#plus i used some of the our generation stuff

[voidingintotheshout]

Two things:

First, all of that discourse has aged like milk, because of the difficult and precarious position that LGBTQIA plus people are in right now. We didn’t know the future. We thought that there was a lot more work to do and we wanted actual allyship instead of this fake stuff. We didn’t know that at the time 2018ish was gonna be the Highwater mark for gay rights in America.

Second, discourse is always going to exist because it’s a thing that young people do when they are trying to figure out their place in a spectrum of experiences, but people can generally only do that by kicking the tires a little bit. Well, that and some people are just jerks/bigots that don’t really consider other types of existence to be valid and they’re probably never going to be anything other than “training weights” things in the community that kind of just hold you back and impede your progress under the guise of strengthening you/the community.

In conclusion, even if we had less infighting, I don’t think it would’ve stopped the rise of Donald Trump, and all of the people who, unbeknownst to us, had been biding their time to strip us of our rights. Even some of our friends and coworkers, it turned out, were only saying a bunch of empty words about Allyship, but didn’t actually give a shit about our rights which probably brings us back to the post in general. 

very funny (irritating) to me that everyone whined and yelled about stupid rainbow capitalism and how performative wokeness/allyship is a net bad we should all refuse to support and now like.

tumblr is doing nothing for pride and target isn't selling much (if any) of their pride collection offline except at certain stores (in democratic areas, basically) and build a bear has a much tinier collection than normal and all the actual pride stuff is on their "adult" website (not sure if it's in stores, but pride = adult is a hell of a message)

there are genuinely good criticisms for performative allyship in all its applications. it shouldn't be the only thing we expect from people and companies. but if all the shit I see being called performative stopped tomorrow then in terms of the LGBTQ+ community especially we just. wouldn't talk about queerness or queer issues or celebrate pride or do anything.

open your fucking eyes. we are very close politically to having gay marriage rolled back. now companies are basically being let off the hook to even make a miniscule effort (which matters to the people who don't have access to any other kind of support in their communities! which normalizes the community in public spaces!) because the only reaction they have gotten over the last few years are negative ones from BOTH sides.

we are so entrenched in discourse at all times for the sake of our OWN performance of who is the wokest and who is REALLY an ally or a good community member that we have basically handed over all the work of activists of the last several decades to the other side because we'd rather scream at each other over fucking chicken restaurants and shit than the real life backsliding that's happening.

and this goes for other shit too. feminism, poc rights, all of it.

also. trans rights aren't discourse and aren't just culture war arguments. in case any terfs think they can spin this to be antitrans.

[autumnrory]

finally did a little of the organizing i’ve been meaning to do for ages and of course it wasn’t even that bad other than how hot it is in the attic, it didn’t take much time and i was able to make some floorspace though of course i still have all the legos i need to deal with and i pulled out a couple more things to go through/get rid of BUT it looks slightly less horrible in my room so i’m pleased

plus i have had some other ideas recently about switching some drawers around, it would just be a whole thing to do that so i really wanna think on how best to go about it before i start making that mess

[unforth]

Ngl as a small business owner who puts out something extremely pirate-able and who has never earned enough to make a pay check, this...

...is extremely upsetting.

Do y'all realize that most small business are maybe a handful of people? Do y'all realize that company's like LLCs exist to protect owners from legal and financial repercussions if the company falls apart? I'm not a company because I have stockholders, I'm a company so that if the business goes bankrupt the banks can't seize my fucking house. It's not evil to use existing legal structures to protect my family's assets. It's not unreasonable to ask people not to steal from businesses like mine.

It's like on Tumblr when it's One Artist or One Author Doing The Thing Themself you guys are all about it but the minute anyone tries to collectivize to do better we go from One Person Against The World to The Embodiment of Capitistic Evil with no in between, which is especially insane coming from the website that claims to think individualism has turned toxic and we should do more with community organization. The minute lots of people are involved in a business, there HAS to be legal structures like contracts and shit to protect the people involved. The Lone Creator Forging a Path is great for that one person. What about everyone else?

