#two polar bears and two dogs with one arctic fox

[0little-miss-scare-all0]

Stuffed animals I think Dethklok would give each other

Not trying to infantilize, they all get them those fuckin man babies.

Probably cringe but I could care less honestly 😭

Not proofread suck a fart

Nathan

Pickles gets him a whale. It's a reference to the whale he'll see so maybe next time he can relate it to his stuffed animal and not worry. They also stand for strength, which adds to the overall meaning of getting over fears.

Murderface would get him a lion. He says it's a jab at how much of a perfectionist he needs to be to be proud of his work. They're also just hella fucking brutal. Lions for the win

Skwisgaar would get him some type of fish. It doesn't matter which one, just whichever he finds first. They won't be very big, just little plushies.

Toki would get him a German Shepherd. He thinks it's a cool dog and I like to think it's Nathan's favorite. He would probably get the black ones to match Nathan's hair. He likes how they're actually cute but look brutal.

Charles isn't a big giver, especially with stuffed animals. If he finds one of those brutally cute things like the baphomet plushies he'll get them. Other than that, he's just too busy to look for insanely interesting ones.

Skwisgaar

Nathan would get him that alien plush from Ikea. I don't know why that was the first thing I thought of, but it was. It's called like Aftonsparv I think. They just both find it chucklesome.

Pickles would get him a wolf. I like to think that he just obsesses over wolves sometimes and Pickles feels the need to add fuel to fire.

Murderface would get him an arctic fox. He likes to say that Skwisgaar is from the North Pole up with "Santy Claus". He also just likes them.

Toki would get him a polar bear. I just think that everyone collectively thinks that Skwisgaar is an arctic man. He's pale and has ice blue eyes so it makes sense to me.

Toki

Nathan would get him a bunny because it's his spirit animal. (Ie. The episode they aired Bloodlines, I can never remember the name)

Pickles would get him little sharks. Think Blåhaj and things related. He just thinks they're cute and Toki loves them.

Murderface would get him a tiger. He says it's better because it's like a house cat but metal. Toki would argue that house cats are quite metal, but to no avail.

Skwisgaar would get him big octopuses. He would either say it was the Kraken or Cthulhu. Whichever he felt like it being.

Pickles

Nathan would get him just that. Pickles. It would be like the Cat v Pickle plushies and if it was a cat he'd just give it to Toki or something. He thinks it's the funniest shit ever

Murderface would get him an orca. They're hella brutal and he thinks it's funny that they're actually dolphins (don't fact check me i'm pretty sure that's true)

Toki is getting him dolphins. They're the shark and dolphin duo and it's so fun. It's a gag at this point, they'll buy each other the ugliest ones.

Skwisgaar would give him a frog. He just think it fits Pickles's vibe and appearance. Not to say he's an ugly frog.

Murderface

Nathan would get him a pig. At first it seems like a jab at him, but pigs are cute! They're also known to be smart and clean, at least from what a teacher told me once.

Pickles would get him those plushies of his favorite chip bags because they're just so fun. they also crinkle because why wouldn't they.

Toki would get him lions because they're also brutal cats and he thinks he should get the same thing. Also he needs some strength in his life the poor guy.

Skwisgaar would get him a manatee. It's just an ongoing joke since the events of Doublebookedklok. They giggle about it when they get too high sometimes.

Charles

He's the gifter this time

He hates when the guys get him things because he thinks they should use their money on "more useful" things.

He'll get Nathan those Baphomet plushies. They don't have to be generally big, but if he sees one he'll get it.

Pickles would get a horse or two from him. Specially the white and black ones, considering those are the most metal horses.

Murderface would get a wrench from this son of a bitch. Not a real one like a stuffed one I hope that was clear. I think they'd both giggle a little bit.

He's also a Toki cat giver. Specifically Calico cats. If he finds one that looks like Really Cool Cat then he'll get it for sentiment.

He'll get Skwisgaar an owl. He thinks it matches him and is majestic like he is, while still kind of creepy. Also spirit animal mention.

That's it I hope you fucks enjoyed <33

[gems-of-jungle-moon]

I'm pretty bad at drawing dragons, could I have a tip on drawing them.

I don't think there's such a thing as "being bad" at drawing dragons, to be honest.

Dragons can have such a large variety of designs, especially when artists, modern or not, imagine them as something other than your standard fire breathing reptile. Folklore can't even be consistent on what a dragon is. To me, they're not too different than designing a creature from scratch, whether or not you want to make it biologically plausible (aka spec bio). So I can't specifically give you dragon design tips because I use the same process for all creatures I make.

Instead, I'll offer some things I learned about creature design in general from studying animals and from other creature designers.

It all comes down to two questions:

What is the character of this design? And what do you like to design?

It sounds vague but hear me out.

Designing a character and designing a creature aren't that dissimilar. Because by creating a creature, you also focus on what makes its shapes unique from others as you would in a lineup of characters. Think of how you can identify different real life animals based on just the silhouette alone, and the features that give it that silhouette. For example you can tell a giraffe apart from a whale just by the silhouette, right?

What I like to do is make designs that give a good idea on how the creature lives, speculative evolution, and that involves a lot of research into animal biology. Evolution is the most unhinged creature designer, after all.

Ostriches and emus convergently evolved to be built for running rather than flying, and occupy a similar niche in their environments. But if you reduce them down to a single silhouette, you can easily still tell them apart.

Here's two of my own designs to demonstrate this same idea. The left I designed from bears, wildebeest, african wild dogs, and gorgonopsids. It's a pack-hunting species that lives in warmer grasslands. Its arms are also comparatively long for the rest of its body.

On the right is a polar relative, designed from a polar bear, a seal, arctic fox (summer coat), white tailed deer (tail shape), and basilosaurus (for the teeth). Compared to the first design, it's less lean and has more bulk for keeping warm. The ears are also diminished and the snout is way shorter. Despite that they look like they are related species from different climates.

Sometimes I tend to exaggerate a part of the design, such as the neck fluff on the polar guy and the length of the nose on the left one. Even small changes can make a big difference, and sometimes unexpected features can give you the exact design you were looking for. Don't fear ugliness or uncanniness in a design.

Because another fun exercise I like to do is take the body plan of a creature and stretch another creature to fit into that body plan. It may look ugly and cursed but sometimes that's what I want.

If researching anatomy and biology isn't your thing, you still have options. You can always apply chimera rules.

I've also seen this being described as "frankensteining", where you stitch different animal features together without much adjustment. This design strategy isn't invalid, but I don't prefer it.

I know I went with a standard "dragon" look for Pink (and the other diamonds' corrupted designs are getting an overhaul), but that's because that look happens to work for what I wanted.

An easy way to approach any of these methods is to draw small thumbnails in a sketchbook or on a digital canvas while zoomed out. With references handy of course. Being able to find distinct shapes when it's smaller makes them not rely on the littler details to be recognizeable. That way you can iron out the rest once you find something you like. And hands off ctrl+z/eraser (or use it sparingly). I know it's tempting, but try and resist.

I like to use a ballpoint pen for this when on paper, because it makes me commit to the lines so I'm not constantly erasing. I get no progress if all I'm doing is erasing. If I don't like it, I take what I like about the other thumbnails and move on to the next. This process whittles away the features I don't prefer. Notice the little note I left next to the dog in the upper right.

If something isn't working out, that's completely fine. Look at references, build your visual library. Don't get discouraged. Try things out just to see how it looks, even if you end up not liking it. You still learned something from that attempt.

Hang the code. Embrace chaos. Draw and design dragons how you want to.

And to finish this off:

Don't compare yourself to others and let that make you feel bad about your art. In fact, stop comparing altogether. It's okay to be inspired, but you are on your own artistic journey. Give yourself credit for your own progress and let that motivate you.

I see too many people do this, especially when they have every reason to feel good about the stuff they made.

[arcadia-of-pluto]

Future mini-series and one-shot plans ✨️

I've got a few ideas for one-shots and fics to tide yall over until the smut hits in "Twist of Fate". 👀

I've already got a small, spin off mini-series of ToF called "Strings of Fate" (name pending), a whole bunch of hybrid one-shot series, a Fated/Soulmate one-shot series, a Tropes mini-series, a cam girl one-shot series, an android (based on Detroit become human) one-shot series, a fairy tale one-shot series, possibly a professors one-shot series, possibly a super heroes one-shot series, some possible OT2 (threesomes) and OT3 (foursomes) with not a single idea in mind, and some one-shots regarding the boys' myth 5 star cards!

I'll be explaining them below the cut! 🩷

So yall can let me know which you would like to see first, I'll tell you what I've got so far with each of them! Since I'm, also, completely unsure which I want to work on or if I want to change the idea entirely. Maybe yall will have some thoughts on how I can work the ideas a bit better as well!

I can't say much on the spin-off since it's major spoilers for ToF and, so, I'll probably start it after I get up to 25 or 30 chapters in posting ToF.

The hybrid ideas though...I have a lot. I got most of these (if not all of these ideas besides the hybrid ones) from my scrapped BTS fic ideas so if I decide to write BTS ones, you might see some overlapping.

Oh right, let me explain Hybrids for those who might not know. They're basically like nekos, think of those hot cat girls in anime. They're humans with animal parts or characteristics!

But anyway, the first section is "Prey Hybrids". I have Rafayel down as an axolotl, Xavier as a frosty Holland lop rabbit, Sylus as either a sika deer or a tufted deer (both are native to south asia and I have no idea which one to use), and Zayne as a Black Beauty sugar glider.

Next section is "deadly hybrids". I have Rafayel under Great White Shark (they have two penises so I could use this in the story), Xavier as a Grey Wolf (wolves can knot 👀), Sylus as a melanistic tiger, and Zayne is a leopard seal. Now, I'm not sure how I'll make Zayne into a leopard seal hybrid, I was going to use a snow leopard but...I have a "polar hybrid" section coming up soon and also I didn't want two big cats in one part.

Now, we're onto "domesticated hybrids" so think of your cats, dogs, any animal that humans have thought "hey, that'd be a good pet" fits here. Rafayel is a calico koi fish (still undecided here), Xavier is a Corgi (I thought golden retriever but I didn't want to say the obvious), Sylus is a black smoke Maine Coon, and Zayne as an Agouti Husky.

"Uncanny Hybrids" is our next category and for uncanny, I wanted to do hybrids that not a lot of people write for. Like you usually see cats, dogs, octopi, sharks, squid, and stuff like that so I wanted to do the ones that not many people would do and that's difficult. Rafayel would be a chevrotain (which is a mouse deer with little fangs), Xavier would (fittingly) be a sloth, Sylus would be a vampire bat, and Zayne would be a Kangaroo (I might swap Sylus and Zayne but do note that Kangaroo have two penises as well; and I have no idea how to explain to my FBI agent just why my search history is filled with stuff like this but I must do my research for stories 😞).

Two more categories. We have "Polar hybrids" as mentioned earlier and "Mythological Hybrids".

For the polar ones, Rafayel is an arctic fox, Xavier is a penguin, Sylus is a snow owl, and Zayne is a polar bear!

As for the mythological, it's half unfinished. I only have Rafayel as a kitsune and Sylus as a cerberus/hellhound hybrid with Y/n being the daughter of Hades.

The Fated/Soulmate series! I'm unsure what to call this exactly. I might have it under "Fated mini-series" but it's going to be four different one-shots with each of the guys under a different soulmate trope. So you can give me feedback about this as well or even comment something you'd want to see instead or even help add upon the idea itself!

Rafayel's soulmate trope would be the "colourblind until you touch" trope. Where everyone is colourblind until you meet your soulmate but for an added twist, the first touch from your soulmate leaves an imprint wherever they touched. So, for example, Rafayel grabs your arm as you try to leave and it leaves a pretty, water-coloured imprint on your wrist. I think that would be a fitting and cute combination for Rafayel.

Xavier's soulmate trope would either be "dreams of a past life together", so you both dream of your past life and have to find the person in your dreams, or "at a young age, you can make something and send it to your soulmate. This item will be key in finding your soulmate as an adult." So, let's say you send Xavier the star sword tassel and he sends you a crystal (imagine the protocore he tries to give the mc in his anecdotes). Then, as adults, you see Xavier walking to class with the charm on his backpack while your grandma, Josephine, turned the crystal into a necklace. Edit; this has been changed to a "tattoo mark" appearing when making contact with your soulmate annnnd the guideverse (so think espers and guides)

Zayne's is, by far, my favourite idea. It's "once you touch your soulmate, you get opposing evols". So similar to "opposites attract". You're childhood friends with Zayne and for some reason (spoilers), you wear gloves so you can touch anyone. Zayne also wears gloves in solidarity with you but, one day, he forgets his gloves and catches you when you slip. His hands touch your bare elbows and suddenly, he has an ice evol and yours is fire. For some extra angst, fire is traumatic for you and so is the thought of soulmates.

Sylus's is more of a funny idea than anything. A "tangible red string of fate" so similar to the evol linkage in game. He can drag you around with it and everything. It gets more visible and stronger the more you think about the other person, so at first its barely even noticeable and he can't move you with it. But soon, he can literally drag you out with him and you can play a funny game of tug-of-war with it. Edit; I really want to change this one so i might hold a voting for it as well

I also had the fleeting idea of grumpy x sunshine but that's more of a "trope" than a soulmate trope.

