#tiny little sand apes

[captain-kraken]

There's actually quite a few cool creatures in Sonhara (in my opinion lol)

[infrared135-36]

This is something I honestly want to ask FGO fans if they’re still playing - what would it take (if anything) for you to stop playing the game? Like what would be your absolute line in the sand. Or will you keep playing until EoS? I’m not asking this to proselytize, I’m genuinely curious. These are some recent events: There’s the addition of Wandjina as a character you can gamble for in the gacha, which you can see people discussing here in the FGO tag. Right before this there was yet another little girl added with a highly sexualized outfit, chloe (summer). In the summer event they even took the time to draw a giant version of her stomping through town so the fans could look up her microbikini bottoms. She was preceded by Nero-Draco whose second ascension is a little girl in another tiny micro-bikini. The designers and animators made sure the first ascension dress had huge slits in it so you can see those tiny strips of fabric covering her body when she makes any type of movement. Her third, adult ascension is completely locked behind the completion of a limited time event. Anyone who plays that missed it and don’t have her will default see her on their friends list in the second ascension. This is also the one that is advertised in the gacha banners. These two characters join multiple other little girls in fetishwear the game had added over time, to say nothing of the many pandering craft essences as well.

Before Nero Draco, the game advertised its newest Ordeal Call chapter with an animated commercial that included a scene created with AI. In the chapter itself they gave us a whitewashed Rani.

Before AI Ordeal Call, there was Lostbelt 7. The 3 summonable servants on the “Latin American Lostbelt” were all white: Tezcatlipoca, Kukulkan and Tenochitlan. There were 2 NPCs with darker skin (tbh optics are not great labeling the darkest skinned npc a “Beast” when you think about it), and every single other NPC in the chapter was a dinosaur or an “Ocelomeh” - ape-men wearing jaguar masks that the player cannot understand.

For the anniversary, the game’s “QoL update” was a brand new way to give them money- another paid gacha banner. The “secret” update the NA server got was also another paid gacha banner.

Again these are just recent things I’ve seen people stop playing over, of course in the game’s older events there’s things like the emiya alter design & tamamocat line for him in seraph, agartha chapter, Boudicca interlude etc. This isn’t a callout or anything, the descriptions above are because I wanted to add context with what’s happened in the game recently. I’m just genuinely curious if you’re still playing after the type of content they’ve put out, is there anything FGO could do to legitimately make you stop?

[raging-tackeydios]

apparently people liked this so i made a bunch of sample dialogue for the monsters that i liked

great/drome monsters: "Alright, troops! This hairless ape is trying to encroach on our turf! But are we gonna let him? NO! Now CHARGE! ...I said CHARGE! (...Guess that strategy still needs some work.)"

(blue) yian kut ku: "Nnngh...I don't wanna be here...and my feet hurt...I was just looking for some Tropical Berries...Can you let me go, please?"

cephadrome: "Yeah, that's right! I'm swimming! In the SAND! Pretty impressive, huh? Your tiny brain must be about to explode by now. Go ahead: just try to drag me out!"

(scarred, deadeye) yian garuga: "Y O U ! Monkey thing! Hehehehe...You really thought you could escape ME for so long?! I've been itching for a fight, and you go and kill everything I wanted to kill...So I'll rip your guts out, and then I'll be the toughest around!! Ah-ha, ha-haaa!"

(black) gravios: "Eh? Oh. You're the ape thing that was sent to kill me. Well, uh...be my guest, I guess. Let's just get this over with..."

(purple) gypceros: "Whoa...You have so much neat stuff, ape thing! Lemme touch it lemme touch it lemme touch it-"

(red) khezu: "hUNTer. HU. ntER. finD? dfIN. fIN hUTNer."

(pink, gold, dreadqueen) rathian: "(Gog, what did that idiot do this time...) Are you here regarding something my husband did? I'm sorry about him: he can be...a handful...sometimes."

(azure, silver, dreadking) rathalos: "Gaw haw haw haw! Well, if it ain't the hairless ape chumps! You'll never be able to fight ME in the air! Go ahead, just try and throw a Flash Bomb while I'm flying...not like a couple of schmucks like you would be able to! (Hey, uh, Rathi...that was good, right?)"

diablos: "Eh? Who the hell is it? You...must be really damn stupid trying to step to me, kid. When this is over...I'm walking out with your fucking intestines wrapped around my neck like a flower garland."

bloodbath diablos: "You are weak, complacent...cowardly! Unworthy of life! I shall raze everything you hold dear, even if I have to drag you to Hell with me!! Prepare to die, worthless insects!"

black diablos: "You. You're coming with me. This isn't a question, I'm going to beat you within an inch of your life. And then you're getting inside me. Now."

(white) monoblos: "Well, well, ya finally made it, young'un! I've been hearin' some mighty fine things about'cha rising up the ranks an' whatnot. Now...ya ready for yer final test?"

(plum, stonefist) daimyo hermitaur "G-gah! I'm sorry, I'm sorry...I just wanted to eat this carcass in peace...P-please don't hurt meee!!"

(terra) shogun ceanataur "Hah! What's that tiny little appendage you got there? You call THAT a claw?! Lemme show you a real set of knives. Time to turn you into sashimi!"

rustrazor ceanataur: "Gotta...get one last sharpening in...One more hit...I-I can quit whenever I want, man! Just a little more claw ore!"

(green, lucent, silverwind) nargacuga: "I am the terror that cuts through the night...I am the Dung Bomb keeping the Deviljho of hatred and evil at bay...I am Nargacuga! ...How was that? Great, right?!"

(molten, grimclaw, brute) tigrex: "HI HI HI HUNTER HOW ARE YOU GREAT THAT'S GREAT ME TOO YOU LOOK LIKE YOU WANT A HUG I'M GOING TO COME OVER THERE AND GIVE YOU A HUG GET INTO MY MOUTH"

(furious) rajang: "Found you! You're pretty slippery, you know that? But it doesn't matter, because someone this powerful's got to be a barrel of fun! Don't hold back, hunter!"

(flaming) espinas: "[unintelligible muttering] Muuuh...Who's there...? Is anything...dead around me...I wanna go back to bed..." (flaming) espinas (enraged): "I HAVE FUCKING HAD IT WITH YOU YOU LITTLE SHIT! YOU WALK INTO MY DOMAIN, PUT BOMBS AROUND MY HEAD AND THEN YOU KEEP FUCKING SLAPPING ME! I'M GOING TO DRAG YOUR GODDAMN ESOPHAGUS OUT OF YOUR NECK ON THIS HORN, AND THEN I'LL FUCKING DROWN YOU IN YOUR OWN FLUIDS YOU UTTER WASTE OF OXYGEN"

akantor/ukanlos: "Behold, [unstoppable ebon might/indomitable alabaster strength]! Now, kowtow before me as I [subsume this world in raging flame/drag the world down into eternal frost]!"

(crimson) qurupeco: "You dare insult my presence with that tiny recorder you call an instrument? I am an artiste! I can't be seen around something as unsightly as that! Time to teach you a lesson!"

(rust) duramboros: "Dern hairless apes...Can't a fella graze in peace?! Guess I'll just hafta knock some sense into ya..."

brachydios: "Gyah ha! You wanna step into the ring with the Crushing Wyvern, eh? In that case, prepare for the fight of your life, brother! Leeet's rumble!!"

(ash) kecha wacha: "Kekekeke...I dunno what's funnier: the fact that you can't hit me up here, or the look on your face!"

(desert) seltas: "TARGET. SIGHTED. At. FIFTY METERS. BEGIN ATTACK."

(berserk) tetsucabra: "Huh huh! With this rock, I'm invisible, see? Where'd I go? ...Guh? Where'd you go?"

(tidal) najarala: "Pfft! You're the pipsssqueak they sssent to defeat me? You're hardly even an appetizer, much lessss sssomething I can conssstrict! Regardlesssss...My sssonic ssscalesss will take care of you lickety-sssplit."

(shrouded) nerscylla: "I'm...not really up to this...Please go easy on me...okay? (Man, I wish I could just disappear into this thing...)"

(tigerstripe) zamtrios: "Ah, hey there, fella! It's nice to meat - er, meet you, but I'm just gonna have to take a little bite out of you to see if you're good, okay?"

(desert) seltas queen: "Hello There Ape. I See My Worthless Underling Is: Late As Usual. He Will Be Here: Any Minute Now (Upon Which We Will Flatten You)"

(boltreaver) astalos: "need more need more NEED MORE i'm not crazy YOU'RE CRAZY i'm going to fucking RIP YOU TO SHREDS hunter and then my lightning will cauterize your-holy SHIT I THINK THE KETAMINE IS KICKING IN”

(violet) mizutsune: "Oh, if it isn't a hunter! I doubt I'll have any trouble dispatching you if your fighting skills are as good as your fashion sense. Let's make this quick; oh, and if you get my fins dirty, I will end you."

(acidic, hellblade) glavenus: "You...You come into my home, and you would dare to try and bring harm to my friends?! If it's a fight you want, you're getting far more than you bargained for. EN GARDE!"

(nightcloak) malfestio: "Ah ha ha ha...Well, you certainly think you have the upper hand, Hunter. But what about...sleight of hand?"

ahtal-ka: "Nyaaah?! A Hunter?! Wait...this is a good thing. I've been looking for a test subject for this Ahtal-Neset prototype! Do your worst! ...Wait, actually, don't go too hard, I still have to study your performance."

(ebony) odogaron: "BITE BITE BITE KILL MURDER EAT MEAT BITE HARDER BITE MURDER MUTILATE BITE BITE BITE KILL KILL KILL"

tzitzi-ya-ku: "Ooh, that outfit looks absolutely amazing! And you say you just threw that together from junk you had in your box?! Let's get a few headshots of that!"

(seething) bazelgeuse: "Aww, you didn't want me intruding? Well, that's too damn bad! To you I am DEATH INCARNATE, cupcake!"

(blood orange) bishaten: "Huhuhuh...Man, you should have seen the look on your face. So, uh, are you gonna eat shit even harder or are you gonna fight me?"

(magma) almudron: "[grumbling] Damn kids these days have no respect for other people's property. When I was a whelp, we had to walk around this area uphill! Both ways! And we liked it!"

somnacanth: "Everybody get HYPED! Somnacanth's here to give you a performance you'll never forget! Here we go!!"

auroracanth: "Ugh...I hate this job. The fans are nice, though. You're not one of them, so please leave."

(pyre) rakna-kadaki: "Aaahahaha! Go forth, underlings! Entangle this interloper in the web of DOOOOOM!! ...Wait, wait, not you. You stay back.

garangolm: "Muh...Someone's hitting me. Well, that's okay. If you have some anger issues you need to work out, I'm here for you, fella."

lunagaron: "So much thyme, so little toys...wouldn't you agree? ...Wait, what do you mean I'm talking nonsense?! Dammit...could have sworn I actually fixed the script this time..."

(ashen) lao-shan lung: "IT'S HERE!! Please, you have to listen to me! The Black One's awoken! We're all going to be incinerated!"

chameleos: "Hyeheheheh...You ready for the GREATEST PERFORMANCE OF YOUR MISERABLE LIFE?! No?! Good, because I don't care and you're seeing it anyway! Now, let the show...begin!!"

teostra: "So...you've been sent for me. If I die for my subjects, then I choose to fall as a king. Now strike me down, usurper!"

alatreon: "It hurts...it hurts...so many echoes...so many voices...make...it...STOOOPP!!"

amatsu: "You...I've given you courtesy enough by allowing you in the presence of my divine grace. Time for you to die."

shagaru magala: "Gaze upon the angel's might, mortal...The eternal light that shall bring about your ultimate downfall!"

nakarkos: "HU...NTER...HUNTER...KNEEL...BEFORE US TWO..." nakarkos (second form):"THE HUMAN...THE...UH...HUMA...Eh, fuck it. Yar har har! Bet ye didn't expect THIS being me true form, eh?! That said...unfortunately, nobody can see this and live to tell the tale. Time to send ye to Davy Jones' locker!"'

(crimson glow) valstrax: "You really think you can keep pace with me in a fight? Well, let's test that theory. Don't fall behind, now!"

(ruiner) nergigante: "Gwahahaha! If it isn't some more chumps for the grinder. You really think you'll be able to stand up to me?! I'd be surprised if you didn't get flattened after five minutes! It's SHOWTIME!"

velkhana: "(I'm really sorry about this...)" Ahahaha! All who oppose my icy reign shall be crushed under my heel! Now, prepare to die, Hunter!"

namielle: "You're looking fresh...but you know I'm fresher! Watch me dunk on you with these squidtastic moves!"

malzeno: "Kyahahaha! Gaze upon the eternal, all consuming, unending, all-destroying, blackness of my heart...AND DESPAAAIR! ...Sorry. Was that, like, too overkill, or...?"

primordial malzeno: "...So it's come to this, huh. If it means that countless others survive, then I choose to die a hero. And, well, if anyone had to end me...I'm glad it was you, Hunter. ...Don't hold back."

zorah magdaros: "...And then I put a Tropical Berry on my fanny pack, as was the style at the time...Now, back in those days, zenny had pictures of Vespoids on them...and then while crossing the land bridge we-"

shara ishvalda: "THE OTHERS...THEY'RE BUT ANIMALS...THEY AREN'T...AWAKE. I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE, HUNTER. PEERING AT ME FROM BEYOND YOUR SCREEN. WATCHING ME. MAKING ME SUFFER...WELL. LET'S RETURN THE FAVOR, SHALL WE?"

safi'jiiva: "I am...the king of all things. The perfect being. All others...should be honored...that their life goes to support the ultimate life form!"

narwa: "Eeyahahah! Gaze upon me, insect, and tremble! Your village, overrun by my thralls: your beloved friends, turned into my puppets! Those who wish to disrupt my plans of world domination have very short futures...much like yours."

gaismagorm: "CONSUME...DEVOUR...MY UNDERLINGS...FEED ON THEIR LIFE FORCE...AND ADD IT TO MY OWN..."

(crimson, white) fatalis: "Hatred...HA...TRED...You who...feast on my...people's hides...cast them aside...for the treasures within...I WILL...END YOU..."

shitty idea time: monster hunter monsters if they had personalities/characters and bantered with the hunter mid-fight instead of being mindless animals

for context the variant, deviant, subspecies, etc. monsters would have the same lines as the vanilla species but with different VAs, paralleling how their hunting horns are the same melody with different instruments

i didn't do all of them because i couldn't really think of personalities for all of them

okay go

———

"great/drome" monsters: somewhere between the soldier and charlie from pikmin 3: military commanders ordering about their pack members in battle with...less than effective results

(blue) yian kut ku: constantly scared, bellyaching about how his auricles hurt or he's out of breath and such, and would very much rather be somewhere else: he's a big chicken, after all

(scarred, deadeye) yian garuga: basically imagine scratch from adventures of sonic the hedgehog if he wanted sonic ground into a bloody paste instead of merely hurt or captured: he even has the voice too. throws huge temper tantrums when you get knocked out of the arena or another monster intrudes because it means he can't fight you any more

cephadrome: constantly taunting the player about how he's so hard to hit under the sand, but the moment he gets dragged out he starts begging for mercy and running away

(ruby) basarios: too fat and stupid to even realize you're trying to attack him, or that he's attacking you...kinda like louie from pikmin honestly

(black) gravios: lazy, almost depressed, even, and doesn't really care about the fact that you're trying to beat the snot out of him: if you win, he dies, and if your weapons bounce off of his carapace he gets to wallow and be miserable more, so it's a win-win situation

(purple) gypceros: adhd personified. hyperactive as hell and constantly getting distracted during the fight, only to circle back and get super pissed at you: when he "dies" the first time he gets sad that his prank didn't work if you don't fall for it

(red) khezu: weird scrimbly bimbly thing that only talks in short sentence fragments, is constantly sniffing around to get a read on you, and sounds garbled like he's underwater. also the screaming. he's constantly screaming seemingly at random. kinda like a much more gooey hyness

(gold, pink) rathian: more down to earth than rathalos (because she stays on the ground.) she gets tired of having to basically babysit rathalos sometimes but she still loves him with all her heart. constantly trying to rein him in and get him to take you seriously during the fight when they're fighting together: regardless of whether he's killed or captured she breaks down sobbing and trying to avenge him

(silver, azure) rathalos: imagine a flying version of bowser from the mario RPGs. dumb as bricks, and he's not really treating the fight as life or death, but more like just a thing he does every tuesday: he's happy to see you, but he still has to act like the bad guy. you can hear him trying to practice his evil laugh as he's flying away, then berating himself for it not being good enough. if he's fighting with rathian he gets a lot more meek when she's captured and almost goes dead silent for the rest of the fight when she's killed

diablos: has a potty mouth that would put a sailor to shame. during his turf war with black diablos they both get off on the fact they're beating the crap out of each other

bloodbath diablos: basically a fusion between kai yan and tartarus from dragalia. believes that the philosophy of "might makes right" is the ultimate creed, and wipes out any monsters near him because he believes they're weak and unfit of fighting to live. meanwhile he kills humans for the slight they inflicted on him in the past. gets more desperate as the fight wears on because he cannot be anything less than the perfect being, and when he dies/gets captured he's not mad because he lost, he's mad because he lost to you.

black diablos: horny. angry and very very horny. does not care about the fact that you're a fraction of her size: she's getting off on the fact that you're dealing intense bodily harm to her and thus she wants you inside her. basically the embodiment of this meme here:

(white) monoblos: a friendly rival to diablos, and treats the entire fight as a huge pissing contest between them, even when the former is nowhere to be found. very proud of his horn. knows hunters are always after him as a rite of passage, so he's sort of fallen into a mentor-like role, and he's always proud when he gets slain or captured

(plum, stonefist) daimyo hermitaur: scared and is constantly hiding behind his claws, prioritizing keeping you the hell away at all times. very antisocial.

