#byzrambles

[byz-was-here]

A fun thing to do with friends who draw art of speculative biology fauna is to play a game I like to call:

"Clade that animal"

You assume the role of a biologist, and your friend shows you a speculative critter that they drew. You ask what biome it lives in, how big is it, and one free question.

You then must write a description of the animal, its diet, lifestyle, niche, and a fun encounter between the creature and yiur biologist if you feel like it.

Bonus points if you add a scientific name.

Then your friend tells you how right/wrong you were.

[byz-was-here]

....

is it bad to do an ama?

Honestly be pretentious as fuck about the stuff you create. Do a press release for your fanfic updates. Do a Q&A about your webcomic. Make fake merch designs for your OCs. Commission "official" book covers. Very few of us will ever get to a stage where something we've created Makes It Big but even if you have an audience of 5 people plus a shoelace fucking indulge yourself and pretend!! It's the only way to live!!

[byz-was-here]

They may look like splotches to you, but these are Direct Photo Images of planets orbiting ANOTHER STAR. (Credit to NASA)

These images are the coolest thing I've seen in my life.

Normally we can only detect 'exoplanets' like these by staring at a single star for a long, long time, and making a bunch of charts and extrapolating from the data.

The James Webb space telescope is powerful enough that it could actually directly take pictures of these distant worlds, and it just gave us our first look. The first picture captures planets around star HR 8799, around 130 light-years away from the sun, and the second shows a planet around star 51 Eridani around 97 light-years away.

The link to the article is in the credit.

[byz-was-here]

A group of bohrok should be a called a disaster.

An avalanche of Kahlok

An eruption of tahnok

A flood of gahlok

An earthquake of nuhvok

A landslide of pahrak

A spill of Lehvak

In this essay I will-

[byz-was-here]

I want you to imagine:

Hewkii having so much difficulty describing his relationship with Macku to Gresh and

Gresh's just: "Oh, yeah, Dating."

And out of nowhere Macku grabs him by the shoulders and spins him around and yells "THERES A WORD FOR IT?"

Gresh's invited to their wedding two weeks later

[byz-was-here]

I feel like I'm being called out

they would NOT fucking have communication skills that good

[byz-was-here]

Roodaka is Starscream in heels.

Change my mind.

[byz-was-here]

I think the reason the Toa Inika look mostly samey aside from masks, weapons, and color schemes is that none of them registered that they'd been toafied until after they landed.

They weren't thinking about the ideal toa form at all, so the red star just went "Oh well, default mode it is. -ZAP-"

HOWEVER

When they became the toa mahri after a zap from the mask of life, they absolutely had a mental image of what the ideal toa should be, and THAT'S why they look so different.

Kongu became a juggernaut

Hewkii turned into conan the barbarian

Hahli ended up a valkyrie

Nuparu turned into what I can only describe as an underwater stealth bomber

Matoro- well. He's a beanpole. can't help that.

And Jaller is just... a guy. Tahu must have really lowered his estimates, huh.

[byz-was-here]

I want to see Sokka having a moment of horrible realization as it finally clicks that Zuko's Uncle is the Dragon of the West.

He's gone through (most of) the whole story mentally filing Iroh as "That old guy who always followed the angry jerk," but I don't think it's ever set in that "Zuko's Uncle" equals "Fire Lord's Brother" equals "Dragon of the West"

I'm imagine one day he's tying a fishing lure or something and he just suddenly goes

[byz-was-here]

This post is how I know I've stayed on tumblr too long tonight. I'm going the fuck to sleep.

thinking about how wild it must have been to be like a roman or rly anywhere at the time the Christianity shit is sweeping through. dave my guy why are u all christed up i remember what u said about the christians 20 years ago.

[byz-was-here]

Because no one asked,

Here's how I would do a transformers series:

1) emphasize the disguise

They're robots in disguise. Its in the tagline. Make the bots and cons fight each other while trying not to be noticed.

Why would world conquering deceptions stoop to hiding from puny organics?

Easy. Skew the matchup. If its 8 billion nuclear armed monkeys vs 5-10 alien robots, even ol megsy ain't gonna take those odds.

