#monsoon season developments

[townpostin]

Heavy Rainfall Forecast for Jharkhand as Low-Pressure System Intensifies

IMD predicts widespread precipitation; authorities advise vigilance amid weather concerns The Indian Meteorological Department forecasts light to moderate rainfall across Jharkhand, with potential for heavy downpours in isolated areas. RANCHI – The Ranchi Meteorological Centre has released a forecast that anticipates extensive rainfall in Jharkhand as a result of an intensifying low-pressure…

[esonetwork]

Doctor Who Series 14 (or Series 1, Whatever) Review | Earth Station Who

New Post has been published on https://esonetwork.com/doctor-who-series-14-or-series-1-whatever-review-earth-station-who/

Doctor Who Series 14 (or Series 1, Whatever) Review | Earth Station Who

Join the Earth Station Who Podcast for a special live episode where we dive into the thrilling full season of Doctor Who featuring Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor. Recorded in front of an enthusiastic audience, our hosts break down every exciting moment, character development, and key theme from this groundbreaking season. From Gatwa’s captivating portrayal of the Doctor in episodes like “The Legend of Ruby Sunday,” “The Devil’s Chord,” “Rogue,” and “73 Yards,” we cover all the season’s most unforgettable moments. Whether you’re a longtime Whovian or new to the series, this lively and insightful discussion offers something for everyone. Don’t miss out on the adventure—tune in now to the Earth Station Who Podcast!

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Promotion Epsilon 3 Podcast

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[jungkookstatts]

As Thunder Rolls

[Summary]: You know Taehyung is the one. You knew it since the first day you saw him, when thunder rolled through the sky. But your lives don't collide. They might be too different to choose both.

[Theme]: Rich Reader, Law Student Reader, Construction Worker TH, Poor TH, Rich Girl Poor Boy AU

[Rating]: 18+ for sexual themes, sexual content, unprotected sex, kissing, making out, marking, angst, familial separation, topics of class, and triggering opinions of some characters

[Word Count]: 8,296

[A/N]: First TH fic!! I hope it is enjoyable~ This might be my last fic for a little bit. Going to be focusing on school and working really hard until the summertime :)

People say that when you fall in love, your life develops new meaning. They say that your life changes as you fall, and you watch it spiral out of your control over a silly feeling you can’t help.

You can say that the people, whoever they may be, are correct. Love happened to you quite unexpectedly, and completely out of the box you put your goals for the future inside.

Taehyung happened during the city's worst monsoon season in over 50 years. His rain-stained jeans and dirty white construction t-shirt clung to his skin, showing you all of his tanned glory as the rain fell angrily. You stood on the top step of your sister’s corporate building, looking down at him three steps below you.

“You got a spare umbrella, by chance?” he asked you. Caramel-colored, wet hair covered his forehead. But you could still see the discomfort in his eyes due to the harsh rain.

Looking at your own umbrella in your grip, you shook your head, telling him that this was your only one.

“You know a place around here where I can find one?” he asked.

“I’m not familiar with the area,” you explained.

“Me neither,” he smiled as he looked down at his red Converse.

There was an uncomfortable feeling in your chest. You felt bad for the guy, clearly well-underprepared for the season. Your designer coat and accessories terribly clashed with his, an obvious difference in class confronted you in the face. There was a feeling of fear, you remember. Back then, you used to be one of those people who thought terribly of people like him. Thinking that he’d ask for your Burberry umbrella and never return it. You thought maybe he’d pull you aside and forcibly rob you of your money just because his shirt had a few stains and the brand name of the city’s lower-end construction company was written on the fabric. You associated him with the worst of the worst, just because of his class. Or rather, assumed class.

But those eyes captured your soul. They were warm, and his smile sent medicine to your heart, healing all those presumed thoughts and replacing them with the benefit of the doubt.

“I think there is a 7/11 around the block,” you recalled from your memory.

Thunder rolled through the city skies, and you clutched your umbrella harder. You never liked thunderstorms. There was a sense of urgency to get home to avoid any more of this growing storm, and fast. But this guy — you wanted to continue talking to him.

He raised an eyebrow at you, looking to his left.

You raised your chest, nervously pointing in the opposite direction.

“Down there,” you corrected him.

“Ah,” he smiled. It was faint, but you noticed his upper lip formed the shape of a heart before another roll of thunder drummed through the sky. You winced, and his smile faded.

“I’ll let you be on your way, then,” he said. “Thank you.”

You nodded, and he suddenly turned his back, walking down the sidewalk in the direction of the vague 7/11 down the street. He hiked the back collar of his t-shirt over his head, creating a small hat to shield his eyes from the unwanted shower. You watched the exposed skin on the small of his back as raindrops trickled into the hem of his jeans.

Suddenly, your heart skipped in your chest, and you did something your carefully formed character would never allow.

“W-Wait,” you stumbled. The click of your heeled boots rang in your ears as you walked down the small set of stairs and onto the sidewalk.

The man turned around, his posture straightening at the sight of you.

Quickly, you went to him, covering his head with your umbrella.

“I-I’ll come with you,” you offered.

His close proximity flooded all of your senses. Your fingers visibly began to shake, and you had to remind yourself to breathe when you saw how tremendous the height difference was between the two of you.

“Thank you,” he softly said.

At that moment, you knew your life changed. You saw yourself in his eyes, maybe staring a little too long for two strangers who hadn’t even exchanged names yet. But you looked into them, and somehow the raging storm had transferred from the sky into your heart.

You became a jumbled mess after then, as Taehyung had exchanged his name with yours, along with all of his habits, hobbies, and love.

Every day after that was filled with giggles and kisses and sleepless nights wrapped in his sheets. He had shown you the other side of the world, and you accepted it with him by your side. He took things from you you couldn’t imagine anyone else being worthy enough to take. All your firsts, and what you hope, all your lasts, too.

But something had been sitting at the back of your mind ever since you laid eyes on him, creating an unsettling feeling.

He was, indeed, nowhere near the class you grew up in. Living in the worst part of the city with his younger brother and sister and parents in a small, 2-bedroom apartment. He worked overtime on most days; all of his earnings he gave to his mother was to pay rent. His brother had just become old enough to help out. However, Taehyung explained that he caught him a few times slacking — the young boy claiming that he was working but instead at the casino with his friends. His younger sister was 6 years old and by far the sweetest young girl you knew. She became someone like your own sister, someone you chose to connect with on a level you weren’t able to do with your own siblings. His father fell ill a few years ago and became unable to work a demanding job. Instead, he and his wife work at their own small grocery store on the lower level of the building down the street.

His family welcomed you generously, never once commenting on your class, never once making it a topic of conversation. They called you their daughter.

What was unsettling was not the circumstances involving his family. It was the circumstances involving your own.

You hadn’t mentioned him to your parents by choice. You knew how they would react, especially considering your father had already begun selecting the sons of his most trusted colleagues to propose a marriage. Though you are not ashamed of Taehyung, your family would most definitely be. They would never accept him as your love. It would be too tarnishing to their name, too embarrassing to taint the family with someone whose house costs less than their dining room table.

You kept Taehyung out of it, which doesn’t necessarily mean he won’t stop asking about meeting your family. He’s serious enough about you to want to take things further. But it puts you in an awkward situation, like now. Gasping into the sheets of his bed, his dick pulling out of you as cum falls down your thighs.

“Baby?” he pants, hovering over you and kissing up your shoulder to your cheek. He’s still catching his breath, as are you. He just railed the fuck out of you and still begs for conversation? You will never understand this man.

“Hm,” you ask, resting your head on your forearm in a desperate attempt to control your breathing.

“I want to meet your parents,” he bites the shell of your ear gently.

You groan loudly, tired of this topic of conversation. It seems to be the only thing on his mind these days.

In the two years you two had been dating, Tae was finally able to afford a place of his own while still helping his family. His brother stepped up and managed to land a good position at a nearby company that really helped with the family finances. Hence, Taehyung’s newfound freedom from the cramped space with his family. But ever since he moved into his new apartment two weeks ago, he’s been set on (a) “christening” every nook and cranny of his new place with you and (b) meeting your family.

“Baby, can we not talk about this right now?” you press your fingers to your temple before running them into your hair.

“We never have talked about it,” he reminds you. You pause, knowing he’s right. You’ve always swayed him away from saying anything about the topic other than simply asking to talk about it.

“Why would you want to meet my parents,” you begin. You feel him smile a little, happy to start this long-awaited talk.

“Because you met mine,” he slides his elbows under your armpits, resting his chin on your shoulder. You feel secure when he’s holding you like this, his chest embracing your back as he lets his weight rest on your body. If only the moment wasn’t ruined by the topic of conversation.

“I don’t want you to meet my parents,” you finally say. You know his heart broke a little from your words, being such a family man. But you feel obligated to be honest about this.

“What? Why not?” he crinkles his eyebrows together, pressing his nose into your cheek.

“Because, Tae,” you sigh into your palm. “They’re not…nice people.”

He lets the two of you sit in silence for a while, and you know he knows what you mean by that.

“It’s because I have no money, isn’t it?” he finally lets out.

You grab his hand, drawing circles into his palm.

“Essentially,” you sigh. It doesn’t feel good to admit that. Disappointment floods your veins for him, wishing your family was less shallow. Maybe then, your response would have been different. “You know I don’t care about that stuff. But they…they do.”

“Your siblings?” he asks.

“They’re all like that,” you continue, playing with his knuckles. “I’m the only one, it seems, that isn’t.”

He plays with your hand, sliding into your fingers to hold it.

“Do you wish you were?” he whispers seriously.

“No,” you laugh.

Finally, you turn around in his embrace, looking at his face from beneath him. This man is truly the most gorgeous person you’ve ever laid eyes on. Your palm holds the soft skin of his cheek as you search his eyes.

“Growing up, I used to be a little bit,” you admit. “But then I came to university. And I met you,” you rub his cheek with your thumb. “And you kind of flipped my whole world around.”

“Sorry,” he smiles. “Wasn’t the plan,” he pecks your lips. “I just needed an umbrella.”

You chuckle at that, pulling his face against yours to sear your lips into his. He accepts you, breathing into the kiss with chapped cherry lips and a big stupid blush on his face.

“I just want their blessing,” he clears his throat. “I-Is all.”

“For?” you peck his lips again.

“For me to date their daughter, amongst other things,” he laughs through his nose. “It’s also been…a little while.”

You do feel bad, as he had introduced you to his family about three months into dating. It’s been two years, and your family doesn’t even know you are dating someone.

“You’ll meet them when they have a reason to meet you,” you sigh against his nose. “They’re like that. It has to be on their terms, not mine or yours.”

“Hopefully, that’s sometime soon,” he says before kissing you deeply. You let him, wanting his lips to erase the scenarios you’ve let flood into your head of Taehyung meeting your family. You kiss him, asking him to heal you again, to give you the endless positivity he has within himself. But you can’t shake it this time around. You have a bad feeling about it, every time you think about making things just that more official with your family meeting him. You know Taehyung is it for you. But will your parents accept that? Your gut twists and turns at the thought, your answer spelled out for you.

___

Law school used to be interesting.

Back when lectures were shorter and the professors actually cared about their job, you had a fun time. Now, you sit through your lectures with the palm of your hand dragging the skin of your cheek upward as you lean against it. You stare at the oldest fart of a professor talk in circles, “womp wo-womp womp���, like in the Charlie Brown phone scenes. The only thing that keeps you from dozing off is the thought of your date tonight.

Last week, Taehyung had been working at this new site at this development on the other side of the city. They put in a fountain lake, with three willow trees (your favorite). Your boyfriend, of course, knew this and set up the idea of a picnic date along the new Willow Tree Lake. Just the thought alone makes you giddy.

These days, Taehyung has been working terrible overtime in an area near campus. Something about the pipes being plugged with slow-forming concrete from a newer company that started off just a few months ago. They fucked up a lot of the city’s piping, and of course, the company Tae works for has been assigned to fix all of their damage.

Needless to say, you feel like you haven’t seen him in ages. Only quick cell phone calls and tired texts in the small hours of the morning and night. You miss him terribly, and your body springs to life when the professor calls the end of the lecture. It’s your last one of the day, and you nearly run out to make your way to your car, ready to start preparing for your date tonight.

You’re met with a surprise, however, when you exit your dorm.

A chalky hand grabs onto your wrist, intertwining his fingers with yours, before pulling you into his chest.

“Hi, baby,” he smiles sheepishly.

“Tae!” you squeal, letting go of his hand and jumping into his arms. You wrap your arms around his neck, his own around your waist as he spins you in the open air of the campus. You giggle against him, quietly screaming when he goes a little fast. Eventually, he lets your feet feel the ground again, and you feel a strong urge to kiss him. It’s been so long.

“You’re so chalky,” you brush at his face, white powder smearing on his skin.

