#https hiccup kin

[canoncallings]

Hiccup from How to train your dragon. 18+ Looking for toothless or anyone from berk!

Good luck!!

[rleonard9]

https://www.tumblr.com/lennysfridge/750961738579607552/httpswwwtumblrcomlennysfridge750961430829957

Ryan is angry and brea is trying to calm him down by saying it isn’t hurting her. In reality she hasn’t felt so insecure since her senior year in high school. To add to it when brea and kinsley go to the next game. Some people sitting behind her start calling her names that aren’t something kin should hear she covers her ears, because no baby should hear those words. By the time the game is over and she goes to see Ryan she tries to look fine but the tear stains shows it all. He just wishes he could protect his girls from all of this

“people are saying nasty things.” brea blurts out crying as ryan walks towards them, his smile fades

“what did they say?” he takes a sleeping kinsley in his arms

“stuff about me and swearing.” she hiccups “i hated it.” ryan rubs her back

“i’m gonna say something.”

“n-no, d-dont.” she sniffs “i just w-won’t c-come t-to the games.”

“you are coming to games, i won’t let anyone disrespect my girlfriend and daughter baby.”

[fictionkinfessions]

https://www.tumblr.com/fictionkinfessions/717264848848863232/dear-readers-of-fictionkinfessions-guess-what

It's almost as if this question was made for me! For me this applies to my Shaun Hastings and Elijah Miles (both from Assassin's Creed) kintypes. Just as a little clarification beforehand: a pretty major aspect of the franchise is the idea of "genetic memory", basically inherenting your ancestors memories, which can be accessed over a machine called the Animus. So via my kintypes I also have memories of their ancestors, and sorta consider these to be "kintypes by proxy". For my Elijah kintypes it's all canon ancestors, while my Shaun kintype is slightly canon divergent, and an ancestor of Malik Al-Sayf. But it varies how connected I feel to each of those kintypes.

Additionally in my Shaun canon (as also here) I was kin with Hiccup from How To Train Your Dragon!

- Shaun Hastings (Elijah Miles) #📋

[johobi]

Breathe

Word count: 2.5k

Pairing: Yoongi x Reader

Warnings: None. This is about as wholesome as it gets on my blog.

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17359445

Next: Interval || Dig Deep Masterlist

The night before your wedding to a man you couldn’t find any more repugnant, you seek out the mercantile aid of an unscrupulous space pirate.

A coolness perfuses the soles of your unshod feet. Everything about your alien environment exudes this curious chilliness. And though it should perhaps be the foreign engineering, the meandering layout, or the noiselessness of the vessel that flummoxes you most, it is rather the temperature that beguiles you. 

Iluoli reside in a state of refrigeration. The notion is equal amounts amusing and fascinating. That much is reflected - quite literally, in the ship’s many lustrous surfaces - by your confused arrangement of features. And it is while wearing this unflattering facial setting that a door before you whooshes - everything on their ship whooshes - open. Right onto the long, limber figure of who you now know to be its captain. Before vacant, Namjoon’s eyes and mouth fly wider than you would consider possible. Then again, he is an alien. “Oh!” The exclamation is pulled from him softly. As quickly as he’d breathed it, he affixes a less terror-stricken expression. “Miss ____. I apologise if I startled you—“ by the way he white-knuckles the doorway, it should be you apologizing—“I wasn’t expecting to see you on the bridge. Or anywhere,” Namjoon remarks aside, bending enough to evaluate you from the toes up. “I wasn’t expecting to see you on your feet for a few days. Dr. Jung informed me that the soreness of your genitals would render you bedbound.” An inferno builds in your cheeks. And what may as well have been vapour, for the insubstantiality that leaves your flapping mouth. “U-Uh—“ “Ah, are you not feeling yourself still?” Namjoon incorrectly diagnoses, interpreting your incoherency as malady. “Come in and take a seat. The chairs are tolerable soft here. Designed for long stints of occupation.” “Th-Thanks,” you stumble, because if it weren’t your tongue flailing uselessly it’d be your legs, quaking in embarrassment. You’ve not long been aboard their ship, but it’s taken half that amount of time to realise that the Iluoli speak openly and frankly about such matters. And for one such as you, having been raised amidst the pomp and propriety of human nobility, their unfiltered stance on sexual activity is baffling. Refreshing, but baffling. “I’m doing well, though, thank you,” you sincerely do thank him, because his concern is genuine. “Yoongi suggested I take a wander of the ship to familiarise myself.” A lie; the bitter truth being he was standoffish and unreceptive to all attempted conversation. Even after your sordid clinch! The alien had muttered some transparent excuse about work and left you lonesome in his quarters.   “I didn’t know I was heading to the bridge. I’m sorry if I disturbed you.” “Not at all.” Namjoon rebuffs your fears of intrusion with a wave. “I was about to retire but you’re most welcome to see it. It isn’t terribly impressive.” He thumbs blindly to the chamber behind him, and his assertion couldn’’t be any further from the truth.

Meek as a mouse, you poke a toe over the threshold until awe robs you of your self-consciousness. The room carries the same, sleek architecture that is signature of the crew’s species, but what astounds you is the height of its concave reaches. A reinforced, glass dome houses you from the void twinkling beyond, granting you an unparalleled panorama of near space. Illuminants line the chamber’s walls, enhancing its majesty; strips of gentle violet that thrum with the engine’s core, pulsing like veins. Presumably the ship is either on standby or auto-pilot, as the light seems more ambient than practical. Consoles and stations around you blink with all manner of their own, indecipherable lights. And if you listen closely, there is a pleasant, undercurrent drone resonating from the technology surrounding; a hum as harmless and soporific as a mother’s bedtime lullaby.

A lullaby, if your eyes aren’t deceiving you, that one of the crew seems to have succumbed to. Open-mouthed and throat-exposed, a young man you’ve yet to make the acquaintance of dozes to the fore of the room, at its cockpit. In the lowlight it’s difficult to examine the features of his face, but by the silhouette of his strong profile he’s extremely handsome.

Is everyone on this ship sinfully good-looking?

The slumbering boy’s hair flutters on the breath of an apnoeic snort. One so loud and sudden it punctures the peace like a gunshot. Startled, you clutch the nearest thing to you, wild-eyed and abuzz with anxiety.

The nearest thing being Namjoon.

It only registers that you’re far from home, far from kin, and far out of your depth when you clock the squidgy, cloaked appendages you’re so rudely grappling are the captain’s tentacles. You know, the thing that modesty dictates they keep covered.

And you’re practically flattening them.

Namjoon makes a peculiar noise. Something betwixt a gasp and an exhalation, all at once. You think to unhand him, but your knuckles are only operating one-way. “Oh, goodness, I’m so, so sorry!”

“That’s quite alright,” the captain attempts to reassure you, though the hiccup in pitch gives away his agitation. Before you can extricate yourself from your tangle, Namjoon’s familiarly greasy appendages are encircling your wrists and returning them to your sides. Freed, his tentacles slither swiftly behind their shroud. “I apologise if Taehyung frightened you. He sleeps in here more than he does his own bunk.”

You follow the rhythmic rise and fall of the extraterrestrial’s chest. "Why does he do that?"

What you can only intuit as a fond smile erupts across the captain's face. "He's rather vehement in his pursuit of knowledge. It's a challenge to have him even eat, sometimes."

