#so I have this moderately sized blind spot that will keep growing

[mothman-is-my-girlfriend]

mmm I love it when the scar tissue on my retina starts acting funny

sometimes it’s noticeable but it usually isn’t bed I’ve just learned to filter it out

[butterfly-winx]

its probably the helia stan in me but id love to read an origin story! idk if youre planning one for all of them but i really like your worldbuilding so id read them! and i know others would too! 💞 (also that fairy sketch was beautiful and if youre planning on it id love to hear more about him 👀)

Aahh ugh, I don’t actually have a lot fleshed out for Cyanox, except that he is the Guardian of Prometia and neutral to a fault. And also unintentionally the reason for why/how Layla  gained the ability to modify Sirenix into Crystal Sirenix to adapt to cold and high pressure environments. 

I am far too disorganised to make one collection post for the backgrounds of all characters I messed with, so I guess, here goes nothing. *cracks knuckles* Buckle in for the ride! (content warning for death and lethal illnesses)

Helia was born on Lynphea in a middle sized settlement in the moderate-warm Eastern Forests of Lynphea. I talk about the zones, culture and dangers of Lynphea here, so I don’t want to repeat myself too much, but Helia’s village was much closer to the borders of the Death Zone the virus has claimed for itself than what would have been advisable. Back then, they thought  Viaj would exhaust the surrounding natural resources and its people would move on long before the spread of the virus would become a danger to them. Oh how wrong they were. All it took was the change of the wind one summer.

Helia had been only five and then some and the world was still too vivid in his eyes, lights filtering through leaves a spectacle every day he accompanied one of his caretakers on a simple errand. He was the one who found the earliest warning sign, a fungal growth on a long leaf of gras that was the manifestation of the plague befalling its plant hosts. Not quite comprehending what that meant in his young age, Helia struggled for a long time with guilt about the terror his discovery brought, wishing he would have never played in the prairie. Like that would have avoided anything.

The inhabitants of Viaj actually gained a head start through his discovery though that potentially spared other communities, however it couldn’t help theirs. They quarantined immediately, drew up a magic barrier to protect everyone from the airborne spores that carry the virus from plants to humans. But doing so they gave up hunting and gathering and were entirely reliant on the rations the other communities would send with the quarantine workers. Though even those trickled to a stop when the first person fell sick with the cough and the tell-tale black spots formed on their mucous membrane. People saw no use in wasting resources on people who were damned to die. The best they could do now was limit travel to the edge of the Eastern Forest and set more scientists on recalculating the projected spread of the virus.

Lynpheans practice a philosophy of “live and let die” not hanging onto things beyond their lifespan, so this was seen as neither cruel or unusual, but show me one person who is truly prepared to die such a horrific, slow death in order to upkeep the natural order. The people of Viaj didn’t want to die, and they certainly didn’t deserve to die. But people fell like flies, until about three months later only Helia, Naoqi, the last adult, and Tsilla, the very last baby born in midst of all that, were alive. Naoqi cared for Helia and the baby as best as he could and in doing so became a replacement parental figure in Helia’s eyes. He did everything he could to make the horrible experience slightly lighter to bear for the children, but when the magic barrier keeping the wind away fell, there was little he could have done to stave off the inevitable. 

Helia was left alone, with a not even five moth old baby and no way of feeding himself or the baby. With nothing else left, he braved the forest and looked for the quarantine workers who were no doubt overseeing the area, which marked the last time Helia ever walked in the forests of his home. The quarantine workers were more than surprised by the tenacious boy with a baby in his arms and finding out he was still alive after what they thought was final exhaustion has set in. 

The next thing after that that Helia actually remembers is waking up on Magics with Saladin greeting him, introducing himself as a distant relative. The truth was a lot more complicated than that. The quarantine workers have taken Helia to the nearest hospital to treat him for the effects of starvation, because miraculously, the disease had still not taken hold of him after five months of exposure. Hermetically locked in a wing of the hospital, he was the most prised and most dangerous person and study artefact on the whole planet. His comatose slumber was watched from behind plexi glas and every then available humoral test was run on him to find out why he of all people had proved to be immune. If he was immune at all.

Meanwhile Saladin arrived on planet as he heard the news of the demise of his hometown, of his family. Even back then he had not been the pride of the planet and his relationship with his family had been strained because of the wars he had chosen to be involved in. All of that didn’t matter the instant lives were on the line and Saladin wanted nothing more than one last exchange of letters he would never get to make everything alright again. No power in the world would ever grant him that, but having powerful friends in the right circles granted him something else. Information, that a young Viaj boy was still alive in the Epidemiology Research Centre. He may be the future, the solution to all of their problems with a  DNA hiding the secrets to immunity. Saladin immediately inquired, dug deeper demanding to see the boy, but the Council denied him visitation rights. He had to strike an underhanded deal with the co-leader of the research project under a false name to find out Helia wasn’t even awake, but held in a magically induced coma for observational purposes. The scientist talked on and on about the possibilities and what they would do after they go the genes needed but Saladin blew up at that point. How dare they treat this boy like an object, like his loss wouldn’t be felt by anyone, should one of the procedures go wrong. Like all his life could hold from now on was an ultimate sacrifice for the benefit of the many. He wouldn’t even be able to comprehend that if told. With Saladin blowing a fuse, the research centre blew up too and he fled the planet that night with an unconscious Helia in his arms. 

So what felt like a night of knocked-in-the-head-by-a-horse sleep to Helia was actually close to four weeks in real world time. He has no concrete memory of what Saladin saved him from, but enough peripheral perception of what transpired planetside to make sense of the ramifications. Technically, Helia’s DNA is public property of the Lynphea Council, and technically both him and Saladin have an arrest warrant hanging over their head for the destruction and property damage caused. If Helia were to ever set foot on Lynphea again (or even go to a country that has an extradition treaty with them) he would be taken back to the Research Centre to be dissected to the smallest molecules until he yielded answers. 

While Helia was able to grow up in Magics in relative safety, the virus was still wreaking damage on Lynphea. Saladin (and to a lesser extent Helia) made the incredibly difficult decision to reject the experimentation on Helia and thus deny the population of their home a potential treatment to an otherwise lethal infection. It is an incredibly heavy burden and no day passes that they don’t question the rightness of their choice.

Helia can certainly appreciate the moral conflict now, but as a child he was much more difficult to manage. The switch from a huge nurturing family to one primary carer to rely on was harsh on Helia, who was already traumatised and needing  love and affection. Saladin did the best he could, but running a school and otherwise being a Universe-wide known hero didn’t help. After they grew close on the tail end of Helia’s childhood, they explosively drew apart during his tweens, Helia not able or reluctant to understand the restrictions Saladin placed on his life.

First, he was unwilling to share as much about Lynphean culture and way of life as Helia wished to know, saying that he wouldn’t be able to apply it there on Magics anyway. The deeper reason for that is more likely buried in his resentment for Lynphea rejecting him as harshly as they did after he helped save the Universe from the Ancestresses, but Helia of course knew nothing of that. Then when he moved over to adapting to life on Magics “in the Magics” way, he begged to be taught magic for which he had developed a budding talent. Saladin refused again for related trauma reasons. He didn’t want Helia to wield a power that could potentially make him a weapon in someone else’s crusade. Being his only personal student would only paint a target on Helia’s back. 

Helia was having none of that, fiercely objecting to the treatment. He had his own trauma to deal with. Like death by illness. (People falling ill was a lasting trigger he has been continuously working to overcome, but the first time Saladin came home with a cough Helia immediately worked himself into a panic attack so severe he couldn’t stop vomiting and had to be taken into a hospital himself. ) He shouldn’t have to shoulder the repercussions of Saladin’s problems too! 

People who say old teens and their wilfulness are hard to deal with, haven’t met twelve year old Helia yet. To think he actually mellowed out by the time he hit Red Fountain. In any case, Helia and Saladin weren’t really speaking civilly with each other anymore by the time Helia met Krystal. (More on her side of things here) Krystal, ten and absolutely blind to seeing obstacles, offered Helia her books on basic witchcraft and with that the opportunity to take his magic learning into his own hands. After all, sorcery required a lot of detailed instruction, but witchcraft was available to any odd fool who could set up a passable reaction equation. It took half a year of trials and encouragement for his efforts to yield a result and for Krystal and Helia’s friendship to bloom. It took Saladin much longer than that to catch on to Helia’s secret tinkering. The old man should have suspected something to be up after their disagreements magically disappeared after Helia and Krystal met twice. The aftermath was ugly and lead to Helia and Krystal reluctantly parting ways. 

Helia was inconsolable an dedicated a large part of his life to making it as difficult for Saladin as possible. His grades dropped, his art got angry and choppy and he had to be escorted home by peace keepers for having snuck into places he shouldn’t have been in. Year fourteen and fifteen of Helia’s life have been by far the most difficult to deal with with no improvement in sight. Under pressure from his school and Saladin to choose a path for higher education after his year nine exams, Helia thought it would be most spiteful to chose...nothing. He would simply stop going to school at 15 years of age and just become whatever. Maybe a full-time artist or a busker. “Hah, that’ll show Saladin!”- he thought, but he severely miscalculated.

