#but then again 2020 has been wild

[cleolinda]

AITA for banning my husband and father in law from the delivery room due to their intensely stressful/creepy behavior during my pregnancy?

There’s a famous Reddit post from 2020 where a pregnant woman wrote that her husband and father-in-law were a little too comfortable with their certainty that she was absolutely going to die in childbirth just like her husband’s late mother. It was to the point where her FIL was insisting that she go ahead and put all her clothes into storage, because she was obviously going to die in the hospital and it would save them the grief of packing up her things afterwards. Like. It was WILD.

When I tell my husband [that she feels suspicious of her FIL], he calls me paranoid, but I feel like my FIL WANTS me to die; his whole life identity for the past 35 years has been “amazing single dad” (never dated or had close friends or even hobbies really), and it seems like he’s looking forward to being able to guide my husband through what he went through. At this point, I’d honestly be happy to never see my FIL again, and I certainly don’t want him in the delivery room, especially since he told me he was “putting [his] foot down” about me not being “allowed” to have an epidural…. My husband, in addition to backing his dad on everything, acts like my due date is my death date, and has completely pulled away from me.

The commenters (and me, honestly) were convinced that the husband and FIL were either going to kill her outright to fulfill this expectation, or just make decisions about her care that might conveniently let her die.

And then she never posted again.

Over the last four years, people have frequently mentioned that post, always leading to a thread of people saying, “Oh god, I still worry about that woman.” I did too. It became one of those famous unresolved posts that people always wondered about.

Until yesterday, when someone on r/BestOfRedditorUpdates dug up a 2022 update she had posted on a different account:

TLDR; I had a beautiful and healthy baby girl, and I divorced my ex-husband. I lived, obviously.

She writes that she put her foot down about having her own mother in the delivery room rather than her FIL (!), and she WOULD be getting an epidural. Her husband lost his shit. And in his outburst, he let slip--

I admittedly lost my temper, and told him that I wasn’t going to die- it wasn’t my fault his father’s trauma wormed it’s way into his head, and that he needed to fix it without taking it out on me. He yelled at me that he didn’t need therapy. That caught me a little off guard; I asked him why he went to his therapist and was given advice about my death if he felt he didn’t need it. His expression gave it away, and he caved not long after. It turns out there was no therapist. It was just his dad. During the times he was supposed to be at therapy, he was with his dad. I’m still fuming.

And that was when she got the fuck out.

I’ll wrap this up- I’ve got an adorable little toddler tugging at my leg atm. I’m alive, I’m happy, and I’ve got my baby in my arms. Life is good.

I truly never thought we'd see a resolution to this, and I feel like there's probably a good number of people who remember it, so I thought you might want to know.

ETA: Brilliantly, I put the link in at the top; here it is again for convenience.

[jmtorres]

i just saw a post about how we just have to "live with" covid and wanting more protections from our government is unreasonable because we'll never wipe it out, it jumps species and is in all sorts of animal populations (like, true ok) so why even try to

and apparently the argument was aimed at people (who I haven't seen in the wild) who are arguing we should still be in lockdown. and i have mixed feelings about the idea of extended lockdown or attenuating isolations; but my main feeling at this point is not that the government should keep us apart but that the government should be trying to make it safer for us to be together

things the government could/should be doing about covid:

we know that ventilation/air movement helps a shitton. we should be incentivizing upgrades to ventilation systems in all public buildings with shit like rebates or tax deductions, while phasing in eventual legal requirements. (and uh. it has occurred to me that the US might actually be doing this sideways by there's currently this decade enormous tax incentives in re energy efficient upgrades for slowing climate change and you know. energy efficient hvac does tend to improve ventilation. extra point to biden here.)

mandatory paid sick leave so workers aren't under social or economic pressure to work when sick

passing out RT-LAMP tests like metrix that actually work instead of the rapid antigen tests that have become less and less reliable as the virus mutates

i don't know how you'd write this law but like 95% or more of computer-based work can be done remotely and companies should not be allowed to force people to return to the office. I know there's people who want to be back in person and I'm not saying they should be forced to stay home but ffs I know of at least two people CLOSE to me who worked remotely before the pandemic and at some point their workplaces tried to tell them they weren't allowed to do that anymore despite the pre-existing contracts. stop canceling remote work for people that want, need, or prefer it.

for that matter, every college lecture that was an online class during covid should still be offered as an online class, there is no reason to force students into auditoriums in person. you got the communications infrastructure up and running, why are you tearing it down. give people the OPTION. it increases accessibility for everyone!

covid vaccine immunity lasts about four months. this should be well-publicized and everyone should be able to re-up for free every four months. "every year, like the flu vaccine" is demonstrably not often enough. actually "for free" isn't good enough start handing out $10 gift cards you will be shocked at how many people who are resistant to the idea of vaccines will fold for $10 a shot

are there already laws on the books about masks in medical settings that some medical professionals are blatantly ignoring because they forgot what best practices were before the plague and they're 'tired of masking'? if not, pass laws. if so, fucking enforce them

oh another incentives for upgrades phasing into legal requirements thing: brass doorknobs and railings over stainless steel or whatever. microbes do not survive on brass surfaces

i mean. i know this one sounds too extreme to a lot of people but. UBI.

most if not all of these measures will prevent or ameliorate other pandemics of different diseases that may arise in the future. and just. generally improve our health and quality of life for other reasons.

I haven't felt safe to go to a concert since 2020. Maybe if I knew a venue was legally required to have ventilation to a certain standard and that none of the ticket takers and ushers were on the job sick to avoid risking loss of paycheck or job, and knew a larger percentage of the crowd had up to date vaccinations--maybe if any or all that, I might ever feel comfortable going to a show again.

wouldn't it be nice if those of us who have been disabled, by covid or other conditions, had accessible remote options but also occasionally felt safe enough to interact with and participate in wider society?

one of the arguments on the post I saw was how isolation was massively psychologically damaging and various strata of society were affected in all sorts of ways, from undersocialized kids to increased depression in--well across the board, I think. and here's the thing: WE KNOW. PEOPLE WITH CHRONIC HEALTH CONDITIONS, LONG COVID OR OTHERWISE, KNOW ISOLATION SUCKS REAL BAD. because we, both for our own health and due to disability ostracism, are still isolating and isolated more than most.

what are you as individuals or societies, what are our governments, doing to help make it safe and accessible to rejoin you????

[joannechocolat]

Two Boxers Walk Into the Ring...

No-one can have missed the absolute scenes on social media, both before and after the boxing match between Imane Khelife and Angela Carini, from which Carini withdrew after just 46 seconds, having received a blow to the face.

Social media had already been abuzz with unfounded claims that Khelife was a man, largely based on her athletic (and to Westerners, “masculine”) body type. (The same rumours had also been spread about Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-Ting; also a woman, assigned female at birth, who got into boxing to protect her mother from domestic violence.) From this explosion of misinformation came increasingly wild claims from all the usual suspects: that she was trans (in spite of coming from a Muslim country where transitioning isn’t allowed); that she had “self-identified” as a woman in order to win (again, not possible in Algeria) plus some quite ghoulish speculation about her sex organs, her medical history and the type of puberty she might have undergone.

But here’s the thing.

Khelife is not trans. There is one trans boxer at the Olympics, a trans man called Hergie Bacyadan, who for some reason has gone almost unnoticed in this desperate attempt to prove a conspiracy that just isn’t happening. Imane Khelife was assigned female at birth, has a passport confirming it, and has spent her life as a woman, fighting against her country’s patriarchal ideas of what women are supposed to do. Not only this, but she is an ambassador for women and girls, who originally took up boxing to protect herself from those who disapproved of her interest in sports.

She was disqualified from the 2023 women’s world championships because (according to a Russian source that becomes less and less trustworthy the more you look into it) tests apparently showed some kind of unspecified anomaly, which may have been either elevated testosterone (quite possible in a woman) or the presence of XY chromosomes, once more altogether possible for a cis woman.

Nor does her condition (if she even has one) mean she is automatically likely to win against her opponents. In 2020, she made it to the quarter-finals of the Olympics, where she was defeated by Kellie Harrington, and she has been boxing on the international circuit for years without any of her wins or defeats gaining much attention.

Until now.

But her fight against Angela Carini on Thursday made her a magnet for some truly disgusting hate, largely, it seems, from the kind of men who enjoy threatening women, whatever the reason or excuse. In fact, there were distinct parallels with this and the recent anti-Muslim riots in Southport after the murderer of three little girls was falsely rumoured by agents of the far-right to be a Muslim immigrant.

Let’s be clear. Even if the attacker had been a Muslim immigrant, this violence would have been completely unacceptable. But the mob just wanted the opportunity to scapegoat and attack a community, in exactly the same way that the people attacking, threatening and objectifying Imane Khelife wanted the chance to attack a woman for not conforming to their idea of what a woman should be like.

In this context, it’s hard to see the rage and violence levelled against her for this victory as anything other than misogynistic - and racist.

It’s also hard to understand why in a sport like boxing – where the whole point is to hit your opponent – a person should be criticized for following the rules of the sport. It’s almost as if excellence is allowed in men’s sports, but in women’s sports, it’s automatically viewed as suspicious. And Imane Khelife isn’t the only athlete of colour accused of “being a man” because she defeated a white woman. Serena Williams has spent her career fending off accusations that she “was born a man” both because of her muscular physique and her excellence in her field. Caster Semenya, who has naturally elevated levels of testosterone, has been likewise demonized. It’s almost as if the people driving this toxic narrative believe that only men can excel in sport.   

And as for the argument that claims that elevated natural testosterone levels in a woman is “an unfair advantage,” don’t all elite athletes have some kind of physical advantage? Do we dismiss basketball players for being unusually tall, or weight-lifters for being unusually muscular, or runners for being lean and light? Why do we celebrate Michael Phelps for his genetic advantage, but penalize Caster Semenya for hers? Women have fought so very hard for the chance to participate in sports that were once seen as the sole province of men. Now, when they dare to excel in them, they are accused of secretly being men, or of not being “proper women.”

This isn’t any kind of feminism I recognize. The feminism I believe in is about breaking down barriers, not setting them. I personally dislike boxing (both for men and for women), but I respect any individual’s choice to compete. And attacking a woman boxer for winning a boxing match is as misogynistic as claiming to “defend” her opponent by painting her as a victim. Both athletes chose to compete. Both accepted the risks. Both have had their Olympic moment ruined by people who don’t care about sports, or the facts, or even women. This isn’t feminism. This is the worst and most patronizing kind of prejudice, and it actively hurts women – all women, but especially women of colour and those who do not conform to traditional ideas of what a woman should look like, what sports she should enjoy, or how she should behave.

Women fought for years for the right to make their own choices, to have their own identities outside of the stereotypes set by the patriarchy. Questioning those choices - those identities - isn’t progress.

 Supporting women doesn’t mean protecting them from themselves.

It means not setting limits on who a woman wants to be.

[genderqueerpositivity]

I absolutely cannot wait for this election cycle to be over because genuinely what the fuck. I keep drawing parallels to the 2016 election because there are just so many similarities, but what I haven't said much about yet are the ways in which things are worse.

Having the majority of people I know or randomly encounter be Trump supporting Republicans is absolutely wild now, because sometimes they will just drop the most unhinged comments you could possibly imagine into casual conversation as if they're simply commenting that the grass is green or the weather is nice today, and every time it gives me this bizarre sensation like I am somehow the one living in a different plane of reality.

The Democrats are intentionally bringing undocumented people into the country and giving them drivers licenses so they can vote in the upcoming November election, and unless Donald Trump wins and is allowed to carry out his mass deportation plan the United States will never again have a Republican Christian president.

Joe Biden has been using the US military to release chemicals into the atmosphere for the past four years which have the ability to affect the weather in order to trick the American public into believing that climate change is real.

The attack on Donald Trump at his rally was rally a plot enacted by The Deep State, a secret group of powerful liberals who are running the country behind the scenes, and they don't want Trump to win in November because he is too powerful for them to control.

Joe Biden was replaced by a secret identical body double when he allegedly had Covid several weeks ago, and the double is the one who really dropped out of the election, gives all of his speeches, and does all of his interviews now for him.

Those are just the ones I heard last week.

And the reactions I get when contradicting these wild takes range from rage to mocking to a bizarre persecution complex. In 2016 and even in 2020 I was able to have a lot of productive conversations with many people who disagreed with me greatly on major issues, and that is largely not happening this time. If I dare to disagree, they turn to anger, attack me personally, or cry immediately that I'm denying their right to free speech. When bringing up my actual lived experiences with certain issues, I've been dismissed immediately as emotional and brainwashed. There is no room for discourse or discussion anymore, it has broken down.

I know that we've been going out of our way to call them weird, but we're not really talking about fringe weirdo conspiracy theorists anymore, we're talking about your neighbors and my coworkers and your aunt and the guy behind me in line at Aldi. These people are everywhere, they're 100% serious about believing in this shit, and they're voting Republican in November come hell or high water, truth be goddamed.

