#BUUUUUUUGS

[arecaceae175]

Swamp Bugs: Bugs Not In Space And Not Quite On Land

Even MORE @heroesspirit bug fic because I absorbed Cori's bug special interest and I still cannot be contained

Summary: Cori takes Sky, Twilight, and Sailor to look for bugs. Tensions are high.

Notes: 1.9k, very light angst. Bugs. This is set chronologically before Land Bugs: Bugs Not In Space when the heroes are all together but the smaller groups are not friends with each other yet

Cori hadn’t touched a bug in six days. He was counting. It was nearing the longest uninterrupted bugless span of his life. The quest they were on was important, he knew that, but the other heroes were making things far more tense than necessary. 

He hadn’t had a chance to sneak off in weeks. The last time he touched a bug wasn’t even for fun; he just took a spider off of Kiri’s boot. He didn’t even get to figure out what species it might have been before he had to race to catch up with the group. 

It was far past time, Cori decided, to touch some bugs. 

Cori nodded to himself as he stood up. There was plenty of water nearby in the swamp. It would be a perfect opportunity to practice his aquatic insect identification. 

“Where are you going?” Kiri asked quietly. 

“I want to look for bugs. There’ll be cool ones next to the water,” Cori said. 

Kiri raised an eyebrow. “By yourself?”

“No,” Cori said. He turned and stepped over to Sky and Twilight, who were sitting near each other but far enough away to keep from being friendly.

“You have a bug net.” Cori pointed at Sky, then at Twilight. “And you’ve caught bugs before.”

Sky and Twilight glanced at each other, then back at Cori. Twilight nodded. 

“I do,” Sky said. 

“I’m going to look for bugs in the water. Do you want to come?” Cori asked. Sky’s ears shot up and he grinned. 

“Sure!” Sky said. 

Twilight’s expression wasn’t as excited, but his ears were perked curiously. He glanced around the camp, making quick eye contact with Taylor, then nodded. Twilight stood and reached his arms over his head to stretch. 

“I could use a walk. Haven’t found bugs in a while, either,” Twilight said. 

Cori grinned widely. “I’ll be right back.”

Cori went back to Kiri, only bouncing a little bit, and smirked. “See? Not alone.”

Kiri frowned. “One of us should go with you.”

“You don’t like bugs.”

“Alright, fair. Take Four, then.”

“Four’s fixing chainmail.”

Kiri sighed and crossed his arms. He glanced at Twilight and Sky then back to Cori. Cori glanced behind him as well. Sky was frowning and Twilight had his arms crossed with an angry expression on his face. They were not helping his case.

“I’m just going to the edge of the water. I’ll take my knife. You’ll hear me yell if anything happens,” Cori promised.

Kiri looked deeply displeased. “Fine.”

Cori smiled as he strapped his knife to his belt. Kiri didn’t smile back, but his frown did fall from his face. A neutral expression was a win, in Cori’s mind. 

“Ready to go?” Twilight asked. He glanced at Kiri warily, then focused on Cori. His ears were twitching uncertainly. 

Cori nodded and turned to lead the way towards the swamp. He glanced back to make sure Sky and Twilight were following. They were walking an awkward distance apart from each other, but there were following. Cori would take what he could get. 

“Wait!” 

Cori stopped and turned around. Sailor was jogging to catch up with them. Cori glanced towards the group and saw Kiri and the soldier both watching Sailor closely. 

Sailor stopped in front of Cori and huffed to catch his breath. “I’m coming too!” 

“Do you like bugs?” Cori asked. 

“Uh, yeah, sure. Bugs are great,” Sailor said. Cori wasn’t great at interpreting tone, but he could tell Sailor was not as enthusiastic about bugs as he was. 

“Uh huh.” Twilight crossed his arms and stared down at Sailor. “You sure about that?”

Sailor scowled at Twilight. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe a certain soldier wants you to keep an eye on me,” Twilight said. 

Sailor’s glare intensified. “What, you think I can’t make my own decisions? I’m not a child, you know.”

“You are, actually,” Sky said. 

