#technically it's marshland

[pigletinastrawberrypatch]

You never feel how much of a swamp massachusetts truly is until summer hits

I'm fucking melting, this is a crime. I'm supposed to deal with this for my entire life???

[son1c]

thinking about no place... the thing about it is the name has to be a lie. like it just has to be wrong. and it already is canonically wrong. technically. cuz there was that little island sonic landed on initially. and that rocky outcropping with the paradox prism shard. but aside from that, the pirate ships couldn't exist if there was no land. because where the hell did the wood come from then?

[pinkelotjeart]

So about the funny ‘translate the silt verses to Dutch post’

I’m thinking about how the Netherlands is literally what would happen if the trawler man got legalised in the long term. Because our country’s entire thing is being control freaks over water. We are technically in danger of flooding all the time but we don’t because of how much thought goes into our dams. We restrict the water, build on top of it. In every sense that’s such a unnatural concept. A country literally under sea level keeping itself dry by its own ingenuity.

If the Netherlands existed in the silt verses universe, how many sacrifices would go just to keep the water from not drowning all of us. Do you think we’d have sacrificed people to create Flevoland, so we have the power to build land on sea.

And like specifically Frisian’s just- work so wel with the whole silt verses fibe. ‘the name is derived from the verb fresare in Vulgar Latin, meaning 'milling, cutting, grooving, crushing, removing shells'; this name may have been given to the Frisii because they 'cut the land': digging ditches and dykes to irrigate the wet marshlands they lived at.’ (According to Wikipedia.) Like it is most definitely unintentional but I always see my own culture back in the silt verses. With the way so much of ours has been defined by our relation to water.

Uh conclusion I think Faulkner would hate the Dutch lol.

[lifenconcepts]

LIFE AND DEATH! For @canines-crown depicting the concepts as tangible forms, representing both wolf and I :)

Made with the silly “my favourite character x character trope” but ended up turning into just art of our concet selves. Hehhehdhdhjd. The text reads:

MY FAVOURITR CONCEPT TO SYMBOL(ism) TROPE: A natural process without enemies nor villains.

DEATH: Gentle & Compassionate. “It must be done”. Rest, child. All will go.

LIFE: Sporadic & Intense. “survive and thrive!”. Run, child. All has purpose.

more information under the cut

This took me just a little over an hour and a half to draw (the most I’ve spent on any piece of art. Period.) and I’m gosh darn proud! Very happy to be able to make this for you and now with the symbolism because I’m not satisfied with just giving you the finished art..

The foxglove and wolfsbane depicted on the right are a representation of just how merciless life can be and that something beautiful and seemingly innocent may bring along a harsh fate, a field vole depicted by the wolfsbane (technically not the right name but I like how it sounds) is a symbol of fragility of life and how curiosity is a given and yet can result in death. The dove, also a symbol of goodness, has been wounded and can be a stand in to the destructive nature of existence itself. The shroud and light above both figures faces both obstructs the identity but also acts as a key element in recognising them and I think speaks for itself (a looming darkness vs blinding light). On the left, alongside death, is the corpse of a long fallen deer, along with its fragility - it is now the source of life for carrion beetles, making it clear how in the end of one thing, there is beginining in another. Wolf also holds a hare, which clouded eyes and seeping blood make it clear it’s no longer breathing, and yet it is still being lovingly held and treated with kindness and respect. The fact that it has passed on is not of death’s fault and yet is now the responsibility that death must carry. Also, both are in a very specific position physically, Life - in a grassy marshlands that seems to be overgrown, and Death - in a more darkened and dulled over moss. Neither have any details in the body apart from human-like limbs and the beginning of a head, but for the most part is just the image of what personification could do to a concept. Ah, beautiful, ain’t it?

my personal thoughts on this piece is overall that I’m so proud of myself for doing this and hope you enjoy it! I did my best at incorporating different styles and techniques alongside a million brushes. I also utilised layers, ain’t that great!? Right. I do apologise though for the limited amount of space I had to draw both figures in so it seems a bit smushed together, but in truth, I also made the conscious decision of drawing you on the left, due to the psychology of things being read and seen by the masses from left to right, so even when someone scrolls by, the first conscious sight that their mind sees is you, or well, your representation.

And hey, I just wanted you to pay some attention to a few specifics:

[fatehbaz]

Italian fascism was trying to defeat a nature [...] by declaring it a priority to civilize the marshes of the Pontine Plain. [...] The swampland was still the habitat of the anopheles mosquito and the dominion of the “Goddess of Fever.” [...] [A] flaw of a primal [...] nature, [...] unproductive [...]. The efforts to create “an idyllic rural area consonant with fascist ideals of productivity [...] within the state’s interests” included extensive electrification of the region, constructing thousands of kilometres of roads and canals and “large pumping and drainage plants called impianti idrovori (drainage pumping stations), in Italian literally ‘water-eating’ machinery plants,” founding an anti-malaria institute, having war veterans plant the region with water-absorbing [non-native] eucalyptus trees (these plants performed their job too well, which is why they were later torn out again at great expense [...]), stocking fish [...], establishing an anti-mosquito militia, and putting up children’s camps whose buildings were wrapped in ten layers of wire to protect them from mosquitoes. “The fascist emphasis on the technical and technological aspects of the land reclamation programme were also characteristic of a positivistic view of [technology and institutionalized knowledge] [...] aimed at controlling, rationalizing and ultimately creating an imperium over a previously unknown or ‘untamed’ area.”

