#gordian worm

[sitting-on-me-bum]

"Gordian Worm Knot"

By Ben Revell

Close-Up Photographer of the Year Awards

#ben revell #photographer #close-up photographer of the year awards #gordian worm #worm #nature

[forms-and-phyla]

Phylum #13: Nematomorpha, the horsehair worms!

The cousins of roundworms! Much longer and thinner, often macroscopic in size, they get a bad reputation for their parasitic lifestyle. You might have seen videos of huge worms crawling out of an insect - yep, that was them.

But nematomorphs, or horsehair worms, aren't anything evil - no phylum is, really. In fact, the dramatic worm emerging from an insect is only the larva, with the adult living a casual free-living worm life, swimming in the seas or climbing in the trees!

They are also called Gordian worms - referring to the Gordian knot, as they have the habit of coiling themselves in intricate knots. In fact, they are often found like this after emerging from their host, usually several times smaller than themselves. (Details of the parasitic cycle and picture below)

As larvae, horsehair worms will take full control of their host - often a cricket, pushing them to dive into the water where the adult will emerge and lay its eggs. As gruesome as the process can look, the host might survive. Or, on the flip side, get eaten by a predator, in which case the horsehair worm can still wiggle out of the latter's digestive system, perpetuating the cycle.

#forms and phyla #nematomorpha #horsehair worm #taxonomy #parasite #tw parasite #tw worms

[prettycreepyprettycrawly]

This was one of my final projects from last quarter, a story about Nematomorphs.

The phylum Nematomorpha (also called horsehair worms or Gordian worms) are small freshwater worms found all over the world. They live as parasites growing inside of larger arthropods such as grasshoppers, crickets, and mantises. When the worm reaches adulthood, it is able to alter the behavior of its host, compelling it to jump into water. There, the horsehair worm emerges from its host and lives the rest of its life as a free-swimming adult. Remarkably, the insect hosts are capable of surviving this process—if they don’t drown or get eaten by a hungry fish.

#natural science illustration #parasites #invertebrates

[elementalgod-aj]

Anthro Allies Remastered (Part 11)

were at the home stretch we Got Mollusks, we got Annelids, Parasites, Flora, Fungi and Micro Organisms

Mollusks

Sync (Giant Octopus/Blue ringed)

Lakella (octopus hybrid)

Tihomier (vampire squid)

Silah (Squid hybrid)

Bobby (bobtail squid)

Cassandra (Cuttlefish)

Jubal (Ramshorn Squid)

Lozen (Nautilus) 

Rosallyn (Snail)

Shankha (Garden snail/Horse conch)

Oozie (Sea slug)

Bryce (Land slug/Blue sea slug)

Ulysses (Bivalve hybrid)

Petunia (Bivalve Hybrid)

Lucian (Lined Chiton)

Gumshoe (Gumboot Chiton)

Annelids 

Grindor (Earthworm/Leech Mutant)

Eztli (Leech)

Gorya (Giant Gippsland Earthworm)

Splicer (Bristle worm hybrid)

Legume (Peanut worm)

Gabija (Ragworm)

Parasitic worms 

Pasala (Mutant Tapeworm)

Hammer (Hammerhead Worm)

Sludge (Mud dragon)

Lori (Loricifera)

Linka (Penis worm)

Gordian  (Horsehair worms)

Husky (Roundworm)

Arrowhead (Arrow worms) 

Spyne (Thorny headed worm)

Harry (Hairy Backs)

Jabber (Jaw Worm)

Slim (Flatworms) 

Wheel (Rotifers) 

Valve (Lampshells)

Brio (Bryozoa)

Kampto (Entoprocta)

Ribbon (Ribbon worm)

Phil (Horseshoe worm)

Plants

Cycle (Tree Of Life Ent)

Flo-Rel (Plant Ent)

Fungi 

Matango (Giant Mushroom)

SHroom (Mushroom)

Microbes (Bacteria/Protist/Archaea/Monera)

Micro (Microbe)

Mirca (Bacteria)

Miniscule (Choanoflagellate)

Ambrosal (Protozoa)

Previous/Next

(For More Information About The Earthdemons, Neo demons, The Anthro allies , the O'Kong family and more of theses characters as well as updates please visit the @the-earthdemon-hub for more)

#My ocs #My art #elementalgod aj #aj the elementalgod #Isle 0 #Toonverse ocs #The Watchful Eye #Watchful Eye #O'Kong Family #Earthdemons #Neo Demons #Anthro Allies #molluscs #annelids #Parasites #Plants #Fungi #Microbes #bacteria #Choanoflagellate #protozoa

[udarsanjivani]

BEST AYURVEDIC MEDICINE FOR GAS AND ACIDITY

Ever wondered one of the four fundamental states of matter can cause such a turbulence in one's daily life? A matter that doesn't have a shape or volume has the power to spoil your good morning, a better day or the best evening.

Yes, we are talking about gas and acidity. One of the commonest distresses that nobody can claim of being unruffled of at least once in their lifetime. Though it doesn't pose serious health risk, yet affects one's normal daily life and that too in a really bad way.

What causes Gas and Acidity?

There are various reasons that contributes to gastric trouble. Let's figure out some of them:

Aerophagia, which means swallowing of air, the typical cause of gas formation.

Irritable Bowel Syndrome, lactose intolerance, indigestion, viral or bacterial infection.

Intestinal bacteria ferments food in our large intestine. The fermentation of undigested food induces lower intestinal gas.

Some foods are known for their flatulence and acidity causing properties. Cabbage, beans, onion, potatoes, corn, alcohol, caffeinated drinks, spicy and starchy food are some of them.

Reflux or reverse flow of bile from the bile duct.

Celiac disease, also called celiac sprue is caused when one has gluten intolerance. Gluten is found in wheat and consuming it causes celiac disease.

Is there a Way Out of this Gordian Knot?

Trust Ayurveda!

As per Ayurveda, gastritis or "urdhvaga amalapitta" is the aggravation of pitta dosha, and is said to be a lifestyle disorder

Ayurveda suggests some herbs that pacify pitta thereby giving relief from gastric unease. Some of them are:

Bhringraj or Eclipta alba Hassk :

An herb that's the king of all herbs and finds mention in seven Ayurvedic references. It acts on digestive, circulatory and nervous system at the same time. It's a laxative, antidepressant and has rejuvenating attribute.

Punarnava or Boerhavia Diffusa :

If you are enduring any stomach ailment, Punarnavais the great herb because it reinforces stomach muscles, eases constipation, works on liver disorder and kidney disorders. It is primarily used for indigestion.

Giloy :

Tinospora cardifolia, the wonder plant Giloy, has strong anti-inflammatory property to heal GI inflammation and acidity. It relieves bloating, distention and indigestion. Giloy pacifies pitta dosha.

Kasaundi or Kasamarda or Cassia Occidentalis :

It balances tridoshas. Owing to its teekshna or bitterness, it functions as Pitta Saraka (propels pitta out of the body). Besides Ayurveda, it is also used in Homeopathic medicines.

Kutki :

Kutki or Katuka is a small perennial herb with potent hepatoprotective properties. Kutki finds mention in various Ayurvedic texts for several gastric ailments. It treats jaundice, liver disorders, indigestion, and prevents bloating and diarrhea. Besides this it is equally effective on anemia, hiccups, emesis and removes intestinal worms.

