#power steering adapter

[largemouthbassnation]

EASY LS Swap POWER STEERING - Chevy C10 5.3 LS - UTX

Welcome to Ugly Truck! Today we’re hooking up the power steering pump on the 1978 Chevy C10 5.3 LS Swap. We install a new … source

[vmantras]

BYD eMAX 7 Superior: The Ultimate Electric MUV for Families

₹29.9 Lakh Overview and General Features The BYD eMAX 7 Superior is an all-electric Multi-Utility Vehicle (MUV) that offers a spacious 7-seater configuration, making it suitable for larger families or anyone requiring a high level of interior space. The model comes in four attractive colors: Quartz Blue, Cosmos Black, Crystal White, and Harbour Grey. It features a 6-year/1.5 lakh kilometers…

[b1asho]

While it's on the mind, here's my wings of fire designs too. Not as much of a brainrot but still fun. Bad take or am I cooking with some of them? Let me know in the comments. Here's some (too many) notes:

I really liked the original designs when I first read these books, but I wanted to try my hand at uhh changing them a little. Mainly making them more distinct from each other (even if this irreversibly breaks canon XD)

-Sandwings live in a mixed savannah and desert habitat and have bodies adapted for resource scarcity, effective hunting, and heat dispersion. They have large ears to help cool off and listen for stuff. They can fly, but pretty weakly in comparison to some others, mainly using flight to navigate their large territories , get onto cliffs, and scan for prey. They typically climb up somewhere and then jump off. They are built like felines, and use a solo stalk and rushdown hunting approach coupled with a sting instakill. They live in family groups, with a ‘queen’ title going to the alpha female 💪 and everyone else hunting and living together. They are immune to their own venom, which acts very similarly to a scorpion’s but in a massive dose, causing numbness, breathing difficulties seizures, and eventually death. It takes time for them to make more once they’ve expended the dose, so they rarely use it outside of hunting or life/death situations (though the prospect of being stung is very scary to everyone else, and they will instinctively raise their tail when startled or threatened)

-Skywings live in high mountainous and forested areas, with some living in the lowlands. They are powerful flyers and very acrobatic due to their tail, though this comes at the expense of their agility on land and the strength of their non wing arms. They have long legs with powerful talons for grasping prey midair or snatching them from off the ground. They hunt and live alone unless they have a partner. Communities are made up of a loose group of related individuals who rarely collect in one place at once(queendom structure are a more recent and ‘unnatural’ thing for them, but very useful for organizing military efforts and empire building). They stay aloft for long periods of time and usually only land on their cliff homes. They need a sprint or a takeoff point to get flying, though. Unlike every other tribe, they have a noticeable difference between male and female (being a nose horn and red face for males.) males are prized for these features, and having a pretty husband is seen as an attractive trait for a queen.

-Seawings live along the coast. They normally only venture out of the water for trade and other resources, since they can get everything else they need underwater. Their large neck houses gills protected by thick pads that will close when on land, while their lungs are in their mid chest. Primarily adapted to swimming, they have very strong tails and webbed fingers and toes. They will also use their wings to steer and paddle, as well as manipulate things their other arms can’t reach. They will hunt in packs, corralling fish and other animals into a kill zone. They are very clumsy on land and in the air with their short limbs and weak wings. Their bioluminescent spots can be flashed for communication, and compared to the other tribes they have pretty poor vocal ability (due to the gills in their neck getting in the way) and will supplement with other spot/sign signals. Every individual has unique spots, though their glowing ones come in consistent numbers, sizes, patterns, and places on their body so they can use them for common language across their group. However, Different groups from different parts of the ocean have different numbers of spots in different areas, making cross communication via only spots difficult. Their whiskers help navigate in close or dark areas, and are seen as a status symbol.

-Mudwings live in warmer areas, specifically marshes and other wetlands (though sometimes in some forested areas too). Their thick armor helps protect them from other mudwings/competition, while also acting as an insulator that allows them to easily venture a wider range than other tribes from warm climates. Physically, they are the strongest and bulkiest. They typically use the element of surprise and their overwhelming size and strength to take down large prey. However, unlike other tribes they tend to eat more plants too due to their large size (all of them are technically omnivores, but meat makes up the dominant part of their diet because of their energy needs and their ancestors). They are also the poorest flyers out of the bunch, having sacrificed that for size and strength, though they can do short bursts similar to a chicken to get to hard to reach areas or to surprise attack prey faster than them, they’re similar to hippos and are adapted to living in the water too, using powerful webbed arms to propel themselves and dig through the mud, and their large lung capacity to stay submerged and hidden for long periods. Their nostrils, ears, and eyes are located near the top of their head, which also gives more room for Tusks. They use these to root around occasionally defend themselves. Tusk maintenance and appearance is very important to them. They live in large groups of families in the same area and have more communal social standards than other tribes.

-Rainwings live in tropical areas and have a very small habitat range. This has caused them to look and act very different than most tribes, leading to poor perception of them. They use their long claws, strong grasping fingers, and prehensile tail to climb around, and are pretty much arboreal. They have wings meant for quick takeoffs and flight in dense areas, and are pretty agile and swift. They and aren’t that great at sustained flight or dealing with high altitudes and winds though . Their frill is delicate and used for emoting (probably originally for mating purposes) Their skin is packed with chromatophores that they can use to match their surroundings, and they have loose ridges in their skin that they can raise to enhance the effect. Their skin is constantly changing color due to their brain activity, though they have set patterns/colors for emotions and communication. They can also choose to focus on organizing their skin patterns to get coordinated colors and patterns, since normally it’s pretty disorganized. They eat a lot more plants due to their environment and due to social standards, but arent herbivores. They have the ability to spit acid out of hollow retractable fangs, and use precise shots of this coupled with their camouflage ability to get prey. They can also spray it at higher velocities for defense and offense, though this expends their supply much quicker. They don’t recognize a queen in their communities and are fairly disorganized into different cooperative groups.

-Nightwings are the result of a group that split off onto an island, though the volcanic activity on their original island escalated to the point where they had to emigrate. They are great fliers, using their wings and tail extensions to travel great distances to track prey and ambush from above. When on land, they aren’t particularly fast or strong, and instead are built for persistence. Their hunting tactic involves getting an initial bite onto prey, then waiting for it to succumb to infection. Their spines, horns, muscles, and talons are mainly for defending their kill from other Nightwings rather than hunting it in the first place. As a result of this competition, they aren’t naturally very social like other tribes, They are mainly nocturnal.

-Icewings live in the colder tundras and snowy forest environments. They are pack hunters, using their speed and persistence to take down prey, similar to wolves. Their long overlapping scales help them trap heat and survive in the cold, and while the guy i drew here is pretty skinny they also store fat much more readily than other tribes. Their bowed wings are mainly used to swoop in in prey, and like falcons they often take steep dives to grapple it. Their antlers only grow in at a certain time in the year, but royalty will wear embellished artificial ones in the meantime.

[briarpatch-kids]

My friend Tay asked me to help him teach people about the kinds of mobility aids he uses. Tay has a autism and profound intellectual disability, along with a seizure disorder and a chromosomal disease, so he can't use the same kinds of mobility aid you normally see. Not many people know about this kind of aid, so we're going to teach you!

The first aid Tay uses is called a Gait Trainer. Gait trainers are a lot like walkers, except they follow you instead of you pushing them. They're also built in a way that helps teach you to walk better when when you're not using the gait trainer. Tay's gait trainer has a saddle and straps on it to make sure that he's safe and supported. He also chose a cool green color. Gait trainers are commonly used by children who take longer to learn how to walk and people with intellectual disabilities who can't use a traditional push style walker.

Tay says his favorite part of his gait trainer is playing at the park with his friend. His friend ALSO uses a gait trainer like Tay, which is really cool.

The next kind of aid Tay uses is called an adaptive stroller. Adaptive strollers are a lot like wheelchairs, but with smaller wheels because they're made to be pushed by someone else. These are great when you're like Tay and can't figure out how to push a manual wheelchair or steer a power chair safely.  Tay's adaptive stroller, a convaid rodeo, has the same feature my powerchair has, tilt, so that he can stay comfortable and safe when he has to sit in it for a long time. There's also buckles and straps that help Tay stay in the adaptive stroller, he gets help getting the buckles and straps done. Tay says that he can even be tilted back and go to sleep while everyone else is walking when he's in his adaptive stroller!

Finally, there's the Rifton Activity Chair! Activity chairs are most often used in places like school or developmental centers because they're great for getting people up close to the table and you're able to adjust the how tall or short you want the chair. A lot of high support strollers and wheelchairs aren't able to get as close to the table, but an activity chair is made just for that! It can go up and down and some of them can even tilt closer to the table. Tay says he uses it to make snacks and play in the water table and do crafts at the developmental center he goes to, he really likes his activity chair.

Thank you Tay for helping teach us! I learned a lot while writing this, and I hope it helps a lot of people learn about what these mobility aids are and why people use them!

[pepsoui4]

Where I Want to Be

The strong willed, fierce and independent reader learns she may feel too much when Bodhi Durran is around.

I'm thinking of doing a part 2, thoughts? I need more Fourth Wing fics, cmon now!

Word count: 4,971

Warnings: sparring, unsaid feelings, threats

Part 2: https://www.tumblr.com/pepsoui4/783108795206451200/where-i-want-to-be-part-2?source=share

Part 3: https://www.tumblr.com/pepsoui4/783225952109035520/where-i-want-to-be-part-3

-

No one ever questioned why Y/N walked alone. In fact, most people seemed to prefer it that way. She wasn't the type anyone approached lightly, not with that clipped stride and expression set in practiced indifference. She carried her family name like armor: heavy, polished, and meant to intimidate. FlameWalker. It echoed in the halls of Basgiath like a warning bell. The kind of legacy that demanded perfection, that turned heat into a weapon and raised its children to burn weakness out of themselves. And she had learned early and brutally that loneliness was safer than defiance.

As Tail Section Leader of Fourth Wing and in her second year, she had eyes on her from every angle. Commandants, legacy families, her own brutal bloodline, and the cadets under her.  Her squad ran on precision. She was known for being harsh, efficient, emotionally distant. And she liked it that way. Or at least, she told herself she did. She was a model of everything her family expected. Focused. Efficient. Distant.

The FlameWalker name carried weight. Her parents, her brothers, even her distant relatives were all expected to be leaders if they weren't already. They were brutal, fanatics for purity and power. Her family’s ideology burned through generations: strength is order, order is control. 

Her reputation preceded her: sharp-tongued, fiercely independent, and unapproachable. Her lineage was synonymous with power and an unyielding disdain for marked ones. This legacy was both her shield and her shackle. Her orders were followed without debate, not because of any natural charisma, but because she didn’t tolerate questions. Legacy riders weren’t raised to be liked. They were raised to lead. Efficiently, coldly and without attachment. Of course, she had taken that lesson to heart.

She had mastered the art of isolation. She didn't make friends. She didn't laugh in public. She didn’t bother pretending to be anyone but the hard-edged girl she’d been molded into. People steered clear, not just because of her attitude nor title, but because the FlameWalker name came with rules. Written and unwritten. The most sacred of which was this: do not fraternize with the marked ones.

Her family loathed them. Those who bore the magic-stained scars of being chosen. They saw it as impure. Unnatural. A flaw, not a gift. They said marked ones were dangerous, unstable. That even the best of them were ticking bombs with smiles. She’d repeated it like scripture. Believed it, at least enough not to question it out loud. That was the line she had never stepped over. Never let herself. Her loyalty to her family was supposed to be unquestionable.

Which made her second-in-command an ongoing problem she didn’t know how to name.

Bodhi Durran, the Tail Section Executive Officer, was supposed to be a headache. At least, that’s what she expected when he was assigned to her team. Son of a rebellion leader, marked one, and a cadet known more for his sharp mouth than diplomacy. He wasn’t supposed to be competent. He wasn’t supposed to fit. And yet, somehow, he did.

He handled strategy meetings with a strange mix of intensity and humor, never missing a beat even when she threw last-minute changes at him just to test his adaptability. He pushed back when it counted, stayed quiet when it didn’t, and always seemed three steps ahead. He read people fast. Sometimes faster than she did and called out weak spots in training routines with brutal honesty and no concern for ego.

She didn’t like how much she respected him. Worse, she didn’t like how easy it was to slip into a rhythm with him.

-

There was ash in the air. Not literal, but in the way heat clung to the breath between bodies and soaked into the worn grit of the sparring mats. The sun cast long lines across the yard, catching on the shimmer of flame-marked gauntlets and the dull gleam of sweat. Y/N FlameWalker stood at the edge of the rotation lines, arms crossed, her posture as immovable as her reputation. The leathers clung to her shoulders, blackened by flame use and time, branded with the sigil of legacy and command.

Her section moved through drills under her watchful eye. Pairs locked in rhythmic strikes and counters. She’d fought harder than most to get this time slot, and even harder to keep it. The training schedule had been chaotic since the term began, with the Gauntlet looming and the Threshing yet to come. Instructors overlooked the Tail Section unless blood stained the wall. She refused to be overlooked.

She noticed everything. Every missed beat. Every falter in stance. She called them out without mercy. Because mercy didn’t forge riders. And her surname meant something. It weighed on her shoulders like a mantle woven from fire and bloodline. There was no room for softness. Not for her.