With that, he shakes out his hair onto yours, white dust falling onto your skin.

“Ah! Tae!” You shield your face from his assault. But he’s unrelenting, wrapping you in his arms and pulling you in for a kiss.

You let him kiss you, his big hands stroking your cheek. You don’t let him go on for too long, still not one to be too fond of PDA like he is.

“Oh, fuck,” Taehyung’s smile fades when he looks at your dress.

“Wha—” you look down at your dress, your white Chanel dress, covered in soot and powder and dirt, transferred from his clothes onto yours. “Oh.”

“Yeah, ‘oh’,” he gulps, running his hands through his hair. “I’m sorry, Y/n. I wasn’t thinki—”

“It’s okay,” you smile, holding his hand. “Nothing my dad won’t buy a carbon copy of with a good excuse. To him, I fell. Plain and simple.”

Your words don’t do much, his sorry expression written all over his face still. You cup his cheek, reassuring him.

“What are you doing here, anyways?” you change the subject.

“The pipe issue I told you about ended up going into some apartment building. They sent me up there and the ceiling fell in. Hence all the…white stuff and dust,” he shows you his powdery hands, as if his cheeks and hair weren’t enough to prove his story. “Anyway, the civil engineers ended up needing to go back to the main building and find a new plan to go about it. So they sent us all home early. Thought I would come and surprise you.”

“It worked,” you kiss him again.

“I should probably go though,” he cuts the time short. “I want to shower before our date.”

“That would be nice, you’re right,” you laugh. “I’ll see you at 7, then?”

“Mhm,” he squeezes your hand again before looking down at your dress one last time. You can tell he’s still beating himself up over it when he tightly runs his hands through his hair and sends you a tight-lipped smile as if still saying sorry. You send him one back, letting him know it’s okay. And with that, he leaves your presence.

You’re alone until you reach home a little past 4. When you walked into your house, the last thing you were expecting was your eldest sister, brother, and parents waiting for you in the dining room.

“D-Did I miss something?” you laugh awkwardly. They all seem to be looking at you, disappointment or disgust written on their faces at the sight of your dress. You do your best to hide it with your purse.

“No,” your sister starts. “But we seem to be missing the part where you let dirty construction workers make out with you in public.”

You feel your heart sink to your feet, a cold heat spreading throughout your body.

“Susanna,” you pinch the skin between your eyebrows. “It’s not like that.”

“Please, enlighten us, then,” she snobs.

You take a breath, ready to explain yourself. But your father stops you.

“Invite the boy over,” he calmly states.

“What?” all four of you say at once.

“Dad, are you crazy?” your brother laughs. “He’s a construction worker.”

“Ren, please,” you attempt to control your anger. You don’t like the way they are talking about him right now. Only mentioning his job and ignoring the rest.

“What, don’t like me talking down on your pet?” he smiles, doing his best to get under your skin. It’s working, that’s for sure.

“Seriously, darling, what are you thinking?” your mother puts her hand on your father's arm.

“The boy clearly has feelings for my daughter,” he sets down his brandy on the dining table. “And, if I’m not mistaken, she has the same feelings.”

Your sister looks at you in disgust, wondering how you could ever fall for someone so low class.

“Besides, he owes me a good explanation for destroying your clothes,” he clears his throat. “That was custom designed.”

—

You run to your car after the ‘meeting’ your family welcomed you home with. Your hands shake and tremble, trying to start the car without bursting into tears.

Without even calling him, you race to Taehyung’s apartment, knocking on his door with panic laced in every vein of your body.

He opens it, a big smile warming your heart. But it quickly fades at the pale look on your face.

“What’s wrong,” he pulls you into his apartment.

He’s showered since you last saw him. He changed into his PJs, not yet ready to get into his outfit for your date tonight. On any other day, you would be struck with the comfy boyfriend look, ready to pounce into his arms and hold him close until the sun rose. But not today. Today, you have uncertainty flowing through your veins. Could this be the end? Could this be the start of something new? What will happen between now and midnight?

“Baby, talk to m—”

“My parents want to meet you,” you interrupt him.

“What?”

“T-They want to meet you,” you say again. “Actually, my entire family wants to meet you. Today. Tonight. For dinner. At my house.”

You watch him take it all in, his expression changing rapidly into emotions you can’t really put a label on. You’ve never seen this expression on his face. You’re sure it’s a bit of excitement, as he’s always wanted to meet them. But also a little bit of worry, as you’ve told him what they think of people like him.

“I-Is this about the dress?” he asks worriedly.

“Kind of!” you panic, your hands running through your hair. Frustrated tears flood your eyes. You’re just so frustrated with this situation. With your sister, with your brother and dad. With everyone but Taehyung. He doesn’t deserve this. “My sister saw us today, apparently. A-And she went to my parents, a-and they were waiting for me when I got home, along with my brother. My dad was the one who suggested you come over, and I don’t know why. I can’t read what any of them are trying to say.”

“Hey,” he grabs your shoulders. You start to cry, fat tears falling down your cheeks.

“This is not how I wanted today to go,” you cry-laugh to yourself.

“I know,” he kisses your forehead. “Just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”

“I don’t know what to do,” you candor as you fall into his neck, sobbing against his shirt.

His big palms rub your back. You’re sure he’s a little shocked right now. You’ve told him about your family. About what kind of people they are. You’re sure he’s scared, too. You hate this. You wish you could just run away and avoid it all.

“Let’s start with figuring out what I’m going to wear, yeah?” he gently smiles down at you.

___

Dinner is awkward. So awkward.

It’s quiet, and your leg bounces rapidly in your seat.

Your parents hadn’t let Taehyung sit next to you. Rather, he sits across from you, unable to soothe your nerves with a hand on your thigh or palm.

Your sister and brother sit next to you, your parents on either end of the table. There are two empty seats next to Taehyung, him being closest to your father.

You’re sure your siblings had interrogated him a little when your mother forced you to change into something else when the two of you got here. Clad in a pink flowy dress and a braid, you nervously made your way down the stairs and into the dining room, only to find your boyfriend in front of his seat, nodding to the space between your siblings as your own.

Since the appetizers came in, no one had spoken a word.

It’s terribly uncomfortable, and you try to distract yourself by silently telling Taehyung to put his napkin in his lap instead of next to his plate. Your brother laughs, and you jab your elbow into his side.

“So,” your father starts. His voice sends a shock down your spine. “I’m sure you have a good explanation for the dress.”

Your nerves spike the highest they’ve ever been. The dress isn’t really that important. Had it been anyone else, maybe someone your father knew or liked, the dress would be replaced without a word the next day. His pressure on the dress with Tae makes you think he will use it against him, causing you to bounce both of your legs up and down rapidly.

“Yes, I—” you start, but your father raises his palm slightly, telling you to stay quiet and let him answer.

“Yes,” Taehyung clears his throat. “I apologize, sir. I was simply being careless. I was excited to see your daughter, and had acted before realizing what she was wearing.”

“That was custom made,” your sister starts. “By Chanel.”

Taehyung doesn’t seem to recognize the name, making your sister smile snottily.

“It’s a brand,” she shoves her food into her mouth with a snobby tug of her lips.

You clutch the end of your silverware, trying to transfer all the things you wish you could scream into the piece of silver metal.

“Enough,” your father stops her interrogation. He has made it clear he would be the one interrogating tonight. “I do have to ask, though,” he turns his attention toward Tae again. “What makes you think you’re worthy of seeing my daughter?”

The table is silent, everyone’s mind empty but your own. You could think of a million reasons, maybe even more than that, as to why he deserves you. But does Taehyung think he deserves you? You thought you made it clear within the past two years that he does, but his silence speaks for itself.

After a few more seconds of being silent, your father laughs a little through his nose.

“I am aware of your financial situation so that already docks a big chunk off your worth,” he starts again.

“Father,” you try to stop him.

“Your occupation is less than fulfilling,” he continues. “Surely, you must know that affection alone cannot support her.”

Taehyung’s mouth is so dry, that he wants to drink the entire ocean. But he lets it sit in discomfort, the truth ringing through his ears like a bomb dropped right in front of him.

“You care for her, son,” he sighs. “I can see that,” your father sets down his brandy, resting his elbows on the armrests of his chair, and latching his fingers together over his lower chest. “So, why don’t we just end this here. Before it gets any deeper than it is.”

You see Taehyung’s heart drop to his stomach. You wish you could go over to him and put it right back in his chest for him, but your father continues to drop it further and further until it eventually breaks in two upon impact with the hard floor.

“I’ll give you an ultimatum, just to be sure you understand,” your father starts. “You go back to your construction work and help your parents with their grocery business. Cut her out of your life. In return, I’ll forget about the dress. About the some 70 thousand dollars you owe me for the destruction of it.”

“Father, please,” you cry, starting to stand. "It was my fault." But your sister grabs your shoulder and pushes you back down onto your seat.

“If you’re smart, you’ll understand how long that would take to accumulate on top of your other finances to return,” he continues. “If you truly care about her, you’d let her find someone who can meet all of her expectations and give her a comfortable future.”

“No,” you start, but Taehyung silences you with his gaze.

He looks to you from your father, feeling the weight of his words. You look at him, seeing how he believes every word your father is saying. You see it ring in his ears, and you know exactly what his next words are going to be.

“Sir, I—” he rasps, defeat flooding his lungs. This is not about the dress. He’d spent the rest of his life paying your father back if it meant he’d let him have you. This is about your future that he knows he can’t support; about the fact that he knows the best he can give you is nowhere near the luxury someone else can. “I just want her to be happy.”

“In this world, love is not enough for that,” Your father stands up, his hand on Taehyung’s shoulder. “I’ll show you to the door, son,” your father says.

Taehyung stills, his attention suddenly transferred to the calluses on his palms. He examines them, then the scuffs on the rim of his sleeves. It serves as a reminder, that even the best things he owns cannot match up to the expectations served tonight. He knows you don’t care. He knows you’re better than this. But surely it might become easier with time for you. Your father would find someone genius, with wealth beyond imagination. You will forget about him with time, and your wounds will heal. You’ll have an army of new cars, go to fancy banquets with designer dresses, a penthouse in the city, a smart-suit husband, and beautiful children with loads of worth to their names. He thinks about what he could give you, and it amounts to close to nothing. He’s already given you everything he has, and it’s not enough to keep you safe.

He thinks about this before standing in his seat. Your breath hitches in his throat, watching him give you up, your father’s hand on his back guiding him through the dining room, neither sparing you a glance.

“No,” you cry, standing up. Your sister tries to stop you again, but you shove her hand away.

“Y/n L/n, if you chase that boy, right now will be the last time you step in this house!” your mother slams her hands on the table.

There are words you wish you could say. So many emotions and slander and curse words you wish you could shout and spit in her face.

“I'm happy with him,” is all you can say. "I love him"

“Love is but a word,” your mother rolls her eyes. “You will forget about him in two weeks! That boy cannot support you. He can be replaced.”

“He can’t be,” you counter. Your chest rises with words, an essay might come out of your mouth, but you’re silenced when your father comes back into the room, Taehyung gone from your sight. You silence yourself, knowing you have to make a choice. Without even thinking, your feet move, and you’re brushing past your father, opening the door to you’re home and welcoming the rain.

Your parents wouldn’t have his presence in your life, banishing him from your home after he showed up in the nicest clothes he owned. They forbid him from ever seeing you again, using the price of your stained clothes as a threat if he ever were to lay eyes on you again. But you ignore that, running after him, soaking yourself in the rain once again as you chase him.

You call his name, shouting it into the street. He ignores you, and you feel you’re going crazy the more you call out his name until he finally turns around in quick anger. By this point, you two had already gone well down the street, far away from your posh, gated house. He grabs your cheeks in his palms, pressing his lips harshly against yours. You kiss him with fervor, letting the rain soak your pink dress and braided hair. He does the same, not giving a care in the world about the time he spent trying to make himself look nice for your family. He kisses you as if it would be the last time he would ever feel your lips against his again.

“We can’t do this, Y/n,” he breaks the kiss. His forehead rests against yours, his eyes close as his jaw clenches from his own words.

“Tae,” you sob, cupping his cheek. He covers your hand with his own, squeezing it tight.

“You know we can’t, Y/n,” he shakes his head, looking into your tear-filled eyes. “They will never accept me.”

“I accept you,” you sniffle. “Please don’t leave me, Tae. I accept you.”

“It’s not enough,” he whispers.

“N-No,” you shake your head.

But he already began letting go of your hand, his heel taking a step back.

“T-Tae, no,” you grab his other hand, but he forcibly makes you let go. You watch him turn on his heel, his back replacing his chest.

“Kim Taehyung,” you sob into the open air of the empty street. He does nothing, continuing his path to wherever he is going. “Taehyung!” you scream, but he doesn’t stop.

