#exctinct animals

[apuff]

the most serious apex predator

[the-dragon-girl-27]

Flocking drawings!

Crassigyrinus surfacing for air showing off its weird ass teeth

two female Kelenken nuzzling under a rainbow

Diplocaulus catching its prey

one of the last Rodrigues Solitaire crying out trying to find a companion to no response

[merlyn-bane]

publicly kissing @meebles on the forehead for being extremely lovely about the inevitable byproduct of cowriting a dinosaur cowboy au with someone for whom dinosaurs are a special interest

[filurig]

some domesticated Beasts in pareidolia... moar info below

fatfin perch:

the fatfin perch is derived from perca fluviatilis perch, and has been bred to be both larger, fatter and more docile in order to make herding, breeding and keeping them easier for sjörå. sjörå usually section off a section of a lake they inhabit and keep their perch there in order to keep them safe from other predators. and also with the help of their guard pikes...

guard pike:

derived from the northern pike, the guard pike is unmistakeable. selectively bred to be intelligent and loyal, these pikes are kept by sjörå as guarding/herding animals. every sjörå collective usually keeps a fair amount of these pikes in order to ensure the safety of their perch population.

tomteget:

a goat breed which has been bred by tomtar, its a very large animal for a goat and is used by gnomes as mounts and livestock. very robust and several other breeds derived from this one exist which have been adapted for different purposes (such as milk, meat, etc.). its possible that the idea of a "christmas goat" may stem from the tomtar's tendency to travel with these goats.

gloson:

a domesticated version of a relative of the wild boar, the gloson is both huge and striking in its appearence, fitting for the trolls. their wild equivalent is essentially exctinct and its current population are entirely kept by trolls at this point. used mostly as a guarding animal, but sometimes as livestock - it depends on the region (northern trolls tend to use them as the former, southern as the latter). humans have wrongfully interpreted their mane as "sharp" and able to be used to slice the gloson's target, but this is a misconception - while the gloson has quills, they aren't what is used for this manner of attack. instead, the trolls tend to provide them with sharp back armour if they choose to utilize their gloson for battle.

[gabipaleo]

Steller's sea cow - a recently extinct giant sirenian, related to modern dugongs and manatees. They went extinct in XVIII century, but their exctinction wasn't just because of europeans, we know that the last populations near Kamchatka were already on the brink of exctinction.

These huge animals could reach 9 metres in length and weight 10 tonnes, making them the largest aquatic non-cetacean mammal we know. They were algae eaters, feeding on kelp. Unlike modern sirenians, they didn't have teeth and used two keratin plates in their mouths for chewing. After feeding, according to Steller they'd lie on their backs and nap. Steller also observed an interesting mutualistic behaviour between sea cows and gulls (probably slaty-backed gulls), as these birds would eat parasites from the sea cow's back, like oxpeckers and rhinos.

The slaty-backed gull is one of the seabirds native to areas where sea cows used to live, and while we can't be sure which species of seabird fed on parasites of these large mammals, the opportunistic nature of seagulls makes them good contenders for the spot.

Despite their appearance, sea cows weren't stupid animals, they lived in large herds, looked after their young and were probably monogamous. Steller observed that they kept their calves in the middle of the herd or near the shore. This could have been caused by their predators.

Killer whales, specifically Bigg's killer whales, which are known to hunt other mammals, are the most likely predators of Steller's sea cow, apart from humans. While they might have trouble killing a large cow, especially in a herd, a small calf might be a meal worth the risk.

[popculturebuffet]

Transformers ONE Review: Autonomy is the Right of All Sentient Beings (Comissoin for Brotoman.EXE)

Hello all you happy autobots! This reviews one i'm excited for. See I was hoping One would be good: Rise of the Beasts was a disapointment having some good spots (the soundtrack, Anthony Ramos) but falling into the trap of trying to cram 80 tons of plot into two hours while not developing the robot cast enough. I mean it didn't have robotic gay jokes, racisim, robot testicles, or Optimus Prime gleefully murdering people, instead at worst being an asshole, but it didn't quite reach the heights of Bumblebee , not really taking in it's lessons of "less is more" and "Maybe people like characters"

Thankfully Transformers One takes the later to heart: Transformers One succesfully combines the spectacle people want from robots punching each other on the big screen, with a deep and personal character story of two robots who were like brothers whose ideologies drive them apart. One delivers both huge robot spectacle but grounds it in characters you care about. I'm a more casual fan of the franchise, haven't seen g1 , but I can't be happier as a fan of both transformers and animation itself to see this film and hope it does well over time. The first trailer REALLY didn't help but word of mouth probably will.

So while that's the most I can give without spoilers, I invite you to join me under the cut as I dive into WHY this film is so great, it's characters, ambiguities, great design choices, and the mistep or two. let's call him act 1 bumblebee. It's all under the cut with FULL SPOILERS. Seirously the film relies heavily on a twist about halfway in that while experinced fans and those experinced with fiction can probably see coming, though the marketing did a good job not telegraphing it, is still not something I want to be a dick and spoil outright So join me under the cut, till all are one.

What's Old is New:

Transformers One is the first animated transformers movie in decades: While I really CAN'T explain the 90's as Beast Wars seemed super popular when I was a kid, from the 2000's onward Hasbro largely dubbed anime of the transformers, and once we got to the live action films in the late 2000's through the 2010s Paramount made so much money hand over fist with each entry despite being "they gave devistator truck nuts" levels of baffling and "what seems to be standard micheal bay" levels of racist, they likely felt no need to inovate. If the movies are making them enough money to scrooge mcduck every time one comes out, there's no real reason to fight that if your a studio executive. The cartoons could simply take a queue or two from the films, as both animated and prime did and still make them money.

One comes in during this cash flow: looking into it on wikipedia, I genuinely tried looking elsewhere and couldn't find much, One came about after Age of Exctinction, with Parmount setting up a writers room to pitch sequel ideas. The films title animated nature and basic premise as a prequel came from that.. then as far as I can gather sat on the shelf as they still had binload of money.

Then the last knight happened ,an incoherent mess that had Anthony Hopkins have violent sexual tension with C3PO yet did nothing with it, so naturally it failed at the box office. This lead to Bay steping back from the franchise as a director

And lead to One being dusted off after Bumblebee's success. While the live action films continued with the ehtastic Rise of the Beasts and a GI Joe vs Transformers movie on the horizon, it's clear Parmount saw two things: putting all their transforming eggs in one transforming basket probably wasn't the best idea and animation was making bank post spider-verse. So One was dusted off. It just needed a director. Weirdly despite expresssing intrest in doing it Travis Knight, director of Kubo and the Two Strings, Bumblebee and longtime Laika animator, wasn't tapped.

Instead Parmount went with long time pixar animator and Toy Story 4 director Josh Cooley. And cooley ended up being the perfect man for the job: he looked at the script and while he liked the concept he'd been pitched, a prequel focusing on a younger optimus and megatron and their brotherly friendship destegrating into a forever war, he found the script was a bit lighter in tone and wanted to get a tone.

