#just learned so much about the lyrebird

[amethyst-crowns]

how did I somehow pick two moots’ mos hated animals fuck me I also have a bird tTtoo good answer though. #robin buckley I would die for you

also my favorite bird is every bird ever but specifically the lyrebird

so you’re a moot, huh?

[koegama]

I got asked about how koegama sophonts talk to each other:

the main way they talk to each other is a language Baen, which is just the word for Second because it tends to be your second language in learning systems. Baen was created by a group of Tajira linguists who created a language framework that could be spoken by all species despite their different anatomy (main concern was that many hanasei languages are unable to be spoken by other species bc they imitate actual sounds like lyrebirds that most can't really do + hard to pronounce tones).

note that it was a framework, it gave you all the phonemes allowed and vocabulary for polite conversation, but not much else. the idea was that languages evolve naturally, so they should have a laissez-faire relationship w it, letting people create new words and slang. hanasei scholars took Baen and gave it more rules and guidelines and started putting it as a secondary language for their schooling, and asked other species to learn it in a "second language standardization" effort.

it did work, but much like real languages, Baen evolved and gained regional dialects and many words ended mixed up from peoples first languages. because Baen is meant to be spoken by all species though any usage of "illegal" phonemes is not considered proper Baen, and it has an actual academy that maintains that part of the language and adds new slang and keeps tally of regional differences.

BUT… you can also learn the first language of other species if you want. most who wish to learn hanasei languages focus on sign languages and mainly the ISL (ii'mau sign language), which is taught as the default hanasei sign language, but there's around 3 or 4 others. and if you're really stubborn you can learn a native hanasei language, but you might need either a hanasei speech morph (i.e., giving you a hanasei-like larynx build. hard to get without getting extra morphs), or use external devices that take specific spoken input and make the sound for you, hanasei have no issue w other languages because well. lyrebirds lol

tajira > luminae and vice versa is more chill. luminae languages involve a lot of body language and touching/signs, and it's very rare to see a purely spoken luminae language, but other than a few signs that need 5 fingers most tajira can just learn that (and there are 4 finger adaptations). tajira languages are spoken, and they don't have any unreproducible phonemes for tajira the main thing is that they can speak underwater, but for luminae that's not a big consideration since they aren't aquatic anyway. hanasei don't like it, but they can just speak when out of water

[definitely-not-a-wasp]

Maximum Ride versus Spontaneous Power Ups

Part 1

I'm not saying that giving the bird kids power ups isn't fun and funky. But I am definitely not the first person to point out that they're not the best executed, and often take more away from the plot than they add. And someone asked me to state my opinions about one (1) contrived power-up, so now you get to hear about all of them.

Speaking from a general perspective, I have some major problems with Maximum Ride superpowers, and they're as-follows:

They just HAPPEN. There's no trigger, there's no effort on the flock's part to "unlock" them, and there's no explanation given.

They're often these one-off powers that don't maintain narrative significance or further explanations.

Most of the time, they have absolutely no drawbacks.

Yes, I know this is copy-pasted from part 1, what about it?

So this is what I would do to try to solve some of those issues without changing the plot too much. And because I'm nice, I'm sticking it under a read-more.

Pre-Book 1

In the beginning of book 1, Max states that a lot of the flock has "little quirks" like Angel's telepathy, and then the text makes it clear that this is only true of Angel and Gazzy. That means it's completely acceptable to shove a few more powers into pre-series, with the implication that the School caused this before they escaped.

Angel's telepathy, obviously: I've extensively talked about my thoughts surrounding Angel's telepathy, but to rehash, there are plenty of advantages and drawbacks to anything concerning the brain. Telepathy is a boon, but it shouldn't be a pleasant boon. And while this power can definitely grow throughout the series, I think it should stick to telepathy, and not extend towards clairvoyance/precognition like it did in later books.

Gazzy's mimickry: I think this doesn't even need to count as a power, because Lyrebirds can already do that. As Angel grows more powerful, his mimickry can further extend from bird calls to specific human voices to the sounds of objects, and have him learn how to throw his voice.

Nudge's Psychometry: similar to Angel's telepathy, this is a psionic ability, and putting it in pre-series instead of when they miraculously need it makes it feel built-into the narrative. This can also be slowly expanded upon throughout the series, from touching an object and knowing any emotions associated with it, to being able to recall certain moments attached to the object, so being able to touch something and know its entire history.

Gazzy's precognition: "Wait, Gazzy doesn't have precognition", you're totally right, but consider: Precognition is already a thing in the books, because Angel. Gazzy only has two power-ups and one of them is farts. By transferring precognition from Angel to Gazzy and making it start pre-series, there's a bit more of a balance to keep us from getting an OP six-year-old. Like Nudge and Angel, this can start small (having "bad feelings" and being really good at dodging attacks bc he sees them pre-emptively) and build up to something like knowing when someone dies or the exact date and time the world is supposed to end.

Max's, Fang's, and Iggy's ability to withstand the younger three's powers: I think that they should be essentially immune to their younger siblings not because of their own powers, but because of exposure. The younger kids can definitely glean some things, especially when their powers are weak, but the more invasive their powers become, the more immune the older kids get. IE: Angel can read their emotions and sometimes their minds, but she can't control them. Nudge can pick something up and know it's associated with one of them/important to them, but can't tell what they did with it. Gazzy knows if something bad is going to happen, but looking for anything specific or intentional feels like trying to see past a brick wall.

So all of the psionics are at the beginning. And furthermore, there's a clear divide that shows when the School started handling psionic powers. Max, Fang, and Iggy don't have powers. They're old models. But somewhere between Iggy and Nudge, the School had a breakthrough, and the new models have brain powers.

Once the Plot Starts

The next round of powerups makes most sense if it happens as a result of the School's experimentation in TAE-- have the flock NOT be threatened with murder, and instead have tests run on them until they break out, which can take a lot longer. This means that Iggy and Gazzy are excluded, because they were not in the School. But after they escape the School, some abilities can begin to crop up, like:

Max's super speed: originally put in SoF and developed after a slight fever, it could also easily fit into TAE, with Max breaking out of the School while heavily feverish and developing fast flight, specifically regarding dives— similarly to Gazzy's mimickry, this can be staged as less of a power and more of something that happened to her because of her bird DNA that the whitecoats were activation/fine-tuning at the School. The ridiculousness of 350 mph can only occur during dives, though.

Everyone except for Iggy and Gazzy breathing underwater: I didn't realize until I read the wikipedia page that everyone except Iggy and Gazzy canonically has this power, making it a PERFECT power-up to give them after being kidnapped when Iggy and Gazzy were conveniently NOT kidnapped. That being said, this is also a great power to give drawbacks to show that the Flock is not immune to experiments going wrong: FIrstly, they can only breathe underwater in fresh water, like lungfish; they suddenly have to drink a lot more water and easily get dehydrated; they are really suseptible to bronchitis and pneumonia because they're taking water into their lungs that were not originally designed to do that, so they try to do it as little as possible.

And from there, we have...

The Voice

Fuck this thing in particular. There are TWO directions Voice can take in my mind:

It doesn't exist. Full-stop get rid of it, because all it does is take away character agency and give Max answers instead of make the authors think about how Max can figure it out herself.

It's an instrument of the School, preferably controlled by Jeb Batchelder (if it wants to be wishy washy about whose side its on) OR Marian Janssen (if it's an outright antagonist). It disappears once the School is dealt with, and most importantly, is not her own power or a power of her flock. It is a power being used on her.

I've already wasted too much of my life on thinking about this. Since I've already covered gills and psychometry, let's skip over the NYC arc.

After the IFHL

From here, I think there are a few moments where some powers can be gained, and some should definitely not be gained.

Firstly, there's Fang's superspeed. This can develop like it did in canon, where Max donates blood, and Fang gets a fraction of her abilities. However, this isn't even a School-done power, so I think they should reject the blood at first. They get really sick, the doctors have to put them on heavy immuno-suppressants for pretty much the entirety of being at Anne's, and their body temperature permanently jumps up past where it should be.

Then they leave Anne's house, they go on the run, Max gets kidnapped and shoved in a sensory deprivation tank, and she absolutely does not to get to shut down her organs, because it never comes up again and never needs to. Her being able to smell the flock and track them down can have one of two solutions:

She doesn't. She tracks them down another way.

Instead of her hallucinating herself turning into an Eraser, Gazzy has been feeling increasing unease about Max being in proximity to Erasers and can't tell why bc he can't see Max's future. Then, when she escapes the tank in ITEX, she does so by biting an Eraser and swallowing quite a bit of blood and sinew on accident. Suddenly she can smell so many things and her teeth are much sharper than they were a few days ago. Congrats, Max! Power up!

Finally, they reach the School again/are kidnapped again, which is where I guess Angel could possibly unlock shapeshifting, but considering the School was talking about exterminating all of them, I'm thinking no. I think shapeshifting is also on the cutting room floor. However, I think the School definitely should have taken them all out for testing over a few days rather than skipping right to "kill the multi-million dollar investments that are supposed to save the world, bc why not?" (Seriously, who wrote this?), because—

Iggy's Powerups

I've talked about this before, I'll talk about it again, but Iggy's powerups were not brought on by the School, were not spotaneous, were not accidental power transfers, but were intentionally done by Iggy, who was gathering data and running tests throughout the entire series. He doesn't get enough data until he's kidnapped by the School again, at which point Max and Fang probably realize that he's getting a bit sickly and his eyes look permanently irritated, then that there are bruises on his arm he doesn't want to talk about. Then, after breaking into ITEX again and gathering proper resources, he gets:

Detecting light and movement against bright backgrounds, which was his intention.