You know, the lives of millions and millions of women, LGBTQ+ people, undocumented people, and other marginalized peoples are at stake in this election but it feels increasingly like reality is at stake too.

"Alternative facts" sounded outrageous seven years ago...now they've made it a way of life. Unless we can correct course, and rapidly, it isn't going to get better.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

CDA 230 bans Facebook from blocking interoperable tools

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me TONIGHT (May 2) in WINNIPEG, then TOMORROW (May 3) in CALGARY, then SATURDAY (May 4) in VANCOUVER, then onto Tartu, Estonia, and beyond!

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is the most widely misunderstood technology law in the world, which is wild, given that it's only 26 words long!

https://www.techdirt.com/2020/06/23/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-section-230-communications-decency-act/

CDA 230 isn't a gift to big tech. It's literally the only reason that tech companies don't censor on anything we write that might offend some litigious creep. Without CDA 230, there'd be no #MeToo. Hell, without CDA 230, just hosting a private message board where two friends get into serious beef could expose to you an avalanche of legal liability.

CDA 230 is the only part of a much broader, wildly unconstitutional law that survived a 1996 Supreme Court challenge. We don't spend a lot of time talking about all those other parts of the CDA, but there's actually some really cool stuff left in the bill that no one's really paid attention to:

https://www.aclu.org/legal-document/supreme-court-decision-striking-down-cda

One of those little-regarded sections of CDA 230 is part (c)(2)(b), which broadly immunizes anyone who makes a tool that helps internet users block content they don't want to see.

Enter the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and their client, Ethan Zuckerman, an internet pioneer turned academic at U Mass Amherst. Knight has filed a lawsuit on Zuckerman's behalf, seeking assurance that Zuckerman (and others) can use browser automation tools to block, unfollow, and otherwise modify the feeds Facebook delivers to its users:

https://knightcolumbia.org/documents/gu63ujqj8o

If Zuckerman is successful, he will set a precedent that allows toolsmiths to provide internet users with a wide variety of automation tools that customize the information they see online. That's something that Facebook bitterly opposes.

Facebook has a long history of attacking startups and individual developers who release tools that let users customize their feed. They shut down Friendly Browser, a third-party Facebook client that blocked trackers and customized your feed:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/once-again-facebook-using-privacy-sword-kill-independent-innovation

Then in in 2021, Facebook's lawyers terrorized a software developer named Louis Barclay in retaliation for a tool called "Unfollow Everything," that autopiloted your browser to click through all the laborious steps needed to unfollow all the accounts you were subscribed to, and permanently banned Unfollow Everywhere's developer, Louis Barclay:

https://slate.com/technology/2021/10/facebook-unfollow-everything-cease-desist.html

Now, Zuckerman is developing "Unfollow Everything 2.0," an even richer version of Barclay's tool.

This rich record of legal bullying gives Zuckerman and his lawyers at Knight something important: "standing" – the right to bring a case. They argue that a browser automation tool that helps you control your feeds is covered by CDA(c)(2)(b), and that Facebook can't legally threaten the developer of such a tool with liability for violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or the other legal weapons it wields against this kind of "adversarial interoperability."

Writing for Wired, Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University speaks to a variety of experts – including my EFF colleague Sophia Cope – who broadly endorse the very clever legal tactic Zuckerman and Knight are bringing to the court.

I'm very excited about this myself. "Adversarial interop" – modding a product or service without permission from its maker – is hugely important to disenshittifying the internet and forestalling future attempts to reenshittify it. From third-party ink cartridges to compatible replacement parts for mobile devices to alternative clients and firmware to ad- and tracker-blockers, adversarial interop is how internet users defend themselves against unilateral changes to services and products they rely on:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

Now, all that said, a court victory here won't necessarily mean that Facebook can't block interoperability tools. Facebook still has the unilateral right to terminate its users' accounts. They could kick off Zuckerman. They could kick off his lawyers from the Knight Institute. They could permanently ban any user who uses Unfollow Everything 2.0.

Obviously, that kind of nuclear option could prove very unpopular for a company that is the very definition of "too big to care." But Unfollow Everything 2.0 and the lawsuit don't exist in a vacuum. The fight against Big Tech has a lot of tactical diversity: EU regulations, antitrust investigations, state laws, tinkerers and toolsmiths like Zuckerman, and impact litigation lawyers coming up with cool legal theories.

Together, they represent a multi-front war on the very idea that four billion people should have their digital lives controlled by an unaccountable billionaire man-child whose major technological achievement was making a website where he and his creepy friends could nonconsensually rate the fuckability of their fellow Harvard undergrads.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/02/kaiju-v-kaiju/#cda-230-c-2-b

Image: D-Kuru (modified): https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MSI_Bravo_17_(0017FK-007)-USB-C_port_large_PNr%C2%B00761.jpg

Minette Lontsie (modified): https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Facebook_Headquarters.jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[yuurei20]

(This was originally an ask received through Twitter)

"Hello! Can you please elaborate on the time loop theory in book 2 that you mentioned in the tweet where you talked about your favourite theories?"

I am wary about discussing this theory as there are many others who have put much more thought into it than I have, but I can certainly try with what I was able to find :>

(The information in this thread was combined from here, here, here, and here)

The basic theory is that everything we know is repeating in a loop in an attempt to either stop something from happening or to make something happen.

The game’s tagline of “I will show you a true happy ending” (EN: “Let us show you the real happily-ever-after”) could be insinuating that there have already been less than happy endings, and we may have already seen one: while some theorize that the events of the prologue are showing us what is going to happen in the future, others say that it is both that and something that has already happened.

The theory goes that the battle with the chimera (who may or may not be an overblotted Grim) was lost and everyone (or just the prefect) is sent back to try again, thus the opening lines of the game narrated in Crowley’s voice.

(Note: I would have translated this as “I—they—you—only have a little time left. Whatever you do, don’t let go”, but the situation is so vague that anything is possible.)

(Here is a short comic insinuating that this time loop is Crowley’s unique magic (warning: blood, death, a Yuu design))

This theory seems to be largely inspired by Mickey’s comment that he has seen the same dream three times but he also says “your voice gets clearer and clearer every time.”

Since Mickey also shows up in Books 2 and 3 but we were not able to speak with him, it is possible that this is not actually hinting at two earlier loops, just earlier events within the same timeline. This does not dismiss the time loop theory and might mean that this is Mickey’s first time interacting with the loop, but there have been far more than just two or three timelines.

(This account pretends that Book 7 does not exist yet, so that is about as specific as I can get.)

The theory gets kind of wild with references to STYX’s simulation system, supposed inconsistencies with Ace and Epel, Crowley’s potential connection to STYX, etc, but one thing that everyone seems to agree on is: Leona knows.

Leona is extremely powerful and extremely private.

He has had a number of contracts with Azul who is also a powerful mage, and according to Idia he seems like “the kind of guy who always knows he’s dreaming.”

Yana has confirmed that Idia has a part in Book 7 and, with both him and Leona halfway out of their coffins in promotional art, people are wondering if Leona will be stepping up as well.

We know that Riddle’s current personality is a 180 degree change from original plans and that this change was made pretty far into development, after everything had already been approved.

There are also rumors that Leona’s Book 2 was the original Book 6, looking at older promotional information (Book 2 was originally listed between Ignihyde and Diasomnia on the official website).

It is possible that—much like Riddle’s situation—Yana came up with a better idea than what had originally been decided, and it required shoehorning Leona’s drama into an earlier Book in order to make it work.

This would mean that Book 7 used to have significant space for Leona (there is a pattern of the previous Overblotter having a role in the next Book).

That space may have been rewritten for Idia, but it is also possible that Idia’s role was added separately and a role for Leona remains to some extent, which is why they went out of their way to say that Leona knows when he is in a dream.

Theories vary from “Leona is 100% aware of what is going on, broke free from the loop and he is the only one getting older as he tries to save the world” to “Leona knows something isn’t right but not exactly what.”

The proof that people usually point to is his comment where he is unsurprised by Grim “always” eating black stones (which he shouldn’t know anything about), but the phrasing is so vague that he could just be making the connection between the stones and a potential blot-risk.

Another scene that is often referenced in the “Leona knows” conversation is an interaction with Jamil where he accurately predicts Jamil’s attack on Kalim despite how rarely they interact before Book 6.

There are also the three white chess pieces on the chessboard in Leona’s bedroom that seem to correspond to the only three characters in the game with light cosmic magic: a white rook for Rook, a white knight for Silver and a white pawn for Kalim, whom Leona literally refers to as a pawn piece in chess during Tamashima-Mina (these three chess pieces are also displayed prominently in Leona's first Birthday groovy).

Leona also seems suspicious of Crowley, suspects what really happened in Book 5 and is able to literally sniff out magic, which we have seen no other character capable of doing.

Leona is very perceptive in general: he is suspicious of Lilia in Spectral Soiree, calls him an old man when no other character outside of Diasomnia knows his true age, is the first to figure out that Malleus is pretending to be possessed and is able to tell when someone becomes injured and is trying to hide it in both Book 6 and an event.

This is not proof that Leona knows what is happening, but it may be an argument for why it is likely that he knows more than he is willing to let on.

Some versions of the time loop theory say that the same prefect is being sent back over and over again to try and save everyone (which ties into the game’s opening), while other versions say that this is the prefect’s first time being summoned into a loop that has been going on for a long time without them, in an effort by someone (Crowley?) to change the ending of the story.

While not technically part of the game, the Twst novelization supports the first pattern while the manga series supports the second, with new prefects showing up after the previous prefect presumably fails.

Knowing Yana it is possible that the game is actually a third, entirely different pattern with the novel and manga exploring alternatives that were considered for the game but not used.

[kaythefloppa]

The Current Timeline of Wild Kratts:

Remember 3 years ago during the hiatus when I made that detailed post explaining the chronological lore of Wild Kratts and analyzed its timeline of a decade's worth of episode with a dash of my own HC involved in it and posted it onto the Wild Kratts fandom subreddit?

Yeah, I promised updates to it when the new episodes arrived, and here I am years later where the season has already premiered. Not to mention there were people who messaged me about legitimate errors I made that I accepted humbly, but didn't actually fix. Not to mention the crossovers that I completely ignored.

Well, much like in 2021, I had wayy too much free time on my hands and decided to go back and finally update that timeline. Unfortunately, Reddit's character limit prevented me from getting the edited version posted so I grit my teeth and decided to bring this fucker to Tumblr via copy and paste. Yeah, I'm not even kidding. So if you've ALSO got enough free time on your hands or are someone who read the original post who was desperately searching for an update, you've got it.

Full post underneath the cut: Warning, shit gets crazy down there.

The PBS Kids original animated show “Wild Kratts” has turned a decade old in the 2020's. Within that time, an autobiography, a 200 episode milestone, and a theatrical film based on the series is confirmed to be in development.

With new episodes of the show coming out, I figured that I’d analyze the show by making an analysis for its timeline. Like many shows, it does have continuity, but Wild Kratts is one of those shows which apparently has an extremely open universe where events happen within that universe, but they don’t seem to have a coherent timeline or any serialization. Many episodes are aired out of order and it’s hard to find a passage of time in a show which doesn’t rely on over-serialization in order to tell its own story.

I partly blame this on production errors as well as strict scheduling as well as the network focusing on releasing episodes in order of when they were produced as opposed to the intended date.

I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt that it doesn’t just rehash its timeline over and over again (unlike some other shows I know cough cough Arthur & Family Guy cough cough). Continuity does exist. It’s just figuring out how it falls in line that is the hard part.

I’ll update this post every time a new episode comes out. My plan is to analyze every single episode until the series finale so that we can determine how much time passes in the show. The way I'll order the timeline is by chronological order first. If there exists an episode or a group of episodes that do not contradict the order, but is not stated to go within this order, I will place them by original air-date and not production order.

I had found a website that lists every Wild Kratts episode (minus the hour-long specials) in order by air-date, unlike the Wild Kratts wiki & Wikipedia. Now, I did find some errors, as it claims that the first 2 episode aired on December 31st and not January 3rd, however I can forgive that as that has been a misconception for years and it got only the date wrong and not the order of episodes. So I was able to use that as a reliable source, more so than the fandom wiki. I am also running off of vivid memory based on my viewing experience as a kid, since I grew up with the show and have come to realize how much info I've retained from the universe of my hyperfixation and how I can use that to this post's advantage. Let's get into it.

Activate Analysis Powers!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

SEASON 1:

Let’s start with the very first 2 episodes to be released: Mom of a Croc and Whale of a Squid.

In that episode, we see that the Kratt Brothers are already familiar with what’s around them. They’re familiar with the Minaturizer, their Creature Power Suits and Disks, and adventuring with the coolest creatures from oceans to trees (sorry, had to squeeze that reference in).

We see that some animals and inventions are introduced into this episode like the Hippo Sub, Crocodilla, and her daughters. However, let’s focus on things which aren’t introduced in this episode.

