#is taking away the few resources human have left so they resort to cannibalism

[eggclown121]

local plant is going through it...

[vagrantblvrd]

Sky Factory Android Shenanigans is giving me so many ideas?

That super cliché sci-fi AU where Michael’s an android on the run (because reasons???) and he ends up on one backwater planet/colony somewhere. Parts on the fritz thanks to a run in with some black ops/assassination squad and he needs repairs but doesn’t know who to trust?

Broadcasts reporting him as, idk, malfunctioning and the whatnot and a danger to the public – do not approach or engage – and call the authorities if you see this unit.

(Unit, like he’s not a person anymore, had his autonomy stripped away along with his humanity and goddamn him for being stupid enough to trust whatever organization he signed up for that got him killed, turned him into this and fucked him over again with all the secrets it was keeping he hadn’t even guessed at before stumbling on them, hence the android on the run part of things? But yes.)

And then he overhears someone talking about this lunatic living on the fringes of whatever settlement he’s come to. Like something out of the true crime stories he used to follow when he was a kid – or is that just another implanted memory?

Shady as hell and rife with con-men and thieves and worse, perfect place to hide out for a while until his stupid body shuts down and he dies for real out here.

Half-blind most days because that shot to the head and it acts up at the worst times. Almost gets him killed a few times when some of those thieves and worse ambush him in an alley and it’s sheer luck he manages to get out of it without suffering more damage.

Anyway, anyway, he hears about this lunatic who’s supposed to be some kind of mechanical genius, right? Doesn’t run a real shop, lives out by the main scrapyard like a weirdo. People bring their busted machines and gadgets and the whatnots to him and he fixes them up nice and pretty-ish. (Cheaper than the officially licensed technicians near the spaceport and a hell of a lot more discreet to boot.)

So.

Michael makes his way there, half-convinced he’s walking into a trap but it’s take that risk or end up being a pile of spare parts in the guy’s scrapyard anyway, right?

And at first the asshole doesn’t even respond when Michael knocks on his door, pretends he’s not home or whatever and Michael’s just.

At the end of his rope and angry and defeated and he starts yelling at the fucker until his vocalizer glitches out, and that’s when the door snaps open, sending Michael tumbling inside where he lands on his face because his everything is fucked up and he doesn’t react fast enough.

Looks up to see someone staring down at him, implants and augments like whoa because no human has an eye that glows red unless it’s in one of those old horror holovids.

“What do you want?

Surly bastard, which lines up with the things Michael overheard before.

Loner who doesn’t really gt left alone because people need things, don’t they, and there’s not a lot of  money coming into a place like this. Old mining planet/colony where the companies pulled their operations out when the mines ran dry and only the worst kind of people come by anymore.

The few decent people left behind too poor to relocate, so it’s a shitshow and as someone with the skills to he has he gets visitors more often than he’d care for. (Customers or someone hoping to take what he has any way they have to, which explains the weapon in his hand and Michael’s almost to point he’d just let the fucker shoot him to be done with it, but.)

He stands up, servos and whatever else he’s made of these days creaking and groaning and this little flash of light that may be actual sparks coming off him and he sees the guy’s grimace at how bad off he is.

Like Jesus, if he wasn’t what he was Michael knows someone would have scrapped him a few planets back, but whatever.

The guy – Ryan, of course it’s Ryan – flips the lights on and they get a good look at one another.

Michael’s headed for a full-system shutdown and Ryan?

Looks like he’s been through some shit. Enough augments and implants that the legal system would be hard-put classifying him as human anymore, leaning past cyborg and dangerously close to being an android himself like some of those soldiers Michael’s seen who got caught up in the outer worlds skirmishes a few years back.

A lot of them look cobbled together from whatever parts he could find out here, which makes sense if the guy’s here of all places. (People don’t end up somewhere like here if they have resources to call on, you know? And no one ends up somewhere like here if they’re not in some kind of trouble, so. Yeah.)

They regard each for a long, long time.

Michael knows Ryan recognizes him, but he’s too tired to bother running – been doing too much of that as it is – and he wouldn’t get far in the shape he’s in if he tried

Last resort and the way that goes and Ryan sighs, gesturing for Michael to follow him and he does because what else is he going to do?

Ryan fixes him up, this long on-going process that takes a long damn time because Michael’s so busted up. Has this little helper bot he’s built out of old construction bots or something because its still sporting that distinct yellow paint job, little black and white stripe along its side.

Beeps and chirps and boops whenever Ryan asks it to bring him this tool or that, dig through the bins along one wall for parts or whatever. Hovers along just behind him when they’re not in the workshop/lab loyal little helper and kind of cute in a weird kind of way.

Ryan calls it E.D.G.A.R. and when Michael asks what the acronym stands for Ryan shrugs because hell if he knows, he just thought it was appropriate, which what does that even mean???

Ryan and E.D.G.A.R. dig through the bits and pieces he has stashed in his workshop/lab/lab, cannibalize worker androids – makes and models who didn’t start out as humans like Michael did – for some of it. Searches through the scrapyard to find parts he can modify for the rest.

Once he gets Michael functioning to a high enough level he can lend a hand Michael’s out there too, digging through piles of appliances and machinery and trying not to look too hard at the scattered android parts and chassis tossed in there too. (Some look too human, synthetic flesh torn and weathered from being unprotected from the elements for who know how long)

They don’t really get friendly, the two of them, but Ryan forgets to play the curmudgeon the longer he works at fixing Michael up.

