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#another species about to go extinct because of humans
neat-ai-artwork · 2 years
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did you know pangolins exist? 
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woozymitts · 5 days
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When you're building a fantasy world and you need to make a conlang but you don't know shit about linguistics and you already have 9834893985439 other things to do for your project
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bootleg-nessie · 5 months
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Things that will happen in the future (based on my own experiences with time travel):
***FAQs at the end***
*All of these observations are copied directly from my notes in roughly the order I took them in
*Don’t ask about the interchanging use of past/present/future tense, you know how that stuff is with time travel
Women just started all growing three boobs instead of two. Scientists baffled
Genetically engineered catboys (no literally)
The great pyramid of Giza has been converted into a Bass Pro Shop
The entire state of Rhode Island was bought by some rich tech CEO who promptly dug a 500 foot wide trench around the entire state so that it could in fact be an island. It was soon converted into the world’s largest parking lot
Pollution has gotten so bad that fresh oxygen is now delivered straight to most homes via a subscription service
Basic necessities such as food, water, and housing are now provided for free by the government, but only for the top 1% of wealth holders
Insulin now costs twice as much as rent. “Get fucked,” say pharma companies
92.6% of new electronic appliances now have smartphone integration and require a monthly subscription to use
Most billionaires have real estate on earth’s moon
As an ongoing film experiment, Taika Waititi successfully convinced a Nebraska man that he’s been raptured and is now in heaven. He actually got Truman Show’d and now millions of viewers tune in every week to watch God (played by John DiMaggio) manipulate Robert into confronting his own views, battle cognitive dissonance, and face the realization that he might not have been as good of a person on Earth as he thought he was
Carrots have gone extinct, as have highland cows
Species of extinct animals and plants now are being posthumously renamed after the billionaires and elites most directly responsible for killing then off
Researchers discovered a sentient colony of fungus off the coast of Chile, it prefers to go by Fleebo and appears to have a incredibly complex intelligence far greater than any other observed organic being
Nobody knows where Ireland went. It literally just disappeared off the face of the earth one day and nobody bothered to question it. The story couldn’t compete in the news cycle with the recent news about a company in China that made the first real life pokemon. An entire civilization of people gone and I’m the only one who seems to remember it or even care
Fleebo and its offspring have annexed Madagascar and are threatening any retaliation with nuclear warfare and “making The Last of Us a reality.” Nobody knows if Fleebo actually has the capabilities to do this, but after the Lovecraft incident we’re all TOO goddam scared to fuck around and find out
Large snails have replaced cats and dogs as the most common household pet. Snail culture has largely taken over the world, especially Japan
The president of the United States is now decided with an oiled up twerking competition. Most people were hesitant at first but this has produced vastly more competent leaders so now everyone just kinda goes along with it
With the cost of living crisis only worsening with time, selling tattoo space on your body to advertisers has become common as people struggle to afford rent and pay their bills
North and South Korea have reunited into “Korea 2.0”
Germany has split up into East and West Germany again
Belgium and France have been annexed by West Germany and renamed “Wester Germany” and “Westest Germany” respectively
The entirety of Florida is now underwater. Most of Kansas is too for some reason that scientists refuse to explain because they’ve “sworn an oath to the eldritch gods” and that “much worse things would happen” if they did
The melting ice caps in Antarctica unveiled a lost civilization of intelligent creatures descended from a species of lungfish, predating human civilization by millions of years. They planned on hibernating for another 10-15 million years to observe the course of evolution on Earth and are very very angry at humans for waking them up prematurely and ruining all of that with global warming
The politically correct term for lungfish people is “Dipnoid” but most people refer to them by a variety of slurs, such as “finwalker” and “kelp muncher” (not that they even eat kelp)
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch has now increased to nearly half the size of what was formerly known as Canada and has been colonized entirely by pirates (the flag is actually pretty cool). The pirate nation has the 17th largest economy in the world and is projected to surpass the United States in GDP
Africa is about 2% smaller. Nobody knows why. Most people point to Fleebo, who denies having any involvement
All human-Dipnoid interaction was promptly banned by most world governments, except for the GPGPRP (Great Pacific Garbage Patch Republic of Pirates), whom the Dipnoids rely upon extensively for trade
Scientists have used DNA from fossils to recreate other species of humans. We now live alongside them like we did for thousands of years before everyone besides Homo sapiens went extinct. Racism is at an all time high
Class C and above robots are now legally recognized by most progressive countries as people
The United States government has been exposed for secretly funneling billions of dollars into the GPGPRP and using it to fund terrorist operations all over the world.
A new major religion revolving around Dave Grohl has skyrocketed in popularity. Grohilsm is now the world’s largest religion, second only to Fleeboism
Scientists discovered a new continent in the Pacific Ocean, and then promptly lost it again. Most people are convinced this was just an elaborate practical joke, but scientists “swear it definitely happened”
For a brief period of about 30 years, everything in George Orwell’s 1984 happened almost exactly as written in the book. Literally 1984
It was revealed that Jeff Epstein didn’t kill himself. He actually faked his death and spent the next few years in a drug-fueled episode of psychosis making sock puppets in a cave in Italy and then molesting said sock puppets until he died from a sock puppet related illness
Bigfoot was discovered off the coast of Georgia doing cocaine with a congregation of alligators. When questioned, he said he normally lives in Montana and was only there on vacation. He is now a celebrity, and has been featured in a number of tv shows and films, two of which he won an Oscar for. Last I checked, he was a washed up actor living in Hollywood with a reanimated Neanderthal woman
The GPGPRP raided most of England’s museums with the object of “doing exactly what they did for the last few centuries” England was understandably furious, but the rest of the world found it rather amusing
England declared war on the GPGPRP, which it promptly lost after hackers brought down the entire country’s military overnight. Much like in the 21st century, England is the world’s laughing stock
The entirety of Luxembourg relocated itself to the moon
Russia attempted to take over most of Eurasia. In retaliation to the full global effort to stop them, they launched nukes at the world’s 600 most populous cities outside of its current territory. Most of the warheads were stopped in time, but a few major metropolitan areas got hit pretty badly, including Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Chengdu, Mexico City, and Istanbul. Japan was understandably super pissed that Hiroshima and Nagasaki got nuked for a second time
In the wake of the nuclear holocaust, Canada assumed control over what was formerly Russia and assimilated many of its citizens and leaders into its own society and government. Under the new rule of formerly Russian leaders, Canada became a puppet state for the second coming of Russia. It annexed much of the United States, Mongolia, China, and a handful of other countries, becoming “the world’s first megacountry.” Crungolaska now controls a majority of the northern hemisphere
As part of a practical joke by Adam Sandler, Tom Hanks was actually marooned on a desert island like in Castaway. He lasted less than a week before he died. When I left this era of the future, Adam Sandler was serving a lifetime sentence in prison for murder
Fringe groups of crows with above-average intelligence have started popping up around the world. So far they have been observed forming small communities, crafting relatively complex tools, using rudimentary speech, performing rituals, and creating music
Aliens visited earth and had a formal meeting with many of our world leaders, but decided to leave us alone for a few thousand more years because humanity is “not yet mature enough to handle the responsibilities of interstellar travel.” They have incentivized us with a the blueprints for an Alcubierre Drive and a means to produce the exotic matter to fuel it once they deem us as being ready
The original colony of settlers on Mars has declared independence, officially becoming the first country not on Earth
We sent Tom Cruise back to space but this time we just left him there
The tether for the space elevator broke. The town known as Vatorville, famous for being the location of the takeoff point of the elevator shuttle on Earth, was completely decimated as tens of thousands of miles of steel cable came crashing back down. There were no survivors
Most people in first and second world countries have mandatory microchip implants that serve as a personal ID
Last Thursdayism has been largely denounced by quantum physicists. Current theories now revolve around “Next Thursdayism,” the belief that the entire universe was created in the future and that we all exist as a memory in the past
Synthetic organ farms for transplants and research have become a massive industry worth billions of dollars. However, there is still a huge black market for organically grown human organs, as they’re much cheaper to acquire and aren’t taxed at the exorbitant rates that lab-grown organs are
China dug a hole all the way to the center of the Earth. Turns out it’s hollow and there are people living inside. Who knew?
