#and our long history of being persistence predators!!!!
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Monsters Reimagined: Quori
I love monsters that deal with dreams and the unconscious, partially because it seems an untapped avenue of creative exploration when it comes to d&d adventure writing, but mostly because it lets me use trippy dream imagery to tell a story.
What's interesting though is that there aren't many d&d baddies deal with dreams, aside from creatures like nighthags and other entities that use the dream/nightmare spells to deliver their messages/scorn from afar.
Eberron has the Quori, but as it stand these invisible manipulators are deeply tied to that history/setting, and actually have very little to do with dreams playing more into the "psychic invaders" trope. That said, they do have a few cool tricks, and a great name to riff off of, so riff I shall.
TLDR: As setting neutral antagonists, the Quori are a form of phantasmal predator that leech off the fears of dreaming beings. The more advanced members of their kind steal interesting minds to act as servitors, retreating back to the nightmare cities they maintain in the astral sea.
The Basics: Quori are native inhabitants of the astral sea, and are beings composed of pure thought. Few can say whether they originated as embodied beings at some point, or whether they were simply created this way, but it is safe to say they are largely ignorant of what it is to be tethered by flesh. As such, most Quori have no solid form, instead reflecting the dreams and fears of whichever people they happen to be haunting: multitudinous eyes for the paranoid, skittering appendages for the squeamish, flicking silhouettes for those burdened by night terrors.
Most Quori are content to be psychic scavengers, stoking sleeping minds into fretful imaginings while tagging along in troubled thoughts during waking hours. In this way a single Quori can persist for centuries, moving from mind to mind throughout a populated settlement. Occasionally however one of these scavenging Quori will encounter a bone-chilling terror, a burning rage, or a delirious mania so strong that they become self sustaining. Freed then from the need and the mutability that comes from savaging from other minds, this Quori becomes “lucid”, self willed, capable of returning to the astral sea without fear of dissolution.
These Lucid are literal thought leaders of their kind, capable of sustaining droves of their lesser kin without the need for mortal minds while at the same time coloring their outlooks and personalities as echoes of their own. Though most lucid lord their position over others of their kind, most are quietly aware that too many followers risk exhausting their emotional stores, reducing them back to scavengers at best or creating a feeding frenzy at worse. As such the Lucid covet and cultivate strong mortal emotions, the way a greedy lord might overtax their populace to ensure that the cutthroat mercenaries they employ remain wellpaid.
What does it mean to steal someone's thoughts? : The astral plane is a realm where ideas become real, and the quori are masters at shaping imagination to their aims. An individual Quori can mold the thoughts of a sleeping mind like clay, and a cluster of them can weave delusion and mass hysteria.
This psychic artifice took a major leap however when the Lucid discovered that mortal minds could be extracted from their waking shells and hoaned down into their base mechanisms. Why try and “imagine” a better wall into being when a priest’s dogmatic stubbornness is so much more resilient? Why carve a key for a lock when a mathematician's fixation will worry at the problem until it is done? Why try and pen a poem when an adolescent's’s lovesick longing is so much sweeter?
Most often these thefts are confused for simple forgetting, the mutability of aging minds, or writer’s block. We all pick up and lose interests and skills over our lifetime, and often most of what the Quori want is easily filled in by the mind’s natural plasticity. More awful though is when the Lucid deem a mind to be “interesting”, a unique and wonderous mechanism to be added to their collection, or dissected for further study. In this case the mind is scooped out entirely, leaving the victim comatose, and only speedy intervention or a jaunt to the astral plane have any hope of recovering the stolen mind or the talent it possessed.
Adventure ideas:
Lucid Quori build nightmarish cities in the astral plane, warping geometries of half-alive buildings that are staffed by captured minds and haunted by both their dependent brethren and by other astral denizens that don’t mind the weirdness of their surroundings. Within these cities lay archives, libraries, and armories of minds and mind-shaped tools from across the multiverse, a tantalizing treasure for any who would face off against living horrors.
Much like how powerful mages travel to the astral plane to make their dreams come true, so to do some powerful quori visit the mortal plane to sate their earthly appetites. Called “inspired”, these tourists on the material plane are either forced to share a body with a possibly willing host, or find one that’s recently been vacated. Powerful Lucid have no problem hollowing out some innocent that fits their needs, but their lesser brethren must make due with sleepwalkers, the addled, or those in comas. Inspired retain their mindbending powers of their true form, but often have trouble leaving once settled in.
In some cases, Quori can get stuck in a body that has suddenly dided, resulting in what amounts to a sensory isolation chamber for the psychic spirit. While most fade out in time, some learn to puppet their skeletal vessels after a long imprisonment, awakening ravenous and desperate for escape.
Mortals seeking inspiration, revelation, or freedom from their mental demons may sometimes seek out the Quori in order to deal. Some scholars speak of the living dreams as if they were psychic mechanics, dutifully rebuilding the mind of their petitioners like it was a device in need of oiling and realignment, while others warn of the terrible price the Lucid extract in exchange for their reckless experimentation. Sometimes if a skill must be learned immediately, or a great trauma undone, there’s no one else to turn to but the mind-thieves.
The source material: The idea of "mind theives" was greatly inspired by a novel series called "The Quantum Thief" , in which a villanous cadre makes off with the souls of interesting individuals. Seriously, check it out if you have a love of high concept scifi
While I had the idea beforehand, the latest campaign of critical role and the Somnovum really cemented my idea of how the Quori should function: beings discorporate from all physicality, mad with power at their ability to reshape reality, and fucking creepy to boot.
The inspired came from the core Quori concept, but I liked them more as one-off tourists than the “generically engineered ruling caste” of the eberon books.
Also last but not least, Codex Siberys, a 3rd party bestiary got me thinking about the Quori thanks to their “Quoricage zombie” monster, Most of this blossomed from there, so I can’t thank them enough.
Art
#quori#astral#villain#Bestiary#Adventure#worldbuilding#lovecrafian#spooky#horror#dream#monsters reimagined#tharizdun
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First Contact and it's Complications: Part 2 Biology Lesson
This is head researcher Bea'zikal following up from my previous reports as I stated before, I do apologize for the lack explanation and detail in those entries and I will now give you the full documentation of what I have observed with my time spent with Humanity and more specifically Human Head researcher who is referred to as Jamal Alteriq, a very fine scientific mind and excellent guide as he was the one to be our ambassador through Human space and of course to keep eyes on us. We saw many incredible things on our journey and I will explain in due time, but I thought it wise to give a basic run down on human biology to better help visualize the scenes I will explain in later logs. (Note: I advise you to open the attached encrypted files for observation while reading)
Humans are lightly Haired mammals that evolved on a rich but highly diverse Planet that was covered in approximately 71% water with humans living on the 29% of Land, resources were plentiful but competition was fierce as many species competed for control of those same resources, the resources in question being food and 'fresh' water which is a specific term as humans cannot drink water that is above or below a certain Ph. Level or a has a heavy imbalance of minerals;They also cannot drink any water that is contaminated with parasites, or Planetary elements such as dirt. This of course isn't to say humans have entirely weak stomachs as they are capable of consuming certain acids such as Malic and Citric Acid which is used in food flavoring, and of which would result in violent death should either substance be consumed by a Zeatikian, in addition to consumption of such compounds they can digest Certain forms of Alcohol and many forms of Capsaicin which many of course know isn't poisonous but considered non-edible to all Zeatikians and instead sees a use as a defense weapon. Moving on from the topic of consumable and non-consumable liquids brings us to eating habits; Humans specified as Omnivore 'Persistence' Predators, and can consume a wide variety of Meat and Plants, which a balance of both is needed to maintain peak physical form and a healthy digestive and immune system. From what Human Head Researcher Jamal Alteriq has told me ancient human hunting wasn't chasing down prey at high speeds but rather simply outlasting it in a slower walk chase(Note: Humans have a extreme amount of stamina and can walk for hours at a time as they evolved to efficiently maintain a pace of speed) and when the prey was tired and unable to continue on humans would slay the creature and bring it back to be cooked then consumed. (Note: Cooking is one of the few things that are shared in Both Zeatikians and Human evolution) Head Researcher Jamal Alteriq also informed me that eventually ancient Humanity began Agriculture and that is what primarily began to start up human culture and civilization.(Note: again one of the few things that are shared amongst our history)
Head Researcher Jamal Alteriq told me of the Human Life stages which are of a very different cycle of our own from our People the Zeatikians, conception of offspring is relatively the same between our two species, but with various degrees of success in humans as their method of reproduction is relatively different between Human to Human. Head Researcher Jamal Alteriq Suggested that's all we do to speak on the matter and I obliged his request how ever odd I thought it was.(Note: After doing research on this topic myself I also now recommend that all Zeatikian researchers stay away from this topic as well as it's very traumatizing to look at) Humans generally can only have one child every half a cycle but it can be more numerous if chance allows it, and human offspring is extremely vulnerable and must be cared for by it's parents constantly otherwise it will most likely guaranteed to perish; of course in this time human 'infants' (Note: Infants are the name for children that under a cycle and half old) are cared for by not only the parents but also other humans hired to be care takers as well that can give the infants whatever they need at anytime while the parents set off to complete tasks.
Humans possess what is called an Endoskeleton(Note: Observe attached files) which gives their bodies structure and allows an anchor for their extremely complex muscular system as well as keep internal organs safe and secure. This Endoskeleton is made up of bones of very high calcium content and is extremely durable and strong, shown being able to with stand many hits that could cripple, paralyze or downright kill a healthy Zeatikian. Infant humans start out with more numerous but weaker bones and cartilage numbering around 300 individual structures but eventually after many cycles they all fuse into their respective positions and become stronger and thicker; this is most prominent around what they call their 'Skull' which is a bone structure that contains their brain and connects to the spinal column (Note: Observe Highlighted Area) and starts out segmented and eventually becomes fully fused and one solid structure in about 22 cycles. Part of the function of the skull is a basic one hinged jaw that contains anywhere from 32 to 36 bone structures they call teeth which allows them to tear through tougher foods and aids in digestion, the human jaw is relatively weak surprisingly only able to produce 300UPSQ which would absolutely be enough to hurt a Zeatikian so I would advise you be careful.
Adolescent Human offspring undergoes a change around 9 Cycles in males and 7.5 in females, as they approach sexual maturity they begin to swell on muscle mass and increase in growth exponentially over a time period of 4 cycles, during this time hormones are pumped through and over about 1.5 to 2 cycles the voice deepens and body hair is increased, this incredible change is known to cause certain behavior changes as well as changes in diet and appetite. Many human females have certain large orifices located on their chests that are used primarily to feed their young, which should have been obvious seeing how I have already stated they are indeed mammals,(Note: I have been told to report on this much only as logging anymore would make many among the human population uncomfortable, I do not know why but I shall oblige) and as mammals they are indeed warm blooded, which means they do not take too well to fluctuating temperatures as Being in below freezing temperatures for too long can lead to a humans death in about 20 minutes should they be naked in said weather; and so if in the future you have humans boarding your vessel be sure to keep it atleast a median temperature of 400TM and provide them with necessary heating elements if they do not have any.
Humans possess a 'Circulatory system' much like our own that pumps blood all across it's body at a very steady rate of 60 to 100 beats per tick, which is quite slow compared to our 120 to 150 beats per tick. Humans also possess a blood color that shines a bright red compared to that of a Zeatikian that has a bright purple hue, both of our species have iron in our respective Hemoglobins but our kind carries what they call 'Hemerythrin' while they carry whats called 'Heme' and thus that's what gives the difference in blood pigmentation. They also possess various different organs that process everything from sugars and proteins to alcohol and carbs, the 'Liver' which is described as a 'Blood Filter' cleanses the blood as it passes through it, while organs like the 'Kidneys' process liquid waste, sugars, salts, and all minerals to help keep it stable within the body.
The Human 'Immune system' is a very strong and very important system in the human body as humans do not have segmented Carapaces like all Zeatikian's have, rather they possess a skin of 7 layers and this layered skin protects the body from the outside world, when penetrated or slashed open blood will began to flow out much like a broken carapace or cut joint segment would, the cells in the human would try to seal the cut with platelets which will form a scab, which is a temporary seal while the skin is being repaired anew; as this process does share similarities with the way our Carapace heals itself our process is much slower while the humans can heal their skin in a matter of a few rotations depending on the severity of the injury. Of course during the cut possible bacteria and other such microorganisms could have infiltrated the bloodstream and usually once successful they become targeted by the protector cells or as humans call them 'white blood cells' for destruction.
The 'Digestive track' is relatively self-explanatory so I will be brief on the subject, when food is consumed it is first chewed and made wet by the 'Saliva' a human produces in their mouth which helps break it down further and eases the transfer of food from the mouth down the 'Trachea' as they call it and into the 'Stomach' which becomes broken down by 'Stomach' acid,various compounds,and gut bacteria that absorb the nutrients and forward the waste through what humans call the 'Large Intestine' which then transfers through the 'Small intestine' which is the excreted by the Human, relatively the same processes any Zeatikian goes through.
Humans of this modern era however are nearly perfect as about 1000 cycles ago an event on their home world that was put into motion made humans as nearly perfect as they could be biologically, but this change however was not a instant process as the changes would only take place slowly after every generation, each one living longer then the last, getting sick less, and less in the population being born with genetic conditions that had debilitated humanity for eons. Nowadays it is rarer for humans to catch a sickness, but impossible for any human being to be born with a genetic condition aside from the few they found desirable. Many live long fulfilling lives from what I'm told by Head Researcher Jamal Alteriq, some living their full total lifespans of 200 cycles which I can only dream of living a mere 40 cycles let alone a long 200 cycles.
This concludes my report on the basic biology of humanity I hope you found it informative and helpful, I shall work on my next log about human economic and social status, which Human Head Researcher Jamal Alteriq Helped immensely on.
Head Researcher Bea'zikal Signing off
(I hope you enjoy the sequel to what I wrote first I'm really proud of this one but please tell me if there is anything I could do to better my writing? Constructive criticism is appreciated, more parts on the way)
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(I think the fact that Simon both has no idea how his species reproduces but also is assured that their long lifespans must indicate they evolved before humans doesn't quite add up, but that's not what I'm discussing today)
I'm going to post this before I forget, because it's truly an interesting idea that Simon seems intent on hanging to, despite it being so blatantly at odds with how evolution and the natural world function.
I've gone over it before, but I'll break down predation and the effect it has on both the predator and prey species to illustrate the issue with this idea. (Long post ahead)
So, the entire history of predation and how it appears in our fossil records, how it influences evolution, it's all extremely fascinating. And, according to Simon, the Cousins species has existed since before humans.
Cousins are ruthless and kill ceaselessly and without mercy when not consuming human flesh specifically. Remember, they evolved before humans, so this is how they intended to live. Whatever interaction human flesh has with their physiology is coincidental.
Simon's digestive system, also, is equipped to gain energy from any and all forms of meat and plant matter. This clearly indicates Cousins are omnivorous.
The evolution to omnivory isn't a singular process, but it is strange for a blindly ravenous beast to consume vegetation purposefully. But I digress.
Simon consumes 10,000 calories per day on average. Let's compare this amount to other apex predators.
A grizzly bear averages 20,000 calories. Wolves roughly eat 8,000. Lions eat 7,000. A whale shark consumes 6,000.
Those are daily averages, which is what Simon states his 10,000 calories represents. A bear can consume upwards of 50,000 in a day when preparing for hibernation, a wolf can go several days without any food, same with lions. Those are outlying cases.
A creature roughly the size of a human who does, I'd estimate, less physical activity than a whale shark (something Simon would more closely be related to than a mammal) and consumes the equivalent of 15 pounds of meat daily would be, to say the least, morbidly obese.
Simon's species is closer to marine creatures than us humans, and one of the many fascinating aspects of marine life is the metabolism they've evolved. As a general rule, things that live in the ocean have evolved slow metabolisms to help them survive long stretches without food. They're ridiculously efficient with their intake. Same goes for reptiles, such as the alligator, which only needs 3 calories per kilogram of mass per day. (This averages to under 1,000.)
It seems incredibly unlikely and inexplicable from an evolutionary standpoint for Simon's species to forgo all of this efficiency and need more than ten times the calories of a creature over double their mass.
To consume so much on a daily basis would put a strain on the ecosystem Simon's species resides within. Simply put, it's not remotely sustainable, especially not for a creature that persists for centuries. There wouldn't be anything left to eat!
On top of that, Simon's FAQ explains quite stubbornly that eating humans is a necessity. Something he needs to do. How on earth does that make sense, given you evolved before your required prey existed?
In conclusion, the lore of Cousins and their diet doesn't measure up to how biology and the environment function.
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Octa A-kun’s Heart-Thumping Day!
For the 1200+ follower milestone, here is the next part of the cursed raven’s story!
Part 1 l Part 2 l Part 3 l Part 4 l Part 5
Today’s tale involves Octavinelle A-kun in a pinch...?! Fight on, Octa A-kun...! You can do it, Octa A-kun...!!
My name is Kon...! I’m just your average, everyday Octavinelle student. I tend to blend into the background, so a lot of my classmates call me Octa A-kun.
I’d say that my favorite food is salted fish, and I happen to like whatever seems to be popular these days. I have the window seat in my home room. Most of the time, I just go with the flow, but I like to keep my head low and stay out of trouble!
All I really want is a quiet, peaceful life!
