It was a huge milestone of scientific and technological advancement. (Plus, at the time, politically significant). Humanity went to space! We set foot on a celestial body that was not earth for the first time in human history! Thatâs a big deal! Iâve never thought about it before but now that I have, itâs ridiculous to me that thatâs not part of our everyday lives and the public consciousness anymore. Why donât we have a public holiday and a family barbecue about it. Why have I never seen the original broadcast of the moon landing? It should be all over the news every year!
Itâs July 20th. Thatâs the day of the moon landing. Next year is going to be the 54th anniversary. Iâm ordering astronaut shaped cookie cutters on Etsy and Iâm going to have a goddamn potluck. Youâre all invited.
PITCH: We call it Moon Day, and then every 7 years when it falls on a Monday, that's an even BIGGER deal and we call that Moon Day Monday and go absolutely apeshit about it (the next Moon Day Monday is in 2026 so we have a couple trial runs first)
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Just like us in real life I think Kaeya loved oneâs once thought that pierro was his dad
Because look they both are dramatic bitches with a similar style and love of fur. Heâs also the only other member of Kaeya home country around and letâs be honest dainslief is NOT Kaeyas dad so itâs got to be the director.
However they never asked Kaeya about it because knowing him he would lie and they would be bringing up a sensitive topic. So Kaeya has no idea that they believe that his dad is a harbinger
So half of Mondstadt has a one sided hate of pierro for something he didnât do. Itâs like a open secret to everyone whose not involved in the secret and everyone feels bad for Kaeya because that his dad
On Fatherâs Day Kaeya has no clue why we gone looks at him so sympathetically like yes he knowss heâs being orpahaned x2 but like you donât need to act like that stuff happens yesterday. All while diluc and Jean are trying to protect him from mentions of who they think is his biodad
This also only fuels diluc hate for the fatui because not only do they abandon his baby brother in the side of the road but as soon as he finally gets a good father THEY KILL HIM. Those fatui have got to go
Heâs not the only one. At one point Varka said to Capitano that âmaybe Pierre should spend less time collecting gnosis and more time paying his child supportâ
And Capitano is just like ???????
They sneak insults for pierro into their daily conversation. Like Jean gives like a speech
âOkay guys we have to be very careful with the harbingers because they are tricky, cunning, manipulative-â
And Amber chips in with a âAnd a dead beat dadsâ
Which Jean responds with âand dead beat dads who donât pay child supportâ
All while Kaeya is thinking âwait when did he have kids?â
This au gets even funnier if you believe that kaeyaâs dad is actually someone else so they are at first conflicted because âat least my sons secrets are unknownâ but also like âThatâs MY wonderful son NOT HISâ
Okay but how many of the harbingers buy into this theory?
Childe obviously would.
Signora must have known about it given she was stationed in Mondstadt for so long. I feel like she had to have believed it if for no other reason than if she hadn't she would have brought it up to Pierro in a meeting just to see his reaction Infront of the others.
Did Capitano die thinking his commander abandoned his son?
Wanderer probably is unaware but I feel like he would call bullshit.
Dottore knows but I can go either way with him on believing. Perhaps his segments used to fight over it before they were destroyed.
Pantalone and Pulcinella probably don't know or care.
Arlecchino knows of the rumour but Idk if she believes it.
Columbina absolutely does believe it and for that reason alone Sandrone doesn't.
Now I canât help but think of Capitano trying to find a way to politely ask pierro if he had a son that he abandoned in Mondstadt. I feel like he would lean towards âthereâs no way any one of us could have kids because of the curseâ but when he sees a young photo of Pierro he starts to think that varka might be on to something
Signora is just waiting for that day that she can use this against pierro. Like as in threatening to tell his secret child where he lives if Pierro doesnât give her the day off. She also probably wants to make Kaeya call her aunty Signora.
