#like one way it can happen is if an egg serves as fertilization for another egg. giving the genetic material and whatever

[orcelito]

I do love that doing any kind of monsterfucker smut will have you dabbling in speculative biology and going on deep dives into the animal kingdom to draw inspiration for your fictional dragon reproduction system.

Aka for my oviposition dragon vash au I was looking into wonderful subjects such as autogamy, parthenogenesis, and ovoviviparity. Among others.

All just for funsies !

[alannatheterrible]

No change can happen until we as a society stop considering women as an "absence", or beings that "lack" things.

Women are not seeing as individual beings. They are seen as non-men. In ancient times, fertility in women was celebrated. Women were the creators, they were to be celebrated. But a reactionary movement brought phalluses under the spotlight instead. Everything began to be centered around penises, and in turn, their lack thereof. To this day, it's still one of the worst thing that can be conceived by humans (=men and women who still haven't woken up): not having a penis, not having balls, having a small or non functioning penis. It's all about that. Dick, dick, dick. Dicks drawn everywhere, "dick envy", ordinary objects shaped like dicks, dicks celebrated as the gods of fertility. But sperm is always readily available, unlike eggs. Women who are fertile aren't fertile all the time, their ovulatory cycle is more complicated, and it works on the basis of selection, just like the selection of the winning sperm, so as to call it. But that is an argument for another day, going back to the original purpose of this post...

Men are the center of everything. Their bodies are the icons of strength, of functionality, while women are seen as weak, because they don't excel in the same fields where men are the most fit to excel in, because of biomechanics and all. And women do have their own strengths, strengths that men don't and can't have - because of biomechanics still. But they don't matter, all misogynists care about is how to weaken the image of a woman.

Men are seen as more intelligent, when you think of a philosopher, you'd imagine a stoic, solitary man, who is superior to all in his mind... And usually hates women, because unlike other men, women are too dumb to understand his man-struggles.

Men are the default. Masculine is the default. Women are sinners, they ate the apple, they were made from a man's rib, they have to cover their whole bodies because they're nothing but temptation to men. Even the most enlightened men that history celebrates were raging misogynists, women were and are treated as subhuman by the patriarchal society we sadly still live in.

And then comes lesbianism. Men just can't grasp the concept of a woman liking another woman. Not a failed man, not a non-man, not a weak failed copy of a man, not a sex object, not a child bearer, not a free house wife. Lesbians don't like women the way that men think they like women. Lesbians like WOMEN. To them, to us, a woman is the center of all. The body of a woman is not just a man without the holy penis and the holy balls, nor is it a talking breathing sex dolls with perfectly round boobs and easy-to-lubricate holes. A woman has her own shapes, shapes that don't need to be deformed in some unnatural way to fit a sex position, no, a woman has different body proportions, body fat distribution, and yet she has body hair, and isn't born with makeup.

Women are women. They are their own individuals, a man with long hair would not be a woman the same way that a woman with short hair would not be a man. They are different, and different ≠ inferior. Different means different skills, different ways to shine.

To a man, a woman being a lesbian is an act of rebellion. Because the lesbian both ceases to live as an object whose only purpose is to serve men, and because, being a woman who loves women, she does not center her world view around men. Men are not her default, women are. Men are not her focus, women are.

And it's why men can't understand why some lesbians for example like butches but, obviously, not men. They see women as non-men when they see hypersexualized caricatures of women, when you take that hypersexualization away, when a butch has short hair and wears "mens clothes" and "looks like a man" all she is, to men, is a man without a penis. So "why not just go for the real man, with a real penis?". They can't fathom the idea of not liking penis just like they don't understand that butches and women who don't perform the construct of femininity they built are, in fact, still women.

Same way how they see two "femme" lesbians in porn using a strap-on and say the same thing, how if they use a strap-on then they can do a real man. Firstly, they don't understand that a woman with a strap on during sex is, in fact, still a woman. And secondly, they are seeing a part of themselves, their most precious and cherished part, being used as an object without much importance by the category of people that will never link with men. And they can't grasp that.

To men, a man who lost or is without a functioning penis and balls is not a man. He's emasculated, he's not virile, he's weak. They may feel pity for him.

For women, a woman who lost or is without a functioning part of her reproductively apparatus is still a woman. A woman who isn't fertile is still a woman, and doesn't lose any value in the eyes of women (except conservative trad-wives, maybe). A woman who lost her breast(s) doesn't lose value. A woman who has bigger breasts isn't more valuable than a woman with smaller breasts, while men argue within themselves all the time with "who has it bigger".

Women are not non-men, they are women. We have been erased, we have been shaped to the liking of men for too long, it's time to react. We need to speak up, not only for us, but for those sisters who still haven't opened their eyes, and those sisters who can't use their voices because it puts their lives in danger. We are not men, we are not inferior because we are not men, we are different, but we are still strong. We are different, but just as valuable. We will not bear in silence.

I'm a lesbian, I love women. I don't love non-men, I love women and all that has to do with their being a woman.

[oolathurman]

Kinktober Lite - Breeding, Oviposition, 3 or more-some

Something a lil different this time! These are sex headcanons for Nautolans. Under a cut bc it uh. got long. ;)

all nautolans are hermaphrodites in that they contain all the necessary reproductive organs needed to create little nauto babies

typical nautolan sex has two orgasms per partner. first one is when a lubricating mucus is released, one that creates a protective film around eggs and also helps keep the eggs together in a clutch.

this mucus also serves as lube to protect genitalia while fucking. when released underwater, the mucus creates a sort safe zone sex orb. the amount one individual releases is typically large enough to encompass a small area around the genitalia, think the size of a beach ball.

the entire time an individual is releasing this lubricating mucus is considered the first orgasm, and happens over a period of several seconds

when this first orgasm happens above water/on land, it results in a lot of squirting. the mucus will seem thicker on land, since it can't be watered down with seawater. let's get slippery.

the second orgasm releases eggs and sperm, and often also happens over a period of several seconds. for proper fertilization, eggs and sperm must be released within the first orgasm's protective mucus.

nautolan eggs are released and have a similar appearance to fish eggs, caviar, or fish roe: colorful little balls.

there's two options for the gestation period of nautolan babies. the first one is when the eggs are deposited into the partner's seahorse-like pouch. the second is for the nautolans to let the eggs free-swim in the mucus, which can be attached to coral, rock, or any other solid surface. but why are there two options?

the pouch can carry a lot fewer eggs, typically up to ten at most. however, the parent can better care for their gestating eggs this way, and the young survive until adulthood more often. (low infant mortality rate) that said, the parent is often slowed down, vulnerable to predators, etc., which may potentially lead to the loss of a healthy breeding adult.

when laying eggs on a surface, a lot more can be laid. think at least a hundred. now, even if all the eggs are successfully fertilized and even if all the eggs have healthy genes that could help them survive until adulthood (there is in fact a good chance that most of the young will die before adulthood when born in this matter), predators may often eat the eggs or the young before they can. (high infant mortality rate.) however, a healthy breeding adult will still have chances to reproduce.

all that said, in the modern era, the life/death choice between laying eggs and personally incubating them isn't as much of an issue as it was ages ago. nowadays, most potential nautolan parents will choose to incubate their young in their pouches since they don't want to lose any young children.

back to sexy stuff. typically, the body can only reach the second orgasm within a specific period of time. If the second orgasm isn't achieved, then no eggs or sperm are released.

so you can totally edge someone to their first orgasm multiple times and leave them an absolutely sticky desperate mess afterwards, begging to reach that second orgasm >:]

on the flip side, you can also overstimulate an individual and they'd release sperm/eggs multiple times in quick succession, though the amount released will of course drop over time

With all this said, it's indeed possible for a nautolan individual to be asexually reproductive!

Also possible for a clutch to have more than two parents this way

Also also possible for someone to 'adopt' another person's clutch as their own

You can totally have multiple people fucking the egg pouch. And I have got to find a sexier name for 'egg pouch.'

[ketso]

Episode 55

I'm warming Melo's bottle as Khotso has her in his arms. We are still at the royal house as I have to be makoti for I don't know how long. Senzi and Wandi had gone to a funeral and are only coming back today. I don't mind staying with the baby. I never got to do all of this with Wandi. I was arrested before I could even take her home from the hospital as a newborn. I didn't even know how to warm a baby bottle or make one... Khotso taught me. He's so hands-on and teaches me a lot too. But I'm not having another one. I'm sure my eggs are not even okay to have another one. But the way Khotso is sooooo broody! Hai! Then there's also Rena who is obsessed with being an aunt and Moloko who can't wait for this baby to be able to play so he could actually do something with her. Lol! My little family.

"Sanibonani", Wandi and Senzi walk in and greet us.

"Hello", we all greet them happily.

Senzi goes straight to his daughter.

"How is the little princess?" Senzi.

"She's been an absolute gem. She doesn't believe in night sleep though." Khotso says, handing the baby to Senzi.

Senzi and Wandi sit next to each other and bond with their baby. This is so beautiful, man.

"How was the funeral? I heard it went down", Khotso asks them.

"Yoh, baba! Can you believe ukuthi the same community that set that house alight is the same one that was there everyday ukuzodla nokucula amagugu? Abantu kanti banjani?" Wandi.

"I don't think we all have the same level of reasoning capacity nje as people." Khotso.

"Morafe lost it! She completely lost it. I've never seen Morafe like that before. Wabaxosha kabuhlungu kanjani... and she told them that if they even set lemiqonjwane yabo nje at the funeral, she will find them and kill them by setting them alight one-by-one." Wandi.

"UMorafe?!" I'm so shocked.

"Mah! Morafe!" Wandi.

"I was there. I saw and heard it all for myself", Senzi.

"Yoh!" Me.

"So what's going to happen now with that house, her mother and the surviving children? Is it even safe for them to go back and live there after this entire ordeal?" Khotso.

"Heh! Baba... kodwa you didn't hear this from me neh", Wandi mara. Where else would Khotso hear this from?

Khotso and I are already laughing.

"UMmaKB, uMahali and umama kaThabang... baphakathi ejele sikhuluma nje. Baboshiwe nalabantu abatholiwe ukuthi bashisile laphaya." Wandi.

"Umaka wena!" Khotso. I'm just as shocked.

"Modimo keMorena!" Where the hell did Wandi learn that phrase from now? Weh!

"So, according to Morafe... the day that the house was set alight, Thabang’s mother phoned Thabang to inform Thabang about it. But the way in which she delivered this message just made Thabang suspicious that she had something to do with it because the Mothipa family hates Morafe a lot right now. Thabang has served the other two wives with divorce papers because the whole Mothipa family made Thabang’s wives sleep with Thabang’s brother-

"WANDISA, WOAH! My head is spinning right now. What?!" Khotso.

My mouth is still open from one shocking sentence after the other.

Senzi is laughing at our reactions. He even says, "Imagine how I felt when I heard all of this."

"Where did I lose you, baba?" Wandi says. These two and gossip!

Now I see Rena and Moloko walk in.

Yoh, Rena is going to hear such things about her man. Ja neh.

"Let's start at the divorce part." Khotso. He couldn't care less that Rena is here. I'm sure he actually wants her to hear what her man is capable of.

"So, Thabang overheard an argument between MmaKB and Mahali. In this argument, they both confirmed that neither of their kids were Thabang’s kids. And their plan was to ensure that Thabang never found out." Wandi.

"All one million of those kids?" Khotso.

I even giggle.

"Bonke baba! Bonke. Lapho sekuphenyiwa khona ukuthi kahle hle ubani ubaba wezingane, it was found that Thabang has a fertility issue that his wives couldn't bring to his attention, so they brought it to the attention of the family instead. Tumelo was then hired to smash amakhosikazi kamfowabo, then the babies would be Thabang’s."

"Without Thabang’s knowledge?" Khotso.

"Cabanga! And that's not where it gets good! It turns out that Thabang was forced to marry Mahali because she got pregnant. So how is it possible that both her kids are Tumelo’s if she was already pregnant when she got married?"

Khotso starts laughing.

He's proper entertained.

I want to know.

"Turns out that Mahali was sleeping with both brothers at the same time when she and Thabang were just messing around. When moghel got pregnant, Tumelo’s wife was not yet ready to accept a second wife, so the mother decided that she should be Thabang’s wife. But she obviously went back to Tumelo for round two because baby number two came."

Yoh! Yoh! Yoh!

"So Thabang is pretty much done with his family and the wives. They all want Morafe to change his mind. Apparently, the wives did nothing wrong and this is not uncommon when there is a fertility issue. Now Thabang cut all of them off, told Tumelo to deal with all his baby mamas all alone. Mothipas are mad. Mama-Mothipa senior used her influence to go at Morafe's family with the intent to hurt Morafe then get her to do what the family wants her to do. This is where we are now."

"Yeses. We should actually take the chieftaincy away from Mothipa. He doesn't have his own house in order, how is he even leading that community? It's all those fifty million wives that he has. He has too many internal issues to apply himself to being a chief outside of his own house. Now his wife, who's also a legal authority in that community, has committed a crime herself? A cruel one at that against community members, just to settle a score le makoti? Ke masepa fela!" Khotso.

We are all quiet.

"Lefatselabarena, do you see the calibre of people you want to become part of? You've actually insulted us. How do you go from us to that?! And that boyfriend that just sleeps with everyone! Bona jwale wentseng in his own brother's marriage?" Khotso needs to leave Rena alone.

I shake my head at Khotso.

We are all just quiet now.

-

Khotso has been on the phone with Ona all morning discussing the possibility of dethroning Mothipa.

I've just finished showering and getting dressed. I'm meeting up with Thabi, Letlali, Fifi, Sonia and Teboho for lunch to discuss the launch of the school. Thabi decided to name the school Onaleruna Khotso Mohale College: Preparatory and Senior School. As soon as the name was accepted, Thabi unveiled it to Khotso and Ona. They feel honoured. As they should. But now there is even more pressure to open a similar school here in Tholoana Kingdom. Thabi finally decided that she will do it. She will open a similar school here in the kingdom. She has left it in Fifi's hands to lead on the Tholoana Kingdom side. The decision to make it Fifi's baby came from Fifi having such a strong teaching and education management background. She's even hired an assistant already. Wandi recommended Basetsana - one of her friends. With her experience in admin and as an assistant, Fifi found her perfect for the job. Now that her husband finally found a PA and she had become a housewife again, Basetsana embraced the opportunity with both hands and is super excited to be working with Fifi.

Because I'm still in my "dresses and doek" phase of being a Mohale wife, I've decided to wear a beige body-hugging dress that's just above the knee. I wear skin-toned stockings just to make the look is a bit more respectable. I pair this dress with a baby pink knee-length blazer jacket. The jacket's material is pure wool. Yep, it's knitted very beautifully in Italy. I wear my black Versace Pin Pump heels. My doek is beige with brown seshweshwe prints. I just let my 32inch straight wig hang loose underneath it.

"You look so hot, baby", Khotso says to me.

Oh, he's done with his call.

"I'm trying to make the whole seSotho makoti look work", I say.

"Well, its making me want to put you back in bed. Look at me, baby, I'm so hard." He says.

I laugh and say, "tell your soldier to relax. We have things to do."

"Kancane nje, baby. Five minutes. Please."

"No", I say. I laugh then say, "but I'm glad ukwazi nokucela ngesiZulu.”

He laughs then says, "I'll find someone nice to use it on ke. Akere wena hawubatli?!"

I give him a look.

He laughs aloud.

I shake my head.

"So baby, what are you guys going to do about this Mothipa situation?" I ask him, distracting him really so that hard penis of his can calm down.

"Ey, that idiot of an old man." He says. His penis is calming down.

"We will go and see him tomorrow. He's been notified that we've summoned him to his chambers. We will give him an opportunity to respond to our concerns. Then we might decide to take him to council, and other chiefs can vote on whether or not he's still fit to be a chief. We already know that he has allegiances in at least five other chief-run provinces. So we already know that there might be internal wars against the other chief-run provinces who have chiefs that either don't like him or don't support him. We will try to manage the blood bath that may come from the threat of him being dethroned, but if it comes to it, we might loan soldiers to the ones who want him out. Ona and I want him out. But if he risks war, we will banish him from this country should we win... him and his entire family."

"Baby!"

"It's how it works, baby."

"But there are kids involved in this. What about Morafe and her family?"

"We will talk to Thabang. If he's serious about turning his back on his family, we might actually just give the chieftaincy to him if he's interested. If he's not, we will appoint a whole new family. But he will be safe. We plan to make sure of that."

I shake my head.

"But we have other issues, love", he says.

"Other issues such as?" I ask.

"The church", he says.

"Pope is not well. I'm not sure if it's old age or if he's just sick. But he's not good. This thing of his came at a terrible time because..."

"Because...?"

"Our people in Spain are in shit." He says.

"How deep is the shit?"