Vai Vidanga:

Embelia ribes commonly known as false black pepper has a significant pharmacological prospect. It is used in traditional medicines for its mollifying effect on abdominal disorders, indigestion, constipation.

What if we unearth a medicine that has all these ingredients? "Good deeds need no permission."

Udar Sanjivani is one of those herbal nostrums that assures relief from the most of the abdominal disorders. Udar Sanjivani begins its affect from the use of very first dose and has its effect is everlasting one.

Get rid of stomach ailments at its entirety with Udar Sanjivani, a unique medicine with the goodness of robust herbs.

Reference: https://www.udarsanjivani.com/blog/best-ayurvedic-medicine-for-gas-and-acidity.html

[cavenewstimes]

‘Brainwashing’ parasites inherit a strange genetic gap

Deep beneath our feet almost anywhere on the planet, there are parasitic spaghetti-like puppet masters known as horsehair worms or gordian nematodes.  These sneaky, slimy beings are lacking three major systems: excretory, circulatory or respiratory. To make up for it, they invade crickets, grasshoppers and other invertebrates, tapping into their neurological circuit and eventually brainwashing…

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[writer59january13]

Wordsmith theoretician postulates kooky equation

Addends, minuend, subtrahends... all Greek

to poor student long haired pencil necked freak.

Damned (internal) revenue stream plus plugged egress equals flood of woe torturous suffocation of biosphere quite slow particularly concerning one Norwegian bachelor farmer from Oslo amidst the bajillions of people, one common Joe (cur) just biden his time

pleading to acquire much needed dough, attorney General assistant Lynne Costello sought out to help yours truly (to no avail) hoof hound himself cloven and rent asunder courtesy ofttimes mentioned cyber outlaws preying upon (long in the tooth) fellow suddenly his entire body electric

being deceived synonymous

with the plot of Iago in my version starring Henry Wadsworth Longfellow as none other than Othello punch drunk as Judy falling down laughing, roistering, yammering hysterically and rolling with a stoned Rockafellow, whose role as a convincing fall guy convincingly contradicted himself as an above board underfellow. Yours truly voluntarily recruited himself, cuz he haint been rather astute therefore welcomes

a swift kick in the derrière courtesy squared off steel tipped boot knocking the living daylights

predicated on lovely bonehead moment

linkedin to poppycock that did compute

as sense and sensibility

even suspicious to a deaf-mute

leary toward one extortionist

pièce de résistance, he did execute and pulled wool over my eyes

analogous to snake charmer

playing magic (Johnson) flute

transfixing yours truly a dunderhead lunkhead punked galoot

who in hindset could not add up fishy (worm I going) oh yeah... virtually nabbed

courtesy cyber bandits,

who gane nary a hoot

prying skewed logistics I impute

to wanna hang myself

courtesy suitable length of jute

tied with Gordian knute gofundme page welcomes pledging loot

to help me (if you can)

with desired great expectation moot,

hence these lovely bones

when cremated will be transformed

into fine powder

more inert than a newt.

[thisworld1]

“Gordian Worm Knot” by Ben Revell (Australia). 2nd Place, Invertebrate Portrait. “It was early autumn as a friend and I were exploring the rainforest creeks of the Australian Sunshine Coast Hinterland by night when we stumbled upon this remarkable scene. Emerging from the abdomen of a fire back huntsman spider was this long cylindrical worm. Text by My Modern Met

[the-everlasting-downpour]

VI. – Gordian Naught.

The subway, on the Treeangle platform, was empty and cool. Rare people and shapes walked around the platform, looking at the beautiful deep bas-reliefs with folkloric stories, throwing coins or putting bills in mugs, hats, containers to the beggars who, huddled against the walls, stood on the stairs, and the street performers who created a cheerful, joyful or melancholy, sad atmosphere; rare people and shapes sat and stood, eating, drinking, sleeping, talking, reading printed books and articles on the phone – rare people and shapes spent their time waiting and relaxing.

But in the tunnels, from which the invisible tracks stretched, cutting through the standing iron air and impenetrable blackness, the underground worm trains raced, delivering carloads full of passengers. There, seated and standing, cramped, leaning against each other, existed a shapeless huddle waiting to arrive on the platform. The single chest of the whole huddle rose and fell gesturally, not allowing fresh air to circulate, and it was unbearably hot and stuffy in the carriages – comparable to M.'s August trip.

He sat dressed in high boots, an unbuttoned jacket, a white shirt, and pants clinging to his body. At his feet was a roomy bag containing many new things from Nördpeak – he wanted to remember the city more often. Beside him, leaning against his shoulder, Marci was breathing, quetly softly – she was asleep, dressed in a down jacket, jeans, and fleece boots, a bag at her feet, too, with everything she could take from Nördpeak.

His eyes were running, his trembling fingers were tingling, his heart was pounding hard in the chest – M. was nervous, but it was not visible. Thoughts were running through his head, and it was a strange sensation, for M. had never felt this way before. Trying to calm himself, he breathed measuredly, found points of interest in people, and occasionally glanced at Marci. The flame of her head bobbed gently in time with her movements, sometimes touching M.'s cheek. He held her to him, wrapping his right arm around her back; his left hand was in his pocket, fumbling for the cold, invigorating metal. Soon his heart stopped burning his chest from the inside with its bright flame, and his thoughts stopped running in the endless space of his mind, and M. almost immediately began to arrange everything in its place.

But then the train began to slow down, and soon the platform appeared. M. sighed, woke Marci up with a slight movement, and stood up with her and threw the bags over her shoulders. In the crowd, in these unfamiliar jackets and faces, in this tense silence, a feeling comparable to claustrophobia to leave this space, this stuffiness, this anthropocentric heat – M. felt and saw it, because it is impossible not to notice this invisible smoke of seething desire.

The train stopped and opened its doors. A moment after, the crowd poured out, joining together in a huge layer of unfinished lives, in this river, drawing in all the tired passengers-it, this river, seemed endless. M. and Marci also entered it, with a single desire: to leave the subway and go out into the street, to breathe in the cold of the capital. Beyond this desire, however, M. had a purpose.

Spotting the right coat shake among the people, M. grabbed the leather hilt. Step by step in the slow crowd, he moved closer and closer, and when the distance between them was gone, when the whole crowd seemed frozen by a thousand colorful statues-when no one saw or understood anything, M. plunged the knife into his neck.

The knife blade went in softly, piercing the skin like some hidden fruit. Pulling out the knife, M. let out a few drops of blood, they fell somewhere on the floor. The man, fatally wounded, dropped his body on the cold platform and tried to cover the wound with his hands, but even through his hands the blood from the punctured arteries and veins, from the cut muscles, beat with every beat of his fast, cooling heart. When he opened his eyes wide, he saw the walls collapse, the ceiling above opening – and he saw God extending his hand, calling after him.

M. grabbed Marci's hand and hurried with her to the surface. They did not go up the escalator, which was very slow, but ran. Very quickly they left the station without turning around, and just as quickly they went out into the street, where snow was falling heavily, where in the distance the street lamps glowed with cold light, where people walked in down jackets and coats, where the sky was black and endless – where it was winter and where the time was only 2:59 AM. Hurrying through the canvas of snowfall, not trying to reach the distant black sky that didn't even have the moon on it, they quickly turned one of the corners.

