#instead he’s introducing invasive species

[the-wizard-of-magicland]

Of course it was you

[headspace-hotel]

so many of us haven't seen it

we don't encounter it, we can't imagine it, we can't get out of the tomb of apathy because we haven't seen the wonders just beyond their line of sight

I talk about this all the time, but it's because I think about it all the time

There are likely thousands of plants native to the area you live in, and chances are you have never even seen most of them, in your entire life.

Not even rare orchids that only bloom at midnight on a blood moon or some shit—regular flowers. Weeds. They have been systematically eliminated from every single place you ever set foot in, and you have to have a special hobby or line of work to ever even rest your eyes upon the flowers that used to bloom for no one on every hill, or in every valley, or beside every stream

There are a few hundred birds that live where I live. I have never seen most of them before. I have never seen a Kentucky Warbler, and I have lived in Kentucky for what...twenty years?

I have never seen a rosy maple moth. When I saw one on the internet, I didn't even think it was real.

I've become a deeply weird person over the past couple years. Tasting even a little bit of the Wonders changes you. I wouldn't have thought blue bees were real, or the fantastically rainbow-colored dogbane beetles.

I have seen the world beyond the wasteland, and that glimpse makes you crazy.

You or I may have never seen a truly mature tree. A fraction of a percent of the old growth forest of the Eastern USA remains. Once there were tulip poplars over 6 feet in diameter and sycamores well over 10 feet in diameter. Only a few remain, in secret locations. Imagine walking through a forest where the tree trunks are over 3-4 feet wide.

The forest where I work is 100 years old. That's a baby forest.

Knowing that, being aware of that, it's maddening.

Central Kentucky has disproportionately few endemic plants. Almost none. Central Kentucky was the first area west of the Appalachians settled by European colonizers. The Bluegrass was once described as having the most peculiar plant life anywhere in the East, but now, there are no species known that are unique to that area.

Colonization destroyed the canebrakes. (Did you know that we had vast forests of bamboo full of carnivorous plants?) The bamboo is barely hanging on. It destroyed the sycamores so enormous you could use the hollow center of one as a stable for animals. It introduced invasive grasses to feed cattle and horses. It destroyed the rich lush topsoil. Most of the ancient oaks were cut down or died when housing developments were built on top of their roots.

What happened to the endemic species, never recorded in books of herbs, never sketched by a European naturalist.

Either gone forever...or hiding in a sinkhole on a backroad somewhere, not even yet discovered.

So much has been lost for eternity. So much still could be lost.

Some days it's hard not to wail and scream. There are herbicides in your drinking water. When you spread honey on toast, you likely also spread neonicotinoid pesticides, which testing has confirmed to be present in something like 45% of honey. In many areas, insects are immersed in the presence of chemicals designed to kill them in every drop of water, every leaf, every square inch of soil.

When games, animations, and illustrations envision the outdoors, they cover the ground with a short, uniform carpet of green, because that is what we see, no matter where we go: turfgrass cut by a lawn mower. Where I live, there are no natural environments that resemble this, remotely. The closest thing we have to turf-forming grass is our wealth of native sedges, most of which are rare or endangered.

I talked to a man who had devoted his life to studying the American bamboo, Arundinaria gigantea, and he had never seen a canebrake larger than 200x500 feet. Canebrakes once covered ten million acres, and now the bamboo exists in short, straggly clumps instead of dense bamboo forests up to 40 feet tall.

I want to cry and scream. The grief will tear me to pieces. I live in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, surrounded by people who can't even grieve, because they have been so completely severed from everything that was lost that they don't even know it was real.

It hurts. It hurts, and we have to live with it. It hurts, and the grief is all-consuming.

There is the agony, and there are the Wonders. Both are true at the same time. It is because nothing around us is standing still; everything in nature is always moving, iterating, becoming. Something is pulling and nudging at our species, urging us to move, to iterate, to become.

So much has been lost. Even more is not lost.

The trees, the bamboo, the sedges, the Kentucky warblers and rosy maple moths.

They are not lost. We are lost.

This is the hard part. The grief is hard, but this is somehow harder for us. We are lost, and it is time to come home.

Not to a physical place, but to a way of living: interconnected, mutualistic, interdependent. Symbiosis. In the forest, no one is separate from anyone else, everyone is linked and dependent on the community. Trees help each other, they support each other, they protect and shelter and feed one another and all living things, and together they are a forest. I don't really consider myself religious, but I have to reserve something in my head for how it felt to realize what Forest was.

When I noticed the little plants popping up in the sidewalk cracks and gravel paths, the tough weeds holding on in the lawns and pavement, something in my brain began to change dramatically and permanently.

They're still here. The trees. Even in the pavement and lawns. The dandelions have come, adapting rapidly, helping the bees hold on. The wildflower seeds are still sprouting in this depleted ground. Waiting for us to recognize them. Life is everywhere. The Forest is everywhere. It felt like they were waiting. We're here. We have not abandoned you. We are resilience, persistence, survival, adaptation. This is not death. This is Chaos. Come home. Come home. Come home.

I saved little plants from the roadside and tended them in plastic cups. I didn't think it would work. I don't know why I tried. I was acting as something bigger than only myself, responding to a call that moves throughout all of nature. But they survived, and growing and tending to my little plants and trees, I—understood.

I don't know if I believe in God, but I believe in Something, whatever it was that seemed to whisper like a secret: Welcome home, Caretaker.

And honestly, truth shone through then from relics of religion I hadn't touched in ages; God put Adam in a garden, not a suburb, a mall, or a Walmart. This is who you are. Not a Consumer, but a Caretaker.

And when the threat of the Flood loomed, God told Noah to start building a fucking boat.

In ecology, the plants we know as "weeds" are pioneer species: the first species to return to an area after a natural disaster or mass extinction. They survive in the harshest conditions, and prepare the land for regeneration. This is who you must become.

Look to the Dandelion—in just a few hundred years on this continent, Dandelion has risen to the highest calling of a Weed: first survive where the others can't, and then help the others survive. If the human species is to survive, you must be a weed species. You must adapt relentlessly, resist eradication, and protect and nurture other life forms by your very nature. You must be tough as nails, and make the world a gentler place through your survival.

Have you heard the saying that grief is love with no place to go?

That's the hard part.

We must grieve, but it is not yet time to grieve. It is time to love.

[elbdot]

Hello I am back with more lore questions about your comics if u wanna answer 👀 (I looked back, but couldn't find this mentioned so sorry if I just missed it 😅)

I was curious since the comic starts after all the main plot stuff has happened: we know El is the Champ of the Alola League, but did she also do the island challenge trials like in the game or was she just traveling around with Hau while he did his? If she did do the trials did you make up a reason why the kahunas would let her, despite being well over the age limit for it? If she didn't was there some other motivation for her building her team up enough that she could beat the league when it was finished?

We're basically playing out the original story of SM with some changes!

Originally El just wanted a FUCKING VACATION and came from Hoenn after receiving a letter from her mom, to come to Alola and help her move into their newly bought appartement. But then Kukui busted through the door to welcome them and El's mom insisted on her coming with Kukui to get to know the locals while she'd continue setting up the place in the meantime. El didn't have any of her old Pokemon with her, as she heard of the strict laws of letting "invasive species" into Alola and she didn't want to deal with the paperwork, especially since she assumed she'd only stay in Alola for 2-3 weeks at best. Kukui showed her the way to Iki Town, talked about their customs, wanted to introduce her to the island Kahuna. When they couldn't find him, Kukui suggested he might be up Mahalo Trail, but stays behind in case Hala might come back from Hauoli City instead. El checks it out, she meets Lillie, the saving-Nebby-scene plays out where Tapu Koko rescues Nebby and El, El unexpectedly receives the sparkling stone from Tapu Koko that Hala makes a Z-Ring out of. Due to the incident, Hala encourages El to partake in one of Alolas oldest traditions as a way to get accustomed to Alolas culture but also to welcome her into it and keep an eye on her, with Halas and Kukuis interest being sparked by the appearance of their deity. The fact that she's way over the age of regular trial goers is not a problem, Tapu Koko must have given her that stone for a reason so Hala simply follows the will of the Tapus and is interested to see how El's journey will play out.

El feels honored being so welcomed by the Kahuna himself and is also too polite to decline partaking in the island challenge, even though she wasn't really interested in going on anther journey and building a new team of Pokemon...wasn't this supposed to be a vacation aside from helping out her mom??

But her mother is surprisingly supportive of El going on the island challenge, as she feared strangers like them from Kalos might have a hard time fitting in and making friends with the locals. She's okay with El not being able to help out setting up the house, as in her opinion "You're doing your part by learning everything you can about the region and getting to know our new neighbors."

After getting to know Hau the next day during a Festival in Iki Town, El starts to feel more like Hala specifically put them together so someone would keep an eye on Hau while the old Kahuna is unable to. Babysitting it is then. GREAT. But the innocent sweet little sunshine that is our Malasada Boy QUICKLY grows on El and she takes looking after him VERY SERIOUSLY and becomes the Mom-friend of the group. She downright enjoys looking after the shy Lillie and the joyful Hau while getting to see so many of Alolas amazing sights. She also greatly enjoys Kukuis company I might add...

Until she finds out he's taken. FUCK. GODDAMNIT. OF COURSE HE FUCKING IS AAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGG "No Hau I'm not depressed. No I don't act strangely hostile towards Burnet what are you talking about nooooooo pass me the Malasada Hau. EW. It's BITTER. WHY'D THEY SELL THAT. I HATE IT HERE"

Don't worry, she recovers... El really starts to get into the challenge after a while. She was never a fan of challenging Gyms and greatly enjoys the different Trials she gets to go on instead. Alola quickly becomes her favorite region for the lush beautiful nature, the incredibly kind people and the Pokemon she meets along the way. Her team is unbalanced, but that's what makes her grow more closely together with her Pokemon than any previous team she had before. Beating trainers is a challenge due to the many bug-and flying-types on her team, she has to strategize more than ever before to make it work and be able to defeat the Kahunas. Her Oricorio Sweets would become her Partner Pokemon in the end, when she survived multiple hits from Kukuis Incineroar, holding on to 1 HP multiple times because of how determined the little bird was and how much she loved her trainer, defeating Incineroar in the end.

(This was my OG Team, only Sweets and my Golisopod Titan made it into the comics in the end, her Decidueye and Vikavolt are on Mohn's Pelago, Fletchinder I'd actually still like to include at some point)

El didn't expect to stay in Alola. She didn't expect to build a new team or even join the League or becoming CHAMPION of all things... Let's be real, Kukui didn't really give her much of a choice in joining. After Hau and El finished their island challenge, it was more of a "might as well join the League I just finished building" from the Professor, since before it was built, the final challenge WOULD have taken place on Mount Lanakila anyway. But what surprised El the most, was the fact that, after winning, she was offered the position of Champion by Kukui at all. IF she would have won, she thought, surely they'd not let a stranger like her actually keep the title and defend it. But NOPE. All hail Alolas first champion El I suppose. And with this, it was clear that El had to extend her stay in the region. For an...unforseeable time.