Saladin had often threatened with making Helia enrol in his school if he didn’t behave and Helia never though he would make good on his words until he was dropped off at the main entrance with all his bags like the other freshmen filtering in through the gates. Being the headmaster, Saladin allowed Helia some liberties, trying to demonstrate to him that he shouldn’t see this as a punishment, but as an opportunity to further his life. Cue Helia’s biggest pièce de resistance, showing just how much he didn’t think so. As mentioned a few asks ago, he was given the liberty to chose where he lived and which team he chose, but not like that goddamit! He took shameless advantage of the loose wording Saladin used and hopped between rooms and teams completely ignoring conventions. He was the bane of the school, found on the roof, in supply closets and in the middle of hallways. Teams feared him, because they knew if Helia was assigned to them they might as well have been one person short, his flaky nature making it hard for them to work with him. Codatorta wrote as many warnings for Helia in that one year as he did in his whole career before that. Students at Red Fountain tended to be disciplined and dedicated to becoming Specialists, but Helia was the absolute antithesis to them. At the end of the year no amount of Saladin’s half-hearted excuses could save Helia from the overwhelming force of the teaching staff getting him sacked. Not that Helia minded, though. It was exactly what he wanted.

Saladin more or less gave up on him then. If he wanted to be on his own then fine. Saladin would help him with finding an own apartment and give him his first moth of rent, but after that Helia could go and find himself a purpose in the world alone. Fine. Fine. Alright! 

It was not alright at all, but it was buried under a very thick layer of “I’ll show ya” which made Helia want to live his best liberal artist life. He enjoyed creating as much art as he wanted, but he craved social contact and being engaged in something with a common goal, so he started getting involved with local pacifist groups. He had always preached a path of non-violence, which was about the only thing that had been ingrained in him from his Lynphean upbringing. There he started to expand his horizon beyond what his gut feeling taught him about pacifism and got into reading theory seriously. He was surprised how many of those books shared around had originally belonged to the Red Fountain library and even more so that they have ben written by the founders of the Red Fountain Cavalry. And that was when Helia bust down Saladin’s office door.

“All of this theory was in the school’s library the whole time!!?? And all everyone was ever talking about was warfare!! Why was I never told the best pacifist philosophers of the century were all Red Fountain members???” “You never showed up to any of the philosophy lectures! How am I to blame?” A deep breath from Helia, re-evaluating all of his 17 years of life choices. “Dada Saladin, you have to let me back into your school please.” 

And Saladin refused. To let him back without repercussions that is. Helia had to prove that he took his education seriously and was ready to commit by taking the entrance exam like everybody else to earn his place at the institute. He scraped the bottom of the scoreboard with his first results, but took the first year foundation course with a mile long stride. He was allowed to skip quite a few modules and ended up in the same year as the protag specialist boys with quite a reputation to his name. In the process of reacquainting himself with the school and its philosophy, he learned humility, respect, and when to keep his head down and mouth shut. The upperclassmen from his original year group barely believed he was supposedly the same person they got to know as an absolute menace . There are many rumours about twin brothers, brainwashing and Saladin’s terrifying magic might turning him into this new person.

Helia has come an extremely long way becoming the well-tempered and balanced person known from the show’s timeline. It is almost as if he compressed a lifetime of angst into three years, thus min-maxing his character development coming out more adult in the end at 18 years old than many people at 30. He lived through a lot of things and it shows in how he behaves and what he cares about. He is a passable fighter, but his main aim is always to protect and to avoid conflict if possible. He is a trained negotiator for that purpose and prefers to act as tactical support for his team. It all changes however once Riven and Sky both decide to quit the team leaving Helia, Brandon and Timmy with a very difficult decision on how to go on after that.

(Aand we have arrived at present day for my AU timeline with this. I hope you made it this far, I‘ve never written this much for a tumblr post before)

[l0uk45]

If students from class 1A and 1B were part of the Riordanverse:

Yuga Aoyama: Son of Aphrodite. Not even a good one, unless you need someone blinded by his glitter-gun. Oh yeah, he has a glitter gun with lasers for maximum flare. Is he completely over-the-top? Absolutely. But is he good in a fight? Surprisingly, yes.

Mina Ashido: Daughter of Hermes and legacy of Hecate, capable of inhuman movements and can produce a slime that magically dissolves anything. She also tattooed her eyes black and yellow for some weird masochistic reason.

Tsuyu Asui: She’s a frog-turned-human by Ochako. She still has her tongue, leaps, hops, camouflage, a reversible stomach and poison that can kill a group of whales. And he can still inflate her throat like a balloon, which makes for good scares.Very good scares…

Tenya Iida: Son of Mercury, he never skips leg day. Never. Seriously, have you seen those legs? He could crush a car with those puppies! Or crush monster heads! Which he does do quite often! He doesn’t skimp out on upper body exercises either, but LOOK AT THOSE LEGS OF THUNDER!

Ochako Uraraka: Daughter of Hecate, she specializes in a set of spells that manipulate an individual object’s or being’s gravitational pull. It’s gotten to the point where she makes anything she touches with five fingers on one hand, it will float, no matter what, which is why she wears gloves all the time.

Mashirao Ojiro: Son of Mars, he’s an expert martial artist and very, very good at multiple of them. He’s lost multiple sparring partners because of his profinity with a number of weapons, and his lethality without any weapons.

Denki Kaminari: Legacy of Zeus and Apollo, each by about 50 generations. About as bright as his godly ancestors (not very), but he still makes one Hel of a lightning bolt, and he’s also pretty good with a guitar and lyre. 

Eijiro Kirishima: Son of Vulcan, his blood and skin are pure liquid gold, bronze and diamond he can infinitely harden for a period of time. It also obtains unnaturally sharp edges, and given his tendency to go hard when excited, he has made his friends frequent the infirmary for cuts and broken ribs.

Koji Koda: Son of Actaedon, he can talk with wildlife. He’s also a Legacy of Heracles, hence his size. His hugs are nice, war and gentle.

Rikido Sato: Son of Mars, this guy has a serious sweet tooth. He’s also surprisingly gentle for a guy that can decimate an opponent with a single hit.

Mezo Shoji: Son of Ares, he’s surprisingly level-headed. And malicious. Seriously, this guy always has at least ten different weapons on him, on top of him knowing a variety of potentially lethal moves. His arms are known as the Anacondas for a reason.

Kyoka Jiro: Daughter of Apollo, she’s a top-tier musician, singer and is moderate with a bow and arrow. She can whistle in the ultrasonic range, clap like thunder, sing and play like either a sweet little bird or a whole-ass heavy metal choir without ruining her vocal cords, and she gives the opposite amount of fucks that Zeus does (ie. zero).

Hanta Sero: Son of Hermes, he inherited a pair of magical tape dispensers that can dispense any tape in any amount of any properties he chooses. He uses them to swing around like Spider-Man, which made him a regular visitor of the infirmary until Momo made him a special harness to keep his joints from dislocating. 

Fumikage Tokoyami: Son of Erebos, he suffers from split-personality disorder, but it’s fixed nicely by his inner demon incarnate made of pure darkness he calls Dark Shadow. They have a strangely healthy relationship for a boy and his literal inner demon.

Shoto Todoroki: A Legacy, descendant of Hel and Surtr, capable of making ice that freezes fire, and fire that burns ice. He gives so little shit he’s actually oblivious to social cues, which makes for more than a few funny moments on quests with him.

Toru Hagakure: Legacy of Iris, she can manipulate light around her to turn invisible or project bright flashes

Katsuki Bakugou: Son of Ares, with rage and instincts of war so strong and powerful he can convert his sheer rage into explosions in the palms of his hands. He generated more than one explosion with the explosive yield of a nuclear weapon in his life. How he hasn’t gone deaf yet is beyond most people, though he does still know a variety of sign languages.

Izuku Midoriya: A mortal, capable of seeing through the mist, was gifted the Spartan Spirit, a spirit formed by Kratos, Nike, Bia and Zelus, to protect humanity in its greatest times of need. He ends up breaking his bones an absolute shitton, and is a regular at the infirmary.

Minoru Mineta: Died on a quest. His quest-mates say ‘by accident’. Everyone knows it was very deliberate, but then again, everyone hated him and is fine with him dead. Some people wanted to be the ones to kill him though.

Momo Yaoyorozu: A Legacy, granddaughter of Hephaestus and Athena, capable of making virtually any machine. She’s also very fidgety, and once made an entire army of fully autonomous grass soldiers that went on to terrorize the other campers for a bit. In thirty minutes.

Class 1B:

Yosetsu Awase: Son of Hephaestus, he also likes to make stuff. Though mostly he combines already existing tools, gadgets and machines, and makes weird amalgamations. He once fused an automaton bull, an automaton dragon and a school bus, and it actually works.

Sen Kaibara: Son of Ares, he’s pretty chill compared to his kin (especially Katsuki and Setsuna), mainly due to him bottling up his anger. Which he can unleash as tornadoes around his limbs, which he can use to drill through walls. Thank gods he doesn’t lose it too often.

Togaru Kamakiri: Son of Ceres, he likes farming tools. Especially ones with blades. That’s lead to him using all kinds of sickles, scythes (both farming tools and war scythes) and even a few lawn mowers, shovels, axes...

