#extremely doomed guys shouldn’t have one million children

[callisteios]

did Priam have children just so they could die?

[thisiswhereikeepdcthings]

Fic things I will never have enough of/get over:

“Oh no, they’re hot.”

“Great, now there’s two of them.”

See above but with more swearing and feelings of dread and impending doom

BAMFs with swords

Old wise person causing 90% of the chaos

“They’ve never met in canon.” “Actually, they’re dating.”

“They’re mortal enemies.” “Actually, they’re married.”

The keeper of the braincell

Sharing one braincell but they lost it

The cinnamon roll goes feral

Tiny feral child and their supportive, enabling, non-parental background adults

“I’m your problem now”

“Welp, guess I’m a parent now”

Accidental world domination

Competence

Competence kink

Calmly sipping tea while everything behind them is on fire

Trying to be a good, supportive adult but you have no point of reference so you end up giving a sword to a ten-year-old

Time travel

Person A and person B start dating and when they tell everyone persons C-Q are confused because haven’t they been dating for like three years now and persons R-Z thought they were already married

*does something previously thought to be impossible* “What, like it’s hard?”

Platonic besties that will help hide the bodies

Fake dating

Accidental baby acquisition

Accidental baby acquisition but they’re a middle-aged to senior adult with like five thirty-something-year-olds that are now their children

Crossovers that shouldn’t work but do

“I need help” “I’ll grab the shovel” “Not that kind of help”

“I didn’t know where else to go.”

Well-written non-canon pairings for characters that have other firmly established canon pairings. Like, fully alters the entire story line non-canon pairings. But done in a way that feels like a reasonable possible outcome.

A protagonist with a million problems to solve still taking the time to be kind

Forehead kisses

Time traveller going apeshit and fixing everything preferably in as Mary-Sue a way as possible

OP character who is oblivious to the fact that they are indeed OP

Character who spouts off increasingly concerning details of their life while not realizing everyone else’s growing concern or the fact that they’re probably about to be mother-henned for the next decade

Character who chooses a parental figure and informs said parental figure of this new development with little to no forewarning

Strong, stoic character is actually the most chaotic one there

Everything in the chaotic portion of the alignment chart

Getting back at a bad guy in as petty a way as possible

Time travel with two or more time travellers who don’t realize they’re not the only time traveller

The guy everyone thinks is going to beat up all the bad guys sitting back and watching the person previously believed to be as strong as an uncooked noodle absolutely demolish them

Any situation where characters play hot potato with a position of great power. “Congrats, you’re king now.” “Not if you can’t catch me, I’m not.”

Unexpected language skills

Unexpected skills in general, particularly if they’re as niche as hell

Two extremely competent individuals who lose all brain cells when within a close proximity of each other

Fixing problems on accident

Fixing problems on accident while actively trying to cause problems on purpose

Surviving primarily due to spite

[muirmarie]

Okay, I'm going to need more info on the Ian/Alan/Ellie OT3 agenda because it never occurred to me before and that suddenly seems like a crime

This is a million years late, but. Some Facts:

1) Ian Malcolm is into Ellie Sattler the first time he sees her face. He /falls/ for her the first time he sees her Science.

2) Alan Grant yelling “Ian! Freeze!” is the exact moment that Alan realizes that he is doomed to want to protect this mega-annoying quasi-scientist forever and ever amen, and that eventually this is going to Backfire in Spectacular Ways.

3) "Kids get scared” / “What’s to be scared about? It’s just a little hiccup in the power” / “I didn’t say I was scared” / “I didn’t say you were scared” / “I know”

4) Ian’s “damn, girl” and Alan’s “that’s my girl” faces, respectively, at “women inherit the earth”

5) Ellie legitimately appreciating just how hot Ian Malcolm is, and Alan never acting even the slightest bit jealous until he pushes back a little when Ian checks to see if she’s ~~available~~

6) They all have TERRIBLE self-preservation instincts, but I will be truly and utterly damned before you can convince me that Alan is not, by the end of the movie, Fully Prepared to Risk Life and Limb to Save His Dumb Boyfriend and His Perfect Girlfriend (even tho his gf will def save him first)

7) Ellie refusing to go for the gun because she refuses to leave the door because she knows Alan can’t hold it on his own, and maybe she’ll be fast enough to kill the raptor but she knows she won’t be fast enough to save Alan