There, hiding from the unknown, M. peeked out from around the corner periodically. When something came out of the station building, walked across the square in front of him, when that something began to look for him, M. put his bag aside and began to take off his jacket. Marci, who had little understanding up to that point, at first decided not to interfere, but then said

— It's cold outside! Are you trying to get sick?

— That's not the point, dear, – M. said.

M. turned around and handed her his jacket. When he turned back to look out into the street, she saw a carbine – a simple AR15 rifle, with a magazine inserted, with a vertical rubberized handle and a flash hider – hanging behind his back. Her heart skipped a beat, she took a few steps back; unrecognizable terror began slowly bubbling up in her head. M., however, without noticing, took a step away from the edge himself, pulled the rifle from behind his back, checked the chamber and was ready to engage into the battle, but before he left, he turned to Marci and said:

— Everything is going to be okay.

He came out from around the corner. A second later a succession of measured shots rang out, loud as the echo of thunder on a black day. Marci covered the places where her invisible ears were and squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting to hear what was going on right around the corner in front of her. Various scenes were drawn in her mind that included the brutal massacres of M. and of her, the scenes changing, as if lost in some dance of thoughts, and everything that presented itself to her closed eyes, to her girlish gaze, for a split second, made her want to scream – so that everyone could hear it.

The gunshots had stopped for about ten seconds, but Marci continued to keep her ears and eyes closed. M. contemplated the murder scene – four men in black military uniforms, blood pouring out of each, staining the snow maroon, each with a pair of holes in his head, the exit of which had massive injuries, bits of brain and skull torn out. Convinced that the bullet that had gone through the last mercenary's head had finally taken his life, he returned as quickly as possible to the corner.

When he returned there, he saw Marci huddled in the corner, her eyes squeezed shut and her ears closed. She was scared – she was even shaking slightly; tears were almost beginning to flow from her closed eyes. M. put the rifle on the safety, shoved it behind his back, walked over to Marci, and put his hand on her head. The flame of her head went in between the fingers. She opened her eyes and saw the familiar beard and long hair – her joy was disproportionate, but M. stopped her.

— We have ten minutes, – he said, – before things go much worse. Hand me my coat.

Marci faithfully handed him his outer garment. Slipping his hands through the wide sleeves, M. hung the bag on his shoulder and, holding Marci's hand, left the scene as quickly as possible.

Monday was difficult for everyone – for the workers, for the unemployed, for the trainees and the trainers. There was a perpetually tense atmosphere in the TSC, as if someone had strung an invisible string so tight that one touch would start an eruption of emotions, a torrent of seething feelings and boiling thoughts. The students walked along this string, stretched on every floor, trying not to touch it, knowing that an Armageddon of universal proportions was about to begin.

For Amin, Monday was a particularly difficult one. It was his last lecture of the day, where he spent the rest of his energy trying to nicely explain the «mess of the nineties», although knowing that not many people really cared. After all, they did not live when there were mafias, OCG, PMCs and other organizations, the foundation of which was the elimination of unnecessary and interfering with the receipt and laundering of money by all means. He knew that this was not the end, because after the lecture he always had to fill out the logbook, work with debtors and other things.

At one point, however, his speech was interrupted by a phone call – not from the amphitheater, but his phone, in his department. He walked over, picked up the phone, looked at the caller. His heart skipped a beat at the name, but after informing the students to sit quietly while he was gone and stepping out of the auditorium, he still took the incoming call and put the phone to his ear.

— Yes? – Cudda asked.

— Greetings, my friend, – the man on the other side said. – How are things at the TCS?

— Same as usual, – replied Cudda nonchalantly. – Routine. Why are you calling me?

— I want for you to do me a favor... – the man on the other side said. These words were followed by a succession of terms familiar to Amin, terms used to disguise the state of affairs. The man on the other side spoke for about a minute, and then, as he finished his monologue with a question to Amin, he heard the answer:

— Look, I told you I'm out of business, alright? If you had called me a couple of years ago, I would have said «yes», but the times are now different and...

— I understand what you're saying, Amin, – the man on the other side said. For a moment he sounded as if he really empathized with him. – But I have no other choice. I cannot use my assets, for they are either dead, or have never worked in such serious operations, or are not conscious and competent enough. You are my only chance, Amin. I’ll make it worth your trouble. Ask me anything of your desires.

— Anything of what I desire? – Amin asked; there was a spark in his eye.

— Anything of your desires, – the man on the other side replied.

— I desire for you to fuck off, once and for all. I said, like a man to a man, that I am out of this shit.

The man on the other side hung up. With a strange peace of mind, Amin put the phone back in his pocket and returned to the classroom, where there was a truly soothing silence.

As Amin thought, that would be the end of it – that brief call, lasting a minute and a half, in which he dotted all the I’s for whoever was calling him. In the car he didn't think about the past call, finally leaving the worries of his former self behind – the kind of self that, for a good price, ended the life of someone who gets in the way and sticks in the wheels of someone else's friendly business.

Arriving in his bedroom neighborhood, Amin pulled over in a vacant spot by the curb and shut off the engine. His eyes were slipping and his body, already used to the seat, didn't want to get out of the car and walk up to that apartment building on the right, with only a heavy entrance door visible. But he, perked up, opened the door and left the car; walking around it, Amin moved toward the heavy entrance door, pressing the door-lock button on the car keys at the same time. When he reached the door, he opened it with a slight gesture and stepped inside.

The entrance was cold. The stairs went twenty-six floors above, identical to this floors – the first floor. The elevator did not work as usual – the cab's cables had torn and the cab had fallen down into the deep blackness. The light bulbs hanging from the ceiling burned dimly, warmly but lifelessly, calling after them. Amin walked up the stairs, shuffling his feet, dragging his feet heavy on the steps.

When he reached the fourth floor, greeted by the number «4» kindly scrawled with black paint, he walked to the black metal door, which gleamed faintly under the dim light. With a familiar gesture he fumbled for the keys in his jacket pocket, pulled them out, unlocked the door, and stepped inside.

His mind was preoccupied with thoughts of the past day – first a dilemma with one of the students in the morning, then some problems in the afternoon, and after that, the clingy but damnably attractive Vice Principal of some part trying to get him to come to her place for the evening. To get rid of them, Amin, who had already taken off and thrown his white shirt on the sofa, went to the kitchen, where he pulled out a cognac and a glass from a special shelf. He poured himself a full one, drank it in a gulp, and then poured another, but took it with him into the study.

There he sat down in a comfortable chair, looking at the things on the table and at the pictures and awards on the walls, drank some cognac, put the glass on the table and got to work. An hour had passed, and most of the documents had already been dealt with, but Amin felt sleepy – the distant northern fields called out to him, the beautiful shores suggested he lie down by the ocean and leave all his worries here in the real world. He didn't give in for a long time, but he soon bowed his head.

He was awakened by the vibration of the front door opening.

Amin woke up abruptly, as if he hadn't slept at all, as if he'd just closed his eyes for a few minutes. The clock read 2:32 AM. The cognac had long since evaporated, but my senses and feelings remained sharp. From the living room, through the ajar door, came the sound of slow walking. Sensing that a battle was imminent, Amin opened his desk drawer, drew his revolver, checked its cylinder and rose from the table.

He walked slowly to the door and stood on the hinge side of it, leaning against the wall – that way he would not be spotted before the needed moment. Now it was only a matter of time before someone showed up here, but for now Amin tried to calm his mind lest he make some fatal mistake that might draw the government agencies here. The curtains fluttered gently in the night wind, the office was eerily cold, and Amin's body sometimes shook under its influence.

