#progenerate

[robot-singularity]

Looks like those left a mark, huh

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Hello! Love love love your blog so much, especially the poetry part! I wish all the best for you, this blog has changed my whole writing system

Would love to see a few words on the birth/origin of great things, if possible. Thank you, and take care <3<3

Birth – The coming into existence of something; origin, beginning.

Origin – That from which anything originates, or is derived; source of being or existence; starting point.

Ancestry – The origin, background, or historical development of something.

Beginning – That in which anything has its rise, or in which its origin is embodied; origin, source, fount.

Extraction – Of things: Origin, source. Obsolete.

Fontal – A source or origin of something. Obsolete.

Headspring – The chief source of something; the quarter from which something originates.

Heartspring – (Chiefly poetic and literary) the spring or source of a person's innermost feelings, thoughts, etc. (chiefly in plural).

Naissance – Origin, birth. Obsolete.

Nativity – The creation, beginning, or origin of something.

Parentage – The source or origin of something.

Primordial – A primeval, original, or fundamental thing; a beginning or origin; a first principle.

Principium – Beginning, commencement; origin, source; first principle, element; fundamental truth. Now rare.

Principle – That from which something originates or is derived; a source, an origin; the root (of a word, etc.). Now chiefly Philosophy and Theology.

Progenerator – The source or original from which something is derived; a forebear or progenitor.

Quelle – A literary source; the source from which a concept, piece of information, etc., derives.

Racine – A root cause, a source.

Radix – Source, origin; that in which anything originates. Rare.

Rist – A source, an origin. Obsolete.

Root – That from which something grows or is derived; a source, origin, or cause.

Source – The chief or prime cause of something of a non-material or abstract character; the quarter whence something of this kind originates.

Sourdre – Source.

Spawn – The source or origin of something.

Springer – A source, an origin. Obsolete.

Upstart – Upspring, origin. Obsolete. Rare.

Wellhead – A primary source or origin of something.

Wellspring – A source or origin providing a constant or abundant supply of something.

More: Notes & References ⚜ Word Lists

I'm not sure I fully understood what you meant by "great things" though. Let me know if I got it wrong, I could make you another list!

But this is so lovely to hear, thank you for your kind words & take care as well <3

[incorrect-dnd-show]

Hey! Wanted to run to you before others HAHAH. But D&D Beyond just dropped a short adventure with all the kids and their magic items as progenerated characters to test out the 2024 rules and mechanics! They even brought in the Stormwreck Isle cleric and gave them a name and a hint of lore! Their name is Niko and they are a new arrival to the multiverse! Which like... WILD The link is here to check it out. https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/uhlh/uni-and-the-hunt-for-the-lost-horn#PremadeCharacters

NO FUCKING WAY ITS MY LIL GUYSSSS

THEY EVEN LET THE KIDS GO HOME AND COME BACK FUCK YEAH

[darkysilverwing]

Doctor who: the star beast ramble.

So I feel like they put a bit too much emphasis in rose's nonbinary status in this episode, and i'm saying this as someone who is nonbinary and loves the representation. Because the way they put it in felt super clunky.

Like I can excuse where rose snaps at the doctor and goes "why are you automatically assuming Meep uses masculine pronouns?" cause if they are nonbinary you can assume that they've been incorrectly gendered for years and it might be a sore spot for them, and having Sylvia mess up on rose's pronouns and being weird about it cause they're not used to it was amazing, they could have ended it there.

Heck, I would have loved for Rose and the Doctor to end up splitting off for a second and Rose sticking out her hand to the doctor and going "Rose Noble, She/Her pronouns" and the doctor going "Right... uhhh.. i'm the doctor, he/Him pronouns... for now at least..." would have been a good way to throw in some bits and pieces of that representation.

Instead, we get a bunch of exposition just thrown at us where Donna goes "hold on, that's why my child is nonbinary! Cause the metacrisis within her caused her to inhabit one of the main parts of the doctor, you being the male part, me being the female part, and her being the nonbinary part!"

Like I loved the scene with the password, where uttering the right sequence of words would allow the doctor to release the lock on donna's mind, ending with the "binary... binary... binary" which felt like an homage to donna's break down when she literally started breaking down and repeated "binary" over and over and over again, and it was fully undercut by the fact that apparently rose, internally, going "nonbinary... nonbinary... nonbinary" which... what?