Text by: Fahim Amir. “Cloudy Swords.” e-flux Journal Issue #115. February 2021. [Bold emphasis added by me.]

---

On 24 December 1928 Italy’s fascist regime launched [...] a fourteen-year national land reclamation programme aimed at [...] Italy’s ‘death inducing’ swamps [...]. The Pontine Marshes, a marshland spreading across 75,000 hectares south of Rome was given top priority [...]. [T]he fascist regime used an extensive propaganda machinery to promote the programme [...] as a heroic quest [...]. Newsreels documented step by step the struggle [...], with Mussolini himself often featuring, overseeing the project, or even working the land. [...] This policy [...] aimed [...] [at] improving [...] existing cities by removing “unhealthy” urban areas, through the process of sventramento (disembowelment). [...] Indeed, the project exhibits many similarities in aims and scope to a number of modernising plans that were materialised across the world at around the same time: the Tuscan maremma (1928), a large scale coastal reclamation project; the Zuiderzee dyke project in Holland (1920-1932), which produced the Ijsselmeer, an enclosed area of water that would later host urban settlements [...]; Spain’s ambitious national hydrological plan that would “correct hydrologically the national geographical problem” by introducing a system of dams [...]; Switzerland’s Linth valley hydro engineering scheme that drained marshland and provided the geographical basis for a unified [nationalist] Swiss identity [...]; Greece’s Marathon dam project, that would produce Athens as a western sanitized metropolis [...]. All of these projects shared [...] the desire to link these socially constructed techno-natures to a broader project of promoting national unity and [nationalist] identity.

Text by: Federico Caprotti and Maria Kaika. “Producing the ideal fascist landscape: nature, materiality and the cinematic representation of land reclamation in the Pontine Marshes.” Social & Cultural Geography Volume 9. 2008. [Bold emphasis added by me.]

[blueiscoool]

Rare Ancient Stamps Found in Denmark

In the center of Falster, southeast of Denmark, a man with a metal detector has made an important discovery. The discovery is so important that it could help write a few chapters for Danish history or at least the local history of Falster.

While Lennart Larsen was out on a rainy day and searching for anything of historical value, he suddenly heard a faint beep in his equipment, and when he checked the ground, he discovered small, interesting objects, unlike anything he had seen before.

A faint beep has indeed revealed a special stamp in the ground – a so-called Patrice – that was used to make gold images, which are believed to be gifted to the gods.

The Museum Lolland-Falster has been informed. The only two-centimeter-long object in Falster’s soil may be a trace of a former royal power on Falster, the museum said.

“This indicates that we are standing in a place that has meant some trade and probably also had some form of cultic activity. And although it’s a bit wild to say, it could also indicate that it was once a center of power on Falster,” museum inspector and archaeologist Marie Brinch from the Lolland-Falster Museum said.

She emphasizes that the discovery was made in an area with names dating back to the Viking Age or even earlier and that the marshland was discovered in an area that had been sacrificed to the gods in the century preceding the stamp’s creation.

Archaeologists have before come across several signs of activity from the Iron Age and the Viking Age have been found, including an enormous shipyard and a large castle from the Viking Age at Falster. However, only a small number of discoveries have been made that can demonstrate where the island’s wealthy elite resided in the years prior to the beginning of the Viking Age. The new find may help to shed light on that.

Researchers have determined the tiny objects are stamps from the era just before the Viking Age. They were created between the years 500 and 700.

According to Margrethe Watt of the National Museum, who collects and researches ancient gold coins and stamps, these are extremely rare. There have only been 28 stamps discovered in the entire Nordic region, including the one from Falster, and it is a very unique stamp. South of the Baltic Sea, no stamps or gold coins have been discovered.

“The stamps are all very special. We only find them in the most important places of residence – those that we call the central places in the technical language. These are the places that we associate with the greatest magnates or kings. That’s the league we’re in here. And this stamp is at the same time very much for itself in its style,” she says.

“On the stamp from Falster, you can see a person in fine clothes, standing with their hands at a very special angle. The hands are down, and the palms are visible. It is something that we know in both Christian and pre-Christian cultures as either a sign of submission or a revelation. It is also a symbol that we see in many churches today, Watt explains.

Neither the god nor the king were shown as weak or flawed in any way. And you don’t see that on the stamp from Falster either. “This means that it is either a royal figure who submits to a god – or that it is a god who reveals himself to a human being,” she says.