The door opened slowly, and a black-clad shape stepped inside. The uniform was familiar to Amin – he'd seen rows of it, seen the faces of those who wore it – an absolute lifeless something, capable only of killing for a token fee, for the rest didn't really care. The shape lowered its weapon, leveled itself and began to look around at the table, which was piled high with various documents from the TSC. Meanwhile, Amin, aiming for the shapes’ head, slowly walked over and put the gun to the back of its head.

The shape slowly raised its hands. Barely turning its head, it saw the target, the one who was now holding it at gunpoint. Amin put his finger to his mouth, telling the shape to be quiet, and then pointed to the floor; the shape quickly understood and began to sink to the ground, but as it knelt, Amin hit it in the neck with the hilt, knocking the shape out. The body fell to the ground with a deafening thud. Amin took his rifle off the body and left the office. In the corridor, on his way back to the living room, walked a similarly clad agent – he was shot in the back of the head and taken off at once. Though the rifle was fitted with a silencer, the shot still rang out under the arches, complete with the falling shell on the laminate flooring. Sounds were heard in the living room, and then Amin decided on a crazy prank: he accelerated, jumped from the corridor, turning on his back, and, upon landing, completed the lives of two agents.

Those bodies fell with a rumble comparable to the fall of a stack of books, where all the books fell at the same time. Blood, the black substance of life, poured onto the parquet flooring. Amin's back didn't appreciate the prank, but he got up through the pain. Trying not to step in the pools of blood, he disarmed the dead men and stacked all their weapons in his storeroom. As the last gun disappeared into the blackness, he went back into the living room and began to think about what to do next.

The right idea came only after ten minutes of sitting on the couch with his hands clasped together and his elbows pushing into thighs. He found a bundle of big black trash bags and tried to improvise on the theme of body bags, hiding the bodies on both sides with those trash bags and wrapping a hiking rope in the middle to fixate the structure. After tying the last corpse, he began dragging them outside, where he placed them in the trunk of the car.

The total weight of the dead mercenaries was enough to make the car sag in the rear wheels. After closing the trunk, Amin got behind the wheel, looked around, started the car, and drove out of town.

It was 3:08 AM on the clock. Amin's face looked utterly lifeless. His hands rested weakly on the steering wheel, the sound of the calm ocean coming in through the open window before his blank gaze, watching the waves, glistening in the headlights, rise and fall sharply near the shore. He didn't want to get up at all – just as at his house, just as he had wanted to collapse on the steering wheel late that night and relax completely so he wouldn't have to think about anything. But the weight behind him, floating in his head, made him wake up, open the door, and leave the car.

Walking around the car, he went to the trunk and, reluctantly, opened it. Four corpses, wrapped in small bags on both sides and wrapped with twine in the middle, lay in the dim light of the only light bulb in the trunk. Slipping his hands under the uppermost corpse, Amin pulled it out, walked with it to the beach, and laid it on the cold sand. He did the same procedure with the other corpses.

The ocean became more turbulent, and that meant something – some message of bad news, like oranges in an old movie, but Amin did not give it much meaning or pay much attention to it, for he was too tired and his mind was empty. After looking at the black surface of the water, at the sky, just as black and indivisible from the ocean, Amin returned to his car.

There, pulling an empty bottle and a clear silicone tube from the passenger compartment, he closed the door and opened the gas tank. The tube went inside; Amin sucked the air until he could taste the gasoline – then he took the tube out of his mouth and shoved it into the bottle, and spat the gasoline out as best he could. After filling the bottle, Amin pulled the tube out of the gas tank and closed it.

Amin, after looking at the flammable liquid, screwed the bottle cap back on, got up, and moved toward the corpses. They were still lying there, each in its own place. The ocean was raging furiously, and the sky seemed blacker than usual. Opening the bottle, he doused all the black makeshift bags, covered with a quality rope in the middle, with gasoline. Discarding the empty bottle, already good for only one thing, he set the corpses on fire.

Bright flames in the night illuminated the large space around them. Up soon pulled acrid black smoke, invisible in the night. Amin doesn't know how long it will last, but he is willing to stick around to get rid of the bodies as quickly as possible. He watched and watched the plastic die, and then returned to his car to work out a plan. There, reclining in his chair, he fell asleep again.

The time was 6:57 AM. It was already slowly dawning, and in the dim light one could see the scene of the next crime. Amin reluctantly left the car and moved toward the burn site, where only bones and other unburned items remained. He rushed to the car for a bag and gloves, gathered up the remains, wiped up the sand, picked up the bottle he had left behind, and put it all in the trunk and drove home, back to the city.

The diner chosen as the meeting place was quite noisy, which was quite reassuring – no one would hear what Amin was about to offer him. There was a line at the cash registers and interactive monitors; not far away there was a group of people waiting for orders placed on their smartphones. People were eating and drinking and talking noisily, and the kitchen was flooded with sounds ranging from sizzling butter to the electronic sounds of some kind of notification.

Amin walked past the people like a ghost and sat down at an empty table. Looking at the time on the clock, he waited. In the atmosphere of the commotion, Amin and his empty table were like a bastion of salvation from a sonic headache. Amin himself didn't know much about such concepts, though he was interested in philosophy and everything around it. He had an idea in his head to ask a man about the best philosopher to begin with, but it had been stuck in his head for months.

He hasn't been able to sleep for three days. For the third twenty-four hours he had been losing his senses, waking up to some strange sound coming from the living room or from his office, where the doors were open. Every time he closed his eyes, every time he fell asleep – every time in the blackness of his unstable mind he always heard a familiar phrase, uttered by a voice he had long ago heard on the other side of invisible radio waves from afar:

— There is no room for two of us here, my friend.

And each time he wakes up, as if from some terrible nightmare. His body goes numb, but his mind doesn't draw any images, so it's not sleep paralysis-it can't be sleep paralysis if his very cortex is affected. He went to psychotherapists, but they could not give an intelligible answer, for they themselves were afraid of giving the wrong diagnosis, which would make Amin suffer even more. The only thing Amin could do was to be patient.

For the third day now, he drank coffee in the morning. This was the third day he was confused about things. For the third twenty-four hours now, he can't get a single lecture right. He's nervous for no reason, constantly looking back and forth at the closed door of the auditorium or at his students. He can't keep in contact with his loved ones and colleagues. He cannot concentrate on his work even at home, where a revolver lies in his desk in his office, seemingly the possible outcome of all that is going on. The only thing Amin could do was to be patient and hopeful.

He was interrupted from his thoughts by what he saw: a man entered the diner and walked slowly along the tables, looking around at the people around him. That man was familiar to him – the uniform, the way he walked, that nervous and devastated look, behind which there seemed to be nothing. Maxim was already fifth day drinking vodka in the morning, on the instruction of his brother Igor, and tenth – missing lectures in the agony of his own consciousness.

When he saw Amin, he greeted him by the hand and sat down in front of him. The general noise of the eatery allowed him to talk about anything his soul desired, be it forbidden fruits, novelties in art or nationalist movements.

— You are capable of lockpicking, are you? – he asked.

Maxim was taken aback, his pupils narrowed.

— Yes, I am, – he answered, a little nervously. – Why’re you asking?

— Here's the deal, – he began. – I need you to come with me to one place and pick the lock to one apartment. Simple, straightforward.