(terra) shogun ceanataur: extremely proud of his claws, yelling about keeping your hands off "the merchandise" once he gets enraged, and both figuratively and literally starts foaming at the mouth once they get broken. gets really embarrassed once his shell is broken, and stays meek like that for the rest of the fight

rustrazor ceanataur: acts like a drug addict, only with the drug references replaced with references to sharpening his claws on glavenus' skull

(green, lucent, silverwind) nargacuga: wants to act like a ninja. ends up acting more like something out of naruto. also he recites his own version of darkwing duck's "i am the terror that flaps in the night" thing at the beginning of the fight

(molten, grimclaw) tigrex: dim, but a really nice guy, kind of like a large dog, and actually doesn't mind you fighting to the death that much: the problem is that he's CONSTANTLY FUCKING SCREAMING EVERYTHING HE SAYS AT THE TOP OF HIS LUNGS. his violent charges aren't actually charges he's just trying to give you a big hug. with his mouth.

(furious) rajang: imagine goku but like a minimum of ten times as violent and with the battle-obsessed stalker-ish qualities of nemona. can be sometimes heard humming parts of the DK Rap when calm. his fight is as much him showboating as he is trying to maul you

(flaming) espinas: talks in his sleep. starts off asleep and mutters stuff like "just five more minutes mom" as you hit him, then gradually starts groggily walking around. then when you hit him enough he loses his shit and starts swearing up a storm while beating the tar out of you...and then eventually the adrenaline wears off and he reverts to the passive half-asleep version of himself.

akantor/ukanlos: acts like a JRPG villain's monstrous final form, with parallels to each other's lines

arzuros: expy of banjo. one of the few monsters that actually gets along with qurupeco

(snowbaron) lagombi: sort of like a skier. less focused on fighting you and just happily slip-sliding around on the ice.

volvidon: constantly warning you to keep your distance mid-fight: since the Soiled gas is actually just flatulence, he's worried he's going to have a bit of stress-induced incontinence

(crimson) qurupeco: you know how squidward believes he has lots of talent with the clarinet but he actually plays like ass? yeah imagine that but replace the clarinet but with monster roars. all the other monsters only come to his "aid" just to shut him the hell up, and he's gleefully unaware of this even as he's being ripped to shreds

barroth: has a couple pebbles rattling around in his crown in lieu of a brain, and thus goes nuts like a dog seeing a mailman with a single minded pursuit to run you over

nibelsnarf: obsessed with food. will eat any bombs you put down and deem them delicious, even after they explode in his gullet and he calls them "a bit spicy."

(steel) uragaan: basically a goron in all but name: loud, boisterous, rolls to get around, and loves eating rocks

(rust) duramboros: basically an old miner that mostly just wants some peace and quiet. has to put a considerable amount of effort into all of his attacks, especially the one where he throws himself into the air like a shot put, and starts complaining about his back after he lands

(thunderlord) zinogre: a breakdancer. constantly boasting about his moves in battle and treats his fulgurbug tenants as "special effects."

brachydios: acts like a hammy heel wrestler such as rawk hawk or incineroar...even though he's supposed to be a boxer instead of a wrestler. sometimes he acts like he's sparring with you instead.

raging brachydios: the same heel persona from before, but now all washed up and depressed, desperately grasping at his former fame. near the end where he traps you in his lair he gets his old passion back as he goes completely apeshit for one last fight

(savage) deviljho: not really much different from his canon incarnation, except now he just moans or roars "STILL...SO...HUNGRY..." at times

(ash) kecha wacha: somewhere between a class clown and a memelord. hangs on branches and canopies specifically to cackle at you.

(desert) seltas: speaks like a stereotypical robot. not much to him unless he's being used as a puppet by the seltas queen: he is a drone, after all

(berserk) tetsucabra: somewhere between big the cat and big man. the rocks he pulls up are supposed to be for him to hide behind, but he's so dim he thinks you're gone too.

(tidal) najarala: a stereotypical snake character that speakssss like thissss. sometimes he accentuates the hissing noises by rattling his tail along with them. gets pissed off when you escape his "ring of doom" attack, as he has to spend a lot of time positioning himself to circle around you and enact it.

(shrouded) nerscylla: looks intimidating but is actually really shy and timid (sorta reflects real tarantulas tbh). her gypceros cloth is like a hoodie to her and she gets really sad when it's destroyed

(tigerstripe) zamtrios: actually a really nice guy. the problem is, like real sharks, he figures out whether something is food or not by biting it. obviously most hunters don't let him nibble them and just whack him, so he ends up fighting most people he meets. also he makes the "dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun" from Jaws while he's swimming through ice. his voice lines get pitched up super high when he's inflated.

(desert) seltas queen: speaks much like A Certain Other Queen (The One Who Is: At The Very Least Kinda Sorta Famous) and treats her seltas underlings like garbage. once she fully takes control of the seltas they speak in unison

seregios: imagine jaleel white's sonic if he could shoot his spines. and also fly. spins the fact that he's basically a refugee by saying he's spreading freedom wherever he goes, much like the real sonic. deep down, he isn't buying it.

(boltreaver) astalos: crackheaded hyperactive maniac. makes a lot of references to monster energy: this is because his electric powers don't come from his special muscles, but from him guzzling down cans of monster by the truckload. explains the crackheadedness i guess. repeatedly denies that he's crazy to the rest of the fated four

(violet) mizutsune: huge bitch. he wants to be looked at and for everything to be about him all the time, and he throws temper tantrums sometimes when it isn't. also he's horny. very horny. he sounds snooty and effeminate like Juno Songs' portrayal of rubber band from Paper Mario: The Origami King

soulseer mizutsune: f u c k i n g sans undertale

(acidic, hellblade) glavenus: acts like a noble knight and will lay down his life to protect other members of the fated four. gets into quarrels with gammoth who is of a similar mindset. despite being a protector, his real love is cooking, which he does with his heated tailblade.

(elderfrost) gammoth: also a protector, but in a more motherly sort of way i guess. big enough to encompass the entire rest of the fated four so she just uses herself as a shield.

(nightcloak) malfestio: somewhere between a jester and a magician. constantly talks a big game about gaining sleight of hand on you, and gets flustered when you can outgambit his dirty tricks

ahtal-ka: imagine peridot's voice and personality crossbred with the mechanical ingenuity, scientific passion, and sheer psychopathic bloodlust that TotK's version of link is known for. basically treats the entire fight as a giant experiment and actively takes notes each time you defeat her ahtal-neset, so she can get rid of the weak spots you target.

(fulgur) anjanath: basically the jerk jock trope personified, fitting how it's known as the "relentless ruffian." talks a big game in battle but is quick to fold when something bigger, like a rathalos, enters the scene

(ebony) odogaron: you know that scene from gumball where it's shown from the Evil Turtle's perspective and it's like "BITE BITE BITE EAT FOOD FOR STRENGTH TO BITE BITE BITE MAKE LITTLE TURTLES TO BITE EVEN MORE" ...yeah that's basically how this guy operates

tzitzi-ya-ku: basically a paparazzi/photographer. flees peacefully once he gets good "shots" of monsters (read: blinds them) and when he's fighting you he's more concerned about getting your good side and putting you in the right light than he is about self preservation

(seething) bazelgeuse: basically a much angrier version of the soldier. barely even knows why he's in this locale or that: all he knows is that he's not going home until something dies. flies into battle screaming at the top of his lungs.

aknosom: an acrobat and a performer. more concerned with stomping on your face like a goomba than actually doing anything effective. tries to lick you once you're close to its head while it's downed.

tetranadon: another wrestler-inspired character like brachydios, but this time he's a face instead of the heel. very self absorbed and is convinced all of the small monsters watching from the sidelines are there to cheer him on and boo you.

(blood orange) bishaten: an even bigger shitlord than kecha wacha. could not care less about whether he lives or dies because he had fun and he got to see you get pissed while doing it.

(magma) almudron: a cantankerous old dude. he's less interested in actually protecting his territory and more so just chasing you off it. constantly complaining and bellyaching regardless.

somnacanth: a parody of an idol. her singing voice is actually really good but she gets so passionate that she releases her signature narcotic dust, which puts any prospective audience to sleep. still, she tries to put on the best performance she can even mid-fight

auroracanth: the idol from before but now jaded and disillusioned with life.

(pyre) rakna-kadaki: a wicked witch-archetype character that cares really deeply about her rachnoid minions. gets really distraught when you kill them or knock over the sac she's using to incubate them. this does not stop her from eating the rachnoids that are males. basically imagine Magica deSpell (2017) if she had an entire army of lenas instead of just one

(scorned) magnamalo: a mirror to the fierce flame, constantly spouting out cheesy puns and one liners with almost all of his attacks. starts laughing like a maniac once he does that move where he runs around like crazy.

garangolm: very peaceful, even to the point that he's willing to forgive you up to a certain HP threshold or if captured. but this guy hates anyone who would disturb the peace or bully others, and eventually lose his shit and decry you going "YOU! ARE NOT! A NICE! PERSON!!!" or something like that

lunagaron: tries to put on a sonic.exe-esque vibe to seem more intimidating, contrary to what his werewolf-like design would suggest. he's very terrible at it and ends up flubbing his "lines" often.

(ashen) lao-shan lung: basically that hobo who sits on the street holding the "The End Is Near" sign. only this time the end is actually near because the only reason he's there is because he's fleeing from fatalis.

kirin: h o n s e

chameleos: basically scampton from deltarune chapter rewritten if he was a magician as well as a jester. his entire fight is, from his perspective, mostly a bunch of cool magic tricks, but he's also screwing with you a bit too. the problem is that he's not satisfied until you're having as much "fun" as he is, and he's insane and his desire for fun is insatiable. kinda like caine from the amazing digital circus

teostra: basically @darbycupit's portrayal of king leongar, but as a good guy. he's revered and treated by a noble king by all the other monsters.

lunastra: violently protective of teostra. will go apeshit on anything that so much as looks at him funny and he often sheepishly has to reel her back in. basically the opposite of rathian.

yama tsukami: basically a super-sized supernatural patrick star. doesn't really care about what he's doing or where he ends up as long as he gets to eat stuff.

alatreon: completely batshit insane. the schizo to end all schizos. the voices in his head are actually mental representation of his various active modes. with his dying breath he thanks you for keeping him from suffering split between multiple personalities.

amatsu: believes it is his divine right to take territory he wants, blowing out all others with mighty storms, and treats the fierce flame (and other animals in general really) with nothing but contempt. gets more desperate and rageful as the fight goes on because he doesn't want to be killed by what's basically an ant to him

gore magala: acts aloof and ominous in an attempt to appear cool. however, he's basically still just a kid on the inside, and as such his true childish personality often slips through the cracks

chaotic gore: incapable of making any speech other than pained howls. when killed he thanks you for ending his suffering.

shagaru magala: basically @stelyos' portrayal of fecto elfilis: a YHWH-like warlord god who sees all life as beneath him and worthy only of subjugation

nakarkos: starts the fight trying to keep up the facade that he's a two headed bone abomination, using his tentacles like puppets to keep up the con. however, as the fight rolls on and the tentacles get uncovered, he half-heartedly tries to keep up appearances before going "fuck it" to pop out and reveal his true form, and with it his true personality: a very gluttonous and boisterous pirate

(crimson glow) valstrax: the fastest thing alive, more concerned with showing off his incredible speed than actually fighting you. once he realizes he might actually be in trouble, he just doubles down and starts showboating harder instead of making an effort.

(blackveil) vaal hazaak: a mysterious necromancer-like character. what he actually wants is friends due to being holed up in the bottom layers of the vale and being too hazardous to approach, and when killed, he'll lament that he could really only have friends through effluvium necromancy.

(ruiner) nergigante: yet another bowser expy, this time of juno songs' portrayal of the character

velkhana: actually pretty chill. however, she has to keep up appearances, namely those from the frozen corpses she leaves around, and acts like a supervillainess while fighting you

namielle: dumb as a rock and only really cares about looking cool in battle and looking cool in general. basically an inkling in all but form and name.

malzeno: despite his elegant appearance he's actually a huge chuunibyou. he's really new to this whole "bad guy" schtick after becoming the qurio's host to protect everybody, so he's putting all the effort in all the wrong places of his performance.

primordial malzeno: a noble hero that willingly accepts the fact that he needs to die for the sake of everyone else at the beginning of the fight. as the infection progresses further he becomes less and less coherent and at the end he's basically only making pained screeches, begging for the fierce flame to end his misery during his brief periods of lucidity

zorah magdaros: the entire fight dialogue is basically a never ending long winded rambling old man monologue

shara ishvalda: basically imagine that thing about monika knowingly shutting down any streams she detects at her part of the story in DDLC, except different. shara ishvalda's banter isn't directed at the hunter. it's directed at you specifically. if you have an xbox kinect maybe the game would turn it on to look at you and better fit said banter.

safi'jiiva: similar to the other part of @stelyos' portrayal of fecto elfilis: a world-shaping godlike being that firmly believes that survival of the fittest is the only way the world can work, and since he is by definition the fittest, he's the only one that deserves to survive

ibushi: no thoughts only horny

narwa: constantly talking smack to you through the twins

gaismagorm: sounds like a massive mishmash of voices sort of like @darbycupit's portrayal of fecto forgo. it's not actually anything supernatural the voices just echo around in his weird flower mouth thing and they all sound different

all of the fatalises: somewhere between tartarus from dragalia lost on steroids and calamity ganon: a being that was so consumed by its hatred it turned into a nearly mindless shade of its former self

[herrlindemann]

ROLLING STONE, APRIL 2001: Mutter review and interview with Paul

Very adorable, the tiny creature. His hands are so small and his eyes aren't even open yet. Don't think of anything at all and last of all probably of the evil Uncle Lindemann.

He now wants to be the voice from the pillow and take revenge badly. For the bad times when his mother's breasts didn't cry milk and he wasn't allowed to lick his nipples and didn't even have a navel. For this he will now sink Mama in the river and then dream of small children who are buried in the wet sand. A not entirely fair montage of the perfidious cover and three songs from the new Rammstein album "Mutter".