Color sense, which was an accidental side effect, and not a pleasant sensation for him. Also comes with a disadvantage of not remembering what many colors look like, so he has to guess for a lot of them.

Decreased Oxygen Intake: "wait, he didn't get this in canon!" yeah, because the only power-up JP gave him was pseudo-sight to fix his blindness, so I'm giving him more. Turned out, what he was honing in on was making his eyes function despite them not getting enough oxygen. And he was doing that for his whole body, completely on accident. So his Blood Oxygen percentage can drop to 60 without any ill-effects, his resting heart rate is slowed to about 10 bpm, and he's taking about 1 breath every 10-15 minutes unless he needs air to talk. This takes place over weeks, so he doesn't actually notice it until someone points it out.

This comes with not-so-great side effects. He's cold all the time, his eyes hurt constantly and have permanently burst blood vessels, and his fingers and lips are permanently discolored.

Through the Late Series

After ITEX is taken down, I think the power-getting would decrease exponentially, because they're not being experimented on nearly as much. However, there are a few that I think could be fit in.

Nudge's "Magnetism": I put this in bold and parentheses, because it wouldn't be magnetism, it would be a honing of her psychometry; if an object has a strong enough emotional attachment to her or any of the other psionic kids, she can attract it. Minor telekenesis. As a treat. This is the closest thing I can justify.

Fang's Camoflauge: This was pure accident, and less of a power-up and more of a "came back wrong". Triggered by their death and revival, both of which were unnatural, Fang gets the voluntary organ shutdown that Max doesn't get, and has spaces of time where they don't need to breathe, blink, and their heart slows considerably, meaning that they can be perfectly still in a way that makes people look at them and think "object" instead of "person", and their vision just... glances over them. However, this is not something they can do intentionally. This is almost always when they're dissociating.

Fang's Immortality Genes: I guess that since it's integral to the plot of Nevermore, I can make it work. This was building from School's Out Forever, when they nearly died from Ari's attack, being killed in Fang, nearly getting blown up in Angel, and getting thrown off a cliff in Nevermore. In fact, I would go as far as having their expiration date show up and then pass. By then, it's discovered that they have the "secret to immortality". This does not actually protect them from dying. It protects their genes from unravelling over time, which means they're not ageing. This is not a power-up. This is not a successful experiment. This is the scifi equivalent of being undead, because Fang is pretty much a walking corpse by the end of the series.

Powers Left on the Cutting Room Floor

Angel's Shapeshifting: I barely like shapeshifting Erasers, and it occurs so late in the series that it's not needed.

Gazzy's Flatulence Bombs: Just let him do chemical warfare the old fashioned way I'm begging you.

Max's voluntary organ shutdown: IT ONLY HAPPENS ONCE. I promise you, Max could've thought her way out of that situation.

[bluiex]

We don’t talk enough about bird mating rituals! And there rarely in any fics!

On one hand, you’ve got how many birds dance, especially birds of paradise. And the potential mate gets to pick for themselves who they want to, based on the dancing.

But there’s so much more to it too!

Some birds, do a song with their dance (I’m most amused by the superb lyrebird). For some, the dance is hopping around with wings fluffed up, for others the dance is more like divebombimg their partner (hummingbirds).

But for like Wilson’s bird of paradise, their ritual is that the male cleans the area and then spreads out his feathers. He is judged on his cleaning ability and presentation like a science fair.

Or for great bustards, they fluff up, and shows off their ass. Not a joke, and they don’t do a dance. The potential mate literally just checks out their ass. If the ass is good enough, then they mate.

My personal favorite, that I learned about years and years ago in bio, is the bowerbird. Their mating ritual is to build a house/nest. And these things can get absolutely massive. Like, they make the nest and then try to gather as much colorful/shiny things to DECORATE with. These birds DECORATE. He’s a short video of them in the wild so you see what I mean https://youtu.be/08xZeU6Aksc

Anyway, yeah, grian, as any one of these really. But the bowerbird specifically. Because yeah, he would, and it’d work, no matter which white boy we pair him with for it (scar mumbo cub etc)

— abridged anon, late to dinner

My brain immediately went to the mansion in s7 (for the next building)... Grian building it, showing it off to Scar (Scar not knowing what this means)

[handhelld]

I’ve been working on a little playlist for Jackal and every time I put it on in my car (the idea makin box) I think of new ideas as i belt out the songs at the top of my lungs

Just gonna hide this below a readmore since its a lot of images and ramblings.

OKAY gonna try and go in chronological order the best I can.

Days N Daze / Post Party Depression

This song can fit in multiple places in Jackal’s timeline but i fit it mostly in the very beginning.

When Lyrebird is in her teens she spends a lot of time being stupid. She and her friends have fun breaking into abandoned buildings and harmless things that slowly escalate until theyre pulling street scams on unsuspecting passerby. When they pull a con unknowingly on a Mafia Bouncer. Everyone runs leaving her the sole perpetrator left to face the mafia.

After she ends up in the mafia, Lyre’s whole life is turned upside down. Suddenly her stupid cons have forced her into a real life of crime- a runner and helper for the mafia. She never wanted to be a criminal but she doesnt see a way out.

This part fits into just about every part of Jackal’s story. Man of a thousand masks. In this section it serves as the first instance that Lyrebird has to become her masks. Before they were just for pulling scams but now she wears them every waking moment- anything to hide her fear and uncertainty.

Shakira / She wolf

THIS SONG!!!! Is jackals main anthem i think, it makes me think abt him SO MUCH. Mainly I see it as Lyrebird coming to terms with who she is becoming. She learns to lie better, wear her masks like a second skin, shes not stealing chump change anymore- but something much more valuable. Information.

Mike Hough / Gambling man

Gambling Man represents the majority of Lyrebird’s late story with Nathan. As time goes on Lyre grows closer to him, falls deeper in love. I like to use gambling as a motif for Jackal and Dallas.

Lyre knows things are impossible but shes willing to place her bets on him, stay by his side even if the odds aren’t in her favor. A million to one odds and she still wouldnt leave. Unknown to both of them is how Nathan is her devil in disguise

Lyrebird saw the signs- saw a hit on her head- Nathan warned her- but she chose to stay. Now she’s paying for her sins, a bullet just inches away from ending her life- shes dead in everyway but physical. But she’s still lingering on her feelings- reality yet to truly sink in.

Joey Batey / Her sweet kiss

As Lyrebird leaves Chicago, shes forced to realize and truly come to terms with the fact the person she’d devoted the past five years of her life to has gutted her irreparably. Theres still that yearning- but he wasn’t worthy of it. He didn’t deserve her love.

Fin / Ship In a Bottle

Lyrebird is well and truly dead now. Her corpse washed away in the Chigaco waterfront only to reach the shore and be devoured by scavengers and vultures. She's truly alone now, but she's in control of her narrative now. This is her battle. Her ship. And she didn't need crew who would betray her- this is all her own battle to win.

[dukearchive]

5 Lessons on the Language of Men

By Sara Shao

The boy says, “I love you so much and hopefully I’ll see you more,”  a hundred sweet moments before he says “I hope you understand.”

You thought you did. You thought after 17 years of learning the English language you understood the meaning of basic English words strung together with correct  syntactical structure, but perhaps they didn’t teach you right (we all know how the public school system is).  So maybe it’s not his fault; you just need a better education.

Lesson one. The lyrebird constructs songs from the sounds they hear around them and  the more wonderful, alluring the songs, the more they can sound like  a camera shutter, a child laughing, the more they can make them sound not like  a liar bird, the more likely they are to attract a mate.  He sings for you to make you believe he will not leave.  It doesn’t mean he will not leave.

He asks you to imagine how the two of you will act once you’re old.  You think, “does he really believe in us that much? That we might still be together  when we’re 80 years old?” 

You think about those words long after he’s said them.  He never thinks about them again. This is what he likes to do.  He likes to sow ideas in the field of your dreams that refuse to die  long after he stops coming by to water them.

The boy says, “I’m not going to break your heart.” 

It sounds like a promise, and you want it to be a promise,  more than anything in the whole world, please, please let it be a promise. But the cracks on your heart are already forming.

Lesson two. Teacher, you ask, “If it’s not a promise, what is it?” I’ll tell you: it’s a feeling.

Lesson three. If you’ve ever wondered why they seem to forget ever loving you, it’s because they left  all those memories to you. And they knew that you wouldn’t let the rain get to them.  You would bring them inside. You would play them. Over and over and over. Every time you called out “Marco” just to hear him say “I love you, too.”  You said you loved me too.

Lesson four.

In the end, the most useless weapon in the fight for love are those words: “you said.”  You want to debate them with pages and pages of evidence to support the claim that you meant something to him. Child, that’s a knife that you are holding by the blade, so is it really a surprise  when you’re the one left bleeding, and he comes out unscathed. The words he said will never convince him to stay.

Lesson five. The next time a boy falls for you, your first instinct  is to push the words he’s saying back into his mouth  “no no no you don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

But this one is different. He doesn’t look the same, doesn’t talk the same, doesn’t act the same.  He doesn’t remind you of anyone you’ve ever known.  You let him say it, but when he holds you in his arms, snapshot the feeling  into your skin, so you have something to hold when he’s gone.