Maxim looked out the window to the outside, where he saw only cars and people unaware of what was going on inside, then turned his gaze toward the rest of the diner, where there was its own bubbling oily life. Realizing he had no way out, he twitched, folded his hand over his arm, and asked:

— Going back into the business?

— I found out that there was no point running from it, – Amin said. – So I decided to end it, once and for all.

Maxim was silent for a few seconds.

— And what I’ll get out of it? – he asked mercantly.

— Cash, – Amin said. – And I'll save you from the trouble in the college. Does that sound good?

Maxim was silent for a few more seconds. His nervous mind tried to properly process all the possible outcomes, but the words about money and solved problems overshadowed the process.

— It does, – he replied.

— Good. Do you have the right tools now?

— Of course I do.

— Then let's get moving, – Amin said and got up from the table.

They left the establishment. The hubbub continued as if they weren't there.

A huge bedroom community on the south side of the capital greeted another black car in a row of similar cars. Amin and Maxim left the car and looked around-it was exactly where they needed to go. Checking the maps on his phone, Cudda immediately went in the right direction, and Max had only to keep up with his fast, long-legged walk.

These residential neighborhoods are no different, and Max and Amin understand that. The same buildings, the same playgrounds and nearby parks, the same independent publishing houses, music labels, studios, micro-print shops, and other things related to culture and the arts, set up in the same apartments, with the same people who go to the same jobs and drink the same beer in the same eateries – simply put, the south is not and never will be different from all the parts of the capital named after the sides of the world. The wheel of routine has closed, and people have no choice but to live and suffer in it, trying to untie the noose around their necks and wondering whether it is worth breaking or tightening the knot.

Amin and Max had reached their goal. A huge, typical twenty-seven-story building towered as a ziggurat of northern urbanism and metropolitan Soviet brutalism. It was digging its roof into the sky like teeth, trying to tear it as the blunt obsidian needles of skyscrapers tried to do. Hurrying as fast as they could, but keeping a slow, pedestrian pace, Cudda and Maxim entered this building, climbed to the first floor level, walked to the elevator, and took it up to the sixth floor.

There, they stood at one of the doors they needed. It was no different from the door on the right and the door on the left (it was meant to be), but for Amin it was special – behind it was something that would start a new milestone in his life.

— This door, – Amin said.

Max nodded, sat down by the lock, pulled out his tools, and began to crack it. Meanwhile, Amin, with a glance at the empty staircase behind him, pulled a revolver from a holster inside his coat. Checking the cylinder, he stood against the wall and waited.

— What kind of revolver? – Max asked, continuing to hack away.

— Taurus Raging Judge, – Amin answered. – .454 Casull.

— The biggest gun? – Max asked, standing up and looking at Amin with a smile.

— I don't think it's the biggest, but it's powerful – and that's enough.

Max stepped back and gestured for him to come inside.

— Is it over already? – Amin asked Amin a little surprised.

— Yes, – Max answered. – Though I took them out one by one, it was quick. The locks are from honest people, in the end.

Amin thanked Max and sent him downstairs. Max, though he had a seething desire to go inside (he also had a weapon with him), he wished him luck, got into the elevator he had called and headed for home.

Amin pulled the trigger, opened the door, and took aim at the dark hallway. He went inside, locked the door, and walked deep into the apartment. The lights were off everywhere, the windows, still with their curtains drawn, were black with deep evening darkness. Nothing of interest was found in the kitchen, nor in the living room – there was a closed bottle of milk on the coffee table, and Amin, guided by a strange feeling, put it back into the refrigerator, which had quite a lot of different food in it.

Upon entering the room, the first thing Amin noticed about the room was the decorations. On the wall on the left was a black painting, either a still life or some kind of night landscape, or something Amin could not understand. The bed was cleaned as if it had never been slept on before; the closet was also clean – evidently the man who lived here was not in a hurry to get anywhere in life. By the right wall was a desk with a computer, over which there were shelves. The window, also uncovered with curtains, showed only blackness.

Amin walked over to the desk, opened its first drawer, and saw a stack of different documents. Confident of his long loneliness, he pulled out the stack and began to sort through it. Most of them were various reports, some manuscripts (a novice writer?), drawings, made with a fountain-pen in the hand of an obvious amateur – the highest skill was not noticed. There was nothing in this stack that I needed, so Amin returned it in its original form, closed the first drawer, opened the second drawer and took the stack out of there. All the documents and folders were mostly just paperwork, so Amin, with little hope, put the stack back and opened the third drawer.

There, under all the documents, lay a folder. It was hard, cardboard, black, and had "Golden Wing" written in white marker. This interested Amin, though there were two opinions in his mind: one – knowing already that there were manuscripts among the folders, this folder could be the same manuscript, and two – perhaps this was exactly what Amin was looking for. A sense of curiosity overcame him, and he opened this folder.

The reports, in veiled language concealing the fact of various horrible deeds, caught Amin's attention from the first lines. He read the lines and tried to find the meaning between them, turning the pages carefully, so as not to let his thoughts on the other side of the sheet break off. All that he learned from this one folder was enough to start a full-scale war.

He left the folder on the table, took the revolver in his hand, and sat down on the bed. Now he had to wait for the target to show up. And while she wasn't here yet, Amin thought – hard and hard. The information in the folder was not systematic – the dates on one page were not connected in chronology to another, and the reports themselves, which stretched only a couple of pages, were not linked in style: one was a listing, another was a description, and a third was a mixture of both. From the material received, a full picture emerged in Amin's mind, the starting point of which was in the nineties, even before the Las Void Independency Conflict.

The door opened ajar, and a shape stood in the doorway. A young guy, dressed in a sweatshirt, jeans, and high army boots. It was Yen, just the man Amin needed. Looking up and seeing him, Cudda stood up.

— Don't tell me anything, – Yen said, rather menacingly. – For what you came here, what you found and appropriated – I know all of it. Too bad, you've come a long way purely to come in for a disappointment.

— Why’s that? – asked Amin.

— I am a mediator in my brother's affairs. He entrusted the capital to me, not knowing what the fuck was going on in here. Apparently, he'll know now.

— Elaborate.

— My death won't do you any good, – Yen said. – What's more, it'll justify your death. There's no point in killing me, I could just go home.

— You could, – Amin said.

— And I’ll make it worth your while, – Yen continued. – The folder and what I know, but it's not written down anywhere, will be in your pocket. And the war you're planning will only last a few days.

— Hm. The human element, – Amin hinted.

Yen was silent, looked away, pondering his answer, and then continued:

— Do you think I would betray you?

— Of course, – said Amin. – You Russians only know how to do that. You sell weapons to some people, and then those same people die with those same weapons in the hands of other people. It all depends on the size of the fee. No more than that.

— Come on, – Yen said, smiling. – You really think I don’t get shit to do?

— That's not the point, – Amin said. – I've got a personal score to settle, and the list starts with you. The best thing you could do, Yen, is admit your defeat and think of the smile you'll give Yastreb in heaven.

Yen looked away for a moment, then glanced at Amin sideways and said:

— You go to hell, you fucking vigilante.

Amin didn't respond. Yen put his hand behind his back.

— You and Yastreb are not much different from each other, you know that? – Yen said. – I would ask you to leave me alone, but... you have your own plans. And so do I.

Everything happened in the span of four seconds. Yen pulled a gun from behind his groove and pulled the trigger. The bullet hit Amin in the stomach. With his back against the wall, he took aim and shot at Yen's head, whose body fell deafeningly to the parquet floor.

