#I JUST WANT TO TALK ABOUT HOW COOL THE ECOSYSTEM OF RAIN WORLD IS

[death-by-moth]

The paper that I’m writing is about the history of a specific game genre. I love talking about games but this essay is like pulling teeth. I just need to get to the part where I talk about Rain World and I’ll be good to go. I just need to actually GET THERE-

[saturncoyote]

Yooo someone else that doesn't like saint's whole deal. I always felt like it just didn't fit with everything rain world had been up to that point. Imo Rivulet should've been the last scug in the timeline, it would've been a much more powerful way to close this world's story...

Plus it feels nonsensical lorewise? Even if all the information you had was from Saint's campaign, it doesn't make sense that they can just forcefully ascend any living creature and it has seemingly No Consequences. And, the iterators and the ancients tried SO MUCH to figure out how to ascend without creating echoes. Then Saint pops up and oh it turns out that this is the specialist little guy in the world and they can help ascend everybody :)!!!

Moon and Pebble's dialogue in Rubicon is great. It really put it into perspective just how impossible their task was. Rubicon itself was cool too! But everything else was just.... eh. I have no issues with them getting happy endings, but you're definitely right on the fact that them just randomly getting ascended is just such a slap on the face.

Sorry for ranting in your inbox I have Opinions about Saint and I haven't seen ANYONE else that dislikes their story.

No no no don't apologise ! I've been wanting to talk about my feelings about Saint for SOOOO long and i'm so glad i'm not the only one who feels this way about it !

Honestly i think Saint's campaign would have been perfect if they just... didn't have the ascension powers, that we were just yet another slugcat but in the very far future.

The worldbuilding of everything getting colder as the iterators start to fall is genuinely super interesting to me and it's SO neat to see how the world has changed because of it, it really hammers it in that the iterators have been alive for so long that they're basically part of the wildlife now even if they think they're above it, because when one species goes extinct the entire ecosystem suffers and that's exactly what happened, it's SO cool and it's yet another factor that shows you that these man-made gods were never above anyone else in the grand scheme of things.

I think it would have been way more impactful if we really were just yet another slugcat, one that has evolved to adapt to the cold, one that has nothing truly special about it outside of the fact that we're alive and thriving, much different to the iterators who are starting to malfunction and fall, in the end the "lesser beings" of the world outlived the gods.

[devil-acid]

Well I have a question-

I would like to know what is Rain World ? No cause I never heard of it before and it seems cool... I'm just interested... Totally not omw to another hyperfixation, nope haha...

Okay maybe I am

im sososo sorry for the late answer I thought i already answer this

OKOK SO WHAT WE START OF

its a survivor plataformer (? the game is very weird it has a bit of everything, you are a slugcat in a very very VERY dangerous ecosystem where you arent supposed to be, what does it means, CONGRATULATION YOU ARE IN THE BOTTOM OF THE FOOD CHAIN

so you objective is to go back to your home, but... this game is incredible hard, That's why I don't recommend it to many people, and why... well not only the fauna wants to eat you and the flora too but also your game will never be the same, let say you got eaten by a lizard, you wake up again and go to the same room where you die, guess what, the lizard isnt there!, maybe now there is a centipide, or another type of lizard or even nothing, all the fauna this game have their own personalities and encounters, the ecosystem of this game is very alive, lizards sleeping or hunting for food, some animal are scared of other animal or others are very territorial, so maybe everything will be scaring at the start but more than you learn how every animal behaves then more experience you get

and dont let me talk about the lore... because who ever write it, got some fucking edible weirdweedshit and not only that but also give it to their friend group and a monkey and start wrting whatever their eyes were seeing at that moment , the lore is very complex for a game where you are trying so hard to no get eaten

without mention the BEAUTIFUL PIXEL ART THIS GAME HAS???

[thehappiestgolucky]

I, for one, would love to hear you talk about monster hunter. *Hands you one "free rant about monster hunter" card*

You have genuinely no idea the beast you just unleashed but i am taking this card in my mouth and tearing it like a rabid animal

Monster Hunter - despite being very well known in Japan, still feels like a hidden gem in the western world. And I get it - its a hard game for beginners to get into because of just how many mechanics there are and especially when I first discovered it back in like 2012 ish. It also wasn’t well marketed. In a time where everyone sung nothing but praises about Skyrim - I found a game that genuinely changed my life. I mean that so literally.

I had practically gave up on art and things that made me happy - and whilst I still have pretty intense depressive episodes - I nearly quitted art altogether back then. You can thank Monster Hunter that I’m even here being able to ramble about it.

The games breathed a life into an ecosystem that I had never really seen done in games before and after - the only current contender being Rain World. I’ll be blunt - I don’t like Skyrim, which made me so sad as a kid. The combat is clunky and I was bored so quickly with the lack of coolness from the dragons. So to see what Monster Hunter brought in such a variety - made me want to art again. Every creature is thought out in both individual and ecosystem - how they interact with other and how they adapt to their habitat. And some designs are fun, cool or downright scary - and each one fights like you would expect it to.

My first Monster Hunter was 3 Ultimate on the 3ds - after seeing one of the adverts on the TV featuring a Brachydios chasing down hunters down a volcanic cavern - cornering them. Little me was in such awe - it was the coolest design I had seen in ages. I couldn’t get many games but I managed to get that one after pestering my mum a lot - and I’ll be honest I was fucking terrified at first! but then I got better and understood it - started just fighting the monsters. Its an experience I’ll never forget. When you spend nearly the entire 50 minutes you get fighting an absolute tank of a monster because you don’t have the right equipment - but you keep going even when you run out of healing items because when you do manage to win its a rush that I still have never felt in any other game. It both rewards and punishes risks - it entices you to grind and prepare and throw that all out the window.

I’ll be the first to admit Monster Hunter has flaws - especially the game I first got - but they’re flaws that keep getting sorted out with each iteration of the franchise. For all those flaws you battle through to see and feel the grit and beauty of the game - the brutalness it offers but the rewards when you each and every time make it step by step.

I felt a rush finally beating the Lagiacrus that terrified me, I was grinning stomping on the Brachydios that dominated the trailer, the awe of the Caedeus in a unique and almost somber fight against an ocean god - and the fear, terror, adrenaline, frustration and euphoria of solo falling the Dire Miralis, a living volcano that boiled a sea by its presence. And beating an Alatreon is still such a difficult, nervewracking task. But you still try. you may lose, but you try again.

It’s a game with memorable and beloved characters - full of life and fun, jokes and genuine touching stories hidden behind simple interactions. Each receptionist that you get the quests from have their own unique personality and goals that you learn from passively just doing the quests - 3 Ultimates guild receptionist always pulling out her hand written book of monster information basically boiling down to “Oh thats awful, well good luck!” or even just “Whoops nothing here! Dont die!” is genuinely so fun and engrossing than any tragic story for a quest giver can give to me. And bro - Monster Hunter is not known for its story or characters, it’s known for its monsters and gameplay and rightfully so.

I know the complaints of Capcom - but as a FPS disliker I can firmly say they just don’t fucking miss with combat. The giant Great Sword feels clunky and meaty - and landing a hit with it feels like you’ve torn a chunk out of the monster. The small lathe Dual Blades feel like the risky weapon they are, sacrificing protection for raw DPS that can double for status effects as it quickly repeatedly applies them. The newest weapons added being the Insect Glaive and Charge Blade being such unique mechanics that through iterations of games still hold their light.

And the base mechanics of these weapons are hard to learn they are - you only realise how many hidden and complicated mechanics and combos there are after so many hours of playing. You will never steamroll Monster Hunter on your first game - but the more you do it later games makes you feel like the veteran you are, adapting to the new mechanic whilst having the basics down. Its a learning curve each game has actively tried to make easier and easier to overcome.

That’s another thing about this franchise that I adore - they iterate each time, trying new things with each entry to both make every one feel unique from the others despite sharing the base mechanic each time, and trying new things. 3 Ultimate had underwater combat, which was received poorly, and as much as I want it back for its unique cast of monsters - and to bring my beloved Lagiacrus back its full glory, I know why they’re hesitant to bring it back. 4 Ultimate focussed on a mounting mechanic - the Insect Glaive was created with that in mind. It was received well but informed it was overpowered. So it stuck around for Generations Ultimate but that wasn’t the main mechanic of Gen, Generations introduced Hunting Styles - anime power moves basically. And they were fun as hell. In World Iceborne they introduced a new style altogether - a basic slate to show the new polish of the franchise. The art style was still there - the iteration brought the franchise to a new light. Hunting styles vanished in replacement of the Grappling Hook thing - which was uhh mixed. In the latest entry - Sunbreak - they mixed the grappling and hunting styles together in such a unique and fun way - introducing a new way to explore the world and use your combo knowledge to really dominate a hunt.

They try - and god when they do it well they do it well.

Monster Hunter was not my first game ever. That was Pokemon Pearl. And whilst that means the Pokemon franchise does hold a gem in my heart - I’d be dishonest if I didn’t mention Monster Hunter Stories - a spin off to Monster Hunter I didn’t see coming. Its everything I wanted out of Pokemon. Its everything I still want out of Pokemon.

And the first game was basic - it had a fairly generic but heart warming story and the characters still shone as fun as they always have. Reverto my beloved.

But then came the sequel. I didn’t believe we’d ever get one because the first game flunked in the west.

And just like each iteration of the main franchise before - Stories 2 did exactly that - change. Be better, learn from previous mistakes and change. You could bring in your knowledge of the main games to fight the monsters - you can build your team in any way you wanted - and the story matured with it. I urge every disheartened Pokemon fan to give the free demo on the Switch a shot. Its so worth it. Its the one I recommend to newcomers BECAUSE its so much more accessible and you never have to play the main games to adore the nature of the franchise. Even watch a Kinship move compilation if nothing else - its everything I wanted Z moves to be and more.

I will say - it isn’t a game for people with flashing problems or camera issues. Its unfortunate, that it limits a bunch of people despite the settings in place that aim to reduce that. But if you can handle it I urge you to give the free demos a shot. You might not like it - you might find it’s not to your tastes or you don’t like how it plays. And that’s fine. Games are for the people it appeals to. Monster Hunter simply appeals to me.

Look at the monsters, watch the ecology videos on youtube. Its wonderful, its goofy, its serious. Genuinely seriously look at the MUSIC. There’s a reason Proof of a Hero played during the Olympics. Listen to it now/lh

The community is… alright. There’s a larger amount of gamer bros unfortunately but some are gems. Hell, the official Twitch livestream gaming each week is really fun and wholesome! I just listen to it when I’m doing things because its just people! Playing a game!

Overall, its just a game I hold so dearly to my heart. It’s creative, the devs care so much and it shows through every piece of art, each monster, everything that this franchise is. Its love. Its nature. And its wonderful.

[horce-divorce]

I keep flirting w the idea of resin and going back to "I wanna make dice" but no. just. no no no. I do want to make dice but It's not happening. Every time I start to think about it again I see some humbling shit about microplastics and suddenly desperately want to repent my sins and never touch plastic again.

I will use the rest of the resin jugs I have now and then I Might sometimes use UV resin as an accent on other artwork, or occasionally cast specific pieces. but I'm retiring the whole idea of Being A Resin Artist. It's cool and fun and I can't fucking keep doing it.

anytime I have to throw away something that didn't turn out, any time I have to use the Dremel or sand down the edges of a new piece, it makes me absolutely sick to my soul what I'm doing. Like I actually honest to god cannot live with myself as a fucking plastics manufacturer. I can't do it. I live on the shores of Lake Michigan and every time I rinse off a sanded down piece of resin im literally dumping plastic directly into that lake. That's disgusting. That goes against everything I've ever fucking believed since I was a tiny little child.

I still can't bring myself to call art resin "evil" on par with industrial plastics manufacturers, but every day I look at how many things around me are already made of plastic and aren't broken down yet- packaging. the handles on brushes. the handles on drawers. phone cases. shoes, tires, clothing- and I think about how much microplastic is already in our fucking bodies, and in the bodies of newborn babies, and in the bodies of fish in the sea, and in the rain. and then I think about how much more is out there waiting to break down, and I wonder, is the plastic in the ecosystem now just the tip of the iceberg? Even if we stopped using plastic globally tomorrow, how much more is still out there, in storage, unused in the basements and closets of our homes-- or currently in use!!-- patiently waiting to turn into microplastics hundreds of years down the line?

and then I look at the shit I'm making with resin and sure it's cool. it's very nice stuff. but absolutely none of it was fucking worth contributing to that. None of it. Not for a moment.

Yes, there are certain types of art you can only make with resin. It has a really cool effect on anything you put into it. It's super useful as a sealant. And for some things, plastic is the ONLY substance we can use for that item. Some things NEED that kind of packaging- notably medical supplies- but there's plenty of certain artwork you couldn't make without plastic, too. I hate the idea of a world without sopopomo's resin sculptures. Like, this is some of the coolest shit known to man, LOOK AT IT??? Im also a fan of those big log-resin tables, and like, those surf boards like rusted indigo does. I wouldn't dream of asking artists like this to stop using this medium, especially when they've clearly mastered it.

But your choice of material does end up saying something in the end. Thinking about the source of your materials and inspiration is part of the artistic process, but I really don't see any other resin artists talking about this... (Probably bc they stopped being resin artists if they felt this way, ig?) I mean I've seen some talk about the health hazards for YOU, because resin is also a freaky scary substance to fuck up with and it can burn your skin and give you lung issues and shit, in addition to being THE most harshly unforgiving art medium I've ever encountered.

But it kinda makes me feel insane? To be the only one wondering about this? Like the art you can make with resin is so beautiful, but it comes at SUCH a steep and ugly cost- and not just to your own health but to the environment and people and animals directly around you (you really need to have proper ventilation and full PPE to work with resin. and even cured resin, though nontoxic, can hurt you. Ever gotten a paper cut from freshly-cast plastic? It fucking SUCKS).

And it's so contradictory to me?? bc so many resin artists market themselves as like these witchy, down to earth, inspired-by-nature type of people, who are selling art to the same crowd. Myself included! There is enormous irony in saying "I love nature :)" and then encasing it in a vacuum sealed toxic plastic tomb. This was not lost on me personally, but I seem to be the only one who wants to like. Talk about it. Or address it as part of my artists statement, even. I feel crazy for it!!!! :/ I'm literally not even saying we should stop using resin as an art medium. I am licherally about to go pour some lmfao. I'm just asking like. What does it say about you as an artist-- what statement are you making with your art-- if that contradiction itself is the very approach? I don't know. I don't have an answer to that question and personally that makes me wanna back off, that's all I'm saying.

Like it's not really a moral judgement on other resin artists. I'm not saying all resin artists should want to quit. I know that EVEN COMBINED, all the individual resin artists in the world couldnt produce more trash than Nestle if we tried. this is about me, not about you.

It's just, after my friends supported me SO much in opening my Etsy shop, there's understandably a lot of questions about why I stopped posting/listing shit. it was admittedly going very well.

I just dont feel good about helping Nestle produce more trash lmfao! I don't think they need my help!

Cus again, who's paying the true cost at the end of the day? It's not just the monetary cost of the resin. If we're paying for Nestles & cos pollution, who's paying for mine? My lungs? My family's lungs? My cats, if they were to ever be exposed or get hurt on resin scraps? The wild animals and plants of this place I claim to love so much, who are just swallowing my garbage whole??