Doesn’t ask who Michael is or how he ended up here, doesn’t seem like he’s waiting on the authorities to come claim him either.

Kind of a confusing time for them both because it’s clear Ryan’s got his own secrets, you know?

More than just some guy who picked up what he knows ‘along the way’, no.

There’s an order to his workshop/lab/lab Michael recognizes from the days right after those fuckers turned him into a machine, the way he works.

Meticulous as hell and so precise and just. More care than any of the hacks Michael’s gone to since he’s been on the run.

And then!

And then there’s – Michael doesn’t know when the shift happens but he bitches about something and Ryan laughs, quiet little huff of air and this tell-tale quirk to his mouth, and he gives Michael this. This look.

Something thoughtful to it he doesn’t really understand, can’t fucking compute, but who cares, right? Because Ryan’s less of a bastard after that, they get along better and Michael stops worrying Ryan’s just waiting for the right moment to turn him in, thinks his luck might be changing on him – so of course that’s when things go to shit.

Someone must have seen Michael before, recognized him and figured out he went to Ryan for help because the people chasing Michael?

They find him.

Assassination squad(s) and both of them unprepared for it and Ryan gets hit, gets hit bad.

More machine than man, but there’s still enough squishy human left to him that a bullet/energy weapon shot in the right place will kill him, you know? (Besides, all those augments and implants are hooked up to his squishy human parts in amazingly delicate ways and it’s real fucking easy to use that against someone if you know how.)

Michael doesn’t get away unscathed himself, but of the two of them he’s far more functional. And even though Ryan didn’t have the right parts and components to bring him up to factory specs again, so to speak, he did a damn good job with what he had on hand, you know?

There’s also the fact that the people who made Michael what he is now didn’t expect him to turn on them, thought they had a nice loyal dog in their hands and they made a mistake giving him the teeth and claws they did. All these built-in weapons because he’s a prototype, isn’t he.

New war machine to sell to the highest bidder and better than all those soulless robots people were using before because there’s a human mind in there capable of making the kind of decisions and choices and whatever else a simple computer program or AI could ever hope to. (Real fucking close to the complex sort of AI they’d need for that, but not close enough to satisfy the corporations or military forces who would commission them.)

So.

Michael gets them out of there, follows E.D.G.A.R. to this ship Ryan’s got hidden away – looks like shit but Ryan – stubbornly hanging on – insists it’ll get them to safety, just don’t fly them into the sun or a fucking planet, for Christ’s sake.

Michael gets Ryan into the medbay which – surprise, surprise – looks like a smaller version of Ryan’s workshop/lab/ than a medbay, but who cares at this point.

Hooks him up to machines to keep him alive until he can give him proper medical care and gets them away from any pursuers.

When he goes back down to check on Ryan it’s to find the asshole directing E.D.G.A.R. to open up this   pod on the wall. (Looks more like a casket.)

Human shaped and something about it unsettles Michael who demands to know what’s going on, because Ryan shouldn’t be doing what’s he’s doing.

Seriously injured and lost a lot of blood and any normal human would be dead by this point, and Ryan.

He sighs, gives Michael this look because they both know he’s not going to get better from his injuries, you know? Squishy human parts all fucked up and augments and implants malfunctioning worse than Michael had been when he went to Ryan.

Only a matter of time and Ryan knew something like this would happen one day – all the things Michael was careful not to ask Ryan the same way Ryan didn’t ask Michael because secrets. (And Plot Reasons, but c’mon, you know how this works by now.)

E.D.G.A.R. cracks the pod/casket open and oh, wow, surprise, surprise there’s an android body inside it.

Looks a hell of a lot like Michael’s, but this one is a little bigger, bulkier. Looks like an older version, one that was modeled more after the construction androids, used for heavy labor and the whatnot. No synthetic flesh cover its frame, all powered down and waiting and -

“Don’t do this,” Michael says, because Ryan thinks he knows what he’s doing but he doesn’t.

He doesn’t.

(Michael doesn’t know what else they can do, but this - there has to be another way.)

Ryan gives Michael this sad little smile and it’s horrifying because internal bleeding and everything else, and he’s just.

“Michael,” he says, and he sounds so tired. “Why do you think I knew how to repair you?”

Because Ryan didn’t end up in some backwater planet/colony by accident, you know?

Doesn’t know the things he does because he read about it somewhere or had a job working in a goddamned repair shop on one of the inner worlds.

None of those easy little lies Michael kept telling himself, no.

Ryan used to work for this corporation, big on advancing science and all that bullshit that had major funding provided by the military and so on and so forth. People real interested in cutting down on human bloodshed and what better way than to create machines to do it for them?

Things went wrong along the way, and they got desperate as project after project failed to live up to expectation. (Some key component missing and it wasn’t until someone decided morals and ethics were oh so troublesome they made any real headway.)

People like Michael and accidents here and there, soldiers offer a second chance and there’s an experimental program that hasn’t been revealed to the public. Dangerous, of course, but -

Some people got a choice in the matter, sold their souls for that second chance. Others like Michael never had that luxury.

And Ryan, oh. He was part of that, wasn’t he.

Designed the androids because the science of it all, but he never expected things would lead where they did.

Got to watch as his creations were used in the worst possible ways, saw the early days where human brains couldn’t cope with the transfer progress. Breadth and depth of what makes a human mind (soul?) shoved into a computerized/cybernetic shell of its former self, most without warning and the fallout -

Most committed suicide, some went mad. The others had to be destroyed as they decayed.