Sailor whirled on Sky to respond, but Cori stomped into the middle of the group. “If you’re gonna fight, leave. I’m going to find some bugs.” 

Cori marched towards the water, not bothering to turn and see if anyone was following him. The awkward silence in his wake was practically tangible. Six steps away, Cori heard light footsteps following him, then heavy ones, then the third set. 

Good , Cori thought; more people meant more bugs they could catch. He didn’t know where they were, exactly. The swamp was similar to the Castor Wilds, but more… damp. Many of the group complained about the dampness of the soil and the air. Cori didn’t like his things getting wet, but any discomfort he felt was far outweighed by the potential for bugs. 

Sailor caught up and fell into step next to Cori. 

“So… what exactly are we doing?” Sailor asked. 

“Looking for insects,” Cori said.

“Right, right.” Sailor glanced over his shoulder then back to Cori. “And… what exactly are we looking for?”

“Any insects. There will be a lot of them here. Lots of insects use damp areas or standing water to lay their eggs.”

“Gross!” Sky said happily. 

“There’s also a lot of amphibians and freshwater crustaceans in swamps, so you have to make sure the things you find are insects,” Cori continued. 

Sailor’s brows were furrowed and he was frowning. “How do I do that?”

Cori’s steps faltered. He caught himself before he fell, and whipped around to look at Sailor, who had his hands out as if he was going to catch Cori. Cori ignored that. 

“Do you know what an insect is?” Cori asked. 

“Of course I know what bugs are.” Sailor huffed and crossed his arms, but his ears turned pink on the tips and flattened against his head. 

“Hm.” Cori realized Sailor might not know how to identify insects. He had no idea how someone could go through their entire life without wanting to learn about the technical definition of an insect. 

“Well, you’re lucky I’m here. I know everything there is to know about insects, so I can teach you everything,” Cori said. He bounced excitedly as he walked.  

“Insects are invertebrates that have three main body parts: head, thorax, and abdomen. They also have six legs that are attached to the thorax, two antennae, and zero or two pairs of wings, and two compound eyes.”

“Uh,” Sailor said. 

“They’re usually pretty small, so it can be hard to see the different parts of their body without a magnifying glass. Look for little creatures with six legs.” 

They reached the edge of the water in the swamp. Cori immediately sunk into a crouch and peered into the shallow water, searching for eggs or other signs of insects. 

“Did you know insects are the only invertebrates capable of flight?” Cori said without taking his eyes off the water. 

“Huh. I didn’t know that,” Twilight said. 

Cori turned and beamed at him. “It’s true.”

“Cool,” Sky said. He pulled out his bug net, which was huge, and went a few steps away to search the trees. Sailor crouched down next to Cori and Twilight walked in a slow circle around them.

The buzzing of cicadas was a pleasant backdrop to the bug search. Cori swayed gently side to side as he surveyed the water, happily humming along with the cicadas’ song.

A water strider glided across the surface of the water. Cori gasped and put his hand down next to Sailor to get his attention. 

“Look,” Cori whispered as he pointed to the water strider. “That’s a water strider. It could be a number of species, most likely Aquarius remigis . Can you see the six legs?”

“Woah.” Sailor leaned forward to get a better look, and his ears were perked forward towards the swamp. “Yeah, I can see it! How is it doing that? It’s standing on the water!” 

“They’re small enough that they can float. Their legs also have hairs that help them to not go under the water,” Cori explained as he bounced on his toes. 

“How do you know all this stuff?” Twilight asked. Cori glanced up in surprise; he hadn’t heard Twilight approach. He was too focused on the bug. 

“I like bugs,” Cori said. “I’ve read almost every book about insects in the library. And, now that Zelda can let me in the Royal Library, I have even more insect books to read! I haven’t gone through all of them yet, but I’m going to.”

“We learned about insects in school, but not this much. I’m impressed,” Sky said. 

Cori smiled up at Sky. He was starting to like Sky, even more than he did when he found out Sky has a bug net. Anyone with a bug net was cool, unless they used it to hurt bugs. Anyone who hurt bugs on purpose was decidedly not cool. 