Your chest rises and falls so quickly, that you feel dizzy. Panic rises into every vein in your body, watching him grow smaller and smaller as he distances himself from you. Never in your life had you felt like it was between life or death between two choices. But god, was it clear which option had been labeled death, and which one was life.

“Marry me,” you shout. You watch his feet stop, both shoes parallel to each other. The panic in your veins slightly subsides at the fact that his distance stopped becoming larger. And then you say it again. “Marry me, Taehyung.”

He turns around, and you begin walking—running—toward him.

“Don’t say that,” he angrily breathes through his nose once you reach him.

“Marry me,” you say it again.

He looks up, despite the rain, his jaw clenched.

“I can’t go through life without you,” you cry, shaking your head. “I can’t do it.”

“You can,” he denies.

“I’m so in love with you,” you laugh, wiping the tears from your eyes. “I love you.”

His hands clench, balled into fists. God, did he love you more than the world itself. More than himself. But he can’t be selfish. He can’t rip you away from your family.

“And what about them?” he nods his head in the direction of your house.

“They can’t replace you,” you cup his cheeks, forcing him to look at you. “No one can replace you.”

“You can’t replace your family, Y/n,” he says. “I’m just a guy. Probably the least qualified to have you,” he laughs through his nose. “I can be replaced. They cannot.”

“They have given me a choice,” you cry. His words hurt. You wish you could make him see just how irreplaceable he is. You cannot replace your family, but you cannot replace him, either. “I already made it the minute I ran out of the house.”

He looks at you, finally locking eyes with yours. You feel the panic fade when he looks at you, and you can’t help but feel that this is right. That you’re making the right choice.

“Y/n,” he starts, shaking his head.

“I chose you a long time ago,” you go on. “The minute I shared my umbrella with you, I chose you. All your boxy smiles and shy laughs. Your job; your family. You. Your heart.”

A tear falls from his eye, his jaw still clenched.

“I can’t give you this life,” he takes your hands from his cheeks, holding them tightly between your soaked bodies. “I-I will never be able to afford law school or a gated mansion in the city. Or a white Chanel dress,” he whispers the last part. “Your life — I can’t rob you of it.”

“You are my life, Tae,” you rub your nose against his. “That stuff doesn’t matter. I want you. Forever.”

He gulps, the look in your eye speaking nothing but the truth. It scares him because of course, he wants the best for you. But he is unsure of himself, of what he can give you other than his heart. But the way you look at him, as if that is truly enough for you, makes his worries subside. You’re choosing him. Between life or death, you took a side, labeling him as life.

He grabs your waist, his arm pulling you into his frame as he sears his lips onto yours. Big, callused palms cup your jaw, holding you against his lips as if you’d try to escape. This time around, the kiss is hard, so needy and loved. You feel loved like you’ve never felt before. All the panic in your heart fades and is replaced with a need to keep him close. You assume he feels the same, his strong arms lifting you around his waist. You laugh against his lips.

“I love you,” you chuckle, almost in disbelief that you could love someone so much. He’s given you something you thought you’d never receive in the world your parents brought you into. You feel fresh with him, like you’ve been born again.

He kisses you again, confirming he feels the same before he sets your feet back on the wetted sidewalk.

“Let’s go,” he takes your hand.

“Where?” you follow him.

“My place,” he looks back at you.

You come up to his side, holding his arm as you walk in the rain. It was just a walk until thunder struck again, and the rain started falling ten times harsher than it was before. It causes you to shriek, and Taehyung only laughs, beginning a sprint while you follow after him.

You two ran to the bus stop, where you kissed some more, before the bus arrived and you shivered in the air conditioning of the large vehicle until it arrived on the other side of the city.

His place became a little bit of yours. You had unofficially moved in until now, as you stumble in his arms into the elevator, making out like horny teens until the number for the 15th floor rang in his ears and he pulled away.

The kisses you press to his neck make his whole body feel weak, his fingers unable to find the key to his apartment amongst the many in the single key ring chain he owns.

“Baby,” he whispers desperately. “S-Slow down, m’ trying to find the key,” he nervously chuckles.

You only run your hands under his soaked shirt, feeling the divots of his abs under your fingertips. Working at a construction company certainly did have more perks than one.

Finally, he seems to have found the key, slipping it forcibly into the lock and turning it until it opened the door to his apartment.

“Come here,” he lifts you up onto his hips, walking you inside his place and pushing you against the door, making it close all the way. He’s sure to lock it after tossing his keys somewhere on the neighboring kitchen counter as he kisses hot trails up your neck. They’re hasty kisses, and so so needy.

“T-Tae,” you grip his hair.

The feeling makes him groan, his hand forming a fist against the wall in pure self-control.

You slide your fingers under his shirt again, except this time, they go all the way up. You force his shirt off his skin, and he lets you take it off as his hands firmly grip your waist. He uses his new grip to support you when he moves you off the wall, his legs guiding you through his apartment as you kiss his neck once more. This time, to leave marks.

You latch onto his sweet spot so tenderly, and he grips your hips hard enough to leave his own marks on your skin.

With one hand, he pushes open the door to his bedroom before landing you on the soft sheets of his bed. You’re overwhelmed with him. The smell of his clean sheets floods your lungs as he traps you underneath his body.

You gasp when he slides his hands up your waist, his fingers coming to your back to find the zipper of your dress.

He waits for your permission, burying his face in the crook of your neck as he plays with the zipper.

“Please, Tae,” you allow him.

He nods against your neck, telling you without words that he’s going to undress you.

You sit up for him, making it easier for him to carry the fabric down your hips. You’re revealed to him in your soaked bra set. Nothing fancy, just nude colors to hide your undergarments beneath your dress.

But despite the plainness, you watch him admire your body, eyes flicking back and forth, trying to remember what you look like underneath the rest of your clothes. You help him, reaching behind you to unhook your bra yourself.

It falls off your shoulders and your skin perks with the cold air mixing with your wet skin.

“Make love to me,” you ask. “Please.”

Taehyung’s mouth goes dry. He’s seen you naked countless times. Fucked you like a rabbit in heat multiple times in just a day. But god, did hearing you ask him to make love to you settle the weight of your proposal from earlier. You really do choose him. And suddenly, he feels like it is the first time he’s ever looked at you naked. Like it was the first time he was going to enter your body.

He felt nervous. So, so nervous. But never so sure of anything else in his life. He knew he wanted you as his forever. But was too selfless to ask you to leave your prosperous life for his. For the longest time, he thought he was living on borrowed time with you. That one day, his first and only love would eventually leave him. His dreams are coming true, and he doesn’t know how to process that other than following your exact command.

“Tae?” you cup his cheek.

He sits on his knees, each one placed next to your thighs as you sit below him.

You watch his throat bob as he swallows, his face leaning into your touch. You bring him back to life, his body finally moving to trap you against the sheets again.

With soft lips, much less needy than the prior ones you two have shared today, he kisses you. He’s gentle as his hips press against yours. You gasp against his lips, the feeling of his clothed cock against your thin underwear stirring things inside of you.

You wrap your legs around his hips, crossing your ankles to secure his embrace over your own.

Taehyung groans, the friction making his desire uncontrollable as he grinds against your core.

“T-Taehyung,” you gasp, head falling back against the sheets. He takes this as an opportunity to trap the skin of your neck with his teeth, gently biting at your flesh in soft confessions of his love.

Your breasts push against his bare skin, feeling overwhelmed when he takes your pert nipple between his fingers, pinching them slightly, just enough to drive you crazy.

It’s all too much, his lips, his fingers, his hips grinding into you, sending waves of pleasure straight into your core. You just want him already. You want to feel full of him.

Your heels start the process, digging at the hem of his jeans as if you could get them off without your hands when they’re so securely fastened by his belt.

“Fuck,” he moans, finally granting your wish as he pushes off of you and unbuckles his belt.

Dark brown eyes admire you, laying on his sheets, giving yourself to him completely. You stare back at him, watching him push his jeans and boxers down to the floor, stepping out of them slowly before he hooks his slender finger under your panties.

“A-Are you sure?” he asks you, hiking your legs up as your underwear slides off your smooth skin.

“Yes,” you nod.

You hear your panties fall on the floor, joining the rest of your clothes, when he slowly spreads your legs, creating a place for himself as he falls on top of you again. Strong arms come under your shoulders, and you slide your hands up his neck, one arm securing him close to you, the other feeling a rapid heartbeat under his chest. You gasp when you feel the head of his cock brush gently against your thigh, so close to your core, but far enough away to make you want to beg for it. You, too, feel like it’s the first time all over again. When he took your virginity and your heart and wrote his name all over your skin.

“You look like you’re having second thoughts,” he shakily breathes above you, a small nervous smile on his lips.

“No,” you laugh shyly through your nose, looking into his warm eyes. You see yourself in them, and you’re reminded of the moment you first saw yourself in them two years ago.

“Are you scared?” he asks, lining himself up with your entrance. You know he isn’t referring to sex, but rather everything that comes after. Of your parents. Of everything you’ll have to sort out. But you know it is nothing that you won’t do alone. The man above you has made it clear that you will never feel alone again.

“A little,” you admit with a small smile.

“Me, too,” he kisses your cheek softly. With a push of his hips, his face falls into your neck, a small groan coming from his lips as you gasp and claw at the skin of his shoulder.

“Oh, T-Tae,” you moan sweetly, tangling your fingers in his hair as he slides out just to slam back into you once more. You feel giddy, a small raspy laugh coming from your throat as he develops a pace. He’s so perfect for you, fits you like a glove in more ways than one. He fills you completely. Over fills your cup with all of his love and giggles and smiles. You can’t get enough, it’s almost comical.

“Faster,” you whine, arching you back into him.

He obeys, grabbing your thighs and pushing them upwards until they’re hooked on his shoulders.

“Fuck, Y/n,” he moans, slamming into you with a newfound passion. Your nails slide down his biceps, some drawing blood from the feeling of his dick ripping you open. It makes you choke beneath him, your head falling back as he fucks you full of his cock. “S-So perfect.”

His nose brushes against your collarbone, using your neck as support when he leans his forehead against it. He takes a deep breath, breathing in your scent before he takes your hips firmly into his palms and holds you against the sheets. Your legs fall naturally, too weak to hold themselves up. But he doesn’t seem to care, instead using his new grip to pull you into his hips, pushing you deeper onto his length than you think you’ve ever gone before. The tip of his head kisses your cervix, and you wince in pleasurable pain when he slides out and slams against it again.

“A-Ah,” you whine, unsure how to feel about this new sensation. The man above you is sure, slowly but harshly pushing into you. His sureness makes you swell, and you feel like he is truly combining his body with your own the deeper he goes.

“Y-You,” he nearly slurs. Your pussy squeezes the head of his cock so justly, he feels his vision going blurry. Everything about you makes him explode. His dick, his mind, his heart. Everything. He can't even finish his sentence.

He goes faster, slipping past your folds with your slick sliding down your thighs and onto his sheets.

“T-Tae,” you panic, your high coming in quickly, setting warmly at the pit of your stomach just seconds away from release. “Tae, I’m gonna cum.”

“F-Fuck, me, too,” he moves faster, harder. His hands touch you, your skin following in flames the further his hands slide up your waist. He groans uncontrollably when you clench around him, your warm heat spreading down your walls as he makes love to you. “Y-Yn,” he whines.

“Say you love me,” you gasp, your voice nearly a whisper as you cream his cock.

“I love you,” he kisses your lips. It’s wet and so disgustingly sweet, you force him to lean himself into your body again, to use it to cum. “I love you so much.”

You watch him shut his eyes tight, his cock twitching inside of you, begging for release as he fights it, probably wanting to last longer for you, to give you a second orgasm before he lets himself cum.

“Cum for me, sweet boy,” you kiss his cheek.

“A-Ah,” he moans, his nose rubbing against yours. You squeak when he slams himself into you, harsh and raw, pushing past you as he fills you with ropes of white cum. “Oh, fuck,” he shakes, fists gathering the fabric of the sheets tightly as he falls into your neck, dick twitching as he cums hotly in your walls. He can’t control the noises, he’s never felt like this before. Like nothing else matters but his future with you.

His dick slips past your cervix, exiting your walls with loads of cum falling out of your abused cunt.

He falls on top of you, the two of you catching your breath with closed eyes and heavy limbs. Until you start laughing.

“What?” he chuckles with you. Your laugh is contagious.

He comes up to look at you, your cheeks red and your pupils shot with love.

“Nothing,” you shake your head. You look at him, cupping his cheek as he switches his gaze between your eyes and your cherry lips. “I-I’m just so happy.”

He laughs at that. Himself full of the same happiness.

“So?” you poke his cheek, raising an eyebrow.

“So?” he raises his own.

“Will you?”

“Will I…?”