[elisende]

Wild Game (2/3)

Characters: Halsin/OFC Warnings: Dubcon, implied drug use Rated: E

Words: 1489

Part II

The journey to the High Forest was ever a time of unburdening, and it seemed to Halsin that his feet grew lighter with every mile.  Each night his rest deepened; and when it rose, the sun shone brighter than the day before.  

Some mornings he would tarry, listening as the raucous symphony of the dawn chorus mellowed into lilting birdsong.  

And some nights, charged with desire and the exhilaration of his freedom, he hiked deep into the night, only pausing to rest when the stars dipped low in the purpling sky.

On the last night of his journey, when he reached the southern tip of the High Forest, he indulged his whim for a campfire and watched the flames shiver and dance.  He found a small twist of greenleaf in the little pouch on his belt and packed it into his pipe, blowing smoke rings that evanesced before they could skim the stars.  

Thoughts passed, like fish in a clear stream, and he grabbed for one or two before they slipped away.  He wondered how Kagha was finding her first taste of leadership, and how many initiates were nursing red cheeks that night.  

Halsin marveled how strange it was that he, who had once been more full of unspent rage than Kagha could have ever experienced, had become Master Druid of a Circle.  

The bear had saved him, well and truly--it was only by channeling his raw anger into the animal that it hadn’t consumed him, as the flames of his campfire consumed the dead wood he’d collected.

He twirled the lyrebird feather in his fingers--he’d brought it, after all--mesmerized by the pattern it made when he spun it.   He’d smoked too much, had been alone too long, had wandered too far.  When he dropped into his trance that night, he could find no comfort, and no rest.

*

Just as he had planned, Halsin reached the southern wild woods where the Wild Game was still observed just as the summer sun sank below the treeline, alighting the pines with a furnace’s glow.

Now he was only caught unawares when he wished to be.  And sometimes the mood did strike, but tonight, he decided, he would hunt.

As the ritual demanded, he shed his armor and clothes.  First he removed his ironbark gauntlets and shoes, then the buckled leather armlets where he liked to tuck interesting herbs, leaves, or feathers he found in his wanders.  After he removed his belt and baldric, he slipped his tunic over his head, shivering with pleasure as the warm summer breeze tickled his bare back.  

He was naked, save for his silver-tipped club, carved with sacred runes, and he bent to bundle his discarded clothes when a twig snapped behind him.  The druid pivoted, raising the club by instinct.

A human woman, clothed and unarmed.  He took her in, from her pink bodice to her golden braids, looped below her ears.  

Had she wandered into this dangerous ritual by mischance?  But her eyes met his, and in the fatal glance--Valatoth khalgith--he realized she understood, was willing, and offering herself to the Leaflord--to him--as prey.

His head swam from the headiness of her scent; peach juice was on her lips and he sucked them greedily before moving down to her soft throat.  His first woman, centuries ago in this very forest, had been a human, and he had somehow imprinted on it, forever after desiring to lose himself in the softness that only their kind seemed to possess.  

She sighed as his hand found the front of her pink bodice, skimming the tops of her full breasts.  He pressed his stiff, throbbing cock against her front and held her close as she gasped and seemed to struggle away from his embrace.

“Shh,” he murmured into the shell of her ear, and she stilled against him.  His hand found the skirt of her gown and slipped beneath, first exploring the gentle contours of her thighs before moving up to caress her belly, the tips of his fingers barely touching the top of her sex.  She gasped again, twisting in his arms like a salmon and he restrained her more forcefully, all the while whispering wordless noises into her ear.  

Desire sang in his blood, desire he’d not felt in many decades of the Wild Game.  It took all of his forbearance--again--not to hike up her silky skirt and rut her against the rough bark of the standing pines like a senseless animal.  

But as Halsin had learned, there were sweet rewards to be had for desire deferred.

He ran his thumb against the sublime softness of her lower lip, seeing his own need reflected back in her dark eyes.  Again, he kissed her deeply, plunging his tongue into her mouth, taking in her flavor and scent both as he lowered her to ground.  

“Please,” she begged him as he crouched over her.  He stilled her words with his mouth as his hand again found her creamy thighs beneath her skirt, stroking up to the warm, damp patch between them.  

And this, too, he loved about human women, the way their hair caught their juices.  He teased the curls with a gentle tug before sliding his finger inside her, her back arching with a cry of pleasure.  He crooked his finger, bringing forth another rictus of pleasure, and felt a drip of come trickle down the side of his erection.   

He toyed with her, circling her clit with his thumb as his middle finger delved deeper, then more rhythmically, picking up in tempo until the sweet smell of her pleasure, like fallen apples, filled the grove.  Her lips swelled beneath his touch, plump petals, dripping wet.  “Please,” she begged him again, looking up at his hard member, now throbbing so that it actually pulsed.

Halsin smiled, indulgent--words were forbidden in the ritual.  He placed a finger over her open lips and then tore back her pink bodice in one violent rip.

Her breasts were like those of an ancient fertility goddess, supple and generous, tipped by dainty nipples the exact shade of pink of her bodice.  She made a beautiful sight and he leaned back to appreciate it, her muddied skirt up around her thighs and bodice torn off to the waist, braids around her naked shoulders and her full, bare breasts shining in the twilight.  

She looked up at him with her great eyes, and he was unable to resist any further.  With another mighty rip, he pulled off what remained of her gown, flipping her onto her belly, as the ritual dictated, and pressing his cock to her wet readiness.  

There was no teasing now, he couldn’t bear it, and he thrust into her in single smooth motion, like a lance striking true, and just as in his first time, felt the sublime softness, the sweet give of her.  He nearly came on that first stroke, perhaps would have if he’d been younger.  But with a cry that was partly a groan, he pulled back, more measured with his next thrusts, gripping her soft hips in his hands as he dipped into her, more shallowly now, but slow enough to truly feel her.

She resisted his attempts to slow down, spreading her legs to take him deeper, then crying out for the pain and pleasure of taking him so deep.  He wished he could speak, to tell her to slow down, but he recalled the ritual and then remembered she was his, to do with as he pleased.  His hand found her breasts and he cupped one, thumbing her pink nipple and making her back arch against his belly.

Relishing that contact, he pulled her close against him as he continued to thrust, bringing himself close to the brink again then pulling back just before he came.  He ran a hand down her front and she shivered with pleasure before he braced himself against her hips again, bearing deeper with every thrust.  

He was close, and every little moan from her beneath him was bringing him closer.  A curl of hair had escaped her braid, and he kissed her neck where it fluttered, breath hot against her skin as something inside of her released, and she gushed, her scent filling his nose.

Pleasure overtook him, overtook them both and after one final thrust he spurted his lifeforce into her, so deep, his hips shuddering, a groan escaping his lips.

The world seemed to regain its sound and color as he bowed over her shapely back, still inside her.  Her thighs were slick with her ecstasy and the smell of apples lingered in the air, sweet and wild.  He turned her over, the ritual satisfied, and held her to his chest, hands tangled in her curls.  

They lay there for perhaps minutes, hours, or eons, as the stars wheeled overhead, until without a word, nearly without a sound, she slipped away from him, and was gone.

[drferox]

Fantasy Biology - Jackalope

The, uh, 'noble' Jackalope (is noble the right word?) is an absolute hoax originating with creative taxidermy, but for today's exercise let's pretend it's not.

The cryptid is described as having the body of a large rabbit or hare, and antlers from a deer. Explaining these antlers away as being horny growths induced by a papilomavirus is too mundane for this series, and in any case there are a number of other fascinating features that Jackalopes are said to have, including:

Antlers

Excellent mimicry of human voices, including singing.

A taste for whiskey, smores and possibly Harvey Davidson motoroil

Aphrodisiac milk

Breeding during lightning strikes

Which is just a weird, disparate mix of traits that is just begging for a single coherent explanation. So let's start with the obvious - the antlers can't be antlers. There are multiple different types of 'horns' we find in the animal kingdom, particularly on our herbivores. True horns, as in cattle, have a core of bone. Creatures like rhinoceros have horns that do not have a bony core and instead are just continually growing keratin. Antlers have a bone core, but are shed each year and regrown.

I suppose you could use any of these types of horns on a Jackalope, but I'm not going tom because I think of things that are worse.

Ever heard of a Babirusa?

Look at this delightful face. Look at these shiny, white protuberances from its head which are not actually horns, they're teeth. And you know, rabbits are a group known for their continually growing teeth, you could have a Jackalope that, instead of boring antlers, has a pair of continually growing teeth from its upper jaw that turned around and erupted through the skin like the Babirusa. I think that's an elegant solution to create a 'horned rabbit' without actually needing to tweak the biology too much.

But that's not what I'm choosing to run with either.

I'm leaning towards 'horns' that are actually honeycomb-like structures transporting electosensory receptors, like the bill of a platypus or beak of an echidna.

Why? Because if these creatures are running around with electroreceptors above their head, it provides a reasonable explanation for why they might go bonkers when there's a thunderstorm. Electrosensory organs on your head in the middle of an electrical storm? You'd be exhibiting some weird and erratic behavior too. It's not necessarily some courtship ritual, but sensory overload in a creature built to jump and run.

That may also be why they seem to have a liking for motor oil and whiskey, not to drink it, but because it feels good on their electrosensory receptors, either enhancing or dulling sensation, not unlike humans partake in different types of recreational drugs.

And the liking smores is just a sensible choice for any species.

So what are these electosensory organs for?