[ach-sss-no]

For @qthewhatever and anyone else who is interested, here is an overview of Gollum's speech patterns, or:

Why Sméagol talks Like That, an introductory course

Note: I am discussing the books only. The movie adaptation of the character was changed a lot and I don't want to address adaptational changes in this post. All quotes are from The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien

Notex2: A lot of this post is just going to be my opinion. I don't want to assert my opinion as correct or factual, but it is going to slow the flow of this post down to a stuttering crawl if I stop to say 'imo' every other sentence. So I'd like to just say once, up front, that if I am not citing a source or a commonly agreed-on fact (such as 'hobbits have furry feets'), I'm giving my own interpretation of the books and am aware I may have things wrong, or that there may be multiple equally correct interpretations of the work. I belive there are always multiple takes that can be had on a complex work of literature, some of which can be equally correct, but not all of them are my takes. In the same vein, I understand that fictional characters are not living people, but it is easier and more efficient sometimes to talk about them as if they were. If I slip into doing that, it's just economy of language.

Now, to start off with, it's important to remember that Tolkien was a linguist who played with words for fun, and even without getting into the Conlangs Iceberg, a lot of LOTR and The Hobbit involve wordplay. The man loved words, he liked to interject poetry, he liked to stylize words in specific manners to convey extra layers of meaning (some of which is, to be honest, waaay over my head! medieval literature and epic poetry and etc. etc. I can tell when I'm reading it that it's a style shift and it's significant, but that's about it.) None of that is my take, he's an infamous Words Guy.

Therefore, if there's a specific word pattern used in his works and it's something extremely distinctive and impossible not to notice, it's there for a reason.

What I'm getting at is that sometimes a character has funky speech patterns just because a writer likes it or is trying to get characters not to blend in with each other in dialog, and in those cases, the style of dialog may not be worthy of this much analysis. But this is Tolkien and this:

"Bless us and splash us, my precioussss! I guess it's a choice feast; at least a tasty morsel it'd make us, gollum!"

This doesn't happen by accident

So that's the writer: a guy who likes words. It is also relevant to discuss the history of the character.

(As an aside: Gollum was invented and introduced in The Hobbit. Gollum-as-Sméagol-a-character-with-a-history-and-name was not introduced until LOTR, and his introduction is significant enough that the story stops for a long stretch while Gandalf (a character known to be a sayer of significant things) narrates it to us.)

Sméagol comes from a rural and semi-feral community that lives by the river. He is from

a family of high repute, for it was large and wealthier than most, and it was ruled by a grandmother of the folk, stern and wise in old lore, such as they had. The most inquisitive and curious-minded of that family was called Sméagol. He was interested in roots and beginnings; he dived into deep pools; he burrowed under trees and growing plants; he tunnelled into green mounds; and he ceased to look up at the hill-tops, or the leaves on trees, or the flowers opening in the air: his head and his eyes were downward. - The Fellowship of the Ring, 'Shadow of the Past'

Invasive species behavior.

(Sometimes I remember this passage at random because I look at the ground for bugs a lot and I'll remember to look up at leaves on trees instead. Not important. moving on)

Sméagol was raised by said grandmother. He grew up "wealthier than most" and with a guardian who was "stern and wise" and the ruler of the community. So he's rich, probably well-educated as his people go, and closely related to/living in the household of an important authority figure, and he also seems to only have one friend, and in The Hobbit there's a mention that he only likes one game (riddles). He appears to be constantly seeking intellectual stimulation, and likes stories.

Sméagol was later ousted from his community and ended up completely isolated in a cave. I think it gets overlooked how much of an impact FIVE HUNDRED YEARS of isolation would have on a person. Tolkien points it out specifically in the prologue to LOTR:

But after ages alone in the dark Gollum's heart was black, and treachery was in it

But I usually hear Gollum's descent as a person spoken of only regarding the Ring. Consider how much damage it would do if you were to suddenly go from 'cushy life surrounded by a clan' to CAVE FOREVER LMAO. He'd be having some problems even without the Ring.

What does this have to do with saying 'we hates it my precious gollum gollum'

Everything!

Gollum has three different distinct modes of speaking: 1) we hates it my precious gollum gollum 2) Sméagol is hungry (and he has never done anything wrong ever) (gollum gollum) 3) "Indeed I was told to seek for the Precious; and I have searched and searched, of course I have." (gollum)

These different modes communicate different moods and intentions. They are all the same character.

They are all the same character.

They're all the same character, Mr. Jacks(ok. I'm not here to talk about that. I promised to be very, very good and not let the movies have this post)

We hates it my precious gollum gollum

Why does Gollum say 'my precious'?

He's referring to the Ring, which is the +1 Ring of Making You Call It 'My Precious'. Look, Bilbo does it too:

'Well, if you want my ring yourself, say so!' cried Bilbo. 'But you won't get it. I won't give my precious away, I tell you.' His hand strayed to the hilt of his small sword. - FOTR

He's also threatening gandalf the grey here because it's the +1 Ring of Stupid Life Choices.

But wait! When Gollum does it, there's an extra wrinkle:

And when he said gollum he made a horrible swallowing noise in his throat. That is how he got his name, though he always called himself 'my precious.' - The Hobbit

Gandalf says the Ring 'was eating up his mind.' Gollum seems to be calling himself and the Ring by the same name.

Why does Gollum refer to himself in the plural first person?

Well, in his original form as 'random silly threat in a cave', it's possible that Tolkien was making a bit of a joke by having his silly little villain use the royal we. I think it is objectively funny to have a random weirdo in a cave use the royal we (and Gollum is the kind of person who would do such a thing). But I think the finished version of the character is using 'we' to mean 'myself and the Ring'.

This is why I spent so much time on 'oh him lonely :'( ' in the beginning. Sméagol was used to having a family clan around him (even though he sounds unpopular!) He was forcibly ousted and left with only the Ring, which as an added wrinkle, has a slight will of its own and gives a sense of having low-grade life in it. This gives Sméagol at least three very strong motivations for talking to the Ring and obsessing over it, first off, it's magic and it's eating his soul. Second off, he's incredibly, painfully lonely, which can induce someone to personify an object and try to make friends with it.

Thirdly, Sméagol is more self-aware than he seems, and he is completely capable of realizing that his own choices have driven away all of his loved ones and also he killed his friend, and he did it in exchange for the Ring. So the part of him that realizes that stuff would by natural consequence be desperate to believe the Ring is a worthy exchange for his entire family, his home, and everything he ever knew or loved.

Just cave and Ring. Me and my bestie the Ring. It's our cave! Me and my precious. Ride or die. Me and Ring. It's OUR CAVE. It's OUR pile of dead orcs.

But... Why is Gollum so... theatrical about this mode of speech?

Does it guess easy? It must have a competition with us, my preciouss! If precious asks, and it doesn't answer, we eats it, my preciousss. If it asks us, and we doesn't answer, then we does what it wants, eh? We shows it the way out, yes! - The Hobbit

This is also the style of speech that uses obvious nonstandard grammar (we doesn't vs. we don't) and the pluralses, and the hissing. (The other modes of speech do this much less often. Almost never. Way less than I noticed before. i've definitely gotten this wrong before)

So why all of that? Well, he's bored. He's bored, he's lonely, and he's being written by a quirky linguist who thinks making up words is fun. I think Gollum is being extra on purpose. I have never sat in a cave by myself with no WiFi for five HUNDRED years, but I think it would be boring.

We know Gollum still enjoys riddles because when he has a hostage, he makes Bilbo play riddles. Gollum enjoys playing with words. Look, he made up a little traveling song about wanting to splash in puddles!

So, I think this is something he does on purpose to entertain and comfort himself, and although very habitual he is able to stop doing it when he wants to. Look at him correcting 'ours' to 'mine' when he's trying to communicate something he really cares about to Frodo:

The Precious was ours, it was mine I tell you. - The Two Towers

👌Mwah!

So, I think Gollum chose, at least partly, to take on this persona as a coping mechanism.

When does Gollum speak in the royal we?

When he's alone, and whenever he forgets to stop doing it.

One final note: canonically, the way the characters in LOTR first "met" Gollum was when Bilbo told them the Riddles in the Dark story (complete with vocal impression. becasue Pippin knows how to make the noise, remember?)

They probably thought Bilbo was, at the very least, exaggerating. Then Sam, Frodo, Gandalf and Aragorn all get to find out he wasn't!

Sméagol is unproblematic. and hungry.

Why does Gollum speak in the third person?

'You know that, or you guess well enough, Sméagol,' he said. quietly and sternly. 'We are going to Mordor, of course. And you know the way there, I believe.' `Ach! sss! ' said Gollum, covering his ears with his hands, as if such frankness, and the open speaking of the names, hurt him.

names, plural

names including 'Sméagol' his own freaking name

Don't ask Sméagol. Poor, poor Sméagol, he went away long ago. They took his Precious, and he's lost now.' 'Perhaps we'll find him again, if you come with us,' said Frodo. 'No, no, never! He's lost his Precious,' said Gollum. - The Two Towers

Gollum starts referring to himself in the third person/as Sméagol after all this, and he seems to be doing it to try to ingratiate himself with Frodo, who starts their relationship by repeatedly addressing Gollum by his real name.

he was friendly, and indeed pitifully anxious to please. He would cackle with laughter and caper, if any jest was made, or even if Frodo spoke kindly to him, and weep if Frodo rebuked him. - The Two Towers

(just imagine you make a small, quiet joke of the sort Frodo usually makes and it's greeted with 'HAHA ;_;' and dancing around from gollum)

So he'll use third person when he's trying to be friendly

Nice hobbits, they sleep beautifully. Trust Sméagol now? Very, very good. - The Two Towers

Sméagol always helps, if they asks -- if they asks nicely. - The Two Towers

Or when being a little bit of a pill and trying to get away with it

'Yes, yes, and Sam stinks! ' answered Gollum. `Poor Sméagol smells it, but good Sméagol bears it. Helps nice master. - The Two Towers

Look at his social skills! Truly, this is a man who's lived alone for 500 years and has secret malicious intent.

When does Gollum speak in the third person?

When trying to be cute. (By implication, Gollum seems to have some inkling that the royal we is off-putting to people. I bet they made fun of him for it in Mordor.)

But there's also another little wrinkle to this- he seems to be dissociating a bit? I've noticed that repeatedly, Gollum will describe himself, announce his status [he's hungry], start off a personal narrative or descriptor with third-person language (which sounds a little dissociated), and then shift to "I" when his emotions get engaged.