“Will you marry me, silly,” you roll your eyes. Although it doesn’t seem nearly as sassy as it is supposed to, not with a giant smile plastered on your face.

“Oh,” he smiles back. “I guess.”

“'You guess'?!” you pinch his shoulder. He winces but laughs as he pulls you into a hug, switching himself on his back with your hips straddling his own. Cum leaks down onto his softening cock, but that is the last thing on either of your minds. His big hands feel the smoothness of your thighs, as yours play with the skin of his chest. If he didn’t know every one of your quirks, he would have taken it as you being silly. But he knows you’re just a little nervous about his answer.

“Yes,” he takes your hand, kissing your knuckles. “Of course I will. But, let me do it properly.”

You physically relax, and pure happiness floods your system.

“We never do things properly,” you remind him, rolling your eyes with a smile again.

“You’re right,” he acknowledges. “I-It might be a while, but at least let me buy you a ring.”

“Okay,” you bite your lip, hiding a closed-lipped smile. It doesn’t work, of course, and the two of you are left a stupid mess as you start your forever together.

___

[End. Do not copy. Original work of @jungkookstatts , 2024]

[aurora-313]

I never understood why there had to be such a massive conspiracy around Masaki. It detracts from the tragedy of Memories In The Rain and Ichigo's character as a whole that she was a Quincy.

Look at that flashback objectively if Masaki were a powerless human:

It's bucketing down rain, a deluge in the middle of monsoon season. You're eager to get your son home from his karate practice. Conditions are dreadful but as long as you're on concrete, you're both okay. Then your son suddenly stops. Something only he claims he can see catches his attention. You've indulged his talk about ghosts because he's a boy, he's allowed to have an imaginary friend and its never harmed anyone. But suddenly, your son's shouting. Launching into a full sprint down that steep slippery hill, at the base of which is a dangerous rushing river. Or potentially slip on a loose bit of stone or root, and break his neck. You can't see what he sees. As far as you're aware, your son's taken absolute leave of his senses and is charging headlong into a certainly fatal situation. Naturally, your response would be to freak out and throw yourself after your son, hoping to catch him before he could jump into the water, very probably drowning. Then CHOMP. Hollow chow.

Revealing Masaki was a Quincy is irreparably cheapening her death.

Let's pretend for a second Grand Fisher wasn't there. And the same thought process outlined above occurs.

In an attempt to stop Ichigo running down the hill, Masaki could've slipped, fallen and broke her neck instead. Or took a bad tumble, ending with a fatal blow to the head. The effect on Ichigo would've been the same. He would've developed a massive guilt complex because his tragedy of impulse caused his mother's death.

That is the whole crux of Ichigo's guilt. His actions caused this outcome. And it was the hardest lesson he had to learn.

Grand Fisher or no, if Ichigo hadn't acted the way he did, if he hadn't tried to save the 'girl' from falling into the river, then his mother wouldn't have died in the first place.

Revealing Masaki as a Quincy, and that her powers were """conveniently""" stolen at exactly the time she needed them most, completely invalidates the human randomness, tragedy and relatability of that death.

It invalidates the guilt that drives 99% of Ichigo's character and actions. That same guilt, now predicated on false pretenses, fueled his desire to protect, to suffer through hell if it meant he could protect the people he cared about (at times to their detriments). Especially since that desire can rage dangerously out of control, and at one point literally got Ichigo killed and reanimated as a monstrous hollow hellbent on destroying everything around it, muttering 'protect, protect, protect' like a zombie.

It's a flaw Ichigo had to overcome by coming to terms with it and using it to as motivation in a healthier manner. Not be absolved of.

A prime example of a character carrying their guilt and growing past it done well is Edward Elric from Full Metal Alchemist/Brotherhood.

Edward and Alphonse never got over Nina and Alexander. They were never absolved of their guilt. Its a mark permanently etched in their collective psyches and reconciling with the fact alchemy could be used in such vile ways drove a huge part of their early characters.

What they did was learn to grieve and cope and move on with it as motivation. They vowed never to allow that kind of monstrosity to happen again. Even when Ed's about to give up his alchemy forever, he declares 'I'm just a simple human who couldn't save a little girl. Not even with alchemy.'

Rather than have Ichigo go through a journey like this, EBTR removes the burden of guilt from Ichigo's shoulders completely when Isshin tells him "No, it wasn't your iconic recklessness that got your mother killed. It was an ancient prophecy and you never should've felt guilty in the first place."

Isshin may as well have said "Everything you believed about yourself since the moment you were born is a lie. The foundation of your personality since you were 9 is a lie. Have fun finding a therapist to deal with the crippling psychological ramifications of that bombshell, but do it after you win another war for us."

It irreparably damages Masaki, and by extension Ichigo's and Isshin's, characters that she had powers.

If Masaki was a Quincy from the jump. Cool, why didn't she teach Ichigo basic control of his reiryoku? Or how to tell the living from the dead - something Ichigo canonically struggled with for as long as he could remember? Basic safety measures that would've avoided those kinds of situations in the first place.

You don't wait until a toddler get splattered by cars before telling them not to play in a busy road, or not to stick a fork in a power point after they've been electrocuted and rushed to the hospital. You teach them rules and install safety measures to prevent those situations in the first place.

There's four main interpretations I take from Masaki's decision to willfully neglect Ichigo's education in the spirit arts:

Well-meaning but naïve and frankly reckless desire to preserve Ichigo's innocence for as long as possible. Fair and the most benign explanation.

Threatened into maintaining her silence by either Kisuke or Isshin (or both depending how generous I feel), lest the seal on her hollowfication "mysteriously" weaken.

Realizing she was a dead woman walking since been bitten by White, Masaki partook in the conspiracy to turn Ichigo into a living weapon and purposefully martyred herself to make it happen.

Masaki having powers is the cosmic retcon of retcons and Kubo didn't think about the implications of his own writing...

If Masaki absolutely HAD to be a Quincy for the sake of turning Ichigo into Aizen's gary stu project, then fine.Yhwach's influence should've been kept far FAR away from it.

Maybe Masaki couldn't use her powers because if she tried, it would've destroyed the seal keeping the hollowfication in check. When Grand Fisher emerged, she baited it to kill her instead.

"Oh, but we need to explain why Ichigo's so powerful."

Ichigo's sperm donor is an ex-Captain and member of one of the royal families, who are noted to have above average base stats. His powers took a hollow aspect thanks to the encroachment temporarily transforming him into a hollow at the base of shattered shaft. Hollowfied Shinigami are naturally stronger (on paper) than their non-hybrid counterparts.

"Why does he two spirits?" The awakening of his power was so fractious it literally splintered into its component pieces. The hollow is the repressed parts of Ichigo's, so its a psychopathic reflection of himself. The old man is the other half of his soul realising the best way to get through to Ichigo is by giving him actual fucking parent.

Sometimes Occam's Razor is the best solution.

[deepsuns]

Sacrificial Lamb | 𝑶𝑵𝑬. 𝑯𝑶𝑼𝑺𝑬 𝑲𝑨𝑺𝑻𝑨𝑹𝑨.

❴ 𝑴𝑨𝑺𝑻𝑬𝑹𝑳𝑰𝑺𝑻 ! ❵ ⸻ ❚ ❚ ❚ ❚ ❮ 𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆 ❯ : FEYD-RAUTHA HARKONNEN // ORIGINAL FEMALE CHARACTER ❮ 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆 ❯ : BLOOD, GORE, VIOLENCE, SEXUAL CONTENT, RAPE, NON-CON, CONSENSUAL NON-CON, AGONIZINGLY SLOW BURN, IMPLIED INCEST, CANNIBALISM, DRUGS, ETC. ❮ 𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘 & 𝐄𝐗𝐂𝐄𝐑𝐏𝐓 ❯ :

His need grew jealous, gnashing teeth, desiring to dig into soft skin, smooth thighs. It was a need that grew over the span of years, developing into a hungry monster that only she could soothe.

Feyd-Rautha did not want to be soothed.

&&.

House Kastara is slaughtered before its rebellion can flourish, leaving Ara floundering in its wake halfway across the universe. Time does not wait for grief, and reality sets in for Ara with a vengeance; set to serve Thora Rabban at the behest of her Bene Gesserit overseer, Ara attracts the attention of Feyd-Rautha, and none are prepared for how fiercely his possessiveness grows... or how patiently he is content to wait. ❮ 𝐀𝐑𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐕𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐎𝐖𝐍 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊 ❯

THE SECRET TO FLAYING a man alive was not in the physical act itself. Ara could count on the fingers rolling towards her silk-slippered feet as to how many times her father had proved that to her over the years. To rid a man of his skin, her father would tell her, was a simple, easy act that did little else but to peel one free of their humanity to expose the biology beneath. It did not matter how slowly blood-coated fingers slipped beneath bone and gristle to snap, break, and shatter; the outcome was the same. No, her father had emphasized a singular point in his gruesome lessons, one that he found more important than all the rest: to truly flay a man was to cut him from the inside, and expose the truth of him to daylight.

“A liar’s greatest fear, and a coward’s nightmare,” the Lord of House Kastara grunted over the crushing, dull crack of a man’s sternum caving beneath his palms. His victim—a spy that had scuttled about the sparse servants they had remaining—was already dead. He had been dead for some time, his green eyes glazed over, the light having winked out of the jeweled depths as if snatched by greedy hands. “Come, Ara. Bring the bucket so I do not make a mess of this.”

You are already making a mess, is what Ara had wanted to say in reply. You make a mess by torturing this man and breaking down his body as if he is nothing less than chattel.

“Yes, father,” Ara answered, instead, and her chubby, ten-year old fingers had clambered at the metal handle and brought the bucket to his side.

Orion Kastara, in the eyes of a fractured House mending its painful gaps with blood and grave wax, was not a cruel man. Neither was he a kind man, for his habits of violence were many, and he frequented the blade as much as he did the pen—a creature of nurture as much as he was nature. Ara had to wonder just how much of it was his nature, and how much could be attributed to how he had been born and raised and manipulated into a mold.

Cooling skin split open at the draw of a razor sharp knife. Long, rope-like lengths of intestines wiggled free, still warm and steaming the cold air, and with not so much as a twitch of the nose, Orion severed the ends from stomach to colon, tied them off, and scooped them into the bucket.

Ara had decided then: Nature.

On Kastaran—the sanctuary and home planet for House Kastaran, or Tupile, scattered across the universe, under the nose of Imperium rule—it was the concept of nature that seemed to overshadow any nurturing that was placed upon it. The plant life grew where, when, and as it pleased, with disregard to the seasons or weather; the storms were a mixture of humid monsoons and thick, cloying humidity without a droplet of rain in sight. It was a lush planet that played victim to the whims of the sixteen moons surrounding it in concentric orbit, forcibly stabilized with varying levels of success. Less so, after House Kastaran was broken down and the remnants bid to remain on their home planet.

In much the same manner, any efforts to breed out and quell certain biological aspects of the local animal life—even with intervening aid from outside groups—grew to be pointless. A buck who might have had two sets of antlers would grow one set, and then rapidly after shedding them, grow four sets; or a doe with four eyes may appear with eight upon the next sighting. Ara had watched one buck, closed up in a private enclosure, gradually grow to have twenty pairs of antlers before his skull caved in from the pressure.

She had named him Sassy, because he had liked to turn his nose up when she offered him cubes of dried sweet herbs.

Ara’s mind, even as young as she was, could not help but attribute Sassy’s death to her mother: Lady Ilysia of House Kastaran.

Looking at her mother evoked the same clench in her gut, the swooping pity that lodged in her heart and would never leave. The emotions were something she couldn’t understand at the time, an instinctive part of her that told her more than words could ever say, than anyone could ever possibly explain to her in cohesive terms.

Ilysia—because Ara had never been able to think of her, truly, as ‘Mother’—was a petite woman, perpetually clad in soft cottons or silks, never organza or stiff linen. Her hair might have been long and soft, once, but it was wiry and stripped of all shine, coiled up tight into a braid against her scalp and left to hang over one shoulder. Her skin was pale, paler than ice, the blue-green hue of her veins peering through the thin layers of skin and offering a glimpse of what lay beneath such a wretched rendition of a human form. Her face was sharp, her jaw rounded slightly at the edges, with a cleft chin that grew more pronounced. Her stomach was soft and pudgy and folded over the layers of silk she wore, her breasts heavy and sagging and barely kept proper in a brassiere.

It was her eyes, however, that always incited Ara’s deep seated pity and unease.

The Lady of House Kastara held no life in her obsidian gaze. There was no joy, love, excitement, or interest; even anger would have been a welcome sight, so long as she felt something. Her smiles would hold nothing but falseness, intended to smooth over her lack of permanence and nothing more. She ate in a mechanical way, as if she had forgotten how to chew, drink, and swallow, and did not enjoy the flavors or textures; she had three meals and sought nothing else outside of it.