Amin took the folder and left the room. Walking out into the living room, he left the folder and revolver on the table and removed his pierced coat and shirt. Blood kept gushing out, no matter how much Amin clamped the wound on his skinny body. He went into the bathroom, and there he began the healing process. First he rinsed the wound. Then he used forceps to remove the bullet and most of the splinters. After that, he took an anesthetic found in a cabinet behind the mirror; there he also found bandages – first he applied a pad soaked in medical alcohol to the wound, and then he bandaged the wound tightly, in several layers.

While self-medicating, Amin felt different types of pain. They were sharp, aching, flaring, and slow. One pain, however, remained in his head, even after all the processes, even after all the pangs of pain remained only a nagging, unpleasant, but not interfering pain – it was pain for his loved ones. He knew what he was getting into, he knew it would start a series of events little controlled, but did it stop him? No.

His clouded mind prevented him from seeing the full picture. Not only is he reprisal for those who were once his friend or colleague, directly or indirectly related to the hotbed of all trouble – he is also trying to get his friends out of the same trouble. In his lucid mind, having learned this, he wanted only to score everything and let the unchanging Death come earlier by a few decades, but now he sees a unique opportunity to solve everything and at once – by their actions he and his friends can give a push to the state machine, which will purge its insides of the state apparatus and the body of the country from OCG, PMC, mafia and other organizations, in the pillars of which lies death and money.

With a little weakness in his body, he returned to Yen’s room, where he found a clean T-shirt. It proved to fit his lean body, and he slipped into it without any problem. In the closet he also found a black blazer, whose color was familiar to him. He put it on, too – the jacket was smaller, but that didn't stop him. Stepping over the dead corpse, which had already, for the third time, he took the folder, the revolver, his blood-stained clothes, and left the apartment.

— Boss, I have some bad news.

— What is it?

— The mission to intercept the target in the subway has failed – the target has been killed.

— What?! By who?!

— We don't know. The man acted professionally, killed with a precise hit of a thick knife in the neck. The man also shot an interception team of four – all with bullet holes in their heads and necks.

— So...

— In addition, the murder of Cudda Amin, our former colleague, was also botched. The team that went to his apartment never returned. No bodies, no identifying marks of any kind were found. It was also recently reported that Yastreb’s brother, Yen, had been killed in his own apartment – most likely by Amin.

— Good God... Okay, how many of us are left?

— According to the last census, there are... fifty-two people. Minus a group of six on special assignment. Minus eight men lost. That's not good.

— I know... All right, we'll make it out. Go... For fuck’s sake, where's my phone...?

...

— What do you want?

— I have a business proposition for you, Nechayev.

— Make it quick.

— I need your people.

— Oh. Alright. You’ll get them, but I know, that it means armed conflicts. And if that’s true, then it's on my terms.

— ...Alright. I’m listening.

— Among your company is creating a division of Neo-Spartans, commanded by me and me alone. Your role is to supply the division with equipment, weapons, and a month's pay. I hope I'm speaking in a language you understand.

— Look, who are you talking to right now?

— I am talking to a fucking psycho who wants to completely destroy the country by taking over the capital in order to take over everything so he can feel like... I don't know, like Putin. That's not gonna fly, buddy. These are my people. This is my responsibility. Do you understand?

— ...Understood.

— That's good! Tomorrow, in the center of the capital, at six in the evening, we'll discuss all the details.

— All right... You… bloody bastard, Nechayev... Whatever, I’ll make it count.

do not fret, my dearest friend as the serpent coils around your neck. while you are asleep, it tightens it's grip, so you wouldn't see the blood, so you wouldn't see the casings, so you wouldn't see the bullets fly, so you wouldn't see the bodies drop, so you wouldn't have to live through these maliceful days, so you wouldn't watch the death take its pay again.

To the Table of Contents. / To Ch. V. / To Ch. VII.

#jsab #just shapes and beats #fanfic #fanfiction #The Everlasting Downpour

[onenicebugperday]

Horsehair worms, aka hairsnakes or Gordian worms, Order Gordioidea, Phylum Nematomorpha. Found throughout the world.

Although alien in appearance, these worms are parasitoids of arthropods in their larval stage and are not harmful to humans or other mammals. Adult worms are free-living, meaning they do not require a host, and they do not feed. Most are only a few inches long, but in extreme cases they can reach over two meters in length while remaining only 1 to 3 millimeters in diameter.

Photos 1-2 by Andreas Kay, 3 by mingchungchiu, 4-5 by kai_pirinha, 6 by diego4nature, and 7-8 by robirwin

A short but informative video below! Just the worm, no injured host insect.

#animals #curators on tumblr #bugs #worm #horsehair worm #gordian worm #parasite #parasitoid #one nice bug #video

[alchemisoul]

I was casually browsing through a Reader's Digest Illustrated Reverse Dictionary from the 90's, as one does. As I flipped to this page, I got excited as this image was the first thing I processed. Before I realized I was looking at various diagrams of worms, I thought I had stumbled onto some form of knot magicesque sigils I was unaware of. The Gordian Worm's vibe is witchy af tho.

#gordian worm #knot magic #magic #magick #sigils #symbols #ritual #dictionary #illustrations #witchy af #semiotics #witchy #the craft #occult #esoteric #witch

[featherwurm]

Fun things I learned while working on Kingdom:

- There are SO MANY WORMS, there are at least 15 phyla which are colloquially called 'worms' (Thorny Headed Worms, Segmented Worms, Arrow Worms, Goblet Worms, Gastrotrich Worms, Jaw Worms, Acorn Worms, Round Worms/Thread Worms, Horsehair Worms/Gordian Worms, Ribbon Worms, Velvet Worms, Horseshoe Worms, Flatworms, Penis Worms, and Peanut Worms.) Long tube (sometimes with some other fiddly bits) I guess is just a really effective body plan!

- There's a lot of phyla with only very limited images or drawings of the members in it - much of the diversity at the phylum level is among very very tiny things. But lots of these animals have amazing lifestyles and adaptations. I got a little fanciful with a few illustrations - trying to draw something that felt somewhere between the distortions of the microscope and a technical scientific diagram.

- Gingko biloba is the only remaining member of it's phyla (ginkgophyta.) Remember that phylums can be huge and diverse - like chordates, that's most of the terrestrial animal life we're all familiar with (mammals, birds, fish, amphibians, and reptiles,) but the beautiful ginko is now all alone.

- Neocallimastigomycetes are functionally LITTLE TINY MUSHROOMS that live entirely within the guts of ruminate animals and help them to digest plant matter.

- The OCEAN, oh my god the ocean. I love the ocean and everything in it SO SO MUCH. I may have failed in my endeavors to become a marine biologist but my love will never die.

- Sago palms are extremely toxic, and yet humans have figured out how to eat them anyway.

- Classifying red and brown algae is just a fucking nightmare. Fuckin' love kelp though, I truly do.

- There are some REALLY weird plants out there. Like... super alien weird. Welwitschia and Isoetales look sort of normal at first glance but get real fuckin' weird the more you look into their phylogeny. Welwitschia has just two leaves it's entire life (they just keep growing and growing) and Isoetales are just... absurdly basal little plants.