Shihai Kuroiro: Son of Nyx, him and Tokoyami get along exceptionally well. Given his ability to shadow-travel and use shadows and darkness as materials to make some pretty nifty weapons only he can use.

Itsuka Kendo: Daughter of Athena, she excels in critical thinking and a variety of martial arts. And knocking out her piers with precise attacks when they start to get exceptionally annoying.

Yui Kodai: Daughter of Trivia. She excels in potions and spells that manipulate the size of objects, so much so that she has to resort to gloves because she now naturally makes things smaller with her left hand, or bigger with her right hand. She’s the calm one.

Kinoko Komori: Daughter of Demeter, she has a soft spot for fungi and mushrooms. Which she can make grow rapidly. Very rapidly. She’s fun at parties.

Ibara Shiozaki: Daughter of Demeter, she dyes her hair green with actual chlorophyll for some reason (“To feel one with the beautiful plants,” she says), but she can also grow and manipulate vines and other vine-like plants, along with trees, quite effectively, and she has some rose and poison oak (she’s immune to it) seeds in her hair. Don’t ask, her answers are just as ridiculous as the chlorophyll-dyed hair.

Jurota Shishida: Son of Mars, he’s been cursed by most likely Hera to be a humanoid boar/dog thing. He’s especially good at wrestling, and is very diplomatic in his approach. Until he gets pissed, then he charges like a boar and yes, he keeps those tusks of his sharp on a regular basis.

Niregeki Shoda: Legacy of Hermes, son of Hephaestus, he likes to make explosives and plant them everywhere. More than a few campers were scared. Except Katsuki, who tried to outdo the ground (Niregeki’s mine) in explosive yield and put skylight access in the roof of Bunker 9. Niregeki had to repair it.

Pony Tsunotori: Legacy of Poseidon, she can shapeshift. She likes to shapeshift into horses, bulls, deer and goats (including mooses and buffalo), and she has a nifty gadget from the Hephaestus and Vulcan campers in the shape of horns that transform with her, giving her detachable remote-control horns. 

Kosei Tsuburaba: Legacy of Jupiter, son of Ares, he’s competitive and can make walls and blades out of air. Especially annoying for monsters because they can’t get to him, period, and every time they try, they don’t get past his walls of air for a whole minute before someone either cuts/hacks/slices them to bits, freezes/burns them alive, blows them up with their fists/explosives/expanding stones they previously ingested or some other way of disposing a monster.

Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu: Son of Vulcan, capable of turning to pure steel over his entire body, also increasing his strength. Because of this, and his tendency to go hard whenever he’s excited, he’s made his friends frequent the infirmary for bruises and broken ribs.

Setsuna Tokage: Daughter of Ares, she’s actually been hurt pretty badly in one of her fights (she went on a Quest with Katsuki, and no, it wasn’t him who hurt her) and had to have automaton grafts to replace her limbs, a part of her lower jaw, her eyes and the muscles around her spine, along with parts of the vertebrae. Which she asked to be detachable and splittable in as many pieces as possible, which she can control telepathically and uses to troll other campers. A lot. Especially two certain sons of Vulcan.

Manga Fukidashi: No one knows what he is, they just know his head is a speech bubble and he can make anything he writes real.

Juzo Honenuki: Legacy of Gaia, he can virtually liquify the ground (does not work on metal or wooden floors). He trolls a lot with this ability. And I do mean a lot.

Kojiro Bondo: A golem? A person? His head makes it hard to tell whether he’s a demigod or a monster to be honest. And his glue-like spit doesn’t help much either.

Neito Monoma: Legacy of, you guessed it, Zeus! He has a superiority complex because of this, and he frequents the infirmary on the basis of Itsuka or whoever he was annoying KOing him constantly. All that brain damage probably isn’t helping his mental issues...

Reiko Yanagi: Daughter of Hecate she can make things she touches float and fly around using some sort of incantation. The biggest she can do is double her own body weight, but that doesn’t stop her from delivering high-speed flying punches and scaring other campers.

Hiryu Rin: Son of Mars and Legacy of Poseidon, he can shapeshift into various animals. Most notably a mix of human, hedgehog and a lizard. Sharp, painful and deadly precise. And also meditating. And a lot of it.

[radiantmists]

A Playful Diversion

Read on AO3

The demon Aziraphale arrives in the Garden and takes a deep breath, smiling at the full moon above and savoring the taste of rich earth and growing things.

He looks down at his pale new body, admiring the soft rolling curves of it, and stretches just to luxuriate in the pull of the muscles below. Then he spends rather a lot of time brushing off the dirt from his travel through the ground, finding a stream to wash his face in until he’s sure he looks nothing like some of the filthy demons he’d seen down below.

(This thought comes with a prim, petty sort of disgust that feels extraordinarily satisfying, now—Pride is a sin even if it’s passive-aggressive and condescending rather than loud and bragging.)

Aziraphale wanders through the Garden after that, keeping a vague eye out for the two humans. He’s supposed to be causing trouble, and they seem to be a likely target, given Her special interest in them. He doesn’t make too much of an effort, though, not even to stay hidden; it’s not as though he could truly hide from Her anyway, so why bother? She will do what She likes, after all, so he might as well just enjoy himself. There’s no rush.

(Sloth is also a sin, but he’s a demon now; no reason he should try to be diligent.)

And he is enjoying himself. Whatever quibbles he may have had regarding the reasons for the whole thing, the Garden is gorgeous, replete with flowers and butterflies, with charming little streams and hidden nooks where the wildlife sleep peacefully. And the fruit…

Aziraphale tries everything he sees. He delights in the tartness of the raspberries and the crisp crunch of the pears, the sweetness of strawberries and the cool juice of the peach running down his chin. He finds that biting through the rind of the orange is a mistake, but ultimately the bitterness is rewarded with the sweet tang of the flesh within. After that, he starts to peel away thick skin and crack open gourds, scooping out the white meat of coconuts and cherimoya with his fingers. There’s a false start before he realizes that the good part of the pomegranate is the seeds, but once he does… oh.

(Gluttony is also, of course, a sin, when appetites are selfishly carried to excess, and Aziraphale has no thoughts of moderation.)

Pineapples and watermelon are a bit more of a challenge; while plucking gooseberries, he raises pale pink scratches on his arms, and the less said about the ordeal with the prickly pears, the better. And that’s to say nothing of the honey. He has to do some very fast talking to convince the bees that he’d repaired their hive, see, there was no need to sting, and he’d be ever so careful in the future, if they’d just let him have a little more…

Eventually, though, he finds the most well-guarded fruit in the Garden.

It isn’t immediately obvious; the fruit is an inviting dark red, with skin that looks thin and easy to bite through. But as Aziraphale reaches up through the branches, a warning hiss makes him jerk his hand away in surprise.

In the dappled shadow of the leaves, a pair of glittering golden eyes reflect the moonlight. Slowly, he makes out the shape of a great long body wound through the branches of the tree, sleek black scales shifting to a deep crimson at its underbelly.

“Oh, hello, dear,” Aziraphale says. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there. I’m Aziraphale.”

The snake stares at him, and he thinks it would probably blink in bemusement if that were something a snake could do.

“I’m Crawly,” it says finally.

“You certainly are,” Aziraphale replies dryly, and then realizes—that was its name. Creatures do not have names, which means that he isn’t speaking to a snake. He’s speaking to an angel. And he’s just told an insipid joke about his (admittedly rather ridiculous) name.

Before he can panic at all, there’s an odd hissing sound, and he realizes that the angel is laughing.

“I really didn’t mean to disturb you,” Aziraphale says uncomfortably. “Just… the fruit looks rather lovely.”

“It’sssss forbidden,” Crawly hisses, scales whispering over the branches as he readjusts his perch in the tree, freeing up the front of his body to strike.

Aziraphale blinks. “This one? Are you quite sure?” When the angel only stares, unblinking, he adds doubtfully, “only there are others that seem to be rather more… threatening, you know.”

“I moved all the poisonous ones, honeyface,” Crawly says, defensive. Aziraphale resists the urge to self-consciously scrub at his suddenly very hot face, trying to find a retort, and then pauses suddenly.

“There are poisonous ones?” he asks, a sort of retroactive worry curdling his full stomach. Beelzebub will not be impressed if he’s ruined this body already. “Where did you move them to?”

“A cave. It’s got a stream running through and a great hole in the top for light, but you couldn’t have just wandered in there in that shape,” Crawly assures.

“I should like to see that,” Aziraphale replies, relieved now and imagining the picture it must make, light shining down in a column on the lush greenery, the whisper of water trickling along just out of sight.

Crawly eyes him suspiciously. “I’m sure you would, demon,” he accuses. “I put those out of reach for a reason, I’m not showing you where they are so you can go make the humans sick.”

“Are you implying I’m going to poison them?” Aziraphale asks, affronted. Then he tilts his head in thought. “Actually…”

The angel winces.

“They—they know better than to eat those anyway,” he insists, and angels don’t lie but there’s something a little too keen in the warning. “She pointed out all the things that were dangerous.”

