent.

MAG: That’s enough. We can talk about this later. We’ve wasted enough time already.

SOUND: FOOTSTEPS.

NUREYEV: Mag, come back! You are not taking that reactor away from here!

MAG: I’m sorry you’re upset, but you’ll understand, Pete. You’ll understand.

NUREYEV: I said you aren’t leaving!

SOUND: BLADE UNSHEATHING.

MAG: Really, Pete? You’d draw a knife on me?

NUREYEV: Bring it back.

MAG: The man who pulled you off the streets. Who raised you.

NUREYEV: The reactor, Mag! Now!

MAG: …I won’t.

I stand for something, Pete. I thought you were the same.

Here’s something else I stand for, Peter: I won’t draw a knife on my family. Do what you like. But I will not strike back.

SOUND: FOOTSTEPS.

NUREYEV: Don’t… walk away from me! …I’ll do it! I swear I will!

SOUND: RUNNING FOOTSTEPS.

(GASPING) Haaaah!

SOUND: WET THUD, GRUNT, CLATTERING.

MAG: (GASPING)

SOUND: RUSTLING.

Oh, Peter… oh, my boy.

SOUND: CLUNK. RUSTLING.

(GASPS)

NUREYEV: (AFTER A PAUSE) Mag… oh, Mag, Mag…

The reactor.

SOUND: CLANKING. RUNNING FOOTSTEPS. CANISTER OPENS, LID CLOSES.

COMPUTER VOICE: Reactor restored. Levitation power regenerating.

NUREYEV: There. It’s fixed. All… fixed… no. Alright. You have to do something, Peter. You have to do something. But… what? What the hell do I do?

VOICE 3: (DISTANT) They went this way! They must be in the core!

VOICE 6: (DISTANT) But… why would they put the reactor back?

VOICE 3: (DISTANT) It doesn’t matter! Arm up and get ready to take them down!

NUREYEV: It could be so easy. Just wait for the guards to take you out… and let that be the end of Peter Nureyev.

The… end of Peter Nureyev…

SOUND: DOOR OPENS.

VOICE 3: Hands up!

VOICE 6: We got another body on the floor!

VOICE 3: I said put your hands up!

NUREYEV: They’re up, they’re up. There’s no need to shout.

VOICE 3: I’ll scan him and look him up. You check his pockets.

VOICE 6: Got it. Drop the knife, kid.

NUREYEV: If that’s what you want…

SOUND: CLATTERS.

Though I’m afraid the knife is the least of your worries. You can’t take away the most powerful weapon in my arsenal, after all: my anonymity.

SOUND: ELECTRONIC BEEPS.

VOICE 3: Don’t get too used to that, buddy. Census database says his name is… Peter Nureyev. I’m callin’ it in.

NUREYEV: You may have found a name, constable, but I’m afraid it won’t be worth much to you. A name is but a signifier of the past, and the past is behind us. But as for the future…

Officer, in my pocket you should find a pen. I recommend you take dictation with it. I’ve a message to deliver.

VOICE 6: You can make whatever statements you want at the Constabulary.

NUREYEV: Today I’ve demonstrated that I can destroy New Kinshasa. Today, I’ve decided to let it continue floating. For now.

Pay attention, constables, because this is the important part: every time you fire a laser from this city, know that I come that much closer to destroying it. Know that I can do so whenever I please. Know that I will always be among you, that I could be anywhere, anyone, for I have no name, no past, no identity, and I never will again.

It’s plain and simple, constables. You cannot catch what you cannot name. With no identity, I’ve nothing to tie me down. And so, when trouble arises, I can just… disappear.

VOICE 3: Shut him up, already!

SOUND: PUNCH.

VOICE 6: Oof!

SOUND: HISS.

VOICE 3: (COUGHING) Where the hell… where’d all the smoke come from? Damn it, he’s getting away! Stop him, stop him!

JUNO (NARRATOR): He made it out, of course. And with those quick fingers of his, he made a new interplanetary passport – and the first in a long, long line of fake names.

And as Brahma faded into the distance, the man who used to be Peter Nureyev had just one thing to tell it:

NUREYEV: (DISTANT) Juno! Someone, come help, quick!

