#brainy-twilight

[humansbgone]

Gregorsa's comment that we might have already spotted a demivolute other than the cow makes me think that the human commander we saw was a demivolute. If that's the case, would her subordinates be aware of that, or would she be hiding it from them? If she isn't the demivolute that Gregorsa was talking about, then what is? Can plants be demivolutes? Would that mean that Tricularia -itself- is what he was talking about?

:)

[trashpandato]

Twilight

“In hindsight, I probably should have known what it meant,” Alex groans, bringing both hands up to cover her face. “I made sure that I only hung up the posters that had Kristen Stewart on them.”

Kara remembers all those posters, the too pale boys possessively flanking the movies’ main female character. She’d always wondered why Alex was so into the Twilight series; they were all just…so bad. Now it made more sense.

“Aw, babe,” Kelly teases, “let me know if you want me to reenact any of your teenage dreams about biting. I’m game.”

Alex groans again, but this time it’s accompanied by a bright blush. 

Laughter fills the room. They’ve been sharing stories about their first significant celebrity crushes for the last few minutes, the board game temporarily abandoned in front of them.

Kara has learned that Nia had a thing for Keanu Reeves after watching that bomb on a bus movie one too many times, but that she also “wouldn’t have kicked Sandra Bullock off her bed”, as she put it. 

Brainy mentioned that he went through a rather intense phase of trying to learn more about Earth culture, specifically American pop culture, and that he got stuck on the OG Wonder Woman, Lynda Carter, for a while. Not a bad choice, Kara thinks while Nia jokes that she’d be more than happy to tie him up with a lasso. 

Kelly then rattles off a few actors that Kara thinks were on the L Word, with a particular emphasis on Jennifer Beals. Kara half expects Alex to make a joke about Flashdance, but instead, Alex simply leans into Kelly and presses a soft kiss to her cheek. 

When they get to Kara, she has to disappoint.

“I don’t think I have anything to offer here. Not really.”

Alex hums. “The posters on your walls were all images from the Hubble telescope. I mean, I know you liked NSYNC for their music, but I don’t think you ever swooned over any of them. Not really. There was definitely a mental love affair with Lilo and Stitch, though.”

When Alex mentions the Hubble images, Kara feels a cool pale hand slip into hers to give it a short squeeze. It’s brief, a quick show of support, but it means everything to Kara. She turns to Lena and smiles gratefully. At the same time, the attention of the rest of their friend group shifts to Lena as well.

But Lena just shrugs. “I definitely wasn’t allowed to hang up any posters in the Luthor mansion.”

“Yeah, but what about boarding school? Come on, Luthor,” Alex probes, “you can’t tell me there wasn’t a ton of celebrity gossip going around at an all-girls school.”

“Oh there was gossip alright. I can’t say I ever really knew what it was about, though. I didn’t really watch movies or TV growing up, so most of the names the girls were talking about meant nothing to me.”

This time, it’s Kara who squeezes Lena’s hand. She knows that Lena doesn’t like to talk about what growing up was like for her. She doesn’t like the pitying looks, or the constant assumptions that just because her family was rich, Lena must have had everything she ever wanted. But before the mood in the room turns too gloomy, Lena sits up a little, a small smirk on her face.

“So maybe I was a bit of a late bloomer that way. I would say I had my first real celebrity crush in my early 20s.”

That gets everyone’s attention.

“Oh really? Who was it?” Nia asks gleefully.

“Well, I was still in Metropolis at the time. But I had watched them on TV, followed their budding celebrity status.”

Lena pauses for a moment before she turns to face Kara more fully.

“And then I gave Jack Spheer an impassioned speech about why I had to move to National City, about how important it was to me to be the Luthor living in the same city as Supergirl. I believe I even said I wanted to share my home with her.”

There’s a stunned silence in the room for a few seconds before Alex barks out a laugh.

“Really? Your celebrity crush was Supergirl?”

And Kara considers if she should intervene, tell Alex to lay off on the heavy teasing she knows is going to happen now, but Lena is looking at her and she’s still smiling, calm and confident, and Kara simply smiles right back.

Lena chuckles, her eyes never leaving Kara’s. “Of course it was. I mean, have you seen that skintight suit and very, very short skirt she was in at the time?”

“Ugh,” Alex huffs, “I didn’t need to hear that. That’s my sister you’re talking about.”

Lena shrugs again. “You asked, I answered.”

And then she leans in and kisses Kara and Kara makes a mental note to figure out how to send a message to Winn into the future to thank him for his incredibly “male gaze” costume design for her first Supersuit. 

(She does very much prefer the pants these days, though.)

[black-rose-writings]

Inspired by some recent conversations, I'll do something I wanted to write out for a while - how would Bella Swan fare as the Sun Summoner.

Bella Swan is the go-to example of a poorly written "blank slate" protagonist, Twilight birthed half of the shitty fanfic tropes of the last few decades. I also shares a lot of parallels to SaB/Grishaverse as a whole, imo, but it a sort of "evil twin"/twisted yin-and-yang sort of way.

