#in a way the death of an ecosystem is the death of the species itself

[ahamkara-apologist]

OKAY I did not, in fact, forget about this, I merely got very distracted painting miniatures and thus did not actually get onto my computer until now. Time to explain what's been haunting me since Revenant's cutscene showing the Whirlwind occurred and why I think that the horror of the Eliksni losing their homeworld is, if anything, understated. Nor do I think that most fans really understand it either, bc it's a tragedy that's so profound that it just wraps right around to being unbelievable again

So, for starters, I have a bachelor's degree in evolutionary genetics (which is barely anything, but it's enough for me to know that there's a lot I don't know yada yada yada) and work as a researcher in a behavioral genetics lab. We primarily focus on neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism, and I work with the autism models because I'm interested in understanding what genes are interlinked with social behavior. Which is a lot of yapping to say that I work on figuring out what behaviors are intrinsic to a species and what are not...as much as you can attempt to make those claims. We study environmental effects on development and behavior just as much as we study purely genetic ones.

Here's the thing: we cannot fully separate ourselves from our environment. We're merely one thread woven into the full tapestry of the world around us, specifically molded to fit our spot in the ecosystem. Much like an ocean tumbled to a smooth circle by the churning of the tides, our species is the way that it is because of a series of random mutagenic events boosting reproductive success over millions and millions of years. Not only that, but we're dynamic beings as well; our patterns of gene expression can change throughout the course of our life, and does so often in response to great amounts of stress. Sometimes- but not often- these changes are heritable. And, as we are starting to figure out, moving people away from naturalistic environments is often seen by our bodies as a source of stress; people tend to have much better health when they have the ability to interact with and immerse themselves in nature, doubly so when animals are involved. One of the reasons why going out on walks is an effective aid for depressive symptoms is because being among trees reduces stress in of itself. Children who grow up with pets are healthier, and learning to work with animals increases empathy, lowers stress, and primes the immune system.

What happens, then, when access to those outdoors becomes shut off forever? When everything else around you goes extinct? What happens when beautiful fields and woodlands are replaced by the cold metal walls of a ketch, and hours spent roaming with livestock animals or listening to birdsong is replaced with the dim roar of the engines and the whir of machines? Eido speaks about the shanks of House Light with the fondness we might equate to a pet, but it's not the same as being with a real, living animal, feeling its heartbeat and sharing its breath. We know from Inaaks and Namrask's accounts that the times in the Drift grew dire enough that the corpses of the dead were used for sustenance, so pets and major livestock animals certainly did not survive to Sol. Likely only plants and farmed invertebrates (like Misraaks's pickled leeches) were able to be sustained on the ketches due to their simpler life cycles; companion animals are out of the question. In terms of more complex Riisian lifeforms, the Eliksni stand alone.

That's to say nothing of what the absence of a natural circadian rhythm might do; in humans, major depressive disorders and vitamin D deficiency can result from insufficient exposure to sunlight, whereas in birds and other reptiles, anything from impaired reproductive cycles and internal clocks (birds) to metabolic bone disease (lizards and turtles) can result from insufficient exposure to light/dark cycles and UV light. I'm sure that the Eliksni have fake solar lights, given that their society was much more advanced than ours was, but...what if it wasn't good enough? What if those lights had to be stripped for parts, so that better

One of the studies that we do is something called limited bedding and nesting, where pups are reared on a wire cage floor with barely any nesting materials, compared to our standard cages, where the moms get as much soft bedding as they wish. It's an assay done to study how early life adversity affects development on both a somantic and neurological front. Overall, pups reared in LBN environments tend to show significant developmental delays in both somatic and neurological milestones, increased anxiety and depressive-like behaviors, altered risktaking behavior, and cognitive impairments when compared against pups reared in a typical, low-stress environment. Additionally, stress on the mothers tend to result in over-anxious or physically rough means of handling their pups, which is sometimes seen as analogous to abuse. And these are studies where the mother and the pups are given constant access to food and water on a consistent light/dark cycle at a set temperature point; malnutrition or insufficient light/dark cycles is not a factor. I think it's safe to say that life on the ketches during the Drift was much worse than what mice in a lab might experience, and that such hardships did not end in Sol- drekhs and vandals are canonically stunted in growth, with drekhs barely getting enough ether to survive. Sure, some might make it to being captain-sized (aka, the proper size for an adult Eliksni), but they still had to go through that deprivation period to get to it. Which means that it could be possible that Eramis and Inaaks's generation were the last group of Eliksni to develop normally, and everyone hatched post-Whirlwind is deeply fucked up on a biological level

That's not even getting into epigenetics. One of the ways that animals survive rapid changes in their environment or overly stressful events is through epigenetic modification, where the DNA itself is altered in such a way that gene expression changes. I'm not going to get into the technical details of it, but a drastically simplified version can be read like this: your DNA is kind of like a bunch of scrolls on how to make a living organism, with multiple copies on those instructions (ideally with a little variation). Over your lifetime, some of those scrolls are rolled up so that they cannot be read (and thus cannot be transcribed), while some of them are unrolled so that they can be read out (and thus transcribed). Highly traumatic or stressful events, however, can force a LOT of those scrolls that were previously open to be rolled up, and more of those that were previously closed to be rolled out, resulting in a noticible change in gene expression. The vast majority of the time these are somatic changes and are thus non-heritable, but sometimes when the event is traumatizing enough (as in, surviving a life-or-death event), they can affect the germ cells as well, resulting in heritable mutations- such as the children of famine survivors trending towards having higher fat retention than their parents. Such an event was so traumatizing that it altered their parent's genetics to make them more effective at surviving the threat that their predecessors faced.

I think it's safe to say that the literal apocalypse is a bit of a stressful event. Assuming that the Eliksni have genetic material that functions similar enough to our DNA for epigenetic mechanisms to work similarly, and the fact that all survivors of the Whirlwind would have put under that same stress...well. Epigenetic mutations are almost always erased, but there's a small chance that they're passed down a generation, and the more people you put in that situation, the higher the chances are of that happening. The Whirlwind and the Long Drift might have altered the gene pool more than just bottlenecking it to hell and back. I don't think that there's been enough generations since the Whirlwind to see the long-term effects just yet, but the short-term ones would certainly be noticible by now. Sol-born Eliksni are likely significantly different from Riis-born Eliksni in terms of health and developmental milestones after the gauntlet of shit that they went through.

TLDR: These crabs aren't just depressed and loaded with PTSD, they're also probably developmentally fucked up in ways that you can't even begin to imagine

Someone remind me to make a post speculating on how the loss of Riis fucked up Eliksni biology (and how the stress of being in Sol might have caused even more problems on an epigenetic scale) when its not late as shit bc the more I think about it the more and more horrified I get

[literaryvein-reblogs]

A 7-Part Worldbuilding Template

PART 1: The Basics

What is your world called?

Estimate its population:

In one sentence, describe your world:

Is it set on: Earth; Alternate Earth; Not Earth / Another planet

PART 2: Geography

THE NATURAL WORLD Flora & Fauna; Creatures; Landscape; Diseases

How was the world created? How long ago was it created?

How do the laws of physics work?

How does the solar system move? What celestial beings exist (suns, stars, moons, etc.) and how do they relate to the world?

Flora & Fauna

How does the flora differ from region to region?

Do any plants have special or magical properties? Are any dangerous?

Creatures

What kind of wildlife roams which parts of your world? Where are they most commonly found?

How did the wildlife evolve?

Do mythical creatures such as dragons exist? How do they fit into the ecosystem?

Landscape

Where are the mountain ranges? Rivers? Forests? Deserts? Seas?

How does the terrain interact with its inhabitants?

Are there any “natural wonders” in your world? How were they formed?

Diseases

What natural diseases have evolved over time?

How are they transmitted?

How has this affected population growth?

LOCATIONS OF SIGNIFICANCE Capital City; Flags & Symbols

What are the major cities in your world? Ports? Most populated metropolises?

Is your world split geographically? (e.g. rural and urban, north and south, etc.) If so, how?

Capital City

What is the capital city of the world?

Why is it the capital?

Flags & Symbols

How does each city choose to represent itself (crest, flags, signature colors)?

WEATHER

What are the processes of your world that drive weather and ocean patterns?

Are certain regions more vulnerable to certain weather conditions?

Climate

How does the climate differ in each region?

What are the seasons like in your world? How many seasons are there?

PART 3: People

RACES & SPECIES Physical Build; Mannerisms & Etiquette; Customs & Rituals; Festivals

What intelligent species or races populate your world? Dwarves? Elves? Xenomorphs? Other? How did they come to exist?

How does each race or species perceive each other? How do they co-exist?

Physical Build

What do the inhabitants of your world look like? Do they have any distinguishing features?

What is the societal standard for beauty? How might this differ in each region of the world?

Mannerisms & Etiquette

What is the code of conduct between people of different ranks or classes? People of different cities or regions? Elders?

How do people in your world convey non-verbal boredom? Disbelief? Happiness? Respect?

What would be a gesture that is universally insulting in your world?

What etiquette exists in different parts of your world?

Customs & Rituals

Are there any rites of passages in your world? “Coming of age” celebrations? If so, what age marks the transition from child to adult?

What traditions surround death and burial? What about engagements and proposals of marriage?

Festivals

What are the important festivals of your world?

Why are they celebrated?

LANGUAGES Sayings; Accents; Greetings

How many languages exist in your world? How did they originate?

Which language is spoken most? Is there a universal language?

How do naming conventions differ in each region?

Sayings

What are common sayings? Idioms? Insults? “Untranslatable” words that only a certain group of people would understand?

Accents

If different languages exist, how does this affect the accents in your world? What do the accents say about the person (place of origin, social class, level of education, etc.)?

Greetings

How do people of the same race greet each other? How do people of different races greet one another?

Is there an informal and formal way to greet others depending on the level of familiarity (i.e. friends, acquaintances, elders, superiors, etc.)? What are the proper forms of address?

SOCIAL FRAMEWORKS Class or Caste Systems; Family Structure; Marriage

What social frameworks underlie the communities in your world?

What are the social taboos? What would one need to do in order to be kicked out of society?

Class or Caste Systems

Is there a class system? If so, how much emphasis does society place on it?

What are the tell-tale signs that a person belongs to a certain class?

How does class affect professions and trades in your world? Can anyone become a priest or a wizard, for example — or is it a privilege restricted to certain members of the hierarchy?

Family Structure

What is the normal family unit?

What is the social system within a family unit in your world? Patriarchal? Matriarchal?

What constitutes a good father? A good mother? A good child?

Marriage

How is marriage defined in your world? Is marriage a civil or religious institution?

Do people marry for love? If not, why do they marry?

PART 4: Civilization

HISTORY

How did civilization begin?

When was the earliest known record of history?

What were the significant wars that have taken place on your world’s soil? How have they shaped the present?

Can your world’s history be divided into significant eras (e.g. Georgian, Victorian, Edwardian, etc.)?

Myths

What myths exist in your world to explain the cosmos? How might this have in turn shaped religion?

How were stories passed through generations?

CULTURE Literature, Art & Music; Clothing; Cuisine

Is national culture and history a source of pride or shame in your world? How is it preserved?

What are some things that define each culture? What would a person from a certain city, region, or country be proudest of?