Columbina totally believes whole heartedly that Kaeya is Pierroâs son while sandrone screams at her âTHAT DOESNT MAKE ANY SENSEâ every single counterpoint sandrone brings up to Columbina, she counters it with a even more ridiculous claim
âOkay that means pierro would have a wife which he doesnât so that canât be his kidâ
Columbina then would explain mpreg to her
The dottore segments however are trying to end this debate once and for all by trying to take samples from Kaeya and Pierro to compare them. Yes they also have a betting pool for what will the result show. They honestly are also impressed that Kaeya even exists in the widest place in account of the curse
I feel like Pantalone would hear about this through one of the segment however he doesnât believe that Kaeya is pierro kid because that would imply that Pierro had sex which Pantalone canât believe
Wanderer is also team âthere is no way in hell anyone would want to fuck Pierroâ however in a weird turn of events he is conceived that CAPITANO is actually Kaeyaâs dad. Thatâs why he is hiding his face, he doesnât want to anyone to recognize him so he doesnât have to pay child support.
Arlechinno is 50/50 on whether or not this theory has any merit. Columbina and sandrone are now trying to get her of their respective sides. Whether that be through cold hard facts or simply telling her âthis makes sandrone really angry and thatâs funnyâ
Childe definitely believes Pierro to be the type to walk out of his sons life in order to âgo get the cigarettesâ heâs quite ashamed of Pierro for not being in his sons life and he WILL make jabs at him for it. Pierro has no idea whatâs he talking about
If pulcinella ever found out he would be team no because in his mind there is no way someone near his age could be able to have a kid and knowing Pierro if he decide he no longer wanted to care for said kid he would simply just kill him
the Nod Krai quest gets derailed when they first start talking about Khaenriâah because all the various Fatuus and Monstadters are gathered around a large venn diagram listing the similarities between Kaeya and Pierro and arguing if they could be related
Dainsleif, quite possibly the only person who knows the correct answer besides Kaeya and Pierro themselves, sits in silence in the back and watches in unspoken DELIGHT as the various harbingers debate the knights on the logistics
Dainsleif chooses to keep quiet because number 1. he doesnât fw with Kaeya much so he finds this hilarious, number 2. he doesnât fw Pierro much either, and number 3. he hasnât gotten khaenriâahn court drama in 500 years heâs nostalgic and quite gossip deprived (and partially wishing he had Vedrfolnir to gossip with about if Pierro had a secret / illegitimate child)
itâs red string and everything, for the first time they are combining their resources and theories
The tribes of Tumblr appeared to worship Apollo as their primary patron deity, most often under the epithet Apollo Spairahemon ("Apollo the Ball-Thrower") as a god of prophecy and sport. His name was typically invoked to celebrate a user blessed with uncommon prescience. Moments of prophecy were considered highly sacred and were often recorded, and such texts are sometimes accompanied by an artistic depiction of the god â either his traditional masculine image or, unusually, in the form of a young woman, which appears to have been an earlier style before a conservative shift toward more conventional iconography â preparing to cast a round rubber ball that our scholars believe was used in the sport known as "dodge ball". Much as other cults regarded his arrows as bringers of disease and health, this community believed that being struck by this ball would bestow prophetic visions.
Some icons are reproduced below:
An earlier depiction (c. 2020) of Apollo as a girl clad in a simple tunic and playing with other children. Figures are smiling and the image is brightly colored, indicating a celebratory outlook toward knowledge of the future.
A later piece (c. 2022) that resembles the traditional appearance of Apollo. References to childhood and play are omitted, and the god carries a more frightening aspect; perhaps this icon represented grim omens rather than good tidings.
Religious studies scholar here. These icons often appear appended to a post at a later date at which the original post has proven to be prescient. The icon is frequently shared without commentary, as it serves a complex and complete semiotic function in and of itself. Its presence acts as an acknowledgement of the god's favor upon the prophet.
The gift of prophecy is universally acknowledged as both blessing and burden. This ambivalence is implied in the symbol of the dodgeball that Apollo uses to physically impact the bodies of his chosen. Even in the playful icon c. 2020, her intended targets are seen bracing for the impact of her hurled gift. The c. 2022 icon is, as noted above, more explicit about the dangers of receiving the god's attention.
In this way, the beliefs of the Tumblrinas (as they are known amongst themselves) are Homeric in nature. Tumblrinas often relate to Apollo's gift of prophecy with a grim sense of irony that echoes the Iliad and Oddessey's treatment of Cassandra.