And so... some of us try to make a company to lift up a group.

And then I see shit takes like this.

Maybe. Maybe DONT fucking pirate from literally anyone just cause they've got the word "company" I'm the name?

Maybe remember that for small businesses, yes even when they're a company, there's a single person, or a family, or a group of friends, who are working their asses off to build something, and actually? Stealing from them makes you a FUCKING DICK.

Like. You realize we're just people right? Other regular people trying to survive the dystopian hellscape that is the now?

Maybe stop acting like you're automatically entitled to the labor and creations of others solely because you've decided that there is an entire huge category of people it's okay to steal from.

Like honestly. What the fuck.

[arcane-ish]

I'm so glad that not more of the writers bad headcanons made it on screen (thank you Fortiche maybe?). And I think for what made it on screen this fills the holes best.

I think we can even "marry" the letter to the concept that Vi's death is the diverging point, not the letter (why would Silco finding the letter cause Vi to die in that explosion?)

I've always read season 1 Silco as somebody who was torn, where there was still part of him that wished there was a way to get Vander on board, but also probably knew it wasn't going to happen, plus also revenge and eventually not wanting it anymore.

So I can headwank:

SIlco is already skulking around, watching Vander, wondering what to do with him, seizing him up

Vi dies

Silco is aware that she was Felicia and Connel's kid and he has really mixed feelings. And so for the first time he goes back to the old shack and finds the letter.

Letter in hand he shows up at Vander's and it gives him additional ammunition "you said you were sorry, so fucking join up, you already fucked up one promise to our friend"

For the record: I genuinely think that Heimerdinger showing up and giving them free stuff (which as an immortal yordle is not a big deal) would be really interesting for Silco. I think Silco is a very paranoid guy who generally thinks that good things never happen. So having weirdo free stuff guy I think would be a really interesting challenge for his world view.

(And that's how I imagine the chill and peaceful SIlco coming around. That they really ended up winning with a mix of both approaches. That Silco also learns that in some situation easing up and pressing forward with negotiations can give you really advantages (ie in the show advancements area clealy being made by Caitlyn's pity, so selectively exploiting the pity of key figures can be useful rather than going in force only).

was the alternate universe Ekko ended up in meant to feel disturbing and like everyone was an artificial husk of themselves? the whole time I was waiting for it to be a Arcane induced hallucination trick. none of that made me go "aww look at how it could have been" it made me go "oh this is WRONG. there is a trick here"

[bmpmp3]

i do think its kinda funny when i see someone in the year of our lord 2024 talk about vocal synth music like its all gone downhill since like 2010 because like dont get me wrong i love a good niconicodouga-ass 2008 ass vocaloid joint BUT also like. the past couple years have had the most fascinatingly creative and expressive uses of vocal synthesizers ive ever heard in my life DJFSKHJDFS dont write it all off just yet!!

[screamingay]

somehow these current roommates we have are the worst that ive known yet and last semester we literally had a girl who smoked cigs IN her bedroom. list of grievances below lol

[imabiscuitinthousandworlds]

how is everyone feeling on this fine monday?

[mantisgodsdomain]

We think about the cockroach intro, we think about Gregorsa, we're at least 50% sure it's foreshadowing to whatever he's got going on.

[showyoumyfavoriteobsession]

How To Talk To Your Boss About ChatGPT

[teddybear-zero]

as bad of an experience i had interacting with other atinys and arena staff at the Ateez concert i went to, it was so heartening to see how respectful and loving everyone was to Ateez themselves.

i really, really hope that i see carats giving Seventeen the same amount of love and respect on the upcoming tour

[bussinpoots]

Getting asked at the Gym by my trainer: "So what was your reason for deciding to work out like this?"