“Then why did you have to put them out of reach?” Aziraphale asks mildly, and Crawly hisses in frustration. Which means that poison is still a possibility, assuming he can figure out how much is needed to just make the silly things sick without getting himself in too much trouble. Fortunately, he realizes, there might be a much more interesting opportunity right in front of him. “What’s more, if you moved all the others, why did you leave this one? Did She forget to point it out? Or,” he adds inncocently, “is it too big?”

“I’m an angel,” the angel says, testily. “I can move any tree I like, size isn’t an issue. And She did tell them if they ate it they would surely die and all that. But She placed it specially here—“

“Did she now?”

“Um, yeah…”

“The Lord took special care to place one single poisonous tree in this specific spot? In Her rather enormous Garden?” Looking around, there is a grassy sort of clearing around the tree that Aziraphale might have noticed if he hadn’t been so consumed with excitement over the fruit. What’s more, it seems possible based on where he’d started, and the direction he’d been walking and the amount the moon had moved, that this was the exact center of the Garden. Which means it must be a rather important tree.

“Well, it’s technically not—“

Crawly cuts himself off, but it’s too late—Aziraphale’s mind is in motion, picking the words apart. What was not what? The Garden is certainly enormous, and certainly Hers; the angel had said himself that She placed the tree specifically, and that She told the humans the fruit was—

No. No, that wasn’t quite what Crawly said, was it?

“It’s not technically poisonous, is it? You even said,” Aziraphale realizes, “you moved all the poisonous ones. This fruit isn’t poison at all, it’s just forbidden.”

“They’ll die if they eat it,” the angel insists stubbornly. “She said so.”

“Maybe,” Aziraphale says, because trying to convince a loyal angel that the Lord lied is a fool’s errand. “But if it’s not the fruit that will kill them, what will? Her?”

“Ssssshe wouldn’t do that,” Crawly replies, hissing with outrage. “It’s wrong. They’re her favorite creation, and it’s just a fruit, that wouldn’t be—“

“Right? Fair?” Aziraphale scoffs, fists clenching, and Crawly rears back at his sudden vehemence. “It isn’t right to make us create all this and then ignore us to focus on them, and then cast out anyone who wants to know why. It isn’t fair to pick favorites.”

(Envy is a sin, a horrible ugly little ball of resentment that sits in the stomach like rotten fruit, weighs the soul down like a stone.)

There’s a long, bitter silence. They stare at each other, neither willing to budge, until finally Aziraphale sighs and relaxes his posture, shaking his head.

(Wrath is a sin when anger festers and vents itself at undeserving targets, but it’s one he frankly finds rather distasteful.)

“It’s hardly fair, either, to put such a delicious-looking fruit they can’t eat right in the center of a Garden full of ones they can. It seems… confusing.”

“Well, that’s what I’m here for,” Crawly says.

“She put an angel here to remind the humans not to eat a fruit?” Aziraphale had known she was fixated on them, but that seemed excessive.

“Well, all She said was that I’m a guardian, gave me venom and a flaming sword and all,” Crawly replies, mouth wide to show his teeth, and Aziraphale resists the urge to flinch back at flaming sword. “But I mean, it seemed implied. Who else would I be guarding, the trees?”

Probably just this specific tree, Aziraphale doesn’t say, because he’s too busy gaping at this ridiculous, wonderful angel. ‘It seemed implied’—maybe it had, but only from a very specific vantage point. A naïve one, of course, one of blind, unquestioned faith, yes; but it was faith in the idea that She reflected this angel’s simple, perfectly instinctive love, the conviction that nothing was more valuable than life.

Aziraphale doesn’t have that kind of faith anymore, has felt firsthand the imperfections in Her love. But perhaps…

No. Crawly is an angel, he reminds himself, a loyal soldier of the Lord who might be friendly and delightfully witty but who has been armed with a flaming sword that he’ll probably try to drive through Aziraphale’s heart when their conversation ends. His love is no more perfect than Hers.

“Hey, you okay?”

Aziraphale started, blinking up at the branches. It made sense how he’d managed to miss Crawly; weaved between the branches as he was, his black scales blended with the night shadows, while the glimpses of red scales that were visible were a perfect match for the fruit.

He’s not up to date on serpentine body language, but Crawly actually seems concerned.

“Yes, yes, quite alright,” Aziraphale replied, trying to regain the thread of the conversation.

“Do you still want one?”

And now Aziraphale’s completely lost. “What?”

Crawly laughs, the same soft, hissing delight. “The apples, do you still want to try one?”

“I—well,” Aziraphale stutters, thrown. Is this some sort of test? Will he be allowed to go without a fight if he doesn’t seem interested? “I don’t want to ‘surely die’, if that’s what you’re asking—“

“Oh, that’s just for the humans.” At Aziraphale’s surprised look, Crawly explains, “I asked, because the animals kept trying to eat them.”

“I see… but this still feels like a trap,” Aziraphale says worriedly. All the same, he can’t stop himself from glancing at the fruit again, ripe and inviting and new.

Crawly laughs again, sounding almost fond, but this time he starts to move, coils flowing over the branches until he hangs in a single loop, and for a moment Aziraphale thinks the angel’s laughed himself right out of the tree. Then something changes, the loop over the branch melting into strong fingers with black-tipped nails, the head shifting and the red scales flowing back over it into long russet curls, lids forming gently over golden eyes and then blinking open to reveal them glittering in mirth. The black scales have retreated but not disappeared, tracing a path down Crawly’s neck and disappearing over his slim dark shoulder, reappearing at the bony hips and branching over lean thighs to curl around his dark, pointy knees before spilling out to cover his slender calves and ankles.

Crawly drops to the ground on scaled feet with a final chuckle, plucking an apple from the tree as he lets go of the branch.

“Look,” he says, and with glinting white teeth and thin, grinning lips he bites into the apple, ripping away a full mouthful, large enough that when he swallows without chewing Aziraphale can follow the lump down that long, slim throat before it disappears.

Aziraphale jerks his eyes away from sharp collarbones and what lies below them and gulps convulsively.

(Lust is a sin, he tells himself, and you’re a demon, there’s nothing to be ashamed of, but maybe it’s a sin he doesn’t understand all that well, because somehow Aziraphale is sure that Him Below would disapprove of the way he wants to stare at this angel just as much as She would.)

“It’s perfectly safe,” the angel tells him, and Aziraphale wants to snort derisively, but then Crawly smiles soft and a little teasing. “Come on, I know how much you want to—it’s delicious, really, and I promise I don’t sting.”

“How do you know—“

“It’s all over your face, honey,” Crawly drawls, eyes shining with amusement, and it takes a moment for Aziraphale to process the jibe, to blush brick red again and scrub viciously at his sticky chin with the heel of his hand. So much for not looking like a grubby demon, he thinks.

“Why,” he asks, and Crawly softens.

“It really is delicious,” he repeats, “and it’s clearly meant to be enjoyed. And somehow, I don’t think anyone will enjoy it more than you.”

And he holds out the apple.

Of course no one is going to enjoy it more—neither demons or angels, or even the Lord, make a habit of eating, and the thing is forbidden to the humans. There’s no one else who’d enjoy it at all, really. But somehow, it’s obvious that that’s not what Crawly means. Aziraphale can’t suppress the feeling that there’s something being offered here beyond a sort-of forbidden apple, something intangible but very, very important.

He reaches out and takes it.

(Greed is a sin: wanting in excess, more than you need, more than you deserve, all for yourself, and it must be excessive the way he wants everything, it must be too much and selfish even if he has the fleeting, mad impression that Crawly is offering.)

The apple is delicious, divinely sweet without being cloying. He savors the first bite, the way his sharp front teeth pierce the delicate skin easily and the satisfying crunch between his molars as he chews, the weight of the fruit on his tongue and the way the juice lets it slide smooth down his throat.

He opens his eyes to find the angel staring at him with eyes wide and shocked and almost plaintive, sort of leaning forward and altogether consumed with something Aziraphale can’t identify.

“Do you want another bite?” he offers.

“No,” Crawly blurts, “no, you can finish it. Like I said, never see anyone enjoy it like you.”

“Alright then,” Aziraphale replies, and does. Crawly leans back against the tree and watches, smiling, and maybe that should make Aziraphale feel self-conscious but something about that golden stare just leaves him feeling warm.

When he’s done, he licks the juice off his fingers, closing his eyes and humming in satisfaction, then startles as a wave of pure lust hits his demonic senses.

He opens his eyes and grins knowingly, and Crawly sucks in a breath, biting his lip with teeth that are a touch too sharp. Aziraphale fancies that there are more scales spreading across that dark skin than before, and for a moment he thinks Crawly will dart back up into the tree to coil up and hide in the branches again. He suppresses a laugh.

“That was wonderful, thank you,” he says, and Crawly shifts a bit before leaning back, deliberately careless.

“Well, I’m glad you found it… diverting,” he says.

Aziraphale chuckles, surprised and a little delighted. “Were you distracting me?”

“Well, it’s been twenty minutes since you walked up, and who knows how much trouble a demon could cause in twenty minutes,” Crawly replies. “Think I did a good job.”

“In that case,” Aziraphale says, “I suppose I should be getting on. I can’t have a sweet little angel like yourself thwarting all my demonic wiles.”

For a moment, it looks like Crawly is going to take issue with that description, but then he tilts his head, challenging.