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i hate it when game devs put âfixed several issuesâ in patch notesÂ
no. tell me what you fixed. i wanna know what the glitch was.
you know those patch notes that are like âfixed an issue where if the player sat in a bush for too long, theyâd become the size of a skyscraperâÂ
Adjusted value of Bees. Now that was a special one⌠because every item in the game had a minimum value, and a beehive was a container for bees, which each had a minimum value⌠which meant the moment one of your dwarves picked up a beehive, your entire fortressâ net worth skyrocketed⌠a value used in determining how powerful the foes that visit and try to murder you are.
Reblogging for the explanation of what âadjusted value of beesâ actually means, because I know several folks following this blog have been wondering.
Actually I lied itâs the one where after a major update werewolves and vampires started climbing the nearest tree and refusing to come down. It turned out that heâd given evil creatures the ability to sense each other, but forgotten to set a maximum range on it, so werewolves were aware Hell was underground and trying to flee by climbingÂ
Im enjoying the longevity of tumblrs recontextualization style of humor. a seemingly innocuous post followed by like "posts that a gnome would make" or like "are you a phone"
stop, take a moment to gather yourself and breathe deeply (stop, take a moment to apply first aid to your wound)
find the root cause of your anger; what brought your anger about and how come? (find what caused your injury; what hurt you, what type of wound?)
what can you do to regain control? try not to fuel the anger with violence; mitigate by being gentle to yourself and others (what can you do to keep you safe from further and future injury? what further treatment do you need? try not to aggravate your wound; be gentle and cautious)
accept you've done all you can, continue to breathe deeply, and find comfort away from anger and violence (accept you have done all you can and continue to take care of yourself)
Boosting this, in part because this is something I learned over the years, but didn't quite have the words for, and in part beacuse this is just pain good advice
BRB, starting discourse about how writing fiction in which the necessary preconditions for problematic tropes are present is just as problematic as writing about the tropes themselves. You've got a couple of OCs who are blood relatives? You sick fuck.
There are genuinely people on this very site who will tell you with their full chest that it's problematic for adult authors to write stories whose protagonists are minors, regardless of content or context. I don't need to go knocking â the Devil is already here.
Also I hope everyone knows that Miette was fostered before she was adopted, and her foster mom loved that little kitten so much and always hoped sheâd gone to a good home. this tweet got so popular that she recognized Miette and reached out to her current mom, and was able to share previously unseen baby pictures
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protagonists can and will be sexist, racist, insensitive, cruel, stupid, etc, especially towards the beginning of a story. these are called character flaws and they are a surprise tool that will lead to narrative fulfillment later
And sometimes "narrative fulfillment" doesn't mean "the character overcomes their flaws" or even "the antihero is punished for their flaws"! sometimes it means the narrative says "wow was that fucked up or what? anyway i'm rod sterling"
one time as a kid I forcefully shoved two magnets together, and these were the strong magnets my dad used in his shop to pick-up missing little metal bits, and I held them really tightly in the palm of my hand, went up to this one kid who legit said things like âI think black cats are bad, they should be drownedâ and drew crosses on the notebooks of kids if she found out they didnât go to church, I told her âHey. Iâm a witch. If you donât stop trying to hurt animals and picking on kids, Iâll use my magic to throw you into the skyâ, and when she dared to doubt my powers I told her that I had two ârocksâ in my hand that I could send across the playground, then I opened my hand the the magnets shot off in two different directions (we were over in a spot that was empty, so no other kids were around, nobody got hurt), one of them stuck to a drainpipe and the other stuck to a fence. This kid SCREAMED, and ran to the office, and I guess had her mom pick her up from school, and then she wasnât there for a couple of days, finally her mom called my house and claimed I had âtraumatized her daughter by performing a terrifying magic trickâ, and when my parents asked what I did I just said âI showed her a magnet and she flipped out. Sheâs not gonna be happy when she finds out about gravity, eitherâ. eventually this kid came back to school and always made a point to come up to me and say âHey, my mom told me not to talk to you!â, and would just be like âGood job, you already screwed that upâ
for those who don't speak academia: "according to our MRI machine, dead fish can recognise human emotions. this suggests we probably should look at the results of our MRI machine a bit more carefully"
So basically, in the psych and social science fields, researchers would (I don't know if they still do this, I've been out of science for awhile) sling around MRIs like microbiolosts sling around metagenomic analyses. MRIs can measure a lot but people would use them to measure 'activity' in the brain which is like... it's basically the machine doing a fuckload of statistics on brain images of your blood vessels while you do or think about stuff. So you throw a dude in the machine and take a scan, then give him a piece of chocolate cake and throw him back in and the pleasure centres light up. Bam! Eating chocolate makes you happy, proven with MRI! Simple!
