#wildfire propagation

[artepapeldeparede]

Os Ventos de Santa Ana e a Propagação de Incêndios: Entenda o Impacto na Região

Introdução aos Ventos de Santa Ana Os ventos de Santa Ana são um fenômeno meteorológico característico da Califórnia, que se desenvolve principalmente durante os meses de outono e inverno. Esses ventos são conhecidos por suas altas velocidades e por serem secos e quentes, resultando em condições climáticas que favorecem a propagação de incêndios florestais na região. A formação dos ventos de…

[probablyasocialecologist]

Research by Clay Trauernicht, a fire specialist at the University of Hawaii, and others has shown that the scale and frequency of wildfires have been increasing across in Hawaii from the early 1900s to the 2010s. The researchers also identified a major culprit: non-native plants. “Wildfires were most frequent in developed areas, but most areas burned occurred in dry non-native grasslands and shrublands that currently compose 24 percent of Hawaii’s total land cover,” the researchers wrote. “These grass-dominated landscapes allow wildfires to propagate rapidly.” The non-native grasses were brought to Hawaii by cattle ranchers in the 19th century, University of California Santa Barbara ecologist Carla D’Antonio told me. “They were selected because they were drought tolerant.” They are also invasive. The abandoned sugar and pineapple farms across the state are quickly taken over by non-native grasses. “When the land gets abandoned, the grasses are the first invaders. All you need is a little drought to have a flammable landscape.” Maui is currently in a drought. The grasses are an especially potent fuel, D'Antonio explained, because they grow quickly when it rains and then stick around, deeply rooted into the soil, as dry, dead organic matter, becoming a “standing layer of very ignitable fuel.” Then after a fire, these non-native plants tend to do better than native ones, thus increasing future fire risk. Fire “has generally been shown to decrease the abundance of native woody plants because nonnative, invasive, fire-adapted plants out-compete natives for resources in the post-fire environment and tend to dominate post-fire communities,” according to a United States Forest Service review.

[latenightagain]

these ones are based on the myth of koalas being constantly drunk on eucalyptus, as well as eucalyptus trees propensity to encourage wildfires to propagate their seeds. they have two thumbs just like real koalas, check out a photo of a koalas hand if you've never seen one!

[thecreaturecodex]

Scalamanx

Image © Working Partners Ltd, accessed at the Beast Quest wiki here

[Sponsored by @glarnboudin. Beast Quest is a series of middle grade books that started publishing when I was in undergrad, but if they were around when I was in the target demographic, I probably would have imprinted on them hard. Each one is a monster of the week affair, with the Beasts being fought or rescued by earnest kid adventurers fighting against various evil wizards. The Beasts, even the evil ones, often have some sort of role in the ecology of the world. The post sponsor described it to me as "Harryhausen meets the Legendary Monsterverse", which I would have gobbled up as a kid. Although Scamandrax exists in universe kind of in a vacuum (he was slain by the protagonist's mother and is accidentally resurrected to wreak havoc in the modern era), I went ahead and added an ecological role for it that seemed to fit its general vibe.]

Scalamanx CR 12 LE Magical Beast This creature appears as a lizard the size of a wagon, its hide made of rocky scales that glow from an internal heat. Its eyes are large and forward facing, and ridges of tissue like those of a newt grow along its limbs and tail. Six fiery tendrils grow from the back of its head like gills.

A scalamanx is an enormous fiery predator with a dim and cruel intelligence. They lair in volcanic caves and other sources of geothermal heat, and are found on the Plane of Fire despite their mortal natures. Although they have crushing jaws and thick powerful tails, the most fearsome weapon of a scalamanx is their fiery feelers. Each tendril of flame can move independently and lash like a whip, setting creatures and objects ablaze. A scalamanx is a stubborn combatant, and they frequently fight to the death once they have tasted the blood and char of a victim.

Scalamances have slow metabolisms despite their inner fires, and may only feed a few times a year. These meals are typically other creatures that stumble into their lairs, although during the driest parts of the year, a scalamanx may venture into the lowlands in order to hunt. These hunting forays can create wildfires that span for hundreds of acres, and many plants that need fire to propagate grow in areas patrolled by a scalamanx. At the first sign of precipitation, the scalamanx will retreat underground, as the touch of water burns them like acid, and any scalamanx caught in a rainstorm would surely die. Scalamances can understand a few words in Ignan, and respect powerful and intelligent creatures that can speak that tongue. Fire giants or efreeti use them as mounts, beasts of burden and guardians. Most scalamances are content to serve, but if they are mistreated may turn on their masters with lethal force.

Scalamanx CR 12 XP 19,200 LE Huge magical beast (fire) Init +5; Senses darkvision 60 ft., Perception +14, scent

Defense AC 26, touch 10, flat-footed 24 (-2 size, +1 Dex, +1 dodge, +16 natural) hp 172 (15d10+90); regeneration 3 (cold or water) Fort +15, Ref +12, Will +7 Immune fire Defensive Abilities blazing defense; Weakness vulnerable to cold, water vulnerability

Offense Speed 40 ft., climb 20 ft. Melee bite +22 (2d6+9/19-20), tail slap +20 (1d12+4 plus push), 6 tendrils +20 touch (1d6 fire plus burn) Space 15 ft.; Reach 10 ft. Special Attacks burn (2d6, DC 23), push (10 ft.)

Statistics Str 29, Dex 13, Con 22, Int 3, Wis 10, Cha 16 Base Atk +15; CMB +26; CMD 38 Feats Blindfight, Dodge, Improved Critical (bite), Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Multiattack, Power Attack Skills Acrobatics +11 (+15 when jumping), Climb +21, Perception +14; Racial Modifiers +4 Perception Languages Ignan (cannot speak)

Ecology Environment warm mountains and underground Organization solitary, pair or maelstrom (3-6) Treasure incidental

Special Abilities Blazing Defense (Ex) A creature that strikes a scalamanx with a melee attack, natural weapon, touch attack or unarmed strike takes 1d6+15 points of fire damage. Manufactured weapons with the reach property do not endanger their wielders in this fashion. Water Vulnerability (Ex) A scalamanx takes damage from direct contact with water. A flask of water deals 1d6 points of damage to a scalamanx when used as a splash weapon, and immersion in water deals 10d6 points of damage to a scalamanx each round.

[thenuclearmallard]

"Native smile from a Khanty girl,

Khanty Mansia, Northwest Siberia

The Khants are indigenous to north-west Siberia in the Khanty-Mansi and Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Districts that are located in the Tyumen region of the Russian Federation.

They are calling themselves Khanti, Khande, Kantek (Khanty) which is derived from the combination "Khondy-Kho" (in the Khant language "man from the river Konda") and it has also been explained as meaning "Khan (King) people" and connected with the name of the ancient Huns.

(Milittary expeditions by the Russians took place in the 16th century, so they also started to strengthen their power over the Khants' lands.

The Khant elders managed to retain their position and began to collect tribute from their subordinates. Gradual Christianization continued. The Khants have officially been regarded as 'Christians' since the year 1715 after the extensive baptisms of monk Fyodor. Nevertheless, the ancient spiritual belief of their forfathers ('shamanism') have persisted, even to this day.