Most notably, the Gharial Power Disks and the Miniaturizer. Let’s focus on the disks first.

Near the climax of the episode, the Kratt Brothers use the Gharial Power Disks to substitute for Crocodile Powers since they did not have a disk. Gharials and Nile Crocodiles are both in the order Crocodillia, but were not in the same species nor family. That, along with different designs, makes gharials and crocodiles in general very different animals, which is why the activation didn’t hold up (I hope to god they actually make an episode around gharials in the next season).

Many people assume that this episode only takes place after Kerhonk since Chris uses Gharial Crocodile Power, but this is actually false. Listen closely to what Chris is saying.

“Ha! Crocodile. And a gharial is a type of crocodile!”

Now we’ve already established that a gharial is NOT a crocodile despite being a crocodillian, but let’s get to the important part. Chris is saying that as he pulls out his Crocodile Disk for the Creature Power Suit. Now here is the thing. He doesn’t pull out a Gharial Disk. He uses the Croc Disk to activate Gharial Power, but he doesn’t use a gharial disk to activate the corresponding power suit.

So if Aviva did invent Gharial Power by the events of Kerhonk, Chris would’ve used that instead of using the Crocodile Disk as a substitute. And assuming that episode predates Mom of a Croc, the Kratt Brothers would’ve obviously used the Crocodile Disk since they have used it before.

So that means there was some off-screen adventure where Aviva made Gharial Powers which took place before Kerhonk.

...But that would mean Chris would already have a Gharial Power Disk by the events of Kerhonk and Mom of a Croc. One of 2 things is likely the case. Either Chris didn’t have access to the disk and used Crocodile Power as a last resort (as we see, the disk holder doesn’t exist until Season 2, so he probably stuffs them in his pockets), or that episode exists in an alternate timeline, which we know isn’t the case since that episode’s continuity is brought up later (we will see soon).

So we’ve established that Kerhonk takes place after Mom of a Croc, which takes place after an unseen series of events that predate the series itself as we know it.

Now onto the Miniaturizer. We see it in this episode, but 4 episodes later in Mystery of the Squirmy Wormy, the miniaturizer is invented. That leads me to believe that the episode takes place before Mom of a Croc. However, if you look in the background, you can see that the Walrus Power Suit is in the background with a harness and strap over it. This debunks my original theory of this episode predating the invention of the Creature Power Disks.

With the Walrus Power Suit in mind, it has a harness and strap over it, which brings up the question of why?

My answer would be that the harness and strap was meant for the Walrus Suit after it was damaged in Polar Bears Don’t Dance.

So now we’re at the original pilot episode, the first piece of Wild Kratts media produced by PBS Kids (excluding the Flash games that came out a month prior and were removed 9 years later, *sobs*). Here, the operation of the suits is different. Here, Aviva modified the suits for arctic survival and all it takes is for them to touch the animals with the gloves and then press the button. In many episodes, the modification occurs with the existence of a Creature Power Disc, or the disk is seen off-screen.

But the more I see into it, the more it makes sense. Ever wonder why we don’t see some creature power disks of creature powers in the earlier episodes? Maybe it could be the same reason why we don’t see the Polar Bear and Walrus Disk for the Creature Power Suit.

Aviva pre-programs the Creature Power Suits into the animal that the user can activate into not because she prefers this over making discs, or because the discs are already inserted into the suit, but because this was before she began making Creature Power Discs. This explains why in many Season 1 episodes, we don’t see the disc itself because the power is preprogrammed into the suit.

So at what point does this end and Aviva starts making discs? Any could be. All we know is that this would soon become the norm over preprogramming the power into the suits.

Polar Bears Don’t Dance could possibly chronologically take place around the earliest in the Wild Kratts timeline.

In Mystery of the Weird Looking Walrus, Aviva talks about upgrading features into the Walrus Power Suit. Maybe she isn’t talking about inventing the suits, but modifying the suits, which is fitting considering the walrus suit somehow malfunctioned and got jammed (which was presumably due to the cold arctic ice).

In the same episode, Zach and Donita’s interactions appear to be as if they had met recently, with Donita referring to Zach as the one who “vomitted from clams under the table.” So already we’re forming a coherent timeline with these episodes and we’re not even half-way through Season 1.

There would be one inconsistency. In this episode, Aviva says Jimmy’s controller is waterproof (along with food-proof) but in Seasquatch, 16 episodes later, Jimmy’s controller is protected by a shrink-wrap, indicating that it isn’t safe from the environment. Well, here’s the thing.

That episode shows a second appearance of the Squid Power Suit and Bumper the Sperm Whale from the episode Whale of a Squid which aired alongside Mom of a Croc on the premiere date of the series.

There’s no reason not to believe that the whale episode takes place after Mom of a Croc, which we have already established, takes place long after Polar Bears Don’t Dance. With that, my only explanation is that Jimmy’s controller wasn’t 100% waterproof since salty water can actually be very damaging to technology.

In Octopus WildKratticus Koki lists down many Creature Powers shown. This includes Honey Badgers, Polar Bears, and Octopi. This indeed indicates that these episodes where these powers debut are placed before this episode (some say it’s a retcon, but I disagree since Martin could’ve activated Honey Badger Power after the events of Honey Seekers).

Now let’s address the continuity in the series.

In Season 1, the Kratt Brothers have 2 adventures in the Australian Outback: Ones with kangaroos and koalas. In the koala episode, Chris mentions Aviva inventing Thorny Devil Disks for the Creature Power Suits the last time they were there. Considering that the kangaroo episode was 2 episodes prior to this one, I’m making it count.

Mimic is a sequel to Cheetah Racer, which takes place after Falcon City. In Mimic, the Cheetah Power Disk is invented, which is later used in Caracal Minton.

A Huge Orange Problem takes place after Kerhonk since Schnozzle (I think that is his name appears and Chris and Martin refer to him by that name.) This means that Kerhonk is in the official timeline of WK, meaning the only explanation as to why the Kratt Brothers had little access to either the Gharial and Crocodile Power Disc is that they physically had no access to it due to misorganization.

The Food Chain Game introduces new Creature Powers treated as familiar powers, which indicates that they were already invented off-screen. No episodes introduce these Creature Powers so that means the episode can't be out of order.

In Masked Bandits, Chris and Martin originally intend to use Wolf Power as costumes for their Halloween party, but instead Raccoon Powers are activated and Wolf Power is instead invented in Little Howler.

Ok so let’s go over the established time-line so far. When listing down the time-line, I’ll first do the episodes that chronologically fit together, then I’ll list episodes through air-date if there’s no connection or contradiction between them, then I will go back to chronology if I need to.

Polar Bears Don’t Dance → The Mystery of the Squirmy Wormy → The Mystery of the Weird Looking Walrus→ Unnamed Gharial Crocodile Adventure Episode → Mom of a Croc → Whale of a Squid → Aardvark Town → Flight of the Draco → Platypus Cafe → Bass Class → Build it Beaver → Voyage of the Butterflier XT → Honey Seekers → Fireflies → Tazzy Chris → Octopus Wildkratticus → Walk on the Wetside → Elephant in the Room → Let the Rhinos Roll → Kickin’ it with the Roos → Koala Balloon → The Blue and the Grey → Falcon City → Cheetah Racer → Mimic → Kerhonk → A Huge Orange Problem → Caracal Minton → Zig-Zagged → Seasquatch → The Food Chain Game → Masked Bandits → Little Howler → The Gecko Effect → Flight of the Pollinators → Birds of a Feather → Googly Eye: The Night Guru → Stuck on Sharks → A Bat in the Brownies → Raptor Roundup → Quillbur's Birthday Present

And that’s the end of the S1 timeline

Season 2:

Now already, we can see that Season 2 is a continuation of Season 1. The Tortuga HQ has an upgraded design, most likely from Aviva, which foreshadows the events of “Tortuga Tune Up.”

For the sake of things, I will put Speaking Dolphinese and Blowfish Blowout at the start of the S2 timeline because we don’t see the Tortuga so there’s a high possibility of it retaining its original design from S1 (I’m not including Lost at Sea because that was a terrible special that did nothing but combine 2 unrelated episodes into a movie).

The Seahorse Rodeo takes place afterwards since in Tortuga Tune Up, we see Blimpy (who is now an adult) and Ocean Pony.

Next we have Tortuga Tune Up, which shows Aviva modifying the Tortuga for swimming mode. Obviously I like to think the Tortuga’s redesign was an attempt to fix it, until Aviva had realized something was amiss.

Rocket Jaw: Rescuer of the Reef is a part of the Coral Reef saga of episodes so I count it at the beginning of S2.

Then we have Bad Hair Day, Race for the Hippo Disc, Creature Power Challenge, and Termites Versus Tongues, all of which are the first 4 ep. of S2 and take place in Africa. I consider those 3 chronologically connected. Plus, Zach recalls stealing the Creature Power Disc in one episode.

Happy Turkey Day is a Thanksgiving-related episode but I can easily consider it to be in the timeline.

Bugs or Monkeys serves as the first installment of the Central American Rainforest/Coral Reef saga. Followed by Shadow: The Black Jaguar, Rainforest Stew, Secrets of the Spider's Web, and To Touch a Hummingbird.

Then we get a bunch of episodes taking place in the Sonoran Desert. First we have Rattlesnake Crystal, which introduces the Sonoran Desert. I include this directly after the hummingbird episode because here, Aviva modifies Eyelash Viper Power for Rattlesnake Powers.

In the episode “Roadrunner” Chris and Martin say they have only JUST arrived at the Sonoran Desert. That episode’s plot is focused around the Tortuga getting a resupply, which is fitting considering they just recently crashed.

I would put “Skunked” after Roadrunner since it appears that they have enough resources by now. Then we’d get “Gila Monster Under My House,” then “Desert Elves”

Aqua Frog would come next I assume, I see no reason not to.

Groundhog Wakeup Call and Journey to the Subnivian zone have little ties to other episodes so I can place them in order of air-date. Since Attack of the Tree Eating Aliens takes place in the spring, we can have them come after those episodes.

So the Season 2 timeline goes like this:

Speaking Dolphinese → Blowfish Blowout → Rocket Jaw: Rescuer of the Reef → Seahorse Rodeo → Tortuga Tune Up → Bad Hair Day → Race for the Hippo Disc → Creature Power Challenge → Termites V. Tongues → Neck and Neck → Happy Turkey Day → Bugs or Monkeys → Shadow: The Black Jaguar → Rainforest Stew → Secret of the Spider's Web → To Touch a Hummingbird → Rattlesnake Crystal → Roadrunner → Skunked → Gila Monster Under My House → Desert Elves → Unnamed Burrowing Owl Disc Creation Episode → Aqua Frog → Journey to the Subnivian Zone → Snow Runners! → Groundhog Wakeup Call → Attack of the Tree Eating Aliens

Season 3:

Now, a lot of misconceptions have been made around Season 3 in terms of both continuity and air-date. My stance? Don’t believe a goddamn word that Google, Wikipedia, or the Wild Kratts wiki says. They have been getting the episode air-dates wrong since the very beginning, which is the reason I have to organize them.

As a longtime fan of the show who has been there since the beginning, I pretty much know the air-dates of the episodes by heart and the order.

The first episode is Hermit Crab Shell Exchange, second is Where the Bison Roam, third is Bandito: The Black Footed Ferret, fourth is When Fish Fly, fifth is Osprey. All 7 of these episodes premiered from April 7th to April 11th, 2014 as a part of PBS Kids' Wild Kratts Week, celebrating the show returning for its 3rd season.

The episode to air after that is the double-length episode, Back in Creature Time, which despite popular belief is NOT the Season 3 finale. The last episodes of Season 3 were centered around Madagascar. But before that, we see some adventures in the cypress swamp and the prairie.

Now that we’ve cleared up the misconceptions that people have had about Season 3’s episode order for the past 7 years (yeah a BIG fuck you to Wikipedia for that shit) let’s address the order continuity wise.

The first 7 episodes aired from April 7-11th as part of PBS Kids’ Wild Kratts Week! Celebrating the show’s renewal of S3. All but one would likely remain at their place. All except for Where the Bison Roam and Bandito since it introduces the prairie arc.

Back in Creature Time was after a LONG hiatus. Just to give you a good idea as to how long it was, the first 7 episodes of S3 aired in April when I was still in school, then the Back in Creature Time special aired months later long after I had moved into a different house during summer vacation.

The first episode to air after Back in Creature Time was Mosquito Dragon and Crocogator Contest (they were aired together as part of a special called “Swamp Things” but that special sucked for the same reasons why Lost at Sea did).

Now, this is something I noticed. Mosquito Bots were already invented by the time of Back in Creature Time, meaning that episode takes place after Mosquito Dragon.

And if we’re to include the cypress swamp saga, that means that Back in Creature Time comes in around the middle of the S3 timeline chronologically. That’s not even including the prairie episodes.

There were also Madagascar episodes. I consider Lemur Legs is chronologically the first of the order since the Kratts enter Madagascar here, and the finale of this arc is Golden Bamboo Lemur, where they leave.