When Ilysia spoke, her voice was raspy and deep. Damaged. She would only ever speak to Ara, these days, and never to the servants, or to her husband. Once upon a time, she had never spoken at all.

“I was Tleilaxu, once,” Ilysia had told Ara, on a day where she had been unusually chatty. She would speak in offhand sentences that sounded dream-like, her mind far, far from where it should have been. “I had many children before your father obtained me. But you were the only one I was permitted to keep. To hold.”

Ilysia told her many other things, all of them dark and ripping at Ara’s heartstrings mercilessly.

“My body was a specimen, but my mind was present. I knew their voices, the whir of machines as I was impregnated with child after child. Sometimes, not children at all.”

“The texture of ground oats and water reminds me of the slurry they would feed me through the pipes.” There had been a pause, a twirl of a spoon through her food. “I often wonder if that was what it was.”

She was mindlessly inconsiderate with how she spoke. She did not think at all, perhaps, outside of a seamless train of thought that never ended.

“I am happy you did not inherit my eyes,” was one of Ilysia’s more colorful statements, paired with a longing stare towards a chip in the wall. “Tleilaxu eyes are small and beady. Yours are large and beautiful, like a doe’s.”

If Ara’s favoritism towards the deer became more intense after that, her father had made no comment about it.

At her mother’s side during these conversations, ever the stalwart protector, was her uncle: Cetus Kastara I. The ‘spare’ of House Kastara, removed of all titles save for Lieutenant. Of all of the men that claimed nobility and honor, Ara considered Cetus as being a prime example of it. While her father bent and broke rules to suit his needs, Cetus would follow them to the letter and rarely ever broke them, if at all.

Dressed in sleek black armor, gray mesh, and a dark maroon cape pinned to both shoulders, he was intimidating in a more severe way than her father, Orion, his brother. He would blend in with the dark stone that made up the entirety of House Kastara’s manor home, what little that remained of it that had not been buffeted by time and weather. Humidity was awful for the ore used to build it.

Where her father would teach her how to disembowel a man without spilling a droplet of blood, Cetus would guide her on the best ways to suture a hole in a gown or a wound. He would cheekily tease,”Your pattern might be good, should you wish for your patient to bleed out on the battlefield. Again.”

Today was one such day. When she had washed blood from her hands, dumped the bucket of organs out for the animals to feast on—the deer were particularly carnivorous—and left her father to dispose of yet another spy, she went to Ilysia’s chambers. Her rooms were large and took up most of the guest wing, and Ara had never speculated on why her mother did not share chambers with her father. It was not as if Cetus shared barracks with the other soldiers of House Kastara.

Outside, through thick paneled windows, Ara could just rise onto her toes and peek out at the weather brewing. Dark clouds were rolling in, bringing rain and thunder and lightning, the third or fourth storm of the season. She could not keep count of the true number of them when they would pop up during the night and vanish before dawn. Her fingers gripping onto the stone briefly, she lowered herself back down onto her heels and continued down the hall.

Her mother’s chamber doors were marked with a sigil, overlaid with a small banner pinned between the handles that displayed the crest of House Kastara: a white doe, a star centered between long, slender ears, on a black field with fourteen gold moons hanging around its thin neck in mimicry of a noose. It was old work, the fabric threadbare and eaten away by moths that hid in the cracks and crevices of the manor, meshing with the rest of the banners hung throughout the halls.

Pushing open the doors, Ara’s eyes roved over a plush settee, an untouched plate of starchy vegetables, and eventually landed on Ilysia. The woman was standing at the window, staring out at the brewing weather as if it held the secrets to the universe. She wore a color that Ara had never seen before: a rich, deep mahogany lined with silver velvet and studded with jewels of the same color. At her side, forever faithful, was Cetus, shaking his head, wisps of fox-gray hair settling at his brow as he fixed Ilysia’s hair perhaps for the dozenth time that day.

“Your mother’s hair has a mind of its own,” Cetus grumbled, noticing Ara even as she shut the door quietly. His fingers twisted the lengths into a braid, twining a loop of leather at the end to secure it. “Four times she has pulled it free. I daresay it is a habit rather than deliberate.”

Ara glimpsed the side of her mother’s face. It was frighteningly blank.

“Perhaps it makes her feel better,” Ara suggested lightly. Her arms wrapped snugly around Ilysia’s soft waist, familiarity washing over her as her mother lifted her arm and settled it around her shoulders. Habit, as Cetus had said, rather than deliberate action. She was used to pulling affection from wherever she could draw from it most. “I twirl my hair when I get bored.”

Cetus let out a laugh that sounded more like an agonized chuff. “Perhaps, my lady. Perhaps.”

With a small hum, Ara withdrew from Ilysia. Her arm fell to her side, limp, and made no other indication that she had wished for Ara to remain.

Thunder rumbled overhead, booming into the manor itself. Ara was used to the sound, by now; the storms could be quick and violent, or slow and measured. She was satisfied that it would be the former rather than the latter. It meant the deer could be corralled back into place sooner and they would not have scattered so badly.

“Your father is in the dungeons, I wager?” The Lieutenant shifted, his weight falling to one knee as he knelt before Ara to converse with her. It was not a demeaning action; rather, Ara was too short for the significantly taller man to speak to her without seeming as if he was speaking down to her. “Another spy, on a planet that receives no ships.”

Ara’s brows furrowed. She knew what Cetus was insinuating: that her father found spies in the innocent, torturing them for his own interest and self-serving purposes. It was not a thought that she had not pondered herself. “… Yes.”

Armor clanking as he rose to his feet, her uncle looked as if he had aged ten years with that simple confirmation. “I see. I would speak with him about dragging you to those torture chambers—“

Softly, nearly drowned out by the thunder and rain, they barely heard it. Cetus stilled, his head turning slightly to the side as he angled his ear towards the slightly open window that Ilysia had left cracked for fresh air.

Again, this time louder: screaming.

Alarm flashed through Cetus’ eyes and rippled through his body so visibly that Ara saw his armor shake. With quick movements, he slammed the window shut and flicked the lock closed, but it could not hide what she could see outside, partially obscured by thunderclouds.

Lowering from the darkness, ships—dozens, more than her mind could comprehend—and on the ground, cutting through body after body with blades held flat to their forearms, were soldiers. Soldiers who wore white and gray, with reddish symbols painted onto their armor, flocking towards the manor and cutting swathes through Cetus’ unit—a pale river through a dark canyon.

Lighting crackled through the sky, illuminating the blood shed in their wake as the rain washed it down the hillside and mingled with the mud.

“Sardaukar,” Cetus breathed.

At the window, watching as a rapidly pulsating round ejected from one of the ships and flew towards the manor, Ara watched as Ilysia’s blank expression slowly warped into one of true emotion.

Fear.

❴ 𝑴𝑨𝑺𝑻𝑬𝑹𝑳𝑰𝑺𝑻 ! ❵ ⸻ ❚ ❚ ❚ ❚

[fatehbaz]

About the lethal world-altering power of "legal fictions of property" and creation of laws in British imperial attempts to control the monsoon-flooded rivers and deltas of Bengal, described in Debjani Bhattacharyya's work (Empire and Ecology in the Bengal Delta: The Making of Calcutta, 2019). Other scholars have also come to similar conclusions about British treatment of Bengal. It's kind of a nice microcosm not just of British rule in South Asia, but also of imperial attempts to control ecology, communities, and imaginations across the planet.

In deltas, shorelines, seasonally-flooded rivers and riparian wetlands, mangrove forests, etc., there may not be clear distinctions between "land" and "water". The boundaries might change every year, every season, sometimes every day, depending on tide, floods, etc. So, if empires like Britain or the United States are to control such a place, there are two different challenges here. One challenge is, maybe more obviously, material, physical. The other is ontological, imaginative, etc., or what not.

---

The material or physical challenge is:

How does the empire tax or administer properties if the property changes seasonally depending on rivers, floods, precipitation, etc.? How does the empire "manage" local social/financial conditions if there isn't clear recognition of a stable title, landlord, authority figure? Where is the solid property boundary that can facilitate ownership transfer, zoning, revenue collection, etc.? How does the empire force people into industrial or plantation labor if the empire can't use the threat of home-loss or job-loss to coerce local people? How does the empire install development projects or extractive industries, like roads, bridges, monoculture/plantation fields, etc., if the land and water are always in motion, fluid, changing?

The ontological challenge is:

Part of the empire's power comes from its ability to conquer the imagination, to capture the future, to insist that there is no other way, there are no other options. Empire is inevitable. And the empire insists that borders are "real", definite, strict. But how can you believe the empire's claims about strict boundaries, about the inevitability of their future, when you can clearly see an alternative, when you are living in an ecosystem where land and water are in a kind of dance, influencing each other, fluid, impermanent?

And the empire doesn't appreciate physical, material challenges. But the empire especially doesn't want any ontological challenges. If you can identify other ways of being, alternative lives, other futures, you undermine the empire's claim to inevitability and inspire others to live otherwise. In a way, a river or a delta or an estuary, they are a provocation; as if they were alive, agents themselves, these environments are a direct challenge to empire's claims.

---

A summary of this imperial conundrum, from Natasha Ginwala and Vivian Ziherl:

'[T]his tropical coastal ecology is a site of continual refiguration: neither sea nor land, neither river nor sea, bearing neither salty nor fresh water […]. The Sundarbans covers an area of 10,000 square kilometers of intertidal zones between parts of southwestern Bangladesh and the state of West Bengal in India. The largest mangrove forest in the world […]. As a landscape, the Sundarbans is marked by unfixity, since its intertidal nature places it between appearance and disappearance – with islands being submerged overnight. […] [T]heir porous quality does not allow for clear border-making. [...] [W]e are met with the trembling instability of borders. [...] [H]ere the coastline becomes indiscernible as a single entity. The legal vexations of such amphibious and obtuse terrain become pronounced in sea-rights cases, wherein border-making becomes the necessity of tenure.' ["Sensing Grounds: Mangroves, Unauthentic Belonging, Extra-Territoriality." e-flux Journal Issue #45. May 2013.]

---

So, those "legal vexations", "wherein border-making becomes the necessity of tenure [ownership]"? That's what Bhattacharyya discusses, how laws become "technologies of property" in Bengal.

Basically, Bhattacharyya describes "the legal processes through which the mobility of the landscape was accommodated into the architecture of ownership" (p. 77); "drying a tidal landscape was as much an infrastructural project as it was an ontological endeavor in producing a dry culture with colonial law as its handmaiden" (p. 83)' "the materiality of the paper" functioned as "a legitimizing object of modern property" (p. 100); the British/US/imperial imagination of rivers were "characterized by a cartographic-mindedness that captures and fixes the spatial mobility. The colonial journey is one of reterritorialization that involves mapping, measuring and fixing" (p. 122).

---

In the tags of my post, I mentioned that the "legal engineering to conquer rivers in Bengal" is also the focus of two other scholars who examine the relationships with water, the creation of private property, and the power of colonial law-making in Bengal:

Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt and Rohan Ignatious D'Souza.

D'Souza authored Drowned and Dammed: Colonial Capitalism and Flood Control in Eastern India (1803-1946), which provides nice coverage from the East India Company, through the Mutiny and nineteenth-century expansion of finance and plantations, into modernist development of the twentieth century.

And I think Lahiri-Dutt sums up this whole situation nicely:

'Traveling through Bengal in the eighteenth century, […] [travelers] saw a highly sophisticated water-based economy – the blessing of rivers […]. Bengal’s essential character as a fluid landscape was changed during the colonial times through legal interventions that were aimed at stabilizing lands and waters, at creating permanent boundaries between them, [...] in a land of shifting river courses, inundated irrigation, and river-based life. Such a separation of land and water was made possible not just by physical constructions but first and foremost by engineering a legal framework. […] BADA, which stands for the Bengal Alluvion and Diluvion Act, a law passed by the colonial British rulers in 1825 […]. Nature here represents a borderless world, or at best one in which borders are not fixed lines on the ground demarcating a territory, but are negotiated spaces or zones. Such “[...] spaces” comprise “not [only] lines of separation but zones of interaction…transformation, transgression, and possibility” […]. Current boundaries of land and water are as much products of history as nature and the colonial rule of Bengal played a key role in changing the ideas and valuations of both. […] [R]ivers do not always flow along a certain route […]. The laws that the colonial British brought to Bengal, however, were founded upon the thinking of land as being fixed in place. […] To entrench the system, the Permanent Settlement of 1793 created zamindars (or landlords) “in perpetuity” – meaning for good. The system was aimed at reducing the complexities of revenue collection due to erratically shifting lands and unpredictable harvests in a monsoon-dependent area […]. From a riverine community, within a hundred years, Bengal was transformed into a land-based community.' ["Commodified Land, Dangerous Water: Colonial Perceptions of Riverine Bengal." RCC Perspectives, no. 3. 2014.]