But Lindemann is certainly happy to be quoted - after all, no one writes satanic verses to be forgotten. The fact that he no longer wants to talk about it after the deed is done only makes his poetry even more of a beacon. This is now burning and blazing again over all continents and is lighting the hero's way to immortality. Alone: ​​It flickers in the same colors as its predecessors. A new Rammstein record, but nothing new from Berlin. Pretty sick fantasies as if stolen from the Hannibal massacre, a song is finally called "Links 2 3 4" and is the only one that pricks your ears, but more of that later. When Lindemann drools "Rein Raus", there isn't a bit of metaphor involved in the sweaty game. If it weren't for the fact that the five friends were behind him, as always and constantly, the title would have what it takes to become a real hit on the Arenal ham road. Missed the chance, no metal goes with the sangria, what a shame. And then he comes too early, the stallion! We're already looking forward to the video and America's puritans to the stage show.

But to be honest, we're not too happy about it when we think of Germany's most successful rock export after the Scorpions. At first the arsonists kept us on our toes with the suspicion of serving themselves to the right fringe and made it difficult for anyone to be allowed to discover musical novelties in the crude mixture of heavy metal and techno with impunity. And now, with the critical voices from the left-establishment dying down, the boys are recording a third studio album that's about as surprising as recent Joe Cocker and Rod Stewart products. "As a musician, you always believe that your new record sounds fresh," says guitarist Paul Landers, who, after Richard Kruspe on the last one, was assigned to me as a credit agency this time. As I said, Lindemann doesn't talk. And so Paul thinks "Mutter" sounds fresh and new. Because every musician does, "even AC/DC and the Ramones". Of which it does not become truer in the carefully considered individual case. “But it's definitely nonsense trying to explain the innovations to someone who doesn't like the record anyway.”

Because my outing is still pending, Landers now continues light-footedly: "I think we left the tried and tested and redesigned the little things. Well, of course we're not Moby, who reinvents himself for every album. But he is also alone."And besides, there's something about being recognized by the fans. The class goal seems to have been reached. A plus, especially for continuity in America. But Paul doesn't want to know anything about that: “People now act as if we were the only successful German band over there." He is right. “But Atari Teenage Riot can also be bought there, the Guano Apes are known in places, the Einfallenden Neubauten, and Nena with the balloons in English!" But yes. And what about nectar? And didn't Inga Rumpf once have a ticket to New York?

For the new album, Paul tells us, the band have set themselves ”to be particularly good. That would have almost gone against the tree.” Pressure, of course, couldn't be denied, weighs heavily on a band and even on this one, “but I then called a fan of ours and he just said: Paul, you're good, so do it like this, you can!”  After that everything was fine. Till brought 'about 50 songs' into the studio, there were discussions and then "Mutter". Life can be so simple sometimes. But now I would like to learn more about the discussions. “Of course there are two factions in the band!” Paul grins. I had already suspected that, even though Richard Kruspe didn't really want to comment on any of the lyrics at the time and Paul Landers now says: "The lyrics, that's so us!”

He says more. For example, that he is not Richard Kruspe and also belongs to the faction "which likes the piggy, messy and not the lyrically nice". His group is the stronger one it seems. But always ready to compromise. "When Till called out in a song, 'Hello hello, I want to fuck', the suckers wanted it 20 times, the others didn't want it at all. In the end it happened once. We always find a good mix.”

And sometimes they are also good for surprises, completely hidden. Which brings us back to “Links 2 3 4″. A noteworthy song, perhaps. It starts with a hundred people goose-stepping, then Lindemann asks a few stupid questions, and then it comes: “You want my heart in the right place, but then I look down and it beats to the left!” Hannes Wader could almost have written that back then, when Lindemann was still suffering through his messed up childhood in real socialism. “We made a song whose music the critics always wanted to hear, but whose lyrics they didn't want to hear from us. That is our statement. We say how we see things.” That's all there is to say, Paul believes. We think so too.

Then Lindemann sings "Here comes the sun" with the voice of Ozzy Osbourne, and then it gets gross again. Lindemann dreams of burnt skin and orders "Feuer Frei! bang bang” The world needs exactly such guys, or at least a good band, says Paul. “Without someone with character at the mic, nothing works. Good bands with an uncharismatic person as a singer never make it.” Voice is not important: “We see that with Grönemeyer. But we're lucky to have a man with life experience at the front. He went through things that none of us want to experience. Very bad things, but they are of use to us now.”

Even less godly, Richard Kruspe had described Till last year as "severely mentally disturbed". But Paul isn't Richard either, we've learned. With the new album, however, Rammstein have remained plain, simple and also somewhat disappointing. Pure pathos, bombast of steel, children's choirs and battlefield chants, bloodlust and purgatory. Produced by five nice guys and a sixth that you don't know exactly. The whole thing will probably only become interesting again when Mr. Lindemann writes his memoirs. We can even generously do without their soundtrack.

[first-and-last-neocount]

Whumptober Day 5

After all the kerfuffle on the Whumptober blog over the prompt, I had to pick Hyperthermia for this day, lol.  

This is set pretty far in the future of the Goodbye!AU, a little glimpse of where that storyline is eventually heading. The next few prompts in this ‘verse will double back and fill in some of the gaps, so consider this a teaser for things to come. 

Also, I realised after the fact that I’ve kinda implied they use Celsius on Erna, because the temperature swing between day and night in a desert is more in the neighbourhood of a hundred degrees on the Fahrenheit scale. I’m Canadian, just let me have this one, m’kay?

P.S. I had entirely forgotten that there is canonically a desert somewhere on the main continent until I was rereading BSR with a fine-tooth comb for the mapping project. There’s one single mention of the ‘sandlands’ on page 28. Clearly it was inevitable that I was going to take that info and run with it. XD

Day 5 - Theme Chosen: Hyperthermia

The heat of the wind was the first warning. 

The sandlands cooled precipitously once the sun was down; most nights, it had already dropped thirty degrees by Coreset. What heat did linger was only that which shimmered up from the dunes, rising in gentle waves from the baked sand. This, tonight, was something else; a hot, dry gust breathing fitfully in from the north. 

He scanned the northern horizon warily, eyes narrowed, wings beating a little harder to balance against the unpredictable push of the wind. There were a few low clouds on the skyline, blocking the last of the light from the setting Core stars, but aside from that the night skies seemed peaceful enough. Prima was full, shedding her soft greenish light over the desert, but Domina was a mere sliver overhead and Casca less than half round; with such modest illumination from above, the currents shone brilliantly, flows of liquid radiance winding over the sands below. 

The wind gusted again, and this time he had to shut his eyes for a moment against the swirl of fine grit that pelted him. He blinked away the irritating grains and looked more closely at the clouds on the horizon again. The air was still warming, eddies of heat swirling over him as if he were standing too close to a fire - but when he realised what he was seeing, his blood abruptly ran cold. 

That was not merely a regular stormcloud rising above the sand. 

Cursing inwardly, he tilted his wings, banking into a gradually descending spiral as he turned his gaze on the dunes below. His skin prickled uncomfortably beneath the feathers, the unsettling heat of the air beginning to rouse a deeply-rooted instinctual dread, but he forced himself to focus past the growing unease; within moments, he picked out the distinctive swirling pool of currents that marked a cave’s entrance. Destination chosen, he dipped into a steeper dive, heart beating fast. 

This is not going to be pleasant. 

The ground rushed up to greet him, and at the last possible moment he flung his wings wide, arresting his own momentum aggressively and pitching his taloned feet forward. Giving himself over to the will of the fae, letting go of his sense of self enough to shift between forms, was always a terrifying endeavour; the anxiety that had already gripped him didn’t exactly make it easier, but he forced himself past the fear, flinging himself forward into that mental abyss. 

As always, the currents answered. 

Raw power roared through him, and blue-white fire erupted from the sand below his claws; for one wild, disorienting moment he was formless, feathers melting into the flame as the flood of Erna’s lifeblood sought to drag him under - then his flesh solidified once more, and he staggered, gasping for breath as his heart thudded in his newly-human chest. Though in many ways it was a relief to feel like himself again, there was that tiny twinge of loss he always felt, the quiet ache at giving up the freedom that his wings brought him - but it was buried quickly enough, this time, by apprehension. 

From the ground, it was much more obvious how quickly the storm was approaching. The wind was stronger and steadier, now, whipping over the dunes and sending sprays of fine dust into the air. The ridgeline he had found wasn’t much to look at, a low spine of stone that had once been a mountain’s foothill and was now all but buried in the sand, but it was the only thing dulling the edge of that rising gale; he sought out the mouth of the cave quickly, conscious of the hiss of swirling sand that was beginning to fill the air. 

When that cloud got closer, the untimely heat in the air would be the least of his concerns. 

Thankfully, the opening was narrow but deep, more of a fissure than a typical cave. He pressed deep enough to be certain that it was entirely empty, and to check that the jagged walls were entirely stable; then, assured that he had found a suitable shelter from the coming storm, he finally allowed himself to drop his shields and reach out to the link that hummed, cool and deep and unceasing as a river, at the back of his mind. 

I’m not going to make it back before dawn.

An instant spike of emotion echoed through the link, and the answer came back to him, wreathed in concern. 

What happened? Are you hurt?

He let himself lean up against the fissure wall, the rock warm against his back as a reluctant smile tugged at his lips. 

I’m fine, Gerald. Found a nice little hole in a cliff and everything. Only problem is, there’s a sandstorm bearing down on me.

The Hunter’s vicious mental curse made Damien chuckle out loud. He turned his head to gaze out at the desert, watching the darkly roiling cloud as it approached; it was only minutes away now, and he could hear the rising growl of the wind, laden with its scouring burden. 

Damien, this is no laughing matter, his other half reprimanded him sternly through the link. Do you have any idea how much the temperature can rise inside those storms? The sand is still warm from the sun, and with the friction of the wind - if you’re properly sheltered, it shouldn’t actually harm you, but it’s going to be extremely unpleasant.

Damien sighed, the smile slipping from his face. 

Yeah. I know.

He could feel it happening already, the air around him beginning to tingle with heat as the storm’s leading edge reached out to embrace his place of refuge. From what Gerald had told him when they first came to the sandlands, Damien knew that it hadn’t been like this on Terra - there, sandstorms had been dangerous only for the wind, and the abrasive grit it carried. Erna’s deserts were blanketed in earth-fae, though, and the power infused the grains of sand and volcanic debris that blanketed these lands; tossed against each other in the tumbling winds, that power ignited, and turned an Ernan sandstorm into such an inferno that it wasn’t uncommon for rock formations to end up coated in a thin layer of fresh glass after a sandstorm had passed. 

That extreme heat, though, was from earth-fae making direct contact with earth-fae. Here inside his shelter, Damien wouldn’t be at risk of direct contact with those burning particles - only suffering the excess heat they bled into the air. Already, he was starting to feel dizzy, the air stinging his lungs as he breathed. Swallowing against the growing dryness of his throat, he sank down to sit with his back against the fissure wall, drawing his knees up to his chest and reaching for the link again. 

Any helpful tips for this particular scenario?

Not really, Gerald replied, and Damien could feel the bitter trace of real regret in it. Nothing but the obvious; stay still as much as possible, try to brace yourself for when the lightheadedness comes. Make sure you rehydrate as soon as you can once the storm has passed. A pause, weighted. Do you want me to leave you alone?

Damien drew in a deep breath, feeling the first serious wave of dizziness sweep over him. The storm was at the ridge, now; he could hear the wind howling past the mouth of the fissure, the hissing scrape of thousands of grains of fae-charged sand dragging along the cliff face. The heat came on in waves, stirring a kind of animal panic in the back of his brain, twisting his stomach with nausea and slicking sweat along his skin. 

Moments like this were a keen reminder of how different things were for him, now. There was a time when he would have been entirely unbothered by this level of heat; oh, he might have been sweating a little, but it would have been a minor irritation compared to many of the conditions that he’d faced as a Knight. The overwhelming dizziness and sickness, the clench of fear around his heart - that was a product of his new existence, his hypervigilant instincts warning him that heat meant death and that he needed to escape. A reminder that a sandstorm’s heat, from within shelter at least, was a trivial matter for a human… but he wasn’t human anymore. 

Tonight, though, that thought wasn’t as bitter as it sometimes was. After all, he’d flown to this cave, a feat no human would ever claim. And while there was nothing that could block out the oppressive heat from his awareness entirely, as it filled the cave and wrapped around him, he found that the fresh memory of the cool night wind through his feathers was as good of an antidote as he could ask for. 

No, he sighed, shutting his eyes. Stay.

An entirely different warmth flickered through the link, and Damien felt the Hunter’s awareness curl a little tighter around him, powerful and endless as the coils of an ouroboros. 

Of course.

Deliberately turning his senses away from the sickening heat that rolled through the fissure, Damien sank into his awareness of the link, letting Gerald’s chill power wrap around him instead. The former Knight still couldn’t say he’d made his peace with the way things were now - he wasn’t entirely sure that he’d ever really, truly be free of remorse for how it had all turned out. This, though - the unwavering certainty of Gerald’s devotion, the bedrock of safety and strength that their link had come to represent - was not something he could truly bring himself to regret. 

Here, wrapped in the Hunter’s power, not even nature’s fury could touch him. 

[rusteddreamsstories]

An Improbable Record of History

A short-story inspired by the images from the James Web Telescope.   ___________ An Improbable Record of History The creature gazed at the images in a projection before them.  Those distant stars were being shown everywhere through the voluntary connections and everyone had access to them.  It felt a little blasphemous to the creature, honestly, if the feeling had a name – a treading upon the sacred.  They might not have had the same language for it as we do, nor the exact concepts, but that was the feeling.  They pawed through the images with their many appendages, careful not to trap dirt within the light-matrix of the screen.   The protective skins on their many eyes pulled back, so they could view the images more clearly.  It was also an expression of awe.  The thick hairs on their back vibrated.  They expanded the view through the distant galaxies. Perhaps a few of them still existed, although irrevocably changed.  Most, if not all, it was safe to assume, were long dead.  Any life upon those countless worlds was, of course, long dead, barring any discovery of some static form of immortality.   The creature’s species had not, though not for lack of trying, as had their progenitors.  There were rumors that some of the ancient computer-minds still existed, adrift in space or upon some number of burned out, forgotten worlds – maybe even some of the ones that were in the feed-view.  The being that gazed at the stars, mind filled with thoughts of the past colliding, thought that such an existence must be unspeakably sad – a stilled existence, devoid of change.   To look at space, especially captures from the advanced equipment, was to gaze back in time – for eons.  It was the same for the creature’s progenitors, back when they had done it; those clumsy forays into the cosmos beyond their little world. The mechanics of it all may have changed, but not the premise, or the wonderment.   Ah! There it was!  The being expanded their screen, zeroing in on the spiral-arm of a long vanished galaxy.   They expanded it further until they found a glowing tiny blue dot.  “A grain of sand” was the greatest resolution the light-screen could show it in.  The data-readout told the viewer that this was, indeed, the origin-world.   It was as it had existed billions of years ago and possibly at the time when the viewer’s species of origin was first building the technology to look out upon stars eons-gone their time.   Well, give or take one or so billion years. The creature could have been looking at this world long before the curiosity set in, back when there were only bacteria or even their precursors, but they liked to think that they were looking at the first multi-cellular beings who’d asked the deeper questions and who’d begun creating artifice to find the answers.   How would the creature know any of this? Records tend to become lost with time. They are buried, fictionalized and turned into legends.  In texts both sacred and secular, it is difficult, if not impossible, to find the truth.  Ah! But the being’s species was able to keep a meticulous record – one that spanned from when their ungainly ancestors began expanding their reach beyond their little world.  Impossible? Perhaps for us to imagine with our limits, but the creature’s kind relied upon machine-records, constantly backed up and transferred in ways to keep the data from failing.   I am not quite smart enough to articulate or even to speculate the specifics of such technology, just as I am unable to give a more accurate description of our protagonist beyond them being “something akin to a large fleshy spider.”  They are ours, however, as we belong to apes, to synapsids, fish and worms.   Lucky, indeed was our creature to have ancestry in the last line of a type of creature that was capable of looking up at the sky and wondering what was “out there.”   The viewer was a cousin to many kinds – not all as intelligent as they were (or even as we are) – and even among their own species!  Indeed, most of the divergences selected to survive upon myriad worlds as yet unknown to us, by nature, became more like fish and worms than they are to us.  A few even evolved crab-like features – because that happens a lot given certain conditions.  Some became as trees, which happens more often than you’d think.  The spider-creature was among a handful that could appreciate how far they had come…   … And even begin to fathom the enormity of staring through time.   __________________ We look upon the stars, so many changed and so many dead.  We gaze through time whenever we look at our sky.  If vestiges of us survive, perhaps long and faraway into the future – maybe our progeny gazes back at us, long gone, long changed.  