Cooley was a fan of the G1 Cartoon, and in one interview recounted seeing the film as a kid and being blown away by the scope opening on unicron eating a planet. He loved the spectacle of it and wanted to bring that to one, comparing it to epics like ben hur or the tend commandments; big bombastic stories with a very human core, a relationship breaking down at it's core. Cooley also had a great approach to adapting it:he clearly loves the franchise with his reaction to various animators and storyboarders sneaking in their faviorite autobots for cameos simply being

Cooley knew how to adapt the film: honor it's legacy, with plenty of nods to transformers history, but not be beholden to it going for a style that was a mix of g1 astetics but with an art deco sensiblity. Notably his decision not to have orion pax wear the optimus mask a ton was for good reason: instead of just being change for change's sake, it was to let him emote more. It's the same reason Peter Cullen wasn't chosen: Cooley utterly adores cullen but got that this optimus.. isn't him yet. The films about Optimus growing into being a leader and thus needed another tone. More on that later but these interviews gave me even more respect than the film itself already had, showing a man who knew how to adapt something well.

Visually the film is a treat: the animation is done by industrial light and magic, who did the films and who have only done three animated films. To my suprise i'd not only seen them all but one of them wasn't the clone wars. You'd think but no, Lucasfilm outsourced. No instead they did the animation for Rango, also with paramount under nick and Strange Magic, and both films have some impressive animation. I mean the designs for strange magic are questionable, as are a lot of things in that very dumb very fun movie, but it's clear they were just as good at making a fully animated world as they were making animated parts of a live action one. It's been almost a decade since strange magic, but they haven't lost a step.

As a result One looks gorgoeous: we've seen pre war cybertron before, but the big budget means we can see it as a gorgeous gleaming futuristic city with icacon, it' sbucolic surface and it's full glory once the planet is restored at the end. It adds emotoinal weight as the war will likely leave this planet a ravaged cold wreck as usual, but we ge tto see that beauty first. Even with the unlimited budget of comics the cybertron of the idw comics, while not bad looking is a pretty generic city. Here we get a gleaming metropolis that fully takes adantage of the fact some of it's citzens can transform, cramped quarters and mines. It makes cybertron feel truly alive and fils me with the kind of joy and wonder I missed from sci fi. This big colorfulspectacle that dosen't shy away from darker themes or moments, but despite the darkness of it's world, the corruption, the lines, and the tragic destiny that awaits there's a sense of hope. I loved Dune Part 2, still one of my faviorite films of the year and one of the best films i've seen, but it also follows it's characters tragic downfall as he's forced on the path of the chosen one wether he likes it or not and no matter how many genocides he's going to do walking that path. It's nice ot have a thetrical space where you can have a tragic yet hopeful story abotu robots in the same space as a tragic tale of a charsmatic leader's villian origin story. That I can have the kind of fun and thrill I had with star wars before disney decided to make the most pandering film in existance with rise of skywalker and still make no one happy, be a kid again for 90 minutes while still having the intresting stories nd characters that engage me as an adult is nice.

We Were Closer Than Brothers

This quote's been glued to my brain since I first read it in Powers of X, this perfect summation of the disolution of xavier and magento's friendship and why the two were forever at odds. There's a simple gap in who they are, who they want to be that can't be crossed.

And it's that kind of eternally recurring conflict that drives the film. It's one I never realized just how common it is yet so timeless and malleable it's been done a lot. In addition to x-men, both in the comics and the reboot/prequel films, Nartuo and She Ra and the Princess of power both tell the story of two people who are closer than family, but whose lives, egos and core beliefs pull them apart. Granted only one of these takes the obvious route of "and now kiss" but I digress. This is a tale as old as time, the tale of two people who genuinely truly love each other, as family or more. ANd it's one that works really well with these two characters.

This isn't the first version of Transformers to have Optimus and Megatron as former friends: The War for Cybertron Trilogy and Prime both use this idea, as we discussed earlier this month Transformers Cyberverse teased it and the IDW comics i've covered had something close to this: the idea that Pax agress with Megatron that cybertron needs to change and for the better.. but they simply can't agree.

One however gets the time needed to really dig into this: the two aren't just friends.. their best friends. Possibly more but that's left open for interprtation. And in the good way not "QUICK WE NEED TO MAKE THE FILM LESS GAY BECAUSE WE WANT MORE MONEY BECAUSE THAT'S HOW WE THINK THAT'S WORKS. "cooley saw the two as brothers , while it's just as easy to see the two as having feelings for one another. I tend to go towards the latter, with D-16 like he tends to do repressing it and the point being moot by the end as that bridge is burnt beyond recognition.

Transformers One sti feels queer coded, something I noticed pointed out on tv tropes but is hard to ignore once you notice it: it's a story about two young robots one whose proud of who he is and wants to buck the corrupt system they were both born into , the other who keeps his head down and mouth shut, both of whom find out a part of them was kept form them by said system and are allowed to be who they are. It's really not hard to read into that, especailly when the main antagonist is literally stealing a part of who they are. Which is not subtle but the fact a family film is saying this at all and in a way that's hard to ignore is fucking amazing.

Circling back to that first part it's how the two react to the world they live in that defines Pax and D-16 long before they become the bots we all know and love. The world of cybertron is one where a good chunk are seemingly born without cogs, forced to work in mines or other hard labor for hours on end, and all for the glory of their leader Sentinel Prime, played by John Hamm in glorious smarm. The queer coding is hard to tell if it's intentional.. but the film's commentary on how soceites are often built to keep one class, often containg people of color, queer people and others society deems "other", down to profit the rich.

It also shows how those in power create cults of personality: Sentinel gets all this hard work by projecting a show of being this loved glorious figure, going on quests for his people every few days. John Hamm does a damn good job showing just WHY cybertron hangs on his word. In the IDW continuity, Sentinel really didn't hide what a bastard he was beyond what he had to. Here... they all love him and he leaves the dirty work to his minons. They get to bully the lower class and do whatever they please, and he gets the adoration while likely condoning their bullshit because he's just as much of a monster as they are, he just gets to hide it.

It's their reactions to this inequality that define our heroes: Orion is a dreamer. You've seen the type in animation before: he wants a better world, keeps striving and wants his big shot at being someone. But One nicely grounds this: where his now.. is a dangeorus life of mining being bullied constantly and where his heroic act of saving a coworker get shis boss Elita One demoted. It's a world where he can't even look at the past glories of cybertron and it's 13 primes without having to dodge security. Orion senses something is off and that the world can be better. He's an optimist.

What I like though is this isn't without consequence: elita did get demoted and resents him for it, D-16, his best friend, quitely resents him for having to bail him out. He has the heart of Optimus Prime, wanting to try for the best for everybody and wanting to take D-16with him as he gets up in the world... but he lacks the patience he'll gain in time, rushing into things, dragging others with him and generally not thinking before he acts. His actions get a friend demoted and later get him and his best friend sent to the depths.