Like would it have been so hard to just extend the flashback a little to show Rose repeating the same words her mother was using? Maybe even have Sylvia going "Rose, what are you doing sweetie?" before the light show happened? Instead it's just sort of implied that the metacrisis was the reason for rose being nonbinary, either somehow it forced donna to give birth to a child who would grow up to be nonbinary, or with the energy in the back of her mind she grew up and was basically forced to become nonbinary in a weird, nature verses nurture scenario.

This Then kinda undercuts the whole representation of rose, cause now she's not just nonbinary, but she's nonbinary because of some weird scifi bullshit, not because it's just a normal thing for someone to be nonbinary.

And even if you did look at it like "oh she was born nonbinary because the scifi bullshit made her nonbinary" they then go "oh yeah, also if you're male presenting you're just power hungry and couldn't possibly think of just releasing the energy" which... i mean I love the fact that we can have some more donna episodes but really? they couldn't have just made up a bit more science fiction nonsense? Like "Oh doctor, dont you get it? the Shared inheritance created a monotelepathic psudoresonance frequency, allowing for a progenerational metasiphoning energy transfer. Which means we can perform an simultanious inverse chronoamplitude redistribution." and then shaun could just be like "you could... what?" and donna can go "we can just let it go" and then do the whole light show thing without throwing a weird jab at male presenting individuals.

Also, with the whole "Just let it go" thing, this kinda just implies that donna could have just gone "oh damn, I'm dying, but I can just choose not to die." and then we wouldn't have lost her for so long? I don't know, it was fine I guess, but like... still wasn't all that great, maybe I'll go watch some video essays and have my mind changed but still.

[andmaybegayer]

Last Monday of the Week 2023-08-07

Rainy season has come

Listening: Acid Magus' new album Hope Is Heavy is out, here's Progeneration.

Love Acid Magus. If you buy this album you also get a 15 minute long rearrangement of the three core songs from their first album which is absolutely killer.

Reading: Halfway through The Will to Battle. Notes to follow elsewhere as I make more progress.

Watching: Mermaid: The Body Found, at movie night. A mockumentary about mermaids being real shown on Animal Planet that was taken seriously by some people. Extremely stupid, great for heckling.

Making: Cinnabar is fully assembled, following a minor adventure with the power supply and finally fully stocking up on SATA cables. I'll put together a final parts list now that she's settled and I can actually use her in my day-to-day.

Playing: Mostly just kicking the tyres on Cinnabar with a few small runs in high end games, but I started Control and got to the first control point. I like the atmosphere but I can tell it's going to take me forever to get through this game with the amount of lore scattered around these cavernous halls.

Tools and Equipment: C/++ has a vars array of macros to print metadata about your code including the filename, line and function that a macro falls inside of. This is extremely handy for writing easy to use printf debugging code. GCC adds some extensions on top of even these.

[boobachu]

Do you think the Hamburglar fucked Hey Arnold! and that's how Inklings are made?

I mean, they brought him back just now so there's time... it's inevitable before the proto-woomy is progenerated...

i had a dream that due to a botched contract mcdonalds had accidentally agreed to individually sponsor every post on tumblr dot com so the site was unusable because everyone was just posting like 'cock sex cum' and then there'd be a giant integrated SPONSORED BY THE MCDONALDS CORPORATION banner underneath it and mcdonalds was losing millions of dollars on this

[collymore]

Love, the elegant antithesis to the irrefutably, villainous perturbations of Hate!

By Stanley Collymore

By virtue of its discernibly quite innate characteristics Love is perceptibly very instinctive and naturally simply reassuring. Hate, however, in obviously and undeniably so an unarguable contrast, is fittingly rather markedly, unquestionably and unrelentingly, distinctly prescriptive! For unlike Love whose general remit and actually voluntary commitment, simply is to evidently literally and as well equally thoroughly inspire, fully generate and sustain wherever and whenever possible an eager feeling of genuine self-assurance; crucially a literal consummate affability and appropriate responsibility for one's own actions and quite distinctively too the instinctive bonding of such personal qualities for, and likewise to the selfless advantage of others.

Hate, for its part, is self-evidently, simply purposefully malignant; egregious in its actions, at every affordable opportunity; and while efficaciously ploughing its wanton way along the literally ingrained furrows of jealousy, invidious envy, and the vilely wilful progeneration of any and every possible calamity, actually cheerfully, keenly, undoubtedly, and mercilessly congratulatorily, irrefutably presents itself whenever crass barbarity and basically its accompanying carnage unquestionably specifically become the efficacious, or relevant currency.

(C) Stanley V. Collymore 5 July 2024.  