8) Ian Malcolm’s laugh-growl is Enough To Turn Any “Straight” Man into a  Bisexual Man (and also for the record Alan Grant has never been straight hdu that kid had the biggest crush on Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones, WHERE DO YOU THINK THE HAT CAME FROM, that boy is a solid 3, he’s just a chill 3, Ian, NOT EVERYBODY HAS TO WEAR BLACK LEATHER IN 80 DEGREE WEATHER AND WEAR SHIRTS THAT TIGHT OKAY, he is a Paleontology Bisexual™ okay)

9) “the next ex-Mrs.-Malcolm” okay buddy we know you’re looking for the next ex-Mr-or-Mrs-Malcolm and literally at this point you are definitely curious about if anyone on this island wants to be next ex-Dr-Malcolm bc you are getting a definite thing for doctors, kiddo

10) Ftr there is not one point in the movie where Ian Malcolm is not looking at Ellie without either Severe Interest or Extreme Awe

11) Alan is the same except also add Long Suffering Fondness because lordy she gives that boy a run for his money and HER LAUGHING AT HIM WHEN SHE SENDS THE KIDS AT HIM IS JUST A THING OF TRUE AND UTTER BEAUTY (as are all the other times she laughs at him, she laughs at him a LOT, their love is Pure™)

12) Ian Malcolm would take True Offense if I say him being involved would make their love more pure, so let’s just say it would definitely make it more interesting

13) Real Talk: The thing about OT3s that are so great is how they bring out different sides in different people, and obviously canon only works in the scope of the movie, but there is enough in there to pull out so many threads of maybe-could-be-would-be’s.  Some of those are:

- Ellie canonically likes teasing Alan, and Alan is canonically grumpy but fond about it all.  Ian definitely likes pushing things off shelves to see what happens, so there is no way that he would not pull Alan dramatically out of his comfort zone, but I also believe, given Alan’s talk of adaption, the way that he is so protective of those he loves (and those he so quickly falls for like Lex and Timmy), and the dumb, dumb half smile he gets sometimes, that he wouldn’t not only enjoy Ian knocking him off-balance, but that he would also give as good as he gets

- Ian is a FLIRT, gosh he’s a flirt, but y’know what???? Ellie enjoys it. And Alan is like….actually real okay with it?? Like he’s not grumbling about her flirting back or whatever, he’s p confident in her, and also he’s dealing with her, y’know, throwing small children in his path. But what are the chances that Alan is a romantic??? Like, deep down he obviously is. He probably is planning on, like, making her a ring or something. But Ian is an outward romantic, and he’ll plan dinners and he’ll make Alan wear a tie and he’ll make dinner and he’ll be so great at seduction, you guys. He will be so great at that. Alan will likely be fairly grumpy about this, too, but you know what????? He will also probably do something devastatingly romantic to the both of them, because he’s more of a still-waters-run-deep kinda guy, and you know - you just know - he’s gonna fucking buy them a house or something. Something absurd. You just know it.

- Ellie is a girl that gets what she wants. You saw how she went after trying to convince Alan how great a baby would be???? You saw her staying with the sick Triceratops???  Tenacious is the word.  And “you have no idea” is the response of the man who is head over heels for her.  If she gets it into her head that they’d make a great OT3, you know she’d do a lot of the legwork.

- Speaking of which, Ellie is the one who is going to invite Ian out to dinner when they’re stuck in hotels being interviewed/interrogated/giving their statements to every possible government organization that can get away with getting involved. Because Ian’s finally out of the hospital, and Alan keeps jerking every time a bus drives by their window, and she can’t have the bathroom door shut because she’s sure there’ll be a raptor in there if she has to open it.  Ellie is the one that gets Ian’s phone number (just in case you ever get bored Ian says when he offers it up, but even then she’s sure that his eyes skimming the room are intending the words for more than just her).  Ellie is the one that let’s Ian sleep in their bed because he’s not used to the elevation their dig is currently at and got too drunk too fast, and when Alan complains she tells him their bed is plenty big enough for the two men (it’s not) and that she needs to finish her job applications anyway (turns out dark fields and decaying bones are holding less appeal to her these days when every sound carried in the night sounds like footsteps of creatures that shouldn’t be alive but are-are-are).  Ellie is the one that leans her shoulder in the doorway at three a.m. and looks at them lying there, close together and still, somehow, continents away.  But maybe that can change. Maybe distances can be breached. Sixty-five million years ago and today have, after all. 

Anything at all can and will happen.

.