D-16 on the otherhand.. just wants to keep his head down. Respect authority even if it's unfair, slowly get promoted.. work his way up. The thing is... the system isn't really BUILT to help bots. At most he'll be leading a shift. And while there's nothing wrong with that, as there is in real life blue collar work, he also wants to ignore that there's something.. off with the world. That maybe he dosent' HAVE to be a miner if he dosen't want to or wait centuries to get promoted. He's quick to see the benefits when Pax drags him into thei iacon grand prix.. but just as quick to panic, worrying any slip will get him sent back down. He's resigned that their stuck where they are. And look i'm not saying class disparity is easily sovled in the real world. It's not. But you can still fight for change where you are.

Eventaully though Optimus finds his shot, one that Megatron tries to resisit.. but ultimately can't: what seems to be the matrix. Taking along Elita, who gets dragged along and only agrees if she can arrest their asses if this fails, and B, a bot they find in the depths of waste management, our heroes trek heroically across the planets dangerous surface and duck a quintesson ship.

And the World Screams, Kiss Me Son of God

And it's here.. where the film gets flipped on his head. Now i'll grant the twist isn't super groundbreaking. Having the seemingly nice authority figure turn out to be an asshole is old hat, the film's marketing tried at first to hide the fact Megatron would turn evil till they realized they kinda marketed it bad, it's pretty easy to suspect sentinel. It dosen't help on my end that the previous versions I know are a genocidal racist monster man whose horrible managing of cybertron helped create the decepticons, and a smug prick who needs to be thrown into the sun.

But it works well as Sentinel Prime.. works as a symbol for systemic corruption. The primes were 12 noble people chosen by primus for their character and who ruled justly. Now granted it is iffy having your creator god whose also the planet pick your rulers, but Pax's ascendance later makes it very clear Primus choose not just by destiny but by character. Sentinel claimed he was one and the last survivor after they beat out the quintessons. One's universe uses mostly chunks of the g1 backstory: Primus created transformer kind and became the planet as in the comics, but the Quintessons are still key, just as adversaries rather than a monsterous race that created the transformers as slaves before they rebelled, though still keeping parts of that in spirit. The 13 primes from war for cybertron and prime are added in creating a perfect precursor.

Sentinel however betrayed them, selling them out to the quintessons to become god emperor of cybertron with the mining class born entirely of his own greed, stripping them of their t cogs and indocrinating them. And tha'ts what makes this scary: part of why Sentinel's plan works so well.. is indocrination. To most of Cybertron this is just how things always were. The few people who know gladly keep up the lie. By creating a system he can control, sentinel has guaranteed few will rebel because they have no reason to doubt him. Like any good dictator he's set himself up as the be all end all and as a god unto himself so his people don't question and those like optimus who do are struck down.

Even when Alpha Trion last of the primes played wonderfully by Laurence Fishburne tells them all of this and in a truly beautiful and horrific sequence shows it to them using some dust he controls, only pax and Bumblebee truly digest it. It makes sense for both. Pax has ALWAYS questioned his place in the world so while he's mildly skeptical at worst, for him, someone whose broken into the archives to learn, constantly pushed against the system, finding out "Oh your life is a lie".. is freeing. It's finding out the horrible sytem that hates what you are is wrong. It's where the queer coding comes in finding out no your not wrong.. it's the people who said you not being you were horrible. For Pax this is what he's always wawited for: a mentor who truly respects all he did to get here, a purpose in freeing cybertron, a true world.

For B when we meet him he's spent his life being constantly kicked down rungs for his screw ups, abandoned by Cybertron to it's depths and happy just to have friends. Finding out "oh yeah your leader is a lie and you get to be badass now" is just.. nice. B is just kinda there for the ride. Honestly Bumblebee is just kinda there in the movie. Keegan Michael Key does a great job as the character especially in the second act when he gets to react to the more horrific things going on , but for the first he's just the annoying comic relife. The Badassatron gag gets old FAST and the trailers did not help. The trailers also didn't help focusing entirely on the comedy, which helps offset things and makes the more dramatic and often violent second act work. We get ot know these characters and there world... then see what happens after the curtains lifted and they see what there world always was.

This plays into Elita who i've glanced over, and who dosen't take it well, having to see Sentinel directly selling out to the quintissons to belivie it. Elita did her job, played the system, tried to get out.. and finds out it was rigged the whole time. Elita as we see her is tough, but fair.. wanting to arrest our heroes when they escape to the surface.. but willing to go with them when stranded as if they ARE right she gets what she wants and if their wrong they've agreed to be arrested anyways. Yet when her world turns upside down her response to it is shock.. then acceptance. The world is bad, how can we fix this? She goes with Optimus plan, though dosen't go loyally pointing out it MIGHT not work.. but it's their best option: expose sentinel to the public and hope it turns them.

This... is where D-16 shifts entirely. And his actor Brian Tyree Henry is easily the standout of the cast. No question. We see D-16 as someone who truly belivied in the system and the primes: he's a huge Megatronius Prime fanboy, who in most realities ends up being a tratiorus monster and basically satan.. but here.. is a good person and the strongest of the primes. He respected sentinel, utterly in awe to help him find the matrix, which was said to be lost. So instead he finds out everything he belivied in is a lie and takes it hte hardest: elita was annoyed with the system enough it took light convincing, pax was never for it and B is just happy to be included. But for D... this was everything. This was his LIFE. He rages at Pax for taking them on this adventure, for everything he loved and worshipped being relveaed a lie. Finding out what his life was, or rather what he likely expected it was but refused to admit to himself breaks him.

And that.. unleashes his rage. You get the sense D-16 has a lot of supressed anger: constantly having to tow the line, to clean up after his best friend, to keep his head down.. and finding out it was all for nothing and said friend is the reason he knows this.. unelashes every rage. Every thought he had to keep in every bit of it at once... and he wants Sentinel dead: not brought to justice, not heroically brought down for corruption: DRAGGED THROUGH THE STREETS IN CHAINS TO THE DEPTHS OF THE MINES AND TORN APART. Orion wants justice, he wants revenge.

The film also does a good job not making d-16 just.. evil. He's full of rage, he lashes out at orion.. but you still side with him despite knowing where this angers gonna take him. The system is broken, horrible and nightmarish. Like the IDW megatron, D-16 has EVERY reason to think it needs to burn. Yet you get why Pax wants the softer touch at first: he dosen't care about sentinel fuck that guy but burning it to the ground gets other people caugh tin the fire. Neither is entirley wrong: sentinel probably does need to die, but a brutal execution dosen't help anyone. And as pax can do doing so won't fill the void in his chest. Getting the t-cogs for the literal voids in their chest dosen't either.