Literature, Art & Music

What is the role of the arts in your world’s culture? How is it perceived by society and how has it evolved?

Who are some celebrated or noted artists in history? What they known for?

How might the arts have changed as a result of outside influences (from other regions, cities, races, etc.)?

Are any of the arts taboo? If so, why?

Clothing

What is the customary dress? Is it gendered? If so, how?

What is considered fashionable and how does this differ from region to region?

How does the clothing one wears reflect status?

What is the dress code for each profession? How strictly followed must it be?

Cuisine

What are the regional dishes? How might this differ depending on the climate and environment?

Is there a difference between what the poor and the rich eat? What is considered a luxurious food? What is considered a staple food?

How are mealtimes approached? Is there a set hour to be at the table? Are there traditions that precede or follow a meal?

RELIGION Gods & Deities; Holy Texts; Significant Prophets

How do people worship in your world?

When and where do people worship?

Gods & Deities

Who are the major and minor gods that people worship?

What function do the gods serve in society?

Holy Texts

What (if any) holy texts exist?

How well-known are the scriptures? Would people of all ages be able to recite them on the spot if asked ?

Significant Prophets

Who are the important religious figures in the world?

For what reason are they significant?

EDUCATION

Does formal education exist? If so, who can access it? The rich? The clergy? Everyone in the general population?

If magic exists in your world, how is it studied? Do schools exist to train it?

What are literacy rates among the general population? How does this affect communication and the distribution of information?

LEISURE

How do people spend their leisure time in your world? What forms of entertainment are most common?

Are there any organized sports in your world? How might its rules and regulations differ from the ordinary?

PART 5: Technology, Magic & Weapons

MAGIC SYSTEMS Rules of Magic; Practitioning Magicians

For what purpose is magic used in your world? Who can use it?

What limits are there to its power? What are the consequences of using it?

What is the history of magic and magicians in your world?

How does society view magic? Positively? Negatively? As the Other?

Rules of Magic

How does magic work in your world? Where does it come from?

Is there a language that’s needed in order to call forth magic? If so, what are its roots?

Is magic regulated in any way? What is the governing body?

Practitioning Magicians

What are magicians’ status in society? Are they trusted advisors of kings or charlatans on the road?

How many magicians exist in your world? How do they perceive one another?

TECHNOLOGY

How advanced is the technology in your world? How does it work?

How does technology impact the different parts of society? Transportation? Communication? Medicine?

How does magic and technology interact and co-exist? Is it a rivalry? A co-op? Are there rules and regulations?

WEAPONRY Signature Weapons; Common Weapons

What weapons are predominant in your world (ranged, combat, anti-gravity, etc.) and why?

Who makes the weapons? How do they work? Is it easy to obtain them?

Signature Weapons

Are there special weapons (e.g. Thor’s Hammer)?

How are they made? How many of them exist in the world?

Common Weapons

Are there professions that necessitate the bearing of weapons?

What about religions?

PART 6: Economy

ECONOMICS

On which economic system does your world operate? A market economy? Feudalism? Socialism?

Is there a central bank?

How does the government regulate businesses?

TRADE & COMMERCE Currency; Major Imports & Exports; Natural Resources

How is trade facilitated? Is it carried out by traveling merchants? By a guild? Are there auctions?

What cities, countries, or regions are allies? Trade partners? How has this changed throughout history?

How is the soft power of a region, city, or country determined?

Currency

Is there a universal currency? If not, what are the regional currencies? What is the valuation?

How is the currency circulated and what are the denominations?

Can the currency be broken down into units (dollars, cents, dimes, quarters)?

Major Imports & Exports

What are the major exports of the region or city? Imports? How might this have evolved throughout history?

Does a particular region specialize in particular trade (i.e. livestock, weaponry, etc.)? Why?

Natural Resources

What resources are natural in each part of your world?

How does this affect trade and trade relationships?

TRANSPORTATION

How easy it is to travel within a city and outside of a city? What modes of transportation exist (horse, anti-gravity car, etc.)?

How is information disseminated all over your world (ink and paper, owl, newspaper, messenger)?

BUSINESS

What crafts or trades are highly valued in your world?

Are some professions considered more elite or respectable than others? How so?

How do people advance in their fields? Are there apprenticeships? How easy is social mobility?

What is the normal work schedule for the average person? What is the average income?

PART 7: Politics

GOVERNMENT

What is the form of government? Is it a monarchy? Republic? Empire? Theocracy?

What are the responsibilities of the government? How far does the government’s sphere of influence spread (magic, religion, etc.)?

How is the government perceived? Is it trusted by the people or is there tension?

LAW Justice Systems; War Systems

What is the rule of law in your world? How is law enforced? What are the most important laws?

What are the punishments for breaking the law?

Justice Systems

What is the legal process in your world? How are people tried?

How does magic fit into the legal system? Is it above the law?

War Systems

How is war declared? Is there a formal process that a country must go through in order to engage in war?

What is the command structure of the army?

How big is the army? Is it composed of humans? Non-humans? Both?

Source ⚜ More: Writing Worksheets & Templates Writing References: Plot ⚜ Character ⚜ Worldbuilding

[roomtemperaturesuperconductor]

The world of scavengers reign is a world of pure mutualism. The show never asks “should we isolate ourselves from nature or connect with it” because that’s a false question; there is nothing BUT connection, there is no form of life outside of the ecosystem. Whether they can see it or not, every character becomes part of the planet the second they touch down.

The question then is what their connections will look like: if it will be mutually beneficial, parasitic towards one side or the other, or harmful to both.

I’ve seen people read Kaimen and hollow’s relationship as either kaimen “corrupting” hollow or hollow “manipulating” kaimen. But the truth is their relationship is just a noxious, unstable feedback loop. Neither party is really “in control”, they’re following the guidelines of an evolved relationship that was never meant for creatures as large and emotionally complex as humans to be part of. It’s the same process that occurs with the introduction of any invasive species: simple relationships shift in unstable ways, niches swap places and gain unexpected importance, and the health of the whole ecosystem is put in jeopardy through the lack of sustainability. The truth is that the strange, lovecraftian nightmare Kaimen and hollow create together is bad for BOTH parties. It’s the worst case scenario of the introduction of humanity onto the planet; not humanity “corrupting” some ideal, static image of perfect nature, but the relationship between the two making things worse for everyone.

It’s why one to stop Kaimen/hollow has to be Levi. Whose mutual relationship with the fungus in their circuitry has created something new and beautiful. Something we see has LONG TERM affects on the planet itself with the little baby planet Levis now growing from the flowers. This isn’t the case of nature “claiming” Levi. This is a collaboration, a partnership, something that utterly transforms both sides. It really seems like the death flowers form in some way the “mind” of the whole planet. And Levi has given that mind the artificial circuitry to think on a far higher and more active level than it was ever able to previously. It’s why hollow wasn’t able to control them. Trying to wrangle levis mind is like trying to hold a whole planet in your hands. Something wild and new and beautiful has been created here.

But these transformation can be scary! Sam’s fight with the parasite, paired with his prior skepticism at trying to “understand” the planet the way Ursula was, leaves him unable to adapt. Forced to either lose himself in the process of assimilation, or die separated from it. And again, the show doesn’t take for granted that these mutual connections are “good”. They’re necessary. Sam cannot live separate from nature. But for him, that death was still better than allowing it to change him so fundamentally. His strong willed nature makes him unable to let go the way Levi or Kaimen do, and the result is he doesn’t experience good OR bad results. He’s to brittle to allow for change. He simply ceases.

And so they you have Ursula and Azi. Who are both forced to learn and grow with the planet. Forced to follow the flow of nature even when it takes them places they don’t quite want to be. While at the same time finding little ways to exert their own agency, to not get swept away in the tide. And it’s a complicated balance. One that takes constant effort and isn’t guaranteed to end how they want. But they still have to do it. Because there’s nothing but connection.

[monstersdownthepath]

Deity: The Sea of Teeth

(Pic source: Craig Spearing, though it doesn’t seem to be on his site anymore and exists only as reuploads)

Chaotic Evil God of Endless Hunger

Domains: Chaos, Death, Destruction, Evil, War Subdomains: Demon, Entropy, Catastrophe, Cannibalism, Blood Favored Weapons: Bite Symbol: Fangs surrounding bones, stars, and/or planets. Sacred Animals: All gluttonous animals. Sacred Colors: N/a

The Abyss is deeper than any being could possibly comprehend, stretching an unknowable distance into the chaos beyond what sane beings consider the relative safety of their reality. Whether it has an end or a bottom is a mystery none have yet solved, as the deeper one goes, the more they must grapple with the knowledge that the hundreds of layers occupied by the foulest sorts of demons are merely the surface level of the Abyss, the safest environs a mortal of this cosmos can exist in. To venture into the Abyss is taxing enough, but to delve deep into the Outer Rifts, where the primordial qlippoth and beasts even stranger roam, is something few can withstand for longer than fleeting moments. It is easy, though not entirely accurate, to compare the demon-occupied Abyss as something akin to the levels of the ocean where the sun still reaches. It is dangerous, laden with hazards and predators which may end the life of an explorer... But the Rifts? If one were still comparing the Abyss to the ocean, the Outer Rifts are depths where sunlight cannot reach, where the pressure is so intense that even steel buckles and crumbles, where the cold is so penetrating that nothing can defend against it, and where life as we know it simply cannot survive.

But like the ocean’s darkest depths, there is still life to be found, alien and strange. Predating even the eldest of the gods, the qlippoth crawl and slither and skitter in endless varieties and maddening shapes. From tiny insects to the great, demigod-level Qlippoth Primordials, qlippoth span across every branch of existence, forming grotesque and twisted mirrors to the biospheres found all over creation, all living and eating and dying and transforming. It is a great, eldritch ecosystem, where even worlds must feed.

And with the imprisonment of Rovagug, it has lost its apex predator.

Ask any zoologist what happens to any ecosystem in which an important predatory force is removed and you will receive a similar answer; the prey gorges itself until it starves, reproduces until there is no more room, and the cycle of life comes to an abrupt and terrible halt as the links in the chain give way one by one. In extreme cases, the entire environment is destroyed by the unbalance. While it’s true that the Abyss has no shortage of predatory creatures all willing and able to consume one another, none of them work on the scale that Rovagug did, devouring and destroying entire landscapes and worlds at once to keep the growth of the Abyss itself from becoming too dangerously rampant. 

But now that he is gone, the balance is upset, and the invasive species that is demonkind has done more harm than good as the natives of the Rifts experience an apocalyptic collapse. Unfortunately for the cosmos as a whole, from the deepest depths of the Outer Rifts a new apex predator has risen to fill the vacuum.