It caught Sméagol there, long ago.' Gollum shuddered. 'But Sméagol has used his eyes since then, yes, yes: I've used eyes and feet and nose since then. - The Two Towers

The shift comes when he stops simply explaining events and begins to recall what it was like to 'use eyes and feet and nose' (he shudders, which shows emotion, and then after that, starts adding more details).

There was a great battle long ago, yes, so they told him when Sméagol was young, when I was young before the Precious came. - The Two Towers

Again, the I shift happens when this gets more personal- going from 'Sméagol knows relevant information and here is how he knows it' to 'I had a life before the Ring'

Bonus round! I found a bit where he swaps between all three speaking styles.

'Who knows? Sméagol doesn't know,' answered Gollum. 'You cannot reach them, you cannot touch them. We tried once, yes, precious. I tried once; but you cannot reach them. Only shapes to see, perhaps, not to touch. No precious! All dead. - The Two Towers

Who knows? Sméagol doesn't know [explaining the Marshes, impersonal] We tried once, yes, precious. [ruminative, reminding himself, slipping into his old habit] I tried once; [now engaged in his memory, or perhaps catching the 'we' and correcting it.] Only shapes to see, perhaps, not to touch. No precious! [ruminative, mulling over the memory] All dead.

Then there's this- he's alone:

Dirty hobbits, nasty hobbits. Gone and left us, gollum; and Precious is gone. Only poor Sméagol all alone. - The Two Towers

I think he's picturing something like this

"I've used eyes and feet and nose since then."

I have a separate post focusing on Gollum's use of singular first-person, but the short answer is: When he's being very honest, in shock, and/or just not playing word games anymore.

But wait! There's more!

Bonus Round: gollum gollum gollum

SUPRISE! Gollum has a secret fourth speech pattern, which is: How he always talks regardless of whatever other things he is currently doing. This is the part, by the way, that elevates Gollum from 'oh he's quirky eurghgh' to 'oh, he's quirky and there is a master behind the scenes and how many copies did LOTR sell oh this is why. not everyone can do this, in fact, most people can't. This shitpost of a character is the equivalent of da vinci painting a trollface because he can and it's fun. It's supposed to be that way. it's art. EURHGUHGHG'

Behold!

Gollum speaks in long, rambling monologues and repeats himself. He often says things twice, especially if they are short phrases or particularly important ones.

`We are lost, lost,' said Gollum. 'No name, no business, no Precious, nothing. Only empty. Only hungry; yes, we are hungry. A few little fishes, nasty bony little fishes, for a poor creature, and they say death. So wise they are; so just, so very just.' Dust and ashes, he can't eat that. He must starve. But Sméagol doesn't mind. Nice hobbits! Sméagol has promised. He will starve. He can't eat hobbits' food. He will starve. I did escape, all by my poor self. Indeed I was told to seek for the Precious; and I have searched and searched, of course I have. But not for the Black One. The Precious was ours, it was mine I tell you. I did escape. - The Two Towers

Sometimes he repeats things with little variations on them.

I found it, I did. Orcs don't use it, Orcs don't know it. Good master, wise master, nice master! - The Two Towers

(by the way, the thing that twigs my dialog ear most to 'he would not say that/where is my precious? :(' is, for some reason, this staccato speaking rhythm mixed with the long rambling. if i am playing a video game or something where gollum has a cameo, and he doesn't ramble and repeat short sentences, my brain says 'skinsuit gollum :(' because my brain sucks.)

Gollum uses vivid, visceral language that usually evokes an unpleasant mental image.

Then rest now, nice hobbits, under the shadow of the stones, close under the stones! [...] Soft and quick as shadows we must be! But Sméagol has used his eyes since then, yes, yes: I've used eyes and feet and nose since then. That is the road to the left. At once it begins to climb up, up, winding and climbing back towards the tall shadows. When it turns round the black rock, you'll see it, suddenly you'll see it above you, and you'll want to hide. The rocks and stones are like old bones all bare of meat. But the Marshes have grown since then, swallowed up the graves; always creeping, creeping. - The Two Towers

Gollum sometimes speaks in sentence fragments, but usually sparingly.

There is one exception to this when he's super nuclear pissed at Frodo and just starts barking

'Come, Sméagol! ' said Frodo. We are in danger. Men will kill you, if they find you here. Come quickly, if you wish to escape death. Come to Master!' 'No!' said the voice. 'Not nice Master. Leaves poor Sméagol and goes with new friends. Master can wait. Sméagol hasn't finished.' There's no time,' said Frodo.Bring fish with you. Come! ' `No! Must finish fish.' 'Sméagol! ' said Frodo desperately [...] [Now he knows he's about to get arrested] 'Masster, masster!' he hissed. 'Wicked! Tricksy! False!' -The Two Towers (the waterfall scene)

This is notable because a whole row of sentence fragments is not how he usually talks. IT IS NOT HOW HE USUALLY TALKS.

Gollum makes noises.

Ach! sss! [...] We guessed, yes we guessed Ach! No! You try to choke poor Sméagol. I can't find it. Ach!

If it asks us, and we doesn't answer, then we does what it wants, eh? Yes, yes, master: give it back, eh? Sméagol will keep it safe;

Tie us up in the cold hard lands and leave us, gollum, gollum. Good master, good Sméagol, gollum, gollum! I am tired. I, we can't find it, gollum, gollum

The Noise™: It seems involuntary and caused by stress and occasionally, hunger or thoughts about food but then again he's always hungry

Finally, Gollum has a consistent personality, and motivations, and areas of interest, and all of that other character stuff, that comes through at all times, but that is probably off topic for this post.

Anyway. I am abruptly out of things to say. TY for reading

[jonnysinsectcatalogue]

Ten-Lined June Beetle - Polyphylla decemlineata

The stripes along this Beetle's shell are very prominent, but not necessarily distinct as there are a few similar-looking species. It does make for a beautiful find from Canada's west coast (in Squamish). My dear friend found it sheltering inside his car. Presumably it needed a ride to Vancouver and public transit just wouldn't do. While I'm kidding here, insects do on occasion get transported to new locations via road vehicles or overseas shipping. Such activity can introduce species that are normally considered harmless within their native range into an ecosystem that isn't prepared for them! This can result in pest status, or being labelled an invasive specie should their habit become too detrimental. This specie is fortunately not an invasive one here, as it is native to western North America. It instead has status as a pest of orchards, whereby the adults feed on fruit tree leaves while the larvae feed on their roots! Naturally, this can warrant monitoring of crops to prevent extensive damage, especially for the larvae who may inadvertently destroy young trees during their time developing beneath the soil. Today's specimen has pupated and left that life behind in favor of a more herbivorous routine. Despite the weight of her armored shell, this Scarab is quite capable of strong flight.

For a North American comparison between similar Beetles, my friend described this insect's behavior (when he found it) as similar to that of May Beetles (Phyllophaga spp.), which are more common in my neck of the woods. Both genera seem to have a fondness for flying into lights at nighttime. There is somewhat of a resemblance as well, especially with the soft fluff on the Beetle's underside. The Ten-Lined June Beetle is far more glamorous, however. There's a lack of confirmation on this, but it's possible that those bold stripes gave this Beetle its other common name: the Watermelon Beetle. I'd be hard pressed to say that their feeding habits created that name since watermelons grow on vines rather than trees (the harvest would be much more precarious if that were the case). Finally, should you find a Beetle similar in appearance to this one, take note of its antennae. This individual is likely to be a female as her antennae is reduced in size, but it can still fan out (from a club shape) to better catch scents on the breeze. Male Ten-Lined June Beetles have enormous, (curved) paddle-like antennae jutting out from their heads! Genuinely, you can't miss them! Although particularly ornamental in design, they aren't useful as weapons to batter away rival insects. They elaborately fan out to catch the alluring scent of a female Beetle's pheromones, but I wonder how the male's flight stability and direction are affected by the larger antennae.

Pictures were taken on August 5, 2024 in Squamish with an iPhone 12.

[thatgayguywholikesyourcontent]

Retcon-Fix AU

I'm never going to get around to write it, so I'd share the notes I have here and open the floor to questions.

This started off as an idea for a one shot. Taking the opening scene of Omniverse and tweaking it to fit an au. Zombozo is on the run after breaking into a...lab(?) with Ben and Gwen hot on his heels. There's nothing different about Ben on a surface level. On the other hand, Gwen is wearing an outfit similar to her future counterpart from the original series. After dealing with Zombozo there's this awkward goodbye between the two. Gwen's heading off world for the next leg of her anodite training and it will be years until they see each other again. She hates leaving him, Ben is clearly upset, but the only thing keeping her on Earth is guilt, bad memories, and bad blood between them. They hug it out, Ben sees her off, and later runs into Rook.

From there the idea blossomed into a multi chapter series cutting back and forth between the present and the past, showing whats different in this timeline. But that changed into just starting at the beginning in the original series to show the differences in the time line. 'Cause the premise of this au became: cherry pick and take all those little retcons, hammer them out to work from the beginning, and go from there.

The Big three are thus: Figure out whats ever happening in Max's backstory and streamline it. The Plumbers in the OS, to me, felt like it started on Earth with humanity encountering aliens before the organization reached out into space. That was later changed to be that the Plumbers were a galactic police force who, kind of, absorbed a human group of the same name. We later learn that's because of George Washington's own encounter with aliens and him forming an organization to combat such a threat, like the American equivalent of the Forever Knights.

That's weird, a little too clunky. So the streamlined version for this AU was to make it more like X-Com. That the increase of alien activity and sighting in the 50's led to the formation of an secret, international paramilitary group that would rapidly deploy to such threats and deal with them. Either through combat or simple negotiation. Eventually the accumulated alien tech would advance their gear and what not. Max running into Verona is what introduced him to the organization. This is like in the 60s.

Its around the late 70's/early 80s that the Plumbers as a galactic police force starts to form. A bunch of alien cultures form a coalition/federation to deal with the expanding Incursion threat and the Plumbers are a byproduct of that. Rules and laws are hammered out and the Plumbers finally notice criminals would head to the outer rim to escape the authorities and decide to investigate. They come across Earth, come into contact with X-Com (just gonna call it that), when an invasive species starts spreading across the galaxy. X-Com has a shit ton of members and the Plumbers cut them a deal. Help them deal with the Lenopan threat and the galactic community would consider Earth off limits.

The world governments that fund X-Com are on the fence until they see the tech level of the rest of the galaxy. Giving Earth another century to catch up is to good of an opportunity to pass. X-Com gets involved in the Lenopan Wars, turn the tide, and peace is brokered. Some soldiers decide to stay out in space and become Plumbers while those who stay behind are forced into retirement as X-Com is quickly mothballed. Probably a larger scheme by the Forever Knights to remove their competition. Like Hydra infiltrating Shield to get it taken down.

Jesus Christ. Sorry about the world building tangent.