The film dosen't entirely stop the lighthearted stuff: We get that great seuqnece form the trailers where our quartet try to transform and end up stuck mid way. It's both a neat idea, as i'ts essentially waking up a whole part of your body you could not use, and fun, based on Cooley's own experinces as a kid where for the more complex transformers they'd end up in a half transformed pile.

But the core is clear... and while the divide between D and Pax deepends as we meet the High Guard

Choked Out

So our heroes are kidnapped by the High Guard, the future decepticons. The High Guard were the primes loyal and noble enforcers but have spent the last however long it's been turned into a rebellion against sentinel, barely scraping by. Granted their also lead by Starscream which has never gone well and there's no giant gun to shoot him with nor volcano to throw him in so their kinda stuck.

I do love Starscream here played by the one and only Steve Buschemi who gets Sceamers smugness and arrogance right while adding in a dash of bloodthirst and class. The High Guard has devovled into a might makes right hellscape. And it's this hellscape.. that finishes creating megatron. I belivie had b had time to process or think , he MIGHT of not become megatron. It's likely why Alpha Trion still trusted him.. though as Brotoman pointed out when we discussed the film it could just as easily be that trion didn't care and wanted D-16 to go on a blood rampage. This still puts him above the G1 version whose only menoring to optimius was bringing him back form the dead like jesus after four robots from the future wondered in.

But the high guard share his views: wanting to burn it down, wanting to use brute force, resenting the rest of cybertron. It's all there. And the high guard are the army he needs to pull off his goals, as he's grown to resent optimus and Bee and Elita are firmly on his side.

So in a fit of Irony it's starscream who helps fully cement the creation of megatron. Megs is annoyed at their postering, doing seemingly nothing and done with their shit. He plans to just fuck off if their not going to do anything. Starscream as usual for him takes this as a challenge. And as usual across space and time megatron's response is exactly as good for starscream as you'd expect.

Megatron fucks him up so bad his VOICE changes. Yeah in this continuity Starscream's whiny voice.. is because megatron choked him out. And Starscream was into it asking for more. Was it a love of violence or is starscream discovering he's a sub?

But it's the point to me where D-16.. is gone. He hasn't turned full villian yet.. but he's found himself surronded by likeminded bots whose reaction to them choking out tehir leader is FUCK YEAH! YOU GET EM MEGS. I grant spending at least a decade around starscream is probably a lot for anyone, but it's still nicely horrifying and I like this barbarian portrayl of the decepticons: that they too started from a good place but having to constantly fight while being seen as traitors and being isoilated casued all their warrior instincts to go to a whole lord of the flies situation.

Megatron dosen't get to bask in his new horde or a nearly destroyed starscream who only lives because Orion is there.. and D makes it VERY clear this won't happen again. The mercy thing. Instead Sentinel kidnaps most of them with only Orion and Elita escaping.

You've Found my Breaking Point, Congradulations

So our two heroes are now seperated.. and while it was clear what path D-16 was on, it's Orion's turn to cement his. Oriion.. is not doing so good

He feels this is all his fault, that his constant diving into stuff hurt people and while before he was able to brush it off, the elita one situation REALLY wasn't his fault, enlisting megatron in the race was an attempt to help them, and even ending up in the cybertron's bowels, he figured Sentinel would come from them. Every reckless action and unintended consequence was just a step up. And he wasn't entirely wrong, his actions were well meaning.. but it's here he finally gets the downside and what makes his earlier character work: that relization that yes, he meant well, yes he wasn't wrong.. but he was still dragging everyone along with him when they kept telling him no and while in the long run, even with what he's about ot become, d-18's better for it, Orion finally gets that he can't just keep assuming people will be better off or he knows what's better.

Granted he takes this as

But Elita has changed. She's seen the good that's happened from it and encourages pax... she also rubs in that she's smarter than him, true, but also that as annoying as he could be to her... he had one thing she didn't, that d-16 didn't... hope. He never gave up, just fell into the system. He never stopped beliving in a better world even after finding out it was a lie. He dosen't try to stop sentinel just because "what else am I going to do" or "revenge" he's doing this because he WANTS a better world for everyone. To lift people up. He dragged d-16 into this not because he was blind, but because he wanted to help him. He wanted them both to see the sun. To build tommorow together. And maybe make out a little. His methods weren't great, but he was always trying to do the right thing.

So with that Pax isn't back to his old self he's better, and thinks out his plan for a second.. and it's a brilliant one, for once not just winging it but thinking it out: they need to take down sentinel. They can't broadcast his misdeeds for now, but they can at least stop him. They dont' have enough of an army as only half the guard escaped, so it's time to split up: Elita will lead the rest of the elite guard to free their captured brethren, Orion will go rally the miners who already trust and look up to him. Shockwave asks "Wait why would I do that" and get sa cup of punch in the face as his answer, while Soundwaves like "eh why the fuck not. " I do love shockwave in this film, he's just a pathetic butt monkey aand sounds like bluster blaster. It's glorious.

Meanwhile Megatron gets some MORE trauma. He refuses to bend the knee for Sentinel. Sentinel's plan is to frame the guard as destrutive rebels and megatron as one. And he has a chilling line I love: "The truth is whatever I say it is: it's the truth and i'ts chilling and Hamm does a fantastic job going from egotistical ass to chilling dictator at the drop of a hat, never dropping the smarm. Sentinel is the perfect vilian for this film: a legit threat and meance.. but also someone clearly there to be the starter villian: someone who unites our heroes at first but gets the fuck out of the way for the emotional climax. It makes the whole 'Oh no the heroes idol is evil" twist we've seen a lot. A lotttt, go down smother as while he's evil enough that his final takedown is satisfying, he's not so menacing or compelling you feel he's wasted. He's just comeplling enough

He's also a massive dick and upon seeing Megatron's sticker, he's been wearing a decal of megatronus, he rips it off.. and fucking BRANDS megatron. Yeah there's.. some racial stuff buried in here that as a white dumbass i'm not qualified to talk about. But it is brutal as hell.

SO while Team Elita crashes a train into a buildling to start the climax, because Elita is the best and I wish I had more to say about her other than she's the most badass one there is and Scarlett Johnasen is having a LOT of fun playing her, Orion goes to inspire a line of cameos. There are a LOT with Ironhide and Arcee being the most prominent.

The Miners are chafing under the strips not helped by Dreadwing, their supervisor and the dickbag who demoted Elita earlier and who in general is a bullying asshat. So naturally Optimus easily deals with him with a punch to the face. It's a nice moment that says a lot with just one punch: Optimus has problems FAR BIGGER than one petty asshole and has grown, literally and metaphorcially past him.