The thing about them is this:

There are a hundred thousand ways for them to get together, but all of them are due to the fact that they make more sense together than apart.

[top40gordy]

This is a great article! Here’s an excerpt: Even a schmuck like me is familiar with some of the evidence Bendell sets out to prove his point. You only needed to step outside during the record-breaking heatwave last year to acknowledge that 17 of the 18 hottest years on the planet have occurred since 2000. Scientists already believe we are soon on course for an ice-free Arctic, which will only accelerate global warming. Back in 2017, even Fox News reported scientists' warnings that the Earth's sixth mass extinction was underway. Here’s the whole article, if the reader cares to read all the way through.  There is also a link to the original academic paper: 

Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy https://jembendell.wordpress.com/2018/07/26/the-study-on-collapse-they-thought-you-should-not-read-yet/

The author with the "Deep Adaptation" paper. Photo by VICE

 What if I told you there was a paper on climate change that was so uniquely catastrophic, so perspective-altering, and so absolutely depressing that it's sent people to support groups and encouraged them to quit their jobs and move to the countryside?

 Good news: there is. It's called "Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy." I was introduced to it via an unlikely source—a guy formerly in advertising who had left his job to become a full-time environmental campaigner. "We're fucked," he told me. "Climate change is going to fuck us over. I remember thinking, Should I just accept the deep adaptation paper and move to the Scottish countryside and wait out the apocalypse?"

 "Deep Adaptation" is quite unlike any other academic paper. There's the language ("we are about to play Russian Roulette with the entire human race with already two bullets loaded"). There's the flashes of dark humor ("I was only partly joking earlier when I questioned why I was even writing this paper"). But most of all, there's the stark conclusions that it draws about the future. Chiefly, that it's too late to stop climate change from devastating our world—and that "climate-induced societal collapse is now inevitable in the near term."

 How near? About a decade.

 Professor Jem Bendell, a sustainability academic at the University of Cumbria, wrote the paper after taking a sabbatical at the end of 2017 to review and understand the latest climate science "properly—not sitting on the fence anymore," as he puts it on the phone to me.

 What he found terrified him. "The evidence before us suggests that we are set for disruptive and uncontrollable levels of climate change, bringing starvation, destruction, migration, disease, and war," he writes in the paper. "Our norms of behavior—that we call our 'civilization'—may also degrade."

 "It is time," he adds, "we consider the implications of it being too late to avert a global environmental catastrophe in the lifetimes of people alive today."

 Even a schmuck like me is familiar with some of the evidence Bendell sets out to prove his point. You only needed to step outside during the record-breaking heatwave last year to acknowledge that 17 of the 18 hottest years on the planet have occurred since 2000. Scientists already believe we are soon on course for an ice-free Arctic, which will only accelerate global warming. Back in 2017, even Fox News reported scientists' warnings that the Earth's sixth mass extinction was underway.

 Erik Buitenhuis, a senior researcher at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, tells me that Bendell's conclusions may sound extreme, but he agrees with the report's overall assessment. "I think societal collapse is indeed inevitable," he says, though adds that "the process is likely to take decades to centuries."

 The important thing, Buitenhuis says, is to realize that the negative effects of climate change have already been with us for some time: "Further gradual deterioration looks much more likely to me than a disaster within the next ten years that will be big enough that, after that, everybody will agree the status quo is doomed."

 "Jem's paper is in the main well-researched and supported by relatively mainstream climate science," says Professor Rupert Read, chair of the Green House think-tank and a philosophy academic at the University of East Anglia. "That's why I'm with him on the fundamentals. And more and more people are."

 Read's key disagreement with Bendell is his belief that we still have time to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, saying, "I think it's hubris to think that we know the future." But that doesn't mean Bendell's premise is wrong: "The way I see it, deep adaptation is insurance against the possibility—or rather, the probability—of some kind of collapse," says Read. "'Deep Adaptation' is saying, 'What do we need to do if collapse is something we need to realistically plan for?'"

 When I speak to Bendell, he tells me he thinks of "Deep Adaptation" as more of an ethical and philosophical framework, rather than a prophecy about the future of the planet. "The longer we refuse to talk about climate change as already here and screwing with our way of life—because we don't want to think like that because it's too frightening or will somehow demotivate people—the less time we have to reduce harm," he says with deliberation.