The Khants were also economically subjugated. With the help of liquor the Khants were commercially exploited by Russian traders eager for cheap furs. The predatory policy of Russian merchants and officials was so efficient that by the end of the 19th century the Khants, harassed by economic difficulties, were broken and close to ruin. The colonizers had seized their best lands as well as their incomes, and had brought along dangerous diseases and destructive habits (liquor being the biggest curse). It was commonly thought that the Khants would survive for no more than a couple of decades...

The arrival of Soviet power was accompanied by great promises and expectations for the Khants and other northern peoples. In 1925 a Northern Committee was founded with the intention of leading the Khants, Mansis and Nenets along the road of progress. In 1930 the Ostyak-Vogul National District (renamed in 1940 the Khanty-Mansi National District) was formed. This new life was no less disturbing to the Khants, causing only fear and bewilderment. The establishment of collective farms followed accompanied by severe repressions. By attacking the traditions of the people the new ideology of communism incited the persecution of shamans and the destruction of sacred groves and burial grounds. Khant children were forcibly removed to boarding schools. The largest outburst of resistance, led by the elders, became known as the Kazym rebellion. The opposition was ferociously suppressed by the Soviet-Russian army;

Khant villages were burnt and much of that connected with the culture of the Khants was destroyed altogether. Cultural centres and 'red tents' were built to propagate the Soviet way of life and its accompanying customs. From then on, anyone who took part in the customary bear funeral rites could be subject to ten years' imprisonment. Bear hunting was also forbidden. (The Bear Celebration is being celebrated occasionally after a successful hunting of a bear. The bear celebration continues 5 or 6 days. Over 300 songs and performances occur during a Bear Celebration)

In the 1950s and 60s the Soviet-Russians discovered vast gas and oil reserves in western Siberia. The Khants, hardly recovered from the blows of communism, now found themselves at the mercy of technocrats. The piratic economy has been ruthless and greedy. Oil has polluted pastures and waters once filled with fish, the gas and oil lines have blocked the paths of the reindeer, wildfires have destroyed forests.

Still, every year 20,000--25,000 tons of oil pollutes the soil, spilled in technical failures (at least one accident every three days). 50 % of the natural gas is simply consumed in senseless burning brands. Industrial pollution reduces the fishing grounds by about 10,000 hectares every year. In the district of Nizhnevartovsk alone a fire destroyed 260,000 hectares of forest in 1989. At the same time there has been an explosive increase in population (mainly due to urban migration). In 1969, 289,000 inhabitants lived in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous District, by 1979 the number of inhabitants was already 596,000 and in 1989, 1,268,000 (a growth of one million in 20 years). The frailty of the northern biosphere and its resources has been totally ignored.

The overwhelming pressures of industry and alien ways of life have cast doubt on the further existence of the Khants as a nation. As early as the 19th century, M. A. Castrén and K. F. Karjalainen were recommending that the Khants should be educated in a native spirit and in native surroundings, teaching them to respect their people and customs. In fact, the authorities have "developed and raised" the level of the Khant's economic and cultural life but taking into consideration only the authorities' own needs. This has deprived the Khants of any self-confidence of determination and furthered their decline.

Economic, cultural and linguistic discrimination of the Khants has taken the form of public harassment. They are referred to as dogs, and derisive remarks are made about their dark skin. They are not allowed to work in the mines in case "they break something" or "earn too much". The rapid regression in the living conditions of the Khants is reflected in the decline of industry and in heavy drinking which has an all too common tendency to lead to suicide...)"

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Inside Climate News:

The journalist John Vaillant’s book “Fire Weather” begins in the spring of 2016 in the boreal forests surrounding the remote Canadian city of Fort McMurray, where a fire is growing. Although wildfire is a regular part of life in northern Alberta, this fire was destined to be different. “A new kind of fire introduced itself to the world,” Vaillant writes. 

Ushered in by soaring temperatures, drought and high winds, this wildfire obliterated thousands of buildings, forced 88,000 people to evacuate and turned downtown Fort McMurray into an apocalyptic hellscape. At the time, the Fort McMurray fire was unprecedented. But Vaillant saw it for what it really was: a harbinger of terrifying things to come. 

Inside Climate News spoke with Vaillant about what we can learn from the fires currently burning in Los Angeles; the parallels between this disaster and what happened in Fort McMurray in 2016; and what we should expect from what he calls our “century of fire.”

“We’re going to have to let go of a lot of the 20th century,” Vaillant said. “That’s what these events are telling us. The 20th century is over, and we really have to rethink how we do everything, from how we get our energy to how we build on a planet that we have made much more dangerous.”

KILEY BENSE: Can you talk about the connections between climate change and the fires in Los Angeles? What are the causes of these fires?

JOHN VAILLANT: We’ve seen a lot of local [blame]: It’s,“Well, the governor didn’t do this, and the mayor didn’t do that, and that reservoir wasn’t full.” None of that would have made a bit of difference. Whenever those 100-mile-an-hour winds are blowing, it just doesn’t matter who’s in charge. Who’s in charge is the wind; who’s in charge is the fire. And who made it worse is human beings by burning fossil fuels at an extraordinary rate for 200 years straight. 

My tendency is to look at things more systemically, and what climate change does is it takes naturally occurring phenomena and makes them more intense and more erratic, and also creates conditions for them to occur in places they didn’t normally occur. We all know Southern California is flammable. It’s part of the rhythm of this landscape. But they hadn’t, historically, had to deal with fires of this intensity with this frequency. And so that’s the other thing: these events are going to happen more and more often.

California really is in a position to move the needle globally on climate change, because it’s the fifth biggest economy in the world. If California took a particular stance on petroleum, took a particular stance on building codes, took a particular stance on insurance coverage in dangerous environments, it could set the tune. This is an opportunity for Los Angeles to be a leader in building for the 21st century.

BENSE: Could you talk about how we have to rethink firefighting? Particularly for a fire like those in Los Angeles, what are some of the challenges that modern wildfires pose to firefighters?

VAILLANT: “Twenty-first century fire” is a term I coined in “Fire Weather” to try to encompass this new fire situation we find ourselves in, which is hotter and drier, makes fires able to ignite and move, propagate and grow, often exponentially faster. 

Exponential growth is a concept that humans have a really hard time with: the doubling, doubling, doubling, doubling, doubling, and how fast that happens. That’s what fires do. That’s how they can grow. 

We saw that to terrible effect a couple of nights ago. This blowtorch of embers descended on Pacific Palisades and Altadena, and you cannot fight a fire in those conditions. Even the planes were grounded. The winds were so strong they couldn’t even fly, and your fire hose is going to blow right back in your face when it’s blowing 70 miles an hour and the heat coming off, it’s like a blast furnace. Think of a bellows in a foundry. It’s huffing and puffing and intensifying. That’s what the winds, the Santa Anas, were doing. 

As I interviewed firefighters for “Fire Weather” in these catastrophe zones, they said the firefighting operation became a life-saving operation, and that’s really the only realistic thing you can do until the wind settles. The fire is simply unfightable.

When you have a wildfire coming into the WUI, the wildland urban interface, and entering a community across a broad front, often over a period of days, that’s called a siege event. It’s quite a militaristic term, but that’s what it feels like: You are being besieged by the fire. In those circumstances, firefighters don’t get any rest, and because it is so hot now, because nights no longer cool down the way they used to, you don’t get the dew that you used to get. It means the fire, in many of these cases, is expanding aggressively during the night. This did not used to be a common characteristic among wildfires. Now it is.