“Will they all be on top of the water like that?” Sailor asked. 

Cori bounced to turn back to Sailor. “No! Most aquatic insects will be underwater, actually. Some insect larvae have gills, like fish, but most actually still need air. Here.”

Cori scooted forward until the tips of his boots were just shy of the water’s edge. He gently reached into the water and put his fingers on a moderately sized rock. Carefully, so he didn’t accidentally turn the rock and squish anything, he lifted the rock out of the water and turned it over. 

There were three small sections of tiny rocks stuck to the bottom. Cori pointed to those first. “These rocks are caught in the saliva of larvae. It could be a few different species, probably caddis flies.”

Next, he pointed to a round insect nearly flattened to the rock. “This is a water penny beetle larva! I’m surprised to see one here, actually. They usually like to be in the shallow sections of moving water. The water here must be really clean.”

As he spoke, he pinched the bug very, very gently until it released its hold on the rock. Cori slid it onto his finger and held it up in between himself and Sailor so they could both look at the bug. 

Twilight hummed and looked out over the pond. “There’s a small stream on the other side, looks like, so the water is cycled.”

Cori glanced up to see if Sailor liked the water penny, but Sailor had turned to glare at Twilight, who crossed his arms with a smirk. Cori frowned as Sailor stood up and put his hands on his hips.

Sailor took a step away from the water towards Twilight. “I bet I can find more bugs than you.”

“No chance.” Twilight shook his head.

“Whoever finds the most bugs before the sun sets wins,” Sailor said. 

“Uh,” Cori said. He didn’t know why they had to make this a competition. Searching for bugs was supposed to be soothing and fun.

“How do we keep track?” Twilight asked. 

Sailor pointed at Cori. “Cori can judge whether it's a bug or not.” 

“Hm. Yeah, alright.” Twilight nodded.

“You’re all going down,” Sky said. 

Cori shrugged. He didn’t want to compete, but he couldn’t complain about getting to see all the bugs. “As long as I get to look at bugs.”

“On three. One, two, three!” 

They raced off. Sky went for the trees while Twilight and Sailor went in opposite directions along the pond. Cori carefully put the rock back in the water exactly where it was before he picked it up, then huffed a sigh and let his head fall onto his knees. Traveling with so many other people could be stressful. 

At least he got to look at bugs.

[textingtroublesanswers]

Hercules (2) is watching Bug trying to budge her. Hercules (2) lightly slaps Bug’s hand, arguing in Gremlin he (Scout) was a safety hazard to the babies and was not permitted on the premises and was ONLY!!!! Allowed to visit Sox. Under supervision. Last time he nearly stepped on the Gremling (not Sox) and it took a LOT of soothing to calm that mother down. Hercules (2) unfortunately was the ONE who HAD to calm that mom down.

She’s basically got a bit of a grudge. And she’s wanting an apology for that. She points angrily at Scout, eyes locked on Bug’s as her glasses slip down for her to see her pitch black eyes. She’s not moving until he apologizes. Not even Heavy can budge a gremlin exerting it’s full gravity on Scout. It’s a gremlin defense mechanism. You can’t be yoinked or stolen if you’re too heavy to move by a predator! If he apologizes I’m front of her and queen and is more careful the queen may permit him back inside. Under supervision.

Bug just tilts her head at Hercules, completely confused. She can't speak gremlin.

"Buuuuuuug. Heeeeeeelp meeeeeeee."

[mod2amaryllis]

hi I wanted to doodle bug but she turned into a simple dragon 👉👈

OHHHHHHH MYYYYYYY BUUUUUUUG!!!!!!!!!!

[mthevlamister]

bug decided to sleep on my shoulder earlier . I don't know why it's not particularly comfy JXBDNSM

Buuuuuuug 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

Also two cuties alert send tweet

[munson-blurbs]

TUI 14

Harris: *distracts Sweetheart with tickle monster*

“Ms. Sweetheart?” “Yeah?” “I love you.”

Me: 🥹

Harris: “I don’t know why Daddy says it’s hard to say ‘I love you.’”