 What does he mean by harm? "Starvation is the first one," he answers, pointing to lowering harvests of grain in Europe in 2018 due to drought that saw the EU reap 6 million tons less wheat. "In the scientific community at the moment, the appropriate thing is to say that 2018 was an anomaly. However, if you look at what's been happening over the last few years, it isn't an anomaly. There's a possibility that 2018 is the new best case scenario."

 That means, in Bendell's view, that governments need to start planning emergency responses to climate change, including growing and stockpiling food.

 He minces his words even less in his paper: "When I say starvation, destruction, migration, disease, and war, I mean in your own life. With the power down, soon you won't have water coming out of your tap. You will depend on your neighbors for food and some warmth. You will become malnourished. You won't know whether to stay or go. You will fear being violently killed before starving to death."

 Should people start building bunkers and buying bulletproof vests? "There's no way of getting through this unless we try together," he says. "We need to help people stay fed and watered where they live already to reduce disruption and reduce civil unrest as much as we can." Of the Silicon Valley financiers prepping for the apocalypse in New Zealand, he says: "Once money doesn't matter anymore and the armed guards are trying to feed their starving children, what do you think they'll do? The billionaires doing that are just deluded."

  Bendell wasn't always this gloomy about the state of the world. He once worked for WWF, one of the biggest environmental charities in the world, and in 2012 founded the Institute for Leadership and Sustainability (IFLAS) at the University of Cumbria. The World Economic Forum named him a Young Global Leader for his work. So how did he end up writing a paper that determined that civilization—and environmental sustainability as we currently understand it—is doomed?

 "Since the age of 15, I've been an environmentalist," he tells me. "I've given my life professionally and personally. I'm a workaholic, and it was all about sustainability." Once he sat down with the data, however, he realized that his field was quickly becoming irrelevant in the face of oncoming climate catastrophe. "It would mean not getting super excited about the expansion of your recycling program in a major multinational," he says. "It's a completely different paradigm of what we should be looking at."

 What he didn’t expect was for the paper to take off online. "It was aimed at those people in my professional community and why we're in denial," he says. "When I put it out there, I didn’t expect 15-year-olds in schools in Indonesia to be reading it with their teachers." He says that "Deep Adaptation" has been downloaded over 110,000 times since it was released by IFLAS as an occasional paper. "Someone in the alternative economics and bitcoin crowd told me, 'Oh, everyone's talking about deep adaptation in London at all the dinner parties,'" he laughs.

 Researchers from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), an established progressive think-tank, consulted Bendell's paper in the process of writing its new report, "This is a crisis: Facing up to the age of environmental breakdown." Laurie Laybourn-Langton, its lead author, told me via email: "I appreciated the frankness of the report in facing up to issues that so many in research and policy communities seem unwilling to. We don't subscribe to the view that social collapse is inevitable, however."

 He explains: "This is partly because it's so hard to predict the outcomes of the complex and uncertain process of environmental shocks interacting with social and economic systems. We simply don't know. That said, they shouldn’t be disregarded as a potential outcome, and so we are calling for greater levels of preparedness to these shocks."

 The effect of drought on cows in Ethiopia. Photo: TheImage/Alamy Stock Photo

 Not everyone was so taken with the paper. Bendell submitted it to a well-respected academic journal for publication, with little success. Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal (SAMPJ) told me that the paper was in need of "major revisions" before it would be ready for publication. Bendell ended up publishing it through IFLAS and his blog. "The academic process is such that I took that as an effective rejection," he explains, saying that the reviewers wanted him to fundamentally alter his conclusions. "I couldn't completely rewrite the paper to say that I don't think collapse is inevitable. It was asking for a different paper."

 Emerald, the scholarly publisher that owns SAMPJ, says it takes issue with how Bendell frames its reception of its paper on his blog: "the study on collapse they thought you should not read—yet." A spokesperson told me: "The decision was arrived at based on the merit of the submitted article and the double blind peer review process integral to academia and the advancement of knowledge. SAMPJ, and [editor Carol Adams] are proud members of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and adhere to the highest ethical standards in publishing. We see no evidence that the decision of Major Revision was politically motivated.

 "Emerald requested the author correct their blog post to reflect the facts. This request was unfortunately ignored. The post continues to imply the paper was rejected because it was deemed too controversial. The paper was not rejected, and was given a Major Revision due to the rigorous standards of the scholarly output of the journal."

 Bendell says he did reply to Emerald's request to amend his blog post—but only if they would consider telling him the decisions of those who reviewed his paper. (Under the double blind peer review, reviewers' decisions are anonymous.) "That title can be read in a number of ways," he says. "It is a paper that the reviewers didn't want you to read. They didn't want it published."