A university reconstructed the entire city of Rome as it was in its early days during the Roman Empire. It’s actually pretty historically accurate, except for the fact that there’s a lot less sex because it’s run by a bunch of sweaty history nerds
After Rome 2 resulted in the creation of a cult revolving around the Roman god of the dead that gained traction as a minor religion, Pluto was officially reinstated as a planet by NASA when cultists picketed their headquarters every day for nearly 3 years straight. “Fine, we’ll give these fucking virgins what they want so they’ll finally shut the hell up,” said NASA’s administrator in chief
In a display of the biotechnical prowess of Disney’s Imagineers, all the animatronics in Disney’s Hall of Presidents were replaced with clones of the originals, which went about exactly as well as you’d expect. After reports of the presidents hurling a series of racial slurs and other obscenities at the first black family to enter surfaced, the project was shut down almost immediately after it had opened. Minority admission to Magic Kingdom plummeted to 2.3% of its numbers from the previous year, making it the second whitest place on earth after a taylor swift concert
Plastic now makes up about 3% of every organism on earth by weight
Public officials are now required by law to take shrooms before running for office
Trees are considered a rare and highly sought after commodity, and are usually only owned by public institutions and the rich (the vast majority of oxygen farms use algae to produce oxygen)
FAQs:
FAQ: What time period(s) did you go to?
A: I have no fucking clue. The world stopped using the Gregorian calendar in 2063 after a gamma ray burst hit the sun. The GRB led to stellar ablation, which changed the length of a year on Earth. The sun would continue to lose mass at an accelerated rate for several more years, with the length of the year changing slightly from year to year. The world adopted a variety of different calendars which kept being updated frequently and were often super confusing and contradictory. I traveled to about a dozen different points in time, which based on my best estimates spanned within a few millennia of the current date.
FAQ: How did you obtain a time machine?
A: I think it was the 17th or 18th of June, 2055? That night, a large sci-fi looking box thingy roughly the size of a VW Bus appeared a few hundred yards away in the open field in front of my house. I tried to take a picture of the box, but for some reason the closer I got, the more the image on my camera started to become fuzzy, and by the time I got close enough to take a decent picture, the camera had stopped working altogether. I pulled open a door to reveal a corpse inside that was charred beyond recognition, who appeared to have suffocated and/or burned to death during a fire that damaged most of the interior. I also noticed a number of strange tumors and growths on the body. I pressed a random button on the remains of what I believed to be a control panel, expecting nothing to happen, but the door closed automatically and I suddenly lost consciousness. When I came to, I exited the box, expecting to still be in the field in front of my house, but instead found myself a ways outside of a small snowy village that based on my best estimates, was somewhere in northern Asia around 2-3 thousand years ago. The villagers started coming after me with spears, so I quickly ran back to the box and pressed another button, hoping it would return me to from whence I came. This time, the people I found (who were thankfully much nicer and spoke a dialect of English that I could mostly understand) told me that it was the year 506 of the PGRB-Δ4 calendar (the calendar that the United Territories was using at the time). I repeated this maybe a dozen more times trying to get home until I landed in 2023, which as far as I could tell, was the closest I had gotten back to my original time so far. It was at this point that I decided to stay and seek medical attention, as I was rather concerned about some nasty new growths on my arms and legs similar to that which I had seen on the corpse.
FAQ: Where is the time machine now?
A: No idea. It disappeared a few days after I landed in 2023. My best guess is that some poor sap found it and ended up sometime else.
(I never ask for likes/reblogs but I literally spent fucking WEEKS on this one so if you liked it pls show me some love <3)
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theglamorousferal · 2 months
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Liminal Amity Park
Danny is being crowned Ghost King soon. The entire town, as they are protected members of his Haunt, is invited. Danny has told his parents about him being Phantom, they set up a press conference for Phantom to tell the town they were invited.
This is an Amity that has come to terms with the fact the dead float along the streets. An Amity that realized around the time the town was pulled into another dimension that their lives were never going to be normal again. The Fenton's build a portal large enough for a tractor trailer to drive through in the center of the city that lets out in a newly formed town in what previously was the wasteland in front of Pariah's Keep. It's the new capital of the Ghost Zone and Phantom's Keep.
The newly formed ghost town and Amity essentially evolve together until they're essentially the same town but half of it is in another dimension. The human residents start to notice they're a bit more durable. Their eyes glow and teeth sharpen when angry. The realize they're ecto-contaminated.
So, to keep it from happening elsewhere, the Fenton's put a giant shield that filters out ectoplasm so it doesn't contaminate the air, water or ground outside of the bubble. They have a giant wall built around the city and distribution centers set up just outside of town so shipments can still be received so they don't run out of supplies.
There are shops in the newly dubbed Ghastburg that sell things thought lost to time. Dishes that people have only ever read about are available at little mom and pop shops run by ghosts whose obsession is cooking. Ghosts whose obsessions were collecting rare plants had seeds that they now could grow in Amity because the Ghost Zone didn't have proper sunlight. Fiber arts and blacksmithing techniques that died out now have new people learning them. A ghost with a similar obsession to Skulker but instead basically ran a zoo now has people they can infodump on about the rare or extinct species they have collected throughout the centuries.
Just, humans and ghosts thriving together and building a community and accepting that they are just a bit different and that's okay.
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internetskiff · 24 days
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Breen's unfortunately pretty underrated amongst the Valve antagonists, which I suppose is understandable compared to the likes of GLaDOS or The Administrator, but just like those two I feel like there's plenty of things to talk about when it comes to him. He seems like a very conflicted character, especially if you take into account the BreenGrub account and Laidlaw's Epistle 3. First of all is, of course, the leadup to the Black Mesa incident, with the G-Man seemingly making an offer to Breen which seemingly involved overloading the Anti-Mass Spectrometer while processing an extremely pure sample of Xen Crystal - and yes, while it's pretty obvious that the order to overload the systems was very intentional and motivated by whatever deal they struck, I believe that when it comes to the aftermath he may have been sold on a lie. Considering his actions as Administrator of Earth being entirely in the interests of keeping Humanity from feeling the full force of the Combine, I don't think "Becoming the de facto leader of all of Earth" was on his agenda. Perhaps G-Man promised that whatever their deal would entail would bring about a prosperous future for humanity, perhaps all he promised was the possibility of establishing contact with another sentient species (which is something he technically did provide), or perhaps it was something else - there's simply way too much room for speculation there, I think.
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A little detail from a HL:A newspaper implies that his position as Earth's administrator wasn't exactly handed to him on a silver platter, instead he had to go out of his way to reach out to the governments with information on how to communicate with the invaders, at which point, already beaten down by Combine forces, they simply gave him the all-clear to speak for all of mankind. This still begs the question of who, or what, gave him the knowledge of how to speak with them - however, it's safe to say if they didn't, Earth would've been left a smoldering pile of rocks and withered carcasses. Once again, he acts with Humanity's best interests in mind, having to choose between the lesser of two evils - it's either enslavement or extinction. He simply chose the option in which Humanity would survive, even if just for a little while longer.
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And ever since, we're watching the aftermath. He's trying to talk the last generation of Humanity down, so they may either pass of old age or be absorbed into the Combine - at least if that happens, something gets preserved. Once again, the alternative? They'll just wipe the slate once they get the local teleportation technology they desire. Breen sees no other way than to go along with their demands. He's eventually proven wrong, of course, but he refuses to see the Rebellion as anything but a suicidal march towards the extinction of the human race, and he sticks to that belief up until he is killed by Gordon at the tip of the Citadel. Of course, this doesn't make him a good person. Not at all. This belief has lead him to seek out and destroy anyone who tries to resist. He shows no sympathy to them. He paints them as fools. He himself believes it so. This intense hatred for anyone who resists is seen perfectly in how he treats the Vance family. He views them as fools. As narrow-minded rabble in the streets, senselessly struggling against a tide beyond their comprehension. He's willing to send off a father and his daughter into a world far beyond simply to use them as a bargaining chip. Listening to the two comfort eachother as they're almost raised up to a fate surely worse than death, the only expression on his face is that of pure contempt and annoyance. He's a very fascinating character that I wish Valve would explore again if they ever do another Half Life set during a time period in which he was still alive. He's a coward that easily bends to the oppressor, yet in the end he only does it to make sure something survives. He's cruel to those who resist because he's completely convinced they're going to get everyone killed. He is the Combine's perfect puppet.
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haha anyhoo so why was he straight up serving on the magazine covers in HL:A like what was up with all that
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howlingdemon13 · 2 months
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Betelgeuse I was hugely inspired by a bunch of artists and fic writers in the fandom, as well as a few monster artists who specialize in combining different creatures into beasts that actually look cohesive. I’m not sure how well I was able to execute the vision here, but I’m really proud of it regardless! DiamondZ, nonbinary-arsonist, stinkyhorsebitch, and arbuzyansky were the main catalysts for this, so definitely take a peek at their work or give them a follow. I was initially going to submit this guy for a staff art show, but I don't want to rush the rest of it, so I'm just going to post what I have finished here. Design notes are under the cut.