...So—you may ask—how, then, did I find myself in this pinch?
An arrow whizzes at Octa A-kun’s head, tearing off his fedora and pinning it to the wall behind him. It just narrowly grazes his hair, ripping off a deep green strand with a sharp jolt. Octa A-kun squeaks in terror and collapses onto his rear end.
“Pardon moi, Monsieur Kelp,” comes the light-hearted chirp of his assailant. A young man in a bob cut steps forth, a bow in his hands and a quiver strapped to his back. The billowy white feather tucked in his hat bounces with each stride. “I was in need of some early morning target practice.”
Third year and Pomefiore vice-dorm leader, Rook Hunt, according to the rumors. Be wary of him--once he fixates on something, he will not relent.
“A-Ahahaha...I-It’s fine, senpai!” Octa A-kun stutters, scrambling back onto his feet. He glances at his poor hat, skewered clean through--he’d have to file a request for a replacement later. Azul would charge a fee for it--with interest.
“Ah, how merciful you are, Monsieur Kelp~” Rook laughs as he approaches, each step in his boots the resounding thump-thump of a predator on the prowl.
Octa A-kun shrinks against the wall. “U-Um...! Do you need something from me, senpai...?!”
“Hohoh. How perceptive of you.” Rook plucks his arrow--and Octa A-kun’s hat--and holds his weapon up in the sunlight, his green eyes focusing on the gleam of the arrow’s dagger-like tip. “I’ve merely come for a query, my friend! No need to make such a frightened face.”
“Just a question i-is fine. But it has to be a quick one...! I have to meet up with my partner for a project...”
“But of course. I will not keep you for long.” He tucks the arrow back into his quiver and replaces Octa A-kun’s hat upon his head. “Be honest with me--that is all that I ask of you.”
Rook maintains the curve to his lips as he brings his face closer to his prey. His smile darkens, and the glimmer in his eyes fades into something far more cruel.
“...You would not happen to have been sent by one Roi de Fort, have you? To, perhaps, spy on a little black bird?”
Octa A-kun pales. Sweat collects on his forehead. A lump forms in his throat.
“I-I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT...!!” he blurts out.
Unconvincingly.
Rook’s eyes narrow. “I have requested for you to speak naught but the truth, have I not?”
He reaches out and takes ahold of Octa A-kun’s collar, pulling him close--so close that the poor boy can make out his own fear-stricken expression in the green of Rook’s eyes.
The hunter still smiles, his teeth a stark, blinding white.
He’s beautiful, Octa A-kun realizes. Beautiful, but deadly.
“Y-You’re being r-really scary, senpai...! P-Please don’t bully me...!”
“La vérité, Monsieur Kelp?”
A drop of sweat races down Octa A-kun’s profile. Pupils dilated, breath hitching, body trembling.
In the distance, a bell tolls--granting him an opportunity to escape.
“Would you look at the time...!! I...I really gotta go now!! M-My project partner’s waiting for me, ahahaha...!! E-Excuse me!” Octa A-kun shouts shaking from Rook’s grip and sidestepping the hunter.
He begins to speed walk away, hands balled into fists and arms swinging stiffly, when Rook calls out to him.
“...Monsieur Kelp.”
Against his better judgement, Octa A-kun dares to glance back.
Rook is staring right at him, his gaze piercing.
“Know this: if you betray her, there will be more for you to worry about than damaged articles of clothing.”
And with that remark, Rook allows his prey to retreat.
But he watches every step of the way.
Until Octa A-kun is nothing more than a dot in the distance.
“Welcome to my roost,” Raven declares with the wave of her hand. “Ignore the mess, and make yourself at home.”
“D-Don’t mind if I do,” Octa A-kun says, carefully ducking into the attic space.
Mess is a bit of an understatement. Raven’s room is piled high with tomes, loose papers scattered on the floor and smears of ink all over.
Tucked away in a corner appears to be a mattress, with a blanket in a nest-like shape, a pillow laid in the center. A bookshelf overflows with volumes on ancient curses, while a strange teardrop shaped seat, decorated with ribbons and wisteria, hangs by a window.
Set upon a large desk is a snuffed out candle, a quill set with a magic gemstone, and several empty bottles and blank labels. A basket spills out its contents--herbs, flowers, and fungi--next to a mortar and pestle.
What really catches Octa A-kun’s attention, however, is the strange collection of glass apparatuses and tubes that line the desk. A small flame dances under the rounded part of a flask, heating up a rose-gold concoction.
“Looks like you keep pretty busy, huh?”
“You could say that. I like to remain productive.”
Octa A-kun offers a timid smile. “Um, if I may ask, what is it that you’ve got brewing at your desk...? I-I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”
Raven pauses.
“...Do you know that feeling of rediscovering a part of yourself you thought you had once lost? Or the rose-tinted glasses which clouds one’s vision? The wonderfulness of meeting an old friend? Think of those things, set in the color of dawn, beckoning a new day.”
“E-Eh?” Octa A-kun combs his brain for a response. “Uh...you mean nostalgia?”
“Precisely. This is my latest creation--Nostalgia. It took me two whole weeks to get this new ink color just right, but it shall be lovely to write with.” Raven puffs up a bit with pride. “Oh, but enough about my personal projects. We need to work on that Magic History assignment, yes?”
“Y-Yes. That report on Unique Magic Development...” Octa A-kun’s eyes follow Raven’s hand as it trails over a series of books on a shelf.
Hexes, and How to Break Them. True Love’s Kiss: Panacea or Poison? Ancient Curses: A Collection of Anecdotes. Journal of Magic Medicine, Issue 32: Jinx Edition.
“Ah, here it is.” Raven fishes out a maroon book with a few sticky notes jutting out of it--Unique Magic: Nature & Nurture--and hands it to Octa A-kun, along with a spare quill, an inkwell, and a fresh sheet of paper.
She gestures toward the seat adorned with wisteria. “Have a seat and work on your half of the report. I’ll be working on my half at my desk after I clean up. We can compare our halves and edit as is necessary when both parts are complete.”
He complies, sitting where he is directed and flipping open Unique Magic: Nature & Nurture.
Two sticky notes immediately pop out at him. One sports a list of various unrelated words (Nostalgia, Sorrow, Regret, and an L word that appears to have been blotted out, left illegible).
The other sticky note has a little diagram labelled Unique Magic, a heart in the center with arrows pointing outward. Needs faith, trust, and a little pixie dust, one arrow remarks. Infusion of feelings requires experience, says another. Practice with Nostalgia, a third states.
Octa A-kun slowly lifts his eyes from the page--carefully watching Raven tidying up her desk.
With the flick of her magical pen--or quill, rather--she extinguishes the flame beneath her flask and sets it into a test tube rack to cool. Raven collects her plants into a basket and tucks them under the desk, along with the rest of her glassware. Then she gathers stray papers and pops open her drawer to stow them away--
And that’s when Octa A-kun catches a glimpse of it.
An unopened letter, in a pale blue envelope.
To My Dearest Raven scrawled across it.
“...And that is the g-gist of it,” Octa A-kun concludes his report, “dorm leader.”
“Excellent work, Kon-san. You efforts are greatly appreciated.” From behind his ornate office desk, Azul clasps his hands together and beams. “I suppose there is no longer any need for Floyd to pay your friends in Pomefiore and Scarabia a little visit.”
“Boooo,” Floyd groans from beside him.
“Th-Thank you for your kindness, dorm leader!” Octa A-kun gushes--if only to (poorly) mask his own fears. He wants to sink into the couch cushions and disappear like sea foam. “B-But...But if I can make a request, sir!”
“What is it?” Azul sounds mildly annoyed, but Octa A-kun steels his courage and persists.
“Um...i-if possible, can you assign s-someone else to check on Miss Raven? I-I’m scared of what Rook-senpai will do to me if I make the wrong mo--EEP!!”
Before he has even finished his sentence, Floyd is flying at him like a shark tearing through water.
WHAM!
Octa A-kun screams as Floyd’s foot connects with the couch, boxing him in and nearly knocking the furniture over. Azul’s glasses flash a pure white, and he makes no move to restrain the feral eel.
“What was that, Konbu-chan?” Floyd asks--no, demands--as he leers down at him. Teeth gnashing. “Did I hear you right? Umineko-kun got in the way?”
“E-Eeeep! Ch-Chill out, Floyd-senpai! You’re...you’re scaring me!!” Octa A-kun whimpers, his poor heart pounding out of his chest.
“Speak freely, Kon-san,” Azul prompts, waving a gloved hand to silence Floyd--but his tone is just as icy and cruel as the eel’s eyes. “What is this I hear about...interference?”
“W-Well...h-he seemed to know that you sent me. And he said he might...do things if I make a misstep.” Octa A-kun furiously shakes his head. “I’ll need a replacement hat after th-that encounter...I-I’m sorry, dorm leader, but I r-really don’t want to be involved in this any more than I have to...!”
Azul leans back in his chair, and his face settles into a serious expression.
“Uwaaah, Jade wasn’t kiddin’ when he said Umineko-kun was guarding Black Pearly like a shark on sunken treasure,” Floyd flicks his tongue along his teeth, which gleam dangerously under the lights of the VIP room. “Even the low level lackies get chewed up and spat out, ehehehe~”
“This is not funny, Floyd. This just makes things that much more difficult,” Azul snaps, pushing his glasses up.
“It’s fine, it’s fiiine,” Floyd insists dismissively with a giggle. “I’ll just follow Konbu-chan--and if that creep Umineko-kun gets close, I’ll beat’em bloody~”
“I-Isn’t that a bit extreme?!” Octa A-kun protests, only to earn a withering glare from Floyd.
“Shut your trap, guppy. No one asked for your opinion,” Floyd hisses--then his expression brightens considerably when he addresses his dorm leader. “Ne, ne, Azul! Can I, can I?”
“Absolutely not. We still need to collect more information before taking such drastic action,” Azul says, his voice tinged with irrtation. “Might I remind you, Floyd, that Octavinelle is, once again, in poor standing with the headmaster? It would not do to further tarnish our reputation with another incidence report.”
“Laaaame~” Floyd pouts, backing away from Oct A-kun. “I’m not allowed to do anything fun anymore.”
“As I was saying,” Azul continues, ignoring the eel, “thank you for bringing this to my attention, Kon-san. Your work here is done--you are relieved from your duties until further notice. Dismissed.”
“Y-Yessir!! Th-Thank you so much, sir!” Octa A-kun breathes a massive sigh of relief. He is quick to gather his coat and hat, then bow to his senpais and hurriedly exit.
Azul pinches the bridge of his nose. “...This will become a problem if it persists.”
“I don’t get it, Azul!” Floyd whines loudly, slamming his hands on his dorm leader’s desk. “Why don’t we just kidnap Black Pearly already and make her ‘n Jade ‘fess up? That’d be sooo much easier than dancing around Umineko-kun!”
“That is not how proper reconciliation works, Floyd,” Azul points out. “If we are to fix this mess, then we cannot hope to resolve it overnight.”
He thinks of the details Octa A-kun had divulged--the countless books that litter Raven’s abode, the fixation on work, the strangely named ink, the interest in curses...Surely they must all mean something.
He pauses, before adding, “...I feel as though I am missing a vital piece of the puzzle.”
“Ehhhh? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Call it...octopus’s intuition. There is something bigger at play here, something far more powerful than you or I can comprehend.” Azul folds his arms. “And if we intend to bring back Miss Raven into Jade’s arms, then that is one puzzle piece we must find.”
“Hmmm.” Floyd leans down, peering into Azul’s solemn face--then breaks out into a toothy grin. “Ne, ne, you really care a lot about Jade, don’t you?”
“Hmph. Don’t be ridiculous,” Azul snaps, lips pursing into a straight line. “This is merely a case of an employer fretting over the well being of his employee. Jade cannot perform at his best if he is emotionally distressed. I am simply doing my due diligence as his employer to ensure that he is content--it benefits the business.”
“Ehehehe~ In the end, Azul’s heart is juuust as squishy and soft as his octopus form~” The eel wraps his arms around Azul, squeezing the dorm leader against his chest. “That’s sooo cute~”
“FLOYD, DO NOT PRESUME TO KNOW MY INTENTIONS...!! AND UNHAND ME THIS INSTANT!”
“Nope! Don’t wanna~”
Octa A-kun is halfway down the corridor when a hand clamps down--hard--onto his shoulder. The student squeaks in terror as he is whipped around--and comes face-to-face with his smiling vice-dorm leader.
“Good evening, Kon-san,” Jade says nonchalantly, his tone light but his aura dark. “Might I have a moment with you?”
For the third time that day. Octa A-kun’s stomach sinks--but he lacks both the strength and the willpower to resist.
“S-Sure...Wh-What is it?”
Jade cranes his head down, his single golden eye glowing despite his sinister shadow. “I have received word that you have been snooping around campus. Naughty, naughty Kon-san. You should know better.”
Octa A-kun instinctively takes a step back, putting some distance between him and his vice-dorm leader--the information broker of Octavinelle. No secret can evade him, it seems.
“Th-The dorm leader asked me to...!” he confesses, cheeks turning pink in embarrassment.
“Please, be at ease. I do not bite,” Jade says smoothly, chuckling into his glove. “Now then, my sources tell me that you happened upon Miss Raven’s quarters. Is this correct?”
“Y-Yes...”
“Then let me ask this of you--did you, by chance, see a blue envelope?”
“Blue envelope...” Octa A-kun’s eyes light up in realization. “A-Ah, I do seem to recall seeing something like that. She...She keeps it in a drawer. It was unopened.”
“Unopened...?” Jade repeats the word carefully, as though handling a delicate artifact. He brings a hand to his chin in contemplation, his brows furrowing. “It is no wonder why she continues to behave in such a vehement manner,” he mumbles under his breath.
“Um...vice-dorm leader? Is everything alright?” Octa A-kun asks nervously.
“...No. It is nothing, I assure you.” Jade composes himself, smiling once more--this time, without a hint of darkness to it. “Think nothing of it, dear Kon-san. Please, do retire for the night--that was all I wished to know, fufu.”
“O-Of course, vice-dorm leader...”
Jade sees him off with a polite wave.
Octa A-kun waits until Jade is completely out of sight before he collapses into a heap on the ground. He clutches onto his stomach, which twists and knots with fright, and sniffles softly to himself.
Why, oh, why was he not sorted into a normal dorm with normal non-scary students and normal, healthy relationships with their peers? No, instead he’s trapped in the mermaid mafia and witnessing Overblot incidents every single month.
Go to Night Raven College, they said. It’d be fun, they said. You’ll get a great education, they said.
J-Just...Just give me a quiet, peaceful life already...!!
#Floyd Leech#Azul Ashengrotto#twst#twisted wonderland#disney twisted wonderland#Rook Hunt#Jade Leech#Rave. Crowley#angst#this installment was hard to pace#Octavinelle A-kun#Tale of the Cursed Raven#twst oc#twisted wonderland oc#enchanted inks
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Bonus from Human Relations (Jello Salad, NASA, and Epic Jon Bitchery)
Short little thing thumped out in an hour last night. I was challenged to write a genuine argument and Elias eating Jello Salad. I succeeded in one of those things.
TW for discussions of, as you can probably expect, 1950s racism and maladaptive relationships
“Reservation for…”
The host stared at Jon blankly. Jon silently struggled.
“Reservation for Jo - uh...John? No…”
“Perhaps you are in the wrong restaurant,” the host hinted, somewhat forcefully.
“No, I’m quite confident I’m at the right place. Hold on.” Jon struggled with his briefcase, withdrawing an invitation scribbled on stationary paper. A large, embossed header at the top read in sprawling letters US DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, and the host blanched. Jon quickly scanned the paper, taking a minute to translate his own shorthand before brightening. “Ah! Yes, Salle du Bois, at seven pm, March 2nd. With...yes, a Sir James Wright.” Jon folded the paper one-handedly and stuck it into his jacket pocket. He smiled brightly at the flummoxed host. “Well? Will no one take my coat?”
“Reservation for…”
The host stared at Jon blankly. Jon silently struggled.
“Reservation for Jo - uh...John? No…”
“Perhaps you are in the wrong restaurant,” the host hinted, somewhat forcefully.
“No, I’m quite confident I’m at the right place. Hold on.” Jon struggled with his briefcase, withdrawing an invitation scribbled on stationary paper. A large, embossed header at the top read in sprawling letters US DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, and the host blanched. Jon quickly scanned the paper, taking a minute to translate his own shorthand before brightening. “Ah! Yes, Salle du Bois, at seven pm, March 2nd. With...yes, a Sir James Wright.” Jon folded the paper one-handedly and stuck it into his jacket pocket. He smiled brightly at the flummoxed host. “Well? Will no one take my coat?”
The name must have been familiar, carrying its own power - honestly, a peerage, man was annoying every time - because a waiter appeared from nowhere very quickly to take Jon’s hat, coat, and briefcase. Jon took the opportunity to straighten his fine suit and tie, and glance around the room.
Part of him couldn’t help but be proud: barely four years ago, it would have been impossible to step foot inside the finest restaurant in Washington, DC. Senators dined on these tables, creating backroom deals and manufacturing methods of state and politics, and Jon had been forced to rely on some creative means to work himself into those deals. These days, it was as simple as walking in through the front door. Of course, the entire room was staring at him extremely pointedly, but that was what the peerage, money, and reputation was for. Jon never much cared if people disliked him - he tended to only concern himself with people who could do something about it.