It has no name, but it has many titles; the Sea of Teeth is the most common one, but it is also known as “the Devouring God,” “the Black Well,” “Hadal,” “the Consuming Cascade,” “the Final Tide,” among others and their many variations. It is more location than creature, as though an entire layer of the Abyss has shuddered to terrible life and apocalyptic hunger, branching titanic tendrils throughout the rest of the plane to consume all which falls in its shadow. To those that know if its existence, it is hunger unimaginable, a ravenous force that depletes and destroys everything it crosses. It does not just settle for the twisted flora and fauna, but the very landscape itself is chewed apart, and when there is no matter left it drinks up the local quintessence until the fabric of the layer frays and collapses. It constantly sends tiny tendrils of its matter throughout the Abyss to hunt for new rich feeding grounds, the smallest and weakest of these ‘roots,’ pinpricks of its essence that emerge through tiny portals it gnaws in reality, take on the shape and strength of Shoggoths with the Savage Mythic Template. Because of the immense power of these tiny specks of the greater Sea, it rapidly overtakes any stretch of the Abyss which doesn’t contain any creature or force capable of combating its searching limbs, but any layer with such defenses enjoys some level of safety from the greater Sea. Slaying the roots causes the limb from which they grew to recoil slightly, slowing its spread into a particular layer and allowing them time to plan for the next incursion.

The irony of the Abyss finding itself besieged by a threat which spreads across multiple planar layers and which requires constant, combined efforts to fight back against is lost on many demons. And it is indeed demons which find themselves at the fore of the Sea’s attacks; the Sea is indiscriminate in its feeding frenzies, consuming all in its path with no regard for the qlippoth it technically shares kinship with (with the sole exception being the Iathavos, the only being which it ignores entirely), but much how like animals of Golarion will flee an impending natural disaster hours before it happens, qlippoth seem to possess an innate sense of when and where the Sea will strike, assuring only the injured, the slow, the ill, the foolish, and the foolhardy are actually devoured. Why and how they preternaturally know when it will arrive is a secret they have not shared, and likely never will. 

It is believed that no fewer than six entire Abyssal layers have already been entirely consumed in the short few centuries that the Sea has been known to mortal scholars (and perhaps many before anyone even realized it was there), several dozen are actively besieged by its reaching limbs, and hundreds more are being inspected by its roots. Any normal plane which hosted such a force would quickly be rendered lifeless and barren, but the sheer size and repulsive fecundity of the Abyss assures no such catastrophe will occur, and even if the “shallows” of the Abyss were to be depopulated entirely (an impossible task in and of itself, even for a god), the Sea would simply retreat into the deeper Rifts to continue its feast in unknowable lands until the shallows recovered and regrew, just as a roving predator does when prey is exhausted in one area.

... But this relieving truth has yet to be uncovered, and will likely not be known for several millennia. In the current times, a mere few centuries after its emergence, the Sea is spoken of by doomsayers and prophets as an existential threat of cosmic magnitude, threatening the entirety of existence as it’s known. There are many who believe that the Sea’s emergence is a sure sign that the Abyss will soon be destroyed, devoured utterly down to the last demon larvae, and demons as an entity in the universe will completely cease to exist. These same thinkers and madmen are divided on what, exactly, this would cause in the Great Beyond as a whole; some posit that the removal of the tumor that is the Abyss will usher in a profound universal transformation in which certain breeds of Evil can no longer exist, while others think the Abyss itself will transform into an entirely new Neutrally-aligned plane! The implications of this transformation is, itself, a topic of conjecture and debate. Planar scholars from all corners of creation have driven themselves to fevered frenzies trying to imagine what a universe without demonkind would look like, whether or not demonic power would simply emerge in a new form elsewhere... and whether or not an end to demons as they’re currently known warrants aiding the Sea of Teeth in some way.

Any mind pondering the possibilities of the Sea destroying the Abyss itself must, of course, answer the inevitable question of “what happens afterwards?” Perhaps it will consume itself or starve to death! Perhaps it will slink back into the Outer Rifts, finally satisfied that it has killed every last demon. Perhaps it will pupate into something worse... Or perhaps, once the Abyss has been consumed, the Sea will rush to fill the empty roots left behind which will connect it to a thousand new feeding grounds, swelling further to break down the shorelines of all creation and bring about the end of all things.

Whatever the truth is, the Great Beyond will have to wait and see. There IS one absolute truth that can be shared with whomever is reading this, though: Despite what doomsayers scream of what will happen were it to drink the Plane of Water, inhale the flames of Creation’s Forge, or invade the Ethereal Plane to consume the thoughts and dreams of mortals, the Sea of Teeth does not work towards such apocalyptic goals. It does not plan its assaults, it does not consider the consequences of its actions, and it does not dream of the endless banquet waiting for it just outside the walls of the Abyss.

It, in fact, does not think at all.

----- Obedience and Boons -----

Many cultists, madmen, studious Outsiders of every shape and description, and scholars of every species and alignment all ascribe different reasons and motivations to the Sea’s actions, whether it be divine rage against demons, a rampage to eventually free Rovagug and prove that he is truly the lesser evil when compared to the unseen powers in the deeper Rifts, the incarnate form of the Abyss’ predilection for predation and parisitism turned horribly self-destructive, the incarnation of hunger as a concept, or maybe even the herald of the end times... but the truth is truly right in front of them, described in the first section of this very article: The Sea of Teeth is a hungry beast which has found a stretch of uncontested land, and has begun to gorge itself on a population that has few true defenses against an invasive species.

Though it is indeed divine, it is still essentially a simple-minded predator driven entirely by instinct. It is a form of life which operates on a scale that a common mind struggles to envision, but it serves a function that is familiar, almost mundane, and its presence in the Great Beyond is unfortunate happenstance, not an apocalyptic omen. Any ‘meaning’ to its rampage or claims that it is acting towards some unfathomable goal are pure conjecture, the product of minds desperate to establish a pattern or see some divine truth where a mundane truth would suffice. A hungry wolf which devours a farmer’s sheep is not some punishment for his failure or some insatiable, sadistic beast torturing him because he cannot fight back... it’s a hungry animal, any mythologizing or anthropomorphizing is the fault of the farmer, not the wolf. 

This truth, however, is beyond most creatures in the cosmos, to whom the Sea is an incomprehensibly threatening force of annihilation. To them, it is whatever they want it to be, whatever they project, and often whatever they fear it is, as it has no desire (or even ability) to answer questions about itself. It has unintentionally gathered numerous cults in its name--doomsday and otherwise--all led by powerful figureheads who’ve achieved some divine contact with it... or at least contact with a figurehead which worships the Sea, in some bizarre and indirect form of faith. There exists a ritual one can use to connect to the Sea and gain some of its power at the cost of becoming perpetually ravenous, a ritual used by many to achieve positions of power in the budding cults of the Sea of Teeth, up to and including becoming divine fronts in and of themselves... which inadvertently makes them beacons for spells such as Commune attempting to reach the true Sea, further muddying the waters about its supposed goals and desires. Undoubtedly, one of the most famous of these figureheads is Chormilg, the Thousanth Tooth, a powerful Nyogoth Cleric/Exalted of the Sea of Teeth (CR 18/MR 6) which claims to have hatched from one of the Sea’s teeth after it broke itself against the heart of a forgotten deity, and thus is the literal mouth-piece of the god. Chormilg is the closest thing to a true leader that the disparate cults of the Devouring God have, and is currently the highest authority in the Sea’s faith, acting as the deity’s proxy, AND the reason many believe the Sea’s hunger to be primarily directed at demons, as Chormilg itself despises demonic life.  

The largest cult to the Sea is the one founded by Chormilg, known as the Salgurat, an Abyssal word translating to “Ebon Maws,” a cult devoted to capturing and consuming demons and their mortal fanatics, as well as making regular, organized sacrifices to the Sea of Teeth to empower it in the hopes of accelerating its growth through the Abyss. Some smaller cults grow from gatherings of heretics among the faiths of Thuskchoon, Jubilex, Cyth-V’sug, Zevgavizeb, and other great and ancient beasts of the Abyss, who believe their former deities to be the offspring of the Sea and have thus chosen to serve the “Progenitor Maw” or “Hunger’s Father” out of respect. Other cults have many reasons for their worship, such as Creation’s Eclipse, a cult of daemons and their maniacal mortal followers hellbent on finding ways to help the Sea enter Creation’s Forge and snuff it. Some of these smaller factions even have benevolent, though misguided, hopes for a universe without the Abyss, Whatever the case may be, any follower of the Sea are as varied as the morsels it consumes, coming from all over the universe.

The Obedience ritual to serve the Devouring God is a lesser form of the Shores of the Sea of Teeth occult ritual, and both of them have the same effect at different intensities: It convinces the Sea that the creature undertaking the ritual is actually a part of itself, and so it sends a tendril of its essence and a spark of its power into the creature, often physically mutating them. This offers the creature not only supernatural might, but some protection from the Sea’s appetite, with many audacious beings--Chormilg included--nesting within the god’s churning body, believing themselves favored by the horror due to their faith and devotion, unaware they’re doing the mystic equivalent of dabbing an ant colony’s scent upon themselves to avoid being torn apart by the swarm. The Sea has no loyalty to anything but its own stomachs, any power it offers given only through unintentional trickery or divine reflex, but it is nonetheless a power that any creature--regardless of alignment--can tap into, should they know how... and should they brave the consequences. 

As a true deity, the Sea of Teeth can grant Boons to any creature taking the Deific Obedience feat, but it does not possess a dedicated Prestige Class such as Feysworn or Diabolist. Boons are typically gained slowly, achieved at levels 12, 16, and 20, but by entering the Evangelist, Exalted, or Sentinel Prestige Classes as early as possible, they can be obtained at levels 8, 11, and 14 instead. While normally a deity as ambivalent as the Sea would grant only one set of Boons, the fanatic devotion of countless beings and the fear of infinitely more has created a potent psychic impression upon it, allowing it a full three.

Obedience: Spend at least 30 minutes meditating on the sensations of hunger while surrounded by circle of ritual objects made of materials harvested from creatures you’ve killed and consumed portions of. At the conclusion of this meditative period, eat anything you have available--preferably portions of creatures you’ve helped slay in the last 24 hours--until you’re full. Benefit: You become permanently afflicted by the Oracle’s Hunger curse the first time you perform the Obedience ritual, and the curse cannot be removed by mortal magic. For 24 hours after performing your Obedience, your total Hit Dice is treated as your Oracle level for the purpose of determining the intensity of your curse; failing to perform your Obedience causes your curse to weaken, treating only half your Hit Dice as your Oracle level for the purpose of the curse. If you are already an Oracle, for 24 hours after performing your Obedience, your Oracle level is treated as 4 higher for determining the intensity of your new Hunger curse.

------ EVANGELIST ------

Boon 1: The Preview (Sp): Gain Grease 3/day, Hold Person 2/day, or Spiked Pit 1/day.

Boon 2: Titanic Appetite (Ex): The gnawing hunger in your belly drives you to eat anything you can get your hands on, trusting your connection to your god to protect you from the consequences. You become immune to the effects of all ingested poisons and diseases, and cannot be sickened, nauseated, or cursed by items, food, or creatures you eat. You can digest and draw sustenance from any matter you can consume. Any bite attacks you have ignore the first 5 points of Hardness when damaging objects, widening your potential palate.

Boon 3: Crushed by the Depths (Sp): Once per day, you can focus the power of the Sea onto your foes, allowing it to reach across space and devour them utterly. You may use Implosion once per day as a spell-like ability, but you may target even incorporeal or gaseous creatures with it, and if the target succeeds the saving throw against the effect, they still take 10d6 points of damage. When you target a creature with this ability it possesses a unique visual effect: a phantasmal, protean mass envelops the target and crushes inwards. Any creature killed by this ability is entirely consumed; any nonmagical items they possessed are also destroyed, and magic items fall into their former space.