These tests get used for all kinds of stuff, and they get used by a lot of people who don't actually know what they're doing, how to interpret the data, or whether there's any real link between what they're measuring and what they're claiming. It's why you see shit going around like "men think of women as objects because when they look at a woman, the same part of their brain is active as when they look at a tool!" and "if you play Mozart for your baby for twenty minutes then their imagination improves, we imaged the brain to prove it!" and "we found where God is in the brain! Christians have more brain activity in this region than atheists!"
There are numerous problems with this kind of science, but the most pressing issue is the validity of the scans themselves. As I said, there's a fair bit of stats to turn an MRI image into 'brain activity', and then you do even more stats on that to get your results. Bennett et. al.'s work ran one of these sorts of experiments, with one difference -- they used a dead salmon instead of living human subjects. And they got positive results. The same sort of experiment, the same methodology, the same results that people were bandying about as positive results. According to the methodology in common use, dead salmon can distinguish human facial expressions. Meaning one of two things:
Dead salmon can recognise human facial expressions. OR
Everyone else's results are garbage also, none of you have data for any of this junk.
I cannot overstate just how many papers were completely fucking destroyed by this experiment. Entire careers of particularly lazy scientists were built on these sorts of experiments. A decent chunk of modern experimental neuropsychology was resting on it. Which shows that science is like everything else -- the best advances are motivated by spite.
90% of "teen brain" science is based on MRI bullshit also. these fish just disproved "brain stops developing at 25", as if it needed disproving again. well done fish
You think âoh it would be useful to learn how to identify my thrifted yarn and clothingâ and before you know it youâve been recruited by fiber witches giving out their spells willy nilly, again
eucalyptus trees are full of flammable oil that causes the trees to explode during forest fires, killing other trees and spreading its seeds to grow in their place. koalas survive solely because nothing else in their environment Wants To Eat The Fucking Bombs
#I WROTE THIS POST#god dont get me fuckin started#the NUMBER of times ive Gone Off abt koalas in zooarch class#on a scale of koalas to wombats how good is ur marsupial at Being Alive#hey hey u know what else? koalas are so picky with their diet that theyll only eat the leaves of one (1) type of eucalypt#and even then ONLY specimens of that tree that are within a very tight geographic range of where the koala was born#the rescue centre in my city? they have to ship branches from all over the state bc koalas there physically Will Not Eat anything thats not#from their very very small very precise home range#theyd rather starve to death than try leaves from like the next suburb over#i have 60 other reasons why koalas spit in the face of natural selection hmu if you want YELLING i cant be bothered to list them all here#god theyre so incomprehensibly dumb. god#HEY ALSO the reason their brains are so small is bc YEah the one SINGLE species of tree they eat is incredibly toxic#their diet consists of 1 food and it is Brain-Shrinking Poison (@reyroace)
oh u like that? try this one: the main natural cause of death in koalas is starvation, because
1) their dumbass teeth are SHIT. to be a herbivore and chomp cellulose all day u need some real tough grinders in there, and almost every other herbivore in nature has SOME sort of dental adaptation to make sure they dont run out of tooth by the time they hit middle age. horses have big tall teeth, wombat teeth grow forever, kangaroos have got a little conveyor belt system goin on, etc etc everyoneâs doin SOMETHING except fuckign koalas. idiots have tiny fuckin shortass normal teeth that do an okay job for maybe like 15 years and then wear down and leave them with ridiculous fuckin useless old man gums that do shit all. but thats fine bc all koalas do anyway is sit in trees and sleep 22hrs a day then wake up and scream and eat poison and they do this all day every day until they run out of teeth at which point they just fall out of the tree and die