This will be hard to crack, but I might be able to do it.

A thing that I noticed was that the Dragonfly Power Suits got redesigns frequently in S3. In Osprey and Mosquito Dragon, it has basket legs, resembling its S1 counterpart, but in Florida Panther and Back in Creature Time, they look completely different. In-universe, this can be credited to Aviva redesigning the suit, so I tried to arrange the episodes in a way that would make the suit's metamorphosis (pun not intended) feel less jarring than if you were watching the episodes in production order or viewing order.

So the S3 timeline is

Hermit Crab Shell Exchange → When Fish Fly → Osprey → Crocogator Contest → Mosquito Dragon → The Search for the Florida Panther → Opossum in My Pocket → Slider: The Otter → Back in Creature Time → Where the Bison Roam → Bandito: The Black Footed Ferret → The Amazing Creature Race → Prairie Who → Mystery on the Prarie → Under Frozen Pond → Capture the Fishmobiles → Praying Mantis → Lemur Legs → Chameleons on Target → Aye-Aye → Lemur Stink Fight → Tenrec Treasure Hunt → Fossa Palooza → Mini Madagascar → Golden Bamboo Lemur

Season 4:

Once again, this season was distributed out of order and the years that have passed since its release, however, as someone who, once again, watched every episode the day they aired, I can correct the misconceptions.

Firstly, the first episode of S4 was The Last Largest Lobster, and the last episode was Musk Ox Mania. The 3rd episode was A Creature Christmas, followed by 5 additional episodes, one of which introduced Paisley Paver and Rex into the show.

Now the confusion is that A Creatire Christmas aired as the 3rd episode of S4, yet animals and Creature Powers in that episode wouldn’t be introduced until later. So I’ll list down all of the episodes that come before the Christmas special.

The Last Largest Lobster comes before Stars of the Tide (they literally aired back-to-back).

Panda Power Up comes first in the China-located episodes. Next up comes Golden Snub Nosed Monkey Man. Red Panda Rescue features both Giant Panda and Snub Nosed Monkey Power, so I imagine it comes next. At the end of that episode, Aviva alludes to Red Panda Power, which is present in “The Colors of China”

Pangolin Rescue follows that (remember, all of these take place before A Creature Christmas). Along with the Two-Tusked Narwhal Adventure, the Snowy Owl Invasion, the Puffin adventure, the Other Martins, and This Orca Likes Sharks.

At this point, we’ve covered all of the pre-Christmas episodes. Now let’s do the ones we have left.

Liturgusa Krattorum, Eel-lectric!, Sea Otter Swim, Box Turtled In!, Animals Who Live to be 100 years old, Archerfish School, and many others.

Something to note is that Aviva narrates how the villains have never before teamed-up. Ignoring the fact that it is not true, that episode would have to come before Krattorum.

Here’s the timeline of S4:

The Last Largest Lobster → Stars of the Tides → Box Turtled In → The Other Martins → Sea Otter Swim → Animals who Live to be 100 Years Old → Spirit Bear → Panda Power Up → Snowy Owl Invasion → Golden Snub Nosed Monkey Man → Red Panda Rescue → The Colors of China → Pangolin Rescue → Archerfish School → Baby Tooth & Kid Musky → Musk Ox Mania → Puffin Rescue→ Mystery of the Two Horned Narwhal → This Orca Likes Sharks → A Creature Christmas → Cheetah Adopted → Eel-lectric → Liturgusa Krattorum → Creatures of the Deep Sea

Season 5:

I’m gonna throw in my personal opinion… This is my least favorite season of the show. The premiere episode, Alaska: Hero’s Journey was pretty cool and in my opinion, jumped the shark for Wild Kratts as we know it. Not only did it establish continuity with previous adventures and use it as a key-factor for the episode’s story, but it introduced a Creature Power Suit for Koki and had a very mature theme and an awesome message.

And then it went downhill from there. A lot of episodes, whilst enjoyable, felt pretty weak. Some were forgettable, and it felt like it talked down to its audience more, and there were just a lot of things that I felt didn’t work. This is where I think the show began a heavy seasonal rot and I know I'm not alone in this.

Ok, opinions aside, the time-line of this season is a lot easier to decipher than the earlier ones because there were less episodes.

Even though Alaska: Hero’s Journey was the first episode of S5 to be aired, the Bald Eagle Power Suit was shown, yet it wouldn’t be invented until The Fourth Bald Eagle.

Many listings show Mystery of the North Pole Penguins as the S5 premiere. And given that there are no continuity errors in that episode, I can see it being the start of Season 5’s storyline.

In the next episode, Temple of the Tigers, Martin and Chris head to India to adventure with tigers. A majority of S5 takes place in India, including the episode where Paisley Paver and Rex return, so I view the tiger episode as the start of the “India” arc.

There are also several episodes centered in Europe, as part of what I like to call, the “Europe” arc.

Creepy Creatures would go near the end of this timeline, as we see many S5 Creature Powers and animals by then.

So here’s the timeline for S5

Mystery of the North Pole Penguins? → Temple of the Tigers → The Dhole Duplicator → The Cobra King → Sloth Bear Suction → Elephant Brains → Cheeks the Hamster → Fire Salamander → Komodo Dragon → Wild Ponies ---> City Hoppers! → Blue Heron → Choose your Swordfish → The Erminator → Hercules: The Giant Beetle → Creepy Creatures! → The Fourth Bald Eagle → Alaska: Hero’s Journey

Season 6:

This season in my opinion, was a slight step up from the 5th season, since we get to see more interesting animals, and the writing feels a lot more breathable. The color palette, I specifically would go without, because it just looks weird. What I do like is how they recasted Koki, a character of color, to be voiced by a woman of color, and I'm glad this change is permanent.

Instantly, we get an instance of a continuity error: Martin is shown to have a Jackrabbit Power Disc in the 2nd episode of S6, yet he doesn’t get it until the Easter special, In Search of the Easter Bunny. There’s actually a reason behind this. The original title for the episode focusing on bunnies was titled “Spring Bunnies” and was listed as the Season 6 premiere, however this was cut and the bunny episode was released almost a year later. My working theory is that because of tight schedules, “Spots in the Desert” was released before the introduction of the Jackrabbit Power Disc.

We return to the Amazon once again with the double-length episode, Amazin’ Amazon Adventure and we get some newer amazon episodes after that.

In a promotional video for Hero’s Journey, the Kratt Brothers said that Season 5 would have at least 23 episodes. My guess is that they had to cut down the last 5 episodes because of COVID or something.

There are two things that stand out the most to me in this season's timeline. For starters, in the Hammerheads episodes, we see that the brothers have an Antelope Disc for the Creature Power Suit despite there being no episode centered around those creatures or introducing a Power Disc. Much like the Burrowing Owl and Gharial Discs, we're to assume that there was an adventure focusing around that animal/an invention of that Creature Power Disc that was not televised, and thus is part of this season's lineup.

The second was how in one of the first episodes of Season 7, Chris expresses a desire to adventure with wolverines, despite that happening in the previous season. So in a rare case, this has to go in a different season's timeline to remain consistent.

Anyways, let’s go onto the timeline of the most recent season. I’ll be going off of habitat here just to be consistent.

In Search of the Easter Bunny → Mystery of the Flamingo’s Pink → Spots in the Desert → Wolf Hawks → Deer Buckaroo → Unnamed Antelope Adventure Episode → Hammerheads → The Vanishing Stingray → The Real Ant Farm → Mystery of the Mini Monkey Models → Amazin’ Amazon Adventure → The Great Froggyback Ride → Parrot Power → The Race to Goat Mountain → Iron Wolverine → Adapto the Coyote → Tartigrade Xtreme → Uh Oh-Ostrich! → The Great Creature Tail Fail → Cats and Dogs →

Season 7:

The long-awaited Season 7 has arrived as of 2023, marking the return of the show to PBS Kids after two years of a hiatus. With eight episodes having been released, 13 more confirmed on the way, and the 200th episode milestone airing in S7, fans have a lot to hope for. And thankfully it means new fodder for my timeline list.

As I've said before, The Race to Goat Mountain cannot be a part of Season 7's timeline since it has to take place before their actual wolverine adventure.

This in of itself is purely subjective but I like to imagine that Clever the Raven would be the first episode of S7. For a few reasons. One, it was the first episode of the season to be confirmed (in an interview with Jane Goodall). Secondly, compared to Outfoxed, it felt more like a season premiere. With the fanservice-callbacks, the villains returning, the simple-structure of the plot with no rising or falling action and the episode's overall writing, it basically marks off a check-list of everything in the show that you were missing out on for 2 years and everything that you're coming back to after such a long break. Plus it's my favorite out of all of the S7 premiere episodes. Call me biased, but this one's going first.

Our Blue and Green World was the first of the episode batch in 2024. Personally, I am putting it as the most recent spot in the S7 timeline, after the other 3 episodes. The reason being is because with Paisley Paver's redemption, this episode feels like a huge game-changer, one that the writers hint will affect the rest of the series. I think this special should've been the last to air in the batch just to get viewers hyped for what's next. It's basically like a mid-season finale of some sorts:

Three new episodes will air in November of 2024: Salamander Streaming, Bumblezzz, and Chimpanzee and Me. Until the episodes come out, I will list them in the timeline in their release date order.

Timeline of Season 7:

Clever the Raven → Outfoxed → Owl Odyssey → No Name Dream → Backpack the Camel → Fish Out of Water → Our Blue and Green World → Salamander Streaming → Bumblezzz → Chimpanzee and Me

CROSSOVERS:

There are three shows that Wild Kratts has crossed over with. One of which came out after I made this post, two of which before, but I decided to add them here just for the fun of it and to commit to the lore-dump of the timeline. Whether or not I'll extrapolate that into forming a huge novel about the expanded universe of PBS Kids, only time will tell.

Night Shift: (Odd Squad)

This was the first crossover the brothers had done with another show, Odd Squad, a live action math-based cartoon that is set to air its fourth season in 2024. The Kratt Brothers have their traditional live-action opening that is interrupted by Otis and Olympia solving their 'odd problem' a running gag with various different characters throughout the series as a 'cold opener.' The reason there is such a massive overlap between the two fandoms is because of that scene in the episode.

How to fit it into the canon? Well, since this is shot similarly to a Wild Kratts live action opener segment, then we can equate it with the "what if!?" element of the show. It should be noted that the Kratts are following a white-tail-deer, an animal they would later adventure with in Season 6. So you could have this episode take place directly before the "what-if?!" section of that episode that transitions into the animated story.

Wild Batts: (Nature Cat)

In 2015, PBS Kids launched a new nature based show known as "Nature Cat" featuring the titular cat and his gang of animals exploring nature. This special aired directly after Wild Kratts: A Creature Christmas, so PBS Kids often marketed both the WK Christmas special and the Nature Cat premiere, so much so that at the end of the Christmas episode, the Kratt Brothers themselves promoted the new Nature Cat special. It only made sense that these nature brothers from another mother teamed up! And thus we had Wild Batts! In this episode, Chris and Martin "Batt" have to find a new home, after their old one is destroyed, challening Nature Cat and Ronald's fear of bats in the process and learning more all about them. Several references to the Kratt's show are made, such as the classic "Living free and in the wild!"

How to fit it into the canon? In the episode's context they are literally bats, but in the context of the show itself, they would probably be in Creature Power Suits. And one thing interesting is that Chris and Martin are said to be Indiana bats, an endangered species of North American bats. We know that there is no singular Creature Power Suit for a generalized species as we've seen with the crocodillian, owl, and snake-based Power Suits. So it's possible that Aviva modified the Little Brown Bat/Vampire Bat programing with Indiana Bat Power. So this would probably take place post-Season 1. I have it take place in Season 6 since Wild Batts aired around the same time that Season 6 just started airing, ironic ain't it?

Oh, and the episode also makes bat references to other PBS Kids characters, such as Peg + Bat (Peg + Cat), George the Curious Bat (Curious George) Daniel Bat (Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood) and the Bat/Cat in the Hat. Now, the logical man within me says that these are easy puns to laugh at and not look into. However, the sick twisted fuck that is me says, connect that shit together. Since we've already established Odd Squad, we can probably say that there was an 'odd problem' turning these random PBS Kids characters into bats (probably including the Kratt Brothers if you don't buy the idea that they're in very convincing Creature Power Suits) and that the Odd Squad is able to save them with a reverse-bat-inator and they all go their separate ways, never to meet each other again until their grand return in PBS: Endgame (ok maybe I'm going too far into it but just a funny thought, also yes that is the one MCU reference I decided to cash in).

Cry Wolf: Molly of Denali

The 3rd of the Wild Kratts crossovers, airing in summer of 2022. This was a massive thing in the WK fandom, mainly because around that time, news had come out that the show would not air any new episodes until 2023, which was a massive low blow. This crossover between Wild Kratts and Molly of Denali, while not enough... at least damaged this blow and is an okay entry point to Molly of Denali, another pretty damn good PBS Kids show.