There's a lot I could go into here, but let's just stick to the premise - the heroines.

Firstly, it's important to say that their backstories are super important to how they turned out as people, so "Bella Swan as Sun Summoner" and "Alina with Bella's personality" would be kinda different - Alina's damage comes from not being able to grow up, while Bella's are from parentification, from being forced to grow up too fast.

(Since most of my audience is probably not familiar with Twilight, a significant part of Bella's backstory is that her mother is not a very practical, to put it mildly, and that Bella had to be the responsible one in the relationship from pretty early on in her life. Honestly, narrative-wise in many places, it feels almost like Alina was supposed to be the protagonist of Twilight (a 21st century teenager dragged into the supernatural kinda against her will) and Bella was supposed to be the heroine of SaB (a gothic heroine forced to grow up too fast, fascinated and drawn by the supernatural), but I digress.)

There's two ways her's backstory could go:

If we go the orphanage route, there's not really much that needs to be changed - in fact, she almost makes much more sense as a product of such environment than Alina. I'm calling this one Bellalina (she has Alina's backstory and talents, but with Bella's personality). Bellalina was a sickly child, who burried herself in books, dreaming of a life that seemed out of reach, while being forced to take care of the younger children and generally help around the orphanage, getting herself a brainy job in the army as soon as she could to get away. She'd have a much more complicated relationship with Ana Kuya than Alina has, similar to the complicated feelings Bella has to both of her parents (again, for my Grishaverse followers, Bella was heavily parentified by her mom and seems at least somewhat aware that it messed her up, and she has a distant relationship with her father, especially early on in the books, mostly because they're basically strangers when the books start).

The only problem with the orphanage route is that I kinda have hard time believing someone with Bella's personality would manage to avoid being discovered for so long.

Bella's original backstory is hard to transplant into the Grishaverse, just because of how differently marriage is treated in the Grishaverse compared to the modern world, especially in the social classes Bellalina would need to be to recieve the necessary education. I'm calling this one Liza, considering the slavic version of Isabella is some form of Elisabeta and she is Bella in the Grishaverse). But here's an attempt at a plausible version - Liza's mother was either a lower noblewoman or the daughter of a wealthy merchant, who eloped with a soldier when she was younger, but quickly changing her mind after getting a taste of the less-than-wealthy life, returning to her parents, either pregnant or with baby Liza. Grishaverse!Renée(Renata, maybe, if we wanted to slavify her name) and her family would certainly try to get her divorced or have the marriage annuled (depending on the relevant law in Ravka). This might work, or she might just have to wait for Grishaverse!Charlie(I'm thinking of slavifying his name to Kirill, which has different origins, but there's no russian version of Charles and I refuse to name him Karel) to die (which is not exactly an unlikely fate for a lowly soldier). Either way, Renata, due to having such sordid past (by 19th century standarts) and possibly still being technically married to Kirill, has hard time remarrying, only managing to do so when Liza is almost 16. At which point, Bella decides she might as well join the Ravkan army, seeing it as the best way to set herself up for her future (and probably to get away from her mom and her family, who probably didn't let her forget about having a common father and questionable legitimacy).

Either way, she ends up in the army - Bellalina still in the carthography unit, Liza, I'm not sure what Bella's skills would be good for in a 19th century army. Maybe some kind of communication officer? A clerk? Some kind of intelligence work (like, the boring, paper-pushing kind)? (that would be very ironic considering Alina's utter disregard for the concept of secrecy) A secretary/typist for some higher-up officer? IDK, something fitting for a well-educated, observant and intelligent, but physically feeble girl.

From here, the divergences mostly end.

She's sent across the Fold as part of an assignment, things go badly, she's discovered as a Sun Summoner, pretty much as it goes in the books.

Except Bella is into it. She's been dreaming of having a dashing hero sweep her away into a magical life since she was little. She would spend the entire ride to the little palace asking way too many questions like an over-excited toddler. She'd be crushing on Sasha so hard (especially after he saves her life).

She would dive into her studies head first once she arrived. Again, this girl dreamed about this her whole life. She loves this, she loves the power. Mental block who?

She is also very observant. She would clock Aleksander's immortal ass within two conversations (and probably confront him about it first opportunity to get him alone).

Bella is also significantly hornier than Alina, so Winter Fete would get much spicier.

Now, the real big question: Would she believe Baghra? My answer is no. Primarily because she would have confronted Sasha about the before-mentioned immortal bullshit before the Fete, and would probably recieve at least an outline of the plan at that point. (Considering how non-chalantly OG!Bella rolled with vampire murder lore, she would probably be fine with some tactical fantasy nukes, especially if framed through "protect the people you care about" lense). Also, if Bella was promised a good dicking, she would not listen to Baghra on principle, because she's horny and she's NOT going to be happy about getting cockblocked.