2) idiots canât die any other fuckin way bc nothing in nature wants to eat them bc their bodies are chocker block with LITERAL poison. fuckin USELESS their flesh just sits around and slowly rots bc its too gross-tasting and toxic for any animal w half a brain cell to think abt going near it. have yall ever seen koala viscera. bc i have and let me tell u that shit is RANK. looks like the inside of a smokerâs lung from some fuckdamn nicabate ad bc the tannins in eucalypt leaves stain their organs like khaki black. like some fuckin dark!steve irwin costume well better piss ur way right off from this one anti-steve bc thats a natural defense mechanism meant to warn u that koalas should in no way be alive and if u touch them theyll drag u into their stupid evolutionary dead-end where they get to sit around all day doin fuck all and pumpin themselves full of brain-killing poison while we run around makin them our olympic games mascots and pretending theyre cute and honest to god looking for ways to save them from the brink of extinction which actually is unnecessary bc a) theyre not really endangered at all, nature is a fuckign miracle and b) the drongos clearly want to die so i say let em
by the way i never elaborated on âkoalas sit in trees all day screamingâ but heres a lil fuckin. heres a fun nugget heres a lil soundbyte this is what koalas sound likeÂ
Also, it doesnât matter that theyâre eating brain-killing poison, because their brains are already tiny, and smooth rather than folded they way most animal brains are to increase neuron surface area. Also full of holes? These animals are so fuckin dumb, theyâre basically like if vertebrates tried to evolve a scale insect.
WITHOUT A DOUBT it is the kakapo, the cutest yet worst-evolutionarily-pranked bird in existenceÂ
i believe there are only 148 of them left ON EARTH (and they all have names!!! like Felix and Guapo and Gumboots its CHARMING) because they evolved with zero natural predators and therefore are FLIGHTLESS but sometimes FORGET THEY ARE FLIGHTLESS and jump out of treesÂ
their natural instinct when faced with danger is to justâŚfreeze and not moveâŚ.which is basically one tiny step above just walking into the hungry maw of the invasive cat/ferret/rat/raccoon/etc etcÂ
they are also Very Bad at mating and, oh btw, mate only ONCE EVERY 5 YEARS OR SO when one particular berry (the Rimu fruit) has a good yearÂ
anyway they are the worlds heaviest parrot and only flightless one, can weigh like 4kg/9 pounds (BIG FRIEND), and if they can avoid being blissful evolutionary dum dums can live 60 TO 100 YEARS if only they can keep it together, bless themÂ
They donât âforget how to flyâ - Kakapoâs will climb trees and then yes, jump to then glide down. Its not always elegant.
I donât think people understand how the kakapo literally evolved to suit itâs enviroment and it was super well adapted!!!! Until settlers brought cats and dogs and foxes because NEW ZEALAND HAS NO NATURAL MAMMILIAN PREDATORS because birds like the kakapo and the kiwi only had to worry about like, hawks and eagles. And thatâs it. Theyâre not dumb! Theyâre not evolutionarily backwards! They are literally dying out because of introduced species killing them that they naturally have no defense against!
If you only had to worry about flying birds, you wouldnât have to worry about anything finding you by scent; which means you can afford to be slow and conserve energy. Kakapos freeze when they meet a predator because their plumage is super suited to blending in seamlessly to its natural habitat. If your predator uses sight to track prey and if that prey can camouflage then buddy!! Thatâs a good defense mechanism!!
People often assume that evolution is a process like levelling an RPG character into an unkillable god.
It is not.
Evolution is basically a guy who puts character builds together for the sole purpose of exploiting the game mechanics for funsies.
Meet the skimmer.
Skimmers have evolved to fly along the surface of the water with their lower bill partly underwater, grabbing whatever they bump into.
This is a completely ridiculous means of feeding and nothing besides the three skimmer species does it. Dragging their bills through the water creates huge amounts of drag, so they need more energy to fly than usual and specialised skull and neck adaptations to avoid ripping their own heads off. Skimmers also cannot see what their bills touch underwater, they just stick them in the water and hope for the best while trying not to crash into stuff and break their bills (which happens).