JUNO (NARRATOR): No, he– what? Ah, that doesn’t…

SOUND: BUZZING.

(GROANS)

SOUND: FABRIC RUSTLING.

NUREYEV: (DISTANT, GETTING CLEARER) He’s bleeding! If you don’t come in here this instant he’ll die, do you hear me, and then where will you be?

What’s the matter with him? You can help him, can’t you?

SOUND: CLANG. FOOTSTEPS.

He’s… fine then? Well… I suppose I should thank you.

SOUND: CHOKING.

…for giving me just the opportunity I needed.

SOUND: THUD.

Juno… can you hear me?

JUNO: (MOANS)

NUREYEV: This is our chance to escape! You have to get up! Now!

SOUND: RUSTLING.

(PANTING) Come… on…!

SOUND: THUD. DISTANT FOOTSTEPS.

More of Miasma’s assistants… there’s no time. Listen to me, Juno. I won’t leave you here, do you hear me? But… this is my opportunity, and if I don’t take it…

JUNO: (GROANS)

NUREYEV: Shhh. I don’t know what it is you saw in there, but… I’ll be back. I promise you I won’t disappear. Do you hear me?

Goodbye, detective… for now.

SOUND: RUNNING FOOTSTEPS DEPARTING.

JUNO (NARRATOR): So this looks pretty bad.

MUSIC: STARTS.

Alone in a Martian tomb, surrounded by killers, and now, my one ride outta here just rode off without me. It all looks a lot like the end for Juno Steel… unless you buy what Nureyev said. Unless you trust Peter Nureyev.

So, Steel. You’ve seen his past, now. But the question remains: who is Peter Nureyev?

Peter Nureyev is… the son of a revolutionary who probably never existed. And Peter Nureyev is the son of a thief, too, a man who showed his love through lies up until the moment Nureyev killed him. And, Peter Nureyev… is a name – a name whispered in the shadows of a floating weapon, a monster under every bed in a floating city of tyrants.

Peter Nureyev is a thief without a home. And he was a thief without a name… until me.

Because Nureyev was wrong, all those years ago. He said a name wasn’t worth anything. He said that he’d never have one again… and then he gave me his. A gift I didn’t understand. So who is Peter Nureyev? Peter Nureyev is a man who makes me feel… makes me feel… a lot, okay?

And I know he’ll be back, because I know one more thing about Peter Nureyev: I make him feel a lot, too.

And why not? Everyone’s got a flaw. Here’s hoping his doesn’t get him killed.

MUSIC: PLAYS, THEN ENDS.

***

SOUND: RAIN, MUSIC.

CONCIERGE: If you’ve enjoyed this tale, please consider supporting The Penumbra on Patreon. Every dollar helps. You can find that page at patreon.com/thepenumbrapodcast. If you support us on Patreon at the $10 level or higher, you’ll receive access to commentary tracks like this one, from actors Joshua Ilon, Kate Jones, and Noah Simes:

SOUND: DOOR CREAKING OPEN.

JOSHUA: Peter Nureyev… to quote Miasma, he gets what he wants. He’s a very… he knows what makes him happy and he pursues what makes him happy. He’s, he’s an adventurer. He’s Indiana Jones. He goes after cool stuff. And Juno, I think from a very young age learned to be very hesitant and to not trust good things…

SOUND: DOOR CREAKING SHUT.

CONCIERGE: We would like to give special thanks to all who support us on Patreon, but especially to Hannah Tsim, Elizabeth Miller, and Angel Acevedo for their incredibly generous contributions per episode. Thank you.

You can also support The Penumbra by liking us on Facebook, following us on twitter @thepenumbrapod, following us on Tumblr @thepenumbrapodcast, telling your friends about us, telling your friends to tell their friends about us, and especially by rating and reviewing our podcast on iTunes. Every rating, comment, and kind word spreads our stories farther and inspires us to keep creating more and better tales to come.

This tale, Peter Nureyev and the Angel of Brahma, was told by the following people: Noah Simes as Peter Nureyev, Ryan Marchant as Mag, Joshua Ilon as Juno Steel, Kate Jones as Miasma, Sophie Kaner as Rossignol, and Jason Mellin, Scott Galica, and Kevin Vibert as the ensemble.