“It is actually difficult to see if it is a man or a woman who is depicted. You would see that by the fact that there is a tuft of hair on the back of the piston. But it may well appear that there is, she says, and emphasizes that it requires further investigations to determine whether this is the case.

As there may be more finds in the ground at the site, Museum Lolland-Falster does not yet want to publish where the find was made – but states that it was made in central Falster.

By Leman Altuntaş.

[hopeofhouse]

i finally finished dos2.... thoughts ft. drawings + choice playthrough phone notes (spoilers obv)

my godwoken was an elf witch named allegory. he ended up as a necromancer/hydrosophist combo. blood damage + healing was a fun mix! odd contrasts <3

his backstory, 2 me, is that he was lost in a marshland as a little kid, and tir-cendelius saw the chance to keep him isolated (seeing off any potential rescuers, magically expanding the marshes every time he tried to trek out and leading him in circles) + raise the perfect tiny loyal godwoken for when The Time was Right. he let him out when he was an elf teen. t-c should have kept him longer because if anything it just made him weirder when he got reintegrated into society a couple decades later. F

what if your god grew you in a petri dish to [major game spoilers, redacted]. but you were a capricious little know it all with a jester's soul. what then

gorry took sebille, fane and ifan with him because i thought he would assemble a team of hot emos if given chance. this paid off + i love them all dearly

i wasn't expecting the origin characters i didn't take with me after act 1 to UP AND DIE. but it actually added a really good set of stakes. responsibility for ur actions. lohse yelled at me for leaving her to her fate and i felt SO bad. sorry miss thing

LOVED the worldbuilding....i was super familiar with 5e before i played bg3 so i sort of knew what was coming most of the time but for divinity i had to LEARN. super fun. 100% recommend

also i thought bg3 went in on the body horror but divinity was Something Else.

^ and then larian said okay that was fun what if we do it again. and made bg3. anyway

i was hideously bad at combat for ages until i listened to all the people on reddit chanting 'put points in warfare' and then it was much much much more doable lol

ngl i actually very much prefer dos2 to bg3. i loved loved loved bg3 but after like 4 playthroughs during various patch stages it was such a relief to play a game that's actually completed and won't eat my laptop for breakfast!!! first two bg3 files i had i couldn't make it to the lower city because the optimization on mac was so diabolical that it wouldn't actually play until after patch 5. dos2 lets me also have photoshop on my computer. and files that aren't bg related. miraculous

but even ignoring technical issues: from a story and world standpoint dos2 felt way more expansive and inventive. campy but also harrowing in a way that bg3 just didn't hit for me. i also genuinely enjoy being given a zillion pieces of almost overwhelming info and then sorting it out so i am biased. may expand on this at a later point and not under a mile long read more. moving on

romanced fane bc i loved his voice acting and i thought the culturally cannibalistic elf/the one guy with no flesh to eat bit was funny. jokes on me i fell in DEEP. u canonically have disappointing sex because hes simply made of bones without nerves and afterwards he takes notes. he calls u dear heart offhandedly in act 1 like it's nothing then goes right back to being aloof. how many more times does he have to tell you? he has business in the blackpits. he spends the whole game having an increasingly worse time. he's a loser. it's all his fault. he got me. he got me good. god damn

my game glitched (?) and even tho he rejected sebille (sorry baby) her and allegory still made out right before the big final choice. no option not to. then he had the expected epilogue with fane. poly ending canon enough for me!

also the music was bonkers good and the audio direction in that one battle in the final act? mwah. and dallis' va knocked it out of the entire park.

last thing here's a gorry i drew when i was still back in act 1. 180 hours ago. titled on my phone as 'praying at every altar so i always come out on top'

anyway if u made it this far: thank u. go get divinity: original sin 2 when it's next on sale. wise wise wise choice of £6.99 <3

[artificial-radiance]

I feel like just sharing my iterator OCs so uhh

their general info shall be under the read more (any iterators mentioned below that aren't one of these six belong to my friends/partners <3)

Six Pink Blossoms (SPB)

It/They

Technically my iterator sona, initially made for an rp server that never got very far

Pink and silver overseers

Is interested in genetic modification but is too concerned with the negatives to do much

Has a messenger slugcat named Petally

Has several "pet" strawberry lizards that have strange color morphs running around their can (inside and out)

Mere Mention (MM)

They/Them

Shamrock green overseers

Still tries to solve the Great Problem but hates it constantly

Uses modified lizards as messengers; currently mainly using a white called Swift End

Has middle kid syndrome

Nine Last Embers/Burning Embers (BE)

They/He

Orange and yellow overseers

So gay for their local senior iterator (Mouthpiece Of Silence)

Is also competing for said senior's affection with another iterator from their group (Countless Many Colors)

Has a slugcat named Dancer

Spends most of his time collecting data on local fauna for MOS

Many Small Miracles/Little Miracle (LM)

It/Its

Lavender overseers

Falling apart as we speak

Has long since given up on the Great Problem

Has a lot of scavengers living in and on its can

Has just enough power to get scavs to do work for it, its main one is called Third Chance, who comes from a lineage of messengers for it

Doesn't interact much with other iterators at all

Starry Skylights/Night Sky (NS)

She/They

Purple and cyan overseers

My first iterator oc! (Was going to be someone I wrote through on AO3)

Was a biologist at heart

Entirely enthralled by the local wildlife

Has sunk into marshland, among with many other iterators of their local group (only one, Echoes of Storms, remains on the surface)

Tried to upkeep contact with EOS through her cyan lizard Twinkle, until it couldn't reach down to her anymore

Maybe she's still out there...