In earlier drafts, I was looking into more serpentine-looking designs since Beetlejuice turns into a snake in the film. Some of the concepts I was leaning towards looked like either a lindworm or centipede, but I think mammalian fits Musicaljuice since he’s “softer” in a lot of aspects compared to his film counterpart. I may look into playing with a more snake/bug-like design in the future. Beetlejuice’s overall look is heavily inspired by Chalicotherium goldfussi, which were huge Miocene ungulates that are distantly related to things like rhinos and tapirs. Given that Beetlejuice is super old, I felt like an extinct animal was a proper fit. On a more personal level, I really like the way these guys look and it was easier to rework their body plan into something that looks carnivorous. That, and I wasn’t really vibing with other mammalian body plans, especially because I wanted something that was close in shape to a human without being apelike. Huge herbivores also have larger stomachs, which I feel is a better analogue to Beetlejuice’s body type. You’ll have to pry that man’s curves from my cold, dead hands. All his forms are chubby and soft, and I’ll fight you over it in the Denny’s parking lot. I also added some hyaenid traits, especially for the head shape and teeth. Hyenas are very social animals (like Beej, except no one can see him), and striped hyenas and aardwolves specifically have these tall crests of fur that run down their backs and back legs that they can raise and lower to communicate. I’d argue it’s fitting since Beetlejuice’s hair sticks up at odd angles and communicates his mood (intentional or not). And hyenas laugh. Granted they giggle when they’re stressed, but it still fits. I modeled his stripes off of both species as well. His hind paws, ears, and tail are all based off of those of opossums. Beej is very “trash animal”-coded, and I felt like the opossum traits would fit better with the Chalicotherium body than something like a raccoon or skunk. I felt a little bad about not giving him a ton of bug traits, so I tried to add mandibles, but they just weren’t looking right in earlier design drafts. I gave him a bunch of small eyes to compensate, but making him look buggy wasn’t the only reason for the extra eyes. We know from early drafts of the musical script that Beetlejuice’s last name is Shoggoth. These creatures are mentioned by Lovecraft in Fungi from Yuggoth and At the Mountains of Madness, but I’m not sure if this implies that Beej is a shoggoth, or if it more so refers to him being able to manifest multiple limbs/shapeshift/warp reality like one. In that same vein, the mouth in his chest is mostly to look scary and is just another fun little Lovecraftian trait that I felt was needed. Same to the tendrils, but that’s also a common fandom trait that is pretty much canon (to me) at this point. I might rb this with headcanons later on.
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balkanradfem · 1 year
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I've been reading 'The Climate Book' from Greta Thunberg, and I have to talk about it. I've never seen a book written so brilliantly and desperately, pleading for awareness, for action, for survival. I thought I was aware of the climate change, but there was a vast amount of information I did not know. I'll start from the ones I did.
I knew that the climate has already changed, and will continue to change until a lot of animal species will go extinct, and a big amount of human beings will suffer, end up impoverish, misplaced, in starvation, or dead. I knew the culprits were the companies that refused to stop taking down forests, burning fossil fuels, promoting lifestyles of consumerism, over-consumption, generated the amount of waste that the planet could not safely consume or store. I also knew that one of the biggest pollutants were big oil, animal and plant agriculture, fast fashion industry, travel industry, and the capitalistic system that enabled 1% of humanity to own and over-consume 90% of the resources available to us. Knowing this made me feel powerless, because even as I boycott all of it, I can't do much else, and I'm not enough to stop what is going on. I am merely a drop in the ocean - which is what Greta points out as well. But, Greta doesn't think we're powerless.
This book is incredible in the sense that it goes over and beyond to think practically. It doesn't despair, it doesn't panic, it doesn't think any other way but how to practically and effectively bring change, what are the options and possibilities, what is true and what is propaganda, how to avoid millions of deaths and extinctions that are sure to come, if we do nothing. Greta has analyzed all action that is 'being done', and found out most of it was fraud, cheating, lying. All of the governments and companies who were bragging about reduced emissions, or offsetting emissions, have simply found ways to outsource them and to emit them in another, poorer country. The amount of emissions has actually increased.
She has also interviewed the world leaders, and people responsible and suffering from climate change - and these are the results: Nobody feels responsible, nobody feels as if it's their turn to change, to reduce, to do anything to help it. Even interviewing people whose livelihood was taken away from them due to climate change, who have lost their living environments already, their trees and animals and fields and fertility and soil, when asked if they would be willing to work ecologically from now on, with reduced or low emissions, their answer was 'Why should we? It's not fair, they took from us and enjoyed, while we suffered. We won't stop until we have what they have. We deserve it.'
With this information, Greta has found a truth of how humans influence each other - we imitate. If we see someone else doing something, or having something we find desirable, we also want it. We look at ourselves in relation to other people that surround us, we take responsibility according to what others around do, and we hold ourselves accountable only as much as others do. And this is why we have a power that goes beyond individual action, beyond simply lowering our own emissions and boycotting companies that are responsible for pollution - we are able to influence others. We're able to influence the media, which forms public opinions, and using the media, force into action those who benefit from polluting the planet.
What I didn't know, and this book taught me, was that from the times humans started to hunt, they didn't only have a great effect on the environment, they were the absolute leading agent on it. Soon after hunting the megafauna into extinction, the environment started to change not just because we affected it, but because we directed it to. We caused the extinction of many species throughout the past, by hunting, taking wild spaces for our own use, polluting water sources, changing the climate, spreading predatory species,  like cats and rats, and we didn't stop there. We changed the landscapes of forests and fields, into human-used agricultural land that was effectively deadened for the purpose of wildlife. We domesticated, and then farmed animals, to such extreme degree, that right now what is left of the wildlife, is mere 12-15% of all animals out there. More than 80% of current animals by weight living on earth, are put there by animal agriculture, meant for human consumption. That is absolutely insane. We did the same with the wildlife environment as well – there is now only 3% of the forests on earth, that are still considered intact. We changed the landscape, not only slightly, but by erasing most of it, making it unusable to animals, insects or wild plants, appropriated only for agriculture, grazing, and human-only environments. And, we dug up and released so much carbon into the air, it is coming close to the amount that we had on the earth, at the time of dinosaur extinction, which wiped out a third of the planet's species. And we keep doing it, even knowing what will happen, knowing that every single time this happened in the past, it created mass extinction.
I wasn't aware how serious and extreme the changes we made were. Knowing what is going out, makes it very clear why we have a crisis, it would be crazy to expect not to have one. These changes were not reported, nobody was asked to approve of them, there were no regulations or limits, no environmental studies on consequences, and it keeps going. We keep increasing the demand for agriculture and animal products, increasing our consumption even though we are running out of the natural resources used to create the products. And it is not our fault. Most of the food and meat created by destroying this land, will go to waste, for the profit of the corporations. The world will keep living in starvation, despite so much of natural life getting destroyed for food, despite the climate crisis being caused, partly by our food production.
This doesn't mean we can't sustainably feed ourselves anymore, it just means we can't do it the way we're used to. It just tells us we need to use more resilient and less land and water consuming food. Plant based diets demand less soil and emit less carbon, gardening reduces the amount of agricultural space needed to feed us, supporting and protecting wildlife wherever it's still thriving, will save both soil, animal species, and biodiversity that is very quickly fading from the planet.
I've also learned that even as we're close to the tipping point, but haven't reached it yet. Whatever we do right now that stops us from reaching it, will mean the difference between life and death to the future generations of people, animals, and plants. If we manage to make changes now, to stop the ice from melting past the tipping point, we can save millions of lives, that would end in certain death otherwise. If we can create policies that are not volountary but binding, we have a chance to save livable land, animal and plant species, biodiversity, and human quality of life. It's not too late to act, in fact, this is the vital time to act, and we're the only ones who can do it.
And the way you can act is not just by reducing waste, reducing the amount of energy you consume, reducing animal-products in your food and refusing to waste and throw away usable goods, but by being public about it. By making it clear it's a positive improvement on your life, on your quality of life, that it's both moral and enjoyable, both inspiring and encouraging others to do the same. Some of us have bigger impact on others than we might know, and if we start doing it and visibly enjoying it, there are others who will follow.
This book has taught me immense amount of science behind the climate crisis, and gave me incentive to do more than just live and feel helpless, I need to do more. I recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn more, and wanting to act more. I will be from now on, writing more about ecology and preserving the planet, and how to do it. If we're the directors of where this planet is going, we have to be so intentionally, with knowledge, wisdom and awareness of what we are doing. We can do good, and humans have been doing good, any time there's been wisdom, awareness and intention in how we're shaping the environment. And if anyone wants the book in the audio form, send me a message and I will give it to you.
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a-dinosaur-a-day · 10 months
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Did you Know
Mammal bias isn't the only one when it comes to researching nature and deep time?
There are more!