Illustrating Namjoon's words lay piles of vintage reading materials, the kind hardbound by leather and paper. Books, they used to call them. Taehyung doesn't appear the type to shun modern technology either, though. Scattered haphazardly amidst the tomes are your more familiar holopads, glowing idly with text and casting a sunset across his untroubled features.

"He's our navigator," Namjoon answers the question next on your tongue. "You would struggle to find someone who is as space-savvy as he is." His line of sight directs you to the controlled chaos stacked around the boy. "So we accommodate his eccentricities as best we can."

Where Yoongi is brusque and unfeeling, Namjoon is patient and warm. Your focus leaves the exotic chamber to land on him. "And I thank you again for accommodating me. I know it was extremely sudden. In all honesty, I'm essentially at sea. I had no plan beyond escape. And it wasn't with you, either."

Namjoon, too, is drawn back to the conversation. Spun-gold hair sweeps over an eye when he tilts his head. "You weren't planning to ask for our aid?"

"No," your cheeks feel the burn of shame before you can comprehend why. And then you do. "I approached your crew with the very specific aim o-of--" Namjoon's arcane eyes don't waver. Thraeus, they're purple. "Well, you know what."

"Engaging in interspecies intercourse?"

Namjoon's unequivocal suggestion triggers a snort from you, an improvement on head-to-toe mortification. "Yes, well. Yes." Your knuckles twist white around your skirt. "Before I was bound to marriage, I wanted that which I was always denied in pursuing. Forgive me if you think me vulgar."

A wonky smile suggests otherwise. "We really have no notion of such a thing. It was a curious display, if anything." A thumb and index finger pull suddenly, inexplicably at your cheek and bafflement leaves your mouth hanging. "Is this the colour of human embarrassment?" Namjoon hums, consumed by intrigue. "Your temperature has changed, also. We have no such reaction to that emotion. Though, we do feel it." Pincered in his scholarly musings, you can't so much see but hear the light ripple of his tentacles behind him. "Much of our emotion and reaction revolves around our Raeli."

As you speak, your cheek finds freedom from his gentle pinching. "Raeli?"

"I hear your kind term them tentacles, but that is not their true name. Raeli are, in etymology, quite literally our gifts from God." The so-called gifts squirm enthusiastically beneath Namjoon's cloak, as though sentient and hearing. "They are a measure of strength, virility, capability. They form the basis of much of our etiquette and ceremony. Their language can easily be misinterpreted by those unknown to us and thus it is prudent to keep them covered to strangers and the outside world."

Hearing him speak of alien custom in so free a way unearths a familiar, nagging resentment for your restricted upbringing. All you'd craved in your eye-rollingly homogenous curriculum was a taste of the other. To understand the beings that co-habit your universe. What you might one day run away to...

"Oh, so it's not for modesty's sake?"

Namjoon’s features scrunch toward the centre of his face. Again, you appear to have amused him. "No. We don't clothe ourselves for the reasons you do." Fingers trace the delicate embroidery of his cloak. "Well, some of them, anyway. To maintain our temperature, as you do, yes, but we feel no shame in revealing our naked form."

You mull these unfamiliar perspectives over. The more you contemplated your species' unnerving obsession for concealing all that was natural, the easier it was to consider that humans were the abnormal ones. "That's really interesting. Refreshing," you add with speed, eager to ensure your drowsy monotone isn't interpreted as sarcasm. If that's even a concept they're familiar with. They seem an extremely literal peoples.

"What's interesting?" A soft question, caught in a yawn, originates from the far end of the bridge. Taehyung is mysterious in the star-and-low-lit room, his eyes heavy with sleep and propped open by intrigue. "What are you talking about?" He repeats huskily, quicker this time, interest eschewing his lethargy.

It takes you more than a moment to respond. Largely, in part, because it's difficult to process how this fresh-, cherubic-faced man can produce sounds so sonorous. Hearing him speak is akin to submersion in your very favourite, warm milk baths. "I--well," your nerve renders itself elusive again when faced with a touted erudite. "Namjoon was just telling me some things about your species that I didn't know. I love hearing about you."

Taehyung's bottom lip catches the light as he juts it. "Oh. Is that it? We're boring. Now, what would be interesting is if you tell me everything about your species." He's on two legs, now, stretching each and every of the limbs attached to his torso toward the sky. Naturally your eyes are drawn to his uncloaked appendages as they flex away the effects of their inertia. Teal, and long - oh, so long - when extended in this manner, they tremble at the limit of their reach, much like the tail of your beloved, coddled cat, King Cud. "Where are you from? Where do you originate? What do you eat? The flora and fauna on your planet?" Taehyung stops a mere foot away, no longer lit by space but fluorescence from the corridor. There are stars, nevertheless, in his eyes, now open wide and seeking something of fascination. His tentacles undulate restlessly in the air behind him, six hands on a timepiece that originates from his back. You haven't seen them bared so boldly since--

"It's late, Taehyung. ____ is likely tired. You can ask her these things another time." Namjoon must sense some change in your demeanour. For the life of you, though, it's not something you can pinpoint yourself. Awe, maybe. He interprets discomfort. "And sheathe yourself. You may look threatening to a human."

Your head whips to him and back. Back to the imposing beauty overlooking you. "Oh, no! Not at all. I'm not afraid. I'm just--" how best to depict yourself as something other than a brazen xenophile? "--I've never mixed with people outside my own species. Other than the servant staff, I mean." The reproval you anticipate doesn't come from either of your hosts at your divulging your appallingly pampered lifestyle. The chagrin licks hot at your cheeks anyway. "What I'm trying to say is that I hold much admiration for your species. I want to learn more of you, and others, and--everything. I've led a very sheltered life until now."

As Taehyung's hands land on his hips, so, too, do two of his tentacles, ringing his wrists in mimicry. An exuberant grin pulls his lips into a charming, rectangular show of teeth. "I have so much to tell you, Madam ____!" The title is unexpected but you receive it with a smile of your own. "You don't know anything? That's so exciting!" He turns to Namjoon, tentacles tangling in his thrill. "Captain, this is amazing! I've never met someone so unintelligent! The things I can teach her!"

If your face wasn't an inferno of mortification before, it is now. "U-Unintelligent?"

Taehyung communicates a vague, self-conscious panic at Namjoon. His index fingers come together at his front for a show of agitated poking. If that wasn't winsome enough for your forgiveness, his top two tendrils emulate the gesture over his mop of hair. "D-Did I say it wrong? I meant," his top teeth sink into his fleshy bottom lip, fixed on Namjoon. His Captain, however, looks bereft of answers. "Stupid."

Whether it's a sound or a snort that ejects itself from one of your facial orifices, you're not sure. It's muffled in nano-time, however, by the palms of both your hands slapping your airways shut.

Namjoon, ever your well-meaning - if inaccurate - interpreter, sends a sigh in Taehyung's direction. His eyebrows hover low and remonstrative. "You're distressing our guest, Taehyung. With one of your words," he tacks on, sagely, though the ambiguity is transparent.

Actually, you'd laughed. Coarsely. You hadn't belly-laughed since, well, you'd been instructed by your nannies to hide it. The belly and the laughter. And all things in between. It was plebeian and unattractive to suitors, they'd said. That propriety dictated a gentlewoman keep such uncouth behaviour stifled. Slamming a hand to your mouth had become an unfailing reflex.