And yet lately her gaze kept drifting. Slight. Subtle. But always toward the same direction. The Marked Ones.

Not just the inked relics on their skin, but the way others reacted to them. Cold glances. Whispered judgments. Muted sneers passed like notes between cadets. She caught it more now, in the raw tension that followed someone like Imogen crossing the mats, or the way silence trailed behind Garrick’s clipped orders. She noticed it in the way first-years bristled when Liam Mairi passed—still unbonded, still observing, but already too familiar with contempt.

They didn’t deserve it, not like she did.

She had earned the disdain. With her sharp tongue and flint-edge demeanor. With a legacy family that preached loyalty to the Crown and whispered poison about rebellion behind closed doors. The disdain wasn’t new to her, it was expected. Welcome, even. She’d worn it like armor. Made people fear her before they could dismiss her.

But the Marked Ones? They bore hatred they hadn’t asked for. They trained harder than anyone, carried centuries of betrayal on their shoulders, and still showed up.

And none more vividly than Bodhi Durran.

He moved through the sparring rings like wildfire in silk. Lean, fast, sharp. He didn’t bark commands like she did. He offered sharp humor, smirks, and easy laughter. Cadets listened. Relaxed. Fought better under his guidance. He was her second-in-command, appointed as Executive Officer of Fourth Wing Tail Section at the start of second year. A Marked One. A rebel son. And the one who had, somehow, slipped under the cracks of her armor.

She never spoke to him more than required. Never gave anyone a reason to think she was softening. But she listened when he gave instruction. Watched how effortlessly he led, not with authority, but with respect earned through action.

And it burned, didn’t it? That quiet shame. That sick twist in her gut when someone muttered “traitor” as Bodhi passed. She said nothing. She never did. Not when the same words were hurled at Imogen. Or Garrick. Or even Xaden Riorson himself.

She could justify her own bitterness, her isolation. Her family had made her what she was. But the Marked Ones? They carried judgment like a noose and still walked tall.

Why did it bother her so much? She didn’t flinch when others hated her. Why was it different now?

Across the yard, Bodhi flipped a first-year flat onto the mats with effortless grace, landing in a crouch, his smirk wicked and sharp. The younger rider lay stunned, groaning, as Bodhi stood and brushed off his leathers like he hadn’t just humiliated someone in five seconds flat. The section around him went quiet. Someone behind her muttered under their breath.

“Marked bastard.”

The words hit harder than they should have. She didn’t turn. Didn’t respond. But something in her chest coiled tight. Hot. Ashen.

She told herself it didn’t matter. And still, her gaze lingered.

The hum of sparring filled the yard like a living thing. Grunts of effort, the sharp crack of palm against wrist, the scuff of boots pivoting across the mats. Y/N hadn’t moved in minutes, hadn’t spoken since assigning rotations, but her eyes were everywhere. Watching. Calculating. Measuring the potential of every fighter in her section. This was the time she’d fought tooth and claw for. Petitioned up the chain of command, argued with Wingleaders in louder wings who had dismissed Fourth Wing as the underdogs they always were. She’d earned this block of uninterrupted sparring through sheer force of will, and she would not have it squandered.

Still, even her focus couldn’t drown out the whispers.

They started like static. Low murmurs behind her right shoulder, a ripple of ill-contained amusement from two first-year cadets who thought the tail end of the mat was far enough from her line of vision. She didn’t need to turn to know who they were. She’d clocked every name, every face, and more importantly, every attitude in her section. One of them laughed, just a little too loudly. A scoff followed. Then a voice, male, smooth in the way that made her think of oily charm and the kind of confidence that came from too much privilege and too little humility.

“Cocky little rebellion rat. Figures he thinks charm makes up for dirty blood.”

The words struck something inside her. Not like a blade or a blow, but like flint against stone. A spark. Small, bright, hot. For a moment, she said nothing. Years of upbringing held her still. Don’t engage. Don’t lower yourself. Don’t defend the disloyal.

Her father’s voice again, stern and hollow: Their weakness will reveal itself. Stay above it. Stay true to the FlameWalker name.

And yet, she couldn’t unhear it. Couldn’t pretend the words hadn’t curled beneath her skin like smoke looking for a fire to feed. She hated how it lodged itself in her chest. How it burned deeper than it should have. Not because she cared what they thought of Bodhi. Not because she was soft on the Marked Ones. 

Gods no. But because it was happening in her section, under her leadership, during her time. And that she could not abide.

Her boots scraped across the mat as she moved, each step sharp, deliberate, echoing over the din of practice. Cadets turned to look. Some went still. The tension shifted like metal drawn tight. She made a beeline toward the cadet who had spoken, a broad-shouldered, golden-haired first-year with a too-white smile and the arrogant posture of someone who hadn’t been humbled yet. He straightened the moment her shadow hit his shoes, his chin twitching up in something that almost passed for pride. But his eyes gave him away.

“Repeat what you just said,” she said, her voice clipped and laced with fire.

The boy blinked, feigning confusion that didn’t suit him. “I’m sorry?”

She tilted her head ever so slightly, the motion precise as a knife drawn slow from its sheath. The section knew the look. They’d learned to fear it the first week of being under her command. “Did I stutter? Or should I assume your mouth only works when you think no one with rank is listening?”

The boy paled, lips parting uselessly before his gaze darted toward the others as if hoping someone would bail him out. None did. Her presence turned them to stone. 

“It was just a joke,” he muttered. “Didn’t mean anything by it. Just locker room talk, right?”

Gods, the weakness in his voice was an insult on its own. She arched one eyebrow, slowly, as though drawing blood with expression alone. He stumbled again under the weight of her silence.

She let the tension stretch like a bowstring, letting him squirm in the trap he’d set for himself. Then, evenly, voice cool as banked embers, she said, “Strange. Because it sounded like you were wasting the valuable sparring time I fought for us to have. Time that does not come easy for our Section. Time that Flame and Claw would never bother to share.”

Her steps brought her closer, enough that he had to tilt his head back to meet her eyes. “So tell me,” she said, almost a whisper now, the threat in her tone razor-thin and gleaming, “why are you standing here polluting the air with nonsense when you should be on the mat proving you even belong here?”

The boy opened his mouth, perhaps to defend himself, perhaps to grovel. She didn’t care.

“Get your ass on the mat,” she snapped, and shoved him. Not hard, but enough. Enough to make him stumble forward, lose his balance, and feel the full weight of the watching eyes behind him.

He caught himself, barely. Face flushed red. Mouth tight with humiliation.

She felt it. The shift in air pressure, the awareness that prickled across the back of her neck like static. She didn’t have to look to know Bodhi Durran’s eyes were on her. There was a stillness to his presence that always made her uneasy. Like he could sense the moments she didn’t mean to reveal, the cracks in her armor she kept sealed under discipline and disdain. And yet, this time, the weight of his stare held something else. Curiosity. Surprise. Amusement, maybe. The familiar glint of mischief she’d grown used to ignoring. Across the sparring yard, he stood with his arms folded in that infuriatingly relaxed posture of his, body half-angled as if he had all the time in the world to watch her unravel something in front of an audience.

Their eyes met for less than a heartbeat. Hers sharp and unreadable, his lifting slightly with unspoken commentary she refused to invite. She severed the moment before it could breathe. Turned her back to him like it meant nothing. Like he didn’t matter.

She stepped onto the sparring mat with purpose, the space still buzzing from the suddenness of her earlier command. The boy, twenty, smug, and still blinking through the sting of humiliation stood at the edge with one foot hovering just off the padded floor. He was trying to recover what little dignity he had left, trying to mask the panic behind a mask of stiff bravado. She recognized the type. Fourth Wing, Tail Section saw more than its share of would-be warriors who thought their age or height bought them power. But she’d been shaped by a bloodline where power had to be earned. And today, she was going to remind everyone that legacy alone didn’t make her dangerous.

Her boots hit the mat with a satisfying thud as she squared off. No sword. No elemental flash. Just her body, her fists, and the rhythm that had kept her alive long before she earned her dragon’s flame. She bounced lightly on her toes, shoulders loose, her stance coiled and exact. There was a violence to her stillness, something that promised consequence in the smallest of shifts. She fought like a boxer, light on her feet and heavy in her hands, and she’d never needed brute strength to dominate. Precision was her weapon. Timing, her blade.

The boy hesitated as he stepped in. His pride begged him to make a move, to reclaim control of the situation she’d shattered. But his instincts screamed retreat. She saw it in his shoulders, the tension drawn too tight, his balance a second too slow. He was already lost.

“Come on,” she taunted, voice low and confident, her mouth curling into a slow, cruel smile as she gestured him forward with a single curled finger. “Let’s see if you’re as fast with your hands as you are with your mouth.”

It was the final shove. He lunged, heavy and forward, his form all aggression and no thought. He came in hard, trying to overpower, trying to silence the shame with force. He was too loud. Too slow. Too easy.

She pivoted cleanly to the side, her weight already shifting into the next step before his foot fully planted. Her left hand caught his wrist mid-strike, her right sweeping behind his knee in one swift motion. The world flipped beneath him. The mat met him with a brutal, satisfying thud. He didn’t even have time to register the fall before the breath was knocked from his lungs.

She was already standing over him and not even winded.

The entire section had gone silent, the kind of silence that sinks deep into skin. She didn’t bask in it. Didn’t milk the moment. But she felt it, how the tension warped into something else. Respect. Fear. She crouched slowly, letting her eyes lock onto his, and the boy so smug just minutes before couldn’t even meet her gaze.

“If you can’t fight with respect,” she spat, her voice loud enough the entire crowd could hear, especially Bodhi. “you’re not just a coward. You’re useless.”

She straightened and stepped back without ceremony, walking off the mat with precise, grounded steps, her back straight, her chin high. She didn’t look at Bodhi again. Wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. But she felt his gaze still lingering, sharp and searching. Not mocking like the others. No smirk now.

The flush in her chest wasn’t from exertion. It was something else entirely. Something she wasn’t ready to name.

-

The archives were near-empty at this hour, which was exactly how she liked it. The sun had long since dipped behind the mountains. The halls of Basgiath quiet now, save for the occasional laughter drifting from the dining hall or the far-off echo of boots on stone. Most riders used Friday nights for blowing off steam. Drinking, sparring, or finding warm bodies to forget how brutal their days had been.

Not her.

She was curled into a deep armchair in the back right corner of the Archives. A thick leather-bound volume resting in her lap, her boots planted firmly on the seat. The overhead light cast a warm halo on the open pages, tactical strategy layouts for Gauntlet formations and squad combat drills. She read them not for the first time. Markings lined the margins in her narrow, sharp script. Even now, her brow furrowed as she revised a rough plan for the following week’s maneuvers.

Her body ached from training, her knuckles still raw from striking the mat too hard earlier that day, but she didn’t notice. Not really. Pain was a constant. It was the silence she needed. Space to think, to plan. Being section leader was more than commanding a ring. It was shaping the squad beneath her into something stronger, smarter, and worthy of surviving.

So she didn’t notice him at first. Not until the chair beside her shifted slightly with weight and warmth, and the unmistakable scent of worn leather and wind-touched pine cut through her focus.

Bodhi. Of course it was him.

She didn’t look up, not right away. She stayed rigid, her eyes tracking the same sentence twice on the page, even as the air around her shifted.

He didn’t speak for a moment. Just leaned back, a little too comfortably. As if this had been his plan all along. He didn’t look like someone who spent the day getting flung around mats or thrown under whispered insults. No, Bodhi looked maddeningly at ease. His arm rested against the side of the chair they now shared space between, closer than he normally sat in group briefings or training discussions. Close enough she could feel the heat of him through her sleeve, though she was certain he’d act like he didn’t notice.

Then, finally, his voice cut softly through the quiet, threaded with amusement. “Didn’t think you were the type to go feral in defense of a disgraceful rebellion rat.”

Her eyes didn’t lift from the page, but her lip twitched. “I did no such thing.”

“No?” he drawled, and she could hear the grin in his voice. “Because it looked a whole lot like justice to me.”

“I was defending the sparring slot I nearly dislocated a shoulder to win from Claw Section. I’m not in the business of babysitting egos, especially not yours.”

He chuckled, low and warm, and it slid down her spine like a touch she wasn’t prepared for. “Ah. So I’m just an unfortunate footnote in your schedule, then?”

“Exactly.”

“And here I was thinking I owed you my life,” he said, teasing. “Or at least a drink.”

She finally looked up, eyes narrowed but calm, meeting his gaze full-on. His face was unfairly handsome in the dim light. Shadowed in all the right places, mischief softening into something sincere just beneath the surface. He didn’t look like someone baiting her for fun. He looked grateful, curious and a little too close.

She leaned back slightly, if only to collect herself. Her voice was softer when she replied. “You want to thank me for doing my job, Bodhi? Then show up tomorrow with a section plan that doesn’t involve you charming half the recruits into slacking off.”

“That’s a lot of words for you’re welcome,” he said, and smiled. An actual cheek splitting smile, not the cocky slant he wore during training. This one was softer. Real.

She hated that it made her heartbeat hiccup.

He leaned back, his hand brushing the armrest between them like he wasn’t thinking about it, but of course he was. Bodhi never did anything without calculation. He was all casual grace and practiced unpredictability. But tonight, here, beside her, quiet and still? It felt different. The teasing was still there, sure. But beneath it, a thread of sincerity curled like steam between them.