What I said: "Just want to finally get on top of my health." What I meant, "I feel dumb for this being my mini fitness dream, but I always wanted to be one day asked to in one of those mr beast hide and seek videos. i dont even want the money (i do need it but this is a silly dream im talking about) I just want to be the guy who is absolutely batshit insane but seemed normal when first on camera but is like. hiding gymnastic king god. My proudest accomplishment is that I've never been found in a hide and seek game. It's lame as hell. I want it so bad. Do I think this would ever happen? fuck no. But I pretend in my mind it will and it gets me up to work out bc what if mr beast turned up at my door like "Hi niche faceless guy who used to stream 10 years ago but didn't keep up with it. be in my video." then he flies me to America to be in a video.

My second dream for when the first one doesn't get me out of bed is "the circus will never hire you if you wont even get out of bed"

either way im still clown

[ocdhuacheng]

i love looking up uchi-con in the artist alley discord servers im in bc ppl always have nice things to say about it i feel like such a proud mom. thats my baby <3

[darkspace7]

Confession: Sometimes I take people’s plastic water bottles when they’re not looking and refill them (never all the way though, just enough to slip under the owner’s radar) with tap water.

That way, when they take a swig I get the satisfaction of knowing not only can they not tell the difference between tap and bottled water but the fact they get a little bit of extra hydration to get them through the day.

[see-arcane]

Our good friend Jonathan Harker is getting ready to leave for his business trip, Mina Murray is picking out a new journal, Lucy Westenra is charming a gaggle of smitten suitors, Abraham van Helsing is wrapping up his lectures, and Castle Dracula is prepping the guest room for a very long stay.

Which must mean that Dracula Season is here again!

 ‘Dracula Season’ being a catchall term for the voracious reading, memeing, writing, illustrating, analyzing, and general fun-having that’s ensued since Matt Kirkland’s project, Dracula Daily, caught on with us back in 2022. The Substack had already been running before then, but it sparked a conflagration as time went on and readers old and new to Bram Stoker’s Dracula—the actual novel, not Coppola’s fanfiction—devoured it in a way that scratched an itch none of us knew we had. Stoker wrote the book in epistolary fashion, clumping sections together as needed for the pacing without perfect adherence to chronological order. Matt went ahead and put all the events in order and proceeded to set up a lovely chain of emails that delivered entries on those correlating dates.

This style of organization and pacing turned out to not only make the virtual book club that much easier to engage with, but left space in-between to stew on the story and relate with the characters themselves. Every day of waiting in the book feels weightier when you have to pace and sweat and worry in tandem with poor Jonathan trapped in the castle or Lucy wasting away or Mina running out the clock before she loses the fight for her own humanity. And while we sat with the story or the lulls between Dracula Seasons, some of us found ourselves craving more of that ghastly gothic horror goodness to the point that we figured:

“Well. Why don’t I make something?”

And then we did! Tons of creative works have been churned out in the wake of Dracula Daily’s high. I figured that while we’ve still got a bit of time to wait for May 3rd, we should check out all this new stuff in the meantime. (Plus a handful of neat stuff that just clicks with the Dracula itch overall.)

So, in the interest of Dracula Season pregaming, let’s take a look at…

FICTION

Blood of My Blood – A recent addition to the Dracula Bad Ending AU pile, and definitely one of the most harrowing and addictive group-produced narratives I’ve ever come across, Blood of My Blood is the dramatically gothic currently-WIP work of @ibrithir-was-here and @animate-mush’s devious design. Give or take a heap of other fascinated folks (hello!) adding ideas to put more Horror into the Horrors that our cast has to face. The premise:

The Transylvanian climax went fatally sour and the Harkers were forced to shelter with Dracula himself, including their half-vampire son, Quincey. Cut to two decades later, and Quincey finds himself out in modern London, smitten with Lu, adopted daughter of Arthur and Jack, and diving into certain bloodstained old documents that detail the real history of how his parents came to live in the castle. Said revelations coming not a moment too soon, as a storm is coming for him straight from the Carpathians…

Dracula Daily Sketch Collection – An array of illustrations that captures every entry beat by beat, the Dracula Daily Sketch Collection by Georgia Cook, alias @georgiacooked was dished out over the course of the last Dracula Season. Some of the most fun character designs out there.