The second change being Kevin. Its later revealed in the series that he is a genetic experiment by the Rooters to make hybrid soldiers. Honestly, don't like it. In this AU human-alien hybrids can exist. Its the Forever Knights that the runaway and take him in. He doesn't run into Ben and Gwen by chance. Instead he's purposely following them, keeping tabs on them for the Forever Knights from the shadows until they give him the order to engage. Him absorbing some energy from the Omnitrix is a plot point. He goes rogue with Ben and Gwen reeling him back, but ultimately failing. Kevin winds up stuck in the Null Void until we see him again in Alien Force. Gives him time to return to normal, meet Argit, and break away from the Forever Knights.

The thirds change is Gwen. This is honestly the crux of the AU when I was first jotting the notes down. Its retconned in Alien Force that her capacity for magic stems from her Anodite heritage. In this fic, her spark catches early and she has access to mana at the start of the original series.

She has a hard time controlling her powers. Most Anodite hybrids do. Every emotional outburst is dangerous, and her parents haven't exactly handled the whole thing well. Not physically abusive, but their own fear of the daughter and distancing her from anything or anyone she might hurt has effected the development of her social skills. Like, her brother gets to join all these clubs, hang out with friends, and attend school where she is home schooled and not allowed out. Just to note, her and Ken have a close relationship. He would've gone on the Summer road trip, but his parents signed him up for camp. The only reason why their letting Gwen go with Max in the first place is for him to train her. They handled everything so far by ignoring it, which doesn't help Gwen. She's ten by the time they wise up and ask Max for help, Previously, when she got her powers and everything came to light, they kicked him out of their lives.

What about Ben? The omnitrix and plot surrounding it is largely the same. Vilgax wants to conquer the galaxy and tracks down a weapon to do it. Gives chase, but the watch is dropped off on Earth and he's injured. He's purposefully blocking any outgoing signal from Earth about his presence or the increase alien activity, but its only a matter of time before the plumbers catch wind that something is up and get involved. Earth is on the opposite side of hostile territory so he's working under a time limit.

Ben himself is largely the same but gay. That's more of a self indulgent thing than anything else, tbh. He confessed his feelings to a boy on valentines, the bullies got word of it, and haven't left him alone since. He's starting off the series with a chip on his shoulder. His parents want him to get away from it all, and hopefully a summer road trip away will help.

Ben has mixed feelings about Gwen. The last time he saw her they snuck away with Ken to play out in the woods. Ben convinced her to use her powers and got knocked back hard because of it. He's a little scarred of her, a little jealous, but Ken (who he considers as an older brother) told him to keep an eye out on Gwen.

Ben gets a crush on Kevin when they first meet, but Kevin is straight as hell. He's also an agent working for the Forever Knights and uses Ben's crush on him to get close to the omnitrix. They actually do form a loose friendship, but at that point Vilgax is attacking in person, Gwen can't handle him alone, and the watch has timed out. So he touches the omnitrix and mutates to deal with Vilgax and gets stuck in the null void for his troubles.

"But what happens to Kevin?" you ask. If the original one-shot with Ben and Gwen is canon, where is he by the time Omniverse begins? Six feet under. He pulled the same trick in Ultimate Alien to deal with Aggregor and got the same result from the prime timeline: he becomes hostile to Ben and Gwen, hunting them down to feed the energy addiction.

"I can't believe Ben kills him." That's the neat part, he doesn't. Its Gwen that puts him down. This isn't the second time Kevin has absorbed energy. He's done it before, slipping further and further from his ideals and becoming like the one person he hates: Michael Morningstar. Gwen tries to get his help to siphon energy off of Kevin, but Kevin kills him when he ultimately turns on Gwen. It just makes the hunger worse.

Gwen is gunning for him. And yes, they were/are a couple by this point in the series. Its Ben whose trying to stop her, trying to re-unlock Feedback in a desperate attempt to save Kevin, but he fails and Gwen kills him to save Ben's life.

Thank you for coming to my Tedx talk.

[miraluking-respectfully]

I wanted my next longpost about DNT to focus on what this book reveals wrt the process of Joining. Instead, I accidentally went on a rant in the Discord server about the Killiks as a people during this particular era of galactic history in-universe, and by extension, Raynar Thul.

Raynar Thul, aka UnuThul, is a Joiner of Unu of some significance who I've put off explaining because when I entered the book, I knew about him and I considered his presence abhorrent. I've since gotten over some of those feelings, but I'm better off copy-pasting my Discord Rant than to try and summarize here.

Spoilers for The Joiner King below, but don't worry about that too much, as I'm kind of reading this book so you don't have to.

Call me Bug Walker.

*bad rimshot*

Begin Copypaste

The trouble with this particular novel is that while it's EXTREMELY juicy with Bug Lore, half of what it reveals about Kind society/culture/biology are New Developments™️ that i'm having to untangle from what could feasibly have been present before, ie, within the SWTOR era. Basically the premise of this book is that the nest has been undergoing some Changes due to the influence of a highly Force-sensitive Joiner, who was then able to extend his will over the nest as a whole. So discovering which is the nasty yucky invasive anthropomorphism introduced into my bugs by this character and which is the acceptable seasoning of anthropomorphism inherent to the development of a fictional intelligent species is not always super cut and dry

Like, the care given to individual casualties is an explicitly new development (makes sense, there aren't a ton of eusocial hive insects IRL that perform triage), but is the spaceport they built? Is the trade they're performing with other species? Is the Colony involving multiple distinct nests sharing a unified hive mind as opposed to a bunch of them? I'm like, not sure

Which is kind of funny, because the idea that the Killiks were a static culture until this One Guy with the right levels of space magic crashed into their planet & exerted his will over them with his last burst of near-death strength Also Really Bothers Me(edited)

"Well, Mads, if you like an aspect of Killiks 2.0, you can just pretend it's always been present in Killiks 1.0!" I don't waaaannaaaa

I want the LEAST anthro version of my bugs!!! I want the version of them BEFORE Raynar Thul got his grubby little mind all over them!

Joiners as a concept are fuckin sick not only because of what the bugs can give to them but for what they can give to the bugs. Joiners aren't Oops! All Hive Mind, they are two minds. Your old personality and memories still exist, but your understanding of the world and your priorities are now one with the Hive. And because I <3 TLT and I'm really big on the permeability of the soul rn, that suggests to me that the character and personality of a hive would change, slowly and surely, depending on the types of Joiners incorporated into it. It would have to. If the hive mind pre-Raynar has no clear source, no clear singular will behind it (disclaimer: IDK if this is true, I have 2.75 more entire book to read), then it could only be shaped and influenced by all its participants, bug and otherwise.

Raynar's existence + influence over the Colony doesn't preclude this possibility, but like. He does raise a question,

that being, could any Forcie have done this under the right circumstances? if not Why not

Like the book hasn't stated it outright but the wiki seemed confident that this guy has been the only Forcie Joiner to get subsumed, and while I don't know if that's a wholly accurate statement bc fucking nobody has read these books, the fact that the books gave the wiki authors that impression BUGS ME (pun intended)

This is the first EU book I've ever read. IDK what kinds of fuckin galactic percentages of Forcies to non-Forcies it's assuming. Obviously the number would be low because this book takes place a point when the Jedi are bouncing back from a painful extinction, but that extinction was recent, it was artificial, and also as we all know well Jedi =/= all Force users and statistically it is buckwild crazy to me that the Killiks would exist for 20,000+ years (the migration Vector mentions was introduced here btw! These are the Kind that left Alderaan, that he was looking for!) and at no point would they have picked up a strong-willed Force-user before this one dude

Now, there IS a confounding factor here. Which is, I imagine any other Forcie Joiners pre-Raynar were not, um. Trying to influence the nest as hard as he was

For starters he's just super duper strong in the Force, but also, he Joined because he crashed into a planet and crawled out of his ship half-dead and super on fire after watching multiple of his friends die horribly, and the will he exerted over the Killiks was a last-ditch effort to get them to save his life as opposed to eating him

that is a SPECIFIC-ASS set of circumstances and maaaybe if such a thing happened again within a different and unrelated nest, the same thing could have happened. Maybe it wasn't the presence of Force abilities that caused this one guy's brain to redirect the flow of the collective mind, but the effort he was putting behind it, effort that previous Force-sensitive Joiners had not found a need to wield

And also, like, UnuThul is 100% a Joiner. He is no more the same guy he was going in than Vector is, this is made clear

Bright side: as I said, I have A TON of this book left to go. And there have been a bunch of really strange happenings within the nest that Raynar in his Dawn-Herald-On-Steroids role seems as baffled by as the rest of the Kind. So maybe the next Big Reveal is gonna blow my ass clean off, slash positive, and make this all sit right with me.

But nonetheless I am bovvered. I am bovvered that a hive mind could develop a person in the drivers' seat for any reason. It feels too easy and it feels too anthropomorphizing, and both of those make it reeeally boring

End Copypaste

[missnobodymadness]

Guess who just got the final outcome of the sketch I ordered recently? Meee! Amazing art by Senaiya, on Toy House! And that means I am finally sharing Myline's introduction template! Older followers probably know a lot about her already but I still would like to introduce my fave girl ever! Myline is my Naruto OC (And Boruto because she survives eheh), here is her template!

───── ⋆⋅ Myline⋅⋆ ─────

"My hands may be the ones covered in blood as we speak but the reality you refuse to see is that I am not the one standing proudly over a thousand dead bodies”"

General

Name: Yabuza Lee Myline Date of Birth: 6, June Age: Classic Naruto: 17-18 (Not present); Naruto Shippuden: 20-25; Boruto: 36-39; Zodiac: Gemini Gender: Female Pronouns: She/Her Sexuality: Heteromantic Demisexual Species: Human Chakra Nature: Wind and Fire Voice Claim: Yuuko Kaida (Sylvia from Spy x Family voice) Music theme: Indestructible by Disturbed Status: Alive

Appearance

Height: 5’3” / 1,60m Weight: 120,37lbs / 54,6kg Skin color: White Eye color: Red Hair color: Black Hair length: Long Scars/Birth marks/Tattoos: A chakra regulator tattoo she was born with Body modification: None Other features: None

Relationships

Biological Family

Mother Yabuza Mizuno Father Uchiha Yashiro Siblings Yabuza Mylu Partner Uchiha Itachi Children Uchiha Mybuza Other family None

Other relationships

Old Uchiha Madara (Adoptive father until his death) Uchiha Obito (Teacher) Konan (Best friend) Nagato (Close friend and inspiration) Deidara (Friend) Kashin Koji (Close friend in Boruto) Kawaki (Somewhat motherly over him when he was younger)

Education & occupation

Village Yami No Sato (Previously known as) Yamigakure No Sato (Post war name) Current Village Amegakure No SatoClanYabuza Academy None Occupation Akatsuki organization (Previously) Spy (Previously) Leader of Ame No Kuni (Currently) Affiliation Ame No Kuni

Skills & Combat

Stats Ninjutsu: 3 Taijutsu: 5 Genjutsu: 4 Intelligence: 4 Strength: 3 Speed: 5 Stamina: 4,5 Hand Seals: 3,5 Total: 32 (Reference: Average for S-Rank criminals is 32,5) Speciality Taijutsu Kekkei Genkai Kageyogan (Yabuza’s) Sharigan (Uchiha’s) Special Jutsu Fenikkusukaze no Jutsu Chakra Nature Wind and Fire Weapons None Special features Chakra regulator tattoo

Personality

Myline is an intelligent but frustrated and avoidant person, always looking for more knowledge and improving her fighting skills, prioritizing it over her own well-being. While intimidating and hard to approach, she has a very caring nature towards the people she cares about, the poor and the oppressed.