“You could do that, and see how sweet I really am,” he drawls, “or I could show you some other sweet things in this Garden. Have you tried mangoes?”

“I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure,” Aziraphale replies, intrigued, and Crawly grins, standing.

“There’s a tree over this way,” he says, starting out of the clearing.

Aziraphale goes to follow, frowning back at the apple tree. “Shouldn’t you be on guard?”

“I am. I’m guarding them from you,” Crawly insists, turning back. His tongue flickers out from between his teeth, and he shrugs. “They’re asleep miles away, and besides, I’m sure you could get them in far more trouble than any apple tree.”

(Later, of course, he’s proven quite thoroughly wrong, and Aziraphale laughs himself silly. Crawly glances up at the twitching white wing still sheltering him from the pouring rain, and has to remind himself to glower rather than laughing along.)

***

I'm not sure if I'm going to write more for this, but I sure have a lot of thoughts about it, so if you have an opinion, a question, or just want to know a random fact about this au, or just want to yell about good omens, my ask box and chat are open for business :). Also, if you enjoyed this, please consider reblogging!

[haritakipowder3-blog]

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haritaki powder

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[kaaramel]

Algernon Luc Perreault, Baron of Haunted Dolls

(this is my first time doing this specific character creation dance and i’ve obviously not ever played nobilis so i’m open to critique/workshopping and also truly can’t believe i’ve done this.)

In their mortal existence Luc was a banker, moderately well off, with an almost aggressively mundane life. Since being taken under the metaphorical wing of The Longest Furby, relatively recently, they’ve assumed the responsibility of caring for the bizarre wildlife of her Chancel, the Uncanny Valley; peeled the skin off their own hands; and generally been unimpressed with divine life. Still, they have acquired a certain unflappability; they’re exasperated by new and bizarre events, but rarely actually disturbed, not for long.

Haunted Dolls...

...inspire confusion, fear, and alarm (2)

...resemble living things, but aren’t (2)

...have their actual danger exaggerated (2) 

...are collector’s items (1)

Of course I mean this Estate quite broadly, as “any doll-like or stuffed-animal-like object that’s at least a little bit uncanny valley” - taxidermy, figurines, etc. included; and it doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the ghostly type of haunting, I just needed a pithy summation and I listen to just enough MBMBAM to not let this opportunity go.

Luc has a lot more Persona than Domain, but they do have The Sovereign’s Gift (Lesser Animation of Haunted Dolls) and can therefore bring mundane dolls and toys to life, granting them unsettling, jerky movement. If I understand the rules (which I don’t) the dolls can then use Luc’s Shine to do stuff for their creator’s sake, which makes them actually kind of impressive. Whenever possible, Luc brings the new creature back to the Uncanny Valley and lets it join the growing population of slightly horrifying living toys there.

The Uncanny Valley

Everything stretches farther than you’d think.

Gardens will be fruitful.

If it looks like a living creature, it can move and speak.

The abandoned have a place here.

Your imperfections are loved.

The Longest Furby’s Chancel, the Uncanny Valley, is a deep crevice, folded in on itself such that it passes outside the mundane world’s notice. It is accessible from almost everywhere if one knows the right mental trick; it involves a sort of gradual approach to any mundane, constructed doorway, but not actually going inside. The Chancel itself is bursting with lush growth, cultivated gardens, and beautiful babbling streams, and it’s populated almost entirely by living dolls - mostly Furbies and things that resemble Furbies, but not entirely. Besides the better-known mechanical kind, several species of organic Furbylike creature exist here, blending mammalian and avian traits to various degrees; I hope the largest are maybe the size of a medium dog, because anything larger starts distressing me a little to think about, but you never know.

The place has sort of an Island of Misfit Toys vibe, because most of the residents have been deliberately modified, or got broken once and then mended, or were always kind of unsettling. It’s got a little bit of benign Hell-nature to it, I suppose, in its acceptance of oddballs and rejected things. Between the gardens, the guarantee of finding a place, and the ability to metaphorically and literally stretch their supplies, it’s a very hospitable spot, for people able to look past the mild creepiness of their hosts.

Attributes

Aspect 0

Domain 1

Persona 4

Treasure 2

with 8 MP each. Nothing too fancy; I think they prefer to keep out of actual conflicts, and bluff their way out of bad situations with Persona tricks, amping up their own creepiness and/or how dangerous other people perceive them to be.

Their primary Treasure is a pair of magically-imbued elbow-length soft leather gloves made of their own skin, which hasn’t been replaced; Luc just walks around with clean, bare skeleton hands. It’s fine. Both the gloves and the hands are kind of super gross if you think about it too hard but it’s fine. 

The gloves are capable of animating, floating around, and doing simple tasks autonomously, or more complex ones under telepathic mental direction, without anyone actually putting hands in them (I don’t know if I need to ...spend something, somewhere, to give it this ability, or if I get to just declare it?). Mostly they are left behind in the Uncanny Valley and are used for the benefit of all the residents who don’t have proper hands, including The Longest Furby herself. The +1 Tool bonus applies when they’re used for sewing repairs.

Bonds/Afflictions

Affliction: I am always dignified. (3)

Affliction: I can peel the skin off anything. (2)

Bond: My hands are bare and skeletal. (2)

Bond: I’m still connected to my old skin. (Treasure bond) (2)

Bond: I take care of small creatures. (2)

Bond: I always have the perfect outfit. (1)

Bond: I take my Imperator’s commands seriously, even the goofy ones. (1)

... I still have a couple points to allocate but I’ve run dry on ideas; maybe they have a mundane Furby or Furbyesque critter as another Treasure? I guess so. Like a weird stumpy little gryphon familiar. That’s cute, and would probably annoy them, so yes.

Passions/Skills

I’m going super out of order with these, aren’t I? Sorry. Mostly it’s that I’m not confident about this bit in particular, at all, but I guess it’s fine.

Passion: I want an uneventful life. (3)

Passion: A good outfit gives me confidence. (2)

Skill: Accountant (2)

Skill: Express sincere emotion (-1)

Cool (1)

Shine (4) (from Persona)

Why do I keep making accountant OCs? Listen, if I ever figure it out I’ll let you know. Something in my hindbrain insists that Luc used to work for a bank and I’m just rolling with it. Are all the skills and bonds relating to outfits and fashion and dignity overlapping too much? Also a mystery to me. Let me know.

Lifepath

As above, their Estate is Haunted Dolls. Their Keys are Gorse (Something In Thrall) and Oak (Something that Hasn’t Changed.)

Gorse Heart: Held In Thrall

This Furby nonsense.

Disturbing, but I can’t look away.

Nothing exciting to go back to.

I have to figure Her out.

There has to be meaning to this.

Gorse Shadow: Entangled with my Enemy

I can’t let go. 

I’m weak.

Longfurby keeps introducing me to her weird friends.

This Key is strengthened by:

An Estate that’s ‘something you can point to’ (i.e., dolls. Straightforward!)

a Humble mortal life (they were nobody special and preferred it that way.)

A connection to the Cammora (I don’t know what sort of connection! Even the merest shadow of the concept amuses me, though. OOC, a couple folks in the fandom have accused The Longest Furby of being a Mimic or an Actual; maybe she’s discreetly under investigation in-universe too and the Cammora have approached Luc?)

Song of the Light (I’m not suuuuure about this one but I’m not sure which of the other Affiliations it’d be, either. I don’t think they’re independent enough for for rejecting an allegiance altogether, or for the Wild. There’s arguments that could be made for all four of the others, so I just went with the one that strengthened their Key... I guess it’d make sense that, ultimately, they’d favor humanity over everything else, even as they feel increasingly disconnected from it (see below). I don’t know if it’s possible to change this later but maybe as they progress along their character arc they’ll get more sympathy for the weird stuff and start listening to Hell instead?)

and weakened by: 

a connection to Aliens (all the weird Furbies and Furby-adjacent creatures Luc keeps befriending with deep reluctance, from the Imperator-level ones all the way down to the mundane ones they animate with their own powers. A quirk/blind spot is that they don’t really differentiate between a mechanical, magically animated Furby that used to be totally inanimate and the ‘natural’ ‘’’organic’’’ ones native to the Uncanny Valley.)

Oak Heart: My Identity

Sensible and distinguished.

Calming influence.

Exasperated but unfazed by strange events.

Former banker.

Oak Shadow: Crisis

Privately, I’m deeply unsettled by the changes in my life.

This Key is strengthened by:

More than anything else, they are Something Cool (they’re nothing grandiose, nothing especially weird in and of themself, not deeply passionate - they just roll with the punches a little Too calmly.)

An Estate that represents the dark side of the human experience (to be pretentious a moment: not really the uncanny qualities of the dolls themselves, but the judgement we collectively render on things that don’t fit an accepted mold. does that work...)

a Humble mortal life (again)

and weakened by:

the Legacy of their humble life is Alienation (Luc doesn’t feel especially connected to humanity anymore - per Song of the Light they still care about humans, in the abstract, but, for example, they don’t have strong ties to their mortal family (no outright falling-out, I don’t think, just drifted away). They can’t get that emotional connection going, and that freaks them out if they think too hard about it. They’re trying to think of themself as above all this change and upheaval in their life, and fundamentally unchanged as a person, and outwardly sure, maybe, but underneath that they’re really kind of not.)

