#i like to feel like i'm a part of an ecosystem instead of something outside of it

[pynkhues]

How is it being in the US? Does it feel really different from Australia? I know that's a broad question when they're both huge countries lol

Ahaha, it's nice, anon! Everyone's been super lovely and it's been really wonderful to hang out with Megan in-person after talking to her online for like, five years, haha. This is only my second time in the US - I came here for a writing program way back in 2015 - so it's been interesting to see the things that have changed and the things that haven't.

As to whether or not it feeles different - yes and no? There's definitely cultural and environmental differences, but both being Western countries, there's a lot of similarities too. Actually, I remember being floored by this last time and have been floored by it again - Australia has a constant, running soundtrack of birds like, everywhere you go. Even in the cities, you'll be warbled at by magpies all morning, chattered at by a range of honeyeaters all day, and shrieked at by lorikeets as soon as the sun starts to set, and the lack of birdsong - and the lack of birds in general, actually - is always something I find really jarring.

[asgardian--angels]

Talking on the phone with my mom I finally broke down and cried thoroughly about the cancellation. I think I'd been holding it in for the last two days, or two months. And honestly I've been wondering all along why this show means so much to me. I am not queer, I am not neurodivergent, I am not POC or disabled or any of the groups that this show has been so important for in terms of representation and being treated with respect and dignity. I understand and completely empathize with all of you, and fight for this show and your rights worldwide alongside you, but it still left me wondering why I myself have latched onto Our Flag Means Death. I suppose part of it is that despite being white and cishet and the privileges that have always come with that, I have been treated like an outsider and ostracized my entire childhood and teenage years, for being ugly and having "disgusting" interests (primarily liking insects, reptiles, other creepy-crawlies - aka the thing I literally do for my career now). I was bullied relentlessly from preschool through early college and became a very lonely introverted person - I still am. Undoubtedly Our Flag Means Death gave me renewed hope that I haven't missed some key window for finding love or relationships of any kind that matter, as I sit here typing this at age 28 having never dated anyone.

But it had to be more than that. And with everything that's happened the past couple of months, and the last few days, I think it finally clicked for me.

Followers of my blog may or may not know that I am a conservation biologist, or pollinator ecologist, whichever hat fits best on a given day, they're quite close. I don't make many original posts like this anymore on here because my job is so busy. Basically, I do a variety of things - academic research, habitat management & restoration, and public outreach - to try and preserve biodiversity and ecosystems on our planet. I'm just going to say it: it's a thankless job. Nothing we do ever feels like it's enough, and burnout is common in our field because we sit with the guilt of feeling like we are the only thing between survival and utter destruction of planet Earth, and work ourselves to exhaustion. It's one of those jobs where your work is your life, and your passion is your work, and it's inseparable from who you are on a molecular level. We are often faced, on a large scale, with hostility, from people that don't believe in science and are more than happy to pull a shotgun on us, or rich old men in power who are content to watch the world burn for another penny in their bank account. There are days when sometimes it sinks in just how bad things are, and it's terrifying, and I feel like we will never be able to do enough, to change enough, before it gets catastrophic. It's paralyzing.

My ability to do my job is dependent on hope. Unwavering, unrelenting hope. Hope beyond hope. We have to believe what we're doing matters, otherwise we'd fall down and never get back up again. I'm no big-shot, I give talks to a few hundred people at a time, and make urban pollinator habitat on a local scale. Is any of that going to make a difference compared to the ramifications of a single oil mogul deciding to cut corners and cause an oil spill that kills millions of seabirds and damages ocean food chains for decades to come? If people in my field let thoughts like that linger, we'd be paralyzed to inaction. I have to hope that the people I teach choose to do something good with that knowledge, and go on to inspire others, or that the patch of habitat I make allows a declining species to maintain a foothold instead of going locally extinct. You just have to keep going.