"Very deep. We can't even go to Miami this time. And that shit... it's put international police, international intelligence and the FBI on our asses. They've started arresting people. And they have an inside person spilling the beans and leading them to us."

I look at him.

"We need another escape plan. We need to run the fuck away and disappear for real." He says.

"Just us?" I ask. I need to understand who I have to think for.

He nods his head. Then he says, "I spoke to Ona. He says he's only taking Thabi."

"And Sonia?" I'm so shocked.

He shakes his head then says, "he suspects that she's the inside person. So, if you find a place baby... it's for our family, Ona and Thabi. Reahile and his family too. That's my kid. Mohato and Zari are Thabi's softest spot, so I think include them too. But us gents... we all spoke. We need to be separated for some time. We agreed."

I nod my head.

Should I even be going out at this point?!

...

Ona, Thabi and I traveled together to Dithabeng. We were driven here in one car. Thabi was actually very pleasant. I think that he's genuinely happy. She and Ona are even more... physical. She hasn't moved back to the kingdom permanently as Ona had asked her, but they seem to be in a much better place... much to the detriment of Ona's marriage to Sonia. I personally believe that Ona is not able to love two women at the same time. He just likes women and he likes as many skirts around him as possible, but he's incapable of keeping more than one woman happy at a time. For Sonia to be happy, Thabi must be mad. For Thabi to be happy, Sonia must be mad. Ai!

"Dumelang", some girl says as we walk into the Mothipa chambers. Thabi is the only person that greets her back - as I said, she's very pleasant. Ona and I ignore her. Who is she again?

"I can show you where to sit", she says, intentionally brushing my dick with her ass. Isn't this harassment?

"Sorry ausi... wetsang?" I ask her. And I'm loud because I want her to feel embarrassed. What the fuck is this?!

Thabi and Ona look at me like I'm crazy. The other chiefs and leaders are also focused on us now.

"Nna?" The lady tries to deny it.

"Do you really want me to spell out what you've just done? And are you really going to lie before a chief leader, a queen and a king?" Me.

"I made a mistake. Ke kopa tshwarelo, Moholo waka", she says.

"Bona mo wena, I'm a married man. A happily married man. I don't appreciate what you've just done and I don't believe that my wife would appreciate what you've just done. Had I done that to you, I'd be accused of sexually harassing you. I don't appreciate this kind of behaviour", I say.

I'm actually very angry hey.

"Ke kopa tshwarelo, moholo. It will never happen again", she says.

I click my tongue in annoyance then move to go find my chair. Ona is with me. Thabi is with that girl. She's mortified, but she will be fine. Maybe she thought that I'd take her to bed instead. Am I really that much of a slut? Do women no longer respect me so much so that when they see me, they see a dick that's a jackpot to their financial challenges?

Nx!

"What did that girl do?" Ona asks me.

We are sitting next to each other.

"She brushed her ass against my dick. Intentionally."

Actually, I'm not angry, I'm embarrassed. I feel... dirty... violated even. I even want to tell my wife so she can come here and deal with her.

"And you are this angry?!" Ona mara.

"Ona, this is not funny. Clearly, that little slut doesn't see a leader in me. She sees a male whore who has a useful dick to her problems... she doesn't see moholo... she sees a thing with a dick that she can violate as she sees fit."

He stops seeing humour in this, and seems slightly more serious.

"Nx!" Me.

Ona let's it go. I think he just doesn't understand.

This meeting finally starts. I'm the one who starts speaking.

"Mothipa, as a nation at large, why do we know more about your shit in your household than what it is that you are doing in this region? Worst of all, the shit in your household has now spilled over into the streets and has resulted to civilians dying because you can't keep your house in order."

He looks at me.

He's actually shocked that I know this.

"To bring everyone up to speed on what has happened -

"No, moholo. Please." He stops.

"Ey madala! Do we look like we are here to play games with you? When we leave here, we need to have decided whether or not you will be kept as a leader in this country... a chief at that! And with all the rumours that are flying around regarding your family that are spreading like wild fire, we need to understand what are facts, what are opinions and what are not true at all. From there, we decide if you are still fit to rule." I say.

Some people agree with what I've said. Some people are a bit difficult to read.

"We need leaders that we can trust with the well-being of our people. Yes, mistakes happen and we all have things that happen in our personal lives that sometimes distract us, but I'm concerned that your challenges in your house are now overpowering what we as a community need to see happen from your house to this community. What concerns us further, chief Mothipa, is that your wife - a chief legal advisor for this community - is one of the main instigators for what happened at the Letuka home. Your wife and your daughters-in-law. That, I cannot forgive nor can I turn a blind eye on", Thabi says.

This man doesn't know how to respond.

Other chiefs also raise their challenges, some challenges that we were not aware of. As these come up, I'm blown away even more. Ona and I keep looking at each other. Thabi is quite annoyed. Her family is also here representing the Merementse chieftaincy house. They actually phoned us and asked us how we'd like them to vote. So they are already on our side.

After three hours of just putting issues forward, we take a break. Thabi, Ona and I are outside discussing this. We don't even trust the water served here.

"What's our plan if we dethrone Mothipa, abuti?" Thabi asks me as Ona and I smoke.

She's complained about our smoking until she realised that she's not going to win. She tried to get Phuthi on it, but Phuthi honestly doesn't care that I smoke. So Thabi let it go.

"Maybe your family can take over this place." I say to her.

Both she and Ona look at me.

"Think about it... Dithabeng and Merementse are relatively close to each other. The Sebata chiefdom will have more land. Your family's council is big enough to run this place and Merementse, plus they'll have funds for both regions." Me.

"They'll be fine with it. They'll actually be happy with it. But do you think Mothipa would go without putting up a fight? Phela this will take away his wealth, his land and possibly the businesses that are sustaining his family." Thabi.

"That idiot's son fucked my daughter and he believed that it wasn't an issue worth addressing. Fuck Mothipa! I'm actually glad that now, I'll really make him and his son pay for that shit that happened with Rena", Ona.

He and I fist-pump each other.

"Vele vele vele Thabang doesn't want to be chief? He's with such an ambitious woman in Morafe. How is he so..." Thabi.

"Maybe his idea of ambition is not being anything like his father. And let's be honest, if your template was Mothipa, you wouldn't want what he has neither", Ona.

We actually laugh at this.

My phone rings. I don't even recognise this number.

"Hello?" Me.

Silence.

"Hello? Speak man... the fuck?!"

"Sawubona", a voice.

Sawubona?! On my phone? I don't know anyone who would ever dream to phone me and say Sawubona.

"Who's this?!" I ask.

Now Thabi and Ona look at me.

"UNkosinathi, mfowethu."

Now I'm quiet. Because the only Nkosinathi I know pisses me off unprovoked. I'm wondering where he would have got my number from and why the hell he would even dream of phoning me.

"Usekhona?" He asks me.

"Ubatlang?!" I ask him.

"We need to talk", he says.

"You and me? About what?!"

"You live with the mother of my daughter, my daughter and my granddaughter... and you don't think we have anything to talk about?"

Yerrr I hate this guy.

"Uskang'tlwayela masepa wena. I live with my wife, my child and my grandchild."

"Eh ndoda, I didn't call you to fight."

"So why did you call me? Because you've already wasted five minutes of my time ka masepa!"

Ona takes my phone and puts it on loudspeaker.

"I'm dying." He says.

Ona, Thabi and I look at each other.

"I've been diagnosed with cancer. I've also decided that I won't be going on any treatment. I'm going to let this thing just do what it needs to do."

"I'm sorry, dude." I say.

"Ngiyabonga. Lalela ndoda, ngiyazi ukuthi ubaphethe kahle oPhuthi benoWandisa noMelokuhle. Ngiyabonga."

"Ke msadi waka, ngwana waka le setloholo saka. I don't need a thanks or acknowledgement for doing what I'm supposed to do."

I'll also speak my sotho as he sticks to his Zulu.

"I didn't mean it that way... I just meant that please continue to do so. I always thought that I'd be their backup plan if you flopped and didn't do right by them." He says.

Dai mahn o ntlwayela masepa.

"But now I'm no longer going to be here if anything goes wrong. All I'm asking is that you continue to look after them like this. You are now the only man in their lives that they have... the head of their house. Please... don't disappoint them."

I'm quiet. Because again, o ntlwayela masepa.

"I also have a favour to ask", he says.

Now we probably get to the core of this call.

"Ja?"

"My sons... Khanya and Khosini."

"What about them?"

"Please look after them. I know that I've messed up so much that they are in this position. Thandeka's new boyfriend is abusive towards Thandeka and probably towards my sons too. I just don't want anything happening to my kids. My sins are punishing me and it's okay, I'm ready to die. But please... if not for me, please do it for Wandi. I know you hate me. But Wandi loves her brothers. And I know that she won't be okay if anything happens to them."

If I'm being honest, I don't need another child in my hands. Let alone two. I have three kids and that's more than enough for me. This one will have to be a "taking care" from a distant.

"Your kids are old, monna. Tell them you are dying so they have a chance to say goodbye. They are also old enough to manage themselves. They'll be fine." I say.

"They still need guidance. All I'm asking is that you be that for them. That's all."

"Ey whatever dude. We will do what we can. I have to go now. Shup."

I hang up.

Ona, Thabi and I look at each other.

I know this is completely distasteful, but we honestly just laugh.

...

[script-a-world]

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What would a society look like if people having 100 children is considered normal? Ranging from parenting, housing, schooling, economy, medical care, vocabulary etc... I suppose other birth statistics would be imporant. I'm not sure how many childless parents there should be, maybe that would be 10% as having 5 children would already be quite on the low side. Also, with this number of children, should births generally always be multiple births? This society would be very advanced as well, so I suppose babies fullying growing in artificial wombs should be possible - or very desirable. Or maybe I should have this people actually lay eggs instead even if they are mammals and quite human looking? I guess it would be important as to how many of these children actually live to an adult, I'm still hoping that'll be at least 95% considering this is an advanced society. How would this kind of society look like overall, because it appears I'm very much making a society with explosive populations especially if so many live to adult ages. Also how would it affect couple compatibility since I suppose there could be higher potientials for couples finding out they're related and shouldn't have children.

Tex: If child-bearing and childbirth is presumed to be the exact same as in humans, then a hundred children is frankly not feasible, otherwise people would already be having a hundred children per AFAB woman as a matter of course without having to worry about killing the mother through sheer physical strain on the body.

Accordingly, why would this be desirable? Children are resource-intensive, and historically large broods are due to either presumed dividends in labour paying out for situations like agriculture, or as a sign of wealth to be able to afford so many children per generation and per wife without going miserably broke over it.

The only way I can see this being feasible without killing a lot of people would be to not make them mammals at all, but either fish or something close to it, where fertilization and egg-laying happens outside the body of any parent. There would also need to be a wide area of distribution, to prevent in-breeding and the genetic issues that come with it, or else genetic failsafes to prevent corruption of DNA.

Utuabzu: As a general rule, brood size is negatively correlated with parental care. Simply put, the more babies you have the less effort you can or even want to put into each one. Sociality also tends to come with a higher level of care and thus a lower brood size, but there can be exceptions. Some social animals suppress the reproduction of all but the dominant pair in the group, either because the others are this pair's children (eg. wolves) or because the dominant individual kills the young of subordinates (eg. meerkats). Alternately, there could be a serious sex ratio imbalance, such as with lions (one male, many females) or clownfish (one female, many males), which lowers the number of young. Humans are actually pretty weird as a social species in that we are so willing to allow all group members to reproduce.

Another option is eusociality. In that situation the species can only survive as a colony, with distinct castes serving different roles, one of which is always a queen, who is mother to the entire colony and does little besides reproduce. This strategy is used by several arthropod species (famously ants and bees, but also termites and some wasps, and even some shrimp) and two mammal species (naked mole rats and Damaraland mole-rats). The biggest difference between eusocial colonies and social groups with limited breeding pairs is that eusocial animals do not need to suppress the breeding of non-reproductive members, because they are simply not capable of breeding themselves.

[avengerscompound]

The Surrogate - Chapter 6

The Surrogate:  A Clintasha Fanfic

Masterlist PREVIOUS //

Buy me a ☕ Character Pairing:  Clint Barton x Natasha Romanoff x F!Reader

Word Count:  1569

Rating:  E

Warnings: Pregnancy talk, sex talk

Synopsis: A freak end of the world incident leads to meeting your two best friends, Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff.  While your friendship with the two Avengers is anything but conventional, they are your all-time favorite people.  When you find out that Clint and Natasha want to start a family but have exhausted all their options, you realize your powerset might allow you to give them what they want.  Having your best friends’ baby might seem like a good idea on paper, but when you are as close as you, Clint, and Natasha are, will doing something so intimate mean feelings get a little mixed up?

Chapter 6

It was another three months before Natasha and Clint actually took you up on the offer.  You had spent that time being very careful to not instigate anything physical between them during that time.  The kiss with Natasha had scared you a little.  You’d made the mistake of falling for someone because of a kiss before, and you weren’t about to do it again.  Not with everything that was at stake.  They were your best friends though, so you saw them regularly and the topic of babies came up a lot.  It was like everything they did made them think about becoming parents.  Sometimes it was a case of them thinking it was the worst idea ever and other times it was the only thing they wanted.

When they finally came to you it was with the same kind of nerves as the day you had made them the offer in the first place.  They were totally and completely sure you would have changed your mind.  When you said yes, they hugged you and Natasha had to hold back her tears all over again and the following day you started the preparations.  First, there was a psych evaluation to see if you were emotionally fit to act as a surrogate.  It made sense.  Being pregnant was a big deal and to then hand a baby over did take a special kind of person and if that person wasn't you, people would get hurt.  Next legal contracts were drawn up, looked over, and signed.  They include things like custody and medical cost and contact after the birth of the baby.

Finally, you have a long series of medical procedures to check if you were physically able to carry a child.  Including minor surgery so they could take a good look at your uterus.

All in all, it took around three months to get to the point that you and Natasha were going to be taking the fertility medication you needed.  And there was a lot of it.  Natasha had more than you.  Making enough eggs to harvest was harder than just having a place for one of those eggs to land.  Still, as you sat there talking about going on birth control just to get your cycles in sync before moving to estrogen and progesterone and tetracycline among all the other things involved, you realized that even getting to the point that you were pregnant in the first place wasn’t going to be easy.

“Now until the pregnancy is confirmed, both of you will have to be very careful about the sex you’re having,” the doctor said.  “When this procedure starts you will both be extremely fertile.  Use condoms, or avoid vaginal sex completely.  Do not rely on things like the pull out method.”

“I wasn’t relying on that anyway,” Natasha said.

“Well, just in case,” the doctor said.  “You’d be surprised what people think is okay.  But if either of you gets pregnant it will mean we can’t do this.”

“Right, we’ll be careful,” Clint said.  “Just blow jobs from now on.”

“Clint!”  Natasha yelped, elbowing him.

“What?  I’ll go down on you too,” he said defensively.

The doctor laughed.  “Well that would work fine,” she said.  “Starting now though.  I know I just put you both on birth control, but switching methods can create a period where neither work, so from now on, be extra careful.”

“We will,” Natasha assured her.

“Did you have any further questions?”  The doctor asked.

You and Natasha shook your heads.  “I think we’ve got it all for now.”

“Then I’ll see you in a month and we’ll move on to the next phase,” the doctor said.  “It was nice meeting you all.”

You, Natasha, and Clint headed back out of the doctor’s office and down to Cint’s lavender VW Beetle that was parked in the street.  “You wanna get something to eat before we head back?”

“Yeah, we better.  And next time I’m using the Quin,” Natasha said.  “I hate how long these appointments take.”

“I think it’ll be hard to find a parking spot for a fighter jet, Nat,” Clint teased.

“Well, good news,” you said as you all changed directions and began heading down the street.  “Once I’m pregnant it’s all being done in house.  This is just the specialist part.”

“God, imagine if you went into labor and we had to drive three hours to get you to the hospital,” Natasha said.

“Yeah, I’d probably kill you,” you agreed.  “I may be able to heal quickly, but I still fucking hate pain.”

Natasha chuckled and rubbed your back as you walked.  “You’re going to be so fun when you’re in labor.”

“Oh man,” you teased.  “I’m gonna make you both work so hard through the whole thing.�� You’re gonna be getting called up in the middle of the night for you to go get me food I’m craving.”

“That’s okay, Clint gets up in the middle of the night to get food he’s craving already,” Natasha joked.

Clint draped his arm around your shoulder.  “Yeah, I’ll hook you up.  Pickles and ice cream.  Chips on pizza.  I’ve got your back,” he said.  “I have heard that pregnancy can make people pretty horny too.  I’ve got your back for that.”

You laughed and nudged him.  “Clint!”

“Yeah, Clint,” Natasha teased.  “If you’re doing it to her back, you’re doing it wrong.”