“You didn’t have to do anything,” he said after a moment, quieter now. “I’ve heard worse. Ignoring it would’ve been easier.”

She looked at him again, and this time she didn’t hide the tension in her jaw. “It’s not any easier. It’s about standards. Mine. And theirs.”

“You still didn’t deny it,” he murmured.

She gave him a flat stare. “If you’re looking for some kind of poetic confession, Durran, go find a scribe.”

His laugh was soft, but it lingered. She didn’t push him away. Didn’t shift to reclaim the space between them. For once, it felt earned. Like the silence meant something other than avoidance. Like maybe he wasn’t the only one trying to make sense of a shift that had already begun.

“I don’t need a confession,” he said after a long beat. “Just wanted to say it meant something more. Coming from you.”

She didn’t respond. Not right away. Her gaze drifted back to the pages in her lap, the words now blurred by thoughts she wasn’t ready to face. She didn’t do vulnerability. Didn’t know how to receive that kind of thing without burning a hole in her chest.

But she didn’t push him away, either. And she didn’t ask him to leave.

Instead, she turned a page she hadn’t finished reading, more out of habit than focus. Her eyes flicked down the line of text, but nothing stuck. Not the formation pattern. Not the movement analysis. Not a single godsdamned word.

Bodhi was still watching her.

And not in the usual way. The way men looked when they were calculating, when they were peeling back armor to find a weakness to press. No, Bodhi’s gaze wasn’t hungry or cruel. It was maddening in its patience. Soft, even. Like he was waiting for her to stop pretending this wasn’t affecting her.

She hated that it was affecting her. “I told you,” she muttered, voice clipped as she flipped the page again. “It wasn’t about you.”

He didn’t buy it. Of course he didn’t. Bodhi never accepted the first answer. He always peeled back the first layer, then the second, until whatever was left stood naked in the light. She’d seen him do it with recruits in training, even with instructors..

But it was different when it was her.

“Right,” he said, drawing the word out just enough to make it irritating. “Totally unrelated. You stormed across the yard and knocked a first-year flat on his ass just to defend, what? Scheduling?”

She didn’t respond as her jaw twitched.

“And that little speech about respect?” he continued, tilting his head as if he were genuinely pondering it. “Sounded real personal. Almost like you gave a damn.”

“I give a damn about structure. And cohesion. And not letting entitled little bastards poison the section I’m responsible for.”

He leaned forward slightly, close enough now that she could smell the salt of dried sweat clinging to his collar, the worn scent of leather and something just undeniably him. He rested one arm along the top of her chair and smirked, but his voice softened.

“Come on, FlameWalker. You’re not fooling me.”

She hated the way her breath caught at the sound of her name on his tongue. Not sneered, not barked. Spoken like it meant something more than the legend wrapped around it. Like it was hers and not her family's.

She glared at him, forcing her voice not to waver. “And what exactly do you think I was doing, Bodhi? Hiding a secret crush under all that righteous fury?”

His smile spread, crooked and utterly infuriating. “Nah. I think you’re uncomfortable with the idea that you care. That somewhere between hating my guts and tolerating me as your executive officer, I stopped being a Marked One to you. Started being something else.”

Her lips parted, words on the verge of forming but none came. And gods, he saw it. Saw the flicker of uncertainty in her eyes. The war she waged against herself in the space of one breath. The way she turned her face slightly as if it would shield her from how exposed she suddenly felt.

“You really are an arrogant bastard,” she said instead, but it lacked venom. It was breathy, uneven. Off her rhythm.

Bodhi leaned in just a hair, his voice low and teasing, but softer now like he knew exactly what line he was walking and liked it.

“And yet here you are. Letting me sit too close. Not barking orders. Not flinching when I get under your skin.” He paused. “Kind of sweet, actually.”

That broke her. Her head snapped to him, eyes sharp with disbelief. “Sweet?”

He grinned, eyes gleaming. “Admit it. You’re going soft.”

“Don’t push your luck, Durran.”

He laughed, full and bright, and something inside her cracked a little further under the sound. Because it wasn’t cruel. It wasn’t mocking. It was honest.

“Too late.”

She hated how the edges of her mouth betrayed her. How she almost smiled. How her fingers clenched around the book in her lap, grounding herself in something tactile, because otherwise she might have leaned into him.

The heat was crawling up her neck now. Slow, traitorous, and unmistakable. She shifted slightly in her seat, fingers tightening around the edge of the book in her lap like it might anchor her back into herself. Back into control. She’d mastered a thousand ways to shut people out. A hundred more to bury what they made her feel. But Bodhi was like water slipping through cracks. Always finding the places she didn’t guard. 

She tilted the book upward, hiding behind it even though she wasn’t reading anymore, hadn’t been for several minutes now. Her voice was steadier when she said, “Shouldn’t you be off charming someone else by now? It’s a Friday night. I’m sure there’s at least three first-years still breathless from watching you fight.”

Bodhi didn’t laugh this time. He didn’t tease. He just stayed where he was. His arm still draped across the back of her chair, his shoulder warm beside hers, his presence steady and unshakable. “I’m exactly where I want to be,” he said simply.

The words struck deeper than she wanted them to. No clever tone. No sarcasm. Just honesty, dropped like a pebble into a still pond, rippling through her ribcage in places that had been untouched for far too long.

She lowered the book again, turning her head just enough to look at him out of the corner of her eye and finally closing it. He was watching her again, but the grin had faded into something gentler now. Open, but not demanding. Patient, but not waiting for her to be anything other than what she was.

And gods, that was worse because she knew how to fight insults. Knew how to command, how to discipline, how to dominate a sparring mat. But this? This quiet kind of softness? She didn’t know what to do with it. She didn’t know what to do with him.

“You’re insufferable,” she said again, but this time it was barely a whisper. There was no bite to it. Just breath and uncertainty.

“And yet you haven’t told me to leave,” he replied, voice barely louder than hers.

She opened her mouth to deny it, to say something sharp, to retreat behind the armor that always worked. But it didn’t come. Her breath caught instead. Her lips closed around nothing. And her heart betrayed her with a single, quiet truth: She didn’t want him to go.

He seemed to feel it too. That final surrender she didn’t speak aloud. “Then you better make yourself useful, Durran.” She sighed, rolling her eyes in faux annoyance. 

He shifted slightly, and without a word, he leaned just a little closer. Not enough to press, not enough to crowd but enough for his shoulder to brush hers, warm and solid and real. They sat like that for a long while. The silence between them wasn’t tense anymore. It had softened into something fragile and tentative. Something sacred. She kept her eyes forward, but every inch of her was aware of him beside her. Of how still he was now. Of how he didn’t need to say anything else. He just stayed.

And for once, she didn’t push him away. She let herself breathe. Let herself exist in the quiet without flinching from it.

[rifari2037]

They talked about cultural differences?? Really??? I laughed so hard 🤣

Do they realised that air and water are different too?? That their cultural are completely opposite???

Water tribe people killed animals for food, furniture, clothes, etc. That's their culture! Air nomads don't killed animals, even a fly, for any reasons, they're vegetarian. That's their culture!!

There's nothing wrong with both cultures, but if we think about it with sense, can two people with extreme cultural differences marry and accept each other's cultures easily?

No, it won't be easy. Katara and Aang got married without any problems about cultural differences because Bryke were the writers!

Do they know that Aang/Kataang stand was aware about it and wrote this???

Do they even realise that in canon Aang doesn't really like Water Tribe culture?? Yes, that's CANON!!

Katara : Bato, it looks like home! [Bato, Katara, Sokka, and Aang file inside.] Sokka : Everything's here, even the pelts! Aang : [Sarcastically.] Yeah, nothing's cozier than dead animal skins.

Katara : [Surprised and delighted.] No way! Stewed sea prunes! Bato : Help yourself! Sokka : Dad could eat a whole barrel of these things! Aang takes a bowl of stewed sea prunes and sniffs it, but looks away in disgust and sets it to the side.

Aang : Hey everyone! Sorry I was gone so long. Katara : [Turns to face him.] Hey, Aang, I didn't notice you left. Aang : Yup, but now I'm back. [Sitting down.] Sure could go for some delicious sea prunes! Aang quickly takes some bites of sea prunes, but chokes them back up, yet he pretends to enjoy them. Katara, Bato, and Sokka look at him strangely.

Hama : I wanted to surprise you! I bought all this food today so I could fix you a big Water Tribe dinner. Of course, I can't get all the ingredients I need here, but ocean kumquats are a lot like sea prunes if you stew them long enough. Aang : [Sticking his tongue out in disgust.] Great!

Aang : [Whispering to Toph.] I'd steer clear of the sea prunes. Toph : I thought they were ocean kumquats. Aang : Close enough.

Oh, btw, An ocean kumquat is a small, round fruit often consumed in the Fire Nation. That's close enough with sea prunes, water tribe cuisine.

When Aang doesn't like water tribe cuisine, I can imagine Zuko and Katara having dinner, sharing water tribe and fire nation dishes and they enjoying it because it taste similar. 😂

Fire and water are the opposite elements, that's why they are compliment each other.

Yin and Yang shows a balance between two opposites with a portion of the opposite element in each section.

Remember what Iroh said about the elements? Let's see if fire and water don't mix together, especially for Zuko and Katara.

"Fire is the element of power..."

"...The people of the Fire Nation have desire and will, and the energy and drive to achieve what they want."

"Water is the element of change..."

"...The people of the Water Tribe are capable of adapting to many things..."

"...They have a deep sense of community and love that holds them together through anything."

Young Zuko : [Zuko is shown standing up.] You can't sacrifice an entire division like that! Those soldiers love and defend our nation! How can you betray them?

Zuko and Katara would bicker and not get along well, they said?? Really??

Every time Katara is mad, Zuko just silent and listen to her. Even when they're still enemies!!

Oh, btw, Katara not 'always' threatened Zuko to kill him if he hurt Aang. It happened once. She is still mad at him not because of Aang, but because he betrayed her.

That's personal to her, she is mad not because he hurt someone else but he hurt her. I mean, if she really mad at him because of Aang, why is she connected her anger at Zuko to her mom, not Aang (again)?

And after this moment, after Katara by her own choice, forgives Zuko, do Zuko and Katara always bickering and not get along at all??? No, they're not!!

Zuko gives Katara advice, Katara listens. Katara gives Zuko advice, Zuko listens.

They reassure each other at a very important moment.

Lastly, I don't understand how Zuko and Katara, who they said would never get along, always save each other lives, even Zuko sacrifice his life to her?

[selenepsyche]

Using Your VPC as a Relocation Chart: Uranus in the Houses

VPC = Vertex Persona Chart. In a birth chart, the vertex is a point in the chart that represents fated situations and encounters. Persona charts offer deeper looks into the placements in our birth charts, to get a better understanding of other placements besides the sun. You can use your vertex persona chart as a relocation chart to see what you are meant to experience in certain locations!

Using Your Vertex Persona Chart as a Relocation Chart

Sun Moon Mercury Venus Mars Jupiter Saturn Neptune Pluto North Node

Uranus in the 1st House

In this location, you may have a unique change in your identity. You may be driven to radically change your appearance, lifestyle, or how you present yourself to others. You will be forced to express your authenticity more boldly, even if it shocks people. Sudden changes in self-perception can happen here, pushing you to be visionary. Here, you'll live as your true, unfiltered self, but it could create a feeling of being misunderstood.

Uranus in the 2nd House

In this location, you may earn money through more unconventional means or experience financial ups and downs that force you to steer away from rigid attachments. You'll be taught that true security comes from within, not external possessions. It can also spark a revolution in your value system, aligning you with humanitarian or futuristic ideas about wealth.

Uranus in the 3rd House

In this location, your thoughts may become quicker and creative. You might suddenly find yourself writing, teaching, or speaking in innovative ways. You could also connect with more forward-thinking communities. This is a location for mental breakthroughs and learning that doesn't follow a traditional path.

Uranus in the 4th House

In this location, you might constantly change living situations, feel restless at home, or experience sudden family revelations. This is a place that can uproot you in order to help you find a truer sense of belonging. Healing family trauma will also be a major theme. Your home may end up feeling like a unique sanctuary, or it may become a site of major personal awakenings.

Uranus in the 5th House

In this location, you may be drawn to avant-garde art, unusual romantic dynamics, or revolutionary forms of self expression. Love can strike like lightning here, but it may not always be stable. Your inner child will crave freedom and experimentation. Here, you're meant to play outside the lines and create from a place of originality, not societal expectation.

Uranus in the 6th House

In this location, work, health, and routines could become unstable yet innovative. You might find it stressful and burdening to work a casual 9-5 job and will want to seek alternative careers or do freelance work. Your service to others is meant to be unconventional and groundbreaking. Staying flexible, adaptable, and detached from rigid systems is important here.

Uranus in the 7th House

In this location, your close relationships are destined to be electric, unpredictable, and growth-oriented. You may meet unconventional partners, or experience sudden beginnings or endings in relationships. Partnerships could challenge you to let go of outdated patterns and learn how to balance individuality with connection.

Uranus in the 8th House

In this location, powerful spiritual awakenings could occur around sexual intimacy, finances, psychic abilities, and spirituality. You might experience sudden gains or losses that force you to face your fears and old habits. Spiritual rebirths will happen here often, and relationships could feel karmic and intense.