Author's Remarks: The evidently, innately sterling qualities of my clearly distinctly proud Barbadian Culture has discernibly firmly imbued in me a rather strong, personal ethos; that I should never hate anyone despise, by all means, relevant individuals who truly deserve great loathing; but to go on and obviously hate them or crucially anyone else for that matter, never!  And actually so, because to rather vindictively utilize one's time, precious or nor, in idiotically, asininely and often essentially counterproductively hating anyone, only ultimately reduces one's own self inevitably to quite simply being really the actual despicable figure that one ironically is employing to really in effect castigatorily lambast and also equally evidently vitriolically demean or denounce one's chosen target for quite simply being themselves.

The rationale behind all this being that if you are being hateful yourself, how then can you honestly condemn others for behaving in precisely the same way that you're deeply engrossed in actually behaving yourself? It makes no sense whatsoever to me, and your subjectivity is quite skewed to say the very least. A classic case of do as I say or suggest but evidently not as I do!

Despising someone however is simply a literally wholly different and objective ball game because it's not based solely on subjective and very often thoroughly bigoted emotions or persuasions really as hate unequivocally and similarly also is; but instead quite logical, intelligently and rather solidly and simply irrefutably garnered facts, on which one can quite sensibly, and should always do so, base their own thoroughly objective analysis and obviously, intelligently constructive determination.

So exactly when are you distinctively as such effectively going to obviously climb down off the several, rather calculatedly orchestrated populist, very inane and utterly fatuous and basically ill conceived bandwagons of hate that you so idiotically love climbing aboard onto, even when you don't know, evidently haven't met or are ever in your life time or theirs ever likely to meet - ring any bells with you? - because of a lack of your own actually poor self-esteem? Just try it! It might very well even make you a half decent person!

[progenerate-eu]

M1 part3 | renovation | loft | video #1 from Georgi Tsochev on Vimeo.

English visitors - scroll down to the bottom

BG/БГ: Първо видео на тема "renovation" подтема "loft" Лофт ли е наистина? Макар предходната функция на настоящото обитаване да е било също жилище, а не склад или промишлено хале, (класически лофт) търсеният ефект и резултат е именно жилище притежаващо всички останали характеристики на "Лофт" - голяма светла височина (близо 4м) - отворена планировка - външно (характерно за промишлените сгради) окабеляване/инсталации - груба/сурова третировка на повърхностите на стените в жилището

В началото на филмчето ясно се вижда завареното разпределение и последващата трансформация. Малката кухня ще стане спалня, а трите стаи са обединени в общо многофункционално пространство.

Заданието (изготвено съвместно с клиент) бе:

1. Съвременно тип "Лофт" обитаване 2. Петдесет хиляди лева бюджет (2016 година) 3. Огромен "миндер" спалня (2.0м х 3.6м) до ниво прозорец дневна 4. Зона спорт + офис в рамките на дневната 5. Много складово пространство

Изпълнение:

1. Лофт ли е? Според мен - Да. Какво е вашето мнение? Ще се радвам на коментари. 2. Надхвърлихме с малко бюджета, но жилището се сдоби с изключително икономична в дългосрочен план система за отопление и топла вода - термопомпа "въздух-вода" Допълнителна икономия реализирахме от рецеклиране заварен дървен под, минимален б��джет локализиран за "финиш" на стени, икономичен и минималистичен дизайн за цялото обзавеждане) 3. Миндера добави складова площ с обем 5.76м3 или колкото малка (2-3м2) гардеробна стая 4. Шведска стена + копринен шал за "въздушна гимнастика" + елегантно "сгъващ се" офис 6. Освен двоен под за багаж в спалнята, добавихме и множество вградени гардероби и оползотворихме всеки кв.см пространство виж повече снимки от жилището в профилът ни в инстаграм:instagram.com/progenerate

Сред другите добри причини за двоен под в спалня: 1. необходимо пространство за "изравнителен резервоар" термопомпа 2. почти "френски прозорец" в спалня, без да се налага промяна фасада сграда 3. оползотворяване на твърде голямата за такъв тип помещение светла височина в помещението

- водещ проектант - "продженерейт-бг еоод" - ръководител изпълнение/бюджет - "продженерейт-бг еоод"

Настоящото видео е направено и качено на 28 август 2019 год, (част от първо видео: progenerate 3 in 1:

• progenerate 3 in ... ) Ако намеря отново вдъхновение и време бих могъл да направя още видеа свързани с този проект. Очевидно името ще е ... | loft | video #2, 3, 4

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

ENG: The first video on the topic "renovation" this time with the subtopic "loft" Is it really a loft? Although the previous function of the present habitation was also a dwelling and not a warehouse or an industrial hall, (classic loft) the desired effect and result is precisely a dwelling possessing all the other characteristics of a "Loft" - high clear height (nearly 4m) - open layout - external (typical for industrial buildings) wiring/installations - rough/harsh treatment of the wall surfaces in the dwelling The welded distribution and the subsequent transformation are clearly visible at the beginning of the film. The welded kitchen will become a bedroom, and the three rooms are united in a common multifunctional space.