I also have another good fate idea for Rafayel, a stand-alone one. This soulmate au would be "your soulmate is from another world and you get dreams of their day-to-day life. You must decide if you'll cross over to their world by your 23rd birthday and, if you choose not to, you'll lose your connection to them." In this au, Rafayel would be the God of the Sea and you would be an average person. Rafayel would be more than willing to leave his life for his soulmate but as the last God of the Sea...You end up making the decision for him.

The Tropes mini-series;

So this one is a four-shot with an accumulation of tropes. So each LADS boy will have a one-shot of a different trope. Like friends to lovers, rivals to lovers, etc.

I could've went the obvious route and chose Zayne or Xavier as childhood friends to lovers but I didn't want the easy way out to be honest.

The trope I chose for Rafayel is "amnesia". You've lost your memory and woke up in the hospital with a man seated next to you. His hand desperately gripping your own as if he were a balloon about to fly away. "Uh...hello?" You ask, your throat feeling dry as if you hadn't spoken in weeks. "Y/n!?" The man jerks awake with wide eyes. Tears flood his waterline and he gently cups your face. You can feel his hands trembling and you tilt your head to the side, confused, "Are you...my boyfriend?" "What-" Rafayel looked confused, but it only takes a few seconds before he nods, "Yes. I'm Rafayel, your boyfriend."

In actuality, you're his bodyguard and you got injured trying to protect him. He lies to you because he doesn't want you to put yourself in danger for him anymore.

Edit; this one has since been changed to "love at first sight" + reincarnation + slight enemies to lovers

Xavier's trope is a complete flip on what you would originally expect. I chose "rivals to lovers" for him, just because I had a small idea where he could be a lightseeker and you would be the other faction. (I forgot the names of the knights on Philo, they're from Xavier's lightseeker myth if you're confused) But you also get annoyed with Xavier because he keeps putting off his princely duties. Annnnd it would be funny to call him "Princess". I have since changed mind and Xavier's "Pragma(tic) Love" is out now!

Zayne's trope is also not "friends to lovers". Instead I thought "forbidden love". This one is a bit of a stretch and I can tweak it if it's unliked but this would be a fantasy au where Zayne is from the Kingdom of Linkon and he's a saint blessed by Astra (the God from his Forseer myth) and you are a princess from the Kingdom of Philo. You were blessed by the Goddess Lux (I made her up and her name means light) and you've come to Linkon's Kingdom to possibly marry their prince, Greyson (I didn't want to use a love interest for this role), and unite the kingdoms. Instead you, a princess from a kingdom who doesn't believe in Astra, and Zayne, a follower of Astra, fall in love. Also, Zayne's powers cannot affect you because of Lux's blessing, which gives you the ability to resonate (make other's powers stronger), heal, and create a ball of light so hot that it feels like fire itself. Edit; this one has been changed to "brother's best friend" <3

Now, Sylus is our friends to lovers! A modern au friends to lovers where your mother is a top operative in Onychinus, a crime syndicate led by Sylus's parents. You meet while young (but not too young) and have a seven year age gap. You've always had a crush on Sylus, since you were little, and Sylus possibly does but he avoids thinking about it because of your age difference. At 30, he feels like he's way too old for you, at 23 in this. Now, to not make it weird, your mother passes away and you're sent to your grandma, Josephine's to live a better life away from all the crime. You grow up there from highschool, all the way until college when disaster strikes. On your way home for springbreak with Caleb, your friend- who your grandmother took in, your home explodes. The blast kills both Caleb and your grandma. This was clearly an attack by a rival gang and Sylus steps in to take you back to Onychinus.

Edit; this one has been changed as well, I'm unsure of what just yet though, but there's a voting for what it could be! (Sept 2, 2024)

I hope you guys aren't tired of this by now! But either way, I'll keep going since I'm not done yet. I just wanna put my ideas out there and figure out which I should be working on as I post my weekly chapters for "Twist of Fate".

The next category is the "camgirl" mini-series. This one was a must-have to add because I've read so many BTS camgirl one-shots and loved them so much. I doubt any of the four guys would ever want their love on camera for everyone to see but they might not mind as much if they're on screen with her...

So for Sylus, I already have a name. I came up with it at work- "Welcome to the Puppet Show".

The idea is as follows, "Sylus strings you up like a puppet with his evol during one of your weekly cam-sessions." That's it. That's all I got.

For the rest, Xavier's would be the usual. He's your childhood friend and he recently gifted you a necklace for your birthday. His friend, Jeremiah, tells him about this camgirl website and jokingly shows him a few videos. After this, Xavier has been watching your lives for a while now until he notices something peculiar in today's session. You're wearing the necklace he gave you. He instantly knows it's you because he got the necklace custom made and he confronts you about it.

Rafayel is a tattoo artist and he recently gave you a tattoo. It was a pretty unique one so he'd never forget what it looked like, especially where you had it done. A cute, little koi fish ying-yang under your breast. He sees the tattoo in one of your cam-sessions and I'm not sure how you would meet up after that, if I'm honest so let's move on to Zayne.

Zayne is your partner during your cam-shows. He's your close friend from school and once he learnt of your cam-shows, he casually offers to be a part of them for when your fans get tired of your solo lives. He's always only lent a hand, never actually fucking you. Neither on camera nor off. But on your final live, you ask him to fuck you. This is your final live because you're planning on confessing your feelings for him afterward.

Now, we're onto the most unsure one of all; the Android mini-series.

The Android mini-series is, once again, solo one-shots compiled into a series. This series was heavily taken from an old bts mini-series I had. Like Rafayel's would've been Taehyung's (his model would've been the Vante KTH7-1230), Xavier's would've been Jimin's (his model would've been PJM7-1013), Zayne's would've been Namjoon's (his model being Holmes 2.0 KNJ7-0912), and Sylus's would've been Yoongi's (his model being OG Holmes MYG7-0309). So, I might change Zayne and Sylus's models because I might want to write this idea for bts in the future, but just let me know if you want to see it and I'll make some changes!

For Rafayel's, you were fully colourblind when you were younger but you were deadset on becoming an artist. Your grandma, Josephine, had always wanted the best for you so she worked many days of overtime at her job until she could finally afford a corrective surgery- but only for one eye. You've gotten the surgery, which was replacing your original eye with an android one so now you have one e/c (eye colour) eye and one magenta eye. Later on in life, you were finally in college for an art degree and your professor gifts you his old android. A Delaux model (the model is named after a famous artist who painted mermaids) with the ID number RF04-0306. The Delaux model of androids are used to help artists with colour correction and matching, give input on what would sell best or look more appealing to buyers, and even give an artist ideas for artworks or create compelling backstories that their artwork could be based upon. All Delaux androids have unnatural coloured hair since it's against their coding to have nature hair because it's normal and therefore boring for such an artsy android model. Rafayel is the only Delaux model with his hair colour.

Next up is Xavier. He's a Lux model android with the ID XV04-1016. Lux model androids are primarily used as an assist for the military and police force as replacements for the K-9 unit, so they're lithe and light on their feet. These models always have blonde or silver hair if they work for the police and black hair if they're affiliated with the military. If they have any different hair colour, then the Lux model is considered defective and is terminated. These models cannot be kept by the public because they're a higher caliber of android, unless they are protecting a rich client. For your story, you find him in an alleyway or maybe a garbage dump and he's half destroyed. You decide to bring him home to your mechanic shop (your home is above the shop) to repair him. Once your power him on, he remembers nothing so you decide to keep him around- almost as if he's a stray dog. Also, in this story, you have an android arm. For this one, I'm 100% sure if I want him to be a military android but it makes sense for him. It was either this or a sex worker android and I feel like that doesn't fit with him..

Zayne is a Holmes 2.0 model android with the ID number ZY04-0905. The one and only Holmes model in existence since the last one was shut down because it was ruled compromised (or deviant) after a various amount of tests. The Holmes model is a less animalistic version of the Lux model; These androids are more intuitive and less likely to instigate conflict. Black hair is their only choice of hair colour, anything else and they will be decommissioned. In this, you are a damn good detective. The best there ever was...until your accident. You miscalculated an explosion radius during your last big mission and it costed you big time. You ended up losing both an arm and a leg. Your boss (the chief of police) compensated you for your injuries. He provided you with an android arm and leg to replace what you had lost and a brand new Holmes 2.0 model android to be your little sidekick for the next few months, until you can get used your new limbs. This would be his first official test run before the EVER corporation created more of his model. But you hated it. You felt useless to your team and you felt less human with your new android add-ons. You pretty much took out your anger on your newly acquired android because they gave you an android to solve a problem that an android caused in the first place! Damn defective android almost killed you, all because it "didn't want to die". I love the premise of this but Holmes doesn't fit with Zayne's aesthetic. I can always swap him to a medical assistance android where Y/n has a heart condition and Zayne is her android that takes care of her but it's up to yall! If I change Zayne, I have to change Sylus's though because their models go hand in hand for the story.

And lastly, we have Sylus. He...can't remember his model name but he knows his ID number, SL04-0418. Though, every time he looks up his ID number, he gets no results. Nothing. It's almost as if his model never existed or...it was decommissioned. That would mean he's defective and he doesn't want to admit that. He doesn't want to be shut down. After searching, he soon learns that he might be the original Holmes model but...it's not like he can just ask anyone, they'd shut him down if he asked..right?

You have worked in the big, shiny and glaringly white EVER corporation building for years at this point, creating and customizing many androids that are constantly in every day use. You painstakingly detailed everything about these androids from their faces to even their personalities and the very first Holmes model was no exception. You grew very close to this android during the years of designing and creating him, you even gave him a name. Sylus. He was one of your favourites, out of all of your creations, and...he was decommissioned. You honestly never thought you'd see him again until you were brought in to shut him down and you couldn't bring yourself to do it. You had loosely based his looks on an old friend whom you had a one-sided crush on. From his hair to his eyebrows, his physique and even the scar on his chest. You were able to take full creative liberties with the very first Holmes model android because, well, it was the first in existence. But now, he's just called a failed prototype. You made him too...human. Too independent and strong willed. This wasn't the designated personality for a Holmes model android and this ultimately led to a cop becoming gravely injured on Sylus's first mission. The negligence caused by your own hand haunts your every day because you could've killed someone. It would've been your fault, after all. But now with that android, your android, standing right in front of you once more...You can't seem to let him go. You can't lose him, not for a second time. You're willing to throw your whole job away to protect him, sick and tired of androids being treated horribly just because they're becoming self aware and more human. So again, let me know if you like this idea and if you do, I hope you won't mind if I end up re-hashing it when I possibly make my bts android mini-series <3 because I genuinely can't think of anything that works with Sylus. Nothing else really makes sense but I'm also unsure of how the story would go with this one 🤔

I think we're at the half-way point! This is where it goes downhill to be honest. The only good one here is the first one, I feel, but if I thought about it more, I'm sure I'd find better ideas for the other guys.

Rafayel's fairy tale story is quite obvious. It's "The Little Mermaid" but flipped. You would be Eric and Rafayel would be Ariel, however Eric would be the one wanting to be part of Ariel's world. You've seen him in the ocean multiple times from your beach house. Honestly, the first time you saw him, you thought he was drowning but then you saw the beautiful purple and blue tail fin that adorned his lower half. He was...a mermaid? Every day for a few weeks, you'd take some time out of your day just to watch him breach the surface and play around with the seagulls. He would sometimes sit atop driftwood and large boulders in the ocean. He was a sight to behold. And then, he began to take notice of you. Eventually, the two of you begin engaging in conversation- but not before he accuses you of wanting to fillet him like a fish. As the two of you grow close and he tells you stories about his home, Lemuria, you decide you want to be a part of his world. You find a traveling witch and she gives you an ultimatum. You can become a mermaid to live with Rafayel but you must give something up equal in return. Now, the tricky part is, I'm not sure what I want for Y/n to lose. I don't want it to be her voice, her eyesight, her emotions, so I'm thinking maybe she gains a heart condition so she can be with him but not for a long time. Though, this heart condition can be cured with an act of passion. An action that would tug on anyone's heart strings would be enough to snap the strings of Y/n's heart back into place. Also some mermaids are depicted with two penises so...Yeah!

Xavier's is yet another obvious one. I decided to go with "Sleeping Beauty" but I can always change it if I can find a better one. On the day the little prince was born, a warlock appeared and let out a cackle, "I shall curse the sole heir to Philo's throne. This kingdom has brought many sufferings to warlocks and witches alike and it shall be brought down by the prince himself!" The warlock, named Luminous (I came up with that on the spot but it's a parallel to Maleficent and Lumiere) also cursed the king and queen with infertility so they couldn't just have another child. And so, on Prince Xavier's 23rd birthday, Luminous reappeared and unsealed the curse upon the prince. Thorns erupted through the banquet hall, wrapping around the entire castle, and whomever was pricked by the thorns fell into a deep slumber. 50 years have passed since the kingdom of Philo fell into a deep slumber and you, a witch who was also childhood friends with the prince, decide to sneak into the castle and plunder it for any treasures it may hold. While searching, you prick your finger on a thorn and panic, thinking you will also succumb to the curse. However, you don't. This could be because you're a witch or because you're just the protagonist. Either way, this leads you to believe that you could wake Xavier up and this option would pave the way for more money in the future so it's your best opportunity for some quick wealth. As you head over to Xavier, pondering on how you could wake him up, you end up tripping over something on the floor and you land on top of him. Your lips crashing into his and you can taste your own blood. Congrats, you've awoken sleeping beauty! :D

Sylus's story...I'm torn between "Rapunzel" and "The Beauty and the Beast". He's got the Flynn Ryder aesthetic but also the Beast's at the same time so once I come up with a storyline, I'll probably make my decision.