You and Clint burst out laughing and Clint altered your course so the three of you headed into a little pizza place with two-dollar slices.  The three of you got yourself slices and took a seat.  You could see people staring and whispering to each other as the three of you started eating.

“I keep forgetting that you’re both kinda famous,” you said.

“They probably just think I’m Thor or something,” Clint joked.

Natasha snored and nearly spat iced tea over both of you.  She grabbed a napkin and wiped her face and hands.  “That came out my nose, you idiot.”

Clint laughed hard.  “Oh man, I was going to say Steve, and last second I thought Thor would be better.”

“You keep dreaming, Clint,” you said patting his back.  “You know when we’re on these drugs we’re both going to be extra hormonal, so you have to be really nice to us and not annoy us at all.”

“I can be nice, but you’re out of luck when it comes to being annoying,” Clint teased.

“Yeah, there’s no way he can’t not be annoying,” Natasha said.  “What were you even thinking?”

“I guess, I wasn’t,” you laughed.  “Man, it feels like it’s taken so long just to get to this point, and now it’s only a couple of months and maybe I’ll be pregnant and that feels like so much time to wait.”

“Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Natasha said.  “It still might not work.”

“I am so sure it will,” you said.  “This feels like it was meant to happen.”

Natasha took a deep breath and shook her head.  “I felt like that when I got pregnant even though I shouldn’t have been able to.  I felt like that when we applied to adopt.  There have been so many times that I got my hopes up only for them to be smashed apart.  I can’t do it again.  Until there’s a baby in my arms, I have to keep my heart safe.”

Clint took her hand and held it against his heart.  “I’m here.”

“I’m sorry, Nat,” you said, reaching over the table and taking her other hand.  “I’m just excited for you both and I just feel so sure.”

“I know,” Natasha said, softly.  “I know.  But I have to protect myself because … I’m me and I keep going.  I have to.  But I can’t let myself be vulnerable like that again.  It’ll kill me.”  She shook her head and squeezed your hand.  “But I am so grateful to you.  You have no idea what this means to me that you’re willing to do this for us.”

“You guys changed my life,” you said, honestly.  “In a good way.  I had these powers but I didn't know what to do with them.  I kept thinking it was all good and well I could heal myself but it was so self-serving.  I felt like I'd been given a gift but it was completely useless because all it meant was I could watch all these other people getting sick or hurt and I got a free pass.  Then you gave me direction and purpose.  And you became my friends.  I want this so badly for you.”

Natasha blinked her eyes.  “Alright.  Alright.  We have to go, I cannot start crying with a huge audience.”

Clint hugged her and kissed the top of her head.  “Aww, my tough badass girlfriend.”

“That’s right,” Natasha said, getting up. “I’ll kick your ass if you’re not careful.”

“He’d probably thank you,” you said getting up and following her out.

Clint gathered up the trash and threw it in a can, before chasing after you both.  “Hell yeah, I would.  Thank you, mistress.”

“Oh my god,” Natasha laughed as Clint draped his arms around both of your shoulders.  “I’m not even on the hormone injections and you’re annoying me.”

Clint kissed her cheek and pulled her tighter to him.  “Just imagine how bad it’s going to be when you’re on them.”

// NEXT

[retvenkos]

“and we were destroyed before we were made whole.”

A/N: the amazing @brokenandheadoverheels asked me to talk about my mc for blades of light and shadow so here we gooooooo

@bladesappreciationweek, Day 7: MC + Wild Card SOME GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT OLINDA, MY BLADES OF LIGHT AND SHADOW MC...

background: while i do like the mc’s original background, sometimes you have to disregard canon for the drama of it all. so.... just kind of disregard the “bandits killed my parents” storyline.

she’s a human - more about her look here

she and her family lived on the outskirts of riverbend - they were humble farmers, working the land, and they were old friends with kade’s family.

when olinda is five, there’s a drought. 

it hits right right before crop season, and nothing can grow. droughts in morella are rare, but when they hit, they last for a long time - years. the crown is expected to have resources saved in the event of these 

king arlan, a man of excess and pride, blew through a lot of morella’s saved resources throwing the most elaborate of banquets to get nobles on his side, rather than his twin brother

(who was the more popular of the two but younger by just a few minutes, denying him a birthright that many would have loved to see challenged.)

when the drought hit, it was a crisis that needed averting. 

the position of king’s advisor was a revolving door because arlan was intent on finding someone who could fix this problem, without having to negotiate with orcs or elves or (even worse) send expeditions beyond morella’s borders to hopefully find aid in the people only spoken of in stories and legends.

charlatans, arlan thought, there was no possible way that there could be a species of people more intelligent and more capable than his own.

eventually, one advisor of the dozens suggested encroaching on private land in the southeast - a place where the drought was suspected to have hit less. those lands were all privately owned because long ago, the land was gifted to brave men who served on the front lines of a war, but that was long enough ago that few remember it. besides, it’s already farming country, most of it. it’s been mostly forgotten. the idea was to take back the land, get the most fruitful harvest they could, and give the biggest rations to those in Whitetower - the home of all the nobles. the nobles wouldn’t care enough to check to see how the poorer parts of the nation were doing, and as long as their bellies were full, they would support arlan.

arlan agrees that the plan is engenius. so how do they decide to steal land from innocent, hard working farmers? by taxing them, of course!

so one day, kingsguard marches up to houses, declaring an emergency increase in taxes. when the struggling farmers inevitably fail to pay, they seize the property. and if anyone is to put up a fight, they’re jailed for their crime. there are a few “aggressive” farmers who put up a fight, and a few are killed or gravely injured. the crown manages to hush it up for the most part, and due to such aggression, they have reason to strip many others of their property.

it’s terrible, and a little prince named aerin sees what is happening and cries, one night. his brother baldur laughs and whispers “you’re just as weak as they are. i’d be careful you aren’t next.”

there is much unrest in the rural parts of the kingdom, and during this time, kade, his mother, his lame uncle, and a former neighbor move in with olinda’s family. together, they are resourceful enough to scrape up enough for the high taxes, and because their property has always been less fertile than those around them, they are overlooked.

for two years, the makeshift family survives, going to sleep without food in their bellies, selling their valuables and conserving as much as they can. no one knows when the drought is going to end, and until it’s truly over, they have to be careful.

kade’s uncle passes

one of olinda’s parents dies, something like pity for those who live on their face

when spring comes around again, it’s mostly dry. one night it rains, and olinda and kade dance in the downpour, ignoring their family telling them they’ll get sick.

it’s still a painfully dry season, and everything is dry enough that if it were to be lit on fire, the whole countryside would burn before you could make it to the river to get water.

during the day, the family works and the children are left to themselves - sometimes assigned menial tasks but mostly just left to roam with the strict warning to never step foot on a neighbor’s property. most of it belonged to king arlan, now, and if they were caught, they would lose a hand.... and perhaps something more.

olinda was mischievous, though, and kade was nothing if not the person to egg her on. together, they got very good at sneaking through the trees, using their own renditions of bird calls to play and tease the other.

one day, during their usual games, kade raced to olinda, cheeks blotchy, and told her he found an apple tree. olinda thinks it’s just another one of his tricks  (“you’re always turning shadows into boogeymen and clouds into dragons.”) but kade insists.

“show me, then.”

“well...”

“see? i knew it was a lie.”

“it isn’t! it’s just... well, it’s on one of the king’s farm.”

“so?”

“you know we can’t get close to those farms!”

“you did if you saw apples.”

“well... they were sort of small. and definitely not ripe.”

“did you see them or not?”

“i did!”

“so you can take me back.”

“but, olinda—”

“kade, all of this land belonged to us before it belonged to them. those are our apples. besides, we’re not going to eat them - we’re just going to take a look.”

they decide to go after night fall. no one will be out in the fields that late at night, and their parent’s won’t know they’re gone.

but in true seven year old fashion, they don’t realize that it’s going to be too dark to actually see the apples from a distance.

olinda convinces kade to take them closer - onto the property so that he can prove they’re actually there.

when they get close enough to the tree to properly tell, kade’s stomach growls and olinda says they’ve already come this far - they might as well take some.

they take three apples and stop to eat them in the woods before they go home. the apples are terribly unripe and pitifully small, but they eat all three and lick their sticky hands clean. kade insists on planting the seeds, despite the drought, and so it’s well into the night by the time they start to make their way back home.

i believe it’s the light they saw first. the heat was already unbearable, that time of year, and the ash was too akin to dust and dirt for their young minds to reason.

when they saw the fire, kade was the first to run. he made it far on his spindly legs before a coughing fit overwhelmed him and he staggered backward.

their house and all their crops were on fire

burning before their eyes.

olinda was the first one to remember what their parents had always said, in case a fire should start. she pulled kade to the place where they were to wait - a wooded area that was far away enough to hopefully be safe, but close enough that they could watch their world burn to the ground.

their parents weren’t there, and for some reason, olinda thought that they would come

kade’s mother was probably just trying to pull on her shoes or something. they would meet them there - just like they always said they would.

olinda waited all night for them to come, even when kade knew they weren’t coming

part of her is still waiting.

farmers and the king’s guard were the ones to put out most of the fire, and for some reason, it rained that night - barely more than a sprinkle, but enough to dampen olinda and kade’s clothes and enough to calm smouldering ashes.

by that time, it was too late - the fire ravaged the area and much was lost. their house was burnt down, and some time in the morning, olinda and kade crawled back to its foundations, finding very little in its wake.

they ash stuck under their fingernails and collected in their throat. kade was coughing from how thick it was, and olinda rubbed his back, as though trying to ease the pain that ate at him.

who started the fire, olinda and kade would never know. bandits, some said, the hungry, thought others. some people even blamed the drought itself.

but aerin knew. he had heard his father and baldur speaking through a crack in the door about two families who they couldn’t oust from their land. they somehow managed to keep up with the tax - no matter how high they pushed it. they were survivors.

baldur (barely ten, at the time) expressed that everyone could be crushed, somehow. “can’t they just burn?” he had asked, with something dangerous in his eye.

arlan had thought for a moment, and eventually said something about how legend said a phoenix could rise from the ashes. perhaps the land could, too. he then patted his son’s head and left, a swish of furs and jewelry.

a nearby farmer went over to the burned ruins in the morning to make sure nothing was left burning, and when he found two kids, he put them in his cart and took them to riverbend - the failing town nearby.

he brought them into the pub, and the town christened two new orphans - nowhere children, they called them.

riverbend knew a lot of tragedies, and orphans with nothing to their name were called what they were - children who came from nowhere and were going the same.

the farmer couldn’t feed two more hungry mouths. neither could anyone else, for that matter. the pub owner said they could watch them for a week or two - then they’d become someone else’s problem.

kade seemed to be sick, after the fire. he was paler, feverish in the dreadful heat, and the bright look in his eye was fading.

it was olinda’s eighth birthday when someone new came to the pub. he was a weathered looking man - younger than he seemed and tired - the pub owner seemed to know him, and kade and olinda were introduced to him, not too long after his arrival.

he had been a nowhere child, once. he still was, really, with very little to his name. but he was working as a blacksmith and a farmhand at some place nearby. he didn’t have money for two kids - especially when one of them looked like a ghost - but he had a debt to pay forward. he figured this was the way to do it.

“but you’re going to earn your keep - you hear me?”

kade simply coughed

“i can earn it for the both of us.”

and the man nodded at olinda, something dark in his eyes “yeah, i reckon you can”

and olinda did well.

having lived on a farm her whole life, any task she needed to do was a quick study, and having been born from tragedy and drought, she was constantly working, used to the grime beneath her fingernails and the sweat that lingered on her brow.

olinda was strong and worked in the fields, and kade was smart and helped count money and barter with vendors in town. his sickness never really left him, it lingered in him always, but most days it wasn’t bad. he worked as best he could, but much fell on olinda’s shoulders.

when olinda was 9, the drought was over. four years later, and things were growing again. the taxes stayed high for a while, but at some point, word started to get out that arlan had suspiciously high taxes on certain farming regions, and whispers of when they were imposed started. arlan’s twin brother seemed to be currying favor with the king’s privy council.

 the taxes lowered again.

fear didn’t leave the hearts of the farmers, though. they knew what had happened, and they knew how vulnerable they were. olinda and kade grew up alongside fear and ruin, and it would stick with them for the rest of their lives.

when olinda and kade were 10, kade’s sickness flared up again, this time far worse than anything olinda had ever seen.

riverbend had a name for this, too - ghost sickness. a way the dead damn the living for having survived when they shouldn’t have. a way the dead promised to claim kade soon.

but olinda had already lost too much to lose kade, too.

she worked all day - harder than before to account for kade’s lack of work - and at night, she would pretend to sleep but really stay up, listening to his coughs to see if they got worse, and making sure he was breathing, when he finally did fall asleep.

the townsfolk told kade stories during this time, and the bard in him was born. he was always a charismatic speaker, and now, with such fanciful tales... it wasn’t just pity that earned them free bread.

during this time, an anger festered in olinda. all of life was so cruel to her and kade. it took everything from them when they were so young, and now it threatened to take away what little she had fought so hard to build.

by 13, olinda would get into fights with other kids her age. they looked at her funny because she was a nowhere girl with a dying brother, and she was tired of it. she would give them a reason to respect her, if they needed it.

the farmer that had taken them in (and still cared for them, the three drifting here and there, wherever they could find work) found out.

he advised her to take out her anger on things other than people, but also taught her proper form. he told kade, once, when they thought olinda was asleep, that he knew that anger far too well - it was bound to come out, at some point.

by 15, kade began to get his strength back. he was still thinner and weaker than most, but he lost the pallor to his skin and he could hold a meal and get through a day of activity.

the farmer they lived with died when kade and olinda were 16, and once again, it was just the two of them.

olinda could do most everything by now - she was a decent blacksmith, a skilled farmhand, a fisher, a rudimentary carpenter, a fletcher, a leatherworker... kade joked that if she ever wanted to be a gladiator she could. 

point is, she was decent at a lot of things, explaining why she was able to so easily pick up skills during the book.

kade, on the other hand, was an entertainer with the added skill of having an encyclopedic knowledge on random things (like, he knows what flora and fauna are safe to eat or he knows a crazy amount of geography and can use maps really well). he also knows elf and orc languages - all thanks to the people who would keep him company, at his bedside.

it’s a big superstition in morella that one of the few ways to wash away your sins is to appease the dying. they are close to the veil and if you visit them when are in between, they will remember you and give you blessings, later on.

kade also worked as a peddler for a while, selling things that olinda made while drifting from here to there. they traveled a bit between small towns, staying at pubs and inns. kade often charmed them a decent meal for cheap and at the end of the night, olinda got them kicked out for brawling.

they always came back to riverbend, though, never going far. despite not having a home, they seemed to be tethered to riverbend, like they had unfinished business, there.

personality/relationships:

as you can see, olinda is a little more.... pugnacious and rough around the edges than the actual mc for blades.

she’s seen how terrible this world is to the best of people, and she has had to bear the brunt of misfortune on her shoulders from very young. it’s only natural that she have some of that anger in her heart.

olinda may not believe in the goodness of the world, but she has hope for it, yet. that’s all because of kade’s stories - he would tell them to her every night and make her swear that she wouldn’t give up on the world, and at some point, olinda started to believe that maybe things weren’t so hopeless, after all. it was just their poor luck that landed them where they were.

this also means, though, that olinda is extremely caring and sensitive when it comes to those who are suffering. she would rather die than turn her back on someone in need, and this will put her in sticky situations over the course of her journey.

olinda doesn’t really see herself as a hero - she would like to save the world, but she has only ever been a nowhere child, and nowhere children don’t go anywhere. she thinks it would be amazing to do something grand - something that could change the world, but she truly doesn’t think herself capable

it takes a lot of prodding to get olinda to realize the weight of her actions and the possible outcome, and when she realizes that what she is doing could truly change the world, she has a hunger and thirst to prove herself.

olinda always gives 100% to whatever she’s doing, and it can often come at her detriment. when she’s given the chance to be more, she seizes it - damn the consequences.

olinda doesn’t have a lot of friends or close relationships - she has lost everyone who has ever gotten close, and part of her wonders, especially when kade looks sick, if it’s her. maybe she curses whoever comes near.

when olinda first meets nia she is baffled by her innocence. it’s not refreshing nor is it something that angers her - it’s just confusing. and maybe, at some point, olinda envies nia for her rosy view of the world. to nia, fire is just fire; it’s not a burning funeral pyre that haunts her dreams. to nia, sickness is just sickness; it’s not a vengeful ghost ripping away the one good thing she relies on. to nia, shadows are just shadows; they’re not something she has been running from ever since she was seven years old. olinda wants a bit of that. and maybe she’s worried that she will ruin nia, if they were to ever become closer than travel companions.