The BRIEF or assignment (prepared together with the client) was:

1. Modern-type "Loft" dwelling 2. Fifty thousand budget (2016 year) 3. Huge "minder" bedroom (2.0m x 3.6m) next to the living room window level 4. Sports area + office within the living room 5. Lots of storage space

the end result:

1. Is this a loft? Any comments? 2. We exceeded the budget by a little, but the house got extremely economical in the long-term heating and hot water system - an air-water heat pump Additional savings were realized by recycling an old wooden floor, minimal budget localized finish walls, and economical, raw and minimalist design for all furniture) 3. Mindera added a storage area with a volume of 5.76m3 or as much as a small (2-3m2) dressing room 4. Swedish wall + silk scarf for "aerial gymnastics" + elegant "folding" office 6. In addition to a double floor for luggage in the bedroom, we also added multiple built-in wardrobes and used every square centimetre of space see many photos of the apartment on our Instagram profile: instagram.com/progenerate

Among other good reasons for a double floor in a bedroom: 1. required space for "equalizing tank" heat pump 2. almost a "French window" in a bedroom without having to change the facade of the building 3. utilization of the light height in the room, which is too large for this type of room

- leading designer - "progenerate ltd" - head of implementation/budget - "progenerate Ltd"

[cnpperformance]

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[egyptroyal]

yall do realize that after the timeless children reveal, that means jenny (doctor’s daughter) can actually have unlimited regenerations with no explanation why.

meanwhile the rest of their family is just stuck in a forced 13 regen cycle like my poor grandbby susan and ohhhh her son, mah poor great grandbby alex

[a-wartime-paradox]

The Nine Many Homeworlds

This is my opinionated version of the Clonewords Project, based on the Book of the War, Crimes Against History, and the Ouroboros Bottle Theory.

Original Homeworld

It is generally assumed that in the Pre-Imperaror Era, there was only one Homeworld. Biological reproduction was not possible here, progeneration only occuring in the "looms" (or, in the Book's terms, the "breeding-engines").

The date of divergence between this One Homeworld and the Many Homeworlds is not entirely clear, due to conspiracies and paradoxes, but at some point the Nine Homeworlds Project was executed, in which eight other alien words were "crypto-formed" to match the culture of the Homeworld. The House designated to each of these Homeworlds is not allowed any interaction with the "true" Great Houses, and the "true" Great Houses are not allowed any interaction with them. Officially, this is to make sure cultural backups are available incase The Enemy destroys the Original Homeworld, although it is widely speculated if this means that the Clonewords may not know they are not the originals (immediately leading to anxieties about whether or not the Prime Homeworld is actually the original).

Prime Homeworld / War King's Homeworld

Romana (evidence: Crimes says "she" and "field experience in the outside universe", and in the EDAs Romana III was President/War Queen), probably in her third incarnation, ruled a Homeworld we shall assign as "Prime", even though technically it may not be the original. At some point, this Romana left this Homeworld. It is generally agreed that she left to rule another Homeworld (potentially not one of the original Eight Clonewords, but that will be expanded upon). However, opinions differ as to whether this was to make that Homeworld think they were the original, or if her displacement was nonvoluntary, and even she thinks her new Homeworld is the original.

(From an out-of-universe perspective, this is very interesting is it seems to imply that at some point during the EDAs, our doctor switched from being ontologically aligned with the Prime Homeworld to being aligned with the Homeworld Romana would rule, as in the EDAs the Doctor always observes her as the leader, up until her Homeworld's destruction on The Ancestor Cell.)

The individual who would become the War King would eventually become the last head of the presidency (after a brief intermediate Head who's head was sent back in the event known as the First Message of the Enemy) and then the War King, a title which embraced both militarism and implied hereditarism (as "king" implies a hereditary monarchy) - and hence "vulgar" biology.

Romana III's Homeworld

This Homeworld is know to be distinct from the War King's, although it apparently was positioned where the original, originally was (Kasterborous, as The Ancestor Cell says. The Book of the War backs this up by "speculating that that original Homeworld may have been moved").