- ANIMALS! Animal means so many things - so many kinds of lives, habitats, sizes, intelligences, life spans. But we're all animals and there all animals too - so many fine branches all from the same thing. Animal isn't just us, animal isn't just the lions and gorillas at the zoo, animal isn't just the birds and the bees, it's bigger and more complex and more varied than can even truly be imagined. There are things that live in thermal vents and eat sulfur, there are things that live only inside of other things, there are so many different ways to BE an animal. And yet here we all are, diverse and strange and beautiful.

#Kingdom #Biology #Weird Facts

[addoration]

prompt!! everyone around u is in love and ur lonely

didn't answer this last night because i got sleepy drunk, but i'm doing well now! so here goes!

rose tinted glasses but not of nostalgia; they're heart shaped and pink framed and everyone else is wearing them. look to your lover, your hands twisted in a gordian knot.

mine are in my lap, ringless and unmanicured, no one to impress and no one to confess to that i'm lonely and uninhabited. i'm ready to carve a hole in my heart for someone to worm into

and make themselves at home. but everyone's got rose tinted glasses for someone else.

send me poetry prompts!

#hope this is ok! #mine #my poetry #thanks! #asks

[elementalgod-aj]

Animal practice 42

Annelids

Clitellata

Grinder (Earthworm/Leech)

Polychaete

Splicer (Bristle worm)

Parasite

Pasala (Alpha Parasite)

Arrowhead (Arrow worm)

Gordian (horsehair worm)

Husky (roundworm)

Lori (loricifera)

Sludge (Mud dragon)

Linka (penis worm)

Slim (flatworm)

Valve (lampshell)

Ribbon (ribbon worm)

Wheel (rotifer)

#the watchful eye #watchful eye #my art #my oc #my ocs #elementalgod aj #aj the elementalgod #isle 0 #toonverse oc #o'kong family #neo demons #earthdemons #anthro allies #Worms #earthworm #leeches #bristle worms #parasite #Arrow worm #horsehair worm #round worm #loricifera #mud dragon #penis worm #flat worm #lampshell #ribbon worm #rotifer

[apprenticeofcups]

Could you do the main six + a "snuggle octopus" MC? Like, no matter what they ALWAYS end up tightly tangled with the person they're sharing the bed with when they're asleep. (No rush btw! Whenever you get to this is fine!)

🐙Main 6 + Snuggle Octopus MC

Asra loves how cuddly you are, and says so almost every other morning you wake up together. You can always tell you’ve started migrating over to snuggle him as you fall asleep because he’s stifling giggles in the pillow.

When you can get him to, Julian sleeps like the dead, so no matter how many times you shift to get the ultimate cuddle-position, you won’t wake him - and clinging to him like a lovesick koala is a great way to ensure he won’t try sneaking back to his desk.

Nadia isn’t usually a cuddly sleeper, not by preference, but by necessity - she drapes all her hair over the pillow and too much movement means she and her unfortunate sleeping partner end up wearing it. But to show how much she loves her snuggle-pus, she invests in a bonnet to keep it corralled so you can fall asleep tangled-up and unimpeded.

At first, Muriel has the hardest time falling asleep with someone touching him, so if he doesn’t nod off before you do, he might lie awake for hours. After a month, the pendulum swings, and he can’t fall asleep without the weight of you wrapped around his chest.

You and Portia are usually tangled-up long before you fall asleep - she’ll pull you into a snuggle almost anytime you occupy the same surface. Pepi loves to worm her way into the middle of the huddle - ‘til she gets too hot and starts peeping to be let out.

Lucio always turns into a ball 0.3 seconds after he falls asleep, and clings onto anything he can reach, so if it’s you, all the better. Sometimes it takes a few minutes in the morning to find your way out of the Gordian Knot you’ve made of yourselves, and you always wake up sweaty, but he never complains.

☕ Ko-Fi | My AO3 ☕

#the arcana #the arcana game #the arcana game headcanons #the arcana headcanons #the arcana main 6 #asra the arcana #the arcana asra #asra the magician #asra alnazar #julian the arcana #the arcana julian #julian devorak #nadia the arcana #the arcana nadia #nadia satrinava #muriel the arcana #the arcana muriel #portia the arcana #the arcana portia #portia devorak #lucio the arcana #the arcana lucio #lucio morgasson #count lucio #my headcanons #my requests #mod cups

[bigskydreaming]

I'm not sure if you got my request because i didn't had internet when i sent it, so i'll write it again xd Do you think Dick (and the batboys in general) are famouse like Bruce? Because in the comics there's not any clue about it, i've never seen anyone say something like "oh look! Its Dick Grayson!, y'know, Wayne's first ward/son And its a shame, because reporters would make such a hard life to all of them, it would maka a good narrative tool

Honestly, this is a prime example of that inconsistency I rant about, and also DC’s refusal to just COMMIT on even the most basic aspects of their universe like….uh…how many kids does Batman have. 

afhsahfklahsklfhal

Like, you would think that would meet the MINIMUM requirements of “shit you should probably have figured out and make sure everybody’s on the same page with” but DC’s like….nah, that’s not important.

So I mean…..I’m reasonably certain - like this is just my personal belief, but I’d put money on it being right, lol - but I think the primary reason there’s so little mention in the comics of how Bruce’s kids are viewed in the public eye/how much the public are aware of them (in the New 52, at least, as pre-Flashpoint there was a lot more plot around that kind of thing, especially back in the 80s and 90s)……

…is because 90% of the writers and editors have no clue either, and nobody wants to be the one to ask, and like, open that can of worms. I 100% think you could ask five different writers at DC which kids Bruce has OFFICIALLY adopted in this current continuity, and get five different answers, lol.

There’s been so much handwaving about Dick’s status ever since Spyral, and again - I think its because nobody bothered to think through the logistics of the Hypnos/global-mindwipe machine BEFORE writing it into the story, and then once it did occur to any of them to like….wonder just how specifically it worked, they were like, fuck it, better just be as vague as possible. So, according to Grayson, everyone Helena didn’t program into the exclusion list before the satellite was activated should have no recollection of Dick Grayson, which is why he was able to ‘go back to his old life’ and be Nightwing again, without worrying about his secret identity having been unmasked…..

But what does that mean for his official identity as adopted son or even just ward of billionaire Bruce Wayne? People can’t have NO memory of Dick Grayson and still remember that Bruce Wayne took in a kid named Dick Grayson. I mean, as far as I can tell, the overall consensus in the comics seems to be that after the satellite was activated, Dick just kinda started from scratch as ‘Dick Grayson’ like, he was free to be himself again, but it was like he was a blank slate/came out of nowhere as far as everyone else was concerned. But again, that means as far as anyone outside of their close circle of family and friends know….Dick Grayson is a non-entity to Bruce Wayne and the two have no history. 

Which I mean, is fairly shitty and you’d think if nothing else, there’d be massive story potential there for delving into Dick’s character and his relationship with Bruce and examining how he felt about ‘having his old life/identity back’….except with the caveat that as far as the world is concerned, his life and identity don’t and have never included his father.

Cut to DC: Naaaaaaaah.