"Which one?"

"S-Stupid?"

Your reverie is struck aside by Namjoon's flustered speculation. Back in reality, you find yourself engaged by two extremely bewildered Iluoli. That’s very unlike reality.

The captain, then, relaxes in understanding. "Ah, yes. Don't say the word stupid, Taehyung. It's probably offensive to humans. Perhaps the term unlearned is less harsh."

There's no keeping it in. A noise, as foreign as your surroundings and situation, ousts itself like a geyser, vibrant and untapped. Thraeus, it’s funny. Everything is so funny. You guffaw into the open air, clawing at your stomach as it tremors."S-Stupid--u-unlearned--"

Once as deep as the earth's core, Taehyung's voice shoots up, shrill. "You made it worse!"

Namjoon's is just as high. "I--I didn't know humans were so fragile!"

It's only halfway to Hoseok's office, bound gently aloft by tentacles and amidst frenzied cries of Her face is watering again! that you're able to regain a measure of your composure and reassure them that you aren't, in fact, seizing.  Merely, you were laughing out your amusement. And you thank them for it.

That does nothing to clear up their confusion.

[missconstancehardbroom]

I would like to thank @singofsolace​ for being an awesome inspiration! I really love your work! I salute to you!

____

She remained stoic as she heard the woman wail in pain when she tried and failed to push the babe out of her body. Too much blood has been spilled and she knew for certain that it will either be that the babe will not live to breathe its first gasp of air or both the mother and child will not live to see the light of day. Either way, she had prepared herself to whatever path that the fate of these two beings will take, for she is certain that by the end of that night, death will befall in the Spellman house.

“Lady Spellman, one more push, I can see her head.” Agnetha, the trusted midwife of the coven, encourage the weakened woman, “Just one more push, my lady.”

“I can’t.” Iocasta cried, beads of sweat were visible on her smooth cheeks and there was an abundance of tears flowing freely from her eyes, “My baby, save my baby.” She begged, “Mother, please, don’t take my baby away.” She tried to reach out to her. The younger woman’s hands were shaking, suspended in midair hoping that she would reach out as well and grant her wish.

She could not.

She must not.

But a mother’s heart is easily swayed by the cries of her child.

And as much as she wanted to deny it, she has always considered Iocasta as her own.

“Mother,” Iocasta tried to push once more, but it was obvious that her strength was waning, but still she continued pushing, her face was now as pale as the moon outside and her chest continued to heave as she tried to chase the breath that seems to run out from her body.

She cannot help but feel a knot twist in her belly as she saw how her child’s face was contorted in pain.

Her heart cannot take it anymore.

She rushed to the side of Iocasta’s bed and as soon as she was within reach, Iocasta’s hand grasped her arm in vice grip, letting out a loud scream. The witch’s body seemed to lift itself up from the bed and collapse the moment the new member of the Spellman family was born in to the world.

“Thank you, Mother.” Iocasta smiled at her, her voice barely a whisper.

She just looked at the girl – no – the woman lying before her. Her face remained as unreadable as she first entered the room. She then shifted her gaze from her child to this new babe who remained quiet in the arms of its midwife.

“It’s a girl, my lady.” Agnetha stared at her. Shock and grief were easily seen on her face.

“A girl, mother,” Iocasta smiled proudly, her face pale, her breath shallow, “The first female babe born of a Spellman blood in centuries. Isn’t it wonderful, Mother?”

She didn’t replied, she doesn’t have the heart to tell her hopeful child that her baby was still-born, she just looked at the bundle of cloth in the arms of the midwife.

“What’s going on?” Iocasta fought that nagging urge to sleep, her eyes were heavy and weary, the lady of the house looked at the midwife and saw the grim expression on her face. “Is there… I don’t hear her crying. Why isn’t she crying? What’s going on?”

Despite of Iocasta’s exhaustion, the younger witch tried to sit up, tried to reach out to her new born babe. She was so pale that her skin was nearly transluscent.

Her child no longer need to hear her midwife’s reply. The silence of the room was more than enough to confirm what she dreaded.

Another stillbirth.

Another Spellman child – a girl nonetheless - gone.

Agnetha solemnly laid the baby on the mother’s arms. The joy that the mother felt a moment earlier is all but gone.

“She is so beautiful.” She whispered, a silent sob escaped her lips and Hecate could feel the younger woman’s body tremble, pinky finger tracing the babe’s little nose “so small… so perfect… ”

Iocasta whispered a lullaby unto the child’s ears, rocking back and forth with her arms wrapped protectively around the babe’s tiny body.

I am here mother, I am here, I have not left.

Hecate heard a soft voice in the wind and a soft caress on her cheek.  Surprised, Hecate looked over her shoulder and saw the little girl with the most beautiful red curls standing behind her, hands reaching out to her in plea.

Please don’t let them take me. I don’t want to go.

Hecate shifted her head from the soul of the child to the lifeless babe in Iocasta’s arms.

Curses be damned.

Hecate knew that what she is about to do is against the law of nature and how her existence will be endangered by this decision. But enough was enough, if she must split her soul just to make sure that her children will no longer suffer from a curse they were not supposed to be subjected in the first place, then she will be more than happy to do so.

Hecate whispered a spell into Iocasta’s ear, sending the younger witch into a deep slumber, took the babe from her arms and sent the midwife out of the room. She knows that Augustus Spellman was waiting outside the door, she doesn’t have the heart to tell that man that he lost another child from that God damned curse.

Hecate bit her thumb until it a golden light bled out of her freshly cut wound and with that liquid light – her blood – she drew a circle surrounding her and the baby in her arms, and before her would closed, she let the glowing liquid fall upon the lifeless babe’s lips.

One for sorrow

Two for joy

Three for a girl

Four for a boy

Hecate began to chant, her voice echoed within the corners of the bed chamber, like the sound of a pebble thrown into a deep well.

Five for silvers

Six for gold

Seven for a secret never to be told

Around her, she could feel the old spirits trying to drag the child’s soul away from her. But it seems to her that the child’s soul is just as stubborn as she is. The young soul clutched tightly upon her scarlet skirt, a red thread wrapped around the girl’s little fingers, connecting hers and the girl’s soul together in one place. Entwined.

Eight for a wish

Nine for a kiss

With an old forgotten chant, she whispered the spell that will bind the child’s soul back into her body, and to ensure that neither the new god nor the coven’s Dark Lord will lay claim on this child’s soul, she took a piece of her own soul and bestowed it into the child – along with the numerous gift of magic that laid in every fiber of her existence – and used it as a glue to ensure that she shall not pass before her time.

Ten for a time of joyous bliss

Hecate heard the thunder roared outside, a quick flicker of light filled the room for a split second and when it is gone, so does the light from every candle that once illuminated the chamber. Everything in the room began to shake, rattle, and an undeniable smell of sulfur and sage started to fill the room.

So they came for the babe.

There was something with this girl that both the new God and the Dark Lord wanted to lay claim with the babe’s soul. She felt the dark battle for the babe’s life surrounding her. The last visage of her magic being snuffed as she fought to have this babe have a chance for life and give life if she so choses in the future. She felt the wrath of the New God and the Dark Lord surrounding her as she refused to surrender the babe’s soul unto them.