The difference between fires and firefighters: They both breathe oxygen, but one of them gets tired and one of them doesn’t. The fire doesn’t get tired, but many of these firefighters have been going for two days straight. It was the same in Fort McMurray. It was the same in Redding, California, in 2018, and in Lahaina. Our bodies aren’t made for that, and you’re doing intense physical work under the highest stress, operating heavy machinery, and you haven’t slept in two days, and you’re probably under-hydrated, you probably haven’t had time to eat, you could very well be hallucinating. 

[random-thought-depository]

A TV channel in my area plays Star Trek TOS episodes on Saturday night, last week's episode was the one about how the writers were scared of hippies lol.

Anyway, in the episode they go the anvilicious route of making all the plants on that planet incredibly poisonous (and the hippies I guess too technophobic to wave a tricorder over a bush before deciding they want to settle there), but before they found out about that there was a line about the planet having no animals and, wait, even if the biochemistries were compatible, wouldn't a planet with no animals logically be pretty difficult for humans to survive on, especially if the humans are going to go full anprim and live as gatherers?

Obviously getting enough protein might be a problem. And I think there's some vitamin you can only get from animals? You only need tiny amounts of it IIRC, small enough that preindustrial vegetarian Jains were able to get enough from insect contamination in their food, but on a planet with no animals at all that would be a huge problem!

But also, no animals would logically mean no fruit, right? Fruit exist to entice animals to move a plant's seeds around for it. If there's no animals, there's no reason for plants to expend energy on growing them. Plants on a planet with no animals would probably mostly propagate by wind-blown seeds, and have seeds similar to dandelion fluff, small and very light to easily disperse in the wind.

That basically leaves tubers. Which probably would exist; they might be even more useful on a planet where there are no animals to plunder such rich stores of energy (though I guess there'd probably be parasitic fungi and stuff evolved to exploit them). On the other hand, on a planet with no browsers or grazers the main selection pressures driving the evolution of tubers would be winter, drought, and fire, so if "Eden" has a nice climate it might not have a lot of tubers either.

I don't think it'd look nice and pretty and park-like like the planet in the episode either. For one thing, I think, just like it has no fruit, it'd have no flowers except things similar to dandelion puffs; there'd be nothing to pollinate them. With no animals with eyes, there'd be no reason for plants to evolve parts with dramatic color contrast. Its vegetation would be rather visually monotonous, mostly greens and browns. But also, and more importantly in terms of its potential (or lack of thereof) for human habitation, that kind of lush but open park-like landscape is what you get when vegetation is being regularly pruned back by people or animals or fire or some combination of those things. I think a planet with no animals would have very different vegetation growth patterns, more like...

In areas dry enough for burning seasons, I think you might get a fire-adapted ecology where fire does some of what grazers and browsers do on Earth. With no grazers and browsers and the main selection pressure being competition between plants, you'd get a dense tangled profusion of growth and lots of slowly decomposing dead plant material (cause there's no animals to help break it down or prune the leaves before they get a chance to die and fall off, just bacteria and fungi). It'd probably be rather difficult for a human to walk through, a forest choked with a dense profusion of undergrowth and dead stuff; at least there are no thorns, and nothing like poison oak; with no animals there's no selection pressure for thorns or poison. In dry parts of the year, this accumulation of living and dead plant material becomes a tinderbox for wildfires. If a planet like this looks idyllic from orbit, it's cause you arrived in mid-spring/mid-autumn; come in summer/winter, when dry seasons are in full swing, and you would see huge wildfires and skies stained with smoke. The oldest and biggest trees are tough enough to usually survive the burning, but the undergrowth is cleared. After the burn, seeds sprout and saplings grow quickly, competing to take advantage of the cleared ground, quickly filling the forest back up with a tangled profusion of growth and an increasing accumulation of slowly rotting dead material, completing the cycle.

On the other hand, on the same planet, in the places with lots of rain and conditions favorable to evergreen plants, there might be forests of enormous trees with forest floors that are pretty open but rather dark, barren, and muddy, with most light being blocked by a dense cathedral-like canopy far above. They'd smell of mud and rot, as the forest floor has accumulated large amounts of slowly decomposing leaf litter fallen from the canopy far above and has a mostly decomposer-based ecology of fungi and bacteria that slowly feeds on that. This is an ecosystem of trees and rot, and the trees make no fruit, they reproduce by seeds like dandelion fluff, small and very light to float on the wind, and they don't even produce much of that; they live a very long time and reproduce very slowly, partially because they're Cronuses; their dense canopy starves their own offspring of light along with everything else. For all the green lushness of their canopies these forests are low-energy ecosystems, conservative ecosystems, defined by the almost total victory of ancient, mighty incumbents; these are the Cronus forests, the lands of the Cronus trees.

There's very little energy available to humans in these Cronus woods. Some edible mushrooms, maybe; that'd be about it. Very possibly humans simply could not survive here, except perhaps in tiny numbers and by living in almost hermit-like isolation and dispersal. The Cronus forests might be almost as hostile as the Sahara or Antarctica, a place where the likely fate of some unfortunate stranded human explorer would be to die of hunger lying on the roots of some sequoia-size Cronus tree that was ancient when Julius Caesar marched into Gaul, staring up into cathedral-like dense green canopy through which only a dim twilight illumination filters even at mid-day, their nose filled with the reek of mud and rot.

Humans might try to terraform the Cronus forests by opening them, but I think that might be quite difficult for low-tech humans. The obvious efficient strategy for attacking the Cronus trees would be to set fire to them, but fire would be one of the primary natural threats to the Cronus trees, and a strong selection pressure on them, so I expect them to be well-adapted to resist it, with fire-retardant chemicals in their bark, wood, sap, and leaves so they resist ignition, and with their sheer size protecting them. The floors of the Cronus woods would receive almost no direct sunlight and therefore be cool and probably damp, and they would have very little undergrowth; fire would probably not spread easily through such an environment. It might be more effective to set torch to the canopies, but they would be dozens or maybe even hundreds of meters above the ground; quite a climb, on a tree that's probably more-or-less a branchless trunk much of the way up, and you've got to climb back down after setting the tree on fire.

That leaves tediously timbering them one by one. With, say, Medieval technology, this might work! The Cronus trees look mighty and their rule assured, but they are actually quite vulnerable. They are slow. Their defenses are purely passive. They literally could not make a single motion to defend themselves as an enemy attacked them with steel saws and axes. And they reproduce very slowly; if they could be timbered efficiently, it would be easy to destroy them faster than they reproduce. An enemy that can think and move is an outside context problem for them, something that never existed in their environment and therefore something they are totally unprepared for. Humans with steel saws and axes might be very efficient killers of these ancient titans.

But steel axes are pretty high-tech if you think agriculture was a mistake. Without metal tools? Imagine trying to bring down a giant sequoia without metal tools, so the axe is something delicate like obsidian or bone, or it has to be very tediously ground to a blade, or you're basically trying to bring the (big and structurally strong!) tree down by bashing it to a pulp, and big saws are probably impossible. Now imagine having to do that over and over again. Imagine trying to clear a forest that stretches from horizon to horizon that way.