Personal Hijinks/Hijinks Inbound (HI)

He/They

Amber overseers

Another technical sona of mine, but in a meme way

Somehow managed to get unhooked from their can, has neurons and a battery strapped to their back

Their can has since gotten overrun by creatures and is in disrepair, so it wouldn't be safe for them to go back to anyway

Travels the lands on foot with his messenger slugcat Lookout

Lookout disappeared one day and the next HI saw of it, it had two slugpups he named Jumper and Needler

He likes trying to climb other iterators' cans

Likes bothering their neighbor, Waxing And Waning

[justforbooks]

The American novelist John Barth, who has died aged 93, was a noted evangelist for experimental fiction, beguiling his readers with complex stories within stories.

He claimed as his patron saint Scheherazade in the Arabian Nights, the vizier’s daughter whose tales, spun out for 1,001 nights, entranced King Shahryar: “The whole frame of these thousand nights and a night,” Barth said, “speaks to my heart, directly and intimately – and in many ways at once personal and technical.”

He came to notice with his third novel, The Sot-Weed Factor (1960), a riotous mock-epic pastiche that drew upon a satire of American manners of the same title published in 1708 by one Ebenezer Cooke.

Reviewers compared the book to Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones, and enjoyed Barth’s rollicking use of coincidence, parody, farce, sentimentality and melodrama. It was much-hyped – “One of the greatest works of fiction of our time,” said the writer and artist Richard Kostelanetz – but Gore Vidal found Barth’s humour to be laboured: “I could not so much as summon up a smile at the lazy jokes and the horrendous pastiche of what Barth takes to be 18th-century English.” Other critics complained of its excessive length, narrow emotional range and an underlying facetiousness in Barth’s tone.

His next novel, Giles Goat-Boy (1966), brought Barth critical and commercial success. It was a mythology drenched campus novel, complete with cold war allegories and self-reflexive narratives, 766 pages long. Barth’s penchant for addressing political, religious and philosophical issues gave his novel a flavour of seriousness that was widely praised. Vidal, however, called it “a book to be taught rather than read”.

The following year, Barth published The Literature of Exhaustion, a manifesto for literary postmodernism, in the Atlantic magazine. The traditional forms of representation were used up, he argued. There were too many contemporary writers who went about their business as though James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Jorge Luis Borges, Samuel Beckett and Vladimir Nabokov had never written. Barth’s impatience with most fiction and his eloquent enthusiasm for the experimental caught a moment in contemporary culture. He became the poster boy for postmodernism.

One of the three children of Georgia (nee Simmons) and John Barth, who ran a sweet shop, he was born in Cambridge, a small crab and oyster town in Maryland, and grew up amid the flat, low-lying tidal marshlands on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay.

His twin sister was whimsically named Jill, and Barth’s family knew him as Jack, a source of teasing during their schooldays.

After graduating from high school, Barth enrolled in a summer programme at the Juilliard School of Music in New York. An enthusiastic jazz drummer, he hoped for a career as an arranger, but at the Juilliard he encountered some seriously talented performers and his ambitions shrank.

Instead, he enrolled at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, to study journalism. He remained at Hopkins to complete a master’s degree, and in 1953 landed a job in the English department at Pennsylvania State University, where he remained for 12 years.

Barth’s first published novel, The Floating Opera (1956), was a traditional first-person narrative about boozing, desire and nihilism on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake. The End of the Road (1958), described by the critic Leslie Fiedler as an example of “provincial American existentialism”, was a darker novel about a grad-school dropout, ending with an abortion. Some of the more gruesome details were cut at the insistence of his publishers, but restored when the novel was later reissued.

In 1965 he took a job teaching at the Buffalo campus of the State University of New York, where he remained until 1973. During that time of student unrest, the campus was repeatedly occupied by local police and troopers of the National Guard. Barth was less sympathetic to the protesters than some of his colleagues, but he wholeheartedly threw himself into the trashing of the practitioners of “traditional” fiction such as John Updike and William Styron, whose work he felt was a literary dead end.

Under the growing influence of Borges and 60s counterculture, Barth turned away from fat pastiche-novels to short fictional forms. Lost in the Funhouse (1968) was a melange of short fictions for print, tape and live voice, which he staged on campuses across the nation. In 1973 he returned to Johns Hopkins to take up a chair of creative writing, and stayed until retirement in 1992.