This is so fucking much. This game is wild. Technically I think I should be writing Domain and Persona difficulty charts - let’s be real, I probably will - and probably some other little details, but I’m leaving it here for right now! I was going to put a disclaimer on this like “I’m not taking this too seriously, I don’t have plans to use it in a game or anything,” and I don’t, but listen, people keep saying they want to incorporate Longfurby into their games. I am helpless before this tide, and if anyone does in fact put their money where their mouth is on this one, you’re certainly welcome to include Mx. Perreault as well, if she needs Powers.

All credit for actually making the original Longfurby and bringing her into our physical world rests with @furbyfuzz​, who is wonderful and excellent.

[lapzidorus]

Nothing for Nothing

Wha!? Where did everything go? Just a moment before, that car rammed straight into ours, and now it's just me, floating here in darkness stretching as far as I can see – not that I can even see my hands right in front of me because there is no light. I am still wearing my long-sleeved jacket and jeans, though, which was originally to avoid attracting too much attention. Am I dead? Is this what it’s like after you die? Am I just stuck here in eternal suspension, or is my fate still yet to come?

   Something taps the edge of my shoe, and I pull my leg back out of reflex, barely holding back a gasp. I peer down and see nothing still. I reach my foot back out and feel a hard, flat surface – a wall? Or perhaps a floor to settle on! When I reach my hand over for a feel of the texture, the rest of me suddenly plops onto it. Yup, it’s a floor – a cold, though smooth one.

    Relying solely on my touch, I position my hands and legs with care, taking my time with getting up. Once I'm on my feet, I tread forward slowly, reaching my hands out to feel anything in front of me. This goes on for a few minutes before my scrawny arms can’t take any more of the strain and I need to set them down. If only I had exercised more. I sink my hands into my pockets and continue walking, stopping every now and then to feel around the floor in front of me. Where am I anyway, and why is everything so dark?

    Several more uneventful minutes pass by before I decide to sit and rest my tired legs, seeing no more sense in continuing. My mind has gone numb from lack of stimulation, so I might just go to sleep right here. I slip my hood on and lay my head down, doing my best to get comfortable.

    Soon after, though, an assortment of crackling and crunching sounds starts up all around me. Oh, now something's happening! Well, what is it?

    These noises grow slowly louder over a minute or so, bringing my ears moderate discomfort, until they abruptly end. A few seconds after that, a large, round cluster of hexagonal holes, towering at about four times my height, brightens up before me in a crystal-y green color, making me step back in surprise – and turn away in horror. Ugh, I finally see something, and it happens to trigger my mild Trypophobia! At least now I know I haven’t gone blind. What even_ _is it, anyway?

    Once I can bring myself to stare fixedly at the unpleasant sight, my first observation is the source of its light: six closed-up hexagons twice their size of the others surround the edges of a deep hole. Also visible are six dark, bladed wing-like appendages protruding around its sides, and a thick tail of a similar shade that the creature appears to be standing with.

    I then hear the entity speak. “Hhellloooo!” Its swaying, high-pitched voice and its jovial tone fall into an uncanny valley between welcoming and threatening, which is accentuated by the disorienting echoes that bounce randomly around us.

    My mind is falling into shambles! Where am I? What am I looking at? Why are things playing out like this? Was I being watched the whole time? Oh, how stupid I probably looked! What’s going to happen next?!

    Hold on! This could all just be a lucid dream; but my dreams tend to be much faster-paced than this, though. Oh wait, I was just greeted by this thing; I should probably say something too!

    I manage to cough out what seems like the most appropriate question to start things out. “Wha-…who are you?”

    "Ahem." The entity’s voice becomes more controlled, and the echoes settle within it. “Why, I am an overseer of sin, who keeps track of the unforgiven sins of every individual I am assigned to.”

    “S-so-” I tremble at my next words. “-am I…i-in hell?”

    “Nooo, not quite,” the overseer corrects as if trying to comfort me, their wings drooping down a little. “You might consider this your own personal ‘purgatory.' Every sinner has one, constructed and designed specifically for them whenever their life is put at risk."

    My eyes scroll across the surrounding expanse, the only light still being the overseer’s eerie luminescence. I guess this _does _match my propensity for anxiety; just gazing into it threatens to fill me with paranoia of something jumping out at me.

    The overseer continues, "Due to the exclusivity resulting from this system, we can generally only meet up with one person at a time; thus, there must be a bunch of us since many people can die at once, as you may already understand.” Way to rub it in, huh?

    I turn back to the overseer. “So, w-what now?” I ask, feeling slightly more at ease knowing I am not (yet) in hell.

    The overseer proceeds to slither around me as they begin, “Here, you are to reflect back on all of your unforgiven sins and confess them to me personally; this is specifically for your sake as I already know precisely what you're guilty of.”

    A large larva emerges halfway out of one of the overseer’s holes, causing a squeal of fright to just barely leak out of my lips. The overseer then comes to explain, “For each valid sin you properly admit to, no matter how small, one of these little sweeties will pop out to greet you from the hole corresponding to that sin. It seems, however, that this one can already sense your fearfulness, darling.”

    Yeah, I am quite the nervous wreck. “Yeah, heh heh, I do make that aspect of me clear, don’t I?”

    The overseer lets out a creepy, yet also innocent-sounding little chuckle. “Now, if your self-assessment turns out to be fully accurate, you get to decide your own punishment! How does that sound, hmm? We figured if a sinner understands where they went wrong, they might know how they ought to suffer as well, so it’s the least we can offer down here, hm-hm!” They finish their circle around me, their seemingly endless tail keeping me fenced inside, and return to their original height and position.

    So I can choose what happens to me? Does that mean anything so long as it’s bad? What are the rules on all of this?

    “Now, as a fair warning,” the overseer notes, their tone turning a tinge more serious, “we are in full power to bestow our originally planned punishment if we deem yours unfit.” They lean forward in a rather intimidating fashion. “Do you understand?”

    I nod my head in short, meek bobs. “Yes, I understand everything.”

    “Alright then!” they announce with returning cheer, wings thrusted upward. “Let’s get started.”

    I think it over for a bit before I know just what to say. “Okay, well…I’ve done nothing.”

    The overseer’s wings flap oh-so-slightly. “What’s that, dearie?”

    “I did nothing in my life to get here. What I mean by that is, I-I should’ve done stuff but didn’t. I had grown to fear the feelings and consequences of failure, defeat, and disappointment at an early age, so I never took up any tasks that weren't in my direct way like, say, obligatory school assignments, nor did I seize any social outlets. I also couldn't stand up for myself in the oddly few times I was picked on; I_ did_ learn to blend in very well, though."

    The larva wriggles slightly up and down, presumably in excitement. “Very good so far,” the overseer interjects. “Now please, continue.”

    As I allow my repressed feelings of guilt to resurface and guide my words, my delivery smoothens and boldens, and I begin to gently pace left and right. “Furthermore, I held back from speaking my own mind except whenever I was forced to. Even if I shared my own thoughts, though, I wouldn’t have much to say ‘cause I refrained from developing any opinions or beliefs beyond the bare necessities, if that makes any sense. On that note, I was afraid to be skeptical of things, but I was also reluctant to hold faith in them; I wouldn’t commit myself to any side or any_thing._ I became complacent, unsocial, unproductive and, quite frankly, sort of lazy.”

    A second larva slinks out from a different hole while the first one thrashes about more violently. “Yes, yes, darling! Spot on!”

    “My mom eventually caught on to my inactivity, however, and had me join a co-worker’s son and his friends on a trip to someplace I forget. Of course, I couldn't conjure up the strength to resist the order. They were a diverse group, though, I must admit; I probably could’ve made at least one new friend if I tried.

    “Anyway, after our light at an intersection went green, the driver forgot to look both ways, and all the passengers were too busy with themselves or each other to see another driver speeding through from our left. Admittedly, though, I kind of only caught them from my peripherals myself despite my well-developed observational skills. Now, I knew I had to alert everyone in the car, but my lips clammed up; I guess a part of me winced at the supposedly unflattering image of a quiet person like myself suddenly shouting out to "Look out!", so how about we just add pride to this list, too, while we’re at it?”

    At this point my guilt and shame become so overwhelming that I can't look at the overseer anymore, and instead I gaze downward with my fingers gripping my hair and face. “Augh, that would’ve been my turning point; I could’ve saved all those people and started making progress with myself, but I went and blew it, all because I was so cowardly and selfish and pathetic that I couldn’t get myself to actually talk to people or accomplish anything my entire life!”

    I wipe my dampened eyes and cheeks on my sleeves and look back up at the overseer. What a mess I probably look like right now. “And now, here I am,” I sob, swinging an arm open to gesture, “pouring out my soul after it’s already too late for any more such chances. If only I became like this when it still would’ve mattered; I might've actually grown to love myself more.”

    Once I've calmed down, I can see that a peculiar arthropod now rests in the central hole. Could that represent-?

    “Well done, dear,” the overseer congratulates. “You’ve recapped all of your sins with perfect honesty, including the one running behind all sin: pride. Now, your newly found confidence can still serve one purpose.” They lean down in anticipation. “It’s time to choose your punishment.”