Everyone of import in Congress knew Jonathan Sims. A whisper on the wind, a knife in the dark: that had been Jon, always. It still was. But now, people looked at him with respect. Everyone did.
Everyone except, of course, the young man sitting at the pristinely white table that the waiter lead him to. Utterly unrecognized, but dimly familiar in the way that the endless parade of Jonah’s bodies always was: a thin, emancipated type of look, in his early twenties, with a thin but healthy comb of blonde hair and light muscle that would soon go unattended under Jonah’s careful attention. Hilariously, he was still short - would that man ever find a body over five feet seven?
Jonah smiled as Jon and the waiter approached, waving aside the waiter’s silent question of if it was really Jon that he had been waiting for. Honestly, the more things changed.
“Jonathan,” Jonah said warmly, “how long has it been?”
“Too long to say in polite company,” Jon said lightly, shaking his hand tightly. He was waiting for public hugs between men to go back in style. He missed it, slightly. “You look...different.”
Of course, Jonah noticeably preened. “I think this one has a nice, strong jaw, don’t you?”
“It’s...the jaw that the English peerage is famous for,” Jon said tactfully, sitting down on a delicate and fine chair. “What brings you to DC, Jonah? Normally you can’t be pried away from London with a crowbar.”
Jonah gleamed a bright white smile at him. “Can’t a man miss his close business partner after so long apart?”
“That would imply you’re capable of human emotion.”
“True, my mistake.”
The waiter appeared, and Jonah ordered something carelessly expensive and good wine as Jonathan carefully ordered a very refined and dignified cut of filet mignon. The wait on the food was short, of course, and Jon and Jonah wasted time by chatting about their business ventures. Jon’s was going extremely well, obviously. Jonah’s was extremely boring and slow, obviously.
“This industry boom is incredible. The technological innovation, the jump forward in progress, the persistent fear that it will all be taken away the minute we step out of the conformist line…” Jon picked up his fork as the plates of steaming and small portions were slid onto their table. “Mark my words, Jonah. 1953 will be our year.”
“My good man,” Jonah said sympathetically, “it’s well into 1957.”
“Years should be longer. Simon agrees with me.” Jon frowned, picking up a fork and cutting into his meat . “We’re investing in Simon and his projects, by the way.”
Jonah smiled over the rim of his wine glass, raising a delicate blonde eyebrow at Jon. “Wonderful of you to make these decisions for us.”
“When you insist on spending all of your time in the crude and backward England, I shall do as I please,” Jon said haughtily, only to see Jonah snicker into his glass. “I’ve been working with him to push his little initiative through Congress.”
“How quickly the prodigal son shuns his motherland.” Jonah ate slowly, never once looking away from Jon. He had never forgotten that tendency of Jonah - to keep his eyes always, always on Jon, as if keeping an eye on a dangerous predator. But in that hooded, dark gaze, a half-smile always tugged at his lips. In his better moments it seemed like fond indulgence; in his worse it appeared closer to a child watching his kitten chase a dangling piece of string. “A decade or two in the land of tomorrow and you’ve adopted a new home country?”
“It is a land of progress,” Jon hissed, jabbing at Jonah with his fork. “England is stagnant, putting on airs of civility and progress when it does little more than languish in its former greatness. Look what happened with the mess in India. What do we have left? A few impoverished African territories? Yemen? We have lost all ambition. The English still fancy themselves the greatest population in the world, when they’re little more than a bombed out shell. At least America had the decency to profit off war.”
“War is fairly pointless if there’s no profit in it,” Jonah agreed mildly. He sipped his wine again delicately. “So you figure that space is the next frontier, then?”
“The pursuit of knowledge is always in our best interest,” Jon said primly. “I was skeptical too, Jonah. But I met this lovely young engineer, a Ms. Johnson, and she’s opened my eyes. NASA is the future, and NASA is here. Only habit keeps you in England, now.”
For the first time, Jonah’s eyes narrowed slightly. “A respect for history is far from a habit, Jonathan. Have some respect.”
“Your history, not mine. And you’re ancient history too,” Jon pointed out. He calmly ate his filet as Jonah sputtered. “Admit it. You’d walk around in the cravat you were buried in if you could.”
“The cravat is dignified. It’s hardly my fault if young men these days flaunt themselves in those dirty blue jeans.” Jonah sneered the word with marked disdain. “I can see their calves.”
Despite himself, Jon smiled into his filet. “Did it give you a case of the vapors?”
Jonah reversed his grip on his fork and held it casually within stabbing distance of Jon’s hand. “Do not get us kicked out of this establishment.”
“Were you forced to recline on your fainting couch with your smelling salts?”
“I have propiety,” Jonah hissed. Hilariously, his new body had the tendency to flush a little, and his ears were noticeably red. For the first time, Jon wished that he owned one of those camera things. “At least I don’t while away my hours with your harlot of a girl.”
Almost immediately, Jonah seemed to recognize that he had gone too far, and Jon was distantly aware that his neon green eyes had taken on a dangerous tint. Jonah leaned back a little from where they both had been unconsciously leaning in, and Jon carefully readied his grip on his steak knife. “Watch how you speak of my wife.”
“Wife?” Jonah crossed his arms, tone dripping with condescension. “When did you marry that gold digger?”
“Thirty years ago,” Jon ground out, and Jonah blanched. “You were there.”
“Ah.” Jonah paused a beat. “Well, you know how time gets away from us.”
“You were my best man.”
“Maybe we can Christmas together!” Jonah said, faux-brightly. “Christmas has become quite popular lately. I can buy her one of those dishwasher things suburban women are always losing their minds in Macy’s about.”
“We have people for that,” Jon said condescendingly. “And we don’t live together, anyway. She’s experiencing the beatnik lifestyle with that little gang she runs around with. I think they write novels.”
Jonah stared at him blankly. “What is a beatnik?”
“I believe they’re similar to bohemians? I don’t understand either.” Jon wiped his mouth with the napkin again, having cleared his plate. He replaced his napkin, carefully keeping the grip on his knife. On the other end of the table, Jonah’s grip on his fork was just as tight. “She expressed no desire to be a politician’s wife, and I have no expectation of her being so.” Jonah snorted - quietly, subtly, but visibly. Jon narrowed his eyes. “What’s so funny?”
“You’re always a gas, Jon.” Jonah’s own plate cleared, he flagged a waiter to take their plates away and refill their wine. “A politician’s wife.”
“I am a politician,” Jon said testily.
“Mm-hm.”
“I pushed a large bill limiting freedom of speech just last month.”
“Of course.”
“I’m close, personal friends with Senator McCarthy.” Jon’s grip tightened on his knife until the wood bore into his palm. “Even if it’s in no - no official capacity, I’m making a real impact here. My service to ou - God has been extraordinary. Unlike you.”
There it was - a hit scored, a gauntlet thrown. Jonah narrowed his eyes. “Yes, because doing your job and collecting records for the Institute is a waste of time that has no relevance to God. As opposed to what, Jonathan? Wearing fine suits and putting on your own airs?”
Bright, sparking irritation flashed through Jon’s chest, but it was laced with something more. A hard defensiveness, bared teeth, curling up to prevent a weak belly. “I’m allowed the fine suits, Jonah! I am allowed to have this!”
“They’re just suits, Jon,” Jonah said condescendingly, eyes a mirror of false pity. Always pity, always false, always pretending he was weak, or - or -
“I have fought for everything, and -”
“Oh, not this drivel again.” Jonah wiped his hands on a linen napkin and balled it up, throwing it on the table and leaning back. “Yes, yes, you suffered, whatever.”
“Whatever?”
“You’re so boring. Maybe it’s the nature of Archivists to be incredibly dull. My new man, Angus...whatever, he’s unbearably bland.” A glint of humor shone through his casual airs. “We’d benefit from you.”
“Oh, here it is again,” Jon said, perhaps a bit too loudly. He threw his hands up. “Every time, you harangue me, tell me my work is meaningless, and try to drag me back to your boring and tepid old library -”
“Who are you fooling, Jonathan?” Jonah retorted, also perhaps a bit too loudly. “Nobody but yourself, and you know it! You aren’t a politician. You aren’t anything.” At Jon’s deranged look, Jonah quickly backtracked. “You aren’t anything without God. Everything you have is because of it.” It was something that couldn’t be argued, and Jon huffed out a breath as he untensed. Jonah smiled faintly, lowering his hands as if he was placating Jon. “Not to say that you aren’t doing any good. I’m sure you’re doing the best you can. But aren’t you more interested in being where you can do the most good? In being in the place of your highest productivity, your most effective worship? I understand America is...new, but it’s a dalliance. An infatuation. Which is more meaningful, Jonathan? A summer fling with an attractive woman, or a faithful wife who maintains your home and heart?”
Jon squinted at Jonah. “Georgie doesn’t like maintaining homes.”
“I do not understand your relationship with that woman. She hasn’t even given you any children, for lord’s sake.”
They were both incapable - how could an Avatar of the End give life? - but it was another tasteless thing to say, so Jon glared Jonah into submission over it again. For all Jon constantly heard praise over how impressive and charismatic and charming Jonah was, he was insufferably rude and tactless in reality. “Neither of us are very much in the business of allowing society to tell us how to live our lives. Society will pass, age, and die before we do. Why bow to it?” Jon smiled coyly. “Why bow to anything that ages?”
“You’re lucky you’re useful, you slimy little -”
But Jon just laughed, because he had won: Jonah had raised his voice in righteous anger that echoed across the suddenly deathly quiet restaurant, and the maitre’d was walking towards them very quickly. Jon laughed even longer as the waiter spoke in smooth, ubiquitous, but firm tones to Jonah: do try not to cause a disturbance with your companion, sir, this is a respectable establishment -
“As respectable as you when you cheated on your wife with the housekeeper?” Jonah snarled, and the maitre’d blanched. “Get out of my sight. Don’t come back unless you’re bringing us a plate of Jello salad.”
Jon laughed harder as Jonah sat back down, huffy and embarrassed. His ears were red again - how quaint. Jon had the feeling he’d grow to enjoy this James Wright body - as much as anybody could enjoy Jonah, of course. “Jello salad? Is that the nasty preserved food you people are all eating?”
“It’s modern cuisine,” Jonah said stiffly. “It’s quite good. Aren’t you the one who’s so fervent in preaching the gospel of modernism?”
“Not if it comes in Cool Whip and bologna, I don’t.” Jon pulled a mock sympathetic face. “You ought to be more careful, Jonah. It’s worth keeping an eye on your health. I heard that bologna helps promote aging.”
“I will spear you with this fork and cook you over a fire,” Jonah said pleasantly.
“My, are you balding so soon -”
In the end, they were thrown out anyway. It was for the best, anyway: Jon had no intention of eating that suburban trash.
That day was the last he ever saw of James Wright. It was the last he saw of Jonah Magnus, too - at least, until he received a phone call in 2015 saying that Gertrude Robinson was dead, and that he was required home to select a new Head Archivist.
It stood to reason that Jon wasn’t really necessary for the process. He had no part in choosing that woman Archivist - why would he be necessary for the next one?
“I am beginning to think,” Jonah said over the phone, voice strange and uncanny with Jonah’s familiar cadence in a reedy and light voice, “that I am incapable of appointing controllable Archivists. Every one you’ve picked has been blissfully, wonderfully boring, and the ones that I pick defy me, ruin my plans, and try to kill me. Get back here and choose one yourself.”
“But Jonah,” Jon had said, delighted, “you choose me as your Archivist.”
“I said what I said. Get back here, now. Please.”
And that, in the end, was what brought Jon home: the fact that Jonah hadn’t cajoled, manipulated, or tricked. It was the fact that he had asked. Had said please.
He had never said please to Jon before.
But maybe it was pointless anyway: Sasha James was no more malleable than her predecessor had been.
#georgie shows up as a beautiful but aloof woman in On the Road who won't sleep with sal because she's too beautiful and free#i'm trying to reconcile here 'jon & jonah like each other and are family'#with 'jonah has a paternalistic and controlling attitude where he just thinks jon should spend all of his time working for him#and when he inevitably wants independence and freedom they fight#still working on it!#tma#the magnus archives#the magnus archives fanfiction#my writing#human relations#jonathan sims#jonah magnus#*breakdances* literally every relationship in HR was controlling and manipulative and I have feelings about this
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Ecology Book Review: Farming the Dust Bowl: A First-Hand Account from Kansas, by Lawrence Svobida
Hello! This is the first of (hopefully) many book reviews. These posts will contain reviews of books dealing with nature, the environment, and ecology.
For the first entry in this series I've chosen Farming the Dust Bowl: A First-Hand Account from Kansas, a sort of autobiography by Lawrence Svobida. While the book focuses greatly on his life as a farmer, Svobida aims to give the reader a total view of the Dust Bowl, it's environs, native populations, and weather.
Overview
Published 1941, 256 pages
Explains how poor farming practices in the mid-1910's and 1920's led to the Dust Bowl phenomenon
Key ecological concepts: soil erosion/conservation, population decline, desertification
Plot
Svobida, a Kansan farmer during the height of the Dust Bowl, presents a plain-spoken story of one man fighting against all of nature to produce a crop. During and Post-WWI, the USA began to produce massive amounts of wheat. The market and government incentives heavily encouraged farmers to produce maximum crop-yields, which in turn lead to the Dust Bowl. Poor farming practices contributed, such as a lack of crop rotation, leading to a wheat monoculture. By the early '30's, the region known as the Dust Bowl was plagued by Dust storms, and increasingly arid. It is here that our author begins his personal account. Svobida came from a family of means, which would allow him to do anything he wanted, but he himself states "from the time I was in knee pants, my one and only ambition had been to be a farmer" (Svobida 43).¹ He makes it known early on that he is a very diligent worker (operating a farm out of Meade County, Kansas), boasting that where others would give up and move on, he would persist; he regularly attests to his own ability to put in more hours working than his neighbors. In 1931 he produces a large wheat crop, but it is entirely destroyed by hail. He is virtually unable to produce a profitable crop for the next 7 years.
Ecological Concepts
Svobida does not only document his farming endeavors, however. He also goes into great detail on the changing ecology in the Dust Bowl.
Soil erosion/conservation: One of the greatest challenges Svobida faces is the blowing dust. He works tirelessly to prevent his land from blowing, using multiple methods, including listing, water conservation, and summer-fallowing.² While this allows some limited success, his efforts are constantly thwarted by indifferent neighbors who do not make any effort to prevent their land from blowing. The resulting dust accumulating on his land often suffocates his crops and causes his land to blow too. He consistently fights a losing battle against the wind, the dust, and his neighbors. Further leading to the erosion of the land is a lack of rain, and the notorious heat wave of 1936.
Population decline: Svobida also provides great detail on the effects of poor farming practices (and the resulting dust) on populations native to the great plains. The greatest change resulting in the Dust Bowl was the decline of the native, soil-anchoring buffalo grass (Bouteloua dactyloides); the incentive to profit off of huge amounts of crops lead to a majority of the great plains being converted to farmland. In this sense, B. dactyloides possibly be viewed as a keystone species, not in the food-web sense, but in an environmental sense, for once it was removed, the resulting dust negatively impacted nearly every other species on the plains.
Jackrabbits, once seen as a common pest, begin to dissappear. Rattlesnakes dissappear. Several bird species are choked and killed by the dust. Non-native species are unable to survive too - trees introduced to anchor the soil and prevent strong winds are soon drowned by the dust, and dry out from the lack of moisture.
Not every population is decreases, however. Locust populations seemingly explode, and without a lack of predators keeping the populations in check, multiple crops are destroyed by the locusts.
Desertification: perhaps the most alarming ecological change documented by Svobida is that of the desertification of the great plains region. While Svobida's prediction of the entire Midwestern US becoming a desert equivalent to the Saharan turned out to be inaccurate, the immediate Dust Bowl area to this day remains negatively affected by the poor farming practices of a century ago.³ Svobida warned that the growing aridity, diminishing vegetation, and increasingly powerful winds were all contributing to what he called "The Great American Desert."
Conclusion
Svobida was a simple yet intelligent person, environmentally conscious, and interested in doing what was best for the land and his fellow farmers. He was distraught by the perceived indifference of farmers across the country, and despite his best efforts to succeed as a Dust Bowl farmer, the end of his book sees him financially ruined and his will broken. Farming the Dust Bowl provides a cautionary tale for us, as the unsustainable farming (literally unsustainable, as the land eventually could no longer meet the needs of the farmers) of the early 20th century led to devastating and lasting effects for the Dust Bowl region. Svobida warns us of the temptation to disregard the natural order found in a diverse ecosystem for financial gain.
I very much enjoyed this book; a former Kansan myself, I found it fascinating to learn about the history of the state and great plains region, especially in a way so intricately tied to its ecology. I'm amazed by Svobida's continued persistence and integrity throughout his time as a farmer, despite his circumstances.
Throughout his book, Svobida points to environmental concerns that eerily echo those of today. Surprisingly, I doubt I would be able to distinguish between many of his own warnings and those of a contemporary author. I will end this review with a quote from his own work:
"Although history reveals that events of major importance are likely to repeat, human beings cling to a naïve faith in the possibility of a special intervention of Providence on their personal behalf ... Government experts, however, are well aware that huge areas of the United States have been laid waste by the kind of exploration that takes no thought of the morrow. There are numerous Government publications on the subject of erosion, soil conservation, reclamation, and the like. The figures covering land waste are staggering. Yet, it seems to be, the great mass of the public remains indifferent, unable to grasp the immensity of the catastrophe that not only threatens but already is upon us, as a nation" (Svobida 245-246).