On staff at The Penumbra: Kevin Vibert is our lead writer and recording engineer. Sophie Kaner is our director and sound designer. Grahame Turner is our script editor. Original music by Ryan Vibert. Promotional art by Mikaela Buckley.

The Penumbra is created and produced by Sophie Kaner and Kevin Vibert.

I’m so sorry you’ve been called away, dear Traveler. We eagerly await your return.

ALL SOUNDS: FADE OUT.

[that-fringe-tho]

Warmth, Chapter 1.

Kassius felt familiarly numb as he looked out into the infinite white death of Noveria from the relative comfort of his home. He held a tablet in his hand, though in his state of boredom, he struggled to retain even a single line of writing. His brother had a peculiar taste in stories that Kassius did not share, but out here he had little to do and even less to read, so he found himself sifting through his collection piece by piece.

He had only been on the planet for around a month, but it was a solitary confinement in this shelter. His shuttle had crashed into the mountain just behind him, killing nearly everyone on board. Few crawled out, but with damages to their suits, the temperatures set in; fifteen men, including his only surviving family, were lost to the storms. He was the only one left. For all he knew, no one was ever coming.

They’d made a random jump. It was all they could do to escape the reaper that rapidly closed in on them. They were nowhere near a relay; they were quite deep in the middle of nowhere, in fact, as they sought the remains of an Asari warship that might help turn the tides of the war. Things were fairly close to an end then. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever know the conclusion.

Food, water, shelter, and air. He was alive, thanks to whatever luck carried him to this abandoned research bunker, but he was sure that another month of this and he might start to imagine companions. Maybe he might see his brother again after all. Maybe he’d get to tell him how terrible his taste in literature was.

His silver eyes heavily lifted, glaring at the world he’d come to hate. White, white, white, white, white, white, grey, white.

Grey?

He stood up, shaking his head.  It had to be a rock peaking out among the ice. The mind had a way of teasing him – sometimes he’d see shadows in the room with him, or hear someone saying his name. He closed his eyes, inhaling slowly and remembering to count to ten before he opened them.

Your name is Kassius. You are alone. There is no one out there.

He slowly looked once more. Clear as day, there was smoke rising from the valley, and lots of it. He stood quickly enough to knock over his chair, dropping the tablet.

There’s no one out there, he told himself. There’s no one out there. No one out there. You’re alone, Kass. Don’t do this to yourself.

Shut up, he replied. Shut your damned mouth.

He tripped over the chair as he rushed over to the closet, but he was quick to be back on his feet. He quickly removed one of the station’s exosuits and shimmied out of his own clothing. The sensation of the armor was odd, since the only clothing he had sported in a month was a soft, warm material.

What if it’s the Geth? Spirits, what if it’s more of those abominations?

Fighting himself, he donned a helmet, heading for the door. He had no weapons on him, but at this rate, if something was out there and ready to kill him, at least it would spare him any more time in this purgatory.

Kassius opened the door, feeling a blast of cold air that seemed to penetrate his suit, though he knew he was safe. It was far colder out there than what he was feeling. That wasn’t a campfire, it was too big – someone else had crashed down here, and the second they moved away from that fire, they would have only minutes.

His feet sank into the snow, making running a difficult task. They weren’t far, maybe less than a kilometer, but he had to maneuver his way down to the valley, which added several minutes onto his journey. The air, conditioned as it was, bit at his lungs with each inhale. As he made his way to the scene, he analyzed more of the crash.

It was a human ship, that was certain. It seemed to be an older make of an Alliance ship, but from here he could tell that much of the crew was dead. Their bodies were black as pitch, scattered along the ground in various macabre positions.

Might as well turn back. You shouldn’t have gotten your hopes up.

He hesitated, but continued forward.

Someone must be alive. I lived, didn’t I? I have to know. I have to see.

The Turian trudged against the thick layer of ice that must have once been a river, long before anyone could have written of it. The front of the ship had pierced it, leaving cracks around its point of entry. Kassius carefully walked around it, analyzing the bodies for signs of life.