Me: HARRIS, YOU RAPSCALLION!!!

You think he’s going to kiss you again, but he just gazes into your eyes. “Shit, you’re so fuckin’ pretty. Couldn’t stop thinkin’ about you today.” *Swoons* 🫠

“How was work?” you ask Eddie, grabbing a napkin from the pile in the center of the table. It’s a simple question, one that people ask each other all the time, but it stirs up a warmth inside of him. It’s you asking him, fostering a domestic routine that he could follow for the rest of his life. He’d walk through the door of your house, wiping his shoes on the welcome mat you two had picked out together. The kids–Harris, plus another Little Munson or two–would practically knock him down trying to greet him, and he’d engulf them in bear hugs before reaching out to you, kissing your forehead with a murmured, “there’s my girl.” Bug….. who gave you the right????

“he shakes his head, a forlorn look on his cherubic face. “No, I couldn’t catch any in time.” 😂

The guys and their guy talk. 🥹

“No fancy diploma can teach us how to stand up for ourselves, or how not to take shit from people, or how to be a dad,” Jeff pipes up from where he’s standing. “We learn from you, man.”🖤

“That’s because we’ve never seen him in love.” 😩💗

As soon as Eddie’s vision clears, he’s on his feet and pulling his best friend in for a giant hug. When he steps back, he realizes that he and Jeff sport matching misty eyes. “Dude, you’re officially a dad now. You have a daughter!” UGH I JUST LOVE THEM YOUR HONOR

“I’ll keep that in mind,” you tease, unaware that your words have Eddie’s heart skipping a beat at the idea of you bearing a little Munson. 😩🫠

ETTIE😍😍😍😍😍

BUUUUUUUG!!! YOU DO THIS EVERY TIME!!!!! 😩 The band back together?? Harris being wing man?!Both of them realizing they’re in love!? Jeff and Viv having their baby!? 😙🤌🏼 I love them so much and you make me love them even more every week! THEY NEED HAPPILY EVER AFTER ASAP!!💗

B, your reactions and commentary motivate me like you wouldn't believe.

Such a big theme in this series is teaching and learning from others. While Ms. Sweetheart teaches Harris reading and math, he's teaching her and Eddie how to be vulnerable with their feelings.

I always knew I was going to get the band back together, but I didn't know how. It kind of just...fell into place. I hope it wasn't too cheesy. I didn't want all of Eddie's growth to only be shown around Ms. Sweetheart; he had a life before her and he'll have a life after her...

LOVE YOU!

[trashyswitch]

Love buuuuuuug

I hunger for content

I feel like I've read almost all of the lee!dca fics (I know I haven't but Tumblr is broken) and I don't know how to operate AO3 to look up more)

:<

Hi Drew! XD

Good news for you, Drew: I was given a fanfic prompt by someone else who wanted Sun & Moon content too. So I will be getting a new one out eventually. As for right now…I don’t know how to help…sorry, love.

❤️

[canochula]

Keep living beautiful soul

you buuuuuuug bro

I know it’s you lmao how you gonna talk shit and then message me shit like this then go back to talking shit

[vexter-the-comedian]

"Say uncle then, Ticke Buuuuuuug!"

*One day, Vexter was chilling on one of the many couches in the hotel lobby when he saw two kids outta the corner of his eye*

*He was having a smoke when he spotted the two kids, quickly whirling his head around in confusion* "What in the-..."

[weepingcanines]

You found a false potato beetle! :D they're usually found farther south, such a good little boy, well, unless you're growing potatoes that is!

Ohhh, thank you I forgot about my new friend :D that is strange, I'm not in the south but there are farms outside town so maybe he came from there! Still a really cool find ^^

[newgameplaybyplay]

The voice line for Crashbug Z was unneccessarily sexy.

BuuuUUUUg~

Like no. Stop.

[rametarin]

The problem with Eat Da Buuuuuuugs.

It’s not that insects aren’t a high protein, nutritious meal. Because, objectively, they are that. The problem also isn’t “high class vs. low.”