Uranus in the 9th House

In this location, you may be drawn to futuristic and unconventional teachings, revolutionary spiritual systems, or radical political ideologies. Traveling or studying in this location could completely change your worldview. You'll be called to think bigger, challenge outdated views, and push humanity forward through your wisdom. Traditional education or religion often feel too confining in this place as well.

Uranus in the 10th House

In this location, your career and public image will undergo unexpected shifts. You'll be pushed to pursue a path that is authentic and trailblazing. Fame or recognition could come suddenly. You're destined to be a disruptive force in your industry. Bosses or coworkers could clash with your need for autonomy. This is a place to lead the future.

Uranus in the 11th House

In this location, your social life, community involvement, and long term dreams are infused with radical innovation. Friendships formed here may feel like a soul tribe. You'll be drawn to humanitarian causes, tech movements, or unique social spaces. But, friends could come and go unexpectedly. Your hopes and goals could shift quickly, but ultimately, this location aligns you with greater collective revolutions. It's where you discover that part of your destiny is tied to a larger awakening for humanity.

Uranus in the 12th House

In this location, you may experience prophetic dreams or visions, or spiritual downloads. Isolation or retreat could be important for integrating these important spiritual changes. You'll be called to break free from karmic limitations and find freedom through inner change. Healing ancestral trauma, learning about dream symbolism, and uncovering hidden truths are major themes here.

Thank you for reading! If you have questions, comment them below! Only one more planet to go, which is Pluto!

dividers: @cafekitsune pictures: Pinterest

© selenepsyche - All Rights Reserved

[bestanimal]

Round 3 - Reptilia - Sphenisciformes

(Sources - 1, 2, 3, 4)

Our next order of birds are the Sphenisciformes, which contain one family, Spheniscidae, commonly called “penguins”.

Penguins are one of the most aquatic birds, highly adapted for life at sea. About half of their life is spent on land, while the other half is spent in the ocean. They are flightless, with wings modified into flippers for swimming. Their feathers are very dense, which help to both insulate the birds in cold water and trap a layer of air to ensure buoyancy. They can drink salt water because their supraorbital gland filters excess salt from the bloodstream, which is then excreted in a concentrated fluid from their nasal passages. On land, penguins either waddle on their feet or slide on their bellies across the snow while using their feet to propel and steer themselves. They also jump with both feet together if they want to move more quickly or cross steep or rocky terrain. Most penguins feed on krill, fish, squid, and other forms of sea life which they catch and swallow whole while swimming, using a spiny tongue and powerful jaws to grip their slippery prey. They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere; only one species, the Galápagos Penguin (Spheniscus mendiculus), is found north of the Equator. Larger penguins generally inhabit colder regions, while smaller penguins inhabit regions with temperate or tropical climates.

Penguins mostly breed in large colonies, the exceptions being the Yellow-eyed Penguin (Megadyptes antipodes) and Fiordland Penguin (Eudyptes pachyrhynchus). Penguin colonies may range in size from as few as 100 to as many as several hundred thousand, depending on species. Penguins form monogamous pairs for a breeding season, though the rate the same pair recouples the next year varies. Penguins lay one to two eggs in a clutch. Both parents share incubation duties, with the exception of the Emperor Penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri) (image 1), where the male does it all. Incubation shifts can last days and even weeks as one member of the pair feeds at sea. Penguin eggs are smaller than any other bird species when compared proportionally to the weight of the parent birds, but the shell is thick and the yolk is large. Some yolk may remain when the chick hatches, helping to sustain the chick if their parent is delayed in returning with food.

Penguins evolved in the Early Paleocene, around 62 million years ago. There is molecular evidence of an even earlier origin, in the Late Cretaceous.

Propaganda under the cut:

Penguins are named after the Great Auk (Pinguinus impennis), a now extinct, flightless shorebird. “Penguin” was the Spanish, Portuguese, and French name for the species. When European explorers saw what are today known as penguins in the Southern Hemisphere, they noticed their similar appearance to the Great Auk of the Northern Hemisphere and named them after this bird, although they are not closely related.

A group of penguins on land is called a “waddle”, and a group of penguins in the water is a “raft”.

The largest living penguin is the Emperor Penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri) (image 1). On average, adult Emperor Penguins are about 1.1 m (3 ft 7 in) tall and weigh 35 kg (77 lb).

Emperor Penguins are the world's deepest-diving birds. They can dive to depths of approximately 550 meters (1,804 feet) while searching for food.

The Emperor Penguin is able to control blood flow to their extremities, reducing the amount of blood that gets cold, but still keeping the extremities from freezing. In the extreme cold of the Antarctic winter, female Emperor Penguins are at sea fishing for food, leaving the males to brave the weather. Males often huddle together to keep warm and rotate positions to make sure that each penguin gets a turn in the centre of the heat pack.

When Emperor Penguin mothers lose a chick, they sometimes attempt to "steal" another mother's chick, usually unsuccessfully as other females in the vicinity assist the defending mother in keeping her chick.

The smallest penguin species is the Little Blue Penguin (Eudyptula minor) (image 3), also known as the Fairy Penguin, which stands around 30–33 cm (12–13 in) tall and weighs 1.2–1.3 kg (2.6–2.9 lb).

Some prehistoric penguin species were as large as humans, with the largest known being Kumimanu fordycei, which reached an estimated weight of 148–159.7 kg (326.3-352 lbs).

Gentoo Penguins (Pygoscelis papua) are the fastest underwater birds in the world. They are capable of reaching speeds up to 36 km (22.4 miles) per hour while searching for food or escaping from predators. They are also able to dive to depths of 170–200 meters (558-656 feet).

Around one in 50,000 penguins (of most species) are born with brown rather than black plumage. These are called isabelline penguins. Isabellinism is different from albinism. Isabelline penguins tend to live shorter lives than normal penguins as they are not well-camouflaged in the ocean, and are often passed over as mates.

Domestic Dogs preyed upon penguins while they were allowed in Antarctica during the age of early human exploration as sled dogs, but dogs have long since been banned from Antarctica.

Penguins had a popularity boom in the early 2000s, retaining a decade long chokehold on the media. There was rarely a year without a penguin-related movie in theaters, ranging from the animated jukebox musical “Happy Feet”, to the animated mockumentary “Surf’s Up”, to the brutally real documentary “March of the Penguins.”

The children’s book “And Tango Makes Three”, is an adaptation of the true story of a homosexual pair of Chinstrap Penguins (Pygoscelis antarcticus) at the Central Park Zoo. The male penguins were given an egg to hatch after they were observed showing courtship behavior and trying to incubate a rock. The practice of giving an egg to homosexual penguin (and other bird) pairs has been repeated in other zoos. Tango, their surrogate daughter, went on to form a relationship with a female penguin. “And Tango Makes Three” is one of the most banned books in America.

Penguins of many species have been impacted by oil spills across the Southern Hemisphere, but none so much as the critically endangered African Penguin (Spheniscus demersus) (image 4). Many oil spills have hit the African Penguin breeding colonies, but the most famous was on June 23, 2000, when the iron ore tanker MV Treasure sank between Robben Island and Dassen Island, South Africa. It released 400–1,000 tonnes of fuel oil, causing an unprecedented coastal bird crisis and oiling 19,000 adult penguins at the height of the best breeding season on record for this then vulnerable species. The oiled birds were brought to an abandoned train repair warehouse in Cape Town to be cared for. An additional 19,500 un-oiled penguins were removed from Dassen Island and other areas before they could become oiled and were released about 800 kilometres east of Cape Town. This gave workers enough time to clean up the oiled waters and shores before the birds could complete their long swim home (which took the penguins between one and three weeks). Tens of thousands of volunteers from around the world helped with the rescue and rehabilitation process, which was overseen by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) and the South African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB) and took more than three months to complete. This was the largest animal rescue event in history. More than 91% of the penguins were successfully rehabilitated and released: an amazing feat that could not have been accomplished without such a tremendous international response. The wild penguins are unfortunately still under threat from oil spills, as well as competition with fisheries. They were listed as critically endangered in 2024, with the remaining mature individuals numbering around 19,800 birds in a declining population. However, thanks to the tremendous rehab effort, it was discovered that African Penguins did very well in captivity, and a collaborative breeding program exists to ensure an assurance population.

African Penguins are not even the rarest penguins in the world. The endangered Yellow-eyed Penguin (Megadyptes antipodes) has experienced a significant decline over the past 20 years, with a remaining population of 2,528–3,480, owing to disease, invasive predators, and habitat loss. The endangered Galápagos Penguin (Spheniscus mendiculus) is particularly vulnerable due to its only native habitat being the Galápagos Islands. They have a decreasing population of around 1,200, owing to climate change and plastic waste pollution. Unfortunately, neither of these species has fared well in captivity, so no assurance population exists. They are all we have.

[kkumq]

꒰ঌ some saja boys x fem! reader ideas ໒꒱

disclaimer — none of these thoughts are fleshed out AT all but the saja boys literally make me so sick i had to get these out there in the form of rambles…

demon fangirl to accidental manager :: i absolutely LOVE the idea of demon!reader who usually minds her own business and tries to steer clear of gwi-ma’s schemes (protect your peace girl) accidentally stumbling upon the saja boys during one of her many trips to the human realm (she’s got a human disguise) she becomes quite enamored with them and honestly starts to watch them perform as much as she can and collect some of their merch, not realizing they are demons just like her (like i said, she’s very oblivious to what’s happening down under bc she literally does not want to deal with it AKSKKD). that is, until she sees them doing a little free fansign event, which she of course joins. she’s got her merch ready to sign and has been practicing what she wants to say as she waits for her turn. once that time comes, she’s practically shaking with excitement and everything goes really smoothly until she gets to the last member: jinu. the interaction starts off okay, but then something about the way jinu looks at her, she can tell something is off but she can’t quite put her finger on it. as she’s saying her goodbye and making her way down the stage, jinu grabs her arm and stops her in her tracks. he doesn’t say anything, but he does study her before letting her go. demon!reader doesn’t really know what to make of it, but she leaves thinking all is well. and all would be well, if not for an hour later (once the fansign ends) she is summoned to gwi-ma to be presented as the manager for a group of five she is now horribly familiar with.

rumi’s twin :: okay, i know this concept has been going around a lot, and like i’m no different (obviously), but it’s popular for a reason! this idea leans more angst than the other two on this list, given that a main part of what i was thinking is twin!reader searching for their demon dad. i think maybe she’d be grappling with the concepts of being good since she isn’t able to tap into the honmoon despite her family having multiple people able to do it. perhaps she feels like there must be something wrong with her and the only way she can find out is delving deeper into her demon side. maybe she feels like that’s all she good for, being evil and selfish and conniving because obviously she must be those things for the honmoon to “reject” her. this would talk a lot about how celine raised the girls and what that did to their psyche beyond what the movie covers. this would also lean more jinu x twin!reader than the rest of the saja boys, since it’d be like both of them healing each other, where twin!reader is able to show jinu that he isn’t his guilt and shame and jinu can show twin!reader that she doesn’t have to be this impossibly good person to matter. it would also have a lot of rumi and reader sister interactions along with the rest of the girls because i love them.

magical girl isekai :: i know that kpdh is technically a magical girl movie already, but i was thinking more so traditional magical girl!reader who’s got the frills and magic and scepters and fights like really big disgusting evil monsters on the regular. she’s mid fight when she gets transported to the world of kpop demon hunters and now suddenly she’s a popular kpop solo artist (she still has the ability to fight but it’s just adapted from her normal like magical girl powers into what is more grounded in the kpop demon hunters universe). i’m also thinking that her presence in the world shifts a lot of things since she isn’t supposed to be here which causes a lot of weird rips in the honmoon that the huntrix girls can’t explain or fix as easily as they could before. the saja boys can also feel this shift and become very intrigued by this new energy (so does gwi-ma). the whole plot would be the huntrix girls trying to get magical girl!reader back to her universe bc she’s literally ripping holes in theirs and gwi-ma ordering the saja boys to capture her and take her soul because she could be the key to how he is able to best the hunters and take over the world.

roommates :: just a fun little mini idea of like the saja boys not having a place to crash as they do their evil hot demon boy group things and so they end up following some poor human home (that’s you!), basically charming their way into crashing at her place (i can figure out the logistics later…) i just think cute to think that the saja boys are slowly learning what it means to be human through living with a human roommate!reader. lots of domestics moments, also like the saja boys go rouge and stop responding the gwi-ma’s demands and so he sends a bunch of demons her way…that hater. it’s okay, the saja boys (and huntrix girlies!) are there to save the day!

a/n — okayyy that’s all <3 thanks for reading this nonsense! idk if any of them are going to get full works bc i’ve never finished anything in my life buuuut i thought i’d put them out there to motivate me more! and please let me know what you guys think of these :OOO but i’m begging, do be kind :’) i’m just one girl who hasn’t written anything substantial in forever…

this may get proofread and edited in the future to be more readable!

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Do you have any ideas for psychological superpowers?

Writing Ideas: Psychological Superpowers

Enhanced Senses: These senses can vary from superhuman hearing and smell to microscopic vision. These powers are subtle, but they can be life-changing. Characters who have mastered their enhanced senses can usually avoid the added distractions or temptation to be a snoop.