And Our Flag Means Death got wrapped up in that for me. The Stede Bonnet effect, if you will. He set out to do pirating differently, treating his crew with respect and helping them grow. In return, they internalized that mindset, and it spread to how they interacted with others. It changed the trajectory of individual lives, and also at least began to change how the society of pirates operated as a whole. It was a beacon of hope that choosing small acts of kindness did matter, even if you yourself could not see the ripples it made. It renewed my faith that love persevered and would win. That we could all make life a little better for each other and ourselves through kindness, compassion, forgiveness, and mutual support. I think a good chunk of that is from Taika - these are running themes in his projects, and his films move me deeply for that. This show became in some, perhaps subconscious way, a source of strength for me to keep putting myself out there in my line of work to do whatever I was capable of to help the cause.

The cancellation was devastating, but the second cancellation (turbohell cancelation?) was even more so. Because now it's so clear that this is largely the work of David Zaslav and the regime he's built. It's petty, it's greedy, and more than anything, it's cruel. Indifferently, indiscriminately cruel, when one person at the top can have such power to make or break the lives of thousands, millions, beneath them, and though it would have been barely a drop in the bucket, a hand wave, to renew our show or let it pass to another streamer, he actively chose to shackle it to this sinking Titanic of a company WBD has become. I have always operated on the belief that you can do anything if you work hard enough at it, and believed deep down that there was some order, some justice in the universe, atheist though I be. We as a fandom did everything we possibly could, we loved this show harder than anything. The numbers were there, the awards nominations were there, the critic praise was there, and we were loud and loyal every single day. I felt like we could do this - how could we not win when we've done so much, and the show deserves it so much? Surely cause and effect will prevail.

This fight seemed small, though really it wasn't; we fought for the right of artists and creators to make quality, original stories and have them told to their natural end, we fought for diversity representation to be more than a token character - OFMD raised the bar so much higher on all fronts, we fought to shed light on the chaos and impending collapse of this industry silencing art and exploiting writers, actors, and all manner of production workers. It was a small fight from the outside, one that I really felt we could win. And I put my heart and soul into it, because if we could win this, if we could save this simple, kind love story about two guys on a boat, then maybe there was hope for the bigger, badder stuff too. It shouldn't seem an insurmountable task for several thousand fans to convince a streaming service that they'd turn a tidy profit to give our show one more season.

Yet we lost - through no fault of our own. I am so proud of us. But that really struck deep for me. If one peabrained CEO of a media company wouldn't budge on greenlighting a show that was in his every best interest business-wise - perhaps enough to even save Max from going under in the not-too-distant future - my god, what hope was there for changing anything bigger? The 'real' problems of the world? When no amount of ethos, logos, or pathos can penetrate these men at the top, where's that hope to fight? Lately the world seems like it's just going belly up all over. If we gave everything we could, and it still wasn't enough - if it could never be enough - what hope is there? It's like chaining yourself to a tree and the bulldozer plowing right on ahead. And I think that broke something in me. It shook me to my foundations because it broke my rules of how things are supposed to work. We believed hard enough, we worked tirelessly, and we deserved it for how important this show was to so many people. And it didn't matter. Our best wasn't enough. And that caused an avalanche of all of the horrible, scary things piled on my shoulders - we're losing the Amazon rainforest too fast to save, climate change is going to turn the corn belt into a dustbowl by mid-century, a border wall is going to devastate imperiled wildlife in Texas, deforestation and hurricanes on songbird wintering grounds could lead to entire species extinctions, saltmarshes are our lifeline and they're shrinking and we're still building stupid concrete stormwalls, invasive diseases will completely alter the composition of our forests to be unrecognizable to our children, and if you don't make every slide of this powerpoint utterly perfect and you fail to convince every single person in attendance to get rid of their lawn then you've failed and the world is doomed.

I've struggled with being a perfectionist my whole life. This didn't help.

That's where I was a couple hours ago. But I took some deep breaths. I know the world isn't fair. But I really thought if we could win this one battle, then we could win the war.

But here's what I realized. Everything we did mattered. It mattered so much. Because there's the show, and then there's everything that was birthed out of that show. The community, so many of us around the world who have been uplifted by Our Flag Means Death in a real and lasting way that we will take with us and spread to affect those around us. The Stede Bonnet effect goes global. We raised thousands and thousands of dollars for charities around the world, real people whose lives have been improved, or maybe even saved, because of us and this silly pirate show. We brought a hell of a lot of attention to WBD and their shitty practices, keeping the momentum going in a way that I think is only going to build - and I sure hope it leads to Zaslav getting deposed. We have demanded more queer stories, more BIPOC stories, more disabled and autistic and middle-aged stories, stories with exquisite costumes and award-worthy wigs, dear lord, and we are being heard. We have expressed such love and support for the cast and crew, showing them that we appreciate their hard work and that we will be behind them in their future projects. So many of them have told us how the show and its fans have changed their lives. We convinced Rhys that his career isn't winding down but winding up, and to be unapologetic about his wonderful weirdness - we've proven to everyone through this show that your weirdness is what someone out there is going to love you for, not in spite of. We rallied to help writers and actors during the strikes in a way that was taken to heart and remembered. We have been out here talking it through as a crew, and turning poison into positivity, for over two years now, and that impact is permanent. They can cancel our show, they can try and slap copyright notices on our fan merch, and spew bullshit excuses about the numbers not being there. But Our Flag Means Death sparked a movement, the biggest pirate crew the world has ever seen, using our power for good.

We may not have any more new material for our show for a while, or ever. But I maintain hope that when the dust has settled and streaming has entered its 'new era' that they'll remember us and throw us a lifeline. Because hope is a part of my genetic makeup, and even in cancellation my hope has been renewed that the fight is worth fighting, that our individual choices of kindness are having an effect, and making the world a little easier to live in bit by bit. No one can take from us what we have built out of this show. And thanks to pirating, they can't take the actual show from us either. Despite this, no matter the outcome, I am so happy we got two seasons of this wonderful series. That was more than almost anyone expected. The story belongs to all of us, and it will always live on. We did not truly lose this battle, because in the process we gained more than we could have ever imagined. And I know there's still so much more to come. That gives me the strength to keep doing what I do, every day.

To me, Our Flag Means Hope.

[felixcloud6288]

Dungeon Meshi Chapter 17

We get some Marcille/Falin backstory.

I feel for Laios. His whole ordeal reminds me of when I was dealing with appendicitis. Whenever it would flare up, the pain felt like I'd been stabbed in the gut. And it almost always flared up in the evening so I didn't get any sleep those nights. Whatever sleep I got was more akin to being rendered unconscious rather than actual rest.

And after it was over, I always looked like Laios does this chapter.

Wait! Has Marcille always been wearing a choker?

I can see your undies Senshi.

Marcille's taking a bit of interest in dungeon ecology now. She asked if the dungeon knows the rate adventurers kill monsters since the system stays balanced no matter how many people come in. Meanwhile, people ahve to keep going into it to keep the monsters from coming out.

This dungeon was sealed away for 1,000 years. This was a closed environment until recently, so adventurers are basically an invasive species here. But rather than adventurers decreasing monster populations, their presence probably increases monster populations.

If dungeons are made by magic, then part of that magic is probably meant to balance monster populations in response to outside forces. An adventuring team comes in and slaughters every monster it finds so the dungeon increases the reproductive and growth rates of the monsters impacted to rebalance things.

And if many adventuring parties do this, the dungeon would have to up these rates even more. But then if adventurers stop coming in, the dungeon will still be producing a high number of monsters because it expects the excess to be killed.

Speculation time: I'm still sticking to the whole thing about the mage trying to preserve the Golden Kingdom and/or resurrect Delgal. If dungeons are supposed to be closed environments, then the mage may have sealed off the kingdom against some external threat that was about to destroy it. Meanwhile he (someone informed me that the mage in chapter 12 is actually a guy and the translation used the wrong pronouns) was waiting for people to discover the dungeon and lure them in with a promise of becoming a king. Since souls stay bound in the dungeon, the mage might be harvesting the souls of adventurers who die in the dungeon for some ritual to resurrect Delgal.

Marcille's imaginary food chain includes the parasite Laios ate.

I thought it kind of peculiar this chapter didn't have a title page. But then it used the flashback transition as the title page instead.

Oh that's neat. Marcille's staff is hand-weaved using some vine/wood plant.

A court magician huh? Marcille's current life as an adventurer is far away from that lifestyle. I bet she was a court wizard at some point and then decided to drop everything to go on adventures when Falin asked her to.

Marcille has training in summon magic but has never used anything like it. She basically wants to do the equivalent of making lab-grown diamonds so people aren't dying to gather them.

Oh no! That poor dog!

Marcille used to be way taller than Falin. She still is a little taller if you look at the panel of Falin casting a ward on Falin in chapter 11.

Falin has her brother's tendency to approach things in highly unconventional ways and getting mixed results.

This is the first time I'm seeing Falin in a very casual scenario and oh my gosh she's just like Laios but even more carefree. I guess not having to worry about saving your sibling does that to you.

Even when she was little, Marcille had no stamina.

Falin did the exact same thing as Laios where she just casually eats something without concern about if it's safe.

Marcille was interested at a young age in making dungeons but she seems to have never learned a key lesson about creating a closed environment: Everything in the environment interacts with everything else and you cannot remove an "undesirable" part of the ecosystem without irreparably damaging the whole thing.

It's the exact same situation as in chapter where Senshi stopped Marcille from destroying all the man-eating plants because it would destroy the forest ecosystem.

Marcille did her hair while telling that story.

So how much of that story should we believe?

Personally, I think the slime encounter probably went far worse than Marcille's recounting would have you believe. In chapter 1, she reminisced that a slime was the first thing that ever killed her. So I think she probably got killed by that slime and Falin had to either drag her corpse back to get resurrected or she managed to bring someone there to resurrect Marcille.

Laios vouched that Falin said Marcille was an amazing person, but considering that Falin seemed to think Laios was great because he did a great dog impression, "amazing" might be very subjective here.

I'd also argue that Marcille was not nearly as tall as the flashback would make you think.

Laios was living in the same place in those two images of him getting letters (Notice the brick layout is exactly the same). He seems to have also hurt his left hand in the left image.

back

[celestiall0tus]

For the new concepts for the kwamis in Bloody Bug, how did you come up with them? Why did Plagg and Tikki stay the same, while the others changed? Since Velze was already introduced in this story, why didn't you make the concepts based on your Miraculous AU, unless you don't want a repeat of All That Remained.

The reason you mentioned is exactly the reason why I didn't just use the ones from my works. Since I already did something like that in All That Remained with the clear intention of using my system there, I didn't want to repeat it here. Instead, I went through and gave everyone a mostly different concept. I also just wanted to do something different to give Bloody Bug its own identity and to keep some outside interest in it instead of just defaulting to my system.

So, while Plagg, Tikki, and Duusu retain their concepts, most of everyone else will have had theirs changed. The idea for the mother box was to make them overall powerful concept and all encompassing. Most are just slight variations to either match the power, like Roarr with the super punch becoming the concept of Power, or just needing a completely different concept because of an overlap, like the emotion based kwamis like Barkk needing new concepts because of the overlap with Duusu, the kwami of all emotions.

As for how they came about in particular, allow me to go over them:

Plagg, Tikki, and Duusu remain the same.

Orikko becomes Ambition because I felt it fit the power of Sublimation better to choose a power not governed by a kwami to achieve ones ambitions.

Longg is nature because the elemental forms feeling more like weather, and just the environment as a whole. Also similar to why I made Longg nature in my works too.

Mullo becoming Augmentation is sorta due to the power of dividing and multiplying. Augmentation is moreso the power to enhance typcially, so that's where I went with that.

Stompp with willpower is basically still determination. The two words are closely related, so Stompp's arguably stayed the same.

Sass becoming Clairvoyance is sorta a finetuning of Intuition as a lot of powers that can be intuition based fall under clairvoyance. You'll see Sass having powers akin to the Wolf/Deer in my works. It's basically still the same, more or less.

Barkk becoming protection is because dogs have very... limited symbolism. That and most stories about dogs are about their loyalty, love, and how they safeguard their owners. So, even though I had intended to keep Wayzz as protection, I shifted that over to Barkk.

Roarr's I explained with Power coming from the power of Clout, the super punch. It felt a fitting match for the power.

Ziggy with devotion is, funny enough, due to how goats are often perceived in worship. This usually being sacrificial worship that primarily is within the realms of satanic worship. However, it is still something of a symbol of devotion with other heavy roots in theology (I can't think of any right now because I'm tired)

Wayzz becomes moreso wisdom, but I liked the term philosophy more. That and calling him wisdom would fall in line with intuition a little. A touch of a stretch, but can be depending on who you ask.

Pollen becoming life is due to the part bees play in the ecosystem, plus the symbolism of a bee in general as well as the gods they are associated with.

Trixx being deception fits illusions more to me.

Kaalki becoming space is because of the power of teleportation.

Nooroo becomes transformation because I always thought that's what he was until I learned he was actually transmission. Plus, he's a butterfly. It's literally their biggest symbolism and the powers fit transformation.

Not listed in the power sheet yet is Daizzi as prosperity and Xuppu as chaos. Daizzi being prosperity comes from the chinese symbolism of the pig with prosperity. Xuppu being chaos is due to his power basically being a form of chaos manipulation.

[astroboyanalysis]

9. Robot Land

Hello again. I still don't know how frequent these will be but I have not abandoned this, I just had a big preparation for a performance assessment that took a long time.

Ochanomizu so sillies for this visual gag. Actually, there have been a lot of visual gags I didn't note, like Ochanomizu and Dr. Haido licking each other while greeting. Y'know, normal stuff.

It's interesting that Atom got as far as the room of monsters to have this qualm, although he did seem a little preoccupied before this point

I assume by "suffer" he does not mean directly Feel Pain, rather that they won't be able to live a normal life. We saw that he mentioned something similar in the plant people liveblog. It's very possible it's just me, but this seems like an outdated sentiment that would easily be co-opted into euthanasia, although obviously that was not Tezuka's intent.

He's right, but it's tricky.

When we think of robots in Astro Boy, a lot of the time they're very locked into the thing they were made for. A plumber robot will plumb, a doctor robot will practice medicine, a robot meant to act a role will act that role. The two roles I just mentioned were necessary for society, and generally those robots are shaped in a way that would let them live a normal life outside of their job.

These robots are functionally actors, but they're actors of a single role. It isn't really that they're created for an express purpose that's a problem, it's that that purpose isn't really necessary. A consciousness is being brought into the world for amusement only, and many of them are stuck in those shapes of monsters or trees that are alive or whatever.

But here we run into an issue that is common in Astro Boy, even newer Astro Boy up to 2003 (I am not as familiar with things like Atom: The Beginning), and it's that everything that has new technology in it must be a sentient robot. A major part of me thinks this is kind of silly - What is the point of putting a consciousness into a car? The car is still following your orders. The car could just as well be operated by a robot that can exit the car and live normally outside of the car, or remotely piloted by an AI as more of a tool than its own living (ish) thing. What is the point of putting a consciousness into what is functionally a puppet for children's entertainment, when this could be controlled by a "puppet master" AI somewhere and save a ton on computers and parts.

(TANGENT: Alternatively, what's the point that a robot deserves rights? If I make a robotic bug, and its sentience is very similar to that of a real bug - It seeks out dark places, it may be a little curious about if something is desirable to it or if its a foe, and that's about it- Is that bug a sentient robot? Is the role of a bug not worthwhile for a robot if that robot isn't aware of any further parts of life, and can't be by the limitations of its hardware? What if I extend it up to a robotic cat or dog? It can be clever, it can make decisions independently, it can want and it can probably, to some extent, love. Is that cruel? Why is this admittedly silly fairy-tale ecosystem not composed of a variety of levels of sentience instead of a bunch of robots capable of understanding what they don't have, that are actors playing a role instead of the role itself? Where does sentience start and end? This is a question Astro Boy doesn't evaluate, as far as I remember. But an automated traffic light is taking in information and making "decisions" based on that information. Is it a robot (in Astro Boy's definition, which is more like "AI" or "sentient")? Okay, I'm ending the tangent here.)

So, there's the major part of me that thinks everything being a robot is silly. And then there's a part of me that sees what we're doing with "AI" right now and modern technology in general (I don't think it's actually AI, by my own definition, anyway. It is not thinking, and we don't expect it to. Society's goal with current AI is not anything independent, but rather seems to be to automate jobs that people do not want to pay humans for.) and it looks pretty similar. Why does this app need AI? Why does this refrigerator need wifi to function? The answer is, they really don't. We toss extra "new" things into them so that they're more appealing as purchases, so they seem more Modern.

I suppose, to some extent, we can read this story similarly, although the issue of sentience and consciousness being involved makes it very different.

But basically. It's a silly story, it has that same silly issue a lot of Astro Boy has where everything is a robot (although in this case it's being brought into question - it just doesn't work for me because I know of many instances where it is NOT brought into question), and a much more effective way to accomplish the idea of a theme park like this would be to have individual "puppet" animatronics that are all operated by a "puppet master" AI that is located elsewhere in the park (and the part of me that likes more horror-based takes on Astro Boy likes that idea too, hehe)

Well this just seems like it might make for an unfriendly work environment full of hierarchies, doesn't it? That doesn't bode well for the theme park that's already been framed as amoral, huh?

wow yea this guys fucking wild. "kinda hard" might be an understatement though he immediately put his hands on Atom for, uh. Unclear what he did wrong actually. Saying his name too firmly, maybe?

Atom I need you to focus. That is not the most important question right now.

I can't help but think there are less cruel ways to do this.

It's a product of its time, I think, that the law and ownership are seen as so fundamental that they aren't questioned at all. Personally, I really dislike seeing Ochanomizu presented this way instead of as an idealist who does what's right, not someone so preoccupied with the law that he tells Atom, who is crying at the cruelty on display, to hurry it up and go get that woman who came to him begging for safety, and hand her right back to the robot that was terrorizing her. Also, silly little gag with Ochanomizu's nose getting bigger. Hehe awesome.

This confirms, to me, that property laws are stronger than robotic rights laws in the setting. Atom directly says they were torturing her, that she's alive, and Ochanomizu does not deny any of that, but continues to press that she is property, and Atom "stole" her, even though she independently ran away and came to him.

At the very least, I can appreciate that Atom's dad gives an "I know how you feel, but there's nothing we can do." I suppose part of Ochanomizu's transition into a more paternal character is tied with the transition away from giving Atom a nuclear family (heh. get it.) to begin with - That gentle parenting is the current norm helps too.

The manga doesn't seem to acknowledge this, but isn't this also theft by the same definition? Atom willingly went into Robot Land and they have him and they haven't given him back. This is precisely what happened with Princess Odette in reverse, but Ochanomizu doesn't bring up any argument about that (Atom) being his property.

He did do that. That was like, the main thing he came there to do.

Well, to be fair, your "property" also snuck onto someone else's property and smashed things and we thought nothing of it.

Anyway, more legality here: Ochanomizu seems scared that jail time is a real outcome, although I'm not sure if he's scared for himself or for Atom. If he's scared for himself, that tells us that a robot's actions are the express responsibility of their owner, or of their creator (I imagine the owner first and if the owner pushes the legality up the chain it goes to the creator or the manufacturer or distributor). If he's scared for Atom, it indicates that property can be tried as a human and given jail time, which sounds not very correct. So I think Ochanomizu is the one being threatened here, really. I still believe in 2003's (I can't recall if it comes up in Astro Boy media before the finale episodes of 2003) concept that if a flaw is found with a robot that causes it to commit a crime (in the case of 2003, harming a human, which makes more sense to be treated so harshly) it would be decommissioned and destroyed, and if the flaw is significant enough, all robots of that design would be decommissioned and destroyed.

Yeah this is kind of how my students are.

You simply hate to see it.

That is actually the end of Omnibus 1, so we're finally making some progress! As a reminder, there are 7 Dark Horse Omnibuses. Omnibus 2 has 300 pages of "Once Upon A Time" which is some of my favorite content from the original run of Astro Boy.