Skimmers are exactly as ridiculous as koalas but by god theyâre going to do their thing.
âEvolution is basically a guy who puts character builds together for the sole purpose of exploiting the game mechanics for funsies.â is one of the best descriptions of evolution i ever heard. It doesnât matter if your build is a joke build, it just has to work. A good part of the fun in studying evolutionary biology is finding out HOW IN HELL do these joke builds actually work. Everyone can look at a wolf and say âwhat a perfect predator, the terror of every herbivore, i stanâ, but finding out why his distant cousin, the maned wolf, decided to walk on stilts,eat berries and practiced whatâs basically ant-assisted agricolture? Thatâs when the fun begins.
the more you look into evolution the weirder it gets, tracking genes makes things look even odder, in short species are overly specialized poorly designed trash fires that work great
đ I love this post. Biology, evolution, genes/genetics, WTFuckery, joke builds. I also feel badly for the lil (big?) birds who were suited to what they had and then kinda got fucked over by invaders. I have read about quite a few species who got whammied like that.
Unfortunately, I am now slightly morbidly curious about the insides of koalas and how toxic they are. I did know they were smooth-brained, particular to the point of idiocy regarding food source, and poisoning, but not the mental image of corrupted insides. Thatâs just⌠disturbing.
Yeah all the points in this thread about evolution not having a master plan and most animals being well adapted for their environment even when it seems ridiculous to us are extremely valid. But koalas are fucking absurd and fly in the face of every argument about intelligent design any smoothbrain ever came up with, so OP is also valid.
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You've always enjoyed working magic and especially entertaining the children of the village with colourful spells and small illusions. When one day mages from the royal academy visited, they noticed one of your shows and insisted on taking you with them back to the capital.
The young man wore simple clothing, perhaps in an attempt to blend in with the other villagers. You didn't see much point in that, even without the robes, he stuck out like a rose in a daisy field. He dodged clumsily around the other villagers, kept his arms pressed close to his sides, watched his every step, lest he touch something unpleasant with his shoe.
The other adults in the village were content to let you entertain the little ones for an hour or so. They didn't much care what you were doing, as long as it wasn't dangerous. The man though, was rooted in place, staring with barely concealed fascination.
In between the lights and sparkles, you quickly manifested a few doves and watched as the young man nearly toppled over, following the birds with his eyes. Ha, how nostalgic.
After the show, when the children had had their fill of asking 'how'd you do that?' The young man approached you.
"Greetings! My lady," he started with a nervous tremble.
"Lady?" You asked, "does this look like a 'lady' to you?" You motioned to your tethered dress and frayed hair and crooked cane.
"Um, well..." the man squirmed, "miss then? Or, how shall I refer to you?"
"In no way at all, if you know what's good for you," you got up from your bench, pushing heavily againts your cane. You hobbled forward toward the village shops.
Unsurprisingly, the man took no heed of your warning and followed at your heel like a pup.
"I meant no offense, miss. I'm quite ignorant of the local customs, you see..." The man glanced around, then leaned in closer and whispered, "I am actually a mage of the Royal Academy."
"Really?" You asked sarcastically.
"Yes!" The man assured excitedly, "me and a few of my brothers were sent out here to investigate some strange mana fluctuations." He admitted readily, "and I've come to suspect that it was you we were detecting."
You furrowed your brow worriedly. Mana detection from afar? These mages were getting quite proficient.
"How exactly did you detect the mana?" You asked.
The boy, either too confident or too naive, explained, "oh it's a very new technique! It utilizes one of the ancient artifacts of Salameer!"
Ah, so they figured out how to work one of Sal's old gadgets. Not so blasphemous anymore were they?
"And where are your brothers?"
He didn't falter for a moment, "one of them is investigating the surrounding woods, the uh, other decided to stay behind in the tavern. He didn't think we'd find anything..."
Splitting up for no good reason. These mages weren't afraid of anything it seemed.