Zayne's is also another hard decision. I could go for the obvious "Frozen" or perhaps Mulan. I'll explain my Frozen storyline though since that's all I've got. So Zayne is Elsa and you have the power of fire. (I haven't seen Frozen 2 but I think there's a girl who wields fire in it?) You don't know that you have this power and you were a princess who was just banished from your Kingdom, Philo, due to the false charge of trying to murder your step mother, the queen. You were banished from your warm kingdom to a desolate, snowy forest in the Kingdom of Linkon. And here, you stumble upon Zayne's ice castle that he created with his powers. Now, the story behind your false charges is, your step mother went from a mistress to a queen after your mother passed away and your step mother got rid of you because she wants her son, the king's non-bilogical, to be next in line for the throne instead of you. So, instead of fighting your way to go back home, you convince Zayne to allow you to stay in his castle until the snow storm outside subsides and you can leave. Soon, you learn of your fire powers and Zayne offers to aid you in learning how to use them. Also, Zayne's younger brother Greyson (He is Ana here) and his girlfriend Yvonne (She is Kristoff) are the rulers of Linkon because Zayne locked himself away in the castle in fear that his powers would hurt someone.

Here's where the ideas get less and less detailed. This was another mini-series taken from my old bts ones and honestly, I might not even write these but I thought it would be nice to add them here just in case.

Zayne would be an English professor with you as his teaching assistant. Even though you're an assistant, you also do some classwork to bide your time when you're not busy and even turn it in to Zayne to have him 'grade' it. This week's essay for a romance essay and you decided to write a steamy little romance essay for fun and submit it to Zayne after class. A week passes by and you're worried he either saw it and didn't care or he's going to mention it when you leave expect it- which he does the latter. He's intrigued at how knowledgeable and intimate the scenes are, and questions if you've done something like this before. You respond that you're a virgin and Zayne asks, "Would you like to feel how your essay would play out?"

For Rafayel, I'd do the obvious choice of an Art Professor with you as his teaching assistant (you're always the teaching assistance because Professor x student feels a bit icky to me, just the power dynamic and everything. I'm not too into writing it). Anyway, he needs you to be a model for a painting but never tells you just what kind of model.

Sylus's could be a physical education professor, I'm not sure if that's even a type of professor? (I didn't go to college so I wouldn't know) but I'm on the fence about this one. I could base it loosely off of his boxing 5 star card.

Xavier would be the Theatre/Drama professor and he needs you to be his supporting actress for rehearsals. Maybe you both are participating in a big play with the students and you need to practice your lines?

Because these ones are specifically so short, I'm not going to add a break in-between. It feels unnecessary but the next idea is superheroes. Honestly since I love Spiderman so much, I might make them all spiderman but for now...here's the ideas.

Xavier would be Lumiere (comparable to Spiderman), Rafayel would be spiderman (because I don't want to write aquaman-), Zayne could be winter soldier, and Sylus might fit as Iron Man. So in these stories, you'd be Iron man's secretary (so think Pepper), spiderman's best friend, lumiere's biggest fan and probably a reporter, and I'm drawing a blank on winter soldier.

The superhero one is honestly my weakest link when it comes to these one-shots but I really want to give it a shot.

Then, the actual one-shots that wouldn't be in series's would be all of their 5 star myth cards but reimagined. So I wouldn't write them word for word, just loosely base them on it.

The only example I have is for the Sea God myth.

So in this story, you're still an orphan being raised by the emissaries as a sacrifice for the Sea God but you have grandma Josephine, who was a clergy woman at the church you were confined to. She would tell you all kinds of stories about Lemuria and the people who lived under the deep sea. Then, on your 19th birthday, she passes away and shortly after, you were thrown into the sea as a sacrifice for the Sea God. I set the age at 18/19 just because Rafayel's coming of age ceremony to become the Sea God is within the 5 star myth cards and usually your coming of age ceremony (at least in ro-fan manhwas) is around the age of 16 to 19.

Annnnd that should be it! I really wanted to add my space/alien! Bts au since I really like it and will more than likely write it in the future, but this isn't a bts post so I don't want to write about them too much here but if you want to hear about it then I might make a separate post about it!

With that being said, I hope you enjoyed reading through my ideas for the future and have some that you're looking forward to! Other than that, my next post will be Chapters Six and Seven for "Twist of Fate" on late Friday or sometime Saturday! I don't have an exact time since I'll have to cross-post to both wattpad and AO3 but it'll be one of those two days. I'll possibly even post chapter eight as well, but I'm not too sure yet since I'm writing chapter twenty and I don't want to post too many chapters at once. I'll see y'all once more on friday/saturday! 🩷

[ultrastudios]

A peak into the world I've created: The Galaxy!

Zethron is only one of 7 Universes in it's galaxy, not including the center megaverse that they orbit! Each universe has a set "habitat" or biome with set species that we see in each habitat. Each universe will rarely cross with the same kind of species, but it does happen due to the origins of their creation.

There will be another post to define magics, guardians, etc. I promise 🥰

Zethron ~ Woodland Forest

While inhabited by Demons and Angels [2 of 13 Races] which evolved from wolves and doves, it also includes a familiar set of species! Ex. Hedgehog, Rabbit, Lynx, Robin, Fallow Deer, Hawk, Fox, etc.

Magic demons inherit stem from their parent magic- Archaic.

Angels get their magic types from another parent magic- Divine.

Miridian ~ Tundra

This universe is home to another two races -Pantheon and Kitsune-, Pantheons evolved from Arctic Deer and Kitsune from Arctic Fox. Its a cold place so their species sets include the following and more! Ex. Snowy Owl, Polar Bear, Puffin, Caribou, Arctic Hare, Bighorn Sheep, Lemmings, etc.

While Pantheons posses magic similar to that of their parent magic- Cosmic Magic.

Kitsunes have magic that originally started as pure Time Magic.

Rennora ~ Tropical Rainforest

As you can expect, its the most colorful of the universes. It inhabits the Amphithere, derived from Boa Constrictors, and Seraphim, stemming from Blue Morpho Butterflies. The species honor the colorful beauty of the Tropical Rainforests. Ex. Spider Monkey, Capybara, Kinkajou, Two-Toed Sloth, Poison Dart Frog, Tapir, Toucan, etc.

The Guardian of Ampthieres possesses Dimensional Magic, the parent magic to their race.

Meanwhile the Seraphim Guardian has Heartward Magic, passing down other forms to their significant race.

Kotania ~ Under The Sea

A world in the deep seas run by two more races, the Leviathan which evolved from Jellyfish and the Kraken who expectedly came from squid! These scaly set of species are not one to mess with! Ex. Seahore, Vampire Squid, Great White Shark, Dolphin, Orca, Catfish, Yeti Crab, etc.

But not only waterbound ones! Believe it or not there are infinite sandy islands what inhabit tribes of on-land sea creatures too. Ex. Pelican, Seagull, Hermit Crab, and Otter.

However, the Kraken Guardian parents the magic called Power.

The Leviathan Guardian's parent magic is called Elemental.

Veron ~ Desert

In the hot, sandy lands of Veron lies the Pooka, a race that can't be described better than a fuzzy Kangaroo, and the Pegasus which could not come from any other than the Wild Horse. Their species will be exactly what you can expect. Ex. Jackel, Road Runner, Meerkat, Camel, Carcal, Tarantula, Scorpian, etc.

Pooka magic come from their parent magic named Illusion.

While Pegasi have magic stemming from a parent magic called Spirit.

Agape ~ Savannahs

Dry grass and rare trees inhabit two of the last races. One of which is the Pheonix, the final form of what was previously a peacock. And lastly but definitely not leastly, the Ghoul Race, originally known as Vultures. Common species of the grassy landscapes include the following. Ex. African Lion, Ostrich, Zebra, Wild Dog, Giraffe, Elephant, Hippo, etc.

The Ghoul race magic stem from their parent, Sacrificial Magic.

And finally, the Pheonix, probably surprisingly, stem from the veins of Stormforce magic.

Outis - Bad Lands

Ņ̷̨̧̬͇̗̝̘̟͈̤̻͎͕̻̝̙̜̠͍̠̠͉͇̰̜̘̺̖̩͎̲̭̙̣͊͋̇̈͒́̀̇̒͛̈́̇̀́̊̉̏̇̇́̂͋̑̔̀͐̅̃̌̔͊͌̊̄̀̊̉͘͠ơ̷̡̢͔̹̙̦̝̠̊̍̂̇͑̏͊̎̅̅́̈͌͒̀̏̈́͌̓̂̓̈́̌̓̂̐͂͗͐̔̕̕͝ͅ ̵̨͎̱̠͓̝̞͉̣̭̼͍̜̳̮͔͚̺͇̘͕͍̪̭̍̆̂̀̽̒́̀͂͌̂̄̈́͒̅̉̒́̀̀͑́̈́̃̾͘̚͜͜͝ͅͅL̷̠͖̹̱͍̩̽̀́̈́ȯ̶̳̜̘̩̮͖̼͕͍̥̼̼͔͉͓̼̜͑̔͋̀͜͜ͅn̵̢̧̝͎̹̥̟̪̭̠̬̼͔̞̮̘͕̫̜̖̤̼̼̖̞̱̱̹̪̲̘̰̄̍̓́́̀̊͑͐̆̑͌̆͂̃͗͐͐̈̿̋͒̿͐̆͛̈́̀͂̏͘͘͜͝͝͝͝͝͠g̶̢̢̡̗͉͖͓͆̋̒̈̂̅͑̅̀͌̀̈͘̕͘͝͝͝ȩ̸̧̡̛͎͉̖̖̠̤͍̭͕̜̭͕͈̲̺͔͈̼̗̳̰̗͓̬̯̠̜̟̺̬̲̥̼̮̟̮̺̾͛̅͘͜r̸̡̢̛̛͖̭̜͕̟͙̳̞͑̋͂͗̑̒́̈́̈́̈͊́̈͂̔̏̇̎̀̓̉̓̕͠ ̶̢̧̺̭̖͕͖̗̼͗̄́̈͜͠͝A̴̧̧̨͖͉̜̰̮̠̳͔̦̘̟̩͎̪͙̠͚͚̖̰̞̪̞̥̗̪̰͖͉̻̲̯̰̥͔̼̰̠̯̹̬̰̲̬̅̈̏̓͑͆͛̿̈̽̾̆̑͗̆̕̚͠ͅͅc̴̨̛̛͉̠̪̙̰͙͇̪̦̰̰̱̝̦̳̞̘̲̖͙̲̻̰̱͈̩̣͙̩̭̣͑͐̆͊̅́̓̽̔̊͊͐̍̓̌͆̃̉̐̓͘͘̚͝͝͝ͅc̶̡̨̛̛̛̛̻̻͔̘̯̯̼̪̙͖̤̹̱͔͇̳̺͓͒̾̈̑͂̃̒̃̋̀̈́̒̉̍̒́̓́͌͗͗͊̿̈̐̊̑̽̈̋͛͜͝ė̵̡̧̧̡̨̧̛̺̲̥̺̺̞̤̥̫̯̻̰̬̯̙͎̙͚̳͈͚̲͙̎̂͑̋̾̇̌̒̉̀́̀̀̈̑́́͊́͛̄̒̉̒͘͝͠͝͝͝s̶̨̢̢̧̨̨͚͉̘̠̻̞͍̼̪̹͉͖̜̮̣̜̗̫̠̗͉̣͍͍͐́̀̊̈̒́̋̿̅̂̈́͛̒͐̊̇͂̔́̿̎̈́̈́͛̆̇͒̄̃͆̕͘̚̚͘͝͝s̸̢̧̢̛̰͇̺̝̭̦̜͓̭̼͉̺̠̼̻̱̞̣̭̭͇̘͍̗̘̱͍̰̯̫͙̀̍̅͂̍́͜ͅi̸̧̞͍̪̦̪̫̹̩͙̺̠̲͔͈̠̓́̔̿̄̑̇̽͗̉̏̉͑̌̽̂́͑̀͊͑͋̑̏̃͌͠͝͠b̴̡̢̧̢̛̛̛̺̼̻̬͍̼̗͔̯͉̼̪̭͔͎̱̩̗̖͔̣̱̭̼͉̟̬̬͓̦̣̤̣̩̤͔͙̟̘̮͆͂̀̒̈́̽̂̿͌̋̒̇͋̊͗̾̍̅͌̓̒̂͘͜͠l̸̡̧̡̛̛̪̫͔̠̼͙̠͇͖̼͙̠̬̙̗̗̬̥͇̦̗̱̬̳̳̫̟̭͉͉̥̹̻̱̥̣̝̾̾͊̊̄̎̊̈̎̏̅̄̈͆́̄̓̌͋́̈́̚͘͜͜͠͠ë̵̯͔̘̺͌͂̀͐́

[spacefinch]

Star Trek/Octonauts AU short story

(Note: this takes place in the Octonauts universe!)

