The Empty Queen: My Life Is For The People Of Naboo

on endlings, and despair

Hey, y'all. It's...been a rough couple of weeks. So, I thought--better to light a single candle, right?

If you're familiar with wildlife conservation success stories, then you're likely also familiar with their exact polar opposite. The Northern White Rhino. Conservation's poster child for despair. Our greatest and most high-profile utter failure. We slaughtered them for wealth and status, and applied the brakes too slow. Changed course too late.

We poured everything we had into trying to save them, and we failed.

We lost them. They died. The last surviving male was named Sudan. He died in 2018, elderly and sick. His genetic material is preserved, along with frozen semen from other long-dead males, but only as an exercise in futility. Only two females survive--a mother and daughter, Najin and Fatu.

Both of them are infertile. They still live; but the Northern White Rhinoceros is extinct. Gone forever.

In 2023, an experimental procedure was attempted, a hail-mary desperation play to extract healthy eggs from the surviving females.

It worked.

The extracted eggs were flown to a genetics lab, and artificially fertilized using the sperm of lost Northern males. The frozen semen that we kept, all this time, even after we knew that the only living females were incapable of becoming pregnant.

It worked.

Thirty northern white rhino embryos were created and cryogenically preserved, but with no ability to do anything with them, it was a thin hope at best. In 2024, for the first time, an extremely experimental IVF treatment was attempted on a SOUTHERN white rhino--a related subspecies.

It worked.

The embryo transplanted as part of the experiment had no northern blood--but the pregnancy took. The surgery was safe for the mother. The fetus was healthy. The procedure is viable. Surrogate Southern candidates have already been identified to carry the Northern embryos. Rhinoceros pregnancies are sixteen months long, and the implantation hasn't happened yet. It will take time, before we know. Despair is fast and loud. Hope is slower, softer. Stronger, in the end.

The first round may not take. We'll learn from it. It's what we do. We'll try again. Do better, the next time. Fail again, maybe. Learn more. Try harder.

This will not save the species. Not overnight. The numbers will be very low, with no genetic diversity to speak of. It's a holding action, nothing more.

Nothing less.

One generation won't save a species. But even a single calf will buy us time. Not quite gone, not yet. One more generation. One more endling. One more chance. And if we seize it, we might just get another after that. We're getting damn good at gene editing. At stem-cell research. In the length of a single rhino lifetime, we'll get even better.

For decades, we have been in a holding action with no hope in sight. Researchers, geneticists, environmentalists, wildlife rehabbers. Dedicated and heroic Kenyan rangers have kept the last surviving NWRs under 24/7 armed guard, line-of-sight, eyes-on, never resting, never relaxing their guard. Knowing, all the while, that their vigilance was for nothing. Would save nothing. This is a dead species--an elderly male, two females so closely related that their offspring couldn't interbreed even if they could produce any--and they can't.

Northern white rhino conservation was the most devastatingly hopeless cause in the world.

Two years from now, that dead species may welcome a whole new generation.

It's a holding action, just a holding action, but not "just". There is a monument, at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy, where the last white rhinos have lived and will die. It was created at the point where we knew--not believed, knew--that the species was past all hope. It memorializes, by name there were so few, the last of the northern white rhinos. Most of the markers have brief descriptions--where the endling rhino lived, how it was rescued, how it died.

One marker bears only these words: SUDAN | Last male Northern White Rhino.

If even a single surrogate someday bears a son, we have erased the writing on that plaque forever.

All we can manage is a holding action? Then we hold. We hold hard and fast and long, use our fingernails if we have to. But hold. Even and perhaps especially when we are past all hope.

We never know what miracle we might be buying time for.

Hello, OP here.

I didn't quite know how to feel about this post ad-on, since I wrote the post in a spur of the second, omg-I'm-so-excited-about-this-show flash. And the Palestine-Israel conflict is one I very much avoid, for a few reasons.

But I do want to say that I very much appreciate how @mo-mode puts an emphasis on seeing things from all sides. The chance that every person you disagree with is a monster is actually very slim, my friends.

I'm just not a friend of the internet and this website's quick hand at polarizing and simplifying complex topics.