The problem with Eat Da Booooooooogs is that it’s based on moralism and oughts. You OUGHT to brush your teeth, so we invented a state-mandatory toothbrush; it now records the number of times you’ve brushed your teeth and rates how you did it and informed your insurance provider. You OUGHT to have, but you didn’t, so now the state will punish you with higher personal fees and lower how much it will help subsidize the cost, and state subsidies make medical and dental care affordable, so the end result is you pay a literal fortune for not doing what the state thinks you OUGHT.

There are people alive, right now, that for religious reasons, pseudo-spiritualist reasons, moralist dogmatist reasons, absolutely abhor the consumption of red mead and the use of plains and grazing lands, for grazing and feeding animals for food.

Some abhor it because they believe that private property should not exist, and they do not feel people should be able to own livestock; that ‘society’ should own all livestock and be forced to share it. Whether you’re a productive member, or you just sit on your bed playing The Sims and doing ketamine all day. Guess which of the two likes this idea more.

Some abhor it because they’re exisetnailly terrified of life and its consequences. They crave some sort of logic and reason to their existence and a life after death, and aren’t satisfied with the Christian version, so they drift back and forth between their own schizophrenia and the world’s pseudo-spiritualism/New Age Enlightenment, “I take a little bit from all the popular religions and choose what my personal bia- I mean, sixth sense, validates as reasonable to me.” So they dislike the idea of eating red meat, because they don’t want to die and come back as an animal for slaughter. They’re terrified that in a past life or in a future life, they’ll be the meat and suffer for someone elses enjoyment.

Some are spoiled, out-of-touch moralists that believe it’s based on “suffering.” They morally believe penning, owning, feeding and then consuming animals for their flesh is ethically wrong, and so have decided that shouldn’t be a thing other people are allowed to do.

Some are simply shills for Russian or Chinese or Brazilian cattle grazers and want other western countries to adopt anti-meat eating policies under the beliefs that lack of access to red blooded animal protein will reduce the size and strength of their enemies, as well as give them the market on beef, pork and chicken exports to other countries- both legitimate and contraband meat.

Some are simply uppity futurists that believe for humanity to experience a, “global, social evolution,” we have to give up the personal private means of owning and producing anything and turn it over to a central authority that manages that and distributes resources accordingly. They don’t like meat eating, because it’s messy and requires a lot of trained, knowledgeable people to make the food. If everybody just ate plants, they wager, they could grow more in bulk and not only secure where the food comes from through controlling arable land for growing food, but control everybody dependent on the food.

Some are trendy know-nothing, “environmentalists,” that will hop on whatever poorly informed bandwagon that touts itself as progressive. Just, the sort of soy sop that will scream about loving science one minute and then ignore where the cloth medical mask says, on the fucking box, “it won’t prevent viruses like COVID-19.” But still wear it and goose step around demanding you wear it to show your patriot- I mean, to show you believe in THE SETTLED SCIOOONCE. These ones believes that cow farts and burps are extremely detrimental to the atmosphere in the form of methane produced, as well as their production of CO2 from breathing and to a lesser extent, living, dying and excreting.

The problem with that is that cows, chickens and pigs are also part of the carbon cycle, and as far as CO2 production, agricultural meat is kind of.. benign. Meat eating does not affect the CO2 cycle directly. You can argue that transportation of it might affect some, but if you switch out gasoline and diesel for electric vehicles, suddenly red meat drops to virtually nothing in the CO2 department.

And then if you count the methane emissions, well, we have workarounds to virtually eliminate cow, chicken, pig, goat and all major red meat food gasses.

So CO2 outputs and methane outputs can drop to virtually nothing, we can clean up our agricultural sector into non-problematic in any way. To where any argument that growing animals for food has any effect on climate change, at all, just becomes an bogus lie from someone hellbent on using the institutions of our society to make cattle, sheep and pig farming, legally impossible.

And ultimately, why?

Because you can grow more bugs in a smaller space on shittier diets? We already have meat alternatives.