“H…”

His voice was weak from retirement. He cleared his throat.

“Hello? Is anyone out there? Can anyone hear me?”

He waited.

There’s no one. Go home, kid. Get back to your book and try to actually read it this time. Krogan mythology can’t be that bad.

“Please, if you can hear me, I’m not here to hurt you! I can take you somewhere safe.”

I don’t want to be alone.

He shivered as the minutes passed, hopes decreasing along with his body heat. He lowered his head, mourning the people he didn’t know. If everyone had lived, of course, he couldn’t have done much – there wasn’t much space in his bunker, let alone food. He’d already done the math, and with the levo-synthesizer, he had around one year of supplies from when he started.

He emitted a low whine, one of many various subharmonics the Turians were capable of, and one that wasn’t often heard. Adults had too much shame to whimper in such a way, but he was barely an adult and full of woe. Now was the time to be childish and cry.

Turning his back, Kassius decided he had wasted enough time. He shook his head, throat flanging pitifully and echoing through his helmet. He trudged forward, eyes on the ground as his mind humiliated him for bearing any semblance of hope.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement from one of the bodies. It was subtle, but stopped him in his tracks.

It’s in your head. Keep moving.

He crept towards the body, studying it for any signs of movement. It had to be a female, judging by the shape of her form; he at least knew that of the humans. He wasn’t sure through the armor, but she appeared to be slowly breathing.

“Spirits,” he whispered, bending down and giving her a light shake on the shoulder. With no response, he deemed her unconscious and reached for the dogtags that hung from her neck. “C-… Catherine Walters, hm?”

The name rolled off of his tongue with a hard pronunciation of each syllable. Human names were far more varied than most other races’, but they were new to galactic civilization and had only unified as a species in the last two centuries. They still knew their cultures and dialects, but they knew that both would succumb to the will of the galactic community.

He lifted her up.

“Okay, Catherine. I’ve got you. Stay with me.” **** You can read the rest on my fanfiction page!

[dragon-of-sapphire]

Notes

I posted this on Reddit HFY but I wanted to share this story here too. I thought people might enjoy it.

We don’t know what happened to them, for several hundred orbits of the local star system we’ve been looking at their ruins trying to decipher their history, culture, science and much more. Much has been discovered but we’ve still only scratched the surface of mountain of knowledge. For example: what we once thought were several separate alien societies turned out to be all one alien culture. How such a wide spread and advanced species vanished without a trace is a mystery.

One of many things that troubled us is that their written language seems to have hundreds of variations, many don’t even seem to relate to each other. In fact, this was the primary reason why their society had been so difficult to comprehend.

One such written language I’ve taken up to decoding looks deceptively simple, and is found across all their territories but for the longest time, I had found no key to decode it. On the surface, it looks incomplex, just circles, dots and lines placed upon a bar of lines going across the width of paper, but I suspected it was vastly elaborate as I have come across various texts that go from a few simple dots across a few bars to hundreds of various dots and lines all stuffed onto several connecting sheets filled with bars; these dots are not even bound to the bars as they can sometimes jump high above it or far below it.

Further, I had found other glyphs and symbols I had no way of discerning why they are placed where they are. The only thing I knew about this script is that it has been paired with other scripts of their written language. I’d even found identical sheets of these scripts paired with different scripts. I was almost sure this was a universal script for them, and if I could decode it; perhaps we’d have a key to decode all the other scripts.

One thing that had given me aid was a discovery a colleague of mine found, an ancient recording he was able to recover. This in its self was a breakthrough since most of their technology holding their nonphysical records is still inert and this small recovery was a miracle. Our fields of study don’t cross but what he discovered, in fact, did.

This colleague decided to wait until more people had the time before it would be viewed. I was among that group with others from various fields. Once we viewed it, what we found on it was the recording was a ritual of some sort. There was a large gathering of the aliens depicted in a room facing a podium, and on the podium, were a few aliens facing the crowd, one held a tool of some sort and the other was dressed in red with floral decorations. Then, all of a sudden, it started. The one in red spoke in soft and somber voice and I was in awe that same moment. The one holding the tool used it to make sounds that complimented the other’s spoken words in a harmony I never before experienced. It was, for lack of a better word, spell binding.