If very low-tech humans can inhabit the Cronus forests at all, I think it might be as, like, highly dispersed small families who move around constantly and rarely meet each other, living on the occasional patch of edible mushrooms or other tid-bit, cause there just isn't enough energy to support anything denser. And even then, they might have to stick to the edge, where other ecozones are accessible, cause, like, would mushrooms even have all the nutrients you need?

I mean, I guess there would be some kind of open woodland areas? I think a planet with no animals would have more forest than a more Earth-like planet with the same climate, cause you've removed a major inhibition on plant growth. Think of how places like highland Scotland used to be forested, but when humans with livestock were added to the mix it became more-or-less an open grassland landscape. I think you'd see a similar effect comparing Plantworld to a version of the same planet that had animals; places that would be marginally viable forest without browsers would be grassland or open woodland with them. But a planet with no animals is probably going to have areas wet enough for plants but too dry for forests, so it'll probably have some grassland equivalents. But...

... Grass in natural prairies often gets pretty tall, doesn't it? And that's with grazers. A grass-equivalent that evolved on a world without grazers would be more selected by competition against other plants. I think no selection by grazing but more selection by competition against other plants might favor more investment in individual stalks. And instead of looking like our grass, these plants would have a cluster of little branches and leaves at the top, for better light interception - and to shade and thus inhibit the growth of any rivals growing near their base!

So, maybe... The experience of walking in a grassland in no animals world is very different from walking through a lawn or even the kind of knee-high or less wild grass I see around the Bay Area. The grass is tall. It's taller than you. The stalks are thick too; finger-thick and hollow; it's more like a forest of young bamboo. It feels more like walking in a cornfield. And it's surprisingly dark. Each stalk has a little crown of small branches and leaves, and together they make a surprisingly dense canopy not far above your head. The effect is claustrophobic and eerie. It has a vibe a little like the Cronus woods. And that's not an accident; these plants are essentially much smaller versions of the Cronus trees; tighter constraints, similar strategy. This place replicates the Cronus woods in miniature. This is the Cronus prairie, the land of the Cronus grass.

This probably doesn't sound like a place you'd like. If it's any consolation, if the Cronus grasses had minds they probably wouldn't like you either. Unlike the Cronus trees, the Cronus grass is small and vulnerable enough to experience you, fast-moving muscles-having thing, as the outside context problem you are on its world. You move through the Cronus grass and break a stalk. What a calamity to that plant! All the energy and resources it poured into building that stalk, all that work, the work of its life, undone in an instant! Now it has no crown to drink the sun, and its luckier neighboring competitors will close over it, and it will die without ever having a chance to scatter its gossamer seeds on the wind. Or maybe it's a different, longer-lived sort of Cronus grass (Cronus grass and Cronus tree aren't species, they're strategies and niches), and in the soil below the base of the stalk, where the long-lived part of the plant lives, there is a tuber, from which it can pull stored energy to regenerate the stalk, but this only prolongs the failure cycle; that energy was supposed to be used to regenerate the stalk after the Cronus prairie burns in the dry season and is reduced to a horizon-to-horizon smoldering plain of bare earth and ash; now its energy stores will be depleted when the fire comes, and afterward it will not be able to keep pace with the growth and regeneration of its neighbors and rivals, and they will close over it and it will die.

Those tubers make the Cronus prairie the best place on this planet for humans to live. Some of the Cronus grasses are annuals and live only one year, dying in the fires of the dry season and leaving only seeds to continue their lineage, but many are long-lived, with root systems that survive the fires, and these all have tubers that store energy to regenerate their stalk after the burn. In the competitive scramble after the burn the advantage offered by such a pre-existing storehouse of caloric wealth is huge, and these plants evolved in the absence of any animals that might raid them. Think of the Cronus prairie as a vast field of turnips and potatoes, with multiple edible plants in every square foot of soil, stretching from horizon to horizon. Here, at last, is something like the promise of Eden; food provided abundantly by nature with no need to work the soil, simply waiting to be dug up, available in such quantity that there would be little motivation for hard toil or war. That is, if you don't mind a monotonous diet of bland and nutrient-poor tubers, every day, every year, almost every meal, from the day you are weaned to the day you die. Low-tech human inhabitants of the Cronus prairie would have plenty of calories, but getting enough protein and other nutrients to stay alive and healthy might be a very hard struggle for them, and they might often suffer from malnutrition.

The abundance of the Cronus prairie would also be fragile. The tuber-growing Cronus grasses are long-lived and reproduce slowly, and digging up the tuber would probably destroy one. All the defenses they use to protect their precious hordes of carbohydrates are against enemies as slow as themselves, bacteria and fungi and specialized "vampire plants" without chlorophyll; they are not evolved to deal with raiders with muscles and eyes who can simply physically dig up the tubers. It would be quite easy for humans to slip into harvesting them faster than they reproduce.

Imagine what life might be like for a low-tech inhabitant of the Cronus prairie, a few hundred or a few thousand years after establishment.

Your staple food is something like turnip soup (the stalks of the Cronus grass furnish the fuel for cooking). No animals in your world have yet developed the ability to breathe on land, but there are things a little like insects you can find in creeks and rivers; they are enough to supply your people with the nutrients you absolutely must get from animals. Your people wean your babies late, because mother's milk is one of the precious few foods available to you that is not Cronus grass tubers and is much more nourishing. You've learned to feed your children small amounts of human feces to establish the gut microbiomes they need to process food. Finding enough food that isn't Cronus grass tubers to get all the nutrients you need is a struggle, but you know if you eat only Cronus grass tubers you will get sick and die slowly. In fact, your people are chronically malnourished and chronically ill, but you live long and most of your children grow up anyway, because your world has few bacteria and viruses capable of infecting humans, so your immune systems don't have to be very strong. In a desperate measure to increase protein consumption, your people have incorporated cannibalism of the deceased into your funeral rituals (your people view the practice as loving and reverential and normal, not desperate; it is done only to people who have already died of natural causes and allows their flesh to still be part of the tribe while their bones are shallowly buried to nourish the Cronus grass). Water bugs and human flesh are the only meats you've ever tasted. It is the beginning of the dry season, and the sky is stained with high-altitude smoke from the vast wildfires already burning hundreds of kilometers to the north. Soon your people must move northwest to the island of barren rock that rises from the Cronus prairie or southwest to the Cronus woods; there is little food in those places, but the fire stops at their boundaries, and to be caught out in the Cronus prairie when the fire walks across it is death.

You know, if you're going with "hippies have an overly romanticized view of nature and therefore don't deal with it well," I think I'd kind of prefer this. Just making the plants on "Eden" super-poisonous is just kind of an arbitrary fuck you, but... "Planet with no animals and sufficient abundance that you can survive as a gatherer without much effort" is totally something I could see as a hippie fantasy; no need for hard toil or alienating technology, little temptation toward war, no dangerous animals that might hurt you, and no temptation toward carnivory. But it's an ecologically incoherent fantasy! You are also an animal! A world with no place for animals has no place for you! It will probably not be an easy world for you to survive on! Of course, it'd be difficult to portray this in a one hour TV episode; would probably work a lot better with a novel.

Also, you could flip this around: if you think about it, it's actually really weird that a planet with no animals has fruit (even super-poisonous fruit). Maybe it's not a natural wilderness. Maybe it's somebody's food forest.