There is also time bias! As I have discussed with @quark-nova, Essentially, because the more recent something is the easier it is to learn about - more remains of things, more details from the rocks, etc. - we also have ridiculous amounts of bias towards more recent times. This is clearest when it comes to the traditional geologic time scale - the further back you go, the longer time periods are, and nothing is divided particularly evenly. I would even say the "anthropocene" is the biggest offender in this - if we zoomed out from today to a hundred million years ago, all of the extinctions and chaos of the past 2.5 million years would get lumped together into one big mass extinction, not separated out into nitty gritty and frankly narcissistic time slices.
Then there is geographical bias! You'd think people studying the whole biosphere wouldn't have this, but we do! Thanks to *colonialism!* The geologies of North America and Europe are significantly better studied than the rest of the world, which is fighting hard to catch up. This even extends to our knowledge of modern life, with many new species still being discovered in "the global south" (I personally prefer the term Gondwana, but what can you do). And we have no one to blame for that but ourselves.
And another one is land bias! Because we are land organisms, we tend to think about land ecosystems more than oceanic ones - in fact, the ocean only really gets enough time on it in the early stages of life, everything before the Silurian, because there isn't a land ecosystem to focus on more! But the oceans are just as influential in our past - honestly, moreso - than land ecosystems, even today - think about how much El Niño affects us all! But how many people know about the end cretaceous extinction, and not the mesozoic marine revolution? How many people know that reefs at the end Cretaceous were just, made by bivalves for some reason? The list goes on.
Then there's the one most people know about already - megafaunal and charismatic bias! This often goes hand in hand with mammal bias, but essentially, because we ourselves are megafauna - I know we specifically define megafauna to exclude humans, but how the hell is that logical - we operate on a big scale, at any rate - we tend to favor megafauna in our knowledge of the past and our understanding of life. And, if its not megafauna, it at least has to be charismatic - cute, extra weird maybe, or familiar. This affects modern research so much, especially conservation and research funding - not just paleo, but also neontological work. Charismatic Megafauna get everything, and everyone else gets scraps.
This is just the tip of the iceberg! All scientists bring in bias - that's why we need as many scientists as possible, so we have as many perspectives as possible to come up with the most parsimonious and universal view of nature - but some biases are fairly universal for humans and need to be murdered in our heads by all of us. Why did Wingspan and Holotype both start with North America when the best birds are in South America and the best fossil dinosaurs are in Asia? The list is infinite.
The biases we have because of the way history has played out, the way preservation works, and because of what kind of organisms we are as humans, are ones we all have to work to disassemble and deconstruct in our brains. The more we do so, the more we can look at the big picture, understand our entire biosphere, and work together to protect it.
Plus, imagine how much cool stuff we'll learn about when we finally take the time to do so.
We have nothing to lose but our chains.
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dairy-farmer · 22 days
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You know? Seeing all these Breeder Asks makes me want to give it a go >.>
You know what seems to be the Universe's version of the Oak tree? As in a Being both willing and able to breed with fuckin EVERYTHING? Humans. Know what's really REALLY Heroic? Saving a species from Extinction.
Too some? Lois Lane is legitimately a greater hero then her husband. She's the mother of the next generation of Kryptonians, a race that otherwise would have died with Clark.
It's? A big universe. Doesn't have to be an entire Race. The extinction of X planet. Y people. Last of their kind. How utterly hopeless they would feel. Unable to bring their people BACK. And THEN? This MIRACLE of a Race? Compatible dispite being from galaxies away?
You could SAVE YOUR PEOPLE.
They're your HERO.
One(1) space adventure gone funky. Suddenly young justice is... uuuuuuuh.... Space? In Space, definitely. Yep. Lots of stars. Very lost.
Fuck.
They're looking for a Lantern. Someone who could direct them home. Find The Last Scion of (unpronounceable)! Under heavy fire by the people who wiped his people out. The save him! Do a Heroics! Wooo!
Dock on his much bigger, but strangely empty ship. Tragic backstory: unlocked. Is Space Superman. He totally can help them find a Lantern though. Neat.
Everyone but Robin heads to bed. S.S. is tragically hot and has Cool Technology. They get talking. He eventually mentions, tragically, how he will never see his babies brooded. They just need to be incubated, huh? Couple weeks? Then get pushed out?
....you got a Machine to finish hatching um?
............hypothetically, HOW many are we talking here?
Because Robin? A hero. This guy is alone. Last of his kind. And... TECHNICALLY... Robin... COULD fix that. In the time frame they're talking. Technically. But he wants specifics.
And S.S.? Drops his god damned control pad in shock and heart breaking awe. Choked up hope at the impossible, dangled right in front of him. R-really? In a soft teary whisper. Fallen to his knees like Robin has offered him salvation in his despair, the terrible darkness of his life.
Well shit. Yeah, really. Now Robin DEFINITELY has to do it. He can handle it, probably. And it means EVERYTHING to this guy. Let's ball.
So before his teammates can, rightfully, talk him out of what's probably a stupid idea. He follows S.S. back to his quarters. Pulls his pants off. And loses his virginity to the most worshipful tentacle fucking known to man. Gets beads stuffed into him until he feels like he'll burst. Deep where they can't fall out, heavy and growing in his gut.
Pregnant.
It's... it's AMAZING. The new sensations. The way S.S. hovers and flutters around him like he's the most precious thing that's ever lived. Being treated like someone precious. The center of his world as his gut swells. Feeling everything shift and press. And when they come OUT?
Thick orbs, one after another. Feeling like they won't END. Grinding against everything good and popping out of his poor abused hole. He cums and cums. Feels so EMPTY once it's done.
Of course, his teammates are LIVID at S.S.. Won't let him NEAR Tim once the brood is out. Bundle him off to the Lantern and tattle. Meaning Tim has to sit in a Lantern health office before they can go home. But...
Tim learned something about himself.
Makes a note if it.
And eventually? Whoop! Weeee're in space again! Damn it. At least this merchant vessel is headed in the right direction, huh guys? Everyone makes new friends!
Tim meets another Last of Their Kind. Their babies are tiny masses of shape-shifting tentacles. Tim says Bet. Learns a lot about their culture, flat on his back, as the babies are Fed inside him via fucking. Births a healthy brood so hard he passes out from the pleasure. Last one has to wriggle its way free on their own.
Kon is gonna tear his hair out. Space is trying to Lewd his team mate. This is two for two! No space for Timmy!
Next time they get yeeted by Heroic Shenanigans into space? Him and Bart basicly handcuff themselves to Tim's side. No babies this time!
There are babies.
A birdman puts an egg in him. Tim feels like a Kiwi. Can't stop rubbing his swollen belly. Kon tries to rip the wings off said bird man and make him EAT THEM. Bart is busy stretching Tim so nothing tears when it's time to push. It feels like being fisted.
The Birdmans father takes responsibility for his grandchild AND child's seduction of Tim. Flys them back to earth on the condition Kon stop trying to kill his idiot son.
Young Justice holds an intervention. Tim you have a problem.
Tim does NOT. Tim has a KINK thank you very much!
THATS NOT BETTER. They argue.
No one believes them, when they try to warn others. The PRUDISH Bat child? Who are you trying to fool they scoff, time and again. Then others end up in Space with Tim. And when they come BACK?
They very much Believe Them Now(tm).
Tim is traumatizing the Heroic community and Saving dying Races Left And Right. Is a SAINT and CELEBRITY. There are Space Newsletters and lovingly penned reviews. 10/10 would fuck again. Fantastic surrogate and would Mate Up in an instant, if their teammates didn't try to kill me.
NONE of the other Bats are aware of this. No one wants to be the one to tell them.
Eventually, someone IS going to be saved by Superman in space, hear his story, go "oh that's so sad! But don't worry! We TOTALLY know how you can fix that! See there's this AMAZING guy on the planet Earth called-"
And it's going to be DELIGHTFUL~~☆
-🐼🐼🐼
😭😭😭😭😭 i'm dying at superman being in space, saving someone, spilling out his woes because bruce has put a cap on the amount of times he can bring up being the last of his kind a week, and getting told there's someone on earth that can birth the revival of his race and learns its TIM!!!
also the thought of tim's team almost pulling their hair out over the fact that their teammate keeps getting knocked up with alien babies! and they try their best to be vigilant but they can't be on every space mission. so they corner tim's team that he's being sent out with and they warn them "do NOT let him get pregnant out there again he keeps doing that shit thinking it'll be alright and won't STOP". and all other capes know about the strightlaced robin, the 'lets get down to business' robin and they don't really believe tim's friends. they think they're just exaggerating. but then tim is humming and round with some last of their kind alien following them around like a puppy because robin is pregnant, he's pregnant and how the FUCK are they going to explain to batman how badly they fucked up?
but it's fine. robin gives birth and they try to cope with their near heart attacks and they decide not to say shit about it because it worked out! until it doesn't because it keeps happening and they don't know how to stop it this kid keeps fucking and getting knocked up and giving birth to tentacle monsters and little eldritch horrors.
giving birth is like his default diplomatic strategy and they HATE that it works so well.
when clark comes back he's so awkward around tim because all he thinks about is the endless amount of stories he's been told about how he's a perfect little incubator and surrogate and how he heals well and gives birth to healthy broods.