And Ryan.

He tried to expose them, did what he could and it almost, almost worked.

But one man against a vast conglomeration fueled by greed and corruption and it almost killed him. (Should have, maybe that would have been better.)

He had a handful of augments and implants before everything went to hell to help him in his work, but afterward.

Well.

Squishy human bodies are just that, aren’t they. Get injured so badly they can’t be fixed and he ended up needing more and more until he might as well have been one of those androids he created once upon a time. (Poetic justice to it, or so he thought when he bothered to think about it at all.)

And anyway, anyway, that doesn’t matter at this point because it’s either transfer his squishy human brain-stuff into the waiting android frame or die.

Before all this, before Michael, Ryan might have chosen death. Figured it’s what he deserved for his part in things, no way he can expose the people responsible when he’s failed before, but.

Michael makes him want to try.

(Ryan knew, you see, while he was fixing Michael that the idiot would go right back out once he was done and try to do the impossible. May have drawn things out longer than he should have to prevent that from happening because he likes Michael, okay? Too much, maybe.)

This isn’t the way he saw things going, but he doesn’t want to die now. Doesn’t want to leave Michael alone to fix Ryan’s mistakes. (And maybe it’s not all on Ryan to fix, but who else is going to do it?)

So.

Michael hates it, hates it so much but he does what Ryan tells him to do. Gets him hooked up to the right machines, boots up the right programs and whatever else and watches Ryan die as he turns himself into an android.

He doesn’t know why Ryan’s doing what he’s doing, thinks it’s because he doesn’t want to just fade away into nothing, but Ryan tells him later.

Tells him everything as he’s figuring out how his new android body works, the two of them following gossip and rumors surrounding this broadcast someone’s sending out about the people responsible for making Michael what he is. Things said people are trying to shut down, shut down hard, but can never catch.

He tells him and Michael listens and it’s not easy, God is it ever not, but they come to an understanding  or something like that.

Ryan didn’t know, not for the longest time and when he did he tried to do something about that, and that has to count for something.

(He saved Michael’s life or whatever the hell you’d call it when he turned up on his doorstep, and that counts for something too.)

And just.

Michael’s got his own mistakes too, okay.

So.

They figure things out, and Ryan fixes up his android body so its face looks like his human one and he maybe upgrades it, Michael laughing at him when Ryan goes on and on and on about laser hands or whatever the hell. (Ridiculous and impractical as hell, but goddamn does it sound cool.)

Also, also? Ryan doesn’t have the combat training/protocols Michael does so ~training. Partly to get him used to how his new body moves, partly because they don’t have access to adequate things at first and Michael runs him through the basics, right?

And he teaches Ryan how to compensate for it when his targeting whatevers are on the fritz and Ryan proves to be a better shot than Michael? (New ways to bring old cliches and tropes into play, is what I’m getting at here.)

Those moments where Ryan comes up against the limitations of his new body, realizes what he’s lost when he chose to become an android and Michael just being there because he’s the best person to understand what he’s going through?

The two of them becoming this amazing team over time that is an actual threat to the people after them? (And E.D.G.A.R., because Ryan is too damn fond of the bucket of bolts.)

They run into assassination squads and whatever else and finally, finally find the source of the broadcasts and of course it’s Matt and all these misfits and outcasts with grudges against the assholes after Michael and Ryan and it’s just.

Shenanigans in space as this group of supposed space pirates/smugglers/criminal types take on a corrupt corporation because reasons.

Also, yes, totally FAHC AU in space, but different ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

================

More of this AU with Jerevin this time???

[kryptsune]

🌼Here is my version of Horrortale THE UPDATED VERSION! I was not really happy with how I wrote it prior to this but now that I have added more world building I am so much more satisfied with the result. There is a lot more to it now than there was before world wise. A few things to mention before I start. This Horrortale is mainly a Frans or Frisk X Sans AU. It may change in the future but that is the core of it. I also want to warn people that the below content may be triggering or disturbing. This is very serial killer based so keep that in mind as you move forward.

DO NOT REPOST MY WORK WITHOUT MY PERMISSION IT IS NOT FOR YOUR USE. IF YOU LIKE MY WORK PLEASE REBLOG INSTEAD! It helps me so much! It makes such a difference.💙If you want more of these just let me know! It’s the only way I can gauge interest!

Horrortale {FXS}

Alternate “Nicknames” Info: 

Sans: Blade Papyrus: Ash ( joke reference to Ash vs the Evil Dead) 

Main Plot Synop: Sans timeline has yet to meet their “fallen human”. On the surface the monsters begin to do experimentation learning about the abilities that humans possess. These studies lead to even more advances for the humans and the monsters. They live and coexist perfectly but something goes wrong. The monsters were considered to be pure beings ones with pure white souls to match but humans were flawed. They did horrible things even to their own and eventually that began to create a new threat. One that was easily spread from monster to monster. A black infection that begin to eat away and hollow out ones soul called The Rot.

Sans works in the lab spending more and more time trying to help his associates with their research into human soul traits. Gaster begins to make headway on the research of the soul extracting vials of concentrated soul essence. That includes the essence from a fallen human that died of causes unknown. Their name is Chara. In Chara’s soul The Rot lies in wait festering in a sea of pure red. Like an apple rotted from the inside the hate and hopelessness of this trait resided in that lone soul and ate it alive. All that they had been was no more. Those working in the lab are the first to be infected especially their Royal Scientist Dr. W.D Gaster. 