Like nobody else has to consider that if they don't want to. But that stuff matters to me. And it's worth so much more to me than a bunch of plastic keychains and shit that won't even sell for enough to buy me a week's worth of groceries.

Cus I see all the trash *I* manage to produce, as just one guy. then I think about, what about all the unused, unsecured resin in the world from people who didn't research proper disposal? From corporate manufactures who didn't care about regulations? What about all the uncured liquid components that never got disposed of properly! What about when wildlife inevitably gets into all that shit someday?

I walk along the beach and I pick up discarded scraps of plastic and broken beach toys in my spare time. and these days I think, "in 50 to 100 years this is exactly where all my lovingly crafted hard work will end up. with someone just like me picking up the pieces of trash on the beach." that's actually why I called my Etsy shop Rats Trash Stash. It was cheeky, and more about my skill level with resin than anything else, but the more I thought about it, the more it was eerily on the nose.

so anyway. y'all aren't my Instagram followers so you don't even know what I'm talking about and this means nothing to you lmfao... but it kinda sucks that resin as an art form kind of only became so widely available in the same breath as "we need to drastically reduce our plastics consumption."

Maybe in a world where every single thing isn't manufactured in the cheapest most toxic possible way, maybe in a world where corporations were forced to take responsibility for their garbage- maybe in that world, plastic has a small enough impact overall that it wouldn't tear me up like this to do resin art. but we don't live there. and I can't keep doing this shit, I'm literally losing sleep over it.

Anyway I'm writing all this bc in order to finish using said resin I have to go pour some. And it's just turned into this whole Thing now every time I get an idea I wanna pour, I have a whole ethical dilemma to work thru first before I can bring myself to mix a batch. So this is me attempting psyching myself up to go do that lmfao. 💀 I have a journal to finish.

But on that note, Ive actually super enjoyed making the journals and it's inspired me to get back into papermaking and bookbinding, so I think maybe I'll keep doing journals even after I put away the resin for good. We'll see. I dislike the idea of giving up resin tbh but the alternative seems much much worse.

[semifinel]

February - 2023

Games

Disco Elysium- I’ve actually been slowly going through it for over a year (I would play for a few days and then take a break for a few months and then forget where I am and restart). However I finally finished it and I can very easily say it’s one of my favorite games ever. The writing, the style, the music- what’s not to fucking love.

I could talk about this game for hours and I have actually done that enough to convince friends to play it as well. But I probably can’t say anything that hasn’t been said before me.

Great game- I might be in love with Kim kitsuragi.

Rain world(?)- to be honest I haven’t played it (yet?) but I spend way too much time watching gameplay of it and videos about it, went into a deep dive in the wiki. This world absolutely fascinates me, the ecosystem is just wow- even though it seems like a very difficult game I might actually get it one day.

Decide to include it cause it’s my list and I make the rules, also it ate a chunk of my month.

Monster hunter rise- this is my second time trying to get this game and last time I (apparently) quit before even going on a mission. To be fair it was a combination of my own stupidity and the game’s absolute horrible tutorial that made me drop it so fast.

However given a second shot I’m already having more fun, flipping and riding and monster hunting.

I have no idea if anyone ever cared about a character in this game but the monsters are cool and I love them lots.

Why is there a tower defense section is beyond me- I never liked any kind of tower defense, but this is very much the wrong game for it.

Can’t wait to try a hunt with friends- I heard it’s awesome.

Start again: a prologue- a delightful lil rpg that made me feel a lot. I love time loops as a concept already and this was executed so well- I will cry about it.

Can’t wait for in stars and time!! I need more of this cast and world.

Lookouts- another game I’ve been making my way through oh so slowly, no reason here since it’s not really long. It’s a visual novel and I have trouble focusing on reading, that’s my main issue.

However I’m happy I played it- trans cowboys on opposing sides falling in love and find a way for them to have a life- I am the target audience. I love them.

Hue- sure was a puzzle game. And it was a nice one, pretty sure I got it for free and I mostly used it as something to play while I listen to podcasts. It’s cute and not very long and the puzzles were nice.

Shows

Mob psycho s2- still doing my rewatch, still love my sons.

Darry girls s3- finally got around to it, honestly liked it less then the other seasons however it was a nice end to the show as a whole and I’m glad they wrapped it up nicely.

Animation vs Minecraft- what if I told you the animation you used to watch on YouTube as a child kept going on while you looked away. That there is now a storyline spanning several hours which is very neat and dear to my heart.

How simple are your blorbos? Mine are literally just different colored stick man (they are my sons and I love them very much).

I want everyone to watch it, you can’t understand how hard it goes in the final episodes you don’t understand ahhhhha.

Podcasts

Something rotten- did I start this podcast just cause I wanted more Jacob Geller? Yes.

Am I happy I did that? Also yes.

I do not care even a little about the games they talk about but it’s still fascinating to hear them talk about them (along other kind of related topic)

Personally never heard of Blake Hester before but glad I know him now.

Can’t wait for next season where I might play along since I have one of the games in my library for some reason.

Etc?

The prince by Abigail throne (philosophy tube)- so like one of my favorite trans creators writes a play and uploads it in full- I had no doubt it was gonna be good.

Love the characters, love the themes, and the setting (of being stuck inside a play) is very fun.

But man do I not understand Shakespearean speak but that’s more of a me thing.

Felt a lil cliche/sappy at times but it was cute so I had no problem with it.

[constellarations]

moon's wane - reki x gn!reader

reki's feeling down and you comfort him.

pairing: reki x gn!reader

warnings: sad reki :(

notes: hi

gift for: @hpalways

Reki was acting strangely today.

Actually, he’s been strange for the past week. Week! Why a week? Uh, you weren’t sure.

You wondered if he was possessed. Kyan Reki, a literal skateboarding-fanatic, had suddenly stopped skateboarding to school. Was this what parents called a phase?! An era, even?

He was unenthusiastic, and even when you offered to go skating with him, he declined and said he was busy.

Busy doing what? You munched on an apple angrily. Sure, you didn’t confess to Reki yet. And suuure, you had no idea if he liked you back or even cared about your feelings, but—!

“[Name].”

Okay, honestly, you didn’t even know if Reki was into you. His love for skateboarding probably overpowered any inch of… existence… that you had up in his (tiny) brain.

Silence.

And not to mention the fact that the two of you shared like— zero hobbies in common! What does writing and skateboarding allude to? Uh… poetry about a board? Hello?!

“[Name].”

You took another bite out of your apple, questioning the meaning of life and whether the way Reki spared you a glance for approximately 0.628 seconds meant that he was in love with you.

“[Name]!”

You flinched. Looking over to your side, where your ear was getting yelled at, you were met with the sight of Langa…

… Who had a very unamused expression.

“Did you have a fight with Reki?”

You were offended momentarily, taken aback at his sudden question.

“No?”

“You sound unsure.”

“I didn’t talk to him at all!”

“When was the last time you talked to him?”

Are you a therapist? A detective, even? You sweatdropped, unsure of how to answer.

“I don’t know… yesterday?”

Langa looked surprised. What was he expecting? For you to not talk to Reki for weeks? As much as you wished you could do that, Reki, unfortunately, had some kind of magnet around—

“So he’s sad because of another reason.”

“EH?! Are you saying he’d be sad because of me?”

Okay, now you were actually offended. Did Langa think Reki and you had some kind of bad blood? Hello… that’s a Taylor Swift song! Not your relationship!

“I don’t know.” Langa shrugged. You almost wanted to strangle him, but alas, you were not here to kill pretty boys. “He just seems… off.”

He does. You agreed silently. You were so used to a flamboyant and sunshine Reki, it was odd to see him so down in the dumps. In all honesty, you didn’t even want him to be down. You wanted Reki to be happy.

“I’ll go talk to him!” You stood up with newfound determination. Langa, on the other hand, could only watch you with his usual confused deadpan.

“[Name]-chan, do you even know where he is?”

You deflated slightly. If this were a K-Drama, you would’ve known. Ah, what was the title of that one show? Where they have this little alarm in their head when they come close to the one they love? Yeah, that was what you wanted to be. Though, if you were near Reki with that ability, you may have gone mad due to the repetitive alarm of your mind.

“No… I don’t. But I can find him! Just watch me!”

Langa let out a puff of air, mumbling something along the lines of “no thank you.”

A tick mark appeared on your forehead. The Canadian boy was lucky that he was cute, if he wasn’t, he would’ve been six feet (under)!

And then, you ran off. Leaving a very indifferent Langa and a bunch of questions sprouting in your mind.

Usually, you would find Reki somewhere like a skatepark— but obviously, he was possessed or whatever— so he wouldn’t be at such a place.

Your brain then became the size of the galaxy. His house! You made an abrupt turn, running for your bike that was parked before swiftly hopping onto it, pedalling away to the boy’s address.

Okay, actually, you were no stalker. So you had to pull your phone out to get directions… but let’s pretend that you knew based on instincts because of your undying love for the red-haired boy!

Coincidentally enough, there was a silhouette standing right outside the boy’s house. Squinting, you could barely make out the faint hue of crimson, matched with a very unfitting frown.

Reki. You pedalled a bit faster, desperation rocking each time you did. He’s sad? Why? He seemed to be looking quietly down at his skateboard. The scratches on the bottom represented all of his hard work, and yet, he didn’t look proud.

Finding your voice, you called, “Reki!”

You smiled brightly. It contrasted his solemn look as he glanced up at you instantly. Slightly, you could make out his lips curving up. Somehow, it managed to make your heart beat faster.

When Reki frowns (which was very rare), you would smile. If you could, you would give him every single smile that you’ve ever shown. All of them, any of them. You’d smile for him until your lips could not do so anymore.

Because whenever you were sad, he was there for you. It was only fair to do it back to him. If it were nature’s ecosystem, you supposed that Reki would be the rain and sun, giving you time to flourish. And in return? You’d promise to take care of this grand Earth while he cultivated it.

When did I suddenly become a poet? Your hands subconsciously braked, you suppose it was muscle memory. Docking the bike before hopping off, you walked slowly up to the boy with a small grin.

“[Name].” He seemed relieved when he saw you, and for a moment, it made your hopes fly high. It felt good to know that you were not the only one who was ecstatic over such a brief meeting.

“Want to walk around the town? There’s a new boba place that opened up! We should go together.” You decided to take his mind off of whatever was bothering him. You were no therapist, per se, but it was a start.

And surprisingly, Reki accepted your offer. Weirdly enough, he turned around to his porch before dropping off his skateboard. It confused you a bit— no, tremendously.

Deciding that the sport was the source of his worries, you decided not to pry. I’ll ask later.

With a warm face and a racing heart, the two of you walked off in the direction of the shop. It was odd not biking and him skateboarding, but a change of pace was nice every now and then.

“Hey, [Name]...” Reki kicked a pebble. You almost felt bad for the tiny rock. “Have you ever fallen behind in something you loved?’

Your eyes widened before your mind drifted off. Many times, actually. You were not invincible or a character that was protected heavily by plot-armor— you were just you… kind of average, kind of dumb, but at the end of the day, failure was common, wasn’t it?

“Yeah,” your voice quieted down, and for a second, Reki panicked.

“Sorry! Was that too blunt—?! I’m really sorry!”

You smiled.

“Don’t worry about it, Reki.” You could feel your face get hot, even under the cool Okinawa breeze.

“Actually, I fall behind a lot.” Looking down at your feet, you kind of wanted to sink into the floor. This is embarrassing! But seeing how distraught Reki was, you supposed that giving up your pride would be worth the smile he’d wear after.

“But everyone has different goals and minds. It’s not fair for me to compare myself to others…” You were tempted to give Reki a look as his lips seemed to be quivering.

“Hey, [Name]...” He spoke, stopping abruptly on the sidewalk. You paused, glancing over at him slowly.

“Can you… l-look away, for a bit?” He stuttered, face somehow turning red even under the dimming light. You wanted to question why, but the expression he had and the way his arm rubbed his eyes was enough of a response.

“Sure.” You turned around, refraining from doing the opposite and holding him while he cried. His sniffles grew louder and louder, even when he was making such an active attempt to dwindle them.

“I… I just…” His breath was shaky as he seemed to choke on his own words. “I don’t know what went wrong… what did I do?”

You did nothing wrong. You stayed silent. The male seemed to not need words of reassurance, instead, he only needed a listener.

“He started after me… b-but now I’m just a n...nobody. He’s so much better than me, in everything, anything.” He cried, sniffles turning into hiccups. Don’t cry. You wanted to turn around, but that would be a violation of his request.

So you stepped back. One, two. Counting, you finally felt a wall of fabric. The image of Reki’s yellow sweater popped up in your mind. Cute, you mused. He still wore it in times like these.

You could feel his breath stifle once your back met his. With the two of you facing away from each other, the warmth from his hoodie flourished like ink in water.

“Why do you skate, Reki?” You gazed at the sky. The moon is pretty tonight. The stars too, but right now, the stars reminded you of tears.

And it was then you realized that Reki was not the sun or the rain. He was the moon. Supportive, bright even in the darkest of times, and hidden. Reki was hidden behind prodigies like Langa and Miya, but even so, he was essential.

What would the sun do without the moon? Who would the sun step back for to lay down the burden of giving light? The sun gives for the moon to take, and the moon takes for the sun to give.

If you had looked, then Reki would probably be crying stars. Constellations would be trickling down his cheeks, and maybe, you could make out polaris with it. He could paint the galaxy with him and himself alone, he could do so much, and yet, he was not the sun.

No, he would never compare to the sun. The sun was a completely different essence in itself. It would be unfair to hold Reki up to Langa and expect them to be the same.

Reki was silent. You supposed that in this trek of inferiority, he had lost that essence— that galaxy. What was the reason he skates for? Why did he spend so many hours getting bruises and scratches?

Why did he do so much and expect so little in return?

“Because it’s fun,” he said confidently. If the moon was the sun, then it’d shine so brightly. If the moon was the sun, then the world would never have time to sleep. There would be no way to see the stars, or the constellations in the sky, or Venus and Mars.

With those three words alone, you could feel Reki’s breath speed up. He turned around, resting his hands gently on your shoulders as you could feel his smile alone.

“It’s fun! Skateboarding is fun! It can be done anywhere, anytime—” His voice cracked due to just having cried, and you swore that fumes escaped his ears. You wanted to laugh slightly at his embarrassment, but decided to be benevolent and stay quiet.

“... and can be done with the ones you love.”

You froze. Love. What a strong word, what a broad word. What is love? What does it entail? How can one person want to devote their entire life to another? It was strange.

But you suppose that love is Reki. He is love, he is someone who you’d think about the second you woke up. Was that cheesy? Yes. But when you were a kid, you used to think that the moon was made out of cheese— so it works out. You were quite the poet, Shakespeare kinnie.

“Is that so?” You pretended to question, but Reki knew that you were just saying that to say it.

Reki was an anomaly. As much as you knew about him, and he knew about you, you never seemed to understand him. If it were anyone else, you were sure that they would not recover from a slump with just three words.

But Reki was not anyone else— he was not a nobody either. Reki was the moon and the definition of love, he was sunshine even though he was unappreciated. He was everything and anything.

It was strange, though. You two were only teenagers, and yet, you could envision a whole future with the red-head. Unrealistic. You wanted to scold yourself, but you couldn’t bring yourself to.

“[Name],” Reki called, and this time, he spun you around. He averted his amber eyes from your own irises, a light pout dusting his lips.