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sometimes the state of the world makes me want to go outside and scream as loud as i can for help. sometimes it makes me want to crawl deep into a hole and never come back out again. sometimes it makes me want to fall to my knees and sob uncontrollably. sometimes it seems so hopeless that i cant see any better alternative other than just disappearing.
so much evil and destruction and suffering-- and for what?
what is it all for?
for the latest popular billionare to take a 13 minute flight? for the newest remake of a movie that changed my life to get turned into mindless sludge? for a never-before-seen species of animal to be discovered, then pronounced extinct the very next week? for millions of people to go broke for having cancer?
i tell my mother that i wont be able to afford a house. she says "no, you will." i tell my counselor that my government wants to kill me. she says "that's not true." i tell my teachers i don't see a point in doing well in school because i wont be able to get a job anyway, even if i have a college degree. they tell me "no, you'll get a job. school is still important." i email my senators begging them to stop funding the genocide in Palestine. i get a copy-pasted email back with a history lesson about why that wont happen. one million people died from COVID last Christmas and i'm the only one at my school still wearing a mask. my future as an artist was ripped from my hands in less than two years and pretty soon i wont be able to share anything about my art at all. i'm half mexican, but everybody says i'm "too white" to be a "real mexican". its been four years and i'm nowhere closer to understanding my gender identity than i was at the start. tumblr has been my only safe space for three years and now that KOSA might pass this week, where will i go?
and all the while, through all of this conflict-- people are still falling in love for the first time and rescuing kittens off the street and watching their children take their first steps and getting married and making fun little indie games and building elaborate cosplays of their favorite character and making the most heart-touchingly beautiful pieces of art you've ever seen and meeting lifelong friends and cooking amazingly delicious food and playing children's games and weaving baskets from pine needles and taking care of livestock and collecting little knick-knacks and having the best day of their lives and writing their first line of code and learning to play instruments and hatching baby birds and posting a 100K word thesis about a show they really like and uploading song covers for 19 people on Youtube to listen to and pushing the boundaries of what science can accomplish and discussing moral philosophies in the comment section of a Reddit post and feeling truly seen in the eyes of another human being for the first time in their lives and growing old surrounded by the people they love.
the future is uncertain, but the world will go on. the winds will still blow and the tides will still flow. people will continue to find joy in this hell and fight for it with everything they have.
so don't give up.
"don't give up," i tell myself.
"don't give up," i tell you.
"don't give up," i scream into the sky.
there is always something to keep going for. if you cannot find it in yourself, find it in others. find it in the people in your life and the people you see online. find it in the good of humanity you know to exist.
find it. keep fighting. don't give up.
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smokestarrules · 2 years
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Hunter & Vee
(Because, apparently, Hunter doesn’t have enough character parallels already.)
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Quite a few people have already said that something interesting about Hunter being in the Human Realm is the sheer amount of connections he’ll find there. To the potential Philip and Caleb’s backstories, their statues, the Golden Guards’ emblem being the Gravesfield crest, there’s a lot there for him to discover about  his predecessor’s life.  
But also there’s Vee. And I’ve just realized that she’s got a lot in common with Hunter when you really think about it. 
Firstly, they’re both Grimwalkers, aren’t they?
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Basilisks were extinct, but Philip brought them back, likely in the same way he made Hunter and the rest of the Golden Guards. All you need are a few magical ingredients, a bone of the original species, and then you have a number of basilisks for whatever purpose arises. Interestingly enough, the books Hunter’s looking at in Labyrinth Runners seem to imply that Grimwalkers themselves used to be known as an extinct species, so I can’t help but wonder if Philip himself banned their creation in order to keep everyone off the scent of his own ones. 
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Adding onto that last point, the entire reason that Hunter and Vee exist is to be to Philip’s advantage one way or another. Hunter is a Grimwalker of Caleb, of the man Philip feels betrayed him. Philip wants him back, but only on his terms, and so Hunter is the forever-occurring test. Hell, it’s unlikely that Philip’ll ever achieve that goal of creating a perfect brother for himself, but I doubt he’ll ever understand that, either. 
As for Vee and the rest of the basilisks, their purpose is to give Philip more information about the Day of Unity and how the Draining Spell would work. The Collector is the one who initially gave Philip the Draining Spell, but basilisks drain magic as a part of their biology, so using them as research could only assist Philip as he slowly neared the day of the eclipse. 
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Even their NAMES prove how much Philip really values other people - anyone other than humans, that is. Vee is Vee, or the roman numeral for Number Five, and Hunter, not even a person in Philip’s eyes, is given Philip’s own title for a name. Philip can't waste time naming them all, after all; that’d be using far too much brainpower and emotional attachment that he simply does not have, and so Hunter it is. 
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They’re also both powerless to a point, though both of them now have ways to overcome that obstacle. Basilisks do not have magic inherently, but they are capable of taking it from other things and then using it themselves, though they’ll run out eventually. Hunter, on the other hand, has found himself a palisman - Flapjack - whose inherent magic has bonded deep with Hunter’s own style as they fight together. 
Then there's the Philip Trauma(tm). 
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When they are discovered in their hiding places, their reactions are about the same. Luz finds Vee and Vee panics; declares that she’s never going back to the Demon Realm because Philip is there, and immediately jumps straight to the worst conclusion: that she’s going to have to go on the run from him again. 
Hunter is the same. When the Coven Scouts recognize him and tell him that Philip is looking for him, he needs Gus’ help to calm him down from an anxiety attack. 
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Even the 'prophecy’ given to Vee by her camp friend in Yesterday’s Lie fits both Vee and Hunter pretty damn well. Guilt and fear.... a self-fulfilling prophecy. 
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Guilt and fear makes Vee rebel against draining the rats, gets her punished, most likely. Guilt and fear makes every last Golden Guard betray Philip, because in the end, they realize that he’s not someone anyone can trust. Hunter is a good kid. Vee is a good kid. Therefore, they are destined to always oppose Philip, no matter what he wants. Hunter is a self-fulfilling prophecy; the Golden Guards always betray Philip. Vee is always going to disagree with Philip. 
...
I just think that Hunter and Vee could be a very formidable duo against Philip, should he regenerate in the Human Realm and begin to cause trouble again. God knows they deserve maybe more than anyone to put him in his place. I hope that their similarities can be explored somewhat in s3, and I also believe they could be rather healing for each other. They both need friends. 
Also, as a sidetone; I suppose that at the end of the day, all we can hope is that the parallels between Hunter and Vee stay true to this scene as well (and I know they will).
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Camila’s going to love Hunter, too. 
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popatochisssp · 5 months
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happy late thanksgiving, poppy!!!! i hope you spent your day relaxing! also, has nobody asked for the full transcendtale story yet? if not then consider this my formal request lol! xx
I had almost forgotten about it, but you're right! So here it is!
Transcendtale
Monsters are at war with humanity.
Or at least, with one human.
A sadistic, single-minded human has set their sights on the Underground, locking the monsters within into an endless cycle of RESETs.
In the beginning, most monsters were only peripherally aware that something was wrong—recurring déjà vu, nightmares that felt like memories, knowledge of things they didn’t remember learning.
But as the RESETs persisted, this awareness grew stronger and stronger, compiling across many, many repeated timelines until people really were remembering things.
The natural change in their behavior only seemed to encourage the human to keep repeating the cycle, almost as if to see what would be different this time—strengthening the awareness further.
Monsters began to talk to each other about it, realizing they’re all experiencing the same; realizing that the looping of time is actually something that’s happening.
A lot of secrets end up out in the open, once people start talking.
The machine back behind Sans’ house is one such secret, actively recording data on the anomaly that seems to be tampering with the timeline and providing solid proof that what they’re all going through isn’t a shared hallucination.
No one blames Sans for not coming forward with that information earlier, of course, being that his memory transfer across RESETs is so poor.
The guy can pick up context clues and read a room fast as anything, and being able to check on that data when he felt something odd was going on helped catch him up to speed, but in terms of actually remembering…
Well, it seems that the strongest recall of memory across RESET timelines is linked to levels of Determination, and there are many things to be said about Sans but ‘determined’ is not one of them.
Still, his data is helpful.
Monsters begin to try to organize, trying different strategies to combat the human’s relentless assault against them.