 Climate gloom and doom is nothing new—doomsday preppers have been stockpiling their freeze-dried food rations for decades now. But Bendell's paper appears to have hit a unique nerve, especially given that the average scientific paper is estimated to be read by only three or so people. Rupert Read tells me that he was sent it simultaneously by three other academics when it was published. But it hasn’t trended on Twitter. It hasn't been pushed by a celebrity. It was briefly mentioned in a Bloomberg Businessweek article, but that's it.

 "Deep Adaptation" is that unique social phenomenon: an academic paper that has gone viral through word of mouth.

 Nathan Savelli, a 31-year-old high school life coach from Hamilton, Canada, was recommended the paper by a local environmental activist. Reading it sent him spiraling into depression. "I guess in some ways it felt like I was diagnosed with a terminal illness," he tells me. "If I'm being honest, it was a mix of heartbreaking sadness and extreme anger."

 Savelli felt so low that he sought help from a climate grief support group organized by 350.org, the global grassroots climate movement. "I had attended counseling in the past for other issues, but never a group session, and thought it might be something helpful for me," he tells me. Did it help? "I'm not sure I'd say it alleviated my grief, but it was definitely comforting to be around people who understood what I was feeling."

 And therein lies the problem with "Deep Adaptation:" if you accept that the paper is entirely correct in its prediction of collapse, how do you move on with your life? How do you even get out of bed in the morning?

 "I'm aware of what difficult emotions it triggers," Bendell acknowledges. "I do believe that if you’ve come across this [paper], then absolutely some grief and despair is very natural. Why isn't that OK? We all die in the end. Life is about impermanence." On his blog, he lists several sources for psychological support, including several groups on Facebook and LinkedIn that discuss collapse and offer help to those struggling to come to terms with the conclusions of his paper.

 But, Bendell adds, reading the paper has been "transformative" for some. "People find a new boldness about living life on their own terms—actually connecting to their heart's desire. How do they wish to live, and why don't they live that way now rather than postponing it?" In one case, it even helped prompt one high-ranking academic to quit her job and the city.

 In December of 2017, Dr. Alison Green left her post as the pro vice-chancellor of Arden University. She had read the IPCC report warning that the world is nowhere near averting global temperature increases, as well as the 1,656-page National Climate Assessment on how climate change is now dramatically affecting our lives—and then she read Bendell's paper.

 All three combined to put her on the road to a drastic life change. "My desire is to get out of academia and to get out of the city. I tell people I’m heading for the hills," she tells me over the phone. "My plan is to get a smallholding and live more closely to nature."

 Reading the paper, she says, helped to crystallize her increasing uneasiness about the pace and scale of climate change. "What was really striking about this paper is that a social scientist was saying—not just the wacky fringe, this is a professor at an established institution, with a track record—saying that he believed that collapse was inevitable."

 "That," she adds, "had a profound effect on me."

 She's not the only one. Bendell himself says that he is still working out how much he can reconcile his job as an academic with his newfound conclusions about the state of the future.

 "I think the reason why my framing and my paper took off is that it’s maybe the first time a social scientist was saying these things categorically," he says. "We are seemingly in denial. It's time to break that taboo and have serious conversations about what we do now."

 This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

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  Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy https://jembendell.wordpress.com/2018/07/26/the-study-on-collapse-they-thought-you-should-not-read-yet/

[cinnamonbuneliza]

Australia

Write A Thon Day 4 (Worldwide Day) Anthony Ramos x Reader Words: 990

hi all. i was supposed to post this yesterday but it was too damn stressful and busy. i skipped school today to recover, but i’m still so damn tired.

i’m a day behind now which isn’t incredible for me but i will finish writing the day 5 imagine very soon. i have a headache so i don’t think i’ll be able to write it today, but tomorrow hopefully!

much love to all of you. requests are open as usual Masterlist

~

“So you’re ready?”

Anthony looked up from his suitcase, giving you a small smile. “As ready as I’ll ever be,” He stated, zipping it shut and letting out a soft sigh. “Are you sure it’s not going to be cold? It’s winter here… shouldn’t it be the same there?”

You rolled your eyes. “I know my country pretty damn well. I mean sure, you’ll need maybe one jumper, which you’re wearing, but in summer you’ll be close to naked most of the time,” You said. “Can we go through that vocabulary check again?”

