#this is another originally from my main

[ruporas]

studies from the finale

[temeyes]

[OC] narrator: "they proceeded to have five children later in the future…"

[psychomusic]

oc time again! + her town & culture (heavily inspired by pre-roman italic populations)

she is suri sauthon. her story is linked to my swtor imperial agent, tar'x, but most of her life except for the one year away where she meets him, is spent in a town in the mountains of mirial.

despite mirial being cold and desert, and many cities developing underground, her town flourishes thanks to a force nexus, venerated in the form of an ancient, sacred, alive crystal. the ecosystem of that mountain depended on what "the horned crystal" was capable of giving them, but mirialans couldn't live off of that alone, so they developed trade and some rudimental technology, even if oftentimes it was bought thanks to the highly profitable trade of a plant used to make medicines that slowed down aging and had overall healing properties.

note: everything that's generated by this nexus has these healing properties BUT they have to be processed, except for those who bathed in the waters of the cavity under the crystal - the "real" nexus, but not the worshipped one. the waters were sacred but they were not thought to be miraculous, unlike the crystal, who instead was thought of as the keystone of the ecosystem: without it, everything would fall apart (and that is partially true: the cavity was the "real" nexus but thanks to the crystal, also strong in the force, the properties were spread all over the mountains). those who bathed in the cavity's waters - so, all of the town, who had a sort of baptism there - could eat the plant, make whatever food with it, and not only that plant, but everything generated by the nexus, that, again, had similar properties. this allowed people to live up to normal life-spans without advanced medicines or, much, really. to those who didn't live there, though, after the processing, had incredible effects, slowing down aging - for those who took it regularly - and making people able to live up to half a century more than the average]

originally, there were four tribes of nomads that lived thanks to horned farm animals that decided to settle down into one bigger town and other smaller settlements, to live off of transhumance. this division of the tribes stayed into the political and social organization: every person belonged to one tribe specifically, and had slightly different rituals and culture. for examples, each tribe had their own priests and healers, with different techniques and traditions. the town, tho, was guided by a group of people in the high priesthood, a position you could reach only by having earned the trust of all tribes. those high priests had many roles: they guided the people into sacred processions common to all the tribes, they managed the trading with outsiders, they did the maintenance of the temple of the summit (the one that functioned as casket to the crystal) and created a special liquid to offer the crystal that helps it grow.

this particular temple was important because 1. it was very visible, from every angle of the town, and it became an important identity symbol; 2. it stored the venerated horned crystal; 3. it had the altar where sacrifices were made for the crystals. that altar had a hole connected to the cavity, that allowed the liquids to reach the underground; 4. it had various symbols: statues representing each tribe + the high priesthood, and typical mirialan tattoos carved into the wood of the trees that served as columns for the temple, symbolizing 8 values that who dared to enter HAD to have; 5. it was on the way to an important lake (called "mother lake" because the lake the town was built around to depended on the waters of that other lake) where they traveled to in important processions; 6. it was said that a the wizard who unified the tribes made it with its magic, making the plant grow to hold the temple's roof. this wizard was, actually, a force user, obv.

BACK TO HER THOUGH: she's daughter of one of the high priests, who was in charge of managing the trades with outsiders, and lives in a house on the mountains with her mother and him. her parents are from different tribes (that's one of the things that earned him trust from the 4 tribes): when a child is born from two different tribes, they don't pick one to allign to, but they're usually linked automatically to the one with more relatives in it (in her case, the father's tribe: she had many uncles and aunts on his side while her mom only had one sister).

later, though, she got quite tied to her mother's tribe due to a mysterious illness that only her mother's tribe healer was able to cure. she spent 4 years (from 10 to 14 years old) living with the healer and learned her secrets. to better study, she wrote them down. when she returned home, she studied to become a priestess with her father. at 22 (the average age: you can't become priest before your 20s), she was supposed to take a test and become a priestess, but the healer of her mother's tribe died and the tribe asked her to take her place. she couldn't technically do that, but both tribes estimated both her and her parents and she was allowed to become both. she then decided to try to become a high priestess, and became one at 25 (a quite young age). being part of the council, she tried to convince the various tribe healers to unite their knowledges and write them down, and eventually made it. healers still remained tribe based but they now had an "upper, inter-tribe level" similar to high priesthood.