The biggest argument for bugs as food is you might be able to grow more of them in space for cheaper and take them further. That’s it. A million bug buttholes still produce noxious clouds of nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide and methane. Leafcutter ants down in South America make bacteria filled piles that rival human wastewater treatment plants, for example. They still emit the same noxious gasses that animals do.

And when it comes to methane production, cows don’t hold a candle to the amount of negative atmospheric effects that rice farms do. Are we going to tell Asia, “no more rice,” because the global effects of climate change? It makes no fucking sense to single out cows, sheep, pigs and chickens as even relevant sources of these gasses, where even IF we can deal with every conceivable complaint or concern, people still just want you to no longer be allowed to grow them and just EAT the BOOOOOOGS.

I’m not opposed to crushed up insects as another alternative protein. I am absolutely, 100% opposed to vegetarians or vegans or fabian socialists trying to get the government to subsidize this source of protein, demand that every taxpayer put forwards money to public schools to provide the bug pattys as their source of nutrition (if only by not just the factually reduced cost but the suddenly subsidized captured market that is school lunch budgets and mandatory purchases), and either charge cattle and beef plants more as a “luxury tax” or punish them for being, “dirty, environment destroying” sources of food.

These people are not content to leave you alone to the things you enjoy, you have to be financially and economically incentivized to give them up, institutionally punished, or effectively give away your opportunity for a brighter future if you persist in consumption and traffic of them. Eat Da Boogs is about whether moralists are allowed to use the institutions and the legal system to enforce subjective, preferential things on other people for bogus reasons, and if you can be compelled to do someone elses, “right thing,” or what they think you OUGHT to do.

So. I’m not against bugs as a supplemental nutrition source. I’m against uppity vegans trying to make the government subsidize it and violently take over every single niche, both economically and through government regulated FIAT to eliminate the one held by beef, sheep, goat, chickens and pigs from our agricultural sector and culture.

Once humans are no longer allowed to grow animals for food, and they’re all effectively killed and disappear, there’s no undoing that. That culture will disappear. And that’s ultimately what they’re counting on.

After that, all they need to truly force vegetarianism on “society,” is eliminate the legal growth of insects as a food source for the same moralist precedent reasons as they deemed red blooded animals to be no good as food or agriculture. With no remaining alternative but to try and domesticate other animals.

The Bugs are about more than crushed up insects on a patty. They’re about using shitty false pretenses to eliminate choice from you and take agency away. It’s not about not wanting to eat bugs, it’s about wanting to eat pork and beef and chicken and the existence of an alternative emboldening them to try and ban those.

[crapula-estatutario-nobinario]

BUG BUG BUUUUUUUG

second bug vid! this is from the valentine's card prompt in pondponies froooom 2023 actually! hot damn its almost been two years of bug dance?

[ficmachine]

BUUUUUUUG I JUST READ THAT TIME OF YEAR AND IT WAS SO AMAZING I WANNA CRY BECAUSE OF HOW WELL IT CONVEYED THE SADNESS- 10/10 MUCH GOOD MUCH PAIN

THANK YOU!!

Like I said I have a LOT of feelings abt the whole 'Bonnie goes MIA' 'Bon was last seen entering Gator Golf-- Monty decommissioned him' thing and like.. :( no. let's not go with that.

Originally the rq was "what if bonnie came back all beaten up " headcanons but uh-- yeah, I accidentally went off around the 3rd paragraph fjdjf. BUT the said request is also queued! :3

I also passed out for the day around 7pm since I got up at 6am. So uh. Its midnight here, I'm picking my friend up around 2pm. It I have some more time to write before then 👀

[elliottgodoffuckinurmom]

M gendr is mulicolred buuuuuuugs

[sxmethingbreaking-a]

//that regina’s mother arranged a marriage for her with a man twice her age whom cora almost married is not what was problematic about that if you judge by medieval standards.

the problem was cora was abusive and did not have regina’s best interests at heart, and that once married regina was treated like an ornament and not a person. also daniel was killed. 

top scenario? problematic by modern standards, but not by medieval. bottom? problematic regardless.

see the difference?

[frogitivity]

Buuuuuuug! Show!! Face!!!

I look like a rat rn bc it’s Cryptid hours