By the 80s, the frisky, postmodern self-consciousness that had made readers sit up in the 60s had lost some of its capacity to shock. It had gone, within a generation, from being a great cause to a routine, a shtick. Barth’s books increasingly needed to be explained to readers, and sales fell away. Complex, self-referential novels such as Chimera, which shared the National Book Award in 1973, the epistolary Letters (1979) and Sabbatical (1982) were seen as working out the implications of The Literature of Exhaustion.

In 1980 he revisited this essay with The Literature of Replenishment, in which he repented his youthful scorn for the 19th-century novel as practised by the “great premodernists” such as Dickens, Twain and Tolstoy. If, as the modernists asserted, linearity, rationality and consciousness are not the whole story, argued Barth, “we may appreciate that the contraries of those things are not the whole story either … A worthy program for postmodernist fiction, I believe, is the synthesis … of these modes of writing.”

Barth’s essays were collected in three volumes as The Friday Book (1984), Further Fridays (1995) and Final Fridays (2012). A further collection of short nonfiction pieces, Postscripts, was published in 2022. Once Upon a Time (1994), with its teasing promise of tall tales, was his most autobiographical novel. Coming Soon!!! (2001), with its references to The Floating Opera, showed that the old postmodernist playfulness was unquenched.

In 1998, Barth won both the Lannan Foundation’s lifetime achievement award and the Pen/Malamud award for excellence in the short story.

He married Anne Strickland in 1950 and they had three children, Christine, John and Daniel. The couple divorced in 1969 and the following year he married Shelly Rosenberg. She and his children survive him.

🔔 John Simmons Barth, writer, born 27 May 1930; died 2 April 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[es46]

Another old sketch I wanted to share. As you might imagine, this piscine wyvern is a mix between dromaeosaurs and thresher sharks. - HYBORLEX Title - Sharpfin wyvern Monster class - Piscine wyvern Known locales - Coastlines, marshlands, estuaries Element/ailment - Bleed Elemental weakness - Ice (3), Dragon (3), Water (2), Fire (1), Thunder (1) Ailment weakness - Poison (3), Sleep (3), Blast (2), Paralysis (1), Stun (1) Hyborlex is a piscine wyvern that stalks environments supplemented by water, ranging from coastlines to estuaries. Recognised by their jagged bluish-grey scales and sharp fins, Hyborlex is distinct from most piscine wyverns in that their physiology resembles theropod bird wyverns. Powerful hindlegs equipped with curved claws make Hyborlex a superb runner and jumper. Its fins, scales, teeth and long tail are exceptionally sharp, perfect for inflicting gouging wounds. Unlike most piscine wyverns, adult Hyborlex cannot swim. Infants are reared in water, but will adapt to a terrestrial life upon reaching the juvenile stage. Hyborlex is an adaptable and intelligent carnivore that sees most anything as potential prey. Its speed and tenacity claims a wide variety of small monsters, ranging from young carapaceons to wingdrakes, and even larger monsters may be brought down by precise strikes to induce blood loss. Though not necessarily gluttunous or aggressive, Hyborlex will gladly take any opportunity to feed, only dissuaded if it feels the situation is not to its advantage. Humans are counted in the long list of creatures Hyborlex will hunt, thus field workers must exercise extreme caution that they are not caught off-guard by one of these opportunistic predators. Hyborlex's offensive strategy is simple; it relies on the jagged scales lining its body as well as its claws and teeth to inflict deep wounds on other creatures. It is a cunning monster that uses hit-and-run tactics to outmatch otherwise larger and stronger monsters. Its most effective weapon is its long tail. Usually used for balance, the extended fin is as sharp as any other protrusion and can be used like a bladed whip. Interestingly, Hyborlex have a tendency to pair up with another of their kind, forming a duo that patrols a particular territory. These pairs are usually mates or siblings, but occasionally unrelated individuals will work together. Hyborlex are extremely effective at hunting as a pair, typically employing the tactic of one occupying a target whilst the other prepares an attack from behind. Independant Hyborlex are rare, usually a younger or older individual made to occupy less productive territory. Technically Hyborlex is among the lower ranked monsters (Low Rank - 2, High/Master Rank - 2) but nonetheless hunters are advised to exercise caution when tracking these cunning predators. A single Hyborlex can be a dangerous adversary with its speed and jagged scales, and a pair of them is a daunting challenge even for experienced hunters. Quest receptionists must be absolutely sure that a Hyborlex is operating independantly before allowing lower ranked hunters to take the quest. Hyborlex is an effective predator, though it is still prey for larger carnivores. Hyborlex predominantly fears the fanged wyvern Torrenial, a formidable ambush predator of coastal and estuarine environments, and it is believed the preference for working in pairs is as much for protection as for hunting success. - Thank you for reading and take care.

[fleetingmotivation]

The sortie had been simple, the mission quick and brutal, in and out, another insurgent dead and another checkmark on a quarterly earnings report. And it had been, the vanguard had cleared, the Omni-hackers deafened the comms, and the artillery had cut them down in droves. She had dropped 6 units herself, and in the process? Overtaxed the left flight thruster, burning out the internals. It was too dangerous to fly, technically possible and reckless to try.