------ EXALTED ------

Boon 1: A Bite of Everything (Sp): Gain Adhesive Spittle 3/day, Allfood 2/day, or Dispel Magic 1/day.

Boon 2: Ravening Form (Ex/Sp): Your connection to the Sea of Teeth deepens and more of its essence flows into you. This connection twists your body in incomprehensible ways, granting you the constant benefits of 50% Fortification and the Compression universal monster ability. In addition, once per day as a standard action, you may undergo a horrifying but thankfully short-lived surge of vitality as tendrils of the Sea’s matter slither through your body to restore you, gaining the benefits of the Regeneration spell.

Boon 3: Whirlpool of Teeth (Sp): Once per day you may open a portal leading directly to the Sea of Teeth to send entire pieces of the world to your god, in effect casting Maw of Chaos as a spell-like ability. The spell is altered in the following ways: Each round at the start of your turn, all creatures and unattended objects within 40ft of the Maw are automatically pulled 10ft closer to the Maw before it makes its CMB check (potentially allowing it to pull a target twice in one round); this summoned Maw lasts an additional +3 rounds after you stop concentrating on it; and you are unaffected by any of the Maw’s effects, though you may not enter its space. 

------ SENTINEL ------

Boon 1: Soften the Meal (Sp): Gain Ray of Sickening 3/day, Blindness/Deafness 2/day, or Ray of Exhaustion 1/day.

Boon 2: Slavering Jaws (Ex): Your teeth sharpen to frightening and deadly points and your jaw can distend to repulsive and terrific effect. The bite attack gained from your Hunger curse becomes a primary natural attack which deals damage as if you were two size categories larger (2d6 for a Medium creature). The bite attack ignores 5 points of Hardness or Damage Reduction and is considered a magic weapon. Finally, due to the horror your mouth has become, you gain a profane bonus to Intimidate checks equal to your Strength modifier, and you may make an Intimidate check as a swift action against any creature within 30ft when you confirm a critical hit against another creature with your bite attack.

Boon 3: Hole in the Universe (Ex): Your stomach becomes an extradimensional space which partially intersects the Sea of Teeth. The bite gained from your Hunger curse gains the Grab and Swallow Whole abilities if they did not already have them, and you may attempt to swallow any creature of your size or smaller that you have grappled. Your extradimensional stomach may have any number of creatures or objects of any size swallowed at once. Creatures and unattended objects within your stomach take 6d6 bludgeoning and 6d6 Acid damage each round. Extradimensional spaces (such as Bags of Holding) cannot be opened while within you, but otherwise do not interact with you in a destructive way. If a swallowed creature deals enough damage to cut free, instead of creating a hole, the pain forces you to regurgitate all creatures and objects in your stomach at once; you are nauseated for 1d6 rounds and cannot use Swallow Whole for 1 minute after.

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #72 – Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Tchaikovsky is not exactly one of my favourite working authors, but at this point he’s probably quite close. Certainly I haven’t yet regretted giving anything new of his I could get my hands on a try – and this is no exception (even if it’s not really that new, given I waited for my library system to get a copy). It doesn’t completely succeed at everything it goes for, but privileging themes over speculative xeno-biology is really a pretty fair choice, and as narratives go it was both fun and compelling.

The story follows Anton Daghdev – dissident, academic, and dissident academic who, for crimes against the Mandate of Humanity, has been sentenced to transportation to an extrasolar penal colony and a lifetime of hard labour furthering the Mandate’s understanding of the alien ecosystem which has flourished there. It’s a life sentence, make no mistake – but the fecund, symbiosis-obsessed ecology of ‘Kiln’ is far beyond anything he imagined when he was put into cryosleep for the 30 year voyage , and that’s before he is introduced to the real prize: Ruins. Real, artificial structures, with ornamentation, power generation, and writing – all signs of an intelligent creator which has entirely vanished from the ecosystem. Anton is caught between a camp that is itself is a horror show, ruled throgh brutality and fear by a commandant who devotion to the Mandate’s doctrines makes any actual understanding of Kiln impossible, and the ever-growing ecosystem beyond the compound’s walls that is forever seeking the right combination of proteins and molecules to form a bridge between species and worlds, ten thousand species of parasites and symbiotes forever seeking promising new hosts.

The book is concerned with several things, but the most obvious and the aesthetically dominant is the whole trope of the ‘death world’ – specifically the verdant and overgrowing jungle variety, where everything is green and beautiful and constantly looking for a way to kill you. A trope that’s always been more-or-less obviously inspired by 19th century European explorers and colonizers experience in the Amazon and Congo, and 20th century Americans in South East Asia – and the book is very interested in the colonial imagery, here. Everyone’s utter horror at the idea of contamination by the environment and its use as threat and punishment to keep the labourers in line is a central organizing principle of camp life. The fact that that the efforts to understand the nature of kilnish life and intelligence has been futile from the word go because of doctrines and assumptions the human scientists are labouring under and their studies has only ever been destructive and useless stamp-collecting is also just a theme running through the whole book.

From a slightly different perspective, this would be a fairly classic sci fi horror story, honestly – a moral atrocity of a scientific mission, destroyed in a fit of destructive karma as its prisoner/slave labour is infected and comes to know the alien life surrounding them in a way no human science could ever hope to. Very gothic, very Lovecraft. The lead archaeologist even gives a more-or-less sympathetic protagonist to tell it through.

As it is, on the level of genre this is basically an anti-cosmic horror story. The alien really is Alien, the world is vast and strange and you can’t really know anyone or anything – which is the trap. It’s not the alien infection that drives you mad, it’s the isolation and solitude of having felt the connection and ability to truly communicate without lies or deception it offers and then losing it beneath airlocks and thick plastic walls. It’s only be true trust and embrace of the most shockingly alien life ever seen – let alone any other humans – that the species can actually be liberated.

It rather reminds me of Last Exit by Max Gladstone that way – basically entirely different genres, but in both manage to make the alien seem truly terrifying and uncanny, and in both cases it’s the obsession with remaining pure and human and trying a sharp border between Us and Them that’s the real source of horror.

The thematic counterpoint here is the Mandate. It’s a totalitarian state in a very old-school, 20th century modernist way. Government through police spies and regular purges, legitimized by a grand historical project which is mostly just keeping everything neat and legible for the benefit of the top of the pyramid. It’s not that there aren’t true believers to the cause of Scientific Philanthropy, but it really doesn’t need that many of them. It rules through self-interest and fear – the tiny impossible hope of actually changing anything, or the absolute certainty of being sold out and swept up by the time your conspiracy has enough people in it to actually change anything. The Mandate makes it impossible to trust or rely upon anyone else, and by atomizing humanity makes it possible to bind them more tightly to the ruling state than ever before. It’s only be really radical – inhuman, really – levels of trust and cooperation and openness among people trying to resist that it can be fought, with its snitches and its tear gas and its automatic weaponry.

So yes, not the most subtle book in the world. But it definitely worked for me, on balance. It’s surprisingly rare to have a protagonist whose a committed political revolutionary on page 1 and never stops being one in damn near any story I come across, so maybe I just enjoyed the rare treat.

Though it does suffer some in the third act. An opinion I increasingly think I have about everything, but still. Kilnish xenobiology and -ecology is for the first two acts o the book is both aesthetically amazing and actually plausibly alien-seeming, but as Anton really understands it does become a bit credulity-stretchingly benevolent and purely symbiotic (not to mention structurally stable and only changing in the particulars across aeons), a few offhand lines about ‘red in two and claw’ aside. The narration also really doth protest too much about how the connection between the Kiln-infected humans totally isn’t telepathy. It wasn’t really a long book (certainly not by genre standards) but the whole final act also did just feel a bit bloated and meandering.

All of which is really just me being incapable of enjoying something without complaining though. If you like old-school feeling sci fi about alien worlds, Big Themes and improbably physically fit scientists, would recommend.

[finisnihil]

Hi me again I’ve been thinking about Yaoshi and Lan and why their foil relationship fascinates me and I think I finally pinned down why.

Yaoshi as a Aeon hates death, pain, and suffering when they do things like offer immortality it's out of a desire to cure it. Their help comes with a side effect of what the Xianzhou call Mara. In their effort to eradicate pain and suffering they perpetuate it.

Lan on the other hand hates immortaliy and the suffering of it and when they do things like destroy planets or hunt Yaoshi it's to cure the torment Yaoshi brings. In their SU logs it's noted that they once destroyed an entire planet of immortal snake people blessed by Yaoshi as a way to "cure" them of eternal life and the resulting Mara.

Yaoshi represents Nature and Lan Humanity. Predator and prey. Lan and Yaoshi are foils because they represent an ecosystem.

Yaoshi is devoted to curing death but death is necessary for an ecosystem to survive, when there’s too much life resources become scarce and the life cycle collapses in on itself, similar to how immortality seemed like a blessing to the Xianzhou at first but quickly became a curse as people afflicted with Mara became more animalistic and violent. Even herbivores like deer will eat meat if they are starved of necessary nutrients and the like and Yaoshi has big deer motifs (The Mara struck also have symptoms that sound similar to Chronic Wasting Disease in deer, which spreads more in higher density deer populations).

Lan on the other hand is devoted to curing immortality. Lan is a hunter and the duty of hunters, predators even, is to control the prey population. Without predators or with too few predators not enough animals die to go back into the life cycle and allow it to remain stable. Lan hunts Yaoshi because that’s what their duty is, to keep Yaoshi from destabilizing the ecosystem. The Xianzhou, who follow Lan, quite literally do the same. The Ten Lords Commission exists for this very purpose, to control the stability of an immortality based species. You can’t cure Mara you can only control it in an effort to keep it from spreading.

Yaoshi and Lan both are entities of aid and devastation but they balance each other . Yaoshi can't be killed because they keep in check a surplus of death and allow life to persist and Lan can't stop hunting them or die either because they keep in check a surplus of life that allows the life cycle to remain stable.

Basically they're like the wolf situation in Yellowstone. When the wolves were killed deer and elk and other herbavores rapidly grew in population and depleted resources, so wolves were reintroduced to the park and stabilized the ecosystem again. Lan is like the wolves and Yaoshi is like the deer.

Also small side note the Vidyadhara's immortality isn't something Lan needs to constantly keep in check because their immortality is that of the Permanence not the Abundance, they have a life cycle but no Vidyadhara are born or killed. The population doesn't change because there is no adding or removing to the species, they’re permanently fixed in place. They aren’t influenced by Yaoshi or Lan, so they kinda fall outside the realm of both.

[ghost-bxrd]

Most seem in agreement that Fae Dick will kill the Joker - or anyone who hurts his family.

But the thing is... Well, Lore differs, of course, and I don't know what your lore says about the Afterlife, but in ours Rebirth is taken for granted.

If Fae Dick is aware of the concept of Rebirth... Maybe his casual take on killing is related to that - they will come back anyway, maybe as a different species, but they'll come back. It's just another version of putting them in Arkham.

He is willing to indulge Bruce, of course, but he doesn't get why there's so much fuss about killing. It isn't like they're really gone.