“Do you want to… skateboard with me?”

You sweatdropped. What a weird way to confess. Though, you had just concluded that Reki was an anomaly— so this was not that strange.

“Is that your way of asking me out on a date?” You smirked, but that wasn’t enough to mask the way your eyes widened in shock. You were both idiots, but you supposed that wasn’t a bad thing.

“No— yes! Yeah? Wait—” Reki short-circuited, unsure of his own choice of words. Now, he really was reprimanding himself for being such a dummy.

“Relax.” You patted his shoulder, smirk turning into a goofy smile. “If it is… then I accept.”

“R-Really?!” His mouth hung agape, and you could only deadpan.

“Were you expecting me to say no?”

“Well.. I wasn’t really expecting to get this far!” He managed to laugh, even with tear-stained cheeks and reddened eyes.

“Idiot.”

“Hey!”

[fishmongeringstudies]

fourteen: waiting on the balcony for an angel to swoop out of the sky and lift you into their painted ceramic arms, you brush your hair out of your face and send a text to your ex-lover

the other day i went on an impromptu walk in the woods with a friend and, after emerging from the other end of the canopy of trees, drenched in the sweet orange glow of the evening, we sat along the path in front of the soccer field and, fiddling with a stem of grass he had found at his feet, he said: i want to make more connections. he doubled back on himself immediately afterwards, as all young people who are afraid of sounding like they genuinely give a shit about a world that has given them charmingly little sympathy will do at some point in their lives. 'but that doesn't make me special,' he continued with that familiar self-effacing cynicism. 'everyone wants to do that.' having relieved himself of the horrible burden of tenderness, he relaxed visibly. it was getting late. the gravel path behind us had slowly emptied itself of runners and old ladies wearing nike sweatshirts. but the sun was still somewhere behind the ragged outline of faraway trees, casting its light across the grass towards us like a fishing line. with every rotation of its fishing rod it tugged a little more light away from our shoulders, until we were left, finally, in darkness.

in summer the days are so long, they fold into each other like jiaozi skins, each thin, translucent circle of dough laid flat against ten more so that by the time you look up from your work you realize you can no longer tell where one ends and the next begins. realistically speaking there are, and only ever will be, twenty four hours in a day. and yet the illusion sustains itself on light alone. it is its own ecosystem. we rise from the sheets like ghosts to greet each dawn only to find that we are already well into the morning. there is so much time to stare, and so little to look at. it's empty. this tiny college town is empty.

i want to write a novel. this has been coming for a while, i think. last june i wrote something novel-like, novel-esque, but i was possessed by the spirit of my dear deceased great-grandmother who was a kickass investigative journalist in america and is wearing a pair of sunglasses in every single memory i have of her, and also sleep-deprived and suffering from a mild case of malnutrition so i don't remember much of it. so when i say i want to write a novel i mean i want to experience the process of writing a novel. the drawn-out agony of literature. the mouse trap in the storage room. will i finish writing it this summer? probably not. but i want to begin.

'what will the novel be about?' my friend asked as we picked our way around a particularly wet patch of forest.

i shrugged. 'i decided i'd do it four hours ago, which i hope you realize isn't long enough to come up with, you know, an entire-'

'-a novel.'

'yes. a novel.'

when i woke up this morning it was drizzling. i don't mean there was a little rain. i mean there was a lot of rain falling very fast, only the droplets were so small and inconsequential it seemed more like a lawn sprinkler had been installed in the sky and set to its quietest setting. i was mad for the first five minutes. then i stuck my head out of my third-floor window and breathed in a spray of wet air and that was, well, you know. it was pretty nice.

last week i started listening to one of those legendary fiction podcasts my friends talk about sometimes where all the characters sound like god on the other end of a twenty four-seven mcdonald's hotline and you are psychologically manipulated into wanting to have sex with the lizard man. i got through the first two episodes on the first day and sixteen in the next three. come sunday morning i was a specter of the person i was before, walking around slack-jawed while thinking about gay people floating around in outer space, shooting cool space guns and fucking things up and bursting into loud, angry tears, not always in that order. some time later i realized i'd be dead before we figure out how to shoot cool guns in space, and was presently overcome with melancholy. then i remembered: i am gay.

weirdly enough, i think the theme 'i want to make more connections' can be applied to this podcast too despite the fact that the person who said it and the characters in the story are so vastly different that it pains me to imagine them so much as standing in the same room, covered in sunlight, dripping with it. because at the end of the day, we're all going to die. you, me, the stupid dean of student affairs who hasn't sent me an email yet (I'm Waiting For You, Erin), the horror show who used to live down the hallway. that's one end of the knot, you know? but you want to tie the other end too so the whole structure won't just fall apart in a few years. you want to make sure the scaffolding will hold. it isn't just the idea of connections, of wanting them, of holding so much desire in your chest that every time you breathe your lungs stutter with the effort of keeping it all in. it's the idea of more. of what lies past the horizon, beyond the ragged treetops, after you reach the end of the line. humans are really fucking hungry. it's worse when you're young. when you're young, you think you can have everything.

and maybe you can't. but you want this, don't you? you want to leave something behind.

so do it anyway. i'm rooting for you. i'm your number one fan.

06.03.21

[hillblah]

Podcast Recommendations:

I just spent nearly 2 hours writing these for a work Teams thread #justpandemicthings. So uh, here you go. If you’re following this blog (why tho?) you might like my vibe, so you might like some of these! Finding categories is hard, so I've mostly lumped podcasts together in small groups by loose connections, or vibes. This is also how I sort my bookshelf after admitting defeat on having a perfectly coherent system. Past me would have been horrified, but I think that's what growth looks like. Some descriptions are all mine, some are copied from the creators. Feel free to read into which ones I copied and which I wrote myself as much as you want.

Fiction:

36 Questions A 3 part musical podcast about a couple on the brink of divorce. The title references the "36 Questions to Fall in Love" (/build intimacy) that can be found here: https://bigthink.com/ideafeed/how-to-fall-in-love-36-questions-and-deep-eye-contact

Alice Isn't Dead Audio diaries of a long road trucker searching for her wife who she thought had died, but Alice Isn't Dead. Really cool sound design and writing from the team behind Welcome to Nightvale. Slight absurdist/ more than slight horror vibes. There's 3 seasons in total that tell a meandering overall story roadtrip. Best listened to while parked in an empty carpark on the edge of town with rain running down the windshield and creating flickering shadows from the streetlights. It took me a few attempts to listen right through the first episode, but I eventually fell in love with the sound/feel/vibe of the podcast. Teaser is here: http://www.nightvalepresents.com/aliceisntdead

The Magnus Archives A horror fiction podcast examining what lurks in the archives of the Magnus Institute, an organisation dedicated to researching the esoteric and the weird. Each episode is presented in the form of a witness statement being read by the newly appointed Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute - London. Over time the stand-alone statements start to form connections, and then an overarching plot. I don't normally enjoy horror, The Magnus Archives is absolutely the exception. Really well told stories with incredible soundscaping. Maybe don't listen right before bed...

Kiwi Podcasts about Sexuality and Gender:

Micro Wave Feminism Micro Wave Feminism is a place for open, inclusive, loving and vulnerable feminist chats. It's all about talking to real people about real sh*t and experiences of femininity and masculinity in this crazy (beautiful) world we live in. Really interesting discussions on feminism through the personal experiences of kiwis. Sporadic episodes as a non-professional labour of love, but boy does it have cozy vibes.

BANG! RNZ's BANG! explores sex, sexuality and relationships over a lifetime, from parents attempting "the talk" with their children, through the fraught teen years, modern dating, long-term relationships, contraception and conception, right up to intimacy in retirement homes. So many people talking about their experiences with all aspects of sex, sexuality, relationships and gender. My personal favourite is the Takātapuia episode from season 2: https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/bang/story/2018651794/bang-season-2-episode-6-takatapui

Let's Get Sexual Let’s Get Sexual is a podcast dedicated to exploring sexuality. It is part of the growing global movement to normalize conversations around sexuality, to embrace its complexity, and highlight how we all have our own sexual journeys. Similar vibes to BANG! But with a more personal approach and more time with each guest. Really interesting conversations with people from all walks of life.

Kiwi Current and Not So Current Events:

Gone by Lunchtime The Spinoff's politics podcast. A good balance of views from the 3 hosts, and the only politics podcast that has made me laugh out loud multiple times.

The Citizen's Handbook Robbie Niccol (White Man Behind a Desk/that guy that I went to school with) partners with RNZ for a video series all about the history of Aotearoa, and the things all citizens need to know about where we are now. There's also a podcast that goes with it, that's a game show? Really the video series is the more important part... But the podcast is a great listen.

Isolation:

The Habitat The true story of six volunteers picked to live on a fake planet. You know those stories that occasionally pop up about people living in isolation with each other to see what happens so we know about the problems and can prepare for space travel? Well this 7 episode podcast follows a group of 6 imitation NASA astronauts stuck with only each other for a year. Something I'm sure the rest of us will never have to experience right?

Our Plague Year Essays and listener messages about Our Plague 'Year'. Some really talented writers pouring emotions out. This was one of my favourite podcasts last year, though some of the episodes hit a little hard. My personal favourite episode (so far) is Trust Ends at the Windshield, featuring Hank Green, Meg Bashwiner, and Erin McKeown. Which talks about the the-show-must-go-on mentality, includes this gem: "We are killing people because we are bored. We are killing people because we are entrenched in a toxic, capitalist society that values money over life.", and was one of the triggers for me writing a 12 minute, spoken word, poetry adjacent, thing, last year.

Doing Stuff:

Cortex CGP Grey (educational youtuber) and Myke Hurley (host of about 50 podcasts) talk about productivity, and how they run their businesses, and education, and the Apple ecosystem, and a whole bunch of other things. Long episodes, and occasionally dated by reference to current events. Definitely not a super condensed productivity podcast, more of a personality / sitting in on a conversation vibe.

Start With This Art is hard, starting is hard, if you want to start somewhere you should start with this. The co-creators of Welcome to Nightvale talk about making things/the artistic process. Every episode ends with 2 assignments, one thing to consume, and one to create.

Building Positive Culture:

Dare To Lead Brené Brown talking with other people about Leadership. Really interesting and inspiring conversations. Top recommendation is the episode with Simon Sinek.

A Bit of Optimism Simon Sinek talking with other people about working together to make a better world. Really interesting and inspiring conversations. Top recommendation is the episode with Brené Brown.

TED Worklife Organizational psychologist Adam Grant takes you inside the minds of some of the world’s most unusual professionals to explore the science of making work not suck. From learning how to love criticism to harnessing the power of frustration, one thing’s for sure: You’ll never see your job the same way again. Pretty new on my feed, but every episode I've listened to so far has been an absolute hit!

Interesting Stories/People:

TED Radio Hour TED talks, collated into similar subjects with extra stuff pulled out interview style. Good to search through the archives to find areas you're interested in, or just pick a random episode and dive in!

99% Invisible - 10,000 Years [person from work who I’m too lazy to edit out a reference to] has already recommended the podcast, but I want to throw in my favourite episode. It's about the challenge of trying to mark nuclear waste sites in a way that will last 10,000 years (for reference 10,000 years ago stone tools were a pretty neat invention) and is absolutely fascinating. https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/ten-thousand-years/

[froggy-daydreams]

So, indoor cities are a thing

indoor fucking cities. I watched like one video on them, didn’t process any of it, and now I wanna talk about it. I know nothing, truly, about indoor cities. I know that some are sort “add on as you go” type things, while some are carefully crafted and planned. as a writer, I have some GOD DAMN THOUGHTS. the god damn thoughts in question: on one hand, the beauty these could bring as a setting. I mean- fucking imagine the worldbuilding that could be done. how to they get water? could you bullshit a water cycle indoors, like an ecosystem jar? I dunno how ecosystem jars work, I don’t think they ‘rain’ I think they’re just a bunch of condensation. ecosystem jars are super cool though. but let’s say it could rain- I need a book set in a giant fucking ecosystem jar type situation. (cosmo sheldrake music just came on. this matters.) an indoor city with it’s own ecosystem, with fuckin’ pully systems like an elevator through the many many floors. I’m thinking something like this, but much more natural looking.

Like this but with the wear and tear of years of children chasing each other down the halls, of adults throwing ropes over the ledges to transport heavy things to lower levels easier. vines and hanging plants sprawl over the edges. In the middle there’s a park. maybe throw in some magic for good measure. maybe that’s how it rains instead of just being humid as fuck. maybe people have powers. there’s rope bridges in the higher levels that are genuinely steady, but teenagers dare eachother to run across and kids just go all the way down and back up. I want a whole society in an indoor city that’s like this but much bigger. I want farms and a whole culture that’s built around staying inside, the place being a safe haven- maybe in some sort of post-apocalyptic world. there’s not dystopia, no overthrowing the government- just a genuinely kind society. the plot would be romance, or slice of life friends being friends, or something, it just so happens to be in this intricately crafted society they’ve got going. but, I began that with “on one hand.” I say this because, on the other hand... the “add on as you go” type of indoor city? that has horror potential. a sprawling network of seemingly never-ending tunnels or skyways with no way out. take your pick of which is more horrifying: never seeing the light of day, wandering around in a dull, concrete world full of buzzing bright lights... or having natural light, seeing the cities play out their daily life below, but never being able to call out. never hearing the sounds of the people talking. and them never hearing you. I think- and I haven’t watched it, so I’m not sure- it’s a similar brand of horror to the backrooms. I mean, imagine.. an abandoned indoor city. all you need is someone with a motive, and you’ve got a story of a person or people- once again, take your pick of which is more interesting- running around trying and failing to find a way out. just endless hallways or skyways with no clear rhyme or reason.

I like this picture in particular. I mean, this is just one small part of the chicago pedway. imagine that, abandoned, the bagged chips and vaguely questionable food years old, but it’s all you’ve got to eat. and someday you’ll run out. you need to find your way out. there’s no maps. you usually can’t think straight enough to map it out. every time you think you’ve got it, you find something new or something that your map has wrong.  it just... the potential to be so pretty and honestly fucking cool, or utterly terrifying makes my writer brain happy.

[vaaljaeger]

Date: April 6th Entry: Discussion and attempt at documentation

This is a class of animals that the guild doesn't seem to speak much on, maybe its the lack of knowledge we have or the fact that these wyverns are said to be that of legends. I am talking about the Dangerous First-Class Monsters, other wise known as the Black Dragons. Monsters with an unnatural presence about them. We know very little, what we do know is they could bring world to destruction if they wanted to. Anything we know about them is just assumption. There is no documents about them, I want to write down what I know... Or well what I think we know. Anything I found on these monsters is something I heard or was told in my years of hunting thus far. Black Dragons are not center of my research, but on my own time I do what I can to learn about them. However coming to the New World has halted that.

Black Dragons are not all black or dark in color. The name simply comes from that they have the power to turn the world dark, or black. To bring an end to all that we know. Known Black Dragons are Fatalis, Alatreon, Dire Miralis, Disufiroa and Merphistophelin. To be honest, I think these dragons are to smart to bring about the end. It would also be the end for them as well. They know it.