But even WITH that, plot holes persist, and abound, because…..why didn’t the satellite erase the Court of Owls’ knowledge/memory of Dick? Even before Luthor gave Cobb those goggles and files to help him with bringing Ric into the fold, Cobb clearly was already stalking Ric and knew exactly who he was….the Court obviously already had that doctor in place while he was still in recovery…so, whoops. I mean, you could probably come up with an explanation about the Court, via their own tech and resources, having had some protections in place 24/7 that kept the satellite from affecting them even though they weren’t on guard for it specifically…..but again, Occam’s Razor….I feel like the real answer is DC just didn’t care enough to think things that far through. Especially since the average Bludhaven citizen, like Bea, at least didn’t seem totally blown away when Ric revealed to her that amnesia aside, he was supposedly some rich billionaire’s adopted kid….which again suggests that as far as the writers were thinking, people in general are familiar with the idea that Bruce Wayne has more than one kid.

Then you’ve got Jason’s whole situation, and to be honest….I really only have the vaguest idea what’s going on there, because reading Lobdell books is against my religion, and I am a devout and deeply spiritual person, as you all probably can tell. I mean, I know that there’s something going on where like, Jason had himself legally resurrected in the public eye and is openly referring to himself as Bruce Wayne’s formerly-assumed dead foster kid……but like, is that the official official word, or would other writers if you asked them say they’d been operating under the assumption Bruce had adopted Jason too at some point in the Rebirth timeline, or….idek, man.

I…..honestly don’t have the faintest fucking clue what to make of the many back-and-forth retcons about Tim and his parents and his official place in the Batfam/relationship with Bruce, and am actually slightly terrified of even trying to make sense of that clusterfuck of a Gordian knot, so my official stance on Tim is to just like….back sloooooowly away from the anthropomorphic-migraine-masquerading-as-a-backstory, without like….agitating it and accidentally setting off another multiverse Crisis birthed wholly from just that one all-consuming black hole of a retcon.

I mean, there’s a reason I basically just shoehorn all the kids’ official pre-Flashpoint family statuses into anything I write in Rebirth continuity, and that’s not just stubbornness and my refusal to play the “now this kid is adopted…now he’s not…now he is again….except he’s not….oh he’s adopted again…..oh wait now he’s not again" game. 

Its like. Also for the sake of my sanity and stuff.

(And also hahahahaha fuck you DC times infinity, every time you use the words “blood son,” or “real family” in a comic, or have one of Bruce’s other kids refer to Bruce as “your father” when talking to Damian, as if that’s not an utterly bizarre and roundabout way for any sibling to refer to their mutual parent and thus I j’ete REFUSE to acknowledge it as valid….ahem, anyway, my point is, every time they do that in a comic, I double down and headcanon Bruce throwing a random as fuck gala for literally no other purpose than to remind all of Gotham that he has half a dozen kids and they’re all better than everyone else’s. Ugh. Kill it. Kill the “blood son” nonsense with fire and lightning and also lots of stabbing maybe).

Anyway, that’s my official stance on DC’s stance on Damian in the books.

Then as far as Cass goes….ugh, her origins were pretty much utterly butchered by the New 52, which IMO has also failed to give us Cass and Bruce bonding and dynamics sufficient to Sate Mine Ire™, sooooooo…..I mean, my perception of the current canon is that Cassandra’s official status is “secret mystery foster child that nobody really knows about,” but because I do not care for that and there’s the whole not sufficiently sated ire thing I mentioned, I officially reject this canon and willfully replace it with pre-Flashpoint Bruce and Cass love and adoption. DC’s welcome to kiss my critically acclaimed hiney if I’m doing it wrong.

Which brings us last, but certainly not least, as its only this way because I go sequentially and Duke is still Shiny and New comparative to the others and will be until the next inevitable fostering/adoption/clone hi-jinks bumps him up the sequential ladder (except I randomly switched Damian and Cass around this time because LOOK I DONT MAKE THE RULES, THERE ARE NO RULES i hvea Adhd hiccup sob leavem e aloooone soooooob)…..

Duke’s official status, much like the rest of the Batkids, can be summed up as Honestly, I Really Don’t Have A Fucking Clue And Am Just Winging This Whole Thing.

I mean, there’s less inconsistency with him, due mostly to the fact that so few writers other than Snyder use him (boo, hiss, and not just because I hate having to give Snyder credit for stuff - look, I love his Duke, but I loathe how he writes Dami, its a thing, I just…don’t get me started). But what inconsistencies there are….well….they’re a bit glaring.

Basically one major storyline showed Duke as being an official foster kid/ward of Bruce’s and living out of the Manor with Bruce and Damian and occasionally Tim when he’s not off road-tripping around the multiverse….and then Batman and the Signal had Duke in the care of his uncle, who was stated to be his legal guardian and Duke was constantly sneaking out in order to meet Bruce in the special Signal-cave he built specifically for Duke to operate out of so he didn’t have to like, drive all the way out to the Manor to change just so he could then drive back into the city and patrol. And then Batman and the Outsiders just said fuck all that, here’s Duke and Cass hopping hemispheres with the Outsiders every other issue, so apparently nobody’s making unscheduled visits anywhere back in Gotham to make sure these two are where they’re legally assumed to be, which again, for the record is…..*error, source not found*

LOLOL and the really fun thing about this little back and forth is I’m pretty sure allllll these conflicting takes are all the work of the same writer. Like. GET ON YOUR OWN PAGE, DUDE.

Also, again I have to assume the “Can’t Be Bothered To Give A Shit, Or Maybe They’re All Just Really Bad At Logic” curse has struck again, because….uhhhh…..

….at no point anywhere in Duke’s stories have I seen Bruce or literally anyone else express concern about the fact that Duke living with Bruce as his official foster, like he definitely and clearly was at some point at least…..means that literally every single one of his We Are Robin friends who knows that he was taken in by the Batfam (and there’s several of them who know this)….like, by the transcendent properties of You Can’t Honestly Think They’re That Dumb, that’s a good five or six civilians out there who probably took all of five seconds to play connect the dots and figure out the Wayne family, having officially taken Duke in on paper…..is pretty likely the Batfamily.

I mean, I like all of Duke’s friends and would definitely headcanon/write them as all being trustworthy and able to keep this knowledge to themselves for Duke’s sake, if nothing else, but I mean, its pretty unprecedented for Bruce to out himself and all of his kids/allies by extension, to like, that many civilian teenagers all in one swoop….

…sooooooo, you’d think, AGAIN, logically, maybe, perhaps, this is the kind of thing that should be brought up in a narrative somewhere as a plot point worth delving into, y’know, just for shits and giggles and maybe a little bit of that whatchamacallit - oh right, character development, but.

Cut to DC: Naaaaaaah.

 *throws up hands and does the I Can’t Even Shuffle all the way home*

In conclusion:

DC is a mess. The official/public status of each and every Batkid is a mess. Except for Damian, the blood son, but we have that pencilled in on the schedule to be killed with fire and also stabbing, so he can get filed under ‘just a fucking mess’ with the rest of his siblings. Hashtag Solidarity.

I mean, I say just write or headcanon their official status however you damn well please, and it’ll STILL be more effort than I believe DC has put into organizing and staying consistent with all of this, and thus STILL make more sense than what we currently have to work with.

*Shrugs* If they don’t care enough to provide a clear canon blueprint to follow when mapping the Bat Family Tree, I can’t be bothered to care if the one I make up myself happens to contradict one single mention of one kid’s official status as claimed by one issue of one book.

Especially if it was written by Lobdell.

Jason’s just a foster son my ass. grumble mumble bitter vengeful swears and a pox on all DC’s houses. WHY DO YOU PEOPLE HATE ADOPTION SO MUCH, INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW AND ALSO FUCK YOU.