Part 1

It was an ordinary day aboard the Octopod. Peso Penguin was tending to his patients in sick bay. Tweak Bunny was hanging out in the launch bay, making sure everything was shipshape. Professor Inkling was in his library. (The old octopus rarely left his books.) Kwazii Cat was taking the Gup-B out for a spin. Captain Barnacles was at HQ with Dashi Dog and Shellington Sea Otter, monitoring ship functions.

One of the lights on the communications panel began flashing. “Captain, we’re being hailed,” Dashi said.

“Put it through. On screen,” Barnacles ordered.

“Aye, sir.”

The viewscreen showed the interior of another ship— the engineering room, judging by all the panels and pipes and conduits. Standing in front of a console was a gray-brown cat. He wore an engineer’s uniform, similar to Tweak, except his collar and tool belt were red, rather than blue. “Hello… uh, Captain Barnacles, is it?” he spoke in a thick Scottish accent.

“Yes, that’s me,” the polar bear replied. “Is there something you want?”

“Well,” said the cat, “I was wondering if I could talk to Shellington.”

“Of course! He’s right here.” The video camera panned over to Shellington’s science console.

“Shellington!” the cat exclaimed. “I haven’t seen ye in a long time!”

“Scotty!” Shellington exclaimed with just as much excitement.

Barnacles and Dashi exchanged looks. “You know this cat?” Dashi asked.

“Why yes,” Shellington replied. “Scotty’s one of my oldest friends. I’ve known him since I was a pup.”

“Aye. And it’s been too long since I’ve visited. I should like to beam aboard your ship.”

Someone

With that, the viewscreen went dark.

“Tweak, prepare to receive visitors,” the captain ordered.

A few minutes later, two figures materialized in the launch bay. One was a gray cat— no doubt this “Scotty” that had called earlier. The other was a lanky brown creature that looked remarkably like an otter, but had more triangular ears and a bushier tail. If I remember right, that’s a pine marten, Tweak thought.

“Welcome aboard,” said Tweak. “But how did you get all the way here?”

“We have something called a transporter aboard our ship,” Scotty replied. “It can teleport anyone, anywhere. Does your ship not have one?”

“No. I never thought of putting one on the Octopod,” Tweak admitted. “But it could be useful, now that you mention it.”

Just then, the ship’s alarms blared. “Octonauts, to the HQ!” Shellington’s ’ voice announced over the intercom.

“What’s going on?” the pine marten asked.

“It’s the Octo Alert,” Tweak explained. “Something’s going on.”

By the time the three of them got to HQ, the rest of the crew was there.

“Where?”

“Where?”

“What happened?”

“What’s the emergency?”

“There’s no emergency,” Shellington replied. “I just wanted all of you to meet an old friend of mine. Octonauts, this is Engineer Montgomery Scott. He’s the second officer aboard the Enterprise.”

“Call me Scotty,” the engineer said.

“And…. Who’s this?” Shellington asked, looking at the young pine marten. “I don’t believe I’ve seen you before.”

“Pavel Chekov. I’m also part of the Enterprise’s crew,” said the pine marten. He spoke in a Russian accent, reminding Shellington of the captain’s old mentor— Professor Natquik the Arctic fox. He hoped Natquik was doing all right at his research station in Antarctica. The last time they’d seen each other, he’d invited Shellington over for a cup of hot cocoa. It was the best hot cocoa he’d ever had. Perfect after a long day of studying penguins and building snow forts and having snowball fights….

“Mr. Shellington?” Chekov asked.

“What— oh! Sorry!” Shellington said, as he was yanked back to the present day. “I’m fine. Just remembering another friend of mine. Professor Natquik.”

Chekov’s ears perked up. “I know him! Or at least, I’ve read about him! I’ve read all of his research on environmental science. Did you know he’s one of the greatest naturalists ever to come from Russia?”

Scotty gave the young marten a look that said, “Not again.”

Chekov ignored the look, and continued talking about Russia. By the time he was finished, most of the crew wasn’t even listening. He didn’t seem to mind, though.

“Very interesting!” said Shellington. “Now, perhaps we’d better give the rest of the crew some space to do their work. Come, I’ll show you and Scotty around the ship.

“All right, Mr. Shellington.”

“Just Shellington is okay. But if you insist on using a title, call me Doctor Shellington.” the sea otter said. “I’m the ship’s marine biologist.”

While giving them a tour of the ship, Shellington explained to Scotty and Chekov how the Octonauts worked and how he’d come to join them. In return, Scotty and Chekov told him what it was like to serve aboard the Enterprise.

“It sounds exciting,” said Shellington. “Exploring sky and space.”

“It is exciting,” said Scotty. “Perhaps you’d like to visit our ship some time?”

Shellington didn’t have the heart to admit he was afraid of heights. And he certainly couldn’t say so in front of a Scottish wildcat and a pine marten! They were arboreal creatures, for the sea gods’ sake!

Out loud, he said. “That sounds lovely. Perhaps we could arrange a visit next week?”

To be continued….

[isthedogawolfdog]

Hello ! I just went down a long rabbithole on your blog and it is fascinating, i love learning from people passionate who know about their subject ! :D

I saw a post in august 2022 where you werent sure what define a specie, and as a biologist i'm happy to help !

A specie, commonly, is "a group of animals who could have a fertile child together, and who could meet in nature". (for example polar bear and grizzly can have a fertile kid but they dont live near eachother). Then it gets incredibly muddled, lot of debate happen, and it's not even getting into bacterial species, but that is the crux of it.

And, biology fun fact : the specie "dog" is a wolf ! It's just the domesticated form of it, like pigs are the domesticated form of hogs. It's like, if you only took the pigeons with the bluest feathers, the roundest eyes and the shortest beaks, and only made them reproduce eachother, then only took the children with the most pronounced characteristics and bred them, and so on and so on until you have, in like 50 years, a pen filled exclusively with blue birds with big round eyes and short beaks (and maybe a weird characteristic you didnt intend to have but is somehow genetically linked, like for example, now half your birds have super vibrant orange feet even tho you didnt ask for it). And you name your birds the "Pigey" and everyone want to have one in their home.

The pigey are still pigeons, and the two could breed together. It's just a sub-group of pigeons who lost the genetic variation pigeons have in nature : they lost normal genes for, say, feather coloration, and now exclusively have only one, pushed to the extreme.

It's the same with dogs ! They are a sub-group of wolfs, they are both the specie Canis Lupus ! And "dogs who went wild again", like dingos, are the same specie. (Arctic wolves are also the same specie i think)

Orher Canis species include Canis rufus (red wolf), Canis simensis (Ethiopian wolf), about five or ten others, and then Canis letrans, the coyote ! It can fully breed with wolves, but since coyotes live in plains and wolves in forests, plus the fact they both live in packs and are fairly territorials, they usually dont meet. The same goes with Canis aureus (golden jackal).

Now: if you kept your pigeys separate on an island, with no contact with pigeons, for thousands and thousands of years, they could start to change so much that they would become too weird to breed with natural pigeons : for example, their genitals stop being compatibles with normal pigeons, or their mating rituals would put off pigeons, or more often, they become genetically incompatible (they could loose or gain some chromosomes so they no longer have the same number as normal pigeons). They would then be different species ! In fact that's how species tend to form :D Wolves and dogs are not different enought yet !

I hope i didnt bore you with all this biology, and have a great day !

Hey there! Don’t worry, you didn’t bore me, I love hearing people get excited about stuff!

I think I remember which post your talking about, and I think my answer to the ask was a bit similar to what you said though I was hesitant to get too into the definition because I know there’s some controversy on what defines a species (plus general biology isn’t my strong suit, as I tend to stick with canines). And then there’s the whole chromosomal difference (like how foxes and wolves can’t breed because the number of chromosomes they have is too far off) that comes into play and I’m like ???.

And yeah, Arctic wolves are indeed a subspecies of gray wolf. I also saw an article somewhere (maybe on the IWC site) describing how it was a possibility that dogs may not be directly descended from wolves like we thought as the possible second domestication of dogs comes into play, but I’d have to fact check it. All in all, very cool and I could read about canines all day if you can’t tell.

[carriagelamp]

The books I read while clinging to sanity by my fingertips. I didn't get enough read during either month to warrant their own posts, I was just too busy and way too stressed, so here's my November and December reads combined.

The Animal Rescue Agency: Cast File: Little Claws

I’ve been on an Eliot Schrefer kick, though so far I haven’t read anything that topped Queer Ducks for me. This was a very cute youth novel about the dashing Esquire Fox, who runs the Animal Rescue Agency, who are sworn to help any animal in need. In this first case, Esquire — and her fussy rooster friend, Mr Pepper — find themselves adventuring out into the arctic to rescue a baby polar bear from a sinister poacher.

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse

I’ve seen this book celebrated but didn’t really know much about it. I bought it on a whim, wanting something cosy to read, and it delivered. It’s a collection of little passages that form a loose narrative, and is centred around being a positive, uplifting view of life. It occasionally feels a little trite, but ultimately if you’re willing to take it for what it is without being overly critical, it was a very charming experience. It has an old-fashioned Winnie-the-Pooh vibe, and the artistry of each page is lovely, so combining that with very gentle and loving affirmations it makes a nice book to sit under a blanket and read on a rainy day.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

My mom found her old, original copy of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang from when she was a kid, and since this was something I had been meaning to read for years I decided now was the time. You can definitely see Ian Fleming’s fingerprints all over it — who doesn’t love a cool, gadget-y, semi-sentient car in a battle against horrible mobsters? Add some explosions, a bit of flying, and a sweet shop theft, it really is a fun little adventure. Very different from the film, but both are good in their own unique ways.

A Christmas Carol

I love reading a Christmas novel in December but it was way too busy for me to do anything new or complex this year, so I decided to reread A Christmas Carol. You really can’t go wrong with it, Dicken’s turns of phrase and the way he portrays humanity is wonderful and it just pulls you right in. It’s such a quick, fun read that I really do recommend anyone who enjoys the films to give it a try — it’s not as intimidating as it might seem.

Failed Princesses v6

Finally, the last volume of the series! It was very overdramatic but in a quintessentially shoujo way. If you’ve ever wanted an almost cliche shoujo, but with lesbians, then this is the series for you. It starts with two very different girls — a prep and a nerd, essentially — finding themselves pushed together and slowly developing a friendship as they try to understand the other’s point of view and way of living life. As the series progresses, so do their feelings for one another.

Fortunately, the Milk

An absolutely hilarious novella about a father and his excuses for being a little late getting home from the shop with the milk his kids need for breakfast. Obviously it’s not because he got chatting with a friend, no, he was definitely dedicatedly on his way home, absolutely determined to save his children’s milk-less breakfast, only to be abducted by aliens… and it gets sillier from there. A very fast, very adorable read; it had me grinning the whole way through.

The Original Adventures of Hank the Cowdog

This was a series I remember loving as a kid but haven’t seen since. I stumbled across the first book again and decided to see if it stood up to what I remembered. In some ways it very much did! It’s about Hank, a cowdog who takes his job as Head Of Ranch Security very seriously… but unfortunately does have the intelligence of an average dog and more often than not gets himself into a lot of fuss and bother. It’s a fun mystery adventure, written to mimic a jaded private eye and the humour that a child might miss comes through for any adults reading it. Unfortunately, they’re portrayal of First Nations oh, sorry, I mean coyotes, is seriously very, very uncomfy. Like, deeply racist. So… probably wouldn’t recommend, leave it as a childhood memory.

Nintendo Adventure Books: Leaping Lizards

My brother has an old copy of a Nintendo choose your own adventure book so we decided to sit down and play it over the holidays. Written in the Super Mario Bros 3 era, this book is just completely buckwild, and the results of your choices are completely bizarre. Did it make sense? No. Was it well written? Also no. Did we laugh a lot while reading it though? Yes, it was a blast.

Orphaned

More Eliot Schrefer. This story is about a young gorilla named Snub, who lived back in prehistoric Africa and had never seen a human before… until catastrophe strikes and she finds herself separated from her family and forced to care for her little brother as these strange human creatures stalk the trees. But when Snub sees the humans violently cast out one of their own, she has a challenging decision to make. Schrefer really seems to know what he’s talking about when it comes to animals, and I like how this book is handled. It’s not a “talking animal” book, and he does a great job of portraying the world as a young gorilla like Snub might perceive it.

My Father’s Dragon

It’s been turned into a Netflix film, so of course I had to go find the book before watching the movie. The book was charming, and had that very classic 1940s kidlit vibe. Did not bother explaining any of the weirdness, just a had a fun time taking you on an adventure to Wild Island, where the narrator’s father sets about with only his cunning and a strange mishmash of supplies to try to rescue a young dragon who had been enslaved by the other animals.

Prince of Song & Sea

I was hesitant about this book — I was never a huge Little Mermaid fan and every Disney prequel, sequel, triquel is wearing on me — but I’m pretty much willing to follow Linsey Miller wherever she intends to go. And I was pleased that I did. This book focuses on the story of Disney’s Little Mermaid as told from Prince Eric’s point of view, but with a bunch of new world building and twists built into it. In this version, Ursula is a much more pervasive and threatening force, and Eric has to figure out how to protect his little kingdom from encroaching threats, fend off the increasing pirate threat, and deal with his own curse that is related to his mother’s early death. Honestly, my main complaint is that it is inherently Disney. The weakest parts of the book came from Miller’s interesting characters and lore bump up against the “pre-rendered” Disney scenes — they didn’t always mesh that well and it left me floundering occasionally. Honestly, it made me wish this was just a pure re-imagining without the movie baggage at all. But! I can’t fault anyone from getting that ~*Sweet Disney Money*~ and I honestly don’t think anyone could have handled this better. I enjoyed reading it.