The Autobots have an even easier reasoning: follow the prime directive.

2) Shipwreck everyone

Why can't the bots/cons just call for reinforcements?

They crash landed. That's why. Everyone's in stasis or injured. Callback to G1 where they spent 4 million years in sleep mode under a volcano. Maybe not *that* long but it would explain why no one noticed two alien starships smacking into the planet. No one was around to see it. Macguffin event happens, a couple bots and cons wake up, and they realize that a wholeass civilization popped up during their nap.

3) Civilian autobots

Why did they come to earth?

As is usually the go to answer: Cybertron's f*cked. Solution: Autobots dig out a *really* old and obscure planetary survey, find a decent enough planet, Optimus takes a bunch of scientists and engineers on a colony ship and they go off to found New Cybertron. Survey said the place was uninhabited, so it's free real estate. (Humans were probably still debating whether or not coming down from the trees and walking on 2 legs was a good idea when the Cybertronian scouts did the survey)

Soundwave does his soundwave thing, finds out, Megatron loads up a warship, and they shoot each other down on prehistoric earth. Meanwhile, a caveman named grug figures out mr fire is your friend.

Point is, you've got one side that's a bunch of scientists, engineers, and other civilians (The Autobots)

And the other that's almost all elite combat troops (the Decepticons)

But, because of the first two issues, the cons can't take advantage of it. Otherwise they alert the Humans and someone with an itchy trigger finger drops a thermonuclear warhead on the stranded nemesis.

And if a human does discover the Autobots? Imo a civilian is more likely to break the rules and play nice than a trained soldier.

4) nobody wants to stay here

The Autobots originally planned to colonize earth, sure. That was before they got shot down, locked into stasis for who knows how long, and woke up to see an entire sapient civilization spring up from nowhere during their nap.

Optimus is Optimus, so it's plan B: freedom is the right of sentient beings, so we fix the ark and found new Cybertron somewhere else. Ideally, the human race won't realize they were ever here.

The Deceptions only care about crushing the Autobots and getting off this corrosive rock. Unless they can call home and summon an armada, it's just not *worth it* to pick a fight with humanity.

6) things I'd like to see

-Skyfire/Jetfire

Jetfire being one of the scouts, getting frozen in a callback to G1, and being found and thawed by some human scientists. He's just living his best life in a hidden lab, and only mildly worried about why Cybertron isn't answering his calls. Oh hey Starscream! When did you get the tattoo? (It's a bad breakup)

-Swindle

Our dystopian capitalist nightmare is Swindle's daydream paradise. He absolutely loves earth. #1 fan. He probably makes connections to the mob. Good times.

-Nightbird

Local mechanized AI (or ghost in the shell cyborg) has an emotional crisis, joins the deceptions. Beats up any Cons that disrespect her. No notes.

-Dinobots

"Wheeljack, why do our new security drones look like...that?"

"So there's this earth movie called "Jurassic Park"..."

Later:

"Wheeljack?"

"Yes optimus?"

"What happened to the sparks that we had in stasis?"

***Tyrannosaurs roar*** Me Grimlock Smash! (Panicked Decepticon screaming)

"Never mind, I think I figured it out."

-one sane adult human

Obvs theres a couple teens who pal around with the Autobots. There should be at least ONE adult in their early 20s as part of the group who's forced, however unwilling, to be the sole voice of reason. Aka: "I'M NOT TELLING YOUR PARENTS YOU GOT SQUISHED SNEAKING INTO AN EVIL ROBOT SPACESHIP"

"Then who's gonna pull off the rescue?"

"I AM!" (They instantly regret this decision, but They're at least old enough to make it)

-Shockwave as a late series villain

Shockwave has had command of the Decepticons ever since Megatron's Ill fated disappearance chasing after the Autobot Ark.

Having him return and upset Shockwave's centuries of effort holding onto the planets in the Deception Empire would be... Unfortunate. Perhaps it would be better if he stayed dead.... It's only logical.

[byz-was-here]

Okay but

When the Mata Nui matoran returned to metru nui

Did any of them actually listen to Dume? Or did they just treat him like an old man yelling at clouds and just go ask their real turaga instead.