Fanfiction Spotlight: BlueCatWriter – With a whopping 99 works devoted to the novel Dracula (so far, the number may have gone up since I blinked), @bluecatwriter is one of the most prolific and talented fanfiction scribblers out there. Romances, nightmares, and overlaps between the two seem to crop up the most, give or take a crossover. Seems fitting that those blue paw prints have contributed to BoMB too.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlefolk – An ongoing comic in which all your favorite characters from the Classics section get together and tackle some perils ranging from the mundane to the monstrous. Started by the amazing @mayhemchicken and posted on @lxgentlefolkcomic, this series is a love letter to beloved Victorian era lit, with a spotlight on the two couples leading the League. Namely, the Harkers, ala Dracula, and the Nortons, ala Sherlock Holmes,’ “A Scandal in Bohemia.” Mina and Irene are the driving investigative and steering forces here, and still deeply in love with their likewise-infatuated husbands, just like in their canons! What a concept! Alan.

Without spoiling the full character list, just know there are going to be a ton of familiar faces roaming around before you finish reading the first arc. Said arc having conveniently wrapped up just a few days ago! Give the comic and its bonus silliness a look if you’re in the mood for a new comfort-adventure epic.

Re: Dracula – Probably the most well-known and incredible thing to come out of the initial Dracula Daily wave. This podcast is a full audio drama that follows the same format as the Substack, with episodes coming out in time with the entries themselves. And it has an unfairly cool soundtrack. They have a Tumblr with @re-dracula, a site and a Patreon to check out before the series kicks up again on May 3rd. (Also, keep an eye out for their next work, an audio drama in the same style with Carmilla.)

The Soldier and the Solicitor – Another treat from @ibrithir-was-here, this one involves a bit of time travel trouble. Quincey Harker has stumbled out of World War I and into the same dark forest where his father once fled for his life…then runs into the man himself, on that same night. Jonathan Harker, young and starved and lost, who has no choice but to trust this stranger while the Weird Sisters are at his heels���despite said stranger having no shadow. It’s a tasty emotional trek, already complete on Tumblr, but now it’s turning into a Webtoon. While Ibrithir is juggling a number of other stories, she’ll be redrawing spruced up versions of the comic and adding a few new scenes as things unfold.

Substack Stack – You know what’s better than one emailed-out public domain book club? A mountain of them. Just. So, so many of them. You’ll see that a lot of these are finished, but some are still ticking along. Either way, they’re all great picks if you’re craving some more old school lit to fill the void between undead emails.

Frankenstein Weekly – Frankenstein

Jekyll and Hyde Weekly – The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Voyage of the Nautilus – Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

Letters from Watson – Sherlock Holmes

The Invisible Mail – The Invisible Man

Letters from Bunny – E.W. Hornung’s short stories of the eponymous Bunny and Raffles

Letters Regarding Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse’s Bertie Wooster short stories, including the novel, Right Ho, Jeeves

…

……

………

…The Beetle Weekly – The Beetle (NOTE: Do Not Read This.)

The Vampyres – A novella I finally wrenched through the gears of self-publication as of March this year. Starring a petite but powerful paranormal cast, The Vampyres, centers on an unscrupulous undead fellow who finds that the revenants of the world are being mowed down by an entity known only as ‘Quinn Morse.’ Between trying to save his neck and figure out where the shadowy bastard came from, the Vampyre in question crosses paths with a new paramour and handy human shield in the form of a grieving Good Samaritan. He’s even polite enough to invite the Vampyre into his home while he’s in dire straits! Surely this will end well. All the info is available here and a little author site is over here.

What Manner of Man – This is the one made for everyone who started out hoping there’d be a real love story with our good friend Jonathan Harker and the Count when he was at his most charismatic. Where that sea of wonders dried up into a mire of horror, What Manner of Man by @stjohnstarling keeps things firmly on the romantic tracks. This Substack stars the letter-writing priest Father Victor E. Ardelian as he finds himself meeting with one enigmatic Lord Alistair Vane. It isn’t long before interest turns into intrigue and intrigue into undead intimacies.