Cherry Soda was not reckless. She abhorred risk, it's the reason she still fights for SSC in the first place. What would she do if they cut her off? How would she get food, shelter, her meds? If the one thing she's good for is piloting she is gonna do it, no matter what it takes.

So she won't be leaving SSC, and she won't be flying on a damaged thruster. Instead, she has a 2 day trek across the marshland to get to the rendezvous, where the nearest repair bay specialized for mech deployment can patch up her wing and get her flying again.

Maybe she'll work on music when she's home.

[magnolia-sunrise]

idk if you've elaborated on this in any capacity but what do bastien and wolfgang's living quarters look like before shit hits the fan and all that? does bastien share a lot of space with matteo at their house and do they have a separate sort of living quarters at the clinic? does wolf have a place they return to and can call some sort of home? if that makes sense. don't feel like you gotta like. draw up floor plans or anything for this i'm just curious as to what sort of spaces they consider home/their own and how that reflects aspects of their characters hehe

hiiiii thats a tasty question and funny you should mention drawing up floor plans because thats exactly what i started doing in the sims 4 as building blocks for my next comic- (specifically i started putting together the clinic since the scene takes place there. genuinely recommend this method its so easy for getting some background shots)

for Bastien indeed he lives with Matteo! they moved in with him pretty quickly since Matteo insisted on taking care of him and helping him sort of get on his feet before he could find a job etc after dropping out of med school. the apartment is Matteo's, or i guess more technically it belongs to his mother but either way its his familys money paying for everything. he never quite made the space for Bastien there and Bastien never felt like he was allowed to change anything to his liking, always feeling more like a guest there. so after a while the shine of the comfort and luxury wore off and it started to feel more like a cage, and Bastien would find more and more reasons to not spend much time at this house, some nights even preferring to just sleep in his truck. eventually they fixed up the floor above the clinic a bit - dragged in a mattress, got the water running etc so when he stays in there really late they can just crawl upstairs to catch some sleep inbetween shifts rather than drive all the way to Matteo's place. it's kind of a mess of a room but somehow he sleeps much more comfortably there than anywhere else.

Wolfgang's living situation is,,, in simplest terms they're squatting in an abandoned building, not far from a sort of android commune (for other androids who were forced out of the system or chose to leave it, since they have to still get energy and parts from somewhere its a sort of collective effort) (it's a neighborhood that the cops / authorities are pretty much aware of but usually leave alone with the occasional raid for good measure). they tend to stay out long stretches of time inbetween recharging and on their free time they like to crash at other people's places a lot, but when they need to be alone and uniterrupted this is where they go. it's not quite a home but its a clean little place, they keep a few potted plants and of course their wardrobe and notes on their investigations etc there. one benefit of the place is a lovely roof view of an overgrown marshland :) severe drawback is a kind of busted shower with only cold water but well its enough to wash off the blood !

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

Oh see, while I'm sure I'd feel rather hunted if I actually like, met a giant jackrabbit man who looked like That, when I saw your picture something about him triggered an instant cute aggression response hard. Which I'm not usually prone to, so that was an interesting experience lol. My second response was the same one I had the first time I saw the Hisuian Zoroark design, which was to vibrate out of my skin over how cool it looked followed immediately by the intense desire hug and pet it. Considering that the only reason I actually got pla was because I wanted a Zoroark, that's certainly saying something. I'm a big fan of emaciated-looking character designs, especially when it makes them look kinda haunted or feral, and you hit it spot on, perfect 10/10.

Oh good, I'm glad you don't mind! If I do end up posting some of them, I'll let you know (if you want me to) and link back to your drawing so that people know the credit for the fantastic character designs go to you!

That's true, the Galaxy Team and Ginko Guild would have the widest variety since they probably come from all over, though there are enough marshland and heat-adapted animals out there that the Diamond Clan probably is pretty diverse too. The Pearl Clan would definitely be the least diverse in general though, because there are only so many types of land animals that are able to live full time in a tundra. And I could see Ginter as a goat! Or like a donkey or malamute that hauls stuff around.

Though here's something I just thought of, would Sabi be considered unlucky to the Diamond Clan as an arctic animal? She's not really safe to stay in the mirelands, which might be part of why they made her a warden so early, so she can't ever come home for very long. And unlike in the Pearl Clan, the Diamond Clan probably would view that as a type of exile, because she doesn't have the option of spending time with the clan as a whole. Right now she still has her baby fluff so technically she could have had more time with them, but maybe when Braviary's old warden retired (or died), Adaman thought it best to just move Sabi into that position once it was clear that they got along, just so that she wouldn't have to actually be exiled when she got too old to safely stay. When they meet up they have to do it in the highlands where it's not too cold for Adaman and not too hot for Sabi. She herself doesn't actually mind, because she's young enough that she probably hasn't actually internalized their beliefs that much, but I bet it's hard being a kid without your family or friends to play with anymore. I wouldn't be surprised if she ended up going a little bit feral living out there with just herself and wild pokemon around for the most part, but if she really got hungry for people interaction she could always hang out with or prank people in the highlands, and with how young she is even the Pearl Clan might tolerate her being around more than they have any other Diamond Clan member in the past.