Well, about now we should be asking ourselves - what does a Jackalope eat? Is it a herbivore like our friend the rabbit, or does it have a carnivorous lean?

A pair of electrosensory organs on your head have to be there for a reason. That's a biologically expensive organ to maintain if you're not using it for something. So what other living thing would a Jackalope be trying to detect where vision and hearing are inadequate? Some mysterious cryptid able to fly as silently as an owl at night? Some invisible miasma? What's the rest of the Jackalope ecology? What’s a Mothman

Or perhaps, this is a means to identify each other in the dark.

The Jackalope is said to be an excellent mimic, with a particularly nice singing voice, attracted to campfire songs. Perhaps, like the lyrebirds who flirt by collecting unusual sounds, Jackalope courtship also includes a sound display of unique and unusual sounds that they have learned, and oh boy don't drunk cowboys around a campfire make some unusual sounds.

I mean, it's either that or they're learning the sounds of their prey to lure them  away into distant caves and abandoned mine shafts. Faint cries of help, distorted by echoes, asking where you are... cries of distress or exclamations of curiosity from any suitable local prey species.

And to distinguish between actual potential prey, or another Jackalope, they use their electrosensory organs, enhanced by the increased damp and controlled humidity of these underground tunnels.

As for their supposed aphrodisiac properties of their milk, if you'd found and successfully milked one, you'd probably be feeling pretty high on life too.

So in conclusion, our Jackalope looks like it should be a herbivore, but has some suspiciously carnivorous habits, and maybe if you think you hear somebody in distress, in the dark, in Jackalope territory you should ask them for some very specific grammar or syntax.

So with that delightful thought, and more questions than answers with this enigmatic cryptid, consider the following variants:

Hollow horns: These Jackalope horns are hollow, resulting in haunting sounds when the wind blows across them, like blowing across the surface of a glass bottle. Gathered Jackalopes of different ages in a gentle breeze make for quite the haunting cacophony.

Teeth: This Jackalope variant has Babirusa-style teeth growing through its head rather than horns. It has no sensory organ within these teeth, and males use them for fighting. Females lack this ornamentation but may be distinguished from a normal rabbit by large fangs from the lower jaw.

Arctic: White and so, so fluffy in the winter, the black horns of these Jackalope resemble leafless branches when above ground, but they do most of their hunting from tunnels below the snow, abruptly launching up when they detect unsuspecting prey above.

This species was nominated by my wonderful Patreon supporters, who also get to vote on future topics and get sneak peeks from just $1 a month.

[nevermorealyre]

21 Questions

Rules: Answer 21 questions and tag 21 people you want to get to know better.

I was tagged by @neonplusfire, also known as @neonfireart. Thanks! I was surprised to be tagged in such a thing, especially by one of my FAVOURITE artists in the MDZS community. Seriously an honour. (I won’t ramble on about how good their art is, but if you have never checked them out before, please do head over to their neonfireart account.)

Nickname: Lyre. I usually go by Menuridae, which I took from the scientific family name of a lyrebird (one of my favourite birds). Lyre is of course from the name Lyrebird and is pronounced the same way you would say ‘liar’.

Height: 163 cm. I am a smol bean.

Last movie I saw: Liz to aoi tori (Liz and the Blue Bird). It was an alright movie, but I want to sue someone over the ending we got.

Favourite artists: I dig me some instrumental music mostly, so I love Hans Zimmer and Hiroyuki Sawano. Otherwise I also like artists such as NCT, Kaleo, DEAN, Jeff Buckley, Utada Hikaru and Adele.

Song stuck in my head: Ughh, I don’t really often have songs stuck in my head. London Bridge is Falling Down?!

Do I get asks?: I have gotten a total of two asks, so not really. Most of my interaction happens with people leaving comments on my fics on AO3. But my received asks have been in praise of one of my fics, so I haven’t actually received an ‘ask’ asking me a question. But I love any form of interaction with people though.

Other blogs?: This is my only blog. I am not really into blogging that much so I just stick to the one but keep the content I post or reblog here mostly MDZS or writer centric.

Following: Ughh, does this mean my follower count or the number of people I am following? But there is 80 and 231. I will let you guess which is which.

Lucky number: I don’t have a lucky number but I do like the number 9.

What I’m wearing: Black shorts and a black shirt with the words black t-shirt written on it in black.

Dream job: To work in rural Japan in preserving Satoyama environments, which are the woodland fringes around a rural settlement that are both ecologically and socially important. I would also love to be a published author in the future.

Favourite Food: I don’t really have a favourite food. But I really enjoy water and orange juice. But I guess those are drinks...

Dream trip: I would really love to go to Japan and tour around some rural areas for the nature or visit cities and towns with some great historical architecture.

Play any instruments: I can play the dizi, the chinese bamboo flute, but not very well. The guitar sitting in my closet hadn’t seen the light of day in a while though...

Languages: English and 日本語. English is my native tongue and I only know a little Japanese, but I am learning and hope to become fluent within the next ten years.

Favourite song: Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence by Ryuichi Sakamoto. It is also known as Forbidden Colours with a vocal version performed by David Sylvian. All versions of this song are amazing, and guitar cover by Kaori Muraji holds a special place in my heart because it was the first version of this song that I had heard.

Random fact: My random fact is that I love random facts. My mother calls me an encyclopedia because I can remember so many useless facts. I also love flags and can remember up to 200 country flags. My head is filled with useless things.

Aesthetic things: Old architecture covered in vines, overgrown plants and moss. Abandoned places that have remnants of past lives there, perhaps a forgotten teddy or hammer or a chair. Travelling down a stream in a little wooden boat, just letting the water take you on a journey, admiring how the sunlight filters through the leaves as you float away.

And that was 21 facts about me~

Tagging: Well, I am not going to do a whole 21 people, but I will tag a few people.

@reiiciel - A ray of sunshine in this world that brought light into my life. Makes great photo edits and is multifandom shipper.

@blossomchi - My other sunshine. Chi is adorable and lovely and precious. She also makes some amazing AMVs across a number of fandoms.

@the-archangel-of-salt. Their blog is filled with the random facts that I crave. Also has been a long time supporter! <3

@h-y-p-h-e-n-d-o-t-s. A great blog with some pretty damn good MDZS related thoughts and posts. Big fan.

@liebiing. One sweet child who is so very supportive and kind. Let me wrap you in a blanket. I always see them in random pockets of the MDZS fandom and it brings a smile to my face when I see them around.

@aleafinatyphoon. Another sweet child who deserves a blanket. They also have an awesome MDZS sideblog that is worth checking out.

@mmishii. This child can have a pillow to rest their sweet head upon because they are just too sweet.  

If you do not want to participate in this, feel free not to, the invitation is there however.

[tmae3114]

Tell us about the AUs. all of them.

Friend, that is a lot of AUs.

But okay!!

I won’t go immensely in-depth because a) that’d take forever and b) I want to do separate posts and drawings and stuff for a bunch of these

Okay, so, going in the order that I mentioned them in the tags:

(whoops this is going under a cut because It Got Long)

The Pokemon AU

More of a fusion than strictly an AU, I guess, because it’s pretty much “canon, but there are pokemon”.

I’ve determined full teams for the whole ‘crew, along with the genders, levels, abilities, natures, and movesets of all of their pokemon. I got… really into it. I went way too detailed with their teams. I even know what kind of pokeball each of their pokemon are in. I’m in the process of nicknaming them. I’ve also got scatterings of backstory for how they came to have each of the pokemon in their teams!

For now, I’ll tell you what their teams are, along with the nicknames and such of their pokemon. More in-depth stuff (such as aforementioned abilities and movesets and also the backstories) should probably be saved for a different post.

Diath:

“Cath” - Klefki - ♂

Ninjask - ♀

Scyther - ♀

Liepard - ♂

“Dawnguide” - Absol - ♀ 

“Gutter” - Aegislash - ♂

The pattern I went with for nicknaming Diath’s pokemon is based off of the one thing we’ve seen him name in canon - Moonsplinter. So the nicknames for his pokemon, when I eventually come up with them, will be two nouns put together into a name that connects what was named to someone or something important to him. Cath and Gutter are exceptions to the pattern because they were gift pokemon and came with the names (…sort of, in Cath’s case).

Evelyn:

“Morning Glory” - Rapidash - ♀ 

“Periwinkle” - Lycanroc (Midnight Forme) - ♀ 

“Thistleberry” - Eevee - ♂ 

“Sunflower” - Larvesta - ♀ 

“Jonquil” - Solrock - N/A 

“Juniper” - Pichu - ♀

The pattern I went with for nicknaming Evelyn’s pokemon started with Morning Glory and Juniper - I figured that since Evelyn showed a predilection towards plant names in canon, it was as good a theme as any to run with. Thistleberry is the closest to breaking that pattern, since I’ve been unable to find out if that’s actually a real plant (I’ve found thimbleberries but not thistleberries, so I feel like they might be a fantasy thing) in which case you could argue that he was named for Evelyn’s favourite pie. The reasoning for Sunflower should be obvious, a jonquil is a kind of flower similar to a daffodil which sort of resembles a sun in shape, and periwinkles mean “early friendship” in flower language, and Evie sure does make friends fast.

Jonquil may or may not mean “I desire a return of affection” in flower language but sshhhh, that was unintentional

Strix:

“Fuzzywuzz” - Venomoth - ♂

“Waffles” - Ursaring - ♀ 

Mismagius - ♀ 

“Stinky Junior” - Garbodor - ♀ 

“Clothy McClothface” - Banette - ♀ 

“Stinky” - Alolan Rattata - ♂

I don’t think I really need to explain the pattern/theme for naming Strix’s pokemon because, well, *gestures at canon* I just tried to follow the existing naming patterns.