With the last drop of magic that runs in her veins, she called forth the names of her kin.

The Old Gods.

The ones that were forgotten.

To guard and protect the House of Spellman for she knows that the Dark Lord and the New God will do everything in their power to punish this family, her children, for her defiance against their will. And with her magic being at its weakest, she knew she could no longer do anything to protect them.

She felt something snapped within her, she felt it burn and simmer deep in her body before it died along with the candles that previously illuminated the room she occupied with the babe and her unconscious child.

She continued to chant, singing the names of the Old Gods, the ones that made the very fabric of the universe, the cosmos, to give her strength. She felt strong gust of wind knocking her off her feet and into her knees. She held the babe close to her chest and with the last breath of her magic, she breathe life into the babe’s lips and when she did, she felt like the world stopped turning.

It was the grandfather’s clock chiming that brought her back into this reality.

She felt the babe gasped its first breath, hiccups, and then there it was…

The loud wail of cries escaped from the babe’s lips, proclaiming her arrival on earth.

Hecate could still feel the New God and the Dark Lord’s presence in the room, and yet she smiled. She smiled because she knows that they could no longer do anything to stop fate.

The clock continued to chime, heralding the babe’s birth. A new goddess’s birth.

A female babe was born from her soul. Now, this babe is as much as her child as it was Iocasta and Augustus’.

Hecate cooed, she let gravity pull her into the floor and from where she sat, she rocked the babe in her arms, calming the baby girl with the made up melody she didn’t realized she was humming.

The babe’s eye began to open and stare at her, unseeing in the darkness. But she could see her, the babe in her arms, clear as day. Her skin glowed in the dark with touches of silver and gold and she felt inexplicable warmth deep within her heart when the babe’s hand reached out for her face. She felt renewed, like she was born anew when her eyes met the babe’s. She was overwhelmed with emotions that she forgot had once existed within her had not realized she had been crying with joy as she continue to hum, calming the babe with her voice.

Hecate could not help but laugh when the babe farted in her arms and all of a sudden, the candles in the room were lighted.

”Mother, you did it,” Hecate heard Iocasta, the young witch waking up from her deep slumber.

“She was meant to be here, child,” Hecate handed the babe to the new mother, “She chose to remain here, I just tied the necessary knots to ensure that she does stay.”

The double doors of the bedchamber bursts open, revealing a ragged looking Augustus. His eyes rimmed red, his cheeks raw from rubbing his tears away, followed by an equally exhausted Agnetha, who could not hide the look of surprise on her face when she saw Iocasta nursing the new born babe.

“Mother of mothers, you saved her.” Augustus cried the moment he reached Iocasta’s bed and knelt to witness the perfection that is her wife and new born child. He cried for he cannot believe his eyes, the babe that Agnetha pronounced dead is alive, and looked as perfect as his wife, “You saved her.”

Hecate shook her head, a small smile gracing her lips, “I believe it is the child that saved me.”

Agnetha looked at Hecate disapprovingly, she knew that she will be punished by the Dark Lord for this babe’s birth, but what can she, a mere witch, could do against a former deity. Hecate might be powerless, that is true, but she remained a Goddess nonetheless.

“A Saturnalia miracle.” Hecate announced proudly, “our miracle.”

“What’s her name, my Lord?” Agnetha asked.

Augustus looked at the Goddess who now stood at the foot of the bed, and then he answered, “Zelda Phiona.” He said proudly.

“A dark battle of a fair lady.” Hecate supplied, “a very fitting name. She will face many adversity as a Spellman and grow very fair much like her mother.”

Augustus shook his head, pushing himself off from his wife side and to the woman who brought his daughter back to life.

“No, Mother,” He said, “Blessed gift of a god-dess,” Augustus wrapped his arms around Hecate, “Thank you, Mother Hecate, thank you.”

“Welcome, my dearest Zelda.” Iocasta whispered to her baby’s ear, “Zelda Phiona Spellman. It’s perfect.”

Zelda’s lip curled into a smile as she closed her eyes, falling asleep as she suckled upon her mother’s breast.

Zelda Phiona, Hecate muttered to herself.

Zelda Phiona Spellman.

Welcome home.

[thepoolscene]

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FILLER FALLS IN DRAMATIC UPSET, WHILE VAN BOENING ALSO CRASHES OUT

FILLER FALLS IN DRAMATIC UPSET, WHILE VAN BOENING ALSO CRASHES OUT

Finland’s Casper Matikainen takes down the defending champion in wild day in Doha as 32 players set for a sprint to the World 9-ball crown.

By Ted Lerner WPA Media Officer Photos Credit WPA

(Doha, Qatar)–Finland’s Casper Matikainen came into his round of 64 match at the World 9-ball Championship today versus the defending champion and world number 1 Joshua Filler feeling relaxed and ready for battle. He figured the German great would bring his usual fire, but he also knew that Filler might also take his eye off the proverbial ball. After all, the 23 year old Finn wasn’t exactly the most feared name in a field of absolute monsters.

So even when the self-described “King” of pool jumped out to a 4-1 lead, Matikainen never lost hope, as Filler had gotten a few lucky rolls and wasn’t playing all that great, while the Finn had a few rolls go against him.

The mental strategy soon started to bear fruit for the cool-headed blonde. Slowly, and increasingly surely, Matikainen crawled even, and then took the lead while at the same time Filler started to get sloppy, lose focus and even showed some signs of panic. From 4-1 down Matikainen calmly won 9 out of the next ten frames.  After a brief hiccup on the hill that allowed Filler to claim two quick racks, the steady Finn held his nerve and closed out the biggest shock of the tournament so far, an 11-7 upset of the defending champion.

“He’s the world champion and he’s playing and I’m not there in the big tournaments and maybe he’s thinking it’s an easy win,” the 22 year old Matikainen said afterward.  “I felt that Joshua had the pressure because he’s the world champion and I was really relaxed at the table and that helped me and I just got it done.”

Matikainen’s massive win was but one huge result on a dramatic day in Doha that saw some of pool’s biggest names dumped out, while others were taken to the absolute limits. With the field now down to the final 32, the next two days promises to be one of the most exciting and fascinating Battle Royale’s of 9-ball we’ve seen in years.

America’s Shane Van Boening had come to Doha a heavy favorite this year and for good reason. His last three starts here ended with two runner ups and a spot in the semis last year. But several early mistakes against Taiwan’s Liu Ri Teng was all it took for the Taiwanese to grab a commanding lead at 10-4. The American mounted a valiant fight back, but the alternate break format meant the hole was too deep. Liu sent Van Boening packing in the round of 64 with a humbling 11-8 defeat.

After his runner up finish at the US Open in Las Vegas last April, former champion Wu Jiaqing figured to go far here in Doha. But Wu came up against fellow compatriot Xu Xiaocong, who is one of a slew of quality young talents coming out of China. Xu has impressed all week here and  against Wu he turned his game up several notches, crushing the former Boy Wonder 11-5.

The Taiwanese are almost sure to have one, possibly two players in the semis after tomorrow as Team Taipei looked absolutely marvelous today. It isn’t easy picking a favorite out of these world beaters but World 10-ball Champion Ko Ping Chung would probably be at the top of most punters betting sheets.  The slightly built and painfully shy 22 year old is clearly at the top of his game but he even he barely escaped in a harrowing match against Hungary’s talented Oliver Szolnoki.