Oh, actually, maybe when Irida makes that first step by asking Adaman for help with Ingo, it opens him up to asking Irida for help with Sabi after he decides to make her a warden. But where Irida just wanted advice on how to keep Ingo, you know, alive longer, Adaman was asking if Irida could maybe look out for Sabi, at least somewhat, just so that a tiny child doesn't die out in the wastes because she didn't know how to find/cook food or take care of a wound like an adult would. Although, even if he didn't, I think that noble pokemon don't actually care about Clan lines, so if she did get hurt Braviary would probably just drop her off at the Pearl Clan settlement and demand she get treated, and like hell are they going to go against a noble's wishes, which is something I could see happening in canon. Lmao, that's a great point about Mai and Ingo though, I can see that exact interaction perfectly. She tried, not her fault if he doesn't want to listen.

Lol, Very Complicated is right! In OoP, Kamado was able to get to her in a moment of weakness, but you can tell throughout that Irida cares about Ingo and had in fact trusted him quite a lot, enough to vouch for him and confide in him about her role as a leader in any case. This is just taking that up a notch or two by mixing in the fear that comes from knowing there is a good chance her friend might die. That is an excellent plot device, plus it'd be very fitting considering that he saved Sneasler and now her domain is one of the only places he can actually safely be. He was, it'd look to them, clearly meant to be her warden with how neatly things had slotted together. I'm not sure if Irida would divulge how poorly Ingo was doing, but if the people of the Pearl Clan were prone to traveling around there'd surely be at least a few people who saw Ingo for themselves, especially if part of his role was helping them traverse safely through. So they'd know this nice, helpful, polite man (who, yes, is frankly very odd), the man who had saved their noble and was destined to serve her, was consistently looking worse and worse. Maybe they bring it up with Irida and she has to explain what she knows, and some of them start bringing things for him when they know they're headed his way, like food or mittens to replace his lost gloves or something. What he loses in a long term ability to survive in Hisui he makes up for by gaining a little bit of community.

hehehe that's so fun i love that, ty. i can for sure get the cute aggression response too. fucked up jackrabbit guy...

:0 yeah i'd love to see it if you end up posting it!! for sure!!

donkey is another option for ginter, yeah... or maybe an ox? something that's good for hauling and pulling large weights. very funny in comparison to his employee, a dove, the least draft animal to ever exist,

oof, you're right, sabi would probably have a pretty tough time in the mirelands as a penguin. she's definitely way more suited to the region where she's warden than the one where she was actually, like, born. i wonder if there's something where she's like, a child of the previous warden, and the Animal Roulette got confused about which region was "home" and went with an arctic animal because her parent spent so much time in the icelands. (...something something, au where braviary's former warden was sabi's mom and her father is gaeric, who hasn't told her or anyone else bc of clan tensions, but now she's taken the position so he has an excuse to keep an eye on her under the guise of assisting his fellow warden)

also the idea of her just wandering into the pearl settlement to hang out, aww. the other kids probably wouldn't think too much of it, depending on when they get taught about clan affiliations and all that (and besides, she's a warden, aren't the rules kind of different around there?) so they're happy to play games with her until braviary calls her back to go do warden stuff. that would have its own issues, though, if the diamond clan grows concerned that pearl might be manipulating their warden... teaching her about the False Sinnoh and trying to convince her to change allegiances, disrupting the balance throughout all hisui... (they're not doing any such thing, in fact the adults probably avoid discussing sinnoh with her as much as possible, but you know how people are)

i wonder if, if she's already hanging out with pearl enough, it might not go in the other order. like, it's adaman who first asks irida (or the pearl wardens or something) to keep an eye out for sabi, because it's really nonstandard to have a warden this young and yeah he's worried about her, ok? this concerns them too, anyway, since wardens are sort of both clans' business. and it's that shaky gesture of trust that prompts irida (because this is, strictly speaking, interfering in ingo's business and she isn't sure how he'll take it) to ask him about ingo, later.

and yeah of course it would look to them like ingo was like, sent to be sneasler's warden. though i wonder if, even if some of them saw him, they'd even notice how much he'd changed, considering they probably see him only infrequently and most of what they remember is "weird alarming rabbit thing" which is a description he just fits better than ever, lol. still, though, they'd probably pick it up via behavior if nothing else—that he constantly seems only half-present in conversation, etc—and do what you said re: trying to help them to the extent that they're able

[writesailingdreams]

tagged by @regnigt

The Rules: Tag (9) people you want to know better and/or catch up with, then answer the following:

REVISED*

*Four Ships: Going Merry, Argo, Sunny Go, that ship the Phaeacians loan Odysseus; honorable mention - not a ship but a means of transport I love: Mystery Machine

Original more technically accurate answer:... I know I have some but boy is my mind drawing a blank... hm... about the only one I feel confident about is Tiana/Naveen

Last Song: Know Who You Are (Moana)

Currently Reading: The Complete Sherlock Holmes Vol II, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty (am on a pause), Wild Souls by Emma Marris (philosophy and animals and conservation, yes please), Mob Psycho 100, The Secret of the Wooden Lady by "Carolyn Keene" (original? 1950 ver.)