With the Elder Crossing and passing of Zorah Magdaros, my mind as been on the affect of Dire Miralis in what is called the Tainted sea. But before I can continue onto that I want to recall something I read about Fatalis in ‘Hunting Life - A Monthly Magazine For Hunters’. That details a song about Fatalis. Part of the entry is as follows:

‘I have gathered as much information as I could from the corners of this world, and I have told those who should be told. However, no one believes me. That is why I have begged for a few pages in Hunting Life explain the Legend to all who care to learn. 'The Legend of the Black Dragon' is said to exist everywhere, and while there are changes in the lyrics depending on the location, the content of the song is the same. So please understand that the lyrics printed below are representative of the song as I know it. The lyrics may be different where you are located.’ “When the world is full of wyverns The legend is revived Meat is eaten, Bone is crunched. And blood is sucked up dry He burns the earth, And melts through iron He boils the rivers, And mows down trees He awakens the winds,And lights an inferno He is called Fatalis, The wyvern of destiny He is called Fatalis, The wyvern of destruction Call for help, Run for your lives And don't forget to Pray to the skies He is called Fatalis, The wyvern of destiny He is called Fatalis, The wyvern of destruction Fatalis, Fatalis Heaven and Earth are yours Fatalis, Fatalis Heaven and Earth are yours”

There is a line with in the song ‘He boils the rivers’. Though this line doesn’t refer to the ocean, it means that a Fatalis can boil a large amount of water. This and the the authors own note ‘The lyrics may be different where you are located.’ There is a song about the Dire Miralis as well.

There is a legend that’s told Which is passed down from old That there exists but one Who burns brighter than the sun Its rage is a force which you cannot contain And it brings down fire as if it were rain. In the Tainted Sea, is where it does reside And all who face it, surely will die. But should one succeed where others have failed, A hero to all, is how they will be hailed. For there is no beast more fearsome than this The All Consuming World Eater, Dire Miralis.

In my opinion I believe Merphistophelin and Dire Miralis stem from Fatalis. Its even said that Dire Miralis is the Incarnation of the Fatalis. I would say that Black Dragons come from Fatalis, but this would leave out Alatreon, the rumor of its  Subspecies and Disufiroa. Surpisingly in the New World, Alalreon live in the location called ‘Sacred Land’. It is also said to travel to the Ingle Isle of the Old World.  I have not heard word from the Guild about any interest in it as of late. Or maybe they have picked a fellow G-ranked hunter and not told anyone about it much like my self.

Let me focus back on Dire Miralis before I get to off track. In the Elder Crossing with Zorah Magdaros I would have expected a report from the Guild about the affects the Elder Dragon had to the life in the ocean. Yet there was little no extensive report on it. It made me ask ‘Why does the walking Volcano, Zorah Magdaros not destroy the ocean around it like Dire Miralis?’ Shortly after the passing of Zorah I think I might have found the answer.

Unlike Zorah Magdaros who made one pass, the Dire Miralis is constantly in the same area. Its heat kills off the life around it as it treads the same waters over and over again. As with Zorah Magdaros, its cool enough to let hunters walk around on its shell. Yet the entire world does have other animals that can swim in and thrive in lava, so what could kill off the rest of the life within the sea? I believe the sedimentary rocks within the Dire Miralis territory hold the key. Using the rocks to measure the amount of carbon dioxide with in the Tainted Sea. It is impossible to get into the tainted sea, at least I think it is. I don’t know if ships pass through there or if they have tried to send a fleet in that area. But heat isn’t going to be the only issue that kills off life. Rather the carbon dioxide is doing it, choking out the remaining live with no more oxygen in the water. (That and its most likely the life there isn’t use the to extreme heat. That doesn’t mean some don’t survive.)

Such an abundance of carbon dioxide turns ocean water acidic, and in abundance this depletes ocean water's concentration of carbonates. Carbonates is a compound that depletes many organism’s ability to build things like shells and other structures. Destroying large complex coral reefs that are with in the Dire Miralis territory. Though carbon is great for the growth of plants, the flora that live in the ocean would have to survive the scorching heat coming off the monster. This is what makes the Tainted Sea devoid of life. And thats not even bringing up the affects after it releases magma, ejecting it into the atmosphere. This allows for Dire Miralis to look like it is summoning meteors from the sky.

So what happens if the Dire Miralis vanished? I have only a theory. The Legend of Dire Miralis says it can bring the end of the world, yet others say its the birth of creation. Should something happen to the Dire Miralis, its very possible the temperatures could drop drastically. Turning the tainted sea into a frozen one. Thanks to the help of plants growing back and sucking up all the carbon. Releasing an abundance amount of oxygen, over time that will chill the area and it could very much become frozen. 

Yet I don’t think that will happen anytime soon. Continuing the legend it says that Dire Miralis was able to be driven off long ago in ancient times, and if I recall has only been sighted once again recently. The guild thought this wyvern didn’t even exist. This Black Dragon can go on land, that it can sometimes sink islands, and its believed it prefers to stay in shallow waters to cool its self. But if it was repelled, then surely there is more then one? How else would the entire tainted sea stay that way? Yes it would take hundreds of year for life to come back, but we are talking about how Dire Miralis was repelled in long long ago to the point it became a legend. Not to mention, long after a Dire Miralis dies, the heart continues to beat even if removed--just as legend states. It is said that Dire Miralis can regenerate its whole body with its heart alone, and that Dire Miralis is most likely even immortal.

As for why it such a rage filled animal I also can’t say. Maybe its in constant pain, with the need to cool its self off. Maybe its lonely, or cursed. Doomed to wander alone, and to destroy anything in its path. That would make me angry too. Lets play around with that curse idea. This falls back onto information about the Fatalis armor, hunters who wear armor of a Fatalis report having terrible nightmares, unsettling strength, a feeling as if they were being possessed by something. Feeling an all to familiar pulse coming from the armor, a feeling as if their legs were taken from them. With some hunters wearing the Black Flame armor, they report a morbid feeling as if their body was taken over while they were unconscious. Some people who have worn the armor are known to disappear mysteriously without a trace or even die if the armor is worn for to long. Even worse, rumors about turning into this Black Dragon its self. Fatalis weapons also seem to suggest that the Fatalis is still alive in some way. Some of the weapons despair eat at the user's hands while other weapons, when held, have tremendous abyssal screams coming from them.

I have only ever held a Fatalis helm, maybe someday I will write about what I experienced. But if its possible for a person to turn into a Fatalis, and the rumor of Dire Miralis being the incarnation of one, maybe it was a person who was taken over by their armor. How else could something like that come to be? With Dire Miralis’s likeness to Fatalis I doubt it has an evolutionary tree unlike Fatalis. Because of its possible indirect creation from the Fatalis, and thus the armor from a Dire Miralis would act the same. If Dire Miralis can regrow its self from a single part. Using a person’s body as a catalyst. Letting this curse continue.

Everything has an end, I don’t think Dire Miralis lives forever. Maybe it hyphenates, maybe there is more then one and they breed. Or maybe it reincarnates its self. And if its from new life or a part of its self, I don’t think its ever the same Dire Miralis that comes back. I wonder if Dire Miralis armor makes its wearer suffer the same fate as that as Fatalis armor. All I know for sure that countless exposure to this Black Dragon as destroyed an ecosystem. There is countless life we will never get to study, and yet I don’t feel that getting rid of the Dire Miralis will solve the issue. It has created its own ecological niche. If it dies out then that is nature’s will. Whatever the reason for dire Miralis, I do hope people, or the creature its self and sooth its rage. Nothing should suffer like that.

Disclaimer: All art used is concept art for the game Monster Hunter by Capcom (I only put the graphics/pages together) * The info in this post is based off of Lore and observations I have made in Monster Hunter World, but also inspired by some real animals and personal headcanons. A report taken from the view of a Hunter. If you see something not based in canon this is why, its just a fun writing exercise. * Anyone and everyone is welcome reblog so long as they don’t add onto the post.

[honey-and-strawberry]

Wow, I always think Hungarian sounds like they’re talking backwards in a way, no offence! My father spoke only German when he came to Sweden so he has always talked German with me so I got the language without studying 😅.

Amsterdam Must have been breathtaking with all their older houses and Kanals. What kind of trip were you two on that made you so exhausted 😱!? I lived in Berlin when I was younger, big cities like that isn’t my cup of tea, to many people 😂. Sweden has the most single households in entire Europe so we really like our space 😉, it’ll be hell when everything is back to normal.... My dear lord!!!! Is that the highest temperature you get or does it get even hotter (and thank you for converting to Celsius ^^)!? How do you even stand the heat?

Ahhh, well honestly, before k-pop I only listened to rock, metal and punk (except for dancing) so I never really knew what happened in the pop scene ^^. I don’t know how it’s in the US but over here, at least where I am, k-pop is looked down on. Slightest interest in anything related to Korea and you’re a koreaboo....Once again, people loves to care WAY to much about others! I’d like to blame it on the teenagers but most likely the adults are the ones whose worse! Ohh, so you’re about the same age as Kihyun, then I really can understand that, high school, I always thought I was so grown up at that time, but looking back I wasn’t as mature I wanted to think ^^. /stumbling anon

Hungarian is a hard language cause it’s not based on German or Latin and there lots of little things that drive me nuts (like there are two words for red but when I asked my dad what’s the difference he’s like “this is red. This is really red”). I can process German better than Hungarian cause my mom would break up the words for me like Bahnhofsstraße which is literally train station - street (obviously you would know, I’m just giving an example). My dad tried to talk to me in Hungarian around the house and I do learn it pretty quickly but other than food/cooking/conversation starters, I don’t know much 😔.

Amsterdam was incredible and yes it was rainy but it was still beautiful 😭 we were exhausted cause before we got to Amsterdam we were in London for like 5 days and we had sooooo much to do. The nice weather was also a factor because it was so nice and cloudy.

So about the heat 😅 In the United States, there is a joke about arizona heat saying “but it’s a dry heat” but it’s still damn hot. The hottest I ever encountered was about 122 F(50 C) but most of the time the hottest it’ll go would be between 104-110 F(40-43C). How do we survive? AIR CONDITIONING. I don’t trust anyone here who doesn’t have some sort of cooling system in their house (unless they live in a underground home, but that’s different). What also helps is the monsoon season “every summer” (I put “” cause last year was one of the driest summers on record). The rain coming from the west definitely cools down and helps the ecosystem. I hope we have some sort of rain this year 🤞🏼

That’s cool you liked those genres! I typically listen to 80s rock+pop or disco because that’s what I grew up with from my parents. I’d say it’s pretty looked down on here in the US but it’s more like a “ew you like kpop? 🙄” too many people here generalize kpop because I can’t count how many times I’d wear my Day6 lanyard and I hear “oh you like BT*?” “My daughter would die to have a lanyard like that”, assuming it’s a different group even though they don’t look anything alike and their name is on the lanyard.....it’s probably a racist thing like when people say “all Asians look alike” but I don’t want to get into that because I don’t want to get mad at the world. And I’m so sorry but I’m around the same age as Changkyun (I say kyun cause it’s simpler I’m sorry😭). It’s very interesting to see how much they grown up over the years and parallel it with your own. Knowing I was in college/uni while they were out doing their best and I had no idea till after I graduated.

Fun fact, it was my bf who technically first showed me MX. There was a video game streamer Etika (May he Rest In Peace) who liked MX and would occasionally have their music play in the background during streams. So one day when me and bf were going on date night he shows me Play It Cool (English version) and he’s like “yo they sound cool” and he was saying how Etika liked their swagger and I listened to it and went “yeah they sound cool ☺️” then that was it, never brought up again😂 months later my roommate showed me the mv and I was like THATS WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE?! And here I am now 🥺

[redwine-house]

More Than Madness Ch.8 (Steve Harrington x Reader)

Chocolate Pudding

(Ao3) (Wattpad)

(Masterlist)

Steve Harrington was 6 when he decided that he loved you. You had your natural hair color back then and a healthy love for Elmo. No Elmo posters, Elmo inspired makeup, and certainly no Elmo inspired clothes. When Steve thought it would be funny to poke fun at the little red monster, you threw a chocolate pudding snack pack in his face. However, when you saw your friend’s eyes start to well, you grabbed a scoop of pudding and smeared it all over your forehead and cheeks.

“See?”

Ever since, Steve was stupidly in love with you. He didn’t understand it at first. He just knew that you were his best friend and that you were more special than any other kid he hung out with. As he got older and learned the ways of the world, it became clear to him that he saw you as much more than a friend. There was no way he could ever tell you. Losing his pudding buddy over a crush wasn’t worth it. He would just soldier through it and get over the whole thing.

But he didn’t.

High school came and his feelings were as strong as ever. You had both grown closer over the years and had really come into your own. By the time you were 16, it was clear that you had an effect on each other’s personalities and habits. Unfortunately for Steve he still loved your dumb ass, so he did the only thing he could thing of – change.

King Steve was everything you hated. He was pompous, rude, and cruel. Even the new people he hung out with were scumbags; he attracted trouble like a magnet. But somehow you still called out his bullshit and scared the minions away whenever you so pleased. So Steve was left with one option.

He liked Nancy. She was truly a sweet girl, but she wasn’t you. He didn’t have to filter himself around you and you had many more things in common. He had to make an effort to get along with Nancy. With you, he just needed to remind himself to breathe. Nancy had said they had been pretending to be in love, and she had no idea just how right she was. The breakup hurt his pride, which was insanely strong. Otherwise, he was relieved.

“I knew you’d find him,” Mrs. Harrington said as Steve burst into his house. “Why is he in such a hurry?” You watched as he took the stairs two at a time.

“I am not the person to ask. I’ll see.” Before you could step all the way into the room, a hand was slapped over your mouth and you were yanked inside.

“What in the seven levels of hell?” you swore, pushing Steve off you as he turned on the light. “Get that out of my face!”

Steve lowered his bat to his side. “Sorry. I forgot that to normal people think this looks insane.”

“’Normal’ people?”

Steve pointed his spiked bat to his bed. “Sit. I have a shit ton to tell you and you aren’t going to believe any of it.”

You sat down on his bed. “Well, I have to. It’s one of the rules, isn’t it?”

Steve nodded. He grabbed his desk chair and spun it around. Sitting on it backwards, he pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes. “Okay, so like…do you believe in aliens, supernatural creatures or whatever?”

You brushed a lock of orange hair behind your ear. “Oh, do you mean like Starman?”

Steve’s jaw set as he shook his chair. “This isn’t a fucking David Bowie song, Dusty! This is real scary, dangerous, will-kill-you-if-you-don’t-keep-up shit!” he snapped.

You froze like a deer caught in the headlights. Steve had never raised his voice to you, especially in anger. Doe eyed, you nodded in understanding

Steve closed his eyes. “Shit.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry. This is just really, really serious and it would be really cool if you didn’t die.”

“Then just tell me,” you threw your hands up. “I’m not some delicate daisy!” You pulled at your hair in frustration. “How can I stay safe if I don’t know what to protect myself from?”

Steve let his head fall to his chest and he held out his hand. “Okay…so you know about Hawkin’s lab?”

As you talked, Mrs. Harrington sat in her living room, reading a novel. She listened, making sure that you weren’t getting into any trouble. For the last hour, she heard the murmur of hushed conversation. Little did she know the murmurs were divulging the world’s biggest secret.

By now, you had slid to the floor and put a hand to your head. “So Hopper knows about this?”

Steve snorted. “He’s a key player, Dusty. Him, me, the kids…”

“That number girl.”

“Eleven.”

“Yeah.” You held up a hand. “Who sounds like a bomb ass bitch, by the way.”