Cosmic Awareness: An overwhelming knowledge and understanding of the universe. Such a complete understanding of time and space can threaten almost anyone's sanity. However, it is a gift that exceeds even the power of the Infinity Stones. It is a reliable form of intuitive precognition and lets its beneficiaries steer the course of events if they can filter the nearly infinite knowledge pouring into their minds. However, powerful villains like What If…?'s Infinity Ultron have shown that Cosmic Awareness in the wrong hands can also be incredibly dangerous.

Hypnosis: The ability to make suggestions to the subconscious of others. The user can put others in a trance, making them highly suggestible and allowing the user to affect or directly influence their minds to their commands.

Marine Telepathy: On the surface, it simply allows Aquaman the opportunity to communicate with a wider variety of their undersea subjects. When held under a microscope, however, marine telepathy means he and similar heroes have near-full command over every being and beast that calls the ocean their home. Apart from monstrous creatures like ferocious sharks or towering krakens, there is also an endless supply of smaller, often minuscule sea life that can pack just as much of a punch.

Mind Control: Ability to bend another person's will. It tends to bring out the absolute worst in those who are capable of wielding it for themselves.

Omnilingualism: The ability to immediately understand and be able to communicate in any language. It affords ease of communication and allows for open access to cultures and concepts that might otherwise be cut off completely. This is especially important for mutantkind, as Cypher is the only one of their kind who can truly commune with the living nation they inhabit. It simply makes the worlds that the gods lord over that much easier to navigate.

Photographic Reflexes: This ability is similar to eidetic memory, which allows people to recall any detail or scene from their memory with perfect clarity.

Precognition: The “knowledge of a future event or situation, especially through extrasensory means.” It is closely associated with telepathy.

Telepathy: The ability to “communicate between minds by some means other than sensory perception.” Tele- means “distance” or “transmission over a distance” (think television). The -pathy part of the word means “feeling, sensitivity, or perception.”

Telekinesis: Also known as psychokinesis, “the ability to move or deform inanimate objects with the mind”. The -kinesis part of the word means “movement, activity,” from Greek kī́nēsis.

Examples

Characters with the power of cosmic awareness: 

Uatu the Watcher

Metron

Captain Mar-Vell, and his children Genis-Vell and Phyla-Vell

What If…?'s Infinity Ultron

Characters with the power of enhanced senses: 

Daredevil's radar

Spider-Man's spider sense

Superman

Wolverine

Characters with the power of hypnosis: 

Charma (DC Comics)

Dr. Orwell (A Series of Unfortunate Events)

The Doctor (Doctor Who)

Characters with the power of marine telepathy: 

Animal Man

Aquaman

Aqualad

Characters with the power of mind control: 

Poison Ivy

Charles Xavier

Zebediah Killgrave aka The Purple Man

Characters with the power of omnilingualism: 

Cypher

For heroes such as Thor and

Beta Ray Bill, who are imbued with divine power, this comes in the form of Allspeak, which comes as a sign and symptom of their godhood.

Characters with the power of photographic reflexes: 

Marvel's Taskmaster have made great use of their ability to replicate any move or skill with photographic reflexes.

This adaptation of the ability is similar to DC's Prometheus, who used recorded footage and an advanced computer program to learn and master the Justice League's moves so he could counter them.

Characters with the power of precognition: 

Legion (alias of David Haller) from Marvel Comics

Spider-Girl/Spider-Woman (alias of May Parker) from Marvel Comics

The classic example of precognition is Spider-Man’s “spidey senses.” When they start tingling, he knows something is up.

Characters with the power of telepathy: 

Professor X (Charles Xavier) from Marvel Comics

Marvel Girl (alias of Jean Grey) from Marvel Comics

White Queen (alias of Emma Frost) from Marvel Comics

Characters with the power of telekinesis: 

Raven from Teen Titans

Dr. Strange from Marvel Comics 

Captain Britain (alias of Betsy Braddock) from Marvel Comics

Sources: 1 2 3 ⚜ More: Notes & References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

Writing Notes: Superhero Fiction

Worksheet Example: Fantasy World Building (see section on Magic)

Mind Control Tropes ⚜ Magic Systems & Creating Your Own

You can find more examples for inspiration in the sources. Hope this helps with your writing!

[acronym49]

My takes on the Wof tribes!!

Skywings: Fast efficient hunters of mountain terrain. They have a much higher stomach acidity, allowing them to digest bone and neutralize bacteria that would be dangerous to other tribes. Wings claws have hooked talons to make it easier to cling to sheer rock faces (or the palace walls even), where they sometimes like to sleep. Pupils are round, and there's a ring of bone that keeps the eyes sharp and prevents shape warping with age. Fastest fliers, but not the longest fliers.

Icewings: A combination of cute and elegance, soft and sharpness. Wide spread paws to disperse weight on snow, with thick hollow fur that traps in heat. Horns are some of the most decorative, used for display or battle. Fur color can range between pure white, or even mottled darker greys to blend in with the taiga forest of their lower territory. They have good endurance and extremely keen senses, as well as a built in tolerance to excessive light.

Nightwings: Steathy both in air and on land. Paws are adapted specifically to be silent, as they are ambush hunters. Eyes have the strongest night vision of any tribe, but can be sensitive to daylight. Wing feathers are fringed for silent flight, as well as the tail fans and tip. Fur is lightweight but warm, as they were originally built to live in the tundra forests between the Ice Kingdom and Sand Kingdom. Very long canine teeth, they like to haul prey up into trees to eat.

Sandwings: Long- legged and extremely opportunistic. They use a mixture of fur and scales to keep cool air in and warm air out, which is used also to keep the warmth in for the cool nights. Paw pads are thickly furred to create a barrier between skin and hot sand. Despite being efficient fliers, a lot of Sandwings prefer to chase their prey on foot, a task aided by their long legs and tail. Wings are the longest of all the tribes, broad in shape and used for soaring on thermal currents when the ground is too hot.

Mudwings: Semi-aquatic, with an incredible bite force. Their frills are surprisingly thick and sturdy, able to huld up well against bites or piercing. Paws and wing claws are both webbed for movement in water. Their wings are similar to Rainwings, being broad and eliptical, but lean more towards heron wings than that of a harpy eagle. Can hold their breath for up to an hour, and host many whiskers to feel for prey in murky water. Lips have small dotted pores that pick up electromagnetic currents for this same purpose. Bite force is one to be reckoned with.

Seawings: Heavily adapted to water, but still surprisingly efficient on land. Their running speed is still just as good as other tribes, even a little on the fast end. Their head and body are all streamlined, skin covered in tiny toothlike scales to keep them sturdy yet swift. Numerous fins, with two on either side for stability and steering, and a powerful fluked tail. Wings are considerably flexible as they close nearly flush to the body when swimming.

Rainwings: Masters of camoflauge and color. Frills on the back, neck, and tail are all very thin, with moveable spines connecting them. These frills are moved in a natural wave formation to mimic shifting leaves while hiding. Their paws and wing claws are nimble yet deceptively strong, the hooks are able to support nearly the entire weight of the dragon. They have both sensory whiskers and modified whiskers for decoration, as well as heat pits to detect other lifeforms. With this, hiding rainwings can lower their temperature to not be found. Colors are usually only for decoration or camo, so it's common to see lots of contrast and variety in the villages.

[valyrfia]

You haven’t pissed me off, strangers online don't have that power. But in other words, you can't actually answer the question. I just genuinely thought you had an opinion based on facts and not just "compilations of past world champions saying so" and "he's my favorite therefore he's the most talented", and I wanted to know that it was.

Also, nobody is surprised you're a Charles main, I think that's why majority of us follow you. It’s not like you try to hide it, which you shouldn't - nobody should hide who their favorite is.

He is my favourite therefore he's the most talent, daghe Charles Forza Ferrari etc., but I digress.

To give a slightly more fleshed out answer, Charles had a more difficult start to his career whereas Max's way in karting and the lower formulae was paved with money and the connections of his dad. The Monaco of it all hides Charles' upbringing but they were essentially a very middle class family that just happened to live in a rich country, whereas money was of no concern for Max's family. Yes Charles used the living in Monaco of it all to his advantage for connections, but his family ran out of money a lot when he was karting, and he had to take on sponsors quite early on, and money is a MASSIVE part of success in the route to F1, so I take karting stats with more of a pinch of salt because the winner is more likely to be based on familial income (which is why I kind of wish we could put Esteban Ocon in a top car just to see something.....but I digress). I think Max fans tend to gloss over this privilege a lot of the time in conversations because Jos yes is a POS but Max still had one of the best launchpads of anyone on the grid.

Re: them into F1. I do want to put them in equal machinery just to see something, and I WISH we had gotten Max F3/F2 seasons just for a more direct comparison, I think the closest comparison we maybe have is 2019, before Mattia Binotto got his grubby hands over too much and we got nerfed. Sure there's Austria, which Max won, but immediately after then there's also Silverstone, which is a h2h that Charles won.

And then we entered the Horrors era which we're still suffering through, meanwhile red bull have given Max a car capable of winning WDCs, so all comparison falls apart. But it's little things that makes me think and believe in the talent narrative, Charles' tyre-saving masterclass at Suzuka last year that flew under the radar, followed by his VERY famous one at Monza, the only other driver who tried to pull off drives like that got disqualified (RIP George Russell) and while Max can save tyres, he's not quite as good at it as Charles is. Same with adapting to the car, Max needs a car with a pointy front and he's gotten pretty much that all throughout his career, Charles on the other hand has had to drive all sorts of shitboxes, understeer, no-steers, tyre-munchers, etc. and really makes up that extra difference to pull cars kicking and screaming to where they don't belong. I will concede we're seeing more of that with Max this year too, the RB21 has no business being on pole, but "Charles Leclerc and inshallah" is a widespread joke for a very good reason. I have the data to believe that Charles is a more adaptable driver.

Finally I rely and trust the words of former WDCs, almost all of which have said that Charles is the most talented driver they've ever met. I'm using past WDCs as sources and benchmarks because I think they know better than the rest of us what all of that really entails.

And you may not like this but at a certain point it really does come down to belief. I have data, and I'm sure you'd like to poke holes in my argument because you're a Max fan and your belief is incompatible with mine, but you're not changing my mind because to me part of the fun of the sport IS the absolute blind conviction that Charles is Il Predestinato and spring will come again etc. etc. I think that's why a lot of people follow me. At the end of it all, I believe.

[oddlydescriptive]

Reset, Chapter Seven

A/N: again, temporary shitty formatting, will go back and fix tonight. Let me know how you feel about this because I feel like it's just... idk edited bad? A little disjointed? IDK. Would also love some feedback on how everyone is doing with the mega-chapters- hate it, love it?

Series Masterlist

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Max should be relaxed. This- the sun, the open water, the lazy sway of the yacht beneath him- is everything he loves. Everything he worked for. Everything that’s supposed to make all the bullshit worth it.

He shifts slightly, just enough to lie flat on his back- the cushion molding to his body, designed for peak comfort, peak relaxation, peak fuck you money. He should be enjoying it. He wants to be enjoying it. The sky above is a ridiculous shade of blue, the kind that looks fake in pictures, and the only sound should be the occasional splash of water against the hull, the low hum of the engines idling beneath deck.

But he’s not.

He props himself up on one elbow, pushing his sunglasses down his nose just enough to squint across the deck. Jos’s iPad is blaring through its shitty little speakers, cutting through the peace with the sharp, mechanical sound of an engine at full tilt. Max doesn’t even need to look to know what it is.

It’s her.

Not her, exactly. But the sound of her voice, the revs of her engine, the way Jos keeps narrating her fucking onboard like he’s a commentator watching a championship-defining lap.

Jos is sitting there, completely transfixed, eyes narrowed in that way he gets when he’s properly impressed by something. The onboard from her rally. Her first ever rally in a Verstappen.com car, and Jos has it cranked up loud enough that Max can hear every gear change, every throttle feather, every sharp inhale through her radio.

It’s all he’s been doing. LeChriste this, LeChriste that. Her sector times. Her throttle application. Her ability to adapt to a completely different style of driving with barely any prep. Ever since she showed up at Spa, since she pulled off that miracle debut and then landed herself under Jos’s roof for the summer break, her name has been coming up over and over and over again. In conversation. In analysis. In comparisons Max never fucking asked for.

Jos talks about her like she’s the best fucking thing since power steering, and it’s starting to drive Max insane. It’s the way Jos sounds when he talks about her. There’s something there- pride, approval, something that Max has spent years chasing and has only ever gotten in fractions. And now, here it is, spilling out unchecked over a girl who’s been in their orbit for all of five minutes.

Max is used to his dad talking about other drivers. Criticizing them, usually. Or, occasionally, begrudgingly admitting when someone’s done something particularly impressive. But this? This is different. Jos isn’t just impressed. He’s... invested. Like she's is some kind of prodigy he’s just discovered, like Max is supposed to be taking notes instead of relaxing on his own damn vacation.

He shifts, trying to sink deeper into the lounger, trying to let the sun soak into him and drown out the sound, but the juxtaposition is all wrong- too much heat in his chest, too much irritation curling under his skin. It’s not that Max disagrees. She’s good. More than good. He’s seen enough himself to know she’s sharp, instinctive, ruthless in her precision.

That’s not the point. The point is that Jos won’t fucking shut up about her.

Max should be used to this- his father latching onto some new project, some new fixation, talking in circles about potential and raw talent, about work ethic and hunger and how rare it is to find someone who really, really wants it.

