Flock System

First of all, totally animated. We don't trust live action. Second, the style changes depending on the main character...

Season 1: total Arcane vibes. Everything is badass and grounded, JUST like Gideon would tell it. Things get a little weird when the season finale begins switching to Harrow's pov and-

Season 2: full traditional animation, hand-drawn, knights of Guinevere style. It dips disconcertingly into nostalgia as Harrow navigates the Mithraeum, and by the finale (and subsequent total breakdown of Harrow's mind) the animation gets JUST as bizarre and trippy as only traditional animation can get.

she slaps augustine across the mouth and he spits out his teeth, despite the fact that he is a ten thousand year old lyctor who should have had ironclad shielding. out of all the necros that swore themselves to god, she was one of the remaining ones, one of the last lyctors to survive the resurrection beasts.

she vaporized god. she vaporized god. she unwound the most powerful necromancer she knew on the fly and reduced him to his base components because she just. had the knowledge in her brain. mercymorn turned a man running on the souls of ten billion into fine red mist on a fucking impulse.

she spends all of htn trying to kill harrow out of some bizarre attempt to live up to her name. she’s kind about it, even. she draws weird little squiggles that look like everything but monsters. she fantasizes about putting her idiot boss in acid jail. she worries about her dress making her look like a melon even though she literally seduces god and also a guy who hates her.

and nobody really likes her. g1deon is g1deon, by which i mean he is being tortured and weird about everything on account of being two people and thus has little to no opinion on what she does. augustine fucking hates her unless they’re working together to honey trap god (no i will not stop mentioning this) and it wasn’t even her fault that alfred died, not really. ianthe follows augustine around like an evil little duckling - does she even have strong opinions on mercy except that it’s gross she’s having a three way with jod and augustine? she was supposed to mentor harrow, but she got the defective one - the one that didn’t even make to lyctorhood properly (does she wish she could’ve done what harrow did? sealed cristabel away forever, even if she had to butcher herself to do it?). and jod. jod loves her, of course, but he’s just so. so. he doesn’t fucking listen is the thing. he deflects and he jokes and he doesn’t say “mercy, i didn’t meant to, mercy, i’ll fix it, mercy, please, forgive me.” he says everything but that.

Least crazy Camilla Hect sideplot:

Camilla's normal Tuesday:

Then for a decent portion of the book every time someone dies she thinks he killed them.

Every time he talks to her she’s so paranoid about him trying to manipulate her into giving something away or otherwise screw her over, she never accepts that he’d want to work together for anything other than sinister reasons.

Meanwhile Palamedes is casually telling anyone who will listen that he thinks she’s an incredibly cool genius who is objectively terrifying because she’s so amazing at everything she does but also he’d trust her with her life because she’s honourable like that.

You have to understand that nature does not work in the same timeframe as ours. Protecting and restoring ecosystems is RIDICULOUSLY inexpensive and requires very little industrial technology; shovels and saplings are not exactly high-tech. But it takes time and long-term projects with people determined to do it. Maybe we are too focused in our "we want it now" thinking, but what you see today is not what you may see in 10, 20, 50, even 80 years if you live that long.

This article talks about this very much in the "see? ecology can help the economy too!" tone that unfortunately is sort of necessary to convince people in the current capitalist system. But I don't want you to focus on this right now.

I want you to KNOW how doable this is. How inexpensive this is, how POSSIBLE THIS IS. That people working and loving the land and nature they live in is possible. That these projects WORK, THEY DO restore and preserve ecosystems. That humanity is neither a plague that destroys everything or a passive bystander on its own destruction but that these are actual things that can be, are, and will be implemented, backed by actual science and results. This is not empty #hopecore #hopepunk feel good stuff, these are things you can learn about, even work towards, and you can most certainly demand they are part of our society.

This orange peel story was huge years ago: https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/a-fruitful-experiment-in-land-conservation/

Beavers reintroduced to historic wetlands improve them at such a level that we can see the improvements from space: https://news.mongabay.com/2023/09/nasa-satellites-reveal-restoration-power-of-beavers/

Africa is successfully slowing desertification and restoring historic farming soil with their Green Wall project: https://welcomeafrica.org/en/africa-combats-desertification-with-a-belt-of-life/

There has even been success at regrowing coral reefs--something which I am old enough to be told was impossible. But people have been hard at work for decades since then, and this is one of the results: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/03/240308123248.htm

REPAIRING THE DAMAGE IS ENTIRELY WITHIN THE REALM OF POSSIBILITY.