Orion having a t-cog and easily taking out the local bully is enough to get everyone to listen and he gives his first true rousing speech, revealing the truth, admitting they dont' have much reason to belivie him, but beliving ther'es something better.. there has to be and Sentinel has no right ot take it: So with mining equipment and jetpacks, our hero leads the future autobots. AI am a bit iffy about all the autobots being in one group and the decipticons in another, but the sequel could help flesh it out and I get they only had 90 minute sto pack a lot in. One is VERY overstuffed and takes place over maybe two days tops. A lot happens.. but it all feels resonable and well set up: D-16 changes entirely but it's hard to say megatron wasn't lurking under the surfance and a LOT of trauma in less than a day didn't change him. Likewise Optimus and Megatron rising as leaders.. makes perfect sense; The Guard had spent years hiding and stewing and suddenly a new kid comes along with more o fa vision than ducking and weaving and easily chokes out the guy who was likely only leader because he killed a few people who said no to that. He then refuses to bow to sentinel despite knowing what this might means an dkeeps getting up.

Meanwhile Optimus leads not through badassery.. but hope. He puts his dreamer nature to good use and instead of inspiring his troops thorugh violence, inspires them. And because Oriion was already a decent guy who instead of being seen as a weird outcast, was seen as a guy who did what they wished they could, a nice turn of that usual "never accepted weirdo" thing we get, because he was simply a good perosn.. people listen.

So here comes the climax.

Throw My Better Self Overboard, Shoot At Him When He Comes Up for Air

So we get our big climactic battle as our untied rebel forces eat the rich while Elita squares off with Airachnid. I hadn't brought up Airachnid because her plot relevance for most of the movie is to stand around and look menacing, being Sentinel's liutiennt. And I like how they went for something diffrent: true to the name she's part modern helicopter, part spider and usies her spider legs to brutally tear into foes, leaping on them and tearing them to shreds. While the rest of Sentinels mooks, various mass produced drones ala the ones Megatron has in prime, go down easily when fighting Alpha trion she took him down and let sentinel finish him off later because of course he wanted to gloat.

So while the final battle goes down to the two female robots of importance duking it out, it still works as it makes sense: Elita has quickly become the autobots bruiser and Optimus second in command, and Sentinel is busy gloating to his captives. Rather than the cliched "well the women must fight because a man punching her would be too mucH" it feels like a fight between each sides seconds that's also brutal and well done.

Orion however has a plan and while he and an ungreatful B-17 fight Sentinel, who reveals he took Megatronius cog, he has elita grab airachnid as she showed off her creepy camera head before... and thus he realizes she has incriminating footage. So while Bumblbee finds he has knife hands and helps clear the way, our heroes team up.. kinda.

I also have to give it to the fighting here: Something Cooley made sure to include was transforming. In most continuites the transforming is used maybe to ram a fucker and most fighting is as the robots. Here ther'es a lot of transforming in combat: Ariachind uses her alt mode to gain advantage as it can fly nad elita's can't. Sentinel uses his massive jet form's firepower to even the odds before diving back into bot mode. D-16 RAMS into the fucker with his tank mode, uses it frequently for blasting and easily switches back into combat. It's fluid, gorgeous and really takes advantage of the trasnforming to turn every fight into a spectacle.

While D-16 fights Sentinel, Orion inacts his plan: hyjack the radio tower and er.. slam Airachnids face into the console therebye getting the footage he needs.

Sentinel's outed as a bad guy, everythin'gs fine? right? right? Right D-16.. whose inching towards sentinel and... oh... oh no.

So Orion rushes to prevent his friend from doing a murder, whiel Sentinel pathetically crawls away. He begs him not to do this, that this isn't the right way.. but it won't work this time. Pax says the wrong thing: "Don't be like sentinel". He threatnes pax to move and pax instead jumps int he way.. and is shot , barely alive. And thus.. two bots die... D-16 throws Orion Pax into the core of the planet "I'm done saving you". One wanted war, to keep raging forever against a planet that wronged him the other wanted to fix tha tplanet and restore it. In the end it was two roads that simply HAD to diverge but damn do they make it painful. You see just how much these two meant, how much good they acomplished..b ut ultimately B-17 can't let go of his rage and pain.. and he shoudln't.. not entirely. He can still feel hurt and rageful.. but it's in trying to tear the rest of the world down where he failed.

Sometimes the world DOES need to burn, but if you don't think about the people who get hurt, then your in the wrong.

Where You Go Once You Arrive, Where We Go Once We Arrive

The next scene.. is the films best... a truly striking back and forth series of cuts as we see the true ascendance, the birth of megatron and optimus prime given all the gravitas 40 years of stories, conuities and tellings of these two's clash.

Megatron gives a firey horrifying speech as he rips Sentinel in half. The film is unflinching with hit's violence. It did have to cut around things.. but all that did was have cooley let your mind fill in the gaps. For a family film, this is fucking brutal, and it all crecnedoes with a bot getting ripped in half. likely being robots gave them some leeway, but it's still horrifying to see. I don't feel bad for sentinel he fucking deserved it but Megatron giving him a mortal kombat fatality then going on to scream about he's going to burn iacon down, destroy every last person loyal to sentinel to burn the world no matter who gets hurt... it underlines Optimus point. While Sentinel defeintly deserved to die, this dosen't fix anything. This dosen't change iacon for the better, it just replaces a tyrant who made the trains run on time and again deserved his mortal kombat fatality, with one who thinks he's doing the right thing while killing as many people as he has to to do it. Neither version of this is good but Megatron is too blinded by trauma to see that and thus has become something almost as bad as what left.

Thankfully as Megatron rises... so too does another. As he falls into the core, his body dead.... Orion Pax meets the primes, all 12 showing up.. with Alpha Trion himself anointing our hero. This could easily be iffy: chosen one narratives aren't nearly as common these days for a reason and this is the same year where Dune Part 2 showed just how bad that could go based on a book all the way back in the 60s, just taking out the racisim and sexism.

So instead Orion Pax becomes robot jesus this time not because destiny says so.. but simply because he acted well. He acted nobly, selfishless and laid his life down and thus he not only rises from the dead but gets an upgrade: a cool ax ehe does the thor thing with , which had to be intetional, able to take out a hudnered bad guys with swords or at least all three main decipticons with only megatron giving him trouble.

So before our climactic breakup, le'ts talk about primus. Some consider the idea Primus is a two faced prick: he made the matrix of leadership, the source of cybertron's energon in this continuity and why they have to mine without it, not feel so good and go away into dust robbing sentinel of it.

Me... I think it wasn't the smartest move given Sentinel then created a slave race to do the job and it didn't really stop him.. but my take is that it was all primus COULD do. Primus did create the primes to guard cybertron, but that was right after becoming the planet and space god. My honest interpretation, one backed up by talking to brotoman is that primus isn't as fully cognizant without the matrix. In the war for cybertron duology, Primus created the matrix as a way for it to be with the rest of cybertron kind as it really coudln't commuincate outside it's core. If eel that's the same here: that it can only do so much and without the matrix as a conduit, all it could do was thrash blindly, hence the storms of the surface and the mines shifting horribly. THe mines woul dbe closer to cybertrons core, giving him more dexterity. Prime fell directly into a shaft leading down int oCybertron's bowels and into it's core, which gave Primus a chance to look him over, see what he did. If you notice primus doesn't even talk directly. He has to use alpha trion's ghost. Primus transformation into cybertron likely put him beyond most cybertronians and unlike say Unicron if he shows up, please let him show up, he can't go back and forth.