The Kratt Brothers help Molly and her dad track a missing pack of endangered wolves, learning more about them on the way. In the episode it's established that Molly is a huge fan of Wild Kratts, referencing their show a lot, implying that the Kratts we see here are 2D representations of their IRL selves rather than their 2D-in-universe selves. Still, I came here to overanalyze, and overanalyze I shall! Since the Kratts did their whole "what-if!?" skit in Odd Squad, then I could see the same happening here, just not being necessary for the episode's plot. I'll suspend my disbelief again because what the hell.

How to fit it into the canon? I'd have it come between Season 6 and 7. It aired around that time, and again, it was almost certainly done so as compensation for making fans wait 2 years for the new season to drop. Plus it lines up with my headcanon of Clever the Raven being the first in S7's timeline, since the brothers would still be in the mood to adventure with wolves.

So to conclude, all of these crossovers I see as very recent in the show, you could cut them out and lose nothing, but add them in and get more of something, which is what I'm doing. In terms of timeline to the crossovers specifically, here it goes.

Wild Batts → Night-Shift → Cry Wolf

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CONCLUSION: THE CURRENT TIMELINE OF WILD KRATTS

Polar Bears Don’t Dance → The Mystery of the Squirmy Wormy → The Mystery of the Weird Looking Walrus→ Unnamed Gharial Crocodile Adventure Episode → Mom of a Croc → Whale of a Squid → Aardvark Town → Flight of the Draco → Platypus Cafe → Bass Class → Build it Beaver → Voyage of the Butterflier XT → Honey Seekers → Fireflies → Tazzy Chris → Octopus Wildkratticus → Walk on the Wetside → Elephant in the Room → Let the Rhinos Roll → Kickin’ it with the Roos → Koala Balloon → The Blue and the Grey → Falcon City → Cheetah Racer → Mimic → Kerhonk → A Huge Orange Problem → Caracal Minton → Zig-Zagged → Seasquatch → The Food Chain Game → Masked Bandits → Little Howler → The Gecko Effect → Flight of the Pollinators → Birds of a Feather → Googly Eye: The Night Guru → Stuck on Sharks → A Bat in the Brownies → Raptor Roundup → Quillbur's Birthday Present → Speaking Dolphinese → Blowfish Blowout → Rocket Jaw: Rescuer of the Reef → Seahorse Rodeo → Tortuga Tune Up → Bad Hair Day → Race for the Hippo Disc → Creature Power Challenge → Termites V. Tongues → Neck and Neck → Happy Turkey Day → Bugs or Monkeys → Shadow: The Black Jaguar → Rainforest Stew → Secret of the Spider's Web → To Touch a Hummingbird → Rattlesnake Crystal → Roadrunner → Skunked → Gila Monster Under My House → Desert Elves → Unnamed Burrowing Owl Disc Creation Episode → Aqua Frog → Journey to the Subnivian Zone → Snow Runners! → Groundhog Wakeup Call → Attack of the Tree Eating Aliens → Hermit Crab Shell Exchange → When Fish Fly → Osprey → Crocogator Contest → Mosquito Dragon → The Search for the Florida Panther → Opossum in My Pocket → Slider: The Otter → Back in Creature Time → Where the Bison Roam → Bandito: The Black Footed Ferret → The Amazing Creature Race → Prairie Who → Mystery on the Prarie → Under Frozen Pond → Capture the Fishmobiles → Praying Mantis → Lemur Legs → Chameleons on Target → Aye-Aye → Lemur Stink Fight → Tenrec Treasure Hunt → Fossa Palooza → Mini Madagascar → Golden Bamboo Lemur → The Last Largest Lobster → Stars of the Tides → Box Turtled In → The Other Martins → Sea Otter Swim → Animals who Live to be 100 Years Old → Spirit Bear → Panda Power Up → Snowy Owl Invasion → Golden Snub Nosed Monkey Man → Red Panda Rescue → The Colors of China → Pangolin Rescue → Archerfish School → Baby Tooth & Kid Musky → Musk Ox Mania → Puffin Rescue→ Mystery of the Two Horned Narwhal → This Orca Likes Sharks → A Creature Christmas → Cheetah Adopted → Eel-lectric → Liturgusa Krattorum → Creatures of the Deep Sea → Mystery of the North Pole Penguins? → Temple of the Tigers → The Dhole Duplicator → The Cobra King → Sloth Bear Suction → Elephant Brains → Cheeks the Hamster → Fire Salamadner → Komodo Dragon → Wild Ponies -> City Hoppers! → Blue Heron → Choose your Swordfish → The Erminator → Hercules: The Giant Beetle → Creepy Creatures! → The Fourth Bald Eagle → Alaska: Hero’s Journey → In Search of the Easter Bunny → Mystery of the Flamingo’s Pink → Wild Batts → Spots in the Desert → Wolf Hawks → Night-Shift → Deer Buckaroo → Unnamed Antelope Adventure Episode → Hammerheads → The Vanishing Stingray → The Real Ant Farm → Mystery of the Mini Monkey Models → Amazin’ Amazon Adventure → The Great Froggyback Ride → Parrot Power → The Race to Goat Mountain → Iron Wolverine → Adapto the Coyote → Tartigrade Xtreme → Uh Oh-Ostrich! → The Great Creature Tail Fail → Cats and Dogs → Cry Wolf → Clever the Raven → Outfoxed → Owl Odyssey → No Name Dream → Backpack the Camel → Fish Out of Water → Our Blue and Green World → Salamander Streaming → Bumblezz → Chimpanzee and Me

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And there you have it so far folks. Thirteen years, seven seasons, 160 televised episodes, plus four crossover episodes amounting to 164 canon episodes in the current Wild Kratts timeline. More are on their way and more of this grand Creature Adventure is beyond the horizon. Keep on Creature Adventuring, see ya on the Creature Trail!

Am I a genius, or am I a genius?

[violetasteracademic]

I just finished cc3 and I’m worried the next book will be about nesta. Why do you think the next book is still about elain?

Hello my darling anon! Congrats on finishing CC3, you have sent this to a rare bird in the wild who actually enjoyed the hell out of it despite the flaws. So I hope you had a good time!

I'm a bit nervous to show you guys this side of me. Well, I suppose I've been showing it, but to compile it in such a way is quite another ordeal. That being said, I have toooons of links and resources to share why, for me personally, it is so clear that Nesta's story is *not* over, and Elain's book is undoubtedly next. Both of these things are true, but it has everything to do with the direction of the multiverse, which is very tightly woven, and *not* ACOTAR 5/6, which has been in the works for near a decade. Save this. Come back to it. Take your time working through it. I'm giving you everything, anon!

We have two parts at play: ACOTAR and the new series, which I have no doubt in my mind is Twilight of the Gods (more on that later) so lets start with facts before we move on to theory.

I am positive Elain's book is next because Sarah's messaging has remained 100% consistent since signing on the ACOTOR spinoffs in 2016. Moving forward from ACOWAR, she wrote ACOFAS as a novella to "bridge the gap" between ACOWAR and the spinoffs, and set up the future of ACOTAR. That was completely true for ACOSF, where everything that was set up has come to pass or been expanded on so far. The introduction of the Blood Rite, Nesta's mental health struggles, Morrigan being assigned to Vallahan, and the continued escalation of Elain's relationship with Azriel and Lucien's with the Band of Exiles. We meet Emerie, we learn more about the struggles of the patriarchy in Illyria, so on and so forth.

Then, we have ACOSF. The first dual POV romance of ACOTAR. This was only the beginning of a long term plan of dual POV romances coming to fruition. Here is youtube video from early on in the process describing the spinoffs as standalones that feature a different romantic pairing each book, but form a backbone when united.

By 2020, after ACOSF was announced, Sarah reiterated again that the new spinoff series features a new couple each book, with their own miniature plot and romance resolving within the overarching story of ACOTAR. Here she also shares that she plans to write a *lot* more than what she is contracted for, and has a ton of different ships to choose from. You can watch that here.

And now we move to 2021, after ACOSF was released, and Sarah confirms she always planned to write a book about Elain here.

This is actually a great interview and one of my favorites. You can watch the whole thing here. Eva Chen is a real one.

As far as ACOTAR goes, Sarah has continued to confirm in multiple interviews that her initial plans regarding the spinoffs have not changed, and still largely follow that initial outline she pitched back in 2016. And it was always going to be Nesta and Elain.

I will reiterate, ACOTAR is its own series with its own structure. Every ACOTAR book will feature a new couple with their own romance story. ACOTAR will continue to be exclusively a romance series from here on out. A lot of people speculate a lot of things on the future of ACOTAR. That we'll get a big finale with a multi-pov, that the story will end after Koschei, that we'll have a Kingdom of Ash style book. None of this is true. Sarah is going to keep contracting ACOTAR books until she runs out of couples. If you think this sounds odd, keep in mind that SJM herself is a fan of and grew up on Nalini Singh, who has series that started in 2006/2009 and are still going, featuring a new couple each book:

So, this is not strange behavior for the genre, and I think SJM is excited to have an ongoing fantasy romance series like this. And I'm excited for us to read it!

So, no KoA multi-pov finale. No second Nesta book. ACOTAR is an ongoing romance series with an "unspecified number of books remaining."

Okay! Now let's talk about Nesta! Bone Carver voice: Nestaaaaaaa

I'm going to do something just for you, Anon. And whoever catches this in the next week or so. I left titkok as far as booktok/content making and whatnot and privatized all my videos with my face on them (for a variety of reasons. Some fandom/bullying related, some not) but I did a massive breakdown of SJM's publishing contracts and all of the lore for Twilight of the Gods build up. I did get some of my screenshots from other Tumblr accounts, and linked my sources in the caption! Give this a watch (it's long) and pop back over.

Obviously if you spend some time in the comments section, mostly the questions at large are regarding timeline. I'm happy to chat theory, but focusing on Nesta, it is incredibly important and specific that she had her role in CC3 and that she connected The Valkyrie to Midgard, aka Middle Earth in Norse mythology which is where Twilight of the Gods, aka Ragnarok takes place. We have seen Midgard, Hel, and I have no doubt we will see Asgard.

But take a look at the difference between Nesta and Azriel's journey in CC3. Nesta had a deep emotional arc with Bryce. She developed trust and a relationship with her that Azriel didn't. In the HoFaS bonus chapter, Nesta forged a bond and a relationship with Bryce's mom, Ember. Nesta and Bryce's development is what is important here: Nesta has now created the bridge between the Valkyrie and Midgard. Valkyrie are the chosen fighters of Odin in Twilight of the Gods- the war at Ragnarok.

Twilight of the Gods is coming, fam. Crescent City three also revealed that The Mother, Urd, and Wyrd are all the same entity. The Goddess of all creation and fate. She oversees all worlds, and another important but oft overlooked element in the CC3 crossover is the frequency of the conversations about the Gods:

So yes, Nesta still has a huge arc coming up baby! She is not done. No one is done. But the Valkyrie are gearing up to play a major role in TotG, not the next ACOTAR. I believe this also grounds the continuation of the tension between Nesta and Rhys, and these two powers at odds when it comes to making decisions. Rhys will protect Prythian first. Nesta is building the bridges to other worlds, and is willing to fight alongside them. Rhys has no relationship with Bryce and Midgard. Nesta does. And lets not forget the Pegasi!

CC3 was not about Nesta. It was about Bryce and Nesta. Giving the Starsword back to Nesta is simply because that is who Bryce had a relationship with, and will continue to have a relationship with in the multiverse, not because Nesta is getting another book. Honestly- who else was she supposed to give the sword, Mask, and Truth-Teller back to? Twilight of the Gods will feature characters from all worlds. Sarah confirmed it will be emotional to write because of the old faces we'll see pop up in her Today Show interview here. This interview was thoroughly structured and planned, and released on the same day as HoFaS.

Speaking of the Starsword, let's talk Azriel and his role in CC3. Azriel is now the only person we have seen carry both the Starsword (likely Gwydion from here on out) and Truth-Teller. Light and dark. The power that combined to unleash the magic on Avallen, otherwise known as the Prison/Dusk Court in Prythian. Nesta has her own sword, Ataraxia. We have not seen Nesta touch, wield, or use Gwydion. Only Azriel has.

There is only one other character at home in Prythian who has also wielded and used the full power of one half of that pair of weapons: Elain.

Nesta used Truth-Teller to cut off the kings head, yes, but Elain used Truth-Teller to travel through the shadows across a battlefield with no experience and no training. She held that blade, and it worked to her will, tapping into its magic.

Azriel also learned about the corruption of the Cauldron. This was his primary experience in the crossover- discovering that the Asteri, who force mates and curate bloodlines to create powerful offspring which they then churn through a soul meat grinder for food warped the Cauldron to enact their will. Azriel did not form a relationship with Bryce, or Ember, or form any sort of additional connections to Midgard the way Nesta did. His part of the story revealed the problems at home. His (likely) love interest is the only person who has used his blade there, while Azriel is the only person who has used Gwydion. Bryce notes that Azriel must have some Starborn blood in him. Silene confirms that the Dusk Court can only be nurtured and looked after by Starborn heirs.