But when it comes to the Joker... The Joker who killed his little brother... Dick may well feel that death - and escape into another life - maybe too kind a fate. He won't leave the Joker to be reborn and wreck havoc elsewhere - or maybe even get reborn back in Gotham.

Much better to leave him alive and Wandering - throw him into the depths of the Otherworld. He will be alive. Forbidden the escape that is death...

Reincarnation actually never came up in the lore I grew up with! At least not in the traditional sense.

It’s more of an…. “Assimilating back into nature” thing.

What dies will return to the soil. Still existing, always existing, just changed. Gone back into the ecosystem as the thing that nurtures earth. Consciousness kind of drifting and merging with nature. (Hence the explanation to child-me why some flowers/mushrooms suddenly start growing in a specific area. “A greeting from an old friend”)

So back with the post about Fae Dick murdering Joker… it’s actually a way to cleanse the world of that concentrated evil. To have nature balance itself back out. (While simultaneously giving Dick the satisfaction of feeling that clown decompose)

Think of it as an example for “the dosage determines if it’s poison” kind of thing.

[vickysaurus]

I wanna jot down some of my thoughts about the Narrator, the Shifting Mound, the endings, and the point of it all. Let’s start with what’s going on outside the construct. Immediately, we have very little to go on. A few lines by the Narrator and the Shifting Mound, that’s all. I’ve seen people call into question even what little the Narrator tells us, but I don’t think that works well, because then we’re left adrift with a ‘anything could actually be happening’ feeling. So let’s put the Voice of the Skeptic away for now, and assume Narrator and Shifty are at least telling us the truth from their own perspectives.

In that case, the main thing we know is the Narrator’s world is ending. We don’t know how, we don’t know why, we don’t know the exact scale of the destruction, but it’s big enough. ‘The ending of all things. No more birds, no more trees, and perhaps most problematically of all, no more people.’ Whatever the scale of the destruction, Narrator’s own species and civilisation are clearly about to end, and frankly I don’t think it really matters how extensive the damage will be beyond them. Is his world is facing a mass extinction event, is his planet about to be totally destroyed, is the entire universe about to end? I don’t think we can know and I don’t think it even matters, because any way you turn it it’s a truly horrible catastrophe that’s about to wipe out everyone the Narrator has ever known. As he makes very clear, he is willing to do anything to save his world, and who wouldn’t in his position? That includes killing himself as part of a scheme to destroy the very concept of change, which is a quite desperate act in itself. I find the Narrator’s position quite sympathetic, it’s easy enough to imagine myself making a truly desperate choice if it was humanity or Earth at stake. His despair, however, does not make him right.

Let’s talk about the Narrator’s target, the Shifting Mound. She is change, transformation, and as part of that, she contains death. Now, to come at this from a very biological perspective, these concepts immediately invoke another one: life. Life is change, life is transformation, and life is death. Life is a truly unique process that is constantly, at every moment, changing itself and the world around it. We change from gamete to embryo to child to adult to elder to corpse. But it doesn’t end there, because death too is part of life. The decay and rot that sets in before we are even cold are forms of life too, forms of life that feed on us the same way we feed on dead plants and animals in life. And from there, what used to be us goes its separate ways, becomes part of plants, soil, animals, air, and part of new people. We are a part of a great process that’s constantly transforming everything into everything else. And in that process, the creatures that previously existed die. It sucks when it happens to you, but there's also a very real beauty to the fact that no matter what, life does go on.

Then there’s a larger scale on which life is inextricably bound to change, transformation, and death too. Every child, every generation of every species, is similar but different to its parents. And as time goes on, those changes compound, add up. One species splits in two, or becomes unrecognisably different from its ancestors. New interactions arise, new symbioses, new predators, new prey, entirely new ecosystems. And in a few million years, the entire biosphere is utterly different with Darwin's endless forms most beautiful and wonderful. If you could take a time machine ten million years to the past or future, Earth would be almost unrecognisably different thanks to the great cycle of change, transformation, and death that life is. The other worlds in our solar system, where there is (probably) no life, on the other hand, would be quite similar; a crater on the Moon here or there extra, new storm patterns on Jupiter, a tiny bit more erosion on Mars’s landscape, that’s about it. The Earth’s ever-changing nature is both the result of life and what allows it to thrive here. And to my interpretation, all that too is part of the Shifting Mound. The Shifting Mound is life.

Okay Vicky, good job waxing philosophically on the nature of life, but that really doesn’t matter if it’s all about to end, does it? Except… we know it’s not all about to end. Because Shifty tells us about all the new worlds yet to come. What these new worlds are, we don’t know. Maybe they’re wholly new biospheres rising from the ashes of the old, like happened on Earth at least six times after our great mass extinctions destroyed most life, and will surely happen again if humanity screws up badly enough to drive ourself to extinction. Perhaps they’re different planets. Perhaps they’re entirely different universes for life to bloom in. Probably all three and more. Once again, the scale of the destruction does not really matter because we know no matter how big it is, life does go on. And that’s a cold comfort to the Narrator and the others living through the end. Who gives a shit about life blossoming somewhere or somewhen else when your world is about to end?

What exactly is the Narrator’s solution? His whole aim is for us to kill the Shifting Mound, to put an end to change, transformation, and death. Now, he takes pains to assure us, it won’t be a complete end to these concepts, there’ll still be a little left from the part of her he put inside of the Long Quiet. Still, I will argue the world the Narrator is trying to bring about is not one fit for life to live in. We see a glimpse of it in his Good Ending, when we immediately slay the Princess without hesitation or doubt. An empty cabin in an empty world. But, you and the Narrator protest, the actual ending if you slay Shifty would be better than that! In a way, I think you’re right. In the sense that a massive and varied wax statue museum the size of a world would be much more interesting and engaging than a tiny dollhouse with nothing in it. But it’s a difference of scale, not of the substance of the world itself, which is ultimately vacuous and static. I don’t think it would be a world without consciousness or motion or whatever, I think the Narrator at least made sure his people would retain something that looks like life, since it would need to be something that to him at least seemed better than death. But beyond that, I think the Narrator is a very poor judge of what is a good outcome, since with his world about to end just about anything else would seem better than that. Think I’m being too harsh? Play the Good Ending again, and listen to the Narrator. Hear him wax ecstatically about the empty, static, tiny world you created, how he cannot imagine this could possibly be worse than the alternative. I don’t think it’s that he truly loves stasis that much, I think it’s because in his despair, any outcome that is not the end of the world, no matter how static and empty, truly is a good ending. Then how can we possibly trust his judgement that when you slay Shifty, it actually will be any better than that?

A world without change is also a world without choice and a world without growth. In our world, you might wake up tomorrow and quit your job, go walk to the other side of the country, start playing an instrument, join a revolutionary organisation, fall in love with someone new, start painting, commit a murder, get incredibly into a new hobby you’ve never heard of before, change your gender, start building a house, get a pet, go live in the wilderness, or any of a million other possibilities. On an average day, you won’t do any of these, but you always, always have the option to make these choices, at whatever cost they may come at. You probably consider at least some of them quite often. And every now and then, you will indeed do one of these things, maybe after much deliberation, maybe spontaneously. Now imagine a world where that was truly impossible. Most likely you wouldn’t encounter any sort of invisible wall if you tried, rather it would be impossible for your mind to even conceive of any of these choices in the first place, to break your routine in any way whatsoever. How much poorer would your existence be? How badly would your mind need to be altered, become akin to a simple machine, to fit into the Narrator’s new world? How much would your ability to choose, to be what you want to be, need to be lobotomised out of you to exist in his world? Sure, despite my philosophical position on death it would probably be nice for neither you nor your loved ones to be able to die. But would you really be alive in the first place?

So to me, the Narrator’s solution is a truly awful one. I get why he would choose it over the end of his world, I can’t even claim I wouldn’t make the same choice in his position. But the game explicitly does not put us in his position, but gives us a wider perspective, talking to the very concept of change itself. To life and the universe at large, which will continue as long as we don’t slay Shifty, the Narrator’s price is far, far too high. A world without change, without transformation and yes, a world without death, is a wax doll museum, not a world suitable to live in.

So, you might ask, am I saying to just let Shifty free as she is and let the Narrator’s world’s fate be its fate? Well, no. The Narrator’s solution may be awful, but that doesn’t mean we can’t at least try and find another way. And that’s one of the things the ‘leave together’ ending represents, to me. We try to change Shifty herself, to pierce through that divine confidence. Not to get rid of change, transformation, and death, but maybe to make them slightly kinder. Maybe we just make one little difference and stop the end of the Narrator’s world in this specific catastrophe, though in the long run it will surely end eventually, after which new life will arise. I am reluctant to believe in huge changes to the way the world works in this ending, as both TLQ and Shifty’s heart affirm we don’t want to be gods, so it’s hardly likely we’re going to be doing the very divine thing of changing the whole universe to our will. I imagine it means we find some spot in the universe to go and be mortal in, together, while the universe itself keeps on spinning. I don’t know what that means for the Narrator’s people, but I hope they make it. They deserve to live. But even to prevent the end of the world, some prizes are too high to pay.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Colin Wright

Published: Dec 2, 2024

In the annals of academic absurdity, there are moments that make even seasoned critics pause in awe. “Loving the Brine Shrimp: Exploring Queer Feminist Blue Posthumanities to Reimagine the ‘America’s Dead Sea’” is one such moment. This is not a parody—though it reads like one—but a “serious” paper, or so the author insists. In what is best described as a surrealist love letter to brine shrimp, the author, Ewelina Jarosz (she/they), wades through a soup of critical theory, environmental activism, and performance art, asking the reader to reconsider their relationship with brine shrimp—not as mere crustaceans but as symbols of queer resilience, ecological ethics, and, somehow, hydrosexual love.

This paper is part of a growing tradition of postmodern scholarship that prioritizes ideological signaling over intellectual rigor. Following in the footsteps of infamous works like the 2016 “Feminist Glaciology” paper—which posited that glaciers are gendered—“Loving the Brine Shrimp” sets a new standard for academic ridiculousness. Its culmination in a cyber wedding to augmented reality brine shrimp makes feminist glaciers seem like a grounded scientific pursuit by comparison. But before we arrive at the nuptial climax, let’s examine how this spectacle unfolds.

Love at First Shrimp

The article begins innocuously enough, discussing the ecological crisis facing Utah’s Great Salt Lake. However, it doesn’t take long before it veers into woke lunacy with concepts like “hydrosexuality,” which refers to a “more-than-human sensuality and sexuality emphasizing fluidity and relationality” that “offers a cultural understanding of water as a non-binary substance connecting all bodies of water on the planetary scale.” Hydrosexuality, she argues, challenges the “hegemonic notion of the autonomous and bounded human subject” by embracing “watery thinking.”

If you’re struggling to imagine what any of this means, join the club. The author’s language is a masterclass in obfuscation, using terms like “hydrophilic logic” and “multispecies ethics” to mask the fact that she’s anthropomorphizing liquid.

The absurdity intensifies when she links hydrosexuality to the brine shrimp, praising these creatures for their “swirly sexuality” and reproductive versatility. Apparently, the shrimp’s ability to reproduce via live birth or parthenogenesis (which the author incorrectly calls “pathogenesis” throughout the paper) is a triumph over binary thinking, making them paragons of queer resilience that subvert the oppressive structures of settler-colonial science. Yes, really.