Positive traits

Courageous Ambitious Loyal Patient Logical Hardworking

Negative traits

Unstable Obsessive Cold Audacious Gruff Reckless

Likes

Her daughter, love and friends, literature, silence, cold weather, productive talks, ninja history, learning and training

Dislikes

The Five Great Shinobi Countries, responsibilities, privileged people, violence against children, war (will fight to protect the ones she cares about though)

Trivia

- Myline awakened her sharingan for the first time at the age of 13 and only gets the Mangekyō at 20, after finding Itachi’s already lifeless body. - She is rarely seen using her sharingan, we can count how many times she has used it with our fingers. - Obito presumed that she would never have a sharingan because of her eyes being red instead of black like it is usual for the inactive sharingan but her red eyes are a genetic characteristic from the Yabuza clan and it happens naturally, masking the color of the inactive sharingan. - The Yabuza Clan have their own kekkei genkai, the Kageyogan (Something like eyes of the shadow realm), with the power of teleporting trough shadows, this kekkei genkai along with Myline’s speed gives her an advantage that her opponents should always have in mind.

-Itachi helps Myline with her hygiene as she has a hard time taking care of it, not only because she was never taught how to do it properly (she was born during an invasion that lasted for years) but also because she struggles with lack of motivation and executive dysfunction derived from her depression and possible quiet BPD. - She loves literature and you will probably always find her in a corner reading a good book whenever she is not working. - She went out of her way during a mission once, risking everything just to steal a few rare books from a very important library. - Myline is very respectful towards Itachi’s wish to protect and keep Konoha safe, so she started by invading Konoha in order to find her sister and lure her out of the village, however, she wasn’t expecting their fight to be of such a large destruction, she had clearly underestimated her rage and sister and once she realized they had destroyed part of the wall and the houses close to it she was suddenly consumed by guilt and intrusive voices in her head, losing focus and finally leading to her capture. - She has a chakra regulator tattoo on her left arm with the appearance of two tomoe and a small dot in the middle, it doesn’t give her infinite chakra, but gives her a good reserve of it and is also able to absorb chakra from nature when necessary, because of this, Myline can have a very high and lasting chakra levels, it is not unlimited though. - Myline has an extraordinary and totally unusual speed due do her high and regulated chakra levels, which was an extremely helpful skill against the Raikage. - After the end of the Kara organization and with Kashin Koji gone, she felt lost again, escaping from Konoha with the intention of getting back to Ame No Kuni, killing the current feudal lord and taking the leadership of the country, her goals were to rebuild her village and the whole country. - She got really angry at Naruto once she finally reached Ame No Kuni, as he had promised Nagato and Konan to help them but she was disgusted when she saw the whole country in ruins, left to rot. - She decided to make the country a shelter for renegades in honour to the friends she lost along the way. - While Myline recognizes that Itachi’s end was the best option for him, she can’t help but feel a deep hatred for Sasuke as she has a very hard time processing her feelings and emotions, she can’t do it properly. - Myline developed her own jutsu by mixing both of her chakra natures, fire and wind. Named Fenikkusukaze no Jutsu (something like wind phoenix), the jutsu consists of a large phoenix made of big flames that can be directed and increased by the wind element. - She was fruit of a betrayal, her mother betrayed her husband by having an affair with Yashiro who was one of the recruited to help Yami No Sato at the time.

- She loves literature and you will probably always find her in a corner reading a good book whenever she is not working. - She went out of her way during a mission once, risking everything just to steal a few rare books from a very important library. - Myline is very respectful towards Itachi’s wish to protect and keep Konoha safe, so she started by invading Konoha in order to find her sister and lure her out of the village, however, she wasn’t expecting their fight to be of such a large destruction, she had clearly underestimated her rage and sister and once she realized they had destroyed part of the wall and the houses close to it she was suddenly consumed by guilt and intrusive voices in her head, losing focus and finally leading to her capture. - She has a chakra regulator tattoo on her left arm with the appearance of two tomoe and a small dot in the middle, it doesn’t give her infinite chakra, but gives her a good reserve of it and is also able to absorb chakra from nature when necessary, because of this, Myline can have a very high and lasting chakra levels, it is not unlimited though. - Myline has an extraordinary and totally unusual speed due do her high and regulated chakra levels, which was an extremely helpful skill against the Raikage. - After the end of the Kara organization and with Kashin Koji gone, she felt lost again, escaping from Konoha with the intention of getting back to Ame No Kuni, killing the current feudal lord and taking the leadership of the country, her goals were to rebuild her village and the whole country. - She got really angry at Naruto once she finally reached Ame No Kuni, as he had promised Nagato and Konan to help them but she was disgusted when she saw the whole country in ruins, left to rot. - She decided to make the country a shelter for renegades in honour to the friends she lost along the way. - While Myline recognizes that Itachi’s end was the best option for him, she can’t help but feel a deep hatred for Sasuke as she has a very hard time processing her feelings and emotions, she can’t do it properly. - Myline developed her own jutsu by mixing both of her chakra natures, fire and wind. Named Fenikkusukaze no Jutsu (something like wind phoenix), the jutsu consists of a large phoenix made of big flames that can be directed and increased by the wind element. - She was fruit of a betrayal, her mother betrayed her husband by having an affair with Yashiro who was one of the recruited to help Yami No Sato at the time.

[of-nyon]

was going through my wips and unearthed the decepticon X AU that fizzled out cause I don't know how to finish it, and...I still don't know how to finish it, lol. So here's what I got.

vvvv CLICK BELOW to see Soundwave having a nice night out, X getting to be just a little bit manipulative (as a treat), and Zero having a bad time.

There had been some terrible mistake.

From Soundwave's briefings and his own research, X had fully expected an invitation to a performance as the Decepticon diplomatic envoy to the Vynhar, a species that above all else loved dramatic performance and passion, and also had been identified as having useful resources that the Decepticon Army was stretched too thin to justify a full-scale invasion to acquire. And also, X tended to dislike that approach, and with Soundwave surprising him by backing him up, Megatron had agreed to send him out here instead.

But, it seemed, the Autobots had the same idea. And the Vynhar were either playing for drama, or had simply decided to lump the Cybertronians together in the audience.

The red-and-yellow mech next to him was ramrod-stiff in his seat, his EM field tightly pulled against his frame. Awkwardly sat between the lone Autobot and the reassuring presence that was Soundwave, it was near-impossible for X to focus on the opera, a well-loved Vynhara tale about forbidden, star-crossed lovers.

Something pinged in his inbox. The Autobot – Zero, or so he called himself during an awkwardly stiff introduction – was requesting to open a comm channel. X checked in with Soundwave first.

:he wants to comm me. Do I accept?:

Soundwave was silent for a moment. Then, a file packet of info was sent over to him, which X opened curiously.

:Autobot Zero: potential recruit,: Soundwave explained as X scrolled through the mech in question's personnel file, some of it plucked straight from Autobot data networks. Soundwave truly lived up to his well-earned reputation. :Recent disagreements with Autobot high command. Unsure why they have sent him, but still an opportunity.:

:I see,: X replied. :thank you: He accepted the request, noting recent disciplinary action in the file. Brig time, extra chores. Not very Autobot-like -

:Give me one good reason I shouldn't kill you right now.:

X blinked.

That was one way to introduce yourself.

:Well, it would cause a scene. Vynhar hate interruptions. They wouldn't look kindly on the Autobots afterwards. And, maybe you could take me. I'm not much of a fighter. But Soundwave is. I suppose that's two reasons.:

Zero didn't reply. On stage, the hero sang out his anguish at the prospect of being separated from his lover, who he'd met about ten minutes ago.

There was two more hours of this.

:My name is X,: he tried, bringing to bear his greatest weapon: the principle of sheer, grit-stubborn politeness that even Starscream wasn't unaffected by when meetings ran long and everyone was tired and grumpy.

The Autobot stared ahead. X didn't expect a reply, but a few moments later, his inbox pinged again.

:You're not a warbuild. You don't even have any visible weapons. You're tiny. You look like an accountant. Why are you a 'con?:

:Well, why are you an Autobot? Seems you get in trouble with them an awful lot.:

The red mech somehow stiffened even further. Finally turning to face X, his Autobot-blue optics shined in the low light with startled accusation.

“How do you know that?” Zero hissed, ducking in closer. His hands gripped the sides of his seat. X just smiled and tipped his head upwards at the not-actually-that-monolithic-once-you-got-to-know-him block that was Soundwave, who was currently doing an amazing job of pretending to be utterly unaware of the miniature drama playing out next to him, appearing totally focused on the stage. Zero cursed under his breath and sat back.

:Can he actually read minds?: Zero's uncertain gaze darted from one Decepticon to the other. X gave a reassuring smile.

:I can ask him not to! We're having a private conversation, after all. So why all the brig time? Don't you agree with them?:

Zero said nothing, turning to once more watch the stage. Well, that was fine. No need to push this early. X decided to give him some ground:

:Well, if you must know, you were close. I was a clerk. But…two of my older siblings were created as domestic helpers. Disposable-class.: Even if their creator had never intended it that way, there had been no escaping the chokehold of Cybertron under Functionism, not until Megatron had stood up and said enough.

Even then, X had still had to smuggle them out, Blues dropping in with a rare reappearance and an ultimatum to get them to safety. The fees had been exorbitant, and, discovering the perceived betrayal, X's good graces with their creator finally ran out. He wasn't the all-powerful outlier he'd been intended as – just a normal mech. A clerk.

:…I don't know much about that stuff,: Zero admitted. :I was made for the war.:

So, the Autobots weren't teaching their history, then, at least not the parts that didn't suit them. X and his siblings had technically been illegal, their creator thinking that his genius put him above something as mundane as the law. No doubt Optimus Prime, then known as Orion Pax, an Enforcer, would have without question upheld the law had he ever become aware of -

:I think Prime thinks he's doing the right thing,: Zero continued, interrupting X's internal pity-party. :He's either being deliberately kept in the dark about how bad it is, or he does know and just doesn't care. I don't know which option's worse.:

:How so?: X asked curiously. He would have thought that worshipping the ground Optimus Prime walked on came standard with being an Autobot, especially one being spoonfed a carefully abridged history of Cybertron, but he was always ready to learn new things.