Steve let out a single, breathy laugh. “Hawkins, Indiana sucks ass, but they’ve been doing really well in the kid department lately.”

You smacked the floor in realization. “Those little pricks did all this and never told me!” You jabbed at your chest with your finger. “I’m the party mom! What the fuck?” You gave a single angry kick to the air.

Steve had rested his chin on the back of the chair. “We decided to do this thing where the less people know, the less people are going to be dragged into the Upside Down and brutally ripped to shreds or whatever that demogorgon thing does.”

“So it’s a parallel universe?” you asked calmly.

Steve looked away, fully aware of how stupid he sounded. “Yeah. Something like that.”

You nodded. “Okay,” you said simply.

Steve’s head whipped to you. “What?”

You pouted in thought. “There’s a parallel universe you all refer to as the Upside Down because you’re dumb nerds. It was made because of the lab assholes and Will was kidnapped by the demogorgon, the monster from that other plain. Bomb ass bitch Eleven was subjected to disgusting experiments and was given telekinetic powers in the process. You, Jonathan, and Nancy, fought the thing.” You smiled. “You did only by accident, but you stayed even though you didn’t have to. I’m proud of you.”

Steve swallowed. “Yeah.” He ran a hand over his mouth.

You threw a hand up and let it fall to your thigh. “So Barb is gone and every single one of you, including Chief, has been lying to me. So that’s awesome.” You bit your lip and began to scratch your eye, trying to hide the few tears that were threatening to escape.

Steve looked at the ceiling. His face was painted with pain. “Shit,” he whispered. He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Dusty, come on. Do you know how much we didn’t want to tell you? But I totally just opened my ass here.”

You sputtered into your hand, finally allowing yourself to smile.

Steve stood up and held his hand out, which you took gladly. “Stop crying,” he ordered. “It’s gross.”

With a small laugh, you gently punched him in the arm before you wrapped your arms around his neck and buried your face in his shoulder. “I love you, Steve Harrington. There’s a reason I’ve put up with you all these years.” You took a deep breath. “You can be a dillhole, but you’re somehow still my bestest fwiend.”

Steve closed his eyes and grit his teeth. “You fucking, bitch,” he muttered, too low for you to hear. He stepped out of your arms. “Let’s go.”

When you wouldn’t stop referring to the demogorgon and demodogs as starmen, you were sent to the back of the line. However, you decided it was for the best. As you danced around the hunks of beef Steve was slapping onto the train tracks, you reflected on the last year of your life.

All of them. Steve, your friends, your boss, and even Mrs. Byers was in on this government, other worldly conspiracy fighting monsters in a parallel universe. They had all lied to you with the best damn poker faces in the world. Steve kept insisting that it was for your own safety, but if four little boys could handle such a shit show, why couldn’t you?

In front of you, Dustin and Steve were immersed in what appeared to be a riveting conversation. You smiled at the new bromance and decided to bite back on heckling.

“Okay, so let me get this straight,” Steve said as he smacked a couple hunks of beef onto the tracks, “you’re saying that in an effort to make yourself look cool, you would keep something that was totally dangerous to impress a girl?”

Dustin held out a hand, quick to put Steve in his place and stand up for his manly charm. “Alright, that is grossly oversimplifying things.”

Steve wouldn’t have it. “I mean, why would a girl like some nasty slug anyway?” He tossed more meat on the ground.

Dustin snorted. “Uh, an inter-dimensional slug, because it’s awesome,” he said with a grin, reaching into his bucket. He looked over his shoulder. “And don’t tell me that Dusty wouldn’t like it.”

Steve stared down at his shoes as he snatched another handful of meat. He let out a brief chuckle. “Okay, yeah. But she doesn’t count as a girl.”

Dustin tossed some beef into the air and laughed as it rained down onto the tracks. “Then why are you so in love with her?”

Steve immediately panicked. “What did I say about zipping it?” he said, quickly looking over his shoulder before jogging up to Dustin. “It’s a delicate fucking ecosystem.”

Dustin reached into his bucket, grinning from ear to ear. “You keep saying that, but what does it truly mean?”

“It means don’t let them destroy the rainforest or kill the bees and whatever.” He poked Dustin in the chest. “I have a good thing, and I don’t need me being a dumbass fuck it up.” He smashed a beef square on the train track.

They walked in silence for the next few minutes until Dustin spoke up. “Well, if you’re really that good of friends, you shouldn’t worry.”

Steve’s attention was immediately caught. His eyes were glued to Dustin as he began to speak his wise words.

“Think about it like this,” Dust started, digging into his bucket, “You’ve known each other for a million years and have literally already gone through and seen all of the awful parts. You know your strengths, weaknesses, and even the types of things you’ll say when you get mad.” Dustin shrugged. “Unless you kill her, I really don’t see a problem if it doesn’t work out.”

Steve stared at Dustin, stunned by the young boy’s sage advice. “You’re a cool kid,” he finally said, taking a handful of beef and tossing it. “Now, let Captain Steve guide you through the sea of dating.”

Dustin snickered. “The ‘sea of dating’?”

Steve nodded. “Yes,” he said sagely, “it’s why there’s a proverb ‘there are plenty of fish in the sea.’” A bit of beef juice flew as Steve smacked it down. “The key to girls is acting like you don’t care.”

“Even if you do?”

“Yeah, exactly. Drives them nuts,” Steve said casually.

Dustin looked over his shoulder. “It looks like it makes them walk with their head down.”

Steve’s eyes landed on you briefly before he re-focused his attention on what was in front of him. “I’m not trying to make her nuts, man. Like I said, I am not veering into that territory.”

After kicking a rock, Dustin turned to Steve. “So why do you like her?” His foot caught on a railing and he stumbled, but he quickly caught himself. “Totally meant to do that,” he insisted, straightening his baseball cap.

Steve let out a shallow sigh and rolled his eyes. “Are we really doing this?”

Dustin shot Steve and impish grin. “Unless you want me to go down there and tell her for you.”

“No!” Steve shouted in panic, his eyes wide. He checked behind him to see that you were staring at him with confusion. He shot you an awkward wave. “Saw a tarantula!” he called.

“There aren’t any tarantulas in Indiana!” you yelled back.

“Saw a dog, then,” Steve countered before turning back. “Christ, Dustin. If I tell you, will you shut the hell up?” he said out of the corner of his mouth. When Dustin nodded vigorously, he began. “So it started when we were a lot smaller and shittier than you.” He hurled a chunk of meat way ahead of them. He held up a hand. “It’s hard to believe, I know. She had the nerve to splash some pudding in my face.”

“Alright, Dusty!” Dustin laughed, his fake teeth sparkling in the sun.

Steve scoffed, but pushed on. “When I was…about to cry, she grabbed the pudding and mushed it all over herself to make me feel better.” He looked down at his feet. “I mean, who does that, man? Especially when you’re that age. We’re all assholes then by law.”

“Well, yeah. She threw pudding at you.”

Steve continued to look at the ground. “Then it just kind of went that way. As we grew older, one person would smack the other person in the face with pudding, and the other would do the same to make him or her feel her.” He looked at Dustin and raised an eyebrow. “Metaphorically, of course. Got it?”

“You like Dusty because even though she throws pudding at you, she cleans it up and puts it on herself?”

Steve clapped Dustin on the shoulder. “Exactly. Look for the girl you know will clean pudding off your face.”

Dustin blinked. “The horrible thing is that makes sense.”

Steve straightened the lapels of his jacket. “Of course it is. I’m the Captain of love.”

The rest of the walk consisted of Dustin making kissey sounds and Steve punching him in the arm, both laughing like kids.

[wobblyfet]

The Definitive Ranking of Villainous Pokémon Teams

With USUM just coming out and Team Rainbow Rocket being a thing, I thought I’d dig up a ranking I started a while ago!

7. Team Flare

Look, those outfits are snazzy. There’s no denying that. But… who the hell are these people? What’s their goal as a team of villains?

I mean, Lysandre talks about creating a more beautiful world because he thinks humanity is dumb. The qualifiers for what a more beautiful world exactly are is never made particularly clear, just that this involves the purging of everyone not in Team Flare. He gets a bit of backstory about having a genuine savior complex turned into radical disillusionment, but it doesn’t really cover how murky his goals are here. Like, what exactly is he objecting to about the ugliness of the world? Does he want to wipe out much of the world’s ecosystem with the laser beam of doom in their headquarters or just people? How does that work? And what is Team Flare?

I’m not sure at all what the organization of the rest of this team is. The grunt dialogue suggests getting in is quite expensive, and some of them seem pretty caught up in this whole beautiful world business. There’s suggestion Flare membership is kind of an issue of status. Much of both Lysandre’s and general dialogue about it do sort of resemble the dialogue from real world radical organizations, but the problem here is that radical ideologies tend to have a deeper surface rationale than what Team Flare’s deal is. They care about class elitism while also wanting to destroy what makes the world economy, and I don’t really know why these people would be more invested in genocide than, say, aggressively running a fashion line or a country club.

The problem for me probably boils down to how little depth this team is given. The grunts are just sort of there, admins are indistinguishable, and nobody has really any characterization except Lysandre and Malva, and even that’s pretty murky. Because of that, they fall flat as antagonists.

One thing I did like about them as villains: how Lysandre uses the Holo-Caster to spread his message. Having him pop up between videochatting your friends to monologue about purity and cleansing was genuinely disquieting. In this day and age, abruptly revealing that this world’s equivalent of a smartphone is actually a vehicle for ideological evil is intimidating and relevant.

Though, I gotta say, a Pokémon game is really not the place for Holocaust puns. Boo on that.

 6. Team Aqua

These guys are the only ones to seriously rival Team Flare’s stupidity. To begin with, looking at the original games, the whole hook of “More water! Yay environments for Water Pokémon!” is really bizarre in the context of a villainous team on Hoenn. Hoenn is a goddamn island, and at that one that is already thoroughly integrated with the sea. Why there would be enough radical water lovers in this area to warrant any a whole group obsessed with expansionism is kind of beyond me.

I do like that how the remakes broadened both Aqua and Magma’s motives, but… remixed Team Aqua is still incredibly dumb. They’re a radical group in defense of wronged Pokémon, which is cool, but the answer is to destroy the world and restore it to another primordial state? What? I’m no expert in environmental science but I’m pretty sure something like that would, like, definitely wipe out most Pokémon, including the ones that live in the sea. A questionable goal for a group purportedly all about saving wronged Pokémon.

And what’s the long-term plan here for the rest of the group? Is this destruction of the world like a death pact for the members or what?

Archie is entertaining, but let’s be real, he’s also pretty lame. Going so far as to recruit a potentially suicidal eco-terrorist cult only to chicken out when a big whale starts to make it rain is kind of pathetic.

Things that win Team Aqua villain points: fleshed out and entertaining characters in Archie, Shelly, and Matt. Also, pirates are cool.

 5. Team Galactic

I feel like Team Galactic started the trend in Pokémon games of there being apocalyptic stakes with the villains. A good Pokémon villainous team doesn’t really need to be world-destroying to work well as bad guys, as I’ll elaborate on below. That said, I would still put a big gap between Galactic and the bottom two teams, and I do generally like these guys.

Cyrus wants to create a new universe without pesky things like spirit or feelings. This makes enough sense for a villainous team in the context of Sinnoh, where a person can capture deities of space and time in Pokéballs. And I also quite like how the game contextualizes Cyrus as a villain of emotional abuse in his childhood- not to say this excuses him, but it adds a nice bit of depth.

Like the last two villainous teams, I have some questions about how exactly Cyrus’s goals translate to an ideology for an entire team of mooks, or, more importantly, how such a wet blanket of a leader convinced a legion of followers to run around Sinnoh in those embarrassing spacesuits. It’s never made super clear what the rest of Team Galactic is hoping to get out of the deal, but unlike Team Flare or Team Aqua, it’s easier to headcanon a large group of people being enticed by holding positions of power in a new world where, without any spirit, people and Pokémon might easily function as slaves.

Another thing I like: Cyrus’s eventual fate in the distortion world. No redemption, no dramatic downfall scene, just him eerily ranting about his ambitions as he wanders off into the netherworld. It’s creepy and sad, and fitting ending to his saga.

Overall, I don’t have strong feelings one way or the other about Team Galactic. It’s satisfactorily developed but comparatively not as interesting as other bad guys in this franchise.

Those team spacesuits, though. There’s no explanation for that.

 4. Team Magma

Look, this team suffers from a lot of the issues that their counterparts do. Namely, the way Maxie and his team just kind of fuck off very quickly after awakening Groudon. It’s sort of ridiculous to go so far to advance your villainous team only to give up so quickly. But, other than that, Team Magma is so much better.

To be fair, in the original Gen III games, their motives are pretty thin. However, for the same reasons Team Aqua doesn’t make much sense, Team Magma does. Hoenn is a tropical island in the middle of the sea that demands travelling through the sea and jungle to get anywhere. Hell, I spend enough time facing Wingulls and Tentacools on water routes and I’m ready to sign up. Or take a Team Magma pamphlet, at least.

I kid, but that’s mostly why I like Magma’s expanded motives in the remakes so much. In a world that’s obsessed with accommodating Pokémon and keeping balance with the environment, a reactionary group obsessed with human expansionism makes for realistic bad guys. And expanding land for development at the cost of the ecosystem is exactly what a group like that in Hoenn would focus on. To be clear, none of this is to say that Team Magma is condonable, or that Pokémon’s pro-environmentalist message is somehow a bad thing- it’s just that in this context, Team Magma would be one of the most plausible villainous organizations to come up.

I also quite like Team Magma’s characters. Maxie is a cool customer and exactly the type of smug asshole you’d expect to present an environmentally-unfriendly development plan at the corporate meeting, and Tabitha and Courtney are quite amusing. Updated Courtney in particular is weirdly charming, and I kind of hope we see more of her. And even though I just whined about how easily Maxie turns around and changes his mind, I don’t really think a redemptive ending for them is necessarily a bad thing. Isn’t an ending like that what most of us are trying to get from the Maxies of the real world driving our planet to ruin?

Anyways, if Magma started looking into building eco-friendly bridges across those damn water routes, I’d totally take a pamphlet. Just saying.

 3. Team Rocket/Neo Team Rocket

Team Rocket! The OG villainous team! And easily still the most iconic, over twenty years later now. They invented the Pokémon villainous team, and they surely deserve some props for that. That’s the whole reason Giovanni’s coming back as the leader of the super-villains, right? (I have some qualms about this, but more on that later)

Nostalgic factors aside, I think Team Rocket works quite well as an antagonistic force. I just praised Team Magma for being possibly the most realistic villainous team in the Pokémon world, but I really think that dubious honor should go to Rocket. These guys don’t want to end the world or build a new universe or anything like that; they see simple profit in Pokémon and are totally willing to go after that, whatever the cost. And with that, they’re able to function on a large scale and do terrible things.

Even without threatening the Pokémon world with apocalyptic aims, for my money they’re still demonstrably scarier than any other evil team in the series. Yes, Team Rocket will actually murder that Cubone’s mother, and they will mutilate those Slowpokes for profit, and they will mess up Magikarps with freaky radio wave experiments. For that reason, Rocket plots are more memorable than like anything else in the series.