¹ Svobida, Lawrence. Farming the Dust Bowl: a First-Hand Account from Kansas. University State Press of Kansas/Eurospan, 1987.
² Strip listing is a method Svobida describes as "running deep parallel furrows twenty or thirty feet apart, in an east and west direction, across the path of the prevailing winds"
Summer following is the practice of allowing land to rest during a growing season (in this case, summer) in order to save moisture and nutrients
³Hornbeck, Richard. 2012. “The Enduring Impact of the American Dust Bowl: Short- and Long-Run Adjustments to Environmental Catastrophe.” American Economic Review 102 (4) (June): 1477-1507. doi:10.1257/aer.102.4.1477. http://dx.doi.org/10.1257/aer.102.4.1477
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'Expulsion of Jews from Arab countries was a disastrous mistake'
The Abraham Accords have spurred Dubai writer Salam Hamid to call a spade a spade: the Arabs made a disastrous mistake when they expelled their Jews. Their hatred predated the establishment of Israel, he writes.These Jews might even have aided the Arab regimes against Israel, he claims. But vast sums extorted from Jews did aid Iraq's war effort, and assets seized from Syrian Jews, it is said, financed the 1967 war. Transcript at MEMRI (With thanks: Danny, Lily):
Salam Hamid: the Arab world's problem is hatred of Jews
"Over time, [this expulsion] had disastrous repercussions, when [it turned out that] the Arabs had lost an elite population with significant wealth, property, influence, knowledge, and culture. Soon enough, the Arabs waged pointless wars against Israel, until they were defeated [in June 1967] with heavy losses. Nevertheless, the mentality of the Arab leadership persisted, as they spun conspiracy theories to their defeated peoples and sought scapegoats in order to justify their repeated defeats at the hand of Israel.
"If you ever visit Israel, you will see citizens of diverse colors, just like in the U.S. They arrived as immigrants from across the globe, of various races, and almost half of them are from Arab countries. Any intelligent person is aware that Jews had lived in Arab countries for 2,000 years before being arbitrarily expelled – yet here they are now, making up half of Israel's citizens. "Just a look at the number of Jews remaining in their Arab countries elucidates the difference between the past and the present. In the past, there were hundreds of thousands of Jewish citizens in Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, Syria, and the Maghreb, while today only dozens remain.
Meanwhile, the Palestinians make up the largest group of asylum-seekers in the world. Some 700,000 of them left their lands after the 1948 war – not just because of the war, but because of several Arab leaders who asked them to leave the Jewish areas so that they could return after the fledgling Jewish state was destroyed. It is worth noting that in his memoir, Syria's then-prime minister Khalid Al-'Azm acknowledged the role played by the Arabs in convincing the Palestinians to leave – a mistake whose severity the Arabs failed to grasp, which created the Palestinian refugee crisis, and which prompted the founding of UNRWA [United Nations Relief and Works for Palestine Refugees in the Near East] in 1949... "Our problem in the Arab world is our mindset and our hatred of the Jews. We have failed to learn the lesson of history, when other nations before us expelled their Jewish citizens. When Spain expelled its Jews in 1492, the country and its colonies were deprived of a group of people known for their talents in economics, finance and moneylending. As for Germany, it would have preceded the U.S. in creating the atomic bomb had Hitler not expelled [the bomb's] Jewish inventors, such as Albert Einstein and Edward Teller.
Had the Arabs given even a passing glance to the contribution made by the Jews, especially in the financial sector, during the Umayyad and Abbasid eras, they would have learned their lesson, and not made the mistake of expelling Arab Jews, who might [even] have aided the Arab regimes against Israel.
"This hatred for the Jews did not begin with the establishment of the State of Israel. It is an ideology that is still disseminated in the books that teach our heritage, which reflect the personal fatwas of bygone eras, and were suited to those times which lacked the openness of today. This hatred will therefore continue to exist, so long as our heritage [text]books continue to incite hatred against the Jews, as early as elementary school.
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Shadow’s Birthright | MYG
Chapter 01: Strength of Silence
Plot: Riding in on thunder and lightning, two princes are born. But a crown cannot be shared. It can only be worn by one and one alone. The hands of man have separated the brothers, allowing one to live in wealth and comfort inside the palace while the other grows up among commoners. But Fate cannot be destroyed by the hands of man. A shared destiny reunites the brothers; one to become a king who descends into madness and the other will rise as a dragon whose journey has only just begun in order to claim a crown he does not desire to have.
Rating: NC-17 // NSFW
Genre: series | historical!au | fantasy!au | angst | romance | drama | tragedy
Pairing: Min Yoongi (Lee Yoon) x Female OC (Kalina Shuri)
Warnings: Historical setting, caste system, magic/sorcery, graphic violence, disturbing graphic images, religious tones, angst, slow burn, eventual smut
Previous Chapters: Prologue
Links: FAQ || BTS Masterlist || Admin E’s AO3 || [ REQUESTS ARE OPEN ]
Word Count: 3,964
Tag List: @luxekook, @pinkpjmin, @btsaudge, @flowerwrites06, @stillcopingxx, @taevkimchi, @aroseforyoongi, @vivpurple7, @happilystrongthroughthedark, @sw33tnight, @nikkitane,
AN: Sorry this has taken so long for me to get out. With all the madness happening in the world, I just needed a break and decided to throw myself into just writing. I’ve received so much love on the prologue for this series so I’m happy to present you all with the first chapter. It’s a hefty time jump, but who doesn’t like one of those, am I right? If anyone else would like to be added to the tag list, feel free to drop me a line!
P.S. Please bear in mind that while the historical accuracy will be mostly correct, I am setting this in a time period in Joseon history where there was no such thing as a king who had a twin brother. Obviously that’s where the fiction/creative freedom is going to come in. Everything else will be period accurate, trust and believe.
© thebiasrekkers (Admin E). All rights reserved. Reposting/modifying our work is prohibited. Translations are not allowed. Plagiarism/stealing is not tolerated by any means. Legal action will be taken in instances of theft.
“Silence is a great source of strength.” - Lao Tzu
23 Years Later
Yoongi sat on the edge of a large rock, his eyes peering out over the deep grays and blues of the wide mountainous landscape. Summer mornings were his favorite and while he knew he could get an extra hour or two of sleep, seeing the sun rise above the mountain tops always filled him with a new vigor. There was just something about greeting the day that allowed him to truly feel alive. He could never fully explain it.
A soft whimper issued beside him and he craned his neck to look at the gray and black wolf seated at his feet. Pulling the sprig of barley from his mouth, Yoongi reached down to pet the wolf’s head and it panted happily in response; its thick tail swinging back and forth at the attention it received from its master. It made a small noise from pleasure, the sound of its panting intensifying little by little with each pet.
Chuckling, he scratched the canine between its ears. “You’re so needy, San-ah,” he teased, watching the wolf stand on all fours as he peered his pale blue eyes up at him. “You’ve got to be the luckiest fool in the entire kingdom of Joseon.”
The wolf barked happily, spinning in place, and then plopped his rump back down on the grass. This caused Yoongi to laugh loudly and he waved the barley sprig at the wolf’s nose.
Growing up in the countryside, it wasn’t uncommon for wolves to linger around in the forests and mountains. But for a young cub to get abandoned during the Winter was more than Yoongi could stand. After begging his father to let him take the small wolf pup home, promising to take care of him, the two of them were inseparable. The other villagers were concerned with Yoongi raising a predator. But after being at his side for the last four years, the village came to appreciate San and often showered him with the same amount of affection as he did; if not more.
Yoongi could safely say that San was his best friend in the world.
The wolf leaped up, pressing his large paws into Yoongi’s lap and began licking his face. San’s tongue caressed over the scar tissue on the right side of his face and he gently shoved the animal away. His fingers pressed over the scar, tracing the pads up from his cheek all the way above his eyebrow. Sighing, he tossed the barley sprig away and motioned for San to follow him just as the morning sun crested over the mountains.
“Let’s head back,” he said, reaching down behind the rock to pick up the large wooden pail of spring water, “you know how the old man gets when he doesn’t have his morning tea.”
Again, San barked, before tearing off ahead of him to sniff out the trail. Yoongi could navigate his way through the forest and mountains with his eyes closed, but his companion always insisted on being careful. He’d barely made it twenty paces before the wolf returned and walked patiently at his side.
The trek through the forest and down the mountain path was short, but only because Yoongi knew it so well. San barreled down the expansive green hill just as his father appeared from the doorway, a large axe draped over his shoulders. Yoongi rushed down the hill with hurried steps, cradling the wooden bucket in his arms so he wouldn’t accidentally spill the water in his haste.
“Father!” Yoongi called, to which the broad-shouldered and bronze-skinned man lifted his head just as he finished petting San’s back. “I can take care of that!”
The lower half of his father’s face was covered in facial hair; always well-groomed. His dark eyes, while usually intimidating, always held a certain degree of warmth in them when he looked at Yoongi. Instead of answering him, he simply straightened his posture and proceeded to head toward the side of their modest home to proceed cutting wood for the fire.
Sighing, Yoongi gave up trying to convince his father to let him take care of the more laborious chores again. Instead, he shooed San into the house and started preparing breakfast. It didn’t take Yoongi long to see they were missing quite a few things from the food storage that would need to be replaced soon. Namely eggs, meat, and a few key vegetables.
“I’ll just have to do what I can,” he murmured as he began washing the barley in a small basin. Yoongi frowned. This wouldn’t be an issue if we lived closer to the village.
It wasn’t the first time he bitterly thought of how inconveniently far away they lived from the rest of the world. Yoongi only could go as far as the local village and that was a task and a half trying to convince his father to let him do even just that. When his father left every few years for days at a time to visit the Capital, Yoongi was forced to stay behind. He’d never been to the Crown City, not once. But he wanted to, insisting that he could get better books and even practice a trade or go to school. He could start working to take care of the household for a change.
Every time the matter was brought up, however, his father scowled and forbade him from thinking or speaking such foolishness. But to Yoongi, it wasn’t foolish. He believed he was trying to do his best by his father in wanting to take care of him. What father wouldn’t want that for their son? Why did he have to grow up differently from everyone else?
What little education he received was all self-taught. He kept most of his studies a secret, not wanting to anger or worry his father. But he knew that he would eventually have to marry and raise a family. Since his father didn’t want to pass along his knowledge, he had little choice but to strike out on his own and do what he could. His father wouldn’t be around forever and he couldn’t expect to spend his youth idling around.
The one thing his father did teach him, much to Yoongi’s persistence, was the ability to fight.
A humble breakfast was completed and the two of them ate in relative silence. He watched his father sneak a few pieces of meat to San and the wolf lovingly spread itself across his lap. Yoongi shoved rice into his mouth in annoyance, chewing loudly but knowing that it wouldn’t actually bother either of them into paying him any attention.
“Weren’t you the one who told me to stop doing that?” Yoongi asked mid-chew. “He’s spoiled now because of you.”
His father leaned back and released a hearty chuckle that never failed to warm Yoongi’s heart. “Did I? I can’t recall.”
He scoffed, grabbing some of the spinach out of one of the wooden bowls. “Of course you can’t.”
His eyes caught the scars on his father’s arms as he rubbed his hands lovingly over San’s fur. They were sword scars. Yoongi knew this, even if his father never told him so. Training him in martial arts was a clear enough indication that his father must have been a seasoned warrior in his younger years. The harshness of his training regiment was proof enough for Yoongi.
Min Dojin.
His father never spoke much about his past, or even about Yoongi’s mother. After a childish tantrum, he came to accept that his mother must have died sometime after he was born. Those were the words that the villagers passed on and they never pitied Yoongi. It wasn’t because they were heartless. It was just a factor of life in their country. If anything, he was fortunate to still have his father, freeing him from the shackle of being branded an orphan.
But on lonely nights, Yoongi missed the warmth of a mother’s embrace. Something he wasn’t familiar with, but felt that it was a distant memory that refused to fade from his mind.
“There’s some money in the lock box if you need anything,” his father said suddenly, slicing through his thoughts.
He blinked, realizing that his father already cleared the dishes away. Had he spaced out that much? Scrambling to his feet, he tried to follow after his father and nearly tripped over San circling in between his legs.
“Are you leaving for the Capital?”
A frown touched his father’s features. “Yes.”
Yoongi felt his brows furrow. He knew how much his father despised going to the Crown City and never understood why. Even though he offered to run his father’s errands for him, he was denied every opportunity to travel that far from home. It clearly wasn’t for his own safety. Yoongi could more than take care of himself. But he didn’t have the heart to accuse his own father of keeping anything from him.
“How long will you be gone this time?”
“Two weeks.”
Again, he blinked. This time from surprise. “T-That long?!” His eyes followed after his father as he began gathering his traveling satchel and walking cane. “You’re going to leave me here alone?”
His father chuckled as he turned and raised his brows at his son. “You have San.”
Folding his arms across his chest, he frowned. “You’re just so funny, Father.”
He laughed again. “Kali promised she would come by to check on you if you needed anything.”
“Kali-ssi?” A soft warmth touched his cheeks at the mention of Kali and he quickly averted his gaze. Yoongi cleared his throat loudly as he placed a hand on the back of his neck. “She needn’t bother.”
He could see his father’s cheeky grin without even having to look at it. “I asked her to.” Yoongi whipped his head around to peer into his father’s eyes. “She said she had some interesting stories to share with you.” His grin widened a measure. “And maybe a gift or two?”
Yoongi slid his fingers through his cropped bangs, tugging at them for a measure. “I see,” was all he said as he rubbed his hair between his thumb and forefinger.
With a grunt, his father shouldered his satchel more comfortably and made his way toward the entrance of their home. San followed after him but stopped at the entryway, his tail wagging as he uttered a guttural whine from his throat. Yoongi watched his father lean down to pet the wolf between his ears, his eyes lifting to meet his own.
“If anything happens--”
“I know,” Yoongi replied softly, “take everything in the lock box and abandon the house.” He sighed. “Have a safe journey.”
He felt his father’s large hand fall onto his shoulder and for a moment, all they did was share a silent look. His father’s smile looked noticeably more solemn than usual. He patted Yoongi’s shoulder, then turned and made his way toward the edge of the forest. San barked after him before bolting off to chase a cluster of butterflies. Yoongi waited until his father disappeared from view before retreating back into the house.
No matter how hard he tried, Yoongi couldn’t help but feel his chest tighten with worry.
Yoon sat perched in one of the large magnolia trees in his palace garden. He cradled his plum colored crown in his arms, the rich cobalt of his silk robes reflecting from the sunlight. The silver dragons embroidered in his clothing seemed to shimmer against the morning light and he sighed as he peered through the tree’s canopy. Eunuchs and maidservants alike were running around through his palace courtyard and he remained silent - purposely ignoring their screaming pleas for him to come out from hiding.
He scoffed, sliding his hands behind his head as he leaned back further into the trunk of the tree. No one’s hiding, he thought bitterly, you’re all just too incompetent to find me.
“Cheo-ha,” came a sharp whisper from above him, causing Yoon to sit up abruptly.
“Who’s there?” he called back quietly, glancing every so often down to make sure none of his attendants heard him. “Reveal yourself!”
A long plaited braid suddenly dangled from above as he saw his younger sister’s face flashing an upside down smile. His frown deepened, not sure what her intentions were but Yoon knew he wanted nothing to do with them. She made a satisfied noise before dropping down hard into his lap. Yoon grunted, his arms flailing to both keep his balance and to maintain a hold of his crown. The princess plucked it easily from the air, preventing it from falling.
“You shouldn’t be so careless with your things, Crown Prince,” she said while smiling up at him.
“It’s none of your concern,” Yoon snapped, attempting to snatch it back from her but she stretched her arms up and away from him. He threw her a harsh glare. “Saeryung-ah…” His tone dropped in a clear warning.
Saeryung pouted before she sighed. “Fine. You’re always no fun.” She motioned for him to lean forward a bit. “Let me put it back on for you.”
“Do as you like,” he said, leaning forward so she could replace the crown over his platinum blonde hair. Once it was situated comfortably, he peered at her as she continued to pout, kicking her legs up and down while still in his lap. “Why are you here, Saeryung-ah? Don’t you have lessons to attend to with your teacher?”
The princess puffed out one of her cheeks defiantly while folding her arms across her chest in a completely unbecoming fashion for female royals. “I’ve already memorized The Book of Filial Piety!”
Yoon sighed. “There are other books that you need to study from.” He reached out and pet his sister’s head and she turned to look at him. “Being a princess isn’t just a title. You have other responsibilities.”
“Not nearly as many as you do, Orabeoni.”
The term caught Yoon off guard and he could only blink in stunned silence at her. The Princess must have realized her slipup because she quickly covered her mouth and gasped sharply. However, instead of chastising her, Yoon poked at her nose. Ever since he became Crown Prince, his studies and responsibilities steadily increased. His father was still able to rule the country, but there were disturbing rumors in the palace walls that spoke of his failing health. If that were the truth, then it would only be a matter of time before he was left to ascend to the throne.