The Hound of the Baskervilles // The Return of Sherlock Holmes

Well, my last month has been, in a world, hell. So we’ve returned to the ultimate comfort media: Sherlock Holmes. I reread Hound and The Return of Sherlock Holmes and I’ll probably be continuing with this into the New Year because my personal hell doesn’t look like it’s gonna let up any time soon.

[ask-aph-angel-canada]

haha it's 4:20

HAHAWHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHABAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA FUNNY NJMBER SJSJHSHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA HAHA WEED

[fallingsatellive]

I would like to offer this resource for therians, an extensive list of all of Sir David Attenborough’s nature documentaries that are available on soap2day, and a full list of what species* they each (notably, prominently) feature the natural behaviors of, separated by episode, and omitting species that were only shown dead, juvenile or being predated on. This took me a while (I have been working on it since Prehistoric Planet’s release) because I did in fact have to watch every single series in full in order to list all the species and the episodes are around 50 minutes long, but enjoy.

Long post ahead:

Most of these shows have closed captioning, which is why I’ve picked soap2day. Planet Earth is the only one that doesn’t. I did not include Dynasties and Dynasties II because each episode only features one species.

Thank you to Birch (@ambiguousmutt​) for his help (he watched about half of the episodes) so I didn’t have to do it individually. Credit goes to him as well.

*Sometimes Attenborough doesn’t say the specific species and I was too busy trying to get through the episodes to identify it. In those cases I just put the most specific name I could.

Planet Earth

Episode one (From Pole to Pole): emperor penguin, polar bear, caribou, arctic grey wolf, Amur leopard, six-plumed bird-of-paradise, superb bird-of-paradise, great white shark, African elephant, African buffalo, lechwe, baboon, African wild dog

Episode two (Mountains): gelada, walia ibex, Ethiopian wolf, guanaco, cougar, grizzly bear, markhor, snow leopard, golden eagle, grey wolf, panda, golden snub-nosed monkey, red panda, demoiselle crane

Episode three (Fresh Water): giant salamander, grizzly bear, smooth-coated otter, Nile crocodile, dolphin fish, midge, Amazon river dolphin, dorado, piranha, spectacled caiman, crab-eating macaque, snow goose

Episode four (Caves): wrinkle-lipped free-tailed bat, cockroach, bat hawk, cave swiftlet, yellow-red rat snake, Texas blind salamander

Episode five (Deserts): Bactrian camel, dromedary camel, red kangaroo, fennec fox, guanaco, long-nosed bat, Nubian ibex, flat lizard, lion, African elephant, locust

Episode six (Ice Worlds): snow petrel, Antarctic petrel, south polar skua, humpback whale, emperor penguin, eider, muskox, arctic grey wolf, polar bear, little auk, arctic fox

Episode seven (Great Plains): Mongolian gazelle, red-billed quelea, wildebeest, snow goose, arctic fox, arctic grey wolf, bison, wild ass, Tibetan fox, pygmy hog, African elephant, lion, baboon

Episode eight (Jungles): magnificent bird-of-paradise, spider monkey, howler monkey, siamang gibbon, gliding tree frog, colugo, red crab spider, African elephant, chimpanzee

Episode nine (The Shallow Seas): humpback whale, multiple corals, banded sea krait, trevally, dugong, bottlenose dolphin, Socotra cormorant, salp, comb jelly, sea lion, dusky dolphin, sea urchin, sunflower starfish, short-tailed stingray, great white shark, king penguin, fur seal

Episode ten (Seasonal Forests): Eurasian lynx, moose, crossbill, wolverine, western capercaillie, pine marten, great grey owl, pudu, kodkod, mandarin duck, cicada, red deer, Amur leopard, tiger, mouse lemur

Episode eleven (Ocean Deep): whale shark, oceanic whitetip shark, common dolphin, Cory's shearwater, manta ray, sea spider, vampire squid, spider crab, unnamed deep sea eel, giant isopod, chambered nautilus, Pacific spotted dolphin, mola mola, frigatebird, sailfish, blue whale

Planet Earth II

Episode one (Islands): pygmy three-toed sloth, Komodo dragon, sifaka, marine iguana, Galapagos racer, Buller's albatross, fairy tern, Christmas Island red crab, yellow crazy ant, chinstrap penguin

Episode two (Mountains): Nubian ibex, red fox, golden eagle, grizzly bear, bobcat, flamingo, mountain viscacha rat, snow leopard

Episode three (Jungles): spider monkey, flying lizard, sword-billed hummingbird, river dolphin, jaguar, glass frog, paper wasp, click beetle, red bird of paradise, Wilson's bird of paradise, indri

Episode four (Deserts): lion, Harris's hawk, shrike, locust, sand grouse, pale chanting goshawk, feral mustang, golden mole, desert long-eared bat, darkling beetle, Namaqua chameleon

Episode five (Grasslands): saiga antelope, lion, harvest mouse, carmine bee-eater, Kori bustard, African elephant, serval, Jackson's widowbird, grasscutter ant, compass termite, giant anteater, bison, red fox, arctic grey wolf

Episode six (Cities): langur, peregrine falcon, leopard, European starling, great bowerbird, raccoon, rhesus macaque, spotted hyena, wels catfish

Our Planet

Episode one (One Planet): lesser flamingo, orchid bee, golden-collared manakin, red-capped manakin, blue manakin, cormorant, booby, common dolphin, shearwater, African wild dog, timber wolf

Episode two (Frozen Worlds): gentoo penguin, wandering albatross, narwhal, Pacific walrus, humpback whale, orca, leopard seal, polar bear

Episode three (Jungles): lowland gorilla, forest elephant, black sicklebill, twelve-wired bird-of-paradise, western parotia, mountain treeshrew, Philippine eagle, black spider monkey, leafcutter ant, Sumatra orangutan, velvet worm

Episode four (Coastal Seas): northern fur seal, compass jellyfish, giant trevally, mobula ray, Atlantic stingray, bottlenose dolphin, grey reef shark, whitetip reef shark, sea otter, California sheephead wrasse, Steller's sea lion, bald eagle, humpback whale, Guanay cormorant, Inca tern, Peruvian booby, South American sea lion

Episode five (From Deserts to Grasslands): Socotran cormorant, Arabian leopard, Arabian oryx, African elephant, cheetah, bison, Alcon blue butterfly, saiga, Przewalski's wild horse, tiger

Episode six (The High Seas): blue whale, spinner dolphin, mobula ray, oarfish, anglerfish, bristle worm, giant petrel, black-browed albatross, wandering albatross, bluefin tuna, sea lion, humpback whale

Episode seven (Fresh Water): Australian pelican, torrent duck, grizzly bear, manatee, giant mayfly, common kingfisher, osprey, jaguar, callipterus cichlid, Siamese fighting fish, hippopotamus, lion, African elephant, sandhill crane

Episode eight (Forests): Siberian tiger, bald eagle, rough-skinned newt, great hornbill, African elephant, African wild dog, fossa, gray mouse lemur

A Perfect Planet

Episode one (Volcano): lesser flamingo, marabou stork, Galápagos land iguana, vampire ground finch, Aldabra giant tortoise, North American river otter, coyote, Kamchatka brown bear, wildebeest

Episode two (The Sun): yellow-cheeked gibbon, fig wasp, arctic grey wolf, wood frog, garter snake, arctic fox, Saharan silver ant, golden snub-nosed monkey, sooty shearwater, humpback whales

Episode three (Weather): straw-colored fruit bat, fire ant, Amazonian giant river turtle, desert rain frog, Bactrian camel, Christmas Island red crab, carmine bee-eater, Nile crocodile, African fish eagle, hippopotamus

Episode four (Oceans): common dolphin, marine iguana, flightless cormorant, flamboyant cuttlefish, eider, bottlenose dolphin, lemon shark, manta ray, blacktip reef shark, trevally, rockhopper pengin, Eden's whale

Episode five (Humans): none

Life

Episode one (Challenges of Life): bottlenose dolphins, cheetah, panther chameleon, orca, brown-tufted capuchin, stalk-eyed fly, hippopotamus, Clark's grebe, giant Pacific octopus, strawberry poison-dart frog, leopard seal, orangutan

Episode two (Reptiles and Amphibians): pebble toad, caiman, basilisk, Brazilian pygmy gecko, panther chameleon, Namaqua chameleon, red-sided garter snake, collared iguana, hog-nosed snake, horned lizard, sea krait, African bullfrog, Komodo dragon

Episode three (Mammals): Weddell seal, elephant shrew, aye-aye, caribou, straw-colored fruit bat, lion, spotted hyena, polar bear, brown-nosed coati, meerkat, African elephant, humpback whale

Episode four (Fish): sailfish, flying fish, weedy sea dragon, convict fish, sarcastic fringehead, mudskipper, Hawaiian freshwater goby, hippopotamus, barbel, silvertip shark, clownfish, sea lion, ragged tooth shark, multiple snapper, whale shark

Episode five (Birds): spatuletail hummingbird, lammergeier, red-billed tropicbird, magnificent frigatebird, red knot, horseshoe crab, lesser flamingo, chinstrap penguin, great white pelican, Clark’s grebe, sage grouse, Vogelkop bowerbird

Episode six (Insects): Darwin’s beetle, unnamed damselfly, monarch butterfly, alkali fly, Wilson’s phalarope, oogpister beetle, mongoose, bombardier beetle, honey bee, black bear, Japanese red bug, Dawson’s bee, grass cutter ant

Episode seven (Hunters and Hunted): ibex, short-tailed stoat, brown bear, Ethiopian wolf, California ground squirrel, star-nosed mole, cheetah, red fox, greater bulldog bat, bottlenose dolphin, Bengal tiger, rattlesnake, orca

Episode eight (Creatures of the Deep): Pompeii worm, Humboldt squid, nemertean worm, moon jelly, fried egg jellyfish, spider crab, stingray, cuttlefish, giant Pacific octopus, sunflower sea star, king crab, cleaner shrimp

Episode nine (Plants): monarch butterfly, purple-throated carib hummingbird

Episode ten (Primates): Hamadryas baboon, Japanese macaque, lowland gorilla, spectral tarsier, phayre's leaf monkey, ring-tailed lemur, Sumatra orangutan, chacma baboon, white-faced capuchin, brown-tufted capuchin, western chimpanzee

Blue Planet II

Episode one (One Ocean): bottlenose dolphin, tuskfish, tern, giant trevally, mobula ray, false killer whale, Asian sheepshead wrasse, orca, humpback whale, walrus

Episode two (The Deep): sea toad, Venus’ flower basket, unnamed shrimp, ethereal snailfish, cock-eyed squid, pyrosome, barrel-eyed fish, unnamed siphonophore, yeti crab, Humboldt squid, fangtooth fish, sixgill shark, scabbardfish, zombie worm

Episode three (Coral Reefs): broadclub cuttlefish, coral grouper, day octopus, multiple corals, green turtle, bottlenose dolphin, manta ray, bobbit worm, saddleback clownfish, marbled grouper, grey reef shark

Episode four (Big Blue): spinner dolphin, yellowfin tuna, mobula ray, sailfish, sperm whale, sea turtle, blue shark, great white shark, multiple jellyfish, Portuguese man o' war, whale shark, wandering albatross, shortfin pilot whale

Episode five (Green Seas): Garibaldi, Australian giant cuttlefish, weedy seadragon, common octopus, pyjama shark, sea otter, tiger shark, smooth stingray, zebra mantis shrimp, common dolphin, humpback whale

Episode six (Coasts): Pacific leaping blenny, king penguin, southern elephant seal, Sally Lightfoot crab, Galápagos sea lion, ochre starfish, clingfish, chain moray eel, Atlantic puffin, arctic skua

Episode seven (Our Blue Planet): none

Prehistoric Planet

Episode one (Coasts): Tyrannosaurus rex, Tethydraco, Phosphatodraco,  Tuarangisaurus, Mosasaurus hoffmannii, pycnodont fish, ammonites,  Kaikaifilu

Episode two (Deserts):  Dreadnoughtus, Tarbosaurus, Velociraptor,  Mononykus, Barbaridactylus, Secernosaurus

Episode three (Freshwater): Velociraptor, Tyrannosaurus rex, Deinocheirus, Quetzalcoatlus, Masiakasaurus, Beelzebufo, elasmosaur

Episode four (Ice Worlds): dromaeosaur, hadrosaur, Ornithomimus, Olorotitan, troodontid, Antarctopelta, Pachyrhinosaurus, Nanuqsaurus

Episode five (Forests): Austroposeidon, Triceratops, Carnotaurus, Qianzhousaurus,  Edmontosaurus, Atrociraptor, Anodontosaurus, Therizinosaurus, Telmatosaurus, Hatzegopteryx

The Hunt

Episode one (The Hardest Challenge): African leopard, African wild dog, Parson’s chameleon, nose-horned chameleon, African mantis, Darwin’s bark spider, Nile crocodile, Amur falcon, orca, cheetah