---

Part of why I appreciate Bhattacharyya's take on it is that she focuses on what was lost, not just in terms of physical landscape, material accessibility, etc., but also what was lost culturally, emotionally. Stories, traditions, ways of being. This is why Bhattacharyya describes this process of British rule in Bengal "a history of forgetting". She says: "And because we forget, it is harder for us to imagine alternatives".

Basically, British legal maneuvers to strictly define borders between land and water in Bengal, achieved several things: Yes, faced with frequent seasonal/annual changes of where shorelines and islands, etc., were located, part of the benefit of this legal defining and clarification of solid land was allowing the empire to map and administer stable segments of property for purposes of taxes, records, and development projects (roads, bridges, canals, etc.). This "permanence" of property then allowed for the opening of the door to financialization, so that investors in London or Calcutta could participate in financial speculation on the real estate market.

Another benefit was the installation of "private" property and strengthening the power of landlords, enforcing a social hierarchy, detaching poorer people from land access, resulting in conditions of indebtedness. Of course, the precarity of debt and lack of access to land then essentially forced poorer people into wage labour, factory work, plantations.

After all, Britain needed laborers to staff its expanding and notorious Assamese tea plantations. And the empire did this repeatedly elsewhere, too: Alienated people by using legal frameworks to force them into debt or homelessness, and then using those alienated people to work in terrible industrial conditions, often far away from their homes. Just as earlier nineteenth-century metropolitan London staffed its factories with indebted and impoverished people from elsewhere in England, Britain staffed its Assameses tea plantations with poor people from central India, and Britain staffed its plantations and infrastructure projects in Malaya with "coolies" and convicts from Bombay.

Outside of these material consequences, there is also the insidious lasting devastation of alienation itself. Emotionally. Loss of stories, songs, traditions, relationships, etc. The river, the delta, the ecosystem that you know and love, is not accessible to you. And so the empire's definitions and traditions are made resolute, the only possible future. There is no alternative.

But the river says otherwise.

[potionwine]

One of the PF prompts for October is superstition, and I've had this idea for ages—it's in my fic but I just want to keep a record of it in a more expository form.

The following headcanon concept is in extreme danger of being jossed as soon as the devs decide to release official birthdates or anything, like in the upcoming lore book. But while I have the room to explore—

Since there are Eikons tied to certain specific nations, the people of those countries might start to develop internal superstitions about the best season in which their Dominant should be born, as a good omen of sorts. This superstition/folk belief is heavily inspired by the east Asian astrologies that calculate the date and hour etc. of a child’s birth to predict a person’s life and destiny (and also the compatibility of couples).

Rosaria would obviously think it best for the Dominant of Fire to be born during summer, and places like the Northern Territories would want their Shiva born in winter to signify a strong, divinely blessed Dominant. Maybe the people of the Water want theirs born during the monsoon or peak rainy season, not that I know whether or not Valisthea even has monsoons. So in this concept, coincidentally Rosaria and Sanbreque have the same cultural superstition: that the Dominant of Fire or Light born during summer, and particularly near the solstice, would symbolise luck and power, like a favoured child of destiny. Rosaria because it’s the hottest, brightest season, and similar for Sanbreque, because it is the brightest, longest light.

And in a situation of such folk beliefs being widely held, I would want Dion born exactly on the summer solstice, literally the specialest, most auspicious day, in a “all our stars have aligned” way, the absolute height of divine favour smiling onto Sanbreque to produce this shining godsend (goddess-send), and this is the first, but by no means the last, of the things about Dion that wholly convince his people that their new Bahamut is blessing personified, is the radiant chosen one of Greagor, to usher the empire into a new golden age and defend her against all their enemies and deliver them from penury (the encroaching blight).

(Privately, if I'm honest, Cancer is the least suitable western astrological sign to assign to Dion, not that there’s any real scientific basis in any of it.)

In the reverse, I would want Joshua born in deep winter, which is worrying and ominous for Rosaria. Ideally I really want him on the winter solstice, but he can’t be in “December” [or its equivalent] and remain in the same calendar year as Dion (in my heart of hearts I really want 25 December to go full Jesus on Joshua), but a birthday right at the start of “January” would be great, when it is dark and cold and bleak, a fierce bitter winter that augurs ill, and therefore the Rosarians whispered quiet fears about this, blamed Anabella about this, and when Joshua turned out so sickly and weak, also blamed and doubted the child of ill-fate. A fire of no warmth and little light.

Love heaping the pressure onto Dion and Joshua in opposing and complementary ways. Dion’s countrymen think he’s absolutely perfect, the pinnacle of Bahamuts, an unprecedented prodigy that made his father’s political enemies sweat from the moment of his birth, and when Sylvestre ascended the throne the people looked at their new prince, their guiding light, their radiant star—and approved of it, approved of him, like yes, yes, this is our destiny. This is Sanbreque’s future. This is what the Goddess has ordained.

So: Dion is strong and perfect, is told by everyone all the time that he is strong and perfect; he can only be strong, he was made perfect, he cannot be anything except strong and perfect. Weakness is not only forbidden, it is impossible, for the Goddess’ blessing is flawless and cannot fail, and any personal weakness wouldn’t concern only him, it would spell disaster for his whole country. Which is the sort of thing that gives a child a very particular sort of damage.

And the winter-born Phoenix, imperfect from the wrong and unlucky season of his birth and frail throughout his childhood, knows his people don’t believe in him, that they have no confidence in him and think of him as weak—born flawed and continues to be flawed, with a fragile constitution, frequently ill. The thing about superstitions is that it is worsened by pre-existing doubt or concurrent fears, and since Joshua’s physical condition does not inspire confidence in the troops or the populace, their confirmation bias will amplify their worries and negative gut feelings. It’s a vicious cycle. Child!Joshua, who perfectly perceives and understands his people’s lack of faith in him, will naturally learn to feel self-doubt and inferior, because that’s what happens when children are bombarded by consistent messages from their environment.

We know for a fact he knows this, because at Phoenix Gate he literally says “they don’t believe in me”. He says “I don’t have what it takes”, he says “I don’t have the strength”. And he says to Clive, “it should have been you.” The sense of inadequacy is deep, cutting, persistent, and profound. There is a standard to meet, and he understands how badly he falls short. “They don’t believe in me, they believe in the power of the Dominant.” Will his full prime Phoenix form hold up in battle? This seems like a question that should lowkey eat away at everyone in the prologue. Everyone is hoping that the full primed Phoenix will be enough, the way the Eikon has always been enough, because the current Dominant clearly isn’t. Putting aside how self-doubt tends to lead to self-sabotage, for a 10-year-old to say something that hopeless and crushing in his quiet little voice, this is more than a hushed confession of weakness, it is resignation—and as we discover, he does not even need to enter war to experience defeat, and it is only the first in a string of massive defeats to come. His lack of strength doesn’t concern only him, it spells disaster for his whole country. Which is the sort of thing that gives a child a very particular sort of damage, and makes for a beautifully poetic counterpart to summer-Dion.

It's the contrast and foil between the lucky child/the unlucky child—who is which cannot be clearly defined—and between the weak child/the strong child—or, the child who was always told he’s weak, the child who was always told he’s strong. Which leads into the onscreen transformation over the course of gameplay: the exalted Sanbrequois prince who plummets into weakness and has to learn how not to break, the vanquished Rosarian prince who rises to strength and has to learn how to survive, finding each other as adults who embrace and comfort each other’s weaknesses, and become each other’s strength.

Supplementary notes:

Clive should be born in summer too, probably “August” or something when it was unseasonably hot and dry that year, and even the non-superstitious thought Anabella did a splendid job and were super enthusiastic for their new Dominant to wake—he’s going to be a proper fire Dominant, this one, the world is already scorching at his arrival. I love anything that exacerbates Rosfield family dysfunction.

One of the most amusing things about such a superstition would be that certain Motes would try extremely hard to conceive at certain times. The tribes in the Northern Territories would be like omg time for a new Shiva, we are 8-10 months out from winter, everyone get down to business!!!

People should blame Anabella, illogically, for the time of Joshua's birth and add to the sense of persecution and disgrace she seems to feel about her children. I've a strong headcanon, even without this superstition, that Joshua is a preemie. It's such a but of course concept to me, that Joshua is a premature baby, and not just a little bit premature, but the kind of premature that could never have survived in medieval times without the Phoenix. So if the pregnancy had remained on track, perhaps Josh would have been a "February" baby—still winter, not great, but without turn of the year notions of upheaval and change. So smoll, scrunchy, very premature Joshua pops out at the worst time, and the birth was sudden and horrendous and arduous, and some people think it must be because Anabella didn't take proper care.

This is a phoenixflare post, therefore the point of all this, of course, is that Joshua is the hope in the despairing dark, and Dion is the enduring light, and the Sanbreque astrologers will find upon calculation that they are the perfect complementary match.

[log6]

As many of you know, my blog(s) have a years long tradition of closely following the annual Atlantic Hurricane Season. I've slacked off in the last couple years but expect a return to day by day updates as I will be on a Caribbean island for the coming months. This hurricane season promises to be one of our craziest yet- it's barely July and the Atlantic has already yielded two storms, one of which (Hurricane Beryl) has already reached Category 5. All-time record sea surface temperatures, the latest El Niño Southern Oscillation, one of the hottest and strongest we've ever seen, weakening to a neutral phase, leaving extremely hot seas in the Main Development Area of the Atlantic Ocean. With the ENSO further shifting into La Niña, which has a stabilizing effect on the Atlantic atmosphere, neutralizing the wind shear generated by El Niño that impedes cyclone formation, we're looking at a vastly above average hurricane season. The average expected Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) for an Atlantic Hurricane Season is between 72 and 111 units, but this year estimates for total ACE put the season above 200 points in almost all estimates by various sources, with all predicting more named storms than the average 14. Some estimates are unprecedented: up to 33±6 named storms, with an overwhelming majority of forecasters expecting more than 5 major hurricanes this season. As trade winds continue to shift, and the monsoon trough deepens over western Africa in preparation for the rainy season, only time will tell how bad the 2025 Atlantic Hurricane Season will be, but it does not bode well. I will be watching the Inter-Tropical Convegence Zone closely. With that, it's my honor and privilege to introduce our coverage of the Atlantic Hurricane Season of the year 2024!

#hs2024

[ploppythespaceship]

Doctor Who Series 14 / Season 1 Review

Man, it feels good to be enjoying Doctor Who again. I haven't been keeping up with the show in years, but I caught up to see Tennant's return leading into Ncuti's run and I am so glad I did. This season is far from perfect, but it gets a lot of little things right and is consistently fun to watch, even if a lot of the details fall apart.

What I Liked

Ncuti Gatwa is simply phenomenal. He settles into the role so quickly and so easily, bringing such a fresh energy to the character. I love how distinct he feels, too -- when you're playing the fifteenth iteration of a character, it can be hard to find a new spin on things, but he's done it. He's also a fantastic actor, getting to show an incredibly wide range in just a few short episodes. I truly think he'll be remembered as one of the best Doctors.

Millie Gibson is also very good as Ruby, and her dynamic with the Doctor is a lot of fun. I appreciate having another Doctor/companion relationship that isn't romantic. They're just best friends, and it's very cute.

The show looks great. It's very clear that they've had a budget increase -- the costumes, effects, etc. are noticeably improved since RTD's first run.

Murray Gold's return as the composer is extremely welcome. His stuff isn't quite as bombastic as before (or maybe the episodes just have better sound mixing), but keeps a lot of the same leitmotifs. The result is a more subtle score that perfectly suits each scene.

Mel is so cool now. She was one of my least favorite classic companions, so seeing her worked into these storylines and feel more compelling is an unexpected delight.

What I Didn't Like

Ultimately, I think the season is just too short. Council of Geeks has an excellent YouTube video on this -- because there are only eight episodes, and a lot of them are going for bigger ideas and weirder premises, it feels like we don't really settle into a status quo.

The Doctor and Ruby's relationship also isn't as developed as much as I would like. If you pay close attention to the dialogue, there's actually a six month gap between "Space Babies" and "The Devil's Chord" -- we could have used another episode or two in that time period to really flesh out the beginnings of their friendship better. Instead the show jumps straight to them being best friends, without really showing us why that is.

I don't think the mystery box format of this season really worked. The mysteries were built up to such an extent that no answer could really be satisfying, and the finale really almost entirely on the big reveals that ultimately didn't amount to much. Ruby in particular feels like an underbaked companion, and I hope she gets more time to get properly developed.

Individual Episode Thoughts

Space Babies — This is easily the weakest episode of the season. It's not bad by any means, but it does remind me of some of the sillier episodes of RTD's first run. It felt like we were speedrunning the companion introduction, when things could have been slowed down and spread across a few episodes to feel more natural. The baby VFX also do not work and fall very firmly into uncanny valley territory.