The entire novel has been completed—along with multiple epilogues in the author’s Patreon, allowing readers to choose for themselves just how the uncanny romance plays out in the end—and the Substack now has a number of other gothic goodies piling up in the meantime.  

NONFICTION

Dracula Daily: A Unique Reading Experience: This one comes courtesy of @realwomenofgaming. It’s a short and sweet piece that amounts to a fun snapshot of the entire Dracula Daily ride. A cozy couple-minute read.

‘Dracula Daily’ is the One Substack You Need a Subscription To: Features my favorite Matt Kirkland interview. @mattkirkland, if you’re still floating around on here, thank you for dispatching our vampire newsletter again this year.

Dracula Daily is Tumblr’s hottest new book club: Alright, the ‘new’ part is worn out by now, but this one is still a delightful article to swing back around to. Two years on, this Polygon piece is a time capsule of those early months when people outside our bookworm bubble realized we were all happily receiving letters from our favorite classic gothic horror blorbos.  

“How Mina Murray Became Dracula’s Girlfriend” – Princess Weekes, if you ever read this, thank you, thank you, thank you. I am sending oceans of love and millions of rewatches to your video essay. If you haven’t seen it yet, “How Mina Murray Became Dracula’s Girlfriend” is one of the most refreshing and well-made breakdowns of both the title subject and numerous other issues that have proliferated in the public view of Dracula’s cast and plot as adaptations endlessly warp or outright bastardize the actual novel. An incredibly cathartic watch.  

Literary play gone viral: delight, intertextuality, and challenges to normative interpretations through the digital serialization of Dracula: A mouthful of a title for an even more elaborate article about the Dracula Daily phenomenon. This one is a full-on study that analyzes just what happened within the big bloodsucker book club surge and how its ‘wandering reading practices’ enriched the experience for participants.

 “The Undying Undead: An analysis of the Dracula Daily community for a theory of online community formation and interaction” – We have a thesis on here! Look at that! @sirangelothebestest’s MA thesis used our vampiric book club as the bones for a massive brick of an academic piece that definitely deserves a look.

…And I think I’ll go ahead and cap things here.

This isn’t everything I got recommended, but if I had squashed all of it in here, I think folks’ eyes would start to fall out of their head. I hope you can find something cool to comb through here. Or, if there’s something great I overlooked, tack it onto the list! We’ve got just two weeks to go until we’re off with Mr. Harker. Let’s enjoy our respite before those castle doors close behind us.

[angel-of-the-moons]

Aggravating

Dad Bod!Miguel x Spider-Woman!Reader

TW/CW: Smut. Smut in general. NSFW, PIV sex, office sex, teeth, hints at venom useage, a bit of pining(?) feelings! Body hair! Soft tummy Miguel! Dom(ish)!Miguel, a bit of bullying

MINORS DNI I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR CONTENT YOU CONSUME

A/N: Blame @cupcakeinat0r for this. I really needed the distraction and our conversation is helping me a bit getting the creative among other things juices flowing!

Taglist: @tojishugetiddies

🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷

You had been... less than covert about the way you ogled your boss. On one hand, your Spidey mask was useful for hiding your eyes and face away from somebody's view; on the other hand, Miguel just somehow knew you were staring at him.

And... yeah. At first you were crushing on him, a young, single fresh-faced Spidey welcomed into a bigger picture suddenly comes face to face with the body of a Greek god. He swooped in to save you from a variant of Kraven before he could make a possibly fatal swipe.

After that, he admitted that he'd had an eye on you, such a promising candidate who just needed the right amount of guidance.

(The fact he has that gorgeous jawline and cheekbones that could cut glass plus those jaw-dropping eyes of his certainly helped you make your decision too.)

But you had been too much of a wimp to ever fess up, instead settling for pining in silence, throwing the occasional stare his way at his perfectly globed ass. (Seriously, did he purposefully design his suit to accentuate his ass or what?)