Settler Science and Capitalist Cysts

The paper is rife with accusations against “settler science,” a term the author uses to describe any scientific practice associated with Western colonialism. She argues that early studies of the Great Salt Lake objectified its ecosystem, reducing the brine shrimp to mere commodities. Even the shrimp’s Latin name, Artemia franciscana, is critiqued as a tool of imperial domination. Naming a species, she asserts, reflects a “biology of empire” that erases Indigenous ways of knowing. By this logic, taxonomy itself is a colonial plot.

The author also condemns the commercialization of brine shrimp, particularly their use as fish food and their reinvention as the whimsical “Sea-Monkeys” pet marketed to children. This, they say, constitutes “environmental violence,” a term that appears to mean anything they dislike about human interaction with water-based ecosystems.

Drawing from perspectives offered by queer death studies (Radomska et al. 2021, p. 2), the brine shrimp’s ambiguous status and reproductive agentiality, hovering between the “living” and “non-living” in a state scientifically referred to as cryptobiosis, were reinvented for entertainment, concealing environmental violence.

To support their critique, the author invokes “low-trophic theory,” a concept they describe as prioritizing the ethical interdependence of organisms in an ecosystem. While the principle itself might have some use, the author’s application of it veers into parody. She laments the capitalist exploitation of the shrimp’s reproductive system, framing the harvesting of brine shrimp cycts as a form of ecological oppression. This is all delivered in the impenetrable prose of critical theory, with phrases like “queer ethical field studies” and “feminist blue posthumanities” sprinkled heavily throughout.

The Cyber Wedding to the Brine Shrimp

The paper reached peak woke in a section titled “Loving the Brine Shrimp,” which recounts a performance art piece called Cyber Wedding to the Brine Shrimp. This event, staged on the receding shores of the Great Salt Lake, involved artists, scientists, and augmented reality brine shrimp. Participants made vows to the crustaceans, marched in a procession, and capped it off with a communal bath in the lake. The author describes this as “making love to the lake,” a phrase that may haunt frequent swimmers of the Great Salt Lake for the rest of their lives.

The wedding was not merely symbolic; it was, according to the author, an act of environmental advocacy. By expressing love and commitment to the brine shrimp, the participants hoped to challenge capitalist commodification and foster “multispecies solidarity.” The participants even asked the brine shrimp for their consent to marry, which the shrimp apparently gave telepathically to some participants, while the author seemed content in problematically assuming their consent after proclaiming, “I didn’t hear a no.”

The use of augmented reality (AR) technology added another layer of surrealism. Instead of interacting with real brine shrimp, participants directed their vows toward a giant AR projection of the creatures.

The author describes the procession and bath as transformative, blurring the boundaries between human and non-human bodies. For most readers, however, this spectacle is less an example of profound ecological insight and more a testament to the unchecked excesses of woke performance art masquerading as legitimate scholarship.

I am not sure if you’re sufficiently prepared for this, but below I present to you Cyber Wedding to the Brine Shrimp in its entirety, which has been appropriately overlaid with Mystery Science Theater 3000 silhouettes by my good friend Dr. Rollergator.

[ Watch: "Cyber Wedding to the Brine Shrimp" ]

A Crisis of Peer Review

While the paper’s content is laughable, its publication raises serious questions about the state of academic peer review. How did this article, brimming with jargon and palpably absurd, make it through the editorial process? Are journals so desperate to appear progressive that they’ll publish anything cloaked in the language of decolonization and queerness? The answer appears to be “yes.”

However, one thing is certain: the academic community must reckon with the consequences of allowing such work to proliferate. At a time when public trust in science is already dismal, papers like this undermine the credibility of legitimate scholarship. When even the most basic standards of coherence and relevance are abandoned in favor of ideological grandstanding, the credibility of academia itself is at stake.

* * *

As we reflect on the surreal spectacle of Cyber Wedding to the Brine Shrimp and its academic context, one thing becomes clear: we need a term to capture the moment when scholarly work crosses the line from odd to outright ludicrous. I propose “marrying the shrimp” as the academic world’s answer to “jumping the shark.” From now on, this phrase will signify a project so absurd, so detached from reality, that it becomes a parody of itself.

Let’s explore how this term might find its place in academic vernacular:

“Oh Steve? Yeah, he really married the shrimp with his last research project.”

“Yeah Sally, your thesis wasn’t groundbreaking, but at least you didn’t marry the shrimp.”

“That journal used to have standards, but now they’re marrying the shrimp left and right.”

The phrase could also be used preemptively, as a warning to those teetering on the edge: “Careful, Karen. Your proposal on the patriarchal dynamics of Tupperware parties is dangerously close to marrying the shrimp.” Or, as a compliment when someone narrowly avoids absurdity: “I thought your case study on the history of medieval cheese wheels was going to marry the shrimp, but you really pulled it together!”

In an era where intellectual rigor often takes a backseat to performative absurdity, it’s important to keep a sense of humor about the bizarre trajectory of academic publishing. After all, what else can we do when purportedly serious scholars convene weddings for brine shrimp or ascribe nonbinary identities to water?

Alas, these are the times we live in.

--

==

How did we ever let these mentally ill retards gain institutional and societal-wide power?

[tyitri]

Entangled Heart - Chapter 2

Pairing: Simon "Ghost" Riley/Reader

Summary: The world had gone to hell a few years ago. No one cared about preserving other beings, endangered species. The crown of creation was quickly deemed a threat, and the hunters became the hunted.The world changed, we were no longer at the top of the food chain. The plants were.

They passive-aggressively spread, allowing a new plant species, called the 'Verdantia aurea' or Goldleaf Fern, to thrive. No one knew it was an invasive species. Other regional plants died, throwing the world out of balance. Many still remember the initial reports.It felt like the Seven Plagues of the End Times, written as if in the Bible.

You're part of that fucked ecosystem now together with a few survivors who made an oath to save humanity or at least whats left of it. One of them in particular doesn't seem to like you, everyone calls him Ghost. And you're pretty sure it's not because of the report when you were found nude, nestled between a bush of Goldleaf Fern itself by some Scientists.

Tags: Post Apocalyptic,Slowburn, No use of Y/N, Nicknames, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Smut, Mild Gore, Violence.

Wordcount: 2,7k

Chapters: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3

Your grip on the rifle tightened as you thought you saw things moving in the shadows of the houses. When you tried to alert Soap and nudged him gently, he started to chuckle.

"Chill out, Rookie. It's over. The thing is full for now, we won't have any more trouble. At least now we can check out the buildings. Its death wasn't entirely pointless."

Were you the only one who found this entire situation absurd? It was simply surreal—Soap's chuckling, Ghost's indifference, and Price's detachment.

"Who knows if it really hunts out of hunger," you mutter quietly, your gaze returning to the twitching movements in the darkness.

"Those are the roots of the main distributor," he explained. "Damn thing. No sign of the real one yet. We would have already turned it to ash." Soap must have followed your gaze because you couldn't take your eyes off the writhing, twisting roots.

"Main distributor?" Despite being trained by König in the US, who had given you a crash course on some techniques and updated your knowledge, you still had significant gaps.

"Damn, Gaz wasn't lying when he said the new recruit was from the moon," Soap said, touching his forehead and grinning. "Tell me at least you know that, absurdly, we’re fighting plants." His casual demeanor might have been a good distraction if someone from your team hadn't just become compost for this 'main distributor.'

"If I were from the moon, I definitely wouldn't have volunteered to be sent to this shithole," you mutter, loosening your grip on the rifle slightly. Your gaze flickers to Price and Ghost, who have moved a few meters away and seem to be quietly communicating. Soap stays by your side, likely to watch over you.

Soap grins at you and then starts to regain your attention. "Well, some scientists have discovered that there’s a main distributor that can spread more seeds and thus expand everywhere. So, everything you see here—by that, I mean plants that move—is just a single plant within a four-kilometer radius."

That makes you think. One single plant had so much power over such a large area. Humanity would really need to prepare to change its way of life. But when you looked at Ghost—and you did so rather obviously at that moment—you doubted that a new way of life would be for everyone. He had probably grown up with war and danger, but what did you know, and it shouldn't concern you.

"And it hasn't been found yet?" you respond thoughtfully. "How do we know that such a main distributor exists?"

Now he looks at you, puzzled, and you could almost hear the gears turning in his head.

"Well, some scientists said so," he replied hesitantly, "and these things don't attack us again after such a situation," he added confidently. You looked at him skeptically. "So, this has happened before?"

He cleared his throat for a moment, and it seemed you had touched on a somewhat uncomfortable point.

"Hey, Soap, Rookie, we're going through the alleys to secure everything!" Price called to you. They had already moved quite a distance away. Ghost also looked back at the two of you, staring at Soap for a while before looking at you, his expression darkening.

"Come on, Rookie," Soap said, and you nodded absently. You didn't understand why Ghost always looked at you with such cold contempt.

"What’s our Lieutenant's problem, anyway?" you asked Soap quietly, holding the masked man's gaze.

"Oh, Ghost? He's been through a lot."

That didn’t surprise you in the slightest. "Well, that much is clear," you replied, breaking eye contact as the whole group moved through the alley. You inspected the wall, noticing it was crumbling, with small vines creeping along the old graffiti and new life sprouting from it. As you reached out to touch the plants, Ghost growled a warning in front of you.

"If you do that, I'll shoot your hand off, I promise you."

Your eyebrows furrowed as you looked up at him. You knew you were the new one among them and hoped Ghost would be a bit nicer to you soon, but life here wasn't a wish-fulfillment story. It never was.

"Thanks for the information, but I'll pass on that unnecessary crap. These are just normal plants. The vegetables on our roof don’t attack us either!"

"Unnecessary crap, huh? You could have died instead of the other rookie, for all I care. Looked like a normal plant to me too," he grumbled, his voice gravelly.

Price intervened and pointed cautiously to a side entrance, changing the subject. "Our lock has been broken," he said, calmer than expected, nudging the remnants of the lock aside with his boot. The chain, still trying to cling to the piece of scrap, jingled a little.

"And what's the problem with it being broken?" You inspected the lock, noticing the peeling paint on its remnants. Soap stepped in to explain. "We lock almost every building in our area after we’ve checked it. Depending on the color of the lock, we know whether it’s a building with supplies or one with potential dangers," he explained. So far, Soap was the most helpful person in this group. Ghost seemed to keep an eye on the surroundings, but he was more critical than helpful. Price didn’t contribute much to the conversations, but he led the group.

"What about buildings without doors?" After all, the building where the rookie disappeared had no markings. "We place something in front of the door that corresponds to the color. If we can’t find anything, we use spray paint. Buildings without markings should be avoided," he said with a grin, as if he had read your thoughts. Soap couldn’t explain further because Price pushed the heavy door open with his right shoulder and disappeared into the darkness. Ghost followed him. Soap patted you twice on the shoulder before nudging you toward the door, and you took a step into the darkness.

"Don't worry, we'll only find supplies here," Soap said behind you as you hesitantly put one foot in front of the other. Only a few beams of moonlight penetrated through the boarded-up windows, and you scanned the shelves. Canned food, hygiene products, cigarettes, and some sugary drinks caught your eye, but almost everything else was empty.