Sans pursuit to rid the others of this rot causes him to become obsessive and resort to using old vials of human soul essence in his own experiments. It begins to become successful keeping away the infection but at high doses it can have some nasty side effects. He begins to cure the monsters but his own rot can only be cured by one source, Determination. The strength of the essence is so powerful that it begins to have some interesting complications. 

Kindness- Obsession

Integrity- Moral righteousness/ pride/ manipulation 

Bravery- Adrenaline high constantly sweating, rapid breathing and nausea 

Justice- OCD (ideologic pride)

Perseverance- Extreme fatigue/sickness/ depression as physical symptoms

Patience- Timid and intense fear/ anxiety

The Rot and the World it forms:

The rot if left “untreated” can cause some rather unfortunate changes within monster biology and the cure to such an infection is not foolproof (in fact I would argue it causes them to start cannibalizing each other). Those that are suffering from the rot begin to make their way through different stages of the infection. 

Stage 1: Paranoia and weakness

Stage 2: A shift in biology- Due to the cure being human soul traits the side effect is a change in monster biological structure. They begin to lose some of their magical abilities taking on the traits that are curing them. It alters their make up at the soul level. This also causes them to take on a more physical form. That means that their bodies persist after death and even bleed.   

Stage 3: Starvation/ Ravenous hunger- The infection causes a craving in the soul most likely in an effort to fill a hole of some kind. The same one that is eating away at their soul leaving a soulless husk behind. This is usually seen in the form of food but it can also be more worldly things. Money, power, all of those are fair game. They essentially become soulless.

Stage 4: Mindlessness- Almost like wild animals the monsters that make it to this stage become like wild beasts. All predators. They feast on other monsters but they usually turn their sights to monsters that have a high concentration of human soul in their bodies. That includes humans as well.  

Stage 5: “Death” (amalgamates)- The typical mindless zombie. They are slow and aggressive only thinking of eating even though they are half dead already. They do not speak, they do not think. They exist. (What a horrible way to “live”).   

Monsters begin to eat and kill each other thinning the once thriving monster world. Just like in UT they used to have an overcrowding problem but now with this new situation that is quickly changing. Asgore locks himself away trying to keep the infection at bay and away from those he cares about. It is unclear if the King is dead or not. All they know is that the entire Underground is in ruin. 

It would appear that having quantities of these traits can hold off deeper stages of the infection. That is why they begin to formulate ways to lure humans into the mountain, songs, whispers, anything that can be used. The barrier is different in this version as it only requires the power of a human soul and a monster soul to cross it. This means that some monsters have the ability to slip past the barrier to drag humans back for “dinner time”. The human cities have not forgotten about the monster threat and they keep up defenses to keep them out. A zombie apocalypse if you will. That means that some monsters (again not all they have to be strong enough) can cross the barrier and bring back food. 

The barrier was also not created originally as a punishment for monsters losing the war but rather containment. It was cruel nonetheless and eventually the humans began to distance themselves from the monsters leaving them stuck in a barrier that provided no room to grow and little food or resources. Eventually as The Rot began to infest the Underground humans quarantined it off leaving them even more hopeless than ever before. 

Humans do not “seem” to be affected by The Rot but their world has been significantly altered by the disease. It makes it difficult to live when all your meals are outside of your cities security and large open spaces are easy targets such as farms. In the end the war and caused an even larger problem, the destruction of their world. It is nothing but an apocalyptic wasteland in most parts due to attacks. Food is scarce both in the Underground as well as on the surface. Just as monsters have become hunters of their own  

The Effects of DETERMINATION: 

Sans begins to see more and more the inner works and the fabric of the world he lives in. It begins to make him think he is going crazy. It has to be due to sleepless nights, heightened stress, and hopelessness that seems to continue to fester in his own soul. In addition to being able to manipulate and see the fabric of his world he also has “visions”. Almost a form of astral projection. His consciousness is able to see through the eyes of his respective timeline counterparts. He is able to see everything they do in multiple timelines. It is a form of timeline hopping or reset. They are all on the same frequency. 

He begins to see their happiness and their pains. The good and the evil. At first he thinks they are dreams but as it happens more frequently the more he realizes the nature of it. He sees how happy they are and there is one constant variable for their happiness (the bad timelines begin to heighten his apathy). That constant is Frisk. He continues to help the other monsters and almost all of them are “cured” though the other side of The Rot has yet to rear its ugly head. He however becomes a recluse burying himself in his supposed delusions and madness. He continues to take more and more DT slowly turning his eyes red. It is like the ring of an oak tree. The longer that he uses it the more rings he gets the larger his eye becomes (giving him that classic Horror look).  At first they are like the rings of a tree effectively replacing his rot with a new DT addiction. It also begins to cause his face to slowly melt.    

Meanwhile the other main boss monsters that have been treated have a similar affliction where the soul traits they were taken have embedded into their souls. It begins to give them a new power. A power rivaling that of a human soul. The power of the 7. The variable that can be used to slip past the barrier. Sans though is becoming slowly obsessed with this Frisk. He sees her not as a variable anymore but rather someone that will make him happy. 

Sans madness continues to increase even his associate Dr. Alphys is trying to get him some semblance of help but by this time he is too far gone. He needs an intervention. An explosion happens in the lab. The vials and his research are now gone. All of it has gone up in flames and unfortunately the damage to his soul has already been done. He ends up in solitary confinement sinking further into his obsession. 