“Don’t you think you’re overdoing this slightly? I mean, surely I won’t need to know all of these…”

“What’s a thong?” You interrupted, ordering an Uber and heading towards the door, pulling your case behind you.

“Can’t I just call them flip flops? It makes so much more sense… I feel like I’m talking about underwear if I call them thongs,” Anthony whined, forming a small pout with his lips.

“Hey, I changed everything I knew when I moved here! I mean, you drop all the u’s from words! For example, it’s c-o-l-o-u-r, not c-o-l-o-r. It’s wrong. We may as well drop the u from you as well,” You stated, pressing the button for the elevator and waiting.

“I’ve told you a million times and I’ll tell you again, it’s c-o-l-o-r. I won’t stand for your spelling mistakes. By the way, will we have shrimp when we get there? I’ve heard it’s delish when it’s on the barbie,” Anthony asked, following you into the elevator.

You took a deep breath, letting it out with a loud sigh. “For the last time, there are no shrimps. Just prawns. And if I hear you say “barbie” one more time, I will throw up. Which reminds me, please don’t do your Australian accent when we get there. We all know it’s extremely inaccurate and will make everyone uncomfortable or angry,” You stated, pressing the button for the ground floor and sighing.

“Will we have vegemite at least? I wanna try everything I can, and I’ll bring everything back too! We can make it feel like you’re at home, but you’re not! It’ll just be all the food from your homeland here and it’ll be super exciting!” Anthony rambled, bolting out of the elevator as soon as the doors opened. You rolled your eyes, following him quickly.

“Of course I’ll give you vegemite, but you’re not going to like it,” You replied, putting all of your things in the boot of the uber when it arrived. You stepped inside, getting comfortable and resting your head against the window.

“Why the hell not? It sounds delightful in all of the youtube videos. I’m sure people are just screwing up their face for comedy. Speaking of youtube, I watched these two British fringe guys talking about Australia and it was pretty great. But they mentioned some concerning animals and I was hoping you could make me feel a bit better about them?”

“What kind of concerning animals would you be talking about?” You asked, raising your eyebrow.

“Well first of all, there’s the textile cone which is obviously the most dangerous of them all. I mean, you step on that shit and you’re probably gonna die. That’s pretty scary, right?”

“That doesn’t even seem like a real thing. Were these British guys legit? Or did they drink some alcohol in the arvo and then make the video?” You asked, crossing your arms.

“What the hell is arvo? Is it like an avocado?” Anthony asked, a confused look on his face.

“No, it’s the afternoon. You should’ve picked this up from me long ago. What else don’t you know… oh! Have you heard of drop bears?” You asked, a smirk appearing on your face.

“Drop bears? Sounds dangerous, tell me more,” He said, resting his head in his hands.

“Well, a drop bear is like a koala-“

“I like koalas.”

“Most people do. But the difference between koalas and drop bears is that drop bears are three times the size of humans, and they feed off the blood of small Australian children. Sometimes they attack adults, but adults survive. Everyone always has that one friend that was attacked… it’s pretty violent if you ask me,” You stated, the smirk on your face growing larger.

“Are we gonna be safe? How do they kill you?” Anthony asked, fear in his eyes.

“Well, we’ll be safe as long as we stay away from bushy areas and trees in general. Otherwise, we’re doomed,” You said, patting his back. “But don’t worry. If you get attacked, you’ll have a scar to prove you survived Australia.”

“Are they worse than the snakes? And the spiders?”

“Way worse. Bigger than a shark, teeth sharper than a snake’s… do you want me to continue? You seem a bit… scared,” You said, giggling.

Anthony frowned. “Why the hell are you laughing at my fear? I have reason to be afraid. You don’t seem afraid at all… have you been attacked? Are you apart of this drop bear cult?”

“Well, the thing is, there isn’t a drop bear cult. There’s just koalas. They’re a myth… you fell for it pretty badly though. I thought you’d see through it the moment I mentioned it,” You said, bursting into a fit of laughter.

Anthony groaned. “I hope you get bitten by a snake,” He muttered, crossing his arms.

“No you don’t. You love me,” You replied, kissing his cheek.

“I do. And I hope you’ll protect me from all the bad things your country has to offer.”

You smiled, hugging him tightly. “You can count on me.”

“Good, because I also have some concerns about…”

You rolled your eyes, listening to Anthony going on about the other dangerous creatures as the car trip went on. You hoped that eventually, your boyfriend would realise that Australia isn’t as dangerous as everyone makes it out to be.