Crucially, despite not actually being the original homeworld (presumably), it's ruling Houses fully believe it to be, and it can be assumed with reasonable safety that it's War Queen, Romana III, also believed it to be the original. This lead to multiple Clonewords of it being created, as if it were the original.

This Homeworld was destroyed, along with its associated part of the Spiral Politic (read: version of history), when a future version of Faction Paradox, lead by Mother Mathara invaded it.

Gallifrey Eight

At this point I should probably disclose that although some of these Homeworlds are numbered, this most likely does not reflect their "observer criticality" (importance) in the Spiral Politic, or position/history relative to the Original Homeworld, due to the fact that many Clonewords beloved themselves to be the original, particularly Romana III's.

Anyway, Gallifrey Eight (or the Eighth Homeworld) had many "loomstacks" (recycling looms) and chronoforges (weapons of mass temporal destruction).

Gallifrey Nine

This Homeworld stored D-Mat guns, capable of complete temporal erasure.

Gallifrey XII

This was Homunculette's home Homeworld. By his time, the "original homeworld" had been destroyed. This statement was made by him, not the narrator, which means that the Homeworld that fell could have simply been the one that Gallifrey XII's ruling Houses believed to be the original, which could be Romana III's, although this contradicts the idea from The Ancestor Cell that Faction Paradox had erased all of Romana III's Homeworld's backups. Alternatively, the "original" mentioned here may have been the first cloneworld to fall, lost in the 'Battle of Mutter's Cluster".

Homeworld lost to the "Battle of Mutter's Cluster"

This Homeworld was likely (but not definitely) distinct from the previously mentioned ones. It was, according to an account that assumed Romana III's Homeworld was the original (The Taking of Planet 5), the first to be destroyed.

Bottle Homeworlds

As seen by I.M. Foreman in Interference (which I haven't read yet, so I'm not entirely sure about this), and the novel Dead Romance, the Great Houses were creating duplicates of their Homeworld inside bottle universes. These bottles leaked quite often, resulting in continuity contradictions and implied links between the EDAs, VNAs, and FP novels.

This means that it seems quite likely that most of the Homeworlds were actually inside bottles, but also that those bottles may be inside each other, in an Ouroboros fashion.

[comicaurora]

We know the Leviathan guarded the merfolk's lifewell. Is employing guardians a standard practice for The Twins? If so, may we get some examples for the other lifewells?

Lifewell guardians are indeed standard practice! They’re unique beings handcrafted by the Twins to observe the lifewell’s progress, protect it from intrusion and overall make sure nothing goes wrong while the species develop. After the lifewell is completed and the species are released, the guardian is granted a boon by the Twins, most commonly the progeneration of their own species. It’s possible that some (or even all) of the Younger Races have lifewell guardians as their progenitors.

[karnakian]

‘  you  know,  even  back  in  my  time,  the  concept  of  marriage  and  progeneration  was  entirely  unappealing  to  me.  i  even  dreamed  that  there’d  be  a  day  when  my  family  name  would  be  completely  lost  to  history.  but  now  that  i’m  here,  knowing  that  my  bloodline,  my  homeland,  will  die  with  me  ...  ’

‘  ha  ha  ...  what  a  lonely  feeling  this  is.  ’

[revuestarlight]

On the contrary. Precisely because it was something you said in the spur of the moment, it has brought your true colours to light.

You tend to avoid answering things outright, but that thought had been buried somewhere deep inside of you, no?

Kagehira. I think you've made a fundamental misunderstanding here.

The reason I exalt humans is not simply for being human. What I love is art, and art alone.

I see value in humans because they are the only beings known to be capable of producing art.

Beasts, you see, are incapable of such. That is what causes them to hold, at least to me, very little worth in comparison to humans.

You're aware of what sets humans apart from beasts, yes? Though this is a generalisation, humans have reason—that which allows us to suppress our wild instincts.

In the end, that may be the only definitive difference between us and them.

Art is but a product of reason.

It exists in a separate vein from undertakings such as eating, sleeping, reproducing and surviving for the preservation of our species, which are simply products of the information coded in our genes.

Even without drawing, even without singing, humans can continue to live without issue. Life is something maintained by eating, sleeping, gaining comrades and ensuring your own safety.

Art is not something humans require to live. Thus, we can call it a product of reason—or perhaps even a product of our humanity.

So then, what exactly is "humanity"? As you have previously said with great disdain, it is indeed the subject of much glorification in fiction.