But this feels different. Because it’s not just the praise. It’s the contrast.

Max knows exactly what’s happening, even if Jos doesn’t spell it out. The way he talks about her in front of Max isn’t just admiration. It’s a fucking shift. Like something is being reallocated, rerouted, redirected- approval, attention, investment. Things that Max has spent his whole life starving for, things he’s fought for, bled for, won for. Things that Jos only ever doles out in precise, measured increments.

But the words keep reaching him, carried over by the lazy sea breeze. The way she commits to the throttle, no hesitation- real control, real talent- instinctive, like she just knows where the grip is going to be before the car even tells her- 

It’s stupid. It’s fucking stupid. It doesn’t even have logic behind it. He’s not losing anything. He’s Max fucking Verstappen- he’s fine. He’s better than fine. He’s winning.

She’s some rookie. Some no-name wildcard they threw into the deep end and who, yeah, sure, did fine for herself, but- so what? Plenty of drivers have had a good debut race. Plenty of drivers have shown potential.

But Jos is talking like she’s something special. Like she’s something rare, something worth nurturing, something that deserves his attention, investment, time. Not from RedBull, or an Indy Team, or from the rally crew- Jos’s attention. And that- that- is the part that sits wrong.

Because Max has spent his entire life scraping for every ounce of attention, every inch of approval, every goddamn breadcrumb of acknowledgment. It has never been handed to him freely. Not once. Not even when he was seventeen, when he was doing things no one else his age had even attempted, when he was proving himself on a stage far bigger than any kid had any right to be on. Even then, even after all of it, there was always more to do, always more to prove, always the expectation that he was still falling short of what he should be.

And yet.

Jos is sitting there on the other side of the deck, speaking about some girl- some newcomer- with the kind of casual admiration Max has spent his whole life bleeding for. And maybe it’s not rational, maybe it’s not even fair, but it doesn’t fucking sit right with him.

“Listen to this,” Jos calls, rewinding a section of the video. “The way she handles the weight transfer through this hairpin- smooth as hell. And her time- decimated the women’s class,” Jos continues, and Max already knows where this is going, “would have put her top twenty overall. Against world-level men. And that’s with four years away from rally.”

“Fantastic,” Max mutters, not even hiding the sarcasm. “Maybe you should adopt her.”

Jos rewinds again. 

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The water is punishment.

It’s not leisure, not relaxation, not some luxurious indulgence in the middle of a summer break that barely feels real. It’s a means to an end- an outlet, a discipline, a place to put all the restless energy that would otherwise consume you.

You cut through the pool like a blade, pushing your body until your muscles scream for relief, until your lungs burn with the effort. The water resists you, but you don’t yield. You push harder, kicking off the wall, flipping into another lap, willing yourself to stay in motion because the alternative is stillness, and stillness means thinking.

And thinking is starting to become dangerous.

The first thing that strikes you about Jos’s estate is the silence. Not just the absence of noise, but the kind of cultivated, deliberate quiet that feels designed to make you self-conscious for existing too loudly. Every footstep you take on the polished floors seems to ripple outward, like you’re disturbing the air itself.

It’s sleek. Minimalistic to the point of sterility. Expansive windows, impossibly clean surfaces, not a single item out of place. It’s the kind of house you’d see in a luxury design magazine, all angles and expensive materials and perfectly curated furniture. But there’s nothing comfortable about it. You can’t imagine curling up on one of the pristine sofas with a bag of chips or leaving a coffee mug on the counter without feeling like you’ve committed some kind of crime.

This is not a house built for a family with small children.

It’s the opposite of home.

At home, on the ranch, there’s always something happening. Music playing somewhere- an old country station drifting out of the kitchen radio, or your dad gently playing his upright during the winter. Blankets draped over the couch, dog hair on the floor, the faint smell of dinner lingering long after the meal’s been eaten. Someone is always yelling, or laughing, or arguing over something stupid and irrelevant. The coffee table has rings from too many iced teas set down without coasters, and the fridge is covered in drawings, wedding invitations, and passive-aggressive notes about who used the last of the milk and put the carton back. 

This house has none of that.

It feels like a showroom. Not a home anyone actually lives in.

Jos is rarely seen, though you’re not sure if that’s because the house is too big and you refuse to go wandering around like some nosy guest- or if he’s genuinely not here much. You don’t ask. You just make yourself small, sticking to the one guest room you were given, keeping your things neatly confined to one side of it like you’re afraid spreading out might get you evicted.

His wife, Sandy, and their two little kids- kids you’ve only heard about in passing- are ghosts. You don’t see them, don’t hear them. There’s no trace of them in the halls, no toys underfoot, no fingerprints on the windows. If you didn’t know better, you’d think Jos lived alone.

It leaves you disoriented, this strange purgatory you’ve landed in. You’re a guest- but a guest with a job to do. You’re part of this family’s life- but not really. You’re in the house- but you don’t feel like you belong in it.

It makes you ache for the mess of home. For your mom yelling at your brother from the front porch. For the cluttered kitchen table where you could dump your boots and your bag without anyone batting an eye. For the knowledge that even if you fucked up, even if you crashed the truck or broke a fence or left the horse water on for two-goddamn-days, there would still be a place for you at the table at dinner.

Here, you’re not sure if you’re even allowed to breathe too hard. So you breathe quietly. You stay out of the way. You do your job. And in the absence of all that noise -  the team, the travel, the sheer adrenaline of the race -  you were left with nothing but this house.

This too-perfect, too-big, too-clean house. It’s the opposite of home, and after the first week, you stop trying to make yourself fit. You withdraw, pulling yourself inward until you’re nothing but a tightly wound knot of need and fear and simmering grief.

This doesn’t feel like a fever dream anymore.

It feels real. And it feels lonely.

So you do what you always do when the world feels too big and you feel too small -  you work harder.

You trained like you’re trying to outrun the silence. Long runs through the private trails that snake around the property, your feet pounding against the dirt until you couldn’t hear your own thoughts. Weight circuits in the sterile home gym, counting reps like prayers. You threw yourself into the sim like it’s a lifeline, lap after lap after lap until you couldn’t feel your hands, until your back locked up from the seat.

And the media room? The one with the absurdly large television and the fancy built-in sound system no one uses? You commandeered it. It took you nearly a week to strike up the nerve to use a piece of tape on the concrete wall, but when nobody notices, well, game on. 

It had become your war room -  screens glowing with onboard footage, data sheets pinned to the walls by the dozens, your notebook spread open across the coffee table like a sacred text. You track every lap, every sector time, every weather pattern that might affect a future race.

You studied Max, Pierre, Yuki, Checo -  everyone who’s touched a Red Bull or AlphaTauri in the last five years, because that’s the data you have best access to. Used every publicly available resource to reverse engineer the drives of the rest of the grid- likes, dislikes, the way they behave when you breathe down their neck. You built profiles like dossiers, not because anyone asked you to, but because it’s the only way you know how to cope.

You can’t afford to let this house, this silence, this emptiness swallow you whole.

Because if you stop -  even for a second -  you’re afraid you’ll have to actually feel everything you’ve lost.

Beyond the trianing, the studying, the past two weeks had passed in a blur so muted it’s hard to call them memories. It’s like you’re sleepwalking through someone else’s life -  inhabiting a body that isn’t quite yours, in a house that definitely isn’t yours, orbiting a family you only ever catch glimpses of. You know, logically, that you must have interacted with Jos when he was home, with Sandy and the kids when they drifted into your periphery, but none of it sticks. The details smear like rain on a windshield.

Your mom calls often- her voice cutting through the heavy quiet of your room, a lifeline back to something real. You let her talk, let her fill the space with questions you don’t always have the answers to, let her remind you that there’s a world outside of this strange, sterile limbo you’ve trapped yourself in.

You practice interviews, run through talking points until they blur together, until you can recite them without thinking, until you don’t have to feel anything when you say them. You give a few real ones, too- stiff and overly rehearsed in front of your laptop camera, forcing your mouth to stretch into smiles that never quite reach your eyes.

And then there’s Illinois. The friends you left behind when you peeled out of Dale Coyne’s garage for the last time. The life you abandoned so abruptly it still doesn’t feel entirely real. They packed it up for you- your entire existence reduced to eight large boxes, shipped off to the ranch like you had died and left them to sort through the remains.

You have no intention of going back. No reason to.

Illinois had been fine. But you hadn’t particularly liked it. It had been convenient, that was all- an unfortunate necessity dictated by a contract. And now? Now, you’re not a Dale Coyne driver anymore. You’re not a driver at all, technically.

That version of you- the one who compromised and shrunk and swallowed her pride to make it work- is dead. But there’s nothing triumphant about it. No blaze of glory. No catharsis.

Just a slow, unceremonious burial.

The water muffles everything -  sound, thought, even time. You’ve long since lost count of how many laps you’ve done, working on pure autopilot, pulling yourself through each length of the pool like it might save you. Your muscles burn, lungs tight, but you love that. You need that.

You flip at the wall, streamline into another lap, and when your face breaks the surface, you suck in a breath and- 

Jesus fucking Christ.

Jos Verstappen is standing at the edge of the pool, arms crossed, looming like a goddamn specter in his own backyard.

Your body reacts before your brain does- shoulders jerking, legs kicking out a little harder than necessary. You swallow a yelp, nearly inhaling water instead, and spend the next few seconds choking as you tread in place, blinking up at him in disbelief. How does a man that large move that quietly? Why does he move that quietly? Had he been standing there the whole time? Just watching?

You wipe water from your face, forcing yourself to settle, but it’s not just that he scared you- it’s that look. That impossible-to-read, mildly disapproving, permanently unimpressed look he always seems to wear, like he’s perpetually finding the world just slightly inadequate. You haven’t seen him in days- long enough to start assuming that was just how things worked in this house, long enough to get used to his absence. And now, out of nowhere, this.

God, Dutch people are so unsettling.

You grew up in America, where small talk is a sport; raced in the South, where politeness is practically a religion. In Texas, even the people who hate you smile when they pass by- hell, especially the people who hate you. Here? Not so much. Jos looks at you like you’re a project car someone left rusting in his driveway. Like you might have potential, but you’ll probably just disappoint him. And he’s saving himself the trouble of getting attached.

You open your mouth, trying to decide between hello and Jesus Christ, a little warning next time, but Jos speaks first. “Dinner.” His voice is flat as concrete. “Six o’clock. Family table. Be there.” There’s no question in his tone, no invitation. It’s a command. A summoning.

And just like that, he turns and walks off, disappearing back into the house without another word, leaving you blinking chlorinated water out of your eyes. That’s it? No explanation? No further details? No casual Hey, we eat together sometimes, thought you might want to join?

Just an edict, dropped at the edge of the pool like a brick through a windshield. Your arms ache as you tread water, your mind racing faster than your pulse. After three weeks of being ignored, of feeling like an unwelcome ghost in this house, you’re suddenly being called to the table like a member of the family. Except you know- you know- you’re not.

This isn’t hospitality. This isn’t warmth.

This is something else.

You pull yourself out of the pool, water rolling off your skin, and stand there for a moment, toes curling against the tile, wondering what the hell you’ve just been invited to. You mull it over as you towel off and slip back to your room- quietly, always quietly- for a shower.

You stand in the vast, spotless bathroom, steam curling out of the shower as it warms, towel clutched in one hand. You stare at your reflection like the answers might be written somewhere in the fogged-up mirror. Family dinner. What the hell does that even mean here? In this house, where silence feels like the default setting, where everything from the marble floors to the air itself feels staged, deliberate, untouchable.

Family dinner back home meant something entirely different- melamine plates around the kitchen peninsula, your brother in a dirty t-shirt, your mom threatening to stab someone with a fork if they tried to eat before grace. Laughter that got too loud, bickering that somehow always circled back to love. It meant elbows on the table and phones face-down. It meant warmth, mess, familiarity.

Here? Family dinner feels like an ambush.

You mull over what to wear as you rinse the chlorine out. Something that seems put together without trying too hard, probably. First order of business when you had got here was your several loads of laundry- Nomex in its own load, casual clothes in another, your scant selection of blouses and a single set of trousers in another. None of it really seems right. 

You mom, bless her, had packed up a box for you the moment she had found out you were staying. It showed up on the doorstep of the Verstappen house this morning. There’s got to be something in there. 

You peel the tape on the lid back to reveal neatly folded stacks of fabric- soft cotton, well-worn denim, a few crisp button-ups that still faintly smell like the laund- wait. Wait wait wait. The second you spot the familiar, glorious, eye-searing purple bag peeking out from the pile of clothes your mom sent, all rational thought evaporates.

Taki’s. Holy fucking shit.

You barely get the towel cinched around yourself before you’re tearing into the package, fingers already itching with the promise of neon-red dust and salt and heat. You’d known your mother would come through for you- she always does- but this? This is divine intervention. This is a goddamn oasis of flavor in the middle of this bland, minimalist, Dutch penitentiary.

You grab a handful, practically shoving the rolled chips into your mouth, and the moment that neon-red dust hits your tongue, it’s transcendent.

The first crunch is loud in the silence of your guest room, shattering against your teeth, setting every taste bud on fire in the best way possible. The tang of artificial lime burns the sides of your tongue, the heat from the chili powder kicks in a second later, and you actually moan. Like, audibly. The kind of sound that should only ever be made in response to something significantly more R-rated than processed corn snacks.