Now that's just my interpretation but it's something I like about the film: the world's well built and set up.. but it dosen't explain everything. It leaves some ambguity: where the primes as perfect as they seemed or was sentinel right to resent them, even if

Did Alpha Trion know the risks he was unleashing with megatron? We don't know, and tha'ts okay. And yes the sequels probably will clear some of this up if we get them, but it's still something really neat to think about.

For now we get an awesome fight with Optimus ending the thing by slicing Megatron's fusion canon. He commands him to leave: he tried to conquer cybertron, killed a man and broke Optimus' heart in the process. Megatron bitterly leaves setting up a sequel that please please please god let us have some form of sequel, and takes the gaurd with him.

This leaves optimus in charge, and their paths set: Optimus turns the miners into the autobots and gives them their cogs back, restoring cybertron.. and Megatron... brands his new peeps the decepticons. THey are not being being decieved and they will open cybertrons eyes and close optimus'. It's a truly painful but well done ending with both rising : Optimus prepares to hold off the quintsions.. and Megatron prepares to do what he planned to do in the first plac.e. burn it down. They were close but now... the war begins.

The One and Only One

Transformers One is a masterpiece, well worth a look in theaters. I'ts a feast ofr the eyes. But it's it' semotinal core that makes it: following two young men as one goes from reckless dreamer to real leader, with his voice lowering the right octaves, and the other going from a stickler for the rules to a radical planning to kill as many people as he has to to save cybertron from hitself. One is a heartfelt epic, with eye popping colors, great social commentary and a hell of an emotional core. This is the best of the transformers films i've seen, probably not a stretch to say the best given it lacks robot testicles or a man waving around a piece of paper saying he can fuck teenagers, but still a truly great film I hope Paramount gives a sequel even if it dosen't do gangbusters. In a year with maybe three animated films i've wanted to see theatrically, this was a welcome treat and is one of the best transformers stories. Go see it, thanks for reading and remmeber you can win if you dare.

[life-winners-liveblog]

An artifact of the extinction?

Let me quote TMA itself with the canon description of The Exctinction:

"But now the fear is not of a rapture or a revelation. It is of catastrophic change. Mankind will warp the world so much it kills us all, and leaves only a thousand years of plastic behind. Technology will strip us of what it means to be human, and leave us something alien and cold. We will press a button that in a moment will destroy everything we have ever been. Animals are witnessing the end of their entire species within a single generation."

[eddieintheocean]

The Deep by Alex Rodgers - marine biology book review

rating - 10/10

chapters - 10

page count - 368

genre - nonfiction

content warnings - global warming, mentions of animal death

This book talks about the authors experience as a marine biologist, from exploration in the artic and hydrothermal vents to in the court room and meetings discussing the climate situation of the ocean.

it features many facts and interesting creatures (many of which i have tabbed for me to make a post about later) and also information about species that have come back from the brink of exctinction.

it can get quite depressing towards the last few chapters, although it is scattered with hopeful stories. The last chapter also features ways that the world and the government can help the oceans and also how the reader can make an impact on a smaller scale

i would really recommend this book if you are looking for a way into marine biology, or have been interested for a while. there is a glossary at the back for those more scientific words that arent in most peoples vocabulary.

[quaranmine]

tumblr book report time

okay, I finished Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams earlier today! I did say in the post a few hours ago I only had about 40 pages left. I also reread about another 80 or so pages that I read last year just to refresh my memory. So, I'm now going to do the (potentially) depressing task of listing out the endangered species features in this book, and seeing if any are still alive. I don't know yet how depressing or exciting this post might be.

Madagascar

This part of the book is from a trip in 1985, where they went to try and find the aye-aye lemur. I am pleased to report that the aye-aye is still alive, although still endangered. Woo-hoo! The aye-aye is the world's largest nocturnal primate, and is so unique it has no taxomic family (no related species.) They are considered evil, or harbingers of death, in folk belief, so they face danger from being hunted and killed.

Indonesia

In this chapter, they travel to the island of Komodo to look at the Komodo dragons. Komodo dragons, thankfully, are still alive, but still endangered due to the fragility of their habitat. They're at risk of volcanoes, earthquakes, habitat loss, fire, tourism, loss of prey from poaching, and illegal poachnig in general. Climate chane and sea level rise also threaten their habitat. There are 1,380 mature individuals left in the wild and 3,400 total.

Democratic Republic of Congo (Zaïre at the time of the book's publishing)

In this chapter, they end up seeing two animals. They traveled to the country to see the northern white rhinocerous, but also ended up seeing mountain gorillas too because, as Adams says, "It is very hard to go all the way to Zaïre and not see them." Mountain gorillas, although listed as endangered, are still around. The World Wildlife Fund lists their population as just over 1,000 individuals. The specific area that Adams and Carwardine visit in the book, Virunga National Park, has seen an increase in population. When they visited in the late 80s, there was a population of 320, but as of 2010 there were 480.

Here's where my post actually gets sad. The animal that Adams and Carwardine actually planned to visit in the DRC was the northern white rhinocerous. In 1988 at the time of the trip (or perhaps 1990 at the publishing of the book), there were 22 individuals left in the wild, all in Garamba National Park. Twenty two. Douglas Adams writes about the sad state of their population, and compares it to the success of the subspecies the southern white rhino. He ends that section of the book with the sentence: "The point is, we are not too late to save the northern white rhinocerous from exctinction."

Feeling very energized after reading this, I had set down my book and pulled out my smartphone to google the northern white rhinocerous. The bad news is, the northern white rhino is functionally extinct in 2023. There are only two left in the entire world, and both are female, mother and daughter. Garamba National Park has suffered years of turmoil from politcal unrest, wars, insurgents, and poachers. In 2008, there were no northern white rhinos left in the wild and only 8 left in captivity.

There's some tentatively good news. Before the last male died in 2018, his sperm was collected. The remaining two living females cannot carry babies anymore, but the daughter's eggs were gathered. There's a team of scientists trying IVF, and since 2019 they've managed to get 24 embryos from one female and two males. They're planning on using another southern white rhino as a surrogate. Will this save the species? Who knows. Any babies that result will have to be inbred--either siblings or half-siblings. No genetic diversity remains in the subspecies. But it is interesting to me since this sort of thing used to not be possible at all for endangered species.

New Zealand

The first birds mentioned in this chapter is the Kea, which is also endangered, but this chapter isn't really about them. It's about the Kakapo. The Kakapo are probably my favorite animal described in this book, because they seem so silly. It's a wonder they never managed to go extinct at any point in history. I love them. Fortunately, there's good news for Kakapo: they're doing better!