Szolnoki, another bright European prospect, played the match of his young career and had “Little” Ko on the ropes, shooting out to a 7-3, then 8-5 lead. The fresh-faced Hungarian reached the hill first, but Ko then displayed the courage and guts that only champions can pull off.  In a nervy and tense sudden death rack, the Taiwanese made a series of surreal pressure shots to eek out the victory.

Little Ko’s older brother and two-time former world champion Pin Yi also won today, easily defeating Japan’s Yukio Akagariyama, 11-5. Fellow Taiwanese Chang Jung Lin, Chang Yu Lung, Lin Wu Kun and Kevin Chang all won their round of 64 matches today. In all seven Taiwanese made it through to the round of 32.

2016 World 9-ball champion Albin Ouschan of Austria looks to be in very fine form this year, as he easily defeated Taiwan’s Lin Ta Li 11-5.  Fellow Austrian Max Lechner continued his rise this year with an 11-4 win over Lithuania’s Pijus Labutis. 

The Russian contingent also put in solid performances today. Veteran Ruslan Chinakhov took down American Corey Duel 11-3, while youngster Fedor Gorst stayed alive with an 11-8 win over Slovakia’s Jakub Koniar.

2012 World 9-ball Champion Darren Appleton has been quietly playing himself back into game shape over the last few months and his solid victory today over Albanian star and European Mosconi team member Eklent Kaci could be a portent for the rest of the field. The Englishman battled back from a 4-0 deficit, and then turned the screws on the Albanian for a quality 11-6 win. In his remarkable heyday from 2008 to 2015, Appleton famously grinded out championships by the truckload and that bulldog mentality definitely was on display this afternoon.

The Philippines had only three players in the final 64 but all three made it through today. 2017 World 9-ball champion Carlo Biado got taken to the limit by Qatari veteran Bashar Hussein, before breaking and running the last rack for an 11-10 win. Also winning today for the Team Pinoy were Johann Chua and Jeffrey Ignacio.

The Polish contingent has been getting stronger by the year and they showed their quality today with three of their stars pushing through to the final 32. Mieszko Fortunski, Wojciech Szewczyk, and Mateusz Sniegocki all won handily.

Also advancing today were the USA’s Billy Thorpe, Singapore’s Aloysius Yapp, China’s Liu Haitao, Greece’s Alexander Kazakis, Spain’s Francisco Sanchez Ruiz, Estonia’s Dennis Grabe, England’s Chris Melling, Canada’s Alex Pagulayan, Qatar’s Waleed Majid, Vietnam’s Do The Kien, and Hong Kong’s young upstart Yip Kin Ling.

The penultimate day of the World 9-ball championship will be extremely busy as the field will be whittled down to the final four at the end of the days’ action. 

Play on day 3, Monday, Dec. 16th will begin at 10am Doha time(GMT +3). All matches will be single elimination knockout race to 11, alternate break.  

The winner of the 2019 World 9-ball Championship will receive $30,000. The total prize fund is $150,00.

*The 2019 WPA World 9-ball Championship takes place at the Qatar Billiards and Snooker Federation in Doha, Qatar from December 10-17, 2019. The event is hosted by The Qatar Billiard and Snooker Federation(QBSF), and is sanctioned by the World Pool Billiard Association, the governing body of the sport of pool.

Fans around the world will be able to view live scoring, results, brackets and live streaming of many of the matches via the QBSF’s free live streaming platform at esnooker.pl.  Multiple tables will be available to view online at no charge to the public.

Results Final 64

Casper Matikainen (FIN) 11 – 7 Joshua Filler (GER)

Yip Kin Ling (HKG) 11 – 5 John Morra (CAN)

Albin Ouschan (AUT) 11 – 5 Lin Ta Li (TPE)

Denis Grabe (EST) 11 – 8 Marc Bijsterbosch (NED)

Jung Lin Chang (TPE) 11 – 9 Dang Jinhu (CHN)

Mieszko Fortunski (POL) 11 – 8 Thorsten Hohmann (GER)

Francisco Sanchez Ruiz (ESP) 11 – 6 Konrad Juszczyszyn (POL)

Xu Xiaocong (CHN) 11 – 5 Wu Jiaqing (CHN)

Alexander Kazakis (GRE) 11 – 8 Radoslaw Babica (POL)

Liu Haitao (CHN) 11 – 9  Jalal Al Sarisi  (VEN)

Naoyuki Oi (JPN) 11 – 7 Petri Makkonen (FIN)

Johann Chua (PHL) 11 – 5 Enrique Rojas (CHL)

Alex Pagulayan (CAN) 11 – 3 Karol Skowerski (POL)

Chang Yu Lung (TPE) 11 – 9 Masato Yoshioka (JPN)

Billy Thorpe (USA) 11 – 6 Kong Dejing (CHN)

Carlo Biado (PHL) 11 – 10 Bashar Hussain (QAT)

Chung Ko Ping (TPE) 11 – 10  Oliver Szolnoki (HUN)

Lin Wu Kun (TPE) 11 – 7 Damianos Giallourakis (GRE)

Maximilian Lechner (AUT) 11 – 4 Pijus Labutis (LTH)

Ruslan Chinakhov (RUS)  11 – 3 Corey Duel (USA)

Chris Melling (ENG)  11 – 7 Mohammad Berjaoui (LEB)

Do The Kien (VET) 11 – 5 David Alcaide (ESP)

Wojciech Szewczyk (POL) 11 – 6 Jang Moonseok (KOR)

Waleed Majid (QAT) 11 – 10 Ralf Souquet (GER)

Pin Yi Ko (TPE) 11 – 5 Yukio Akagariyama (JPN)

Jeffrey Ignacio (PHL) 11 – 6 Stephen Holem (CAN)

Aloysius Yapp (SIN) 11 – 9  Xue Zhenqi (CHN)

Darren Appleton (ENG) 11 – 6 Eklent Kaci (ALB)

Fedor Gorst (RUS) 11 – 8 Jakub Koniar (SVK)

Yu Hsuan Cheng (TPE) 11 – 10 Tomasz Kaplan (POL)

Mateusz Sniegocki (POL) 11 – 7 Ivar Saris (NED)

Liu Ri Teng (TPE) 11 – 8 Shane Van Boening (USA)

One loss side group matches

Winner moves on to final 64 KO stage. Loser is out

Group 1

Mateusz Sniegocki (POL) 9 – 4 Hasan Hwaidi (IRQ)

Bashar Hussain (QAT) 9 – 6 Jerico Bonus (PHL)

Group 2

Fedor Gorst (RUS) 9 – 2 Mohammad Soufi (SYR)

Ruslan Chinakhov (RUS) 9 – 3 Kong Bu Hong (HKG)

Group 3

Dang Jinhu (CHN) 9 – 1 Gerson Martinez (PER)

Wu Jiaqing (CHN) 9 – 3 Saki Kanatlar (TRK)

Group 4

Jalal Al Sarisi (VEN) 9 – 8 Matt Edwards (NZL)

Thorsten Hohmann (GER) 9 – 1 Marc Vidal (ESP)