So while Nesta's compass in the crossover pointed to Midgard and her developing relationship with Bryce, as well as her clear willingness to work with her, Azriel's compass pointed home. It pointed to his lineage, to the corrupted Cauldron, to being one half of Gwydion and Truth-Teller combining, the Dusk Court. All of which points us to...

Yup. Elain.

If this STILL isn't enough for you, I have made a few additional posts regarding The Glass Coffin (aka Sleeping Beauty, which Bryce plays for Azriel in the HoFaS bonus chapter) and some, but not all of the little Elain coded details in HoFaS. You can find those posts here and here.

I could keep going forever. I can reiterate that there was not one but two ACOSF bonus chapters, and both were about Elain. I can talk about about the fact that SJM always planned to write a book about each sister, and ACOFAS was about- duh- each sister. But this is already so long and full of so many links and resources. The wrap up is this- ACOTAR is now an ongoing dual POV romance series. Until she tells us that is no longer true, it is true. A new couple each book. Nesta and the Valkyrie are key players in Twilight of the Gods. Sarah confirmed she was writing Crescent City and Twilight of the Gods at the same time. The multiverse is happening, and it just takes a little bit of exploration to understand where the characters are likely headed.

I'll end on this note. Azriel and Elain are light and dark. This belongs to them. The bridge of connection between them- Truth-Teller:

Now look at how the combination of the Starsword and Truth-Teller is described in HoFaS, and tell me if it looks familiar to you:

And now alllll together again, fam! Who are the only two characters who have properly wielded and/or tapped into the power of the Starsword and Truth-Teller in Prythian?

Azriel and Elain.

I think that's everything. I hope this comforts you. I genuinely don't ever feel worried or confused. It is all so clear to me how Sarah wove this together, and I think it's absolutely brilliant. Eep! I just get so excited! So take a little bit of my excitement and release the fear. Half of the people making content on this blatantly hate one half of the next book and they willfully ignore that she has had one of the most beautiful, breathtaking, well foreshadowed and woven storylines in the history of SJM's writing. Of course that is only my opinion, but honestly, how could you NOT be impressed and excited?!

I can't wait. I just can't heckin' wait.

If you got through all of this, wow. You're the real MVP.

[scoatneyhall]

WILD. Was anyone else aware that the Ted Lasso team has gone in and made post-production edits on season 3 episodes, sometime in the last year?

I've been rewatching the finale in advance of the one year anniversary of it airing, and straight off, I noticed that the points total on the graphic looked different to how I remembered it - a much closer race. It stuck out because I remembered being annoyed that they didn't celebrate the moment Richmond got confirmed for the Champions League, as the gap was big enough for it to have happened a while ago, offscreen. I still have a screencap from when the episode aired:

However, the current copy on Apple has an updated graphic, making the post-production graphic in line with the numbers on the actual physical whiteboard prop and the script mentioning the win streak. See here:

The corrected copy makes Richmond's points match the whiteboard, but it also puts the teams in 3rd to 5th place much closer to them points-total wise, meaning that now, in the current version of the episode, Richmond only qualified for the UCL in "Mom City," making it make more sense that the start of 3.12 is the first time it gets discussed. Would have been nice to mention that stake in the City match commentary during 3.11, but I genuinely am shocked that they went back in and edited the already-published episodes to clean up the post-production errors. For the record, here's the whiteboard as of 3.08: W10, D9, L6.

Just in case anyone cares, the order of those results was - 1 draw against Chelsea, 6 wins with Zava, 1 loss against West Ham, the rest of the draws and losses occurring between 3.05 and the loss against Arsenal in 3.07, and then the 4 wins mentioned at the start of 3.08. By the start of 3.12, it's mentioned they are on a 16 game win streak, so that's 22 wins overall, 9 draws, 6 losses, going into the final weekend, hence the updated graphic.

I like that they went in and fixed it - no idea when in the past 12 months that occured - but I also kind of can't believe they bothered? Then again, I can't believe the mistake was made in the first place, as they were so specific with details in the prior seasons, so maybe they couldn't live with it being wrong.

I know there were rumours about a ton of issues in terms of getting these episodes posted in time - right down to the wire, still fixing the edit on the airdate - and it's clear that these details were not checked and confirmed by the poor people in post who were not working off the show bible that lives in the writers heads. I don't blame them at all, I blame the people who got the edit to them late, but it did annoy me during the season a LOT. The maths wasn't mathing, and as we know this is a show that has been careful with dates and timelines and stuff like that.

Anyway! The point is, a) this post about my UCL qualification fantasies is now moot, and b) I went back and checked another post production error that had REALLY pissed me off, which was the dates of texts in Ted's phone in 3.04. Phone dates have always given us the timeline quite strictly before - it's how @belmottetower and I started the timeline in our primer, with Ted arriving in London on January 6, 2020 and then following the football seasons from there to place the season 3 finale in May 2022 - but in 3.04, all the cute texts we see to all the characters in his phone were badly misdated, placing the timeline further in the future. This caused arguments or misunderstandings, at the time about the actual timeline of the show, but it seems this was another detail the producers really wanted to fix and tighten up, as they've gone back and had it edited.

It's weird, because the texts Ted was actually going back to - the messages from Doctor Jacob - were dated correctly as late 2019, and there's even a little easter egg in the form of a US rideshare notification picking him up to go to the airport in America, on 5 January 2020. (Even the area code, 316, is apparently correct to Kansas.) That's all correct even in the original version of the episode, but somehow we then skip a year and place his most recent texts, as of 3.04, in late October 2022, when they should only be in late September or early October 2021. (I found this post on Reddit that screenshotted his phone at the time.) Examples:

I had to go back and check this, and sure enough, it's been edited to reflect the established timeline - they didn't just redate the year on each message, they also changed a bunch of the chats to be more recent - so rather than dates, his most recent chats with Henry, the Coaches, etc are from "Yesterday," then the first dated texts are in very late September 2021. This matches up pretty perfectly with where they are in a typical Premier League season - they REALLY cleaned it up. Further back, they do just switch the years on the dates, so he still got a picture from Sassy last Valentines Day, and his last one-on-one contact with Jamie is still set before the events of Wembley in 2.08 (FA Cup semi finals are in April, so a few weeks after the March 2021 date on Jamie's chat.)

My brain is itching because I swear there was a screen of Nate and Ted's text chat at some point too? With Ted reaching out about his new job, on a date that deeply did not work with the timeline? But maybe I imagined it. There's no record of Nate's number in his phone at all now, and the texts date back to before Nate left, so I guess in this version of events, Ted deleted Nate's number and message history.

Anyway, I'm aware that basically no one is going to care about this, but I suspect that the three people who will actually care will REALLY FUCKING CARE. Has anyone else noticed it? Does anyone know when it may have happened? Does anyone know what else might have been changed or fixed? I love details and I love the fact that there is no longer conflicting data about what football seasons the show is covering - it's mid 19/20 to the end of 21/22, end of story - but what a fucking mess the production of season 3 must have been, to end up at this point!

[g0ldgauntlet]

Hilichurls and "Tribal" Portrayals.

While we're talking about Natlan, I also want to mention how awful it is that a section of the fandom tried to make us all out to be crazy years ago for pointing out how racist the portrayal of the Hilichurls are.

Quick content warning for mentions of slavery, colonization, genocide, and anti-Indigenous racism. (Image description is in alt text)

Hoyo used Indigenous people as references for these in-game enemies, which we literally have video proof of, provided by the company itself (Timestamp: 1:30).

The Hilichurls were constantly belittled by Teyvat's people, with an Inazuma npc likening them to demons. I remember Paimon acting like the items they collected were meaningless or pieces of junk during the earlier parts of the game.

They become a lot more sympathetic later due to their actual origins in-game (which I'm sure @phoenix-creates can confirm for me because I know you're farther ahead in Genshin than I am right now), sure, but I always found it strange that Hoyo used Indigenous cultures to portray these "monsters" who have lost their sense of selves (meanwhile their human forms are white), as if to imply that Indigenous cultures are more "wild" or "savage."

Genshin fans of color, since 2020, have pointed out the racist undertones that Teyvat's people were perpetuating against the Hilichurls due to them acting the same way that racists irl act towards non-White cultures, but they were told that they were overreacting and this was swept under the rug as a result. The very next year, it's brought up again with more people finding out about it, and we were still being told that we're overreacting.

So now that we're at Natlan, is it seriously that hard to believe that Hoyo straight up just doesn't respect Indigenous cultures? Black (and many brown) cultures too, because it's very telling that Iansan, the Natlan character with the darkest skin so far, is given a more stereotypically "tribal" look on her design with a bunch of bones used as her accessories despite that not being what her actual inspiration looks like.

(Artist for picture on the right: vieirapx on Instagram)

Sucrose has confirmed in her "Something to Share" voiceline that she collects Hilichurl bones, which is similar to colonizers taking the bones of dead Indigenous people with this added context.

Also, please read or reread the Teyvat Travel Guide Vol. 1. Alice basically confirms that she wants to enslave the Hilichurls for labor and also feed the weaker ones to the stronger ones.

That latter point is cannibalism. I know that many people are fans of Alice, but a lot of what she talks about in the first guide is why I don't like her.

Yes, it can be argued that Indigenous cultures are not the only inspiration for the Hilichurls, as it's been said that they may take inspiration from goblins, Bokoblins from the Zelda franchise, and the Amanojuku from Japanese mythology. Answer me this question, though.

Why is Hoyo capable of referencing a creature and not a human being when it comes to the Japanese inspiration for the Hilichurls, but this does not apply to the Indigenous references? It's dehumanizing, and it feels like another double-standard that needs to be addressed.

Hoyo has casually made black and brown cultures in Genshin appear to be less civilized and more "tribal" compared to our White and East Asian peers, both with the human characters and the non-human ones. Sumeru's quests and enemy npcs had multiple examples of this, with the Traveler and Jeht even destroying almost the entire Tanit tribe with the narrative justification being that, conveniently, most or all of them were selfish, bloodthirsty, and manipulative (Jeht's profile on the wiki page goes into what happened with more depth). They had to die because the tribe was dangerous - even though the main problem seems to be Babel - and Jeht's white, blonde companion needed to help save everyone from these evil, power-hungry savages.

(Sidenote: I think this is the second time overall that Hoyo has come up with an excuse to justify Traveler committing genocide on an entire group of people, with the first being the Iwakura Clan.)

I'm sure that the same thing is going to happen with Natlan's quests and npcs because Hoyo has always been weird about the portrayal of black and brown-inspired characters. The question is not whether any of the creatures or humans from specific groups are bad, suspicious, or designed to fit a specific image. We know the answer to that. The real question is why they are portrayed like this, and why it keeps happening more commonly to the black and brown cast members compared to our lighter peers.

[icanseeyou2007]

HAPPY (late) 10TH ANNIVERSARY FNAF!!!

🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

the background is all of the things that made me find out and eventually HYPERfixate on fnaf:D

i forgot that it was already the tenth anniversary!!😭😭 sorry this is a bit late-

a bit of a ramble below the cut if you wanna listen to me yammer on about my history with fnaf:3

i originally heard about fnaf around the time it came out. not by anyone online no no no, no gameplay footage, but one of my very close friends at the time gave me the WHOLE RUNDOWN and lore of the foxy x mangle/chica series. i was a bit scared (as i was a child) of the thought of killer animatronics, so i wanted to keep my distance. i would always go to chuck e cheese with them, and they’d always talk about how chuck is gonna’ come alive and stuff. it was funny. i still really like chuck e. cheese :)

but then around 2019-2020, i found those comic dubs on youtube of both the ‘ask goldie anything’ and ‘springtrap and delilah’ series i fell in love with both of them immediately! (little disclaimer i’ve heard of the stuff that the springtrap and delilah creator did- i do not support them!! but anyways, back to it-) my autistic ass 11-12 year old self was going wild!!! i would watch them over and over again. the springtrap and delilah comic dub was actually how i found out springtrap killed kids and stuff, i didn’t know the whole purple guy bit till later, but to say i was scared was an understatement- i remember hiding under my covers at night thinking ‘AH!! springtrap’s gonna’ get me!’ … good times. :)

when security breach was announced i was ecstatic!!:D i found out about 8bitryan and dawko a bit after that, then looking into the lore, all of the games, the rabbit hole, if you will.

i remember that christmas, getting my grubby hands on all of the games on mobile i could buy, playing them all as much as i could even if i was scared. it was great.

before security breach came out, i really loved fnaf vr. getting my hands on a vr headset and all just to play it for myself!! i was (and still am) a very big glitchtrap enjoyer! used to watch that one cosplayer who played as glitchtrap and would do those ‘glitchtrap looks himself up on google’ and ‘glitchtrap reads your comments’. can’t remember their name- it i find it i’ll put it here! but i loved it. still do!

i would go on vrchat for hours and roleplay!! i really liked (still do) funtime freddy, used to think i could do an impression of him and i would rp and stuff as him… simple times- it was so amazing. that’s how i’ve met some of my best friends, and both of my boyfriends! i would die without them<33

then when security breach came out- oh i was waiting down to the SECOND it released! i stayed up for hours playing it- so exited!! even though it has its quirks, it’s still one of my favorites from the franchise, its what got me into it- like, really into it.

then the pipeline of making my ocs— i had a whole world planned out in my head for a fangame. might revisit it one day. who knows?

but then we have the present. the fnaf movie (in my opinion) was absolutely wonderful!!! so exited for the second- have hardly looked into fnaf vr 2 and the ruin dlc, (i know it’s been a year-) but i’ll get to it. all fandoms have it’s quirks, but i still love it. thank you Scott Cawthon, and the fnaf community for being such a big part of my life. i would really be lost today without it.

happy 10th anniversary fnaf!