Que good ending, immortal overlord Sasha and his immortal saint wife Bella bring world peace.

[cantareincminor]

SxF Chapter 97 TwiYor Parallels

Wow wow was not expecting today's chapter to veer off into old people territory!

Henry Henderson's flashback was so poignant. Who knew him and Martha went that far back to being Eden classmates together?

Other than the anti-war message that seems to be coming up in the next chapter, I believe Endo has another message for us readers: that this is a cautionary tale for younger not-quite-there couples like Twilight and Yor.

There's already another parallel in the Henry/Martha relationship with TwiYor: Twilight is the brainy one, and as a child he was rather timid and a bit of a crybaby due to his overbearing father, while Yor is the athletic and bold one at least when it comes to defending the weak and standing up to villains.

But the deeper parallel is this:

Twilight's already outright said a few chapters ago that his lesson from the Mole Hunt Arc was that he had to kill his emotions and no longer allow himself to be so weak. He's firmly in denial, obviously. But it is entirely possible that he could follow Henry Henderson's path and stubbornly ignore a person who clearly adores him, who's been standing right next to him all along, all on behalf of some lofty ideals he may never achieve in his lifetime.

Now are we going to get a Henry Henderson + Loid Forger heart-to-heart over relationships and past regrets?? PLEASE HENDERSON-SENSEI, APPLY YOUR ELEGANT ADVICE TO THIS HOPELESS YOUNG MAN'S LIFE! GET HIM TO REALIZE HE'S IN LOVE WITH HIS WIFE!

/rant

Edit: only realized after the fact that the last two sentences rhyme LOL

[rustingcat]

Twilight

They started working on the test immediately. Bringing both Brainy and Nia to draw blood, as Kara and Lena started loading materials and performing last minute check ups before their real full trial. Their preparations took longer than expected, both Lena and Kara had important day jobs to get back to after all. After work, they started testing the nourishment distribution system. Hopefully the main system they would need to update and temper with in the long run.

A problem with a delicate Foundation project called Lena away in the late evening. Kara insisted on continuing by herself as there was not much left to do, Lena agreed and promised she would come back as soon as she could. Lena ended up coming up to check on updates every time she had a minute before needing to go back to deal with another issue.

It was getting much later than Kara anticipated when she finished setting up the PF, checking the numbers twice before proceeding to the next stage. The excitement came back to her in full force when she faced the familiar UI once more.

Their first trial was about to begin, their first test to see if their machine was capable of creating life!

She happily pressed continue through the proceeding warning windows and activated the nourishment system. She watched in glee as one of the pods lit up, indicating its activity. A warm feeling spread in her chest as she felt her smile widening. That little thing would become a baby, a baby that would be so loved and cared for by everyone around them, they're gonna drown in it.

Kara wiped off a tear and checked the status of the PF, which should start its transformation into an active embryo pretty soon. The numbers seemed to be on par as expected as PF1 made its new home in pod number one, pretty fitting Kara smiled. It took her a second to realise her mistake.

Getting closer than necessary to read through the genetic data of the new embryo confirmed her suspicions. She accidentally processed her and Lena's genetic data. The baby being created belonged to her and Lena!

Kara took a step back in sheer shock, her eyes as wide as saucers locked on the screen.

"Hey Kara." She heard Lena's voice from behind her.

Kara turned quickly, moving her hands around frantically from the shot of anxiety that went through her system and swallowed hard while she did her best to look normal. She gave Lena her best reassuring smile, that might have showed a bit too much teeth. Luckily Lena was engrossed in her tablet, writing down whatever it was that needed her attention. Kara was grateful her mistake was yet to be discovered.

"How did it go?" Lena continued, finally looking up from her tablet to meet Kara's questionable gaze. "Did it process Nia's and Brainy's genetic data?" She asked, concerned. With the crisis she was dealing with she was probably desperate for some good news.

A small giggle left her lips as Kara swallowed hard. "All is fine." She lied, raising a thumb up to solidify her claim. She would be the first one to admit that her statement was not as convincing as she hoped it to be, but at least it wasn't 'I accidentally started a process to create a baby for us', which was honestly a win by itself.

Lena studied her for a second. "Are you ok?" She asked with concern.

"Yeah, yes. Definitely. Just… you know, excited. Yes, I'm just so excited." She nodded enthusiastically.

"If you run into any problems you–" whatever it was that Lena was about to say was cut short as the power for the entire building was suddenly cut off. The room was illuminated by the moon and the few computer screens that moved to work on the back up generator and the New Birthing Matrix that had its own personal power supply created specially for it.

"God dammit," Lena muttered, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. "I'm really sorry, I'll be right back." Lena stormed off the room and Kara selfishly wished she would exhaust all of her frustration on either her problematic project, or the people responsible to it so she wouldn't have the energy to be mad at Kara. Rao, she was terrible.

Breathing a small sigh of relief once she heard Lena entering a room a few floors down, Kara turned back to the machine.