:…the MTO factories. I have some fancy ability that means I get to be a real person. The rest of my batch got sent out to die before they were an hour old.:

X's face paled. Of course, something had to sustain planet-wide battlefields and uncountable atrocities. The Decepticons used up every scrap they had, up to and including prisoners. The Autobots simply created their own warm bodies – Made-To-Order mechs, stripped-down versions of Cybertronians who had guns put into their hands and were pointed towards the enemy sooner rather than later.

X tried his best. Sometimes Megatron could be swayed; sometimes he couldn't. But surely it was the better option than the Autobots, defenders of the old regime.

It was there in Zero's file: the facility was hidden away in the middle of an asteroid belt, but when he cross-checked it with current data, it had in fact been targeted and destroyed two centuries ago.

He wondered if Zero knew. He wondered if anyone had bothered to tell him.

:So you didn't get a choice?: X asked, seeing an angle. :You were just made an Autobot, that's that?:

They were both distracted when the heroine on stage screamed, forced unwillingly to strike down her beloved. There was dramatic, booming music, and the curtains closed to polite applause from the audience. The first of three intermissions – the true appreciation was expected to be saved for the curtain-call finale.

:That…happened fast,: Zero said. Avoiding the question, perhaps, but it opened up another opportunity: the reveal that he'd been paying attention.

:X: requires refreshments?: Soundwave pinged, standing up.

:Oh, I'm fine, thanks.: He smiled and nodded his appreciation. Out loud, he said: “Zero, do you want anything?”

“Huh?”

“Soundwave's offering.” He was not, but the idea of trying to recruit Zero had been his, so X figured he wouldn't mind.

“O-oh.” Zero's optics darted once more between them. In the better lighting, with X able to get a proper look at him, he didn't look half-bad, especially for a cold-constructed MTO. Maybe the Autobots had given him a frame upgrade? His outlier ability was listed as classified, so they had at least some backend security that Soundwave couldn't pass through with barely a thought.“No. No, I'm good.”

“Acknowledged.” Soundwave turned to leave. :Request: please contact me immediately if you require assistance.:

:Acknowledged,: X teased lightly back. :Go and let your little terrors out. I bet they're bored out of their processors.:

:Rumble and Frenzy: unappreciative of finer arts,: Soundwave agreed with a sigh, then began to stump his way down the aisle to the stairs. “He's not that bad once you get to know him,” X said. “A bit of a softspark, honestly.”

“That's Soundwave,” Zero said disbelievingly.

“He's a carrier model. He has five cassetticons that depend on him,” X replied. “He's-”

“Ah, gentlemechs, I believe the term is, how are you enjoying the play?” The Vynhara representative that had met X and Soundwave when they first disembarked approached them, taking the empty seat next to Zero.

“It's a very interesting production!” X said brightly. “The lighting in particular, it's very cleverly done!”

“Oh, our Chief Technician will be pleased to hear that,” the Vynhara trilled. “I will be sure to pass on your compliments.”

“I liked the fi- the choreography,” Zero offered. “The. Main actor? He does some good stuff.”

“Ooh! Glint will be thrilled! A Cybertronian, complementing him!” Their feathers ruffled in glee. The Vynhar were an avian race, of about a height with X and Zero – not minibot sized, but smaller than the average mech. X's creator had handcrafted him as a personal project and only had so much material to work with; Zero was taller only by a head.

“Save it till the end, though, yes?” X said – it was a traditional Vynhara saying, meaning to wait until a story was finished in its telling to fully judge it. The representative dipped their head in understanding, crest-feathers falling about their face.

“Of course, of course! I do hope you continue to enjoy it! I will pass on your complements to the relevant parties~” with an extravagant bow, they left.

“They will want to know your thoughts, so you might want to start putting your review together ahead of time,” X advised. Zero looked at him, then sighed and shook his head.

“I'm not the kind of guy you want doing something like this. I feel like I'm being set up to fail. Prime called it a vacation.” Zero grimaced. “He was smiling, too. He's not taking it seriously.”

“He takes the battlemask off?” X asked, surprised at the notion.

“No, but – you can tell. The derma under his optics kind of crinkles. I think Prowl might have put him up to it to get me out from under his feet for a few cycles.”

“Oh, him.” X instinctively tensed, his plating pressing closer to his frame at hearing the name of the Autobot Second-in-Command.

Zero raised an optic ridge in question, but X didn't feel like elaborating, not with memories of the interrogation threatening to claw in at the edges of his mind. He was grateful Soundwave had come back for him, and that was that.

Speaking of, the large mech chose that moment to return, Laserbeak – usually the best-behaved of the cassettes in situations like this – perched on his shoulder. She warbled a greeting at X, fluttering her wings lightly at him. He smiled in return, nodding to his superior officer as he sat down once more.

:Progress?: Soundwave queried as Zero looked away.

:It's going well! He only threatened me once, at the beginning. He's been talkative since then. He thinks Prime and – and Prowl have set him up. That they don't think he'll succeed.:

:Noted.: Music began to play, signalling the second act. As the lights dimmed, Soundwave's red gaze looked past X to size Zero up. :Continue if you wish.:

:Noted,: X mimicked back, reaching out to pet Laserbeak, who leaned into his touch happily.

:Is he your boss? Why are you both here?: Zero questioned as the play resumed, starting with an energetic dance number meant to tonally clash with the drama of the close of the previous act.

:Oh, he insisted,: X replied, turning his focus to the less-than-perfect Autobot. :I proposed diplomacy instead of invasion. Soundwave backed me up.:

:…must be nice,: Zero said. :I think Prowl would eat his own arm before he agreed with me on anything.: He gave an audible sigh. :I'm telling you too much. No-one's actually sat down and had a conversation with me, you know? Prime tried, but it didn't really work. It was after I got picked up from the facility and had a proper badge given to me instead of just paint. I'd only just found out my batchmates all died.:

X made a noise of sympathy, catching Laserbeak's attention. She trilled quietly, moving over to his shoulder to butt her head against him in her own way of showing solidarity.

“Oh, no, I'm all right,” he murmured quietly, using a finger to stroke her head in a way he knew she liked.

In the play, the hero, thought dead, made a dramatic return, the effects and lighting technicians truly going all out. With all the booming distraction, X reached out, daringly, to take Zero's hand.

:We're all just mechs in the end,: he said.

Zero said nothing, but he didn't pull away, either.

[brandwhorestarscream]

What's Skyfire doing on Earth? Is he at a space station?

I'm assuming this is talking about the Invasive Species AU. And this can go one of two ways:

1. Skyfire was still frozen in ice on earth, but instead of doing science research he was a planet scout. Fast forward a few million years and the cybertronians have settled on earth pretty well, and Skyfire is uncovered. Probably by humans cuz most of the mecha capable of living in such frigid climates are off world--earth's little polar caps are cute and all, but they've got nothing on a planet eclipsed in a thousand year ice age. Skyfire wakes up woozy af, but the second he onlined Starscream knew. The humans are gawking and taking videos, probably live streaming lbr, when all of a sudden the sky cracks open with several sonic booms, sound barrier shattering in more than one place. An entire murder of seekers descends on the site--the iconic ones from Mt. Everest--and Skyfire gets to reunite with Starscream. Star is over the moon, delirious with joy--all this time he'd thought Skyfire dead. To have him back is such a joy! Introducing old boyfriend to the new husbands might be kinda awkward but Skyfire will fit right in. Newest member of the murder 😌 or

2. Skyfire never gets trapped on earth and so has remained by Starscream's side. By the time they move to earth they've had several litters of sparklings on several host planets before this, but they'll probably be having more on earth. They're old and schmoopy and very in love

Either way. Starscream and Skyfire get to hold hands 😌

[drhoz]

#1924 - Bombus terrestris - Buff-tailed Bumblebee

AKA the Large Earth Bumblebee. Formerly called humblebees, but the switch to bumblebee was pretty comprehensive by the 1920s.

Since the last picture I posted was a reblog of a bumblebee on a bramble, I thought I might as well follow it up with this. @purrdence spent a measurable amount of her holiday in Aoteoroa rescuing bumblebees from fountains - but this one was s*** out of luck.

Bombus terrestris is one of four species of bumblebee introduced to New Zealand to pollinate the red clover. Prior to 1885, farmers had to import all their clover seed. In fact, bumblebees are so important to red clover pollination that Charles Darwin thought they were the sole pollinator for the plant (and was quite dismayed when he learned that wasn’t quite true).

Elsewhere they’re used as greenhouse pollinators, especially of plants that require buzz pollination or a pollinator of a certain size and weight.  It’s originally a European species, and one of the most common bumblebees there. Unfortunately it’s also invasive in some parts of the world, including Argentina, Japan, and Tasmania. 

A solitary queen initiates the colony cycle when she mates with a single male and finds a nest, usually in disused rodent burrows. After winter she will lay a small number of fertilised eggs which will be the first workers for the nest. Workers forage for nectar and pollen for the colony, usually within a few hundred meters of the hive, and tend later generations of larvae. The workers are smaller than the queen, and can vary surprising in size. Larger bees are more likely to be sent out for food.

After a variable amount of time a switch point is reached and the queen begins to lay some unfertilized eggs. The resulting drones emerge from the nest, and do not return, instead seeking out emerging queens. Any remaining diploid eggs hatch into larvae that receive extra food and pupate to become new queens, although the queen does her best to discourage this using pheromones - the new queens and the workers are all her daughters, but it’s not like she needs too much competition. Bumblebee politics is remarkably complex, and turns violent in autumn when the workers revolt and start laying heir own eggs - all unfertilized and therefore drones. Usually, after a month, the workers overthrow the queen and drive her from the nest, and any remaining her royal daughters may act as workers, and may mate while out foraging for the hive.

In temperate climates fertile queens dig a “hibernaculum” where they will sleep until the next spring, emerging quite early, collecting nectar and pollen, and  founding a new nest. In warmer climates they may skip the hibernation stage entirely.  Almost always the old colony will have died out, but if the burrow is free of parasites one of the new queens will return to reuse the site.

[lostmyremembrall]

Harry Potter but make it Samurai

Since Hogwarts Legacy is set in 1890s, apparently Japanese people have been speculating what Japanese wizards would have looked like during the time of Samurais.

Let me introduce you to... Satsuma Hogwarts.

[Historical Context: During the tremulous time of Japan opening its country and navigating international relations, Satsuma clan from Kagoshima had a war with the British navy ending in a stalemate. But it led to a fruitful trading relationship.]

HC for Satsuma Samurai Attending Hogwarts

Chose to come up Hogwarts for some reason despite Japan having its own school.

Like the rest of the clan, very aggressive and combative.