"Shit, those bastards made off with a whole crate of cans," Ghost cursed from the next room. "Clothes too," added Price as he returned to the main room with Soap and you. You took in the information, but the rest of their conversation blended with the sounds of the night. Something else had caught your attention. You had to adjust to the darkness, but you quickly noticed a similar-looking vine apparently trying to creep toward the windows. You had a bad feeling about it, but something in your body urged you to follow it. You followed the vine and disappeared behind some empty shelves. You opened the door to another room, which seemed to be a bathroom.

A dusty sink, a toilet, and a bathtub with the curtain drawn. As you glanced at the floor, you saw more than just the one vine from before. Several small ones slithered from the bathtub toward the door. As you took a step toward the bathtub, you noticed an open box with some cans and stacked clothes. Wasn't that the missing clothing?

Cautiously, you pulled the curtain aside and saw a person huddled inside, wrapped in the tangled mesh of this fern. Startled, you took a step back and stumbled over the root winding its way out of the bathroom. You braced yourself for the impact on the dusty tile floor, but it never came. Instead, you were caught by something—or someone—standing like a bouncer behind you. Ghost. Your fingertips dug into his tactical vest, and you looked up in panic at his cool eyes, the only part of him that seemed to show any humanity. He held your gaze for a few more seconds before the bathtub with the corpse wrapped in plant material and the box of cans caught his attention.

"Supplies found!" he called into the hall behind him, pushing you aside to lift the crate. He walked past you as if nothing had happened, leaving you a bit unsettled.

You wanted to ask what they were going to do with the person in the bathtub, but the question became unnecessary when he stopped at the door and gestured wordlessly for you to get out of the room.

You cast one last glance at the corpse before running out of the room, and he slammed the door shut behind you.

"Price, Soap! We need an empty shelf here, the weeds are already coming out of the drains!"

It didn’t take long for the other team members to push one of the shelves in front of the door to block it. You were surprised they didn't try using chlorine or other chemicals. You could still see cleaning supplies on the shelves.

"Everyone, fill your backpacks. You can take a little something extra, just don't overdo it," Price said, his gaze lingering on you. You nodded almost imperceptibly and carefully made your way through the aisles. When you glanced over your shoulder, you saw Soap filling his bag greedily, grinning. The others were taking their time. You started filling your bag with small packages of rice.

Just as you reached for the next bag on the shelf, your fingers brushed against a leaf. You thought it might be fern. But there was no time for panic. An electrifying sensation surged through your body in seconds. Memories flooded through you—memories you had never had before. Children laughing and playing on a playground while you sat on a bench. Fragments of a relationship with a young woman flashed in your mind, memories of working in a warehouse, and finally, a memory of yourself, huddled in a bathtub, as roots and vines slithered toward you. You felt the fear and panic of this person, for these weren't your memories; they belonged to the dead man in the bathroom.

"Fern!"

Someone called out to you from a distance; everything seemed so surreal. It was as if reality and fantasy were blurring together, as if the countless sleepless nights and days were now taking their revenge.

"Goddammit, Fern!"

A strong yank backward snapped you out of the thoughts, out of the illusion that made you feel like you were that man. At first, you didn’t realize how heavily you were breathing. Only when reality caught up did you feel your lungs burning, as if you had run a marathon.

"Goddammit, Rookie! Answer when someone calls you," Soap hissed. You still seemed dazed, glancing around a bit disoriented as your eyes adjusted to the dim light.

Your head felt like it was full of cotton, and Soap's words sounded muffled. "I was lost in thought," you admitted hesitantly. "Sorry." Carefully, you stuffed another bag of rice into your backpack. You noticed your hand trembling. Soap noticed it too, but he said nothing, instead grabbing your collar and dragging you toward the exit where the others were, while you quickly slung your backpack over your shoulder and stumbled after him.

"Found the girl," Soap replied, a hint of annoyance in his voice. "You okay? You look like you're about to be sick," Price said, his tone partly indifferent. Ghost just stared at you with his intense gaze. Even when you parted your dry lips, hardly any words came out.

"I'm fine," you tried to respond firmly, pulling yourself away from Soap.

"I thought König was sending us his best recruit, not a dead weight," Ghost hissed before turning and heading back outside. Your eyebrows knitted together. Soap just sighed and glanced at you out of the corner of his eye. "I mean, Ghost isn't entirely wrong. Colonel König's training isn't exactly easy. Not sure how you managed it," he said casually, as if sprinkling salt into a freshly opened wound.

You pressed your lips together, nodded, and watched as Soap adjusted his pace to walk alongside Ghost. Now you stood next to Price, who also started moving slowly. Not wanting to be left behind in the store, you followed him and watched as he locked the door with a new lock and marked it with a colored dot.

"You seem a bit too clumsy, Rookie," Price said hesitantly as he started walking again, and you fell into step behind him.

"I haven't had much contact with plants, sir," you answered honestly and respectfully. The whole situation worried you a bit. Would they bench you or categorize you differently? You didn't know, and that uncertainty scared you. "But your file says otherwise, Fern," he replied with a certain emphasis, and your body tensed up. "I thought it was still in the US," you tried to lie or at least play dumb, considering how you had already acted today.

"Don't play dumb, Fern. I know where and under what circumstances you were found." Silence settled between the two of you before you both started moving again. You nodded quietly. "That's why König sent you to us so early. The base here might not stand for much longer. He said you could help us with that," Price admitted. You didn’t know what you could do. After all, you had no real idea what Price was talking about.

"I honestly don't know, sir," you replied firmly. Silence lingered between you. The topic was not closed, and the tension remained. Only the crunching of gravel scattered on the streets could be heard. Until Ghost stopped in front of you and raised his hand.

Before you stretched a building that creaked and crumbled. It almost looked as if one half would soon collapse inward, burying the street and the abandoned vehicles beneath it. A huge root seemed to be squeezing the building. If the situation were different, it would probably have been astonishing, if not a little aesthetic.

"We sneak through, over Checkpoint Charlie," Ghost said tersely as instruction, then made a hand gesture. The gesture would probably have sufficed for the other two, but you couldn't understand it. König didn't have enough time, or so he said to you. He taught you a lot, you learned quickly, and if you were being honest, you didn't know where it all came from. You barely did any sports, maybe just enough to stay fit, but still, you could anticipate, block, and even deliver blows. Even König was impressed that someone as small as you could withstand his blows and catch on so quickly.

Just as you snapped out of your trance, you saw Ghost crouching, darting across the street and staying covered. He pressed his back against the target, an overturned pickup truck. Now he looked at you, his ice-blue eyes focusing on you, and he made a head motion. That was the signal. You cast one last glance at the huge root winding around the building. Its movements had ceased, but that didn't stop you; on the contrary.

In a crouch, you sprinted across the street. Too late. The building was crushed by the root, and the debris and concrete walls fell onto the street, just as the root descended upon it. With a dive, you managed to find cover beside Ghost, behind the truck. However, the dust from the building, the shock of the fallen root, and the noise disoriented you. Ghost shouted something in your direction, but you could barely make it out until he brutally grabbed your shoulder, dragging you behind him, almost aimlessly trying to get off the street and orienting himself by other building walls.

Only one thing ran through your mind. You could have been dead. The stress tugged at your consciousness, but your adrenaline kept you running with Ghost until he pulled you into a building and pushed you down under the window, while he stood guard beside you. "...not far!" was the only thing you heard from your savior and lieutenant before you collapsed and the world enveloped you in blackness. You weren't prepared for such situations. And today, it seemed the team wasn't either.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Outside Online:

On February 29, Daniel, Wyoming resident Cody Roberts allegedly ran a juvenile wolf down with his snowmobile, taped its mouth shut, transported it to the town’s Green River Bar, posed for photos with the animal, then either beat or shot it to death, depending on which version of the report you read. State wildlife officials received a tip about the incident, and later fined Roberts $250 for a misdemeanor violation of Wyoming’s prohibition against possession of live wildlife. No other charges or penalties have been brought against him. As of April 10, however, the Sublette County Sheriff’s Office announced that they—along with the Sublette County Attorney’s office—are now investigating Roberts.

“The individual was cited for a misdemeanor violation of Wyoming Game and Fish Commission regulations, Chapter 10, Importation and Possession of Live Warm-Blooded Wildlife,” says the Wyoming Game and Fish Department in a statement addressing the incident. “The department’s investigation indicated there were no other statutory or regulatory violations.”

The 206-word statement itself acknowledges the controversy that’s raging around the incident, saying: “The department acknowledges the significant concern and dismay expressed by many people from around the state and nation.”

Why was Roberts able to torture a wolf to death with no serious consequences? The answer lies not only in Wyoming’s incredibly lax wildlife regulations, but also in the violence that permeates the relationship between the state and its most famous wild animal.

After being extirpated in 1926, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) reintroduced wolves to Wyoming in Yellowstone National Park in 1995. Wolves, the villains in many childhood stories, are a locus of fear for humans. But the animal also serves a vital role in its native ecosystem, where it helps keep ungulate populations healthy by slowing the spread of disease. And it does that at a net financial benefit to taxpayers, since tourists now flock to the state to view wolves. A study conducted in 2021 found that wolf-related tourism brings over $35 million annually to areas surrounding the park.

Speaking of taxes, before all the culture warring and fear mongering, it was the goal of the Republican Party to reduce tax burdens faced by the wealthy and corporations. The Republican Party’s policy positions are widely unpopular, so the GOP instead hoodwinks voters using fear and lies. The Republican-led Wyoming Statehouse passed a bill in 2021 calling to exterminate 90 percent of the state’s wolf population—a bill based on lies and misinformation. Pushing for policies based on fear instead of science has led to regulations around wolves that are unique among wildlife laws, mostly in their encouragement of cruelty.

When management of the species transferred from federal to state control in 2012, Wyoming’s political leaders established two distinct areas with differing population management goals. Areas adjacent to Yellowstone were set aside for trophy hunting, where wolf hunting is regulated. The rest of the state was designated a “predator zone” where wolves can be killed without regulation, reason, or justification. Wyoming also classifies coyotes, red fox, stray cats, jackrabbits, porcupines, raccoons and striped skunks as predators, and permits killing them throughout the state.

“You could pull a wolf apart with horses in 85 percent of the state,” explains Amaroq Weiss, Senior Wolf Advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. In the predator zone, there is no regulation governing how or when wolves can be killed. This stands in contrast to typical hunting regulations in any other state, where what are called “methods of take” are carefully defined to ensure animals are killed in ethical, humane ways, along with precise dates, to-the-minute guidelines on legal shooting hours, and generally universal bans on artificial light sources. The age and sex of animals it’s permissible to shoot are also written in law. But none of that is true in Wyoming’s predator zone when it comes to wolves. You don’t even need a hunting license or tag to kill one, just the opportunity.

Weiss cites “wolf whacking” as an example, and it’s how Roberts captured the wolf he would go on to torture and kill. The term describes using a snowmobile to run a wolf to the point of exhaustion. Once it slows or collapses, you kill the animal by running it over. As Roberts’ escapade demonstrates, sometimes that might take multiple impacts, and sometimes the animal is simply left to die a slow, painful death.