News reaches him that a human has fallen down from the opposite entrance of the Underground. He goes to meet them only to realize that they look nothing like the human he is obsessed with. He begins to harvest human soul essence hiding his face behind a mask at first since nearly the whole front portion of his face is gone. It is a mask of his own face which makes his gaze even creepier knowing what, or rather what does not lay beyond it.  Eventually he learns to easily control his face with his magic rearranging the dust to shift his appearance. His level of insanity shifts to obsessive confusion. He is unhappy his first human encounter is not his precious Frisk but the human does have her eyes from his perspective. His concept of what Frisk actually looks like keeps changing. 

His form and control is directly tied to his emotional states. If he experiences any form of heightened emotion be it sadness or rage his composure will falter as will his appearance. If it becomes too drastic he will slowly begin to melt causing the appearance he originally had when this all began to appear. This is why he is called “The man with many faces.” He will sometimes end up completely faceless save for the bottom half where his grin would be.

Blades Madness:

Sans (aka Blade) obsession causes him to steal the various parts of humans to create his perfect human. Each one he makes he sees as an improvement. They are all mindless dolls held together with low doses of soul essence and magic. A macabre shrine to his beloved human. They reside in his shed and sometimes he talks to them but he considers them as failures. He calls them his projects and this continues over and over until his Frisk falls. 

He is overjoyed that he has his precious with him now. Papyrus checks on his brother yet he knows he needs help. After all these years he has seen his brothers decline Ash tries to help him. Frisk’s entry into the Underground is by complete accident, though she is not the savior that the rest are known to be. She is a soul of kindness causing her eyes to be a bright jade. Even Sans though overjoyed that Frisk has “returned” to him; he feels as though she is not perfect yet. He takes her and makes her perfect by removing one of her eyes to be a beautiful blue. He even cuts the back section of her hair to satisfy him. 

She feels no pain when this happens. Her kind soul wants to help him and slowly she begins to pull the old Sans back every once and awhile. Her soul, just like Charas, is filled with something as well. It turns out that though it looks like Frisk’s soul is one of kindness it is actually a pure white soul of hope. This has the ability to cure The Rot. They are glimpses but it is progress. He has to stop his killing ways and he does after Frisk is with him.

She feels no pain when this happens. Her kind soul wants to help him and slowly she begins to pull the old Sans back every once and awhile. They are glimpses but it is progress. He has to stop his killing ways and he does after Frisk is with him.   

[things2mustdo]

Since the dawn of time there have always been rites of passage for men. In ancient times it may have been to hunt your first animal, or survive in the wilderness on your own. Generally they all meant the same thing: to be a man meant you are now able to provide and care for yourself. To acquire your own food, shelter, and handle your own problems. Nowadays this rite is often the moment your parents decide they can leave you at home by yourself without you burning the house down. And our first hunt for food by picking up a phone and ordering pizza.

Why Survivalism Is Needed

Now that we’re adults and have jobs and can just buy our food, we don’t see the need for learning the ancient arts of surviving in the wild. But to be a man you must be able to always fend for yourself and your family even during a disaster or national emergency. To be a man you can’t rely on the government or anyone else to come save you when a large-scale disaster strikes. And they don’t have the best track record when it comes to responding to large disasters.

How You Can Benefit

Survivalism isn’t all about living like the world is going to end any day, like a lot of mainstream media would have you believe. It’s the ability to bend nature to your will and make it work for you. It can be a very healthy lifestyle for modern men. Most men have, and still do, go camping. But next time you go, consider backpacking—putting everything you need for camping in one back pack and hike with it to your campsite. It’s a more fun workout than going to the gym, and you’ll have to plan out everything you’ll need on your trip. It also teaches you to be resourceful and innovative. If you backpack ten miles from your vehicle and then realize you left your fork and spoon in the car, you’ll have to improvise.

Also, learning how to prioritize essentials is a skill that is useful in all aspects of our life. Taking only what is essential and not carrying any dead weight. The extreme backpackers even shave down their toothbrushes to 3 inches to save on weight and space in their pack. If everything you need for camping fits into one backpack it would save a lot of space in your garage, too.

There’s a sense of security in knowing that if you travel into the wilderness, far away from any other human being, you can survive on your own. Of course becoming a modern caveman doesn’t happen overnight. And Hollywood is full of examples of when it goes wrong (127 Hours, Into The Wild). Learning the basics of fire starting, water sanitizing, first aid, and trip planning are a must.

Survivalists prepare for dozens of different scenarios ranging from zombies to asteroids to if the Cubs lost the World Series and Chicago descended into anarchy—I know several people who canceled business trips or bunkered down during the series to avoid that scenario. And I don’t advocate for preparing for the end of the world or zombies. I advocate that men should know how to provide for themselves in the case of a devastating disaster. Near where I live a city the size of 160,000 people was hit by more than 3 inches of freezing rain one winter, knocking down power lines and trees and making roads dangerous. They didn’t descend into anarchy but they were without power for a week or more. Power was restored to the stores and you could buy necessities, for twice the price they were the week before. But power to most of the houses was off for a week or more.

A man should be able to know what to do when the water doesn’t flow out of the tap or the power doesn’t come back on for a week. How do you sterilize water if there’s a blackout during a boil order? And society is not as strong as we think. We all live in a trucking distribution economy. If the trucks stop moving the cities don’t have food. The trucking industry has been falling on hard times. If an oil crisis or economic crisis occurs and the trucks stop moving then the cities go without food. It’s been said that all cities are 3 days from bread lines and 7 days from cannibalism. Just look to the mess Venezuela is currently in. The people there resorted to eating feral dogs and pigeons.