Sorry, again, for how long the gap was there. I can't promise it'll never happen again. We come back next time with Ivan the Fool!

[daemonhxckergrrl]

for most byproducts (eggs, manure for crop fertiliser, potentially honey though I've seen mixed sources on that, if they're a working animal etc.) sure yeah there's a reasonable discussion to be had.

for dairy, you're contending w/ the fact you only get milk by making mammals pregnant. that's a much harder discussion on account of figuring out what a respectful practice would even look like. and if you do manage that, then how do you reconcile that against scale ?

for meat, leather, fur, bone stock etc. etc. now you're playing on extreme difficulty. I'm not sure how it's respectful to recognise a being as having intelligence and feelings and then give yourself power over their life. no matter how well they're treated, you're effectively turning round and saying "sorry bud, my wellbeing is more important than your life".

there's cases where people are isolated, communities live off the land, or there otherwise aren't other options available and then you have to make the call on whether your survival, your life, and your community's survival are more important than their survival. it's a trolley problem then. either you die or they die. and if you're isolated there's a good chance you're using every single part of that animal for something. zero waste. it's at least ethical at that point.

but outside those situations, when it's not about immediate survival, when you have options, it's harder to make that justification.

so no I'm gonna say instead of being two statements that should coexist, they're two statements that should bring about important discussion on how we view ourselves, our relationship to the planet and other life here, balancing ethics, morality and our needs, supporting natural ecosystems.

I hope this is at least somewhat coherent and comes across in good faith

I just think that 'animals are living intelligent creatures that have feelings and deserve to be respected' and 'when done properly farming is beneficial to both people and animals and there's nothing wrong with raising and killing animals for food, clothing, and other products' are concepts that very much can and should coexist

[kiigan]

ㅤ«All those professionals have been here, already. After they recovered the body and the police officers did their part and still came up with no conclusions, that's when I was hired. So far, there isn't much evidence that it was a crime perpetrated by a human, so the authorities want to check if it could have been an animal, instead.»

ㅤDefinitely, not the kind of gig that Itachi was used to. Even when he was not stuffed up in an office or library, writing reports and papers to make money with, he would be outside but doing... normal kind of stuff. Cleaning up a beach, investigating how an invasive species might be disrupting an ecosystem, keeping track of how many whales had been born in a certain area during a certain period of time. Being plunged into a mystery crime scene was a first for him, by a long shot. Which was why, when the stranger asked if he was afraid, he had to laugh - the sound as crystalline as the waves of the sea breaking by the shore.

ㅤ«I mean... I'd be lying if I said I don't feel a bit uneasy. If it does turn out to be some kind of psycho that was not noticed yet, who knows if I'm gonna be the next victim. But-» he paused briefly now, his dark eyes glistening with a special spark as his smile grew softer, «-I went through a lot, when I was younger, to get to where I am now. I love my job and I can't let something like fear get in the way and make me waste this opportunity.»

ㅤEspecially because he wasn't exactly rich, either. He did need the money from this gig. Brushing away a lock of dark hair that the breeze had just blown over his face, Itachi continued. Vaguely aware that maybe he was already talking too much, but it couldn't be helped - whenever he spoke about his passion for his job, words would just keep pouring out of him like water from a fountain. Yes, he was a nerd. A proud one! «So far, I also found no evidence that it might have been something like a shark... the marks left on the body do not coincide with what is typical during shark incidents.» Itachi refused to refer to it as 'shark attacks'. If humans had not invaded their territory to start with, nothing would have gone wrong. The poor animals were not to blame, and still they were hunted like demons from the depths. He was particularly a shark nerd, yes.

ㅤ«It could have been done by a new species, however. We know so little about our oceans, after all. That's what I'm here to do: solve the mystery and figure out if it was done by a marine creature. And then, if it was...» Another pause, this time a bit longer, as his expression shifted to concern. Because he knew exactly what would happen, if it had indeed been done by something not human. «First of all, I will try my best to convince the authorities to not have it harmed. Also, if possible, not have it captured. Animals don't exist to be put on display like trophies, they deserve freedom and respect just like we do.»

ㅤItachi's expression soon changed again, though, back to the smile as he heard the stranger's offer for help. «Thank you for your kindness, but I cannot allow that. You cannot get involved if you don't have a specialization in this field of work, that would be too dangerous for you.»

Soft wind like a playful child tugs at the sleeves of Shisui's as snow white shirt. White gave a remarkable opposite contrast to his toned skin and black hair. He was an otherwordly creature wearing human skin. Forever shall Shisui remember this first meeting, in the future when he recalls it a man with dark eyes like his own, eyes that held secrets like the deepest corners of the ocean.

"I don't watch television much, and if there was a notice in town. I guess I missed it" Part with television however was not a lie, you can't have a TV under the sea. Most of the things he has learned were observing humans, listening to them talk or dance, and singing on the beach. Watching them and their colorful fireworks that explode on the night sky into a million colors. Life was beautiful yet he was not part of it, he was the one out always looking in.

And now he was a murderer. And this man on the beach was the one to hunt him down. Why didn't he take the sign and leave? Why didn't he leave these shores and humans too? And again he is drawn to a human male this time. A distant soft caress of the sea called Shisui home gently lapped at his bare feet, and yet he left it and went over hot sand into the human world. But the alluring colors of the human world guided him to this point till the only color was red...the blood.

"Accident? Should then not be here authorities cops and hospital personnel? Not just you on your own? Aren't you afraid? You are the biologist if I am not wrong, according to your equipment I would say?" He talked and asked questions but his gaze wandered all over Itachi, his eyes rowed all over Itachi, like the hungry eyes of a human picking food for their plate.

"Do you suspect that some sea animal is responsible for that accident?" He could not help himself but ask. In the forgotten abyss of his soul, a sound echoed turning into this question, a twilight of forgotten memories...he needed to know. Sometimes it felt like it never that accident happened, that it was just an illusion reaching for him just above the surface.

But then he looked this man in the eyes and asked himself what lies beneath that black ocean door. Will the kiss of death be as tranquil as the kiss of the azure rising? "Will you kill the creature responsible for the accident when you catch it? ...I...I could help you if you need assistance, the sooner we solve this the sooner this beach will be open again. I really can't live without it"

[zestydistress]

You are so right for all of this. Like- what do you mean I can't have a weevil the size of a rat just chilling in my pocket while I take a walk?

What do you mean I can't put a collar and leash on a ladybug and take it for a stroll in the park?

What do you mean I can't have a guard bee colony?

What do you mean I can't sit in the forest and have a picnic while a little hamster-sized ant wanders up and looks at me with adorable beady puppy dog eyes as of begging for food?

What do you mean I can't give that ant my entire sandwich for him to gleefully walk back to his colony with good pickings?

What do you mean I can't feed a giant butterfly sugar water out of a dog bowl?

But we both know in the end, them being giant won't change anything about how we feel about them, they don't need to be domesticated to be loved.

The want to show the world love and kindness, the want to show every creature how very important it is to the world is something to strive for every day.

I want every living thing to be aware of how much joy it spreads just by existing. You never realize how much your existence effects others until it's gone, just like removing wolves from national parks will cause droughts and barren grass lands. Everyone and everything is part of a delicate ecosystem, and we never appreciate our surroundings. Our dear friends come and go in all shapes and sizes, always so uniquely beautiful and powerful. The fact that they're smaller and harder to show our appreciation for their existence isn't necessarily a bad thing, it only makes us more creative in our comforts of them.

Shading an injured butterfly while you give it access to sugar water, finding a caterpillar and returning it to a tree instead of a manmade object, making sure to carefully pin a spider underneath a cup so it can be moved outside without injuring it, etc. you find your own creature comforts to share with them.

Never let anyone tell you not to treat living things with anything less than respect. This is their world, and we're destroying it. The least we could do is treat them kindly.

You don't lose anything by helping something else. Small critters deserve all the adoration in the world, and I'm very glad to see that you adore them so.

Im so mad that bugs are so small because if they were like. Kitten sized. I would hold them tenderly and give them a little kiss on their perfect little heads