nia definitely teaches olinda the beauty in the world. kade taught olinda beauty in the past and the possible future, but he could never teach her to love the beauty of the present. nia does, slowly but surely. she shows her how things manage to grow, despite the world conspiring against them. she shows olinda how this world is still good, deep down. there is always light, with nia, and when she instills that view in olinda, it’s important.

when meeting mal, olinda immediately saw something of a kindred spirit - he was clearly damaged, too, this world against him from the beginning. they were both survivors looking for their family but while still being afraid of letting others close. although mal seemed to hide his damage better. instead of righteous fury, mal was ambivalent, and olinda wanted desperately to learn how he did it. olinda quickly learned though, that mal was an avoider - he didn’t let things roll over his shoulders, he jumped to the side before they could get to him. together, these two get some therapy and learn to take this world without letting it change them.

what i absolutely adore about their relationship is that they are both constantly teaching each other new skills. mal teaches olinda how to throw knives and how to be sneaky and she teaches him how to set traps or how to make a scabbard for his knives. they are constantly trying to one up each other by knowing how to do more things or being better at select skills, but it’s just friendly competition that keeps the other on their toes.

when it comes to tyril, olinda is less than enthused. these two had the hardest time getting along, and it all kinda stemmed from tyril being like,,,, “don’t slow me down” and olinda is like,,,,,, you invited yourself??? but also, i think that he reminds olinda a lot of the farmer that took her and kade in, so it’s a wound that tyril unwittingly hits. but also, tyril and olinda both know that the other is useful, and part of them knows to make a person who has the most potential of becoming a future enemy a friend, first, so that’s why they swallow their pride to reach out. they’re both headstrong, but they also both have deeper wounds, and that connects them. it’s like,,,,, i see you and i respect you, but if you weren’t on my side, i would not hesitate to end you.

i think that olinda and tyril eventually become great partners on the battlefield - they work in sync really well because they are both a little self sacrificing in their melee attack, and they are both fairly versatile. they definitely work well together, and they definitely teach each other patience. and don’t get me wrong - they have their soft, vulnerable moments together, but they’re too similar to be good for each other™

this leaves me to talk about imtura, who definitely vibes with olinda. they both do what they have to do, and while it infuriates olinda that imtura doesn’t open up much (she’s surrounded by kade and nia in the beginning, who are like - do you want to know my tragic backstory? i’ll tell you right now, even if you don’t want it. then, mal is willing to tell some parts, and tyril is just tyril. olinda is 90% sure that he doesn’t even have a past, he just has vague allusions. imtura just shutting her down right away because she doesn’t feel like it? blasphemy.) olinda respects imtura. they’re both self-made women trying to find their way through this world, and they both learn to really lean on each other.

funnily enough, olinda teaches imtura to let her soft side out. olinda “i will fight you if you so much as look at me wrong” teaches imtura to be vulnerable. it’s weird. but, olinda is big on emotions - harsh and vulnerable, so she teaches imtura to express those more. imtura teaches olinda when to let that anger simmer, without flying off the handle. think first, then pull out your axes. they do wonders for each other’s emotional maturity.

oh! i think i should mention aerin. at first, olinda is against aerin and baldur. she does NOT want to have to take care of two princes who have lived sheltered lives and are the reason she lost her family. however, it’s much easier to hate baldur and something about aerin reminds olinda of kade.... a smart, bookish boy who’s lonely and doesn’t mean much to anyone, in this world. the two definitely bond, (and while i chose some of the romance options just to see) they only become friends. it’s crushing when he betrays them, and for a moment, olinda is afraid that maybe when she finds kade, he’ll be the same.

random thoughts:

olinda has a fear of fire. her eyes follow it’s tongues very carefully and she’s always double checking that it gets put out. the company figures this out fairly early on, and nia is almost always the one to very pointedly put it out. the first time, she made a big show of it, and everyone laughed, but olinda thought it was very sweet.

it’s kind of a joke, now, that whenever anyone puts the fire out, they make some very pointed comment. olinda always rolls her eyes, but she won’t deny that she does sleep easier, now.

it’s 100% an inside joke between olinda and tyril that they make up the most outlandish constellations - all stemming back from that time they talked about kade making up constellations. tyril made up a constellation once while on the road, stretching his imagination to cheer up olinda. nia tried to (sweetly and carefully) correct tyril, but he insisted until olinda realized what he was doing and smiled. together, they’ve made up some pretty good ones, and when kade joins the group, he makes up stories for each constellation they make.

mal is a pickpocket, and one of the first things he ever taught olinda was that skill. they like to have little competitions to see who is the better pickpocket (tyril was the final level and the hardest to pickpocket), and at one point, the game changed to sneaking things into people’s pockets. mal slipped olinda a love letter once and it was vvv sweet. olinda will sometimes jokingly mock him for it, but we all know she enlisted kade to help her write one back.

imtura and olinda spar! they do it all the time, and even though imtura wins most of the time, they both maintain that it’s a tie - they’re both too good. 

also, olinda 100% makes imtura a new gauntlet - it’s a collaborative process. imtura chose what she wanted it to look like and what materials she wanted and olinda made it for her, trying to teach imtura, but imtura was terrible at it.

olinda has long hair, and nia taught her how to do really intricate braids. my girl used to just tie it up into a bun or ponytail, getting all kinds of tangles. nia was rightfully appalled and taught olinda how to braid her hair nicely.

the whole company has definitely braided each other’s hair.

the only one allowed to touch imtura’s hair is nia, and tyril would rather die than let mal touch his hair, but all of them know how to braid hair and you cannot tell me that they haven’t helped each other tie their hair back before going into battle

tyril is the worst at telling stories, and it’s a joke within the whole company. whenever they’re all hanging out after dinner, they tell stories and at least one person tries to tell a story terribly, seeing if they can do it worse than tyril

at first this super annoyed tyril, but now he will correct people’s terrible stories, making them even worse by revising the story and cutting out entire chunks or just interrupting them, saying the premise is already too interesting.

the exact opposite happens with mal - his stories are all incredibly detailed, but they’re all the same

the company tries to make a “mal story” that checks off all the cliches

contessa?

poorly timed winks?

a daring escape that is 100% fake?

an increasingly large diamond?

a charming disguise?

nia is actually really good at coming up with the most outlandish stories. mal is very proud.

speaking of nia, this woman did not know how to cook. imtura teaches her, and it’s actually really sweet. everyone thought nia was going to get queasy at gutting a fish, but she was oddly okay with it.

imtura gets really connected to her culture later on, so the whole company knows orcish sayings and the know a lot of the customs. it’s very sweet.

olinda is actually really bad at flirting, so mal is constantly trying to give her “tips” which is really just an excuse to hit on her. tyril hates it, nia is slightly scandalized, and imtura joins in on the fun.

olinda is actually scarily good at deception, though, and she teaches nia, which scares the whole company.

AND FLUFF ENSUES.

-- taglist: @musicallisto, @missameliep // message me if you want to be added!

[sweetsmellosuccess]

The Best Films of 2020

The 15 Best Films of 2020

Normally, when I assess a full year of cinematic offerings, I consider both sides of that coin  —  the outstanding entities, and the least successful —  but the year of our lord two thousand and twenty provided more than enough misery for all of us, I do believe. Ergo, in my own small way to bring better vibes into the universe, for this year’s round-up, I’m staying solely on the positive tip, highlighting those films whose unfortunate release date during the Year of the Hex shouldn’t preclude them for being fully appreciated. Let’s take a year off from negativity and schadenfreude, shall we, and just stroll amongst the poppies and bright sunshine of some of the best releases of the year.  

15. The Invisible Man

“Leigh Whannell’s film is thoroughly modern in approach and sophistication, but the film it most reminded me of was made back in 1944. George Cukor’s Gaslight starred Charles Boyer as a loathsome husband who attempts to convince his already anxious wife (Ingrid Bergman) that she’s going insane by secretly rearranging things in their house and taking things from her so she thinks she’s always misplacing them. He preys on her emotional vulnerability in order to mask his own pathology and emotional detachment. The effect is absolutely enraging: Onscreen, he’s one of the more hateful villains ever committed to celluloid.”

Full Review

14. The Killing of Two Lovers

“From the opening sequence, with a distraught, estranged husband standing over the bed of his wife and her new boyfriend with malice in his heart, and a gun in hand, the film spirals out into incredibly well structured compositions, taking us inside and outside of David’s recurring psychosis, utilizing a bevy of techniques: The framing shrinks down around him, the sound gets muffled, as if underwater, save for the incredibly unnerving metallic sound of cables being stretched taut, and the sickening kathunk of a heavy car door slamming shut.”

Capsule Review

13. Another Round

“Typically, Vinterberg avoids simple conclusions  —  and God help us all if this film gets picked up by a U.S. studio and remade with, say, Vince Vaughn, Kevin James, Steve Buscemi, and Chris Rock  —  providing more or less equal examples of the delirious fun drinking with your friends can be (the film opens with a group of high schoolers gleefully doing “lake races” whereby teams compete to drink a case of beer while running around the nearby body of water; and closes with the same teen crew, and some of their teachers, whooping it up in celebrating their graduation); and the horrorshow it can become (one teacher ends up peeing the bed, and on his wife in the process, another wakes up bloodied and out of it in front of his neighbor’s house), leading to very real and horrible consequences.”

Capsule Review

12. Soul

“Co-director Pete Docter is the creative force behind many of Pixar's best titles, having a hand in the Toy Story franchise, WALL-E, Up, and also directing Inside Out, a brilliantly moving treatise on the subject of emotional upheaval. This film, which he co-wrote and made along with fellow co-director Kemp Powers, is his first film back at the helm since that high-water mark, and he has again dug into the fertile earth of our mortality and come back with a particularly vibrant crop.”

Full Review

11. The Burnt Orange Heresy

“Based on the novel by Charles Willeford, the film briskly moves through its paces, clouding the waters with the schemes of duplicitous men, who have sold out any love of art for their greater obsession of cash and prestige. A literary thriller in the vein of The Talented Mr. Ripley, it’s become a genre all too rare in the era of blockbuster bravado. This film will remind you what a mistake that is.”

Full Review

10. Lovers Rock

“In the course of the party, the fuses blow while the house DJ is spinning Janet Kay's "Silly Games," a fan favorite at the time. Undaunted, the guests continue dancing away, singing the lyrics a capella in delirious unison, as McQueen's camera swirls around the living room as if nothing happened. Such a heartfelt moment of unbridled togetherness, putting into distinct bas relief the sense of community we've been denied as a species in 2020, feels like a benediction, an epitaph for the year, and a salve for what we've all been so desperately missing.”

Capsule Review

9. Time

“Ostensibly, it’s about the strain of incarceration on even the most grounded of families (an experience naturally disproportionate for POCs); but, on a deeper level, it’s also about the manner of our use of the limited number of revolutions we get to enjoy situated on this earth. It is a profound knock-out.”

Full Review

8. New Order

“Meet the new boss, only in Michel Franco’s damning portrait of a society locked forever in cycles of oppression, revolution, and new oppression, it makes no difference who you are, what your belief system is, or whether or not you subscribe to a moral set of ethics.”

Capsule Review

7. Dick Johnson is Dead

“Utilizing stunt people and special effects, Johnson kills her father off a number of different gruesome ways, as a means of softening the blow of actually losing him as his mind slowly slips away. This eventually culminates in a final gambit, both acutely painful and deeply moving, in which our sense of things gets seriously upended. As Johnson put it during the post-screening Q&A, the film serves as a “doomed experiment trying to keep my father alive forever.” This film won’t make him immortal, alas, but it does make him indelible.”

Capsule Review

6. Martin Eden

“Marcello packs the film with offbeat bits and pieces of other films, including strips of what appear to be vintage home movies, sometimes in juxtaposition to what Martin is feeling  —  a group of kids swinging wildly from the bar of a fence, to a full galley ship taking in water and suddenly sinking like an iron ingot – which adds a more winsome, timeless element to the narrative. It’s clearly set in the past, but avoids being too dependent on that particular sense of place and time. Martin is a young man, at first, just coming into himself, and the actions he takes, what he goes through, the film seems to suggest, would be similar in any age.”

Full Review

5. Minari

“The film is certainly charming, but that’s not to diminish its straightforward approach to its characters’ plight. It doesn’t shy away from their difficulties, and as a result, it doesn’t cheat towards smarmy emotional closure.”

Capsule Review

4. Collective

“The breath of hope in the film, when the inept Minister of Health resigns, leading to the placing of a new, emboldened director who works quickly to clean the quagmire left by his predecessors, is just as quickly expelled after the next round of elections, in which the Social Democrat party  —  the very ones in charge of this catastrophe in the first place  —  gets re-elected with an even greater majority than what they had before. A perfect reflection of what happens when a government is allowed to exist without any meaningful oversight, other than from a bedraggled press and a disenchanted electorate.”

Full Review

3. First Cow

“Reichardt, a naturalist at heart, is not known much as a humorist, but there is a lightness to her screenplay -- co-written by Jonathan Raymond, her frequent collaborator, who wrote the original novel upon which its based -- that keeps it as sweetly airy as one of Cookie's fried confections. The two friends are so out of step with their surroundings -- the party of men Cookie initially travels with are little more than brutish thugs, and the fort upon which they end up is no better -- they almost had to find each other. They are reunited in the local bar of the fort only because literally every other patron runs out to egg on a brawl between two loutish combatants.”

Full Review

2. Never Rarely Sometimes Always

“Hittman’s eye for detail and emotional complexity  —  her characters can rarely articulate anything they’re experiencing  —  is incredibly acute, and she pulls tremendously understated performances out of her two leads.”

Capsule Review

1. Nomadland

“Perhaps no American director since Terrance Malick has made more of the collapsing light of dusk and twilight than Chloe Zhao. Much of her new film, which stars Frances McDormand as a transigent woman (“not homeless, houseless”), who traverses back and forth across the west in her beat up live-in van, doing seasonal work, takes place in that particular kind of vibrant half-darkness that shrouds the desert and its mountains with a magic kind of mystery.”

Capsule Review

Other Worthy Mentions: 7500; Assassins; Bacurau; Beanpole; Beginning; Black Bear; Bloody Nose Empty Pockets; Boys State; Come Play; Emma; Gunda; His House; Horse Girl; I Am Greta; Jacinta; La Llorona; Let Him Go; Limbo; Mangrove; Mayor; MLK/FBI; One Night in Miami…; Palm Springs; Possessor Uncut; Red, White & Blue; Relic; She Dies Tomorrow; Shirley; Shithouse; Shiva Baby; Some Kind of Heaven; Spring Blossom; Swallow; Tenet; The Dissident; The Invisible Man; The Nest; Sound of Metal; The Vast of Night; The Viewing Booth; The Way I See It; Vitalina Varella; Welcome to Chechnya

Inexplicably Underrated: 7500; Shithouse

Biggest Welcome Surprise(s): The Vast of Night; His House; She Dies Tomorrow

The Best Two Films I Saw This Year, Period: Satantango (1994); Harlan County, USA (1976)

[dwellordream]

On the other side of Daenerys VI, we see Dany for the first time confident enough to speak directly with Drogo about claiming the Iron Throne for their son, but Drogo has little interest in this.

Dany believes he will not hear of it out of fear of the sea, as she has been led to believe by Jorah, but I think it’s very likely Drogo also just sees no point or profit in a quest to seat his son on the throne when he could simply rule Drogo’s massive khalasar after him, enjoying extraordinary wealth and power here in the Dothraki Sea.

Dany affectionately calls Drogo her sun-and-stars for the first time here, but despite Drogo’s newfound interest in her beyond just sex, they still know next to nothing about one another. Dany doesn’t know anything about Drogo’s childhood, his family, his interests beyond conquest and hunting, because he hasn’t shared any of it with her.

It’s pretty clear that while Daenerys might no longer be terrified of him, and he has some new respect for her courage, this is still far from a marriage of equals or a love match. Drogo’s respect for Dany seems purely rooted in the fact that she is bearing his son; one can imagine what his response might be were she to wind up giving birth to a daughter instead.

Despite feeling more comfortable within Dothraki culture, Dany expressed a desire to return to Westeros, as if she needs to take on the promise Viserys made to her so many times and give to Rhaego what her brother could not give to her. She fears for her future after Drogo’s death, serving in the dosh khaleen with the other elders, having never so much as seen Westeros, nevermind put her son on the throne.

We see again the pressure Dany feels to always put on a strong face in Drogo’s presence, as that is the only way to keep his respect. She only rides in a palanquin due to his absence off hunting.

She again reflects on her future on the way to the market, wishing she could be content with life as a khaleesi, but for the first time refers to herself as a dragon, not just blood of the dragon, and reminds herself it is her duty to not let the Targaryen dynasty die out here in Vaes Dothrak, forgotten like all the stolen monuments of gods and heroes she is passing by.