Uses a katana instead of a wand.

Would scream "E gu su pe ri a!" (Expelliarmus) and take away the wand by literally cutting off the enemy's hand.

Hunts a local magical creature without permission to make a hot pot.

Starts a drinking party in the middle of the corridor.

Constantly demands others to commit seppuku if they admit their mistakes (including house elves).

They train for endurance by casting crucio at each other.

Cannot pronounce Voldemort due to their thick accent, effectively evading Voldemort's GPS system.

Adamant on using a bamboo sword instead of a wand.

Plants bamboo on Hogwarts grounds without permission.

The Ministry regards him as highly dangerous, so he is assigned an officer to keep an eye on him.

Satsuma samurai, being stubborn never listens to him. Resulting in extreme stress on the part of officers.

The post holds a history of officers running away or taking a leave of absence

Refuses to admit that his bamboo sword is not a 'wand'

Regards Hagrid and Nearly Headless Nick in respect, but they find him to be a nuisance.

Literally attempts a seppuku from failing an assignment from class. "I am too embarrassed, I cannot continue living like this."

Is literally treated like an invasive species that refuses to leave.

Shouts "Alohomora" and proceeds to physically break the lock.

Runs up to and kills the enemy with the sword before they can finish saying "Avada Kedavra"

Source: Twitter drawing, Youtube video by Harry Potter Mania

[praeteritus-memories-muses]

Name: Noctis Lucis Caelum

Series: Final Fantasy XV

Continuity: Dawn Of The Future

Age: 20-30 (RP dependent)

Height: 5'9"

Birthday: August 30th

Birthplace: Insomnia

Orientation: Bisexual

Species: Human

Occupation: Prince to the kingdom of Insomnia

Father: King Regis Lucis Caelum

Mother: Queen Aulea (deceased)

Bio:

Noctis is a prince and the son of the current king of the kingdom of Lucis, the only child to king Regis. His mother died shortly after he was born due to sudden complications that arose from his birth, the kingdom grieved but King Regis pulled through the loss of his wife to make sure Noctis still felt love and happiness.

At age two he was introduced to Ignis Scientia, who was four at the time, the two quickly bonded as children and Ignis would later become his royal adviser and personal servant which was a tradition both their families had for centuries.

At age five, King Regis had found through the kings of the past that Noctis was the chosen king to save the world and vanquish all the darkness still plaguing the Lucis line for thousands of years - by sacrificing his life. Though the king was devastated that his child would die by sacrificing himself, he made sure Noctis had nothing but the best for his life and lived a life that would make sure that he lived the life of any normal loved child - or at least he tried as much as he could given he was the king.

Noctis’ childhood was spoiled a little but he mostly was rather lonely. Other than Ignis, he didn’t really have a lot of people to play with or talk to that was his age. He went to a normal public school instead of the private schools all the other noble children of Insomnia learned in so he was often strayed a bit for many children felt too nervous talking to a prince.

Yet at the age of eight, Noctis and the other servants were brutally attacked by a daemon unleashed upon them by an enemy country called Niflheim that was at war with Insomnia. The attack was so bad that Noctis had gone into a coma for months.

In his dream, he was protected by a messenger of the Gods named Carbuncle that protected him from unknown dark forces trying to prevent him from waking up. Though Noctis mostly forgot Carbuncle’s role to him, he remembers the little fox creature fondly and is the one happy moment he remembers follow the attack.

When he woke up, he recovered in the area of Tenebrae where he met Lunafreya Vox Fleuret. The two bonded immediately and although the trip was short, he and Luna decided to send secret messages to each other for years using their dogs.

It’s after leaving that Noctis was explained about the crystal of Lucis and that he was it’s chosen king, though he was never told that he would have to die protecting the world, he had learned that his father was dying from the powers of the crystal taking it’s toll. He didn’t realize it meant the same for himself too, but Noctis’ heart ached knowing his father was slowly dying a very painful life-draining death.

Immediately after, Niflheim came in for another attack on the area of Tenebrae for a full invasion where Luna was left behind. His father tried to take her with him for protection, but she chose to stay behind in favor of protecting her brother - Ravus.

When he had just started high school, still going to a regular public school, Noctis had met Prompto Argentium. He had met Prompto four years prior very briefly but every time he tried to talk to him after that, he kept avoiding him. Prompto looked completely different since when he last saw him, it looked like he had gone through rather life-altering changes. Even if he was a little concerned if Prompto did all that for him, he accepted the blonde boy into his life and the two became very close friends.

In-between meeting Prompto, he would bond with Gladiolus as well. Gladiolus is his bodyguard, who was only three years older than him but was much stronger and tougher looking than him. At first, Gladious and Noctis couldn’t stand each other as Gladiolus thought Noctis was far too spoiled and reckless while Noctis thought he was too angry. The gap between them closed when Noctis rescued Gladiolus’ sister, Iris, when they were kids. The experienced open Gladiolus’ eyes that Noctis had a good heart and the two were practically like brothers ever since.

At age fifteen, he moved out of the castle and into his own place with Ignis so he could have some independence. Even with the deep personal trouble of the expectations of him as the future king and his father was dying, he did exceptionally well in school and graduated at the top of his class. He continued to live an extremely normal life which included playing in arcades and eating at ramen shops.

Now at age twenty, he is told he may have to marry Lunafreya as a way of uniting Niflheim and Insomnia so the two nations can finally end this war that had been going on for over twenty years. He’s not sure yet how to feel about the idea of marrying someone he barely knows, but he hopes he can rise to the challenge.

Noctis is rather sweet, he’s got a kind heart and will often take the blame if someone gets into trouble with him. Yet despite his kindness, he’s rather reckless when his anger get the best of him when something deeply upsets him and has a bit of a big ego sometimes. He also never tells people when he’s in mental pain, he keeps it all hidden inside so he could be a strong and noble king like his father. Even with the pain of never even knowing his mother, his father dying, the deep pressures of a king and all other pains - he keeps it hidden and will brush it off like it isn’t a big deal.

[sparatus]

WBW HOEASS (affectionate)

You write the mariners union yes? Yes. I know they have a few swears that could make a pirate blush — so, what are some rude sayings, names, gestures, etc in Tiirtias (and elsewhere)

HIIII pretend it's not saturday--

so!! tiirtis are pretty famously grouchy and isolationist, so they have. kind of a lot of rude things to say about everyone, especially tourists and cipritinians, lol. there's also an old rift between the seafarers and the landbound, which stems from pre-republic times and has gotten better with time (and a common enemy in the mainlanders, thanks to the war) but still winks at you from language remnants now and again.

one of the most important distinctions for non-natives to know is the difference between zadeū and zadeuuzūt: the former means "foreigner" and is a generally neutral word, while the latter means "invader" and is very, very negative. your buddy from basic visiting for the holidays because he can't make it home himself is zadeū and will be greeted warmly and given the benefit of the doubt. a tourist wandering around being obnoxious and treating the place like a quaint little backwoods time capsule is zadeuuzūt and will be shunned, cursed at, and potentially chased off at gunpoint if they act stupid in the wrong district. the distinction came about after the great war, when cipritinians started arriving on tiirti shores to establish trade routes within the new empire and sort out how governance would work. the native, freshly-conquered tiirtis weren't impressed with the smug attitudes some of them had, and stuck with referring to all mainlanders zadeuuzūt despite the war being over, since it obviously still felt like they were being invaded and insult added to injury. over time, as a balance was struck and understanding reached, "good" mainlanders who were respectful of tiirti traditions and culture were allowed to be referred to as zadeū instead, to mark to other native speakers that this one was okay to work with and wouldn't be rude. zadeuuzūt, on the other hand, remains a highly charged word, as it tells other native speakers pretty clearly that that non-native isn't to be trusted and doesn't respect them as a unique culture.

beyond that, we also have xän, which refers to a boarlike animal native to the mainland and considered an invasive species in tiirtias. they were introduced to the island with good intentions during the republic era, hoping to bring in a new source of meat via a very hardy species that can survive just about any conditions - unfortunately, it backfired, as the xäni became infamous for destroying any area they touch. while some farms do still raise them for meat to take some of the burden off the dazduus herds, if found in the wild they are mercilessly culled and the carcasses sold to butcher shops in the city. the meat is good, but they became associated with their seemingly unending hunger and destruction, and as such became a derogatory symbol of capitalism when turians made first contact with aliens and the volus introduced them to the system. seeing only grief in a system many turians on the whole (not just the tiirtis) viewed as not in their community-driven society's best interest, the tiirtis likened those who followed the foreign system to their hated invasive pests, and it stuck. (capitalism also being a "hated invasive pest" also contributed to the new meaning of the word, of course.)

some other fun terms that have less uhhh need for explanation?

gamosmaze or gamo, just means "fuck." the shortened form is for quick grumbling, the long one for when you're really pissed. when conjugating into adjectives or nouns, gamo is used, because tiirtiak really likes its suffixes and words can get really long, so abbreviations are pretty common, lol.

dide, meaning "shit", can be used as both a noun and a verb

pretty much any word can be given a much more negative connotation and turned into a curse with the suffix "-ze," with either an "a" or a glottal stop between it and the end of the word if it ends in a consonant. alliance translators incorrectly equivocated "ze" to "hell," but that concept doesn't exist in tiiri spirituality. it's just the derogatory suffix! dazduusaze (dazduus being a shithead), bevenaze (stupid fucking half-rotted boat), you can even add it onto existing cuss words to emphasize how really pissed off you are like gamosmaze'ze or dideze!

tveux and sarnuux, said with derogatory subvocals, are a little funny because they're effectively just "waterlogged" and "filthy" but said like cuss words. tveux is old derogatory slang for the seafaring clans, sarnuux for the landbound herder clans, and they're mostly used lightly in the modern day but they do sometimes show up in heated fights between the mariners' union and the ranchers' guild over whose problems need government help first.

saying somebody's boat has holes or they've "hit the Wall" (meaning the great wall that surrounds the city, including a retractable section through the bay) a few too many times implies they're too rock-stupid to be trusted. these are fightin' words.

"shatha bait" is self-explanatory. you're so dumb you'll just fucking sit out in the open for a shatha to eat you.

"rock-claw" is slang for the gaevig to the south, their nearest neighbors. the gaevig evolved to climb trees and sheer rock faces, including the sea-cliffs along the coast closest to tiirtias, so that was early tiirti sailors' first impression of them. "rock-claw" is fairly friendly, but the alternative "zixu'äxu" ("broken tooth," implying they ate the rocks) is decidedly not.

okay i'm sure there's more i'm forgetting about but those are the fun and important ones!! sorry for the text wall oops

[desmondkane-of-ao3-fame]

Also, another prompt to liven up the inbox- Hexside meets April Fool’s. On a scale of one to Collector, how chaotic would it get?