Episode two (Arctic): polar bear, arctic grey wolf, arctic fox, glaucous gull

Episode three (Forests): tiger, American marten, sparrow hawk, Portia spider, tarsier, harpy eagle, chimpanzee, army ant

Episode four (Oceans): blue whale, frigatebird, dorado, sargassum fish, spinner dolphin, Beroe ovata, Chiroteuthis, lionfish, black-browed albatross, sea lion, tuna, copper shark, common dolphin, Bryde's whale

Episode five (Plains): cheetah, caracal, honey badger, termite, bald eagle, lion, Ethiopian wolf, hotrod ant, spoor spider

Episode six (Coasts): bottlenose dolphin, algae octopus, sand bubbler crab, long-tailed macaque, marine otter, grizzly bear, grey wolf, peregrine falcon, orca, humpback whale

Episode seven (Conservation): none

Life In Colour

Episode one (Seeing In Color): Indian peafowl, mandrill, Costa’s hummingbird, magnificent bird-of-paradise, blue moon butterfly, fiddler crab, mantis shrimp, flamingo, poison dart frog

Episode two (Hiding In Color): Bengal tiger, langur, ptarmigan, crab spider, zebra, Cuban painted snail, blue-striped fangblenny, common waxbill, pin-tailed wydah, Augrabies flat lizard

Frozen Planet II

Episode one (Frozen Worlds): emperor penguin, orca, Pallas’s cat, Siberian tiger, grizzly bear, hooded seal, polar bear

Episode two (Frozen Ocean): polar bear, beluga, harp seal, skeleton shrimp, crested auklet, orca

Episode three (Frozen Peaks): high-casqued chameleon, japanese macaque, kea, andean flamingo, giant panda, golden eagle, andean mountain lion

Episode four (Frozen South): king penguin, Antipodean wandering albatross, blue whale, Weddell seal, chinstrap penguin, snow petrel, leopard seal, orca

Episode five (Frozen Lands): grey wolf, arctic fox, Amur leopard, Siberian tiger, painted turtl, Lapland bumblebee, snowy owl, caribou, grizzly bear

Episode six (Our Frozen Planet): none

Africa

Episode one (Kalahari): fork-tailed drongo, ostrich, black rhinoceros, Angolan giraffe, African leopard, armored ground cricket, spider wasp

Episode two (Savannah): Agama lizard, shoebill, bee-eaters and rollers, lesser flamingo, African elephant, crowned eagle, African fish eagle, martial eagle

Episode three (Congo): chimpanzee, central African rock python, Angola banana frog, African skimmer, rockfowl, African elephant

Episode four (Cape): emperor swallowtail, giant kingfish, African penguin, monkey beetle, springbok, yellow-billed kite, pied crow, ghost crab, vundu catfish, Nile crocodile, Bryde’s whale, great white shark, common dolphin

Episode five (Sahara): Grevy’s zebra, naked mole rat, barn swallow, Dromedary camel, dung beetle, crocodile, western yellow wagtail, Saharan silver ant

Episode six (The Future): none

[ittuatuq]

Inuktitut in Ittuatuq

This is a short glossary of the Inuktitut words (typically North Qikiqaaluk dialect) that may pop up in Ittuatuq, including some of the names of characters in the series.

This is to be updated as new words become relevant, new characters are made, etc etc. (Last update: june 25, 2023)

Religious/Cultural

angakkuq (ᐊᖓᒃᑯᖅ) - a spiritual mediator and healer in Inuit society. (dual: angakkuuk, plural: angakkuit)

anirniq (ᐊᓂᕐᓂᖅ) - breath, soul; “the breath of life”

sila (ᓯᓚ) - the one thing everything in life holds; the energy that makes up souls and everything else

ijiraq (ᐃᔨᕋᖅ) - a shapeshifting spirit with solid red eyes. when you look away from an ijiraq, you forget about their entire existence, until you see it again. (dual: ijiraak, plural: ijirait)

kakiniit (ᑲᑭᓃᑦ) - traditional tattoos on any part of the body

tunniit (ᑐᓐᓃᑦ) - traditional tattoos on the face

tuurngaq (ᑑᕐᖓᖅ) - an auxiliary spirit without a typical physical body that angakkuit have to aid them in their work. these spirits grant angakkuit with superhuman abilities, such as enhanced speed and strength. (dual: tuurngaak, plural: tuurngait)

Items

pana (ᐸᓇ) - a snow knife, used as both a weapon and a tool to construct snow houses. can be made from bone, horn, and/or metal.

piksiksialuk (ᐱᒃᓯᒃᓯᐊᓗᒃ) - a large bow used for hunting

qulliq (ᖁᓪᓕᖅ) - a lamp made out of soapstone, lit with seal or whale oil

sakku (ᓴᒃᑯ) - a toggling harpoon; a harpoon with a two-part point, allowing a better puncture on the skin/blubber of the animal

ulu (ᐅᓗ) - an all-purpose knife used by Inuit women, used for things spanning from animal skinning, cooking, to trimming blocks of snow

Food

aalu (ᐋᓗ) - dip made from certain parts of caribou or seal, chopped into small pieces then blended into fat and blood

aqpik (ᐊᖅᐱᒃ) - cloudberry, a reddish-orange berry

bannock - frybread found throughout all parts of North American indigenous cultures. there are many ways it can be made depending on the location and the culture, and so bannock is incredibly diverse yet universal in North American indigenous groups

igunaq (ᐃᒍᓇᖅ) - fermented meat, typically walrus but can also be other marine animals

maktaaq (ᒪᒃᑖᖅ) - skin and blubber of a whale (bowhead, beluga, or narwhal). can be eaten raw, frozen, cooked, or pickled

mikku (ᒥᒃᑯ) - dried caribou

siriaktaq (ᓯᕆᐊᒃᑕᖅ) - large arctic char gutted and hung upside down to dry on its own

Locations

Ittuatuq (ᐃᑦᑐᐊᑐᖅ) - derived from the verb “ittuaq-“, meaning to watch from a hidden place

Ijialuk (ᐃᔨᐊᓗᒃ) - iji meaning eye, the suffix -aluk denoting something grand or impressive.

Animals

amaruq (ᐊᒪᕈᖅ) - arctic wolf

aqiggiq (ᐊᕿᒡᒋᖅ) - ptarmigan

iqaluk (ᐃᖃᓗᒃ) - fish, typically arctic char

kajuqtuq (ᑲ���ᖅᑐᖅ) - red fox

nanuk (ᓇᓄᒃ) - polar bear

nattiq (ᓇᑦᑎᖅ) - ringed seal

qairulik (ᙯᕈᓕᒃ) - harp seal

qimmiq (ᕿᒻᒥᖅ) - dog, typically the Canadian Qimmiq

tiriganiaq (ᑎᕆᒐᓂᐊᖅ) - arctic fox

tuktu (ᑐᒃᑐ) - caribou

Names

airaq (ᐁᕋᖅ) - yellow oxytrope flower

igsivalitaq (ᐃᒡᓯᕙᓕᑕᖅ) - the frostbitten

kitaani (ᑭᑖᓂ) - the open sea

kukik (ᑯᑭᒃ) - claw / nail

mikaq (ᒥᑲᖅ) - bite

paliq (ᐸᓕᖅ) - to die out (flame)

piqati (ᐱᖃᑎ) - friend/partner

tasiraq (ᑕᓯᕋᖅ) - pond

tigliktaujuq (ᑎᒡᓕᒃᑕᐅᔪᖅ) - something that is stolen

tuugaaq (ᑑᒑᖅ) - ivory

[zoologytopics]

Arctic Fox

The Arctic Fox goes by many common names: Arctic fox, white fox, polar fox, and snow fox. Their scientific name Vulpes lagopus means "fox hare-foot," referring to their insulated feet which resemble a rabbit’s.

They are found throughout Eurasia, North America, Greenland and Iceland. They live in the arctic and alpine tundras. They make dens in a low mound or in a ple of rocks at the base of a cliff. The dens have 4-8 entrances with a system of tunnels that cover as mich as 30 square meters. Some dens have been occupied for decades by the same fox family.

The Arctic Fox mates from April to JUly, with the first litter being born in April to June and the second born in July to August. They have a average gestation of 49-57 days. The number of pups born in a litter varies with food availability, typically 5-8 pups, however as many as 25 pups have been born in a litter. They are weaned at 2-4 weeks old, and at this age they also emerge from the den. They reach maturity at 10 months old. When prey is abundant and life is good, older offspring tend to remain with their parents’ for a following year or two to help with the next batch of kits.

Foxes live in family groups typically consisting of the mating pair, the litter and then likely one or two older kits helping raise the newest litter.

The Arctic Fox is a opportunistic feeder eating a wide variety of prey;insects, berries, carrion, and small mammals. Typically, their diet mainly consists of marine mammals, invertebrates, sea birds, fish and seals. For foxes that live mainly inland, they typically eat mostly lemmings. They also will store away food during summer where food is readily available. When prey is incredibly scarce, they are known to follow polar bears in hopes of getting some scraps. They are preyed on by polar bears, wolverines, red foxes and golden eagles. Not to mention, humans are regularly hunting them for their fur.

The Arctic Fox weighs 3-8 kg, though it varies based on the time of the year and their sex, and measures 75-110 cm long. They can cover over 96.3 miles in a single day and reach speeds of 50 km per hour.

During winter, their coats transform into their iconic, thick white coating. However, once summer arrives and the snow melts, they begin shedding their white coat and replacing it with a shorter and thinner fur with a wide variety of colors, ranging from dark and light grey, charcoal brown to bluish brown. The Arctic Fox has two color morphs known as the Blue Fox and the white morph. The Blue Fox retains a blue, brown or gray coat year-round. They reside in coastal regions, where their coat helps them to blend in with rocks. Their white morph obtains a brown coat during summer, and a white coat in winter, this helps them blend in and hide away from predators. Under their fur, they have dark skin, similar to their good old friend the polar bear, which helps them absorbe and retain heat which helps them greatly in Arctic.

Arctic Foxes have developed a unique way of retrieving lemmings and other rodents from their burrows. With their excellent hearing, they will pinpoint the prey’s location underfoot before then jumping several feet in their air and then diving nose first into the snow with the hopes of catching the rodent. Unfortunately, it takes quite a few tries to succeed in their attempts.

Adult Arctic Foxes’ survival rate depends greatly on their region, the availability of food, and finally the amount of predators in the area. On average, however, they live to about 3-4 years old in the wild.

The species split off from what we know as our pet dogs around 12 million years ago.

In 2018, a young female left her territory in Spitsbergen, Norway and traveled over 3,500 km across the Arctic to Ellesmere Island in north Nunavut, Canada. She completed this journey in about 76 days, travelling about 155 km daily. She currently holds the record for the fastest movement rate for this species, and likely the longest distance traveled in such a short time. Unfortunately, her fate is unknown, however tracking data has aided in researchers understanding how important sea ice is to aiding in arctic foxes in search of food and new territory.

Despite being recognized by the IUCN as Least Concern, they are endangered in northern Europe with fewer than 200 adults remaining in Norway, Sweden and Finland combined. They are also endangered on Medny Island. Despite it being illegal, they are hunted for their coveted fur.

Sources: https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Vulpes_lagopus/, https://www.coolantarctica.com/Antarctica%20fact%20file/wildlife/Arctic_animals/arctic_fox.php, https://www.thoughtco.com/arctic-fox-facts-4171585

[wxldchxld]

[ What is Beck's worst fear as an adult? Does her magic react to her fears and instincts or is it all purposeful? How does Beck feel about other magic users?

In our verse, where does Beck run off to from time to time when life in the Tower and the city in general gets to be too much? What is Beck's honest opinion of Nat's job? What could Nat do to make her leave, and why does Beck want to stay, aside from them being soulmates (if there is a reason at all)? ]

What is Beck's worst fear as an adult?

I’d say it’s a toss up? Beck has two major driving fears. 

The first is very straight forward and that’s that she is terrified of losing a familiar again. The pain she suffered witnessing Dawnbreaker’s death is the worst she’s ever felt, and she genuinely doesn’t believe she would survive the death of another familiar. 

The second is living her life in a cage or under anyone’s thumb. Beck spent half her life being controlled and locked up, desperately fighting to be herself while being brutally punished for it. So one day she learned to unlock doors and break binding spells, she learned to run, and in running she found freedom. It didn’t matter if that meant an empty stomach or a night out in the rain. And one of her greatest fears is having that taken away from her. 

There’s a very finite amount of time Beck will tolerate people locking her up (like I have verses where she’s been arrested for certain periods of time). But eventually she’ll lose control of herself and find a way to escape. If she can’t escape... things will get bloody. Even toward people she knows and loves.

Does her magic react to her fears and instincts or is it all purposeful?

Her magic is very emotion and intuition based, so yes, it can happen involuntary. In a dangerous situation her effort is spent restraining herself and using her magic strategically, not in mustering up the spells themselves. As a feral witch (aka an incarnation of the Earth/Nature spirit my witches come from) the power will always come, but sometimes the control doesn’t. 

I will say generally Beck is very in control of her magic in her human form. The worst you might get is like, if you startle her she might shift without thinking and then be like “oh shit sorry” or like, if you have animals around, they will naturally listen to her emotions and heed them. So you might have a trusty dog that you’ve kept for years and all the sudden he’s snapping a hand off because he is sensing her fear/anger/etc.