The moment they had started they had me trapped in trance. What I heard was like nothing I had ever experienced before, and it invoked powerful emotions in me. I felt as somber as the alien’s voice and I dearly wished I could hold my life companion in that moment, as if I didn’t do so soon, I never would again. Against all reason that said otherwise I pulled a holo-tab from my pocket and sent him a message telling him I needed to see him that night and that I loved him. There was an aching in my chest that didn’t leave until he finally replied a tic later assuring me he would come and asking if anything was wrong. I didn’t respond because, at that moment, I wasn’t sure. When the ritual finally ended, the emotions it conjured lingered in me. I looked upon the group to find everyone else was similarly affected, one of us even openly wept.

We watched it several more times, out of diligence and study, though we took several tics to recover ourselves and prepare our emotions better for it. One thing I hadn’t noticed before, flowing across the bottom of the recording, was a script being highlighted as the one in red spoke. A script I knew another colleague of mine was translating. Since this was his script, I forwarded the recording to him; with apt warning of its contents of course.

After the discovery of the recording, more attempts were made to recover the nonphysical information with some success but nothing new for my field came up after a cycle and my translation attempts still turned up nothing. Until my colleague whom I sent the first recording to had sent me back a few scripts with some additional notes he made. He had found a script sheet containing the words the alien in red had spoken; that was not all however. This script he sent had also contained the language I was trying to decipher, and another he was sure it was paired with. He couldn’t understand how they were related at all, so he jotted down his hypothesizes and sent it back to me. One script of mine was paired with his, yet the other wasn’t paired with any other type of written script. This wasn’t all that unusual, since half the time, my script came unpaired with others, but his notes insisted they went together. What puzzled me was that we only heard the one alien speak. If he was correct then I was missing something.

Cautiously and after long emotional preparation, I had returned to that recording of the alien ritual to review it with the scripts I received, hoping to glean any sort of incite. When it began again, I still felt a twinge in my chest, but I was able to focus. I had followed along as it spoke, both upon the recording and the sheet I pressed my primary digit to. Following my colleagues notes I could vaguely see relations from his script to its spoken words, I also saw a connection between his script and mine as it spoke but I could still not see how they translated. In the end, all I ended up with was frustration, I was still no closer to figuring out my script or how it was used.

I knew in the back of my mind there was a connection. Something in me saw it, but I just wasn’t sure what it was. My eyes drifted over my script once more, I had noticed that the dots and lines corresponded to timing along the bar, I didn’t know why. I saw each word the alien had spoken had also ran along with that timing but it didn’t make sense. I was at my wits end and about to throw everything off the table until my eyes landed upon the second unpaired yet related script.

My colleague was sure they were all together for a reason, and I had no other lead to go upon, so once more did I watch the recording, following the untranslated script. There were more dots and circles to follow but somehow, they fell in with the timing of the spoken words. Not wholly, but I could agree with my colleague now that they all did belong together, though I was still unsure why. When the spoken words had paused, this script had continued and at first, I couldn’t understand. Nothing was being spoken but as my digit steadily continued along the script something else was still keeping pace with each dot.

The realization hit me like a wave. The sounds coming from the tool the other alien was using, corresponded with each circle, dot and line on the page. As the tone of the tool grew and fell, so did the dots and circles rise and fall across the bar. This script didn’t translate words, it translated sound, and from this sound was the emotion imbedded in the ritual.

I jumped to my other untranslated scripts sitting upon shelves and shelves dedicated to holding them and took the nearest one to me. It was a short script and simple compared to the one I was currently reading. It took several re-watches of the video to gauge what the script said, but with a little focus, I could hear it in my imagination. It was humble in comparison, yet a happy sound, childlike. The next wasn’t as easy to imagine, but it was exciting and vibrant, and yet another was entrancing, and another soothing, and another fear inducing. I felt so many things just reading these scripts.