You stopped at Gracie's stall. She beamed at the sight of you, "oh, love, hello! I have some great news! That tincture you gave? I rubbed it on Harry's chest twice a day, just like you said and the cough's completely gone! He's breathing better than before, said even his heart's stopped stabbing."
"That's good to hear," you said with a smile, "did you use up all of it?"
"Yes, didn't leave a single drop," Gracie said shaking her head.
"Er," the boy interrupted, "what 'tincture' would that be, miss?"
Gracie's friendly gaze turned to a glare as it fell on the boy. "And who are you, sir? Haven't seen you around here." She looked to you again, "is he bothering you?"
"What--, I-- no, I'm not bothering anyone," the boy stammered.
"He's a friend of a cousin of mine. He was traveling through here and asked to stay for a night," you covered for the boy, "he's a little overeager, but harmless."
"Hm," Gracie gave him the up and down, "as long as he doesn't cause any trouble..." the boy shrunk back under her scrutiny.
She left you two alone for a moment to go collect all of your usual purchases from the other stalls. The boy shifted around impatiently.
"Miss," the boy tried, "about the tricks you showed to those children..."
You didn't react hoping he'd take the hint.
"I'm not sure if you're aware, but some of them were examples of very advanced mana manipulation. Even, well, I think some of it may have been theoretically impossible?" He chuckled.
"Sir," you said evenly, pretending to examine some of Gracie's herbs, "you have enough sense to disguise yourself," you stared at him from the corner of your eye, "have some more to not discuss such things in the open air."
"There we go!" Gracie said ploping down your bundle of goods, it was bulging fatter than usual. "Hope you don't mind, I picked up a few extra things, since you'll have some help carrying it back. Feee of charge, of course."
"Thank you, that's very kind," you smiled, then looked to the boy, "you don't mind, right?"
The boy looked like a pinned butterfly, "um, no, I don't mind..."
The trek back to your cabin was easy, the ground shifting to accommodate your uneven steps. It didn't seem to care for the boy though, tried to trip him up several times. You tapped your cane, asking the forest to go easy on him.
As you walked into the cabin the boy lingered in the doorway. He turned his head this way and that, examining your home with wide eyes.
"If you're not coming in, just leave the pack by the door," you called over your shoulder.
The boy scurried inside. He placed the bundle on the kitchen table and hurried deeper into the den.
"You have... a lot of books, miss..." he approached one of the bookcases like a poor man to a banquet.
You grimaced slightly, "I have very few actually."
You put on the kettle and rifled through your cabinets, searching for the right ingredients.
The boy stood, rubbing his hands, waiting for permission. You signed, "you're welcome to browse, if you so desire."
The boy lunged at the largest tome he could see. He fell into one of the armchairs and began devouring it fervently. He didn't react to the whistle of the kettle, nor the chiming of the cups, nor the hiss of the powders. He didn't even look up as you placed the tray down on the sitting room table.
You took a seat on the opposite chair, your own cup in hand. "Now then," you said and finally, the young man looked up, "tell me of this 'Royal Academy' of yours."
The boy blinked, he saw the cup on the table and rushed to put his book aside. "Oh, thank you, you didn't have to, really," he rambled, taking the cup. "Right, uh, the Academy, yes. Well, I don't know what I have to tell that you don't probably already know. It's the place where mages from all around the world gather to hone their craft and share knowledge."
"And to serve the royal family," you added.
The boy's shoulders hunched slightly, he galnced around, "um, don't we all?"
You concede with a nod, "yes, I suppose we do." You continued, "It must be a very large academy to fit every magic user in the world."
The boy looked confused, "it's not that big, I mean, there aren't that many mages..."
"Arenât there?" You asked.
The boy was quiet. He took a nervous sip of his drink.
"What do you know of the history of your academy?" You asked probingly.
The boy seemed to have enough of your circling around the subject or maybe he felt a bit more emboldened. With a frown he asked, "miss, you are a mage yourself, aren't you?"
You felt a pang of pity, "child," you said gently, "did they really never teach you of witches?"
âaverage person eats 3 spiders a yearâ factoid actualy just statistical error. average person eats 0 spiders per year. Spiders Georg, who lives in cave & eats over 10,000 each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted
