#finding out about new species of bugs it's so fun- so many lil guys that are just walking around being lil weirdos

[cloudsrust]

Finally a bit of free time- can finally indulge in re-searching weird bugs to satisfy my obsession for the lil' critters <3

[gimmick-blog-bracket]

@hellsitegenetics

“I love them”

“I didn't know I needed to know that the weed-smoking girlfriends post was genetically a wolf, but I did, and I do. Also puts great stuff on my dash.”

“it’s so fun to be scrolling unhinged posts and then boom. an organism!”

“so many moths‼ also, unexpected comedy with some of the matches”

“perfect blend of silly and informative, and makes for an excellent punchline at the end of a long post. puts creatures on my dash. literally what more could you ask for”

“It's a really unique blog concept and a lot of times the results are pretty funny. It's great when the sequence matches the post content too!”

“Creatures 👍”

“Finds beautiful creatures out of the mess of the hellsite”

“Offers finality AND gives us a creechur.”

“I love them. English speakers talk like moths”

“If this blog wins, they could run the text of the winning announcement, and determine the post's genus and species!

They're also very good about tagging the type of creature depicted in the results, so as long as you mute tags of creatures you don't want to see, it's a very fun time seeing iconic legacy posts (and new submissions) being reduced down to a string of letters and assigned a random species of fish or moth or something!”

“uhh it’s cool”

“BLAST”

“There are so many weird bugs in the world”

“Yippee!!”

“If, as Haldane said, God has an inordinate fondness for beetles, then surely this blog proves that Tumblr has an inordinate fondness for moths.”

“Top tier blog as a geneticist, I love seeing obscure organisms and MOTH”

“Admin got rate limited after trying to blast the bee movie”

“the knowledge of biology to pull this off (i have taken one biology class in my life) and also the work to find all the strings honestly deserves quite a bit of praise”

“This gimmick blog has it all: science, pictures of animals, interaction with the text of other peoples' posts, interesting information, and a unique and fun premise. As a biologist, I'm rooting for hellsitegenetics to reach the end and take the tournament, because it is truly a standout among gimmick blogs.”

@jesus-holding-your-fave

“an underrated gimmick blog where jesus holds all of your blorbos”

“jesus just wants to hold your lil guys”

[qhazomb]

so i got two different versions of the "leviathan au." one where it's a whole different situation from regular (not-a-game) HLVRAI, in which gordon and benry first meet when gordon is test driving an experimental exploration sub for black mesa... and another one where it follows along with the regular not-a-game AUs, and the leviathan is benry's true form. this second version also follows my headcanon that benry really was 'born' in 1994 (and is just a year younger than gordon).

benry hatched from an egg that had crashed down onto earth over a hundred years ago, and the crator its impact made turned into a small lake over time.

(the entity that laid that egg had been... dealt with by the overly territorial mr. coolatta, along with the rest of the clutch. unfortunately for mr. coolatta, he missed one egg. and said egg would prove to be a major headache source for him yeaaaars in the future.)

in the early morning of january 1st, 1994, the egg finally hatched, and a little larval space squid dragon crawled out. he remained in that lake for five years, curious about the world and other creatures beyond its shore, but always too nervous to leave the safety of his cradle.

until one day, when a smaller version of some of the beings benry had sometimes seen hanging around the lake finally spotted him. and gave him a candy bar.

this version of the AU uses the whole 'gordon and benry really DID know each other as kids' idea, and in this case, they knew each other over the course of one summer. lil six-year-old gordon and his family were spending the summer at a relative's lakeside home, and while exploring the lake beach, gordon encounters and soon befriends a 'lake monster'. (all the adults of course write the kid's tales of his new lake monster friend as a child's wild imagination, naturally.)

communication between the two of them is at first pretty one-sided, which doesn't bug gordon much cause he's pretty sure his new friend 'Sparkly' is just an animal (monsters are a kind of animal, duh) so he's not expecting sparkly to understand him. gordon is at least able to understand how 'sparkly' is feeling, though, as the weird rainbow bubbles he sings out make gordon feel things that don't feel like his feelings. which he thinks is really weird but also kinda cool and he wishes his cat missy could do that.

benry is eventually able to finally really understand what gordon's saying, once he's able to briefly make a mental connection with the human. VERY briefly. just long enough to get an understanding of the following things:

the english language (at a six-year-old's level at least).

that his new friend's species are called humans.

that humans don't think things like him exist, and would freak out if proven otherwise. this is why gordon won't let benry follow him when the bigger humans call him to come back to the big boxy shelter.

video games are a thing and apparently super fun. benry would like to try video games. pushing buttons to make a lil guy on a picture box do stuff, as if you were the little guy. sounds neat!

if benry wants to do anything outside of his lake without having to hide all the time, he needs to look less like himself and more like a human (looking like a human will also make talking like one easier. can't really form a lot of the sounds they make with just a beak.)

unfortunately, this didn't happen until like a day or two before gordon had to go back home. but gordon told benry that he'd be back next year! he'll think up a ton of new stuff for them to do until then!

...doubly unfortunately, sometime late fall of that year, black mesa finally finds benry and takes him down to their facility in new mexico. so the next year that gordon's family goes to visit at the lake in summer again, gordon gets no response when he calls out to 'sparkly,' no matter how many times he does. after a time he gives up, accepting that his lake monster friend is gone, and then eventually even forgets he ever existed, believing any memories to be imaginary friend stuff, like his mom and relatives always assumed.

benry didn't forget, though.

...but he did forget what he orginally looked like. not long after gordon's family left, benry got to work on practicing looking human. the hands were the easiest part, he already had hands like that, he just had to get rid of one finger (why humans only got five??). arms and torso were no biggie either, really. the hard part was the head and legs. legs weren't toooo hard to figure out, they were kind of like arms, sorta, but human heads and his head are SO different, like, wow. that took a while.

by the time black mesa had found him, he was looking mostly human. but not enough to trick anybody. especially not anybody with ways to detect the cosmic energy his body radiated.

black mesa never knew about benry's true form, as he never went back to it once during his captivity (and eventual employment for good behavior) at the facility, and eventually benry himself even forgot what he really looked like... which could possibly be blamed on some of the experiments conducted on him. his memory may be a bit wonk in some regards, but it's not THAT bad.

it's not until after the big beatdown in xen that he finally starts to remember... he respawns, but in that midform, rather than his usual human disguise form.

he's unable to try and shift further, as the 'containment' mr. coolatta mentioned turns out to be a whole new research facility that black mesa sold benry off to in order to secure extra funds for repairing and rebuilting their own labs.

this new place, Lancer Labs, seems to have gotten the same weird 'dampening field' that 'mesa had to keep benry's powers nerfed.

the scientists at lancer are also not as 'nice' as black mesa's, if you can believe that.

benry's stuck there for a year, being as uncooporative as he possibly can. lancer has been able to learn all they can from examining his body, but they have made like 0 progress with mental/behavioral studies, and they're starting to get real tired of benry's shit. so upon reviewing various files and reports they got from black mesa, including some recordings from during the rescas, the researchers at lancer labs get an idea for something that might finally get their prized specimen to stop being a stubborn ass.

in the middle of the night, gordon freeman is abducted from his own home.

they could tell from some of the rescas recordings, that benry seemed to be rather fond of the humans he was travelling with. lancer is going to use gordon as a barganing chip.

benry had become pretty listless and dejected during his new captivity, but seeing gordon get dragged into this shit was the kick in the pants his drive to escape needed. gordon may have been a big jerk, but he doesn't deserve being locked up in a lab for the simple crime of knowing benry.

benry just has to wait for the right moment to break outta here....

[scolopendress-tag]

Have some Asra n Muriel disorganized headcanons: animal themed!

Asra's most likely to answer quetzal if you ask for his favourite bird (he had a close up encounter with one his first time in nopal and had never seen a bird like it so it's a special memory), but he also appreciates all others. He also loves dart frogs and his favorite reptile would of course be perfect lavender angel baby fictional fantasy pythons. I'd also see him loving dragonflies as well.

He will see literally any animal generally and always say "they're one of my favourites!", though. It doesn't matter how many times he's said it that day or how many animals he's said it about. It's almost without fail he'll point one out and say it's a favourite.

One of his favorite animals is always the one in front of him Right Now, as a quick reference.

Plus, he loves to point animals out on travels or when out and about Vesuvia, so get used to hearing it!

He may attempt to catch critters occasionally too, or just pick them up, these will be mostly bugs usually. He just likes to cup moths in his hand on occasion and the watch them flutter out and I think he should be allowed to! Or just cradle bugs in his palm and watch them walk around for a bit. If it's a reptile or amphibian somewhere it could get stepped on or dried out or eaten he will still scoop them up and carry them to the brush.

[Cont. after cut]

Nothing he ever handles seems to get too upset or stressed, even when it's an animal that otherwise would. They just seem to be more relaxed if it's Asra who's touching them. Sometimes reptiles just come up to him (or even crawl onto his hand, as a few lizards have,) curiously enough. Though they may still refuse to be touched even then, they're notably not bothered by his presence when for others they'd run away. It's not something Asra's ever noticed to be odd, nor would it be overly noticeable to most people, but it's definitely something you can recognize if you pay attention.

Asra would also love to run on the beach sometimes, namely as a kid, maybe making himself invisible or otherwise undetectable until he's right up on a big flock of seagulls before giving them a hearty boo! And watching them all fly away all giggly. As an adult he may still stir up flocks for fun sometimes, or just to see how pretty it is to watch them all fly at once.

In general he just loves watching birds or bugs or whatever be it fly, always so effortlessly. Maybe he wishes he could fly himself. It certainly would make things easier he would come to think time to time growing up in Vesuvia.

Plus, he likes to collect the feathers that flutter down. Back when he sold masks, they were something he incorporated into them often. Then, too, he would also sit by the river after wearing himself out practicing hydromancy or what not, and a few times dragonflies would perch on him. He'd always gasp n grin all big and goofy when they did.

Muriel doesn't pick favorites really when it comes to animals (barring wolves and bears), but he does mirror Asra's 'one of my favourites' statements by saying "they're one of Asra's favorites," Occasionally.

While Asra's animal encounters or observations are typically brief, Muriel is more than content to just watch animals long periods of time. He can spot or at least know where to find some seriously elusive ones. The only one such animal Asra seems to have luck like that with seems to be foxes.

If you want to see an animal, local to the area around Vesuvia namely, Muriel can probably help you with that, granted he trusts you. This includes dens, hives, and nesting sites of course, things he will stop by occasionally in his forest to check on. His luck/skill in finding these things can't seem to be mimicked by even the most skilled animal trackers, you'd think they were practically just showing themselves to only him.

Muriel is also content to let animals do their thing and not interact with them much. Birds, butterflies and similar may land on him occasionally and he's always enchanted by it though, and will make no move to prevent an animal being on or touching him. Similar to Asra, he will also remove any animals in bad spots and put them somewhere better. He's a bit more effective at this though, as he tends to be looking down anyways, while Asra has probably smooshed a few pillbugs and snails before while doing his own thing- eyes elsewhere.

If Muriel did ever nerf a bug accidentally he would probably feel pretty damn bad, and if it wasn't reduced to a mere smear he would return its poor bug corpse to nature so that it might reclaim it. He'd get over it quick though if he was in a good mood prior, just give him a moment. If he was upset over something else already and he killed one, I could see it even pushing him to tears or rather making it worse if he was already at that point.

Asra would probably be like 'awh.... :( oof, I'm sorry lil guy...' and sweep it into nature if he could, but otherwise he would not be impacted too much.

Asra would purposely kill bugs on a few occasions even, pest bugs namely - like flies or mosquitoes or, of course, plague beetles. He may even instinctively lash out and flatten a bug that simply resembles a plague beetle enough, particularly if something had his anxiety or panic (ptsd trigger from the plague??) going. Otherwise plague beetle resembling beetles he'd be a little unsettled by, or uncomfortable to be around, but not enough to necessarily kill. He'd either move it somewhere else, try to scare it off, or move away from it. Muriel doesn't have many hang ups on plague beetle resembling bugs, though he would probably kill the real deal readily.

Any dead animals not in a wild area (like left in the city or on a road,) Muriel would move as long as it wasn't yknow. Too nasty. Birds that hit windows, starved or sickly scavengers, anything that dropped in a heatwave or was claimed by a flood, things like that, recent deaths. It pains him to see at all, but pains him more to leave them just.... There. Some he may bury, others he may leave out in places where there's animals he know will take it for food.

Injured or sick animals Muriel would try to help best he could, and he's successfully done it a few times. If it's blistering hot he'd also likely leave water out here and there for the animals of the forest, and he may enlist Asra's help with this to replenish water in natural water basins as well in droughts.

Muriel can handle animal death okay, hunting and fishing is a thing he does to some degree, it's just the preventable or senseless ones that hurt, it's worth saying here. It's just sad. He'll be okay after though, unless there's something more nefarious and upsetting at play.

Asra helping unwell/hurt animals would mostly consist of magic healing, but beyond that he wouldn't know what to really do besides bring it to Muriel or any animal experts near him. He doesn't come across these situations too often thankfully, though. Domestic animals he would take in more readily, and would let crash at the shop for a while if he can. If it's a livestock animal he'll ask if Muriel wants to take it in, or even in the case of an ownerless pet animal. If not, he can ask around. See if anyone wants a new dog or cat or... Goat. I just imagine those are the kinds of animals he's most likely to find in need, being in the center of Vesuvia.

Moving on from that....

Animal knowledge!

Asra likely doesn't know a ton about animals outside of ones that feature prominently in magic and myth, he's just good at identifying them and overall tends to appreciate their presence. Identifying animals can make for good pass times on long travels, or if he just sees something particularly neat he may simply want to know what to call it. He also probably learned most the common local Vesuvian species names growing up, probably through reading, though the bulk of his knowledge of the nature he grew up around is probably botanical- foraging can be dangerous! Plus, magic knowledge probably leans more heavily on plants than animals as well.

If Asra can't identify an animal, though, he will simply make up a name for it on the spot. If he finds out it's ID later he will still refer to it as his made up name followed by AKA/sometimes called/locally known as [real name]. He also tends to refer to tons of animals as the infamous, famous, legendary, revered, etc. Regardless of relevance, commonality or obscurity. He just thinks they all deserve such titles, and when has a little flair ever hurt?

"Ah, MC, look! It's an Abramesmerwhymsical Zadithi midnight-billed stilt-wader! Though it's sometimes also known as the famous crab-plover," Kinda shit. He enjoys it.

Muriel doesn't actually know the actual names of a ton of animals species. He knows of a few though, not to mention the Asra-given names that stuck with him. Despite not knowing their names sometimes still, he can tell most all species apart readily, and juveniles from adults, males from females, things like that. He watches animals of the forest regularly and is in tune with the local species life cycles, breeding or rearing seasons, migratory patterns, unique behaviors and everything else. Though his knowledge is probably limited to Vesuvian species, he's able to quickly pick up on other animal's traits and such when outside of Vesuvian territory, and is generally good with animals as is.

He knows what doves/pigeons and owls and vipers and mice and geckos etc are. He may not know that a specific species of such is called like, namaqua doves, omani owls, ocellated mountain vipers, cario spiny mouse, kotschy's middle-toed geckos n shit. It's not like he has NO idea, species names are weird and can be long winded so....

...He just doesn't know that dunnocks aren't actually called stripple-caped tseepers.

But he doesn't need to. <3

If he does learn the real names for them though, he is quite glad and will use the name readily. If you're looking at a Muriel who's in the city more, he will probably read up on this information himself, but otherwise he would of course treasure it if MC told him.

The only reasons he doesn't even know the names to begin with is mostly because the names you'll hear out and about most commonly only cover a fraction of species to start, and everything else youre mostly going to have to study via reading or classes. Neither of those seem to be things a young homeless Muriel would care to pursue lmao.

Annnnd

I forgot what else I was going to add and lost track so, I'll maybe add more later. I'll probably also amend this as I may find I don't agree with my own statements the next day and also I don't proofread so. I hope u enjoyed these feel free to add on or add differing opinions!

[mikiruma]

im gonna talk abt tf2 and pokemon again bc i can.

scout of course would dig fast pokémon!!! he's probably got a jolteon he loves dearly, maybe even a crobat he was given (as a zubat) in childhood. from who? eyes emoji there are faster pokémon, sure, but a lot are legendaries or bugs- and he's still trying to warm up to bugs. when/if he did, you KNOW he'd be all over ninjask or accelgor. he usually fawns over pokémon he thinks would make him look cool or fit his fight style (ie hit ur opponents the hardest first & dont get touched) but has a weak spot for some of the "cuter" ones. probably tried to lick a vanillish. as staunch a believer i am he'd be from castelia city, i like the idea that he used to be a rocket grunt, or someone who wanted to join team rocket at one point. i was trying to decide if he'd have a type preference but i like to think he's a mixed bag, mostly because every pokémon is cool and exciting to him! if you did ask & he did have to pick, it'd definitely be electric. wait, dragon, obviously... nah, fighting is good. no wa

soldier's partner is obvious! zigzagoon! mostly bc its a raccoon-like lil dude... he probably gives nicknames to every pokémon he sees, not necessarily just the ones he tries to catch. because lets face it, his zigzagoon is the ONLY pokémon that matters to him. well, that and any that catches zhanna's eye. his zigzagoon carries an everstone and is probably stupid high levelled but nobody really keeps track. soldier does initiate a lot of battles, but they're more fun when zhanna's with him too! theyre an inseperable group who probably wreak enough havoc to be considered their own team of hooligans, but who's to stop a happy couple with their adorable op pokémon? also i kinda wrote all that down super quick buuuut zigzagoon also works as a support pokémon for him when his stability gets extra rough, laying on his lap and helping to keep him grounded. he doesnt have any desire to keep more pokémon since he's fine with just 1, but if he had more i think he might get along with loudred or chatot. (chatot would DEFINITELY take some warming up to on his end but i LOVE THE THOUGHT)

pyro loves fire types of course!!! theyre probably the only one brave enough to pet their hotter ones. engineer probably made em special gloves just so they could play with their slugma... its hard to pick favorites, but the ones theyre closest to are slugma and monferno. they also have a solosis who just loves to play! unlike other people who usually just have one pokémon walking with em at all times, pyro tends to keep all three of theirs out of their pokéballs. they worry about them getting cramped or bored, and while its good exercise, sometimes its difficult to wrangle them when solosis has someones hat and slugmas melting through the furniture and monferno found spy's disguise kit.. theyre a big happy family though!! i think pyro would also like fairy types a lot, but if they got a fourth pokémon, theyd probably keep it at a daycare for the sake of themselves and the rest of the team. just in case, they might really want a sylveon or snubbull.

demoman and any pokémon knowing any explosive moves is an obvious fit! i initially liked him and electrode for this, but since part of their biology is exploding unpredictably... maybe that ones saved for battling. or at least not kept at any of the bases. i like the idea of him keeping his battle partners & normal team separate. when he's not drunk, he's a very skilled trainer and actually took a handful of gym challenges when he was younger. of course it started getting tough to balance work and training, but he never intended to get far in gyms anyway- to him it was just a fun challenge where he got to bond with his pokémon. other than his electrode, he's probably also got a charmeleon (whos either causing mischief with pyro's monferno or keeping demo company while he works/naps) and a honedge (who he will spar with sometimes). he used to have several other pokémon, but he eventually didn't like keeping them all abandoned in pc boxes, and ended up rehoming a lot of them. scout probably has a meowth from him, but he wont tell you.