Society dictates that we all ought to hold hands and get along, work diligently and reap the rewards of our labour.

They say everyone should live freely, doing whatever their hearts desire...

Whether it be taking down your enemies, fulfilling your dreams, or loving another.

This is wherein the error lies. Each of these things are simply products of our instincts.

Why do we love others...? Family, friends, lovers? The simple fact is that it facilitates our survival—the continuation of our species.

Increasing the number of people we can mutually love serves to protect us from external threats. Since that protection also facilitates the continuation of our lives, it elevates our survival rate.

That in turn allows for progeneration and proliferation.

In accordance with our genetic makeup—in other words, our instincts—those are simply ideal living conditions.

Love, dreams, justice, effort, friendship, victory...

Our stories sing their praises and extol them, but such concepts do not constitute humanity.

Humanity is, for example, the will that one requires to kill that which they love deeply.

An irrational, implausible action that defies the laws written in our DNA. Absolutely meaningless, moronic behaviour.

Other times, it is the will one has when, all the while knowing their continued existence would clearly benefit mankind and its future...

They instead choose to sacrifice themselves for some worthless nobody.

The free will to make such foolish decisions... That is what constitutes humanity.

[tsodeman13]

The Doctor was an abused child who had her ability to regenerate stolen and given to her abusers and then subsequently made to believe that this unique ability was not hers to begin with.

She’s not some messiah or supreme being. She was abused and experimented on and then subsequently gaslit to believe she didn’t progenerate the Time Lords.

[my-whumpy-little-heart]

Thank you to @pepperonyscience for this first sentence prompt! It got to be... a little more than five sentences. A bit of an introduction to an oc from that space series I have in the concept stages that I told myself I wouldn’t write right now. His name is Jade Marshall, he’s half human and half an aquatic based alien race I haven’t come up with a name for yet.

(there may be another bit I use this same prompt for because it’s what it was originally intended to be and I got an idea, but we’ll see...)

"I wonder how long these puny human lungs of yours could last underwater."

“Stop, I’m not- I’m not even a human,” Jade muttered and lowered his head, trying to push past the crowd of taller people even as they closed on him, pushing him closer to the railing.

“Might as well be. You certainly sympathize enough with ‘em. Didn’t ever get those gills you always told us you would, either.” One of the others reached out to run fingers roughly up the side of his neck, digging them into light scarring there where his gills were meant to have opened up. “You know, those normally develop around seventeen. Fifteen years late is a little too late to be a ‘late bloomer’ don’t you think?”

He dug fingers against the scars until Jade flinched away, holding up hands protectively around his neck. He didn’t say a word.

“The question still stands though,” the first chimed in again. “Aren’t you curious how long you can hold your breath, jewel boy?”

“I’m... really not. Just let me through. We’re not children anymore; this is uncalled for--”

“Always so serious, Jaden!” the strongest of them laughed, a hand reaching out to grasp his chin and tilt it upwards. When he twitched and tried to jerk away, sharp claws tightened and dug into his skin. “We just wanna have some fun with our friend who nearly ruined earlier’s proceedings with his idiocy… and let him know what we think about him taking this chance away from us,” he purred, pulling Jade’s chin up and back until he had no choice but to bend. His lower back leaned against the railing, but he was well aware of how the rest of his upper body was balancing precariously above the rushing river below.

He knew it wouldn’t be so bad. He could swim. He wouldn’t have to find out how long he could hold his breath because he would make it to the surface for air. He was still a half breed, after all. But at the same time, he could see the crystal clear water in his mind’s eye, the sharp rocks coating the bottom of the river. If by chance he hit one of those… he swallowed involuntarily as he was bent further back above the water.

He felt hands around his ankles and he fumbled to get a grip on the edge of the rail, preparing to leverage against the sickening, dizzying feeling of being flipped on his head. Jade’s eyes flicked back up to one holding him back, usually blank eyes sparking with the pain of old wounds.

“Anything like this happens again,” he started, tightening his grip even further, “and you land down there. Do anything to jeopardize the trial? We don’t stop at drowning you. Got it?”

Shakily, Jade nodded and swallowed again when the hands retracted from his face and ankles. He could feel the points where nails had dug in, carving divots and breaking skin.

The rest of the group backed away, chattering among themselves and snickering as he lay still for a few moments, steadying his breathing, before heaving himself back to his feet. He checked his old telepager, squinting at the cracked display--if only they’d replace the progenerator then the cracks wouldn’t be a problem--to see the time. He was already late for his next rotation.