Paultin:

“Palpatine” - Malamar - ♂ 

Exploud- ♂ 

“Charlotte” - Chatot - ♀ 

Gengar - ♂ 

“Peter” - Baltoy  - ♂ 

Alolan Marowak- ♀

I don’t strictly have a naming pattern for Paultin, wildcard that he is. I’ve just been operating on a general rule of “regular real life name that sounds fitting” (a la him naming Simon) or “reference”.

The Superhero AU

You are getting far less information about this one because it’s going to be getting posts of its own when I finally get the drawings for it finished - I’m going to do character profiles and everything.

The basic premise is a vaguely-modern-era-ish Waterdeep (in a vaguely-modern-era-ish Faerun) has a lot of superheroes running around and the Wafflecrew happens to be one of the teams that call the city home. Diath, Strix, Evelyn and Paultin are all doing the secret identity thing and there will be shenanigans involving those because, well, here’s the thing:

The Wafflecrew is a superhero team who’s members keep their identities secret even from each other, mostly because they haven’t been together as a team for very long yet.

Diath, Strix, Evelyn, and Paultin, however, are a group of friends who happen to share a flat. Who are all trying very hard not to let on to their friends that they’re a superhero.

So. Shenanigans.

(Well, except for Diath and Strix. They know about each other’s secret identities)

I won’t tell you everyone’s codenames, though, because ~character profiles~ :3c

The Daemon AU

This one is more loosely defined than the others, to be honest. I will say, straight up, that I have never read His Dark Materials and don’t have any particular intent to, because I’ve read enough excerpts to know I could never get through it. But the concept of daemons is really cool and fun and I’ve read a ton of daemon aus and I feel no shame in yoinking the concept for an au despite never having read the source material.

Evelyn’s daemon is a Norwegian Forest Cat named Carwyn, Paultin’s is a lyrebird named Leto, Strix’s is a Barred Owl named Cináed, and Diath’s… well, if you were to ask him, he’d tell you that his daemon is a very shy house spider named Perdita. The thing is, nobody’s ever actually seen her…

Diath may or may not be in a Special Situation in this AU thanks to the whole ancient-soul-that-Shemeshka-has-part-of circumstance

The Class Swap AU

This one!! Is one that I love!! a lot!! And also one that I fully intend to give its own post with art.

It started with me realising that Mason Marthain existing presented the perfect Backstory Butterfly to play with things a little and justify Evelyn being a rogue in a class swap AU. From there, I just kept playing with their backstories to see what there was that could be tugged on to shift them to one of each other’s classes. Ultimately, my class swap AU stands as such:

Evelyn Marthain, a swashbuckler rogue. Inspired by a slightly different family member, in this universe, Evelyn decided at a young age that rather than follow in her father’s footsteps, she wanted to follow in her uncle’s. Thus, rather than training at the Spires and taking on the mantle of a paladin, she apprenticed on her Uncle’s ship throughout her childhood, and eventually became a rogue.

Diath Woodrow, an oath of devotion paladin. A childhood on the streets went just a little bit differently for Diath, this time around. After a paladin caught him preventing another street kid from pickpocketing, he got taken in by the Church of Selune and found a calling that appealed to his sense of duty and his desire for adventure at the same time. (How does the oath of devotion’s call to obey just authority mix with being chaotic good, you might ask? Well, how does one define “just” authority? In Class Swap!Diath’s case, as soon as someone abuses their power, their authority is no longer just)

Paultin Seppa, a wild magic sorceror. Paultin honestly doesn’t know where his powers came from. They’ve been at the tips of his fingers for as long as he can remember. It probably has something to do with the big swath of his childhood that he can’t remember but he’s not particularly bothered with trying to figure it out. (The thing is, a panicking, traumatised child, very much going into shock, tearing through the mists of Barovia and out of Ravenloft, all on his own and without parental supervision for the very first time, has so much potential to go wrong. He stumbled through a few less than hospitable places before he ended up on the Prime Material)

Strix, a college of glamour bard. Her years in the Feywild were harsh and this time it wasn’t Baba Yaga whose care she stumbled into. She learned a lot, living amongst the fey, and not least amongst that was how a silver tongue, with words carefully chosen and used, is a magic all of its own and also a very dangerous weapon.

I can’t say anything about the two AUs I’m currently writing fics for because spoilers~ so just know that They Exist

The Star Wars AU is extremely conceptual. It features aspiring Jedi Knight Evelyn Marthain, an Alderaanian human raised in the Coruscant Jedi Temple, travelling musician Paultin Seppa, a human of mysterious origin who has an even more mysterious knowledge of the Force, given that he seemingly has no connection to any known Force sects, galactic treasure hunter/archaeologist Diath Woodrow, a human from Coronet City on Corellia, whose heritage may-or-may-not have originated on a certain planet starting with ‘M’, and Strix, a force-sensitive woman of indeterminate species (at first glance, you might think zabrak, but zabraks don’t have tails. They also usually don’t have hair but it’s not like hybrids are completely an unknown possibility… the thing is, if she’s a hybrid, there’s no way she’s a hybrid of just two)

The RWBY AU is Exactly What It Says On The Tin. It’s just an AU where the Wafflecrew are in Remnant. They comprise Team DEPS (”Deeps”) and all I’ve really figured out is their weapons and semblances and tbh, as an AU, it’s probably not going much further than that.

I had a Lot of fun with their semblances, though.

[penstotheend]

For your fun post. Bennguin goes to Australia for an adventure trip. Keeping in mind Tyler has to hold Jamie’s fear of flying for 16+ hours from Dallas. Picturing horseback riding, long tourist train journey in the outback, etc.

have you been talking to my muse???  it’s not bennguin, per se, but i had started this a while ago for her... maybe i should finish it...

“If you could take the Cup anywhere in the world to promote hockey, where would you take it?”

Jamie sat back in the chair, thinking.  Where would he go?  

“You should come to Australia sometime, Mate.”

“Why?” Jamie questioned.

“They love hockey down under.  Our league is small, but the boys have a good time.  Really.  Can’t get enough of the NHL stuff.”

Jamie remembered the conversation well.  It had been six years ago when he’d done an NHL promotion with Nathan Walker.  Nathan had gone on and on about how much Australia loved hockey and how it was such a great place.  And, of course, how Jamie and Sid should come visit.

Jamie had done some research, mapping out a trip.  Unfortunately, they had not been able to make it there, yet.  It seemed like something always came up that prevented a trip to Australia.  Now, however, Jamie was being asked where he’d like to take the Cup.  Anywhere.  

“Australia.”

“What?  Why would you want to go there?”  Dan Freesman, the new NHL Commissioner, seemed completely surprised.

“Well,” Jamie leaned forward, his arms resting on the conference table.  “We’ve played exhibition games in China, South Korea, Sweden, and England.  And, let me see, only Sweden is really hockey country.  Australia has a league.  A pretty good league.  They’ve had a couple of players in our league.  Yet, we barely show any interest down there.”

“We have an annual Canada versus US showcase every year, featuring North American players.”

“Big names?  League stars?”  Jamie questioned.

“Well, no.  Not per se.  But big names for them.”  Freesman said.  “We can’t afford the liability risk to take, say, McDavid, or Matthews, or you.  If you got hurt in what was essentially a pick-up game.  Jesus. The teams would revolt from letting players do any promotions outside the season.”

“I’ll cover the liability insurance.”

“You couldn’t afford…” Freesman started.  He paused when Jamie gave him an ‘are you serious?’ look.

“I’d like to take the Cup there for the showcase.  Make a tour with it.  It’ll be my two days and then I was hoping I could snag another.  All in the name of promoting hockey around the world.” Jamie smiled.  “Of course.”

He had a trump card in his pocket.  Brian had agreed to use his day for the third day if needed.  Freesman didn’t need to know that at this point, however.

“I think it’s an excellent idea.”  Stewart Packard, the current head keeper of the Cup, chimed in.  “The Cups been there, but not with such a big entourage as would likely be with Jamie.”

Freesman looked confused.

“Oh, yeah.  Um, McDavid, Larkin, Matthews, Strome, Debrincat, Jack and Quinn Hughes, and some of the Pens would like to go with me. We’re gonna make it an all-star showcase this year.  Featuring Lord Stanley.”

That’s how it started.  

This improbable journey with the Stanley Cup.

The plane resonated with laughter.  There were about 60 people in this half of this entourage of Jamie’s.  Players, family, friends.  All taking the opportunity for a weeklong trip to Australia during the off-season.

Jamie hadn’t needed to cover all the liability on his own.  The guys had all gone to their teams ands pitched the idea of the all-star showcase.  All the teams had bought into it.  Because it was Jamie who asked.

Seems Sid wasn’t the only Crosby with clout.

So here they were, on one long-ass flight half-way around the world.  This was one of two charters needed to accommodate everyone once word of Jamie’s plan had spread around the league.  He’d expected only a few of the guys to come.  Friends.  The under 23 club.  Olympic teammates.  Penguins. But it had grown, and grown quickly.

The list was a who’s who of current NHL players, along with a few retired guys who’d wanted to come. It truly was going to be an all-star showcase.  If you’re gonna do something, do it right, they said.

“K”  Jame prompted.