[cloudyswritings]

Wyrmfalls

So my mental picture of the wastes is basically identical to that abyssal plane in our oceans. It’s nutrient poor, filled with weird little fuckers and extromphiles, and is frequented by larger species who sometimes die there. By that logic the carcass of a wyrm should be the equivalent of a whale fall and sustain/create an ecosystem for decades to come(usually longer). I’d argue that there’s roughly two types of wyrmfall, intentional ones and accidental/fatal ones.

Intentional:

Intentional wyrmfalls are when a wyrm makes the choice to transform into a different and usually smaller being. These events are what mister mushrooms poems are about. “Wyrms pull bugs into their thrall / till ages pass and kingdoms fall. I’ve discussed it previously but these events are typically caused by either old age or extreme injury on the part of the wyrm and serve as a way to essentially reset the biological clock until the wyrm can shed its smaller form once more and devour the kingdom it created to jumpstart its growth. These types of wyrmfalls are generally short(er) lived for obvious reason. Hallownest was often regarded as one of these, although the Pale King had no intentions of consuming his subjects and was relatively young by wyrm standards when he arrived.

Accidental:

Accidental wyrmfalls are when a wyrm, through some means or another is killed and meets its final death. This is always the case if the wyrm is not yet a higher being(exceedingly rare) or has so little energy left it can’t even metamorphose. Additionally an extremely abrupt traumatic death that prevents a wyrm from biologically preparing to transform can also cause this. These occur most commonly as a result of clashes between two Wyrms of notable age and size, although the larger Wyrm generally consumes to corpse of the loser there is still oftentimes a significant portion left.

These wyrmfalls generally act as a beacon attracting all kinds of scavengers ranging from other Wyrms and gods, to opportunistic caravans looking to make it big

The intelligence of the wyrm may be dead but its body is still actively hostile to those prying it apart.

The outer plating/scales/exoskeleton of a wyrm is among the most prized materials globally and as such is generally first to by stripped from a wyrmfall.

The burrowing teeth of Wyrms make for excellent lances and long nails provided you’re large enough to wield them.

Wyrm meat itself is both rubbery and tough, although eating enough is said to transform those who do so.

sometimes those who consume wyrmflesh report feeling phantom sensations like burrowing through stone. Even rarer is those who claim to remember events from the Wyrms life through its perspective. These claims are unverified.

Some bugs have found ways to collect the godly light and afterglow off from Wyrmfalls, this can be used to elevate one into a higher being, heal wounds, or even transmute materials. It’s one of the most expensive traded goods globally.

Wyrmfalls also tend to absolutely change the landscape around them, look at kingdoms edge.

Ash tends to accumulate in the surrounding areas but the winds of the wastes generally carries it away before it can build up like around the pale kings corpse.

The later stages of a wyrmfall tend to be colonization, with the useful materials of the wyrm mostly plundered bugs begin to build towns and even cities within the titanic corpses.

You see the wyrmfall may be mostly inert at this point but they have an inherent protection against the damaging effects of the wastes on the minds of bugs. If you find a town in the wastes that seems unaffected by the winds chances are it was initially built on the site of a wyrmfall.

Finally even millennia after death small amounts of soul can still be pulled from the decaying husk of the wyrm.

Parts of this were inspired by Mossbags most recent video, please go check it out!! It was very cool and fun, I promise.

[so-true-overdue]

Ah yes, the grand achievement of human progress: we are actively dismantling the only habitable planet in the known universe. In a stunning display of hubris, the same species that invented the wheel and the internet is now busy suffocating its atmosphere with greenhouse gases, as if terraforming itself into oblivion were a noble endeavor. Truly, if approbation is to be earned for single-handedly accelerating our demise, we must give a standing ovation to our collective efforts. After all, who wouldn’t want the recognition for melting polar ice caps and acidifying the oceans?

Climate change, a phenomenon overwhelmingly driven by human activity, is not some abstract future catastrophe but a present, palpable reality. The overwhelming consensus of the scientific community, backed by irrefutable empirical evidence, makes it abundantly clear that carbon emissions—so lovingly belched from our factories, cars, and power plants—are the primary contributors to the gradual destabilization of the Earth’s climate. Yet, the approbation continues for those who feign ignorance or audaciously deny the undeniable, as if belief or disbelief could somehow alter the laws of physics and chemistry.

Let's celebrate our achievement: the slow, agonizing death of ecosystems, the rise of sea levels that will displace millions, and the escalating frequency of extreme weather events that make even the most ardent deniers shuffle awkwardly. But let’s not stop there; why not applaud the degradation of biodiversity, the desertification of once-fertile lands, and the relentless march toward global food insecurity? It seems we are on the precipice of winning an award for transforming a once-vibrant, life-sustaining planet into an inhospitable furnace.

What better way to bask in approbation than to persist in our relentless pursuit of fossil fuels, to applaud ourselves for record-breaking temperatures, and to gaze in awe at the dying coral reefs? Climate change isn’t a passive occurrence; it’s an active masterpiece of human ingenuity—or rather, folly. And if approbation is the measure of success, then surely, we're all deserving of it for this monumental, self-destructive feat.

[dailyanarchistposts]

Communism or extinction

Therefore, the current and inexorable dilemma for humanity is: communism or extinction, revolution or death. But the revolution doesn’t only take place at exceptional moments in history. The revolution itself is an eruptive and decisive exception in the history of the class struggle and the capitalist social normality. But it’s not a fate or destiny but a possibility. It’s not inevitable but rather it’s contingent: it can as much as can’t happen. It depends on what the proletariat does or doesn’t do in respect. Because capitalism will not die by itself or peacefully.

The revolution is not an occurrence which happens overnight, instilling paradise on Earth either, but rather it’s a historical process, concrete, contradictory and even chaotic, that contains flows and ebbs, advances and retreats, ruptures and leaps, times of stagancy and new leaps. It’s a process of social transformation of a radical and total character which has always been, and above all at these heights of history, necessary and urgent, because it’s the only way that proletarianized humanity — which is the majority of humanity — can cease to self-alienate and self-destruct as humans, and at the same time to cease to destroy non-human nature.

Yes: communization is the only revolutionary exit from the crisis of capitalism or, which is the same thing, the only radical solution for the civilizatorian crisis, because it’s the only way to guarantee the reproduction of Life, or as Flores Magón would say, for its “regeneration” or reinvention.

It’s necessary to produce, then, that exception or historical eruption that is the revolution, no more and no less than for vital necessity. It must be gestated and born. Communism is the fetus and the revolution is the birth of the new world. But, as it has already been said, this depends on what the proletariat does or doesn’t do in order to transform the current social conditions and their own life, their own collective being and the ecosystem.

In the case that our class doesn’t fight for the total revolution until the end, the counterrevolution will continue to reign and the capitalist or dystopian catastrophe in course (systematic economic crisis, cutting-edge technology/”artificial intelligence,” massive unemployment and poverty, devastation of nature/ecological crisis, pandemics, wars, suicides, etc.) will finally end up making us as a species extinct. Perhaps there are only a few generations left before that. And the countdown increasingly accelerates.

Therefore, the current worldwide capitalist crisis and the current worldwide wave of proletarian revolts constitute possibly the last historical chance to finally start the irrevocable process of the global communist revolution, of the abolition or the overcoming of the society of classes and fetishes… or to perish.

Exaggerated? Apocalyptic? We’re already living in the capitalist apocalypse that is the the current crisis of civilization! The dystopian future is now! Our historical cycle of crisis and struggles will possibly be the cycle of 2019–2049…

Communism or extinction!

The self-abolition of the proletariat is the end of the capitalist world!

Proletarians of the world: Let’s self-organize in order to cease to be proletarians!

A proletarian fed-up with being one Quito, Ecuador February-April, 2020

[troutreznor]

photos captured and accompanying caption transcribed from Bryan David Griffith's "Rethinking Fire" exhibit at the World Forestry Center in Portland, OR

ARTIST STATEMENT

In 2014, after the Slide Fire threatened my home, I received a small grant to study wildfire with the Southwest Fire Science Consortium. After visiting many fire sites with scientists and firefighters, I came to believe that the root cause of the catastrophic wildfires we are seeing today is a fundamental set of cultural perceptions- perceptions we must re-examine before we can agree on solutions.

In Western culture we tend to view dualities- light and darkness, life and death, forest and fire- as opposing forces in a struggle of good versus evil. We see ourselves as fighting to preserve life and subdue death by taming nature to prevent disasters like wildfire. But what if these dualities are both vital parts of the same whole?

For thousands of years prior to European settlement, fires shaped Western forests. Many native species are adapted to fires and depend on the diversity of habitats they create. But today's forests are more contiguous and less diverse than pre-settlement forests. They are more densely packed with small trees- a legacy of cutting the biggest, most fire-tolerant trees followed by a century of putting fires out. For forests formerly adapted to fire, theses changes combined with years of unburned needles and brush on the ground provide fuel for unnaturally severe, ecosystem-damaging fires during weather extremes, when they are hardest to contain. By trying to eradicate fires, we have made them more lethal. By trying to prevent the death of individual trees, we have put the life of the whole forest at risk.

Now wildfires are coming back with a vengeance, becoming more frequent and extreme with climate change. The fire season in the Northwest is now up to 80 days longer than it was in the 1970s. Meanwhile, residential development has mushroomed in fire-prone areas since the 1990s, making management more difficult, ignitions more likely, and fires more dangerous and expensive to fight.

I investigate these concepts by using fire itself as my medium. I juxtapose soft organic lines and natural edges with geometric forms that convey our desire to control capricious natural processes- often with unintended consequences. The forms of my work compel your eye to complete them.I try to create a charged atmosphere where you spark your own discoveries, sometimes different than mine. Just as different ecosystems have adapted to different types of fire, different communities can find different ways to adapt to fire's inevitable return. Art can provoke questions, but it takes a community to forge solutions.

[flystill]

can someone explain something to me? how can you be interested in wildlife and nature in general and also only experience pessimism regarding Earth's future? if you care for creatures, ecosystems, natural beauty, then is there any option but to fight and hope for their best outcome?

I just ... maybe I've consumed too much pop sci and positive speculative fiction re:climate change, maybe i am too comfortable with the idea of change not being bad in and of itself. Of course I think oil companies are bad and need to close up shop asap, and of course there is and will be a lot of ugliness in the world. there will be species we lose due to climate change, and there will be death in general. the entire economic system will need to change, and it will be rough.

we need to mitigate loss of life and habitat and focus on sustainable resource use strategies. but without hope that any mitigation is possible, how can you claim to care about the natural world at all? ecosystems are pretty good at adapting. humans can adapt pretty well too.

it just makes me sad that people who are intelligent and claim to care about the Earth can simultaneously shrug their shoulders and say "yep, it's going to shit". I used to think this way to some extent, but maybe this is part of that 'hope/optimism takes maturity' thing. anyway, i just found my recent conversation with a 'pessimist' disconcerting. thinking that way is not useful or personally fulfilling, even though I know it can be easy to fall into it. there already is and there will continue to be much to grieve regarding the state of the natural world and human society, but if the majority of us believe there is no reason to fight for our planet's future, then that degrades the quality of life in that future even further.