Traders who come to Vaes Dothrak must give the dosh khaleen salt, silver, and seed, which I assume the dosh khaleen organize for planting and farming via the slaves, since the Dothraki themselves do not farm or herd.

Dany differentiates between the Eastern and Western markets by claiming that the Western Market smells of home, specifically the Free Cities, which is ironic since she was just reminding herself that Westeros should be her true home.

She tells Jorah she loved best to play in bazaars as a child, though she and Viserys usually did not have the money to spend on treats or trinkets; rather, she loved the atmosphere and people. At heart, Dany really seems pretty extroverted and people oriented, often feeling lonely with just her thoughts and worries.

Jorah leaves abruptly to speak with the Merchant Captain, which is 100% just a cover for him reporting back to his spymaster.

Dany getting her handmaids and guards to try sausages with her is a really cute scene, though she is disappointed to learn they’re just more horsemeat.

Dany also shows the reader how the Dothraki trade here; she wants a feathered cloak so she takes it and gives something of equal value in return, a silver medallion. She also gets perfumes that remind her of Braavos, and a fertility charm for Doreah, who really wanted it, though she thinks she must now also get some gifts for Irri and Jhiqui too.

We also hear that Dany’s skin is ‘sun browned’ in thos chapter; clearly Targaryens can and do tan quite a bit in the sun.

The first warning signs with the wineseller is his insistence that Dany try a different, specific wine after he realizes who she is. Dany agrees, knowing Drogo’s fondness for high end wines.

Then enters Jorah, who’s had a change of heart; he’s been spying on Dany for months, but while he could have easily let her and Drogo both be poisoned, then make his escape in the chaos, he now proves the wineseller is trying to kill her by commanding him to taste his own wine.

Jorah claims he had a suspicion due to a letter from Illyrio; Dany is panicked and terrified at the thought of losing not just her life but her child’s, reminding the stirring fetus inside her that he is the blood of the dragon and must not fear- but she could be easily saying the same thing to herself, being all of 14.

Jorah informs Dany that Robert is offering a lordship and lands to whoever kills her, her brother, and her child; she hysterically jokes that Robert owes Drogo a lordship for Viserys’ death. For the first time she thinks of someone besides her as having ‘woken the dragon’- Robert.

She feels the sudden urge to heat up the eggs, and does so with the brazier, then chastises herself when nothing happens.

Drogo returns in a very good mood, calling Dany ‘moon of my life’ (probably a reference to the Dothraki moon goddess) for the first time, and is shocked to hear of the attempt on Dany’s life, rewarding Jorah and Jhogo with horses, and publicly vows to conquer Westeros and take the Iron Throne for Rhaego.

The wineseller, we learn, is sentenced to a slow, painful death by exhaustion/dehydration or trampling, being chained on Drogo’s command to Dany’s horse as she rides.

[amyscascadingtabs]

look now, the sky is gold

He wants this, has longed for this, and he already can’t wait to meet whoever’s growing in there, but he’s scared, too. There’s no turning back now. His world is about to be forever changed, and it will never be just him and Amy again. There will be someone else depending on them, always another person in the back of their heads, and it's slowly hitting Jake that he's about to get onto what is sure to be simultaneously the best and most terrifying rollercoaster of his life.

or, the jake peralta way of dealing with the news that you're going to be a dad. 

read on ao3

(thank you to my love @johnny-and-dora for cheering me on about this and major thanks to @amydancepants-peralta for reading through it for me!!) 

____________________________________________________

During the months they were trying, Jake pictured his reaction to a positive pregnancy test many times. 

Each time Amy took one, he’d either sat with her and held her hand, or waited outside the bathroom quietly twiddling his thumbs. Each month, he’d thought of what his reaction would be if the test came back with the two lines meaning pregnant. Maybe he’d laugh, or kiss her, or make a dope sextape joke that she'd punch him in the arm for. There were plenty of options, yet he never considered the reaction that occurs when Amy does fish the familiar white and pink plastic stick out of the pocket of her hoodie.

First, there's the surprise, the realization that this test has two lines and not one.

Then, there's the piecing together, looking from the test to Amy's tear-filled eyes and nervous smile in sheer disbelief.

Then it's the part where even though he thinks he understands, he asks to make sure, and his voice trembles when he says the word baby? and Amy confirms it and suddenly he's tearing up, too, giving in to the sudden need to wrap her in a tight hug.

 “Is this real?” He whispers as she sniffles into his hoodie. “You're… this is really happening?”

“I think it is,” she laughs, a little timid, and he wants to hug her even tighter. Then he wonders if he's supposed to be extra careful with his wife now when she’s carrying the beginning of a brand new person inside of her, and stops himself.

“You did it,” he says instead, and she nods. His shirt is becoming wet from her crying, but he doesn’t mind it. He's missed her happy tears. “You did it, Ames.”

“We did it,” she mumbles, and Jake thinks about holding her hand at the doctor’s appointment, sitting there listening to the fertility consultant explain what medications she needed to take. He’d felt useless, not knowing how to help except staying by her side. “Me and you together.”

Mostly you, he wants to say, because it was always hardest on her, but she pulls away from him smiling so wide, and he nods.

“Okay. Me and you.”

Amy claims she’s exhausted, so they go to bed early even though neither has work tomorrow. Jake finishes the game - he loses, but it’s okay because he's untouchable right now and Wario cheats anyway - and then crawls down under his side of the comforter, waiting for his wife.

  Amy comes out of the bathroom in nothing but a towel and underwear, and he’s mesmerized by her as he watches her pull the familiar blue NYPD t-shirt over her head, fabric sliding over the still mostly flat stomach.

He thinks about how this body he knows so well and loves so much is carrying the beginning of another life inside of it. It's hard to understand how it can still look the same, no obvious changes in its appearance, when it must be changing more than ever on the inside. He wonders how long it'll be before the outside catches up. Part of him can’t wait for it to; maybe it'll feel more real then, once he can see it happening. Plus, he's already certain Amy’s going to look cute as hell with a real baby bump. He’s excited.

  “I'm too tired for sex,” she warns him when she catches him staring, and he holds up his hands, feigning innocence.

“No worries. I mean, we don't even have any pressure now, right? Already made the baby,” he points out, and she chuckles as she gets under the covers.

“We did. Without a war-room calendar and everything.”

“Just love,” he muses.

“And a little bit of hormones, possibly.”

“Love and a little bit of hormones, title of our sextape.”

“I love you,” she whispers, and he can't stop himself from pulling her closer, making her giggle as he presses feather-light kisses to her neck. “I can't believe this is real life.”

“We're having a real-life baby.”

“Hopefully.” Amy bites her lip. “I mean, it's still early. We shouldn't be telling people for another month or two, in case something happens.” Her voice shakes on the last word, but Jake hushes her.

“Let's not think about that, okay? Let's just be happy for right now.”

She gives him another faint smile. “Okay. Right now.”

“And right now you're pregnant.”

“Right now I'm pregnant.” Her eyes gleam. “Holy fuck.”

“Woah, using foul language in front of our unborn child? Shame on you, Santiago - shame.”

“They're a five-week embryo. They don't have ears yet.”

“Right, right. But they exist,” he says, still trying to comprehend it. “Because we're having a baby.”

“We are,” she nods, and this time the smile on her face is radiant, making up for every instance he’s seen her crying in the last months.

  He’s not sure what time he wakes up the next morning, but Amy's not awake yet, so he figures it must be early. She's drifted away from him during the night, and he moves closer, aching to be near her.

She’s sleeping on her right side with her mouth open slightly and her hair spread out on the pillow, and Jake wonders if it’s possible pregnancy is making her glow already. He reaches out to wrap an arm around her, but is stopped in his tracks when he notices that her left hand is resting on her stomach as if to protect the tiny life growing in there.

He has to swallow hard to keep himself from crying again. This is not the time to have a breakdown, because his wife is finally pregnant and he has to keep it together for her sake, but with the boundless happiness has come an edge of fear and something else.

  It’s a feeling he can’t put words on yet, but it’s spreading from deep in his heart to every capillary in his body, filling him with an immediate, acute awareness that he would do anything in the world to make sure the child growing in there is safe. The thought of something happening to Amy has been his worst fear for a long time, ever since he had to leave his post in Texas so she could do her job without him hovering over her and being worried sick, but this feels different. This is instinctual. Jake doesn’t know anything about this child yet, isn’t sure if what he feels for them counts as love when it’s so new and uncertain, but he knows deep in his soul that he’d give up everything to keep them safe.

  Carefully, as to not wake his soundly sleeping wife, he lifts the comforter and leans down so he’s facing her stomach. He presses a kiss to her hand, and then lets his rest on top of hers, linking their fingers together. Amy smiles in her sleep. Jake allows himself another moment of just watching her, wondering how on Earth he got so lucky, before he gets out of bed and pads into the bathroom.

  He’s washing his hands when he notices the pregnancy test still resting on the counter next to the sink. Amy threw away all the negative ones, and he’s taken aback by seeing this one on full display before realizing it makes total sense for her to want to save it. He wonders where they’ll put it - it seems weird to make a shrine for a piece of plastic someone’s peed on, but it also feels wrong to leave the first evidence of the existence of their child forgotten in a drawer somewhere. He picks it up for a second and balances it in his hand. The two lines are as clear as they were yesterday, and just looking at them makes him jittery with excitement and a little bit of nerves.

He wants this, has longed for this, and he already can’t wait to meet whoever’s growing in there, but he’s scared, too. There’s no turning back now. His world is about to be forever changed, and it will never be just him and Amy again. There will be someone else depending on them, always another person in the back of their heads, and it's slowly hitting Jake that he's about to get onto what is sure to be simultaneously the best and most terrifying rollercoaster of his life.

  He needs a distraction. Amy’s probably going to wake up soon, and he could always try to make them breakfast. This is something worth celebrating with real, unhealthy pancakes, served with an excessive amount of butter and syrup and possibly some strawberries if Amy forces him. Jake finds the pancake mix, hidden deep inside the cupboard still filled with gross healthy stuff like oat bran and sunflower seeds, and is about to get milk and an egg from the fridge when he notices something.

 On the second shelf in their fridge is a small piece of some weird, but surprisingly good, cheese Charles gave them. Next to it is a package of cream cheese, and next to that are two bags of mozzarella and a piece of regular gouda. Jake remembers reading somewhere about all this stuff you're not supposed to eat when you're pregnant, and he's almost certain the list included a bunch of cheeses. He can't remember which ones, but just to be certain, he throws out the one from Charles, the first of the mozzarella bags, and then he throws out the gouda and the cream cheese too just in case. He sees a packet of bacon and vaguely remembers something about deli meats being another no-no. He's not sure what counts as deli meats, but he throws out a packet of turkey lunch meat and the bacon as well. Surely, they can't be too safe, and he wants - needs - to protect his pregnant wife and their child in every possible way. He wants to do his best and he wants to start today. If throwing out all their cold cuts is one way, then Jake is doing it. Maybe he should pour out all their alcohol too, that he knows is dangerous, or at least hide it for the following nine months -

  “Babe, what are you doing?”

He freezes with the second bag of mozzarella still in his hand, turning around to meet the befuddled gaze of his wife.

“Uh -”

“Why are you throwing out everything in our fridge?” Amy has thrown on one of his hoodies and her hair’s in a messy top knot, but she still manages to give off one hell of an authoritative vibe when her brows furrow and she's looking at him like he just explained he was getting ready to compete in the next Summer Olympics.

“I thought…” He nods to her stomach and then to the cheese in his hand. “Pregnant people aren't supposed to eat a bunch of stuff, right? I’ve heard this stuff about cold cuts and cheeses, and then I wasn't sure which ones, so…”

“So you threw everything out?”

“Yeah,” he confesses, sheepishly. “Better safe than sorry?”’

Amy sighs. “Jake, you’re majorly overreacting.”

“I am?”

“The recommendations for cheese and deli meats are there to avoid getting listeria, which you’re more susceptible to in pregnancy, and which can also harm the baby. But pretty much everything is sprayed with food additives today, so the risk is low, and the bacteria dies if you heat it up. For cheese, you just have to avoid the unpasteurized ones.” She grabs the mozzarella from his hand, reading at the back. “This is pasteurized. Most cheeses are. So the only thing you’re doing is creating food waste.”

“I didn’t know for sure,” he shrugs, backing away and looking down at his feet as Amy puts back the cheese in their fridge before closing it. “I thought - I wanted to do this right.”

She squints. “What do you mean?”

“I have to start being a dad now, right? And I want to,” he rambles quickly. “Fuck, I can’t wait, okay? But…” He gestures to her stomach again, swallowing hard. “You’re doing everything, and I wanted to help. Start being a good dad right away.”

  There’s a moment’s silence. Amy bites her lip, her eyes narrowing again, and he realizes she’s tearing up.

“Oh, honey,” she sniffles, and then she throws her arms around him without warning and hugs him tight. Jake hugs her back, stroking her hair. She’s been crying so much lately, it’s becoming second nature, but this time she pulls back after a couple of seconds and wipes away the tears with the sleeves of the hoodie before looking him right in the eyes.

“Please listen to me when I say this. You are a good dad, okay? You’ll be amazing. I hate to tell you this, but you can’t exactly be pregnant for me.”

“I know that,” he scoffs, a little indignant. Amy shakes her head, holding her hands on his shoulders.

“This kid is the size of an apple seed right now. An apple seed. We haven’t even known about their existence for twenty-four hours yet. What I’m trying to say is we don't have to clean out our entire fridge yet, babe.”

“I want to protect them,” he mumbles. “Make sure they're safe. It feels like the closest thing to that I can do is try to protect you.”

“I’ll make sure we throw out all the stuff I can't have,” she promises him calmly. “I’ll make a list in the binder of what I can't eat or do and I’ll follow it to a T. But you have to trust me, Jake.”

“Of course I trust you. It's not that.” He grimaces, taking a deep breath. “I could never deal with anything happening to you. And now, if it does, it's also happening to our child, and that makes it worse, Ames! I’m just...”

“Feeling a little overprotective?”

“Yeah!”

She giggles, which makes him feel kind of stupid, but then she stands on the tip of her toes and kisses him something sweet and lingering, and he figures he can’t have made too detrimental of a mistake. She smiles as she pulls back, and it’s such a safe smile, one saying I know you and it will be okay all at once. It’s easy to return it.

  “Babe, I can protect myself. And until this child is born,” she says, moving her right hand to rest above his heart, “I promise to do everything in my power to protect them, too. I’ll go on desk duty, I won’t as much as touch a drop of alcohol, and I’ll try to stress less. Hell, I’ll drink decaf coffee for the next nine months for the sake of this baby.”

“Woah.”

Amy rolls her eyes. “Save your applause. Point is, babe, I’ll keep them safe. Can you trust me to do that?”

 He doesn’t have to think about his answer for long. In the eleven years he’s known the woman standing in front of him, he’s learned a lot about her. She’s the best person he knows - smart, brave, motivated and hard-working as hell - and on top of that, she’s fiercely loyal. Amy cares for the people around her, genuinely cares in a way that goes much further than sending the whole precinct Christmas cards or remembering every single one of her nieces’ and nephews’ birthdays.

Amy cares, and a lucky selection of people, she loves. Jake’s always seen it as the greatest honor of his life to get to be loved so deeply by her, and much like he confessed a late evening on their honeymoon when they recited their actual vows to each other, he plans on spending every day of their lives together trying to be worthy of it.

Amy loves, and the people she loves, she would go to the ends of the Earth to protect. There’s not a sliver of doubt in his mind about it, and the longer he thinks about it, the more certain he feels about two things.

 First and foremost, that Amy will love their baby to pieces. If there’s one thing Jake’s looking forward to even more than meeting their baby himself, it’s getting to see the look in Amy’s eyes when she holds them for the first time. He already knows it will drive his heart crazy.

Secondly, he knows she’ll protect them. Amy’s a protector, always looking out for the people she loves, and even though she’ll roll her eyes at him when he does something decidedly harebrained, like hiding in a ceiling for a frivolous squad competition and breaking his ribs falling from it, she’s also the one insisting on driving him to the ER later. If she’s willing to love and look after him in that way, then Jake figures her level of commitment to protecting their child will be immeasurable.

  Jake trusts Amy to keep their baby safe. He trusts her so much, he’d be willing to bet their car and apartment and everything else Amy’s told him he’s absolutely forbidden to bet, on it. His insecurities are rooted in the fact that he wants to protect this child, too, but aside from protecting Amy, he has no idea how to go about it for the upcoming nine months.

  “I trust you,” he says, voice steadfast, and Amy looks pleased. “That's not the problem.”

“Good. So what is?”

“What should I do? Except wait impatiently for them to be born so I can help out?”

“Well,” she shrugs, “you could just keep doing what you're already doing.”

“What?”