THAT BEING SAID

Reblog with your fave illegal streaming website, y'all. Kick Disney where it hurts.

After tireless searching I've finally found an illegal website to stream Percy Jackson over and now I'm making it everyone's problem

TROPED Chapters

Welcome to TROPED Chapters, a brand new TROPED Multifandom Challenge!!! Everyone loves a good chapter fic, but have you ever tried writing one where you don’t know where the story is going? Can you write a fic that has tropes chosen for you without backing yourself into a corner? See if you’re up to the challenge and join us for Chapters!

HOW IT WORKS:

Multi-Fandom Event & No Sign-Ups Required! If you would like to participate, we’d love to have you! Just take a look at our prompt, pick your tropes, and get to writing!

Chapters Prompt! We’ve selected an overall Story Arc for you to follow which will span the three chapters of your fic! From there, in each round you must include three (3) tropes, one (1) we chose for you, and two (2) you select from our Trope Bouquet, which includes 16 Tropes! The theme is completely free choice, just make sure it’s from our list!

Write your fic in 15,000 words or less! You will upload your fic anonymously to the AO3 Collection linked at the bottom of this post. Make sure you put what your theme is and what tropes you used in your fic summary, or in the notes at the TOP of your fic, so we can keep our eyes peeled for them as we read the fic! (If you are worried the tropes/themes will spoil your fic, you may put them in the notes at the bottom, but please let us know at the top if you choose to do so, and be sure that all of your tropes and themes are in the same place!)

Read and Review! Once you’ve submitted your own fic, take a look at the others in the competition! Please try to read as many as you can! Take some notes, leave some kudos/comments for the authors, and help us vote on the winners! This is not a requirement for participation, but it is highly encouraged and helps make TROPED build a strong community!

Community Voting! The voting for this event will be pretty simple! We will keep a list of all fics submitted to the event, and then at the end there will be a voting poll! Voting categories are listed in the Google Doc, but the voting will include all fandoms together and will be based on the fic as a whole, and the USE of the chosen prompt! If you do not want your fic included in the voting, you can let us know, or you can simply upload your fic to our non-anon collection instead! We will still share it along with the other fics and it will be included in all masterlists! We will provide a link when voting begins.

For Round One, please write us a chapter that includes:

Chapters Overall Story Arc: ARRANGED MARRIAGE

Pre-Selected Round 1 Trope: MEET CUTE or MEET UGLY

Trope Bouquet: Select two (2) tropes per round from the list below. You can, of course, choose more than two, but only the first three tropes (1 pre-selected + 2 trope bouquet) you list will be included for voting. You will choose two new tropes from the Trope Bouquet each round so don’t use them all at once!!!

More in depth definitions of the tropes and the overall story arc can be found here! Please take a look at this list, as there will be extra information you NEED to know regarding how to use the tropes, plus all the rules, and if you have questions don’t hesitate to ask!

Timeline:

Writing Period: June 1st — July 11th

Round One

Writing Period: June 1st at 12:00am EST — June 11th at 3:00am PST / 6:00am EST

Voting Period: June 12th at 12:00am — June 14th at 11:59pm

Winners Announced: June 15th

Round Two

Writing Period: June 16th at 12:00am —June 27th at 3:00am PST / 6:00am EST

Voting Period: June 28th at 12:00am — June 30th at 11:59pm

Winners Announced: July 1st

Round Three

Writing Period: July 2nd at 12:00am EST — July 11th at 3:00am PST / 6:00am EST

Voting Period: July 12th at 12:00am — July 14th at 11:59pm

Final Results and Author Reveal: July 15th!

*All times are in Eastern Standard Time (EST) unless otherwise specified! Times are subject to change due to potential writing extensions.

RULES

Don’t forget the rules! Follow the overall story ‘theme’, and include ALL the tropes! You will be disqualified if you don’t! 15k word count max! Also, no rape. no incest. no underage. no negativity!

The General Rules for all TROPED Events can be found here!

LINKS

Google Document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/107nKA7LMJoBdgMqixeI_6s2aBitShVcfsSCMUQwisCY/edit

The AO3 collection can be found here, and the name of the collection that should be entered when submitting your fic is ‘TROPED_Chapters’!