[glitchyghoul]

Humanity has finally found a way to communicate with crabs, we realize they're smarter than us. Now that they know we know, what are they going to do?

Humanity has often found comfort in the fact that we, as a species, are better than everyone else. As a species we have nearly unanimously decided to turn up our noses at every other creature that gaits, swims, or scuttles around in the mud as if we are any different in our cozy wood and stone boxes. Those that don’t subconsciously look down upon the animals and say that they see them as equals or important tend to hold a deep-seated pity that has been passed along throughout generations.

It was no surprise, then, that when scientists began to look to the seas for intelligent life, they fell back on old sailers tales of mermaids. While dolphins are far from those tales they are among the closest to ourselves that we will find in the great and terrifying waters. Warm blooded mammals that breath air and have their own sorts of clicks and squeals that are foreign but have a sense of familiarity in the way that they are used. Mammals that could be just as cruel or gentle as we could. Science decided then that dolphins were the closest we would get to another intelligent life on the planet, if only to ease the minds of the masses that we were alone again.

There are others that humanity has decided may have some form of intelligence. Crows, elephants, and apes, although we may have a more strange relationship with the latter. And while these maybe strange to us, they are familiar in a way that something from the depths of the ocean is not.

The ocean is, in a way, more terrifying than space. At least in space we are more certain that nothing, alive or otherwise, is lurking in the dark. We can see through the darkness of space and have seen how utterly alien, but empty, our burrow is. The expanse of the ocean, however, is known to be occupied by both the inconceivably small and obnoxiously large creatures that look more alien then what we can project onto the unknown aliens of space that we will never be able to meet.

It is so much easier to act cruelly to those things that invoke a sense of wrongness within us. Especially if that wrongness is a feeling that something is not like us. Crabs are scuttling little things with to many legs and claws that look nothing like the dogs or cats or birds we know as familiar. They live in the sandy mud and crawl out of waves and waters that we are not meant for. We found that their limbs, which are easily torn of, are good to eat. They do not scream or cry like we do so they must not feel pain as we do either. Not that this would stop most because we know that we are better then the alien little things that live in the dark. We know we are smarter and we pity them for their ignorance of the world.

Curious as humans always are, one decided observe and test these things that scuttled in the sea. They were not like them but that is what made this scientist interested in crustaceans in the first place. This scientist who had grown up in a world of gray concrete and crudely curated plants and animals had seen what humanity deems as good and had become exhausted by the monotony of it all. But crabs are something so removed from humanity, and the sameness that life on the ground brought, that they couldn’t help but be drawn to them.

The scientist watched as crabs danced around each other moving their limbs in quick motions, rubbing their legs together to communicate to one another. Day in and day out some would go out to hunt and scavenge for food. They would hurry back to their little homes in the sand at night and close their little doors shut behind them as the tide pulled in. The more the scientist sat and watched the daily motions of these little fiddler crabs, the less alien they began to seem.

Slowly, the scientist was allowed to creep closer as days of watching passed. The crabs scuttling along and darting to and from tiny carves and burrows in the sand, hardly giving their new scenery a glance as the scientist and their notepad and instruments became an ever present sight.

With each recording and each note a picture began to present its self. These little crabs, with their little legs that scuttled and chirped were not as unfamiliar as their appearances suggested. So when a curious little crab carefully took its time to observe the scientist in return, maybe the human should’ve been surprised. If only the human hadn’t had to look down to meet the crabs gaze. Maybe they would have seen the carvings in the sand before the sea carried away the letters into the dark.

(Ok so I don’t follow the prompt exactly but if you made it this far I would love to hear your thoughts on writing improvements!!!)

[hournites]

A lot of ways to love you (teach me through your eyes)

Hournite Week Day 7: Love Languages 

Summary: Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Gifts, Quality Time, Touch. Or, Rick, Beth, and their many languages of love.

Thank you for coming along on this first HN week journey with me! ❤️

~.~

Words of Affirmation

  Beth found Rick by himself at the corner of their shared history class, carving his initials into the desk. She didn’t understand why he’d put himself there. It was like a brooding corner to be miserable. 

  “Hey,” she said, taking the seat in front of his desk. “What’s wrong?” 

  Rick dug deeper to splinter the wood. “They think I cheated on my chem test.” 

  Without asking, Beth unzipped Rick’s bag to pull out the test. Rick let her. 

  She gaped at him as she scanned over the F and comments from the teacher. He always treated Beth kindly when they passed in the halls, but she never actually had Mr. Geralds. Chemistry wasn’t her strong suit like Rick, but there wasn’t a doubt that she’d given some of the same answers with a great grade from the other science teacher. “Are you serious? That’s crazy. You’re going to contest that, right?”

  “You’re not going to even ask if I did?” 

  “I know you didn’t, you’re too smart.” 

  “I used to steal shit,” he muttered under his breath and dropped his pencil. “Haven’t heard you say I’m too smart for that.” 

  Beth slipped his test into her folder to return to at a later time, right now focusing on Rick. 

  “Hey, that’s not fair.” When Rick wouldn’t meet her eyes, she leaned in closer. “Look at me.” 

  Rick did. 

  “You know you deserved a good grade. And you’ve done what you did to get by.” She glanced at the vandalism briefly. “There are people here who know you’re better than what the majority of the town thinks.” She lowered her voice to keep her next words between them. “You’re a hero. You’ve helped save everyone in this town. So show them who you really are.” 

  She smiled when he let out a small huff, she knew he was listening. “I’ll go to the principal’s office with you, and we can get Pat to vouch for us. We both know that for Chem you should be in AP.” 

  “It’s really not that big of a deal,” he lied, shifting uncomfortably from all her nice words. 

  “If it weren’t a big deal, you wouldn’t have done that.” She pointed at the roughened mess he’d made of the school desk. “I know you better than you think.” 

  Act of Service 

  “Has anyone seen Beth?” 

  Rick walked around the main area of Pat’s cabin. It was after 2 AM. Barbara and Jennie were making late-night comfort food in the kitchen. Pat was manning the first aid station, tending to Mike, Jakeem and Yolanda’s injuries from Sportsmaster. Courtney was bonding or something with the staff in some strange ritual she had after a life-threatening mission. Rick just stepped out of the shower, washing the grime from his arms and face. 

  “She’s upstairs, I think!” Yolanda called, holding her ribs from her seat on top of the table. Rick shook his head when Pat admonished her not to yell. Rick made it up the stairs two at a time, stopping when he found Beth with her packed school bag on the floor in front of the couch. She was searching through papers, openly crying. She hadn’t even taken her cape off yet. 

  Rick crouched down beside her. “Hey,” he said softly. She looked utterly exhausted. “Are you okay? You said you didn’t get hurt.” 

“I’m not hurt.” She hiccuped, flipping through more papers, a little hysterical. It looked like it was for school. “I can’t find my math assignment. It’s due tomorrow morning.”

  “Did you finish it?” he asked. 

  “I don’t remember.” She wiped at her tears as she cried harder. “I might’ve left it at home, I can’t find it. I’m too tired, I can’t think.” 

  “Yeah,” Rick agreed. His bones were weary but he had always felt the least affected after battling it out with the ISA. He suffered plenty of superficial cuts and bruises, but he hardly felt them because his hourglass really protected him. He couldn’t imagine the hit the night must’ve taken on Beth’s body. Pat was going to be driving them back to main Blue Valley at 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning to get them back to school. It wasn’t ideal, but it was a random Wednesday. It’s not like they had a choice. 

  “Did you ask Chuck?” 

  “No.” Her lip wobbled, face contorting into another sob. Rick regretted asking. It was clear she was far too drained. It would’ve been simple to have asked Chuck to scan her bag to find out, but she hadn’t thought of it. 

  “Okay, okay,” Rick said. “Go to bed. You’re not going to be able to do the homework now even if you found it.” Rick got up to get to the top of the stairs, calling down for Barbara. 

  When he returned, he helped her up and managed to get her to let go of her school bag. “We’ll look for it before we leave, okay?” Rick ran a hand through his damp hair, his own eyelids started to droop. “I promise you’ll get it done before school.” 

  Barb joined them upstairs and coaxed Beth to change out of her suit, leading her downstairs with her regular clothes and a promise of a warm bed and tea. 

  Rick followed to grab Chuck when Beth wasn’t looking, turning him on once alone to help identify if this alleged math homework was even in her bag. Together they found what she was talking about. Ten problems of pre-calc. She was right. It was rushed and not done. 

  Rick sighed, tucking it under his arm. He said goodnight to the rest and retired to his assigned room. He turned on the lamp on the desk where he first solved the code of his father’s journal, spreading out the assignment and using Chuck as a calculator. It dawned on him an hour later as he rubbed at his tired eyes how he would be staying up all night to finish homework that wasn’t even his. 

  Gifts 

  Beth was immersed in her book when two hands landed on her collarbone. She looked down, touching the skin at the opening of her shirt when she felt the weight of something new at the base of her throat.

  “What’s this?”

  Rick murmured in her ear from behind. “An early birthday present.”

  She let out a soft gasp when he finished with the clasp. A tiny brass hourglass pendant with sand just like Hourman’s trickled steadily beside her rainbow pendant. 

  “Woah.” She glanced up at him. “You got me an hourglass?” She bit down on her lip, dread creeping into her mind when she realized this had to be expensive. She struggled to voice what she was feeling out loud, but Rick must’ve caught the complicated expression on her face. He smoothed his hand along the sleeve of her cardigan and reassured her the cost didn’t push him into any kind of financial ruin. 

  “Did you not realize I’ve been working for Pat before school? I had some spare cash. Trust me, there’s nothing better I’d spend my money on.” 

  The puzzle clicked into place. Beth had been meeting Rick at the Pit Stop every morning before school for what felt like months now. It made sense he was there to work on the cars. Beth felt her face heat up at his implicit soft-spoken confession. “Thank you,” she said in a whisper, still in awe. The necklace was beautiful and she felt fuzzy ever since his hands were on her neck. “I love it.”

  His eyes, usually hardened and defensive, skilled at warding off unwanted attention, now creased at the corners. Gentle, quiet, yearning, he watched her accept his gift. “I’m glad.”

  Impulsively she asked, “Could you unclasp the rainbow one?”

  Rick did. The chain pooled in her palm. She shook her head, pushing it to his chest. “You should have it.”

  His brows furrowed in response. “You want to give me your... rainbow necklace?”

  She flushed when he said it like that. She toyed with her new one, looking at him from beneath her lashes. “Well…” she said. “I have something of you, now you can have a symbol of me.”

  Rick let out a small laugh. Beth was pretty sure if this were anyone else he’d say it was stupid, so she couldn’t help the surge of pride when he nestled her necklace around his own neck. 

  “How does it look?” 

  It was actually twisted. She flattened it so it would look the way it was supposed to over the collar of his shirt. Rick didn’t complain, but it was bright and cheery and clashed with his entire self. Beth bit her lip, withholding another laugh, and took pity on him, changing her mind to tuck the necklace underneath. “Perfect now.” 

  “Beth, I hate to interrupt this moment but you will be late for school if you don’t leave the Pit Stop in the next five minutes.”

  Chuck broke them out of their weird double transfixion. They both found themselves smiling shyly at each other, neither truly wanting to move. 

  “Come on,” he said after another few moments of them smiling at each other without moving. “Put your bike in my trunk. I’ll drive you.”

  Quality Time

  When Rick stopped by at Beth’s locker, she was talking to Charity, a new close friend she made over the summer volunteering at the Blue Valley Community Centre. 

  “Hey,” Rick greeted, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, waiting for Beth to visit. 

  “Hey,” Charity said back. She swept her blonde bangs out of her face to continue their conversation. 

  “Charity had a great idea that we should enter for the sustainability case competition,” Beth filled in.  

  “We’re going to need at least a month to prepare. I was thinking we could meet Tuesdays and Thursdays after school?” 

  Rick stuck a hand in his pocket, sullen. Thursdays were their days, unofficially. Not that they’ve ever said so out loud, but with JSA training afternoons the rest of the week, Beth working on a case competition their days off basically meant not getting to see her. Which was fine. It happened. Rick just wishes it didn’t have to. 

  “I can’t on Thursdays,” Beth told her. She glanced up at Rick to give him a smile. He straightened up, meeting her gaze with obvious surprise. “Those are our nights.” 

  Charity paused, watching the two with curious eyes. 

  “We can cancel,” Rick found himself saying and actually meaning it. “You don’t have to stay on my account.” 

  Beth’s nose scrunched up as she shook her head, mind already made. “Nah. Sorry Charity, Thursday doesn’t work for me. Take out your schedule, maybe we have a shared free period somewhere.” 

  “Oh, yeah, sure! Okay!” 

  Rick ducked his head to hide his smile as Charity fished through her bag for her agenda.

  Touch 

  When Beth stumbled out of the cell she’d been bound in, she hadn’t realized just how long she’d been gone. She was hungry and exhausted and felt horrifically dirty in her soiled Dr. Mid-Nite suit, but then she got a glimpse of Hourman nearly pushing the others in his rush to get to her all she could feel was relief. 

  Rick cupped her face, eyes squeezed shut as he held her close, his thumbs brushed along her cheeks, under her dry eyes. She felt the buzz of adrenaline rushing through him just by being so near, but the way he touched her was gentle, so gentle.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” he whispered, a startling unfamiliar word to fall in succession like that, coming from Rick. His hands flew to the crown of her cowl, tugging it down to kiss her forehead again and again. “Thank you.” 

  I’m okay now, she tried to comfort him, though her words were choked, smothered out by the crushing weight of it all. He was crying as his lips brushed over her face. It wasn’t his stamina. The buzz, she felt. Rick was shaking. It hit her then, that maybe he wasn’t sure Beth was ever going to come back. Beth had scared him. He was scared.  

Beth vaulted with her tired, numb legs, reaching to wrap her arms around his neck. Her mind went calm for the first time since before they left home, muscles relaxing as she let Rick scoop her up. 

  She was safe. She was home.

Beth was loved. 

[sodone-withlife]

this time

here is yet another introspective dark angst fic torturing Hotch, but you will be glad to know that he doesn't die in this one (what a change from my last two fics lmao). this was written while trying to scratch the writing itch that’s not letting me adequately study for APs and while listening to one-hour loops of Freaks by Surf Curse and Billie Eilish’s cover of The End of the World.

the theme was inspired by the first song mentioned- Freaks by Surf Curse. the same deal applies to this—little to no proofreading was done, all mistakes are mine.

warnings: alcohol, suicidal ideation, implied/mentioned child abuse, canonical character death

word count: 1.9k words

I haven’t seen him take a break in months, not even after Morgan stepped up. Just look at him, he obviously hasn’t slept for a while, I don’t know how the hell he hasn’t collapsed yet.

How is he supposed to take down Foyet if he’s not even able to take care of himself?

How could he sleep when he knew his subconscious would conjure up images of Haley’s cold, bloodied, motionless body, of her unseeing eyes that managed to be accusing, even in death?

How could he sleep when he knew he would be stuck in a never-ending loop of finding his son’s tiny body that he imagined would be even tinier in death, of dreaming about hearing Jack’s agonized screams as Foyet tore into him with the same knife that had nearly killed his father months earlier?

Alcohol.

His father’s vice, and the one he swore, when he was old enough to understand what was happening, that he would never add to his already long list.

But ever since the early morning night he returned to his apartment after spending hours upon hours dealing with the bureaucratic nightmare that was the Turner pig farm case, all of the promises and vows he had made over the years, to himself and to his family, had dissolved and disappeared like dust in the wind.