“Kylie the kangaroo went out for a hop about.  On the way she stopped to see her friends.  Walla the Koala sat in the eucalyptus tree, munching on a twig.  The kookaburra laughed like it was the funniest thing.”  Kylie sang as she played.

“Y”

“Nellie the yellow-footed antechinus ran across her path, followed by Kylie’s distant cousin.  ‘Why Wilbur the rock wallaby, why are you chasing Nellie.  Cause she’s small, and wee, and yellow-footed just like me.”

Jamie chuckled.  By now, Kylie’s song had caught the attention of those sitting around them.  Everyone had stopped to listen.  

“Okay, L.”  Jamie said.

“Livia the Lyrebird sat on a log, watching this strange site.  Kylie shook her head when she mocked them all, mimicking the laughing kookaburra’s call.”

“I.”

“Kibus the ibis was looking mighty grand.  Kylie asked him what was up and he said he was playing with the band.  White and black and all decked out, the boys found their stage.  Kylie stayed and listened in as they began to play.”  Kylie sang.  

“E.”  Jamie smiled.

“Edison the Emu was the last friend Kylie saw.  He was playing catch with his friend, Edna the Echidna.  Kylie waved and keep on-going on her hop about.”

“Very nice.”  Jamie said, starting to applaud.

“Not done yet,” Kylie said, looking around at everyone.

“On her hop, Kylie thought of all the friends she’d missed.  The bandicoot, the bilby, and the crazy dingo.  Joanna the goanna, who was never at home.  Of course there’s that platypus, Polly is her name. Kylie’s sure that God had fun, coming up with her to name.  And that’s the end of my song.  I hope you have enjoyed, learning with me the names of some Aussie animals.”  

Kylie stood up and took a deep bow.  The plane broke out in applause and chorus’ of ‘bravo, bravo’.  Jamie beamed proudly.

“She came up with that all on her own?”  Sid asked.

“Yep.  Well, the words.  I helped with the music part.”

“She’s amazing.”  Sid said proudly.  

[malleedesign]

New Post has been published on http://malleedesign.com.au/back-from-a-bird-language-retreat/

Back from a Bird Language Retreat

The mantra of the weekend, a quote shared by JA Baker: “The hardest thing of all is to see what is really there.”

_____________________________________ By Hannah Preston

Two weeks ago I mentored at a bird language and nature connection retreat hosted by Wangat Lodge and run by environmental educator and naturalist Andrew Turbill. Boy oh boy did I learn a lot about birds!

Wangat lodge is in a beautiful spot nestled amongst eucalypt forest and rainforest on the edge of Barrington Tops National Park, on the brink of the Chichester River. The vibrancy and life of the bush surrounding the lodge was outstanding – birds were absolutely everywhere, nesting and feeding and chattering.

By the river we saw Scarlet Honeyeaters feeding in the bottlebrush overhanging the waterway, and some participants were lucky enough to see platypi.

There were about 50 of us at the retreat, nature enthusiasts, scientific minds, family and ecologically passionate folk. The main activity was sit-spotting, which involved going to the same place in the bush everyday where we observed birds and nature for about an hour. We then came back together as a big group to share our experiences of bird-watching, the calls we heard and the behaviours we saw.

One of the highlights for me was watching a breeding pair of little Brown Thornbills hopping to and from spears of Lomandra grass right in front of me, making their almost insect-like ‘zip zips’ and melodic warbles amongst the grasses. Perhaps establishing territory and/or singing their companion calls.

Another character at the workshop was this King Parrot who liked to sit in on our group discussions up in the Cheese tree Glochidion ferdinandi (sometimes whizzing right past our ears!). He was also the first one to check out the birdbaths we set up around the property, you can see him investigating a mini dish in the video below.

Andrew was a fantastic host with a knack for storytelling. He took us on many in-depth discussions about the history of birds, the meaning of their calls, the interconnectedness they have with our greater ecology and guiding us one afternoon on a bird walk with him (a real highlight).

His generosity and articulation was outstanding and I now find myself noticing things about birds here and there that I was blind to noticing before – the ruckus alarm calls of New Holland Honeyeaters as I visit their territory, the outstanding mimicry of little birds like the yellow-throated scrubwrens as they attend their nest and much more confusing chatter that I’m yet to understand!

One of the amazing things I learnt was that lyrebirds are one of the world’s oldest songbirds, likely surviving the Chicxulub asteroid impact that wiped out all almost all other existing bird species 65 million years ago, bringing the dinosaur era to its knees. Being a ground bird it might have been able to shelter from the global wildfires that ensued and highly sulphurised atmosphere that tree-nesting birds couldn’t handle. eBird has some amazing photos and calls of the species https://ebird.org/species/suplyr1

At the end of the retreat people jumped up to share like-minded events and links to bird resources. I’ve put together a list of some of below for those that are interested.

Bird Language 2021! The retreat is happening again next year 14th-17th October 2021. You can contact Wangat Lodge to express your interest at http://www.wangat.com.au/contact

Andrew Turbill has a website with his bio and happening here: http://www.cel.org.au/andrew-turbill/

Wild by Nature programs with Wildcraft Australia (sometimes also hosted by Wangat lodge), see http://www.wildcraftaustralia.com/

Workshops and nature connection with Wild Search Australia based in Byron Bay https://wildsearchaustralia.com.au/

Happy birdwatching,

Hannah

_____________________________________ By Kath

I booked myself and my family into the Bird Language and Nature Connection Retreat after chatting to Dan Lyons the Wangat Lodge owner over the phone. Dan is a wonderfully passionate human who is building on the community at Wangat. I had wanted to take my kids there earlier in the year and though they were only 2 of the 4 child participants in the workshop they got so much out of it thanks to Andrew’s incredible educator skills.

There was never a dull moment during the 3 days, our time was packed with talks, walks, sit spots and various activities to help us listen and connect with our bush surroundings. We enjoyed many swims in the various spots on the river.

My sit spot was actually on the river bank amongst the mossy logs, rocks and ferns, where I heard Golden Whistlers, Thornbills and Wrens. I walked under a gateway of fern covered branches, past this beautiful Cymbidium suave and along the river with relish every time. I embraced the time to sit and simply listen, and working from 30 minutes to 1 hour of sitting and listening was not an issue for me, it was a luxury I relished😉

I learned a few bird calls I didn’t know however the break through for me came when I could break down the cacophony of birdsong into individual calls, regardless of not being able to ID the sounds. Being able to sift through the sounds of the bush and really listen was a ‘light bulb’ moment and I haven’t been able to turn my ears off since. Waking in the morning after we got back I realised how many bird calls I could hear just simply laying in my bed with the window open.

One of the first activities was drawing the sound of the bird calls you could hear, being a visual person this helped immensely for me. The other thing which helped was just letting go of “trying”, by the third day I was a lot more relaxed and had pretty much given up on even seeing the birds I could hear. So then what happens? I sit more calmly, my gaze is softer and I am not taking notes or scribbling away and I see and hear so many more birds! It is like a nature meditation, sorry if that is a bit too cosmic for some of you 🤣

We also got together in small groups based on our geographic locations and made up a rough seasonal calendar of what we have observed in nature in our areas. What is flowering, bird calls, insects, whales, weather patterns etc. all these things are affecting us and the wildlife all the time, it was great getting it down on paper and I have made a pact with myself to chart these observations month by month in my little tech of the woods. Plus also to do some sit spots in my local bushland 💚

Thankyou Andrew for opening my ears and putting everything back into focus again. Wangat Lodge we will be back!

[history-rover]

10 Fave Characters

Thank you to @todorokishouts for tagging me!

Rules: Post your 10 favorite characters from 10 different fandoms then tag 10 different blogs!!

In no particular order, here we go!

1) Cirilla “Ciri” Fiona Elen Riannon (The Witcher 3)

Even when being chased by the Wild Hunt, she still takes the time to be kind to others (such as the lost girl travelling in The King of the Wolves quest), which really cemented her as one of my favourite characters in the game. She has the ability to cross time and space, which let’s face it, is pretty bad ass, and she named her horse Kelpie. Enough said.

2) Ruth (The Ancient Magus Bride)

I love every single one of the characters in The Ancient Magus Bride, but as a dog owner, Ruth’s story hit especially close to my heart, to the point where I actually started crying during the Isabelle scene. 

3) Finn (Star Wars)

I have a lot of faves in Star Wars, but ultimately I went with Finn (sorry Rey and Poe). Despite being indoctrinated from what was most likely birth, he refused to let it change him as a person, and when given the option to leave (which I would honestly have taken), he ultimately chose to return to fight.

4) Todoroki Shouto (Boku No Hero Academia)

Just. His everything. His backstory episodes legit made me cry, and I love his character growth and development so much? Also, I’m a sucker for awkward characters. 

5) Alphonse Elric (Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood)

Alphonse went through so much, like ffs he straight up lost his entire body, but he refused to let it change him as a person. He’s one of the kindest characters in the series imo, and even when given the option to return to his body, something he wished for so badly, he still decided to stay in the armour in order to protect everyone. 

6) Yuuri Katsuki (Yuri on Ice)

Yuri on Ice is special to me in that it got me to return to figure skating when not even Yuzuru Hanyu during Soichi 2014 could, and a good reason for that was because of the lead character’s story, and his very character. Despite wanting to murder him sometimes for his miscommunication, he remains one of the largest reasons why this show is so close to my heart.