“Being my partner,” Amy says calmly, eyes piercing into his. “Which you’re already great at. You can just be here, hug me when these crazy-ass hormones make me cry, listen and talk me down when I get anxious. All I want is for you to be by my side for this, as much as you can.”

“Hold your hair when you throw up, buy you a bunch of crazy food when you get cravings, always be available for sex whenever you reach the point in pregnancy when women get super horny?”

“Okay, slow down.” She rolls her eyes. “We don't know if any of that is going to happen yet. I haven't exactly done this before.”

“Point is I’ll do all of those things if you need me to,” he grins. “Of course I’ll be your partner, Ames. You don't have to ask. But I… I want to do everything I can for our baby.”

She strokes his cheek, reaching up to give him a chaste kiss. “Which is how I know you're going to make the greatest dad on Earth. But for now, babe, they don't need you yet.”

“Ouch.”

Amy laughs. “They’ll need you in nine months, and for the rest of their life after that. If you want to do what’s best for them, I’d suggest keeping yourself safe until then, and I’ll take care of us. Myself, and this wished-for, crazy loved little apple seed.”

He looks down at her stomach again as she says that, trying to imagine a tiny bump there. All he can procure in his head is the giant fake belly from her undercover mission in Texas, but he figures his frame of reference will grow soon enough.

  “And once they gain a sense of hearing”, Amy continues, “you can start talking to them if you want. If you do, the books say they’ll recognize your voice once they’re born. You can come with me to all the appointments, maybe read some parenting books, and I’ll let you order the Die Hard-onesie and baby sneakers I know you’ve been eyeing online. We’re doing this together. I’m just going to do a bit more of it in the beginning. Okay?”

He places his hand over the one that’s on his heart, moving them both to her lower abdomen and nodding. “Yeah. Okay.”

“I love you,” she whispers, another tear already trailing down her cheek. Jake wipes it away with his thumb.

“I love you too.”

 They stand together for a moment, just hugging. It’s all he needs to feel a little more relaxed. He’s still certain he’s in for the wildest rollercoaster ride of his life, but Amy’s words and presence, the knowledge that he’s doing every step with her, is the over-the-shoulder harness to make sure he’s sitting safely for every second of it. The worry and fear of not doing enough is still there, but her trust in him makes it subdued.

 “How are you so chill about this?” He asks when they separate, Amy getting a glass of water for herself before taking a smaller one and extending it to him.“Oh my god, Ames - has having my genome inside of you corrupted you?”

Amy snorts with laughter, spitting out water over herself and the sink. “That is so not how any of this works,” she gets out, coughing slightly.

“It’s not?”

“Not by a long shot. Anyway - you want to know why I’m calm?” Jake nods.

“Because I’m with you. I mean,” she says, folding her hands together and focusing her gaze at them. “Also because it’s super early. Honestly, I’m not sure I trust that it’s happening yet. I guess I need to have blood work done to confirm it, and I don’t know if I’ll fully believe it until we have an ultrasound and we can hear a heartbeat, but… a lot of it is because I know I’m doing this with you.” She looks up at him, a careful but firm smile on her lips. “So I know that no matter what happens, it’s going to be okay. Somehow.”

“We’re having a baby,” he whispers, and her smile grows wider.

“We’re having a baby.”

 He’s not sure who closes the distance between them, or who kisses who first. All he knows is he lets himself get lost in it, immersing himself in the feeling of her lips on his, insistent and wanting, her arms around his shoulders, her legs wrapping around his waist when he lifts her so she’s sitting on the kitchen island. He pulls at the hem of her t-shirt, but she’s there before him, pulling it over her head and giving a meaning nod to signal at him to take off his own.

  They end up in the bedroom, because as useful as their kitchen island can be, it always gives one of them a backache the next day and the bedroom is easier, full stop. The bedroom lets him worship her in another way, lets him do it slowly, devote his entire focus to the sounds she’s making instead of worrying about losing his balance. And he wants to worship her; maybe now more than ever, because he’s still trying to make up for the disaster that was the end of those six months, but also because he’s never been so certain that his wife is magic. She’s doing something extraordinary, and he wants to show her how much he loves her for it, loves her for what she’s willing to go through to grow their family.

  He doesn’t know how much time passes - the duration slots on their war room calendars have become but a memory he’s happy to leave behind - but after, Amy curls into his side and rests her head on his arm. He plays with her hair, pressing soft kisses to the top of her forehead, and he can’t remember the last time he felt so at peace.

“Promise me one thing,” she mumbles in his ear, and he nods.

“Anything.”

“You are not allowed to become one of those men who become afraid to have sex with their pregnant wife because you think you’re going to poke the baby’s head.”

He gives her a haunted look. “I wasn’t going to until you pointed it out!”

“It’s not a thing! They’re well protected in there, and they won’t have a clue what’s happening anyway! So - not allowed.”

“Noted,” he mutters, trying to erase the picture from his head. Amy giggles, pecking his lips with a kiss.

“Great. So what are we doing today, to celebrate?”

“Well, I was trying to make pancakes, before I got distracted -”

“You want to go out to breakfast? As a family?”

The last word makes his heart flutter. “Okay.”

  They end up going out to their favorite diner. Jake can’t help but make note of how many parents with their kids are there. He wonders if it’s an unusual amount today, or if he just never made note of them before. It doesn’t matter, because they bring up the same thought anyway; how soon, the couple who are trying to make their toddlers look up from the iPad long enough to be fed bites of toast could be him and Amy, or even sooner, the couple who takes turns eating and exchanging a fussing infant between them.

In the booth opposite theirs, two women are having breakfast while a ginger baby in a baby chair happily plays with a paper straw. Just as Jake is starting to wonder if he’s creepy for not being able to look away, the kid makes eye contact with him, grins and waves the chewed-up straw at him. Jake picks up his own from his drink, waving it back. The kid laughs at him, and Jake feels his heart melt in a way it’s never done with a stranger’s baby before.

“I can’t wait to take our kid here,” he tells Amy as he’s pouring syrup over his pancakes, and she shoots him a smile over the edge of her decaf-coffee cup.

“Me either.”

  After breakfast, they stop at their neighborhood’s Target, because Amy wants the digital tests that say the word Pregnant and Jake wants to stock up on snacks so they can have a slug day with movies in bed. This time, the aisle of baby clothes doesn’t hurt to walk past, and after they’ve done so, he finds himself suggesting they’ll turn around.

  They browse through little onesies and pants and hats with ears on them, pointing out their finds to each other with equal excitement. Eventually, they settle on footed pajamas with a pattern of grey stars - gender-neutral, soft, and even tinier than he imagined they’d be - and Jake tries to picture their child wearing them. It doesn’t seem completely real to him yet, but he says it to Amy anyway, and then he has to hug her when she starts crying again.

“These are happy tears,” she whispers, clutching the item between them. “Stupid hormones.”

“I know,” he laughs, kissing the top of her head. “It’s okay.”

 He still feels a little worthless thinking about everything his wife is going through, a little powerless and wishing there was more he could do, but he holds her as she’s crying in the baby clothing aisle of Target and thinks that if this is the best way he can protect her and their kid for now, he’ll gladly spend the rest of his days doing it.

  (A month later, when he’s holding the first sonogram picture of their fetus in his hand and the sound of their ticking heartbeat is forever imprinted in his head, he knows it for certain.)

~

[wisdomrays]

TAFAKKUR: Part 416

THE SECRET OF VITALITY IN THE SOIL: Part 2

A most important question concerning life in modern biology is how skills are handed down. Grant that an organism inherits its entire constitution from its parents, how does it acquire the special skills it needs in order to continue its life? How does it learn, for example how to build nests or defend itself against other creatures? If a living organism may be likened to a mathematical computer programme, how is the learnt part of that programme transferred from generation to generation without slip-ups or distortions?

In seeking an answer to this question, biology has accepted that a certain programme called the genetic code is passed on. This explanation is for coarse, external similarities between cells, but not for embryonic cells or cells of the bone marrow.

Allah has said (41:47): Without divine science no woman conceives, no fruit separates from its rind. In scientific idiom, the meaning of this verse is: Every cell is given its mathematical programme in a continuous fashion.

Taking all the verses quoted above together, we begin to understand that vitality has two district aspects: the molecules that form the organism are its physical components, while the mathematical programme imposed on this structure is akin to the programming of a computer. This programme is, in a sense the individual organism’s individual destiny of fate. Ya Sin, verse 12 tells us that each creature is recorded In the Guarded Tablet in terms of its most minutely individual qualities (36.12) This declaration is an invariant law for life in general. Every living entity–a weed or a flower cell or a gall bladder cell will each perform what encoded is (inscribed) in its cellular computer, within the compass of Divine Omniscience, by the Divine Will.

The principle of life’s continuation is stated in the second part of the verse we are trying to interpret. After initiating life in the soil, and introducing to it organic materials indispensable for life, Allah created plants from it which in turn carry the basic structural materials necessary for other organisms.

The ‘grain’ mentioned in the verse can refer to the seeds of the plant but also to the constituents of a complete cell. All the organic nutrients for sustaining the life of organisms exist in grain. This fact was not accepted in earlier times: it was not known or accepted that, grain contains carbohydrates, protein, fats, vitamins and minerals all at the same time; on the contrary, it was thought that food derived from wheat and similar plants could not provide sufficient nutrition. But the habba (grain) actually represents all of the basic materials necessary for life.

That fact underlines another, namely that plant and animal cells have common building blocks. The difference lies in their programme or destines. One of the most important inner meanings of the verse is that the soil vitalized by Allah also serves as an incubator for organisms. This secret is imparted especially in the second part of the verse.

A fertilized egg develops in three basic ways: 1. beneath the earth (all plants); 2. inside an egg shell (most animals); or 3. in the mother’s womb (mammals).

From the scientific point of view, all three kinds of development serve the same purpose of instilling life into the organism. The fertilized egg needs a period of incubation and development in order to form the new organism. Biologically, this process is one in which the cells of the new organism form. The seed needs protection during this period, and must draw particular chemicals and ions (as yet unidentified) from its environment. In this way, it will be born into life as programmed. In this verse, Allah has emphasized that it is He who has given this characteristic to the soil. Taking only this property of the soil as an example, the vivification of grain is demonstrated.

Actually, this feature of the soil also provides an important insight into the nature of Judgement Day. When the command for resurrection is issued on the Day of Judgement– and this, too, is a mathematical programme–the secret of the verse will be revealed once again, and the dead will be restored to life in that instant.

THE ENLIVENING OF THE SOIL BY ALLAH IS NO ORDINARY EVENT, BUT A MOST PROFOUND WONDER OF BIOLOGY; WHAT IS MORE EXTRAORDINARY IS THE WAY THAT ALL DIFFERENT SORTS OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES ARE PRESENTED TO US FROM THE SAME SOIL

This verse may also be regarded as bearing in two respects on the wisdom of Adam’s creation from soil. The Qur’an declares that Adam was created from soil with the texture of mud. We shall investigate that verse in detail in the future. In the meantime, the important thing to note is that Allah does give to the soil something from the secret of His Divine Name, the Living. It can be clearly seen from the expression comprising the two sentences of the verse that Allah has bestowed both life and vitality on the soil, and has made it the vehicle for propagation of other life forms (the secret of bringing forth grain).

Since verse 32 of the same chapter tells of the resurrection on Judgement Day, the verse we are considering points to a connection between the resurrection at the Judgement and the secret of life in the soil.

We have learned many things about soil biology in recent years. I would like to summarize this information also from the standpoint of the resurrection.

As mentioned earlier, all the preconditions necessary for the formation of an organism from a seed are present in soil. That is, the soil conveys a fertilized organism to life, just like the mother’s womb. Both the fertilized egg and the seed are quite similar in that they both represent a genetic code ready to reproduce. This genetic code is the life and character programme of the organism to be formed. (These genetic codes are a millionth of one centimeter in size–if, for curiosity’s sake, you were able to amass the genetic codes of all the human beings who have ever lived, they would not fill a drinking glass.)

It should not be doubted that, had Allah willed, He would have developed the human seed in the soil as we sell. Indeed, when Allah declares in the verse that the way in which We quicken the dead earth is a sign, He enables an understanding of an issue that science is hardly beginning to catch up with. The verse stresses how deeply the resurrections promised at the Judgement conforms with the logic of biology. The scientific conclusions to be drawn from the biological facts given in the verse may be summarized in three points:

1-The enlivening of the soil by Allah is no ordinary event, but a most profound wonder of biology. The chain of happenings we call life stems from the secret of the Living in the soil.

2-The Day of Judgement is also closely related to the secret of the Living. Whoever doubts the Judgement will find that his doubts are baseless if he contemplates the wisdom of Allah’s bestowing life on the soil together with the secret of living.

3-Life is, first and foremost, a preordained mathematical programme. The division of organisms into ‘primitive’ or ‘developed’ is based on quite arbitrary judgements. Every organism is the representative of a perfect programme. For this, as well as for other reasons, the theory of evolution should be regarded as fundamentally flawed, if not radically false.

[a-prekliatyvlk]

                Pack Festivities: Imbolic, Ostara, Beltane                                                            —————————-

So I wanted to write a little bit about the pack celebrating holidays. Since they follow more Pagan traditional holidays they do a lot of celebrating through out the year. Honestly the pack just loves an excuse to throw parties. They LOVE inviting other supernaturals to such parties.

                                                                 Imbolic

Imbolic is one of the first holidays they celebrate. This one isn’t as big as other ones (Beltane) but it’s just the sabbat making the midpoint between Yule and Oastara. This isn’t a small gathering, they make food, lamb mostly and deer, decorate the house with white flowers, evergreen and leave out berries such as black berries for people to eat. Everything is flavored with Baisl, bay, lavender and rosemary to honor the sabbat.

The attire consists of Brown, Green, Pink, Red, White and Yellow.  Most of the pack opts for White since of course that is their pack color. They send out invitation’s, (with a wax seal and all!) to the people who are coming. If they know of people who don’t have a steady address they just remind them of the date (around February 4th) when the party is.

At the end of the dinner they all gather in a clearing by the pack house. It’s surrounded by Birch and Evergreen trees and they light off a big bon fire. (this is of course done by Iyrna) And they sit and talk amongst themselves. Some times they dance if someone decides to break out music. Other times they just snuggle on the seating in front of the fire, enjoying the feeling of the fire and the hint’s of spring starting to come. Sometimes the fire goes well into the night and they end up falling asleep. In the morning, Artem makes breakfast and everyone goes about their way. Its more to reconnect to each other than anything else, pay homage to winter starting to fade.

                                                          Ostara

Ostara is a family holiday from were the pack is concerned. They use this holiday, the spring equinox celebration of equal day and night along with rebirth and fertility of spring to reconnect with their family. While this party also has a invitation, it’s mostly to family. They don’t really invite anyone who hasn’t been to the house more than a couple times. They take this time to plant a garden as a family, everyone planting different kinds of flowers. Often times people bring baskets full of food and or flowers to the home, sometimes people also bring catches, lambs rabbits and hares for Artem to cook with. This party is an ALL DAY thing. It doesn’t go into night like other parties but this one is meant for family.

The attire for this consists of Pastels, Gold, Light Green and yellow, Pale pink and robins egg blue. Often times the males will wear pale pink colors and gold. The women yellow, green and blue. EVERYONES hair is decorated in flowers. I am talking beards, braided hair. Even people who have short hair will have a flower crown on their head. Katia braids the womens hair in something like this with flowers. The idea is that there is enough hair flowing to allow the flowers to drift out at the end of the night if needed. Artem braids the mens hair (those who have hair long enough to do so) in something like this. Often times he shaves the sides of their heads as well. Their braids are always tight and the flowers a lot of times stay through out the night much to some peoples dismay.

The night ends after the sunsets. Often times if there is someone who needs to be inducted into the pack it happens then so to strengthen the familia bonds that the pack his. Honestly this party is one of the most chill that the pack has. Its meant to be enjoying the weather along with family. The twins take this hella seriously and mates are not permitted to be gross during this time. And are not allowed to sneak away. They spend the day together being a family.

                                                           Beltane

Beltane is the party of the year for the wolves. This one is the celebration of fertility and love. Most of the time if a wolf in the pack is going to find a mate. It is going to be during this party. This party is planned for month’s between Katia, Artem and the pack. The invitations are sent out WEEKS in advanced. Often times the Ostara invitation and Beltane will come together. ANYONE who is supernatural is allowed to attend no matter if they know the pack or not. This makes security a bit higher during the party seeing as they might have people who disrupt the party but Katia and Artem do tell people that they will not tolerate any shit (plus with Loni showing up no one dares fuck with the happiness of the party)

Attire for this party consists of Green, Bright spring colors such as blues, purples, yellows and reds. The men of course braid their hair much like this, but often times wear antlers with flowers wrapped around the front. This is to symbolize rutting and the finding of a mate. The women often wear a braid such as this, (almost like a wedding braid) and have flowers covering the braid. All outfits are meant to show skin, skimpy and revealing is sorta the name of the game during this party after all you are finding a mate or reconnecting with your mate.