And, like any evil organization worth its butter, they won’t fucking die. They’ll be reorganizing and spreading their tendrils to the underbelly of Johto and the Sevii Islands and now Alola. It’s totally plausible to me that a mafia with an eye for exploitative profit would have more lasting power than any of those other cults and become the villains of the Pokémon world.

They’re only at #3, though, and that’s because of one thing: Giovanni makes very little sense as a big bad boss.

I mean, he’s the shadowy kingpin of Kanto’s criminal underworld, and a gym leader? Isn’t a gym leader’s entire job to be a public official/stepping stone for up and coming trainers in the league? I’ve seen the meme of the one dude in Viridian City musing on the mystery of the gym leader while standing right next a sign that says “GYM LEADER: GIOVANNI”, but really, that’s actually, that’s a really strange problem for the team.

Because really, why would Giovanni think it’s a good idea to run a criminal syndicate from inside an establishment that literally asks for kids to come in and beat him, and then when it happens, be all like “Welp, that’s it for my criminal empire. Time to fuck off to the mountains.” It’s easily the most inexplicable downfall in the series.

I’m not sure why Neo Team Rocket in Johto wanted this guy back so desperately. And I know he’s leading Team Rainbow Rocket because he’s the most iconic legacy villain and all, but let’s be real, all those leaders probably could’ve picked someone more competent to be the evil superboss.

 2. Team Plasma/Neo Team Plasma

If I were in the Pokémon world and didn’t have the luxury of a video game screen’s distance, I would probably have some serious moral qualms about the whole catching, training, and battling system. I mean, like, PETA’s response to the Pokémon franchise is over the top and unintentionally funny, but the ethics of how you train Pokémon the only way the games let you is a fair thing to consider. Would the Pokémon world be better off without gyms and Pokéballs, really?

That’s the main reason I like Team Plasma. Their premise is more ideologically compelling than any of the other teams. Because, really, in the first four generations there’s a lot talked up about bonding between Pokémon and trainers and how the two built up the world through cooperation, but there’s really not much to indicate that this exchange is demonstrably preferable to Pokémon whose best interests might not, you know, involve forcible abductions and battling until passing out. Having a villainous team like Team Plasma let the franchise address this question in a thoughtful way, and I dig it.

It also let the Team Plasma grunts be some of the most gloriously awful hypocrites in the franchise. I still remember how absolutely infuriating it was to have all these twerps show up and obstruct me with Pokémon battles while getting all self-righteous about how battling this way was wrong, and how much I hated them all even though they had a valid point. I dig that too. A mix like that can be an ideal recipe for a good antagonist.

What really sells me on Team Plasma, though, is the family drama backing it all. N is great every time he shows up, with all his cryptic dialogue and struggles to do right by the creatures he loves. Pokémon never really had an anti-villain before and he was perfect for games as much about moral ambiguity and balance as Black and White were. Having someone intimately connected to Pokémon and their needs (I remember the chills I got when you first go in his room and see all the scratched-up toys) makes him ideal to communicate the message that good trainer-Pokémon relationships are a healthy reciprocal exchange where a trainer ideally pays attention to the needs of their Pokémon. It’s a nice message.

N adding moral ambiguity to the game is great, but the drop of Ghetsis as the true mastermind is a good one too. The extent of Ghetsis’s manipulation of N was damn chilling, and silly robe or not, adding the personal touch cements him as one of the most solidly awful main bad guys in the series. Child abuse is sort of a running theme in this franchise, and I oddly appreciate much of the way it’s featured- I mean, I don’t like it, but it’s a literary appreciation. In the case of Black and White, framing an ethical struggle of how to do right by your Pokémon against someone brutally exploiting that struggle for the sake of a power grab was effective.

(as an aside, I didn’t much care for the reveal that N wasn’t Ghetsis’s biological son. I feel like the game sort of treated the reveal as a “Guess what? Ghetsis wasn’t your legitimate father all along!” which isn’t great, since whether or not a child has blood relationship to their caretaker doesn’t actually have any bearing on said caretaker’s impact and moral responsibility as a guardian, and pretending otherwise reinforces a harmful message that adoptive parents aren’t somehow “real” parents. Not super important but it’s just a little thing that bothers me)

Team Plasma’s second appearance is honestly less memorable to me than the first, but I dig the whole team evolution and split between Ghetsis’s power grabby followers and N’s good-hearted followers. It gives the saga of Team Plasma a legacy development we’ve really only seen otherwise with Neo Team Rocket in Johto, albeit with a more epic bent.

The big unanswered questions- how the hell did Team Plasma end up a weird religious monarchy? (And who the hell are Anthea and Concordia?) I feel like demanding more practical details of the running of all these evil organizations than a game for children is realistically going to give us is a running theme in this ranking, but I care about these things, dammit.

 1. Team Skull/Aether Foundation

When I first made this ranking about a year ago, I gave first place to the Sun and Moon antagonists then too, but I wondered if it was recency bias speaking. But after a year of being less wrapped up in Gen VII than I was then, I can look back and say that these guys are the definitive #1 villainous Pokémon team. I make this announcement seriously and with perfect objectivity on the matter. No questioning or dissenting opinions will be tolerated in this house, silly nit.

I kid, of course. This is just an opinion-based list I wrote for my own amusement. But that said, I do think the antagonists this game gave us are easily a cut above everyone else on this list, just with what speaks to me.

Team Skull, to begin with, is everything. Everything from their designs to their dialogue to the way Alola treats them like a giant joke really feels like these guys were crafted with a lot of affection for them. They’re perfect for the Gen VII games because, like much else, it’s goofy and self-aware and just plain fun. I’ve seen footage of the grunt reacting in horror over you getting to say you don’t remember who they are several times now and it’s still hilarious.

But also like much of Gen VII in general, it swings back around with a surprising amount of depth. The more time you spend talking with grunts, you get more and more of the sense of a lost and displaced group of people turning with their comrades on a society that doesn’t have a place for them. A lot of this is framed around the failure in the Island Challenge, but really, it’s not hard to read more into all the possible reasons the Skull kids could have turned to crime than that, right? (and even if you just leave it at that, I do sort of wonder sometimes about how much value the Pokémon world puts on someone’s strength as a trainer. It seems like it might be a somewhat limiting way to run things, to say the least, but that’s a discussion for another day)

Anyways, Team Skull resonates with me for the same reasons that Magma and Rocket do- it’s a not inaccurate depiction of what kind of evil organizations would appear in a world that resembles our own. What many of the Skullsters describe reflects real life gang psychology remarkably well. The world doesn’t want you, because the normal standards (the Island Challenge) are too high, perhaps on top of not having food or money or being shut out socially for any number of bullshit reasons. But the gang has your back, and it’s gonna provide AND stand with you against the world. Hence the perpetuation of crime culture even when “better” life choices are there, and the emphasis on belonging and group loyalty. The way the story frames Team Skull along those lines gives you another totally plausible villainous group, but unlike Rocket or Magma, it does it in a way that frequently plays on your empathy.

Don’t get me wrong here, I definitely do not mean to paint Team Skull as a bunch of poor lil’ woobies who turned to crime because they had no agency to be better people. They’re still the villains here, after all. We see plenty in game of all the ways they’re earnestly terrible to Alolans, from generally being obnoxious punkasses who get in your way to vandalizing to stealing children’s pets to taking over Po Town. As funny as it is, I’m not totally sure why the denizens of Alola are as unconcerned with Team Skull as they are; taking over an entire goddamn town is nothing to sneeze at.

It’s just… surprisingly nuanced, is all. Team Skull can be a bunch of weenies, genuinely threatening, and have a kind of a tragic reality underneath it all at the same time. Walking through the barricaded ruins of Po Town, across all the belligerent patrollers or members just sitting in the rain, is eerie for more reasons than one.

Boss Guzma encapsulates all of it pretty well. He’ll gloriously ham things up every time he’s on screen, and he’ll bully anyone in his way, but the game also gives him some backstory and, eventually, room to express his standards and prove that he’s really not beyond redemption here. Because getting caught up in Lusamine’s sinister plots really always came down to wanting personal validation and what’s best for his Skull kids, more than a core desire to watch the world burn from Ultra Space. (I might just be a sucker for the Even Evil Has Standards trope, but even so)

I also love the moment where Plumeria decides to help you. It’s not a moment of redemption in the sense that she’s seen the light and decided to stop being a punk. Her MO doesn’t ever change at all; she fights you because she wants to protect her kids, and she comes to your side because she wants to protect her kids.

I love everything about Team Skull, but they’re only half the equation. Sun and Moon also gave us the Aether Foundation. Hoo boy.

Lusamine is my favorite main antagonist in the series. For my money, she’s easily the scariest. And not just because she fucking froze her favorite Pokémon in ice to admire them at her leisure forever. I mean holy fuck what was that and was anyone expecting a scene that horrifying in a game like this. But anyways… (shudders)

Lusamine is intimidating first because of the way she wraps herself in a veneer of civility and benevolence. I mean, it’s true that she gives off creepy vibes from the introduction, just like Lysandre, but the difference lies in just how much the Aether Foundation embodies the qualities of Pokémon Good Guys we know so well at this point. They want to protect the ecosystem and, for Lusamine, it comes from a place of love. But it takes a while to figure out just how messed up that understanding of love is.

Lusamine’s love bubble is about what she can control, and when what she loves deviates from her expectations, she reacts with physical and emotional violence. Because underneath it all, she’s an astonishingly selfish person who puts her loved ones in danger by association. She treats her love for vulnerable parties as a tactic to mold them into whatever she wants, even to horrifying ends (permafreezing Pokémon who probably loved and trusted their trainer), and treats love as a commodity that can be withheld as a punishment and an excuse for doing whatever she wants in retribution. She can take advantage of Team Skull, and more horrifically, Nebby and her children, and eventually end up at critical self-indulgence in Ultra Space because all the world has failed to meet her impossible standards for love and therefore deserves to be razed by her deadly interdimensional pet jellyfish.

I mentioned in the last entry how child abuse is something of a running theme in the Pokémon franchise, and Lusamine brings the most intimate and thoughtful depiction of it yet. It winds up with Gladion lost and caught up with criminals he doesn’t even like associating with and turns cold. Lillie ends up working very hard, by way of new positive social bonds, to overcome the complexes association with her mother forced into her. In the end, both get to symbolically save themselves and stand up to Lusamine’s abuse. It touched me in a place I would have never expected a series like Pokémon to reach.

Lusamine is the fucking worst, but… I appreciated how the games even gave her backstory and space for empathy, too. The lady had a hard deal herself, and after losing your partner that way, it’s understandable that someone would end up obsessed with control and selective about love. She’s still terrible, mind you, but it’s worth seeing where something like that is coming from. And also, I really appreciated that even when her kids are breaking free and standing up, how they still sort of love each other. I loved Lillie’s monologue on Exeggutor Island about how her mother wasn’t all bad all the time, and they have good memories. It’s a realistic outcome for abuse victims to think that way, really. Lusamine’s concept of love is horrifying and unconstructive, and the fact Lillie loves her isn’t going to stop her from resisting her mother’s mind games, and the mere existence of familial love between them isn’t going to come close to fixing just how much in the wrong Lusamine is, but it’s there. It’s more unexpected thoughtfulness it would have been easy not to include, and I’m very glad it’s there.

I also love how Lusamine, like N, addresses in a meta sense some of the moral quandaries the format of Pokémon lends itself to. Because yeah, realistically, the average player is going to be kind of similar to Lusamine- we see Pokémon as ideally under our control and as decorative collectibles to be frozen in the game file indefinitely when we don’t need them anymore. And just like Lusamine, our reaction to seeing a brand new interdimensional jellyfish of doom (or the like) is going to be “I’ve got to get that.” The value of an antagonist like Lusamine is to show how this way of playing Pokémon absolutely cannot be extended to your living, real life relationships.

If I have one criticism of the Skull/Aether coalition as bad guys, it’s probably that the rest of the Aether Foundation is rather opaque. One minute they’ll be serving the wholesome environmentalist mission, and the next they’ll be attacking you with evil grins under Lusamine’s orders. Exactly how much the members knew about and were chill with Lusamine’s secret agendas or how this was dealt with after her downfall was never something that was really addressed.

(Also, screw Wicke. That woman was clearly aware of both how Lusamine was abusing her kids and the shady things the foundation was up to, and why it was wrong, but she still supported it all by working as an Aether executive. I would have hoped you’d get to kick her oily butt like you do with Faba to teach her a lesson about passive complacency in evil activities, or at least see her get a verbal slap on the wrist, but apparently not)

Overall, though, I have a hard time nitpicking when the good parts are so thoughtful and meaningful to me. It’s with this that I’m proud to declare these the top baddies! Woo!

Anyways, that’s it for the definitive ranking! I had fun with this. Will Rainbow Rocket be more or less the sum of its parts? I can’t wait to find out!

[liliannorman]

Desert trails and microbial life excite this soil scientist

Lydia Jennings has had many interests throughout her life. As a child, she trained as a dancer. But her brother insisted she’d be speedy if she ran like her siblings. So in high school, she traded her ballet slippers for running shoes. Running soon became a huge part of her life. Then an injury prompted an identity crisis. Jennings was forced to think about who she was outside of running. A growing interest in science helped answer those questions. 

At the time, Jennings didn’t think about becoming a scientist. She didn’t learn about careers in research until college. No one in her family did science as people usually think of it. But Jennings — a member of two indigenous tribes (the Pascua Yaqui Tribe and the Huichol of Mexico) — now realizes that many in her family had scientific knowledge. They picked it up though gardening, their Indigenous culture and the healing practices handed down through the generations.

Jennings realized that she could do research that would benefit her community. That led her to soil science. She now studies how bacteria and plants bounce back after their soil environment has been disturbed by mining. In this interview, Jennings shares her experiences and advice with Science News for Students. (This interview has been edited for content and readability.)

What inspired you to pursue your career?

Well, I’ve always loved being outside. So that’s a really big part — just being outside and getting to know the earth around me. Running has also inspired me. I love to run. In high school in New Mexico, I was starting to see all these patterns outside. I noticed where plants grew, and how the soil in the shadowy areas of the mountain differs from soil in the more sun-exposed areas. In science classes, I then learned the language to describe what I saw out there running. 

In graduate school, I would be on the trails and I’d get to experience with my feet what I was studying. Once I was running in the Sonoran Desert in Arizona after a huge rain event. The normally dry soil was saturated with water. I noticed that there was water on the soil surface. That’s rare because we have such sandy soil. And I thought about the soil properties and equations to calculate how much water the soil can hold. I also thought about the pressure that my foot applies to the soil, which was making the water come to the surface.

Lydia Jennings collects soil samples at a reclaimed mine in Southern Arizona as part of her research. Julia Nielson

My classmates during college at California State University in Monterey Bay played a big part in my career, too. I got to really know them. My biology classes would go on camping trips. Everyone was as excited about science as I was. I loved that. It was such a great place to be nerdy. In some of my high school classes, it wasn’t cool to be nerdy. But in my first year of college, it was just so fun to be outside together pointing out plants, bugs and animals to each other.

How did you get where you are today?

It’s kind of been a meandering path. I took science classes in high school. But the idea of a job doing research wasn’t something I knew about. I got into research because of a professor that I had at Cabrillo College, a community college in Santa Cruz, Calif. He pointed out that I was good at science and noticed how excited I’d get about it. So I did a research internship with him and he was an important mentor for me. I remember how proud he was when he learned I was accepted into graduate school.

Explainer: What is a mentor?