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Troped_Chapters

Non-Anonymous TROPED Collection: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/TROPED_Non_Anonymous

Follow along here on Tumblr, the TROPED Twitter, the TROPED Instagram, or our Discord Server for more information on the event! We will release our prompts in these places and then everyone is free to start writing!!! We are super excited to see what you guys create!!

Don’t be shy! If you have any questions about this event, fandoms or pairings, or any other concerns please send them to our Ask Box or DM a Mod (@dylanobrienisbatman or @thelittlefanpire)! Happy TROPED Writing! We are so glad you are joining us for this challenge! xo S&B

Ada Limón, “To Be Made Whole”, On Being with Krista Tippett

Me, too! And you can't convince me otherwise.

She asked me if I miss her while she's on sick leave from school.

What do you want me to answer? I wrote a poem about you on the train heading home from your place after we binge-watched Netflix together. I check Whatsapp way too often, heart chipped a little more everytime you didn't reply just to completly heal up once you do. I miss seeing you in my peripheral vision when I look at the board. I miss sitting beside you in silence during break while you draw, eating my sandwich. I miss looking up and seeing you infront of my desk. Free periods hurt, cause I've never eaten the entire orange alone. I've always shared quarters with you.

Yeah I miss you. We're in high school, and my love is appropriately rediculous.

L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

it is november, and yesterday it felt like it was supposed to be snowing. in boston, november used a winter month, not a fall month. it is supposed to be chilly; rarely capping over 45F. it is a sweater-and-jacket month. it is a "maybe a scarf too" month. in my childhood, november meant blizzards and sleet.

it did not snow. tomorrow the weather predicts a high of 76.

i have spent so many years of my life studying the longterm possibilities of climate change - the culmination of capitalism wreaking havoc on the bodies of people, animals, plants - but every so often i am still shocked by something small and personal.

in a hundred years, when someone goes outside in boston - will they know the feeling of "snow in the air"?

i know it's a learned feeling, a sensation that maybe only longterm experience can teach. a few years ago, i was walking with my friend who had just moved up from the south. i said it smells like snow and she gave me this look like - what the fuck. i said it feels like snow too, which didn't help. she looked up to the bright blue sky and then back at me and then back at the sky. 12 hours later, we had 3 inches. you can just tell if it's going to snow.

except i can't tell, anymore. i stand outside in a tee shirt and watch my dog dance around a lake. we're in a drought and the skin of the water has peeled back twenty meters. the lake is tamed, quiet, puddlelike and sour. my pokemon go app warns there's a weather condition in my area.

my dog gets too hot from running and sits in the water and i want to laugh about his long frame and how awkwardly he sits - and i can't. some simian part of my brain is scratching the walls. it was supposed to snow. it was supposed to snow, but now it's warm instead.

during the last full solar eclipse, the dogs and the birds and the crickets went crazy under utter darkness. we laughed at them then, promising it will all be okay in a moment. but some part of me is still locked in that long night: some animal sensation.

something is wrong, my body says. i can't afford eggs or rent. i go outside to watch a sunset and listen to birdsong. i don't bring a jacket. allergies are killing me this season, allergies i didn't have as a kid. everyone comments that halloween has started to feel strange, offkilter. that it's hard having "holiday cheer." my body thinks it's april, and then it thinks we're in september, and then june.

something is terribly wrong, she whispers. go outside. it is supposed to be snowing.

Sometimes I wish we would start calling out the performative radicalism on this site for the poser bullshit it is. "Remember, it's always morally correct to kill a cop!" "Don't forget to firebomb your local government office!" "Wow, it sure would be a shame if these instructions on how to make a molotov cocktail got spread around!"

Okay. But you're not killing cops or firebombing government offices. You are posting on a dying microblogging website to a carefully-curated echo chamber that has radicalized itself into thinking that taking the absolute most extreme position on any subject is praxis but that anyone discussing the most practical way to effect actual change is your sworn enemy. You do not have the street cred OR the activist cred to be talking about killing cops, babe.