heavy never cared too much about setting up huge teams or amassing a large collection. he never carries pokéballs, but his party is made up of some impressive pokémon. unlike most of the team who catch their pokémon through normal means (trade/gift, fishing, etc), he befriended his naturally. its easy to say one is ursaring, so of course im going to say it. he wont share how they met, but i wanna say he found its egg abandoned and raised it from there. they probably wrestle a lot but theyre always careful not to seriously injure each other. he befriended his mamoswine (then swinub) shortly after, then his abomasnow much later, in between him busting his family out of the gulag & leaving to find work. he left all three in siberia in the care of his family, but has a teddiursa from his ursaring to think of them all by. probably spoils the crap out of em all every chance he gets though, he loves his pokémon as much as his human family and saves recipes for poképuffs & poffins.

engineer wasn't always on board w the idea of a partner pokémon, mainly because he was always into engineering and was sure he'd be too caught up in it to focus on.. well, anything else. sure, when he was younger, he was like most kids and dreamt of being a league champion, but it always seemed to fall through.. until he discovered steel types. he started his journey later than most, but more than anything he's thankful because they help immensely with his work and lighten the load. he has a magneton who.. isn't that bright, but he's cute and thats what matters. he's also got a rotom who occasionally helps experiment with new machines, but mostly just possesses dispensers and rubs itself on everyone and everything. yum, static cling! engie didn't get into battling as much as he thought he would, but he's essentially working his dream job with his best friends (and 8 other dorks) so things are pretty good. this doesnt mean he wont go for human help when hes stumped or burnt out, though! other partner thoughts i had were torkoal, raichu and porygon2.

sniper is probably the biggest pokémon expert out of everyone on the team (well, aside from medic probably.) he's basically a walking pokédex and can tell you all about type matchups. he's also way closer to his pokémon than people realize, and especially closer than any real people. this is especially noticeable with his baby kangaskhan- although with a heavier origin than simply "abandoned", he ended up bonding with heavy over the ordeal. even with more technical aspects memorized, raising this baby was a completely new venture- not one he hated though! he also collects bug pokémon (that he lets scout get close to,when he tries to get over his fear) & has a slakoth that just kinda.. fell asleep on him one time and just never went away. other choices include koamala or krokorok.

medic is like a pokémon professor but fucked up. while he was primarily a human doctor, after losing his medical license, he started to dedicate time to studying pokémon. he doesnt run inhumane experiments on them because i said so. he's working on filling up his pokédex more than anything, and loves listening to others talk about their partners or other species theyve seen. he has his own pokémon too of course! as the team healer its only natural he has healing pokémon like audino and blissey, but he has a soft spot for flying types, specifically the birds. he has way too many pidove. he probably has a massive aviary separate from his medical lab where he keeps more birds, namely pidgeotto, fearow and some starly. he used to travel a lot (especially after being chased out of his hometown), but he saw it as more chances to discover new pokémon. probably has a very illegal form of the pokémon boxes with no storage limit. also probably heard the stories about mew and mewtwo and actually got inspired. probably owns the most pokémon merc, specifically stationery- hey, if ur getting some unethical experiment performed on you by the german guy you tried to rob earlier that night, are you going to pay more attention to his shit eating smirk or his cool ass holographic pikachu pencils??? or perhaps the cutesy eeveelutions stickers on the back of his clipboard???? thats what i thought.

spy looks like the guy who would probably be the least into pokémon, but that couldn't be further from the truth. he's not as wild as scout or medic by any means, but back in his day he was "pretty decent" (a gym leader.) i like the idea of zoroark being his partner, but you know who else is cool??? cofagrigus. gengar. banette. probably the only one on the team to actually get into mega evolving. and the only one with a shiny, but its gengar so we dont talk about that. i wont imply he loves his pokémon over his own family, he's just had a lot on his plate. remember scouts crobat? while hes got a more methodical approach to battling, he doesnt do it nearly as often as he used to. he still keeps his gym team, and though they tend to be more serious than the other pokémon in the base, they do on occasion get into trouble with others, namely pyro's solosis and scout's jolteon. not misbehaving on purpose, just being curious :0 probably uses luxury balls to catch all his pokémon and has an unused love ball with scouts moms name engraved on the bottom. (either for the novelty, or maybe hes trying to find the right one to catch for her??)