years later, the sacred horned crystal is stolen from the temple by some Hutt mercenaries looking for a profit. given the trust she has earned from all the tribes and the fact that her father is the high priest that deals with outsiders (and she's been hearing stories and advice about it since she was little), she is the one tasked with getting it back. without the growing crystal, the keystone to their ecosystem, the village would have lasted only a few years. in hrr quest, she meets imperial intelligence agent tar'x laran and, as they "solve the mystery" and fight to have it back, they get closer. they'll get married and have a daughter, Vegoia (who's the only one who actually will get to the plot of my story. this was all background)

[italyveneziano]

Old redraw of an even older drawing ☺️ They are the father and son ever. To me (please don't tag as ship!)

[fictionadventurer]

A Biltmore Christmas may be the first Hallmark movie to drive me to fanfic.

[themyscirah]

Complaining abt Suicide Squad yet again but the fact that they have Waller exposing the alien community to space racist attacks and talking abt how she got to her position through deceit and being a terrible person and stuff is just. Ahsfiwueh JUST SAY YOU DONT KNOW WALLER.

Anyways literally the 3rd mission of the Squad ever (and the first framed as smth Waller picked and not orders from above) was the Squad discrediting and stopping a rogue vigilante who was only arresting POC and funneling white people into white supremacy groups (of which he was the most prominent member) in SUICIDE SQUAD #4. and it's explicitly framed as this mission being personal for Waller that she's hiding from the government bc its illegal like. Guys. Please why are we having her incite (space bc comics) racist attacks now

Also the whole "Amanda got her position through deceit and being a terrible person" NO. she KEPT her position through being shitty and playing complicated political games!!! She wasn't always that way like there is a difference and it is IMPORTANT ppl PLEASEEEE. In Secret Origins #14 we learn Amanda's backstory and she used to be a normal, caring person! Like even after she entered into working in government and politics she wasn't automatically morally bankrupt like please people. She was originally given control of the Squad by Reagan (*sigh* 80s comics...) to distract and get rid of her because she was so successful at pushing progressive social policy in Congress. Acting like she's this static pillar of evil is such a waste of her character and so fucking uninteresting and disrespectful to her arc it drives me MAD.

Like I am NOT saying Waller is all sunshine and rainbows, she fucking SUCKS (said w love <3) but like there's a human being there. It's a progression, she has a character arc like please, DC, please!!! They've fucked up Waller so bad and made her so opaque and uninteresting she can't even be the protagonist of her own story for fucks sake!

Like I don't know how many times I have to scream it until DC hears me or remembers but WALLER IS THE MAIN CHARACTER OF SUICIDE SQUAD. ITS HER BOOK. yet right now she's a cutout to be used as the villain wherever the writers please. Even in her book we get none of her perspective really displayed, no exploration of her thoughts with any kind of understanding of the role she traditionally has played and was made to play in the story.

[cassielsunstone]

Childhood friends 🐬

[ruvviks]

All That's Left follows two journalists and their friends in post-apocalyptic United States as they travel from the fallen east coast megalopolis Opportunity back to Los Angeles, crossing through a harsh wasteland overrun with zombies— only to find out that there is a lot more life left than what the protected cities want them to believe. On their journey they meet dozens of people living their lives as peaceful as possible away from military forces, corporations, and corrupt governments; and they learn that the same mutated ghouls that took down Opportunity are spreading rapidly through the country, destroying everything in their path. Will this finally be the end of the world as we know it?

taglist (opt in/out)

@shellibisshe, @florbelles, @ncytiri, @hibernationsuit, @stars-of-the-heart;

@vvanessaives, @katsigian, @radioactiveshitstorm, @estevnys, @adelaidedrubman;

@celticwoman, @rindemption, @carlosoliveiraa, @noirapocalypto, @dickytwister;

@killerspinal, @euryalex, @ri-a-rose, @velocitic, @thedeadthree

[evilwizardval]

i'm feeling like deleting every piece of art i've ever posted everywhere so instead of doing that i'm posting my oc marion bc he's one of my faves <3 he's like a magical girl if a magical girl was a boy and also an alien (i had a reference for the first drawing but i cannot find it rn since i made this last year </3, i'll try to find it tomorrow)

[isablooo]

Orolin Lành Ekman, Archer of Östberg

[sysig]

Cards 👏 cards 👏 cards 👏 (Patreon)

[whatudottu]

Me: Aw, my ideas for ectonurite reproduction are unrealistic, good thing I can use magic and the presence of Anodyne to justify them!