Then I stumbled upon two copies of the same sheet, but each was paired with different spoken scripts, one belonging to the same colleague as before, the other belonging to someone working upon the other side of the planet, and I was struck by another realization. It was a universal language. It conveyed emotions, emotions that we could relate to. They had paired these emotions with the words to speak them and they shared these emotions across their languages.

This…

This is how we came to understand a bit more of what they left behind. This script for sound, for raw emotion, changed everything. It’s imprecise but if we can translate something from one spoken script and find it pared with mine and another untranslated spoken script we can learn more of what we don’t understand.

I don’t only mean it’s changed our understanding of them, it’s also changed us. Thanks to my discovery, my people have eagerly embraced a part of an alien culture long since lost. We have adopted this script they created and have begun writing our own sounds. We have embraced the tools they used to make resonate. We have poured our voices into their echoes and made our own. We’ve become a little bit like them. This sound, this…music, we can’t escape it now, it’s a part of us.

Now, like a line in that first song.

Maopopo kuʻu ʻike i ka nani

[I realize your beauty]

Excuse my poorly written idea, it was just stuck in my head all morning and I had to get it out. It should be simple to figure out what the first song is, but if anyone is wondering what I had in mind for the second song discovered, I was thinking Twinkle, twinkle little star. The rest I didn’t give much thought to.

[halsteadproperty]

30 Social Distancing Activities For You 

From Halstead Real Estate 

For so many of us around the world, social distancing has become our short-term responsibility to keep ourselves and each other safe. To avoid the further spread of COVID-19, especially to those in our communities who are most at risk, it’s our duty to stay home as much as possible and maintain a safe distance from others. 

Whether you have any symptoms or not, remember that you could still endanger others. If we do our part to stay at home and help limit the spread of this virus, not only do we keep ourselves and others healthy, but we also avoid overburdening our medical professionals and healthcare system. 

So, please spend as much time at home as possible over the next few weeks. We have some ideas to help keep you entertained and engaged while you practice social distancing.

1. Tour a Museum Virtually - Take a tour of the Louvre, see a collection at the Guggenheim, explore the Museum of Natural History, and take in an exhibit at the Uffizi Gallerywithout leaving home. Start with this shortlist of virtual museum tours and then get lost in this vast collectioncurated by Google Arts & Culture.

2. Learn a New Language - Whether you’ve been meaning to pick up Spanish, perfect your French, or try your hand at Arabic, you finally have the time to do it. Download Duolingoor Rosetta Stone to choose from dozens of languages and start with the basics or build on the skills you already have.

3. Support Local Businesses - It’s a difficult time for local businesses, so support your favorite restaurants by ordering delivery. (You can opt for your delivery person to leave your food at the door to limit contact.) Another great way to offer support is to buy gift cards to your favorite small businesses now, to use in the future.

4. Meditate - Dedicate some of your time to practicing mindfulness and focusing inward. Start by downloading the MNDFL Video app (or another meditation app like Headspace, Insight Timer, or Calm) to access guided meditations that help you relax, set intentions, sleep, and more.

5. Read a Bestseller - There’s nothing like a good book, especially during difficult or uncertain times. Take a look at Amazon’s Best Seller lists for some great reads.

6. Dust Off the Board Games - Bring out Scattergories, Monopoly, or your other favorite board games and enjoy some quality time with your family or roommates.

7. Organize Your Home - It’s the perfect time to start on those organizing projects. Tackle a room/area of your home each day (or consider Marie Kondo’s method) and declutter, reorganize, and set aside the items you want to donate.

8. Spend Time in Nature - As long as you can keep a minimum of six feet’s distance from others, go outside and take in some fresh air. Take a leisurely walk or go for a hike in an uncrowded area and enjoy the almost-spring weather.

9. Video Chat - Take advantage of your free time and FaceTime or Skype with friends and family members, no matter where they’re located.

10. Take Virtual House Tours - See what’s for sale/rent by choosing the “Video Tour” and/or “3D Walkthrough” option in Halstead.com’sadvanced search feature.

11. Practice (or Learn) an Instrument - Put that guitar you have lying around to good use or practice the piano you rarely play, and use this time to develop your skills.

12. DIY Easter Crafts - Celebrate Easter by trying one or several of these DIY crafts, which include creating egg carton chicks and designing bunny jars.