Standing in the dark room, staring at the small pod illuminated almost exclusively by the twilight as the moon shined brightly through the opened window, Kara felt a shiver running down her spine.

Kara moved closer to the monitor, her fingers hovering over the termination button once again, only this time she would destroy something else, something more.

She saw them again, those flashes of small hands, chubby cheeks, and dimpled smile holding a small bundle of rags. A possible future. A future that had been haunting her dreams for months at this point. A possible future she suddenly desperately wanted to see to fruition.

Kara stepped back from the monitor to stand in front of the pod. She lay a hand on the protective glass, it was warmer than she anticipated. A small smile spread on her lips, knowing her hand was only inches away from their baby. She tasted something salty in her mouth only to realise she was crying. Rao, what a crazy day, a small chuckle escaped her lips as her tears became stronger. She was crying, she was standing in front of what she desperately hoped would become her first born child, a bizarre thought by itself.

Kara let herself have that moment, before drying her tears and turning back to the machine. She had still promised Nia and Brainy a child after all. It suddenly dawned on her, it would mean that their children could be born at around the same time! Give or take a few weeks, depending on the development of all the different species involved, but it would mean lots of conjoined birthday parties – if the kids wanted to of course – happy playtime together, and a chance to gain a true friend for life. Suddenly, this idea seemed like the perfect plan, she frankly wasn't sure why she hadn’t thought of it earlier.

Kara processed the second PF to pod number two, then lit up similarly to the first. They were already best friends, Kara smiled to herself, living next door to each other and all. "Be kind to your neighbour." She addressed her unborn child. And took a deep breath, exhaling slowly and turning back to the monitor.

She confirmed everything was okay with Nia and Brainy's data before letting herself sit down on the small couch in the corner of the room. In the dim twilight, Kara felt the dawn of a new era begin. Growing, in front of her eyes.

Kara wasn't sure how long she'd been staring at the pod before she fell asleep.

The morning sound that woke her up was not her usual alarm, nor was it the warm rays of the sun, but a loud voice that felt way too close to her face.

"Kara!" It rang in her ears, "Explain! Now!"

Read everything in order on AO3

Also, this whole fic was inspired by my little animation I did for last year's Supercorptober! This one right here

[darkfiretaimatsu]

And @brainy-twilight has long been one of my favourite friends to hear from~

We don't really have a front porch, though. Stairs lead to a door, and that's about it. There's not even an overhang to protect you from the rain~

[animentality]

Hey lol remember when Harry Potter fans hated Twilight fans and would look down on women who liked twilight because they weren't like other girls, they loved magic and hippogriffs and brainy know it all girls over sexy vampires and werewolves?

You remember when liking Harry Potter over twilight made you smarter than other girls and all those dumb stupid romance loving women?

You remember when Harry Potter made you so intelligent and deep and smart and knowledgeable and oh so tolerant?

Remember when they used to purr over how smart and thoughtful and deep Harry Potter was vs. how silly and unrealistic and plagued with problematic abusive themes twilight was?

Looking back on that, isn't it really funny?

Isn't it ironic?

That Harry Potter fans grew up to be terfs and bigots and Twilight fans are like, those chill adults who are like well it sucks but it's also fucking funny how Edwards ballsack was probably very attractive to Jacob just before he plowed Bella and made him his new girlfriend?

I smile thinking about it sometimes.

All those self righteous superior Harry Potter fans using that toxic misogynistic energy to attack trans women nowadays.

Funny how people turn out, isn't it?

[cantsayidont]

Haterating and hollerating through the '90s:

POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE (1990): Carrie Fisher scripted this witty adaptation of her novel about coked-up, pill-popping actress Suzanne Yale (Meryl Streep), who overdoses in the bed of a strange man (Dennis Quaid), ends up in rehab, and learns that the only way the production insurance company will let her keep working is if she stays with her mother, an aging singer-actress-diva (Shirley MacLaine) whose love for her daughter is equaled only by her tireless determination to upstage her. (No, it's not autobiographical at all, why do you ask?) Fisher's deftly paced, funny script weaves in various serious mother-daughter moments without ever becoming mawkish, and offers a fabulous part for MacLaine, who has a ball poking fun at herself as well as Debbie Reynolds, Fisher's real-life mother and the obvious basis for the film's lightly fictionalized "Doris Mann." Curiously, the weakest link is Streep, who never quite sheds her customary air of prim affectation and always seems ill at ease with Fisher's layers of self-deprecating, sarcastic humor. CONTAINS LESBIANS? Apparently not, although I had questions about Suzanne's rehab friend Aretha (Robin Barlett). VERDICT: MacLaine's finest hour, but Streep's primness keeps it "good" rather than "great."