7) Joan Watson (Elementary)

Sherlock Holmes was the reason why I got into mystery/detective fiction in the first place, and I was thrilled to learn about Lucy Liu being cast as Joan Watson, a character which I had adored since I was 12. Her backstory and growth was so engaging, and I frankly could not have asked for more.

8) Jake Peralta (Brooklyn Nine Nine)

Brooklyn Nine Nine was one of the first comedy TV series that I watched that never failed to make me laugh or smile, and watching Jake Peralta’s antics was a big reason for that! His growth as a character was so well done, and I loved how his relationships with Amy and Captain Holt developed over the course of the show.

9) Jane Villanueva (Jane the Virgin)

One of my fondest memories is watching Jane the Virgin with my cousin, and just screaming over everything that happened. Jane’s story was the part that drew me into this series, and she’s remained one of my favourite characters ever since.

10) Joyce Byers (Stranger Things)

Mother of the Year Award. Enough said.

Okay, I’m going to tag @lovelytitania @dystopiansushi @emerald-imperial @crispykrimi @autisticsurei @pinkhairedlesbianadventures @nicaforov @slightlied @lyrebirds-writes @lucycamui

[elisende]

Wild Game (1/3)

Characters: Halsin/OFC, Halsin/OMC, Kagha Warnings: Dubcon, implied drug use Rated: E

Words: 1285

Part I

What no one understood about Halsin was that he was a man of great, if not inexhaustible, forbearance.

To the initiate convinced his master was secretly one of “the lizard folk” in a cunning disguise, Halsin proffered a barely raised eyebrow.

He merely sighed when Glinzel, a half-drow lay priestess, lobbied him for an idol of Silvanus for her bedchamber, and dismissed her with a terse wave when she suggested that his fine person might be a reasonable substitute to decorate it, if the idol was needed elsewhere.  Though he allowed that he had growled a bit when she added “preferably nude” to her request.

And when a minor riot broke out at breakfast between a halfling, two initiates, and a semi-crazed boar over a bowl of honeyed wheat berries, he hardly raised his voice--only enough to be heard over the din of hooves trampling over the halfling’s hammered breastplate.

But even his considerable patience was not without limits.  And that patience dried up all the faster when certain needs went unmet for too long.

Worse, the Druids could sense his hunger, and like lascivious Glinzel, many sought to offer themselves up as tribute to his desire.  But he’d walked down that road before--too many times--and had vowed never again.  What began as an innocent dalliance all too often ended ugly, creating disharmony in the Circle: accusations of favoritism, dinner-ruining recriminations, and general ill feeling that hung about like a persistent, swampy fug.

Kagha had been his last--and he swore to himself, final--mistake, nearly four decades ago.  Every time his needs threatened to overcome his judgment, he reminded himself of the sight of her jilted lover--a high elf he had been, and from a rather good family in Evermeet--running bare-arsed through the grove, covered in pseudo-mystical symbols and pig shit he’d mistaken for woad, howling some laboured rhyme about Kagha’s tits.  It was only by Silvanus’s sweet grace he longer recalled the words of that poem.  

Nearly a decade after that final incident and his self-imposed vow, the situation had seemed nigh intractable--for his needs, and the bear’s needs, were inescapable, yet discord, if not outright chaos, was sure to follow if he bedded another member of his Circle.

The answer was so obvious.

It came to him on a journey to High Forest.  The Wood Elves there were his people, though the kingdom where his kin once ranged was long, long abandoned.  Elves had left for Evermeet, goblins proliferated, humans pushed them back, then elves returned and reclaimed their lost land, as the centuries passed.  Much of what had been was lost, but some traditions remained, in the deep wild of southern reaches.

None more beloved to his people than Aerith Av’in.  The Wild Game.

In truth, he’d nearly forgotten the Wild Game of his youth.  He might have lost even those distant memories if he hadn’t stumbled onto the huntress that moonstruck night.

She wore her auburn hair in a long braid down her sinuous back; the tip just brushed the swell of her buttocks.  Naked, she was, and he only guessed she was a hunter because of the long, deadly bow she carried, its tips spiked in thorns.  

Her eyes, gold-ringed like a goshawk’s, scanned the shadowed pines of the grove, but he saw her long before she noticed him watching her.  He took her in, mystified: at once so defenseless in her nakedness, yet so alert, and armed.  And then he remembered the Aerith A’vin, the Wild Game of his boyhood.

It was consecrated to the Leaflord, though religion, per se, was the last thing on his mind when he hunted the Aerith A’vin as a youth.  As he watched the huntress thumb her bowstring, his loins twitched with the sudden, visceral memory: an arched back, a wordless moan, the first, sweet plunge into a woman’s wetness.  He gasped and there in the present, the huntress had spun and drawn her bow taut, eyes wide.  Her form was perfect in every way.

He didn’t lift his hands.  Didn’t trust himself even to breathe.  His eyes held hers, showing he understood.  

That look, the recognition exchanged between hunter and prey, was part of the ritual--of the immortal hunt, between elf and beast, and of the Wild Game.  Valatoth khalgith, the life-giving glance.  His life and body had been forfeited to the huntress, and were hers to command--in whatever way she wished.

She had taken him in the richness of the pine duff, and forever after the scent of pine pitch would call back the memory of the huntress, gold-ringed eyes fixing him to the ground as she rode him, hunting knife to his throat.  A trickle of blood as she lost control, pleasure overtaking her senses, and the strangled cry that escaped his throat had drawn others to them, others who claimed him in turn. 

The ritual was repeated, twice, thrice, and again, until the moon dipped low in the sky and left them all gasping, a raven haired warrior with tattooed snakes writhing up his forearms knelt over Halsin, gripping him around the shoulders like a wrestler, his final thrusts and Halsin’s pleasured groans punctuating the end of the night of worship.  

Never was the ritual spoken of beyond the night, always the waxing sixth moon of the year, and if he should chance upon the raven haired elf later in his journey, neither would speak of that night when Halsin had been prey under the hunter’s eager hands.

Now, when the six month approached and Halsin’s unslaked desire threatened the harmony he cherished, he undertook his journey.

“I don’t understand,” Kagha said, watching him pack a few necessaries.

Simple healing potions, a jar of lavender oil to help him relax into his evening meditation, some dried chamomile for his tea, a pinch of the greenleaf for recreation, and a pretty feather he liked, plucked from a sleeping lyrebird.  Kagha scowled at Halsin even as her eyes begged him not to leave.  

“It’s not required that you understand,” he answered, too sharply.  His patience was now worn to a brittle veneer that shattered at the slightest probing.  Her expression closed, but not so quickly that he missed the hurt that flashed across her features.

“You are the most talented Druid I’ve trained,” he said in a more measured tone.  “That is why I’m leaving the Circle in your care.”

Her eyes lit up--too eagerly, she was ever too ready to assume power, and he hoped that this brief taste of the trials of leadership would cure her of at least some of her overweening ambition.  

“I will keep the Circle strong,” she said, already standing straighter, lifting her chin.

“You will quickly learn that the best way to do that,” he said, “Is by keeping it in harmony.  And to listen more than you speak.”

She opened her mouth as though to launch into one of her tirades but stopped herself just in time, replying with a simple, “Yes, Master Druid.”  He winced, as though the words were a lash.  She’d called him that in fun, many years ago, with honey dripping from her fingers, her unbound hair, her breasts--

He turned abruptly to his pack, decided the thing was useless after all, and tossed it into one of the illimitable crates they left laying around the sanctum, as though it were a warehouse, not consecrated ground.  

“Well then, Treefather’s blessing to you,” he said, clapping her on the shoulder.  Anyone else in the Circle he might have hugged, but he couldn’t bear to see her pull away from him.

She bowed her head, and because he was already gone he didn’t see the tears that glistened in her eyes, unshed.

[aurelliocheek]

The future of influencer marketing? Dynamic deepfake ads.

This guest post is written by Simon Lejeune, the Head of User Acquisition at Hopper.

Influencer marketing moves fast, and it’s hard to keep up with new innovations. New Brand Collaboration tools, revenue share deals, swipe-up tracking links, paying in-kind or with Venmo, content licensing, merchandising, etc. There are dozens of ways to partner with influencers and to measure their performance for your brand.

The landscape changes quickly, too, with creators amassing millions of followers overnight and new networks and niches popping up all the time. This fast-paced environment creates low-price opportunities for the first moving brands.

Influencers & creators are critical to the growth of ad-funded platforms.

Regular people share less on public social media. Online social interactions now mostly happen in private messaging. But there’s no clear monetization strategy yet for chat apps. Social media companies have to invest in news, viral content, and live streaming to keep capturing valuable attention.

Network effects used to be the moat of social media apps. Increasingly, the key to keeping users scrolling is to attract creators to the platform. Facebook, Google (YouTube), TikTok, and Snapchat are all making moves in that direction. If Facebook or Snapchat paid $100,000 to the top 100 TikTokkers to exclusively share content on Instagram or Snap for a year, that would be a solid $10M investment.

A recent example was Corinna Kopf, one of the most popular Fortnite streamers, moving from Twitch to stream exclusively on Facebook. The streaming war for TV content is already intense; the one for social media creators might become even messier!

Influencer ads at scale perform better than brand content.

Influencer marketing, as a user acquisition channel, is painful to scale. One or two people can deploy $1M in Facebook ads every month, from end to end. But signing $1M in influencer deals, monitoring the campaigns, and tracking their performance is a nightmare. Working with nano-influencers is a waste of time; spending big on a handful of celebrities is risky.