You don’t care.

You don’t care that you’re curled up on the edge of your too-pristine, too-expensive guest bed, fingers already stained nuclear red, demolishing this bag like a woman starved. Because you are. You’re starved for home, for anything remotely familiar, for something that doesn’t feel polished and muted and cold.

Dutch food, you’ve discovered, is the culinary equivalent of being scolded. Plain. Disciplined. A diet that seems fundamentally opposed to the concept of joy. It’s all soft cheeses and boiled potatoes and bread so dense it could be classified as a weapon. Even their seasonings are hesitant, cautious little dashes of salt that taste more like a vague suggestion than an actual decision. You’d decided about day three that you’d prefer to stick to your own brand of flavorless- endless chicken and rice, meal prepped in bulk, because while it might not be interesting, it at least hasn’t been boiled within an inch of it’s life. 

But this?

This is your Guy-Fieri-style homecoming to Flavortown. 

You groan, sagging against the headboard, shoving another chip into your mouth before you’ve even fully swallowed the last one. The heat builds in layers, stacking onto your tongue, your throat, the back of your sinuses. You revel in it, licking the neon dust from your fingertips, already reaching for more.

You should slow down, pace yourself- but fuck that. Fuck everything. You’ve been so good- so fucking composed, so perfectly polite and professional, walking around this house like a ghost, keeping your head down, keeping your mouth shut, keeping yourself from going fucking insane in this brutalistic hellscape of a home. You have earned this. This one indulgence.

And it is indulgent. Almost obscene, the way you’re devouring them, heat prickling across your lips, your fingers a crime scene of red dust. You think, absurdly, that if you were ever going to have a food orgasm, this would be it.

Your stomach clenches from the sheer force of spice, from the ruthless combination of acid and heat- but you don’t stop. You can’t stop. You fold the bag over, shaking it so the broken chips and extra seasoning settle at the bottom, then tip it back, letting it all spill onto your tongue in a final, sadistic burst of glory.

By the time you’re done, your lips are tingling, your tongue practically vibrating, and your face feels a little hot- but for the first time in weeks, you feel alive.

You suck every last whisper of flavor from your fingers before you start thumbing through the rest of the box. A little, nagging part of you holds out hope you might find another bag but- no such luck.

Your mom had known to keep it light, to keep it easy. A few casual pieces, things you can throw on without thinking, things that might make you feel a little less like a stranger in your own life. Your fingers skim over the top layer, brushing against the sharp pleats of something unexpected. You pause, grip tightening as you lift it from the pile, neat folds of tightly-woven wool unfolding in your hands.

The suit.

You hadn’t asked her to send it. You hadn’t even thought about it.

But of course she had.

The fabric is smooth beneath your fingertips, structured but comfortable, tailored perfectly to your body- a suit that means business, that means you belong in the room, that means they will take you seriously whether they want to or not.

If she sent this, that means…

You set the jacket and pants aside carefully, even years later still painfully aware of exactly how much they cost, and dig to the bottom of the box. There- about halfway down, your fingers scrape hard plastic, and you dump the box out over the bed entirely. It clatters out- bulky, beat up and scuffed- just how you remember. Your hat case. It might be faded and scuffed from getting tossed into the belly of planes, traines, and rental cars- but what’s inside is in perfect condition. 

“You don’t have to do this.”

Your fingers trail over the brim, the felt impossibly smooth beneath your touch, softer than anything you have any business owning. It’s flawless- pure beaver felt, crisp, perfect. A 40X cowboy hat. The kind of hat that turns heads when you walk into a room, the kind that means something in places where handshakes and deals are made under wide brims and a big sky. The shop smells like leather and cedar, rich and warm, and the weight of your parents’ presence beside you is both steadying and unbearable.

Your dad doesn’t answer immediately. He just nods toward the mirror. “Try it on.”

You hesitate, then do as you’re told, settling the hat onto your head. It fits like it was made for you, which- well, it will be. The hatmaker is watching, assessing, already planning whatever adjustments will be needed to make it perfect.

“It’s too much,” you say quietly.

"Doll," she says, voice quiet but firm, the way it always is when she’s already decided how this is going to go. "All good business in Texas happens under a 40X."

"I’m not gonna be in Texas," you argue, running your thumb over the ribbon on another hat, something cheaper, less significant. You don’t even know why you’re fighting it, not really. Maybe because it feels too nice, too permanent, too much like something you don’t deserve. 

Your mom’s mouth presses into a thin line.  She’s always been the picture of effortless presence, of someone who belongs anywhere she chooses to be. You’ve spent your whole life studying that about her, trying to learn how to command a room without raising your voice, how to make people want to listen, to follow. But right now, there’s something else in her expression. Something heavy. Something sad.

You know why she’s sad. She won’t say it outright, but you know. Texas isn’t just some place they picked at whim to start your junior career. It not even the closest major junior circuit to home. It didn’t matter that it was almost ten hours more of driving than the California circuit would have been. 

Because, to her, it’s not just a stepping stone, the way it was for you. It’s roots. Her roots. It’s where she grew up, where she met your dad, where some of her family still is. Even if Washington is home, Texas is still something. Still a piece of her. 

This is the place where she always knew someone would be watching out for you, where she could trust that even if she wasn’t there, someone else would be.

And what good did that do?

What did any of it fucking do, when it mattered most?

"Then you’ll just have to take Texas with you," she says.

Your dad finally shifts beside you, rolling his shoulders like the weight of the last few months has settled in there permanently, but he doesn’t say much. He never does in times like these. Still- he’s there, beside you, quiet and steady as ever. He lifts one off the rack, gives it a little test bend between his hands, then sets it on your head with the kind of gentleness that makes your throat tight.

"How’s that feel?" he asks.

It feels like too much. Like more than you deserve.

"You should spend the money on something else."

Your mom tsks. "Something else isn’t going to sit square on your head and remind people exactly where you come from."

You swallow around the sudden lump in your throat.

"It’s too much," you try again, softer this time. "You should save it. For- "

"For what?" your father cuts in, leveling you with one of those quiet, steady looks that makes you feel six again, standing in front of him with skinned knees and hands too small to hold all the things you wanted. "This is yours." His voice is steady, but there’s something else beneath it, something he doesn’t quite say. You deserve this. You deserve nice things. You deserve to be proud of what you’ve done.

You shake your head, staring at the hat, willing yourself not to feel too much. This isn’t a happy time. There are things none of you talk about, things that sit heavy in the spaces between words. But you know what this is. Because it’s not just a hat, not just a purchase- it’s them telling you that you belong to something bigger than whatever is waiting for you in Florida. That no matter how far you go, you are still theirs.

You exhale, staring at both pieces, feeling something tighten in your chest. You know exactly what this means. It’s not a sentimental gesture. It’s not just in case. It’s a statement. If you’re going to be here- if you’re going to play in this world- you better be prepared to play for real.

Your mom knows you. She knows how this business works. And she sure as hell isn’t about to let you stand around looking lost while decisions get made around you. She’s going to wrap you in armour made of crisp beaver felt and sharp wool suits and remind you that you get to make some decisions your goddamn self.  You swallow, smoothing a hand over the fabric, a quiet, careful movement. 

Alright. You don’t know what’s coming next, when this meeting in your future might be, the lions that you’ll need to tame in your full regalia. But whenever it is?

You’ll be ready.

Not yet. Not tonight. You try to redirect your thoughts, away from happy-sad memories and expensive suits and towards your more immediately daunting task. Ah, yes. Family dinner. 

You settle on something softer, something that might pass for vaguely European- wide-leg linen trousers and a matching button-up tank top in a muted, earthy color. It feels appropriate, even if you have no actual reference point for what appropriate means in this house.

You twist your hair up at the nape of your neck, leaving it loose enough to not look too polished. A little mascara, a swipe of something on your lips so you don’t look like a corpse. That’s it.

You step back from the mirror, assessing yourself like you’re about to walk into an interview you didn’t apply for. It’s not perfect. But it’s presentable. Polished enough to look like you respect the invitation- casual enough to look like you didn’t overthink it. Even though you absolutely did.

You press your hands down the front of your trousers, exhaling slow. Okay. 

The moment you step into the dining room, you know something is off.

The table is set like it’s expecting a guest of honor- fresh stems in the vase, linen napkins folded with crisp, deliberate precision, silverware arranged just so. It’s formal in a way that dinner in this house never is, and for a brief, unsettling moment, you think maybe you missed something. A birthday? An anniversary? Some obscure European holiday?

And then you see him.

Max.

He’s at the far end of the table, leaning back in his chair with the kind of casual slouch that reads more like defensive position than comfort, his phone loose in his grip, thumb idly scrolling. He doesn’t acknowledge you, doesn’t even look up, but the set of his shoulders, the hard angle of his jaw, tells you everything you need to know.

He doesn’t want to be here. Neither do you.

And Kelly? Nowhere to be seen. The kids aren’t here, either. Just Sandy, calm and composed as ever, and Jos, who looks entirely too pleased with himself.

You keep your expression schooled, slipping into the perfect, polite mask your mother taught you to wear in rooms full of powerful men. You step into the role without thinking, automatically plating your own meal- prepped, measured, balanced to the gram, like every other meal you eat during race weeks. You don’t like imposing, and you’ve already learned the hard way that Dutch food is, for lack of a better term, shit.

As you sprinkle a pinch of salt over your chicken and vegetables, you glance toward Sandy. “No Kelly tonight?”

Jos answers before she can. “Running late.” Like it doesn’t matter.

His tone is dismissive, but you catch the flicker of something in Max’s eyes. He doesn’t look up from his phone, but you see the way his jaw flexes, the way his fingers tighten for just a fraction of a second before relaxing again. You’d bet good money Kelly isn’t running late- she’s just avoiding this like the plague.

Honestly? Relatable.

You settle into your seat, hands folded in your lap, offering just the right amount of a smile. Engaged, but not eager. Interested, but not overstepping. You ask the correct questions, offer the appropriate remarks, thank Sandy for the offer of food even though you don’t take any. You play the part like it’s second nature- because it is. 

Jos, though. Jos talks too much. Jos, as it turns out, is feeling chatty.

About you. About Max. About racing and talent and potential and everything you’ve done right so far. It should be flattering. It’s not. It’s suffocating. You try to smile through it, but it’s hard when you’re being held up like some kind of prize for the whole table to examine. Jos goes on and on about your performance, your raw talent, your ability to adapt- he talks like you’re not sitting right there, like you’re a highlight reel instead of a person, something for the entire table to marvel over.

You’re smiling. You don’t know what else to do. It feels wrong, like this is too much, like Jos has never been this nice to you to your face, and you don’t trust it. Not for a second. But you smile anyway, because what the fuck else are you supposed to do?

Sandy, to her credit, seems fine. Not warm, not particularly invested, but not unfriendly either. Just… fine. She asks how you’re adjusting to Europe, to the house, to the endless rain. You get the sense that she’s made her peace with being wallpaper here- present, pleasant, largely ignored.

“She’s meticulous,” he says, gesturing vaguely at you, like presenting a fine piece of craftsmanship. “I’ve never seen a rookie so prepared. Do you know she’s been working on a file for every driver on the grid? Just like the one she showed you on the plane. Every. Single. One.”

You nearly choke on your water, but swallow it down, keeping your expression neutral. Jos doesn’t notice. Or maybe he doesn’t care. Across the table, Max says nothing, his silence heavy. He doesn’t need to speak. His father is already speaking for him, about him, like he’s not even in the room. If you had to guess, this isn’t the first time Jos has dragged him into one of these elaborate setups under the guise of a family meal.

And then, just when you think it can’t get worse, Jos starts trying to engage him.

“You two actually have a lot in common,” he says, effortlessly sliding the words into the conversation. His voice is casual, like he’s just making an observation, but there’s an edge of purpose to it, a calculation you don’t quite clock. “Same aggressive approach to racing, same work ethic, same hunger.”

Sandy, ever the perfectly unobtrusive presence, offers a quiet smile.  She at least looks mildly aware of how unbearable this conversation is. Not warm, not particularly invested, but not oblivious either. Just… present. A quiet observer, offering nothing more than the occasional nod, the occasional polite smile. A sip of wine. She’s not just used to being wallpaper, you think. She’s used to this. Used to letting Jos speak and letting it pass without protest.

Max still doesn’t look up from his phone. “Hmm.”

Jos doesn’t take the hint. “That’s what makes great drivers, you know,” he continues, cutting into his steak. “Not just talent. But the drive to be ruthless. To push harder than anyone else. Max understands that. And so do you.” He points his knife at you as he says it, like he’s bestowing some kind of great truth upon you.

You nod, polite. “Thank you.”

“Not many have that,” he says, like he’s letting you in on a secret. “Not even half the grid. Plenty of drivers are fast. But they don’t all want it enough.”

Max’s fork clinks against his plate, the first sound he’s made in minutes. “Uh-huh.”

Jos either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. He leans back in his chair, eyes flicking between the two of you like he’s waiting for something to click. “You two should talk more. You could learn from each other.”

You blink. You are talking. You’ve been sitting at the same table, enduring the same conversation, existing in the same fucking space. But that’s not what he means. You can hear it in his tone. He’s pushing something, steering toward some invisible objective.

You try not to let your discomfort show. You are so good at this- at smiling when you don’t mean it, at playing along, at making yourself palatable in the rooms that matter.