It’s a perfectly calm, normal day. Absolutely nothing happens, and everything proceeds as normal.

…

Yeah I could barely write that with a straight face.

•Luz introduces the concept of April Fools to her Hexside friends the day before, talking about how she adores pulling little pranks on her friends this fine day! Though she uh… didn’t have friends in the Human Realm… BUT now she has them at Hexside! So she lets Amity, Willow, Gus, Hunter, Viney, and Skara in on the day. She tries to get them to keep it a secret between them. The only issue is, just as she’s saying that, the Twins walk by, eavesdropping.

PRANKSTERS

•LUZ: With Eda’s help, Luz creates a sneezing potion in vapor form, which she releases into the schools ventilation, causing several sneezing fits.

•SKARA: Skara breaks into the schools announcement room through a vent and, barring the door, sets up the speakers to play nothing but a playlist of annoying old human music Luz showed her. Sneaking away through the vent, she hums ‘Macarena’ to herself as it begins to flood the school halls.

•GUS: Gus uses his Illusion magic to create a giraffe outside the school. Everyone in the school is terrified until it vanishes, which still leaves an air of unease considering a well known fact about giraffes is that they can teleport.

•WILLOW: Willow runs into several classrooms yelling about an invasion of Witch-Eating Roses in the halls, causing mass hysteria in all classes. Except the Plant Track. Because ‘Witch-Eating Roses’ are actually a completely docile species that just walk around on their roots and find a place to look pretty. Several roses enter many classrooms, and while many students try to make a run for it, the roses just find teacher desks and comfily place roots on them, becoming nice little decorations for the rest of the semester (though not without some students constantly glancing at the flowers in fear). One of said flowers, btw, may or may not make its way to a certain Bard cutie Willow at this point may or may not have a massive crush on.

•THE TROUBLEMAKERS: Viney, Jerbo, and Barcus don’t pull one huge prank, but instead use the Secret Room of Shortcuts to pull several tiny pranks on some of the jerkier students in the school. They use all the nooks and crannies they can to do things like move objects when the person isn’t looking, tap them on the shoulder before disappearing, and making scary voices to trick students they’re haunted.

THE PRANKED

•HUNTER: It’s less that Hunter is pranked so much that he’s incapable of understanding what a prank is. He tries to pull pranks on his friends, but they usually boil down to doing something nice for them before yelling ‘APRIL FOOLS’ and running off.

•AMITY: Amity, already prank averse, is now terrified that her twins are going to pull some sort of massive prank, and wants to know what it could possibly be. Even if they both performed an Everlasting Oath to never pull anything on Amity again, this is a holiday LITERALLY dedicated to doing just that, and she’s worried as heck! She spends the entire night keeping an eye on the Twins, studying them even in sleep to be sure they aren’t telepathically planning something. By the next day, she’s a tired Amity, barely able to keep her eyes open and constantly resting her shoulder on Luz for support.

•BOSCHA: Boscha did not learn about April Fools and spends the entire day being the victim of a Greta many of the others pranks, growing more and more paranoid until a tap on her shoulder from no one cause’s her to run out of the school.

THE TWINS

•Everyone who knows about April Fools waits with baited breath, nervously excited to see what prank Ed and Em may come up with. After all, they’re the best pranksters in the school! They HAVE to have something, right? Something big and wild and insane, potentially even letting everyone else leave the day early?

•As the days end nears, though, the Twins don’t lay claim to any of the pranks. People ask them what they did, and both Blight’s just say they didn’t do anything. Finally, Amity snaps, and demands to know what the two did, much to their shock. Both Ed and Em are indignant, giving long speeches about their efforts to change and evolve from their mischievous pasts, and how they no longer wish to be associated with pranking, but with their efforts to help people now. Amity, stunned, apologizes for her assumptions, but both her siblings forgive her, and the three hug it out.

•Right before midnight the Twins use Alador and Amity’s Abomination goo to flood the entire school, fistbumping and congratulating themselves for being able to trick their friends into thinking they’d let anyone else take on the title of the best pranksters at Hexside.

[pahrak-the-sinnoh-slizer]

Right of Law recap (Gargoyle Knight - Section XXXI)

[This post is intended to condense the existing chapters of my Bionicle fic, Right of Law, into a single summary (~1200-1300 words) in preparation for the end of its long hiatus.  The full story can be found here.]

Right of Law takes place in the Melding Universe, where instead of building the Great Spirit Robot, the Great Beings instead created Toa and Matoran to enter the planet of Spherus Magna and repair the damage done to it by the Core War, preventing the Shattering from ever occurring.  The Great Beings then continued to rule Spherus Magna from a distance, creating the Light-wielding Makuta to guide the populace more directly.  In this particular telling, the Great Beings killed the Element-Lords in the wake of the Core War, save for the Sand Lord who swore fealty to them.  They also wiped out the entire Skrall species.  The Great Beings and the Makuta are loved and celebrated by the people of Spherus Magna, and they have reigned for 100,000 years.

The plot begins with the prologue story The Gargoyle Knight, introducing this universe’s iteration of Makuta Antroz.  Rendered blind in the process of purging all Shadow within her, this Antroz is a morally-strict paragon and zealous supporter of the Great Beings, taking immense pride in shaping the city of Xia to fit her creators’ ideals.  However, learning about the core timeline and its evil Antroz has shaken her confidence, affecting her judgment when Angonce brings Gorast to Xia in order to brutally execute a criminal Antroz has captured.  Antroz begins to harbor doubts, but nevertheless continues to carry out her duty as normal.

Some time later, the Great Beings task Antroz with escorting a prisoner captured by Makuta Krika.  This prisoner, a Glatorian named Zaekura, is revealed to have the same mutation that allowed the Great Beings to become what they are now—essentially, Zaekura is a new Great Being.  Through conversations with her, Krika, and Angonce, Antroz learns that every time this mutation resurfaces, the Great Beings capture those who possess it and make them quietly disappear.  Horrified, Antroz refuses to comply, and Krika’s city of Nynrah is set upon by an army of deadly drones crafted by Velika.  She only truly understands the reality of the situation when the drones begin to kill civilians, and as Krika retaliates in a fury, Antroz escapes with Zaekura to an outpost under the command of Makuta Bitil.

Zaekura shows an interest in Bitil’s Rahkshi, which are modified to possess higher sapience and greater individuality, and this goes a long way toward convincing him to help protect the girl.  Still in denial, Antroz returns to Xia to negotiate with Angonce, but the insistence of the others is all that prevents her from being subdued and brainwashed by her former lord.  While Zaekura and her new allies are able to fend off an invasion of Velika’s drones, it is not without loss—the first loss Bitil’s Rahkshi have ever experienced.  Despite understanding the danger, despite understanding the overwhelming odds against them, everyone agrees to fight back against the Great Beings as best they can.  Spherus Magna enters a new civil war.

The hunt begins for new allies.  Makuta Kojol is adamant in her choice for Ga-Koro to remain a neutral sanctuary city, much to the chagrin of the Great Beings.  The Sand Lord is willing to consider an alliance with Zaekura, but first demands proof that she stands a chance, and that she will respect the lives of the Vorox as equals.  Krika goes to assess the state of the supercity of Civitas Magna, but not long after arriving, he finds Zaekura’s mother, Carna, being targeted by law enforcement.  He convinces Makuta Yarion to let her go, meanwhile a strange voice begins to harry Antroz and gradually wear down her composure.  Eventually, this is revealed to be an attempt to subdue her by the Odinans, fiercely loyal agents of the Great Beings who are feared even more than the Makuta.  After their narrow victory, Zaekura is made aware that her father was killed in the attack on Nynrah, and she struggles to deal with her grief as Bitil and his Rahkshi deal with theirs.  Krika manages to escort Carna safely to the outpost, and also convinces Zaekura to attend an interview with a news outlet from Civitas Magna.  The Great Beings, furious at this, slay the reporter responsible, and coerce Yarion into staying in line by leaving Makuta Vamprah to watch over them.

Zaekura and her forces march on Xia.  Krika and Bitil overcome the surprise appearance of Ackar, one of Atero’s most famous generals, while Antroz challenges her former lieutenant, a Vortixx named Emsar.  Just as the tide of the battle is turning, the Vorox finally make their appearance, revealed to have been horrifically mutated by the Great Beings into savage Hordika.  With great difficulty, Zaekura’s forces are able to subdue the Vorox and hold them in stasis until the Sand Lord arrives to confirm their victory.  Zaekura promises to find a way to undo their mutations as the Sand Lord takes them to safety.

The Sand Lord now officially an ally, Zaekura searches for new ways to expand her territory, at which point Krika reveals that he has been contacted by another Makuta who would like to meet her.  The two of them make the trek to Mahri Nui and begin negotiations with its arrogant Makuta, Pridak.  Though clearly a grave risk, it is ultimately decided that the rebellion would rather have Pridak as an ally than a foe.  During this visit, Pridak also reveals that he has captured the one responsible for the Great Beings finding out about Zaekura, and Krika is shaken when it is revealed to be a special Rahi he had long cared for.  Back in Civitas Magna, the Great Beings have appointed a loyalist named Ahkmou to oversee all news outlets with an iron fist.  However, Zaekura remains unaware of this as she goes to make contact with a group of outcasts in Bota Magna known as the Le-Koronans.

Their negotiations are cut short when word reaches the jungle that Atero has launched a surprise attack on Xia.  Velika, now controlling a nigh-invincible automaton, leads a flock of upgraded drones against the city, and their indifference toward the civilians they endanger is what convinces Ackar to cut ties with Atero and take up arms against them.  His disdain for his former allies only grows when he discovers that Makuta Miserix was complicit in this assault, and that his fellow generals Vastus and Tarix have been transformed into new Element Lords of Jungle and Water.  Zaekura and the others make it back just in time; she fashions a weapon capable of disabling Elemental Powers, allowing them to fend off the invaders.

In an effort to keep public focus off of the war, the Great Beings hold a kolhii tournament in Civitas Magna.  Seeing an opportunity to make this strategy backfire, Toa Hewkii, a famous player for Xia’s team now firmly on Zaekura’s side, transfers to the Mahri Nui kolhii team, which is still able to participate since Pridak’s alliance with Zaekura is not public knowledge yet.  Unfortunately, they did not count on the Great Being Ekimu attending the tournament, nor the Odinans who arrive in Civitas Magna at the same time.  Zaekura reaches the city just as Ekimu unleashes a swarm of brainwashing Skull Spiders.  In the ensuing chaos, Krika finally wins over Yarion, and Zaekura is able to turn Ekimu’s technology against him to send the Skull Spiders into a retreat.  Ekimu is forced to chase them, leaving Zaekura to take control of Civitas Magna.

With this encounter fresh in their minds, and having gained a greater understanding of Zaekura’s mutation from Ekimu, the rebellion now seeks a meeting with the inhabitants of the much-feared Valwahi region…