Where You Can Start

Don’t go turning your Man Cave in to a prepper bunker by any means. I can’t understand why people buy a year’s worth of baked beans and hide them in their spare bedroom. Any situation involving a complete collapse of society necessitating you to rely on a years worth of baked beans means you have more serious problems to deal with than finding food. Who puts out the fires if society collapses? And how are you going to carry a pallet of baked beans? Keeping a week of extra food and supplies is all you need for most disasters and emergencies. And some basic camping gear. But most of all, learning skills and practicing them is required. Once you learn skills you never have to worry about leaving them in the car that’s at the bottom of the mountain you just climbed.

A lot of us living in the cities don’t have a lot of spare room in our apartments. To start being more prepared you don’t need much. A week of extra food, an independent cooker for food and sterilizing water (a barbecue grill works), extra hygiene products, and a few supplies. A food stash doesn’t have to be complex or exotic. A good rule would be ten cans each of vegetables, fruits, and meat, as well as carbs such as crackers and rice.

You can find a small water filter for backpackers that is smaller and cheaper than a flashlight for your drinking needs. And having extra toiletries such as toothpaste and soap also saves you from late night drives to the store for one item. Extra batteries for flashlights, radios, or other gadgets can be a lifesaver in an emergency as well as good bartering items.

By the way, the first items that are bartered for in an emergency are toilet paper, toothpaste and batteries. So if you don’t have something you can trade for it. Duct tape, a roll of gauze, and a small bottle of isopropyl alcohol can get you through basic medical needs, but you really need to know what you’re doing for the more advanced medical stuff. And lastly, you will need the skill and the will to defend your stash if the need arises. Remember you are prepping for yourself and not the looters.

So as responsible adults, aka Men, we should take an interest in the survivalist movement and learn the skills of survival. With the way society is headed they may become useful.

Read More: The Curious Case Of The Feminist Party In Sweden

[prairie-w0lf]

Spiders

This is the first chapter of something I had planned to write approximately five million years ago. I still like the concept so maybe I'll expand on it later, when I'm not riddled with anxiety.

----

The fridge was empty. Well, not really. There was moldy food in there somewhere. That is, if you could get past the inch-thick layer of spiders skittering all over.

It was hard to tell if they were real or not. Magda had done her best to seal the gas out of her house but there always seemed to be a leak and, as a result, there were always hallucinations. Spiders were common. Sometimes they were on the walls, sometimes in the bed, sometimes between the worn couch cushions, sometimes under her skin and in her hair. She hated when they got in her body. She could feel their little feet digging into her muscles, see their bodies moving under her flesh. No matter how hard she scratched, she just couldn’t get them out. When she used tweezers they always evaded her. The spiders were everywhere and she couldn’t get rid of them.

She shut the fridge door and sighed. Usually she would just reach through the blanket of arachnids and take a moldy bit of whatever she grasped first, but there were already tiny lumps moving up and down her arms and she didn’t want any more. Her wounds from trying to dig them out were still very fresh, oozing blood and clear liquid and pus. They would crawl in, the entire lot of them, and take over her body. She couldn’t allow that.

Magda fell into the couch and sighed again. Bugs scurried away. Her dog, Scab, laid his head on her knee and sighed as well. He was an ugly thing - a pitbull with a face only a mother could love. He was big and layered with thick ropes of muscle and riddled with scars. Magda had bought him three-some years ago from the local dog fighting arena. He’d been only a puppy then. Now he was big and strong and a trained fighter, sharp as the edge a blade. He’d taken his fair share of victories in the Pit before the gas threw everything off kilter.

It was time to leave the house again and scavenge. The trips were growing increasingly long and decreasingly fruitful. The town’s resources were running thin, even with the significant drop in population. Soon it would be time to move - an ordeal Magda was dreading not because she feared the change, but because it was such a big to-do. Still, it would eventually have to be done unless she wanted to resort to cannibalism like so many other survivors (which she didn’t actually have anything against, except that it was a health hazard).

She dragged her fingers over her face and stood to proceed into the bathroom. The house, if one could call it that, was small and shabby in what used to be the bad part of town before every part of town was the bad part. Every window was boarded, the cracks sealed with duct tape and strips of cut up tire rubber to prevent the sickly-sweet gas outside from worming its way in. There were two main rooms - one small bedroom and a “living room”, contained nothing but a couch and a small television. The bedroom consisted of a mattress shoved in a far corner, a single lamp that flickered, but was not on because there was no power, and clothes strewn all around the dirty carpet floor. The bathroom, which was only a half-bath because the shower only sprayed orange sulfur-scented water, had a cracked mirror with grime crusting the sides and a toilet that was somehow so crooked it was almost completely sideways. The sink was one someone might find in a questionably sanitary slaughterhouse.

Magda slumped up to the mirror and stared blankly. Very rarely did she actually see herself. So rarely, in fact, that she couldn't quite remember the shape of her own face or the color of her hair. Usually she was an animal - sometimes a pest, covered in mange and foaming at the mouth, but usually a coyote. Which was what she saw today.