Suggestion: "Eden" is actually a heavily gardened world maintained by one of those state-repelling cultures James C. Scott talks about. Its inhabitants are not humanoid and have totally different biochemistry from us, so the local food's perfectly edible, palatable, and nourishing to them. They mostly live as gatherers at a low level technology, doing the sort of proto-agricultural ecosystem engineering lots of hunter-gatherers do on Earth. They maintain just enough technology to tell them when a starship is dropping by. When that happens, they crawl into little hidey-holes and go into a deep hibernation, which makes starship sensors not register them as alive. They come out of hibernation a few days later or something, which is usually enough time for visitors with more galactic-normal biochemistry to realize the plants on the planet are poisonous to them, lose interest in it, and leave.

Something something people who reject the value system of settler colonial society but don't reject the terra nullius myth.

Also, I might use these ideas for a planet in my own sci fi, cause it has a premise that easily lends itself to such a scenario happening somewhere in it.

[kassil]

infinites once again!

Typically found growing across poorly maintained roads, fire thistle is considered a menace for the ease with which it catches fire; even iron horseshoes striking a rock can set it ablaze, whether or not flint or similar minerals are present in the rock. The flames seem to be necessary for it to propagate, and regions where it grows naturally are often prone to seasonal wildfires in the autumn months. Some have even claimed to see firelizards deliberately cultivating it, although such accounts have yet to be substantiated by anyone who might bring some degree of rigor to the investigation.

[bylightofdawn]

WIP SUNDAY

Holy shit, how long has it been since we had one of these??

I've started the prequel fic for my CodyWan modern AU which takes place 10 years before It Only Knocks Twice.

I thought about writing a fic following them through the war but you guys? I just finished a 200K monster that's taken me a year and a good chunk of my sanity to write, I am simply NOT up for something that deep or involved. So hopefully this will serve.

I will admit, this is reigniting my love for this AU and I have some ideas percolating including a complete crack ship fic of Rex who is struggling to recover from the war, has been pressured into joining the Protectors by Jango as his second choice for heir since he always had an eye on Cody taking up the job of replacing him. Look Jango is kinda a dick n this fic cause well..he is a dick in canon sorry not sorry

And then Fenn Rau who's been holding down the fort while the Fett boys have been gallivanting off to fight in a war halfway around the world and is rightfully annoyed at the blatant nepotism going down.

I was kinda toying with the idea in my brain years ago but it got shelved but now I might actually write this fic at some point.

ANYWAY context for this fic. Takes place after Utapau, Grievous is dead, Dooku didn't die and sang like a fucking canary so Palpatine's entire house of cards has crumpled and both sides are kinda like wtf, I guess we'll try peace? As a nod to ATOTC, Obi-Wan nearly dies in an unfortunate blue-on-blue incident and is recovering at a nearby hospital when he receives the call that Qui-Gon had been murdered by Maul and this accelerates his plans to leave service.

Cue all the pining and regrets about things never said and actions never taken.

After years of war between the Republic and the Confederacy of Independent States, the war was on the cusp of being over.

The death of General Grievous on the battlefield of Utapau had been the final nail in the coffin that broke the CIS’s back. Of course, the capture of Count Dooku and the damning accusations against Chancellor Palpatine had helped to bring the Republic as well.

Both sides were tired and weary of the war by that part. The realization the entire bloody conflict which had killed countless people being engineered by a set up of corrupt politicians who wanted yet more power had cut through both sides like a wildfire.

Widespread protests and demands for an immediate ceasefire had cropped up across the Republic and the CIS.

Cody and his troops were just as angry and outraged as the civilian population but they unfortunately didn’t have the luxury of throwing down their weapons in disgust out of protest.

If he was being honest with himself, he didn’t know how far that sense of duty would have gone if the generals demanded they head right back out onto the battlefield.

Knowing they had unwittingly propagated an unjust war that had led to the decimation of countless civilians and left some nations on the brink of ruination was a hard pill to swallow, and he’d heard the whispers of displeasure and bitterness from more than one veteran in his battalion.

As company Commander, he’d done his best to ignore and pretend he didn’t hear those grumbles of displeasure. In truth, he shared some of those sentiments and while a worrying amount of his more veteran soldiers were making statements about wanting to cash out and return home out of disgust for the war, he knew in his heart of hearts, that wasn’t for him.

No, he wanted to help to break the things that he had accidentally broken.

He enjoyed service and while he knew his father would have been delighted to have him return home after his ‘rebellious’ decision to join up with the Republic’s war rather than maintain Mandalore’s stubborn neutrality, he knew he was doing the best here.

His talents would be wasted back home in some cushy job with the Protectors.

Besides, there was another—more selfish—reason for wanting to staying in the GAR.

They’d claimed a beaten-up loveseat that overlooked the scrub brush and desert that led out to the distant mountains. The land was harsh, but it had a beauty that had been lacking in other desert climes he’d seen during the war, such as Geonosis.

Little Gods, but he hated that place with its endless dust storms and red sand, which had gotten everywhere. Or maybe he hated how much blood had blended in with the sand and how much death he’d seen during the First Battle of Geonosis.

That had been before he’d been assigned to Obi-Wan’s batallion and while he would never say a bad word against Mace Windu as a commanding officer, that particular battle had been a shitshow and far too many people had died.

And what was worse, a year later they’d found themselves back in that same gods forsaken country being shelled out of their minds by Seppie artillery.

Yet here they were in another kriffing desert but this time with the hopeful promise that the war might at long last be coming to a close. If Utapau hadn’t very nearly killed Obi-Wan, he might have actually enjoyed the austere landscape.

But it was hard when the man sitting next to him was still dressed in hospital-issued pajamas and a threadbare robe. At least he no longer had those awful tubes and IV’s sticking out of him. It had been an all too poignant reminder that after three years of hell, just as the end was in sight, he’d very nearly lost Obi-Wan Kenobi.

And to nearly lose him to a blue-on-blue friendly fire accident was all the worse. If he hadn’t been wearing his body armor, he would be dead now.

Cody wasn’t sure what he would have done with himself if that had happened.

After three years of bottling up his feelings, of promising himself that once the war was over and they were free of the constraints of the chain of command, he would finally tell Obi-Wan exactly how he felt about him.

Hopefully, the other man would feel the same way which…judging by the fact they sat there enjoying the sunset over the desert with their hands so close together their fingers were brushing, hidden as they were beneath the folds of the other man’s robe? Cody was optimistic the other man returned his feelings.

“How are the men holding up?”

“As good as can be expected. Lots of mixed feelings about everything.”

“It’s awful, I completely understand their feelings.” Obi-Wan had made little secret of the fact that he’d intended on resigning his commission once the war was over with. He wasn’t built for war, he claimed. But Cody thought differently, the man had been one of the best commanding officers he’d ever had.

He was a natural leader, one who was there with his men through thick and thin. He’d sweated and starved with them throughout the bloody years, had bled and at times cried at the senseless tragedy they’d seen.

Losing him would be a blow to the 212th but Cody kept those words firmly in check because he didn’t want to lay any sense of obligation or guilt on the man who had given so selflessly for them over the years.

“I can’t believe it myself. All of this death and heartache? Just because Palpatine wanted more power? Wanted to regain some banthashit glory about a lost Empire?” He couldn’t help the anger that threaded through his words.