The Devil's Chord — This one makes very little sense, but is entirely saved by Jinkx Monsoon being so iconic as Maestro. If you just go along for the ride, it's a ton of fun.

Boom — This episode is proof that Steven Moffat truly is at his best when he's writing self-contained stories under someone else's guidance. I don't think it's as iconic as Moffat's previous stories, and I felt like Ncuti was getting a lot of dialogue that better suited Matt Smith, but the entire concept was interesting and the execution was solid. Also, Ncuti acted his ass off without even being able to move.

73 Yards — Honestly, I'm mixed on this one. The setup is fantastic and eerie, and I enjoy the exploration of Ruby's character, solo from the Doctor. I like her experiencing this inexplicable thing, and deciding to find purpose in it to help others. But the story does fall apart for me at the end when it doesn't explain anything. I don't need every single thing handed to me, I understand the value of leaving things to the imagination, but the fact that the episode's last impression is "wait what?" does leave a bit of a sour taste. That being said, I do respect how weird and different this episode is, and how much discussion it prompted afterward.

Dot and Bubble — The trailers looked like a Black Mirror ripoff, and I was prepared for a shallow "social media bad" episode. Instead, we got something far more nuanced about the dangers of trapping yourself in a bubble of like-minded people and refusing to ever look beyond it. And the ending reveal that it's a society of white supremacists is so, so well-handled, because all the clues were there for you. If you're like me and didn't piece it together until the very end, it really challenges you to ask yourself why you didn't notice sooner. Also, another episode where Ncuti acts his ass off. My personal favorite episode of the season.

Rogue — Another with mixed feelings. Rogue himself is tons of fun, and I enjoy his dynamic with the Doctor, even if parts of it are pretty rushed. I really hope he comes back. The episode plot itself is serviceable but nothing special. My main complaint is the severe lack of Ruby. Her relationship with the Doctor doesn't feel sufficiently established, so the emotional beats don't really land.

The Legend of Ruby Sunday — This was an underwhelming finale, unfortunately. The first part barely even qualifies as an episode. It launches right into starting to answer the season's mysteries, but does so in an uncompelling and heavy-handed way. The Sutekh reveal is pretty epic in isolation, but...

Empire of Death — The Sutekh reveal doesn't really lead to anything satisfying. He doesn't have the presence of Toymaker or Maestro, he's just a CGI dog monster. This second part finally answers some questions, some of which are vaguely interesting, but it's happening in a plot so dull and so dry that I just can't bring myself to care. The episode is also just confusing? The plot points don't seem to flow naturally together, like multiple stories were smashed together with little rhyme or reason. The resolution is some of the most nonsensical nonsense that Doctor Who has ever come up with. Then we get to the reveal of Ruby's mother, which is so forced and it becomes clear in retrospect that things were added to seem more mysterious than they really were. And capping it all off is the Doctor's farewell to Ruby, which falls flat because, as I've said, their relationship is rather undercooked. It really does end the season on a downer, which is a shame because so many of the preceding episodes were pretty good.

[willtheweaver]

A writer’s guide to forests: from the poles to the tropics, part 7

Is it no.7 already? Wow. A big shout out to everyone who has had the patients to stick with this. Now onto this week’s forest…

Dry forest

Water is life. That’s a fact. And especially where it doesn’t rain for more than half the year.

Location: Dry forests are scattered throughout the Yucatán peninsula ,South America, various Pacific islands,Australia, Madagascar, and India. Areas have been cleared by human activity, and the SA dry forests are classified as the most threatened tropical forests.

Climate: Temperate to tropical, with just enough rain to sustain trees. Many are monsoonal, with rain coming in one or two brief periods separated by a long dry season.

Plant life- Hardy trees, such as Baobab and Eucalyptus are able to last with little rain by tapping into groundwater with extensive root systems. Many trees are evergreen, but in India, many species are deciduous. Trees are often more spaced out, and shrubs and grasses grow extensively. Cacti are common plants in the Americas, with some growing tall enough to be considered trees. In order to survive the heat and lack of water, many small plants are annuals, or store water in tubers. Palms can make up a large percentage of the trees, as was the case in the now vanished forests of Easter Island.

Animal life- As they can come and go when they please, birds are common species. Larger animals are active year round, with smaller species of mammals, amphibians, and certain insects only coming out during the rainy season. Isolation means that islands become home to many endemic species; think about Madagascar and the lemurs, or Darwin’s finches, iguanas, and tortoises in the Galapagos. Isolation has also led to the marsupials of Australia developing to fill the niches that would normally be occupied by placental mammals .The introduction of invasive species has brought about the extinction of island fauna.

How the forest affects the story- Water, or the lack of will be the biggest challenge your characters will face. Rivers and lakes may be seasonal, so other sources will have to be utilized. Drinkable fluids can be obtained from various plants and animals, or maybe the bedrock is porous and water accumulates in cenotes. Your characters could come from a culture that builds artificial reservoirs to collect the rain and store it for the dry season. With careful water management, cities can thrive in dry areas. But your characters will have to be careful. Prolonged drought will see societies go the way of the Maya. Deforestation leaves the topsoil vulnerable to the wind, and forests, farms, and grassland will inevitably turn to desert. Whether nomadic or sedentary, your characters and their society will have to find a way to interact with the forest without destroying it or themselves. Can they do it? Can a damaged biosphere be restored before it’s too late? The success or failure of your characters and/or their predecessors can be a driving focus of the plot. Of course ,when the rains do come, it could be in the form of a cyclone. Dry ground does not readily absorb water, and flash floods are a danger. Water can grant life, but it can take it as well.

[stradakiev]

Anyone else watch the dw deleted scenes from 15s season (series one on Disney) for Doctor who day? I loved them but I’m so bummed all of those moments weren’t included in the episodes. They provided much needed character work and plot explanation.

If you haven’t watched it the link is at the bottom of the post.

Starting with scene 09-12A from the giggle that moment with Donna demanding unit to protect her who family explains how Rose gets connected with unit. And we just love any Donna moment like that honestly <3 you used my family so you can protect them yessssss 👏🏻

The giggle scene 27- literally just funny. It doesn’t need to be included but I CACKLED at them opening and closing those doors with no background music.

Space babies scene 16- I don’t know how much I would need this scene included. Space babies is the episode I’ve re-watched the least because it’s plot and character work we left wanting. (So it probably should’ve been left in) I like seeing Ruby tell the story (while later watching over done) to the babies because the exposition makes sense for the context and it’s a really sweet way to build her character. Then when the doctor starts heading off the way she questions him is really funny to me. It shows more of her character in the tone she talks to the doctor, and then chooses to follow him. It’s a very small moment that makes their friendship more believable because she’s telling the sweet story and he’s being wacky and it’s amazing.

Space babies scene 40-42- does this scene start with them being lost in the ship??? The left left again thing bc if so that’s hilarious and once again develops ruby and 15s friendship and respective characters more (I love hot dumbasses that are technically smart). It also builds more of the setting and the story. It’s their version of 12 and Clara climbing through the dalek as we learn so much from the story by their environment. Also I just love Ruby stepping in the boogies and being grossed out. “Why does it keep shedding its skin” plants an important question for the audience without feeling like we jumped to the answer. I also just love 15 smiling while saying “into the belly of the beast”

Space babies scene 63- we may have gotten another scene similar to this one but this face is figuring something out

And this one has realized it

The devils chord scene 9a- “SOMEONE HAS STOLEN MUSIC” I love how exasperated he is in this moment (it shows us what he cares about) then ruby trying to comfort him but being so awkward it’s too perfect and again shows their friendship in such a small moment

The devils chord scene 23- I think this scene connects how the maestro finds the doctor and Ruby and connect their stories early on from them playing the piano. I don’t think the whole scene would need to be included because it goes on for a while, but I do love jinx monsoon serving cunt. 

The devils chord scene 72- WHY WAS THIS CUT OUT!! This connects the musical scene so that it actually seems a part of the story and not just a random extra

The devils chord scene 74- this is usually RTDs bread and butter but I’ve missed it this season. He is usually so good at showing what is happening to the rest of the world in these moments and lending larger context to the story and this scene does that in such a silly way. It also make the musical scene less weird just like scene 72.

73 yards scene 3-4- it shows how long she waited but my favorite part is when she kicks the tardis because it shows he actually affected by her situation and frustrated. It also reminded me of Clara fighting with the tardis.

73 yards scene 53-54 THIS SCENEEEEEE AHHHH it would have given ruby so much more depthhhh. We would’ve seen here actually affected by her circumstances. She is HEARTBROKEN that the woman was still there she thought she had solved it but she hadn’t. This is crushing and instead in the episode it seems like she is not affected by her plan not working and still being stuck in this timeline. 

The legend of ruby Sunday scene 41-45- not necessary to include we get a very similar scene in the episode, but I loved watching it again in a different way. 

Empire of death scene 35- I loveeee the doctor kissing the tardis 🥰 the memory tardis disappear makes the situation more dire which would’ve added to the story. Also the part where he says “we will fight sutekh” and ruby responds “with my mothers name” it shows her having as much doubt about the plan as the audience has and shows ruby giving the doctor pushback. Also the doctor saying that sutekh has eyes everywhere hints to the fact that he knows about Melanie.

The empire of death scene 59-63- who in their right mind cut this???? Like you didn’t think it would be important to know how they got the whistle and how it worked? While it was still a cheap plot tool that “technically” goes against rules of the show it’s a plot tool that’s been used before (11 and Clara and their button in into the tardis) it still would’ve made it make sense. And they had a good cheap explanation for it that they’re fighting a god so the get to do one thing like that (i.e. when they fight gods the rules of reality are flexible some things like bigeneration or getting to hand yourself a whistle happen). It’s also a fun moment with the doctor winking at himself and saying they need to moisturize and playing music of the jukebox (connecting them back to the devils chord)

[princess-of-the-corner]

Couple fun facts to mess with Tsurugi Tomoe and her obsession with swords and Bushido:

The katana was never, in fact, the main weapon of the samurai. First it was the bow, that literally allowed the very creation of Japan as a country and threw the Mongol armies back in the sea in time for monsoon season, and later it was a complement between bow and spear. The sword was a sidearm... And the katana was developed for the INFANTRY and adopted later by the samurai.

The traditional weapons of the Japanese women are the bow (Japan really, REALLY loves bows) and the naginata.

And I'm now imagining Tomoe getting Akumatized after someone innocently pointed these truths out in her earshot.

GET HIS ASS

[tiffanys-aus-and-headcanons]

I'm really curious about where exactly Doctor Who & spinoffs fit in to the 'scrambled universe' framework

So it's 2012. After a series of mental health events, Dan Harmon is on the rocks with his sitcom The Big Bang Theory, and is looking for a new project to do. He decides to call up his old friend Justin Roiland, who he met almost a decade earlier running Channel 101, and asks if he has any ideas for a cartoon. Roiland decides to file the serial numbers off of his old shock comedy short Miss Wonka, and the result is Adult Swim's Ms. Frizzle. Dan Harmon brings the systematic approach to story structure he honed working on The Big Bang Theory to elevate the project to something with some actual redeeming value someone could care about. The show premieres the next year, in 2013. It is acclaimed and beloved, and for a brief and golden moment in history it isn't even considered cringe.

It's 2018. Year after year, season after season, Harmon's people have edged out Roiland's people in the Ms. Frizzle writing room. Roiland has grown bored and disruptive; the show's staff only really see him anymore when he comes in to record the voices, or when he decides to play some inscrutable Epic Funny LOL Prank on them and waste their time. Meanwhile, Disney's main streaming platform, Hulu, is looking for exclusives that might draw people to subscribe, in a streaming environment that's quickly and unsustainably growing bloated. They have an easy time convincing Roiland to divert his attention to a second project. Roiland announces Dr. Who in an interview; it's the first Dan Harmon has ever heard of it. Mike McMahan (also getting picked up around this time by CBS All Access to do There And Back Again: Gollum) is the cocreator this time. Roiland has learned various bad habits while stagnating on Ms. Frizzle, so he won't put much effort into Dr. Who either, but he will at least get it going.

It's 2020. Granted a sort of captive audience by the recently-started coronavirus pandemic, Dr. Who premieres on Hulu. At a glance, it's a low-effort off-brand version of Ms. Frizzle; Roiland isn't even bothering to do a girl voice this time. If given a deeper look, there is something worthwhile there. It's a riff on an old subgenre of soft sci-fi TV, the idea of an immortal celestial time guardian figure - you see it in the BBC's long-running Quantum Leap, in Constance M. Burge's A Wrinkle In Time, and there are even elements of it in Ms. Frizzle, though they're much more concentrated in Dr. Who. The show is very episodic, though there are more serialized subplots and hints of a deeper-running plot; like Ms. Frizzle, the show is full of undisguised references to other media.