She opened the cupboard behind the mirror and pulled out her toothbrush, which was quickly losing its bristles, and a tube of toothpaste so nearly depleted that she had to cut open the tube with her pocket knife to scrape the last little bit from the container. She would have to look for more. She couldn’t afford to lose any teeth - they were a tactical advantage.

Magda didn’t look in the mirror when she brushed. She didn’t want to see her animal teeth. She didn’t want to look into those vibrant yellow eyes, the ones that were more her own now than the blue ones she'd been born with.

She spit the minty foam and brought metallic water to her lips in cupped hands. Gargle, spit, done. She ran her tongue over the chipped front tooth, the crooked bottoms, now smooth and wet, not fuzzy with plaque.

She spit again. Spiders.

She removed her shirt and put her head under the faucet. The water was cold and made goosebumps rise all over, but it woke her fully and was the only way to keep her wild hair from forming a rat’s nest. She considered cutting her hair right off - it was already short and choppy - but she needed it to keep warm for winter. She needed all her body hair to keep warm for winter.

Another few minutes were spent disinfecting the gouges in her arms with vodka and dressing them in cotton bandages.

She pulled her shirt back on and headed for the bedroom.

Magda had a very limited selection of clothing. Everything she owned was composed of mid-toned, drab colors of strong and sensible material. She dressed in layers, the first, which was what she was wearing in that moment, being a brown wifebeater (which she might even remove to wear only a sports’ bra) and fitted black fleece pants usually used for riding horses. They were strong and stretched and wouldn’t get caught on anything. They breathed when exposed to air and insulated when covered by the next layer - fleece-lined canvas pants featuring a ludicrous amount of pockets and a button-up shirt. The last layer was only an olive fleece-lined canvas jacket with even more pockets than her pants. It fit a bit large, but zipped all the way up to just under her chin and wrapped snugly around her neck. It was insulated enough to make her sweat in below-zero weather.

To top it all off, she had a series of smaller accessories including, but not limited to; A gas mask and several filters, a pair of well loved combat boots, a nylon belt to hold all her tools and do-dads, a full hood with a mask to cover her entire face, excluding her eyes, and a plaid ushanka hat.

Everything strewn about was her mother’s, whose remains were still wrapped in black plastic bags in a free corner, sealed tight to prevent rot from escaping. She’d saved them for various reasons, the main being a possible food source if things continued to go south. She reflected that, perhaps, she kept her mother around for sentimental value as well. It was doubtful. Magda had been more of a caretaker to her mother than vice versa. She resented the woman, blamed her for her problems, for stealing away her childhood.

It was mid summer, but the gas blocked out the sun and made the world cold enough to make frostbite a serious concern. She donned the first two layers of her gear, including the gas mask as well as a pair of insulated gloves. The filter of the mask should’ve still been good. Not that a lung-full of the noxious fumes would kill her. It would only make for a particularly awful twenty four hours.

She laced on her boots, buttoned her shirt and tucked it into the waistband of her pants, tightened the straps on her mask and made sure it was airtight, then finally stood and walked back to the living room. Her backpack, which had as many pockets as her jacket and pants combined, was empty and sagged like a sad child against the wall next to the door beside her preferred weapon - a simple crowbar.

Magda loved everything multi-purpose. She loved her mask because it had both incredible functionality and also served as a way to scare away other people. She loved her jacket because it broke wind, kept her warm, and repelled water. She loved her Swiss Army knife because of its multitude of tools all jam-packed into one tiny little oval. She loved her dog because he could watch her back as well as serve as a friend - her only friend, one who didn’t care if she consumed human flesh once in awhile. She especially loved her crowbar because it could split skulls and, to a lesser extent, open forbidden doors and crates and windows. It also didn't require ammunition, of which she had long run out of for her Winchester M-76.

She grasped the bar in her right hand and used her left to sling the empty bag over her shoulder. She had on her belt a canteen and, of course, the same ten-inch Bowie knife she’d used to scrape out the last of her toothpaste only thirty-some minutes before. She owned a vintage .44 revolver as well however, even if it was pretty and powerful enough to blow the better part of a man's face off, the ammunition was hard to come by and it was all around more of a detriment than an advantage to carry around.

She did a once-over of everything she had. All she needed was on her person. Everything else was hidden away under a floorboard. Time to go.

She pulled open the door and a wave of pink-purple vapor rolled in. Magda called it the Haze. It was heavy, almost like a liquid. It was breathable without a mask on, but it coated one’s lungs like oil, gave the illusion of drowning - which probably played a major part in the insanity it caused. It was everywhere, inescapable, and caused vivid hallucinations. Never pleasant ones. These things combined, it was no wonder the majority of the world’s population went mad.

Scab loped out ahead of her, sharp ears back and eyes squinted, nose twitching in search of trouble. The Haze seemed to have no effect on animals, except for birds, which it killed most likely due to their sensitive respiratory systems. How he could smell anything beside the disgusting sweetness of the Haze was a mystery to Magda. She stepped out and tugged the door shut behind her.

She looked around and tried to pick a direction she hadn’t been in yet. The Haze made her memory spotty at best. It left her disoriented and confused and often disconnected from herself. She imagined this was what being on LSD felt like, but she didn't really know. As a result, it was hard to remember where she had been and where she had not. She couldn’t so much as recall what state she lived in - what town? Just that she was in the United States, which was in North America, which was on the planet Earth. Or so she thought. She also knew that she was on the eastern coast given that she would run into the ocean if she went east long enough. She couldn’t recall how far the East coast was from the West coast. If she went straight up long enough, would there be an Up coast? What about a Down coast? North or South?