In other forms it is harder for Beck to control herself, therefore it’s harder for her to control her magic. And how in control she is in depends on the form. As a fox or a cougar, she can maintain the same level of control as a human, but as a horse, despite mastering the form as a little girl, she’s still very much at the mercy of her emotions. It’s kind of a running joke that you don’t jump on Beck as a horse because she will take off running, and then her magic will respond naturally, making her run impossibly fast and for way longer than a horse should. So it really depends.

How does Beck feel about other magic users?

Depends on the species and the kind of magic they’re using. Other witches are usually pretty ok with Beck, even if they aren’t the same kind of witch she comes from. From there things can get rocky. She tends to get on well with gnomes and trolls she comes across. Once she had a dalliance with a mermaid. Werewolves it really depends on the kind. Vampires are usually something she stays far away from unless they’re the sort that don’t eat people.

In like Marvel where the MCU is trying to say Wanda is an actual witch I would say Beck would be pretty ok with the premise of a witch being artificially made by an infinity stone, even if she doesn’t know what that is. But in reality she’d probably give a HARD side eye to Wanda because of the choices she’s made with that magic. Whether or not she could get past her own worries and moral qualms with mind control is---questionable.

What I will say is people like Thor or Loki in the MCU that pull that “magic is actually just like science” bullshit are not ok with Beck. Because she practices magic that is not at all like science. It cannot be wielded by anyone who learns spells or comes to an understanding of it. Witches are born or they’re made by other witches, and my magic system is VERY different from Marvel. While I’m happy to allow it to coexist with my lore system, I will not go with Marvel canon when it comes to magic because frankly it’s a mess. So I just have Beck be like “no you’re stupid and you don’t understand actual magic.”

In our verse, where does Beck run off to from time to time when life in the Tower and the city in general gets to be too much?

Ooof Nat might not love this answer. So I imagine at nights since Grani can’t/won’t be dragged into a city with her, Beck travels through the spirit realm and materializes wherever Grani is as a horse and they spend the night running around and being feral horses. It’s probably the only time she gets to really spend with him, which is a major strain on her in general because witches can’t indefinitely be away from their familiars it causes them pain. So it’s a good compromise. 

But especially while they’re living in the tower Beck will probably take long trips. Like if Nat goes somewhere undercover or something and when this happens Beck will go---anywhere? You really can’t know. She disappears into the woods or the canyons or prairies or sometimes even travels north to run along the polar ice of the arctic as a snow white bear. She’ll travel to places on the Earth the non-magical folks aren’t even aware of, places hidden from maps and outside eyes since the dawn of civilization. 

If we’re talking about like short breaks like “Jesus this place is too much and I need to breathe” she’ll probably turn into a hawk and fly out of the city to whatever wide open space and clean air she can find. Once her mother is no longer a threat (Idk if they’ll still be in the tower or not) she may go see her grandmother or Cora or visit one of her friends. Dori and Frankie both live in NYC itself, and so does Harper (they’ll probably be good friends by that time), and Jari lives just outside of NYC so like, visiting them and being with people who are like minded would really help.

What is Beck's honest opinion of Nat's job?

sdfgdsfgsdfg Don’t tell Nat but she thinks it’s dumb. She doesn’t get why anyone wants to risk their lives for mortals that don’t give 2 shits whether they live or die. She doesn’t trust SHIELD, she barely likes any of the Avengers, and she’d be very relieved and happy if Nat all told them to go fuck themselves and moved away with her to a farm in Montana. 

Like, even if someone were to be like “well by helping protect the world she’s also protecting you” Beck would just be like “I don’t think I’d care much about dying because I’d be too dead to be bothered, but I do think being forced to live every day without the woman I loved knowing she died a horrific death of self sacrifice for people I don’t think matter would rot me away on the inside so...”

What could Nat do to make her leave?

Hmmmmm. Beck’s pretty determined to stay... But like, Beck really struggles tbh. Nat isn’t great at giving her the validation she so desperately needs from a partner. And that’s because of her own trauma, so once Beck knows that she tries to be more forgiving. But it is emotionally very hard on her to not feel like Nat is as into her as she is into Nat. I don’t know if that’s enough to make her leave.

Over all I don’t think Nat would ever say something so intentionally cruel to make Beck pack her bags and go for good, but over the years if Nat never starts to open up and reciprocate the kind of affection Beck needs she may eventually leave for someone willing to give her that (which, I’m sorry, it would probably be Harper), or also a little more likely, Beck might just go feral. Which is essentially her death. Because I feel like if she felt like even her soul mate couldn’t love her that she would truly believe she had no place with people and it would be easy just to wander off into the forest and merge with the spirit she came from. Which is, essentially the death of the individual of Beck, even if technically she lives on.

Why does Beck want to stay, aside from them being soulmates (if there is a reason at all)?

But all of that is near impossible based off of what we’ve discussed and how Nat has reacted thus far. 

Nat’s big selling point is that she has no interest of taming Beck or making her behave a certain way. Her whole life has been a series of “no” and “stop” and “why can’t you just be this way.” And I think especially once Nat knows that, she will empathize personally because of all she’s been through. So while she’ll probably be like “please stop chewing up Tony’s stuff and stealing everything that isn’t nailed down” I don’t think she’s going to ever really try to like, seriously try to change Beck. 

Another thing Nat has going for her is that, believe it or not, I actually think they have a lot in common? Maybe not on the face of it, but as far as like, suffering trauma as children and feeling estranged from people/displaced. I feel like they both enjoy nature and (tho Idk for certain about Nat) traveling.

It’s going to take a lot of work and compromise for them to work, and Beck knows that. I feel like the biggest reason she stays is because she believes and wants for it to work between them.

[blues-sevenfold]

CBS Metaverse: Greater Kaldheim Bloc Realms

Further detail on the following realms will probably be detailed about a month from now. This post will give the basic rundown of the realms.

Kaldheim: The centre of the Greater Kaldheim Bloc. Native species include: humans, polar bears (pastel in colour), grizzly bears (neon in colour), arctic hares (pastel in colour), arctic foxes, arctic wolves, other large arctic dogs, deer/antelope (bucks have branched antlers, while does have two long horns), arctic terns (pastel in colour), penguins (pastel in colour), and snowy owls.

Istfell: Afterlife realm. About 45% of those from the Greater Kaldheim Bloc that don’t go to Starnheim go here upon death. They can continue to earn mana points to earn access to Starnheim. In addition, they can continue to produce offspring and age until about 60 years. Those older than 60 get aged down to that year. About 2.5% of people from other MtG realms also immigrate here upon death.

Karfell: Dream realm. Like Nyx, deities reside in this realm. Unlike Nyx, dream clones do not exist in this realm. About 50% of denizens from the other Bloc realms, and 5% of denizens from other MtG realm enter this realm when they dream. About 0.5% percent of denizens from other MtG realms are both Nyx dreamers and Karfell dreamers. Also, 1% of those from the Greater Kaldheim Bloc have dream weaving abilities - and they move here upon “death”.

Immersturm: Afterlife realm. Home of the demons. This realm combines both Halloween aesthetics and Christmas aesthetics. About 45% of those from the Greater Kaldheim Bloc that don’t go to Starnheim go here upon death - and they become ghost, skeletons, or vampires. There are humans native to this realm, as well. Reapers reside here, as well. Other species include: bats, ravens, owls, black cats, werewolves, lemurs, pumpkin gnomes, wolves and other large canines - in addition to polar bears (pastel in colour), grizzly bears (neon in colour), arctic hares (pastel in colour), deer/antelope (bucks have branched antlers, while does have two long horns), arctic terns (pastel in colour), and penguins (pastel in colour).

Gnottvold: Home of the trolls, mother grubs, and lusus species. Humans do also live here, and all are super-powered to place them on an equal level with trolls. Also native are polar bears (pastel in colour), grizzly bears (neon in colour), arctic hares (pastel in colour), deer/antelope (bucks have branched antlers, while does have two long horns), arctic terns (pastel in colour), penguins (pastel in colour), and snowy owls.

Bretagard: Winter version of Kaladesh. Home of the humanoids and talking cats. Arctic terns, snowy owls, and other winter birds are also sapient and reside here.

Starnheim: Afterlife realm. About 95% of children under the age of 10 and older denizens with a certain number of mana points from other realms in the Greater Kaldheim Bloc go here upon death. Other denizens of the Greater Kaldheim Bloc are blocked from entering this realm via the Shandalar Carnival, Mercadia Bazaar, Ergamon Cruise Ships, Iquatana Portals, with a realm walker, or any of the other methods that enable travel between the MtG realms. Denizens of the other 90 MtG realms can freely enter here for a week at a time. Always day. In the other Greater Kaldheim Bloc realms, The Hall of Valkyries lights up on one side of the realm. It is bright golden during the daylight hours, and azure during the nighttime. About 0.5 of people from other MtG realms also immigrate here upon death.

Surtland: Winter version of Regatha. Home of the fire creatures and the ice creatures, which include: fire ravens & ice doves, ifrit & djinn, flamies (flame creatures) & kristies (water drop crystal creatures), fireballs & snowballs, fieries (fire mist creatures) & eisies (ice/water mist creatures), fire foxes & ice foxes, fire sallies (salamanders) & ice sallies (salamanders). Greyscale humans reside here, as here. Also included are: polar bears (pastel in colour), grizzly bears (neon in colour), arctic hares (pastel in colour), deer/antelope (bucks have branched antlers, while does have two long horns), arctic terns (pastel in colour), penguins (pastel in colour), and snowy owls. *Not* included are: earthies, sylphs, elves*, goblins, or jellyfish.

Skemfar: Home of elves, goblins, leprechauns, fire devils, and ice devils. While this is the origin realm of kristelves, kristelves can easily access all the other realms of the Greater Kaldheim Bloc (including Starnheim!) - and are fertile in each of the realms. They are, however, sterile in the other 90 MtG realms. Also included are: carapacians, leprids, rubids, crymps, drazils (humanoid lizards), and dragons. Technicoloured humans are native here, as well - along with polar bears (pastel in colour), grizzly bears (neon in colour), arctic hares (pastel in colour), deer/antelope (bucks have branched antlers, while does have two long horns), arctic terns (pastel in colour), penguins (pastel in colour), and snowy owls.

Axgard: Winter version of Jund. Sapient beings include: humans, drazils (humanoid lizards), dragons, polar bears (pastel in colour), grizzly bears (neon in colour), arctic hares (pastel in colour), deer/antelope (bucks have branched antlers, while does have two long horns), arctic terns (pastel in colour), penguins (pastel in colour), and snowy owls.

Littjara: Species native to this realm can easily access all the other realms of the Greater Kaldheim Bloc (including Starnheim!). However, they are sterile in all other realms - being fertile in Littjara only. All of the species are noted for their kaleidoscope eyes. Human that are native here also have kaleidoscope eyes with natural skin tones.

* All eleven realms have a significant population of kristelves (All have neon-coloured skin, and most of the them have one ruby eye and one sapphire eye. All blue elves, all red elves, and 10% of the rest [but no green elves] have emerald eyes. They also have hair of bright colours spanning the rainbow.), although they technically originated from Skemfar.

A five-kilometre chunk of Kaldheim proper is enclosed within a red-and-green fog, and denizens of the other realms that comprise the Greater Kaldheim Bloc are all able to meet in this region. This region contains luxurious hotels for the visitors to spend the first night.

ETA 1/12/2021: Decided to make Immersturm an afterlife realm, after all. Also added dream weavers to Karfell.

[tealin]

Make Your Own Mits

One of the iconic visual cues of early polar exploration is the white H over the chest made by the straps of the fur mits. Here is the outfit they have on display at the Polar Museum in Cambridge:

I knew that I would be doing a lot of sketching in the cold and that I would need a way to warm my hands quickly and accessibly. Having large external pockets would also be handy (ha ha) for storing erasers and cameras and other things that lose their functionality too much below freezing. So why not make myself some good old fashioned polar mits?

Originally they were made of dog (or wolf) skin, which is still vastly preferred to artificial furs in Arctic communities. The long glossy guard hair repels moisture, and the soft undercoat provides insulation. There is a stall on Cambridge market which sells various skins and leather goods, even reindeer skins sometimes, but not dog (or wolf, or fox, or any canid) pelts, so the closest I could get was a wool fleece. This promised to be warm, if not as waterproof. The fleece had been brushed so it was incredibly fluffy and at least twice as long as the dog fur would have been, which may be a help or a hindrance, we shall have to see. I found a piece in their remnants bin which was large enough to make two mits. Not having sinew to sew them with, I found the nearest alternative:

I sewed them together inside-out, so that I could see what I was doing and simultaneously squeeze the fluff inside and make them easier to pack in my suitcase.

In my years in Vancouver, I was spoiled rotten by easy access a magical emporium of all things sewing-related, which could supply anything you wanted and quite a few things you didn’t realise you needed until you step in for something else and find that a bag of odd buttons and a bolt end of nice jacquard are definitely urgent necessities. I can’t count how many times I’ve been working on something since moving away, and thought ‘Oh – if only I could go to Dressew!’ Aside from everyday supplies, Dressew has supplied me with several Halloween costumes’ worth of material; in fact, the costume I was working on in LA when I first heard the Worst Journey radio play was made from material I’d picked up the last time I’d been in Vancouver.