13. Perfect Your Workout Regimen - You don’t need to go to the gym to work out. Instead, try one of these apps to create an at-home exercise plan that works for you.

14. Learn Some New Recipes - Swap recipes with friends, try a YouTube tutorial, or follow an online recipe to make a dish—or a whole meal—that you’ve never made before.

15. Binge Watch a Series - There are endless shows to stream on platforms like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime. These are some great options, as are these comforting picks.

16. Play a Virtual Game of Chess - There are thousands and thousands of game apps to choose from, including chess, which you can play with people around the globe.

17. Learn from the Masters - Get a lesson in acting from Natalie Portman, pick up cooking techniques from Thomas Keller, and learn about conservation from Jane Goodall when you use MasterClass, a platform that lets you learn from experts.

18. Take Up Birdwatching - Download the Merlin Bird ID app and start discovering what species of birds nest near you. Then, dust off your binoculars and head to your terrace or backyard to start. Make sure to use a birdwatching map like eBird.

19. Become a Film Critic - You’ll likely be spending some time watching movies in the next few weeks, so why not write reviews afterwards and share them with other film buffs on Letterboxd?

20. Take Online Courses - Whether you want to learn how to code or you’re interested in taking a Harvard course on neuroscience, you can do it for free online. Here are some excellent options.

21. Look Out for Others - Reach out to higher-risk neighbors and community members (while maintaining a safe distance) and ask if they need help with their groceries or prescriptions. They might even simply want someone to talk to on the phone.

22. Plant a Tree - Commemorate Earth Day by donating to The Canopy Project, which plants trees around the world. 2020 is the 50th official Earth Day, and you can help in the efforts to plant 7.8 billion trees, one for every person on earth.

23. Listen to a Podcast, or Several - No matter what mood you’re in, there’s a podcast for you. Keep up with the latest happenings or escape into a fun story with one of these podcasts.

24. Focus on Self-Care - Dedicate some time in your day to focus on just you. Do yoga, bake, listen to your favorite album—practice self-care, whatever that looks like for you.

25. Donate to a Food Bank - It’s an especially stressful time for food banks, which are facing a decrease in donations and volunteers as the need for their services increases. Consider making a donation to a food bank, especially one that’s in a coronavirus hotspot.

26. Watch a Zoo’s Live Feed - See what the San Diego Zoo’s newest baby orangutan is up to or follow along a day in the life of an elephant at the Houston Zoo. These and other zoos across the country have live video feeds of some of their habitats, letting you see the action up close.

27. Play Games On Your Smart Home Device - Use your Google Home, Amazon Echo, or similar device to play a large collection of single- or multiplayer games.

28. Enjoy Live Music - Musicians are making the best of this time by sharing live performance streams. Attend a virtual concert by taking a look at Billboard’s ever-updating list of live streams.

29. Clear Out Your Inbox - Use this time to finally organize your inbox, respond to messages, and delete all the emails you don’t need.

30. Get Plenty of Rest - Help keep your body and mind healthy by getting plenty of sleep so that your immune system is at its best.

[yoursupervoice]

Conference 1: The Stakeholders

MAY 

I’ve traveled to Manchester for an Autism Gold Talk Conference and here is what I took from it:

After the event, I felt a little more confident when it came to the mingling and networking part but I still felt uncomfortable and more so shy. The entire conference they were talking about how they were humans too like everyone else, so how can I go up to them and ask them questions as if they were another species? “How do you wish to be perceived? What is something you wish the world knew about you?” Does this sound offensive? Will these questions bother anyone, will they understand where I am coming from?

I big point for the conference was how can autistic charities and studies be led by people who aren’t autistic? It makes sense though, it’s like a man telling a woman how it feels to have menstrual cramps and how to treat them. Which terrified me, because here I am wanting to help be a voice for this community, but how can I be a voice when I might not carry the same tone? I am not autistic so would it be troublesome for me to create a character arc based on autism? I don’t know how it feels to be autistic, I haven’t walked in their shoes, is there a way?

Is it mainstream to accept Autism?