    “Nothing's going to happen to me,” I answer in a weak breath of defeat, “not good or bad. What should I reap if I hadn’t sowed anything in the first place? It’s best that you just leave me here to wither out in total isolation.”

    “Hmmm,” the overseer mutters in a jarringly ominous tone. “Perhaps you’re not quite as fun as I’d hoped.” They begin to back out, their tail pulling back out from around me and their light beginning to faintly flicker out. Well, here comes total darkness again.

    Once the overseer vanishes from my sight entirely, those weird crunches and crackles from earlier return, this time they gradually muffling out over time until they are gone once more. A loud, but gentle ting then goes off high above my head as if for closure.

    So...did I choose the right punishment? I figured they would’ve wanted a punishment that corresponded with the deed. It could be that mere isolation isn't severe or intense enough. If that’s the case then, what awaits me now, and how long do I have to wait?

    My next thought makes my heart jump: perhaps the punishment has already started! They might've unleashed a demonic beast of some sort to ravage me for all eternity. Or maybe I'm doomed to forever experience unprompted jump scares with no way to brace myself for them! Oh, the stress is killing me already! I think I’ll just lie back down again; maybe the torment won’t be so terrible then.

    I slip my hood back on and lay my whole body on the floor before shutting my eyes. If only I had the chance to make things right.

    If only I were able to escape this crazy nightmare.

    A bright light suddenly hits my eyelids. I prop myself up with my left arm and protect my eyes with my right hand, letting my hood slide off the back of my head. I note how the light is white. This isn’t a trap, is it; some scare to strike home how there's no hope of getting out? Well, whatever, then; there's really nothing left for me to lose.

    I move my hand aside to see what looks like a huge gash in the supposed ceiling. This opening – and the light emanating from it – seems oddly devoid of the desolation that had enwrapped me since I got here, which I sort of sense burning away. When I stand and take a step forward, I feel my feet lift off the floor, taking me by surprise. I look down to see my blurry reflection on the floor, and half a smile cracks through one cheek. Could I really be receiving grace after death?

    As I am drawn closer to the light, a soft blanket of silk envelops my body, and I close my eyes and lift my head in preparation; it looks like I am being granted salvation! No longer will I waste away my days leaving zero impact wherever I go. I can now become a lively individual who expresses thoughts and emotions in earnest, generates healthy social connections, and learns to feel legitimate love in all of it's forms!

    My new life begins here! 

[vegajoyce]

Cat Pee Mold Marvelous Ideas

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[theconservativebrief]

Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world, caused a stir last week by announcing a major philanthropic initiative that will devote $2 billion to address homelessness and education. Called the Day One Fund, the project has two priorities: funding existing nonprofits that serve homeless families, and creating a network of new, nonprofit preschools in low-income communities.

Two billion dollars is an enormous amount of money, enough to transform many lives. The good that Bezos will do is commendable. Unfortunately, he might achieve a lot less than he could.

Interventions in early childhood have a troubled track record; it’s not clear what works, and some interventions may cause harm. The picture for homelessness programs is a little more promising, but we still don’t know much about what work it would take to achieve Bezos’s inspiring vision statement that “no child sleeps outside.”

In choosing to focus his philanthropic attention on these projects, he seems to be approaching this initiative with none of the rigor or clarity that he prides himself on at Amazon. And by starting out already committed to two causes, Bezos undermines his fund’s ability to answer the question he launched it with: “Where are the opportunities to make things better?”

Bezos’s Day One Academies Fund will spend hundreds of millions of dollars to launch and operate a line of preschools for low-income children. The problem is that this has been tried before — and we really don’t know whether it works.

We’ve been trying for a long time to do early childhood education that produces lasting results for kids. The earliest attempt in the US was Head Start, the federally funded early childhood education program for low-income families, which has been running since the 1960s. There have been some studies with promising results, but there have also been many that struggle to detect any effect size.

On the pessimistic side, randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have found that it barely improves outcomes for kids — and the gains don’t last, typically evaporating by first or second grade. A 2010 study by the Department of Health and Human Services found that “averaging across all children, the benefits of access to Head Start at age four are largely absent by 1st grade.” The study tried breaking the data down further to see if there are any subgroups the program does help. It found some promising trends — maybe the program works for black 3-year-olds, but not anyone else — but also some subgroups in which the intervention seemed actively harmful, like kids in households with a depressed parent. (Subgroup analyses like that often just turn up noise, and I’m skeptical that there are meaningful results for any category.)

Many advocates of Head Start look more optimistically towards long-term results. Some researchers found that Head Start makes people less likely to be arrested in their 20s. It’s hard to know what to make of these findings. Longitudinal studies — the only kind that would detect an effect like that — often don’t fully control for confounding variables, and it would be odd for Head Start to have no effects for 10 years and then sizable effects in adulthood. Then again, maybe early childhood education benefits students in some way we’re still figuring out how to measure.

The mixed findings aren’t limited to Head Start, either. A randomized controlled trial of the Tennessee Voluntary Pre-K Program found some effects at the start of kindergarten, but by the end of kindergarten, the other kids had caught up. There was no effect in subsequent years (by some analyses, there was actually a negative effect — on average kids in the program did worse than the control group).

One possible explanation for the mixed findings is that some preschools are good and some are bad. One of the studies that found results for Head Start concluded that the children in their sample who went to non-Head Start preschools did worse than children with no preschool at all. Of course, there are also some studies (like the famous Perry preschool experiment) that have found promising results for other preschools.

The most worrying thing about Bezos’s proposal, given that background, is its focus on scale. In his opening statement, he set forth a goal that seems inappropriately ambitious given the difficulty of making progress in this area, writing that his fund would “launch and operate a network of high-quality, full-scholarship, Montessori-inspired preschools in underserved communities” and “build an organization to directly operate these preschools.”

He doesn’t just want to fund some pilot programs trying to find schools that outperform the spotty track record of previous interventions. Instead, he is trying to build a network of schools right off the bat. But without any reason to expect something to work, there’s no reason to scale it — and starting at scale is a great way to waste a lot of money, and even do damage if your intervention turns out to be a bad idea.

The picture is a little more promising in Bezos’s other focus area.

Unlike preschool education, where we’re still uncertain how to get results that actually benefit kids, we know that spending money on homelessness gets people off the streets. A meta-analysis of dozens of RCTs of homelessness interventions found that housing-first programs (which connect people to homes without requiring them to qualify or comply with complex conditions), as well as intensive case-management programs, successfully keep people sheltered.

Inconveniently, we know less about which interventions are best for the specific homeless population Bezos is targeting: families. A meta-analysis of the evidence base for homelessness interventions ended up throwing out interventions targeting homeless families, because there just weren’t methodologically strong studies of interventions for this population. It seems likely that the interventions that work for single homeless people will work for families, but in philanthropy, interventions that “seem likely” to work often don’t.

On a more promising note, Bezos says he’s partnering with existing organizations to tackle homelessness, rather than trying to launch his own organization. That introduces a little less room for error. His initiative will, in all likelihood, successfully shelter some families — and that’s genuinely commendable.

For all the good it might do for the people it ends up reaching, Bezos’s Day One Fund will nonetheless achieve a whole lot less than if he were trying to do as much good as possible with $2 billion.

Is it fair to hold him accountable for that? I think so. Bezos said the founding questions of his fund are “Where’s the good in the world, and how can we spread it?” and “Where are the opportunities to make things better?” That means it’s reasonable to try to imagine how a fund that was dedicated to answering those questions would be run.

Some charitable causes are a lot more tractable, and a lot more impactful, than others. The gains from success are greater, and it takes less money and effort to make progress. This has been a slowly and painfully learned lesson in global development, where cheap, tractable, and impactful interventions — like giving everyone bednets — are getting more attention as givers sour on flashy interventions that don’t work. There’s a growing consensus in development now that aid-givers should prioritize impact — spend their limited resources on the interventions that work the best, whatever those are — that wasn’t there 10 years ago.

The idea shouldn’t be new to Bezos, though. Among tech startup CEOs, Bezos is well-known for how methodically he identified the opportunity for Amazon. He saw that the internet reflected an unprecedented new opportunity. He figured out what kind of business would be poised to take advantage of it. He ran that business, instead of running some different business.

What would that look like in the philanthropy world?

In philanthropy, like in business, there are some opportunities that are particularly important, tractable, and neglected.

When there are teams on the ground to distribute more malaria nets in Africa, but no one to provide the nets so they can be distributed, that’s a high-impact philanthropic opportunity. Supplying the nets can get more households coverage at a cost of only a few dollars a net.

When researchers think they might be able to design suffering-free and slaughter-free meat that is cost-competitive with factory-farmed meat, but need seed funding to make their endeavor happen, that’s a high-impact philanthropic opportunity.

When new research comes out suggesting that moderately sized cash transfers reduce child mortality and have effects that endure for years, that’s a high-impact philanthropic opportunity. You can arrange for studies at higher scale and make those transfers available everywhere if the results are borne out.

Most philanthropists, though, don’t seem to be looking for those opportunities. (There are exceptions.) They don’t seem to be prioritizing evidence of impact, and they don’t seem to be doing what Bezos so successfully did when he started Amazon: figuring out where his efforts will matter most by seriously thinking about what the world will look like in 20 years.