The humble turritopsis dohrnii: Let me introduce myself

So, after bumbling the idea of how the freak ghosts would produce more of themselves, I can now use an actual real world base to actually understand how the mechanisms would work.

Even though I've linked where I found out about the aptly named 'immortal jellyfish' I'm not going to expect anyone to read it, especially since it's pretty dry as more of a scientific debrief on the life-after-adulthood cycle of the t. dohrnii, but to summarise; outside of the standard reproductive cycle, a 'reverse development' would start in the medusa stage (essentially the adult stage but both mature and immature medusae can reverse develop), transition to a ball-like cyst stage where their features disappear, then metamorphizse back into a polyp where it would then reenter the standard reproductive cycle by developing from a bud to an adult polyp again to reproduce asexually, creating medusae once again. It's not quite as extreme as to say it reverses it's mitosis, simply that the transition to becoming a cyst allows for the cells to metamorphose and reattach themselves to the sea floor as a polyp, a 'hydroid colony' with reproductive zooids (something about 'fulmini = siphonophore' post).

Anyway! That's the general gist and I wanna go ahead and apply that to ectonurite AND expand on how it'd define their culture, not just being genetically immortal but also how the different life stages interact socially.

One thing I didn't mention in the summary but will use as an introduction to this section is that a precursor to the reverse development process is a 'weakened' state, which aside from the slow natural degradation of aging and a more controllable but also slow deterioration from the environment (faster if the environment is at least slightly harmful), also includes physical damage. I know I haven't made a whole post about this before but I think I might've implied in other topics that ectonurites need to die in order to reproduce, but I suppose 'dying' is now less literal as it's more the cells work overtime to heal from whatever physical issue put the individual into their state, doing so by morphing them into what amounts as scar tissue; a cyst. A lesion, a wound, a scab. Something that will in it's own right metamorphose yet repair in it's own right, become something new directly from the old.

An ectonurite medusa, the main body beneath the skin, would undergo the process of reverse development and become a cyst, the skin it's new cocoon yet also it's sail, leading the pulsing core of the cyst where whatever winds will take it. It will eventually make landfall, whether it was lead by the environment or nurtured by observing family - siblings and cousins and auncles but no parents, parents are impossible to have - and it would begin to metamorphose using the skin as nutrients and begin the steps again to become a polyp, a sprouting flower. Wherever they had landed they have become something new, and will continue to develop into being that something new until they create themselves once again, being born of their own body and creating more than they had ever been alone. From one into a myriad, the budding of the polyp creates more of themself and though in large quantity, the mortality rate is quite frighteningly significant. However when all is said and done, the asexual reproduction of the polyp spawns new descendants of the original medusa, in clutches of 5-20 on average; some more... some less.

Ectonurite spawn are still affected by their anti-mana life force, in reaction to the intersection between the planes allowing Anodyne and Lederdomain influences to spread amongst Anur Phaetos, so no matter where they end up budding they still take on the traits and attributes of the life around them like a sun-hungry plant. Technically fully mature medusa are also affected by this but it occurs less due to their final state, it is the cyst that initially begins to integrate the medusa's external influences into it's genetics, which in turn it uses in it's metamorphosis including the older genes present in the skin. Sisters Zs'Iza and Zs'Oise are an example of such with their visibly transylian faces in addition to their skin having the bandaged texture of thep khufan's many limbs. They are also an example of the 'less than average' clutch size a polyp can develop, a scorn say a power-hungry High Ecto-lord cannot bare to face, let alone acknowledge that it was amongst his genetics to barely remain biologically immortal.

AKA the reason why Zs'Skayr held interest in the Omnitrix, preservation of his genetics in a way that his species could even compare to even as close as they try. Something about desiring something more when it is just out of reach instead of being completely unattainable, immortality an easy concept to grasp when it is not hard to deride reincarnation from ones own natural biology. Especially since with the technology of the Omnitrix inherently blocking the influence of mana and thus rendering Zs'Skayr completely himself without the genetic differences of the life around him.