Gradually, the Underground becomes a siege, or something like it, a handful of the same days repeated over and over again to the point that the monsters living them—now remembering them all—feel like years are passing.
In spite of trying everything they can think of, the human manages to thwart them at every turn—or if they do manage to turn the tide for a short while, the human comes back again and again until they force their way through.
Potential solutions escalate, from attempted diplomacy to guerrilla tactics to the height of desperation.
It would be one thing if it was only the (repeated) extinction of their species they were fighting against, but another entirely to know that when the human finishes with everyone else and kills Asgore, the entire universe ends—not a single timeline in thousands extending past that point.
No one’s been left alive to see what happens, but inevitably everything ceases and goes right back to the start, for the killing to begin anew.
It has to stop before then, whatever the cost.
The human is far too strong for any one monster to handle, even groups of monsters, and they know that because they’ve tried, and the human will always come back, learn their patterns and break through.
It’s no job for any monster.
They consider that they may need a god instead.
Asgore, the strongest boss monster of their number, absorbs the six human souls, becoming something terrible and powerful and deeply unnatural.
………
It takes the human under a hundred tries to get through him.
The monsters are at a loss, for awhile.
Their biggest and strongest boss still isn’t enough…
…can they make a stronger one?
Normally, this would be a ludicrous thought—just making a stronger monster—but Sans isn’t the only one whose strange secrets are out, now that everyone remembers RESET timelines.
Flowey’s busted too—at least, to the extent that he’s an artificial monster brought to life by dust and DT.
Initially, he was on the human’s side for………reasons………but being killed a few hundred, thousand, whatever times has a way of changing one’s loyalties, and he’s been (begrudgingly) siding with monsters for awhile.
So when the suggestion is laid on the table—make a new bigger and better monster—Flowey has a couple cents to throw in on the matter.
That still wouldn’t be enough.
He fought the human once before, and even something like him plus all the human souls they have couldn’t keep them down for good. If they want that to work, they’re going to have to find a way to make it really tough, and good luck with that because it’d probably take the equivalent of all monsterkind to have a shot at taking that killer down.
…The equivalent of all monsterkind.
That…is an idea.
A terrible idea, horrible, unthinkable, no one wants to discuss that further.
Until.
The RESETs continue.
Death, again and again and again.
Suffering, with no hope of an end anywhere in sight.
Desperate times…do call for desperate measures, and eventually even the most ghoulish way out of it is given its due consideration.
So…what if they do use all of monsterkind?
What if everyone pooled all of themselves—their magic, their souls, their hopes and dreams—everything, together with the human souls.
Could that be enough?
With the few faint memories Flowey has of a pacifist timeline, he posits a less than confident, “Maybe?”
It’s not a no, and it’s the best they have to go on.
They have to try something.
A vessel of some kind will be needed, something capable of containing all of monsterkind. They have an excellent roboticist in Alphys, who has already made one robotic body for a monster to occupy and is relatively confident she can do it again.
The logistics will be different from that, of course. It was simple enough to make a shell for a willing ghost monster to occupy, but they’re all out of ghost monsters capable of taking on a body, so…
It’ll have to be piloted…the way Flowey occupied his vessel.
Monster dust laid onto the vessel and brought to life by DT.
Someone needs to volunteer to do it, to be resurrected into a soulless body after their death, to give intent and sentient function to the vessel of everyone’s hopes and dreams and use their power to bring an end to the perpetual terror hanging over monsterkind.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Undyne is the first to volunteer.
…Then Asgore.
And Toriel.
Papyrus.
Mettaton.
Many others.
It won’t take.
The human runs through several presumably confusing yet intriguing timelines where the Underground has gone empty, save for Flowey trying to distract them and Alphys in her lab trying desperately, fruitlessly to get her mysterious project to work.
At least, before they kill her and begin it all again.
Eventually, Alphys manages to at least figure out what the problem is, why the vessel keeps malfunctioning and the volunteer monster’s dust never seems to properly take.
She determines that when DT extract is introduced to the volunteer’s remains, it awakens and joins with whatever existing DT that monster had in life. This amount is typically small, as most monsters can’t handle high concentrations of DT, not the way humans can.
But this time, it happens to be doing the same to the vessel—a construct made of nearly every monster in the Underground.
Flowey was a different equation, monster dust added onto an inanimate vessel with zero DT of its own, and now with a vessel overbalancing the amount of the unstable element, it’s not working.
But it could.
If…
If the volunteer monster were someone with extremely low DT, so that there would be less to activate when the extract was introduced…
Suddenly, everyone in the room is looking at Sans and he is less than enthused.
Dying over and over again was one thing—he was just about used to that, at this point—but dying and living again? As something neither monster nor human? With the grand responsibility of avenging the entirety of monsterkind, nearly literally carrying everyone’s hopes and dreams on his shoulders?
That sucks.
There was a reason he didn’t volunteer, but now it seems like he’s being voluntold—nobody’s saying it, but…he has to, there’s no one else with DT as low as his and everyone knows it, the numbers from the machine being what they are, the human already bearing down on them for yet another assault, they’re all counting on him to agree.
So, he says—
“NO.”
Papyrus refuses this option point-blank.
There is no way in hell that he is letting his brother do that alone—he will have to be there too!
He is spoken to and encouraged and pleaded to be reasonable. All of monsterkind’s peace is at stake, of course he cares about his brother, but he must see that everyone is making sacrifices to end this horrible cycle once and for all.
And yes, certainly, Papyrus can see that. Obviously, he can—he’s made a lot of moral concessions himself over the past few time-looped years, he and Sans both have fought and been killed and willingly sacrificed themselves, and all manner of other terrible things, over and over and over again.
And they’ve been happy (for a given definition of ‘happy’) to do so!
But this is the line.
His, anyway.
He will not let Sans do this thing unless they can find some way for him to be there too, and he’s not budging—so figure something out.
(Sans could’ve protested and just willingly damned himself, but grateful for Papyrus’ interference, he…didn’t.)
So fine, apparently this is the hill that everyone will die on—again and again and again and again—if they don’t ‘figure something out.’
The problem is now how to make it so that Papyrus can ‘be there’ after he chronologically needs to have been incorporated into the vessel with all the other monsters.
Well… his soul needs to be there.
Does he need that to exist? To be present?
Sans won’t have that and he’ll be around, if this works the way it’s supposed to.
Flowey doesn’t have that and he’s around.
Maybe…
Maybe there’s a way to take a snapshot of a living monster—a scan of their knowledge, their memories, their experiences and thoughts and personality—and save it, like a program, or…an AI?
It wouldn’t have a soul but clearly that isn’t a requirement for sentient life, functionally it should be all but identical to a person’s continued existence.
…It raises a whole lot of ethical and philosophical questions, certainly, but if it can be done, it could be a very, very good thing.
After all, monsterkind was more or less going to be gone after this, a Pyrrhic victory to finally end their never-ending nightmare at the cost of all their lives.
This way, they could be preserved, in a digital space or a virtual reality, after their physical bodies and selves were gone, and that’s worth something, isn’t it?
At least a notch above total, permanent extinction.
Many monsters agree, previously resigned to total cessation and hopeful to carry on in some form, to have scans of themselves done when the tech is sorted.
Papyrus is of course among their number, and entirely too smug about it since all this was his idea…or at least, Alphys wouldn’t have developed it without his ultimatum, so it’s basically the same as being his idea!
And ultimately, with the assurance that he won’t be alone on the other side…
Sans agrees to volunteer.
The human’s final timeline is a very different experience than what they’ve become used to.
Sans, resurrected into a body filled with truly godly power, is their only opponent, one they never would have had a chance to beat.
With ease, he removes all of their options—refusing to allow them to FIGHT or to use MERCY. He blocks their path, corrupts their SAVES, and severs their connection to whatever entity has granted them to power to do what they’ve done…permanently.
The human falls, like a puppet with its strings cut, and simple as that…
It’s all over.
The barrier is broken, almost as an afterthought, and the few remaining monsters that can go up to the Surface.
Monsterkind itself exists almost entirely virtually now. As a species, they’re on the down-low with regards to humanity, off the grid, as there’s only (currently) three among their number who exist physically and trying to establish anything official with so few feels…trivial.
Some monsters are looking forward to obtaining robotic bodies of their own to begin interacting with the surface world, but others are content to remain digital.
It’s not exactly a happy ending…but it’s not an ending, and monsterkind has transcended from one phase of existence to the next, and will adapt accordingly.
Spectr (Transcendtale Sans)
A soulless consciousness inhabiting an exoskeletal body that at least mostly resembles his old one—a favor from Alphys—shining chrome and white plating with prismatic flecks of rainbow that catch in the light. Heavily dysphoric about his body and averse to seeing ‘himself,’ he's always covered up and tends to avoid reflections.