“I understand, Cody.” Obi-Wan’s fingers shifted and he covered his hand with his and squeezed gently. The empathy in the redhead’s eyes was genuine and Cody felt something unnamable well up in his chest.

“I’m so ready for this war to be over with, sir.” He confessed softly, and it was a testament to how tired he was that he had even spoken that truth.

Obi-Wan’s expression shifted minutely, and that empathy shifted into a weary sort of understanding. “Me too, Cody.”

The words were spoken between them almost like a secret.

And in that quietude the resided between them, the familiar spark of longing could be felt on both sides. Obi-Wan’s fingers tightened around Cody’s almost imperceptibly as though he could sink as much meaning as he was allowed through that brief physical touch.

But then, the moment was shattered with the arrival of one of the hospital aides who stepped out of the doors and towards them.

Both struggled to pull themselves back together as he approached with a nervous look on his face.

“Commander Kenobi? There’s an urgent message for you.”

Concern flashed across Obi-Wan’s face and he carefully levered himself to his feet with a wince of pain.

“Of course, lead the way.” He said and shot one final regretful glance over at Cody.

Cody forced a smile for Obi-Wan’s benefit as the redhead walked away.

He had no idea that call would change their lives irrevocably.

[busterpointisdead]

Sooo... Pyro headcanons no one asked for! Disclaimer

I have never played tf2 since my computer would likely explode upon booting it up!!! So my knowledge is limited to the comics.

I don't know how long this will get so it's all under the cut!

Pyro is his only name, preferring he/him, they/them, and occasionally she/her. To trusted individuals they're known to not be a man at all.

Appearance

Referring to any outfitting without the asbestos suit or gas mask

Under the mask is an eldrich blackened flames, capable of some shapeshifting

Any form changes are minor and the flame-like qualities of his body are ever present

They appear to have two halves of a face put together

The left side has half a mouth and a sideways eye that remains closed, note that they can disguise this half to have human-like skin

The right side has four eyes, one main eye appearing larger than the rest to feel more human

Despite being made of black fire Pyro seems to have bones or at least a clear humanoid outline

Origin

Uncertain, but if asked during a clear and starry night they point to the sky

Capabilities

Pyro is not only made of fire but can conjure it as well, though their ability is no greater than candlelight

He can't read most things,especially with the mask on and he finds it very frustrating at times

However, he does recognize each character and has a loose grasp of written language

Seems to write in a strange set of glyphs that only he understands, it seemed like useless scribbles until Dell was found with it saying it was their shopping list

Pyro can speak English fluently as well as ASL!

The mask worn by Pyro is enchanted, he did it himself and was their most powerful spell

An extremely capable fighter, savage when they see red and feel massive guilt for murder

Minor shapeshifting capabilities as mentioned before, mostly just to look more human

Pyro is more often than not nonverbal and communicates through ASL or written notes

Oddities/Misc.

The mask has Pyrovision, it acts as an escapism tactic so he feels less bad about being a merc

He can be found mumbling in his sleep in a foreign and unknown tongue

Gets upset when referred to as "it" since they so badly want to feel human

Despite being made of fire they can still be burned, as the fire Pyro is made of is very different from your average fire

Merasmus may occasionally refer to them as a "moonlit candle"

Very much a cuddly fella, loves hugging and snuggling up with Engineer when possible (I ship it like... [insert shipping company here])

Just a very physical touchy feely guy all around, likes to squeeze things and has a particular soft spot for plushies due to the texture and squeezability

In a relationship with Engineer, he really enjoys reading with him and swapping notes

Hyperfixates on wildfires and pine trees, pine trees love being set alight to propagate after all

Very much aware that they are the CEO of a company, they don't know how they got there either to be honest!

Still doesn't do his taxes

[golvio]

Like…I feel like a lot of P*TA overly-anthropmorphizing discourse alienates humanity even more from our place in the ecosystem, not less? There’s a cycle of life and a cycle of death. That remains true no matter how upsetting violent death is for a sheltered suburbanite whose parents treated “funeral” like a dirty word. Predators and prey regulate each other’s populations through the rise and decline of their own numbers, balancing things out. And omnivorous species that eat both animal prey and plants have their own unique role in both keeping populations in check and in allowing them to propagate and thrive in ways we’re only just beginning to understand as we move out of the carnivore/herbivore dichotomy.

It’s like how wild swine are regarded as invasive pests in America, but in places they’re native to like European forests, they perform vital functions in tilling the soil, spreading seeds through their droppings, and scavenging fresh carrion. Humans have relationships with the creatures they hunt and the plants they harvest, too. We regulate the kudzu vines. We domesticate animals. We clear land and change the character of the ecosystems we settle in. We burn the dry brush to prevent wildfires that could take down the whole forest during drought years. We scavenge and harvest for plants and fungi like our wilder neighbors. We eat fruit and vegetables and spread seeds and fertilize the ground. We have an outsized impact on our environment because of our tool use, but that impact need not be wholly negative, especially now we begin to understand how we affect the world around us.

Factory farming and the relentless greed of Industry may have warped these relationships we have with the species we eat, but that doesn’t mean that all consumption of animals is necessarily “evil” or inhumane. I’m tired of the only two options being presented to us being remaining alienated from the lives we take and letting Industry do as it pleases to guarantee Profit or seeing ourselves as intrinsically evil and wishing we could remove ourselves from the world as penance for our sinful existence. Humanity is part of nature, too. We owe it to the creatures we must eat to survive to bring our world back into balance, before it’s too late.

You are capable of eating meat, and you are also made of meat that’s fragile and needs nourishment to survive, yourself. You’re an animal, too. All animals have a niche in the ecosystem. Don’t forget that.

[lycanpunk666]

My interpretation of the 15 fears

Slaughter: Violence. Could be war, could be an addiction to fighting. The spillage of blood but it’s more about the CHAOS of it all, the actual act of SPILLING the blood. Nonsensical violence, war, serial killers. The like. Oddly, often associated with music.

Flesh: The fear of being Consumed, or fears surrounding the Body. Flesh, blood, bone, sinew. Mostly an animalistic fear but can absolutely apply to humanity (in the form of body standards, sexual trauma, body horror, and cannibalism). Meat lockers, CAFOs, the book “the Jungle”

Hunt: Specifically being chased, stalked, or killed. Predators hunting prey. The most important aspect is the thrill of the chase. The obsession with the chase is important. Could be stalking, could be obsessively chasing after an abstract goal. Just so long as the focus is on the pursuit. Any kind of hunter, police, and expeditions can all be associated with the hunt.

Eye: The horrific idea of being perceived, of being known. Of being watched, as well, and having your secrets be found out. To take pleasure in watching events. Of all fears, this one is the most “harmless”, but it collects no less distress. Panopticons, the fear of being outed, the practice of Doxxing, are all associated with the Eye.

Web: Manipulation, control, puppetry. Propaganda and making your subjects docile. Your body is no longer your own. Your mind is no longer your own. Spiders, manipulation, puppets, strings. The silent True Master. Mobs and misinformation and gaslighting.

Corruption: Infestation. Filth. Things that disgust, and things that are built over twisted, devastatingly unhealthy love. Hives and cults. Disease and propagation. Things that burrow and crawl on and under your skin. Bugs.