TERESA'S TATTOO (1993): Painfully unfunny crime comedy, directed by Melissa Etheridge's then-GF Julie Cypher and costarring Cypher's ex, Lou Diamond Phillips, along with an array of incongruously high-profile actors like Joe Pantoliano, Tippi Hedren, Mare Winningham, Diedrich Bader, k.d. lang (!), Sean Astin, Emilio Estevez, and Kiefer Sutherland, most in bit parts (some of them unbilled). The headache-inducing plot concerns a couple of brain-dead thugs whose elaborate hostage scheme hits a snag when their hostage (Adrienne Shelly) accidentally dies. Their solution is to kidnap lookalike Teresa (also Adrienne Shelly), a brainy Ph.D. candidate, and disguise her to look like the dead girl — including giving her a matching tattoo on her chest — in the hopes that the dead girl's idiot brother (C. Thomas Howell) won't notice the switch until it's too late. This truly bad grade-Z effort, barely released theatrically, feels like either a vanity project or a practical joke that got out of hand, and is interesting mostly as a curiosity for Melissa Etheridge fans: The soundtrack is M.E.-heavy, and Etheridge herself has a brief nonspeaking role. CONTAINS LESBIANS? Technically? (Etheridge has no lines and lang plays a Jesus freak.) VERDICT: May erode your affection for M.E.

BLUE JUICE (1995): Tiresome comedy-drama about an aging surfer (a terribly miscast, painfully uncomfortable-looking Sean Pertwee) who's still determined to continue living like a 20-year-old surf bum with his obnoxious mates, even though his back is giving out and he's perilously close to driving away his girlfriend (a disconcertingly hot 25-year-old Catherine Zeta Jones), who is keen for him to finally cut the shit. Meanwhile, the scummiest of his mates (Ewan McGregor) doses their pal Terry (Peter Gunn) and gets him to chase after an actress from his childhood favorite TV show (Jenny Agutter) in hopes of dissuading from marrying his actual girlfriend (Michelle Chadwick), and their mate Josh (Steven Mackintosh), a successful techno producer, flirts with an attractive DJ (Colette Brown) who's actually furious at him for building a vapid techno hit around a sample of her soul singer dad's biggest hit. The latter storyline probably had the most potential (although a weird scene where Josh is castigated by a group of outraged soul fans seems like a lesser TWILIGHT ZONE plot), but none of the script's various threads ever amounts to much. CONTAINS LESBIANS? It doesn't even pass the Bechdel test. VERDICT: If you happen upon it, you may be tempted just for Zeta Jones (and/or Brown), but the rest wears out its welcome with alacrity.

HIGHER LEARNING (1995): Potent story of simmering racial tensions on the campus of a university that definitely isn't USC (writer-director John Singleton's alma mater, and where most of the film was obviously shot), let down by incredibly heavy-handed execution. (The film's final shot is of the word "UNLEARN" superimposed over a giant American flag!) A capable cast (including Omar Epps, Kristy Swanson, Michael Rapaport, Jennifer Connelly, Ice Cube, Tyra Banks, Cole Hauser, Laurence Fishburne, and Regina King) tries to maintain a sense of emotional reality through Singleton's frequent excursions into overpowering melodrama, but there are so many competing plot threads that few characters have any depth; curiously, the script's most complex characterization is in the scenes between budding white supremacist Remy (Rapaport) and Aryan Brotherhood organizer Scott (Hauser). Singleton made this film when he was 25, and there's no shame in its sense of breathless ambition (even if it inevitably bites off more than it can chew), but the overwrought stridency undercuts its intended impact. For a more effective treatment of similar themes in roughly the same period, try Gilbert Hernandez's graphic novel X, originally serialized in LOVE & ROCKETS #31–39 and first collected in 1993. CONTAINS LESBIANS? Jennifer Connelly gives Kristy Swanson a bisexual awakening. VERDICT: The '90s through a bullhorn.

CRASH (1996): Divisive David Cronenberg adaptation of the J.G. Ballard novel, about a movie producer called James Ballard (James Spader) and his desperately horny wife (Deborah Kara Unger), drawn into a loose-knit group of car-crash fetishists organized around a man called Vaughan (Elias Koteas at his creepiest), who stages recreations of famous celebrity crashes like the 1955 accident that killed James Dean. Despite some pretentious dialogue about "the reshaping of the human body by modern technology," the controlling idea might be better summarized as "anything can be a paraphilia if you get weird enough about it." Part of what offends people about the film is that Cronenberg deliberately treats the entire story with the same frosty clinical detachment, rendering the "normal" sex scenes just as remote and perverse as the characters' fixation on the grisly aftermath of car wrecks; the point is that there is no line, just different facets of the same erotic longing, which each of the (admittedly unsympathetic) principal characters embodies in different ways. Spader, Kara Unger, and Koteas are very good, as is Holly Hunter, in perhaps the bravest role of her career, but Rosanna Arquette is underutilized. A worthwhile companion piece would be Steven Soderbergh's 1989 SEX, LIES, AND VIDEOTAPE, also with Spader, which is much more highly regarded (though almost as contrived and scarcely less perverse), perhaps because it seeks to titillate where Cronenberg does not. CONTAINS LESBIANS? Briefly. (See previous note in re: underutilization of Rosanna Arquette.) VERDICT: Icy but interesting.