It's 2023. A legal case in which Roiland is accused of domestic abuse becomes widely publicized, followed by the dissemination of various inappropriate text messages he had apparently sent to fans. It becomes common knowledge that Roiland is a nightmare to work with, and every single project he's involved with drops him nearly simultaneously as a brand liability, even the video game development studio he founded to make Gone Home.

Every unaired project on which Roiland was set to do a voice comes up with a different strategy to replace him. Science Time: Rita & Morticia hires a new up-and-coming voice actor to play assorted versions of King Tommy, without comment. Season 7 of Ms. Frizzle replaces Roiland with Jinkx Monsoon; it's a very noticeable change, but she's still basically playing the same character, she's just doing a better job.

Dr. Who is the lesser-known knockoff living in Ms. Frizzle's shadow, so it has less to lose; it decides to make a meta joke out of the whole thing, and whips up a new sketch to start off season 4, in which the Doctor trips, falls down the stairs, and dies in front of his companion Rose Tyler. We are thereby introduced to the just-invented openly-bullshit process of "regeneration", in which the Doctor can come to the brink of death but dramatically cheat it, with the only consequence being that he'll now look and/or sound like a different guy. So, as of the opening scene of season 4, the Doctor is now voiced by Dan Stevens.

And that's how the Doctor on Dr. Who became British.

[catdotjpeg]

FILIPINO YOUTH, SERVE THE PEOPLE! DONATE AND FUNDRAISE FOR RELIEF EFFORTS! FIGHT THE NEGLECTFUL US-MARCOS REGIME! On Wednesday morning, relentless rains battered parts of Luzon causing severe flooding throughout the island. The Philippine government has issued a red warning to anticipate flooding and evacuations in NCR, Rizal and Zambales due to the seasonal habagat (south west monsoon) that is further exacerbated by Typhoon Carina. The most exploited and oppressed communities; workers, peasants, and the urban poor, bear the brunt of the impact from the habagat. Every year, the Philippines is hit with worsening typhoons intensified by the climate crisis. Yet, every year, the Filipino masses face the same neglect and suffering as the government refuses to invest in reliable infrastructure and disaster relief programs that will support the most vulnerable communities. In contrast, community efforts led by BAYAN Philippines were quick to mobilize their forces by providing aid to affected areas such as distributing relief items and preparing meals for the masses of people who were relocated to evacuation centers. As Anakbayan USA, we reaffirm our committment to serving the people and organizing for national democracy, the true solution to the worsening crises affecting Filipinos! The masses must take it upon themselves to build a movement calling for pro-people development, genuine land reform, and an end to the exploitation by the ruling classes. Tulong kabataan! We call on all chapters to galvanize your members and immediate communities to direct donations to support the relief efforts led by BAYAN organizations to alleviate the hardships of the Filipino masses in the face of climate crisis.

DONATE Zelle: anakbayanusa@gmail.com Venmo: @/anakbayan-usa

-- Anakbayan-USA, 24 Jul 2024 9:22am EDT

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Psycho Analysis: Winds of Destruction

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

Here I am, dirty and faceless Waiting to heed your instruction On my own, invisible warrior I am a Wind of Destruction!

As many of you might now, I’m a huge fan of the Metal Gear series. What you probably don’t know is  that, despite the series having a penchant for squads of quirky bosses, I’m not really a huge fan of many of them. FOXHOUND? I mean I like Mantis and Ocelot. The Sons of Liberty? I guess Vamp is alright. B&B Corps? I barely remember any of them. I love the Cobra Unit, but that’s because all of them are batshit insane and weird. I’m not saying they’re bad boss fights or anything—far from it, they all offer fantastic boss fights—but as characters I’m not really big on many of these villains.

The Winds of Destruction, on the other hand? I fucking love these guys (and girl).

Metal Gear Rising is what happens when you turn the insane anime action of the main series up to 11, and so it should be no shock the squad of bosses is cranked up as well. Each and every one of these guys is nuttier than the last, and the whole lot of them are some of the most memorable and memetic characters in the franchise. Also Khamsin exists.

Motivation/Goals: So besides the obvious way they tie into the plot because they’re working for Armstrong, each of these villains has a theme song which pretty much details what makes them tick, what they’re about, and expands upon them once you get their health low enough during their boss battles.

Mistral’s theme, “A Stranger I Remain,” details how she has come to this land to sate her bloodlust, and how she truly feels most at home on the battlefield; Monsoon’s theme, “Stains of Time,” acts as a reinforcement of his nihilistic outlook; Sundowner’s theme, “Red Sun,” expounds on his nature as a card-carrying villain and how he revels in the violence and bloodshed he causes; Sam’s theme, “The Only Thing I Know for Real,” lays out his desire for a one-on-one duel with Raiden, his foil, to see who is truly worthy to stand up and continue fighting for their ideals; and Khamsin’s song, “The Hot Wind Blowing,” showcases his patriotic nature as well as just generally acting as a badass boast. Most of these songs  act more as thematic seasoning for the characters, adding on to what is already established in their cutscenes, but for some like Khamsin and to a lesser extent Mistral, it’s pretty much the extent of their development.

Performance: Every single one of these actors really brings their all to make these characters memorable.

Sundowner is the ham and cheese of the group, working alongside Armstrong to ensure that all the scenerey is well and truly chewed. And who better to bring on the ham than Crispin Freeman? Salli Saffioti is Mistral, and is it any shock she’s also played Black Widow before? And also Hilda from Fire Emblem, I guess? Then we have Monsoon, played by John “The Crypt Keeper” Kassir, who delivers everything with gusto as always. Phillip-Anthony Rodriguez makes Sam just as smarmy and charming as a rival should be, and Benito Martinez puts in his all to his brief role of Khamsin. Not a weak vocal performance here, I’d say.

Final Fate: Seeing as they are video game bosses, it should come as no surprise to anyone that Raiden slices each and every one of them into confetti. Special mention to the absolutely brutal death of Mistral, where she gets frozen in liquid nitrogen before you get to shatter her.

Best Scene: For most of them, they only get the one scene followed by their boss battle, with the exception of Sundowner and Sam. Mistral and Khamsin’s boss battles are obviously their finest hours, though Mistral’s takes the cake between the two seeing how explosive and exciting it is, living up to the promise of that first battle with Metal Gear RAY, while Khamsin’s is the finale of a DLC featuring the game’s ultimate jobber, Blade Wolf.

Monsoon has a lot more going for him, because before his boss fight he gives off one of the most amazing monologues ever put into a Metal Gear game, as he lectures Raiden on memes (“The DNA of the soul!”) and his nihilistic philosophy. Then you get to have a kickass boss fight where, if you do well enough, you will make this nihilistic bastard beg for his life as you hack him to pieces.

Best Quote: Monsoon has the honor of dropping the most iconic bit of dialogue in the entire game (outside of everything out of Armstrong’s mouth, of course):

"Free will is a myth. Religion is a joke. We are all pawns, controlled by something far greater: Memes. The DNA of the soul. They shape our will. They are the culture — they are everything — we pass on."

Sundowner, being the massive slab of ham that he is, is no slouch in the memetic lines himself. Two stand out, and that’s his battle cry of “I’M FUCKIN’ INVINCIBLE!” and his proclamation that he wants things to go back to the old ways of war, specifically “IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS AFTER 9/11!” This is hilarious because even with confirming that 9/11 happened in the Metal Gear universe, it still is probably only the second worst thing to happen to New York.

Sam doesn’t really have any great quotes that stand out, but this man is a master of reactions, from his shit-eating grin to his rousing applause. I figured I’d highlight that here.

Final Thoughts & Score: Let’s look at them from best to least best; I don’t think any of them are awful, though some are better than others obviously.

Monsoon

Outside of Armstrong and Sundowner, Monsoon is absolutely the best character in the game. I think part of it is because he so thoroughly represents everything the Metal Gear series is summed up in one character; he’s incredibly philosophical and legitimately fascinating while also being hilariously over-the-top and spouting off some of the most ridiculous and cheesy lines you will ever hear, all while being a bright red-and-black cyborg voiced by a guy famous for acting as the emcee of a horror show. Literally everything about him is the pure essence of the franchise, so even without Kojima’s direct involvement we still got a beautiful 10.5/10 character.

Sundowner

As far as the Winds of Destruction go, Sundowner is second only to Monsoon. He’s just over-the-top in ways I never could have even imagined for this series, and the only thing holding him back is he is almost immediately outdone by Armstrong two levels after you kill him. Still, this bloodthirsty butcher just revels so much in being a huge asshole and delivers all his lines with the Southern-fried charm that only an actor like Crispin Freeman could deliver, and you have a character I wish was around in the good old days after 9/11. He’s an easy 10/10.

Also he is literally just this image as a character, and that’s amazing:

Jetstream Sam

Sam is a really great character in the Cyborg Ninja tradition, easily following in the footsteps of characters like Gray Fox and Raiden himself. The sheer badassery of this man, a normal human whose only cyborg trait is a single arm and yet who is still capable of taking down a RAY by himself, cannot be overstated, and I think he gets a big boost from being playable. There’s an underlying tragedy to the character too, with how he’s something of a fallen hero whose sword was once a tool of justice but who became disillusioned due to his inability to make the world a better place all on his own  and losing to Armstrong in a fight. He’s easily the most complex character besides Armstrong, and his boss battle and theme song are both top notch. I really can’t justify anything less than a 10/10.

Mistral

As much as I love Mistral, it’s hard to deny she is really the epitome of a one-scene wonder. She does not get nearly as much characterization as her compatriots and is very vague and ambiguous even after the DLC… but that might be the point. Her image song is “A Stranger I Remain,” and though we know of her bloodthirsty nature from that song, Mistral still remains a mystery to us to the bitter end. But hey, it’s hard to deny that what we do see of her is pretty impressive (and I’m not just talking about her boobs, I promise). She’s not quite as good as her fellow Winds I’d say, but considering she’s a 9.5/10 that’s not really a knock against her.

Khamsin

Despite having one of the best songs in the game to his name, as well as an intriguing personality and motivations, Khamsin really is incredibly forgettable, to the point his comrades  don’t even bother to mention him in the main campaign. This is not something you should ever be saying about a dude who looks like Quaritch in his mech suit at the end of Avatar on steroids, and yet here we are. Of course, he’s certainly not awful by any means and he makes for a great boss fight, but he falls severely short of the main game’s enemies. Mistral managed to score as high as she did with only having one level to her, but Khamsin only manages a 5.5/10 with the same. Maybe it’s because he just feels so inconsequential… Eh, at least he looks cool.

[starcaptainslangs]

K'awatl'a Introduction - The Conworld

K'awatl'a is one of my oldest continuously developed conlangs, originating at least 15 years ago, if not more. It's a highly agglutinative nauralistic language. It takes inspiration from Nahuatl, Mayan languages, but it is not based on any of them.

Tlaxetl'an Overview

K'awatl'a is spoken in my main conworld, Tlaxetl'an /t͡ɬaʃeˈt͡ɬ'an/. I'm not super into creating a highly realistic setting with like tides and weather patterns, but I have a general sketch of the region and it's climate.

Here's the pitch of the setting:

On a far future Earth, the ancient remnants of past high stellar civilizations scatter a landscape that has been terraformed and shaped and remade thousands of times. Magic-like technology suffuses the environment; priests speak with disembodied AI spirits; robot armies fight bioengineered monsters from alien worlds; abandoned habitats orbit the planet; gateways to distant worlds stand dormant in the center of long abandoned cities; great machines march across the land leaving an alien environment in their wake; scholars and adventurers delve like worms into machines more ancient than the planet itself; and humanity slowly learns of its ancient heritage on a transformed Earth.

Tlaxetl'an Geography

The region it is spoken in is a tropical to sub-tropical river basin on the north edge of a large continent on the planet's southern hemisphere. To the south is grassy steppes, ocean and volcanic islands to the east and north, mountains and a vast desert to the west.

There are seasonal monsoons and flooding in the region so there's a wet and dry season.

K'awatl'a Speakers

I haven't done much development of the speaker's culture apart from some vague ideas about it. The broad strokes are:

They have technology that is roughly iron age. They do have access to advanced materials but lack the ability to manufacture them, relying on scavenging.

Gender is chosen when a person comes of age, with there being three (or maybe more) genders that people can adopt. Sex has nothing to do with the gender roles.

Family structure is communal with an emphasis on the community that helps raise the collective children over the biological family.

Religion is centered around the teachings of Prophets who have connected with the "god AIs" and from them gathered information, providing them with the basis of civiization: agriculture, metal working, and domestication.

That's it so far!

Next post I'll talk more about the phonology. Woo!