[byz-was-here]

This character is stronger! No THIS character is stronger. Fuck that man, I'm sick of that bullshit.

I don't want to know whether goku would beat superman, but I DO want to know how clark kent explains why a japanese man in a bright orange gi just teleported into his cubicle and excitedly asked if he wanted to spar. Screw fight scenes, GIVE ME SHENANIGANS YOU COWARDS

[byz-was-here]

This only serves as proof that in hindsight Pohatu is just one of the most Valid toa. I absolutely get where that's from and struggle with a lot of those same fears. Taking that same set of advice, something i've started doing recently, has actually really helped me cope with my own issues.

I think that it was probably a mistake not to include that version of the shadow toa, because there's readers, kids who have to deal with that too. Reading that even the mighty toa have inner demons and are able to move past them- not simply beat them, but accept them as a part of who they are and overcome in spite of them- could have let a whole generation of kids know that they could beat theirs, too.

So there’s an interesting topic over on BZPower at the moment about a Bionicle Style Guide document. There are a lot of samples of parts of the story, some of it apparently unused in the canon materials. I like this part in particular. It’s an account of the Shadow Toa encounter that’s consistent with how Greg describes his preferred version of the event.

There’s a lot to like about this version, as it gives some insights into the Toa’s characters that have been downplayed in other media.

- Tahu’s potential for his rage and ambition to totally eclipse his moral standards. Hinted at a lot in the Hapka books, but interesting to see him actually confronted with it.

-Gali has a violent, destructive side that she both fears and represses. Might explain why she meditates…

-The implication that Kopaka doesn’t actually want to be alone, but rejects others so that they won’t reject him first. A fear of letting others down, too… perhaps G2 Kopaka isn’t that different from him after all.

- Onua being as uncomfortable on the surface as the others are underground… Resentful, even? Interesting.

- Lewa’s dark side is perhaps not as “dark” as the others… but, more chillingly, is so very similar to how Lewa normally is. Given Lewa’s struggles with his own darkness in the stories (though most of them come chronologically after this event), making shadow-Lewa only slightly different from real-Lewa could be a calculated move on Makuta’s part.

-AND POHATU. My poor baby Pohatu thinks he’s a useless lump and the other Toa don’t care about him (actually there are hints of this in the Hapka books, that he feels the others are just using him as dumb muscle.) I mean, he was so excited to meet the other Toa, and then he shows up at their meeting and they all start arguing and leave- not to mention the poor first impression he made on Kopaka… he’s had fears about messing up and letting everyone down ever since… BUT he knows how to counter those negative thoughts and he does it every damn day and he beats his demon the same way he always does: by giving it a pep talk. And he sees his struggles as making him a stronger person, rather than as a weakness.

…Just in case you needed a reminder that Pohatu is the best and deserves hugs.

(And as a side note, after that incident, Pohatu would probably know that Kopaka’s internal struggle was similar to his own, which puts all of their interactions after the event in an interesting light. It’s certainly not as simple as an annoyingly cheerful person obliviously trying to force friendship on someone who doesn’t want it. There’s a deep understanding there, even if neither of them ever talk about it.)

[byz-was-here]

Jaller is a fun character because he starts out as

And then he ACTUALLY DIES.

And then he comes back, and just goes

"Aren't you tired of being nice? Don't you just want to go apeshit?"

And he has God's braincells go on strike, correctly assumes that the missing toa are in over their heads, and Decides that he, a short-ass general who had one vacation in 1,000 years and DIED at the end of it- is gonna personally drag the nuva out of whatever they've gottent themselves into. He's not completely stupid, so he takes along an Air Force Pilot, a Mad Scientist, 2 Sports Stars, His friend the prophesied glitter hero with the care bear stare, and, as an added fuck you to the turaga, The Only Person Both Able And Willing to translate for Turaga Nuju.

Jaller has lost his ability to give a fuck and he's going to make it everyone's problem.

[byz-was-here]

There's 42 flavors of kraata power and every single one is BULLSHIT