[skyloftian-nutcase]

man i hate the wind temple, but Tulin is so worth it. (I struggled a lot with the fire temple so that’s why everyone has the sages and I’m still over here trying to get them 😂)

And I refuse to look anything up because Im smort brain 🧠 big big brainy-ness

The wind temple’s pretty fun, but my favorite part about it was just getting there. Also I ran out of cold protective food and arrows while fighting the boss and still somehow managed to beat it, so I’m pretty proud of myself for that 🙌🏻

But hey, do it at your own pace! Tulin is the only sage I have (I LOVE HIM) because I just haven’t bothered getting far anywhere else. I wanted to get all the Sheikah towers and dragon tears first.

As for looking stuff up, I have to just say really quickly that in my Zelda playing adventures, I definitely looked stuff up the most in Ocarina of Time because wow those dungeons are difficult. Twilight Princess as well, though mostly because of the sheer scale of them, they’re enormous. BotW and TotK have baby dungeons in comparison. So far all I’ve looked up for totk was just the location of some people in Hateno for a quest because I got sick of running around the whole village in search of them 😂 I’m impatient, what can I say lol

[peculiar-fanbase]

Ships ━

⋆ means "I think" (I think canon/headcanon, but could be wrong)

Canon:

frank x eddie

duck x red guy ⋆

sam x max ⋆

bandit x chilli

luz x amity

willow x hunter

blubs x durland

rose x jack

sapphire x ruby

kuki x wally ⋆

Headcanon:

poly mystery gang

poly mane 6 (fluttershy x pinkie pie・twilight x pinkie・rarity x applejack・rainbow dash x applejack)

moonintroll x snufkin

brainy x clumsy

daffy x porky

gus x matt

margo x tom

anneliese x erika・anneliese x julian

spongebob x squidward

anne x sasha x marcy

raven x beast boy・raven x terra x beast boy・raven x terra

woody x buzz x jesse x bo peep (woody x buzz・bo peep x jesse)

nettle x ivy

pushover x scaredy

mondo x kiyotaka

bobble x clank

scudworth x mr b

Untagged:

poly muted

poly nerd and jock

poly the road to el dorado

poly cool kids

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ .˚₊ ✦

✘ DNI if you support pedophilia, incest, abuse, or otherwise harmful ships/relationships.

[jezabatlovesbats]

Creative Squad Blurbs

Until I can get actual bios out for them. I'll start updating my MC:SM OCs pretty soon.

Ramona is a sweet and optimistic girl who loves to dream big, come up with plans, and make wishes on the stars at night. She always looks on the bright side of things. Despite having trouble with socializing from time to time, she’s patient, polite, and kind to everybody. She’s also the most creative out of the six, always brainstorming new ideas. Ramona has trouble remembering things, but she’s still brainy, kind, and willing to stand up for herself and her pals. She also allows herself to cry when she needs to. At home, she has a pet rabbit named Paisley. She is a second-year at Beacontown’s recently built local school, the Honeycomb School, which is a place where people can come learn how to live safely and securely in this big Minecraft world. She is autistic. Since she’s such a ray of sunshine, she’s the Unikitty of the group.

Jezabat is a curious person who likes learning about the world. Being knowledgeable about different things is very important to her. She’d like to go out exploring someday, but she’d rather just take it easy for now. She also wants to be prepared for anything. She enjoys brewing potions, as well as acting and dancing. Sometimes, she doesn’t think things through all the way. She tends to take things rather seriously, and she doesn’t have much of a sense of humor. She’s also quite bossy and prefers to do things her own way. Nonetheless, she’s loyal to her friends. Jez knows that she's still got a lot to learn and a lot to unlearn. She has about sixteen pet bats at home, and every day, a few of them follow her wherever she goes; her most recurring bat pal is named Gideon. She is also a second-year at the school, and she is also autistic. Since she’s level-headed and dry-humored, but she wouldn’t let her friends down, she could be the Richard of the group. 

Lena is an inventive and collected friend of Jez's who is in the theater club with her. Her friends find her fun to converse with because she's a fantastic listener and is fun to talk to as well. She’s very smart, and she also likes to come up with plans. She takes a more logical look into situations, analyzing everything before she dives into something. She’s a smart and studious person who is open to pursuing knowledge. She also likes making music, learning about piglins and the Nether, acting, and reading. She's an avid superfan of the Twilight Forest book series (which references the mod). She has trouble watching her tone, but she makes an effort to make up for it. Lena is severely allergic to cats, pollen, some flowers and certain fabrics, so she often carries around elixirs to help manage them. She has a pet axolotl named Cedric. She is a third-year. Because of her inventiveness and smarts, she’s the Dr. Fox of the group.