Speaking of the High Ecto-lord (a dumb name I'll give it the benefit of a mistranslation of a Phaetan or even a general Anurian term into English to cope with it), politically with their reproduction in mind I can see it in two ways; an absolute monarchy where the High Ecto-lord passes the role to their next life or something like a post-constitutional monarchy (emphasis on post-monarchy) where ectonurites have biological knowledge to know that appointing the one literal same guy over an over again with absolute power is bullshit but they recognise them as a figurehead with a political force of chosen reps behind them. Having a preference for the second, I'll say that Zs'Skayr is extra motivated to figure out actual immortality of the self in order to retain what little rule he does have, especially if with his clutch sibling only ending up producing two young with no other family of his in Zs'Castle Zs'Skayr to speak for, it seems he is at the end of his rope and wants to cling onto that for as long as infeasibly possible.

Moving on and hah, reverse developing this discussion to an earlier point, let's go back to ectonurite cysts and expand what I mean by 'observing family'.

Ectonurites, though biologically immortal, do host something equivalent to that of a funeral. However, unlike most funerals where the person who's the main event OF the funeral is very much dead and lacking any agency over the event, ectonurites old significant age or those with a significant amount of physical damage host their own funeral; in some cases, either immature medusae who's current combination of genes have given them rapid cell death and accelerated aging, or someone is significantly injured they cannot do much anything else, a funeral is hosted for them. It's an event that simultaneously mourns the old and celebrates the new, where during the middle of the funeral the host instigates their reverse development (or it's instigated for them) and the procedure from medusa to cyst to polyp takes place. These events often take place outside, but if the atmosphere is thick enough and there are no land-locked species in attendance then they might take place in the air itself, if not the full event where maybe the host wants a feast or activities before they reverse then in the reversal itself. This is done to make sure the cyst has ample time to drift to be coerced into drifting into a spot they and the family agreed upon away from the event space, more often than not directed to a family garden or a community garden, but sometimes in spots the host specifically wished to drift to or even through chance alone.

This can have a few Karen moments treated similarly to the way say human mother-in-laws demand full creative control over their children's wedding or guests that want all the attention come wearing white to the very same, but applied to what is essentially simultaneously funerary rights and also a baby-shower hah. The Tr'Riken moment perhaps for family name given name *pans over to me scrabbling to piece together a Phaetan equivalent name to Karen* maybe Pani'Kn or given name family name, who knows.

And with funerals being as casual conversation as humans consider weddings to be, sometimes some auncles siblings and cousins like to push the idea of their family member hosting a funeral someday, especially since unlike marriage it's a pretty guaranteed thing to happen. Sometimes though family would pester ectonurites with benign or otherwise non-terminal diseases illnesses or disabilities with arranging funerals because 'well, this combination of genes hasn't really worked out for you, but if you spend time with [xyz] and host one maybe you could get a different pattern and avoid all that'.

What I haven't mentioned yet is the family and community gardens. Gardens of polyps that either live on family property or exist in lots where housing and or hospitals are close by. When one says biologically immortal one might assume that the polyps that produce their youth asexually would be also immortal and thus outgrow any physical lot, but that is untrue. Instead, though the polyps last much longer than a corpse would in addition to being around longer with maintenance of the family or community gardeners, they are not immune to dying of old age. Since polyps are not the reverse developing medusae they cannot themselves persist in life beyond death and just like all polyps do eventually come to pass. Unlike a funeral perhaps where there is a person to actively mourn however, the passing of a polyp is seen as beautiful. The medusae produced by the polyp have legal rights on what to do with the remains of functionally their earlier self, whether to perserve it like a flower crushed within the pages of a book (though much more elegantly than that), to seal it in some resin as the equivalent of an urn (a display piece that does not decay), or to let it 'metamorphose' one last time an let it feed the grounds of the garden it lived in.

Zs'Castle Zs'Skayr's entrance was guarded by pumpkins yes? Like a form of garden right? I wonder what happened to all the Zs' family's polyps *blinks innocently*?

[astro-b-o-y-d]

Been seeing a lot of other people's takes for Flatlander Bill cross my dash, and I thought I'd dabble a bit with some of my own potential ideas for both him and Mina.

[sundial-bee-scribbles]

"my education is my highest priority" everything returns to vocaloid

[silkpages]

one month off uni LET'S GO!!

[dairyfreenugget]

I could count the amount of original stories of mine that don't have horror elements on one hand and idk what that says about me