No longer reality-bendingly strong, without the power of the human souls, but still in possession of the condensed power of all monsterkind and fully capable of unleashing terrifying strength and magic if needed. …He would rather not.
Because he lacks a soul, his emotions are distant and muted, and because he was resurrected and not scanned in great detail, his memory is mostly intact but can be spotty—especially with regards to things that happened between RESETs.
Spends a lot of time thinking about personhood and existence—is he who he was before, now that he doesn’t have a soul? Can he claim those memories, that self, or is he too different? Does he even count as ‘alive’?
Trying to find meaning in his current state of being, roaming the Surface and seeking small pleasures and maybe the hope of some kind of inner peace out in the world.
PapAIrus (Transcendtale Papyrus)
Technically not The Original, a scanned digital copy of everything that made Papyrus…Papyrus—and completely fine with it, entirely bypassing the philosophical questions his brother dwells on. As far as he’s concerned, he’s himself: he has all of his thoughts and memories and feels like himself, so he is! Easy, why make it so complicated?
Exists mostly in a virtual state and can traverse through and access most any electronic device, but he can also manifest physically as a hard-light projection via any device that emits light. He has access to most of his brother’s systems and can communicate or project himself through him as a conduit…unless said brother has intentionally blocked him out
A bit different than he was before all the RESETs, a little looser with his moral code and more of a wisecracker—he lived a lot of years under siege and had to adapt to an enemy that really couldn’t be better and didn’t want to try, and filling in for the jokes his brother had become too downtrodden to tell
Spends his time everywhere and nowhere, surfing the ‘net and making a splash as a holographic DJ and periodically checking in on his brother to make sure he’s as okay as he can be—basically doing everything he wants to do, whenever he wants to do it
…Possibly nurturing a slight god-complex, but mostly just enjoying a new phase of his life with near-limitless access to anyone, anything and anywhere, totally untethered by all of his previous mortal limitations (…okay yeah, it’s a god-complex, but it’s fine, don’t worry about it)
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crypticmillipede · 10 days
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OK EXTREMELY NICHE CROSSOVER but hear me out !! Stardew Valley Characters x TMA?
(oh yea spoilers for some Magnus Archives concepts/lore? but nothing plot-related)
the 12 Stardew Valley dateable characters as TMA Avatars:
Abigail: Could see either the Vast or the Stranger. The Vast because she adores exploring, asks existential questions, gets lost in things. The Stranger because of her character arc as an odd one out, someone who just doesn’t fit in with the rest of the town, unnatural, an outsider. Also because of her potential connection to the Wizard.
Alex: Likely the Flesh, as a sort of Jared Hopworth situation. He’s always talking about his bodybuilding, it’s pretty Flesh-aligned. I could also see him as the Hunt? His obsession with going pro, reaching his goal, something that never really happens but he’s always chasing. Maybe he begins to hear the blood?
Elliott: The Lonely. Relatively new to town, all isolated on that beach, I bet it gets quite foggy. Or potentially the Eye? I could see his fervor for writing as a thirst for knowledge, in a way?
Emily: The Spiral. Strange, bizarre, cryptic, a manic pixie dream girl (and i mean this with love), she’s gotta be the Spiral. I could also see the stranger, but she has a certain level of approachability that’s more Spiral to me.
Haley: This is tough for me. Maybe the Flesh, as someone concerned with their appearance, but that feels kinda surface-level to me. This is a stretch, but what about a Dark alignment? The way she sort of refuses to intake information sometimes (ignoring you), bores easily, she could be compensating for an insecurity by presenting a certain way? In the dark, she wouldn’t have to worry about any of it. Besides, she does have that Dark Room… (i admit this one doesn’t really fit, does anyone have a better idea? spider maybe? or even corruption?)
Harvey: The whole weight of the town’s expectation’s for their only doctor, his stagnant dreams of piloting, Harvey’s got to be affiliated with the Buried. Possiblyyy the Flesh, simply due to his profession, but the Buried makes far more sense for his character to me.
Leah: Hear me out on this one—the Extinction. She’s got a couple dialogue lines focusing on environmental destruction and humanity as a harmful species, she’s newly moved out of the city and into nature, radically replacing her environment. She’s so isolated in the forest, it might sometimes feel like she’s the only one left. If not, then the Vast, most likely. Or maybe Stranger or Lonely? She’s got options.
Maru: If anyone in this group is Eye-affiliated, it’s got to be Maru. She has this thirst for knowledge, always building, always looking up into the unknown of the cosmos.
Penny: She’s got to be the Lonely to me. How many times has she sat under that tree, picking at the grass and looking out into the river? She’s so isolated, despite being around so many people. If not the Lonely, then certainly the Corruption, with its themes of finally finding endless love and community, a hive who truly understands.
Sam: This is another tricky one to me, but probably the Vast? He’s so easy-going and carefree, for the most part, it fits in quite well with the Vast mentality of ultimate insignificance and the freedom that comes with it.
Sebastian: Although the Lonely is probably the easy answer, I could also see him as the Buried, honestly? Burdened by the weight of all the expectations pressing down on him, by his stagnation in a town he wants nothing to do with, by his lack of freedom and desire for escape. He has friends, close friends! It seems to be more of his general circumstances that haunt him, rather than isolation, necessarily.
Shane: While i know the Web is primarily associated with addiction, I don’t really feel that Shane fits with the Web in any other way? I honestly see him more as affiliated with the Desolation, given his often self-destructive tendencies, and the way he lashes out at others. Shane seems to resort to alcohol as a harmful coping mechanism. Of course, I could also see him as the End, given some of his cut scenes, but the qualities of the End don’t seem to match him as well as the Desolation.
Those are my takes!! Sorry I couldn’t narrow it down more, but there’re so many potentials, it’s hard to choose a single option for each person! These are superrrr subjective and up to interpretation, so I welcome any additional speculations or suggestions !! I kinda wanna know how other people would categorize these guys tbh? anyways yeah sorry about the long post, my brain is rotten. perchance.
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cheemscakecat · 1 month
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Invincible Spoilers
It actually makes a lot of sense that the Viltrumites latched on to family and changed their worldview because of it.
So for thousands of years, the dominant violent faction that killed the peace-loving Viltrumites sat unchallenged because the old peaceful ways were lost. They believed they were superior to the weaker species around them, and saw them as mere animals. Very few weapons could even hurt them, much less kill.
Under those circumstances, the killing of weak Viltrumites children made a twisted kind of sense. After all, there would always be more Viltrumites having children and the strong would live. They didn’t die often, so in their perspective, children were not such a precious resource as they are to humans.
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Someone engineered a virus that could kill them. And it very nearly destroyed the entire species. There were only 50 full-blooded Viltrumites left in the wake of the pandemic.
Like Nolan said, they’re on the brink of extinction.
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Nolan wrote books based on his missions to destroy threats to the dying Viltrumites species. He was the guy they sent to deal with threats and see how dangerous they really were.
So he was probably also the first Viltrumite to be tasked with having a hybrid child.
Before the virus, they wouldn’t have had offspring with “lesser beings”, but they couldn’t afford to be so picky with so few in their ranks. So why not send your danger guy to make sure it won’t give you another life threatening disease or result in a deformed child? To see if the rest can follow suit and repopulate with other species.
That’s why they sent him to live with humans, they’re the most compatible species that they could find.
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Death shouldn’t be a concern under Viltrumite doctrine. And it wasn’t until the virus. But now that the remaining soldiers have watched their Viltrumite friends and family die, death holds new weight.
Nolan wouldn’t use death as a point to convince Mark if he didn’t somewhat understand the weight of it. And it’s also a point against himself, because he’s arguing out loud with himself at the same time. Why would you fight for Earth and let your people go extinct?
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Viltrumite doctrine commands you to kill weak offspring. That’s how things have been done for thousands of years.
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But how can a tactical minded-person see the value in doing that?! When the species is nearly extinct and you’ve gone through all the effort of getting attached and trying to raise that child? Old Viltrumite doctrine and the current situation are not compatible.
Nolan is torn between the two ideologies that are telling him how to show loyalty and care. One is telling him that he needs to kill Mark to uphold the holy doctrines of his people. The other is telling him that killing your child is stupid, wasteful, and a disservice to what he’s trying to achieve.
Mark telling him that even if the humans die, they’ll still be together has put more weight on the second, correct ideology. The whole reason you’re even here is to build your species back up and keep it from fading into myth. You care about other Viltrumites. It’s self-sabotaging to destroy the very offspring that you are having to repopulate. And if being half-Viltrumite is enough to make them valuable, shouldn’t the offspring’s life be preserved?