Dinner is normally served first, cattle and rabbit are the only meat and they serve alot of things with honey coating or dipped in honey. They generally drink a honey mead with dinner. So that after they can dance. Everyone gets a partner, no one is allowed to take the partner you are dancing with away until the end of the dance. Its provocative and used to make sure you are going to be a good match at the end of the night. Its a predator and prey type of dance, meant to get the juices flower between each mate. Once the dance is over another group goes, changing mates, sometimes people can dance with up too three or four people until they find the right match.

The dance generally ends when night falls, the pairs stand in front of the forest line and the males are blind folded (if it’s a same sex relationship, one volunteers to be blind folded. Nine times out of ten its the wolf) They are given a piece of cloth with their partners smell on it, a game of hide and seek. The hiders go into the woods and wait, after 5 minutes the seekers come and find them. What happens when they are found is up to the couple. Some spend the night in the woods (sex) and sometimes the other’s go back to the main house to spend the night together. This is the one night of the year where Artem and Katia allows it okay to have sex in the woods. The woods is big enough that most couples never happen upon each other or someone else. Most of the time the wolf has a one track mind of getting that person.

Generally in the morning Artem will have made food for everyone and the couples come back, if the night is good they might have the mate bite and then there is a wedding to be planned. Other times people just go their separate ways and never talk. It depends on the couple. Often times it lands a mate seeing as that’s the point of the party. Its a hellish night to clean up from but Artem and Katia likes seeing the happy couples from he party.

PSA: PLEASE KEEP IN MIND THIS IS MY LORE AND TAKING FROM DIFFERENT PLACES TO CREATE MY OWN. MY LORE MAY NOT BE THE SAME AS OTHER MUN’S AND THEIR LORE. PLEASE KEEP THIS IN MIND!!!!!

[f107group4]

𝐒𝐞𝐚 𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐞? 𝐒𝐞𝐞 𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐞!

LET’S PLAY!

Get to know more about this invertebrate by reading this blog! It contains the classification, biology, relationship to humans, and interesting facts about this marvelous organism, specifically one of its subgroup  — Aplysia.

CLASSIFICATION

Kingdom: Animalia  

             Subkingdom: Bilateria          

                Infrakingdom: Protostomia            

                   Superphylum: Lophozoa              

                      Phylum: Mollusca  

                         Class: Gastropoda  

                            Subclass: Opisthobranchia

                               Order: Anaspidea            

                                  Family: Aplysiidae        

                                     Genus: Aplysia

                                        Species: Aplysia californica

(ITIS, n.d.)

Aplysia, commonly known as spotted sea hares, belongs to the group of gastropod molluscs. There are 37 known species in this genus. The word Aplysia came from the word L’Aplysia which means “that which one cannot wash”. They are one of the oldest mentioned animals from historical texts with the first authentic description provided by Pliny in his Historia Naturalis (published on 60 A.D) (Moroz, 2011) .

BIOLOGY

Ocean Globetrotters

These invertebrates are benthic dwellers that occupies the middle and lower intertidal zones, grazing on sea beds or corals. They are distributed in subtropical and tropical tide zones with one species (A. punctata) even reaching the Arctic Circle. Seven species of Aplysia can navigate long distances  for example A. brasiliana  which can travel up to 1 km in one swim episode (Moroz, 2011).

Spotted sea hares move in two ways, either by swimming or crawling on the sea bed. They swim by doing synchronized waves of muscular contraction pass from anterior to posterior to make a funnel that pulls in water, squeezing the anterior parts of the parapodia together forces the water out behind the creature and pushes it forward. While, they can crawl by raising the leading edge of the foot and extending it forward in an arching pattern so the rest of its body follows the arching pattern until it reaches the tail (Dice, 2014).

The Naked Alien

The body of spotted sea hares consists of a head, foot, and visceral mass. It is partially distorted, not coiled, and superficially bilaterally symmetrical (Fox, 2006).

The head has an anterior pair oral tentacles. The median union of the two tentacles forms a transverse oral veil over the mouth.  A pair of rhinophores project dorsally from the surface of the neck. The oral tentacles and rhinophores serve as sensory organ. Specifically, their eyes are located at the base of each rhinophore (Fox, 2006).

(Brooks & Hiller, 2001)

The foot lies along the midline of the ventral surface. Its posterior part serves as a sucker that is used to attach the posterior end of the animal while anterior end is elevated above the substratum. The foot extends posterior to the body as a short tail. Dorsolaterally, it is divided into two wing-like parapodia that is used for locomotion (Fox, 2006).

(Brooks & Hiller, 2001)

Their mantle and mantle cavity are found in the middle. The mantle is the dorsal body wall of the visceral mass. Inside it, the shell can be found. Below the shell is the reduced and small mantle cavity that opens broadly to the right containing the gill, anus, and gonopore. At the posterior right corner of the shell is a folded mantle resulting to a short, tubular, exhalant siphon that encloses the anus (Fox, 2006).

A Salad Lifestyle

Spotted sea hares feed on algae. A. californica (California sea hares) feeds on several kinds of red algae such as Laurencia pacifica, Plocamium pacificum and Ceramium spp. as well as sea lettuce and eelgrass. These organisms utilize their toothed radula to grasp the algae and store it briefly in the esophagus. Then, the food moves into the stomach fixed with pyramidal teeth to further crush the substances The food is blended in with different stomach-related digestive fluids to further breakdown the matter while the wastes are discharged out through the anus (Dice, 2014).

Dating on Another Level

Sea hares gather to mate. With the absence of dating apps, they find each other through tactile and chemical cues. They have photoreceptors that recognize fluctuations in the intensity of white light. Sadly, they find it hard to detect red wavelengths. To compensate, they respond more to chemical changes in seawater using the osphradium which detects dissolved chemicals in the water (Dice, 2014).

Loyalty, whomstve?

From a spiral cleavage to blastula, gastrula, trochophore and finally, the first larval stages — the development of their embryo happens inside the egg capsules. Newly hatch veligers swim upwards using their cilia and may take months drifting in the ocean while feeding on microscopic algae and bacteria until they detect cues that prompts them to settle to the alga which they will feed on. After this, they undergo rapid metamorphosis wherein they lose larval characteristics. They become juveniles that resemble miniature adults in all major features except reproductive organs (Moroz, 2011). California sea hares reach sexual maturity after about 120 days (Dice, 2014). 

Sea hares are hermaphrodites, but they never self-fertilize by nature. Their copulation generally involves dozens. Every creature might be either getting or conveying sperm (or both) in respect of their present sex and position inside the chain (Dice, 2014). 

Short Fruitful Years

Their life expectancy is normally short, most commonly survive for just a year. Many of them loose their life after reproduction. Amazingly, cool temperatures help delay reproduction; hence, cooler waters can fairly protract their life expectancy (Emore, 2002).

Hey, Leave Me Alone!

Distressed spotted sea hares secrete a purple ink which contains chemicals that disrupts the sensory function of opportunistic predators (Moroz, 2011). This chemical defense coupled with the distasteful algal toxins accumulated from their diet significantly creates a habitat where they can roam freely and has few natural predators (Emore, 2002).

RELATIONSHIP TO HUMANS

Sea hares are known to be highly valuable laboratory animals especially in the field of neurobiology, more specifically in studying memory and learning behaviors. The California Sea Hare (Aplysia californica) is an important neurobiological model and is used extensively in studies of behavior and psychology. They have the largest neurons in the animal kingdom making it feasible to identify the specific nerve cells responsible for certain mechanisms.

As for their ecosystem role, this herbivorous organism serves as keystone species in the intertidal ecosystem by affecting the density and abundance of its algal prey.

5 Interesting FYIs about SEA HARES

1. DUAL PURPOSE WINGS

Sea hares have two large wing-like flaps that fold back on the body to protect their gills and internal shell plate. This wing-like extension is also used by some species of sea hares for short bursts of awkward swimming when threatened. 

2. IT’S THE CIRCLE OF LIFE

As they say the more, the merrier. A circle of sea hares dubbed as a “Roman Circle” is formed during mating and copulation where each animal inseminates the one in front- a group sex indeed. As hermaphroditic organisms, sea hares serve as males at their front and females at their back. 

3. GO AND MULTIPLY TO THE POWER OF 10

(Eleas, 2020)

Who cares about a twin, a quadruplet or a quintuplet? A single of this creature can lay up to 500 million eggs during one breeding season- that is more than a country’s population. Sea hares’ eggs are colored pink and often appear threaded.

4. WHAT YOU SEE, IS WHAT WE EAT

(Gfycat, 2019)

The color of sea hares are affected by the color of algae they consume. For example, young sea hares that tend to eat red algae are red in color, mature sea hares are colored green and brown because they consume algae that is also green and brown in color.

5. SEA HARES ARE CERTIFIED BTS STANS 💜 💜 💜

Sea hares have the right to use the infamous purple hearts on social media, and that’s a fact! This sea organism produces purple ink as a defense mechanism. Native Americans used this purple ink to dye clothing. Sea hares can also produce white or red ink depending on the color of the pigments in the seaweed they have consumed.

References

Angello, M. (n.d.). Full Frame Shot Of Sea Water [Photograph]. Getty Images. https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/full-frame-shot-of-sea-water-royalty-free-image/730260985

Anonymous. (2017). Sea Hare Eggs [Photograph]. Ocean Safari Scuba. https://oceansafariscuba.com/photos/view_album/trip-11417-tidepool

Anonymous. (n.d.). Dinner Time with Sea Hares [GIF]. Gfycat. https://gfycat.com/unsteadydirectfreshwatereel-sea-hare

Brooks, R. & Hiller, J. (2001). The Role of Chemical Mechanisms in Neural Computation and Learning. [Photograph] .Research Gate. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/2524430_The_Role_of_Chemical_Mechanisms_in_Neural_Computation_and_Learning

Brown, C. (2010). Untitled [Photograph]. Flickr. https://inhabitat.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/06/Sea-Hare-2-889x667.jpg

Dice, S. (2014). Aplysia californica. Animal Diversity  Web. https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Aplysia_californica/

Eleas. (2020). Naruto Clone GIF. Tenor. https://tenor.com/view/naruto-naruto-clone-funny-dancing-dance-gif-17857501

Emore, M. (2002). Aplysia dactylomela. Animal Diversity Web. https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Aplysia_dactylomela/

Fox, R. (2006). Sea Hare. Lander University. http://lanwebs.lander.edu/faculty/rsfox/invertebrates/aplysia.html 

ITIS. (n.d.). Aplysia californica  J. G. Cooper, 1863. ITIS.gov. https://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=78032#null 

Moroz, L. (2011).Aplysia. NCBI. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4024469/

[siren-theories]

The question of children

Note: ICYMI here is an updated post with all my analysis/thoughts so far.  DIsclaimer: The following includes spoilers of up to and Including Episode 309 “A voice in the dark”. This post was prompted by the following question:

Thank you very much for sending that one in.  I have to admit that this is a question I have asked myself many times, mainly driven by the parallels of Ben, Ryn and the story of the Pownall massacre. And Episode 308 has given those thoughts new form as they exchanged vows at the end of Episode 308. After all, children quite often follow such vows in human relationships. But children are quite a hassle for a TV show. Child actors are problematic to work with and once they exist, they often only waste screentime while bringing very little to the plot. And as they grow up, there is the question of time - having child actors more or less forces the show to use time in a linear manner as the child actors grow up. Though Siren already left itself a loophole with Hope and her growth spurts, this is still problematic for a show that has covered a period as short as a few months in three seasons. (I really need to update the timeline post soonish). 

  A). Can they actually have a child together?

We know that Sirens and humans can have children together as evidenced by the whole existence of Helen and the hybrid cult. 

However, we do know that Ryn has struggled with fertility issues before, which was a major plot point of the later half of Season 2. I do believe however that the fertility problems were mostly related to the males of her species. As the tests showed in Episode 213 “The Outpost” there was nothing wrong with Ryn herself 

(Leave it to the always body-positive Ryn to be proud of such a fact). 

And as soon as they could isolate viable sperm from the male, fertilization of her eggs was no issue at all in Episode 215. Biologically, there should be nothing preventing her and Ben having a Baby.

B). Will they have a child together?

With Ryn was not being in her mating drive during the recent episodes, we probably can rule out any pregnancy as a result of those scenes OP mentioned (unless her change into a human has progressed much further in those episodes, which is possible but IMO very unlikely). However, what happens when her next mating drive occurs? I think this can be safely answered within the context of the previous scenes in the show. There were multiple scenes in Episode 213 where both Ben and Ryn clearly exhibited signs of wanting to have children with each other and one scene in particular where they both had to force themselves not to do so within that episode.

And in 308 Ryn clearly states her wish for having a family with him, during the kitchen table discussion.

Ryn: “I will live on Land. With you.” Ben: “On land. You mean, stay human?” Ryn: “Yes. Here. Together. Human.” Ben: “What about Hope?” Ryn: “She can be with us. As a family.” Ben: “I can’t ask you to do that.” Ryn: “It is my choice. When it is time, I will be human with you.”

After figuring IVF works there is also no reason for Ryn to have more pureblood children just for the sake of her species considering there are plenty of willing alternative candidates (this would also be much better for the future genepool of her tribe).

So therefore, I do believe there is a high chance of them having more children, possibly as soon as Ryns mating drive kicks in again. By now you probably already figured out what the persistent qualifier “more” is referring to. I believe that for all intents and purposes they already have a child together - Hope.

C) Hope as their first child

While Ben is not the biological father, this is no hindrance to Hope being their first child. After all, under the law of many first-world nations Ryn would also not be considered the biological mother since she did not conceive Hope, nor did she carry or give birth to Hope.

Siren is no stranger to these constellations - after all, the best father figure in the whole series, Dale Bishop, is Maddie’s stepfather.

(Sidenote: Contrast how awesome Dale is as a father with Ben’s parents and Maddie’s mother. The show makes the point very early and very often that biological relations are not what determines who your “real” parents are,)

And for all intents and story-telling purposes, Ryn intends for Ben to be Hope’s father. This was signalled multiple times this season, even as early as Episode 305 and seems to be a role Ben wants to take up as well. 

In Episode 305, Ryn returns with Hope to land after her first transformation. And the very first thing she does onscreen is to hand Hope over to Ben in a manner very reminiscient of a mother handing over her child to its father.

(They look very much like a family in that scene, don’t they?) Then, we had Ben saying that he already views her like his own daughter in the same Episode. (Sidenote: rushing into things is a steeple of their whole relationship so this was in character for them).  

Ben: “It’s weird man. Feels like she’s mine. I*m going to help raise her.” Ryn of course also expressed the wish for Hope, Ben and herself to be a family in Episode 308:

Ben: “What about Hope?” Ryn: “She can be with us. As a family.”

And with Hope’s reintroduction in Episode 9, this dynamic was reinforced multiple times - especially and crucially from Hope’s side. And even more important was that Hope’s actions were completely unprompted by Ryn. 

1. Despite Ryn saying in Episode 305 that Hope will not remember her time as a baby, it is shown in Episode 309 that she does remember Ben, signifying the close bond the two already have

Episode 305:

Ryn: “When we meet again, you will be grown. You will not remember this time with me. So I will remember for us both.”

309: 

Hope keeps glancing at Ryn and Ben Ryn: “She remembers you. From when she was a baby.” 

2. And of course, later in the same episode Hope seeks physical contact with Ben - the image projected here is one of Family again.

And Ryn is again very happy about her daughter doing this. For whatever reason there seems to exist a strong, reciprocal bond between Hope and Ben already. 

So as it stands right now, Hope already is their (first) child in my opinion. The writers IMO could not have made that any more clear, especially not with those scenes in 309. 

Assuming she survives the finale (which I very much wish for), I would argue that any other children during the run of the show will be unlikely from a storytelling and logistics perspective. Even should Hope not survive (or have another prolonged period of absence for whatever reason) I do not think there will be another child shown onscreen. In addition to the usual problem with children in tv there is another one in play here: As strapped for screentime as Siren is, I would assume the writers do not intend to introduce further children unless they serve a dramatic purpose. 

D) Children and the Pownall family arc

One such arc where a Baby might prove beneficial for dramatic reasons however is the Pownall family arc.

As I have written at length before, there are parallels between Ryn/Ben and Charles Pownall/his unnamed siren. And the Pownall massacre happened in part because Ben’s ancestor and his siren failed to raise their child together.

("Seperated from her child, his mermaid lost her mind and went back to the water, never to return. Infected by the song and her abscence, Charles lost his senses. He gathered his crew, trapped the mermaids in a cove and slaughtered them.”)