[housecow]

Why don’t you like Taylor Swift and what artist do you like instead? Sorry if is off topic just curious

boring music, oversaturated w the exact same thing over and over again it seems like… also my roommate my sophomore year of college was OBSESSED and im so over it 😭

i am NOT claiming that my taste in music is better, jsyk!! everyone is different and to each their own!! plus like. my top artists since 2020 has been bastille 😭😭 their recent albums are shit imo but doomdays/wild world always gets me so pumped haha

also i’m listening to a lot of country rn… johnny cash is always my #1 ofc but im a fan of vincent neil emerson, brooks & dunn, john denver, jim croce (does he count as country?), willie nelson, etc.

and then for more misc stuff—outkast, sonido gallo negro, MF DOOM, the buttress, wolf alice, lil d*rkie (feels weird to put him down and i don’t like writing that out/saying it but admittedly i love his stuff), and my girl patsy cline

[covid-safer-hotties]

Humans infecting animals infecting humans − from COVID-19 to bird flu, preventing pandemics requires protecting all species - Published Sept 4, 2024

I remember back in 2022, someone mocked me for worrying about zoonosis of new coivd strains. The science backs up my thoughts once again: We have to protect *everyone,* even critters, from disease to prevent future pandemics.

Authors Anna Fagre Veterinary Microbiologist and Wildlife Epidemiologist, Colorado State University

Sadie Jane Ryan Professor of Medical Geography, University of Florida

When the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11, 2020, humans had been the only species with reported cases of the disease. While early genetic analyses pointed to horseshoe bats as the evolutionary hosts of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, no reports had yet surfaced indicating it could be transmitted from humans to other animal species.

Less than two weeks later, a report from Belgium marked the first infection in a domestic cat – presumably by its owner. Summer 2020 saw news of COVID-19 outbreaks and subsequent cullings in mink farms across Europe and fears of similar calls for culling in North America. Humans and other animals on and around mink farms tested positive, raising questions about the potential for a secondary wildlife reservoir of COVID-19. That is, the virus could infect and establish a transmission cycle in a different species than the one in which it originated.

For example, spillback has been a long-standing threat to endangered great apes, even among populations with infrequent human contact. The chimpanzees of Gombe National Park, made famous by Jane Goodall’s work, have suffered outbreaks of measles and other respiratory diseases likely resulting from environmental persistence of pathogens spread by people living nearby or by ecotourists.

We are researchers who study the mechanisms driving cross-species disease transmission and how disease affects both wildlife conservation and people. Emerging outbreaks have underscored the importance of understanding how threats to wildlife health shape the emergence and spread of zoonotic pathogens. Our research suggests that looking at historical outbreaks can help predict and prevent the next pandemic.

Spillback has happened before Our research group wanted to assess how often spillback had been reported in the years leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic. A retrospective analysis not only allows us to identify specific trends or barriers in reporting spillback events but also helps us understand where new emergent threats are most likely.

We examined historical spillback events involving different groups of pathogens across the animal kingdom, accounting for variations in geography, methods and sample sizes. We synthesized scientific reports of spillback across nearly a century prior to the COVID-19 pandemic – from the 1920s to 2019 – which included diseases ranging from salmonella and intestinal parasites to human tuberculosis, influenza and polio.

We were also interested in determining whether detection and reporting bias might influence what’s known about human-to-animal pathogen transmission. Charismatic megafauna – often defined as larger mammals such as pandas, gorillas, elephants and whales that evoke emotion in people – tend to be overrepresented in wildlife epidemiology and conservation efforts. They receive more public attention and funding than smaller and less visible species.

Complicating this further are difficulties in monitoring wild populations of small animals, as they decompose quickly and are frequently scavenged by larger animals. This drastically reduces the time window during which researchers can investigate outbreaks and collect samples.

The results of our historical analysis support our suspicions that most reports described outbreaks in large charismatic megafauna. Many were captive, such as in zoos or rehabilitation centers, or semi-captive, such as well-studied great apes.

Despite the litany of papers published on new pathogens discovered in bats and rodents, the number of studies examining pathogens transmitted from humans to these animals was scant. However, small mammals occupying diverse ecological niches, including animals that live near human dwellings – such as deer mice, rats and skunks – may be more likely to not only share their pathogens with people but also to be infected by human pathogens.

COVID-19 and pandemic flu In our historical analysis of spillback prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the only evidence we found supporting the establishment of a human pathogen in a wildlife population were two 2019 reports describing H1N1 infection in striped skunks. Like coronaviruses, influenza A viruses such as H1N1 are adept at switching hosts and can infect a broad range of species.

Unlike coronaviruses, however, their widespread transmission is facilitated by migratory waterfowl such as ducks and geese. Exactly how these skunks became infected with H1N1 and for how long remains unclear.

Shortly after we completed the analysis for our study, reports describing widespread COVID-19 infection of white-tailed deer throughout North America began surfacing in November 2021. In some areas, the prevalence of infection was as high as 80% despite little evidence of sickness in the deer.

This ubiquitous mammal has effectively become a secondary reservoir of COVID-19 in North America. Further, genetic evidence suggests that SARS-CoV-2 evolves three times faster in white-tailed deer than in humans, potentially increasing the risk of seeding new variants into humans and other animals. There is already evidence of deer-to-human transmission of a previously unseen variant of COVID-19.

There are over 30 million white-tailed deer in North America, many in agricultural and suburban areas. Surveillance efforts to monitor viral evolution in white-tailed deer can help identify emerging variants and further transmission from deer populations into people or domestic animals.

Investigations into related species revealed that the risk of spillback varies. For instance, white-tailed deer and mule deer are highly susceptible to COVID-19 in the lab, while elk are not.

H5N1 and the US dairy herd Since 2022, the spread of H5N1 has affected a broad range of avian and mammalian species around the globe – foxes, skunks, raccoons, opossums, polar bears, coyotes and seals, to name a few. Some of these populations are threatened or endangered, and aggressive surveillance efforts to monitor viral spread are ongoing.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported the presence of H5N1 in the milk of dairy cows. Genetic analyses point to an introduction of the virus into cows as early as December 2023, probably in the Texas Panhandle. Since then, it has affected 178 livestock herds in 13 states as of August 2024.

How the virus got into dairy cow populations remains undetermined, but it was likely by migratory waterfowl infected with the virus. Efforts to delineate exactly how the virus moves among and between herds are underway, though it appears contaminated milking equipment rather than aerosol transmission, may be the culprit.

Given the ability of influenza A viruses such as avian flu to infect a broad range of species, it is critical that surveillance efforts target not only dairy cows but also animals living on or around affected farms. Monitoring high-risk areas for cross-species transmission, such as where livestock, wildlife and people interact, provides information not only about how widespread a disease is in a given population – in this case, dairy cows – but also allows researchers to identify susceptible species that come into contact with them.

To date, H5N1 has been detected in several animals found dead on affected dairy farms, including cats, birds and a raccoon. As of August 2024, four people in close contact with infected dairy cows have tested positive, one of whom developed respiratory symptoms. Other wildlife and domestic animal species are still at risk. Similar surveillance efforts are underway to monitor H5N1 transmission from poultry to humans.

Humans are only 1 part of the network The language often used to describe cross-species transmission fails to encapsulate its complexity and nuances. Given the number of species that have been infected with COVID-19 throughout the pandemic, many scientists have called for limiting the use of the terms spillover and spillback because they describe the transmission of pathogens to and from humans. This suggests that disease and its implications begin and end with humans.

Considering humans as one node in a large network of transmission possibilities can help researchers more effectively monitor COVID-19, H5N1 and other emerging zoonoses. This includes systems-thinking approaches such as One Health or Planetary Health that capture human interdependence with the health of the total environment.

[techmomma]

whilst I am sick in bed, I want to put something out here before things start getting wild with conspiracy theories about this whole submersible debacle. because I think we will start seeing a lot of conspiracy theories starting up. some irrational, but some rational!

also note that I have no educated experience on these matters, just 33 years of living and a special interest in both the titanic and maritime disasters. so take everything with a grain of salt(water).

and while yes, if they’re dead, I genuinely think every navy and coast guard already knows and has known since like the first three hours since the sub went missing, I also genuinely do not think this was out of malicious or subversive intent, or trying to hide some big secret, and I will explain why:

underwater explosions/implosions make a very characteristic sound. this is called a bubble pulse: multiple booms being the result of initial explosion, followed by water pressure collapsing the gas bubble.

the major powers of the world, certainly the US with SOSUS/IUSS, have underwater listening stations. this is a system of underwater hydrophones and listening devices originally meant to track soviet submarine activity and underwater nuclear tests. this system was already quite powerful in the 60s, and its capabilities by now in the 2020s are classified but likely even moreso powerful. this is not me saying THEY’RE LISTENING TO US AND PUTTING TRACKERS IN US this is me saying “by the early 90s they could track a single whale over the entire Pacific for several years.”

if the submersible imploded--and I am leaning toward it not being built well enough to withstand four days of 375 atmospheres worth of pressure--then this was almost undoubtedly heard by listening stations across the atlantic

so why not tell the public?

despite having declassified much of the program, SOSUS/IUSS still has many parts that remain classified. to reveal that they heard the implosion would be to also reveal potentially delicate information such as station positions (figuring out WHERE a classified station might be based on the fact that it picked up the sound, and figuring out the minimum capabilities of such a system).

we’re already in kind of a weird proxy war with the Russians, again, so the government’s paranoia about not letting anything leak to them Russkies is, again, at an all-time high. I will state though that classified information is actually like, at the bottom of my list of “reasons why they may not have said anything immediately.”

this is an incredibly... unique situation. while I have no doubt they heard the implosion, they may not have been able to concretely confirm that it was an implosion, and an implosion of a civilian submersible, until after the story of the missing sub had already gotten out to the public. one of those “it looked like a duck and quacked like a duck so I’m pretty sure it was a goddamn duck, but I technically need to run tests to make 100% certain that it was in fact a duck, because if I’m wrong that could mean big trouble.”

in addition, to 100% confirm an implosion, typically the debris field has to be actually spotted on the sea floor, in addition to all the previous criteria being met. they have been trying to find a debris field... in a bigger, messier debris field.

they need to do this, because if there’s even a .0000000001% chance that they are still alive and you left them for dead, that would be... bad, for a lot of reasons

because the debris field has not been found and there IS a .0000001% chance that they could be alive, they still need to TREAT it as a rescue operation. this is standard procedure for like. everywhere.

even if they WERE still alive, they were going to die. every rescue party out there right now knows this. just planning to recover debris from that depth often takes months if not years of planning, let alone a sub about to run out of air in four days, max. in these situations, where the rescuers know the victims are alive but will, without fail, die, you have to still TREAT IT as if they are able to be saved (while also, quietly, making sure no one else is going to be further hurt). for the sake of the victims, their families, and the public at large. for the basic dignity of the victims. yes, out of compassion.

a comparable situation is when an EMT arrives to the scene of a traffic accident and knows, immediately, that this person, while not technically dead, is absolutely not going to make it. the EMT is still going to attempt to do everything they can to save that person, for their dignity and for the slim chance that maybe, by some miracle, they can help. you don’t give up until you know they’re actually dead. this is standard procedure and also like. a basic human compassion thing.

this is also likely why, if you’ve been watching any news about this, we’ve not seen any illustrations of “potential ways to rescue the sub,” or how authorities think they might do it, only diagrams and illustrations of where the sub might be or the depth it might be at. ideas have been floated around, but nothing concrete. because there is nothing concrete. at least, that’s what I’ve seen but that’s probably confirmation bias.

so yeah. in the coming days or years or whatever, I think it’ll come out that rescuers have known all along what happened and kept that little part quiet. but I also think it’s for the most boring, mundane reasons possible: standard procedure technicalities and human compassion while having to navigate a sticky situation between the media and the public.