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Let’s just get Anissa out of the way first. I’m not defending what she did. She didn’t even want to have kids in the first place, which I think is something the show should expand on. We don’t get to know why, but given the fact they’re meant to have hybrid children, I’m assuming part of it is feeling that the child may be a waste.
It would suck to be pregnant for 9 months only to have something wrong with the baby, especially if in their culture that offspring would be killed at some point. I think she decided to target Mark because he’s already part Viltrumite, and her child would get their powers faster so she could start testing the strength of the child. Wastes less time putting effort into the kid if he or she is not going to grow up Viltrumite material.
The show could also expand on the fact that she has an actual relationship with the father of her second child, and had her of her own volition, not because she was commanded to. It’s implied in the comic, but she needs more development this time around. Anyways, at some point she found actual value in her children, beyond their strength.
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Kregg was so down for the cause that he had multiple families at once. And he makes a very good point to Thragg; why shouldn’t we protect our families if we’re repopulating?
He’s got like 10 families, that’s at least 10 Viltrumite kids if everything goes to plan. You really wanna forfeit going from 50 to 60 Viltrumites? Mans just has the natural and sane instinct to protect his loved ones and give his kids the chance to grow up. Thragg doesn’t.
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Lucan is one of 50 remaining Viltrumites, and we don’t know the ratio of men to women. But even if there were 25 of each, both genders are a precious resource for repopulating. Should we really be surprised that a man who has had 25 women to choose from at most is unwilling to soil a relationship?
Yes, there’s billions of Earth women, but you don’t go from starving to finding yourself in a supermarket and magically stop being affected by the time you were starving. Kregg stocked up on as many families as possible: Lucan was so used to rationing that he decided to be the best he could to one family, which is still precious even in a sea of options.
Thragg doesn’t understand that. He’s the embodiment of their flawed purging ideology.
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Everyone else’s natural nurturing instincts were dormant under the surface, and started sprouting up when they had Earth kids. Thragg’s nurturing instincts are in the Nether for the whole series. He seems dumb because the whole Violent Fascist Viltrumite ideology he lives by is dumb.
It goes against nature and it’s a bad survival strategy. We just get to see it spelled out because the virus has already happened and he isn’t adapting like everyone else. And what’s crazy is that his surviving kids adapted even after all his brainwashing. He could have changed, but he refused and stayed embedded in his ideology his entire life.
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I didn’t know where to put Thula, but she’s cool now too. [Cool as in not evil, I mean. She was never lame.]
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tg-headcanons · 6 months
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Thinking about ghouls as farmers/farmhands
I imagine that some types of kagune would be excellent for harvesting/ploughing with a nice bonus of no carbon emissions. I imagine ghouls, after criminalisation, would possibly even revolutionise farming/carbon footprint from farming?
(Although of course ideally a farm wouldnt till but even then for harvesting ghouls would be quite efficient.)
GHOULS IN FARMING AND FOOD PRODUCTION IS SO INTERESTING
Ghouls have always been a part of society, and regardless of where they are or how accepted they are, they’ve always had some hand in farming since, especially before industrialization, it was a good field for them. Their strength, senses, and kagune make them fantastic at cultivating, protecting, and harvesting food
In old world cultures where ghouls were always ostracized, they couldn’t be open about why their crops grew so well, so they tended to make up myths and stories about some ritual or another that makes their harvests so bountiful. They had senses of smell and pressure detection that could help them sniff out blights and pests, as well as semi-accurately predict rainfall, letting them handle issues before they got too bad. That, and their strength that lets them handle the physical task of planting and harvesting, helped them produce a lot of plants. But telling humans how they did it is off the table, so it was common for them to have a plowing Ox just for show and to say they said some prayer that helped
A lot of why ghouls thrived in farming is due to their regeneration. It may not be talked about much anymore, but it is DANGEROUS. Not just the modern machinery, but the strain of lifting and carrying. The illnesses carried by plants and animals. The workhorses and oxen that can just fucking kick you to death. The PIGS. It’s all risky work, and back before antibiotics, just one cut and you’re done for. A person who can not only survive almost any cut, but take a donkey kick to the face and get right back up to finish plowing the field is one of the most valuable people any farming village can have
Farming animals is more hit or Miss, because a lot of prey animals panic when they smell ghoul. Some ghouls still kept them and after enough time, or enough animals born around the smell of them, they could get used to it. Historically ghouls have run a lot of butcher shops because it was one of the best places to hide human meat before dna testing became widely available, so some animal husbandry skill was a good thing
Ghouls tended to make good shepherds. In especially rural areas, a lot of humans would collectively decide not to talk about the fact that someone is obviously a monster because they’re simply so fast and strong and don’t let sheep and cattle go missing or get hunted. If you were in Cold Ass Nowhere Ireland in 1635 and you had a shepherd who not only never loses a sheep but also eats the English, you’d pretend you didn’t notice either
In areas and cultures where ghouls were more accepted, they were essential to hunting and farming. North and central american ghouls had traits designed for taking down megafauna to supplement their diets, and their human companions could depend on them to bring countless Buffalo and deer home. Jungle subspecies had traits built for climbing, and were central to the harvest of high growing fruits and beans. A now likely extinct species native to Canada had semi aquatic adaptations and a thick layer of fat who were designed to hunt seals and small whales, and shaped the way any community lucky enough to have some survived. In places where ghouls were welcomed, they were so efficient at harvesting and hunting that land rarely needed to be developed for monocultures at all
When ghouls are decriminalized in more parts of the world, their physical abilities are allowed to shine again. Stories of ghoul farmers through history arise. Plenty of American and Polynesian communities (who had been telling people about ghoul’s contributions to their land and cultures for years and were having that brushed off as myth) can legally reintroduce the old practices of ghoul hunting and harvesting techniques. Smaller farms hire more ghouls once it’s clear that they can do machine level work without the expense of maintaining machines, and it’s one of the biggest ghoul hiring fields at the start of their legalization
Naturally, ghoul farming unions are quick to form. They can do machine level work, but are not going to risk being treated like machines for it. As with any Union there’s some backlash, but when it becomes apparent just how much better ghouls are at crop maintenance and harvesting, demands are met. It’s become a well paying profession, and has been good work for ghouls that struggle with the human grade education they were denied when they were younger, or ghouls who simply prefer to work outside doing something that benefits people
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lychniis · 1 year
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me : *stares at a sleeping zhongli intensely*
zhongli : ...is there something you need, dear?
me : you're immortal, right?
zhongli : tentatively so, yes-
me : so i've been thinking about how i'd feel if i was immortal, you know? and honestly, the more i think about it, the more torn i feel. one part of me wants to live forever, to see the world change, to witness the next trend, the newest book fifty years from now, a new discovery in another hundred years, some great technological shift that changes the lives of everyone, to see people finally witness the stars up close and see the universe for what it is. I want to be there, i want to meet the grandkids of my friends and their grandkids and watch them grow up, i'd want to learn about every tiny thing, every aspect the world has to offer. to be this infinite being that sees and experiences more than my short life could ever offer, to witness humanity advance, to see if they drive themselves to the ground or at least live with the assurance knowing that we are capable of changing and growing. and when that's all over and the last few stars fade away and the universe is finally consumed, i could reflect on what i'd look back at it all and think that the millions of years leading up that point; it all happened.
me : ...
me : but a part of me is also not as hot on the idea either...to live for millennia would mean to forget about humanity. would i be strong enough to experience loss after loss? would i withdraw into a shell if the pain is too much to bear? would i grow so numb, i stop feeling happiness for the little things i once loved? what if i change? i know there are a lot of parts about myself that i don't like, but there are still parts that i like too, that i want to keep because they let me know that i'm human and i'm a pretty okay human at that. what if i lose my empathy and everything just...ceases to matter. if i want to witness and experience, how would it amount to anything if i feel nothing for it? what about the terrible days, what if they keep spanning for centuries on end? what if i find myself in this never ending cycle of hurt because every bad day, the ones that hurt, that bring out the worst in me, pile up and places me in a spot where i completely regret choosing to live forever? what if, years from now, humans go extinct and i will wander the earth knowing i'm the only one left, to be lonely for the rest of my life as i watch evolution slowly bring in a new species to replace us? what if change, in itself proves to be so dastardly that i break before i could even start running?
zhongli : ...please don't tell me you spent the last four hours thinking of this instead of sleeping.
me : if i DID sleep, i'd probably have some surreal nightmare about me meeting humanoid mutant ducks with chainsaw wings after an apocalyptic event.
zhongli : i think i need to start brewing stronger tea for you and cut down on the sugar-
me : YOU WOULDN'T-
@meimeimeirin @silentmoths @x-zho @dustofthedailylife @ofoceansandtombsanew
the concept of immortality kept me awake last night.
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