But this? This is suffocating.

And then Kelly walks in.

For a brief, fleeting second, you almost feel relieved.

She’s tall, poised, effortlessly elegant in the way only someone born into privilege can be. Long, dark hair cascades in sleek waves over her shoulders, makeup flawless, her outfit effortlessly polished. She’s the kind of woman who always looks put together, always moves with quiet certainty, always seems to have the upper hand in whatever room she steps into.

And maybe that’s why your first instinct is to think- finally.

Finally, some kind of reprieve from whatever the hell this dinner has been. Finally, a presence that might shift the balance, dilute the weight of Jos’s unwavering focus on you, lessen the unbearable pressure that’s been stretching across the table like a noose.

Because Kelly has been nice. Talking to Kelly is nice.

But no.

No, it gets worse.

The tension in the room doesn’t ease- it sharpens, condenses into something even heavier, something thick and stifling that settles deep in your ribs. You don’t fully understand it, don’t know what’s shifting, what’s crackling in the air, but you feel it. Like stepping into a conversation that started long before you arrived, like missing the first half of an argument and knowing you’ll never quite catch up.

“Seriously?” Kelly’s voice is sharp, slicing through the air, cutting Jos off mid-sentence. “You didn’t even wait for me?”

Jos barely looks up from his plate. “You were late.”

Kelly lets out a short, incredulous laugh, one hand bracing against her hip. “And that’s my fault?” You don’t know the full story. You don’t know any of the story. But you know this isn’t just about dinner.

You glance at Max, but he doesn’t move, doesn’t speak. Just sits there, head bowed over his plate, fingers toying idly with his fork. Impossibly, he looks even more miserable than before. He looks more like a scolded child than a world champion.

And Kelly- Kelly is pissed. Not in the way people get when they’re mildly annoyed, but in the way that suggests there’s a much bigger fight happening under the surface, something unspoken and unresolved and bigger than you can begin to understand. You shift slightly in your chair, adjusting your napkin just for something to do, something to keep your hands busy, because fuck, the air in here is unbearable.

Jos is still eating like nothing is wrong. Kelly is still standing like everything is.

All evening, Max hadn’t been engaged in the conversation at all, his head mostly bent over his plate, phone occasionally appearing under the table when he thought Jos wasn’t looking. Fine by you, honestly. If you thought you could get away with it, you’d rather be doom-scrolling than timing your stretches of eye-contact with Jos. But now, caught between his father, his girlfriend, and the girl his dad would not shut the fuck up about, Max had seemed to reach his limit.

With a sharp scrape of his chair against the floor, he stands. "I’m finished.” 

════════════════════ஓ๑♡๑ஓ══════════════════

Series Masterlist

[mistoffeleesisawitch]

Okay I just made a whole post about Dorothy/Elphaba parallels but also the way Dorothy and the Wizard contrast each other is so fun.

Like Oz is the way it is now because of the Wizard. This man from the midwest. Who works at some circus in Nebraska with little chance of breaking out of this life. Then he is whisked to Oz. To a strange land where he is given power and adoration with little actual effort (he doesn’t even really know who to work the hot air balloon). He has no real power but people think he’s a wizard. He is in a new world with odd ways and strange creatures.

He see this and reacts with antagonism. Thinks the ways of his world superior simply because he’s from there. Things here seem wrong to him. Animals shouldn’t talk. But they do. So he’ll make sure they won’t.

Dorothy is also from the midwest. From a dreary farm in Kansas with little chance of breaking out of this life. And she too is whisked to Oz. To a strange land where she is given immediate power and adoration with very little actual effort (it’s not like she could steer the house in a tornado). She has no real power but people think she’s a witch. She is in a new world with odd ways and strange creatures.

But she sees this and reacts with acceptance. Oh sure she’s confused and understandably distressed, but she goes with it. This isn’t her world but that doesn’t make it bad. And things do seem wrong to her. Scarecrows shouldn’t be alive, men shouldn’t be made out of tin, and Animals shouldn’t talk. But they do here. And she accepts that. She treats them with the kindness and respect she would give any human. Because who is she to decide what they can and can’t do?

Oscar spends his whole time is Oz trying to make it adapt to him. Dorothy spends her short time in Oz trying to adapt to it as best she can.

I just love thinking about Dorothy in relation to Wicked.

[tribbetherium]

The Middle Therocene: 35 million years post-establishment

Searet Relationships: Marine Fearrets of the Middle Therocene

As the Great Lakes of Nodera opened up to the seas, the aquatic hamsters of the large landlocked water would find a new frontier accessible to them: the oceans. First would come the tailless pondrats, expanding into the seas and becoming even more specialized to water to become the bayvers, a diverse clade including herbivores, omnivores and carnivores in their ranks. But they would find an ocean already contested by a now-dominant clade that reigned unchallenged in the absence of vertebrate competition in marine ecological niches: the shrarks. Growing to immense sizes for an arthropod, with the biggest being the two-meter long megaprawns of open seas, and armed with powerful 'biting' pincers, they patrolled the shallow coasts, reefs and open seas as the apex predators of their time. Originally hunting only other shrish species, many of which grew quite big at sizes of a meter or more, the bayvers found themselves quickly added to the menu: and thus, in these early days, remained semiaquatic and pinniped-like to escape onto the shores out of reach of the marine hunters, most restricted to bouncing and wiggling on their bellies on land, and some, the more basal wavewaddlers, retaining the ability to clumsily walk using their fused rear flippers: ties to the land being a constraint that had restricted their diversity for the past few million years.

But another species from the lakes had spread out from the seas in this time, and would eventually turn the tide in the favor of the hamsters. The lake searet, an ambush predator related to the carnohams, that fed on aquatic and terrestrial prey alike, found the Centralic Ocean a very welcome place to expand, and soon spread throughout the inner coasts of Ecatoria, Nodera, Westerna and Easaterra. In the past ten million years these had diversified, diverging into a wide array of species occupying varied niches.

Propelled by enlarged, webbed hind feet and tails adapted for steering, the searets were well-suited for maneuvering and foraging in the water. Their powerful jaws, in particular, made them superbly built for tackling hard-shelled prey: a useful adaptation that prevented them from competing with the other main marine hamster lineage of the time, the bayvers, which fed on smaller shrish, bottom-dwelling crustaceans, and even marine plants.

Brown coastal rodders (Lutromyocricetus vulgaris) are among the most basal of the species, and the most widespread. They have a preference toward hard-shelled prey too tough for bayvers to crack, such as slow-moving armored shrish. The bayvers, faster in the water, were pursuit hunters of shrish that specialized on speed and shoaling to evade predators, while rodders, more suited for maneuveravility, dexterity and stealth than speed, preferred those that were more heavily defended but were slower and easier to catch.

Some species, such as the dappled rockasheller (Duroclastemys circulupunctus), would even rely on beyond just their physical limitations, and augment their diet with the help of primitive tools as well. Using stones or bits of coral as blunt hammers, they break open the shells of bivalves, large snails, and heavily-armored lobster-like shrish as well, in order to access the nutritious meat within. This is primarily an instinctive, rather than learned, behavior: young rockashellers will often carry around small stones and use them to hit hard objects as an act of play, completely oblivious of the reason of this behavior and gradually learn to use this behavior for feeding through experience and imitation of older members of their species.

Marine searets, as a whole, are far more independent of land than bayvers are, and can in fact spend their whole lives at sea: feeding, sleeping, mating, grooming and bearing their young all while floating at the surface of the water, gathering in family groups of a dozen or two for safety. Fiercely protective of their packmates, they, instead of timidly fleeing from danger like bayvers do, instead mob and attack any predatory shrarks that threaten them, and occasionally even successfully killing their assailants: setting the stage for a complete overhaul of the dynamics of the ocean biomes as a whole.

Over time, this defensive mobbing behavior turned into active predation in some of the larger species, with shrarks, and other large shrish, no longer being seen as enemies or competitors, but as prey. The largest searet species of this time, the goliath searet (Titanolutromys goliah) can reach lengths of over eight feet from snout to tail and weigh about two hundred kilograms: making them formidable predators of the open seas, and the first hamsters to fill the niche. Goliath searets are powerful swimmers, so much so that they basically never come to land willingly, and, while big enough to prey upon bayvers, rarely do so unless desperate, as bayvers are too fast and evasive for their liking while they are much slower ambush hunters. Instead, their preferred prey of choice are the giant armored meter-long shrish abundant in the shallows, including filter-feeding, grazing and predatory members of their clade. At their size, they are large enough to tackle shrarks on their own, and now live by themselves or in mated pairs, as well as their offspring which stay with their parents for about two years before becoming fully independent.

Rather than becoming yet an additional danger to pose a significant threat in the water, if anything, the presence of the searets actually was a net benefit to the bayvers, as their rampant hunting of predatory shrarks in the shallows gradually forced the deadly arthropods further out to sea: and reduced the predator densities of the tropical coastal reefs that did prey on the bayvers regularly, to make a relatively safer sea for the marine pondrats to press onward into, and finally diversify. At long last, the monopoly of the seas by the shrish has been challenged by the hamsters: and in the eons to come, the searets' impact on the ocean ecology will have lasting effects felt even millions of years later as they, and the bayvers, attain remarkable proportions only creatures with internal skeletons could ever hope to achieve.

-------

[spitdrunken]

THIS IS INCREDIBLY SELF-INDULGENT BUT. MY BLOG!

notes: power imbalance, sexual harrassment, murder mentions.

rotating a thought in my head where 'you' are an increasingly popular erotica writer from the pride ring. with writing, you've hit a bit of a niche, as a lot of the big porn producers (VoxTech's subsidiaries) are not exactly known for their riveting dialogue or personalities. no one's there for anything more than that, but there are demons who do want a bit more 'meat', so to say, with nowhere else turn. that is where you come in!

it's not enough to make a steady living off of, not even when you start taking incredibly specific commissions, but it's never been more of a hobby anyway. you are completely anonymous online, keeping care to use throwaway emails and accounts for everything. still, voxtech's products are utterly inescapable: it's either using them, or using nothing at all. (and those rumours about their boss vox having complete control over his technology, even after selling, has to be a rumour... you hope.)

meanwhile, as your penname continues to grow more and more recognizable, it falls in the vees' meeting room. valentino's immediate suggestion is just to kill you. people in the comments keep comparing his dialogue to yours. what the fuck is that about? who the hell watches porn for the DIALOGUE in the first place?

velvette, while shrugging her shoulders, only adds that their new releases tend to go trending, prior to release. fucking far from the top of that list, but still. trending is trending.

vox, sighing internally, plasters a smile on his face. there's really no need to kill new up and coming talent, val. we should suggest them to work for us instead. and if they don't... we can simply prevent them from working. they'll make up their mind, then.

you return to your laptop to an utterly inescapable pop-up describing the opportunity of a lifetime: the chance to work at voxtech! it's a whole wall of text, describing your pay (higher than you would have expected), where you will be living (in one of the appartment buildings owned by voxtech), and when to head to their main office. there is no word on denying the contract, an utter impossibility, it seems. not that you'd dare. vox's and the radio demon's showdown was the talk of the ring for days, and apparantly, all that rancour was the source of alastor denying a contract of his own. that really is more shit than you can handle in your undead life now. so, you take the job.

as your stories are starting to get heavily promoted, velvette absolutely insists that you add in at least a couple of looong clothing descriptions, based on her tastes. she's such an overwhelming, pushy presence, that it's hard for you to say no. she goes on about how, if it gets popular enough, people might be interested in somewhat similar outfits. probably not, though, let's be honest with ourselves. she makes you model them, all the while telling you that you really wouldn't be allowed to breathe in the direction of her studio otherwise. when you ask her why you absolutely have the one modelling, she just rolls her eyes. you based large parts of their appearances after you, didn't you? might as well make you look the part.

valentino is one of the worst parts of the job. compared to everyone else, he hardly pesters you, but he's still a terrifying presence. he'll give you 'suggestions' and make you steer your work in certain directions, getting too close and blowing smoke into your face. he gives a graphic description of how he jacked off to one of your stories, just to see your response. (this is a lie: why would he jack off if he can just call some stupid whore over to do it for him? also, he doesn't read.)

if a part of one of your stories ever gets a 'porno adaptation', he's having you play the part of the director, and has you sit in during the entirety of the viewing. you can tell he takes great pleasure out of any of your discomfort, or any of your fumbling- until it's too sloppy, and then he gets mad, of course, and you end up leaving the room with shaky legs.

vox seems to be the nicest one out of the three of them. really, he's only ever been courteous to you. but you've seen him flip his lid during the aforementioned 'radio demon fiasco', which you have been wise enough to never mention, so you still walk on eggshells around him. he can also get pretty pushy about deadlines, so you're not taking any chances.

he insists on having semi-regular meetings with you about the sales figures of your most recent works, wherein you also have to describe your process on other projects and pitch new ideas. frankly, you wish these meetings could be an email! but even when you tried to broach the subject, telling him that, surely, the company leader's time is much more important than this?

he simply brushed you off, telling you that he can decide for himself who and what to spend his time on, thank you very much. now, please continue. he'll inform you of the latest kinks and dynamics that have been most popular, though with some peculiar additions as well. you swear that, sometimes, the main character really does seem to resemble yourself in those suggestions, and the love interest a member of the vees...? you're certain you're just imagining it.