I swear I’ll make the world safer for you and Jack.

Garcia had been so fearfully confident in the Marshals Service, wanting reassurance in her belief that Foyet would be caught.

But Hotch knew the profile like the back of his hand, and his answer left his lips with easy confidence even as an oppressing feeling of dread came over him.

That was the start.

Foyet’s voice remained in his head, a vicious devil casting doubt on his every word and his every decision, giving voice to his worst fears and darkest impulses that he had long hoped to suppress.

I swear I’ll protect you and Jack for the rest of my days

Then Foyet was waiting in his apartment, and Hotch was weakened by the exhaustion and stress of two all-nighters in a row and one of the worst crime scenes he’s come across in all of his years of prosecution and in the bureau. That night, as his team was sleeping in their beds, dead to the world, he was slowly bleeding out and floating in and out of consciousness for an agonizing length of time before he finally succumbed to unconsciousness

The smell of antiseptic was an unwelcome greeting, and it wasn’t long before he was reminded once again why his mind’s tendency to be strangely clear, even under hospital-grade antiseptic, with its sharp grasp on memory was a curse.

He sank deeper into the bed, all the air suddenly gone from his lungs as he stared at the red streak of his own blood he knew was deliberately painted over his family’s smiling faces.

I swear I’ll never become my father, drowning in alcohol and breaking promises as easily as he made them.

The picture that was left behind wasn’t a warning, but a promise.

Somehow, Hotch knew that Foyet was throwing the promise he had made to Haley and Jack back in his face.

He had promised to protect them, but they were being targeted by a prolific, sadistic serial killer. They were forced to go into the system, and he doesn’t even know where they are, so how can he protect them at all?

Alcohol.

His father’s vice, and one that he ended up adding to his already long list.

The only way he could sleep through a night without waking up paralyzed from the nightmares, from Foyet’s voice taunting him like a parasite finding its home in the dark recesses of his mind.

But his apartment suffered for it, as did his sober mind every morning as he was faced with the evidence of just who he was like when he was intoxicated.

—broken glasses small spills from shaking hands papers thrown askew waking up with a gun at his side and a pounding headache and urges to snap at anyone and everyone and to hit something just like his fathe—

His promises were broken so easily, and so he feared perhaps the only promise that had been occupying his headspace since he last saw his family would follow suit.

We will catch him, and you'll come back, and I promise that I will spend the rest of my life making this up to you

So he avoided sleep as best he could, if only to lessen the all-encompassing dread that fell over him when his subconscious started torturing him with the imagined images of his worst fears.

Headaches, the aching emptiness that had always been and only grew over the past months, the cold numbness that he walked with, they were nothing compared to being too conscious of just how out-of-control everything had become in less than a year.

They were nothing compared to teetering on the edge of the pit of despair that threatened to swallow him whole with every reminder of the clock that was ticking intensely, of each grain of sand that was falling through the hourglass.

They were nothing compared to anticipating the time bomb ready to go off at any moment as he moved through his days, tightly strung and dreading a break in the case that would end up being found too late.

I promise.

...

The clock struck twelve—

the last grain of sand fell—

and the bomb exploded—

taking Haley and much of his heart with it.

But Foyet lived on in his mind, even as his beaten body—beaten by his hands, skull caving in under his fists and warm blood splattering over his face, grief and rage reducing him to his darkest urges that remained more present than they have ever been—was cremated and his ashes sent to unknown places.

Then Jack moved in with him, and his son was living in the apartment in which he had been stabbed nine times.

He gave his statement to Strauss and the other higher-ups, and he was cleared of the same crime that the same higher-ups had pressured him to punish Elle for, even despite her acquittal.

Oh, Elle.

Pulled in from Seattle with high ambitions, only to be crushed by this job… and by me.

Too much like me.

He took his time off, helping Jack settle in and having Jessica over as he made funeral arrangements, a burden he forced himself to take on in order to remind himself of the costs of his hubris.

Then the funeral was over, justified grievances from Haley’s family aired, Jack visiting the Brooks family for the weekend, and the team in Nashville for a case.

And all he wanted to do was sleep, because all of a sudden, his nightmares were gone and he was seeing what his life could have been like—

If he had remained in prosecution to become the youngest DA in county history.

If he had remained in the Seattle office and kept his ambition in check.

If Gideon hadn’t sent him to Boston to help with the Reaper case.

If the case hadn’t stuck with him like it had, hadn’t occupied a special place in his mind for years.

If Boston hadn’t ended the way it had, and Gideon was still unit chief.

If he had put in to transfer to the White Collar division earlier.

If he was less of an addict to the chase, to the danger, the adrenaline pumping through his veins with every case—

—and he was seeing that his life could have been so much better.

Just days ago, sleep was his torture, and wakefulness his refuge.

He was living alone with the demons in his mind, so the alcohol was in the cart out in the open and his firearms no less than a few feet away at all times.

But now, wakefulness was his torture, and the depths of sleep his newfound refuge.

A child was now living in his apartment, so the alcohol was shoved into the back of a cupboard and his firearms locked inside the biometric gun safe high up on a shelf.

—intact glasses in the sink hands remaining steady papers neatly organized and case files hidden from Jack’s innocent eyes mind clear and feeling the weight of his service weapon in his bloodstained hands disjointed thoughts coalescing into one—

The stone bench under the weeping willow in front of Haley’s gravestone was cold to the touch, and the stillness of the late evening was only broken by the occasional rustle of leaves as squirrels and birds moved about. Slowly, he shifted on the bench so that he was lying on his back and staring at the moon through the leaves.

The gun in the hip holster pressed into his side and the one on his ankle kept his left leg still as he let it hang over the side. He remained as alert as ever, twitching with every rustle but resisting the urge to get up and look around.

It was a startlingly clear evening even though it had stormed just the day before, and slowly, unwittingly, old memories from years ago came back into his mind and mixed with the false, happy images his traitorous mind had conjured up in his sleep.

And even though they weren’t as clear in wakefulness as they had been in sleep, he was filled with a deep, aching longing for the times that have never been, for the happiness that had died with Haley, and for the love that had only lingered because of Jack.

Never had the service weapons he wore daily been such a source of temptation, not even in his darkest days after he swore to never taint with the legacy of what he might be able to use it to do and before Foyet happened.

But you know just how much worth your promises actually have.

Remember what happened in just the last nine months?

He turned his head to look through the near-darkness at Haley’s gravestone, looking to her for guidance.

The temptation only grew stronger, and the storm in his mind picked up the pace.

Is death not just a permanent sleep?

Would they find him like he found Haley, lying on his back and looking completely at peace? If it weren’t for the blood that would be pooling around his head saying otherwise, might they believe that he was just sleeping?

Wouldn’t it be nice to sleep, to remain in your head with only peaceful dreams to keep you company?

An hour went by, and slowly, a few raindrops started making it through the leaves to fall on his face. He forced himself up before the storm that was moving in from the east grew to be as strong as the one in his mind.

Soon, he was back in the apartment, his weapons locked in the safe, alcohol still stashed in the back of a cupboard, and the bed was feeling too big and too empty.

Exhaustion sunk deep in his bones, and just as the wind and rain outside picked up, the storm in his mind died down.

There was no fight against the sleep that was slowly claiming him, and he slipped into the dreams that felt like the familiar, comforting warmth of her smile.

I dream of you almost every night.

Hopefully, I won’t wake up this time.

[gatherthesuspectspod]

A hundred ways to die in Wales

Hello Tumblr!

My first post ever here! I’m still learning the ropes, so please be kind!

This might be awfully presumptuous of me, but you may recognise the name from a few years back. Before all of this happened, I worked for BBC Radio 4 as their Welsh correspondent - a bit niche, I grant you, but I did alright on social media. I even had a blue tick on Twitter before it went down for good. 

At its peak, whatever media you worked in, scoops were delivered on social media. No one went to the radio or the newspapers for breaking news. Hell, even the TV news was struggling.  So, even radio journalists like me had to be twitter savvy, you know? 

It does make me wonder how Tumblr survived. As a journalist (well, former journalist) I should probably have done some research and found out…  

 My housemate, Jack, suggested I start to keep this blog so that he, in his exact words, ‘wouldn’t have to listen to me moan about not being a journalist anymore.’ So, here I am, coming to scream into the void that is the last social media platform standing (apart from LinkedIn… Shoulda known that even during the apocalypse, start-up CEO Chad Moneybags would still need to post motivational bullshit about 5 am starts and tagging every post with ‘#crushingit’)

Anyway, I’ve strayed slightly from the point… So, this blog isn't going to be full of hard-hitting investigative journalism or even those colourful local news stories you used to see about water skiing hamsters. It’s just going to be me, posting my thoughts about how much more screwed the world is than the previous week. 

Cheerful stuff, right? Well, as REM sang, ‘it’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine’. And you know what, while fine might be stretching a bit, it could be worse...

Before it happened, when people thought about the end of the world, we always pictured some huge catastrophe. ‘The Hollywood Apocalypse,’ Jack calls it. You know the kind - people screaming in the streets as some unspeakable horror unfolds about them. 

In movies, the end of the world was always sudden, over in a flash,  with pockets of humanity left to pick up the pieces of a shattered world. Except, that’s not how it happened, not that we should be surprised, life rarely imitates the movies. 

In fact, it happened so slowly and contained so many individual strands that by the time it arrived, it took us even more by surprise - even the right-wing newspapers didn’t have time to come up with some ‘pithy’ name for it. I’ve always liked the term ‘tipping point,’ The point at which every one of those strands, however linked or disparate, tipped the scales so far against humanity, there was no turning back. 

I mean, we shouldn’t have been surprised. We had been warned, after all. For years (no, decades, even) scientists talked about how we were destroying the earth. From the changing climate to the destruction of entire ecosystems, all in the name of capitalism. 

People warned us it would lead to societal collapse. It wasn’t hard to see it coming, if you were paying attention. But, even if you were paying attention, the sheer magnitude of it was enough to cause even the strongest advocates some blind spots caused by existential terror. Like a Lovecraftian monster rising from the depths of the ocean, who could wrap their head around the true horror.  

Instead, we played out our little culture wars as the planet died… we elected people to distract and not solve… we lied and allowed ourselves to be lied to. Until, in the end, there were so many that no longer cared about the truth that finding a solution was never a possibility.   

The rise of ignorance led to the rise of populism, which led to the rise of fascism, and eventually isolationism. Each country, widowed and trapped in its own poky bachelor apartment of despair. With nothing but memories of past glories to keep it going while the world around slowly burns.

The thing about this kind of creeping apocalypse, this tipping point, is that there is a certain mundanity in it all. There are millions dead, but there was no Hollywood pre-credit sequence of terrified crowds running through Manhattan. 

This apocalypse had an absence of symbols - actually, no. That’s not quite right. I mean, we don’t have the statue of liberty drowning in sand while hyper-intelligent apes roam the planet, sure. But last week, the sea caught on fire… the fucking sea! You’d think after completely decimating the planet for a hundred years, some companies may have learned a lesson or two - like not setting dire to the fucking sea again!

And just today, the newspapers are full of pictures of yet another ghost town in West Wales slowly sinking into the sea. We have our symbols, alright. They are just smaller, more mundane than the Hollywood apocalypse we always felt we deserved - as a species, we are so arrogant that we feel even our extinction deserves something special, something showy. But, like I said, if you are paying attention, there are symbols to be found everywhere. 

Is our slow, boring apocalypse better than the ostentatious apocalypses of Tinseltown, complete with their big budget explosions and alien invasions? I’m honestly not sure. 

One part of me used to think that at least then it would be over quickly. This was a particularly comforting thought during the war, as English shells rained down on Cardiff. But, even the war fizzled slowly, bubbling away around the fringes, with neither country having the resources, will or money to mount any serious threat to the other. It turned out that not even the newly installed Albion dictatorship in England could get away with a costly hot war, while millions of its citizens starved to death. 

It sounds weird to say, but slowly you adjust to it. You know? Slowly, bit-by-bit, the fucking sea being on fire doesn’t seem such a big deal as it did a year ago. Slowly, bit-by-bit, you stop watching the news. You realise the images of starving children 50 miles away over the border have become the norm. 

You become desensitised to the food queues, the extreme swings in weather, the rapidly shrinking coastline. When was the last time you even saw a bee? It’s all just normal. But in spite of all of that, we still sit here, night after night, staring at our tiny plastic phones, reading the latest #crushingit update from that douchebag Chad, half hoping that there is still time for the aliens to show up and finish the job…

I realise that was quite a long run-on sentence, but it’s been a while. I’m out of practice. Like I said, it’s been three years since I last wrote, well, anything! I don’t know if anyone will even read this… I mean how many people can even access Tumblr anymore? But, Jack was right, it did help to get some stuff out.

Until next time (possibly), stay bored out there!

Kara

[ganymedesclock]

outta curiosity, why do you think the bugs are human-y sized? i've seen that portrayal fairly often in fandom, but it never occurred to me during my own playthrough b/c of things like the weapons all being things like "Nails" and "Needles" (plus Cloth's huge fang club) which feel... like they're supposed to /seem/ small, if that makes sense.

Kind of a complicated web of reasons, some in-universe, some out.

The first thing I’m going to say is that I agree with you in that there is something that “feels small” about Hollow Knight’s world. When a friend of mine, @betterbemeta played the game, they spoke a bit about a “microscopic aesthetic” that they chalked to things like the amount of detail in the backgrounds. At the size we’re used to seeing the world, dirt is just dirt. From an insect’s eye view, however, individual grains are visible to a much greater degree.

This very granular nature fills the world. Nothing has the anonymity of just being dirt- it’s all shells or fossils or bits of stone and sand and glass. Our relationship with the world is intimate. We are shown spaces and the vastness of them looms, daunts. So I don’t for a second resent the impression that the scale of the world “feels small”.

What does bug me, if you’ll pardon the pun, is trying to add humans into this world as some kind of vast upper limit. Because while they wield pins and needles, nails and shears... these are not scavenged objects. This is not Pikmin. The nail is called such, but it is never a nail as we would recognize, designed to be hammered into an object. The bugs of Hallownest mine materials, and forge them into shapes that are engineered and worked artistically. The Nailsmith has spent much of his life obsessively honing his craft.

It feels arrogant, when there is no human presence in the game, to automatically slot us in an imagined supergiant slot that would trivialize the game and everything narratively important about it. It feels even more arrogant to suggest an independent culture that never shows any evidence of being dependent on humans is whimsically plucking our door nails for funny little bug sword duels, rather than that they have a culture of forging and carving their own weapons, tailored to their needs, without “divine inspiration” from anything bigger than it except its gods, which are themselves entities not in the likeness or shape of humans.

For me, I feel like it operates much better to presume Hollow Knight’s world is comparable to Nausicaa’s- it is a land of giants, rather than a land of the diminutive. A world that, if we or creatures like us were walking them, we would walk alongside Ghost, these same roads and highways, and would have this same experience of being dwarfed by the vastness of the space. I feel like if you really want to imagine humans in this world, either explicitly or for a sense of scale- we’d be on the level of the setting’s bugfolk.

Another thing worth noting is that this world is also very alien. Far moreso than, say, Pikmin, a game that does feature tiny aliens on a post-apocalyptic earth, where we can recognize much of the world and its shape even if the creatures now inhabiting it are strange. In Hollow Knight, the world is strange in its beauty and savagery. It’s really not like ours. The larger things get, the weirder they get. There’s almost no indication of mammalian life, or even, besides the bug-people having some recognizable species among them like moths, butterflies, cicadas, bees- creatures that we recognize. God Tamer is either an ant or a cockroach most likely, but her steed was originally conceptualized as a lobster- and it is an eight-eyed, quadrupedal creature with a filter-feeder mouth, large horns, an expanding translucent dewlap and neither claws nor long tail to speak of, so Team Cherry has actively avoided putting “normal creatures” in there.

This setting has a particular logic about creatures. Everything is translated through that lens, so things we would recognize come out distinctly different, and the general thrust is ‘more like a bug’. So to me, that precludes the intrigue of humans, because we have what humans would look like, with concession made to these strange rules.