Lonely: A very simple fear. You are alone, you are voiceless, nobody will save you and no one will help you. Helplessness and silence. The loss of memory, the fields of Asphodel. Fog, lighthouses, white noise, sailing expeditions.

Vast: Agoraphobia. Insignificance. Things so incomprehensibly large that you can never hope to understand it. Storms, open waters, the sea and the things within it. The vacuum of outer space. A moonless, starless sky. Falling.

Buried: Crushing pressure, claustrophobia. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Worms. The compulsion to dig. Everything is dirt, was dirt, and will return to dirt. Crushing pressure of the earth around you. The Dust Bowl. once-pristine water now choked with dust and dirt. Suffocation. Crushing expectations, too.

Stranger: The uncanny. Something is not quite right. It looks the same but it is Not the same. Camouflage, mimicry, dolls and puppets and clowns and *skin.* People being replaced. Wax puppets. The uncanny valley. Mannequins.

Spiral: Bright colors, eye strain, insanity. You cannot trust your own mind. Hypnosis, doorways, chaos. Things do not make sense. They are unknowable in the worst way possible. Madness. Insomnia. Sicknesses of the mind.

Dark: The Dark. Mr pitch. Black Sun, eclipse, everything and everything is unknowable. There are things that crawl in the darkness. You cannot see them. “Skinamarink”, as in the short film.

Desolation: The worst parts of Fire. Destruction, arson, wildfires, melting. You are helpless to stop it. It is tragedy and it is natural disasters and it is most importantly loss. Of family, of a childhood home. You must have so much love in your life and it must be taken away by force. Desolation is devastation. Senseless causes of this devastation are important.

End: The fear of death. It comes for us all, and it is inevitable. “There is no other side. This is all there is.” It is helpless, but neutral. Card games are associated with it. You can play games with death, if you want. Luck. Chance. Testing fate.

Extinction: Apocalypses. Tipping points. It is too late to stop it. The end of EVERYTHING. Concrete forests and monsters we have made and no longer can stop. Air choked by smog. 50s science fiction often deals with the extinction. How could it not, when faced with nuclear war?

[lodessa]

20. What’s a favorite title for a fic you’ve written? 21. Have you ever deleted an entire scene after spending hours laboring over it? If so, why? 22. Do you know how your fic will end before you start writing?

Thanks for the ask <3

20. What’s a favorite title for a fic you’ve written?

Mostly I just choose song lyrics (or a word/phrase that is vaguely the right vibe to me) but I actually came up with four different real/good titles for The Half-Life Fallacy (thanks to @romeorevoarchive who helped me brainstorm). They were as follows:

The Half-Life Fallacy (The winner, basically referencing the lingering impact of certain events and how they never actually disappear completely.)

Star Thistle Summer (kind of a double meaning, both because star thistle is painful, stubborn and resilient, but also because it is one of those plants that will take over after a wildfire. It really just worked well both for the initial Blackout vibe but also the relationship dynamics/Matheson characteristics.)

Manzanita Blaze (Leaning more heavily into the plants/wildfire metaphor. Manzanita is one of those plants that uses fire to propagate, it's also a very twisty tree. It is double catastrophe that brings and keeps them together, no matter how wrong and impossible it should be on paper. It just fit them.)

Forks in a Circular Road (Learning into the sense of inevitability of where the fic ends up, and also the framing of Bass' narration. This is an AU where you can take a totally different path, but in some ways you are going to end up on the same road.)

I'm also pretty happy with the title of my most current WIP: The Backup, which ties into the many different uses of backup/back up:

Providing support, backing.

A secondary choice, being “on the bench”.

To step back, go backwards.

To rebound, recover, “get back up”

21. Have you ever deleted an entire scene after spending hours laboring over it? If so, why?

I used to really struggle with this, so I developed an alternative method, where I just cut/paste the problem section into a new document instead of deleting it. Sometimes a scene just isn't taking you where you need to go to get to the next story beat, sometimes it doesn't really follow from what came before, but it is hard to get rid of something you wrote if you actually like anything about it. Taking it out of the context it isn't working in without trashing it made it so much easier for me to recognize when that was the case. Putting it in a new document sometimes means it just sits there, but I have had times where I ended up using it as the seed for a new fic, and times where later on it turned out if totally fit in the same fic I wrote it for, just in a totally different part of the story.

Right now I am actually debating this for a section I have written for The Backup that doesn't really make sense following what I wrote before it. I'm still trying to decide whether it just needs to be later in the story, or it needs to be in a different fic entirely.

*Putting a sneak peak at the end of the post under a read more if anyone wants to look.

22. Do you know how your fic will end before you start writing?

I usually have an idea of where a fic is going to end up, though the path there is often either murky or not the one I end up following. For some "current" WIPs:

k'war'ma'khon: Originally was just supposed to be a little flash ficlet, but once I decided to move beyond that, the inevitable ending had to be Georgiou (and Sarek and the crew of the Discovery) rescuing Michael (or I guess Michael breaking free). However, I definitely didn't initially think that Spock was going to show up or have any idea how I was going to get Michael out of Klingon prison.

Dragon Marked: The eventual ending to this one is very epic and complex, involving reincarnation, magic, science, conspiracy theories, politics, and dragons. I actually brainstormed the plot (not the what plot ;-P) part out with my husband. There's a lot of ground to cover before that though, so who knows what might change.

The Backup: Being canon divergent but set during season 3 gives me some nice boundaries. The reader and I know who the Heart Rapist is already. That's not the question, the questions are about how Veronica and Weevil who are now on a different path because of what's gone differently will solve that mystery, catch him, but also how they will manage the ways their dynamic has shifted. This fic started from the desire to have both of those things go in a different direction than canon did, so the ending is where I started with this one.

As promised, a scene I don't know whether I will keep in The Backup of not:

“Does it ever feel like nothing you do actually makes a difference?” V asks, at the bottom of the stairwell of Mac’s dorm.

Only every fucking day , he thinks, but at the same time he’s pretty sure that’s not actually helpful, and he wants to help Veronica, even though it all feels pointless most of the time. So he stays quiet and waits for her to say more.

“The world is a shitty place and it doesn’t matter how many answers I find, how many bad guys I take down.  There’s always another one. So what’s the point? Why bother?  Maybe I should  just say fuck it and stop trying.”

“That I’d love to see,” he shakes his head, pausing before adding, “Veronica Mars standing idly by.  Pretty sure reality might fold in on itself if you stopped digging at every mystery and hammering at injustice, V.”

“Doesn’t make it any less crazy that I do,” she deflects.

“Maybe not,” he concedes, but if she’s crazy what does that make him?  “But if it helps people, I would call that the good kind of crazy, and you do help people, Veronica.”

Giving up is the logical response to hopeless situations, but if he did that what would be left for him?  What would be left of any of them?

“You want to know a secret?” she asks and he thinks, I want to know all of your secrets.

“Is that a trick question?” he says instead.

“Most of the time, I don’t care about helping people so much as making the bad guy pay.  I’m motivated by vengeance and the lure of secrets, not the good that comes from whatever it is I find.”

“Most of the time?” he questions.

“This case is different,” she owns, something he already had picked up on.

“And that’s a bad thing?” he responds instead of asking why even though he wants the answer to that question like a smoker fiending for a cigarette.

“Maybe. Honestly, I don’t know.  Your guess is as good as mine.”