I did that again making these mits: I could have used readily available cotton twill tape for the lanyard, but if I was going so far as hand-stitching raw fleece I might as well do the thing properly and get the heavier stuff. If only I could go to Dressew! . . . But I COULD go to Dressew! I would be passing through Vancouver on my way to Antarctica! And so, with great joy, the day after I arrived . . .

They didn’t have the exact type of lampwick that I thought I remembered from the SPRI mits, but I found some heavy cotton webbing that was close enough to serve the purpose. I took it back to my friend’s place where I was staying and brought the mits to completion, then turned them fur-side out again.

As the wool is so long, they look a bit like I’ve gutted a pair of Muppets or run off with the polar bear skin from the wall of the SPRI lecture theatre, but I can attest from just having them on my lap that they are plenty warm. I may need to take in the lanyard slightly as I have only guesstimated the thickness of the parka which will cause them to sit higher around my neck, but that is easier to do than lengthen. And I have a spare foot of webbing left over which might come in handy.

It occurred to me, while stitching cotton to sheepskin in the late October sunshine, that this is not a million miles removed from the Halloween costumes I’d be making every year around this time. My costume choices grew increasingly esoteric and ambitious until I gave up making them, but this one outstrips them all, and is going to be tested to the extreme of practicality. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work – the pockets on the ECW parka serve just fine for everyone else, so I have that to fall back on – but I’m looking forward to giving it a try.

Oh, and . . .

I couldn’t help it.

[stranger-who-writes-fiction]

For the three sentence fic: Baby Kara and Krypto, AU setting: going to the zoo with Eliza and Alex

*tries to stick to three sentences* *fails spectacularly*

…

“I’ve lost visual.”

“Again?”

Alex sighs heavily into the comm. She does not appreciate Winn’s tone.

“You try wrangling a toddler with super speed,” she hisses, scanning the crowd. “I need you to hack the feeds and–”

“Got her,” Winn declares smugly. She can practically hear him spinning in his desk chair. “Polar bear enclosure. Eliza’s with her.”

“Thank God,” Alex grumbles, and makes her way over to the ‘arctic’ section. National City Zoo isn’t terribly crowded, which Alex is grateful for. Less opportunity for her de-aged sister to accidentally blow her secret identity.

“Hey,” Alex greets her mother, who is seated next to Kara on a bench made to look like a zebra. Alex all but collapses next to her, exhausted and relieved. “Did anyone…?”

“Not that I can tell,” Eliza says, shaking her head in amusement. “I think she was moving too fast for anyone to see.”

“There’s a blur showing up on the security cameras,” Winn says into the comms. “I’ll delete the footage.”

“Thanks Winn,” Alex says, and slumps forward. “Last animal, Kara,” she says loudly, pinching the bridge of her nose. She’s fighting off a stress headache. “How long is this Red K reaction going to last?”

“Forty-eight hours, give or take,” Eliza tells her, though her attention is on the small blonde toddler, who is fascinated by the large white bears, currently splashing and rolling around in the enclosure’s shallow pond. “Did they have polar bears on Krypton, Kara?” 

Kara kicks her legs, considering. 

“Krypto,” she says, pointing to the polar bears. Alex smiles.

“They do look like Krypto, don’t they?” she says, referring to the dog Kara’s family had, when she was growing up.

“Krypto,” Kara insists firmly, tiny face scrunching in mild frustration. Alex sighs again, not wanting to get into an argument with a child.

“Alright, I think it’s time to head back to the DEO. Maybe take a n-a-p,” she adds, and Eliza chuckles. They both stand to leave, Eliza reaching for Kara’s hand.

“Let’s go, sweetie.”

“Krypto,” Kara points.

“Kara, that’s not–” Alex starts to say, only to be cut off by a loud roar. She turns, and notices–with growing alarm–that the polar bears’ eyes are now an unsettling shade of red.

“Alex, get Kara out of there,” Winn is anxious over the comms. Alex is way ahead of him, scooping up Kara and grabbing her mom’s hand, pulling the two of them towards the exit. There’s more roaring now, coming from other enclosures, and people are screaming. “We’re picking up weird radiation readings, like…like a mutated strain of Red K. I think it’s giving the animals–”

A group of panicked tourists scatter, and Alex can see why. A pack of arctic foxes has blocked the path to the exit, all of them growling, and sporting the same glowing red eyes as the polar bears. 

“Superpowers?” Alex grunts, as she shoves her mother to one side to avoid a sudden blast of heat vision. “Yeah. We’ve noticed.”

Kara’s tiny fists grip Alex’s jacket.

“Alex,” she says, pressing closer to her sister. She’s small, and afraid, and Alex finds herself wrapping her arms around her just a bit tighter, trying to shield her from whatever’s about to happen. 

Kara points to the foxes.

“Kryptos.” 

[arrowsbane]

(extra)ordinary

@shanastoryteller​ @ink-splotch​ If I ever wind up being half as talented as you guys, I’ll be the happiest fox alive. So yeah, this one is for you guys. It’s short, but I might continue it later some time.

*Walking Whales borrowed from Vathara’s fic Embers. Go read it. Go. Now.

Let’s tell a story where Aang isn’t the Avatar who ends the Hundred Year War. 

Let’s tell a story where he doesn’t have that tremendous burden weighing on a peaceful heart, and thin bird-like shoulders; or the misery of war clouding his spirit-filled eyes.

But remember, for all that things change, things must stay the same.

True, Aang is not the hero of the Hundred Year War; he is not the Avatar to bring about peace. But he is still the Avatar. He will always be the Avatar born after Roku. And now he will be the Avatar whose death drops the burden onto an infant’s tiny shoulders.

This is a world where Aang clung to Gyatso like the child he was, seeking comfort in the only father he had ever known. This is a story where the Fire Nation descended upon a temple still housing a child-Avatar and his kin.

This is a story where Aang stays.

This is a story where Aang dies.

…

Sozin’s Comet roars bright in the sky, and the monks of the Southern temple call up a breeze to chase away the sweltering heat. There’s a crackle as grassy scrub on the cliff-face bursts into flame, and a teenaged monk flutters down to suck the oxygen from the fire. The next thing he knows, he is face to face with an armored body, and fire comes for his life.

He is the first to die – unnamed and unknown in this story. He is one of many faceless children, gone too soon. Murdered because a tyrant dreams of subjugating the world. His death is senseless, but it is not meaningless.

His death warns the others.

…

The Monks move quickly – Air is Freedom, but it is not always kind. Scything winds cut down soldiers, razor-sharp and blindingly cold. It is not enough. It will never be enough.

The younger children, teenagers and infants are herded into the greater sanctum, and sealed in - safe. The bison take to the skies with bellows of rage and fear. There is chaos. There is death. There is war on both sides.

The children are supposed to be safe.

But this is not a kind story.

This is a world where Aang clung to Gyatso like the child he was, seeking comfort in the only father he had ever known. This is a story where the Fire Nation descended upon a temple still housing a child-Avatar and his kin.

This is a story where Aang stays.

This is a story where Aang d i e s.

Aang stands his ground, and refuses to leave Gyatso’s side. They battle, back-to-back. Aang is kind and good and shows mercy – Gyatso doesn’t command him not too.

He doesn’t need to, not after Aang sees his kin cut down like sheaves of wheat.

Aang has Kuruk’s rage, and Kyoshi’s bull-headedness. He’s got Roku’s red-hot tears on his cheeks, and agony burning in his bones. He’s got Yangchen and Tian, Song and Min Wen. He’s got a thousand voices tied into his being and Rava wound tight around his soul.

He’s got a thousand reasons to stand and fight, and only one to turn and run.

So he stays.

And he dies.

…

This is the way the world ends, not with a bang - but with a whimper.

A whisper. 

A breath.

One last plea.

The echo of a boy ripples out across the world.

‘Save them’, it whispers, ‘Save my people’.

And so the world answers.

In the oceans, the walking whales* raise their heads and listen, before diving deeper towards the poles – where they will sing to the arctic wolves, the otter-penguins, the polar-bear dogs.

In the air, the Bison soar above the clouds, carrying monks and nuns dressed in tear-soaked robes of orange and saffron.

The dragons rage and roar, and they cast Makoto from their hearts and minds, strip her of her name and self. She-who-was-once-kin is no longer theirs; something Sozin will rage over as his life-long companion withers in mind and being until she is a beast of fire-and-flame-and-nothing-more.

And deep beneath the earth, the badger-moles burrow up to the temples, opening up escape routes for an entire people who are in need of asylum.

…

All across the world, Air Nomads – benders and non-benders alike – flee into the night, flee on the winds, on sea, under earth and sky. They hide away in the depths of the Northern Air Temple, in chambers deep beneath soil and bedrock, hollowed out by ancient Badger Moles as a hidden temple of last resort. The old stone statues are worn with age – from a thousand-thousand hands carefully cleaning away dirt and grime as the ages passed.

It’s here in this darkness, lit only by flaming torches that are as terrifying as they are comforting, that the shattered nation grieves.

“What about the Avatar?” rumbles an old Monk who had tended to the gardens on the terraces so high above them.

There’s a hiccup, and a muffled sob from the children of the Southern Temple, huddled together for comfort and warmth, and then –

“Aang’s dead,” whispers a boy no older than nine. He shivers and ducks into his temple brother’s side.

From across the chamber, a Nun dressed in saffron robes, her face chalk white, begins to sob inconsolably. Twelve summers ago, she had birthed a son named Aang.

The Monks and Nuns have no mothers or fathers, no blood brothers or sisters, no sons or daughters. They do not mourn for individuals, it is not their way. But nobody says a word. Her temple sister winds a robed arm around her shoulders, and clutches her close in a firm embrace. No shushing noises are made, no reprimands. The cave is silent, but for her gasping cries.

…

Air is the element of Freedom. People say that the Air Nomads found peace after giving up material possessions and removing themselves from the world…

The sad truth is, that they fled the world, and lost their temples in a storm of fire… it was only when they hid that they found a bare shadow of the promised peace.

What is peace? What is it worth when your children are born never knowing the sun on their faces, or the wind carrying them across the world?

…

After Air, comes Water, an avatar of change and adaptability. The truth is that change is like fighting an uphill battle in a world on fire.

Nanuq is a curious child, always asking why. Why is the sky blue? Why do the seals call? Why do the polar bear dogs howl at the moon?

Nanuq never asks why the ice cracks in the spring, or why the ocean follows the moon.

Had she lived another six years, the elders would have known to train her. If they had been paying attention, they might have known sooner.

But the world is at war and the sky is filled with black snow, and so Nanuq dies in a raid when she’s ten years old – unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, down by the water, giggling as it bent to her will.

…

Then Earth stands firm. If only for a handful of decades. Earth is substance, strength and determination – or pig-headed stubbornness, depending on who you ask.

Temujin is born in the rings of Ba Sing Se, and enlists in the Dai Lee when he’s barely sixteen years old. He’s named the Avatar not long after, and his life becomes that of war for the next fifty years.

Temujin is strong and steadfast - and very, very pig-headed. But he is also kind, and has a heart broken by war and famine and sorrow. Even stone walls fail in the end.

…

Fire is power and will and energy powered by the heat of the sun.

Hiro is both lucky and unlucky in being born into an earth-nation colony.

Lucky because a life under the red-hot iron first of Azulon, who even in his sunset years is every bit dictator of his youth, would have been terrible –

and unlucky because he’s not even seven and already a firebending prodigy when he sneezes and shoots ten feet into the air.

He’s seven, and got the power of the universe at his fingertips and there are angry-starving-raging people who don’t care that he’s a child or that he could be a force for good. He’s Fire Nation, and has the power of the universe in his fingertips and that’s more than enough to condemn him to death.

Death comes on a rusted, blunt farm tool. Death comes too soon.

Fire is power and will and energy powered by the heat of the sun, but even a candle flame can be snuffed out with a pinch of two fingers.

…

Air comes in the fall, and is gone before spring thaws the world oncemore.

Air that is trapped below ground can only be stagnant and dying.

Air is an infant born sickly, and a mother weeping silently.

Air is a puff of wind, too small to be considered a breeze.

…

Water is the element of change. Last time, this time, next time.

Water is patient. Water will wait. Water can grind down mountains, carve rivers a mile-wide into valleys, and turn cliff-faces into waterfalls.

Water always, always wins.

Water is change.

…

The identity of the current Avatar is a mystery – after Hiro’s death, confusion is rampant. Where will the Avatar Spirit go when there is no Air for it to inhabit next?

…

The truth is, the latest Avatar has no idea that he is a bender at all.

Sokka is a son and a brother and a warrior-in-training. His mother died in a raid, his father is away at war, and his little sister is always off playing with her magic water or listening to Gran-gran’s stories about the old days.

Sokka doesn’t have time for make-believe, or hope, or playing at being a Waterbender. He’s too busy hunting and trapping and fishing, too busy trying to train up a pack of four-year-olds and take care of his entire village – small as it is.

It’s a little bit ironic – because in the end, it’s why he’s going to survive.

Everybody is looking for a bender of great power.

Extraordinary, is the term people use to describe the Avatars.

Funny word, don’t you think. Extraordinary. Extra Ordinary.

Nobody is looking for an (extra)ordinary boy…