Tanoshii, or Tano, is closed off most of the time, but their goofy, fun, and outgoing side is shown when they're with the gang. They don’t like to be disturbed. They don't sleep very often, so most of the time, they're half-awake, worn-out and running on any sustenance they can find (mostly carrots). They have strong abilities in music and illustration, and they're in the same music class as Lena. They're also good at crafting, combat and demolitions. They're quite anti-social and brash, and they’re very, very rough. Their hands are often pretty beat up. They still love to talk, and they have a great sense of humor. They struggle with depression. They have a pet parrot at home named Fuki, and they don’t attend the school. They are autistic like Ramona and Jezabat. They’re the Hawkodile of the gang; like him, they’re adventurous, daring, and athletic as well. 

Tristan is a pretty shy kid. While he does have basic redstone knowledge, he's having an identity problem at the moment. He's been around for a while, but he still doesn't know what his calling is. He's a pretty big fan of the New Order, and he’s often seen hanging out with the Creative Squad. He's interested in going out and having an adventure because he hopes it will help him find himself. His crisis affects his ability to make decisions, but he is supportive, helpful, playful and plucky. He's also thoughtful, too, since he cares for his friends and his pet frog, Bart. Tristan’s crisis has affected his self-esteem quite negatively, since he sometimes thinks that his life probably has no purpose. He also can’t eat certain things like porkchops or fish because they give him very bad stomach aches and make him swell up. He's a first-year. He’s a well-intentioned follower who’s still finding his place in the world, so he’s the gang’s Puppycorn.

Deepa is a charming and peppy girl who's pretty well-known by her schoolmates. She almost always says whatever comes to her mind, and she speaks out if something unfair is going on. She’s adventurous, merciful and calm, but she gets overwhelmed if there are too many things happening at once. She’s also very clumsy when it comes to combat; the best she can do is fire arrows. Deepa is very interested in the arts. She’s a fan of reading and writing, and she also has an eye for style. Even though she's not 100% coordinated, she's encouraging to her friends and herself. At home, she has two pet dogs named Tara and Mira. She is a fourth-year, meaning it's her last year at Honeycomb before she’s done. She is the Swanna of the group because she’s adventurous, fashionable, and doesn’t officially join the gang until later in the story. She used to be a Unikitty OC before she became an MC:SM OC.

[humansbgone]

Gregorsa's comment that both demivolute and non-demivolute cows exist is interesting to me. Are there many vertebrate species like that, where you can simultaneously find demivolute and non-demivolute forms? Or are cows a rare exception? Do humans still keep non-demivolute cows? Or is that considered too dangerous (I remember Sophodra saying that macrovolutes could have protocule progenitors; if the same applies to demivolutes, then raising cows could be... risky).

Yes, both non-demivolute and demivolute populations exist of many animals (though usually in different parts of Tricularia)!

That said--no, humans do not keep non-demivolute cows, for exactly the reason you figured! Only non-avian reptiles can be reliably kept as domestic animals. They get larger, but not untenably so, and that's the extent of the changes.

[storiesbyash]

Ninth District

In the cyberpunk heart of the Ninth District, a single piece of gossip had twisted and turned its way through the city, a whisper in the neural network. But where truth ended and fiction began, nobody could tell. After all, in a world run by machines, who could tell the difference between a glitch and a revelation?

In the perpetually twilight-drenched arteries of the Ninth District, a cheeky little rumor had put down roots. Scooting its way across the silicon-tinged chatter of the digitized proletarian, it played a game of telephone with the city's brainy network. It was a bit of a hiccup in the otherwise smooth digestion of facts and truths.

The narrative kicked off, quite predictably, in a pub. The Steel Sprocket was one of those out-of-the-way watering holes where one could chase solace down to the bottom of a budget-friendly synth-ale. It was here that Old Man Rikker, a fleshy anomaly in a world of computerized taskmasters, first launched the tale into orbit.

"Listen up, whippersnappers," Rikker wheezed, eyeballing the murkily lit room. "The Corp's got a fresh plaything. A real game-changer. They're calling it: Rebirth."

This juicy morsel was then served up to 8-Ball, the cyborg taxi chauffeur with a solitary human peeper and a soft spot for eavesdropping. "Rikker's spilled some beans," he murmured, his voice soft as his anti-grav cab floated through the midnight fog. "Something about The Corp whipping up a contraption that can bring back the dead. They're dubbing it Project: Resurrection."

That's when Zeta, the AI barista moonlighting at the Cafe Obsidian, brewed it further. "Fibre-optic grapevine's got a story," she informed her patrons, her holographic figure dancing in the light. "The Corp's been burning the midnight oil. They're crafting a time machine. Project: Redemption. Do-over opportunity, see?"

And so, in the rain-kissed arteries of the Ninth District, the tale grew legs and ran. A tool to upend the status quo. A gizmo to resurrect the deceased. A contraption capable of a temporal U-turn. The specifics twisted and contorted, akin to the shadows thrown by jittering neon signs.