In his annual letter to shareholders this spring, Bezos exhorted them to have high standards in everything they do and to remain aware that in new fields, they might be setting the bar in the wrong place: “You can consider yourself a person of high standards in general and still have debilitating blind spots. There can be whole arenas of endeavor where you may not even know that your standards are low or non-existent, and certainly not world class. It’s critical to be open to that likelihood.”

He’s right. Wealthy individuals venturing into philanthropy are venturing into a new domain and treating it as straightforward in a way they should realize it isn’t. They’re not applying the same standards to their philanthropy that they applied to their businesses. It took the Gates Foundation decades, and billions of wasted dollars, to realize that effective action in the nonprofit world, like effective action in the for-profit world, is hard, and it takes specialized expertise.

Hopefully, Bezos will figure it out sooner.

Original Source -> The problem with Jeff Bezos’s $2 billion gift to charity

via The Conservative Brief

[byjackli]

April 8, 2017

We planned to attend Syracuse University’s Engineering and Computer Science open house and stay overnight so we could adventure on the following day. We didn’t starting packing until Saturday morning. Since Syracuse University is approximately five hours from home and the check-in starts at 8:30am, we had to rush. I didn’t know at the time, but 8:30am is only check-in, the event starts at 9:00am, so we had more time to work with than I had thought. Anyways, my brother woke me up at 2:00am and we didn’t leave until 3:24am. We packed a lot of snacks including Nature Valley bars, chips, ritzs, and much more.

The tank was half-full, so we stopped for a refuel. The roads were empty, barely any activity was noticeable. It felt like a ghost town with electricity that was about to deplete. 3:38am, we left the gas station for Syracuse. Oh, almost forgot to mention, I was in the passenger seat as the navigator. We took i-295 into Bronx and merged onto i-95.

We then crossed the George Washington Bridge into New Jersey and got onto the Palisades Interstate Parkway. When we crossed into New Jersey and was paying the toll, we could notice a strong weed stench in the air. The smell invaded our vehicle as we drove away.

Palisades Interstate Parkway is dotted with many viewing points, all are beautiful. I really wanted to stop, but refrained from doing so due to the tight schedule. If I had knew beforehand, it would’ve been wonderful to stop. The road was completely empty and visibility was only few hundred feet. At 4:35am, we pulled off to the shoulder for a brief pit-stop.

At 4:46am, I could barely make out that we were in the trough of rolling hills. Some people drove with their high beams on, which was extremely blinding and annoying. At one point, an oncoming car had blinded us while we were approaching a curve. Boy, we almost flew off the road!

4:50am, we made our way into a parking area for another pit-stop. I took this time to quickly snap a few photos of the view. The plan was dad drive the first half and I’ll drive the second half, so I swapped seats with James so I could nap. I didn’t want to be dozing while driving.

About an hour later, I woke up as we pulled into McDonald’s. Perfect, I thought. Not only was I hungry, but I had to use the restroom. I opened the door and the wind hugged me like a dog that hasn’t seen his owner in years. My excitement was quickly killed when we found out that McDonald’s was still closed. When we got back on the highway, I fell asleep again.

6:20am, I woke up to find us entering East Branch Rest Area. The sky is now lit. Couple people had to take dumps, so we were a little behind the original schedule. I took some pictures while we waited.

At this point, I wanted to drive, but my parents disapproved. I was deeply disappointed and unhappy. We left at 6:35am. While we were on the road, I really wished we were in a modern minivan with rollable side windows or a vehicle with a sunroof. I wanted to stick my head out and get crispy-clean images.

The rest of the ride was boring with a dash of beauty here and there. I dozed off every now and then, so there are probably moment’s that I missed. Along the road, I noticed there were mini towns. I couldn’t help but wonder how they survived in the winter.

I woke up from a mini-nap to the sound of mom calling “we’re almost here!” As we exit the ramp, I see moderately sized buildings to my right. The first thing that came to mind was baby-city. By the time we entered the parking lot, it was about 8:10am. 

Before we came to Syracuse University for the open house, I had to RSVP online. The guest limit was three, or so the website’s highest number was 3. The thing was, the entire family was coming, so we split the group into two. Since there was also an open house for prospective students, I signed James up and told him to lead one group. Dad, Aaron, and I were all in one group and the others were with James. Anyways, Aaron and I grabbed couple of snacks and bottled water and headed to check in first because prospective student open house doesn’t begin until 10:00am. When we left the parking garage, three ladies kindly directed us towards the campus. I don’t know if it was a small town or what, but I thought everything was miniature-sized, especially the white garbage truck.

8:33am, I am waiting for dad to finish using the restroom. When he came out, he decided to phone mom and call everyone over. He left the building to help guide them to the check-in. 8:48am, everyone is in the check-in area and we start arguing about how to split the group. When we finally got everything sorted out, I went up to check in. The young man says “how many in your party” and I respond with a question: “is there a limit?” He says no, how many did you have in mind. Seven. We lined up to get orange wristbands. They explained that the wristbands allows us to get lunch later in the day. 

I grabbed my tote bag and went into the auditorium, quite a small place. As we enter, we are directed to fill seats starting from the far right. The order, from right to left, is dad, me Baron, Aaron, Ann, James, and finally, mom. We waited for approximately 19 minutes before dad wanted to tell mom he was going back to the car for a nap. I passed the message along the line and what came back to me cracked me up. They said “mom’s sleeping.” Dad was tired from all the driving, so he returned for a nap.

An hour after, the first presentation concluded and we headed to specific orientations. On the way there, my siblings started complaining. They wanted to return to the car. I was quite annoyed but did my best to oppress it. I sent them back and continued the day with my mom. The walk to the next building was very short. When we entered the building, Syracuse students and faculty were already setting up for their mini science fair demo.

11:08am, the information session drew to an end. Thank goodness because my mom couldn’t take it any longer. The information session was pretty interesting, answered a lot of questions that I never would’ve thought of. For example, work study is a fixed amount, but time spent earning work study isn’t. I chatted with one of the sophomore students to clarify some floating thoughts and questions. By then, it was almost 11:30am, so we headed towards The Quad for lunch. The Quad is an open field with tents set up for lunch.

11:33pm, mom and I are eating lunch. I got a modest portion of one hot dog, two scoops of beans, chips, salad, and jalapeno. We sat at a table in the corner of a tent which shielded us from the wind. I finished early, so I left to get a cup of hot water, which tasted weird. As I was gulping down the water, I was wondering what my siblings were eating. Look what they’re missing out I thought. I went back for a turkey sandwich with more beans, salad, chips, and another jalapeno.

After lunch, mom and I went on a residential tour. We went to the Shaw Hall, which I did not really like. Everything was crammed and tight, but what was I supposed to expect. I’ve no recollection of visiting any other dorms.

Afterwards, we decided to return to the car. When we got back, I took out the water bottle and admired it. I opened it and smelled the inside, boy was it a mistake.. We had snacks and quick talk about what we were going to do next. Then I suggested to drive, but was turned down like I was previously. We left at 1:46pm and I, along with my disappointment, decided to take a nap for approximately four hours straight.

I woke up at 5:20pm, or so I’m guessing with my moody disappointment. See, I opened my eyes at 5:35pm because they were going to ditch me in the car. Before I opened my eyes, about five songs had gone by, the average length of a song is three minutes, so that’s approximately fifteen minutes. Anyways, we went into Costco and bought couple of things. Dad thought there was no tax, but there actually was, but less than New York City’s.

After shopping was finished, we tried to add air to the tire at Costco’s Tire Department, but they were closed. We found an Exxon gas station and used their dollar pump, which lasted three minutes. I guess plans for staying overnight are cancelled. It’s alright, we’ll try again for the University at Buffalo open house.

6:42, we hit to road back to New York City. The car ride home, majority of my siblings snoozed off. I had the chance to see the sun set.

While on the Harlem River Drive, I started to wonder if we should head to Long Island City for some beautiful nightscapes. The weather was about 53 degrees Fahrenheit with 15 mile-per-hour winds, not that bad. I argued that by the time we got through the traffic, the sky would be pitch dark, perfect for nightscapes. Additionally, by the time we finished exploring, the traffic would’ve died down. By 7:38pm, it was decided and I added LIC to the route.

Approximately 37 minutes later, we arrived at Gantry Plaza State Park. We were fortunate to find a parking spot right in front of the park. We had mini snacks and left to observe. I walked to the edge of the walkway and realized the Cola sign was nearby. My family and I went towards the sign. Along the way, few of my siblings felt the urge to use the restroom. While at the Cola sign, the youngest brother went to search for a restroom but returned with no luck.

We spent a total of about an hour and half at the park before we left. We were going to explore the other half of the park with views of the World Trade Center, but my siblings were growing urgent to use the restroom. There was no traffic, so we got home at 10:11pm. 

Wonderful day we had. Cannot wait for a road trip during the summer, it would be such a wonderful experience. On this day, I learned a lot about Syracuse University. I also learned a lot about keeping a careful eye on my items. When I got home, I had trouble finding my remote and battery cap. Cheap and replaceable items, but a hassle. Hopefully they’re in the passenger side compartment.