Actually, I saw a tweet about them literally earlier today:

They're still considered critically endangered, but this is good news. As of 2023 there are 248, which is a significant increase in the ~70 that existed when the book was written. Yay, kākāpō! They're very cute.

China

Here is where the post gets sad again. In this chapter, Adams and Carwardine visit the Yangtze in search of the baiji river dolphin. It has been 21 years since the last confirmed sighting of the baiji, and 17 years since they were considered extinct after no trace of them could be found. I find this particularly sad, because part of the chapter in this book has Adams and Carwardine visiting with the Tongling Baiji Conservation Committee, and their construction of a nature reserve on the river. The end of the chapter seems hopeful based on this hard work, so I also feel quite sad for all these people in 1989 who cared so much and were still unable to save these animals :(

Mauritius

This is the final chapter of the book, and covers quite a few animals. The original intention was for them to be looking for the Rodrigues fruit bat. These bats are endangered, but with increasing population. By the time of the book's publishing in 1990, the population had just passed the 1,000 mark. The Philadelphia Zoo website says with breeding programs, there are now 20,000 left in the wild.

Another species mentioned is the Mauritius Kestrel. In 1974, there were only 4 individuals left. Now, thanks to breeding programs, there are about 400 left in the wild as of 10 years ago. That's amazing, but it is a bit worrying still--in 2005, there were 800 in the wild. So there was a wildly successful reintroduction and now the population is dipping again. But if they survived it once, I think we can help them survive it again.

Another bird mentioned is the pink pigeon. As of the publishing of the book in 1990, there were less than 10 in the wild. Now, thanks to conservation efforts, there are approximately 480. They've suffered some loss of genetic diversity, though.

Finally, the echo parakeet is mentioned. As of the time of the book's publishing, there were less than 15 remaining in the wild. I am happy to say that as of 2020 there are more than 800 birds left in the wild, and their status has been moved from endangered to just vulnerable--a step up!

That brings me to the end of my tumblr book report. I was actually mildly surprised and happy to see that only two of the species mentioned in the book are extinct/functionally extinct, and that the others were saved from the brink. I seriously thought while googling some of the birds at the end that they would be gone, but fortunately they're still around.

Goodnight! I spent way too long writing this!

[queenpinesofdomino]

OK so I have this stupid headcanon about how the mythosaur is still alive. Disclaimer this is a crack idea for my entertainment there is no way that happened.

So heres the thing we all know that Korkie is (allegedly) Satines son yes? And that (allegedly) his dad is a very well know Jedi yes? Yes. Now I know that the force is not inherited from parents to kids but let's say here that Korkie is force sensitive to some degree. And since we know that Obi Wan is very good with animals and creatures (this is a force ability but I don't know the name of it) let's say that Korkie has that as well.

Now here's the headcanon.

One day when Korkie was skipping class (cuz you can't tell me that he hasn't done it. As much of an ass kisser clone wars made him to be, he was a very rich, teenage boy living alone. So let's be real for a sec)

So he was skipping class, wandering the streets of Sundari and while he was minding his business he suddenly felt something "calling him" from the mines. Now being the little curious kid that he was he started following the weird feeling. And after walking, in there, for a good hour he came to a stop in front of an egg half buried in the ground so he took it back to the Academy.

Now as I said he has a weird connection to animals and he is kinda dumb and curious so he hatched the egg and came face to face with a small baby lizard.

Now keep in mind that mythosaurs were exctincted for thousands of years so he basically was going by vibes alone. And so eventually he figured out that:

a. the little lizard was semi aquatic

b. Ate mostly greens and bugs and could go without food for weeks

c. Went to hibernation if not fed

d. Didn't like the light and

e. Had a little force sensitive itself so they could somehow communicate

So long story short after some years of the lizard growing and growing he couldn't keep it any more at his dorm and he decided to take it back at the Palace.

And thats how the lil mythasaur ended in a glass bowl filed with tap water inside his closet where it lived for good 2 years.

Until one day around 18bby where he had to take it out of the bowl and into the refresher so he could help its lil foot with the dead skin that couldn't come off. But as we all know the force works in mysterious ways and Satine called him for some very important reason (to pick up his mess from the living room) and he left the lizard unattended in the bathroom where she walked in.

And then after a very long hour of Korkie trying to stop his aunt from blasting a weird lizard with her deactivator, while screaming at him for bringing it home, Korkie agreed to take the lizard back where he originally found it a.k.a deep into the mines.

And thats how a mythasaur ended up being alive on Mandalor.

[panurei-derogatory]

We have less than a century before the human race goes completely exctinct.

Someday soon, the bombs will drop, or the floods will come, or some other manmade extinction will rear its head, and the Earth will be purged of the rot that calls her their home.

In a few million years, the scars will heal, and non-sentient life will have evolved to refill its ecological niches, and everything will have gone back to normal. How it was meant to be.

Where I lie in bed will one day just be nature. Animals without the brain to understand the world around them. No more war, no more horrors, no more suffering.

And it will be beautiful.

And it will stay that way.

Mother Nature will never again make the mistake of giving her creations sentience.

[siriuslystargazing]

for the ask game 🦖💛

🦖 favourite exctinct animal? Irish elks!! It was one of the largest deers to exist and I bet they were majestic as hell. Love me some elegant creatures

💛 any piercings ? Yeah I got my ears DOUBLE pierced so I can wear cute earrings. I don’t want anymore because getting my ears done again for like the 3rd time made me pass out. I don’t do good with certain kinds of pain 😂

[e17omm]

I’ve always thought people calling Hi3 depression impact were biased by a first impression but isn’t PGR going a bit too far in the other direction?

It might be, but it certainly sells its hopeless situation.

Humanity is facing extinction against the Punishing Virus, which evolves MUCH faster than humans can. In months, or fuck, maybe weeks, it has gone from corrupting electronics and human brains, to mindless animals, and now it knows pack instincts, seiges, and human speech.

PGR is not a happy story. It is a struggle. Babylonia up in space cant save everyone, humans still on Earth are suffering day to day. They have to scavenge to survive and every death now just feeds the Punishing Virus' Red Tide. They face a future where tomorrow is a hope, and for many they rather tomorrow not come at all. Earth faces an entire, whats even the word? Ecological change? The Punishing Virus is slowly taking over the Earth. The Red Tide can make biological beings entirely out of Punishing Virus. Animals, PLANTS, liquid, humans. Humanity is facing a desperate struggle against exctinction through replacement.

And the game sells it.

We aren't just told these things. We are shown just how bad it is. We go into individuals, humans trying to live another day on Earth, and we see directly just how bad it is.

It is "show dont tell" to a T right now.