Part of him wants to take this moment of uncertainty and push things a little, see if she would fall into his arms, turn to him for comfort not just security.

I’ve got you, querida, he could say, pull her close, one hand cradling the back of her head and the other wrapped around her waist.    V seems so brittle and shaky right now and he wonders if there have been other times she was like this and he just didn’t know her well enough yet to see it: if he missed the clues or if she hid them better when he was a stranger.

This would have been easier, he suspects, if he’d seen that vulnerability two years ago, back when he was a gang leader and she was an outcast, and they were some sort of high school cliche. Back when she was an intriguing unknown. 

But he didn’t see it then, and she’s not a stranger anymore, and maybe it is better they can both pretend he doesn’t see it now.

“Well then, my prediction is that you are going to take this asshole down and someone is going to erect a goddamned statue of you: Veronica Mars: protector of Hearst.”

“Okay, maybe my guess is better than yours, since that is totally not going to happen.”

[hleavesk]

banyan, breadfruit, kukui, and ulu trees we all care.

(source: associated press | 19 oct 2023)

Now, as Maui recovers from the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century, one that left at least 98 people dead, a band of arborists, farmers and landscapers has set about trying to save Lahaina’s ulu, kukui nut and other culturally important trees, in some cases digging down to the roots of badly burned specimens to find live tissue that could be used to propagate new shoots.

They see the destruction as a chance to restore the trees to Lahaina, to teach about their care and use, and to reclaim a bit of the town’s historic identity amid a larger discussion about whether the community’s reconstruction will price out locals and Hawaiian culture in favor of deep-pocketed outsiders seeking a slice of tropical paradise.

The banyan tree at the center of Lahaina was a sapling when it was planted in 1873 — a quarter century before the Hawaiian Islands became a U.S. territory and seven decades after King Kamehameha declared Lahaina the capital of his kingdom. It was a gift shipped from India to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first Protestant mission in Lahaina.

researchers believe breadfruit and kukui nut — now the state tree of Hawaii — were among the many edible plants Polynesian voyagers brought around 1,000 years ago. Such imports could have been carried across the ocean, wrapped in rotted coconut husk and dried leaves and protected in a woven coconut basket.

Kukui nut oil was used for torches — kukui is known as the “tree of light.” Other uses included wood for canoes, dyes for tattoos and bark infusions for preserving fish nets.

Ulu can grow to 60 feet (18 meters) tall, with large dark green leaves, and each can bear hundreds of pounds of breadfruit. A staple in some tropical countries, the fruit looks like an oversized, scaly lime. It is typically eaten cooked and is starchy, like potatoes or bread. It has a short shelf life, rotting within 48 hours of ripening.

[samwiselastname]

I need to watch the rest of the Cronenberg movies I haven't seen (this includes Scanners and Naked Lunch!) But I need like a month to recover from each. It's like a controlled wildfire propagating pinewoods sitch. I do also want to check the Dead Ringers miniseries though (girlbosses)

[conspiring-limabean]

Gonna add this on because the fact that people are still spreading this misinformation is bonkers.

the idea that consumption of agave as a sweetener harms pollinating bat populations originated from a single tumblr post from a weird antivegan who wanted to act like vegans are single-handedly killing bats. 1 single dude online pulled this claim out of nowhere and ever since then it's been seeping into weird corners of the internet, particularly tumblr, with 0 researched backing. this dude literally invented the entire discourse all on her own and unleashed a chain of misinformation that somehow still exists

The connection between agave farming and bats is that:

Agave farmers do not allow their plants to be pollinated and instead reproduce them by cloning, reducing genetic diversity (the loss of genetic diversity is something I almost never see mentioned in online discussions, but is a huge point in the scientific side)

Harmful pesticides can harm bats that come to feed on the agave; this is not a major driver of their population loss, but it certainly isn't helping

Some people illegally harvest wild agave plants to fuel the agave industry, damaging wild agave populations

These threats are not something to erase, but if we're going to talk about threats to bat populations then we should probably be including the whole picture. Other, and arguably the most major drivers of bat population loss are:

Climate change producing droughts in the desert environment

Recreational use of caves where bats nest

Overgrazing, something which no one ever wants to mention when they can instead mention agave sweetener while for some reason connecting this to veganism, who have nothing to do with it

Culling of bat populations to protect cattle from rabies, something which is also never mentioned on social media

Here's an article from the Yale School of the Environment about how overgrazing, recreational cave use, and climate change damage pollinating bats

The US Fish and Wildlife service's draft plan on saving the Mexican Long Nosed Bat, which describes bat culling to protect cattle, land usage (by urbanization, agriculture and grazing), climate change, and agave harvesting as bat threats; the recovery plan is to protect their roosting/foraging sites, encourage farmers to allow agave to bloom, and reduce cattle ranching

This article about how culling of vampire bats to prevent cattle rabies harms general bat populations, which I wouldn't argue as being massive compared to agave farming but which is certainly more significant than consumption of agave as a sweetener

Other general articles:

This article was one of the earliest to summarize the bat-tequila connection, which focuses on evolving farming standards to help both farmers and bats

This detailed article from Texas which mentions recreational cave use and superstitious culling of bats by farmers are major known threats, while wild agave farming and wildfires due to drought are possible threats but are not well researched

This study on how using bats to improve agave genetic diversity can help both farmers and bats

This national geographic article about how protecting roosting sites and tracking their migration patterns have been the greatest contributors to protecting the Mexican Long-Nosed Bat

This article (among random other ones on this topic that I can find) about how agave is a native plant which uses little water, giving it great potential for sustainable farming that resists drought and doesn't waste groundwater

anyway the main thing i want to get across is that the idea that consumption of agave sweetener as an alternative to honey or sugar threatens bats does not exist. like at all. that idea was entirely invented by a random social media user who knows nothing about the topic and likewise is propagated entirely by random social media users. I'm aware that the person I'm responding to isn't using this to attack anything in particular but it still propagates this years-long chain of misinformation invented by random person on tumblr with an agenda

there is, however, plenty of evidence that cattle ranching is a significant threat, if not more significant, than the farming of agave--a native, low-water usage plant that has huge potential for being sustainable agriculture and has been a vital part of recovering bat populations by encouraging farmers to allow their farms to be food sources. Agave overharvesting is a present factor that I would not try to erase, but is only one of many others that are often overlooked when people online can instead, for some reason, point to agave usage as a sweetener--an industry which is overshadowed by the tequila/mescal industry to the same extent that the sun is bigger than the earth (not to mention all the other uses of agave, which is a major anti-inflammatory agent used in medicines, lotions and cosmetics)

If we're going to somehow try to make any claim that consumption of agave as a sweetener in a diet harms bats, then by all fairness we should also be telling people to stop cave diving and to avoid consumption of beef in the south and southwest of north america. but the idea of dressing agave as being some innately evil, disastrous plant that messes up the environment in of itself overshadows the fact that it is actually a drought-resistant, water-efficient source of native agriculture that has numerous medicinal and practical uses that can be altered to help bat populations and has been domesticated and farmed by Native Americans for thousands of years. for the love of god, please stop spreading this misinformation that points fingers at something that isn’t even a problem while ignoring the actual ways people can help

anyway here's a list of bat friendly tequila and mezcal brands.

At least do the sky puppies right.