One way out is to run influencer ads. Paying for Instagram Stories that stay up for 24h on the influencer’s profile and are viewed by 10% of their followers is not very effective.

But use the video as an Instagram Story ad, spend $250k on carefully targeted audiences, with a 25% boost in ROI compared to your regular creatives, and it gets interesting.

Ads on social media don’t add value and feel like an interruption, like TV ads. But influencer ads are closer to the content that users are already watching, and as a result, engagement is higher.

The simple reason influencer ads perform better than normal ads is that they don’t look like ads at all.

The quality of influencer traffic can vary a lot but tends to normalize with a broad portfolio of influencers. One way of doing influencer ads is to get access to the video content (with licensing rights) and use it as an ad creative from your brand account.

Facebook has also allowed advertisers to directly spend ad money via the influencer’s account, basically boosting their posts. The next step in that direction would be for brands to boost an influencer’s publication, and the post doesn’t have to appear on the influencer’s public profile anymore!

You might not get an initial boost by reaching the influencer’s followers, but you can still target any audience and for as long as you want. For influencers, it’s a game-changer, since some of them are starting to reach saturation themselves and don’t want to look like sellouts. 

Could Facebook cut a $1B yearly check to influencers?

These new ways to partner are bringing influencers closer to the ad money and the value they create. If the performance of influencer ads is better than regular ads, and Facebook can command a higher CPM for those, Facebook could share some of that extra revenue.

If the increase in ROI for brands was 20%, Facebook could charge 20% more for the same inventory. Let’s say 20% of all Facebook ads become influencer ads, and Facebook shares half of that extra revenue, that would be a payout of $70B*20%*20%*50% = $1.4B for creators every year.

No more sketchy Venmo payments — the influencer’s price could be negotiated directly on Facebook or baked into the CPM. Creators and influencers would flock back to Facebook and Instagram, as the revenue potential would be much higher than on TikTok and other new networks.

Interestingly, Facebook’s narrative arc is now getting closer and closer to YouTube or even Netflix, where content is what matters the most, and tech becomes secondary.

The intersection of the influencer ads and automation trends

Another important trend in social is dynamic creatives and automation. Dynamic campaigns are micro-targeted ads at scale, with the delivery, targeting, and optimization controlled by the ad platform.

Advertisers can upload a massive catalog of products and a few creative templates and Facebook, Google, Snapchat, Pinterest, et al then run millions of different ads. The product is targeted at a user based on their web and mobile browsing, social media activity, offline data, etc. Most of the optimization is a black box managed by Google and Facebook machine-learning algorithms. There’s not a lot you can do as a marketer. 

Performance marketers are like plumbers, making sure the ROI and LTV data flows to the algorithms, and that your catalog is up to date with the correct pricing and real-time availability.

In the long term, it levels the playing field and protects from some targeting abuses. It becomes a battle of the better business models, but it allows Google and Facebook to extract most of the margins.

Influencer ads currently don’t fit with this trend. You could run 50 or 100 influencer ads, targeted at different audiences and with a few variations for each, but not 10,000.

The next frontier at the intersection of these two trends could be dynamic voiceover and deepfake videos.

Text-to-speech has been around for a while. It’s already relatively easy to integrate your product catalog, using the Google Cloud API to generate dynamic voiceover on ads.

About 55% of users browse Facebook with sound on, and even more in Stories. But text-to-speech mechanics, even the most advanced ones from Google, still feels very robotic.

A few small companies are showing very exciting progress in this area. One of them is Lyrebird, from Montreal, who was recently acquired by Descript. They can clone any voice if you send them a few minutes of it reading something, then make it say whatever you want.

Deepfake video is another area progressing very fast. It’s now possible to upload any face to an existing video or do small lip-sync modifications to someone reading your ad copy. The quality is very close to being acceptable for Facebook ads.

Imagine a new kind of influencer deal, where you ask for a sample of 15 minutes of their voice and a few video shots. Using that, you could create thousands of hyper-targeted ads using the same influencer video. Zalando already did something similar with Cara Delevigne, but they made her read out loud thousands of city names in Europe, one by one.

In a few years, celebrities won’t have to go on set to shoot ads; they’ll just lease their face and their voices to the brands and agencies.

What to do today as a performance marketer?

Dedicate more time to influencers than their current budget share. Spend some money and find what works for your brand. Try to be efficient with the audience and deal sizes (not too small, not too large). License the content that’s shot by influencers and use it as creatives. Don’t assume anything; the weirdest and goofiest videos will work better, so embrace the randomness. Reach out to authors of already viral tweets and TikToks to ask if you can use the content in your ads.

User acquisition on Facebook and Google is becoming more automated, commoditized, and boring. Dynamic and Universal App Campaigns remove a lot of the fun and creativity out of digital marketing. They also lead to local maxima where marketers are stuck in an endless loop of swapping taglines and banner ads, waiting for the algorithm’s feedback: Good, Best, Low, Still Learning, …

Influencer marketing, on the other hand, opens up a whole new field of exciting possibilities.

Simon Lejeune is the Head of User Acquisition at Hopper, the most downloaded flights & hotels booking app in North America.

Photo by Phillip Glickman on Unsplash

The post The future of influencer marketing? Dynamic deepfake ads. appeared first on Mobile Dev Memo.

The future of influencer marketing? Dynamic deepfake ads. published first on https://leolarsonblog.tumblr.com/

[jeremystrele]

The Miniature Boat Maker Working Out Of An Off-Grid Shipping Container

The Miniature Boat Maker Working Out Of An Off-Grid Shipping Container

Studio Visit

by Sally Tabart

Photo – Alisha Gore for The Design Files.

Photo – Alisha Gore for The Design Files.

Photo – Alisha Gore for The Design Files.

Photo – Alisha Gore for The Design Files.

Photo – Alisha Gore for The Design Files.

Photo – Alisha Gore for The Design Files.

Photo – Alisha Gore for The Design Files.

Photo – Alisha Gore for The Design Files.

Photo – Alisha Gore for The Design Files.

Photo – Alisha Gore for The Design Files.

Photo – Alisha Gore for The Design Files.

Photo – Alisha Gore for The Design Files.

Photo – Alisha Gore for The Design Files.

Photo – Alisha Gore for The Design Files.

Photo – Alisha Gore for The Design Files.

Sculptor and miniature boat maker Elise Cameron Smith happened upon woodworking in a round-about way, whist undertaking a degree in product design. She loved the craft so much, she never ended up going back into design, instead enrolling in a one-year intensive furniture making course.

The boats were a bit of an accident too. ‘I made my first boats back in 2014. I had been making furniture for a few years, and always enjoyed making little sculpture pieces out of offcuts and waste materials’, Elise tells. ‘I found a few nice curves and joined them together and that’s how the first miniature boat came to life!’

There’s something pretty magical about the way Elise works – she approaches her craft almost as if she’s living in a different time. She takes great care to ensure her materials are sustainably sourced – either FSC Certified White Beech or offcuts from furniture making friends – and any scraps she has leftover are used to make the fire that cooks her lunch each day in the studio (usually roast potatoes!). The sawdust her work generates goes down the compost toilet.

We visited Elise in her studio in Helensburgh to learn more about her life as Captain Elise Cameron Smith – ‘miniature boat maker and builder of dreams’!

Were you a creative kid growing up, and have you had any formal arts training?

I’m not sure that I was a super creative young kid, I really loved everything to do with camping, fishing and the beach.

I was around 20 when I started dedicating a lot of time and effort to the creative world. I was studying Product Design, and quickly realised I had zero engineering skills, and was really struggling. I enrolled in a part-time woodworking course just to try to help me with that [product design], but after a few hours in the workshop I fell in love with making. After that, I enrolled in a one-year intensive fine furniture making course at the Sturt School For Wood in Mittagong, and just loved it so much I never went back into design.

Where does your love of boats come from?

My Dad always had fishing boats and we spent so many weekends as a family out on the water when I was growing up. I’ve got a little tinny called Daisy, she’s a little old and rough – but I like her that way!

I love the symbolism of a boat, which can represent an adventure, a crossing or a new dream, or a new experience of any kind. You can be the master of your own destiny. And whether you’re into boats or not, people still really connect with that symbolism.

Tell us a little about your woodworking process, and the (amazing!) space you work out of?

A few months ago I set up an off-grid shipping container workshop in the bush.  I get regular visits from a big family of wallabies, and the occasional deer. There are lyrebirds, kookaburras and black cockatoos and I feel so lucky to go to work in such an amazing environment every day.

These days I’ll smash out a few hours of machining early in the week, and get the generator fired for that. Then there are days of quiet hand tool work –  just carving, shaping, sanding and finishing things off. Sometimes I’ll listen to podcasts and music, but a lot of the time I like the silence and enjoy listening to the birds.

It’s so good working on your own, you can get into real focus mode, and concentrate for really long periods of time. But sometimes to keep myself sane I like to take my little rowboat out and paddle around in the afternoons. And I made a swing for the verandah which is also lots of fun.

What inspires your work? 

The ocean and the water is always my biggest source of inspiration and creativity, but I love reading old woodworking books, and also really like romance novels and Wes Anderson films.

What are you looking forward to this year – do you have any dream projects on your mind?

This year I want to build a tiny house that looks like a boat shed, with a giant porthole window looking out into the bush. And I want to make all the walls all from shingles. I don’t know how to do any of these things yet, but I’m looking forward to figuring it out!

Check out Elise’s website and online store here, and keep up with all her creative adventures on Instagram.