Saeryung wouldn’t have any more opportunities to call him “big brother” when that day came.
“Forgive me, Crown Prince! I didn’t mean--”
“It’s fine, Saeryung-ah,” Yoon replied in a soothing tone as he petted her head again, “until I’m King, you can call me your Orabeoni.”
Her apologetic expression melted into one of pure joy. He smirked, then narrowed his eyes and pointed at her nose. She crossed her eyes at the sudden gesture.
“But you can only call me such when it is just the two of us. Understood?”
She nodded happily and was about to hug him when sudden outcries reached them from below.
“Seja Cheo-ha! Gongju-nim!”
“You both must come down from there at once!”
“We will be in terrible trouble if His Majesty finds out we were not at your sides!”
The two of them gazed down at their attendants frantically shifting below them. Rolling his eyes, Yoon scooped up his sister into his arms. Gasping slightly, she clung to his neck as he shifted to a standing position in the tree. His attendants continued to move about fearfully, screaming for him to be careful. He bit back a growl before leaping from the tree and into the air. His robes fluttered around him and he landed easily on the ground, setting his sister down and her servants were immediately at her side to straighten out her hair and robes.
“Princess, you shouldn’t be climbing trees like that!” her maid fussed as she finished tidying up Saeryung’s appearance. “Her Majesty, the Queen, would be appalled if she discovered it.”
Namgil, Yoon’s eunuch, appeared at his side and also adjusted his royal robes. He waited patiently for him to finish, not really listening to the slew of things flying from his attendant’s mouth. However, one particular sentence stood out and caused Yoon to pause, craning his neck to look straight into Namgil’s face.
“What did you say?” he asked, raising a curious brow.
The eunuch bowed his head low, unsure if he’d offended the Crown Prince or not. “Your Majesty requests your presence in his study.”
Yoon was suspicious. His father never called for him in his personal study. Let alone in the middle of the day. The King was fully aware of his itinerary for the afternoon. Yoon was scheduled for martial arts training and riding lessons. Was he supposed to rush through whatever matter his father wanted to speak with him about and make his instructors wait?
If Father is in his study, then it’s a personal matter, Yoon surmised, sighing as he clasped his hands behind his back, which is surprising all by itself.
Narrowing his eyes, he gestured for Namgil to lead the way. He took two steps forward and paused to look around. “...where’s Bidam?”
Just as confused as he was, Namgil spun his body in every direction before groaning. “Curse that Bidam! Leaving the Crown Prince’s side for even a moment!”
Leaves rustled to his right and Yoon quickly pivoted on his back heel to avoid whatever was aimed for him. A sharp whistle tore through the air and he dipped down, his knee crashing to the grass as his shoulders tensed. He was on high alert now after two attacks were propelled in his direction. There would not be a third attempt while he was unarmed.
Namgil screamed after him as Yoon dashed toward the edge of the steps leading to his palace. Reaching underneath the wooden floor panels, he slid a sword from the sheath with one clean motion just as another object hurled itself directly at his head. Lifting the blade up, he blocked the object and felt the handle rattle between his fingers. Something landed at his feet and Yoon recognized it as a throwing knife. Smirking, the Crown Prince took a breath and swept the blade across his body.
Focus, he told himself, you know that he’s here. You just have to pinpoint his location.
The heavy thud of his own heart ached inside of Yoon’s chest. A bead of sweat formed on his brow and he was keenly aware that Namgil and the servants fled the scene. Probably to go fetch the Royal Guard. It was so unnecessary. He wasn’t defenseless. He’d made damn sure of that.
Yoon licked his lips, the flutter of sparrow wings the signal he needed. Launching from his position, he roared at a nearby cluster of bushes. Seconds before he swept his blade down over the hedge, a body leaped from behind. Metal clashed against metal as sword blades made contact. Yoon felt his crown shift on his head before falling to the ground, revealing his pale hair in the morning sunlight. His muscles tensed when the sword clashed against his blade, forcing his boots to skid along the ground and he was now face to face with his assailant.
He grinned. “There you are, Bidam-ah.” Yoon’s voice was slightly strained from the force pushing against him.
Bidam, his bodyguard, grinned back at him. His dark hair was pulled back into a high ponytail, his thick brows lifting teasingly as he continued to push all of his weight behind his sword. “Good Morning, Seja Cheo-ha,” he said, sweat falling from his temple, “you’re a little slow this morning. Is your mind elsewhere, Your Highness?”
Yoon scoffed, taking a step forward and forcing Bidam to take one back. “My mind is always elsewhere. Haven’t you realized that by now?”
He swung his leg out to kick Bidam but his bodyguard predicted this. He watched as Bidam backward somersaulted into the air. Just when Yoon was going to unleash his counterattack, several sets of feet thundered into his palace garden. He lowered his stance and Bidam immediately sheathed his sword as the Queen and her attendants rushed inside, followed swiftly by the Royal Guard. Yoon bit back a groan at the fearful expression etched over his mother’s features.
“Seja!” she cried, all but running to him. “Are you alright, my Prince?!” He stood patiently as she looked over his entire body to make sure that he was, in fact, free of injuries. “I feared the worst!”
A small measure of guilt welled up inside of Yoon’s heart. He wished his mother would stop needlessly worrying over him. “I am fine , Mother. I was training with Bidam.” He cast a casual smirk to Bidam who met his gaze briefly before lowering his head. “Right, Bidam-ah?”
Bidam immediately fell to one knee, one arm crossing his chest as he pounded his fist into his collar. “Forgive me for stirring up chaos in the Palace, Your Majesty.”
The Queen’s shoulders visibly sank and her attendants were at her side to keep her from losing her balance. Namgil retrieved the prince’s crown and handed it back to him. He held it out to his mother who took it in her trembling hands as she watched Yoon lower himself at the Queen’s feet. Some of the servants gasped and whispered to each other and the Prince continued to stare at the patch of grass around the hems of his mother’s robes.
Hearing her sigh, she gently set his crown back atop his head, her gentle hands framing his face. She lifted his head so that he was now staring up at her. “It is good to train your body and mind, My Prince, but please be careful. You are the future father of this nation. If your body is harmed, your people are harmed. When your people are sick, you are sick. Do you understand, Seja?”
“Yes, Mother. I understand.” Standing to his full height, he let his mother take his hands into hers. Her fingers caressed over his knuckles.
“Your Father was asking for you, wasn’t he?” The Queen looped her arm through his. “Would you allow your mother to accompany you?”
“Of course,” Yoon said with a wide flourish of his arm, “but I thought you were scheduled to have tea with the Queen Dowager and the princesses?”
The Queen hummed and nodded as they moved through the gardens of his palace and out over the bridge leading to the main palace. “I can take the time to escort the Crown Prince to his own destination.”
Yoon’s entourage walked alongside his mother’s and they all chatted together in polite levels so as to not disturb the Queen and Crown Prince’s conversation. The days were peaceful, but mostly in part to how well-guarded the Palace was from the chaos of the outside world. But Yoon was no fool. Ming was growing restless because of Japanese opposition. It would only be a matter of time before Japan would attempt its invasion of Joseon in order to sink their claws into Ming.
He wondered if his father had any contingencies in place if such a thing were to actually transpire.
Arriving at the main palace gates, the Queen released Yoon’s arm and smiled. “Enjoy your time with your father, Seja.”
Yoon bowed, as did the rest of his servants. “Be well, Eomma Mama.” He waited until his mother and attendants were out of sight before turning back to face the main gate. “Let’s go.”
#btsbookclub#ficswithluv#hyunglinenetwork#btspocnet#kwritersworldnet#bts imagines#bts scenarios#bts fanfiction#bts fanfic#min yoongi fanfic#min yoongi fanfics#yoongi fanfiction#min yoongi#yoongi#bts min yoongi#bts suga#bts min suga#bts historical au#bts historical!au#bts time-slip!au#bts time-slip au#suga angst#yoongi angst#bts slow burn#yoongi slow burn#bts period au#thebiasrekkers#bts thebiasrekkers#thebiasrekkers bts#shadow's birthright
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Season 1, Episode 1: Wolf Moon
Hello! I have posted this story on my Wattpad (@stephielynn1226) but I decided to post it on here as a reader insert. I hope you guys enjoy and please leave constructive criticism! This story will be a Scott McCall x Twin Sister and at the beginning (Y/N) will be dating someone named Nate Wilson who I picture as Dylan Sprouse though I will not give him any specific characteristics so you can picture him however you want.
Season 1, Episode 1: Wolf Moon
Pairings: Scott McCall x Twin Sister, Lydia Martin x Best Friend, Nate Wilson (OC) x Reader
Warnings: Nothing really, just the usual things to expect from Teen Wolf.
Word Count: 3,181
Season 1 Masterlist
It was the night before the first day of school and I just hopped out of the shower. I could hear my brother in the room next to mine preparing for his lacrosse practice tomorrow. As I was setting my phone down to charge I heard a creaking noise coming from downstairs. I quickly poked my head out of my room, “Scott? Did you hear that?”
Scott appeared from his room with a metal bat in hand, “Yeah, stay behind me.”
“You’re the one with asthma, maybe I should be protecting you.”
“Really (Y/N/N),” though I couldn’t see my twins face I knew he rolled his eyes when he answered.
As we slowly descended the stairs, my hand on Scott’s shoulder, we kept our eyes and ears peeled. We couldn’t see anyone inside so Scott slowly opened the front door and screamed. As soon as I saw who the intruder was I rolled my eyes and leaned on the door frame.
“Stiles, what the hell are you doing?” Scott exclaimed.
Stiles Stilinski, my brother’s dorky childhood best friend, was hanging upside down from our roof. “You weren’t answering your phone! Why do you have a bat?”
“We thought you were a predator!”
“Predator?” I mumbled giving Scott a questioning look.
Stiles laughed as he clumsily got down down from our roof, “Look, I know it’s late, but you guys got to hear this. My dad left twenty minutes ago. Dispatch call. They’re bringing in every officer of the Beacon department and even the state police.”
“For what?” Scott and I asked in unison.
“They found a body in the woods,” Stiles replied.
“A dead body?”
I scoffed, “Obviously Scott. They wouldn’t send that many people out there if they were looking for a body of water.”
Scott glared at me and then turned to Stiles who was trying to hide a snicker by continuing talking. “It was a girl probably in her twenties. Nobody knows what happened to her yet.”
“Wait, if they found the body, what are they looking for?” I question Stiles, as I stood up straighter and Scott nodded in agreement, wondering the same thing.
Stiles started to grin, it was the same grin he gets when he’s about to tell us some stupid idea, “That’s the best part... They only found half of the body! We’re going, so get dressed.”
My eyes widened as I started shaking my head, “Yeah right, we have school tomorrow and I am not stomping around through the woods looking for half of a body. You two idiots have fun and tell me about it tomorrow.” I then waved goodbye over my shoulder as I headed upstairs to get a good night’s sleep for classes the next day.
*_*_*_*_*_*
~ BEEP BEEP BEEP~
I quickly slammed my hand down to shut off my alarm then let out a groan. I slowly pulled my blankets off and stretched before getting fully out of my warm bed. I went to my closet and pulled out a black long sleeve crop top, black skinny jeans, and gold heels. I applied my usual smokey eye and mascara then brushed my chocolate brown hair. I checked my mirror to make sure y outfit, makeup and hair all looked good then made my way to the bathroom Scott and I share. I quickly brushed my teeth then headed downstairs with my bag and phone.
“Morning mother,” I gave my mom a quick kiss on the cheek and grabbed a granola bar from the pantry.
“Good morning, sleep well?” She questioned as she sipped her coffee.
“Yeah, just wished I could have slept longer.”
My mom chuckled, “Of course you do, that’s all you ever want.”
I dramatically gasped and put my hand over my heart, “Mother! That is not true! How could you say such a thing!”
She then rolled her eyes and smiled, “Is your brother up?”
“I think so, it sounded like he was getting ready when I was in the bathroom.”
“Could you double-check for me, I don’t want you two to be late on your first day back.”
“Sorry, no can do. Lydia texted, she just pulled up.” I then headed out the door and shouted a quick goodbye and I love you to my mother.
*_*_*_*_*_*
When Lydia and I arrived at the school we were talking about the classes we had together and what we were looking forward to for the coming year.
“Hey, Lydia! You look--” I glanced to the side, recognizing the voice, and rolled my eyes seeing Stiles call for my best friend. I admired his persistence but wished he would stop trying, knowing that he was just embarrassing himself. Lydia and I continued walking and stopped by our lockers that were right next to each other.
Someone came up behind me and grabbed my waist as I let out a shriek.
“I told you to stop doing that!” I said turning around and slapping the arm of the culprit.
“Sorry babe,” my boyfriend, Nate, replied with a smirk then pressed a quick kiss to my lips.
Nate and I have been together for a little over a year and we have been in the same friend group since I can remember. He was my first everything/ First boyfriend, first kiss, first time, and first love. I honestly don’t remember a time when I didn’t have him, Lydia, Lydia’s boyfriend Jackson, and Jackson’s best friend Danny by my side.
I shook my head but smiled quickly shutting my locker, then turned to Lydia, “See you after first period!”
She gave me a bright smile and a nod then turned walking away, probably to find Jackson. Nate then grabbed my hand and walked with me to our first class, History.
History dragged by with the only interesting thing being that the teacher brought up the body in the wood before class began.
After class Nate and I met up with Lydia who Immediately grabbed my hand and dragged us over to a girl I didn’t recognize. “This jacket is totally killer. Where did you get it?” Lydia asks bringing the girl’s attention to the three of us.
“My mom was a buyer from a boutique back in San Francisco.”
Lydia glanced at me then smiled at the new girl, “And you are our new best friend.”
I quickly smiled and stuck my hand out, “(Y/N) McCall, that’s Lydia Martin. A pleasure to meet you.”
“You too, I’m Allison Argent.” She smiled back and shook my hand. I saw Allison glance behind us so I turned my head just in time to see Jackson grab Lydia’s waist and kiss her.
“So, this weekend, there’s a party...” Lydia quickly invited Allison.
“Friday night, you should come,” Jackson continued.
“Oh, I can’t, it’s family night on Friday... But thanks for asking.” Allison quickly declined. Little known fact about me, I can easily pick up when someone is lying and without a doubt in my mind I knew Allison was lying. I do have to give her credit though, she said the lie so fast that it was very believable for the others around me.
“You sure? Everyone’s going after the game.” ate joined into the conversation, his arm casually slung over my shoulders.
“You mean football?”
“No, football here is kinda a joke. He’s talking about lacrosse.” I said, “They have practice in a few minutes. If you don’t have anything else to do Lydia and I were going to watch.”
“Well, I was going to...”
“Perfect! You’ll come!” Lydia exclaimed before Allison could complete the sentence.
*_*_*_*_*_*
As soon as we got to the field Lydia, Allison, and I found a seat on the bleachers. I looked towards the field so that I could find Nate, Scott, and Stiles. I quickly found all three but frowned when I saw Scott making his way to the goal. “He’s never played goal before, why is he starting now?” I quietly mumbled.
I then heard Allison ask Lydia, “Who is that?”
“Him? That’s Scott, (Y/N) twin. Why?”
“He’s in my English class, first period.”
The whistle blows, letting everyone know that practice has begun and Scott immediately takes a ball to the head. I winced and crossed y fingers hoping that he would start actually stopping balls, and not with his face. The next few shots turned out a lot better. Scott was stopping every ball that came his way and to be honest, I was quite surprised by how well he was doing.
I couldn’t help the wide smile that was on my face as he was catching the balls. “He seems pretty good,” Allison says after a little bit.
“He’s been practicing all summer,” I smiled at her.
I could tell that Jackson and Nate were both getting annoyed. They were the two best players on the team and watching Scott outshine them made them angry. Jackson quickly pushed his way to the front to take a shot and try to scare my brother. I rolled my eyes and waited in anticipation. Scott easily blocked the shot and I jumped out of my seat, “Woohoo, Scott!” He looked my way and sent me a big smile.
*_*_*_*_*_*
When school ended Nate walked me out of the building, “Are you coming to my house?”
“Sorry, I can’t. I promised my brother I would help him with something.” I gave him a quick kiss, “I’ll call you later.”
I headed to Stiles’ jeep where the two dorks were waiting for me. “I don’t know why you are dating him,” Stiles groaned as soon as I was sitting in the back seat.
I rolled my eyes and started changing my shoes to my black vans, “Good thing you don’t need to know why since you aren’t in the relationship.”
“Stiles has a point (Y/N), Nate’s kinda an asshole.”
“Jackson is kinda an asshole. Nate is sweet, I know he doesn’t really get along with you guys but he’s working on it. I’m making him.”
Soon we were at the Beacon Hills Preserve, where Scott lost his inhaler and apparently got bit by a wolf. The boys caught me up in the car about what happened last night. And yes, I became the usual protective sister when he said a wolf bit him.
Once I was caught up we were trekking through the woods I tuned out the boys so I could focus on searching for Scott’s inhaler. Those things are expensive and mom does not have the money to replace it. When I finally decided to listen to the conversation I wasn’t sure if I herd them correctly. “You smell things?” Like what?” Stiles was asking Scott.
“Like the mint gum in your pocket.”
Stiles started to reach into his pocket while mumbling that he didn’t have gum in his pocket, only to pull his hand out with a piece of mint gum. Stiles and I both looked shocked that Scott guessed that correctly. “So, this all started with the bite?” I questioned my twin.