I had felt uncomfortable, I was constantly thinking to myself: “can they tell that I’m not autistic”? I sat quietly in the back of the room hoping someone would approach me but I’ve learned People with Autism hate approaching strangers as much as I do so that method of gathering information clearly didn’t work for me. In a room where everyone was Autistic but me I felt like the “weird” one, and could this be a small insight of what people with Autism go through when they have to face the world who know nothing about them. Could feeling left out for these small 7 hours help progress in my research because I could barely cope for 7 hours where people with ASD have to cope with it their entire lives? It struck me like a ton of bricks here’s the brink to an amazing intervention idea on the verge of excellence. How can I make people without Autism, feel the same way they do? What can I change from this, it surely opened my eyes and I’m as ignorant as they get, luckily I have an open mind. Being in someone else’s shoes sounds so cliche, but it actually does create an epiphany.

I didn’t want to probe anyone with questions either because I didn’t want anyone feeling like a genie pig, but why did I feel so awkward? That’s a question I'm still trying to answer as I'm writing this. It definitely means I need to go to more autistic ran events, Im, hoping it drags me out of my comfort zone.

What stuck out to me the most is that during most of the speakers and panels they kept repeating “we don’t need to be cured we need to break the narrative, that’s the change we want to see. Disruption in the system leads to success.” I thought I was in a Manchester version of Applied Imagination as Richard’s and Ritchie’s words echoed every 10 minutes, it was almost like a sign though, as if I was meant to be doing this. I still don’t know how I am going to pull it off but I know it can be done. Getting rid of holistic labels, becoming a productive irritant because small victories are still victories.

Even though I may not be Autistic doesn’t mean I can’t help change the narrative. You can change the conversation by being apart of the conversation. So though I might feel uncomfortable in every single Autism conference, I will still attend every single one, because how can I change the narrative if I’m not involved with it?

Throughout the day some people would have to get up and wiggle about and jump and I can see how this might be deemed as “not normal” but then how many times do you need to scream when you’re frustrated? I’ll admit I will have a random outburst of screaming and people will ask me “what’s wrong?” Where I follow “nothing, just needed to let that out.”

My goal is to help show that Autism is an Identity and not a diagnostic. I talked to over 20 people with Autism at this event and I learned that literally, every single person was different to the point where I don’t know how scientist gather statistics about Autism when it ranges so wide. Also, autistic adults get forgotten. While science focuses mostly on how to develop children into “normal” adults without actually realizing that autism is a lifetime thing, not a child’s “disease” where this viewpoint disgusts me. My main focus is to help Autistic Adults because most adults are being under-diagnosed.

When I actually perked up the courage to go and mingle everyone asked me after a conversation “are you autistic?” and while I was talking to them I couldn’t tell they were autistic either. Popular media has polluted our minds to think autism is this one mold of “Sheldon Coopers” and “Rain Men” when it’s nothing like that. “Our future is that we will be either Sheldon Cooper or nothing.” Eroll the Autistic chair of the charity, said this at the end of the conference and it really resonated with me because none of the people at this conference had any savant ability in which pop culture has taught them to be. I ended staying until the very end is one of the last people to walk out of the people helping to clear out, I met a guy named Johnathan who is so cynical and hilarious which breaks the mold that people with Autism don’t understand humor.  He and his entire family are autistic and we ended up grabbing a drink as I waited for my train back to London, and I was happier that I made a friend than a new “autistic contact that could help my project.” My trip to Manchester has truly been eye-opening and has only made me more confused and has opened more questions for me to explore, which is a great start.

Mini-intervention that I did is the I showed people photos of autistic people portrayed in movies and tv shows and asked their opinion on them and every single person (100%) hated every single character and  I think that speaks to itself. Only 2% people with ASD have been represented in popular media and it hasn’t been a very good start. I had them also right down traits about themselves that they liked and disliked as well which I will use for another mini-intervention later on.

The reasoning behind having these people I met to write down traits of themselves was to be able to show it to anyone else and see if they could tell if these people had Autism just by the way they described themselves. These are some keywords that help them relate to their identity, these people shouldn't be treated any different. The term “normal” should never be used to describe someone because what exactly does a normal human being look/act like?