Magda shook the thoughts from her head. She didn’t have time to contemplate where the ocean was. She whistled through the mask and Scab bounded over from the fallen street lamp he had been urinating on...

[dinomightofficial]

Civilization as I know it

20/03/2019

Basic Concept Art for Installation

User Experience Goal:

For the balance to be mechanically counter-intuitive. The message being that the player will subconsciously be trying to figure out how it works. The player acting as the civilization showing that without the understanding of complex dynamics of ecosystem and resources a civilization is doomed from the beginning. A key being ‘sustainable’ play.

Things to consider: Animal/crop/tree over harvesting, Irrigation, Soil Nutrient, Salt levels, Natural discord, Volcano, Flood etc.    These actions will be conveyed via animation and not directly by the player.

Especially after reading “A Green History of the World” by Clive Pointing, the history of Easter Island has been a running theme for my project thus far and it’s strictly based on scientists, archaeologists alike who have pondered and created assumptions on the inhabitants on the island rather than modern findings and facts. Previous finding from experts claimed that the Ahu (Stone Statues) pose the very real correlation that Easter Island once housed a thriving complex civilization estimated to be around 7000 big. However, with ever increasing environmental pressures, the introduction of rats and poor resource management the civilization crippled away into factions which fought over land and the few resources they had left.

Others resorting to the likelihood that cannibalism were rampant due to dire food shortages. These famines were brought by the assumption that a huge proportion of the trees on the island were cut down as rollers for the Ahu statues. Which in turn damaged the already fragile ecosystem, rapidly reducing soil fertility and because their main diet was Kumera and Taro there was a major population decrease the only main food source left being chickens. There are even remains of defensive stone chicken houses. Trees became so over-harvested that eventually there was not enough resources to build huts and boats to escape the island. Clans would fight for resources and topple opposing clan’s Ahu’s resulting in a very few numbers of statues being left standing by the time the Europeans arrived which had a big effect on the inhabitants belief system altering what was left of their culture by a lot.

Ahu Statues ^

Devastation had supposedly lasted so long that islanders could no longer remember how the statues were transported and claimed that they had simply ‘walked’ across the island.

Many of these assumptions and guesswork has been based on prior understanding of primitive civilizations and social systems. However, new research on the mysteries of Easter Island shows that the most likely cause of rapid population decrease may have been due to the introduction of Old world plagues and diseases the Europeans had brought with them aboard the many visits throughout history. The idea that war ravaged the already fragile culture and civilization is also now up for debate as recent archaeological findings show that the obsidian tools found scattered across the island were in fact just that, tools. Not for warfare or mass violence but rather agricultural and skill based tools. Many historians now consider the mass population decreases after the subsequent European visits was most likely due to European diseases and the introduction of the slave trade.

However, this doesn’t disprove the fact that environmental degradation and poor ecological management in terms of resource management did in fact take place. With an ever increasing pressure on the environment in settled communities histories biggest contribution to famines and the success of a growing civilization has been FOOD SURPLUS. Without a good management of food sources and amount a population cannot experience growth. Despite this simple resource, we soon realize that if history has taught us anything its that  “ Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.” - George Santayana, Countless civilizations has experienced time and time again the complex ecological demands a settled civilization can have if a good understanding of their environment is not present. A major aspect to a well managed resource system is sustainability. Without depleting one aspect of the cycle even the most fragile of environments are theoretically capable of withstanding a population several folds of modern population numbers.

Many historic civilizations experienced “Continuous cultivation of the same area [which] lowered soil fertility and a vicious cycle was established between the need to use as much land as possible to grow crops for direct human consumption, the limited amount of land available for animals and the lack of animal manures to maintain soil fertility”

In larger continents and an entire nation to manage, historically many famines would have been preventable by simply having better food distribution and storage methods. Not always easy to do when the religious elite taxes vital food supplies and armies loot and consume at will. Historically, the problem between the balance of population and amount of food obtainable was simply solved through famine and a decrease in the population. In the modern world with modern farming solutions, food from other continents are available in your daily supermarket if a shortage or a demand exists. Looking at how hard farmers and civilizations had it back then it’s amazing to think how far humanity has come since the dark ages where around 95 percent of the global population were simple peasants. 

Further content is not relevant to my current installation proposal but is relevant to the understanding of modern civilizations and how self sustainability has come to be today.

China in the year 1200 became the most literate and advanced civilization in the world due to rice patties. An extremely efficient farming method that is still used to this day to produce more food, which in turn meant more population, which meant less time farming and more time doing science, math and literature.

Cities           1800   25million (2.5percent).

                    1980   2.5billion (40 percent)

Not sustainable solutions leads to pollution 

biggest historical examples being water pollution - Lead to Collera

but modern pollution examples are tetraethylead and CFC (vsauce)

Refer to 5:14 - 8:00

Our civilization is small and meager, extremely narrow slice and this rapid change comes at a cost. 

Do we care enough to do something about it. 

Economy Driven, capitalism a problem? 

This is out of my scope in terms of this project but social sciences that influences our environment is a potential future research topic.

Reference

- Ponting, C. (1993). A green history of the world. The environment and the collapse of great civilizations. 

- https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/02/160222-easter-island-rapa-nui-collapse-archaeology-moai-mataa-warfare-weapons-Jared-Diamond/

- https://bigthink.com/the-proverbial-skeptic/those-who-do-not-learn-history-doomed-to-repeat-it-really