Group 5

Wojciech Szewczyk (POL) 9 – 8 Mohammad Al Amin (BAN)

Waleed Majid (QAT) 9 – 5 Woo Seung Ryu (KOR)

Group 6

Do The Kiem (VET)  9 – 6 Ali Alobaidli (QAT)

Tomasz Kaplan (POL) 9 – 4 Ricky Yang (IND)

Group 7

Radoslaw Babica (POL) 9 – 6 Abdulatif Alfawal (QAT)

Liu Ri Teng (TPE) 9 – 1 Nadim Okbani (ALG)

Group 8

Carlo Biado (PHL) 9 – 4 Hassan Shahada (JOR)

Lin Ta Li (TPE) 9 – 6 Abdullah Alyusef (KUW)

Group 9

Stephen Holem (CAN) 9 – 4 Khaled Alghamdi (KSR)

Casper Matikainen (FIN) 9 – 5 Phone Myint Kyaw (MYR)

Group 10

Mohammad Berjaoui (LEB) 9 – 5 Max Eberle (USA)

Yukio Akagariyama (JPN) 9 – 4 Ali Maghsoud (IRA)

Group 11

Karol Slowerski (POL) 9 – 4 Hunter Lombardo (USA)

Eklent Kaci (ALB)  9 – 3 Ahmad Aldelaimi (KUW)

Group 12

Marc Bijsterbosch (NED) 9 – 5  Niels Feijen (NED)

Daminanos Giallourakis (GRE)  9 – 3 Abdullah Alshammari (KSR)

Group 13

Masato Yoshioka (JPN) 9 – 4 Clark Sullivan (NZE)

Xue Zhenqi (CHN) 9 – 7 Luis Lemus (GTM)

Group 14

Darren Appleton (ENG) 9 – 6 Richard Halliday (RSA)

Jakub Koniar (SLV) 9 – 3 Fayaz Hussain (MAL)

Group 15

Jang Moonseok (KOR) 9 – 2 Robbie Capito (HKG)

Corey Duel (USA) 9 – 8 Wang Can (CHN)

Group 16

Xu Xiaocong (CHN) 9 – 0 Mohamed El Raousti (ALG)

Lin Wu Kun (TPE) 9 – 3 Riccardo Sini (ITA)

[fitnesshealthyoga-blog]

New Post has been published on https://fitnesshealthyoga.com/maggi-seasoning-the-bright-yellow-package-is-what-so-many-global-cuisines-have-in-common/

Maggi seasoning: The bright yellow package is what so many global cuisines have in common

Say the word “Maggi,” and like Pavlov’s dogs my mouth starts watering for the brick of instant noodles wrapped in bright yellow plastic that my mom would keep on the hardest-to-reach shelves of our pantry. It was, and still is, impossible to resist the beloved noodles that cook in as little as 2 minutes. As India’s more heavily spiced answer to Top Ramen, Maggi delivers the same satisfying tangle of chewy noodles but swaps a milder seasoning packet for one with a lot more punch.

It was one of my favorite after-school snacks, something a distracted teenager could whip up while simultaneously texting friends about our crushes, watching MTV’s “Total Request Live” and supposedly doing calculus homework. To this day, it’s one of my favorite meals to eat when I’m under the weather. Some people crave chicken noodle soup, but I reach for the sinus-clearing and life-affirming package of masala Maggi. The instant noodles have become so entwined in the Indian mealtime lexicon, even after a five-month recall and lead crisis in 2015, they are used as the base for everything from omelets to pizza.

Say the word “Maggi” to Andrea Nguyen, and it elicits a similar, visceral, nostalgic response but for a completely different product. For Nguyen, a Vietnamese writer, cook and the author of “Vietnamese Food Any Day,” Maggi means a small, brown glass bottle with a square bottom and slender neck filled with an inky seasoning sauce. “It is transformative to many foods but is really part of the flavor profile of banh mi,” she notes. “You can’t quite get real banh mi without Maggi.” For Mexican American chef Wesley Avila in Los Angeles, Maggi also denotes a beloved seasoning sauce that gives stews and meat an extra oomph. But the version Avila loves is Jugo Maggi, more syrupy and milder than its Vietnamese counterpart.

[Cooking Vietnamese food in America used to require a trip to an Asian market. No more.]

For D.C.-based chef Kwame Onwuachi, Maggi was also a staple in his kitchen growing up when making Nigerian and Jamaican dishes. Except, if you say “Maggi” to Onwuachi, it means one thing only: foil-wrapped bouillon cubes that took such dishes as jollof rice and hearty soups to new, umami-packed heights. Shayma Saadat, a Pakistani Afghani cook and food writer who lives in Toronto, also has fond memories of the bouillon cubes she would pick up from South Asian grocery stores to give daals and yakhni, a deeply flavorful broth used to make rice dishes, a meaty infusion of flavor. But Maggi for Saadat also means tall glass bottles filled with a zippy chile garlic sauce. “I always keep a bottle in my fridge,” Saadat says.

(Stacy Zarin Goldberg for The Washington Post; food styling by Amanda Soto/The Washington Post)

Peek into homes and restaurants in China, Poland, the Philippines, France and Australia, and you’ll probably find Maggi products — most often a seasoning sauce, bouillon cube, noodle or soup mix — on one of the shelves. The seasoning sauce Maggi Würze, which is reminiscent of the flavor of lovage, has become so popular and beloved in Germany that Germans often colloquially referent to lovage as “maggikraut.” Like salt, fat, acid and heat, Maggi is one of the few great unifiers of the world’s kitchens and may be Switzerland’s largest and most influential culinary contribution.

[The future of American food is here, and it’s chicken tikka poutine and meatball dumplings]

In 1886, the Swiss government asked Julius Maggi, a miller, to create a food product that would be easy and quick to make but would be nutritious and affordable for the working-class population. Meat was expensive, and only the wealthy could afford to make it part of their regular diets. So Maggi created three instant soups — two made from peas and one made from beans. Shortly after, Maggi invented his namesake seasoning, a dark, concentrated sauce made from hydrolyzed vegetable protein. The result made soups, consommes and other foods taste meaty without animal protein. Maggi continued to innovate — at one point creating mock-turtle flavored soup and even a truffle-flavored Maggi seasoning sauce — and they became an instant success, spreading to Germany, France and Britain by 1888.

Thanks to such forces as colonization, immigration and trade deals, the products also quickly became popular in countries across Asia and Africa. “Maggi products were first imported into China as early as the 1930s,” says Nelson Pena, president of baking and global foods at Nestlé USA, Maggi’s parent company. Maggi eventually brought a China-specific blend to market in 1994. Today, the French version of Maggi is still highly revered in Vietnam, Nguyen says. “For cooking, you use the Chinese version,” she says. “If you really want to impress people, you whip out the French version. It’s more expensive.”

Maggi continued to expand its product line, first introducing noodles to Malaysia in the 1970s, before it eventually gained extreme popularity in India and decent market share in such places as South Africa, Ukraine and New Zealand, Pena says. Today, the Maggi empire — one of Nestlé’s billion-dollar brands — sells more than 7,000 products across 98 countries. All of them remain extremely affordable.