“What if it’s like an infection? Like... my body is full of adrenaline before I go into shock or something.” Scott was starting to panic.
Before I could try and calm him down Stiles replied, “You know what, I actually think I heard of this, it’s a specific kind of infection.”
Scott and I both gave Stiles a questioning glance waiting for him to continue. “Yeah, I think it’s called lycanthropy.”
I smirked and shook my head as Stiles continued, “It’s pretty bad but only once a month.”
“Once a month?” Scott was now looking between Stiles and myself.
I nodded my head agreeing with Stiles, “Yeah, I’ve heard of this too. It’s only bad on the night of the full moon.” Stiles and I then shared a knowing glance and both started to howl. Our howls got cut short as Scott hit our arms and the two of us started laughing.
“It’s not funny, there is something seriously wrong with me!”
“We know! You’re a werewolf!” I exclaimed with a huge smile on my face. If look could kill, I would be dead because of the intense glare Scott gave me. “Friday is a full moon, Stiles make sure you keep an eye on him and melt all the silver you can find.” I winked at my brother’s best friend. Stiles tried to hide his snickers behind his hand but failed horribly as Scott walked away from us continuing his search for his missing inhaler.
Once we reached a specific spot Scott sighed, “I could have sworn it was there. I saw the body, the stags running, and I dropped my inhaler.”
“Maybe the killer moved the body,” Stiles suggested with a shrug.
“Or we’re just in the wrong spot, it was dark maybe you just remembered wrong.” I then looked up and saw a very attractive gentleman watching us. I coughed to get the boy’s attention.
“What are you doing here? This is private property.” The mystery man had a gruff voice as he spoke to the three of us. He seemed ticked off that we were here but it’s not my fault my idiot brother lost his inhaler.
“Sorry man, we didn’t know,” Stiles replied quickly, he seemed a little nervous. The guy in front of us did seem sort of intimidating but I was too busy checking him out to worry about that. What? I may be in a relationship but I can still look.
“Yeah we were just looking for something, forget it.” Scott continued when Stiles finished. The attractive mystery man tossed Scot his inhaler than turned around walking away.
“Dude, that was Derek Hale! You guys remember, right? He’s just a few years older than us.” Stiles said as soon as Derek was out of earshot.
Scott still looked clueless but the name Hale sounded familiar to me, “Wait, you mean like the Hale fire?”
“That’s the one. It happened like 10 years ago. He lost almost all of his family.”
“I feel sorry for him, I can’t imagine what that must have been like.” I bit my lip and shook my head as I stared off in the direction that he went in.
We quickly made our way back to the jeep, Stiles dropped Scott off at work then quickly brought me back to my house.
*_*_*_*_*_*
The next morning I got dressed in a short sleeve, cold-shoulder, black crop top, high waisted gray and black plaid pants, and black heels. Yes, I wore more black, that is pretty much all that is in my wardrobe and Lydia hates it. Lydia and I once again drove to school together and stopped at our lockers before first period. The minute first period ended Scott pulled me away from Nate to talk to me. “What’s up?”
“Your boyfriend and Jackass think I’m on steroids.” Scott deadpanned.
My eyes almost bulged out of my head, “What? Why?”
“I don’t know, probably because I suddenly got a hell of a lot better at lacrosse.”
I sighed, “I’ll talk to them, sorry they’re both idiots.” I turned and walked away starting my search for Nate and Jackson. Nate may be my boyfriend and Jackson may be one of my best friends but sometimes I seriously can’t stand them.
I soon found them already on the field preparing for practice. “Hey jackasses!” I stopped in front of them. They both gave me questioning looks and glanced at each other probably wondering why I was mad at them. “My brother isn’t doing drugs. He’s been practicing nonstop this summer so he could get better and make first line. I get that you two are so egotistical that you can’t let anyone one-up you but do not start making false accusations about my brother.” Before they could get a word in I stormed off looking to find Lydia knowing that she always helps calm me down.
*_*_*_*_*_*
I was at Lydia’s house getting ready for the party with her. This is our party ritual, go home together and help each other get ready for a kickass part all while gossiping about things going on in our lives.
After telling Lydia about the argument I had with Nate she claimed that I needed to look hotter than usual so he would regret ever making me mad. This right here, ladies and gentleman, is the exact reason why I love Lydia Martin more than anyone. Working together we picked out a patterned black and white strapless dress with a gold belt that hugged my waist. The dress perfectly showed off my curves and adding a pair of black pumps completed the outfit.
Not too much later the party was in full swing. Pretty much the whole school was there, which is not surprising for a Lydia party. Stiles pulled me to the side as soon as he saw me, “Have you seen Scott?”
“No why?” Stiles glanced nervously around then pulled me into the laundry room so we could be alone.
“That werewolf joke, not a joke anymore,” he whispers. My eyes widen and I start giggling. “It’s not funny (Y/N)! I know it sounds crazy but I’ve been doing a bunch of research, it’s the only thing that makes even the slightest bit of sense.”
“Okay, well we will keep an eye on him. I’m sure he’ll be fine. But if this happens to be true, we will figure something out. Don’t stress though, Stilinski. We are at a party, come dance with me.” I tugged on his hand and led him out of the room and into the back yard so that we could dance together. As soon as we stepped outside we spotted Allison and Scott so this also gave is a good view to keep an eye on my twin.
Soon after Nate walked up to us with a clenched jaw, “Mind if I step in, Stilinski?”
“She’s all yours,” Stiles sent me an awkward smile and stepped away, making sure to stay close so he could step in if Nate did something that would make me uncomfortable and still keep an eye on Scott.
“We need to talk.” I sighed and was about to follow him until I saw Scott rush out.
“I need to make sure my brother is alright, we can talk later.”
Before I could walk away Stiles rushed past, “I got him, don’t worry.”
Nate then gently tugged on my hand, “Come on.” As soon as we were somewhere quiet Nate started speaking, “I’m sorry I can be an asshole and I accused your brother of doing drugs.” I stared blankly waiting for him to continue. He threw his head back then slowly looked into my eyes, “I won’t do anything like that again, I promise. I love you, (Y/N/N).”
I bit my lip then slowly leaned up to kiss him, “I love you too.” I mumbled against his lips.
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Alright, taking a dive into this whole Space Australia business...
(warning: this gets kinda dark! Specific content warnings in the tags)
Humans are tough.
They’re persistence predators, walking for days on end to tire out their prey. When their society developed to the point where hunting was less common, their impressive stamina turned to more frivolous ends. Capsaicin - yes, the neurotoxin - is a basic cooking spice for them. They’ll willingly endure extreme temperatures with only rudimentary protective gear, just because they like to play in snow. And that’s without even getting into skydiving and roller coasters and horror movies.
Their reputation as damn near unkillable was pretty much inevitable.
Then, stories started to go around.
Humans, now common on starship crews, secluding themselves. Emitting cries of pain despite being completely unharmed. Seeking companionship from inanimate objects and dangerous beasts.
Sometimes they are mysteriously wounded, and refuse to explain why.
The rest of the Kith, as the collective sapients of the galaxy have begun to call themselves, are baffled. What could be overwhelming humans, who rise like phoenixes from any hardship? They notice that many afflicted humans are shy about what’s troubling them, though, and conclude it would be rude to ask human advice on the subject.
It’s not until a ketian finds their human captain dead in her cabin, a note on her bedside table and a laser burn clean through her brow, that the Kith realize how badly they were wrong.
The note on Captain Alexis’s table speaks of how unhappy she was on the ship, of her stress and loneliness. She’s to be given a hero’s funeral, written down in history as a martyr whose sacrifice taught the Kith their mistakes, until her sister hears of the arrangements. “No,” she says. “There’s nothing heroic about this. My sister was a victim, not a martyr. Give her back to her family, let us say our goodbyes. Remember her with honor, but remember her as she was.” And she begins the strange keening pain-cry of humans, her eyes sparkling with tears in that way the Kith find strange and oddly beautiful - few other species shed tears - but know better than to comment on. “My sister wouldn’t have wanted a place in history, especially not one earned by your callousness.” She makes the strange gesture of aggression that humans sometimes make, a bit like their gesture of indication but with a different finger extended. The crew have seen it used in all manner of situations, from playful banter to outright rage.
This is outright rage.
As Alexis’s sister collects her body, the crew gathers to talk. The events of the death are incomprehensible to them. Al’ara, the ketian pilot who’d found the body, carefully examines the cabin. No signs anyone else was there. No signs of struggle.
Shyly, for fear of being rude, the crew decides to ask a human about the mysterious night, and it’s then that they realize just how deeply their mistakes ran.
Humans’ bodies are tough, sure, but their minds are fragile as frost.
At first, the crew is baffled. What species could possibly have the capacity for self-annihilation? Why had it not evolved out millenia ago?
The human keens. Their eyes sparkle. Senseless as it may seem, this is all too real.
Suddenly, her strange actions make so much more sense. The times she’d refused to work despite being in perfect health. Her exhaustion and listlessness that didn’t have any physical cause. The times the crew had heard keening from her cabin. Even the strangely tidy blade scars that sometimes peeked out from her sleeves.
Fragile as frost, indeed.
The crew are at a loss. They caused this, they had been too worried about offending their captain to take basic care of her. Al’ara plucks feathers from their wings, the ones Alexis had often compared to the blue jays from her homeworld, and spends hours in meditation, sitting with their guilt and grief, learning to exist again. The quiet chanskir medic whose name no one could quite pronounce paints his scales silver-blue in mourning, singing low warbling dirges. Natreyen, with all the concern for his honor characteristic of mikali raised in traditional societies, turns himself in as a murderer.
It’s Alexis’s sister, of all people, who intervenes. “No,” she says, “you aren’t a murderer. You didn’t know any better. You did the best you could.”
“Lydia?” he asks. “You were so angry before. Why are you defending me now?”
“Because there is a difference between acknowledging your mistakes and turning them into deliberate crime. And because I was blinded with my pain that day. My heart hurt from losing my sister.”
“Then if I can’t give myself up to the law, how am I to make up for the stain on my honor? Deliberately or not, I caused a life to be wasted.”
Lydia kneels to match his height. One of her hands cups his ridged cheek, a gesture he recognizes as one of affection. “Learn, Natreyen,” she says. “Learn how to do better next time.”
Natreyen is so stunned he can only bow deeply. Lydia has spared his life, given him the second chance so few mikali would ever consider.
Luckily, she knows how to make this official, make his people recognize his redemption instead of calling him a fugitive. She raises her hands above his head. “Natreyen, you have wasted a life, and debt must be paid,” she intones, in fluent Mikai, then places her hands on his back, lacing her fingers into the gaps in his carapace and scratching his soft skin. Gently, just enough to cause a slight prickle of pain. A token vengeance. “As the wronged, I declare before the Justicars of Honor that I am satisfied by this avenging. Go forth and improve yourself.”
Her hands unlace from his carapace, and the rite is complete. In the eyes of his kin, Natreyen’s soul is no longer burdened by killing.
He resolves to go forth and learn, as Lydia instructed him.
He begins by investigating what Lydia had meant by her heart hurting, by being blinded by pain. They’re uniquely human concepts; no other Kith species has phrases that quite match those. And so, dread settling in the pit of his abdomen, he decides to ask Lydia.
His fears are quickly relieved when she isn’t offended by the questions, and the answers turn out to be a bit more literal than he was expecting. Uniquely among the known Kith, humans can feel emotional responses as physical sensations, rather than having separate nerve reactions for mental and physical stimuli. When Alexis died, Lydia experienced her grief as physical pain, and that led her to lash out in anger instead of calming herself. This part, Natreyen understands. It’s difficult to think when you’re in pain.
The crew’s first attempts at making their ship human-friendly go poorly. Making sure humans couldn’t be around weapons unsupervised gets dismissed by Lydia as treating the symptoms instead of the problem. Painkillers, to keep humans levelheaded when distressed, would only cause more problems in the long run.
Finally, Natreyen realizes what he’s been doing wrong. The task isn’t to human-proof what’s already there, but to add things that were lacking. Human crew members would need shorter work hours and more mental stimulation. More variety in food would also help. Companionship would be a must, and Lydia recommends a few types of animal that many humans are good at caring for. Communication with social groupmates would be invaluable. A specialist in human psychology wouldn’t go amiss, either.
Sure, running a human-friendly ship would be more work, but most humans were happier in groups. A larger crew would be just another way of making the ship more hospitable to these strangely tough yet fragile Kith.
Several flights, five humans, two cats, and more shenanigans than Natreyen cared to remember later, everything seems to be going well.
Then he feels a sharp pain in his fetlock.
He looks down and sees that someone has attached a knife to one of the cleaning robots. Without a second thought, he removes the knife and pages the rest of the crew to ask how it had ended up there.
The humans are devastated to hear of the knife’s removal, claiming that Natreyen had “killed Stabby”. Apparently the idea of taping a knife to a cleaning robot had been a running joke on their planet since before they’d ever met the rest of the Kith, and in Stabby’s half hour of existence the humans had grown attached to him.
Natreyen remembers Lydia’s voice in the Chamber of Justice. I am satisfied by this avenging. Her nails on his back, pricks of pain without any true harm.
He gets an idea.
“Al’ara,” he asks, “would you fetch a butter knife from the mess hall?”
She flies off to get one, and he taps on a remote to recall the robot that had been turned into Stabby. It trundles up to his feet, waiting.
Al’ara returns with the knife, and Natreyen tapes it to the robot, exactly where its old knife had been. “Will this do?” he asks the humans.
Their cheers are enough of an answer. He taps the remote again, commanding the newly resurrected Stabby to return to cleaning. Everyone is satisfied, and he dismisses the meeting.
Little does he know, Stabby will one day be the general of the entire Kith fleet, at least as far as humans are concerned. Something about it gaining the rank of anyone it hit...
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MARGINAL NOTES ON THE AGAMBEN SCANDAL
Originally published in Italian here.
“Soon afterwards, something else emerged – yet another justification for incorporating the ‘Children’s Songs’ into the ‘Poems from Exile’. Brecht, standing before me in the grass, spoke with rare forcefulness:‘In the struggle against them, it is vital that nothing be overlooked. They don’t think small. They plan thirty thousand years ahead. Horrendous things. Horrendous crimes. They will stop at nothing. They will attack anything. Every cell convulses under their blows. So we mustn’t forget a single one. They distort the child in the womb. We can under no circumstances forget the children.’ While he was talking, I felt moved by a power that was the equal of that of fascism – one that is no less deeply rooted in the depths of history than fascism’s power. It was a very strange feeling, wholly new to me.”
- Benjamin on a conversation with Brecht, 1938
It seems that what irritates many and persuades few about Giorgio Agamben's ongoing reflections, deep down, is his rendering of the image of passive consent to the state of exception imposed by the coronavirus pandemic. An image that manifests itself as a normalized adherence to the injunction of the absolute primacy of bare life, a life reduced to mere reproduction, deprived of any attributes of the experience of freedom. The image of this consent would suggest that bare life is revealed as the only horizon, or value, remaining of human experience, which is tantamount to saying that the human now denies itself any experience: it reveals itself as an intuited fact, a fact that emerges today in these circumstances, and which was therefore already present before.
Incidentally, it should be noted that something else is proven to be pre-existing or proemial to pandemic management—something that applies to the historical proletariat, i.e. the industrial worker, as much as to contemporary workers of all kinds; something that reveals itself in the mirror image of the majority of elderly people left to die alone under the legitimation of social protection from contagion, while the truth is that after years of state sanctioned austerity measures there are not enough hospital beds; something to do with the fact that Italy, “no country for young people”, is determined by the miserable distribution of income, ergo by the misery and predation of welfare—this pre-existing fact is that the injunction of biological reproduction is absolutely relative at a global scale according to different people’s privileges based on their geographical location, at a local scale, since social reproduction depends on the convenience of the economic machine, and finally at a time scale unique to each form of life with regards to the constant destructive forces of predation. So there is an experience of the thanatalogical power held by the present human society.
Yet in the present situation, the image given by Agamben, that is to say the one in which it would appear that the social cement to which we objectively seem to adhere is revealed to be the command of bare life alone, is not inexact. At least, as long as a mass consent to the suspension or disembodiment of social relations, under threat of losing basic biological reproduction, persists. But what does this mean?
In an important passage from 1955, Georges Canguilhem argued against identifying human social organizations with living organisms. Canguilhem argues that while every human society or rather human society in general is a collectivity of living beings, this collectivity is neither an individual, since it does not obey the laws of homeostasis of a singular biological organism, nor a species, since it cannot be confused with “humanity” which is always open to the search for its specific sociability, while society is by definition closed. Society is a means, a tool, says Canguilhem. It demands rules but has no capacity for self-regulation, and thus disorder is its only presumably normal state. For this reason, regulation cannot be left to an apparatus produced by society itself; it must come from elsewhere—and here, again through Bergson, Canguilhem goes back even more surprisingly to Plato on the same question Walter Benjamin had returned to in order to arrive at his critique of sovereignty and the law by philologically revealing its fiction: justice. Canguilhem uses justice according to Plato, a supreme form of society that is at the same time irreducible to its bodies, to make the Bergsonian opposition between wisdom and heroism work: unlike in the living organism, there is no wisdom in society, and the proof is that its normal state of crisis constantly gives rise to the need for heroes and heroisms who emerge in the background of a crisis situation and are then called upon to give it a solution—all of this of course legitimized by a representation of extreme danger that is the mirror image of the permanent sense of threat perceived by society in its precarious nature.