As such, from a storytelling perspective, It would be very dramatic and enjoyable for Ben to have a child with a Siren and hopefully not mess up raising her. Therefore, should Hope not survive the season the odds of them having (another) child onscreen would increase dramatically in my opinion.

If Hope should indeed die, maybe it will not only be Ben repudiating the mistakes of his ancestor, but maybe also Ryn showing that she is stronger than the unnamed Siren. Maybe she would survive and heal after the loss of a child precisely because she has humans standing by to help her?

(And yes, I would think that would include Maddie). However, I do think Hope will survive. Anything else would be just too cruel to Ryn and also a bit odd considering how much screentime was invested in Hope’s “creation” in Season 2.

Either way, while a child would add drama, it is also not necessarily a conditio sine qua non for the story of the Pownall family. And IMO Ben’s attachment to Ryn is already strong enough (cf their "wedding vows” in 308). Therefore, a child would not be needed to prompt him to chose Ryn over his family (a choice he also already made in Episode 215 and which you can read more in detail about in the previously linked post).

Conclusion:

Do I expect them to have more children onscreen, over the course of the series? Probably not, given the above arguments. 

Do I expect them to have more children in the future (including a hypothetical time period after the series finale)?

After the series ends (and assuming some kind of happy end for them) they would probably increase their family as early (or as often) as Ryn’s mating drive and other factors permit. At this point in the story, they clearly want to have a family together and there would be nothing to stop them from enlargening their already existing family should they so choose. 

So I would tentatively argue that yes, they eventually will have more children.

[kariachi]

Red Sea Body Plans

We’ve gone over the single-celled life from which everything else on Osmos V arose, so now it’s time to get into multicellular lifeforms. It’s here where things are going to get a little basic, purely because I don’t have the time, energy, or inclination to make up a dozen or so body plans per sea. Instead, we’re going to be building two or three base body plans each for both major forms of symmetry (radial and bilateral) for both haplicytes and lampicytes, and using them as the basis for life moving forward.

This is where the haplicytes are really going to split for us into specialized autotrophs and specialized heterotrophs. The autotrophs, which will become out Red Sea originating plants, will be dealt with at another time. Here we’ll be dealing with our heterotrophs, our animals.

We’ll call the autotrophs chlorocytes from here on out, and the heterotrophs phagocytes.

The things to keep in mind when designing any basic body plan are feeding, defense, respiration, and reproduction. We’ll be keeping all these in mind as we go forward.

Radial Symmetry

To start off with we’re going to focus on our radially symmetrical body plans. Radial symmetry is when creature can be split into multiple identical parts in a circle around a central point. These creatures are often slow moving, if not entirely sedentary, and we’re going to have to take that into account.

We’ll do two of these here, one sessile and one mobile, to start us off.

Sessile first. The first thing we know about this creature is that we’re going to have to work out a way for it to catch it’s food, as it can’t go hunting. The way most species in this predicament do it is through tentacles or fronds, with which they either catch passing animals or detritus floating along the currents. We’ll go with fronds to start with, say an even dozen, as it’ll make catching detritus easier and that’s probably where such a creature will start off. We can even give them external digestion, so they don’t yet have to worry about a stomach. As they don’t do much moving, respiration isn’t as much of a concern, so they can probably make due with using pores in their skins to diffuse oxygen in the water into their systems.

Reproduction will be more of an issue though. Nature tends towards sexual reproduction, which allows for greater genetic diversity and security for a species, but that’s difficult when you’re sessile. Can’t exactly hit up the club, ya know? Some sessile species handle it through pollination, others through spore distribution. In the water something like the latter is most common, referred to as ‘broadcast spawning’. We’ll be going with that, but to make it more interesting we’re going to make this a three sex species, all capable of making ’eggs’ and fertilizing them. We’ll make it a circular system, where Sex A+Sex B=Sex C, Sex C+Sex B=Sex A, and so on. They’ll broadcast their spawn, eggs will be fertilized, and the young will float around on the currents as zooplankton until they become large enough to settle in and attach to the sea floor. Their main defense at this stage will just be a pure numbers game.

As for the adults’ defense, toxicity is an option, but the scaly-footed snail has my interest recently and this Osmos V has a large amount of metals, so I think we’ll go with protective ‘shell’ around the base of our vaguely anemone-ish friend into which it can retract it’s fronds. We’ll make this shelter out of iron sulfide, just like the snail, which should give it oranges and blacks as coloration. To know when they have to retract, they’ll need some form of sensory input, so we’ll give them primitive eyes running along the fronds. That way they can see danger before it reaches them to retract to safety.

We’ll call these little guys siderpodes, or ‘iron foots’.

Which brings us to the mobile ones. These guys are gonna be able to track down dinner, rather than just having it come to them, but they’re still going to have to focus on slow moving or immobile food. Their mouths will most likely be located at their center, with a stomach attached, and with things like this are typically on the underside. We’ll make them omnivores, occasional scavengers, that feed on the chlorocytes, siderpodes, and other slow moving or immobile animals. They’re need to be able to track down their food, so we’ll give them rudimentary eyes as well, and thin tendrils they can use as early smell receptors. We’ll put these at the end of, say, seven thick arms, sort’ve like a starfish. They’ll breathe same as the siderpodes, and for defense will instead go with a chitin-like scale armor, to preserve mobility and maximize speed. (After all, if dinner moves at 0.0003 mph you don’t wanna be stuck moving at 0.00024)

For reproduction, we’ll still go with broadcast spawning for now, with the young joining those of the siderpodes as zooplankton. And actually, I think we’ll keep the three sex system, not just for these guys but as a Red Sea trait.

These guys will be the ozasters, meaning ‘smelling star’.

Bilateral Symmetry

Bilateral symmetry is the contrast to radial symmetry. We’re an example- species that can be divided into two symmetrical halves, generally with a notable front and back, with the front often but not always being where brains and sensory organs go. They’re the more motile of the two types of body plan, for the most part, and have higher respiratory needs. These guys will all have some form of circulatory system, generally a free-wheeling ‘blood everywhere’ system, and a form of respiratory system to go with it.

We’re gonna try to make two of these guys too, and they’re going to be the rulers of the open sea, at least the Red Sea.

The first thing we’re going to make is a segmented swimmer, because as near as I can tell they were quite literally everywhere in early evolution. Apparently you couldn’t put on a pair of socks without crushing something exhibiting distinct segmentation. We’ll give it a long, thin body, to minimize drag, with rudder-like fins along it’s sides, four to a segment. eight segments in total. It’ll primarily eat plankton, and to that end we’ll probably give it four little, almost feathery digits at the front to catch them in, then it can eat the plankton off them. This wouldn’t necessitate much sensory input, but I’ve got a plan for a predator for them so eyes will be handy. We’ll give it six, three along each side. These, along with the speed granted by it’s shape and fins, will serve as it’s primary defensive measure.

For respiration we’ll go with gills, placing them along the belly so water rushes over them as our little critter swims. Reproduction, meanwhile, will be more direct. With the ability to see comes the ability to see potential mates, and so these critters will be able to actually seek out members of their own kind for breeding purposes. This will probably lead to a degree of sexual dimorphism among them, possibly in coloration. They’ll lay their eggs in simple nests in crevices and on the sea floor.

They will be plumaretes, or ‘feather net’.

But our little plumaret buddies will need that predator I mentioned. We need at least one fishy line in this mess or I’ll riot, so let’s play around with that, hm? They’ll be larger than the plumaretes by a fair bit, large, long, and laterally flat. We’ll give them eyes as well, since everyone else has them- only four, forward-facing. They’ll have gills along their sides, along with eight fins, for mobility and respiration. Our first dedicated predators, willing and able to eat anything that’ll fit into their mouths.

They’ll also be our first foray into size as a defense. They’re big enough that the biggest threat to them at this point in development is other, larger, members of their group. This’ll come up more as the project progresses.

Reproductionwise, I think we can safely class them in the same spot as the plumaretes. Sexual reproducers, external fertilizers, that lay eggs in crevices and such. For both groups the young probably make up yet more zooplankton, because a body of water can never have enough of those.

These guys, we’ll call primavenes. ‘First hunters’.

And these four will be the base off which we build all future Red Sea originating species. Next time, we’ll dive into the Grey Sea and see what’s happening with those mad lads.

Trust me, it is definitely stuff.

[sciencespies]

Building a Mouse Squad Against COVID-19

https://sciencespies.com/nature/building-a-mouse-squad-against-covid-19/

Building a Mouse Squad Against COVID-19

Tucked away on Mount Desert Island off the coast of Maine, the Jackson Laboratory (JAX) may seem removed from the pandemic roiling the world. It’s anything but. The lab is busy breeding animals for studying the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus and is at the forefront of efforts to minimize the disruption of research labs everywhere.

During normal times, the 91-year-old independent, nonprofit biomedical research institution serves as a leading supplier of research mice to labs around the world. It breeds, maintains and distributes more than 11,000 strains of genetically defined mice for research on a huge array of disorders: common diseases such as diabetes and cancer through to rare blood disorders such as aplastic anemia. Scientists studying aging can purchase elderly mice from JAX for their work; those researching disorders of balance can turn to mice with defects of the inner ear that cause the creatures to keep moving in circles.

But these are not normal times. The Covid-19 pandemic has skyrocketed the demand for new strains of mice to help scientists understand the progression of the disease, test existing drugs, find new therapeutic targets and develop vaccines. At the same time, with many universities scaling back employees on campus, the coronavirus crisis forced labs studying a broad range of topics to cull their research animals, many of which took years to breed and can take equally long to recoup.

JAX is responding to both concerns, having raced to collect and cryopreserve existing strains of lab mice and to start breeding new ones for CoV-2 research.

Overseeing these efforts is neuroscientist Cathleen “Cat” Lutz, director of the Mouse Repository and the Rare and Orphan Disease Center at JAX. Lutz spoke with Knowable Magazine about the lab’s current round-the-clock activity. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

When did you first hear about the new coronavirus?

We heard about it in early January, like everyone else. I have colleagues at the Jackson Laboratory facilities in China. One of them, a young man named Qiming Wang, contacted me on February 3. He is a researcher in our Shanghai office, but he takes the bullet train to Wuhan on the weekends to be back with his family. He was on lockdown in Wuhan. He began describing the situation in China. Police were patrolling the streets. There were a couple of people in his building who were diagnosed positive for Covid-19. It was an incredibly frightening time.

At the time, in the US we were not really thinking about the surge that was going to hit us. And here was a person who was living through it. He sent us a very heartfelt and touching email asking: What could JAX do?

We started discussing the various ways that we could genetically engineer mice to better understand Covid-19. And that led us to mice that had been developed after the 2003 SARS outbreak, which was caused by a different coronavirus called SARS-CoV. There were mouse models made by various people, including infectious disease researcher Stanley Perlman at the University of Iowa, to study the SARS-CoV infection. It became clear to us that these mice would be very useful for studying SARS-CoV-2 and Covid-19.

We got on the phone to Stanley Perlman the next day.

What’s special about Perlman’s mice?

These mice, unlike normal mice, are susceptible to SARS.

In humans, the virus’ spike protein attaches to the ACE2 receptor on epithelial cells and enters the lungs. But coronaviruses like SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 don’t infect your normal laboratory mouse — or, if they do, it’s at a very low rate of infection and the virus doesn’t replicate readily. That’s because the virus’ spike protein doesn’t recognize the regular lab mouse’s ACE2 receptor. So the mice are relatively protected.

Perlman made the mice susceptible by introducing into them the gene for the human ACE2 receptor. So now, in addition to the mouse ACE2 receptor, you have the human ACE2 receptor being made in these mice, making it possible for the coronavirus to enter the lungs.

Cat Lutz (left) and colleagues at work in a lab at the Jackson Laboratory.

(Aaron Boothroyd / The Jackson Laboratory)

Perlman, in a 2007 paper about these mice, recognized that SARS wasn’t the first coronavirus, and it wasn’t going to be the last. The idea that we would be faced at some point with another potential coronavirus infection, and that these mice could possibly be useful, was like looking into a crystal ball.

How did Perlman respond to the JAX request?

It was an immediate yes. He had cryopreserved vials of sperm from these mice. One batch was kept at a backup facility. He immediately released the backup vials and sent us his entire stock — emptied his freezer and gave it to us. We had the sperm delivered to us within 48 hours from when Qiming contacted me.

What have you been doing with the sperm?

We start with C57BL/6 mice, the normal laboratory strain. We have thousands and thousands of them. We stimulate the females to superovulate and collect their eggs. And then, just like in an IVF clinic, we take the cryopreserved sperm from Perlman’s lab, thaw it very carefully, and then put the sperm in with the eggs and let them fertilize. Then we transplant the fertilized eggs into females that have been hormonally readied for pregnancy. The females accept the embryos that then gestate to term and, voila, we have Perlman’s mice. We can regenerate a thousand mice in one generation.

Have you made any changes to Perlman’s strain?

We haven’t made any changes. Our primary directive is to get these mice out to the community so that they can begin working with the antivirals and the vaccine therapies.

But these mice haven’t yet been infected with the new coronavirus. How do you know they’ll be useful?

We know that they were severely infected with SARS-CoV, and so we expect the response to be very severe with CoV-2. It’s not the same virus, but very similar. The spike protein is structurally nearly the same, so the method of entry into the lungs should be the same. If there’s any model out there that is capable of producing a response that would that would look like a severe disease, a Covid-19 infection, it’s these mice. We have every expectation that they’ll behave that way.

Have researchers been asking for these mice?

We’ve had over 250 individual requests for large numbers of mice. If you do the math, it’s quite a lot. We’ll be able to supply all of those mice within the first couple weeks of July. That’s how fast we got this up and going. It’s kind of hard to believe because, on one hand, you don’t have a single mouse to spare today, but in eight weeks, you’re going to have this embarrassment of riches.

How will researchers use these mice?

After talking with people, we learned that they don’t yet know how they are going to use them, because they don’t know how these mice are going to infect. This is Covid-19, not SARS, so it’s slightly different and they need to do some pilot experiments to understand the viral dose [the amount of the virus needed to make a mouse sick], the infectivity [how infectious the virus is in these mice], the viral replication, and so on. What’s the disease course going to be? Is it going to be multi-organ or multi-system? Is it going to be contained to the lungs? People just don’t know.

The researchers doing the infectivity experiments, which require solitary facilities and not everybody can do them, have said without hesitation: “As soon as we know how these mice respond, we’ll let you know.” They are not going to wait for their Cell publication or anything like that. They know it’s the right thing to do.

Scientist Margaret Dickie in a mouse room at JAX in 1951. Jax was founded in 1929 — today, it employs more than 2,200 people and has several United States facilities as well as one in Shanghai.

(The Jackson Laboratory)

Research labs around the country have shut down because of the pandemic and some had to euthanize their research animals. Was JAX able to help out in any way?

We were a little bit lucky in Maine because the infection rate was low. We joke that the social distancing here is more like six acres instead of six feet apart. We had time to prepare and plan for how we would reduce our research program, so that we can be ready for when we come back.

A lot of other universities around the country did not have that luxury. They had 24 hours to cull their mouse colonies. A lot of people realized that some of their mice weren’t cryopreserved. If they had to reduce their colonies, they would risk extinction of those mice. Anybody who’s invested their research and time into these mice doesn’t want that to happen.

So they called us and asked for help with cryopreservation of their mice. We have climate-controlled trucks that we use to deliver our mice. I call them limousines — they’re very comfortable. We were able to pick up their mice in these “rescue trucks” and cryopreserve their sperm and embryos here at JAX, so that when these labs do reopen, those mice can be regenerated. I think that’s very comforting to the researchers.

Did JAX have any prior experience like this, from having dealt with past crises?

Yes. But those have been natural disasters. Hurricane Sandy was one, Katrina was another. Vivariums in New York and Louisiana were flooding and people were losing their research animals. They were trying to preserve and protect anything that they could. So that was very similar.

JAX has also been involved in its own disasters. We had a fire in 1989. Before that, there was a fire in 1947 where almost the entire Mount Desert Island burned to the ground. We didn’t have cryopreservation in 1947. People ran into buildings, grabbing cages with mice, to rescue them. We are very conscientious because we’ve lived through it ourselves.

How have you been coping with the crisis?

It’s been probably the longest 12 weeks that I’ve had to deal with, waiting for these mice to be born and to breed. I’ve always known how important mice are for research, but you never know how critically important they are until you realize that they’re the only ones that are out there.

We wouldn’t have these mice if it weren’t for Stanley Perlman. And I think of my friend Qiming emailing me from his apartment in Wuhan, where he was going through this horrible situation that we’re living in now. Had it not been for him reaching out and us having these conversations and looking through the literature to see what we had, we probably wouldn’t have reached this stage as quickly as we have. Sometimes it just takes one person to really make a difference.

This article originally appeared in Knowable Magazine, an independent journalistic endeavor from Annual Reviews. Sign up for the newsletter.

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