[cantsayidont]

There are some things in DC's voluminous back catalog that they ought to properly reprint because they're good — gems of past eras. However, there are also some things they ought to properly reprint because they're delightfully stupid, like the Superman/Batman team-ups from WORLD'S FINEST COMICS. DC has actually reprinted all the stories from the '50s, through about 1961, but a lot of the '60s material has only been reprinted in the B&W SHOWCASE PRESENTS books, which is a shame.

The WORLD'S FINEST team-ups went through several distinct phases. Superman, Batman, and Robin had shared the covers of WORLD'S FINEST COMICS since 1941, but it wasn't until 1954 that shrinking page counts obliged them to actually share the lead feature. The '50s stories are pretty good of their time, with some lovely Dick Sprang art, and the presence of Superman meant the drift into science fiction was less jarring than in the contemporary Batman books. In 1964, editorial control of WORLD'S FINEST passed to Mort Weisinger and it became a Weisinger-era Superman book that happened to have Batman and Robin in it. Starting in 1967, though, things started to get stranger and stranger as Weisinger's stable of sci-fi veterans like Edmond Hamilton and Otto Binder gave way to Bob Kanigher, Cary Bates, and Bob Haney, who turned out some exceedingly weird material. Stories like the two-parter about Superman having died and willed his super-organs to various people (#189–190) aren't quite as ghoulish as the covers suggest, but their inexplicable weirdness is emblematic of the period.

For a little while in the early '70s, DC evicted Batman from the series, making WORLD'S FINEST a general-issue Superman team-up book. (DC reprinted those issues in trade paperback in 2020.) This apparently wasn't a big commercial success, but rather than immediately returning to the expected Superman/Batman format, WORLD'S FINEST began to feature the Super-Sons, the teenage sons of Superman and Batman in a hazily defined parallel reality — written by Bob Haney, whose stories consistently evoke the sensation of mild concussion. The "real" Superman and Batman also returned, although they had to alternate with their hypothetical future sons, appearing roughly every other issue through 1976. From 1976 to 1982, WORLD'S FINEST once again became an oversize anthology book, with a Superman/Batman main feature backed by a variety of other characters like Green Arrow and Hawkman. The stories in that period are not quite as ludicrous as the late '60s (although if you see Bob Haney's name in the credits, you know you're in for a wild ride), but even the soberer installments are consistently very silly, full of nonsense like Kryptonian lycanthropy and the return of some especially ridiculous older villains like the Gorilla Boss of Gotham City and Doctor Double-X.

It wasn't until issue #285 that Superman and Batman again had the book all to themselves. The late period dials back the zaniness and has mostly uninspired plots, but writers Doug Moench and David Anthony Kraft compensate with some eyebrow-raising and apparently deliberate "Superbat" ship-bait; my personal favorite is Kraft's "No Rest for Heroes!" (a short story in the back of WORLD'S FINEST #302), where Superman and Batman go to a dive bar in the middle of nowhere to talk about their relationship and Batman ends up throwing a knife at someone.

Very little of this stuff is actually good by any normal standard — although the 1964–1967 period is no more or less weird than any other Weisinger Silver Age Superman stories — and the artwork is only occasionally better than passable. However, it's so stupid and so ridiculous that it's consistently fun, in a way DC doesn't really do anymore, at least not on purpose. Assembling all the Superman/Batman stories (leaving the Super-Sons to their own TPB), omitting the various backup strips, and giving it decent color reproduction would make for a nice package, and the presence of Superman and Batman would make it more commercially viable than some of DC's more artistically worthy back catalog material. Low-hanging fruit, if you ask me.

[redgoldsparks]

August Reading and Reviews by Maia Kobabe

I post my reviews throughout the month on Storygraph and Goodreads, and do roundups here and on patreon. Reviews below the cut.

Heavyweight: A Family Story of Holocaust, Empire and Memory by Solomon J Brager After listening to this excellent interview with the author on the Gender Reveal podcast, I was very excited to pick up Solomon Brager's hefty nonfiction comic about family history, Jewish identity, the Holocaust, and empire. This is an incredibly well researched and thoughtful book. The author grew up with outsized family stories of a Jewish boxing champion great-grandfather from Essen who punched Nazis, and a great-grandmother who carried her children across countries and mountains to escape to the US. But these stories became much more complicated when the author started digging for receipts. One factor is the immense financial privilege of the family which already had bank accounts and significant savings in New York. Another factor is the layers of violence and empire that build up the power of the countries fighting on both sides of WWII. The author's quest to research the family story is a major thread in the story itself and I am absolutely awed by the amount of work that went into uncovering and shaping this story.

My Dearest Patrolman vol 1 by Niyama As a delinquent teen, Shin was mentored and protected by a friendly patrolman, Seiji. Having one supportive adult in his life completely turned Shin's life around and he also decided to become a patrolman. Years later, Shin and Seiji meet again, and Shin decides to confess the feelings he's been nursing for a decade. Lighthearted dating hijinks ensue! Strikes a nice balance between silly, sweet, and spicy.

Go For It, Nakamura! by Syundei An extremely silly and cute high school rom-com. Shy Nakamura has a massive crush on his classmate Hirose. Despite the fact that they see each other every day, Nakamura has never introduced himself. What will it take to get him to finally speak up and try to befriend his crush??

Something Not Nothing by Sarah Leavitt In 2020, Sarah Leavitt's partner of more than 20 years, Domino, died with medical assistance after years of severe chronic pain and a rapid decline at the end of her life. Leavitt, a cartoonist and writer, tried to make sense of this decision through comics and abstract watercolor paintings. The result is a gorgeous, heart wrenching, deeply human meditation on love and loss. There were pages that lifted my spirits and pages that pierced me to my core. I sobbed through the majority of reading it, but couldn't put it down. Leavitt's mapmaking of the landscape of grief is a gift to us all.

Assassin's Fate by Robin Hobb read by Elliot Hill What can I even say about this, the final novel of a 16 book fantasy series, which I have been reading and re-reading now for twenty years, other than holy shit??? I can't believe I've reached the end of Fitz's journey at last. This book is SO long (nearly 1000 pages) and much of it is brutal to read; characters we love are beaten, abused, tortured, and left in pretty hopeless situations for much of the novel. I think Hobb's insistence on revisiting almost every single character from the Rain Wilds and Live Ship sub-series expanded the first third of the book more than needed; had I been editing it, it would have been shorter. And yet! And yet! I was riveted by this too-long book, devouring it in big gulps, scream-texting about it to several friends who were reading the series along with me. The ending hit SO HARD. Its PERFECT, TERRIBLE, WRETCHED, one of the cruelest endings for several beloved characters and while also giving them a kind of grace and eternity I did not see coming, but should have. This book fulfills the themes of the entire series so well, completing repeated patterns, showing cycles that ripple through three generations, while also leaving a door open for the future that I'm already daydreaming about. Literally how did Robin Hobb come up with all of this. Its flawed but its perfect. I am in awe.

BL Metamorphosis vol 1 by Kaori Tsurutani translated by Jocelyne Allen An older woman picks up a BL manga by chance at a bookstore and discovers a new fandom late in life. She ends up befriending a shy high school girl who works at the bookstore and also loves BL, but has no one to talk to about it. This is such a freaking cute premise and I love the loose sketchy art style!

BL Metamorphosis vol 2 by Kaori Tsurutani translated by Jocelyne Allen Unlikely friends Urara, a shy high schooler, and Ichinoi, a widowed calligraphy teacher, bonded over their love of a BL manga series. Now they're heading to a doujinshi event to try and meet their favorite author. This brought me right back to my early days of visiting cons and meeting authors for the first time!

BL Metamorphosis vol 3 by Kaori Tsurutani translated by Jocelyne Allen Urara has been reading and loving BL manga years, but it takes a push from her older friend Ichinoi before Urara considers the idea of possibly drawing her own. Can she find the time to write and draw a story around her cram school schedule? This series PERFECTLY captures the BL reader to BL writer pipeline, I'm so charmed.

BL Metamorphosis vol 4 by Kaori Tsurutani translated by Jocelyne Allen Urara applies for a table at a comics festival, so now she has a deadline for her first original comic. Can she get it done in time? Ichinoi is there to cheer lead and support in every way she can (finding a printer, sewing a table cloth, agreeing to work the table, packing their lunches) but only Urara can get the comic done. This book contained one of my very favorite exchanges of the whole series, when Ichinoi asked "Is it fun to draw manga?" and Urara responded honestly, "No. It's hard to look at my own art for so long. But it feels like I'm doing what I should be doing."

BL Metamorphosis vol 5 by Kaori Tsurutani translated by Jocelyne Allen Urara and Ichinoi struggle through a long, slow day of trying to sell an original comic at their first ever comic event. Unbeknownst to them, their favorite author is there as an attendee. This book felt like one of the most relatable portrayals of the early days of a comics career I've ever seen. I'm obsessed with this series and definitely want to watch the live action movie adaptation!

The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez This complex fantasy novel weaves together a multi-strand narrative of violence, love, and the end of empire in an original world of old gods and talking animals. In the main thread, two warriors carry the corpse of an almost-dead goddess across the country in a five day dash from the mountains to the sea. The goddess was once the Moon, torn out of the sky by her own desire for immortality. Her children became the despotic Moon Throne, a cruel dynasty which has repressed and punished the people and elements. The Moon Thrones' heirs, three brothers with extraordinary powers, chase the warriors and hunger for the last dregs of the fallen Moon's power. In another thread, an unnamed protagonist watches this drama unfold as a play being performed in a dreamy underwater sleep realm, while recalling the stories their lola told of the old country before the war. This novel is often compared with NK Jemisin's The Fifth Season in terms of scope, literary prose, and ambition and I can see why. This novel employs some very creative and unusual writing choices that make it more rewarding to read in print than to experience in audio. I had a content warning for gore and cannibalism going in, so I was prepared for the violence of the middle section. I really enjoyed this novel and I can tell I'll be thinking about it for a long time.

Horse by Geraldine Brooks read by James Fouhey, Lisa Flanagan, Graham Halstead, Katherine Littrell, Michael Obiora This book follows multiple different story lines, some of which captured me much more than others. In Kentucky in 1850, an enslaved black boy watches a new thoroughbred racing colt's birth and begins a lifelong relationship with the horse, who will go on to be one of the most well-known champions in the history of American horse racing. In New York City in the 1950s, a gallery owner known for her modern tastes falls for an equestrian portrait of the great Kentucky race horse, Lexington. And in 2019, in Washington DC, a Nigerian-American art history student and a Smithsonian scientist dig into the mystery of an unlabelled horse skeleton in the museum's collection- and its possible connection with several paintings by a Civil War era equestrian artist. I admired the amount of research that went into this novel, and the way the paintings of Lexington tied the different timelines together. However, I really struggled with how the interior emotional lives of several of the Black male characters in this book were portrayed by this author. When Jarret, the enslaved Black groom, is separated from Lexington and forced into plantation labor temporarily, Brooks writes of him gaining a depth of spirit and understanding for the human condition from this experience. This felt deeply weird to read from a white author! I'm not really the right reader to say whether Brooks did a good job or not, but it put me on edge. When the final climatic moment of the novel read like a heavy-handed lesson in how Black men are still at risk of police violence even in 2019, I wondered who exactly that point was supposed to be for, and if Brooks is the one who needed to make it. So, I felt very mixed as I finished this book. There's a lot to admire craft-wise, and I can understand why so many readers were impressed by it. But I honestly I don't recommend it, unless you want to read it in a book club setting and have a nuanced discussion about what works and what doesn't in this novel.

The Summer Book by Tove Jansson A young girl named Sophie spends her summers on an island of the coast of Finland with her very present grandmother and her rather absent father. Each chapter tells of an incident experienced through the eyes of the very young and the very old- the growth of mosses and wildflowers on the island stones; boxes and bottles of flotsam and jetsam washing to shore; a great storm; an adventure in trespassing; an unexpected visitor; a night spent outside sleeping in a tent. Without much of an overarching plot this book is still a moving picture of living very close to and in tune with the seasons and elements in a very specific part of the world. It's brief and open ended but I really enjoyed it!

Delicious in Dungeon vol 14 by Ryoko Kui As the smoke clears after the explosive ending of the previous penultimate volume, our heroes gather themselves, check on the survivors, and set out on the most collaborative challenge: cooking and eating an entire chimera body. This is a satisfying and in some ways gentler ending than I expected from this series, but I really enjoyed it!

Notes from an Island by Tove Jansson and Tuulikki Pietilä translated by Thomas Teal  In the autumn of 1963, Tove Jansson, her partner Tuulikki 'Tooti' Pietilä, and their taciturn friend Brunström set about trying to finish a small cabin on a tiny Finnish island before the onset of winter (and possible legal delays of building permits). Tove and Tooti spent their summers on the island for the next 3o years. This book contains excerpts of journal and introspective writing on the nature of the island, the sea, the changeable weather, the futility of human efforts to shift the natural environment. These writings are paired with delicate prints Tooti made of water, stones, and ocean views. I read this directly after The Summer Book and after listening to a short biography of Jansson- this made a good companion to those other texts, but might have been a bit spare on its own.