Last Movie: the last full movie I watched...maybe The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. (I'm pretty sure it was probably some "classic" movie (like from the 1940s or thereabouts) but I can't for the life of me remember what)

Craving: to cook my fish that's definitely thawed by now

---

Favourite colour: purple/pink/blue variety range or an orange/yellow variety range, but colors I gravitate to the most are probably grays and tans

song stuck in head: I don't know if I have one right now

favourite food: I like a lot of fruit, but my go to food that I'll pretty much always eat is some kind of pasta

dream trip: sailing around the world or at least the Pacific

last thing I googled: does google translate count? if not marshland flowers :D

I'm terrible with tagging so I tag anyone interested? but here's a few people: @camelot-arrhythmia, @fostekat, @rose-of-pollux, @mingot-studios, @scythfi-writer, @emmi-kat, @lace-of-hearts

[void-ink-studios]

First time posting anything about my worldbuilding project, let’s go!  The ethnic groups and mid level fashion of Matacare’s journey.

This is from a creative writing project (that I plan to open up an askblog about, stay tuned) in which an anthropologist travels around the globe to study and document the cultures of the current major global powers.

More notes under the cut!

The species are mostly humanoid, with the addition of tails, more animalistic ears that are more articulate, digitigrade feet, and they loose pigment in the winter (although how extreme this pigment loss is has been affected by the local climate). Also, they most often give birth to twins, their hair is really slow to grow, and their tails are just a step below prehensile (fully articulate, but not strong enough to hold onto anything).  Matacare himself is from the United Islands, and he travels in the order presented. Here's a quick rundown of the cultures presented.

United Islands: A united nation consisting of nine islands and the peninsula attached to the continent. They live in a mostly Mediterranean climate on the Southern Hemisphere, however the southern most islands dip into more frigid temperatures. They're a democracy in which each member state has their own representatives. They're a largely agricultural, mercantile, and naval power, but have become mostly stagnant in terms of reaching outward.

Jungle of Flowers: A matriarchal monarchy on the eastern coast of the western continent. They live in a humid, tropical climate with jungles and swamps. They are ruled by a family of queens, in which a select set of sisters mothered by the previous queens rule together. They're agricultural with their main exports of fruits, sugar, and rare woods, but are also skilled hunters and sell leathers and hides. They conflict a lot with smaller kingdoms along their main river further inland.

Twin Kingdoms: A pair of united kingdoms situated on an island to the western north. They live in a dry, frigid climate similar to Iceland, and live mostly in the colder weather. They were once two kingdoms, but are now united as one, with their king (can be either male or female, but use the term king generically) selected by a contest of survival and skill. They're mostly herdsmen and fishermen, selling high quality wool, aquatic mammal skins, and fish. While the two kingdoms are technically united, there is still bad blood from previous conflicts.

Golden River: A group of many smaller, loosely connected kingdoms who all answer to a unifying religious ruler. They live in a desert, centered around a riverplain that empties into the ocean, on the northern coast of the eastern continent. Each kingdom rules independently of each other, but the divine leader can make commands to all of them. The smaller kingdoms constantly vie for more power against each other by trying to have one of their own as the next divine ruler. They trade in precious and practical metals like gold, iron, and copper.

Volcanic Nomads: A loosely connected kingdom of tribes lead by chiefs who can be called on and commanded by a king. They live on a large island off the north eastern coast of the eastern continent. The tribes meet every few years to elect a new king from the chiefs, who can speak for them all when engaging with other nations. The tribes often fight with each other for pastoral land and animals, but they've recently united in order to expand to the mainland. They trade in meat, beasts of burden, and animal fat oils used for lights and certain new technologies.

Silken Delta: A coalition of states scattered across a peninsula splintered by a massive river delta system. They live in a tropical and Mediterranean climate with scattered marshland. Each state sends a member to a unified council, with those council members serving as the local heads of state for their origin state. While they don't conflict with the United Islands directly, they do see themselves as economic rivals to them. They trade in fine fabrics for clothing, beans and other grains, and spices/herbs.

Here’s the examples of the pigment loss I was talking about!

Hope y’all like it, and I’ll be posting more about it very soon!

[pastoria-marsh-official]

Technically, the only place wild Muskippa aren't in the marsh is in one route in Unova, and according to my research, that's on an island... so frankly that hardly counts.

Everywhere else, as far as research shows, their habitat consists solely of marshland. You might be lucky to find one rooting for water near a pond.