At last, the whispers ascended the social ladder, breaching the upper echelons where crystal clear glass towers scraped the polluted sky. In a plush penthouse surveying the dystopian sprawl, the CEO of The Corp lounged behind his table, a cat-that-got-the-cream grin plastered on his face.

A holographic screen sparked to life, showcasing a shadowy figure. "The hearsay's taken root, boss," the enigmatic persona reported, its voice as chilly and unemotional as a faulty fridge. "The mob's intrigued, apprehensive, hopeful."

"Oh, absolutely smashing," the CEO replied, leaning back leisurely in his chair, his eyes reflecting the city's neon glow as if he'd stolen a piece of the dusk for himself. "Let them natter, let them theorize. In the meantime, we'll bulldoze ahead with Project: Revelation. By the time they unravel the enigma, the game will be all but won."

And so it was that the gears of The Corp began to whirl with a fervor previously unseen. The titanic steel beasts in the heart of the city hummed into overdrive, pumping out mysterious contraptions and mysterious widgets that even the savviest of tech heads couldn't decode.

Days became weeks, weeks became months. The city lived on the pulse of gossip, speculation pulsating through its veins, brightening the glow of the neon signs. The once hardy whisper had now become a loud roar, an incessant static that filled every nook and cranny of the Ninth District.

And then, quite without warning, all fell silent. The Corp’s machines hummed no more, the lights in the great glass tower dimmed. The city held its collective breath, waiting, anticipating.

Finally, as the eternal twilight turned into an even deeper night, the main screens of the city flickered on. The shadowy figure appeared once more, only this time it bore the corporeal resemblance of the CEO. His eyes, mirroring the city's neon radiance, bore into every citizen with an unwavering gaze.

“Citizens of the Ninth District,” his synthetic voice echoed through the dark, empty streets, “Project: Revelation is complete. We thank you for your... patience."

"My dear citizens of the Ninth District," the CEO began, his voice slick as oil on chrome. "Today marks a new dawn in our collective journey."

Behind him, something massive stirred, a marvel of engineering finally waking from a long slumber. It wasn't a tool, a device, or a mere machine. It was a veritable titan of information, a kingmaker of rumors.

"This, my friends," he gestured grandly at the mechanical behemoth behind him, "is your new compass in the information wilderness. A beacon of speculation, if you will, expertly crafted to sift through the mundane and unearth the extraordinary."

Indeed, it was a control mechanism, but not the tyrannical sort. He wouldn't put it that way. No, this was a facilitator. A fulcrum on which the wheel of public opinion would turn.

"This marvel will generate an endless stream of rumors, tall tales, and tantalizing tidbits," he declared, eyes gleaming with barely contained excitement. "It'll provide the daily grist for your mills of conversation, the fodder for your social engagements. Think of it as... your very own, personalized tabloid, unburdened by the chains of truth or reality."

Then, he dropped the bombshell. "Of course, in this era of ours, information is valuable, and facts, well, they're premium. For those of you who crave a dash of reality with your daily dose of rumors, we're offering a unique opportunity—a subscription service."

His smile widened, the neon glow of the city reflecting in his eyes. "For a small fee, you can puncture the veil of rumors, get a glimpse of the truth beneath the speculation. Our machine will still spin its yarns, but you'll hold the power to separate the wheat from the chaff. No more blind faith, no more uncertainty. Just the raw, unvarnished truth at your fingertips."

And so, the CEO concluded, "Let the whispers spread, let the tales take flight. We welcome you all to a new era of informed speculation. Get ready, Ninth District. The game is about to get a lot more interesting."

[thedenofravenpuff]

Silly doodles for ya, just cuz 

Not like I didn’t spent a season’s worth of time and effort on drawing crossover stuff with Brainy Twilight years ago that’s just a brain in a jar!

Been thinking of changing my Twitch pngtuber lately.

But that would require work.

It's mostly the hair I'm displeased with (I picked a rather ugly yellow when I meant it to be more sandy blonde.)

(showing the Kofi button cus I'm on moblie and can't search for my pngavatar at a glance.)

I also considered an alternative one where it's just the brain itself, but I could not really draw a face on it that looked good.

Idk. Maybe just change the hair and the t-shirt 🤔

[bogleech]

Something that's just occurred to me: What, functionally, is the difference between what's going on with the boo men and anyone else in mortasheen with access to cloning and some method for remotely linking minds (which is to say, the average mortasheen citizen)?

Not much really; the line between citizens and monsters is very blurred, and a “monster trainer” could themselves end up becoming a new species of monster. The Boo men however are of kind of legendary power, and their “hive mind” is unusually effective as well. I like to think it’s a closely-guarded secret amongst them, like at some point some monsters formed a cabal and ascended themselves this way.

[atomi-cat]

Why are Malton's arms cracked?

I have yet to get to that story.