After that, I studied environmental science, technology and policy at California State University. It’s was such a stunning environment. You have both the redwood forest, with trees older than any human alive, and the incredible ocean. Living there, I thought I wanted to be a marine biologist. But I considered that I’m from the desert and marine biology wouldn’t help me serve my home community. 

So I took a couple of years off and worked at a field station in Big Sur in California. I studied water pollution. During that time, I was able to think about how I could use my science skillsets to serve the places I’m from. I thought about their environmental issues, including those caused by mining. So many indigenous communities and places in the Southwest are impacted by mining. Mining can disturb soil ecosystems that take thousands of years to form. And digging things up can create air pollution. 

Right now, I’m in the process of talking with tribal leadership about what environmental programs we might want to look into. We’re thinking about environmental health or education programs for our community. So, finally, my intellectual and cultural and moral interests have found a place to come together. 

How do you get your best ideas?

A lot of times, it happens when I’m out on a run. I’m a trail runner. Trail running is when, instead of running on roads and pavement, you’re running on dirt trails or mountain trails. Trail running sometimes is a mix of hiking and running. That’s when I feel most at peace. I’m able to do some thinking then, too. 

Once I was on a run and was thinking about what wasn’t working in my experiments. I came to this realization that, oh, it’s because I’m not using these specific pipette tips. It’s a small thing. But when you’re working with tiny amounts of DNA, that makes a world of difference. 

Also, having conversations with friends and family members who can help me see my blind spots is really helpful.

What’s one of your biggest successes?

Winning certain awards is really valuable. So it was really nice getting the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship (a prestigious award for graduate students), and being selected for the American Geophysical Society Voices for Science (a program that trains scientists to be better communicators). 

It’s also really valuable to have the people in my life recognize that I’m not only a scientist, but I’m also a good friend and community member. Those are really important successes to me as well. That’s because being in science can be hard. You’re constantly doing a balancing act. You want to get work done and be productive but also build friendships, take time to relax and enjoy life. 

What’s one of your biggest failures, and how did you get past that? 

One of the biggest failures was when some experiments were not working like I’d hoped. I was quantifying the amount of DNA from microbes in soil samples. I’d done this for bacteria. I was now going to use a new method for fungi. At that point, no one in my research group or even in the recent past had worked on fungi. So I had to go through old lab notes to figure out the protocol. 

I spent six months on it, and I was getting results that I couldn’t reproduce. My advisor and I had to have a really tough discussion about whether it was worth working on this for six more months. We decided to replace it with different experiments. 

That was really hard for me because I felt like I was failing. But the other method I used provided really compelling results. It told a different story. In hindsight, I don’t feel like this was a failure, but I had to get creative to find an alternative. 

I think that when you have failures, they provide some of the biggest lessons. Now I feel like I know that protocol inside and out. 

Jennings loves to play with her puppy Salchicha. Gaberial Vega

What do you do in your spare time?

I like to trail run and just be outside. I also like to camp and rock climb. Any of those fun outdoor activities — that’s what really makes me happy. I also like to cook. And I like to play with my puppy Salchicha. She’s a blue heeler. That’s a little cattle dog. She’ll be a good runner when she gets older. 

What piece of advice do you wish you had been given when you were younger?

I wish I had been told that it’s OK to try a variety of things to find out what you’re really passionate about. I think, especially in science, that we have this tendency to think that you have to do very specific steps to be successful. But it’s really important that students experience many different things. You might never know what you’re in love with or really passionate about unless you try it. 

When I was an undergrad, I was working two, sometimes three, jobs. I didn’t have time to think about what makes me happy or about my long-term goals. After college, there was so much pressure to go right to grad school. But I didn’t. I took a couple years off to really think about what I wanted to do. I did field work and laboratory work. And I developed a range of skillsets. I’m really thankful for that whole experience. Because it helped develop me as professional.

This Q&A is part of a series exploring the many paths to a career in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). It has been made possible with generous support from Arconic Foundation.

Desert trails and microbial life excite this soil scientist published first on https://triviaqaweb.tumblr.com/

[ghostradiostoryhour]

Wampus

After Momma died, Lacey and I snuck into the Wildcat Wonders room. We were going to bring her back from the dead.

Lightning forked in the floor-to-ceiling windows. Taxidermied panthers and lynxes snarled out of the corners of the room. Whenever it thundered outside, the whole room growled. The glass eyes of the newest addition, a cougar, sparked whenever the sky lit up. The Wildcat Wonders room was our favorite room in the house, and it was the first room that tourists and children on school field trips visited whenever they came to our place. Daddy built it himself, even before he had gotten the park license from the government.

On one wall stretched the dusty pelts of every kind of cat we had at the preserve, arranged from smallest to largest: wildcat, ocelot, serval, bobcat, lynx, Canadian lynx, Carolina black panther, cougar. The skulls of each cat sat in a plexiglass display case beneath the pelts, along with facts about each cat’s teeth, eyes, and ears. Beside each, blurbs explained how each of the predators that we protected were vital parts of the Texan and American ecosystems. On the other wall, a flatscreen TV played an educational video on loop when we were open for visitors. In the summertime, peak hours, our house echoed with the recorded cries of big cats, punctuated only by the shuffling steps of the visitors, an occasional gasp of awe.

Then Momma died, and we closed to the public. The Wildcat Wonders room fell silent. Until now.

Lacey shut the door behind us. She placed tall, thin white candles in the center of the room so that they made the shape of big star. Then she lit the candles one by one—first the inside of the star, then the outside.

I couldn’t stop seeing Momma die; I would close my eyes and the cougar would spring. The sleek ripple of tan fur in the high grass. The curl of the black lips. Red tongue. White teeth. Me, hiding deep in the grass as the cougar tore into Momma’s chest, dragged her body away. When they found her, all they had to give us was bits of the dress she was wearing. They had found some of her body, too, enough to cremate. I didn’t ever want to think about it. I just wanted her to be gone already, if she had to be dead.

Lacey liked to talk about Momma all the time. If she wasn’t talking about Momma, she was looking up ways to bring her back—hoodoo, black magic, anything even remotely possible, she was happy to try. She didn’t mind that she might get hurt, and she said she would protect me. She’d done a lot of research, she said, and this was the best way. A séance. Easy.

When all the candles were lit, Lacey blew out the match, and I watched the smoke curl and twist away from her hand to hang gray in the air.

“You stand here, Ada,” she said, pulling me into the middle of the star. Momma’s debutante picture lay on the ground next to me. It was the only one Lacey managed to nick before Daddy threw out the rest. Next to Momma in her fancy dress, my nightgown made me feel ragged and small.

“Why?” I asked. I squatted close to one of the candles and scrunched my toes against the wood floor. I watched the flame wink in the glass of the picture frame at my feet. It licked at Momma’s pretty face, made dark gaps and shadows in her eyes and cheeks. I decided to watch the candle instead.

Lacey flipped through the book she’d brought. A thin line of smoke rose from one of the inner candles’ flames. I held one hand out over it.

“Cut it out,” Lacey said, and rummaged in the sack again.

Lacey folded something open in her hand with a small snick: a glint of dull silver in the flickering candlelight. Daddy’s Boy Scout knife. Lacey held her palm open wide in front of her. Using the tip of the blade, she traced a dark line in her skin. She sucked air through her teeth and tucked into her palm a small piece of fabric I recognized as what was left of Momma’s dress. Then she made a fist.

“Don’t be such a baby,” Lacey said when she saw my face. “It’s just blood.”

Her eyes fell, their darkness sharp against her light hair and skin. Her teeth looked pointed in the light from the candles. Thunder rolled outside.

“You’re what they call the gateway,” Lacey said. “Momma can only re-enter the world of the living through your body.”

“Do I have to?” I shifted my weight, looked at my feet.

Lacey shot me a sharp glance. “You’re the last one who saw her,” she said. “It has to be you.” Her words settled in me slow, like small, smooth stones dropped into water.

“Okay,” I said.

Lacey nodded and paced a circle around the candles. She held her fist shut tight and a thin line of blood dripped after her. When the circle was complete, she stepped in closer, reached out to me with her bloody hand. I jerked away and she glared.

“Hold still,” she said. Then, in a softer tone, she added, “Close your eyes.”

She tied the bloody strip of fabric around my left hand, then slid her own wet palm down my face. I stood there as the blood dripped down my face in uneven lines. I watched her; she knelt just outside of the circle, and in a steady voice read words over and over again until I didn’t recognize their meaning anymore.

Nothing happened. I didn’t move. I thought about Momma. If we were going to talk to her, where was she? Lacey stopped reading. She stood and tucked her hurt hand into the skirt of her nightgown. A blackish red bloomed fast across the white fabric, the exact shade of the stains on the piece of Momma’s dress wrapped tight around my hand. I scratched my nose and my fingertips came away bloody.

Lacey bent and picked up the book with her good hand, and a library card fluttered out to the ground.

“I did everything right. I followed all the steps,” she said. The book flopped out of her hand and hit the ground with a smack. She looked up at me. “What did you do?” she said. Lightning cracked again. She crossed the room, fast, and

then her face was inches from mine. She dug her fingers into my shoulders, shook me hard. Some of the blood from my face splattered onto hers.

“Stop it,” I said. “You’re hurting me.”

“You said you were ready!” Lacey yelled. She broke off, shuddered. She was looking right at me when her eyes changed. A thin amber ring formed around her pupils, which mooned outward quick, engulfed her eyes. Where there once was white now shone black in the darkness. The thick smell of rain and rotting hide filled my nose. The flames of the candles guttered once, twice, and Lacey’s eyes glowed green and red when they caught the light.

I stumbled back, away from her, and one of the candles in its glass jar fell onto Momma’s picture with a musical crack. The shattered glass of the picture frame fractured and distorted Momma’s face. Lacey gasped and rushed over, fell to her knees to clean it up. She glanced up at me, angry, and her pupils were back to normal. I watched Lacey’s face and didn’t breathe. She picked up the broken picture and stared at it. The water forming in her eyes caught the light of the candles.

Then all of the candles went out, every one, in a fast swish of air from somewhere unseen. I imagined demons moving catlike through the room.

I ran down the hall that led to the bedroom Lacey and I shared. Halfway down, there was a flash of light from the bathroom mirror. I stopped dead. The door stood half-open. Was it her? Was it something else?

Heartbeat thick in my ears, the soles of my bare feet tingling, I took one step toward the door, then another, until I was close enough to peer inside the bathroom.

Nothing.

The room was dark but for the lightning flashing in the one window, doubled in the mirror over the sink. New towels hung harmlessly next to the toilet. Lightning again and I caught my reflection in the mirror: my face was dark and streaky, my eyes wide. My hair hung on either side of my face in wet ropes. Embarrassment glowed hot in my palms. I looked like a mess.

Of course it was my fault the spell didn’t work. All of it was my fault, wasn’t it? Momma was gone because I hadn’t done anything to stop it, because I hadn’t been brave enough.

I started to cry. I lowered myself into the tub and curled into the corner, trying to push the rising heat of the tears down and out of my mouth, my throat. From the darkness of the tub, I watched the window, rain lashing the glass in streaks, and I felt myself starting to uncoil. The heat in my chest frayed and split like thread on an old rug. The lightning flashed again, and lit the room.

A woman. Outside, looking in. Face pressed up to the window.

I saw her, clear as day. Drowned-looking, ragged, a bone-smile. Eyes not empty and black but wide, alive, and blue. Like Momma’s eyes. But her skin.

Her skin was decayed, peeling off in places. Her eye sockets gaped a little too wide. I screamed, but no sound came out. The shock of seeing her here, like this. The room fell dark again and I held my breath. Would she come inside? Would she know me?

Lightning again, and this time nothing but rain and field and trees bending in the wind.

When I could breathe normally again, I climbed out of the tub, the porcelain cool on my fingers. I turned the faucet with its usual creak, washed my face in warm, clear water. There are no such things as ghosts, I told myself. There is nothing to be afraid of. But still my hands shook.

I lifted my chin and walked back to our room in the dark.

The room smelled strange when I got there, a little like leaves raked into a pile, but otherwise nothing had changed. Lacey was quiet, already under the covers. Her hands were still bleeding. They left red smudges on her white comforter and pillow. When she saw my face, she sat bolt upright in bed.

“Did you see Momma?” she said, the hope in her voice sharp.

I stared at my sister, sitting in the square of light that fell onto her bed from the window, her face dark, backlit by the floodlight outside. Long scratches that hadn’t been there before stretched down her forearms.

She saw me looking and she pulled her sleeves down and held them in her hands. “Well?”

I knew what she wanted to hear, but I didn’t want her to laugh at me. And some part of me wanted to keep Momma—or whoever that woman had been—to myself. Wanted to keep her special, mine.

I shook my head.

“Oh,” she said. “You were taking forever, so I thought...” She sniffed hard, pressed the end of her sleeve against one of her eyes, then the other. Then she straightened and said, “Forget it. Goodnight.”

I reached out to her, but she pulled the covers up over her head and turned out the light. I sat down on my bed and watched her. Every so often, her whole body twitched beneath the sheets, but she was silent. When her breathing slowed and evened, when I was sure she was asleep, I crept over and slipped into her bed beside her, molded my body to hers. She was shaking, I could feel, but she was warm and soft and serene. The smell of leaves was stronger and as I settled into my own sleep, I dreamed that my sister wasn’t shaking, but purring.

It had been a whole month since Momma died, but still the papers kept themselves busy making a big spectacle of us. For a town like Uvalde, any death was a welcome distraction from people’s own small problems. The reporters came, and the animal rights’ activists came, and the church people came, and the child welfare agencies came. Some tourists even came, not for the cats, which would have been normal, but to see where Momma had died. Daddy ran them off, but not before they had staked a sign that said MANEATER RANCH outside the front gate.

The next day, on our way to school, Daddy got out of the truck, ripped the sign out of the ground, and threw it into the dumpster. The sign didn’t really matter, though. Our pictures were everywhere, mine in particular. People started pointing at us, at school, in town.

Everybody was using Momma as a reason to wave their guns around. Uvalde was a big hunting area—there was so much camo at the Walmart that you’d think it was a war zone. In Uvalde, you hunted for hunting’s sake, for the kick of a rifle butt in your right shoulder, for the feeling of invincibility. We always had to run poachers off our land, but since we were nationally registered, everything on our property was protected by federal law. Some days, it felt like the whole city was sore at us for spoiling the fun.

The people in town who weren’t trying to shoot our cats were still raising eyebrows. Round, breathless city slickers who drove their fancy Escalades and Lincoln SUVs out here for the weekends tutted to themselves when they saw us restocking at the meat counter in Brookshire Brothers’ Grocery. They’d point to us and tell their kids about how stupid our Momma was for wandering around outside on a place with wild animals. Like the rest of the land was predator-free. Sometimes, they’d make jokes about that old Wampus Cat legend, the one about the Cherokee woman who could turn into a panther.

“Cool! Like Catwoman?” some of the younger kids would ask, excited.

“No, honey,” the parents would always say. “Bad, like a witch. Catwoman wasn’t an Indian.”

Their hate made me want to scratch at them, but Daddy always looked down at the floor. He wouldn’t ever meet their eyes.

He didn’t ever bring Momma up, which I was glad for at first. But then he never spoke at all, about anything. It was like he had decided that since she was gone, the only option was to disappear himself. Daddy had become a fragile thing, breakable and silent. Whatever happened, it was our job to keep him from cracking in half.