But the plain, flat-out ogling didn't begin until he began to gain more weight. Realizing his stress didn't have to be solely on his own shoulders, Miguel began to relax. He began to eat more, sleep more. Or, well, as much as a normal person should be eating and sleeping. You surmised he was likely dehydrated a lot, too...

Because once he picked up a steady diet (of what you didn't know, maybe he was a secret chef in the kitchen in addition to having the multiverse's greatest brain?) he began to look... healthier.

He gained weight, his formerly slim and perfectly cut abs and waistline began to fatten out, gain a delicious softness you wished to just lay your head over, or perhaps snuggle and squeeze.

Peter B made a joke to Miguel about comparing "dad bods" and god, when Miguel indulged him (mostly just to get him to leave him alone) he used his tech to have the top half of his suit vanish in rainbowy spiderweb-like patterns until he was naked from the waist up.

And... fuck. Your legs went weak at the sight of him.

Dark wisps of hair across his chest, spreading down his soft, plush-looking midsection to disappear beneath the waistline of his pants.

Even with that soft belly, Miguel looked built like a shitbrick house. Peter B had pouted, knowing he'd lost his little game before sauntering away, bragging about something along the lines of "well at least I have the prettiest baby mama in the whole multiverse!". Good for him, you had thought.

But very quickly as your eyes greedily raked up his frame, you realized he had been staring right back at you.

You very quickly rattled off some excuse and dropped off your report on your most recent mission, yanked your mask back down your face and scurried out of there.

Though you'd be lying if you didn't immediately shove your hand down your pants once you got home, playing with yourself at the mere thought of being pressed up against Miguel's soft-yet-imposing frame; feeling his dick (oh you just knew he was packing a monster, down there) stuff you full and stretch you out, the coarse dark haira brushing your clit with every slam of his hips.

You went to sleep thinking this was merely some kind of office crush, trying to force down the thoughts you had of your boss.

Little did you know, he often stole his own glances at you.

He needed to find a way to solve your little problems, soon.

🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷

"This is what you wanted, isn't it, princesa?" Miguel grunted, the sound of his hips slapping against your ass sinfully loud in his dark office.

Your body was perfectly illuminated by the dim orange lights on his monitors; every curve, dip and deliciously squeezable part of your jiggling ass as he fucked you.

The sounds your pussy made as you swallowed him deep were the most lewd you ever could have imagined yourself making, especially the little sounds coming from those pretty lips of yours.

Your suit has been torn right between your legs, freeing your soaked, swollen folds to his lascivious gaze before he had crammed two heavy fingers into your needy cunt.

Your tits squished against his desktop, and a whimper comes from you when he settles over you, the weight of his body pressing tighter down around you.

You could feel the soft flesh of his belly mold around your back, almost like a hug. Almost like how he had your head trapped in a headlock as he bullied his cock into you and stuffed you full of him.

Your brain was so set on your one-track focus of how good it felt to just have him fuck you, to use you, that you barely registered a word he said.

Having his warmth surround you and fill you had effectively rendered you dumb.

You choked slightly when you heard him hiss in your ear, his sharp fangs grazing the soft skin; he squeezed his arm a bit around your neck and that's what knocked you back into reality.

You were here. In his office, bent over and having your guts reorganized by a man you had been pining for for months.

The pent up sexual tension had finally exploded when he confessed his own interest in you, and he met you halfway with a kiss that was all tongue and need; loud and messy.

Like how he was bullying his cock into your tight little hole.

"My dick that good, bebé?" He panted, leaning back away from you to grip your hips in his meaty palms, squeezing your soft flesh as he stared, almost mesmerized at the creamy ring at the base of his cock as it disappeared into your dripping wet pussy.

Already on the floor between you was a small puddle of your slick.

"So good that I fucked you stupid after just a couple thrusts?" He said, his voice gravelly as he tried to keep it even, to betray the fact he wanted to just rut into you like a mad animal.

All you could do in reply was whine, a breathy sound that was almost a squeak as you mourned the loss of his soft body surrounding you.