[hamletisintown]

It's the same thing in France btw, wolves got exctinct during the first half of the 20th century because they were being hunted, and also because their natural habitat was heavily modified by urbanisation and agricultural practices. They naturally started to come back some 30 years ago (from the italian Alps) but they're still super vulnerable (624 individuals as estimated by the Office Français de la Biodiversité in 2020-2021). They're mostly attacking wild animals (it's estimated cattle only represents 16% of their alimentation), and like it's said in the tags, there are some easy solutions to avoiding wolf attacks, like dogs and farmers watching over their cattle. And yet, their presence is still heavily debated, especially by farmers and hunters, even though they're, like all apex predators, an incredibly important part of the ecosystem. (and despite wolves being a protected species, hunters are still allowed to kill ~100 of them per year to account for the damage they can do to livestock

And basically the same happened and is still happening with bears. They went extinct, and we've managed to reintroduce them in the french pyreneans, and we're trying to grow their population because they're still on the brink of exctinction. We've even had to bring female bears from other countries to help them produce an offspring because we only had male bears left. But some people are still killing bears on purpose (see for example the case of Canelle, a female bear who was killed by a hunter in 2004) and farmers are inflating the numbers of deaths by bear attack in their livestock.

Anyway, I didn't mean to derail the subject, I just think it's interesting to see we have the same problem in different countries. As far as I know, wolves aren't endangered in most european countries where they live, so I'd be curious to hear about how they're considered and get along with human populations in other countries.

So one of my tweets kinda blew up. :v

[theblogofruth]

"The Settlement Day." From the Book of Ruth 3: 16-18.

Now we have to talk about a most egregious word, "man." Betwixt the many animals named by the Torah, some of which we like, some we do not, and the angels is something called a man.

According to the Torah, a man is achieved in between the Sixth and the Seventh Days, not before. Just because a boy gets his pits and a dangler does not mean he has become a man, it just means he has grown.

Men are accomplished only after the Sixth Day, as stated, after one crosses the Jordan. Then, one reads about manhood in the Book of Joshua which explains how the Torah concludes.

The Book of Ruth is the companion guide which explains life to girls who want to abandon flirtations with boys and find real men in order to commence the final flightpath to womanhood, a topic that is not often discussed as a Torah until now.

Ruth begins as a young(ish) woman who has lost her husband and returns to her mother-in-law's house in order to stage a relaunch. Dead husbands represent a number of things: the end of a war, the end of an era, encroaching opportunity and also encroaching trouble. They are the crossroads between a person or society that realizes only an highly moral, ethical, and spiritual approach will secure happiness in the future.

Ruth's mentor, Boaz, suggests she find a younger man who like Ruth just can't wait but for a different battery of reasons. Women like Ruth in the Torah are the vehicles of the future; they represent an evidence based approach to Shabbos "happiness efforts." Buddhists think of Karma as a dubious thing, but Judaism treats Shabbos as a process of lacking any kind of suspicion at all. It is Ruth's new official duty then to teach an unseasoned future generation how to do it right.

Except so far she hasn't quite got it right because she is still sowing some wild oats. She is performing a Moabite, a habitual way of life whether or not it works for her. She is on the cusp of Shabbos but she is also very far away. This is man's story too- just when we think it's going to be all right, an election year fucks everything up, or a terrorist attack happens, or what-do-you-know, we've underestimated climate change or the Russians or the Chinese...

All of this, much of which has resulted in bloodshed was unnecessary but we did it anyway. Now we have to figure out what to do, and it can't include the same circumstances as before or Karma not Shabbos will result. The Rab, the narrator, the Most High posing as Boaz says to Ruth and to us, "do not go back empty handed", also "mankind is waiting, so hurry."

What is it waiting for? Six ways to measure reality:

16 When Ruth came to her mother-in-law, Naomi asked, “How did it go, my daughter?”

Then she told her everything Boaz had done for her 17 and added, “He gave me these six measures of barley, saying, ‘Don’t go back to your mother-in-law empty-handed.’”

18 Then Naomi said, “Wait, my daughter, until you find out what happens. For the man will not rest until the matter is settled today.”

The Values in Gematria are:

v. 16: How did it go? The Number is 5082, ה‎אֶפֶסחב, well, it is supposed to have gone a certain way; a Passover, then an Ephesus.

Reality is not supposed to govern us, we are supposed to govern it. This means when there is trouble, you kill it and then you get over it, you work past it, then you start over.

Humanity has chosen to define itself as instrument of chaos and mayhem and this is not cutting it.

Where is the vision that is going to rescue us from our dead husband, currently known as the Age of Agony, an era where man finds a way to turn his back on scoundrels, holocausts, mass exctinctions, and the liars and losers who are responsible?

It had better materialize soon. There are too many excuses, bureaucrats and buttheads in the way of the future while the law books smolder, eager to brand their next victims with the stamp of the law on their hides.

v. 17: She told her everything. The overarching She is the macrocosm, it is the natural reality and it is speaking volumes about the consequences of allowing the Mormons, Republicans and Russians to live long and prosper. They have chosen badly and by allowing them to survive on this planet alongside us so are we.

The Number is 8861, חחוא, chahua "let's go to the farm."

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and all the rest, honey, it's time to go to the farm so you can see just exaclty what it looks like when the animals aren't running the pet shop.

v. 18: Then Naomi said, “Wait, my daughter, until you find out what happens. For the man will not rest until the matter is settled today.”

We recently discussed something called a Therion or Complex Day. Settlement is an example of a very uncomplicated kind of day. The Complex Day suggests reality takes place on a rolling basis, everything is happening all at once. Babies are born, old people die, there is everything happening in between. Settlement day is when all of this stops and mankind as an entire culture moves forward, it accomplishes the Passover.

Imagine if Kamala Harris stopped fuchking around and said "I am officially announcing America is no longer going to a lawless place and I am arresting the SCOTUS Justices for illegally banning abortions, arresting Donald Trump for January 6, killing all the Mormons for what they did on October 7, we are going to start scrubbing the air of greenhouse gases so the temperature comes down and we are throwing everything we've got at the war in Ukraine and we are going to win and free its people from oppression...!"

That would cause a shift out of the blended day into a Day of Yah, one for which we cannot wait. As importantly, humankind would be able to refer to such decisiveness going forward and it would protect us from evil forever more.

The Number is 8443, Haddag, "the cutting edge of the Eg." The Eg is defined as "the war chariot that delivers the goat prophet from across the Jordan."

Eg is a Hebrew word that appears in the Bible to refer to a mountain range east of the Jordan Rift Valley, in Transjordan, and southeast of the Dead Sea. The range extends from Mount Nebo in the north, possibly to the Arabian desert in the south. 

Eglon (eg'-lon) is another Hebrew word that can have multiple meanings, including: 

Young bullock 

Calflike 

Round 

Rolling 

A threshing drag 

An oxcart 

A war chariot 

So it is the call of a slightly more experienced woman that leads a youngish man to her. Together they thresh away the hull of the past, create a princess bride and supposedly this leads to happily ever after.

As for why we cannot be men until these things come to pass- there are too many worthless people working on too many evil things for us to quite qualify as a mankind right now, and there are no signs this is going to change.