It is clear that, in spite of some contrived and astonishing Marxian syncretisms, which have unfortunately run their theoretical course, we are dealing with social reproduction in its materialistically determined distinction from simple reproduction.
Let us try to make Canguilhem work in what appears to be Agamben’s contradiction: between him capturing the political truth on the state of exception and an aporia of his current discourse on normality, the rule of exception as taught by the tradition of the oppressed—to borrow from Benjamin’s 8th thesis on the concept of history. What particular kind of adherence to the formal exception are we seeing in the face of this pandemic? Or rather, why is it that the injunction of bare life displays itself in this circumstance?
This pandemic is not the dengue, which still causes more infections and victims than the coronavirus in Latin America, or the yellow fever, that has made new massacres in the last two years from South East Asia to Africa. This pandemic is global because it threatens the definitive global relations of capitalist society. The virus starts in the central metropolis of the global construction industry, a haven for capital in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, and then impacts primarily in China, Europe and the US, with the addition of the oil states and those engaged in conflicts in the Middle East. This explains the representation of the danger, but not yet the social acceptance that it is gaining: in order to grasp it, it is perhaps necessary to question whether this same support is in fact illusory. This does not exempt us from ascertaining the force of the historical reification of this apparent image and therefore from ascertaining, as Agamben does precisely by capturing the truth of this moment’s image as it presents itself to history, that adherence to the guarantee of bare life is the foundation of the social pact. But we know, precisely with Agamben and Benjamin, that both this guarantee and the social pact are a pair of fictions—in other words, a false synthesis of opposites: such as, in close kinship, that of sovereign legitimacy in relation to justice and law. What does the experience of the oppressed teach us about the relationship between the life-form of capitalist society and simple reproduction if not that this relationship is simply null and void? That the mission of capitalist society, reversed through thirty years of globalization, is precisely exclusion, disinterest, the power or profit to command freely, independently from any guarantee of biological reproduction? It is this truth, affirmed in the practice of governance and introjected by the oppressed, that is now laid bare: the injunction to isolate and the suspension of social life are accepted precisely because it is at the moment in which society—and, coincidentally but separately, biological life—is most endangered that the whole experience of the divorce between the two finally condenses. In other words, individuals suddenly become conscious that it was power itself that laid down the fiction of the social pact in the first place: and therefore, it is the reality of society itself that is laid bare, its pure coincidence with power, and its powerlessness to produce any stability, any healing for the sick, any protection for life.
It is true that in this instinctive recording of the truth about society and power the injunction to cling to bare life as the sole horizon of social behaviour is reproduced: but it would be better to say that it is reflected in it. On the one hand, in fact, power enjoins the suspension of social life as a necessary condition for its own re-legitimization; on the other hand, this same suspension finds acceptance among people only as a condition consciously forced upon them by the evident fact that power and its social organization have no capacity to defend life effectively. In this dichotomy and beyond the instantaneous image of a forced convergence we can glimpse the crossroads between forms-of-life that are being prepared. On one side of this crossroads, there is an emergent form-of-life which, accepting the nakedness of society and power, secedes from it in order to affirm the value of life as an encounter and the mutual aid of bodies in their affections, thereby re-opening the horizon of a free experience, and on the other side a form-of-life imposed as a reproduction of society and its command, reconfigured exactly on the acceptance of the truth of their substantial powerlessness to protect life, bodies, and affections as what is common to us, and indeed on the acceptance of their destiny to separate us in the face of a distribution of death. And it is all the more so true—as seems to be the case in our present situation—that the reconfiguration of capitalist society and its general relations of power take the form of a predominance of digital capitalism, of data capture and of a predictive function of the devices of control: that is, of a total grip on the biological that at the same time mineralizes it.
In this sense, as shocking as the image used by Agamben, the anonymous article, “What the Virus Said,” published by Lundimatin appears to be a discursive operation with a different effectiveness and power: precisely in its address to the current form—captured at this moment—of the average social behaviour and to place itself ahead of that choice. A choice that seems to take on a global body in many different signs of conflictual life, which tend to dispel the crystallized image of a common decision on life itself paralyzed in the capture by the naked thanatocracy to which corresponds the automaton that we have come to call the Leviathan.
-Correspondence and Translation Committee - Vitalist International (Roman Section)
Translated by the Vitalist International, Atlanta Section
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Some responses to Earthworm Discourse:
g u e s s a g a i n
Honestly, though, I still rescue earthworms from sidewalks and have since I was a child in our little informal, weird-girl, after-school bug-club, as I’m sure many of us did and still do. All life has value. (Still feeling confused about the ethical/ecological implications of rescuing non-native worms. When so many United States cities present as sanitized, sterilized, anonymous concrete-asphalt landscapes - covered in manicured non-native grass lawns - are the already-firmly-entrenched non-native earthworms causing much more damage in residential lawns if you save a few, so long as you avoid introducing them to intact ecological sites outside city limits? No pun intended, but that discourse is a whole other can of worms. Discussion for another time.) So I’ve seen some disparaging remarks made about the Moral Character of non-native earthworms, so obligatory statement: Earthworms of course are not villains or actively malevolent. Colonization; Indigenous dispossession; empire; profit-oriented thinking; industrial monoculture; large-scale geoengineering over years to reshape the entirety of the Turtle Island and Latin American landscapes as if they were “bountiful” European farms populated by “familiar and comforting” European species, etc. - earthworms are a physical manifestation of those issues.
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[Spokesman Review - 20 November 1999. Andrea Vogt, staff writer.]
Two of the largest and most iconic native earthworms on the continent are actually found west of the Rockies. Shout-out to [a commenter] for explicitly name-dropping the beautiful and alluring Palouse giant earthworm (Driloleirus americanus), a rare and elusive species, one of the earthworm species actually native west of the Rockies (from the Washington-Idaho border in the Inland Northwest). [More on the worm.] It lives in the Palouse Hills; in the nearby Nez Perce Prairie and Lower Clearwater canyon system; and in some sites in Washington’s East Cascades ecoregion. Much of the Palouse has been converted to agriculture, damaging the soil, and the worm was apparently missing for decades until recent encounters confirmed that it’s still alive. The Palouse giant earthworm and the endangered Oregon giant earthworm (Driloleirus macelfreshi) - from prairie-oak woodland of Willamette Valley - are both contenders for the title of “largest native earthworm in North America.”
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Excellent info:
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Nice to hear some info on boreal environments, thank you @theeclectickoalastudent - This is also how tiger salamanders (Ambystoma mavoritum) - native in North America east of the Great Basin - were artificially introduced to Mediterranean California: People were importing salamander larvae as fishing bait. (Pretty brutal to begin with, if you ask me.) And now the iconic, unique California tiger salamander (Ambystoma californiense) - endemic only to California and which was already endangered - is forced to directly compete to reclaim its own oak woodland and chaparral habitat from its introduced relative. And we can’t let United States “conservation” and land management agencies and institutions off the hook for the obscene and mind-boggling scale of damage they’ve historically done stocking non-native sport fish species in watersheds of the American West, followed by the stocking of non-native crustaceans to feed the fish. (Speaking of non-native species threatening salamanders, I was [just] hyperfixating the other day on how the Mazama newt - endemic only to Crater Lake, Oregon - may soon be driven extinct by the voracious introduced crayfish species Pacifastacus leniusculus.)
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Important disclaimer, by the way: I also wanted to clarify something, so I’m reposting some text I recently shared. Regarding the worm post, I wanted to say: [I know some people who have shared “unleash earthworms” posts clearly did so because: fun; irony; joke; etc. (And, yea, I really like imagining invertebrates/writhing creatures as emblems of resistance/anti-imperialism: “We’re worms, we’ve been stepped on for years, we persist! And our reward for submitting to the decay of the soil is to be engulfed in the loving embrace of one million mycorrhyzal fungal tendrils; by submerging ourselves into the soil we are really a s c e n d i n g.”) I was not vauge-posting about y’all. Like I said previously, I think peoples’ hearts are in the right place and I generally like people I meet here in anti-imperialist/ecology-oriented circles. I think that the originators of the most recent iterations of those posts were clearly being playful. My green tea-fueled ranting about Problematic Worm Etiquette is mostly due to: (1) sometimes I get Like That, (2) I’ll concoct any excuse to talk about Great Lakes regional ecology, and (3) I know some - not all - people were taking “release worms!” advice seriously, so figured it be nice to be explicit.]
On that note, regarding earthworm introduction as a means to improve your own access to food (via garden) or food (via using them as fishing bait): I did definitely see some people being serious about this, so it’s worth noting the irony of a well-meaning action which nevertheless deliberately introduces European species, erasing/degrading native ecology, and also resulting in the destruction of Indigenous foodsheds. Reshaping the Earth, remolding the continent, and promoting the physical/literal invasion of a European species in the hopes of making the land more “fruitful” and “bountiful”? In my US and/or Canada? Just as likely as you think.
Really important stuff right here:
(Sugar maple is one of the plant species most susceptible to death when non-native earthworms invade nearby soul. Thank you for sharing this, @aanzheni)
A map of native foodshed regions of Turtle Island/North America, based on a template originally made by ethnobiologist Gary Paul Nabhan, presenting hypothetical “food regions” and reflecting the vital local staple foods.
Sugar maple is important.
I talk too much, but @big-edies-sun-hat said it more tastefully:
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@nonsensikelly - Thank you for the info. (And yea, earthworms are well-entrenched in temperate North America.)
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I really am not a good person to ask. (Though I’d identify some blatantly obvious solutions - Indigenous autonomy and land management; the dismantling of industrial monoculture crop extraction and associated industry; etc.) I’m not a soil scientist, botanist, entomologist, or technical ecologist/biologist (more into environmental geography/history). However, I had your comment in mind when I wrote [this post] about loss of forest understory and savannafication in the Midwest, addressing why it is that so much earthworm research comes from schools/institutions in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ontario, due partially to the critical ecological importance of the northern central hardwoods forests as a frontline against worm expansion into boreal environments.
@mi-el-lat I know @cedar-glade already responded to you and it’s worth reposting:
also from cedar-glade, but formatted so the link is clickable:
you can get idea about how gray the knowledge of both invasive earthworms and the effects of potentially invasive predators are from many articles out now a days trying to figure out ecological dynamics of earthworms in any shape or form. https://www.inhs.illinois.edu/resources/inhsreports/may-jun00/worm/
Since a lot of invasive earthworm research and dialogue focuses on the Great Lakes region, we’re in luck because Tumblr might have a resident expert so to speak, since I’m pretty sure @starfoozle specializes in Great Lakes-region invasive species. Regarding “What Can Be Done” to rally community effort, for someone with experience in Midwest landscapes specifically involving citizen science and community engagement with ecology, shout-out to @glumshoe.
And if you’ve got questions about botany, soil, and plant ecology generally, these people are much better scientists than me. They know exactly what they’re talking about and I cannot recommend them highly enough: @spatheandspadix / @botanyshitposts / cedarglade, again ... all of whomst also have firsthand experience with plants and ecosystems of the Midwest and Great Lakes.
Sorry for the long post!
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Human Evolution: Secrets of Early Ancestors Could Be Unlocked by African Rainforests
By Eleanor Scerri / The Conversation
Think of African rainforests and the picture is inevitably one of a dark and forbidding realm where life is abundant, yet alarmingly cryptic. Rather than the sense of space offered by long, iconic grassland vistas, distance is compressed into tangled webs of foliage, veiling both predators and prey. Diffuse and difficult to access proteins, carbohydrates and fats increase the chances of encountering an array of lurking dangers. For these reasons, it has long been thought that humans were only able to colonize rainforests in the last few thousand years, after the development of agriculture.
In fact, we still have no clear idea when humans first began to inhabit rainforests. But mounting evidence is deconstructing the idea that rainforests – that is, forests requiring between 2,500 and 4,500 mm of rain a year – were hostile “green deserts” to early hunter gatherers.
Early adaptation to rainforests
In South Asia, there is now compelling archaeological evidence that Homo sapiens rapidly adapted to life in rainforests. At Niah Cave in Borneo, toxic plants obtained from nearby rainforest habitats were being processed as far back as 45,000 years ago , soon after people were first documented in this region. In Sri Lanka, there is evidence for direct reliance on rainforest resources at least 36,000 years ago. And a paper published in Nature last year reported the presence of humans in a rainforest environment on Sumatra dating back to a staggering 70,000 years ago.
If early humans could adapt to the rainforests of South Asia, then perhaps they also did so much earlier in Africa at the inception of our species. While this is not a new suggestion, we now know that our species first arose in Africa more than 300,000 years ago, leaving plenty of time for our ancestors to adapt to varied habitats.
But finding conclusive evidence for rainforest habitation is difficult. Rainforests are very challenging fieldwork environments, not least because the warm and wet conditions mean that very little of the archaeological record survives the test of time.
In addition, Africa’s rainforest ecologies are fragile, sustained by annual levels of rainfall that are at the lowest limit of what is required to maintain a rainforest. This means that there were frequent episodes of rainforest fragmentation in prehistory, making it difficult to establish the environmental context of past human habitation in regions that are forested today. With the exception of a few dedicated individuals, Africa’s rainforests have barely been explored for their potential role in human evolution.
If early humans could adapt to the rainforests of South Asia, then perhaps they also did so much earlier in Africa at the inception of our species. While this is not a new suggestion, we now know that our species first arose in Africa more than 300,000 years ago, leaving plenty of time for our ancestors to adapt to varied habitats.
But finding conclusive evidence for rainforest habitation is difficult. Rainforests are very challenging fieldwork environments, not least because the warm and wet conditions mean that very little of the archaeological record survives the test of time.
In addition, Africa’s rainforest ecologies are fragile, sustained by annual levels of rainfall that are at the lowest limit of what is required to maintain a rainforest. This means that there were frequent episodes of rainforest fragmentation in prehistory, making it difficult to establish the environmental context of past human habitation in regions that are forested today. With the exception of a few dedicated individuals, Africa’s rainforests have barely been explored for their potential role in human evolution.
Early African rainforest dwellers?
Despite the many problems described above, there are tantalizing suggestions that humans used and perhaps lived in African rainforests far before the development of agriculture some 8,000-9,000 years ago.
It is also becoming apparent that this line of research has growing implications for how we understand our evolutionary history. Rigorous ethnographic studies have demonstrated that the availability of wild plant foods have been considerably underestimated in Africa’s rainforests, and there is some evidence supporting the ancient exploitation of such resources.
An ancient hominin tooth from Central Africa indicates that our hominin ancestors were already living in mixed environments at the edges of forests around 2.5million years ago. Composite foraging tools argued to be forest adapted may have appeared as early as 265,000 years ago and have been found across vast regions of modern rainforest. And new evidence published this year shows that humans were exploiting mixed tropical forest/grassland environments in Kenya up to 78,000 years ago.
Later human fossils dating to around 22,000 years ago from the Democratic Republic of Congo and 12,000 years ago in southern Nigeria feature enough distinctive morphological features to suggest that the populations they belonged to did not often mix with others from elsewhere in Africa. Specifically, these fossils bear more physical similarities to people living between 100,000-300,000 years ago than their contemporaries. It’s possible that they were separated because they had adapted to life in very different environments.
My fieldwork in tropical West Africa has also uncovered striking cultural similarities. Some groups living here up to 12,000 years ago were making stone tools that were more typical of people living in similarly earlier time periods. This is not akin to findings from elsewhere which emphasize the late presence of a single artifact form in an otherwise “advanced” tool kit. My findings from Senegal could easily be transplanted to a situation 50,000 or 100,000 years earlier, and they would not look out of place. Why were people here maintaining such ancient material cultural traditions when populations elsewhere had begun to experiment with agriculture? Did they choose to sustain strong cultural boundaries? Or were they cut off, either by distance or some other factor?
Implications for human evolution
While we are still working to establish the environmental context of these sites, it seems plausible that regions of dense forest may have played an important role in separating – and hence diversifying – early Homo sapiens populations . Such regions represented discrete human habitats, heralding the beginnings of our adaptability or “ ecological modernity ” and adding to the gamut of processes driving the significant physical variation of early members of our species. Indeed, such processes of diversification may even have been the cauldron of our biological plasticity and behavioral flexibility, as I argue in a recent paper.
The plot thickens further at this point. It seems that our species shared Africa with other, more genetically divergent hominins such as Homo heidelbergensis , Homo naledi and perhaps other as yet undiscovered species. There are even suggestions that there may have been gene flow between Homo sapiens and one or more such hominins. If proved, the shifting patchwork of Africa’s diverse environments – including rainforests – may therefore also have played a role in facilitating the late persistence of such species and subsequent episodes of gene flow with Homo sapiens . It’s possible that the last groups of species such as Homo heidelbergensis hid out in forests.
Given the extraordinary discoveries of the last decade, it is certainly wise to keep an open mind and shy away from overly dogmatic assertions about human evolution. This is particularly the case when so little is known about vast swathes of Africa, whose rainforest regions alone cover 2.2 million square miles. The only inescapable fact is that there is a lot yet to be discovered.