The sound of him relentlessly fucking you cunt was abruptly halted and he let out a shaky breath, staring down at you. "I swear... did I nick you with my fangs? Shit... Maybe we should stop--"

"N-no!" You moaned out, desperately trying to roll yourself back against him in his grip. "Please, don't! I just--I just need more!"

Miguel grinned as you flattened your hands on the table, desperately trying to fuck yourself onto his cock but getting nowhere.

"Ahhh there's my good girl. Doing so good f'me." He purred, leaning back over you once again, his arms caging around you, encasing you in his wonderfully soft warmth, the hair on his body tickling your skin.

His lips traced the shell of your ear, his hot breath ghosting over your sweaty skin;

"Wanna watch you take my cock all day. Gonna fuck you so hard you won't be able to walk straight for a month--"

You made a long, loud mewl as he snapped his hips in suddenly, bottoming out so hard you felt him smash into your cervix; almost making you pass out from the force of it alone.

"This is what you wanted, sweetheart. Jus' giving it all t'you." He groaned, his eyes rolling back into his skull as he began relentlessly pounding into you once again.

[alithographica]

As promised, welcome to

Fun biology in TOTK’s designs

I'll keep this post updated as I go through the game. I'm going to skip the more general identifiable things like apples (they're based on apples!) because there are tons of more unusual species to talk about.

Overall, the really interesting thing I've noticed is that many of the more unique Earth-based lifeforms in TOTK are super ancient, like predating dinosaurs ancient, which is a really cool tie-in to the overall time-hopping plotline of TOTK. Specifically, they're found in the new areas (caves, depths) while the surface remains a bit more normal.

(There will be no plot spoilers in this post, and also I've barely gotten into the plot because I'm spending all my time wandering, so shhh no spoilers in the tags for like a month please.)

Most recent additions: More lilies, irises, wild ginger, spiny bones, pigeon extravaganza, plus added some more real photo comparisons to old stuff.

PLANTS

Bryophytes my beloved. Bryophytes are among the earliest land plants, waaaay predating flowers and even seeds. In our world, they’re small by necessity—they lack vascular systems to help move water around like other plants, so they have to stay small and moist (hence their frequency in caves in TOTK—though they do need some light in real life.)

In TOTK they’re quite large and I think that’s very sexy and art directors should give us big bryophytes more often

Anyway, there are three types of bryophytes: mosses, liverworts, and hornworts. First image pair is a moss, second is a liverwort. Those red-brown and palm-tree-like structures, respectively, are their reproductive structures.

Real liverwort photo © Graham Calow, NatureSpotUK

Not yet spotted: Hornworts! Did they forget the third bryophyte sister :(

I think these next guys are probably lycopods (specifically club moss, which is not a true bryophyte moss, thanks science.) Very old, but vascular, so they're a bit more evolutionarily recent than bryophytes.

Real photo © Gloria Hanley Schoenholtz, virginiawildflowers

All the enormous curly-topped trees in the depths: Ferns! They curl like that until they unfurl. Another very old plant, though younger than bryophytes and lycopods.

Real photo via The Cosmonaut, Wikipedia

Brightblooms and some of the other giant plants in the depths: Possibly based on a cycad? Again, a very ancient plant lineage. At this point, evolutionarily, they've developed seeds—that giant cone in the center is called a strobilus, and that's the seed structure.

These next few plants are angiosperms, meaning they produce flowers. Angiosperms are a more recent evolutionary lineage—still many millions of years old, but it took a while to develop flowers as a reproductive tactic.

Sundelions (left) are a fun recolor of a lily. There are also some scenery lilies (right) in various places—there are yellow ones that spring up when you turn on a lightroot (which gives them literal and thematic connection to the surface) and several other varieties, including tiger lilies, throughout Hyrule. Fun note, the sundelions appear to only have 5 stamen, while other lilies in the game (correctly) have 6. Seems to be an intentional decision to make it a more distinct fantasy species.

These next ones are Peruvian lilies/Alstroemeria, just used as a scenery plant but a very fun inclusion. Fun fact, not true lilies, so they're not deadly to cats like true lilies are.