*** We all said goodbye to Momma about a week after it happened. We had the official

church funeral first, but then we came back to our place to do the real ceremony. Lacey and I stood next to Daddy on the bank of Momma’s favorite pond, that same one in the cougar enclosure, just a little ways down from where I watched her die.

All around us, the high grass had been mowed down by the search parties Daddy and the city police sent out, but the leaves on the trees still whispered, and little black crickets leapt and sang in the shallow mud at the pond’s edge. The cougar that had killed her was still in there, but Daddy didn’t seem to care. He was crying. I held Lacey’s cold hand tightly in my own. I couldn’t help but scan the trees along the fence for that big head, those two gold eyes. When she saw my face, Lacey squeezed my hand and pulled me a little closer. Daddy kissed the jar before he scattered Momma’s ashes in the pond’s murky water, and Lacey and I watched. Our matching black dresses snapped in the wind. Our faces were dry.

*** Not long after the séance, Lacey turned sixteen. She decided to move into the Wildcat

Wonders room. She didn’t ask Daddy, but Lacey packed up her things as though it were not up for debate. One by one, she packed her things into cardboard boxes and carried them down the hall. Ever since the night of the séance, I had stayed out of that room.

I hardly saw Lacey anymore, and when I did, she was always carting around old spell books and books of folklore. She started to dress differently, too—she paired her flowy white dresses with thick black combat boots, and streaked her blonde hair black. I don’t think she ever slept. Most nights, if I listened at her door, I could hear her chanting in a spitting language I didn’t understand. Once, I caught her standing in front of the bathroom sink at four in the morning, Daddy’s Boy Scout knife open in her hand, its blade dark, the same shade of the short cuts she had made on the outside of her left arm.

It got bad. I tried to tell Daddy about it.

The sun was just setting when I stepped out onto the porch, the sky over the road a dusty, burnt orange. Daddy was sitting in his metal rocking chair like always. He had gotten his shotgun down from its place above the mantle. The gun was unloaded, cracked in half across his knees. He was busily stuffing a rag into each of the barrels, rubbing hard with his thumb so that the rag came away blackened and grimy.

“How does that help?” I said. “Cleaning the gun, I mean. Does it make it shoot better?”

He looked over in my direction, through me instead of at me. Then he cracked his neck once and looked back out at the road. I knew he was waiting for Momma to come back, just like Lacey. Why are you sad? What are you doing out here? Why won’t you talk to me? Every question I thought to ask, Momma was the answer. So I just sat there watching him.

“Ada, what’s this about,” he said finally. He sounded tired. He still didn’t look at me.

I picked at a hangnail. “Lacey’s acting funny,” I said. “All she does is read these weird old books, and she won’t talk to me. I hardly see her anymore.”

He shrugged, spat on the ground. I watched him, trying to read his meaning. Daddy coughed and stood up.

“She’s just growing up,” he said, and this time, he looked right at me. “Things change as you get older. Mean different things. Weigh heavier, you understand?”

I did understand. I had started to watch the other girls in my class differently, in ways that made my heart pace and snarl the way our cats did before feedings, not entirely unpleasant, but feral, and dangerous. But what did any of that have to do with Lacey’s silence? Her strangeness?

He reached toward me, but then thought better of it and cocked the rifle instead. “Go to bed,” he said. Then, “Don’t you or Lacey wait up for me.” “Where are you going?” I asked. He turned and trudged down the porch steps out to the yard where his truck was parked.

“Gotta get something for the cats,” he called over his shoulder. “Y’all be good.” He turned the engine and I stayed there on the porch, alone, until his truck turned off onto the main road, and the smells of burned diesel and dirt had kicked high into the night. A cry from one of the cat enclosures started like a woman’s scream and cut abruptly into a howl. One of the bobcats. Though the cougars sounded similar. By the time I felt like I could move, the sun had set completely, and all around me, the sky was black, freckled by the far-off stars. The night echoed with the unearthly calls of big cats.

That night, I dreamed of Momma again. This time, Lacey was there, too, crouched low in the high grass next to me. Her dark eyes were glowing. In one hand, she held Daddy’s green Boy Scout knife, open. When the cougar tensed in the grass next to Momma, the way it always did, Lacey leapt forward with a scream of her own.

I opened my eyes. The ceiling fan in my room spun slowly in the dark. My sheets were drenched in sweat and my hair stuck in wet strands to my face and neck.

I got up, peered past my bedroom door and down the long, dark hallway. At the end of the hall, the door to the Wildcat Wonders room was outlined in a thin rectangle of light. If I held my breath for a moment, I could hear small noises of pain—air sucked in sharp through clenched teeth, stifled grunts, the shaky, measured release of breath.

I crept down the hall. Soon I was at the door. I inched my face close to the small crack of light and watched. I could see Lacey sitting shirtless on her bed, which she’d arranged to be across from the plexiglass cases full of skulls. Her back was to me, and she had headphones in.

Her right arm was raised, her fingers closed around something thin and hard to see. A tannish blanket was draped over her shoulders. I cracked the door open a little wider. It was a pelt, a cougar from the coloration. She pulled her right hand in toward her chest where the pelt was draped, winced, and when she pulled her hand back out again, I could see that it was a needle she was holding. The line of near-invisible fishing wire gleamed red in the light and when Lacey pulled it tight, a drop of blood fell from her bare collarbone onto the wood floor near the bed. I gasped and Lacey spun around.

Her eyes caught mine, and I stopped breathing. Where there should have been a deep nut- brown, her eyes were yellow, rimmed in black, her pupils diamond-shaped. She lunged at me with a yell, slammed the door in my face. Her teeth were long like fangs.

*** The next day, before school, Lacey looked the same as always. Only today she wore a black turtleneck sweater and jeans instead of a dress. I wondered whether, beneath her turtleneck, the pelt was stitched tight to her skin. I wondered whether she had chosen black so that the blood wouldn’t show when it pushed against the stitches, seeped into the sweater.

I tried to talk to her, but she grabbed her backpack and a Slim Jim and pushed past me out the door. Then Daddy came in, looking more tired than usual, and said he couldn’t pick me up after school because he had to go to a meeting. He was carrying the shotgun in a black vinyl carrying case I’d never seen before. He wore a new baseball hat that said NRA on it. He didn’t even look at me when he said goodbye.

*** That night, I made us box mac and cheese for dinner. Lacey was reading another one of her books, sitting at the dinner table.

When I came over to put out the place settings for us, she caught me by the wrist, hard enough to bruise, and slammed my hand down on the table. The silverware I was holding clattered to the floor. Her long nails dug into my skin.

“Don’t ever spy on me again,” she said. Her voice was almost a growl.

Lacey looked at me hard, then let go of my arm. With some difficulty, she leaned over, picked up the fallen silverware, and arranged it back neatly.

“You don’t have to be like this,” I said. I miss Momma too, I wanted to say. The water on the stove started to boil. “Do you think Dad’s acting weird?” she said. I shook the noodles from the box into the pot of water. “Why?” I thought of the gun, the new hat. She didn’t say anything else. I looked at her. She was reading her book. I squinted to read the title. The Legend of the Wampus Cat.

“This stuff is never gonna bring her back,” I said. Lacey looked over at me and shook her head.

“You wouldn’t understand,” she said.

I thought of the cat in my chest, of the girls in my class. I didn’t think she had the same animal living in her bones, but I knew what it was like, keeping something wild beneath your skin.

“You can talk to me,” I said. “It’s hard for all of us.”

“God, do you have to be so pathetic? This isn’t about Momma anymore,” she said. “She’s gone, Ada. There’s nothing you can do to change that.”

“Then why are you still trying,” I said. She looked at me, closed her book. “Everything is so fucking messed up,” Lacey said, her voice shaky. “You have no idea.”Yes, I do. “Then tell me,” I said. Lacey looked at me, her eyes weighing some truth. Deciding. Then her face hardened. “It should have been you out there,” Lacey said. “If Momma were still alive, she’d know what to do. But you’re just useless.”

I watched her face. Her eyes were like Momma’s, blue and wide and cruel when called for. I crossed my arms, rolled my shoulders back.

“I saw her, you know,” I said. “The other night. She appeared to me.” Lacey rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right.” “In the bathroom,” I said. “After. She was at the window, outside.” I liked the feeling that the words brought, a blurring sting, then a rush of heat in the abdomen. More like a swarm of deer ticks than like butterflies. More like anger, a snarling joy. I stepped closer to my sister.

“Shut up,” Lacey said. “That’s so stupid. She wouldn’t do that.” But I could see the doubt flowering beneath her skin, the release of its dark seeds.

“I thought it was weird, but it was her,” I said, gaining confidence. “She called me by name. She knew me.” I stared at Lacey evenly. “It was her.”

Lacey didn’t say anything. I uncrossed my arms, went back to the noodles, as though the very wires that held me together weren’t all singing in unison. As though it were the most normal thing in the world, to have seen her, our dead mother.

“But how...” Lacey said, quiet, as though she had forgotten I was standing there across from her. The feeling, that I was nothing more than a ghost, was so familiar, I almost didn’t notice.

There were so many times I didn’t notice. That I wasn’t noticed. That I was nothing. “She’s out there every night, you know,” I said. Not nothing. Something. Someone. I was someone. “Out in the cougar enclosure. The big run,” I continued.

Before me, Lacey had shrunk. Her whole face gaped toward me, rapt, a flower seeking sun. It felt good, holding her here like this. Necessary.

“But why would she go there?” Lacey asked, her voice small. “Why not the house again?”

Sharp, the spike of worry in my chest. I overcompensated. “I don’t know. But she sings to me, when I see her.”

Lacey looked at me, eyes opaque. Would she cry? Would she hit me? In that moment, I wanted her to. I wanted the kick and scratch. I wanted a chance to take it back.

Nothing. Just silence.

Then she nodded at the stove. “Your water’s boiling over,” she said, and left.

The fluorescent bulb overhead blinked once and then steadied itself with a low hum. I held the edge of the counter to stop my hands from shaking. Then I leaned over the sink and spat.

Down the hall, I heard her bedroom door slam behind her. Next to me, the water rushed up and out of the pot, sizzling on the stovetop. I slid down the counter, put my face in my hands, and tried to cry, but no tears came. I was empty.

When I finally caught my breath, I got up, turned off the stove, and cleaned up the mess so that Daddy wouldn’t come home to find it. I didn’t want him to worry.

*** Later that night, I heard the thump and screech of a window sliding open. Lacey.

I knew she would take the bait. Momma was too important to Lacey for her not to. A small, hate-filled smile cracked within me, crawling with shined black beetles. I winced at my own sharp joy at tricking my sister. She could get hurt.

Would she care, I thought. If it were you out there, would she even flinch? That word from earlier, useless, flashed across my mind. No, I decided. But I wanted to see for myself what she would do. I crawled out of my bed and crept through the house to the back door. Outside, the sky was cloudy, streaked grey and black like murky water. The moon was just a sliver of God’s fingernail, as Daddy used to say. Lacey jogged across the yard toward the pond in the cougar enclosure. Her white nightgown flapped bright in the darkness.

Out of the darkness, a shape sauntered across the yard, passed beneath the floodlight in our backyard. Big sandy paws, square golden head, bunched chest muscles rippling beneath pale fur. Two rounded, black-tipped ears. Then it turned and disappeared into the trees.

I glanced back at the house where it sat dark on the hill. Daddy’s truck was still gone. As I raced after my sister, my hands shook. I half expected to find my sister deep in the bone-reed stalks, lying in the dirt on her back. I pictured her blank eyes pointed up at the moon, the dead, dry hay bent around her in a perfect imprint of her body.

When I got down to the pond, I saw Lacey, a catskin draped like a cloak around her shoulders, Daddy’s Boy Scout knife in her hand. Then she pulled the skin over her head. A shudder, then suddenly a cougar unfurled where my sister stood only a moment before.

From my hiding spot in the high grass, I gasped, and the cougar’s eyes snapped to mine.

Daddy called from the house, and two shots rang out, one after the other. The cougar flattened against the ground, then something heavy slammed into its side and a dark stain began to spread there.

The cougar’s body jerked in and out of cougar form. One second it was the cougar, panting and bleeding onto the grass, and the next Lacey was kneeling in its place, clutching her stomach and crying. Something was wrong. I heard Daddy’s calls coming closer, the snap of grass beneath his heavy step.

“It’s okay,” I said to Lacey. “You’re okay.” Lacey looked at me and nodded, her features shifting in and out of humanness. “I told you not to follow me,” she said softly. “I didn’t want you to see.” I tried to get to my feet, but my body kept slipping out from under me. Like I couldn’t

remember how to make my legs move. Lacey leaned against me, and together we stood steady. “Ada,” she said, her voice scratchier by the minute. “Yeah?” I said. “I didn’t mean it, what I said.”

“I know.” “I think I saw her,” Lacey said. “What?” “Momma. Like you said.” Pain flashed through me, snicking like Daddy’s green knife. This was my fault. I was the one hurting my family. I was killing them.

I thought of the darkness in me, wondering who else I’d kill. The girls in my class?

Daddy? The needle sinking in and out of Lacey’s skin, drawing blood, started to make a kind of sense.

“Thank you,” Lacey said. “No,” I said, my voice cracking. “It was worth it,” she said. “I got to see her.” And at last I knew what I could do to help. To heal my sister. I could keep this lie, bury it

deep, salvage something. “Good,” I said. “I’m glad.”

Lacey smiled at me.

As we breathed, she shifted shape less, until she was more cat than girl. Her face was gaunt and tanner than usual, her eyes were tired but golden, rimmed in black thicker than any eyeliner I’d ever seen her wear. The hairs on her upper lip shone white and stiff, like whiskers. Her teeth were pointed. There were scars all over her body, just like the ones on her chest, only shorter, less neatly healed. And something else hit me. This was what happened to you if you tried to keep the cat inside. I thought of the girls in my class, of their collarbones, of their lips and hands.

What would happen to me if I kept that buried?

Lacey should have talked to me. She should have told me what she was, beneath her skin. I could have pulled this cat from her chest, if I had known. She could have taught me how to cope with mine.

I started to cry, and Lacey hugged me tighter, silent beside me. “It’s okay,” she said. But it wasn’t okay. The sound of footsteps and grass cracking. Labored breathing between steps. “Daddy?” Lacey said. Her voice was so quiet I could hardly hear her. Claws out, she pushed aside a clump of grass next to us, trying to see through the stalks. I looked up at the spinning sky.

I heard the sound of a gun being cocked, and instinctively I stepped in front of my sister.

Daddy burst in gun first, fell to the ground next to us. He tossed aside the shotgun in his hands, and scooped Lacey into his arms. Her pale skin was still a little golden, her ears rounded and black, the pelt sewn roughly along her collarbones, caked in dried blood that the hole in her belly was starting to match in color.

“I’m here,” Daddy said, the tears welling in his eyes. “I’m so sorry. I promise you’ll be okay.” I thought of his gun, of everything he didn’t know. He could never keep us safe. We had kept each other safe. Badly, but we had. I thought about Momma, about how he never stood up for us in the store. Daddy didn’t know how to protect anyone but himself.

The world rang and slipped sideways. Lacey looked right at me, her nightgown soaked in red, then her chest stilled. Daddy dropped the gun, and somewhere in the high grass around us, or maybe just in the depths of me, a big cat screamed.