Top image: West African rain forest during amazing sunset, Liberia, West Africa Source: © Fabian via Fotolia
#kemetic dreams#congo#rainforest#africa#central africa#human evolution#homo sapiens#african#africans
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The Forgotten History of when Portland IWW was Infiltrated by Pedophile Supporters
Every political movement faces tough questions about how to reject reactionary entryism from fascists and pedophiles. What matters is how a community or organization responds. As radical leftists and antifascists we believe in drawing hard lines and exposing monsters. As one IWW member put it, “The state didn’t invent the idea that there are consequences to our actions.“ For real consequences institutional memory must be preserved.
In 2014 it was revealed that an IWW member, Tomas Bernal, had committed an act of sexual violence while travelling in Mexico against a person who was 12. This was revealed when Tomas sent a confession email to the IWW listserv. There was never a question about whether he had committed the act or not. He had been in a relationship with another IWW member who said they felt unsafe and had experienced interpersonal violence from Tomas. They will be referred to here as the PDX Survivor.
As a result of his confession, which many found to be very self centering and deflecting of blame, a number of members immediately asked for his expulsion from the IWW.
Over the proceeding months a small group of members of which Ashley Jackson, Jessica Harris, and Adam Nee were a prominent part, created an intense environment of confusion, intimidation, and harassment for people demanding his permanent expulsion and for his PDX Survivor and allies.
Some of the tactics they employed included:
creating procedural blocks and criticizing the process
blaming the PDX survivor for creating an “unsafe space” and endangering people, in addition to framing the ask for expulsion as some kind of revenge plot
saying that people discussing the community safety risk were breaking security culture
claiming that people wanting to exclude Tomas were engaged in a secret cabal in violation of IWW process
claiming that their voices (Ash and Jess) as survivors (in a general sense) were being sidelined and silenced through listening to the PDX survivor and other survivors of childhood sexual assault and IPV
trying to force their way into meetings for survivors directly processing the trauma around their and Tomas’ actions
When the final PDX IWW vote was taken to exclude Tomas, 28 voted for permanent expulsion….and 9 voted for no expulsion.
This harassment campaign persisted for months upon months and generated a mass exodus from the PDX IWW from people who fundamentally could not put up with the endless discussion around whether you could expel a member for an act of sexual violence against a minor.
This created intense and deep divisions within the community, and to this day many people choose to avoid organizing spaces as they fear seeing Adam, Jess, & Ash.
After the exodus, Adam, Jess, & Ash, and others were still in positions of leadership and started to rewrite history within the wobs. New and incoming members were told a MUCH different story.
In 2016/17 it started to become clear to some active wobs that the IWWPDX had an official relationship with Class Struggle Workers (Adam, Jess, & Ash’s most public group) and The Internationalist Group (which they are also in). Some workers knew that these groups have a history of endorsing and defending NAMBLA. From the Internationalists Group website:
http://www.internationalist.org/lficonferencedocument1712.html
"We have already had a taste of witch-hunting by red-baiting reformist leftists and feminists intent on provoking retaliation for our principled defense of gay and lesbian rights and our opposition to anti-gay repression of unpopular groups such as NAMBLA."
When this was brought up in a meeting, Adam, Jess, & Ash did their normal routine of harassment, deflection, derailing of process, and intimidation of workers. They claimed that people were being homophobic and oppressive for having critiques of NAMBLA.
They shortly left the wobs after this to focus solely on Class Struggle Workers (which is a front group for the Internationalist Group). Meeting notes from that IWW meeting can be found here:
https://libcom.org/forums/north-america/portland-wobblies-31082016?fbclid=IwAR23Wu1x3kKusDAd95nd5ecCa9KrpThkmapQar74vZsutDapya9OYbEtZeo
“When the motion came under discussion, the 3 CSWP members immediately formed a bloc, roundly condemning the motion with a flurry of accusations: calling it slander, a witch-hunt, anticommunist, patriarchal, racist, and homophobic. One member recounted a personal anecdote in an attempt to justify the notion that very underage people should be able to enter into sexual relationships with adults, and claimed that my opposition to this was a patriarchal attempt to tell young women/underage children what to do with their bodies. Furthermore, they claimed that I made them feel unsafe and said that by talking publicly about these issues with the IG that I was calling for what they said amounted to the “murder” of IG members. They then called into question my emotional and mental stability, as they claimed that I was “mentally disturbed” to think that the IG supported pedophilia, and that I and the motion itself violated the safer space rule.”
Throughout the years people have directly questioned them about their ties to NAMBLA.
They alternate between obfuscation, lying, harassment, and intimidation.
Here are some of their own words from their newsletter about where they stand on NAMBLA
https://www.icl-fi.org/english/wv/1099/salt.html
"Foaming with rage at our opposition to reactionary “age of consent” laws and our forthright defense of NAMBLA (the North American Man/Boy Love Association) against state repression, they slanderously raved about predator “pedophiles” and “child rape.”"
"Groups like NAMBLA who are slandered, framed up and witchhunted by the capitalist state must be defended! Only a party that actively champions the rights of all the oppressed can lead the struggle for proletarian socialist revolution."
Considering their past defense of a person who molested a 12 year old while visiting Mexico as a tourist…….it is hard to see their support for NAMBLA as anything but part of a long history of supporting and propping up pedophiles and childhood sexual violence.
Most recently, their group Class Struggle Workers came out to a proposed Klan Rally and flew their banner, while Adam, Jess, & Ash also repped the Internationalist Group.
To this day, Adam Nee, Jessica Harris, & Ashley Jackson have never admitted to any wrong-doing, and continue to stand by the totality of their actions.
Fascist and fascist-friendly reactionary groups like Patriot Prayer have a long history of welcoming with open arms pedophiles like Bob West and Deme Cooper. As antifascists our struggle is to hold the radical left to a higher standard.
These are all their OWN publicity photos:
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Lionheart chuckled. "No, you're supposed to respect them as dangerous opponents to the work we do. Five of these tribes still operate in Anima today, though their influence is nowhere near what it once was. You may find this lesson a little more… practical than most."
Gods. It had to come up eventually—Huntsmen didn't just fight Grimm. They knew when they signed up there would be lessons on… on killing bandits… But the second month of school? Some luck.
Qrow watched the professor through his bangs as Lionheart set the chalk on the tray and folded his arms behind his back, tail swishing slowly behind him as always.
"They're just bandits," the same girl said.
Follow the Beacon
Qrow—Doomed to Repeat It
[Link to Masterpost]
[TW: child abuse, abuse, PTSD, anxiety, panic attacks. A lot happens here. I think I got all relevant warnings. Summary at the bottom as always.]
[In Volume 5, Yang mopped the floor with the cousins Branwens without breaking a sweat, but in World of Remnant Qrow also described the bandits as being surprisingly competent. This is why I have a few good fighters leading the tribe, and the rest are just opportunistic a*holes.
Anyways, here you go! Have a pile of my angstiest headcanons...]
"…letting Vale rebuild the southern wall. On to Anima—does anyone know what was happening in Mistral during the Xan Era?" Lionheart asked, glancing over his shoulder as his chalk hovered an inch from the board.
"The Bandit Queen!" someone shouted. "I love that movie!"
Qrow's pen froze in his notebook. Had he misheard? But no, Raven stopped too.
"Yes, well, I'm afraid the film embellishes some details," Lionheart chuckled, writing THE GREATER BANDIT WAR on the board. "But yes, that is the general idea. Bandits have always been a problem in Anima, much more than in Sanus. Any ideas as to why?"
"…Well, Anima has a lot more villages outside the main kingdom than Sanus."
"It does. Anima’s climate is far milder and more predictable. Homesteading outside of the kingdom has always been easier, and sadly in the case of banditry more prey means more predators."
The pen shook in Qrow's hand as he copied what Lionheart was writing on the board. He'd been having an okay day until now...
"Historians agree it was actually a drought that began the war. Crops failed, and people began to congregate in the cities—especially in Mistral. As Marin mentioned, there were six major tribes roaming Anima at the time, and they quickly found themselves with no one to take food from."
"What, are we supposed to feel sorry for them?" someone grumbled from the third row.
Lionheart chuckled. "No, you're supposed to respect them as dangerous opponents to the work we do. Five of these tribes still operate in Anima today, though their influence is nowhere near what it once was. You may find this lesson a little more… practical than most."
Gods. It had to come up eventually—Huntsmen didn't just fight Grimm. They knew when they signed up there would be lessons on… on killing bandits… But the second month of school? Some luck.
Qrow watched the professor through his bangs as Lionheart set the chalk on the tray and folded his arms behind his back, tail swishing slowly behind him as always.
"They're just bandits," the same girl said. Tiffany? That was her name, right?
"Bandit tribes are the second-best fighters on Remnant, after Huntsmen," Lionheart warned. "And you cannot afford to take them lightly. I am from Anima, I fought plenty before I took up teaching."
"What makes them so dangerous?" someone else asked.
Lionheart smiled. "That is precisely the sort of question you should be asking to get the most from this subject. But to answer it—bandits are just as practiced in the use of aura as any Huntsman or Huntress, and every single one has had their Semblance unlocked since the age of five."
The class broke into astonished mutters and whispers, and Qrow looked down at his notes again. "How's that possible?"
"The tribes have some… unique practices. Some anthropologists go so far as to call it a religion—they justify their actions through a simple code: 'the strong live, the weak die'."
Qrow's stomach curdled.
"Most of you found your Semblances in a moment of need, or intense emotion, correct?" Lionheart continued. "In order to make their people stronger, they do not train their children to generate a defensive aura until after their Semblance is unlocked." More shocked whispers from the students. "As Semblances frequently manifest during times of duress… if a bandit has not found theirs by the age of five, they face a trial of some kind—most often beatings—until they do, or die trying.”
He dropped the pen and folded his hands under the desk so no one would see them shaking. Next to him Raven continued to scratch out notes. But it had been easier for her—Raven’s portals were obvious, showy, and manifested within a few minutes. It hadn't taken the tribe any time at all to figure out what she could do.
...Maybe if he'd been allowed to discover his Semblance naturally, he'd be able to control it.
“That’s barbaric!”
"True, but remember their code, 'the strong live, the weak die'." Lionheart's voice dragged his attention back to the current danger. "If a bandit does not have a Semblance, the tribesmen see them as unfit to survive. And while cruel, it is effective—the practice is one reason the tribes persist to this day.”
His tail lashed as he began to pace in front of his desk. "Another is their hit-and-run tactics… raiding a village generates a lot of negative emotions, and will almost always draw in the Creatures of Grimm. Huntsmen sent to aid the town are frequently too occupied fending them off to catch the bandits before they disappear into the wilderness."
He turned to the other chalkboard, the one with the permanent map of Remnant, and began to draw lines across Anima. "The tribes each have their own territory, bordered by natural barriers just like the kingdoms, preventing them from fighting with each other too much. Since the Great War and the founding of the Huntsman academies, the territory that contains Mistral was cleared when the Mathon tribe was wiped out."
Bones had been furious. The tribe burned three villages to the ground without even taking anything, and Qrow and Raven earned their brands a year early.
Please. Please, just let the bell ring.
"The other tribes have weakened considerably as well, particularly those close to Mistral. As technology has improved, so have our response times. The current council is hopeful that the rest of the tribes will fall before the end of this era, and have dedicated significant resources to fighting them. …Mister and Miss Taupe, you are from Anima, correct?"
Qrow's blood froze. Every eye in the room was staring directly at them.
"Do you know which tribe was active near your home?"
He didn't look up. The question hung in the air, demanding an answer. Raven was shaking, he could feel through the bench. He swallowed and croaked out, "Branwen."
"Ah, hem, yes," Lionheart said. "In the Xan Era, the Branwen tribe was the largest of the six…"
* * *
The bell rang, mercifully cutting off the discussion of battle tactics during the sacking of Mistral. Lionheart glanced at the clock in surprise, finally returning to the present. "We got a little off-track there, didn't we?" he chuckled, finally setting down his chalk.
Qrow and Raven hurriedly shoved their things into their bags as he continued. "Make sure you've read chapter three in the textbook. Instead of a write-up, let's do an essay comparing the modern tribes to their Xan Era counterparts—you'll find some information on the contemporary tribes in chapter seventy-eight, but use at least a few additional sources and cite them appropriately. I’ll set the due date at the end of the month—"
"How about after Halloween?"
"Ah, yes. I'll post the specifics online tonight. Class dismissed."
Raven took off, almost running for the door and disappearing through. None of the other students seemed to notice as they gathered their things, but Lionheart was staring. Qrow just busied himself with writing the assignment down.
"I'm sorry." Qrow jumped—the professor had moved right in front of his desk. "I didn't consider whether you may have encountered the tribes before."
Qrow stared at him, frozen, uncomprehending.
“But, I suppose everyone in Anima's lost someone to bandits or the Grimm attacks they cause. Particularly the Huntsmen…“
"…Our parents," he lied.
He nodded, eyes closing for a moment. "The Branwens are particularly vicious.” Qrow’s hand tightened on his bag. “If I may offer a word of advice, young man… if you came here to get revenge, do not underestimate them."
His mouth went bitterly dry. "Have you…met…"
"A very long time ago. Probably before you were born. Please, pass my apology on to your sister?"
"Yes, sir." Qrow slung his bag over his shoulder and headed down the stairs, but Lionheart caught him as he passed.
"It's good to have you here with us." He gently squeezed before letting go and turning toward his desk.
Qrow forced himself not to run from the room, and went to find Raven.
[Summary—
Lionheart has a history lesson on the bandit tribes of Anima and triggers Qrow's PTSD while also terrifying Raven. Bones was not a good person. Lionheart assigns an essay, due at the end of the month, on the difference between the historical tribes and the modern ones.]
Next Chapter: Taiyang—HATCHING a Plan
#rwby#rwby fanfiction#qrow branwen#raven branwen#leonardo lionheart#bones branwen#follow the beacon#this chapter's a bit dark tread with care#whump#im so sorry#MIND THE WARNINGS
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Space Orc opens a door he cannot close
“Don’t eat that,” David said, gesturing to the jar of jalapeños. “Actually, you know what? I’m just going to make a pile. If it’s on front of you, you can probably eat it and not die.”
“That is a significantly less than reassuring statement.” Yzin replied.
“All you eat is fruit and nuts, that’s literally all I’m letting you eat. Calm yourself.”
“None of the items Rachel sent scanned as toxic, besides the ethanol.” Yzin pointed out.
“Yeah, but Rachel sent it. Also it scanned as not toxic for me; and since it’s addressed to both of us, I’m pretty sure she threw random shit in here and hoped for the best. Oh, look! Pickled onions!” David brandished the unlabeled jar at her, before uncapping it and popping three of its contents into his mouth.
“Ughn. I love onions. So toxic to literally everything else. Did you know we used to use them as a pest deterrent? I love that Rachel went into farming, all this homegrown organic shit is so much better than ship rations.”
Yzin pulled a dried apricot out of its packaging and carefully nibbled on it. “I do enjoy the fact that it is not freeze dried,” she admitted.
“Yeah, she got a really good piece of land out of her commission.”
“Do all humans submit to military consignment?”
“Nah, but there’s some really good incentives to do it. The Federation offers a lot of packages for protection services;
there’s a land grant for homesteading off world, lifelong medical packages, disability packages, a couple of education grants, and assistance with buying homes on pre-established worlds. Not that you can’t get any of that without service, but it’s a hell of a lot easier. That’s why so many humans go into search and rescue. Most of the worlds being explored are considered tropical by our standards, and, well, persistence hunting.” David shrugged, popping a few more pickled onions into his mouth.
“There have been several studies done on your planet; at this particular point, your species is cloning highly dangerous predators of your planets evolutionary history for the sake of what can only be called nostalgia.”
David sighed. “Yeah, we’re really bad at leaving the past behind. Or well enough alone. There was a city called Pompeii, and we picked at that shit for a good three thousand years.”
“I think what amazes the galactic community is the fact that humans are so adaptable. You will, in a single lifespan, have any where from five to eight career paths. You, of course, are the exception. You stand out among humans simply for your dedication to a single career path.”
“How are things going with your mom, any way? Sorry, you mentioned career stuff and it reminded me.” David shoved a package of roasted nuts in Yzin’s direction, the packaging thoughtfully torn open so that she could get her beak into it with out contamination of the entire batch.
“She remains insistent that returning to our home-world will bring me ultimate satisfaction. She continues to remain incorrect. My life did not truly begin until I left, and I cannot imagine that my life would continue if I returned.”
“Is it unusual for X’ining to leave the flock like that?”
“To a certain extent. It is normal for females to leave and start their own flock, but I am nearing the end of my hatchling years. To maintain my independence within the flock would not be unusual, but I do not wish to care for any hatchlings but my own. I also wish for my hatchlings to be provided a much wider range of experience than what can be offered within my mother’s flock. But it is not possible to rear hatchlings alone. So.”
“You know, Rachel would love more kids around the place if she could. She’s always had a hankering for motherhood; she used to scream something awful every time we moved and we had to get rid of her plants or rock collection or whatever else she latched onto, every time we moved. She accidentally waited too long, too. To have kids, I mean. So. Y’know. That door is probably open too, if you want it.”
“You speak of rearing our collective hatchlings together.”
“It’s pretty common among humans.”
“Yes. Yes, I suppose it is.” Yzin said, beginning to mentally compile a list of suitable sperm donors as she casually ate another dried apricot.
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