They’re the characters we already see and interact with.

I dislike the idea of towering humans, because to me, the sapient bugs of Hallownest so clearly are the humans. I feel like this is a world on a divergent planet. There’s no apes for humans to come from, or monkeys to grow into apes, or even mammals for monkeys to come from- everything is bugs, so the sapient creatures come from bugs. Quirrel, in the prequel comic, even briefly holds a much smaller crawling insect and muses how it and he have similar shells, and, yet, are fundamentally dissimilar creatures. Another narrative could very easily transcribe a similar moment between a human researcher and an orangutan he spots in the bushes.

So this compels me to, in crossover contexts, put the bugs as close to humans. I feel like this is a beautifully constructed and deeply alien world, and there’s so little to gain and so much to carelessly bulldoze by adding in a sense of scale that allows us to just ignore so much of the strangeness and force our own ordinary world over it. I don’t have this problem putting in other giant or strange forces in the setting- I’d be super up to colossal forests of giant trees as a level or scene in a fanwork, for example.

But I guess that’s what turns me off of a lot of things like the bug tank AUs- the humans’ presence and society feels like a way to not just put what’s familiar to us in there, but in such a way that invalidates the refreshing novelty of the world around it. There’s no stated upper limit to Radiance’s powers- there’s nothing she can’t infect merely because it’s too large. So putting her in a glass tank wouldn’t negate her. If it was that easy to stop her, PK wouldn’t be driven to desperation and have committed a staggering amount of esoteric sin on his own children trying to find a way. It immediately undermines character plots and motivations.

Suggesting that the bugs are living borrower-style among humans and making use of their technology, likewise, cheapens the plot of the Nailsmith and his obsession, one that is shared by many, or, in the Silksong demo, Forge-Daughter’s “ancient line and honored role”.

Now, I have seen borrower-style stories and loved them! I was massively obsessed with the movie 9 when it came out, which featured tiny cloth dolls (the largest of them could be held easily in one hand by a human) surviving in an apocalyptic wasteland, and they utilized pieces of human technology cobbled together into ingenious new forms. But the thing about Hollow Knight, is it is not that world. Some weapons are large, almost oversized for their wielders- but they were still built with those wielders in mind, by other bugs, using designs developed by bugs. 

Cloth’s club doesn’t really refute this by being a tooth broken from a larger creature, either- the temple of the black egg is made either from, or in the likeness of, the hollowed shell of a truly gargantuan creature.

This world has some very big things. I feel like thinking of humans as ‘the giants’ in this setting vastly underestimates the world. That somewhere in Cloth’s journey- and somewhere accessible to the kingdoms’ guards that became Husk Guards- there were vast cadavers with teeth that could be harvested is explained handily on its own by the idea that this is a world partially populated by giants- giants that play by the same lovely arthropod sensibilities of the more regular-sized denizens.

Another exciting thing worth noting is that there are ribs and spines all over this world! If these guys were truly on the scale of ordinary bugs, they wouldn’t need them- their exoskeletons would do all the supporting for them. But these guys are big enough to need at least vestigial endoskeletons. The implications of the remains that we see don’t exactly show us arm or leg bones, but rather intact limb exoskeletons. So these guys would have more complicated organs and more bones, that a bigger creature would need, but something the size of a realistic our-world ant would not.

[badger-writes]

@badthingshappenbingo​

Prompt Filled: Jealousy/Envy

Fandom: Star Wars

Ao3 Link

The children of Mos Espa seek out each others’ company, as children do. They are slaves, orphans, scrum-rats – peasants, all. They don’t all like Greedo, exactly, but they do tolerate him. He can accept that – stars know he’s not fond of every one of them, either.

They seem to congregate around one boy in particular, like planets around a blazing star. His name is Anakin. He still lives with his mother. They are both slaves, owned by the junk dealer Watto. Though a slave, he lives well, and is growing up hale and healthy. He’s building a podracer in the back lot behind Watto’s yard, and to hear him tell it, he’s working on a protocol droid in his home that’s almost finished. He’s cheerful and kind and seemingly all of Mos Espa likes him. The children all think he’s wizard.

Some people get all the luck, Greedo fumes to himself.

===

There’s only one other Rodian in their little clique – he’s three years younger and about a head shorter than Anakin, and goes by the name of Wald. A nice kid, Greedo supposes, though his attitude could use adjusting. No one with so little to be happy about should be that happy, even if it’s still more than Greedo has.

Eventually - because Wald is a perceptive sort of child, the kind that doesn’t keep his mouth shut - he asks, “Hey Greedo, how come you’re so jealous of Ani?”

Greedo scowls. He’s always scowling, but this one is worse than usual. “I’m not jealous,” he insists, rubbery Rodian brows scrunching up his forehead.

“Pfft, yeah, and I’m the Tusken King!” Wald cups his hands around his snout and twirls around in place, hooting his best imitation of a Tusken Raider war cry. It is, as one might expect of a Rodian child aping a Tusken Raider, not very good.

“Stop making fun of me,” Greedo pouts, crossing his arms.

“I’m not making fun! I’m just trying to figure out why you’re so jealous.”

“I’m not!”

“Yes you are.”

“No I’m not!”

“Yes you are!”

“Well, why shouldn’t I be?!” He spits, and feels something wound tight deep inside him come unpinned, like steam breaching a gasket and hissing into open air. “He’s already so much better off than the rest of us!”

“I dunno about that,” Wald says. He’s halfhearted, wishy-washy. “He’s still a slave, after all.”

“What other slave gets to build his own podracer? Or his own droid? Or race in the Boonta Eve?” Greedo shoves his hands in his pockets and kicks at the dirt as he walks. “I never get to do anything like that. It’s not fair.”

“What can I say? Ani’s a lucky kid,” Wald says, shrugging.  “Then again, he’s still living in Slave Quarters Row with his mom, so what can you do?”

“At least he has a mom.”

The corners of Wald’s mouth pucker inwards. He plays with his fingers behind his back and tries to look very interested in the rivulets of sand shifting around on the ground.

Greedo grunts. “Whatever. It’s not like he’ll ever leave Tatooine.” he mutters. The slave tracker inside him would see to that. Wander too far away and … poof. “No matter what, he’s still gonna waste away on this dustball like the rest of us.”

“Is… that supposed to be a good thing?”

“It sounds good to me.”

Wald gives him a funny look. “You’re a weird kid, Greedo,” he says, chortling. Then he tugs on the sleeve of his roughspun tunic. “C’mon, let’s go toss rotten tip-yip eggs at Nobot. That always makes me feel better.”

===

Anakin wins the Boonta Eve podrace, along with his freedom. He’s going to leave Tatooine forever and fly with his offworld stranger friends to live in the Core, in the Republic capitol. He’s going to become a ‘Jedi’, whatever that is. All of this happens in the space of maybe a standard hour.

Greedo doesn’t buy it.

“You cheated,” he hisses at the boy after the race.

The radiance of victory hasn’t left Anakin’s face. He’s clearly taken by surprise at being accosted so while basking in the moment of triumph. It gives Greedo a sickly sort of pride that he’s able to strip the sheen off his hull plating so easily.

“No, I didn’t!” Anakin insists. “I won that race fair and square. Everyone saw it!”

Greedo had seen it, too. No one could have pulled an upset like that off. “Yeah, right. Against Sebulba? With a busted engine? No way.”

The fix had to be in, somewhere. Maybe Ani’s ‘Jedi’ friend paid Sebulba to take a dive, since apparently he likes him so much.

“I did win,” Anakin whines again. “You’re just jealous.”

Greedo snorts rudely through his snout – but the other street-rats are already listening, picking sides, tittering quietly amongst themselves. He can’t very well back down now.

“You did cheat, you little sneak. They’re gonna find out how, and once they do, they’re gonna drag you back to Mos Espa by your hair and give you back to Watto.”

Something in Anakin’s expression cracks. Greedo can see the fear in his eyes. “No, they’re not.”

“Oh yes they are,” the Rodian sneers. “They’re gonna put your tracker back in and make you polish scrap and work you til you’re old and gra—”

He would have said ‘gray’, if not for the tiny fist connecting with his jaw; the impact throws him down onto the sand. Anakin is on him just as quickly, pounding his face and shoulders with wild jabs, blinded by anger. The crowd of children around them settle into the familiar chanting which accompanies any street fight.

And then –

The moment is parted, like wind cutting smoothly over the dunes. There’s a man here now that wasn’t here before – tall, long haired, middle-aged, human. His clothes are simple, but he bears himself almost regally, as if detached or above the squabble unfolding before him. The crowd is hushed; the beating stops. In the lull, Greedo is finally able to push the little cheater off of him and sit up.

When he speaks, it’s with the voice of a father. Or at least, what they imagine a father must sound like. “What’s this all about?”

“He says I cheated,” Anakin says from the ground, fuming.

“Did you?”

“No!”, the boy replies, incredulously.

The man looks to Greedo expectantly. “Do you still think he cheated?”

His tongue probes a sore spot inside his mouth, tasting copper. “Yes.”

“Well, Ani, you know the truth,” the man says as the two climb to their feet. “You will have to tolerate his opinion. Fighting will not change it.”

Anakin is visibly not satisfied. Neither is Greedo. Both of them have lived long enough to know that this is how adults settle most disputes between children.

The man spares Greedo one last look before turning and striding away; Anakin, pointedly, does not. Neither of them offer so much as a token apology.

[spookyspaghettisundae]

What Would Follow the Healing

The warrior's axe trailed behind him in the dirt, dragged by a weary hand too weak to lift it any longer. He lurched and stumbled, weary not from the sun's relentless rays beating down upon his bare bronzed torso, but from the numbness that gripped his body.

A shambling gait to keep moving forward, ever forward, was the most strength he could summon. Gravel crunched underneath his sandals, and he kicked up dust whenever he tripped, oblivious to the pain throbbing from the snakebite in his calf—to the venom that had long spread throughout every limb.

At this crawling, miserable pace, he had wandered the desert for long enough to have lost all sense of time and expected death to greet him any moment now. Yet he wanted to live. To fight another day. To not perish to the bite of some lowly creature after having braved so many battles for his god against able-bodied men.

His pride—his determination—allowed him to hold on. He wiped the sweat from his brow and paused to catch his ragged breath. He coughed through chapped lips, hacking, wheezing, reeling, and almost keeling over.

The world blurred until he squinted hard enough to spot his destination. He blinked and struggled to see past the distortion of unbridled heat rising from the scorched tawny rocks and sands. To see where he had lumbered off towards to seek his only hope at salvation.

Where the grounds sloped down, a beautifully shimmering stream emerged from jagged stone and mounted into a rippling pond, around which a small oasis of palm trees had arisen. A thin plume of smoke trailed into the skies from the chimney of a quaint sandstone hovel, squat on the edge of the oasis.

The Witch Crossing.

He picked up his pace, driven by hope again.

Loose rocks tumbled down and he caught himself upon some dried exposed roots as he descended the final slope to the tiny dwelling. The stones cracked and clattered and rolled down alongside him and one of the rocks bounced off the trunk of a palm tree. His axe lazily clanged against a rock as he marched on, finding new vigor and energy even if he could not shrug off his awful condition, no matter how much he tried to will it away.

Only as he neared the dingy little shelter did his impaired vision afford him glimpses of more unsettling details: stacks of bleached human skulls bunched together upon piles of stones, animal skeletons crudely roped together with coarse twine to form strange magick fetishes, and eerie arcane symbols etched into boulders with the sharp edges of simple stone tools.

Halfway across the oasis, she suddenly appeared.

The witch.

He had blinked, certainly; fighting with all his might to stay awake and alert, no doubt; but in one moment, the cloth curtain covering the entrance to the witch's hovel had stood closed, and in the next, she stood in front of it, staring at him through wide eyes.

Amber, piercing, unblinking, more unsettling than the strange decor that surrounded her eerie abode. Her olive skin was covered in dirt and black hand-painting that matched the glyphs upon the stones, contrasting those bright and cruel eyes.

Her attire took him aback, for she wore nothing but a skirt of hide and vulture bones, breasts bare for him to lose focus on.

"What is it you seek here, pilgrim?" she asked. Raspy was her voice, authoritative her speech, hungry in a way—reminiscent of smoke and the crackle of embers exploding from a fire. "Are you so daft to not heed any warnings?"

He coughed and his knees wobbled, and he did his best to remain standing.

He knew that she knew. Her piercing gaze said it all, wandering up and down his figure and studying him.

She knew what condition he was in.

He looked like death.

"A snake bit me," he said.

She scoffed. "Yes. I see that."

Between more ragged breathing and the ensuing silence growing longer and longer, a twinge of anger welled up in his gut, making his heart beat even faster yet, and leaving his vision clearer than from before the venom starting to dull his senses.

"Then help me, witch! I have treasure! I have gold. You can have anything you want from me," he said, wheezing in between the last words.

"Anything?" she said with a smug smirk.

"Anything!"

He pawed at the tiny pouch hanging from his belt. Fingers fumbled with the knotted cord that kept it by his side, then gave up. He furiously ripped at it and the string snapped. He tore the little leather satchel open and emptied its clinking contents onto the ground. Coins of different color and bearing many different crests, and a small emerald and a beautiful ruby, they all glittered and sparkled in the sun as they plummeted down, landing softly in the sand.

The smug smirk vanished from her visage.

"Fool. Am I to scoop that up from the dirt like a dog?" she said, glaring at him.

Her face never flinched. The dried black paint upon her face lent her statuesque features a fierce and fearsome air.

With a groan, he dropped to his knees and hastily started gathering the coins and gems again.

"I don't want your riches," said the witch. "What would I spend them on, fool? Those who share your creed are the ones that drove me out here. I do not trade with the people you call 'civilized'. Your coin is worthless to me."

He groaned again. Slammed a fistful of coins into the dirt. Then he met her cruel stare with an angry glare of his own.

"Then name your damned price. Is this not Witch Crossing?"

She arched a brow and asked, "Which crossing?"

"Witch Crossing. Witch doctor, are you not?"

"Which doctor?"

Though her play on words was lost on him, he knew she was mocking him.

Though the jumble of emotions and the torrent of pain afforded him no space to let go and relax, lest he lose his consciousness and die miserably without her aid, he knew better than to offend her. Likely, she reveled in the power she currently held over his life, like a sword hanging from a thread that dangled above his head.

Right now, she was the only thing standing between him and the jaws of death. The hollow eye sockets of skulls piled up nearby stared back at him, empty and uncaring and foreboding of the grim fate that awaited him.

He shouted at her, "Enough, woman! Do not mock me! I have slain capable warriors!"

"And you threaten to kill me before I can heal you? You are truly a foolish fool, pilgrim."

"I am no pilgrim," he said, sighing with resignation. Breaking eye contact, for she truly held all the power. He was at her mercy. "I am of the warriors who hunt down the savage cult of serpent-worshippers out here."

"Yes, I recognize the bronze symbol you wear around your neck, you fool. Martyr. Martyr and fool. You martyrs are all fools."

"Watch your tongue," he hissed at her.

His vision immediately blurred. Did she grin again in response to his threats? Or did his words simply not reach her, unable to penetrate a black heart devoid of all mercy?

"A cult hunting a cult, nothing of which I should concern myself with. Do you reckon I should draw their ire by aiding you?"

"Please," he begged.

He clasped his hands together, almost as whenever he did in prayer before the imposing statues of his god. Just as empty then, his gesture was empty now—all self-serving. Only a hoarse rasp escaped his throat, and words failed him.

She, however, continued to chide him, "Or must I expect your fellow faithful to march upon my home to harass me if I leave you out here to waste away from your own stupidity?"

"Please. Heal me," he croaked.

She suddenly stood closer. Had he even blinked? Having disappeared from her doorstep to standing suddenly in front of him, ten paces closer, eliciting a surprised gasp from him. He fell back, too much weight coming to rest upon his swollen leg—it had doubled in size since suffering the bite—and he emitted a piercing shout of pain before crumpling onto his side in response.