Real photo © Dick Culbert, Wikipedia

Plum trees: These are also called out as plum trees in game! There's a journal in Kakariko that refers to the plum orchards.

Okay I'm a little proud of figuring this one out. Bomb flowers blend a few botanical references. Superficially, the fruit resembles a type of seed pod called a capsule—specifically it's very similar to a poppy capsule. The little red thing in the center is a nice addition to resemble both a flower stigma (reproductive part that leads to the ovary) and a bomb fuse. Now, poppy capsules disperse their seeds via wind, but there are other plants who do explode their seeds outwards as a dispersal tactic! This is called explosive dehiscence.

There is one tree in particular called the sandbox tree, AKA monkey-no-climb or dynamite tree (yes, really.) Their capsules look more like little pumpkins, but are known for violently exploding when ripe—they can launch seeds at 150 miles per hour (250 km/h) and spread them roughly 200 feet (60 m) away. The photo comparison is a poppy capsule but you should def go look up dynamite tree videos.

Real photo © PommeGrenade, pixabay

Fire fruits (and the other elemental fruits) grow on the same generic plant that looks kind of like it has grape leaves. Fire fruits resemble a specific botanical thing too though—the black netting is a papery calyx (part of the flower) seen in a nightshade genus, Physalis (golden berries, tomatillos, etc.)

Real photo © Helene Rogers, Alamy

I think this stuff is an Asarum, AKA wild ginger. I was actually puzzling over it until I walked past some today and went HEY

Not sure of the exact species but they're very green and heart-shaped and love being dense and low to the ground.

Real photo via David Stang, Wikipedia

Irises: Love irises, one of my favorite flowers and words, very happy to see them in game.

MISCELLANEA

Cup lichen! Lichen is not a plant, but a symbiotic structure of an algae + a fungi. Cup lichen is just a type of lichen formation that has a kind of vertical cup-like structure.

Real photo via Bernard Spragg

Geology crossover! Go look carefully at some of the whiter walls in the depths—they look like they have fossils of coral and other undersea hard-structured animals in them.

ANIMALS

Sticky lizards: Based on Diplocaulus, a very early (now extinct) amphibian! Their skulls are wacky. We're not sure whether the long sides stood out separately or were smoothly connected to the body by skin flaps, but the separate arrow-like shape is the most popular rendition.

Deep firefly: Might be a stretch because it could just be a multi-winged fantasy critter, but I think the "wings" and antennae are very reminiscent of Anomalocaris, an ancient aquatic arthropod.

Update: Other folks in the notes/tags have pointed out that they're probably based on a cryptid that's especially popular in Japan: skyfish AKA rods! They show up in photos and people think they're an alien lifeform. In reality, they're an optical blur created when a lower quality video captures intermittent flaps of an insect's wings, leaving sort of a many-winged smear in the photo. Thanks to all who left info!

Little frox: Another stretch because it totally could just be a Hinox-like frog, but every time I see the little ones I can't help but think of like...Ichthyostega, Mastodonsaurus, Eryops, and other early amphibians. They were pretty hefty—little frox size or bigger—and had with little waddling legs. This is less "I think it's definitely this" and more "it makes me happy when I picture frox as primitive amphibians."

I haven't detailed many of the scenery animals around Hyrule because most are identifiable with the camera function—it'll tell you that a certain animal is a heron or porgy, for example, and those groups are real, even though the exact species is made up. But I think the pigeons are fun because they're all crested pigeons. Pink-necked green pigeons may have also been the inspiration for the color palettes on the wood and rainbow pigeons.

Both pigeon photos via JJ Harrison, Wikipedia

Spiny bones: Not a specific critter, but those spiny bones that you can find lying around Eldin Canyon are vertebrae—possibly from the same thing that left those big rib cages around? The top spike is the spinous process where muscles attach, the littler spikes on the side are the transverse and articular processes. The dark O in the center is the spinal cord.

Also I made a friend who finally recognizes my purpose in Hyrule.

That's all I've got for now! Will add more as I keep playing.