The Maggi expansion hasn’t been without hiccups, particularly in India. In 2015, after government tests there showed elevated levels of lead (along with MSG, which is legal in India but requires a warning label that wasn’t on the packages), Indian consumers were so incensed they burned the noodles in the streets, along with photos of celebrity Maggi endorsers. The crisis went on for months, with India eventually banning Maggi products nationwide and Nestlé — while insisting that the government tests were wrong — recalling the products, incinerating 37,000 tons of them. Later that year, after Nestlé sued, India’s High Court lifted the ban, allowing the company to resume sales if the products passed extensive tests, which they did. By the following spring, Maggi was at the top of India’s noodle business again, with 50 percent market share.

Activists burn packets of Maggi noodles during a 2015 protest in Kolkata, India. (Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP/Getty Images)

Even though the products that Maggi sells in each market are very different, they have become integral to the cuisines of many countries. Nguyen, Avila, Onwuachi and Saadat agreed that Maggi seasoning sauces and bouillon cubes give food this umami je ne sais quoi. No one could quite describe what the taste of Maggi was, but they could definitely tell if it was missing from a dish.

The flavor is so necessary that Avila and Onwuachi, both chefs who have cooked in fine-dining kitchens, insist on using Maggi at their restaurants. At Guerrilla Tacos in Los Angeles, Avila uses Jugo Maggi in a marinade for his pork char xui tacos. You can also find it in the quesadilla, where maitake mushrooms are tossed with Jugo Maggi, soy sauce, garlic and ginger. He also avidly cooks with it at home, noting that it is one of the secret weapons in his carne asada.

Onwuachi takes his commitment to Maggi to new heights at his D.C. restaurant Kith and Kin. “I import cubes of Maggi from Nigeria,” he says with a laugh. “We use it to make suya and other dishes. I need it for that traditional taste.” The Maggi is so important to the kitchen, one prep cook has the pleasurable task of unwrapping hundreds of foil-wrapped bouillon cubes, one-by-one, before service.

[At Kith and Kin, chef Kwame Onwuachi tells his story — and hits his stride]

Maggi, like Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Starbucks, is adept at localization, adapting products to fit the flavor palates of local markets. This helps to explain its global success. “Where possible, we optimize our sourcing and selectively source ingredients locally that drive authentic taste and flavor, like herbs and spices,” notes Pena. On one hand, this is advantageous for local cooks (and curious Maggi collectors). On the other hand, it makes it difficult to substitute one Maggi product with a similar one from another country.

Avila has tasted the Chinese version of Maggi seasoning sauce but much prefers the light flavor of Jugo Maggi. Nguyen insists the French version tastes more high-end than the Vietnamese version, which is closer to soy sauce. And Onwuachi will use only Maggi bouillon cubes from Nigeria for certain dishes and cubes from Jamaica for others. Saadat says that she once tried to use Maggi bouillon cubes purchased from a Canadian supermarket instead of a South Asian grocery store and found them to be completely lacking in flavor and nearly inedible.

With such products as 2 Minute Cheese-flavored instant noodles and instant mushroom soups, Maggi surprisingly isn’t a household name in the United States. According to Pena, Maggi’s biggest markets are Germany, India, Brazil, the Middle East and West Africa. Many Maggi products contain MSG, which naturally occurs in hydrolyzed vegetable protein. And though MSG has been falsely maligned in headlines, there is no doubt that it adds a deep umami flavor to anything it touches. For now, acquiring a bottle or cube of Maggi usually requires wandering down the “international aisle” at a supermarket. If you’re lucky, you might just find five different versions.

More from Voraciously:

Far from her homeland, my mother finds comfort at a Patel Brothers grocery store

On this the Italians all agree: True ragu needs time.

Cooking Vietnamese food in America used to require a trip to an Asian market. No more.

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[riusugoi]

Scientists Are Totally Rethinking Animal Cognition- ROSS ANDERSEN

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/03/what-the-crow-knows/580726/?fbclid=IwAR1WSTu3lLYRuaGlxAZ0hBX050b4rSjPMzO5Yc8_U5TjymS6mdDk1_R5QpU

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In the state of Gujarat, where Gandhi grew up, I saw Jain monks walking barefoot in the cool morning hours to avoid car travel, an activity they regard as irredeemably violent, given the damage it inflicts on living organisms, from insects to larger animals. The monks refuse to eat root vegetables, lest their removal from the earth disturb delicate subterranean ecosystems. Their white robes are cotton, not silk, which would require the destruction of silkworms. During monsoon season, they forgo travel, to avoid splashing through puddles filled with microbes, whose existence Jains posited well before they appeared under Western microscopes. 

For many scientists, the resonant mystery is no longer which animals are conscious, but which are not.

David Chalmers, one of the world’s most respected philosophers on the subject, once told me that consciousness could be a fundamental feature of the universe, like space-time or energy. He said it might be tied to the diaphanous, indeterminate workings of the quantum world, or something nonphysical.

Crows recognize individual human faces. They are known to blare vicious caws at people they dislike, but for favored humans, they sometimes leave gifts—buttons or shiny bits of glass—where the person will be sure to notice, like votive offerings.

If these behaviors add up to consciousness, it means one of two things: Either consciousness evolved twice, at least, across the long course of evolutionary history, or it evolved sometime before birds and mammals went on their separate evolutionary journeys. Both scenarios would give us reason to believe that nature can knit molecules into waking minds more easily than previously guessed. This would mean that all across the planet, animals large and small are constantly generating vivid experiences that bear some relationship to our own

Millions of fish once swam in the Yamuna River, before it was desecrated by the human technosphere, which now reaches into nearly every body of water on Earth. Even the deepest point in the ocean is littered with trash: A grocery bag was recently seen drifting along the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

We last swam in the same gene pool with the animals that evolved into fish about 460 million years ago, more than 100 million years before we split from birds. The notion that we are kin across this expanse of time has proved too radical for some, which is one reason the ever-changing universe described by Darwin has been slow to lodge in the collective human consciousness. And yet, our hands are converted fins, our hiccups the relics of gill-breathing.

They also seem to be capable of deception. Female trout “fake orgasms,” quivering as though they’re about to lay eggs, perhaps so that undesired males will release their sperm and be on their way. We have high-definition footage of grouper fish teaming up with eels to scare prey out of reefs, the two coordinating their actions with sophisticated head signals. This behavior suggests that fish possess a theory of mind, an ability to speculate about the mental states of other beings.

In the lab, when trout lips are injected with acid, the fish do not merely respond at the site. They rock their entire bodies back and forth, hyperventilating, rubbing their mouths against their tanks’ sides or gravel bottoms. These behaviors cease when the fish are given morphine.

Fish pain is something different from our own pain. In the elaborate mirrored hall that is human consciousness, pain takes on existential dimensions. Because we know that death looms, and grieve for the loss of richly imagined futures, it’s tempting to imagine that our pain is the most profound of all suffering. But we would do well to remember that our perspective can make our pain easier to bear, if only by giving it an expiration date. When we pull a less cognitively blessed fish up from the pressured depths too quickly, and barometric trauma fills its bloodstream with tissue-burning acid, its on-deck thrashing might be a silent scream, born of the fish’s belief that it has entered a permanent state of extreme suffering.