She crouched down beside him and grabbed him by his cheeks, squeezing and scrunching his face uncomfortably in between the fingers of one hand and her thumb as she wrenched his face around to stare into his eyes, up close.

He dared not resist. The sharp reminder, the throbbing agony flaring up from his snake-bitten calf, it pressed him to be wiser about crossing the savage witch of Witch Crossing.

In this unforgiving desert, where the snake worshippers reigned supreme and he had lost all his companions in battle against the heathens, this lonesome witch now posed his only hope.

After piercing his soul with her baleful gaze, she sneered at him and released him from her grip.

"Savage is what you call me."

"I have never," he protested. But not too loudly.

It was true that he had never named her thus—out loud. In his thoughts, however, that was exactly what she was to him.

Hex-bearer. Poison-maker. Child-slayer. Beast-lover. Man-eater.

"But your kin have, and you would ape their words in a heartbeat, just like you all ape your prayers to a god that never answers."

He bit his tongue.

She said, "Answer me honestly, for your life depends on it. Were the tables turned, would you aid me if I beseeched you?"

He swallowed, and it felt like swallowing a handful of gravel and grit. Her stare drilled deeper into his soul, and he knew better than to lie.

"No," he finally breathed.

Said the witch, "Truth. You would laugh in my face and leave me to rot among the sands and the beasts."

"And you would have me die like this? To right a wrong before it is even committed?"

He pleaded with her. With every fiber of his pain-wracked being, he pleaded. Not even by words, but by appealing to whatever shred of goodness might be left over in the darkest reaches of her being. He pleaded with his eyes, with his continued kneeling before this unbeliever.

"You are useless to me. I cannot even eat you, as envenomed as you are," she said.

She grinned at him. Toothy, bright white teeth, flawless. Too perfect for one who was said to taste human flesh. A grin that did not reach her eyes, all wicked and marveling at the pain that had brought him this low before her.

These were no idle words, he sensed. She truly ate people.

This was why they called her savage. Witch.

Monster.

The grin faded from her lips, hiding her teeth again. Could she read his thoughts?

"Perhaps you can be useful after all," she said. "If you do one thing for me, I shall do one thing for you. Your coin is of no use to me, but the arm that wields your axe may serve another purpose. It still holds strength and can carry your sorry hide on one more quest."

He gasped. Neither in confusion nor in pain, but in surprise.

"Name it," he breathed. Swallowing another lump in his throat.

The chance of living dangled in front of him while he spotted a mirage on the horizon. A gleaming light, a vision of his god, beckoning him to march on as bravely as he ever had. All in his mind, he understood, but it was his hope manifesting.

"Please, tell me what to do," he begged, focusing on meeting her unsettling gaze once more.

She pointed down the stream that crossed her oasis.

"There is a cave downstream. Follow the flow of water and you cannot miss it. In that cave dwells a beast, as strong as three men and all tooth and fang. Bring me its head. And I will heal you."

The shining light of his god on the horizon faded, making way to the shadow of death, creeping closer towards him once more.

"Y-you—you are out of your mind. As strong as three men? I am but one, and not even at full strength with this snakebite," he said, shaking his head. Breaking eye contact.

So close to salvation, yet so far. The silence she left to drape over them was deafening.

Motes of sand carried by the breeze lazily swept over them. Wind howled through the hollow of the skulls and the witch's hovel.

The skulls smiled at him. Mocked him just like she did.

Meeting her gaze again, he nodded in resignation. Unlike the skulls, she did not grin any longer, but the derision in her very existence got to him. It fed the anger in his belly. The futility of releasing it upon her was abundantly clear to him, only shoveling more coal into the flames of his impotent rage.

Yet—he now reckoned he could always kill her after she healed him.

He nodded again and groaned as he gripped one of the glyph-covered boulders and heaved himself back up onto his feet, swaying and wobbling where one of his legs failed to support him and his body threatened to stop obeying him altogether.

She helped him stand. Calloused fingers grazed his shoulder with surprising softness, sending tingles down his spine. To his surprise, she folded his fingers around the grip of his axe, ensuring that he held it firmly.

No more of her awful grins saw him off.

Instead, she pointed down the stream, prompting another nod from the warrior, for it took him more than a second to regain his sense of vision and discern which way the water flowed. The world spun around him in his dizziness, and every finer detail blurred into the bright sun's blinding light.

Though his hand gripped the axe more fiercely now, the weapon's blade soon trailed behind him in the dirt again, dragged in a weary hand too weak to lift it any longer, the head of the axe now scraping against rock and sand until he reached the edge of the water.

He lurched and stumbled downstream. By the time he was out of earshot from the witch, he recoiled and then bent forward, emptying his stomach of its contents, splattering the naked rock before him with his vomit.

The wind howled again, carrying dust across the rocky desert.

Once his shambling gait had carried him over the bend of several boulders, out of sight from the witch, she smiled to herself.

She smiled because she harbored no hopes of him ever slaying the beast. The saber-toothed cat that lived in that cave was her beloved pet. She had reared it from the day it had been a whelp.

She had lied as much as she could to the warrior-zealot, reckoning that he would have killed her once she healed him. The witch could have ended his life once he laid down to rest and eaten the warrior with ease; the venom in his flesh would not have harmed her. Nor would it harm her beloved cat.

However, she relished the thought of providing her pet with an easy snack.

She disappeared back into her hovel to continue working on her stew.

The warrior would never be seen again.

—Submitted by Wratts

[tabletoptrinketsbyjj]

Trinkets, Worthless, 10: These trinket are garbage plain and simple. They would be termed vendor trash or junk loot in video games. They aren’t touched by stray magic or mystery as with regular trinkets, aren’t made from valuable materials and aren’t particularly useful even if they aren’t damaged.

A burlap bag containing a dozen assorted doorknobs.

A rather large and dead hairy spider that looks as if someone tried to make a wig out of it.

A small beige oilcloth sack embroidered neatly with the word ‘CHEESE.’ You can smell it from halfway across the room.

An expertly taxidermied rat with a built in candle holder capable of bearing a small tea candle. The mouse is posed as if scurrying

A lump of coal with runes carved into it.

A five pound pyrite (Fools gold) ingot.

A worn minotaur’s nose ring that has been bent and beaten back into shape many times.

A lacquered wooden coin engraved with the holy symbol of a minor God of Random Neutral Domain.

A smooth, flat, black river stone.

A small, tattered canvas sack containing a dozen half-rotted teeth that are as long as a thumb, but are decidedly identifiable as human.

—Keep reading for 90 more trinkets.

—Note: The previous 10 items are repeated for easier rolling on a d100.

A burlap bag containing a dozen assorted doorknobs.

A rather large and dead hairy spider that looks as if someone tried to make a wig out of it.

A small beige oilcloth sack embroidered neatly with the word ‘CHEESE.’ You can smell it from halfway across the room.

An expertly taxidermied rat with a built in candle holder capable of bearing a small tea candle. The mouse is posed as if scurrying

A lump of coal with runes carved into it.

A five pound pyrite (Fools gold) ingot.

A worn minotaur’s nose ring that has been bent and beaten back into shape many times.

A lacquered wooden coin engraved with the holy symbol of a minor God of Random Neutral Domain.

A smooth, flat, black river stone.

A small, tattered canvas sack containing a dozen half-rotted teeth that are as long as a thumb, but are decidedly identifiable as human.

A single feather hanging from a chain of slender twigs reminiscent of a bird’s nest.

A dull-red, cloth pouch filled with five pounds of finely ground, rust flakes.

A pair of minotaur horns, which were well used by their original owner.

A tangled mess of metal wires fused together with heat and attached to a wooden plaque. It may be a worthless mess of twisted scrap metal or a priceless piece of inspired artwork.

A heavily used hand cranked wood drill that creaks loudly when used.

A foggy hand mirror that when cleaned, immediately fogs back up.

A cracked and weathered hourglass that only has some sand remaining

A battered leather satchel filled with dried red beans.

A fishing hook that cannot be bent.

A large tin canister whose lid is crudely stamped with the word “JURKY”, which contains dozens of sticks of meat jerky. Any creature can clearly identify the jerky as “meat” but as to the exact animal the dried “food” came from, (If it is only from a single species of animal) is impossible to tell.

A battered stone shaped like a heart.

A child's wooden doll that makes whoever looks at it uncomfortable.

A cloth sack packed to the brim with cat fur.

A cloth sack packed to the brim with dog fur.

A flat, round, dark gray stone speckled with reddish flecks, and about six inches across.

A sewing thimble that, when poked by a needle, will roughly squeeze the bearer's thumb.

A small brass key.

A hand mirror with a horn handle. Instead of actually functioning correctly, the mirror reflects all creature's image as a specific bald human of unknown origin.

A very roughly drawn map of the surrounding area. A knowledgeable creature is able to tell that the map is not to scale and is barely useable for actual navigation.

A spindly iron key.

A chipped nautilus shell.

A moth eaten, gray velvet clutch purse.

A fairly convincing but ultimately inaccurate map, with a single red dot marking “You are here”.

An old scratched up lyre, strung with well-worn cat gut strings.

A Random Humanoid Race’s rotting, severed head.

A crudely made staff topped by a small skull.

An uneven, gnarled length of wood from a grotesque tree.

An old and cracked velum scroll whose script has been rendered illegible by the ravages of time.

A simple, springy rod made of twisting vines and twigs.

A rotting wooden goblet filled with a festering brew of pus, blood, wriggling maggots and worms that spill from the froth on the liquid's surface.

A dusty old pair of half-moon glasses of such a strong prescription that they are unwearable for most creatures.

A cracked glass jar containing a crudely removed bear claw.

A poorly embroidered handkerchief with the words “I love you dad” crudely stitched into it.

A red, child sized, fuzzy blanket that smells of mold and mildew.

A desiccated hoof that once belonged to a large, male elk.

A simple dusty scroll has no marking, seal nor text on it. By all appearances, it is a standard sheet of writing material that is bound by a single hemp thread.

A stone jar of filled with acid. The jar's lid is badly fitting, and the acid bubbles and froths as it moves. The object's sole markings are a skull symbol resting overtop of a warning written in Dwarvish.

A bedroll that is covered in a large, dark stain, but is in otherwise fair condition.

A set of crude fishing supplies, including a box of maggots, several bent hooks and a ten foot length of wire.

A set of clothes, appearing halfling in size and design. They appear partially burnt and have a large, black stain on the chest.

A primitive woolen bag filled with bones.

A rough bag full of leaves and stems of an unknown plant.

A crude animal cage. Inside there are two dead rats a dead bat and a large number of healthy maggots feeding on the aforementioned corpses.  

A badly water damaged book whose pages cannot be read.

A set of badly maintained scientific instruments, including a compass, measuring rods, quills and ink. With some repair, they could form a cartographer's toolkit.

A humanoid skull that has been cleaned and bleached white. It has a large, drilled hole in the center of the crown and several abyssal symbols are crudely carved into the temples.

A long clock hand of dark metal, the end raggedly pointed and stained with old blood.

A dusty glass bottle that still holds a few drops of viscous red liquid.

A page torn from a hymnal book dedicated to a god of war.

A clay tablet with indecipherable symbols.

A padlock that any key can open.

A bundle of crumpled papers, each having a partially completed love poem on them. Most of the words are scribbled out and are illegible, but the intended recipient appears to be a woman by the name of Neurelia.

The skull of a bird with an iron nail driven through it.

A crude wooden mask featuring a head crest of branches. The entirety of the mask is scorched wood and it smells like charcoal.

A beaten crate filled with rotted children’s clothing and old toys.

An alligator skull that reeks of sulfur and bog water. The druidic rune for “Preserve” is carved into the forehead.

A stone statue of a goblin, paper-thin and hollow. If the statue is broken, goblin bones tumble out.

A rusty dagger with a blade that is wildly unsuited for any sort of cutting whatsoever. Dangling from the pommel-nut is a leather thong strung with teeth and walnut shells.

A latticed or deformed stone that's possibly a meteorite

A malformed doll with a strange leer that wears a sackcloth dress.

A stitched up bear composed of multiple parts from different teddy bears.

A lady’s brush, elegantly carved of ivory with boar bristle. The ivory is stained and cracked, and many of the bristles are missing.

A hefty book full of notes written by many authors and inserted pages from other books. There are bite marks and slashes on the covers and some dirt might slip from between the pages when shaken.

A wizard's spellbook that was enchanted to repel liquids. Unfortunately, the enchantment is so strong that the pages cannot be written on rendering it completely unusable.

A reasonably shiny pebble.

A plank of wood whose knots and grain, crudely (At best) depict a lesser known deity of Random Domain.

A corroded metal cylinder bearing forbidden writing. The runic script bears little coherence, appearing like mad ramblings about the things beyond.

A set of brass lockpicks that couldn't possibly fit into any known style of lock.

A sheaf of poorly rendered sketches made by children.

A torn flag of an ancient city long since fallen into ruin.

A dissected and flayed corpse of a tiny fey creature.

A syringe with a squared-off crystal barrel. The plunger, flange, and needle hardware are nickel alloy ornately etched in twining, serpentine coils. Though it has no needle, and the plunger no longer seals, it is finely made, given its age.

A rotting quarterstaff made of oak wood. The staff has grips wrapped in slimy brown ape skin.

An old pair of trousers that are almost entirely made of patches and stitches, having been kept in service long past their time.

A crooked rod of dark wood with a possum skull lashed to the top.

An antique sword, rusted to its mildewy scabbard.

A length of heavy rusty chain, entangled in an impossible knot.

A thick waxy candle the colour of sickly pallid skin. When burned, the smoky odor of roasting ghoulflesh fills the room, ideal for setting the mood for foul necromantic rituals, preparing volunteers for human sacrifice, and all manner of depraved acts involving corpses.

A large bird's nest that has human finger bones woven into it.

A thick shirt of coarse brown horsehair.

A small leather pouch containing a double handful of seemingly fresh tree nuts, still in their shells.

An ugly gray wine skin, heavier than it looks, sloshes and gurgles in response to any movement.

A large, cast pewter vial containing a quantity of strangely textured sand. It clumps and sticks in a single doughy mass.

A piece of parchment bearing an unusual symbol drawn in iridescent green ink.

A long and tangled piece of twine with tiny brass bells knotted into it every few feet.

A dingy, brown leather collar with a sea serpent branded along its length is stuck on a jagged piece of splintered wood.

An intricate and spiky ball of cat and rat whiskers.

A heavy shot glass with a cat's face carved into the bottom.

A copper coin with a small hole drilled at the top and attached to a long length of fishing line.

A small, stained sack with a crudely painted figure of a halfling on the side. Opening the sack releases an odour that invokes tears and gagging to those nearby. The sack itself contains a number of crude items designed to disguise a goblin as a halfling. Laying the kit’s inventory out on the ground, you assess its value as a tool for subterfuge and determine a figure of zero. The wig leaves an odor of wet dog on your hands. The goblin disguise kit contains the following items: a chopped and damp wig made from worg fur, flesh-toned paste that burns when applied, a set of incomprehensibly disgusting false teeth, a canvas tunic with a poorly painted “shirt front,” and a pair of greasy gloves.

[serendipitee]

seeing you under the stars’ light

A lovely anon asked for flarrie with No. 55 from this list (“Our first date is a picnic on a beach under the stars? Have you swallowed a romance novel? Do I need to call a doctor?”) and I finally got around to it! This is almost 1.5k of pure fluff and I am sorry for taking so long but I hope you like it ✨

you can also find it on my ao3.

____________________________________

Flynn got dragged into the supply closet right after Biology. She was about to protest, when familiar lips met hers, a soft hum escaping instead. For a long moment the world around her disappeared, only emotions and touch and feelings occupying her thoughts and senses. It should scare her how completely lost she could get in moments like these. Out of breath, she finally rested her head against the shadow opposite of her, a dopey smile on her lips that she was glad, would never leave this room. She had a reputation to uphold after all. “A closet, really?” She chuckled.