The monk and I had the trail to ourselves for a moment. All was silent but for a buzzing sound that I traced to a spindly black wasp bobbing above a dense clump of bougainvillea. The last ancestor this wasp and I shared likely lived more than 700 million years ago. The insect’s appearance reinforced this sense of evolutionary remoteness. The elongated shape and micro-tiled matte finish of its eyes made it seem too alien to be conscious. But appearances can deceive: Some wasps are thought to have evolved large eyes to observe social cues, and members of certain wasp species can learn the facial features of individual colony members.

Wasps, like bees and ants, are hymenopterans, an order of animals that displays strikingly sophisticated behaviors. Ants build body-to-body bridges that allow whole colonies to cross gaps in their terrain. Lab-bound honeybees can learn to recognize abstract concepts, including “similar to,” “different from,” and “zero.” Honeybees also learn from one another. If one picks up a novel nectar-extraction technique, surrounding bees may mimic the behavior, causing it to cascade across the colony, or even through generations.

In one experiment, honeybees were attracted to a boat at the center of a lake, which scientists had stocked with sugar water. When the bees flew back to the hive, they communicated the boat’s location with waggle dances. The hive’s other bees would usually set out immediately for a newly revealed nectar lode. But in this case, they stayed put, as though they’d consulted a mental map and dismissed the possibility of flowers in the middle of a lake. Other scientists were not able to replicate this result, but different experiments suggest that bees are capable of consulting a mental map in this way.

Fruit flies have only 250,000 neurons, and they too display complex behaviors. In lab experiments, when faced with dim mating prospects, some seek out alcohol, the consciousness-altering substance that’s available to them in nature in broken-open, fermenting fruit.

The first animals to direct themselves through three-dimensional space would have encountered a new set of problems whose solution may have been the evolution of consciousness. Take the black wasp. As it hovered above the bougainvillea’s tissue-thin petals, a great deal of information—sunlight, sound vibrations, floral scents—rushed into its fibrous exoskull. But these information streams arrived in its brain at different times. To form an accurate and continuous account of the external world, the wasp needed to sync these signals. And it needed to correct any errors introduced by its own movements, a difficult trick given that some of its sensors are mounted on body parts that are themselves mobile, not least its swiveling head.

Nor do we experience the mechanisms that convert our desires into movements. When I wished to begin hiking up the mountain again, I would simply set off, without thinking about the individual muscle contractions that each step required. When a wasp flies, it is probably not aware of its every wing beat. It may simply will itself through space.

If one of the wasp’s aquatic ancestors experienced Earth’s first embryonic consciousness, it would have been nothing like our own consciousness. It may have been colorless and barren of sharply defined objects. It may have been episodic, flickering on in some situations and off in others. It may have been a murkily sensed perimeter of binary feelings, a bubble of good and bad experienced by something central and unitary. To those of us who have seen stars shining on the far side of the cosmos, this existence would be claustrophobic to a degree that is scarcely imaginable. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t conscious.

As it trailed off, I wondered whether, in the centuries to come, this place might become something more than a Jain house of worship. Maybe it will become a place to mark a moment in human history, when we awakened from the dream that we are the only minds that nature brought into being. Maybe people will come here from all corners of the Earth to pay their respects to Neminath, who is, after all, only a stand-in for whoever it was who first heard animal screams and understood their meaning.

[bh6-fanfictionfeed]

Kindred Brothers

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2jUYWhd

by AndrewJohnston

Hiccup is in trouble; He is excelling at Dragon training and the chances that he will be chosen to fight the Nightmare is high. But with having his best friend from the same species he ought to kill, what should he do? He goes to Gothi for answers, who just gives him a riddle: {Almond eyes, full of spark, a marshmallow dream. 1000 years, almost there, your kin brother's here.}

Words: 4436, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: Big Hero 6 (2014), How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: Gen

Characters: Hiro Hamada, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, Go Go Tomago, Wasabi-No Ginger, Fred | Fredzilla, Honey Lemon (Marvel), Baymax (Marvel), Toothless (How to Train Your Dragon), Astrid Hofferson, Cass Hamada, Stoick the Vast, Gothi (How to Train Your Dragon)

Additional Tags: Time Travel, Kindred Brothers, Riddles, Prophecy, Friendship, Brotherhood

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2jUYWhd

[cryptocurrencyguide]

Dubbed by long-time crypto-investors as “the noobs”– online lingo for “newbies” – they are ordinary investors hopping onto the latest trend, often with little understanding of how cryptocurrencies work or why they exist.

After researching digital currencies for work last year, personal-finance writer J.R. Duren hopped on his own crypto-roller-coaster. Mr. Duren bought US$5 worth of litecoin in November, and eventually purchased US$400 more, mostly with his credit card. In just a few months, he experienced a rally, a crash and a recovery, with the adrenaline highs and lows that come along. "At first, I was freaking out," Mr. Duren said about watching his portfolio plunge 40 per cent at one point. "The precipitous drop came as a shock." The 39-year-old Floridian is part of the new class of crypto-investors who do not necessarily think bitcoin will replace the U.S. dollar, or that blockchain will revolutionize modern finance or that dentists should have their own currency. Dubbed by long-time crypto-investors as "the noobs"– online lingo for "newbies" – they are ordinary investors hopping onto the latest trend, often with little understanding of how cryptocurrencies work or why they exist. "There has been a big shift in the type of investors we have seen in crypto over the past year," said Angela Walch, a fellow at the UCL Centre for Blockchain Technologies. "It's shifted from a small group of techies to average Joes." Ms. Walch and other experts cited parallels to the late 1990s, when retail investors jumped into stocks such as Pets.com, a short-lived online seller of pet supplies, only to watch their wealth evaporate when the dot-com bubble burst. Bitcoin is the best-known virtual currency but there are now more than 1,500 to choose from, according to market-data website CoinMarketCap, ranging from popular coins such as ether and ripple to obscure coins such as dentacoin, the one intended for dentists. Exactly how many "noobs" bought into the craze last year is unclear because each transaction is pseudonymous, meaning it is linked to a unique digital address, and few exchanges collect or share detailed information about their users. A variety of consumer-friendly websites have made investing much easier, and online forums are now filled with posts from ordinary retail investors who were rarely spotted on the cryptocurrency pages of social news hub Reddit before. Reuters interviewed eight people who recently made their first foray into digital-currency investing. Many were motivated by a fear of missing out on profits during what seemed like a never-ending rally last year. One bitcoin was worth almost US$20,000 in December, up around 1,900 per cent from the start of 2017. As of Monday morning, it was worth around US$10,200. Investors who got into bitcoin before its 2013 crash tend to shrug off the recent downturn, arguing that cryptocurrencies will be worth much more in the future. "As crashes go, this is one of the biggest," said Xavier Levenfiche, who first invested in cryptocurrencies in 2011. "But, in the grand scheme of things, it's a hiccup on the road to greatness." Some retail investors who went big into cryptocurrencies for the first time during the rally last year remain positive. Didi Taihuttu announced in October that he and his family had sold everything they owned – including their business, home, cars and toys – to move to a "digital nomad" camp in Thailand. In an interview, Mr. Taihuttu said he has no regrets. The crypto day trader's portfolio is in the black, and he predicts one bitcoin will be worth between US$30,000 and US$50,000 by year-end.

KIN CHEUNG/THE CANADIAN PRESS REUTERS

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