Carrie shrugged, mumbling something against her lips before capturing them in another kiss. “What was that?”, asked Flynn innocently, tucking a strand of hair behind Carrie’s ear. Rolling her eyes, the blonde bit her bottom lip gently. She let out a huff. Flynn could feel the movement under her hands which rested on Carrie’s neck, playing with her necklace. “History was boring without you.” “Aww, you missed me?” Flynn teased, lightheartedly, pecking Carrie’s lips because ever since they started kissing about two months ago, she couldn’t get enough. The first time it happened had been unexpected. There had been a party at Alex’ house, the house filled with everybody from their school and they had met in the kitchen, getting into a hissed discussion about whatever (Flynn pretended like she didn’t remember but it had been about how Carrie. Suddenly, they had been toe to toe, noses almost bumping against each other and before Flynn could stop herself, she had surged forward, kissing the other girl. She had fled the room without checking Carrie’s reaction. The second time it happened had been a surprise. It had been a week later at another party. This one at the beach and Flynn hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the blonde and how she unnerved her with every word, every look all week. She had excused herself from the conversation between Julie and her ever present crush Luke and disappeared in the waves. Carrie had shown up completely out of the blue, dragging her in a searing kiss as they bopped in the waves, clinging to each other. It had felt like drowning. The third time it had happened had been expected. The following Monday after the beach party, Mrs Harrison had put them together for a project in music class. Julie had tried to sweet-talk the teacher to let her best friend and Alex switch partners but Flynn had declined, catching Carrie’s eyes as she did so. That afternoon when she had showed up at the Wilson mansion, it hadn’t been awkward when the blonde kissed her in her bedroom and if they had fallen into an easy conversation while cuddling, Flynn couldn’t keep the smile from her face while thinking about it. Now, two months later, Flynn still liked kissing Carrie way too much but there was so much more. Like the fact, that the blonde remembered her favorite Starbucks order, bringing it with her whenever they studied together or would weave inside jokes into their conversations at school. Or how she had talked amicably with Julie at every party ever since, even inviting her to a beach day with all her friends and Flynn (they had snuck off to make out behind some rocks; it had been an amazing day). She also liked how comfortable Carrie looked in Flynn’s bedroom, on her bed, hair a mess and lipstick smeared. It should be weird, falling into feelings for a girl you thought you strongly disliked for years, but to Flynn it somehow felt inevitable. After that first kiss everything else had just slipped into place. Just because she could, she pressed another kiss to Carrie’s lips. “So, why the closet?”, she repeated her question. Flynn had come clean to Julie two days ago. Her best friend had simply raised an eyebrow, biting back the smirk and said, “Was that supposed to be a secret?” “Old habits die hard… and well, the privacy is nice, too.” Carrie pulled her into another passionate kiss, letting their tongues touch and Flynn’s heart race in her chest. The school bell made them break apart, both laughing breathlessly and picking up their bags from the floor. “You remember the date later, right?”, asked Carrie as they left the supply closet, earning themselves a few knowing glances from the students passing by. Date, their first official date. Flynn couldn’t help the tiny sprint of her heart. She tried to act nonchalant, though. “6 p.m. sharp, I’ll be ready.” “Great.” They had reached the labs, their paths separating. “See you later, Johnson.” Carrie winked, before flipping her hair over her shoulder and disappearing into the classroom. Flynn hurried to get to Math AP but Mr Fletcher had already started by the time she slipped into the room. Apologizing quickly, she fell into her seat next to Reggie. Julie’s bandmate stared at her, mouth hanging open until Flynn elbowed him into his side. “What?”, she hissed. “You, uh, you got a little bit of Carrie, right there,” he said, pointing to the corner of his mouth. Flynn couldn’t help the heat rising in her cheeks as she wiped away the lipstick Carrie had left behind. There was no point in hiding the smile, though. Reggie simply leaned over, nudging his elbow against hers. “You know Alex will have you spy on all their band rehearsals, so he can learn the choreographies, right?” Rolling her eyes, Flynn pulled out her books and pencil case. “I am not going to watch Dirty Candy’s band rehearsals,” she shot back indignantly. He huffed out a laugh. “You never know. A few months ago, you said, you hated her.” She couldn’t deny it, couldn’t come up with a well-thought-out response (that didn’t include giving away too much about Carrie’s past) either and while Reggie crowed about finally winning an argument against her, Flynn’s mind was far away, dreaming of her first official date with Carrie.

 - - -

Carrie took her bowling, both of them getting extremely competitive about it and Flynn couldn’t say what she enjoyed more; their ribbing, dissing each other with the most ridiculous insults or the quick, casual touches and kisses. When they left the bowling alley, it was already dark out and she expected the date to be over. But instead of driving her home, Carrie parked her BMW down by the beach. Flynn was about to protest, but the blonde had already left the car, opening the trunk and what else could she do, but get out as well. When Carrie showed up with a picnic basket next to her, though, Flynn snapped.

“Our first date is a picnic on a beach under the stars? Have you swallowed a romance novel? Do I need to call a doctor?” She had to resort to teasing because otherwise, she’d do something stupid, like blurt out words, that neither of them was ready to say, yet. It didn’t change the fact, that her heart felt full and light at the same time, fluttering in her chest. Carrie ignored the little snap, simply tugging her down towards the beach. They took their shoes off, the sand feeling cool beneath their feet. Only after they had sat down on the blanket, did Carrie start speak up. “I asked Julie and she said, that you had an astronomy phase in middle school and would tell her useless facts about constellations and stars every day.” “They weren’t useless,” said Flynn automatically before her mind caught up with the rest of Carrie’s statement. Oh. She had talked to Julie about this, had made an effort to surprise her, to find something new that she’d love to talk about. To keep her heart inside her body, she surged forward, kissing Carrie. It was a sloppy kiss, their mouths not really finding each other but it did the trick. When they broke away, Flynn had caught her escaping heart, calming it down enough to not fear it spilling truths left and right. She leaned forward once more, a lot more carefully this time and their next kiss was sweet, innocent and afterwards, they settled down. Their sides touched, heads so close, that if they turned them, their noses would brush against each other. “So, hit me,” whispered Carrie into the night. Flynn sought out her fingers with her hand, wounding them together. She squeezed gently, before she pulled them up towards the sky, pointing at five stars in the shape of a W. “That right there is the constellation of Cassiopeia…”

 - - -

 Years later when they moved in together after college, Carrie made sure, to hang a picture of the night sky during their first date in their bedroom. Flynn liked to call her the cheesy one in their relationship, just to have Julie remind her, that she still kept the receipt of the bowling alley in her wallet.

[newstfionline]

Sunday, June 13, 2021

Rash of mass shootings stirs US fears heading into summer (AP) Two people were killed and at least 30 others wounded in mass shootings overnight in three states, authorities said Saturday, stoking concerns that a spike in U.S. gun violence could continue into summer as coronavirus restrictions ease and more people are free to socialize. The attacks took place late Friday or early Saturday in the Texas capital of Austin, Chicago and Savannah, Georgia. In Austin, authorities said they arrested one of two male suspects and were searching for the other after a shooting early Saturday on a crowded pedestrian-only street packed with bars and restaurants. Fourteen people were wounded, including two critically, in the gunfire, which the city’s interim police chief said is believed to have started as a dispute between two parties. In Chicago, a woman was killed and nine other people were wounded when two men opened fire on a group standing on a sidewalk in the Chatham neighborhood on the city’s South Side. In the south Georgia city of Savannah, police said one man was killed and seven other people were wounded in a mass shooting Friday evening.

Summer camps return but with fewer campers and counselors (AP) Overnight summer camps will be allowed in all 50 states this season, but COVID-19 rules and a pandemic labor crunch mean that many fewer young campers will attend, and those who do will have to observe coronavirus precautions for the second consecutive year. “Camp might look a little different, but camp is going to look a lot better in 2021 than it did in 2020, when it didn’t happen,” said Matt Norman of Atlanta, who is getting ready to send his 12-year-old daughter to camp. Even though most camps will be open, reduced capacity necessitated by COVID-19 restrictions and the labor shortage will keep numbers well below a normal threshold of about 26 million summer campers, said Tom Rosenberg of the American Camp Association.

Mexico says COVID-19 has affected a fourth of its population (Reuters) About a quarter of Mexico’s 126 million people are estimated to have been infected with the coronavirus, the health ministry said on Friday, far more than the country’s confirmed infections. The 2020 National Health and Nutrition Survey (Ensanut) showed that about 31.1 million people have had the virus, the ministry said in a statement, citing Tonatiuh Barrientos, an official at the National Institute of Public Health. According to Barrientos, not all of the people in the survey’s estimate necessarily showed symptoms. The survey was based on interviews with people at 13,910 households between Aug. 17 and Nov. 14 last year, and confirmed preliminary results released in December.

Peru on edge as electoral board reviews result of disputed presidential election (Guardian) Peru was on a knife-edge on Friday as its electoral board reviewed ballots cast in the presidential election, after a challenge to the tally by the losing candidate Keiko Fujimori. The final tally gave the leftist teacher Pedro Castillo a razor-thin 50.17% to 49.83% advantage over his rightwing rival Fujimori, which amounts to about 60,000 votes. However, the country’s electoral authority has yet to confirm the win, and Fujimori, the scion of a controversial political dynasty, has refused to concede. She alleges fraud, even though national and international observers said the vote was clean, and has called for up to 500,000 votes to be nullified or reexamined, forcing the electoral board to conduct a review of ballots.

For Cornwall, G7 summit brings disruption (AP) Towering steel fences, masses of police, protests on the beach: The Cornish seaside’s turquoise waters and white sandy beaches are looking decidedly less idyllic this week as leaders of the Group of Seven wealthy democracies descend for a summit. U.S. President Joe Biden and leaders from Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan are arriving for three days of talks starting Friday at the tiny village of Carbis Bay, near St. Ives in Cornwall. The region is a popular holiday destination in the southwestern tip of England. Locals may be used to crowds and traffic jams during the peak summer tourist season, but the disruptions caused by the summit are on another level. A naval frigate dominates the coastline, armed soldiers guard the main sites and some 5,000 extra police officers have been deployed to the area. Authorities have even hired a cruise ship with a capacity of 3,000, moored offshore, to accommodate some of the extra officers. A main road is closed for the whole week, and local train lines and bus services have been shut down. A 3-meter (10-foot) tall metal fence nicknamed the “ring of steel” has been erected around Treganna Castle in Carbis Bay, where world leaders will stay. Security is also tight in the nearby town of Falmouth, the main base for international media covering the summit.

World leaders are in England, but beautiful British beaches have stolen the show (Washington Post) When President Biden shared a photo to Twitter on Thursday of him standing alongside British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and gazing out onto an unspoiled, sandy white beach from the Group of Seven summit in Cornwall, England, the post was supposed to be a tribute to the “special relationship” between the United Kingdom and the United States. But to many, it was the image of the picturesque coast that stood out. It looked somewhat suspicious. Too good to be true. Others questioned the authenticity of the scene, wondering whether it was photoshopped. Although it is true that some of Britain’s beaches have a reputation for pebbles, angry seagulls that steal food from unsuspecting tourists and diapers that float in murky waters, the county of Cornwall boasts some of the country’s best seaside destinations—complete with calm, clear waters that are perfect for swimming in and long stretches of soft sand that attract families from around the world. Carbis Bay is one of several beaches that make up St. Ives Bay, which, according to the Cornwall tourist board, is considered by the “Most Beautiful Bays in the World” organization to be one of the world’s best. The bay is described as being “surrounded by sub-tropical plants and lapped by turquoise waters.”

Ransomware’s suspected Russian roots point to a long detente between the Kremlin and hackers (Washington Post) The ransomware hackers suspected of targeting Colonial Pipeline and other businesses around the world have a strict set of rules. First and foremost: Don’t target Russia or friendly states. It’s even hard-wired into the malware, including coding to prevent hacks on Moscow’s ally Syria, according to cybersecurity experts who have analyzed the malware’s digital fingerprints. They say the reasons appear clear. “In the West you say, ‘Don’t . . . where you eat,’ ” said Dmitry Smilyanets, a former Russia-based hacker who is now an intelligence analyst at Recorded Future, a cybersecurity company with offices in Washington and other cities around the world. “It’s a red line.” Targeting Russia could mean a knock on the door from state security agents, he said. But attacking Western enterprises is unlikely to trigger a crackdown. The relationship between the Russian government and ransomware criminals allegedly operating from within the country is expected to be a point of tension between President Biden and Russia’s Vladimir Putin at their planned summit in Geneva on Wednesday. The United States has accused Russia of acting as a haven for hackers by tolerating their activities—as long as they are directed outside the country.

Pandemic relapse spells trouble for India’s middle class (AP) India’s economy was on the cusp of recovery from the first pandemic shock when a new wave of infections swept the country, infecting millions, killing hundreds of thousands and forcing many people to stay home. Cases are now tapering off, but prospects for many Indians are drastically worse as salaried jobs vanish, incomes shrink and inequality is rising. Decades of progress in alleviating poverty are imperiled, experts say, and getting growth back on track hinges on the fate of the country’s sprawling middle class. It’s a powerful and diverse group ranging from salaried employees to small business owners: many millions of people struggling to hold onto their hard-earned gains. The outbreak of the pandemic triggered the worst downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s and as it gradually ebbs, many economies are bouncing back. India’s economy contracted 7.3% in the fiscal year that ended in March, worsening from a slump that slashed growth to 4% from 8% in the two years before the pandemic hit. Economists fear there will be no rebound similar to the ones seen in the U.S. and other major economies.

‘Xi Jinping is my spiritual leader’: China’s education drive in Tibet (Reuters) Under clear blue skies, rugged peaks and the spectacular Potala Palace, one image is ubiquitous in Tibet’s capital city Lhasa: portraits of Chinese President Xi Jinping and fellow leaders. China is broadening a political education campaign as it celebrates the 70th anniversary of its control over Tibet. Civilians and religious figures who the government arranged to be interviewed on the five-day trip pledged loyalty to the Communist Party and Xi. Asked who his spiritual leader was, a monk at Lhasa’s historic Jokhang temple named Xi. “I’m not drunk ... I speak freely to you,” said the monk named Lhakpa, speaking from a courtyard overlooked by security cameras and government observers. “The posters [of Xi] coincide with a massive political education programme which is called ‘feeling gratitude to the party’ education,” said Robert Barnett, a Tibetan studies veteran scholar at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies.

Long overlooked, Israel’s Arab citizens are increasingly asserting their Palestinian identity (Washington Post) Growing up in an Arab village in northern Israel in the 1990s, Mahmoud Abo Arisheh was sure of at least two things: He was Israeli, and he was not allowed to talk politics. “Be careful, or the Shin Bet will get you,” his parents told him, referring to Israel’s domestic security service. Decades later, much has changed: Abo Arisheh is a lawyer, a poet and a theater director in Jaffa. He attends protests and talks politics freely—in Arabic, Hebrew and English. And while his citizenship may remain Israeli, the identity most dear to him is that of a Palestinian. “I didn’t know anything about being Palestinian,” said the 32-year-old, “but then I opened my eyes.” And now, it seems, so are many others. In just the past month, Palestinian citizens of Israel—also known as Israeli Arabs—have risen up in mass, nationwide demonstrations to protest Israeli evictions and police raids. They have been arrested by the hundreds following some of the worst communal violence between Arabs and Jews in Israel’s post-independence history. For a community that is often overlooked despite numbering nearly 2 million people—or about 20 percent of the Israeli population—these are momentous days indeed.

Nigerian police fire tear gas to break up protests over rising insecurity (Reuters) Police fired tear gas and detained several demonstrators in the Nigerian cities of Lagos and Abuja on Saturday during protests over the country’s worsening security situation, Reuters witnesses said. Anger over mass kidnappings-for-ransom, a decade-long Islamist insurgency and a crackdown on protesters in Lagos last October has fueled demands for the government of President Muhammadu Buhari to do more to tackle violence and insecurity. Reuters witnesses in Lagos and Abuja saw police shooting their guns into the air and firing tear gas into the crowds to disperse the demonstrators, who held placards and chanted “Buhari must go”. Officers were also seen smashing mobile phones confiscated from protesters, who also denounced the country’s 33.3% unemployment rate.